More comments about stuff under NDA 
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Jesse, heh! You really don't want me to be a Microsoft employee for long, do you? 
I like you at 10,000 ft. Seems like you have a good view, and draw interesting conclusions from it.
The blogospherical navel-gazing (which we all do) is not as interesting. Also lately there has maybe been an excess of introspection about MS and blogging at MS. Understandable but not as enlightening as, say, what is .NET or where is Longhorn going or why MS thinks tablets are the NBT or MSN's role or Apple vs MS or Mozilla vs IE.
There are two great things about you as a blogger (okay, you asked):
1) You never take offense. You take a punch better than anyone, and learn from it. This is something I can learn from.
2) You are curious about everything, and have an honest air about exploring stuff you don't know.
Finally I like that you occasionally mix personal stuff in with the technical stuff. Makes you seem more real.
Ole
Cool. This will just take time as I build more friendships on more teams and get confident in speaking for them a bit.
Likes:
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1) There is almost always something new to read when I visit, and it's usually about stuff that interests me
2)Personal Stuff - I like to see how people I admire in many ways are a lot like me
3)MSFT related stuff - I like stories about things go there, the meetings, bloopers and all the other "human" stuff that happens there.
dislikes:
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1)Photo stuff just does not "do" it for me. Whenever you start talking about taking pictures, using *this* camera or *that* camera, my eyes go glazy.
2) Reading about the latest tablet PC interests me in a programming context and technology context , nothing else. They are obviously too expensice for me to get one, so the more you talk about it, the more I get the "I have it and you don't" feel. But maybe that's just me (I'm freaky paranoid that way
3)"I met *this* guy, he's CEO of *company*, and *this* guy who is incharge of *that cool thing* and *that* guy as well"
If you're meeting so many cool people and live to tell about it, don;t just blog about the fact that you met them, tell us what went on, cool stuff you heared, who *they* are, what *they* like, not just how cool they are.
Ugh. I really should check my spelling.....
Actually Robert I really like your current weblogging voice. I don't have a thing that leaps to mind in the "make him stop" category. I like your mix of work and personal or tech and people. I'd love to hear more about Longhorn (other than go to the PDC ) and I'd like to think that you can relay some of my unease about the poor state of IE, for example.
I like the varied content you post, and I like that you post very regularly - lots of weblogs are very interesting but are only posted to very infrequently, Scott Guthrie and Rob Howard (yes, I'm an ASP.NET junkie) being prime expamples.
Longhorn...hmm..I probably should be more excited about it, but its' a few years away, I'm just getting to grips with Windows Server 2003, and I like minimal interfaces (the thought of a 3d enhanced UI fills me with horror).
If you can get developers excited about Longhorn, you'll really be doing your job (big companies will get it anyway, it's the little people which should be targetted).
Other things I like about your blog, links to other blogs - odd though it may seem, there's a ton of weblogs, its' nice to build up the community in this way.
Things I don't like - Tablet PC...don't get me wrong, I'd love to have one, it's a bit like reading about exciting things someone is doing on their yacht with their model wife...love to be there, but I'm not...
I like the fact that you expose me to new sources of news and opinion outside the well entrenched circle of 'a-list' blogs. I didn't follow very many Microsoft/Windows bloggers until I started reading your site.
Stop bitching about 18 readers all the time. It's not true and it's sounding tired. It's starting to rank right up there with your 'i'm an ashole' that you used to say all the time. Sure glad that ones' gone.
I like your blog. Except sometimes it doesn't sound real. The Outlook post from a few days ago sounded fake, for instance. There IS a reason why WordML has been created, because people want to be able to produce and consume content even outside Word, which gives more value to the product.
I understand you don't want to say bad things about your company's products but if you want to keep your credibility, be as objective as possible (your wife was right that sometimes it sounds like you're holding back
Hi
I have noticed a wonderful new and powerful voice creeping into your blog as you start to include the real you as well as the news and technical items.
As you talk about what it has been like to move to MFST - the tensions that your work and blogging put on your marriage - you become more human and your views on other matters have more weight.
The paradox is that the more the real you comes out, the more attractive you become and the better messenger you become.
I enjoy your blog more and more
Yours Rob
The other comments have implied this but I'll state it straight out - I appreciate the role you play as aggregator/editor. You obviously process a ton of input every day (whether through meetings, lunches, dinners, reading blogs and e-mail, etc.) and you have access to important and interesting information through your contacts and job at Microsoft. The great part is that you summarize a lot of that for us and provide links if we want to get more detail. I know that is a lot of work and I appreciate it.
I don't mind the name dropping and dinner reports, especially if they're filled with links to other interesting stuff.
I appreciate your openness about your wrestling with your situation with blogging as a Microsoft employee. Please send the message to your management loud and clear; candor will serve you well in the long run. You can trust your customers.
I'm also personally very interested in the TabletPC and any new developments in that platform.
Bah!
Don't conduct surveys like this one
You've *naturally* garnered quite a crowd. The reason people are here is that they like to read what you write.
You post often, which is good. You sometimes link to the small guys (like me, and thanks by the way), which is good since it gets people out of the A-list loop. You don't seem particularly worried about what people will think about your posts, which has you doing to occasional restaurant review, or whatever, and so on...
This is all good stuff. The reviews, the little stories, the tablets, and the rest.
The only thing I don't like is all the name dropping, but the simple explanation for that is that I'm jealous. No magic there - just plain old jealously
Anyway, I think you ought to keep some of the nice things that people have said to you in these comments. For the rest, though...
Well, let's just say that I think you're better off not thinking too much about what people want to read. You're doing a fine job.
A question just popped into my head: Are you asking because some of your readers are complaining? I have yet to have anyone complain to me (I've had unnice notes sent to me, but that's it), but you're a much higher-profile target.
If it *is* in response to some complaints, then I hope that they represent a fairly large contingent of your readers. I would hate to see you stop posting restaurant reveiews because one angry person in Kentucky didn't want to hear about what you had for dinner.
Yup. Just keep on truckin', monsieur.
Great comments, thanks. Nah, no complaints, just wondering where to take this and what adds value to people's lives. I'll react more.
As for "18 readers." I make fun of that cause I really don't know how many readers I have. So far only about 10 responses. Maybe I only do have 18.
I pretty much like what you post as you post it -- nice range of information etc.
I don't find the photo posts all that interesting, but I don't hate them by any means. And I would agree that it'd be nice to get more information about the cool people you meet then just that they're cool.
P.S. The number of actual readers should be some factor greater than the number who bother to reply to any given post (this factor would, of course, depend on how much people care about your post).
I'd guess you hvae at least a factor of 5 more readers than will reply to this post, but *shrug*.
Steve, thanks. I'll really try to do a better job of reporting on the interesting people I meet. It's hard to do, though. I sorta wish I could have a TV crew follow me around so we could do Charlie Rose kinda things on blogs.
Another thought on the "18" part. It's a bit of wishful thinking on my part. Sometimes I wish I had a smaller audience. If I always have a mental model of having a big audience, I start to get a bit scared. Speaking in front of 18 people is fun. Speaking in front of thousands? Scary.
The only thing I could suggest for improvement is: You often talk about all the people you had lunch with, or talked with and how great it was, but often times I feel those posts are lacking because you don't share the interresting things you talk about. It is great and all that you had lunch/dinner/chat with them, but why do I care if you don't bring any content or interresting ideas from the conversation you had? Below is a post from my weblog made when you posted about mainly linking to MS bloggers. It sums up the good things on your Web log:
Scoble claims that he is linking to more MS bloggers than anyone else. And he seems to write like that is a bad thing. What does it matter? I read his weblog because he (almost) always have something interesting to say and links to interesting people. Why should I care if he is mainly linking to Microsoft bloggers? I keep coming back because he keeps "introducing" me to interesting people. I wouldn't care if they worked for Microsoft, IBM, Sun, or even McDonalds, provided they had something interesting to say and got me to think. My time is valuable and I don't want to waste it, so I want to thank Scoble and all the other people on my blogroll for everyday giving me something new and fresh to think about and introducing me to even more new and exciting people.
Scob,
You don't know me from Adam but you can now add me as reader no. 19 to the number of readers that view your blog daily. If I had to choose one feed, right now it would be yours. Keep up the great work, mate! Your a time saver.
I tend to read less a weblog when it gets too many items posted. Call this the Doc Searls syndrom if you want
When i see a bunch of items from a single weblog in my aggregator, i skip them because it would take too much time to read them.
So maybe you should post less.
Eh, it's just my opinion by the way, feel free to post 50 times a day
JY, I'll be posting less over the next few weeks, so feel free to read more.
I say: Post less/more when you have less/more to say.
I remember a couple weeks ago when you were posting well after most of us had already gone to bed.
You said something to effect of, "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and say, 'I just gotta post!'"
That's not even remotely an exact quote, but it was a good indication of your desire to post when you have something to say.
If you don't have anything to say, then that's all right. I'll be saddened by the lack of updates, but also completly understanding.
Anyway, a coupld days away can do a lot to refresh your noodle.
So, post when you want to. That'll keep your blog in good shape. Don't obligatablog (I think I just combined the words "blog" and "obligate," but the result is so hard to say and read that I'm not sure).
More technical stuff ala Brad Abrams/Don Box/Adam Nathan weblogs. Specifically about things you are working on.
One of the things that I like about the MS weblogs that I mentioned above is that they can provide detailed information about how certain items in the .NET framework that you cannot find in the documentation. Usually you either e-mailed them or saw them at a conference somewhere.
Your blog is a hotbed of story ideas and the only one I make sure I read everyday. I like the simplicity of you just saying 'this rocks' or 'hey, look, gartner is picking on ms again'.
if there's one thing i'd like to see more is your own personal thoughts/responses to anti-microsoft rants, instead of just pointing to them.
Also, the more links, the merrier. I sift through them all.
Less MS advertising. Be more objective instead of constant MS championing. We know you work for them, we appreciate some incite, but it's so blatant sometimes...
Robert, doesn't weblogs.com give you tracking data on your blog, so you can see who is looking at it?
I would think this would give you SOME idea of how many readers you have.
James, I get some info, yes. But, I have a sneaking view that it's not real accurate (due to lots of people reading me via RSS) and it doesn't really tell me much. For instance, I see I've gotten 200,000 hits in the past year. That doesn't really tell me much.
Dude - fork over the free soda, that's what we want. We know you have access to it, so cough it up, pal.
I'll take some Mug rootbeer. Either that or Sierra Mist. That stuff's better than Sprite! Mmmm.
You know, speaking of that, I wonder just how much MS spends on the free soda. Hell, I bet they're spending a fortune just on the electricity to keep the stuff cold! Yes, more statistics is what this blog needs.
Heh. I'm getting sick of all the soda, actually. I find I've switched to TalkingRain flavored waters.
Well, let's see. 55,000 employees. I drink three drinks a day, on average. So, that's 165,000 cans.
Let's say Microsoft gets a nice discount, of, say .$50 a can. That's $82,500 a day in drinks. Whew.
Robert, you seem like a good egg.
Listen to your inner voice when it comes to what you want to write or don't write. When you stop listening to your own voice and start writing for others, you become less truthful to yourself and to others. As a rule, people can tell if you are a phony or not sooner or later.
Although I don't weblog, I thought the point of these things is to put down thoughts you want to put out there and share them with others. In a way your thoughts in your weblog add to the diversity of ideas which, in the end, might make the world a better place. When you start down the road of surveys, you start to self-censor yourself. "Will they like me because I wrote that?" or maybe "Will MS fire me because I wrote that?"
I guess 'blogging' can be collaborative, informative, provacative, and sometimes cathartic. When you share your ideas with the world, you take a risk. Just ask Maryam about the student demonstators in Iran taking risks, or take a look the risks that democracy activist in Burma is taking.
If you write about things that are important and truthful to you, then these are risks worth taking. You can always get another job, but you only have one reputation.
Probably already mentioned here, but lots of stuff to read, and as a linux user, it's interesting to see the view from "inside" the microsoft camp. Most of the web I'm in is geek/linux/non-ms type folks, so reading stuff from someone who doesn't think that MS is the anti-christ and being evil for everything they do.
That and it's a good read, keep it up!
keep it up, i wouldn't change anything
"be yourself no matter what they say"!
I also appreciate the role you play as aggregator/editor.
Some of the comments thus far remind me of the line from Amadeus when Salieri tells Amadeus he has too many notes in a composition, and Amadeus replies "What notes would you have me remove?".
This is YOUR blog. You have an incredible amount of useful, informative, entertaining content/links, and that is why I come here for my daily read.
Each of us will read what interests us and skip over the rest.
If you're looking to expand, isn't it more reasonable to ask the other 5,999,999,982 people in the world what they want?
As a .NET developer who loathes the platform, I really appreciate all your links to the various Microsoft technical bloggers. It not only helps me to put a human face on Microsoft, it also gives me access to some of what I've found in Linux and lacking in Windows development: That huge resource pool of other people doing cool stuff from whom I can learn.
I could skip on the latest "research group X or benchmark group Y finds platform Z faster with more ROI than platform W", it always takes a few weeks for the holes in those stories to come out (when they're not just flat opinion pieces), and no matter which side they were favorable towards it always comes out that the deck was stacked. On the other hand, that does remind me which team you're playing on...
Like the personal insights, maybe a few more pictures with that camera, and, as always, keep excited about whatever technology you find cool at the moment. Even when I think it's lame it's a good reminder to me to look at software and hardware with a different set of use cases than my own.
If not, what were all the witch trials about? http://www.buy-home-hobby.narod.ru/
freaking BS, I enjoyed the IP http://www.thispot.com/forex-books.html
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