NY Times writes about Virtual Goods and misses the entire industry

The NY Times did a piece on virtual goods, only it's actually just another damn piece about Second Life. I posted before about why Second Life gets so much coverage, but this is really going far past that point. This is a piece focused on the buying and selling of virtual items, yet there is no mention of Maplestory, Habbo, or even Facebook and Hot or Not. For the press to remain ignorant of this being an industry and not simply a single product is now journalistic irresponsibility and they should be ashamed.

This is a member of the mainstream press that has not even managed to type "virtual goods" into Google. If they did, they would see the first three stories currently point to:

1) Sony getting into the game.
2) Susan Wu's article on Techcrunch about Virtual Goods being the next big business model for the web.
3) A link to the friggin' Virtual Goods conference, which would have mentioned all the above companies and many more.

Instead we get a completely miopic puff piece about one person selling crap on Second Life. No context of how this might effect the reader as they navigate their digital lives. No background on the history of virtual transactions, their popularity in Asia, or the fact that the #2 prepaid content card in Target behind iTunes is the Nexon card. Not even a brief mention of the RMT market, despite the fact that there was piece on it in the (much better quality) NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago.

This is not a love affair with Second Life, this is journalism that is abdicating its responsibility to inform the public. This is the same as talking about the future of Blackberry's stock and neglecting to mention the iPhone or Google Phone. Or talking about the social networking phenomena and only focusing on one teenager on MySpace without even hinting that their might be an entire industry of competitors. Just to be clear, this was an article in the New York Times Business section.

This is lazyness that borders on a lie.

[Note: The original title of this article was, "Idiots at NY Times write about virtual goods and miss the entire industry." After calming down a bit I felt that the use of idiots warranted a personal attack, which wasn't really my intent. I have left the rest of the article exactly as it was, as I think it accurately captures how viscerally I feel about this issue.]

Comments

[Giff Constable]

I think there are lots of reasons to be frustrated by the article, but I am bit puzzled by the post. Was it billed as an article on the larger virtual goods space? I mean, you're right that would have made for a better article -- but this wasn't a piece on virtual goods but instead a focus on materialist psychology in Second Life.

It wasn't an article on the Blackberry that neglected to mention iPhone -- a closer analogy would be an anecdotal story about different road warriors using their blackberry to obsess about the office and make their significant others hate them for being buried in a gadget.

From what I can tell many in the Second Life community are not too keen on the article either. However, they are getting used to superficial coverage.

So while jaded-ole-me is saying that you were expecting too much from the NYTimes and this article, I will also say that I think the article would have been improved by exactly what you were hoping to see.

[Giff Constable]

heh just to follow up once more - here's mark wallace's comment about the article.

http://www.3pointd.com/20070908/ny-times-on-second-life-economics-and-utility/

I feel numbed by months of reading superficial, pre-determined agenda-driven journalism covering Second Life. There is the occasional rational, balanced, well researched piece but it is the exception not the rule.

[Nabeel Hyatt]

Maybe it was just a little cracking point for me Giff. But for a headline that is, "Even in a Virtual World, ‘Stuff’ Matters" I expect a basic sense of journalistic perspective.

The story was an interesting personal story, which is all the more reason why I am pissed. This was clearly not a hack journalist, just someone who's editor failed to remind her of her duty to readers.

I'm watching a 60 minutes piece about the company Geek Squad, and of course they start by mentioning the overall technology landscape that led to the need for Geek Squad, as well as some competitors. That's what journalists are supposed to do, provide perspective.

[Giff Constable]

Yes I don't disagree, but again, there's a lot of editors out there right now for whom fact finding, perspective, and objective journalism appear to be anachronistic concepts. Sad.

[Michael Abbott]

Well said, and thanks for saying it. You may be interested in my most recent blog post (apologies for the self-promotion) in which I quote you on journalistic irresponsibility. Sadly, it's nothing new...but that doesn't mean we have to accept it.

Michael
http://www.brainygamer.com