Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

BSI — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:32:17 -0000

Throw the Bullshit flag at em!

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Free RAZR Offer — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:46:42 -0000

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Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Ruth — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:26:45 -0000

this blog rocks

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

LayZ — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:26:54 -0000

John Welch said it better than I could. Scoble, I don't know of any CEO or CIO that is going to engage in something based on faith. That's great you believe in The Church of Blogging. I hope you continue to pay your tithing, take your communion and are ultimately saved. But this is the epitiome of being all hat and no cattle. You have super secret double probation data you can't share so we have to take you on faith? Sorry, that won't sell in any boardroom. Like John said, you are sounding like a televangilist. But again, I prefer Blogo-Facist given the way you want to engage in the debate.

I guess you took your former MS title WAY too literally.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Goebbels — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:30:30 -0000

**“I’m just going off of what their own CEO says.”

Jobs has said to you that Apple has a problem not having blogs (when they do have blogs)? **

Oh, I get it, John's post cleared that up for me. So wait: your most concrete evidence of a blog's effect on the bottomline (which actually seems quite clearly extremely spurious on the face of it) is based on the CEO's say so?

Brilliant! And this is what we get from blogs. 96% of all search results on Stormhoek are bloggers blogging how blogging lovely blogs are, repeating this nonsense: "through a blog and blog strategy alone we have doubled sales." Jesus, if only one blogger gave a sh!t about reality and didn't want to hype blogs, this claim could have been discredited in a second. But I guess when your getting free cases of wine (how many thousands of those cases were given to every blog event over the last year or more?) and it validates what you want to hear that constitutes concrete proof, huh?

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

John C. Welch — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 11:59:38 -0000

I don’t have it. I’m just going off of what their own CEO says. But, maybe it’s just good wine and people are discovering it all on its own.

Or maybe, it's just part of what Geobbels pointed out is a rather mature, large scale growing of the company, and the CEO is astute enough to let blogging take the public credit for it, because he knows that no one will question his claims in a serious manner outside of maybe the analyst community, who already know better. Robert, come on, you have supposedly had journalist training, and you saw the crap that Gates et al pulled in court. You mean it never occured to you that a CEO might engage in misdirection as PR?

Or was he saying something that you wanted to hear so badly that you just took him at his word, because it gave some proof, however thin, to your own party line.

There’s a lot of variables that go into stock price. I can’t nail any one variable on the stock price. Google has been encouraging its employees to blog more often lately and its stock price has gone up.

Right. So maybe blogging is not the end all and be all of things, no matter how much you believe it is, and dude, by the way you talk about it, it's faith man. All you're missing is an ugly suit and bad hair.

In the meantime, stuff like this might have more of an effect on stock price than whether or not Apple blogs: http://www.fool.com/news/co...

I stopped taking Motley Fool seriously on anything quite a few years ago, when I realized that they were far more interested in pushing the Church of the Motley Fool than in actually helping people invest better.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Goebbels — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 06:18:51 -0000

"Sour grapes, you say? Maybe it is."

Why should I care if this guy has an effect? And if he is, what is that effect? Increase in stock value from mid 60s to breaking the technical barrier of 80?

He claims Apple has done too little too late, that the apology is not enough. Of 200 companies with backdating issues (and maybe blogging issues too... ha, ha, ha) I cannot name another single company who has apologized or who is further along in getting the matter behind them. Maybe this is just some silly reporting jumping on the bandwagon that gets hits and attention... Maybe? Hmmm, that sounds familiar.

"I’m just going off of what their own CEO says."

Jobs has said to you that Apple has a problem not having blogs (when they do have blogs)?

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Robert Scoble — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:45:41 -0000

John,

>>Robert, you love that example, yet where’s the actual, testable, non-spun data that conclusively shows that blogging, and blogging ALONE doubled their sales? If blogging had that kind of effect on people, shouldn’t both Microsoft’s and Sun’s stock performance be looking more like Apple’s?

I don't have it. I'm just going off of what their own CEO says. But, maybe it's just good wine and people are discovering it all on its own.

There's a lot of variables that go into stock price. I can't nail any one variable on the stock price. Google has been encouraging its employees to blog more often lately and its stock price has gone up.

In the meantime, stuff like this might have more of an effect on stock price than whether or not Apple blogs: http://www.fool.com/news/co...

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

blogger@wordpress — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:22:39 -0000

"Goebbels you are an anti-blogging Nazi"

And that's bad because ???

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

vinodi — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:20:00 -0000

Goebbels you are an anti-blogging Nazi :-(

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

John C. Welch — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:52:44 -0000

“Dumb” is precisely what a timely, engaged Apple blog is best suited to combat. Left to their own devices, with no guidance from Apple in a reasonable time frame, the Mac web has only its reader reports and speculation to go on.

John, if you really think that, then you should pay more attention to the Mac community you write for. Or the computer community in general. Or, in fact, the masses as a whole. There have been, literally, since 1960, around ten verifiable cases of halloween candy tampering. There has been, IIRC, one verifiable death, a father in texas killing his kids for insurance money.

This is well - documented. It's on blogs even. Guess what difference it's made in the Tampered Halloween Candy hysteria? None. Not a damned bit. Same thing with the Black Cats being killed by Satanists hysteria, etc.

All of the correct information is available on blogs. Easily searched and found. Yet, oddly, it makes no difference. Why? Because once someone makes up their mind, what makes you think that minor things like "facts" and "reality" are going to change it?

Again, you can suppose all you like about how an Apple blog would have made a difference here, but the numbers saying "no, it won't actually" far outweigh that idea.

Maybe it seems that way to you because the conversation is so one-sided now. If an Apple blogger had immediate addressed the issue, every subsequent site, blog, or forum post the mentioned the issue would have had a summary of, and link to the Apple blogger’s response included in the thread. Apple fans would rally around this, you can be sure, pointing out the statements in any anti-Apple posting that were refuted by the Apple blogger’s response.

Do you actually read some of the examples of what passes for rational thought in the vast majority of the Mac Web, or do you assume that because you try to bring logic and rational analysis to such things that everyone else does too? I'm thinking it's the latter if you really believe that statement.

I think they’ve improved MS’s image and the knowledge and perception of its technologies. That’s nothing to sneeze at, considering the starting point.

not in the IT biz. No one there trusts anything Microsoft says until its buyable. WinFS anyone?

We interviewed 188 companies for our book, which contains lots of data, quantitative or otherwise, that indicates that blogging has a positive bottomline impact. Start with the CEO of Stormhoek. He says he doubled his sales with a blog and blog strategy.

But, nah, let’s ignore THAT data. It’s so much more fun to beat up on blog advocates.

Robert, you love that example, yet where's the actual, testable, non-spun data that conclusively shows that blogging, and blogging ALONE doubled their sales? If blogging had that kind of effect on people, shouldn't both Microsoft's and Sun's stock performance be looking more like Apple's?

Interesting thing - Robert hasnt really participated in this conversation but has gone on with 10 newer posts. What with the claim ‘blog is an effective conversation tool’?

It looks its quite easy to kill a conversation by posting newer entries.

Actually, it's the best way. Shove it to the bottom of the list, or off the main page, and you kill the conversation rather effectively.

Is blogging a “faith?” I have more evidence than that, but it still isn’t something I can back up with hard and fast numbers for the most part.

Wait...you're saying it's not a faith, but you have no real data to show it, so we'll just have to take your word on it?

Robert...that...that statement of yours...that is the very essence of faith. "I have no real proof, but I know I'm right". You destroy your point in the same sentence you try to make it in. That's quite efficient, but rather a waste of time?

Why are you arguing in the first place? We don’t know cause you’re an anonymous blogger who doesn’t want us to know his or her biases, background, career, bosses, families, or anything else.

When all else fails, and Robert's backed into a corner again, come out against anonymity. sigh...so sad.

I see this conversation going in circles. Shoot me for wanting to spend my time doing something more interesting than trying to hold a “conversation” with a handful of people, most of whom are anonymous and seem to have already made up their minds anyway.

I don’t argue about my views on abortion for the same reason. Even if my position is right all you do is piss people off.

The next great Scoblism. When in doubt, pout. Robert, maybe if you spent half as much time providing real supporting data as doing a princess two-step, you'd have better luck.

I can’t talk about the survey results cause I signed an NDA, though, and can’t talk about things that haven’t been disclosed publicly.

"I have seen the true word, but you can't. You must trust what I say because I have seen the true word."

You sure you aren't training to be a televangelist?

I can say that there are millions of visitors to things like Channel 9 and blogs.msdn.com and blogs.technet.com.

There's millions of visitors to vivid.com every day too, what's your point?

I also can say that you’re absolutely right. If blogging wasn’t serving a larger corporate goal it would have been killed long ago.

Indeed. Without the rather large PR boost that blogs have giving Microsoft, the Vista debacle would have hurt them FAR more.

I’ve seen anecdotal evidence that it does hurt. Especially on recruitment. But I can’t share the data, unfortunately, so I can’t use what I’ve seen to win the argument.

Curious how the only data you can find to support your point is sooper-seekret. If blogging is as consistently beneficial as you maintain, surely there are more public data you can use.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

blogger@wordpress — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:33:49 -0000

Whats wrong with being anonymous? If anything it helps. You can concentrate on the issue being raised rather than the person who raises the issue.

Why should my biases matter? Besides we dont need to have conversations to "convince" each other. It could simply help understand each others view point and diversify.

You may not beleive, but i too strongly beleived not blogging does hurt organizations. But the questions raised here have been quite interesting and thought provoking.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Robert Scoble — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:07:15 -0000

LayZ: >>What I don’t agree with, because I don’t see evidence of this, is the NOT blogging hurts.

I've seen anecdotal evidence that it does hurt. Especially on recruitment. But I can't share the data, unfortunately, so I can't use what I've seen to win the argument.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Robert Scoble — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:06:16 -0000

LayZ: Microsoft has plenty of internal data showing that blogging helps it get more recruits (I've seen the surveys and work the company has done to try to quantify a difference), get a better reputation, and probably more sales although that one is a harder one to prove. But profits have risen every quarter at Microsoft since I joined. So, they aren't having a detrimental effect.

I can't talk about the survey results cause I signed an NDA, though, and can't talk about things that haven't been disclosed publicly.

I can say that there are millions of visitors to things like Channel 9 and blogs.msdn.com and blogs.technet.com.

I also can say that you're absolutely right. If blogging wasn't serving a larger corporate goal it would have been killed long ago.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Robert Scoble — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:02:43 -0000

blogger: I saw your post after I responded to LayZ. >>What with the claim ‘blog is an effective conversation tool’?

I see this conversation going in circles. Shoot me for wanting to spend my time doing something more interesting than trying to hold a "conversation" with a handful of people, most of whom are anonymous and seem to have already made up their minds anyway.

I don't argue about my views on abortion for the same reason. Even if my position is right all you do is piss people off.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

LayZ — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:02:16 -0000

@119. See my last post. I never said blogging doesn't help. What I don't agree with, because I don't see evidence of this, is the NOT blogging hurts.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

LayZ — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:00:44 -0000

@112 "Who says that was the goal of their blogging efforts? Only MS knows what the real goals were, if they were even defined. All I can tell you is the effect the blogs have had. I think they’ve improved MS’s image and the knowledge and perception of its technologies. That’s nothing to sneeze at, considering the starting point."

Likely not their sole goal. But if MS is encouraging their employees to blog and that blogging doesn't ULTIMATELY result in better products and more sales, then the company and the bloggers are wasting the company's time. You may THINK the plethora of blogs MS have has improved their image, but I would think a CEO would want more concrete data than what someone THINKS. Israel's book as examples of 188 carefully selected companies that supposedly "prove" blogging is a good thing. Is there other quantitative data out there. The most important being data that shows companies that DON'T blog are being hurt by doing so. I don't think anyone is arguing that blogging has a detrimental impact on a company. It seems Scoble's contention is that NOT blogging has a detrimental affect on a company. I'd like to see some research that supports that.

Scoble, your 188 companies carefully selected companies "prove" that blogging is good. No one questions that. What I question is the thesis that NOT blogging is bad for a company. Where's the proof of that?

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Robert Scoble — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:00:30 -0000

>>And you still remain incapable of having an intellectual conversation around a contrary opinion.

OK. That's probably true.

I think we've beaten this to death.

I believe blogging helps. You don't.

That's not a position we're going to convince each other of.

It's sort of like abortion. If you're for it, and I'm against it, there's not much we can say to each other to convince each other that their position is wrong and that we should change our minds.

Is blogging a "faith?" I have more evidence than that, but it still isn't something I can back up with hard and fast numbers for the most part.

At Microsoft I saw that it did help our reputation numbers. It helped our recruiting very much too. And 4.3 million unique visitors showed up the month I quit to Channel 9, so on that number too it mattered. Not to mention that the Economist wrote that it mattered.

Is it like dynamite to a gold miner? Yeah, it can blow off your hand. It can also get gold out of the mine. I have more than enough examples to convince me. As for convincing you, why is that my job? Are you gonna start a blog if I convince you it's important?

Why are you arguing in the first place? We don't know cause you're an anonymous blogger who doesn't want us to know his or her biases, background, career, bosses, families, or anything else.

Anyway, if blogging isn't for you, don't do it.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

blogger@wordpress — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:58:44 -0000

Wow..Goebbels is really on the money here..

Interesting thing - Robert hasnt really participated in this conversation but has gone on with 10 newer posts. What with the claim 'blog is an effective conversation tool'?

It looks its quite easy to kill a conversation by posting newer entries.

May be blogging is great for conversations where you are winning...

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

LayZ — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:52:31 -0000

@114. I've conceded that blogging can help small and medium sized companies, which seems to be the majority of your 188 companies you "interviewed". And that's likely because they have limited funding/resources show many choose blogging as their primary communication vehicle. And excuse me for not accepting a data set of 188 carefully selected companies. Did you explore companies that invested in blogging and found it wasn't effective? Thank you but I'd prefer a survey that wasn't self serving. Like, or I dunno, maybe a study done by an organization that had no interest in either a positive or negative result.

Look, I admire the fact Shel was able to write a book with such supporting data (and he graciously allowed you to tag along) that "proves" your theory. But, the question still remains unanswered. And you still remain incapable of having an intellectual conversation around a contrary opinion.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Goebbels — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:55:07 -0000

The more I look at it: Stormhoek seems to be the biggest blog scam story of the last year and a half.

They've expanded distribution through major UK chains and Cost Plus here in the states, have hugely expanded their production (could they have even produced more than 50,000 cases in '05?), participated in all of the traditional wine testing/vending/scoring events you'd imagine any vineyard would be involved, got mentions in winetasting magazines, all during the time when a vienyard would naturally ramp up output... and it's all attributable to a blog? Nope, sorry, don't buy it.

And also, let's remember: the first 5 years is nothing for a vineyard. Let's see how their blog does for their success over the next 5 years.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Goebbels — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:30:53 -0000

I apologize: the blog hasn't been dead since Feb. I was on an old archived page and was unable to reach the new pages for some reason. However, I did learn that the vineyard was established by a "braintrust" of vintners in 2001... had there first variety in 2003... expanded to 4 varieties in 2004... and have continued to expand and aggressively promote in 2005. No surprise to see a vineyards production/sales double in its 5th year if they are going to have any success. Also I wouldn't call sending free wine to hundreds of people, providing free wine for tons of events, and hosting their own free wine tasting events solely a blog strategy even if the bloggers and geek events were the target. He could have picked "athletes" or any category of person and had similar results.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Goebbels — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:09:26 -0000

It's a little difficult to extrapolate a small boutique winery in South Africa to a 60+ billion dollar American tech company that has existed for 30 years though... And by the way, the Stormhoek blog hasn't had a post since February: has their business declined 50% over the last 8 months?

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

Robert Scoble — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 21:32:38 -0000

LayZ: >>Look,it’s okay if the pro bloggers say “We like blogging and think blogging is cool, but we have no data, quantitative or otherwise, that indicates if blogging has a positive or negative bottomline impact on a corporation”

But, nah, let's ignore THAT data. It's so much more fun to beat up on blog advocates.

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

John — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:35:53 -0000

(Ug, no comment editing? Some blog software...anyway, attempt number two...)

That whole story sounded real good. “OMG, APPLE’S TEH DUMB”. Until a couple of sites decided to actually measure the temp difference between a macbook with Apple’s “comical” amounts of thermal paste and what every said was the “proper” amount.

Empirical testing showed that the actual, real-world temp difference was negligible.

Two points. First, it doesn't matter if there was any difference in measured temperature on a particular persons MacBook. (Some showed a difference; some did not.) You simply don't put that much paste on because it's just supposed to fill the tiny voids in the (microscopically) rough surfaces of that mating pieces.

That being the case, all that excess paste has to go somewhere. Some thermal paste is mildly conductive, so you definitely don't want it oozing onto the motherboard or other components. At least one user had the excess paste leak onto his DIMMs. (Google for the picts.)

Second, more importantly, it doesn't matter if the grease application was actually harmful. What matters is how it was *perceived.* Remember, this is PR.

An official Apple blogging presence could have addressed both issues, by explaining how it's not harmful to have that much grease ("Apple only uses totally non-conductive grease") and/or by indicating how it happened, what Apple is doing to fix it, and when the problem is expected to be solved.

Instead, there was silence and antagonism (the C&D for the service manual picts). That made things much, much worse.

You can’t out-blog dumb, and that’s what that was. Dumb at the speed of light.

"Dumb" is precisely what a timely, engaged Apple blog is best suited to combat. Left to their own devices, with no guidance from Apple in a reasonable time frame, the Mac web has only its reader reports and speculation to go on.

There’s no way a blog from Apple is going to outweigh the self-appoointed geniuses saying that anyone knows that much thermal paste is the cause of the problems. Every yayhoo that ever put a PC together is going to say that Apple was full of shit, they’ll drown Apple out and we both know it.

Maybe it seems that way to you because the conversation is so one-sided now. If an Apple blogger had immediate addressed the issue, every subsequent site, blog, or forum post the mentioned the issue would have had a summary of, and link to the Apple blogger's response included in the thread. Apple fans would rally around this, you can be sure, pointing out the statements in any anti-Apple posting that were refuted by the Apple blogger's response.

How has blogging helped Microsoft overcome its security problems?

Who says that was the goal of their blogging efforts? Only MS knows what the real goals were, if they were even defined. All I can tell you is the effect the blogs have had. I think they've improved MS's image and the knowledge and perception of its technologies. That's nothing to sneeze at, considering the starting point.