Mecklermedia (formerly Internet.com LLC, Jupitermedia Inc., Mediabistro Inc. and WebMediaBrands Corporation) was a

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

-based corporation. The original WebMediaBrands was established in 1994, and headquartered in New York. Founded by Alan M. Meckler and

Tristan Louis Tristan Louis (born February 28, 1971) is a French-born American author, entrepreneur and internet activism, internet activist. Early work Louis was born in Digne-les-Bains, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. In 1994 and 1995, as publisher of iWorld, part ...

, the company provided

business-to-business Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) refers to trade and commercial activity where a business sees other businesses as its customer base. This typically occurs when: * A business sources materials for its production process for ...

(B2B) services for creative, business and information technology professionals, including recruitment and event promotion. Until 2014, the company also operated a group of websites aimed towards the B2B market—particularly

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

s covering various aspects of the media industry. In August 2014, Mediabistro sold its editorial properties to

Prometheus Global Media Prometheus Global Media was a New York City–based B2B media company. The company was formed in December 2009, when Nielsen Company sold its entertainment and media division to a private equity-backed group led by Pluribus Capital Management ...

, a subsidiary of

Guggenheim Partners Guggenheim Partners, Inc is a global investment and advisory financial services firm that engages in investment banking, asset management, capital markets services, and insurance services. Guggenheim has c. 2,000 employees. The firm has offices ...

, for $8 million. The company announced it would liquidate itself on December 22, 2015.

History

In 1994, Alan Meckler, then CEO of Mecklermedia, created MecklerWeb as an addendum to his offerings in print (''Virtual Reality World'', ''CDrom World'', and ''Internet World'') and conferences (Internet World, Virtual Reality World). In 1995, as advertising-supported publishing emerged as a viable business model on the Web, the Website was relaunched by

under the name iWorld and began to publish content for the nascent Internet industry. As the Internet World conference prospered, iWorld set out on a strategy of acquiring successful Websites that were focused on technology content, such as Webopedia, SearchEngineWatch and WebReference. In 1997, the online division was renamed internet.com, after acquiring rights to the domain name from The Internet Company. In 1998, Mecklermedia Corp. was acquired by Penton Media and the online assets were spun off into a separate company called Internet.com LLC. Internet.com went public on the NASDAQ in the second half of 1999 (trading as INTM). In 1999, internet.com Corp. launched the Search Engine Strategies conference and in 2000, it acquired Earthweb and incorporated it into the JupiterWeb network. In 2002, the company purchased the Jupiter Research business from Jupiter Media Metrix and renamed itself from INT Media to Jupitermedia, with a new stock ticker symbol JUPM. In 2004, the company started acquiring image assets and developed Jupiterimages as a separate

stock photography Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, ...

division, which operated two online image libraries, stock.xchng, a library of free-to-use photographs and illustrations, and StockXpert, a low-cost Microstock photography site. In 2005, Jupitermedia sold SearchEngineWatch to Incisive Media. In 2006, Jupitermedia sold its JupiterResearch division to MCG Capital Corporation. In 2007, the company operated as two divisions, JupiterImages and Jupiter Online Media. In 2007, mediabistro.com won the Small Business of the Year award from the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. In 2008, JupiterResearch was acquired by

Forrester Research Forrester Research, Inc. is a research and advisory firm. Forrester serves clients in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The firm is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA with global offices in Amsterdam, London, New D ...

. In October 2008, Jupitermedia announced that they would be selling their online images division, Jupiterimages, to the stock photography agency

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. (stylized as gettyimages) is a visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three mark ...

for $96 million in cash. The sale went ahead in February 2009; Jupiterimages (including the sites stock.xchng and StockXpert) is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Getty. Following the sale, JupiterMedia changed its name to WebMediaBrands Inc. In August 2009, Quinstreet Inc. acquired the Internet.com division of WebMediaBrands for $18 million. Among the sites sold as part of Internet.com were InternetNews.com, Webopedia.com, ServerWatch.com, DatabaseJournal.com,

Datamation ''Datamation'' is a computer magazine that was published in print form in the United States between 1957 and 1998,

.com, eSecurityPlanet.com, EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet.com, SmallBusinessComputing.com and Developer.com. WebMediaBrands changed its name to Mediabistro on June 13, 2013. On May 29, 2014, Mediabistro announced that it would sell its publishing assets to

, a subsidiary of

, for $8 million. The remainder of the company, including its trade show operations, were retained under the name Mecklermedia. On September 10, 2015, MecklerMedia announced that, in conjunction with New York based Sagamore III LLC, that it had purchase
3DPrint.com
and related assets from Forum Advertising LLC of Cape Coral, Florida. The purchase included a 25% equity position i
3DPrintBoard.com
On December 16, 2016, Mediabistro's former book publishing blog, GalleyCat, announced that it was ceasing publication.

References

{{authority control Marketing companies established in 1994 Mass media companies established in 1994 Mass media companies disestablished in 2015 American companies established in 1994 American companies disestablished in 2015 1994 establishments in Connecticut Companies based in Westport, Connecticut Defunct research and analysis firms