Ed, good enough for me. Thanks

In the online world, it is the whole reason smiley emoticons were invented, which is to help people to see the intent of the online writer when words alone were not cutting it.

Harking back to your prior teachers-should-blog posting–recall that several posters cautioned against mixing personal and professional postings into the same blog–the prank/situation you have perpetrated would have been better served for a few laughs on your personal blog and not done on your professional blog.

You probably got some extra hits with your prank, but cost yourself some credibility points on your existing audience in the process…and it is not quite the same as the ‘all publicity is good publicity’ that creates the paparazzi market for celebrities. You are selling more than your website, you are selling the information of your website, which you have now undercut.

I would recommend a simple mea culpa to your TE readers with a promise of the lesson learned. People are forgiving, as long as you admit you have learned from it.

Just my two cents and honest advice as a friend and reader, best wishes–TCBB, Mike

Had Scoble taken his own advice on credible journalism, he probably wouldn’t have written about the story, or would have covered it as a joke:

The irritant of the non-credible journalists « Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger

We need to be vigilant against bad journalism. Here’s a hint: when you see a story about a company and that story doesn’t even attempt to get that company’s point of view, then it probably is a non-credible journalist writing it. All credible journalists will get at least three sources to every story and will try to remain objective and impartial.

Here’s another hint: when a story or a blogger doesn’t link to anything outside of his/her article.

I don’t mean to beat up on Scoble. He took the bait, so perhaps lost some cred. with his audience short-term, just like I may have with others who perhaps took the bait.

Factual and influential don’t necessarily coincide. Just look at Bill O’Reilly.

I was simply making the point that if a website is truly “influential” that it shouldn’t be making stuff up for no reason unless it wants to alter its status.