Comment by danilocampos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danilocampos | Hacker News Reader

Meta: I want to ask something right now that will sound very flip but I mean it with no malice and with full earnestness. Seriously – I'm asking because I want an answer. Cool? Cool.

How has Mr. Scoble convinced so many people to listen to him?

In over six years of following the Valley and tech in general with interest, I have heard Mr. Scoble's name so many times – but never associated with anything of substance. I've never read of any dramatic achievements, nor have I been pointed to any essays of any deep insight or poignancy. While he frequently comes up in conversation he does not seem to... do anything. Like a Paris Hilton.

From what I can tell, he worked for Microsoft, then wrote a book in which he appeared on the cover naked (Hiltonesque!)... and then convinced a bunch of people to follow him on Twitter and other social media flavors of the moment. Then Rackspace bought him an enormous tripod.

I hasten to reiterate that I have no specific ill-will toward Mr. Scoble, but I am... mystified and hope for some insight. Is this a case of wildly successful self-promotion? Is the success of the self-promotion, itself, the measure of success from which he derives attention and note? Do people latch onto him in the hopes of learning similar powers of promotion?

Here's the right visual:

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/5843/178783.jpg

Scoble is the ultra-fan. I wouldn't really call him a rabid self-promoter (though those are certainly around) -- he just oozes an almost naive excitement about the technology world and seems to try to be in all corners of it at once. I think that sort of excitement, almost like the tech world is one big family of sorts, is, in its own way, contagious.

I think this picture says everything you need to know about Scoble.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/07/scoble-ipho...

If the tech world is a big family, Scoble is the youngest kid whose incessant bids for attention have the older ones rolling their eyes.

My reaction to that photo is that he is a down-to-earth guy who wears his passion on his sleeve.

Thank you for formulating what I am thinking every time I hear his name: "Who is this guy and why should I care ?". The Paris Hilton analogy sounds spot on; Scoble is the socialite of the tech scene. Reminds me of the "social media expert" illustrated at http://theoatmeal.com/comics/websites_stop, "like a webmaster from the 1990s, except you can't even code HTML".

He has a self-deprecating charm. An everyman; like Homer Simpson. He's also like that snake-bite guy form Australia with a hundred scars who says 'give it here lads, I'll see if it's poisonous'

Occasionally you will see him get worked up and stand his ground but he's so enthusiastic about everything new and shiny that it becomes infectious. A little naive perhaps, but his optimism for technology and the future is a light in dark places.

Steve Irwin :-(

That's just how he rolled:

http://haringliwanag.pansitan.net/uploaded_images/steve%20ir...

I miss him. There's a guy who loved his job.

I follow Scoble on Twitter and am subscribed to his blog.

The reason - he breaks tons of great stories, and has a lot of interesting interviews with people from the industry. I've heard about a lot of new startups/products for the first time through him, and they're always interesting.

Not sure how it came about, but that's the reason I follow him now.

(I've also met him briefly in real life, he's a really nice guy).

He's a single most prolific journalist covering startup and (mostly computer) technology companies. His many video interviews are insightful, humanistic and full of positive energy about technologies and companies he covers. That, in my book, counts for a lot. Comparing his relentless work promoting companies and informing the public through interesting interviews to what Paris Hilton does is rather tasteless.

Scoble is a great curator and breaker/spreader of startup news. And I think it would be fair to say he's done a good job of pioneering some new forms of social media journalism.

It's true that he's a startup enthusiast, and often looks more like an evangelist for startups. But he's a decent and friendly guy in person, and genuinely believes in the importance of startups.

That's why people quote him, tweet him and support him. He's part of the startup community as much as a person who covers it.

He's one of the good guys, and good on him for supporting and covering startups the way he does.

I've been following his blog for 6 months or a year, but I'm finding myself skipping over more and more of his posts, and am considering taking it out of my reader. Your question spurred me to look at what made me subscribe in the first page and what's changed.

I remember watching and really enjoying this interview with Cloudera CEO Mike Olson: http://scobleizer.com/2010/03/05/do-we-need-a-new-tech-liter... I found Olson to be smart and interesting, and Scoble asked good questions. I was excited to learn more about what people were doing with big data and industrial NoSQL, and that interview was a great primer.

I also remember reading an essay of his on curation (http://scobleizer.com/2010/03/27/the-seven-needs-of-real-tim...) that I thought was really insightful... after all, curation is something he's an expert on.

That's around when I subscribed to him. If you go back to March/April/May of last year (http://scobleizer.com/404) he was writing lots of great, smart, important essays.

Lately, I feel like it's more like startup diarrhea. A flood of interviews and links and startups and random crap that he's testing out. I guess that's what you have to do when you're focused on "breaking" news. But at some point I just don't have the patience to wade through all of it for the good stuff.

Ironic reason for unfollowing an expert in curation!

I remember a few months ago when Scoble was singing the praises of pip.io from the rooftops. You had to go sign up for pip.io, it was gonna be huge and it was so awesome to have all your social media content in one place.

So, yeah. I hear you. I'd rather not diss the guy, because he has added a lot of value just by covering the startup space and conducting a lot of great interviews. I just wish he would spend more time doing quality blogging.

I give a lot of credit to Scoble, though. He's unique among the meta-geek crowd in that he'll respond to anybody as long as you have something intelligent to say without regard for whether you're in the "inner circle" of SV. Not many people at his level do that; in fact the only other person I can put in that category is Steve Jobs.

He will answer your email in a thoughtful manner, despite having no idea who you are and that it's 99% likely that the only reason you're contacting him is that you want to promote your widget.

That kind of infectious engagement is incredibly hard to come by - they guy just lives it.

I think you're assuming that people are following his 'expert opinion' when in fact what people are really mostly following is the very interesting information he often brings us.

Scoble works very hard to bring us stories about startups and products and the people behind them. That doesn't necessarily mean he's 'insightful', but he does bring a ton of value to the tech community.

In social network terms Robert plays the combined roles of the connector and maven. In his connector aspect he is a liaison that connects different groups together. From Tipping Point connectors "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together, they are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances". In his maven aspect Robert, as he lives and tries to solve problems in his own life, is continually testing out different products and has a considerable expertise in those areas. It's not his role to be a deep technical expert, that's an in-group function. Without people like Robert there would be much less radiation of information between the startup and thought leader groups and the broader user community. That's a rare and valuable service, one Robert peruses with a passion.

Scoble is just a normal guy who has gradually built a following of mostly normal people. He isn't technical or anything but is a good conduit to "the normal people" who do not read TechCrunch.

As I understand it, he is genuinely massively interested in technology, almost being like a kid in a sweet shop.

Having said that, he's also the prime example of why you should get off the Internet and start doing something.

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