The Most Powerful Man in Technology Journalism

prostoalex writes "The Wired magazine takes a look at Walt Mossberg, technology columnist for Wall Street Journal Personal Technology section. The magazine quotes some of the technology advances and fixes, for which we should be thankful to Walt Mossberg: 'RealNetworks overhauled its RealJukebox player. Intuit revamped TurboTax. Mossberg even forced Microsoft to scrap Smart Tags, which would have hijacked millions of Web sites by inserting unwanted links to advertisers' sites. Few reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry's successes and failures.'"

Jobs is going to be pissed.

[DAldredge]

Someone is using Steve Jobs RDF and he is going to be pissed!

Waaaah?

[Anonymous Coward]

CmdrTaco isn't the most powerful man in technology journalism?

Impossible!

[klasikahl]

RMS is clearly the most important voice in technology. Duh!

Wow....

[Dingeaux]

...Jon Katz is going to be pissed too...at least until his next book arrives....

Make it so...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Few reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry's successes and failures.'"

Now all we need him to say is that Linux is ready for the desktop, and we are so there.

Re:It's not just what he says, but where he says i

[DAldredge]

One reviewer doesn't have that power. The real movers and shakers in the stock market, the instutional investors, don't read the tech review section of the WSJ. They use insider info. :->

Excuse the spelling.

Re:It's not just what he says, but where he says i

[sirsnork]

Or when he gets Real to link to their free player from their front page :-)

Re:as powerful as mossberg may be...

[catbutt]

what this really tells me is that anyone who is fortunate to write for the WSJ

Yes, fortunate....in fact WSJ picks its journalists via a lottery, and he just happened to win.

Re:Wow....

[JPriest]

He still posts articles here regularly, but nobody ever gets to seem them because they all have him filtered. It was worth my time to read his posts just to read all the +5 insightful comments slamming him. That man was Slashdot's verbal piñata.

Re:It's not just what he says, but where he says i

[Deraj DeZine]

I'm sure that Mossberg could quickly and efficiently change the RIAA's stance on piracy.

Or blow it out the back of their head and onto the wall behind them. I mean, whichever's faster.

"This here? It's a twelve gauge Mossberg, kid. Two shots, you can wet, like, half a block"

Courtesy of one of their slaves (I meant "artist," of course).

And I thought that title

[Anonymous Coward]

Belonged to Cowboy Neal!

Agreed, Walt makes last months obvious calls

[Ars-Fartsica]

Walt's column could be in Good Housekeeping. Maybe back in the day, reviewing gadgets on a regular basis was novel, but today Walt is indistinguishable from the crowd of gadget reviewers. The Wired article was a puff piece that vastly overstated his impact (sensationalism from Wired? I'm shocked!)

PBS

[pipingguy]

Boy, I bet Cringely is pissed.

Walt makes Jerry Pournelle ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... look like a genius.

Re:Waaaah?

[baywulf]

Look at CmdrTaco's contribution to this posting:

"prostoalex writes"

That is the extent of what he wrote.

Oh yeah?!?

[rtilghman]

Well I've got that beat.

This morning I woke up, ordered the sun to rise, and it rose high into the sky. The only possible conclusion is that I am the most powerful man in the world.

Point, game, match.

-rt

Re:Hey Walt - say hi if you read Slashdot

[Walt Mossberg]

Hello! Of course I read Slashdot!

Where else do you think I get all of my information? If I was not required to cite sources to my bosses, I would not go anywhere else.

Most powerful man in technology journalism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cowboyneal!

Re:Hey Walt - say hi if you read Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Walt! Is it really you? Say something only you and I would know - Bill from 6th grade?

Remember that day we skipped school, down by the railroad tracks I showed you those panties and you were sniffing them? I said I got them from Zelda Pierceton and that I popped her cherry. They were really my sisters. I just pulled them off the dirty laundry pile. I just wanted you to think I was cool.

Re:Impossible!

[Curtman]

Screw that.. We all know Al Gore invented the internet. Where would we be without him?

Re:Waaaah?

[WIAKywbfatw]

CmdrTaco isn't even the most powerful taco in technology journalism.

Re:as powerful as mossberg may be...

[wagemonkey]

So maybe one day the dream of collabroatively

(sic)-filtered journalism will come true, and then only the ideas, and not the people who have them, will count.

You mean like /. ?

Well, maybe if everyone posted as AC...

Re:as powerful as mossberg may be...

[gilgongo]

Hey yeah!

I just never noticed because all my posts gets modded down :-)