4 ms·

I wonder what their respective profits and revenues are. If they were publicly traded companies, wolframalpha would be nice to use. Also keep in mind that with

I wonder what their respective profits and revenues are. If they were publicly traded companies, wolframalpha would be nice to use. Also keep in mind that with SO, Spolsky and crew have proven out a highly successful platform that can be extended to almost any subject. SO makes money and the StackExchange platform makes money. ExpertExchange seems like a forum with just a paywall. So on the other hand, I give props to anyone who can turn a plain vanilla web forum with zero envelope-pushing technology into a profitable business.

dustingetz 17y ago
from my understanding, its a fake paywall!
- adelevie 17y ago
  What do you mean?
  - mjhnghfh 17y ago
    If you scroll down past the adverts you can read the answers at the bottom.
    - morisy 17y ago
      An "obfuscation" wall, if you will. The rule is, if you come from Google, the answer is hidden at the bottom of the page, behind a bunch of things that say you need to sign in. But if you don't come from Google, the answer is hidden unless you're a member, so you can't e-mail the URL with an answer around to pals, for example. It's a similar policy that the WSJ has for articles, built to keep the Google benefit while encouraging subscriptions.
      - mjhnghfh 17y ago
        They used to have a better paywall where Google's spider could see the results to index but if you went there - even from Google's cache you couldn't. I suspect Google cracked down on this so they had to unblock the results. The block is in place for a few scientific journals, they must have worked out some deal with google to protect their content.
morisy 17y ago
"SO makes money and the StackExchange platform makes money." If StackOverflow was really profitable, they probably wouldn't have been messing around with Google Ads and Amazon book affiliate links. Those things make 0 money, even Jeff's own admission (http://bit.ly/bbIUuh http://bit.ly/bbIUuh). Those sponsored categories might be turning some cash, but I still doubt they're making as much profit as E-E, evil as they are.
- adelevie 17y ago
  Fair point. I'm sure SO brings in at least some revenue. Think of that as a subsidy to develop and prove the desirability of the platform, which I'm sure is/will be very lucrative for Spolsky.

dustingetz 17y ago

from my understanding, its a fake paywall!

adelevie 17y ago
What do you mean?
- mjhnghfh 17y ago
  If you scroll down past the adverts you can read the answers at the bottom.
  - morisy 17y ago
    An "obfuscation" wall, if you will. The rule is, if you come from Google, the answer is hidden at the bottom of the page, behind a bunch of things that say you need to sign in. But if you don't come from Google, the answer is hidden unless you're a member, so you can't e-mail the URL with an answer around to pals, for example. It's a similar policy that the WSJ has for articles, built to keep the Google benefit while encouraging subscriptions.
    - mjhnghfh 17y ago
      They used to have a better paywall where Google's spider could see the results to index but if you went there - even from Google's cache you couldn't. I suspect Google cracked down on this so they had to unblock the results. The block is in place for a few scientific journals, they must have worked out some deal with google to protect their content.

morisy 17y ago

"SO makes money and the StackExchange platform makes money." If StackOverflow was really profitable, they probably wouldn't have been messing around with Google Ads and Amazon book affiliate links. Those things make 0 money, even Jeff's own admission (http://bit.ly/bbIUuh http://bit.ly/bbIUuh). Those sponsored categories might be turning some cash, but I still doubt they're making as much profit as E-E, evil as they are.

adelevie 17y ago
Fair point. I'm sure SO brings in at least some revenue. Think of that as a subsidy to develop and prove the desirability of the platform, which I'm sure is/will be very lucrative for Spolsky.