Slashdot Mirror
Andover.Net Files for IPO
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact:
Janet Holian
Andover.Net
Communications
978/635-5300
janet@andover.net
Shawn Whalen/Manya Rossignoli
Schwartz
781/684-0770
manyar@schwartz-pr.com
Acton, MA-September 17, 1999- Andover.Net (www.andover.net), a network of Linux/Open Source web sites which include Slashdot.org, today announced that it has filed a Registration Statement on Form S-1 with respect to a proposed initial public offering of 4,000,000 shares of Andover.Net common stock. All 4,000,000 shares are being offered by Andover.Net at a proposed price range of $12 to $15 per share. The offering is being underwritten by WR Hambrecht + Co. LLC, Advest, Inc. and DLJ Direct through WR Hambrecht + Co.'s proprietary OpenIPO system.
Andover.Net is a leading Linux/Open Source Internet destination with a total of over 2 million users and over 40 million page impressions on a monthly basis. Its network of web sites provides an independent, unbiased source for content, community and commerce for the Linux/Open Source communities. Andover.Net properties include Slashdot (slashdot.org), a Web site for Linux/Open Source news, community comments and resources and Freshmeat (freshmeat.net), a downloadable Linux software application repository.
The OpenIPO process is similar to a traditional underwriting except that the pricing and allocation of the shares will be based on the results of a modified Dutch auction. All investors place a bid for the number of shares they want to own and the price they want to pay. To participate in the offering, an investor must have an account with WR Hambrecht + Co. or a participating broker in the OpenIPO Network.
Information regarding the OpenIPO process may be obtained through www.wrhambrecht.com. Copies of the preliminary prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained when available through WR Hambrecht + Co.'s website, www.wrhambrecht.com, or by contacting WR Hambrecht + Co. in writing at 555 Lancaster Avenue, Suite 200, Berwyn, PA 19312 or by calling toll free 1-877-673-6476. Copies of the preliminary prospectus may also be obtained by contacting Advest, Inc. in writing at 100 Federal Street, 29th Floor, Boston, MA 02110, or by calling (800) 659-2678 x2390.
A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. The securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time that the registration statement becomes effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to their registration or qualification under the securities laws of such state.
###
Andover.Net and AndoverNews Network, are trademarks of Andover.Net.
I'm thinking that when Bendover.net goes public, it won't be successful at all. You're better puttin' your $$ into solid long term investments, vs. short term flighty investments. Go Cisco!
You're right. Bendover.net gets rich, you just get sold out. Time to polish your resume.
first it was the suits now it will be shareholders...
/. going down the crapper :{
whats that giant flushing sound i hear,,,
i for one am sad to see it go
not a coward just hate cookies
Companies like Redhat might be even worse than Microsoft. At least microsoft paid people to write software they sold. Redhad just stood on the shoulders of giants and plucked money off the tree.
I'm trying to figure out if Andover are a good buy. Anyone got income/profit figures ?
These days you dont "need" to make money to have a profitable IPO, you just need the name, whatever happens andover.net's owners will make it big by this IPO, even if in 6 months the whole thing dies, i certainly hope the andover people give shares to the developers like redhat did afterall they are the ones who have made linux what it is and what it will be.
the clock keeps ticking, someday it will ring
when the love of money prevails over the love of technology
will it ring with the closing bell of the market on IPO day?
"Contrary to SEC rules"
That would be profoundly foolish. Geeks have a low bullshit tolerance, and if geeks aren't who the investors wanted to reach, slash is free, so they never should have bought into Andover.
How can a ".org" do an IPO? Seems incredibly hypocritical (and deceitful).
In the inital filing, a company can omit many details, and fill them in later.
Good lord.
Yup, I'm sure they could have gotten 5 times what they did and kept the same terms regarding Malda having full control of the site. I think they got bad advice from their lawyers. But if Andover's stock does as well as RedHat's, I suppose $5 million at the IPO price isn't that bad.
What is this?? The leaders of the open source movement on the net,, the ones who cry out free software for all!!,, Have they actually SOLD OUT!!! hahahah I love it, good luck guys and I mean that but this is damned funny.
...if you hadn't made the blunder of the century and sold this golden goose to andover...
...if you guys hadn't sold off the golden goose.
Everyone cheers for the underdog (linux) but bets on the favorite (MS).
First off, CONGRATS! Slashdot is IMHO by the best news forum online. (I hope it gets lots better:) You "owners" certainly deserve to be rewarded, and "thanks" obviously doesn't pay rent or cut cake. Besides, prosperity could be useful, right? But at the possible expense of some trust?
So.. ASK SLASHDOT: are there alternatives to IPOs and Stock Ownership to finance Internet Companies? Was the RHAT IPO as fair as it could have been? Are better methods of "ownership" even conceivable? Can they, in reality, be hacked?
Why does nobody here ever mention chaords? Search /. for the word "CHAORD". Nothing, right? Try "chaordic". So.. these words don't exist here, at least before this post, right?. (ha! first post!:^)
Chaord? (CHAos+ORDer) It's that which "exists in the phase between chaos and order." A chaord is a "self-organizing, self-governing complex capable of constant learning and evolution." Like Linux. Like the Internet. Like money.
Pull out your shiny VISA card. Take a good look. Quite a capitalist tool, huh? Founded in the sixties, VISA International has grown 20% annually, through boom and bust, thick and thin, past $1.2 trillion in 1998 sales (11 zeros), with no end in sight. Hmmm. Wanna buy stock? No way, Jose.
VISA International is "owned" by its members. They share "ownership" by non-transferable rights of participation. (User rights!) These rights can't be bought, sold, traded or raided. Dee Hock, who founded VISA, had hoped to extend this ownership to merchants and cardholders, but it wasn't possible at the time. (Had it been, Mr. Hock believes the VISA community would be four times more powerful! )
Think I'm a wacko AC? Read the links. VISA thrives by an alternative system of "ownership", which, at its core, better motivates and rewards innovation by members. Does this sound a bit more in tune with open source purposes and principles?
As Open Source starts to suck in lawyers and money, how might we addapt? Maybe business planners can consider evidently successful alternatives to IPO's, and the inevitable management of "responsibilities to shareholders." It may be in their interest to do so.
In the end, informed users (customers) don't appreciate being forked over by short-sighted proprietary systems bent on obscene profits. So we then seek options. If we don't find them, we then create them.
- A.C., but not for long :->
"listen to the technology.. find out what it's telling you" -G.Gilder
http://www.cascadepolicy.org/dee_hock.htm
http://www.chaordic.org/chaordic
http://www.fastcompany.com/online
That's assuming a 100% sellout and an unrealistic CPM.
I would be surprised if the real numbers weren't closer to 10%-15% and an average of $15 per thousand...
The implication is that those sites shown make up 100% of the market - I can toss out several that get significant traffic that aren't even listed!
The Wired article says that anyone can bid on shares in the Open IPO process. See the entire article for more details: "WR Hambrecht and Co. will underwrite the Andover.Net offering of 4 million shares. Shares are expected to sell for between $12 and $15. The exact figure will be determined through the underwriter's OpenIPO system. That arrangement, more commonly known as a modified Dutch auction, allows interested investors to place a bid for the number of shares they want to own and the price they want to pay. In effect, it will allow anyone the chance to bid for shares in Andover.Net before the stock begins trading. That's a critical move for the company, because the arrangement will effectively include the thousands of programmers, developers, and tech-watchers who contribute to Slashdot. Giving Slashdot.org participants a chance to buy stock before opening day "is the main reason we are doing what we are doing," Andover.Net spokeswoman Janet Holian said."
1) You can't trademark a "common word." Could Slashdot be considered something of this? One of the prerequisites is if it is used in media: "...the site was immediately slashdotted..."
2) There is nothing to prevent the use of a "name" as such, when referring to that item. You just can't claim it as yours. /. buttons should be safe.
3) The Slash engine (at least up to the current revision -- is this why Rob hasn't released a new version? no...he's been busy well b4 andover bought his site) can't be rescinded because its GPLed. Now, they can release new versions with a different license, but they can't prevent the use of older versions..
Just thoughts. :)
The Hambrecht web site explains this pretty well, but here is a summary: The bid price range is $ 12 to $ 15. Lets say the company wants to raise $117. If two people bid 15, 3 people bid 14, 4 bid 13 and 6 bid 12, then there are 9 people willing to pay at least $13. The 9 will pay $ 13 each, and the company gets a total of $ 117. The people that bid higher only pay the minimum bid neccesary to fill the amount being raised. The people that placed lower bids do not get any shares. So, the successfull buyers pay just one price for the shares.
You see popups? Did you enable JavaScript or something crazy like that? For pity's sake, turn it off before the next security exploit is found! (Problem solved, just as a bonus.)
Huh? What's wrong with that? Free Software is a system of ethics and/or a development strategy, not a vow of poverty.
No stock allocation for me! Seriously, I read the S-1, and I don't see any affinity program in it, or any room for an affinity program the way Hambrecht describes the IPO bidding process.
Only half kidding, imagine the e-mail ad revenue they could pull. Uunet started out as a non-profit organization.
disobey.com published this article on 30 August 1999. NASDAQ was open that day and RHAT was trading. RHAT opened at 80 3/4 and closed at 75 9/16. So everybody who got some at 14 already had a profit of over 400%. The author and publisher of that article neglected to mention that.
Hey, if I want to put my money into gold coins, my MAD magazine collection, or an open-source IPO, get the hell out of my way and let me.
By the way, kudos to Andover.net for using a Dutch Auction system. I've read the S-1 and I'm sending in account applications to both Hambrecht and DLJ Direct.
No, in all seriousness, I believe this will be one IPO I'll try to get in on, just because there'd be something neat about (indirectly?) owning a piece of my favorite community.
I didn't get in on RHAT (no problem, didn't want in), but I've got to get me some of these shares... I think I'll even have my online broker send me a paper copy (valued at just 1 share, keep the rest electronic) and frame it. :)
Hmm.. Can't tell (see above), but I wonder if SureTrade is part of OpenIPO.
No coward, just at school...
The only thing you loose is a couple of statements, but with most online brokerages you can ask for duplicates if you absolutely need them.
But then, AFAIK, the "US resident" thing is purely an E*Trade houserule, and may not apply to DLJ Direct. DLJ Direct has a list with a couple of restrictions, but this one is not among them
(in case anybody wonders: Meow is the answer to "Cat got your tongue")
Slashdot's owner apparently doesn't think of "proprietary" as a swear word; in fact he tried to impress investors with it. This is a Bad Sign.
Because, of course, back then, EVERYONE was an AC. And somehow Slashdot seemed to work just fine without all this logging-in, moderation, we-track-your-ip paranoia that seems rampant today.
The Andover IPO worries me from an investment perspective. According to the filing, Andover plans to build a substantial revenue base off of... (heard this one before?) ad revenue. I agree that 40M hits/mo. is a respectible number of eyeballs. However, few websites have been able to convert lots of hits into lots of $$$ without a bit of a fight. Certainly, lots of companies want to target the 'average' Slashdot and Freshmeat reader (if there is such a thing :)). How many of these readers will go the next step past just viewing a banner ad for some big-money corporation and actually clicking on it -- let alone buying anything as a result.
The bottom line: where's the revenue going to come from? For hyped IPOs, opening stock price != future profit potential. Andover is going to have to make some good money off their ads or find a better business model quick.
This has nothing to do with the failure of communism, or micros~1's right to redistribute stolen money. What we're witnessing is pure (or even innocent?) form of wealth-seeking.
Andover.bet bought out Slashdot.org (note: the dot.com and dot.net domains aren't theirs) in order to take advantage of its visibility in cashing in the IPO. This "anti-establishment" site which set out to make the world a better place for the geeky folks will just end up making Tamo, Hecos & Co millionaires; not to mention the Andover.bet executives who're really going to roll in dough soon. Courtesy of your average Slashdot visitor - not only as investors but as de facto makers of this site as well. I hope the guys' first post-IPO job will be to migrate all operations to the dot.com domain (pay the current holder the millions needed), the second job ought to be handing over the dot.org domain to new "maintainers" who're in it for the cause and idea, not big bucks. For me Slashdot was about a new genre in _journalism_. Good journalists simply aren't running after IPO riches.
Gates must be laughing in his castle watching the backbone community of geeks self-destruct for a few million dollars. You can't buy respect, you can only sell what you got, once.
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"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." - Phil. 1:21 (KJV)
No! Don't. That would just annoy non-US residents again.
JPEG - 116,122 bytes - Andover.Net Prospectus Page 2, "Linux Resource Sites -- Visits"
(Andover.Net's prospectus, pgs. 40-41)
That raises an interesting point.. Since Slashdot is a key selling point for them in this, you'll probably be forced to give up some creative control. It just won't fly in corporate-land if your main selling point can be taken elsewhere by a single person at a moment's notice. Then again, with the chunk of dough you'll be getting out of this, maybe creative control won't be an issue for you anymore. I don't know.
I've been watching Andover for awhile now, even moreso since they started their whole "Linux campaign". Their sole agenda seems to be advertising. With the way banner ads are going lately, I sure do hope they plan to branch out into other areas.
One possibilty to watch for is subscription print publication.. (Slashdot Magazine, anyone?) I just can't see a model centered solely on banner ads working for a media company. It may work for the porn industry, but there has to be something more there. What would really be neat is if they'd team up with Walnut Creek CDROM and sell subscriptions to weekly or monthly CDs of Freshmeat-featured Unix applications.
Oh well. Might be something to throw a few grand at. We'll see.
Stock symbol "FSCK", anyone?
That graphic is pretty old, date-wise. I don't think linux.com had even relaunched in May and they had a TON of "popular" press about that. The numbers now would probably be a fair amount (but not significantly) different.
I hate to say it, but I don't agree with that commentary.
Noone recommended the stock to us. Red Hat offered, E*Trade was just the middleman. The investment amount was relatively small. $1400 for 100 shares? We're not talking IBM or AOL here. I went into this process having enough cash set aside for the shares I wanted to purchase.
If anything, those in the high tech industry are more familar with IPOs than other industries.
To top it off, I didn't buy shares to make a mint of money. That I did is a side issue. I bought the shares so that I would be a shareholder of RedHat. I have bought their products in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.
Did anyone else notice that it said they'd be using the "proprietary OpenIPO system"? Doesn't that sound kind of contradictory?
-- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
see subject
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Yeah! Issue a share or two to the first 1000 slashdotters or something! A 'just for fun' kind of thing.
Oh wait, you're 1093, bummer.
Anyway, I'll buy.
-- James Taylor
I'm not talking about posts, I'm talking about account numbers.
You for example, are slashdotter #84343
The idea being the people who have been reading and contributing to slashdot since it was just rob's news page, and later chips and dips, and finally this monstrosity, would have something essentially worthless but cool to hold up. It's for the hardcore groupies.
(hmmm... I miss eplus)
>Yeah! Issue a share or two to the first 1000 slashdotters or something! A 'just for fun' kind of thing.
:-)
I'll support that!
The _only_ spam I get to my work address is from Andover. Twice I've been solicited to advertise on Slashdot or Freshmeat, and this is REALLY, REALLY insulting. I never chose to receive this crap. Notice how it says "through a special agreement through Andover.net"--every one of these messages say that prominantly, some were directly from Andover! The following is what arrived in my inbox today:
- ---------------------- - ----------------------
- ----------------------
- ---------------------- - ----------------------
- ----------------------
- ----------------------
CAMAExpress September 16, 1999
-------------------------------------------------
Your weekly e-mail update from Computer Advertisers' Media Advisor
-------------------------------------------------
Through a special arrangement with Andover.Net, you have been selected
to receive a free subscription to CAMAExpress, the weekly e-mail update
from Computer Advertisers' Media Advisor.
Computer Advertisers' Media Advisor is the monthly newsletter that
delivers the hard numbers, analysis, and news and information that helps
technology marketers make the best choices and get the most for their
advertising dollars.
We hope you'll enjoy CAMAExpress. To learn more about Computer
Advertisers' Media Advisor and even subscribe online, please visit our
Web site.
To decline CAMAExpress, send an e-mail titled UNSUBSCRIBE to
camaexpres@aol.com
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Study: Internet yellow pages market to reach nearly $102 million in 1999
Internet yellow pages will generate about $101.7 million in revenues in
1999 . less than 1 percent of the yellow pages advertising market, but a
120 percent increase over 1998, according to a new study from Simba
Information.
The highly competitive Internet yellow pages market includes print
yellow pages publishers, Internet-only directories, niche services and
city guides. These yellow pages players will make up 1.8 percent of the
overall Web advertising market Simba estimates at $5.5 billion this
year.
Simba projects that Internet yellow pages revenues will increase to
$393.2 million by 2002, or 2.6 percent of the total yellow pages market
and 5.5 percent of the total Web advertising market.
"We see niche directories continuing to grow and offer more of a threat
to traditional yellow pages sites because they allow consumers looking
for a specific purchase to bypass the directories altogether," said
Harry Baisden, editorial director at Simba Information. "These niche
sites also are increasingly forming partnerships with major Internet
players that drive heavy traffic to the specialty sites."
Some of the more popular niche sites also are in areas near and dear to
traditional yellow page publishers' hearts - restaurants, physicians and
surgeons, lawyers and automobile dealers.
Meanwhile, search engines, such as Yahoo!, Lycos and Infoseek, represent
a competitive threat to Internet yellow pages because search engines
point consumers either directly to business Web sites or to partner
niche directories, the report points out. Search engines already have a
large share of Internet usage and advertising.
-------------------------------------------------
Click here to subscribe online
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New ZDNet programs match ads to surfer interests
This week ZDNet unveiled two ad programs . Home Base Targeting and
Window of Opportunity (WOO) Targeting . designed to increase advertising
relevancy and effectiveness for both ZDNet visitors and advertisers.
According to ZDNet, Home Base and WOO are advanced behavioral targeting
programs that gather a more succinct understanding of an individual's
implicit product, service and information preferences based on their
historical activity on the site.
The mega-publisher claims that, unlike other sites that limit their
targeted ads to the last search term entered, or the subject of the
document the user is reading at that particular moment, ZDNet is able to
target to a deeper layer by flagging specific pages a reader visits. By
discerning the content and purpose of specific pages visited by an
individual, ZDNet says its technology creates the ability for
advertisers to send, and visitors to receive tailored, relevant
messages.
The new programs use a visitor-profiling system that anonymously tracks
the implicit preferences of users by following their activity across the
site. The database enables ZDNet to categorize its audience by matching
IP-based network affiliation and anonymous user activity data from its
own servers with internal demographic databases and a variety of
national and third-party databases.
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[Image]
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Proxy servers can make 37 million site visitors look like 30.7 million
An increase in proxy server usage by Internet service providers (ISPs)
has resulted in an underreporting of site traffic by Web sites that rely
on measurements based on local log files, says traffic analyzer
WebSideStory.
Proxy caching appeals to ISPs because it reduces bandwidth requirements
by eliminating the need to "pull" remote content repeatedly, each time
an individual subscriber wants to visit a Web page that another user has
already requested. For the ISP, the result is faster service to
customers and less traffic routed over the Internet backbone.
Smart caching systems also benefit Web surfers since they provide a
faster response by reducing the time needed to access popular Web
content.
However, proxy caching presents significant challenges to the owners of
Web sites. Among the most serious are decreased advertising revenues and
skewed audience profiling. With increasing numbers of surfers now
accessing content through proxy servers, these problems become more
pronounced.
Log file analysis misses hits that are served by proxy, so the totals it
provides are misleading. Further, by missing proxy hits, log file
analysis also consistently misses an important demographic category,
that of Web users who will always be served by proxy through large
networks such as AOL.
--
Woohoo! I'm #972! :)
(Maybe we'll just encourage posts like this)
--
Hey, Give us slashdot readers the opportunity to buy stocks before anyone else. Exspecially those of us who have been reading since before slashdot, the good ol days of Chips And Dip. Jeff Knox
Jeff Knox
IANAL, but I wonder what's going to happen about moderation in this thread and how it relates to the 'Quiet Period'?
Certainly if Rob (or anyone at Andover.net) were to comment, or moderate in this then ISTM that they might be deemed to be in breach of the 'Quiet Period'. The question is, if someone who is not associated with Andover.net, but who was selected to have some level of editorial control by a program that was written by an employee of Andover.net, what happens?
Personally, I'm not sure I want to go there...
Umm, I like /. and fm, but they are neither of them significant parts of the glue that holds the Linux community together.
/. is :-)
/. and fm are simply notification sites - they help distribute important stuff, but they are neither hard to replicate if they fail, or vital links in the chain.
The Linux community was doing _just fine_ prior to either of these sites - you're forgetting just how recent
They are both good sites, but they are not important to any definable community (OpenSource, Linux, FreeBSD, Internet, Techy).
kernel.org might be important glue - certainly some of the mailing lists are important glue - but
-----
Please check out:
http://www.mtdc.com/press004.html
In particular:
Bruce Twickler, President of Andover, noted, "The acquisition, repurposing and commercialization of content is an extraordinary opportunity for growth. Our proprietary database-driven site creation tools, data collection tools, web tracking and reporting systems, and other technologies allow us to get to a breakeven point on a new site quickly."
Sounds like a man after Rupert Murdoch's heart, to me.
-----
I agree, although it's worth remembering the Andover doesn't have the huge media frenzy that accompanied the Red Hat IPO, so it's likely to be a little more restrained.
Anyway, while not wanting to start a "my karma's higher than yours" flamefest, how about a "users with highest karma" hall of fame entry, Rob?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
However, someone else raised a valid point. If traffic decreases, will changes be forced upon you to try and increase readership? I believe there's enough integrity there to try and fight such a move, but at the end of the day, you may not have much choice. One of the perils of beign publically traded is that the company is legally bound to maximise shareholder value, whatever the ethics of doing so. Hopefully, it'll never come to that, but you never know...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
So, if we're a stockholder, will anyone listen when we say "Quit posting stories that were posted two weeks ago!"?
:)
/. people really getting a return on the work they do. I hope (as the other posts mentioned) that this doesn't leave slashdot open for raping the way dejanews went, went the marketroids got their hands on it. Dejanews was ruined by them, and I'd hate to see Slashdot have the same thing happen.
;)
Seriously though, I think Andover should do like RedHat and give back to the community. How about a free share to the people with the lowest slashdot ID numbers? How about everyone 2822 and before? Yeah, that's good by me.
Seriously more, though, its good to see the
Nah, like many sites, they added all their marketing crap and made it significantly more difficult to use with Lynx.
But 40 million page views and 2 million page visitors a month is tiny compared to the bases that lycos and yahoo (the only two companies with a profitable advertising driven model) have. I think this IPO is going the way of Salon :(
comment() {return(NULL)};
Or in perl:
undef $comment;
Frankly, I'm not sure how yahoo!(TM) is getting away with "Do You Yahoo!?", but don't really feel up to slapping them with a lawsuit.
Yahoo! is able to use "Do You Yahoo!?" without problems because they also trademarked that phrase -- see the trademark filing on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database.
I don't think Slashdot is in much danger of trademark dilution at this point, though Andover employees and contributors probably should catch up on trademark guidelines so they don't use the name improperly.
Rogers Cadenhead (Web: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench)
SlashDot in a 'quiet period'... the mind boggles. /. Comment Ever:
---------------------
Most Annoying
"If I use Red$at Gnulix to make a Beowulf,
---------------------
John 3:16 - God's Public License
When did they move Red Hat out of Durham? Or does this guy know a lot less about Red Hat than he thinks?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I thought it started in late 1997. Have we had Slashdot's second birthday yet? (In dog years / Internet time, that would make it fourteen.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I know that the Andover IPO isn't likely to generate as much heat and light as the Red Hat IPO, but I thought it would be opportune to point /.'ers towards the best commentary I've seen on the Red Hat affair. Let's hope the whole things goes a little more smoothly this time.
And the URL is... this here
A media-oriented company can criticize and make fun of the guys who own it, because if those guys have even the slightest notion of what PR is, they'll never take the risk of shutting you up
Remember on the Simpsons when an Australian-accented fellow prisoner said "I own that network!" when Sideshow Bob criticized Fox?
Even Citizen Murdoch doesn't kill his minions for making fun of him.
Glad to see it done in a Open IPO format...yes, it means there won't be a huge run-up in the price b/c it's not as sexy to institutional investors as traditional IPOs but it DOES mean that individuals get a shot at the IPO price instead of buying in when it's inflated only to lose money when IIs sell it while you're still holding...
It will be great to watch it all so that we can learn from it for NewsTrolls' future IPO!...
Congrats Rob, Jeff, and crew!
-diva
diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
Seriously, I love /. and freshmeat, but no way is this a better investment than RedHat. Where's the revenue stream? Banner ads? I'd agree that Andover is a better investment than most '.com' IPO's, because I know that their sites are quality products and have a strong following. But at this point, web IPO's are still matters of faith. Investing in one means that either:
A) You believe that sooner or later, someone will come up with a workable business model for website profitability, or
B) You believe that the stock will be hot because the majority of investors are idiotic sheep, and you intend to buy low, and sell high, quickly.
Now neither of these is a bad thing in itself, but given the web IPO market lately, choice B is no longer a guaranteed path to riches, and choice A still relies on your believing that foo.com will still be around when someone figures out how to make money with "new media." On that score, I'd say Andover's a better bet than most, but I don't think I'd drop my cash here.
And given the choice between Redhat at 12 and Andover at 12, I'd take RH in a heartbeat. And YES I was one of the few who said that RH was a very strong buy before the IPO, and subsequent skyrocketing. I kept telling my coworkers to buy, even when it was at 60 in the first couple weeks. Wish I had had some money to buy it myself. :-)
Anyway, best of luck to Andover, and the /.-FM crew!
----
We all take pink lemonade for granted.
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
I've read a number of comments deriding Rob, Jeff & Co for "selling out" and throwing away their affiliation to the open source software movement. I'd just like to ask these people, and anyone else who holds similar beliefs: what is wrong with making money?
The six dot three mil BSI received for /. has bought a lot, so far. It's bought four booty-kickin' servers to make sure everyone can get to the site whenever they want to, most visibly. But most importantly, it's bought the Malda and his boys freedom from worrying about what they're going to eat next week.
Without incentives, the vast majority programmers would not program. I sure wouldn't. I don't want to see the Internet turn into an infinitely deep pool of free information just for kicks; I want it to happen because it'll make us all rich, improving our lives immeasurably.
The point of the Internet is to get everyone rich. So quit harping about how Rob's tossed his ideals out the window. His ideals, I suspect, were never yours: if they had been, Slashdot would not exist.
What happens if traffic on Slashdot decreases? Will shareholders insist on a format change to drive ad impressions up? If stock price plummets, shareholders will eventually hold the company accountable. I do not see any way to avoid ramifications to
I'd say that depends on how much of the stock goes on the block, and how many shares are kept... um... over there. *pointing to Andover*
RedHat only sold a small percentage of the total shares. That does two things -- it makes the pre-IPO owners fantastically rich, on paper, and it keeps them in charge of the company. Even if you can get all of the public shareholders to agree on something, the influence there may be 10% of the total voting shares. Or less.
Don't be surprised if Andover does the same thing. If there's a money crunch, they can always sell off some of the extra stock for more capital.
Maybe they should start a consulting business for sites using the Slash code... hmm... or the Freshmeat code, if people prefer PHP....
--
QDMerge 0.21!
how to invest, a novice's guide
Seriously, most of us also know how to implement advertising filters, so it's not the best place to try and advertise...
CJ.
If my memory serves (having read the whole prospectus earlier this afternoon), the contract states that if Andover "fires" Rob et al for reasons other than criminal activity, the following is triggered:
(1) They get paid their salary for a year;
(2) Amounts owed within the contract for the purchase of Slashdot are still owed;
(3) They are released from any non-compete agreements.
So yes, they can legally restart Slashdot under those conditions, with a nice infusion of capital over the next few years.
Obviously, this isn't going to happen. And it looks like Andover is adhering to their end of the deal. I've noticed only two changes in Slashdot since the takeover: Rob has spent lots more time tinkering with the system, to mainly good results, and the overall quality (i.e. ability to pay bills) of sponsors has gone up. So far, so good.
D
----
Net Centuries ago, the domain name system was originally split into the COM, NET and ORG top-level domains. Originally, COM was commercial organization, NET was ISP, and ORG was organization, pretty much a catch-all.
.com equivalent probably is too.
.org domain name, so I doubt that buying the .com equivalent will matter enough for it to be worth what the owner's asking. One thing for sure: it's not being used for much now.
The NET part of this was occasionally policed, but as far as I know the InterNIC never (or hardly ever) scrutinized applications for the ORG domain. Once they started charging for names, I believe that pretty much any type of policing went out the window - you could get whatever domain name you wanted, as long as it was not taken and you could afford the fee.
Now, as others have mentioned, you are actively encouraged to take your name in all domains so the InterNIC gets more money.
Rob has mentioned publically that he's tried to get slashdot.com, but the existing owner won't sell. Probably he's hoping for an AltaVista-style payout from Andover. It's a pretty similar situation - AltaVista spent a lot of time and money building up the altavista.digital.com brandname, but since people were confusing it with altavista.com, Digital/Compaq eventually had to buy the domain for $ 3.5 million. Likewise, the Slashdot brand name is now worth quite a bit of money (as we can see from the purchase amount), so the
Fortunately, I think most Slashdot readers are "hip" to the
Hope that gives you the proper perspective.
D
----
If I'm not mistaken, the agreement between Rob et al, and Andover was such that it gives him control over the content - even if Andover is acquired by a new owner. This ought to be interesting.
I really support this IPO system. By having everyone bid up the shares *before* they go to market, the offering company gets the benefits of all the speculation (or the lack of funds for a poorly timed or low value IPO). It will be interesting to watch this offering, since it doesn't present the same opportunity for ridiculous first-few-day gains that RedHat did.
Good luck.
Will I be able to buy (/bid?) through etrade ?
Repeat after me: THIS IS NOT FLAMEBAIT OR TROLL MATERIAL! :)
:), I wonder if it will benefit Slashdot on a deeper level. Truthfully, I can't see how it possibly can.
/. culture.
/.'ers would want to discuss it, but will we run the risk of not having the stories posted in the first place?
/.? Will there be a change in privacy policies? I guess that's another wait and see. By the way, you can not tell shareholders you won't change your policies simply because that's how you want to do it, as many people think Redhat can and will do once shareholders start asking for more substantial profits.
/. was mentioned as being an "unbiased" news site for the Linux community in Andovers press-release. Did/does this strike anyone else as being not ocmpletely true? When has there been a positive MSFT story posted? When has someone said something nice about MSFT without being shot down in flames?
/. accept payment to post articles about xyz companies new product or strategy? Will we face geocities like pop-up ads? How about open-source related spam? Will our comments be analzyed in order to figure out exactly what offers we'd like to recieve?
/. will finally get an extra server that they can dedicate to email for registered users... dibs on "lucas@slashdot.org" ! :)
:( ... I hope someone else highlights them...)
Thanks, now I'll continue.
As much as I can see how beneficial this will be to Rob, the rest of the slashdot crew, and even slashdot's availability as a site (I hope for the day that slashdot is no longer slashdotted
Aside from bigger servers, fatter pipes, and maybe more people reading submissions in search of articles to post, what will it bring to Slashdot? As far as I figure it will only serve to bring more accountability to the
What happens when a comment is posted that speaks negatvely of Andover?
Going further, what happens when (if) rumors start flying about Andover's future. Naturally,
I've already noticed a lack of critical articles and comments about Redhat, especially since the IPO. Prior to that, there were fears that they were attempting to dominate the Linux market and/or fragment it to their advantage (remember the fuss about Codewarrior for Redhat Linux?). Nowadays? Everything's good and well in Redhat land. Fewer and fewer articles and posts question them. Is this at all because Slashdot and more than a few readers are lovestruck by the company they now own a piece of? Maybe. Maybe not.
And what happens when shareholders expect to see revenue from
It also struck me as kind of funny that
So what now? Will we be bombarded with banners at the top of every page as well as after ever xxx comments, just to be sure to maximize exposures? Will
One plus: maybe
(It's a shame... I moderated two posts on this story, and now my points are gone!
I don't think I can handle several weeks of "No Comment" stories... Although, hearing nothing but that from JonKatz would be very refreshing.
---
Me: Rob! I think we should have MetaMetaModeration for those people who unfairly MetaModerate posts...
Rob: No Comment.
Me: Hemos, I have devised a way to build miniature construction equipment from individual atoms.
Hemos: [gasp!] No Comment!
Me: Jon, I didn't like highschool. [snif]
Katz: err... ungh... erp.. NO COMMENT!!! [head explodes]
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The Slash code has little value ... ./ site that is valuable asset.
You could easily hire bunch of consultants and have exactly the same thing (but with much better code ) done in about two months.
It is
Leak stuff to us by posting as an AC and moderating the post to level 5. Nobody can prove it's you.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Either my eyes are even worse than usually, or it doesn't give a date.... Which one is it? :-)
Oh yeah and if my eyes are OK, when is this IPO supposed to take place?
Why can't banner adds make *real* revenue for Andover. Look at Yahoo, they're huge now and how do they make there money...banner adds.
Besides look at Slashdot, it's an advertisers dream... a bunch of loaded techies who'll buy any gadget you stick in front of them, on a page with 500,000+ hits per day. People pay big money for that kinda exposure on there product.
-Al-
Go to freeedgar.com. It has all the SEC filings (which, as a company filing to go public, they have to have). Then search for ANDOVER NET. It has their S1, which is the form you have to file with the SEC stating your intent to go public.
hey, rob. . .
how are you going to run the friends and family purchase plan?
will it be based on the user's current karma? or possibly a low user number?
i think any number
... and a Transmeta to run it on. "Comment Morphing" anyone?
Hmm, all this talk about money makes me wonder if high-karma posters should sell Adspace in their signatures?
There's a new article at the Wired News site:
Slashdot Enters Dutch IPO Oven
--The more you know, the less you know.
www.wrhambrecht.com is not responding. Wow, that's damn funny...
:-(
Well, anyway.. Just so I have something to say, this is not just a good thing, it's a great thing! However, the Dutch Auction of the shares I'm not so happy about. That'll run the price up way too high for any of us lowly poor people.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
One reason that this will be a good IPO is sympathy. The market in general doesn't care about the details really. Andover owns slashdot and freshmeat. Linux geeks like slashdot and freshmeat. Linux is buzzword of the year. Must buy.
This isnt meant as flaimbait. Everything commercial about linux could come crumbling down tommorow and I would still use it. But that's just me.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
How so? Oh... you're one of those that doesn't
know how to bookmark the "Power Search" page and
skip past all the drivel... yeah I see. =)
-WW
--
Salon did the Dutch Auction / OpenIPO thing and their IPO was a rather dismal failure. Then again, they're not as big as Slashdot, and nowhere near as big as Andover, so maybe they will have better results.
rooooar
The proprietary OpenIPO system?
I'm confused.
Jeff Spirko
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
Now that slashdot may be a subsidiary of a publicly held company, will there be any possible changes, or will the contract still be valid when ownership changes hands?
-efisher
---
this
After the fracas with Yahoo's takeover of GeoCities, I think I would not be alone in expressing some concern as to the "ownership" of all the submitted content of slashdot. I have previously submitted personal observations on the assumption that slashdot was a private forum and not a public newspaper where libel and/or copyright issues can arise. While I think people are generally reasonable and don't object to profit-making ventures (e.g. I can see scope for a yearly compilation of the best stories/comments from slashdot ... let's call it "Voices from the Source" :-)) it does raise the tricky issue of the readers also being the contributors and thus technically copyright owners of their own words.
I think least there be a major misunderstanding along the lines of Yahoo/GeoCities, I would appreciate some assurance or indication of the separation between roles of the various key stakeholders.
LL
So does this mean there will not be any changes to Slashdot for a while? It tend to be that when there is a change its put forth as an improvement. This could be seen as a "promotion of the company". And that AFAIK is against the quiet period rules. I just wonder if it means that Rob will have to be extremely careful in his wording about changes. I.e. "I implemented the new moderation system today. Things are different. I am not allowed to say wether they are better or worse on the advice of my lawyers and due to the possibility of future litigation....." Yeesh that could get ugly.
-cpd
Ahh, but you can still tell us more. That is the beauty of Anonymous posting. Just don't use the commander Rob.
geach
I think that about sums it up. All we have to worry about is Rob and Jeff selling themselves to Microsoft.
[The link on the comment doesn't seem to work, but you can search for "#113"]
It is with feelings of profound ambivalence that I read the press release....
/. was acquired, because I appreciate the cost and effort that goes into running this crazy place.
/. I know and love. From the perspective of Andover, no doubt, an IPO will be heaven-sent, a greatly needed infusion of cash.
/. itself.
/. will retain the qualities that made it great.
Slashdot has been my #1 favorite site for years now, and the character of its free-wheeling conversation and deep-think geek info has been the greatest part of it. I was happy for Rob and Jeff when
But with the dust yet to settle on the legal aspect of the net, I have to question whether it will have an effect on the
What happens if traffic on Slashdot decreases? Will shareholders insist on a format change to drive ad impressions up?
If stock price plummets, shareholders will eventually hold the company accountable. I do not see any way to avoid ramifications to
Moreover, neo-fascistic legislation has yet to run its course on the net. What happens when a 12 year-old's mother sees him reading Anonymous Coward flame-drivel, and sues Andover for child endangerment? (Could this bring even more moderation changes?)
In the end, though, I wish Andover the best. And I hope that when all is said and done,
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
I can't think of too many things that'd make me stop reading slashdot, but that'd probably get damned close to the threshold.
.02
.02
My
Quux26 > Lazlo
ps - Big-ass hint to parent company...
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Freedom's just another word for nothing left Zulus
Let's do some math here. Assume for the sake of argument that all andover.net's current revenue is from banner ads (they also expect some from software, according to the prospectus). andover.net says the sites they own currently get 40 million page views a month. Last I read, banner ad space generally was going for $20-60 CPM (cost per 1,000 page views) industrywide, as much as $100 CPM for specialty sites. Slashdot, freshmeat etc have GREAT demographics -- folks who'd run out and buy the Single-Person Air Scooter before we got to the seventh First Post on the subject. So I may be conservative in guessing they charge $50 CPM, but for the sake of argument:
$50 CPM at 40 million pageviews/month equals $2 million revenue/month or $24 million/year.
By comparison, Red Hat reported revenue of $10 million for the year ended 2/28/99.
Now in reality, andover.net reports $1.1 million revenue for the nine months ending June 30, all of it from advertising, and figures that will actually come to $1.6 million (including $215,000 for software) once the acquisitions of /. and The Animation Factory are factored in. But when was /. acquired? IOW, if we deduce that /. adds $300,000 to andover.net's bottom line for the 9 months ended June 30 and all of it in ad revenues, is that 5 day's worth of ads, a month's, or what? And the balance sheet doesn't seem to factor in FM at all.
I haven't looked much at the expense side of the picture yet but I'd think Red Hat would incur far greater R&D and tech support costs than andover.net. Although who knows what it might cost to get us to truly flawless MetaMetaMetaMetaMetaModeration? ;-)
Freedom's just another word for nothing left Zulus
In the world of the internet frenzy and the legal vultures, a lot of interesting theories have been offered, mostly because the SEC hasn't made regulation on these issues. Its generally the underwriter that enforces the "quiet period", in an effort to avoid any flaps with the SEC.
Generally, the undewriter laywers will tell you that sites that have conversation boards generally can't use them to promote the offering. Does HQ know what it going on here? I wouldn't be suprised if they shut this thread down.
Also, it's possible that the entire thread could end up in court one day in a shareholder lawsuit. Oh what fun.
I'm also interested in seeing what happens with OpenIPO. Because of the dutch auctions, the IPO is not likely to see ANY first day gains, which may be pasted in the the media as a "linux failure", since they tend not to be familiar with the OpenIPO approach
Will slashdot remain opensource? Will they start beating up anyone who makes a parody site? What about sites that have the same "trade-dress", due to use of the open source? Stock for people with high karma? Oh this is going to be fun.
To purchase it is not like spending money but rather it is an investment in the future in a blow against the empire
OK, now I'm Dutch and I've never heard of there being something called a "Dutch" auction. I always thought an auction is pretty much the same everywhere. What is the difference between it and a regular auction?
have you visited yahoo recently? i tend to think that a lot of their revenue is starting to come from tie-in deals with web commerce companies. it seems like everytime you search for something that could be bought, you get a link for how to buy it through a yahoo-affiliated website. you click through, buy it, and yahoo gets a cut (at least in theory). this is not horribly evil or anything, but it's not something that slashdot.org could do as easily without losing its focus and annoying a lot of people. i doubt much of slashdot's revenue comes from its "affiliation" with amazon.com.
Slashdot is slashdot.org, and .org is reserved for not for profit organisitions. Will that mean that slashdot.org will have to change to slashdot.com?
:)
Or will we have an "official" slashdot.com, and a "GPL version" at slashdot.org
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Doesn't anderover.net also do sites such as Davecentral, Internet Traffic Report, and Slaughter House? Of the 11 anderover.net "holdings", 3 are Linux/Open Source, yet the press release makes them seem like Linux/Open Source is all they do. A bit misleading if you ask me.
I understand they're trying to work off the RHAT Linux buzz to boost their IPO price but it's still an inaccurate characterization of the company as a whole.
Are slashdot readers going to get a stock allocation?
"No comment"? How did I *know* you were going to say that??
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I have to say that Andover has a good focus and is a useful company for its targeted audience, but I'm very skeptical about how much return you can get on investing with them. I mean that there is only one thing that drives stocks consistently higher and that is growth. And I mean growth in their target market, which is advertising.
Their only source of revenue is from advertisersers. So what are they going to do with all this money that they'll get from selling stocks. The only thing that will give a substantial return to investors is to 1)obtain more advertisers(grow in their market) 2)charge more to their current advertisers So I my question is how are they going to do this at a substantial enough growth so that investors see a big enough payoff? I mean if they put their capital into better equipment and services, to attract a larger viewer base then that is 2 steps away from getting more advertisers. Yes, it will attract more advertisers, but a lot slower than actively campaigning advertisers. Therefore slower increased revenue.
My only suggestions might be a daily dynamic cost to advertisers based on daily site statistics(could already be implemented). And if they already have a large number of advertisers, will they have enough market to grow in? Can they reasonably fit a large number of advertisers on their sites?
Has some stuff about andover.net buying Slashdot and how much it cost, how the IPO works, etc. Thought it might be interesting to some here.
Give me a break. Slashdot is not an advertiser's dream, that's so naive. Yahoo makes tons of money off advertising because it's a *consumer* site. Cars, beauty products, entertainment companies bring in lots of ad revenue cause they appeal to the masses. Geeks are not a popular audience for consumer advertisers and that's why the CPM is really low for geek sites. They're also extremely unlikely to buy thousands of dollars' worth of conputer systems, like management and other decisionmakers.
So yeah, i wonder how Andover thinks they're going to make money on their new purchases. And whether investors will buy it.
Anyone who is interested.... I know a broker at Advest...
I will give you his 800 number to anyone who emails me at chris_bordeleau@lotus.com
From the S1
Acquisition of Slashdot.org. In June 1999, we acquired certain assets and
assumed certain liabilities relating to the Slashdot.org web site from
BlockStackers, Inc. for consideration consisting of a $1.5 million cash payment
made at the closing, and contingent payments of $2.0 million of stock valued at
the initial public offering price issuable upon the closing of this offering, up
to $3.5 million in cash and up to $5.0 million in stock valued at the initial
public offering price and payable during the two years following this offering.
The amount of cash and stock consideration that is contingent solely on the
continued employment of the principals of Slashdot.org in the amount of $6.3
million will be recorded as a compensation charge ratably over the period of the
payments. The amount of stock consideration that is contingent on the
achievement of performance milestones and the continued employment of the
principals of Slashdot.org will be recognized upon the achievement of these
milestones. To the extent any stock consideration is issued, we will record a
non-cash compensation charge based on the fair value of the shares issued at
such time.
****
"I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
Since the IPO seems open to everyone who has $2000 to open the account, I'd like to do this ... (If I can convince the folks ...). I think even disregarding the growth potential of Andover and linux (and there is a lot of it), the possibility that some huge monopoly (those folks at microsoft) might come up with the (4m shares * $15 = ) $60m worth of pocket change to buy out the company and I'd get a better stock price or a share swap.
-Rob
terpmotors.com
Who ever said that .org was "reserved" for not for profit organizations. Sure that name implies that, but I haven't seen it written anywhere stating that is what it's for. ThinkGeek .org I wouldn't think is a not for profit organization. Oh who knows. Andover.net is the profit entity in this story anyway. They just so happen to own /.
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
I have to say that I feel safer putting money into Andover than Redhat. Andover owns two parts of the glue that holds the Linux community together, and, barring any screwups, can forge into new paths using the money. They seem to have a good collective head on their shoulders, and I wait to see what will happen in the months ahead.
Saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way. None of you will stand so tall, pink moon is gonna get ye al
That's what really made me smile (blew me away) in the press release: the first tangible (nameable) asset they list is their fairly recent acquisition Slashdot - followed closely by their even more recent acquisition Freshmeat.
Is it just me or was Andover rather uninteresting (completely unsexy) before those two sweet buys?
I've been to their site twice - after each of the aforementioned buyouts. Saw some interesting stuff there, but nothing that made me want to come back.
If you are going to produce revenue through advertising, I beg you to go the way of the banner, but NO POP UP ADS. As a consumer, banners- I do read; pop ups- I find soooooo annoying, that I close them as soon as they appear, not even looking at the content. Maybe this is a premature plea, but I hope that I can gather a following.
'member the good 'ol days of usenet and IRC? No commercialism and all that sh!t? Then the web came along and some people made a pretty penny. Then online communities, which is just IRC. Then instant messanging, again just unix "talk". There is no stopping it. Think libertarianism.
What's next? IM to devices . . . whether it's Smart Messanging to your mobile or your set-top box (the convergence kind).
Hopefully Slashdot won't become Netscape Communications 2.0. Message to Andover: don't get bought out by AOL . . . please!
Yes, slashstock.org has opened to the public.
;-)
Andover.net expects several thousands of orders to flow in. Offers like, "buy 50 shares of stock, and we send Rob over to your house to tell you today's news" and "buy 100 shares, and we'll let you hit Jon Katz in the face with a cream pie" show that they expect this to be the hottest IPO since Red Hat IPOed in August.
You, too, can now own a piece of the dream!
(This is fake, please don't get the wrong impression
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Just as Redhat let some of the best open source contributors in at the opening price via etrade, I say take the top n karma holders and... ;)
Maybe they're just saying what they think investors want to hear -- you know, the naive ones who just buy whatever's trendy and don't really know about technology.
They could also be referring to the source code for Slashdot and Freshmeat. They might be planning to repackage it and sell it. So if your company's intranet suddenly starts up a discussion forum where you have to periodically moderate and get metamoderated by your co-workers, you'll know why.
Does this
Congrat on the IPO - I hope that Rob and crew will get a piece of the action.
Keep doing what you always have - minor improvements and good content!
It seems to me the distinction between .org and .com and .net went out the window long ago.
InterNIC, in Network Solutions clothing, has been encouraging everyone to register their names inTheir "help" text says, about .org:
Note that .org is only typically used for non-profits, and is really just a kind of miscellaneous category.
Then, if you use their handy-dandy Register a Web Address form, they suggest:
Of course networksolutions is the spawn of Satan, but that's what people see- so why would it matter if a .org files for an ipo?
If I buy stock in Andover, can I say I own you, Rob? Will I be able to boss you around and force you to give me tours of the Linux underground? I certainly hope so
Banner adds? Heck no! Haven't you heard...
Rob Malda action figures!
fou aje oym asoyf ueyf jaffaq afset su!6j!/\ op 'ua>|7!>| ppn7
I'd laugh if Microsfot decided to do an agressive takeover when this goes IPO. After all, they could couldn't they?
Guess what? Trademarks are supposed to be used as adjectives. Not nouns, or things like a "thermos" or "dynamite" or "velcro", but "velcro zippers", "thermos jugs" etc. (Yes, dynamite was a brand of explosive, but it fell into common usage, so they lost their proprietary rights.)
Likewize, Trademarks can't be used as verbs. Witness Xerox freaking out about people "xeroxing". No no. Legally, you had better "make xerox(tm) brand copies," or risk consequences. Frankly, I'm not sure how yahoo!(TM) is getting away with "Do You Yahoo!?", but don't really feel up to slapping them with a lawsuit.
Slashdot(TM) has been something I've been wondering about. There's been a lot of "slashdotting" lately.. Who would like it if M$ claimed that the verb "to slashdot" was improperly policed, and had thus fallen into common usage. Why couldn't they start up a tech news group over at slashdot.msn.com? Or even "clarify" meaning of the GPL at gpl.msnbc.com? after all, is the GPL trademarked?
Do trademarks attempt create artificial "zero-sum" scarcities like many patents or copyrights? Aren't they kind of useful to identify a brand, a stand, a POV, a reputable reputation?
Who likes it when international spurious claims against the linux(tm) are made? Doesn't Linus' "ownership" of the trademark serve a purpose? In the same vein, doesn't the GPL copyright give an "owner" a valuable right to restrict usage of expressed ideas and derivatives of them?
Sure, "property" is not an apt and may be an inept metaphor for bits. Bits grow more valuable when more widely reproduced, and returns increase. But what use is ranting against all IP when some uses, ie.(tm)and copyleft, can enhance the reputability and potency of free info?
wow! didn't know about that.. kinda sets a precedent, no? so you can rent the right to own verbs? cool! or do you buy them by each use? do you have to pay up in Panama, Greece and each and every country on one Internet? Or are countries outdated?
so can xerox now xerox copies? after all, the precedent has been set. don't you yahoo!?® pay a complex network of attorneys and governments in a farflung web of worldwide jurisdictions, and you too can now own verbs!
hardly a level playing field. can you trust it?
An example : French TV channel "Canal +" has a popular daily show which looks more or less like a political "Muppet Show" (the Brits know this as "Spitting Image"). In this show, they make fun of basically anything that is powerful/rich/famous. Ok.
/.'ers hate them for life ?
Now Vivendi (one of the biggest service companies in the world, mind you, eg the water you drink is not unlikely to come from them) buys a big part of Canal+. Vivendi, that is, its boss : Jean-Marie Meissier, a nice-and-polite-business tycoon who is not as downright evil as Citizen Murdoch, but who is still rather frightening when you consider his media/financial power (owns a few zillions companies and even more newspapers). Uh.
So what do the guys at Canal+ decide when they learn they belong to Jean-Marie Meissier ? They immediately make a puppet for Meissier, and they start portraying him as a monomaniac businessman whose interests may be summarized as money, money and money.
Should learn from those frogs. Repeat after me : A media-oriented company can criticize and make fun of the guys who own it, because if those guys have even the slightest notion of what PR is, they'll never take the risk of shutting you up (or -even less- down) ! Slashdot gets so much traffic and has so many dedicated readers (including myself), why would andover.net or anybody else damage this monstruous popularity and have thousands of angry
Thomas Miconi
Karma Police - One's ego must end where someone else's begins.
I notice that the OpenIPO system is basically a system relying on competition among bidders. Which is not unusual indeed. However, I also understand that the OpenIpo principles let the "elected" bidders pay only as much as the lowest elected bidder offered, whatever their own offer was.
This led me to the following conclusion : if we all get together and establish a common price, and then flood the IPO with bids at that same price, we are likely to set a maximum to the price that we shall pay : if enough (ie many) people bid at a given price, they will almost certainly get their shares at this price or at a lower price.
This brute force attack may have two drawbacks/flaws:
This may be totally illegal. I'm not a jurist and I don't know about american laws (except that it's forbidden to have sex out of marriage in some states
Thank you for your attention. Sorry for using up your precious time.
Thomas Miconi
... and spend it on some redundancy for /. -- the new server seemed to work pretty well for a while, but it's been as bad or worse in the past few days than it's ever been...
Moderate this down, please.
--
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E2 IN2 IE?
Wouldn't /. have to become www.slashdot.COM? Since it would be a money making venture? .ORG wouldn't be applicable
I am that that is, not that that is not, that is.
I think the add $$ for banner adds will dry up in favor of some other form of Internet advertizing.
But, how will this translate into $$ and make for a meaningfull IPO. I can't imagine selling banner adds alone will be a real revenue stream for Andover. What else do they do?
I think you misunderstand my emphasis. I think it's a good thing that the money goes to a bunch of people who actually made something rather than the first-day speculators. Given that I have no responsibilities to /. (and you even fewer, as an AC), the idea that I might have some rights over them seems curious, not to mention selfish.
word up, respect to Rob etc.
jsm
Yeah, that would be cool. However, the OpenIPO process is a Dutch auction, meaning that you shouldn't expect a crazy post-IPO runup, because the thing will have been priced correctly in the first place. Think Salon.com rather than RedHat.
Basically, the Dutch auction mechanism is the most efficient way to conduct IPOs, but it does have the effect that CmdrTaco, Mr. Andover et al. will be the ones making the mad phat crazy Benjamins, rather than the people buying into it.
you'll never be rich . . .
jsm
I don't believe this will change Slashdot regardless of what happens with Andover's stock. If Slashdot were ordered to cater to a different crowd or change WHATEVER in order to boost revenue many of us who frequent this site would leave in droves. It would cease to be the community builder Slashdot is. Andover knows this, that is why they purchased this site and agreed not to change it except to rake in the banner ads. They know that if they force some mandatory changes on Slashdot, the community built up around it will go elsewhere. So take heart people and don't worry, I predict that regardless of the stock, Slashdot will not have any mandatory changes made to its content in any way.
.02
Just my
Speaking of non-US resident, does anyone know ways a non-US resident can participate in that kind of IPO's ? We European Linuxers don't want to miss too much of those Linux/opensource-related IPO's any longer !