Walt Mossberg, David Pogue & the State of Consumer Tech Reviews

Providing consumer technology reviews is a difficult job.

I say this not to suck up to consumer tech reviewers, but to acknowledge that they really do face significant challenges that include:

• Conducting daily triage on products that are relevant to consumers. There's a lot of new gadgets and technology, especially around Christmas and CES, and most of them may be worthy while still not worthy of reviewing.
  
• They have to sort through claims that products are "revolutionary," "paradigm-shifting," etc. when perhaps they're not all that.
• If the technology is truly revolutionary, it may be of interest only to very early adopters, not mainstream consumers. (In 1975, the Altair 8800 was the first microcomputer -- but the PC didn't catch on until years later.)
• They have to translate geeky features and terminology that only engineers care about into language that consumers can understand.
  
• There are a lot of cross-over products that work for consumers and small businesses, but most consumer tech reviewers really only look at consumer technology -- which doesn't stop publicists handling SMB technology to call and complain to them.
• There's a lot of useful technology out there, like utility software. But reviews of utility software don't sell papers like reviews of the latest mega-pixel camera, smartphone, etc. -- which doesn't stop publicists handling utility software to call and complain to them.
• They get advanced look at buggy software, gadgets with glitches, etc. You know how frustrating it is when your own technology doesn't work as advertised. These folks are on the front line for that, so think how frustrating their jobs can be -- though, of course, when they have a problem, they get priority tech support from the company.
  

Point made? A difficult job.

Recently, there's been talk about the New York Times' David Pogue and potential conflicts of interest. As a long-time reader of Pogue's column and email newsletter, I think he's a pretty straight shooter. But I think he should do a better job of disclosing potential conflicts of interest. His credibility is important for the success of his column, which is important for all his side endeavors. There's no reason he'd jeopardize the credibility of his Times column, but, again, better disclosure would help.

The latest contretemps involves Walt Mossberg and his review of Windows 7. The complaint: that Mossberg wrote a glowing review of the now-reviled Vista, and used almost verbatim copy to describe Window 7. (Check out the complaint here.)

Seems to me some of the problems Pogue had also entailed his reviews of Win 7 and also of Snow Leopard, Apple's operating system. I know operating systems are important -- it's the reason I've waited to replace my aging computer until Win7 became available, and didn't replace it earlier in the year when I should have but would have had to deal with Vista. So maybe that's the problem: people take operating systems very seriously, and are therefore much more critical of reviewers who praise faulty OSes.

On the other hand, I say, give Mossberg and Pogue a break. There used to be lots of tech reviewers out there, every paper had at least one for a while. Now there are far fewer of them. So ask them to make more disclosures and to voluntarily follow the same rules the FTC will be applying Dec. 1 to bloggers in terms of receiving free products, and let's move on.

New York Times Urges Truth in Online, Offline Advertising

Pointing out that marketing to consumer-generated (i.e., blogs) and social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace but not, as yet, Twitter) is expected to grow 20 percent in 2009, up from $1.01 billion in 2008 (which had increased 25% from 2007), the New York Times believes that "a lot of it is paid advertising masquerading as bona fide endorsements by celebrities, well-known bloggers and even ordinary people — honest comment, free from pecuniary considerations."

According to the Times, "In 1968, an F.T.C. advisory demanded that advertorials disclose that they were advertising, not editorial...The rules offline should clearly apply online. This is a matter of principle, not medium, and the new rules are not an excessive burden."

I certainly agree with that.

The Times also urges the FTC to "focus enforcement on the advertising companies," not the bloggers."

The Times also feels that "advertisers are the drivers of this new trend. The onus should be on them to ensure that blogs pitching their stuff warn readers about the commercial motivation of the endorsements."

As a blogger, I'm not sure I totally agree with that last point. I have urged clients to work with credible bloggers, who disclose potential conflicts of interest. But as a PR executive, I know we have little control over bloggers, and would not want to be held responsible for them. That said, we're just providing information or trial software for reviews. We're not engaging in some of the problem issues that the Times rightly cites (such false testimonials).

It's not clear from the Times' editorial whether its editorial board understands how bloggers work.

At the same time, we do provide trial software for product reviews to print reporters. I think there needs to be a disclosure page for tech reviewers to let everyone know their policies. The Journal has a code of conduct that's easily found, but you can check it out here. Kara Swisher, a former Journal reporter who now works for All Things D, posts her ethics policies here. And Walt Mossberg posts his ethics policy below his bio here.

I think more online and offline reporters and bloggers should post codes of conduct. Now, I don't review or endorse products here, but I have posted in my bio that if I do mention clients, I will always disclose that fact. And I do so here and on Twitter.