Alfresco's PR firm just emailed me to say that I had been quoted in a BusinessWeek article, which surprised me, since I didn't talk to anyone at BusinessWeek about Microsoft's patent BUD (Bogus Uncertainty and Doubt). Neither did Larry Augustin. Or Mary Jo Foley. Or Robert Scoble. Yet we're all quoted. It's an interesting statement on the relevance of bloggers to the traditional media world. Aaron Ricadela, who Alfresco’s PR firm just emailed me to say that I had been quoted in a BusinessWeek article, which surprised me, since I didn’t talk to anyone at BusinessWeek about Microsoft’s patent BUD (Bogus Uncertainty and Doubt). Neither did Larry Augustin. Or Mary Jo Foley. Or Robert Scoble. Yet we’re all quoted. It’s an interesting statement on the relevance of bloggers to the traditional media world. Aaron Ricadela, who wrote the BusinessWeek article, could have called each of us to ask our opinions. But Aaron didn’t. Instead, he just scoured the blogosphere for commentary. Efficient. All of which makes me wonder when I’m going to start making money on this blogging thing. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story today [Subscription required] on how studios and TV networks are offering freebies to bloggers in order to get bloggers to post positive things about their products.Who says you can’t buy love? Trying to tap into the burgeoning power of blogs as promotional tools and fed up with the jaded attitudes of professional critics and TV feature writers, studios and networks are flooding bloggers with free stuff in hopes the flattered recipients will reward them with positive coverage. Flowing into the trough is everything from fancy gym bags and toasters to video iPods and free trips. Some networks — in the spotlight this week as they unveil their fall schedules to advertisers — have even borrowed a term from the technology industry to describe the strategy: blogola.The problem with covering open source software is that I get free stuff all the time…but it just so happens to be software. MySQL gives me its database software for free. Novell gives me SUSE for free. Loopfuse, too. Of course, they give it to everyone for free. So, everyone gets ‘blogola’ in open source land. Which makes my blogola not very special at all. 🙂 Open Source