If you are familiar with the Christian animated series Veggie Tales, you may have seen their film “The Rumor Weed.” Back in my younger days, and my religious ones for that matter, the episode had quite the impact on me. Rumors are bad! They cause hurt feelings!
Funny that that would lead to my current profession, where dealing in rumors is par for the course, a daily occurrence, and one of the most important things that is done [as an aside, you can see that show on YouTube here].
In case you ever wanted to see childrens religious cartoons crossed with technology blogging, this is your lucky day. Veggies Tales had this to say about rumors:
I’m a rumor weed – he’s a rumor weed
I’m a rumor weed – he’s a rumor weed
A tiny little story is all I need
To make a big mess – he’s a rumor weed
So what is a rumor?
It starts as a story
Maybe it’s true, maybe not
But once you repeat it
It’s hard to defeat it
How familiar does that sound? Take that and apply to the great big rumor of the week: the no kaput supposed purchase of Mashable by AOL. There was a rumor, then a rumble, then we all started talking about it. Once one of two major names starts to say something, and we all begin the lovely circle-jerk of blogging: repeating what we heard, and adding in our two cents.
All of a sudden the rumor is taken for granted, and we just analyze the potential impacts. How does this fit into what AOL is planning on doing? Will this tinker with Mashable employee compensation? Will Mashable be able to stay editorially independent? Hasn’t AOL done well with Engadget? And on. And on. And on.
Then, the best part, from Pete Cashmore: “We don’t comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts.” Which says: nothing at all, other than that Pete was annoyed by people rumoring that his employees were paid in “Twitter followers and air.”
Not to let my friends off the hook (how could I be a contrarian and not do so) Ben Parr (the other big wig at Mashable) weighed in saying: I’m on a plane at the moment, but I do not comment on speculation or rumors. That’s all I have to say on the matter.” At least Ben had a sense of humor, then saying: “I’m going to be one of the most popular people at CES now, lol.”
So, there was a great rumor: one of the most ascendant tech blogs might be going “main stream.” We all were curious, and that is what fuels a rumor like this. So we talked, and discussed, and chatted, texted, tweeted, and blogged about it. A lot of time and thought went into all of that.
Then, as it turns out, nothing happened. Pete, much later in tech blogging time, came around to say: no, not happening. Why the lag? That is my point for the day, if you have the information, and the rumor has no merit, and you really stand nothing to gain from letting the rumor go, please kill it. Save us all the time.
Not that I am innocent in such things. I have been behind more than one rumor that I cannot publicly admit to; we all have been. But the state of blogging is so “real time” [yes, please vomit, I used the term], that news spreads like syphilis at an orgy. If two of the top players do it, we all have to, or our readers feel like we are slacking at the keyboard [not sleeping, that concept went out like the buggy whip].
So if you do have the damn data, put it out there. All we needed was one two letter tweet from @mashable: no. There, all done. No wait, no lag, nothing. Done.
Of course, some people want to use rumors. Apple does all the time. Hell, there is a cottage industry around just creating, stealing, and maybe actually hearing Apple rumors. But really, we could do with less of it in general. So the next time your shit explodes in a rumor stank get off your ass and put an end to it.
As a final note, nothing against Mashable. They were doing what we all have done. They just happened to be a convenient example that is still fresh in mind. I could have used anyone. They have a thick skin, so before you whine to me about abusing them, don’t.
Thanks. tl;dr