MOTOSCRWD; Why a Sinking Ship Shouldn’t Pop its Life Vests
As a whole, CTIA today was a bit on the disappointing side. Sure there were a few exciting things debuted, most or all of which we’ve already told you about, of course. We were particularly disappointed with Motorola however, and not for the reason we expected to be. As we showed you in our post earlier today, Motorola brought some interesting devices to CTIA. The ROKR E8 for example is a sweet device that we were planning a new dedicated in-depth post on. The Z9 and V950 are nice handsets that we certainly would’ve explored a bit further as well. As we touched upon in the post linked above however, we were greeted with less than open arms at the Moto booth. No, we weren’t behind any gags and we certainly weren’t bothering anyone. We were simply there to cover the show.
Here’s where Moto’s got it all wrong: leaks are good. Big companies know this and they often embrace leaks rather than hold a chip on their collective shoulders. Hell, some even leak info themselves to generate buzz. Motorola seems to take the opposite stance with regards to leaks. What they seemingly fail to realize is that leaks are really the only press that Moto gets in the blogosphere that isn’t negative. We were greeted at the Moto booth by a smiling "booth girl" who chatted us up for a bit, and then it was all down hill. We couldn’t get a single rep to talk to us for more than a few seconds. Averted eyes, walk-aways… Do we have contagious leprosy?
There was some silver lining, though. Before we were asked to "go take some pictures of the outside of the booth" (say what?) while snapping a shot of the V950, a funny conversation was overheard:
Moto Rep: This [ROKR E8] is one of our newer phones that we’re really excited about
Random Attendee: "Yeah, I think I saw that thing last year on Boy Genius Report. Is that really new?"
That’s right Moto. You’re going to run into BGR readers everywhere you go, and with our numbers at an all time high, don’t count on us going anywhere anytime soon. Don’t embrace us either; keep thinking that blogosphere love doesn’t matter. That really seems to be working out pretty well for you. It should be mentioned by the way, that we were greeted at every other booth we visited with excitement and an eagerness to show us the latest and greatest that each company had to offer. Companies big and small know us well and love us for the attention that we bring them of course. And why wouldn’t they? Sure we might throw out a jab here and there but companies know that news is news, good and bad. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t report on Motorola’s plummeting stock prices or the fact that the Motorola mobile division had to be split off from the rest of Moto’s business to prevent a fire sale. So Motorola, you just keep on flopping around like the fish out of water that you’ve become; it’s obviously apparent that you don’t know what the heck is going on, not even internally. Here at BGR, we’ll continue to inform and entertain our millions of readers as best we can, and reserve our coverage for companies we think might still be around in a year or two…
I think that Motorola should have been friendlier about their apprehension of giving out info, if keeping their cards close really is what they were trying to do. So, one demerit for them.
But… I haven’t seen a post on a blog this arrogant in a while. There’s almost an air of ‘the mobile news scene revolves around us’ that I just don’t like. BGR’s a very accomplished site, but this post came off as outright cocky and to come out and insult a company instead of objectively reporting what happened is something I find immature.
I can’t read this site in good conscience knowing that Boy Genius and company feel that self-important that they feel they get to insult whoever they want and make their site NSFW with pictures like MOTOFUKD.
Way to lower those standards. You’ve lost a reader.
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I agree about the title and I changed it.
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I was never a Motorola fan so if they do sink, I could careless. I’m all about BlackBerry love (freagin 9000 should be out already!) and if the iPhone improves a lot by June (incl. 3G), than I might just make the jump OR I might want to get my hands on the N96 :0)
Too many phones I want!
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i think the blogosphere thinks too highly of itself. an “editor’s choice award” from most mainstream publications is worth more than most blogs.
and it doesnt help when most blogs impose their own wish list on the vast majority who could care less if it is linux running the phone or symbian. they just want the phone to work. also, your negative tone and jabs may be funny in a high school sort of way, but thats not how corp america speaks, so guess why you dont get respect? respect is earned, usually with deeds.
in case nobody noticed, it is the linux phones from moto that perform the worst. just look at the razr2 v8 (linux) vs razr2 v9 (synergy) … but hey, the evangelists just go blind when they see the word “linux”.
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wheres the shot of the booth girl
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Yet another “what the fuk is he trying to say?” post by Galvatron!
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Hah! Bg actually listened to the readership once….amazing….now let’s see if we can pop that iDick outa that mouth a little further and we may have a halfway respectable news site again!
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moto deserved this post!! idk about you, but BGR had every right to want to see there new products… and another thing. if the products were there already to be shown to the public why the hell are the kicking reporters out? is moto out of there mind? i say goodbye moto for i have lost all hope in you.
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CTIA is a fairly closed show - not meant for the public. It’s expensive as hell to get booth space, but the industry big-wigs do attend.
Should the press be there? Absolutely. Should the booth workers be catering to the press? Probably not - that’s why Moto holds pre-show press conferences/Q&A sessions.
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So, basically the company is struggling, and trying desperately to find some foothold at becoming a relevant player in the industry again, and they’re irritated at you for leaking product information.
You feel that is unreasonable how? Because your job is writing about said leaks? This somehow makes you entitled to being liked by them, because you feel that if you report it a leak then it’s good?
Yeah, no, there’s a difference between teasers sent out to the public to get them salivating, and giving a company’s new secret weapon away to their competition.
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Yeah, and Apple keeping their secrets close to the vest has certainly ruined their business.
Investigative reporters don’t walk up to Dick Cheney and shout “PWNED!” in his face.
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Agreed.
While it’s good to generate buzz, it is still something that the company ’should’ control. That is the point of having a PR department. So as many have said, not all leaks are good leaks for companies. So, BGR you are not doing them a favor by acting as a free PR department when you highlight internal problems…and I think it’s understandable that they’re upset.
BUT!
Don’t me wrong as a consumer it’s good to see what they’ve got behind locked doors.
Next time, just take the high ground. You can see more that way.
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Dude chill the fuck out! Stop fucking crying because motorola didn’t recognize you, I mean you are only some fucking internet blogger. I know I know, you people are so important in the world today but he probably didn’t want motorola’s phones leaked because they get stolen every time and if they ever want to make a comeback they can’t do it if other companies are always biting their style. Don’t take your job so fucking seriously buddy you’re not that important. Get a real job, better yet start your own company and see if you can ever achieve the success Motorola has. Then talk shit about them.
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I named my ROKR E8 as MOTOSUKR E8
ha ha ha…
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