By Steve Dietrich

JAN. 9, 2001 WILL ALWAYS LIVE IN MY MEMORY. IT WAS ON THAT DAY THAT WE DISTRIBUTED 100,000 COPIES OF OUR FIRST ISSUE OF BACKBONE WITH THE GLOBE AND MAIL.

It was a proud day. However, the next day John Fraser — an esteemed writer and seven-year veteran of now-defunct Saturday Night magazine — told National Post readers our magazine would be dead and forgotten within a year.

He was almost right. That January was the beginning of bad times for the economy in general and publishing in particular. The entire “new economy” concept took a hit, the stock market got pummeled, and dreamers and VC hypesters suffered. And of course, 9/11 was a blow both economically and emotionally.

Soon the Industry Standard folded, WorldCom filed for Chapter 11, news broke of accounting fraud at Nortel, and not too long after Shift and Red Herring both died. With all this, we managed to squeak through an issue every two months and break even on each one.

Even the savviest media experts lost faith in the technology magazine market. Luckily, however, we met some equally optimistic individuals within the tech consulting and research industries, and they looked to the long-term picture and confirmed our strategy. It became clear we were onto something.

And with a dedicated editor, designer and sales team we rode out the rollercoaster.

Our goal for Backbone has not altered, despite the changes all around. We work to dispel tech myths and provide practical and useful information business people need. In general, our readers are technology adopters who get the value of innovation, and they are more likely to succeed if they have a broad base of useful business tech knowledge.

Today, after five years of stormy weather, we are finally seeing a big comeback in the tech sector, and we believe the industry being built right now will rival the optimism and energy even of the hey days of 2000. The new revolutions in Voice over IP, cellular TV, e-travel, mobile data, biotech, robotics, security, home entertainment and e-commerce will all be must-read topics in future issues.

So yes, it has been five years (five long years, it sometimes felt like) but remember, we’re still at the beginning. This industry moves so fast that it’s easy to forget technology has only been a part of our everyday lives for a handful of years. Yes, well before that computers were running our aircraft guidance systems and issuing our company payroll, but in those days tech was something removed and obscure.

The rise of personal technology in the workplace and at home is still relatively new and there is more innovation on the road ahead than there is behind us in the rearview mirror.

Back quickly to Fraser’s rant: he described the “Net becoming a lively graveyard.” I’d like to invite him to take a stroll with us today, and not be too frightened by where all this technology will take us in another five years. He and others who wrote off tech and publishing in this space are perhaps now rethinking their pessimism. And those of us who were never pessimistic? Well, frankly, we were right.

And in retrospect, I might actually thank John for that story. It set the stage for the challenges ahead and may even have frightened other publishers away from entering this market. We are still the only Canadian magazine in this space.

To not have launched Backbone would have been akin to not launching Rolling Stone to chronicle the rock revolution or an automotive magazine during the rise of the assembly line.

So again, thanks John.