Slashdot Mirror
CNET Buys Ziff-Davis
Pointwood writes "CNET buys rival Ziff-Davis for $1.6 billion. The story is here." Will the day come when there are just three major online news sources -- AOL.com, News.com, and MSN.com -- and all the rest (including Slashdot) are just barking dogs chasing their wheels? Or will enough new, independent sources spring up and gain enough readers (and credibility) to keep the biggies from getting too much power?
Seriously now, at least one good thing comes out of this if ZD adopts c|Net's attitude, the freak'n article titles aren't so "sensational". I am personally sick of seeing an article's title only to read it and come away feeling the exact opposite.
From articles on Windows 2000 to Linux, it seems that the titles are for CIOs who don't bother to read the article. As such, they continue to use Microsoft and Microsoft partners' products.
Sm@rtReseller used to be a tolerable ZD publication, but ever since they switched their name to Sm@rtPartner, they might as well have switched their name to MicrosoftPartner!
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
CNet is far from a "2 year old startup.."
CNet is at least 5 years old (they recently had an anniversary, but I can't find their link to the story), and they are one of, if not the, the largest online tech sources around. They als have significant resources and revenue streams. Don't believe me? They own news.com, computers.com, shareware.com, downloads.com, and builder.com. You don't just happen on these domain names. And you know what? Each of those domains is among the largest in its respective field.
CNet used to run these ads. the left hand side had a huge bodybuilder and it said "ZDNet in print." The right side had a skinny weakling and said "ZDNet online." They were right. The CNet site is larger, ahs more original content, and I believe has an order of magnitude greater page hits/day (I'm not so sure about that one, but I heard it somewhere). They just do it better online than ZDNet.
Their TV shows are better than ZDNet's too. I've actually talked to people who have seen CNet's, but I have yet to meet one who has seen ZDTV. This is far from scientific, but it has been my experience.
Anyway, I've been reading CNet for major tech news and to keep in touch with the "newbie"-er side of computers since it all started, about 4-5 years ago. They've come a long way, and have grown a tremendous amount.
Haven't you ever noticed that half the stories end with "[some major company such as intel] is an investor in CNet"? Seems lots of large companies have poured some cash into this "startup." Well, this startup has been doing it well since about '95 and has lots and lots of revenue and resources.
Until relatively recently, a buyout would be the other way around. Ziff-Davis was a large-scale cash machine, with print, web, and TV media, an educational presence, a successful trade show division (they put on N+I, Comdex, and Seybold among others). Not all the ventures were profitable, but they were an old-fashioned media conglomerate, with IDG their only serious competitor.
.com manages to buy up what's left of a formerly significant brand name for relatively short money. I assume it's mainly a stock deal, of course. It's remarkable (and not necessarily in a good way) how things have been distorted.
Then Z-D started spinning out businesses and taking on outside dollars as the Ziff family all cashed out. Today, most of the above-mentioned businesses are separate, and a money-losing
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Where have you been? Jon Katz, interviews and numerous editorial pieces have appeared here over the years. That may not be the bulk of the stories, but still...
the contributors filter the news that they think are worthy
Uhm, no - that would be kuro5hin. With 200,000+ user accounts and hundreds of submissions in the bin at a time, I would hardly say that Joe reader has much influence. The editors filter the new items they think are worthy.
I don't agree with the original poster that /. will become a Microsoft lap-dog, but you can't discount the possibility of them being bought out by a bigger news source. It has already happened - twice - and the /. editors have no say on whom they get sold to any more.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Arguably, Slashdot is not the useful news source it once was. It is no longer News for Nerds, but a Weblog with a Repetitive Agenda. Every time Microsoft does *anything* it gets a Slashdot headline. I'm not sure what the intention is. To show how big and dumb Microsoft is? To make Linux zealots even more full infuriated? Maybe it's true after all that the best thing about Linux is that it's not from Microsoft...
The other Slashdot favorite is "Misinterpreted Licenses and Other Knee-Jerk Responses to Corporate Moves." Lets see, we've had a mininterpretation of the Borland C++ license. Then there was the recent report of Corel selling off it's graphics assets, which turned out to be clip art libraries. Must I continue?
Then there are the attempts to rile the masses by telling them their freedom of speech has been taken away, though we're almost always talking about dumb trivia: "Hustler will be placed on a rack behind the counter instead on the bottom shelf between Pokemon World and Ranger Rick.
All in all, it's kind of silly.
Amen to that my brother. Back in the day (okay.. a few years ago) I thought slashdot was cool because they seemed to be aimed towards the hard core techy crowd. But now it seems just the opposite, you see a lot of stories linked to that vast wasteland know as ZDnet. Crap... pure crap. I'm not saying that everything on ZDnet is crap.... but they have no credibility as far as I'm concerned because of the almighty Jesse Burst moron. How can you classify them as a "news site" anyways... mostly dribble and hype which will be contradicted next week by the same moronic "writers"... crap .. pure crap....
...so what the hell
So yeah.. (slashdot != independent) && (slashdot == entertaining)
Consolidation in the media sector has been churning like a freight train for quite some time now. Seriously, most mainstream media is owned by one of like three companies. Time-Warner, Sony, and whatever French company bought up Seagrams.
Think of them as dinosaurs, slow, lumbering, inefficient, and easy to dodge.
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Neither Ziff-Davis or C-Net has any credibility to speak of if you really look at what they say and there motives behind it. Either company will jump on whatever bandwagon is most convenient so the result of this merger really won't be a dilution of credible news on the internet.
I can't think of a mainstream computer rag that really has any credibility, online or in dead tree format. There are some decent specialist publications such as Dr. Jobb's Journal (or it was decent last time I checked, maybe its pulled a Byte and catered to the lowest common denominator).
Sites like slashdot are not in the same league as even Ziff-Davis or C-net however. Slashdot compiles stories from other companies, such as C-net or Ziff-Davis, and provides a forum for people to respond to.
If slashdot really wants to compete in that arena they would have to do a lot more mainstream journalism: more interviews, write-ups on new technology, product reviews etc. User comments would have to be secondary to the news.
There are some sites that do this fairly well within the narrow scope that they're interested in. It doesn't mean that slashdot needs to do this however, it really would no longer be slashdot. I've always viewed slashdot as a BBS more than a news source. There is occasionaly something to be learned but usually its from the commentary and not the 'news'.
Last I heard, they were trying to figure out how to get ads to display on the site - but only for people accessing the site from outside of the UK (and, therefore, not license fee payers).
Ofcourse, that's kinda tricky to do, and, as yet, they haven't found a solution (or have given up).
The BBC is getting in a lot of heat over here about them supplying news feeds for free to external sites (Yahoo, etc). ITN has taken them to the Office of Fair Trading. We'll see what happens...
FWIW, news.bbc.co.uk is the most popular non-banner ad supported site in the world, or so I read.
...j
The big three you mentioned up there are also incredibly american-biased news sources; something else that is of concern to those interested in independent news reporting.
Rock on the BBC Website and the BBC World Service!
Not perfect, but imho a slightly less skewed view of the world than most other reports.
In television, there are only a handful of news sources, and if you take the time to watch the evening broadcasts from the Big 3, they are spooky similar.
Here in Atlanta, we only have one newspaper. We've tried to get rid of it, but without success. I'll keep trying.
But I imagine that even if we had twelve papers, the front pages would be identical.
Digression: did anyone else notice that with OJ, JonBenet, and Monica Lewinski network news and Weekly World News were finally reporting the same story.
I don't think this is anything to worry about. Those who want to be fed approved information will stick with the major sites. Those who want more will go to specialty sites. The internet excels in this area, because it allows a website to operate at low or no cost. You couldn't put out a well-circulated newspaper or magazine as a hobby, but it's been proved repeatedly that any numb-nut can make a website.
As for me, I'm part of the herd, so I'll stick with /. for all of my news needs.
and all the rest (including Slashdot) are just barking dogs chasing their wheels? /. as the dog that stops, smells the fire hydrant, and then tries to port Linux to it.
I've always viewed
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
The comment in the article about the only real players being AOL, MSN and News.com managed to ignore the gool 'ol BBC, which is always my first choice for news.
Okay, I know that sounds like flame bait, but hear me out:
Of the above three names, the only one I visit ever, except when referred to an article by someone else, is News.com. The others are simply too tacky to be taken seriously (IMHO, of course!). (I would have mentioned CNN, but they fall into the same trap too)
The point is that if I'm looking for news, I'll go to a news site, not a portal, and if I go to a news site, I'll chose one that looks professional, has good quality writing, and which I trust. The BBC is the only source which really fulfills those criteria for me.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)