Time Magazine: Meet Joe Blog.

Hmmm, if I were a journalist, what would I ask about the blogging movement?

Question: Why hasn't traffic gone up on blogs? After all, you're still getting about 2000 visits a day and that's about the same as it was last month.

Scoble: Because blogger's content hasn't improved noticeably. Look at my blog, I link to things, and put a short comment. All boring crud. Doing "meatier" pieces (like the one I did on the Fellowship Church) takes time. And money. This is why professional journalists will always have content that bloggers will point to. Traffic increases only come when you have interesting content, and so far bloggers largely aren't improving the quality of their content (look at my blog, boring as all heck).

Real answer? I haven't said anything controversial enough to get me on Slashdot lately.

Question: how can you claim that blogging is changing the world when only 2000 people a day read yours?

Answer: I can't, it's a fad. Go onto something else more important. Like how Iran is building its own nukes now.

Question: why blog everday then?

Answer: because if I didn't, Rory Blyth would take me off of his blogroll.

Question: but Rory doesn't have you on his blogroll.

Answer: that's it, I'm quitting this stupid fad and getting a real job.

Question: is it true that your coworkers think you're an arrogant, egotistical, jerk?

Answer: I am an arrogant, egotistical, jerk. Next question.

Question: what do you think about RSS vs. Atom.

Answer: I think eBay and Amazon should pick a format and tell the rest of the world which one we should all use.

Question: But didn't they pick RSS 2.0?

Answer: Oh, I really stepped in it now.

Question: how did you get 2000 readers a day without writing anything interesting?

Answer: I don't know, maybe they think I'm gonna get fired and want to be there if it happens. Or, maybe they think that I'm putting some sort of secret messages into my posts and are trying to decode the messages. Hint: the answer is 42.

Question: When are you going to start spelling John Dowdell and Steve Rubel's names correctly?

Answer: when I get around to adding them to my spell checker.

Question: aren't the PR and marketing professionals nervous about the blog movement?

Answer: yes. Wouldn't you be if a bunch of wahoos were publishing interviews like this on the Internet?

Question: is it true that you'd be fired if you said anything nice about Linux?

Answer: yes, it's true, but I love my Linux boxes. Oh, crud, did I say that? Can we go off the record? I wanna take back that comment! Noooooooooooo........

Editor's note: we're experiencing technical difficulties, be back soon.

Click on "About" on Michael Hyatt's blog: I am the President and Chief Operating Officer of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the ninth largest publishing company of any kind. Our company is publically-traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TNM. I have worked at the company for a total of eight years.

Wait a second. Did we just get one of the best advertisements I've ever seen for the Tablet PC by the CEO of the ninth-largest publishing company of any kind in the world? For free? Without asking for it?

I'm talking to a group of PR and marketing types on Wednesday (thanks to Steve Rubel). I gotta add this to my talk. How do you know if you have a great product? When your customers start writing advertising for you for free. Dang, did I just write another half a chapter for the Church of the Customer's next book?

At last week's evangelism offsite I gave Vic Gundotra heck about our marketing. Again. And he answered back "well, you've already seen how one person can change Microsoft, so why don't you just do your own advertising?"

Hmmm, I have a $400 digital camcorder. As many tapes as I want. No budget. No staff. And access to Channel9's streaming media servers. Heh. All the pieces I need to revolutionize Microsoft's marketing.

So, I'm thinking about how to do ads that show off the best attributes of our products. So far I hadn't had a breakthrough idea. One worthy of showing off to Steve Ballmer.

Then, today, I saw Michael Hyatt's post on the Tablet PC. It's exactly what I want in an advertising series. Real customers talking about their lives and the role technology plays in it.

I can't imagine a better ad for the Tablet PC than Michael's post. Even with a multi-million-dollar budget.

Can you?