Slashdot Mirror
Suck Stops Sucking
An anonymous submitter sends in: "Salon is reporting Automatic Media has run out of money, and Feed and Suck will be closing up shop. Sad news, especially for such high profile, established sites. What will you do on Wednesdays without Filler? Plastic will remain open, serving up some user generated content, which is apparently the cheapest way to operate on the net."
Suck was an artifact of the time when media was transforming from Old Media to New Media, as Katz would put it ::dodges thrown vegetables::. It took advantage of all the Internet could do for content presentation, but it was strictly one-way and didn't offer anything new in the actual content (besides a sarcastic and irreverent tone, which is not exactly unique these days).
User-generated content really is getting more interested than content created by "professionals". Slashdot itself is one of the prime examples: Many articles combine a large body of original content with the comments posted by everyone, to create a totally new way of processing ideas.
Suck was simply a concept whose time had past.
A while back one of the suck.com writers (Richard Shirk) was trolling usenet to get hits to suck.com stories he had written.
He'd post using fictitious names and mail addresses to target newsgroups claiming to be outraged about a story he read on suck.com.
Full story (with links to the usenet posts) available on my webpage
Trolling is a art,
This is a really strange thing to see - Plastic is powered by Slash, isn't it?
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Rare Window - free your photos
On a prior thread, the subject of plastic.com came up. In my prior and current opinion, plastic.com doesn't have a long-term future as a viable community. It seems, at least to me, that the operating assumptions regarding the generation of meaningful, tangible value- are inherently flawed.
Plastic.com has mistakenly assumed it could replicate the success of Slashdot simply by repurposing the Slashdot message board system for the purposes of broad-minded subjects mostly related to pop culture, pop technology and pop politics. They have failed to realize that Slashdot's success has come through its specialization. The broader the subject matter, the less compelling the appeal to a broader base of people. The narrower the subject matter, the stronger the potential appeal to a smaller base of people. They are failing because they thought if they focused on broad subjects, that all your base would belong to them. But they ain't CATS. They are on their way to destruction. They have no chance to survive, make their time.
Seriously, though- I think most people who read and participate in Slashdot would agree that there is something of a Slashdot POV that is reinforced through the editorials, through the article selection, through much of the posting activity, etc. While you see a lot of variation in the worldviews of participants (agnostics, christians, atheists, relativists, absolutists, humorists, nihilists, etc.)- the community still has several hundred thousand participants who fit the profile one-way-or-another (in short, they understand at some level the Slashdot narrative, and want to participate in and contribute to it).
What is the Plastic.com POV? There isn't one, really. It isn't created BY a certain specialized community FOR a specialized community. It is a created by a conglomerate of differently-minded interests, lacking in a coherent POV, and it feels like it. Oh sure, it has a sort of ironic, detached postmodern perspective- that is reflected in the cheeky commentary here-and-there, but come on- isn't that the standard TONE of almost web-based content sites these days? Salon, Slate, Wired News, etc.? So how original is that?
Now, Plastic.com will have two less sources funnelling a readership towards its community board. No Feed readers, no Suck readers. Who will it continue to receive readers from? Modern Humorist? (who jokingly noted in a recent press release that they were almost out of the seven-figures in venture capital they raised only a year ago, and could be in trouble?) Netslaves? (who repeatedly asks on their own site if they should discontinue the site itself since their purpose has been satisfied and frankly, Netslaves isn't exactly making anyone richer OR happier?) Inside.com? (who at their PEAK had less than 2000 paying subscribers, as noted by Poynter.org a week ago?)
I don't bear Plastic any ill-will, that isn't why I'm bringing this up. I think the concept is flawed and in time, this will be manifest. But I'd be happy to I was wrong about that.
But, backing up, it begs the question- who in the Internet content business is going to survive?
Jim Romenesko's Media News had a link today to a story in which Slate publisher Scott Moore "was kind of funny, drolly knocking down anybody's ideas about what might make a dollar online... He didn't seem to think any known model will sustain a Web-media company. Because his publication is paid for by Bill Gates, he can afford to be pessimistic."
Truth be told, Moore is wrong. We see that at least The Onion has been able to make a ton of money ($2,000,000 in ad revenues alone last year, for their website only). They also have print advertising in their print publication, and several best-selling books they've released, plus "The Onion" radio news (syndicated for indy & college radio stations, mostly), and have made money optioning articles to Miramax for film development (two to date that I know of).
So, there is a hybrid new media / old media company that is making serious money in content. And, most would agree, they are the best at what they do.
Another content company making money online is Fu----company.com. Founder Pud runs the thing pretty much by himself. He's got a book deal with Simon & Schuster, he's got at least $60,000 a month in subscriber revenues to his unedited gossip / rumours database, he's got some banner advertising (prolly not too special revenue wise), and he's got f'dcompany-branded products he sells on his site (I think I read this may bring in over $100,000 this year, but I'd need to double check).
There are other Internet content players who are surviving, generating revenues and even profits. I don't know of ANY that have done so after raising venture capital. Ironically, the sites that raised capital to fund content are the ones who are dying here, there and all over the shop.
I wish I could think of some more Internet content "pureplays" that seem likely to survive, but I can't off the top of my head.
Where was I going with all this? I don't know. But now that I'm here, I think I'll rest and pretend this was where I was intending to head.
Good luck to the content players still out there, still trying to make something work while remaining independent. I feel obligated to say that after reading that 4 corporate players control over HALF of the public's internet browsing needs or some such nonsense.
All of this speculating has got me depressed. Think I'll go read some old USENET articles and think of a simpler time. A time when it looked like Netscape was going to change the world, when it looked like Microsoft had finally been bested, when Amazon was just selling books and it seemed like the people starting companies left-and-right were doing it because they wanted to make a change in something other than their personal worth.
Suck: mozilla is dead !!! Mozilla: no, suck is dead.
from the slashdot-vows-to-take-up-slack dept.
Does this mean Slashdot will be hiring some actual writers? People that can generate some real content?
Plastic will remain open, serving up some user generated content, which is apparently the cheapest way to operate on the net."
Oh, nevermind then.
"And like that