Slashdot Mirror

Recent sales are of sites with a very different business model. Their content is not easily obtained and most off their users are not interested in such things as Creative Commons or GNU licenses and their impact on how we view ownership and use rights. YouTube's [...]

Youtube is a perfect example of what I'm saying. Most of the pageviews on there are for stolen content. That's even worse than GFDL content. But nobody cares. They were bought for exactly the same thing that makes Wikipedia valuable. Users, traffic, inbound links, and brand.

Most Wikipedia users don't know or care about CC or GFDL either. They go there because it comes up in Google, or because somebody links to it, or because somebody told them about it. Even most of the contributors don't care that much about the licenses. It's just a small subset who would be sad about that. And I'm part of that subset, so I'm not discounting them. They're just not numerically significant.

That's the crux of the problem - you're valuable because people work for free - will the still do that if you were a commercial enterprise?

Yes, if handled well. People do vast amounts of free work for commercial sites like Flickr, YouTube, IMDB, Yelp, and... Slashdot. There are plenty of companies getting VC money right now based on the Tom Sawyer model. Because it has been proven to work.

For Wikipedia, it's mainly a question of how the sale would be handled. With the right sort of drama around it, with the Foundation saying, "We'll die without this," then most people will happily see it rescued by somebody not obviously evil.

I hope it doesn't happen, by the way. But as somebody soaking in the internet startup community, I'm confident that there would be buyers at prices above $100m.

Again, why buy it? All the info is yours for free

This just doesn't matter. The big lesson of Wikipedia is that information is now effectively free. The largest user of their content is tiny in comparison. And that's with some added value; the pure clone sites are much further down.

The asset is not the content, it's the vast user base kept there through network effects.

I think Google has a case to answer here, I simply don't believe Microsoft maps can possibly legitimately be ranked where it is.

Since this is the first I had heard of Microsoft's map site, I am not struggling with this so much. First, if you search for "map", it's at position six. Looking at the Alexa comparison, the Wayback Machine (compare with the one for Google Maps), and the Wikipedia history for Microsoft's maps, this all seems appropriate to me.

And as the clincher, the SNL skit Lazy Sunday mentions Mapquest, Yahoo Maps, and Google Maps. No mention of Windows Live Local (or is it Microsoft Virtual Earth? Or, as you call it, Microsoft Maps?). As they say, "Google Maps is the best. Double true!"

Doesn't make the stats any more accurate but at least it makes them look pretty.

The trio of MySpace, Wikipedia and Youtube have been hyped up for a while (look at the alexa ratings, they are very similar but still small compared to the real titans Google and Yahoo). But consider they are mostly a 2005/6 fad. 2007 is when the bubble will pop.

Wikipedia will pop in 2007 when more people discover the Wikitruth and enough college students fail their degree due to citing wikipedia in their papers. Wikipedia was a geek site anyway until Seigenthaler happened.

Youtube will get replaced by hundreds of other video sharing websites. There is only so many 79 year old men with a web cam. Once everybody has seen all the videos people will return to bit torrent for the copyrighted stuff and the video sharing sites will be mostly videos of their cats.

Myspace will crack as soon as all the emos get a life.

You heard it here first

In 2007. Web 2.1 will be launched, with the .1 refering to patch to stop the hype and everything will be back to normal.

..a page that (in general) gets almost no traffic --- and got a lot less traffic right before they made their fuss the first time --- gets a huge traffic boost every time a stupid artcle like this comes out. Just look at the Alexa traffic listing for fun. Notice the traffic drop in Q4 2005 and then the sharp rise in Q2 2006.

Here is a graph of Redhat's poularity versus intel and apple etc.

http://www.alexaholic.com/slashdot.org+digg.com+fa rk.com?y=r&r=5y&z=50

The Alexia installed with IE isn't a malicious spyware. It's main purpose is to track how much bandwidth a site gets like this:

http://www.alexaholic.com/digg.com+slashdot.org

Now, you may consider that a bad thing. However, it's a lot like a Neilson rating for a web site. They are not tracking you. They are tracking where you go.

I know it's kinda fucked up. But it is useful.

Also, don't forget that Slashdot itself *is* spyware. Don't belive me? Every page has (at least) two links back to Google for tracking purposes. Look at your Adblock lists for these:

www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js

www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=1&utmn=16 5719776&utmsr=1024x768&utmsc=32-bit&utmul=en-us&ut mje=1&utmfl=8.0%20%20r22&utmdt=Spy%20Sweeper%2C%20 the%20Next%20Netscape%3F&utmhn=it.slashdot.org&utm r=0&utmp=/comments.pl?sid=186319&op=Reply&threshol d=3&commentsort=3&mode=nested&pid=15377738&utmac=U A-32013-5&utmcc=__utma%3D121224016.1653556031.1146 625095.1148006354.1148265152.18%3B%2B__utmb%3D1212 24016%3B%2B__utmc%3D121224016%3B%2B__utmz%3D121224 016.1148265152.18.16.utmccn%3D(referral)%7Cutmcsr% 3Dslashdot.org%7Cutmcct%3D%2F%7Cutmcmd%3Dreferral% 3B%2B

Also, there are these that look pretty bad:

a.as-us.falkag.net

an.tacoda.net