Should Gizmodo be banned from Macworld?

[Padraig]

Bloggers often struggle to gain acceptance as a valid and legitimate source of news, and with this stunt (see link) Gizmodo have helped to undermine those who have worked so hard to gain credibility within an elitist industry.

I'm not without a sense of humour, but when Giz started screwing with a live presentation they crossed a line. This type of behaviour shouldn't be condoned in my opinion and a strong signal should be sent out to those responsible. Who's to say that they wouldn't interfere with an Apple event? What do you make of their actions?

http://gizmodo.com/343348/confession...odo-did-at-ces

[sk8mash]

Thats childish, immature and thoughtless, ok shutting down a tv wall is funny, but ****ing with a live presentation? How much effort went into that guys presentation, and then he goes a mucks it up. Thats not funny. I say ban them from mac world, and any other media event.

[phil83]

I agree that was pretty stupid thing to do, maybe at home for fun, but not a the worlds largest electronic trade show.

[Chris204]

I bet they won't be getting press passes again next year to CES.

[RoboCop001]

Worse than lame.

Where does Gizmodo operate from? I'm going to pay them a visit and turn their monitors off. If you can't tell that's a metaphor for kicking them in the shins and then the face.

And then maybe if there's enough time, I'll force them to watch Dark Planet or that episode of Battlestar Galactica 1980 where the kids go up in a tree and turn invisible and start throwing apples at the people down below and they have those ridiculous viper bikes.

Anyone remember Tek Wars? What a show!

[thesdx]

That was just plain stupid. Nice way to ruin your career, Gizmodo. No Macworld for you. (I hope)

[notjustjay]

I've made presentations and I have felt the rush of panicked adrenaline and beads of sweat when my equipment doesn't work exactly as expected or rehearsed. If someone did that to me during a presentation, especially at one so public, I would be VERY angry.

This reflects very, VERY badly on their professionalism. I watched the video. The first few screens that went off was funny and subversive. The rest was just sickening to watch, literally watching a childish prank go on way too far. The fact that we saw repeating shots of the same walls going off (the big wall, the gaming station) suggests that whoever did this went back and did it OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I did this once at school, but only once, and I was 14 at the time. How old are these guys?!

Gizmodo's press passes should be revoked permanently. There are already enough gadget-tech-blogs out there, I won't miss them.

[esaleris]

I think in a world where you only get 2-3 seconds of a consumer's time as they walk by, the mental snapshot of folks turning over panels to "fix" them, regardless of what is actually wrong, is quite strong. Link that with a brand name, and you've made an indelible, if subtle, connection.

[dukebound85]

banned forever i say

[zelmo]

That childish prank is close to the kind of thing that Woz pulled in college, so I can appreciate the humor on one level. The problem is that this was done at a trade show and is completely unacceptable behavior for any group passing themselves off as professional journalists or industry bloggers who wish to be taken seriously.

If I were CES management, I'd ban them for life. Can't imagine Apple will let them anywhere near Moscone.

[yellow]

Kind of like using a MBP Front Row Remote at an Apple Conf and switching people's displays to Front Row?

[Killyp]

The first few times was mildly amusing, but to do it multiple times is just stupid...

That looks really bad. I honestly though Gizmodo were professional reporters, but evidently not.

[Osarkon]

Whilst hilarious for the first few times, it did go on way too far.

And they shouldn't have done it to live presentations, that's just plain evil.

I also hope they're not allowed to Macworld. Even if they have matured up, banning them from it this year will ensure that they don't misbehave the next time.

[eric55lv]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

banned forever i say

yeah from any electrocis trade show and expo

[LoneWolf121188]

Originally Posted by Osarkon

Whilst hilarious for the first few times, it did go on way too far.

And they shouldn't have done it to live presentations, that's just plain evil.

Agreed. The first time I was ROFLing. When they kept doing it though...idk. I think its fine during the live presentations, but just once. I'm glad they admitted it though, that makes it a lot better.

[gusapple]

I always have disliked Gizmodo's way of doing things. I almost got in trouble at work when one of the guys that sat across from me while I was watching the live feed of one of the confrences because they were saying very crude things. They are way un-preofessional. That's why I go to MacRumors Live for my feeds!

[JSchwage]

All I know is that if I were running Macworld, Gizmodo would be on my banned list.

[zioxide]

lol, shutting off dish network's wall of monitors was funny, but ****ing with the presentations was immature and stupid.

[tdhurst]

Wow...and the world wonders why the tech blogger crowd is having a hard time being taken seriously as journalists.

[synth3tik]

Thats something that should stay at the hackers convention. not CES and most definitely not MWSF.

[emikshe]

"In college, I built small TV jammers. I'd go to the one dorm that had a color TV, sit in the back, in the dark, and tune in my jammer. The screen got messed up, not totally but enough to bother everyone. Without any plan, a friend in the front row, who knew what was going on (I hope he did) whacked the TV. I instantly turned the jammer off and the TV worked fine."
- Woz

Source: http://www.woz.org/letters/pirates/24.html

[Telp]

Agreed that it was stupid, and may hurt credibility, but i still love reading gizmodo, and would not wish to see them banned from MW or the next CES. People do stupid things, if they do it again, ban them, but i say let them off the hook for this one.

[Padraig]

Originally Posted by emikshe

"In college, I built small TV jammers. I'd go to the one dorm that had a color TV, sit in the back, in the dark, and tune in my jammer. The screen got messed up, not totally but enough to bother everyone. Without any plan, a friend in the front row, who knew what was going on (I hope he did) whacked the TV. I instantly turned the jammer off and the TV worked fine."
- Woz

Source: http://www.woz.org/letters/pirates/24.html

A college kid messing with the dorm's tv is nothing more than an irritation. Gizmodo pranking around with CES is playing with fire, they'll be lucky if they don't end up in court. Not to mention the potential damage they did to the blogging community.

[albusseverus]

just goes to show, if your name is Think Secret and you have no corporate backing, Apple will hound you out of existence...

if you publish an unchecked story about the iPhone being delayed, causing a run on Apple's stock price...

or stuff up a trade show...

it's all just good fun... ??

it's hard to know the best way to treat this... ban them and give them MORE publicity? or boycott their site...

Kevin, can we have a negative Digg option... I want UnDigg

[onicon]

like emikshe quoted, woz and steve as well were screwing around a lot in their young days. they even made money from selling devices to phone for free. where are the voices crying for boycott of apple because the founding fathers were evil hackers, keeping poor at&t from making their living?

if you want to prevent people from screwing with you presentations on tvs, just disable the ir port (via the rs232 console/diagnostic software or by slapping a sticker over the ir port). securing you devices takes at most 2min per device. so let the companies learn from this and don't bash gizmodo like mad.

who would have complained if it was microsofts demo pcs that got hacked because of some security vounerability?