Zdnet - Who are these guys?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

I just found this lovely statement over at Zdnet

--And finally, the Millennium Bug will enter the Urban Legend Hall of Fame, right next to the Kentucky Fried Rat, the Michelangelo Virus, and Missing Kidneys in the Bathtub Full of Ice. It's the biggest baloney ball of all.--

Any idea where these guys are coming from? What agenda they might have? Yeah, we have 10's and 3's and 8's etc. in this forum, but on a scale of 1 to 10, that statement puts them at about minus 4.

Comparing it to the missing kidney thing!!

It just struck me as being about the stupidest statement I have read in a long long time.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), February 19, 1999

Answers

If you're in the mood for stupid statements, check out http://www.angelfire.com/oh/justanumber/

... and then of course there's always Chittum, whose address I don't have handy at the moment.

-- It's (all@pretty.amazing), February 19, 1999.


Ziff/Davis has always taken a rather lax approach to Y2K. However, this type of article may be a different animal.

There was some talk about that article and ZDNet's approach to Y2K in genereal here a coupla days ago. It APPEARS as though they are simply trying to generate clickthrough. Rick Cowles suggested that they print an obviously outrageous article like that, and provide a "talkback" area for people to comment. People who are outraged by this article will certainly "talkback" and check back often to see how other people are responding. This generates a lot of clickthrough, people seeing the banner ads that support the website. That makes the banner rates go up. I fell for it...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), February 19, 1999.


yep, in other words it appears that ZD Net has qualms about actively misleading people, as long as it generates advertising revenue...sad, their parent company used to be a reliable source for computer information.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 19, 1999.


er, I meant "ZD Net has NO qualms..."

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 19, 1999.

One of their sponsors is MCI. (See bottom of their page.) Conflict of interest?

-- mabel (mabel_louise@yahoo.com), February 19, 1999.


I've also noticed ZDnet's disparaging attitude towards Y2K issues. I've relied on PC Mag and other publication of their's for years as a good source.

My reaction to this disconnect on their part has been to let my subsciptions with them lapse. ZDnet will almost certainly be non-existent by this time next year. That doesn't seem to concern them though.

-- TM (nospam@all.zip), February 19, 1999.


ZDnet has toned down their Y2K reporting recently. They've went the de Jager/GartnerGroup route. (Keep the corporate and government accounts happy.)

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 19, 1999.

PC Mag's columnist (Jim whatsisname) put together some pretty good Y2K articles quite a few months ago. I sent them along to some DGI PC'ers and got good response. Has he toned down since January?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 19, 1999.

Hey, want to hear some funny/sad comments about Y2K? Tune into the ZDY2K Debate at ZDY2K debate

If you're strapped for time, just view the first ten minutes. The whole presentation stumbles all over itself getting started and then the first speaker mumbles some boilerplate text about how "everything's gonna be fine with the banks" and even says that the Fed will easily handle any "liquidity problems." LOL! Then a lawyercritter goes on to say that no company can say that they're OK because they're afraid of getting sued and that in essence every company is at the mercy of its supply chain.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 25, 1999.


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