I didn’t want to weigh in on this because I know all the parties involved, I used to run Gizmodo, and I understand the impetus behind this prank. This is a nasty hack performed by punchy, hungover kids that, as we see, got the CE world’s attention. Will Gizmodo be banned? Nope. Nothing will happen, this tempest will die down, and next year someone will buy some electrical tape.
But what caused this behavior and, more importantly, whither blogging? This is something I’ve been thinking about since I landed in Las Vegas and I want to get it off my chest. Blogging, in the form we are practicing it here — with a small budget, young staff, and irreverent commentary — now has a seat at the table. For the first time in many years it was an actual pleasure to attend CES. The blogger’s lounge, far from being a second-class ghetto, was spacious, well-stocked, and relaxing. My team — all of them had blogger badges except Doug and I but they let us in anyway — were productive and had loads of fun. I may just say I’m a blogger next year just so I can avoid the scrum at the press room where thousands line up to get free lunches and read email (international journos with spotty credentials fighting for crappy lunch boxes, I would say, is more despicable than Gizmodo’s actions but, as we know, journalists love them some free lunch).
But what did it take to get that nice room and some cookies in the Blounge? It took years of hard work by actual bloggers/journalists who, after years of receiving no credentials at all are finally being recognized by the press and, more importantly, the CEA.
The turning point came when Joel Johnson received an audience with Bill Gates in 2005. This was the first time — the absolutely first time — that a blog gained the same access as any other business or industry publication. Joel was lucky to even get a CES pass that year and I believe he went alone. He made a place at the table for us all.
It’s only been three years since that day but it feels like a lifetime. In the interim bloggers have sat down with just about every major player in the industry, we’ve received credentials to all manner of events, and we’ve completed the transition from fringe to mainstream. That I was able to create CG and find a major audience in a little over a year is a testament to this fact as is the corporate buy-out of Weblogs Inc. AKA Engadget and Gizmodo’s startling traffic. Blogs matter.
But, as I mentioned before, blogs have certain defining characteristics. If these characteristics are missing, they are just “newswires.” Some blogs have already lost these characteristics and, more distressingly, many blogs are avoiding them in fear of losing access to press events. These two extremes lead to boring writing and fawning praise, two things a blog should never offer. Ass licking != ass kicking.
Giz still holds the irreverent stance and that’s fine. They pump out content with abandon, flooding feed readers and gaining human readers daily. That’s how Denton’s sites work. There is no surer way of getting traffic — what Joel used to call the low hanging fruit — than having a constantly updated front page. People love novelty. Sometimes you have to make your own novelty and the results often hurt the companies you cover. This is a calculated risk and Giz took it in posting their little prank.
Moving on to young employees: Giz hires kids in the literal sense. Young people, people straight out of college, don’t cost much, work hard, and love the concept if not the practice of creating for a mass audience. If there’s one “best practice” it took from my time at Giz it’s that the “pure, young products of the Internet age” make the best employees and are the worst liabilities. My employees have puked on sales people, been kicked out of press parties for drunkenness, and misrepresented themselves to get free stuff. Brian Lam’s employees messed with a CES presentation and acted like douches and, incidentally, probably puked on sales people as well. Whereas the old media — read “editors” — know that free whiskey is not always a good thing, I’m sure they had the same heady rush of power when their by-lines first hit print and I’m sure they raged against the “PR machine” in their day but many have learned to work around that world and produce good and clean reporting using hard won insider contacts.
And so we see what blogs hath wrought. I doubt Walt Mossberg would run around turning off TVs or getting really drunk. I doubt David Pogue would take pictures of booth babes. But these sophomoric shenanigans — along with rumors, rants, and fanboyism — are sadly the bread and butter of blogging. Otherwise a blog is just a press release regurgitation machine. Will Denton’s kids grow up? Absolutely. I’ve been blessed, so far, with a group of guys who have already had some work experience and understand the honor and privilege of being able to Porky Pig it while the rest of the workaday world reads our scribblings and, more importantly, to be heard in the vast wilderness of CE reporting. While Brian Lam inherited a number of great guys, most bloggers don’t understand the work folks like Joel Johnson and Pete Rojas put into getting a seat at the table and gaining the right to speak. Maybe it’s important they don’t understand this simply because many of these noble savages post pithy and exciting stuff and report on rumors and problems that most companies want to keep under wraps. And then you have a few who turn off a bunch of TVs or puke on a sales guy. While I’m sure editors at Business Week rarely have to sprinkle out sawdust in the break room, they are looking to emulate our style if not our traffic. Unless they’re willing to accept the risk of an asshole move with the promise inspired ones, they’ll be sunk. And unless bloggers are ready to act their age and use their skills, energy, and position to help consumers and not piss of PR folks, they’re also sunk. We’re almost there, but each stunt like this pushes us back a notch.
Thanks for your sharing your thoughts. It’s a fine line between being “raw and edgy” and being “obnoxious and offensive.”
Well said.
Fantastic read, very well said indeed. When I first saw them talking about the prank I couldn’t help but shake my head and say “kids…”
Hopefully they’ll catch some flack from this but due to their traffic/influence, probably not.
They’re at 622 comments and counting. And the vast majority are telling them they’re douchebags. And they are. It could have been a cute Woz-like prank if they did it then fessed up right away. But the Motorola guy had it happen over and over.
And for them to call the blog posting an apology, considering the music they attached to the video, is the ultimate in hypocrisy. I think they need to fire the weenie who did it, and they need to fire the guy at the company that built the gadget that gave it to them and allowed them to wreak mayhem. At least they need to be sued.
Hi, this is Luck from http://gadgetaholic.com. Thank you for the article. It was very well-written and I have to say I understand your point.
However, as I wrote on my post responding to the incident, I don’t understand why it took so long for this kind of prank to happen. And it doesn’t necessary have to be bloggers, it could be anyone of the hundred thousand attendees to pull a stunt like that. It would be impossible to track down the source.
I DO NOT agree with what the Gizmodo guys did. However, I think CES people just have to be smarter about this and prevent this from happening again.
Pranks happen and they will happen again in some other ways.
It hasn’t happened yet because the attendees of the CES show are generally professional / mature types. This is not a gaming convention. Yet, that is exactly how Gizmodo treated it. This is a venue that gives small companies once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to showcase a product they have invested their entire life and expenses in. And also a venue for large companies, like Motorola, to introduce new products that may grab the interest of distributers. The way human nature works, attendees will not remember the products these people were presenting; but, rather that they presumably were to incompetent to do a simple presentation – not knowing the reality was a bunch of childish immature “journalists” pulling a ‘fun prank’.
Well said. Turning the tv off on the guy playing Guitar Hero, funny, screwing up an important presentation for Motorola……totally weak. I work as a PR professional, but I am also a blogger and I can tell you Giz just shat in their own bed. This is a perfect example of bloggers getting too full of themselves and thinking they can do whatever they want. It is always sad when the lame actions of a few make the whole look like a bunch of idiots.
When I first read the post at Giz, my first thought was the kiddies with laser pointers in movies. I have since unsubscribed from the feed, I don’t need content written by kiddies.
John, this a very well written article that clearly shows how far blogging has come. I hope that Giz is the only entity that gets reprimanded.
I appreciate the sincerity of what was written about blogs and journalists. I’ve been both in my years in the business and even as a regular editor I kept my irreverant personality at trade shows. Yes I have taken pictures of booth babes, but I’ve also posed with them. I like to keep things light and funny when talking to companies.
But bloggers should still try to be a bit more mature. Anyone can buy a TV B Gone and torture random people. But is that really what a professional blogger should be doing? At CES?
Next time they should leave the TV B Gone for their own office. Or someone should shut down Gizmodos servers as a prank and see how funny it is.
Well said Biggs!
“Well said”…? He just told you that you’ve single-handedly undone a good deal of work on the part of many people with real integrity, work which resulted in your being handed a press pass to CES, which you then went right out and abused.
Amazing, Richard. You’re a real piece of work.
Your speaking out about sophomoric rants and fanboyism would be more convincing if CrunchGear didn’t have Vince Veneziani on staff.
No hatin’ on “double v” else you might need a WAAAAAAAHHHMBULANCE!!!
Actaully, Vince is no longer with CG, due to a very similar string of incidents. That being said, I like Vince. Hi VV!
thanks, matt i kinda figured since i haven’t seen anything since nov 2. is he still posting somewhere? i like him too…but not like that…and not like, “like-like” either. vv’s a cool dude…
I love Vince, but puking on PR reps and shutting off TVs are hardly “similar”. For Biggs to all but directly accuse us of the same thing is offensive, hacky, sensationalist, and a desperate ploy for attention. I realize talking about Giz is an easy traffic grab these days, but how about you work on gear reporting more instead of half-baked analysis and tabloid stories. That’s how we’ve built our traffic, along with important interviews, major scoops, and great content. You’re just the jealous kid in the back of the class snickering to feel better about yourself.
I agree too. This stunt was just a cheap shot at someone else’s expense to generate some traffic or for their own selfish and inconsiderate sense of humor.
Ballache if you wanted to be legitimate, you should’ve worked in real media.
Also, look at the ad you’re displaying http://doriantaylor.com/lul-crunchgear.png
who is ballache?
I’m saying that this post is nothing but ball aching
Irreverence is why they are read. You right… a bit of duck tape and they would have been/will be fine next year. Harmless an fun is all it was. Hey booth folks, don’t take yourself so f$$king seriously.
well put. Seriously, screwing with that guy while he presents makes them huge douche bags.
My thoughts? What Dave Winer said about it… It starts at “Meanwhile…” ps, those dots are really his not mine! i’m so cool dave winer is copying me…
Um. It was funny. They didn’t yell fire in a crowded theater. Think back to before you became a tight-ass…
You guys are comparing yourselves to gizmodo? Give me a break. This blog is run by a bunch of fags.
actually, blah, your dad did apply for a job but we turned him down.
Oh and I forgot to mention, this is also coming from the company whom held a competition for best start ups and then put companies whom weren’t start ups as the winners. But that was only after they made everyone wait for days because they couldn’t run a simple voting poll correctly. Hows that for “Douchery” you dick wads.
using the word “whom” incorrectly is doing nothing for your credibility mr. blah
This is a thoughful piece. The issue is not about the silly prank. Rather it’s about the fact that blogger credibility will go down a notch with many CEA members and certainly with CES rather than going up as it deserves to do.
you people are old. certainly motorola will not sell one less phone because of this, that guy won’t lose his job and come on! you are actually talking about those poor motorola guys and not about their crappy interfaces! if you think a show about tv’s and pimped cars needs to be taken more seriously you may have something to tell to your analyst.
daaamn! people gettin’ uppity eh?
.
jb, valleywag just gave you a shoutout…
yeah. great shout-out. remind me to send them a cookie basket
If I wasn’t so sick of the cookies in the press room (we are considered press after all) I would take it, for bringing you needless traffic.
I am a former Gartner analyst and now a enterprise technology blogger – kind of tough to even think of such pranks when you are meeting execs from SAP or Oracle -)
having said that, while the prank was juvenile (especially since it went on and on), I think a little perspective is important. It was in over the top Vegas, with some of the zaniest gadgets and where Bono had to be bleeped out of the Bill Gates self-parody…
I would hate to see the day bloggers get as buttoned down as analysts or media…we are edgy, and at times will do stupid stuff.
Heck even at conservative Gartner, us analysts (but not management) used to say to each other – if you do not piss a vendor off every few months you are probably being too nice.
Of course, we used magic quadrants not remotes -)
Like my friend Vinnie Mirchandani, I’m also an enterprise technology blogger. In my case, I write for ZDNet. However, I disagree with Vinnie’s points. Interrupting a press briefing goes beyond juvenile and prank-like activities–it’s messing with people’s livelihoods, which is not acceptable, in my view.
Your story is passionate and well-expressed. and thanks for writing it.
Michael Krigsman
Blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mkrigsman
Who was it that once said there’s no such thing as bad press? As sophomoric as the stunt may be I am willing to bet Gizmodo’s subscriber base to only increase. Why? 1. There’s already an array of tech blogs out there reporting the same gadgets. Few are doing something different or have an actual ‘edge’ or personality to them. Gizmodo appears to be doing this. 2. if you visit the Gizmodo thread and read all the replies there are more “wow that was hilarious” replies than the “so not cool” ones. This should indicate the type of readers that subscribe to these stunts and Gizmodo answers to that.
The real question here is if this is right. I mean, if you were that guy at the Motorola booth (and not you), how would you have felt. You spend time preparing to talk and take questions from literally thousands… you run over your notes again and again… You even prepare the hardware and the presentation (which you might have seen like a thousand times)…. Over worked, over stressed, with bills to pay… And them some kids mess with you. Physical violence would have ensued if it were me.
It is one thing to give a run on this or that commercial displays walls. Turn them off then turn them on, it’s really the same code for both operations. But (and somebody said it before) they’ll be crying if somebody hacks their PCs, screws with their site, DDoS their servers, blocks their entrance to the subway, cuts their spot while waiting in line on the store, blocks their way while driving, spills liquids over their keyboards, guts their mice, substitutes the lead from their pens with plastic, discards all their ink tanks, hides away their paper and stops sending them press releases and products for them to review. (Anybody reading can take this hints if they want).
Childish, nay… Give a child one of this things and (if the child was properly educated) they will inquire you on why would you give them such a thing and what do you expect from them.
Ultimately, this “prank” is not so… It reeks more like exploitation. (See their traffic flourish and TV B Gone sales go through the roof).
The equivalent to this stunt being performed on our site is more “post a spammy comment” or “take a five minute vow to not refresh our site” than kill all of our kittens.
So you want mindless traffic is that it? Is gizmodo going to pull another CES on every exhibition they go? Yes that brings traffic, but also drives commenters away. Ah, Benny the Intern, do you really think you are THAT BIG (either you or Gizmodo) that you can survive without us, your audience?
See, boy, the thing is, you owe it all to us, your audience. You are not that good, not that big and show signs of decay… It’s your site and you do as you please (AFAIK from your commentaries), so what then? Keep doing what you do… As an intern maybe some other branch at Gawker will take you when Giz numbers roll down (read it as: when the stupid pranking gets old or starts happening to you).
“his was the first time — the absolutely first time — that a blog gained the same access as any other business or industry publication.”
Not even close. Slashdot is the ur-blog and was doing this years before the likes of you came along. Quit with the nonsense that you and your ilk invented something new when it was already quite established in the previous millennium.
Link? Who interviewed Gates?
Yes! A comment from THE CmdrTaco! And he’s, uh, plugging Slashdot. Remember Slashdot?
Nice post John.
It’s official. Gizmodo has jumped the shark.
Oh, and btw, the backlash has begun (with an actual nice shoutout to CrunchGear)
Giz blogger banned for next year’s C.E.S.:
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2008/01/11/tech-blogger-banned-in-las-vegas
I love this website, I vist it daily if not more than that. But come on was this really that big of a deal? I can understand if they did it to small companys but it was just a bunch of REALLY big companys, nothing came out of this except frustration for a few VERY large well endowed booths for 2 minutes, it’s not a big deal it was funny, time to get over it. But if it was happens again I could understand someone getting upset or angry. Everyone is acting like they went primevil , took a shit in their hands, and threw it at some booth babes.
It is funny, when interns come in to talk shit to the person that helped make Gizmodo what it is today.
Is this the “great content” youre talking about Goldman?
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hairless-intern/gizmodo-intern-tortured-for-the-cause-301359.php
JB, Interesting thoughts on where blogs stand in the media (thank you). Seems there are some growing pains and gray areas as blogs differentiate themselves between ‘on-the-run’ or ‘off-the-run’- and the very nature of the blog as interactive makes this process even less predictable. As always, I think the truth will resonate with readers- an ‘on-the-run’ blog trying draw viewers acting like an ‘off-the-run’ won’t cut it (like Karl Rove rapping). The actions of one blog certainly won’t diminish the (growing) power of blogs in general. Nice to see most comments coming down on the side of ‘do unto others’ in general though.
You are whitewashing what happened. You are also overly optimistic that this tempest will die down, or that people will forget.
I will never forget, and if I ever see Gizmodo approach me, I’ll tell them to leave my booth, and call security if they don’t.
We often did not have remotes on the floor or even easily accessible. The monitors often had power buttons that were unreachable, and we had no chairs. That video wall would have taken us down for potentially 30 minutes.
People spend hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions, of dollars to be there. These “blog kids” have every right to be there, but they’re also 100% entitled to reap the rewards that they sow just as if I did what they did.
Wow, you people need to get a life….and a sense of humor. Tune out, turn off and go look at the real world for a minute.
This from the guy who is posting comments to a blog post about blogging. Dude. Tune out, turn off, and go look at the real world for a minute.
This is funny. As someone in the Gizmodo comments pointed out, here’s the original scathing Giz post on TV-B-Gone. Biggs, this was your era, you write this?
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/notag/tv+b+gone-23694.php
that’s classic joel
dude, you sound like you’re just sad that your “blounge” won’t be stocked next year…go suck some more corporate tit….who cares….screens need turning off sometimes….changes up the atmosphere
it’s not about the blounge, tm, it’s about access. Go start a blog and see how far you get in terms of audience. It will take you about a year to get good traffic and contacts and it’s guys like Rojas and Joel who made it work for all of us. Only a few years ago the only way to write intelligently about tech was to buy a printing press and sell magazines around the world. Now anyone with a burning desire and intelligence can talk to anyone and, as we see, walk around turning off TVs.
#6…
Until now all they’ve gotten out of it is free link juice and free publicity.
I wonder what we’ll see next year, unless this has some consequences.
Perhaps someone will set off a stink bomb at MacWorld to ruin “There something in the air” or fill the room with helium.
I think blogging has come to stay as yet another form of press, like tv and newspapers. While such stunts may be a talking point for few days, I seriously doubt if they will have any lasting impact.
Also blogging lines are being well defined. With blog engines like engadget, gizmodo, techcrunch churning up 30 posts a day, it is becoming much harder for the rest without lots of resources to burn. So while blogging technically is free for all, getting a decent readership is becoming harder with each passing days.
Blogging has become a business like traditional press. Similarly I don’t expect the mainstream bloggers to be really sarcastic or write something really bad about a product or services they don’t like, simply because they are dependent on them for advertising revenue or even access to premier events.
Sorry dude… i just wanted to point out that your comment came a bit late (like 9 or 10 months after the fact). They do punish harshly (engadget, gizmodo and techcrunch) the products and services that don’t make the cut. There’s some bias (ok) but that’s called an opinion (some like it Mac, others Windows and then some like Linux… They will all air their preferences in the way they find the best).
While it’s true that getting readers is somewhat hard, the guilt lies not to those who do a good job but to us who are still not making a good enough job (say, have you identified your niche group correctly? do you deliver new posts at least in a consistent timely fashion? Do you cater to a local (and then smaller) audience?).
There are many other bloggers that get a bigger audience not because they churn posts like crazy… but because they deliver true quality material (shout out to Veerle Pieters, Chris Coyiers and Roger Johansson).
In this blogosphere we live in quality is what will make your audience come from various sources and ultimately stay.
Blogging might be a business to some, a way of making ends meet for others… But just as traditional press, there are TONS of excellent writers whose material stands above the rest.
Speaking as a person who was banned from Giz for using their similar “jargon”, I can’t agree more. Though, I’m not a “professional blogger from somewhere in California”, I do use a computer and have a wireless connection on an Illinois router (also using a computer). See, that’s the shit that got me banned. Ha!
Interesting article(s).