December 13, 2000

6:33 PM

Weblogs going corporate:Is it any surprise that something initially popularized on the wild and wooly grassroots nature of the Net be turned into a profit-machine?
posted by karmasalad (11 comments total)

"Profit-machine" doesn't exactly describe most attempts to commercialize the Net thus far. I ain't worried yet.
posted by argybarg at 6:58 PM on December 13, 2000

True, with all the dot-coms dying out these days, the Net hasn't exactly been a profit-maker.

But what's somewhat saddening is the loss of the altruistic Net; the days when the bottom line didn't matter, and it was all about information sharing.
posted by karmasalad at 7:54 PM on December 13, 2000

Does it matter though? I mean, really? Is it going to stop anyone here doing a weblog? Is it going to make any of mine any more obscure than they already are? I don't think so. It's just another technology. Like business people discovering spreadsheets.
posted by davidgentle at 8:32 PM on December 13, 2000

The question presumes that the net is a place with a limited amount of room, and that one part of it can crowd out another in some way. The amount of real estate here is infinite. Weblogs are a medium, a form of expression, nothing more or less; I think it can only be a good thing that the perception of weblogs as a medium is expanding - not that it had any limits in the first place. (Of course, as the creator of a weblog-building program, I suppose I've got a vested interest in people making as many forms of weblogs as possible.)
posted by Noah at 9:46 PM on December 13, 2000

"Loss of the altruistic Net"? Um, the rest of the net doesn't go anywhere every time a corporate entity launches a new internet venture.
posted by Potsy at 9:48 PM on December 13, 2000

I find it significant that the article uses "Slashdot.com" instead of "Slashdot.org." The relatively new acquisition of the .com version has always just seemed like sweeping up rather than a change in identity.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:25 AM on December 14, 2000

Karmasalad, the corporatism (word?) doesn't take away from the info-sharing, it just sort of attaches an obese tumor to the side of it.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:25 AM on December 14, 2000

Well, there are thousands of websites out there trying to make a profit. Should we all abandon the web as an "authentic" medium and stop making websites because our original ideals of sharing and communicating have been sold out to the highest corporate bidder?
posted by daveadams at 10:23 AM on December 14, 2000

To build software you need to be able to eat. To build websites you need to be able to eat. Web designers, creators, back-end people - all of them need to be able to eat. Money must come into the equation somewhere, whether it be from other work or from marketing your ideas. If blogger were to ask you to pay a small amount of money each month to run your weblog, WOULD YOU DO IT? How about was that they'd just go under?
posted by barbelith at 10:47 AM on December 14, 2000

Um, "slashdot.com"? When the hell did that happen? It's been slashdot.org since the dawn of time. Obviously the authors of this article only discovered it recently, or they'd know that's just an alias... which makes me think they know very little about that which they are describing.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 11:29 AM on December 14, 2000

barbelith: No, I wouldn't.

Why? Well, for one thing there are many other (as a couple of off-the-cuff examples) easy-to-use site updating software thingys, and more (closed link, for now) coming.

Same reason I don't pay for Opera; there's other stuff out there that suits me just fine.

Don't get me wrong, I think Blogger's a pretty nifty piece of software, and I wish the Pyra folks the best and much prosperity, but I'm sure they know exactly what would happen if they started charging for it's usage; Dave Winer would become an extremely happy person.

Note that if Pyra offered an "Advanced" pay version of Blogger (which they do) that had features I want and/or need (which they don't at this time) then I would be happy to pay for it.
posted by cCranium at 11:39 AM on December 14, 2000