This step has been indicated to the attentive visitor for quite some time, but many things should always be approached with caution and as emotionless as possible, but with a long-term, strategic goal. It’s no different with the media than it is in private life, because at some point you simply realize that you no longer really feel comfortable in your current suit or that you have simply drifted apart with certain partners. You don’t even have to argue, no, it’s just like that and happens even in the best families.
Exactly for this reason, as well as out of respect for colleagues and many a long-time companion, there will not be a general review at this point. But I would then be allowed to write a little about my own feelings. Since 10 years I have invested a lot of (life-) time in the project Tom’s Hardware Germany. After 2016 I was even a lone fighter for a long time. The community and the readers have thanked this with their presence and growing reach, which is actually priceless as remuneration and was also the necessary daily motivation for me to test and write often enough beyond the normal borders.
Since the end of February, there is also its own YouTube channel, which now, after almost half a year, has almost more than 14,000 subscribers and this week has reached the limit of 1.2 million video views and is growing continuously. All this I have actually done at the same time. The fact that this can only go hand in hand with a major change in the area of privacy is only a tiny facet on the whole. Website, social media, laboratory – it’s often hard to manage, but it’s also fun if at least there’s no lack of success.
What I learned very quickly on YouTube, however, is that you have to sell yourself to the last shirt and you also have to be very careful about what you give up in the end – and often enough. That you appear exactly as you are and what you are. Everything else would stand out in the long run anyway. By the way, this is no different with the website at the end.
And that’s exactly why we as a team decided to finish the project Tom’s Hardware Germany in July and return the license completely.
All this also happens in good agreement and in close cooperation with Future PLC, the owner of the trademark rights to Tom’s hardware, and I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank the relevant employees of the administration, who helped here very unbureaucratically and also European fair to realize a clean separation, which also involved the preservation of the already published content. Almost everything remains intact, but must be completely rebranded step by step.
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But if you smell the big sensation now (maybe also a little bit gloating), I have to disappoint you. Because from today on we just put the whole story back on its feet, but we don’t close it. If you invest a large part of your life into such a project like I did, then it’s only logical that you give your very own content your own name. That’s much more honest and the reader and video consumer also knows what and who he’s getting involved with.
What does the future hold for us?
I don’t always orient myself on the mainstream when it comes to content, but consciously look for the niche, provoke and realize very complex tests, which are also individually designed and thus deviate from the usual scheme. We’re going to build on that here and offer the community an even bigger stage. The RTG is certainly only the beginning. Linking “classic” media and social networks is an absolute must if you don’t want to be bitten away. And that goes really fast if you don’t pay attention.
The re-design of the site including the new brand and URL is only one of the visible changes, many things have been happening since days in secret. This also includes the expansion of the editorial office here in Chemnitz with more rooms and even more innovative equipment, up to a real Green Wall room for the videos, in which I can also move freely. In fact, it’s all a never-ending show of strength, but it’s now showing its first successes. That alone is motivation and incentive enough to pull it through to the end.
Of course such a change is also connected with various problems, which will not remain hidden to the visitor of this new page. Since the licensing in May 2018 alone, well over 10,000 individual graphics have been created and their logos must now be replaced. All in all, the entire database contains an almost unimaginable amount of such material, so that we had to decide to temporarily take the content offline for licensing reasons. I am currently programming a software solution that will take over with this work, so that we will be able to take this content back online step by step in the near future.
And what else? The technical possibilities that I have here and that may even go beyond some averages are certainly also the result of my many years of work parallel to what you can ultimately see in the media, at least in fragments. I cannot (and may) show everything at all, but the transparency of the publication is very important to me, because you can only classify the results and tests correctly if you know how they came about.
In summary and finally I would like to thank all our comrades-in-arms, readers and subscribers who have accompanied us so far and hopefully will continue to do so. New wallpapers and a new name at the door, the rest is and will surely remain the same. Because it also opens up completely new possibilities, which we want to use purposefully.
I also have a small postscript in this regard. For those Germans who are somewhat disturbed by the apostrophe in igor’sLAB should also note that the barrier of the publication language will now also be removed. Important contents can and will have to be multilingual in the future, so I would like to accommodate the feedback and wishes of many international readers. This was unfortunately not possible under the previous license.
And what concerns me personally: If you give yourself up for such a project over long distances as a private person, then at least for something of your own. In this sense: Salve!
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