Tech-snark Anyone?

I have been spending way too much time reading about gizmodogate.  So I decided to just stay up late last night to figure out what is really going on.. And it is all centered about Gawker Media, which has it's own share of gossip lately.  The advertising page stated "audience engagement borne out of the candor" and that about sums it up. I already receive daily RSS feeds for Valleywag and Lifehacker, but I realized only Lifehacker was one of the sites on my personal review team. Valleywag is one of my go-to sites for Silicon Valley tech gossip..I wondered if I should recommend any of the other Gawker sites to my readers, which are mostly parents.

Good old mainstream media seemed to give me the answers I was looking for..This morning's New York Times article titled "Has Gawker Jumped The Snark?" discussed the owner of Gawker (Nick Denton) and all the current changes taking place currently in the organization. Gawker does deliver "a daily dose of gossip and commentary" but should readers look to their blogs for reviews or insight for technology gadgets?

Let's just use Gizmodo's view of CES and digital frames from their post titled "Ten Reasons We're Doomed: CES Edition" to understand the insight they provide:

• On Digital Frames:  "Digital picture frames are the worst gadget out there, tacky garbage that I can't imagine anyone would ever buy."
• On the stuff from the show:  "Half the stuff at this show is utter junk, created by money-obsessed vultures who would kick their own mothers in the teeth to figure out a way to trick consumers into paying a 5000% markup on something that nobody wants."

I can say that their view is snarky - so if a reader is looking for snarky candor, then Gizmodo delivers. I do happen to agree with their points on booth babes and some booths being gimmicky.  But does the post provide useful information on the gadgets?  Having the candor to say something is the "worst gadget" out there is quite entertaining, but tell me - what are the alternatives? Any suggestions for other gadgets instead? For families with multiple kids and tons of pictures - should they just sit down and scrapbook? Should they try to print all the pictures and spend hours stuffing them into frames instead of just sticking a memory card in a Digital Frame and have multiple pictures displayed?

So, while I will happily keep Lifehacker on my personal review team and Valleywag as the go to tech gossip site, Gizmodo is not making the list for my personal review team until they add some valuable insight, candor aside.

For more links on this topic, click over to Techmeme.