CES is serious business.

I don't see why this is a big deal. Motorola deserved everything that went wrong during the presentation and for that I salute you Gawker. Whine more, TechCrunch.

CES is as serious as a flea market.

By writing "...Gawker Media class clown Richard Blakeley turned off entire banks of TV displays" you are trying to distance the prank from Gizmodo, too.

Tech Crunch is also the blog thats been taking money from certain mobile entertainment companies (french based) and giving them headlines even though their ripping off the consumers and positioning scams on mobile phones.

The thing thats really amazing is how Tech Crunch always gets on its knees to get a few extra cents from the next viewer.

:)
[www.mahalo.com]

the trade media's shameless whoring is already disgusting enough. it's nauseating to see some bloggers going down the same path.

The way I see it, the simply exposed a pre-existing security vulnerability.

I see a double standard evolving between bloggers and journalists. When threatened, bloggers are rallying behind their status as journalists, but in practice they are not behaving as such. I get the joke, and I get the criticism, but honestly you look like a bunch of manchildren. Not to mention the fact that blogging about blogs that blog about your bloggers, is making me want to build a time machine to go back and make sure Jorn Barger was never born. Have fun, you write about expensive toys for a living, but don't get all preachy when you're called for behaving like teens at the mall on a Friday night.

Looks like black electrical tape will be all the rage next year at CES: a little strip over the IR receiver (unless they integrated it into the screen, tsk tsk tsk.) and problem solved.

Hey, maybe they can get some off a booth babe at AVN? Chances are it will already be relatively pube-free...

This is not funny! Look at me being serious!

I owned an AV store for 4 years. Most of the guys in the business are stoners, who love to smoke a little weed and crank up the home theater system.
Stuff like this is hysterical. CES is supposed to be fun.

Here's a special edit just for aerotheque: GIZMODO DID IT. Happy now? No, you're just miserable aren't you.

the remote control prank just felt great, however maybe you shall think about wearing a tie and a briefcase next time you let yourself loose if you don't want those tight-reared ones to stress exceedingly

Well, with Denton's new Pay for Hits system, it's only going to reward the pandering that is now seen on a daily basis at Gizmodo. I've read Giz for five years now, and there has been a notable change in behavior since the first of the year. It's a shame that 'gadgets with snark ' has so quickly devolved to 'boobs and pranks.'

I thought I had read recent reports about Denton rebranding Gawker as a more serious news operation. Obviously, that'll be hard to do with the frathouse known as Gizmodo under the same umbrella.

I seriously think that people is taking that joke a little too serious i mean, yes the prank was a little heavy but no one got hurted or something and now CrunchGear is completely worried about the bloggers reputation and thinks that everyone is going to hell, honestly if he takes his job that serious he should work for the New York Times or something, i love Gizmodo because they dont take their jobs tooo seriously they have for some fun and share that fun with their readers.
Its just my opinion but i think that everyone is being unfair and dramatic to this situation.

@miguelon918: i completely agree and think your post is brilliant and you are totally right but you should also consider using periods just to break things up a little you know but great post i totally agreee.

@ts: To summarize from the Conde Nast Portfolio piece (linked in another post, but this my take only - not Gawker Media's):

Denton seemed to agree with Giz staff that CES has morphed into a "bloated" nightmare of physical-form press releases versus shabby knock-offs, and that it's better to poke that crap a stick than be a corporate shill.

As a Giz reader (who ran to every other Gawker media site during the seemingly-endless "thinnest, biggest, prettiest tv" coverage) I agree with them both.

So if being on the the same wave-length as your readers, having a perspective and an opinion, being a little rough around the edges, and writing/producing material accordingly is "pandering for hits" then I'm all for it.

So, Portfolio asks, if that's how you feel, why send anyone to CES at all?

Well, surely you would need someone there for the inevitable interesting release, but why send a large team and cover it like it's Wonkette during the first week of November? Given how much more interesting the rest of the year at Giz was than CES-week, my question back would be why indeed?

@92BuickLeSabre: I'm not trying to defend the integrity of CES, I'm merely commenting on Gizmodo's utter lack of quality since Denton instituted his new payment system.

My daily reads include most of the Gawker Media empire, and I haven't noticed such a change on Lifehacker, Defamer, Idolator, or even Fleshbot... all of which I read, with Gizmodo, on a daily basis, and have for years.

I'm all for criticising the corporate shill, but this doesn't accomplish the goal. Instead, the prank was planned to be added to Digg, thus guaranteeing lots of hits and a bonus to the writer of that entry. It's fairly transparent. The prank has nothing to do with "taking it to the man," it's merely pandering to the fratboy culture that Gizmodo has seemed to cultivate recently.

this is getting stupidier than i thought
people are making a fuss out of something that CES did not even know/care about. (well i guess at this moment they know now, thanks to all the whiners there)

"if he takes his job that serious he should work for the New York Times"

The New York Times hired the author of this post, Paul Boutin. Give them some credit. Taking your job seriously and taking yourself seriously are too different things.

Yo son that was some Yes-Men quality pranksterism up in that bitch.

@ts: Look, I can't say there isn't some of that at Giz (although more nerdcore than fratboy), and there are plenty of people who are skeptical of the payperview system.

Nonetheless, we just disagree on this - and I mean Gizmodo overall, not just this prank.

First, in my mind at least the prank should be taken as part and parcel with Adam Frucci's Ten Reasons We're Doomed - a little "This is lame as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more."

Second, I'd note that if you look through what some of Gizmodo's top hits have been it's also things like the interview with Gates, Camera Coverage, Kindle coverage, iPhone coverage, LG, Zune, and Palm reveals, product unboxing, video hands-ons, Blu-Ray v. HD-DVD coverage, RIAA coverage.

None of the above is based on "boobs and pranks," and yet they still seem to do a mighty fine job of it - and day to day that's what keeps the readers coming back.

Finally, if they want to balance it out with a little idiocy and a little letting off of the proverbial steam, well what the hell, as long as it's entertaining. When push comes to shove, while I've sadly moved up and on to the world of grown-up professionals I'm still not averse to turning to boobs and pranks (and a stiff drink) myself.

well, this old fart Gartner analyst and now boring enterprise blogger found the prank ok (well a bit juvenile, but in over the top Vegas with all the zany gadgets and with Bono bleeping at Gates what is "normal"?)

Even at conservative Gartner us analysts (but of course, not management) would say - if you dont piss a vendor off every so often you are not being edgy.

We used Magic quadrants, not remotes -)

@crumb: And why they deserved it?, what has the dude that was doing the presentation has done to you??? stop being a douchebag and stop licking the ass of the childish and immature people at Gizmodo.

I thought it was absolutely hysterical. Conferences are full of pompous windbags who take themselves too seriously. Besides it was a tech conference so someone had to do a demo of a terrific tech product: the automatic TV controller.

@amiash: Yeah, 'cuz hiding all the facts would have been SO AMERICAN, right? Those "whiners" are guys with jobs who have been messed in some point of their careers by a douchebag. The point being that plain old decency failed not only the perpetrators but their Editor's too!

And I'm not whining you see, I simply ask for heads to roll.

@sing4england: Butt-hurt much? Motorola deserves crap for the substance of what was being given at the keynote, nothing personal against the Motorola keynote presenter. I wonder if the new "revolutionary" designs Motorola is rolling out will hurt iPhone sales. Heh.