This is the way I love to learn about a company.
No, not from a PR firm.
No, not from a CEO (or anyone else from the company) calling me up or writing me email.
No, not on some junket.
No, not on stage at Techcrunch 50 or Demo or Under the Radar or some other conference.
No, not by reading Mashable.
No, not on Twitter. Or FriendFeed. Or Facebook. Or MySpace. (I really hate direct messages, by the way).
No, not in an advertisement.
“OK, Scoble, knock it off, how did you learn about it?”
A beta tester (a developer I know and trust) came up to me today and said “this is the coolest thing I’ve used in a long time.”
He then gave me a peek at his screen. I agreed after seeing what was on his screen.
But instead of letting the world that, I asked Twitter and FriendFeed if anyone had heard anything about the service yet.
They had. And how.
So, what is it?
It’s StackOverflow. A community knowledge exchange, for programmers, that is being built by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood (both famous programmers).
It’s in a closed beta so far (you can sign up for the beta on the StackOverflow Blog), but look at the replies I received on Twitter:
Joel Gray: “@Scobleizer As a participant in StackOverflow, I have to say that it is great. Good community of folks so far, quite easy to get answers”
Levi Figueira: “@codinghorror Man, I’m loving stackoverflow!! Great resource and userbase!! Let’s hope it doesn’t get wild after it goes “public”… 
” and “@Scobleizer I’ve been following their podcast since #1 and am part of the beta!! It’s the best thing for developers ever! ”
Phil: “Impressed with StackOverflow. They’ve really thought through usability and trying to create a sticky experience.”
Michael Krakovskiy: “stackoverflow beta rocks!”
Chris Benard: “@Scobleizer Here are a couple of screenshots I just took for you: http://is.gd/1nul and http://is.gd/1nuo ” and “@Scobleizer It’s an experts-exchange for programmers, without all the annoyances. ”
schwarzwald “@Scobleizer furthermore, stack overflow is experts-exchange without blackhat SEO techniques (cloaking) and annoying superfluous graphics.”
If you are exciting your early users like this you will get found. I so wish more companies built their stuff this way. Go slowly. Built PR by building a great service and turn your users into your PR agents. Oh, yeah, and blog and podcast about it to get to this point (but look at how they built a community, they didn’t get all “pushy” about what they were doing — they just were informative and inclusive).
Keep in mind that this is only a few days into beta and they only have a few hundred beta testers, but this is going to get big pretty fast because it is a well-thought-out service that already is getting major praise from developers, who are very hard to get to hype anything.
Believe me, we all will hear about your product if it really does rock. There’s no reason to go crazy with a PR firm if you build something that people want. Atwood and Spolsky are proving that right in front of us.
This got me fired up about the tech industry again. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this kind of user passion.
UPDATE: Jeremy Toeman has a good rebuttal to this post (he’s the guy who first showed me Bug Labs and Sling Box).
[...] PR-Less launch kicks off a stack overflow of praise – Robert Scoble [...]
[...] though this issue has already been discussed a lot, it still seems to be quite an acute problem (it is visible from the attention it has received this week again) so I have decided to cover it again in a [...]
[...] we see loads of mostly tech bloggers and blogs saying PR is dead, dying or not [...]
[...] though this issue has already been discussed a lot, it still seems to be quite an acute problem (it is visible from the attention it has received this week again) so I have decided to cover it again in a [...]
how i can register this site ? i search, but, i dont find it :S
how i can register this site ? i search, but, i dont find it :S
[...] Jeremy Toeman has a good rebuttal to this post (he’s the guy who first showed me Bug Labs and Sling [...]
[...] Robert Scoble’s post on StackOverflow (no, it didn’t make him cry) [...]
[...] yourself PR” there are several others who claim the best thing to do is to fire your PR firm, pitch yourself and never hire a PR firm in the first [...]
[...] Scoble’s impression on StackOverflow This entry was written by Vin and posted on August 24, 2008 at 11:20 pm and filed under Software [...]
To register in StackOverflow go to http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/08/bad-news-good-news/ and follow the instructions.
To register in StackOverflow go to http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/08/bad-news-good-news/ and follow the instructions.
[...] Jeff Atwood first described Stack Overflow in this post. He and Joel Spolsky are the creators – you can read Joel’s thoughts and sign up for the beta here. You can also read what Robert Scoble has to say. [...]
[...] one of the founders so he’s clearly biased. For what it’s worth, Robert Scoble was enthused about Stack Overflow, though it did not make him cry. Still, I was humbled by the way Robert picked this up so [...]
Scoble says: “I’m tired of seeing crap after crap after crap. If someone pitches me another social media aggregator I’m going to scream.”
It seems that the real culprit here is the client/developer. Reputable PR practitioners do not take on clients who have nothing interesting to say. Yes, there are PR hacks out there trying to get coverage for blah products or services but the blame should also be shared with un-imaginative companies that are too dull to come up with something truly innovative.
So why is this attack only against PR? Are you afraid of possibly offending a potential advertiser?
Scoble says: “I’m tired of seeing crap after crap after crap. If someone pitches me another social media aggregator I’m going to scream.”
It seems that the real culprit here is the client/developer. Reputable PR practitioners do not take on clients who have nothing interesting to say. Yes, there are PR hacks out there trying to get coverage for blah products or services but the blame should also be shared with un-imaginative companies that are too dull to come up with something truly innovative.
So why is this attack only against PR? Are you afraid of possibly offending a potential advertiser?
Visitken: I seriously doubt any of these “wannabe” companies will become an advertiser of mine.
Visitken: I seriously doubt any of these “wannabe” companies will become an advertiser of mine.
[...] motivation had slowly been growing since reading this article from the Scobleizer. [...]
I spend some of my free time on friendfeed.com, but there is a drawback: friendfeed rapidly became the #1 Google result for my name. All sorts of topics come up there, and I feel constrained in what I comment on to avoid having something come back to haunt me in a future job search or vetting process.
I’m enthused about the idea of stackoverflow: it looks like fun, and I think the topics which come up there will be related to what I do for a living. Having stackoverflow postings turn up on Google for the next N years won’t be a concern.
reddit.com’s programming sub-reddit used to be similar, but the comments on reddit have become completely toxic. It is no longer fun there.
I spend some of my free time on friendfeed.com, but there is a drawback: friendfeed rapidly became the #1 Google result for my name. All sorts of topics come up there, and I feel constrained in what I comment on to avoid having something come back to haunt me in a future job search or vetting process.
I’m enthused about the idea of stackoverflow: it looks like fun, and I think the topics which come up there will be related to what I do for a living. Having stackoverflow postings turn up on Google for the next N years won’t be a concern.
reddit.com’s programming sub-reddit used to be similar, but the comments on reddit have become completely toxic. It is no longer fun there.
[...] site has been working so great within its closed beta that even Robert Scoble noted how companies should strive for its PR-less popularity. It has likewise become so addictive due largely to a karma-like system wherein reputation points [...]
[...] Scoble knocked us. Then Arrington took aim. Even Steve Rubel, “one of our own,” [...]
[...] IT’S A HOT TOPIC OF CONVERSATION Never before has PR been discussed by so many people who don’t work in the industry. Admittedly not always in a good light, but you can’t deny the [...]
[...] I get your attention? Linkbaiting, of course, is not dead. Nor is Twitter, nor blogging nor IM nor public relations, nor any other service or social media trend that has been blindly pushed to an early grave by [...]
[...] started back in August with this post from Scobleizer stating “Build PR by building a great service and turn your users into your PR agents.” [...]
[...] via @themediaisdying on Twitter, there’s the whole “Social Media is killing PR” meme and my screed that actually Social Media is killing Journalism. Now Ken Dardis, blogger at Audio [...]
[...] – bookmarked by 6 members originally found by leehorrocks on 2008-10-28 Comment on PR-less launch kicks off a stack overflow of praise by … [...]
[...] domain. This puts them in a great position right away. Initial press on Stack Overflow was a whisper campaign spread through loyal readers of the two founders’ blogs. This worked well at sparking an [...]
[...] Some of the best in the business shared their insight on Robert Scoble’s post, “PR-less launch kicks off a stack overflow of praise.” [...]
Hello…..nothing like word of mouth!! When did you hear about Stackoverflow? I saw them in Inc. Magazine in Nov 2008. It seems like everyone heard about them in May/April of 2009. Do you know why?
Thank you for you article!!
Matt Knox
http://www.diggerslist.com
Hello…..nothing like word of mouth!! When did you hear about Stackoverflow? I saw them in Inc. Magazine in Nov 2008. It seems like everyone heard about them in May/April of 2009. Do you know why?
Thank you for you article!!
Matt Knox
http://www.diggerslist.com
[...] it yourself PR” there are several others who claim the best thing to do is to fire your PR firm, pitch yourself and never hire a PR firm in the first [...]