blackrimglasses

Here is what is wrong with tech journalism: there were quite a few articles written today about this:

WebWare: “Social-networking savant Flock has announced a re-branded version of its browser aimed at fashionistas. At the very least, it’s aimed at people who like the color pink and lipstick marks on their advertising. Called Gloss, it’s a pink-and-purple themed edition of Flock 1.2 that comes with fashion-related feeds and bookmarks pre-loaded.”

ZDNET: “It’s actually a pretty clever strategy by Flock: Build customized versions of the company’s social browser, populated with vertically-targeted content from an array of partners — and in return expose Flock to those sites’ communities.”

The Next Web: “Allen Stern over at Center Networks writes about the launch of Gloss, a custom edition of the Flock social web browser. The customized editions comes with pink flavors, a new set of badges with lipstick on them, and custom pre-filled content mainly around the topic of entertainment, gossip, celebrities and fashion.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Flock Gloss is targeted primarily at women. Launch partners include Glam Media, Glamour, The Budget Fashionista, TMZ, Cosmo, DesignerApparel, PopSugar, iVillage and others.”

and Center Networks: “Social browser Flock has announced the launch of a new, customized version of their browser today. The new version is named Gloss and brings together Flock’s browser technology with fashion and entertainment content from over 35 sources. Glam Media, who yesterday announced the launch of their platform, is one of the launch partners. Other content providers include: Glamour, The Budget Fashionista, TMZ, Cosmo, DesignerApparel, PopSugar and others.”

[From Gloss: Flock goes fashionable | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET]

In no article does anyone mention the following:

1) This idea is fundamentally stupid

2) Flock is a bloated, content-poor/feature overloaded piece of software. I was a booster originally too.

3) It’s an “also ran” and counter to the thin-client mentality that is so popular now with the cool kids (ie, cloud computing, the Fluid.app, etc)

4) There is no real editorial in any article. Four stories and all say the same shit! Where is the opinion? The discussion on the relevancy of this content? Why is it enough to rehash the same stuff without adding anything to discourse? Is it enough to just take up words on screen and throw a party now? Oh I have a lot to say about the Mashable party certainly.

The failure of the blogosphere is this:

Repetition without discourse.

Please fix this. Thanks.