Twittering Shelley

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I was just reading feeds and saw Shelley Powers complaining about Twitter fanatics. Hey, I’m the #1 Twitter fanatic in the world. So, I guess that’s aimed at me. She ends her rant with this quote:

“I worry, sometimes, that we’re at the end of innovation; that we’re caught up in a cycle of Silicon Valley marketspeak that will never allow anything exciting through.”

This is just total bullpucky.

Shelley is one of the worst at this kind of stuff. I guess she doesn’t read my link blog. Which, by the way, is on Twitter and Facebook and Fast Company.

In that link blog I’ve put more than 180 items in the past day up there. Almost none about Twitter or whatever the “fad of the day” is.

Heck, even read TechMeme, which DOES track the “fad of the day.” I dare you to find something about Twitter. Dare you.

I guess Shelley doesn’t watch my video show. I don’t see ANYTHING on the home page there about Twitter.

I’m still looking for the Silicon Valley “marketspeak” that Shelley is seeing.

Where do you see it? Or are you looking in the right places?

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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54 thoughts on “Twittering Shelley”

  1. You’re right about this one for sure. You may be a big Twitter fan, but likewise you are fan of other things. Rants aside, you cover quite the breadth of topics. But I do enjoy seeing you get wound up on things. Ha.
    Maybe she’s just jealous of all of your twitterbuds. 🙂

    Like

  2. You’re right about this one for sure. You may be a big Twitter fan, but likewise you are fan of other things. Rants aside, you cover quite the breadth of topics. But I do enjoy seeing you get wound up on things. Ha.
    Maybe she’s just jealous of all of your twitterbuds. 🙂

    Like

  3. I don’t know about market-speak, but the incessant fascination with the latest web-doohickey of the day seems to be a particular high-tech form of navel gazing. It is the funny sort of extremely public and at the same time quite insular tribe of fanatics who think that the world revolves around what goes on in a collection of servers connected by wires which is the most depressing part of it all. No one but the members of this tribe try to keep up with what the tribe is doing. No one outside of the tribe cares.

    Like

  4. I don’t know about market-speak, but the incessant fascination with the latest web-doohickey of the day seems to be a particular high-tech form of navel gazing. It is the funny sort of extremely public and at the same time quite insular tribe of fanatics who think that the world revolves around what goes on in a collection of servers connected by wires which is the most depressing part of it all. No one but the members of this tribe try to keep up with what the tribe is doing. No one outside of the tribe cares.

    Like

  10. As usual Shelley hits a grand-slam, and (as is usual also) you miss the point wholesale, as it’s not the tools themselves, it’s the ‘preaching-to-the-choir’ hyperbole, or the nicely-coined “fooflah”.

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  12. As usual Shelley hits a grand-slam, and (as is usual also) you miss the point wholesale, as it’s not the tools themselves, it’s the ‘preaching-to-the-choir’ hyperbole, or the nicely-coined “fooflah”.

    Like

  16. Robert,

    You make the assumption that Shelley must be targeting you and then you make a strong case that she’s targeting you unfairly.

    She won’t be happy with that “strawman” technique and thus another blog war escalates because well meaning people feel compelled to produce.

    Personally, I like both Shelley’s work and yours. The resulting sparks only serve to illustrate the on-going comflict between researching, creating and marketing/selling of technology.

    Each of you is an shining example of each point of view and yet, doomed, to not understand each other.

    But it makes for good reading. :^)

    Like

  18. Robert,

    You make the assumption that Shelley must be targeting you and then you make a strong case that she’s targeting you unfairly.

    She won’t be happy with that “strawman” technique and thus another blog war escalates because well meaning people feel compelled to produce.

    Personally, I like both Shelley’s work and yours. The resulting sparks only serve to illustrate the on-going comflict between researching, creating and marketing/selling of technology.

    Each of you is an shining example of each point of view and yet, doomed, to not understand each other.

    But it makes for good reading. :^)

    Like

  19. I like a good scrap. I agree with Powers that there’s really nothing new on a tech level to Twitter or many other “social apps”. But somebody put them out there and lots of people are using/enjoying them. You, Robert, are probably an example of several of ways Twitter may be used. That’s great.

    I don’t get her point that somehow new,meaningful, advances in technology will be missed due to participation or interest in things like Twitter. I expect to hear about such technology through channels like Twitter. I’ll probably get some user feedback, too.

    Like

  20. I like a good scrap. I agree with Powers that there’s really nothing new on a tech level to Twitter or many other “social apps”. But somebody put them out there and lots of people are using/enjoying them. You, Robert, are probably an example of several of ways Twitter may be used. That’s great.

    I don’t get her point that somehow new,meaningful, advances in technology will be missed due to participation or interest in things like Twitter. I expect to hear about such technology through channels like Twitter. I’ll probably get some user feedback, too.

    Like

  21. I think Shelley has it about right actually. Twitter is not the problem though.

    There is a problem with giddy business types hyping every thing “2.0”. Things that come to mind:

    – wikis as business content management solution (as if: if people don’t communicate within a business, software won’t magically solve it)

    – the ‘social graph’ – a clumsy expression that’s become something that everybody is now ‘leveraging’. What that actually means in practical terms is almost impossible to find out

    – pointless vendor sports. Sorry, but I don’t care about the latest strategic move in the multi-dimensional Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL, Facebook game. It’s not just not interesting, it’s mind-numbing to the shoot your brains out with a shotgun degree.

    A thinking exercise. Why is it that if you Google for web 2.0 site:techcrunch.com you get over 17,600 results while if you search for web 2.0 site:tbray.org you get 156 results – mostly in quotation marks or with an ironic trademark symbol afer them. Similarly, you get 167 results from Simon Willison’s blog. You get 310 results on Sam Ruby’s blog. It’s the same for other developers. Most of the developers I read don’t have time for Web 2.0 – it’s the name of an overpriced conference, and that is about it.

    Why is it that developers don’t use the term Web 2.0? I mean, Tim Bray is one of the people who bootstraped Web 2.0 with his work on XML. Perhaps because it is all a clumsy bit of fudge that makes actual technological change and advance like grid computing, decent search algorithms and advances in Semantic Web/microformats etc. and lumps it together with, oh, being able to post comments on newspaper articles.

    I think a fair degree of cynicism is required to be a good software developer.

    I used to read TechCrunch and TechMeme and all the other similar places – ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and a lot of tech pundit blogs. I haven’t bothered for a long time, because it’s gotten seriously dull and has no relevance to what I sit down and do in my text editor every day. It’s just people squabbling over phrases like “social graph” and “Web 2.0” which seem to have less and less meaning by the day.

    Anyway, just my opinion. YMMV.

    Like

  22. I think Shelley has it about right actually. Twitter is not the problem though.

    There is a problem with giddy business types hyping every thing “2.0”. Things that come to mind:

    – wikis as business content management solution (as if: if people don’t communicate within a business, software won’t magically solve it)

    – the ‘social graph’ – a clumsy expression that’s become something that everybody is now ‘leveraging’. What that actually means in practical terms is almost impossible to find out

    – pointless vendor sports. Sorry, but I don’t care about the latest strategic move in the multi-dimensional Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL, Facebook game. It’s not just not interesting, it’s mind-numbing to the shoot your brains out with a shotgun degree.

    A thinking exercise. Why is it that if you Google for web 2.0 site:techcrunch.com you get over 17,600 results while if you search for web 2.0 site:tbray.org you get 156 results – mostly in quotation marks or with an ironic trademark symbol afer them. Similarly, you get 167 results from Simon Willison’s blog. You get 310 results on Sam Ruby’s blog. It’s the same for other developers. Most of the developers I read don’t have time for Web 2.0 – it’s the name of an overpriced conference, and that is about it.

    Why is it that developers don’t use the term Web 2.0? I mean, Tim Bray is one of the people who bootstraped Web 2.0 with his work on XML. Perhaps because it is all a clumsy bit of fudge that makes actual technological change and advance like grid computing, decent search algorithms and advances in Semantic Web/microformats etc. and lumps it together with, oh, being able to post comments on newspaper articles.

    I think a fair degree of cynicism is required to be a good software developer.

    I used to read TechCrunch and TechMeme and all the other similar places – ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and a lot of tech pundit blogs. I haven’t bothered for a long time, because it’s gotten seriously dull and has no relevance to what I sit down and do in my text editor every day. It’s just people squabbling over phrases like “social graph” and “Web 2.0” which seem to have less and less meaning by the day.

    Anyway, just my opinion. YMMV.

    Like

  23. Tom’s point above is quite correct by and large, but specifically speaking to Twitter, if anything it is underhyped. Or to put it differently, if there was less “web 2.0” geek marketing speak associated with it, it’s a brilliant and very useful service.

    Case in point, and this is not the first example, Supercomputing 2007. SC07 is currently going on in Reno and it is hardly your usual web 2.0 fanboy conference. A number of people are tweeting sessions, newly released hardware platforms, key topics from talks and posters, etc. One person even reached out to me (I don’t know the person) and asked me if there were specific subjects I was interested in. I am not in Reno (in Seattle), but I have a decent idea of what’s going on.

    At every conference I have attended this year (of which only one would qualify as a web 2.0 one), I have used twitter to communicate with others there and with people interested but not there. It’s difficult to beat that.

    Like

  24. Tom’s point above is quite correct by and large, but specifically speaking to Twitter, if anything it is underhyped. Or to put it differently, if there was less “web 2.0” geek marketing speak associated with it, it’s a brilliant and very useful service.

    Case in point, and this is not the first example, Supercomputing 2007. SC07 is currently going on in Reno and it is hardly your usual web 2.0 fanboy conference. A number of people are tweeting sessions, newly released hardware platforms, key topics from talks and posters, etc. One person even reached out to me (I don’t know the person) and asked me if there were specific subjects I was interested in. I am not in Reno (in Seattle), but I have a decent idea of what’s going on.

    At every conference I have attended this year (of which only one would qualify as a web 2.0 one), I have used twitter to communicate with others there and with people interested but not there. It’s difficult to beat that.

    Like

  25. Tom: that’s really unfair. TechCrunch talks about new companies and new products. Tim talks about some, sometimes, but pretty infrequently and certainly not in depth like TechCrunch does.

    Maybe you’d like my link blog better. I generally don’t put the snits about Web 2.0 or stuff like that on there.

    Like

  26. Tom: that’s really unfair. TechCrunch talks about new companies and new products. Tim talks about some, sometimes, but pretty infrequently and certainly not in depth like TechCrunch does.

    Maybe you’d like my link blog better. I generally don’t put the snits about Web 2.0 or stuff like that on there.

    Like

  27. I posted over at burningbird, however to say again here, maybe because we’re all in the same echosphere? Ever notice how much we like talking about the revolution when others just sorta DO. (Take a YouTuber for example who just sorta -does-) We’re talking to people talking about the talking. No really, it’s silly.

    Have you ever wondered if the linkblog is an impersonal medium? It’s just so thrown around like the Answer To Everything (like your phone number, for example).

    We can cite these isolated examples of this or that or this video or that video but you know what? The whole thing feels all empty.

    I’m fully on the side of those that feel the space has lost meaning (but hey, GREAT promotional link loving!). And I say that from the perspective of someone who can certainly out-Web 2.0 even then best of them.

    Maybe we can coin a new term of ‘Social Void’?

    Like

  28. I posted over at burningbird, however to say again here, maybe because we’re all in the same echosphere? Ever notice how much we like talking about the revolution when others just sorta DO. (Take a YouTuber for example who just sorta -does-) We’re talking to people talking about the talking. No really, it’s silly.

    Have you ever wondered if the linkblog is an impersonal medium? It’s just so thrown around like the Answer To Everything (like your phone number, for example).

    We can cite these isolated examples of this or that or this video or that video but you know what? The whole thing feels all empty.

    I’m fully on the side of those that feel the space has lost meaning (but hey, GREAT promotional link loving!). And I say that from the perspective of someone who can certainly out-Web 2.0 even then best of them.

    Maybe we can coin a new term of ‘Social Void’?

    Like

  29. Eric? Who’s talking and not doing? I read 700 feeds every night and put the best 50 to 100 items on my link blog EVERY NIGHT. I post a video EVERY DAY. And have for more than the past year. Not to mention posting to Kyte. Twitter. Facebook. And other places.

    Again, I have no idea what the heck you’re talking about. Oh, you are talking about yourself and Shelley? Fine. Leave me out of it.

    Like

  30. Eric? Who’s talking and not doing? I read 700 feeds every night and put the best 50 to 100 items on my link blog EVERY NIGHT. I post a video EVERY DAY. And have for more than the past year. Not to mention posting to Kyte. Twitter. Facebook. And other places.

    Again, I have no idea what the heck you’re talking about. Oh, you are talking about yourself and Shelley? Fine. Leave me out of it.

    Like

  31. I don’t think it’s unfair, Robert. I’m just putting my experience out there – not attacking anyone. (Well, maybe TechCrunch a little bit, but hey). And I don’t think Shelley is attacking you either.

    We’re all friends here.

    Like

  32. I don’t think it’s unfair, Robert. I’m just putting my experience out there – not attacking anyone. (Well, maybe TechCrunch a little bit, but hey). And I don’t think Shelley is attacking you either.

    We’re all friends here.

    Like

  33. Scoble: she does have a point.
    For example, you only recognized the value of Twitter, and Facebook, months after the services opened themselves (in case of Facebook, which has been open since September 2006).
    Only when there was a large enough crowd, you joined up, headed to the front, “Hey look at me, this service is great!”

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  34. Tom: well, it’s funny, the ones I’ve heard talking about Web 2.0 lately has been Oracle, Adobe, and other big companies.

    But looking at my link blog I don’t see the words “Web 2.0” all that often. Most of the blog posts I put up there are just about interesting new technologies or services.

    The reason I don’t think it’s a fair comparison is that TechCrunch talks about new companies. That’s what he does. Every day. Tim Bray? He writes all over the map and doesn’t see that it’s his job to talk about new companies and/or services. So OF COURSE he wouldn’t talk about Web 2.0.

    Me? I just hate the words “Web 2.0” too, but I don’t let that blind me to the value that is coming out of all these blogs and journalistic outlets.

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  35. Scoble: she does have a point.
    For example, you only recognized the value of Twitter, and Facebook, months after the services opened themselves (in case of Facebook, which has been open since September 2006).
    Only when there was a large enough crowd, you joined up, headed to the front, “Hey look at me, this service is great!”

    Like

  36. Tom: well, it’s funny, the ones I’ve heard talking about Web 2.0 lately has been Oracle, Adobe, and other big companies.

    But looking at my link blog I don’t see the words “Web 2.0” all that often. Most of the blog posts I put up there are just about interesting new technologies or services.

    The reason I don’t think it’s a fair comparison is that TechCrunch talks about new companies. That’s what he does. Every day. Tim Bray? He writes all over the map and doesn’t see that it’s his job to talk about new companies and/or services. So OF COURSE he wouldn’t talk about Web 2.0.

    Me? I just hate the words “Web 2.0” too, but I don’t let that blind me to the value that is coming out of all these blogs and journalistic outlets.

    Like

  37. Tiago: that’s bullpucky too.

    With Twitter THE VALUE of the service is when enough people you care about get on it. I was among the first talking about it. I talked about it last November, before traffic really started taking off. http://scobleizer.com/2006/11/20/know-where-scoble-is-at-every-single-minute-of-the-day/ — I was among the first on the Internet to talk about it. Not the first, but among the first. My job isn’t to be first, it is to tell people about good stuff and be ahead of early adopter trends.

    With Facebook THE VALUE TO ME was when the applications showed up. I joined within 10 days of the F8 announcement and that’s what got me hyped up. You’re going to hold my feet to the fire for not hyping it up back when it was a service only for college students? That demonstrates why no one listens to you when you say something is cool and useful.

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  38. Tiago: that’s bullpucky too.

    With Twitter THE VALUE of the service is when enough people you care about get on it. I was among the first talking about it. I talked about it last November, before traffic really started taking off. http://scobleizer.com/2006/11/20/know-where-scoble-is-at-every-single-minute-of-the-day/ — I was among the first on the Internet to talk about it. Not the first, but among the first. My job isn’t to be first, it is to tell people about good stuff and be ahead of early adopter trends.

    With Facebook THE VALUE TO ME was when the applications showed up. I joined within 10 days of the F8 announcement and that’s what got me hyped up. You’re going to hold my feet to the fire for not hyping it up back when it was a service only for college students? That demonstrates why no one listens to you when you say something is cool and useful.

    Like

  43. Robert

    1) this wasn’t about you
    2) you linkblog replicates most of the stuff I read on RSS daily, so why bother suscribing? At least techmem isn’t a linkbaiter…
    3) your videos don’t work for me, because I prefer text to voice/visual. And generally they are too long
    4) being the first does not mean you are the best, or even the most relevant

    tq

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  44. Robert

    1) this wasn’t about you
    2) you linkblog replicates most of the stuff I read on RSS daily, so why bother suscribing? At least techmem isn’t a linkbaiter…
    3) your videos don’t work for me, because I prefer text to voice/visual. And generally they are too long
    4) being the first does not mean you are the best, or even the most relevant

    tq

    Like

  45. I hate the term Web2.0 too, but it’s all we’ve got as a generic label for “cool new Web-based stuff”, of which there’s quite a bit. So I actually spend quite a bit of time making speeches and customer visits where “Web 2.0” is on the agenda. For example, I did a keynote this morning at the Web2.0 Expo in Tokyo.

    Plus, I think Twitter is a big deal & use it regularly.

    But I think I share the skeptics’ concerns too: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/10/04/Intimate-Internet

    Like

  46. I hate the term Web2.0 too, but it’s all we’ve got as a generic label for “cool new Web-based stuff”, of which there’s quite a bit. So I actually spend quite a bit of time making speeches and customer visits where “Web 2.0” is on the agenda. For example, I did a keynote this morning at the Web2.0 Expo in Tokyo.

    Plus, I think Twitter is a big deal & use it regularly.

    But I think I share the skeptics’ concerns too: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/10/04/Intimate-Internet

    Like

  47. tq: you have enough time to read 700+ feeds looking for killer stuff? Great for you. Most people aren’t like me and you.

    I can just see you watching TV and yelling at the screen “your football game is too long.” Heheh.

    Being first might not mean you’re most relevant or even best, but it does increase the chances you’ll get into the Wall Street Journal by about 1000x.

    Like

  48. tq: you have enough time to read 700+ feeds looking for killer stuff? Great for you. Most people aren’t like me and you.

    I can just see you watching TV and yelling at the screen “your football game is too long.” Heheh.

    Being first might not mean you’re most relevant or even best, but it does increase the chances you’ll get into the Wall Street Journal by about 1000x.

    Like

  49. Robert – you are absolutely right – I do think football games are too long 🙂

    I take your point on the WSJ comment.

    tq

    Like

  50. Robert – you are absolutely right – I do think football games are too long 🙂

    I take your point on the WSJ comment.

    tq

    Like

  51. All-
    Everyone’s different with their likes and dislikes. If everyone found Robert’s content boring, bad, etc. hardly anyone would show up.

    But people Do show up… and come back! I being one of them! 🙂 I like the long videos. I like the information on the latest tech items. I like the interviews with all those interesting people!

    Some people won’t and won’t visit. Some will visit but never come back. But there has to be Something here that brings people over and over again. It’s not perfect… but nothing/no one is!

    Thanks for the blog and the Scoble Show Robert.

    Like

  52. All-
    Everyone’s different with their likes and dislikes. If everyone found Robert’s content boring, bad, etc. hardly anyone would show up.

    But people Do show up… and come back! I being one of them! 🙂 I like the long videos. I like the information on the latest tech items. I like the interviews with all those interesting people!

    Some people won’t and won’t visit. Some will visit but never come back. But there has to be Something here that brings people over and over again. It’s not perfect… but nothing/no one is!

    Thanks for the blog and the Scoble Show Robert.

    Like

  53. A gracious person would acknowledge their mistake, Robert, as well as my comment pointing such out. They might even apologize for the misconception, as well as sending several visitors to my web page with the same misconception.

    Like

  54. A gracious person would acknowledge their mistake, Robert, as well as my comment pointing such out. They might even apologize for the misconception, as well as sending several visitors to my web page with the same misconception.

    Like

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