Salon in Dire Straits 502
An anonymous reader submits this well-linked blurb:
"It appears the end may be near for Salon Media Group. Their auditors doubt the company can stay in business for very much longer. Despite recently reaching nearly 40,000 subscribers, they haven't been able to make up for lost ad revenue in a down market. As a result, they've accumulated a deficit of about $75 million. Their best known asset, besides Salon.com, may be The Well, one of the earliest and most influential online communities. I hope that it can survive if Salon does not."
Here's a thought.... (Score:3, Funny)
Have their online content lag behind the print for a month, and sell the magazine. Advertisers are comfortable with print. They know the way print works.
Then you just have to get the info out before it gets stale. Revolutionise the printing process so it only has a one month lead time instead of a three.... hmmm....
Oh yeah, I forgot, it's called "Wired". Oops.
Re:Here's a thought.... (Score:2)
This allows magazines time to do better research on the issues being covered within a calculable budget.
Not (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i hope salon dies (Score:2)
It should die because it is liberal? I see. You want no diversity of opinions. I can see how diversity would scare an stupid little AC like yourself.
When will people get it, that diversity of opinion is a good thing. Otherwise, the bullshit amplifies itself and all you get is bullshit.
Rush Limbaugh! (Score:2, Funny)
I'll miss Salon (Score:3, Interesting)
They've had some very insightful articles and interesting columnists (I really miss reading Camille Paglia). The handwriting was on the wall when they adopted the subscription model. Most people aren't willing or even able to pay for content.
Of course, look at k5 (Score:5, Informative)
Of course when a site develops a real sense of loyalty and community, simply asking for a donation can yield a healthy sum of money - kuro5hin.org, for example, raised over $37,000 in two days [kuro5hin.org].
While such a model is obviously not going to cover Salon's $11 million annual expense, it is an intriguing idea. Granted, I doubt it would work for Salon, it seems like such a proposition would work only for tightly-knit community oriented sites.
Charging for content sealed Salon's fate (Score:3, Insightful)
If Salon was serious about surviving, it should have canned it expensive SF offices and become basically a virtual company. Web space is cheap, and writer can live anywhere.
Too bad they couldn't see the obvious.
Re:Charging for content sealed Salon's fate (Score:4, Interesting)
Not necesarily. If they were writing solely about pieces of hardware (e.g. Tom's Hardware) or had other people submit article to them (e.g. Slashdot), then yes, the company could be anywhere.
Salon, however, often writes about social trends and what's happening in society; they write about people. In order to do that coherently and effectively, the writers have to be where the people are. One cannot write a story about what people in the big city think while living in Eye Socket, Montana. Yes, land is cheap there, but only because nobody else wants it. For some businesses, living in an expensive city is a necessary expense.
Actually you can... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they could have done qutie well journalistically had they lived in any of a number of other largish cities that weren't nearly so pricey.
Re:Cities are good things too you know... (Score:2)
b) Culture is more than "being able to eat at dozens of cusines". Hard to believe, I'm sure, but it's true.
Micropayments maybe? - Re:Charging for content... (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. I think people are not willing to pay the subscription on a regular basis in seamingly large amounts (even $5 a month per site is too much). But if it was a few cents here and there for an article or for a page of posts, people would be much more willing to pay. We need micropayments [scottmccloud.com], and we need them bad. What I don't understand is why they still haven't appeared and spread, the market for them should be huge. The only explanation [useit.com] for it that I've seen makes me sad...
Re:Micropayments maybe? - Re:Charging for content. (Score:2)
I read on the average of between 1.5 and 2 full length novels (~300 pages) worth of data on the Internet a day.
That is on average, and does not include those days that I go about and digest entire medical dictionaries on the net just for the hell of it.
I would go through $20 a day easily.
Then the net would become just as expensive as reading books are (at around nearly $10 a piece!), I can easily go through two books a day (or three if I am really at it), so it would be $20 a day down the tube either way.
Re:Charging for content sealed Salon's fate (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a myth. Right along with "people are basically stupid" and "piracy is keeping content from being profitable on-line."
There is a 100% chance that if a large record company put up a comprehensive, indexed database of downloadable high-quality
That's content, and people would pay for it if it were available. People will pay for other content too.
It costs _how_ much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Truthfully, the sex content wasn't very good (Score:2)
Re:Charging for content sealed Salon's fate (Score:4, Insightful)
even full length high res movies. Pictures are even more, any fetish you have and there millions
of free galleries out there. Do you have a fetish for pissing pregnant asian women, in latex
and sunglasses? no problem, it is out there.
Search for "TGP" sites and you will find them, they are mushrooming everywhere. The usual "pay for content" business model doesn't cut it for pron sites anymore.
You will get to see excellent ad free material, your personal info will not be tracked,
there will no cookies of javascript hell, and STILL, the provider will make money.
There is no catch to it either, it is that simple (Ok, there is catch, but *YOU* have nothing
to do with it and it doesn't affect you in anyway.)
Successful sex entertainment sites no longer solely depend on digital media. There is a new
cash cow going on, and to milk it fully, we first need to exhaust all other material. The
serious businessman will know what I am talking about.
Re:Charging for content sealed Salon's fate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Charging for content sealed Salon's fate (Score:4, Funny)
1. Criticize Microsoft in a way that's slightly different from the way everybody else is criticizing them today.
2. Tell the story-- truthful or otherwise-- of how you replaced some proprietary and expensive computer system with one based on Linux.
3. Give moderately detailed instructions on how to find good pr0n.
I'll miss it, but I won't pay for it (Score:3, Interesting)
I wanted to support them, and thought about subscribing. But I've always had strong concerns about their financials, and was worried that after I forked over my 30 dollars that they'd go under. This is one of the reasons I'm reluctant to pony up money for any web site. There's no guarantee that even after I subscribe that the site will still be there for the length of my subscription. I know it's not much money, but still if I pay for a year, I want to know that the site will still be there at the end of that year.
Of course I don't know why anyone bought the stock. It was obvious that they had no real strategy for turning a profit. As a business Salon is a disaster. They put out the equivalent of a weekly magazine on a daily basis. It's a shame that quality content just isn't enough.
Just goes to show.... (Score:2, Insightful)
And thus Old Media's victory is complete (Score:4, Insightful)
And it wasn't that "pure-play" online, ad-supported journalism was doomed from the start. It wasn't. But Old Media moved into the online space just agressively enough to take eyeballs away from New Media sites like Salon, and (I'm still convinced) began a quiet but effective FUD campaign to convince advertisers that online advertising doesn't work. There's no real reason to believe that online advertising is ineffective, but we heard so much about "low click-through" and the like (and how exactly do you measure click-through for a TV commercial, is the obvious response no one gave) that advertisers got scared into going back to the tried'n'true.
Goddamn it.
Re:And thus Old Media's victory is complete (Score:5, Informative)
Err no, Slate was originally formed by Microsoft and Gates appointed Michael Kinsley as the first editor. The Liberal bent of Slate is pretty much because Gate was fed up reading the right wing crap ost of the 'liberal media' pump out.
Given Gate's history of supporting marajuana ballot measures Slate is probably a bit right wing for him.
I doubt Salon will go entirely, the company might fold but it is the type of title that a lot of people would have an interest in keeping going just to piss of the GOP. Heck, Arianna Huffington could probably buy it out of small change...
Re:And thus Old Media's victory is complete (Score:2)
Hogwash. The liberal bent of Slate should be directly attributed to Kinsley. Do you not remember him on Crossfire?
Re:And thus Old Media's victory is complete (Score:4, Informative)
If Gates had wanted he could easily have hired Buchannan or Novak instead.
Gates hired Kinsley because he knew that he would get the editorial line he wanted. The idea Gates woke up one morning and found he had hired a liberal unexpectedly is kinda wierd...
Re:And thus Old Media's victory is complete (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And thus Old Media's victory is complete (Score:2)
AT&T is losing money fast, bandwidth cost, and they apparently are not charging enough.
(Though why the hell they keep insisting on redesigning their homepage boggles me, hellloooo, NOBODY CARES about the damn startup page! Yes thee webmail is nice, the online bill paying is nice, but I have yet to meet a person who pays for cable modem service because the startup page has 50 gazzilion new feeds on it!)
Good News For Clearchannel (Score:2, Insightful)
No other outlets were covering it until salon kept making all those articles. My prediction is that this whole Clearchannel payola scandal will dissapear once salon is gone.
Here we go again! (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing costs? Ok, ya got me there, but that many millions worth? How much are they paying their writers? How much Salon content couldn't they have hired english major to write at a fraction of the cost?
I think the world needs to start going back to "building businesses", which has become a lost art. Make the model work...THEN take it to the multi-million level. Not throw in millions, then figure out a model that works.
-Pete
Abso-friggin-lutely! (Score:2)
The company I work for (and helped build from the ground up) has been slowly but steadily growing for six years on the Internet. We started out by my boss maxing out a couple credit cards. Within a couple years, we were profitable. Did we then go buck wild with marketing campaigns and new ways to spend money? No, we just kept doing what we'd been doing, finding new ways to save our time using automation (and thus saving money). Our staff is still extremely small, but we have no bullshit politics in the office, and it's laid back.
Our favorite joke leading up to 2001 was that we were making more money than Amazon.com! *
I predict buy.com will be the next "big" internet company to go bust. As soon as I read that they were going to undercut amazon.com by 10% on all books, and do free shipping on ALL orders, I nearly fell out of my chair... shades of "Internet 1999"-style marketing tactics. It smells like desparation!
* Of course we were talking about net income, not actual revenue, but it's a valid point. Our business model is sound and we continue to grow and lead in our niche.
f*ckedcompany.com already has their 20.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Here the Link [fuckedcompany.com].
Ironic (Score:3, Funny)
What department? (Score:5, Funny)
from the partying-like-it's-salon1999 dept.
You actually went with this over "from the can't-get-your-money-for-nothing dept."?
TheFrood
Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there something outside the marketability of political orientation that is a factor in this difference in success? Does political orientation give a business an advantage in a Capitalistic society? Or is it that Republicans are just looser with their wallets?
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, I think the fact that people gravitate towards the right wing and Republican media is that the typical liberal simply doesn't understand how to talk to 'the common man'. Telling the average person that they are bad for believing certain things, bad for saying certain things, bad for belonging to the wrong race, bad for being of the wrong gender, bad for simply existing and using up precious global resources while others are starving across the globe, and bad for having values that may result in the automatic judging of others doesn't endear anyone to the leftist cause.
The Republican/Right Wing press is much more liberal in the Millian sense. (One must not look to the far Right Wing where the Neo Nazis reside, just as one must not look to the far Left Wing where Communists make their home, because these are simply aberrations of the mainstream Left and Right wings.) The Right Wing's ideology as espoused by the Right Wing media is that every man is an island and his place in society should be decided upon his skills and his contributions to society. No one is owed anything beyond the rights bestowed at birth and attempts to provide one with something necessarily entails taking something from another.
This egalitarianism is exactly the kind of thing that most Americans believe in the core of their being. They look at racial preferences as being completely contrary to the concept of racial equality. They look at abortion as the murder of an innocent human being. They look upon lenient judges as shirkers of responsibility. And they look at those who would take from them to give to others as thieves.
The right wing plays to these people and the message resonates, not because the right wing is crafty in forming their message but because the people who believe this ARE the right wing.
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
Here is the secret of right wing media (Score:2, Insightful)
Their customers arent the viewers but the people pushing the message. They make their money by ensuring that certain types of messages are continously pushed at the people.
Truly left wing media does not have that choice. There isnt some one that will make a lot of money if truly left wing agenda is pushed. So there is no one to pay for it. Sure most people will benefit. But that is the problem large groups of people have the collective action problem and cant take up media empires. Rupert Murdoch can.
It is true that Rush dominates the radio waves, it is also true that less and less people are listening to radio. So Rush is not on every damn radio station because people really like him, but because powerful people want him there, and they want him saying the things he is saying.
That being said there is another issue - what people call left wing media (CNN ABC, etc) is not really left wing. And if you use that definition left wing media is not doing that bad - i am sure in the nytimes they laugh at the ny post, and even after recieving hundreds of millions of dollars from a cult leader the washington times is nothing compared to the washington post (considered to be liberal for some bizare reason).
Truly left wing media is really rare and is usually actively resisted by powerful people including "left wing" media. Thus Naom Chomsky although he sells a lot of books, and sells out every public appearence he does, will have a lot of trouble getting a column published in the "liberal" ny times.
Re:Here is the secret of right wing media (Score:2)
You cannot be serious. Here, have a bite of my reality. I'll give you some slack on ABC. Despite Peter Jennings, most of the reporting by ABC is on target. Nightline comes to mind as a standard-bearer for quality journalism.
But CNN, the NY Times, and the Washington Post always strafe left when facts approach. But that's not the point.
The point is that liberal minded media sources are firmly entrenched in large urban areas and scarcely anywhere else. New York, Washington D.C, San Francisco, Chicago. Centers for liberal, urban thought. Facts and honest journalism be damned, media sources in these large cities are going to play to their audiences.
Who cares though? There's facts and there's emotion. If you learn that ten people were shot at a bus stop today, do you really need to know how the victims' family members feel about it? Are you better off for that? Does a reporter waxing poetic at the scene add to or clarify the simple facts of the shooting?
No.
But this is the kind of poppycock journalism that will always play well to a feminine, apathetic audience. Dateline and 20/20 come to mind as the worst proprietors of this kind of FUD journalism. As though heartbreak and loss are undefined variables in the program of life.
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
Review: "Left-wing media a financial failure?" (Score:3, Funny)
***1/2
Why is it that openly conservative media finds financial success while liberal media seems relegated to the realms of popular and commercial ruin? This is the question asked by toupsie in "Left-wing media a financial failure?", a thought-provoking new comment by the prolific, seemingly right-leaning Slashdot reader. While this ground has been covered before on Slashdot, toupsie's thorough linking and sharp writing style make this one of the most competent treatments of the subject. However, readers looking for comments with more answers than questions would do best to look elsewhere.
As the comment opens, we are introduced to a variety of notable leftist sites, each of which has failed to galvanize its intended audience into a potent political force. As a counterbalance, toupsie then lists a number of policial media success stories, all of which have a strong and identifiable conservative bias. With the stage now set for conflict, toupsie comes right out and asks the question heretofore only hinted at: "Is there something outside the marketability of political orientation that is a factor in this difference in success?"
While the question is posed in an intelligent and inspiring manner, toupsie is careful to avoid conjecture, instead leaving the answers to his complex questions in the hands of the Slashdot readership. A few weak guesses are offered up to get conversation rolling, but it is difficult to believe that the author actually feels that way himself. While it leaves a taste of incompleteness is your mouth, toupsie's decision to leave answers for another day is ultimately a wise one. These are questions which have no clear answers. Including "answers" in his post would not only detract from the strength of toupsie's earlier questioning and cast doubt on his reliability, but would possibly reveal his own political bias. This could divide his audience and possibly endanger the entire post. While a more daring author might throw caution to the wind and state his own personal beliefs, toupsie prefers the safe route, and I don't think any of us could fault him for that.
Overall, it's a very solid post and I recommend it in its entirety.
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking for myself as a "media consumer", what gives an outlet an advantage competing for my interest are rationalism and fairness.
I listen to Rush, I watch Fox News, and I also (still) occasionally pick up on other, more traditional, "liberal" outlets.
The difference for me isn't just that I tend to agree more with Rush or with the Fox commentators, though that helps some, because there have been other "right-wing" sources that turned me off completely (can't recall the "loudmouth" guy, who died a year or so ago, that kinda paved the way for Rush, Mancow, etc., but he's an example, as is "700 Club", of sources with which I might agree politically but can't stomach).
What makes the difference for me is that when I get my news from what, today, are considered "right-wing" sources, I find it rare that I later discover some crucial bit of information was left out of my "feed" later on.
Whereas the "left-wing" sources tend to conveniently forget, neglect, or overlook important data, nevermind that they're constantly bashing and/or labeling the right in the first place. (For example, conveniently omitting the fact that Bush's 2001-era "ban on stem cell research" was really just a ban on federal funding of research that'd inherently involve destroying viable human embryos. As another example, I suspect the recent headlines "Federal Court Rules Pledge of Allegiance is Unconstitutional" is overly hysterical, that they really just ruled that a teacher leading a recital of it is unconstitutional -- a rare example of an hysterically inflated and/or misinformed summary that helps the right more than the left!)
I remember why I first listened to Rush. I'd heard his name mentioned by Roger Ailes in a meeting relating to media in Boston, and, quite literally, in this crowd of supposedly open-minded elite liberal media types, there was hissing. That was back around 1990 or so, maybe?
Around the same time, an unsuccessful sequel sitcom called "The New WKRP" had an episode involving a Rush-clone character named, IIRC, "Lash Rambaugh", which tried to be even-handed about the visceral, "he must be stopped" reaction among the radio-station hands when they learned this character was gaining air time on their precious station.
What got my attention was that a) I was basically being indoctrinated to hate Rush, primarily through the unstated, but nevertheless clear, implication that he was himself a hater, a neo-Nazi, whatever, and that b) no actual evidence was being supplied of what he actually said on a typical show.
(The WKRP episode was particularly stunning in how it omitted any actual reference to any actual offensive thing this Lash Rambaugh guy said; at least, that's how I remember it.)
So I thought, hey, I'm a Christian, theoretically I shouldn't immediately sign up as a "Rush hater" as if I'm protecting women, babies, and minorities by spreading the "hate-Rush gospel" until I've listened to the guy (and read his book(s)) myself, so I can speak to the issues myself.
Upshot? I quickly discovered what a convincing, willing, campaign of whispered lies the anti-Rush activists were fomenting (and still foment today, though I suspect most of them are simply uninformed haters of all things right-wing simply on auto-pilot, displaying less intelligence, thoughtfulness, and willingness to reconsider than Rosie O'Donnell).
Because while Rush was, and is, bombastic, sometimes arrogant, and dynamic, he's also one of the most truly humble and fair-minded political commentators I've ever heard.
Don't believe me? Consider this: he doesn't believe he knows better than you how you should spend your money, what kind of car you should buy, with what sort (or gender) person you should sleep, what drugs you should or shouldn't take, whether you should own a gun, where you should send your kids to school, and so on.
Except to the extent he offers his advice on these matters, he so rarely advocates actual laws to impose his views on people, it strikes me that, as bombastic as he is, he really doesn't think nearly as much as himself as, say, Bill O'Reilly, who thinks people should be forced by government, when they buy cars, to choose higher-mileage ones even if they themselves have good reasons to buy, say, an SUV.
Now, is that politically conservative or libertarian of Rush? Sure. But it's nowhere near the hatred that he was billed as having, and his most controversial remarks (mostly regarding warring on other countries and stuff, I'd say) don't compare to the daily grind of anti-choice venom coming from left-wing media outlets, which assume that few Americans know enough to decide what to buy, what to eat, how much to save, etc. for themselves, but somehow, in some way, can be expected to properly elect people to two of three branches of a federal government that'll make all these decisions for them in toto.
And I've heard Rush and Fox commentators (such as E. D. Hill, previously Donahey) sum up the liberal viewpoint on an issue so much more clearly and coherently that I've sometimes actually felt myself agreeing with it, compared to left-wing outlets, which so steadfastly refuse to provide a balanced, rational, both-or-more-sides set of views on an issue, that I usually assume their views must be wrong, if they can't back them up by stating them fairly.
In short: I believe the left-wing media is failing because they follow the left-wing political approach of denigrating the ability of the average individual to consider and sort through information themselves in a rational way, and to learn, through feedback, experience, and so on how to improve their own ability to engage in that very process, and I believe the "right-wing media" is succeeding because they value the ability of their viewers to understand at least the basics (and, yes, TV doesn't tend to explore topics in much details, I admit) of various sides of the issues and therefore make more-informed decisions on their own.
In cases where I've kept fairly careful, objective track of how specific issues are covered among the media outlets, I've found that the "right-wing" ones that are getting all the attention lately simply present a more complete picture of the issues and how the different sides see the story than the "left-wing" ones that are dying.
What that means to me is, if I pay attention only to left-wing media, sure, I can ultimately become convinced that all right-wingers are rich white hating corporate types who must be defeated at all costs, but I'll be stunned, in a discussion with an actual rational right-winger who gets his news from other sources, to learn stuff I had no idea was the case -- that my left-wing "feeders" decided I was better off not knowing, yet that undercuts some or all of my arguments.
But if I pay attention only to "right-wing" media, there's much less likelihood that, in a discussion with a left-winger, they'll bring up some crucial point that my "feeders" chose to not make me aware of. (Oh, in my experience, they'll try, but usually I've found that they're either making stuff up out of whole cloth, or greatly exaggerating some trivial thing, as in "Remember the October Surprise!" or "But it was Reagan who foisted crack cocaine on urban America!".)
And while it certainly doesn't hurt that I feel less personally insulted by Rush/FOX/etc than by NYTimes/CNN/NBC/etc based on my opinions, the fact is that, even in cases where I disagree equally with a given outlet, the former are much less likely to make me feel insulted by doing so than the latter. (Bill O'Reilly being an excellent counterexample: "Republicans don't want Americans to drive higher-mileage cars", he was saying about a year ago, based on the fact that Republicans were leaning, compared to Democrats, more towards individual choice in that matter; hardly a case of actively preventing anyone from choosing an 80mpg Honda over a 10mpg SUV, and a counterexample to his claim of having a "No Spin Zone". I'm picking on Bill because I happen to admire his work on his TV show overall, and am grateful for his zealousness in taking on many sacred cows, such as the charity beauracracies post-09-11.)
Finally, as one last example of left-wing media bias, consider how it celebrated moderately successful left-wing commentators and talk-show hosts over the last 10 years, such as Rosie O'Donnell, the hosts of The View, Jay Leno, David Letterman, and so on, making sure we all knew just what was So Wonderful about all of them.
Now compare that coverage to that of Rush, one of the most successful broadcasters in the history of any form of media, and ask yourself this:
I'm pretty sure the answer is Rush Limbaugh, based on frequency of use of Dr. (Professor?) Walter Williams, one of the funniest men on radio.
But you won't hear that from the people who, in this very thread, bash Rush based not on listening to him and telling the truth about what he says, but based on advocating their narrow-minded political agenda. And they'll happily let any claims about Rush being "racist" slide right by mere "facts" such as his current marriage being presided over by an African American.
And, yes, I've proven the effectiveness of relying more on "right-wing" media than left-wing media in discussions I've had with people more or less liberal, conservative, etc. than myself. I've had an otherwise-well-informed, intelligent, left-wing/anarchist teacher/lawyer tell me straight out Rush was a racist, only, after my countering with some facts, that what he means is that Rush advocates positions that aren't in line with the NAACP, for one example. (The look on the guy's face when I later complained about the Clinton/Reno record of oppressing poor white Christian populations such as the Branch Davidians and the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez was priceless: this guy really believed in his liberalism, in the little guy, and he just hadn't yet put it all together until I pointed it out! I learned more about his views, of course, but he had few surprises for me, other than his high-for-a-liberal level of rationality.)
(An example of Walter Williams humor: contemplating whether the federal government should even mandate education for children at all, prompted by a caller to consider how far such a requirement should go, he concludes, paraphrased, "I'm in favor of mandating and funding a child's education through third grade, because, by then, he's learned enough to read the sign on my lawn that says 'Private Property -- KEEP OUT'!". ;-)
In summary: it isn't the politics so much as the completeness of the picture at a given depth that, for me, determines the usefulness of a media outlet. (I tend to believe left-wing politics intrinsically involves deceit by its elites, based on its structural characteristics and history, but I don't need to be sure of this to reasonably assess the completeness of a given media presentation and have tried to put this belief, or speculation, aside as a possible bias.)
I don't think I can possibly claim I'm representative of any portion of Americans or others, however.
Of course Left-wing media are a financial failure! (Score:2, Interesting)
Practically speaking, the liberal mentality fits the poor to lower-middle class income group, because (in the USA anyway) the left focuses on taking your money away from you forcibly, and giving it to "the needy," such as all those DESERVING people on welfare.
So of course the poorer people in the country are going to be left wing... they want my tax money.
The right wing tends to be the richer side of things, they work to allow me to keep my money, and donate it to those organizations I wish, as I see fit. (Except I have to trade in control over my body for this financial luxury.)
So, to me, it makes perfect sense that leftist media have a hard time surviving, while right wing media thrive. Just look at the audiences' incomes. I'm sure there are studies out there showing average incoming levels of the two sides.
Re:Of course Left-wing media are a financial failu (Score:2)
Yah, I can see how you can have scorn for some lady whose husband just left her and her special needs child running at ~1k a month in treatments is being threatened to taken away to a publicly ran 'institution'.
Sure, deserves lots of scorn. I mean hell, she is just out for your money, evil evil lady, after your cash, can't let that happen now can we?
Those awful conniving poor. . .
Bleh. Fuck off and / or get a clue. Better yet, get poor and grow up with something besides dreams of getting rich. Many of the poor live and die poor so that their children can hopefully grow up to a better life; damn lot higher of a sacrifice then any amount of mere money that you could ever be taxed.
Re:Of course Left-wing media are a financial failu (Score:2)
Please tell me you're not so naive as to think that anywhere near the majority of people on welfare are as deserving of help as the example lady above?
Welfare is a piece of shit. This lady would be much better off if we all kept our tax money, and helped her out through a well-organized charity, not a government run bureaucracy that rewards those that are good at cheating the system.
Re:Of course Left-wing media are a financial failu (Score:3, Insightful)
We realize that it could be any one of us on the bottom of that pond, but we also need to realize that even the bottommost dreg can raise itself off the floor. The goal of welfare should be to encourage and enable those dregs to lift themselves off the floor with a minimum of assistance. Rawls expounds on this concept of the safety net, but IMO goes a little overboard advocating what amounts to be a neo-Communist state ala Finland or Sweden.
The welfare system is to be judged on how well it lifts people from the bottom and returns them to productivity. When people find themselves unable to escape from the jaws of the system, something is seriously wrong and probably lacking in the system. However, tossing the system wholesale is wrongheaded IMO. A revamping and rethinking of strategies to help welfare recipients rather than simply handing them a check would be far better than tossing the baby out with the bathwater and relying on private charities who are simply not equipped to help at this time.
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
It isn't fair to say NPR only stays in business because of the taxpayer (unless you include all radio stations, because of free spectrum). It's maybe 10, 20% of funding now... I can't remember exactly (they always give the number during pledge drives, but it's been a while). I think something like 60% of funding comes from individual members. At least at the local station level -- the money then sifts its way up to NPR itself. The rest comes from corporate funding and grants, I believe.
That public radio keeps going mostly by pledges is really a quite inspiring model for web content... even Salon's subscription marketing looks more like a pledge drive than an exchange of goods. Too bad Salon couldn't quite pull it off -- they didn't have the modest beginnings that public radio had, though, and it took radio a long time to get where it is.
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
i wish that was true (Score:2)
No body even bothers to check if the money is spent to protect from that danger, if that is what we need to protect from that danger, or that the military is getting fair prices and not giving away money.
And if any one asks the above questions they are called unamerican.
Unfortunately conservative politicians do not really want to decrease government spending, they want to change it, but not decrease it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Left-wing media a financial failure? (Score:2)
will soon be on FuckedCompany (Score:2, Interesting)
one thing they did when things got rough was... well, increase the ad's size, form and shape, well doesn't seem that did it... then subscribers, but hey... those 70 M wont go away with 40K subscribers alone. maybe not even 400K...
I'm not overly suprised (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll start off by saying I enjoy the majority of articles I read on Salon.com. They're edgy and have a certain kick to them.
What I don't like is the overly intrusive ads they use. They've tried every single type of ad possible it would seem. Not only are full page ads extremely annoying, but because of their intrusiveness I'm even less likely than I normally would be to click on one of them.
Today I was trying to read what I thought would be an interesting article judging by the headline that showed up in my salon slashbox. But like nearly every article on Salon.com the article was preceeded by a full page ad for something I have absolutely no interest in. I went with my gut reaction and clicked "go directly to story" only to find much to my dismay that the link took me directly to the exact same ad I was so intent on avoiding. I tried a few more times to get past the ad. I even waited for the ad to finish its little video, and at the end of that even it rewound and played the ad over and over again, never going to the story. I played with the URL a bit to see if I could bypass the ad, to no avail. I tried going through salon.com's homepage to get around the ad, no luck there either. Finally I got so frustrated that I emailed their customer service. Note that I'm not a paying subscriber to their web page content, but within 5 minutes I had an email back in my inbox telling me that if I didn't like the ads to subscribe and pay the fee to browse ad-free.
Of all the news sites I browse on a day to day basis, salon.com has got to have the most intrusive, annoying, and un-related advertisements of any of them.
Of course I don't have a real solution to their financial problems, but I think that if they had been a little less annoying, and had offered up some truly captivating content that I couldn't find anywhere else I may have paid for a subscription, but the only things I found by browsing their homepage that I couldn't access without a subscription were mostly in the Sex category, and well I'd rather get my pRon elsewhere thank you. As much as I hate to say it, I think maybe if their ads were actually catered towards the category that you were trying to get to, then perhaps they might have something. But as it is right now all of their ads seem to be totally generic and unrelated to any of the content at all. If you have a section on technology, at least make sure that the ads in that section relate to technology, to the interests of people who would browse that category.
Re:I'm not overly suprised (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm not overly suprised (Score:2)
But in my case. I may only read a few articals a year. Imagine if you had to buy a whole years subscription to a dead tree mag, when all you wanted was one magazine.
true, true (Score:3, Insightful)
you got that right. something similar would be carrot-top AT&T commercials.
but (yeah, the big but), there really isn't any other ways of doing ad and make money at the same time. i mean, it's sad and all, but it stems from the fact that when i watch TV and a carrot top ad comes on, i look for the remote to switch channels -- but what if i can't find the remote in time, and it's 20sec into a 30sec commercial? i bear the rest of it. really. but not so on the net. you see -- TVs are passive, it means that the ads are fed (for the lack of a better word) to you. but you are in a different mind-set when online. in such an interactive environment, you want, nay, demand that the contents are right there when you do the fancy right-left-sideways click. that's why you are annoyed.
every ad-driven company is facing the same probelm. /. is one of them. think about it for a bit now: TVs are completely ad-supported. why does slashdot need to start subscriptions? hell, one person's salary on Buffy can fuel slashdot for a year and half. are TV ads *that* more effective than internet ads? sadly, yes.
before i get modded down for "rambling without a point" -- the conclusion is - sadly, ads are annoying on a website, anywebsite. especially the never-can-close porn ads ;). but that's not because they want it -- it's because some genious hasn't figured out a way otherwise yet.
p.s. -- if you can figure out some way to make non-intrusive web-ads as effective as the TV ones -- you will be rich. let me know when you get there. i promise i won't sue for patent infringement. ;)
suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Their auditors... (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps they should call Andersen? "Um, yeah, you've got years of life left in this company."
Everyone Right Click on the Well (Score:2, Funny)
JOhn
Salon has been dead for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
They had good writing. As a modest literary magazine, along the lines of the Atlantic or the Nation, they had potential. But no way should they have ever become a major public company. That was sheer arrogance.
There was so much of that in the dot-com era.
Boo Hoo (Score:2)
I'd have sympathy for them if they diden't BURN THROUGH $75,000,000.00. The debt load alone will kill them, and the fact that their crappy business skill with most likly take down The Well is a real bummer.
Not if The Onion [onion.com] falls on bad times then that will truly be a shame.
Yes... (Score:2)
Can anyone please explain to me how the fuck an online mag can go though that much money? What's it all spent on?
Sorry Salon.. (Score:2)
Actually, I'm just kidding.. I've been a Salon subscriber for a while, if only there were more of us they might not be in this trouble.. I'd hate to see Salon go. It isn't the greatest site ever, but I think it fills a valuable niche.
I am really saddened to hear this. (Score:2)
Shucks, and I liked Salon (Score:2)
Why is it paper magazine can be succesful with a solid subscriber base without ads that try to jump out and scream for your attention, and online publications can't.
I blame the ad industry, which is still way too young for the Internet. When they discover that success can be better measured in page views instead of click throughs, they will have grown up and decent content will be supported (Imagine if companies who advertised in triditional magazines only judged their ads based on how many people stoped reading and immediatly jumped up and drove to their store).
So, give it another 5 years until the ad industry grows up. I just hope something like Salon will start up at that point.
---
Salon won't be missed. (Score:2)
Also, it must be said, their politics were insipidly honkey-liberal...frustrating and agonizing to people all over the spectrum. It seems that they never really got over society's wholesale dismissal of Clinton...their entire MO seemed to be driven by a desire to resurrect his reputation, even moreso than a desire to bolster the Democratic party itself.
Their tech column was fair, but it really did't break any useful news.
If they had been more balanced in their writing they might have attracted a larger audience, but their limousine-liberal articles became grating.
Society's wholesale dismissal of clinton??? (Score:3, Insightful)
you mean the way he won two elections and then his vice president who lacks any charisma still won an election (well he won the election part anyway)?
Re:Society's wholesale dismissal of clinton??? (Score:2)
Re:Society's wholesale dismissal of clinton??? (Score:2)
that was pretty much the case in 1996 esp.
So that that phenomenon is actually a credit to clinton of sorts.
But it is true Clinton did some indefensible things, much worse than the pardons even, like killing many civilians abroad by his bombing, and virtually destroying yugoslavia and pushing it into poverty.
Remember.... (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry -- I am no business man....But fail to see how a website can spend that kind of dough....(I am sure bandwidth and server costs are only a drop in the bucket.....) And what does this say about the 40K people who have paid??? That is real income --- yet they still can't make money....
Keep it small, get it sponsored! (Score:2)
The subscription option was considered but in the end, just 2% of the regular audience said they would subscribe -- a number far too low to support the site.
However, I was very lucky insomuch as I managed to obtain a 12-month sponsorship from a local ISP which, while not covering all the costs, at least pays for the cofee, power, phone and some of the other outgoings.
Given the sad fate of so many great online publications, it strikes me that perhaps the secret to longevity and (ultimately?) profit may well be KISS - that's Keep It Small & Sponsored.
It strikes me that too many online publications focus on building empires rather than simply creating and publishing good content at minimal cost.
For example -- does Salon rent office space?
Why?
Surely a "new media" publisher would realize the enormous savings to be made by having writers work from home and email in their copy.
When I launched 7am.com [7am.com], I ran the entire operation (2 million hits per day and a network of 200,000 third-party websites) on a completely virtual basis. No rented offices, no conference room, no company cars, no scooters -- just a group of hard-working people staying in touch and coordinating their efforts over the Net.
The Net may be a great medium for publishing content -- but it's an even greater way to slash your operating costs -- if you use it properly!
Re:Keep it small, get it sponsored! (Score:2)
I recently found myself in a similar situation when my Daily self-published internet column [aardvark.co.nz] finally became just too much of a drain on my finances and I was faced with shutting it down after seven years of work.
Maybe you were funneling to much cash into your hobbies [aardvark.co.nz]
Why not report the positive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe a big business media site like Salon can't stay in business, but I'm sure that a leaner site could've. The Internet is all about the little guy, as Dan's Data's "Minnows 1, whales 0 [dansdata.com]" argues. Until more people are online supporting a services model, you can't just base your entire revenue on a needing "just a few more" subscribers to break even.
Salon should've restructured about 74.5 million ago. They've lost a stupid amount of money.
Re:Why not report the positive? (Score:4, Insightful)
K5 and it's ilk have their niche, but there's no way that Plastic compares to what Suck used to be.
$1,875 per subscriber? (Score:2)
Repeat a lie often... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wired was the first source AFAIK to describe the Well as "one of the earliest and most influential online communities."
So far the only influence of the Well is the self-agrandizing perspective of those who belonged to it.
Usenet ran circles around the Well, not to talk about the early Internet. Heck, Joe McCarthy mailing list at MIT was more influential than the Well.
So put a lid on it. The Well was a neat local BB in the Bay area. Nothing more, nothing less.
Too broad? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Too broad? (Score:2)
I think he was more referring to the
"serious social political opinions"
"Fashion news"
"Hollywood insider-style news"
"Tech articles"
"Social Tech Article"
"Deep Science Articles"
"Light reading science articles"
variety that Salon has to offer.
That and there is always the issue of the perception of being able to get serious news from a site called "Salon" even if the word did originally have different implications.
Re:Haha! Re:The problem with Salon.com (Score:2)
Re:75 Million (Score:5, Insightful)
Writers (professional writers, which you are clearly are not) do not work for free. Good writers (which Salon has in arguably larger numbers than ANY other news-op-ed-online-only publication) are very very expensive.
So it's more likely than not, not about location, or about offices or management. It's about paying the writers for the great thought-provoking content (when have you noticed a grammar or spelling error on Salon?) and bandwidth, in that order of cost.
Re:75 Million (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair enough, but $75 million worth???
$75 million dollars is a gargantuan amount of money, enough to employ hundreds of people for years. They had ad revenue and 40,000 subscribers too. Incredible.
Re:75 Million (Score:2)
Re:75 Million (Score:2)
The truly sad part is, this isn't flamebait or trolling!
Re:Salon needs to be more urbane.. (Score:5, Funny)
Talk about obliterating your own point.
Re: (Score:2)
you should read David Horowitz (Score:2)
Btw i am not sureyou are aware of this but chris hitchens has suffered an abrupt change recently, which has led many liberals to think that he has gone mad.
Horowitz was their token conservative shill (Score:2)
Salon really never had any great thinkers...the tenor of the articles was mostly pseudo-intellectual drivel with a honkey-liberal spin.
Re:Horowitz was their token conservative shill (Score:2)
Re:Horowitz was their token conservative shill (Score:2)
Re:Premium service (Score:2)
It's about knowing your market.
I used to read Salon (still do, in fact) to get the left-wing spin to counter my innate right-wing bias.
(Aside: Never had a problem with their intrusive ads, because I always have Javashit and Flash turned off. Otherwise I would have stopped visiting them a year or two ago.)
Around the time of the recount battles of 2001, it became clear they'd dropped any pretense of editorial balance and were just an arm of the Democratic party.
Nothing wrong with that during an election battle, but they kept doing it. My biggest disappointment with Salon is that the articles most likely to challenge my beliefs are the premium ones, and I don't see that much value for the money.
So I never subscribed. And now, the articles most likely to either be rejected as Democratic propaganda (the tiresome "Bushed!" series), but with a small probability of changing one's world view are labeled "Premium".
By way of personal example, I used to be a fervent drug warrior, but today, as much as I still think drugs are for idiots, I believe the money could be better spent on HomeSec. (OK, so Salon would also have a problem with spending the money on HomeSec, but we'd at least agree that much of the money spent in the WoD is wasted. 2-3 years ago, I'd have argued otherwise - that is, for spending taxpayer dollars on both the WoD and the WoTerror. Now I believe we should scrap the WoD because we can use the same resources elsewhere. No government/law-enforcement jobs or budgets need be cut, and frankly, I think the cops would have more fun hunting down the real badasses trying to kill us than comparatively harmless potheads. Salon might disagree with my solutions to both problems, but at least they got me thinking :-)
But the probability of finding a series of those ideology-changing articles (now locked-off in the for-pay ghetto) was sufficiently low that I couldn't justify the subscription fee.
Which is a bummer.
From a business perspective, I can see why preaching to the converted (e.g. the lame "erotica" content along with the regular US/Bush-bashing dreck) makes business sense for Salon.
But from the standpoint of a guy who loves a good political/economic/cultural debate, I lament the loss of the alternative standpoint that Salon used to provide to all -- and now only provides to its own narrow audience.
Word to the Dems and Greens: You wanna change the world? Fund Salon, but give them editorial freedom and cut 'em slack when they don't toe the party line. The rest of us can tell the difference between a genuinely-held position and shameless propaganda -- so stop trying to pretend otherwise.
Word to the Republicans: Salon's made their bed, let 'em lie on it. Their loss is your gain. Carpe diem, and don't make the same mistakes they did. All their blogspace are now belong to you! :-)
Re: (Score:2)
..is a vastly overrated shadow of its former self (Score:2)
Former Salon employees' job prospects (Score:2)
Re:Only 40K subs? (Score:2)
Wall Street Journal on-line has hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers so surely one would have expected Salon to at least be well into the six figures of subscribers too.
Heck, many lousy porn sites have more than 40,000 subscribers and some charge upwards of $50 month!
Bottom line is there's money out there, but Salon's content/presentation just isn't compelling enough for most people, including myself, to pay for it.
Salon would do better revamp their on-line advertising presentation and instead go with more "in-line" ads (text/small images that complement the content - like Google uses) that are targetted as opposed to the mostly generic ads they run now. Such a change would lead to better ad response, leading to more ad revenue, and more time spent on the site by visitors - the more time a visitor spends on the site, the more likely it is they will subscribe.
Rambling on a bit here, but many "mainstream" sites have taken the wrong approach with their advertising presentation. Many of them think that because adult sites have success (though debatable) with pop-ups, ad loops, flash, etc that they will too. Adult content is very impulse driven and something that lends itself to "hardsell"...and the other aspect that many "mainstream" sites don't consider is that most places that run adult ads don't really want the visitor to come back...they either want the person to buy or get the hell out. Salon and other "mainstream" sites on the other-hand depend on repeat visitors and good public relations. Bombarding their visitors with tons of generic and annoying ads isn't exactly a formula for success and is costing Salon more than it's gaining them. Too bad they just don't get it
Re:What does this mean for the industry as a whole (Score:2)
You won't be modded flamebait, but you're contradicting yourself. You say you believe in capitalism, which holds that the best distribution of resources comes from free competition. Then you imply that those who support capitalism must support government imposed monopolies in the form of intellectual property.
WTF?
I mean, that's the very essence of a planned economy- give monopolies to industry and trust them to still bother to serve their customers.
And lets not even get started on the small inventor crap. Everyone knows the ip system only works for those who can afford lots of expensive lawyers, and that means a few big companies call the shots. Much like soviet state industries.
I know this is all a bit off topic, but you seem like you're not actually a troll, just an angry conservative who hasn't thought through the princples behind the ip system all the way. The free market *demands* the dissolution of the idea ownership system.
Re:What does this mean for the industry as a whole (Score:2)
You kidding? The libertarians are strong as hell around these parts. . .
(now I wish that they'd just all go away. . . )
Most of the comments I see posted are by either by Socialists or Communists.
Commies suck. Period.
Mod me flamebait if you will, but you must admit that it is a big sin here to admit that you believe in Capitalism and suppor those who try to make a living selling anything that has to do with intellectual property.
Congrats on connecting two UNRELATED subjects.
The majority of the
Oh and God forbid that a company lay off people so they can stay in business.
Massive lay offs only HURT the economy as a whole which then further HURT the company that made the initial lay offs.
That and it is Just Plain Stupid to go after that extra buck after the initial first few million a year. Hell, if a company sees its profits only go up a few percentage points from one year to the next they freak the hell out and start laying people off! I mean come on, that it ludicrous! (Oh no!!! We ONLY MADE an extra 30 million this year versus last year!! The Horror!)
How many times have we seen someone post "Hey, lets open a Pay Pal account to supplement [name of company] so they can continue their [Linux, open source, free stuff] works."
VS how many times I have seen it actually happen?
I mean suggesting good ideas is easy, doing something about them;
ah;
now that would be a
Clear Channel? (Score:2)
Oh, and realistically, of course they're not spending $75 million on a "web site". High bandwidth hosting is around £400 per annum, with unlimited colocation plans around £800 per annum. Top newspaper article writers are paid on the order of 3 figures and top glossy-zine writers 3 to 4 figures. Say there's a full-time web designer (there's lots of cgi on Salon that needs to be maintained), a bursar and a director, each getting £20,000-30,000 per annum and that leaves £74 million to spare. So obviously, the only possible way to account for this figure is that there's an opportunist at Salon who realisis that people have _absolutely_ no idea how much it costs to run a e-zine Web site. This is opportunism, plain and simple.