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Irrelevants talk to relevants, and report on relevant things, important to relevants, even though they, as the messengers, might, in fact be, irrelevants.
You need a vibe, a buzz, the press and mainstream (irrelevant as they might be) needs to get why it's important to them too, never mind the enthusiasts and the evangelists that Microsoft so heavily courts, to say nothing of the Street and the money men.
And even if you are irrelevant or even if Web 2.0 is itself (which both are besides the point), video is not.
I wonder why Alfred isn't calling THEM irrelevant.
But we all know THEY are relevant. After all, they are Microsoft employees, right? Ahhh, fun biases exist all over.
Gasoline meet fire...
But then again, it's for developers, which in most cases will be the Microsoft cheering public and will take any bone thrown to them ...
I don't think it's fait to quote Alfred's opinion as if it was Microsoft's official position. Alfred is in no way an official Microsoft spokesman.
From the internal directory, I can see that Alfred is an Evangelist for Academics, working for DPE, where I also work, and where you also used to work while at Microsoft.
In sum-up, I don't think you should get to conclusions like the following: "Microsoft certainly seemed to like it when I did that when I worked there. But now that I’m not a blue badge anymore I’m irrelevant to the Web 2.0 world. Hmmmm."
Don't assume that Alfred's views actually represent the majority of MS Blue Badge holder's opinion. That's unfair.
I, for one, do not agree with Alfred. I consider that Mix *is not* yet another dev conference, and that we don't want to spray there the same messages and show the same demos than at PDC or TechEd.
Different audiences have different concerns and interests, hence, we should have different messages.
Voilà.
Once more, my view or opinions do not necessery reflect an official position of my employer ;)
Cheers,
--
Christophe Lauer
Web & Windows Live Evangelist at MS France (this last detail to imply apologizes for my bad English...)
Is it fair to tag Microsoft with this? You have a point, but every employee who blogs in public represents Microsoft and is a spokesperson, whether official or not.
Something to think about and argue about on the internal blogger alias.
I know how this works at Microsoft. If bosses and PR don't agree with how someone is behaving in public the behavior usually stops pretty quickly.
Translation: if it doesn't stop I'd have to assume it's approved/sanctioned behavior.
@Christophe, one should always be aware that once put on the blog even if there's a disclaimer (which is in Alfreds case) people will link it to the company, whether we like it or not.
And you're right concerning the audience of Mix, as is stated on the website, it's for developers, designers and Decision makers...
I will saw, however, Robert that you shouldn't assume that all of MS is against you, even when moments like this come to light.
What I will say as an outsider who has read your blog before and after your leave from Microsoft that it seems that you have been much more critical of MS (sometimes overly so) and folks from MS have been more critical of you and thus there exist a circle that makes things worse.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating Alfred did the right thing, by no means did he. You are in fact the exact kind of person who should be reporting on what is going on at Mix07.
Oh, c'mon Robert, don't get paranoïd please...
Please, not you playing the Conspiration Theory ;)
@neverness: I'm aware of this. Unfortunately, that's where people is wrong. People tend to forget that blogs are written by humans, most often by individuals (I remember robert has often encouraged individual blogs, and was mostly AFAIK against the idea of anonymous team blogs).
Given that, people should remember that individuals do have their own opinions, and can sometime or be wrong - just like any of us - or can just not perceive 100% of a strategy, of a vision, of a technology or whatever. We're all humans after all.
So I repeat that taking an employee's quote as an official position of his/her employer is not fair, and most of the time, leads to nowhere but to sterile debates. But those often generate long threads, and also drive much traffic, that's agreed ;)
Really the only sure way to get traffic is to attack something Apple's doing. Then stand back from your server cause it's likely to explode.
The Microsofties might better serve themselves (and their stockholders) trying to figure out how get their company out of the ditch and less time poo-pooing liked and respected authors.
I happen to think there is a new class of "media" and "developer" that mashes up and discards the old stereotypes. Time for folksonomy on job titles. Forget what the hierarchy gives us. Resist the formal career taxonomies!
Channel 9 + 10: I'm no more of a developer than you, Scoble -- doesn't stop you being knowledgeable at a level to communicate all this new stuff (web 2.0, r/w web, social networking yada yada yada) to the world. It needs to be told, and the traditional media is too slow to get the stuff out there. And not in a "A vs. B" or "A is evil" mindspace.
It doesn't need a deep C++ guy to grok and get the web. In some cases, maybe quite the opposite.
That's why you are relevant. Way more relevant. People matter.
Anyway, jealous ur going to be in our conference, speaking to the peoples.
Nick Hodge, http://thegeekstories.com/
Channel 10 + amateur Channel 9 dude
Not hardly? I guess that does make you a reporter. At least you have your English right ;-)
in fairness to Microsoft (EMEA) they invited me to attend. They are paying my flight and accomodation.
I'm not a developer.
There may be other motives afoot.
Anyhoo, looking forward to seeing you in the hallway.
As to paranoia. Wasn't it the guy who started Intel who said "only the paranoid survive?" Ahh, yes, it was.
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/...
I'd say sour grapes is right.
No, there's got to be some other reason.
Hell, just go back to last week and watch the Electric Rain interview I put up. http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/14... Or the Thirteen23 demo I put up. http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/14... That's a preview of the kind of stuff you'll see at Mix. Or a demo of Digipede, .NET grid tech that's pretty cool. http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/14...
You also must have missed the TechFest tour I did with Kevin Schofield. http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/search/Kevin+... or the Interview with Sanaz Ahari of Microsoft's Live.com team: http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/12...
I find it interesting that several people here keep repeating that I only slam Microsoft and only note my slams after I left Microsoft (forgetting that I told Bill Gates to split Microsoft up BEFORE I was a Microsoft employee, or my many slams on various teams WHILE I worked at Microsoft. I guess you forgot posts like this one, WHILE I worked at Microsoft: http://scoble.weblogs.com/2005/02/19.html or all sorts of other ones.
Why is that? What's YOUR ulterior motive? Are you paid by Microsoft? Why the lack of perspective?
See you next week!
Alfred says, "If you are a developer don't you really want to hear from someone who understands the technology in some depth?"
Well yes, of course... But that's what Scoble's videos give people access to!
Must be the blogger. I called Apple a buncha tools on at least one occasion, and all I got was some half-hearted attempts to justify it. Then again, MacMacs don't get treated well in my world :-P
Oh, c’mon Robert, don’t get paranoïd please…
Please, not you playing the Conspiration Theory
We ARE talking about Microsoft. Conspiracy theory is quite valid in that context.
Christophe: hmmm, I think I donated that one cause I wore it out I wore it so much.
Robert, you keep that up, and I swear I will get you one of these:
http://www.rhymes-with-witch.com/store-shirts-f...
But seriously, Alfred's being a tool about this. His entire post reads as "I'm an elitest twat, and now I can finally stop pretending to be nice to Scoble." Please. This line is the best:
Why have special privileges for the media anyway. Real developers will be there with real technical expertise and real credibility when they say something is good, great or boring. Those are the blogs I'd be looking for. Oh sure the parties and who has drinks with who is all good fun but don't most of the technical people who can't attend want more than the fluff? I think so.
SOMEone doesn't have a clue, and it's not you Robert. I think I just may go all gruber on his ass.... http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/macrovision_t...
:-)
Developers' job is developing technology, and a reporters job is to report it.
His article reminds me of the Bush white house and how they want to control the media.
"What would you recommend I do Robert? What would you do in my position?"
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I would shut up and let Scoble do his free hallway report. You wonder why so many people are switching to Ubuntu and Linux now.
Yeah, I have MSDN pro, go ahead and revoke it if you want. It was a waste of money and it collects dust. If not for the lesser technology for the the horrible attitude at the company amongst other things.
I'm going to the RedHat summit. 3 days, food included, not just chips, and nice people. My certification money also went into RHCE. Suck on that.
You are an idiot. Mike Arington is one of the headlines of Mix. He doesn't even understand web2.0 or spell it. He just hypes it. Now your pissed at wired. Give me a break. You are just pissed that the press has a scorecard and Microsoft is getting beatened bad in the market. The developers are leaving in droves. I'm an ex developer and everyone knows this... so instead of bring press you bring hype masters and conference organizers.
On the web 2.0 thing half the world doesn't even understand what it means... i'd be curious to see what microsoft's definition is. Oh you have to invite Mike Arrington and Tim O'Reilly to help you there.
Microsoft is sliding into the land of irrelevant..
I just wish I had the maturity and writing skill of people here. I will have to learn how to call people "a snotty, regressed jerk" or "an elitest twat." Much more mature and friendly than "irrelevent." To say nothing of more convincing! Gotta love the Internet.
* no snarkiness intended. :-)
Your interviews fall somewhere between on10.net and Channel9, which is fine, but developers don't get much meat from your vids.
But this is just another one of your "I'm Scoble the Great! Forbes says so!!" blog entries. *yawn*
Paranoia setting in. One of the signs of delusions of grandeur, which is increasingly evident in your blog.
Now, you say, "this isn't the first time a MS employee has gone after me...", well this isn't the first time that you trashed Microsoft either. To put it another way, this isn't the first time you trashed the vehicle that made you famous. The only reason you have more cred than other bloggers, that you have more readers than other bloggers, and that you are an "a-list blogger" (God, I hate that term) is because of your time at Microsoft. Then you got too big and went solo, but decided to trash your old friends in attempt to score points with the anti-MS crowd.
You're like the lead singer breaks away from his old group to go solo, and decides increase his popularity by publicly trashing his old group. Well, the classy singers aren't about that. I never saw Lionel Richie trashing the Commodores.
You are right that when someone blogs, a lot of the blogosphere unfortunately assumes they speak for their company. You, on the other hand, should know better than equate Alfred's post to 'Microsoft is out to get me'.
When you blogged while inside Microsoft, you still had a distinct indvidual opinion. If you had been equated with Microsoft *all the time*, your post on the marketing site with RSS would have caused headlines saying 'Microsoft believes teams creating sites without RSS should be fired'. Which definitely isn't true - it was just *your* opinion. Just like it is *Alfred's opinion" that you shouldn't be given an invite to Mix. An opinion that I and a lot of others don't agree with.
If you don't agree with him, take him out to the parking lot and settle it in the good ol' fashioned way :-)
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=3...
What's that Alfred?
Somebody wrote an unfavorable wired article about one of Microsoft's marketing sites?
So this is how MS punishes the press or keeps them on the leash?
What MS did there is make a public spectacle out of it in consequence.
"No one said Robert couldn’t or shouldn’t do his hallway reporting. Lots of comments on things I didn’t say. Not many on things I did say."
Then nobody should bother him if and when he does.
http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/?sc_cid=bcm_...
I bet if Robert goes here he could get in free as a member of the press, and I bet he would be treated a lot better. RHEL users use Seagate drives too.
So, that would indicate that he was speaking for himself, not voicing an official Microsoft position.
I'd assumed Scoble would be going, just not stuck out in the lobby - I could have saved myself 500 quid and hung out in the lobby with the cool guys all along!
Chris, I see that your url is to beercosoftware.com. Are you that "Beer" guy that used to troll Channel9? Or are you perhaps "ChrisA", that trolls Channel9 and OSNews with anti-MS bile, with posts so ridiculous that even other MS bashers are loathe to claim you as one of your own? Are you both "Beer" and "ChrisA"? Just curious.
BTW, Micheal Dell is no longer your customer!
http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/topics/global.a...
Mr. Dell runs Ubuntu now on his home laptop.
http://www.ideastorm.com/
Soon his customers will as well. They are in talks with Red Hat and other companies to give you the big old boot. Bye, bye Alfred.
No sh!t. Anyone building with Silverlight is. That's why your video of whatver company that was using it was irrelevant: you should have asked them about that. That would have made you more relevant. Instead you'll just whisper about it because now you're miffed because you are irrelevant.
You aren't a celebrity, you're just main ringleader of a big circlejerkathon in a particularly irrelevant corner of the blogosphere. Grow up already.
I'd really like someone to explain to me what MIX is supposed to be, what the goals are, and how they measure success. (Answer must be in less than 25 words, no marketing lingo, and no use of "enable" anywhere in the description.)
Give it a shot, ScobleLizards!
Not me. No one's paying me to develop with Silverlight and I know there are other developers, just like me, that aren't being paid to do it either. I use it because it looks to have potential. I like the declarative model; I like its core list of rendering capabilities; and for me, I learn by coding.
Otherwise it's an expense.
Checkout podtech.net's site and do HTTP live headers with firefox. It's running Ubuntu. Scoble is running Macs.
I would suspect there is something else at work here than simple admission price.
I hope Scoble does show up to the Red Hat summit, because that's where the real info will be discussed as far as the next gen of computing, not in Las Vegas.
And fear not, Red Hat didn't have to pay anyone to build on their platform.
As a Microsoft developer you get discounts on tools that allow you to develop products that (lo and behold) only work on Windows and most likely require APIs that in turn require Office and IE.
Some of the speakers you mentioned are probably there because they have a financial interest in the "network" (MS advertising in magazines, MS oriented book publishing), but I bet some are there just for show too, keeping up the pretense that MS technologies are "open". In this regard I think they made a mistake by not inviting you, and thanks to this guy's ineptitude they are now beyond the point of being able to rectify it without looking even more anal than they already do.
Once you take the filtered glasses off you see almost everything MS does for what it is, and it has nothing to do with technology (except in a few rare instances by pure coincidence).
MS thinks (and with some good reason) that if they can get a significant portion of Web 2.0 (or Web anything really) to use their tools for development they can make ownership of their client software a prerequisite for using that significant portion. I know people who swore by Frontpage, because they were lazy they refused to care that it generated sluggish, buggy and incompatible web pages. If only 80 percent of viewers could see the page as it was intended to look that was good enough for them. I'll wager most of the attendees at this conference have the same attitude.
The biggest lesson (some) users are finally starting to learn is to avoid lock-in. Once you get that message almost nothing else matters. The EU understands it, I think parts of Brazil do, China to some extent. But at a less measurable level thousands of SMBs and even enclaves within large companies. Let's see if the old MS techniques still have their mojo.
I'm betting against.
"MS thinks (and with some good reason) that if they can get a significant portion of Web 2.0 (or Web anything really) to use their tools for development they can make ownership of their client software a prerequisite for using that significant portion."
You must be speaking of Microsoft ten years ago. Ask people around you who are close to MSFTees and you'll see that much has changed internally in terms of strategy.
http://shellcity.spaces.live.com/
Shellcity is of course my word for Microsoft's relationship to software. But you have to say it several times real fast to get it.
You've made my day Robert. I can go out and enjoy the lovely beach weather today and wait for the tide to come in tonight on all of this.
(I think it's a low news day anyway.)
“MS thinks (and with some good reason) that if they can get a significant portion of Web 2.0 (or Web anything really) to use their tools for development they can make ownership of their client software a prerequisite for using that significant portion.”
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/684.pdf
Too get a good feel for the present, all one needs to do is look to the not so distant past.
If only web 2.0 were real and not hype du jour. MS would actually have a dragon to slay. In the absence of that, we can observe them swinging their air swords with "LIVE". OMG, it's f'ing LIVE! WoW.
Scoble, If you asked in the last 2 weeks I would consider your request equally rediculious. Waiting is the issue. I think if you can wait to ask than you can wait 24 hours after something happens at mix for the Videos on VisitMix.com. Plan ahead or wait in the lobby:)
On the other hand, I am not sure MSFT has that many good news to carry out these days and as such they are probably looking for channels which are dumber and can relay a message without asking too many questions. (Although I have to say that I found your Adobe interviews not as aggressive as Scoble can be - for example, it would have been nice to push them around support around standards, better integrations with the 100+ AJAX frameworks instead of re-inventing the wheel, about the future of flash in an AJAX world and potential convergence).
"On the other hand, I am not sure MSFT has that many good news to carry out these days and as such they are probably looking for channels which are dumber and can relay a message without asking too many questions."
Thanks, Dude! This one really really made my day ;))
Well, if that's what you do actually think, I stongly suggest that you keep your eyes and ears open next week. We'll talk about this later ;)
There are exactly one bajillion ways you could have written this post and your comments without being so...
Well, maybe not.
You're such a wiener.
It's almost a PSA of some sorts. Besides, Mix is a rip off. Look at what you get at RH Summit: http://redhat.com/promo/summit/ 3 days, food, lodging, GOOD speakers, ect... I have a doctors appointment in Montreal and I am desperately trying to reschedule so I can still make it. At any rate, guess how much Linux world costs? NOTHING, only if you take certification labs. What the hell are you paying for at Mix? To be marketed to for 3 days a bag of chips? Sad, sad, sad..... That should be free. Hell, Microsoft should be paying YOU to go to mix. They paid people to go to E3 2 years ago and cross their arms in an X shape. Why shouldn't Scoble and the Wired reporter be paid just to show up? It's not like they're going there for their health either. They are trying to report news. You Mike are going there to be a fanboy.
"As a result one less Microsoft Employee attending Mix. "
He's breaking everybody's heart.
These are self imposed limitations. MS rented the space at the hotel. Nobody is going to stop them from pulling in another chair.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3...
"Some thought he should dress up as Elvis and others felt he should be a special Channel 9 correspondent to attend. "
Way to humiliate the man. Just like Marc McDonald claimed I was selling GUIDs on ebay for no good reason.
I can't wait for the day when we no longer have to put up with this software company.
Non-conforming journalists are victimized? Actually Microsoft is pretty darned nice, compare that to Apple which demands worship and will seriously go out of their way to blacklist and nail on wall. Microsoft, as most mature companies (and even the US Congress), has learnt, enemy today, friend tomorrow. Short memories are the keys to success.
But you also have to have a sense of the news biz too, they need a story to pitch, a proxy to field, a nugget to tug at, so you will get simpilistic Adobe vs. Microsoft stories, that don't really capture reality, nor please a highly technical audience, yet it's a good drama story arc hook for the readers and editors. Real life isn't a TV show, but it has to be written like it is. Cry a river, if you don't like it, but it's just the way the world works.
But playing class warfare games (Developer vs. Media) is playing with raw political fire, which seems a skillset at Microsoft of late, taking the internal infighting external.
???
When was Scoble ever "aggressive"? He always sucks up to the interviewee, getting out of the way to let the guy talk about his project. That's what he's about, which is fine. I've never seen him go "Tim Russert" on anyone.
It's up to Microsoft how they dole out their press passes. Is Wired on their list? Maybe, maybe not. At the end of the day, it's for MS to decide. As for Scoble, well he can delude himself all he wants into thinking he is "the press" but he's a blogger. Now, does PodTech qualify as "the press". Again, that's for Microsoft to decide. But, I don't "a list" bloggers should feel like they deserve the same level of credentials. Now I know Scoble will say "but bloggers are jounalists". Well, they may think they are. But when it comes to events like this, it's up to the owner of the event to determine who "a journalist" is.
They have 700,000 circulation, so a bit more than my blog reaches.
Web 2.0 has nothing to do with content. Those who were concerned with posting content on the web and had important enough things to say could do it all before "blogs made it easy".
I couldn't say for sure whether you're more irrelevant but those guys are so bottom of the barrel it's not even worth competing with them.
Web 2.0 is actually about making sites and driving traffic without any content. Here, the communications experts think this is a new opportunity for their skills where in fact they are being replaced by automation.
Hey, how bout that. yawn.
Still doesn't mean MS finds your relevant enough to comp you.
http://www.wunderkraut.com/sounds/simpsons/home...
True enough. But anyone leaving Wired off, needs to go back to marketing school. Can't let personal bias's get in the way, if I held an event, enemies and friends alike. But the dodgeball games are quite unprofessional, single out, character assassinate, roast and belittle whomever you like in an open forum and call it "transparency". When the wind isn't at your sails, call them "trolls". See how easy it can be?
But End Prog, already spent too much time over this non-issue.
"Here, the communications experts think this is a new opportunity for their skills where in fact they are being replaced by automation."
yawn, "Web 2.0" isn't about automation. It's about a new-"er" interface to the same old content.
A lot of sites still won't give out their content via XML API, without charging a fee. If you go and get it via HTTP, and are not simply sampling it ala google, you are violating copyright.
This has been the case for the past 10 years now.
Web 2.0 has nothing to do with this. User generated content has been around a LONG time. Remember tripod and angelfire?
Nothing is being replaced by automation any more than it was a few years ago. "Hype du jour". Quote me on that. The Web 2.0 bubble never even got close to bursting. It made a small spattering noise then went away.
It only works when the tech is brand new, like back 10+ years ago before 1999. It won't work now that people are tech savvy to the web.
Most people now are using leech services like rapidshare, youtube, flickr and others. Services that essentially are very hard to make revenue on. Not like the old days when you could put a bicycle shop online and be the ONLY bicycle shop online in the world and make a million bucks at it.
"I'm this that and the other"
"I"
"I"
"I"
Get over yourself!