Intel's New Chip: More Important Than Cancer

Robert Scoble, the former Microsoft blogger who's now a exec at podcasting startup PodTech, recently engaged in the following exchange with one of his readers:

Reader: You think Intel making a smaller chip is more important than cancer?

Scoble: having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Scoble, the 86th-most-linked blogger on the planet, is angry that more blogs don't link to him, so he made an example of the tech site Engadget for ignoring two videos he shot about Intel's new chip:

Today Engadget has an article about a cancer patient getting their Xbox ripped off. You telling me THAT has more news value for Engadget's readers than a tour of Intel's factory which also included discussion of Intel's new chips coming out later this year and how Intel got that breakthrough done? Give me a break.

Intel's a PodTech client that has paid the company to produce a gauzy promotional video about its new chip, a relationship PodTech was two days late in disclosing.

Though Scoble claims he wasn't paid to produce 48 minutes of unedited, more-important-than-cancer video about Intel, I can't see any sane reason he should be treated as an objective judge of the company's news value.

Scoble's the vice president of media development for PodTech. Intel's a major client. What would Scoble have said if his visit to its factory revealed an underwhelming new chip that's only as important as Restless Leg Syndrome?

Podcasting · Intel · Podtech · Robert-scoble · 2007/02/05 · 9 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

This is like the third blog post about Scoble that I've read today. Citing pretty much the same things. And it seems to be a bit eerie how that is happening.

Overblown? Yep. I'm not going to blog it.

If you don't like what Scoble's doing, drop him from your reading list/RSS reader or whatever. Was Scoble being a cry baby in the first place? Yeah, and he admitted as much later. Live and learn.

As far as the Engadget article on the cancer patient and the Xbox rip off, I'm pretty much shell shocked at this point. I've seen too many crimes that make nationwide news just because the victim is white and good looking. The same kind of crimes happen every day to other women, but because they aren't white, or they aren't good looking enough, or they don't have money to show for it, they get ignored. But that's getting off track.

Why I'm reading about this, again, now, is beyond me.

#1 · Bryan Price · 2007/02/05

Wow, that's, um, actually, sorta Cruel. Thanks Rogers! At this rate we, your red-headed step children, can just move in here. Thanks again.

#2 · OrangePlus · 2007/02/05

I'm trying to get that site back online today before the users migrate and the rest of the web gets mad at me.

#3 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2007/02/05

I am moving all my stuff onto Drudge. Can we do images, and have picture contest here?

What is the policy for posting pictures of dogs?

#4 · Dusty · 2007/02/05

Mr. Price, you're reading about this because when Mr. Scoble responded to the reader he made an ass of himself. It's funny how a lot of these geeks think they're smarter than everyone else and yet often miss the obvious. Like don't be an insensitive jackass. And oh yeah Captain Obivous, maybe just maybe that since LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE CANCER they might be offended by the "having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people," remark. So is Jackass I mean Scobel a descendant of Thomas Malthus? Funny how Mr. Scobel's response is couched in such a way that would make us think we would have to choose. Could that be because - and this is a wild shot in the dark - his bruised ego was speaking instead of his intellect. get back with me on that. And I'll tell you another thing Mr. Price. You are reading about this because, as far as I know, Mr Scobel never apologized for that specific remark. And when you say something like that, it has a ripple effect and people talk about it.

#5 · LoneStar J.R. fellow jackass · 2007/02/05

Dusty, I don't recommend moving all your stuff to Drudge. Apparently the maid at Drudge has a real problem with some of the toys and costumes the borders there bring with them, and has been know to banish tenants that refuse to hide them away. Add to that the fact that some of the other renters are of subnormal intelligence, are really uptight and constipated, and don't understand concepts like sarcasm. I don't believe you would be happy there.

#6 · fnord · 2007/02/05

The heck of it is that the story Scoble was annoyed that people didn't care about is... boring.

I'm all for "How It's Made" stuff about everyday items, but I know the rudiments of how chips are made, and at that basic level (which I'll betcha is the level of the tour), all chip factories look (a) the same and (b) about a hundredth as interesting as the manufacturing process for LP records, oil filters or metal chains.

Interviewing the people who make things about what they're making, as Scoble does in his first two videos, is an excellent way to make your viewers flash back to their primary school excursion to The Box Factory. This is why "How It's Made" contains no interviews at all.

If the core of the story is "Intel uses large expensive factory to make CPUs that're faster than the ones you could buy last year", then that story hasn't changed for, what, 35 years now :-)?

Oh, and the videos Scoble's so proud of are 320 by 180 un-enlargeable pixels (so Scoble's best friends, with their fast PCs and high res monitors, have to squint to even see them...), and you can't even seek forward in them to data that hasn't yet loaded.

Which is rather disheartening when you start looking at the first one, which is 40 minutes long and opens with a man who is actually called Mark Bore (OK, Bohr, but you get my drift).

#7 · Daniel Rutter · 2007/02/07

cool this is really great i might think about it

#8 · efe · 2007/11/12

my bad cancer is more important

#9 · efe · 2007/11/12