My comments are down. Sorry about that. Tomorrow I'll move over to the new comment server.

Tablet PC blogs opens up.

Any Tablet PC freak is welcome to blog there.

Adam Barr: Scoble Risking His Job?

My response? Adam, I risk my job everyday I write in public. I hope that helps.

But, I should have stayed out of this one. Here's why. There are thousands of people working on Longhorn. I've only talked to maybe 100 of them. There's NO WAY I know all the facts. I think there's maybe five people in the world who do, and I'm not one of them.

The article I was responding to, by the way, was one where Mary Jo Foley made the claim that there's no .NET code in Longhorn's core features.

I haven't gotten slapped around, but I didn't get the don't blog this email, if it exists.

I have received a bunch of additional information that let me know that several of my points were probably incorrect. For instance, several hard-core C++ programmers inside Microsoft let me know that even they are more productive with .NET and C# than with C++ and that they aren't seeing a big performance difference between C# code and C++ (in fact, there's a research project underway to build an operating system completely in managed code).

Another incorrection? Avalon is still considered a Longhorn feature. Huh? Avalon was designed to run on Longhorn and includes several features that will either only appear on Longhorn and/or will run better on Longhorn. I've been told that, while Avalon runs on Windows XP (and is quite cool, check out the videos on Channel 9 -- Video 1, Team Interview; Video 2, Avalon 3D; Video 3, Avalon at FlashForward Conference), internally it's considered a Longhorn technology. Similar to how Microsoft shipped the Windows 32-bit APIs as a pack for Windows 16-bit (that was called Win32s). That way developers can write apps and have them work on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows, code-named Longhorn. But, I've had several emails letting me know that Avalon apps will run better on Longhorn.

Whew, I'll be glad when Longhorn is in all of your hands. I should have stuck to my policy of not talking about it until it is.

Anyway, yes, I take risks here, but if I make incorrect statements, I will correct them as quickly as possible.

James Robertson: how to hide a pitch, badly.

I agree with both James and Steve Rubel, who also wrote about this anti-blog post today. Business blogging is here to stay. But, lots of corporate missteps will happen because they don't realize that this is the "anti-marketing marketing." I was telling Shel Israel this the other day.

That at the core of blogging is anti-corporate sentiment. We aren't sure how to explain that to other corporations. Imagine going into a corporate ballroom and saying "hey, to be able to get on the ClueTrain you've gotta get anti-corporate."

That discussion just doesn't go over well inside most corporate ballrooms. Heck, even in the tech industry, which is known for innovative ways of looking at the world, we have lots of companies who don't get blogging.

What caused this discussion? Jesse Taylor's rant where he says "Public weblogs have very low accountability, and they return no information or insight back to the author about their audience."

I TOTALLY disagree with Jesse about that point. I get so much information back from my audience I can't respond to all of it. But, this information is decentralized and diffuse. My bosses can't see all of it. Which, I think, is the whole point Jesse is trying to make. Corporations aren't blogging cause they can't easily quantify it. Can't control it. Can't stop it.

So, he says smart companies don't do it. That's cool. I hope our competition doesn't get it for a long time.

The Los Angeles Times writes about the housing price bubble (they point out it's not a bubble until it pops). Here in Silicon Valley, we're sitting in my brother-in-law's (the one who works for Apple) new apartment. He decided to sell and get into rental housing because he doesn't believe housing prices will continue to rise and there is significant downside risk (also because he didn't need as big a house as what he had). Translation: he's betting housing prices in Silicon Valley will head down. It all depends on interest rates. Bob Brinker, a guy who does a radio show on finances, is warning people not to get into real estate. He's been remarkably correct at calling major market price moves.

My brother in law bought his old place, which was brand new when he bought it, for $600,000. He sold it about two years later for $770,000.

History teaches us that that kind of price increase simply are not sustainable. But, that's what I thought two years ago and many markets have just continued to go nuts.

So, the question is: how much nuttier will things get?

Maryam has a new title for me: Chief Blabbing Officer. Heh. "Cause you're always going blah blah blah."

Oh, this is cool. It's like Engadget, but done from a girl's perspective: Chip Chick.

Patrick and I were walking around San Francisco today with Buzz Bruggeman, CEO of Activewords and his girlfriend. Funny, we ran into Doug McConnell, the guy who films Bay Area Backroads for a local TV station here -- we met him on the Hyde Street Pier, he was walking around with his two kids (I've been watching his show for more than a decade). Had a nice little conversation. Then went on to Ghiradelli Square, where we had an ice cream. What a glorious day (the weather here was perfect), hope you had a great day with your family too.

Buzz has been bragging about a new version of ActiveWords for the TabletPC that's coming. I can't wait to try it out.

Cameron Reilly asks "how do we get into the next iTunes?"

I don't know anyone on Apple's iTunes team, but I will pass this to our podcasting team. Oh, am I even allowed to admit that we have a podcasting team? Heh, the secret is out.

Pete Quily is an Adult Attention Deficit Disorder coach, has a blog on that topic, but that's not what this blog post is about. He told me about Yahoo's new search engine that lets you choose between commercial and non-commercial content. That's very cool and is something I've been asking for a long time.

I'm thinking about those two guys who are in Iraq today. It's Memorial Day. I'm also thinking of the WWII pilot I met in a cemetery last year around this time who was a prisoner of war in Germany. Who are you thinking about today?

Doc Searls, Hugh Macleod, and I are doing an "unpanel" session at the Reboot conference about "what makes for successful blogging?"

It's weird, when I started blogging five years ago all I wanted was to have a conversation with my conference speakers, in particular the two or three that were blogging. (Hi Dave and Dori!)

I wonder if people hold conference sessions on "what makes a successful cocktail party conversation?" or "how to have a successful conversation with your significant other?"

In other words, a successful blog is one that either starts an interesting conversation, or guides an interesting conversation, or joins an interesting conversation.

A "SuperSuccessful" blog is one that improves the world in some way through a conversation.

What's not successful? If you get fired (of course, if you turn around and get a better job in three weeks, what's the harm in that?). If you get divorced cause of your blog. If you lose money because of your blog. If you lose your friends. If you aren't having fun.

Now, I have a few techniques that I can teach on how to have a successful conversation on a blog. For instance, you have to know what makes for interesting conversations out here on the Web. That means you should read a bunch of blogs. Then there are some simple literary devices that one can use for joining in a conversation. You could leave a comment on someone else's blog, for instance. Or you could link to someone else's blog.

Start a conversation? Say something ridiculous or bombastic. Or something that makes people stop and think about whether you're right or not. "You should be fired for not having an RSS feed," for instance, is the kind of thing that makes people stop and change conversations.

"My CEO is wrong," is another. But, be careful with that one for obvious reasons.

So, how do you have a successful conversation out here on the Web? Got any tips?

Oh, and why an "unpanel?" It's sorta like an "unconference." The audience is smarter than we are, so I'm hoping to learn something new from the conference attendees. After all, imagine a conversation where one person had all the answers and no one else had anything to add. How boring.

A friend of friend of Shel's is missing on a mountain in Vancouver and Shel writes about it. Luckily the weather is pretty good up in the Northwest. I'm not sure that talking to the blogosphere is the best way to keep search efforts going (authorities are thinking of calling off the search) but it probably can't hurt either.

Shel, is that tram on Grouse Mountain? Maryam, Patrick, and I were up there last summer. That mountain is very steep in parts.