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.
*looks at Dice's News Page*
*looks at Slashdot*
*begins nervously wringing his hands*
My work here is dung.
As in the retail sales? That doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling for Slashdot...
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Are you telling me that Slashdot is worth less than a cheapy mp3 player full of songs? Sheesh! To Dice: if it ain't broken, don't "fix it".
I for one welcome our new Dice overlords.
s/[stupid comments]/[intelligent discourse]/gi
Had to be said.
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
I hope Dice proves to be better corporate overlords than the ones that sent CmdrTaco packing.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Save us CmdrTaco, you're our only hope!
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
Already some discussion on this over at Hacker News.
Anyone know if Rob would want to take back control of Slashdot if we ran a Kickstarter to get it back in the hands of someone who gives a shit?
Not that I'm saying Dice will treat /. badly... but I don't have high hopes for innovation.
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
I for one welcome our new polyhedral overlords. May they smite our enemies with the pointyness of a d4 and bathe us in the glory of a d100
This is still pretty new to us, but we've been looking at this as a positive thing
Hey, I mean, you'll have to forgive me if I can't discern whether you're saying that under duress or while you're busily shredding documents or while you're issuing cyanide capsules or if you're genuinely optimistic about the move. So if you have the time, I'd like to know what aspects of this make your statements genuine. As you noted with the Gawker thing, I get a little uptight about my small little things being bought up and consumed by bigger fish. The bigger the fish that eats you up, the more layers of direction come down upon you. People complain about comments being un-editable and static but I love that. It makes this feel permanent, it allows me to verbally pin people down, etc. But if Executive A five layers removed from you decides it needs to be his way, what are you gonna do? On top of that, how would you have handled the Microsoft source code and Scientology spats if there was someone with money looming over you reminding you of the stakes and telling you to back down?
-- we were worried earlier that if we were rolled into a business that focused entirely on news, we'd be expected to conform to company standards -- see the Gawker sites, for example.
Okay, fair enough. However, I know very little about Dice. And to counter your argument, an advertising company bought MySpace which used to be a social networking site. And now, surprise surprise, it's more ads than user created spaces. You can argue that MySpace was dead already. You can argue that some change had to be made. But I want to know why you feel safe to pick this out to be a plus and not a minus for my overall Slashdot addiction. How do I know Slashdot isn't going to become a vector tool to get eyeballs over to Dice's bread and butter jobs site?
If you have doubts or genuine concern, I'm not asking you to be the turkey with the long neck when farmer Dice comes around looking for his first meal so feel free to reply as Anonymous Coward. I mean, I'm not talking about my employer on web forums so I understand but your arguments should stand on their own -- sans Slashdot icon.
My work here is dung.
10 ) Consolidates Slashdot and Thinkgeek into ThinkSlash, you can moderate items but you also get promoted product placements under every +5 post.
9 ) Last answer on polls now always "Man I could use a new job".
8 ) All posts with word "Monster" auto-modded to -1.
7 ) User profile now includes mandatory job history and expertise fields.
6 ) Tired of too many Apple stories? Too bad.
5 ) Freed of need to bring in ad revenue because of Dicean sugar daddy, Slashdot now works full time on original goal - Cowboy Neal as first man on Mars.
4 ) Anyone with a five digit UID or lower gets to be a bit player in the next Dice.com SuperBowl commercial.
3 ) Troll posts now forwarded to employer to free up jobs for more highly moderated users.
2 ) Big plans for edgier SlashDot after future additional purchase of SuicideGirls.com
1) JOBS FOR EVERYONE!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The media business part of Geeknet is being moved over as a whole. So, all of our projects and priorities are continuing unchanged. In fact, we just had a meeting about this, and the folks from Dice were very clear about not wanting to interfere with the community.
This post was removed due to Dice content standards violations.
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.
God doesn't play with Dice.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I'm not totally sure what it means to sell them for 1 year's revenue
Buyouts and mergers are typically done as a multiple of some portion of the earnings or revenue of the company. It's a quick and dirty way to estimate the value of a company without doing a lot of math. Typical multiples for companies are between 0.8-1.2X annual revenue or 3-5X annual EBITDA (earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization). The multiple is usually adjusted up or down depending on the prospects of the company, the industry it is in as well as the economic climate. Software companies might command a higher multiple than a bricks & mortar retailer. Comparing buyout multiples to historic trends is a good way to identify bubbles as well as gauge the economic climate.
A multiple of 1X annual revenue is a fairly typical price to pay for a company. Doesn't necessarily mean it is a good price but it is about what I would expect someone to pay. In short, I wouldn't read too much into the price paid.
Are we missing something? I'd love to buy an entrenched business for one year's worth of revenue...even if revenues were slowly declining.
Actually that's a fairly typical price for a buyout. Most buyouts are done as a percentage of revenue or EBITDA. Revenue multiples of around 1X annual earnings is a pretty typical price for a firm though it varies by industry, prospects and economic climate. Typical revenue multiples for any buyout is 0.8X-1.2X annual revenue or 3-5X EBITDA.
Remember that if you buy a company for its annual revenue, eventually you have to make that money back. If the profit of the company is say 10% of revenue it will take 10 years to recoup the investment.
I would presume that they would have had to pay more to get the geeknet holdings without slashdot.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
To Dice: if it ain't broken, don't "fix it".
That has never been the motto here. Why would it take hold now?
If it ain't broken, fix it until it is.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"Dice has been talking about building content and user engagement to be top of mind and more integral to professionals doing work..."
Wow, I for one welcome our new marketing-bullshit overlords.
I don't see any kind of integration beneficial to Slashdot readers. Warts and all, we are a community and any "integration" is an attempt to turn us into a commodity.
This site jumped the shark when it was renamed Slashdot from Dips and Chips :P
Chips & Dips supposedly... I wouldn't know as I have no memory of it.
A lot of low UIDs replying to this story. Grow or die, as they say. Problem is I'm not sure Slashdot scales. I know it is really easy to upset the user base. It won't take many blunders to kill off what is still here.
It's up to you Dice. You're definitely the bull in the proverbial China Shop now. Someone with more vision than I might find a way to build on the Slashdot brand without wrecking it, but that will take talent beyond anything we've seen so far.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old