I am watching this whole scandal about NBC Today show tech editor Corey Greenberg who gets paid to say nice things about consumer gizmos on NBC affiliate shows. Apparently he got about $15,000 to talk up products from the likes of Apple, Sony, HP and Creative. NBC officials deny that they had knowledge of this financial relationship. (More here) Now this report on NBC executive Jeff Zucker saying that network anchors like Brian Williams should blog. Take the two bits of news in context, and you can see that network anchors blogging with be a colossal disaster. Why? So that they can force their bad stories of murder and mayhem on the blogsphere. network news is the anthesis of blog world. Blogsphere is about niches, and stories that are meaningful to the end users, and in this model there is no room for stars. If Greenberg is a proxy, well then we might get compromised stuff out in the blogs as well.
“in this model there is no room for stars.”
Yeah, right…. Pot, kettle, black.
your point being what? actually…. think about this. you read this blog today, well tomorrow you find someone better you move on. you define the information consumption, you control the rules of the game. you decide what is the right information for you. i don’t define it – you do. it doesn’t matter to readers if i wrote something or someguy across the planet. if its worth reading, it will be read. it won’t be read just because some star wrote it or blogged it
Seems to be a theme this week:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB111386025685009961-IBjgINplal4mpymbX6HcK6Gm4,00.html
Sorry Om – yanking your chain.
My snide comment was that the blog world definately has a star system, determined both by the readership and the interlinking between blogs.
If I can’t find a blog, how wonderful the content is doesn’t matter. The more interlinked blogs are easier to find and will attract a larger readership.
This isn’t really tha much different than the offline media world, except that the ease and speed of switching sources of content is easier with blogs.
Given the number of links to your blog from various places, you have a much better opportunity to increase readership than some equally good content blog without that exposure.
The interwoven, somewhat closed system of ‘name’ bloggers is a star system.
DrDebug… i would like to believe that i get linked because of what i write and not because of the brand name, and hopefully you come back here because you see some value. but i see your point.
I happened to see him doing one on the Sony PSP – as I watched over a couple of minutes my only thought was how much is Sony paying this guy?
As a PR practitioner that has taken part in working with Greenberg in the past, I can tell you that during all my time working with him, a paid satellite media tour never implied a spot on the Today Show.
With that said, Greenberg and Oppenheim won’t ever even listen to a pitch. I assume they do have paid clients that, perhaps, paid them more than my clients did in the past.
It’s about time there are some whistles blown here. Do you how many of the ‘tech analysts’ who are quoted in the media make a living by getting tech companies to pay them high priced consulting contracts for ‘strategic services’ (read: say good things in the press and pretend to be a non-biased expert source)?
they should be required to fully disclose these relationships.