Phony Bloggermania Has Bitten the Dust
One of these "bloggers," Doc Searls, got an e-mail from a friend across the country, who noted that Nacchio - who at that moment was onstage complaining about how tough life was in telecom - had sold huge amounts of stocks over the past two years. Searls located a page from Yahoo Finance with the particulars and linked it to his log. Another blogger in the room read Searls's log, and copied the link to his own site, acidly commenting on the inappropriateness of Nacchio's whining. Though it's not clear how many in the room were reading the Web logs, apparently there were a lot. In any case, it seemed that the room palpably chilled toward the pugnacious executive. This is a dangerous trend for public speakers everywhere.
And a real journalist would have raised his hand and said, "Mr Nacchio, how can you continue to complain about how tough things are in telecom when you've been dumping stock for the past two years?" And then we could see what he says. And somebody could blog that. Instead we get the electronic equivalent of passing notes in class. This is what happens when you're more in love with your pen and paper than the words you're writing. A dangerous trend for public speakers everywhere? Yeah, it's going to be real hard for guys like Nacchio when that room "palpably chills" on him. Or maybe he'll just think it's the hotel air-conditioning. Give me a break. Bullshit hype like this is going to make blogging into the next push.