slashdot.org

Slashdot was conceived in 1997 by Rob Malda, with the help of Jeff Bates and others. Slashdot was one of the original highly trafficked websites with the simple mission to provide 'News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters'.

Today Slashdot is owned by OSTG, but it is still run by the founder Rob Malda. We caught up with Rob to find out more.

Your name: Rob Malda

Position / title: Creator/Director/Editor of Slashdot.org

Company name: OSTG

Website: Slashdot.org

Your company / website vision statement / goal:

News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.

What you sell / services you offer (brief description of your company):

OSTG is a network of loosely related web sites.

Have you always wanted to run your own business? What were some of your previous jobs / companies?

Never thought I would run a business. Before this I bagged groceries, worked tech support, and designed websites for numerous clients.

Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself academically?

Majored in computer science. Built many web sites for people. Then I built one for me. Now a half a million people read that one.

How / when did the idea of your website / company come about?

It was just the logical extension to what I was doing at the time. I was at college.

Towards the end of The College Experience I began putting together all my skills and assembled a website I obnoxiously named Slashdot, and the rest is internet history!

I combined my love of Linux and Technology with my abilities as a webmaster to produce a site that exploded in popularity and to this day is one of the largest and most influential sites on the net.

Over the years Slashdot has had a variety of owners. After it started taking off, myself and several friends created a company we called Blockstackers to handle the business operations. Blockstackers tried to create a few other cool web sites including Everything2 and AnimeFu.

After running Slashdot independently for a couple years, we sold it to a Boston company called Andover.net. They were acquired by VA Linux Systems at the height of the dot com explosion.

The combined web properties of these companies were spun into a business unit known today as OSDN. My duties at OSDN now essentially involve running Slashdot. I concern myself with managing the development of the software that powers Slashdot, the open source application we call Slash. This software also powers several of OSDN's other sites including Linux.com. I also am responsible for developing the mass moderation tools that make Slashdot's large scale discussions possible.

Oh, and I also am the Editor 'n Chief, making sure that we have fresh content on the site a hundred times a week.

If you could give readers of this book one piece of advice what would it be?

Want to read more? Buy the book now:

buy directly from us for $26.95 saving $8 (Free shipping)