Today sucked.

Today the doctors sat us down and gave us the news my brothers and I had a sense was coming, but weren't prepared to really hear.

The stroke was catastrophic. They weren't able to save her brain. She is, for the most part, gone. About the only processing that's going on is that she's able to see us out of one eye, barely recognize that someone she knows is in the room, and squeeze our hand.

I'm reserving my real emotions. But, let's just say that this is about the suckiest thing I could imagine. Turns out she'll be lucky to live out the week. She signed a do not rescuscitate order and told all of her friends and family to let her go if she was going to be in such a state. Thankfully that took most of the hard decisions out of our hands. But it still was tough not overriding her wishes.

If there's some good that might come out of this, please sit down and communicate with your family about what you'd like to have happen in a similar situation. Do not leave these kinds of decisions to your next of kin.

Anyway, now I gotta stop crying, pull myself together, and fly relatives in from around the world. (Her sister is reading my blog, hello Tante!) There are many family and friends who can't make it here. We really appreciate your kind thoughts and prayers and we're reading these to my mom, she tugs on my hand when we're there, so the notes are comforting. If you need to talk with me, I'm on cell phone at 425-205-1921.

How do you say goodbye? One hand squeeze at a time.

Damn, this sucks.

One of the nice calls I've received over the past couple of days came last night as my brothers and I were walking around downtown Billings. It was from Jake Savin. He told me he had just started working on the Live.com team at Microsoft and had just moved up to Seattle. Awesome. Jake and I worked together at UserLand (he was one of the developers on Radio UserLand, and is a pioneer in blogging and Internet software).

At the very moment I was talking to Jake on the phone, we came to Jake's restaurant here in Billings. I thought that was very weird, so I shot a photo and sent it up to Flickr.

I see that the New York Times is putting us in the middle of a talent war with Google. Alright Jake, this war is all on your shoulders now. Heheh.

Jake's (the restaurant) is already demonstrating one way that search could be made better. Search for "Jake's Billings MT" and you only get reviews and intermediaries and noise. Does this restaurant have a Web site? We don't know for sure unless we dig through page after page of reviews and do several different searches. Here's the results:

On Live.com. On Google. I like the infinite scroll on Live.com, by the way. One thing we learned from our research with users is that most people don't click on the "next page" link. So, we got rid of it. We're now finding that people who use Live.com look at more search results than they used to.

This is one of those times when I'm not sure what to write. The size of my audience is causing me to wonder. Most of you are probably here to read about my insider thoughts about Microsoft or the tech industry, or because I find cool links to various tech industry things.

But, life is intruding here and it's my personal blog, not a PR vehicle, so gotta push those worries to the background and just write about what's going on in my life and let the chips fall where they may.

We saw my mom yesterday (all three of the Scoble kids arrived at the Billings airport at the same time, which was pretty weird considering we were flying from three separate cities).

When we first saw her, she opened her eyes, stared strongly at us, and had a tear in her eye. She vigorously squeezed our hands. That comforted all of us. A little.

Well, I won't bore you with the emotions I'm feeling. Or the decisions that are going to start coming at us (we're meeting with her doctors today).

I did want to thank everyone for the very kind notes. About 150 comments, all of which were very kind. Many phone calls. Many emails (including emails from people who work for our biggest competitors). This stuff really makes times like this a lot easier. I'm going to read them to my mom (finding what to say to her is really tough).

Needless to say that the next 48 hours probably won't see much blogging.

A little technology note (you know I couldn't resist) the machines that are keeping track of her vitals and helping her breathe are running Windows. Yet another demonstration of just how many machines Microsoft's software is running on.

Bad news arrived today. My mom is in the hospital. She had congestive heart failure over the weekend and it got worse from there. Yesterday she had a stroke, I learned today, and they tried to clean out the clot and didn't get it all, so the doctors are telling my brothers that it's very likely she'll see moderate to major paralysis of her right side. And she's not out of the woods yet.

Why am I saying this all on my blog? Cause it's interesting how family members and friends use my blog to learn about what's going on in my life and also to help. I got a phone call and email from friends of my mom's who found me through search engines. (Yet another reason I leave my cell phone and email address on my blog).

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be flying to Montana to see her and my brothers.

Emotionally it hasn't really hit yet (my mom and I weren't close, but she's still my mom and I'm not ready to lose her). It's going to be a long week.

I'm off to Wikipedia to learn more about stroke and what the future for my mom holds. Anyone have good information and/or suggestions of things to ask the doctors? One nice thing about having such a smart audience is lots of you have already gone through these kinds of experiences.

I've already shared my OPML with Dave Winer's new service. Opens tomorrow. TechCrunch has the details. If you can't wait, my current feed list is on NewsGator (it's a Web service so you'll always see the latest list here). Two weeks ago I deleted all my feeds. I'm already back up to 99 feeds. Will be adding more over the next week. I've raised the bar to get added to my list, though. I want to increase the geekiness factor of what I'm reading and get away from the more marketing and business oriented blogs. Why? Cause I want to focus on people building software, since that's what I'm interested in most.

How do you pick feeds to subscribe to? How do you clean them out?

Update: Dave Winer says "it's an instant hit" and gives more details.

Shel Israel starts out a new book, titled "Global Neighborhoods," by interviewing Ireland's Tom Raftery (he runs an IT conference there, among other things).

Speaking of Global Neighborhoods, Lenn Pryor (my former boss, who now works at Ebay) and I are trying to put together a SkypeCast for the next week or two.

He's in London. I'm in San Francisco, flying back tonight to Seattle.

Last week I met an employee who lives in India. He reads my blog and told me all about what he sees as Microsoft's problems from his perspective.

Has our technology changed how we relate to each other? Damn straight it has. Can't wait to see what Shel learns in this next project.

Two posts caught my eye this morning:

1) Warner Crocker wrote: "When Success Breeds Contempt: The UMPC Fiasco."
2) Sam Purtill wrote me an email and also posted this in my comments: "Most of the Web developers out there utterly hate Microsoft." and "However, you guys need to win back the developers if you want [Windows Live] to succeed." In an email to me he asked "Does Microsoft have a plan or an initiative to win back web developers? Everyone hates you guys in our industry, and MS doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. You guys come across as cocky, monopolistic, and I've even heard some people call your company a form of communism. Please don't disregard my email, I will definitely regard what you have to say in a reply."

This stuff hurts, but if we don't pay attention shame on us.

One huge advantage? These guys are still talking with us. Someone who is willing to engage usually is looking for some response that tells them that we're listening and looking for a conversation (yeah, there are exceptions, but in life I've found they are actually pretty rare).

This morning I spoke with Shel Israel to the MeshForum in San Francisco and we talked about just these kinds of issues. That corporations now have the ability to listen and learn that they never had before. From a global audience.

I showed off how I use NewsGator to watch what anyone in the world says about "geek" "software" "Linux" "Apple" "Microsoft" among a variety of other topics. You don't need to be a famous blogger to be found anymore.

That's my plan.

Now, what's Microsoft's plan? How about listen to the customers and make better products for them?

Business isn't rocket science. Do that and eventually people who hate your products, think your company sucks, will start to notice.

Oh, and Sam, there's something else we can do to help win your love: help YOU win. My wife taught me this one. If I'm always selfish and don't think of her needs she eventually turns cold and obstinate. Bring her flowers and take out the trash (really small things if you think about it) she notices and warms up.

Is business that simple? Yes, it is.

Sam is just telling us we haven't been paying attention to him. Shame on us if we don't get the message.

Richard MacManus has a great list of lists of Web 2.0 info and companies.

Today you can see Flickr photos from events, and get blog posts.

Metaverse Roadmap photos.
Metaverse Roadmap blog posts.

In particular, check out John Swords' photos. Hey, those are my hands in this photo.

TechCrunch talks about Waxxi, a new kind of participatory podcasting. It's being kicked off next week when Shel Israel and I are Tracy Sheridan's guests. Michael Arrington has more on TechCrunch.

We're getting a demo of Croquet from Julian Lombardi and David Smith of Open Croquet, which is a 3D world. Something like Second Life, but runs P2P.

We have just seen a new world.

You have just witnessed one of the first public demos of a 3D hyperlink in the system. You can walk from world-to-world. You can collaborate with people in new ways.

Another demo? A 3D spreadsheet that can let you work in 3D space together on numbers with other people.

This is rough, early-adopterish, but once you see this you realize a new kind of computing experience is coming.

See that chess set in the image above? You can move around it. You can spin it. You can zoom toward it. And, if you touch it you are playing chess. All running P2P. No centralized servers needed. It's remarkable. They showed how you could just "step into" a new virtual world. Just move toward something that looks like a window and you "dive into" that Window and are instantly in a new world. In that new world there would be new people, new things to see.

Sometimes I pinch myself at what I get to be among the first human beings to experience.

Wow. I wish I had my video camera. I'm not even doing this thing justice. There's a few more images on my Flickr Feed, including demos of a video link.

This is funded by Alan Kay, by the way. Should tell you something about the vision behind this. The company is Qwaq.

Tomorrow I'll be attending the Metaverse conference in Silicon Valley. Attending me will be my 12-year-old son. I'm thinking a lot about virtual worlds and the kinds of impacts they'll have on my son's life. For instance, right now I'm typing to you from a Southwest Airlines jet traveling between Seattle, Washington to Oakland, California and I'm reading "Synthetic Worlds" by Edward Castronova. Just a little light reading about the virtual economies (he's an economist and the book illuminates the new virtual worlds for newbies) and how they will impact what I'll do with my career. For instance, I can see building a job just out of tending an island in Second Life and hosting memeorable experiences there. If blogging can go from nothing to 145 million hits a month at Microsoft in less than three years, why can't a Second Life experience do the same?

But, anyway, this leads into another discussion I had with Linden Labs recently at the Maker Faire.When my son and I first got to Maker Faire we met Beth Goza. She was quite excited by having Second Life be the cover story in BusinessWeek that week. The whole company was abuzz, it was good news after having to fight through financial tough times. Boy, does that bring back memories of when I worked at UserLand and ran the books there. It's not easy getting a company off the ground.

Anyway, Beth, who is their community ambassador, pulled me and Patrick aside and said something like "we can't let you let Patrick play Second Life."I knew this conversation was coming because I knew the rules and I was explicitly breaking them.

First, what are the rules? No one under 18 in the regular Second Life. There's a "Teen" version of Second Life that's a separate world and only 13 to 17-year-olds are allowed in there. No adults. No one under 13.

I was letting Patrick run around Second Life. The adult version. He's only 12. Turns out they aren't even going to let him come into the Teen version of Second Life until he's 13.

Now, why do these rules exist? Lawyers, for one. They are afraid of getting sued by some parent who finds out there's, shock, sex, gambling, and violence in Second Life. There are areas of Second Life that would earn an X-rating if they were films.

And, in the kids area they want to make sure that there isn't predatory behavior going on.

Both rules are understandable, right?

I understand them. My son understands them. We knew we were breaking the rules. Eric Rice told us so. That's how virtual culture gets communicated. Because I was seen as influential (I was quoted in the BusinessWeek article, and had talked about our experiences on popular technology shows like TWiT) so Beth told me that people inside Second Life weren't happy that I was publicly breaking the rules.

My son and I were outlaws and we must be stopped. Heheh.

The thing is, I don't necessarily buy into the rules of society, or the rules of Linden Labs. If I don't mind my son getting into a Poker game, or seeing a virtual sex act, isn't that my right as a parent to let my son experience those things?

No. Our puritanical society has set up rules and regulations about such things. If you enter a Las Vegas casino you aren't allowed to let your kids sit down and play backjack. At least not until they are 21.

In Second Life the same rules and regulations exist.

End result? I decided not to fight cause I want to remain in Second Life. My son no longer has my password to Second Life.

I do think the rules suck, though. This is a virtual world. Why do we need to live with first-world rules?

Oh, and Patrick and I will be interviewed tomorrow by John Swords who records the Second Cast.

Nick Bradbury brings up a bunch of great issues now that Microsoft is looking to get more into the advertising business.

Trust. Privacy. Ugliness. Appropriateness. Context.

I'm with Nick. The idea of pasting advertising on everything is vile. Vile. Hmm. Evil. Vile. Evil. Vile. Live. Anagram time!

Sorry, I got sidetracked there. Heheh.

But Nick is right. Microsoft can destroy value by doing advertising people hate.

Funny, I just sat next to a guy in the Seattle Airport. He delivers RVs for a living. He told me he threw out his TV cause he was sick of getting interrupted by advertising.

He told me he loves the Web because most of the time advertising is constrained and doesn't interrupt him.

We'd do well to listen to both him and Nick.

One thing in our corner? We have great user testing and feedback labs. Executives and engineers alike can even watch people as they try out our products and services and listen to what they say.

If anything Google taught us there's a way to do advertising that adds value to everyone involved. I hope it's a lesson we continue taking to heart. The Windows Live Mail team gets it. Who's next?

Hey, Doc, I think it's bizarre everytime I hear you and Steve Gillmor on Sirius too!

But what really blew my mind is when John Dvorak was on CNBC the other day mouthing off about Microsoft. They ended the interview by wondering if anyone from Microsoft was listening. Yes, there was. Yes, there was. Heheh.

Note to Phil Windley, I've been seeing nice things about your conference all over the blogs the past couple of days. When Kim Cameron says it was a "superevent" you know you really did a great job.

Update: sorry for messing this up, the conference was co-produced by Phil and Kaliya Hamlin, aka the Identity Woman.

Whew, they just sent around the latest stats from our employee blogs at http://blogs.technet.com and http://blogs.msdn.com and those two sites combined had about 157 million hits. Now, keep in mind that doesn't mean visitors, but, still, if you told me three years ago that our blog sites would be getting hit that hard within three years I would have looked at you like you were doing crack.

By the way, we should thank the folks over at Telligent who make the excellent Community Server, which runs those blogs.

The Maine Tourism advertising agency that was suing Lance Dutson has backed down.

Excellent, now I can attend Pop!Tech.

I love the theme for Pop!Tech this year: Dangerous Ideas.

This case proves it's dangerous for companies to take on bloggers.

I love this URL: http://www.microsoft.com/rss/

It's a directory of RSS feeds here at Microsoft.

To celebrate James O'Neill wrote an RSS aggregator in just 90 lines of code. That's cool James, but post your code!

Darren Barefoot notes "I guess Microsoft doesn't want my money."

This pisses me off.

If I were Bill Gates I'd issue a memo that said "any team that ships without Firefox support automatically gets 3.0s for all members."

"Huh?" I'm sure there are more than a few people who don't agree with me. After all, if you live in Atlanta, you are supposed to drink Coca Cola products, right? If you live in Redmond, you're supposed to only care about Microsoft's stuff, right?

That idea and belief must be washed from our corporate culture. It's going to be a hard thing to beat. But beat it is VERY important.

Why? Because a high percentage of influentials are Firefox users.

In other words, if you want the most passionate people in society to use your stuff, you must support Firefox.

I was talking with Scott Isaacs about this today (he's the guy who is building the framework that runs Windows Live). He totally believes in supporting Firefox.

He's fighting for this too. I think it's time to say it publicly.

I won't link (or say anything nice) to any Windows Live service that doesn't support Firefox.

And, note, that doesn't mean I don't think IE 7 rocks.

New Virtual Earth Mashup: Celeb.local.live. Link came from the Mappoint blog.