Robert Scoble got booted off Facebook, causing quite a stir, and then reinstated a short time later. The blogosphere had lots to say about it. The story goes that Scoble was testing out an alpha feature for Plaxo and it’s relatively new Pulse social network.
It involves running a script against Facebook, and according to Facebook, that violates their terms of use. He’s back in, according to Jerry, User Operations, Facebook. It all seems a little crazy to me. I doubt Facebook was expecting such a reaction. It’s unfortunate because as Michael Arrlington points out, Scoble basically served as Plaxo’s lab rat in this little experiment. And he got eaten up.
There is no doubt Scoble is one of Facebook’s primary users, 5,000 friends is absolutely foreign to me, and that is why he was reinstated so quickly. But as Brad Levinson discusses, what does that mean for everybody else, people without such huge followings?
I don’t know. The reaction I’ve read seems to be mixed across the board, but one thing is for certain, people are adamant. Steve O’Hear belts out that the message from Facebook is loud and clear: “Scoble — all of your data belongs to us.” Jeremy Pepper doesn’t really seem to care and some seem to think that Scoble and his blog is becoming more and more about Scoble and less and less about technology.
So was the real story the “Facebook vs. Scoble Scuffle” or is it the fact that a single blogger has that much sway and power? If so, what does that say for the rest of us?
Sadly, like so many celebs, the focus in Scoble’s mind has moved from the content to the man. He’s his own best promoter and largely doesn’t seem to understand that his first knee jerk reaction is neither a) the gospel, or b) a smart position.
Personally, I agree with Jeremiah on this one – the friending process carries an implied trust and him trying to break the rules of the context of said trust in order to transfer my data to another context is out of line and I’m glad he was busted for it.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Scoble — will he be satisfied and content that he’s been reinstated and just move on, or (and it’d be much smarter to do this) become a bit of an advocate for users who don’t have the reach and influence that he does?
In other words, will he give back to the community?