In defense of his inaccurate story on Microsoft’s nonexistent “cheap, disposable pre-recorded DVDs,” Technology Editor Tony Glover of The Business Online makes still more errors. Here’s one:
Last week’s story … also sparked a bushfire of debate across the internet by thousands of web bloggers, with many claiming this newspaper had been hoaxed.
Thousands? Thousands? Wow. According to Technorati, which is widely regarded as having the most exhaustive index of weblogs (19.1 million sites, according to their About page), the number of blog posts since the publication of the original, inaccurate story that contained the words Microsoft, disposable, and DVDs was … 40. And that includes pickups from “spam blogs” that steal and repurpose other people’s content as well as a few duplicate posts. A Technorati search for “one play only” DVD Microsoft turned up only 18 blog posts.
Memeorandum.com, which is pickier about its index, found four blogs that linked to the original story (including mine) and seven blogs that linked to my follow-up post.
So, thousands of blogs? Heh. Nice try.
Oh, and while I don’t usually call people out on typos (anyone can make a mistake), one of the things I learned in J-school was just how important it is for a professional journalist to spell names correctly, especially when the name in question belongs to one of the most powerful and well-known executives in the technology industry and said journalist has the title Technology Editor. Tony Glover, in this week’s story about how search engines are changing the face of business, spells the name of the CEO of Sun Microsystems wrong. Twice. Tony, you might want to make a mental note that the company’s CEO has the unlikely name of Scott McNealy, not McNealey, as you wrote. Twice. You could fact-check it yourself here if you’d like.
Ed Bott 
Both of you seem rather concerned about your claims to the lofty “journalist” title, rather than the apparently amateur “blogger” title.
That you’re both spending so much breath sniping back and forth doesn’t support the distinction.
In all seriousness, Rob, there was no sniping or personal attacks of any kind in my first post. I stayed focused on the facts. It was Glover who started with the ad hominem and personal attacks.
And this post is focused on the quality of work produced by a Technology Editor for a mainstream media publication. If he exaggerates basic facts and can’t even spell Scott McNealy’s name right, why should anyone take him or his publication seriously?
Sadly, commentators like Jeremy Wagstaff of the Wall Street Journal do take these reports with credibility, largely because it’s from a respected source. Which is why I feel compelled to press the issue.
Glover now comes up with an on the record, named senior Microsoft executive to back up his story — which you dismissed as a hoax — and all you can do is nitpick. Pathetic — and worthy of the mainstream press.
Aneil,
The quote doesn’t say anything remotely like what the original story sensationally claimed. In fact, it says exactly what I’ve been saying all along. Do you actually understand the technology issues here?