Comments on: Ziff-Davis: The Legendary Magazine Publisher Publishes Magazines No More

By: World of Warcraft, The Magazine: What an Idea! | Technologizer

World of Warcraft, The Magazine: What an Idea! | Technologizer — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 01:03:43 +0000

[...] Electronic Gaming Monthly. If you missed that news, EGM will relaunch under new ownership after shuttering last January. While both magazines will ride on the strength of their respective brands, World of Warcraft: The [...]

By: Gone baby - The Trick Is To Keep Going

Gone baby - The Trick Is To Keep Going — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:01:23 +0000

[...] Ziff-Davis gone. :digital media, journalism, journalist, magazines, Media, new media, PC magazine, publishing [...]

By: Gone baby « The Trick … Is To Keep Going

Gone baby « The Trick … Is To Keep Going — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:10:34 +0000

[...] Ziff-Davis gone. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)A dying breedAnother one bites the pulp – PC Magazine stops publishing print editionPC Magazine Goes Completely to the Digital DarksidePC Magazine kills print version, focuses online. [...]

By: Harry McCracken

Harry McCracken — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:11:16 +0000

Thanks for the insider background, Fred (and hello!). It’s fascinating to wonder what would have happened if ZD had never been sold (or hadn’t been sold so many times, or had been sold to better buyers). It might well still be pulling out of print right now. But you gotta think things might have been quite different.

–Harry

By: Maddio

Maddio — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:33:48 +0000

I loved Yahoo Internet Life. I remembered visiting them with my anvils filled with new Sony VAIO PC gear … all under NDA, back in the day.

By: Fred Davis

Fred Davis — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:44:52 +0000

I was at ZD for 14 years… right up until the time Bill Ziff sold out to Teddy Forstmann (Geo. Bush Sr.’s campaign finance mgr.)… Bill was a genius, and the soul of the company… ZD died the day he sold it.

When I was a young laddy and first started working at ZD (in my 20’s) I knew that ZD was a patriarchy, and Bill Ziff was big daddy. In those kind of companies, departure of the patriarch usually foretells doom and disaster. I promised myself in those early days (when I was editor of A+ and MacUser) that if Bill went, I would be the next to go.

So, Teddy Forstmann flipped it to Softbank, who floated a billion-dollar junk bond on ZD. Softbank put that money into Yahoo and E-Trade mostly, and word is they harvested $10 billion from that $1 billion raised from crippling ZD with a billion dollars worth of debt.

After leaving ZD I helped start CNET, and then pirated a whole crew of the best ZD people over to CNET, thus boosting CNET talent pool, while hurting ZD’s chance to make a rapid transition to online.

Plus, a company that used to have no debt, lots of cash, and a billionaire running it, was now leaderless and a billion dollars in debt. In order to try and pay down the debt ZD wound up selling ZD Net to CNET for about a half a billion (CNET was awash in riches after a very successful IPO). This completed a the major migration of ZD people to CNET that I had started when CNET was first born.

By then ZD’s chances of being a serious online player were basically shot. Yeah, they did some cool gaming stuff in print and online, but by then it was already game over. Good old CNET already had them beat with GameSpot.

Alas poor ZD, I knew them well. May they rest in pieces.

But my memories of the company will always be the ones of the halcyon days with Bill Ziff at the helm. Thank you Bill, for the best education about media, publishing, and advertising that a young man could ever ask for.

By: Ed Oswald

Ed Oswald — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:25:10 +0000

Ziff Davis has been in trouble for a long time.. news like this isn’t surprising.

By: The day the 1up died at Dave’s Place / Metamusing

The day the 1up died at Dave’s Place / Metamusing — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:56:25 +0000

[...] Ziff-Davis: The Legendary Magazine Publisher Publishes Magazines No More [...]

By: Jared Newman

Jared Newman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:25:14 +0000

Interesting angle. In the game world we keep hearing about how GamePro and Game Informer are now the only two multi-platform print magazines left. But few must’ve realized that ZD is no longer publishing print mags at all.

Anyway, yeah, with game journalism tending to be more preview/review oriented, that kind of stuff is more easily gathered online. I’d love to see a print mag that offers the kind of in-depth essays and articles you read in The Escapist, but I’m not sure there’s a market for it.

By: Lance Jungmeyer

Lance Jungmeyer — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:12:42 +0000

Enthusiasts go online these days to read blogs, forums, etc. That’s all there is to it.

Well, and of course the advertising angle.