Critical Mass: Everyone listens to Walter Mossberg

This was a really interesting article. It is pretty amazing to think that just writing reviews of everyday products can make someone so much money. Mossberg does a great job of writing specifically what people want to know from the standpoint of a middle ground critic for the masses. He does not go overload on the technical aspects and really focuses on how the average person would experience the product. I can see why people read his column, I even went and found a few of his previous articles and read them. He has a certain way of making you just trust his opinion on things. With the way the world is currently evolving in the realm of technology it is really useful to have someone like Walter to reviews the products, it is impossible to sift through all of the personal blogs to form an accurate picture of a product, and it is incredibly time consuming to try out every single product on display to the fullest potential before you make your choice. Today, new technology is coming out every day, and while it may look flashy or market to be the “technology of the future” sometimes even the most well planned products still fall extremely short of the general consumer’s expectations.

            I really liked the example that Ken Auletta provided with Mossberg analyzing the new Samsung phone and how he really bases much of his critique off of comparison with other similar products and the general thoughts that any consumer will have the moment they lay their hands on the device and find out any specs about it. I feel like if I was a product designer I would attempt to get him to look at every prototype before launching to fix all of the major points that he addresses in his critique, not only for a better review but for a better selling product. If we just consider the phone world right now, it is ridiculous how many phones are put out a year. When you go to a company store, there are 30-60 phones available at one time for a customer to buy. Some of these variations are needed especially those in prices but there are just so many options and so many of them don’t even look appealing let alone have any basis for easy and useful functions that it is surprising to me that a company would ever even attempt to distribute the product.

            I have come to have a very strong appreciation of writers that do review articles, interview articles, and critiques. While the author’s voice is clearly there, they do such an amazing job focusing on providing the reader with information that everything reads smoothly and you get exactly what you want out of the piece. When I read this article about Walter Mossberg, I almost forgot to focus on the author’s style and what exactly they were doing with their writing; I was caught up in the information I was receiving.