Ziff Davis Media - technical definition

(Ziff Davis Media Inc., New York, www.ziffdavis.com) A leading integrated media company that serves the computer, videogame and consumer lifestyle markets. Its offerings include the PCMag.com and ExtremeTech.com Web sites and high-tech episodes from PCMag Radio, Cranky Geeks and DL.TV. Entrenched in the gaming world, the company publishes two magazines and five Web sites on the subject.

Dating back to 1982, PC Magazine has been the most successful computer publication in history with every hardware and software vendor coveting a PC Magazine Award for Technical Excellence. With paper publications increasingly difficult to justify, January 2009 marked the last issue of the magazine in print, superseded by a searchable electronic version online.

Ziff Davis Media also produces B2B and consumer technology events, research and market intelligence, laboratory-based product evaluations, round tables, workshops and conferences. Its Digital Life conference in New York draws 60,000 attendees.

In 1927, Ziff-Davis was founded in Chicago by William Ziff, Sr. and Bernard Davis. It evolved into a highly respected publishing empire that was sold to Forstmann Little & Co. in 1994. Within a year, it was acquired by Softbank. Ziff Davis Media was formed in 2000 when Willis Stein & Partners acquired it from Softbank, which sold its Ziff-Davis properties to several companies. See ZDNet and Ziff Davis Enterprise.