Anand M., in India, asks “has Scoble lost his blog power?” (I linked to him and he didn’t get many visits). My read? If I ever did have blog power, it’s gone now. Digg and TechMeme have all the power now.
I think Rageboy has the clue to what’s going on here (the yawning baby cracked Maryam up). I’m boring. Haven’t been linking to enough cool people and cool tech. Too much inbred inside-the-blogosphere, linking. Or, maybe, I’ve been doing too much linking and not enough first-hand-experience. Translation: not enough lists. Sorry. It’s hard to do good blogging when you’re busy all day long. Sigh.
But, Steve Gillmor has it right: this isn’t a game of traffic. It’s about sharing what you love. I love using tech and studying the product of geeks. Whether or not anyone is listening isn’t the reason I’m doing this (sometimes I forget that, yeah, but getting a link from Digg isn’t worth as much as everyone makes it seem). My passion? Trying out new stuff, finding new problems to solve. I haven’t been doing enough of that lately cause I’m just inside an email tidal storm that I can’t get off of me. Seriously, you have no idea how hard it is to keep up with email. I’m failing, and failing horribly. Sorry if I haven’t gotten back to you. Leave a comment instead of emailing.
The flow that’s happening in my life is simply incredible, especially when I compare it to what was going on in my life in 2002 when I worked at UserLand. Back then there were so few companies, very few interesting things going on. Today there’s SO much. I’m not surprised that it’s harder to get people to click on a link.
I was talking with Chris Messina and Tara Hunt on email tonight and said that just the number of events that’s happening in just the San Francisco area is stunning. I can’t keep up. It makes me just want to grab a bottle of wine and go sit on the beach out by the Ritz. Which is why I missed Barcamp this year. I just wanted a small, manageable conversation with a handful of geeks. It was SO enjoyable.
I’m thinking back on the last year and what I really remember and find special. That Swiss Chalet with a handful of geeks. That was it. Out of all the conferences (many expensive, like Mix06 where I had my own Las Vegas suite). All the PR. All the noise. All the events. Getting, what, five guys together in a Swiss Chalet for a weekend was the highlight of the year.
I wonder if we can have more of those types of experiences? I find I learn a lot more from conversations like that, and it helps me out cause then I have something interesting to say to you all.
The power of four people talking is something that’s just fascinated me all week.
Anyway, that’s enough of that. Everyone is getting bored, even me.
Scobleizer 