When the poll started, the WSJ listed the Microsoft Zune Media Player and the Apple iPhone among the eight options on the poll.  Missing was the Apple iPod.  Later, after reader demands and write-ins, the WSJ changed iPhone to iPhone or iPod. 

The iPhone or iPod turned out to be the big winner of the poll grabbing 62% of the vote but the real story for me is that the voting for the Microsoft Zune, according to the Journal, surged from less than 1% for most of the polling to 28% at the end!

In Daniel’s blog entry he reports that with 123,000 votes in, the Microsoft Zune had registered 0% interest.  Inexplicably, a day later, 14,999 out of 16,481 new votes came in for the Zune!  Daniel attributes this to “Microsoft discovering the embarrassment”.

This sheds some new light on how mighty the Microsoft PR machine is and how swiftly it springs into action.  Sadly, it also makes me more skeptical of online poll results and unregistered public voting in general.

Click on the links above to visit Daniel’s entry and the WSJ story.

OK, maybe they are not dead, but having them online-only or folded into another publication isn?t the same for me and many others I suspect. It was nice to have them in a portable magazine format to take along to the beach or on the train. In that format, they were two of a handful of magazines I read on regular basis. On the web, it?ll be hard for me to give them adequate attention or incorporate them into my regular must-read websites.

They will be missed!