Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Gigaom Closes Shop

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-shame dept.

Presto Vivace writes "What a loss for the tech community," linking to this announcement at Gigaom that the site is shutting down: Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time. As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company's assets as their collateral. All operations have ceased. We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets. The company does not currently intend to file bankruptcy. We would like to take a moment and thank our readers and our community for supporting us all along. — Gigaom management Reader bizwriter adds a link to this story on the shutdown.

15 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. The tech site of my dreams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tech is escapism. I want the tech site that doesn't preach political bullshit of any persuasion, yet still isn't a tech industry PR news feed.

    1. Re:The tech site of my dreams by Rob+Riggs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Views that are worth having are worth defending against opposing ones.

      Why exactly? They are your views. Why do you need to defend them? Either they hold up on their own, or they don't.

      In fact, I would argue that the exact opposite is true. The only views worth having are those that need no defense. They are well-supported by established evidence. All views should be treated with a commensurate level of skepticism based on the evidence available to support them.

      --
      the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
  2. Never heard of it by rbanzai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can someone summarize what it's value was to the tech community?

    1. Re:Never heard of it by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly. Seems like there was a reason they closed shop.

    2. Re:Never heard of it by Isca · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The sad part is that I went to their main page and scrolled back the last few weeks of stories. It seems to have an Ars Technica feel to it, which is a good thing. I may have even bookmarked it and read it on occasion had I known it existed...

    3. Re:Never heard of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Can someone summarize what it's value was to the tech community?

      The proprietor was a self-styled tech elite asshat. He impressed some people, but not enough apparently. He always struck me as a phony. Gigaom as a site had enough insider scoops that they were useful for breaking news in the actual tech industry (not the consumer tech industry that gets hashed and rehashed by Engadget, Slashdot, and a dozen others) so it had a little value, but it was never the tech thought leadership paragon that it pretended to be.

    4. Re:Never heard of it by Minwee · · Score: 3, Informative

      Though I'm sure he'll land somewhere.

      I'm sure he landed somewhere else about a year ago.

  3. Who or what is Gigaom? by Nighttime · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Until this story, I'd never heard of them. Would it have hurt to included a brief sentence or two in the summary as to why it's "a loss for the tech community"?

    --
    I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
    1. Re:Who or what is Gigaom? by jeffmeden · · Score: 3, Informative

      Until this story, I'd never heard of them. Would it have hurt to included a brief sentence or two in the summary as to why it's "a loss for the tech community"?

      Gigaom is a media company (mostly news aggregation and blogging) founded by writer/journalist Om Malik, who turned out to be the company's only asset. After he left for greener pastures in 2014, the site slid quickly into obscurity.

    2. Re:Who or what is Gigaom? by jhecht · · Score: 3, Informative

      Gigaom was a good site for tracking telecommunications news for several years, founded by Om Malik, who wrote a very good book on the 2000 Bubble called Broadbandits, which focused on telecomm giants -- including giant scams like MCI. Malik was a perceptive analyst and writer, and I read it frequently in the 2000s. Its demise reminds me that I hadn't visited it of late. It also reminds me there are a lot of tech websites out there, and a new wave of companies turning out what apparently are tech news apps specifically for mobile apps. As the Inc. article says, "Once again there's a bit of that old aroma of burning money in the air."

  4. Great story, Slashdot by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thanks very much for this story about a website no-one has heard of shutting down. Bonus points for not even telling us what the website's raison d'etre was in the first place, or why we should care that's it closing.

    As you can see it has stimulated much discussion, all of which is so far on the topic of "what the fuck was Gigaom?"

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Great story, Slashdot by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Clearly the entire community of Gigaom upvoted the news piece.

      Apparently, on slow news days you can bypass the firehose with about 15 votes.

  5. Not Enough Apple! by GNious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clearly they didn't post enough Apple news, Apple reviews, Apple opinions or other Apple-related articles, since no-one here seems to have heard of them...

  6. I have an idea by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Funny

    Good thing Slashdot posts slashvertisements, job leads from 1000 miles away, and show stupid bullshit spam ads to its 100% ad-blind readers. I guess that's how you stay afloat in this business.

  7. Well there's your problem right there... by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Gigaom reaches over 6.5 million monthly unique readers and continues to be the leading independent voice that demystifies emerging technology through its news, events and research. We’re a new type of media company with a business model that leverages technology, transparency and access to information. The company’s growth has been propelled by great writers, journalistic integrity, industry depth and audience engagement.

    We offer integrated advertising programs across all of our channels: Cloud, Data, Media, Mobile, Science & Energy, Social & Web, and Podcasts. With a strong mobile reach of over 2 million monthly readers, our mobile advertising on Flipboard is highly targeted. With an array of podcasts, newsletters and other custom campaigns, we have a campaign offering to fit any client’s budget and marketing goals.

    I don't know who these "6.5 million monthly unique readers" are, but if the regular crowd at Slashdot has never even heard of their site, then they weren't really reaching 6.5 million people, or they were the wrong 6.5 million people. According to their careers page it looks like they had a lot of overhead and tried to run like an old fashioned news company with two offices in major cities. They certainly weren't lean-and-mean.

    https://about.gigaom.com/caree...

    --
    Better known as 318230.