A Kinder, Gentler Chowhound?

What do you do when you get an email from CNET, the new owners of Chowhound, asking you to come back?

First, you anxiously check the new site:

Hmmm... not bad, though the typeface is most definitely that of Chow Magazine. Interesting, since in fact, CNET also purchased the assets of Instant Comma, Inc., the publishers of Chow. Hmmm... which came first in THAT "chicken-or-egg" equation, I wonder?

The architecture isn't ideal, in my opinion, but I think it's actually pretty user friendly, and probably works for both the novice and more advanced users of the old site.

So, I went ahead and registered Gastronomie as a user name. I'll check things out, treading very lightly and very slowly as I explore the new and improved Chowhound.

 

Technorati Tags: Food | Food & Drink | Chowhound | San Francisco | Oakland

Comments

[Kung Foodie]

Cnet has been snapping up all kinds of community oriented sites. Interesting to see that they're branching out from tech stuff. I can't say I'm excited about the corporatization of everything cool online, but then the chowhound boards always drove me crazy. They were fairly impossible to use.

[Fatemeh]

Agreed, Kung. I'll be curious, too, to see how they merge the CH boards with the Chow content...

[Dr. Biggles]

I wasn't that impressed and found the reading of threads odd. That being said, I'm usually against change. So, it might grow on me, I'll have to see.

I wasn't aware you have to register. That blows. Registering is easy, but it sucks to have to log in each time. Ah well. I'm busy doing other things at the moment anyhoo.

Biggles

[Martin]

Gastronomie,

I'm the GM of CNET Networks Community Group.

Thanks for giving the new Chowhound a try - we would love your feedback either way.

Although the site was desparately in need of a redesign (members wanted better search, tracking and a number of other things), the soul of the community is an extremly important element that we do not want to destroy. So far people are giving us the benefit of the doubt, and we will work hard to live up to that trust.

mg

[Fatemeh]

Thanks for the note, Martin. I'm guessing that what most of those of us who were "banished" would really like to see is a gentler group of mods.

I'm enjoying checking things out over there, though.

[Paul_H]

Fatemeh,

You were banished?? That's hard to believe. Or, did you just leave in disgust? Having been involved with BBS software for about 23 years, I find it distressing that the CH folks think they can invent things from scratch, but they do seem to be working on correcting the worst of the their mistakes.