The Verge are borderline Gizmodo

[cckgz4]

So I have begun my journey into podcasts just to see what the hoopla is about. So I got android central, wpcentral, and the verge. It was a seamless experience and got everything loaded up. Started watching the verge video cast and MAN. I didn't know how big of a butt (to put it nicely) Joshua is. I knew he had traits, but he is truly a butt. On the latest one, he spent a good amount of time complaining about his smoothie that was brought to him and ordered one of the production crew to bring him a seltzer. Aside from that and the jumbling his co horts were doing, I had to turn it off. I barely went to that site before, but now I will definitely not give them any type of hits

 

[Jake_M]

So I have begun my journey into podcasts just to see what the hoopla is about. So I got android central, wpcentral, and the verge. It was a seamless experience and got everything loaded up. Started watching the verge video cast and MAN. I didn't know how big of a butt (to put it nicely) Joshua is. I knew he had traits, but he is truly a butt. On the latest one, he spent a good amount of time complaining about his smoothie that was brought to him and ordered one of the production crew to bring him a seltzer. Aside from that and the jumbling his co horts were doing, I had to turn it off. I barely went to that site before, but now I will definitely not give them any type of hits

I love the Verge. Josh is a sarcastic *******, that's just like how he is. He can be really funny. Their podcasts aren't terribly worth listening to. They have quality reviews and good featured posts. On The Verge is a really good show too.

 

[threed61]

The man loves the sound of his own voice far more than he loves tech.

 

[cckgz4]

D-baggery aside, I have realized I'll never enjoy podcasts. Too much dead air and jumbling.

 

[AngryNil]

I do enjoy quite a wide variety of podcasts, from gaming to tech to Apple (!) to Microsoft. I must say, the podcasts from Engadget and The Verge are sadly the ones I'd drop before the others. At least an Apple-focused podcast is going to be honest. I'm kind of over the whole fake objectiveness of the tech bubble, if you prefer Google just call yourself the Google correspondent for your site and vice versa. Stop pretending your constant dismissal of company X is grounded in objectivity.

 

[GSOgymrat]

Perhaps I'm too impatient but I find podcasts, televised news and most videos an inefficient means of gathering information. I prefer to read because I can scan text, find what interests me and skip the rest. I can real a book for hours at a time and I love movies but when it comes to news I want to pick and choose. As far as objectivity, there is no such thing.

 

[a5cent]

As far as objectivity, there is no such thing.

Stop pretending your [tech journalists] constant dismissal of company X is grounded in objectivity.

I agree with both of you, but only to a degree. In theory at least, tech journalism could be objective. A site that meticulously describes their testing methods and publishes nothing but technical measurements would be completely objective. Unfortunately that isn't realistic, as most people desire an interpretation of those measurements, so such a site is likely to fail commercially. Unfortunately, the verge staffers skip everything that might be objective (you can't measure what you don't really understand) and go straight to the "editorial columns".

My main point is that there is a difference between bias and misinformation. Tech journalism is commonly served by people with a complete lack of anything resembling a technical background. As most consumers reading those sites don't know any better themselves, misinformation is easily sowed. The verge isn't as bad as sites like CNET, but their standards (if they have any at all) are also extremely low.

The verge staffers admitting to bias instead of faking objectivity would be a great start though.

 

[StevesBalls]

The Verge is by far the best tech website on the web - everything from their reporting to their design is top notch. If you think they are biased towards anything then you are right - they are biased towards high quality products.

You might not like the fact that they don't kiss up to Microsoft, but they are not WPCentral, that's not their job. Yes, they do love Apple products but that's because they are quality products. Josh himself has been using a Galaxy Nexus as his primary phone for a long time and has numerous times praised the design aesthetics of both the WP OS and the phones. At the same time he has been very critical of Apple on many occasions. You really can't blame him for any bias, that's just your hurt ****** ego talking.

Remember all the fuss about the Lumia 900 review they did and all the **** they got for it from all the fanboys? Look back at it now with hindsight and tell me they were wrong. And don't be biased about it.

There is a difference between being objective and liking the same thing you like. It's a difference that the fanboys (of any platform) consistently fail to see.

And the Vergecast is great - by far my favorite tech podcast on the net. They might not always talk on topic and interrupt each other all the time but it's always entertaining.

 

[a5cent]

There is a difference between being objective and liking the same thing you like. It's a difference that the fanboys (of any platform) consistently fail to see.

Are you completely oblivious to the difference between an objective measurement and a subjective opinion? The verge offers only the later and none of the former. What that leads to is my main point and my main criticism, and it's why I find the verge complete rubbish. If you enjoy reading editorials that lack any solid foundation in technological reality, then be my guest. You are the verge's target audience. If necessary, I can gladly explain the idiocy of the verge's rating system and their non-existant testing methods, but I believe it isn't, as we aren't really discussing the same thing.

My distaste of the verge has nothing to do with their lack of religious devotion towards or against Microsoft, Apple or any other company. I simply prefer sites that actually understand what they are testing, like anandtech or gsmarena, which also trust their readers ability to make up their own minds on how well a device and their requirements overlap. My opinion of anandtech wouldn't change based on their take of a Microsoft, HTC or Nokia product. What could change my opinion of anandtech is if they were to change their testing methods, but just the fact that they have one is already rather good in my book.

Anyway, as others have previously noted, opinions are always biased. That includes yours, mine and all the opinions of the verge staffers. However, the verge has nothing to offer beyond opinions, so their reviews tend to be more biased than others. At least when compared to the more technically competent sites which I mentioned above.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your take on fanboyism, but it doesn't apply to me or my last post.

 

[GSOgymrat]

The verge staffers admitting to bias instead of faking objectivity would be a great start though.

I find admitting to bias to be helpful because you know the reviewer is taking those biases into consideration. When a reviewer acknowledges "I tend to prefer smaller phones", "I appreciate customization over simplicity", etc. it helps me as a consumer put their comments into perspective.

 

[stmav]

Their top notch design looks a lot like windows tiles. Their reporting is more along the likes of where you find bathroom tiles.

 

[StevesBalls]

Are you completely oblivious to the difference between an objective measurement and a subjective opinion? The verge offers only the later and none of the former. What that leads to is my main point and my main criticism, and it's why I find the verge complete rubbish. If you enjoy reading editorials that lack any solid foundation in technological reality, then be my guest. You are the verge's target audience. If necessary, I can gladly explain the idiocy of the verge's rating system and their non-existant testing methods, but I believe it isn't, as we aren't really discussing the same thing.

My distaste of the verge has nothing to do with their lack of religious devotion towards or against Microsoft, Apple or any other company. I simply prefer sites that actually understand what they are testing, like anandtech or gsmarena, which also trust their readers ability to make up their own minds on how well a device and their requirements overlap. My opinion of anandtech wouldn't change based on their take of a Microsoft, HTC or Nokia product. What could change my opinion of anandtech is if they were to change their testing methods, but just the fact that they have one is already rather good in my book.

Anyway, as others have previously noted, opinions are always biased. That includes yours, mine and all the opinions of the verge staffers. However, the verge has nothing to offer beyond opinions, so their reviews tend to be more biased than others. At least when compared to the more technically competent sites which I mentioned above.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your take on fanboyism, but it doesn't apply to me or my last post.

Sorry, my reply wasn't directed at you directly but rather generally at the topic at hand.

To a point I agree with you but I think we need to differentiate between sites like Anandtech and The Verge. Those two represent the best in their respective fields. But they both serve a different purposes.

When I want some hard facts, if I want comprehensive tests or I want to know what that new Krait CPU brings, then I go to Anandtech. I think there is no site that does better what they do. But I do not believe that to review the user experience of a phone you necessarily need to know the details of that custom ARM design that it now uses or by how much the memory bandwidth increased. You review the user experience. That might be a shallow test by your standards, but in the end, when reviewing a customer product, it's all that matters.

I rather have them give me their opinion of a phone, how it feels, performs and how it works in day to day usage than have them list the scores of 10 benchmarks that don't represent real world usage and most people don't even understand. Or even worse, gives them a number to throw around and makes them "think" that they do understand them.

And of course, then there is the question of what is actually "objective measurement". I'll give you an example of what I mean. In today's word the things that matter most for a smartphone are things like the ecosystem. How do you measure that? You can't, it's a topic that is too complex and can't be measured. Well, I guess you could but the effort it would take would be huge and there would still be people that would object to your testing methodology.

That's why, while I agree with your take that objective measurements are necessary, I think it's even more important to form an opinion that is as objective as possible. And the measurements can (or rather should) support this opinion.

But I'd be interested in which articles you thought were biased on The Verge. If you don't mind please post some examples, I'm really curious to see what provoked such a strong reaction from you.

 

[derek533]

The Verge is by far the best tech website on the web - everything from their reporting to their design is top notch.

I sincerely hope you honestly don't believe that. The Verge has to be the most god awful design for a "news" type site I've ever seen. Its layout is horrendous, different sizes of text for different stories, etc. It's just a garbled mess. Say what you want about Engadget, but at least their design is clean and has a flow to it. The Verge looks like something my 3 year old son would design.