Tales From Behind Microsoft's Firewall

lizzyben writes "CIOinsight.com is hosting an interview with Robert Scoble on life after Microsoft. 'By blogging for the world's largest software company, Scoble changed the way companies communicate with the world and became an industry celebrity in the process.' He talks about MS culture, senior management and the benefits of blogging from inside the belly of the software beast." More from the article: "We used blog-search engines to find anyone who wrote the word 'Microsoft' on their blog. Even if they had no readers and were just ranting, 'I hate Microsoft,' I could see that and link to it, or I could participate in their comments, or send them an e-mail saying, 'What's going on?' And that told those people that someone was listening to their rants, that this is a different world than the one in which no one listens. It was an invaluable focus group that Microsoft didn't have to pay for."

Re:Short list

[Anonymous Coward]

They should search for "Micro$oft" "M$" and "Micros~1"

Call me cynical, but...

[tommasz]

...I never quite understood Scoble's impact or why so many people considered his tenure at Microsoft so important. I can't think of a single Microsoft product that has significantly changed as a result of his interceding on some poor user's behalf. It was more like a grand, and public, experiment in listening to the users. Considering they let him leave and especially since they haven't replaced him, it says they've heard enough.

re: MS spending on the OS

[King_TJ]

I think your observation is flawed. Throwing money at problems almost never efficiently solves them. The fact that MS has been so successful indicates they've made very good use of their money, really. If they were able to spend their "marketing" cash on OS development instead, they'd (in an ideal world) end up with a teriffic OS, but one that most people weren't aware of or convinced to switch to.

Re:Right of reply

[M00NIE]

I hear your point and it's well taken, but I have to admit - this is chiefly why I won't use blogs and other publically available and searchable mediums to write my thoughts about ANYTHING.

If I indicated I hated the President of United States in a blog somewhere, I would be equally annoyed, offended and paranoid about some advocate of the President contacting me to sell me on whether he's a good President or not. Interestingly enough, I don't see other companies or organizations doing that, much less touting it as some great thing.

I just think it's bad form whether or not it's possible or whether the information is public. It's like telemarketers calling my house because they got my phone number. Sure, my phone number is available publically - doesn't mean I like, or want, companies to abuse that knowledge to interrupt my dinner.

Re:focus groups and corporate bs

[nuzak]

NT is a real OS. It's just saddled with a bunch of buggy insecure CRAP in userland, including userland that gets too friendly with parts that should be privileged (I'm looking at you IE) and a poorly-documented afterthought of a commandline toolchain born of a culture that actively disdained anything not graphical. Underneath all the cruft is a damn nice OS.

Re:Mod Parent Retarded

[russ1337]

>>> They always say "What is Linux?" After I explain this, they say "What is an operating system?" And after I explain this, they always say "Don't I already have one of those?

I spent ages trying to switch people too. Now I just show them the 'door' and they are the ones that have to go through it. Linux requires an enthusiastic user if that user is the one who is going to administer it. Its usually easy to set up (Ubuntu) and once its set up it works fine day to day, but like with anything (cars/plumbing/Ikea products) it takes a certain amount of 'competence' to make adjustments. While you have more control over Linux than Windows, with that control comes great responsibility, and some users are just not cut out for that.

Karma phishing

[dedazo]

To anyone actually thinking of actually modding twitter up, please be aware that he's attempting to equate whatever Microsoft (or "M$") does to the fact that he is constantly modded down because of his troll posts. Simply look at his current posting history. It's interesting that he links to the message where he "outs" KeithRussel as a "troll", this [slashdot.org] is the entire thread which should be considered for context. This [slashdot.org] is yet another thread where twitter probably thinks he is being "trolled" and "harassed". The simple reality that emerges after looking at those threads is apparent.

twitter fails to understand that this is a public forum, and expressing one's opinions will eventually result in one's opinions being questioned in one way or another. Most of the people who "troll" twitter are simply requesting that he qualify his remarks, which more often than not are simply hysterical FUD and misguided attempts at "evangelism", which in his head are somehow good for the free software community.

twitter acuses anyone who does not toe his line of being "M$ PR astroturfers", tries to spread outrageous FUD left and right and then links to things that happened seven years ago to try to prove that Microsoft is out to get him. This kind of behavior should not be rewarded.

Re:Yet nothing is changin....

[drsmithy]

How unprofessional is it in the middle of a presentation to have something like that happen?

How is the computer supposed to know what you're doing ?

Before you answer, you might want to ponder the unintentional consequences of allowing such a warning to be programmatically suppressed.