Salon Asks for Help

Henry V .009 writes "Salon.com is appealing to the community for help. They haven't been able to pay the rent since December. To date, they've lost about $80 million dollars. A cause of rejoicing for some. But their many readers are understandably sorry to see them in such desperate straits. Personally I hope they stick around, I think they are one of the best sources of independant journalism on the web--even if I happen to agree with less than 10% of what they have to say. I also think that it would be a shame for them to close now that they've finally created an advertising scheme that has a snowball's chance in hell of working on the web. I can actually recall some of the adverts I've seen on Salon--what other web site can you say that about? Salon says that if they get another 50,000 subscriptions (they currently have 50,000) they'll break even for the year." In the old role-playing game "Paranoia", there was a nice quote about what would happen when the player characters (who had never been outside of their enclosed city complex) made an attempt to swim in water over their heads: "delaying drowning".

Who is salon anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

..and why should I care? I have the BBC !

You have to ask?

[cranos]

I can actually recall some of the adverts I've seen on Salon--what other web site can you say that about?

How about adds for MS Visual Studio on Slashdot? Especially on articles that say that MS bites the big one.

So which is dying??

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD is dying, I mean, Mandrake is dying, I mean Salon is dying, I mean MicroBSD is dying, I mean...

Damn Good

[SomeOtherGuy]

Wow. Between the starving gold rock stars making a measlly 40K a year -- and a web site that pisses through 80 Million and can't find a way to keep the lights on, my heart just goes out to all these "poor" folks.

Maybe if I have any "compassion" left I will send a nickel to the evening news and a dime to the local newspaper -- they must be losing money to.

Re:How does a website spend $80mln?

[Slackrat]

[Salon] took out a 10-year lease on pricey but prestigious offices in downtown San Francisco. It seemed not to matter then that to be at the epicentre of the Internet revolution meant paying some of the most expensive rents in North America.

With seven years left on the lease, Salon is struggling to get out of the deal. It already missed a $200,000 payment to its landlord in December. (The company is also trying to get out of a less pricey lease on office space it maintains in New York.)

Yeah... that'll get you. Plus, they still have to pay people to create all that content in the first place... and those people need bean-bag chairs and little scooters. It's a vicious cycle.

Re:Salon, to be honest, sucks

[NixterAg]

Kuro5hin has very nearly the same level of quality

Well no wonder they are going out of business.

Re:Support the independent press

[RestiffBard]

so in other words if I don't pony up for a Salon subscription the terrorists have already won?

Re:Salon killed themselves.

[Carbonite]

Yep, you shouldn't call conservatives stupid. It's incredibly rude to bring attention to their stupidity.

Hi,

I'm David Talbot, editor of Salon. You're just the type of free-thinking writer we want! How's $200K to start?

Memorabe ad banners?

[i_need_no_nick]

Sure, there's loads of sites with advers which stick in my mind. Take slasdot, for instance, it has loads of great adverts. Like the one for that company that sells stuff that geeks would think are cool, green laser pointers and whatnot; can't quite remember their name or URL, it's just on the tip of my tongue. And there's the one I'm looking at right now, advertising some sort of hand-held three-in one communications device. And so on. So there.

Re:Salon killed themselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is a fucking hypocrit.

Yes, but only a few people can spell.

Re:best wishes

[Anonymous Coward]

Like your post?

How does an online magazine blow $80 million?

[kfg]

I believe the answer is spelled P-O-R-S-C-H-E.

Rinse and repeat several times.

I could be wrong of course, but I tend not to think so.

KFG

Great point!

[TopShelf]

If they want money, let 'em put up some of the pricy stuff for auction - I'll take an Aeron chair off thier hands, for charity's sake!

Re:How does a website spend $80mln?

[Anonymous Coward]

80 MILLION (US) dollars is a HELL of a lot of money

They said that the war against evil-doers would be expensive.

Re:Advertising scheme?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice targetted advertising there. It's ten in the morning and I'm reading an arts and leisure article on the web, which I'm too cheap to pay for -- sure, I'm in the market for a Mercedes!

Re:You have to ask?

[scott1853]

I personally like the SBC/Yahoo DSL ad I just saw today.

"Internet That Logs Onto You".

They should be able to keep their domain.

[autopr0n]

Just look at enron.com [enron.com].

Re:How does a website spend $80mln?

[kuro5hin]

The fact that sites which avoided getting the priciest digs (I'm looking at you, Kuro5hin) have survived

I got a creepy little jolt of surprise reading that. It's like you were watching me. :-)

It's true, though the comparison is way too strained. I've been to Salon's offices, and even at the height of the 'net boom, they were silly exhorbitant. Even for San Francisco they were over the top. Not to mention all the cash they spent developing their own CMS (yeah, they really did). I would like to see Salon survive, but every time I try to scrape up a little sympathy, I think of those offices, and I just can't.

I wish them the best, and hope they get out of their lease and learn a little thrift. I know they're already practicing a lot of thrift when it comes to paying their writers (they mostly don't). But some lessons are just learned too late.

I'd subscribe but...

[ChangeOnInstall]

My full-size 4x4 pickup truck only gets 18mpg out if its 325 cubic-inch V8, and the gas cost at $2.00/gallon is killing me. According to Arianna Huffington, a Salon writer, I don't need this vehicle, nevermind the fact that I had the low range transfer case engaged but 24 hours ago climbing a muddy 30 degree incline. People simply don't need such things in the 21st century, such vehicles are purely status symbols. (Not to mention that they support terrorism....for every 10 rounds of 7.62mm ammo her 24mpg Volvo XC-90 buys the terrorists, my truck buys them 15!)

Well, given that Arianna believes that my truck is unnecessary, and I can certainly affirm that Salon is less necessary than my truck, I'm going to have to decline the invitation to subscribe during these tough times.

Re:Fuck Salon.

[aftk2]

Poor Salon, the poor, "New Media" company that was supposed to eat 'old media' and own the world in 5 years...Fuck That.

Heh, you bought them when they were trading at $15 a share, didn't you?

350$/month...

[idontneedanickname]

Here in upstate NY my last business had 3000 square feet. I payed $350 month *with* electric/heat/air.

Well, $350/month is a really greatprice , but you to pay for *air*? You know, someone's ripping you off, everyone else doesn't have to pay for air...

Re:They hired the best writers around.

[commodoresloat]

Camille Paglia's stuff. She stayed strong long after Maureen Dowd resorted to utter self-parody.

Yeah, Camille Paglia did it right by beginning with utter self-parody at the outset.

Re:You have to ask?

[BuhSnarf]

IN RUSSIA DSL LOGS ONTO YOU.

I think that's what he was getting at ;)

Re:Business Plan Math for the Startup

[darnok]

All of the parent comment seems totally reasonable, so here's my offer: if Salon files for Chapter 11 to get out of their ridiculous office rental costs, then I'm happy to front up with a $30 subscription.

Big deal, right? Well, I'm betting I'm not the only person out here that doesn't want to commit $30 towards lining the pockets of a very big creditor (if unclear on who I'm referring to, re-read the previous paragraph) WHEN Salon goes under. However, get that big monkey off your back, and we can talk.

Come on - this big $30 is a one-off deal and isn't going to last forever. Call now; our operators are waiting to take your call

Re:Schadenfreude, Bankruptcy, & the Prisoners

[cHiphead]

Take away Amazon's web site, and what do you have?

Walmart.