I used to like The Register. They used to be smart and witty and treated their audience like they were smart and witty too. But there have been a a couple of things recently that apart from displaying unusual amounts of bandwagondry seem to be written by people showing very little in the way of clue.

The frighteningly titled “Blog star ‘fesses up to payola spam scam” piece which attacked Matt Mullenweg and Jonas Luster, for example. I think their responses to the piece were much calmer than mine would have been in that situation, so hats off to them.

… horrible piece on the Register that not only got things wrong, but tried to mix my day job in with it in what I can only imagine is an attempt to cause me trouble there.Matt Mullenweg

Dear visitors from the Reg. I?d have a few choice words to say to Andrew Orlowski, but unfortunately he won?t talk to me, and hasn?t tried to before he posted his factually more than questionable piece. ?His partner in the spam caper was in denial today, and pleaded exhaustion.? he writes. Which goes to show a lot about Mr. Orlowski?s style of journalism, and his credibility in general.Jonas Luster

And all this only two weeks after they accused bloggers of Invading SXSW Music Fest - like this was the first year SXSWi had happened - or that there was the remotest possibility that it wouldn’t happen again! Personally I find the idea that “one blogger is plenty to describe the idea of an online journal” as ludicrous as suggesting that one musician is sufficient to describe the idea of music. I doubt that any of Mozart, Meatloaf, Eminem and Mariah Carey would give even remotely similar answers.