Slashdot Mirror
Internet.com Acquires Linuxcentral
mulan writes "The E-Business and Internet Technology Network has acquired linuxcentral.com. This comes shortly after the recent aquisition of LinuxToday.com in a move to further Linux support for the Internet community. The article appears in today's Business Wire or you can read the official press release here. "
Well, OK, maybe they're not as bad as some, but from what I've seen they're not good. Anybody remeber what BoardWatch was like back in the day? The magazine was full of informed people saying what they thought, the site was a little graphics heavy but balanced by informed and informative content, and they were just a hell of a resource.
Then they got bought by internet.com.
I won't forget the first print issue I picked up after the buyout (and the last I've bought, BTW). The editorial tone had changed from "I'm a guy like you, who has interest in this stuff" to "I've forgotten more about this than you'll ever know"; their politics did a complete 180, and though the magazine was thicker, the content was less.
The really painful thing was what happened to the site. Go look at their back issues there. Articles used to be one file per, with no more graphics than were necessary, and certainly no Javascript. After the buyout, the site became a poor parody of what it was. Javascript, a minimum of 3 ads per page (most animated), and the thing that really cheesed me off: Articles seem to get paginated at around 300 words. Which means that what used to be a simple matter of just finding and reading an article became Yet Another mousehunt for the links that'll take you to the next page, which has it's own 3 to 5 ads, etc.
They still seem to make all their print content available via the web as they did in the old days, for which I'd thank 'em if I still read their stuff. I understand the reasons internet.com pissed all over what BoardWatch was, I just don't think it was needed. I really, really hope they can restrain their tendancies with their new acquistions.