One problem that seems to have come up a few times is their inability to make serious revenues. This is a perennial issue for sites aimed at developers that don't sell products - coders + advertising don't mix.
I get the impression Joel's looking at expanding the SO model into other non-developer/non-geek niches where advertising could work, but I'm not convinced he's proven the revenue model enough to make it a tempting investment just yet. Anyone know any different?
Intuitively, it seems like they're on the right track with the "careers" integration. The biggest side effect of establishing a rigorously scored, well-categorized question/comment/answer database (besides helping people find answers to questions) is that they have a whole lot of data about the abilities of a bunch of people on many topics. If they can't sell the answers, they can probably sell the answer-ers.
I get the impression Joel's looking at expanding the SO model into other non-developer/non-geek niches where advertising could work, but I'm not convinced he's proven the revenue model enough to make it a tempting investment just yet. Anyone know any different?