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View Full Version : The Power of Tech Enthusiast Sites


Jason Dunn
12-14-2004, 08:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110298326599699100-H9jeoNhlal3o5ysZ4KHcaiFm4,00.html' target='_blank'>http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110298326599699100-H9jeoNhlal3o5ysZ4KHcaiFm4,00.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Mr. Brome and cybersleuths like him are at the center of a teeming world of online cellphone gossip that is taking on an influential role in the $100 billion industry. The sites have emerged over the past couple of years, riding the global boom in the gadgets as their position in popular culture grows. With names like engadget.com and mobiletracker.net, the sites draw users capable of spending hours debating everything from a certain cellphone's battery life to the location of its volume button. The sites used to draw protests and legal threats from companies unhappy at seeing their secret product plans publicly aired. Now, cellphone makers are starting to court them, as their popularity surges to several hundred thousand users a month for some sites."</i><br /><br />The article focuses mostly on the phone sites, but it does mention yours truly:<br /><br /><i>"Jason Dunn, who started a site devoted to palm-sized personal computers several years ago from his Calgary home, regularly gets invited to Microsoft Corp.'s campus in Redmond, Wash."</i><br /><br />Damn, no link! ;-) At any rate, tech enthusiast sites are certainly a powerful force in the marketplace - I know that I look to my fellow enthusiast sites for reviews and opinions on things before I buy a product, and I don't have very much trust in PC World, C|NET, or any other mainstream tech news site. Where do you fall? Survey time!

Mike Temporale
12-14-2004, 08:22 PM
Congratulations. Getting mentioned in the WSJ is pretty impressive. 8)

In regards to enthusiast sites, I love them. For the most part, I don't make a purchase without checking around to see what experiences others have had.

Jerry Raia
12-15-2004, 12:55 AM
I think it would be foolish not to check sites like this one first.

TANKERx
12-15-2004, 01:33 AM
I think that tech-enthusiast sites which are enthusiastic about the technology and not a specific brand are more reliable. This site (Smartphone Thoughts) isn't so bad, but if an unsuspecting person were to find themselves in some ranting lunatic's site (not mentioning any names... coughcoughmsmobilescoughcough) they could find themselves either lumbered with something that they don't really want, or put off something that could be really useful.

Neutral/cross-platform sites are the best for shoppers though, in my opinion.

nikjones
12-15-2004, 11:35 PM
I agree with TankerX that "neutral" sites are best but it seems that if you want an in-depth review of a device you generally need to visit a "partisan" site. Random example - if I wanted a review of the Zodiac, would I find one on a non-Palm site?

I find "general mainstream media" sites completely useless - no depth at all.

Nik