ZDNet
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Type of site
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Business Technology |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | CBS Interactive |
| Editor | Larry Dignan |
| Slogan(s) | Where technology means business |
| Website | www |
| Alexa rank |
 1,561 (August 2015[update]) |
| Registration | Optional |
| Users | 24 million monthly |
| Launched | April 1, 1991 |
ZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic and SmartPlanet. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET Networks.
ZDNet began as a subscription-based digital service called "ZiffNet" that offered computing information to users of CompuServe. It featured computer industry forums, events, features and searchable archives.
Initially, ZiffNet was intended to serve as a common place to find content from all Ziff-Davis print publications. As such, ZiffNet was an expansion on an earlier online service called PCMagNet for readers of PC Magazine. Launched in 1988, PCMagNet in turn was the evolution of Ziff Davis' first electronic publishing venture, a bulletin board, which launched in 1985.
On June 20, 1995, Ziff-Davis announced the consolidation of its online information services under a single name, "ZD Net." The service had grown its membership to 275,000 subscribers across six platforms: CompuServe, Prodigy, AT&T Interchange, the Microsoft Network, AppleLink and eWorld.
A few months prior to the name consolidation, Ziff-Davis expanded onto the World Wide Web under the name "ZD Net."Dan Farber, former editor-in-chief of PC Week and MacWeek, was named editor-in-chief of the property. By June, the site was recording web traffic of 2.5 million pageviews per week.
By its fifth-year anniversary in 1996, the collective "ZD Net" brand—now on the Web, America Online, Microsoft Network and Prodigy—counted 300,000 subscribers and was named the second-highest grossing advertising site on the Web. The site also expanded overseas: initially to France, Germany and the U.K.; later to China, Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Spain, Taiwan and India.
In 1997, the website—now the brand's flagship property—underwent another redesign that featured topical "channels" of content. It also marked the change in name from "ZD Net" to "ZDNet."
Two months prior, the company launched ZDNet News, or "ZDNN," the site's first dedicated section to original reportage. Among the journalists hired to staff the department were former Computer Shopper executive editor Charlie Cooper, San Jose Mercury News business editor Steve Hamm, PC Week Inside senior editor Bill Snyder, PC Week editor John Dodge, Computerworld editor Michael Fitzgerald and PC Week editorial director Jim Louderback.
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