John Robb: "Where's the beef in Web services? It's personal publishing, [good for] knowledge management, small businesses, news publishing, and much more. ... So why don't journalists cover it? Advertising dollars. The big company's [sic] going after Web services are spending lots of money on advertising to promote their view that Web services are best used to build corporate infrastructure. ... What does the personal Web publishing market get in terms of coverage? Stories about Weblogs that equate them with CB radios. Essentially crap. No stories about the innovations made, the lives changed, the business launched, and the fun experienced using these new products."
Whiny bullshit, John. As a 20-year member of the computer press and former editor of one and editor in chief of another computer mag with over half a million paid (not controlled) circulation apiece, I admit I've at times encountered pressure to cover advertisers' products — just like staffers on fashion magazines, car magazines, your local newspaper, or you name it. I've also been involved in countless cases where editors and reviewers went ahead and ran stories that pissed off and lost advertisers.
And I've lost all patience with clueless critics and biased backers of Product X who insult me and my overwhelming majority of honest, sincerely journalism- and reader-service-oriented colleagues by slandering all tech reporters as obviously paid shills for Advertiser Y. Microsoft buys ads on my site, bucko, and I published an enthusiastic review and analysis of Radio 8 on Jan. 25, ahead of your and Dave's pals at TechTV or the Washington Post.
Now, to be sure, WinPlanet is not a BigPub any more than UserLand is a BigCo. But do you know what most enterprise IT magazines are about (what their ads are about, yeah, but also what readers pick up the mags for)? Enterprise IT and corporate solutions — where personal publishing isn't an issue yet, and readers would be downright dismayed to find no coverage of what Microsoft, IBM, and Sun are pitching as Web services, just as Motor Trend readers would be dismayed to find coverage of Ford and Honda dropped in favor of Kia and Corbin Motors. And do you know what, as of now, 95 percent of Weblogs still are? CB radio. Frankly, Business Week doesn't run many stories about "the fun experienced using" anything. It's not its job.
"There is a whole new layer of the Web being built today ... Personal publishing deserves respect. It deserves decent coverage by an objective press not dismissive of small companies with big aspirations." I agree with you there, John, and that coverage is starting, and it's going to continue and grow as K-logs and alternative journalism and real personal publishing grow. Because that's what the press does: it's reactive, it covers emerging trends as they emerge, but it doesn't declare, "Revolution in the barnyard, the big rooster is dead" the instant the tiny chick makes its first hole in the shell (as much as the chick might like it to).
If anything, I've found that most reporters love underdogs and promoting new discoveries (the reason tech journalism is often depressing nowadays, as opposed to when I could do a buyer's guide comparing 12 word processors or 10 spreadsheets) — there've been numerous articles about Danger's Hiptop, for instance, though reporters oddly haven't swung en masse to presenting Danger's vision of 3G services or wireless data while ignoring Palm's or Nokia's or AT&T's. Why is that? Oh, of course, it's the latter's advertising dollars.
To quote your CEO? Grrrrr.
10:45:39 PM 
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