Is Slashdot for sale – if not should it be?

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Many years ago I ran a subsidiary of VA Linux called OSDN. OSDN consisted of 11 websites and three businesses. These 3 business were the e-commerce business Thinkgeek, a subscription business called Animation Factory and a media business consisting of Slashdot, Sourceforge, Freshmeat, Newsforge, Themes, and Linux.com. All 3 businesses became profitable towards the end of 2003 and had an annual revenue in 2004 of approximately $24M.

Today, the business is known as Geeknet. Much of the old OSDN has gone, yet a few of the key assets remain. Animation Factory was sold several years ago to Mecklermedia. What remains today is the e-commerce business Thinkgeek and a scaled down media operation consisting of the sites: Slashdot, Sourceforge and freshmeat.

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Geeknet made many major changes in 2010, including:

1. Thinkgeek revenues grew 55% to $76M
2. Media revenues grew 11% to $18M
3. Kenneth Langone and the Geeknet board eliminated the entire media management team
4. Sold media sites: Ohloh and Geek.com
5. Moved it’s headquarters from California to Fairfax, VA, home of Thinkgeek

The growth of Thinkgeek is amazing and the team should be congratulated. The e-commerce business and the media business are two different businesses with widely different business models. With a 55% annual growth perhaps Geeknet should concentrate on this business and phase out and sell off the media business. I don’t know if this is Geeknet’s current strategy – if it is then keep an eye out for sales of Slashdot, freshmeat and Sourceforge. If it’s not, then perhaps it should be. AOL, Google, IDG and Ziff Davis would be a good fit for Geeknet’s media sites.

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Stories that Ignite, Challenge, and Transform Your World.



Welcome to my corner of the literary world. I’m Richard French, an author passionate about exploring the intersection of creativity, ethics, and personal growth through compelling storytelling and thought-provoking fiction and nonfiction.

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