Robert Scoble Thinks There Are Only Two Great Tech Blogs – and I am Understandably Happy

On Friday Robert Scoble published a list of 160+ people worth subscribing to on FriendFeed for everyone interested in technology news. Quite understandably, this list have become one of the most discussed things over the weekend with people either criticizing Robert for this list or thanking him for compiling it.

I think that I have the most obvious reason to be happy about making the list as according to Robert’s comments there are only two great tech blogs - Ars Technica and Profy. And while it makes me feel sorry for all my friends authoring other tech blogs that I would have classified as great willingly myself, I am still happy - and I think everyone will agree I have all the rights to be happy about it. But that’s jokingly, of course - but I still have a few things to say seriously about why I am quite happy of making the list myself and why I think such a list was a great idea.

First of all, I think that no matter how hard we may pretend we don’t care about yet another pat on the back it still never hurts to know someone thinks you do a decent (good, great) job. When this someone is an expert in the field you yourself work in, it is a double pleasure. And this explains the number of “thank you” posts from people that made the list and this is where I add my own voice here. After all, if no one tells you you do something worth doing, how would you know you do?

There was also a number trackbacks Robert’s post received starting with “Thanks God I did not make it”. Even if I offend someone here, I will still say what I think: I believe it is at least a little of hypocrisy simply because being on such a list will not hurt you in any way - if you get a few extra subscribers that trust Robert’s opinion yet you yourself don’t really want extra visibility and don’t want to have extra comments, you can always avoid subscribing to these people yourself and even hide them.

Honestly, if you don’t make it on the list and think you are supposed to be there, I think a better idea would be to either leave a comment on the blog post to be added if Robert left you out by mistake (you can see a few such examples in the comments) or try to figure out why you think you deserve it while Robert thinks otherwise.

The main argument against the list people seemed to use in comments was that Robert used the usual linkbaiting technique to get a lot of links back to his post after people notice the links to their own content. But I have to say that it is not exactly true because instead of linking to the original content these people produce Robert chose to link directly to their FriendFeed accounts. Last time I checked FriendFeed did not notify me when someone linked to my account so I only realized I was on the list myself after I checked the post itself. So if you don’t follow Robert’s blog (or don’t subscribe to him on FriendFeed or Twitter or elsewhere), you will be able to simply not notice this list at all.

Be even if Robert gets a lot of links to this particular post (and is already getting them), all the Google juice Robert will receive for this one seems to be absolutely well-deserved to me because it is a great work and all the traffic this post receives when people search for “tech bloggers”, for example, will actually be valuable not for Robert only but for all those tech bloggers on the list as well. So whatever it is, it is an example of sharing love by spending quite some time picking the best and the most useful tech content.

Think about it: the technology blogosphere is growing more and more crowded and it is simply impossible to follow everyone for the majority of web population. I myself subscribe to a few hundred of people on FriendFeed and it is already quite noisy so I am pretty sure I miss tons of interesting content already. And only a handful of people have the time and commitment to be as active as Robert is in following so many people on FriendFeed and actually noticing the best content and sharing it with their own audience.

So for everyone criticizing Robert for not including you in the list or for linkbaiting, just imagine how much time it must have taken him crafting the list by sorting the best technology-related content producers out of his 3,300 subscriptions.

And if anything, to at least some people (and I’ve already seen many comments proving it) this list will be a way to discover some new tech personalities to watch and find something new outside of the usual names and blogs everyone reads already anyway. So I think this is a very useful idea and probably something we should see further attempts in - like a list of the best “blogging tips” people on FriendFeed and similar lists in other topics as well.