 |
|
| FriendFeed is the easiest way to share online. Learn more » |
Aidan Mann › Comments
CocaCola has a new social media policy that clearly states employees are representing the company online. Always. http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003...
ANJELINABANANA, Roberto Bonini, pqorama and Alex Kapranoff liked this
Still liked this link
- Aidan Mann
@aidanmann Funny, I had the same challenge with that word recently. Got an AAS dinner coming up in a couple of weeks:)
Well please say hello to one and all from me.
- Aidan Mann
Will do mate:)
- Luigi Cappel
from email
I am going to unfollow everyone tonight (on Twitter.com/scobleizer) and then will follow only those that @notsecretscoble is. Talk me out of it:
Mitchell Tsai, imrat, Jeff (Team マクダジ ) and 62 other people liked this
That will bring me down to 1,000 or so friends and make Twitter useful to me again.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
No need to talk you out of it - if that's what you think is the right thing for you then go for it. It didn't hurt you last time you cleared things out.
- WoH: Minding her Steves
I love it...its like twitter/friendfeed bankruptcy.
- sean andersen
Hows the weather?
- Brent - Yes I am
By the way is there any way to delete all my DMs too?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
There is no wrong. What's easier? What works for you?
- caj
why talk you out of it?
- Richard Binhammer
Are you going to stop using @notsecretscoble, then?
- Kathy Fitch
up to you, dude. :)
- Josh Haley
from iPhone
How are you planning on unfollowing all those people in a reasonable time frame?
- Alex Knight
Kathy: that won't be needed much but I will keep that as my R&D account.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Alex: I will use SocialToo.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Richard: I just wanted to see if anyone could come up with a good reason not to do that.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
What are you going to use to watch the patterns in the noise with? An Anon Account?
- BairdWilliamson
Brian: yes but I got distracted by the DM feature which only works if I am following you.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Baird: I will still be following 25,000 here. There is plenty of noise in my life.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Brian: here on FF we have groups. I already have a few small groups.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
noop. twitter is just a (narrow) pipe. friendfeed where (my) content aggregates.
- jacek
Robert: Do it!
- Jim Connolly
Do it Robert. I think it will do a lot of good
- Roberto Bonini
from iPhone
I say do it, and I say that as someone you will no longer be following. Thousands upon thousands of people only provide background noise. By the time something bubbles up enough to be noticeable in the feed of that many people, its on techmeme anyway.
- DGentry
You can unfollow me on Twitter. I don't even feed to it from Friendfeed anymore. :)
- caj
DGentry I follow you here anyway.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Feels sort of sad to be getting unfollowed by one of my favorite peeps! :-( But yeah, totally understand
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
Robert: Are you actually going to do it tonight - or is this just a topic for debate?
- Jim Connolly
Do it. Following merely to allow a DM that may very well never come is not worth it.
- Meryn Stol
A man's got to do what a man's got to do. DM Whacker (discovered it today myself), deletes all received and sent DM's..
- Citronella
I have dropped about 200 people today. I like your idea and I agree it might be lead to a movement of quality over quantity. I also think it might wake up the Twitter execs to see that groups and better list management are need.
- Ben Hanten
I am curious, though: I remember about a month ago you said that you follow a ton of people and it was invaluable because you could see trends, etc. What has changed?
- Ben Hanten
How does one mass unfollow? - I was trying to find ways to do that and can't find a way to do that easily.
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
Use SocialToo
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
robert i have some scripts to delete all DMs, but they appear to be broken now. the new way twitter handles pagination (the more button) makes it difficult
- sean percival
Jennifer: There are a few well known tools you can use to mass-unfollow. One that Jesse Stay @socialtoo developed is supposed to be very good.
- Jim Connolly
where is jesse? i see a future for socialtoo here. create an akismet like system as part of the auto follow. as i get new followers, give them a spam score and only follow back those who pass
- sean percival
Liza: I don't know what Blackberry users can do for FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
your autofollow didn't work on me for some reason, so it doesn't matter to me. in fact, yea unfollow everyone =]
- Özgür D. Cyric
I won't talk you out of it. Who cares? :)
- Jason Nunnelley
I think you should do it, actually.
- Eric Florenzano
from iPhone
I don't even know what twitter is for anymore. I check it sometimes but enjoy reading and sometimes joining the conversation on here much more.
- Aidan Mann
Hey, I don't need Scoble to follow me on Twitter. I've got Kim Kardashian following me on FriendFeed! ;)
- John Craft
I've observed 2 good people go through mass unfollow on Twitter, and they were both happy they did it. Do what works for you, Robert. It's your time. :)
- Veronica Sopher
My only argument is as a news junkie, you'll feel like you're missing something. In reality, you'll eliminate a lot of noise though and miss only "some" things.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
I'm changing my Twitter avatar to a screenshot of my DM box in protest of auto-dms. Hoping others will too.
- Jesse Stay
Sean, SocialToo does offer that - it needs to be improved, and will be. I'm just trying to get time to do it (on a very limited budget).
- Jesse Stay
I say go for it. Change is good. Having two accounts would make one schizo. The times they are a changin' Like @loic said it will fill like taking a shower
- Stephen Pickering
Dont just look at the comments here :-) RT the Tweets http://twitter.com/seanper... and http://twitter.com/Jesse...
- Johni Fisher
Dont do it I only have like 20 followers then. 21 was a good number.
- James Hunter
Either you know how to use the API, or it's going to take you a very long time...
- David Semeria
Great idea! But it sounds like a lot of work. Besides, they're your accounts and it's your name/brand that you're experimenting with. Do whatever you want with it. How are you going to get people to watch a live feed you're doing. Are you shooting for a smaller audience too?
- Michael Fidler
Why not? It's your Twitter account Robert and you don't have to follow everyone who follows you. My Twitter experience improved dramatically when I unfollowed a lot or people and only followed those I like interacting with (mostly from FF or friends IRL) or have a common interest business-wise. Following under 2K made the interaction easier and more interesting.
- Sally Church
Talk you out of it? I'd encourage it
- Keith - @tsudo
My only suggestion is to encourage you that after you dump everyone considering following a few of us that haven't had a chance to meet you in person. (yet)
- Keith - @tsudo
i've been meaning to do the same...good suggestion scoble
- Kevin Pruett
great way to start afresh, weed out all the spam from the post oprah-aston effect, now you will only have engaged followers, hopefully most that are also friendfeed loyalists
- Tate
No need to talk you out of it. It's a smart move.
- Andru Edwards
from iPhone
Robert since friendfeed is a place 2 follow 1 another, there might not be a need 2 follow on Twitter unless u meet the person via face 2 face. In which I would love 2 @ some pt when we do cross path some pt.
- polou/indigo_bow
I wonder if you could organize a time when a bunch of us do this together to make a stand against the lack of user-friendly tools on Twitter. The fact that there are no groups or lists is ridiculous. This could make a big difference. What if there were a million unfollows? Would that get their attention?
- Ben Hanten
Eh.. No interest in that? Ok.
- Ben Hanten
Good decision! Now twitter will be useful to you :)
- Angus Burton
just unfollowed you myself - have fun!
- Mac Sharp
Mac: you lie. You're still following me here on FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
IMHO forget Twitter, for me, following Robert on FF is where the value is.
- Mo Kargas
I agree with Mo completely.
- Akiva
Personally, I look at search results and @ replies mostly, once in a while I'll scroll through my follow stream. Of course, thanks to @RackerHacker, I have several searches running via a ruby Twitter search bot that alerts me to interesting items via Jabber and email. Following is no longer a priority for me.
- Robert J Taylor
from iPhone
Whatever gets you through the night, Robert! :-)
- Lon Cohen
Why do you need to unfollow to ignore? You do that well already :-)
- RetiredTeacherD
im going to do the same
- sean percival
You are doing the right activity to move the Twitter founders ,most of us are using Twitter long time but we never made anything against the SPAM or the porn users that are following by robots and posting so many links to porn sites ,it is so simple to block this activity but no one cares ,Twitter should learn much from Myspace links policy ,we can open new #tag #noporn and post there all the PORN tweets
- Johni Fisher
Don't want too unfollow you here Robert, that would be your choice.
- Mac Sharp
I believe the issue is more time and the medium you use everydsy, obviously the iphone. If you had three high powered connected desktops with dual monitors and could spend your time just with twitter, friendfeed, etc. it would not be so much of an issue. The truth is time for you to treat people as you would like to. I believe you are being realistic in your time management. I do not believe it is a lie for others to be able to deal with more than 2000 followers or subscribers.
- RetiredTeacherD
Jesse, my Twitter DM inbox is dead.
- Jason Nunnelley
@ariherzog did the same about three months ago. You might want to ask him how it worked out for him. http://ariwriter.com/why-my-...
- Kevin Sablan
I get it. I get overwhelmed and I'm only following around 200. I think you'll get a lot more out of it by following fewer people.
- Kate
Did you break Twitter today...might slow:)
- Liza + = ?
Great news! Caught up with this late, but a welcome addition to the stop auto follow movement. Just putting up a post on my http://stopautofollow.com site
- imrat
53% of my 96,000 followers don't follow directions. They are useless. The others will discuss this on FriendFeed here:
Tyson Key, Mike, Daniel Graversen and 115 other people liked this
you mean like so? :)
- Iwan
huh?
- Rasmus Lauridsen
:-) seriously, everyone wants followers but what good are they if they won't do anything you tell them to do? Useless!
- Robert Scoble
hahah that is soo funny
- Susan Beebe
yet sooo true. wondering just how long until people figure it out
- Susan Beebe
is this a timed challenge?
- Iwan
Hmmm...
- Adam
Literally LOLing at this, Robert.
- Ha3rvey (heavy duty)
Yes master...
- Chris Forbes
i'm not sure what you mean ;)
- Suzannah Archibald
I want to know how many of them consider themselves social media experts?
- Colin Anawaty
bit of a pompous mood today? when have you ever expected anyone to follow directions on the net?
- Doubledown_inSL
I was lost when Robert was at the 140 conference - he wasn't active here so I didn't know what to read...haha
- Mike Bracco
*looks around for FF koolaid*
- Susan Beebe
Fine, so I am useless.
- Julie Anderson
Getting people to follow directions on the internet is akin to herding cats. Best of luck. :)
- Keith Bourgoin
Any reccomendations for friend feed convos on the iPhone?
- Stuart Tracte
lol
- Miguel Rodriguez
FF sux nardz
- Doubledown_inSL
How could I defy the techno-hulk?
- Amanda Magee
You are fired up today...you might want to switch to decaf. GOOD GODS, WHAT AM I SAYING.
- M.L. Stone
but 47% of people go on FF? that is quite good
- Billy Fung
So, 47% or your followers are expected to discuss here? The comment counter is going to explode.
- Brome
http://friendfeed.com/iphone works well. At least, it works well on my Android
- Keith Bourgoin
3% of Scobes followers are still trapped on Myspace
- Doubledown_inSL
twitter wasn't an interactive medium was it? :P
- jaspio
What?
- fanch_guy
Kevin: only about 42,000 of my 96,000 followers are here. Useless! I think they are all spammers or bots.
- Robert Scoble
I'm amazed how fast this thread is growing.
- Nick Prince
You mean 95,999 followers.
- Robert Peterson
Very clever.
- Nicole
that mass growing of the thread would be the 47% who can follow instructions ;o)
- Carl Grint
I keep having to block spammy, icky followers on twitter, mostly porn and get-rich schemers..augh!
- Susan Beebe
I refuse to respond to such a claim!
- Al Fuller
seriously, how much is FriendFeed paying you?
- Greg Hollingsworth
"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." John 10:11
- don manu
What am I not supposed to do? Where is the line?
- Brian Goss
Spammers and bots eh? Great minds think alike?
- ralphsaunders
What prize are you going to give your 100,000 follower?
- Mike Bracco
Greg: I got a free t-shirt.
- Robert Scoble
*reading and where is my popcorn? ;) ;)*
- Ronald
LOL
- Schneider Mike
Flame bater
- Ron Hudson
promised to cure cancer at 100k
- Doubledown_inSL
I won't comment this thread ;)
- DAL
Does it count if I follow you on FF, but not twitter?
- Keith Bourgoin
Spammers are everywhere though including here.
- Brian Sullivan
@Doubledown_inSL Now that's funny.
- Mike Dowden
Power is a double-edged sword, Robert...lol... can be tough to galvanize one's
- Carol Lynn Martens
wow... think we could crash friendfeed with this thread?
- Chip McComb
ROBERT! I sent you like 500 @ replies on twitter, wth aren't you replying? j/k
- Justin Hopkins
I don't get it
- Amelia Rangel
Do you want followers or slack-jawed lackys?
- Mark Petzold
how many comments per minute will appear in average :D
- Flavio
LOL @ Justin
- Doubledown_inSL
No one has to do anything anyone says/
- Paul Kinlan
let's see how 'stableizer' FF really runs *bumping up this thread *g* *
- Ronald
No. I refuse to. But that doesn't make me useless. :-P
- Ordinarybug Heather
show me a bridge - I'll jump after you!
- BEX
FF is great, it just requires a higher level of interaction that many people don't have time for or interest in.
- Stuart Tracte
new game: instead of "simon says" it is now "scoble says"
- Chris Rogers
That's truth but I am one of the direcitons follower
- Gent Thaçi
Just following instructions.
- Larry Roth
Glad I caught this in my Twitter feed - I'd hate to be a bad directions-follower.
- Shawn Farner
whatever you say
- George Deane
^^ yeppers, i robot :D
- Ronald
If you're happy and you follow (Scoble), clap your hands!
- Carlos Granier-Phelps
I may of missed something, my bad..
- Sebastiaan van den Akker
Doh! Sorry, I clicked that link by accident - I'm in the 53%. As you were...
- Andrew Jordan
Must do what Scoble says... Slow down comment box... forgot what this tread was about.
- Drew S
/claps hands
- George Deane
do what?
- Mick
I agree that FF is better for tracking conversations, and hopefully @Twitter will get that. I still spend more time on Twitter
- Matthew Scott Horbund
I follow directions but am often useless. Where do I fit?
- Aaron Ball
53% your numbers are inaccurate.
- Carlos Ayala
This should be interesting...
- Robert Lee
YES O LORD AND MASTER, WHAT IS THY BIDDING :)
- ftg888
wow, I'm not the only one who has no clue what's going on..
- Sebastiaan van den Akker
Grr... shouldn't have commented... Now I'll be getting IM updates forever!!!!
- Carlos Granier-Phelps
I think this is just a psychology experiment...
- Chip McComb
lol
- Sebastiaan van den Akker
Commenting so as not to appear useless
- Herb Hernandez
hahaha
- Ronald
Carlos: lol
- Larry Roth
what is actually ment by "directions"?
- Clemsen
yes how is the number 53% found.
- Daniel Graversen
as usual im in the minority (43%), Im never in the majority :(
- George Deane
I hope you're wrong, Chip. Otherwise, you didn't see me here.
- Shawn Farner
reporting for duty...
- Todd Goldstein
baaaaah
- mikepk
Scoble does have a lot of followers...
- Sebastiaan van den Akker
I thought men were basically incapable of asking for directions, so why would they follow them? ;-)
- Julie Bovee Hill
Robert, you are looking angry today. Take it easy, man!
- Walter Lounsbery
d'oh! I meant 47%
- George Deane
I am in building 44. Can you give me directions to 43?
- David Connell
??? is this a test of the national broadcasting system?
- Robert Wilkins
damn it scoble! get a real job! =)
- Jonathan Crossland
Wow--never thought I'd wish for a "Don't Like" button or link, Robert!
- Kathy Fitch
Robert's comments are very important particularly for political & development work.
- Justin Long
Also important for business marketing.
- Justin Long
U made me upset in first look then I realized what u mean and I found Im not not one of those. Hope you are not angry sir and wont fire me..
- Abhijeet Singh
I need a job like Scoble's... but in Miami.
- Carlos Granier-Phelps
to comment or not to comment.... that is the question...
- Kim
Are trending topics on friendfeed called "friending topics"?
- Larry Roth
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT) What was the question again?
- don manu
hehehe... nice trick
- Gustavo Munoz
from twhirl
i think this thread goes 'epic' on FF ;)
- Ronald
Robert, I'm up to the CHALLENGE of not being "useless." Actually, my business communication students at SFSU just heard my initial remarks which included THREE RULES FOR SUCCESS in BUSINESS [and everything else!] The rules: LISTEN CAREFULLY, READ CAREFULLY and FOLLOW ALL DIRECTIONS!
- Shari Weiss
Apathy is the big killer of networks.
- Justin Long
I'm here. That makes me not useless, I guess?
- Celia
Robert Wilkins: it is my test to see how many spammers, bots, or jerks are following me.
- Robert Scoble
I get alot of spam about sites who gives you followers, whats the point of the followers have no interresting to give to you? And whats most crap is that they have enabled auto-follow back.. grrr :P don't sign up on those sites people.!
- @LarsenTweet
I like the constantly refreshed list but it doesn't half distract me from my own comment!
- Joshua Davidson
hahahahaha, ok.. now I get it
- Sebastiaan van den Akker
I Welcome our FF Overlords!
- Al Fuller
Does this mean that you expect there to be 45,120 comments here?
- Andrew Pass
I like Viagra.
- Paul Puri
:-P
- Lorenzo Strambi
a spammer...
- Sebastiaan van den Akker
this is the only ff link of yours i followed.
- moogs
You are usefull for us Robert =)
- @LarsenTweet
I am getting a few new people to follow here, which is good!
- Robert Scoble
Qbat aka Larsen: Agreed!
- Larry Roth
I am not a bot! I am a free man!
- Jeff Newfeld
Talking directions?
- Sardar Mohkim Khan
i guess i've been lucky - i don't think i've seen any bots yet on FF (going now to check my short followers list)
- Chris Rogers
Why do you think that people take the time to comment here?
- Andrew Pass
This thread is like watching the real time web on steroids.I can't type fast enough to keep the comment box in view....yikes!
- Dana Fosburgh
Robert - me too, thanks! :)
- Susan Beebe
All you have to do is insult people and then they come :-)
- George Deane
Notice how many of us follow when we are told we are not following.
- Sandy McMerty
So, you're saying that people who don't use FF are spammers, bots or jerks ?
- Djordje Lukic
So when you figure out how many there are, How are you going to auto filter them out?
- Robert Wilkins
I read, I clicked, I arrived. I guess that means I'm not useless.
- Mike
This comment intentionally left useless.
- phil baumann
Seriously though let's not take the term 'followers' too literally. Just because I read a column doesn't mean I share the authors views. Just because you say lets discuss this on friendfeed doesn't mean I log onto FF and.......ah. OK....What is thy bidding?!
- Joshua Davidson
You suck, man. I refuse to be a minion. Oh, wait... shit...
- Joey Gibson
<Insert clever comment here.>
- caj
Am I in the 53% or the 47%?
- Tony Connor
What type of followers do you need Robert? Tell us and maybe we will try to be better.
- @LarsenTweet
DeVries: oh, I understand. We need better notified control.
- Robert Scoble
150th
- Harscoat
Well, those who don't do what you tell them are actually more useful. No for you directly, but for the society. They mix your directions with their own to create new ones.
- Kirill Petrovsky
Is this a roll call :)
- Boon Kwee
i'm just commenting to hang with the cool kids
- ukgrad98
^^ Nope 'happy hour' at Scoble's ;) ;)
- Ronald
"Follower" is a weird term. "Watcher" may be better. Follower implies action and engagement, and anybody who's used social media for more than 20 minutes knows that just isn't true.
- Jared Smith
Have I responded quick enough not to deemed useless. I feel a little baaaaa now.
- Crispin Heath
Jared: bing!
- Robert Scoble
So if you ever figure out how to deal with the bots and all the "I will teach you to make millions with Twitter" junk let us all know!
- Marshall Huwe
you are talking about twitter, they would be useless but they are numbers and number always count.
- Madhav Tripathi
If we need to use friendfeed to be useful, are there any clients or is it only the webinterface.
- Daniel Graversen
Marshall: this is how. Bots and spammers don't get FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
Daniel: what is wrong with the web?
- Robert Scoble
inscribo ergo sum (I write therefore I am)
- Jeff Newfeld
Nothing, just seem deficult to follow more threads. But that is probably not needed because the whole conversation is in once place. No need to multitask.
- Daniel Graversen
is it just me or is the most used "plugin" on FriendFeed twitter?
- @LarsenTweet
Actually, I find FriendFeed useless. I was reading an article about Twitter being useless, but the news get faster there. We'll have to say thanks to TwitScoop for that.
- Dragos Pirvu
I never use FriendFeed. it just agregates all my other feeds into one feed. thats all :D
- Zafarali
Dragos: wait until you compare search here to Twitter before calling it useless. Among other features.
- Robert Scoble
No bot me, no. Count me out for that one.
- Ton Zijp
dragos: all the news on Twitter is on FF, plus FF has better conversation - what do you think is missing?
- Chris Rogers
FriendFeed enables comments on your tweets.!
- @LarsenTweet
Robert Scoble: I think the proliferation of tools for Twitter let you slice and dice the data the way you want it and that is helpful to many. I do like the Web interface for FriendFeed, but imagine the possibilities that some cool tools could bring. No?
- Larry Roth
So then we need someone in your vast network to write us a little app that will map the Twitter users who comment on FF and then block all the rest! Or at least create a "Real" Group in TweetDeck for me.
- Marshall Huwe
ha!
- Ned Baugh
there are SO MANY COMMENTS HERE
- Zafarali
the best part is u can track em
- Zafarali
Is this the way to San Jose? err ... I mean Friend Feed?
- Tom Horn
Twitter should have a option that people who want's to follow you must write a small text for WHY you should let them follow you or the other way around
- @LarsenTweet
Did you know that more than 90% of all statistics are made up? ;)
- Tim Young
I'm getting tired of having to block the spam followers everyday.
- Ron Hudson
Working on both FF and twitter - but FF is easier to follow comment threads
- kathysd
What is interesting is I am already following most of the people who commented here which proves my point.
- Robert Scoble
I was carefully looking at this list the other day http://spinn3r.com/rank... - turns out many people on it barely/if at all - use friendfeed.
- Nir Ben Yona
Can you guys slow down - I can't keep up :(
- Al Fuller
I think Twitter and FF provide different things and there is space on the internet for both :)
- Tom Griffin
I've had friendfeed for quite a while, but I've not used it much, how do I expand this chat?
- Ron Hudson
How does this post check for bots?
- Amit Morson
Followers can not be useless. At least you can be proud of the sheer scale. And I believe, you don't want to have a conversation with thousands people at once. That would be truly useless.
- Grigori Milov
I am here with you - I think it is that only half want to have a say.
- Robert Freeze
On Twitter I talk strangers V on Friendfeed I am among friends
- Asgeir
I'd like twitter to have a "report spam" button, this would avoid quite a lot of hassle...
- don manu
Ron: just click on comments link under the topic
- @LarsenTweet
ya like that! thanks. How do I do that?
- Ron Hudson
Why is it important that followers comment & discuss U2, @Scobleizer? BC U R green?
- Petter Griph
Amit: bots don't follow directions from people who are not their owners. No bots here.
- Robert Scoble
FriendFeed should get a comment button under all the comments
- @LarsenTweet
Qbat: click on the time under the post and open it in a new window
- Robert Freeze
Andy: I'm in the 35% that read the comments. Didn't want my lame joke to be a REPEATED lame joke. :D
- Tim Young
Robert Freeze: aaah.! Thank you =)
- @LarsenTweet
Robert: unless perhaps the bot has directions to comment on every Scoble post?
- Brian Sullivan
This reminds me of that "following directions" test from grade school. 1. Read all instructions before beginning. (2 -> N-1). Lots of crazy instructions which we all did. N. Don't do any of the previous instructions. Turn the page over, write your name, and wait.
- Don Faulkner
Robert Freeze, that never worked for me
- Amit Morson
Go watch Perez Hilton's video about being beaten up last night and going on techcrunch
- Mark
time for a pint :-p
- tony bland
Robert Freeze that worked. that should be labeled a bit better
- Ron Hudson
Andy: I didn't tell you to read all the comments! :-)
- Robert Scoble
If I reply here that I think it's less than 53% I may actually prove myself wrong. So be it.
- Arnd Jan Gulmans
Should be a rewind and play button so you can play back all the comments.. like google wave
- @LarsenTweet
And how many minutes/comments-in does the Scobalizer stop reading the comments? Opps, I just see that we are not supposed to "read" to comments...only discuss them.
- Stephen Price
Thats cause they were busy seeing what I am doing!! LOL, your not the only person bossing people around.
- T.S. Elliott
How big is the percentage of your followers that doesn't follow you?
- Arnd Jan Gulmans
I love Friend Feed!
- Robert Freeze
Click here for 101 ways to get rich ... Woooops, sorry wrong percentage group.
- Chris Spencer
The reason I don't use friendfeed very much is because there is no SocialScope support on my blackberry. As soon as I can get a sweet blackberry app I'll be here more.
- Ron Hudson
Now if I can just get my mom on here. http://www.building43.com/blogs...
- Robert Freeze
I don't want to be in the wrong group. :P
- Sheryl
Ron: http://fftogo.com
- Tom Griffin
Done, in.
- Thom Kennon
Tom Griffin, I saw that, and it's "usable" but it's nowhere near the elegance and simplicity of say UberTwitter,SocialScope, or TweetGenious. I use SocialScope. It is an absolute Killer app.
- Ron Hudson
Do I get partial credit for skimming the comments? No? Sorry, master.
- malackey
Cool, so, I'm in the 47%, 35%, 29.4%, 100% and 100% ranges! I'm all over the place. Thanks Scoble and Andy for helping me learn something new about myself.
- Tim Young
I see the "224 more comments" bit on FF and know I don't need to add another comment. Erm...
- Ian Betteridge
FFtogo doesn't auto-refresh
- Ron Hudson
To follow or not to follow, or to passive follow versus have an active conversation?
- Peter Simoons
It's all about the user experience though - it's easier to comment to someone's question on Twitter by quickly clicking @ than click a link through to FF, faff about sizing the screen on the screen to wait for the comments to load, read them and then post, so yeah, I can see why many respond on Twitter than FF. I'm doing that more myself as currently very busy with work projects. This...
more...
- Sally Church
I refuse to fall prey to this ruse, Robert. Oh...wait... ;)
- Robert J Taylor
I added you to my Live acct weeks ago. No reply.
- Bret
I'm too sleepy to read all this right now.
- Daniel Zarick
clever early morning link-bait
- Jake Ludington
nice one :) you should do an NHST on that hahaha
- The Pageman
They should change that from "followers" to something like "watchers" or "subscribers". As in "I have a subscription to the Scoble lifestream."
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
discuss (Would hate to be useless)
- Charlie Anzman
So is this a casual social experiment to determine rough percentages of active/rabid users who like to engage/participate with those they follow?
- Eden Hensley
I completely agree! Unfortunately I might be considered part of that 53%! The only reason I am responding is because someone else I follow re-tweeted it. I personally have over 5000 followers but only regularly interact with 50 or so. Isn't Social Media about conversation and being engaging? Hmmm......
- Robert Dominguez
Robert: Very interesting experiment, one should use there own judgment over there (twitter) regarding bots and spammers.
- Eran Even-Kesef
@Scoble: I'm listening. What are you going to say, or what did I miss?
- Jason Cronkhite
from Alert Thingy
It is a direction. Anybody must walk all alone ... so, what is the point?
- bishoph
same here, most people don't read
- Michael Reese
Smile and wave boys, smile and wave:)
- Rick Bucich
great man！！no protect update.... and i just follow ..i 'd like be the unless fllower..lol~~
- HealingBrush
Not being a bot, I am compelled to follow directions.
- Randall Fink
I am useless :-(
- Andrew
Andy Bold, I played with iPhone page too, but it's just a pain to have to open the browser. The blackberry environment is all about easy simple communication. If I have to jump through hoops it breaks down. Not to mention a friend feed experience without push is not a friendfeed experience.\
- Ron Hudson
99% of your followers will not read the 250 comments proceeding this one, and I am one of those 99%
- SteVe "Beefy Miracle" C
That'll teach me for ignoring Twitter for a few minutes a couple of hours ago! Late as usual.
- Graham Stewart
Hey, much better here! Twitter sux.... after getting locked out of @freddavis for months with NO reply from Twitter, even after you tweeted @ev and @biz (thanks!)... so I my new Twitter name is @fucktwtr ... but much better to use FriendFeed!
- Fred Davis
I almost thought that you have a big ego. :)
- Shuuro
followers are for cults. twitter should change to readers/reading, because at the end of the day this is all about reading
- Jim Posner
Adding my opinion to the rollcall, though I've just realized that i actually have no opinion on this.
- Chris Foley
Clever. :-)
- Patrick Ward
To much noise, the good data is lost.
- Adam Mesenbrink
Yes to much noice. Maybe a way to mark comments as good could be a way to filter the comments.
- Daniel Graversen
Adam, I think that's a limitation with the threaded discussion model of FriendFeed - it becomes very, very difficult to follow a conversation once it goes beyond a hundred or so comments. Of course, Scoble will come up with a search filter which makes it easy in about three comments from now, just to prove I'm wrong... :)
- Ian Betteridge
I didn't realize followers were supposed to do what their followees said. Does that mean I have to open those links to help me make money on twitter? I was just using it for communication. Silly me.
- RobinDotNet
Robin: communication takes someone on the other side listening and talking back.
- Robert Scoble
Useless to YOU, perhaps. I'll bet they are getting value from the info you rpovide. Social media doesn't have to be about communication, it can be about "transmitting information" or some other morer restrcitive definition of what goes on. Some people just like to listen!
- Jim Tierney
Useful post :)
- Krishnamoorthy
Agreed! There are those like me who sit in shadows, read and do not comment... oh wait, crap!
- Danny F Santos
Talking back is definitely good, but I'm still not clicking on those links telling me I can make money on twitter. I do talk back to people (as evidenced here). :-) So you have a lot of followers who don't. Do they even tweet? Can anyone explain why people join twitter and don't tweet?
- RobinDotNet
Jim: I'm not a broadcast, though. Are people who just consume really useful?
- Robert Scoble
And BTW, if you don't realize the value your personal brand gets from having those 48,000 followers whether they reply back or not, you're missing something!
- Jim Tierney
Robin: people are used to consuming info and not talking back. I understand that. Jim: there is some value in having lots of consumers, yes. I just aspire to more.
- Robert Scoble
lucky you that non all of them have an active role in your FF... how can you think of have an interaction wth so many people?
- Paolo Galli
from IM
I think you math is waaaaaaaay off. Looks like somewhere around 0.3125%(300/96,000 - rounding up) of your followers are useful, meaning you should edit your comment to say 99.7% of your followers. Really makes me wonder the true value of twitter if one of the top uses gets this percentage of useful following. The other possibility is that as followers increase, the percentage of attentive/usefull/whatever-you-want-to-call-it decreases.
- Robert D. Fraser
Paolo: I've had interactions with tens of thousands of people here on friendfeed, just not all at the same time. Robert: you're right. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Do you think those non-tweeting-twitterers sit at their desk and read all the tweets coming across? Or are they looking for something specific.
- RobinDotNet
Scoble: You are asking questions and experimenting with stuff that I find interesting. Just reading through this thread provides some interesting insights into users' perspectives on Twitter.
- Matthew Schrock
Is that southeastweb thing from a bot or some kind?
- RobinDotNet
Robin: I think it's a spammer. But at least it's a spammer that follows directions. That said I think I'm going to block it.
- Robert Scoble
Blocked.
- Robert Scoble
Scoble you really can do it? I'm very impressed :) I'm jocking... I think many users on the web just read information but doesn't partecipate... it's to difficult ;)
- Paolo Galli
from IM
97.2% of all statistics are made up.
- Jason A. Nunnelley
Tekany: and the statistics that aren't made up can mislead. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Seeing a spammer blocked just makes me feel warm all over. It's so awesome.
- RobinDotNet
I am exceptionally useless.
- Geoff Schultz {TF}
Geoff: that's why I follow you! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Following instructions is way overrated
- Iphigenie
That's what I'll have on my next business card: Scoble found me useful, what about you ?
- Antoine Bertier
RTFM or GTFO said the BOFH.
- Jon Winters
Although at this point I would welcome someone giving me instructions as to the next steps in life - far too many options. Maybe I should crowdsource it, but I am certain not to like the results
- Iphigenie
@scobleizer you crack me up sometimes! There, see this post went to you in both places... But I don't really feel like discussing it... ;-P
- JR
Walt: heh.
- Robert Scoble
LOL! Great job of being satirical! You have a lot of great followers. :)
- James Stratford
Just sayin I could follow directions and discuss here if I wanted, but not interested in this discussion. However it did make me laugh that you called 53% of your followers out on not being able to follow directions.
- JR
Alex, uhm like totally and stuff ... and uhm. Ya know. Cool.
- Jason Nunnelley
BTW: where'd you see my reply come in from first? FF or as a mention over on twiiter?
- JR
Walt: here on friendfeed.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, you dropped your twitter response button. Makes sense, but was it purely to reduce redundancy?
- Jason Nunnelley
viewing people as "useful" is problematic..useful to who?..tools are "useful'...people not so much...helpful may be a more precise word.
- Jim Posner
Jim, wordsmith!
- Jason Nunnelley
Hi
- Tyler (Chacha)
.LOLz...great thread!
- .LAG liked that
Twitter to me seems a big mess of information, I can't keep up with it! FF sorts the mess out nicely and without the spam. I much prefer FF.
- Matthew Davis
Jim: you're right of course. I was just trying to be an egotistical bbbaaaahhhhssssttttaaaarrrrrdddd to get a conversation going. Jason: what did I drop? I didn't do it on purpose.
- Robert Scoble
Damn it Robert, you got me to make an account here three days ago, what more can I do for you? ;-P
- Shane Trammell
Robert, you are smart
- Arvind
This is an easy way to get rid of bots. They don't have anything intelligent to share (like me)!
- Carlton Prest
WTG sheeple for getting conned into commenting here... wait. um.
- Scott Breakall
Robert, what if people want to reply and be engaging but don't feel like they have anything of value to say / to add to the discussion?
- Wang Yip
Scott: Perhaps, but at least I un-liked it...
- JR
Robert - what is the point of this? I took carrot...
- Liza + = ?
Robert, I just put the lime in the coconut. Now what?
- Sue Radd
Robert-Great discussion at 140, BTW. On another topic just watched the Perez Hilton video and trying to get my head around that rant..if you haven't seen it you should watch both sides of the feud with will.i.am. Interesting use of twitter and video to address insult/outrage.
- Jim Posner
Sue, like it.
- Liza + = ?
Yahoo Inbox: 178 messages. 132 are notifications of new comments here. Good job. :)
- Tim Young
Ok now I "get" this FriendFeed experience.
- Ron Hudson
lots of people commenting here--I wonder if it has to do with the time of day more than the topic
- Brent R Jones
I have a fear of being useless.
- Ron Wening
I hope I'm not within the 53%
- Michela Cimnaghi /cimny
I just drove from Pierre SD to Fort Totten ND, so I'm a little bit groggy. What exactly was I supposed to do to pass Robert Scoble's version of a Turing Test? Also, is it really important that people think I'm not a bot? I bet there is still money in AI.
- Matthew McCowan
Is that percentage of useless followers greater or less on Twitter. (I think I can predict your answer!)
- Curt Mercadante
"I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."
- jacek
This thread is taking me a long time to read when I haven't had coffee yet today.
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
So, my understanding is.. one who doesn't give 'directions' to his followers is useless too. Mmhhh! yeah
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
Robert - there's nothing egotistical about it! I'd also be remiss if I didn't add that I get plenty of thought-provoking value from you even when in "read-only" mode. Understandably my usefulness to you is nil in those cases. However (and I'm echoing at least one other commenter here: IRONY ALERT) I've found that by the time I comment in this type of thread, my exact thoughts have...
more...
- Jim Tierney
I just hope Scobleizer never directs me to do something self-destructive. I hate it when that happens.
- DGentry
I don't think lurker are useless :), I don't think number of followers have a great significance, Friendfeed is a Virtual Life Streaming, and in virtual life (as in real life) some people don't have a direction, they live (however i prefer LIVE with all capital letters, and have a direction!!!).
- CantorJF
90% of community members lurk.
- Ⓒⓗⓡⓘⓢ Ⓟⓘⓡⓘⓛⓛⓞ
Twitter has become useless for any sort of participation
- Jorge Escobar
here.
- metalerik
Yay for the other 47%.
- Colette
So if we post here, are we teacher's pets? :)
- Daynah
Members of the "TV Generation" are just not used to follow directions... (they sit and consume with chips&beer and maybe do some shopping via telephone - these are a well trained habits and hard to change)...
- Arne Krueger
I'm jumping up for another cup of tea, be right back...
- Deborah E. Bifulco
There clearly comes a point of scale where FriendFeed fails to delivery clarity...nothing useful on the first screenful or last... does that mean that 47% of your followers are unable to provide significant value?
- David Race
Will there be and end of this direction? Do we want to close directions? I think somewhen even directions become useless
- Vedran Rudelj
delivering significant value to ff and/or the subscribers depends on the roi they get... some people are just not using it - as it is intendet to be used. so what!?
- Arne Krueger
If technology fails you, next time you are in Memphis lets get together for lunch. Great value remains in human contact.
- Jeff Milton
That is priceless
- Keith - @tsudo
I am not a bot, I am huma ... wait, oh yeah, I am a bot .... never mind, back to being useless.
- John
Bots are human too.
- Thom Kennon
No one say anything useful, otherwise this will have meaning.
- Liza + = ?
from email
Liza: shhhh. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
I found this thread useful.
- Mike Nencetti
Love these types of threads - quite enjoyable!
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
O Captain! My Captain!
- Nicola Mattina
Commenting so I'm not included in the useless category... Also, I'd love to chat about this the next time you're around the FF office.
- Ross Miller
There are 3 kinds of people in the world: 1. Those that follow Robert Scoble because he doesn't act like he's too good to talk to us. 2. Those that follow Robert Scoble because he is known to follow everyone back, and therefore he is good for "inflating" their follower count. 3. Those who have no idea why they are following Robert Scoble.
- April
4th type of person follows for great feeds that generate discussion on FF.
- Mike Nencetti
April, you forgot the fourth category: 4. Those who don't subscribe to Robert Scoble but find far too many of his posts liked and commented by their friends.
- Hiding in Two Corners
But the only reason why Robert generates great discussions is because he is part of that discussion. He doesn't just drop & run, or only talk to people he thinks are "somebody", completely ignoring the rest of us. While he may have a big ego, it isn't so big that he thinks he's too good to have a real conversation with us.
- April
53%? That seems a generous estimate.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Rob: I have almost 42,000 followers here and 96,000 followers on Twitter, which comes out to 43%. Glad someone caught me on my math! :-)
- Robert Scoble
My casual research indicates about 1% will respond.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
even if they don't respond there is something to be said about passive observing- no?
- michael sean wright
You call this a discussion?
- Phil Boiarski
Phil: this is not a discussion. It's a lot of people following directions. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Hi Robert, nice experiment!
- Luis Enrique León
Aye aye Cap'n Scoble. Sorry I'm late but I just got done eating a plate of waffles in some diner in midtown NYC...
- Aaron Strout
53% of your followers aren't followers in the sheep sense. That's a good thing. Lose the other 47%
- C. K. Sample III
C. K. why must you self loathe on my thread?
- Robert Scoble
I feel kind of funny.
- Mike Nayyar
It's not easy being part of the 47%
- Aidan Mann
I am not a sheep! Oh wait, maybe I am.
- adam garrett
RS - The puppet master : )
- Mark Harai
I feel compelled to comment here... odd
- Jan Ole Peek
Mark: who is the puppet master and who is the puppet? I'm answering you now.
- Robert Scoble
Just following directions. Too many Mark's here though, I wish FF signed thing with our usernames.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
You can change your display name any time by clicking on your name in the top right corner.
- Mark
Robert: communication still occurs when unidirectional, surely the works of Socrates convey concepts to readers even today?
- Mike Chelen
Wow! It wasn't till I finished reading through almost all the comments that I got what Robert was trying to say :) FF good, Twitter bad. But I can't complain since it was Leo Laportes constant references to FF that got me to join and Roberts comments that got me to try and really understand what FF is all about. Initially FF was a little overwhelming and the only reason I've stuck it through so far is because of the higher quality of content for a (mostly) passive FFer.
- Anant Gairola
Writing that last comment took me 10 minutes! Really really wish there was a good FF iPhone application!!!
- Anant Gairola
Anant: the content here keeps getting better as more and more people join (which is quite a few every week lately, my numbers are going up much faster here than on Twitter, the tides are starting to move).
- Robert Scoble
baa baa
- Kim Landwehr
I'm sorry... did you say something?
- Sean
You have no Idea how tempting it is to reshare this - and discuss it over there >>>>>>>>>>
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
No rain, no rainbows..
- BryanSchuetz
FF is the only place I can dip into your content 'at will', Twitter is to noisy and makes me dig a lot further to see the flow of conversation and any associated references.
- Threepwood
I like to lurk most of the time. I usually don't have much to add by the time I am able to read the whole thread.
- Dan Douglass
from Nambu
Better late than never!
- John Rubier
Testing the maximum for FF comments? :P
- Barbara
Are you happy with how friendfeed is developing? What would you change, if you were in control? I love the daily digests, I prefer something filtering the best content from those I follow
- Ryan Singer
first post... wait.
- Aaron Baer
following........
- sirishkumar
amazing post.
- Guy Vander Heyden
Suivez moi?
- Gordon Joly
Oui, monsieur Gordon ! Où allons nous ?
- Brome
<----- not a bot so what percent does that make me?
- Howell Selburn
from BuddyFeed
bleet bleet
- Sriks7
Master is our friend!
- Rick Cogley
Adding myself to the list :)
- TiTi
Why a follower must follow direction? :)
- Christine Yang
from BuddyFeed
Lead, follow or whatever...Info on Neda http://tinyurl.com/nm9xdn
- JoWazzoo
:)
- Tony
This is a wicked and interesting post on FriendFeed =)
- @LarsenTweet
by the way some of my twitter followers complain that, like you, I redirect them to friendfeed on every post there. Some say I have to choose between the two and they will follow me there, but not on both services.
- Kostantinos Koukopoulos
Kostantinos: it's an open question how best to interconnect FF and Twitter. remember that there are a wide range of options, including sending comments or posts, and sending posts automatically or manually. the feedback from readers is helpful if it can be used to find the right balance
- Mike Chelen
53% of your followers will leave you and then what? insult the other 47%. You can't just say it that way. You need to treat your followers with respect. Especially when you are your biggest fan. People will leave you in a heartbeat.
- Jack Scalfani
Be a nice little follower, and drink the damn kool-aid!
- James
Have to lety my eeeBuntu install go... it's simply not as fast booting or operating as WIndows XP and has much too many connection problems for my liking. One moment Bluetooth sets out, the other the WiFi goes. It's much too unreliable for my taste for a netbook which have to be wireless almost by definition.
Is this what you were using: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UNR ?
- Aidan Mann
Yes the Netbook Remix version - great, but not as fast as XP and too much fiddling around for my liking
- Morten Blaabjerg
@4ND3RS Thanks - the NC10 has got 2 strong supporters now. I do want a good keyboard - priciest of the bunch but sounds very good
I bought an asus eee 701 from the first shipment to the UK. It had a battery life of 90 minutes which after 18 mths I upgraded to a battery that lasts over 3 hrs. I think I made the mistake of loading windows on to it. I am going to reinstall the linux system it came with. In the meantime I have looked to upgrade and for the longest time have looked at the eee 901 but am leaning towards...
more...
- Aidan Mann
I'm leaning towards the HE too, when weighing it against the NC10 it comes out just slightly better. I almost hit the order button tonight, but taking just one more nights sleep on it and will go and take a last look in a store tomorrow. Price is a factor, when they compare so well and the race is so tight as it is.
- Morten Blaabjerg
Seesmic just got me back from TweetDeck. New Facebook integration rocks.
Youji Sakai, Tracy Tran, Derek Markham and 42 other people liked this
Used Seesmic Desktop since it was released and I must say, its FUN when we can give feedback to team seesmic and you get answer from them almost at once, AND the best: they try to fix it for you
- @LarsenTweet
I was watching when you typed that :)
- Simon Wicks
I think in about 1-2 days. Think that was what Loic said
- @LarsenTweet
Loic said "in few days" in its last Seesmic video (http://ff.im/2oV1P)
- Jérôme
Frank: Ping.fm ? :P
- @LarsenTweet
Still looking OK?
- Robert Scoble
yes Robert. GREAT
- @LarsenTweet
OffTopic: Is it just Larsen that is displayd after my messages? or Larsen aka Qbat ?
- @LarsenTweet
Hope they can keep memory usage down to DestroyTwitter's levels
- Manuel Mas
@ Joseph Zitt I want to replace my eee 701 with an eee 901 it has loads more memory and battery life.
- Aidan Mann
Until the UI is fixed, and it's off AIR, I won't use it. Native apps, FTW!
- Daniel Brusilovsky
I downloaded the last version of SD and it overwrote all of the user lists I had worked so hard to create. Until that is fixed, I won't be using SD for more than updates. I posted my feedback to Seesmic's user forum and no one responded. Lovely.
- Rachel Polish
I went back to try it out but I am going to stick with TweetDeck. I think Seesmic needs to learn from TweekDeck.
- Rohit
Agreed! I've just created a userlist called ScobleFeed, it only has one user... ;-)
- Luke Gregory
http://bit.ly/Bj0dC has got more potential than TweetDeck, and doesn't require any plugins/downloads either.
- David Semeria
Rachel, that user list bug should be totally fixed now. Daniel, you have no idea what it takes to create and maintain native apps as advanced as SD on both PC and Mac, I talked to Evernote today and they have LOTS of people to be able to do that.
- Loic Le Meur
Great job, Loic! It's great to have prompt response on our feedback and questions.
- Gerald Neo
That's just because Seesmic got preference by Facebook to present and see the OpenStream code before TweetDeck. Seesmic got a lucky, free head start. I'm happy for Loic in that matter, but TweetDeck will launch the same stuff, I'm pretty sure. Props to Loic for keeping good relationships with the Facebook team to be able to get opportunities like this.
- Jesse Stay
I am still super impressed with Tweetie desktop.
- Daniel Zarick
Thanks, Loic! I will check it out again and am excited about the Facebook integration.
- Rachel Polish
Now all we need is Friendfeed integration and I'd love it.
- Brandon Mendelson
Giving it another try, but on initial start-up, I am still seeing some of the «issues» that have been irking me since the beginning: too much wasted space in the UI, CPU consistently over 5 to 10% usage, refresh problems lists not getting update or notifications not appearing & my twitter account icon not showing. I will continue to run it for a few days see how...
- Thomas V. Fischer
Seemic Desktop is a great example of iterative/customer focused development. A few more iteration and they might get me to switch from Tweetie (which is an amazing application)
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Does Seesmic Desktop suffer from the same memory leak issues as TweetDeck?
- Chris Poulson
TweetDeck is a lot better lately. But I don't care, I run TweetDeck/Seesmic on its own laptop that gets rebooted once a day. So steal my memory, please!
- Robert Scoble
What memory leaks does TweetDeck have? I run it on my Mac and never had any issues.
- Joe Lima
Joe: if you are following lots of people, like I am, it used to leak memory until it would eventually freeze my machine forcing a reboot. It no longer does that. So far neither does Seesmic's new desktop.
- Robert Scoble
I don't get Seemsic interface, staying w Tweetdeck
- Bob Morris (polizeros)
I'm getting tired of changing clients every week. I'll stick with Nambu until more dust settles.
- Doug Kaye
polizeros: you can make Seesmic look very similar to Tweetdeck by dragging things to create columns. Until I got that I didn't like it as much either.
- Robert Scoble
why is it a "seesmic" desktop while it has twitter, facebook... but not seesmic? it's got a cute UI but less features than twhirl used to...
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
Excellent! I was just getting ready to switch.
- Kelly Williams
Can't wait for the FriendFeed integration coming soon!
- Garin Kilpatrick
Wow friendfeeds beta is now the thing... and somehow I ve got more followers, while I did not post that manny... Is it because now everyone can see I am blond... ;)
mjc and Nir Ben Yona liked this
Outrages - UK air carrier BMI wiped Israel off their digital map.
Their site is a ripoff. I looked at a flight from Birmingham to Copenhagen which they show as an SAS flight for £123. If you book it through SAS you pay £79.30
- Aidan Mann
Sometime in next 24 hours I will pass 34,000 followers on friendfeed. Is Twitter follower better than a friendfeed one?
Hutch Carpenter, Lu Tao, Norman Savigar and 48 other people liked this
I get more discussion from my followers on FriendFeed than Twitter
- Jesse Stay
My answer: no. Why? Friendfeed users are more engaging.
- Robert Scoble
Passive Twitter follower == Passive FriendFeed Follower; but Active FriendFeed Follower > Any Twitter Follower
- Ahsan Ali
Actually to restate, FriendFeed allows followers to be more engaging
- Kiran Patchigolla
Depends on your goals. Are you a broadcaster or an engager?
- Mark Krynsky
Jesse: how can we prove that? By the way I got to 34,000 a lot faster on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
I just got twitter today! Of course Scoble was one of the first ones I chose to folow :D
- Angus Burton
I seem to get more engagement from twitter followers
- Tony C
A follow in ff is better, because many ff's don't easily give it.
- Michael Fidler
Ahsan: I agree with you there. Passive followers are equal, but engaged FF followers are much more valuable to me. Most seem more considered in their conversation and opinions
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
...let's get @Scoble to 1 million FF followers... before Ashton Kutcher figures this thing out! <wink>
- .LAG liked that
+1 to .LAG !
- Ahsan Ali
Robert: Getting to high numbers on FF with the level of integration with Twitter seems a natural. I would be surprised if that rate was actually even close. I wonder how fast you would have achieved the numbers here without the Twitter following you already had.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Majority of twitter followers are spam and people who sign up and login once. I love how you bait us Scoble.
- Matthew
FF follower is better. I even started importing twitter feeds of my fav frnds who r not on FF yet.
- Roshan Ramachandran
Mark: Also very correct. Broadcasting is perfectly acceptable on Twitter, whereas you won't get very far here just doing that.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
In fact, I've unfollowed most Twitter people that I'm already following on FF.
- Ahsan Ali
I get more engagement from twitter followers, but the quality of the engagement overall is much lower on twitter. It's "chatty" rather than the more intellectual "engagement of my ideas" (as Robert put it in the beg for followers thread)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Noone has even heard of friendfeed...
- tojfs7931
tojfs7931: who are you talking to then? ;)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I have a larger number of followers on Twitter than FF but get way more comments and engagement here.
- Mark Krynsky
Aren't "Followers" exclusive to Twitter? (semantics--I know)
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
I was watching your feed the other night, and it wasn't that bad, but right now it's moving fast! I know you filter yours, so I'm sure it's a completely different experience. It's a great place to find new people to follow though. http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei...
- Michael Fidler
The other thing I noticed is that here I am getting to know people a lot better especially regulars. Oh, and I am manually following a LOT more here.
- Robert Scoble
Michael Fidler: Dude, that's a great tip !
- Ahsan Ali
I don't have an auto-follow for FF, and so I'm paying more attention to the content as I subscribe to someone's feed
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Am not getting much subscribers on friendfeed. :( I don't know how it works!
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
watching this discussion in beta is great.. find it easier than having to go the hashtag route on Twitter
- Peter du Toit (S.Africa)
I will say that it's taking a little bit longer to get the momentum up here, and get to the same level of followers on FF as I had at the same point on twitter, but I expect after a certain critical mass that will change
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I think that has to do with the level of conversation and engagement that I give (and is expected) here.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I think there can be limited exchanges on Twitter, but no real discussions. Here, there are discussions.
- Kathy Fitch
and the lack of spammers
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob, see I have this awesome thing to sell you, and it's . . . .
- Kathy Fitch
kidding
- Kathy Fitch
The only following I try to be good at is in dancing...
- Paula W
On a numerical view only, having more is always important. What you'll do with it is a whole different story.
- Rodrigo Jaroszewski
go ahead, Kathy, try to sell me something. Especially some twitter secrets. I love those.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Thanks for sub'ing my FF Robert! :)
- Roshan Ramachandran
Thanks for the 'follow', Robert.
- Ahsan Ali
I am following everyone who commented here. Thank you all for making my life better.
- Robert Scoble
Oh, gosh, even the auto greetings are awful, aren't they: "Hi, friend--I can get you seventy bazillion followers in a snap!" Sigh.
- Kathy Fitch
A different kind of audience, though.
- Kathy Fitch
Thanks for thinking that way Robert. I like that about you. That, in my opinion, is what social media, and really the internet as a whole, is for really.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Twitter is already mainstream, FriendFeed is not, that's why FriendFeed follower is much better than Twitter follower, IMHO.
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
Kathy, do you think that is a side-effect of opening up the DM Api for Twitter Applications to abuse ?
- Ahsan Ali
FF should be careful now about what functions they expose to developers.
- Ahsan Ali
Robert for all the reasons you have previously described and more FriendFeed is the superior experience. Number one being the architecture. It seems the culture of FriendFeed is developing in a more positive, engaging, thoughtful way because of this factor.
- Aidan Mann
Ahsan, I don't think it's the sort of thing that rules really manages. People always find a way to game the economy of a system.
- Kathy Fitch
Sometime in the next 24 hours, you will see a Fail Whale. But not here.
- Louis Gray
Louis: haha...I don't use the infernal web site over there...so not likely ;) I don't use tweedeck anymore so I don't get "twitter problem, tweet not sent"....peoplebrowsr just waits for it
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Kathy I don't mean Rules. For example, if Twitter removed access to the DM function for third-party applications, it might reduce abuse of that function. But of course, it would hurt those that make 'good' use of it.
- Ahsan Ali
Not that rules don't have an impact, but . . .I like to see a thing emerge as it will. In list days, the most moderated of them tended to fail, the freewheelers didn't. What's odd on Twitter is that everyone seems to be looking to sell . . .twitter!
- Kathy Fitch
Ahsan, how would that reduce spam? I can make a curl based spambot just as easily
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I see what you mean, Ahsan, but then that's a rule, right--apps can't access the DM.
- Kathy Fitch
guruvan, to send DMs ?
- Ahsan Ali
Like the recent cap on follow back numbers
- Kathy Fitch
they work via the web, curl just accesses the web right?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Kathy, er yes. Kind of. I guess I was speaking in technical terms...
- Ahsan Ali
This Friendfeed V Twitter nonsense is getting tiresome. You're beginning to sound elitist. There's room for both and you don't have to use Twitter.
- Gilbert Harding
Right, Ahsan, we're talking the same thing from two different angles.
- Kathy Fitch
I use both
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
for different purposes now
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
guruvan, you mean a web scraper ? I guess. But in the end, the service /can/ influence usage of its own ... service :)
- Ahsan Ali
Yeah, I use Twitter to 'engage' (limited) with those are not yet on FF. I am not satisfied with the 'Imaginary Friends' thing.
- Ahsan Ali
Ahsan I'm not sure what you're driving at....the point was 3rd party API access to DMs on twitter produces more spam...I don't see how that is the case.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Do you have the most on FF Robert?
- Andrew Leahey
Hmm. Well, part of the benefit of FF is that it integrates Twitter. That seeds a lot of the conversation here. Doesn't seem elitist to note that those conversations require this kind of interface. Just can't thrive there in quite this way.
- Kathy Fitch
guruvan, I didn't say spam, I said side-effect :) Mis-use is the word I should have used. Oh well
- Ahsan Ali
I see what Ahsan is saying--if they didn't have access, then they couldn't push the spammy greetings.
- Kathy Fitch
FF has one HUGE drawback, though.
- Kathy Fitch
hm..I'm not sure, BUT, I did see a bunch of developers trying to get "mass DM" access via the API on the google group.....so - it does have that potential (or at least the desire for it)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
It's just way too engaging.
- Kathy Fitch
Absolutely not. An *active* FFer is a truly social follower, commenting and conversing (now in realtime), as opposed to the occasional reply on the megaphoning medium known as Twitter.
- Mo Kargas
Kathy: what I said about using a curl based spam bot to spam greet still stands...send it like any dm from the web site
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
To return to Robert's original question. Tweeters have built reputation systems around the number of followers, while FF hasn't (Thank God).
- Ahsan Ali
Amen Ahsan
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Grinning at Mo--megaphoning is a good word. I've started thinking of it as an echo chamber too. (RT too, RT too, RT too)
- Kathy Fitch
Kathy, Mo: In fact, it's half-duplex. You can't hear the other person while broadcasting. (No real-time)
- Ahsan Ali
ever since this discussion started I got 1 follower on Twitter & 4 on FF.... at do u guys think abt that?
- Roshan Ramachandran
Right, Rob--that's what I mean. People find a way. Why, I'm the best friend of a *whole* lot of people now. Truly, the DM greetings would make a great study. There's a whole dissertation in that, alone.
- Kathy Fitch
@Ahsan Hmm? I'm lost, which service are you talking about? I find FF far easier to hold a conversation on is my main point
- Mo Kargas
Roshan, I think you are now on my favorites list, that's what I think!
- Kathy Fitch
Mo: Sorry, I was referring to Twitter.
- Ahsan Ali
Kathy, I am honoured! :)
- Roshan Ramachandran
@Ahsan - Ahh, absolutely
- Mo Kargas
The honor is all mine, I'm sure. You know, we really couldn't do this there, that's plain as day.
- Kathy Fitch
It is interesting to see the cynical comments here. Blog post is rattling in my head.
- Robert Scoble
Naysayers be damned, we like FF.
- Andrew Leahey
Blink. I haven't a cynical bone in my whole body.
- Kathy Fitch
Murphy rules !
- Ahsan Ali
@Robert If I'm coming across as cynical, it's probably because I've become attached to FF. An 'evangelist', if you will :)
- Mo Kargas
It's OK Mo... I'm a straight out fanboi ( and I'm not ashamed of it either :D )
- Johnny
Go Robert! I like it wen something rattles in ur head...LOL
- Roshan Ramachandran
Apparently, just commenting on your post attracts followers. I just picked up two more.
- Michael Fidler
Andrew Leahy, I just looked at your blog. Great typography !
- Ahsan Ali
Three, Michael!
- Kathy Fitch
Many thanks Ahsan =)
- Andrew Leahey
I don't think it's cynical at all simply to be observant, though.
- Kathy Fitch
Kathy, Michael, Roshan: Isnt that funny ? People getting followers during a post about followers :P
- Ahsan Ali
I like Twitter. I got me here, so there's that. It is fitting, isn't it, Ahsan?
- Kathy Fitch
Andrew: yeah, I have most followers here. I was on top on Twitter for first two years too. When I am not on top you will know the mainstream is showing up in droves.
- Robert Scoble
heh. I followed everyone ;) (actually I was following most of you already)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob: me too.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Yeah, I think Twitter has gone downhill since you and Leo left the top spot(s). Oprah and Kutcher were just the final straws.
- Andrew Leahey
friendfeed it just struck me is micro-blogging at its finest
- Peter du Toit (S.Africa)
Mainstream could be better here than on twitter. The attitude here is much different. (from the top management on down)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
It'll be interesting to see how many followers you get organically prior to FF going mainstream.
- Andrew Leahey
Multi-stream.
- Kathy Fitch
Kathy, ay re: fitting
- Ahsan Ali
It isn't necessary to follow the hollywood celebs. I don't.
- Kathy Fitch
Robert, do you follow all of your followers? If so, how do you keep up with all of that info, especially in real-time?
- Soso Sazesh
:-) Robert
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I just follow John Malkovich ;) He don't talk much
- Ahsan Ali
Oh man, if you don't follow the celebs you don't get to find out how insane they are. With their pseudoinspirational mumbo jumbo.
- Andrew Leahey
Rob: I agree with that. Friendfeed's team is far superior technically.
- Robert Scoble
Soso: I only follow the good ones. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Not just technically....their attitude is better. They care more about how people "feel"
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Just from a user's perspective I'd have to agree, haven't seen a fail whale yet. Twitter definitely had growing pains by this point.
- Andrew Leahey
Andrew, there's a lot of that, for sure, even among non-celebs. I tell you, I suddenly despise inspirational quotes.
- Kathy Fitch
A typical FF follower is likely more advanced these days. But a friend is a friend, isn't he? :)
- Yuri Alkin
Kathy: I love when they encourage you to tweet out abstract emotions. "Let's give out some twitter love!"
- Andrew Leahey
(Note: that's not cynicism, that's just overload!)
- Kathy Fitch
I'm waiting for the chainletters that I need to reply to with snopes.com links.
- Andrew Leahey
Andrew: Twitter had major problems when I had just 1,500 followers.
- Robert Scoble
On the other hand, I follow one of our local tv weather guys, and, you know what? He's awesome! You just never can tell.
- Kathy Fitch
Oh, Andrew, I've already pulled snopes on someone.
- Kathy Fitch
As gently as possible--hate to see someone be taken, you know?
- Kathy Fitch
There's another angle to this. People are reluctant to move to FF for fear of losing their 'follower counts'. Not everyone can evangelize like Scoble.
- Ahsan Ali
Soso: It's not as hard as you might thing to digest large amounts of data. Breaking it up in to bite sized chunks and watching several feeds at onces goes a long way...
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Robert: Do you think FF not having those issues yet is an architectural thing? Did they just build it more scalable?
- Andrew Leahey
Indeed Kathy
- Andrew Leahey
Selective scan and dip--it's an art. I do like the flow on Twitter. I enjoy the *overallness* of it, if that makes sense.
- Kathy Fitch
Rob: That makes sense. But the real-time factor blows my mind. It's very engaging but very time consuming.
- Soso Sazesh
Very hard to have discussion among many multiple people on Twitter
- Taehoon Kim
The only thing they aren't doing that Twitter does is SMS, I can't really imagine that being the source of all their issues.
- Andrew Leahey
Ahsan: I'm seeing my twitter followers show up here quickly...The real ones, at least
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Andrew: I would let Twitter concentrate on mobile-blogging, while FF concentrates on the real-time web... or maybe FF can build a real-time WAP app ?
- Ahsan Ali
Soso: it is time consuming, and that's why you have to break it up with lists and filters. And you have to use your time wisely
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Soso: I agree, sometimes I feel like the limitations of Twitter are a blessing. Character counts, API calls that force my clients to only update every minute or minute and a half. Gives me some time to get work done.
- Andrew Leahey
True, Taehoon--discussion isn't really possible in the infrastructure of it. There's no space that will keep it connected. Here, it both flows and stays--you can return to it later.
- Kathy Fitch
Ahsan: Definitely, I was just questioning what made Twitter hit their glass ceiling so early with failwhales and the like.
- Andrew Leahey
guruvan: Hmm. Here in the UAE, several people have joined FF but I can only count only other person here who is using it as actively as I am.
- Ahsan Ali
Ahsan, I had family who lived in the UAE for quite a few years, and hated to leave.
- Kathy Fitch
Andrew: Exactly. It begs the question whether the trend towards real time is truly an "advancement"
- Soso Sazesh
Kathy: :)
- Ahsan Ali
These things take time to build. I think down the road, we'll all be thankful that friendFeed has taken the slow growth approach...that will win the race for them ...the strongest companies don't grow explosively usually
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Robert ...you are intuitive I will always give yxou that over everyone else. :) I need to send you something ..is it okay?
- Phil Butler
Soso--I like that the real time aspect here is *part* of it. I keep coming back to that as a central part of the appeal--it flows *and* stays put. It emerges *and* is instantly archived.
- Kathy Fitch
Rob: Very much agree on using time wisely.
- Soso Sazesh
I haven't decided what I think about how easily the whole thing can be edited though.
- Kathy Fitch
The real-time'ness makes you want to discuss more and more often than you would normally do on Twitter
- Taehoon Kim
And gone again.
- Kathy Fitch
Phil: sure! My email is scobleizer@gmail.com
- Robert Scoble
So that's a little . . . potentially jarring.
- Kathy Fitch
In fact, I just had this thought. We talk about how here are mostly geeks on FF, but the real question is, are less-geeky people likely to talk as much as we do _in public_ !?
- Ahsan Ali
A follower is a follower, whether they contribute is what counts
- Bryce Roney
Seems to me on Twitter people are following for the sake of following, and are trying to gain followers. Friendfeeders follow because of the content i think. When a Friendfeeder comes floating to the top a couple of times it gets my attention and i take a look at their feed.
- Willem (@wim66) ☠
Uh, most of my friends just disappear when I start talking this way.
- Kathy Fitch
+1 Willem
- Ahsan Ali
Kathy: That's very true. I guess you could say equivalent to saving IM conversations.
- Soso Sazesh
I have a colleague who calls it "the dome of silence" that descends whenever geeks start going all tech enthusiastic.
- Kathy Fitch
Kathy, so your friends would be more comfortable participating in private conversations ? Would they participate in a public convo ?
- Ahsan Ali
Ahsan, no, I mean my close to home day-to-day non tech oriented friends just don't get this at all. Actually, this reminds me most strongly of MOO interaction in a text based MOO.
- Kathy Fitch
Oh I see
- Ahsan Ali
Here, I virtually qualify as a non-tech nerd compared to many who are far more experienced, and I just love the heck out of that. It's such a relief. So fun.
- Kathy Fitch
So here's an interesting observation: I found more followers in this thread than the "beg for followers" thread the other day. At less than half the comments
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Ergo: a tweet just ain't no feed.
- Willem (@wim66) ☠
guruvan: very good point.
- Ahsan Ali
starve a tweet, feed a friend?
- Kathy Fitch
heh.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I think our American friends have gone to bed by now... yes ?
- Ahsan Ali
Ahsan: Not yet but soon.
- Soso Sazesh
@Rob I read your comments earlier about following everyone, so I knew you didn't have time to check everyone's stream. However, I would have appreciated more, if you did.
- Michael Fidler
Haven't seen any pesky MLM marketers among my FriendFeed followers.
- Nir Ben Yona
For one... FriendFeed followers, at least the active ones, have longer attention spans. ;-)
- Nenad Nikolic
@Nir +10
- Michael Fidler
Friendfeed is just a web forum on steroids. Web forums were for people who couldn't handle Usenet.
- Gilbert Harding
@Gilbert: haven't seen a forum where you can toss in YouTube or Vimeo videos.
- Nir Ben Yona
I'm very close to giving up on Twitter. I haven't got enough followers to make it worthwhile and feel that i actually get a chance for interaction on FF. Twitter is a public access TV station that all the stars want to be on
- Jamie Vidamour
I'm with you on this Jamie, I have way more interaction on FF than twitter.
- Andy
On twitter you are a DJ talking between songs, transmitting brief messages. On FF everybody can follow a conversation. Some end using FF as IRC and some conversations might be boring. No hard rules for what's best.
- Michele Costabile
I'm still trying to figure out how to even use FriendFeed properly... :/
- Geoff Jackson
For me it's a ratio of 10:1. I'd be very very happy if my real Twitter follows would all join us here.
- Kevin Gamble
Definitely! At least, you'll know which reply comes to which post :)
- Krishnamoorthy
Nir Ben Yona. It's a web forum on steroids. FF is not intuitive to use. For example responding to your post isn't as straightforward as it would be on Usenet, Twitter or even an old fashioned BB based web forum.
- Gilbert Harding
That depends on what you mean by "better".
- Kevin Eklund
Gilbert: if you take 2 simple rooms, one is empty or filled with regular people and the other one houses very interesting members that can generate priceless information within the chamber - without any doubt, the second will always be more attractive and valuable - either you call it Usenet, FriendFeed, IRC or Scobleisure.
- Nir Ben Yona
Nir Ben Yona I agree, but FF is still not as intuitive to use as other forums. Replying to comments here is a "how the hell do I do that?" issue. And the comments are in time order, not threaded, so this response to you will not necessarily appear adjacent to the comment I'm responding to.
- Gilbert Harding
@Gilbert Harding : Threaded comments would be great addition to FF. But, in Twitter you wont even know for what post your a reply :).
- Krishnamoorthy
No.
- Anthony Citrano
from BuddyFeed
Krishnamoorthy.K That depends on the Twitter app you use. Nambu and Tweetie on the Mac have threading capabilities. I'm sure others will have in future.
- Gilbert Harding
I get much better feedback on FriendFeed, compared to Twitter. However, FriendFeed users are far, far less likely to click through to my blogs than Twitter users. It seems that with FriendFeed, the conversation stays here, because it's so much easier to 'chat' here than it is on Twiter.
- Jim Connolly
With FF I feel like I have had to "earn" my subscribers. On Twitter, notsomuch.
- Gunnybear ™
Jim, you could always link from a blog post to the discussion here. (I think I'm actually more likely to click through here, btw.)
- Kathy Fitch
I moved to FF because, while there are many worthwhile people I'm following on Twitter, there are too many of them for me to get a sense of conversation. About a year ago (which is FOREVER in social media terms), I couldn't stay away from Twitter because I had a small following list and could keep up. Can't do it now. Oh, and thanks from me too re: the tip on unfollowing on Twitter some or all of those to whom I subscribe here.
- Heather
I am not sure, but I am starting to really like friendfeed.
- Adam Martin
Its amazing that Scoble's Friends' Firehose is moving faster than the Everybody one: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei...
- Ahsan Ali
Friendfeed is more engaging. There's also less clutter on the screen when I reply in Friendfeed. Too many @ replies in my Twitter feed annoys me.
- Valley
Neither has any meaning
- Bob Walder
Friendfeed followers are way better, more discussion, liking, comments, etc
- Ryan
ff seems just more social. Twitter is not, but it feels more one way.
- Chris Gardner
of course not
- Peter Efland
It's harder to build followers on ff due to lack of auto-follow. So ff followers are more valuable since they've usually chosen to follow you because they want to hear what you have to say. This means they'll be more likely to pay attention and engage in conversation. Auto-followers on twitter aren't discriminating. And I've found following someone on ff to be far more useful.
- Mike Elliott
Rob Nelson: Kudos!: I get more engagement from twitter followers, but the quality of the engagement overall is much lower on twitter. It's "chatty" rather than the more intellectual "engagement of my ideas" (as Robert put it in the beg for followers thread) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)
- Tony C
It's also a bit harder to figure out who to follow on ff, I feel a bit like I did on Twitter for the first year, blind and i the dark.
- Peggy Dolane
One thing I've noticed. Robert's Likes on a blog post get a lot more clicks from Twitter (he sends his Likes there) than on FriendFeed. Not sure what to make of that.
- Hutch Carpenter
Tweet Styles of the Rich and FamousHow to decide which celebrities are worth following on Twitter.
- Aidan Mann
so what will be the nature of the press when the newspapers die? It's not like I'm gonna suddenly start trusting blogs, twitter and ff more.
andrei_c, Cathryn Hrudicka, Chieze Okoye and 7 other people liked this
Journalists aren't going to just quit reporting with the lack of a physical newspaper.
- Mr. Gunn
What Mr. Gunn said. It's one reason I hate the term "social media". It's all media, and it evolves. Just because Om Malik is writing in blog form doesn't make him a different person from the one who wrote in print. And likewise, if someone who started online suddenly starts writing in print doesn't make their quality suddenly better.
- Deepak Singh
Yeah, but what I want to know is how will these folks get paid?
- Victor Ganata
Good point Deepak
- nouhad
Victor: conferences can be very profitable for blog networks.
- Robert Scoble
Victor Ganata: i hope you haven't been trusting the press if that's what you mean
- Tweet Feeds
I'm with Victor. No reason to trust the 'recognized press' in the least. At least w/bloggers they're usually upfront w/their biases. I'm a journalist, you're a journalist, we're all journalists. Time to take back the term from the hijackers w/a college degree in lying to the public when it suits their political purposes.
- Molly
From all industries that have become obsolete by the Internet, newspapers will be the only ones I miss. Journalism won't die, but it will be more difficult to find news that you can trust, if they are not backed by an trusted organization. There will be something else in this place, but who knows how long this will take. Then again, in the Internet age most things go faster than expected.
- Oliver Bouchard
I realize that newspapers really killed themselves, by no longer printing actual news, and by becoming instruments of propaganda when the War on Terror first started, but what I want to know is what the press will look like afterwards. Are there Serious Journalists who are making a living working independently and publishing strictly online? If so, can you point me to them? If not, then what will the next paradigm look like?
- Victor Ganata
Especially when it feels like more and more people are posting less substance on blogs in lieu of short-attention-span-snippets on Twitter. How can you really build trust in 140 characters at a time, even over time? We all remember the children's game "Telephone" don't we? What is its corollary effect on Twitter?
- Chris Aldrich
Maybe reporters will become more independent from papers, other media and get sponsors to sponsor their investigative work but, they'll have to be non bias sponsors. We need the work reporters have done since the founding father days. Bloggers will not uncover a Watergate fraud and other investigative reporting stories that changed things. Reporters can creditials to access information bloggers do not. They get access to databases that lawyers and legit investigators do, it costs about 10k per month.
- Monique
The thing I've seen happen on Twitter a couple of times is posting stuff without any vetting whatsoever. Of course, that craters the credibility of the poster right there, but I wonder how many people never got the retraction? I would hope that the perceived lack of reliability would encourage people to check out multiple sources, but when you've got a population that's sometimes even too lazy to Google, I worry about how much easier it will be to mislead people with text that may not be permanent.
- Victor Ganata
You will have almost no real investigative reporting. It costs money and takes time. As a result, you'll see a lot more abuse of power by the government and by big companies.
- Kevin (barely visible)
Trust takes time to build. Those of us who've been online longer (my Usenet posts can be found in Google Groups as far back as 1992) have more material that people can use to determine whether our voices are trustworthy.
- Victor Panlilio
People like to talk about not trusting the mainstream press. But what percentage of blog posts or tweets originate from a news story in the mainstream media? It's hard to look at the new media landscape objectively and see where the new content is going to come from.
- Kevin (barely visible)
Newspapers are dying, but most of my online sources for news are still funded by old media, which I imagine will dry up when the newspapers completely go extinct. Will there simply be a vacuum of information for a long while? That doesn't sound like a good prognosis for the health of the republic.
- Victor Ganata
There will be always plenty of information - it will just be harder to find information you can trust. And maybe I'm naive, but I'd trust a newspaper more than some blogger.
- Oliver Bouchard
I have no doubt there is plenty of information, but is it useful information? I think a lot of people overestimate just how much information is available over the Internet.
- Victor Ganata
That is also true. Often it's just the same little piece of original information replicated again and again.
- Oliver Bouchard
Newsprint is dying but 'newspapers' have just had to move online with the rest of us because that is where the advertising revenue is. Matt Drudge is 'some blogger', his site is monitored constantly by the mainstream media.
- Aidan Mann
But can newspapers (and I mean the organizations and not the physical media) survive with just revenue from online advertising? I've always thought they meant the impending demise of the actual institutions, and not just a shift to a different format.
- Victor Ganata
When the Seattle PI closed and went online there was talk of changing the print media companies into non profit companies. The tax structure would help the companies financially. They wouldn't be able to be as political as they've been in the past as far as endorsing a candidate or proposition. I think more independent reporting would occur. These reporters will find means to get the...
more...
- Monique
Clay Shirky says we don't know what journalism and the press will look like in the future; nobody does. Steven Johnson thinks journalism is a rain forest type ecosystem that will grow general news production and distribution as it has tech news. If you really want to read a range of thinking on this, look up Jay Rosen's Flying Seminar, where he give links to some interesting and provocative material on the future of journalism.
- Tom Landini
"Global warming" has been discredited, so now that phrase has been dropped in favor of "climate change." As if the globe has ever had a stable climate. I wish we could have a rational debate based on sound argument instead of injecting politics, fear and junk science.
Ted Bradford II, Meryn Stol, Casey and 31 other people liked this
No, global warming hasn't been discredited. It's been turned in to a joke by those who don't understand the scientific evidence surrounding it. People are looking at an down tick in temperatures in some areas as evidence. That's like pointing to a dead cat bounce on the stock markets and saying "recession is over!" They changed the phrase to regain control of the conversation based on science instead of based on politics.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I'm not convinced, Alex. I heard tons of people saying that there is scientific consensus that global warming exists. It's not true. Plus, I'm also old enough to remember all the hysteria in the 70s that the world was getting colder and we were all going to freeze to death. I don't buy any of this anymore. I don't believe either side.
- Dawn
Dawn, in the 70s there was hysteria but not scientific consensus. These talking points have all been churned over and dealt with. Unfortunately, we won't know for sure for years who's right on this issue and by then it will be too late to act.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
there is a consensus. the people denying global warming do it for political reasons.
- Alejandro
Yah, no consensus at all: http://www.futurepundit.com/archive...
- Todd Hoff
Head of Greenpeace says some provocative things about global warming here: http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Robert Scoble
Dawn: this is why I blocked you a long time ago, you just take the stupidest positions sometimes. The evidence is very clear there's global warming.
- Robert Scoble
Please don't label me denier - I'm not. That said, consensus has nothing to do with scientific method. There is plenty of evidence for increased CO2 levels, and warming, but it's not clear that we have a valid model for making predictions - particularly not the kind that the IPCC is providing to governments. see: http://www.amazon.com/Vanishi... for one view on this.
- Robin Barooah
Strawman. The scientific method requires repeatable independently observable experiments. There's obviously only one climate, one earth, and a lack of rigorous data. So the lack of scientific method spin I've been reading is crazy. What scientists are giving is their opinion based on the evidence before them. To say that consensus has no weight in forming an opinion can only mean one thing.
- Todd Hoff
Actually it's not a strawman. Scientists forming an opinion about a group of trends is not the same as scientists making a scientific discovery. As I say - I'm not a denier. The issue is not about whether or not scientists agree there is a trend - it's that we don't yet have a model that is able to predict even the current changes, nor one that will tell us the consequences of different courses of action.
- Robin Barooah
And as far as politics go - a major problem for scientists is that they are perceived by many as not being independent of it. They shouldn't need to change the phrase - they should be able to present progressively clearer and more comprehensible models. If there is consensus that we have an understanding of the mechanism rather than just agreeing there's a trend, why is there no website with a clear exhibit and exposition of the model, explanations, predictions and actual tracking data?
- Robin Barooah
And Robert, even though I don't know you other than through FriendFeed, I have to say that I think it's pretty bad form to simply dismiss dawn's position as "Stupid" when she's asking for rational debate. If you're so confident about it wouldn't it have been more helpful to point her at a convincing resource?
- Robin Barooah
Robin: there is no rational debate on this one. Look at the ice shelf breaking free. The temperature is going up and it's something we have to worry about. There's no debating that among rational people. Can we debate the causes? Absolutely. Can we debate the cures? Absolutely. But the science is in. It's demonstrable. http://beta.friendfeed.com/silas21...
- Robert Scoble
FriendFeed needs 'dislike'.
- Mike Hussein Cohen
Robert: There may not be any debate on the observations about what is happening now - I certainly don't deny them. But observations alone aren't science and they don't tell us what we should do, nor do they tell us what will happen in the future. If we don't actually know either the causes nor the consequences of potential cures, then we don't actually have any science. I think this is what leads people like Dawn to ask these questions.
- Robin Barooah
And simply polarizing it into "stupid", "no rational debate", and categorizing people as deniers is just not constructive. Incidentally the IPCC models have under-predicted warming in general. w
- Robin Barooah
Robin: that's bull. Dawn didn't ask those questions. She didn't admit that our ice on our polar caps is melting at an "alarming" rate. She didn't look into the science, which has been quoted and linked to here. Neither have you. She posted a stupid statement saying that "global warming" has been discredited without a single link demonstrating that that is in fact true, which it is not. So, posting stupid statements WILL get pointed out as being stupid. Sorry for being harsh, but this is lame debate.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: if you say that water is not wet you are stupid. Sorry. And trying to be nice about it won't help anyone.
- Robert Scoble
With all due respect Robert, I actually have looked into the science . Not only that, but I posted a link that leads to a book written by scientist who has clearly thought through a position that, while far from denying that there is warming - he calls it heating, has strong explanations as to why the IPCC 'consensus' is neither accurate nor scientific perhaps that will help Dawn. My position actually bridges the two perspectives - i.e. there is warming, but the science isn't good yet.
- Robin Barooah
I don't see how name calling helped anyone either. I don't see trying to understand where they are coming from and building a bridge from there to where you are as 'being nice'. But I guess I'm wasting my time now because this conversation is 'lame'.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: if someone says something stupid like "water is not wet" I think they deserve being called names. Sorry. I don't put up with stupidity. You want to fill my screen with stupidity I will call you names. Saying that Global Warming has been discredited is stupid.
- Robert Scoble
Antarctica is breaking up. Plants and animals worldwide are being adversely affected by habitat changes. Weather patterns are changing radically. There is scientific evidence for all of these. So what are we REALLY arguing about?
- Stan Scott
Stan: the world is flat. Haven't you heard? Sigh.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: moving along a little from the original point - you don't subscribe to Dawn - clearly somebody you do follow must have interacted to show you her post - she didn't 'fill your screen' with anything. You know better than that - you could have hit 'hide' or block. So this is the new standard of community on FriendFeed? We will namecall whoever we think is stupid because they 'deserve' it even if we don't subscribe to them? Come on.
- Robin Barooah
We had a snowstorm yesterday in Mississauga, Canada.. the last snowstorm of the year happens around March 25th.. It was snowing all day, but nothing stuck around. Weathers changing. That's not what's being argued anymore. What should be up for debate is what we should be doing about it. I don't care if you don't believe in global warming. But why take the risk? Why not fix a future problem? Isn't not looking ahead stupidity itself?
- Angelo Rodrigues
+1 Angelo - and my question is - do we have a model that tells us how to fix the problem? If so - where?
- Robin Barooah
Robin: I do subscribe to Dawn now. I started following her again a few weeks ago.
- Robert Scoble
Does the world have a model for dealing with economic collapse? Nope, we all meet and try and figure it all out. Because, generally speaking of course, the first time things happen, it's hard to already have a plan in place.
- Angelo Rodrigues
You've already agreed that it's potentially a problem in the future. If it's something that hasn't happened yet, a model is something we need to work towards. But only after we have a solution that works. I can make all the models in the world, but unless I make the wheels round, my car isn't going anywhere.
- Angelo Rodrigues
Robert - fair enough - I misunderstood when you said you had unsubscribed from her before as implying that you were still unsubscribed. I still stand by my point about namecalling and the standard of debate - it would get ugly fast if we all did that. I guess it frustrates me because whilst I could block or hide you to avoid seeing that aspect, I'd prefer not to because you bring interesting information my way. I guess I sadly have to accept that tradeoff.
- Robin Barooah
Robin if we allow stupid statements to stand we're all worse off. I'm usually nice, but not when I see stupidity.
- Robert Scoble
Robin, it is a strawman. By it's nature this a problem where the scientific method can't apply. There are no repeatable independently verifiable experiments that can be run. Saying "scientific method" is simply diversionary. And when you are evaluating the probability of an event the weight of expert consensus figures in heavily in selecting probabilities. To say something can't be certain so it has 0 probability is irrational.
- Todd Hoff
Robert: That's just it - I think name-calling simply splits the community, and means that those so called - 'stupid' statements remain standing for the people who held them - i.e. nobody's mind gets changed. A lot of 'stupid' statements contain partial truth. And then of course there's the question of how someone arrived at their view - there may be a good reason why it exists even if it's false. Good in the sense that it benefits us to understand how they reached it. Namecalling closes us off from this.
- Robin Barooah
Robert: However, for some reason I am no longer bothered by you doing it now that you've explained your position.
- Robin Barooah
Angelo: (remember I'm not a denier!) - so the problem is that we don't know how fast things are changing, and we don't know what the results of interventions will be - for example some models indicate that pollution may be working against global warming by dimming the amount of sunlight that hits the ground - so eliminating that pollution could increase warming. How would you propose we go about finding a solution?
- Robin Barooah
Robert, if I'm stupid, then I'm in good company because there are tens of thousands of scientists who don't believe in global warming. For example, as it says here http://tinyurl.com/c7fgnx: "While the majority of lawmakers seem to tend to agree with Mr. Gore, 30,000 scientists – including 9,000 Ph.D. holders – have lined up with the founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman – so...
more...
- Dawn
Robin: Thanks for trying.
- Dawn
Dawn: got it. The ice is melting because the temperature is going down. Stupid me, I just can't see the obvious.
- Robert Scoble
Todd: If I were saying that because we don't have a good scientific model, we should ignore the evidence, then I would agree with you. However I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we should stop claiming that we have a good scientific model, and instead admit that scientists are observing a dangerous trend but aren't yet able to predict where it's going nor what to do about it. I don't deny that it may be the most pressing problem of our time.
- Robin Barooah
Dawn: the EU just called you stupid: http://uk.reuters.com/article...
- Robert Scoble
"Nine of 11 experts, who were among authors of the final summary by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 (IPCC), also said the evidence that mankind was to blame for climate change had grown stronger in the past two years."
- Robert Scoble
And once upon a time everyone thought the earth was flat. It didn't make them right and it didn't make people who argued against the evidence any less stupid. Same with people who tried to argue against the harmful effects of tobacco use.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Thanks for that report - it actually supports what I said to Angelo just now about reducing pollution increasing warming, and my earlier comment that the IPCC was under-predicting - have I established that I'm following the science now? But what about the scientists who disagree with Gore's evidence - they may all be stupid - but may have another part of the puzzle.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: how do you argue with polar ice caps that are melting? That's not up for discussion. You can witness it with your own eyes. Ice doesn't melt if things are getting colder.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: Thank you for taking a stand against Robert on behalf of the community. I too believe strength is diversity in all forms.
- Jason Nelson
Jason: are you speaking up for stupidity in the guise of being for diversity? Wow.
- Robert Scoble
Scoble==Bush.
- Jason Nelson
Jason: I hated Bush. He said some of the stupidest things any president of ours has ever said.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I'm not arguing with that - nor am I denying that there is warming. What I'm saying is that the scientists who are part of the consensus do not have a good predictive model (otherwise known as science) - so they don't know how to solve the problem, and that the scientists who disagree may well have something constructive to add to our understanding.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: you are changing the discussion, though. What Dawn said to start this was "Global warming has been discredited." That is stupid. If we want to talk about something else, we should start another thread.
- Robert Scoble
I would refer all arguments about "strength is diversity in all forms" to this: http://www.randi.org/site...
- Justin Yost
Robert: It's not about being stupid or not--it's your behavior.
- Jason Nelson
Robert: you have obviously been well informed by the consensus view - as dawn has been informed by the dissenters. Warming has clearly been discredited for her. Don't you find it interesting to know how that came about? If the consensus scientists didn't just agree about warming existing but had a strong model as well, I wouldn't be paying much attention - but until they do, I'd rather not exclude alternative viewpoints - even if they are partially wrong.
- Robin Barooah
Jason: my behavior is that I won't put up with obvious stupidity. That's right. And I will call it out. That's right. THAT is HOW you build a strong community. If you allow all stupidity to stand THAT is how you get a crappy community. Jason: I guess you think I should be "nice" to spammers, right? For diversity's sake? How about other undesirable behavior? After all, if we really want to be diverse and "nice" we should allow racists, sexists, homophobes, jerks, etc to go unchallenged. Just to be "nice?"
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I'm not changing the subject. There is a minority view and a majority view here. The majority view doesn't yet have answers for us. The majority could agree on the diagnosis but give us a suicidal prescription, while the minority may be wrong about the diagnosis but save us from taking a poison pill. This is the health of our planet we're talking about and it's not simple.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: no, if someone says "water is not wet" I really don't want to know how they came to that belief. It's stupid and outrageous and I will say so.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: you are changing the subject. Again, the ice caps are melting. If the globe is getting cooler, or global warming has been discredited, then you MUST FIRST explain why they are melting.
- Robert Scoble
Justin: I was speaking more in terms of the challenges of groupthink. Thanks for the video.
- Jason Nelson
Robert: The Earth was much warmer than it is now during the "medieval warm period." Agriculture flourished during that time. The planet adapts, humans adapt, animals adapt. Is it *smart* to think we can control all this? I don't think so, but that's my opinion. The difference between you and me is that I would never call you stupid for having a different outlook.
- Dawn
Dawn: why are the polar ice caps melting if you say that "global warming has been discredited?" Your headline above is stupid and until you take it back you are stupid for making such a stupid claim. Once you take it back and admit that was a stupid thing to say we can discuss calmly all the other stuff you'd like to discuss.
- Robert Scoble
Dawn: Are you suggesting that the climate is static?
- Jason Nelson
Robert: "Global warming" is the common contraction for "manmade global warming," a theory that was present to us all as beyond question but has been discredited, like it or not. That's why they've changed the language to "climate change."
- Dawn
Jason: No, exactly the opposite.
- Dawn
Dawn: wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Your headline did NOT say that. Global Warming means that our ice is melting. What causes our ice to melt is something else.
- Robert Scoble
It doesn't matter how much warming is "proved" -- what matter is that people who call themselves scientists have to keep their minds open, keep collecting data, and be willing to accept variations in their theory. it's the religiosity and hype around "global warming" that is so unpersuasive, makes people suspicious. If it is true, surely you don't need to fight so angrily and so hysterically to prove it.
- Prokofy Neva
Robert: You're missing the point - if "Global Warming" is more than just a political banner, then there needs to be a model. Models are more than just linear relationships sure - ice melts therefore there is warming. But that doesn't tell us what will happen in a decade - it could be a cycle - like the seasons. "Global Warming" is a label referring to a group of models that say this is an ongoing trend.
- Robin Barooah
Robert: I'm quite calm, thanks.
- Dawn
Actually, the sea ice measurement in the Southern Hemisphere is quite a bit higher than it's average for this date compared against its average from 1979-2000. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosph...
- DJ Stevie Steve
Robin: Global Warming is scientists showing us evidence that our planet is warming up. All this stuff you are bringing up is changing the subject. The headline, as it stands is stupid. Global Warming is something you can go outside and observe scientifically. Ice is melting for a reason. We can debate the reason AFTER you admit the planet is warming up and that the headline above is stupid.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: So would you say that "Global Warming" is not also scientists saying that human behavior is causing the warming?
- Robin Barooah
+1 Mark
- Robin Barooah
Robin: no. When I have heard Global Warming talks by top scientists they keep the two separate. First you hear the evidence that the planet is warming up. Then, separately, you hear the evidence that humans caused it.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I hear you about the ice caps melting and that seems proof but then...why did it snow heavily in Wichita the day after everybody turned their lights off for an hour?!
- Prokofy Neva
Prokofy: stop being lame. Local weather does not tell you anything about what is happening to the globe as a whole.
- Robert Scoble
The hallmark of an open society as Karl Popper said is the ability to be able to mount *even a false hypothesis*. Scoble's demand for conformity and labelling of those with dissent as "stupid" is really worrisome.
- Prokofy Neva
Robert: for years the literature has conflated "global warming" with "manmade." That's just a simple fact. For most people, "global warming" still embeds the assumption that it's manmade. If that isn't so, then why all the talk about CO2 emission, etc?
- Dawn
Prokofy: it's easy to prove that Global Warming is happening. Look at the ice melting.
- Robert Scoble
Again: http://uk.reuters.com/article... Why isn't Dawn arguing against this?
- Robert Scoble
Dawn: the literature I've seen has made the two separate. Have you ever gone to a major conference and heard a scientist who is studying the problem speak? I have. They keep the two separate.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: well therein lies one of the roots of our misunderstanding - I put it to you that for many people the label "Global Warming" refers not just to the heating effect, but also to the human influence. The fact that "Global Warming" talks cover both topics implicitly combines the two concepts under one title, even if the scientists separate the evidence for the two.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: then to not make that clear to a reader is stupid too. It's very easy to change the headline above, and apologize for making an incorrect statement. Why hasn't Dawn done that yet?
- Robert Scoble
http://uk.reuters.com/article... Answer this.
- Robert Scoble
Okay, Robert, you're 100% right and I'm an total idiot, as always. But thanks for illustrating what I said about not being about having a rational debate. I'm going to bed. Goodnight.
- Dawn
Dawn: answer this: http://uk.reuters.com/article... here's what scientists are saying TODAY. You have proven you really don't care about the truth or finding it. Idiot.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, if the ice is melting why is there more ice today than during the average from the baseline of 1979-2000?
- DJ Stevie Steve
Leather I have admitted I'm wrong on MANY occassions and corrected mistakes I have made.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Since you seem to be so clear on this, wouldn't it have been better to just ask whether she was conflating the two definitions rather than calling her names?
- Robin Barooah
Steve: provide a scientific link for that. There's a lot less ice everywhere in the world that the satellite photos I've been watching have been seeing.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: answer this: http://uk.reuters.com/article...
- Robert Scoble
ah, the irony.
- Bren
Steve: as ice melts it spreads out. Increasing its area.
- Robert Scoble
Steve: that chart only shows 2008/2009 data. I thought you said 1979.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I presume your request that I 'answer this' means you haven't been reading my comments given that I introduced some of the points made in this report myself earlier in the thread, and I have repeatedly pointed out that I am not a denier that warming is happening.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: then we have nothing to argue about. Dawn's statement is still idiotic in light of scientific evidence.
- Robert Scoble
And you haven't answered it, really. http://uk.reuters.com/article...
- Robert Scoble
It compares the data to the average from 1979-2000
- DJ Stevie Steve
Check out wikipedia. It says it all. I'm done arguing about whether water is wet. THe globe is warming up. Scientists say it. Our photos of our planet show it. The evidence demonstrates it. If you fight the evidence that shows me you aren't looking for the truth, you just want to troll.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Not really - you misunderstood her definition and called her a name. The article isn't raising a question and I'm not disagreeing with it's observations, so I can't answer it - whatever that's supposed to mean. If you read my comments you won't find a single one where I deny there's warming, and you'll find a number where I support it.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: her headline is very clear and very wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... is the facts.
- Robert Scoble
Okay, Robert, I'll answer this since you keep jumping up and down about it and then I'm going to bed. "Nine of 11 experts, who were among authors of the final summary by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 (IPCC)"... Do you not understand that the UN has vested economic and political interest in hyping global warming? I have faith in this report as much as I have faith in reports put out by the fat cats on Wall Street.
- Dawn
The language was never "changed to climate change." Some prefer to use that label because warming occurs at different rates in different places, and there can also be periods of cooling, though overall there's a clear and dangerous warmming trend.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Dawn: exactly. You aren't here to discover truth. You are here to push an agenda. Idiot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... has the facts.
- Robert Scoble
Liking this so I can follow it. Y'all are giving me an idea for my thesis.
- SOMEBODY!
Technically "global warming" is an accurate term. The fact and scale of that trend is associated with human activity, that's rather undeniable and commonly accepted.
- Jon Lebkowsky
By the way, when someone calls me an idiot (like Mike Arrington did yesterday on the Gillmor Gang) I either back it up with facts or I apologize for seeing it incorrectly and fix my mistake. Dawn has done neither. She is an idiot. She has done this before. She pushes an agenda of idiocy. I will not put up with it.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I have to admit I'm trolling you a little - mostly because I'm so disappointed about your approach. I think you are trolling too, calling people 'idiot' as much as you are - the hulk is having fun. My point is that we don't get to anything valuable by attempting to close down debate.
- Robin Barooah
Here's an article I wrote about global warming in 2001: http://findarticles.com/p...
- Jon Lebkowsky
Robin: I have only called one person an idiot so far this year and you are witnessing it. If someone is sincerely looking for truth, or has some new data I don't know about to back it up (that's accepted by the scientific community, that is) then fine. But I won't put up with this kind of idiocy and agenda pushing here.
- Robert Scoble
It was pretty well accepted science, even then - at least among scientists who studied climate and the environment.
- Jon Lebkowsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... has the facts. I note that Dawn isn't talking about this data.
- Robert Scoble
As for my "headline" okay, I'm sorry. I meant "manmade global warming" as I have since clarified. As I said many, many comments back, I acknowledge that the planet has warmed this century. But that doesn't change anything else I have said. What agenda you think I'm pushing is beyond me. And why you "won't put up with" free speech is beyond me, too. But I do understand that you like calling me an idiot. Fine. I hope you've enjoyed your opportunity to do so. Now I AM going to bed.
- Dawn
New Data Show Rapid Ice Decline (Washington Post on 4/7/2009): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...
- Robert Scoble
Dawn: free speech is the ability to call idiotic opinions idiotic. You have the freedom to post idiocy. I have the freedom to call you out on it.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Do you think all of the scientists who dissent (who have influenced dawn) are idiots too?
- Robin Barooah
The Washington Post is not saying that Global Warming has been discredited. I wonder what kind of "reputable" source gave Dawn the idea that Warming is discredited?
- Robert Scoble
Robin: there's lots of idiots out there. Remember all the scientists who used to say the world is flat? Riggggghhhttttt. Just cause you went to school for four years doesn't mean you are correct.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: So only statements from "reputable" sources are now allowed in FriendFeed postings?
- Robin Barooah
And, anyway, the ice is melting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn... If Global Warming is "discredited" then you must explain why that's happening.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: if you want to be taken seriously and not be called an idiot, yes, you must use reputable sources. Or at least explain why your less reputable sources should be taken as credible.
- Robert Scoble
Thick ice vanishing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...
- Robert Scoble
Robert: So now FriendFeed is only about discussing mainstream opinions that can be supported by easy media reference? I guess I am left wondering why you had to read only the first half of her post, and not read the request for debate. Did you even click on the amazon link to Lovelock's book?
- Robin Barooah
But no, we should allow people to say global warming is not happening for "community" and "niceness" and "diversity of opinions." Hogwash.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: if I say "water is not wet" but then request a debate, what kind of debate is that? It's not a search for truth. If she really wanted a debate she would have demonstrated she sees there's two sides. One that has scientific data behind it and reputable sources and one that does not. But, she should have at least linked to wikipedia and other RECENT news (I've been getting all my links from Google News, this is stuff that's only days old).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: But that's the problem... you're taking the term Global Warming literally to mean the Earth is warming and ignoring Dawn's point.
- Jason Nelson
Robert: Well I don't want to start issuing edicts but I personally thing it's very valuable to allow them to say it, and to try to understand whether they mean what we think they mean before we start insulting them. You didn't do that. Furthermore, this 'water is not wet' thing that you keep repeating is certainly a straw man. It's not that simple a topic.
- Robin Barooah
Jason: Dawn's point is that she doesn't believe the science. I went back and read it. She doesn't believe EU and NASA and other scientists who have PHOTOS and DATA to back up their claims. What can I say to such a person? Idiot.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: it is that simple a topic. Our globe is warming up. That has NOT been discredited. The evidence is VERY clear.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Once again - I ask you whether you've actually listened to any of the alternative opinions? If you haven't then how are you making a judgement? I recommend lovelock because he certainly doesn't deny that warming is happening - he calls it global heating to emphasise that. But he is very skeptical about the scientific understanding of the topic. I find it hard to see how you can call her stupid if you haven't considered any alternative perspectives.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: yes I have. But you are changing the subject again. No one is able to provide credible evidence that our world is not warming up. What there is still some debate about is what is causing it. But the headline above did not make that case and Dawn is unwilling to listen to the credible scientists as she herself admitted. She has an agenda and is trolling.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Sure the globe is heating up - but I think it's reasonable to read her heading as referring to more than just that. - Perhaps what I'm missing is evidence of her 'agenda'. Is that something you know about from previous interactions?
- Robin Barooah
Robert: That's your interpretation--and you're ignoring the quotes around "Global Warming" she placed in the title of her post.
- Jason Nelson
Robin and Jason. Whatever. I've been very consistent in this whole argument about explaining my problem with the headline. She hasn't corrected it. The headline is stupid and lame and idiotic. On its face. The evidence here is very clear. And I'll go with the scientists who are looking at the recent data. http://news.google.com/news...
- Robert Scoble
Robert: The debate is whether Global Warming is manmade or not. You've done little to nothing to address that point.
- Jason Nelson
Jason: it's very clear that most credible scientists believe it's manmade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Robert Scoble
I'll go with Hillary Clinton: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens...
- Robert Scoble
Heck, Clinton called Dawn an idiot. Who am I to argue? :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert: That may well be so - but it's hardly stupid to question it - there are certainly reasonable scientists who have well articulated arguments to the contrary - and their ideas haven't been disproven, and could be part of what we need to know.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: you have provided no links to anything here that is anything close to a "reasonable scientist."
- Robert Scoble
Glen: oopsss, sorry, I was wrong. I corrected my mistake.
- Robert Scoble
What's the harm in altering behavior if there's even a *slight* chance it's caused by man? Really, even if you're not convinced (though I am) isn't it just prudent to take some steps that would have multiple positive benefits? And Occam's Razor would tell you it is man made. As an example (which I've used before), the city block full of asphalt, buildings and combustion versus the bucolic pasture of a dirt road and a log cabin. Same parcel of land, which is hotter?
- AJ Kohn
The debate as to whether it's manmade or not is pretty much pointless, and we can throw "scientific data" at each other till the cows come home and not resolve it. I mean, there's a lot more scientific method supporting psychic phenomenon than supporting the effectiveness of aspirin. Fall on whichever side of that debate you want; my point is that scientific data means not a jot to what people will believe and what they will publicly claim to be true.
- Grey Drane
Robert: Well by your circular definition all 'reasonable scientists' agree with global warming and everyone else is stupid. I have posted a link to work by a controversial but respected scientist who is accepted as a reasonable person although who's ideas are not mainstream. That's what you do in a debate - bring in well reasoned contrary positions. Remember I am not arguing that warming isn't happening - I'm arguing that your name calling is unhelpful to the debate that was asked for.
- Robin Barooah
Whether climate change is manmade or not, I think we can all agree that there's something going on and that it could potentially be very bad for a lot of people, so let's go ahead and do what each of us can to try and minimize the problem, but let's not spend too much time and energy on it, because there are far worse problems right now that we could solve much more easily if we all put our minds to it: poverty, starvation, and on and on.
- Grey Drane
Grey: The problem as I see it is that we don't have a model that tells us what to do that won't make it worse because we don't understand it yet - and global warming could be a lot worse than starvation and poverty - or rather massively increase them.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: "respected" scientists are not controversial. Either they have the data and can demonstrate their claims or they can not. If they are controversial that tells you something.
- Robert Scoble
@Robin: There's history between Robert and Dawn. I'd move on from the 'name calling' meme.
- AJ Kohn
Robin: precisely my point. We don't know what to do about global warming or if there even is anything we can do about it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Whether or not man caused it, polluting the atmosphere can't be a "good" thing, so let's try and minimize that while people work on finding other solutions. But making a huge deal out of the debate only detracts from the seriousness of other very real problems right now that we *do* know how to solve, if we just made more of an effort.
- Grey Drane
Robert: In that case, perhaps the IPCC shouldn't be 'respected' since their models have not been correct so far. Lovelock has actually proved various predictions of his theory through experiment (and these have been grudgingly accepted) - that doesn't mean he can predict the climate - it just means he's a respectable scientist as I suspect are members of the IPCC. Note that both lovelock and the IPCC agree that there's warming happening. Science is not as simple as you are pretending.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: like I said. The original thesis of this entire post has been disproven. So, I'm off to bed. If you want to argue about causes or something else, gotta do that some other time. In the meantime, Dawn says she wishes to have a rational debate. That is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... no "fear, politics, junk science, or idiocy there"
- Robert Scoble
Grey: See this scoble approved uncontroversial page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... and look at the section on Aerosols. Pollution may well not have been a good thing in the past but getting rid of it now may make things worse. Which is what the core of my point is - this is complex issue and even though it's may be obvious that there is warming, it's not yet clear what moves to make to improve things.
- Robin Barooah
Robert: "Respected" doesn't necessarily equal "good" and "controversial", "bad". More often, "respected" just means "mainstream" and "controversial", "not mainstream". But "not mainstream" could very well (but not, of course, necessarily) mean "cutting edge" and "not *yet* accepted/respected". Not to necessarily defend this specific scientist Robin is talking about, just to bring some balance to your argument.
- Grey Drane
Robert: I think she was asking for a debate with actual people - and not just to be pointed at a page with mainstream views. I guess our buttons are pressed by different issues - you dislike what you see as stupidity, while I would like to see more actual person-to-person debate. It's definitely been interesting and I'm glad to have gone through it.
- Robin Barooah
And before I go - since I'm getting tired too. I'd just like to say for the record that I am not (as you will see if you read the comments!) championing Lovelock's view. I just happen to be reading his book and it's helping me to question my otherwise mainstream assumptions. He's 'respectable' enough to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and a lecture of his on climate change (given there) is here: http://royalsociety.org/podcast...
- Robin Barooah
And the BBC interviewed him last week - which is how I came across his book.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: Sure, but so... what? We should just all go on polluting and burning fossil fuels because it *might* save the world from global warming? Regardless of global warming, in my book, pollution bad. Global warming? *Could* be bad. But poverty, starvation, war, genocide... much worse, not to mention much more verifiable and solvable. So let the global warming debate be solved by those with the skills to solve it, and let's focus on what we "actual people" can actually do something about.
- Grey Drane
Grey: I hear you. I don't know whether it will affect warming, but I have personally done a lot to reduce my resource consumption over the past few years. I gave up my car over a year ago, and have stopped consuming many unnecessary items. I don't think it hurts us to think these things through and debate them for ourselves though - especially since politics and profiteering are involved and we need to be able to distinguish actual science from them lest we be exploited.
- Robin Barooah
Grey: I also think that addressing poverty, starvation, war, genocide, etc. will require quite a lot of debate and understanding divergent points of view! I generally tune out comments like Robert's 'stupid', but I think they close down debate and reduce participation, so I really wanted to see what would happen if I confronted it, especially since FriendFeed is now real-time which makes it much more amenable to actual conversation.
- Robin Barooah
Robin (on first point): OK, yes, debate can be helpful, but then let's frame the debate constructively. This one very clearly wasn't, and in that, I have to side with Robert. And yes, being able to distinguish between actual science and nonsense would be great, but I'm not sure that throwing scientific articles back and forth at each other is the best way to achieve that.
- Grey Drane
Robin (on point after that): And on poverty, etc., yes, these are definitely not "easy" things to solve, but they are much easier, relatively speaking, to solve than "global warming", which may very well not be solvable at all, at least not to a degree that will make any significant difference. Poverty -> give people more money. Starvation -> give people more food. Yes, there are cultural and societal issues involved, but the ultimate solution is clear.
- Grey Drane
Grey: I actually agree that the framing wasn't great. So do you support robert in dismissing Dawn as 'stupid' rather than suggesting the framing was bad - or even just ignoring the debate? I doubt I'd have even got involved if he hadn't done that - I'm subscribed to him not her.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: Hmm... that's a tough one, and I was just thinking about that actually. Honestly, I do resonate with Robert's view there, but wouldn't have expressed it in so many words. Should *Robert* not have? Dunno. I tend to think that Robert, specifically, can actually get away with it, whereas most others probably wouldn't and would just be seen as "trolls". Not sure I can express exactly why I feel that way. Like you say, I wouldn't be in this debate either if Robert hadn't said exactly what he said.
- Grey Drane
Grey: I think it's the fact that other people would look like just some random troll, but that Robert has more influence that made me want to call him on it. I would just unsubscribe or block people who troll - and so far I've unsubscribed from a few, but never blocked anyone. It's not so simple with Robert because he brings in valuable information though his activities, so it's costly to block him if you're interested in the other aspects of what he says.
- Robin Barooah
BTW, I'm not saying I think Dawn is "stupid", just that I resonate with Robert's reaction to her claims.
- Grey Drane
Grey: ergo I challenged him rather than blocking him. Re:Dawn - I don't understand her viewpoint yet but I wanted to hear how she got there.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: Yep. There's no point engaging a troll, but Robert is generally an intelligent, reasonable person and, as you say, influential. And because it was Robert, I actually didn't think what he said was that bad. Whether he actually thinks Dawn is stupid or not is largely irrelevant, and I hope (and think) Dawn understands that. The point is that he thinks what she said was... not thought through enough, and on that, I would largely agree with him.
- Grey Drane
Robert calls 'em as he sees 'em, and I think we all understand and expect that. Sometimes that means he'll step on some toes, and sometimes those toes will need stepping on and sometimes they won't. Nobody's perfect. Anyway....
- Grey Drane
Hmm... I guess I'm not exactly supporting Robert calling people stupid. But I know one or two other people who, online at least, are... let's say "overly direct", but people know that's just how they are and have learned not to take it personally. Could they communicate more effectively? Definitely. Does that make it OK for everyone to be intentionally offensive. Definitely not. But it is also true that it can be refreshing to engage with someone you know isn't holding back just to be "socially correct".
- Grey Drane
'something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the...
more...
- Aidan Mann
Wow what a discussion. Lots of nasties being thrown about. The globe is heating up, the polar caps are melting. IT IS A NATURAL PART OF THE CYCLE OF THE PLANET. The reality of this is as the dinosaurs were wiped out when the planet went through severe climate change, and later the glaciers extended way down into the N. America and Europe (polar regions EXPANDING) and the continents shift as the planet goes through internal heatings and coolings of it's mantle. The planet's electro magnetic forces
- Amy Flynn
cause shifts in an already wobbly axis, climate change (often severe is experienced on Earth every so many thousands of years. It is NORMAL. The "ruse" is that it is something that man has caused. Surely we are not helping by removing necessary greenery (rain forrests) and polluting, but we are not CAUSING a very natural occurence in the planet's cycle. Check this out, you will see that we are experiencing an Earth cycle. Everything in the Universe is orderly and organized, nothing is random.
- Amy Flynn
The earth has an unstable rotation, it's axis is tilted causing a wobble. This wobble creates an instability in the core of the planet. It "corrects" it's wobble every so many thousands of years. There are also other factors that exert magnetic pull on the earth's magnetic core. Passing planets, dark matter, so called dark planets and the like. This is science people, not politics. Nothing unusual is going on. The planet is behaving as it always has.
- Amy Flynn
Climate change is a natural Thing. It's been happening since before we were here. To say that we are causing it is rather big headed. We maybe having an effect but it is almost impossible to say how much of an effect.
- Jamie Vidamour
Robert spent an hour and a half calling me stupid and an idiot for saying "global warming" instead of "manmade global warming." My position was that the "manmade" part is embedded in the term, and he said I was wrong. This is from NASA's website http://www.nasa.gov/topics... "To a scientist, global warming describes the average global surface temperature increase from human emissions of greenhouse gases."
- Dawn
As for what prompted me to write this, I was flipping through channels and heard somebody talking about the media's name change (from "global warming" to "climate change") and why it's occur (because global warming cannot be accepted as a fact but merely as a theory). I couldn't link to anything because I didn't see this online and I didn't even catch the names. But I've head these kind...
more...
- Dawn
Scoble, you're smart when it comes to tech stuff, no doubt. But blocking someone because they are skeptical about global warming is pretty disappointing.
- Shey
There's nothing "only" about a scientific theory. People need to really understand that. In science "theory" is about the strongest type of idea there is. When something gets to theory status it's been thoroughly tested and vetted to fit the known evidence.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Side comment: far fewer people ever believed the earth was flat than people seem to think. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Justin Long
"Known evidence" is right. I dare say we aren't nearly as knowledgeable about the workings of this planet as we think we are. Theories often change over time. Like I said, I remember the experts saying in the 70s that the Earth was getting colder.
- Dawn
Interesting, Justin. Thanks.
- Dawn
Since this thread hasn't gone away yet I will reference this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - In particular: Andrew Neil of the BBC stated that "... You don't have to be a climate-change denier to recognise that there's a great range of opinion on the subject."
- Robin Barooah
Wow--interestingly emotional thread. I actually have very vivid memories of the 70's warnings about an impending ice age. That was also a time of acute interest in environmental issues. Who can forget this video, for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch.... I even remember when representatives from the Byron, IL nuclear plant that was built in the mid 70's visited our...
more...
- Kathy Fitch
I'm in Israel on a blogger's delegation and was sent by the Israeli Consulate. I promised I'd tweet about my trip, and now I'm noticing a substantial drop in Twitter followers as a result. What do you conclude from this?
lolise, Roberto Bonini, mjc and 18 other people liked this
That you wouldn't have wanted those followers who left anyway. Good riddance.
- Rochelle
I'm more curious if they just want social media tweets from me or if they hate Israel. I haven't really given opinionated Tweets, unless you're reading too much into "dinner at the port of tel aviv." It's basic, but it's me documenting where I'm going.
- Tamar Weinberg
Exactly Rochelle. I wouldn't even worry about that Tamar ;)
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
from twhirl
Not really worried - just curious. And still majorly jetlagged :)
- Tamar Weinberg
Oh yeah. Welcome in CET. I hope you enjoy our time zone :-) I'm looking forward to your tweets by the way
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
from twhirl
Mark: still, you wonder why they followed to begin with... are they mass following others' friends? I know that's why a bunch of people who followed me also started following my husband who really isn't deeply involved in this space -- AND other family members of mine. (As a side point, I think people need to stop doing that - not everyone follows on Twitter simply for professional reasons, and with Twitter "mainstream" now, certainly not anymore!)
- Tamar Weinberg
Trish, maybe it is, but I normally gain a little every day, and today seems to be less than yesterday which is the first anomaly I've seen in my 2 years and 4 months on Twitter. I'll be able to tell who did it when SocialToo sends me my daily digest, but till then, I'm tired and cranky and curious :D
- Tamar Weinberg
Tamar, are you following it on a daily basis?
- Amit Morson
Tamar: I've seen several folks tweet that they are losing tweets, dms, and followers...I'm thinking it's Twitter,not you. I hope that's the case.
- Ms_Krista
Kristasphere, maybe, though I don't know anyone else who noticed a drop today. Amit, I normally don't obsess over the number at all but this was odd enough to actually grab my attention. I announced today's visit to the Old City of Jerusalem about 3 hours ago, and I lost a few followers just from that.
- Tamar Weinberg
I'm still debating whether I should bring this discussion to Twitter. ;)
- Tamar Weinberg
Tamar: when I visited Israel last year I didn't remember seeing a drop in followers. That's weird.
- Robert Scoble
Yeah Robert, I thought about asking you about that. Maybe Twitterverse just got a lot more diverse lately. :)
- Tamar Weinberg
Well, some Israelis wouldn't follow you to Jerusalem either :-) just kidding. Welcome and sorry about the stormy weather we're having tonight.
- Yuval Atzmon
Yuval, totally no problem. We expected the rain at noontime when I was touring the Old City and that didn't happen--much better to have it in the evening :) However, we'd have liked to walk around Tel Aviv. Maybe another night! At least we're here all week; Jerusalem was only a one-day thing.
- Tamar Weinberg
People don't like event-specific tweetstorms. I've had the same fall-off and increase during events where people know I'm going to tweet 100+ a day.
- anna sauce
anna, I, too, hate tweetstorms. Check my Twitter stream (twitter.com/tamar). I've only sent 8 tweets total (with one being a @reply) since Saturday night. I would never inundate anyone's feed. I don't blame them for unfollowing for that reason, but I'm definitely NOT doing that.
- Tamar Weinberg
Tamara, usually I warn my twitter followers, take off subscriptions on FreindFeed, and then resume when I'm back. Some people add hashtags on each twitter they send, which can help your followers filter you out. I woudln't necessarily take it as a content-driven unsubscription, as I face it with email marketing (rather innocuous) and women's tech conferences. It may not be that you're doing or not doing the tweetstorm, but that you *may* do it as you're covering something. TWitter is an amazing resource at
- anna sauce
... at F2F events, I've found, and I don't mind the dropoff. People will find you again. Or, you could create a new twitter name for the event.
- anna sauce
that you took the wrong people with you?
- Allen Stern
...that (geo)politics and twitter don't mix? unless you add that "tcot" thing?
- .LAG liked that
Maybe it's a mix of both. I do second what Rochelle said
- Shevonne
Allen, my tweets aren't about the people :P And anna, I could, but that would just be too confusing. Plus, the street cred comes from @tamar, not @tamar_in_israel or whatever I'd use. Hashtags are the best bet - good call.
- Tamar Weinberg
Lindsey, yeah, that's what I'm thinking - though focusing too heavily on social media (which I often do) bores me. I have more than a one-track mind -- my followers should start to realize that ;)
- Tamar Weinberg
...and the number of followers continues to drop.
- Tamar Weinberg
btw .LAG, I'm pretty apolitical myself. I have no interest in political issues and don't tweet about them (again, see twitter.com/tamar and let me know if I'm mistaken). I don't think that's the issue.
- Tamar Weinberg
I dropped off your twitter follow list after reading your tweet about people who followed your family. After seeing this post on friendfeed have subscribed to you here and have refollowed on twitter. I have been trying to trim my twitter list to something manageable. At one point I was following 4000 people and with google gadget running the tweets down a side bar that didn't seem a problem. Since those heady days Twitter imposed a limit of 2000 I am alllowed to follow and I have reduced that to about 140.
- Aidan Mann
Look at the content not at the numbers following you ( things are back to the eyeballs=good business story )
- Prakash
Aidan - thanks for the feedback. I totally hear you on the unmanageability - that's primarily why I follow few people myself (DM maintenance, mostly). I've opened a ticket with Twitter about it too. Ah well.
- Tamar Weinberg
Prakash, I gotta get NutshellMail doing that for me! I haven't quite been able to follow the Twitter chatter since I have been out and about all week. :)
- Tamar Weinberg
My vote is for you to keep tweeting. I notice them and enjoy them. Don't have any answers to your question of why though.
- Amani
I hope today didn't get excessive. I had downtime in the car :D
- Tamar Weinberg
"a blogger's delegation and was sent by the Israeli Consulate" -- what is the background on that? Who is funding this "blogger's delegation"? By the way, if anyone did unsubscribe from your feed to register a protest against Israeli policies, I think that is petty and short-sighted. You are not responsible for Israeli policies, and you might produce some interesting insights on your...
more...
- Sean McBride
An example of what's going on in the "world media," today: "Israel "unlawfully" used shells in Gaza: rights group" http://news.yahoo.com/s... "The Israeli army unlawfully fired white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip during its recent offensive, needlessly killing and injuring civilians, Human Rights Watch...
more...
- Sean McBride
Sean: the government did (it was done via the local consulate here in NYC. Full disclosure for me only: I consult them on social media free of charge). I totally understand the controversy too, and a lot of the reason why I was sent is to come back with unbiased reporting on how Israel is innovative and there's a lot more that meets the eye (but of course, traditional journalism doesn't emphasize good news). But I don't touch upon the conflict, so it all beats me.
- Tamar Weinberg
Helen, they seem legit and the accounts look like they're alive. If others experienced a drop, I wouldn't be so hurt ;)
- Tamar Weinberg
Tamar -- there is indeed a great deal of positive news in Israel, mostly in the innovative high-tech sector, as well as controversial news about Israel/Palestinian relations. Many of us would be interested in reading your reporting and analysis on the high-tech angle on Israeli society -- in computer science, medical research and other fields.
- Sean McBride
I agree that Israel does a lot of innovative things in tech... absolutely. But I would say that being sponsored by the Israeli consulate does somewhat tarnish objectivity. I don't know your opinions and I haven't seen your tweets. I will say, however, that I've been to both Israel and the West Bank twice and there's no way I'd let either side sponsor my trip...
- Shawn Duffy
from twhirl
I say that since you said your mission was to come back with unbiased news... Whether you're talking about the conflict or just their tech sector being sponsored by the Israeli government, or any government, doesn't lend itself to being unbiased... just trying to clarify my statement
- Shawn Duffy
from twhirl
Shawn, the point is that when you get there, there's no conflict. The media has emphasized looking at a single sector that sells papers and makes headlines. When you're there, you wouldn't know that there's a "war." And this was my third time in Israel. I'd have the exact same sentiment if I paid for this trip as well.
- Tamar Weinberg
And to follow up - I think this is the FIRST comment I've made on that subject in over a week. My comments/Tweets have been pretty neutral, like "64 degrees in Tel Aviv, 33 degrees in NYC. which one do YOU prefer?" Honestly, the goal isn't to focus on the sensationalist headlines at all -- is that tarnishing objectivity? Nope. Again, I'd 100% have the same opinions if this trip *wasn't* sponsored.
- Tamar Weinberg
I understand what you're saying. And I am not saying that _you_ would be biased simply because you're sponsored. I'm saying that a reporter on a sponsored trip doesn't have the same credibility as one who isn't sponsored. It's like if the US government paid me to visit Iraq and report on it. I may be as unbiased as possible but when people find out that the US government paid for my trip. It undermines my claim of being unbiased even though I don't think I was biased at all.
- Shawn Duffy
For example, ask the Israeli consulate if you can visit the West Bank on your own without their supervision and see if they let you. I'd be surprised if they did. And of course you don't know there's a conflict when you're in Israel. I know. I've been there too. But go to the West Bank. You can't escape the fact that there's an occupation. Look, I'm not saying you're biased. I know what you're saying. Just understand that being on a sponsored trip doesn't lend itself to being credible.
- Shawn Duffy
Shawn, I hear you and I understand that people may contest my reporting of the trip because of the sponsorship. That's not to say I won't share my unforgettable experiences. Israel is my favorite country outside the US. Always has been.
- Tamar Weinberg
You should share them. I don't mean to say they won't be valuable. So please forgive me if that's how it came across. Being very active and interested in this region I would highly recommend visiting the Palestinian Territories sometime, though. Israel is a fascinating country but seeing the West Bank is really part of seeing the whole picture. Good luck and safe travels!
- Shawn Duffy
Shawn, perhaps -- I definitely WANT to go there, but it's a matter of being welcome in those parts. I'm not sure how safe it would be for a visibly Jewish Jew to be going to those areas. :(
- Tamar Weinberg
Maybe they cleaned up spam accounts?
- Mona Nomura
Mona, I don't think so. Not this time around.
- Tamar Weinberg
That's bizarre - but people are strange. People unfollow and follow for no reason (it seems) on Twitter a lot. Check out SocialToo - it shows the Tweet of when people un-follow. Pretty neat. :)
- Mona Nomura
@Tamar: That's a reasonable concern. I would seek out organizations that go there and do volunteer work. Yes, I could imagine it being dangerous for a visibly Jewish Jew to visit alone. But, it's also not as dangerous as many would have you believe. I appreciate the fact that you're interested in going there and wish you the best of luck in finding a way to do it.
- Shawn Duffy
Yeah - I know. I'm using SocialToo to get my data. That's how I know they're legitimate folks who unfollowed me.
- Tamar Weinberg
case closed http://www.ynetnews.com/article... ""It is sorrowful that none of the speakers exercised caution while presenting their claims. Furthermore, the soldiers chose to present factual situations of a serious nature, even though they were aware of the fact that they have no first-hand experience of them," said Maj. Gen. Mandelblit. Advertisement "It seems...
more...
- NoahDavidSimon
The last two paragraphs of the article just cited: "Human rights groups in Israel leveled criticism at the Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Avi Mandelblit's decision to close the case investigating testimonies given by IDF soldiers regarding intentional targeting of innocent civilians during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. "The speed with which the military advocate general...
more...
- Sean McBride
Mona, did you lose followers today? I lost like 20 today... seems that these larger-than-usual drops are happening every Monday.
- Tamar Weinberg
Why Facebook has never listened to you and why it should NOT start now: http://scobleizer.com/2009...
Robert Clockedile, Ann Hudspeth, Michael Kacer and 81 other people liked this
I think you're right on the money about Zuckerberg: just imagine if Apple started listening to the peanut gallery. I don't think having companies try to pitch us every time we make a move online is the answer, and I think companies already know it (which is why you weren't contacted, among other reasons): if anything would cause a mass migration it would be that. People cannot stand...
more...
- Mark Trapp
Glad to see someone gets it. It's not about early adopters now for Facebook.
- LinkingIndiana
Yeah, Apple does some really anti-user things once in a while. Rocky just got his new MacBookPro and said "where's the firewire 400 port?" Anti user. But, in the long run, probably the right thing to do.
- Robert Scoble
Mark: friendfeed is showing how to do the "better search" part. Already I can tell friendfeed "show me all items that have the word 'stroller' in them that have two or more 'likes'". That's not yet possible on Facebook, but I bet it will be by the end of the year.
- Robert Scoble
Brilliant article; right to the point.
- Pavel Senko
Similar to this is the story about Google currently testing around 50 shades of blue. It might seem crazy, but when you have Google's traffic volume, a miniscule change could significantly improve the user experience, even if only subconscious. Nightmare for a designer perhaps. But in the larger scheme of things, a good move.
- Graham English
Zuckerberg is smart. An insightful business machine with clarity! Excellent listing of the 7 phases of FB. It's easy to see the growth thus far and where the potential is. Thanks Robert! And congrats to you and Maryam!
- Amy Flynn
If Facebook did listen then nothing would have ever changed.
- Mathew™ aka Youngblood
By the way, Facebook hasn't listened to me, either. If it did, I'd have more than 5,000 friends. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert: if they do that, then they have it made. FriendFeed is nice, but its missing the information about who I am as a person, instead favoring to define me by what I do or like online. After a year of using FriendFeed, I'm not sold on that being the best approach, especially when things like "like" require other people to feed the engine. I'm really into philosophy of language,...
more...
- Mark Trapp
I get why people don't like the new layout on facebook but I actually like it. It seems more interesting. It seems like a lot more people on my friend list are engaging with it and sending out more missives. There is more of a stream of stuff. And I like that.
- Aidan Mann
Mark: yup, and I've told the friendfeed team they should let me skin my profile and add more data to everyone. Facebook is way ahead there and I'm not sure friendfeed will catch up. Friendfeed, though, is far better for creating public conversations and I don't see Facebook going there and Twitter has no leadership willing to piss off its current users to go there.
- Robert Scoble
Aidan: have you ever wondered why Twitter is getting more hype than Facebook despite Facebook growing in #s of people far faster? I have. Easy: Facebook doesn't yet allow public entities. IE, celebrities, news organizations, etc. That's going to change pretty quickly. Then what will happen to Twitter's hype machine? It will shut down.
- Robert Scoble
It's true. The great Business prof and writer Clayton Christenson always says one of the worst things you can do is listen to your customers. They will drive you right out of business. If they listen to their customers' demands they will leave themselves vulnerable to what he calls "disruption from below" ie, in this case FriendFeed and Twitter.
- Stephen Pickering
Steven, I don't think Christensen said that at all. You aren't vulnerable to disruption from below until you've actually risen, and you don't rise far if you are always chasing new sales and ignoring your current customers. The mistake is only listening to your best customers at the expense of marginal customers. That cedes fertile ground to upstarts. That doesn't mean that it is smart to alienate much of your existing customer base, as FB seems to have done, trying to crush an upstart.
- Erik S
No offense to anyone :-D but the comparisons to Apple? I mean, come ON. Apple is *visionary.* Jobs said "I see a smartphone that people enjoy using," and lo, it was done. Jobs said "I see a day when music will be DRM-free," and lo, it came to pass. That's *vision.* Facebook is *imitative.* They are borrowing from Twitter and Friendfeed. Imitation is in their DNA, going back to Facemash...
more...
- Karim
I don't agree with part of what you say in your post, Robert. I think Facebook does listen to what its users say even if that doesn't always translate into doing what those users want. The terms of use issue is a great example of this as is its promise to incorporate user feedback if enough people demand a particular change to its future terms of use. Where I agree with you is that Zuckerberg must press ahead with what he and his team feel is the best direction for Facebook despite minority protest.
- Paul Jacobson
"Then what will happen to Twitter's hype machine? It will shut down" That is pretty bold :-)
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Great food for thought. But I strongly disagree. The previous changes to FB added to the site's functions, but in many ways the latest round of changes have changed the fundamentals of the way FB works. It smells to me of a company desperate to find a real revenue stream ... the ad network just doesn't work effectively, the applications and API are all but dead, and now the useful tools like events and groups have been pushed into the background in favour of a suite of copycat Twitter-alike functions.
- Toby Hede
I strongly disagree with you on this topic Robert. I have been a part of social networks in Turkey for a very long time now and I have seen why and how the trend shifted from one network to an other. The reason people settled on Facebook was because it was mainstream and appealed to the casual user. You and I can filter a massive feed from networks to see only what we need to see but the casual user can`t. Many will switch to an alternative if Facebook insists on its new model.
- Tuna
I actually think the outrage over this new design is less than the last time... and I hear everyone always threatening to leave if they don't switch back... please, it may happen one day but the very nature of facebook keeps them safe from people just leaving... people will whine, they'll threaten to leave, and then they'll get over it...
- Shawn Duffy
from twhirl
how to eat a big cake?!!a part at once. this is what FB are making they are trying to make the user adapt to change in a progressive way, many change are to come personally I enjoyed robert post, it is very instructive, and I agree at a point you may not listen to your costumer, but there is no reason to say it to them. leader some time have to keep some observation for themselves, and to not comment on any thing.
- abdellah
@Jim: I wish I could bottle that motto and make sure everyone understood it. Too many take qualitative research and let it guide decisions and then become confused when the product isn't effective.
- AJ Kohn
Because in the end it is about making Mark Zuckerburg (even more) rich off of our information. Recording each and every like, click, and post to better help target our eyes towards a bunch of useless garbage and trying to own our images, thoughts, and ideas along the way. I suppose knowing that might help avoid being played.
- Tim
I will wait. I like that you predict such nice things, but I am not sure that a bad user interface is what will bring in the business. On the other hand, I am still waiting for the revolution predicted in Naked Conversation and the Long Tail to happen, so a bit more wishful thinking won't hurt. I agree that FB has to move forward and they should go the way they want to go, otherwise it will end up in a mess.
- Roland Hesz
Reread the post, and yes, I am positive that the current user interface mess up has not much to do with the bring in the business. Making it harder for people to find anything will make it harder to move forward I think. But it Zuckenberg's toy, he should do it the way he wants. Probably has a long range plan.
- Roland Hesz
Robert, hadn't actually stopped to think why twitter was getting so much hype. I have a touring bicycle. It's inspirational to get tweets from Lance Armstrong. How this will translate to Facebook in the future will be interesting to say the least. My daughter works as a graphic designer, is more a myspacer than a facebooker, she tweets but mainly as a device to communicate with me. Her comment to me recently was that she has noticed business everywhere including twitter handles. Congrats by the way! ;]
- Aidan Mann
just think people don't like changes, so that's why they keep arguing bout the new design. Even if the changes are for good, people dont like it so they complain... not leaving, but complaining all time.
- Dani Martínez
Henry Ford said "if I'd given customers what they want, I would have invented a faster horse."
- Tom Landini
I'm not getting the "objects in the social graph" part of the later phases in Robert's post. Can someone provide an example? How about where to find out more?
- Tom Landini
people didnt like the fb change, yes, including me. After reading above blog i came to know the intent & agreed also. So, people could be making opinion just based on UI changes, without knowing the reason, like me? Was it possible for fb to handle it better?
- Roshan Ramachandran
from twhirl
Tom, I took that to mean things like, "You are now following @MarsPhoenix," "The U.S. Government is now following you," "You have a new friend request from the 2nd Floor Break Room Coffee Pot."
- Karim
Will Facebook listen to the public and change it's frontend, probably not until user numbers vastly drop. Do I like the new look? No. Will I stop using Facebook? No. Why? Well I know how facebook works enough that I can get the information that I used to get from the frontend other ways. It's just harder to get. It's for this very reason I believe the users will carry on using Facebook. They don't like it, but they can get by. Hence facebook will think the majority like it & it's the minority moaning
- Paul Bainbridge
@Karim: Thanks. So that means the US Gov't and the Coffee Pot can see all my posts etc. on Facebook, I guess. But if it also means I can see all of the stuff on their networks, that opens things up pretty wide. And I guess I can see who's been drinking coffee on the 2nd floor when I'm away.
- Tom Landini
sadly, the US Government almost never posts pictures from that wild party where it got drunk and destablized a foreign government. also, the Coffee Pot just tends to whine a lot about how you haven't refilled it lately (despite location awareness showing you were in the same room twice today), and it complains when you don't fill it up with the "right" brand of expensive coffee and then gets all petulant and moody because it thought you and it were friends.
- Karim
Pity people without Facebook; they never know what the gov't is doing and have to suffer the coffee pot's silence. Hey, wait and minute ....
- Tom Landini
....They get news from other places? Facebook seems useless from my point of view.
- ralphsaunders
@Karim - The Poor Coffee pot, will it ever learn? ;)
- Tyson Key
@Karim - i'm fairly certain the gov't can see what you're doing whether on FB or not. wave to the g-men!
- .LAG liked that
ErikS Facebook hasn't risen already? Are you kidding me? If nothing else he simply couldn't stand still while everyone was spending their time on Twitter or his business would die. He had to shake things up, even if it were just for the sake of shaking things up. I like it. Competition is fun and healthy and gives us more valuable products and services.
- Stephen Pickering
Stephen,are you kidding me? You said that "Clayton Christenson always says one of the worst things you can do is listen to your customers. They will drive you right out of business." That's a mischaracterization, I explained why. Taking it on your own terms, you're suggesting Facebook got as far as it did without listening to customers? I don't buy it, given that there are multiple examples to the contrary. True, sometimes businesses have to risk alienating customers. We'll see how it turns out this time.
- Erik S
I was just thinking about the contest I held earlier this week. Only about 1,500 comments came in, while I have 30,000+ followers on friendfeed and 70,000+ on Twitter. Why such low numbers of participants? What do you think about these low rates of engagement?
Calvin Ayre, Pat Graham Block, onurc and 47 other people liked this
Scoble you're just another billboard on the freeway.
- rob friedman
Well...I only happened to catch the contest due to the live streaming FF sidebar. If not for that, and seeing lots of people comment about it, I might have missed it altogether! lol
- Carlton Hackett
I think most people don't hang out here all the time, and it just gets lost in the noise.
- Christian Burns
Sounds about right to me, if you read the studies on engagement. 80% lurk. Also, after reading through about half the comments on that thread, part of me felt guilty about leaving one myself. I wanted to start handing out my own money to people in need.
- Karoli
contest? what contest?
- americanm
What was the entry mode? Was it 'x words or less'? That can knock down the numbers sometimes.
- TechStyles.com.au
they have yet to discover FF?
- Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど
from fftogo
americanm: I gave away $5,500 on Monday to friendfeeders.
- Robert Scoble
Contest, meh....
- Rahsheen the Dream
Also, it probably flew by on Twitter...and retweets get annoying enough that folks ignore them, too. That comment strand was so long it crashed my phone every time I'd try to load the page.
- Karoli
What! $5.500! too bad I was working :S
- americanm
everyone is marketing and no one is "following" and Twitter is peaking and getting filled with crap and crap users. When freakin David Gregory is giggling like a schoolgirl (this morning) on the Today show..."I'm twittering! It's so addictive!" the floodgates have opened and the game has changed.
- Steve Averill
i follow you on both twitter and friendfeed, but i didn't comment about the contest.
- Varun Shenoy
The contest was here: http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Robert Scoble
It's the lurk factor. Very few of those followers will be reading you on a regular basis, they're likely to just catch up everynow and then. A 5% participation from your FF followers is actually pretty good.
- Rachel Clarke
May be not everyone has such a good reason for the USD1400.00 as I do. As they think you will award me with the money so they just plain given up participating.
- Vinko
Actually with the new FF notifier I seem to engage in more discusions
- americanm
Pavel, I already did, but here it is again: http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Robert Scoble
who won? and btw, that's 1,499 more comments than i've gotten this week ;-)
- Andy Sternberg
You gave it worthy people. Obama is going to give me a check for $8000 next year because we just bought a house.
- Christian Burns
Andy: the winners were announced here: http://friendfeed.com/e... -- by the way, if you won and I haven't heard from you yet, send me email to scobleizer@gmail.com -- I'm taking care of that stuff next week.
- Robert Scoble
I saw it, read it and thought it was great. The sheer numbers of comments was a disincentive to add further comments - why repeat what has already been said many times already?
- WoH: Minding her Steves
I almost didn't participate. I thought the chances of winning would be too low as you have a lot of followers and so would get tens of thousands of comments. I ended up doing it as you never know when luck may favor you but the fact that there were only 3 (i think) prizes to be won amongst so many potential contestants may have put off a lot of people from trying.
- kunal jain
WorldofHiglet: because I gave away $1000 to just a random person chosen from the comments.
- Robert Scoble
Seems an easy enough entry mode - perhaps the casual nature of the competition made it seem 'less authentic'? Other than that, would you classify the reaction as your regular level of engagement via this channel?
- TechStyles.com.au
kunal: why do so many play the lottery or go to casinos then? ;-)
- Robert Scoble
Yes, but the chances of it being me were v small, and why would I deserve it more than others?
- WoH: Minding her Steves
I'm tryin to Give away $100,000/Year for 4 EZ $20 Sales + Folks seem to be asleep at the switch!! Good News is we're Bumping dat UP to $500,000/month on just 2 EZ $20 Sales!! ;))
- Billy Warhol
GadgetGuy: it's the #2 most commented on post ever here on friendfeed, so for friendfeed it was actually pretty cool. I just wonder about how many people are actually using these services vs. just registered.
- Robert Scoble
Robert. if the contest had some kind of polling, some kind of question, something more than just leave a comment for the sake of winning, I would have participated.
- Kiran Patchigolla
I couldn't take money from you. If the contest was by a faceless corporation, then maybe.
- Morton Fox
They didn't need the money? :)
- Grant Bierman
Well, I definitely want to participate in your next contest. Hope I catch it.
- Ted Beam
@Robert Scoble - I should have paid attention... saw your link and removed my unnecessary now question
- Pavel Senko
And yes, I realised it was random but I was vaguely discomforted by the idea of getting money for nothing from a man who friended me over the Internet.
- WoH: Minding her Steves
Sounds about right - I did a poll today on twitter that just said: Reply if you see this - got 4 out of 730. thats .5%. You had a contest which likely got RT to a larger group but still had 2%. I think 1% would be a fair assessment of the penetration of any given random tweet. If that 1% RT it, it can climb. Do you read even 1% of the traffic on your timeline?I don't think I do. I can't read 1% of the stuff in google reader anymore. I barely read 1% of my email (thanks to spam and other filters).
- Ben Shoemate
Robert, I think that part of the problem is that twitter and friendfeed end up fragmenting people attention so you get larger numbers but the connection is much thinner. As a reader I really miss the Robert Scoble with the long posts. I like how Fred Wilson has incrementally evolved his blog into something like blog+forum...that seems to be the best of both world and help really create a great sense of community. Same thing with Seth Godin (although he is more of a one way street). Good luck with Building43
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Ben: good point!
- Robert Scoble
I don't do lottery but wish I did because it's only a $1 to dream. With your competition I didn't realise for ages that I had to comment to be eligible somehow. (I know that sounds .. err.. dumb) and then it had the feel of a marketing survey or something. What was I letting myself in for ? Finally it clicked. Oh ! I see and then I happily commented and checked on tuesday's results to see if had won. Nice selection of winners I thought !
- Julian Edward
This whole thing demonstrates how hard it is to get people to comment or like or take action.
- Robert Scoble
how about doing a contest where you randomly choose a person who "liked" something of your's?
- rob friedman
from IM
Karoli's on to it re. the demographic that was aware but didn't jump in. I think there was a feeling of incongruance between the "DSLR camera upgrade" and "purely altruistic cause" all jumbling together (of course there were mixed bag ones like mine too). This issue doesn't come into play in most traditional contests/raffles b/c they are depersonalized in nature.
- Micah
I missed it. Must not have been online at the time. :-(
- ursi
I just saw this post by pure chance. But with so many people participating, its enough to only catch 1% - you still get a pretty diverse group.
- Ben Shoemate
I dunno....this post has got 45 comments in 13 mins
- WoH: Minding her Steves
disagree with whoever suggested less of a connection. I've gotten more attention on Twitter and FF from Scoble than I ever got leaving a comment on his blog...and by the way, Robert...I'm offering to serve as your personal tweet valet for any upcoming conferences you might be attending...especially in the Bay Area...hmmmm?
- Karoli
I think there's something in that Robert, plus I of all these 'socnet' things, FriendFeed can seem a little Byzantine. Wonder how it would compare putting the same thing on just your blog/website?
- TechStyles.com.au
I follow you on twitter and ff, saw the comp, just didn't enter. Maybe as I get to know you better I'll be more open to taking your free cash.
- Justin
Karoli: that might be fun! :-)
- Robert Scoble
GadgetGuy: I would get far fewer comments if I tried this on my blog. It's too hard to comment on a blog anymore when compared to friendfeed.
- Robert Scoble
About 5 months ago we have been giving away $10,000 every week to individual who submitted best post to our site. We've also spent a lot to advrtise - you would be surprised to know the ratio... people, basically were thinking it's a scam.
- Pavel Senko
People may think to not bother because they think they may not win anything
- Outsanity
Robert: Have iPhone, will travel. Trying to get to the Web 2.0 Expo...trying to sweet-talk Rob into letting me be your personal Tweeter. :)
- Karoli
Fewer comments - yes, definitely. But I'm suggesting if was dressed up as a 'normal' website competition that people would perhaps be more amenable to entry.
- TechStyles.com.au
too much info going by too fast maybe? Hard to keep up. Another issue is so many ppl that have done these contests get a bunch of spam after they tend to avoid them. Mine was the first case as during the day (when you probably sent the first word about it) I am sooo slammed at work i barely have 10 minutes at lunch to check out twitter and fb. I'm trying to do more but right now my time is late eves. I'll check it out now Robert. ...................ok, nm. I see it's over. I would have done for money
- Robb Lewis
I just had a larger response on Facebook to a question I posed than I did on Twitter and FriendFeed. I do think there is some fatigue setting in.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse, but isn't your focus and entrepreneur/developer/author status re. Facebook make Facebook expectantly dominant for you?
- Micah
In your situation, you were giving away MONEY! Who wouldn't take 5 seconds to participate in it? My thoughts: a combination of too little time for people to participate (I know you had it open for a few days, but a whole week and constant RT's by you would have made a big difference), people knowing that the chances of winning were quite slim, and most importantly: why RT something if the chances of you winning would go down? You would make people comment on it and make the chances of you winning decrease!
- Michael Forian
Does that "90-9-1 UGC" ratio apply here? 90% read or lurk, 9% comment and participate, 1% (i.e. you) create?
- .LAG liked that
ya those metrics are stuck until ppl figure out how to use the information the best for them
- rob friedman
from IM
Robert: with all due respect. I think that you are wrong about comments/blog. Here is the proof http://www.avc.com/a_vc...
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Jason, one could argue that Robert (or anyone in his scenario) changing his MO _only_ because the wind changes direction, that that would amount to a devalued Robert Scoble the public figure (value as it relates to his partners, financial supporters and to his friends/audience at large).
- Micah
... MO meaning: He experiments. Talks about the process. Shares what he learned. Iterates (and the latency has lowered over time, the impact of which is anyone's guess). Some conclusions are drawn from aggregating information in threads like the very one we're all reading and/or participating in here.
- Micah
I think the time frame was to small. If the contest lasted for a week I think the results would've been different.
- Andy Gongea
Micah: It's a rough economy and Robert was able to acquire a new employer. Good for him. Robert's new employer recruited him to promote their brand. Makes sense. They leveraged SXSW and the crowds for the announcement. That's smart. What value did the giveaway add? With FriendFeed as the mothership, Facebook and Twitter users around the world received: "You've won two free iPods!"
- Jason Nelson
Edwin: Just read through the comments on the post you linked. Two thoughts raced through at the same time: 1) only one commenter was a woman, yet there are many women qualified to comment on this topic; and 2) the discussion there seems to have engaged members of a long-standing community. What doesn't appear to happen? People joining the conversation or giving that post attention who are not already following Fred Wilson's blog. This is what Twitter/FF do. Also.. (cont)
- Karoli
Stale accounts. How many people hold memberships at a gym or tickets for symphony vs how many of those people actually work-out regularly or attend the concerts? BTW--did I win..? :-)
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Edwin, continued...Robert's observation that even with the high ratio of followers on FF and Twitter, the number actively participating was less raises the question of how to measure lurkers in an attention economy. The metric cannot simply be the number of comments, or number of clicks.
- Karoli
If 25% saw your post and 10% of that responded, it seems reasonable. ~ 100,000*(0.25)*(0.10) = 2,500
- Bruck Sewnet
What about self-selection? I knew about it, but didn't participate because a) I had little hope statistically of winning b) I found all the wheedling comments (Friendfeeding frenzy?) unedifying and didn't want to be part of them c) I knew there were many people who deserved to win much more than me anyway
- Tim Ostler
Robert: I saw you post when you just posted it but I choose not to enter the two sections for this reason: 1) The Random Choice: I am very hesitant to enter these things because of the stigmatism around greed and cash grabs. I'm all for free money, but the second I put my name on the list, I participated, in public (just my stigmatism). 2) The Reason: I am relatively secure with few pressures. I know of many more people more deserving than me who would use it to benefit others.
- Johnny
Your contest was great, but just not for me :D
- Johnny
@Karoli The point I was trying to raise is that both robert and fred are building communities. Fred does it with Blog+Disqus+Twitter, Robert does increasingly with Friendfeed + video + fewer blog posts. Each community have different scale, depth and engagement characteristics to them.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Jason: Value: 1) We're talking about it (70+ comments later). 2) He made a point about giving this particular chunk of $4500 away as a symbol of the personal enrichment he received in doing the video piece. 3) The winners or their beneficiaries were tangibly helped. 4) Like I said before,(technologically mediated) social experimentation that reasonably retained Scoble's own stamp on it. ~~~ I'm not a big fan of contests in general, but this had tie-ins to the world in which I am interested.
- Micah
Edwin, agreed...but the broadcast factor to the greater Friendfeed/Twitter community is a way to increase engagement. Then there is the mashup of a blog with a twitter posting/filter focus, like we've got on our Health crisis blog (ushealthcrisis.com) with the JustSignal tool, and what could also be done with the Friendfeed widget. Blog, Twitter, FF dialogues in one place...the possibilities boggle the mind.
- Karoli
Robert, Sometimes even free money is too expensive for some folk ... perhaps if you offered to pay them to take your money it may work! Seriously though, besides the likely 80% lurk factor, your experiment also illustrates that a lot of people are lazy (i.e. they "Follow the Path of Least Resistance" and move on with one more click) and just can't be bothered. The exception to this fact would be if you were to market to a more motivated audience, say in Nigeria! - no offense to Dare - who simply rocks!
- Alexander Ainslie
I saw the original announcement on friendfeed. I have had problems finding a way to work twitter and friendfeed back in my life and haven't for a while. Tweetdeck seems to be solving some of the problem. But the days where I had a constant stream running down a sidebar on googlechat are over. At that point twitter seemed like a vital force. I have a much smaller stream on Friendfeed but ignored it for a long time and just hung out on Facebook. I seem to be heading back to twitter and friendfeed now.
- Aidan Mann
Some of us didn't want to win and didn't participate. I saw it and let it go.
- Louis Gray
re:the filtering by recently active followers, TweepSearch.com mostly has all the pieces in place to do something like that, main problem for @dacort currently seems to be the server loads that come with staying on top of the massive indexing tasks (for a small outfit). In other news, 5% "conversion" (1,500 of 30,000) ain't half bad. IM "industry" average conversion assumption is ~1% (granted for paid-for items, not contests, but even entering costs time/attention).
- Alex Schleber
..If I were you Robert I'd introduce a bit more of a challenge element into it, people tend to love a (not too hard) challenge. Otherwise it may just be too blah...
- Alex Schleber
i think like because with blog feedburner counters, it does not mean eveyone is actually following you + there is a time shift thing. the sense of real time does not apply everywhere in the world
- Ouriel Ohayon
I am presuming you are referring to your giving away money competition. I didn't participate on principle. There are needy people out there who deserve it more than me.
- Parth Awasthi
Well, people are different... Some of us do not participate in contests of different reasons. We have different value systems despite of increasing globalization. One cannot draw any valid conclusions and categorize people on the basis of single experiment.
- Hanna Wiszniewska
Dear Robert. That low engagement is the reason I've deleted my twitter account. Massive growth, but engagement is at an all time low across the board. Summer's coming, and the recession is making sure people are more workaholic in nature.
- Richard A.
1. could be that many of your readers are from overseas (like me) and did not think we would be eligible... 2. not everyone reads every post in detail... some are just glimpsed over... (like i did for this post) 3. not all members are active followers... 4. not all members are active participants (even though they are active followers)
- simran
I don't claim to know how all the different disincentives factor in to the final engagement percentage, but I do have a guess as to why people shy away from the random chance. They can see the stack of comments. If the store had a stack of lottery tickets showing your chance of winning few would play.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
I don't play lotteries, and I also didn't feel this was aimed at me. I imagine many felt the same way. In addition, people are really NOT rollowing each other's every word on these services. "following" is a euphemism for checking in every now and then.
- Francine Hardaway
from twhirl
It was the #2 commented post? Which post got more comments than free money?
- DGentry
hi richard, "the taking it so personal" is what can make trouble in social network, we have just to keep in mind that it is a tool, no more and as a tool the engagement isn't required, the more people will see as a narssisic tool the more the tool will be useful.
- abdellah
That's why I gave up on twitter. If it's a tool then it's worthless.
- Richard A.
what "beyond a tool" is your twitter vision?
- abdellah
The more people think of websites as a tool the less will they are to spend hours on it. I thought of twitter as a lifestyle and it showed in the way I used it. After too many people used it as a tool it become unpersonal, hence worthless. Why expect an answer that will come 6hrs later for example.
- Richard A.
even blog are tools, every mechanism that human use to communicaye ideas is a tool, making it personal is just a way to express a hidden affection to that too with encapsulate the easiness of that tool in a other words the usability of the tool.
- abdellah
Of course they're tools, but the difference is that the experience from blogs and friendfeed is much richer. You get pictures, you get links, you get real depth to every single post. With twitter it's just 140 characters, very vague. As a result of it's vagueness you want to engage with people more, to understand
- Richard A.
@Robert because we overestimate "engagement". There is little engagement on Friendfeed or Twitter. They are mainly channels for publication and status messages. Engagement comes from the 1% that engages anywhere. That is why Jason Calacanis's post about the value of Twitter suggested users makes no sense to me. It is old-school eyeballs thinking. The value of having many followers is probably 1-1 comparable to traffic and display ads on the web.
- Alexander van Elsas
I will go with Alexander on this one.
- Prakash
Most people are not as hyper-engaged. They sign up, drop off, maybe come back a month later, maybe not. Do crazy things like go out of town and not check in on the web while their gone, except for their myspace page. Plus some people are allergic to money.
- Thomas Hawk
I get offers for free money in my email box all the time and totally ignore at least half of those.
- Thomas Hawk
Matthew's point is critical --- the single biggest limitation of these powerful new channels (e.g. FF & Twitter) is the ephemeral nature of the post. The most inane along with the most salient both float away with equal speed on the tide of fresh fed content.
- Thom Kennon
@Brian: "Would be neat to be able to sort your follower list by last posted date and then trim off the inactive users." - I'm working on a service that does exactly that...
- Holger Eilhard
Say your giving away $100,000. If I were a betting man I'd say you'd get few more comments...
- Francois
I follow a lot of people and join a lot of social networking sites at someone's recommendation (like I heard about FriendFeed and I signed up), but I don't always go back and check regularly. Stuff like Twitter and I'm new to FriendFeed so I don't quite know how it works, but so much stuff comes in from all the followers, and I don't try to scroll down and page back to read everything. I guess this stuff would be more effective if you just used it among a few friends who you really care about.
- Auriette Lindsey
I'm probably not the only one conditioned to ignore posts like your contest thread. I scanned it in passing, but thought it was primarily intended for people who "deserved" the money. IIRC, there were half a dozen different threads from you about the contenst, when you were giving the money away, the fact that it was going to be live on ustream, the fact it was really Ciscos money... honestly it started to seem like spam to me.
- Ken Sheppardson
...It was also right after that guy with the Tesla and the two dogs who doesn't blog anymore (yeah, I know his name) was offering to give away money to Twitter and getting a bunch of free advertising from it, and maybe it was all just too closely related in my mind for some reason.
- Ken Sheppardson
Also, 1500 comments from 30,000 followers strikes me pretty consistent with a power law distribution (long tail) on participation, which seems to apply to just about everything online.
- Ken Sheppardson
Think I'm in with @cogarch. Just skimming existing comments made my head spin. And while I'm surely not wiping my a** with USDs, someone else needs that money more than I.
- Keith McCammon
my reason? you're a bit too prolific, Robert. I've had to start mentally filtering you out as noise (sometimes). no offense meant, not trying to pick a fight. :) I filter lots of people. I only follow 230 people on twitter and *2* on friendfeed. I'm too busy at work every day to keep up with even those numbers. Of course, with friendfeed's model, i get *plenty* of updates by just following Scoble.
- Rob Shields
from twhirl
oops. my last sentence was meant to say i get updates from Scobles friends, too, which is a great source of info. wasn't a final parting shot at Scoble's number of updates.
- Rob Shields
from twhirl
I think that is an amazing number of participants. That is over 1% of your total followers (there is a lot of crossover between your FF and twitter followers) and you are lucky to get 1% to be active in your communities. Most users are incredibly passive.
- Daniel Zarick
I'd guess that A LOT of users aren't 'every day' or even 'every week' and just missed it.
- Charlie Anzman
1% engagement, that's not so good, not when you consider the ease of interaction f the medium. It shows go for a small audience, but an active one. Go for the niche, it's no longer about broadcasting.
- Richard A.
there was a contest?
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
followers, you know, are not a correct attention metric :D
- g.g.
You are just a person that doesn't want a lot of distractions, I get it, but why do you have to tell (Robert Scoble)? Why not just filter and keep it to yourself?? Just wondering.
- T.S. Elliott
@Robert, Jason's post and you starting this discussions give me the feeling that Friendfeed and Twitter do not provide more engagement, they provide eyeballs. That is very web 1.0 ;-) : http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2009...
- Alexander van Elsas
The majority of people on these networks are passive users. It's like seeing a stat that you may only get comments from 2% of people for a blog... Lots of people like to read, very few like to interact.
- Michael
All $$ talk aside, this is great example of why #'s of followers in either service don't necessarily mean what most think it means. It also demonstrates the relative real-time factor of FF, in which followers would need to be using the service at the same time the post is made (+- a few days depending on the size of interactivity) or those other people never see it.
- Josh Haley
Statistically, your reach sounds okay. Perhaps you thought you'd have more comments because it was a contest - hmm - no, it wasn't really like a casino - I think if you had indicated that it would really be "random" and not only for the most "deserved" you'd have had more comments. It does take up more time to make up something to sound like I deserve something - not too many would gamble if the luck factor wasn't so strong there
- Maya
Because I didn't find it all that interesting? *grin* Nothing personal, Robert? I knew it was going on, but it was pretty gimmicky. I tend not to do gimmicky.
- Ken Kennedy
Not everyone uses FFholic, Robert... ;)
- Jordi Soler
from twhirl
Knowing how large your following is, I'm reluctant to join the noise. (most of the time.)
- Michael Markman
WHO has time to be on here 24/7? I don't. Bread on the table before playtime. ;-) What was the contest??
- David Slater
from twhirl
David S. :-), that's why friendfeed is a million times better than twitter. Here you have pictures, video, long replies to read and more. Perfect :-).
- Richard A.
Richard A I still can't sit here all day waiting for the ULTIMATE QUESTION, ready with my answer of 42! ;-0 Wish I could make a living blogging, but I can't! Now if I had a 4K laser in my house, I could make some money!
- David Slater
from twhirl
Robert, actually that 1500+ is quite great result as many wouldn't get close to that amount of real replies to competitions without large amount of advertising/etc.
- Daniel Schildt
well, robert, was waiting for something @ ;)
- bob phillips
For me it was just time, i saw the post and then like 30 minutes later there were winners announced. Maybe a bigger delay between begining or end? Or maybe I just missed the post initially. Still great job.
- SteVe "Beefy Miracle" C
I didn't even see it for some reason.
- Hans Eisenman
so many possible reasons. a) no one cared. b) no one saw it. just because your follower count is X does not mean X people saw your update and actively decided against "engaging." start with the assumption that the vast majority of your network misses the vast majority of what you say
- @baratunde
from twhirl
pride?
- Kevin Fox
I'm going with Kevin's comment....pride.
- Hutch Carpenter
i didnt see it, until later
- Deb
Deb's comment is very telling - You have a fantastic management system for dealing with all the data. Most users on twitter don't.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Recently I helped start #iestories on Twitter. We managed to get it to catch on and it trended into the top 5 according to search.twitter.com Even though it was a humorous meme (humor FTW) and a technical topic to a relatively technical crowd, it took A LOT of work to get it to trend. I posted once every few minutes for a few hours with the hashtag. My conclusion is it takes that much fanning to get the flame to start.
- Paul Reynolds
The paradox is you blow out people's timelines that are cautious followers and accept you as a few people they follow. So getting something to trend across all of your followers requires you to be annoying enough to where you will lose some quality followers. [unrelated: FF's comment link doesn't scale well with 100+ comment posts!!]
- Paul Reynolds
Maybe next time you ask people to nominate charities to give the money to?
- Paul Bainbridge
@Scobleizer I saw the announcement retweeted it and then left a comment so that others may participate – I agree with the first part of what Louis Gray had to say, but I did participate.
- Kevin Tunis
People seem to me to be skeptical of contests, in general - I think. The idea that Paul Bainbridge has - to nominate charities to give contest money to is a really good one to consider. Here's something else ... consider the idea of giving away a trip to SXSW next year, with the opportunity to meet you, and possibly spend a little bit of time talking with you, personally. Your wife will LOVE that one ... NOT! Being from an entirely different industry (catering & special events), for me, it would be a blast!
- Carlo At Your Service
Am I the only one concerned about Iran's nuclear program? Feels like tipping point is coming... Couldn't be worse timming huh? Thoughts?
antest liked this
I am very concerned and pissed at the Russians for selling them the technology.
- JustAFeed2000
Investigate the chinese, Russians, and Pakistanis.
- Aaron deMello
II would say Obama is also concerned. Hence his statement to Iran
- Francine Hardaway
from twhirl
@lisatodd I didn't know it was Earth day. Is there a Mars Day? I'd rather celebrate that, really.
yay Mars day ;}
- Aidan Mann
Listening to Danish 80's music. Is there such a thing as comfort music (like comfort food)? If there is, I think this might be it.
Danseorkester
- Aidan Mann
Other ways to read this feed:
