Is it me, or are the usual suspects in the media cranking up the FUD?

[brmiller1976]

I have "learned" from the press that:

1) Windows Phone may be cancelled on Verizon;

2) That Surface is doomed to failure (well, until the sellout announcement, when the line was revised to "we still don't know numbers and iPad is bigger");

3) That nobody wants to buy W8 and that this will be the last version of Windows, ever;

4) That Microsoft is desperate and struggling and nervous...

Seems to me like FUD production is hitting fever pitch. You don't typically see this much without a well-funded, coordinated effort by a major player or two.

So, let's speculate. Who do we think is fueling the FUD?

 

[Luminatic]

Hear, hear. I'm living in the country with the biggest Fruitshare of the world, at least when looking at mobile devices. And the press feeds this fancy. You should see how nicely any iOS weakness is ignored or played down by journalists, you should see how many fans are allowed to write reviews (and utterly failing to provide a thourough, neutral analysis which mentions strenghts as well as weaknesses without telling people what they are supposed to think). It's really annoying.

As an answer to your question, the word "Analysts" popped up in my mind spontanously. I might be wrong as I guess most people (Including revievers are just afraid of change and Windows 8 looks, well, different. And people that fear change will hate it. Hence the FUD.

But ... but ... what if it is a conspiracy after all? Some companies (and the people that are interested in them, like investors, and the formerly mentionned analysts) might have either enough money or enough influence to make the media write what they want. The companies would be, of course, the ones that don't earn any money if Nokia, HTC, MS, Samsung etc. sell a W8/WP product. It could be the producers, of course, but as a person having worked for banks for way too many years, having learnd not to trust the greedy players of the financial business, I guess it's the analysts. The investors. The big ones in the financial world. I would say its them that pull the strings in the background.

The general (uninformed,easily manipulated) public of course follows these opinions as it is human nature to just follow your shepherd instead of independantly develop own ideas and opinions.

But why did "Analysts" appear in my mind first? I don't trust them. Just guessing, but IMHO, those overpayed specialists 1) Are making too many wrong predictions and are 2) not neutral enough to trust them. Plus 3) I suspect they follow a hidden agenda in most caseas.
I don't trust analyts any more than I would trust a provider shop guy selling me a good phone (Bot whould advise me / sell me what works best for them, not best for me). Exceptions only acknowledge the rule.

In the case of WP/W8, I really hope that what we're seeing right now is a small flock of people (compared to all users) liking WP/W8, being misunderstood/laughed at by the majority, the latter changing its mind later as usual. It's like with fashion: The first few courageous women wearing outreagous clothes are earning weird glances at first ... and all of a sudden, everybody is walking around like them. After all, every big trend has started small, right? At least I hope it's like that as I like WP and will probably also like W8 - and all computer users deserve a system that they appreciate.


How I love a good conspiracy theory ;-)

 

[TiLoBrown]

No on wants to be wrong so everyone picks the side that has the lead and sticks with them until another front runner comes along.

 

[dogfish54]

No on wants to be wrong so everyone picks the side that has the lead and sticks with them until another front runner comes along.

I think there is an additional part to this. It seems that the analysts make a lot of wild predictions, and if any of them come true, they can refer back to them later and say they were right.

I honestly think Thurrott has no clue whether the Verizon canceling Windows 8 stuff was BS, but I think he has enough information (probably from this forum) that he is willing to take the risk and say that he's sure so that he looks like he's a reliable source of information.

News on the internet has upsides and downsides. Bad news and rumors spread fast and are reported as fact. Tech journalists are obsessed with being progressive and will quickly sway with any trend and perpetuate it.

The i-love is sickening. I think the tech media wants Windows Phone dead, they may be successful. In saying that, if they decide it's the 'next big thing', then they'll make it popular and cover up all the warts like they currently do with Apple.

 

[a5cent]

So, let's speculate. Who do we think is fueling the FUD?

I'm also not one to believe in conspiracy theories, but if I had to I'd agree with Luminatic... follow the money.

Otherwise I would say it's just heard mentality and the fact that most tech journalists simply aren't what they claim to be. Why should a website hire expensive engineers that can also write and explain complex issues, when you can get more web-hits by paying hipsters and fashion-commenters to maskerade as tech journalists at 1/10th the wage.

I focus on the future, but in one regard I miss the past: getting good technical information on the internet was much easier 10 years ago... now it's 90% FUD.

 

[jimski]

I think all these analysts and tech experts should be required to provide full disclosure of their stock portfolios. Lot of value is going to change hands in the next 3-6 months. Going to be fun to watch all the squirming.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro

 

[AngryNil]

Most of these "tech journalists" aren't journalists. They are biased just like anyone else, though even more so because they are so enthusiastic about a certain aspect of technology (or company) that they decided to start writing about it. As overrated as a degree might be, I think many don't understand what journalism entails and they truly are just glorified bloggers.

 

[squire777]

I have been reading Engadget for a long time and I know their style. When they see a product with a lot of buzz around it they will hype it up and say how promising it looks. When that product is finally released they will write a nitpicking piece saying how disappointed they are in that product, which in turn destroys any interest the public would have for it.

In regards to Windows 8 - if it was something made by Apple, much of the media would be saying how innovative it is. Since it's made by MS they are assuming that you need a MSc in Computer Science to use it. The other complaints about Win 8 are from tech geeks that don't like change, and are complaining just because they need to click once to get to the traditional desktop.

I think all these analysts and tech experts should be required to provide full disclosure of their stock portfolios. Lot of value is going to change hands in the next 3-6 months. Going to be fun to watch all the squirming.

A friend of mine that works for an investment company in Toronto has always told me that many financial institutions in North America are heavily dependent on Apple shares, so much so that it is almost as if the economy is being propped up by a single company. It makes sense why the mainstream media pushes Apple so much.

 

[Luminatic]

A friend of mine that works for an investment company in Toronto has always told me that many financial institutions in North America are heavily dependent on Apple shares, so much so that it is almost as if the economy is being propped up by a single company. It makes sense why the mainstream media pushes Apple so much.

So, is Apple too big to fail? Like some big banks in my country?

What can I say, it's never good to put too much money on just one horse ... I don't care if investors are more or less rich (who cares if they could live 20 or 25 livetimes on their money, but its getting really bad if one company fails and as the consequences (Unemployment, stock market crash ...) are so grave that the average person can end up in a really bad place.

This makes it understandable that Apple is being pushed so much. But isn't that also a surefire way to create a bubble? What do you all think?

 

[brmiller1976]

Apple represents over 1/3 of the NASDAQ market. That means that a 10% decline in Apple would bring the whole index down by over 3.3%.

There's LOTS of margin (and pension funds and hedge funds) riding on the stock continuing to soar.

 

[crystal_planet]

Many of the articles deal with how difficult it is to use Windows 8 and how users will become so confused with the new interface, that it will be an unmitigated disaster for poor ol' Microsoft. The irony lies in these same writers two years ago wrote articles on how Microsoft's demise would happen due to how stale and uninspiring their products were.

Let's face it: it boils down to Microsoft vs Apple in the press because these two have been adversaries since time out of mind, and it makes for good reading.

Writers with a clear Apple bent are attacking all from the same angle. The iPhone 5 launch was "meh" at best (sales numbers not withstanding) and with the forthcoming iPad mini release (same as an iPad - but smaller!) there have been no inspiring products from the boys in Cupertino in a long time. What kind of bizarro world has this become where Apple is getting stale, and Microsoft is fresh and innovative??

So, the writers pull out their stupid fallback positions of "Microsoft has failed in the past, therefore it will fail now" - then pull out blasts from the past like Windows Bob, ME and Kin.

I feel sorry for them really. I think if it was just Windows 8, they could make a concentrated effort to tear it down. But since Microsoft is changing everything at once, they're spinning in circles trying to find enough mud to sling. Unfortunately for them, everyone is starting to see what's behind the curtain at Apple. The "I'm a Mac" guy's hair is thinning, his clothes are out of style, he's grown a paunch and he still lives in his parents' basement.

 

[squire777]

The good news is that there is an Apple iPad mini event happening today and hardly anyone aside from Apple fanboys care.

 

[brmiller1976]

I have figured it out... COMMODORE is secretly behind the FUD!

 

[jgraves4480]

My wife and I went by verizon yesterday just to check that story. Ya know what is sad is when the rep says I can't say yes or no, but I did just go throught w8 training. Oh I can't read this on the screen it says HTC, but Here take a look! Bye bye iphone 4s!!!! No date, but word is it is in M$'s hands to fix an issue with network connections dropping. I know rumors are rumors. 4G in my area was oct 18 it was active on my xoom in august cuz the tech wanted someone else to say hey I got a problem. I think apple is the real FUD! They have the most to lose if w8 takes pc, xbox, mobile, and slaps them into one nice package.

 

[jmshub]

I do think there is a tech journalists bias towards Apple products. But I don't think it's the product of shady deals in smoky rooms, I think it's just an obvious favoritism from the authors. Old school journalists work in newspapers, the one industry where Macintosh excelled, the new blogs are just like all the other social media hipsters. For instance, watch a professional sports event on television, at least in America, if the camera pulls back to the press area, it shows dozens of guys, all using $2500 MacBook Pros to read and write Tweets.

 

[brmiller1976]

The tech press doesn't do a very good job of focusing on the average user.

Just take a look at any big city newspaper's tech coverage. You'd think that the Mac is 75% of all personal computers and Windows gets token mentions. And there are no phones other than the iPhone.