I spent the last two days at Comic-Con 2009 here in San Diego. I sacrificed Day 1, and not happily, to cover Microsoft’s fiscal fourth-quarter and year-end earnings. Several big Microsoft stories broke on Friday, but I refused to give up another day at Comic-Con; it’s the 40th show. Comic-Con is fun and chaotic. More importantly, for a journalist, people are willing to talk—and why not? They’re playing a role and ready to perform.
On July 17, I posted, “The Michael Arrington Matter,” where I came down hard on the TechCrunch cofounder for publishing stolen, internal Twitter documents. I wouldn’t have done it.
But in fairness, TechCrunch is successful—and for a reason. TechCrunch publishes lots of original content, as much in the comments as the stories. Readers participate in the process.
Ian Betteridge has blogged a couple times recently about the value of original reporting. Ian is one of those long-time journalists who has good common sense. I enjoy his missives about journalism and ethics and also changes new media has on the news media.
His thoughts on the value of original reporting are must-reads.
There is quite the ethics flap going on over the last 72 hours or so about TechCrunch’s handling of leaked Twitter documents.
Looming questions: Is Michael Arrington wrong to distribute any of the leaked material, which a hacker stole? Is the posting of the documentation unconscionable? Is there journalistic excuse, or justification for it?
Every picture tells a story. Apple presented this one during the October 2008 launch of unibody MacBook Pros. So many Macs among so many students seems outta sorts. Where are the Windows laptops? The students and Mac laptops go so oddly together.
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.
Yesterday’s “@officethemovie” pwning is about the worst example yet of new news media gone wrong. In the quest for clicks—and the feeble ad rates they pay—bloggers and old-time journalists rushed to write about a new Zune platform coming in June. Apple is rumored to be unveiling the new iPhone the same month. Additionally, the E3 gaming expo starts June 2. I guess it all was just too tantalizing for people to check their facts. The source wasn’t Microsoft. But most blogs and news sites reported that it was.
The essential problem with the newspaper business today is that it is suffering from a huge imbalance between supply and demand. What the Internet has done is broken the geographical constraints on news distribution and flooded the market with stories, with product. Supply so far exceeds demand that the price of the news has dropped to zero…
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.
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.
I had the below IM conversation with Nate Mook of Betanews after posting about PR blogging on my work blog. All times are Pacific (-8 GMT):
Joe says: (3:54:02 PM)
I couldn’t resist: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/developer/net_35_sp1_changes_your_expression.html
Nate says: (3:57:30 PM)
Saw that
Nate says: (3:57:31 PM)
Good post
Nate says: (3:57:40 PM)
I’ve been thinking the same thing recently
Joe says: (3:57:47 PM)
I’m really bugged about this.
Joe says: (3:57:52 PM)
Ah, good for you.
A confession, long time coming—or perhaps just explanation—about recent professional changes. Until November 2006, I was a market research analyst covering Microsoft and had been since May 2003. I left the analyst position and returned to journalism for many reasons.