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Tweakers.net (often abbreviated as T.net) is a Dutch website featuring news and information about hardware, software and the internet. The website was founded in 1998 by Femme Taken, a computer enthusiast, under the name World of Tweaking as a student's hobby project to offer a Dutch alternative to hardware review sites like Tom's Hardware Guide^[1]. The verb "tweaking" in the title refers to the process of tweaking the hardware of a computer, as a form of optimisation. Thus, the site's visitors are called tweakers, not to be confused with methamphetamine users.

Tweakers.net has grown substantially since its conception^[2]. Nowadays its primary feature is the publication of summaries of news and other technology-related articles on other websites. This is why Tweakers.net is often regarded as the Dutch clone of Slashdot albeit with a stronger Windows orientation than Slashdot. Tweakers.net has more features for the computer enthusiast, such as reviews, bi-monthly Best Buy guides, a classifieds section for jobs and used hardware, the Pricewatch and the Shop Survey, among others. While the majority of the reviews are written in Dutch, there are several articles translated into English^[3] because they cover a non-standard topic.

As of March 2006, Tweakers.net has been taken over by the Dutch media conglomerate VNU, now known as The Nielsen Company.^[4][5] However, VNU Media has become owner of the website after The Nielsen Company had sold its Business Media division to private equity firm 3i.^[6]

Gathering of Tweakers

Another important area of the site is the forum. Tweakers.net's forum is known as the Gathering of Tweakers (often abbreviated as GoT). The forum is mainly focused on technical subjects and tries to maintain a relatively high standard of posting. It has a fairly strong moderation policy, especially when compared to other online discussion forums. Users of the forum are strongly urged to read the FAQ and to have invested a fair amount of his/her own time into finding an answer, either on GoT using the search tools, or anywhere else on the internet, before asking a question^[7].

Tweakers.net currently has more than 300,000 members and its forum has over 33 million posts^[8][9].

External links

• Tweakers.net Front page
• Tweakers.mobi Mobile front page
• Gathering of Tweakers

References

1. ^ De geschiedenis van Tweakers.net: ontstaan en hobbyfase (Tweakers.net, 2008)
2. ^ Tweakers.net viert tiende verjaardag! (Tweakers.net, 2008)
3. ^ Reviews met tag 'english' | Tweakers.net
4. ^ VNU Business Media Europe neemt Tweakers.net over (Tweakers.net, 2006)
5. ^ VNU Business Media Europe acquires leading Dutch online technology site, Tweakers.net (VNU Business Media Europe, 2006) (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
6. ^ 3i agrees buyout of VNU Business Media Europe (3i, 2006)
7. ^ Gathering of Tweakers FAQ
8. ^ Gathering of Tweakers forum statistieken
9. ^ Tweakers.net registreert 300.000ste gebruiker