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Some Of The Techmeme Flock Fooled By Tech Evangelist

April 13th, 2007

The blogosphere never ceases to amuse me. Recently a post appeared at Tech Evangelist saying that a technology personality was replacing Don Imus, the controversial former radio personality. I saw the story and thought it was rather odd, but didn’t think more of it.

Well, it was made up.

The amusing part is that a fair number of notable tech bloggers almost thought it was real. Some are pretty teed off. And I can’t really blame them, as there’s really nothing about the content of the post that blatantly spells out that it’s a hoax, other than it’s completely improbable.

But still this might be a symptom of a larger problem, as Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests duly notes:

[Bloggers are] pathetically easy hoax bait if the bit of “news” is plausible enough, or it happens to get enough publicity through a well known news site or a-list blog.

So two “notes to self” for the future:

  • Personally, I think it’s irresponsible for bloggers to make up stuff and pass it off as fact (a tiny exception made for April Fool’s day, which today it most certainly is not). Loathe that I would call for a blogger’s code to prevent bloggers from playing pranks, but I certainly am less apt to patronize blogs that pass on unreliable information or deliberately mislead people in the quest for notoriety or traffic. Trust is one of the few advantages an amateur blog is given right out of the gate and once it’s gone, the blog’s reputation suffers.
  • I think there’s a tendency for many tech bloggers (myself included) to put priority on posting fast while there’s still buzz on a subject, and inadvertently slack off on the fact checking or quality. At times like this, I think the quest for attention or traffic is leading to a degradation of blogging quality in general.
  • My amusement results from the observation that both the prankster and the pranked (point 1 and point 2 respectively) are both motivated by the exact same goal: getting attention and traffic.

Anyhow, I guess I’m in the mix somewhere as well by writing this post. While chewing on these points, check out some of my favorite hoax websites as an entertaining reminder of what goes on out there: Museum of Hoaxes and Snopes.com.

Be careful on the Internets!

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  • I first noticed this story via Robert Scoble, who had indeed been lured in by the tom foolery.

    I think and hope that those who cry wolf too often will easily lose credibility. Fun and games are one thing, but passing off false news just to get attention (I guess?) seems like an easy way to turn off readers.
  • I must say, blogging sure would be a lot easier if we could just make stuff up! :)
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