Tag Archives | The Wall Street Journal

Mossberg’s Twentieth

Walt Mossberg has been writing his Wall Street Journal column for two decades (!). He’s celebrating the landmark with a look back, including links to some historic columns–such as the first one.

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Google TV: The Critics Are Being…Critical

The Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg and The New York Times‘ David Pogue are often among the first tech writers to review major new products. In the case of Google TV, however, they took a bit more time. Both wrote about the platform for their columns this week (here’s Walt’s story and here’s David’s), a few weeks after the first reviews. (such as mine) appeared. Neither of them is impressed–they have overlapping-but-not-identical lists of usability gripes, and come to the conclusion, as I did, that it’s just not ready for prime time.

At this point, I think it’s fair to say that Google TV, as represented by the first products that incorporate it–Logitech’s Revue and Sony’s TV and Blu-Ray player–is a critical dud. (I got a advertising e-mail from Logitech that optimistically referred to happy critics writing positive reviews, but it linked only to Oliver Starr’s review at TechCrunch, which is the most favorable one I’ve seen.)

I’m curious how well the Logitech and Sony products will sell this Christmas, especially since they compete with much cheaper options, such as the Roku players which start at $59.99. Also unknown: Is Google going to stick with Google TV for the long haul, or will it turn out to be a Wave-like fling? I hope that the company sticks with the idea and improves it–for one thing, I think the people who buy Google TV devices this year are getting an alpha product and deserve to get a more polished update. For another, I still think the idea has plenty of potential–a Google TV with fewer bugs and kludgy design decisions and a more harmonious relationship with Hollywood could be a winner.

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Mossberg on iPad E-Reading

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg prefers to do his e-reading on an iPad. (So do I, most of the time.) And he’s reviewed iPad e-readers: Apples iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

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Steve Jobs at D: The Headlines

I wasn’t in the audience for Steve Jobs’ appearance at the Wall Street Journal’s D conference this evening. I wasn’t even following along at home–I was having fun being part of a panel on social media for business in Palo Alto. So once my panel and subsequent hobnobbing were over, I hopped online to see what Jobs had to say–and even more than usual, the headlines on Techmeme neatly summarized the news.

You could read all these stories, but even if you didn’t, you’d get the gist of the Jobs interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher:

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