Influential tech critic Walt Mossberg writes last column for WSJ

Influential technology critic Walt Mossberg has written his last column for The Wall Street Journal.Mossberg says that he’s not retiring but will be working on a new online site. It’s not clear if AllThingsD will be relaunched as well.

He wrote in his column, “This is my last column for The Wall Street Journal, after 22 years of reviewing consumer technology products here.” Mossberg’s column then looks at 12 important technology products that were the most influential over the past two decades.

There have been rumours that Mossberg and Co-executive Editor of AllThingsD Kara Swisher have been in talks with NBCUniversal, Bloomberg, Cond Nast, Cox, and The Washington Post Company over AllThingsD. In September WSJ had announced that it would not be renewing their agreement with AllThingsD.

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[caption id=“attachment_1293415” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Walt Mossberg is seen with the late Steve Jobs in this file photo. Image from Wikipedia Commons by Joi from Flickr under CC.[/caption]

He says that he chose the products because of two criteria. One, “products had to improve ease of use and add value for average consumers.” The second was that “these 12 because each changed the course of digital history by influencing the products and services that followed, or by changing the way people lived and worked.”

He also notes that some might feel that there’s a lot of Apple on his list but justifies it by saying, “Apple introduced more influential, breakthrough products for average consumers than any other company over the years of this column. "

His list includes, the iPhone, the iPad (2010), MacBook Air, Twitter, Facebook, Google Search, Windows 95 and the Netwon Message Pad from Apple which was launched way back in 1993 and was a handheld computer.