Statistics, Lies, and Fart Jokes
How noble of Fred "A VC In NYC" Wilson to chime in and try to play the school principal in the playground dust-up over the Comscore blog report. To be clear, he fully disclosed earlier, "I am an investor in and a director of Comscore and have been working with this great company since 1999." That's awesome dude, so your opinions and thoughts are totally objective on this matter. Fantastic, good to see you fighting the good fight.
Anyway, most of this comes down to PR and how Denton & co. blew it. Here was the first big "state of the blogs" research report and it's co-sponsored by just one company on the publisher side. Seems odd, no? (Is there a fast-food industry report that's widely held in high regard sponsored solely by Burger King and the American Beef Association? Just curious.) I can't decide if Nick is that arrogant or that stupid. I am 100% sure the numbers were NOT massaged or tinkered with at all to favor his blogs (the numbers are just plain wrong through whatever mechanisms the methodology entails) but there was no reason not to include others in this industry-impacting project. Was he trying to be a glory hog?
It makes no sense to give anyone, *especially* Calacanis (and maybe me), a reason to think any impropiety is going on. Throw in the fact one of Nick's good friends, Rick Bruner, co-wrote the report and admitted he contacted Nick first at the start of this project and saw no reason to include anyone else (Jason says he tried to give his two cents early on but was clearly ignored) and you've got people scratching their heads asking "why wasn't this an inclusive effort?" Again, by NO means do I think Rick and Nick's relationship had any effect on the outcome of the numbers but still, from a PR standpoint, they had to expect raised eyebrows given all the circumstances. Once more, I don't know if it's arrogance or stupidity.
But what about the data itself? The overall blog numbers are great, advertisers should take notice and behold the power of blogs with their increasing ability to reach "sexy" consumers. But really, who knew blog readers were young and relatively affluent?? That's crazy how early adopters of tech trends are young and buy a lot of shit. Breakthrough stuff here, folks. But if that's what is needed to convince the moron account planners and media planners to pour lots of money into blogs, then more power to it.
(I still think Jarvis is right in saying we need to start thinking of "new" metrics to measure the blogosphere and engagement. Off the top of my head, how about a comment-counter ranking to track interactivity? Oh wait, Denton's blogs don't have comments because he's still stuck in that old media thinking that his blogs are online magazines and readers don't deserve a voice. Exclusivity and not letting others have a voice seem to be a pattern with him.)
My only problem is with the breakout of specific blog data because it's clearly wrong. (Sorry Rick, if you can't grasp how or why then I can't help you because I don't have access to data to prove beyond the long shadow of your doubt.) Again, I'm sure Comscore did the best they could with the analysis but clearly it shows major flaws if some of these rankings are incredibly off by so much. I simply think it was a bad PR move to release the specific blog data. It wasn't too early to be testing those waters, but it was obviously premature to set sail on them. Everyone could have held hands and danced around the blog fire with the overall numbers and not a soul would have complained. Instead, they released very questionable numbers and the debate (admittedly very insider) is focused more on Comscore's shortcomings. That's not ideal for anyone.
Oh, to end this circle jerk back to Fred who calls for Jason to "chill out" I would suggest he do the same. These numbers are being lauded as the potential "industry standard" and the currency with which ad agencies make deals with. That's major stuff. If Jason is freaking out it's only because he's trying to protect his investment, not unlike Fred's courageous defense of Comscore in the first place.
Disclaimer: I've worked for Gawker Media in several contributor capacities, even as recently as writing a party crash report for Gawker last month and a post for Oddjack too. I'm friends with most of them. Still, I won't let those relationships get in the way of my objective opinions on any issue. And while I expect them to buy me drinks whenever we go out, I still can't understand why Curbed is linked almost everyday on Gawker yet there is no mention that it's GM managing editor Lockhart Steele's blog. Please people, let's embrace the transparency.
Disclaimer Update: Gage questions the purpose of my disclaimer on this post so I am now compelled to say I wrote it upon the request of Lockhart who thought it was only fair to reveal my Gawker connections and friendships. If he says so, I have no problem with it. Man, I feel Jarvis's pain everytime some bozo makes him point out his New York Times and many other connections.
There's nothing to hide here, folks. Move along to the back. Yes, to the back. Keep going, uh-huh, back back. You got it. Go, go, just a little further, yep. Looking good, you're almost there...
Anyway, most of this comes down to PR and how Denton & co. blew it. Here was the first big "state of the blogs" research report and it's co-sponsored by just one company on the publisher side. Seems odd, no? (Is there a fast-food industry report that's widely held in high regard sponsored solely by Burger King and the American Beef Association? Just curious.) I can't decide if Nick is that arrogant or that stupid. I am 100% sure the numbers were NOT massaged or tinkered with at all to favor his blogs (the numbers are just plain wrong through whatever mechanisms the methodology entails) but there was no reason not to include others in this industry-impacting project. Was he trying to be a glory hog?
It makes no sense to give anyone, *especially* Calacanis (and maybe me), a reason to think any impropiety is going on. Throw in the fact one of Nick's good friends, Rick Bruner, co-wrote the report and admitted he contacted Nick first at the start of this project and saw no reason to include anyone else (Jason says he tried to give his two cents early on but was clearly ignored) and you've got people scratching their heads asking "why wasn't this an inclusive effort?" Again, by NO means do I think Rick and Nick's relationship had any effect on the outcome of the numbers but still, from a PR standpoint, they had to expect raised eyebrows given all the circumstances. Once more, I don't know if it's arrogance or stupidity.
But what about the data itself? The overall blog numbers are great, advertisers should take notice and behold the power of blogs with their increasing ability to reach "sexy" consumers. But really, who knew blog readers were young and relatively affluent?? That's crazy how early adopters of tech trends are young and buy a lot of shit. Breakthrough stuff here, folks. But if that's what is needed to convince the moron account planners and media planners to pour lots of money into blogs, then more power to it.
(I still think Jarvis is right in saying we need to start thinking of "new" metrics to measure the blogosphere and engagement. Off the top of my head, how about a comment-counter ranking to track interactivity? Oh wait, Denton's blogs don't have comments because he's still stuck in that old media thinking that his blogs are online magazines and readers don't deserve a voice. Exclusivity and not letting others have a voice seem to be a pattern with him.)
My only problem is with the breakout of specific blog data because it's clearly wrong. (Sorry Rick, if you can't grasp how or why then I can't help you because I don't have access to data to prove beyond the long shadow of your doubt.) Again, I'm sure Comscore did the best they could with the analysis but clearly it shows major flaws if some of these rankings are incredibly off by so much. I simply think it was a bad PR move to release the specific blog data. It wasn't too early to be testing those waters, but it was obviously premature to set sail on them. Everyone could have held hands and danced around the blog fire with the overall numbers and not a soul would have complained. Instead, they released very questionable numbers and the debate (admittedly very insider) is focused more on Comscore's shortcomings. That's not ideal for anyone.
Oh, to end this circle jerk back to Fred who calls for Jason to "chill out" I would suggest he do the same. These numbers are being lauded as the potential "industry standard" and the currency with which ad agencies make deals with. That's major stuff. If Jason is freaking out it's only because he's trying to protect his investment, not unlike Fred's courageous defense of Comscore in the first place.
Disclaimer: I've worked for Gawker Media in several contributor capacities, even as recently as writing a party crash report for Gawker last month and a post for Oddjack too. I'm friends with most of them. Still, I won't let those relationships get in the way of my objective opinions on any issue. And while I expect them to buy me drinks whenever we go out, I still can't understand why Curbed is linked almost everyday on Gawker yet there is no mention that it's GM managing editor Lockhart Steele's blog. Please people, let's embrace the transparency.
Disclaimer Update: Gage questions the purpose of my disclaimer on this post so I am now compelled to say I wrote it upon the request of Lockhart who thought it was only fair to reveal my Gawker connections and friendships. If he says so, I have no problem with it. Man, I feel Jarvis's pain everytime some bozo makes him point out his New York Times and many other connections.
There's nothing to hide here, folks. Move along to the back. Yes, to the back. Keep going, uh-huh, back back. You got it. Go, go, just a little further, yep. Looking good, you're almost there...
