Welcome to the new ZDNet

Summary: We have combined the English-speaking ZDNets in the U.S., Singapore, Australia and United Kingdom on one platform.

You may have noticed that ZDNet looks a little different today. Article pages have been tweaked, the navigation looks a bit different and the topic pages are revamped. But the biggest changes have occurred under the hood at ZDNet.

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People, processes and platforms have changed.

In short, we've unified our English-speaking ZDNets in the U.S., Australia, U.K. and Asia. We're now on one platform, one content management system and one team. Technically, our site has moved to Amazon Web Services and operates in an adaptive framework that adjusts to your various screens from smartphone to tablet to PC. Internally, we have called this project global/local. The aim is relatively simple: Bring you 24/7 business technology coverage all around the world with both global and local insight.

Our roll call and masthead are also a bit beefier. In addition to the U.S. team and its merry band of contributors we have local expertise and beat reporters around the world. The short version of the editor roll call goes like this: Steve Ranger and Rupert Goodwins in the U.K.; Brian Haverty and Suzanne Tindal in Australia and Eileen Yu in Singapore and overseeing our Asia operations.

These editors lead teams focused on their locales and regions. To wit:

  • From our London hub, we're looking to expand into Eastern Europe (a growing IT outsourcing and startup hub) as well as in the Middle East and Africa. If you're a business IT expert in these regions ping Jo Best.
  • In Asia, we're expanding our China coverage, bolstering new tech hotspots such as Vietnam and recruiting folks in India. ZDNet India will be launching in short order once we work out the kinks on our new platform.
  • In Australia, we'll also be adding to the roster to cover that side of the world.

These locations in addition to our U.S. beachhead will bolster coverage with research, which is run out of Sydney, and a global CIO Jury to keep tabs on business trends.

Today marks the first phase of the new global ZDNet, but phase two is what has me most wound up. We're eyeing a structure that will revolve around the IT buying cycle so we'll become a news site as well as a productivity tool. We'll be ramping our long-form coverage as well as IT buying case studies. We're also planning to launch a subscription service in the near future. Those projects are notable for us because they will be our first greenfields as a global team.

Just like IT projects, greenfields are a lot more fun than those legacy and integration projects.

We're excited to bring you the new ZDNet and look forward to bringing new business tech markets, expertise and insight to you from around the world.

Thanks for reading and contributing to ZDNet. Feel free to leave feedback on the site as well as items you'd like us to pursue in the Talkbacks below.

Gallery: Take a quick tour of the new global site

Topic: Tech Industry

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Talkback

153 comments
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  • Totally love the adaptive layout

    Beautiful on all screen-sizes and devices. Thank you ZDnet.
    sidic
    • "We're also planning to launch a subscription service in the near future."

      Are you kidding? I wouldn't pay for it. I mean, I like zdnet and all but I don't like it THAT much.

      You might generate some revenue from subscriptions but the ad-driven mouse clicks will fall dramatically. I think many people will vote with their feet and move elsewhere and not all of them will be trolls.
      CaviarBlack
      • Agreed: No chance I would pay to subscribe.

        ZDNet is OK, marginal, not great. I wouldn't pay for it. There isn't much here that I'll take the time to read even for free.
        AnalogJoystick
      • wow

        subscription? Are you kidding me?

        Except for maybe two authors (mj and eb), the entire site is filled with link-baiting poorly written sensationalistic trash. Too many wannabe kid bloggers. Too many old men at the end of their career just stirring the pot for clicks. Its absurd. Regurgitated press releases abound.

        zdnet has a LONG way to go before anyone would pay for ....
        wendellgee2
        • To be clear

          The subscription content would be a new service completely with research reports, buying advice and things like that. It's not all that different than our sister site TechRepublic, which has subscription content with budget templates, implementation guides and the like. In other words, the site wouldn't go subscription, but there would be extensions that go that way.
          Larry Dignan
          • Is the omission of a "Mobile" menu heading on purpose?

            I find myself having to hunt for articles on Windows Phone, Android, Nokia, etc...
            Seems like Mobility if the fastest growing segment of Technology and your redesign made it harde to get to those type of articles. I contacted your support staff and they gave me the old "we will forward your comments to design" but this seems to me to be a sginficant ommission (right now on the menu I see an iPad AND an Apple menu heading, are you guys THAT much in love with Apple ?).
            jkohut
          • The editor-in-chief needs an editor

            Pretty sad when the chief editor doesn't know that it's "different from" and not "different than". This chief editor should become familiar with Theodore M. Bernstein's The Careful Writer...
            rpg2java
        • Agree ZDNet Has Some Really "Weak" Bloggers

          No names, but I agree that ZDNet has some really "weak" bloggers. Spare us from the weak ones please. Why let people who couldn't publish anything anywhere else blog here? Have some standards here, please, and apply some common sense.
          Znod
    • WRONG WAY

      I'm sorry, much of what you did is nice, but there is NO EXCUSE for what you did to iOS browsing. Some of us go at iPad so we could read things larger, and your new web format COMPLETELY REMOVES the ability to pinch and zoom in a page, in order to bring a paragraph into focus,

      NOT COOL!
      lelandhendrix@...
  • Much Better

    A lot snappier too.
    Alan Smithie
    • I can only see one ad-server now

      There used to be dozens of the nasty web bugs here which could make surfing at ZDNet ridiculously slow.
      Mikael_z
  • "we'll become a news site as well as a productivity tool"

    Looking good so far,
    I will like to think that the quote in the subject line, will mean we will see much better stories, with true data to back up the writers work.
    Not just personnel rants, but insightful stories truth, nothing wrong with a little passion, but when passion overrides good writing we the true follows of tech loose out.

    Anyhow again it’s looking like a great update to the site and good luck moving forward.
    bates40
    • Lets hope so. For the last 12 months it had become

      a place where many bloggers offered opinions, which is fine, while a few others decided to take the path that felt of "anti [place company name here] rants as I'm pushing a personal agenda 'opinion' ".

      What is sad is it looks as though they took away the ability to "hide" replies that where voted down, which I felt was good feature as it showed the offending parties that we disagree with that type behavior or post, sort of a way to let users keep themselves in line.
      I was subject to that evry now and then, but it did let me know when my 'humor' was offbase or something.

      And yes, some felt the need to abuse it to hide totally innocent and on topic replies, so I guess the actions of the few affect the experience of us all.

      Lets hope these changes are good, as it does have a nice look, time to test teh functionality!

      Lets hope we get to keep that
      William Farrel
      • Where's the edit feature?

        How do you fix a typo?
        William Farrel
        • Add this to the list

          I tried posting a response where I named three cell phone makers, formatted properly with commas between them as is correct for English, and the site wouldn't let me post, flagging it as possible spam, until I took them out, then it posted.

          They have a lot of work to do to make this site as functional as it was before.
          Challenger R/T
      • Wasn't 12 months

        [i]What is sad is it looks as though they took away the ability to "hide" replies that where voted down, which I felt was good feature as it showed the offending parties that we disagree with that type behavior or post, sort of a way to let users keep themselves in line.[/i]

        No Wilie, it was your way of [b]censoring[/b] people you don't like. But don't worry. I was guilty of it, too. lol...

        It looks more like it did back in February before they did the change. They do need to bring back the "Show All" button, though. 10 posts per page doesn't cut it.
        CaviarBlack
        • Not exactly true

          my fishy-egged friend. ;)

          I never felt the need to censor anyone for posting an honest review. I would vote down the off-topic anti-this company that company troll, but that was it.

          The twelve month reference was to the change in the writing style of some of the bloggers, where it really felt like they decided (or where instructed to) write in any fashion no matter how flame baiting it was, just go for the hits!

          Lets hope bringing in the rest of the world calms these people down, though to be honest, I thing the larger audience may embolden them even more. :(
          William Farrel
        • And I have a bridge to sell you, Wilie

          "I never felt the need to censor anyone for posting an honest review. I would vote down the off-topic anti-this company that company troll, but that was it."

          LOL... What color would you like?
          CaviarBlack
      • The "Show All" button and the "Edit" button

        Along with the font tags for bold and quoting.

        Otherwise, it's a step in the right direction.
        CaviarBlack
        • agree

          There needs to be a link to show all comments on a single page rather than needing to page through them. Most definitely a giant step *backwards* in the new layout.
          hrlngrv