ScobleTron

Steve Ballmer still doesn’t understand social networking

Hmmm, tricky one this as it’s my first post although I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it eventually. Anyway, on with the show…

Now, from Scobles’ comments it appears that he is of the opinion that Microsoft doesn’t want to get involved with all of this Web 2.0 stuff because there’s no ‘business value’. I think that as this is my first post we should start by defining some terms here. For me, Web 2.0 isn’t simply a social networking site, it’s simply something that uses AJAX. There have been Web 2.0 sites around for ages, it just took the marketing guys a while to come up with a fancy name and get the venture capitalists excited again.

On to the meat of his comment though, and that’s Scobles’ amazement and frustration that Microsoft hasn’t responded to ‘WordPress, Flickr, Skype, YouTube, or any of the other things over the years and the suggestion that Microsft just doesn’t get it. Now, for a start, Microsoft knows what it is and what it isn’t. It isn’t a name that all the cool kids are going to go running to if they try and bring out a Facebook killer called MSpuff or whatever. For every Youtube or Flickr there are countless other imitators and it takes a certain amount of luck as well as a decent product to be crowned king. Fashion labels have been trying to discover why people flock to a certain brand or what makes those shoes ‘cool’ only to run into a brick wall every time, and I think Steve Ballmer tried to explain that with his quote:

 “I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people,”

I don’t see why Scoble thinks that Microsoft should be able to pull out some secret sauce and invent the killer app 2.0 or why they should even try - that’s not the business they’re in. As pointed out in the comments on his own page, Facebook is simply this years MySpace,Second Life,etc and people will find something else sometime soon. And Scobles’ insistence that he’s not leaving as he has 5,000 friends on Facebook is laughable. He’s mentioned many times that he will accept friend invites from anyone that asks so I can’t really see the lost business potential if 4,900 people are unable to write on his wall with their inane posts. The other 100 people probably have his cell number anyway or are members of his family. Scobles’ comment:

“Also, Facebook is now a business card collection. A rolodex.”

..sums it up quite nicey. How many people do you know that still use a rolodex? Or a Filofax? Remember them?

In short, it would seem that Scoble is the one that doesn’t quite get social networking. I admit, he’s very good at self promotion but there’s a subtle difference between the two. Once Scoble and everyone else realises that Facebook is a modern day Emperors’ New Clothes and there’s nothing to do there after signing up and stalking a few people apart from poke each other, they’ll be asking for something with a bit more meat and will swarm to The Next Big Thing.