Eric Griffith

A deal happened today (@ziffdavis @CNET) which culminated THREE DECADES of tech media backstory. Follow along with me in this Long Post if you like. (hi @LanceUlanoff @DonWilmott) I worked at ZD from 2003-2022. The Web as we know it appeared in 1994. Around that time, two titans of tech journalism arose: ZD Net, the online arm of 70-year-old magazine publisher Ziff-Davis, and CNET, one of the first Web-centric media brands. The two were each other's top rivals during the First Tech Boom. In 2000-2001, Ziff-Davis was going through a bunch of ownership changes because of Tech Boom financial engineering. CNET bought ZD Net and all of ZD's Web sites from ZD. Then ZD bought some of the URLs back and started sites like PCMag.com. But ZDNet.com stayed with CNET, confusing everyone for the next 20 years. For more than a decade, the two rivals lived on the 10th and 11th floors of a building in midtown Manhattan, sometimes trading staff or (see below) entire Web sites. We'd eyeball each other's review units as I rode up the elevator with @danackerman, @RogerWCheng and other CNET stalwarts of the Web 2.0 era. There was literally a hole in the floor that the two teams would pipe music through to amuse/annoy each other. In the early '00s CNET thrived under CBS ownership and ZD went legit, chapter-7 bankrupt because of a bad leveraged buyout. Around 2010 ZD got bought by a very smart man, @VivekRShah, who plays a long game. He's like the Buffett of tech media. Slowly, patiently, over the years, he's been collecting other tech media properties when their valuations get low enough - @IGN, @mashable, @lifehacker, etc. He even re-bought Computer Shopper, which ZD had sold to CNET and CNET then sold to someone who didn't know what to do with it. CNET, on the other hand, got cut loose by owners CBS in one of their periodic corporate seizures and picked up by Red Ventures, who mismanaged it. So now, after 30 years, Shah is bringing the two brands together. I hope the teams have a great time. I only wish it had happened ten years ago, when I would have gained a lot of great new coworkers.