Jonathan Schwartz's Blog: <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Scoble">Robert Scoble</A>, the next <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie

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Tuesday Sep 26, 2006

Robert Scoble, the next Katie Couric

I sat down with Robert Scoble recently to talk about explaining network infrastructure to children, the blog demon that sits on my shoulder, and the future of our marketplace serving network businesses. Please check out his new gig... (you can also click here to start watching our discussion immediately (requires quicktime, and good bandwidth)).

Posted on 09:09AM Sep 26, 2006 | Comments[25]

Comments:

Hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, Jonathan--but when I try to switch the language of your blog to Spanish, I'm getting a 403. Like the new look, though! Regards, Patrick.

Posted by Patrick Wright on September 26, 2006 at 09:55 AM PDT #

Thanks Jonathan, appreciate your support. Thought the interview came out great. Would love to have you on again soon.

Posted by Robert Scoble on September 26, 2006 at 10:02 AM PDT #

Just curious - is there a legal way to play QT files on Solaris or Linux? Or is it necessary to use Windows or a Mac to access links from the blog of Sun's CEO?

Posted by lmf on September 26, 2006 at 10:40 AM PDT #

Great chat, no tie. Excellent.

Posted by benr on September 26, 2006 at 10:59 AM PDT #

Hey Jonathan, I think you doing a great job so far with the adoption of new media and innovative ways to communicate to your customers. I just finished to watch the video, keep it up.

Posted by Innovation Zen on September 26, 2006 at 12:10 PM PDT #

Congrats on the audio/video app! I do worry about what's going to happen over the horizon: That there would be another "divide" forming amongst those who can/cannot hear well. For the interest of Deaf programmers, may I recommend that we still allow access for those who cannot hear? I can already see a future divide forming...those who need to read text and those who don't have to. I already love the blogs...I'm just not too crazy about audio formats. Comments?

Posted by Deaf Smith on September 26, 2006 at 02:25 PM PDT #

I have to confess that I was not a regular reader of your blog until recently. But after listening to the first 5 minutes of Scoble's interview with you, I paused playback, went to Google, found your blog and added you to my RSS reader. I have to say that your interview left one question unanswered for me with regard to CEO's and blogging. Must the CEO blog? I've asked the question here and am very interested in hearing your answer. Many thanks!

Posted by Teresa Valdez Klein on September 26, 2006 at 03:38 PM PDT #

Just an advice for Mr. Scoble. Please use a microphone for your own voice next time, I could barely hear your questions!

Posted by Torbjorn Kristoffersen on September 26, 2006 at 04:40 PM PDT #

Great stuff Jonathan. Thanks for taking the time to do this videocast with Scoble as it expounds a bit on what you have said in your blog and gives us a little more insight into what you (and Sun) are thinking/doing.

Congratulations on being on the inaugural ScobleShow. Don't send him a Thumper though, he already has enough toys.

Looking forward to more from your blog as it comes.

Posted by Justin on September 26, 2006 at 06:24 PM PDT #

I would listen in, but it is a lot of trouble to view QT on my Linux box at home or Linux/EOL'ed SPARC/Solaris box at the office:(. Maybe next time.

Posted by Jim Estes on September 26, 2006 at 07:25 PM PDT #

@imf You can use Helix/Real Player on Solaris/Linux to play qt files.

Posted by Bill Gates on September 26, 2006 at 11:17 PM PDT #

John, I think it will be good if you can provide transcripts of this talk/interview. Not everyone on this globe has got decent bandwidth available to them :). Vishal

Posted by Vishal on September 27, 2006 at 12:12 AM PDT #

Great interview Jonathan. Played right off on my Ferrari with mplayer from blastwave running a non-debug build of the Opensolaris build 49 snapshot.

Alan.

Posted by Alan Hargreaves on September 27, 2006 at 01:57 AM PDT #

Truly enjoyable, insightful, and inspirational.

I dream of the day I partner with Sun, A school where every desk consists only of a 30”x30” multi-touch panel, utilizing virtual machines in a centralized environment, as well as extremely dynamic auditing/distribution software. This would not only allow our children to learn faster, but enables both the teachers and machines, to educate more accurately. An educational system tailored around the individual’s trends, needs, and interests. Will allow creativity to flourish within any decision a scholar makes, conscience or not. Sun will drastically influence the next revolution in thought.

Thank you in advance, for spawning my dreams.

PS Will Sun ever deliver shared computing to the home users? As if they were getting cable or internet services, I did notice you offer this for researchers, however is it in your business model to become a CSP (computer service provider) to the average home user?

Posted by Chris Moore on September 27, 2006 at 02:49 AM PDT #

I really enjoyed watching your chat with Robert. Very interesting business perspective. Greetings

Posted by Patrick on September 27, 2006 at 04:59 AM PDT #

I am saying this in the nicest way possible, not being sarcastic or smug or anything really. Someone please tell me why is Scoble important. I tend to think of him as more like that Geraldo than Katie Couric. I mean for crying out loud, the guy calls himself "Microsoft's geek blogger". Who does that? Granted he has access and knows some people who know other people, but why, pray do tell.

Posted by HC on September 27, 2006 at 08:14 AM PDT #

SUNW executives are still in the excessive executive compensation category. I don't see how in good conscience, you can cut 5000 jobs, be unprofitable, and give away millions in stock options at the same time. Sorry for being off-topic, but nonetheless very important.

Posted by David on September 27, 2006 at 08:19 AM PDT #

Jonathan, I would love to watch but I run Solaris any chance of you going and seeing our friends at Apple and getting quicktime on Solaris x86? Or did anybody take up the University Challange? http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/contest/univ_challenge_proj_idea.jsp?=1

Posted by trevor pretty on September 27, 2006 at 01:02 PM PDT #

That was a great interview with a very interesting point. IMHO and according to your previous post [Just Ask a Teenager] while in London airport you've noticed people looking their phones not talking on their phones. You shared that revised your world view which is something i truly believed it happened. My question is this: Does SUN get this type of feedback from the non (north) American world? Is there a constant stream of signs and messages from places NOT like the big apple or north America, but more like in the airport example, finding their way to SUN executives willing to consider a second thought?

Posted by Titanas on September 27, 2006 at 03:36 PM PDT #

Love what you had to say, hated Scoble's nervous giggling (as always).

Posted by Dan Guy on September 28, 2006 at 09:03 AM PDT #

Really great interview. Thanks for it.

Posted by Call Cruncher on September 28, 2006 at 12:23 PM PDT #

Engaging video, in the proper QuickTime format, even! (The old way, under McNealy, would to be to see if everyone could eat the Sun dogfood by shoehorning the multimedia into some ersatz JMF applet, with MPEG decoding courtesy IBM.) The new way is to admit that everyone at Sun, as elsewhere, uses Macs as "client" machines. The quid pro quo for QuickTime under Solaris is ZFS and DTrace on MacOS. It would be very foolish if Sun and Apple did not do patent cross-licensing to entertain such.

Posted by retiarius on September 28, 2006 at 10:22 PM PDT #

The informality is great...lets you listen and hear the conversation/ideas...Kudos...and worth doing more of when time permits... critique: Please don't frame the interviewee so that they are talking to the umbrella stand...we're all visually literate and we can do better than that....Mic the interviewer so that questions can be heard...don't laugh excessively throughout....it's distracting when done too much...find the balance... onward.

Posted by J. on September 29, 2006 at 09:28 AM PDT #

Robert Scoble the next Couric? u gotta be kidding. Scoble is a bumbling idiot. Look at his interview with Shai Agassi.

Posted by bL on September 29, 2006 at 10:56 PM PDT #

In your interview you talk about grid computing, comparing it to electricity. But here's the thing: Your network.com SunGrid computing service still requires users to log in, submit jobs, run jobs, then pick up results. Wouldn't it make more sense to provide a nice easy web service API so my web analytics company could just send/get jobs/results automatically. Surely the network is the computer, not the people with browsers?

Posted by Kevin Hutchinson on September 30, 2006 at 02:21 AM PDT #