I wrote recently about how the economics of blogging kind of sucks. But I neglected to mention the fine contribution to journalism and world knowledge that blogs represent. One of the great things about the blogosphere is the unique information that each blog provides. For example, today Apple announced some new machines. In the old days you’d just have to read about that in the newspaper. Today you can set up a feed reader or just bookmark a bunch of blogs and get really exciting, nearly identical, not-in-depth coverage of this same momentous news. Check it out from AllThingsD (see here), Alley Insider (see here), TechCrunch (see here), and VentureBeat (see here.) Lest you think that there are probably too many people covering the exact same non-news every day, remember that every blog has its own very unique value to add to the basic underlying non-news. VentureBeat, for example, used the opportunity to point out its own mistakes, saying that today’s news probably means there won’t be some big Apple event at the end of March, as it had predicted earlier. AllThingsD says it’s all about the recession. Alley Insider says Apple still needs a netbook, and predicts will see a multitouch tablet from Apple by end of year. Or consider the story about Jon Stewart covering Twitter on The Daily Show. The blogs are chasing each other’s tails on that one too, with VentureBeat offering this piece, TechCrunch offering this piece, GawkerWag offering this, and GigaOm offering this. No mystery why nobody is making any money at this.
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Good insight. It’s getting worse too. Everyone just rehashing the same developments. Not much analysis. Not much insight.
Would this be the traditional daring juxtaposition of form that belies the author’s love of that which he allegedly critiques?
I mean, seemingly, in my known-to-be-not-very-journalistic mindset, this is a non-story about non-stories… Certainly there was no insight or unique perspective immediately evident in the complaint about the absence of insight or unique perspective at the other locations who actually at least were reporting something that happened — rather than complaining about the lack of style in that reporting.
Anyway, there’s nothing new under the sun because newspapers have been reporting what other newspapers have been reporting since at least the days of Hearst. Why would we expect so-called citizen journalists to rise to a higher standard than so-called real journalists?
reinharden
A valid enough criticism of how most people read feeds, but not so much of the news blogs themselves. To some extent it’s like subscribing to twenty different newspapers and being disappointed at getting the same news. You only really need one or two tech news blogs, and you can probably find the ones most in line with your interests.
Also, Apple releasing new machines, or Jon Stewart covering Twitter is not necessarily “non-news” items to subscribers of those blogs. Not everyone is interested, but Apple fans and Twitter fans are.
Aside for a very few news blogs, which are basically correctly fulfilling their function, nearly all of the other feeds I subscribe to either provide niche or original content.
Nice, this blog post really added that something to today’s non-news. Some more links to that pages, indeed.
You’re definitively over the top here, Dan… And you’re not the Journalist I think you were.
I know it’s hard: nobody cares about you anymore on the internet, even when you say “shit” and “piss” and “fuck” and “penis”.
Oh, and the secret diary book is selling like ice at the North Pole just because, uhm… it’s OLD SHIT?
Look how fickle people are. What did you do that made the hive mind turn against you, anyway?
After a few moments more thought, I’ve decided that the original post can perhaps best be summarized as “Hey you bloggers! Get off my lawn!”
reinharden
PS: Hmm…maybe we need a Fake Dan Lyons blog in order to go full circle? FakeDanLyons.com expires this August…
the hive mind turned on RDL because he took away something that people actively loved, FSJ. something that i for one couldn’t wait to read every day cause it was so great. in its place, we have this. and frankly this is prob the best post to RDL yet.
Journalists?! Since when is reprinting a press release or just copying a bunch of specifications from Apple’s website considered journalism? You give these guys too much credit.
Multiple outlets covering the same news seems to be a fact of life both in mainstream media and blogs. All local TV stations and newspapers cover the mayor’s news conference or 3 alarm fire in the wherever district. A football game is covered by local media, ESPN and a bloggers. The coverage in Time, Newsweek and U.S. News certainly overlaps.
Are you suggesting that the media become the equivalent of a wire service and have one pool reporter for each piece of news?
Dan,
Not a bad question to ask, but a surprising one from you. From your experience at Forbes and Newsweek, you already know the answer. A lot of the value in what we do is aggregation so that readers can get all of the day’s tech stories on Alley Insider without having to look elsewhere. That’s the point of running a news site.
It’s a similar model to newspapers running wire copy, except it’s in our voice, shorter, more interesting, more fun, better, etc. Increasingly, we’re using links instead of rewriting stuff.
We devote as much time as possible to enterprise reporting and analysis. But aggregation is always going to be a very important piece of the puzzle. And any tech site without the Apple news this morning is missing an important story.
The majority of people do not use feed readers or aggregation engines like TechMeme. And we should not assume they do when we plan our coverage.
I am over at Pixar Studios rewriting Flash for iPhone because codetards at adobe can’t get out of dodge. ADObe, more like ACAN’TBE or something.
It is no problem, really. We did the same little thing with freetard unix and made it into a huge hit (OS X, have you heard of it?).
Now we are going to add some Zing into the Flash
From now on, the “F” in FSJ stands for “Flash”, fanboyz.
A nice piece of content-free non-post. Too bad. I miss FSJ. OK, I know.. gone … but even the Real Dan used to be better.
I’ve written about this issue many times before and it’s why I’ve slowly moved CenterNetworks away from chasing the same news.
I was telling someone the other day that tech blogging is like the Daytona 500. You can either stay in the draft and hope that the pack pulls you along (like what Techmeme does) or you can ride by yourself and while people will see you on the track, you probably won’t win the race. Sometimes though, the cars in the draft wreck and that car who stayed outside the draft misses it and can move to the front.
People have noticed that I’ve been writing all original content and seem to like it. I can say I am enjoying the work much more than writing a story about the same stories as everyone else. Since I am 100th in line, by the time they get to my viewpoint on a story, they have read it on the other sites already. I like reporting on news but like finding news that the other sites aren’t reporting on. When I do want to write about a hot news story, I typically wait a day or two to make sure my voice is heard as best as I can get it out there.
Hey Dan
How and why did you become such a loser? We didn’t read your blog with the intent of making you an internet gazillionaire, we read it for much more selfish reasons…..IT WAS FUNNY. It was fresh, it poked fun at anyone and everyone in the technical arena as well a variety of other fields. In a word….it was ENTERTAINING….something this lame excuse for a blog has never been accused of.
This post was hilarious and totally accurate ! Blogs are like any other medium, there are only few people with something interesting to say or point out.
Most blogs end up like zombies, aimlessly repeating each other. Hell, most people end up blogging about blogging, and tweetering about tweetering. But once in a while you found some that are worthwile to read (like this one).
At the end its not the medium, it’s what you have to say.
It’s too bad you can’t treat blogs like zombies. Then all you’d need is a shotgun. Aim at the head and BOOM! No more zombie blog.
Of course, you’d still have to fight off the hundreds of other blogs that act exactly the same way, trying to eat your brains, but it would be worth it.
I love you. Sorry I haven’t read you in a few months; you could’ve added about how us blog readers are so fickle, too.
I was thinking, since Steve Jobs is down for the count now, how about if you take on someone else? John Boehner is a sure bet. Lots of stuff to work with there, a virtual cornucopia of fun.
I can’t understand any of it either. Look at guy like Feldman at 1938media. Traffic pouring in. Sticky enough content, albeit controversial to some, and no ads to speak of. I shelled out a ‘fitty’ for “premium content’ but shit, you need a lot of assholes like me to make a living of that.