Brian at Gizmodo has a thoughtful, pointed piece today about why he thinks people were way too hard on Gizmodo for pranking Motorola at CES, turning off screens during a presentation.
He hasn’t changed my mind yet because next year I think every booth staff person is going to be more skeptical than they were this year of the legitimacy of those with “blogger” badges (Gizmodo folks probably had press badges – but this was all reported as a blogging stunt).
More importantly CES’s great treatment of bloggers has been rewarded with stunts.
Brian’s case would be stronger if Gizmodo’s buzz machine had focused on negatives at CES – such as some of the press payoffs he mentions in his article, rather than simply sabotaging a presentation for cheap YouTube thrills and views.
But, ultimately I suppose the community and those affected more directly than me must define the appropriateness of this kind of activity and if there is little outrage by Motorola or CES than maybe I was the one who overreacted.
Joe Duck 
Joe:
I just got a new device: it lets me turn off Gizmodo’s servers during tomorrow’s MacWorld keynote.
Do you think that Brian would have such a cavalier attitude if I actually used this device?
Robert I do agree that he’s got a lousy double standard going, and I do hope karma catches up with them in the future for this.
To me it was not the stunt as much as the way this might serve to diminish the sincere efforts of the hundreds of bloggers that were out in force this year, mostly doing a find job of covering the conference.
… and by the way it was good to see you at the Bloghaus – I’m looking forward to your upcoming projects!