06 Jun 09 Leo Laporte, my new idol
What happens when egos get in the way of a productive conversation? This (watch video on YouTube): Mike Arrington had the balls to accuse Leo Laporte of being biased in his opinion of the new Palm Pre smartphone because Leo had a free trial unit and hadn’t paid for it, even though he was only going to have it for 7 days. Leo wasn’t going to take his shit and fired back at him. I’m a fairly new Leo Laporte fan but my guess is that they’ve had some run-ins in the past….the way the conversation/situation quickly exploded seemed to indicate there’s some backstory that I don’t know about. Check out the video at the YouTube link above….awesome.
I’ve always been skeptical about the reliability of product reviews by people whose livelihoods depend on the paid sponsors of their programs or publications but Leo isn’t getting paid to talk about how much he likes the Pre. This is in contrast to something like Kim Komando talking about how awesome Carbonite’s online backup service is during her show and then having a Carbonite commercial play during her breaks. Total crap….but this isn’t at all what Leo was doing with the Pre.
I first heard of Leo Laporte a few weeks ago when I happened to catch one of his terrestrial radio broadcasts that’s syndicated by a local station. Since then I’ve been listening to his podcasts from TWiT; the first I downloaded was with Dan Bricklin, the inventor of Visicalc as well as John C Dvorak (another of my idols). If you’ve never listened to TWiT, I’d recommend subscribing (www.twit.tv) or at least checking out his site for tons of good, unbiased info and industry news. I’ve worked in tech for almost 7 years but somehow completely missed TechTV and his previous shows.
Prior to stumbling across Leo Laporte’s broadcast I had previously thought that Kim Kommando Radio Program was the only significant syndicated tech-related show on terrestrial radio. I’m one of those people that absolutely can’t stand her show….thank god there’s Leo Laporte and his many guests to keep me informed of what’s going on in the industry.
Tags: Leo Laporte
