The ValleyWag/Scoble thing (Scoble's comments are over here) illustrate something basic: people love to gossip, and - for reasons I'm not entirely sure I understand - get all excited about real or imagined death watches.

For instance - Dolphin gave up the ghost last week, and amongst the messages flying around were a few "my theories of Smalltalk's Death are correct" gloats wafted by. Never mind the fact that there are still more Smalltalk vendors and dialects than there were in 1995, and never mind the fact that Cincom Smalltalk has higher revenues and profits than ever before. Some people love a good train wreck, and that's all there is to it - even when the train in question is on the tracks and in no danger of being derailed.

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