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Washington Post Buys Slate

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from the no-surprise-there dept

Tue, Dec 21st 2004 10:02am — Mike Masnick
This had been rumored as a "done deal" for a few months already, but it became official today that the Washington Post was buying Slate, the online magazine published for many years by Microsoft, but put up for sale earlier this year. Microsoft started Slate as an experiment with the idea that they would be able to successfully charge for content -- a plan that failed pretty rapidly. Meanwhile, the Washington Post says there will be few changes, but they wanted to do this to beef up their online content. Of course, the Post used to run an online site called Newsbytes, which they killed off for no good reason. You also have to wonder if the Post is going to shove Slate behind an annoying registration wall, like they did with much of their regular online content.
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9 Comments

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  • identicon
    dorpus, 21 Dec 2004 @ 10:24am

    Better writers maybe?

    Washington has a long tradition of satire, whereas the nerdy hillbillies in Seattle don't.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Mark, 21 Dec 2004 @ 2:15pm

      Re: Better writers maybe?

      That's right, dorpus -- those nerdy hillbilly Seattle editors couldn't possibly have off-site writers who submit by email. Any quality publication must move to where the writers are, like Native Americans following the buffalo herds.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Mike (profile), 21 Dec 2004 @ 2:37pm

        Re: Better writers maybe?

        The article actually points out that Slate's offices are in New York and Washington, with just a small office in Redmond to keep the ties with MS alive. That office will be closed, but the others will remain open. In other words, it already was an east coast pub -- not to mention the fact that writers can, and do, write from anywhere.

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          dorpus, 21 Dec 2004 @ 2:45pm

          Re: Better writers maybe?

          Right, so MS is divesting in something they're not good at, East Coast-style satire. When Slate becomes independent of MS, I look forward to more anti-computer news.

          [ link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            dorpus, 21 Dec 2004 @ 2:53pm

            Re: Better writers maybe?

            And maybe Slate was started as a way for Bill Gates to connect with his Eastern past, his unfinished Harvard education. I guess he gave up. :-)

            [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        dorpus, 21 Dec 2004 @ 2:41pm

        Re: Better writers maybe?

        It's true, good editing is affected by the location of the editors. Seattle is not home to great universities or extensive intellectual activities, outside of Boeing's design rooms or Microsoft's computer terminals. www.msn.com is clearly made by Seattle editors, with its anti-California, airheaded, espresso-sipping, sophist attitudes -- average joes who think they're cool. Many corporations, particularly in the IT industry, thought that location would not affect the quality of the workforce, made expensive moves to cheaper locations, and discovered unpleasant truths. The better employees were unwilling to move to hicksville, and hicksville workers did inferior work. Techdirt is written from the point of view of a Silicon Valley free-market ideologue with a Cornell education. Washington news sources tend to be politics-centered, Atlanticist, and big-picture-oriented. Every location has its spin on things.




        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2004 @ 12:17pm

    Annoying registration wall?

    There's one answer to this ... http://www.bugmenot.com

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike (profile), 21 Dec 2004 @ 12:26pm

      Re: Annoying registration wall?

      Unfortunately, the WP spends too much time weeding out BugMeNot addresses...

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        dorpus, 21 Dec 2004 @ 1:37pm

        Re: Annoying registration wall?

        How about just creating some disposable hotmail account, used only for registration purposes?

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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