Slashdot Mirror
Salon Asks for Help
Henry V .009 writes "Salon.com is appealing to the community for help. They haven't been able to pay the rent since December. To date, they've lost about $80 million dollars. A cause of rejoicing for some. But their many readers are understandably sorry to see them in such desperate straits. Personally I hope they stick around, I think they are one of the best sources of independant journalism on the web--even if I happen to agree with less than 10% of what they have to say. I also think that it would be a shame for them to close now that they've finally created an advertising scheme that has a snowball's chance in hell of working on the web. I can actually recall some of the adverts I've seen on Salon--what other web site can you say that about? Salon says that if they get another 50,000 subscriptions (they currently have 50,000) they'll break even for the year." In the old role-playing game "Paranoia", there was a nice quote about what would happen when the player characters (who had never been outside of their enclosed city complex) made an attempt to swim in water over their heads: "delaying drowning".
I think worthless executives and overpaid contractors have milked this one dry, better to let Salon die than to keep dumping money into this greed-surrounded cesspool.
I can actually recall some of the adverts I've seen on Salon--what other web site can you say that about?
How about adds for MS Visual Studio on Slashdot? Especially on articles that say that MS bites the big one.
If I couldnt pay rent, I dont stay there. If I cant pay for food, I starve. If I dont pay... I DONT GET. If they want to create a pay site, fine. Elsewise they DIE.
ANyways, the only orginazation which can "die and keep on living" is the government. There's ono limits how much they can take away.
I think it was worth it. Salon sometimes is a bit too liberal for my taste, but even if you don't agree with some of their politics, the enormous amount of content you get is certainly good. If you subscribe you get a free dead-tree subscription to Utne Reader (uck) and Mother Jones (yeah). Some interesting audio downloads, among other things. And no ads.
All in all, I enjoy reading Salon. If you do, consider plunking a few bucks for them.
Shyeah. Like I'm going to subscribe to a magazine that I suspect is going to expire before my subscription does.
It's hard to feel too sympathetic for Salon. With all of their moaning and groaning about overhead, you'd think they had to cut down dead trees, slice them up and cover them with ink, and mail them, or something. ("Oh, wait. You mean like every other magazine in the history of journalism?")
Dr. Darwin called -- he wants to cancel his subscription.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Poor Salon, the poor, "New Media" company that was supposed to eat 'old media' and own the world in 5 years. It's so sad to see a public corporation fail, oh, I'm sorry, "the dream die. " Frankly, I don't think people should continue to support them thru what is their death throes. They've pissed away EIGHTY MILLION dollars and they're still spending money on creature comforts (200k a _month_ for rent? Are their offices solid gold with cocaine on tap?), while cutting the actual _production_ staff (writers, et al) left and right? Fuck That. Free market economy means that it's fine for people to pull stupid shit like this, but it also means that they are free to fail horribly.
Wouldn't it be delicious irony to purchase subscriptions for Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Jerry Falwell, and Bill O'Reilly?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Oddly enough, I dropped my subscription a year ago because the liberal BS was getting a might bit thick for my tastes. A well spoken liberal thesis is interesting to read, but a lot of the crap they were slinging was along the lines of "conservatives are so stupid", something I'm not willing to pay for.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Considering more and more people in this country seem to be getting their "fair and balanced" news from Fox, this nation should be completely ignorant of everything that isn't waving an American flag within five years.. I enjoy Salon, I just subscribed to it. It's going to be sad when the only way to get information about your own country is to ready another country's newspapers.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
If they double their subscription base, they will break even. Not make a profit. Break even.
I guess they might be factoring in the 33% discount on "gifts", so maybe they only need a 66% increase in their subscriber base. Even so, that doesn't sound promising to me.
There's also the definition of 'this'. The financial year in the US starts on April 1, right? So maybe they mean if in the last month of the financial year, they earn as much money in subscriptions as for the other 11 months combined, they'll break even. If so that bodes even worse for the next year...
Uh, the core of Salon *is* open source software. It's built on the HTML::Mason toolkit, and they've released various odds and sods back to the community.
Exactly.
Salon's staff is amateurish to the point that they make K5 look professional.
The New Yorker, which essentially publishes the same sort of stuff that Salon does, manages to, by actually hiring people who know how to write, make the lefty stuff[/garbage] seem reasonable and well thought-out.
In other news, CNN.com had a piece last week on the explosion of cyberbegging.
I have nothing against Salon, but why should we get all weepy when their business plan fails? More to the point, why is Slashdot giving them free advertising? Funny how my site wasn't slashdotted when I really needed some sales.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Even if you don't agree with all of the views expressed there, you have to agree that Salon, like Slashdot, is one of the few truly independent news sources out there. Unfortunately, not everything on the internet can be entirely free. It costs money for Talbot and his crew to write; it is only fair that we pay to read. I'm a Premium Member, and just purchased a "Make A Difference" subscription so someone else can experience the wonder of independent media. In a world where the major news sources resort to fear-mongering to sell themselves, Salon and those similar to it are a last refuge of sanity. You have to remember, the sole purpose of television news is to keep you watching between commercials. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox aren't interested in presenting the truth, only something entertaining, or scary enough to keep you from changing the channel. Salon and Slasdot are different; the two communities should support each other. Do your part to keep Salon alive, buy a subscription, it's only $30, or $18.50 with ads. In the long run, that amount is negligible, even for the pimply faced teens. This probably sounds like an NPR fund drive, and it kind of is, but this vital source of information and commentary is going to die unless we do something about it. If one tenth of the ~600,000 registered Slashdot users help support Salon, we will double the number of Premium subscribers. This is doable, even if stopping the war, or overturning the DMCA isn't.
Even if you only occasionally enjoy reading a Salon article or disagree with the politics of some (or all) of its writers, I urge you to strongly consider a $30 yearly subscription. Slashdot readers are surely aware that the big press in America is beholden to special interests. We have no BBC or CBC here, just mediocre and sensationalist networks run by the likes of AOL and Rupert Murdoch.
Just as free speech is meaningless to the American poor, so too is free press when owned and controlled by billionaires. I have found Salon to be a great source for thoughtful and challenging articles. Supporting it is supporting democracy.
sm
I'm sure there will be a lot of comments like: "this is just capitalism at work, survival of the fittest, etc."
If Salon goes under, then it's an example of how capitalism can FAIL.
In fact there are lots of comments that state that capitalism is working. Why? Because it's true. Salon pissed through a huge amount of money and failed to attract enough subscribers to survive. Salon has failed, capitalism has suceeded.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
Over the last few years, I have consistently been impressed with the quality of journalism found in Salon's pages. To all those of you that have enjoyed some of salon's work over the years, please consider subscribing.
Try this: Go to the Slashdot search page and search for "Salon". I get over a hundred results in the last year alone. And these are not just links to AP newswire stories hosted at Salon, these are original content, bankrolled by them. For all you out there bitching about "how can a website spend 80 million dollars?" that's how. They spend that much by funding the production of original, quality content.
It's also hilarious to see some of you bitching about how Salon is going out of business by alienating their readership by publishing perspectives that are too liberal or too conservative. While having a liberal slant in general, Salon publishes perspectives that challenge their readers. I disagree with most of what Andrew Sullivan writes, but I appreciate the diversity of perspectives that his writing provides. If I wanted a news medium that always told me what it thought I wanted to hear, I'd just tune into the network news every night.
Do you want to see this source of independant journalism go out forever? If they don't a big jump in subscriptions, it will. I know lots of you out there are unemployed, but lots of you aren't. the $20 or $30 salon subscription is nothing to you highly paid software engineers.
I'm not working right now (I'm a student), so money is tight, but I have subscribed and after I write this, I am going to go over and try to extend my subscription. And yes, I have done my best to encourage friends and relatives that read occasionally to subscribe as well (with three successes).
They are a quality publication that you have all been sporadically enjoying for many years and now they need your help. Please subscribe.
Yep, you shouldn't call conservatives stupid. It's incredibly rude to bring attention to their stupidity.
Hi,
I'm David Talbot, editor of Salon. You're just the type of free-thinking writer we want! How's $200K to start?
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
>Utne Reader (uck) and Mother Jones (yeah).
Or on The Nation or Harpers. They come in dead tree format so no more wireless laptops in the bathroom. There's a decent essay out there of how Salon spends its money (giant office spaces, high living, etc) that makes me not want to help them, especially when some very decent papers like MaJones or The Nation do what salon does a lot better.
What bothers me most is the assumption that there is no room for liberal media and people using salon as proof. Salon is just a badly run company ready to join its dot com brethrens at fuckedcompany. They simply failed to compete against more established and better left-leaning news outlets.
In the summer of 2001, I purchased a two-year subscription to Salon, knowing full well that the subscription term might be longer than the company's existence.
I knew that Salon had not made perfect business decisions, but they were pioneers in the Internet space, and there was a chance that they had learned from their errors. If a dynamic, independent source of journalism had an opportunity to succeed, then I wanted to do my part to help.
But now, it is clear that the management team lacks either the skill or the will to make a profitable enterprise out of Salon. They have had nearly two years to balance their budget, and during that team they received another substantial VC infusion. But they are out of money again, and there is no reason to believe at this point that they can manage the company out of this.
I won't be sending any more bailout money to Salon, because the overwhelming evidence is that it will go directly into the severance packages of unsuccessful managers.
Let's be clear: some of the money they've raised over the year is simply gone, exchanged for stockholder equity: that's investment capital, not lost money. They spent it, the stockholders have stock, the money isn't owed to anyone.
A very small amount of money in relative terms is actually owed, under a few million I believe, but their operating costs exceed their income and they don't have any sources of stock -> money exchanges.
It's still ridiculous, of course, to have spent that much, but it's just pissed away not owed.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
If you think Andrew Sullivan is a "hyperconservative" it shows how skewed your view of the political landscape is. If you have ever read any of Mr. Sullivan's works you would know that he is socially liberal on many positions. Most "hyperconservatives" don't support abortion, gay marriage, and sex outside marriage.
One of the problems with political debate in this country is that we are all too quick to label and catagorize people instead of listening to their opinions. It is all too easy for a liberal to label someone like Andrew Sullivan as an "EVIL SUPER HYPERCONSERVATIVE" and then ignore his writings instead of reading them and giving them a chance to enlighten yourself or change your viewpoint. Likewise it is too easy for a conservative to label him as "EVIL CORRUPT HOMOSEXUAL" as do the same. The problem is that he does not fit into nice predefined catagories. This is one of the reasons I enjoy reading is articles so much. I don't agree with everything he says but I still gain understanding from his insitefulness. Much more than I would gain if I just read someone I agreed with 100%.
Just a tip. If you are only reading articles you agree with 100% you are doing something wrong. Challenge yourself sometime by reading people who you don't agree with and try understanding the world from their viewpoint. It will make you a much wiser and better person. If more people did that we could get away from childish namecalling and maybe have a reasonable debate sometime.
Brian Ellenberger
We have no BBC or CBC here
I am an expat Brit living in Redmond, WA, and before I got broadband the lack of news here used to drive me CRAZY. I just didn't understand how people could be so incurious about the rest of the world, and how crap and banal is what little news there is which mentioned anything outside western Washington, or, Bog forbid, the USA. Hell, we don't even get any news from Vancouver or Portland most weeks!
Anyway, enough ranting: I just wanted to say that I preserved my sanity by going to the BBC radio web site where there is a round-the-clock stream of virtually all the BBC's radio output. For news in English, Radio 4 is probably best, though the World Service is also excellent, and also available in (currently) 43 languages.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
While I don't myself overtly and decisively oppose either "conservatives" or "liberals," I do emphatically oppose the use of those terms. And I realise it's absolutely rife.
The use of these categories, liberal and conservative, in American politics has always confounded me. As a Canadian, I just don't know what they are supposed to mean, although I understand their rhetorical purpose. I don't think they mean much, really. We've got a Liberal Party and a Conservative Party in Canada, but those are just names for parties. They don't mean anything literal. Interestingly, I've virtually never heard the words "liberal" and "conservative" used in that way by political scientists. I think that's due, frankly, to their inherent uselessness. The idea of throwing everyone in the country into one of only two categories seems ludicrous. The number of Canadians who will consistently vote for only one party is minute. There's an old law of Canadian politics that goes that the province of Ontario will only elect a provincial Liberal Party government if the national Conservative Party is in power and will only elect a provincial Conservative Party government if the national Liberal Party is in power. And this has held true for government after government. People aren't one of two things. And they don't stay as such from one government to the next. And I don't see why it should be asserted that Americans do. Even if they DO vote for one party consistently, the suggestion that all voters for that party have one way of thinking is one to which I object.
My point is, the enmity between "conservatives" and "liberals" here is silly, most of the time. There are more than two ways of thinking. If I were discussing American politics, I might refer to Republicans and Democrats, but Christian Conservatives, Christian Progressives, Social Libertarians, Anti-Federalists and whatever other categories you want to add absolutely do not fit into two categories.
I think the hiring of all the conservative voices on FOX,MSNBC,CNN, etc. is in response to marketplace demand,as it should. Remember MSNBC's hiring of Donahue was heralded as the liberal answer to the conservative commentators? Well Donahue's ratings are in the toilet, and his days are numbered. There have been many attempts at a radio talk show response to Limbaugh but they all consistently fail. Could it be due to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy(tm) Hillary spoke of, or could it be that many leftist ideas fail in the marketplace in forums where they can be directly challenged? TV and radio need to sell advertising dollars and are purely ratings driven. If a TV or radio broadcaster had a left-wing commentator who consistently scores high ratings do you seriously think they would get rid them for ideological reasons, even though they bring in the advertising bucks? Of course not- they're in business to make money. But the liberal viewpoint in these media outlets fails time after time. Is it because the liberal viewpoint is being silenced or because the liberal ideas aren't that great to begin with? (the answer to that probably depends on your own political beliefs.) As far as bias in the print media (L.A. Times, Washington Times,etc.) it does exist but now that it is being exposed it doesn't occur as blantantly. Back in the day, whenever describing a republican such as Dick Armey, Tom Delay, etc. it would be prefaced with "right-wing","extreme-right wing",or "ultra-conservative". Do you recall the last time a democrat such as Ted Kennedy or Maxine Waters was referred to as "extreme-left wing" or "ultra-liberal" in mainstream print? The phrases "big oil" and "big tabacco" are frequently used. Do you recall ever seeing the phrases "big union" or "big environmental lobby"? Pro-gun control people are referred to as "activists". Anti-gun control people are referred to as "lobbyists".
I'll tell you that's simply not the case because of all the things that do depend on physical location. The biggest example is taxes. I'm the co-founder of a small company that runs an online RPG, Meridian 59. We're a "virtual" company with people that live in both California (specifically the Bay Area) and Connecticut. Because of this arrangement, I get to do over twice the amount of paperwork for taxes. Since we pay people wages, we have to register in both states for various payroll tax reporting. On top of this, since we have workers in both states, we're considered to be "doing business" in both states, so we're subject to the Sales and Use taxes for each state. When we sold some CDs containing the installation of our game, we had to report total sales and break down the sales that happened in each state in order to pay the proper taxes on them. As CFO, this took a non-trivial amount of my time to collect and organize this information, and to fill out the appropriate form. Finally, there's no substitute for face-to-face contact. Building a small business is about building relationships with people; there's only so much you can do over Trillian or even a phone call. As for the SF Bay Area, it's not so simple. Yes, it's stupid expensive to live out here. But, when you consider that there are two major cities, one of which is known to be one of the few cultural centers in the US, you realize what you are paying for. Also, there's a strong concentration of truly clueful technical people out here, especially ones that have the required skills for game development. Two of the people that are working with us (on the cheap, I might add) I met around here due to our shared interests. Some insight on the matter,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
I like Salon, but not enough to pay to read a website. That is a flawed business model. If advertising won't pay the bills, their demise is probably inevitable. Now, only a generous philanthropist willing to give them a huge grant can save them. Too bad I'm dirt poor, or that might be me.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
MEMO:
TO: David Talbot
FROM: John Murdoch, consultant
RE: Salon Business Plan
Executive summary: It's the math, stupid.
Dear Dave:
I have read of your impending demise on SlashDot, including links to an article on the Globe and Mail site suggesting that you are paying $200,000 per month in rent for space in San Francisco and a smaller--but similarly mind-blowing--amount on space in New York. I also read your plea to readers, saying that if each of your 53,000 subscribers just signed up one additional subscriber, why Salon would be able to break even. America would continue to have a vocally left-wing e-rag; the earth would continue to revolve.
The business problem
It's the math, stupid. If your assertion in the editorial plea is correct (that you need an additional 50,000 subscriptions to break even) then your annual budget is in the neighborhood of $3,000,000. But your annual rent ($200,000/month) runs to $2,400,000 a year--leaving $600,000 for staff and editorial content.
Simply put, you have zero reason to have any office space in San Francisco or New York. You're running a virtual magazine, remember? That's a synonym for website. If Rob Malda and Jeff Bates can run SlashDot from Holland, Michigan, what makes you think you need to be paying $100 per square foot? You need a decent connection to your hosting sites, and a place to keep the handful of full-time employees left on the payroll.
How you could re-organize
File for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. That protects you from your creditors while you develop a plan for re-organization to submit to a bankruptcy court judge. Yeah--your main money men will take it in the shorts: John Warnock and the Silicon Valley liberals who fronted the $81,000,000 you have pissed away will have to write off their investments. But the big thing Chapter 11 will do is get you out of those, um, burdensome (read: IN-blinking-SANE) leases. No bankruptcy judge in the country will allow you to pay for top-dollar real estate for the purpose of hosting a web site--the leases will be broken. Then you can move on to the rest of your re-organization.
Re-organization:
You have 53,000 subscribers--some pay $18.50 per year, but most pay $30 per year to avoid the ads. Let's assume an average subscription of $24, and (round numbers) gross revenue of $1,270,000. Let's figure on 6 full-time equivalent employees at a fully-loaded cost of $60,000 apiece (including salary, taxes, benefits, etc.): that's $360,000 in payroll. 1000 square feet of "office/flex" space in any moderate industrial park will run you approximately $8 per square foot per year--that's $8,000 in rent. Toss in a thousand a month for heat/light/power/telephone, and another thousand for office expenses, furnishings, furniture, and equipment--soup to nuts, your total "SG&A" expenses run to $392,000. Leaving you $880,000 per year for writers and hosting fees. Top-notch editorial doesn't come for free--but almost Nine Hundred Grand buys you a lot of articles at a thousand bucks a pop.
But don't let that stop you from begging...
Hey--public broadcasting stations have been threatening their imminent demise for decades. So, for that matter, have dozens of television evangelists. If you're just scamming your subscribers for a bit more cash--hey, it helps the bottom line. Even the politically-correct have to pay the rent....
But let's be clear about one thing
Your financial problems are problems of your own making. Paying millions of dollars for glam real estate was "making a statement." It sure was--"we are D-U-M-B!" You have the ability to solve your problems--use the bankruptcy provisions the law allows you. Doing so will keep you in business, and allow you to continue to have a voice in American public discourse. If you fail to do so, your voice will be silenced by your own management failure--not some secret cabal of "voices in the present administration" who might want to silence you.
Unsustainable business models are a dime a dozen these days.
Salon has spent $80M, and has 50,000 subscribers.
That's a customer acqusition cost of $1,600 per customer.
Say they get their doubled subscribership numbers; that drops the per customer acquisition cost down to $800 per.
Effectively, this means that they would have to get $67 a monthly issue in order to recoup costs, if acquisition was for a period of 1 year, which is normally how these things are measured.
Let's be incredibly generous, and call it 5 years of acquisition. Even so, we are still talking over $13/month/60 issues.
Does anyone really believe that this is going to happen?
These people obviously do not understand cost accounting or cash flow. They may or may not be good journalists, but they certainly are *not* good businessmen.
-- Terry
If you want an offline version but need the pretty pictures, they also have a PDF version that was added at the beginning of July, 2001.
You can get to either of them by clicking on Subscriber Services at the top of the main page, it's listed under "If you're new to Salon Premium." Actually, even simpler, both versions are linked from the "Premium Benefits" area at the top right of the main page and the section pages.
fencepost
just a little off
Almost $680,000/year in salary for just 4 company executives.
It seems hypocritical to beg for gift donations when you pay yourself 6-10x more than the average American's income.
I have little sympathy ... I mean, come on, it doesn't take $80M to run a server farm and pay a few journos...
First of all, that $80M is the total they lost, ever. Of course it's a lot of money, but others did way WAY worse. Even amazon, who we regard as somewhat successful, was losing between 25%-125% of that amount per quarter until just 6 months ago*. And, as many others have pointed out, one of the reasons that they still have ongoing losses is the digs in downtown SF, with a lease negotiated in the halcyon days of the late 90s when it seemed like a good idea.
What I don't understand is how everyone refuses to be understanding of the situation. We all know, times were good, now times are bad; why dance on Salon's grave before the body's even cold? Even if you disagree with its political slant, Salon has had tons of insightful articles by a wide array of interesting columnists, and they're flogging a business model we'd all love to see succeed: the pureplay online publication. Salon's a great thing caught in a bad place -- be careful wishing for them to fail spectacularly, because that implies lots of other imminent failures you may not like so much.
That said, if the primary reason they're in such a tight spot is that horrible lease, then this is exactly the kind of situation that bankruptcy protection was designed for. I for one would LOVE to see Salon file for bankruptcy and reorganize, not because it would be a sign of failure, but precisely the opposite. This is a financial committment that could very realistically stop them from operating. They shouldn't be in that expensive location any more, and the landlord will most likely not ever see the money anyway. So why sink the ship along the way?
THAT said, the fact that they're still floundering with no plan is the reason I haven't subscribed yet. Times are tight; I could certainly afford $20 a year, but I'd rather not spend $20 for 1 month or possibly 2. If 50,000 of us all signed up at once, they may have enough revenue to continue indefinitely, but no one signup is going to save them. The information I'd like to see from a "fellow prisoner" is what Salon's going to do to make sure they stick around a while - I think bankruptcy could be key.
Notes:
* According to EDGAR online via yahoo financial
Really, you can't honestly compare Amazon and Salon.
Take away Amazon's web site, and what do you have? A *huge* company with buildings, supply chains, delivery systems, etc... If they had a physical shop you could walk into, you wouldn't think that they're anything different than any new mega-chain spending money putting up shops and building market share.
The only thing with Amazon is that they are a web-based only catalogue ordering company. I know that there are alot of other companies in the US that are catalogue-only. That's what you should be comparing them to.
Salon is a web magazine site. No big inventory, no supply and distribution chains. All you need is a webserver, a co-lo, an editorial team, and some freelance writers. There is nothing forcing them to spend alot of money on fancy offices, marketing executives and coke habits. Sure, they wouldn't be as big, but they would probably stil be around.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
Yeah, Camille Paglia did it right by beginning with utter self-parody at the outset.