Alan Meckler is the US-born publisher who has a reasonable claim to be “the internet’s first entrepreneur”. He began his career publishing guides on “micropublishing” for research libraries, before launching the pioneering trade show Internet World – back in 1992. He’s been all over digital magazines, web sites, trade shows and tech investment funds for more than half a century.
Meckler sold his listed company Mecklermedia Corporation to Penton Media in 1998. He launched a whole fleet of tech magazines in the heyday of print, including Virtual Reality World, CDrom World, and Internet World. Always ahead of his time, he launched a trade show for Bitcoin in New York in 2013. Until August 2014, he had been chair and CEO of Mediabistro, the media blog network which he sold to Prometheus, then publisher of Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, and Billboard.
This is the man who has sold and nearly bought and sold countless businesses to a who’s who of technology. He’s now written a business autobiography called – yes – “The Internet’s First Entrepreneur” which you will like if you want to read about how Meckler:
- Was in China in 1999 lecturing to would-be internet entrepreneurs when a fresh-faced young Jack Ma showed him his business plan for Alibaba (“Amazon for China”) – but wouldn’t let Meckler invest because he already had the startup $60k he needed from friends and family.
- Was wooed by the likes of Pat McGovern, Robert Maxwell, Washington Post owner Katherine Graham, Advanstar, and UBM before Penton bought Mecklermedia
- Fought against McGovern who never gave up claiming his IDG owned the right to use “World” on a magazine
- Once planned to launch a rival to the mighty trade show Comdex
- Tried (and failed) to buy Craigslist in 1998, before it became successful
- Was responsible for selling (probably) the very first ads on the internet
It’s a story for those who want to savour the gossipy cut-and-thrust of business, and especially those mad, early days of the web when its future impact was impossible to imagine.
“The Internet’s First Entrepreneur” by Alan Marshall Meckler. You can link here to buy either the Kindle edition or hardback print from Amazon
