Thursday, July 17, 2003

Where does he get the time?

I've been looking at a number of on-line web logs tonight. Some utterly boring, others more interesting. It's a phenomenon that is most interesting. As someone who is keeping a web log - I wonder if there really is any point. Will the scholars of the next century look back on this in the way we look back on the Egyptians, and paper scrolls?

One web log (by Robert Scoble of Microsoft) is huge. Yesterday's entry, for example, runs to over 1500 words, which seems his normal daily length. My monthly Windows column for ESM Magazine runs to about this length. This often takes a day or more to create!

Much of Scoble's web log is really pretty boring stuff. Lot of references to other bloggers (who also seem to reference him a lot!), and lots of other self-important sounding stuff (is he really the 'we' in all the 'we are doing xxx'??). One thing he says, however, makes me somewhat angry. He says "as an MVP I had access to the Windows source code " which is patently untrue since the programme for sharing source to MVPs had not begun when he was am MVP. I assume he's confused.

I can't help wondering where guys like Scoble get the time from. If he worked for me, I'd be asking him to spend a little more time doing what he's being paid for, and a lot less time playing the stage and taking credit for being in charge of Microsoft. If he worked for me, he'd be spending his time making my products better, not making himself look important.

But I'm just grumpy today.