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LWN in Trouble
DanDan writes: "It seems that Linux Weekly News may be on the rocks. Tucows has cut support and they have lost their Senior Editor. It would be sad to see them go." Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket should check out their discussion list.
Not content, mind you, but souvineirs, t-shirts, hats, CD's, maybe even LWN branded generic hardware or media.
/. included with all the 'Thinkgeek.com' stuff.
"See, this isn't just your everyday average spool of CD's, it's a Linux Weekly News spool of CD's."
Seriously, I hadn't been to the LWN website before this, but it doesn't look like they have a goodies section like any other geek website who tries to stay afloat,
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket..."
Oh yeah, we're a dime a dozen... I'm happy I'm employeed, I don't have money to throw away...
And if you do have money to burn, please put it in Swiss bank account #144232422, and I'll make sure it gets to the folks over at... ummm... well you know who they are...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
This shows again that the Open Source community is not immune against the current economic situation. It is really sad to see more and more of the sponts in the net vanish. Although they weren't even trying to make money out of it, they suffer, too.
I really hope lwn will go on with their good work!
Just a quick glance at the discussion list showed a good number of posters suggesting a subscription. Though it seems obvious, just pay for the product, subscriptions also offer another benefit: Payment in advance. This will ensure a steady stream of cash for production of the magazine.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
...these types of pages could support themselves with four guys and a rackspace co-lo? I don't see why they can't again. I don't understand why they need the backing of Tucows to survive. If they've changed so much that they need the backing of a dot bomb to continue, maybe they should start fresh.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Is this really the loss that the slash-dot editors would have you believe it is?
I submit to you that the answer is no. Their inability to be profitable is caused by either inefficient business practices (in which case another, more efficient will take their place if a profit can be made), or the "community" doesn't value them enough to support them financially, in which case their value is negligent.
As I think the app is pretty neat (it is a HTTP NNTP bridge, effectively turning USENET into a website), and they later sent a couple of emails boasting about how I could pay to improve my visibility on their site, I had a sneaking suspicion maybe GPL software was not quite what they had based their business plan on.
Actually there seems to be something of an impedence mismatch althogther having Windows and GPL in the same sentance.
This...isn't...Linux News?
Coulda sworn....*grumble*
(ducks behind asbestos wall)
My sigs always suck.
I'm certainly sad to see them go, but I get all my news from slashdot anyhow *g*... There are plenty of other news sources and lots about linux (hence part of their problem). So not a huge deal that this one didn't make it. Besides that, its highly probable someone else will pick it up.
While I'm up for anything that makes him go away, how is strapping him to a fish going to solve anything?
--- Linux R00lz!
LWN was one of the first news sites (if not THE first) to cover linux at all! Back in the early days of the net being popular, LWN was the a great place to get a good summary of ALL the happenings in the world of Linux.
If they went to a subscription service, I'd probably be willing to get a subscription. They still do a good job of coverage.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Consider this comparison of tipping services. Would you donate? How much? How often? Which is the best tipping service, does anybody have experience with these? What's better, subscription or tipping?
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Excellent post! I will use this one!
-DFW
I put it in my journal.
Got banned, so I will only be anonymous prolly until next monday...
If LWN goes, where go their archives? A lot
of Linux history has been recorded in issues
of LWN, to say nothing of the penguin gallery.
I have worked for a couple of firms restructuring - and they are always difficult. I will list a couple of suggestions regarding restructuring and then some general strategy notes.
Restructuring
1. Do it as fast as you can.
If you need to reduce your overhead by $10,333 a month, which may not be easy but sure beats the alternative (chapter 11). The longer you wait, the more drastic the cuts will have to be. If you wait too long, cuts alone may not be enough to save the site.
Layoffs can do serious, long-term damage to a company's culture, but sometimes they're necessary. First think about freezing salaries, eliminating perks, postponing company parties, and so on. And if it turns out you can't save jobs without laying some people off, don't allow the process to drag on. Make all the necessary cuts at the same time, and then let the remaining employees know their jobs are secure. You will destroy morale--and lose good people--if everybody is wondering who will be the next to go.
2. Marketing is hit first in a recession
In a recession companies cut back on advertising first. In an effort to conserve cash, they cut back in the one area they should be expanding -- namely, sales and marketing. So get ready for the long haul.
3. Check your cash flow.
You need to look at your cash flow over the next 90-180 days and determine how much you need to survive.
Options....
Here are some personal suggestions that may or may-not work.
1) Put a donate button on the website. Suggest a small fee - say $5.00. Make it secure and give the users the option of saving the credit card numbers so they can re-donate frequently and easily.
Small amounts are easier for users to swallow than $100 subscription fees.
2) Focus on your core competencies.
Main page - Core
Security - non-core
Kernel - core
Distributions - core (maybe)
On the Desktop - non-core
Development - core
Commerce - non-core
Linux in the news non-core
Announcements core - ( I would call it events calendar and market it as such)
Linux History - non-core
Letters - core (inexpensive)
My feeling is that the real strength of the site is in reinterpreting the different mailing lists(kernel etc). - Not in re-posting press releases like linuxtoday.
Target technical information for programmers. Programmers have money and create trends - and thus get attention from advertisers.
3) Require registration so that you can prove the quality of your readers to the advertisers. Then market yourselves to those who want to get developers attention such as IBM, Microsoft, Borland and Sun.
4) Get a mailing list going with the info. - more fodder for marketers - "Push marketing"
5) Look at relicensing opportunities for sections of the website. For example license ibm developerworks the content of the kernel section. Don't sell the all your content though - get the users to visit your site for the full overview.
check inc magazine for more: www.inc.com
Anthony Barker
I've been a regular reader of LWN for years - it's the only site I *always* remember to visit on a Thursday. The quality of the editorials are generally excellent, and thought-provoking at the very least.
On a personal level, I would happily subscribe to the publication if I could - $5 per month would probably be about right - about the same as a subscription to a monthly magazine.
It would be a genuine loss to the Linux community to see it go away.
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
Note to MBA graudates:
Running a free magazine about a free operating system is not a great business idea...
He was replying to something in the article.
Seeing how they already posted it on Monday, it seems that they are interested...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Pay? Since when was anything open-source about PAY?!?!?
And as we all know, decision-making by a commitee is the most efficient form of running business.
Face it. Benevolent dictatorism is the best form of government there is.
Question: since this is a news site, just like LWN, how much profit does /. make? /.'s bandwidth is gonna cost tons!).
/. needs to make adjustments to keep afloat of the falling economy?
/.
Enough to survive the Economy? Do the advertisements really pay for the bandwidth (I can imagine the
How long until
Are the editors reading the comments on how to survive and taking notes, just in case?
This isn't a troll, just compairing LWN to
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Too bad a good site like lwn might go down while a POS like slashdot stays around.
They indicate that the problem is funding the staff, not hosting the site. If new sponsorship can't be found, I think we need to find out how much effort the staff can affort to spend on a volunteer basis, and then look for ways to spread out their talents. See if we can find a way for the community to provide some of the raw material, legwork, and editing, with Liz and Jon providing coaching and putting the pieces together.
For starters, there is a great quantity of raw material in the comments on slashdot. A lot of the high-rated posts are really good stuff, even if they're not polished. Many of them could be turned into stories with some revision, fact-checking, and proofing. Perhaps slashdot or a parallel system could even provide the infrastructure for doing revisions of high-quality comments.
I don't have the time or imagination to come up with a full solution now, but I really think there is some promise along these lines.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Weather Underground has a neat subscription model: pay $5/year and they shut off the ads. Ads are a minor annoyance on my cable modem feed, but I subscribed just because they're my favorite weather site. LWN might want to charge a bit more, and/or make shutting off the ads a user-selectable option (targeted ads can be informative), and definitely offer payment via PayPal as well as credit cards, but it's the most plausible revenue model I've seen.
A few issues after I started reading the Perl Journal, it temporarily went under (and now it's back and much smaller). A few months ago, I started reading LWN. And now it's on the ropes. I must have hexed it. Go figure.
"their Senior Editor" is kind of a dumb way to put it. Hammel wrote one section of their site, a site with only 4-5 people behind the scenes.
Also, for a site that is driven by eyeballs, they sure don't try to attract viewers very hard. I never knew they had a discussion list or forum or whatever it is. Maybe some advertising of their features to drive up the ad revenue.
For instance, I've always trusted LWN to cover in a fair and evenhanded manner the Crisis Of The Week that is reported at Slashdot. They could push themselves as BBC to Slashdot's "Channel 4 Action News Team, Film At 11".
324006
We're going to see more and more Linux companies continue to go under as linux hype continues to wind down. Already, many have died, and there aren't too many left.
I think the point was that it used to be that these kind of news sites could be run by enthusiasts as a not too expensive (except in time) hobby.
If the professional Linux news sites fail, hopefully amateurs will step in to fill the void. Unless something changed so this is no longer possible.
But why must the model work like this:
A. Website starts with little or no funding. Is wildly popular. Attracts a large crowd. Website operates as a hobby for the people that run it.
B. Company buys website and puts big dollars into site. Pays everyone involved a salary.
C. Money runs out....website dies.
Why can't a site go from Grassroots, Sugar Daddy, back to Grassroots?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
"Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket should check out their discussion list."
Seems like this should perfectly appeal to a whole army of rescuers with broad experience in the subject - the dot.bombs!:
bright ideas
cash burning
wholes in their pockets
[Sorry, couldn't resist. If you find it hurts then you better not read this sentence any further 'cause the end might also be punful.]
The fact that it is based on meta-data makes it, IMHO, a prime candidate for corporate sponsorship by some of the bigger players in the Linux world, where their Linux news is simply being drowned in the sea of press releases that are churned out daily.
It also means it's a prime candidate for volunteer "relief" work. You do NOT have to be a skilled author to check an e-mailed link, then cut & paste it into the daily updates. Sure, that's not all LWN does, but every paid hour freed to do something that might generate revenue, or make the site ever-better for readers, is a paid hour that has increased in value, ten-fold.
There are plenty of other things which are important, but which are also fairly "mechanical" and don't need a Masters degree to complete -- sorting out which category a story is for, for example. Sifting through letters to the editor, for selection. Checking for duplicate story entries. Maybe doing some cross-referencing.
For those who live in LWN's neighborhood(s), I'm sure the staff would not object to LWN readers bringing them snacks, cups of tea/coffee, penguin mints
For those with even fairly slow, but permanent, connections, maybe you could do co-location, or (IMHO a better solution) run a squid Accelerator, so that the load on LWN can be spread out a bit. This could make a big difference, if enough people did this. Enough parallel servers could reduce the speed LWN need for their link, and that would reduce the costs. At the very high-end, the difference in costs can be massive.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
that was involved in a fake posting snafu not too long ago, or have I got them confused with someone else ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Basically they'd have mirrored affiliates who in return get some banner space on the page of thier own. When you connect to LWN, you initially select your fastest or closest mirror, and a (shudder) cookie is set so that the next time you visit, you get the same fast page without having to go through the selection process.
Problem: keeping the latest content on the mirrors. I can see how that could be done as well, I don't know how foolproof it would be.
LWN staff: if you're reading this, thoughts?
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
>Security - non-core
I'm a busy guy so the security page is one of the only things I read on LWN. Granted, I'm not a professional sysadmin, but for the home user, its pretty much all you need.
If that wasn't there I wouldn't be likely to read the site at all.
We can all still connect to Forged News... er, newsforge, to satisfy our neeed for fabricated Free Software news and information.
Maybe they should combine operations and work out sometime to keep both of them afloat.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I am very sorry to hear this about LWN. I always look forward to reading the new version every Thursday. I hope this will not mean the end for LWN. Maybe they can pull out of this.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Very funny. I'm an old Apple guy who hated Microsoft long before there was a Linux.
Tim
Like why LeechFTP (now orphaned, but still pretty good and free) didn't seem to exist on it.
fencepost
just a little off
Well, here are my ideas which I guess are simple to implement, though I doubt they will save LWN for a long time.
:)
:)
1. (Not exactly mine, but) I will defenetely buy a t-shirt AND a coffee mug with "LWN" or "I read LWN" sign. Hell, I might even start wearing a cap with LWN stamped on it.
2. Hosting costs might be decreased a lot by destributed mirroring. I have to different locations and will to mirror LWN. None of those is exactly T1 connection, but I am not alone
It will be sad to see LWN go, and I really hope there are solutions to the problem. We are a community at the end of the day
Leonid Mamtchenkov
You been smokin' too much of that Boulder Gold, dude.
If it's a news site, why can't they survive on daily email news instead of a fancy web site? All News, No Filler.
Spammers seem to be able to send millions of emails a day for nothing, I think a resourceful geek can figure something out..
Is this a viable way to support a site? I dunno. Depends on what it takes to support the site and what the market will bear.
What wouldn't I pay for? Ill-informed product reviews, theological ravings about open source and Microsoft, rehashed links to the same damn stuff that's on another gazillion sites...you know the drill.
It's called intelectual property. When Sugar Daddy buys the cool site, he expects, errr, returns. This typically involves modifications that annoy everyone. When they complain, he slaps them around a little. When his new toy doesnt put out, well, he fires all those folks who gave him all the trouble about the changes. But he keeps the mangled results, thinking that they may have value to someone. Sugar Daddy might not ever use those cool ideas again, but he thinks he owns them and has a pimp^H^H^H^H lawyer to keep things honest.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's one reason they're as good as they are - they're run by skilled and experienced full-time professionals. Take that away and you lose a big chunk of their value.
/., whatever. What I /can't/ get is the filtering that LWN does, and the perspective they give. I can (and do) read bugtraq and lkml, but I end up getting most of my important security news from LWN, and I learn more from reading LWN's kernel page than I do from reading lkml. That's what's so valuable about it.
I can get a lot of the stuff that LWN covers from LT,
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Producing LWN every week might not seem like much, but it's not the word count that's the problem, it's the amount of stuff that has to be filtered through to get the information in that word count.
/all/ the important stuff - he filters through all 1500 of those posts, finds the stuff that's important, relevant, interesting, and then he writes a report on it. And it's not just lots of little headlines pointing at the posts, he actually explains it all. I read quite a few of the posts Jon reports on, but I generally end up understanding it better after reading his explanations.
/needed/ to produce it. Jon could be off working somewhere writing device drivers or cutting kernel code for someone else - instead, he works full time on LWN. If he /was/ working elsewhere, he couldn't do the job he does at LWN, not as well as it should be done.
/. every day, but I have yet to see any regular, weekly posting of news on /. of the quality that LWN manages. Likewise for LT. In fact, the only similar quality tech news source I know of is Arstechnica, and they're in much the same boat as LWN, except that they have their article archives to bargain with. LWN is a /news/ site, so their archives are far less valuable than Ars'.
Take their kernel page: lkml gets something on the order of 1500 posts a week. Most of that is just bug reports, people sounding off, that kind of crap. But there's a lot of serious discussion, and it's not always in the obvious places. I try and keep up with lkml on my own, and I have a bit of success - I generally know what's going on in the areas I'm interested in. Jon does a weekly report on
/That's/ the thing that's so valuable about LWN, and it's why four or five full time professionals are
I read
Don't underestimate the work involved in producing really good quality news. That way lies the kind of crap that most newspapers and television news services produce these days.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Oh, and the security page /is/ core - it's one of the main reasons a lot of people read LWN.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I read LWN ever since it was a popular site.
I got to "know" Mr. Corbet thru his participation on a Linux-Biz list, and believe it or not, that was before LWN was LWN as we know it today.
I have seen my share of failure on the online thingy - lots of friends got burnt in the process - and I think one of the main problem is the lack of Cost Management.
What do I mean by it?
Used to be that running a site was a hobby, then someone figure out that running the same site as a BUSINESS may make some bucks. And once the money starts rolling in, people think BIG, and they want MORE, and next thing you know they start to FLY HERE AND THERE, in the name of "gathering information".
Used to be that "news sites" were by a group of good buddies, and when they do "news reporting", they often do it guerilla style - that is, they don't have chauffeured limosines to carry them - and their guests - around town to attend plush dinner/cocktail functions, just to get the "interview" done.
All those fluffy stuffs cost lots of dough.
Used to be that the LARGEST PORTION of the total cost for a news site on the lean is the bandwidth, not any more.
We see "reporters" pulling in six-figured salaries, with stock-options, AND that is not counting what they got from their "allowances".
Please tell me, how can such "news site" survives?
Look at how AP and/or Reuters are running their business, and compare that to the high-tech "news organization" you will see a HUGE discrepancy in cost-structure.
Until the time the "high-tech news organization" practice the news-industry cost conscious way of news gathering, I will say that more and more of the "news site" as we are so fond of will disappear.
Oh well.... But I digress.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I just learned today that FAQS.org is in financial trouble, too! More here...
lwn.net is a good site, it would be sad to see them go... As opposed to sites such as /. they actually produce original content themselves.
Quick solution for the moment: What I did when I first read this was to reload every pages 4-5 times, just to bump up the ad hits. Then I did a clickthrough on a fair number too. Remember that a clickthrough earns more than just viewing the advertisement.
Now if this readership could join in on some community action here, LWN should be afloat for quite a while. Hint, hint...
I'm honestly not trolling and I like the site but is it that much work to create a few web pages each week?
I'd guess that most Linux users already know most of what they find there and wouldn't find it an impossible burden to produce an equivalent.
I'm not denigrating their efforts - it's a cool site, etc - but if the community really wanted an equivalent to survive it doesn't sound too difficult.
Get Alan Cox (or whoever) to write the kernel page
Get the KDE team to produce a page
Get the Gnome team to produce a page
etc
Do that once a week and that's not far off what the good people at LWN do now, is it?
sex sells.
put a bunch of naked (and or skimpply clad) people in the mag, on the website, whatch the money roll on in, and laugh yourself to the bank
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