Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis
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Man, I have so many posts there... but anyway...
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@dbeato said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Man, I have so many posts there... but anyway...
I completely doubt that there is any chance now that the community will "go away". That would seem crazy. Rather my expectation is a change of focus away from products (look at the layoffs, product support was hit, so likely those are done as they don't make any money themselves) and away from community and towards original content which is what ZD already has teams for so they can simply use SW as another place to put that content.
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@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@dbeato said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Man, I have so many posts there... but anyway...
I completely doubt that there is any chance now that the community will "go away". That would seem crazy. Rather my expectation is a change of focus away from products (look at the layoffs, product support was hit, so likely those are done as they don't make any money themselves) and away from community and towards original content which is what ZD already has teams for so they can simply use SW as another place to put that content.
Makes sense, more focused marketing then.
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Wouldn't any attempt to turn the community into a more passive audience only for pre-written content simply kill off the community? Speaking only for myself the only reason I'm on there now is because I kept finding myself there when searching for answers to questions. There's a million options for articles, forums that actually produce solutions however..... those are few and far between.
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@dbeato said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Makes sense, more focused marketing then.
and lower overhead. I'd be looking for any way that they can cut costs, like leaving Austin completely.
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This line is not very encouraging for the ongoing health of the community: "As a combined company, our focus is clear, and our goals are achievable: to build the preeminent marketplace that connects technology buyers and sellers"
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@Kelly said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
This line is not very encouraging for the ongoing health of the community: "As a combined company, our focus is clear, and our goals are achievable: to build the preeminent marketplace that connects technology buyers and sellers"
Depends on how you look at it. The assumption was that they were going to close up shop and shut down the community by October or November. Now it seems that the community is staying. So it's extremely encouraging compared to the reasonable alternatives.
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That may have always been their desired business model, but the community spiraled into such a richer resource than that. It would be a discredit to the community to limit description that way.
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Once taken over, they could possibly start charging a small fee for membership to include the help desk and monitoring products. A buy out company normally looks at ways of increasing profits.
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@StuartJordan said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Once taken over, they could possibly start charging a small fee for membership to include the help desk and monitoring products. A buy out normally look at ways of increasing profits.
That would likely reduce profits. Especially given the support team layoffs. A product that makes its money via ad revenue can't realistically start charging, especially when functionality has been declining, not increasing. In order to do so they would need to maintain or increase the very things that they have been phasing out, and would just be expected to cause their existing users to leave.
ZD isn't reckless, they are buying to operate the business, not to burn it down for a few months of increased profits. Profits don't go up just be increasing prices. That could easily be the nail in the coffin.
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@StuartJordan said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
A buy out company normally looks at ways of increasing profits.
This is true, especially when buying a company running at a loss. But the primary way that buyouts do this across the board is not by doing things that the original company could have done. If charging for the software could have made money, we'd likely have seen it happen long ago. Instead what we expect is ZD to bring in their expertise and/or scale and leverage that to lower the overhead of SW to, they hope, a point where the existing model starts being profitable by not costing as much.
Same model that ML was interested in using with them. We know how to operate a website at massive scale with a tiny fraction of their costs. What has been costing millions in infrastructure and staff at SW we could roll into our existing ops almost without noticing it! Yes, they have a ton of traffic, but not an amount that is significantly more than our existing infrastructure and support team handle today. We'd need no new people, and only a nominal increase in physical infrastructure. But we could shave millions from their cost.
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Is there a way I can close my account over there so I don't get spammed
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@WLS-ITGuy said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Is there a way I can close my account over there so I don't get spammed
You can just request it, should any community people still be working. Community people are in the layoff list so far.
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@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Community people are in the layoff list so far.
As opposed to who? They've already terminated all of their previously valuable community members, going on a year now right?
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@DustinB3403 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
Community people are in the layoff list so far.
As opposed to who? They've already terminated all of their previously valuable community members, going on a year now right?
They had a lot of bloat, it'll take a lot of layoffs to pair it down. But the community was mostly untouched before. Not completely, but mostly.
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@scottalanmiller I was referring to their "we're axing everyone who is a member of any other tech community"
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@DustinB3403 said in Spiceworks Just Got Acquired by Publisher Ziff-Davis:
@scottalanmiller I was referring to their "we're axing everyone who is a member of any other tech community"
I expect that to stop. ZD has loads to lose by looking unprofessional. They aren't the small time, SMB focused wild west. Big corporate publishing has very different ways of handling things.
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@scottalanmiller Maybe ZD is buying SpiteWorks to close SpiteWorks forever?
Hopes and prayers
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One thing that is going to be a problem for the community now, is that the parent company J2 Global owns products like eFax, MyFax, FuseMail, Vipre AV, SugarSync, etc. Those are all potential customers of SW and will be a conflict of interest with other advertisers.
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SW will now be a peer with some of these businesses:
IGN
Mashable
PC Magazine
Askmen.com
Geek.com
Humble Bundle
Excel Micro
Vipre
SMTP, Inc.
