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Fuck. I had no idea I was so uncool until I read this rant. Apparently being an entrepreneur means reading the marketing soundbytes of over 1000 twitter feeds.

Fuck. I had no idea I was so uncool until I read this rant. Apparently being an entrepreneur means reading the marketing soundbytes of over 1000 twitter feeds. I guess the media likes twitter because they can just write headlines and omit the articles.

sailormoon 17y ago
Nonsense isn't it. I suppose the reason Scoble loves twitter so much is that he literally has nothing else to do but use it all day. The rest of us, however, do. I mean seriously - I don't want to sound too negative but this is just completely out of touch with anyone who actually does real work. Scoble's disappeared up his own Social Media Consultant ass. Meanwhile, back in the real world, no-one cares a jot about any of that stuff and the priority is to Actually Get Stuff Done. Maybe Scoble would understand this stuff better if he was technical.
- RobertScoble 17y ago
  Yeah, that's why 500 startups are on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Scobleizer/tech-startups http://twitter.com/Scobleizer/tech-startups They are there just to serve me, right? Uh, huh.
  - furyg3 17y ago
    "Everyone else is doing it" is hardly a spectacular decision making strategy. Just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's important to your business model. Twitter can be a powerful tool for some, but for others its still just a toy. We used to (and still do) see people who don't have a flashy website as old and outdated. Maybe I'm wrong and this same scenario will happen again, only this time with Twitter. Personally, I have my doubts. Regardless, that hasn't happened yet (certainly not in Europe).
    - RobertScoble 17y ago
      http://twitter.com/cgiorgi/french-startups http://twitter.com/cgiorgi/french-startups 157 French Startups that are on Twitter.
  - forensic 17y ago
    I don't understand what we're supposed to do with 500 twitter feeds. Surely you don't read all those? And to be perfectly honest, I usually can't stomach reading to the end of the typical TechCrunch article, let alone reading an entire week's worth just to impress a journalist. Do you really expect engineers to read blog hype day in and day out? You make me feel like one of those old people who uses his mouse to click "Search" on Google.
    - RobertScoble 17y ago
      I read them every day. It's one page. I get tons of useful things and see how companies are evolving. You should follow your own list. Maybe it's just your five competitors. Maybe just follow techcrunch. I even follow Hacker News in one list. A Twitter list, by the way, is NOT 500 separate feeds. It's one feed on one page but is a mixture of 500 feeds.
      - sailormoon 17y ago
        Scoble, no disrespect, because I actually quite like you. You're one of the most successful "Me, Inc." people I've ever seen. But what do you do all day? I'll tell you what I do. I develop software. What do you do? You're a PR hound - a very good one, I must say. You're a PR hound trying to underline the importance of PR hounds like yourself. That is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. But you must understand that many, if not most, startups simply do not have the manpower to do that kind of thing. Diverting precious resources to assign someone to read and respond to 500 twitter feeds seems like the worst thing a startup could do. And it's a bad sign, of no product and all marketing. That might be great for some companies. But it's not a panacea and should definitely not be a blanket recommendation.
        _pius 17y ago
        Diverting precious resources to assign someone to read and respond to 500 twitter feeds seems like the worst thing a startup could do. And it's a bad sign, of no product and all marketing. It's probably just a sign of marketing, saying nothing one way or another about your product.
Confusion 17y ago
He has lost sight of the fact that most people, including entrepeneurs and VC's are not actively using twitter. He makes a large point, also in a comment here, of there being '500 startups on twitter'. 500 Out of how many? How active are they on twitter? Has it brought them anything? Do they feel it is worthwhile? In what phase did they start twittering? Many people, entrepeneurs, companies, etc. that supposedly are on twitter, are not in fact using it. They have a presence, that's it. He mentions that many VC's are on twitter... which means nothing. There is no indication whatsoever that they are actually actively monitoring it. The rant is also incoherent: the second point is titled 'lame and anemic marketing materials' and subsequently mostly talks about the medium through which the materials are distributed. Several of his points are based on one case. The robot startup didn't have a demo... well, perhaps it just wasn't finished yet? Perhaps it just had a breakdown? Then the point about the hot new app or news of the day. Because he feels it is important, it is important? I don't have time to keep track of every new thing everywhere. Hell, I don't even have an i-phone. Somehow that means I'd be a lame entrepeneur? What a silly criterion. I keep track of everything remotely related to my business. Foursquare is not related and I'm not interested in it. I have looked into augmented reality browsing. Does that excuse me or would he still get mad?
- RobertScoble 17y ago
  Dell says they make millions of dollars with their Twitter account. I talked with Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh and he says Twitter is so invaluable to his business that they force all their new hires to use it. I could go on, there are tons of books about how good Twitter is working for businesses. There's a reason why businesses from CocaCola to CNN are using Twitter. I guess you have other data, though, and the rest of us are just doing good merlot or something. If no one is using Twitter why does my Tweet stream move so fast 24 hours a day? And, as for lame and anemic marketing materials, I figure that people got the point with just those words. I guess I have to post the lame PPT for you to be happy, but I was trying not to personally embarrass the individual companies.
  - Confusion 17y ago
    Dell says they make millions of dollars with their Twitter account. Have they explained how? Did that explanation make sense? Could there be a reason or situation in which the person you spoke would just say this? I talked with Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh and he says Twitter is so invaluable to his business that they force all their new hires to use it. And anyone, including you, can name a dozen companies that are doing very well, despite not being on Twitter or even considering it. I could go on, there are tons of books about how good Twitter is working for businesses. The number of books is not a good indication for the success of a technology. I'd even say that the more books that need to be written to convince us, the less likely it is to be true. Smells like an attempted self fulfilling prophecy. There's a reason why businesses from CocaCola to CNN are using Twitter. There's a reason why dozens of other succesful business are not using Twitter? If no one is using Twitter ... Straw man. I figure that people got the point with just those words. But in fact people are getting confused, because the words do not describe what follows. The paragraph hinges on two thoughts, which may leave the casual reader with 'he didn't actually support that claim'. I was interested in discovering what you considered 'anemic' and didn't find it. That's bad.

sailormoon 17y ago

Nonsense isn't it. I suppose the reason Scoble loves twitter so much is that he literally has nothing else to do but use it all day. The rest of us, however, do. I mean seriously - I don't want to sound too negative but this is just completely out of touch with anyone who actually does real work. Scoble's disappeared up his own Social Media Consultant ass. Meanwhile, back in the real world, no-one cares a jot about any of that stuff and the priority is to Actually Get Stuff Done. Maybe Scoble would understand this stuff better if he was technical.

RobertScoble 17y ago
Yeah, that's why 500 startups are on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Scobleizer/tech-startups http://twitter.com/Scobleizer/tech-startups They are there just to serve me, right? Uh, huh.
- furyg3 17y ago
  "Everyone else is doing it" is hardly a spectacular decision making strategy. Just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's important to your business model. Twitter can be a powerful tool for some, but for others its still just a toy. We used to (and still do) see people who don't have a flashy website as old and outdated. Maybe I'm wrong and this same scenario will happen again, only this time with Twitter. Personally, I have my doubts. Regardless, that hasn't happened yet (certainly not in Europe).
  - RobertScoble 17y ago
    http://twitter.com/cgiorgi/french-startups http://twitter.com/cgiorgi/french-startups 157 French Startups that are on Twitter.
- forensic 17y ago
  I don't understand what we're supposed to do with 500 twitter feeds. Surely you don't read all those? And to be perfectly honest, I usually can't stomach reading to the end of the typical TechCrunch article, let alone reading an entire week's worth just to impress a journalist. Do you really expect engineers to read blog hype day in and day out? You make me feel like one of those old people who uses his mouse to click "Search" on Google.
  - RobertScoble 17y ago
    I read them every day. It's one page. I get tons of useful things and see how companies are evolving. You should follow your own list. Maybe it's just your five competitors. Maybe just follow techcrunch. I even follow Hacker News in one list. A Twitter list, by the way, is NOT 500 separate feeds. It's one feed on one page but is a mixture of 500 feeds.
    - sailormoon 17y ago
      Scoble, no disrespect, because I actually quite like you. You're one of the most successful "Me, Inc." people I've ever seen. But what do you do all day? I'll tell you what I do. I develop software. What do you do? You're a PR hound - a very good one, I must say. You're a PR hound trying to underline the importance of PR hounds like yourself. That is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. But you must understand that many, if not most, startups simply do not have the manpower to do that kind of thing. Diverting precious resources to assign someone to read and respond to 500 twitter feeds seems like the worst thing a startup could do. And it's a bad sign, of no product and all marketing. That might be great for some companies. But it's not a panacea and should definitely not be a blanket recommendation.
      - _pius 17y ago
        Diverting precious resources to assign someone to read and respond to 500 twitter feeds seems like the worst thing a startup could do. And it's a bad sign, of no product and all marketing. It's probably just a sign of marketing, saying nothing one way or another about your product.

Confusion 17y ago

He has lost sight of the fact that most people, including entrepeneurs and VC's are not actively using twitter. He makes a large point, also in a comment here, of there being '500 startups on twitter'. 500 Out of how many? How active are they on twitter? Has it brought them anything? Do they feel it is worthwhile? In what phase did they start twittering? Many people, entrepeneurs, companies, etc. that supposedly are on twitter, are not in fact using it. They have a presence, that's it. He mentions that many VC's are on twitter... which means nothing. There is no indication whatsoever that they are actually actively monitoring it. The rant is also incoherent: the second point is titled 'lame and anemic marketing materials' and subsequently mostly talks about the medium through which the materials are distributed. Several of his points are based on one case. The robot startup didn't have a demo... well, perhaps it just wasn't finished yet? Perhaps it just had a breakdown? Then the point about the hot new app or news of the day. Because he feels it is important, it is important? I don't have time to keep track of every new thing everywhere. Hell, I don't even have an i-phone. Somehow that means I'd be a lame entrepeneur? What a silly criterion. I keep track of everything remotely related to my business. Foursquare is not related and I'm not interested in it. I have looked into augmented reality browsing. Does that excuse me or would he still get mad?

RobertScoble 17y ago
Dell says they make millions of dollars with their Twitter account. I talked with Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh and he says Twitter is so invaluable to his business that they force all their new hires to use it. I could go on, there are tons of books about how good Twitter is working for businesses. There's a reason why businesses from CocaCola to CNN are using Twitter. I guess you have other data, though, and the rest of us are just doing good merlot or something. If no one is using Twitter why does my Tweet stream move so fast 24 hours a day? And, as for lame and anemic marketing materials, I figure that people got the point with just those words. I guess I have to post the lame PPT for you to be happy, but I was trying not to personally embarrass the individual companies.
- Confusion 17y ago
  Dell says they make millions of dollars with their Twitter account. Have they explained how? Did that explanation make sense? Could there be a reason or situation in which the person you spoke would just say this? I talked with Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh and he says Twitter is so invaluable to his business that they force all their new hires to use it. And anyone, including you, can name a dozen companies that are doing very well, despite not being on Twitter or even considering it. I could go on, there are tons of books about how good Twitter is working for businesses. The number of books is not a good indication for the success of a technology. I'd even say that the more books that need to be written to convince us, the less likely it is to be true. Smells like an attempted self fulfilling prophecy. There's a reason why businesses from CocaCola to CNN are using Twitter. There's a reason why dozens of other succesful business are not using Twitter? If no one is using Twitter ... Straw man. I figure that people got the point with just those words. But in fact people are getting confused, because the words do not describe what follows. The paragraph hinges on two thoughts, which may leave the casual reader with 'he didn't actually support that claim'. I was interested in discovering what you considered 'anemic' and didn't find it. That's bad.