Portfolio.com resurrected with different focus

After two years and a $100 million invested, Condé Nast’s 2007 business magazine Portfolio shut down. But now the accompanying website is back in business under Advance City Business Journals, another division of Condé’s parent company Advance Publications.

According to a story in The New York Times, the business journals division had been planning to create one national website to gather reporting from the company’s 40 business journals and when Portfolio closed, the division president thought Portfolio.com could be that hub.

The Times report explains:

“…Portfolio.com, which had been sophisticated and sardonic, is being reinvented as helpful and earnest. [Advance City president] Mr. Bradbury wants it to be a must-read site for small- and medium-size business owners. Other sites, like Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com, already cater to that audience…

“If Portfolio once delivered gossip about which power brokers were feuding, it now will cover topics like commercial real estate, economic development, health care, and where the stimulus money is going.”

The site looks similar to the magazine’s site and is using some former contributors will still be writing for the site.