Goodbye, Slashdot. :-(

It's time to say goodbye. I've been reading you since I was a wee freshman in college - since '99 I suppose.

There aren't many web sites I can say I've been reading regularly for 7 years. But alas, in that time the web has evolved, and you have not.

Once upon a time, you were right up there on the bleeding edge. You were arguably one of the first blogs - focusing on a niche, challenging mainstream media.

But now, you're just another blog. A hodgepodge of information too broad to really nail what any individual reader might be looking for.

While other sites like Digg have taken advantage of collaborative filtering for story submission and promotion, and have incorporated all sorts of useful social software and search features like letting me subscribe to an rss feed for a topic or search, you have stagnated. And don't get me wrong, you still have one of the best moderation and meta-moderation systems out there. But how long has it been since it's evolved?

Your users love you so much that they go to great lengths of screen scraping to view your stories on topics they're interested in. Give them what they want, before it's too late!

While sites like Engadget have realized how important images and rich media are in their posts, yours are just boring text. My Bloglines subscription to your site hits the max of 200 unread posts, and all I'm left with is pages and pages of hodgepodges of boring unformatted text. ZZZzzz...

You may still have a fighting chance, dear Slashdot. You still have a loyal base of readers. Give them what they want. Heck, give them what they don't even know they want. And do it now, before they realize how uninterested they've become in you and wander away.. like me.

Best wishes. KIT.