Attack of the magazine: Somewhere along the way, the writing of this Forbes cover story careened off the highway.
I suppose the assignment started as a look into weblogs that are used to drive up- or down- stock prices. However, it made the cover with the screaming head: “Attack of the Blogs.” Ironically, it comes off as a poorly-reported, slimy attack rant of the entire blogosphere.
Like Steve Rubel, I’m perplexed by how mis-directed this Forbes piece is. In a sidebar, the magazine even suggests that companies file frivolous lawsuits against ISPs of bloggers they believe are attacking them.
There’s a sentence buried in it, “Attack blogs are but a sliver of the rapidly expanding blogosphere.” However, if you read this story, you’ll think all blogs are killer tomatoes.
Update: As expected, this hack-job lit up the blogosphere. There are links to lots more discussion of it at tech.memorandum.com. Of note: Dan Gillmore nails it: “a pile of trash.”
My personal opinion: It was a piece to rile up the bloggers – and it succeeded. But I did create a T-shirt in its honor…
http://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?op=article&ac=details&article_id=914239#top
I was leaning towards an alien theme but couldn’t design the shirt in two minutes! 😉