One word, unless you’ve followed him beyond some magazine articles about him, synonymous with Robert Scoble is “blogger.” One of the originals, Scoble literally wrote the book on the topic. And now, well, he seems to be disillusioned with the whole damn thing.
Is Scoble Over Blogging?
So a bit of a fiasco developed while the rest of us were ignoring the blogosphere over the weekend (why is it these little blow-ups always seem to happen then?). Valleywag, like most gossip outlets, has a lot of time on its hands to follow the Twitterings of the A-listers.
So when vlogger Chuck Olsen Twittered this phrase:
Just got off the phone with Furrier – it’s a shitbag salad over there… Scoble’s out
the, um, salad hit the fan. (Congratulations to Olsen for coining a new swear phrase.)
Furrier is John Furrier, who heads up PodTech.net, where Scoble is the main event.
Valleywag picked up on that and reported it, only to find out it was news to Scoble as well. Just add the mishap to already boiling bad blood between the two.
This first sent Scoble into a bit a Twitter frenzy, denying the rumors and wondering why the information wasn’t validated before reporting.
Olsen was quick to label the misTwitter as a joke, though it is still unclear whether that was the punch line or the set-up. In an update, Nick Douglas at Valleywag says Furrier’s firing of Scoble is a running internal gag.
No matter, Scoble seems quite dismayed. On the Scobleizer blog, he proves why men shouldn’t hold babies – the responsibility of it can be overwhelming. Holding a friend’s newborn, he wondered “how am I making her world better?”
That’s a heavy question, one that apparently pulled Scoble into the depths of blogging despair:
Tonight I looked over my Twitters and blogs. They are angry. Confrontational. Disturbed. Hurt. Dismayed.
Those are not words to describe someone in a state of mind to improve the world. Part of it is so many people are making stuff up about me and/or my employer without any care as to my feelings or the truth that I’ve got to get some distance…. It really depresses me cause I thought blogging would be a tool for humans to get smarter, not stupider.
So, I’m going to try something else for a while…. In our book Naked Conversations I wrote that a good blog is “authoritative and passionate.” Truth is that when I looked at Steve Ball’s baby I realized I’ve been neither….I’ll be back blogging when I can add value again.
If you’ve followed Scoble for any length of time then you know that he takes periodic breaks to refuel and retool, especially when something upsets him.
But the episode underscores an important issue in blogging: it’s a very, very public life, and it’s not for everyone.
And as for the stream-of-consciousness-blogging Twitter allows? Well, you should ask Steve Rubel how much trouble that can cause, especially for those in the PR biz.
