Matt Gemmell on the iPad and It’s Failures as a “Laptop Replacement”
Phil Nelson Incredible burn on every tech journalist who has written this.
Pure Folly, Miss Poly(gon)
Games journalism, punk rock, and SimCity:
It seems like people—for some reason—were waiting on Polygon to call the industry out on its crap. Polygon, that Microsoft-sponsored, humourless, 70s prog rock supergroup of games journalism. Expecting any kind of populist uproar from Polygon is like expecting One Direction to vilify the X Factor culture that spawned them – they’re entirely within the system, with no interest in existing outside of it. Probably the only thing you needed to know in order to be sure that Polygon was never going to change the world of games journalism was that they could afford to make a multi-part documentary trumpeting all the ways they were going to change the world of games journalism.
Polygon pretty much pissed any credibility they had left down their leg with SimCity. They acted like PR flacks. Rock, Paper, Shotgun just did what they usually do: journalism.
The Magazine
A new subscription-based digital magazine from Marco Arment of Instapaper. Really looking forward to seeing where this goes. How can you not love a guy who not only understands this:
Usually, things are done the way they’re done for good reasons. But sometimes, they’re only done that way because nobody has questioned it recently.
… but is also willing to put his money where his philosophy is.
“Lara Logan, You Suck”
Matt Taibbi lays out the utterly spineless way in which corporate journalists go about their work:
Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn’t mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here’s CBS’s chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that’s killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag.
Another choice quote, which should never need to be said:
Hey, assholes: you do not work for the people you’re covering!
They Shoot Porn Stars Don’t They?
This story, photos/words by Susannah Breslin, is essential reading for modern humans. It will break your heart, it will leave you with questions. Read it.
Sign Of The Times
If a good exclusive used to provide 10 times the traffic of a standard regurgitated blog post, now it garners a hundred times as much. (emphasis added) That should be reassuring to people. The content market is finding its new balance. Original reporting will be rewarded.
Even considering the source, I’m glad to hear it.