CNET

About CNET

CNET is a technology news and reviews website based in San Francisco, California, that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts and videos on technology and consumer electronics for a global audience. Short for "Computer Network," it is one of the oldest continuously operating technology media brands on the internet. The company was founded in 1992 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, initially as a television venture, with the CNET website launching online in June 1995. It went public in 1996, was acquired by CBS in 2008 for $1.8 billion, sold to Red Ventures in 2020 for about $500 million, and acquired by Ziff Davis on October 1, 2024, for more than $100 million. The official website is cnet.com.

Founding and television origins

After leaving PepsiCo, Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie launched c/net in 1992 as a 24-hour cable network devoted to computers and technology. With help from Fox Network co-founder Kevin Wendle and former Disney creative associate Dan Baker, CNET produced four pilot television programs about computers, technology and the internet. The lineup was composed of CNET Central, The Web and The New Edge. CNET Central aired in syndication in the United States on the USA Network and later, along with The Web and The New Edge, on USA's sister network, the Sci-Fi Channel. The venture gave an early national platform to Ryan Seacrest, who first came to national prominence as the host of The New Edge and did voice-over work for CNET.

Move online and the 1996 IPO

CNET online launched in June 1995, positioning the brand at the forefront of the emerging consumer internet. The site's owner, CNET, Inc., held its initial public offering in July 1996, trading on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol "CNWK." The company expanded rapidly during the dot-com boom, launching companion properties and services, including TV.com in 1996. In 1998 the company was sued by Snap Technologies, operators of the education service CollegeEdge, in a trademark dispute over CNET's ownership of the domain name Snap.com. The brand's online expansion continued through the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Radio and television expansion

At the turn of the millennium, CNET pushed back into broadcast media. It produced a television technology news program called News.com that aired on CNBC beginning in 1999. From 2001 to 2003, the company operated CNET Radio on the Clear Channel-owned KNEW (910) in the San Francisco Bay Area, WBPS (890) in Boston, and XM Satellite Radio, offering technology-themed programming. The radio venture failed to attract a sufficient audience and ceased operating in January 2003 due to financial losses, marking the end of CNET's broadcast experiments and a refocusing on its digital properties.

The Ziff-Davis deal and dot-com aftermath

In July 2000, at the height of the dot-com era, CNET Networks acquired Ziff-Davis Inc. and ZDNet in a stock deal valued at $1.6 billion, a transaction that briefly made CNET the dominant technology publisher online. The acquisition is notable in hindsight because the modern Ziff Davis company that would eventually buy CNET in 2024 is a separate entity from the Ziff-Davis Inc. that CNET purchased in 2000. CNET Networks survived the dot-com bust and remained a publicly traded company through the mid-2000s, consolidating its position in online technology journalism.

Acquisition by CBS

In 2008, CBS Corporation acquired CNET Networks for $1.8 billion, taking the company private and making CNET a brand of CBS Interactive. The eye-popping valuation reflected CNET's status as the flagship technology property of the web's first decade. Under CBS Interactive, CNET continued to publish reviews and news alongside sister properties, expanding its video and podcast operations through its internet television network, CNET Video, and its podcast and blog networks.

The Red Ventures era

On October 30, 2020, CNET was acquired by the digital media company Red Ventures from Paramount Global (formerly CBS) for about $500 million. The Red Ventures period brought significant change and controversy. In 2022, Red Ventures sold several CNET Media Group properties, including TV Guide, Metacritic, GameSpot and Giant Bomb, to Fandom in a deal worth $50 million. In early 2023, The Verge reported that CNET had been publishing articles produced with the aid of generative artificial intelligence, with disclosure shown only when readers hovered over the byline, and that some of those articles contained basic errors. CNET paused the use of the tool and published corrections, but the episode drew sustained criticism about the decline in quality of its editorial content and its factual reliability, as well as concerns about journalistic integrity related to sponsored content and reviews favorable to advertising partners.

Sale to Ziff Davis

On October 1, 2024, Ziff Davis announced the acquisition of CNET from Red Ventures for more than $100 million, a figure representing a steep decline from the $1.8 billion CBS paid in 2008 and the $500 million Red Ventures paid in 2020. Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah, who led a buyout of the publishing house in 2010, framed the deal as part of an expansion plan funded by the company's cash reserves at a time when artificial intelligence was boosting the long-term value of content. The acquisition brought CNET into a portfolio that already included ZDNet, PCMag, Mashable, IGN and Lifehacker. In June 2024, CNET drew 38 million visitors, according to Similarweb data cited at the time of the deal, a substantial audience that Ziff Davis said strengthened its position with advertisers targeting tech-savvy consumers.

Coverage and editorial offerings

CNET publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts and videos on technology and consumer electronics. Its coverage spans smartphones, computers, televisions, home entertainment, smart home products, software, streaming services and emerging technologies. The site combines lab-style product testing with newsroom reporting on the technology industry, and it distributes content through its internet television network, CNET Video, and its podcast and blog networks. CNET's reviews have long aimed to serve as practical buying advice for mainstream consumers rather than technical deep dives for specialists, a positioning that helped it reach one of the largest audiences in technology media. The editorial operation is currently led by editors Lindsey Turrentine and Connie Guglielmo.

International editions

Beyond its English-language flagship, CNET publishes region- and language-specific editions in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish, making it one of the most geographically distributed technology news brands in the world. These editions adapt the site's reviews and news coverage for local markets, extending the brand's reach across Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Audience and standing

Across its history, CNET has remained one of the most-visited technology websites in the world, drawing tens of millions of monthly visitors even after traffic declines during the Red Ventures years. Industry analysts attributed the site's declining valuation to a combination of factors, including the business-model challenges of online news, shifting patterns of news consumption, the reputational damage from its AI content experiment, and evolving search engine algorithms. Under Ziff Davis, the brand has been positioned for a rebuild around its historic strengths in reviews and consumer advice.

Visiting CNET

CNET is available at www.cnet.com. Registration is optional, and the site's content is free to read. Readers can browse reviews, news, videos and podcasts, sign up for newsletters, and access the site's international editions. Commercially supported and continuously online since 1995, CNET remains one of the foundational brands of consumer technology journalism.