08/28/2005
/. (Slashdot)
"News for Nerds, Stuff that matters" is the tag line for Slashdot, a technology news site with an extremely devoted international readership. It features new topics on an almost hourly basis which has spawned the community joke that many users obsessively visit the site every twenty minutes. Along with the editor posted topics the site features a heavily used comment system open to all users. The comment system engenders long and only sometimes relevant discussions of the posted topic. Nonetheless it is a popular site among the technologically inclined, though many view it as being somewhat biased in favor of open-source ideology and Linux in particular.
Slashdot is a community born of the web but some users often criticize it for its incompliance to web standards with regard to HTML and its dated design. The design has very little in the way of flash or pomp or even minimalistic beauty. It is ultimately quite utilitarian and has grown to become a mark of character that the users have grown fond of. In the material world the site is comparable to an instantaneous and always available meeting and discussion place only made possible by the internet. It is extremely successful at this task, so much so that there is a term "Slashdot Effect" and a verb "slashdotted" that refers to the effect of a website being linked to by Slashdot. Linked sites are effectively taken down by the quick and massive amounts of user traffic Slashdot drives to the site. The user community is very active through a polling system and the commenting system with most topics getting hundreds of comments. Beyond news topics the site also features reviews of books, hardware and software of interest to the community and interviews with big players in the technology field. As a community centered site Slashdot is successful in providing an online community and forum catering to its diverse users "nerdy" needs.
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade is a video game centered web comic by two guys, Tycho and Gabe, updated every two days. Each update brings a large color comic with some relevant commentary. The comics are often vulgar but hilarious to those who follow the video game industry. Penny Arcade has established itself among the gaming community by its humor and by being one of the older more established comics, being around since late 1998.
As a web comic Penny Arcade is part of a relatively new medium for comics which are traditionally found in newspapers and print publications. Their use of the web allows them to express themselves freely in their comics in terms which no general newspaper would ever consider syndicating. They are not bleeding edge in terms of using the capabilities of the web, the comics are digitally created images but are not animated or interactive. Penny Arcade also provides a community for its users with an online forum and real world events that the staff attend and organize and invite users to participate in. Events include comic conventions and original Penny Arcade events such as the Penny Arcade Expo and the Child's Play Charity. Penny Arcade is very successful as a site and community, so much so that running it is the day job of the two founders even though the comic is freely available.
"News for Nerds, Stuff that matters" is the tag line for Slashdot, a technology news site with an extremely devoted international readership. It features new topics on an almost hourly basis which has spawned the community joke that many users obsessively visit the site every twenty minutes. Along with the editor posted topics the site features a heavily used comment system open to all users. The comment system engenders long and only sometimes relevant discussions of the posted topic. Nonetheless it is a popular site among the technologically inclined, though many view it as being somewhat biased in favor of open-source ideology and Linux in particular.
Slashdot is a community born of the web but some users often criticize it for its incompliance to web standards with regard to HTML and its dated design. The design has very little in the way of flash or pomp or even minimalistic beauty. It is ultimately quite utilitarian and has grown to become a mark of character that the users have grown fond of. In the material world the site is comparable to an instantaneous and always available meeting and discussion place only made possible by the internet. It is extremely successful at this task, so much so that there is a term "Slashdot Effect" and a verb "slashdotted" that refers to the effect of a website being linked to by Slashdot. Linked sites are effectively taken down by the quick and massive amounts of user traffic Slashdot drives to the site. The user community is very active through a polling system and the commenting system with most topics getting hundreds of comments. Beyond news topics the site also features reviews of books, hardware and software of interest to the community and interviews with big players in the technology field. As a community centered site Slashdot is successful in providing an online community and forum catering to its diverse users "nerdy" needs.
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade is a video game centered web comic by two guys, Tycho and Gabe, updated every two days. Each update brings a large color comic with some relevant commentary. The comics are often vulgar but hilarious to those who follow the video game industry. Penny Arcade has established itself among the gaming community by its humor and by being one of the older more established comics, being around since late 1998.
As a web comic Penny Arcade is part of a relatively new medium for comics which are traditionally found in newspapers and print publications. Their use of the web allows them to express themselves freely in their comics in terms which no general newspaper would ever consider syndicating. They are not bleeding edge in terms of using the capabilities of the web, the comics are digitally created images but are not animated or interactive. Penny Arcade also provides a community for its users with an online forum and real world events that the staff attend and organize and invite users to participate in. Events include comic conventions and original Penny Arcade events such as the Penny Arcade Expo and the Child's Play Charity. Penny Arcade is very successful as a site and community, so much so that running it is the day job of the two founders even though the comic is freely available.