I love CNET, it's one of my favorite technology, electronics, and gadgets sites. But I'm just not feeling the love. You see, I wrote a quick review of the just launched GizmoCall Flash-based VoIP service this morning. A few hours later, see in my RSS alerts another article on GizmoCall. Naturally, I want to see other people's opinions on it, so I click through and see that it's a CNET article. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10124311-94.html)The CNET article had very similar sentiments to my own and performed the same test I did by dialing a free 800 number. I thought to myself what a waste of a click, it's basically the same thoughts I had and did the same test I did. How boring. I was about to close the window when I noticed my username (tkeatingtmc) on the CNET screenshot within the CNET article! WT-??
That's just fantastic, CNET! There goes my privacy. You just gave away my GizmoCall username.
And what, no link love? You 'borrow' my image with my username in it and you don't link to the source? Bad form, CNET. Bad form!Also, you would have had to have read the article in order to see the image. So why not say "Tom Keating also checked out GizmoCall. Here are his thoughts."
Here's a snapshot in case it is deleted:
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Yeah, bad form on CNET for basically copying your article, but aren't you getting upset over nothing about your Gizmo username ??
I mean, it's not going to take a genius to figure out tkeatingtmc as a username, especially as you'd already posted in your own blog ??
Besides, if someone really, really wanted to get hold of you they'd use the details in the, erm, Contact Us part of TMC's website where it lists:
Tom Keating
Executive Technology Editor
(203) 852-6800 x149/158
Anyway, here's hoping your holidays are less stressful for you
I was being sarcastically upset about CNET giving out my username. You must have missed it.
It was feigned outrage over the giving out of my username for humor/sarcasm purposes. As you point out, I already posted my username on my screenshot and was aware of that fact.
Me stressed for the holidays? Nah. It's the happiest part of the year.
Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukah to all!
You've got credit now
. They replaced the graphic *and* gave you credit for the image and a link to your post.
Interesting. Wow, word travels fast.
In all seriousness, I hope the CNET editor didn't get in trouble. It was a well-written article even if it shared many of my sentiments. Great minds think alike?
I admire CNET a lot, and it would have been nice to have had some link-love & mention initially, which is what sparked this blog post.
I've had several mainstream media outlets neglect to cite me in the past. I broke the major news story about the Skype outage in 2007 and wasn't cited by the MSM. I even came up with the "reason" (Windows Update) in a follow-up post and wasn't cited. Very annoying.