03.29.09

Is ZDNet Collapsing?

Posted in Deception, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, SCO, SUN, UNIX at 6:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: What is it that happens in September?

“WINTEL PRESS” is a problem that we debated many times before. Simply put, Microsoft owns a lot of media companies or has a stake in them, so not even coverage about Microsoft/Novell can be trusted anymore.

Ziff Davis is one of the culprits and it declared bankruptcy quite a long time ago (almost 2 years), but ZDNet lived on and Microsoft had encouraged its employees to go there and spin in favour of the company. As long-time readers are aware, we are not fond of ZDNet, which tends to flood the news with spin, provocation, and flamebait. It also suppresses truth. They have no GNU/Linux bloggers really; those who are seem to be Microsoft partners or people who don’t even use GNU/Linux. They do, on the other hand, have people who favour Microsoft (or work for the company). On the UNIX side, they have spinner who sometimes favours SCO and trolls GNU/Linux, but no more. Pseudonym “Paul Murphy” is ending his affair there.

Starting Monday I’ll be taking a break on blogging – and plan to file commentaries only on Saturdays until September. Why? Well, did you look at that graph above…?

What happens in September? We are aware of some ZDNet bloggers who opened their own Web sites (Mary Jo Foley for example). Could there be an impending announcement from ZDNet, maybe even closure like that of the Seattle P-I, whose site traffic immediately dropped 20% when the paper edition ended?

The news — collectively — would be safer without ZDNet and the world a be better place, so to speak. The selection of writers there is selection of bias and based on our experience, Freedom was never a priority (or even an afterthought). █

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2 Comments

Needs Sunlight said,

March 29, 2009 at 7:01 am

ZDNet has been gone for a while.

We saw 2 years ago it’s managers made a call to stop covering tech and start living on handouts from M$. It’s easy money, but a one way street and when the handouts stop, ZDNet stops.
Roy Schestowitz said,

March 29, 2009 at 7:13 am

Their news coverage was replaced by blogs over a year ago, but I suspect they might not pay their bloggers in the future. Also, the bulk of whitepapers and occasional ‘guest’ articles shows where this money comes from. They collaborate closely with CNET now (Paul Allen and Microsoft alliance).

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