DISQUS

OK, I eat crow. The signal comes from a blog. This is the only item that should be at the top of Techmeme:

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080503/microhoo-th...

No, I didn't look at google news because I know that you are right about what I will find.

I guess what I want is the Bloomberg or WSJ piece that will be based on hours of research and interviews with the people who were in the rooms making the decisions. Or at least, that's what any half-decent news business would be working on right now.

I'm looking for meaning in the madness that is now on Techmeme and ff and google news.

Whoever can come up with a way to find the signal in amongst all this noise ultimately will win the eyeballs, and rest will just be chattering amongst themselves.

Bloggers were once a great source of insight, but now they're just becoming noise. Not a new thing, but its reached a point where the noise is deafening and I fund I just shut it out. Something like 9/11 taking over Techememe I can understand, but MicroHoo? Come on.

So the high quality MSM again become preeminent, if they smart enough to figure out that they need to be *less* like blogs, twitter and ff and more like their old selves.

Robert,

Fun and interesting for you because you're participating, but frankly it was pointless for someone on the outside.

But then Techmeme was ridiculous, too. One story?

And I have skin the game as a stockholder and so I am interested, just not *that* interested.

I see this all as a sign that the tech blogger space as become far too myopic and self-absorbed.

Less is more.

Um, had the same problem this weekend. Wanted to link to an excellent column in the Globe and Mail Report on Business from a couple weeks ago. But it was locked behind a pay screen.

Fine, but what about all those user comments on the column. How can the Globe charge for access to other peoples' comments? Or have commenters given the Globe copyright?

I don't know but it sure doesn't make a helluva a lot of sense. The only reason to comment is for people to see what you've said.

Which is why I'm doing it here, hoping some of the higher-ups will see it.

Can somebody invent something where I can click a button and transfer my Facebook stuff to another site?

I would like that very much. Very, very much...

I won't do business with any of the Beacon partners. Facebook I can forgive because they're inexperienced and desperate to monetize, but the marketing folks at big companies that signed up to Beacon should have known better.

I'm boycotting them all, because if they'd had an ounce of ethics, they would have warned Facebook that Beacon was bad news. But they didn't, and that speaks volumes about the type of people they are.

Boycott Beacon partners because they've corrupted Facebook.

Do you trust a company to deliver your important packages if that company doesn't trust its employees to talk freely on the Web?

Subscribed!

"I have to say that I think the relationship between Reddit and Wired is a lot closer than between the Globe and Bell Canada."

Agreed.

It seems a question of editorial judgment. You'd be the editor that would've frustrated the hell out of me in my younger years, but I do see your point about the optics of aggressively going after a story when you're potentially in a conflict of interest position.

Personally, I'd do the story and not worry about the optics. But I'd be extra careful to be sure we got the facts right.

But to your point, Wired did pay a price in terms of reputation for doing the story. Even if I think the critics are wrong, they did enough to call Wired's editorial integrity into question.

And I'm not sure it was worth it.

I didn't mean to put words in your mouth, just misunderstood what you were saying.

Still, I don't know how they could have done the story without hiring the firm that sells votes. Digg management boasted that they had solved the problem and Wired sought to test that claim and wrote their story.

To me it's the same as if the Globe and Mail had done an investigation into TELUS and its customer service issues a while back. Management claimed they were fixing the problems. If the Globe wanted to test those claims, it would probably have to open accounts with TELUS, spend some money and then use the customer service lines to see how well they worked. Is that not a legitimate way to test management's claims that the problems have been fixed? I think it is.

But for someone to then say the Globe should not do such a story because it's parent was BCE Inc., which owns Bell Canada, a competitor to TELUS, is the same as saying Wired should not do investigative reporting on Digg because it's parent owns Reddit.

One other claim I find somewhat weak is that Reddit is a major competitor to Digg. It's a competitor, but surely it's not "major."

It's just my opinion, but I can't see how a publication like Wired could ignore such an obvious story about such a prominent technology company like Digg.

I think the Wired story is fine. In part that's because Digg management said the site couldn't be gamed, so I think it's perfectly good journalism to test that claim.

To suggest that Wired should not write about Digg, or only write about it in a positive light, because it shares the same parent company with Reddit is something I can't agree with you on.

As long as their facts are correct, I see no problem. It's a good piece of journalism, actually.

Dee is right that blogs aren't good for companies. They expose companies for what they really are and strip away the carefully massaged veneer.

If you're a spin doctoring control freak, that's a bad thing.

But if you're an investor entrusting your savings to a company, it's actually good to know who and what you're really investing in. Blogs, especially when deployed widely in a company, help you do that better than anything we've had before.

How that kind of transparency is bad, I'm not sure.

I did the same as you and tried out the NYT reader soon after it was announced with much fanfare.

Oddly enough, I found I like my newspaper on paper and my news websites on a web pages.

You'd think Robert Scoble was a journalist or a priest or something the way people have reacted to this.

I don't think during his blogging career that he's ever been either of those things. He's a PR guy who blogs. He blogs about companies that pay him money (and many that don't) -- a lot more money than those poor bloggers who toil for PayPerPost.

If he's going to give of his time, he wants to be compensated. Who doesn't, unless it's for a good cause?

Half a billion bucks! Do they really need to spend that kind of money on something almost everyone who buys a new PC is going to use anyway? And ice. It melts. Just a puddle in the end.

Maybe this climate change meme from the Globe is softening me up, but I'm finding that Microsoft's marketing spend is not sitting well with me. Then I think of the Gates foundation and the LA Times series on how the foundation invests its money. It makes me wonder...

I'm obviously in the minority here because the WSJ just released the results of their corporate reputation survey and Microsoft beat out J&J for the top spot. They say "Bill Gates's personal philanthropy boosted the public's opinion of the tech giant."

I don't have an issue with Scoble as much as I would with others because he's been pretty open about what he's up to. And to be quite honest, he strikes me as having better ethics than some journalists I know.

Perhaps it's just that I think I can read through his biases, not sure, but I'm comfortable with what he does. But then I wouldn't feel the same about a blogger I didn't feel I knew so well.

Rob seems to hit the nail on the head here. These guys probably wouldn't be compromising if they didn't have to. At some point, they have to do something to keep the lights on.

I can't be too critical of them because they're putting everything on the line. If you've got someone paying your salary while you blog, it's easy to be critical. But these guys are pioneering something new, or at least trying. It's not easy to do and it's full of conflicts.

Better be good. Cooking with Geeks I mean. I have some recipes!

I don't see any other bloggers being as open as Scoble. Everyone has hidden agendas and biases, but you will rarely see them admit as much. Sure, Robert knows how to create a buzz. He does it deliberately sometimes. But I don't know of many bloggers who are as honest as he is.

And, yes, his interviews are boring if you're not interested in the content. But if he covers something you really have an interest in, 41 minutes will feel like it's not enough. I've gotten that feeling after a couple of videos I've watched.

Om Malik said in his video that Robert is a real blogger, while he (Om) is just a reporter trying to be a blogger. He's right.

Matt,

Doesn't worry me if you disclose. Perhaps just add that no one from the company was involved in the editing.

Of course, a lot depends on the nature of the content. If it's a piece that could be construed as propaganda -- like GM getting you to document all the great things they're doing for the environment -- then maybe you would be better off paying your own way and getting the other side of the story as well.

Sorry I asked. I thought you answer yesterday was very clear, so not sure how they screwed it up.

Who's paying is only relevant so that when linking or embedding a video, one can say: Here's a video Intel commissioned from Podtech, and here's one Robert did himself.

On your videos I assume I'm right that you don't let or aren't asked by Podtech clients to preview what gets posted and they're not edited (which is why they're long!).

Personally, I prefer your videos to anything short and slick, but only on topics that really interest me. If it's breaking news, I suppose shorter is better.

Stephane - Thanks. I'll try another reader. The PC is new :-(

Stepahne: You've described what happens on my current system exactly.

Unfortunately, I can't avoid PDF documents. I'm looked at hundreds in a given week.

PDF documents really just suck. In my field, they're everywhere and I hate them. But this isn't Adobe's fault. It's people who don't know how to prepare their reports properly in PDF that are the problem.

Although I do sometimes wonder why every system I've ever had freezes on occasion when working with PDF files. I've seen this freezing problem mentioned by others, such as in usability tests by Jakob Nielsen. Anyone know what could cause that?

Robert, thanks for the explanation. I'd take those facts into account when deciding if I should link to something or how to do it. I do think that for a geek audience, your video is interesting and has value.

It would have been different if Robert had scooped everyone a day or two ahead of the official announcement.

Also, if it was a nice three-minute job explaining the process, then perhaps it would have been more attractive for people to link to it. I saw on one of Robert's pieces where he said part of the video was "boring." Now, why would I send my readers to something that the producer says is boring?