Specs of Salons Subscription System

legLess writes "Scott Rosenburg, Salon's VP of operations, wrote an interesting article for Web Techniques about Salon's subscription system. It goes into a fair amount of technical detail (JavaBeans and JSP on Linux for login and authentication; Perl, HTML::Mason and MySQL (CD: and oracle) for content). He also talks about their subscription numbers, what drove them to do it, and their plans for the future (technical and operational). A little fluffy, but still a good read."

Comments

I pay for Salon

[MarkWatson]

I pay for Salon Premium service, so it was interesting reading about the technical details of running their site.

Since I am playing with Tomcat and Cocoon myself right now, I was interested to read about how Salon is also gettin into XML publishing techniques.

-Mark

Re:I pay for Salon

[MarkWatson]

Well friend,

I find the news coverage on Salon to be broad and uncensored. Usually, I peruse foreign newspapers (German FAZ, British news, Times of India, English version of Pravda, etc.) at least once a week to get a broader view of what is going on in the world. I find much of the same news in Salon.

Don't misunderstand me: I am fairly conservative (voted for George W.), but I still realize that huge corporations in the US own the news media so, for example, lot's of anti-globalization news is not covered in the US.

BTW, there is porn on Salon? I haven't seen it.

-Mark

Re:I pay for Salon

[revscat]

Gee, I dunno. Maybe it's because they are the only news organization on the fucking planet that isn't owned by AOL/Time Warner, Fox, Belo or Clear Channel? As far as I can tell they are the only independent news organization on the web. Everything else just regurgitates stories a la /.

<muttering>
Soft core porn m'ass. Dumb motherfuckers don't know what the fuck they're talkin about listenin to dr. laura watchin Ricki Lake homeschooled dumbasses swear to god gonna git a gun...
</muttering> - Rev.

Re:I pay for Salon

[bourne]

Agreed. I'm also a Salon subscriber, because during the heavy news burst after 9/11 I found their coverage to be more interesting, and to have more interesting points of view. I don't agree with all of the points of view but there's a lot more there than you can get off CNN, MSNBC, or any of the other news sites.

Porn, such-as-it-is, is under the "Sex" tab. I can't really imagine paying for what is there either, but there you have it.

Re:I pay for Salon

[thegrommit]

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Re:I pay for Salon

[foobar104]

You know, Salon isn't just leftist news. It's also leftist commentary, essays, reviews, and opinions.

I watched maybe two episodes of the first run of the US version of Big Brother last year. (I was stuck in a hotel room with four channels, two of which were local event listings.)

The show was terrible... but every morning after an episode, Salon posted a new entry in its "Big Brother: The Complete Story" ongoing review. The reviewer were brutal. The show sucked, and everybody knew it, so what was left but to make relentless fun of it?

That hoot alone is worth the price of admission.

Re:I pay for Salon

[Ian Bicking]

I pretty much lost respect for the BBC during the Kosovo bombing. They were pulling the line and slinging the bull just as hard as the US sellouts. I suppose it makes sense -- the UK has been following US foreign policy pretty strictly, no reason its media shouldn't go along for the ride as well.

It's hard to really judge the integrity of sources, though -- unless you are getting information from a real diversity of sources, it's not easy to tell when important facts or stories have been left out (the most common problem in media). At least there's the internet -- the facts might not all be correct, but they are usually plentiful.

Re:I pay for Salon

[revscat]

Do you even understand what the word "independent" means? I made no claims about Salon's bias, nor will I do so. (Mainly because such arguments are specious at best). "Independent", however, means that they are separate from any corporate control, and that remains true. Of course seeing as how conservatives absolutely obsess over the so-called liberal bias in the media, it suprises me exactly NONE that you interpreted my sentence thusly.

Come one take it for what it is. You read it because youre a leftist and you want toi read news with a leftist view. It's the same reason why I read Worldnetdaily.com

Would somebody PLEASE give the conservative community a fucking DICTIONARY? I swear to GOD there are about half a dozen conservatives who can spell, and maybe three or four of those who can construct gramatically correct sentences. And one of those is George Will! JESUS! I try to pay attention to the arguments and not the sentence structure, but fuck me! It just makes one start to think that 99% of the conservatives on the net are, well, morons!

Re:I pay for Salon

[nomadic]

That's a great sig; I'll have to steal it and start using it in conversation...

Re:I pay for Salon

[bnenning]

I swear to GOD there are about half a dozen conservatives who can spell, and maybe three or four of those who can construct gramatically correct sentences.

I'd say that speaks for itself. Additionally, most conservatives are able to communicate without using the f-word in every third sentence. Thank you for reaffirming my perception that a substantial majority of liberals are arrogant elitists.

Re:I pay for Salon

[revscat]

Additionally, most conservatives are able to communicate without using the f-word in every third sentence.

Yes, that naughty "f-word." My goodness, the baby Jesus might cry if we were to use the "f-word!" Geepers, Wally, did he use the "f-word"? Better run tell Dad!

As a counterexample to liberals being "arrogant elitists" I give you Exhibit A, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an arrogant fuck if ever there were one. (Ooops! There's that "f-word" again! My oh my! Won't somebody please think of the children?) Not saying he's not a genius, not saying I don't repsect him. But he is arrogant, he is elitist, and he is oh so conservative. Read some books. And let's just totally ignore Rep. Dick Armey, cuz, well, that's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Oh, and by the way: Your post just serves to reaffirm my belief that conservatives are sanctimonious assholes who'd rather preach than think.

TTFN!

- Rev.

Re:I pay for Salon

[Anonymous Coward]

If you liked their Big Brother coverage, you should try the Survivor coverage, which continues even now into season three. I've read all of these, but I've never actually seen the show except the two season finales. It was funny to match up the characters to their lampooned caricatures from Salon.

They're at:
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/survivor3/index.html
(The season three updates are at the bottom)

Here's one of my favorite parts:

Linda, the Cambridge woman who beat cancer, is a little peeved at some of the jokes -- someone had made a crack about an African word that sounded like "tampon." "This is mother Africa to me," she says. "They're so disrespectful. This is where is all started, folks, in Africa!"

In Linda's book, participating in a silly reality show for a million-dollar prize is an appropriately respectful activity in mother Africa.

Re:I pay for Salon

[timberwolf124]

Is this guy for real? Grow up!

In-house vs. outsourcing

[DouglasA]

I read this article when the mag arrived, and was mostly fascinated by their decision to build it all in-house. Two or three years ago, they most likely would have thrown a ton of money at another company to develop the whole system. They would have gotten something that was not exactly what they wanted, and no doubt three months late (at least). Companies finally seem to be realizing that they need to make better use of the staff they have, and that even adding a few programmers or other employees can be cheaper than hiring outside developers. That's what I'm seeing at my company now, anyway, and others I know.

Re:In-house vs. outsourcing

[imrdkl]

Good points, every one. Sadly, most companies now have a hiring freeze. We're stuck with messes that the contractors scrambled to finish just before they were sent packing.

Many of these "innovations" replaced decent, reliable (if a bit tempermental) systems. It's good to see one company prioritized pragmatism above glitz, buzzwords, and hype.

To be fair, inhouse developments can also become big messes.

Re:In-house vs. outsourcing

[Charles-at-home]

Amen.

My previous employer (Red Sky) couldn't have scheduled the interviews for the object model design phase in the time allowed.

Most of the infrastructure would have been unacceptable - we couldn't spell Linux or Apache, Solaris/and an expensive ap server was OK but we were really an NT shop. MySQL wouldn't have passed muster. The rest of the mess...? Don't even mention it.

A year later, Salon would have been out the better part of a million and still not have a system.

Re:In-house vs. outsourcing

[DouglasA]

A year later, Salon would have been out the better part of a million and still not have a system.

Exactly...As much as this economic downturn sucks (and it's hitting everyone I know), the upside is that companies are returning to the lean and mean roots that make a good company. For all their spinning about having the knowledge in-house, the bottom line is that Salon (and companies like them) are saying "we need to turn this thing around immediately, and with very little new spending." It's gut-check time, and if you hired good staff you might be able to make it. Kudos to Salon's team for building this with minimum hassle.

As a subscriber...

[Ars-Fartsica]

I think Salon has done the right thing. They were doomed otherwise - their stock was getting throttled (why they ever went public is beyond me) and advertising was flopping. Salon has good content - in the past critics could rightly claim that it was simply a shill for the Democratic party, but it has taken on a much more even tone. The sex content and the other bonus material is worthless, so don't subscribe if you think you are going to see nude hotties.

In terms of their technology, I think managing two page management technologies (JSP and Perl/Mason) would get a little tired, and is likely unnecessary. While JSP might not be fast enough to handle the Mason-generated pages, you can certainly use Perl to transact credit cards if you want.

From previous postings on this site, it seems that Slashdot will be going to subscription route as well. I think its a good idea. The quality of posts will probably improve (the best posters appear to be the /. addicts who would likely subscribe), and there would be capital in place to provide extensive services on top of what is already here.

Re:As a subscriber...

[foobar104]

From previous postings on this site, it seems that Slashdot will be going to subscription route as well. I think its a good idea.

I'm all for improved discourse, and I'd be disappointed if Slashdot had trouble staying afloat, but I don't agree that a subscription-based revenue model would improve the quality of the site.

Not too long ago, Salon's "Table Talk" message board was a great place to find reasonably intelligent talk. There were no trolls, and it seemed that most everybody could spell.

Then, sometime in the past year but I'm not sure when, Salon took their message board to a subscription-only model. Anybody can read, but only paying subscribers can post. It's not expensive, either; something on the order of six bucks a month, I think?

The result? The boards that I used to frequent on Table Talk are now ghost towns. Tumbleweeds and cow skulls, and Yul Brynner wandering around dressed all in black.

I, too, used to think that taking Slashdot to a read-for-free, pay-for-post model would be a good thing, keeping some of the riffraff out. But I don't think so any more.

Re:As a subscriber...

[Codex The Sloth]

I think Salon has done the right thing. They were doomed otherwise - their stock was getting throttled (why they ever went public is beyond me) and advertising was flopping.

Actually, they're still doomed. The subscriptions don't even come close to covering there costs

Re:As a subscriber...

[Mr.Ned]

>> I, too, used to think that taking Slashdot to a read-for-free, pay-for-post model would be a good thing, keeping some of the riffraff out. But I don't think so any more.

I really have to agree. I post about once every three months, and my posts get ignored anyhow. I'd just read. I'm sure it would be the same for a whole lot of people.

Plus, who would pay to comment on how cool a beowulf cluster of cowboyneals would be?

Re:As a subscriber...

[17028]

I started replying to your post, but then I thought "Nah! I think I'll ignore this one.". ;-)

Re:As a subscriber...

[rbeattie]

keeping some of the riffraff out

It's called economic discrimination and it doesn't work. Just because you have cash to pay for a subscription, doesn't mean you have a brain in your head.

-Russ

Re:As a subscriber...

[cameronk]

I think that the Salon.com model for a subscription-based sevice would not work for a business like Slashdot.org that is entirely dependant on both the quality and quantity of discussion. A different business model might make more sense. I would suggest selling subscriptions for a premier level of service. At this upgraded membership you would have access to some of the parts of the Slashdot experience that are intangible right now-like automatic +1 on all comments, ability to view/comment to posts before the rest of the members or an increased chance to moderate. I think that many members of the Slashdot community, including myself, might be willing to pay $6 a month for such priviliges.

Re:As a subscriber...

[Paradigm Lost]

If I were to buy a Subscription to Slashdot, there is one think I would have to have:

A Slashdot Cache.

All too often you see a story that looks interesting, only to find that when you click on the link, the Slashdot Effect has arrived. A cache like Googles would be a great asset. The main problem is those poor sites that post flamebait to attract Slashdot-sized page hits wouldn't be too happy.

Re:As a subscriber...

[CrackWilding]

Am I correct in my assumption that the idea of "pay to speak" is inherently inimical to democracy?

Oh, I forgot -- democracy went out with flapper dresses...

Re:As a subscriber...

[foobar104]

Am I correct in my assumption that the idea of "pay to speak" is inherently inimical to democracy?

You, of course, are not correct in this assumption.

The US, certainly the world's best known democracy-loving country, has a long history of limited franchise. The Founding Fathers sometimes held the opinion that only the landed gentry (read "male property owners") should have a voice in governance. It was widely believed that the healthy self-interest of that class of society was roughly and usually coincident with the interests of the whole. Therefore the franchise should only be entrusted to those who qualified for it.

The concept of universal franchise for all citizens is really a 20th century concept. I find this to be quite obvious, as the 20th century in the United States was the most prosperous, luxurious time, taken as a whole, in human history. If things were to turn bad, like really, really bad, the whole universal franchise thing might go right out the window.

Now, as to your opinions on speech itself, as opposed to sufferage. It is true that reasoned discourse is the heart and soul of a healthy republic. (It actually has little to do with democracy, but let's ignore that.) But it is absolutely not true that I must pay to give you a forum in which to speak. If you want to take your milk crate to the nearest street corner, go right ahead. But don't try to tell me that I have to buy you the crate and pay your cab fare.

In other words, Salon's (or anybody's) decision to charge a fee for the privilege of posting in a public forum is not a clear and present danger to democracy.

Sincerely, Demosthenes. ;-)

Re:Oh, yeah, MySQL works GREAT

[Betcour]

Actually that's just because it is badly implemented by Slashdot. All they need is to put a second DB server in replication and, even when the master server is down, it can still be used as a read only backup (which is fine for serving content).

Premium only content - mark it

[cowboy junkie]

As I recall, when Salon first implemented their premium content, they didn't mark what content was premium, but instead when you viewed the story it would give you the first couple of paragraphs then say that you had to subscribe to read the rest. This is a big mistake, as it really makes non-subscribers resent the wasted click, and I'm glad they finally wised up and starting marking everything clearly as premium.

I had no problem subscribing to Salon, though, because these guys are the real deal. While I love sites like /. that point to noteworthy stories on the web, Salon is one of the only true purveyors of Internet journalism that provides stories worth pointing to. They have top-notch folks reporting and provides commentary on the whole spectrum of news.

Re:Premium only content - mark it

[mshurpik]

Hmmm...someone thinks that Salon is "the real deal...the only true purveyors of internet journalism" and they get a Score 5 Insightful.

Someone else thinks that Salon is an unrespecting low-wattage publication that promotes unsafe sexual practices, and they get a Score 0 Troll.

Granted, one of the two mentioned "your mom" but somehow I still think I detect a slight bias in the moderation system.

Personally, I think the first post is a troll. He might as well sing the praises of the New York Times, or CNN. That kind of clueless nonsense throws me into a frenzy.

Dorks. What will they think of next?

i'm still not convinced

[vocaljess]

salon has always done a great job at covering things that most mainstream news services, and entertainment sources, tend to ignore. however, i'm still not convinced that paying for content is the way to go.... it reminds me of my experience subscribing to my favorite magazine and having it go through a complete overhaul and coming out at the other end as something completely different. there are no guarantees that the same thing couldn't happen to salon.

my biggest point of annoyance with the site was when they took their news coverage out of the free portion of the site. they chose a moment when everyone around the world needed good, accurate reporting of the developing events after 9/11, and exploited that moment to expand their subscriber base. that should have been the moment when they kept everything open and freely available, perhaps soliciting for donations to keep the quality of coverage up. instead, they chose the greedy road and shut a lot of people off from a good information source.

Re:i'm still not convinced

[mberman]

Actually, I liked their partitioning during the 9/11 stories. I wasn't a subscriber at the time, and I could still read all the real news stories about everything. I'm not a subscriber, and I went back and read the stuff I couldn't read before, and it was mostly editorial stuff...still really interesting, because the salon writers are cool, but not actually necessary to know what's going on.

Re:i'm still not convinced

[Ars-Fartsica]

however, i'm still not convinced that paying for content is the way to go....

Do you subscribe to magazines? Watch cable TV? You likely already pay for content in other mediums. Don't be fooled by the "freeness" of the web to date - most of the large web companies are already thinking beyond free content models. The biggest inhibitor to paid content so far in my opinion is the payment models. While I wouldn't pay for the NY Times on line on its own, I might pay to be a part of a network that includes the NY Times, Forbes, Atlantic Monthly, etc. (I am trying to list publications with similar demographics as an example).

my biggest point of annoyance with the site was when they took their news coverage out of the free portion of the site. they chose a moment when everyone around the world needed good, accurate reporting of the developing events after 9/11, and exploited that moment to expand their subscriber base.

At some point any subscriber site is going to have to yank to family jewels from free users. You can't build a subscription seriice when your most valuable assets are free. The ymade the right move.

Re:i'm still not convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not really correct. The majority of their news stories were always pay content (it was one of the first things to get switched to the Premium service). They actually stopped doing that and made all the news free for the first few weeks following 9/11. So they didn't really take the news content away; they just reverted to how it had been.

I like Salon a lot. I don't think $30 is a lot of money for a "magazine" that's updated daily. And I have a hard time believing they would switch their focus and abandon the readers they've attracted over the last 6 years.

Re:i'm still not convinced

[vocaljess]

no, i don't subscribe to magazines and i refuse to pay for television. i admit, i'm odd that way.

from a business point of view, perhaps salon did the right thing by moving news coverage into the premium slot right when news was a hot ticket, but from a moral standpoint i think they were dead wrong. information should be free, especially when that information is news coverage of events that could change every aspect of the world we live in. a better way to go would be that of public radio... solicit donations but don't require them, and don't shut people off from important information if they choose not to or simply cannot pay.

Re:i'm still not convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

a better way to go would be that of public radio... solicit donations but don't require them, and don't shut people off from important information if they choose not to or simply cannot pay.

Salon isn't public radio, man. They don't get handouts from the government.

Donations might work for a site like kuro5hin where you're only paying for the banwidth and upkeep, but Salon has real writers to pay in addition to that.

No matter what you say about news wanting to be free, that still doesn make news reporting free. That costs money, and if advertising won't pay for it, then something else is going to have to. Otherwise the aforementioned news coverage is just going to disappear, and I don't see how that benefits anyone.

Re:i'm still not convinced

[Ars-Fartsica]

but from a moral standpoint i think they were dead wrong. information should be free, especially when that information is news coverage of events that could change every aspect of the world we live in.

But Salon isn't a news site, its a commentary site. They make no claim to bringing you the latest news.

Re:This breaks the trend

[Cheetah86]

There were only two before this article, however. Maybe not a trend, but still prevents one...

what the fuck?

[autopr0n]

No wonder they have 87 million in debt. Why the fuck do you need oracle to serve content? MySQL works fine for slashdot,

MySQL is a piece of shit. (no nested selects? WTF?) And incase you hadn't noticed, slashdot fails all the time. The only reason they stick with it is because the source was originally hard-coded with MySQL API calls. Andover even pored money into the company behind MySQL to beef it up when it was flush with IPO money. Nowadays they're using proprietary extensions (witch cost $$, btw).

MySQL was not designed for a lot of the things its being used for.

You're comment is a lot like saying: "Who the fuck needs a mainframe? my DOS LAN works fine!" or something.

Re:what the fuck?

[Billly Gates]

The next version of the upcoming slashcode supports postgreSQL. Unlike mySQL, postgreSQL offers nested selects, transaction support, and ansi-sql 92 compliancy. Infact it may be the most sql-92 compliant database around. It may not be as fast as an embedded quick and ditry file system for internal programming jobs, which mysql was designed for. But postgreSQL is quite good as a standalone database. Of course nothing beats big iron databases like Oracle, DB2, Sybase and MS-SQL but if your on a tight budget postgresSQL will do wonders. ALso the next version should support replication which is essential in any enterprise level database. I believe MYSQl is qite behind in this. Why PostgreSQL is not the defacto poor man's database is beyond me. However in Japan all the linux magazines and books mainly only focus on PostgreSQL and the situation is reverse there. I believe www.phpbuilder.com did a test with postgreSQL and Mysql to see which was more scalable and PostgreSQL kicked ass.( I am too lazy to look up the url.)

RedHat chose postgreSQL for a reason and not mysql. Hmm I wonder why?

You can get it for free, right now, you know.

[autopr0n]

Personally, I would pay only for Slashdot Unpremium (not Jon Katz, no Michael/Timothy, YRO, in other words, just the basic stuff that slashdot was founded on).

If you go to your user prefrences (if you have an account) you can filter out certan authors, (katz, michael, etc). Not that I don't think katz should be thrown off the site or anything.

Re:Sigh

[blif]

Well, actually they use a whole lot of stuff.

i.e. they use Java/JSP for login/subscription control). They also use Oracle for "more complex database management needs". Oh, also, they use R:Base (!!! - hey that was old when I got my first job in the late 80's).

Sounds like the typical real-world reality of a production environment:^) I like Grant's spin on using Java/JSP:

"Grant chose to introduce some diversity into Salon's infrastructure"

6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[clarkie.mg]

This month, Salon launched a monthly subscription program for 6$.

Reading the article, I have to give credit to the way Salon deal with their readers.

1. Even the free site is not overwhelmed by ads like those flash based ones that run around the page on wired, or those poping pages on yahoo.

2. The price for the site is really low, compared to the price you would pay for a daily newspaper. They understood that internet users CAN pay for content but at a reasonable price.

3. They give premium content, not only ads-free stories.

Thumbs up, Salon.

Re:6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[Jeremy Erwin]

Salon writes "or if you prefer paying in smaller, spread-out amounts -- we hope this new option will fill the bill."

six dollars a month equals 72 dollars a year. Why anybody would prefer to pay twice as much "in smaller, spread out ammounts" is beyond me.

I wonder if they'll experiment with micropayments for individual stories.

Yeah, premium content is good (and IMHO, worth it), but certain tactics of Salon-- holding political content for ransom, and adopting more and more obnoxious ad tactics in hopes that annoyed readers will pay for an ad-free version--while perhaps economically justified, aren't exactly "friendly".

Re:6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[peeping_Thomist]

Why anybody would prefer to pay twice as much "in smaller, spread out ammounts" is beyond me.

One reason a person might sign up for the new plan and not the ordinary subscription is in order to try out being a subscriber without having to commit much money to it. If they like it, they can sign up for the longer term. If they don't like it, they're only out $6.

As for why a person would continue to pay $6 month after month, I can't say.

Re:6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[Casca]

I'm pretty irritated with their marketing too. I was considering subscribing to them, as I read them pretty much every day. Then they started with the popup ads. Then they started the intermediate ads that you have to click through to get to a story. Then they started doing all that premium content stuff.

Screw em, I'll find another news source. The BBC website is pretty nice.

Re:6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[mirrorsh]

six dollars a month equals 72 dollars a year. Why anybody would prefer to pay twice as much "in smaller, spread out ammounts" is beyond me.

Why is this any different from:

* Getting a 5-yr car loan instead of a 3-yr car loan.
* Buying stuff on credit card and then paying ONLY the required minimum or a little bit more
* Financing almost any kind of moderately large purchase (TV, DVD player, etc) that is not insanely expensive enough to require a loan (car, house, etc.)

There is a strong pscyhological motive to *NOT* pay a lot of money upfront, or to pay less money over a longer term than more money over a shorter term, even if it makes better financial sense to do otherwise.

Re:6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[Jeremy Erwin]

I suppose that if 140% annual interest, compounded monthly, makes financial sense to you, go for it!

Re:6$ a month, now, another good move from Salon.

[Zeinfeld]

As for why a person would continue to pay $6 month after month, I can't say.

It is a standard model. I can pay $6 for a magazine on a news-stand or $30 for a subscription to the same magazine for a year.

I have never subscribed to a magazine without buying several full price copies - or reading them in libraries etc.

The different charge rates are justified by the overhead of cc charges chargebacks, gateway etc. - about 75 cents on a $6 charge, $1 on $30, so you save Salon $8 by going for the annual subscription.

$6 is pretty much a disposable amount, I do not much bother if I buy a magazine at that price and find out afterwards it is not much good. $30 is not a disposable amount.

Linux ?

[willamowius]

If I remember correctly, Linux wasn't designed for many things it's now being used for, either...

Re:Linux ?

[Billly Gates]

"If I remember correctly, Linux wasn't designed for many things it's now being used for, either..."

Your right but support for scsi, smp and removable hard drives had changed this. MySQL is being modified to support some essential database features but its not there yet. PostgresSQL is already there except int eh instance of replication support. Sybase or Oracle would be a good decision for anyone with money to support a critical enterprise environmnet. Same is true with how Solaris is still used over linux today for hard core essential reliability.

Salon != Slashdot...

[corky6921]

After reading this article, I begin to see why it will be doubly tough for Slashdot to make the jump to subscription-based revenue.

The biggest problem I see with Slashdot is that Slashdot doesn't have a Cringely or a Coursey or a Dvorak. Sure, Slashot has Jon Katz, but I just don't find his articles as readable as a Cringley column or a Dvorak rant.

I see the real difference between Slashdot and Salon on a couple of other fronts as well. Besides not having several columns by intersting authors, most of Slashdot's content is made interesting by the readers, not by the story submitters. Personally, I am horrified by both the obvious lack of attention given to grammar, as well as the oft-biased one-liners added by the story submitters. Finally, although it has gotten better in recent times, Slashdot seems to crash a lot... even more than an overloaded MySQL database would suggest.

For Slashdot to take a viable community and turn it profitable, the story editors do a lot more than Salon did. The fact remains that Salon's content is mostly unique, whereas Slashdot's content (in terms of story submissions) is mostly regurgitated. Salon's readers will pay because it's hard to find Salon-like articles anywhere else. On the other hand, I can honestly say that if ZDNet had a moderation system, I'd only rarely visit Slashdot. ZDNet's columnists keep me entertained, and their news is grammatically correct and up-to-date because they pay people to go out and write it.

It all boils down to whether Slashdot can successfully differentiate itself from the hundreds of other "Cool Linux Stories" sites. In the end, what keeps Slashdot's readers coming back is the discussion and the attached moderation system. What remains to be seen is whether or not people will pay for that.

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[Jeremy Erwin]

Salon and Slashdot are very different sites. If Slashdot had no comment system, I would not visit this site. On the other hand, I enjoy Salon-- and never use "Table Talk".

If Slashdot went to a subscription system, it would probably drive off not only its "reader base", but also its "writer base."

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[Karma 50]

Karma, in the current /. isn't really all that useful. You get a +1 at 26 and you need some to be eligible to moderate (I don't know how much).

Is posting at 2 useful or attractive?

I v.rarely post with the bonus (of course, I usually post crap which will be instantly modded down because of bonus abuse, but that's my problem).

And when reading I tend to look at the moderation description rather than the total score.
"(Score:1 interesting) by Anonymous Coward" gets more of my attention than "(Score:2) by Karma Whore"

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[Karma 50]

Now, if I got paid for every comment I posted on Slashdot, that would be another story. :)

Nb. I did see the :)

Being paid for a +ve moderation would be fairer, of course - as long as you have a credit card on file as well so you can be charged for each -ve moderation done to your comments.

+30 for an insightful
+20 for an interesting
+10 for a funny
-10 for an offtopic
-20 for a flamebait
-30$ for a troll

????

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[Nater]

That model isn't viable in the long term. Whether or not it is a good model or not is also debatable, but let's just stick to viability...

First of all, the model obviously discourages trolling and other "down-mod" behavior. A few people might be willing to go pay-per-troll, but most will just vacate the premesis in favor of some other weblog. Therefore income from trolls will tend toward epsilon.

Epsilon won't be enough to pay for the upward moderations on genuinely deserving comments. There are plenty of them as it is.

So, in the long run, the pay/earn-per-mod scenario becomes a money pit for slashdot. It simply isn't viable.

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[yesthatguy]

Yes! Then we truly can have _professional_ karma whores.

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[poemofatic]

But I like the trolls. They are an important part of slashdot. Moderation lets people skip them if they like, and if you feel like it, you can see all sorts of ascii art, Jon Katz bashing, and some hilarious slams.

On the other hand, a lot of the "insightful" comments are just ones that a lot of slashdotters agree with. "Insightful" should mean something you haven't thought of before. "Informative" should be some facts or urls which took longer than five seconds on google to find. I have no idea for an "interesting" criteria, and am not sure why it's there. I guess in those rare cases when you tell a bizarre and relevant story involving turkish customs inspectors -- that might be "interesting".

Oh -- and "offtopic" -- that's this post right here.

Re:Salon != Slashdot...

[madprof]

Exactly. The writer base of Slashdot is people like us who make comments.
It is bad enough having many people making rash pronouncements on things they do not fully understand but to pay to read that is something else.
I'm doing a lot less /. reading these days and using NewsForge more, and I can't say I actually miss it as much as I thought. I read this story a good 4/5 days before it appeared on here, for example.
Free is fine, but until someone can think of something worthwhile to pay for on Slashdot...

Re:Sigh

[imrdkl]

Except for the login servlet, everything else looks to be either experimental or prototype.

Even the MPS/Oracle part is driven by perl. MySQL still holds the content and the users.

I do like the bit near the end about cost and time-to-market, tho. ;)

The web isn't commercial only

[WiggyWack]

I'm so tired of the whole "The free web is over" rants. Why do so many people think the commercial part of the web is the only part of the web? People have created content for free for a long, long, long time. Whether it be music, art, comics, poetry, literature, editorials, films, TV shows (yay for public access cable!), books, whatever... Many people are driven by ideas or creativity they just want others to pay attention to, without getting paid for it.

So the "Soon you'll have to pay for all your web content" chant really means "Soon you'll have to pay for all the web content dished up by commercial organizations." Good. I don't need it anyway.

The Internet is cool because all the free content that was out there to begin with can now be put online by anyone and viewed by anyone. So your underground newspaper, or garage band, or your off-the-wall comic strip has the potential to be viewed by a lot more people than just those in your town or school.

I don't care if I have to pay for content owned by AOL Time Warner or whoever. There's plenty of people out there who want me to look at their stuff for free. (gee, kinda like how the Internet used to be)

Re:The web isn't commercial only

[killthiskid]

I don't think the problem is lack of people willing to generate content, it's the fact that putting that content on the 'net requires bandwith, which, as has been pointed out, requires money. Bandwith has the further problem of not getting any cheaper.

Take spinsanity.org... great site, great weekly e-mail and for a long time, fairly small time. Now they are getting popular and getting press time, and now they are getting strapped for cash. They had to open up the path ways for people to make donations to pay for bandwith. They were perfectly happy to make the content for free... it's providing the content that is getting to them.

Re:The web isn't commercial only

[Watts Martin]

Even so, I think a basic truism about the internet gets missed as commercial interests run around trying to find a way to make money solely on the web: the "killer app" for the internet is communication, in the form of email and increasingly in the form of instant messenger services. (And of course in the form of peer-to-peer file sharing systems.)

The WWW wasn't originally conceived as a for-profit publishing service, and what's happening is simply that companies are finding that publishing models from the offline world don't always translate to the web. Companies that don't figure that out in time will go under. This doesn't just include online magazines, of course--it includes most "free" services whose cost is borne by advertisers. The companies who think the answer is to make ads more intrusive will just dig themselves in deeper. (As a Slashdot comment I saw earlier today said, "It's amazing the lengths some companies will go to in order to drive readers away from their site.")

And you know--that's probably okay. The predictions of the end of the internet utterly miss what people by and large use the internet for. Most of the people using the internet are paying for their bandwidth (that $19.95 to $39.95 a month charge) and they're getting their email and IM, and they're happy.

And the web? Companies that have sites up to tell you about their products and provide customer support will still have them. Companies that do online business of selling offline goods (i.e., Amazon, CD Connection) will still have them. Universities will still have them. Government agencies will still have them. Newspapers and magazines will still have them. People will still pay for "vanity publishing" webhosting out of their own pocket because they want to. And of course, groups that have information people are willing to pay for access to will have web sites.

Really, it sounds kind of like the web just before the cusp of the "dotcom boom," doesn't it? After the internet had been opened up to commercial access but before the gold rush. A time frame when companies on the internet by and large had a reason to be there other than "because it is there."

It won't be the end of the free web, it'll be the end of the advertiser web. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Re:The web isn't commercial only

[CrackWilding]

Hear hear.

Thank you for that burst of intelligence.

Re:The web isn't commercial only

[Jesus IS the Devil]

The internet's beauty lies in its efficiency and freedom of communication, NOT in the fact that it's $ free.

With that said, the net is a million miles deep and a million miles wide. You visit wherever you feel like and I visit wherever I feel like. If there's a part of it that is paid-membership-only, then so be it. You don't want to pay for it, then don't. Nobody's forcing anything on you.

However, there's only so much people will do for free. This is why capitalism works, not only for the big, greedy corporations, but for you, me, and even your pet dog (the one that requires a snack before he performs a trick). So for better-quality content and services, paid-for-use works. Don't put it down as if they're totally worthless.

Re:The web isn't commercial only

[WiggyWack]

However, there's only so much people will do for free.

Not neccessarily. Perhaps there's only so many people who will do stuff for free, but some people will do some things for free until the day they die. (like certain programmers who write free software, or an artist who just likes to create and also likes when another person enjoys what they created)

So for better-quality content and services, paid-for-use works.

Once again, not neccessarily true. Look at all the arguements on "Linux is better than Windows". Linux is free, Windows is "paid-for-use".

Also, many authors who wrote great pieces of literature died in poverty. Money didn't make them create something that was better. Luckily, even in America, there's forces stronger than money that motivate people to create.

I'm not saying that paying for content is evil. And it's not forced so it doesn't matter to me. But the free stuff (and even free stuff that's "better" than paid-for stuff) will also thrive online.

Re:Oh, yeah, MySQL works GREAT

[Billly Gates]

"All they need is to put a second DB server in replication and" hehe. You forgot that MySQL doesn't support replication which re-inforces the earlier comment on why MySQL sucks.

However this was the case close to 9 or 10 months ago when I checked. I haven't checked back since. I am under the impression that the replication features have not been implemented in stable form yet. Also slashdot runs the stagble release of debian which is very old. If replication is supported as of today it will be awhile before its running on slashdot.

/. Crash?

[bstadil]

Slashdot seems to crash a lot ?? What OS / Browser are you using? I have been "member" of /. for years ID 7110 and I can't remember having a slashdot Crash. (Currently using Opera 6.0 on SuSE 7.3)

Re:/. Crash?

[Captain Nitpick]

Slashdot seems to crash a lot ?? What OS / Browser are you using? I have been "member" of /. for years ID 7110 and I can't remember having a slashdot Crash.

That's not a "Slashdot made my browser crash" type of crash that corky6921 is referring to. It's a "!#%#!^ing Slashdot is down AGAIN!#?%" crash. Slashdot's servers go down far too frequently, although their stability seems to have improved somewhat.

Re:/. Crash?

[tshak]

When /. crashes it goes into "static" mode - it rarely is completely down. However, the backend crashes quite a bit. I hit /. waaay too often (among other sites), and it definitely has the worst uptime.

Sell the code...

[supabeast!]

Salon should look into selling/licensing their code to other content providers. Bandwidth is not getting any cheaper, and a cash strapped web company would probably love a chance to buy Salon's code as opposed to spending the money to do this themselves. I know that it is not Salon's MO, but they need money, and so does just about everybody else on the web.

Yes, TableTalk sucks (it always did)

[Ars-Fartsica]

I agree with your complaints about TableTalk on Salon. Regardless of what people were saying, the message board system itself was always quite weak, even compared to early versions of slashcode.

Now I believe they have merged with the Well, but unfortunately it doesn't appear that they have a community message board worth paying for. They would really benefit from using slashcode or another engine. What they have no is pitiful.

Re:Yes, TableTalk sucks (it always did)

[foobar104]

I agree with your complaints about TableTalk on Salon.

I think you misunderstood my complaints. I have no complaint about the software that implements the message board, as it seems you do. Frankly, I never thought about it.

I was just saying that I'm disappointed that evidently many of the smart, thoughtful people who used to post there have decided not to sign up for the new subscription thing.

Re:Yes, TableTalk sucks (it always did)

[Turing Machine]

Yes, indeed.... that "business decision" was boneheaded even by .com standards. There were a lot of great writers on TT who were providing them with content for free. "Hey, I know! We'll start charging the people who are providing the content, while allowing those who consume it to continue to freeload!".

I never even considered subscribing once I heard the details of this "business model". It was pretty obvious that the regular posters would decamp en masse, which of course meant that the lurkers had nothing to read, which of course meant that the whole thing went into the toilet.

What maroons.

Re:Yes, TableTalk sucks (it always did)

[Ars-Fartsica]

I disagree. The TableTalk posters were providing marginal benefit to most Salon users - most of them never bothered with it. The TableTalk posters were mainly providing a service to each other.

Frankly Salon never had a compelling forum community on its own, and in that sense it was smart to merge with The Well.

Here is the url

[Billly Gates]

for my previous comment on phpbuilder.com look here .

Agreed. /. would need "star" wirters

[Ars-Fartsica]

Going forward it would behoove /. to bring more talented writers generating original content to the site.

While I agree that there is something odd about users paying for a site where the users generate the content (via posts), its the network of users that one is paying for access to, not a particular user or set of posts.

Alas...

[O2n]

From the article:
In the end, of course, our subscription plan has worked because a small but significant portion of our users feel that Salon is worth supporting with their cash.

Alas, this happens when you get older: you start paying for support, news and, alas, women. :)

shut up

[paulm]

A little fluffy, but still a good read.

Why do slashdot editors feel that they have to throw in their 2 cents. I'm glad you posted the article, thanks for the summary, but I don't want to hear your lame ass opinion. Especially when it is something as non-specific as a little fluffy. It's like you are afraid that all the slashdotters will be talking amongst themselves and saying "what's up with that fucking fluffy article that was posted", so you are attempting to protect yourself against that eventuality by saying - hey this is fluffy.

Just post the fucking thing.

Thank you.

Re:shut up

[reverius]

That was not a comment by a slashdot editor.

It was part of the submission by the user.

Just thought I'd clarify that for the people who can't take the five seconds to see whether it's included in quotes, and is in italics.

Other news sources

[Nonesuch]

revscat writes:

Maybe it's because they are the only news organization on the fucking planet that isn't owned by AOL/Time Warner, Fox, Belo or Clear Channel?
...
I am a liberal. This means I read books and have opposable thumbs.

LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel... all owned by a firm not on your list.

Oh wait, they are (relatively) conservative papers, so you can't possibly trust their reporting.

IfI want a leftist viewpoint, I read Salon. When I want to see what the extreme right wing is saying, I read WorldNetDaily. Slashdot tends to lean about as far to the left as Salon, but doesn't have as much porn, which I suspect is the real reason many people subscribe.

No, honestly, I just read it for the articles!

Re:Other news sources

[m3000]

...but doesn't have as much porn, which I suspect is the real reason many people subscribe.

Or it could be that most of the good political and news articles are now only avaliable for premium subscribers. Which is why I signed up.

80 Days Uptime

[bstadil]

Look Here The server has been up for 80 days and 20 hours. Not too shabby.

Re:80 Days Uptime

[crisco]

Server uptime and Server sending me the pages I want, with comments sorted in the order I set in my preferences and allowing me to contribute without sending me back to the front page when I hit reply are two different things.

Slashdot hasn't been down so much as it just hasn't been working right lately. And its a myriad of browsers across several operating systems.

Re:80 Days Uptime

[Yakman]

Only problem is that uptime is probably for the web servers (which are likely to be fairly stable). The major problem seems to be their back-end DB servers going down, which can be seen whenever you hit ANY /. URL you are served the static "full" home page.

In fact, for me, /. was doing this for about 3 hours yesterday afternoon (err, Australian time)

Re:80 Days Uptime

[NMerriam]

I would say that one out of every ten times I come to slashdot, it is in the non-user specific mode (meaning that the personalization server is down, from what taco said a while ago).

So technically a server is running, but the site itself isn't really functional.

Plenty of times I show up and the only page I can see is the main page -- clicking on the story link takes me back to the main page...

Re:80 Days Uptime

[sheldon]

My understanding of the way slashdot is setup is that the main web server caches the frontpage and the story pages. This is to reduce load on the database as these are the most frequently accessed pages. They are updated periodically, like once a minute or so.

When the database goes down, obviously slashdot can no longer do dynamic queries and so all you get are the cached pages. So you get into this situation, where most of the links don't work, you can't post, you can't moderate, and so forth. All you can do is view the cached main pages and the parent story pages.

It's been mentioned various times by the slashdot folks that their MySQL database requires frequent rebooting. They've never gone into much detail as to why, but it appears to happen at least once a day from what I've seen of the frequence of the website "breaking" and only displaying the cached content.

Inexperience can be expensive

[Codex The Sloth]

While I am a proponent of building it yourself, alot of times naive people look at something like an ecommerce billing system (for example) and decide it should be easy because they are inexperienced. This is the same mentality people use when they decide to re-write big sections of code to make it cleaner! Hello! All those "unclean" parts are bugfixes that someone had to figure out and apply.

On the one hand, the VP of engineering (and apparently the only programmer at the place) had done something like this before. On the other hand, considering the problems they still need to deal with (handling foreign zip codes for AVN) kind of implies they have a long way to go... Obviously hiring someone else to do it does guarantee it will work well but a decent company will have solved all the problems you don't even know your going to have if you DIY.

Re:Inexperience can be expensive

[Webmonger]

Heh. You got that straight out of Stroustrup's book, didn't you? I'm reading his chapter on design right now.

Well, here's a clue. Sometimes a mess is a bunch of bugfixes. And sometimes a mess is just a mess.

If you start out with a bad design, and you fix the code instead of the design when problems arise, you get messes like that. I have no problem with rewriting large sections of my code once I have a better understanding, and hence, a better design.

Or sometimes, I clean it up without changing how it works at all, by breaking one big function into several smaller ones, or replacing calculations with pre-calculated variables, or turning a function into an object.

Sure, wanton "cleaning" is dangerous, but there is a time an a place for reprogramming. Especially when there's a payoff in reliability or flexibility.

Investing in the titanic

[Codex The Sloth]

Easy ... so when the go down the crapper in 2 months, your only out $12.

Pay-for-content fragments the audience

[YouAreFatMan]

I like Salon. I used to read Salon all the time. But they started putting 2/3 of their good articles on Salon Premium. I almost subscribed, but after a couple of weeks without it, I found I could live in a Salon-free world. Now I hardly ever visit it.

I used to use Encyclopedia Britannica once in a while. But now, I can't use it at all because it's a pay site. I can't justify paying a subscription when I might use it once or twice a month.

I currently pay to subscribe to one on-line content provider : Cooks Illustrated. Its worth it to me. Salon might be worth it to me, too, but I don't buy it. As more and more sites go pay-for-play, I'm not going to be subscribing to dozens of sites. 1) I am only a casual reader, and 2) even if I thought it was worth it, I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars a month to keep up with all the sites I visit.

And here's where it starts to break down: the (commercial) web can end up just like print media. Sure, any print publication could be subscribed to by everyone, but everyone is not going to subscribe to everything, or even one thing. So you have your subscribers, and you don't reach anyone else.

I know that Salon Premium pretty much drove me away from Salon. I accept that in the future, I will be much more limited web site availability. I'm willing to pay that price because all that casual content isn't worth the thousands of dollars it would cost to maintain subscriptions.

Micropayments, anyone?

Re:Pay-for-content fragments the audience

[Karma 50]

Micropayments, anyone?

Yes. There are some sites where this might make sense. Encyclopedia Britannica for one. The Oxford English dictionary for another.

350 quid for a year's subscription? That's crazy. I can understand them wanting to make a bit of cash, there's a lot of work which goes into the OED, but surely they can find something inbetween free and £350

Re:Pay-for-content fragments the audience

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Micropayments, anyone?

There are 2 huge obstacles that are preventing micropayments from being a reality:

1) credit card comapanies charge businesses a discount fee PLUS a transaction fee every time someone pays online with their credit card. If a merchant sells something for $1.00 he/she will end up losing $ because of the transaction fee, which is often more than $1.00 per transaction.

2) people will find it inconvenient to have to type in their financial information every time they visit a site. Yes there are 3-rd party services that have tried to cash in on this, such as Passport. However, due to factor #1, you won't be seeing many paid-for-use sites offering such an option. And when not many sites offer this option, not many people will use Passport to store their billing info either.

Re:Pay-for-content fragments the audience

[igaborf]

Micropayments, anyone?

Problematic. What would make more sense is to have some sort of collective subscription system. Suppose you could go to some site and pay a reasonable fee for an annual subscription to say 10 sites. You choose the sites. Such a mechanism would allow for relatively small per-site payments without requiring either the payer or the payee to deal with small-change payments.

I dunno, it seems like a natural to me.

You are right

[bstadil]

You are right, come to think of it, that happens fairly frequently. I go thru a NAT server then to Squid for my house network. I always thought it was a problem in my end. Thanks for info.

Re:Oh, yeah, MySQL works GREAT

[Billly Gates]

oops I was wrong. Recent release info is here. Transaction support is both supported by Mysql and PostgreSQL.

more detailed interview on the subscription model

[Kraft]

here. Interview with COO Patrick Hurley from August this year. The interview is very "content provider" oriented and is a good read.

Influence and network externalities effects

[protected]

The article doesn't address whether all of the premium content becomes free once archived. I certainly hope it does. I think it's important for Salon's influential content to be widely available for reference use (linking) in other on-line content.

It would be a shame if other authors on the Web could not link to an important Salon article. Linking is practically the definition of influence on the Web (ask Google). Influence makes Salon more attractive to subscribers, and so on.

350 quid a year?!

[Preposterous Coward]

Geez, I *bought* the (Compact, but perfectly readable with the magnifier) OED for US$300...

Free subscription with the right cookie?

[westfirst]

Does this mean I can get a free subscription if I just edit the cookie file of a friend and grab the cookie?

You can read it in the bathroom

[Jeremy Erwin]

For you information, one of the benefits of "Premium" is that you can download the daily issue as a pdf. Good for reading on the commute, or on the commode, perhaps?

Re:You can read it in the bathroom

[(H)elix1]

Heck, even a long lan cable can fix you up on the throne - failing that a wireless kit - not that I would post to slashdot while doing that kind of thing...

The main problem with the web subscription model.

[Ophion]

The main problem with the web subscription model at this point is that one must pay separately for one's internet access. Imagine having to pay fifty dollars per month for the possibility of watching cable or satellite television. To actually view any content, one would then be required to subscribe to each channel individually, at additional cost. Not many takers, eh?

One possible future model is actually a return to an old one: a model similar to that of CompuServe or America Online before the internet explosion--a package of access and (often exclusive) content.

New Poll -- Pay for /. if...

[gkbarr]

Here's a new poll for your marketing research. Would you pay for /. if...

- /. had more original news pieces
- Jon Katz wrote something worth reading
- Paying members could turn off all ThinkGeek ads (et. all)
- The moderators were fair [troll]
- Paying users could turn OFF the Cowboyneil option in polls

Re:The main problem with the web subscription mode

[CrackWilding]

Ever heard of pay-per-view?

On the other hand...

[CrackWilding]

That more expensive newspaper, you can give it to a friend when you are done reading it. Not sure what Salon would do if you tried the same with them...

The one thing that disturbs me about Salon's model is that it is absolutely not available to those who can't afford it, i.e. poor folks. Something like, say, Time you can go to your local public library and read.

Maybe libraries are subscribing to Salon. I dunno. If not, it seems like their solution might be exacerbating the so-called technological divide.

Note: I say all this as a subscriber.

Re:$6 and you still can't read it in the bathroom

[CrackWilding]

In my experience (as a longtime magazine production person), magazines with some sort of bias are more effective than those that have none. In fact, I can't think of a magazine without some bias or other...

Point being, just because you don't agree with their POV doesn't mean they won't find readers.

Static Mode

[krow]

I introduced static mode I think close to a year ago. Its used when the DB is down or a site update is occuring (like we put in bug features and such). We do the bug/feature additions probably twice a week now, and they normally happen around 1AM Eastern time as of late.

During static mode you can only reach pages that are .shtml, everything else is disabled.

Its certainly better then the old way which was to just to dish out zero content :)

Go away.

[BurntHombre]

Both of you. Please.

$72 per year? For Salon?

[Animats]

That's a bit much. The online subscription to the Wall Street Journal is only $59 per year. And the WSJ has far more content, real content, created by reporters spread around the world. Salon is mostly columnists, and rather lightweight ones at that.

What might work is, say, a service that lets you buy topics, like "politics", "literature", or "entertainment industry news" for a flat fee, but covers a large number of publications. Like AdultCheck and PornoPass, but for people who read. The "adult verification systems" are commercially successful, unlike micropayment systems. As usual, the porno industry figures it out first.

Wrong on #1

[BurntHombre]

When was the last time you browsed Salon? Today at their site I got a total of three pop-ups and two of the "watch this ad for 10 seconds while we redirect you to your story" ads -- all from opening only two links. Not to mention all the top and side banners they display.

In the last few weeks, the site has been overwhelmed by ads.

Re:Wrong on #1

[bcaulf]

Try webwasher. Salon's site is blissfully ad-free for me. No $30 was involved either.

Slashdot subscription? Yeh, right...

[autopr0n]

I seriously dobut that many people would go for a /. subscription. It just isn't worth it, I mean, all the content is user generated. Salon, obviously, is a real magazine with paid reporters and all that and has a valid excuse to charge money for what they're doing. /. just links to other stories and lets people post about it.

Maybe if the subscriptions were like $5/$10 a year or something.

cost of subscription

[Utopia]

May be a little unrelated but can't stop myself from offering my own comments on the cost associated with subscription

Slate.com which competes for the same market as Salon ran a subscription experiment couple of years back. They ended up signing about 26000 subscribers. They were charging only $19.95/year, which is a pretty low price point considering that it was costing several times that much, even on the very best campaign, to acquire a subscriber. The cost of acquisition was averaging between $50 and $100, so obviously Slate was losing money on every subscriber we signed up.

Eventually, they decided to go free again.

Slate has only 40 employees while Salon has double the number - I therefore except their costs to much more.

I think even with the $72/year that Salon is charging
they are losing money. I would be suprised if they switch back to being a free ad-based site.

Re:Oh, yeah, MySQL works GREAT

[Betcour]

Actually I'm running two DB servers with replication and all I can say is, it just seems to work (the slave seems to indeed reflect perfectly the updates received by the master). It was set it in less than 30 min :) . If your web scripts can do "if (master is down) then connect_to_slave and do_read_only" then you are set...

My view on subscriptions

[trials_81]

I don't think I'd subscribe to any site. Some studies(sorry, no link) have shown that people will do without or stop visiting a site rather than pay anything.
You know, I don't own a credit card. I'm not going to mail a money order(no checking account either) which costs 5$ CDN across the border. I honestly think I can do without. Sure I hate advertising, and I see it is getting worse. I could care less about one little ad on /., and I even click on them because I'm curious, but I get cranky when a news site spawns two windows that are tricky to close(Using IE).

Paid Sites

[JSkills]

I read this article in print a while ago and found it interesting for sure (and yes fluffy since the tech details never went quite deep enough).

It was particularly interesting to me since we at Goofball.com went through the exact same process a while back ourselves. We initially were a free site and at our peek were doing close to a million pageviews a day - not including the Apache requests for video downloads (that amount to like 500 GB per month in bandwidth). We were actually leasing 7 Linux boxes (3 running HTML::Mason dynamic content servers, 3 plain Apache image servers, and a MySQL DB server) and paying through the nose for them due to the bandwidth. However, back in the good old days of the CPM advertising model, we were making plenty to afford the costs.

We were of course f----d when the "new economy" came to bear and we suddenly had no income for close to a year. Good thing we saved all that money we made on ad banners. We were eventaully forced to either close it all down or move to a payment model. We polled our viewers and decided to try the payment model based on their feedback.

The site is now 80% pay / 20% free. We're not just charging for access to specfic areas of content, but for the actual utility provided for by the site's various personalization services. We also decided that micropayment were not feasible. Can you imagine the headache of tracking pennies for pageviews and the associated overhead of dealing with people's questions/complaints about charges to their credit cards? A yearly fee of $19.95 (or a nickel a day) was the way we went and you know what - it actually saved the site.

Granted, traffic is at 10% of what it was, but that allowed us to drop off a few machines from the server farm and thus reduce costs further - keeping us slightly in the black each month.

HTML::Mason is the key to the site's success for sure. We can provide dynamic content on the fly pulled from the database, but a key element of the delivery machanism is Mason's built in caching. Only the first page request for a given URL (that uses the DB) actually requests the data from the database - subsequent requests are pulled from a GDBM replica of the DB's content that was cached by the first request. Mason also provides us with the ability to maintain a persistent DB connection during the life of the Apache daemon. Additionally, the same Apache/mod_perl/Mason binary also listens for requests on port 80 and 443 for SSL requests. All credit card transactions are handled through a Mason enabled API gateway. All of our back-end tools are HTML::Mason as well.

I didn't really get the part about "needing Java/JSP" in the Salon.com story. It sounded to me more like the author was not really in touch with the particulars of the technology at hand and was just repating what reasons he may have been given by the development team (who may have been looking to learn something new for the sake of it). I just came from a job where a decision was made to "go with a Java solution" simply because of the name of the programming language more than any other factor. I have nothing againsts Java believe me, but I'm so tired of buzzwords being used to influence decisions that are actually in dire need of pure business and software logic instead.

I'd encourage everyone - if they haven't already - to have a look at HTML::Mason. And also, for a good diversion, take a look at Goofball.com.

Re:The main problem with the web subscription mode

[Jesus IS the Devil]

The main problem with the web subscription model at this point is that one must pay separately for one's internet access. Imagine having to pay fifty dollars per month for the possibility of watching cable or satellite television. To actually view any content, one would then be required to subscribe to each channel individually, at additional cost. Not many takers, eh?

Not entirely true. To view cable or satellite you'd have to buy a house, pay for electricity, and buy a tv. There are lots of other things your paid monthly internet access fee gives you besides just what you can subscribe to.

With that said, if those subscription services were to offer you a free dialup number to connect to and download their material without the need for an isp....

One possible future model is actually a return to an old one: a model similar to that of CompuServe or America Online before the internet explosion--a package of access and (often exclusive) content.

That would be a great idea. The only thing you'd have to worry about is, will they survive if they put that much $ into the infrastructure of other services they're not expert in. Look at Aol these days, they force ads down *paid* member services, AND their content is 100 miles wide but an inch deep. All they have are things you can already find on the internet: chat rooms, newsgroups, message boards, IM, stocks, basic news...

yeah, but

[poemofatic]

what about the other kind of economic discrimination: advertising. Advertisors influence the content of a site. Also, if you're trying to peddle a product or spice up you're corporate image -- you don't exactly want your ad to appear next to an in-depth four part study on homelessness. Finally, ads are geared to a target market which is usually affluent, so there is economic discrimination built in, too. I think advertising is the number one cause of all of the superficial, feel good, smiling prattle in the big media. Subscription is a pretty good way to go in terms of avoiding bias and paying the bills.

Re:$72 per year? For Salon?

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

I agree, $72 per year is a bit much.

That's why Salon only costs $30 per year.

If you want only one month at a time, it's $6/mo.

Re:The main problem with the web subscription mode

[adolf]

HBO seems to be doing fairly well, these days, and has been since the early days.

Note: "Early days" in this context is defined as the time when "basic cable" meant paying a sum of money every month to a company which would deliver to your home via coaxial cable a handful of local television stations which could easily be recieved -for free- with an antenna, with the possibility of paying an additional monthly sum for HBO.

$72/year??

[Telek]

As someone else pointed out, paying $72/year for any online amature news site is completely outrageous.

I can get magazine subscriptions (PCMag, et al) for like $40/year... I can get a HUGE newspaper at my door *every day* for $60/year, and I can *guarantee* you that it has a lot more coverate and stories and information than any online news site around will have, and it will be a lot better written too. Plus I'm not tied to my computer to read it, which as of right now is a nice thing. Sure, the wireless internet is great, but during a 45min commute to work in a carpool it's great to just flip open a newspaper.

I'd pay for salon if it was $30/year, but I think that's the magic number for me. Any more than that and there is a lot better places to go to get the information that I want.

porn sites

[phr1]

use something called "adult check" that works like that. I guess it's successful. I haven't tried it, thank you.