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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Tech Blogging is Dead

September 23, 2009 by

D. E. A. D.  Dead.

Why?  For one, I don’t think there’s much innovation going on.  And with nothing new and novel, there’s nothing to blog about except the same old services (twitter, facebook, etc…) and the same old people.

I try and catch up on my tech news at least once a day via sites like techmeme.  Lately, it’s the same old stuff.  “Steve Jobs is Dead.”  “Jobs lives.” “Twitter did this.”  “Twitter did that.”  “Microsoft is the devil.” “Apple is the devil.” “Linux is god.” Et-cetera.  You’ve all been reduced to a bunch of gossipy iPod whores!  Mike Arrington has been reduced to the Perez Hilton of tech.  And Scoble, the once tech blogging god?  When he isn’t touting on the latest fad service that he thinks will revolutionize the industry, he’s busy blathering about how the last one could have if it hadn’t done x that one time.  Oh, that and the coming singularity.

It isn’t necessarily Mike and Robert’s fault though.  It still goes back to the lack of any good news.  Maybe it’s the economy.  After all, the last time the economy tanked, it was Silicon Valley’s fault (sort of).  Or, maybe it’s just complacency?  Maybe the innovators of Silicon Valley are sitting on their ideas waiting for the venture folks to write them a check.  Or maybe (and I doubt this) there just isn’t any innovation left?

Whatever the cause, the result is that tech blogging is dead.  For now anyways.  Look for zombie tech blogging to start popping up whenever there’s some good news that’s not just more of the same old status quo.

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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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