Microsoft Blog Business Summit in SF: Chockablock with marketers
. . . and Robert Scoble
I should be writing an end of week wrap but I'm exhausted from running around all over Silicon Valley. Summer is usually slow regarding news but this time it's not. And everybody I know seems to be the same way, busy.
I did gatecrash the Microsoft sponsored Business Blogging Summit reception Thursday evening and ran into the indefatigable chief editor of ZDNet Dan Farber, New Communications Blogzine publisher Jen McClure, and Phil Gomes (now blog czar at Edelman).
I didn't go to any of the sessions, but, it seems that Robert Scoble, Microsoft's "Geek Blogger" seems to have come out of the marketing closet. Check out these sessions on the first day:
In the session "In Building Traffic: Posting isn’t Enough!" Robert Scoble and Dave Taylor promise:
In this session, you'll learn some of the best ways to build blog traffic quickly, increase interest in you and your product or service, and improve your bottom-line results.
Plus:
Tips and tricks to keep your visitors coming back for more.
Later in the day Robert Scoble and Janet Johnson provide tips and tricks in the session: "Dealing with Bloggers: Partnering and Defense Strategies." Which includes:
* How to get the bloggers to deliver the right positive message(s) * Prioritizing the bloggers * The power of linking to your critics * Saying you’re sorry—what the Lawyers don’t know.
Then on day two, Robert Scoble and Dean Hachamovitch provide the keynote: "Why Microsoft is Betting Big on Bloggers and RSS." And they promised to reveal:
where the world of blogging and syndicated content is going as they create the largest single platform on which business bloggers will deliver their messages.
I'm a big fan of Robert Scoble, who writes the popular Scobleizer blog.
I first met him earlier in the year when he and I were on a Nooked sponsored panel [Nooked is also a sponsor of SiliconValleyWatcher] at the Syndicate conference in New York.
And I remember a fascinating conversation at dinner when he said he found it impossible to lie online. Every time he tried to fudge something, his readers spot it. I said maybe we could devise a sort of Turing test to see if readers could spot a lie, because I agreed with him, there is something about writing online that means you can't hide behind inauthenticity.
Robert Scoble is also a text-book brilliant example of how to blog, and how less is more. Also, until fairly recently, Microsoft barely knew he existed. Yet he is one of the giants of the blogosphere.
And Microsoft's PR department wasn't too happy with his popularity. Microsoft didn't stop him from speaking at conferences but they wouldn't give him a travel budget and he would also sometimes have to use his vacation days. That's why he had to share a room with Jeremy Pepper of POP! Public Relations at the Syndicate show--which demonstrates how his extraordinary passion for blogging surmounts any adversity.
My concern is that if Microsoft has now woken up to the power of blogs, and is now using him so blatantly as part of its marketing efforts, he will be seen as a marketer and much less so as a A-list blogger. There is a difference and I'm sure you know what I mean.
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A star struck Scobleizer meets Silicon Valley's Babe Ruth: Steve Jobs
http://www.blogbusinesssummit.com/
Blog Business Summit speakers
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