New Media Bytes | Online journalism, web production and promotion

Thanks for visiting New Media Bytes. If you like what you see, subscribe to my RSS feed.

Yowsa! MNSBC is getting some heat from the search marketing/optimizing side of the web after posting an BusinessWeek article that blasts RSS feeds, blogs, SEO, spam filters, AdWords and other business web services.

The article is meant to argue why web technologies don’t help businesses (I think), but the writer is so insulting and misinformed, I wondered if it was a joke myself.

Here’s a couple of the statements in the MSNBC article so you get the idea of how misleading and poorly researched the report is:

“Still don’t know what RSS stands for? Trust me, it’s just not that important.”

“In the end, it’s cheaper for your employees to just sort and delete spam as it comes in.”

“SEO probably does the job for companies with oodles of money, but not for the typical small business.”

“Online videos are great — if you’ve got the budget of Time Warner”

I won’t even begin debunking any of these bend-over upchuck statements. Josh Garner at SEO-Factor already did it! Here’s what I wish someone at MSNBC/Businessweek said when approving this article:

You also seem to be in a position to educate people through your articles on MSNBC. These people are looking to you, Gene (can I call you Gene?) for help and understanding in areas that you so obviously don’t have a grasp on. … This is extremely irresponsible, Gene, and your causing more problems than anything else.

Readers at Sphinn, a Digg clone for internet marketers, roasted the article a little more. Here’s one comment:

“It’s unbelievable how people with little knowledge (and the unwillingness to learn) can post such bold statements as the original writer from MSNBC has done. “

Sound like good reader feedback to you? While negative feedback is a part of the journalism world, it should be listened to when warranted, such as in this case.

Online and offline publications need experts on staff who can help guide writers to do more digging before articles that make the publication look like a bunch of dim-wits hit the web. I don’t fault MSNBC, this could happen anywhere. But it is a little scary to think that if this type of story about web technologies can boldly be so wrong, what other types of stories are publications getting wrong without apologies.