Thursday, February 4, 2010

NYT's David Pogue Removes His "Pogue's Favorites" List From Twitter -- Including The One Where A Girl Gushed, "OMG You're Adorable!"


NYT technology columnist David Pogue removed his "favorite" tweets from his popular Twitter feed yesterday -- shortly after a social media analysis website posted a story about how easy it was for Twitter users to read the self-selected "favorites' marked by celebrity twitterers.

Martin Bryant, a British blogger posting on a site called The Next Web (at www.thenextweb.com), noted in the February 3 article, "Favorite Tweets Reveal Self-Obsessed Celebrities," that top twitterers like Paris Hilton, Alyssa Milano and Pogue -- who currently has more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter -- tend to mark as "favorites" tweets that concern themselves.

Case in point, this Paris Hilton tweet:

Who needs church when you have @parishilton she’s proof enough that there is a god, who else could make such an angel“.

Similarly, Pogue had apparently marked as "favorites" tweets of twitterers sweet on him. An example offered by Bryant of a Pogue-marked fave:

@Pogue May I gush? OMG, you’re adorable! I thought so at Macworld a million years ago, I think so now!!

But Bryant reported, in an update, that shortly after he posted his story, Pogue removed his "favorites" from his Twitter page -- though they were saved in a "cache" file, as pictured above. "It was current when I wrote and published the post" yesterday, Bryant confirmed to The NYTPicker.

We've asked Pogue for a comment on the sudden change to his Twitter page.

It seems an odd move for a writer so closely associated with Twitter and its manifold charms. Last September, Pogue published a book called "The World According To Twitter" that collected great tweets from the site.

Why so shy all of a sudden, David? Don't make your admirers comb through your Twitter archives for the evidence of your charms. We like it when you wear your vanity on your sleeve. And we think you're adorable, too.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

As an outsider who just happened upon this site recently, It's quite obvious that the Nytpicker has some serious obsession with David Pough.

It's a pity because the rest of this site is pretty darn interesting and damning for the NYT.

Anonymous said...

I say more Pogue! He's the epitome of the new multimedia New York Times and the perfect target. Plus he's a cartonish buffoon. I can see why NYTPicker loves him. Though I would agree that the other stories here cut deeper.

Anonymous said...

Snarky, not analytical

Anonymous said...

Hyper-inflated ego,not judicious.

David D. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David D. said...

I think it is easy to figure out why the NYTPicker is obsessed with David Pogue, to the point where they would actually do a story about a freelance Times' contributor's Twitter feed on a site that "devotes itself exclusively to the goings-on inside the New York Times -- the newspaper and the institution itself." Does the Twitter feed of a freelancer fall under that banner? Especially when there aren't even any tweets material to the NYT involved?

Of course not. But I am sure trashing Pogue does wonders for their Google ratings and hits on the site. Hell, that is how I found this blog. So I would imagine these non-stories about Pogue will continue, regardless of how thin the premise of the post may be.

Besides, the NYTPicker's hatred of Pogue is a little bit adorable. In that scrappy, Internet-Hate sort of way.

Anonymous said...

Jeez, Blum, I am beginning to think you've got a man-crush on Pogue. What's up with that?