Pissing off the blogosphere…

by on January 28, 2007

OK, I think I made about 50 enemies yesterday. Telling people they don’t link, I learned, is one way to get everyone’s panties in a bunch.

Ryan Block, who is one of the main guys at Engadget, responds to yesterday’s rant with a long piece. Basically says that they went through an editorial process and found my video yesterday didn’t have any news value to Engadget’s readers.

Now, that’s new information. I disagree. First of all, I had the news out at 9:00 p.m. on Friday evening. Half an hour before Engadget had its news out.

Second of all, I had quotes DIRECTLY from Intel’s top management about the new 45 nm processors and how they did it ON VIDEO. This is something that Engadget didn’t have, and doesn’t have. That alone is news value for Engadget to link to.

In my two videos (and a third really cool one that PodTech.net did) we get the news about Intel’s new 45nm fab, and go way beyond what Engadget put up.

But the news of my videos isn’t WHAT was discussed in them, but rather the TOUR itself. I expect at least a few of Engadget’s readers would love to see the place where the chips inside many of their gadgets are made and hear from the people who make those chips directly instead of reading just something that sounds like a press release rewrite. Maybe that’s just me?

UPDATE2: Today Engadget has an article about a cancer patient getting their Xbox ripped off. You telling me THAT has more news value for Engadget’s readers than a tour of Intel’s factory which also included discussion of Intel’s new chips coming out later this year and how Intel got that breakthrough done? Give me a break.

Another point? That I’ve become less interesting since leaving Microsoft. Well, I think that’s because Engadget isn’t watching ScobleShow.com. Including an interview with the Zune team that wasn’t linked to by Engadget or Gizmodo, either.

Over there, in just four months, I’ve posted more than 120 videos, gotten more than 70 interviews with Silicon Valley CEOs, and had some real interesting ones with Retrevo and gang at CES, among others. But, nah, that’s not as interesting as seeing inside Microsoft, is it?

Oh, Gizmodo DOES link. Dan Farber, of ZDNet DOES link.

So does Alex Torex.

Frederic, in the Last Podcast blog, says this is part of a bigger blogger backlash (he sees it in places like Digg).

Jason Calacanis (the guy who founded Engadget) says the real “non-linking” enemy is the mainstream press. Ahh, but Jason, that’s why I was so pissed off yesterday. Every blog was linking to the New York Times (or, not linking to anyone, like the Engadget and Gizmodo pieces didn’t do) but they weren’t linking to the blog that ACTUALLY got the real news, straight from inside the Intel fab (the New York Times didn’t get you that). The truth is, if bloggers don’t link to other bloggers and, instead, link to the New York Times, they are just reinforcing the mainstream media’s position.

Michael Letterle says “I think the real problem is bloggers producing unique content.” Oh, that indeed is a problem, but on ScobleShow.com I’m producing one to two videos a day and finding it very tough to get links. Even when I’ve gotten something really exclusive. Seems most bloggers would rather link to the New York Times than start up a blog search engine and look for something really unique coming through.

Munir Umrani remains above it all, saying, “Does it bother me if another blogger doesn’t link to The Blogging Journalist? No. Am I appreciative if someone does? Yes. ”

But, Munir, how would anyone find you if you never are linked to? Especially if bloggers and journalists demonstrate they won’t do a simple blog search to see what else someone has written about a topic?

Scoble: pissing off the blogosphere so you don’t have to. :-)

UPDATE: TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington writes “Wow, Scoble just threw himself under a bus.”

I should update my last line, then to: Scoble: throwing himself under busses so you don’t have to. ;-)

Thanks to Ze Frank! (I stole the “so you don’t have to” line from him, which is where I heard it first).

UPDATE2: It’s funny to watch more bloggers come online and link to the New York Times, without linking to anything else. BloggingStocks does NOT link.

UPDATE3: Slashdot links to a CNET tour of Lucas Film’s datacenter, but they won’t link to my tour of Intel’s 45nm fab. Interesting editorial judgment at these big sites.

  • Scoble, one of the things we always tell people from a PR perspective is that you can't expect every story to be covered, and even if you are the subject being interviewed, the reporter won't necessarily write a story. Sometimes, the reasons they choose not to carry something don't make sense, and sometimes, the way they interpret your words can be mind-boggling, but when it comes down to it, that's the game. As the biggest blogs (and Engadget is very big) approach the influence of old, big, media, we can expect them to become similarly difficult to penetrate.

    And for what it's worth, you are one of the A-listers who everybody who does link links to. As you know, all us Z-listers are pumping out content every day and it could be nobody notices...
  • Mike
    You'll make a thousand more enemies when techmeme breaks the news about your brother.
  • Custa
    I am not sure if you have become less interesting Robert, but you certainly have become a hell of a lot more narcissistic.
  • Pissing off the blogosphere -- it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Rock on!
  • When you are right, you are right. :-)
  • Louis, just subscribed to you. I appreciate it is tough for a new blogger to get noticed. I wonder how we can solve that?
  • The byline is a work of art :)

    It's a pity you started just now. I already succeeded in pissing a couple of A-Listers. If I knew you were taking care of it, I would have refrained.
  • Annonymous Coward
    Well Done! :p
  • At the end of the day a factory tour is newsworthy to no more than a few hardcore people. An Intel fab. Sexy news it is not.
  • Had you a tour of the Apple iPhone design office, I bet you'd have been linked by a few more people.
  • Damien: so you're saying a tour of a chip factory isn't as important as someone getting their Xbox stolen? To an audience of gadget freaks? Come on.

    Here's the Engadget article in question: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/28/cancer-patie...
  • Damien: I'd love a tour of Apple.

    But, why is that more interesting than a tour of the place that makes things about 300 million times more complex than an iPhone?
  • Jim
    Reading this rant makes me never want to read your blog again. So you didn't get linked to - big deal. You are coming across as bitter, angry and narcissistic. Who really wants to read that? Not me. I also agree, I thought your stuff was more interesting when you were with Microsoft. You were really able to put a human face and voice on an otherwise faceless company. Pissing off A-List bloggers? Who really cares? It's doming across as childish. I know you've been very successful Robert, but please don't believe your own hype. So you didn't get all the credit. Welcome to the real world. Move on to the next story. Best of luck!
  • BTW, you've had parts of this discussion before back in August at http://scobleizer.com/2006/08/03/not-linking-st...

    You said then YOU don't link to the AListers. I think you've linked to Kawasaki and Godin a bunch since then though and maybe Calcanis a time or two. Maybe a certain 15 year old in India can yank some stats out of thin air for us:) Now, to say Gizmodo and Engadget should have but didn't link to your VERY cool Intel video... rings kinda hollow.

    I understand why linkjuice can be a big deal. And, should you ever decide to REALLY sell your soul with paid ads/sponsorships... well, in a case like that it's easy to noodle through what you're fighting for. But, it could be as simple as gunning for some kinda high score. Heck, I'd get a kick outta that too. Or, and this might be more probable, they don't care to help out PodTech's ventures. In which case, they should just come out and call it as they see it.

    Transparency is a good thing.
  • Peter
    Robert,

    Learn this now... it's your blog. Do things your way.

    DO NOT be afraid to say what you want and on your terms. These sites out there CANNOT make or break you. You will have readership because people want to hear what YOU have to say.

    If such-and-such blog says something about you... so what. Sometimes it's OK to piss off other people. Sometimes it's even encouraged.

    You said and did what you thought was right. Don't come back on your blog on try and justify what you did to your readership. Feel comfoortable with your actions and let's move on to the next story.

    Robert, you do a great job. Don't get YOUR panties ina bunch over what other bloggers think or say. They piss people off as well. Tell the truth as YOU see it and feel comfortable doing it.
  • gwhiz: obviously I was pulling your leg a little bit in that post.
  • Robert:

    It seems to me that this is a bit the pot calling the kettle black. The Scoble Show provides very little external linking as well.

    In my mind Engadget, Gizmodo and the Scoble Show though are most often not "blogs" at least not in the traditional sense, They more like traditional specialty magazines (or perhaps TV shows in the case of the Scoble Show) albeit online, done in a ad hoc timing format and with RSS feeds. There is probably very little reason for them to link to other sources a practice seen rampant in traditional blogs.
  • Brian: good point.

    So link here then. Now that we have a player that we can embed anywhere, does linking from one URL really matter anyway? I have three URLs: my blog here, which has the most subscribers anyway, my link blog, and ScobleShow.com. ScobleShow is just my video stream. In my videos I've talked about dozens of blogs, which is its own form of giving credit.

    But this goes to news value. Today Engadget has a story about a cancer patient getting an Xbox ripped off. http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/28/cancer-patie...

    You telling me THAT has more news value to Engadget's audience than three videos of a tour of the plant that's going to make the next chips in all sorts of gadgets coming later this year? Not to mention those videos include discussions of how Intel got the breakthroughs that led to Friday's announcement?
  • @gwhiz: I certainly didn't codename my app Thin Air:D

    But anyway, despite that post being more of a leg-pull than a rant, here are your stats:
    After 8th August, he's linked 5 times to Guy Kawasaki, 8 times to Jason and 6 times to Seth.

    But, the really hot to-links?
    Dave Winer: 26
    Hugh MacLeod(GapingVoid): 20
    Maryam: 18
    Thomas Hawk: 17
    Ze Frank: 17

    Yuvi: 4 :D
  • Yuvi, you rock.
  • Robert: I saw the hospital one and skipped over that one too but at least that can tug at heart strings or get people angry. But yes, if I had to choose, I'd read the X-Box story over the Intel story. Intel, to me, is like a concrete block manufacturer, sure they make complex things but they go under the hood of something else. They are the equivalent of an autopart maker.

    If you were at Intel and donned one of the neon bunny suits and did some dance with one of their designers, I'd tune in. But a talk about chips, not for me. Did you get any links from sites dedicated to chip design? Engadget is probably like the e! of the tech world, maybe your show is more like PBS?
  • Damien: I put on part of a bunny suit, but kept that off of video. I figured the more important news was watching a senior technical fellow, who's worked at Intel for 29 years, put HIS on.
  • Welcome to how Z-listers feel EVERY SINGLE BLOGGING DAY!

    It must be very nice to be an A-lister. Then even your complaints about not getting enough attention get lots of attention.
  • Richard
    Yawn

    You think Intel making a smaller chip is more important than cancer?

    Try having someone you love having cancer. You might get a persepective on life then.
  • Richard: having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Glad to see you understand news value. But, now, I understand why so many people buy those grocery store gossip magazines. Next you'll try to tell me that what Paris Hilton isn't wearing matters to me more than what Google is doing in its labs. Sigh.

    Seth: being an A-lister has its advantages, yes. But you do notice that in the past two days I've linked to more people than Engadget has, don't you?
  • Paul Roundy
    I certainly find (found) your writing much more interesting and honest than the videos. In fact, Scobleizer has turned into more of a link blog to your videos than the thought blog it used to be. Which is fine for some readers, not for others.

    Speaking of readers, RSS has less value lately with this blog because so many of the posts have links to the videos. Which means I can't get the content by reading, but have to sit through a video, which I don't have time for most days. It seems also that the video posts generate fewer comments, further diluting the value of the blog.

    It is kind of weird, because your older posts did seem to generate more conversational value than the videos of suits telling us about their big businesses do. The videos are far more one way.
  • Paul: good point. My blogging quality has gone down because I'm spending more time each day doing videos, which I'm trying to build a business around, and helping run PodTech (I'm a VP there). I think long-term my videos have a lot more value than my blog does. Or did. But, maybe I'm wrong there. I guess history will have to judge that. I'll keep playing with the balance. I've been working my ass off getting great videos, the Intel one is just one of many.
  • Richard
    Goodness me Scoble. What an ass you are. I can't believe how condescending you are.

    Cancer affects many more people than Intel will ever touch.

    One person having cancer affects far more than one person. My family just watched my Aunt die from cancer. You think it only affected her?

    I could care less what Paris Hilton is wearing. I could care less what Google are doing in their labs. I could care less what Intel are doing in their labs too. They don't affect me in my day to day life where I'm now trying to help my fiancée in her fight with cancer. I'm so happy to see that life is so insignificant for you, as you quite obviously don't have one.

    I'm talking about people's lives and you're talking about a crappy two hour video (who has 2 hours to watch a 3 inch video for crying out loud?)

    Get some persepective man.
  • I think I'm liking the R.S. with the chip on his shoulder. The fab video *was* exactly what I wanted to see and not even the cable news had it at first.

    Robert - please keep plugging your SS content on the blog!!
  • Richard: >Goodness me Scoble. What an ass you are. I can’t believe how condescending you are.

    Ahh, so you're of the "I must point out another person's sins by doing those same sins myself, albeit 10 times worse" school of thought?

    How does that work for you? Gain lots of friends that way? Influence lots of people?
  • kramer
    I just don't consider video first class content. You are saying I have to watch the whole thing to get the content. With text I can skim, jump, stop and restart. So when you say you've done all this video and that makes you interesting, that's probably true, but not if people don't watch it and video is less likely to get watched.
  • Kramer: with video you can skim, jump, start, and restart too.

    So, write me a 10,000 word essay on what Halo 3 looks like.

    I'll do more in 20 seconds of video than you'll be able to do in 10,000 words of ASCII text.

    Actually, I've found that video is more likely to get watched. Next weekend millions of people will watch the Superbowl. Next you'll try to tell me that we should just read a blog about that game instead, right?

    Both text and video has their places. It's not one or the other.
  • Tim
    Just wondering...ever consider that sites don't link to 40 minute long videos is because they're a really bad way to catch up on news?

    I mean, what would 99.9% of the readers of Engadget get from the Intel video that:

    [a] They care about
    [b] They can't get from short textual summaries (journalism) all over the web?

    Like most other people interested in tech, I saw that Intel were moving to 45nm fab, and that this would mean faster chips at similar temperatures. To be honest, that's probably more detail than I'm interested in.

    "Intel announces way to make improved chips" is probably enough of a summary for me and most of the world. I don't need to watch 40 minutes of Intel guys telling me how great it is, and neither does most anyone else, I'm guessing. So it's not surprising such videos don't get much link love.

    Such videos are pretty niche, tbh. Even something like C9, where the videos actually have information that affect developers (as opposed to "CPUs get faster? Film at 11!"), don't get linked a lot from big sites - for similar reasons.
  • kramer
    > Kramer: with video you can skim, jump, start, and restart too.

    The facilities on video are uneven and poor, but it still won't make difference because you don't know what you will be skipping where text you are guided by land marks.

    > So, write me a 10,000 word essay on what Halo
    > 3 looks like.

    Apples vs tanks. You are comparing writing a great lump of text versus concise text backed by picture and video.

    > I’ll do more in 20 seconds of video than you’ll be able to do in

    Only if people watch it.

    > Next weekend millions of people will watch the Superbowl.

    If you think your Intel video has as much pull as the Super Bowl then perhaps your expectations are set a bit high.

    > Both text and video has their places. It’s not one or the other.

    Very true. I was just offering a reason why some may think you have become less interesting.
  • Kramer: I told you here exactly what part of the video covers what things, so you could have "scrubbed" to the right part of the video: http://scobleizer.com/2007/01/26/looking-into-i...

    >>If you think your Intel video has as much pull as the Super Bowl then perhaps your expectations are set a bit high.

    Heheh, no, you misread me. I was just making fun of your "text rules" bias.

    >>Like most other people interested in tech, I saw that Intel were moving to 45nm fab, and that this would mean faster chips at similar temperatures. To be honest, that’s probably more detail than I’m interested in.

    You're telling me that all of Engadget's readers are like you? Interesting theory.

    At Microsoft I helped build Channel 9 into a site that had 4.3-million unique visitors a month. How did we do that? By showing long videos with engineers discussing stuff that probably has more detail than you're interested in (I did 700 interviews, most of which were longer than 30 minutes and most of which most people on earth would find incredibly boring).

    Fine, leave Gizmodo and Engadget out of this. I had the news on my blog at the same time the New York Times did. I was more authoritative because my articles' info came straight from the fab's workers itself. The New York Times didn't get that tour. It just wrote up the info from the press announcement.

    So, bloggers that linked to New York Times only, or who didn't link at all, didn't link to the best information available.
  • Tim: >Even something like C9, where the videos actually have information that affect developers (as opposed to “CPUs get faster? Film at 11!”), don’t get linked a lot from big sites - for similar reasons.

    Channel 9 was linked, on its first day, by dozens of newspapers, including the New York Post. More PR for Channel 9 continues to this day.
  • Paul Roundy
    That fact that Microsoft had been so tight lipped for so long had a lot to do with Channel 9's success. Many of us learned a lot of new information that was going to or did have an impact on our work or businesses. It was kind of a big deal.

    Chip announcements just aren't that exciting.


    It would be interesting to see data on how many of of those 4.3 unique visitors to C9 sat through how much of how many videos.
  • Roy
    I've been reading you for years but never commented. I have two passions, politics and technology, but I'm far from a geek. My problem with your videos for a very long time, I couldn't watch them. Now the geeks out there will say what an idiot. But there are millions just like me who don't want to jump through hoops to watch a video. To my surprise I clicked on your video link today from this post and was able to watch the video. I have no idea what's changed but it was for the good.

    My readers will not be interested in your technology stuff for the most part. But some of your other political stuff (John Edwards) and other things you may decide to do could be interesting. So I'll be keeping a look out for things to link to.

    I feel there are millions of people out there who don't want to read the hardcore right-wing blogs, left-wing blogs, or hardcore technology blogs they don't understand. While the blogosphere is growing and there are more blogs for "regular" people, we still have a way to go. That's where the growth is, the regular people.

    Sorry for the long comment. I've been saving it up all these years.
  • Robert - There's been more than enough commentary on the central topic. I do feel the need to chime in just to point out that you ought to be a bit more discriminating about the size brush you use when you paint these rants.

    Making any kind of a statement about ZDNet as a one-size-fits-all, for example, is just plain silly. I use this as an example because that's where I hang my blog shingle of course. I certainly link to other blogs all the time. So do most of my fellow ZDNet bloggers. So any unilateral "ZDNet doesn't link" or "ZDNet's Dan Farber does link" statements are either just plain wrong (the former) or specific (the latter) as to be relatively meaningless. ZDNet is a massive network of content in every shape and variety you can imagine from podcasts and video to blogs to straight up news and reviews.

    You've castigated and ignored most ZDNet bloggers because we don't have full text feeds. Fine. That's your prerogative (despite the fact that we have no control over that - it's a corporate decision that we discuss frequently but are pretty much resigned to). But you miss out on linking to some great content as a result of that decision. Again, it's yours to make.

    The point is, no one at ZDNet is throwing a hissy fit because we don't get Scoble link love and we do, by the way, get quite a bit from many of the Weblogs, Inc./AOL blogs. Disclosure: I used to write three blogs for Weblogs, Inc. and have nothing but great things to say about working with Jason, Peter, Ryan, and the rest of the crew.

    You know how much affection and respect I have for you and everything you've accomplished. But you went over the top, under the bus, or somewhere else on this one and I really wish you'd think things like this through for... oh, I don't know... ten minutes before you publish. You sometimes end up eroding the legitimacy of the point you're trying to make because you work yourself into a frenzy.
  • Marc: Yeah, you nailed the major mistake I made yesterday. I apologize to ZDNet. I thought it was clear that I was only talking about that one article. And, I should have made it clearer that I was mostly talking about the Intel annoucement, not past behavior.

    I agree, though, that that part of my post was stupidly thought out. If there was any thinking in evidence there at all.
  • From what I can see, Scoble, you're throwing your toys out of the pram because people aren't paying any attention to you.

    It's irrelevant what story [b]you[/b] think is more important, because you're not the one calling the shots at Engadget. If they miss a beat, that's their problem and they'll suffer as a result of it.

    I also think the "them and us" attitude to the mainstream media is childish (as I said elsewhere)... they're not your enemy.

    Just out of curiosity - did you report on the Intel news because you thought it was really news worthy and people needed to know about it, or because you wanted recognition for having the story before (or better than) everyone else?

    Oh - and while at first you seemed to be saying that a story about a stolen xbox wasn't news-worthy, your comments since seem to suggest a general ignorance towards the issue of cancer.

    Sure, I don't think Engadget's story is all that captivating (I don't think yours is either btw), but to say that cancer only effects one person while Intel makes millions of lives better is just moronic.
    In case you don't realise, each cancer case effects way more than one person, and there are millions of cases every year across the world. Intel may make things that benefit millions of people, but I think it's safe to say that avoiding cancer is far more important to (most?) of us than having a fancy new Intel-powered device.
    And I don't speak about cancer from personal experience (thank God), although I have seen the effect it has on the victim's loved-ones.
  • Tim
    "Channel 9 was linked, on its first day, by dozens of newspapers, including the New York Post."

    Right, alternatively, let's look at a normal time period, which the launch period so obviously isn't that I'm not even sure why you mentioned it. (And Google reveals no results for Channel 9 on the nypost's website - I'm guessing the link love tailed off after the launch phase).

    "More PR for Channel 9 continues to this day."

    I think we're talking about different things. I'm talking about being linked because the site is considered useful to the audience, not because there's some people doing a PR blitz. In fact, the latter's probably much less likely to work on a 'geek' site (but I could be wrong - maybe geek sites like shiny press releases).
  • Roy:>I have no idea what’s changed but it was for the good.

    We put up a Flash-based player a few weeks ago. I agree it is a lot better than the Quicktime player we were forcing people to use before.

    I also agree that blogs have a ways to go.

    One thing is that the world is niche-oriented now. If you're a gadget freak you can follow along on the gadget sites. Or, if you're a green freak, you can read Treehugger.com, etc, etc.

    The trick is to get more niches covered with the same quality that Engadget and Gizmodo do.
  • Tim: >>(And Google reveals no results for Channel 9 on the nypost’s website - I’m guessing the link love tailed off after the launch phase).

    That's a HUGE problem with linking to mainstream media sites. Most newspapers hide their information behind registration or pay firewalls after a few days.

    Oh, I think geek sites like shiny press releases just as much as mainstream press. Actually, Engadget and Gizmodo both answered yesterday "why don't you just email us when you think you have something interesting?"

    Which is part of my point yesterday. In the old blogosphere it was bad form to beg for a link via email (my brother even got yelled at by Dave Winer when he tried doing just that).

    Today, doing "marketing" for your content with "Digg'ers" and with other blogs and content sites isn't just expected, it's mandatory, otherwise no one will ever see your stuff.
  • Adam: we're all talking past each other with the cancer issue.

    OK, OK, I see I'm going to have to throw myself on the ground sobbing about every cancer survivor now.

    My mom died last year. I understand the shit that families go through with illness very well and very intimately. Want to look back on my blogging about her and her death? I guess not.

    But if you think that one person dying in a hospital is news, let me break it to you. It's not. There are thousands of hospitals with millions of people dying RIGHT NOW. My heart breaks, just like it broke when my mom died last year.

    But it's not news.

    >Just out of curiosity - did you report on the Intel news because you thought it was really news worthy and people needed to know about it, or because you wanted recognition for having the story before (or better than) everyone else?

    It's obvious you didn't watch the video. If you had, my dad worked in microelectronics his entire career. I +knew+ just how hard it is to build a 45nm chip. It is a major fing story. It took one of the world's biggest corporations three freaking years to do it. Billions of dollars of the world's resources.

    And the chip that they are producing might just cure cancer.

    Which, makes it BIG news for the world and certainly for Engadget and Gizmodo and Slashdot readers who depend on the chips that come out of that factory for probably a majority of the gadgets they'll be reading about over the next two years.
  • Robert,

    Can I make a constructive suggestion about linking to ScobleShow video content?

    Now that you have an embeddable video player, how about making it super-easy for people to embed your (PodTech's) videos in their blogs? By "super easy", I mean: do something similar to the way YouTube does this. That is provide the URL, and the HTML needed to for someone to embed the player video in their blog.

    Right now, it's more difficult than it needs to be. I actually embedded one of your videos about ten days ago ( see - http://www.psynixis.com/blog/2007/01/17/confusi... ), and I have to admit - it took me a little while to figure out how to make it work.

    If you make it really easy to embed your videos, maybe people will be tempted to do that. It worked for YouTube - maybe it might work for you?
  • For me, videos are almost never as useful as text. I can scan text in seconds, focus on the parts I am interested in, and read those parts in a minute. I have fine grain control over my attention. Video takes many minutes to watch and I can't scan it. My only control is to watch / don't watch. I seldom watch.
  • > Simon: hmmm, on my video player there's a "share" button, which gives you the URL. You copy and paste that URL into your blog's HTML editor, and you have embedded video.

    >George: hmmm, again, tell me what Halo 3 looks like by using only text. I'll beat you every time with video.
  • Oh for crap's sake Robert, take a friggin' Midol and eat some chocolate until you stop PMS'ing.

    So they didn't link to you. Big deal.

    What's your reaction? Well, you probably didn't physically fling yourself on the ground while kicking and screaming, but goddamn, you did the blog version of it.

    WAAAAAAAAAAAH! THEY DIDN'T LINK TO ME, BUT I HAD BETTER STUFF. WAAAAAAAAAH!

    Do you act like this at home when you can't get your way?

    In what reality did you think that whining and being a baby about it would work? So Engadget didn't link to you. BFD. I don't read them anyway, it's a fucking myna bird site.

    Christ dude, this is just the stupidest, lamest thing I've seen in a while, even from you. All you're missing is OMGTEHINTARWEBISTEHMEAN!!!11 and it would be a perfect center of idiocy.

    Get over it man.
  • Aaron
    Robert, dictating to Engadget what does and does not merit editorial content is just an invitation for ridicule.

    You don't run Engadget, and your little hissy fit just guaranteed you could get video of Bill Gates making sweet man-love to Steve Jobs and Engadget STILL wouldn't link to you.

    OK, so you got some video no one else did thanks to a PR flack. Congratulations. If you get off on silicon fab porn, it's great stuff. If you're a run-of-the-mill gadget geek, I'd say it's not all that and a bag of chips (ahem).

    And your videos really are too long.

    My suggestion: If you really want to get linked by the other blogs, provide your content in a way that's accessible to them -- a 30-second YouTube clip with the best stuff from your long video, then "deep tease" to the long video.
  • Ah - yes, that's exactly what I was looking for Robert. Interesting that I didn't notice that button though... YouTube has that information visible 100% of the time on each video's YouTube "home page".

    Another suggestion I had is to turn one of the criticized (by Loren, at least!) aspects of your videos into a unique advantage... You remember the company you did a video with a while back - the one that lets parents make their own edits of movies to show to their kids, and to share those edits? Well, your videos sometimes cover a bunch of different topics, that will be of interest to different people. Why not provide tools that let people do their own edits of ScobleShow videos, and share them?

    Why might that be useful in your quest for links? Well, for example, it might mean that sites like Engadget would feel that the portion of your video from 23 minutes to 24 minutes was newsworthy and of interest to their readers, but the whole video was not.

    Just a suggestion...
  • i'm not linking to any of this bullshit.
  • Dave, you always make me smile. Said the same thing that John Welch just did, but you said it in eight words.
  • Jaysus. Is this still going on?! Give it a bleeding rest! If they don't link, they don't frigging link! Their loss, or yours. Who the eff cares?!
  • It's not just about finding the best story on time, it's also how you tell it.
  • scanner
    With respect, seems to me the tone of your posts sometimes indicates head swell. Hopefully you'll get over it, and keep posting interesting things sans so much ego.
  • Jennifer Kronkie
    Wow, what a whinny geek you are. You need to seriously get a life.
  • Standards Bearer
    I think the problem is that you're comparing apples and oranges here. The NY Times article got linked a lot becuase it presented the information in a very straightforward, easy to digest manner. Your video might have had all that same info, and even earlier than the Times story, but because it's in video format it's a lot harder to process into a blog post.

    Besides, a trip to a chip fab is interesting, but only up to a certain point, so I can see why not even one is into it.

    But even beyond that, isn't it up to each individual site to decide for themselves what they want to write about? Isn't that the point of the blogging, that you write about you want to write about and I write about what I want to write about? I think you're being a little unfair here, you need to respect other people's decisions, even if they seem unfair, just like you'd want other people to respect your decisions about what you write about.

    In fact, that's why I read your blog and watch your videos, because I like what you find interesting.
  • I know you're not pissed for yourself in particular, you're pissed for blogging. I'm guilty of linking directly to the source instead of the blogger myself some times. Maybe I need to rethink that. But how do you find the first blogger? With everyone bypassing her, there's really no practical way to know is there?
  • You have a bully pulpit and you're utilizing it for the good of other bloggers. As a 'Z-list' blogger, I appreciate it.

    Thanks, Robert.
  • Robert: That's what I was trying to say, but you did it much better. :-)
  • Doug: Got confused. That post "Robert: That’s what I was trying to say, but you did it much better." was a reply to yours.
  • >OK, OK, I see I’m going to have to throw myself on the ground sobbing about every cancer survivor now.

    Or you could just not assume it only effects one person... your choice.

    >My mom died last year. I understand the shit that families go through with illness very well and very intimately. Want to look back on my blogging about her and her death? I guess not.

    No, I haven't read your posts about your Mother and frankly I don't think an encyclopedic knowledge of your entire life and blog topics is a pre-requisite to commenting on something you said about cancer.

    >But if you think that one person dying in a hospital is news, let me break it to you. It’s not. There are thousands of hospitals with millions of people dying RIGHT NOW. My heart breaks, just like it broke when my mom died last year.

    But it’s not news.

    It not being news to you isn't up for debate here - my point is that your comment about cancer only effecting one person while Intel helps millions is purely ignorant and somewhat delusional. I know as well as you do that cancer and illness happens so often that it has lost it's news value, but to suggest that a technological advancement to make my computer run faster can be compared in any way to any kind of illness is bizarre.

    - Look, I know you weren't saying cancer is irrelevant to Intel in your post, but your comments following it showed a level of ignorance and self-importance.

    I'm not going to hammer at the cancer issue anymore because I'm sure you know how serious it is, and we can both agree that it isn't news worthy when someone dies of cancer anymore.
    That said, the rule of thumb for news is the extraordinary happening to the ordinary or the ordinary happening to the extraordinary... the xbox cancer story fits the former quite well, even if it isn't hard hitting news or important to you.

    >It’s obvious you didn’t watch the video. If you had, my dad worked in microelectronics his entire career. I +knew+ just how hard it is to build a 45nm chip. It is a major fing story. It took one of the world’s biggest corporations three freaking years to do it. Billions of dollars of the world’s resources.

    Too right I didn't - because an extra long video press release by intel doesn't interest me in the slightest.
    As has been pointed out already, your hardly going to entice many people, even the most tech-headed, with long, meandering videos about a new product... The reason people linked to the NYT is because they gave all the facts in a concise manner, so people could find out what was going on in less than 1/2 hours.

    >And the chip that they are producing might just cure cancer.

    And it might not. If you manage to break the story where the chip actually does cure cancer, you've got my interest (but I still won't want to have to sit through long videos to get the information)

    >Which, makes it BIG news for the world and certainly for Engadget and Gizmodo and Slashdot readers who depend on the chips that come out of that factory for probably a majority of the gadgets they’ll be reading about over the next two years.

    It's their decision to put a story forward for their readers, and if they get it wrong, they'll suffer the consequences.

    You still haven't answered my question - did you post the videos in order to to inform people of an important new product or was it to get recognition for having a story before anyone else?
  • Most of Engigets readers are eather 15 or a bot.
  • RBA
    Yes, in the eyes of some people you have become less interesting. Not hard to figure it out. Why? You're not the MS evangelists who blogs his heart out anymore, and so although you ARE doing more interesting stuff, you are less interesting for them - a lot less. Doesn't it make sense?

    PS: Not to me, though :-)
  • How Not To Throw Yourself Under a Bus:

    If you think there's a story here, ask someone else to read/investigate it, or use someone else / a company you aren't affiliated with as the example.

    Using yourself as the example is always going to come across as naval-gazing / self-obsessed on some level and will put an immediate negative spin on what may be a valid issue.
  • Robert, not that as a double-Z-list blogger you care what I link to, but I pretty much never link to videos.

    I've linked to one, and it was over this past weekend. Why did I link to it? First, it was a weekend, so I watched something that came highly recommended. Second, it wasn't merely interesting; it completely blew me away. Third, I wanted to find out if everyone else had really seen it already, as the blog I found it in implied. (Yes, apparently everyone has.) And finally, I got to talk about pirates and ninjas.

    It's not your fault that I never watch videos. The problem is, I very rarely watch videos. I can't watch videos at work, for one thing, because of the audio. And most videos are too damned long for me to watch any time: if I've got forty minutes, I'll read a magazine or write an article or something, not watch video of something that marginally interests me.

    Not that I'm only marginally interested in Intel's chip fab news -- I think it's a big deal. I'm extremely interested -- but the thing is I'm extremely interested only in a very shallow way. I'm really interested to the extent that I can learn about it in five minutes and get back to whatever else I'm doing. I'm not interested in watching something as long as your typical network TV show.

    So the size of the commitment is one thing, as is the ability that I can't edge video watching in at work. (Heck, I can't even watch the videos that my job has produced that impact me -- and for all of the same reasons I don't watch your videos.) So is information density: I can read a lot more in five minutes than anyone is likely to speak intelligibly.

    None of which is to say that I don't like video -- only that I rarely watch it, and that because I don't watch it, I don't link to it. I suspect that many others have approximately the same experience I do...
  • Might be too late to this thread to get notice, but Robert, for whatever it's worth, and for whatever Intel blogger cred I have, I linked to you:

    http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com/2007/01/penryn-at...

    Know why I did it? You were the only person I read in all the 45nm news that had first person information on the topic, rather than just rehashing what was in a press release or a newswire story somewhere else.

    I'd much rather get my news and information from the source. Commentary and opinons (good ones) can be found all over the blogosphere, but this is news, and I want my news from the source.
  • smee
    You're being a complete a-hole. (maybe that's what the A in A-List stands for).

    Intel making a faster chip might be a big deal in your little microcosm, but it sure can't be considered a bigger deal than a terminal illness.

    You need to get out more, and realise that people with fast computers (and the $ to buy faster ones) are a MINORITY in this world.

    I guess your next big theory will be that HDTV news is more important than an AIDS cure.
  • Adam:

    >did you post the videos in order to to inform people of an important new product or was it to get recognition for having a story before anyone else?

    Both. This is a competitive business. The ones who get the news first (and get the links first) get the traffic.

    Which is why I raised a stink. This was a clear-cut case where I got the best "from the horse's mouth" story (and I did it in BOTH text and video, to answer J. Laser's claim above) and I wasn't getting the links. At least I wasn't on Saturday morning.
  • smee: >>Intel making a faster chip might be a big deal in your little microcosm, but it sure can’t be considered a bigger deal than a terminal illness.

    Wrong. Go back to journalism school.

    Look at what the New York Times puts on its front page. Someone dying in a hospital doesn't get on the front page unless there's some other news angle. Intel doing the most important semiconductor redesign in 20 years (according to Moore himself) is front page news.

    Now, to the person dying? Of course the illness is more important. But you keep changing what we're talking about here. I'm not talking about what's important to an individual, I'm talking about what's important to the audience. In this case Engadget's audience is tens of millions of people who care about gadgets. Not someone dying of cancer.
  • >Both. This is a competitive business. The ones who get the news first (and get the links first) get the traffic.

    OK - so in the realm of informing people, you should be happy that people know what's going on, even if it didn't come from you.
    As for it being a competitive business, what business do you see yourself in exactly? If you're looking to be a tech news outlet that breaks new stories, then why do you expect your apparent rivals to give you hits in this "competitive business"?

    >Which is why I raised a stink. This was a clear-cut case where I got the best “from the horse’s mouth” story (and I did it in BOTH text and video, to answer J. Laser’s claim above) and I wasn’t getting the links. At least I wasn’t on Saturday morning.

    I would say that you may have gotten the best story, but you didn't present it in an easily digestible way and so it was to much for most readers to be bothered to sit through.
    Your posts on the videos are either guides to the videos (or it's the very first post on the subject, which is just a quick run down of an intel press release)

    As for getting the links, but the looks of the multiple trackbacks in these comments alone, you seem to have gotten your way in the end.
  • Considering you're probably in a bad mood, this is a question, not an accusation.

    Were you paid to produce the video?
  • Sorry, that should be:

    "Were you paid by Intel to produce the video?"
  • tacos138
    seriously, this is like rich people bitching about their name not being on a building. and trying to spin this over into caring about the little guy bloggers makes you sound even more patronizing...
  • Richard
    > Ahh, so you’re of the “I must point out another person’s sins by doing those same sins myself, albeit 10 times worse” school of thought? How does that work for you? Gain lots of friends that way? Influence lots of people? OK, OK, I see I’m going to have to throw myself on the ground sobbing about every cancer survivor now.
  • Did a whole bunch of comments and trackbacks just get deleted?
  • Nope, nevermind... must be caching. ;)
  • Richard
    Great. Your stupid comments box completely swallowed my comment.
  • Dominic: Intel paid us a fee for the "professional" video -- they don't sponsor the ScobleShow. So far only Seagate sponsors my show. I would have done this video either way. Intel is a corporate client of ours.
  • i'm pretty new to the whole blogwhoring thing, but i suspect all the nytimes linking nonsense has to do with links at the bottom of the nytime piece - maybe linking to Technocrapi and stuff?

    i like Arrington's description, though. it's can be taken as coming off so casual. "hey, check that - scoble just threw himself under a bus. damn, these are some good waffles." the phrase is great, to begin with, but the casual distance is classic.

    why does anyone read that crappy gadget site, anyway? and what the heck am i doing on scoble? blah.
  • Sorry, but that's just pathetic. Whine, whine, whine...
  • Out of these 77 comments, I think Aaron's is the one you should seriously considering following up. A 30 second teaser (whether on YouTube or on your site) isn't a bad idea for some of your videos:

    > My suggestion: If you really want to get linked by the other blogs, provide your content in a way that’s accessible to them — a 30-second YouTube clip with the best stuff from your long video, then “deep tease” to the long video.
  • Scoble - considering the fact that Intel paid you to make a video showing off their product (which you've only revealed now) just makes this whole hissy fit of yours even more rediculous.

    Basically, you're actions are akin to a PR company having a go at a news outlet for not featuring the product they press released about.
    In fact, it's the exact same, but your press release is a video rather than a short little text-based email etc.

    How you even thought it was a good idea to criticise people for not linking to your paid-for press release is beyond me,

    And as for your comments on this being a competitive business, I think I understand now... basically your press release didn't get much direct coverage from the media so now you're worried that Intel won't pay you to produce a future "professional" video, right?
  • Richard
    Nice summary Adam.
  • Interesting observation Adam...
  • Paul Roundy
    Wait, they paid you to do the video? And you wonder why someone might link the NYT over a press release on Intel from Podtech? LOL, talk about a lack of transparency. This is just as bad about reviewing free laptops without revealing that they are free.
  • Focus more on who reads your blog, not who links to it. It makes life simple.

    Mark
  • Robert,

    Sorry, but you really sound like an A-lister baby here. I expect this kind of whining from the C and D's

    On a sort of related note, I won one of those Vloggie awards that Podtech presented for best travel vlog and no one from your group bothered to even let me know, congratulate me or anything, much less offer to send me that little trophy the other winners got. (I got one email before the event asking me if I was coming, but nothing more).

    But, did I make an attempted link-bait'esque stink in the blogsphere calling you guys names? Nah why bother, I'll just keep concentrating on making the best content I can. So, instead of you getting all wussy about not getting links on external sites, maybe Podtech should work to better follow through on some of your own internal projects.
  • Rule #1 of Blogging: Don't blog while angry.
  • Tom
    When you were creating video at Microsoft it had a direct bearing on my job. It was common after viewing a channel 9 video to think wow that product could really be helpful to my shop on a project. Most of your videos you currently create are more in the line of entertainment. If your video was about what products Intel has that are currently shipping and what problems they can solve in the work domain I would have made time to watch the video. When a video is entertainment it gets queued behind family time which basically means I will never get to it.
  • By your own admission your not getting links to ScobleShow.

    I think you have some good videos on ScobleShow, but I think most of them are boring, they drag out and are uninteresting to me, at least.

    You keep bringing up the video from the Zune team. Honestly I found that video pretty lame. The questions were not that good; and from time to time you were wrapped up in your own sense of humor (which is strange); and you either are being rude to your host or asking uninteresting questions.

    And when you get a video with Bill Gates, you screw up the video, it's all over the place. And the questions you ask. Those were the worst. You get an almost exclusive with Gates and you ask him about CPU heat and global warming. Geez. It was obvious that no one in that interview did their homework on Bill.

    If you produce something worth watching people won't have a choice but to link to you.
  • Robert, thanks for the explanation. I'd take those facts into account when deciding if I should link to something or how to do it. I do think that for a geek audience, your video is interesting and has value.
  • There seems to be a bit of a blur with this. Intel are not a sponsor but *are* a client? Money is being exchanged with Intel either directly or indirectly. Only in the comments has it been mentioned they are a client of some description. I'm honestly surprised as you normally are excellent with disclaimers. I think you should have had some kind of message saying your employer has an existing financial relationship with them.

    I agree with Adam, (disclaimer: I know him) this video promotion is akin to the work of a PR company.
  • What's happening to the comments? Some seem to be missing...
  • Casting my 2 cents into the ocean...

    I read several articles about Intel's 45nm process yesterday, and watched your very interesting video too... well very interesting except for the bunny suit part which was rather silly. It was interesting to hear an old-timer high-up Intel manager (I bet he does more management than pencil to paper engineering these days) give an overview of the industry from the Intel perspective. Whole thing might have been just as interesting with him sitting at his desk though. I got the impression the whole bunny suit idea wasn't your idea, but, whatever.

    But really, what was new about yesterday/ Intel has been talking about 45nm for months. AMD has been responding with their schedule (which is obviously behind Intels, but not by a lot).

    Here is all I heard yesterday that I hadn't heard (or remembered) from before: The word "Hafnium". It made me think of a joke: One Intel Engineer to another: "Hey Ed, how about we try using Hafnium... maybe we can make the circuits HAF the size they were before. Get it? Hafium, "Haf" the size, HAHA."

    Anyway, the other news was that IBM and Intel jointly patented this process. Which means AMD will have as much access to it as Intel, it will show up in PowerPCs and just about anywhere else that uses either Intel or IBM to fab their chips. Money in the bank for these two companies and probably no big technology advantage for any company in the long run. Competition will be on who rolls out the process fastest, most cost effectively.

    So now go interview someone over at IBM and see what they have to say, and while your at it, figure out which Pacific Rim country they are probably all buying this fab equipment from and see if a lot of this technology isn't in the hands of IBM or Intel at all any more.
  • Both. This is a competitive business. The ones who get the news first (and get the links first) get the traffic.

    Or the ones that whine the loudest.
  • Hi Robert,

    At Data Center Knowledge we linked to the New York Times in our initial writeup, but also promptly posted your comment, including the link. Your video really added to the understanding of the story for the data center crowd (that's why we linked the Intel PR video as well).

    As for the NYT issue, I get it at home and thus it was the first thing I read Saturday morning, even before booting up. I've been noticing lately that the NYT gets an outsized helping of MSM links from blogs, especially when compared to the Washington Post.
  • Jake
    While I think Scoble is being a bit whiny (that's more in presentation), I think he has a point. More scary is the fact that Engadget IS "Big Media" now. They're simply a tiny part of AOL, which is part of the Time-Warner media machine. They're also in a very real way your competition (far more than the NYT).

    So, maybe it's no surprise that they aren't linking to you.
  • Oy, Robert. I think you are trying to do too many things at once.

    In Scoble Show, you are documenting startup companies mostly in Silicon Valley at this moment in time. That's valuable.

    But it's not the same type of valuable as a sneak peek into an Intel fab. That's the province of MSM. Not often do you get breaking news from a Fortune 100 on Scoble show.

    Many people didn't even know you got that sneak peek, because those people were expecting just another video of a web 2.0 company, or don't watch Scoble Show because they are silicon geeks. Did engadget even know you were out there with your video?

    I think you have unreasonable expectations of yourself. You have 112 friggin comments on this post, and I'm lucky if I ever get one. Count your blessings.
  • "My suggestion: If you really want to get linked by the other blogs, provide your content in a way that’s accessible to them — a 30-second YouTube clip with the best stuff from your long video, then “deep tease” to the long video."

    That's a great suggestion by Aaron. Part of the success of YouTube is that the bulk of the clips are really short & easy to digest.
  • People who do not link to the blogs (or other sites) where they found the inspiration for their own posts are just takers. Sadly the world is full of takers. I talked with a blogger who felt if he linked to blogs where he got ideas, that he would not appear as smart. Oh please.

    You are correct on this topic.

    Keep up the good work. I like the controversial Robert. Stirring up the pot like this makes you blog even better to read.

    thom
  • Diego
    "UPDATE: TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington writes “Wow, Scoble just threw himself under a bus.”"

    This is amusing. Arrington has a tendency to throw himself under buses every other day.

    And on his blog post about this he ends with "Good drama." We know Arrington loves good drama. That's what CrunchNotes is. CrunchNotes, good drama... all the time. :) It's something about the person which attracts those sorts of comments and drama. Good for a laugh though. :)
  • Mikal
    Scoble, your videos are too long!
    I want a concise 8 minute or shorter film on a subject that I'm interested in (and occassionally a longer well edited peice on a topic that Really interests me).

    Bloggers shouldn't have to sit through a 45 minute clip to find out if it will be interesting to their audience or not. Perhaps you could make the longer peice available to those who are interested but come on 30 minute films are way too long.

    I'd feel like a hypocrate linking to something I didn't sit through so if I were a blogger in this case I couldn't link to your content cause I don't know whether or not its relevant.

    Perhaps you should post fewer films if it means better editing. Compare the time it takes to read a relevant news article to the time it takes to view one of your clips. (Yes I know you have many that clock under 10 minutes but over half of them don't)
  • Mikal
    "At Microsoft I helped build Channel 9 into a site that had 4.3-million unique visitors a month. How did we do that? By showing long videos with engineers discussing stuff that probably has more detail than you’re interested in (I did 700 interviews, most of which were longer than 30 minutes and most of which most people on earth would find incredibly boring)."

    - I think you'll look back on this thread as a great learning experience. You've got to recognize you're dealing with a completely different audience now. Your primary audience isn't the tech community that needs your information to do their jobs better. Your primary audience now is the techcrunch, news.com, engadget, gizmodo crowd.
    Those that have passing interest in technology and digest most of their news online because its quick. Videos longer than 5 minutes really offset the added benifit that video does has.
  • Mikal: I wonder if TV stations get email saying that their hour-long programs (with 20 minutes of ads) are too long. :-)
  • Adam: I haven't deleted any comments in this thread. It's possible that Akismet (my comment spam filter) removed some, though. I'll see if I can find them (probably not, I'm getting thousands blocked per hour).
  • smee
    @82

    According to your wikipedia entry, you didn't finish journalism school yourself - so why lecture others?

    Anyways - despite what you think, you're not a journalist. you're a sensationalist &/or observer.

    if you were to be a successful journalist you would have a bigger sense of reality...
  • Scoble,

    Seriously, welcome to what it's like to be the other 55 million bloggers online. THIS HAPPENS EVERY DAY to almost ALL of us. We've all either been ripped off, not linked to, stepped over or other things by other (typically larger) blogs.

    I want to say that it's almost somewhat offensive that you're throwing a fit when the rest of us just deal with it in a more adult matter.

    I'm all for helping people, but it's every man for themselves in the blogosphere at times. I catch people ripping off my posts without crediting me, and it sucks but there's a point where you just get over it.

    Also, don't knock Engadget - the way you write and the way they write are completely different. In case you haven't noticed, Engadget takes life a lot less seriously than you do... and that may be your "downfall" for some audiences.

    Who cares if you're not getting linked to? Of all people, you shouldn't. I would think you would embody the whole "if you like me, you'll stick around, and if not, you won't" attitude.

    Again, I understand you're busy, but I have offered a few times to chat via phone about this because I'd find that conversation more interesting.

    Anyway, cheer up - pissing people off generates a lot more links and traffic than providing actual news ;)
  • Robert,
    It seems like it's wishful thinking to *expect* your competitors to link to you for better reporting on a topic. At the end of the day, the sites you take issue with are your competitors. As far as I can tell, they did not steal your content and not credit you...they reported on the same story you did but did not link to you for more in-depth coverage. [Your point that you posted :30 minutes before they did is not material since they could have had more editorial review processes to go through including legal...which you probably do not.] Hoping they'd do this is one thing...but expecting them to and calling them out for not doing it... I don't think that's appropriate.

    Because of your rant, I watched the video tour. It was interesting and entertaining. Perhaps that was the end-goal...

    You create great content...you competitors shouldn't be expected to pimp it for you.

    best,
    marc
  • LayZ
    For someone that supposedly studied journalism at SJSU your observations have got be an embarrassment to that school. The fact that you don't understand why Endgadget sees the XBOX story as more interesting to their audience than a story about the new Intel chip mfg process, shows that a) SJSU has the WORST journalism school on the planet as they didn't even teach you the basics, or B) you were incapable of learning what they were trying to teach you, or c) you care more about getting visibility and getting linked to than anything else. . If I was the Dean of the School of Journalism at SJSU I would be BEGGING you to not mention you studied there.
  • LayZ: OK, well, then, maybe I should have begged Engadget to link to my blog post about my dying mom. http://scobleizer.com/2006/05/10/bad-news-gets-...

    Geesh. And who TAUGHT you anything about "news" value? Are you a professional journalist? If not, what's your qualifications and why should SJSU listen to you?
  • LayZ
    @122."Mikal: I wonder if TV stations get email saying that their hour-long programs (with 20 minutes of ads) are too long."

    As John McEnroe would say: "You CANNOT be serious!". First, until you start producing content that even rises to the quality level of late night informercials. I would recommend not trying to equate yourself with content produced for television. Second, people know going into a TV show they are going to be investing the time to watch. And TV shows no how to tell a story and hold the interest of their audience. Even documentaries know how to tell a story. Your videos don't tell a story, they don't do anything but record boring conversations. So, yes the longer they are, the more boring they are.

    Based on the feedback seen in these comments, YOU seem to be the only one that thinks you got the best content on the Intel story.
  • jaa1169
    yay! seth
  • jaa1169
    yayayay seth!
  • Way to go Scoble! This confirms that you are the "Jack Bauer" of the blogosphere.
  • Preston
    Robert Scoble:

    So you thought you had some big story, and others disagreed. BOO-FREAKING-HOO. Stop acting like your rights have been violated because others didn't link to your videos and lavish you with attention. You have a website that gets more hits than I'll ever get. You posted it here. It got published. So what if Engadget didn't link to it? Who are you to determine that you belong on their front page? That's their call. You already have a venue here, on your blog.

    Paul Roundy:

    Paul: When Safari 3 comes out in OS X Leopard, video watching in RSS feeds will be built right into the RSS reader (how long before Microsoft rips it off, I wonder?). So it'll be even easier to follow Scoble's feeds, and he can stop whining and complaining that Engadget didn't glorify his existence.
  • Aaron
    Whoa there Robert -- let's back up a moment... Intel is a "client" but not a "sponsor?"

    What the hell does that mean?

    They paid you to shoot video, and you didn't disclose it. That's the #1 cardinal sin of journalism.

    We can get into the blogging/vlogging vs. journalism debate if you want, but at the end of the day, it's all about disclosure.

    If Intel is paying you to shoot video, you have a material interest in only shooting the pretty side, and only covering the positive side of the story. You've gone from being an independent voice to a dependent one.

    I'll ask a very simple question: Other than Seagate, which companies are "clients" or "sponsors"? Have you been paid to shoot video for any of them?

    If you're not disclosing that conflict of interest in very large letters (and very loud words) at the beginning of any video that includes those clients, you have ZERO credibility.

    My suggestion: Fix this, and fast, before you find yourself as the next whipping boy for poor ethics among bloggers.
  • Preston
    LayZ:

    Honestly, it's is a pointless argument, and he'll never get it. The very fact that he's trying to dictate the editorial process of other sites is proof of an ego problem.

    GET OVER IT, Scoble. Who cares if you think your paid-for videos are more important than another story on the Engadget front page? Just because you really liked your videos doesn't mean Engadget HAS to link to them. Maybe you thought going all Channel 9 on Intel was going to get you all the linkgasms you used to get when you were at Microsoft, I don't know. You're acting like you deserved to get linked simply because of who you are.
  • Scoble said:
    >"I wonder if TV stations get email saying that their hour-long programs (with 20 minutes of ads) are too long."

    Robert, if you can't tell the difference between an hour of prime-time TV and a 40-minute unedited single-camera tour of a chip fab plant, you need to watch more TV.

    People will watch ANYTHING if it holds their interest. If they're complaining that your videos are too long, it's because they're not interesting at that length.

    Vloggers are discovering what TV producers discovered 40 years ago: editing matters. Shoot b-roll, edit judiciously, record good sound (not just good pictures) and the viewers will come. You can even leave the raw videos up for those who want them -- but you'll never grow your audience complaining that people won't watch a 40-minute home movie of chip fabrication.

    And I'm serious when I said you have a major ethical problem on your hands here. Fix it, quick.
  • I've only just come to this. I watched the shorter video with Kelin Kuhn rather than the lab tour and all before I saw this. I didn't see any special news value in it but then I didn't get a whole lot of insight either. I found the links from this blog and not ScobleShow but then apart from the social history angle, I find most of the videos pretty dull. Sorry. But watching CEOs talk about their service doesn't do it for me. I'd be much more impressed watching users talk about services. They are the arbiters of success.

    Ryan Block's commentary on the situation seems fair and reasonable, especially given their focus. I read the NYT article and got a whole lot more context about Intel generally so to me it was more valuable then watching a video, which you yourself describe as 'boring' in parts.

    On the linking front, we all face the same issue. Whether that's internal to the blogosphere bubble or from MSM. None of us can know all sources for a story - Techmeme does a reasonable if imperfect job. MSM largely doesn't care about the blogosphere. And to be honest? I see more large reader bglogs looking more like MSM every day. Why am I not surprised? Blogs are and will likely remain a largely voluntrary effort. But when someone's dangling money in front of you then it changes the perspective altogether. Now you have a turf to protect.

    Until smart folks come up with good 'new media' revenue models that reward bloggers in appropriate fashion - and not Adsense - then let's not be surprised when other media behaves as it does.

    Unfortunately, while this story may be of interest to the geek community, it's of no interest to my audience so I won't be writing about it. If I was, I would probably have started with the NYT story as it was the Techmeme 'source' piece. I'm not sure I would have picked up your various pieces. They weren't marked as SCOOP or some such so I would not have necessarily recognised them as such.
  • Mediavidea blog has a take on the issue in a story titled, A-listers Vs. The long tail.
    http://mediavidea.blogspot.com/2007/01/listers-...
  • Is PodTech failing?
  • Shelley: failing to get links, yes!
  • Dont worry about the lack of links. In ten years time someone will look through your video archives and think "how quaint, is that how they did things in the olden days?"; and then it will have been worth your while.
  • ben
    Ryan Block deleted my comment, though he linked to a blog a used to write for :P. I like this pissing off the blogosphere stuff.
  • ben
    pissing off the blogosphere is fun! and ryan block deleted my comment.
  • LayZ
    @133. Scoble, you had a story. Heck, you think you even had a scoop! But, you blew it in the way you chose to report it, so people decided what you had wasn't interesting enough.One of the first things they teach you in journalism is how to write a lead, right? You didn't hook your reader, so whatever "story'" you had didn't grab anyone. Your story wasn't sticking. So, to rectify that you chose to throw a temper tantrum in order to get noticed. Is that what they taught you?

    The cancer story had a hook, held the readers interest and was something the normal person could relate to. How many people can relate to chip manufacturing? It doesn't matter how many people use devices that have these chips; few people care what goes into their manufacturing. Even in the tech world. A human interest story is going to win over a boring news story any day of the week. This is something you should have learned working on your grade school newspaper.
  • OMG - this is still going on ? So let me get this right, Scoble could turn out a video that proves the theory of relativity wrong and probably get about 20 comments, yet he decides to comment on the whole non-linking thing and the blogsphere goes la-la. :( If someone rips a story and doesn't link back then thats one thing, if someone decides not to cover your news then thats another thing - it's their choice, not yours.

    Please everyone take a deep breath, it's Monday morning and time to start talking about something else.

    Nige
  • I realize nobody will read this far down, but I have to put in my two cents anyway.

    I run a small gadget weblog with a staff of three writers. Am I surprised when Engadget doesn't link to me? No. I'll be surprised when (and if) they DO link to me. Thus it's hard to be sympathetic when an A-list blogger complains that they didn't link to him.

    Heck, try to be noticed by Engadget as a Z-list blog. I even wrote a gadget article that was on the front page of Digg and was covered by CNET, several radio stations, and two major newspapers - no love from Engadget. But then it wasn't really the sort of thing they usually like, so I'm not surprised.

    Engadget has the right to their own editorial decisions. I don't agree with most of them - that's why I don't read Engadget regularly, and why I turned down a chance to write for them - but if they don't link to me, or don't link to you, or don't link to Slashdot, it's their decision and I respect that.

    One more thing... I'd personally rather see a press release about Intel's new process than watch a video tour and interview with the engineers. The reason? I can get the facts from the press release in 10 seconds and then move on to something more interesting. I'm very much into Gadgets, and I use tons of Intel's products, but I'm not really interested in seeing them being made any more than in seeing a video of the camshafts for my new Volkswagen being made. Just let me test drive the car...
  • You don't get linked to, so you start pissing and moaning? Come on now.
  • I dont have any sound on my pc. If you dont have subtitles on your videos or a transcript I dont know whats being said and therefore can't link.

    So subtitles or scripts please!
  • /me chuckles.
  • Scoble, if things just turn the way we want then this world will become very ugly, there wont be challenges.
    Yes I agree that bloggers should support fellow bloggers and not the main stream media, but there is one mental blockade behind that, we have been using main stream media for very long time and we take them as most accurate, which we can certainly question.
    But, there is also one more thing, that you are a big blogger in this very small BIG bloggers world, which implies that one can think that you are probably already being linked by others, and eventually your videos are not being linked at the places you want.
    Your videos to me are more like main stream media, rather than some bloggers work, I see them, enjoy them, and the way I change channels on TV, I move ahead to another site.
    You are doing nice job, and you probably know this, so keep it up.
  • Hmmmm, My guess is that this post is a carefully orchestrated linkbait strategy.. ;)
  • I always link to other bloggers in my posts but NEVER to the mainstream media. However, I won't write a post just to give a link. I must think the subject will appeal to my audience. If I think it will, I link away!
  • Maybe it's the fact (as Marc Canter points out) that it's hard to link to the part of a video you want to link to, but it's easy to link to the relevant text on a normal blog. We need deep links inside video for this to work better. I would say therefore, that it's really the *form* of the content (video) that is not being linked to that's one important issue here, not the content itself.
  • bowenmark
    jeez, came here for something else and saw this thread - is this some sort of joke or experiment? It's hard to believe someone could be so full of themselves.
  • Every time I drop in on this blog, I'm reminded why I don't drop in here more often. :roll:
  • Mickey
    Christ you could bitch about anything.

    Didn't know this became a LiveJournal...

    oh boo hoo...Engadget won't link to my stories it must be because they hate me. The thought that your post just might suck never came to you? ;)
  • Mickey: funny, my email has lots of people who say Engadget doesn't link to them, either, for a variety of reasons. Like this guy: http://www.ohgizmo.com/2006/03/21/airing-dirty-...
  • Hey guys...I think Robert gets the point. He made a mistake and apologized for it. There's a person on the other end of this website.
  • Thanks Brian!
  • Robert -
    You Rock. Don't stop pissing people off by telling the truth. I may be a z-lister, but I agree with you completely. By not linking to the best source for a news item, other blogs are doing a disservice to their readers, and indirectly denigrating themselves - another blog isn't good enough to link to, above the NYT? What does that say about blogs in general then? It's not like you're some kid in his parent's basement, making things up - be it via blog or not, you provide a great deal of useful, good information. Since it is clear that mainstream media is not, for the most part, showing the blogosphere the respect it deserves, it is up to the blogosphere to show itself some respect, and when someone posts a scoop, jump on it!
  • Bertil
    Robert,

    The idea that 40 minutes of video can be bulky is interesting. I never had a TV and most of video content I watch is academic talks, so I couldn't comment --- but I think I have an idea:

    Last night, I watched a TV series (a teen flick, not supposed to be on YouTube): before and after each 30 minute episode, there was half-a-dozen of key clips, each one sentence long, to summarize and tease:
    - "You don't love me? [Frown]"
    - "This is getting *so* not were it should... [They kiss]"
    - "You slept with her?! [Angry looks]"
    - etc.

    Thirty minutes of drama and bad acting, all rolled in less then 10 seconds. Very efficient stuff. What PodTech could develop (and I have a friend looking for VC money to develop something similar for instruction videos) is:

    - Easy-to-make summarizes:
    add a line to a video editing bench to indicate what segment should be used in a shorter version;

    - Click-able video:
    a shape with some text on screen could link to a precise moment later in the same video.

    Even better: coordinating a text description with these segments. But that sounds like significantly more work for the editor.

    Regarding disclosures, I would try to have a list of key-words ("Intel", "Bezos", "iPhone", "throwing chairs", etc.) that trigger automatic Disclosure statements at the end of each of your post: "PodTech does consulting work for Intel/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft.", and, like a signature in an e-mail, you could edit them out if they are not relevant. I don't think your being paid would have curbed your enthusiasm in any way, but if you want to play with grown-ups, that is a required, easy to automate, element.

    And, on the issue at stake: I disagree with Endgadget's editorial decision; but as it's not the first time, I'm not paying attention to their feeds anyway. As you were an interested party in that matter, it was not up to you to point it out. That's a second thing grown-ups don't do; though the other extreme solution, having another blogger pretends he found that out by himself while he actually is posting under the dictation is bad too. "I was talking to Robert and he pointed out to me that Endgadget. . ." sounds like the best disclosure, grown-up thing to do.

    Did you sounded like a wussy? Yes -- but that is what blogging allows.

    I'm off, so that I can be comfortably home to watch that 'boring' video of yours.
  • I believe it is quite common in this world to create kick-ass world-shaking stuff and feel as if nobody is noticing. That's at least one perception. It's hard to really ascertain and measure all the effects and ripple effects of our actions (even with Technorati ;-)).

    I'm not so sure that having Engadget note and link is any measure of the worthiness of the Intel video, or more importantly its impact. I think we all spend too much energy worrying if the big boys are watching and playing a numbers game. My hunch is that the folks that care to find the Intel video will find it.

    And this whole brou-ha-ha obviously adds to the intrigue of watching the video btw ;-)

    In Hugh MacLeod's 'How to Be Creative' manifesto #4: "If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail." Same goes for if you content depends on the big media, big bloggers linking to you.

    Should they have linked? Who knows, it's their baby and they can do with it what they want. No one can force that other blogs follow blogosphere ethos and etiquette. It's a free country this blogosphere.

    The fact is I don't think Engadget or Techcrunch or name-your-break-and-make-blog is going to make or break anyone. That's reeks of old thinking to me, anyhow.

    Distribution is on a cusp of a major change, and I don't think the blockbuster sites are as crucial as we think.

    Next topic: #33 Kramer says: "I just don’t consider video first class content. You are saying I have to watch the whole thing to get the content. With text I can skim, jump, stop and restart."

    Shameless plug: I feel exactly the same way about video and podcasts myself - and stick to text blogs primarily. So that's just one reason I recently accepted a consulting engagement with Click.tv. It has the capacity to allow video to actually be social. Might be worth checking out for PodTech.
  • Late reply I know, but don't worry about the deleted comments thing - was a cache problem on my end.

    Otherwise I've put my 2(euro)cents in the jar about your behaviour and that's all there is to it.

    Until you can give valid justification for bitching about your paid-for vidi-press release not getting linked to by the likes of Engadget, there's little here to be discussed IMO.
  • I like what the FIRST commenter had to say... A LOT... but at least he has a letter - Z-list. The list I belong to probably begins with double letters - like YY-list.

    And you have to think that this is a case where bad pub is still good. At least it got me to come to your site - from a link... ;)
  • There's a little misunderstanding here. Intel did NOT pay for my videos. PodTech paid my expenses to get to Intel. Intel did NOT have prior restraint on my video (they did NOT get to see what I'd say about them, or include in the video). I treated them exactly the same as I treat all other interview subjects.

    On the other hand, PodTech did do a video for Intel. We made a mistake in not clearly marking that as content that was commissioned by Intel. We're fixing that mistake right now.
  • Sho
    Scoble, you're a fucking sell-out and a shill for not mentioning you were paid for that video. How can you live with yourself?

    You're a Microsoft Man through and through, all right. Go take a long walk off a short pier, sell-out.

    love Sho
  • Sho: I was NOT paid for that video. Please read my other comment clarifying what was paid for and what was not.
  • Sho
    There’s a little misunderstanding here ...

    ... PodTech did do a video for Intel. We made a mistake in not clearly marking that as content that was commissioned by Intel.


    Please explain why anyone should believe a carefully spun, damage-controlled word you say?
  • Sho
    Please read my other comment clarifying what was paid for and what was not


    Because it doesn't matter? Who cares if you weren't paid for that particular video? The fact is that Intel are a client of your company, and that simple fact colours everything you do. You can split hairs any way you like, the fact is that your company is on Intel's payroll and thus anything you say about Intel is now suspect. The fact you didn't disclose that critical piece of information is unforgiveable and you'll pay the price.

    Look, I live in the real world too, we all have to pay the bills. I'd take Intel's coin too, all other things being equal. But you let your audience know that up front, or you stop claiming - explicitly or otherwise - to be independent.

    Anyway, enough from me, sorry if I sound too angry, I'm not really. Sorry about your mother, I mean that.

    Sho
  • Sho: but you act like this is "news." PodTech has a whole list of corporate clients. We never hide from that. Just look at our home page. If you see an icon, then you know they are paying for advertising.
  • Sho
    Well if it's nothing but advertising, with a "chinese wall" between advertising and editorial, then that is fine with me, all publishing works that way. That is not the impression I got from your use of the word "client" which implies a more interactive relationship.

    If you're going on the record as saying it's just the front page ad, only the ad, nothing but the ad, straight from a standard rate card and no favours asked, then I withdraw any criticism and simply advise you to speak more clearly next time.

    If your relationship with this "client" goes a little further than that, though .. you'll have to come clean sooner or later, and there's no time like the present.

    That concludes my participation in this little episode. Good luck!
  • Sho: I gave a talk to Intel executives (again not paid, I do that kind of stuff for free) telling them to blog more. We do consulting with many of our clients, I know I helped Seagate learn how to start a conversation with bloggers.
  • >There’s a little misunderstanding here. Intel did NOT pay for my videos. PodTech paid my expenses to get to Intel. Intel did NOT have prior restraint on my video (they did NOT get to see what I’d say about them, or include in the video). I treated them exactly the same as I treat all other interview subjects.
    On the other hand, PodTech did do a video for Intel. We made a mistake in not clearly marking that as content that was commissioned by Intel. We’re fixing that mistake right now.

    OK - as far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter if Intel paid for one video, all videos or half of them - whatever.

    The fact is that PodTech has a commercial relationship with Intel and generates income from them... Given your senior position in PodTech, and your comments relating to the paid-for video, I am going to assume that you have some direct interaction with Intel in this commercial relationship.
    Also, from what I understand you have stocks (or stock options) with PodTech and I'm sure your salary is paid by the commercial relationships like the one with Intel.
    (correct me on any of this)
    So basically you are dealing directly with Intel as PR client and you will benefit greatly if PodTech gets more of their business.

    From that I can't see any line between advertising and editorial sections here - you're both. The invoice may say "payment for video A", but that doesn't make video B anything like an independent production in my eyes.

    Just a quick anecdote - I'm a freelance journalist working (atm) for a business paper in Ireland. A few months back I won a mobile phone from a company's blog which asked people to comment on their soon-to-be-launched site.
    A week or so ago the company launched this site (and the related product), and in my mind it's a pretty interesting idea and concept... in any other circumstance I would have gotten in touch and tried to write a piece on them... but I didn't because I didn't feel comfortable with the situation.
    I got a free phone off them, and in my mind it would make me less able to be objective - even if it didn't people would assume I got the phone in return for giving them press.

    I guess my point is that you should rethink your own editorial policy before you start telling other sites how to work theirs.
  • Sir Robert, regarding the engadget cancer xbox story, how do you feel about the fact engadget link to their 'sister site' as the source [Via Xbox360Fanboy] who in turn links to the real source?
  • Dips
    LayZ - you always know you have won the battle when Scoble doesn't respond to your post. Well played.
  • Dips: LayZ wins every battle. Haven't you noticed? That f***er is smart! I hope to meet him sometime.
  • Bill Gates stole my life
    Dude. This little rant--you have to be kidding. Is this all a big ploy to get attention? Well, you got your coveted Engadget link and then some. Happy now?

    Meanwhile, there's about...what, 10 million blogs out there? Nearly all of whom would LOVE to have your traffic and the INCOME associated with it.

    Just STFU. I can't believe the whiny nonsense I read in your post and in the ensuing comments. And guess what? You aren't Engadget, and Engadget isn't you. You DON'T HAVE the same audience. Ditto everything LayZ said.

    Suck it up, whiner.
  • No, it's not as interesting. =P
  • "OK, I think I made about 50 enemies yesterday. Telling people they don’t link, I learned, is one way to get everyone’s panties in a bunch."

    Scoble, the first one to get his panties in a bunch was you, crying that you didn't get linked.

    I think commenter Custa said it best:

    "I am not sure if you have become less interesting Robert, but you certainly have become a hell of a lot more narcissistic."
  • Grear site!
  • Posdnous
    I have read all of the comment threads regarding this latest debacle you've stupidly gotten yourself embroiled in, and after doing so I have to agree with Valleywag's take and the take of many of your commenters here. You have become so full of yourself and have developed such an inflated sense of your importance in the grand scheme of things that it is no longer enjoyable to read your lame efforts to defend yourself. I find your comments regarding cancer even more offensive than your pathetic attempts to explain away your ignorant bitching about not getting links to your paid commercial. I am unsubscribing from your feed as soon as I post this comment. You kind of suck now.
  • Posdnous: "kind of suck?"

    What kind of flame is that? Geeesh, I thought my readers could come up with better flames than that. Sigh.
  • "Actually, I’ve found that video is more likely to get watched."

    Except yours.
  • "having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Glad to see you understand news value"

    As a former medical professional who's worked in oncology I find that so patently offensive and insensative that its hard to believe someone in the position to have a public platform would stoop to such a naive, uninformed and idiotic statement.

    News Value: Knowing what blog is no longer worth reading
  • Robert, are you saying that Engadget found the story first on your blog, and so they should have linked to you, even if they did not include any of your story?
  • Bob: I know several people dying of cancer right now.

    I was talking about news judgment. Why aren't their names on the front page of your local newspaper?

    Sounds like your emotionalism is clouding how you perceive what I'm saying. Instead of asking questions and understanding what I'm saying a little deeper, you just attack. Sounds like you're not the kind of reader I'd enjoy having around here anyway.

    Let me put this in a little clearer perspective. My mom died last year. Why wasn't that discussed on the gadget blogs? Hint: it wasn't news. Even though it was devastating to me.
  • John: I don't know that. I just know that Engadget only linked to the New York Times. Ryan Block said on his blog that they linked there cause that's where they found it first, then refused to link to my video saying it had "no news value to their readers."

    I'll take them on the face value of that. I disagree, but hey, human beings can disagree. THeir competitor, Gizmodo, DID add a link and they claim to have an editorial process too. So, obviously I'm not alone in thinking that a gadget blog's readers might find it interesting.

    Funny enough I did get hundreds of visits from Engadget over the weekend to my video, just by leaving a link in their comment area. So, at least SOME people were interested in watching a 40-minute video with a Senior Technical Fellow from Intel showing off the latest fab and talking about 45nm process.
  • Robert, if they did not find the story on your site first, then I do not think you can complain about them not linking to you. If that is true. ;-)

    You raise an important issue, but without finding your site first, I don't think it stands up. Actually this is an interesting discussion in its self, why don't more bloggers do their own research and just rely on the MSM to provide the basis for their stories.

    Most journalists would fact check stories and get their own take on a story, most bloggers don't. I recently researched the automobile industry, and a lot of the professional bloggers site MSM stories.

    Instead of Engadget writing up someone else's story why not ask Intel for more details, an interview etc.

    At least you are working hard conducting interviews, a lot of bloggers just give opinion on other people's work. Which is okay, but not as interesting as if someone talks to the primary source.
  • John: I didn't want a link INSTEAD of the New York Times. Hell, I linked to them too in the first few minutes of my posting.

    But, today, look at Gizmodo and Engadget. Tell me which one is doing a better job covering the gadget world.
  • Ryan tells me he linked to the New York Times because that's where they found the story first.

    http://www.ryanablock.com/archive/2007/01/on-li...

    If that's the case I don't understand your argument.

    If Engadget post does not include any content about your posting, then Engadget does not have to credit you.
  • Oh, I see you apologized on the other post, makes sense now, were you eating a bad sandwich or something? Robert this is not good for your credibility. J

    However, the question of linking is interesting in the MSM, but in addition the issue of journalists commenting on other blogs. How often do journalists answer comments and comment on other blogs?

    You do, that's a credit to how engaged you are with your audience, and one of the reasons why you became a top blogger. I think every company, journalist and blogger can learn from the example of this post, engage your audience
  • Comments on other blogs is interesting in MSM. Though some says that everyone could get an enemy rather than an audience. Everybody can learn from this post. for example i want to link something like asking where i can purchased for a volkswagen aftermarket parts is still helpful for a person. For the reason that they still be able to provide an information on something they don't know. Will i guess i have to apologized too for this post...
  • "having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people."

    You should seriously be more aware of soundbites by now. In context this quote makes you sound like an ass; out of context this quote makes you sound like a SUPER ass.
  • concerning your comments about cancer it is obvious that you have no idea about that desease and moreover you do not respect human life. even if you believe such a thing you do not say only as respect to the people who have lost a loving person. greetings from greece.
  • I'm not entirely sure what Robert's more upset about - that sites like Engadget report stories that he thinks are less interesting to Engadget's readers than his stories, or that sites that do report on material do not link to his videos as the original source.

    Either way, I think he's justified in getting the hump, but it's simply a case of plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

    The publishing technology may be new, but it's the same old-media complaints - I don't get the coverage that I'm due, I don't get the credit that I'm due.

    By all means get annoyed Robert - but don't expect anything to change ;-)
  • John Rice
    Dude you don't have a clue. In your column above you say you pissed off the blogsphere for telling people they don't link. Are you crazy? People (I know you think there are no worthy people outside of the blogsphere lick) were pissed off about the cancer comment. And the idea that you don't get that or mention it in you sort of an apology speaks volumes you.

    It's funny how a lot of you geeks think you're smarter than everyone else and yet often miss the obvious. Like don't be an insensitive jackass. And oh yeah Captain Obivous, maybe just maybe that since LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE CANCER they might be offended by the "having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people," remark. Are you a descendant of Thomas Malthus? And why do Funny how your response is couched in such a way that would make us think we would have to choose. Could that be because - and this is a wild shot in the dark - your bruised ego was enganging your brain and making you speak instead of communicating with your intellect? Get back with me on that. You should be held accountable and responsible for your cancer comment and I for one plan on doing that. For disclosure purposes I made a similar post on cadenhead.org and I am not paid by or employed by PPP.
  • John: >>Like don’t be an insensitive jackass.

    Are you listening to yourself? Sounds like not. Cause you just put yourself in judgment to me. Look in the mirror.
  • Hey Scoble, look in the mirror.

    http://scobleizer.com/2006/08/16/hacking-a-list...

    So, when you got started, you didn't think any one owed you any links. But now that your head is too big, you whine and cry wolf if you aren't linked.

    You should run for Congress, you're an excellent flip-flopper, when it suits you.
  • PJ: good point.
  • The Aussie
    I guess Robert that you've just discovered one of the great pitfalls of PR.

    That great news release, pitch, video, interview didn't produce the result you thought it would.

    The reporter didn't get it, was too busy, there was too much news, was short-staffed, didn't understand the technology or market, was a newby .... all conspire to kill a potentially great stories.

    The rest of the media work this way, bloggers too will work this way because that is how reporting (even amateur reporting) gets done.

    So much for 'social networking', which smells a lot like plain old influence PR to this old PR guy. Think of it as electronic campaigning, same principles apply as regular campaigning only the communications vehicles change.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same ...
  • John Rice
    Mr. Scoble,

    You have never apologized for the cancer portion of your comment that I know of in any way, shape or form. When you make comments like that and don't apologize and the only thing you acknowledge is that you pissed off the blogosphere for complaining about them not linking to you, then I think pointing out to others what you said and why it is wrong is fair game. You were an insensitive jackass to everyone that has cancer or lost someone to cancer. I was an insensitive jackass to you and you alone because of what you said regarding cancer and Intel. By the way when is the real apology coming? I mean it's only been three weeks or so.
  • John Rice
    Or maybe Rogers Cadenhead said it best on Work Bench when he wrote:

    Robert Scoble, the former Microsoft blogger who's now a exec at podcasting startup PodTech, recently engaged in the following exchange with one of his readers:

    Reader: You think Intel making a smaller chip is more important than cancer?

    Scoble: having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

    Scoble, the 86th-most-linked blogger on the planet, is angry that more blogs don't link to him, so he made an example of the tech site Engadget for ignoring two videos he shot about Intel's new chip:

    Today Engadget has an article about a cancer patient getting their Xbox ripped off. You telling me THAT has more news value for Engadget's readers than a tour of Intel's factory which also included discussion of Intel's new chips coming out later this year and how Intel got that breakthrough done? Give me a break.

    Intel's a PodTech client that has paid the company to produce a gauzy promotional video about its new chip, a relationship PodTech was two days late in disclosing.

    Though Scoble claims he wasn't paid to produce 48 minutes of unedited, more-important-than-cancer video about Intel, I can't see any sane reason he should be treated as an objective judge of the company's news value.

    Scoble's the vice president of media development for PodTech. Intel's a major client. What would Scoble have said if his visit to its factory revealed an underwhelming new chip that's only as important as Restless Leg Syndrome?
  • John: I'm not apologizing. You are stretching what I said into something I didn't say. I clarified it once for you. I guess you're too dense to get it so, with that, I bid you good day.
  • Johnny Sunberg
    My humble opinion is that you should stick to blogging. Video just isn't your thing. You're just not a good interviewer and video guy, but I like your blog. Also this Podtech job has made you into a sellout.
  • Johnny: where's your video blog. I want to learn how to do it right!
  • newsmaniak
    Scobble is falling into the dark side of the blogosphere ;-) A post just to talk about himself and how come someone refer to him WIHTOUT linking !!!!!! And how come they also have a different view on what is important and not !!!!!
    This is definitely the best online harakiri I ever see !
    Robert, who do you actually think you are ? Being number 86 thanks to interesting posting is one thing, but that certainly does not make you any sort of king with an absolute vision on anything. And please, if you pay no respect for other people, at least try to have just a little for people suffering sickness.
    I think this ranking based on linking is totally perverting the blogosphere quality. Something based on audience and voting by readers would probably bring more value......
  • Good point! This sounds strong shady.
    I like blogging .The blog was simply a communications tool and channel for the "encouragement" group recognized.

    I have listen that people are finding a good job on blogs, as in outsourcing people also get paid for blog comment.
    Haven’t you seen the same thing on Guestbook and Forums these days, damn automatic spamming programs?
    So these spammer also spoiling the effective work of spam awareness. Yes, this comment motive is spam awareness. Get spammer block. Please participate with me for the welfare of SEARCH ENGINES. We are providing SEO Blogs help.

    Thank you!
  • Anonymous
    Wow, I can't believe you don't see how arrogant you come across in this post. It's almost sickening to me as a casual reader. It began even before the cancer comment, too.

    You may be a good person, but that's not coming across in a lot of your posts, Robert. The book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" may be of use to you; it was to me.
  • I want you all to know that Jay Mick does not have any negitive feeling directed at any of you personally. I am on no one's side in this information war. The reason I am seeking someone to speak for your side is because it is extremely essential. Many of you are still going around acting like your technology is so advanced that your idenity will be protected. The Central Intellegence Agency has been monitoring your activity for a long time.

    There has been crimes commited through these networks that are unforgivable. Many peoples lives are going to be destoryed for the things they did on a computer. I am trying to reach sometype of agreement, because the people need to be pacified. I am a free agent and I will be acting openly to help workout sometype of plan.

    I am speaking for all parties involved. JayMickCIA@aol.com........We have to make some changes for the good of humanity. There is a class war brewing and you need to act accordinly. Please contact me, because right now I am forced to create panic.
  • Kristin
    I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like the movie Blood and Chocolate. Who ever made it scrude up roally. And thats putting it lightly. I would like to tell off the person resopsible for my favorite book. I've read it over 50 times. I would have read it more but I have kids to think about. If any of you could tell who I need to bitch out about the movie let me know throught my e-mail address.
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