Hiring of Execs Announced by Ziff-Davis

Ziff-Davis publishing said Sunday that it hired three veteran magazine executives to work in its Internet and magazine businesses.

Ziff-Davis, a unit of Softbank Corp., tapped Lawrence Burstein, former publisher of Conde Nast Publications’ New Yorker and Self magazines and publishing director of Hearst Corp.’s Esquire magazine, to be senior vice president of consumer advertising for print and online publications.

Alexandra Penney, a former editor-in-chief of Self, will be creative director at large.

James Spanfeller, formerly publisher of Inc. magazine, will be publisher of Yahoo Internet Life, a print and online magazine about the global computer network. He will also oversee advertising for the magazine’s World Wide Web site.

Yahoo Internet Life, which was first published on the Web in February, is a joint venture between Ziff-Davis and Yahoo Inc. Presently a quarterly publication, it will come out monthly starting in September.

Last year, Softbank acquired Ziff-Davis, the world’s largest computer trade publisher.