Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

and

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

company. Founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology- and health-oriented media websites,

online shopping Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of th ...

-related services,

internet connectivity Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...

services, gaming and entertainment brands, and cybersecurity and martech (marketing technology) tools. Previously, the company was predominantly a publisher of hobbyist magazines.

History

The company was founded by William B. Ziff Company publisher Bill Ziff Sr. with Bernard Davis. Upon Bill Ziff's death in 1953, William B. Ziff Jr., his son, returned from Germany to lead the company. In 1958, Bernard Davis sold Ziff Jr. his share of Ziff Davis to found Davis Publications, Inc.; Ziff Davis continued to use the Davis surname as Ziff-Davis. Throughout most of Ziff Davis' history, it was a publisher of hobbyist magazines, often ones devoted to expensive, advertiser-rich technical hobbies such as cars, photography, and electronics. Since 1980, Ziff Davis has primarily published computer-related magazines and related websites, establishing Ziff Davis as an Internet information company. In October 1994, Ziff Davis announced its sale to investment firm Forstmann Little & Company for $1.4 billion. A small Foster City-based television operation named "ZD-TV" was listed as a company asset. On July 21, 1999, the company began trading on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

under the stock ticker "ZDZ". Ziff Davis had several broadcasting properties, first during the mid-1970s, and later with its own technology network ZDTV, later renamed to

TechTV TechTV was an American cable television channel with a focus on technology. It was launched as ZDTV on May 11, 1998, by computer magazine publisher Ziff Davis, Ziff-Davis following two short-lived technology-based programs by the company. Init ...

, that was sold to Vulcan Ventures in 2001. Ziff Davis' magazine publishing and Internet operations offices are based in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. On January 6, 2009, the company sold 1UP.com to Hearst's UGO Entertainment and announced the January 2009 issue of the long-running ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

'' magazine would be its last. Former Time Inc. executive Vivek R. Shah, with financial backing from Boston

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

company Great Hill Partners, announced on June 4, 2010, the acquisition of Ziff Davis Inc. as the "first step in building a new digital media company that specializes in producing and distributing content for consumers making important buying decisions." On November 12, 2012, Ziff Davis Inc., was acquired by

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

services company

J2 Global J2 Global, Inc. was an American technology holding company based in Los Angeles, California. The company provided Internet services through two divisions: Business Cloud Services and Digital Media. History J2 Global was founded in December 199 ...

for $167 million cash. According to an October 2015 ''Fortune'' article, Ziff Davis comprised 30% of parent company J2 Global's $600 million annual revenue in 2014 and was increasing 15% to 20% each year. Analyst Gregory Burns of Sidoti & Company calculated that Ziff Davis is worth $1.9 billion. In April 2021, J2 Global announced that it would spin off its cloud services business as Consensus; the transaction was approved by its shareholders in September 2021, with J2 Global consisting primarily of its media business and VPN services, and subsequently taking on the Ziff Davis, Inc. name and "ZD"

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded Share (finance), shares of a particular stock or Security (finance), security on a particular stock exchange. Ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols ...

, essentially converting the Ziff Davis purchase into a

reverse merger A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compa ...

''Popular Aviation''

The William B. Ziff Company, founded in 1920, was a successful Chicago

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...

that secured advertising from national companies such as

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/con ...

for virtually all

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

weekly newspapers. In 1923, Ziff acquired E. C. Auld Company, a Chicago publishing house. Ziff's first venture in magazine publishing was ''Ziff's Magazine'', which featured short stories, one-act plays, humorous verse, and jokes. The title was changed to ''America's Humor'' in April 1926."William Bernard Ziff.", ''Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 5: 1951–1955''. American Council of Learned Societies, 1977. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. Bernard George Davis was the student editor of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

's humor magazine, the ''Pitt Panther'', and was active in the Association of College Comics of the East. During his senior year he attended the association's convention and met William B. Ziff. When Davis graduated in 1927 he joined Ziff as the editor of ''America's Humor''."Bernard George Davis." ''Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9: 1971–1975''. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. Ziff, who had been an aviator in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, created ''Popular Aviation'' in August 1927 that was published by Popular Aviation Publishing Company of Chicago, Illinois. Under editor Harley W. Mitchell it became the largest aviation magazine, with a circulation of 100,000 in 1929. "Monthly magazine until this month called ''Popular Aviation and Aeronautics''. With 100,000 circulation it is largest-selling of U. S. air publications." "Editor of Aeronautics is equally airwise Harley W. Mitchell, no relative of General Mitchell." The magazine's title became ''Aeronautics'' in June 1929 and the publishing company's name became Aeronautical Publications, Inc. The title was changed back to ''Popular Aviation'' in July 1930. The magazine became '' Flying'' in 1942 and is still published today by the Bonnier Corporation. The magazine celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2017. The company histories normally give the founding date as 1927. This is when B.G. Davis joined and ''Popular Aviation'' magazine started. However, it was not until 1936 that the company became the "Ziff-Davis Publishing Company". (''Popular Aviation'', April 1936, was the first issue by Ziff-Davis Publishing.) Davis was given a substantial minority equity interest in the company and was appointed a vice-president and director. He was later named president in 1946. Davis was a photography enthusiast and the editor of the '' Popular Photography'' magazine started in May 1937.

Fiction, hobbyist and bridal magazines

In early 1938, Ziff-Davis acquired the magazines ''

Radio News ''Radio News'' was an American monthly technology magazine published from 1919 to 1971. The magazine was started by Hugo Gernsback as a magazine for amateur radio enthusiasts, but it evolved to cover all the technical aspects to radio and electr ...

'' and ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...

''. These were started by

Hugo Gernsback Hugo Gernsback (; born Hugo Gernsbacher, August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967) was a Luxembourgish American editor and magazine publisher whose publications included the first science fiction magazine, ''Amazing Stories''. His contributions to ...

but sold as a result of the Experimenter Publishing bankruptcy in 1929. Both magazines had declined since the bankruptcy but the resources of Ziff-Davis rejuvenated them starting with the April 1938 issues. ''Radio News'' was published until 1972. The magazine ''

Popular Electronics ''Popular Electronics'' was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It so ...

'', derived from ''Radio News'', was begun in 1955 and published until 1985. ''Amazing Stories'' was a leading

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

magazine and Ziff Davis soon added a new companion, ''Fantastic Adventures'' (FA). In 1954 ''FA'' was merged into the newer magazine '' Fantastic'', founded in 1952 to great initial success. ZD published a number of other

pulp magazines Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. ...

and, later,

digest-sized Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine, but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately . It is also a and format, similar to the size of a DVD case. These sizes evolved from the printing ...

fiction magazines during the 1940s and 1950s, and continued to publish ''Amazing'' and ''Fantastic'' until 1965. Ziff-Davis published

comic books A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

during the early 1950s, operating by their own name and also the name Approved Comics. Eschewing superheroes, they published horror,

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

, sports, romance, and

Western comics Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier (usually anywhere west of the Mississippi River) and typically set during the late nineteenth century. The term is generally associated with an American comic bo ...

, though most titles did not last more than a few issues.

Superman Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...

co-creator

Jerry Siegel Jerome "Jerry" Siegel ( ; October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996) Roger Stern. ''Superman: Sunday Classics: 1939–1943'' DC Comics/ Kitchen Sink Press, Inc./ Sterling Publishing; 2006 was an American comic book writer. He was the co-creator of ...

was the art director of the comics line; other notable creators who worked for Ziff-Davis Comics included

John Buscema John Buscema ( ; born Giovanni Natale Buscema, ; December 11, 1927 – January 10, 2002)Social Se ...

, Sid Greene,

Bob Haney Robert Gilbert Haney, Jr. (March 15, 1926 – November 25, 2004) was an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics. He co-created the Teen Titans as well as characters such as Lance Bruner, Metamorpho, Eclipso, Cain, and ...

, Sam Kweskin, Rudy Lapick, Richard Lazarus, Mort Leav, Paul S. Newman,

George Roussos George Roussos (; August 20, 1915 – February 19, 2000), also known under the pseudonym George Bell, was an American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's Silver Age of comic books, Silver Age inkers, including on landmark early is ...

Mike Sekowsky Michael Sekowsky (; November 19, 1923 – March 30, 1989) was an American comics artist known as the penciler for DC Comics' '' Justice League of America'' during most of the 1960s, and as the regular writer and artist on ''Wonder Woman'' durin ...

, Ernie Schroeder, and Ogden Whitney. In 1953, the company mostly abandoned comics, selling its most popular titles—the romance comics ''Cinderella Love'' and ''Romantic Love'', the Western ''Kid Cowboy'', and the jungle adventure ''Wild Boy of the Congo''—to St. John Publications. Ziff-Davis continued to publish one title, '' G.I. Joe'', until 1957, a total of 51 issues. From 1958, under the direction of sole owner Bill Ziff Jr., a

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

with a

photographic memory Eidetic memory ( ), also known as photographic memory and total recall, is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''photogr ...

, Ziff-Davis became a successful publisher of enthusiast magazines, purchasing titles like ''

Car and Driver ''Car and Driver'' (''CD'' or ''C/D'') is an American automotive enthusiast magazine first published in 1955. In 2006 its total circulation was 1.23 million. It is owned by Hearst Magazines, who purchased it from its prior owner Hachette Fi ...

'', and tailoring content for enthusiasts as well as purchasing agents ("brand specifiers"); the company was able to attract advertising money that other, general-interest publications were losing. In 1958, Ziff-Davis began publishing a magazine, ''HiFi and Music Review'', for the growing hobby of

high fidelity High fidelity (hi-fi or, rarely, HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound. It is popular with audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) ...

equipment. Ultimately, the magazine evolved into ''

Stereo Review ''Sound & Vision'' was an American magazine, purchased by AVTech Media Ltd. (UK) in March 2018, covering home theater, audio, video and multimedia consumer products. Before 2000, it had been published for most of its history as ''Stereo Review' ...

''. ZD also became a prolific publisher of photography and boating magazines during this period, and such magazines as ''Modern Bride''; after the sale of ''Fantastic'' and ''Amazing'' in 1965, their editor Cele Goldsmith Lalli began working on the bridal magazines, becoming a notable and influential editor in that field before retirement. During the 1970s and 1980s, the company's success increased with this strategy, and a rapidly expanding interest in electronics and computing. With titles such as ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

'', ''

'', and '' Computer Shopper'', Ziff Davis became the leading technology magazine business. Ziff Davis sold the majority of its consumer magazines to CBS and its trade magazines to

News Corporation The original incarnation of News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp. and also variously known as News Corporation Limited) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media corporation founded and controlled by media mogul Ru ...

in 1984, keeping its computer magazines.

Television stations

In 1979, Ziff Davis expanded into broadcasting, after an acquisition of television stations originally owned by greeting card company Rust Craft. Ziff Davis's stations included

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

affiliates

WROC-TV WROC-TV (channel 8) is a television station in Rochester, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Humboldt Street in downtown Rochester, and its transmitter is located ...

Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...

and WRCB-TV in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

, CBS affiliates WEYI-TV in

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in Saginaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. It had a population of 44,202 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located along the Saginaw River, Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township, ...

, WRDW-TV in

Augusta, Georgia Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...

and WSTV-TV in

Steubenville, Ohio Steubenville ( ) is a city in Jefferson County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Located along the Ohio River west of Pittsburgh, it had a population of 18,161 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Weirton–Steubenville m ...

(which changed its name to WTOV-TV and its network affiliation to NBC after Ziff Davis assumed control of the station), and ABC affiliate WJKS-TV in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

(which would also switch to NBC soon after its acquisition was finalized). These stations would be sold to other owners by the mid-1980s—most of these would become owned by a new ownership group, "Television Station Partners", the exceptions being WRCB (which would be sold to Sarkes Tarzian) and WJKS (which was acquired by

Media General Media General, Inc. was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-D ...

Technology magazines and web properties

Ziff Davis first started technology-themed publications during 1954, with ''

'' and, more briefly, ''

Electronics World ''Electronics World'' (''Wireless World'', founded in 1913, and in October 1983 renamed ''Electronics & Wireless World'') is a technical magazine published by Datateam Business Media Ltd that covers electronics and RF engineering and is aimed at ...

''. This resulted more or less directly in its interest in home-computer magazines. From that time, Ziff Davis became a major publisher of computer and Internet-related publishing. It acquired ''

'' in 1982, and the

trade journal A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular trade or industry. The collective term for this a ...

'' MacWEEK'' in 1988. In 1991, the company initiated ZiffNet, a subscription service that offered computing information to users of

CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...

. This grew into the news website ZDNet, launched in late 1994. In 1995 it initiated the magazine ''

Yahoo! Internet Life ''Yahoo! Internet Life'' was a monthly magazine published by Ziff Davis, which licensed the name from Yahoo!, the well-known web portal and Web search engine, search engine website. It was created and launched by G. Barry Golson, the former exec ...

'', initially as ''ZD Internet Life''. The magazine was meant to accompany and complement the site

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

. Owner William Bernard Ziff Jr. had wanted to give the business to his sons—Daniel, Dirk and Robert—but they did not want the responsibility. In 1994, he announced the sale of the publishing group to Forstmann Little & Company for US$1.4 billion. It was then sold to

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

a year later. In 1998, Ziff Davis started the ZDTV channel, a technology-themed

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

. From 1999 through 2000, as part of an effort to restructure Ziff-Davis Inc,

would sell ZDTV to

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, and investor. He co-founded Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the ...

's Vulcan Inc. which would later be renamed to

, and spin off ZD and ZDNet. It also sold its magazine division to Willis Stein & Partners L.P. for $780 million. In July 2000, CNET Networks agreed to acquire Ziff-Davis Inc. for $1.6 billion in stock. The combined company was considered the eighth-largest internet company. Since 2004, Ziff Davis has annually hosted a

trade show A trade show, also known as trade fair, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, meet with industry partners and ...

in New York City known as DigitalLife. DigitalLife showcases the newest technology in consumer electronics, gaming and entertainment. Unlike E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) or the

Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

, DigitalLife is open to the public. In November 2006, Ziff Davis announced the cancellation of '' Official PlayStation Magazine''. They cited a lack of interest in the magazine (and its demo disk) due to digital distribution. ''OPM'' had begun in 1997.

Ziff Davis Media Inc.

In 2001, the new company Ziff Davis Media Inc., a partnership of Willis Stein & Partners and James Dunning (former Ziff Davis CEO, chairman, and president), made an agreement with CNET Networks Inc. and ZDNet to acquire the URLs of Ziff Davis. Ziff Davis Media Inc. gained thereby the online content licensing rights to 11 publications, including ''PC Magazine'', ''CIO Insight'', and ''

eWEEK ''eWeek'' (''Enterprise Newsweekly'', stylized as ''eWEEK''), formerly ''PCWeek'', is a technology and business magazine. Previously owned by Ziff Davis, then sold to QuinStreet. Nashville, Tennessee marketing company TechnologyAdvice acquired ...

'', webpage of industry insider Spencer Katt. In July 2007, Ziff Davis Media announced the sale of its enterprise (B2B or

business-to-business Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) refers to trade and commercial activity where a business sees other businesses as its customer base. This typically occurs when: * A business sources materials for its production process for ...

) division to Insight Venture Partners. The sale included all B2B publications, which include ''eWeek'', Baseline, and CIOinsight, and all related online properties. The enterprise division is now an independent company named Ziff Davis Enterprise Group (ZDE). On March 5, 2008, Ziff Davis Media Inc. announced it had filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wh ...

in order to restructure its debt and operations. and emerged, after a court supervised corporate restructuring in July 2009. In conjunction with this announcement they also stated that they are discontinuing their print copy of PC Magazine. According to BtoBonline, Ziff Davis Media made an agreement with an ad hoc group of noteholders, who will provide $24.5 million to fund the company's operations and help plan the restructuring.

Acquisition by Great Hill Partners

In June 2010, Boston private equity firm, Great Hill Partners, purchased Ziff Davis, with online media executive Vivek Shah. At the time, Ziff Davis properties consisted of PCMag.com, ExtremeTech, GearLog, GoodCleanTech, DLtv, AppScout, CrankyGeeks, Smart Device Central and TechSaver.com, and reached over 7 million users a month. Shah, with intentions of revitalizing the business, serial purchased logicbuy.com, geek.com, computershopper.com, toolbox.com, and Focus Research. Focus Research was a major provider of online research to enterprise buyers and high-quality leads to IT vendors, operating ITManagement.com, ITSecurity.com, VOIP-News.com and InsideCRM.com. It was later renamed to Ziff Davis B2B Focus and operated as a stand-alone unit within Ziff Davis.

Sale to J2 Global

On November 16, 2012, Great Hill sold the company to J2 Global, a provider of cloud services. The purchase price was $175 million, approximately 2.9 times the estimated 2013 revenue. J2 Global actually paid $167 million in an all-cash deal. On February 4, 2013, Ziff Davis acquired

IGN Entertainment ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

from

. Soon afterward, Ziff Davis announced the discontinuation of the 1UP.com, UGO.com, and GameSpy.com sites in order to " ocuson our two flagship brands, IGN and AskMen". In 2013, Ziff Davis acquired NetShelter, a display advertising network oriented towards consumer electronics and technology publishers, from ImPowered. Also in 2013, Ziff Davis acquired TechBargains.com, a deal aggregation site for consumer electronics. In 2014, Ziff Davis acquired eMedia Communications from

Reed Business Information RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...

. In December 2014, Ziff Davis acquired Ookla, owner of Speedtest.net. In 2015, Ziff Davis acquired Offers.com an online source of offers, deals, coupons, coupon codes, promos, free trials, and more. In October 2016, Ziff Davis entered into an agreement to acquire Everyday Health. The deal was completed in December of that year. In 2017, Ziff Davis acquired

Mashable Mashable is a Online newspaper, news website, digital media platform and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2004. Early iterations o ...

, an American entertainment, culture, tech, science and social good digital media platform, for $50 million. Following its acquisition of Mashable, Ziff Davis announced that it would implement longer, more in-depth content to boost the site's search traffic and restructure the platform to reduce costs. In 2018, Ziff Davis had 117 million readers, reaching 115 countries with 60 international editions. Most of Ziff Davis' international editions are partnerships with local publishers, all of whom use a domestic content management system. The common CMS lets oversea editions get content from Ziff Davis' owned-and-operated markets and re-purpose it for their own editions. To establish itself in foreign markets, Ziff Davis asks its local partner to hold events. Popular past events include IGN Convention Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. In November 2018, employees from Mashable, PCMag, AskMen, and Geek.com formed a union with the NewsGuild of New York. The Ziff Davis Creators Guild finalized its first contract in June 2021. In 2019, Ziff Davis acquired Spiceworks, a professional network for the information technology industry. In 2020, Ziff Davis acquired RetailMeNot for $420 million, an aggregator of coupon offers across multiple website properties.

Rebrand as Ziff Davis, Inc.

In April 2021, J2 Global announced plans to spin off its cloud fax business as a separate company known as Consensus. Following the split, J2 rebranded as Ziff Davis, Inc. In 2023, Ziff Davis acquired

Lifehacker ''Lifehacker'' is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on 31 January 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is owned by Ziff Davis. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including Microsoft Windows, M ...

for an undisclosed sum from

G/O Media G/O Media Inc. is an American media holding company that owns and operates the digital media outlets '' Kotaku'' and '' The Root''. It was formed in 2019 after the private equity firm Great Hill Partners purchased two digital portfolios from ...

. On February 6, 2024, employees at IGN publicly announced their intention to unionize as the IGN Creators Guild with NewsGuild-CWA. Ziff Davis voluntarily recognized the union later that month. On May 21, 2024, it was reported that

had acquired the

Gamer Network Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

from

ReedPop RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...

. GamesIndustry.biz,

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

Rock Paper Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC game, PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by ''Eurogamer'', in May 2017. History ''Rock Paper S ...

VG247 Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

and Dicebreaker were included in the deal. It also gained shares in

OutsideXbox OutsideXbox, or Oxbox, is a British YouTube channel and group consisting of Jane Douglas, Andy Farrant and Mike Channell. The group also has a sister channel, Outside Xtra, or Oxtra, consisting of Ellen Rose. The group is best known for video ga ...

, Digital Foundry, and Hookshot (owners of NintendoLife, PushSquare, PureXbox, and Time Extension). In August 2024, Ziff Davis acquired CNET from

Red Ventures Red Ventures is an American media company that owns and operates brands such as Lonely Planet, The Points Guy, Healthline, and Bankrate. Red Ventures focuses on news, advice, and review websites. The company's corporate headquarters is locate ...

for $100 million; it also regained ownership of ZDNet for the first time since its acquisition by CNET Networks in 2000. On February 20, 2025,

404 Media ''404 Media'' is an online publication that focuses on technology and internet reporting. It covers topics such as hacking, sex work, niche online communities, and the right-to-repair movement. It is worker-owned by its reporters. History ' ...

reported that Ziff Davis had quietly removed

Diversity, equity, and inclusion In the United States, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject ...

language and information from its website over several weeks prior to the publishing of the report. In March 2025, Ziff Davis acquired The Skimm.

Properties

Current

AskMen AskMen is a free online men's web portal, with international versions in Australia, Canada, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is owned by Ziff Davis and operates through the IGN Entertainment unit. History AskMen wa ...

* BlackFriday.com * BestBlackFriday.com * CNET * Deals of America * Dicebreaker * Downdetector * Ekahau * emedia * eVoice *

* Everyday Health Group (includes Everyday Health, Diabetes Daily, Migraine Again, DailyOM, What to Expect, BabyCenter, and Emma's Diary) * ExtremeTech * GamesIndustry.biz * HowLongToBeat.com *HR Technologist *

Humble Bundle Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and ...

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

* IPVanish *

* Line2 * Livedrive * Lose It! *

* MarTech Advisor * Moz.com * Offers.com * ''

PCMag ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Magaz ...

'' * RetailMeNot * Rock Paper Shotgun * Salesify *

SMTP The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typi ...

* Speedtest.net by Ookla * MapGenie * Spiceworks * StrongVPN * SugarSync * TDS Gift Cards * Techbargains.com * The Skimm * Toolbox.com * VG247 * VIPRE * ZDNet * Ziff Davis Tech * Ziff Davis B2B

Sold

* DeveloperShed.com * eSeminars (sold to

QuinStreet QuinStreet, Inc. is a publicly traded online marketing company based in Foster City, California. The company helps generate web traffic for clients by acquiring popular domain names. The company was founded in 1999, and was publicly listed in 20 ...

) *

(sold back to magazine founder Steve Harris) * FileFront * GameTab.com * GameVideos.com * Linux-Watch (sold to QuinStreet) * Linuxdevices.com (sold to QuinStreet) * Microsoft Watch (sold to QuinStreet) * MyCheats.com * PDF Zone (sold to QuinStreet) * Publish (sold to QuinStreet)

Discontinued

* 1Up.com * A+ Magazine *

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...

* GameNOW * Games for Windows: The Official Magazine *

GameSpy GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1999 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for Quake, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

(formerly part of IGN Network) *

GameTrailers ''GameTrailers'' (''GT'') was an American video gaming website created by Geoffrey R. Grotz and Brandon Jones in 2002. The website specialized in multimedia content, including trailers and gameplay footage of upcoming and recently released v ...

* Geek.com * GMR * MacUser (US Edition, 1985–1997) * Microsystems * Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine * Patch Management *

– continues online * PC/Computing (formerly Ziff-Davis Smart Business) * Small Business Center * Sm@rt Partner *

UGO Networks UGO Entertainment, Inc. was a website that provided coverage of online media in entertainment, targeting males aged 18–34. The company was based in New York, New York, United States. History The company started in 1997 as Unified Gamers Online ...

* Vault Network * Windows Sources * Xbox Nation *

References

External links

*
Ziff Davis
at comics.org
Ziff Davis
at ''comicbookdb.com''. . {{Authority control 1927 establishments in Illinois American companies established in 1927 Companies listed on the Nasdaq Publishing companies established in 1927 Mass media companies established in 1927 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 Mass media companies based in New York City Online mass media companies of the United States Magazine publishing companies of the United States Defunct comics and manga publishing companies History of Chicago 2012 mergers and acquisitions