AnandTech
Few ’90s tech websites apart from Ars Technica are nonetheless working right here in 2024, and at the moment, there’s one fewer. AnandTech, a staple of CPU and GPU information and critiques since 1997, will cease publishing at the moment, based on an announcement from Editor-in-Chief Ryan Smith.
“For higher or worse, we’ve reached the tip of an extended journey—one which began with a evaluation of an AMD processor, and has ended with the evaluation of an AMD processor,” wrote Smith, referring to critiques of AMD’s K6 and Ryzen 9000-series chips, respectively. “It’s fittingly poetic, however it is usually a testomony to the truth that we’ve spent the final 27 years doing what we love, masking the chips which are the lifeblood of the computing business.”
The location’s present proprietor, Future PLC, will hold the AnandTech archives on-line “indefinitely” and can proceed to handle the positioning’s boards, Smith wrote. A number of AnandTech staffers will proceed to publish articles at Tom’s {Hardware}, one other ’90s classic know-how web site that continues to publish at the moment (AnandTech and Tom’s have each been owned by the identical firm since 2014, although they retained separate websites and branding).
Media headwinds
Smith wasn’t particular about precisely why the positioning was closing, however he implied that the shutdown was a monetary resolution on Future’s half.
“[T]he marketplace for written tech journalism shouldn’t be what it as soon as was—nor will it ever be once more,” wrote Smith. “There may be nonetheless extra that I had needed AnandTech to do, however after 21,500 articles, this was begin.”
Ars Technica founder and Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher, conversant in the challenges of preserving a late-’90s know-how web site related and worthwhile, largely agreed with Smith’s evaluation.
“The marketplace for tech journalism has modified,” Fisher stated. “Know-how is now completely mainstream when in comparison with the late ’90s. Massive Tech advertisers are simply as pleased now to market their services or products on life-style web sites as they as soon as did totally on tech websites. Moreover, regardless of the trigger (principally ‘progress in any respect prices’ considering), Google not sends the visitors it as soon as did. That is very true for tech shopping for recommendation (critiques, explainers, and so forth.), which AnandTech excelled at offering. Reader tradition has modified, too. In-depth explainers and long-form critiques are expensive to supply however lead to ever-dwindling audiences. Google AI Overviews then ‘helpfully’ summarizes your content material, and also you get even much less in return.”
Maybe not coincidentally, a lot of the viewers for in-depth PC element critiques has migrated to Google’s YouTube, the place massive channels like Linus Tech Suggestions and Players Nexus visitors in meticulous element critiques that owe a transparent debt to AnandTech’s rigorous methodology and countless seas of bar charts.
AnandTech’s closure comes just some days after Gannett introduced that it was shutting down Reviewed, one other technology-focused web site based in 1997. Digicam evaluation web site DPReview, based in 1998, was almost closed down final 12 months, however it was saved on the eleventh hour when Amazon was in a position to promote the positioning to Gear Patrol.
Within the spirit of full disclosure: AnandTech wasn’t my first paid writing gig, however it was definitely the primary one among any be aware and the primary the place I did any critical evaluation work on {hardware} (just like the very first touchscreen Kindle) and software program (just like the Home windows 8 Client Preview).
Web site founder Anand Lal Shimpi started AnandTech as a 14-year-old “armed with little or no precise information” (in his personal phrases), and by December 1999, it had change into noteworthy and authoritative sufficient that CNN Cash described it as a “megahot computer-review web site.” Shimpi’s household remained concerned within the web site for years after its founding—after I was freelancing there in 2011 and 2012, the individual I despatched my invoices to was Anand’s mom.
Though finest recognized for its PC element critiques, the positioning additionally did in-depth reporting on Arm processors through the early smartphone period, and AnandTech was one of many few shops publishing in-depth firsthand technical details about early Apple Silicon processors just like the Apple A4, A5, A6, and the 64-bit A7. When Shimpi left AnandTech in 2014, it was to start out a brand new place at Apple.