Martha Stewart is inviting bloggers with iPhones and laptops into her studio audience. If it's an odd move for the notorious control freak, it's also a recipe for free publicity — and awful television.

Gadget play is, after all, fun to engage in but excruciating to watch; we can't imagine Stewart's thousands of home viewers will enjoy watching a distracted crowd frantically fingering their BlackBerrys. Which means the flood of retweets and Tumblr postings Rachel Sklar predicts over at Mediaite might not do much for Stewart, since they'll be showcasing a below-par episode of her show.

Still, the exercise should be worthwhile, if only because the geek crowd can help the domestic media overlord increase the destructive powers of her Twitter feed, a dark vortex of explosions, fire and animal death.

Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at ryan@gawker.com.