Microsoft Looking to Sell Slate Magazine 222
SeaDour writes "Wired News is reporting that Microsoft is in early discussions with five or six media companies over a potential sale of MSN's online magazine Slate. This comes mere weeks after Slate recommended Firefox over Internet Explorer."
A better bottom line (Score:5, Interesting)
Slate trashing IE (Score:4, Interesting)
"This comes mere weeks after Slate recommended Firefox over Internet Explorer"
I don't think the fact Slate trashed IE has anything to do with the sale.
In fact, the article says Slate would still be accessible from the MSN Website, even though they would no longer hold any "property" ties with Microsoft. And what would that accomplish? Slate would be even more content-free than it already is, as it wouldn't depend on Microsoft at all, but it would still have the popularity / visibilty it enjoys being right there, in the MSN Website.
I mean, if Microsoft wanted to silence their editors, they would do anything but loose their power over the magazine. Instead, they are giving them a free ticked to say whatever they want, still enjoying the visibility they have.
I don't know why Microsoft chose to sell the magazine, but it can't be because of their trashing IE.
Just my 2c
Re:Too funny... (Score:2, Interesting)
There was some good 'anti-corporate' writing on slate, though. Like this piece from last week: Wal-Mart vs. Neiman Marcus - In the war between the "Two Americas," the rich folks are winning [msn.com]
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Re:Coincidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not as if Slate recommended that users switch to Linux or something like that. They're still using Windows, which means, whether they like it or not, they're still using Internet Explorer.
It's more likely that Microsoft would try to strong-arm the editors and the writers responsible for something like that into resigning rather than selling the entire magazine. I think they just don't care about it anymore and don't care to pay for it if someone else will.
Prior hoc ergo propter hoc, maybe? (Score:1, Interesting)
Apparent time order of events is irrelevant, as relativity shows
Just a coincidence (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Post Hoc Propter, Much? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, I woke up with a hangover this morning. Think that could have been caused by your lightning? My stupid doctor tells me its because I was drinking last night, what does he know?
Re:Somehow I doubt this is becuase of the FireFox (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Put it together (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a meaningful answer. That Firefox nonsense was only useful in that it deflected the usual Micro$oft $ux vitriol into "what a stupid conspiracy" vitriol. If you look at the businesses that Microsoft owns, only one of them is involved in content production. In fact, the content that MSN's homepage buys is not even similar in subject matter or tone to Slate (or quality, I should add) - it's a totally different market. It's always been sorta of an orphan, mainly built as a hedge against AOL's acquisition of Time-Warner. As long as they're cleaning house, it makes perfect sense to sell off operations outside their core competencies.
Yes, that is a very interesting question. My brother was remarking this morning that he thinks MSN really missed the boat by not buying an AP wire feed like Yahoo did. Of course he's a journalist, so he reads the wires like geeks read
Conspiracy theory (Score:1, Interesting)
Mod me off-topic, but I think it's ironic and therefore on-topic since this is a news website that has been bashing microsoft as if it were the bush administration.
Re:Put it together (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't quite see it this way. It seems to me that Microsoft already went through it's phase of owning a lot of non-related businesses. Just look at msnbc and slate for example. Now they're realizing that they actually have a little competition now and need to focus on their core business.
Just like many other site sthey have owned.... (Score:4, Interesting)
They got it backwards! (Score:2, Interesting)
Slate hears rumblings that Microsoft is looking to dump it. The editors say, "Well if we're on the chopping block anyway..."
Re:Hah, of course...Steel resolve. (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps, modded "correct" would be better?
Re:A better bottom line (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not likely a punishment (Score:3, Interesting)
Disney's own explanation is that big corporations need to stay apolitical. In a way, it's a more polite version of the explanation I gave. A big corporation has so many linkages to government that it probably doesn't want to be seen bashing the government.
The trouble with Slate (Score:4, Interesting)
Case in point: the current lead piece, "Lay Off the Bush Girls." It's a rundown of the resumes of the wastrel First Kids that concludes they're finally due some good press because being high-profile fuck-ups inevitably causes a surplus of bad press. You plow through it feeling that author Michael Crowley would really be much happier going harumph about the capital gains tax; like much of Slate's cultural material, it's indistinguishable from the political stuff. The piece is awkward, overlong, pedantic, and frankly a let-down after reading the teaser on the index page ("They drink. They party with P. Diddy"), which seemed to promise more than a dullish reminder of kids-will-be-kids. The most interesting thing about it is a self-admiring correction appended afterward: "The article originally claimed that both girls were wearing Calvin Klein gowns." Now, that's fact-checking.
There's nothing wrong with Slate if all you want from journalism is to be poured a nice big steaming mug of complacency. (Complacency never hurt business at Microsoft.) But there's the New York Times and a zillion other places for that. Slate could vanish tomorrow, and consensus thought would be just as loudly trumpeted by all the other pet publications of billionaires. I'd rather read Harper's Magazine, The Baffler, The Utne Reader, and Counterpunch, publications and sites that proceed from the idea that journalism is an act of independence.