Ballmer on Facebook: Bunch of Features

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer: (via)

““There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure,”

Robert Scoble, in Steve Ballmer still doesn’t understand social networking:

“When I worked at Microsoft I heard this over and over and over again from various engineers and program managers who STILL haven’t competed effectively with WordPress, Flickr, Skype, YouTube, or any of the other things over the years I’ve heard this “we can build that in a few weeks” kind of arrogant attitude attached to.”

This echoes what I keep hearing from all sides: community building isn’t about features. Community building is about getting a group of people together who want to be there…who see themselves as part of a community. It has very little to do with technology.

Here’s an interesting question: when is the last time you heard two Windows (or Office) users actually having a positive conversation about their software? (I honestly can’t remember hearing one)

Ballmer is still suffering from the “if you build it they will come” mindset. And to his credit, that strategy (or MS’s version of it) has worked for almost two decades. But we’re in a different place now, and now Ballmer sounds like he’s betting against the Internet.