The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Blogging

Blogs & Comments.

scbarnes — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:15:20 GMT

I typically get a mixed reaction to this blog, and despite the visible negative comments on full display, the blog continues to grow in visits and RSS subscriptions.

I often ask myself "why the hell would anyone want to read my rants" and after speaking with customers in both Microsoft and Adobe space, it's clear that whilst at times my posts aren't the most popular in mainstream thinking, they do convey an opposite view to the usual Adobe aggressive stance towards Microsoft.

The ones that do complain the most, typically never visit my blog except when someone within the Adobe ethos decides to blast a post of mine or two on why I'm getting it wrong in their eyes. Usually when this happens, I simply groan at the amount of comments that are likely to come through, this time not by my regular readers, but simply by folks within the Adobe community all worked up and ready to take down Microsoftee a peg or two.

I at times engage them, trying to tease out whether or not this is about the context of the post in question? (maybe I got it wrong? tell me how) but typically it's more about Microsoft in general and how they have somewhat conflict towards our presence in the market in one way or another.

Yet, they never really come back, typically it's a once off thing, come to the blog, dump your hate mail and then leave.

What's the problem with that you may ask? well it does convey a one-sided view in many respects, as if you like a post or simply nod & calmly agree with a post, you rarely typically feel the need to comment, unless it's something you passionately agree with.

Comments rarely give a balanced view, they simply are a traffic diversion from another persons blog.

Yet, I still comment and the rationale as to why I post comments on other peoples comments are simply this:

We are listening, and we may or may not agree but we're listening.
Here's our point of view, if anyone cares.
Interesting, tell me more...
I agree with you. Well done!
Congratulations on this moment in time.

That's simply my mode of operation, but it usually fans the fire if the blog post in question is heated towards Microsoft or it simply adds a layer of authority as well, in that if someone is conveying a point that is in factual, well, now they have the official Microsoft response.

Comments in blogs really don't represent the majority thinking, it's simply a case of degrees of influence. In that, if you had 3 major high profile blogger's cast a seed of anger towards another persons blog, then it's highly likely the comments will be filled with anger. Same with praise.

It's as if the blogsphere has a wolf-pack mentality, follow the lead wolf, attack where he/she attacks.

So with that being said, I'm making no apologies from here on out in moderating the comments on my blog. If you have a mature, point whether it be negative or positive - or - is contextual towards the post, fine, I'll allow it through.

If you're just the usual ass whom is about to sprout ignorant remarks around why you dislike Microsoft, then this isn't the blog for you. Feel free to post that on your own blog though.

Transparency is something we should never take for granted, but at the same time wolf-packing sites with comments from one-off-visitors really doesn't represent the tone of the majority. It just simply gives the usual suspects a soapbox to stand on for a brief 15mins or so.

If there is a mature point of view, one that has a point, by all means negative or positive, please post.

If you dislike this decision, then this is not the blog for you. All the best.

Scott.

.NET version of WordPress?

scbarnes — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:19:16 GMT

Whom of you fellow ASP.NET folks out there has a blogging solution that trumps Wordpress in terms of features and modules.

I'm curious to see what kind of blogging engines exist in the .NET side of things as for me, personally I have always felt that Wordpress is by far one of the best blog engines today (Moveable Type 2nd).

That's quite a bold statement to throw out there, and the gauntlet has been thrown on the ground to all my fellow .NET friends.

What's your favourite blogging engine and why..

I'm open to what you have to say in this space.

Welcome to 2008

scbarnes — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:01:16 GMT

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2008..

Resolutions for this year:

Enjoy more time with the family
Spend more time in and around community events with folks.
Publish BeyondTheBrowser.NET RIA I've worked on for the past year.
Have fun at Microsoft...

No Planes, No Conferences, No Meetings

scbarnes — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:14:16 GMT

I've been traveling quite a lot this year and meet with some amazing folks in the process. Well, my travel is up for this year and I'm looking forward to spending some much needed R&R at home with the family and get back to basics - coding some proof of concepts.

I've got a lot of projects I want to get out the door to illustrate the products we have on offer, but do so with a focus around RIA (whichever your terminology of choice).

What does this mean to readers of my blog? well expect to see less talk and more code coming forward, specifically around Silverlight and how it's capable of "..playing well with others.." (something we at times lose sight of).

In saying this, if you want something built as a proof of concept, send me a piece of email as I'm all ears and will look forward to ramping things up a little more around what's possible with the technology.

I'm also looking forward to revamping my blog, and moving it slowly over to Mossyblog.com as in order to show all some of the cool concepts I've been working on/off for the past year, I'll need to upload via a hosting environment that allows more than just "CSS overrides" (sorry, MSDN.com has restricted access for us employees).

Here's a sneak peak at Mossyblog.com so far:

Also, for those of you whom are interested, I've setup a Shared RSS Feed over at Google.com/Reader. The premise for this is I'll be blog-spotting if you will things of interest that have a focus around Microsoft, Adobe, Design, RIA and AJAX.

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05747974255093491793

Do we blog for passion, or is it pride?

scbarnes — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:14:21 GMT

One tag, yet so powerful in so many ways is the <A> tag found within the old skool language, HTML. It can do a lot of things to a lot of ideas and at the same time can amplify a lone voice to inspire thousands - or - annoy the hell out of thousands.

Last night, I watched Robert Scoble get all juiced up on Wine and give his presentation on Techmeme and how to reverse engineer it. I found it quite a sight to see him do this on camera, number of reasons mainly it showed his motivation around link backs was - for me - all wrong and kind of made me wonder at why I continue to subscribe to him there after. I know why, as at times his signal to noise ratio is ok, and thus I'm happy to donate my eyeballs to his discoveries.

That being said, I've seen many other bloggers obsess over the amount of traffic they get, more importantly whom links to them and how they value their input. I admit at times, I find myself checking out technorati to see whom has linked back to this blog but, more to do with "what reaction did my last post get" (as at times you make a post, wake up the next morning and go - can I have a blog mulligan please?).

This is the commodity we trade with now, and to be linked by TechCrunch, Scoble, Techmeme, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Digg all mean instant blog stardom. This stardom may last 5secs or it could last a month+, either way what truly worries me the most is we've some how formed an informal online geekceleb committee. If they like you, they bestow upon you wealth - if they hate you, fear the wrath that is about to be unloaded upon you.

Is this what we signed up for when we started to blog / build an idea? to have others accept you in a way that generates traffic or is it more to do with getting back to basics and blog for passion instead of pride.

Personally, I'd prefer to keep my traffic low and engage with quality and not quantity as for me that's where the grass roots of why I blog come from. I love to read comments that challenge an idea, as you get to have real dialogue.

Twitter the new Blog?

scbarnes — Tue, 22 May 2007 08:10:25 GMT

Last week I listened as Chuck explained Twitter to someone whom has never heard of it, and he essentially explained at as being a consolidated version of blogging. I however up until then would always explain twitter as being a disconnected version of Instant Messenger (simply due to the reply approach) - yet - both could be argued as being correct.

This got me thinking a little on what Twitter is truly hinting at, and why I guess it's popular. At MIX07 I was at a Silverlight party, talking to John Udell about it and I argued that all successful Web 2.0 applications have a hint of silliness about them, and that in turn is why it makes them successful. As when you think about it, take one of the foundation pieces of the Web 2.0 world - GMAPS.

Here we have human beings, jumping online to find directions or gain a keyhole look into the world from above. We memorize as best we can the directions, we then embark on our journey and half-way along, we forget the way points we memorized (well I'd argue majority do anyway). How stupid is this concept, but it's not as it hint's at potential goodness.

Twitter, is a classic for me. As last night I had my left big toe nail removed by a doctor, and via my Black Jack phone, I was able to twitter a minute by minute account of the experience and folks were interacting. It was actually quite helpful, as it was extremely painful experience but I was laughing at some of the twitter comments. Why! Why on earth would anyone want to subscribe to this line of conversation! and more to the point what were people thinking as I typed my "The Doctors back, she has needles!!!"

Blogs today have kind of lost their way thanks to aggregators (we adjust our blogs based on what mainstream aggregators will listen). They have taken on a whole new life from the early days when I'd read "Ping" files from programmers at id Software about what they were up to. Today, it's to structured, we have an apparent etiquette how we blog, so much so Tim O`Reilly & Co are looking to formulate some rules and standards of practice (I unsubscribe from this as I dislike it's very existence)..

Point is, I like Twitter as it's chaos, it's a way of publishing thoughts online in under 140 characters and no rules. People don't like it, don't subscribe! - just like blogs, you don't like it, don't read!.. If you don't like someone's comments, delete them! We are heading in the wrong direction with blogs, and I for one hope concepts like Twitter give birth to the next generation of blogging.

I love my twitter.