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The ZDNet blog trap

This could nearly be titled “how to make old news new again”. ZDNet recently launched a blog called IT Facts in which it seemingly rattles off pieces of interesting IT statistics, including those related to blogs. On June 7 they posted the old news of the Pereus survey released at the beginning of April, (by ways of a Media Post article of May 4) which I’ve quoted a number of times here at the Blog Herald since the initial release. Problem is, because IT Facts is being listed in Google News a number of prominent blogs have posted the survey results as if they’ve just been released.

Top of the list, and again he should know better, is Steve Rubel who posts the results here, in a post dated 8 June. A number of other blogs then post on Steve’s post like the facts are a new story. I’ve seen it a number of other places as well but didn’t mark them at the time. I’m tempted to go into a Google News rant again, but I don’t want to bore everyone, but apparently old news is new again, even on Google News :-)

View Comments (5)
  • IT Facts was always about the breadth of information on a topic, so unless the news or report is severely outdated, I never have a problem with posting it – someone who’s willing to get a complete picture about the market sector wouldn’t care if the report came out in April or May. Wasn’t my intent to misrepresent the freshness of the data, and anyone who actually read the full MediaPost article, would see the posting date. I can see your point, but you’ve got to be fair to people who quoted it – maybe they missed it the first time, so the reminder was timely.

    PS. You mis-spelled Perseus.

  • Hi Alex
    sorry I wasn’t having a dig at IT Facts, I actually find it an interesting read, but I do question it being in Google News.

  • Ah, no offense, sorry if I came as a bit terse. I usually make the best effort to keep the stuff up-to-date, but realistically with all the documents that get sent my way by researchers on some topics I am still three weeks behind.

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