Yes, I've been anti-ads in the past. I agree with Dave Winer that more money can be made around the blog than with it. Fast Company wanted to try it so we're going to try it. I've never needed to put ads up in the past.

Oh, wait. That's Fran Norris Scoble, headmistress of Pasadena's Westridge School, not egoblogger Robert Scoble. My mistake!

And Scoble knows the right man for the job: himself!

If I were working in PR there, I'd invite in regular bloggers (not just A-List egoists like that Scoble guy) and let them talk to the engineers so they can see what the engineering intent is when they are doing things that are tracking us. And stop talking like an advertising executive. More and more of my friends are getting freaked out by just how much data Google (and other advertising based companies) are collecting and the inferences they are starting to make about the kind of people we are.

Scoble, everyone already knows what you would do! If you want to return to the job of corporate schill, there's no need to re-use your pitch from several years ago. There's sure to be a Google recruiter at the next A-List blogger event you attend.

Yesterday I went to lunch at a country club over on Sand Hill Road. They wouldn't let me in because I was wearing jeans. "Excuse me?" I said in my head.

They are totally gonna get a call from his agent.

The suits vs. the geeks [Scobleizer]
Photo by Dave McClure [Flickr]

Sure, there are some mockably grandiose statements, like "Asking the question 'Why does Sun matter' is the equivalent of asking 'Why does the Internet matter?'" But there's also a cute story about Schwartz explaining Internet network clients to his five-year-old daughter.

All in all, this little chat isn't earth-shattering (at one point Schwartz seems to confuse increased phone-texting use with increased Java app use), but it's good for personal color, a way to see Schwartz "beyond the ponytail" and all. Scoble promises more such CEO interviews to come.

Jonathan Schwartz on why Sun Microsystems is relevant [ScobleShow]

• Phone fraud offender Hewlett-Packard takes another giant leap towards becoming even more of the class bully, this time with news that they actually conducted feasibility studies to figure out how to plant spies in news bureaus. To be continued tomorrow. Don't worry, by then we'll find out the government was involved in the conspiracy. [NY Times]
• Ex-Rocketboomer Amanda Congdon finds a new gig touring America. This time around the vlogger is honing her chops on the road to L.A. We just hope blogger Robert Scoble stops propositioning her. [Scobleizer]
• The Baltimore Sun got tired of writing about the ethics involved in snitching and gang violence so now they just interview bloggers like Sean Bonner of the Metroblogging network. We know how they feel. [Baltimore Sun]
• Google Co-Founder Larry Page and I have something in common. Unfortunately for me it isn't making wads of cash or being business-minded, but an affiliation with the University of Michigan, where Google just opened up a new AdWords office. [Michigan Daily]
• Al Gore's pet project Current TV finally launches their own public portal with Yahoo. That's an inconvenient truth for Google, which has Gore on its board and plays content-maker to Google Current, a semi-hourly show based on Google searches like thong girl. [Current TV]

— Beth Gottfried

• Ex-Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble may miss out on Burning Man, but he'll have fun visiting the Googleplex today with Googler Matt Cutts. Insert cruel "don't empty the snack room" line here, and send phonecam pics of Scoble to tips@valleywag.com. [Matt Cutts, photo by ~C4Chaos]
• Jason Calacanis tells everyone in the Internet industry, blog or die. Somewhere, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is pumping his fist and shouting "Yessss!" [Calacanis.com]
• RSS pioneer Dave Winer says an army of unnamed people are pissed at publisher Tim O'Reilly. (And it's totally not Winer's bitter recrimination for not getting an invite to last weekend's exclusive "Friends of O'Reilly" Camp, nor the two men's ongoing battle since 2000.) [Scripting.com]

My wife and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary (and first overnighter away from the twins!) last weekend. During lunch on Saturday, I spied a Google hat across the room and recognized the face beneath - Robert Scoble. I don't know how we kept passing in the night at tech conferences, but we'd never met. I ambled on over and introduced myself and met Jeremy Wright as well.

And AOL exec Jason Calacanis has a working lunch on a Saturday:

saturday 4pm calacanis at shake shack in madison park new york alone with burger, fries, and reading the book Wealth of Networks between checking his blackberry. he looks hyperactive even on a sat afternoon... taking notes, eating, reading and emailing

Got a geek celebrity (or a real celebrity) in your sights? Tip tips@valleywag.com.

Speaking of Apple, they are readying a dizzying amount of new products. I wish I could camp out at an Apple store during the World Wide Developer Conference on August 7th. I wish I could say more, but that'd get me sued by Steve Jobs and I don't need that kind of heck right now.

Fast-forward to this morning at the WWDC. Steve Jobs announces two new products, one of which is a rack-mount server. As dizzying as a kiddie carousel.

What was Scoble doing? Option 1: The ex-Microsoft blogger was bluffing, betting that Apple would finally deliver the iPhone or the touchless iPod so he could look like the insider that he used to be at Microsoft.

Option 2: He really does know something, and he won't shut up (as every Apple employee has learned to do).

If the former, that's pretty shady. If the latter, that just goes to show you shouldn't share your secrets with Scoble. But he's a great person to feed a false leak — which, of course, is Option 3.

McLaws is right on Windows Vista ship date [Scobleizer]

I think it's interesting that I met two of my favorite bloggers for the first time at BlogHer (both of whom are men, Guy Kawasaki and John Battelle).

You can lead a horse to water...

What I learned from BlogHer [Scobleizer]
Photo by Alex Feldstein [SmugMug]

• Guy Kawasaki was the first prominent high-tech corporate evangelist. During his tenure at Apple, the brand rose from an obscurity to the official computer maker for all cool consumers. In the last few years, the practices he started are responsible for the popularity of the iPod, the "switch" ads, and the smug satisfaction of every designer in your local wifi café, sneering at your Dell.
• Robert Scoble served as Microsoft's de facto representative to bloggers when he started pimping his company on his site, Scobleizer. It all worked so well — until Scoble's ill-advised porn shoot. Just a few months later, Scoble left Microsoft. Coincidence? Heck no.
• Vint Cerf is supposed to make people feel more at ease about Google and the Internet. How can anyone feel at ease next to Mr. Oh-so-snappy-in-my-three-piece-suit (pictured)?

Earlier: Nerdfight! Blogger Shelley Powers smacks down Zooomr
Photo 1: Thomas Hawk [Zooomr]
Photo 2: YouTube video [Valleywag]

That's right, I'm talking about the Bubble.

Today's Bubble Threat Level is Elevated. The causes:

• The Valley's best on-camera snarkers just sold out to the bubbliest podcast company, PodTech. Blogger Robert Scoble, who just left Microsoft for PodTech, hired Eddie Codel and Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV. Some say it's their wit and experience, but everyone knows it's just because Eddie's got great tits. [Laughing Squid]
• Mark Cuban, who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion, is calling the Internet overhyped. This is like Paris Hilton saying there are too many fake celebrities. [Mark Cuban]
• Cartoonist Hugh MacLeod has invaded Chicago with his wine-shilling art. [Flickr]

Photo: "it was this big" [vvt on Flickr]

Ex-Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble, who rocked the tech news world when he left for podcast company PodTech two weeks ago, linked to the real estate tour page for his for-sale Seattle-area home. Now, with the Power of the Internets, everyone can see that Scoble and his wife Maryam prefer those furry toilet lid covers. Scoble might even throw in the high-def TV, he wrote.

The $450,000 asking price is only time-and-a-half what Scoble paid for it in 2003, according to a Zillow.com chart. Looks like someone's about to learn about the housing bubble the hard way when he moves to the Bay Area.

Buy our house [Scobleizer]
Zestimate [Zillow via g-WH!Z blog]

So, why is Microsoft stock price in freefall? Cause Steve Ballmer didn't come to the grassroots and convince him that Microsoft's business strategy makes sense.

Surprise surprise, a blogger has an opinion about something important. (Let's not belabor that cliche.)

So it just feels silly to see the treatment from that eternal Register wannabe, the Inquirer. The second-rate tech tabloid screams:

This would be a slow-day-at-the-journal approach even at some trashy weblog. But the Inquirer stretches this into a full article (padding it with liberal quoted paragraphs), ending with, "Welcome to Her Majesty's gutter press, Robert!"

Sorry, Inquirer, but no one rolls in the sewers quite like you do.

Why Wall Street didn't believe Steve Ballmer (and what he can do about it) [Scobleizer]
Ego-crazed Scoble burns MS bridges [Inquirer]

• The 3,000+ existing Microsoft Bloggers (pictured): 2 to 1. Happy spin: It takes thousands to replace Scoble. Cynical spin: Finally, someone disproves "The Wisdom of the Crowds."
• Niall Kennedy: 3 to 1 Well duh.
• Mini-Microsoft: 10 to 1 Oh sure, Ballmer will lure out this critical anonyblogger — to throw a chair at him.
• Dare Obasanjo: 20 to 1 Why isn't this Microsoft blogger already huge? Because actually being a developer keeps him too busy to pontificate.

What, no odds for RoboScoble?

The Scoblelizer Replacement pool odds [Make You Go Hmm]

• Candidate: RoboScoble
• Current position: In alpha testing
• Background: Ten years trolling IRC channels and baiting Apple users. Most Mac fans unable to distinguish the bot from a real Microsoft fan. No one's sure who should be more offended by that.
• Major qualification: Unlike Scoble, bots don't need income, so Microsoft would save, like, $20k a year.
• Downside: Can't read without letting him check your computer for pirated software.

Candidate 1: Niall Kennedy [Valleywag]
Part of: Who's the next Robert Scoble? [Valleywag]

This week we'll feature five candidates for the position of Top Microsoft Blogger. The first: Niall Kennedy.

• Candidate: Niall Kennedy
• Current position: Feed syndication developer for Microsoft's Windows Live
• Background: Recently left blog search startup Technorati, where he was Community Manager and Guy Who Doesn't Get Along With Jason DeFillippo
• Major qualifications: Already works for Microsoft, already blogs, already well-fed white male

Next: RoboScoble, the as-yet undelivered not-as-cool-as-it-sounded Scoble bot engineered by Niall.

Earlier: Who's the next Robert Scoble? [Valleywag]
Photo: Niall Kennedy [Early Sound on Flickr]

Hans the Night Janitor from Chiliphone and the videoblog ElectricChiliphone just called and told me that world famous corporate blogger Bob Folder is leaving Ozark Jimmy's Global Enterprises Holding Company and will join Fold, the Silicon Valley Juggernaut. He will be moving from Little Rock to San Bruno. He does not anticipate noticing any difference.

Mr. Folder has expressed soul-contorting rage at working for the T2T (toilet-to-toilet) technology company and has also been unhappy with his compensation, which consisted of one 150-foot family spool of Ozark Jimmy's Mesquite-Flavored Japanese-Style Toilet-Bacon per fortnight.

"Delicious?" asked Folder rhetorically. "Sure. Adequate? Hardly."

Folder has created a tremendous amount of positive corporeal in-flow for Ozark Jimmy but there have been many within the organization that have resented his very public position, primary among them, the husband and wife team of Bubba Teeters, Head of Corporate Security, and Shaunta D. Teeters, Head of Corporate Fitness.

"He's a fruit pie, that boys is," said Bubba Teeters.

The company has not been able to control his views on euthanasia or his travels to various exotic "dance conferences" in Southeast Asia and meetings with "revolutionary venture capital funding cells" in whore-packed hotel rooms around the Middle East.

It is only within the past year that OZJ has tried to use Folder's position as one of the most popular and super-awesome bloggers who I know personally and he's such a sweet man and so good to kittens to its advantage, in public speaking engagements and other wet work. Before that, Mr. Folder had no travel budget and often had to share hotel rooms with up to three underage Thai "students" of indeterminate gender and bums crawling with bugs and eating curry out of diapers.

Mr. Folder might not be as interesting to some readers now that he is not at Ozark Jimmy's but he is certain to retain his rock-star status within the rock music community. Fold.com recently raised $50 million in venture capital from a clutch of shaky-handed gamblers looking for a score that will finally let them get out and move to an island in the Caribbean and open up a moped rental shop. For the price of celery salt and some shock absorbers, Fold.com has a high profile televangelist who can create a tremendous amount of buzz by dumping some powder he picked up in Uruguay into the water cooler in the company kitchen/Laserium.

It is baffling that Ozark Jimmy Inc. did not move heaven and earth to keep him chained to the ergonomic knee-chair he's occupied for the last five years. During a time when many in the fine-comestibles-and-wisdom-words/T2T technology community were still upset with the company for its alleged illegal involvement in that business with Billy-Joe Abdurrahman and the Cahuenga Brothers, Folder put a human face on a company best known for a product generally associated with the opposite end of the human equation.

1. Commodity Market Already - Existing content (Radio, TV, Video) can be flipped over without much more than an re-encode. It's a pre-made commodity market, no need to pay Silicon Valley charlatan-hustlers thousands of dollars to "show you how".
2. Lack of Talent and Quality - People want to hear existing Radio/TV shows and Audio Books, not geeks and goofball Rocketbloomish amateurs playing with gadgets and whatnot. And the podcasting hypesters are populated with the eternally wrongheaded "Medium is more Important than the Message" types. As lesser barriers to entry, is only that, it doesn't confer any sort of talent or quality along with it.
3. Not Discoverable - No channel surfing, no radio-scanning check-out concepts; you can skim thousands of news sites and blogs (or other online reading materials) in no time, not so with podcasting.

After the jump, Coulter calls podcasting "overhyped." Gee, who knew?

1. No ROI - It takes a heck of a lot longer to listen to podcasts, over reading the same material online. Most of the market, outside of certain niches, isn't going to invest that time.
2. Passivity - The market wants media without work, pre-packaged in easy forms, not eternal geeky tricks of twiddling and syncing.
3. Start Line on the Faddish Cycle - Like anything "new new" on the net, it runs through the usual cycle: massive experimental euphoria with tons of venture-speculation money thrown around, and then the serious bubble-popping cool-off phase, with a full-circle return to rational value-added markets. World changing? No. Some limited niche value? Yes. Hucksters trying to quick cash in on the boom before the bust? Tons.
4. Land Grabbing - Audio Books, Audio/Video Training Material, loooong been around. If a certain codec now works on a portable device, it's now somehow podcasting?
5. Over-hyped - It's all venture-fueled, a new new techie hot branding — firehose money at it. It's JUST a distribution mechanism; and just because you can do it and download it, still doesn't mean anyone is listening.

This was expanded from Chris's earlier, more petulant one-item list, "1. Scoble's doing it."

Photo: Hypnoradio [bbaltimore on Flickr]

Oh, that's okay, no one else has heard of Podtech either. Right now, despite a recent ill-advised VC investment of millions, Podtech's biggest asset is Scoble himself.

Anyway, the Internet abhors a vacuum, so Scoble needs a successor — an heir who can schmooze at conferences, feed Internet trolls, sell a book about open conversation, and run a blog with closed conversation.

We'll run an election this week, so here are the nominees for the ballot:

• Niall Kennedy, recently emigrated from Technorati to Microsoft, who brings his own healthy little blog following.
• RoboScoble, an automated Scoble built by Niall (which'll be a blast once the URL starts working).
• Chris Coulter, the dark horse candidate best known for insulting Scoble in the comments for each of his blog posts.
• Dave Winer, a blogger with little to no relevant expertise, but that's never stopped him before.
• Clippy.

Earlier: Emergency weekend post: OMG Scoble dumped Microsoft [Valleywag]

Right, right, it's obvious why Microsoft's emergency backup yes-man left the company — less than two months ago, he vowed:

No more unhappy people in my life.

Congrats on achieving a goal, Rob!

Microsoft's top blogger Robert Scoble is leaving.... [Silicon Valley Watcher]
Correctintg the Record about Microsoft [Scobleizer]
Photo: Glowstick Revenge [RachelC on Flickr]

So here, from Chris, is:

How to add value to the life of Robert Scoble
1. Sign up for Microsoft Software Assurance, pay triple, for yet-unreleased software.
2. Be seen with a Tablet PC; random Tablet PC photo-ops (fortunately like him, you need not actually use the hopelessly-infernal device, just make sure you are photographed with it).
3. Actually pay attention when Buzz Bruggeman goes on one of his deathly-annoying eternally-endless sales pitches.
4. Say you found an Xbox 360 actually on the shelf of some store. Miracles do happen.
5. Key repeatable phrase: "Security is everyone's problem."
6. Web 2.0 launch party invites, speaking invites, junkets, junkets. Under-the-table gifts. More junkets. Tech Conference invites. Private geek party invites.

Sixteen more (What does Chris do all day?) after the jump.

Inspired by: Halfway through my blog vacation (change in comment policy) [Robert Scoble]

7. Make no disparaging remarks about Vista, always praising Microsoft for waiting to "get it right".
8. Worship Dave Winer and develop a Stockholm Syndrome kick-in mode. Graven images and gift offerings acceptable. Key talking-point: "Dave is the true victim here".
9. Always be happy. Hear no evil, see no evil, esp. in those SLAs. Prune out the noise and only send the signal. Label all those who disagree as "trolls" or "a small, worthless minority".
10. Get Nick Carr deported.
11. Write random loud-rambling wholly-unprofessional temper-tantrum blog posts against certain journalists that have unfairly besmirched the good and honorable name of Microsoft.
12. Channel 9 foam-toy vacation photo ops. The fun never ends.
13. Buy a SPOT watch. Don't complain when the service drops out, no whiners or unhappy people need apply.
14. Buy a Ultra Mobile PC, start a fan site, endlessly talk it up. Become so isolated geeky and refuse to talk about anything else, so that you get labeled an "Evangelist".
15. Lose yourself in Second Life, call it the new OS, the dawn of a new economic age.
16. Make a Werner Vogels voodoo doll and endlessly mumble: "Amazon just doesn't get blogging".
17. Reswitch and do something dramatic, like toss your new Mac off a ten-story building, old-school David Letterman style.
18. Waste away your life commenting on the value that the Channel 9 shaky-cam grainy low-res videos provide, and make sporadic random comments about how Microsoft is "finally getting it" now, all thanks to the efforts of Robert Scoble. Too much ego is never enough.
19. Actually buy a godforsaken Microsoft Smartphone (and don't complain about the lock-ups). If you choose a Pocket PC Phone, stay quiet about the battery life and all the endless Windows Mobile 5.0 problems.
20. Banish the "business case" phrase from your lexicon.
21. Give him Microsoft money to buy up blogging companies, make him CFO.
22. Display and wear PDC 2003 swag.

¬ PR bloggers Steve Rubel (East Coast) and Jeremy Pepper (West Coast) teamed up to to form PR PR.
¬ Big sister Deathhacker battled the Z-words.
¬ Future AOL CEO Jason Calacanis ("We're also annoucing that we're buying Gawker Media") and Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble ("the free food rocks for a fat guy like me!") joined the Plex.
¬ Google blogger Matt Cutts and Yahoo blogger Jeremy Zawodny swapped Kool-Aid.
¬ Yahoo bought Web 2.0.
¬ Three Frenchmen wished Apple a happy 30th. I blame the wine.

Micro-persuader Robert Scoble: "You want to do lunch with Bill too? Call me, babe."

The horror of a pre-pre-pre-alpha screenshot of Windows Live makes a user's brain escape through their head.

After the jump, a dance move only Ballmer could love.

Microsoft, capitalizing on the MSN exec-firing spectacle, brings people onstage just to fire them, as a bloodthirsty crowd cheers and votes with their thumbs.

Everyone avoids eye contact after Linus Torvalds stands and gives his usual "I have a question, but first a comment" speech.

Microsoft parties are a well-known ground zero for hot dance crazes. This spring, watch for kids doing the "aggressive squid."

Photo source: Flickr stream by blogger Paul Mooney

The aggregated, user-customized news site sphere is already crowded, what with:

Newsvine: The first rule of Newsvine is, you only talk about Newsvine.
Digg: Entire user base has Lindsay Lohan posters on their walls.
Memeorandum: Of course Dave Winer's comments about your blog post ranked higher than your actual post. That's because he's more important than you.
TailRank: Powered by developer Kevin Burton and eight lattes a day.
reddit: Meets Web 2.0 Color Wheel specs.

Megite managed to be different from all of the above — mostly by mashing them up. By ganking Memeorandum's conversation cloud, TailRank's wide simplicity, Digg's topicality, and reddit's pastel-blue obsession, Megite may have proven the real method for Web 2.0 success: arrive late, check out the crowd, and one-up them all. Maybe it can lure MS blogger Robert Scoble back into the hole.

Megite Technology News [Megite]
The John Dvorakification of the blogosphere (I m signing off of Memeorandum) [Scobleizer]

Send your own Geeks Gone Wild pics to tips@valleywag.com.

Earlier: Geeks Gone Wild gallery [Valleywag]

Scripting.com's Dave Winer (right) gets hot with, from left, Douglas Rushkoff, unkown, and Mark Hurst. Justin Hall was cruelly edited out of this sauna pic.

Robert Scoble to Shel Israel: "Keep grinning for the camera, baby, and our royalty checks will keep getting fatter."

Chris Pirillo rents out the last ad-free space on earth. His partner Ponzi must be thrilled.

Geeks of the world! Please keep your shirts on! But if you don't, send photos to tips@valleywag.com.

By the way, one of the Blogher bloggers intends to go topless soon, according to her colleagues. Which leaves Valleywag with an ethical question: do we run the photo on the blog?

Or do we charge you $50 to see it?

Earlier: Tech pundits getting naked: a worrisome trend [Valleywag]
And then: Geeks gone wild: Dave Winer takes off more than his shirt [Valleywag]

Someone's been playing with Comic Life. A Flickr user named "Privateye" 'shopped up the shirtless shot of Naked Conversations authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. (That's JD Lasica's photo, first covered back here.)

After the jump, a comic made entirely of Riya Photo Search in-jokes.

Privateye's photos [Flickr]

For everyone who doesn't get it, Riya evangelist Tara Hunt is dating Flock evangelist Chris Messina. Apparently they're going all-raw-food. Riya's a pre-release person-recognition photo tool; Flock's a pre-release social browser. Marc Canter is the founder of Macromedia (and a strawberry).

Update: "Privateye" cracks a Larry Page hair joke.

Update: Thanks to everyone who translated. The caption says, "Google will be very pleased when they see this." Or literally, "Upon looking Google will certainly be happy to death."

Your exclusive Apple event invitation? The one from Steve Jobs and Bono? Yeah, that's fake. [MacNN]
Kleiner Perkins raises a "pandemic and bio defense fund." Says John Doerr, "We hope even a mild pandemic never recurs. But we must prepare to hold the keys to life itself for the worst." [Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers]
The blog AdamNation asks, which father/son pair matches blogger Robert Scoble and his son? The Costanzas? Sheens? Bushes? [AdamNation]
Sometimes, startup founders just hang out at Michael Arrington's place and install alpha projects on his laptop. That's just how awesome the TechCrunch blogger is. If MC Hammer ever shows up at the Arrington ranch, the Singularity will occur. [TechCrunch]