I’ve noticed over the past few days that traditional media outlets, such as Ziff-Davis c|net and other fine purveyors of re-written press releases, have begun to cite “bloggers” instead of “analysts.” Next thing you know The Associated Press will be calling me for my opinion on something. (That’s not a stretch: Ted Bridis did ask me a question once, but I think it was about Lotus Notes, and David E. Kalish asked my opinion of some industry players, but that was back when I was working down the hall.)
Anyway, now that journalists are citing bloggers, they have to watch out that they don’t suspend their cognitive faculties inadvertently cite analysts. Take, for example, the Jupiter Research blog, Microsoft Monitor. In reviewing the response to Sun’s distribution agreement with Google, c|net quotes this assessment of the situation.
A Google alliance with any competitor is probably going to cause ulcers over at Microsoft.
No, it won’t. Haven’t you been paying attention? The Nobel committee just awarded the prize in medicine to Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren for the discovery that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, causes ulcers.