Scoble and rackspace

Why rackspace? According to the scobleizer blog and this interview with Michael Arrington at techcrunch, Scobel’s decision to work for rackspace was driven by two things. Firstly, he says it’s because he was massively impressed when he visited their offices last year. Secondly, the fact that he will be setting up an interesting project, called “building 43.”

Scoble and building 43

According to the building 43 project’s holding page, building 43 is going to be “a place for people fanatical about the Internet.”

Scoble told techcrunch:

..our content will be available via Creative Commons so you can use our videos or photos or other media on your own sites. You can cut it up, edit it, or claim it as your own. Second, Building 43 is not a place. It’s not a website. It’s a distributed community and you’ll engage with Building 43 on your favorite social network. No need to visit http://www.building43.com at all. Plus, we’ll have new videos that you can interact with via technology like that available on 12seconds.tv and seesmic.com so you can post your own video tips or techniques or demos.

Why Scoble chose the name Building 43

I was chatting with Scoble on FriendFeed last week about building 43 – though had no idea at the time why he was so interested in it.  According to his blog, the name comes from a building at Google, which contains Google’s master plan and the offices of “several of Google’s founders.”  Apparently (and a little weirdly) Microsoft ALSO had a building 43 when Scoble worked there.  I am thinking of getting one too!

Building 43 is just a holding page at the moment. The project sounds extremely interesting and an ideal outlet for Scoble’s ability to produce an insane amount of cross platform content.  As soon as some more details become available, you will find them here.

Financial value of Twitter’s suggested user list

People and companies on this list are gaining tens of thousands of new followers each week. In most cases, their Twitter profile includes a link to their website or blog, which usually carries advertising or sponsorships.  Those clicks can be worth a small fortune!

Most of those on the list regularly link directly to their products, podcasts or posts and this massively increases their commercial reach.

The whole episode seems to be causing a great deal of bad feeling against Twitter. In addition, questions are being asked about many of those on the list and what they did in order to secure their massively valuable listing!

Robert Scoble was so annoyed by the way people were given these highly financially valuable followers that he asked if techcrunch had paid Twitter $10,000 for a place on the list. He also accused Veronica Belmont of paying for her place on the list.

The latest tech celebrity to ask these questions is Dave Winder. Here’s a clip from his blog:

TechCrunch uses their Twitter page to point to articles on their site, and every page has ads on it. So the gift from Twitter is worth dollars to them. It’s hard to imagine them pulling punches when it comes to reviewing the company. But are they likely to be more kindly disposed to the company? It’s hard to imagine when they’re delivering so much free flow that doesn’t earn them a warm space in your heart.

Dave Winer (like Leo Laporte, Scoble and the LA Times before him) has asked some great questions.

I’m wondering what the longer term impact will be, both on Twitter and as Dave suggests, the integrity of the people / brands who have been gifted all that traffic?

In the past couple of weeks, Veronica’s follower numbers have almost doubled.  As Veronica fronts a number of tech shows, including Tekzilla and Qore (for Sony’s PS3 Network), these followers are potential viewers.  As such, they are of high value for advertisers / sponsors of her shows.

Here’s a selection of the very heated, very public row between Veronica and Robert on FriendFeed.

Veronica Belmont

I’m on the list, and I certainly don’t have $10,000 to give anyone. Do you think I somehow bribed them, Robert? Hmm?

Rober Scoble

I am not on the list. Neither is @leolaporte. We both had more followers than you did (and more than many on the list). Now I am wondering.

Veronica Belmont

HAH! This is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Are you really just that bored this afternoon to accuse people of spending money to be on a suggested users list? #1 As Chris says, who the frak cares. #2 Do you honestly think someone like me or iJustine have that kind of money? #3 Wow, man, I thought we were cool.

Robert Scoble

I do not know why Veronica is on the list and not @leolaporte so now I am wondering what is going on and no one can prove money and gifts did not get exchanged.

Veronica Belmont

Robert, your inflammatory remarks and accusations (and they are that, no matter how many times you tell us to READ CAREFULLY) come off as really childish and insulting. If you have an issue with a feature of Twitter, there are better ways of pointing it out than accusing people who considered you acquaintances, if not pals.

Robert Scoble

Veronica: you did receive a gift. Advertising is sold by 1,000 viewers. Ask Ryan how much 1,000 people are worth. You did NOT earn that gift by any objective measure.

Twitter needs to listen

Scoble makes a good point about the way Twitter has selected who gets onto that recommended list.  It’s not based on popularity; or he and Leo Laporte would indeed have been on the list as they were both ranked higher than her and are better known.

Whether anyone has paid money is (in my opinion) pretty unlikely, but the process is based too much on the buddy network.  This sucks and needs to be fixed.  Calling out Veronica Belmont in this very public way is GREAT for bringing the problem to people’s attention, but it’s not the kind of thing I would associate with Veronica. The reason she reacted like she did, is because she’s the last person who would do anything like that.

It’s not ‘just’ Scoble that’s annoyed.  The LA Times wrote this.

What do you think?

Should there even be a suggested follower list on Twitter and if so, should there be a better way to decide who gets listed there? Let us know!

However, this is all starting to change; thanks to the arrival of celebrities and some professional networkers!

Twitter: The celebrities

UK comedian and actor Stephen Fry leads the way. It’s not only that he has over 100,000 followers that’s interesting, it’s that his numbers have doubled in just 12 days!  Yes, Kevin Rose has around 100,000 followers too BUT it’s taken him 2 years to get there!

Britney Spears has gained over 20,000 followers in a week.  Even UK TV presenter Philip Schofield has attracted 20,000 followers in the past 2 weeks. The tech celebrities can’t compete and are quickly falling down the ‘most followed’ rankings.

Twitter: The networkers

With the exception of Robert Scoble – all the tech celebrities seem to have made a pact.  They REFUSE to follow people back unless they know them personally.  This is the 180 degree opposite of the approach being used on Twitter right now, by hundreds of professional networkers!

There are legions of professional networkers, spending hours every day; following thousands of people and gaining thousands of follows.  These guys are also seeing their follower numbers grow far faster than the tech celebrities too!

The new face of Twitter

If you want to keep up to date with the rapidly changing top 100 Twitter users (based on number of followers) – You can do so at twitterholic.com. It makes for surprisingly interesting viewing!

Kevin Rose is missing something

Kevin Rose did a guest post on techcrunch, in which he gives us his “10 tips for increasing your twitter followers.“  The list has received a ton of negative comments. Why?  Because somehow, he failed to mention that the main reason he’s got 88,000 followers, is that he’s the guy behind digg.com and Rev3.

None of what he has suggested, would get you or me anywhere close to the follower number he has.

I’m guessing that techcrunch founder Michael Arrington (Michael, you’re a genius), must have known that Rose was about to make a total tool of himself and turn the post viral. The post also inspired Robert Scoble to point out that Rose was ignoring the obvious!

Scoble’s alternative top ten twitter tips!

1. Survive a plane crash and Tweet it.
2. Get arrested and tweet from jail.
3. Have sex with someone famous and tweet that.
4. Start a famous company. Profitability not required.
5. Have Leo Laporte mention you on his show (worked for my son).
6. Have Mike Arrington tell you you’re addicted (worked for me).
7. Unfollow all your followers. Follow them back. Block them. Then unfollow them. (Worked for Loren Feldman).
8. Get into a movie.
9. Direct a movie.
10. Take pictures with MC Hammer at a TechCrunch party.

I think the number 4 on that list is a direct swipe at Rose; who’s Internet empire has proven far less effective at generating profits, than it has at generating twitter followers.

Twitter following is what counts

Of course, Rose is focused exclusively on getting people to follow him. However, as Scoble has pointed out on many occasions (and I agree) – the thing to focus on with twitter is NOT who follows YOU (which you can’t control) but who YOU follow, (which you can.)

Scoble’s point?

Robert gives examples to prove his point; including video game blogging and the success Gary Vaynerchuk has enjoyed with his blog’s video. I believe that for certain types of blog, video is extremely effective.  Gary Vaynerchuk is a showman, a performer – and he benefits from video the same way he would benefit from TV.  Equally, gaming is a very visual medium and again, it works better with video.

The problem with video blogging? Very few people do it right!

I don’t believe that video blogging is a good fit for the vast majority of bloggers. Why? Because so few people seem to be able to do it right!  Not everyone looks as good on camera as iJustine or has the production skills that Cali Lewis and Neil had, when they started geekbrief.  That’s why we see so many naff videos on YouTube; with people who have no presentation skills, talking over an audio buzz into a cheap webcam. Who knows if their content’s any good – the video’s so poor that no one sticks around long enough to find out!

Traditional blogging is fairer!

However, with traditional blogging, anyone with interesting, valuable content and a nicely designed theme, can give a polished account of themselves.  If they also understand the basics of SEO, they can gradually develop a valuable, significant readership too.

Bandwidth issues?

As Leo Laporte has pointed out on many occasions recently, with many ISP’s now capping customer’s bandwidth usage, some people are already starting to think before they download video.  Yes, even with the lower capped packages, there should be enough bandwidth available – but it has started to get some people thinking about how much data they download.  This is not a huge deal at the moment, but it’s worth considering.

Mix it up

Fortunately, we don’t have to make the choice between video blogging or text blogging.  Many blogs make use of both with GREAT success – often linking to 3rd party video content.

For me, the beauty of traditional blogging is that it allows all of us to get our content out there in a fairer way.  The average person couldn’t hope to produce a better quality video report than CNN – But they might write a post that’s every bit as valuable or compelling!

Kevin Rose’s predictions for the new iPhone!
As inaccurate as his last effort? Lets see!

Twitter ‘broken’ by Robert Scoble!
I predict Scoble will actually ‘break the Internet’ if he doesn’t slow down!

Google is giving it all away – for a small fee of course!
By Maggie Shiels at the BBC’s dot.life tech blog.

‘Surface‘ allows you to interact directly with a PC (which looks like a table), by moving your hands around the surface or placing objects on it (no keyboard or mouse required.)

So, you place your camera on the ‘surface‘ and it will know what you have done AND download your pictures direct to the ‘surface.’ These can then be moved around the screen, resized and shared with people. Ditto with your phone, mp3 player etc.

No cables, no wires, no keyboard and no mouse!

Here is a link to some great video from my Twitter buddy Robert Scoble’s website. It shows him using ‘Surface’ while interviewing Microsoft’s Andy WIlson. Take a look and let me know what you think! Click here to see Microsoft Surface in action.

Thanks to www.gizmodo.com for the picture.

Now, I know Dvorak is known for being a ‘little’ on the cranky side, so I explained why I think the show will succeed. Scoble has a ‘pied piper-like’ ability to attract people and he has a knack for making tech stories both accessible and interesting. He’s also well connected and will have no problem getting great guests and sponsors for his show.

Dvorak then told me on Twitter this morning;
“Jim – Scoble gets readers; he’s a natural. it’s his comfort zone. It ends there. The rest is goofing around.”

What Dvorak didn’t seem to know was that Scoble was following our Tweets!

When Scoble joined in Dvorak said;
“Cripes Robert! Are you just sitting on this friggin’ thing!?!?!”

There are 2 great lessons here:
1. On Twitter, you never know who is listening – so watch what you say!
2. Dvorak is the real deal – just as cranky in ‘real life’ as he is with his work!

To follow me on Twitter and join in the fun, my username is jimconnolly

Watch Dvorak’s great ‘Cranky Geeks’ show now – click here

Here’s what Robert told me:
1. Robert is NOT joining Revision3! He is still very much with Fast Company, they are just doing a show together!

2. As I blogged yesterday, the new show will be at workfast.tv and not, as has been widely reported fastwork.tv!

3. The new show will run for 30 minutes and will come out once a week.

4. Robert and Shel Israel will co-host the show, which will be all about ‘the future of work.’

5. The first guest is the guy who runs PARC, (where Ethernet was invented apparently)

6. The show is planned to be broadcast ‘live’ and will include comments from Twitter, Friendfeed, Skype etc.

7. The first show should be out in the first week of June, but the exact time and date are still being worked on.

Thanks to Robert for sharing this with me
The Tech News Blog is just 4 day’s old, so it’s extremely generous for him to personally give me this information, so that I can share it with you.

UPDATE – What does John C Dvorak think?
He told me when he thought Scoble wasn’t listening!! Read here (really funny!)