Maybe I'm grumpy because I woke up this morning feeling like crap, but I somehow wound up over at Scoble's blog, which I don't actually read anymore on account of how formulaic it is, and I found this fantastic and lovely bit of writing.

I have no problem with people saying that there's a problem with Microsoft Product This or That. I'll argue, and I'll either win or lose, but it's someone's right to say it.

It's when someone turns it into a profession that it starts to bother me.

Check this out:

Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn’t winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where’s the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo’s Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That’s how you win.

Am I the only one who finds this little speech to be both:

1. Very much of the Scoble Formula

and

2. A bit ironic

I'll explain.

The Scoble Formula, if you haven't figured it out yet (after how many years?) is very complicated. It involves several different separate and unchanging types of writing. The one we see in his most recent Microsoft is teh Sucks post can be described with this (appropriately) rambling summation:

Make an "edgy" claim that makes it look like I'm taking a huge risk. Set it up by making it appear as though I'm not partisan by throwing my target company a little bone. Then move to Phase Two in which I proceed to kick the company in the stomach repeatedly. This part does not require any justification. Just some anger and opinion. Heh, I shouldn't make my attack too precise anyway, as it makes me vulnerable. Nope, just start with Sort-of-Compliment, move on to Establishment-of-Vague-Attack, proceed to the Kick-Blindly mode, and finish with Authoritative-Statement. Provided my readers trust me and don't want to do any research, this ought to work. Heh. On a slow news day, I'll just attack my own company. Or, I would if I still worked for the corporation I'm angry with today (tomorrow it'll me another - by always placing the attention on the object of my anger, I provide very little surface area for attack on my own efforts).

Yeah. Not complicated.

The guy has turned into The Sun of bloggers. On a slow news day, he'll slap a big glossy photo of Bat Boy on the cover to increase sales.

That's the formulaic bit, then. I lost interest because there's only so much bashing of every tech company in existence (who'll it be tomorrow?) I can take. Something well thought out with a reasoned argument? I can take that, but it doesn't sell subscriptions.

Now, the ironic bit... and I'll admit before I begin that I'm only writing about this because I'm pissed. Scoble has taken his visibility and used it to become a bully. He bashes everybody - not just Microsoft - and gets rewarded for it. As a result, we have these huge flare-ups that start the situations for which I've titled this post. Then, a couple weeks later, he'll write an apology or a retraction (what a f***ing mess). What'll people remember, though? You can debunk Bat Boy all you want - people still want to read about him.

Onto the irony.

Scoble has just lectured us on "how [to] win."

There's some very basic research one ought to do whenever encountering such a claim. It's hard, and it takes time, but it's the way we avoid making a mess of people's lives (yes - there are people working over at Windows Live, and they do feel it when you openly trash their work).

One question you should ask - inspired by one of Ezra Pound's guidelines for gauging the relevance of literary criticism - is this:

Has the person who is making the claim ever produced anything of equal or greater value?

In this case, given that Robert is telling us how to win, let's take the above question and fill in the blanks:

Has Robert Scoble produced a work of equal or greater value than Microsoft?

Not exactly.

Take a look at PodTech.

Yeah, I know it's a new company and that's part of the reason they're losing dough, but couldn't someone have done the homework to figure out that online video distribution is probably one of the lowest margin business opportunities available?

Scoble has written about the problems they're dealing with over at PodTech. About how, even with their commercial sponsor, they can't even break even, and don't see a time, based on their current model, when that will happen.

Every video watched is another hit to the pocketbook. The bandwidth required to serve the kind of content they provide is far more expensive than most people would ever suspect. I don't know what they're paying, and I don't know what kind of deals with may have been able to work out with their hosting company, but it's quite possible that they're blowing tens of thousands, if not much more, just on serving those videos.

There's also the cost of travel. The cameraman Scoble hired for approximately twelve minutes. The limo. The hotels. The gear. The design. The staff. The rest.

I'm not saying they won't ever turn a profit. If they can get enough of an audience that they can demand more from their sponsors, they might do all right. But I've seen how online distribution of audio/video works and what it costs.

I have some doubts about the extent to which they researched these costs.

Scoble isn't a businessman. He takes his check from his boss. That's how it's been for years and years. He's talked to people from plenty of startups, yeah, but that's not the same as doing it.

Nobody consulted me - and nobody should have - but if they had, I would have said to do audio, or even just images with text. A typical news site, but with the Scoble brand. Whatever I may be feeling about him this morning, I'm not going to deny that his name is worth something in this industry.

My guess is that Scoble and co wanted to "get in" on the growing popularity of niche video news sites. The difference is that, when you take a look at what some of the other more successful sites are doing, Scoble's videos are too long (in terms of the bandwidth it takes to serve them up). If you don't have gobs of dough in the bank, then every minute is important. By not editing out the boring bits, the videos are going up as-is, gigantic and all.

I suspect there might even be a nice pit in the center of the PodTech offices into which staff members are paid to shovel money and then light it on fire.

He's telling us how to succeed?

And poeple are listening?

What a f***ing mess.