Gizmodo changed their tagline to, “So much in love with shiny new toys, it’s unnatural.” Since my tagline is “Shiny, happy tech news,” Gizmodo’s line gave me hope.
After John Biggs left Gizmodo, the blog seemed to project an anti-appreciation image. They seemed to want to be the anti-fanboy. They were critical of almost everything innovative. There were some exceptions, but more than anything the message in the last year and a half has been negative.
The negative message has attracted YouTube quality commenting. Today a post titled “Cute Model Demos Starry Night Luxo-Bed“ received comments I wouldn’t dare repeat here. They were mean and thoughtless. The woman they insulted probably encountered their negativity and probably had a really bad night for no legitimate reason. A person who’s picture on the Internet is a REAL person with REAL feeling. Every commenter should think about that before they post.
At CES, Gizmodo’s staff was given a TV-B-Gone from Phil Torrone (a guy I’ve always respected). I don’t respect him anymore because he obviously had anti-business chaos in mind. The Gizmodo team took the bait and used the nefarious technology to interrupt various presentations at CES. Not only was it mean, it was uncool and childish. Gizmodo is out of my RSS reader until they live up to their new slogan. They don’t love…they hate and hate is a waste of my time.
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January 10th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I wish you had a big "national blog" to read. I couldn't believe Gizmodo would dare screw with tvs during an actual presentation, especially MULTIPLE times. It is just ridiculous. Why the people putting CES on didn't have them escorted off the premises is beyond me. Hopefully they just didn't know about it. Gizmodo has pulled many a childish stunt. I don't know if you knew about the "tubgirl" incident where a Gizmodo blogger (Editor Brian Lam actually I believe) posted that picture at the top of Kotaku.com when they won at Halo 3. Most internet savvy people have "seen" what tubgirl is and well they lost me forever on that post. I was ashamed a picture like that would ever be taken of a women and even worse was that having that picture at the top of a public website forces anyone visitng, women, men, and especially YOUNG children that read tech blogs daily to see an image like that. This latest TV-B-Gone stunt is just another reason I hope their sponsors pull the plug and whomever owns the site cleans house. btw, I'm a recent new member to the GIA and I cannot wait untill you get to cover Macworld. WIsh I lived closer to Texas than Georgia to go to a meetup.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I stopped reading them months ago. I just couldn't stand their writing style. When I heard about the TV-B-Gone thing at CES, it reminded me why I stopped. I get all my tech news from GBTV…and Engadget!
January 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Well said, Cali. First, what the Gizmodo staffers did was bad enough. Then they posted a terribly insincere "we're sorry," knowing that a distressing number of their readers would hoot, holler, and shout "Awesome!" Which, of course, is what happened. There's the pointless cruelty here, but there's also the enormous black eye this gives to the fledgling online independent media. It's hard enough for bloggers to get respect at an event the size of CES, but when something like this happens, and its source becomes public knowledge, it just validates the prejudices of everyone who wants to dismiss the new media.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I just thank you for letting people know of the idiocy that occurs. I feel that once again the 0.01% of the people in the online community has messed it up for the other 99.99%. I'm sorry if you had to witness people that have a low sense of respect for others and I'm sorry for the people that were affected by them. I love your podcast and glad that you show the world that 99.99% of the podcasters like to share the news, not make it.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I have worked at the CES show for the past five years. this is the first year I was not there. I was a tech for a company that rented out plasma's and other A/V equipment there. Do you know how many man hours these "jokers" wasted on our side with clients calling in saying that there stuff was cutting on and off and they wanted a refund. Way to burn other companies….I hope the entire Blog community comes down hard on them for this. saying sorry is not good enough. Cali have fun at macworld- from one of many podcasters to your south in Austin,TX.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Didn't Scoble post a warning to CES that someone was going to do something like that? I agree with Speedy above that it give bloggers a bad name. What a childish thing to do. I'm dropping the feed as well. I like to know what doesn't work with products but there is no need to put something down just to sound smart.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I have family in Atlanta, so we'll definitely have a meetup there sometime!
January 10th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Totally agree Cali, Gizmodo's CES stunt was a mean act – sadly they are getting more media attention now than ever – perhaps that was the game…?!
January 10th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Just the other day Gizmodo was twisting Bill Gates' words on Windows, claiming he was saying it sucks, when that's obviously not what he was saying. I have always felt that they are a childish tech news site, but now i'm convinced.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Yup, the Internet seems to agree, Gizmodo, you screwed up, bigtime. I wonder if Gizmodo will be asked to pay for all the time wasted by techs during presentations – these booths cost a fortune to get, and companies invest a large amount of money into the booths, the video production, and training the staff. Very uncool. Except maybe when we were in fifth grade.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Gizmodo was pretty childish and most certainly caused problems for people. However, you have to wonder with as long as devices like TV-B-Gone have been out that people setting up the booths would think to put a piece of e-tape over the IR port to keep people from messing around with the screens. it could just have easily been a competing business that wanted to sabotage others. You set the booth up get all the screens working and then just use a hard switch to turn them on and off everyday. No remotes needed and no chance of any kind of interference (wether intentional, or just someone at a different booth turning on their screens for the day).
January 10th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Cali, I can only say one thing as one who inhabits the Las Vegas metro. Amen.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I agree with you %100! Engadet or even Crunch Gear for me now. (after GeekBrief of course!)
January 10th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I love the TV-b-gone for personal use, like friends and the such, but this was ridiculous. I dropped gizmodo out my feed when they said the iPhone was being released and the next day linksys came out with the skype iphone. Engadget is way better anyways!
January 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am
But Mike, isn't that like saying a girl wearing a short skirt is asking to be raped? When it's easy to take advantage of a vulnerability in tech, it's still the person who takes advantage that's wrong.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Well Gizmodo has been out of my rss feed for the past year already. Making fun is one thing, disrupting a conference and live speeches is another. Enough tech sites out there to let one go :) Cheers Alexander
January 11th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Oh stop being such a damn industry shill and have a sense of humor. These people are hawking tech gadgets, not trying to cure cancer. And their business was not disrupted. They just had their TVs turned off, momentarily. Get a sense of humor.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:19 am
<sarcasm> Neal, it's also like having young boys at church with a priest. How can he help himself? </sarcasm> Comparing this to rape is inappropriate. Unless you somehow receive severe physical and emotional pain from it.
January 11th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Bob — see nmickinney's post above — their business WAS disrupted? It's supposed to be a blog for tech news and gadget reviews, not "Jackass: The Web site."
January 11th, 2008 at 4:34 am
fuji, didn't care for the priest comment, even if it was sarcastic. No need to keep fueling such generalizations. As Matt stated, it's sad that a small percentage of offenders ruins things for the majority of the good. Having said that. good for you, Cali and Neil, for taking a stand. Sounds like middle school behavior to me and something that shouldn't be encouraged.
January 11th, 2008 at 4:50 am
It looked like they really frigged with the Motorola presentation which I don't think much of. Comes across as sabotaging the presenter more than being funny. Turning off TVs that are just doing rolling presentations is fine but messing up what a presenter is doing isn't.
January 11th, 2008 at 5:52 am
I walked away from Gizmodo about a year and a half ago and have not look backed.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:03 am
@omar I agree they were there to be professionals. @bob yes I have a sense of humor but not when it disruptes and takes money away from hard working people. One of the guys I used to work with had to "fix" something that was not broken. They did this mulitple times to one booth and he would have to come out there and try to fix the issue. This happened twice. now they asked for a refund on the equipment rental becuase it kept turning off. So would you call that funny?-nick
January 11th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Shame on them for turning off the TVs, but being an apple hater? I can l live with that…Lord knows there are plenty of windows haters that I read
January 11th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Wow, I always though Gizmodo was low, but this low? Oh dear.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:42 am
This has to do with the professionalism of Journalists in a convention, more than kids playing pranks on a convention, I am sure you wouldn't be happy if it was your job the one they were interrupting, Do you have any idea what kind of pressure the people presenting the TVs and the responsibles for connecting them and keeping them running have to deal? Do you have any idea of what will happen to the guys responsible of doing the Motorola presentation because they weren't unable to have an smooth presentation?? and they did interfered with MANY presentation that the sale staff were doing… NOT COOL. Yeah nobody was curing cancer, but people were working there, not playing there is a difference when you go and turn the tv of your roommate to play a prank and when you do it in a convention. That kind of "pranks" separate real journalists from bloggers.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:19 am
some "pranking" of the corporatism & "suits" in the industry, particularly at CES where it is rife with it, is a necessary bit of random fun to remind people of our "pirate" roots, but there comes a time when the line is crossed over into sheer meanness. this is such a case, as they, in their own admission about "just couldn't stop" is such a case. we shouldn't shoot at civilians. i think the prank & video would have been ok if they showed some smirking restraint and did it just a couple of times, recorded it on video, and be done with it. or maybe on some booths or technology the majority of the tech community is fed up with (hello, RIAA or MPAA??). but i agree that doing it all over several display walls, repeatedly, and particularly during people's presentations which are often timed to scripts or other automated displays is just cruel and unusual and downright mean. especially to all the tech support folk, like the fellow in the comments from the a/v company renting this stuff to the booths, because of the massive unnecessary headache they had to deal with. the blogosphere should come down on gizmodo hard in their comments and elsewhere. CES denying them access (as best they can, actually preventing people from entering is near impossible) next year might be a censure they have to live with. i intend to repost this on their site also.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I'm frankly surprised that most vendors don't use the "electrical tape over the IR port" as a matter or normal business at a trade show. I've worked tradeshows in the past for various employers and we ALWAYS do this. Not necessarily because we were expecting sabotage, but, with lots of vendors using video displays, random IR signals aren't that uncommon.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Cali, clearly you have a strong opinion on this as do most of your other readers, which you're all entitled to. However, I must disagree. Yes, it was immature, a waste of time and some money. Did the world spin off its axis? Did any of the companies go under because of a tv screen glitching out? And let's examine that for a moment…CES is the place for tech companies to show off their latest and greatest stuff. Bleeding edge technology. Technology that's new, usually untested…prone to glitches? Maybe? If Giz hadn't fessed up, would anyone have noticed? Would anyone have cared? I highly doubt it. Maybe a blurb somewhere would read "overloaded surge protector delays presentation 5 minutes, world continues to spin" I disagree with you. You (probably) disagree with me. You've taken Giz off your RSS/Bookmarks and I'm taking you off mine. It seems that Geekbrief and I cannot see eye-to-eye and I don't think I can support you or recommend you to my peers. Flame away if you like, but do it quick 'cause I'm out the door peace
January 12th, 2008 at 3:34 am
They just got banned from future CES shows. CEA's take on CES Gizmodo prank: Banned: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9849168-7.html%2...
January 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Am I the only one who finds it hypocritical that the Goo Goo Ga Ga Gizmodo pre-school pranksters had so much fun with the very device they ripped to shreds in an earlier review? http://gizmodo.com/archives/tvbgone-023694.php
January 12th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
100% agree Cali this was just lame. Gizmodo changed a lot during the last couple of months… thank god there are alternatives
January 12th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Just testing this awesome comment system, really…
January 12th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
There is the usual sexist YouTube like comments which you've mentioned and also there's the "eyecandy" boys club mentality that they've got going on as well. Their material is regularly misogynistic so I gave up on them a while ago. For an example, there was one proud moment in tech reporting history when a Gizmodo writer wrote: "If there's one device that needs some features raped into it, it's the remote control." <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldschoollunch/13388...i'm not joking.</a>
January 12th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
There is the usual sexist YouTube like comments which you've mentioned and also there's the "eyecandy" boys club mentality that they've got going on as well. Their material is regularly misogynistic so I gave up on them a while ago. For an example, there was one proud moment in tech reporting history when a Gizmodo writer wrote: "If there's one device that needs some features raped into it, it's the remote control." <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldschoollunch/13388...i'm not joking.</a>
January 13th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Cali, thank you for this commentary. I have always appreciated the upbeat, clean and refreshing spirit of podcasts. I stumbled into Geekbrief via an application that showed up on my Nokia 800, I've been a viewer since. Gizmodo is off my list. They are inappropriate and the stunt they pulled after being given the honor of interviewing Bill Gates was deplorable. This is why Sony, et.al., (and hopefully Nokia soon) will be sponsoring you and won't be sponsoring the likes of Gizmodo. My sincere hope is that they will be subject to an avalanche of lawsuits stemming from their little joke. The dollars per minute of CES showtime is huge for each vendor as well as the reputation of the vendors supplying equipment. This attack on CES should be met by lawyers and the local authorities for possible criminal action. Good luck to you. You are doing it right.