An Extraordinary Duckling: B2B Magazines as Information and Networking Tools for Professionals

Business-to-business (B2B) journals have been seen as the homeliest and least important sibling in the family of magazine publishing. The B2B sector is, however, an extraordinary duckling because of its monetary focus, professional information and networking utilities, and richness of product offerings. This chapter reviews studies of B2B magazines to demonstrate the uniqueness of these periodicals and to identify research directions for the digital era. It is common to see most studies about B2B magazines start with laments of some kind, including that the sector is understudied, little understood, or consistently neglected. Even more problematic are the dwindling opportunities to study B2B magazines as they fold up or metamorphose into other media forms. The chapter examines the increasingly data-driven and event-based nature of B2B magazines and proposes future research perspective.