henry blodget is (still) an idiot

enter prince hal

henry blodget was kind of a big deal the first time the web was going to save the world. an internet analyst at merrill lynch, he was an early and vocal cheerleader for the likes of amazon.com et al. later, not so much. when the music stopped, henry was left without a seat - and the sec made him pay $4mm anyway! well, he wound up co-founding a news service of sorts called businessinsider.com. 

a recent pair of posts from the erstwhile seer of silicon alley had me scratching my head. they concerned tweetdeck, a popular twitter client with versions for a variety of platforms. last week, blodget declared tweetdeck dead, a victim of twitter's moves to control its channel. 

roll the tape...

"well, it happened." henry offers evidence that twitter's plan to "kill off a boatload of startups" has claimed a victim. in this case, blodget's twitter client, tweetdeck. tweetdeck had stopped working for him a day or so previously. he took some corrective steps. he rebooted. he asked tweetdeck support. he gave tweetdeck a 12 hour timeout. when these failed, henry did what he had to. he bailed, and he blogged about his bailing.

at least the desktop client could be saved. to his credit, blodget noted in an update to the post that several readers had suggested he update his version of the tweetdeck client. he was lukewarm to the idea: 

"...I will admit I haven't the time or interest in figuring out how to "update" TweetDeck. I just want it to work."

this from the guy we hailed as a patron saint of early adoption back in the day. 

what a difference a day makes

but just a day later, it turns out his report of tweetdeck's demise was premature:

note how happy henry looks now that his problem is solved. how did the miracle happen? 

so henry's happy again.."at least until twitter breaks my tweetdeck again..."

don't blame twitter, goofball. it's not a crime to acknowledge your role in the problem - and this time it won't cost you millions!