It’s great to take a blog vacation. Thanks to everyone who sent nice notes. Just saw this in the Guardian’s blog …
“Whether or not you agree with his views, the blogosphere is a less interesting and less intelligent place with a silent Scoble.”
Link: A week without Scoble
I did a lot of thinking about my blog and the feedback I’ve been getting about my direction lately. Jeremy Wright, for instance, said he unsubscribed. I told him I unsubscribed from myself. Heh.
See, a good blog is passionate and authoritative. Lately I’ve been going through the motions. Just blogging to keep blogging.
Over the past week I focused on rediscovering myself. What do I like to do? This is my blog. It better be fun. For me. Or else I’ll stop doing it.
So, I went back and made a mental list of why I do this. A few of the top reasons? I like talking with smart people. Particularly those who build things. Whether it’s a radio station or a driver for a video card.
On Friday night I was with my brother-in-law at a nightclub in Vancouver. Where was I drawn? Toward the DJ who was using a computer. Why? He was building experiences for his audiences.
I then turned around and looked at everyone else. There were pretty girls. Alcohol. Sports on TV. Lots of other things to do. But I was drawn to the guy using a computer. I was watching him work, trying to figure out if there’s a way to help him do his work better.
There were other experiences this week. Hanging around with a variety of people inside Microsoft.
I also find I write to get things into search engines so I can pull them out later. I also write to learn something from my readers.
The world of blogging is changing, though. It’s faster and there’s no way I can keep up with it all. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to try. I’m giving that one up. There are tools coming that’ll keep you on top of this world (and I’ll point to them and use them).
I also rediscovered this past week another passion: playing with new technology. I am now using Windows Vista and will start writing about that again too.
As to the comments. I thought hard about just turning them off. Or censoring the ones I don’t like. But, screw that. It’s good +for me+ to have open comments where even jerks are allowed to post. It’s a true marketplace of ideas. My challenge is not to eat the metaphorical rotten strawberries. Lately I’ve been trying to argue with everyone, even those who really don’t deserve even being acknowledged. Mostly cause I got off track, but partly cause I just enjoy ratholing once in a while.
I won’t do that anymore.
More to come later. I’m off to hang out with Maryam and Patrick and take another day off of blogging.
Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.
Go to Scobleizer …
