Most Powerful Business Web Sites

What are the most powerful Business Web Sites?

Crain Publishing's Business to Business Marketing Magazine answers this question annually in its special reports on Media Power. Media Power 2008 was released in May and names 50 industry leading web sites. A wide variety of criteria are used, including ad revenue, number of views, length of time spent on sites by users, paid circulation ( if applicable), ad rates, and multiple surveys. The audience for these reports are ad agencies, corporate marketers, anyone engaged in concerted ad campaigns. Audience tracking companies, such as Nielsen, are not only involved in tracking television but also Internet web sites and their impact. So Business to Business Magazine pools all this information to come up with its ratings.

Here's who made the list of top Business Internet sites in alphabetical order: www.allbusiness.com, www.business.com, www.cnetnetworks.com, www.cnnmoney.com, www.entrepreneur.com, www.forbes.com, www.google.com, www.infoworld.com, www.msn.com, www.nytimes.com, www.techtarget.com, www.thomasnet.com, www.wsj.com, and www.yahoo.com. Click on the highlighted "list of top Business Internet sites" and highlighted web addresses for detailed reports. The Wall Street Journal held the number 1 position closely followed by Google. The list shows the continuing shift from print media to online electronic media and the trend towards incorporating interactive social networking.

For the print media the most powerful General Business Magazines were Barron's, Business Week, CFO ( Chief Financial Officer ), Conde Nast Portfolio, The Economist, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, and Inc Magazines. While each of these magazines is in fact a print magazine available on newstands and libraries such as ours, each has an active online presence and vast additional online resources at their sites. Click on the magazine names to visit their sites.

Business to Business Magazine also rates business newspapers. Most powerful outlets for 2008 are The Financial Times, Investors Business Daily, The New York Times. USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. Click on "business newspapers" for the special report. Visit the websites of the newspapers by clicking on the name of the paper. Each of these newspapers with the exception of the Wall Street Journal has considerable content available free on their websites. Last year the New York Times made their entire site free. The special report shows considerable revenue gains for the Times' online edition so it appears their "free" strategy has reaped rewards. Other newspapers are likely to follow their lead.

In the coming weeks we will explore the business resources of many of these magazines and what they offer to small businesses and to the interested reader. Meanwhile nearly all of these most powerful business magazines and newspapers can be read at the Berkshire Athenaeum where you can freely bring yourself up to date and follow your interest.