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Ziff Davis Teeters
Longtime Reader writes: "It is a short article with links all over the place, but Linux and Main is running a story that says Ziff Davis might file for bankruptcy this week. The company plans to stay in business by expanding its focus on computer games, the story says." To get you started, reader idiotnot contributes this link to coverage in the NYT.
When ZD published PC Magazine, you could read Machrone and Dvoraks ramblings, read a round up of 50-60 PC's on the market, and there was a real tech section.
Computer Shopper, the 'Hard Edge' with Bill and Alice, PAGES UPON PAGES OF ADS....
The Internet has ruined magazines.
Hey, that gives me an idea: What pro-Windows lickspittle publications should we go after next?
Nobody will accept Ziff Davis doing games. At least nobody will be willing to accept that they are impartial. Considering how many of "our own" seem to be bought, Ziff Davis would give the impression that they are pre-bought and just waiting to close the deals.
Personally, though they seem an amazing resource, I only use their website when I encounter software thats not popularly reviewed such as obscure mp3 creation or audio ripping programs, and scanner programs, and web site creation software that I have never heard of. Best they stick to what they do but focus their attention at serving their customer base and not catering to the OEMs. Cultivate a relationship with groups like slashdot, anandtech, HardOCP, etc...
I hope Ziff Davis folds up completely and collapses.
... Nah, I'm dreaming too much.
Their magazines don't offer any straight journalism; they're just pure advertising, page-for-page. All their product reviews and reports read just like the ads that follow on the next page!
Maybe if they fold and these awful rags go away, the CIO-types of the world will actually get some literate, technical information instead of marketing BS!
Goodbye, ZD. And good riddance.
--NBVB
I hate to see people loose their jobs, but zdnet and pcmag have been useless for over 5 years now. PCMag in particular stop reporting back in 95 and only rehashed PR junk. It is time for new crop of magazines to take the place of all the dead weight in the tech reporting industry. Zd used to have solid in depth articles that were fairly objective. But soon after win95 came out, that all changed. Of course these are my own biased opinions, but I know other techies share similar perspectives.
Microsoft suddenly decided to cut their advertising budget by 70%.
Did they do Computer Shopper too? That was great way back when, before they shrunk it to normal size and all. You could find some damned good deals in there (and I think there were some good articles at times too, but that wasn't what I bought it for...).
I hope they come back to a technical crowd at least. There's too much crap about the business of the internet and computers - I want more technical information available to the masses.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
A company with $18 million in weekly advertising revenue is going bankrupt and expanding to the lucrative video game journalism market to stay afloat. Puh-leeeeeze. You heard it here first: bullshit.
Enjoy the smirk while you can!
I clearly remember ZD as one of the pioneers of misleading mail-order campaigns. They sent a renewal notice that was designed to look like an IRS notice. That was over 10 years ago, and I immediately cancelled the remainder of my PC Magazine subscription, and have avoided dealing with them ever since. As they took over other magazines that I subscribed to, I let those subscriptions lapse. That was partially because I disliked ZD's behavior, and partially because the computer magazines were gradually becoming a waste of time anyway.
I try to avoid dealing with companies that use unethical advertising. Latest example that comes to mind is VeriSign.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
It's not every day you surf from F****dCompany to SlashDot only to read the same story...
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
The only reason to ever purchase one of those ad filled rags was on the rare occasion that you were looking for a new PC. Great deals were abundant in the ads, but with slow PC sales and more people doing pre-purchase research online their time is long since passed.
Sorting through the NY Times Article here were some interesting tid-bits I picked up.
* Willis Stein & Partners paid $780 million for the company during the bull market.
* The company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization are projected to be $6.5 million in 2002
Translation: At the current rate of profit, it will take over a hundred years to make up the initial investment. Ouch.
* (Earnings) are expected to rise to $34.4 million in 2003 if the restructuring goes as planned.
* Savings will be gained from the closing of money-losing magazines and the layoff of 700 of the company's 1,150 employees the last year.
Translation: We plan on making close to six times as much money as we were before, primarily by firing over 70% of our workforce, cutting our costs drastically.
Now, here's what bothers me to some extent, and by no means do you have to agree with me on this issue. But according to those numbers, this company is profitable. Granted, its not profitable enough to justify the high price it was bought back in April of 2000, but its in the positive, and appears to be staying there for awhile. However, it seems that being profitable isn't good enough these days. Not only does a company have to be profitable, but it doesn't appear to have any room to do anything that is 'extra-profitable', that is, things that are not done solely for profit.
For example, the article makes mention that the company in question had discontinued its Yahoo! Internet Life Magazina, which had a distribution of over a million. So clearly, some people liked the product. However, it wasn't discontinued due to declining interest, but rather because the number of ad pages had decreased by 50% over the past 2 years. My translation: "If you aren't in a good demographic, you don't get anything published for you."
That's not to say that ZD is under any obligation to operate at a loss for the benefit of the masses. My issue is that ZD is not operating at a loss, but they still plan on putting 700 people out of work, and discontinuing publications that have readership. If there ever was a place where the mythical 'invisible hand' of the market were giving lots of people the finger to enrich the few, this were it. After all, the only people who have to gain from this restructuring are the share holders, while hundreds of workers go unemployed and millions of readers lose their reading material.
So much for the market automatically doing what's best for everyone, eh?
So if ZDNet is focusing on their gaming coverage, here's my own little wish list:
- For the love of god, hire some more women. How many women are on the gamespot.com staff? I'm looking at today's Gamespotting, and it's all XY chromosomed folks. No wonder games like DOA Vollyball are coming out - there isn't someone to stop that jiggle fest from going out of control. (Not that I don't like good looking girls running round, but if they made it fair and featured guys in speedos, I wouldn't feel like it's being marketed only to 14 year old masturbating teenagers who don't have a like).
- Stop it with the positive previews. I have yet to see a preview of a game that says "You know, we're working with an early build of a game - and it sucks. I mean, you thought Daikatana was bad - this game takes the cake." I don't even read reviews anymore - I just check out the synopsys of a game, download the demo, and that's it, because I know I can't rely on what game journalists say about the game before its released. I know it's hard, especially when a game in beta might be better in final version. But if you only have something nice to say (when it isn't deserved), don't say anything at all.
- Ziff Davis also owns gamers.com, Official US Playstation Magazine, etc, etc, etc. I almost hope they go under, mainly because a good chunk of the paper gaming magazines are owned by one company, and you can tell. They're all pretty much the same (much like there's no reason to go to zdnet.com if you've already scanned the headlines for cnet.net). Anyone remember the Gamefan magazine? Great rag, and I was hoping GameGo would take off, but with a near monopoly on gaming magazines, Ziff-Davis has made sure everything is covered in a macho bullshit shell.
- No booth babe pictures. Ever. Again. Look, maybe it's because I get laid on a regular basis, but I don't feel the need for computer gaming news to feature silicon injected flesh peddlers. I want to know about the game. Is it fun. Is it entertaining. I was annoyed after visiting E3 to see the high level of insults to women depicted there, and even more so after checking out a gaming magazine to see they focused the first section to pictures of the girls. Stop it. Please.
That's my little wish list, and I'm sure I'm forgetting other things.52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
SysAdmin, and Server-Workstation Expert
The latter is free, and really worth a read, but they lie about not selling your name to advertising agencies.
Well, they've increased their Linux coverage, and have a more positive towards it. So of course ZD would be in trouble! Support for Linux is an indicator of a desparate company in deep trouble going down the tubes.
Are you gay or something? Good grief.
Hey...at least they're being honest about their cash flow!!!
Amen. Game magazine / website "journalism" is below the level of the Weekly World News. I think I saw that Gamespot is starting to charge for downloads of demos now, so maybe they've caught on to this as well.
Back before I had broadband, I used to subscribe to PC Gamer. I'd pitch the rag and try the stuff that looked interesting on the CD.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Computer Shopper was great in its day. Waiting for it to come each month so you could see what new equipment was available and at the cheap prices, checking a bunch of the ads for the lowest price, then calling up ready to make an order only to be told you needed to wait a few days to get the new price. The article were just something to skim through before you tossed it for the new month.
However the internet killed it. What value does Computer Shopper have when you can go to places like pricewatcher and do a quick search and get the lowest price. In addition the internet provides quicker access to new equipment.
"Hey Jesse, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!"
I can only hope this guy gets the axe. Then again, I giggle at the thought of his Duke Nukem Forever review.
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
Ziff Davis publications include PC Magazine, eWeek, CIO Insight, Baseline, Extreme Tech, Official U.S. Playstation Magazine, Xbox Nation, Electronic Gaming Monthly, GameNow, Computer Gaming World, and Microsoft Watch.
So, they're going to start focusing more on gaming? Nearly 50% of their titles are game related now.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Why would anybody pay for a subscription to PC Mag or any of the other magazines when all of the content is free on their respective websites, including all of the archives? It's no wonder that they're losing money.
DOA Beach Volleyball? SWEET! :)
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
ZD, who helped Microsoft kill OS/2 with extreme prejudice will SURELY get some assistance in staying afloat from their former hive member, right? I mean friends help friends in trouble, right?
...if they came up with IT Babe of the month. Hot babe of the month...it's a proven magazine publishing strategy!
For the love of god, hire some more women. How many women are on the gamespot.com staff? I'm looking at today's Gamespotting [gamespot.com], and it's all XY chromosomed folks. No wonder games like DOA Vollyball [gamespot.com] are coming out - there isn't someone to stop that jiggle fest from going out of control. (Not that I don't like good looking girls running round, but if they made it fair and featured guys in speedos, I wouldn't feel like it's being marketed only to 14 year old masturbating teenagers who don't have a like).
No booth babe pictures. Ever. Again. Look, maybe it's because I get laid on a regular basis, but I don't feel the need for computer gaming news to feature silicon injected flesh peddlers.
This guy's chick is *so* watching him post over his shoulder...
AMIGA POWER!
Send the four cyclists of the apocolypse into ZD, that'll sort 'em out.
73% : The score of the DEVIL!
I personally think thier problem started when they trashed C|Net and started mirroring all thier content.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
You know this really surprises me. Kinda. I mean with their major magazines like PC Magazine having as large a subscription base you'd figure if they'd just stuck with that, Computer Shopper, maybe one gaming mag and their website that they wouldn't be in this position. Maybe it's a matter of expanding too much too fast? Call it the Amazon.com effect? :)
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
http://www.halfhill.com/bytefaq.html http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:cpM46rHPr70C: www.halfhill.com/bytefaq.html+byte+magazine+Pourne lle+demise&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
According to their website, Server-Workstation Expert has ceased publication.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
I can think of no other magazine company that has done more to entrench the Microsoft Monopoly than Ziff-Davis. Ziff has spent the last 10 years shilling for Microsoft, posting bad benchmarks and glowing reviews for truly horrible software.
Back in the Win3.1 days these morons compared Win3.1 to other operating systems that existed at the time...even though Win3.1 wasn't even truly an operating system, it STILL came out on top (sure it crashes, sure it will wreck your data...but it's still the best!). What crap.
Microsoft's monopoly was not achieved in a vacuum. They were aided and abetted the entire way by the so-called computer "industry" magazines, like the ones Ziff-Davis runs.
If Ziff-Davis is hurting, all I can say is, they've earned it in spades. They've done immesurable damage to the computer industry.
Ziff-Davis in my mind still stands out for being the ones that bought, then folded, Creative Computing, which was the original very first computer magazine.
To my mind, this is roughly equivalent to USA Today buying out, then folding, the New York Times.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Vapid, chauvenistic, and annoying.
Funny you would describe them that way, as that is exactly how you sounded.
Your first point, about hiring more women. Valid, but not. Take a look at ANY market survey and you will see that the vast majority of gamers are still male. Hell, have you actually read the gamespottings before? I believe a few were of the editors talking about how they married women who just don't play video games and the effect that has on their relationships.
The preview idea is equally short-sighted. They get the preview builds because they are going to be fair towards them. If they start ragging games for what they don't like, especially if the issues are to be addressed by the developers, then they are going to stop getting preview builds.
The competition angle is about the best you have. Unfortunately, the problem most likely is not due to any sort of monopoly, but rather to the fact that magazines are a tough sell. Tougher today then before, now that you can download all you want online. Hell, isn't this entire article about how they (Ziff) aren't even making money?
If you have any good constructive points to make, then by all means make them. But don't just start screaming you suck. And sure as hell don't resort to insulting comments about how the industry evidently doesn't get laid.
NOOOOOOOOOOO
:(
Server-Workstation Expert is suspended!!
Don't worry; sysadmin is published by CMP, not ZD. :-)
I don't know what will happen to their mags--probably they'll just be sold to another publisher--but yahoo internet life was a surprisingly well written magazine, although maybe it outlived its usefulness when people learned to find cool sites with search engines and weblogs. Still, my girlfriend in Ukraine (who received a gift subscription for the mag from me) found the mag incredible.
ZD has done some pretty amazing projects, such as the Ziff Davis University, an online learning portal, which (now that I just checked) looks like it has also been sold to another body.
Content-providers have a hard time in this online world. The trick to being a success at that game is to leech off other people's content. The people actually foolish enough to produce their own content will often find their enterprises biting the dust.
Robert Nagle
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
The real problem with ZD is that all they cover is MS stuff. I've quit reading PC magazine, because it isn't really about PCs, its about Windows and Office. Every month they cover the same shit : Window tips, Office tips. As it turns out most Windows and Office users don't read computer magazines.
calls this Pump and Dump. Same with stock that doesn't pay dividends.
By the way, how's MSFT lately? Nice price/dividend ratio.
For the love of god, hire some more women.
...why do people feel the need to have a gender balance (which is actaully an imbalance in many cases) in places where none exist?
Why? The gaming population is approx. 99.44% male. The fact is that that PC gaming (heck all gaming) is predominately an XY passtime
No booth babe pictures.
You can't be serious. Have you ever been to a Car or Boat show? The majority of the people that attend these events are guys! Guys hot women! Marketers want to draw attention to their male oriented products! Simple math: A (XY product) + B (what attacts guys) = C (booth babes).
They only time an industry, institution or organization needs to hear the call "You need to hire, recruit, attract more women" is when they do not accurately reflect their audience/populous. It don't see that as an issue here.
As it turns out, most Windows and Office users don't :)
read
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
.... ZDNet was sold to CNET two years or so ago. Ziff Davies is a relatively small outfit now with a few magazines.
To my mind, this is roughly equivalent to USA Today buying out, then folding, the New York Times.
And the problem with that would be - what?
I wrote about the problem with PC Mag a few weeks back. Nice to see I'm not the only one who feels that way...
this is getting old and so are you
blog
The end was obvious for PC Magazine when they started selling advertisements for hair plugs and sex-enhancing herbal supplements (check the marketplace section of their latest issue).
This from a magazine that pulled the plug on advertisements for pr0n sites a few years back. With the pictures they're using now, what's the difference.
Instead of all this computer crap maybe they'll put Brook Burke in now. I think I'd subscribe then!
The rags are as contentless as an unopened box of Kotexs.
:-), we can go suck broken wind.
These magazines are nothing but ads while revenue per page is plummeting.
I think that we should put the blame where it lies and exile a few Spammers to Antartica without tents or heaters.
And I notice that if me and thee have to declare bankruptcy (after having been "let go," down-sized or otherwise left in a bleeding heap of tortured flesh, laser spot-lit by dimming fibre, on the shoulder of the information super-highway (hadn't heard that old saw in a while I bet
But corporations are still taking their really big debt problems to Chapter 11 and sticking their suppliers and workers with the bill.
More candidates for Antartic exile.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I think the downfall of ZDNet was when they hired AnchorDesk David Coursey. He's the biggest techno-want-to-be I've ever had the displeasure of reading. They used to have people with some insight into the industry, like Dvorak. Oh well...
For the folks telling me "99% of all gamers are men, so we don't want girls in our club", according to the IDSA, 40% of all console game sales were to women.
Guys, take down the "Girls not allowed" signs off the treehouse and lower the rope ladder, for pete's sake.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Yeah, the computer magazines of the late 80's were pretty cool. Everything from how to interface your Timex Sinclair 1000 to a floppy disk to assembly language programming on your Vic20. Of course they had fluff pieces too, but I miss the good old days (of course I do like having lots of disk space, memory, CPU speed, etc too!)
Well, it's obvious to me that a strategic merger with Boeing might be a good call in the near future, so that ZD could make use of this new anti-gravity technology. : )
- Jones
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
I think that is terribly obvious.
Come on, Its gaming. There isn't real journalism to be had.
You will never see Woodward and Berstein doing a expose on gaming, and it isn't because ZD doesn't want to offend the advertisers, it's because its GAMING. IT IS ONLY GAMING. People don't live and die, go hungry, etc. because of gaming. There are no stories to be had.
And as far as bikini clad women, if more geek girls programmed games for girls, there would be more bikini (speedo, whatever) clad men out there.
As far as catering to 14 year old boys with no life, read the previous paragraph. The game companies cater to 14 year old boys with no life, because those are the ones that will go out and spend money on crappy bikini clad games. The games are crap, so no self respecting consumer is going to buy them, so they have to cater to the lowest thread. Good games don't rely on the smut, because they don't have to. But you don't go out and buy a great game every week, you go out and buy a crappy game every week, and then lose interest. And people with lives just won't waste that kind of money on games.
So, when you get 14 year old boys with no life to stop wanting to see bikini clad women, then you will see a stop in the baseless advertising.
It is a good thing ZD sold TechTV to Vulcan or there would be no more Sumi Das!!!!!
c7five
This is sad, and it has nothing to do with PC Magazine. It's sad because before many of Slashdot's readers were born, I was a preteen electronics geek and Popular Electronics -- published by Ziff-Davis since sometime in the fifties -- was my favorite magazine. In fact I almost got busted in junior high for reading it in class. Electronics class, no less.
I subscribed to PC Magazine for over 10 years and its cousin, PC/Computing, for almost as long. I finally dropped PC/C after they changed their name and slant to a business emphasis that didn't interest me. PC Magazine followed soon after when I came to the realization that I was paying good money for a stack of paper that contained information I could get for free on the 'net.
Someone you trust is one of us.
In the late 80s I actually read PC Magazine. I thought it was a half-decent way to keep abreast of things happening one particular platform -- "IBM PC Compatable" type machines. Of course, if you relied on it, you would end up with a very narrow and distorted view of Personal Computers.
In the early 90s, it seemed to get progressively worse. It kept its focus on only one hardware platform (which is almost, though not quite, justifiable today, but ten years ago, no way), but also focused almost exclusively on a single OS vendor -- you can guess who.
The last straw came in 1995 when they gave their "technical excellence" award for OSes, to Windows 95. Compared to some of the other things around at the time, such as OS/2 Warp, this was a complete joke. You can talk about market realities or whatever, but when it comes to pure technique, Windows 95 is to Warp, as a Model T is to a modern car.
Up to then, I knew I was getting distorted information from them, but just how distorted it was, I guess I just hadn't fully realized it. I took a look around at some other ZD publications then, just to make sure I wasn't jumping to any unjustified conclusions, and then safely concluded: ZD was just Microsoft's PR arm. They were not journalists.
I stopped reading anything published by Ziff-Davis. The words "Ziff-Davis" actually became a negative-value trademark, a badge for unusually poor quality. Worse than random noise. This is a company who can put goodwill on the liabilities side of their balance sheet.
They could even have reformed in the last few years, and I wouldn't know. They established a such horrible reputation and it would take a miracle to bring them back. I can't imagine that anyone reads them anymore.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Too true. I'm not complaining too much about there being little to no non-windows content, because hey if I wanted to read about Linux I'd head online or pick up a Linux mag. You hit the nail on the head though, they kept publishing the same old tips and articles every issue. Sorry, but having "THE 25 BEST KEYBOARDS" on the cover isn't going to make me buy the magazine. :)
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I have one of these. Every time the minute hand moves, the watch has to reboot for the change to take effect..
I stopped buying PC Rag after their ridiculous "comparison" of OS/2 and Win95. It was only two pages, with 80% covered by a single graphic, correctly stating the differences in how each OS protected its running apps. After showing clearly how OS/2 was superior in crash protection, they chose their winner: "Verdict: Windows95 by a mile." After the barrage of hate mail in the next issue's ed page, they responded that they chose Win95 because they knew it would win the bulk of the market share. Technical merit had nothing to do with it. They went with MS, against the facts they presented, because they knew MS would win anyway. That was the last straw for me. They deserve what they are getting now.
Gamefan was a spectacular magazine, especially when Chris Slate was behind the helm. Gotta love Bill Donahue too. And if my memory serves right, they did have a pretty decent preview section (usually with a wishlist for the developer) and a female RPG reviewer. I'd really like to see something similar come back to the stands.
"I strongly urge both the faint of heart and the faint of butt to leave the room at this time."
- Strong Bad
Ziff Davis is not ZDNet. CNET bought all of ZD's good stuff long ago (ZDNet, Gamespot, Computer Shopper, etc). The remnants that were not bought should have kicked the bucket before that buyout. But they've been lumbering on and on. Hasta la vista, baby.
Didn't CNet buy ZD in 2000?
1 25 3&mode=thread&tid=149
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/19/113
Does this mean CNet is going belly-up?
about ZD's PC magazines is Penn Gillette's column in PC/Computing. It only ran for two years, it was dropped with no fanfare whatever (not even a mention in the Letters column) and he proudly billed it as the only non-computer column to appear in a computer magazine -- but he had a lot to say about privacy issues, communities and the Net, illusion and reality, and the like. His explanation of how public-key cryptography works is still the best I've ever seen. To this day I'm not sure whether that's because or in spite of the fact that he framed it around an account of him sending love letters to Uma Thurman that he didn't want anyone else to read.
I may be in the minority but whatever it was they replaced him with -- I think it was some kind of lame top 10 list -- I didn't think it was nearly as good, useful or entertaining.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The timing might be off here, but did Computer Gaming World begin to lose some quality after ZD put their hand in it? Now I know all magazines, except riveting advertising crap like Oprah, have gotten smaller, but man! Remember how huge Computer Gaming World used to be, and that size was not made up of tons of screenshots but tons of text. The reviews were awesome, talking to real pilots about flight sims, Lord British about his perspectives on his older games...you name it.
There were years when I did not have a decent PC but I still bought the magazine because the reviews were just so well written and kept me up to date on technology, what was going on within the programming circles, and did not fill up all of the space with screenshots.
In all fairness, I have not picked up a copy of the magazine in some time, but I did glance over one recently and it looked like a console gaming magazine more than what I remember.
lemming see, if there's uncle billyum, & uncle sam/george. ah, & lest we forget, VAlairy/tahoe et AL, what else do we need.
most of US long for the daze when all the "news" was gooed anyway, & we were all billyunheirs, or nearly so, buy nitefall, every daze. the gooed old daze, lest we forget, are only a bullined eyecon away.
Cheer! Here's one woman gamer cheering your comments.
I quit EQ when they redesigned the boobs to be lethal weapons. I'm 33 years old, married, the mother of three kids, and buy WAY more games a year than your average 14 year old gamer. Why? Cause I have a job, and cash to buy them. I buy pretty much whatever catches my fancy. I don't have to save my paper route money, nor do I have to beg my parents for the money.
Attracting new customers should be the goal of every new game. Instead of all those companies catering to the same, tired, cliched gamer, perhaps they should start looking at the gamers everyone forgets.. women. Oh, damn, you know, I forgot, someone already did that... The Sims. And wouldn't you know, its the best selling PC game... EVER.
Catch a clue guys. We're here. We just don't talk to you all cause you are so damn RUDE. You treat us as if we aren't anything more than a pair of breasts and a pussy and that we're on this planet only to provide you with masturabatory material.
Disclaimer: I do not mean all of you. I mean some of you who also replied to this thread. Shouldn't take much brainpower to figure out to whom I am referring.
Back in the last century, I used to love reading Interactive Week when I was working for a big networking company that was making tons of money, and so was Z-D. It was full of news, gossip and ads that were useful to my niche. I read and quoted from the online edition in my work several times a week, and my boss agreed to pay for a print subscription for me. But there was no apparent way to order and pay for a print subscription online. They wouln't sell you a subscription, but they would send it free - if only you filled out a lengthy survey of how much budget you controlled in a long list of categories. If you left out one, when you hit "submit," it erased everything, you got an error message and had to start all over again. You really had to want that magazine pretty badly to go through all that. My boss told me to just check off $50,000 for every category. I eventually started getting my magazines, but by then the tech bubble had burst, the magazine was barely thick enough to swat a fly with, and I had moved on to another sector, where my magazines nonetheless continued to follow me. So I don't see how they were making money on subscriptions, although they were probably told advertisers that they had a lot of powerful executives with big budgets reading their mag.
You must be present to win.
So they would like to focus on Games. Gee like we don't have enough freaking Mag's reviewing games. Oh well let them, atleast they will know the true focus of a Microsoft Biased mag aimed towards a younger croud.
I think one of the root causes behind the decline, at least in terms of gaming magazines, is that they can't keep up with the instant-review, demos and walkthru's available on the internet.
If you are a hardcore gamer, you've usually purchased, hacked, and beaten the game weeks before the review appears in a magazine. With the ability to access demos, previews, reviews, and walkthru's with just a few clicks (and usually avoiding having to wade through pages and pages of ads), I just don't see how the print medium can keep up.
Dr. Wu
I can honestly say that in many roles at Ziff I was never influenced by any advertising in evaluating products, never encountered that at all. Really! I know there have been (especially in the early days) plenty of Microsoft lovers in the company, but it wasn't about advertising. It was about geeky guys wanting their PCs to do multimedia, cut and paste, hook up with peripherals more easily, etc., so people got excited and hopeful about Windows. The product review process ins't without flaws. Writers don't pay for products, so the cost/benefit analysis can be skewed. You have more tolerance for product faults when it's not your money, just something you're testing for a couple weeks and sending back. I think that's the main reason reviews are not more negative. PC mag does have a lab and genuinely runs benchmarks and comparisons. What's worse are consumer magazines that recommend tech products, often without testing them at all, just because they look cool. I think the typical ZD write up on a PC or disk drive or software program is a more thorough evaluation of the subject than the typical business profile you read in a business magazine. Which may not be saying a lot. As for Zd's bankruptcy, probably safe to say that as with worldcom, the product and the market environment were only part of the problem.
Does becoming a "tougher" sell also mean that magazines also have lower their quality? Compare computer magazines today with Byte of 15 to 20 years ago or with (UK) Personal Computer World of the same vintage. I would, naively, have thought that to become a tougher sell that magazines would have to increase their quality, or is it that they (perceive that they) have to "dumb down" the content to try to be more attractive to the less knowledgeable (potential) readers?
I read ZD's Stereo Review magazine for thirteen years before I ever heard of personal computers, so its impending bankruptcy seems especially poignant to me - even more so, the end of an era.
However, "poignant" != "too bad, I'll miss them," by any means. Cranks (such as Dvorak and Berst) posing as journalists really soured my opinion of their latter-day efforts.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Too bad ZD is having tough times.
Funny that CNet Community Manager blamed the lower use of ZDnet on Microsoft critics rather than the company violating the law.
I know that is pure bunk. But, that is what he claimed. Check out my web site for the email from the CNet guy.
I do not believe him for a second.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
Having the advantage of being non-US-based, I only know ZDs website. Any decent computer magazine (like the german c't magazine) would put ZDs "articles" in the advertising part only, if not directly in the bin.
Well, seeing how Jesse Berst crawled far into BillGs ass it is not at all surprising that the odeur drove the customers away.
Good Riddance! And (no) good look for Berst at the employment agency...
I remember back when Ziff-Davis bought up many fine computer magazines (e.g. Creative Computing, Color Computer Magazine) only to destroy them, leaving a scorched earth landscape with essentially nothing but Ziff-Davis magazines and no coverage of anything save PClones. Computer Shopper was bought and then all the columnists writing on non-Intel systems told to go away...so as far as I'm concerned, die, Ziff-Davis, home of Intel and MS shills. I'll dance on your grave.
I really miss Ask Mr. Protocol.
Hey, is it okay if I treat women as masturbatory material provided I let them treat me the same?
(He says, anonymously, with girlfriend still asleep so that she'll never know.. Ahaha.)
Most clichéd response EVER.
I would reply with the other cliché that "not all guys act like assholes, and they still don't get any" but I won't.
Well, when I worked at ZD a few years back it had just been bought by those Japanese dot.com geniuses - Softbank. They had bought it from someone else who had bought it from a Mr. Ziff and a Mr. Davis (might not be accurate on that but the story is similar enough..and this is all public info you can find).
Softbank slapped a lot of Softbank debt on ZD and then rolled out and IPO for ZD.NET from ZD. Then they decided magazines were not their core competency - despite providing practically all the content for ZD Net - and went on the market to sell ZD. And here we are today.
Basically, a Worldcom shuffle.
ZD magazines are good enough if you like that sort of thing, and on their own would probably be fine, but a lot of publishing is about financial games and the up front product does not necessarily represent the "business" of the company - definitely not in this case. The business of ZD is being a cog in some buyout firm's financial planning. I don't know how those things work, but it sure is not about making product.
Hell, I can't expect anyone being stupid enough to pay $750 million for ZD and EXPECTING to make money on it. They had to know what they were getting into, and they did it for a reason. Write-downs, etc.
microsoft ends up killing most of their friends. of course this time they didnt really compete with them.
The preview idea is equally short-sighted. They get the preview builds because they are going to be fair towards them. If they start ragging games for what they don't like, especially if the issues are to be addressed by the developers, then they are going to stop getting preview builds.
The problem with this system is that the writers aren't just looking at the previews and saying objectively, "this is what the game looks like, and how it's played." Instead, they make previews turn into a review of the game in and of itself. In that case, I think it's a perfectly valid argument that it's only expected (and dare I say, ethical) that these writers either write objective descriptions of pre-release games, or create fully-rounded reviews of these previews.
Nothing is perfect, but many times gaming (and other computer-oriented magazines) will create perfection by blatantly ignoring problems with the software. But, you've got to remember, these journalists are in the same group as the computer reviewers and editors that have been hyping Palladium for the last few months (I won't name any names *cough* Dvorak *cough*).
Want Slashdot headlines on your site? Try SlashHead
ZDNet reports Linux and Main is bankrupt. Then they both report that VA is bankrupt. And the cycle continues...
sulli
RTFJ.
Websites have been doing a much better job, due to the elimination of scheduling print/binding/shipping to distributors/getting to sellers.
One publication I miss is MicroTimes, which was published in the SF Bay area, but discontinued last year. A bit of a loss there.
It's a bit odd, looking at Computer Shopper, which was good for finding sellers of computer stuff, to see how thin it's become. I wonder how much longer they'll be in print. I can remember having stacks of those, one years worth about 2 feet thick, standing against the wall in my old office. Even in the Apple ][ clone days (Peach, Orange, etc.) It was thicker than it is now. The web has certainly taken a toll on some publications, if not all.
Another publication (not computer related) Bike, looks a bit lean, the last issue (for $3.99) I saw at the local book shop, at probably 40 pages. Even with the renewed interest in cycling brought on by Lance Armstrong/USPS Tour success doesn't seem to be helping them. Although CycleSport seems to be doing very well, same for VeloNews.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So why am I leaving? Because I've started a new company called IZ Inc. -- a next-generation digital publishing firm that creates email newsletters and Web communities around affinity topics. This type of targeted email is an explosive market. Jupiter Research expects revenues to soar to $7.3 billion by 2005. I want to be part of that boom.
I'm sure it's right on track to $7.5 billion!
sulli
RTFJ.
IIRC they sold ZDnet to Cnet. This is the Ziff print publishing empire.
so yes there is still a microsoft PR department!
I agree, not all guys are assholes. My hubby is surely not. I just got pissed reading all the responses about how "it's alright that magazines and game use woman's bodies to sell games" because.. uh.. women don't play games? Duh, no that's not it.. Uh.. women don't post here so it doesn't matter? duh, no that isn't it either.
/. Justifying a wrong action, doesn't make the action less wrong, it just makes the person doing it more wrong.
/., on any topic relating to women, obviously have issues with them. And they all seem to blame women in some fashion for .. whate
I'd just like it for once, that people didn't justify the objectification of women, by saying its' always been that way, or women don't play games (very untrue, a fact that has made Will Wright a very happy man), or women don't read
It's kinda hard to even explain at this point why I get so annoyed by this. Many (yes, not all) of the male gender that post on
I was in my favorite magazine store (Hub Cigar, Edmonton AB -- it rocks) purchasing the latest Linuz Magazine and thought 'hey, I wonder of PC Mag is still publishing'. There wasn't a ZD rag on the racks.
"Remember, any tool can be the right tool." -- Red Green
Yes, and their treatment of WinCE/PocketPC versus Palm has been similar. Back when WinCE handhelds were new, PC Mag touted their "familiar" Windows-like interface as this great advantage, despite being double the price and half the productivity power of a Palm. They simply bet with the projected winner instead of publishing an objective and truthful comparison. Feh!
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Is their an opposite to f*ckedcompany.com? Like "backfromthebrink.com" or "wefiledchapter11-andalligot-was-this-tshirt.com". I have seen how many companies crash and burn. I want some feel good, back from the dead success stories.
P.S. All of these mags go over the same thing every month...Ever wonder why they are dead?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I hope this means that windbag Jessie Burst is getting canned!
ZD owns some really good properties, and they're aren't as biased as some other publications, but I'm sure the problem is the high cost of print publishing and the move toward internet sales. Something like Price Watch must be killing Computer Shopper.
Still, I suspect people are going to want to read computer magazines for a while. Like most businesses right now, they might just need to merge their way out of this mess. Don't you just love the business cycle?
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
About the time that started programming I picked up the first 2 years of Byte at a library sale for $10. No investment I've made since has taught me as much about computers.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Unfortunately, many are in the "can't get a girlfriend" category -- and they see guys they consider jeks with girls, and blame the girls.
What they haven't figured out is that human interaction is - much like video games - an awful lot about 'presentation'. And those jerks have learned to play that particular 'game' better than they have.
If it makes them feel any happier, most women do indeed work out these guys are jerks - sometimes, it just takes a while. When you get a girlfriend, ask her about her ex's sometime...
And, of course, deciding someone is a jerk doesn't necessarily make it so. But I digress...
Now, if they just spent more of their time learning that instead of sitting bitterly blaming women for their problems....
I happened to subscribe to Yahoo! Internet Life magazine and I've received no refund, no notice, nada. I renewed in May for 2 years. I do hope they actually decide to tell the subscribers sometime.
How'dya like _them_ apples?
Yes, Computer SHopper was like 99% advertising, but you knew that when you bought it and it was definitely fun to read all the cool toys out. That was the first time I ever considered making my own computer. Heck, I think I learned how from reading that magazine...Perhaps thats why they killed it down. ;)
Imagine media's mags are much better than anything elses. The book itself is very well printed, stands up to water damage nicely and don't feel flimsy. They try to be a little funny at times but once you are past that, their articles are fairly well written. Even better, between several imagine publications that I current or at one time recevied, I generally agree with their reviews which is gives important to me given that I sell computers and accessories at a local Major computer store, yes the one that you can't turn on the tv for 10 minutes without seeing.
They also once published a Linux magazine but that went under to poor subscriptions. It was a decent magazine for novice users but also had articles for advanced users as well.
MacAddict really has to be one of the best Macintosh magazines (on par with MacWorld) altough I really miss the old publishing staff.
And MaximumPC is generally a good read, except for their main article which is usually good for wiping my...
In conclusion, I forgot the real point of this. I know imagine doesn't also have giant websites that everybody visits and never had a TV network (wasn't TechTV at one time ZDTV), but if you are going to publish magazine, make sure they are damn good.
You want to keep getting games? Huh? Someone has to write them, and the next generation of 14 years olds have to be convinced now, that booth babes are the end of round bonus when you work as a games programmer.
I would love to say that things are in fact getting worse as the years go on, however, I just don't know if I agree with that.
It is like the argument that games were better when we were younger. Or that music was better. People remember the highlights, but conveniently forget all of the crap. The same is probably true for the magazines, as well.
In addition, there was a lot less to cover back then. I would imagine that as a magazine tries to cover more and more topics, they almost without fail dilute all of the information.
As per the ads.... I'm not sure on that one. Ad content has definitely gone up, but so has cost of the business. Have subscription costs increased as much as the cost of business has? If not, how else are they supposed to offset the costs? I would think there are surely ways to do so, but why aren't they being used?
The problem is that breasts sell product, especially in the geek market.
Case in point: a few months ago Dragon had the gall to put a scantily clad male on their cover. The next month the fan mail apparently was replaced by hate mail from homophobes who claimed they couldn't even bring themselves to buy that issue because of the cover. In subsequent months they got plenty of mail in support of that cover, but the fact remains that the ltest issue is dutifully decorated by a pair of Dark Elf females dressed for a night out at the local S+M club.
My point is that they are selling to a particular market, and that market, right or wrong, as a deep-seated fascination with breasts. Gaming magazines focus on E3 booth babes for the same reason Sports Illustrated has a swimsuit issue; because it grabs the attention of their target audience and sell magazines.
Personally, I agree with you. I would love to see the maturity level of the PC gaming community raised a few notches, but the sad fact is that the industry will continue to put out what sells. For the record, I know a lot more women who are interested in Sports Illustrated than [random PC Gaming mag], and I only know one woman who reads Dragon.
I guess what it comes down to is you aren't their target market. You should let them know that by not buying their magazines.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Mod down posts that aren't PC. Let's all be as correct as possible.
They effectively took out a $780m loan. And they don't seem to be heading towards paying it off in a timely manner.
The missing filing is
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1055131/000 0950130-01-000889.txt
returns a "file not found". But that file was indexed in the daily index file for Feburary 14, 2001,
ftp://ftp.sec.gov/edgar/daily-index/2001/QTR1/comp any.20010214.idx
and thus should be present.
If you try to find this filing via the SEC's search engine, it doesn't show up there, either.
I don't like this. History has been erased. Unclear whether this a bug, or tampering.
I bet they just saw how successful LWN was with getting donations and ZD just wanted a part of that.
lets you make all the objects you want, provided you don't actually try to touch them :D
Never heard a woman described as masturbatory material, that's funny.
You fool! When contrasting one man exploiting another man with the reverse, things are TOTALLY different.
In a world where men can freely exploit men, how do the exploited men feel? And what would the feminists think?! We must overthrow the current man exploiting man regime and replace it with one within which men AND women exploit men AND women!
If the revolution falters, where will we stand? With men exploiting men, the world will go straight to hell.
Men! To arms!
For some reason, I received a "ZDNet AnchorDesk Daily Newsletter" via email today. I never subscribed to it, and after what I've read in the comments here, I know I certainly will not ever. Still, they appear to have become desperate enough to risk losing any neutral audience they might have had.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Look sweetheart, although most slashdotters still hoping for their first lay, and are too afraid to admit it; the things you mentioned are the primary reason men speak to women in the first place. Nor is it wrong to say so.
The fact is, its BIOLOGY.
Take those things away, and see how many men are going to be willing to risk 50+% of their incomes to be marry your ass.
All men willing to marry women without breasts or pussies; speak now, or forever hold your 'piece'(cause that's ALL you'll be doing.)
You have more tolerance for product faults when it's
AND
What's worse are consumer magazines that recommend tech products, often without testing them at all, just because they look cool.
That's the problem with most so-called 'reviews' you see in the technology press. They aren't real reviews at all. Using a gadget for a few hours over a couple of weeks doesn't tell you anything about the product's performance over an extended period of time. Neither does focusing on how pretty something looks.
Long-term testing is a critical part of our review philosophy at Geartest.com: Real gear. Real world. Real reviews. What does that mean? We don't write reviews about products in a pre-release stage or based on press releases. We use the products for an extended period in real conditions. Then we tell readers what we found, with updates as warranted. That results in a fair review. That means that good, bad or mediocre, products will get the reviews that they deserve.
We won't publish even a preliminary look at something until it's consistently been in use for at least 30 days.
As for ZD's staff skewing the 'cool' products, it's up to the reviewer to demonstrate some necessary professionalism and not skew a product evaluation based on its 'coolness' or just because they haven't paid for it. And it's up to the editor to enforce a policy that prevents reviewers from skewing their reviews.
When people evaluate and assess products for an enterprise, they often haven't paid for those products either but it seems that full and fair assessments are made without too much difficulty, even if those reviews are only for private consumption.
And that is the same idea that drives Geartest.com.
Often it seemed to me that the PC Magazine articles were really advertisements in disguise.
How many of these laid off ZD folks will end up in the PR department of Microsoft writing press releases and "product reviews" for the remaining ZD publications. A company that uses the tactics they employ for subscriptions should go out of business. Subscribe once and let your subscription lapse and you can expect "late notices" -- even tho you are not recieving the magazine anymore -- for the rest of your life. Their product "reviews" were the worse example of yellow journalism I have seen in several decades. Chacal
Let's just hope this David Coursey twit is one of the 700 being let go. Jesse Berst was enough of a windbag, but David took the cake with his unbridled devotion to his Billness.
This was my first reaction: think God it won't affect my regular dose of Das!
You know, this is every guys response to another guy that a pro-feminists statement. Its always...
" Dude you are so whipped " or some other bull-shitty macho statement. Forgod sakes, why has equality between sexes become so attributed to being "pussy-whipped". I SAY fuck off to all those bastards who think they are DIFFERENT THINKERS or consider themselves ALTENATIVE TO MAINSTREAM THOUGHT then at the same time they constantly turn women into sex object and rag other men who defend sexual equality. Again, i say GO FUCK YOURSELF.
In a word, Bravo!
:-), but depressing to see how pathetically the gaming industry still toadies to (and helps establish/reinforce) adolescent fantasies.
In a few more words...
Back in the 'good days' of gamesdomain.com, there was a column called, "The Pink Aisle," discussing women in computer games. It was very insightful (and occasionally inciteful
Personally, I don't have a lot of problems with women who want to take off their clothes for my entertainment, assuming they get paid and treated fairly for it. However, it doesn't belong in the computer gaming industry, it shouldn't be aimed at teenagers, and it certainly shouldn't be done as a projection of reality (which it currently is).
If I want to see scantily clad women, I'll pick up Playboy, etc. If I want to see game info, I'd like to be able to pick up a game magazine.
Game previews should be factual, rather than hypeful. Tell us what the game is going to be about and how it's going to work. Tell us about the tech behind it, if it's known. Don't waste breathless prose telling us about how it'll be the best game ever created!!! (again)
On a side note, does ZD have anything to do with the current incarnation of Gamesdomain? They certainly stink like a ZD site these days.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Speaking of ZD and gaming, I used to have this favorite gaming publication called "Gamefan". Two favorite gaming mags, actually; NextGen for in-depth coverage of the industry and Gamefan for the big picture. Life was good until ZD started doing something that would annoy most of us... Stopped paying the Gamefan Editors... They weren't fired or layed off. ZD just wasn't coming through with the money. About half the staff quit and formed Gamers Republic, which was short lived. The remaining staff was forced to shut down the site and the great mag eventially disappeared into oblivion. Given this and other incidents, you can see why I am oh so hopeful that ZD succeeds in their new gaming venture. Or not.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Does this mean you are changing your review style (http://www.gamerspress.com/dspreviews.php?id=391 for example) for something a bit less "vapid, chauvenistic, and annoying"? ;-)
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
Trying a little hard, aren't you? Who are you looking to convince?
And it was the first thing that came to mind when the words "Ziff-Davis" and "Gaming" were once again mentioned like they just were. They screwed the staff. Hard. Best all around coverage of Consoles and PC games. It was the end of an era.
I agree with you on the sugar coated reviews. Like you said, sometimes it's painfully obvious what company pays the bills or who the magazine can't afford to piss off. And rich game fans out there who would like to produce an independent mag without whoring it out to a 3rd party income producer? THAT would be a mag to remember. "What? You gotta be kidding me?! This is Sony's worst effort to date!? It deserves to be sacrified on an alter dedicated to the gods of Shit and Flaming Anal Sores respectively!" Maybe not that rough, but you get the idea.
Booth Babes? Lara Croft? Horny teenage guys = $$$? What!? I want telephone book thick Japanese gaming mags... That's all I want here... Please?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What games do you buy? I'd imagine the Sims since you mentioned it. What else? And while we're at it, what games would you like to see more of? Any other gamer-type females feel free to respond as well. Call it research.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Ywhich had a distribution of over a million. So clearly, some people liked the product.
They sent me a years worth of copies, free, without any instigation on my part. So I was probably one of the million at one point, even though the damn thing went straight from the mailbox to the recycle bin.
--
E_NOSIG
Maybe because guys like looking at chicks. The fewer clothes the better. It's a valuable marketing tool that actually works. And (some) guys like seeing T&A in their magazines and games. Why must everything be watered-down until it is palatable by everyone? Why can't you let us have our niches?
the vast majority of gamers are still male.
That just means that the market for gaming in the male population is saturated, while the female market isn't.
Still, I get eWeek, and when I do get time to read it, I've found that it's a whole lot less M$-Centric than the others. I wonder if it's profitable enough as one of 3 "closed circulation" mags to stay in the mix of the "new" ZD?
db
Cig:
ôô
Sorry, bub, but Creative Computing was not the original very first computer magazine. Datamation pre-dated it by at least 10 years. There were others, too, like Mini/Micro Systems.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I completely agree with you. I own both paying subscription to GS and IGN and the booth babes pics were just an embarrassment. It's bad nuff E3 even had them in the first place, but to pander the pictures on the front page for the rest of the horny male teens, well...but, wait, it's about the games right? Sure..it's about the games. And articles in PlayBoy are good too.
I've been playing games for 15 years now, and I have to say, the industry has become a lot more sexified (is that a word?). Before it was just a lot of side scrollers and a boy or a girl could be good at that finger-twitching. Now it's just "take your Sims and go to the corner, m'kay?" while the guys drool over polygonal boobs bouncing on the screen.
Oh but there're the excuses. Let's see,
"the industry is geared toward men"
"more men can afford to get games so they buy more"
"more men are programmers so they program what they want"
"women don't like games!"
"women don't understand games"
"women think it's a waste of time (maybe pouring $$ down an industry that consistently abases women is a waste)"
It's funny how some guys can recite them with religious fervor and believe in them like a zealot. That's the only way to believe the industry is right as it is now.
...and it doesn't matter, as one poster pointed out about how his mother and grandmother bought his games prior to him getting a job.
:^)
...I do enjoy the component and gadget reviews, coverage of industry trends and the articles on web topics. I'm not sure I agree with the "game" focus suggested in the article. I think ZD would have better success with their trade pubs if they could figure out a way to be a "one-stop-IT-reference" pub for small business. I think lots of small business owners with minimal IT needs would love to have a pub they could use to address 90% of their IT needs and questions. I think this is what PC Mag has tried for the past few years, I just don't think they've succeeded.
My son got a GameCube for his birthday, bought by his mother. She also buys him games for the PC as well. She buys more games for him than I buy for myself. Aren't statistics a funny thing
And just to clarify, I don't have a problem with female gamers...heck, I belong to an on-line game community that counts several amongst our number (not 40%) and they are good players (One great PvP player) and fun to play with. I'm not advocating that women should be excluded, but the original post I objected too suggested there was something wrong with ZD, or the way games are developed and marketed. The success or failure of a game determines that, and if adding more women to ZD's staff will help them succeed, then I suggest they do it.
What I object to is the call to add women for the sake of gender ratio alone.
In order to get back on-topic...
I would miss ZD's trade pubs. While I don't place much faith in their PC coverage...I mean who wants an assembly line beige box from (you name the PC company here)
The company you refer to will end up with a lower market valuation eventually if your assumption that using consultants hurts them in the long run is correct. Their products won't be as good, they'll ship later and bring in lower revenues and they'll eventually run low on cash and customers and market share, regardless of accounting tricks.
;-)
If the market notices that companies that use a lot of consultants end up underperforming in the long run, then a company's stock will be penalized at the first rumor of an influx of consultants, and the hand of the market will push companies into using full time employees instead.
On the other hand, if you are wrong about the economics of using consultants, the market will continue to reward such behavior. Perhaps you understand the economics of business success better than the market, but that's not how I'd bet my own money.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
The very first computer magazine I was told about was Byte. They bought that and folded it too, I think. All I know is that they converted my subscription to "Windows" magazine, which I promptly cancelled.
You really shouldn't pick on the geek market, unless Pepsi is only being marketed to geeks. I don't think it is.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
TechTV was formerly ZDTV, which to me implies it is still owned by Ziff Davis.
Does anybody know if this possible bankruptsy would have an impact on the TechTV channel?
and they'd like it in multi colored PIE charts with one or 2 word labels. It is easy to see how some very stupid corporate decisions get made. Boil the info down soo much that it becomes mere data not someone or somthing, but a total abstract.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Is it time for /. to start hawking porn?
because it isn't your niche, its mine too. That's what some don't seem to understand.
But hell yeah, Slate rocked. So did Bill, Lucky, Mike and the rest of the GP crew.
No way. Seems as though Dvorak writes every other column in all ZD pubs. Then again, maybe he's got a big entourage.
Enh David Ahl, founder, claimed it was the first microcomputer magazine. Take it up with him.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Creative Computing is the best mag. Back in the early 80's you could see 10 or so totally proprietary systems being reviewed, put through paces. Such a magical time for personal computing, before the shake out.
I've been buying old copies on eBay, and can just sit for hours and look through them.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
There are still lots of people who think that Ziff Davis owns, operates, or has something to do with ZDnet. This is not true. Ziff Davis has about as much to do with ZDnet as it does with Burger King. This wasn't always the case, but Ziff Davis sold ZDnet to Cnet a while ago.
you are sooooo whipped
The Zip Data comparison review that got my goat was published earlier. They whined about the resources that OS/2 needed, but failed to mention that NT was even needier. It praised NTs ability to run DOS and Windows 3.11 apps, but failed to mention that OS/2 did so with far better stability. The funny thing about PC Rags reviews is that the data and graphics often are accurate but the text and titles are not.
Sorry, you said "computer" magazine, not "microcomputer" magazine.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
It shouldn't be aimed at teenagers? Of course it should. That's what they want, and they'll find a way to get it regardless of what you think they should want.
I don't even like being whipped. I like to do the whipping myself. But you're an asshole. Get a life, yatest5. Obviously you don't have one ATM. 'Nuff said.
The current ZD has gotten a bad reputation for just masquerading paid advertisers PR as pseduo-journalism, making readership fall drastically.
n dex_episo des.html
More gaming magazines are one approach I guess, but ZD's current fare is pretty much the same content as would find almost everywhere else among its many competitors on the bookstore shelf.
There was a time though, when ZD had great innovative original work that tech people did come to read. These innovative times were typified by "Computer Stew": very cheap to make and distribute, original content that wouldn't find elsewhere, great content, wide readership, and outstanding reader loyalty.
If for some reason you missed out on Computer Stew, the episodes are archvied on a back corner insid the zdnet.com domain:
http://www.zdnet.com/computerstew/html/i
I recommend "Times Square" episode to start, then you can venture off into others.
ZDNet doesn't need to go off the air, as long as they get back a few brilliant writers whose innovate content makes people want to read.
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
Shareholders will not benefit nearly as much as the executives that run joint.
Biz as usual.
That's a shame.... I bought it off the shelf a few times (I'm not much of a magazine reader) and really enjoyed it. Lots of good info for knowledgeable computer people (it kind of reminded me of arstechnica). Computer magazines are usually full of fluff and newbie stuff.
I hope Mac Publishing, LLC is next.
ZDNet was just a high priced bulletin board for the likes of Microsoft, Intel, and the other big guns. No real input, only BS. The reader feedback sections were ran by ZDNet trolls catering to its' advertisers. Good riddance ZDNet, you won't be missed.
---- "You mean as we stepped up the current... it just grew?" --The Green Slime
You know, this is every guys response to another guy that a pro-feminists statement. Its always...
" Dude you are so whipped " or some other bull-shitty macho statement. Forgod sakes, why has equality between sexes become so attributed to being "pussy-whipped". I SAY fuck off to all those bastards who think they are DIFFERENT THINKERS or consider themselves ALTENATIVE TO MAINSTREAM THOUGHT then at the same time they constantly turn women into sex object and rag other men who defend sexual equality. Again, i say GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Equality between the sexes isn't saying 'men don't like hot young women'. Equality between the sexes is admitting they do, just as women like hot young men. So chill out, whipped-boy.
Didn't mean to imply that they financed NextGen, but realitively sure they did GameFan. If not, then who?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The funny thing about PC Rags reviews is that the data and graphics often are accurate but the text and titles are not.
Yeah, but at least you could get real facts if you looked for them. I knew they were way off base around 1990 -- and I was 12 at the time. I mean - I was leagally stupid/gullible back then, and I could see the lies as plain as day. But at least I could find something useful in the tables & graphs shown (and at least more factual).
I tried PC magazine about 3 years ago. I was expecting software comparisons, hardware reviews... things like I was used to seeing.
What I got was 'We compare this shareware html editor to Microsoft FrontPage'. There was nothing to do with PC's -- it was more like "Web Page magazine" Not at all what I was expecting. And even the comparisons were far from fair (a cheap $30 shareware utility to a $500 Microsoft utility?) The funny thing was how well the $30 shareware did against Microsoft's behemoths.
But the problem was still there: It wasn't so much that they weren't objective; I knew that a decade before. But they also gave up on being a technical magazine. They didn't even provide comparisons for anything useful. All 4 'major' office suites had a release (Corel WordPerfect, Lotus SmartSuite, Microsoft Office, and StarOffice) -- but Microsoft office was the only 'review'. Absolutely nothing -- not even a mention of any kind -- of the other office packages.
Nothing comparing the speeds of AMD vs. Intel. Nothing with speed or reliability of Drives, motherboards, video cards. Nothing but web hosting and web authoring tools & services.
So, I gave up on ZD, and pretty much tossed the whole tech magazine journalism altogether; at least in the broad sense. Linux Journal and DDJ are still good (although, at least in the case of LJ, it's targeted to Linux peoples, rather than a more general magazine) here's hoping they keep their technical content.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Wanna know what ziff davis comprises of ?
Go to http://www.com.com
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !