Stanton Champion

Blogger extraordinaire Robert Scoble paid a visit to Rackspace today to see what was happening with technology in San Antonio and to hang out with the company. He seemed to like the place and he had some pretty glowing stuff to say about what we were doing. After having a look at our new building, interviewing a lot of people here, and getting to know the business, he did an hour long Q&A session. A few notes:

• On SXSW Interactive - I got a little bit of one-on-one Q&A time with him before the session and asked how he liked SXSW. He called it “one big party where it’s all media people.” Compared to the Web 2.0 conference, it was less about the business and more about the technology and media. He pointed out that while Web 2.0 was about 10% women, SXSW was almost 50% women indicating it had a stronger media bias and a more laid-back focus.
• On Austin - I wanted to know if he thought the SXSW attendees were mostly from Austin or if they were coming from elsewhere. He answered that he thought they were largely coming from other places. That made me wonder what his thoughts were on Austin as a tech startup center, and he just didn’t sound that impressed. He wasn’t able to put his finger on what was missing, but he pointed to “lack of good PR” as the big reason. He said that there just isn’t that much to write about here, but in Silicon Valley PR people and great stories are everywhere. It feeds itself.
• On Management - From a question in the Q&A session, he said that Google is doing things right and they’re getting better. “They’re on five cylinders now, but soon they’ll be on six. When they finally get on eight, their engine will really purr.” He pointed out that while Microsoft and Yahoo! were going to be distracted by their merger, Google would be getting better each and every day.
• On Media - He pulled out a little 3G camera phone from his pocket and started live video blogging the session on qik. His video feed went live to the Internet, but more incredibly his phone would show comments back to him as they were posted on the website. In essence, he can create a live video blog post from anywhere he can pick-up a 3G signal while interacting with his audience in real time. Instead of just being content for his audience, he turned his audience into content.
• On Steve Jobs - When asked, he said that Steve was the guy he most wanted to interview. Scoble complained that Jobs is always on message and it’s really difficult to get him to relax and talk about something other than what he wants to share for PR purposes. He compared this to Rackspace where he could get people to talk about whatever and create a “really fun” conversation. During the session, he turned to our founder and said “Of course, when we talk about stuff I’m totally using you, but then again you’re using me. Still, that’s what makes this fun.” Like with the camera, it’s clear he sees that content can flow both ways.
• On Blogging - Scoble is most known for his blog, and he was emphatic about how incredible the technology had become as a relationship builder. As he put it, he gets to share what he’s passionate about with people who are also passionate about the same topics. However, he also talked about how his blog also let him archive things about his life in a way that made it easy to dig up later. If he wrote something and wanted to remember it in the future, all he had to do was turn to Google and dig up the blog post. This ability to rapidly search through blogs was also important for companies, and he again used Google as an example where he said that the Calendar team would use Google Blog Search each day to read new posts that had been written in the past 24 hours. From that, they would identify the issues on which they needed to focus and prioritize their daily work.

All in all, Robert Scoble gave a great session, and I’m really glad he had the opportunity to visit and talk with us.

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» Tagged: 3G, austin, blogging, media, rackspace, robert scoble, scobleizer, steve jobs, sxsw

» Filed under: Business, Technology