Halsey Minor's 8020 mag shutters its doors

The company, which described itself as a “revolutionary new hybrid media company,” will announce the move to its community of readers and contributors on Friday morning, according to Mitchell Fox, 8020’s chief executive.

“In the face of these extraordinary economic times, in a devastated advertising climate, we can no longer continue to operate the business due to lack of funds, and hence we have to close 8020 Media effective immediately,” Mr. Fox wrote in a letter he said he was sending to a few friends of the company.

8020 Media was backed by Halsey Minor, the founder of CNet Networks, and located in the San Francisco office of his investing firm, Minor Ventures. It had an unusual, low-cost editorial structure that many media and technology pundits pointed to as a model for the future. JPG Magazine had a small staff but solicited contributions from amateur photographers and asked its community of readers and contributors to vote for the best pictures, which then made it into a bimonthly print magazine. The company’s similar travel magazine, Everywhere, ceased publication in August.

JPG had a circulation of around 50,000 and had recently secured some prominent space on newsstands around the country.

But ultimately the money ran out, and Mr. Minor declined to invest more, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. 8020 was attempting to either raise more money from other investors or to sell itself to big media names, including Meredith Corp. and Conde Nast, but with no success. Mr. Minor could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

The 18 employees who worked for 8020 were given the holiday week off. On Tuesday, they received individual telephone calls and e-mail messages telling them that the company had exhausted its options and was shutting down.

Here is the full text of Mitchell Fox’s note to 8020’s friends:

In the face of these extraordinary economic times, in a devastated advertising climate, we can no longer continue to operate the business due to lack of funds, and hence we have to close 8020 Media effective immediately.

There is no doubt that our company has done what no others have yet to do…that is, prove that the web and print can work effectively together, one supporting the other.

We’ve also proven that community generated media CAN be a powerful thing…and it can create spectacular media.

The riddle of having a sound web platform support that drives interactivity with a print product has been solved, however, none of us could have predicted the global economic collapse we’ve witnessed in the past few months. So our timing to grow the business and bring it to profitability through even the smallest amount of additional funding could not have been worse.

So, while we sit here at the precipice of profitability, the negative marketplace forces are too strong to overcome, and we must take this regrettable action.

It remains undeniable that the publishing industry MUST find a new model, and mass collaboration and participation in the media property is certainly now proven it can be the foundation of this new model (NOTE: This is NOT citizen journalism).

We’ve cracked the code on marshaling a community around a media property online and in print….and helping them become active , loyal, and engaged participants in both.