The Land of 1,000 Voices

When Rob Malda founded Slashdot slashdot.org) all he wanted was a place on the Internet where he and his friends in Holland, Mich., could talk about stuff they liked: computers, the Linux programming language, science fiction--geek stuff. "There weren't any websites doing the subject matter I wanted," says Malda, who lives in Holland, and goes by the nom-de-nerd Commander Taco. "It all just kinda grew out of that very, very informally." By the time Slashdot was officially launched in 1997, the Net was hot, and geek culture was hip. Now, hyped only by word of mouth--no in-your face TV...

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