Stevewatch: The Man Must Be Stopped

By Tankboy in Miscellaneous on Nov 9, 2007 7:30PM

Listen, we've kept mostly quiet about the daily newspapers' coverage of the online world. We love and thrive off our paper brethren. And for the most part, aside from every story about an online trend being about 13 months behind the actual trend, we think they get it right. Hell, we actually miss James Coates, since we found his computer advice to be direct, engaging, and idiot-proof.

But Steve Johnson must be stopped.

When we read his "internet critiques" we hear every same tired, boring, out-of-touch marketing presentation that people over a certain age are in love with seeing. So, as a public service, we will endeavor to deliver his content to you, summarized, and without his s mug air of self-delusional satisfaction.

For instance this week he opined on Wired editor Chris Anderson's blockage of emails sent from PR folk who obviously have no idea what his site writes about. Johnson sneers at him, assuming that what little email is left will be offers to smuggle gold out of Iraq, or attempts to unfreeze lottery winnings from African nations. Johnson obviously misses the point entirely, or maybe he's just willfully ignoring it in an effort to make a dud of a joke. Either way, we're not sure how that supports anyone's belief that his criticism should be taken seriously.

We suppose the Trib put him in the position because folks need a "regular dude perspective," but any "regular dude" that so out of touch he can't even giggle at a LOL Cat (or, heaven forbid, point everyone to a much funnier manifestation of that trend) shouldn't be unleashing his opinions on web-related matters. We mean, dude was even against The New York Times ditching their paid subscritpion service.

OMG! WTF! Whatevs.