Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Linux Magazines

Author:Zac
Posted:10/18/1999; 9:26:45 PM
Topic:Today's scriptingNews Outline
Msg #:12151 (In response to 12149)
Prev/Next:12150 / 12152

Neither C|Net or Salon have print versions of their magazines (at least they don't in Canada) so I can't see how they are germaine to the discussion...that said

Andover's IPO would have fell on its face if it wasn't for the stats that slashdot generated. And for its volume of traffic Slashdot, at last counting, made $18,000 US last year. You can't run a company on that little cash Dave. Its cool for a volunteer effort run out of someone's dorm room (which slasdot was for significant of its life) but you can't run a publishing company on 18 thousand. At least not a good one

C|net lost millions of dollars until it moved into the portal business and build up a critical mass of eyballs...and even then it almost lost all its investment in Snap before NBC bailed them out. C|Net does the same thing that ZD Net does. They gather a huge amount of content into a series of interlinked sites and build from that inter-linked traffic. Check out their current marketing schemes which basically play off that motif by presenting the entire c|net "universe" of sites as your one stop info source for all things technical (they have an ad in this week's Economist to give you an idea of the market they are trying to reach...and also as an indication of what the realities of the advertising industry are...).

Besides, whats the point of comparing Linux Magazine to C|Net? The difference between the economy of scale in these two businesses is so enormous to make any sort of comparision moot.

Finally what does market cap have to do with profitability? Amazon has a huge market cap and has yet to make a dime.

You know a lot about me.

Not really. I don't know all that much about you at all Dave. Whats this based on?

Where does you knowledge of economic models for publications come from?

Working in the publishing industry for over 10 years. That and reading alot.

An interesting article on this very topic was in last week's Economist

http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/19991009/index_wb2500.html

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