Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on robert-scoble http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic robert-scoble Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Nimrods ye are Fri, 19 Sep 2003 16:52:44 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://www.scraprap.com/webx?14@211.Jlcoa6QgeoS.0@.1e6f62b3!discloc=.1e7db2ea">Dan Shafer calls us "nimrods" for turning off his IM client</A>. Well, the way I look at it is we're still a business. Our bandwidth costs us money. Our servers, and their upkeep, costs us money. My salary costs Microsoft money. Our shareholders demand that we return a profit (so much so that one shareholder recently asked us to stop giving money to charity -- I'll come back to that in a minute). Plus, we're making our service more secure and it does more now than it ever did before and now we'd like to start selling our IM infrastructure to third parties. Seems to me that's fair. Dan, do you work for free? How about you send me your latest books for free? Or, even better yet, what would your publisher say if I went to Borders, bought a book of yours, then retyped it and put it onto the Internet for all my readers to use for free? As to charity, one of our shareholders wants us to be forbidden to spend any money on charity. That's just plain bad business. Why? Because it makes me feel good as a Microsoft employee that Microsoft is one of the world's largest charitable givers -- it's a major reason that Microsoft has one of industry's lowest turnover rates. It also improves our brand's reputation (which does need all the help it can get). It also lets us invest in growing areas like education that can't afford the latest technology. That lets us learn best practices that we can incorporate into our products. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> No you're nimrods. You're trying to defend cutting off the oxygen to vendor neutral IM.   I'd think the same if I found that my next Outlook upgrade suddenly meant I could only email other Outlook users. I'll be boycotting MSN from October until a work-around is found.  Of course you could save me this bother and just make your damn software interoperable! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001635.html What comes after a title? Mon, 17 Nov 2003 15:32:28 +0000 <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2003/11/17.html#a5493">I'm using Titles Now</a>. </div> I'm trying to put titles on my items now, which should help out my RSS feeds. Hope they work OK. I'm looking for other ways to improve my weblog's usability. Any other good ideas out there? Of course, if I forget to put the titles on, then what's the use? I really hate having to do more work, but I think it's worth it. <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> [<a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</a>] </div> How about adding topics and linking your posts to the shared knowledge space that <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector</a> is becoming? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001739.html Let's make nice Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:24:35 +0000 <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2003/11/21.html#a5548">Brand Emotion</a>. </div> I'm sitting here in Seattle's airport. My flight is delayed. The plane is broken. A new one is getting flown in. But, it gives me some time to think about how people perceive brands and what can affect that perception. Particularly when it comes to Microsoft What do you think when I say "Nordstroms?" I think great service. "Coca Cola?" Refreshing. "Nike?" I wanna be like Mike. <a href="http://www.apple.com/">Apple</a> Innovative. "Levis" Cool. "Krispy Kreme" Hot and fresh. Now, what do you think when I say "Microsoft?" Do you think "Monopolistic? Ruthless? Rapatious? Arrogant? Low quality? or Untrustworthy?" Many people do. <div style="margin-left: 40px;">[...]</div> What do you think? How can we work together to make a win-win? <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> [<a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</a>] </div> [Note I have edited this piece because I think I was being unfair to Robert.and more self-righteous than usual.] Behind Scobles brand guff lies my truth. People do not fear Micorosft simply because they dominate the software market. People fear Microsoft because they have proved, repeatedly, that they will do anything to win including acts which are unethical or illegal. I think that one of the reasons Scoble, a prominent blogger, was hired was because Gates & Ballmer have a new strategy called "Let's make nice." I think they've realised they have a growing PR problem and their way of dealing with it is to get people saying nice things about them. I don't think they are above hiring people like Scobe, giving them the shock & awe therapy whilst feeding them the kool-aid and then letting them get on with spreading the good word about about how "we've changed."  If that also means giving them secret new toys, printing glossy values packs and signing campfire songs then so be it. A companies values flow from the top. Gates & Ballmer have been responsible for Microsofts values for a long time. I don't believe they have changed. Why on earth would I? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001764.html So Bush has Kool-Aid too Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:58:59 +0000 You know, I can't imagine a more courageous thing for a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3244620.stm">US President to do than going to visit Iraq</a> on this Thanksgiving. <div style="margin-left: 40px;"> [<a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</a>] </div> It is exactly this kind of statement that makes me very afraid of what harm America is going to inflict upon us all over the next 5 years. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001775.html Control your destiny or somebody else will. Fri, 13 May 2005 08:26:12 +0100 Scoble nails my view on corporate blogging: <blockquote>...So, why are we bringing them here? We're bringing them here to find out what they think and to start an interesting new conversation. One that we can't control. As I met with Boeing and Target over the past few days that's what I told them too. You can't control this new world. At best you can participate in it. Just like if you hear someone talking about you at a cocktail party. You can't make them stop. You can't make them change their minds about you. At best you can join in the conversation and make sure they have a complete picture of who you are. [<a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/05/12.html#a10057">Watch out for that Scoble guy, he's just trying to control your mind</a>]</blockquote> Guess I'll have to buy his book after all ;-) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002596.html