Scoble is Wrong When He Says He is Wrong:-) Full Feeds Still Rock
Blogging November 23rd, 2009
Wow, I’m sensing another TechMeme Storm rising (and a certain analyst would call it a circle j***, but that’s another matter). Robert Scoble says he was wrong when he said In 2006 he wouldn’t use any news aggregator or feeds that aren’t full text.
I think the Scobleizer is wrong now that he says he was wrong. 
His key argument is that his reading habits changed, he relies a lot more on Twitter, which is short form, uses the iPhone which is not that convenient for lengthy text, and Google Reader has become bloated and slow.
All true. But let the user / reader chose: even sadly slow and bloated Google Reader offers the choice of reading full text or scanning just the headlines. It’s a simple switch, there is no need to cut off the source. I don’t read all my feeds A to Z, like Robert, I do a lot of quick scanning. But I find it extremely frustrating to have to click through to a site, sometimes wait looong (we’re all guilty of having too many widgets and plugins that slow down page load) only to find out it wasn’t worth the wait. So I tend to skip partial feeds, and guess what happens to less read items? They get dropped from Google Reader…
From the content author’s point of view, I understand the need to bring traffic to ad-supported sites, and that’s about the only exception when providing partial feed makes sense (but even than, please remember to send enough to entice me to click through). But for many others, perhaps for the majority of blogs I follow: it’s a distributed world. If you want your views to matter, you need to be heard / read via whatever distribution channel you can reach, and that means providing full feed.
3 weeks ago I switched another group aggregation blog that I am editing, the Enterprise Irregulars to WordPress and along with that finally was able to offer full feed. Our feed subscriber base doubled and on-site page views tripled. Yes, pageviews tripled despite the fact that we are “giving away” content. Translation: we’ve became more visible, accessible, and it works.
Tags: atom, Blogging, CloudAve, feeds, full feed, google reader, iPhone, news, partial feed, rss, scoble, scobleizer, Twitter
Simplifying the Gartner Hype Cycle – 2.0 Style
Enterprise Software, Humor August 26th, 2009
Fellow Enterprise Irregular Vinnie Mirchandani did a good job of un-hyping the Gartner Hype Cycle for emerging technologies.
He points out some inconsistencies comparing this year’s chart to the 2007 version. He should know, he is a Gartner Alumnus himself. But I’ve been wondering if there was a way to further simplify it, i.e. make it digestible to average folks like yours truly .. and I’ve just found it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here’s the simplified, scobleized, oprahized, too-oh-ized version of the Gartner Hype Cycle:
Courtesy of Geek & Poke.
(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)
Tags: analysts, Gartner, gartner hype cycle, Humor, oprah, scoble, web 2.0
Ballmer for President
Humor May 24th, 2008
Dan Farber calls Steve Ballmer a flip-flopper for casually re-evaluating his pursuit of Yahoo during a speech in Moscow:
“Yahoo was never the strategy we were pursuing, it was a way to accelerate our online advertising business…We will spend money on some acquisitions. You can do a whole lot of things with 50 billion dollars.”
This Eastern-European tour didn’t start quite well for Ballmer, who received the egg-treatment in Budapest, but now it may just take a positive turn. After all, being a certified flip-flopper qualifies him as a Candidate for President (not of Microsoft, but the USA). He needs a new job anyway, now that Scoble is about to take over at Microsoft.
Update: OK, so he’s late to run. I hear there will soon be another vacancy he can apply for…
Tags: ballmer, microhoo, microscoble, microsoft, scoble
MicroScoble: Scoble to Become Microsoft CEO
Humor May 19th, 2008
While outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is being egged in Budapest Fake Steve Jobs is already running a poll to find his replacement. Ex-Microsoftie, current Uber-Blogger Robert Scoble seems to have a solid lead:
Congrat’s, MicroScoble! 
Update: Robert did not hesitate to declare his first move as CEO: Why Microsoft will buy Facebook and keep it closed.
Tags: ballmer, budapest, facebook, fake steve jobs, fsj, Humor, microscoble, microsoft, scoble, scobleizer
Naked Buddies @ FastCompany
Blogging, Marketing / PR January 28th, 2008
Naked Conversations co-authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are finally co-working again, as video-bloggers @ FastCompany TV. Shel’s show will be GlobalNeighbourhoods TV (GNTV), while Robert’s is – what else? – Scoble TV.
Congrat’s and have fun! (naked or clothed
).
P.S. On second thought, if they plan to do a lot of Naked business together, they might invite the CEO if Zivity.
Update (1/30): Robert posted the same pic explaining that they were NOT naked. Of course not! I remember, as I was there, at the 5th TechCrunch party, which became the Naked Conversations launch party. So it’s a promo shot at a promo party – and hey, there is strong symbolism in the title, the co-authors did not get undressed just for fun (or who knows?
). They are the Naked Buddies – as in co-authors of Naked Conversations.
Tags: Blogging, fastcompany, naked conversations, scoble, scobleizer, shel israel, TechCrunch Party, video blogging
Zoli Erdos
