Dodgeball Journalism Awards - TechWar 2008 Best Coverage in the Blogosphere February 9, 2008
Posted by John Furrier in Technology.Tags: dodgeball awards, dodgeball journalism, microsoft, techwar 2008, yahoo
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If your in the Internet Tech business you can’t help watch the Yahoo disaster unfold - the invasion by Microsoft. Living in Silicon Valley, you can’t swing a dead cat here without hitting an exYahoo employee or someone related to Yahoo. Pretty much everyone in Silicon Valley knows whats going on at Yahoo. It’s a kinda ‘public secret’. But who has the best coverage?
I’ve been getting asked: “who has the best blogosphere coverage?” - Hmmm - That’s hard because what is a blogger? The NYTimes blogs? Techmeme has mainstream outlets on their site leading stories all the time. This brings me to ‘Dodgeball Coverage” analogy.
Dodgeball Journalism: is the difference between speed, accuracy, and strategy. Watching the blogosphere and mainstream media work on these stories reminds me of playing dodgeball.
It’s the blogosphere guys/gals who run up to the line and grab the ball while the big mainstream media guys/gals who sit back and watch everything unfold. Sure the bloggers hit a few stories right away then they die off. Mainstream media guys/gals sit back watch, assimilate, and hit the big stories for the big audiences. It’s a strategy and skill difference between speed, accuracy, and strategy.
Dodgeball Journalism Awards go to the top Bloggers who have been covering the story from the beginning with original and valuable content.
Here is my list of who is providing the best coverage of the Yahoo Microsoft buyout.
CNN Award goes to: Henry Blodgett; Silicon Alley site has been the best in terms of staying on top of the action with the best analysis. Here is the link to the Yahoo Microsoft coverage. Alley Insider is ‘killing it’ with the coverage. It’s the first stop for me.
Best Reporter: Kara Swisher; Here is the link to her blog. This was a hard one because some bloggers from the beginning had been doing great in covering the story but they lost their ’staying power’ on the story and didn’t add to their original positions.
Online News: CNet coverage. CNet has an array of reporters that are contributing tothe coverage. It has been the most consistent site for online news coverage. They cover all the bases diverse and accurate.
Best Editorial: Mike Arrington. Mike’s Decision Time Post. This isn’t for Techcrunch site, but for Mike’s one post. It was the best editorial written on the entire situation. Techcrunch as a whole has been covering Yahoo, but Techcrunch came in late and has been lagging in the coverage.
Utility Players: ???? - the rest of the blogosphere
Dodgeball Strategy Comedy on YouTube
Now you can be entertained by the upcoming personality on YouTube - DaxFlame… he’s a big hit with the middleschool kids. Here he talks about his Dodgeball strategy.
Interesting analogy. When I played dodgeball in high school, I lacked the throwing strength to be an effective offensive, but had the situational awareness and nimbleness that made me an almost untouchable defensive player. Being the last person alive when the rest of your team is dead isn’t much of a victory, though, so my strategy for supporting my team was to feed balls to our best offensive players. The less time they had to spend looking for good balls to throw, the more time they had to do what they did best.
I suppose I’ve done the same in the blogosphere’s dodgeball game on this issue. I don’t have the “strength” to make my opinion heard without help from one of the heavyweights, so instead I’m offering them a ball and hoping they’ll take it. I’d love to see someone throw my post into the game, it’s called “Yahoo!’s 8.3 Million Opportunity, That You Haven’t Heard About”.
http://socialstrategist.com/2008/02/06/yahoos-83-million-opportunity-that-you-havent-heard-about
Bloggers are faster than traditional reporters. Traditional journalists are more professional.