Last Tuesday — 24 hours before Apple announced the iPad — Jason Calacanis tweeted as if he had one, complete with fake stats:
- “Does Jason Calacanis really have an Apple Tablet? What do you think of his specs? : http://(link to Jason’s company: mahalo)”
- “Also, the apple tablet is really amazing for newspapers. Video conferencing is super stable, but nothing new.”
- “Yes, there are 2cameras: one in front and one in back (or it may be one with some double lens) so you record yourself and in front of u.”
- “Off to bed, but I assure you I’m not joking and the specs are real…. Most of all that this is best gadget ever made and NOT overhyped.”
Pay special attention to the last tweet and realize that each one is a lie. Not all of his 90,000+ followers realized this, however, and his tweets were picked up by The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch. Why would a person intentionally deceive his readers?
Because Jason’s purpose is to promote Jason, and in his mind the ends always justify the means. For example, he posted a rambling, anti-Apple rant a few months ago that was designed to draw outraged reaction from readers (I’m ashamed to say that I bit). Thoughtful debate was not Jason’s intention with that piece — he simply wanted the unique visitors and pageviews.
There are two lessons here for all bloggers. First, never lie to your readers. Ever. Stunts like this destroy the credibility that we bloggers work so hard for. At this point there’s no chance that I’ll listen to anything that Jason says. Don’t prompt your readers to ignore you.
The second lesson is even more important, and the root of Jason’s problem. Don’t write to Digg or Stumbleupon or Facebook or any of the others. Write because you have something valuable to say. The moment you think, “Ooh, writing about [topic x] will get me lots of links!”, stop. You’re about to sink to the bottom of the blogosphere where you’ll do something stupid like this just to boost your stats, which you’ll regret almost instantly.
