Tech Goes Boom

I think you might be overstating things a bit. First of all, you start out with the classic Microsoft vs. Apple argument: numbers. Quantity != quality. Just because Microsoft has more bloggers than Apple (there are a few Apple folks with blogs), doesn't mean it's "better" across-the-board. I can tell you that the number of Microsoft bloggers isn't influencing whether we re-up our Enterprise Agreement.

Apple has a different game to play than Microsoft and they're a different company. Blogging isn't for every corporate entity and maybe Apple is an early example of that. Microsoft has no problem funding its legal team -- maybe Apple doesn't want to pay its lawyers overtime to read every employee blog to see if they've broken their confidentiality agreement, spoken during an SEC quiet time or leaked key details about a new product. Apple needs surprise to keep consumers, business press and stock buyers interested -- why take that away from them?

Dave Hyatt's done a great job of putting a public face on Safari...

I didn't mean to make a raw comparison of numbers, but instead to point out the difference in culture that has arisen. Microsoft's blogging culture puts a very warm and fuzzy face on MS in a way that costs them almost nothing.

Apple already employs a security team that scours the net looking for leaked information. I've seen them in action. They are already policing this kind of activity. Instead of firing people, they could instead enforce published loose blogging guidelines, like don't reveal information that would be affected by an SEC blackout, if you're not sure what information this is, ask your manager. MS has done an excellent job of inspiring a community of bloggers without leaking sensitive information.

Apple has always been big on surprises, not to surprise their customers, press or stock buyers, but to remain ahead of their competition. After being ripped off so many times, they want to assure that they are first to market on new technologies, which serves as a purchasing point for Apple. I'm not sure how useful this is today though. Now that Apple is playing the standards game, they benefit much more from elegant application of standards than from shocking new proprietary development. And while product like the iPod have been copied, those copies have been universally lousy. Apple's competitors often fail to see what really makes Apple products great. Unfortunately so do it's customers. That's where blogging can make a difference.

Dave Hyatt does a very good job. Unfortunately, he comments only on Safari, and not on Apple in general. Dave has a great personality, and I would love to see more commentary from him. Dig through his archives and read his post about his first day at Apple. It's hilarious.

"Microsoft's blogging culture puts a very warm and fuzzy face on MS in a way that costs them almost nothing."

You're kidding, right? To me, it puts a hypocritical, paranoid, two-faced, propagandist face on Microsoft. You've got bloggers promising stuff that the execs are denying, bloggers denying what the execs are saying, they act and pretend as if they invented blogging....

It's not about information leaking or not at all. It's like Abu Graib where the Military Intelligence can deny they told the underlings what to do and the underlings can claim it was the MIs or the MPs or whatever damn else.

TK: huh? Can you provide some details? I don't remember an instance where a weblogger directly contradicted an exec.

I also can't remember any instance where we acted or pretended that we invented blogging either. Although some of our bloggers have written news aggregators like RSS Bandit and others have built blogging tools.

I don't deny that blogging can put forth a non-unified face to the public at large. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

What is really of benefit to MS is the fact that there is a perception of transparency. It's showing that they don't have anything to hide. This is extremely important for them considering their atrocious public image. This kind of blogging by the normal Microserf helps counteract stupid crap like the Alexis de Tocqueville MS sponsored FUD.

While they didn't invent blogging obviously, I believe MS really deserves credit for bringing corporate blogging into the mainstream. It shows a lot of moxy on their part to allow employees this much free reign. And while ultimately it may not be a success on some fronts, it shows MS's willingness to venture into new and possibly damaging spaces.

Scoble, TK here... I'm Goebbels on your blog. Now do you remember when somethign you said contradicted what the execs were saying.

And you don't act like you were the first to discover blogging? Jesus...

Joe, I agree having a mixed bag of messages is a positive thing for Microsoft, but it doesn't come off as transparency whatsoever. It comes off as a huge smokescreen. It creates plausible deniability. I keep running into situations where an exec will say something, then a blogger will say no they have it wrong, then the exec will say somethign different, then the blogger will say something different... You ask anyone of them: who should I beleive, what is the truth? Then they will say: well, it was true when I said this that that was happening but things change so now its this, but now I think it's going to be this in the future... blah, blah, blah.

Now this sort of puddle of mud and finger pointing can affect some people, but for others, like myself, it is simply loathesome. Why do I care if a low-level MS programmer doesn't like the Tocqueville report if I know it's funded by MS. It's the same thing as having Ballmer go out and say, "Open source is a cancer" and then the next week Gates says, "We don't mind Linux, we aren't threatened by Linux, we even like Open SOurce, it's just the GPL we don't like..." Cross messages are transparent: they wish the desired effects of both messages, but really neither is supported or meant. And with no clear timeline or hierarchy of messages they always have an excuse to deny whatever has been said.

Hell, Scoble even just said it a few minutes ago:

"While you see me supporting RSS 2.0, that's my opinion and should never be taken as Microsoft's official stance on the issue.

Not to mention that even if Microsoft did have an official stance one way or another, that stance would change in reaction to customer demands and market conditions."

Great... get every possible message out there... One will stick, right?

I would also add that you've completed stated the problem incorrectly. Yes, people think workers at Apple are locked down when it comes to information, but it has always been known as a hip, fun, counter-cultural place to work. Apple has never created the image of Borg drones toiling away for the Beast. Microsoft has... So, yes, Microsoft needs to create the image that their employees are actually happy, normal, fun people. Simply because no one believes it.

Microsoft also lvoes throwing out every conceivable message that they think will sound good to their customers... Not only does this seem like they are trying to satisfy customers, but they can also completely deny, ignore, or revise what they said when they find out it doesn't satisfy the customers.

Apple on the other hand always wants to present a single face, a well-coordianted and singular image. Also, note that when Apple messes yp, they don't generate a chain of retreats (in terms of release schedules, feature sets, etc...) They simply take their lumps.

On the other hand, I've actually heard it said that Microsoft hasn't missed a scheduled release in years! Ha! Hilarious, the reason MS thinks they can pull off such comments is they release a complete FUD schedule three to five years in advance and begin retreating and rescheduling it immediately, often having three or more execs citing different schedules simultaneously.

So, yes, Microsoft benefits from its blogging... But the effects are not wholly beneficial... They may be for Microsoft because they are already trying to overcome certain perceptions and/or are already engaged in marketing techniques that produce similar effects.

However, no one ever doubted that Apple has happy, fun-loving people working for them. Nor would they ever engage in a propaganda campaign where they produce a cacophany of messages and intentions to confuse their customers.

TK: Do you work for Apple? You seem to be very defensive toward a post that wasn't even an attack on Apple... but merely an observation and a suggestion.

I've never played the "Find the inconsistencies" game regarding MS employees' blogs and official statements... but I think you're trying to call them on a problem that doesn't exist.

I've never seen an MS blog where an employee has ever posted information with even the slightest suggestion that it is in any way official or supported by Microsoft. In fact I'm pretty sure all of them have disclaimers explicitly stating otherwise.

I've found the community that has grown around Microsoft's blogs to be an invaluable resource. If I havce a question about why something works the way it does, I can actually ASK the person who made it that way!
In numerous situations over the past few months I've made significant improvements to my current project thanks to tips I've gotten from various MS blogs.

TK, you act as though you think all of Microsoft is one collective mind that deliberately forces all of its employees to say different things in an elaborate attempt to confuse their customers.

As I see it, through my small participation in the windows developer community, the exact opposite is true. I find that most if not all of Microsoft's employees are independent, thoughtful, intelligent individuals who really truly want to help their customers and fellow developers. Many of them are also understandably proud of their work. That's hardly something I'd fault them for, however.

TK: Not being entrenched in the MS world, I'm not aware of any inconsistency with blogs vs. management issues. Not to say that they don't exist. But that's not really the point I was trying to make. I was actually addressing computer users as a whole and how my colleges and my opinions of MS have changed as a result of this blogging. While it seems your perception of that is different, and it seems at some level you believe there is smoke screening going on. That may very well be the case, but it's not something that I see. Like Brandon, I find the MS blogging community incredibly interesting and helpful. While your perceptions seem overly negative, I'm interested in how you came by them. Were you running into misinformation while trying to make purchasing decisions or developing a product? Just curious.

While Apple doesn't have an overtly negative image, they have been taking a lot of flack over quality concerns on a number of products over the last year. Apple's typical response to these problems has been exactly nothing. It's like a roach motel, concerns go in, but they don't come out. iPod battery life, eMac and powerbook display problems, all not acknowledged for a long time, and while yes eventually dealt with, it took far longer than it should have. And built up a lot of resentment. I know. I was one of the people taking those blows from Apple's customers. Apple does not simply take it's lumps. Often it tries to avoid them at all costs until made to deal with them by it's customers.

While a lot of people in the Mac community have an image of happy workers at Apple, a lot of people have no image at all because Apple workers have almost zero exposure. From my impressions, most people working at Cupertino are very happy with their jobs. And that's great. Let them tell people why they are so happy.

"I've never seen an MS blog where an employee has ever posted information with even the slightest suggestion that it is in any way official or supported by Microsoft. In fact I'm pretty sure all of them have disclaimers explicitly stating otherwise."

That's exactly part of the problem I am mentioning.

And, no, I don't work for Apple, and I am rather platform agnostic.

Joe, I run into MS misinformation every single day. It's not a matter of looking for it. Just the brief and simple example above from Scoble a couple of hours ago: "This isn't an official position, but I like it. If it were an official position, it is likely to change at any time." Great. In other words, just flood the market with positions and hope people like what they hear. In one instance, I took Scoble to task when he stated that the WinFS developers knew exactly what features would ship... An hour or two later he pulled that back, knowing it was a patently false statement. However, he didn't remove the initial comment, kept making comments like: "I can promise you that Longhorn will be the greatest OS ever." Then a few days later, someone wrote a negative Longhorn article--what was Scoble's reply? That it was too early for anyone to try to make any claims about Longhorn. So I commented: "Okay, Scoble, I'll remain that next time you start talking up Longhorn." Now that blog entry and my related comments are gone. In the former blog entry where he and I were discussing WinFS, he posted this hilarious ludicrous reply claiming he painted me in a corner for not acknowledging all of the lovely things MS had done... Something I didn't think I had to do... A few hours later, that comment disappears. Scoble said somethign went wrong with his blogging system, but miraculously not a single other blog or comment was missing.

As for Apple's problems with product quality, how does this relate to blogs. I don't see how an Apple developer or hardware designer or marketer would help in anyway. By my reckoning, Apple has responded to all of the recent problems. You can claim they've delayed or tried to keep it quietm, but I have routinely worked my way through their discussion boards. What you find is the problems are less widespread than what is reflected in the press. Ina "Ian" Fried of CNET routinely pastes together a story from a small posting on a Mac rumor site, and then the Windows' sites pick up on it. And isn't this exactly Apple taking its lumps?

Jobs announces that they blow way past all expectations for iTunes downloads. He says he is going to really up the ante and have an aggressive goal of 100 million. They don't make it, everyone comes out in droves saying that they had a business projection that they fell well short of, and that's a sign of problems. Huh? I thought Jobs was overstating his goal on purpose. Does he come out and say, "Well, we weren't sure we could make that, we've actually scaled back our goal to 75 million, we're happy." No, he says, we fell short of 100 million. Microsoft would just keep readjusting the target til they reached it. Same with product flaws: Apple hasn't made excuses... They've encouraged people to return products. They have replaced products. That's not propagandizing and re-assessing the goal or problem the way Microsoft does.

Why is it that when Microsoft has to reintroduce a different product with different features, or kill entire products or technologies altogether, or reschedule releases, everyone says: "See... they do listen to customers!" No, they don't... They killed by customer opinion and the press and have to change their plans. Apple more frequently takes their lumps. Bad things happen and they let it happen to them. Even when the problems are much smaller than perceived by the media who makes a stink about them. Just look at the security issues now... All of them are minor (has Microsoft ever had a flaw called HIGHLY CRITICAL that could be disabled with a checkbox in the preferences? I don't think so... Maybe registry edits, but not a simple change in preferences.) Etc...

And, wait, you have the impression that Apple has happy workers? How did you get that without extensive blogging? Oh, it's simply in their culture and history. Not so with Microsoft though, huh? So, as I said, Microsoft has different goals to meet through blogs than Apple. Apple isn't well served by the blog.

Sorry, the previous statement was by me, of course. And I was typing fast, please excuse some of the rather crude errors.

"TK, you act as though you think all of Microsoft is one collective mind that deliberately forces all of its employees to say different things in an elaborate attempt to confuse their customers.

As I see it, through my small participation in the windows developer community, the exact opposite is true. I find that most if not all of Microsoft's employees are independent, thoughtful, intelligent individuals who really truly want to help their customers and fellow developers. Many of them are also understandably proud of their work. That's hardly something I'd fault them for, however."

No, I don't think they are of one mind. That's what I find to be a problem.

As far as independence goes, I've had a discussion or two were the blogger essentially got to the point where they wanted to admit that the design or feature or message was the wrong one and that they disagreed, but they also pulled back and began to clam up. Shut the conversation down. Or situations where they basically conceded they were powerless and weren't the ones who were responsible or even considered a source of input, hence they were completely useless to talk to. What's the point of talking to someone who's views, opinions, thoughts cannot and will not be reflected in the products, directions, visions, actions of the company they work for?

TK: I worked for Apple for over 2 years. That's how I got the impression of happy Cupertino Workers.

That being said, I can tell you from that perspective that Apple has a lot to gain at least internally from the communication offered by blogging. I believe that it could gain a great deal from inspiring the open culture that MS is now doing.

Regardless of the evil of The Beast, they are dedicated to fostering an open culture. MS believes this is where business is going. I think Apple could greatly benefit from it. There are a number of reasons why.

1. customer trust
2. increased communication
3. greater product exposure
4. cheap advertising
5. supplementing and encouraging the Mac Community

The list goes on. I think that the Pros outweigh the Cons in Apple's case. Sure there is a possibility that misinformation will get out, sure there will be confusion. But those things will settle down as people find their rhythm and Apple adjusts to it. No one says it won't be difficult at first, but ultimately I think it would be very rewarding.

I don't want to really delve deeply into Apple's product issues, but I do think that Apple needs to be more open to feedback from it's developers and technicians. While many of them were over-blown, like the iPod battery issue, many were quite legitimate and poorly handled by Apple. Apple's process for finding and identifying these issues doesn't do a good job. Apple's people are great, but like any company a lot of it's processes are broken. An open community would be much better suited to dealing with these issues.

Scoble and MS with all their faults have created something that is very useful to a lot of people. It has it's faults and it's issues, but to me at least, it presents a great value to the company and the community. Do those faults compromise it's value? Ultimately that's up to the company and the community. But so far I would say no.

And we disagree. All of the MS blogs leave me with a feeling of disgust. I think it does do them a greater disservice than a service.

I don't want Apple to have cheap advertising, I want them to have better communication but not through staff with no authority to communicate anything, the Mac community (in terms of web sites, discussion groups, user groups, community, commentary) is quite strong on its own...

This also raises the question: why would blogs (if for internal use) be more useful than discussion boards. I currently think the discussion boards on Apple's sites for tech support are much more effective a format than blogs for dealing with product issues. If Apple needs internal communciation, I would imagine discussions with threads are more appropriate... If you are talking about communicating non-technical details across divisions and work groups, we know that is entirely antithetical to how Apple is organized.

Thing is I think that MS is trying too hard. They have msdn blogs, aspblogs, dotnetblogs, etc etc... Personally it feels like someone up high said "we need mindshare... everyone start blogging!" The linux and apple communities feel more real, more ad-hoc and not like they were "organized" into existance.

I'm with Joe on this one. I was at Apple for eight years (ATG 3D graphics).

Blogs are easily the single most important thing to happen at M$ to humanize them. Absolutely brilliant. Spend a few minutes watching those videos at Channel9. Can you really come away not feeling just a little be different about M$. Many of the speakers in these silly videos are absolutely terrible speakers. They speak in this goofy, halting, geeky manner that I find myself cringing at. But they are *extremely* effect at making us connect with them on a human level. Brilliant.

I'll go even further: The M$ blogs are as effective for M$ as the slick iPod ads are for Apple.