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"CNET, a titan of tech journalism..." LOL, give me a break. No respectable technology professional considers CNET the bastion of tech journalism. Even before I

"CNET, a titan of tech journalism..." LOL, give me a break. No respectable technology professional considers CNET the bastion of tech journalism. Even before I knew that their articles are written by AI I never would rely on CNET as any kind of authority on matters technical.

aardvarkr 4y ago
Titan in this context could mean a large entity with a wide reach. No one is mistaking it as being a cutting edge source of news but it’s hard to deny that the brand name has a significant amount of awareness and namr recognition that has been fostered over two decades. Their audience isn’t tech workers. It’s people like your mom and dad looking for tech tips.
college_physics 4y ago
real techies(tm) might have other sources but there is an amplification chamber from such "techy-like websites" to the "techy" parts of newspapers, to the "techy" trends projectors like Gartner and their ilk, to the "modern, cutting edge" politicians that influence policy agendas about techology objective and balanced information about what happens in tech was always a problem as those sites and entities "never bite the hand that feeds them" but it seems it gets harder by the day as we drown in an ocean of fakery
sct202 4y ago
So sad to see how they've fallen into being a content farm, like there's no purpose except to jam up search engines to bother even putting an article out on "Can You Buy a Gift Card With a Credit Card?"
- rchaud 4y ago
  How else would they earn their 5 cent commissions on the thousand affiliate links in every single story?
rchaud 4y ago
CNET is the only one still standing. That it looks indistinguishable from a Gizmodo or 9to5Mac style blogsite is a testament to how difficult it is to maintain an independent existence in the fickle world of digital media. Most 'pure' tech journalism does not last long as the market for it is too niche. BYTE magazine was dead before the Internet. The UK-based "Net" magazine (webdev-based) lasted until 2016. PC World is still kicking but runs on a skeleton crew and is online-only. CNET has changed formats many times, and the well-known editors who used to make it worthwhile moved on years ago. That it's trundling on with computer-generated articles is I guess a kind of ironic curtain call.
- 93po 4y ago
  > how difficult it is to maintain an independent existence Until 2020 it was owned by a $15 billion company (Paramount) and is now owned by a smaller media group also worth billions. I wouldn't really call that independent.
bastardoperator 4y ago
LOL, downloads.com was the biggest distributor of malware on the planet. I concur, CNET is an absolute joke.
jarbus 4y ago
I didn't realize people considered CNET as respectable. I always assumed it was some site designed to bombard you with ads after it tricked you into clicking on it. At least, the auto-playing videos and huge banners told me that.

aardvarkr 4y ago

Titan in this context could mean a large entity with a wide reach. No one is mistaking it as being a cutting edge source of news but it’s hard to deny that the brand name has a significant amount of awareness and namr recognition that has been fostered over two decades. Their audience isn’t tech workers. It’s people like your mom and dad looking for tech tips.

college_physics 4y ago

real techies(tm) might have other sources but there is an amplification chamber from such "techy-like websites" to the "techy" parts of newspapers, to the "techy" trends projectors like Gartner and their ilk, to the "modern, cutting edge" politicians that influence policy agendas about techology objective and balanced information about what happens in tech was always a problem as those sites and entities "never bite the hand that feeds them" but it seems it gets harder by the day as we drown in an ocean of fakery

sct202 4y ago

So sad to see how they've fallen into being a content farm, like there's no purpose except to jam up search engines to bother even putting an article out on "Can You Buy a Gift Card With a Credit Card?"

rchaud 4y ago
How else would they earn their 5 cent commissions on the thousand affiliate links in every single story?

rchaud 4y ago

CNET is the only one still standing. That it looks indistinguishable from a Gizmodo or 9to5Mac style blogsite is a testament to how difficult it is to maintain an independent existence in the fickle world of digital media. Most 'pure' tech journalism does not last long as the market for it is too niche. BYTE magazine was dead before the Internet. The UK-based "Net" magazine (webdev-based) lasted until 2016. PC World is still kicking but runs on a skeleton crew and is online-only. CNET has changed formats many times, and the well-known editors who used to make it worthwhile moved on years ago. That it's trundling on with computer-generated articles is I guess a kind of ironic curtain call.

93po 4y ago
> how difficult it is to maintain an independent existence Until 2020 it was owned by a $15 billion company (Paramount) and is now owned by a smaller media group also worth billions. I wouldn't really call that independent.

bastardoperator 4y ago

LOL, downloads.com was the biggest distributor of malware on the planet. I concur, CNET is an absolute joke.

jarbus 4y ago

I didn't realize people considered CNET as respectable. I always assumed it was some site designed to bombard you with ads after it tricked you into clicking on it. At least, the auto-playing videos and huge banners told me that.