Keeping in the theme of the occasional off topic Friday post or two (but one that at least includes Summer Glau and Tricia Helfer), I often wonder what the deal with Robert Scoble is. Scoble rose to fame via blogging for Microsoft and these days he’s still into the Internet in a very big way. He is completely immersed in the Web 2.0 world. He’s talking to the talk, but he’s at least walking the walk by totally living in it.
Scoble is prolific with the social networking services. He quickly had 5000 Facebook friends. But he’s off the hook when it comes to Twitter where he has 18,670 followers as of this writing and is following - check this out, 19,684 people on Twitter as of this writing. By way of comparison I am following about 25 people with about twice as many following me (I’m @seidman over there, but I don’t usually have too much to say because as you can see, limiting myself to 140 characters isn’t a strength!).
The huge numbers who follow the Scobleizer and the huge numbers he follows are meaningless to me mostly, but what is meaningful to me is that somehow he is able to see everything. He’ll get messages that say “how can you possibly follow so many people and see anything that is said!?!” and then reply back with stuff like “and yet, somehow I saw you.”
I like Twitter quite a bit more now that I’m using FriendFeed, but I’ll see stuff there with a few Scoble “tweets”, and then underneath it says 4,762 more and then I look, and they were all sent in the last 28 minutes. OK, I’m exaggerating, a little. But it’s just not humanly possible to do what he does, so I am forced to conclude that he’s just not human.
So which is it? Terminator or Cylon? I think it has to be Cylon. I’ve never ever heard of a Terminator who didn’t know it was a cold, calculating machine. 
Maybe Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau) is actually the first Terminator with a soul, but we won’t get to find that out unless FOX does the right thing and renews the show! But there are Cylons all over the Battlestar Galactica who until very recently had no idea at all they were even Cylons - so it could be Scoble is like Col. Saul Tigh or even Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol. He’s no Number Six though, that’s for sure.
OK, OK, I grant it’s possible he’s neither Cylon or Terminator? But human? The only way that could be possible is if he has special powers like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes. I don’t see it. I’m going with Cylon.
Update: Scoble posted the link to this post and I get to see the “Scoble Effect”, the site had its best hour of traffic today by far (thanks, Scoble!). Plus, I heard from Elliot Ng who had a simliar thought a few days before me and wrote about it here.
Now Valleywag has weighed in on the subject with a photo mashup that is soooo wrong.
Scoble image courtesy of Business Week.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Robert, funny, I had exactly the same idea 4/9 and posted it on my personal blog at http://elliottng.com. Any possibility I inspired your post via FriendFeed and thus I could get an attribution link from you?
If not, the fact that we both had this idea at the same time may be proof that we both are Cylons…
April 11th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Elliot, it’s just a funny coincidence, but everyone knows there’s no original thinking on the Internet.
You were first with the same thought, though it wouldn’t surprise me if someone else wrote about it months ago. While I don’t have you on FriendFeed (did just add you though), I do have Scoble, and just had the same thought upon seeing how much info the guy can process in an aggregated view FF gives.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I would be seriously curious to learn if R. Scoble manually clicked to follow every one of those Twitterers, or if he did the truely robot thing and automated the whole process!
April 11th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Caught the general story on Valleywag, then got here via Scoble’s FriendFeed. Personally, I’m only worried if we suddenly see the following post on Scobleizer:
“I’ve joined the new Web 2.0 service EarthDomination. Be assimilated with me.”
Oh well, it could be worse. The planet could be taken over by puppets. That’s a fate too cruel for humankind.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
@Ontario Emperor: I dunno, the puppets don’t scare me nearly as much as the photo mashup Valleywag did with Number 6 and Scoble.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
@Seidman I do hear this song in my head all the time now that you mention it. Now I’m worried. But clearly my information processing is still locked down like a human so I hope it will be a while before we become “activated.” Thanks for the mention.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Robert, I think it can be done, as long as you have the right toys.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Robert, funny, I had exactly the same idea 4/9 and posted it on my personal blog at http://elliottng.com. Any possibility I inspired your post via FriendFeed and thus I could get an attribution link from you?
If not, the fact that we both had this idea at the same time may be proof that we both are Cylons…
April 11th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Elliot, it's just a funny coincidence, but everyone knows there's no original thinking on the Internet.
You were first with the same thought, though it wouldn't surprise me if someone else wrote about it months ago. While I don't have you on FriendFeed (did just add you though), I do have Scoble, and just had the same thought upon seeing how much info the guy can process in an aggregated view FF gives.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I would be seriously curious to learn if R. Scoble manually clicked to follow every one of those Twitterers, or if he did the truely robot thing and automated the whole process!
April 11th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Caught the general story on Valleywag, then got here via Scoble's FriendFeed. Personally, I'm only worried if we suddenly see the following post on Scobleizer:
“I've joined the new Web 2.0 service EarthDomination. Be assimilated with me.”
Oh well, it could be worse. The planet could be taken over by puppets. That's a fate too cruel for humankind.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
@Ontario Emperor: I dunno, the puppets don't scare me nearly as much as the photo mashup Valleywag did with Number 6 and Scoble.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
@Seidman I do hear this song in my head all the time now that you mention it. Now I'm worried. But clearly my information processing is still locked down like a human so I hope it will be a while before we become “activated.” Thanks for the mention.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Robert, I think it can be done, as long as you have the right toys.
April 13th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Ha ha… along those same lines, have you seen this Joy of Tech about Scoble and the Terminator?
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1077.html
April 13th, 2008 at 9:50 am
LOL Rob, I had not seen that. Thanks for posting!
April 13th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Ha ha… along those same lines, have you seen this Joy of Tech about Scoble and the Terminator?
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchive...
April 13th, 2008 at 11:50 am
LOL Rob, I had not seen that. Thanks for posting!
April 27th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Now this makes more sense why Zemanta listed Scoble as a possible keyword when I was writing about Battlestar Galactica.
April 27th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Now this makes more sense why Zemanta listed Scoble as a possible keyword when I was writing about Battlestar Galactica.