Notes: Gizmodo Story in Wired [Notes]
There’s a story in Wired about your favorite gadget blog. It’s a feature and as you can see, on top of the writing the photography is bad ass.
Joe Pugliese, the same guy who shot El Jobso minutes after his iPhone announcement, shot me, Adrian and Chris in my apartment. I love this place, but as you can see in the not too different from real life shot, it makes for cramped conditions and I’m moving today. Ya, I’m still packing too, because someone broke the embargo on the Dash GPS and Wilson and I had to hustle to get a review together. Anyhow, I’m digressing like mad because I’ve been up 20 hours so far, and the day isn’t close to being over.
This piece is kind of strange and meta because before I worked at Giz, I worked at Wired, where I was low man on the totem pole. I really learned a lot from the 15 or so senior editors there, but I didn’t ever get to do any real work. So to be honored in the pages of my still favorite magazine, well, I never thought I’d see the day. Some people were concerned about bias, but I’m pretty sure they got both the praise and hits in pretty square.
For instance, there’s such heavy emphasis on the admittedly interesting and bizarre CES prank. Meanwhile, there isn’t one mention of the Gates interview. First time the guy admitted on record that Vista was not so good. I mean, come on, thats’s interesting. And ok, Blu-ray coverage at Giz was second to none, but of course, that’s too boring to mention. All we get described as is juvenile. Well there’s a reason why I insist on Gizmodo being lighthearted, and it makes a lot of sense. First of all, we don’t write about cancer. This isn’t a serious topic, even if the work is taken seriously. If you can’t enjoy yourself writing about what are essentially man toys, well, I feel like that is utter lack of perspective on life.
Secondly, there’s that great William Gibson quote hanging over the wall at Wired—”The future is here, its just unevenly distributed.” That may be the case when it comes to purchasing technology or having access to it, but when it comes to media, especially free media, there’s no reason to keep technology in the hands and minds of only the nerds or the rich. So we write for the common people. There are plenty of Giz readers that aren’t hardcore geeks but love technology. I’m happy to dress up the tech in humor to get the point to more people, and the let the medicine go down smoother. Not everyone gets that.
(BTW, this is why I love Pogue videos. Funny thing, in the story, the man who sings songs about TiVo is quoted in the story as saying that gadget bloggers have to figure out what they want to be when we grow up. For me, when I grow up, I want to do exactly what Pogue does, but I’m not musically gifted. I wouldn’t call that growing up, though, Dave. I’d call it staying young. A good thing.)
On the other hand, Dan Lyons, Fake Steve, who is like some sort of Giz big brother at this point, completely gets what we do. Or he flatters me with his faith. Either way, I trust in his insight, so to be understood by him and misunderstood by so many others, well, I’d rather have Dan on my side than a bunch of commentards. (Not you guys, the guys we already banned and other twits in the press.)
But I’m nit picking. I don’t think anyone can call the story anything but fair, generous and fun. And again, I’m pretty flattered and grateful anyone would think to write a feature on our little corner of the web, let alone my favorite magazine where all my old mentors work.
OK, I gotta pack. Moving van is here in 3 hours and I’ve like a dozen boxes to go.
Did I mention I’m going on vacation next week, too? Can’t come soon enough. I need to recharge the batteries!
Rambling is a late phase of exhaustion. [Wired]
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