Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR, a public relations firm based in Las Vegas. He's best known to me as the most entertaining critic when it comes to technology, particularly Silicon Valley technology companies. His newsletter, Where's Your Ed At, and podcast, Better Offline, are both worth subscribing to.

He made 2 memorable podcast appearances this week. The first was as a replacement for Leo Laporte, who is on holidays, on This Week in Google on the TWiT podcast network. The second was as a guest on the Tech Won't Save Us podcast hosted by Paris Marx.

Ed can be too caustic for some people. He can be insulting about people he doesn't like and is more confrontational when products don't meet the hype. There is a danger in this approach that you can be too dismissive of new technology that is not ready for prime time. However, he seems to be right about cryptocurrencies and the metaverse at this point in time. I'm not sure he's wrong about AI yet.

One of the topics covered included an interesting story from The Information about Amazon and Google trying to quietly bring down expectations on generative AI.

I didn't know of Jeff Jarvis until I started listening to This Week in Google. He can be quite strident in his opinions but he provides a valuable perspective when it comes to technology policy and regulation.

I came across an interview he had with Andrew Keen on the Keen On podcast back in May. They go on a tour through Jarvis' history on the internet starting with blogging and moving onto social media.

The story of Jeff walking up from the subway in New York after the first plane hit the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 was harrowing.

This is around the time that he started blogging. Listening to his description of the importance of blogging in his life, it became easier to see why he's such a staunch defender of allowing people access to new technology.

There are times when I feel he's too dismissive of potential downsides of a new technology. In his defence, there are many examples of moral panics in the past that have turned out to be overblown.

I lean more towards Andrew Keen's side when it comes to the tech industry. I think that the uncritical coverage of the tech industry has been a major problem but I am more aware of the potential downsides of inaccurate regulations can have. When I hear of a negative news report about the technology industry, I stop and say "What would Jeff say about this?".

A useful anecdote is Jeff talking about seeing some of his old newspaper colleagues and how they are surviving in an industry that is shrinking, if not dying. He recounts how he was told he was crazy to leave his job as a columnist with the San Francisco Examiner. Sometimes taking the risk to move to a more uncertain field like the internet was at the time is the right thing to do.