MEDIUM OF THE MONTH - Online advertising has given a boost. By FELIX SALMON. Forbes had more than 4,700 pages of advertising last year. That's more than any magazine in the US with the exception of PC Magazine. And this year Forbes is getting fatter, as it becomes one of the magazines of choice for a plethora of new dotcom ads. With Christmas approaching, online retailers are jostling for adspace more than ever. To help its readers navigate the mushrooming issue size - the latest is 328 pages - Forbes had a redesign last month. Bruce Rogers, vice-president of marketing at Forbes, says: 'Forbes hadn't had a refreshing of its graphics in more than ten years.' 'They've made a real effort to make tabular breaks,' says Dwayne Flinchum, who runs Flinchum Incorporated, a corporate graphic design company in New York. But overall, and unsurprisingly, he says, the changes are 'pretty conservative'. For there isn't - and wasn't - anything fundamentally wrong with the title. Forbes has been very successful at attracting and retaining a certain breed of businessman (88% are male) who identifies with Forbes's slogan, 'capitalist tool'. He's old, rich and high up in his company. Forbes knows well enough where the economy is heading: its coverage of technology companies is constantly expanding, and it has a very good website. But it's not a must-read in Silicon Valley. Rather Forbes explains what's going on in Palo Alto to the businessman in Pittsburgh. The obvious way to read Forbes's 3,000 annual editorial pages is on the web, with its sophisticated navigation and searching tools. But this readership, while certainly wired, is not going to desert the print edition. Forbes splits advertisers into two broad categories. Business and industry accounts for 58% of ad pages, while consumer advertising accounts for 42%. The big technology companies are solid advertisers in the former category. In the latter, cars and financial services are always there in bulk, and there is also a smattering of luxury goods ( Rolex has the back cover of the latest edition). Forbes is ultimately very like its readers. It is good at what it does, unapologetic about what it is, conservative and very rich. You or I might find the 'capitalist tool' line obnoxious, the profiles of corporate CEOs boring and the layout conservative to the point of mediocrity. But the average Forbes reader is around 51 years old and a manager at the top of a company which has annual gross sales of $1.4 billion. FORBES FACT FILE Cover price: $4.95 Frequency: Fortnightly Full page ad rate: $64,490 Circulation: 785,065 CAMPAIGN 19/11/1999 P29 (Back) to felixsalmon.com