Scoble comments on Tim Bray's F Bomb dropping:

Personally I think it’s cool that Tim Bray thinks Sun’s new product is cool enough to use salty language about.

Actually, it's very much not cool, and I'm utterly unimpressed with Bray's handwaving about it. Here's the thing: when you use coarse language, there's no upside. That's right - none. At best, part of your audience won't care, or won't care that much. It's an absolute certainty that some of your audience (who knows how much) will be put off by it.

In marketing terms, that's a pretty large net negative. No one (or, almost no one) is going to have a positive reaction. Some people will blip past it. However, some of your readers (or listeners) will be offended - possibly enough to damage the way they look at your product, service or company.

So no, that usage wasn't cool, not by a longshot. The best we can say about it is that it might not do much damage. For those of you who think such usage is somehow more "authentic", I have two words: grow up.

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