Why Did Microsoft Do a Gizmodo Interview?
Frank X. Shaw says Microsoft did a Gizmodo interview in the early 2000s because a big part of communications is finding where people get information and who they treat as authoritative. He calls the booking wildly maverick. Everyone was nervous, the interview still reached an audience Microsoft cared about, and other people read an online-only conversation as a sign of where media was headed.
Blogs had taken off. Microsoft hired Robert Scoble and launched Channel 9 as a direct way to explain itself to the world. Established media still needed attention, and new outlets were coming online too. Shaw remembers the Gizmodo interview at CES or Comdex. The nerves had several layers: Gizmodo ran on Linux, and it had a sister site doing other things. After the interview, people asked what it meant for the future of media, because the conversation had gone to an online-only publication. Shaw says each shift brings a learning period. A team used to the New York Times has a different experience with Gizmodo: different questions, different timing, and a different way of putting the story out. Preparing spokespeople and executives has to match the format, the same way a 60-minute interview and Parade magazine already demand different prep inside established media. The audience, the avenue, and what the audience is looking for all change the work.
