And from my own experience, I have been asked to give presentations for companies that are important to my livelyhood. I'm just a very small business owner, and I consider these great opportunities to be seen and interact. They're also slightly terrifying if you're not accustomed to speaking to audiences. If the screen would have gone out at one of my presentations, I might have lost even more confidence.

This just feels like the equivalent to walking into a chain store you hate, doing something that gets an employee in trouble, and feeling like you really pulled off something.

I love the blogs I read. I read Engadget every day. But I'll never read Gizmodo now. Just irresponsible and inconsiderate.

tumblebird

"Relax. It was a joke."
"Definition of Press to ponies: Compliance with corporate america. Great."

"Civil Obedience is not a requirement of journalism."

You say this as if you were doing somethign virtous because there was some sort of higher prupose. There wasn't.

As for compliance with Corporate American, I don't get how exactly is making any political statement nor a "show of" any sort of grass roots movements to do your little man joke.

It sounds funny. Until you THINK about it (maybe you can't, that's the problem), and see there's a lot of work that goes into making one of these presentations. For some it's a one shot deal at looking good to get funding, for a team of hardworking engineers, that were on a project for months.

If I was Motorola, I would be calling my lawyers. Or hack your website to be "turned off" for a whole week and see how you like it.

Stop trying to justify what you did. It's wrong, there was no virtue to and as much value as a drunken teenager driving on the road wide left and right thinking it's a cool idea.

This was a little man joke.

raist3d_2

You're serious, aren't you? Wow.

nojo

KevininSeattle

Brian Lam

Brian Lam

Brian Lam

But really, the worst offense is that this stunt wasn't even funny. I've seen better pranks on Candid Camera. A smart editor could find plenty of funny at CES without have to orchestrate a weak-ass prank. Bush league.

dogfish12

Or, if you want to get really traditional, "the press" -- "unbiased" reporting only goes back a century or so, a market-driven decision to reach more readers, itself a consequence of new mass production. Hate 'em or hate 'em, Fox is actually more traditional than we'd like to think: The original "press" -- political pamphleteers -- would be more akin to bloggers than the New York Times.

Which is getting wayyyy off subject, but I'm always amused at how young some of our "traditions" are.

nojo

prof

Some have made the argument that bloggers are not press because they have opinion and style.

1) Traditional American press has always had that sort of journalism, but we call it editorial content. Every columnist in the US rights with style and opinion or at least attempts to do so.

2) In other countries like the UK, "unbiased reporting" has been less a part of the culture. All reporters have some bias.

@BRIAN LAM

Relax, its just the consequences.

Chris (Amateur Traveler podcast)

@moucon: No, "pros" would never do such a thing - [en.wikipedia.org]

Fact is, I love reading Gizmodo, but this (and that tubgirl prank) was childish and shouldn't have been done during demos. However, you could argue that this demonstrates the functionality of one of the few real gadgets at CES, for better or worse.

Drew P Draws

Yet how entertaining for the rest of us! Bless his little heart.

MonkeySeeMonkeyDo

go masturbate or something. you're all clearly repressed.

Beard Police

rollotomnasi

moucon

GinaMuchava

if you're at a trade show trying to sell your product. shouldn't you know how to freaking turn your product on.

and what i also dont understand is why this is being made such a big deal. all gizmodo's camerman did was expose how unprepared people were. i mean the place must have been full of thousands of tv's and remotes. wouldn't they want to prevent any kind of interference.

also
was tv-b-gone being shown at CES. because that'd be pretty funny

Beard Police

CESguy

Look, I was there with a "blogger" badge. I did my work in the Blogger's Lounge. At first it chafed a little bit, but honestly we got the same access as those with "press" badges, and in some cases more. And the blogger's loungs (as we call the "blounge") was better than the press room. Fater Internet connections, better food, free lunch, coffee, TV, and couches.

Though I could have a press pass, next year I'm going for the blogger badge, if they bring it back.

Matt Hickey

The preparation that goes into one of these is quite intense and what makes this particular prank upsetting is that many of the presenters are sales people who have invited large clients to their booth. If I couldn't get out to see a client for whatever reason, but knew they were going to a show we'd set up a time that they'd come and see my presentation and we'd talk after. Many times it was a presentation that meant a few thousands dollars worth of commissions for me. Now, would a monitor going out cost me a sale? No. Would my reaction to that monitor going out cost me a sale? Maybe if I couldn't handle the pressure or the situation, but that's my problem. The only issue is that the people attending these shows, particularly one as big as CES, only have a small amount of time to see a presentation before needing to move on so they can see everything they came to see. If this guy comes up, shuts off my monitors, turns them back on, turns them off, etc., etc., my guy might just decided we can't get our act together and move on. Could that cost me a sale? Yes, because now my company and I don't look professional.

Before you jump all over me about not being prepared, I would like you think about the pre-show meeting where people sit around thinking of plans for "what if..." How many companies have someone that would come up with a "what if some jackass comes up and starts turning our monitors on and off?" How can you prevent that? Small piece of tape? Not if I need to control my monitor's sound or something during a day. I can assure you more companies will have that plan, but very few probably thought about it before now. What's next, do we have to be concerned about someone throwing water balloons while we present? Do we have to worry about someone coming in with a dog? Do we have to plan for hecklers? Sorry, but you can't prepare for everything that comes up because you expect people to be professional when you attend a trade show. I organized one show 13 years ago that cost my company nearly $100,000 and we had a 10x20 booth (we had a sales meeting at the same time and took 22 people).

I agree with the previous poster, how would these guys feel if their site was hacked once a week and then put back up, then hacked again, then restored? Hey, it's only a prank, lighten up guys, you don't need to pay your rent this month with those ad dollars you just lost. It is a big deal when you mess around with someone's livelyhood, but until you're paying a mortgage, putting a kid through college and trying to make enough money to pay your employees, you don't think about those things.

lamontef

But it was also hilarious.

I Put The Bomp

nojo

savager

Where do you work NOJO? Maybe Gizmodo can go there too.

whiskey

nojo

KevininSeattle

You've been to trade shows -- you know you only have a moment or two to communicate your message ... if the monitor goes out, the message is that the products aren't reliable. The people there had NO possible way of knowing why the monitors turned off ... can't you understand that? Those companies paid a large cost there -- personally, I think they should attempt to recoup the cost of the presentations you guys interupted.

jayntampa

Except we were in grade school when we did that.

Very professional, Gizmodo.

chenry

It is surprising that at this time you still believe it was not such a big deal, your thick skull can't understand that thanks to that prank affects a community as a whole -the community of tech bloggers-.

Yet you have been sitting cowardly behind your monitor, writing a half ass apology with a video that shows no remorse, without getting in contact with the people that was affected thanks to your stupid team's prank, BRAVO, what a man that takes responsibility for his and his team's action!

And finally stop believing Gizmodo is the only and irreplaceable resource for vendors to get their gadgets known, there better written, less fanboyish, with more information sites that have been eating your toes for a long time, if you loose contact with the companies you fall dude.. as simple as that and other that will behave maturely will gladly accept the position gizmodo has.

Yet again for someone who is afraid of looking naked women -something that should be natural- isn't so surprising to see such idiotic, childish, irresponsible, immature, responses.

sing4england

In closing, please save all those snark comments up until you have something better than, "Those stiff tech people are dumb for not knowing how to turn their monitors on" or, "thank God Gizmodo has the balls to do this", or finally, "You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first". Oh we thought of it, we threw cherry bombs down the toilets in junior high school. Then when we got caught, we were suspended and our parents had to pay for the repairs. Now that was a prank.

JGizzy

bluesquareapple

-------cut------

I've worked the floor at CES as an exhibitor.

What Gizmodo did was appalling on many levels, and I now read that Brian Lam has been sanctioned (banned) from future events. I'm writing you today to argue that this is not a strong enough punishment. Gizmodo and their parent, Gawker media, need to be banned permanently from CES. Why so harsh? Because they don't believe they did anything wrong.

Even if you were to ignore the poor judgement of publishing the activities in the first place (what sensible editor would publish their employee disobeying a direct order and interfering with press events? What sensible editor would fail to fire or heavily sanction such an employee immediately?)... even cutting Gizmodo and Gawker the slack to say, "Ok. One renegade employee does not a company make, we must have a measured response".. one must consider Brian Lam's retort on valleywag (7th comment from the top: [valleywag.com])

[redacted]

See? It's a joke! Instantly turning off 40 TVs on the show floor with customers around (and from experience, no remote controls available for exhibitors to quickly rectify this) is a "joke". We pay big money to be there, to be seen, and to present a certain image.

These people are not news media. They act like petulant children and must be treated as such. I implore you to punish them more strongly.

----- cut -----

So in closing, I will encourage you to keep it up. The more you defend these actions... and the more that people who criticize these actions are lambasted as humorless, the more severe the consequences will be.

bobj444

That the difference between bloggers and pros.

This stunt is typical of the level of professionalism displayed at Gizmodo.

Hopefully Brian and the rest of the crew at Gizmodo have learned a lesson about acting like jackasses and biting the hand that feeds them.

Everyone has to grow up soemtime.

joxenford

@Brian Lam: Brian, seriously, you don't need to listen to all this crap.. it's not that big of a deal.. honestly a lot of your fans come to your site for it's color, and style, and humor.. I know i do. And if I'm correct they banned one person right?.. but even if they banned all of gizmodo.. it wouldn't be that big of a deal.. CES is cool, but it's still a bunch of salesman pushing products.. I think you guys do a good enough job reporting straight from your favorite chair. And I guarantee 90% of the people claiming to never visit gizmodo again are full of crap. why?.. because when it comes down to it.. you give a fair, real world evaluation of our favorite gadgets, while keeping it interesting, which isn't that easy in the tech realm. Turn into another cnet.. no thank you.. please don't let the overpopulation of tight asses make you reanalyze your blogging strategy.

again.. @OMG! Ponies! [www.stfu.se]

savager

The Brain

This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the
following two conditions: (1) this device may not cause harmful interference, and
(2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that
may cause undesired operation.

doog

urkel

It was unfortunate, but I hope the Gizmodo guys don't get in too much trouble for their Denial of Service attack. It was educational.

PS: Are the vendors going to secure their IR ports next year?

mantari

Trade shows are no fun at all. Long hours, lots of hard work, and enough idiots to make a saint pull out his hair. All for a little OT pay and some airline miles. The last thing anyone needs is some sophmoric little stunt making life harder than it already is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go ball up and rock back-and-forth in a corner to the Trade Show Flashbacks this post brought up.

sulayman

Oh please. It's not like you cornered and badgered an answer out of him. You interviewed him, asked him a pretty broad question, and HE VOLUNTEERED a coy little remark about Vista. That's hardly what I'd call "getting him to cop to it."

sulayman

DudeAsInCool

(2) Bloggers only want media credentials to get access to cool information, so they can blog about it.

(3) What gadget news did we get in the past week? The only thing I heard about was a large panasonic. That's not a gadget.

(4) you can't ban gizmodo. They will enter as consumers and blog.

(5) even if you ban gizmodo, consumers won't miss out because there wasn't any good gadget information during the past week.

(6) the gadget news is all Apple these days. That's coming up in the near future. That's not CES.

(7) the Gizmodo video brought more attention to these TV vendors than they would have received otherwise.

(8) what financial damage was incurred? It was a short little bit. If your tech vendor couldn't figure out how to turn the TV back on, that's a personal problem.

(9) we found out from CES that the best gadget was the TV-B-Gone remote. That's a cool gadget.

(10) Let's not forget that people read blogs and bloggers get credentials because bloggers give free advertising. It's too bad that you can't control that advertising with a boring press release.

(11) CES must not forget that their audience, the so-called consumer, blogs when he/she is not at CES.

Preston

You should both be ashamed and reprimanded by your respective companies. I would also believe an apology is deserved by both of you....Grow up already. This town is big enough for both of you...

Dad has spoken!

cidman2001

Bloggers have worked hard to try to be accepted as serious journalists - this just set back those efforts by more than a step or two.

billrw3

rafe

Okay, I'll do it: Crave is stupid. Nothing personal, CNet dudes, but come ON. You know it's stupid. Readers know it's stupid. It's stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

fishneversleep

People go to trade shows to gawk and have fun. Gizmodo was a bit childish, but come on - if these companies are really so incensed by this prank, let them pull their advertising from Gawker properties and switch to RF remotes.

Yeah. That'll happen.

CaliforniaCajun

dalejo

These toy companies owe every bit of caché they have left to the two gadget blogs. Without Gizmodo and Engadget, Walt Mossberg would still be the only consumer tech column worth reading.

OpenTransport

GinaMuchava

OMG! Ponies!

Brian Lam

Brian Lam

According to Gizmodo, Jason Chen or Gizmodo was given a "blogger" pass, not a press pass.

I might add that the difference between a blogger and a journalist is that a journalist has an editor who decides what to publish - to prevent things like "We sabotaged CES and here's the proof that we did it" from getting posted on the internet.

OMG! Ponies!

I bet you even ran it through spell-check too; no confusing you with a blogger then!

Rock tha Hizzee

rafe

Owen Thomas

[gizmodo.com]

rafe

[c0d3w12.com]

c0d3w12