Day: July 12, 2006

Jaysus what a crowd of preening self-appointed “experts” we have spawned up here on the InterWeb.

Oh you know them….

Dell, an oft maligned target of the Web 2.0 glitterati, have kicked off a blog. Now this is excellent. The company is making an effort to get a voice out on the Internet. Is it perfect? Eh no. Is that the most important thing? No.

What’s most important is they are getting out there. What’s most important is that they are willing to have a discussion.

The reaction from the blogerrati, many of whom are jumping hysterically all over their efforts, belies the immaturity of this thing we call blogging.

Get over it folks.

Well done Dell, keep working on it. Listen to feedback, engage in conversation and learn.

PS:
Some measured commentary from Kevin Dugan, Shel Holtz and Andy Lark.

PPS:
Did I miss the election where all the experts were voted in?

You know there’s a bubble coming.

In “Interweb time” the bust was a long time ago and the frenzy of “Web 2.0” start-ups and services would seem to predicate an Internet Boom 2.0.

This is particularly obvious when you look at some of the new services.

How about a press release distribution service that offers to send your press release to bloggers.

Feel free to read that line again, it is what it says.

Now a service like that could only be set up by someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time blogging. Because believe me, after a couple of months of blog posts the PR spam e-mail will start to arrive promoting irrelevant companies and products that you have no interest in.

Why would you sign up to recieve these releases? Let me re-phrase that. Why would anyone in their right mind think that you, a blogger, would sign up for the service? Beats me.

According to themselves, The WeblogWire came about following a challenge to:
“build a viable web startup in 1 week, while spending no more than $500.”

I hope they gave the $450 they had left over to their investors.

Darren Barefoot put his $50 where his sarcasm was and posted a press release over the wire entitled:
“Marketer Intends to Write Blog Post Criticizing The WeblogWire”

The press release was duly published but was pulled soon after. He’s still waiting for news of his $50….

Come back Tom Foremski all is forgiven 🙂