Lisa Barone Rings Bell, Starts Robert Scoble Smackdown

December 17, 2009 by

I don’t think that I’ve ever hidden my feelings about Robert Scoble.  For years he’s been lauded by some as being one of the best tech bloggers.  Giving credit where it’s due, he’s been around for a while, so he does deserve a bit of it.  Unfortunately, most of it has gone straight to his head.  Luckily, we have Lisa Barone to give it a little deflation…

Robert Scoble must be bored because he’s back causing trouble heralding that 2010 may be the year that SEO isn’t important anymore for small business owners. Sigh. Really? We’re doing this?
Fine. Let’s go there.

The post itself is an excellent post that takes Robert’s post and tosses it where it belongs.  The trash.  You see, Scoble has been (knowingly or not) and continues to be the Perez Hilton (unseating Mike Arrington) of the tech blogging world.  He’s an attention monger.  If the spotlight isn’t on him, he isn’t happy.  Which is why he jumps on bandwagon after bandwagon.  He likes this service.  No, he likes that service.  No, he likes some other service and the others are on their deathbeds.  And that was just this week.

Even better than Lisa’s post, is the comment thread.  Wherein Robert Scoble manages to make himself look like a troll.  At one point, he calls Lisa an idiot.  At another, he claims that a commenter is just sore because Robert blocked him on twitter.  I can’t make this up folks.  And if you really want a laugh, check out Lisa’s business partner, Rae Hoffman’s comments along with Robert’s response where he tries to pretend that he knows what he’s talking about by throwing some facts at Rae.  Um, Robert?  Rae happens to be one of the premier SEO’s in the business, I think she knows about some silly tracking report.

I’m going to try and help Rae out a bit here.  Robert Scoble.

To quote the final comment, “This. Was. Epic.”

And you have to laugh at it.  Cause it’s funny.

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Presidential SEO?

June 30, 2008 by

Who would have thought that SEO would come into play in the Presidential election?  Well, for some of us that deal with it on a normal basis, it did seem obvious.  It also seems obvious to us that you would want to exploit the digital world to further your campaign.

Scoble points out that Barack Obama must have a much better web team than John McCain does.  And he’s right.  When you do the searches that Robert suggests, Barack shows up number one in Google, while John shows up about 8th.  Not pretty if you’re McCain.  But to be frank, it might just be McCain’s VP that forms the tech policy.  McCain has admitted publicly that he barely knows how to check his email.  I’d rather not have someone that computer illiterate setting national policy on tech.

To answer Robert’s question, I think that Obama has the better tech policy.  But if I were to let that be the only reason for my vote, I’d be sending a very bad message.  Tech will almost take care of itself.  If we don’t get some reform elsewhere (Like Taxes and Pork), tech policy will be the least of our worries.

Oh, and Robert?  STFU about Friend Feed already.  We know that you <3 it.  We know you want to have it’s babies.  I understand you’re trying to be a customer evangelist and all, but mentioning it in every post?  All that does is make me want to avoid the damn thing like the plague.  The PLAGUE I say.

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Is Mike Arrington Catty?

April 30, 2008 by

I certainly think it’s possible. You see, he can’t seem to help himself sometimes. Perhaps it’s just his personality? This latest bit, where he finishes calling Robert Scoble a sellout is a good example. Backstory? Way back in January, Scoble announced that he would soon be adding advertisements to his blog through his new employer. Today, he released the redesign of his blog and with it, those advertisements. Well, one advertisement to be exact. Robert has been sponsored by the folks at Seagate for a while now. Mike’s problem with it seems to only be that he has the advertisement on the blog.

If you ask me, it’s just another layer of transparency for Robert. We all knew that he was sponsored by Seagate. He doesn’t try and hide it. Now newcomers will know who his sponsor is as well. If you ask me, it’s better that the ad is there as opposed to it not being there and someone seeing a post where Robert talks about Seagate. Not that he would without disclosure. He’s pretty good about that. Much better than about 95% of the blogosphere. Better than Mike.

I’m not even that big of a fan of Robert’s. He talks alot about things like Twitter and FriendFeed that I really don’t care for. Most of his content is on similar subjects. I don’t do video very often, so I can honestly say that I’ve never watched one of his videos. For many, he’s a tech blogging superstar. A true A-lister. Many would call Mike Arrington the same thing. And in many ways, both are right.

I’m not sure whether there is bad blood between the two of them or not, but one thing is for sure, Mike is taking every opportunity to throw a little mud Roberts way. To me, that’s catty. But then, I’ve thought that of Mike for a while now. Of course, that makes me a little catty towards him. Oh well.

It just seems like Mike can’t decide whether he wants to write for TechCrunch or for ValleyWag.

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