Slashdot Mirror
Blogs Bring Back Dot-Com Poster Boy
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has a profile of Jason Calacanis, the former Dot-Com bubble rider, and now the mind behind the sale of Weblogs, Inc. to AOL." From the article: "Calacanis and Alvey wanted to get in on the action, but the scale and limitations of blogs bugged them. 'We decided that one blog, like Rafat's, could make tens of thousands of dollars a year,' says Alvey. 'Definitely enough for one person who works 24 hours a day to sustain a business. But how could you get so that you could add more people?' The answer, they decided, was to build a network of blogs."
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Social network blogs are killing internet content. Who wants to read through a tone of IRC logs to find one line of matching relevance?
Blogs can be ok, for instance of the blogger is really blogging something that he/she does on a daily basis because it's in a single field of expertise.
Blogs should not be used for trivial diaries, and that I fear is what the AOL users will use them for.
On the other hand, there are some blog entries which are worthy of becomming wiki sites.
Why UNIX?
multiple writers, one location and one general direction?
amazing.
Cue a bunch of people saying how blogs are stupid and no one wants to read about boring details of other people's lives, jobs, hobbies, whatever.
Cue response which points out you shouldn't judge blogs by just browsing them at random like it was 1994 and you're surfing the internet by clicking on links on crappy geocities sites, you should look at ones that are popular and fit your tastes, and use google and blogsearch etc. to find them. Everything is crap if you don't have an easy way of discriminating from the good and the bad, etc.
Just look at the picture of the guy. It says all you need to know. Pretentious, overinflated self-worth, and a (masked) double-chin to boot.
Yeah! And who is this dude whose lap he is sitting on?
Just read this story from the print version (that I pay for, unlike this free link...thanks Wired.com!) in the can and came back to the computer. Refreshed Slashdot and there it is! It's a pretty good article, the beginning is kind of weak but the bulk of it gives you a good perspective on how blog companies make their money and get bloggers.
Say what you will but his company is responsible for Engadget and that sites not half bad...well, they get linked to from Slashdot quite a bit and I guess that means something...actually no, no it does not.
Lots of people had online diaries long before the horrible term "weblog" came about. Just because people now try to call those diaries "blogs" doesn't mean those diary keepers now have an obligation to provide content you want.
If you haven't had enough of dot com bubbles, go buy some GOOG or AAPL and ride it up for 100% before you lose your shirt
sounds like some slashdot posters i know
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
The really amazing part is that he talked about her without a particular point or even a real compliment to whatever she does--just a generic awe of her 'importance,' with a strong undertone of "...And she was flirting with me !"
All I could think of was, "What a repugnant personality." When I saw the Wired picture, it was exactly as I imagined him.
Having worked for them (and no, I am not lying, I did), I can attest to that. (Well, the first two bits.) They also have some of the worst contracts on Earth for their slaves... Sorry, employees. Just a little shy of having to sign away your soul and your first born.
The feeling I had the whole time I was with them is if you join their little cult (and believe me, that's the atmosphere on the private mailing list etc... Used to make me feel physically sick reading it sometimes) you'll get on famously. If you ain't prepared to drink the Kool Aid, though, your tenure will be very short.
A handful of folk at the top are getting rich off those being paid peanuts down below. The sad thing is those people are saying "Yes, please, give me more." There are people there who actually think posting on one of their sites will lead them to a top career in writing, when in reality they'd most likely get laughed out of the office of anyone they showcased that too.
Suffice to say, if you're ever on Digg and see a link from one of their sites, chances are it's a self link, that will be coupled with a begging post to the company mailing list saying "Please Digg my story". Content should float on it's own accord, not be helped to the top by a bunch of brainwashed sychophants. (And that was one of the many reason I was sick of working for them.)
Whenever I hear a dot-com bullshit story like this, I think of Whoopi Goldberg and Flooz. Remember Flooz? I do. Their headquarters was down on El Camino Real, down near that mexican place near Stanford, upstairs from the Scientology headquarters.
Pay for your cooz with some flooz.
The article makes the guy sound like a total nightmare. At least, though, he doesn't walk around with a pug under his arm.
I guess the story illustrates what happens: because the internet is so open, it is also open to unlimited quantities of marketers, hype and money. These burn up new ideas at a rate like nothing else. Whatever a new idea might have been, it comes to be seen as just another vehicle for your actual entrepreneur, init, and you can no longer believe a word anyone says. There is always an agenda, and in this case it's your money in their pocket. It's only a matter of time before the whole scene has been gutted to the point of collapse and then the crowd moves on to the next big-bucks bandwagon. So I guess that blogs are, if not dead, then walking wounded because they have no credibility left. I wonder what will come next.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
My old boss gave me an invite to a party he threw back in the go-go days of the late 1990s. He was worse in person.
I would occassionally look at his magazine when waiting for a meeting with someone (but I would never pay for it). I did subscribe to his daily e-mail alerts, but seldom read them. The whole thing was purely a product of the bubble, and he was most definitely a creature of the bubble.
In an era when people were making huge investments based on fads rather than business plans, Jason Calacanis positioned himself as the arbiter of all dot-com related fads. He threw parties that were a bunch of people congratulating each other for how thoroughly their soon-to-be-bankrupt companies would change the world. The parties would also serve as prime places for people working for companies that were about to run out of money to connect with people who just got venture capital funding. At the one of these parties that I went to, someone actually tried to hire me with the pickup line of "my partner and I have started 20 companies between us." When I asked, he sheepishly admitted that the one they'd started that week was the only one that wasn't bankrupt.
I can't blame Calacanis. After all, if he hadn't taken up the role, someone else would have. I can't say that I miss the days of having to wonder how long my next employer will stay in business...
-JMP
There is another business venture consisting of associated blogs - Pajamas Media - which should be mentioned in this context. Its business model is based on creating a multi-blog advertising system. As far as I know, pajamas uses serious political blogs rather than "daily diary" sorts of things.
Perhaps we need a different term for serious blogs about whatever subject. Also a term for the commenter community that grows up around each one. Here's your chance to get famous, although Bill Quick, who invented the term "blogosphere," doesn't seem to have gathered enough fame from that.
The only good weather is bad weather.
I thought they were referring to DotComGuy who changed his name to well...DotComGuy. And then back again.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Well, if history is going to repeat itself (which I'm pretty sure will), Weblogs, Inc. will die.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
So his system seems to be just a labour-intensive process for manufacturing what are basically just glorified splogs? I think a fully automated system is more lucrative, and more scalable.
Da Blog
I can't substantiate the parent's ad hominem attack on the Weblogs Inc co-founder, but the air of pretension is exactly the reason I stopped reading sites like Engadget. Everything is treated like a gossip item. Imagine if an item on Slashdot were presented with impeccable spelling and grammar but treated like a bunch of valley girls were reporting it.
Slashdot: Google annonced its new calendar service today. Google Calendar ingrats with Outlook and iCal and is the most advanced calendar service available for free as in beer
Engadget: OMG, like Google announced its new calendar service. All you other guys can just like F off because this is the shizzle. Google Calendar lets you get your meeting on from your web browser and it totally has all the Outlook and iCal integration goodness we know you're just spooging your Victoria's Secret underwear about. Get your invite today, dog!
For more information, click here.
Turning blogs into business? Sounds like another site I know. . . (Hint: it starts with "S" and ends with "lashdot")
www.linuxpenguin.net
The ability to format the data as a diary, or a collection of diaries, is not in and of itself anything I would consider noteworthy. The content may be, and sometimes is, but the use of extra layers of language to describe something that doesn't need describing just obscures what is interesting by emphasizing the points that are not.
(eg: There are plenty of commercial sites on the Internet today, but the use of "e-commerce" as a specific term is on the decline and "dot-com" is generally a term of ridicule. Sometimes, language gets in the way of the expression.)
As I see it, blogs that are essentially just personal rants will die a richly-deserved death, but "insider" blogs - which the media can draw from without being in danger of lawsuits, grand juries, etc - will likely prosper. "Special Interest Groups" (SIGs) do well as blogs - Slashdot is an example - but I doubt you can manufacture a SIG from a blog alone.
We will know when blogs have become totally accepted. That will occur when we no longer need to see them as anything special, they'll just be a part of the whole.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Did Rob Malda ever really go "away"?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
I saw this guy give the commencement address nephew's high-school graduation. Basically, the theme of his speech was "I've always been at the right place at the right time" and "everything always works out for Jason Calacanis." Absent were any inspirational anecdotes about working hard or otherwise having any personal character. It was more "as long as you get an internship at Sony" (or whatever) "you're golden!"
Whatever happened to the "golden boy" that hits rock-bottom (his words in the speech, btw) and then decides to dedicate himeself to philantropy. Instead, this guy wants to "monetize" (remember that word?)...blogs?
Yes.
Those interested in blog networks should check out: http://www.blognetworklist.com/ . There is a lot of interesting information about blog networks there (rankings, traffic, size, etc.)
Simpy
Wait a second. AOL made a huge profit on Netscape courtesy of the US Government's case against MS. Only in America can you make yourself rich by selling a company whose only market value is its potential to be found a victim of unfair competition.
Netscape was a one-hit-wonder that folded as soon as a real competitor showed up.
Netscape was a one-hit-wonder that folded as soon as a real competitor showed up.
True, but at least they released their code into the wild before folding. Remember, without Netscape, there'd be no Mozilla and hence, no Firefox.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Calacanis? Who let the dogs out?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"True, but at least they released their code into the wild before folding. Remember, without Netscape, there'd be no Mozilla and hence, no Firefox."
Yes, that was a kind of scorched-earth approach on Netscape's part.
Given the long delay between the release of Netscape's code and the appearence of the first Mozilla release, one wonders if an open source browser written from scratch might have been just as effective.
I for one welcome our new--oh, wait, never mind.
On a serious note though, am I the only one sick of these "poster boys" who do nothing but produce hot air?
Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
If your definition includes deranged lectures from the very neo-cons who brought us Iraq and can't wait to bog down US National Guardsmen in the next hellhole of their making, then, sure, Pajamas Media is a "serious political blog."
Of course it would be. In fact, maybe even more effective. That's what Firefox is.
www.linuxpenguin.net
"That's what Firefox is."
According to Wikipedia, Mozilla Firefox is a fork of the Navigator component of the Mozilla Application Suite which in turn is based on the source code of Netscape Communicator.
So if Wikipedia is correct, Firefox is not a open source browser written from scratch but one derived from the code released by Netscape.
So the question still remains whether an open source browser written from scratch would have been just as effective as those derived from Netscape code(including Firefox).
Netscape releasing their code may have discouraged open source developers from creating their own browser from scratch, so the bottom-line question is whether Netscape opening their code base helped or hindered the OSS movement.
Saying that FF is a "fork" of Mozilla Navigator simply means that some of the code in Navigator was used in FF - it doesn't say how much. Seeing as how FF even back then was much faster than Navigator and lacked many of the features Navigator had.
www.linuxpenguin.net
I have no idea how much code was reused, but the meaning of the term "from scratch" is quite clear and FF doesn't qualify.
Seriously.
Sure, FF might not have been written 100% from scratch.
But then again, a LOT of software isn't - it depends on previously available programs and/or libraries (at least at compile time). We could say that Halo and Grand Theft Auto weren't written from scratch because they depended on DirectX and OpenGL libraries. That's not really being very fair, though, because it still leaves a massive portion of code that WAS written from scratch.
It's complete lunacy to expect programmers to NEVER reuse code. Ever heard the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? The same thing applies to programming. Sure, Mozilla Suite might have been considered bloated and/or "broken" by some, that doesn't mean that every single part of it was broken or bloated.
And also, you missed my point. I was responding to someone's question of whether or not an open-source browser written "from scratch" would've been just as effective as Netscape's releasing of their source to the OS community, by pointing out that Firefox (while maybe not being written 100% "from scratch" - but still not using a good portion of Communicator's code) is better than
www.linuxpenguin.net
"Okay, let's see how off-track we can pull this by totally ignoring previous posts!"
You already did that when you claimed that FireFox was written from scratch when a previous poster (not me) had already mentioned its heritage. In fact, that's the only reason that FireFox is in this thread about AOL and Netscape.
"We could say that Halo and Grand Theft Auto weren't written from scratch because they depended on DirectX and OpenGL libraries."
Come on. If you can show that FireFox merely linked to some libraries within Communicator then your analogy to DirectX and OpenGl would make sense. If the Communicator code wasn't designed as a library or if FireFox actually modified it than it doesn't make sense.
Anyway, its clear that no facts are going to change your conclusions.
Oh, okay. So using code through a library rather than directly putting it into your code is somehow magically different? Maybe you're not a programmer, but libraries and classfiles all look the same to the compiler - it doesn't care if what the hell that "include" line links it to. Whether it links you to DirectX code or to some code that you wrote by hand doesn't matter to the compiler.
I can't tell if you're understanding my point or not. On the one hand you're saying that using another project's code doesn't necessarily mean you didn't write your program "from scratch"; on the other you're saying that Firefox isn't written from scratch because it uses a bit of Mozilla code.
www.linuxpenguin.net
I think there is a difference between using a general purpose library to produce a new product and using the source code from one product to produce a new product that essentially does the same thing.
Let's say I write two versions of a game called grand theft motorcycle. In one version I use a graphics library like Direct X but I don't use anybody's source code. Let's say the other version uses code from Grand Theft Auto. Which of the two would you consider closer to the definition of "from scratch"?
Anyway, I don't know how much Netscape code FF uses or what part in detail, so I can't make an absolute judgement, but it's clear that FF relied on Netscape code more than other browser makers.