Having lived through unemployment I disagree with this on many levels. Not everyone has opportunity for a career and the luxury of a job that they really stand behind. - Judi Sohn
"Kirby, that is strange. I haven't had a problem at all with spam since switching to Intense Debate. I see that Akismet is doing its thing, but I'm not seeing more modification requests than before." - Judi Sohn
"Possibly, Matthew. I didn't see anything that looked like a kernel panic (trust me, I know what they look like) but there were a few screens that had some sort of cryptic networking error message that I didn't photograph. I just thought it was kind of funny, no big deal. :-)" - Judi Sohn
So I checked the button so FriendFeed comments should go through? Let's see. Hopefully I've now tested every different way comments can get to this thing. - Judi Sohn
I thought it would be interesting to know, but now I'm not so sure. It wasn't even someone I know very well, but still ... - Kathleen Anderson
Yeah, I just tweet what I want when I want. I never want to feel that I'm editing myself because I'm afraid folks will unfollow. I think about what I want to say publicly, of course, but that's different. - Judi Sohn
I thought about it over night and this morning I unfollowed the person that unfollowed me. Life's too short, you know? - Kathleen Anderson
@Anna, of course you are right, but still... I like to have the illusion that when I give money to fund managers, it will be "managed". :-) - Louis Gray
Jason: The 'amount' of cash you have under your mattress may be the same but the 'value' of that cash is much much less due to the government printing more money to try and bail out the economy. My gold coin collection on the other hand ... worth way more. - Mark Bean
I'm investing in hobo bindles and Campbell's soup - Jason Carreira
-24.1% here, can't wait to see it tomorrow after today's selloff - dbcohen
The corporate 401K's should be structured so u can determine how they're invested depending on your risk tolerance. Many now are. - Charlie Anzman
@Charlie, mine is. I chose the funds. But that doesn't necessarily mean the funds are managed the way I wish. Also, being diversified in "growth", "contra" and "real estate" didn't soften it. They're all down significantly. - Louis Gray
Louis - If I were your age, I probably would have been set up the same way. These days? ... T-Bills and cash. - Charlie Anzman
The only thing propping up my 401k is my employer contributions. I took a look at my Roth's and ouch... not only were the fund managers retarded - but the market has really hurt them too. - ChangeForge | Ken Stewart
I'm not going to post mine here...it's just too sad to talk about. - Alex Scoble CISSP
Got a letter from my financial advisor today which started off "First, let me just say, your next statement is going to look UGLY." - James Williams (willia4)
I have been like an ostrich with my head stuck in the mud for over a year and refused to look and then when I did...I discovered something similar to what you did :-) - kamla bhatt
My IRA is down -21.42% as of last Friday. Thankfuly I'm not looking to retire anytime soon. - Judi Sohn
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That's why you should always buy the stocks for the long term. In 10-20 years, I bet you're up quite significantly. S&P 500 has consistently gone up over time, even with hiccups like we're seeing currently. - Jesse Stay
This thread touches on an interesting situation where so many people out there are simply too scared to log-on to their IRA/trading account. - Aviv
This is so very ugly. I don't think I will look at mine. - Kevin
Good potential Obama ad: Go look up your 401K. No really. John McCain is a maverick deregulator. You can thank him. - Mike Reynolds
Yikes. I haven't looked at mine. I'm just concentrating on how retirement is still 30+ years away. That's a little bit of comfort in that either our funds will recover - or we'll have a few decades to adjust to living on bread and water :) - Jason Kaneshiro
Jason - The 30 years is a good thing (long term). Plenty of time for things to turn and / or you to come up with your own solution. It still can be done. - Charlie Anzman
I stopped checking my 401k. Already know it'll be depressing, but then I'm keeping whatever I have for the long haul (25+ yrs). - imabonehead
Criminy, I don't want to even look at mine. - Pete Delucchi
“I'm trying to compare Jungle Disk (powered by Amazon S3) with Box.net. So far I'm preferring Jungle Disk, which seems to be much easier for offline backup purposes. Box.net has great file sharing features, but no autobackup or synchronization.”
Justin, does Box.net show as a network drive on your computer? If so, a backup utility like SyncBack could automatically back up files to it for you... - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
If it does, I haven't figured out how to do it yet. - Justin Long
have you ruled out dropbox? One service I'm happy to recommend - Duncan Riley
Haven't ruled out dropbox but right now its taking over an hour to d/l their software. - Justin Long
I don't like that jungledisk uses a proprietary format inside s3 - Michael J. Cohen (mjc)
@Michael - the Jungledisk site has open, free to use sample source code to read their encryption format. - Soulhuntre
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It's apples to oranges. I use both Box.net and Jungle Disk but they're very different. While Box.net can be used for backing up selected important files, it's not designed for automated or complete manual backups the way Jungle Disk does (or Carbonite or Mozy, which are closer competitors to Jungle Disk). Box.net is great for organizing and sharing files or manipulating files through other apps (services). - Judi Sohn
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Michael, I don't mind the proprietary format in Jungle Disk because it's transparent to me since I go through the JD interface. - Justin Long
actually glad Apple is focusing on stability now. If Push won't absolutely be ready it should wait and not hold them back from releasing other fixes. - Judi Sohn
Test results in: meningitis. Not sure if viral or bacterial. Just got admitted for what's likely to be a long night. C'mon antibiotics: do your thing! - Kevin C. Tofel
Slow start today and just seen this. Wish Barb all the best from me please and keep us all updated. For us jkOnTheRun fans she feels like part of the family. - Andrew Forde
Good you got to hospital quickly - that's key to beating meningitis. All the best to Barb! - Melissa Woo
Looks like viral meningitis so NOW they make me wear a mask. Uh, I've been here for 16 hours without one. Yeesh. At least Barb is feeling and looking better. And we have a flat screen in the room for the Olympics. - Kevin C. Tofel
Get well quickly, Barb! I just saw this and feel so bad for you both. - James Kendrick
Here's hoping for a quick recovery! You two are in my thoughts! - Dwight Silverman
Hole in surgical mask coupled with straw in WaWa coffee is the highlight of the day. Thx for all the warm wishes; Barb and I appreciate it. - Kevin C. Tofel
wow, sorry to hear that. Hope it all gets resolved. - Thomas Hawk
Just saw this...best wishes for a speedy recovery - Loren Heiny
so sorry, Kevin. Hope she's feeling better fast. - Judi Sohn
it would be amusing if it weren't for the fact that folks are buying the premise - Allan Benamer
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Those folks would buy anything the RNC spit out, simply because they're spitting it. Could be that the moon is made of green cheese or it could be that Obama thinks he's Moses. I really don't see an ad like that giving the undecided any pause. It seems designed to rally the base and give them something to shout. - Judi Sohn
I've noticed my ipod touch taking forever to backup since installing version 2.0. Before that I didn't even know it ever did a backup. - Phil Whelan
I have yet to experience this issue. My backups only take a few minutes. I have an 8GB iPhone which is only half full, not sure if that has anything to do with it. - Paul Grav
Mine seems to be stalling on the contact sync. If I turn that off, the sync zips so I only sync contacts when I know I have lots of time. - Judi Sohn
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Digg is almost dead, so i hope they don't buy it. - Svartling
coolness as part of a company valuation... I love this! - Fabrice Epelboin
all the plans they have for building the site go out the window as Google lets Digg just sit and sit in its current form until they figure out what they really want to do with it, if anything - Judi Sohn
Can Digg remain "hidden" like Jaiku? - João Almeida
Digg lost its edge a while ago. A Google acquisition won't save it either. - Rebecca Povio
If Google Buys Digg bloggers will have something new to write about for a few days!! Yippee! - chantelle
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Buy Digg for all I care (sorry), but leave StumbleUpon alone. - Juan Carlo Rodríguez
how did you finally post? I can draft, save draft, preview draft, but where the hell do you PUBLISH? App has been overall buggy, too. - Kirk Skodis
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you have to change the status to Published after you save... strange workflow - Benton
I wish the iPhone app had comment moderation too. A plug-in option won't work for WordPress.com blogs. So for now, I just use mobile safari more than I use the WP app. - Judi Sohn
future generations will have hunched shoulders, very thin thumbs, and will walk the streets looking at their iphones only. it will include radar. - Gregory Lent
@gregory, I think they'll also be bent over a bit further as well, given increasing costs... - Mo Kargas
lol, I always chuckle thinking about a proximity sensor that would alert me if I'm about to walk into a pole. - Frankie Warren
praying hands...wasn't that a devo song? - sean808080
Do you really get to a point that you can type on the thing with your thumbs? After 10 days with mine, I don't see that day coming any time soon. I am still a strictly one pointer finger gal. I can't even select a recent call in the list with my thumb without accidentally calling 3 people I didn't mean. - Judi Sohn
Judi yes I can type with my thumbs very quickly. - Steve Rubel
Judi you will do. I can do about 50 words per minute quite comfortable using two thumbs (and my thumbs are big). In fact, using my index fingers feels plain weird now. - Jamie
Hunched shoulder are already a national problem. - Francine Hardaway
Wow...I'm very interested and excited to see/hear/read what is to come from Scobleizer land next. - Justin Korn
I hope I make your list and if not, please let me know why so I can potentially improve. - Allen Stern
Glad to see that you are starting to realize, despite Techmeme that the world doesn't revolve around just the bay area. - Harold Gilchrist
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Gotta say you're bang on the mark there. Tech blogging should be about the tech, not the biz. - Luke Robinson
Allen: I like your blog. It's just that I love hanging out with all of you and talking geeky stuff a lot more than talking about this deal and that deal and all that. - Robert Scoble
Harold: I've always realized that. I feel I got unfairly tagged with believing the world only was about the Bay Area. I guess I deserved that to some extent, but this area is quite dominant in the world of tech (including the tool you're typing on right now) so some of my boosterism is to be expected. Funny that the top Israeli company has offices here too. - Robert Scoble
Kudos to you Mr. Scoble, what a very bright post you delivered today! Thank you for bringing some fresh perspective, that's always refreshing and welcome. I'm also happy you cite Lifehacker as an example. They focus on the smartest digital experience possible and help us improve ourselves. That's the biggest deal of all. Techbloggers should never forget it. - c0wb0yz
I love the tech first and foremost but the business is important too, especially in respect to the sustainability of said tech. - Jamie
Jamie: I agree. But the business needs to serve the customers and the customers/participants/users or whatever you want to call you and me aren't coming first in this industry anymore and that's worrying. - Robert Scoble
Wow funny enough thats the way i have been feeling for a while now I am looking forward to seeing what is next from the Scobelizer... - John Spencer
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I agree overall - CN has only a small percentage of biz - most is trends, analysis, and reviews. I had an interesting discussion about this with someone last week - if i had a computer that could handle video, i'd make a quick video to explain - there's an important part you are missing - Allen Stern
Next is to get some sleep. Gotta be up at 7:30 to be at Fortune Conference at 8 a.m. for breakfast. It's an incredible conference, hope to see some of you at the Tweetup at 5:45 p.m. - Robert Scoble
Allen: will be watching in the morning for what I was missing. I'm sure I'm missing a lot. I had to stop ranting at some point, it was getting too long! :-) - Robert Scoble
This is often relevant from major blogs/ celeb bloggers. The smaller and more personal blogs are still focusing just on tech ;) Perhaps you need to update your feeds :-) - Dennis Bjørn Petersen
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Dennis: I know. It's why I spend a lot more time here lately than on blogging. The smaller stuff shows up here a lot more regularly and I see a lot less "Yahoo business news." - Robert Scoble
Excellent post Robert. It's why I don't read Techmeme as much as I used to. The life and joy in exploring, playing with and dissecting tech, the geeky exuberance in 'new stuff' has been lessened across almost all tech sites in general, leaving a bland veneer that is just business talk. Things a geek like me doesn't care about, as I'm not an investor. - Mo Kargas
Techmeme has suffered because most of the tech blogs they follow have become nothing more then PR outlets like you said. - Harold Gilchrist
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As I posted in your comments, that's a really good post. It's great to see the old Scoble back - the one who I started reading back when your "latest thing" was Tablet PC! Welcome back, mate. - Ian Betteridge
Robert, blogging is becoming commercialized, as it becomes popular. I do not see it as a problem. It just might mean that you and a bunch of other likely minded people have to move on to a greener, more fascinating and less populated pastures. Like friendfeed, etc. Luckily, there are lots of them around and tons in the pipeline. Enjoy! - Павел Романовский
I don't know, Robert. On the one hand I agree 100%. And can I say that as editor of WebWorkerDaily I am the one who gets those 15 press releases a day and I *constantly* have the "is this useful?" filter on. I hope that's clear in our postings. Anyway...Your post is kind of like the person who is used to picking their own corn complaining about the supermarket because it's not the same garden. It's not. The grocer has to pay its bills, as does the paid tech blogger. - Judi Sohn
I know I am a newie to all this but I have been reading blogs for a while. I've bee thinking up a response and I'll post later. Long comments on the iPhone make for one queasy bus ride. - Derick Valadao
Finally. Thank you. I follow 357 feeds. Everyday. Granted I have many pop-sites (lifehacker, engadget, etc) on the list. But not one is of these "new breed" of tech bloggers out there. Even though I am in the industry, they do not speak to me. They are just another form of CNN to me. Linking to each other and regurgitating the same gibberish, no matter how relevant or important, it does not speak to me. Anyway, welcome back! This is very refreshing news to me. I will be following it with much interest. TY! - Carlos Ayala
We should all just organize a "Tech Blog Strike", unsubscribing to those blogs that only push press releases. Let's see how they sweat when they see their subscriber count falling... - Jorge Escobar
Obviously my previous comment was "tldr". I just wanted to say how great it is that a person in your position is able to repurpose his content to better fit the goal you are trying to reach with your content. It's a great direction to take in a time where most blogs are just trying to echo up to the top. - Derick Valadao
Excellent post on the state of the blogging nation. - Sheila Thomson
My only real problem with tech bloggins is how easily ideas take hold and spread to get page hits. This is very easily seen in the Vista hatred - there was never any objective reasonf or it... but it was so useful for traffic generation and looking cool that it was rampant. - Soulhuntre
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It's probably less about the business/tech divide, and more about me-too echo blogging - Dave Pelland
I think so... tech bloggers are jsut as easily victims of peer pressure and memes as anyone. Once an Idea ("love google") defines someone as "getting it" then few will look at it objectively. - Soulhuntre
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This is a welcome breath of fresh air. Fantastic. - Pete Gilbert
Super excellent post and, ironically, exactly what blogging is all about. One good thing about an economic downturn, it will weed a lot of fluff out of the infosphere -- with less incentive to act as promotional platforms for startups, blogs may get more informative about using established tech. - Sprague D
Great article Robert. It is your authenticity even more than your tech blogging that has made you the great writer that you are. Anyone can report Apple's earnings yesterday. You have always had an honest voice though that makes your writing stand out. - Thomas Hawk
The take away is 'sensational headlines'. Add to the "Rumor:" and we don't need this stuff unless it's coming from a tabloid format site - Charlie Anzman
I don't actually read Techmeme or Techcrunch or other tech blogs that much, as I'm not anything like an insider. I indulge my "social software as spectator sport" obsession by reading Friendfeed, basically. Friendfeed plays the hype filter role that tech blogs are theoretically supposed to play but don't. - K Welch
Blogging is about saying what I want to say, and sharing things that I like with anybody who cares to listen. I'm not interested in driving traffic (thank goodness) or repeating what others have said, but contributing to a discussion. - Chris Nixon
Great post Robert. Very good read and right on the mark. I religiously read feeds in Reader, but only a few that help me. I love Lifehacker. Almost everyday I find something new and useful to my job. - Gary Schmidt
The Techie audience thirsty for knowledge is much smaller then the Get-rich-quick audience, but the largest demographic are the Free-lunch boys. The blogs with the most revenue have tricked their advertisers into believing teenage boys are business decision makers. - paul mooney
I love tech bloggers and the things they write about. The good ones will always come at a common topic from a different angle and I just LOVE that because it makes me think outside the box and start connecting dots all over the place. Robert you are definitely one of those bloggers that I love to read and I don't think any of the ones I read have failed me. - Devlin Dunsmore
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I have to agree about the comments system though. One thing that we started to see a while ago was data portability and being able to communicate accross services. I think Disqus does that quite well and it's a great first step to making sure that the comments system becomes a little more useful on blogs. - Derick Valadao
Well said Robert, left a comment, said my piece, cheers! - Steve Spalding
Wow, an impressive and honest assessment of some major issues in the techblogosphere. - Richard Akerman
Robert - I'm not in the tech industry. But I love what lots of tech stuff has done for learning stuff in my life and for others. And I want to keep on learning. You've certainly helped me here - I wouldn't know a fraction as much about using Friendfeed productively, for example. Glad we're going to see more of this kind of stuff. Welcome back. - Tom Landini
Knocked it out of the park. If we can just get back to being geeks again, a lot of this drama will calm itself... - Jared Smith
this, along with Luis Grey's article today about Techcrunch and Techmeme, are both really interesting features on why blogging, and more specifically high-profile bloggers that were once more passionate, more personal, more engaged, more interesting, are falling to the wayside - Kevin
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Great read, but kind of depressing the way things have gone. I just like being a bit geeky and all things will work out in the end. - Alan Ashley
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The key issue for me is that there isn't enough analysis. Just reporting what an app does is useful, but very baseline useful. What are the implications? That's where tech bloggins has really failed. - Shripriya
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Shripriay, you hit it on the head. It is a shame that all the tech bloggers just wants to be Engadet or Gizmodo these days. - Harold Gilchrist
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Nice writeup Robert. I enjoyed your detailed analysis & history of the situation. Perhaps you can lead us in a new direction? - Mitchell Tsai
i read the tech bloggers then try to actually use the gadget. would like to hear more results from the usage angle. - Lee Kent
Shripriya, I agree with you wholeheartedly. My original comment was much longer but got cut due to length. I wish more blogs were like Louis Gray and Lifehacker which take a step back and then hit us with posts that are useful/interesting almost 100% of the time. Zero Punctuation is a great example for the gaming crowd--one post a week, internet fame. - Derick Valadao
Hmm... A Scoble article I like.... Is this the Seventh Seal? Seriously, you're right on in that the echo chamber of groupthink has made tech blogging boring and predictable. I think there's a few people out there fighting it, and FF makes it easier to find them. I think you're off on the business side, though... I think it SHOULD be about the technology, but the entrepreneurs coming out of the Valley have made it necessary for us to discuss the business side by not having solid business plans. - Jason Carreira
Anyway, hope this is a sign of things to come from you. - Jason Carreira
Thanks Robert. Great read, and perspectives. Love to see more on productivity, like Lifehacker. Just became a GTD convert BTW and loved the David Allen piece. - Jericho
Thanks for that Robert -- perspective is key. - Shey
I'm sorry but those that don't scale are toast, from a commericial and traffic standpoint. I know that is part of the point (varying aims and objectives of blogging etc.) - Alex Hammer
Slap your self and get back on that horse Robert. You have NOT failed us. Human nature makes us want what we do not have. For some it's page views/revenue, for trolls it's attention, and others it's n-list status. The rest of us are looking to quench our thirst for knowledge. And please give our group a little credit. We have become ever-so-skillful at weeding out those sources that do not provide this knowledge. I repeat...You have NOT failed us. - Andrew Smith
I appreciate what you are saying, and am glad that others share the same opinion as myself. What happened to being the guys who always had some tech trick that seemed like magic to the uninitiated? The joy of tech for me is showing that magic to others and getting them interested in what's out there too, and lately we have all become business whores a little bit. I look forward to the future content coming from you, and getting back to what made tech cool in the first place, the tech itself. - Aaron Krug
One of the things I value most about Robert is his inner homing mechanism. He's very prone to get lost, but something always shakes him loose and he re-calibrates. Or is that re-boots? (Kind of like iPhone 2.0 now that I think about it.) - Michael Markman
I agree w/ your article, Robert. The wonder that makes so many of us interested in tech does get lost at times- I never saw tech blogs as the place for that stuff, but appreciated it when I found it there. - anna
Alex: While scaling is necessary if you want more people to view your content, why should that come at the cost of the content itself? Too many startups are trying to replace a solid marketing plan with social media and end up trying to use big blogs as a means to advertise their product and ride the traffic tail to customers. From what I gather, this tends to make jaded bloggers who are not trying to balance the original goal of their contributions with the benefits of increased consumption. Scoble was right to point to lifehacker as a great blog which scaled and still stayed relevant to their readers. - Derick Valadao
I kinda find this funny.. the comments are so distributed between FF channel and Scobles blog channel ? which one am I too follow ? I mean yesterday we had this big huge augments about cluster and fragmentation of conversations. So Robert, here's a suggestion. Turn off comments on your blog and let your readers comment on FF only. Else dont post your blog entry to FF and break your own paradigm of saying you want to be a connector, yet will to let comments slip and glide across all properties that you own. For the record there are 46 comments there and 57+1 comments here. Anyhoot, nice read. - Peter Dawson
I just approved a bunch of comments that were held in moderation. Now there's 88 comments over there. Whew. - Robert Scoble
melmcbride: good point. It's easy to just stay on FriendFeed all day. It's hard to come up with something new to say that takes more than a short paragraph. Damn, I'm sounding so old school. The neat thing is when I do a longer blog is comes in here and improves everything. - Robert Scoble
i think this is part of the echo chamber that is the silicon valley. people who live there use the "new" thing for so long they soon get sick of doing it. they are same people who think everyone elses use technology the same way they do and feels the same way they do. - Jonathan Jesse
Scoble steps out of the bubble and takes a breath of fresh air... hopefully more follow or we're going nowhere fast. - Harish V
I thought this was great! Robert, I think what I hear is your desire to just do whatever the hell you want to without regard to "The Man". Go for it. You of all people can do that! - Elliott Ng
Robert the real issues is that everything really only needs to exist once. Conversations don't neeed to exist in many different places. Your blog comments and the conversation here are all the same conversation. I'd love to explain the solution as i see it but it'd take too long. - Anton Mannering
Robert I am still lost- How can you profess to be be a convo aggregator , yet approve 88 comments on your blog ? @Anton, no Blog comments and these comments on FF, are two different sets of conversation happening on the same topic. Lets not confuse this fact !! There is a fork in the convosphere. - Peter Dawson
@ Anton: I sort of agree with you, but i don't think comment fragmentation is all bad. Sometimes well-written comments appearing somewhere else can draw attention to good ideas. If I don't subscribe to a particular blog but see the feed posted here on FF, I'll pick it up and then maybe I'll go straight to the blog. There's value in fragmentation along with the frustration. - phil baumann
I think a service like disqus should be used so that friendfeed comments on links to blog posts (with comments therein) will all show up no matter which medium you use to discuss them. Does this exist yet? I thought disqus would have this covered by now. - Derick Valadao
Peter: I approved about 40 that were being held in a moderation queue. I don't let newbies post a comment on my blog because then it'd be overrun with spam. FriendFeed has a much better system to protect against spam than my blog's comments. I think that it'd very cool if I could replace my blog's comments with FriendFeed, but that'd require an API that would make a URL, return it to my blog, and get it linked in, all really quickly. - Robert Scoble
I haven't read the comments here, but feel I can comment. Robert, as someone who as known you for five years now - just before the mania began - I am pleased to hear this. What got me into your blog in the first place was your ENTHUSIASM for technology, particularly GTD. Never let that go. You be you. I will be me. And everyone else will be everyone else. In the end, you gotta follow what you love. It works for everyone from Steve Jobs to the Pope. Your friend online and off - SR - Steve Rubel
@ phil bauman Ok 2 things. First of all I didn't say it shouldn't appear in many places. I'm saying that if you're in Roberts comments and I'm on Friendfeed then we should be able to see ALL the conversation from both. But it need not exist in a whole bunch of places only be visible from there. Second I think the argument that there is value in fragmentation is similar to saying there is value in using a ploughshare pulled by an ox. Ther is but not to most people. - Anton Mannering
@ Robert Scoble: Interesting you should mention your blog comments being friendfeed. I know a startup or two working on those problems. In reality though the issues become way bigger when such a service is subject to really large numbers (non-tech crowd). Solving those problems is where the fun and games are and I only know one startup with a real solution for that. - Anton Mannering
Ironic, isn't it--the influences (PR, marketing, big media) the original bloggers were trying to break away from are--surprise-- still here and the game hasn't changed as much as we thought. PR people still push their stories, tech and news blogs focus on a few big name co's and start looking like traditional media, etc. What's needed is more of the energy, enthusiasm and original thought that Scoble and others brought to the game earlier on--otherwise, we've only duplicated the old media on a new platform. - mark ivey
I send you a tweet also but I believe that I must also write here how spot-on was your post... I can't wait to see more real Tech news coming from you and I hope that this will force other bloggers to remember how they started back then... - Manos Matsakis
This is clearly your best post ever. Thank you for all of your hard work. I read your blog because it entertains me. I would love more posts "sharing geeky things."
On the other hand, if you blog about news, technology, and a few pro-company biases, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you (or any other blogger) do not provide a perfect balanced news experience does not mean that you have failed. People are responsible for finding their own news this day in age. - Brian Wilson
Great post and I totally agree. "What's needed is more of the energy, enthusiasm..." - Eric_T
Great stuff Robert. As blogging and social media continues to spread outside of tech and into other niche industries and verticals, those of us facilitating and evangelizing that spread should continue to look back at this post so history isn't repeated. See you at the Ritz tonight. - J.J. Toothman
"I think that it'd very cool if I could replace my blog's comments with FriendFeed, but that'd require an API that would make a URL" - yeah I second that motion. If I had a widget that could do that but with bi- directional flow , that would really be a convo aggregator. This will certainly be an interesting challenge to some of the geeks out here ! - Peter Dawson
You can, if you're willing to give up the content. Glenn developed a great plugin that allows for bi-directional flow. It works for Wordpress and (I think) Blogger http://blog.slaven.net.au/word... - Steve Spalding
Great timing :) I got strange looks this weekend when I said that I don't review anything that has been 'pitched' to me - but rather things I discover that I think are cool. I discovered something this weekend at BlogHer that I will review. But no one sent me a press release. :) It's just a really neat gadget! - Lucretia Pruitt
I think you should watch the movie 'Resurrecting the Champ' - its about a Writer. Drew the analogy to your post and the movie (that I just happened to see yesterday) http://mrinal.vox.com/library/... - Mrinal Desai
Enjoyed that rant, Robert. I'm not a tech geek, I don't read techmeme or techcrunch as the gist and trends can be followed here on FF, but I do read blogs like yours, Louis, Jeremiah and Hutch's, mainly to learn new things. Before FF I had never heard of Rescue Time, Jott, Evernote or TSheets for example, but hearing about new ideas and then experimenting with them myself, well that gets me interested and excited. The corporate enterprise stuff leaves me cold, it isn't nifty or flexible enough for users. - Sally Church
Nice post. The PR influence bit reminded me of this article by Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/subm.... Agree to the fact that Tech blogging has been less 'tech' than it was a couple of years ago. - Nikhil Dandekar
I loved the rant earlier yesterday, and even more impressed by the ff reaction. My take on your blogging, having followed you since MS days. Stay on what you think, not what others think. Avoid the whole Gillmor Gang bs, and associated groupthink. - bankwatch
I think that every new medium matures as it becomes possible to make real money at it - this is inevitable. I don;t think it will be the death of blogging certainly but we are in a new phase. Older blogs will mature and still keep that flavor or they will stagnate and die. The personalities will decide that. One of the things I like about your work Robert is the enthusiasm. Sometimes it makes you a bit naive, others it makes you a little to fast to declare something game changing but
