OBSESSIONS
- Media/Comm
- Writing
- Education
- Music
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
arch
emisou
panton
Phil's Blogservations
Friday, July 25, 2008
Posted by philgomes 5:21 PM
Scoble On Tech Blogging's "Failure"There's certainly a lot to learn from Robert Scoble's post about the insular, echo-chamber failings of the technology blogging community.
That said, I think that Scoble's problem isn't so much that the glass is half-full or half-empty. I just think his glass has been too small.
I can't help but think that Scoble's frustrations come from the fact that tech blogging's anointed leaders really missed the point in the first place.
Just like the dot-boom of 1999, the loudest voices in tech have allowed the term "technology" has been conflated with "Web stuff". Sell babyclothes? Fine. Sell babyclothes using a social network? Stratospheric valuation estimates abound.
Now, as before, real innovation goes largely ignored by the Web 2.0 crowd. As I told one of the heads of the consumer marketing group at a former agency some years ago, "Dot-coms make headlines. Science makes history."
He laments the he's "done too much of the 'business talk' and not enough of the 'let’s discover something that’ll improve our lives together' talk." Economics 101 tells you that the latter necessarily inspires the former and vice versa. It's awfully tough to have a meaningful discussion of one without the other in tech. Silicon Valley, at its best, is the most dramatic proof of this. A flying robotic caipirinha-maker would certainly "make my life easier", but I just don't see Sand Hill Road ponying up the dough.
Real innovation is what "technology" is all about and what has made Silicon Valley an economic miracle. Not whether one finds Facebook's terms-of-service onerous or thinks another Web 2.0 watering hole doesn't link to him enough.
This runs parallel to my ongoing criticism of TechCrunch or, rather, the gushing attention ascribed to it — it operates as if "tech" started in 1999.
My summer 2008 reading list (so far) is below. Recapturing the spirit described in these books is, IMHO, where technology blogging needs to go.
Technorati Tags: technology, blogging, scoble
- Broken Genius
- The Chip
- Creative Capital (about Georges Doriot)
- Valley Boy (about Tom Perkins)
HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT
This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a free video game console. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.
Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL.
- phil[at]
philgomes.com
SYNDICATE
Feedburner
YAHOO! IM
SKYPE
PITCH POLICY
MY PHOTOS
| www.flickr.com |
COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY
Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones.
Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.
