Famed Vic G. el google goneo.

It's the calm before the storm. That's dead obvious.

Vic's following Ted Hase, Martin Taylor and Mark Zbikowski. Weird ones there.

And it's been way more than just natural-selection to-and-fro, it's been key people in key positions, I mean, this just adds to all the Kai-Fu Lee, Mark Lucovsky, Adam Bosworths turmoil. Breeding ground for conspiracy theories, but you need not go crazy conspiracy. Just look around at normal happenings...

After the jump, Chris gets insidery.

Another shake-up looming with a rumored heavy RIF, with the WinFS fallout, the Warhol "warporware" and the WGA chaos, with morale low and new stack rank chaos, and Vista slips (with Philip Su telling all), with Dynamics not quite so dynamic, with the stock in a two year hibernation thanks to Gates's long-term pull-out, with the political back-stabbing games anew, with everyone (even Grandma investors) unhappy with Ballmer's leadership or "spend strategy." All the while, Ray Ozzie is dazzled by Web 2.0 pixie-dust and "Web Advertising" revenues, with Craig Mundie playing academia chess-game tiddlywinks.

With Adobe, Symtantec, EU and pretty soon half the world sending more lawyers in. (Bought their way out of the lawsuit hole, only to fall back in). And now with the Walmartty Kevin Turner spit and shine. Office reorg's still sinking in, with all other groups merely treading water. With the chief "blogger" that anyone actually reads being the anonymous Mini-Microsoft. All while Key Evangelists short-sell before the crash.

These tea leaves aren't much hard to read.

Even if you, like me, have no idea what WGA and "heavy RIF" are, hopefully Chris was still able to stir up some vague fear in your heart. [UPDATE: Chris explains some acronyms:]

RIF = Reduction in Force. Meaning, yes, Microsoft layoffs. Gates is no longer the protector for money-losing rat-holes. Mundie and Ozzie Ax of sorts. I hear 7,000 is the target. Mini-Microsoft may get his wish. Yet Ballmer's preaching a hire pitch, so layoffs while hires. Typical. Foot on brake and gas at same time.

WGA = Microsoft anti-piracy thing that morphed spyware. Biggggggggg fallout as it mistakenly reported a big swash of Procter & Gamble clients as being pirated. And some row with the Air Force as it did the same thing there, and they are freaking over the report back procedure something. Supposed to be blanked out for corporate keys, but individuals installed it themselves and it all invaded the network; havoc is an understatement. The inside scoop.

Earlier: Quick, let's make chair-throwing jokes [Valleywag]

1. Commodity Market Already - Existing content (Radio, TV, Video) can be flipped over without much more than an re-encode. It's a pre-made commodity market, no need to pay Silicon Valley charlatan-hustlers thousands of dollars to "show you how".
2. Lack of Talent and Quality - People want to hear existing Radio/TV shows and Audio Books, not geeks and goofball Rocketbloomish amateurs playing with gadgets and whatnot. And the podcasting hypesters are populated with the eternally wrongheaded "Medium is more Important than the Message" types. As lesser barriers to entry, is only that, it doesn't confer any sort of talent or quality along with it.
3. Not Discoverable - No channel surfing, no radio-scanning check-out concepts; you can skim thousands of news sites and blogs (or other online reading materials) in no time, not so with podcasting.

After the jump, Coulter calls podcasting "overhyped." Gee, who knew?

1. No ROI - It takes a heck of a lot longer to listen to podcasts, over reading the same material online. Most of the market, outside of certain niches, isn't going to invest that time.
2. Passivity - The market wants media without work, pre-packaged in easy forms, not eternal geeky tricks of twiddling and syncing.
3. Start Line on the Faddish Cycle - Like anything "new new" on the net, it runs through the usual cycle: massive experimental euphoria with tons of venture-speculation money thrown around, and then the serious bubble-popping cool-off phase, with a full-circle return to rational value-added markets. World changing? No. Some limited niche value? Yes. Hucksters trying to quick cash in on the boom before the bust? Tons.
4. Land Grabbing - Audio Books, Audio/Video Training Material, loooong been around. If a certain codec now works on a portable device, it's now somehow podcasting?
5. Over-hyped - It's all venture-fueled, a new new techie hot branding — firehose money at it. It's JUST a distribution mechanism; and just because you can do it and download it, still doesn't mean anyone is listening.

This was expanded from Chris's earlier, more petulant one-item list, "1. Scoble's doing it."

Photo: Hypnoradio [bbaltimore on Flickr]

So here, from Chris, is:

How to add value to the life of Robert Scoble
1. Sign up for Microsoft Software Assurance, pay triple, for yet-unreleased software.
2. Be seen with a Tablet PC; random Tablet PC photo-ops (fortunately like him, you need not actually use the hopelessly-infernal device, just make sure you are photographed with it).
3. Actually pay attention when Buzz Bruggeman goes on one of his deathly-annoying eternally-endless sales pitches.
4. Say you found an Xbox 360 actually on the shelf of some store. Miracles do happen.
5. Key repeatable phrase: "Security is everyone's problem."
6. Web 2.0 launch party invites, speaking invites, junkets, junkets. Under-the-table gifts. More junkets. Tech Conference invites. Private geek party invites.

Sixteen more (What does Chris do all day?) after the jump.

Inspired by: Halfway through my blog vacation (change in comment policy) [Robert Scoble]

7. Make no disparaging remarks about Vista, always praising Microsoft for waiting to "get it right".
8. Worship Dave Winer and develop a Stockholm Syndrome kick-in mode. Graven images and gift offerings acceptable. Key talking-point: "Dave is the true victim here".
9. Always be happy. Hear no evil, see no evil, esp. in those SLAs. Prune out the noise and only send the signal. Label all those who disagree as "trolls" or "a small, worthless minority".
10. Get Nick Carr deported.
11. Write random loud-rambling wholly-unprofessional temper-tantrum blog posts against certain journalists that have unfairly besmirched the good and honorable name of Microsoft.
12. Channel 9 foam-toy vacation photo ops. The fun never ends.
13. Buy a SPOT watch. Don't complain when the service drops out, no whiners or unhappy people need apply.
14. Buy a Ultra Mobile PC, start a fan site, endlessly talk it up. Become so isolated geeky and refuse to talk about anything else, so that you get labeled an "Evangelist".
15. Lose yourself in Second Life, call it the new OS, the dawn of a new economic age.
16. Make a Werner Vogels voodoo doll and endlessly mumble: "Amazon just doesn't get blogging".
17. Reswitch and do something dramatic, like toss your new Mac off a ten-story building, old-school David Letterman style.
18. Waste away your life commenting on the value that the Channel 9 shaky-cam grainy low-res videos provide, and make sporadic random comments about how Microsoft is "finally getting it" now, all thanks to the efforts of Robert Scoble. Too much ego is never enough.
19. Actually buy a godforsaken Microsoft Smartphone (and don't complain about the lock-ups). If you choose a Pocket PC Phone, stay quiet about the battery life and all the endless Windows Mobile 5.0 problems.
20. Banish the "business case" phrase from your lexicon.
21. Give him Microsoft money to buy up blogging companies, make him CFO.
22. Display and wear PDC 2003 swag.

Demo 2006 - The Only Honest Report on the Web

Gahhhh, sick and tired of all the blogheads yapping up every nuthead Demo presentation. So did my own research.

You know there is something downright CRIMINAL about a PC World Editor in Chief saying

"I haven't tried Riya myself yet, but it demos extremely well." - Harry McCracken, PC World

———————-

Vizrea - YouarenotgoingtobelievethisbutyetanotherdeadtiredFlickrcopycat. What's different? Microsoft droning retirees, playing patty-cake software games, Mike Toutonghi (eHome crash and burner) and the Brad Three's (Brad Silverberg, Brad Chase, and Brad Schick). And the Silverberg loyalist, Ben Slivka. Using and abusing the press and analysts, getting Gartenberg to gurbble-up the buzzwordy "contextual flow". Maybe they can sell it back to Ray Ozzie, as a Live offering. Pretty death-valley dry UI and search. Nokia inclusion something, won't get much pingback. What no Microsoft SmartPhone?

vSee - Yeah? P2P Video? Hard to make sense of just how to use this. Academics doing Video Conferencing all over again. Only they, in their supreme wisdom, have the smarts to make it actually work, why they helped found Google and Pixar. Seems only something Clay Shirky could use or understand. Have Clay get his students to do tons of research and then have him write up a paper, stealing that very research, on the "Emerging Worldwide Changing Impact of Peeeeer 2 Peeerrr Videeeoo Conferencing". As an aside, why does all this PhD smarty tech make for such horrible unmanageable code?

MooBella - IT Scream Machine, HEY it RUNS Linux. Network that Rocky Road, Butter Pecan has it's own IP. Telnet to Mint Choc Chip, FTP in some Orange Sherbet, but rm the Coffee Fudge. Homebrewish Ice Cream Machine running Linux, remote management of, I guess? Real factory tech is all embedded and seriously mission critical. This is a joke.

Ugobe [photo is Ugobe Pleo] - Ok, now this rocks. Total novelty, total fluff, but totally cool. Furby as a Dinosaur. Not sure why at Demo? Just marketing I guess. Still thumbs-up by me.

Blurb - Self-publishing redux, make-your-own-book. Pluuuzzze. Zillions of these companies preying on wannabe authors hopes and dreams. Most all fizzled. Looks another kick of the tires. The eBook Print on Demand meme dead already?

Another 19 after the jump. Seriously, this man has the subtlety of a Mack truck.

Bones in Motion - Phone as a personal trainer. Ohdearme. Talk about demographic mismatch. Real runners have all sorts of cool toys. Geeks with SmartPhones doing Excerise? On what Planet? [Well, this one. — Ed.]

Street Deck - mp3's in car? Yeah? Heck you have been able to get mp3 car stereo's for years now at even Wallyworld-like places. But hooking up iPods more the kick, one that has even big luxury car makers jazzed.

Accomplice - Yetmoregroupware pie-in-sky over-promised software. Outlook killer this is not. Snooze. Sucky UI too. Reminds me of a bad bad Lotus Notes clone circa 1998.

Grassroots - Just what the world NEEDS, yet more presentation software. Groan. Works with Powerpoint TOO. Stop the world.

Digislide - Aussie group with "projection tech" and enough buzzwords on their website to kill an Army. Patent hoard or buy us out move. Established companies, like Sony, could eat this even before breakfast.

Network Streaming - Ok why are they at DEMO? They about dead and need more Venture money to stay afloat? Remote PC and Security stuff in the appliance-based form. Sorta a real biz, swimming with sharks in crowded waters however.

PolyVision - "The New Generation of Collaboration", translation, multi-screen video conferencing, whiteboards and presentation toolsets at triple the usual price. It's the New New Generation thing, doncha know?

Tiny Pictures - Phone Camera Tricks and Social Networking something De Jour. Geepers, how many zillions of these companies are there?

Zingee - Online sharing tool. Geeee, I don't think I have EVER seen one of these before. ((Rolls eyes)). Add them to the hundreds out there, and the thousands no longer with us.

GarageBand - Sometimes there is a reason why talent remains undiscovered. Supposedly up-and-coming artists doing digital music, yadda yadda yah. Just bubbling with flavor-bursting boredom.

RawSugar - Raw is right. Tagging Searching Directory something, yadda yadda. Still unclear on the concept, after trying real hard to grep. Create your own directory of tagged stuff? Help? DOA.

Multiverse - In case you want to WASTE even more time in virtual life worlds. Reach Out and Touch Faith, Your Own Personal MMOG Generator. Someone To Hear Your Prayers, Someone Who Cares. Just think if it as the Beth-Goza-Emulator.

Krugle - Google for code? Ummm, Sourceforge turned into a Search Engine? Ad Content forthcoming?

Plum - Mash-up after Google Searching? What? Idontgetthisanddontthinkanymarketneed. Hey, whatever happened to OnFolio, like no one talks about them anymore. They were all the mash-up research rage once.

TagWorld - Would you BELIEVE, yet more Social software, with pictures and tagging and a "marketplace"? They claim 700,000 users, but methinks early start on fuzzy accounting. One-stop-shop for Web 2.0 memes? Flame out. Anyone that funds this needs to see a shrink.

GuardID - Yetanothercheaposmartcardsecurity thingamajig. Riding the Identity Theft hysteria wave. SecurID and IBM Smart Card this is not.

Riya - The famed "We-Got-Googled-Oh-No-We-Didn't" school of Shel Israel "breaking-NDAs-and-using-blogs-as-hype-and-rumor-spreading" PR management. Photo reco tech, taking old-school face-reco to the new Web 2.0 brain-deadheads. Jazzing it up on a photo site and performing geek tricks. Limited use, if you can even find one.

Kosmix - Good location at least, Cosmic. Kosmix is such a 1999 name; Attention All Space Cadets, Report For Duty. Yet more search enginey tech, just taxonomy-based, sorta, more fauxonomy to me.

Sharpcast - Sync your PHOTOS wheeeeeeee. Sync to Phone, sync to PDA. It's a "connected applications platform", honest, yes, and blah blah blah. 20 zillion of these sync things in the PDA glory years. But this one is DIFFERENT, yesiree, they have "top-notch computer scientists and MBAs" with tons of start-up and flame-out experience. So very pre-crash 1998ish. DOA.

Gosh well that toy Dinosaur Robot Toy, Pleo is cool.

Gentler reviews at DEMO 06: Morning Report and DEMO 06: Tuesday Afternoon [Tara Hunt's HorsePigCow]