We have a major problem in this industry with bloggers and journalists collecting an indirect paycheck from large corporations. Here we have Gruber, who collects an indirect paycheck from Apple (Apple's provision of indirect access to inside knowledge drives traffic and authority to Gruber's blog), squaring off against Battelle, who collects an indirect paycheck from Google (Gruber wrote a book that was an overly-positive history of the company -- for which he collected both an advance and ongoing royalties, and he relies upon its executives as guests for his expensive conference).
We can see the practical problems with this situation in that Gruber cannot come out and say the plain truth -- that Battelle's opinion is absurd, and only furthers the case to look at him as a Google shill. Apple's default privacy settings on Safari are to be commended; they are part of why I always suggest Safari as the best option for a WebKit-based browser, regardless of Chrome's bells and whistles. Google's actions in this area cannot be defended by any sane person -- they are clearly subversive, and the notion that Google "knows what's best for consumers who simply didn't know better" is utterly Microsoft-Circa-1990s Evil (with a capital E! This was the whole argument for bundling Internet Explorer, among other things).
By "Inside Knowledge" I presume you mean the 1-week advance review of OS X Mountain Lion. Providing Journalists with advance information under embargo is common in pretty much every industry (Automobile Industry, Camera Industry) - it lets them write their articles so they are ready for release at the same time. The WSJ, NYT, and other outlets all got the same treatment.
I don't believe Gruber has ever written a book.
99% of Gruber's articles are just him providing a (somewhat snarky) view on the industry - it's pretty rare for him to write an article that has any inside knowledge - My guess is that it's less than 1 in 100.
He's been a pretty enthusiast regarding Metro/WP7 recently - as those product appeal to his design aesthetic. I suspect that if Microsoft continues to execute well, that Gruber will be seen as a Microsoft/Apple Design elitist in years to come.
I agree with you -- just presenting a balanced view of the motivations driving both bloggers' posts. Gruber has far less to gain, as Apple isn't going to provide employees for Gruber to interview for a book/conference.
Right, here we have Gruber trying to disprove Battelle's argument when really Gruber should be attacking Battelle's person and motivations?
I kind of like it when the argument is about the idea rather than the person. I wish HN discussions more often would be as well, sadly we rarely afford Gruber that courtesy.
When people have massive financial conflicts of interest, it is very hard to trust their opinion on a given matter. The responsible thing to do in these situations is for someone to simply stay out of a debate; when they choose to passionately jump in and provide an extremely biased view, it is sensible to point out the conflicts. This isn't a personal attack, it's just a factual observation; for example, you wouldn't trust an analysis on "should the US attack China" from a journalist known to be reliant on Chinese funds / access to ruling party members for expensive conferences. The tech industry is filled with reporters reliant on cozy relationships with their subjects, who then provide supposedly unbiased analysis and defense of the company's agenda. It's obnoxious, and it is a disservice to those in our industry who don't have an insider's perspective on who's paying/dating/etc whom; they don't realize they are reading PR nonsense.
I like Michael Arrington's perspective on this (I can't believe I just typed that) - which is there really is no such thing as objectivity, and the best a reader can hope for is as much transparency as possible. I agree, that a lot of these "journalists" rely on their sources for access, and don't want to burn their bridges, so they may give a somewhat biased report (in return for future access). There are also other biases, like David Pogues writing the "Missing Manual" series, while at the same time providing a supposedly unbiased review of the devices he is writing manuals for. I love Pogues Reviews - I just wish he was a little more aggressively transparent when he writes a review for something that he might be gaining financially from.
But, at the very least, most people know where Pogue, Gruber, Siegler are coming from - so we go to them when we want the "Pro-Apple" perspective. The sad thing is how rarely fans of the Apple Aesthetic are willing to go read the "Anti-Apple" perspective (Is there such a source? ) And what about the Objective review? Mossberg has been panning Apple quite a bit recently - maybe he's the objective reviewer...
Gruber hasn't written any book. John Battelle has written a book on Google.
Also, I think it's extremely disingenuous to conflate Gruber's income from his blog with the income Batelle derives from being the founder of Federated Media Publishers. To say that Battelle has an agenda in supporting Google's practice is obvious.
We can see the practical problems with this situation in that Gruber cannot come out and say the plain truth -- that Battelle's opinion is absurd, and only furthers the case to look at him as a Google shill. Apple's default privacy settings on Safari are to be commended; they are part of why I always suggest Safari as the best option for a WebKit-based browser, regardless of Chrome's bells and whistles. Google's actions in this area cannot be defended by any sane person -- they are clearly subversive, and the notion that Google "knows what's best for consumers who simply didn't know better" is utterly Microsoft-Circa-1990s Evil (with a capital E! This was the whole argument for bundling Internet Explorer, among other things).