Wait..if temps were to drop dramatically, Canada would be the first to turn into a popsicle, no? - Hao Chen

@Parth i would seem that way and it also has to do with population density: "This is because of the low pressure on natural resources resulting from a low population density and large land area, combined with high agricultural capacity, a healthy economy, few development and health challenges and excellent public institutions." - Shey

@Hao Temps in Toronto are already so messed up, I don't think it could get worse. In Spring and Autumn temps can go up or down 15 degrees celcius in less than a day. - Shey

Steven Hodson will outlive us all. - Jason Kaneshiro

Shey, I think that the LakeShore corridor will be no more . Al that water melting to the will certainly fill up the lakes to..just not the sea levels !! @Hao, u got a point there.."the day after tomorrow" story :)- - Peter Dawson

Wow! How is Gawker.com making to pay their bloggers that much??? - Anthony Farrior

nice shift to drive traffic - Fred Grott

more than some entry level print writers make. - Andrew Feinberg

Which one will give up first and "take a dive"? I am betting on Serena. - Globecode

Couldn't belive NBC had today's matches on time delay; lost all interest and stopped watching. - Snay Trivedi

NBC = FAIL for not showing those matches live - Mike Doeff

i bet david stern had something to do with this - Cee Bee

It's Serena's turn.... - Chris Reed

BBC shows all matchs live, in HD, on the internet. Often theres more than one through the interactive TV service. Who said the BBC wasn't good enough?? - Roberto Bonini

Wimbledon is a wild ride this year! They earned their spot, so don't take that away from them. Anyone know how they did in their doubles match? - Otto R. Radke

They're in the ladies' doubles semis... Play around 8 a.m. Eastern tomorrow.... Also, it's looking like a Federer/Nadal men's final that everyone was expecting anyway... - Chris Reed

My call: Serena in 3. She's won 2, Venus 4, and I've heard hints from her about not liking that particular stat, even though she's won 8 grand slams overall to Venus' 6. It's going to come down to who wants it more despite making the other sister lose. - Dean Terry

it's not like there haven't been all-Williams finals before! - Samuel Bostock

Looking forward to seeing some of this one. Most of their past Grand Slam finals matchups haven't exactly been beautiful tennis. Let's hope we do see that tomorrow. - Bryan Person

they keep on writing them off, they keep on silencing the doubters - john conroy

All that strength, power, and beauty in one final, and I have to work on Saturday morning. *curses* - Cecily Walker

@Bryan Person: I'm not sure I would call a Williams final "beautiful" tennis; powerful surely, but there is nothing beautiful about Serena's game...Venus is graceful at times...but hardly beautiful. - Snay Trivedi

Yeah, I get "playing around" with it. I do that with everything too. But after playing around with it it just seems like Twitter, unless I'm missing something. If I'm going to invest time in something it needs to be a step forward, not backwards. Feels like a step backwards to me from FriendFeed. - Thomas Hawk

the open sourced potential distributed hosting nature of it is whats interesting to me thomas - not a replacement for friendfeed which is conversation & discovery central for me but it could be an interesting experiment in what a short msg'g platform could be if architecturally done right - very early though - mike "glemak" dunn

It is an interesting point and brings up the question of how viable an open source FriendFeed clone would be. The primary motivation for the Twitter clones has been performance, but perhaps there would be other advantages? Just a thought. - Ray Grieselhuber

We like the concept as you can tell.. Just like twitter but not buggy!!!!!!! - JegerPhil - Phil

@thomas: what about http://utterz.com/ ?? - mhmazidi

Actually, now that I think about it, identi.ca will never be a real player until FriendFeed starts working with it. - Akiva Moskovitz

I see no point to go backwards, of course first you have to try it if you want to compare it. http://ubervu.com/ this is what I wanna try when will be public. - dan

I signed, but will use twitter for post feed distribution and the occasional chat, but i agree that this platform is where we should spend most of our time, when we are not creating content. - Mário Pires

i keep my ff twitter free! micro-blogging belongs to twitter and co - Dieter Schwarz

I second utterz, also left a message asking to intergrate its cross posting with FF, this way we can select if we want some or all messages input to FF. - Tony C.

Damn, I wish you could "like" comments, because what Winer said here is exactly what I'm feeling, even if I'm not a developer. - Mike McCallister via NoiseRiver

I agree and I still find that I post to twitter. My network on FF is really limited and I get absolutely no feedback here. So until more people i know get on board or I become more interesting I post on Twitter and look enviously at people who can get feedback here. Either way, I've signed up for identi.ca but I'm not using it. - Jeremy Kunz via twhirl

People want all these new things because it's "trendy" to have a bajillion social networking tools. I have trouble keeping up with the ones I have, but then that's the product of a 9+ hour workday coupled with a 3+ hour round trip commute and finding time to spend with the family. - jerry

Great dialog Thomas. Think most of us would agree that FF and Twitter are essentially two different avenues and that if a SOLID replacement to Twitter came along (with an importer) before they fix it .... could (will) see an exodus of a lot of users. - Charlie Anzman

Amen to that! FF is a winner, hands down in my opinion! - Jason C.

Hi Thomas. You make me wonder where are Pownce, Twine, and the whole. of course it's definitely the triumph of less is more: less functions, more community, that's why we're still twitting - - Alberto D'Ottavi

FF will be the clear winner of this all when it gains SMS functionality - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl

I second Glenn Batuyong, SMS support is really a selling point for twitter IMO - Jeremy Kunz via twhirl

@Glenn that would be a great feature! - Joe Dawson

twitter (when it works) is still better at being distributed and easy to understand - Samuel Bostock

What's great about Indenti.ca is that IT IS a Twitter clone. No need to make it "fancier" or "Feature-packed", and what was great about Twitter is that it did ONE thing well (when it's available). FF is only useful for people like you, Winer and Scoble who have followers commenting on YOUR posts. For me, with 0 followers, I rely on my "friends" timeline to read what you guys are writing, and there's WAY too much noise. Especially the most annoying feature the "friend of a friend" posts. - Terry

Of course, I just realized you hit "hide", then "see more options...", then "hide all friends-of-friends". That's a big fail in my book. - Terry

Terry (and everyone else pissed off about noise), protip: if you don't like noise, don't start using a service only following A-listers. Those people are interacting with hundreds to thousands of people, and will introduce you to a huge amount of noise, even on Twitter. If you can't find people to follow that aren't A-listers, maybe being on that service isn't the best thing for you at this time. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. - Mark Trapp

The stole the whole thing from Zobzee.com anyway. - Jim Kukral via twhirl

You know if they were an EXACT clone of Twitter (minus the downtime) I think they'd do very well. - Leo Laporte

It's just another tube that feeds into FriendFeed, to me. - Josh Bancroft

their IM works, me and another were having a convo through indenti.ca with IM which i miss with twitter. i just like playing around with new things as well, that and "reserve" my username on the new launches, just in case. - Chris Harris

@Leo Yeah, They just have to do all the same features, and then we will just need a skin on it that makes it look 'exactly' like Twitter. Fail-Whale and everything :P Honestly, I've kinda moved away from the conversation on Twitter and Identi.ca. I mainly post on it with Ping.fm, but I don't really look at replies that much until I get a app. I don't know why, but I really just need something that will Pop Up, tell me what happened, then fade into the background. Browser won't do that - Chacha

Mark, I'm one of those very very few people then. Already talking to a developer about adding identi.ca's platform to The China Business Network's re-launch. Let the hacking for niche communities begin. :) - Christine Lu

Christine, don't get me wrong: that's really, really cool. And I'm sure there are going to be others like you that find uses for laconi.ca. There's this notion that open source = perfect software, and it's really being pushed today and yesterday with identi.ca. It's not a game changer. The "it has potential" argument only goes so far. Many, many, many projects have potential. It's what an enterprising person or group of people do with it that matters. - Mark Trapp

@chacha - you want Twhirl - Leo Laporte

@thomas hawk. you nailed it - rob zand

hopefully as identi.ca comes along they will become more feature rich and faster. I for one like their support of open standards. And the fact that they are hosted outside the U.S. and thus perhaps subject different laws - Freemor

I couldn't agree more. Why have a new service that is just a clone of another? Unless identi.ca can do something that Twitter can't, then thanks but no thanks. - Brandon Wood

@Mark Trapp I totally understand about the A-lister noise, but up to certain point I LIKE the noise. I don't really care that one of my friends is about to take his dog for a walk, but I AM interested in Dave Winer's thoughts on whatever-new web app. Twitter for me is the perfect blend of quasi-feedreader and cult of personality. FF seems to be "everything that everyone's doing everywhere and sometimes more than once". Plus, I like the @ reply system. - Terry

@leo, but it won't work; also friendfeed I think is more prone to take over a huge chunk of say what facebook does, rather than a huge chunk of what twitter/etc does. you still need the pipes to feed into the main. I'd also add that a more dynamic/distributed way to have a microblogging like community flow between IRC style chats and twitter like status blogging, so sort of the way to go... - tycho garen

Let me just say, for once, I am enjoying my FriendFeed experience. Maybe it's all about participation. On Twitter, I can just read what others are saying and make an occasional stupid post... but here, it seems more enjoyable if you're actually INVOLVED in the conversation. - Terry

Looked at Indenti.ca and could say, for the moment, it wasn't my thing. Besides, it's all I can do to stay current on FF and Twitter (when I actually go to twitter, which hasn't been for the past few days). - Les

SMS support isn't important to me. I prefer managing my interaction with a microblogging site myself rather than be interrupted. For me, and I may be unique here as a photographer, photos are also extremely important. That's why I liked Pownce a lot more than Twitter when it came out. But FF has them all beat hands down, so I'm still not sure why I'd invest time in something like identi.ca now. - Thomas Hawk

I would have to agree with you on identi.ca. If twitter has this many problems already, would identi have the same issues as well. I really like FF much better then twitter or identi. - Jeff Chilton

I'm with Thomas Hawk on SMS, too. I can just open up IE on my WM5 phone and hit Twitter or FriendFeed just fine. - DeathByNinja

"open sourced potential distributed hosting nature," that sounds cool and all but it reminds me too much of stuff like OpenID or Ubuntu, or whatever it's called. Sounds really good but wayyyy too geeky to ever get broader adoption which is what makes a community site work best. FF has the traction at this point and a nucleus of interesting people sourcing interesting content filtered through social interactivity. Beats anything else out there at present. - Thomas Hawk

I hope that things like this with their mobile extensions will see the end of the rip off that is SMS. - John Cooper

I'm finding FF/Twitter great, but am exploring identi.ca - Chris

It could be that folks are just looking (desperately) for something that will be more stable than Twitter, while having all the interesting people on it. - Randy Hall

Sign-up is down, Twitter Part Deux - Ryan Taylor

@leolaporte said it all. I get all of the luminaries tallkng to me in real time, and that reaks of awesome. AIR might just be the killer app of the year. - Adam Garrett via twhirl

Right now, Indenti.ca is Twitter, minus a bunch of things. Comparing Twitter and FriendFeed has always been an apple and oranges comparison anyway—one isn't better than the other, since they do different things. Twitter is essentially in beta right now; things should get interesting when Twitter is completely back with XMPP, track, etc. - Albert Willis

@thomas Hawk and @deathbyninja Being someone with an unlimited data plan, I have to say that the usefulness of SMS should not be overlooked. Not everyone has unlimited data, and in some cases, that data is a walked garden (like T-Zones). Plus not everyone has a smartphone, and in some cases, it's just easier to slam out a text message (especially when in an area with crappy data coverage). I find myself jumping between mobile web, Twibble, and SMS (most often the latter two). Any service that lacks a mobile application or SMS tends to see less use by me (see Pownce, FriendFeed seems to be the exception though). - Ivan via fftogo

@Thomas Yes, I agree "open source, decentralized" sounds very geeky, but all that techie talk will be TRANSPARENT for ALL users once it all just works! http://is.gd/LlY - Hao Chen

i agree. Fun to try different systems! - Harry Myhre

What makes this different from WIkipedia? This seems to make it virtually identical - unless the main feature is that you guys have the paid employees to verify research, and of course, the great Mahalo guide articles. - Andru Edwards

Thomas: great question. a) we pay folks who are working for us if they want, b) there are folks with a vested interest in certain pages (i.e. you might care about Canon 5D page or the Thomas Hawk page), c) some folks like to contribute, d) Mahalo is creative commons, so some folks like to contribute to free content projects like Mahalo/wikipedia because it makes the world better, e) some folks hate to see error and get good feeling fixing them. - Jason Calacanis

Andru: excellent question. Mahalo is VERY similar to wikipedia except: a) we have human curated search results with the wikipedia style page, b) we don't do 6,000 word articles we do 200-600 word summaries with fast facts, etc. basically we do scanable wikipedia pages which are more efficient, c) we cover non-encyclopedic information, wikipedia does not (i.e. we both have Paris, but only mahalo has Paris Hotels), d) we fact check our information, wikipedia does not. - Jason Calacanis

Personally I think it might be better if only registered users could edit (with valid email addresses), to help prevent abuse, etc. - Vincent X

Vincent X: we've had it setup that way for months now. it creates a massive hurdle for people getting involved so we're trying a more open system now. - Jason Calacanis

Hey Jason, great answers. I someone didn't "get" the fact that you guys just have the quick summary as opposed to the huge pages that Wikipedia has sometimes. So even though both allow anyone to edit, and both can be research tools, there is a significant difference between the two. - Andru Edwards

Andru Edwards: exactly... our pages are a) better Google/Yahoo result combined with a b) a better wikipedia page. So, we're taking the two best experiences on the planet (google & wikipedia), and putting them on the same page while making each 2x better. I think it's a compelling page to start your research on. Highly recommend going to the homepage an opening up the first couple of pages, then click on a couple of links in the guide note for each page. you'll see its a really cool experience for research. - Jason Calacanis

If I wanted information from an encyclopedia I would actually get one out or find one. I don't see Mahalo as an encyclopedia. I see it as a search engine to find latest news stories, resources on new and social media and the "internet subculture". I am not a Wikipedia user because I never liked the fact the pages can be edited by anyone and, the incorrect edits aren't always caught in time. Mahalo seems to have a better system than Wikipedia when it comes to checking and ensuring user edits are correct. - Candace Holly

Jason - Are you worried that this might open up Mahalo to being 'gamed' of a sort? I always liked the fact that Mahalo is people-powered, and helps prevent SEO, or 'gaming' of the system. I'm assuming this is the type of thing that eventually the community continues to fix? They will weed out the bad stuff, and leave the good stuff to filter up? - Adam Hosp

I made a Thomas Hawk page but it feels confusing. http://www.mahalo.com/Thomas_h... I'm not sure I'm doing it right. I don't know how to get my last name capitalized or to add more biographical information, etc. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk: yes, it is a little confusing, just like making a wikipedia page is. we're trying to make it easier. You've done a great job so far... add some fast facts and a couple of more links and you've got a great start to a page! - Jason Calacanis

how do I capitalize my last name? - Thomas Hawk

Here's a great place to test the service. The FriendFeed page can use quite a bit of content additions, especially in the Tools area http://www.mahalo.com/FriendFe... - Mark Krynsky

Thomas: changing the name of a page is something only we can do... at least right now. we will fix it. Also, check out the additions i made to your page... i added a quote, your stated life goal, and put a citation on it with the <ref> tag - Jason Calacanis

Wait - so I can just go in and create an Andru Edwards page on Mahalo, and that is okay? Unlike how that is against Wikipedia rules? - Andru Edwards

Adam Hosp: i'm not worried at all because Mahalo has 60 full-time fact checkers.... anyone who tries to game the system will get caught really quickly. - Jason Calacanis

hmm... ok, added a few more links as well. Can I upload a photo of me for my Thomas Hawk page? - Thomas Hawk

This is the next step in what I've been saying since day 1 - that Mahalo would have to open up more and more to be able to compete - the question is whether people will actually want to do it. Thomas, once you create your page, it will push up very quickly to the top of google for your name - are you sure you are ok with that? - Allen Stern

Thomas Hawk: we haven't given users the ability to add photos yet... that's coming. - Jason Calacanis

Andru: just created it. http://www.mahalo.com/Andru_ed... so, yes, anyone can create any page (within reason). and yes, you can edit your own page (but we will check it for bias of course). - Jason Calacanis

Another question to toss out since you noted almost anyone can make their own pages within reason. Obviously this would push them up to practically the top of search engines. Do you think that could actually become a tool for smaller companies to use for SEO and promoting themselves on the web? - Candace Holly

I am not sure about adding a page but wish you'd clean up the front page a bit; Looks like old style. Consider feedly's look for a way to do the featured stories. - LPH

Cool, I'm now Thomas Hawk with a capital "H", thanks Jason. If they can add my profile photo this is the one that I like to use: http://www.flickr.com/photos/t... - Thomas Hawk

LPH: new homepage coming... i agree 100%!!!! thanks for feedback. - Jason Calacanis

Sure, happy to have a page Allen, what's wrong with having it push to the top of Google? Why would someone not want that? - Thomas Hawk

Candace Holly: actually, our "stub" pages are NOFOLLOW/NOINDEX on Google/Yahoo until they are really built out (i.e. 200-400 original words). So, yes these *might* be good for whitehat SEO for companies, but not in the short term.. only if they become pages of value... which we decide. We thought about that... good you did too! :-) - Jason Calacanis

Do these payed people only check facts? Or do they actually help mahalo grow up (by adding new articles and more content on existing articles)? - Marcos Marado via fftogo

Thanks for the answer.Thinking on my own train of thought here... that could be a pretty good tool. If a small company/person has something relevant to offer and talk about they could easily have a page on Mahalo. This could also cause them to use Mahalo more often knowing it's a bit more "everyone friendly" in terms of user created content. - Candace Holly

Question for Jason - After this dialog, what's your impression of FriendFeed? - Charlie Anzman

Hi :-) Small question: Why are the login and sign up button hidden and require JavaScript to be visible? - Horst Gutmann

Thomas Hawk: I just added your picture it should show up in a few minutes... - C. K. Sample III

Thanks C.K. Looks good! - Thomas Hawk