I am starting to resent my car - enough so I may actually give it up and go with Biking and Public Transportation to get me around (both of which are excellent here in Boulder, CO) - George Smith
Amazing, I can drive about 200 miles on 1/2 a tank. If only the Prius looked alot cooler, lol. - Aaron Myers
@Jeremy not hacked but it seems do better when it's hot and I do a lot of hwy driving. - Steve Rubel
showoff....LOL...yes I am just jealous. - Ruth Ferguson
This is the wrong metric. What Steve didn't tell you is that his Prius has an 80-gallon tank. :-) - Louis Gray
I set no records with my 350Z Roadster but enjoyed driving in to work today - James Joyner
@Louis - HA! I had a mental image of a Prius towing a small u-haul for its gas and battery. - Yolanda
Wrong Louis - you know how some cars are using cleaned food oil to power their cars? Steve is using FriendFeed for his - the more postings you make here, the faster the car goes - that's why he can't use it in the middle of the night! - Allen Stern
Friend says: "If he had a 1992-1995 Honda Civic VX, or a 2001 Honda Insight, he could have done even better in terms of mileage and emissions !!!" Think this is true? - Kathleen Mazzocco
Someday I'm going to get me a Prius. - Thomas Hawk
I'd rather get a Smart or a MINI diesel-hybrid. Design is much better and they're more fun to drive. - Raoul Pop
That's fantastic! I'm renting a Prius to head up to Portland with from San Fran so that should help save us some major costs along the way - Dave Cohen
I'm driving my Vespa a lot more than my Prius. Now that's fuel efficiency. - Matt McGinnis
I told my wife I was thinking about a scooter, and she said, "Great! Then I can use it sometimes, too!" >sigh< I don't wanna share. - Harvey Simmons
if only the prius was made for tall people, I wonder if I'd fit in a Tesla - clarke thomas
Kathleen, yes it is. I had a Honda Civic (can't remember the year) long ago that gave me 45 MPG. - Jody Carbone
That's not necessarily that big of an accomplishment. I can drive about 200 highway miles on a quarter tank with my '03 Hyundai Elantra. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I've had my Prius for 3 1/2 years. I've never had a tank average more than about 43 mpg and my average tank is more like 39-40 mpg. Any tips for improving? - Amy Worley
Also, I'd like to add that comparing miles per tank isn't a good comparison. The Prius has a smaller tank than most cars. When mine is blinking empty I'm lucky to get 9 gallons in there. Usually less. - Amy Worley
LOL Aaron. Don't go too far back in her videos then, when she yells that if she had an iPhone, she'd fill it with "Hannah Tana!" Well, that and Elmo. - Cyndy
Concurrent to your hiring announcement, Allen, my son subbed in for me yesterday on Mashable Conversations, co-hosting with Sean Aune. A good day for the young social media folk. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Allen, she's already up and ready. I told her she has to finish her orange juice before she can work. - Cyndy
Awesome Cyndy - thanks for getting her ready - I am looking forward to her video content - we need to pass Justine this week in views! - Allen Stern
I say me-me, even though I know meem is technically correct. No reason. Just do. - Michael Hocter
meme theory is actually becoming a pretty accepted academic theory these days - I saw a book about medieval memes at a conference just a few weeks ago - Frederic
I think me-me sounds better than meem. Makes all the tech and rumor stuff sound cute and cuddly. - Colby Olson
I am sorry Louis, maybe I should have come to you before letting Matthew go - sorry,hope it doesn't change things between us! - Allen Stern
I have already broken it to the family. I will inform him in person tonight. But I appreciate your giving him the opportunity. He will be leveraging it on his resume and applying at TechCrunch and RWW over the weekend. - Louis Gray
There is a 18 year non-compete clause in our contract. Of course most bloggers seem to start at CN and go to the big blogs like Kristen and Roi :) - Allen Stern
I don't think TC writers are allowed to sleep. I'm calling CPS. - Cyndy
Wow this is tough. I am a sports blogger. I will have to go with Spencer Hall from http://www.EDSBS.com . His writing and love of college football is unmatched. I have other favorites, but he is my biggest fav. - Ethan Jaynes
Don't like the full RSS feed being pulled into FriendFeed. Then FriendFeed steals page views and ad money from bloggers, rather than boost them. - Hutch Carpenter
the current views and bubbling work in my opinion... I'm not sure if these sort of changes will be for the better. - Alan Le
@Hutch, I think my forehead just caved in from my palm hitting it. Do you want to start that again? Why not argue against full feeds in Google Reader? - Louis Gray
I feel that it's broken, spending too much time hiding iphone articles and not enough tools to see items i'm interested in (noiseriver helps, though) - sergiooo (droffset) via NoiseRiver
Yeah, I don't get it. FF links back to the content and actually displays very little of it. What more do you want? - Jordan Hofker via fftogo
I know Louis, I know. With FriendFeed, bloggers get the best of all worlds. Easy viewing of new posts, viral spread of them and a click of people to visit the blog. As a non-ad based blogger, I don't care if they get the full feed. But I'm sympathetic to the ad-based guys. Google Reader is a viewing app, FriendFeed is a conversation app. Question - those ads that get tucked into the Google Reader views...are those for the blogger? - Hutch Carpenter
Thanks Hutch for sticking up for us, it's appreciated. - Allen Stern
Depends on what you want as a blogger. I get the whole thing about wanting to drive traffic back to your blog, especially if it's ad-based. If what you want is to engage readers and get people talking about your blog posts, why make it any harder than it needs to be. In the few weeks I've been using FF, I've commented probably 3x more on things than I ever have on blogs because it's easy. Maybe the solution would be an option on a blog feed to publish the full content or not and let the blogger decide? - Rob Neville
Me, I totally like this design. As it stands, I can't for the life of me keep up with the feed through FriendFeed. I need more ways to cut through the dross, to track what I've read and move past what I haven't, to track things I'm interested in without Liking them, to essentially treat it like a tool trying to aid me in doing my thing rather than me trying to help it to do its thing. I'M the user here. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver
That's a lot of subscriptions, but not an overwhelming number of items. Mine says: from your 332 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 16,038 items, starred 0 items, shared 901 items, and emailed 5 items - Louis Gray
Not overwhelming for you Mr. Gray, but I'm sure you realize you're an exception, not the norm :) - Jason Kaneshiro
@Jason People who are using feed readers are not the norm anyway. - benedikt
@louis you must subscribe to some busy feeds! oh no, I know - you read every single item - i scan headlines in some of my folders and "mark as read" when done (like the PR releases folder, for ex.) - Sarah Perez
Seriously, give up RSS. You won't regret it. RSS readers are way over-rated. RSS is a waste of time. Socially filtered content is vastly superior. - Thomas Hawk
I think I agree. I stopped reading RSS back in 2003 and I haven't missed it. - Patrick Beard via twhirl
If that helps you write those killer posts then please keep it up. - Tac Anderson
Excellent guest post... Louis the guest bloggers are great, it's very refreshing. - Mike Fruchter
Refreshing as in that it's not me, Mike? :-) - Louis Gray
Louis refreshing in the fact that it gives you more daddy time, and less time blogging for the interim.. Oh now don't even go there :-) - Mike Fruchter
It's probably more definitional -- people equate prominence with remoteness. And the more they think you're famous the less they treat you like a person. That's been my experience at industry parties. Every interaction is someone trying to right some wrong they think you did them. If they didn't like the way you said hello that'll turn into a flamey blog post. Makes you want to have some more distance. People still have 20th century attitudes about fame. - Dave Winer
Applying that kind of thinking to blogging is the most ridiculous perversion. Blogging exists to empower everyone to speak their mind. To then impose a hierarchy on it is to subvert the whole idea! Anyway, look for ways you penalize people for expressing their opinions and you might find some of the more "prominent" people coming back into the flow. - Dave Winer
your chart is wrong (at least for me it was/is) - the n00b stage is where i interacted even more than i do today by a small percentage - Allen Stern
Louis, you've always struck me as a person seeking to hear diverse voices, your "Guest Posts" proves this. Nice way to widen the discussion. - Nice Fish Films
I've never thought of the blogosphere as having a hierarchy. Obviously some bloggers are more interesting to more readers than some others. Some bloggers are simply better at writing - at getting their thoughts onto paper; much the same as some very intelligent people make lousy speakers the same goes for blogging. - Ian May
Definitely not for me. When I was a newb, there was a lot less interaction. Back when I started doing serialized posts on websites, there were seriously about seven or eight people on the internet who'd read that stuff. I was elated when my hit-count went double digits. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Interesting post Hutch, I claim stage 2 as well. - Shey
n00b here :-) Great guest post (again). - Justin Korn
I second that, I would be on stage 2 .I blog for an outlet, if an audience follows and interacts with me, that's an added bonus. - Mike Fruchter
I'm a n00b. That's why I had Hutch write for me. - Louis Gray
ha, Louis. Branding the chart with the LG logo -- hardly n00bish. : ) - Robert Seidman
*This* is the great friend divide. Scoble got it all wrong. - benedikt
Thanks everyone for your comments. A lot of fun doing this. Dave Winer is definitely a Stage 4 guy, interesting to see his perspective. And Mark "Rizzn" - I remember well the thrill when hits went to double digits as well. - Hutch Carpenter
Maybe it's also a country thing. In Germany there are no stage 4 bloggers. That's what I like about blogging in Germany ;-) - benedikt
Hutch - Good piece. I would argue that those promoting a specific product engage as many people as possible if they're going to use Twitter or other micro-blogging services (instead of some of the 'nutty' posts that sometimes look really bad). You never know who your next best promoter is. Agree totally that people shouldn't be insulted if they don't get an answer ... the first time :) - Charlie Anzman
I'm blogging in Danish about Social media. I'm trying to get new people interested in the subject and my goal will newer be readers but the conversation and how I can push the Danish marketing community in a new direction. Every comment is still gold to me. I have my niche and I love it. - morten saxnaes
Wow - Seth actually does get out there. Posted a comment to him. - Hutch Carpenter
"I personally read and answer every single email I get " - seth. g - thats so true, I have emailed to him and he responds ! - Peter Dawson
Hutch, though not in called out in the post, in the original thread I did say Seth is *excellent* at interacting. There are different approaches to interacting. Seth posts his e-mail address on his blog, you don't. Neither approach wrong -- just different. As you note, Seth's posts do stand on their own. Maybe there's a blogging opportunity for someone to analyze Seth's posts and try to start the discussion.. - Robert Seidman
first off, it never ceases to amaze me that you can collect so many comments on friendfeed :). Secondly, I am curious how you are able to encourage people to guest post on yer blog, I have several peers with things to say and I have offered my blog as a forum but I have yet to get any takers - gregory
@justin sounds like the digg effect! I was hoping my 'sorry, I have a meeting' post might get this love but I published on iPhone craze day and I didn't get any love... Oh well, keep posting - gregory
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 (W.) 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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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 via twhirl
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
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
Robert, I loved reading that entry. It felt so personal and it read like it came from a passion rather than a business. This is what lacks in the the tech blogging industry, passion. I think I'm going to add you to my RSS reader. If this friendfeed conversation isn't proof that tech blogging is failing then I don't know what is. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing this change implemented. - Michael Narciso via NoiseRiver
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
I'm deeply suspicious of this recent anti-blogging meme (thanks to Calacanis!) Blogs are simply shifting into another priority (within the enlarged mediasphere). As much as I enjoy the "micro" trend, it's also highly reductionist with an absence of elaboration and important context. Blogs provide a space for a different kind of information processing and engagement. If anything, blog hasn't failed me, I have failed my blog (i.e., to choose something EASY (like this) over the *work* of creating a full post. - melmcbride
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
Robert: The way you're using your blog WITH FriendFeed is ideal. Same for Twitter, etc. I think we ought to focus on the meaningful integration of these tools for media production and conversation as opposed to versus or hierarchies. I suspect we are on the same RSS here :) - melmcbride
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 Venkatesan
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 it is always good input - Soulhuntre
Robert, just read your wonderful post now, and I'm still fascinated by it. I'm commenting here because I know you'll read here first. You know, this competition that you were taking about, almost cause me to stop blogging, but then I realized that I'm writing because I like it, so as far as I'm concern, I'm not trying to compete anyone, this is why I'm taking things easy and on my own pace.
I have to also agree about the TOO MUCH content every day. It is just too much to handle, and most of the time you read about the same things from several blogs, then you bump into the same content in services like Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook...
I've recently noticed that my subscribers counter is not going anywhere than little up and down. I think it as a lot to do with the fact that people don't need to use the RSS reader as much as before because the content is coming to them anyway, again: Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, etc (assuming that the people who read technology blogs using these services). - Orli Yakuel
“One of my biggest pet peeves: people who send me e-mail and then immediately IM me to tell me that they've sent me e-mail. I don't need you to tell me to check my mail; I have a mail client that runs 24/7 that takes care of that job for me.”
