Ray Ozzie “optimized” (I just want a new office chair)

Jim Posner just asked me in email “any thoughts?” about Ray Ozzie’s speech recently at Microsoft’s annual financial analysts meeting.

You might have missed it, but about halfway down the speech Ray started talking about “optimization.”

That’s code for “all your attention data are belong to us.”

OK, OK, call off the black helicopters. This is the new “fuzzy bear” Microsoft. And, anyway, they are just copying Google.

You think that Google’s datacenters are just holding search indexes?

No, now Google is holding Scoble’s corporate email too! And, those servers know which emails I delete, which ones I forward, which ones I click on. It even “optimizes” those emails by pulling out spam. How nice.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. I went through and read Ryan Stewart’s thoughts on Microsoft. That brought me to Richard MacManus’ thoughts. Which brought me to Dana Gardner’s thoughts. Hey, ZDNet has some great bloggers, doesn’t it?

But Dana brought me to Joe Wilcox’s thoughts. The experience hub.

That’s all very interesting, but I think we’re all looking in the wrong direction.

It all starts with the blog. Now, why can’t I put my blog on the map? When you go to Live.com and search on “Scoble” why can’t I customize my results there with more information for you?

When I search on “Office Furniture” why is the first thing I see stores? I don’t wanna see freaking corporate info. I wanna know what HUMANS like to use in their offices.

None of the big search companies have figured out that it’s the humans who “optimize” the Web.

They just wanna collect the big company paychecks.

I’m hearing that too here at Podtech. It’s all bunk. If there is no audience, there is no advertising. I’m not an “eyeball” to be tracked, or optimized.

I’ll be looking for who lets me get to the other humans the fastest.

Here, let’s try this. If I can spend less than $500 for an office chair, which one is best?

Optimize that!

Get me the humans and you’ll add $2 billion in value. And, yes, Ray, I believe you know how to do it. You’re still the only Microsoft executive to show up at a grass-roots event in Silicon Valley.

Remember Active Desktop and Channels? Microsoft could have OWNED the blog world and RSS. Why did that fail? Cause when we looked at it all we saw were big companies.

If you optimize for them you’ll fail.

My attention data +is+ valuable. But if you forget about the little people we’ll remember and we’ll go with systems that put us on stage. Why was Channel 9 magical? Not cause of the shaky video camera work I did. It was cause it was the first corporate site that put CUSTOMERS ON THE HOME PAGE!

I’m missing the humans when I visit Live.com. Actually the new Spaces thing got us to pay attention to Live.com again. Take heed off of that.

Give +us+ control of our “optimizations” (er, attention data) and we’ll be on your side. Behave like Microsoft of old and we’ll just stick with Google.

  • http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/scoble Alexander Scoble

    You actually cannot find a good ergonomic chair at Office Depot…Trust me…I’ve looked.

    Oh and did I mention that I was the ergo guy at my law firm for a time?

    Call Just Ergonomics and they’ll help you out. Even do a free ergo assessment of your work area for you.

    And no I don’t get paid by them, heck I’m not even in the same city as them anymore, but I had good success working with their Palo Alto rep (wish I could remember the name) and recommend them.

    Or you can get an Aeron by yourself and be uncomfortable after sitting for an hour.

  • http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ Matt Cutts

    Robert, yup. Whenever I switch to a new location in Google (which at one point was every 5 months, on average), I drag it with me. I do think you’d like it.

  • http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ Matt Cutts

    Robert, yup. Whenever I switch to a new location in Google (which at one point was every 5 months, on average), I drag it with me. I do think you’d like it.

  • http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ Matt Cutts

    Robert, yup. Whenever I switch to a new location in Google (which at one point was every 5 months, on average), I drag it with me. I do think you’d like it.

  • http://www.blackbagops.net/ Todd Blanchard

    Matt? Best? What shape is your butt? There is no BEST anything. There are tradeoffs – which ones matter to YOU?

  • http://www.blackbagops.net/ Todd Blanchard

    Matt? Best? What shape is your butt? There is no BEST anything. There are tradeoffs – which ones matter to YOU?

  • http://www.blackbagops.net Todd Blanchard

    Matt? Best? What shape is your butt? There is no BEST anything. There are tradeoffs – which ones matter to YOU?

  • http://xmlhacker.com/ M. David Peterson

    @

    >> Most of the time I could give a flying fck what some individual likes.

    And Active Desktop and Channels failed because they were horrible, aweful implementations of half-decent ideas 5 years too early. (As Microsoft frequently does: creates a pathetic hack of what will be a good idea in 5 years which turns the audience off of it until it is timely and well implemented.)

  • http://xmlhacker.com/ M. David Peterson

    @

    >> Most of the time I could give a flying fck what some individual likes.

    And Active Desktop and Channels failed because they were horrible, aweful implementations of half-decent ideas 5 years too early. (As Microsoft frequently does: creates a pathetic hack of what will be a good idea in 5 years which turns the audience off of it until it is timely and well implemented.)

  • http://xmlhacker.com M. David Peterson

    @

    >> Most of the time I could give a flying fck what some individual likes.

    And Active Desktop and Channels failed because they were horrible, aweful implementations of half-decent ideas 5 years too early. (As Microsoft frequently does: creates a pathetic hack of what will be a good idea in 5 years which turns the audience off of it until it is timely and well implemented.)

  • http://xmlhacker.com/ M. David Peterson

    Hmmmm… seems to have cut off everything after the quote.

    Oh well.

  • http://xmlhacker.com/ M. David Peterson

    Hmmmm… seems to have cut off everything after the quote.

    Oh well.

  • http://xmlhacker.com M. David Peterson

    Hmmmm… seems to have cut off everything after the quote.

    Oh well.

  • JimmyG

    Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/)… ’nuff said, job done.

  • JimmyG

    Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/)… ’nuff said, job done.

  • JimmyG

    Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/)… ’nuff said, job done.

  • Sal

    This is not about attention data, it’s about personalization search. you guys are off track.

  • Sal

    This is not about attention data, it’s about personalization search. you guys are off track.

  • Sal

    This is not about attention data, it’s about personalization search. you guys are off track.

  • joe webster

    I wish people would get over themselves. Business is not a great social experiment, it’s about making money. Why criticize companies like Microsoft, Google, GM, etc., etc. for doing what they’re supposed to do, which is turn a profit and increase shareholder value. The haves will always have and the have-nots won’t. Here’s a social experiment for you to try: give away all your worldly possesions and move to an “open-source” commune in Idaho. Until then, please shutup.

  • joe webster

    I wish people would get over themselves. Business is not a great social experiment, it’s about making money. Why criticize companies like Microsoft, Google, GM, etc., etc. for doing what they’re supposed to do, which is turn a profit and increase shareholder value. The haves will always have and the have-nots won’t. Here’s a social experiment for you to try: give away all your worldly possesions and move to an “open-source” commune in Idaho. Until then, please shutup.

  • joe webster

    I wish people would get over themselves. Business is not a great social experiment, it’s about making money. Why criticize companies like Microsoft, Google, GM, etc., etc. for doing what they’re supposed to do, which is turn a profit and increase shareholder value. The haves will always have and the have-nots won’t. Here’s a social experiment for you to try: give away all your worldly possesions and move to an “open-source” commune in Idaho. Until then, please shutup.

  • http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark Don Park

    Every once in a while, Scoble hits one out of the park and this one is it and the ball landed on top of my head with a loud gong. Thanks Scoble.

  • http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark Don Park

    Every once in a while, Scoble hits one out of the park and this one is it and the ball landed on top of my head with a loud gong. Thanks Scoble.

  • http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark Don Park

    Every once in a while, Scoble hits one out of the park and this one is it and the ball landed on top of my head with a loud gong. Thanks Scoble.

  • Dennis

    Best place for good chairs http://sit4less.com/

  • Dennis

    Best place for good chairs http://sit4less.com/

  • Dennis

    Best place for good chairs http://sit4less.com/

  • Pingback: Finding good blogs in other languages - A Frog in the Valley - Technology Intelligence

  • http://www.TinkerX.com Andy Havens

    The reason you got the “corporate” results you did when you searched for “office furniture,” is because you are thinking like and using words like a corporate weenie. That’s not a “regular person” phrase, nor something you’d say in a conversation when talking to a buddy about why your back hurts or how your butt’s falling asleep:

    “Scobe! My man! You look like hell. What’s the prob? Why all bent up”

    “Dude… My office furniture is out of whack. I so need a new piece of office furniture. Do you know any good places where I can go to get a comfortable office furniture?”

    Why do you expect to get “personal” results when you do a search on a non-personal, generic, top-down, marketing-department term?

    People expect the Internet — at some magical, fruity, future point — to correct for all our flaws. Nope. You still gots to know how to use the language in all its wonderful, different, specific ways. And if you want to know about a “comfortable chair,” try searching for that. Or for results based on how *you* might blog on such were you to do so.

    Try searching for:

    comfortable chair
    comfortable chair review
    comfortable chair review blog
    my favorite chair
    good chair

    Or on del.icio.us, try tags like chair and review

    I get your point, Scobe; the Web isn’t currently being organized and search-optimized for people, per se, but for companies and pages. OK. Fine. But even if it were… whaddya want? You need to know how to ask for stuff in order to get it. You walk into Blockbuster and ask for that movie with Dana Carvey, and you got him mixed up in your head with David Spade… you’re outta luck.

  • http://www.TinkerX.com/ Andy Havens

    The reason you got the “corporate” results you did when you searched for “office furniture,” is because you are thinking like and using words like a corporate weenie. That’s not a “regular person” phrase, nor something you’d say in a conversation when talking to a buddy about why your back hurts or how your butt’s falling asleep:

    “Scobe! My man! You look like hell. What’s the prob? Why all bent up”

    “Dude… My office furniture is out of whack. I so need a new piece of office furniture. Do you know any good places where I can go to get a comfortable office furniture?”

    Why do you expect to get “personal” results when you do a search on a non-personal, generic, top-down, marketing-department term?

    People expect the Internet — at some magical, fruity, future point — to correct for all our flaws. Nope. You still gots to know how to use the language in all its wonderful, different, specific ways. And if you want to know about a “comfortable chair,” try searching for that. Or for results based on how *you* might blog on such were you to do so.

    Try searching for:

    comfortable chair
    comfortable chair review
    comfortable chair review blog
    my favorite chair
    good chair

    Or on del.icio.us, try tags like chair and review

    I get your point, Scobe; the Web isn’t currently being organized and search-optimized for people, per se, but for companies and pages. OK. Fine. But even if it were… whaddya want? You need to know how to ask for stuff in order to get it. You walk into Blockbuster and ask for that movie with Dana Carvey, and you got him mixed up in your head with David Spade… you’re outta luck.

  • http://www.TinkerX.com/ Andy Havens

    The reason you got the “corporate” results you did when you searched for “office furniture,” is because you are thinking like and using words like a corporate weenie. That’s not a “regular person” phrase, nor something you’d say in a conversation when talking to a buddy about why your back hurts or how your butt’s falling asleep:

    “Scobe! My man! You look like hell. What’s the prob? Why all bent up”

    “Dude… My office furniture is out of whack. I so need a new piece of office furniture. Do you know any good places where I can go to get a comfortable office furniture?”

    Why do you expect to get “personal” results when you do a search on a non-personal, generic, top-down, marketing-department term?

    People expect the Internet — at some magical, fruity, future point — to correct for all our flaws. Nope. You still gots to know how to use the language in all its wonderful, different, specific ways. And if you want to know about a “comfortable chair,” try searching for that. Or for results based on how *you* might blog on such were you to do so.

    Try searching for:

    comfortable chair
    comfortable chair review
    comfortable chair review blog
    my favorite chair
    good chair

    Or on del.icio.us, try tags like chair and review

    I get your point, Scobe; the Web isn’t currently being organized and search-optimized for people, per se, but for companies and pages. OK. Fine. But even if it were… whaddya want? You need to know how to ask for stuff in order to get it. You walk into Blockbuster and ask for that movie with Dana Carvey, and you got him mixed up in your head with David Spade… you’re outta luck.

  • http://ibarrolaza.com.ar/ Pablo Ibarrolaza

    I remember pointcast :)

  • http://ibarrolaza.com.ar/ Pablo Ibarrolaza

    I remember pointcast :)

  • http://ibarrolaza.com.ar Pablo Ibarrolaza

    I remember pointcast :)

  • http://www.niodonline.co.uk/ Ergonomic Office Chairs

    There are many Ergonomic Office Chairs out there for below $500, the best advice i can do to anyone is to shop around.
    But the most important thing is to look after you back.

  • http://www.niodonline.co.uk/ Ergonomic Office Chairs

    There are many Ergonomic Office Chairs out there for below $500, the best advice i can do to anyone is to shop around.
    But the most important thing is to look after you back.

  • http://www.niodonline.co.uk Ergonomic Office Chairs

    There are many Ergonomic Office Chairs out there for below $500, the best advice i can do to anyone is to shop around.
    But the most important thing is to look after you back.

  • Douglas Rose

    I returned to sit4less an aeron chair I purchased from them. The chair was uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. It was returned in the same new condition in which it was received. The return was received by sit4less on Aug 30. I have been attempting unsucessfully since then to obtain a correct refund. Sit4less does not acknowledge or respond to emails. On numerous occasions I have been disconnected while on hold with their “customer service” department. Sit4less has been impossible to deal with. They engage in deceptive trade practices. Consumers will be better off dealing with another vendor, if they prefer not getting ripped off.

  • Douglas Rose

    I returned to sit4less an aeron chair I purchased from them. The chair was uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. It was returned in the same new condition in which it was received. The return was received by sit4less on Aug 30. I have been attempting unsucessfully since then to obtain a correct refund. Sit4less does not acknowledge or respond to emails. On numerous occasions I have been disconnected while on hold with their “customer service” department. Sit4less has been impossible to deal with. They engage in deceptive trade practices. Consumers will be better off dealing with another vendor, if they prefer not getting ripped off.

  • Douglas Rose

    I returned to sit4less an aeron chair I purchased from them. The chair was uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. It was returned in the same new condition in which it was received. The return was received by sit4less on Aug 30. I have been attempting unsucessfully since then to obtain a correct refund. Sit4less does not acknowledge or respond to emails. On numerous occasions I have been disconnected while on hold with their “customer service” department. Sit4less has been impossible to deal with. They engage in deceptive trade practices. Consumers will be better off dealing with another vendor, if they prefer not getting ripped off.

  • http://sit4less.com/ Alex Murphy

    sit4less.com is a scam, the person who owns healthyback.com, opened sit4less.com and uses customer information. Their customer service reps, answer calls for healthyback and sit4less. sit4less.com trojan horses their customers to gain bigger profits! Your money is better spent elsewhere. The owner of these two is Tony Mazlish, you can email him, tony@healthyback.com

  • http://sit4less.com/ Alex Murphy

    sit4less.com is a scam, the person who owns healthyback.com, opened sit4less.com and uses customer information. Their customer service reps, answer calls for healthyback and sit4less. sit4less.com trojan horses their customers to gain bigger profits! Your money is better spent elsewhere. The owner of these two is Tony Mazlish, you can email him, tony@healthyback.com

  • http://sit4less.com Alex Murphy

    sit4less.com is a scam, the person who owns healthyback.com, opened sit4less.com and uses customer information. Their customer service reps, answer calls for healthyback and sit4less. sit4less.com trojan horses their customers to gain bigger profits! Your money is better spent elsewhere. The owner of these two is Tony Mazlish, you can email him, tony@healthyback.com

  • http://www.officemasterchairs.com/ itzik

    Here are a chairs by OfficeMasterChairs that cost less than the areon and gives you much more adjustments. I have used one for 5 years and it has been very good. Check them out at http://www.OfficeMasterChairs.com

  • http://www.officemasterchairs.com/ itzik

    Here are a chairs by OfficeMasterChairs that cost less than the areon and gives you much more adjustments. I have used one for 5 years and it has been very good. Check them out at http://www.OfficeMasterChairs.com

  • http://www.officemasterchairs.com itzik

    Here are a chairs by OfficeMasterChairs that cost less than the areon and gives you much more adjustments. I have used one for 5 years and it has been very good. Check them out at http://www.OfficeMasterChairs.com

  • http://www.squidoo.com/shredderwarehouse paper shredder

    Ray Ozzie “optimized” (I just want a new office chair
    http://www.squidoo.com/shredderwarehouse

  • http://www.squidoo.com/shredderwarehouse paper shredder

    Ray Ozzie “optimized” (I just want a new office chair
    http://www.squidoo.com/shredderwarehouse

  • http://www.squidoo.com/shredderwarehouse paper shredder

    Ray Ozzie “optimized” (I just want a new office chair
    http://www.squidoo.com/shredderwarehouse