Thomas: About the one on Market Street,I belive that is the first time I've seen you use such a visible filter. - Roberto Bonini
Roberto, interestingly enough, it's not a filter. This was this great reflective sort of decorative paper that Old Navy had in one of their display cases a year or so back. I took a number of different self portraits using it. I thought the distortion and abstraction of the reflections was fantastic. - Thomas Hawk
Scoble backlash! You're taking it like a champ. - Pete Delucchi
am I wrong, or did you not just criticize only the WEBSITES that these companies put up? How does that make you anti-startup? - Nathan Rein
@Scobleizer So, if you don't review something favorably, you're a douchebag? So, all reviewers with high standards or differing opinions are douchebags? Bad form to review the reviewer. People and companies have to either accept a review or in isolated circumstances offer up a calm, rational counterpoint. Anything else is a bad pr move and impolite. - David van Sunder
As much as I like what you have to say, your recent post on start-ups was way off the bat. I don't think "you suck" but I do think the post was not a good one. - Candace Holly
Kevin: you aren't the only one to agree with me that the sites sucked too. Jeneane: I honestly didn't have any idea what the feedback would be. - Robert Scoble
Candace: which startup post? And what did you disagree with on it? - Robert Scoble
If these guys were smart, they'd listen to your comments constructively instead of taking it all personally. People can't be honest and constructive any more - that's what sucks. If they disagree, that's fine, but it doesn't make you a jerk for being constructive. I wish more of my critiques were as constructive as you made yours. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
The post; Startups: your web site sucks . I personally think winelibrary.tv is a ridiculous site. I also think the host of the show belongs on a bad infomercial late at night. It's just a site with a blog post and a video on the front page. And why compare tech related companies to a wine company anyway? Two different things. The post seemed to just say "this is why you suck" but there was no solution or even an offer of "here's how you can suck less". It's one of a few posts of yours I didn't like. - Candace Holly
@Jesse when you are involved with something like a startup anything said about it is personal, take Jason Calacanis and Mahalo. I'm not saying its right, I'm saying I understand. As far as your post Robert, if you're a journalist and you aren't getting hate mail, you aren't doing something right. If they spent as much time making sure your accusations were unfounded as they did taking shots at your level of credibility in the startup field (which is suspect btw) they would have nothing to worry about. - Aaron Krug
Why should anyone expect Scoble to stick up for them? Bad design is bad design. Sometimes getting your feelings hurt makes you wake up to things that need change. - Ben Rhudy
Aaron, I work for a startup - just started, and I would love for Scoble to write about us, good or bad. This is awesome exposure opportunity for each of them. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
What's important is that he's honest - if he were lying about us to make us look bad that would be a different story. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
It should be noted that Scoble's post is also now on Techmeme and each one of those startups is now getting traffic from that as well. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
Scoble, only advice: calm down, take a deep breath before talking. Remember there are real people on the end of your barbs. You've done a lot of good in promoting startups, don't fuck it up now. - Duncan Riley
Candace: OK, then I'll come up with some better examples. Winelibrary.tv is just one that is doing something interesting to me and keeps me engaged, both because it has interesting video as well as an interesting community. A better example might have been something like Evernote, Seesmic, MaxRoam, or Tripit, which are far closer to the usual Demo kind of things. - Robert Scoble
Duncan: there are real people on the other end, that is true, but they need to step up the game big time. To me Demo is the equivilent of the Super Bowl and these sites look like high school. Trying to pretend otherwise doesn't help this industry one bit. - Robert Scoble
@Jesse what startup do you work for? I know what you are saying with "no news is bad news", and of course any criticism from a guy who has been able to see so many startups could be used constructively. If you are talking exposure though, didn't these guys do the right thing then, since Robert wrote another post about it, getting them more exposure? I think the best idea is to focus on your product and the other things under your direct control (website), then the journalists come to you instead. - Aaron Krug
Robert, from what I can gather, at least a decent slab of the sites you're talking about are pre-release in that they'll be launching new sites post DEMO/ TC50 etc. just give them a little time and credit. Sure, some don't get the marketing aspect, but I'd bet not all of them are like that - Duncan Riley
Aaron http://staynalive.com/articles... - we haven't launched yet but you'll hear more about it this week. I can already say that our website isn't very good right now either though. (but then again, we haven't launched yet, nor announced much about it) - Jesse Stay via twhirl
Duncan: OK, fair enough. I'll look at all 70 again at the end of the week. I'll also compare them to TC50 and I'll be just as harsh on them. But, many of these companies have spent months preparing for Demo, and way more than $18,000 (Shel Israel and other demo coaches tell me that companies often spend more than $100,000 preparing for, and bringing their teams to, Demo). So, to spend that kind of effort to have a Website up that doesn't even work is inexcusable. - Robert Scoble
Our total expenditure for Mobilize will be about 2k - but we're working our asses off true bootstrap style! I've wasted plenty of $ (mine & others) in previous ventures. Not this time. - Dean Terry
@Jesse thanks for the link, I look forward to seeing more soon. As far as the site goes, you're right. The same defense you made could be made for the Demo companies as well, as there is actually an embargo on writing about them until Monday(as you know), so I think we could safely wait until after their Demo debut to pass this kind of judgment. If Duncan is right about many companies having new sites after as he stated a few comments above here Robert may have jumped the gun. - Aaron Krug
@Duncan I hear what you are saying about the pre-release deal, but when you say some companies don't get the marketing bit, you can add those companies to the list that WILL FAIL. Marketing is as or more important than the product itself, and you know it. Robert may have jumped the gun here but the point still stands. Marketing matters. - Aaron Krug
Scoble is the Simon Cowell of Social Media.. he's going to tell it like it is, whether you like it or not, either you can build a site, or you can't .. there is no use in half-assing it :) FYI, anytime I see a site that is not in English, the first thing I do is look for country flags. - Tim Hoeck
My comment on the blog: Unfortunate events, looking forward to your next post on this. Even an investigation in the topic could be done as it'd disseminate facts from the parties as it seems the situation is somewhat doing a ricochet by bringing up old stories, I think that storyline will effectively be settled in a definite and decisive way. To the best thinker -Zu - [ zu ]-eBailey
Bring some more intel! I'm somewhat of a researcher and the story seems interesting enough it made me imagine some kind of a social-web-documentary-document, where every posts related to the topic could be disseminated by all, with fact-checking and the like, anyways... ;p - [ zu ]-eBailey
wow, well if companies "often spend more than $100,000" going to Demo, assuming they spend similar money going to TC50, that kind of torpedoes the whole "TC is the side of Truth and Justice because they don't charge startups" argument. (Not that anyone was buying Arrington's argument that the fee constituted "payola" anyway.) - Karim
Karim: actually that's a good point and one that I wish Shipley had made better in her blog post. She decided to knock my ego down a few sizes instead of explaining this and making her conference look better. Oh well, my ego always needs a knock and I don't have any interest in either of these conferences. - Robert Scoble
My honest opinion of your piece was that it looked like you were locking arms with Arrington and Calacanis to destroy Demo. I think the over-the-top bombast and timing makes it smell a bit, if you know what I mean, esp. since you're an adviser to TC50. I would like to think that you look at the startup itself and don't favor one or disfavor another because of how they choose to launch. Your post is a bit jarring to me, actually. Seems to me like you could have made the point about the websites not being good without making the leap that the companies and products themselves are bad and basically screaming to the world that Demo is going to suck. Sorry, but it LOOKS like you're taking sides against certain startups just because of politics. I've always respected and trusted your opinions. I hope that's not the case. - Dawn
I think the kicker was many posts about how Demo sucked that you were posting. Everybody knows you're associated with TC, so it looked obvious even if it wasn't intended. - Patricia
Nathan Rein, you are wrong Scoble said they suck, not only the websites: "I just visited every one of these companies. Boy do they almost all suck (at least their Web sites and if their sites suck, I can’t believe their products are going to do much better)" from http://scobleizer.com/2008/09/... - Loic Le Meur
You know you gotta love the ones who put THOUGHT into their attacks. They're my favorite. Take Dan Hau: "Talentless, fat, annoying, douche-bag". I mean, how many synapses had to fire for that articulate line of reasoning to be spewed forth? I say this; Oh yeah, well Dan? YOU SMELL FUNNY. So there. - Avery Tingle
yes, how scandalous, I can't believe he drew all eyes on something that sucks! Witty man is playing with our emotions there. - xavier vespa
On the Plasticlogic site Product page, the main image appears to be 2.3 MB. A tad heavy, perhaps? - Chris Baskind
will have a big custard pie waiting for you at MAXroam stand Robert :-) - Patphelan
Pat: one thing to remember: I've given hundreds of startups free publicity by doing completely free and no-strings-attached video interviews and demos. That's something that neither TechCrunch nor Demo can claim. - Robert Scoble
Robert, I 100% agree with you, no one has done more for the "community" that's why I am so upset at that post - Patphelan
Well at least negative responses like this tell you that people still care lol - Dean Clark
Robert - remember trust takes a long time to build but can be destroyed in an instant. You've made a bad public statement and then continued to defend your lambasting of 70 startups based on something as trivial as web design. Not your best move ever, and goes beyond your normal grade "foot in mouth." - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Mark: it wasn't based on just web design. And if you think that's "trivial" you shouldn't be in a place to judge web companies. Dude. Think about what you just said. - Robert Scoble
By the way, Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, in a separate post here on FriendFeed, said the same thing that these sites really sucked. So did Andrew Baron, founder of Rocketboom. I'm not alone here. - Robert Scoble
I guess Robert got tired of the "Blame Scoble" meme and needed to start a new one...hence "Scoble Sucks" was born. - Mark Krynsky
He is still giving publicity to these start-ups. It may not be good publicity, but I would have never went to the sites if I hadn't seen this "Scoble Sucks" tweet, and probably would have never visited them - Matrixx333
There you go again, Robert, questioning my credentials. Not everything is about graphic design, particularly when it's concerning a hardware company (for example), as many of these companies at DEMO are. You're smart enough to know that, but dumb enough not to think of it before you spout off. You're wrong in this case, Robert. Everyone thinks so. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
The difference between Kevin, Andrew and you, Robert, is that they had the brains to realize the difference between bad design and bad work product. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
You don't suck...I think this post was more uncharacteristic than anything else...I've appreciated a lot of advice you've given, and really taken it to heart...I just think in this case, it's hard to really understand everything about a company from a 30 second glance -- some of them very well may have 'winged' an application to DEMO with barely enough time to get an early beta of their product together - let alone a co site...that's still better than waiting endlessly until everything is perfect, no? - Michael Broukhim @TotSpot
Mark: I didn't just talk about graphic design. I talked about the content on the page (or the lack thereof). It's like you didn't even read what I wrote. And, no, Andrew and Kevin didn't make any distinctions. They wrote that these sites "sucked." They didn't go into it further. Glad you are putting words in their mouth. - Robert Scoble
i'm going to copy & paste this here since I think this is where the discussion is continuing... - Zee at WeDoCreative
Michael, surely if you were going to go & spend $18000!!! on a product launch at DEMO. And you knew that your company was going to be mentioned before the actual event...you would create a really well designed intriguing, inviting, impressive landing page which made potential journalists & bloggers think "woah, this look interesting & impressive...i'll look out for these guys". - Zee at WeDoCreative
No such thing as bad publicity. Just spell my name right. - Steve Follmer via twhirl
I tell you what sucks, this does. I could discuss this until the cows come home without getting bored but alas I think this discussions over for the day since the Valley have to sleep at some point.... - Zee at WeDoCreative
Robert, you really are turning into a grade-a asshole, you know that? Look- the people you cite? They said the sites sucked. You said the companies sucked. I read what you wrote (as did the whole world) - it is you who seems to have forgotten. The bottom line is that good design and perfect sites are important for some kinds of companies, and less important for others. What you don't seem to understand is that their design department has no bearing on their engineering department. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Whenever you realize that, you'll understand how you pissed everyone off so bad. I'll spell it out for you - NOT EVERYTHING IS A WEB BASED BUSINESS. THERE ARE ACTUAL BUSINESSES BASED AROUND TRANSACTIONS AND PRODUCTS THAT AREN'T ELECTRONS. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Mark, by saying the companies themselves sucked, he cocked up there - no doubt. But to say that good design doesn't matter for these businesses is wrong. No matter what kind of business you are, if you care about your image - you are going to care about your site...absolutely no doubt there. - Zee at WeDoCreative
In a perfect world, Zee, everyone would have a great website. I agree. I'm a design snob as well, and while my design skills have severely degraded from the time I was a professional designer, I still have aesthetic appreciation. To say that a website is indicative of anything other than a good design department isn't a surety. For instance: Does this website make you want to buy beer? http://www.anheuser-busch.com/ Care for image takes on all shapes and sizes ... - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
... not to mention that many of these are ideas at DEMO created and run by engineers. When was the last time you ran into a hardware engineer or a hardcore coder who either had great design skills or even a sense of aesthetics? Just because their site may suck doesn't mean the product sucks or that they don't care about it. Not everyone shares you and Robert's value judgements on what's important for their company. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
its not entirely fair to bash Scoble so bad. We are all allowed errors in judgement sometimes - blogging gives ample chance to foul up (no fact checkers). However, in saying that Scoble does have an awful lot of reach. His blog, Fast company shows, the magazine column and general celebrity status in the tech space. With great power comes great responsibility. Will this affect negatively the DEMO startups? Thats the larger question. - Roberto Bonini
Mark, firstly thank you, great to see you reply directly - unlike Loic who just seemed to ignore everyone apart from Robert in the discussion & leave as soon as it had appeared Robert had left. To be honest, no, the fact that Anheuser-busch have got a particularly nice site doesn't immediately make me want to buy their product - however, had it been a complete disaster & very little care put into it whatsoever then it would have an impact on my thoughts & the image of the product in my mind. Secondly... - Zee at WeDoCreative
Secondly... Anheuser-busch aren't just about to launch at one of the most prestigious startup events in the world. Thirdly, I imagine majority of the products at DEMO will have a UI of some sort - whether it's a webapp or offline device, there will be something the user will have to use. That being the case, the fact that the first page anyone is likely to see about the product is a distinct displeasure to use...it does not support the notion of the product being something which will be a pleasure to use. - Zee at WeDoCreative
I went through about half the list - I will cede that the second half looks like the first half - but I wanted to try out some of the services and play with them and really get an idea of what they did. That said, many of the ones I looked at in depth have business models that really only need the website as a business card, and it isn't integral to their business. Plastic Logic, for instance, isn't going to sell anything thru the website for a long time. They'll be directly dealing with much larger ... - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
... manufacturers just like e-Ink does. You'll see the final product being sold by Sony and Amazon and Nokia and others. They're using DEMO to get the contacts and credentials needed to set up those meetings or get funding to continue research and development. In short, these aren't B2C companies by and large. Their web design is irrelevant. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Could they benefit from better web design? You bet! Everyone could. Sometimes, particularly in a small startup, you have to look at the opportunity cost... is it worth the expenditure? Could that $20-50k be better spent on a someone's salary? I've been in underfunded startups before, and these are the things you think about. The function must come before form. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
But Mark, these guys are paying $18000! Honestly, come to WeDo - for a grand or so and 2 days...you'll have glorious landing page which will have both press, competition & potential contacts/investors impressed, intrigued & excited to learn more. - Zee at WeDoCreative
hey, all he said was that the sites were bad. it is like saying a painting is bad. - Gregory Lent
Again, though, when was the last time you found an engineer with a sense of aesthetics? You deal with clients, you know that in the web design business, the client is almost always wrong. Half the time they don't even know that their site sucks, and the other half they're asking for an animated .GIF to go in the logo. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I hear you, no doubt, but I just think that going into an event as large as DEMO. They should have spoken to a designer, an experienced industry professional or at the very least friends & family and said "listen, we know we've got a great product - but we want to be noticed by people at the event but also people who hear about us and just visit our site...do you think this site does that?" If whoever they were speaking to was honest, a flat out "no" would be the right answer. - Zee at WeDoCreative
saying a website design is irrelevant is like saying a business card design or a brochure design or a catalog design or a phone system or a logo design is irrelevant. i don't think so, mark hopkins - Gregory Lent
"Musical tastes and personality type are closely related, according to a study of more than 36,000 people from around the world." - Anna Haro via Bookmarklet
Actually the definitions in MUSICAL STYLES VERSUS PERSONALITY TRAITS are rubbish if you ask me. Nearly everyone but Rock lovers has high self-esteem? I like all but Country and Western (hard working,outgoing) in that list so what does that make me? - Toby Graham
Interesting but not a hard and fast rule. I like indie but I'd say I was hard working and gentle. - Martin Bryant
I have/am....High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease, introvert, not hard working, low self-esteem, not gentle, not outgoing, not creative, not at ease. Apparently - Toby Graham
Cee Bee, I totally believe musical tastes and personality are connected, and Toby I agree with you. The findings in this study are lame. I posted for title and picture. :) - Anna Haro
I listen to about about 10 hours of Alternative (which I guess is Indie) a day --" Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle" Ummm. I just took down Jesus in a dream, no low self esteem there, and in the real world I am very gentle. The last time I was in a fight (10 years ago) I just took hits and didn't return fire (a girl was getting beaten up by her boyfriend and 2 friends, I inserted myself between her and them) - RAPatton
The styles and traits in this article blow, but aside from that, wow Rap, your last fight... :| - Anna Haro
I didn't really fight, I just kept her away from them. I sent my wife to get my best friend (this was outside a bar), she was smarter than that and brought the police. Being the NOLA PD, I am very glad I did not take those guys out because I would have ended up in a not nice jail. Of course the girl did not press charges against the guy beating her, which is depressing. Also she turned out to be 17. Joy - RAPatton
A good fit for me. I have high self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease - and I listen to classical music most of the time :) - Baard Overgaard Hansen
"One of the most surprising things is the similarities between fans of classical music and heavy metal. They're both creative and at ease but not outgoing." Not surprising at all. Many fans of metal are very into classical music. In particular the lush Baroque and Romantic styles. - Patricia Hanrahan
Toby, sounds like horoscopes by music to me, just maybe a pinch more reality-based. I think BBC just ran out of news the day they ran this. - Kamilah Gill
My son also loves Dr. Pepper and I think it's because I was so addicted I couldn't give it up entirely when I was pregnant and used to have one glass a day. - Trish R
Oh wow... the blue cans! I remember those... I was fascinated as a kid by the color reversal... I'm easily amused. - Lindsay Donaghe
so, everybody here knows that "Dr. Pepper" was a name made up to mask the fact that this is really Prune Crush, right? - Trent Olson
prunes are just dried plums and I like plums. - Lindsay Donaghe
@Trent. I knew that, isn't that why the clock is on the bottle? hahahaha - Trish R
i'm a plummer, she a plummer, he's a plummer, won't cha like to be a plummer too? - Nathan Eckenrode
@Trish...good point! @Lindsay...hey, nothing wrong with it...just wanted to make sure the news was known... - Trent Olson via twhirl
"In the second and third decades of the twentieth century, a new kind of artistic movement swept Europe and America. Its very name, "Dada"--two identical syllables without the obligatory "-ism"--distinguished it from the long line of avant-gardes which have determined the history of the arts in the last 200 years. Its proponents came from all parts of Europe and the United States at a time when their native countries were battling one another in the deadliest war ever known. They did not restrict themselves to being painters, writers, dancers, or musicians; most of them were involved in several art forms and in breaking down the boundaries which kept the arts distinct from one another." - Anna Haro
"Indeed, the Dadaists were not content to make art. They wanted to affect all aspects of Western civilization, to take part in the revolutionary changes which were the inevitable result of the chaos of the First World War. They were not interested in writing books and painting pictures which a public would admire in an uninvolved manner; rather, they aimed to provoke the public into reacting to their activities: to the Dadaists, a violently negative reaction was better that a passive acceptance." - Anna Haro
"In future Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and later volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem... but not all goes to plan." - Anna Haro via Bookmarklet
Anna: Hate was the wrong word, strongly dislike would be better :) Although I don't think people understand the satire. And I am glad that you like the film. Sensible girl :D - Baard Overgaard Hansen
That's such a toss up... I am going to have to hold back a vote there, lol. They both are just amazing. - Daniel Monzelowsky
Oh sorry, I deleted the comment Patricia, I thought you went bye bye. Anyway, the book ends on quite an optimistic note in comparison to the movie. You might enjoy the book much more. In fact the author, Anthony Burgess, wanted nothing to do with the movie because he felt it was not true to his story. The book has a final chapter of growth, redemption, and personal responsibility. Personally, I love the move and I enjoyed it much more than the book. Still, good book & fast read = WIN - Anna Haro
Thanks Baard. ;-) Yeah, I see what you're saying. - Anna Haro
I've just managed to organise to a few hours next Tuesday in the archive to read *the* copy of the book the Kubrick had :) Will let you know my thoughts. I can appreciate the movie but it just kicks a little bit too hard on a personal level. - Patricia Hanrahan
The rape scene really happened to Burgess, so he writes about it in his book....I don't get that - Toby Graham
Shawn, almost everybody is there right now. Now, I go over the ground like a magnet getting black sand and pull you up. :-) - Louis Gray
About half way through the new FF curve (Decided the do the revisit Facebook thing today instead) but definitely a dramatic improvement now that there's lots more people here. Wait, does that say Techie?? - Charlie Anzman
"Popular, brand-name users"? What are those? I thought this was FRIENDFeed, not FanClubFeed. - Avdi Grimm
I suppose this is inevitable and an almost must-do for folks with too many follows. Even though I only subscribe to about 90+ folks here, I can feel the noise creeping in at times too, and have wondered if I should use the lists more proactively. But like cleaning up an inbox, it would take time to do it.. Well, at least I have one list right now - a list of all my colleagues. And, I think you have a good process there in sorting your follows. - Winston Teo
Avdi, the idea is as it says, to take the high traffic out and better reveal those who need more attention. Anybody here will say I treat A-List and Z-List the same... - Louis Gray
I'm updating my lists as a I go along. I'm basically on the main feed, and my lists Awesome Pix and Enterprise 2.0 a lot. Will continue to refine these over time. - Hutch Carpenter
My problem is that everyone posts on many topics, so I can't sort by the genre of the users posts. All of my subscriptions are people I know ONLY on friendfeed, so I can't sort them by source of contact. They're all on at random times of the day or night, so I can't sort them by apparent location. All I have is my home feed, a list for the ones my stats say I find interesting, and a list for the ones my stats say are interested in me. Any tips? - Slippy Lane
Slippy, you need to recruit your real-world friends into FriendFeed. - Ernie Oporto
Cool. Ethan, I like this:) I found this tweet just after I received your subscription email on my friendfeed. What's more, I've just finished writing a blog post for today which ended up with the very similar thoughts as this tweet! Plus, thanks for faving my photo and tumbling! - Kenichi Matsumoto
