Ahhh. The beleaguered gadget guru. I truly sympathize with those keyboard commandos who are charged with sorting through the myriad mailbox-filling missives that breathlessly tout the latest gizmos this (and every) holiday season.
At least CrunchGear didn’t close the door completely on the frequent source of butter used on the bread it digests and regurgitates for its early adapter consumers.
In his rancorously titled post this morning, CrunchGear’s John Biggs outlines the do’s and don’ts of engaging him:
“Dear PR People: All I want for Christmas is no lying.“
Huh? Do we lie? Annoy, vex, drone on, misrepresent, abuse the English language, stutter perhaps, but lie? Whatever the case, for those who regularly grapple with how best to engage an A-list blogger, John’s seven-step tutorial may be harsh, but it offers some useful advice. He pointedly concludes:
All of us are trying to do our job. Fortunately, my job is more fun than yours: I get to share cool products with cool people. You, on the other hand, have to face down bitchy clients and pushy reporters at the same time. In some ways, maybe your middleman position is becoming extinct and maybe you need to rethink your strategies. Maybe companies should put info releases into their product timelines, bypassing the big PR houses completely. I’d subscribe to an HTC RSS feed if I knew it featured phones, phones, and more phones without all the extraneous noise. Merry Christmas, and to the PR guy who asked me a few months back during a Bulldog Reporter session if I knew that “embargoes are really there to mess with us,†bite me. Hopefully you get a pink slip in your stocking and let others with considerably more savvy take your place.
Consider this CrunchGear’s annual gift to the PR profession.