

'Sparrow for Windows' was never an official Sparrow client, not weeks away - robbiet480
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/21/3174803/sparrow-for-windows-never-existed

======
benologist
The saddest part about the verge writing this summary garbage is that they
wrote it for HN _and_ it got upvotes.

Hopefully the digg revival works so all these spammy little rags don't have
time for HN.

~~~
andrewfelix
What's 'garbage' about the Verge write-up? They've spoken to a source close to
Dom Leca and given a no nonsense summary.

Also what's 'spammy' about The Verge? From what I've read they've got some
great writers who typically write thorough and reasonably well researched
articles.

~~~
benologist
I'd probably start with "their entire business model is spammy" - they're a
reskin of Engadget, the blog that pioneered The AOL Way whereby "journalists"
and "writers" earn their pennies by taking someone else's story and doing
their best to make sure they take all the value and traffic for it.

Their source for this story was most likely an intern they pay to stare at HN,
Reddit, etc looking for bandwagons to jump on - that's why they offer no
unique news that wasn't lifted from the blog post they summarize except for
their mystery person who adds some panache by suggesting it was never official
when right or wrong it doesn't really matter but if they're lucky the parties
involved will take the bait and write more blog posts The Verge can summarize
too.

~~~
andrewfelix
I respect your opinion. But that sounds a lot like conjecture. Ellis Hamburger
is an employee of Verge with decent credentials. The article we're discussing
also looks like an original with their own source.

I'm genuinely interested to see some examples of 'spammy' write-ups from The
Verge. My understanding was Josh Topolsky started The Verge for the very
reason that Engadget was becoming what you're describing; ie. No original
write-ups and short summaries by freelance writers.

~~~
benologist
Of course it's conjecture - there's no way to prove they didn't spot a
trending topic and start firing up the content factory to capitalize on it by
already churning out _five_ articles on Google acquiring Sparrow.

Here's a cute example of how high quality they are - they copied a paragraph
from the email sent out to Sparrow users and describe it as:

> We've just heard from Sparrow, and Dom Leca notably mentioned that the
> current Sparrow apps will receive no new features

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-
sparro...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparrow-
mail/in/2936538)

