Like you, the NYT headline caught my eye last week "Online Sales Lose Steam!" What could it mean? Recession? The resurrection of the brick and mortar? The mom and pop? Bookstores? Record stores? Dubious, I bookmarked it - but before I could issue a takedown, Slate.com beat me to it.While Jack Shafer gives the story the rod from a journalistic perspective, I'll issue my one and only piling-on: which is my general dismay at the way both market researchers and consultancies (like Jupiter, the issuer of the data) and the NYT are able to take the data-rich markets and behaviors of the web and gin up sensationalist stories that don't really add up to much. Do I have lots of evidence of this happening? No, not right now. Does it irk me, nonetheless? Yes.
