Much Ado About Blogging...

(Scoble, you didn't answer the question) Ahh, now . On the other hand, I must buy Werner dinner some evening and thank him. The whole shindig Om Malik makes it sound like Amazon vs. Microsoft. That's an unfortunate headline, but heck, it'll sell a lot of seats whenever Werner and Shel and I are in the same room again! :-) What's ironic is that 120 people were involved in our presentation yesterday. Now, more than 20,000 are (and the numbers are quickly spreading - Slashdot regularly has 100,000 readers a day. Does blogging matter? That's for you to decide, but things can get out of control very quickly!) I say that headline is unfortunate because I didn't go there representing Microsoft, I went there representing the 188 companies we interviewed in the book. And, Amazon is being painted in a bad light cause we're focusing on one guy, when about a dozen people asked questions and we were treated very well (and, there were many who came up to us afterward who demonstrated they get blogging very well, as you'll learn if you read the comments on the various blogs). Indeed, should do a debate on the topic." She thinks it would be the conference draw of the decade. I'm game. She recommends doing "book reading 2.0" at Gnomedex. We'll see what Pirillo thinks about that. But, let's revisit this. The truth is I screwed up. I didn't represent blogging very well and didn't back up the thesis of our book very well (that blogging will improve the way businesses talk with customers). Now, if this were the old world, you would never have known that. And, I wouldn't have a second chance. But, this is the new world where ideas discussed with 120 people can reach much larger audiences within hours. On my comments last night several people claiming to be Amazon employees (we really don't know because they gave their comments anonymously, but I'll take them on face value) Om Malik made the same point on his post. The common theme I'm hearing is Werner (and the other Amazon employees who commented here, and elsewhere that I'm seeing) want numbers. They want statistics. Proof. Science. Where I gave them stuff like " with nothing more than a few links on some blogs." Or "Randy's journal is a blog done by an executive there) , General Motors (Bob Lutz, an exec at GM started blogging on its history) are seeing enough of a reason to start a blog (and continue doing them, even after the first year). The teams at Boeing and GM say they are pleased with the response and effect of their blogging and plan to continue doing them. But, if you don't like this approach, just visit Tom Moertel's blog a regular happening. See, maybe that's why I wasn't able to defend blogging from a numbers point of view. To me this is a people business. One where raw numbers don't matter. One SEO Buzzbox put up an interview with me that was lots of fun to do. Yesterday I was on four radio stations. Whew. Some even asked hard questions like Werner did. But here). He broadcasts a business show on WCBQ and WHNC in Raleigh, NC. It's interesting to hear from a guy who is still trying to figure out the Web. There are a lot more like Alvin than there are like Werner. Update 2: Eric Norlin offered that up (and I'm already attending that, so either that venue or Gnomedex would work best for me). Update 3: A9 Developer team) had their numbers together (since they are blogging). I would love to hear how they convinced Werner. This is another reason I was caught off guard. Since Amazon already understood blogs (their associate program helps bloggers make some money) they actually should be showing US the numbers. I'm sure they have them from the Associates program. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") | Yahoo! My Web Technorati: Scobleizer blog. He works as Scobleizer