Slashdot Mirror
Dice Buys Geeknet's Media Business, Including Slashdot, In $20M Deal
wiredmikey writes with the press-release version of news that we'll probably be updating as more details trickle down to the editors: "Dice Holdings (Owner of job sites including Dice.com) reported this morning that it has acquired Geeknet's online media business, including Slashdot and SourceForge. 'We are very pleased to find a new home for our media business, providing a platform for the sites and our media teams to thrive," said Ken Langone, Chairman of Geeknet. 'With this transaction completed, we will now focus our full attention on growing ThinkGeek.' Dice Holdings acquired the business for $20 million in cash. In 2011, the online media properties generated $20 million in Revenues." The AP has a small piece with the news, too. Update: 09/18 16:16 GMT by T : Ars Technica has a story up as well.
Did someone have a casino loss to pay off?
Dice,
Please preserve the old stories and comments at their current URLs instead of running over the place with a bulldozer like the acquirers of Digg did. Many of us have hundreds of bookmarks that we don't want to see broken.
Thanks,
Everyone
You'll know there's real trouble when they actually start censoring comments, instead of just allowing users to mod them. The day that Natalie Portman sex jokes, a racist comment claiming Apple is being run by "a bunch of niggers," or a good old-fashioned flamefest is replaced on /. with a bunch of "This post was removed due to Dice content standards violations" boilerplate is the day a lot of us leave Slashdot for good. Here's to hoping that day never comes.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
If they start censoring posts you can be sure there that the ability to post anonymously will also be taken away.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I don't think they care about /. They care about ThinkGeek. I'm more worried about Sourceforge. The world could do with /. pretty easily, but Sourceforge serves an important function.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Oh I'm sure: the days of Slashdot are still numbered. (FTFY).
This site died the first time it was sold. I go back to the year 1998 and I can tell you that Slashdot lost its "mojo" (or "jumped the shark" to use one of slashdot's old memes), a LONG time ago. Just the addition of the face***k link was proof of that.
Like everything on the Interwebs, /. is here today, gone yesterday.
Well, then I'd be done. For years AC is the only way I've ever contributed to slashdot. And despite that I still get +5 Insightful mods from time-to-time.
This is my reaction from what I've heard today from the higher-ups. Duress isn't a factor
The problem is they would say that no matter what. Higher ups always use major change as an opportunity to say there are no troubles anywhere. It could be true, but it could just as easily not be true.
If you think about Geeknet's business, it was rather broadly spread. Slashdot's a news site, ThinkGeek's an e-commerce business, Sourceforge is its own thing. They have common roots, but they don't really go together. I've been aware of Dice, but not terribly familiar with it, but wouldn't you say its business would tend to fit Slashdot better than ThinkGeek?
No. If you think about it what SlashDot, SourceForge and ThinkGeek had in common was a core group of users that was very similar. That meant leadership when thinking what to do with all of the properties had only one audience to keep in mind.
Slashdot users are just a tiny subset of people Dice serves. The general concern would be that there might be an attempt to bring Slashdot to a more general audience since that is what the people that run Dice understand - the broad market, not just the technical niche.
I hope you are right and they really are thinking about carrying on as before. I expect some change is inevitable, but again I'm hoping it's not some kind of push to bring in more general users.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the folks from Dice were very clear about not wanting to interfere with the community.
This is exactly the thing I would expect a new owner who sincerely believed in leaving a good thing alone to say.
This is also exactly the thing I would expect a new owner who had other plans to say.
Only time, not words of reassurance, will reveal Slashdot's future.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm sitting in a conference room right now next to a gentleman from Dice, and he's just been curious what people are saying; hasn't suggested any comments or messaging at all.... my initial impression is positive. I'm thrilled at the possibility of getting a bigger investment into Slashdot, both from an engineering perspective and an editorial perspective.
Translation: "The walls have ears, and I haven't yet figured out my bailout strategy."
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It's also the only way to keep your karma from going in the toilet if you post something that goes against the prevailing wisdom (and we NEED those kind of posters on topics where groupthink tends to set in).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?