Category: Blogging

Apple by Joe WilcoxMay 13, 20094:56 pm

Officethemovie: The Confessional

Yesterday, a seemingly official Microsoft Twitter accounted fooled popular blogs and mainstream news sites to write that Microsoft would introduce a new Zune platform in June. But the account wasn’t from Microsoft.

Allegedly, David Z from Haklab set up the account. I e-mailed Haklab today asking:

I love guerrilla marketing, and know how to recognize it, which is why I didn’t get sucked into the vortex like other bloggers and journalists. But it’s confession time. Who are you really, and what are your objectives? Not that I’m sure I will believe you. But try me. I want to blog on the problem of Twitter and shoddy journalism. You’re the case study.

This afternoon, I got a response. David claims to have exploited a Microsoft mistake—that the Twitter feed from Microsoft’s Office 2010: The Movie Website went to an unclaimed account. So he registered the Twitter account, @officethemovie. My suspicion: There was a typo on the page, and the account should have read: @office2010movie, as it does now.

Blogging by Joe WilcoxApr 30, 20093:10 pm

Thank You and Goodbye

The recession has caused many casualties. Good companies are gone, and talented people are jobless. I’ve written about many of these casualties. There is just one more story to tell.

Today is my last day as an eWEEK editor. In a few hours I will join the swelling ranks of journalists smitten by the economic crisis and by changes the Internet is forcing on my profession.

There’s something fitting about the timing. My ending comes on a day of new beginning for Microsoft. Windows 7 promises to be a big release for Microsoft. Today’s Windows 7 Release Candidate is start of something really new.

News Media by Joe WilcoxJun 25, 200812:00 am

Two Blogs Don’t Make a Right

Here’s an example of blogging as bad journalism and the problem with the viral Web.

Gizmodo has a short post (Aren’t they all?) about the monumental influence of Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg. I know Walt, so I was immediately interested in the item, time-stamped 8:23 a.m. EDT today.

News Media by Joe WilcoxJun 20, 200812:00 am

Sorry Bloggers, Good Journalism Lives

Ian Betteridge and I share something in common: We’ve been writing for a lot longer than people have been blogging. We come from the older school of journalism that bloggers, social networking and digital media are supposed to replace. The debate about the news media’s future is certainly a hot topic at the company where I work.
Ian’s post, “Print is Dying? Not so Fast,” uses The Economist as example of why print doesn’t have to die off. He observes that the magazine’s profits and ad sales are rising, with American print advertising up 23 percent.

Apple by Joe WilcoxAug 5, 20073:07 pm

Fake Steve Jobs is Revealed!

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs is one acerbic—and hugely popular—Weblog. Also known as Fake Steve Jobs, the author has had quite a following over that last 14 months. There has been a concerted effort to reveal Fake Steve Jobs’ identity. No longer.

In New York Times story, “A Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean“, reporter Brad Stone reveals the identity as Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes. Today, Fake Steves acknowledged, “Damn, I am so busted, yo“.

Web by Joe WilcoxMar 12, 20075:28 pm

Painful Changes

My blog relocation has turned out to be quite an exhilarating experience. On Saturday, I managed to delete all the content and my Movable Type export file. Everything was lost! Oh, it’s a harrowing tale.

Some background: I made the move on Wednesday to pmachinehosting, which a few days later changed its name to EngineHosting. I also moved from Movable Type to ExpressionEngine. I lacked two things: A new design and fix to a troublesome problem, that ExpressionEngine inserted index.php/comments in the path of posts (e.g., http://www.joewicox.com/index.php/comments/painful_changes.

Blogging by Joe WilcoxDec 28, 20056:12 pm

Whew, a Breather

I am on vacation this week—well, mostly—and have used some of the time to play with a few my tech toys. It’s a relief to actually enjoy some of the technology available to me. The tech toying means more time with the Canon EOS 20D and real chance to tinker with this blogsite. I also plan to overhaul the look of my blogsite, hopefully over the next month (fingers crossed).

Back in 1996, I bought some great Image Club clipart that I used for my first website. I still have the original floppy disks, but no floppy drive to use them, assuming the installer would even load under Windows XP (installer doesn’t work on Macs). I recall backing up the lot of images to CD ages ago. If so, extracted artwork available for the blogsite redesign (fingers crossed, again).

Web by Joe WilcoxDec 21, 20058:35 pm

Where Did the Joy Go?

I still ponder exactly what to do with my blog. I am considering five choices: Blogger (mixed feelings); MSN Spaces (least likely); .Mac (I’ve got an account with 2GB of storage and could use software client to post, but so-so likelihood); Yahoo! hosting using MovableType or WordPress (highly likely); or TypePad (also highly likely, and what I’ve got now).

The latter two options could lead to lots of work, and I find myself resistant. What I want is to create an inviting blog with lots of photos, too, possibly using Flickr, Slide, or both. Actually, there’s quite a bit I’d like to do with my blog, with respect to personalization, beyond using canned templates.

News Media by Joe WilcoxDec 20, 20057:50 pm

The Times Does Proud

Blogging is a fun, and it’s a great way for creating community across many different types of boundaries. Some bloggers have influence, too, as evidenced by the Sony rootkit DRM or Thomas Hawk’s PriceRightPhoto debacle. But for all the talk about bloggers changing information dissemination and even some bloggers deserving press credentials, the real influence, the credibility remains with real journalists.

And New York Times has done some great investigative journalism of late. Two big stories from the last week—the kind of stuff that requires real reporting and deep editorial soul searching: “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers without Courts” and “Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World“.

Blogging by Joe WilcoxJul 24, 20047:52 am

Sorry, Folks

It’s disturbing how quickly a month can go by. That’s how long since my last post. I don’t want to make a habit of that behavior. I am prolific blogger, at my two work blogs. […]

Journalism by Joe WilcoxApr 14, 20044:11 pm

Corporate Blogsite: Marketing Veiled as News

I have been pondering the implications behind Microsoft’s Channel 9 blogsite. The deal: Last week, Microsoft developer evangelists put up Channel 9, which is supposed to provider developers with “a way to listen to the cockpit of Microsoft”. Apparently, the listening includes dispensing Microsoft news and inside views.

The timing is interesting. Channel 9’s official launch occurred during Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (MVP) event, which makes much sense considering the site is for partners. But the debut also came a couple days before Business Week published a story saying that Microsoft was in the process of trimming next-generation-Windows Longhorn features to make a 2006 ship date. The story also offered up details about other upcoming stops on the Windows roadmap, such as something called Windows XP Premium, which soon will ship on new PCs.

Blogging by Joe WilcoxMar 24, 200411:27 am

Not How Many, But Whom

Microsoft employees are prolific bloggers, and I’m surprise the company hasn’t really developed software tools supporting the phenomenon. I understand that blogging hasn’t reached mainstream momentum, yet. But, sometimes, it’s not the “how manys” but the “who they are” that matters more.

In 1966, I accidentally discovered “Star Trek” on a CBC station out of St. Johns, New Brunswick, Canada. When I was a kid, local TV station WAGM, in Presque Isle, Maine, had the unique distinction of being three network affiliates: ABC, CBS, and NBC. WAGM was the only American broadcast TV station serving Maine’s largest but sparsely-populated county, Aroostook, which spanned about a fifth of the state. WAGM didn’t air “Star Trek”; some show from another network made the cut instead.