Amazon CTO, blog evangelist?

November 22, 2006 By

Wait a second. Is this the same Werner Vogels who “ripped us a new one” when we were doing our blogging book reading at Amazon earlier this year? (quote from Slashdot).

It is! And he’s talking about how blogging is helping a politician in the Dutch election get his message out.

So, that’s another thing I’m thankful for: more blog evangelism and yet another turned skeptic. We interviewed 188 businesses for our book (which is now being used by Shel to write his next book on Global Neighborhoods), which is still selling very well according to Amazon.

I’m thankful for Amazon. I wonder if this will mean more Amazon blogs?

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  • Howard Greenstein

    Scoble, we’re thankful for you, man. Best of the season to you, Maryam, and Patrick! – Howardgr
    btw: first comment!

  • Howard Greenstein

    Scoble, we’re thankful for you, man. Best of the season to you, Maryam, and Patrick! – Howardgr
    btw: first comment!

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/ Werner

    Robert, I have been a blogger for a long time, long before you guys tried to convince us that the Amazon.com sales would triple if we would start blogging. :-) I am not a blog evangelist; blogging is a tool for communication and I am all for people communicating more…

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com Werner

    Robert, I have been a blogger for a long time, long before you guys tried to convince us that the Amazon.com sales would triple if we would start blogging. :-) I am not a blog evangelist; blogging is a tool for communication and I am all for people communicating more…

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    I never said your sales would triple. I said you’d have better relations with your customers. What you just wrote to Dave sounds a lot like evangelism to me.

    And you didn’t take that tactic when we visited you. If you had, we never would have gotten into an argument.

    One thing did come out of it: our book sales went higher that month. So, maybe getting into a blog fight was good for sales after all.

    Oh, and we were the only corporate business blog that was produced on a blog and we’re outselling all the others by a pretty large margin. Was it because of the quality of our book, or was it because of our blog? (The quality of our book IS A LOT higher because we put it on a blog where anyone could improve it before we sent it to the publishers).

    So, I reverse myself. Blogging our book dramatically increased the sales of OUR book. Your book’s sales might be different.

    Either way, glad to have that all cleared up.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com Robert Scoble

    I never said your sales would triple. I said you’d have better relations with your customers. What you just wrote to Dave sounds a lot like evangelism to me.

    And you didn’t take that tactic when we visited you. If you had, we never would have gotten into an argument.

    One thing did come out of it: our book sales went higher that month. So, maybe getting into a blog fight was good for sales after all.

    Oh, and we were the only corporate business blog that was produced on a blog and we’re outselling all the others by a pretty large margin. Was it because of the quality of our book, or was it because of our blog? (The quality of our book IS A LOT higher because we put it on a blog where anyone could improve it before we sent it to the publishers).

    So, I reverse myself. Blogging our book dramatically increased the sales of OUR book. Your book’s sales might be different.

    Either way, glad to have that all cleared up.

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/ werner

    Of course I disagree with your recollection, but who cares? Smile. You know that the only reason for the controversy was to sell more books… BTW Jeff Barr has a list of bloggers who work at Amazon.com: http://www.jeff-barr.com/?page_id=315 Remember that these are individuals who write weblogs and who happen to work at Amazon, not “Amazon Bloggers”. I know that in some societies work equals identity, but I believe that in this case they are seperated.

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com werner

    Of course I disagree with your recollection, but who cares? Smile. You know that the only reason for the controversy was to sell more books… BTW Jeff Barr has a list of bloggers who work at Amazon.com: http://www.jeff-barr.com/?page_id=315 Remember that these are individuals who write weblogs and who happen to work at Amazon, not “Amazon Bloggers”. I know that in some societies work equals identity, but I believe that in this case they are seperated.

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Heh. We want an OPML file!
    :-)

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    Heh. We want an OPML file!
    :-)

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/ werner

    Sure you can have your pony, little Robert.

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com werner

    Sure you can have your pony, little Robert.

  • dutch_guy

    Some mistakes in the “werner vogels on dutch elections” post:
    - “The government has been christen-democrats + liberals for the past 6 years or even longer”. It has been christen-democrats + liberals for the last 4 years, before that it was liberals + socialists, I would call it a left-liberal coalition. In Netherlands known as the purple government, for the socialists are red and the liberals are blue.

    - “the SP was really able connect to voters and the internet was an important channel for that” Mr Marijnissen is not unique as blogger, most politicians have blogs and all parties use the internet intensive, I think. Most are active on Hyves
    (dutch facebook), secondlive and other so-called web2.0 sites. Podcast also is used by most left -and right-wing parties.

    So, I really think this is a BS-story, and I haven’t heard anyone about the internet as the thing that gave the SP an edge. It is strange as a dutch person to read this on an USA-blog at first.

  • dutch_guy

    Some mistakes in the “werner vogels on dutch elections” post:
    - “The government has been christen-democrats + liberals for the past 6 years or even longer”. It has been christen-democrats + liberals for the last 4 years, before that it was liberals + socialists, I would call it a left-liberal coalition. In Netherlands known as the purple government, for the socialists are red and the liberals are blue.

    - “the SP was really able connect to voters and the internet was an important channel for that” Mr Marijnissen is not unique as blogger, most politicians have blogs and all parties use the internet intensive, I think. Most are active on Hyves
    (dutch facebook), secondlive and other so-called web2.0 sites. Podcast also is used by most left -and right-wing parties.

    So, I really think this is a BS-story, and I haven’t heard anyone about the internet as the thing that gave the SP an edge. It is strange as a dutch person to read this on an USA-blog at first.

  • http://peterdawson.typepad.com/ /pd

    Werner is such a bigot !! Dah ??

    Hey Werner remember once you told me/us ??

    “It is because people that are interested in blogging also buy a lot of books in the self-help section. It appears bloggers are looking online for the love they didn’t receive as a child.”

    Can make public the email ??

  • http://peterdawson.typepad.com /pd

    Werner is such a bigot !! Dah ??

    Hey Werner remember once you told me/us ??

    “It is because people that are interested in blogging also buy a lot of books in the self-help section. It appears bloggers are looking online for the love they didn’t receive as a child.”

    Can make public the email ??

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/ Werner

    Peter, wow, yeah, that was a very deep statement :-) . Given that I don’t recall the whole email so I am going to say “no”. I have no interest in starting another whirlpool discussion around this topic just because we have nothing better to do today :-)

    To the “Dutch Guy” I left a comment on the page where Dave posted my email to him that clarifies a few things. My note was based on an analysis by Maurice de Hond, a well known Dutch marketeer.

  • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com Werner

    Peter, wow, yeah, that was a very deep statement :-) . Given that I don’t recall the whole email so I am going to say “no”. I have no interest in starting another whirlpool discussion around this topic just because we have nothing better to do today :-)

    To the “Dutch Guy” I left a comment on the page where Dave posted my email to him that clarifies a few things. My note was based on an analysis by Maurice de Hond, a well known Dutch marketeer.

  • http://web-strategist.com/ Jeremiah Owyang

    I swear (I witnessed the first whirlwind with great interest) this blogging argument only happens right around holidays when folks don’t have anything better to do.

    The last one was the week before April fools. The argument shifted away once everyone started making false claims they were going to this company and that.

    Although I wasn’t at the in-person naked conversations/amazon presentation, I don’t have any recollection reading on the blogosphere that Shel and Scoble promised a 300% ROI. I believe the discussions were actually centered around the value of blogging, measuring ROI before implementing in a calculated Amazon environment.

    Werner, I must say, you are indeed a good sport.

  • http://web-strategist.com Jeremiah Owyang

    I swear (I witnessed the first whirlwind with great interest) this blogging argument only happens right around holidays when folks don’t have anything better to do.

    The last one was the week before April fools. The argument shifted away once everyone started making false claims they were going to this company and that.

    Although I wasn’t at the in-person naked conversations/amazon presentation, I don’t have any recollection reading on the blogosphere that Shel and Scoble promised a 300% ROI. I believe the discussions were actually centered around the value of blogging, measuring ROI before implementing in a calculated Amazon environment.

    Werner, I must say, you are indeed a good sport.

  • http://peterdawson.typepad.com/ /pd

    Hey Werner, dont worry .. I wont make public ..

    anyhoot welcome to blogosphere !! :) -

  • http://peterdawson.typepad.com /pd

    Hey Werner, dont worry .. I wont make public ..

    anyhoot welcome to blogosphere !! :) -

  • LayZ

    If I remember that “conversation” as documented, it seems Werner was questioning the bottomline business value of blogging. I.e, would it help Amazon make more money? Now, that is quite different from Werner pointing out the value of a politician blogging. (And of course, we all saw how well having Moulitsas blogging for Howard Dean worked out).

  • LayZ

    If I remember that “conversation” as documented, it seems Werner was questioning the bottomline business value of blogging. I.e, would it help Amazon make more money? Now, that is quite different from Werner pointing out the value of a politician blogging. (And of course, we all saw how well having Moulitsas blogging for Howard Dean worked out).

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