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>Dr. Dobb's, we had close to $3 million in revenue, almost all of it from advertising Is that actual quote from the site? Since now it just says: "Dr. Dobb's,

>Dr. Dobb's, we had close to $3 million in revenue, almost all of it from advertising Is that actual quote from the site? Since now it just says: "Dr. Dobb's, we had healthy profits and revenue, almost all of it from advertising" I'm just curious how they would manage to spend $3 MILLION in 4 years and how it wouldn't be profitable to run a website that was ONLY $1 million revenue. I've never even heard of the site until now, so I have no idea what they are doing, but it really seems odd that money was an issue if you are raking in millions.

B-Con 12y ago
It's mostly before my time, but they used to be a prominent tech journal, started in the late 70s and were fairly popular in the 90s. In my head I picture them as a small company, not just "some website". $1m in revenue doesn't make for a very large company. I'm curious how they morphed in size over time and what their expenses were.
- Morphling 12y ago
  As I said I have no idea what they did and maybe I'm just being naive, but $1 million per year seems like plenty to keep a website online.
  - dagw 12y ago
    $1 million per year is plenty to just keep a website online. It's not that much if you also want to pay people a decent wage to produce world class content to put on the site. I'm guessing the choices they faced was between a slow multi-year slide along: cut costs->lower quality content->less viewers->less money->cut costs... and simply seeing the writing on the wall and calling it quits before they hit rock bottom. I guess a third option would be to take The New Republic route and throw out everything the current audience loved about the magazine and try to create a new, entirely different product, with the same name but focusing a potentially more profitable market. But I respecting for not wanting to go that route either.
andrewbinstock 12y ago
Rather than repeat the same information, see my response to this question asked earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8759328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8759328
- Morphling 12y ago
  That still doesn't answer how to managed to spend $4 million a year

B-Con 12y ago

It's mostly before my time, but they used to be a prominent tech journal, started in the late 70s and were fairly popular in the 90s. In my head I picture them as a small company, not just "some website". $1m in revenue doesn't make for a very large company. I'm curious how they morphed in size over time and what their expenses were.

Morphling 12y ago
As I said I have no idea what they did and maybe I'm just being naive, but $1 million per year seems like plenty to keep a website online.
- dagw 12y ago
  $1 million per year is plenty to just keep a website online. It's not that much if you also want to pay people a decent wage to produce world class content to put on the site. I'm guessing the choices they faced was between a slow multi-year slide along: cut costs->lower quality content->less viewers->less money->cut costs... and simply seeing the writing on the wall and calling it quits before they hit rock bottom. I guess a third option would be to take The New Republic route and throw out everything the current audience loved about the magazine and try to create a new, entirely different product, with the same name but focusing a potentially more profitable market. But I respecting for not wanting to go that route either.

andrewbinstock 12y ago

Rather than repeat the same information, see my response to this question asked earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8759328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8759328

Morphling 12y ago
That still doesn't answer how to managed to spend $4 million a year