Check it out, people. My man Dan Frommer of Alley Insider is slowly gaining on his Apple-watching nemesis at AllThingsD, John Paczkowski. This morning at 7:16 a.m. PT, Paczkowski was the first to re-report the non-news coming out of some Chinese publication that Apple is preparing an oversized iPod Touch, aka a netbook. Just nine minutes later, at 10:25 a.m. ET, Frommer struck, re-reporting Paczkowski’s own re-report. It’s an amazing performance by Frommer, who last week was running a full ten minutes behind AllThingsD. Watch out, Kara Swisher! Can you hear the footsteps getting closer?
A couple things that make this gem even better — first, that this is total non-news, since no actual product has been announced yet, and since, believe it or not, the entire fate of the fucking world does not hang in the balance on whether Apple makes a new, slightly larger iPod. Second, that even the source from which Paczkowski re-reports, something called DigiTimes, was itself re-reporting something from another publication, Commercial Times. You can see the DigiTimes story here. So, to recap: Frommer re-reports something on Alley Insider that Paczkowski re-reports on AllThingsD that DigiTimes re-reports from Commercial Times. You gotta love the way the Internet takes all the friction and inefficiency out of the fusty old news business.
Speaking of non-news…
I read and enjoyed FSJ’s blog because it was well-written, witty, and insightful. I haven’t seen any of that here, leading me to wonder if RSJ wasn’t using Dan as a beard for his own real blog. What a prank that would have been. And when he became to ill to fit blogging into his schedule, he shut it down.
Best thing on AI was Blodgett being called out on continually dissing Google, and Blodgett admitting he was long on Yahoo. I don’t now why anybody takes those guys seriously.
And now you’re reporting it. Way to go, jackass.
with all due respect to the certainly brilliant anonymous commenters ‘nickbob’ and ‘hatmike’ i think you’re onto something here.
i think you may have missed a couple thousand re-reports though.
what about a blog that posts only stories that related sites–say engadget and gizmodo–don’t BOTH post–like a difference blog. prob have one or two stories a day, could make a good living.
@Abort: What, we’re supposed to not have spare tires?
I missed that memo.
ahhh, this is definitely a case of using technology to measure even the slightest hint of being behind in the world. in the 1950s, it was called, “keeping up with the joneses.”
@SDC I think he means driving the car perpetually with a spare tire as opposed to it being in the trunk. LOL