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Abhishek Rai › Likes
Should you build applications just for the mobile? Perhaps not. My column in WSJ. http://blogs.wsj.com/india-c...
Abhishek Rai liked this
Guahaha... RT @neo_indian: The one book that I did manage to finish in 2009 was "One night at the call center", by Rajkumar Hirani.
Abhishek Rai liked this
All the tech blogs are hypocrites when they are up in arms about Amazon. Facebook and Flickr have been deleting stuff for years like that.
Daniel Rowley, Joe Dawson, Özgür D. Cyric and 23 other people liked this
Among others. Twitter has deleted people too.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
But paid books are a bit different than free stuff on Facebook/Flickr, no?
- Abhimanyu Chirimar
Those are different scenarios, though none are good for users. One is a content license, the others are service agreements. Though the click-wrap in all cases reads like you have few rights.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Not in my book
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Not sure the sentiment makes sense... Did the tech blogs also criticize FB/Flickr for the same type of practices?
- Jolie O'Dell
My stuff is my stuff.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Jolie: when have you seen a tech blog take a stand on the issue and get to the top of techmeme?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
I'll never buy a Kindle. I'm a student. Could you imagine Amazon doing this to a $200+ textbook?
- nick
But the point is... in Amazon's case, it is NOT yours. In the other cases, it is yours, but the hosting is at their whim.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Nick: my photos cost a lot more than $200 to make but Flickr deletes accounts all the time.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Robert: I upload stuff to Flickr too, but I usually have my own copy on my computer that Flickr can't touch.
- nick
But Flickr in that case only removes your ability to access their copy of your photos - you still have full control of the original and other copies. Amazon removes all access you had to content you licensed.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Oh Robert, I don't even read that drivel anymore. ;) But perhaps it's getting undue attention for other reasons... No one pays - or pays MUCH - for FB/Flickr accounts/content.
- Jolie O'Dell
UH...Amazon is deleting products consumers have purchased. Facebook and Flickr have been deleting unpurchased, free items. If you think that makes people hypocritical then I suggest you consult a dictionary. And if you think deleting paid vs. free is identical then I suggest you pull your head out of your proverbial ass. ;-)
- Scott Jarkoff
I think the difference is paying for a specific piece of content and losing it without warning. It's very weird, though, how Amazon's been making such bad PR moves this year. Are they sharing an agency with Microsoft up there?
- Omar Gallaga
Scott starts with an "UH" and ends with "ass." I think he wins Jerkoff Commenter of the Internet for July 17th.
- Omar Gallaga
Robert: Wouldn't it have been more reasonable for Amazon to just simply stop selling the titles in question to new customers?
- nick
There's a huge difference between a free service and a purchased good. Besides, why on earth would you upload your only copy of something to facebook or flickr? IF flickr deletes your photos, you still have them. In the Amazon case, you don't have the book anymore.
- Ryan Jones
analogy: I buy a book and take it home; Books Inc finds out they didn't have the right to sell it to me, so they break down my front door, enter my house, and retrieve the book.
- Stuart Liroff
Scott: my photos cost a lot more than any book on Amazon.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Neither Flickr nor facebook deletes your files from your hardware. You still have the originals. Even if they delete your account, you still have the originals. And any image you have downloaded in the past, if they receive a DMCA notice and delete it off their site, they don't access the hardware of everyone that downloaded it, deleting files. THAT is the difference.
- April
Cost isn't the issue. It's amazon providing you a book, vs you providing flickr with photos.
- Ryan Jones
1) This isn't a "tech" question - it's a business question; 2) there is a difference between accepting payment for content then deleting it, and deleting copies of content you upload to a site; 3) to address one question without addressing different questions isn't hypocrisy, except perhaps based upon your expectations of how others should perceive this issue.
- Kevin Boulas
Stuart: I am NOT saying Amazon is right. I think deleting anything of mine is bad and should be illegal.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
but legally, is the facebook account or flickr account really yours? Most likely not.
- Ryan Jones
@Robert: if your only copy of your photos resides on Flickr or Amazon then that is complete and utter failure on your part. You should be saving your _personal_ photos on a removable HDD, cloud storage or somewhere where you have complete control of your _personal_ data. Facebook and Flickr are *obviously* not those types of services.
- Scott Jarkoff
Ryan: legally your book isn't yours either.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
None of these scenarios have been fully tested in the courts. But these are the liabilities of the cloud and the rent/license models, as opposed to owning and hosting yourself and treating your local copies as masters.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Scott: you are so wrong it isn't funny.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
And as April mentioned, neither delete the data from _your_ hardware but off of _their_ servers. That is a *huge* difference - remote deletion is evil, pure and simple.
- Scott Jarkoff
@Robert: Hate to break your "I'm always right ego" but *YOU* are wrong. If you think I'm so wrong then kindly explain _why_ you believe I'm wrong.
- Scott Jarkoff
Scott: all of these deletions are evil.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Robert, you are right that they are all evil, but there are significant differences in kind if not degree.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Robert i seem to recall at least one blogger being up in arms about the deletion of his Facebook account ;-) so i'm not sure where the hypocrisy comes in. i think most people would agree that just randomly deleting *your stuff* is evil -- it's just MORE evil when you've *paid* for the stuff that got deleted.
- Karim
Does Amazon reserve the right to do this in their EULA? Do Flickr/Facebook?
- The Fat Oracle
Tell me what other company deletes not only files you paid for and bought from them, but your own personal data too, from your hardware? Along with the books disappearing, there was at least one student that was reading one of the books in question as a summer reading assignment, that lost all his notes and annotations when the book disappeared.
- April
i've purchased songs on iTunes that, for one distribution reason or another, later became unavailable for purchase in the U.S. iTunes Store. Apple was nice enough to not go on my hard drive and delete the songs when that happened.
- Karim
April: books are NOT yours. They belong to the copyright holder. You are granted a license to view them. Obviously now that right can be revoked at any time.
- Robert Scoble
Those notes and annotations were his, and he has every right in the world to expect those not to be deleted by some company.
- April
Scott: my photos on Flickr don't just include my photos. They include the comments me and others have made. And any links that blogs have made to them. If you delete them you delete my work and that is work that CAN NOT BE BACKED UP.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: You are absolutely wrong yet again. *BOOKS* are yours, period. No license involved. *eBooks* (the type sold for the Kindle), on the other hand, are licensed with some draconian anti-piracy TOS and DRM. So in that case, true, you do not own them. This is the krux of the reason I refuse to buy a Kindle.
- Scott Jarkoff
April: deleting this stuff is wrong. Period. Whether on Amazon. Whether on Twitter. Whether on Flickr. Whether on Facebook. Not saying that Amazon is right. Just that these are all the same issue. The only reason we're up in arms about Amazon is we're used to having books on paper where our viewing rights can't be revoked.
- Robert Scoble
Paint it all the same brush if you want, but everyone here seems to see a distinction but you, Robert. Putting stuff in the cloud onto a service you don't own always carries a risk. Buying a product from a reputable company and then having it taken away without warning is a whole other deal. Why do you want to lump apples and orange? Are you anti-fruit-diversity?
- Omar Gallaga
Scott: wrong. Books are yours only because they are printed on paper. You are NOT allowed to photocopy them. Why not? They aren't yours. You are legally granted a right to view them, but the words in them are NOT yours.
- Robert Scoble
Omar: well, now, buying books on a DRM'd device carries a risk too.
- Robert Scoble
Ha ha... reminds me of an old post of mine: http://logicalextremes.blogspot.com/2007... (New High-Tech Book License)
- Tinfoil 2.0
Robert: You did not pay to leave comments on Facebook or Flickr. You did pay for that book on your Kindle which was just revoked by the license holder.
- Scott Jarkoff
And I seem to recall tech blogs being up in arms about Facebook and Flickr's various missteps in matters of privacy and account deletion. Don't you read your own press?
- Omar Gallaga
Scott: I paid with my time which is far more valuable than any $20 fee.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Heh, absolutely. That's why I don't have a Kindle. Doesn't Apple reserve the right to do this with apps? I thought I remembered them doing something like that before with an app that was pulled from the store, but I may be remembering it wrong.
- Omar Gallaga
I would like to see anyone revoke my right to possession of the hard cover edition of Animal Farm and 1984 that I paid for. I'd like to see them enter my home uninvited, unannounced, and without permission, and not only take my books, but take the hand crocheted bookmark I made that's marking my place. Are you telling me that the seller has the right to do that if a publisher cancels a deal with them or it is found that the publisher didn't actually have a right to sell the titles?
- April
Omar: yes, a few tech blogs try to raise this issue once in a while.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: While they can not be photocopied, they can be borrowed by friends to read. eBooks have no such capabilities. I think even you know the distinction and realize there *IS* a difference.
- Scott Jarkoff
April: the only reason that book publishers haven't been able to do that in the past is because they can't get access to your house legally. Now...
- Robert Scoble
Robert: The non-hypocrite blogs? You should just go ahead and name names. Does it rhyme with "Garrington?"
- Omar Gallaga
Scott -- you can lend your Kindle to your friends.
- Omar Gallaga
The first-sale doctrine also allows me to transfer ownership of books and other content I own... not true of most licensed/rented works.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Scott: yes, this is why I haven't been pro DRM in the past, even when working at Microsoft. But now we know the dangers of a DRM'ed world. Welcome to the world where you can be erased. Where your books can be erased. Where your photos can be erased. Where your Tweets can be erased.
- Robert Scoble
there's DEGREES of wrongness, Robert. crimes and misdemeanors. losing a free tweet about the ham sandwich somebody ate is not on par with losing a masterpiece of English literature that you paid for.
- Karim
Karim: wrong. Last week the tweets I made cost Rackspace thousands of dollars to get. Thanks for making them sound cheap.
- Robert Scoble
Omar: True, but the difference being when you lend your Kindle you're essentially lending your entire bookshelf to someone, leaving you the inability to read a purchased eBook.
- Scott Jarkoff
Karim: I'm glad you think your Tweets have no value. Mine DEFINITELY DO.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, did you just put your Rackspace tweets on par with the literature of George Orwell?
- Karim
Karim - you don't believe Robert's tweets are masterpieces of English literature? The hell is wrong with you?
- Omar Gallaga
You still own the content you lend to service providers in most cases. that's why data portability is so important. Insist on your service providers giving you the ability to extract your content with the enhancements that have been made on the site ideally.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Karim: no, I didn't put them on par with George Orwell's work, but some of my Tweets have cost a lot of money to make. Glad to know you think that going to England is free and that my time is free. It is not. And to make my Tweets equivilent to ones about eating food makes you a jerk in my mind.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: back your data up. Flickr photos should be backed up *before* they're posted to Flickr, but certainly can be after using the right tools. Same with comments on Flickr. Facebook, with their utter dislike for RSS, makes that far more difficult. Point being - backup your data and do *not* *solely* rely on a service provider to protect your data. And backing up comments is entirely possible on Flickr using RSS feeds and other such tools.
- Scott Jarkoff
$1000's? It doesn't cost anything to load your twitter RSS feed into a desktop feed reader, leaving it running in your tray to archive all your tweets. It also doesn't cost you anything to import them here, either. If your words are that important to you, make backups. Then the most you will lose is a URL, which doesn't belong to you any way.
- April
Scott: you go back up all your Flickr photos and move them to some other service with all the comments intact and usable. Go ahead. Try.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: If you would slow the number of times you tweet then maybe it wouldn't cost Rackspace thousands of dollars. ;-)
- Scott Jarkoff
April: glad you think the value in Twitter is just the Tweets. It is not. It's also the distribution and my friend network.
- Robert Scoble
Scott: no, if I Tweeted less the cost per Tweet would go up! :-)
- Robert Scoble
But surely you entered into using these services knowing that you are at their mercy.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Scott -- I hate to agree with Robert (shudder) but that's not realistic. Especially not with average users. You're putting the onus on regular users to jump hoops instead of the companies to make these tools readily available. Way to stick it to the little guy. On the other hand, I think buying a book to own and having people post comments on some photos you posted on Flickr carry with them two entirely different expectations of permanence.
- Omar Gallaga
Logical: and when I bought my Kindle I knew the same.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I already do backup my Flickr data - my uploads, my comments, my favorites and the comments on my posts.
- Scott Jarkoff
Omar: expectations are different, yes, but they shouldn't be and that's what's wrong in my view.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, i can't help what's in your mind :-) but i didn't say YOUR tweets were on par with ham sandwiches. i was trying to illustrate the fact that different things have different value. losing a dollar is not as bad as losing a million dollars. losing a million dollars is not as bad as losing your life. you can't just equate it all and saying losing anything is evil.
- Karim
+1 Karim
- Todd Hoff
Scott: congratulations. Flickr is also a social network. And it's also a distribution platform. I embed my Flickr photos on my blog and so do other people (my photos are all over Wikipedia for instance). Back THAT up. You can't.
- Robert Scoble
Omar: Completely agreed about the backing up. I'm just trying to get the point across to Robert that its _possible_ to do. Maybe that's a service someone needs to work on - backup all your social networking data to the cloud and then download it at will.
- Scott Jarkoff
Robert -- Ah.... but like usual, that's not what you said. That's what you expected us to psychically extract from your initial post (or after several hundred FriendFeed comments, whichever comes first). Glad we got here sooner rather than later.
- Omar Gallaga
Karim: losing my work matters more to me than losing an unauthorized copy of some other author's work.
- Robert Scoble
You are free at any time to go start your own. If permanency of hosting and full control is that important to you, do not rely on a 3rd party service that could just as easily be gone with your data tomorrow (remember magnolia? enetation? AOL Pictures? the other billion services that went >poof<?)
- April
April: do the same with a book company then too.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: See, this is why you need to clarify your position before making such generalized statements like what you used to start this thread.
- Scott Jarkoff
Scott: that's why FriendFeed has comments. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Angrykeyboarder: Been there, done that, thanks. ;-)
- Scott Jarkoff
Scott: http://backupmypics.com/
- Omar Gallaga
Robert: If, as usual, your intent was to ignite conversation, congratulations - you've more than succeeded. But that still doesn't mean you're wrong.
- Scott Jarkoff
I don't buy DRM protected digital content. I don't trust it.
- April
Omar: Nice! Now all they need to do is add in the other things Robert wants tracked and he'll have the holy grail of social networking backup solutions.
- Scott Jarkoff
Scott: everything I do is to get a conversation going. It's my prime directive.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Wakarimashita. However, you're still wrong in this case.
- Scott Jarkoff
Scott: and so are you.
- Robert Scoble
House wins. Everybody loses.
- Omar Gallaga
On that note, time to head out with the family to see Harry Potter. Hope everyone else enjoys the rest of the conversation. Cheers!
- Scott Jarkoff
Omar: +1.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, ok, so for YOU, losing your tweets is worse than losing the works of George Orwell. do you expect everyone else to feel the same way?
- Karim
Karim: yes, most people will feel that way. Their work is more valuable than a book they probably have a copy of anyway on their shelves.
- Robert Scoble
i'm wondering why you feel that way when people pay nothing for tweets, but shell out money (the sweat of their brow) for a book. if they were that valuable, Twitter's business model should involve printing them and selling them like books. :-)
- Karim
Karim: everyone who got that book pulled got their money back. So there goes that argument.
- Robert Scoble
But the student that got the book pulled didn't get his work back.
- April
which argument is that, exactly? if you're talking about *value*, one has a price tag, the other does not.
- Karim
Tweets have value for the people creating them, not necessarily for anyone else, though. That might be the difference. But that doesn't mean that all Tweets have no value. Just because some are about eating a sandwich doesn't mean all are. And, by the way, I've been handed at least two Twitter books with all that person's Tweets in them.
- Robert Scoble
Karim: my tweets have a price tag. Just because you aren't paying for them doesn't mean someone isn't. Thank you Rackspace.
- Robert Scoble
April: exactly. It's the work we do AROUND other people's work that has more value to us. I'm more bummed about that student losing his work than I am about the other issues being discussed.
- Robert Scoble
you keep shifting the argument between you, Mr. Edge Case Who Gets Paid to Tweet, and people generally. if we took all your tweets and put them in a book, i seriously doubt it would sell as well as "1984" or "Animal Farm." your tweets may be more valuable TO YOU, but i doubt many others would feel that your tweets are worth more than Orwell's novels.
- Karim
We could find out. Put all your tweets in a PDF and sell it for $6.99 on lulu.com and see if you can sell as many copies as those 2 books combined.
- April
Karim: that's not the issue under way. My Tweets have value. Period. To say they don't is being a jerk. By the way, I have published books and ones that have sold decently well (but not close to Orwell's) and I'd rather have my book stolen than my Tweets.
- Robert Scoble
AGAIN, Robert, not saying your tweets are worthless, just that you shouldn't equate the loss of something with a huge value with something that has a small value to everyone else (even if it has a big value to you personally). think of the crayon drawings of your children. you'd be heartbroken if you lost one. the rest of the world, not so much. a Van Gogh, on the other hand...
- Karim
Well, some small good came out of all of this. My daughter is in her room reading my copy of Animal Farm right this minute. While I did read it to her when she was about 7-8, this will be the first time she is reading it herself.
- April
April: that is a good thing.
- Robert Scoble
the sad fact is that if someone breaks into your house and steals your child's finger painting, the police are going to treat it slightly differently than if someone breaks into your house and steals a 10 million dollar Van Gogh -- EVEN IF you swear up and down the fingerpainting meant more to you personally.
- Karim
Karim: yeah, but here's the rub, the major reason that Van Gogh's cost so much is because of scarcity. Thanks to the Internet information and content has no scarcity so those days are over for the most part. And, anyway, copyright law is pretty clear that Amazon is legally able to do what it did, so is Facebook and Twitter and Flickr and all the others who delete stuff. Maybe THAT is our problem! We've let lawyers write bad laws and now we're learning the depths of just how bad they are.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: What are the edge cases in your own personally generated content? How do you view that content in terms of control and assignable rights to it if you have placed it into the hands of a services provider?
- Jay Cuthrell
As a witness / victim of the dot.com bubble, I kind of go into things as if the company could flop tomorrow. The only exception so far has been Google.
- adam garrett
Google too will go, but they won't just flop, they'll teraflop.
- Micah
I just don't see how you can conflate the digital equivalent of Amazon picking the locks on the doors to let themselves into people's homes and replacing a couple of books on their bookshelves with the money those books originally cost, with a free service deciding for even an arbitrary reason to remove whatever copy of some content you uploaded to their servers, and then using that contrived logic to bash a large group of people by calling them hypocrites.
- Shannon
If I am not mistaken, the flicker policy has also been complained about, but the Amazon situation is new so people are more likely to complain about it now. People tend to fight one battle at a time.
- Kim Landwehr
from BuddyFeed
Not sure if its been mentioned but Amazon sent an email out saying that they pulled the books because someone other than the publisher actually made the books available and that even if this sort of thing happens again, they won't react the same way
- Patrick Aland
Maybe not in your book, but Amazon just took your book away!
- Californian
News Update. Still bad idea, but not as bad as before. http://technologizer.com/2009...
- Ian Paul
Twitter helps friendfeed because of stupid "@" reply change. #fixreplies
Mike Lui, Vincent Wright, Demetrios the Traveller and 78 other people liked this
:) Follow me. haha
- Zaneology
I think the battle of what service is "better" has effectively already concluded. Now, Twitter can use its mass muscle and do whatever they like. What a blunder.
- Louis Gray
I'm hoping this kind of nonsense will bring more people over to FF.
- Michael McKean
annoys me that I might have to get used to using friendfeed. I know you love it scoble but I have long preferred twitter
- Clint
See how massive the rebellion against this on twitter is: http://bit.ly/3dQFLd (click graph button)
- twitscoop
Clint, I resisted for a while, but once you realize the awesomeness you'll never go back.
- Michael McKean
Can't agree more on the @replies.
- Thomas Chai
Twitter's response: http://twitter.com/dougw... and http://twitter.com/al3x... (at least that's what I think the last one is about).I replied to @dougw: What they're really saying is "i don't know about this OR i don't understand this OR i don't need this." hence the @techcrunch piece. maybe "i don't understand this" is a good reason for taking the feature away (i disagree), but that is @jasonkincaid's point, no?
- Guan Yang
Andrew: except that friendfeed has FAR better friend management. FAR better search. FAR better feature set (wait until you start using feeds and saved searches). And a FAR better community (very little spam and almost no assholes except for me. Heheh).
- Robert Scoble
Ev's just replied they're considering alternatives. That was quick.
- Sameer
@Robert Scoble: +5 You scored a bounty with that last comment
- David Damore
I really dug seeing my friends interact with other people. I'm really irritated that the feature is gone just because people "might" not understand it. Sounds like the retards I contract with at the moment.
- Jonathan Hardesty
They should just have left it the way it was: let the user decide if he wants to view those @s or not. There is no need to be "considering alternatives".
- Antoniu
Robert I just posted on my blog about this http://bit.ly/NbBFs ... I agree it probably helps friendfeed but I would like to see Twitter handle this snafu with a little more grace than facebook has handled similar situations. It gives Twitter the opportunity to shine in a way. They can shine by listening.
- Jesse Newhart
@Jesse Newhart: Did you see the last tweet from @ev? "Reading people's thoughts on the replies issue. We're considering alternatives. Thanks for your feedback." http://twitter.com/ev
- David Damore
321 has a good point. This feature wasn't broke to begin with. They gave users the choice to change the @reply options and explained it well when you tried to figure it out.
- Jonathan Hardesty
Scoble, step away from the ff coolaid! Do you want to repeat the great Leo laporte jaiku debarcle?
- Darryl Adams
from Nambu
David aka admore yes I saw that thanks. Doesn't mean we should stop posting about it just because Ev is 'considering alternatives'. :p
- Jesse Newhart
Says Darryl, on FriendFeed ;-)
- Jesse Stay
Don't piss off the Twitter community.
- Adam Reyher
Friendfeed seems much more friendly to me! Love the conversations. Way easier to follow threads. Think I'll start hanging out here with y'all.
- Ruth Helfinstein
321 hit is on the head... maybe he should change is name to 123 cause of how simple of a solution that would have been for the boys down and Twitterless. And where were they getting their data from that this was something users desired? I can't see too many people other than the really fickle or those that don't "get" twitter needing to remove replies?! Perfect push I needed to come to the friendlier feeds :)
- iamkhayyam
Twitter execs just borrowed the Facebook asshat and firmly donned it for themselves.
- Scott Schablow
@Scott Schablow +1
- David Damore
I have my FF settings to publish all my "likes" and comments to twitter - hoping twitterers who would like to have actual conversations will wake up and come over here.
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
the day i question the @geekadvancement & @shiralazar about treading the fine line of exploiting and /or embracing the geek culture, twitter decides to disable @ replies. @wilw's blog puts it into perspective.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
To remove an option completely is a dimwit thing. #fixreplies
- Jacque
I agree, when I saw that I hopped over to FF again, when you take away flexibility you take away a certain demographic uses the service. I have found more interesting people through replies then really anything else
- J. Doss
I was thinking exactly that today when I noticed that I still saw the replies here - brilliant.
- shira
Twitter now says it was a change required by engineering, not by user feature not being used. LOL
- Justin Long
Didn't twitter just remove the setting option, but continue to display @ replies?
- Steve Garfield
I'm contemplating an image of a failwhale shooting itself in the foot...
- Linda Mills
Steve: no.
- Justin Long
Steve the way Twitter has handled communication about what they did is pathetic and that may ultimately be they're biggest failing.
- Debi Jones
they display replies to YOU, but if your friend (i.e. Scoble, either one) replies to someone you are not following (friend-of-friend) then you won't see THAT reply.
- Justin Long
completely eliminates social discovery. its like going to a party and unless your friends with both people, not being able to hear any of the conversations. your friend's talking to someone you don't know and you can't hear... its like being blind to every conversation. Ridiculous!
- Justin Long
The number of new subscribers I've received on FF has exploded over the last 24 hours. People may be voting with more than their complaints and hashtags. Twitter could redeem itself by leap-frogging @replies and bringing back a more powerful discovery tool and that is of course - TRACK
- Debi Jones
ha i tried "track" only to have it twittered instead of an active command. i wondered what had happened to it.
- Justin Long
@scobleizer is there any way you can convince the friendfeed guys to create a simple replies feature (so I know when someone replies to a post) and/or threading (which I realize is significantly more complex than a simple reply view). This is a huge part of why people use and stick with Twitter. I doubt the shortcode/SMS is still a major factor.
- Jason Nunnelley
imho, threading is the way to go. Just like Jaiku does it and has always done it. Dunno why this is still missing from FF. And please don't bash Leo, Jaiku has been better made than Twitter, more features (but all made sense, no useless crap) and the threading. It just worked, and there was nothing big missing UI/UX-wise. Until google decided it doesn't care about microblogging, that is.
- Vlad Bobleanta
Overnight, I've become a major fan of FriendFeed. Less "silliness" than on Twitter, IMHO.
- Brandon Cox
The Twitter change would help push more traffic FF's way. Looks like Twitter are making changes based on all the -ve feedback though
- Mark Warren
Reading: "Data, Not Design, Is King in the Age of Google" (NY Times) - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
Andrey Stefanenko, Abhishek Rai and hiroshimo liked this
Sneak Peek - Tim Ferriss TV Debut, 12/4 "Trial by Fire" - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Daniel Rowley, 新谷 均, Abhishek Rai and 5 other people liked this
Did this get picked up? I remember seeing the horseback archery pilot. Pretty cool.
- Brian Newman
I freely admit, I'm still searching for the Four Hour Work Week
- Dave Hodson
I'd settle for a four hour work day.
- Brian Newman
Why Twitter is better than friendfeed. I want to call out @chrismessina but want him to come here so I can tell him he's dead:
PWR, Hutch Carpenter, Rajiv Doshi and 37 other people liked this
On Twitter I can use the "@" syntax. What do I do to get him here on friendfeed? It's not nearly as easy to get people to visit here so I can chat with them.
- Robert Scoble
But now that I've done it, what have I said is "dead" Chris, that has accelerated? That's a weird claim you made over on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Ummmm... Scobez... send him a DM here in FF?
- iTad
DM's suck, even the super dooper ones here in FF.
- Robert Scoble
And what fun is calling someone out if you can't do it in public?
- Robert Scoble
Diego: that's lame.
- Robert Scoble
Email is so 1993.
- Robert Scoble
Do a hybrid DM then. Send it to your feed AND put him as a recipient. Best of both worlds.
- iTad
Tad: the problem is a lot of people don't check into friendfeed all that often. Plus, all my original items here go over to Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Diego: I'm too easy! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Then it's not a problem with FriendFeed - it's a problem with the people who don't check FF very often. :P
- iTad
Tad: that's one problem, but, seriously, how do I get people to visit your friendfeed? I guess I could call you out with your URL, but that's too long.
- Robert Scoble
Like hey http://beta.friendfeed.com/tad you smell isn't nearly as nice as "hey @tad you smell."
- Robert Scoble
It's true... lol
- Colin
No - I'd be called out using the hybrid DM I mentioned earlier. If people don't check FF very often then there's not much via FF you can do. You get a really nice indication that you have a DM in the FF beta.
- iTad
Email is for old people over 40.
- iTad
Here on friendfeed I have ego saved searches, but not everyone does. I wish there were a way to do something like the "replies" tab on Twitter here.
- Robert Scoble
Friendfeed should have "people who are talking about you" page on every account.
- Robert Scoble
Eventually people will realize that the conversation is over here, the fluff over on Twitter.
- Leo Laporte
Well, you COULD do that with filters...I have that for everytime someone mentions my last name (Nayyar) since I'm sure to get a hit...
- Mike Nayyar
LMAOing
- sofarsoShawn <right here>
Leo: agreed. But it would be better to have a built in system so that everyone could see when people are talking about them. Until that happens we just need to teach newbies how to search for their name.
- Robert Scoble
Where's Chris?
- David Beach
The only problem is, this is harder to get to - learning curve. However based on recent events I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I'd rather read what the tech savvy have to say than the Oprahs.
- Adam Turetzky
Adam: Oprah will be here within two years. Let's get prepared now.
- Robert Scoble
Nicholas: I totally agree. The friendfeed beta is now getting almost all my usage.
- Robert Scoble
http://threadedtweets.com/... is something I'm working on, it's threaded conversation on Twitter, if anyone here wants to play around with it I'd love the feedback. It's OAuth
- Colin
Do big-name celebs have time for Friendfeed? On Twitter you can pretend to engage by sending a quick @reply to whoever happens to be talking at you when you log in, but for the most part broadcasting without listening. On FriendFeed there seems to be more of an expectation of real interaction.
- Edward Coffey
Edward: lots of people use friendfeed just to broadcast. http://beta.friendfeed.com/techcru... for instance just broadcasts and still gets lots of engagement.
- Robert Scoble
Robert I think as long as your avatar is green and hulk-like you'll keep the celebs away :-)
- Keith Barrett
"Old people over 40"? Some of us helped create the tech you take for granted sonny! Now get off my screen.
- Keith Barrett
Pssst... Keith... I'm over 40... :P ;)
- iTad
Robert: Hmm, true enough. I guess people (both broadcasters and their audiences) are happy to use FriendFeed the same way they use twitter.
- Edward Coffey
Robert, you can send messages to individuals as well as your public feed here on FF - it's the equivalent to "@" on Twitter to get people's attention, but less of a hack. I'll show you in just a second.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: Tad already showed me that.
- Robert Scoble
Okay, I won't bug you with it then - glad you found it. It's really useful.
- Jesse Stay
This is more of a Twitter problem than FriendFeed. If Twitter would enable "tagging" in their API, FriendFeed could append the person as meta-data in the Tweet they send from FriendFeed.
- Jesse Stay
Of course, they could @reply the individual too
- Jesse Stay
Tagging?
- Colin
Right now you can post statuses with an "in_reply_to_id" on Twitter, which is just the id of the tweet it is in reply to, the problem is they also require you to put an @user in the same tweet
- Colin
Wait, Twitter is where the fluff is? Is this thread evidence of that? Psshaw! Yes, cross-site replies is certainly a good idea, but I will say that FriendFeed fails the ego-awareness spidey-senses test, whereas Twitter excels.
- Chris Messina
And, when you said that hashtags were dead, it seemed right around then that Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Millstein published a book mentioning that as a useful convention. So, now that you've said I'm dead, clearly I'm about to make it to the big time! Whohoo!
- Chris Messina
Chris: that's what I'm talking about. But the search engine is way better here, so eventually those ego-awareness senses will get more evolved. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I would still like FF to provide a syntax (@nnnn) where I can specify a link callout to person's profile, posting, or a group
- Keith Barrett
One problem with tagging an individual on FriendFeed is they have to be following you for you to get their attention.
- Jesse Stay
That way since Chris isn't following me I can still point out there is an ego-awareness option on FF (hint hint) ;-)
- Jesse Stay
Chris: sometimes when I say things are dead I use it to get a conversation going. The hashtag post is one of those times. By the way, why do you need hashtags? To help out a search engine that's lame, that's why. You don't need them here, for instance.
- Robert Scoble
Chris: I sent you a direct message here at http://beta.friendfeed.com -- would love an answer.
- Robert Scoble
But then again I still can't tag this specific comment to get his attention - has to be a full post. Still flawed.
- Jesse Stay
Robert, you don't really need hashtags on Twitter either
- Jesse Stay
I've never really liked the @ system at Twitter. It feels counter intuitive to me. The FF system is much more logical. Or am I rationalizing because I find Twitter boring?
- Andrew
Andrew: you're rationalizing. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I like the idea Robert. Wish there was a way to track mentions here, like Twitter. Then you can have more of a conversation @ someone if you chose to.
- Brian
Ken: the problem is that pointing to those conversations is very hard, if not impossible. So those conversations have limited utility to everyone else.
- Robert Scoble
Why is something either good or bad with regard to this technology and medium? Seriously...there is value in both or we wouldn't have all joined both. All these toys/tools have something they offer or wouldn't find a foothold in our lives.
- Sheryl
I think Chris Pirillo could really turn http://twickie.pirillo.com into something much greater if he wanted to.
- Jesse Stay
Casual users only want one tool, they can barely remember and learn to use one, that's why the good and bad.
- Colin
Some people don't sit at desks all day, and I still want them to use computers.
- Colin
Colin: I understand not everyone wants to use multiple tools. Fine. But why must they denigrate a whole other tool simply because they haven't the time or inclination? I still don't see why we can't accept there is room for a variety.
- Sheryl
Robert: If you want Chris here, or for that matter anyone else, you have to give them a reason that makes a difference to them. Show them why it's cool. Teach them why it's better. Some of us are hard sells ;-)
- Sheryl
No FF clients on Blackberry?
- Colin
Yeah Ken had to set his font to a 9 in order to see it. I have the bold and that was better but still really tough.
- Sheryl
Ken I agree. This is a major issue for them to solve.
- Robert Scoble
FF doesn't have to make the clients themselves =) Developers, developers, developers!
- Colin
Robert: Mobility is critical to most of us. Everyone has a phone with them everywhere. A laptop only some places. Unless you're Randal Schwartz and no one can be that geeky. Really. :)
- Sheryl
Except I'm too busy cranking out things for Twitter...
- Colin
Sheryl: I know. I use my iPhone about 40% of the time when I am on friendfeed. Like now. Wonder why Ken finds his touch unusable?
- Robert Scoble
It's a Touch, (no network)
- Colin
Touch is a brick when there's no network.
- iTad
FF has a pretty awesome API. I should dredge back up my work with Flickr/FF experiments.
- iTad
I mean, I'd love to get out there early with FF clients for BB/iPhone (if they don't already exist), in order to get the jump on everyone else and be that much ahead.
- Colin
Colin: aTouch has wifi which is how I am using my iPhone
- Robert Scoble
But at this point I'm not sure it's worth the risk for me, (and I'm a risky guy ;))
- Colin
I know Scoble, but I can see how a Touch that only has WiFi wouldn't get used at home, where you already have computers setup.
- Colin
Ken: interesting. I am very fast on iPhone keyboard.
- Robert Scoble
Ken: The touch/iphone OSes perform the same, (they are the same)
- Colin
I am also fast at it, I like to argue it's faster than anything that actually needs to be physically pressed. On the iPhone my fingers just glide
- Colin
Colin: I am lying on my back on the couch. Computers don't work there.
- Robert Scoble
You need to disconnect Scoble! lol
- Colin
Robert: Ken and I are apparently qwerty centric. We both have touches and find them so difficult! Oh for some things...minimal tasks they're fine but my bold is my lifeline :)
- Sheryl
I'm with Ken, right now I try to get a lot done, and anytime spent away from my main computer terminal is time spent inefficiently and wasted.
- Colin
Ken: it's probably cause we view them more as a toy than a tool. We don't use them exclusively. if we had our BB's taken away our touch would probably get very handy.
- Sheryl
You have gotta better idea in your mind.. Let's do it!
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
What are we going to do Mohammad?
- Colin
Ken: I bet you will love the N97.
- Robert Scoble
I use my iphone (on wifi) around the house for FF (even though there are sometimes 4 computers here) - agree with you, Robert, much nicer for couch surfing.
- Micah
@Jesse: <http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei...> of course you can tag/ link to comments, only not easy. Takes some effort, which, however, may be read as motivation. Sooner or later FF will probably add comments-to-comments ("c2c" ;-)) and I already suggested elsewhere that such followups be distinguished automagically from comments-to-posts by having their first word turned into an @[nick=hyperlink] as in this c2c.
- ianf ⌘
Ianf I'm talking about tagging specific individuals in the comments. I can copy Robert individual on a post to my feed and it appears in his direct messages. I can't do that for a comment. I can do it on Twitter though.
- Jesse Stay
OK. I'm more concerned with the development of the FF, which is altogether a more promising service, than one-trick-pony Twitter. Also, reading some of the threads here, one can easily get twitterrified with Twitcentricity of the common Twitterverse. Where did we go wrong – don't answer that rhetorical question. We were chugging along nicely for close to 2M years, Homo Habilis to Sapiens, no Twitter in sight, then all of a sudden get our nickers in a twi(s)t because Twitter is down again?
- ianf ⌘
Ianf it's funny - my family, who isn't even on Twitter, talks about Twitter all the time when we're around. It's ridiculous, and hilarious at the same time. My dad was telling my Aunt yesterday all about how Twitter would benefit her business yet he won't even join the service because it's a waste of time for him.
- Jesse Stay
yes, I am over fourty and I use email. What I had when I used elm or pine is that all my conversations with friends, family and contacts where in the same place, easy to backup and browse. Now they are scattered all over the Internet. In a way Friendfeed unifies and this is a hint of the right way to go. Apps lose, APIs win always.
- Michele Costabile
they are not the same service. That's like saying bacon is better than summertime.
- Fleagle
but bacon IS better than summertime!
- Jim the Blatant
U can not connect with one person directly.
- ybs
we need to find another idea to obsess on.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Jim: Clearly there are MEN on this post. Why is it always men who think bacon rocks? haha I love it!!!
- Sheryl
Sheryl: I am not sure Mona will be pleased with your "always men who think bacon rocks" statement. ;-)
- Brian Sullivan
true, Friendfeed could do with a better @-system like twitter does. As mentioned by everyone, a simple ego filter will do, but I would like to see it a bit more, in the way that not only when people say @phefland or @efland but also just whenever there is a reply to any discussion where I have been active. I know I can look under my discussion, but it's not optimal imo.
- Peter Efland
I think you accomplished your goal. It was posted to your twitter account with @name and he saw it on twitter, and it included a link to your post on friendfeed which he followed and responded in this thread, which looks exactly like what you wanted to do. http://twitter.com/Scoblei...
- April
LOL
- AainaA-Ridtz A.R
I think friendfeed is more like facebook than twitter right now, twitter is my favorite because it is easy, I am to lazy to figure out friendfeed but everyone can see my feed LOL and I dont go to facebook often but really like my friends there and they can read my tweets :o)
- David Gross
Oh, I totally get why friendfeed doesn't do profiles now. Google is doing those. Google is also doing app platforms with Open Social. So, add friendfeed's feed + Google Profile + Google Open Social. What do you have? FACEBOOK KILLER!
Jack Wilson, K4SAC, JCC, Julian Lukács and 116 other people liked this
There's a method to the madness. Googlers + Xooglers = Win.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Well, HMMM.
- Rochelle
Absolutely. That's encouraging.
- Michelle McCormack
FriendFeed gets bought by Google this year?
- Jesse Stay
Fewer profiles to maintain = Win
- Julie Bovee Hill
I've hear that line of thought before usually with the resulting equation being "Windows Killer" or "Google Killer" or "Cisco Killer".
- Arawak
I suspect some kind of deal between Google and FriendFeed has already been done. I have a private account on FF. When I entered my FF URL on Google Profile, a full list of all my services feeding into my PRIVATE FF account showed up on Google Profile for me to add. Not sure I like that FF shared this info with Google, if that's what happened.
- Dominic Jones
I haven't seen anything from the FriendFeed folks that makes me think they'd want to be acquired by Google. I'd sorta like to see things go the other way, with the other components of a "facebook killer" offered by other smaller firms/teams and standards for interoperability and communication between the parts.
- Ken Sheppardson
Crazy! it seems to be getting to critical mass for the big players.. isn't this also something Microsoft are trying to do? i.e. their new stuff with profiles/links to other social sites.. but yes, I wonder if facebook has finished it's honeymoon? more open and flexible aspects with the stuff you mentioned.. i.e. google app platform etc.. but seems more open? good stuff though!! back into friendfeed... lost it for a while, but can see why it's so cool!
- David Sheardown
That's weird I just said that same thing a few hours ago here http://beta.friendfeed.com/techcru...
- Chip Ramsey
Friendfeed bought by Google = I cancel my FF account faster than you can say "don't be evil."
- Shawn K. Quinn
@Carl For me it was kinda creepy. I'd like to know how Google knows what services I have coming into FF if my account is private and I haven't let Google follow me.
- Dominic Jones
Dominic, I was spooked when I first saw that too, but if your services are public and you use a consistent username, many of those may be coming simply from Googles search index.
- Tinfoil 2.0
FriendFeed doesn't have to get bought by Google. Both companies share the open web philosophy... interoperable technologies, portable data, etc.
- Tinfoil 2.0
@logical extremes Nah, it was the exact list of services I have coming into FF. Including custom feeds with inconsistent account names. Either Google keeps a record of each FF user (I switched from public FF to a private FF account about three weeks ago) or FF shares this info with Google.
- Dominic Jones
I would be shocked if FF shared private account details with the GOOG. Previously having your feed public could easily explain it.
- Tinfoil 2.0
You don't think it's interesting that Google is storing a handy little file on each FF user and all the services they have coming into their accounts? I find that intriguing.
- Dominic Jones
Dominic, just saw this... Matt Cutts says Google usses OpenSocial API to find services for the profile suggestion... http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Tinfoil 2.0
Ah, so it makes no difference if you have private account on FF, it's not private http://socialgraph-resources.g...
- Dominic Jones
YAY a Facebook killer !! Please say it is soooo!! YES!!!!!
- Susan Beebe
Dominic, this is Google's Social Graph API, not a special deal with FF. As long as they have a cached version of your profile page, they will be able to find the services you were using.
- Pat Hawks
@ Pat thanks. Learn something new every day.
- Dominic Jones
For this to totally work; picasa (or one of the others) is going to have to become popular with the Google profiles, as well as getting tied into status updates from clients like ping.fm
- Keith Barrett
I have to admit, I got pretty gosh darn excited when I saw the vanity URL option last week for the Google Profile -- that's a really big step into the social space -- Google's stepping into the pool folks!! woo hoo!!
- Susan Beebe
This ain't nothing until it's done. Then it is still nothing until we start using it in large numbers :)
- DC Crowley
Dominic, you were indexed while that page was public; it hasn't been crawled since. The Social Graph API uses the same crawler as Google Search.
- Kevin Marks
I'm afraid I dont want to hand out all that market to google - fear it would kill experimentation and innovation in the field.
- Iphigenie
Interesting theory Robert, least you got your username I have had to settle for joe.dawsons from Gmail
- Joe Dawson
Hmmmmm...would it be sufficiently different from Facebook to entice mass migration?
- Heather
..but do you think we will follow the path - unless we are forced to?
- Sampad Swain
facebok killer would be interesting. But if non-techies over at facebook can't manage their site, how would they ever manage friendfeeed? Plus, the numbers of 200 million to 1 million is about a snowballs chance in hell.
- Peter Efland
An expanded FF profile would be nice (not on the feed page but something linked off it) but why Google's? I'm not arguing with you, Robert, just want to hear more of your thought on this please. #betakoltag-sg-profile
- Kol Tregaskes
I found that not all of the suggested accounts were correct but not surprised by the relative accuracy since I've already seen the same type of service elsewhere.
- Rick Bucich
FriendFeed getting bought by Google would suck: how long would it take for them to port the entire thing to Google's infrastructure? That's how long nothing would happen with FriendFeed. Think Jaiku and Google Voice/Grandcentral.
- Mark Trapp
Just exaggeration scoble...that won't kill facebook. That seems too nerdy for mainstream, as simple as friendfeed is it's still complicated for a shitload of people. I think you're too quick to dub new services 'facebook killers"
- Gordon Swaby
so when will this mutant start to kill? timeframe?
- Pico Seno
Maybe the word "killer" should be banned from any social networks/social media discussions. I'm tired of it.
- Jorge Escobar
ah considering Scoble effect... could this thread preventing the killer thing from happening? :D
- Pico Seno
All of these services are similar to the telephone system earlier in the last century. The more people on the service, the more valuable it becomes while at the same time the cheaper it is to provide to everyone. We're really just asking who will be the Ma Bell of the social networking world. Though I love twitter and friendfeed, many of the people I love are finally just using Facebook and are starting to use their status updates in a Twitter-like fashion.
- Chris Aldrich
It would be pretty interesting to see some sort of Open Social integration of Google Profiles into FriendFeed. As Logic Extremes pointed out, Google doesn't need to buy FriendFeed. That also doesn't seem to be its preferred modus operandi. Google's approach to the social Web is distributed and open. Some sort of Open Social integration into FriendFeed would be fantastic. Perhaps some kind of Friend Connect magic? Kevin Marks?
- Paul Jacobson
Open Social project is just awesome and gonna be very easy to implement. :) Lets how much it will turn up!
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
Robert how about a gentleman's wager: Google buys FF within a year. Then you can take me out for dinner. if they don't, then I take you out for dinner. This way we can talk about all this in person :-)
- Om Malik
Wow, that's an offer no one can refuse.
- imabonehead
You're onto something here, Mr. Scoble. :-)
- Nenad Nikolic
Robert I'm glad you get it - so many others don't'
- Chris Saad
Again, I predicted the acquisition. I said Google, but I was right on the year. :-)
- Jesse Stay
Acquisitions, Culture, and the Social Web - http://www.web-strategist.com/blog...
A. Prem Kumar, Abhishek Rai, Thomas Power and sofarsoShawn <right here> liked this
agreed jeremiah, having gone through a massive acquisition myself in my career (twx/aol), the cultural fit and tools used to merge both are key - i do think the way sun relates to their customers would be a huge improvement over the way oracle does(n't)
- mike "glemak" dunn
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