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How Important A Good Tool Is (for FriendFeed)

I’m going to scramble out on a limb like Toto the Monkey.

Robert Scoble has mentioned (in a good post by Louis Gray here) that he’s scared about people not understanding the many Social Services around today (please correct me if I’m wrong).

A good tool will solve this. FriendFeed (and the others) should invest in the creation of a Tool that will bridge the gap of their Service and the public awareness.

For me, the Tool that caused me to _get_ FriendFeed was twhirl. It allowed me to see what was happening, from a desktop app.

socialweb-001

I think the web services need to examine more carefully the importance of a desktop app to bridge the gap between them and the world.

It doesn’t have to be a desktop app, but that’d be the first context I’d pursue.

Should the Social Web Services spend more time on a Tool to bridge the gap between them and the general public? And should they care?

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Scoble Agrees With Calcanis, Startups Cannot Afford Slackers

Scoble (Robert) has voiced his opinion on Jason Calcanis’ "opinions" about (Web) Startups and Slackers. Ha ha, Techcrunch has an amusing take on it.

I’m not sure how many "startups" of the Web 2.0 nature exist within the Clarion universe. Probably zero or less.

But I think this opinion is valid for any team seeking to excel. Of course, you can bury yourself more easily in a large bureaucracy. Still, this is just a question of drive, character, determination. All those things that Robbins and his ilk mesmerise us with.

There are days where I’m a slacker. But there are more and more days (and nights) where I work like a fiend, late and later into the night.

Working hard means nothing. So being a slacker, by that logic, means nothing too. What counts is working smart. If you can work smart for 4 hours a day and make a living, upholding your responsibilities, then kudos.

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Something New At Microsoft

I don’t normally pimp other stuff. Wait. That’s not right. I DO normally pimp other stuff.

A guy I give a fair bit of reading time too is Scoble. He’s posted about a new project at Microsoft here. It sounds pretty exciting, but I’m a hype-monkey, so go see for yourself.

Course, there’s nothing concrete there, because he’s under some kind of Cone of Silence. Man that was a cool invention, how much fun would it be to have one in your office, and pretend to be the chief and Max.

Personally I’m also excited about the next few months Clarion-wise. Some of my projects are coming to fruition, and one will be completed (according to the milestones which are never wrong). I’ve not had an actual completed project in a fair while. Saying that I realise completed is a hard category to obtain.

Nevertheless, it is an exciting time. There’s a lot, a LOT, of cool stuff happening throughout the dev world, and I hope Clarion will be some of that.

Clarion raised me and I turned out Clarion (I just used this homer quote in a forum, but it’s so good I’ll use it again).

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Leaving The Nest

I imagine it would be easier to leave Microsoft now than it was ten, even five years ago. The cosmic forces have shifted. But not entirely. There is still a great deal of prestige and weight behind the big guru, and walking away from a high-profile job would leave behind a lot of wonderful opportunities.

Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) has left the building.

Opportunity is what he did it for though. To keep excited. There’s a great little exit-interview (Microsoft Watch) that popped up today, well, technically yesterday for us yobbos is ozland and all counterparts.

It’s good to read about a guy who has made blogging into something important in a business sense. And by that, I don’t mean breaking through and getting ten thousand dollhairs a month from Google Adsense.

I mean, he’s made businesses actually put time into researching blogging, making it part of their overall plans, their strategies, etc etc.

It’s healthy reading.

Nuff for now ..