“Can anyone point me to some links with specifics on how McCain/Palin plan to "reform Washington"? I keep hearing them say that but never with any steps listed. If there's a list somewhere of the specifics I would like to read it.”
Thanks, Michael... I just read the part on "Ethics Reform" but it still doesn't give me any information about what he plans to do... Some info about what he has done in the past, but nothing concrete other than he'll use his veto pen (which may or may not be effective if it's not line-item veto). If he said he'd try to ban lobbyists or earmarks completely that might be worth something... but I'm not convinced by the rhetoric that that's the case. - Lindsay Donaghe
@J.Phil - no, I don't ever take politicians at their word. Their word is as fickle as opinion polls. Worth less than a mortgage security at this point. - Lindsay Donaghe
Maybe it's just me but McCain seems to have a resume-approach. He shows us his resume so that we see what he's done in the past which should prove that he has the capability to do the job we're asking him to do. I hate to tell him but this is not an interview for a position at Microsoft. - Akiva Moskovitz
I can answer that question easily. . . . our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state she is the executive of. And there in Russia they have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. <insert wink> - Peter "that one" Ghosh
The mavericks plan: #1) Ride into Washington, #2) Do maverick stuff, #3) Save the day - Mike Reynolds
Mike, you forgot a step - cut out the earmarks and the pork barrel spendin'. Thanks but no thanks! - Alexander Carlill
Get to Washington, Look at the notes Bush left behind, say, "this will work!" and continue with another four years of Bush - Mathew Ballard
Basically, he wants to abolish earmarks. And, um, be mavericky. - Eric
@Eric - I've heard him say he doesn't like earmarks and that earmarks are bad and that earmarks are what's wrong with our system but I haven't heard him actually say he would GET RID of earmarks... Can someone point me to a quote? - Lindsay Donaghe
just like with lobbyists, i think people who want to do away with earmarks, have no idea how gov't works. without lobbyists, we'd not have a lot of our protections. without earmarks, our infrastructure and local governments wouldn't be able to get things done. - Faboo Mama
@Anika - why can't the things that lobbyists lobby be put into their own bill? Can you give an example of the protections that were provided via earmarks that we wouldn't have had otherwise? - Lindsay Donaghe
Even if he "got rid" of earmarks, it would make little difference to the overall federal budget. It's a tiny portion. - Jason Wehmhoener
@Jason - I think it made a big difference ($140 Billion) in the bailout bill. $700B was hard enough to swallow, but the extra moves it to the next level. - Lindsay Donaghe
Agreed. Every member of congress should be ashamed of themselves for adding all of that crazy pork to the bill (archery, rum, etc). Hopefully, many of these jerks are up for reelection next month and will get voted out. - Peter "that one" Ghosh
what i was saying was that some of the stuff lobbyists lobby on behalf of us gives us protections (clean water, monies for special needs children, education, etc). earmarks help with our infrastructure (roads, waterways, trash, land use) and also in how much your state can help keep itself clean and educate our children. not all earmarks are bad, not all lobbyists work on behalf of multinationals and corporations. - Faboo Mama
and the things lobbyists work on do get put into their own bills, that's why bills are named certain things like the 'save dolphins from infrared laser beams act' (i made that up). - Faboo Mama
Ok, that makes sense, Anika, but do you think that those things couldn't stand as bills on their own? Is there some reason why it's necessary for them to be done as add-ons for other bills, often completely unrelated to the main purpose of the bill? - Lindsay Donaghe
I think that the large portion of the $140 billion was the addition of additional coverage for banks up to 250k per individual, no? Typically earmarks only account for about 8 billion of the budget and not all of them are pork. - Alex IHateMondays Scoble
Lindsay, there are items that may stand up as their own bill but don't get passed for political reasons rather than budgetary... - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
Lobbying still doesn't make sense to me though. It seems as if an item is important enough to need funding it should be in it's own bill. And if it's an item that's related to the original bill then it should just be included as part of the bill. I think the system allows too many loopholes otherwise. It seems very ripe for abuse. - Lindsay Donaghe
@Tina - isn't it all for political reasons either way? - Lindsay Donaghe
I am hoping at the very least that this gets more people not only to the voting booth, but more engaged in general as to what is going on around them. With the internets, it's very easy to see what your local reps are doing, and to also [literally] call them on it. - Peter "that one" Ghosh
FYI, for those of you who are interested in the details of Obama's plans, they're on page 5 of his "Blueprint for Change" document. Most of it is increased transparency by posting all the details of lobbyists, contractors, etc., online, including posting all "non-emergency" (there's a loophole for you) legislation for 5 days on the Whitehouse website for public comment. All in all, very reasonable stuff. - Glen C
BTW, I'm still looking for a single document from McCain that outlines his platform; if you find that, please let me know. It's a real pain to have to troll through dozens of pages on a website to do a detailed analysis. - Glen C
the point of lobbying is to bring it to the attention of the legislature. example: my friend's kid is autistic. in IL, where she lives, there's no funding for education for him. she had to drive a few hundred miles to get him into a school or pay for a tutor to come to her. there are other parents of autistic children in their area, so they banded together and worked out a proposal. they appointed a spokesperson who registered as a lobbyist to appeal to the state legislature. - Faboo Mama
this also enabled them to speak to durbin and obama. both of whom were unaware of this pocket of IL that lacked educational services. now, 2 years later, the kids have a school in the area with teachers skilled with working with autistic children in their spectrum. lobbying has enabled them to also have transportation and medical staff onsite. - Faboo Mama
There's this keatingeconomics.com thing I heard about today... :) - Steve Lynch
via twhirl
I couldn't mention in the 140 chars of my Twitter post that I said to her -- you fucking idiot, you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day. - Dave Hussein Winer
That's why I like you, Dave. Protecting true American values. Maybe she's being... dare I say it? A rebel? Oh wait, that's not the right word. What is it again? - Akiva Moskovitz
Thanks to everyone who came out for our Friday night photowalk in Sacramento. We had about 40 or so people and near perfect weather -- just enough rain to wet the streets for those awesome neon reflections, but not enough rain to keep us from enjoying ourselves. Especially thanks to Trevor Carpenter and Tom Spaulding for helping organize and the tour of the best spots to shoot neon downtown. Many more photos coming in the weeks and months ahead. - Thomas Hawk
via Bookmarklet
Had a great time as well! Can't wait to process mine, as well as see yours and others pictures. Hope we get a chance to walk this week... - Justin Korn
ah, my old home-town. I don't really miss it, but sometimes I think I do. - Bren
Like #3. 10/05/2008. Wish I were there. - Robert Scoble
The epicenter for geek events in Portland, Oregon. Amazing staff, incredible brews, and delectable distilled spirits (like gin and absinthe). - Rick Turoczy
Yep it is!! that's why your Robert and Alex and all of us are GLUED to FF! hehehee! - Susan Beebe
Tell me about it...Oh did I mention I'm now 4th (FOURTH!) most active? - Alex IHateMondays Scoble
Speaking of addicting, is there a treatment for Desktop Tower Defense? I think my wife has a problem.... - Glen C
It's been about a week or so, but I've spent more than a few sleepness nights glued to FF.... - Sean McGee
Alex: Yeah, but you are only following 994. That means your quality bar is very low. You have far fewer things inbound yet like and comment on far more of them than anyone else. I wouldn't be proud of that. - Robert Scoble
ALEX 4th?! wow! that's awesome!! makes my 27th look pathetic! - Susan Beebe
Welcome Patrick!! You will now be subsumed like the rest of us MUAHAHAHAHAH. :) - Lindsay Donaghe
No I'm following over 1000 now. I'm ranked 58th in amount of people I'm subscribed to. - Alex IHateMondays Scoble
And I don't like any of your stuff anymore, Robert, so I think I got the quality thing locked down, nicely...PIZZOW! - Alex IHateMondays Scoble
yeah, this is what FF is about - the feuds, the fights, the snappy come-backs...:) - WorldofHiglet
Alex: actually you do clutter up my feed by bringing your friends onto items I like. Your friends like things like Bacon and photo memes and tend to be noiser than my friends. So, by not liking my items you are keeping them cleaner, which I greatly appreciate! - Robert Scoble
Andrew: you can be an honorary Scoble. :-) - Robert Scoble
But Patrick has been on here for some time. Only he started using it now. His first comment was in early August, and I was already subscribed when he subscribed to me today. http://friendfeed.com/e/e67286... - Louis Gray
Louis: yup. He didn't use it before. By the way, it was me who subscribed to you. I was showing Patrick who the cool FF'ers were. BTW: it's amazing how lame FF is when you don't have any friends. - Robert Scoble
I see. Now, my next task, see if I can get Patrick to guest blog for me. We could have a bidding war. :-) - Louis Gray
You guys are awesome! I love ScobleFeed. lol - David Cook
Louis: offer him a seat at an Apple press conference and he'll do whatever you want. He's such a fanboy. :-) - Robert Scoble
but *why*, Robert? how about start with a hypothesis or something?!? when I unsubscribed from A-Listers I did it to see if I'd get more interesting/fresh content on FF (answer: yes)... - Jeremy Toeman
Jeremy: my thesis: by raising my bar 10x higher I will create an interesting page of things that will be a "must read." - Robert Scoble
Actually, I think this might be interesting, to see if you can pick and choose through your feed to find things you REALLY find interesting and see if it's easy or difficult. - Trish R
ah ha! well now I am interested!! :) - Jeremy Toeman
Trish: I think it will be extremely difficult. I'm very addicted to the like feature. - Robert Scoble
there is to much to like on the internet, I think you will have a hard time resisting yourself :) - Menno te Koppele
This will be hard to do. Not because there isn't enough good stuff, but if you like 8 things by noon, you'll have two more the rest of the day. Making things worse, you'll wish at 4 p.m. that you hadn't liked that post you did at 10, making you "undo" and add another. Too much work! Be genuine. :-) - Louis Gray
@Robert yeah, you are running a 2:1 ratio of like:comment (8086:4637 for the record books). will be interesting to see where it is in a week. - Jeremy Toeman
Louis: well, we'll see how long this lasts and what I learn. - Robert Scoble
Louis, what I might do is comment on posts, then take my favorite ones and like those. Either way, I won't unlike something. - Robert Scoble
an Idea : if FF can use an auto Tag script for FF messages and/or provide a Tag field in messages then it can suggest users to choose which messages shall be shown in their Home FF page/feed based on these Tags. - YAAK
Robert, I'm curious your reasoning for this. I really enjoy all the great conversations you're pointing out. I follow it via RSS so I don't miss any. You're a great resource. - Jesse Stay
via twhirl
Robert - wow, you have great discipline and self control. Ok, so what will be your CRITERIA for those 10 items? any particular bent to your selections? - Susan Beebe
Jeremy, re: the 2:1 ratio of likes to comments... maybe that's about right as we have 2 ears and 1 mouth so things could be in proportion ;-) - Sally Church
"Google SMS channels currently works only with with phone numbers of India but they are working towards making this service available to international numbers." - abacab
We need this in the US. Google alerts are only searches to email right now (Google SMS & GOOG 411 are response-based). Yahoo does RSS and some other things to SMS. - £ogical €xtremes
I wish Google would let you send SMS messages from IM or Gmail. - Kevin Mohr
Also, is this partly from the Zingku acquisition? - Kevin Mohr
3jam and others must be crapping themselves - adolfo foronda
Google Singapore, are you working on this already? - Jonathan Kong
wow. Great functionality for all those mobile phone users around the world without access to computers and the web. - Richard Crocker
@Richard, I sense sarcasm. Even though I have a web-enabled phone, I still would prefer SMS for short, high-priority alerts, delivered to me as available rather than having to think about it and go find it. - £ogical €xtremes
"FriendFeed's turning one! A year ago today, Bret, Jim, Paul and Sanjeev put our site and service out there and invited some folks. Soon, more people joined—as users, coworkers and friends. The rest, as they say, is history. Although not particularly ancient history." - Bret Taylor
via Bookmarklet
It's been a year already? Blimey. Happy Birthday! - Tony Ruscoe
Congrats. Trumpets and blowguns to get the rest of us non-FF slimes. Still have those weapons handy. +1 DeWitt, bring in some gears! Got some nice design in mind. +1 Shivanand and the like, how come it never existed before is beyond my understanding, that's how web services win I suppose. Great foundation to build for the future of 'social media'. - Zu aka ElijahBailey
Happy Birthday, FriendFeed! Looking forward to your next 10 years : ) - Jess Lee
Thank you for building my home on the web... Was waiting for a long time. Worth it :) - Christopher Galtenberg
Congratulations Friendfeed and Happy Birthday to you!!! - AJ Batac ♘
I <3 ff! Thanks so much for providing such a great community of wonderful people and great information. :-) - JMakesAwesomeSauce
Happy Happy Birthday Friendfeed, best of luck for the future! - Dobromir Hadzhiev
Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear FF, Happy Birthday to you...and many more!! - Jeff B
CONGRATULATIONS... It has taken me most of the year to figure out how to use and make the most of friendfeed, and now dont' want to live without it.... - amelia arapoff
“93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media.” - Erhan Erdogan
Scoble "likes" items to bring them to the attention of those who follow his feed. It's not an emotional response. It also is his only option if he wants to highlight it... and not comment. - Louis Gray
Lighten up Louis - I'm sure Robert can speak for himself - Brian Sullivan
Louis, that type of social behaviour is not alone a scoble thing :)- - Peter Dawson
interesting, scoble "liked" my post but then removed the like. i also think like should be renamed to share to avoid these issues in the future. - Allen Stern
I thought changing it to "mark" would work as well. - Brian Sullivan
I don't Like that PodTech failed, $7.5 million in VC cash and today they were sold for for less than half a million dollars. I know Robert, Jeremiah, John and Vallery, but no one is ready to tell the story - paul mooney
I'm cool with telling the story. I just need a couple of glasses and wine and a lot of time to tell it first. Podtech was screwed up by a number of decisions. Everyone played a part, but I sure learned a lot about how a company can screw up big time. Major learnings for me? 1. Have a story. 2. Have everyone on board with that story. 3. If anyone goes off of that story, make sure they get on board immediately or fire them. PodTech did none of the three and I'm sorry for my part in not making the three happen - Robert Scoble
That's the cool thing about you, Scoble...you're human and admit it too! - Sean McGee
Not all ventures succeed though. How many 'fail' for those that succeed? It pays to take a pragmatic view. I think it's a hot market, and the impetus to succeed is high, eventually some will break - Mo Kargas
Other things I learned: 1. Make sure people are judged by the revenues they bring in. Those that bring in revenues should get to run the place. People who don't bring in revenues should get fewer and fewer responsibilities, not more and more. 2. Work ONLY for a leader who will make the tough decisions (see above). 3. Build a place where excellence is expected, allowed, and is enabled. 4. Fire idiots quickly (didn't happen at PodTech -- even if you count me as one of the idiots). - Robert Scoble
We get so much coverage of companies when they launch, when they're growing, etc. I'm hoping that someone writes an in-depth piece on what went wrong at PodTech so that entrepreneurs can learn from this. There is so much that you can learn from failures. - Mike Doeff
Other things I learned: 1. if your engineering team can't give a media team good measurements, the entire company is in trouble. Only things that are measured ever get improved. 2. When your stars aren't listened to the company is in trouble. 3. When your stars start leaving (Gillmor and Owyang left before I did) the company is in trouble. 4. Getting rid of the CEO, even if it's all his fault, won't help unless you replace him/her with someone who is visionary and who can fix #1,2,3. - Robert Scoble
My only thought is, how much longer does PodShow have? - Christian Burns
Robert: Thanks for all the insights from the "front". It's no fun being in a business failure. :-( But the lessons there are immense. I learn a hell of a lot from my failures... - Mitchell Tsai
Mike: I'm not going to be the one who writes that. Much of the worst stuff is too personal. Failures of companies often happen around failures at the leadership level. Telling why things failed means telling off investors, executives, and others (and even me). Not likely to happen because that'd mean burning bridges and I'm just not willing to do that. These people have too many friends. :-) - Robert Scoble
My vote is for assimilation into something bigger. They bought it to "right the wrongs" and flip it to someone else. Heck, at 500k, it's a bargain right now...IF things are cleaned up. - Bradley McSpinn
Brad: almost all of the talent left. What's left now is not much that's worth much. The revenues came because of our social media leadership. That's what Furrier really had in his hands. Owyang. Me. Cunningham. Jones. Gillmor. The rest of the stuff was a pipe dream that didn't lead anywhere, which is really why the company burned through $7 million (plus several million in revenues). - Robert Scoble
@louisgray I've often wondered if there was a better option than "like" and "unlike" would be nice to see "interesting" there are many times when I see something that is interesting but I don't "like" it. - Nice Fish Films
Although I'm sorry to hear this happened, Robert, I'm really appreciating the lessons you're passing on. Valuable stuff, thanks. :-) - Brian Carter
Louis is correct. I didn't "like" this. I just thought it was interesting for you to read. - Robert Scoble
I'll second Brian. Thanks for sharing, Robert. - Chris Baskind
"burned through $7 million (plus several million in revenues)" ?? wow thats a lot of mulla to burn thru .. net net at least 10-12M ! For what a 10 member team and within like 2yrs ?? you all must have had rock star status... did you have a chauffeur driven car Scobles ? - Peter Dawson
Well dish them up, Eric. The aspect of full disclosure is part of what I love so much about FriendFeed. - Bradley McSpinn
tell tell Eric.. the topic is hot :)_ - Peter Dawson
I honestly hate to hear of the downfall of any credible social media, especially in the means by which this story unfolded. Glad to see you're in better company these days, Robert. - Bradley McSpinn
Peter: there were more than 30 people and dozens of contractors working at Podtech. Only a couple brought in any sizeable revenues. - Robert Scoble
Yeah...I'm SURE that if wages had been at even 100,000/year (That's a 1,000,000 payroll for a 10 member team)...they'd still have money left. Unless their offices were prim-o real estate...I dunno...I don't live there. EDIT: just saw your last post Robert...makes sense now...sorry... - Sean McGee
Misteps aside, did PodTech have a viable opportunity, or was it ultimately doomed from the start? Clearly any company that's not run as a meritocracy has little chance for success. - Brian Edwards
Although Robert's response to Mike Doeff is probably true (that the backstory to companies that fail are too personal), I agree with Mike that a post mortem of entrepreneurial endeavors would be very useful. Case studies can change the names to protect the not-so-innocent too. - David Muir
grrrrrrrr.. I wish FF has button at bottom of thread 4 ease of commenting..anyhoot @Sean even at 40heads - it still does not make sense. Unless you tell me that all 30 members were getting $100K and dont 4get startups pay less and give more in share holdings !! - Peter Dawson
Do I dare bring up the how did they expect to pay back 7.5 million in V.C. through such extremely niche content question? - Paul Colligan
@Peter: Well, as we all know, contractors usually cost more (per hour) to employ than regular employees...And, being a video site, I'm sure their bandwidth costs were high (although I only watched maybe 3 videos total myself in their entire existence.) But, you're right. You know, If PodTech were a restaurant, the owners/founders would have only taken a salary large enough to cover their minimum expenses and waited to take a larger salary when the restaurant was successful. - Sean McGee
Sean: engineers in Silicon Valley cost more than $100,000 per year. Podtech had a chance in the Social Media World but spent too much to build its own platform and never delivered on that. We also didn't work together and that is another failure in a startup. - Robert Scoble
I am going to write an in depth post on this story. It's huge. There are many lessons. Scoble's view is from his perspective but there is a big picture that goes way beyond Scoble's view and that has to do with building a company from a zero stage. I've moved on from a year ago after I was forced out by the board. We made some mistakes but directionally correct. Sure if I had a mulligan things might be different but a business strategy, financing strategy, and team strategy are part of the story.. - John Furrier
john: I am looking forward to your post. - Robert Scoble
There are many lessons to learn that I'll post about. PodTech had a great chance and pioneered some of the best practices in social media. One thing that I'll talk about is the difference between self financed growth strategies and venture backed growth strategies. - John Furrier
I'm looking at this from way on the outside. The value of my perspective is that I know nothing about internal management, visions, discussions, factions, or what have you. All I can say is that from afar, I never got any brand coherence from PodTech. Was it news? paid corporate marketing videos? analysis? community? There were some powerful personal brands--I still follow them in the PodTech diaspora--but it felt they never cohered into a PodTech identity. (That doesn't mean losing personal identity.) - Michael Hussein Markman
Michael: exactly. We never played together as a team. It is why entrepreneurs need different skills after they start their companies. It is not enough to sell people on a dream. You must coach your way to it too. - Robert Scoble
Great to work with John, Robert, Valarie, Kevin E, Jennifer J, Michael K, Jeremiah. Like many Web 1.0 / 2.0 companies, those in social media face the challenge of business model. There are lots of bigger train wrecks. But unlike PodTech, no one created enough of a brand (good or bad) to even be remembered in this conversation. There are more to come. - Brad Baldwin
Brad, so does this mean you're looking for something new now, or are you still with PodTech's new owners? - Jesse Stay
via twhirl
When exactly are people supposed to use PodTech? At work... but too time consuming... people hate slow voicemail and want email. In the car, maybe. At home, may not want to address work topics. At least they had the cojones to cut bait. -
