Dan Lyons, a tech journalist and creator of the Fake Steve Jobs blog, writes sharp commentary on Silicon Valley and tech media.
HN commenters link it in arguments about tech blogger feuds and clickbait journalism, and for an interview with Steve Wozniak about the early Apple II.
I often wonder how much of the controversy we read about here on HN is completely manufactured by some clever individuals. NOTE: I am not saying the Joshua-Gross-Next-Web-situation is obviously manufactured. I have no idea.
I am saying controversy is a great way to drive page views and links. In some cases, those links are valuable to SEO. I like to imagine Michael Arrington, Dan Lyons, and MG Siegler sitting around a room and saying "Ok, what can we come up with as a good excuse to really yell at each other?" ... which is then followed by posts like these (and hey, they're getting another link now):
http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and-paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/
I may be way off. Maybe Arrington is always writing his honest opinion. But it surely happens somewhere on the web. Is anyone keeping track? Is there a website that has a list of all the seemingly-manufactured controversies? That would be interesting.
My opinion on MG Siegler cemented after the last fight he had with Dan Lyons. I don't even really like Dan Lyons that much (though I was pretty amused by Fake Steve Jobs). But this post: http://realdanlyons.com/blog/2011/09/28/kindle-fire-and-the-tricky-business-of-chasing-scoops/ seemed fair, reasonable, not hostile, and even careful in giving credit where it was due. And it had a great point: that we'll know when we know, and that the value of this type of "scoop" is close to zero.
Siegler's response was a fairly vicious, direct ad hominem with no greater point. http://parislemon.com/post/10774472888/fake-steve-jobs-funny-real-dan-lyons-sloppy-lazy
Judge for yourself. I did, and I've decided not to read his writing anymore.
For the lazy:
1. http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/10/smoothlifel/
2. http://selfstarter.us/
3. http://www.fastcompany.com/3000852/37signals-earns-millions-each-year-its-ceo%E2%80%99s-model-his-cleaning-lady
4. http://stackoverflow.com/q/11227809/399268
5. http://ihave50dollars.com/
6. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4592778
7. http://blog.pinboard.in/2012/01/the_five_stages_of_hosting/
8. http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/utf5u/where_has_all_the_money_in_the_world_gone/
9. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2919708
10. http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and-paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/
Original source:
http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=440
Its a nice idea, I'm sure there are tons of people who go unrecognised for what they've done. However, I can't help but think it will make the pseudo celebrity nonsense going on in the tech-sphere an order of magnitude or more worse than its already become. Imagine the collusions that would ensue from certain "news bloggers" and others in the SV cespool with awards in the mix. I remember this little gem: http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and-paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/
Personal opinion, but this article should be on someone's personal blog, not promoted through Hubspot. It seems after a quick Google search, Dan Lyons has stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the past, and it's probably something I would avoid getting into from a company POV.
http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and-paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/
http://parislemon.com/post/17587323277/bat-shit-crazy
It's pretty sad how all it took was time and a thin coat of feminist paint for HN to forget how corrupt and morally bankrupt these clickbait "journalists" are.
http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and-paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3587730