Amazon CTO Rips Blogging Authors a New One 115
theodp writes "Following what was characterized as rude treatment of invited guests in a confrontation at Amazon HQ, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels turned to his personal blog to give author Shel Israel a public scolding for suggesting Amazon doesn't 'get' blogging (Amazon's blogging innovations include 'faux' personal blogs and patent-pending plogs). Vogels went on to voice concerns on Israel's blog that blogging could be too distracting for Amazon employees - think the self-proclaimed guy-with-guts challenged CEO Jeff Bezos about the distractions of his space exploration efforts?"
Re:Nobody Cares (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell yeah! CTO doesnt 'get' blogging!
I wish more people were as blunt and forthcoming as Mr.Vogels.
Who did what to who and what happened then and ..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Around paragraph 3, I thought, "Go write some code or fill out a 27B stroke 6 somewhere." The amazing thing about modern society is that it hasn't produced more great art with more people, it's just produced more junk to get in the way.
The summary is biased, the articles are biased, the only people interested in this particular fight are those who follow successful internet people around like pasty white guy paparazzi. Give it a rest.
It's ironic (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, the blogerati (Score:5, Insightful)
That said... it seems to be this is a classic case of mass-induced elitism. I don't think the Amazon guy was off in his line of questioning. What's good for Microsoft or Sun might not be for Amazon or eBay, yet Scoble and his friend come across as the quitenssential "it" boys, giggling and stomping their little feet because the hick across the table doesn't know what the small fork is for - as if his life depended on it.
I suppose if you live in that "blogosphere" long enough it must look to you like everyone is blogging and, more importantly, that everyone should be doing it. I don't think that's the case. I've found many corporate attempts at blogging to be underwhelming and downright stupid - if you don't "get it" then just don't do it at all. I doubt many millions of Amazon customers are going to decide one day that they won't spend a dime online anymore because Amazon doesn't have a blog.
The blogorati need to come out into the light and look around once in a while.
The guy doesn't want to kowtow to Israel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that likely to cause them any trouble? Amazon seems to be quite good at what they do.
I have a feeling that this is a case where he can tell Israel to kiss his ass.
What I heard when I read this summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this news we give a flying leap about?
Classic case of pundits versus practitioners (Score:5, Insightful)
My feeling is that this CTO is in the position that well-meaning people are happily giving him advice all the time about what Amazon should be doing. He has limited resources in terms of time and money, so he needs a well-primed bullshit filter to make sure that he's not wasting his time. The first thing you do when talking to a consultant is to establish their bona fides, and to test them on the basis for their recommendations. You can start to believe their general statements, when you can see that their conclusions are based on real research and not thought experiments.
When someone is using the phrase "you just don't get (whatever subject)" I counter that it's up to them to convince me. There were lots of people putting crazy valuations on internet stocks in the late 90s. When you asked them how they justified the valuations, they would come up with over-optimistic projections about the amount of money that could be made from the net. Often they would assume that one company's revenues would be greater than the entire spending on that product category. Eventually the conversation would get to a stage where it was clear that they had no data to support their hypotheses, and they would wheel out the phrase "you just don't get it".
They could just as easily have said "oh ye of little faith". That's appropriate in a religious setting, but not where my clients' money is concerned. It's also my experience that people who have faith in irrational things tend to view any aggressive questioning as rude. I remember one of my analysts getting very upset when it was pointed out to her that her opinion on a particular company was at odds with her own facts - her only defence was to scream at me for being rude. Often if people have no real counter-arguments, they react to bad news and criticism by criticising the way it was delivered.
Re:Ah, the blogerati (Score:3, Insightful)
Having grilled vendors before, I can imagine that he was harsh but fair. The fair bit stems from the fact that obviously they ( Amazon ) took time to arrange and attend a meeting. If I attend a meeting I want to be INFORMED. Not entertained by personal "opinion". I have plenty of unsubstanciated opinions of my own. Why would I want any more from other people. Tell me something I do not know, but be able to prove what you say is true.
mainwhile the marketing people are having group hug and dreaming of the YAF segment....
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
While modern society has certainly produced more junk, I believe it's disingenuous to say that there isn't an astonishing amount of "good" art these days. Regardless of your taste, there are at least hundreds of people out there making something you will aesthetically appreciate. I doubt this was the case even a hundred years ago.