Slashdot As The Original Blog

Slashdot is sort of apioneer in online community discussions forums and a very powerful one at that - its usage and relavence are clearly increasing over time. Jeff Bates thinks that the most interesting thing about Slashdot in terms of its effect on the traditional media is that it really is, and was, a harbinger of things to come. When the site was started, now we're talking almost six years ago at this point. The blog simply didn't exist. Slashdot is kind of the grandfather of blogs in many ways. It's different in that there isn't just one voice. There's kind of the voice of the site, but it's not just one person posting on there. At first, traditional media was unaware of the fact that it existed. And what has most interested them, in talking to people at lots of different media organizations is how involved the community of people are on the site. He adds that co-founder Rob Malda and he have always kind of viewed running Slashdot as, "We run the pub." We run the menu. We know what we're going to serve at the bar, but really the real meat of it is people coming in and talking about things, looking at things. And I think that that part of it is the part that's most unique. ... I think it's that community involvement that has been the biggest shift for traditional media to come to grips with. In his mind he sees a good slasdot post as being able to state things well, actually being able to write and form coherent sentences, which is a surprising task for many people, far more challenging than one would think it is. But also having good links, not just having one link to the story but if there's supporting information. This is the World Wide Web. Let's use it for that.