Gizmodogate: Funny Stuff
One of my long-time friends Richard Blakeley… I say friends because I have met him before and have been watching his life unfold via LiveJournal for about 7 years now… has gotten himself into some “trouble”. He has worked at Gawker for a couple of years now as their video-boi and does hilarious videos and photoshopping for them.
Well this year at CES they decided to pull a prank with a tv-b-gone on the exibition floor and then all blogging mayhem let loose.
Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES
Needless to say this was way overblown and the real thing is that bloggers feel like they have to defend just because they want to have respect and crap like that. The funny thing is that Gizmodo was there as press, not bloggers so really it was the press acting up… not a blogger.
I first heard about this when reading John Chow’s blog post about it. When I saw 3 words “Gizmodo, Prank, Video” I immediately thought BLAKELEY. This is what he does… stupid dumb but artfully hilarious videos like this. He has been doing it for years and why would he change now? It drove traffic like crazy and traffic means $$ in this sport. So it worked.
He was on rocketboom the other day explaining himself and I think it is a great interview. I love the terrorist scarf, I have a red one. Funny side story on that… Blakeley mentioned he got a terrorist scarf at urban outfitters in NY and my sister happened to work at UO at the time in NY and I asked he if they still sell them. She said yeah and then about 2 weeks later I receive a red one in the mail. She took it as I really wanted one and she bought it for me :-) Sweet but I have never worn it once.
http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/rb_08_jan_17
Links:
Gizmodo: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES
Read more here:
New York Times: Over the Line at C.E.S.
BoingBoing: TV-Be-Gone mischief at CES
CNet: Bloggers behaving badly: Gizmodo messes with CES flat screens
CrunchGear: On Gizmodo’s douchery and blogging
Beltwayblogroll: Grow Up, Gizmodo Goofballs
Mobility Site: Gizmodo: What were they thinking?
Gear Diary: Total and Utter Crap: Gizmodo’s Stupid CES Prank on Motorola and Us Bloggers
ZDNet: How to temporarily “kill your television”-and everyone else’s, too
ZDNet: Gizmodogate: Get a sense of humor folks
Tech.co.uk: TechBloggers disrupt CES but prank backfires
Austin 360: Gadget site rattles trade show with TV prank
ZDNet: Gizmodo prank trashes CES presentations
Fake Steve Jobs: Gizmodo admits blasting out TV screens at CES
Scripting: The debate about the worth of podcasting
MacDailyNews: Video: Gizmodo turning off TVs – lots of TVs – at CES
CNet – CEA’s take on CES Gizmodo prank: Banned!
Judge on February 5th, 2008
First, its called a Keffiah, not a terrorist scarf and if you have ever lived in the desert for more than a day, you would realize how useful they are. Its a shame that because of ignorant people and unaware journalists, this has become a symbol of something so incredibly negative. Just like the swastika was originally a powerful symbol of good luck before some idiot with a god complex decided to use it as his personal logo.
Second, what Blakely did was funny, but when they started turning off monitors on someone’s live presentation, that crossed the line.
It can be argued that this could have cost some of these vendors money as well. If a monitor manufacture is trying to sell his latest creation and it keeps turning off, my guess is that potential buyers are probably going to be reluctant to purchase one of these monitors.
And finally, he may have received press credentials, but he acted like a typical blogger: a kid in a grown ups world, behaving like a little brat.
I hear CEA has banned Gizmodo from attending the event again. Im sure the flood of visitors to Gizmodo over the incident more than compensates for that little inconvenience, but the stunt does nothing to help make bloggers look legitimate.