[WEB4LIB] Re: need technology news not business news

[rich at richardwiggins.com]

I think Bill was lamenting the dominance of company news reporting in outlets that proport to be technology oriented.  Too much reporting on the IT beat merely regurgitates press releases, adding no more value than Internet Wire does.  I think he wants more IEEE Computer and Scientific American reportage, and less of Business 2.0, Cnet, and digital Rona Barrett.  There's more of the latter because that's where the money is.

Popular Science represents yet another genre, with a lot of "popular" and not much "science."  I'm still waiting for my personal helicopter and my car with a flywheel energy storage unit.  Let's hope PS covers the microwave ovens with broadband connections so we don't have to read about 'em elsewhere.

/rich

On Sun, 29 July 2001, Dan Lester wrote:

> This doesn't seem strange at all to me.  A great many new technologies
> are developed by corporate research, and they are naturally promoted
> by those companies.  Does that make them bad?  Those articles or ads
> will certainly tell how they're being used, or how the companies hope
> they'll be used.  There are certainly R&D journals galore, plus more
> popular things like Popular Science that have all sorts of things
> about technologies that might or might not happen "for real", if that
> is what you're after.  Heavens, I remember reading things in PopSci
> and similar sources as a kid.  They were sure we'd all have
> helicopters or flying cars to get to work long before now.....
> 
> I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, and maybe I'm just not
> understanding what you're really after.  But remember that most things
> predicted never happen, and most things that happen were never
> predicted.
> 
> cheers
> 
> dan
> 
> -- 
> Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com
> 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
> www.riverofdata.com  www.gailndan.com  Stop Global Whining!

_____________________________________________________

Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing, and Lecturing on Internet Topics
rich at richardwiggins.com  http://richardwiggins.com