Slashdot Mirror
Introducing SlashBI
By now you’ve noticed that Slashdot is growing. We recently introduced Slashdot TV, which offers up everything from “amateur” rocket launches to the return of Leisure Suit Larry. We revamped our newsletters. Now we’re launching some new sites devoted to very specific corners of tech. Our first one, SlashBI, focuses on the fast-changing world of business intelligence, and features articles and opinion pieces on everything from how Big Data and analytics could make salespeople extinct, to B.I. apps for your iOS device, to choosing the right database for a business. No matter what your background, chances are good you’ll find something of interest here. Swing on over, give it a look-see, and let us know what you think.
So Slashdot is turning into a blog site? Cmdr. Taco left because he wasn't happy with GeekNet's "ambitions" about the site? When do we get SlashHomo? There's so many questions to be asked...
Im outta here. It's been a good 10 years, but this reminds me of when Coke changed their formula. It's been fun guys, but I is outta here.
Perhaps "BizSlash" or "SlashBiz" would sound a little more relevant? My first though was "Oh great now we have a dating site for alternative lifestyles?" Past that I'm all for expansion, just please watch your step.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Eventually Slashdot will be nothing but a brand; a collection of minimally-viewed tech blogs that are finally sold to a media company and rolled into their large collection of robotic advertising delivery channels.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I don't even have any specific objections... this just feels wrong somehow. Maybe I'm cynical or just following the trend of slashdot pulse, sponsored "ask slashdot", slashtv, etc.. but this feels like when a big company buys out some site you like and runs it down the drain. Obviously that's not exactly what happened here, but I'm starting to think Cmdr. Taco leaving had the same effect.. like maybe he was holding back this tide.
Right now it feels like the "gliding on legacy" phase.. coming soon is the "trying to gather new audience" stage.. then the "please come back, we're still cool and returning to our roots stage" and finally .. acceptance and forgiveness.
I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see slashdot return to its former glory.. or at least turn into something better than what it was. It managed to turn back from it's "digg" path a few years back.. maybe it can do the same here.
This site is nothing like what it used to be, and it's no longer something I enjoy reading anymore. Bye!
How much of this will be paid content?
All of it?
It's purely a marketing channel. How long before this shit starts appearing on the front page?
"No matter what your background, chances are good youâ(TM)ll find something of interest here."
Nnnnnnope.
I think Taco exited at the right time. Also, I think I might be spending less time here, if Slashdot has started focusing on keywords like BI, and away from the core idea of "News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters", which is why we joined the site in the first place & kept coming back.
Instead of doing more stuff, how about doing the stuff you should be doing better?
There have been complaints about the editing and story selection - the core aspects of /. - for many years now. It may not be true, but this second side-project feels like confirmation that one of the reasons this has never been fixed is that you're simply trying to make more money with more stuff.
I have taken a good look at this new offshot, and I can guarantee that it's the last look I have ever taken on it. I simply couldn't care less, even though I am the CEO of a small company, so I'm right there in your target audience.
But I don't come to /. for "business intelligence" (more on that in a second) and I don't expect any from /. and I don't trust /. as a source of any. One of the reasons loops back to the beginning: If you are not doing an excellent job in your core business, why should I expect you to do a good job in an offshot project?
As for "business intelligence" - that crap is a dime a dozen. If you want to enter the market, do something different. Like actual intelligence. The word largely means "information" these days, but it should mean more than that. A good intelligence source requires really good editing. And that is not exactly a strength of /.
I hope this dies a quick death and you will learn that you need to make your core business brilliant before even thinking about doing anything else.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Was this posted a month too late? Please?
Quick-hit tech items... check.
No context... check.
Lots of buzzwords... check.
Lots of random, cool-looking stock photography having nothing to do with the stories... check.
Why not just call this SlashPHB and be done with it?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
No matter what your background, chances are good you’ll find something of interest here
If you really believe that then why does it need a separate site? You could just post it on Slashdot with everything else.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
I too started with Slashdot in the late 90's (closer to early 2000 I suppose).
Life/work got in the way, so I quit following the site. I finally came back about 6 months or so ago, mostly lurking.
Now I get the feeling most of the articles are aimed at getting page views. If it weren't for the comments section, I think I'd be just as well off looking at the stuff from Fast Company.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to clean up the vomit.
If I were in charge of Slashdot, I'd rather concentrate on improving the quality of the posts - the summaries are eye-bleedingly horrid in every aspect. The only reason anyone ever comes to /. is the quality of some of the replies in the thread. That is, it's the readership that makes Slashdot valuable.
Piss off your readership, and you pissed away Slashdot - since the quality of the content is otherwise rubbish.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Chances are, this was discussed in the boardroom, and Rob Malda suddenly came to realize what 'selling out' really meant.
Slashdot is owned by a conglomerate that just wants to make money -- and for a while, Rob had some creative freedom, but that time has long past.
I notice that all these changes (slashdot TV, for example) came *after* Taco left, but something tells me these plans were on the whiteboard well before the retirement happened.
Slashdot is just a name now. In the early days of the web (1995 to 2002), slashdot was a big deal, but the unfortunate reality is, they are losing money compared to say Chezbuger.org or whoever owns lolcats.
The sad reality is that pictures of fat people in walmart generates more ad revenue than a "news for nerds" website.
And this is why Taco left. Facebook is king, and Slashdot isn't. The web has changed. It's not the place it used to be. Now it's about Facebook and Google. They make the rules. And now you have to play by those rules or die.
For me, more and more every day, the internet is over. It's become corrupted by corporate greed. Time to find something new to play with.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I kind of get the feeling that this sort of shift has been in the works for a while. The tag line "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" has been missing from the banner at the top of the page since early last year. Yeah, it still shows up at the top of your browser on the main page, but if you're using Chrome, like many, many people do these days, you don't get to see that; you don't see the mission statement of the site for most of the past 15 years. I think that's telling.
As you say, they're going in the wrong direction, and I get the feeling they don't think that's a bad thing.
I've been following Slashdot since the 90s and it just seems to be evolving into another unfocused blog.
See, that's where you're mistaken. It USED to be an unfocused blog (well, focused on interesting stuff, but otherwise unfocused). Now, it's focused laser-sharp at generating page views and getting us to swallow sponsored content. The focus that was missing has now been found, and it's money.
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
The hate is here because this is insulting. We're not hear to get sold products, for the same reason many of us don't window shop at Best Buy or Radio Shack- the sales staff will push a phone plan or the most expensive, unnecessary tech crap. I don't read most of the articles posted, anyways, because the comments seem to have more content about the subject. Just like this one- I can read the headline and summary, and by reading the comments I now know not to follow the link. If I have to get hammered in order to stomach a site full of crap, I would find something better to do (like get hammered and browse more entertaining sites).
The concept of a "nerd" is going away- now, people who are "good at computers" get the title. They don't hack and tinker in life. This BI crap is the same- it's for people who went to business school and are "good with computers", and ended up a suit somewhere. SlashBI is not for nerds. Its for the bosses of nerds. For those of us who stay true to our roots, and do things, don't need SlashBI. "Geeknet" is failing at this /. thing.
"...the articles are aimed at getting page views."
It would be so much better if they posted stuff I wasn't interested in. I don't think I understand this comment...
Articles aimed at getting page views appeal to a broad audience. Even a general audience, like, say American Idol viewers. Slashdot has catered to an audience that Big Media considers a niche - technophiles with actual knowledge. The articles got page views from that (small but obsessive) group, and all of the changes in the last 5-8 years have been to dumb-down and broaden the appeal of articles, thus turning /. from News for Nerds into PC Magazine. This seems to be a common trend among tech-sites: start out focused and interesting, attract a sizeable readership, worry when readership growth slows, and add a bunch of peripheral but less "intimidating" content to bring in more readers, thus alienating the original crowd. You're old enough to know this.