Slashdot Mirror
AOL Reverses Course On 401K Match; CEO Apologizes
An anonymous reader writes "When we last checked in with Tim Armstrong, the AOL CEO was demonstrating 'Leadership with a Capital L' to employees of the company's Patch local news subsidiary by summarily firing an employee in the middle of a conference call for taking photos. Armstrong continued to serve up tasty material for tech bloggers this past week, blaming $7.1 million in extra expenses from Obamacare, and for $2 million in expenses for 'two AOLers that had distressed babies', for a decision to hold all matching funds for employee 401K programs until the end of each calendar year. After a small firestorm in the press, and a petition from AOL employees unhappy with both the policy change and the way it was presented, Armstrong reversed course, reinstating the per-period match and apologizing for mentioning the individual employee cases (TechCrunch is an AOL subsidiary). Incidentally, Armstrong was originally following in the footsteps of IBM, which made similar changes to its 401K program that went into effect last year."
I know more people that still like/use AOL, than those who like the ./ beta bullshit.
An Honest Question
What company directs 25% of its users to a partially-working, not-ready-for-production website? Please realize that Beta will not have the features that we want, because they interfere with Dice's plans for Slashdot. Dice presents Slashdot to their advertisers as a "Social Media for B2B Technology" platform. B2B - that's the reason Beta looks like a generic wordpress-based news site. To be sure, a large precentage of Slashdotters work in IT, but Slashdot is most certainly not a B2B site.
Reduced to Zero
Nevertheless, Dice is desperate to make money off of Slashdot, even at the cost of losing much of its current userbase. Turning Slashdot into a social platform for IT "decision makers" is a Haily Mary attempt to recoup the failed investment Dice made in buying Slashdot. As they have revealed in a press release detailing their performance in 2013, this acquisition has not lived up to their financial expectations:
Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.
Change we Can Depend On
The new Beta interface is not the result of a superficial makeover. Keeping in mind that Dice felt confident enough to present it as the new face of Slashdot to 25% of its visitors, it is safe to say that the new commenting and moderation system is exactly how they intended it to be. It is a new design that deliberately cripples the one thing that makes Slashdot what it is today, viz. thebest commenting and moderation system online today. From the users' perspective, there is nothing wrong with Slashdot that demands gutting its foundations and dumping the one part of Slashdot we exactly like. As others have commented, this is an attempt to monetize /. at any any cost, and its users be damned. Dice views its users, the ones who create the site, as a passive audience. As such, it is interchangeable with its intended B2B crowd. We, the current users of Slashdot, are an obstacle in Dice's way.
The Dice are Cast
This is why they ignore the detailed feedback we have given them in the months since Beta was first revealed. This is also why they now disregard our grievances and complaints. Their claims of hearing us are a deliberate snow job. It is only pretense, since at the same time they openly admit that Classic will be cancelled soon:
"Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready.
Planned Obsolescence
There is a reason why "News for Nerds, stuff that matters" no longer appears in the header:
Slashdot Media’s brands include Slashdot and SourceForge. These technology sites provide access to tools, software and forums for enterprise IT professionals working in all industries and companies from the world’s largest to small and medium-sized fi
Fuck I hate beta