Arleen Boyd - Comments

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Steve Rubel

Friendfeed is coming to Seesmic Desktop and web, says Loic (see comments)

July 23, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

/sg, denis, Daniel Rowley and 105 other people liked this

This may get me switched back to using Seesmic but will @loic release a iPhone app? - Vinko

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Vinko: yes. Loic told me he's working on iPhone app too. - Robert Scoble

Now if only socialscope would put it in their client for Blackberry's. - Sheryl

Here's another vote for a Seesmic iPhone app! - Susan Beebe from BuddyFeed

I still haven't met a FF application I could stand to use for more than a few minutes. - Craig Eddy

I saw an early alpha of the iPhone app. Looked good. I also saw an early alpha of Seesmic web and the way it advanced between the alpha and launch was dramatic - so I expect the iPhone client will track the same way. - Steve Rubel from email

Robert that's really great. I definitely will consider switching back when the Seesmic iPhone app arrives. - Vinko

Will get me,too, switched back to using Seesmic ;) Looking forward to hear from Loic soon - Ali BULUT

hurray - Thomas Power

This might just tempt me away from Tweetdeck... - Andrew Terry

If they add friendfeed to the web app, I'll maybe use it instead of PeopleBrowsr. But then again, peoplebrowsr has implemented friendfeed in a very good way already. - Svartling

Great News ! - Jean-Charles

You gotta keep an eye on Yahoo homepage. They have FB integration and someday may integrate Twitter (they have the 'what are you doing now'). Seesmic is way ahead, but Yahoo has mainstream adoption - Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah, I agree. The new Yahoo homepage is impressive. - Steve Rubel from email

Im not sure it's impressive, as it's evolutionary, not revolutionary. When Wave comes out, it could dash the shine that Yahoo has. - Jeremiah Owyang

I like ff's web design - kang

Android app, please? :D - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Where do I sign up! I'm praying your web app will make my life of FF, FB, Twitter ETC more manageable!!!!! W/out crashing my puters AND still let me see my Home feeds! - Arleen Boyd

I'm thinking that this is the type of post that would be good reason for FriendFeed to have a "Love" click option next to the "Like" click option so that we can register better levels of our emotion towards news we read in others' streams! - Chris Aldrich

good news! - Jeroen De Miranda

I have been using Seesmic from the beginning this is GREAT news! - Robyn Hawk

Great news. Been looking for a good Friendfeed app - Barry Howell

I'm quite excited for Seesmic's FriendFeed iPhone app. - wiredgnome

yes yes yes - Loic Le Meur

Don't forget Android when developing mobile apps! - Travis B. Hartwell

I agree with Vinko; this would be a good reason to switch back to Seesmic - Anne Mai Bertelsen

Might be late... but how is the Facebook acquisition going to effect this? I can't stand the way that app takes over Friendfeed. - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

1) Special Wedding MicroBlog Tweeted with honor for @TerrySimpson as states his vows to @ProducerGirl becoming @ApeySimpson See as follows!

February 19, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

2) RT @TerrySimpson When I first looked in your eyes our souls met and have never been apart. I vow to protect us, and keep our love safe - Arleen Boyd

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3) RT @TerrySimpson We laughed from the first day we met and I vow to continue to laugh with you through good times and tough - Arleen Boyd

4) RT @TerrySimpson Our days and nights have been filled with conversation. I vow to never let that conversation falter - Arleen Boyd

5) RT @TerrySimpson And among this group here and on Twitter - I vow to love, honor, and protect you forever - Arleen Boyd

6) Please meet Mr. @TerrySimpson & Mrs. @ApeySimpson (aka @ProducerGirl ) CONGRATULATIONS! May you live a long life of love & joy! - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

Facebook won't let me make a post on my own wall, any of my friend's walls, or even make a comment on a post on my own wall! Email??? It won't even SHOW them to me! I can't poke... so basically I've been deduced to being a stalker on Facebook. SO I thought I'd activate the FriendFeed and Facebook integration to see IF I could make this post there..

February 6, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

Morton Fox and Mike Nencetti liked this

FriendFeed FAILED to place the above post on Facebook after I had all integration set up... UGH... - Arleen Boyd

Steve Cleary

Fwd: Arleen WHAT-in-the... dozens of comments on gorgeous photos posted by others on my wall! Thank you people for sharing your JOY! Happiness IS contagious! (via http://friendfeed.com/alohaar...)

January 18, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

Thank you for sharing! (((pu liki))) - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

A few of the places we went on Part 1 of our honeymoon.. St. Supery Winery rolled out the welcome mat with wonderful wines! I no photographer but got a few decent shots of Wine Country in brilliant color, John Muir, Golden Gate Bridge, and the California North Coast http://www.facebook.com/login...

January 8, 2010 - Comment - Like - Share

Nice Pictures - smiling people - wine - water -sky and bridges - what life is all about :->) - Steve Cleary

Thanks Stephen! Last year ended well and this year is shaping up wonderfully. Hope to make it contagious for others =) - Arleen Boyd

iconic88

YUMM!! @bridget_cooks is making banana smoothies!! Who's in?

December 30, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Me! Me! And please have her share her recipe! Love and miss you two! - Arleen Boyd

Robert Scoble

Real time videos are about to get hot based on what @aaroncray CEO of @rippoleffect and @Michael_Irie just showed me. Video later tonight.

December 30, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Arleen Boyd liked this

So you're saying we've all got to start live streaming our lives???? That can be scary! LOL! - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

Now here's a picture you don't expect to see in Hawaii! Took it at Koko Crater w/ my CrackBerry.

May 29, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

آریــوبرزن, VALZ asks LB is sublet?, John Deneen and 10 other people liked this

What are those thingys? - Jim Turner

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Way out kind of looks like the cactus was placed on purpose - JuneM

Very cool pic! - Tracey Smith

which island was this ? - Dana Duvauchelle

This picture was taken at Kokohead Crater Botanical Gardens about a 5 minutes walk from the Plummeria grove! Inside the crater it's a desert. The other vegetation is watered... like the hibiscus and the plummeria. - Arleen Boyd

Isn't a lot of Hawaii originally desert (certainly the volcano peaks above the tree line are mountain deserts) a lot of the west coasts were deserts until some 19th century/early 20th century irrigation projects. - Brian Sullivan

Jim, those are barrel cactus and what looks like a yucca. Hawaii isn't completely tropical so it's not that unexpected. - Anika

Koko crater is on Oahu, out on the east side of the island, near Hawaii Kai (neighborhood), on the way to Sandy Beach, Makapuu Beach, etc. There are horse stables there and hiking. It's pretty nice. - Morgan

Yes Morgan! It is amazingly beautiful. Brian - The state of Hawaii has 11 of the 13 micro-climates in the world. I believe we have 9 of them here on the island of Oahu. The Big Island has a few more micro-climates with the height of their mountains. - Arleen Boyd

very cool and yes, that is NOT what I'd expect in Hawaii...thanks for sharing. - Tracey Smith

Rahsheen the Dream

I liked it, so I finally put a ring on it. - http://pikchur.com/Fz2

August 23, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Paul, @Renchin@, Victor Ganata and 122 other people liked this

Congratulations!! (if I am interpreting this correctly) - joey

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Yeah. LOL. I just made it official, like in the Thriller video...except that I didn't turn into a werewolf and chase her through the woods.... - Rahsheen the Dream

Congrats!! - iTad

congrats - a runcible MiniMage

Congratulations to you both! - WoH: Minding her Steves

Congrats!!! - RAPatton from iPhone

Very good, my dear Rah! - Derrick

Congrats, Rah! - Pete D

Congrats to both of you, Rah! - Ha3rvey (F please!)

Congratulations! - Spidra Webster

Congratulations!!! - Michael Fidler

Congratulations, Rah! - Micah

Congrats Rahsheen! - Hutch Carpenter

Congrats to both of you! - Jandy

Way to go Rah! Congratulations! - DJ Stevie Steve

Nice work. - Louis Gray

Awesome... don't know her from Eve... But from what I've gleaned from you online. She's got a good guy. Congrats! - SAM

Congrats! - imabonehead

congrats then :) - webosapien (Burcu Tüzün)

Congratulations man :) - LANjackal

Congratulations, Rah! :-D - Kol Tregaskes

Congratulations! - Anne Bouey

Congratulations! ^__^ - Abhishek

"it" ? ;) Congratulations though ! - ɯɥøq sɐɯoɥʇ

*wonders if he should put on leotards, a metallic hand and run up the wall...* Congrats man! - Johnny

Congrats man!!! - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Congrats! - Suddenly LB

ویدا بیا برات حلقه ازدواج خریده دوستت :)) - Mil∂d

congratulations to you and, um, "it" ;) - Que Sarah Sarah

Congrats! - jbrotherlove

Congratulations, dude! - Daniel B. Honigman

Woohoo! Congratulations! - Ordinarybug Heather

Congrats! - Shevonne

Congratulations! :) - JA Castillo

Congrats. :) - Kevin Winn

Congrats! - MoTO Gutter Bumbershoot

میلاد :)))))))))))) انگشترش رو دوست نداشتم نامزدی رو به هم زدم :دی - Viva Vida

Oh that's awesome!! Congrats! - Just Katie

Congrats! - anna sauce

Yay! Congratulations!! - Yolanda

Congrats, happy for you Rahsheen!!! - YoYo_P

Congrats, Rahsheen!!! - Live4Emma (L4S) from iPhone

Congrats :) - Rodfather

Not fair that the lady gets to wear a fancy ring before we even do the church thing. What's the point of being engaged if you can't flaunt it? LOL. Thanks everyone :) - Rahsheen the Dream

Woot! Congrats. :) - Jen (SquirrelGirl) from iPhone

Congrats! That's fantastic news...! - sean808080

Congratulations! Welcome to the ranks of those of us promised and intended to the love of our lives =) Aloha! - Arleen Boyd

woohoo! congrats! - Leslie Poston

Congrats, Young Sheen! - Bryan R. Adams

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! :) - Susan Beebe

congrats and good luck! :) - Tim Hoeck

Alright, Rah! Happiest best wishes to you both! - Ayşe E.

Congrats! - xero

Congratulations, Rahsheen and Trail! - Anika

Congrats Rah! - Justin Korn

woooooo hooooo! - metalerik

CONGRATS MAN! - AJ Batac (/-_-)

So very nice. Congratulations! - Martha

Congratulations!! - Erica Thompson Briggs

CONGRATS!!! - David Cook

Congratulations!! - Harold

Congratulations, Rahsheen! I had a similar thought for Harold when he gave me my ring: "Gee, kind of unfair the guy doesn't get to wear something too until the wedding." - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Congratulations! - Tracy Benham

Way to go... May you have a wonderful life together. - Mitchell Tsai

bump. - Rahsheen the Dream

bump^2 - imabonehead

Jesse Stay

So my wife gets lists before I do. We know whose account will get used as my test account now :-)

Screen shot 2009-10-29 at 12.37.24 AM.png

October 28, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Geert CONARD, Hutch Carpenter, Susan Beebe and 15 other people liked this

What's funny is I have 6 accounts of my own and she gets the lists. - Jesse Stay

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You are blacklisted. - Louis Gray

I guess so. Time to change Twitter identities? - Jesse Stay

Seriously, Louis? - Rahsheen the Dream

I thought everybody got lists yesterday. I did. So what was the selection criteria do you suppose? - Melanie Reed

Ryan Sarver told me it was completely random, no selection criteria at all. They couldn't even put me in as a developer until my number got picked. (which is BS because I know developers "chosen" for the developer beta) - Jesse Stay

Well,Jesse, if I could give you mine, I'd do it. I'm not particularly ready to play with it yet as I have other things I'm concentrating on at the moment. - Melanie Reed

Melanie, the only reason I want it is for development. I'm much more enthusiastic, from a user perspective, about Facebook. I do see ways to incorporate this into SocialToo though so I want to play with it to do that. Also, Facebook doesn't yet let you group fan pages into lists or anonymize lists like Twitter does so I might find some benefit there as well. - Jesse Stay

Actually, I'm wrong - I just realized I can add fan pages to lists. Cool. Wondering if I can do some stuff from an API perspective now. - Jesse Stay

So it looks like in Facebook the only capability I need now is the ability to share my lists with others. Ideally those that I share with should only be able to see those with permissions set to be visible to others. This would include all fan pages (the equivalent to a Twitter profile). - Jesse Stay

Which I can already do via the API - Jesse Stay

Jesse - with your brilliance a) everyone -even Twitter - knows you've been doing your own "lists" for a while! b) you'd test it so heavy the system would blow up! *giggle* - Arleen Boyd

Arleen, lol! In all honesty, I have been doing lists for awhile via FriendFeed and Facebook, so you're right there. The only reason I really want to test it right now though is for SocialToo - for those that prefer Twitter I really see some potential for lists to remove the need for unfollow. - Jesse Stay

Keep in mind I'm in this as an entrepreneur, not to necessarily find news. I can find news, but it's not my sole purpose or mindset right now. - Jesse Stay

I am still waiting for lists myself, - Rob Cairns

Can I share FriendFeed lists on SocialToo? I can imagine API calls to dump list data there and subscribe to others. - Bruce Lewis

I finally got lists, so I've finally stopped complaining (at the end, I begged @twitter on bended knee). Once I got lists, the first thing I did was create my big NaNoWriMo list which is probably the biggest one built so far. When I saw how many lists I was on, I found out that I was on just about everybody else's NaNoWriMo lists already. So I'm pleased, though I might now complain about how hard it is to create big lists out of my nearly 1,500 followers. So it goes... - Dennis Jernberg

Arleen Boyd

Okay... so we left the house at 7:30 AM to hike Kamehame Ridge... still it was HOT. No trades. What little breeze there was felt like my hair blow dryer!

October 25, 2009 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Josh Haley liked this

I Iove that hike! - Josh Haley from iPhone

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Josh - for the effort - that hike has the best views! Almost anyone can do that hike. Still take water, wear sunscreen. And doing any hike on the island is best early morning or late day when it cools off. - Arleen Boyd

Yeah, at the summit, you can pretty much see Kailua and Waimanalo at the same time, the hike back affords great views of Koko Crater, Koko head and most of Hawaii Kai. It's a chore, but it's worth it. :) I actually found a website my friends made from when we did that, back in 97 sheesh! 12 years? http://www.rcarchive.com/hhg... - Josh Haley

Thanks for sharing that site of your hike Josh! You might want to come join us one Sat. morning on one of ours. I'm not in good shape (yet) Though I did climb Koko Crater! Whooped my rear... was sore and hurting for 5 days! But, now I'm getting in better shape. This was the 2nd time climbing Kamehame, & this time I stopped just once on the way up and not at all coming down. (Except to take pics!) - Arleen Boyd

I would love to hike O'ahu again, TRUST me, but I live on the mainland now. :p I used to live right there at the bottom of Kamehame ridge in Hawaii Kai, but spent most of my hanna-batta days in Makiki. I was a townie. Now I stay in da kine suburbia north-east of Houston. :p - Josh Haley

Arleen Boyd

Is it possible that the whole net is under change or attack? Seems to be issues with LOTS of platforms from gmail to facebook to private communities.

September 2, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

ironically enough, the best sources of info are reports by other users ... often shared on one of the platforms mentioned :D - Mike Chelen

Mike you are sooo right! Yet, companies now seem to put their wares out for use before testing them well and let the users mess with the problems as their "test case." - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

Though I've missed being online, it's been great spending time w/ family from a beautiful area back East.

September 30, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Chelen, Jill, Victor and 9 other people liked this

What a Beautiful photo, where is "back east?" - Vickie Wyman

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Blue Ridge Mountains... gorgeous country. I'm not well versed on the geography out there. - Arleen Boyd

Very Nice! - Frank King

cute cabin, almost looks like a painting :) twitter(at)locspoc - Loc

I've been to this cabin before just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is my favorite photo of it... exactly as I remember it! Courtesy of planetware.com You know me and my CrackBerry don't take shots this good! - Arleen Boyd

This place looks like its inhabited by Grizzly Adams :) - Arnold Aranez

How can you afford to go back east when you owe people so much money? - Todd Cochrane

It's - Ukraine? :))) - Victor

manielse (Mark Nielsen) to manielse's feed, Foods

Dulce de Leche Flan - http://thecookieshopinenglish....

September 29, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Navid Ht, Citronella, Raffaele and 12 other people liked this

This looks so decadently good! Can I lick my computer screen PUH-lease? - manielse (Mark Nielsen) from Bookmarklet

one of the most heavenly desserts! - magali

I died and went to heaven only after bookmarking your cookie page for my fiance to enjoy upon my demise. - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

so Facebook and Twitter acting up for me today... Frustrating when I'm multi-tasking and don't have time for them to beHAVE! LOL!

September 2, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Loc liked this

I have had the same problem plus other sites also - Paula Dean Wood

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I'm thinking it's a net wide problem cause I've heard gmail has had issues - Arleen Boyd

for me it's been gmail mostly, the others have been ok - Loc

I did get the problem on Youtube and gmail also... seems the whole friggin internet is locked up! - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

Did you know September starts the most productive time of year? What do you want to get done before the year is over?

September 1, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Loc liked this

a lot of things, but first keep my promises! - Apostolos Tsompanopoulos

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Apostolos, what did you promise? What if something outside your control makes that impossible? Then what? - Arleen Boyd

I have some overdue things in my todo list, in a sense they are promises - Apostolos Tsompanopoulos

Very worthy to knock them out! Kudos to you! - Arleen Boyd

complete training videos for promoter management system, recruit some promoters and then run an event or seek out joint venture partners, small events at first and then gradually bigger as my experience improves - Loc

Jesse Stay

Who has both a Twitter account and a Facebook Page that they manage? I have something for you to try.

August 23, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

motownmutt, Penguin, ANJELINABANANA and 10 other people liked this

That would be me... - Megan Fitzgerald

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Me too. I'm 'managing' posts thus far via Seesmic Desktop. What you got Jesse? *intrigued* - Kate Foy

Sending DMs to those that comment here on how to get set up with the new thing I want you to try - Jesse Stay

Oh, and we're going to try an experiment - if you get instructions, please feel free to share it with your friends if you like it! - Jesse Stay

Present. - Micah

I try....and I mean try.....to manage Twitter and Facebook posts on TweetDeck. - Bonnie Foster

I do - steven healey

I do - Melanie Reed

I do as well. - Rob Schieber

I'm game - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio) from iPhone

I do! - Laura Norvig

My fb page (one of them) is named after my blog: http://facebook.com/interaw.... I also help manage http://facebook.com/eduify and just started http://facebook.com/newfb for meeting new people. (Does That Count? :) - Garin Kilpatrick

Okay, for everyone else wanting to try it, wait until tomorrow morning and we'll post how you can try it and use it on http://blog.socialtoo.com - Jesse Stay

I do, I have a few Twitter accounts. - Kol Tregaskes

I do, I do. - Gary Walter (gwalter)

It's live now - go and try it out!: http://blog.socialtoo.com/2009... - Jesse Stay

BTW, I've got one more feature I'm holding back on you'll see in the next day or two. :-) - Jesse Stay

Sounds like me, too. - Jason Miller

Jesse, I'm interested and would be glad to do review for you. I could also use your help weeding out some (spam) followers on Twitter. - Jason Cronkhite from iPhone

Jason(s) - it's live now - go check it out at http://blog.socialtoo.com/2009... - Jesse Stay

Me! - Carter ♥ HTML5 from iPhone

Me!! - Adam Clarke

Pieso, Carter, Adam, it's all launched now - just go to http://blog.socialtoo.com/2009... for the details. - Jesse Stay

I have both. - Anurag Bansal

Lay it on m,e Jesse!!! Put it to the test! - Arleen Boyd

I do:-) - ANJELINABANANA

Arleen, Anurag, anjelina, be sure to check out the links I posted above - all the instructions are there! Let me know if you have any troubles. - Jesse Stay

I do too. - Martha

I manage a page as well as a Twitter account. Happy to help. Twitter account is @thejeffbrown. - Jeff Brown

Jeff, please see the blog post link above - it has all the instructions. - Jesse Stay

Robert Scoble

Sigh. The hackers got into my blog, left some invisible text in places I didn't catch, and now have gotten me kicked out of Google. Grrr.

August 25, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Colleen Kulikowski, Mitchell Tsai, Krishnamoorthy and 44 other people liked this

what? - michael sean wright

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Hardcore grudgery! - Daniel J. Pritchett

huh - directeur

I'm guessing by *invisible text* he means people loaded white-on-white keywords into his header and footer like the sort of NSFW content blocked by your office's firewall. - Daniel J. Pritchett

So much for having your own blog giving you control of your content? - Jesse Stay

I got screwed cause the old blog.grazr.com got hacked (didn't know it) and it was redirected to my new blog. So now my pagerank is like -5 or something. - mikepk

shocked that after the hell i went through on rackspace/mosso they wouldn't have known what to clear - i was out of google too - it's so fun - all of my sites got hit too over time so i lost a ton of google. - Allen Stern

I hate to say it but as Allen and Jesse are hinting at this is a black mark on your hosting provider. - Daniel J. Pritchett

I still get yahoo search referrals for casinos and nsfw stuff. blah. #spammersshouldbekilled - mikepk

why is this rackspaces fault? - Mark

I've seen injected content on RSS feeds that didn't show up on the blog itself. :-/ Sorry to hear! - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart

there's a virus or something like that which places an iframe in your page. just change your ftp password, scan your machine for virusses, and find the code in the pages and then google will let you in again - Hakan İyice

Maybe it's a black mark because Scoble is a Rackspace employee, but it's not Rackspace's fault something happened to a website. They run the server, not the website. - Mark Trapp

daniel - just to be clear - they have said to me time and agian it's not their side, it's wordpress side. - Allen Stern

Is that acceptable? I know that ever since I've moved from hosted Blogspot over to self-administered WordPress I've had some crazy spam issues. Maybe that's just a natural consequence of the blog growing and not a result of my hosting choice. - Daniel J. Pritchett

They used some sort of admin hack. We changed a whole bunch of stuff and now the hack has stopped (we deleted the admin account and did a bunch of other stuff). I'm not sure how it happened, but we're getting smarter about setting up Wordpress, that's for sure! - Robert Scoble

Allen: there are folks inside Rackspace who know how to clean this up. I'm now working with them. - Robert Scoble

Use XENU to find all the links and kill them, makes life easier to find all the places the embedded code ended up. Worked for me when this happened to me last year. - Dan owns Comicsforge.com

In a separate thread, Robert admitted his blog was running WordPress 2.7.x, which was vulnerable to an exploit detailed here: http://wordpress.org/develop... -- and then once in, hackers can inject spam only visible to robots. If you have a WordPress blog, please update to the latest version -- 2.8.4 -- to prevent hackers from doing the same thing to your blog that they did to Robert's. - Stephen Mack

It's such a damn shame that you worked so hard to have an Internet presence and some bastard sits around in his basement and try to whack you off the net - Houseofmax

Robert, if you need some WP help from experts, check out the wordpress.org forums and/or wptavern.com. That's where us WordPress nerds hang out. We can give security tips, maybe specific to your host. We also have several people who are skilled at post-hack analysis, to determine how they got in and prevent it from happening in the future. - Otto

Stephen: I think that was ONE of the exploits they used. The exploits continued even after updating (they've stopped now, because we made it hard to find the admin account -- that's something I would do immediately too, change the name of your admin account). - Robert Scoble

Otto: thanks. Some of those guys work at Rackspace and they are helping out now. :-) - Robert Scoble

Wordpress rocks. :) - Louis Gray

Oh yes it does Louis! - Hutch Carpenter

Robert, that was probably how they got in originally, and probably left themselves backdoors that worked even after you updated to 2.8.4. - Stephen Mack

Daniel: nothing about the hosting choice makes WordPress (or any other web-level application) more susceptible to spam. Your site is accessible via a fully-qualified domain name, which is how spammers are finding you (via Google or other means). That domain could be attached to any host, the spammers don't care or necessarily know who that host is. What a host is responsible for,... more... - Mark Trapp

Most of Rackspace's products are unmanaged at the application layer, but managed at the system and network layer. - Mark Trapp

Yes, that is the usual case. A successful hack causes insertion of hidden admin accounts or other backdoors, to let them get in later. One of the steps we always recommend after getting hacked is to a) copy any new "content" you have made into text files somewhere, and then b) restore the site and database from a backup prior to the hack. This prevents anything they inserted from being... more... - Otto

I had to pay triple my yearly hosting fee just to cover the bandwidth lost to spam before I figured out how to blacklist spammers using a WP plugin. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Also, if the Rackspace guys find any possible security problems, have them email the info to security@wordpress.org . It'll get analyzed by experts that way. - Otto

Who is responsible Host? WP? Is it possible to have an eye over errors logs and failed attempt ! - Honey

same exact thing happened to me a month ago. I finally got it sorted out. I'm happy to share what I learned if interested. I went to d msg you on Twitter but i'm one of the masses to be unfollowed - Jim Goldstein

Jim: you can DM me here, which is even better! - Robert Scoble

I figured :) Hence my presence here. - Jim Goldstein

Robert, if I'm clear on this you are positive this isn't a Rackspace/host/server failure but a failure to secure the script (FREE AND COMMON) you used for your blog. Right? It's not like you had your SQL server hacked or something similarly systems related. - Jason Nunnelley

Just highlights one of the major drawbacks of Cloud Computing. You don't really have control of your own destiny. Of course, that's not to say the same thing can't happen when you do. - Ward Mundy

WTF? - Tyson Key

Ward, can you tell me what this has to do with cloud computing? - Jason Nunnelley

In my instance they added an official looking xmlrpc.php file. Adjusted the header.php file and hid files in my plugin directory. More here http://groups.google.com/group... It took a while to clean out my blog plugin directory to start from scratch and to look through various files for encrypted code... more... - Jim Goldstein

I ASS-U-MEd the blog was hosted at wordpress.com. - Ward Mundy

I don't understand - what does getting 'kicked out of Google' really mean? - Zach Landes

Zach: my blog was removed from the Google index until I clean it up. - Robert Scoble

Ugh! Hackers stink! - Karen Swim

My bad... Powered by Rackspace Cloud Hosting (so it has a little something to do with Cloud Computing) :-) - Ward Mundy

I blame TCP/IP. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Ward, it's running Apache 2.2, so by that logic Apache is to blame. So does your website. - Jason Nunnelley

no blame the fame, none hack the unknow (anonyme). - abdellah

Same thing has happened to us, actually. Honestly more annoying than harmful in our case, anyway. - Jason Preston

Rob and I are cleaning it up now...*sigh* - Robert J Taylor

Yikes - that sucks. My site got hit with hidden / invisible spam links few months back - big PITA to fix and to get Google juice back gradually. - Patrick Jordan

that happened to me last week... The Rackspace team helped me clean it up - While Google said many Rackspace/Mosso sites were affected I was told (and agree with) - they host thousands and thousands of sites and it's WordPress - not them. - andy brudtkuhl

That would piss me off to no end. Wow. Sorry Robert :( - Andru Edwards

This was actually "hidden" in plain site by the exploit that affected WP 2.7.x All better now. Robert, tell Google to turn the juice back on! - Rob La Gesse

That seems strange to me Robert...google searches have lots of NSFW stuff, so why would you be removed from the index altogether? - Zach Landes

Zach: if I were a betting man, it's because scobleizer.com has a very high PR, and having that stuff there could adversely affect a whole lot more of the index than just his site. - Mark Trapp

Wow, that is insane. Glad to hear you got it back up in a timely manner, thanks to your team. - Martha

Curiously, the exact same thing happened to my blog (Twittercism.com), pretty much around the same time it happened to Robert, on both occasions. And like him, I was hacked the second time after the upgrade to 2.8.4. And it was invisible text in the footer. It was fairly easy to remove, but still, an irritant. (Incidentally, a WP Plugin called exploit scanner was very useful. http://ocaoimh.ie/exploit...) - Shéa Bennett

Sounds like the Backwards Hack... How to Fix: http://www.gulker.com/fixing-... That was likely a botnet script, not an actual hacker, btw... - Chris Gulker

Sigh. I run a few dozen WP sites, and I have yet to have any of them hacked into. I'm feeling left out here. :( - Otto

oh oh so the last time you were hacked you still have the after effects of it, try the antivirus plugin for wp, it checks the themes for bad and malicious links - Keith Dsouza

Wow! Scoble's Wordpress blog got hacked (click through for the details) & the hacker's secret changes got him thrown out of the Google Index for a while. Make sure you: 1) Always back up your Wordpress blog. 2) Update to 2.8.x, as 2.7 had the vulnerabilities that were exploited in Scoble's case. 3) Check your install for exploits (there are plugins for this), as well as your Google indexing once a week or so. - Alex Schleber

Truly feeling bummed for you Robert! I've had a problem for several weeks of spammers going after my email. Gotta say.. people need to know that all sites are subject to hackers. - Arleen Boyd

yikes! - mutenewt

heh - I wonder if that's why Twitter bulk unfollow purchases have been down this week. :-) - Jesse Stay

Wow, that really sucks. It's hard to believe so little can screw up so much. - Aram Zucker-Scharff

Ouch! Google should know your blog! - Amber Case

Hacked again? That sucks. I saw that you had cleaned it up, so I went to check on things. Someone on my team already saw the bad stuff was gone, so they revoked the removal early this afternoon. Looks like you're already back in the index. - Matt Cutts

You've been hacked twice in a month haven't you. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

i just found more bad files on my mosso account - im seriously done :( matt - can you check insidetransit.com? thanks - Allen Stern

Yikes, that sucks. Link injection is the scourge. - Elliott Ng

Matt: thanks, Google is fast lately. I remember the days when we waited weeks for search engines to reindex! Hopefully we got it all fixed now. We're definitely learning a lot about Wordpress best practices. - Robert Scoble

how do these hackers get to find a way IN? how? - Sardar Mohkim Khan

Install a good web application firewall such as dotDefender, ModSecurity, eeye, imperva it will help you to stop those attacks. - Daniel

That blows - hope you tech guys figure out how to eliminate crap like this : ) I'm sure that won't stop you for long... - Mark Harai

Be nice if twitter would figure out a financial model that would let them help folks who have been spammed or otherwise compromised - Sean O'Reilly

This same thing happened to me and ALL of my blogs got removed from Google and I'm now working as a cashier. Several years of solid work completely gone. I don't know why Google and WordPress don't do something about this. This was one of the worst things to happen to me in my entire life... :( - Uniquely Cool

By the way, I've only found one sure fire way to keep from getting hacked... and that is to convert your WordPress blog into a static HTML site. Sucks losing some of the interactive features, though. :( - Uniquely Cool

Recently had a drop in my PR, but it must be something I did or said. There must be a better way to enhanced your blog security than going non-interactive, like having your own domain - Houseofmax

This is really depressing. My situation is way worse... I could literally lose my house because of a wordpress exploit. :( - Uniquely Cool

yikes, just found this - a runcible MiniMage

Jeremiah Owyang

Twitter down again?

August 24, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

ANJELINABANANA, Kol Tregaskes, Oguz Serdar and 14 other people liked this

yep - Steven Jambot

44 more comments

:( yes - Kevin Nunez

We really should start asking...."is Twitter up?" - Spencer

yes... this is just so old.. - Monica Brady

seem so ! - sandro

Not even a fail whale - Joe Kohli

Again, indeed... - Arjan Tupan

seems they're crashing more and more yet now we don't even get a fail whale! Just server errors. Extra Fail! - Arleen Boyd

now ok? - sandro

Still a bit shaky, I'd say... - Arjan Tupan

ridiculous. - michael arrington

It's July 2008 all over again - Mark

yeah its a bit annoying - charlesbaker

my friendfeed background went black with Twitter down - Joe Kohli

Yep - Roberto Bonini

Yes, back to FF we go. hi all. - James Watters

The pulse of the planet! - Jason Kincaid

The pulse of the planet has stopped yet again - Jeremiah Owyang

Reminds me of Barney from the Simpsons - "Doh I think my heart just stopped - oh there it goes" - Chris Saad

I wonder if it's hackers again - Jeremiah Owyang

And FF is still up. - Scott Magdalein

and you know what? the planet didn't stop spinning. - Luca Sofri

FF doesn't even have a million unique visitors --it's no comparison - Jeremiah Owyang

Cue "What I did while Twitter was down" blog posts. - Adam

It's down. - DaveDelaney.ME

I await a techcrunch post with a headline such as Twitter Down Again: World Rushes To FriendFeed - Mark

Still down here. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

we posted, and we're going to keep posting every time they go down. this is no way to run a company. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... - michael arrington

I blame Rob La Gesse (@kr8tr) - Robert J Taylor

same. - Kevin Nunez

looks like it.... - walidmREALTOR

Could it be a hack attack again? - courtney benson

Yep. Social Fresh is going on in Charlotte. Twitter likes to crash whenever social media enthusiasts are gathered together in person. - trey pennington

seems to be back up now. - Kevin Nunez

This fits into Scoble's prediction that people are going back to blogs because they are tired of twitter going down, not owning their own data, etc, etc - Andy A.

"LinkedIn Events is temporarily unavailable" so my guess is Monday afternoon code rolls for the social web world (only mildly joking) - Jay Cuthrell

my 'bots started collecting search results again - guess she's (Twitter') back up - Robert J Taylor

Still down... - SKAgnozzo

"The pulse of the planet"? I think it needs a defibrillator, at this stage... - Tyson Key

Or a transplant..... - Roberto Bonini

Andy A. I got a DM from our local press on Friday admonishing me to not add any comments to my RT of their news. "KING5Seattle If you retweet us, could you do it directly? Please do not add extra words thank you." - Sherry Reynolds

Now Twitter is back here... - SKAgnozzo

It was just a mandatory govt sponsored potty break.. Too many people are addicted to twitter and getting kidney stones and we need to cut down on the growth of our health care spending. - Sherry Reynolds

The ProcessOne XMPP gateway is still down. - Tyson Key

A fail without the whale just seems wrong. Doesn't Twitter love us enough anymore to amuse us? - Jennifer

LOL - yep, you can count on the ol' fail whale... dang! - Susan Beebe

Paul Buchheit

I'm trying to find a formula for generating the perfect tweet (then I can automate it!). Here's what I have so far: Statement of fact (preferably one that shows how awesome or lame your life is) followed by witty insight or observation.

August 23, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

WCM, ninka, Lode Nachtergaele and 58 other people liked this

Apply the formula here, or propose a better formula. This was inspired by a discussion of what my brother's dog would tweet if he had a twitter account (and could tweet). It started with "Just got neutered.", but then we had trouble coming up with the witty insight or observation part. - Paul Buchheit

22 more comments

'RT @scobleizer [whatever he said]'. Seems to work for a lot of people. - Akiva

dim statement = 'Unwillingly, unwittingly sycophantic to a fault, but with backbone. Life is like an ashtray.' ; - Rob Schieber

[Statement or question] + [derogatory or self-derogatory co-fact] + [#ididntmeanit or #itotallymeanit or #spammingthetrendingtopics] - WoH: Minding her Steves

Personally, I prefer '[excerpt of content] + [http://ff.im link]'. - Akiva

Oh, I read that as [exempt of content] + [http://ff.im link] - WoH: Minding her Steves

People seem to be big fans of pithy observations of life phrased as a rhetorical question followed by the phrase "just sayin'" and an irrelevant hashtag lately. Another one to add to your generator would be a 3 sentence verbose response to the topic of the day, but with the vowels taken out to fit in a 140 character tweet. - Mark Trapp

Is this going to be the "I'm feeling lucky" button on FriendFeed? - Jesse Stay

{situation|product} is {overrated|underrated}. It's like {verb}ing in a {place} with a {object}. - Francesco Balducci

best "something" EEVER"!!!! "link" - Chris Hofmann

'Something [awesome|terrible] happened and that's all I'm going to say about that' or some variant thereof. - Akiva

"RT @paultoo [whatever y'all figure out]" - Ken Sheppardson

{oath of fealty to Friendfeed}.{parting words}."That is all." - Josh Haley from iPhone

Rhetorical question? ANGRY SOUNDING ALL CAPS ANSWER, WHETHER AFFIRMATIVE OR NOT. #threewordhashtag - Chris Charabaruk

Here is the issue: A witty insight or observation is not made witty by the creator but by the observer. So, unless your automator will tweet and laugh at itself or somehow guess the minds of your audience, it might have issues. - Aditya Mittal

The problem with a purely structural approach is you can either end up with "perfect" or http://tweetingtoohard.com/top - Ken Sheppardson

Start with Fark.com headline generation rules and then remove the news story subtext ;) - Robert J Taylor from iPhone

I prefer Tweets with links to valuable resources and opinions. - Garin Kilpatrick

i know this is true (this sentence manages to be both parts). - kosmar

For me, the perfect tweet is a link to a high-quality document, accompanied by a terse summary of its core content. Those are pretty much the only tweets I pay attention to. - Sean McBride

Ironic statements are good - CoreyTess Trujillo

My favorite tweets say just enough to make you sooo curious you have to follow the "in reply to" to know what the heck they're talking about! In other words... it's real & witty conversation. =) - Arleen Boyd

Sounds like you have a 50% winner. "How about "I hope you humans are happy with your life!" - Houseofmax

I, for one, welcome our new Twitter overlords! - Bill Sodeman

Arleen Boyd

Is it just me or is Twitter totally down? No Fail Whale. No "Page not found" just "HTTP Server Error 503 No available server to handle this request" First time I've seen that!

August 20, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

its totally down - Kimberle Kelly

14 more comments

maybe its been hacked again? - Bailey McCann

Yeah. I was thinking the same thing Arleen. It's weird to me because it didn't seem to have any problems and then all of a sudden, "poof". Gone. I'm thinking major equipment failure or big time hack. - Hal

wash ur mouth out with soap Bailey! don't say that!!! aaaaah!! - Kimberle Kelly

I'm with you Kimberle BUT Bailey may be right! It's like the whole site just disappeared! That's why we must all cross connect here and in Facebook! - Arleen Boyd

It is way the heck d o w n! - Zena Weist

yes, I am slowly getting the hang of this... I do have facebook but have not even started that addiction yet... - Kimberle Kelly

It's down, and Facebook is having some minor issues too. Sounds like the DDoS attack is on again. - Jeff Parsons

yep down, completely down - martin gover

Darn Georgian bloggers getting in trouble again. But what does that say about site vulnerability? - Zach Ricks

Twitter's vulnerability issues will only get worse which is why I believe they decided NOT to be a social network platform. Too bad... I have so many friends there. Just grateful for you who are smart enough to be here! - Arleen Boyd

*kicks twitter, hugs friendfeed* - Kimberle Kelly

twitter.com and the api seem to be back up now. - Bailey McCann

Zalt, what client user app do you use? I tweet via web as they all crash my puter - can't load my... um size - Arleen Boyd

I got that message too. Haven't been able to find any gossip so far. LOL - Tara Guertin

back up... but we must get people over here on FF! I made such a post! Who's with me? Trend it? "Connect w/ us on Friend Feed too!" (insert your link) - Arleen Boyd

Robert Scoble

I wish Twitter would sell to Google so it would die like Jaiku and Dodgeball. But I won't post this over on Twitter. I really don't have much love for the service, even though I know I'll be stuck using it for the indefinite future. Jesse Stay has it figured out. It's a horrid place to try to communicate anything other than a bit of self pimping.

August 19, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

polymath22, Can Karaca, Anthony Citrano and 150 other people liked this

Here I can write the equivilent of an entire blog post. And even make changes. And even have a conversation. And use it as many times an hour as I want (Twitter rate limits my apps after a while cause I'm too heavy of a user). - Robert Scoble

134 more comments

werd. - imabonehead

I can sense already that FriendFeed is slowing down now that it is joining Facebook, while Twitter still has the best flow (and best system for following people and best mobile clients). So, we're stuck with Twitter, which is too bad, because the technology here is a ton better. - Robert Scoble

Twitter is a piece of crap - BUT it's where the audience is (currently). - Jim Connolly

Now it is starting to feel like FF again with you bigging it up again Robert ;) - travispuk

Twitter is the new MySpace. - imabonehead

Maybe google wave will change the way we use twitter, etc. again. Haven't tried it yet, but it might succeed where friendfeed "failed" - getting enough people to use it. - Frank S.

Travis: I had to go and clean out my Twitter and Facebook accounts and spread out my usage. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I'm thinking of setting up a facebook account for my Marketing blog - what do you think? - Jim Connolly

@Scobleizer I don't think Friendfeed would be quite so popular if it weren't for twitter - Prolific Programmer from IM

Twitter is the new Myspace - HAHA - this quote made my day. For me it is just becoming a multiplicator for my friendfeed but it is important for that! - Sascha Pallenberg

Prolific: I'm not so sure. Blogs made Twitter. So, what if there were no Twitter? We would still talk up something else. But maybe FriendFeed wouldn't have thrived anyway. Twitter hit a sweet spot with its easy to program API, it's easy to use interface, and its cute name and branding. - Robert Scoble

Twitter works extremely well on mobile devices. I constantly see people tweeting whereas it's more difficult to do with FriendFeed's interface for a typical user. - imabonehead

Really think that Twitter is annoying it's users too much. There's some problems out there that are really being ignored. Here's an example of a problem that could be solved very simply, but no action is being taken (if it was solved it'd create a lot of goodwill) http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter... - Edd McArdle

Robert, now that FriendFeed's people are working for Facebook, and since Facebook has already been making changes to make it more "open socially", do you think eventually that Facebook will become the best place to have serious conversations? - Carlton Hackett

Carlton: yes. - Robert Scoble

I've been thinking so too. Although, I wonder how the non-Soc/net junkies will respond to that? - Carlton Hackett

Robert, two thoughts. #1 - do you think Google really would let it die? Acquiring Twitter would be more like its YouTube acquisition than Jaiku (in terms of price and # of users). Secondly, what would Twitter have to change for you to change your opinion? - Ben Parr

I really, really, really want Twitter to work out is the thing. It's just a pain in the neck to communicate without either losing the conversation or spamming useless banter over multiple Tweets because you can't fit it in 140 characters. That's just my experience. Those still spending most their time there don't mind it I guess. - Jesse Stay

I like Twitter. The conversation flows pretty well for me, and to be fair, I get more @replies there than I get replies here to my posts. - Chris Nixon

I think a combination of the Retweet API and a true threaded replies architecture and UI could change some of my opinion on that though if they do it. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: It's NOT just your experience. Twitter is getting less valuable the bigger it gets. The spam / porn / bots issue is insane and ruining the experience. - Jim Connolly

Chris: I have a twitter account with over 20,000 followers and get ten times as many replies here as I get there. Here I only have a small following. The calibre of people I connect with here is better too. - Jim Connolly

Jesse, have Twitter improved their communication with developers since you wrote about it in April? - Edd McArdle

Edd, over the last week I have noticed a difference, yes, but it's hard to tell if it will remain that way. They now seem to have a project manager over the API dev team (Ryan Sarver). He seems to be putting a filter on some things and keeping devs updated elsewhere. They're still learning though, much slower than FB or FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

agree on spam and bots, but it still is a nice little thing, if it remains what it was made for! marketing and reviewing thing isn't/shouldn't be there, true friendfeed is more effective as a tool for sending your message across, it is simple and strong - testbeta

Testbeta: ... and FF works. - Jim Connolly

Jim, Jesse, Robert: Value varies. For me, Twitter value continues to increase. I use it to find out what's happening, meet up with people, get random insights into how people are doing, find new people. It all works well. There are many different use cases and one tool does not have to do them all. - Rachel Clarke

i couldn't agree more! - lilian

Rachel: "It all works well"? Really? Twitter? - Jim Connolly

Rachel, I agree with you. I just don't think Twitter works well for conversations, that's all. I use FriendFeed and Facebook for that. I use Twitter for different purposes, and I agree it does still have value. - Jesse Stay

sometimes i think of Automattic's intense debate, but well friendfeed is intense debate, such a experience was never had on blogs, the commenting, liking, and so fast it propagates, even disqus commenting systems can't achieve what we have here on friendfeed, but i can't just throw away twitter, twitter still is good, true for the serious types it's word limit, reply system is a bit of... more... - testbeta

I would love to have FriendFeed as the commenting system on my blog. - Chris Nixon

Chris, there are a few plugins that do that. I haven't tried them though. - Jesse Stay

Chris: Check out what Scoble's doing with FF on building43.com - Jim Connolly

Jim: yes. It works well for what I want it to do (I'm ignoring the ongoing issues with the DDOS). It's a free tool that adds far more value than it costs me to wait for odd outage. - Rachel Clarke

Just checked your Twitter account and now understand exactly what you are saying. - Jim Connolly

Jesse: agree, I use Facebook, Friendfeed, blogs, comments etc, all for different things. I even use the phone as a phone occasionally to talk with people ;-) But the assumption that one tool/service can do everything - and should do everything - is something I have a problem with. If something does not work for a person, don't use it. - Rachel Clarke

The twitter ecoverse is cool, can do Psychological Profiles, can do Social Network Analysis. All those services that spawned as a result are amazing. I am also amazed at how dense Asians Languages are on Twitter, think about it they get about 60% more per tweet. - Robert Higgins

Ben: at this point I am not sure what Twitter could do to win back my love. I will use it just like I use AT&T and United Airlines. I have very little love for those even though I use them frequently. Twitter wins because it is simple and flat and has great clients. I wouldn't cry if it disappeared, though. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

So why do you hate it? - Raanan Avidor

You want it to die? Such an odd statement. I have met so many great people through Twitter, and the news information I can find through search or news agencies or even people who are newshounds are amazing. I know it's not perfect and the last few weeks have definately proved that, and the spam is just awful. But to want to kill it, what a strong statement. - PC Easy from twhirl

Twitter is not abot writing blog posts or having conversations, its about small pieces of information being communicated to anyone who wants to listen. You do not have to listen, if you want a conversation use a forum or FriendFeed, use WordPress for blog posts. Stop trying to make Twitter into something it is not designed to be. - Darren Rollett

I really used to like Twitter, still do sometimes. What I don't like is the Twitter hype. I don't seem able to turn on any media channel these days without reading/hearing or watching about it. Even the BBC reported that Twitter was under attack recently on the main BBC news. FFS come on, there must be more happening in the world than a micro blogging site with a few million users... more... - Nick Bristow

If you owned twitter would you sell to google? - cheapsuits from iPhone

Robert, Atleast something positive could come out of it. If Twitter sells to Google they might(though its not guaranteed) make it opensource and then a federation of twitter server(ala wave servers) can co-exist happily and that way we'll own our stuff(as Anil Dash and other points out). Or they might integrate it in Wave framework. Not that people are not gonna complain about it but thats a different topic. - Abhishek Sharma

Surely an improvement in the service would be a more positive wish? - Chris Nixon

Say what you want but something with the architecture of friendfeed is far more conversational then twitter could ever be. - cheapsuits

I don't know why people think Twitter is the place to converse. It's really not built for that. I find myself enjoying the flow of conversations more on Facebook and FriendFeed. - Naomi Williams

Self pimping? Hmmm... Perhaps not for all of us. And besides, self-pimping isn't limited to twitter. - @JonAston

PS - Maybe it's just me, but you seem bitter lately. Hope you turn that around for yourself. - @JonAston

Jon: You are right. People pimp on FriendFeed too; as I say in my new book.... :-) - Jim Connolly

@jim, they will do anywhere, this is human nature, they do even in real life, so why not in virtual one? - abdellah

Abdellah: Absolutely. - Jim Connolly

"(Twitter) It's a horrid place to try to communicate anything other than a bit of self pimping." AMEN - Alejandro

Personally I wish Google would buy both Facebook and Twitter so they could both die. - Brian Sullivan

@brian, hey where could I read to you then?!! - abdellah

@Frank S. Google Wave will only be valid if you actually have other friends/collegues who use Google Wave. Otherwise you'll be using it with the *crickets* - Naomi Williams

Oh yeah -- forgot that due to circumstances beyond our control FF is now Facebook. ;-) - Brian Sullivan

oh yeah , they share the same vision, they got the same perception... - abdellah

I hope the FaceBook people will take comments like these to heart. I do like twitter but the functionality FriendFeed brought was the next generation in stream notification. - Chris Jackson

Mark: Yeah - all I need is a title. Oh, and a book....and the time to write one....then I will be pimping like a pro! - Jim Connolly

Wow Robert, I was thinking this the past few days and could never bring it to words...well done - Braden Douglass

I was gonna call the Funky Phantom. (That really dates me.) - Jim Connolly

Robert, I challenge you to stop using Twitter for a month and then blog about the experience. And that includes hiding all Tweets in FF. - Mike Doeff from iPhone

Lets face it, Twitter was built as an update service - a big Internet megaphone. The natural transition has been from update service to marketing service. Big Internet Megaphone. It's good at that, but it's not at conversations nor at discovery. The larger problem is people still approach Twitter like a true social engagement tool - and it's simply not. The disconnect between perception and reality results in the poor adoption numbers and other soft metrics. - AJ Kohn

twitter is noise. filter it and you can find some gold. imho, that's beyond mere self-pimpage - Rob Schieber

i'd love to meetup with fellows and see what api scraping is going on - know where threads are for that? - Rob Schieber

Idk, This seems so much better then twitter. - SeanParnell

It does have a lot of noise, granted - but if it went away now, I'm not sure where everyone would run to. Facebook is too silly, Linkedin is too stolid, and everything else is too fractured for me to communicate with all the people I want to in a single shot. Guess I'd end up doing everything through ping.fm after all. - Ciaoenrico

Wow, Isn't online chit-chat such a fuss? :) - SeanParnell

Robert, just a week or two you were saying that Twitter is beating FriendFeed because of scanability http://friendfeed.com/scoblei.... And you had lots of complaints about the FriendFeed user interface. You also talked about how Twitter was much better after you un-followed everyone and hand picked who you're following. I have to ask, what has changed in the past few days to make you say that the service should die? Feels like you're flip flopping. - Mike Doeff

Can't you apply for extended API limits? - Tristan Seligmann

love the single post/status page, i mean like this: http://twitter.com/twitter... - testbeta

I noticed that in the past two weeks, the tweet intensity has greatly decreased from all my follows in Twitter. Granted, I'm not following too many, but the ones I do follow have traditionally tweeted a lot each day. Is this a trend (has Twitter become a has been) or is this simply a coincidental anomaly? - Jeff Sayre

Robert I find myself on friendfeed more these days - (jeff)isageek

@brian would you consider myspace if both facebook and twitter die?!!(ps: sorry I forget the LOL) - abdellah

Myspace -- don't know. I haven't really tried or paid attention to it. But probably not -- isn't it Facebook like? Maybe usenet? ;-) - Brian Sullivan

brian, let forget all those techie and go irc :) - abdellah

IMO, people who don't like the limitations of Twitter and whine about it hampering them are using it wrong. Twitter is not a place to pimp your blog or drive traffic to your site. It is not an SEO tool. It's not a place for you to compete in order to get more 'followers'. If you've ever tried to do any of these things, or if you ever followed more than a few hundred people, then yes, no... more... - Otto

Well said Otto - Chris Nixon

Jesse Stay: you should stop complaining so much about twitter when you build an entire business based on their lack of functionality and other issues. - Mihai Secasiu

Mihai, I'm not complaining - they can do what they want. As I said I really want them to succeed. It's a matter of fact that they do have their flaws - I'm hoping to help them fix those, assuming they're listening at all. What are you doing to help Twitter get better? - Jesse Stay

it is like twitter if for what,where, when and friendfeed is for why, how - testbeta

Mike: just because I use a service doesn't mean I love it. I use ATT and United all the time and they suck too. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

And yes Twitter has some good things about it. Doesn't mean it is all good. Personally it is overused and overhyped and YES I am partially responsible. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Apostol I get value out of Twitter. You aren't listening. I get value out of AT&T too but it COULD be so much more. Chris I tried to be positive but Twitter just doesn't respond to positivity. Plus they are cynical AT BEST about their users. Read the Twittergate documents to see just how cynical they are. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Twitter was just there at the right time. It's not the best solution to the problem (microblogging), but it's good ~enough~. - Trent Hamm

You seriously think Twitter will die once it gets bought by a 'bigger' company? - Mike Shields

Mike: do you use Dodgeball? It was bought by Google. So was Jaiku. - Robert Scoble

Trent: did you just call Twitter the Microsoft of microblogging? Yeah, that's sorta what I was trying to say too! ;-) - Robert Scoble

I just find it amazing that all the early adopters get really snobby about Twitter now it is getting more mainstream. There is something snobby about people's attitude to Facebook as well. I'm not a fan of Facebook but I know more people who use Facebook than use Twitter or Friendfeed combined. Even my mum has a Facebook account but she'd never be on Twitter or Friendfeed. Twitter... more... - Paul Nash

I liked Pownce. I wonder what SixApart has cooking up for them. So there's really no chance for Plurk to make a comeback and take back the community? With all the outage problems Twitter has, I would think Plurk would try to capitalize on that. Guess not. - John Wang

now if the Google Reader team could just get their new commenting system streamlined and real-time ... :) - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Paul: it's not hard to understand if you are in our shoes. Here's why. When a company is young and struggling to get noticed, they love having early adopters. After all, that's the ONLY WAY a company gets to the next stage. I've never seen a company go straight to Oprah stage without getting early adopters excited. Then once the company gets enough traction they usually start mistreating the early adopters. In this case Twitter stabbed them in the back. Leo Laporte, for instance ... - Robert Scoble

...got me excited about Twitter and was THE REASON it was the big huge deal at that 2007 SXSW. He had more followers than Mashable last year. But did he get put on the Suggested User List? No. So now Mashable has more than a million and Leo has a knife in his back. And you think it's amazing that early adopters turn their backs on Twitter? Really now. - Robert Scoble

I don't see how Leo has a knife in his back. There was no preconceived notion that anyone would be added to that list. Who cares? He was fine before that list was created, and he can be just as fine now, and just as engaging. - Andru Edwards

Andru: when he was hyping up the service and telling his users to use it, he was getting something in return: being at the top of the follower lists. When Twitter artificially put its own people at the top of the follower lists, and handed out grants of followers (worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, by the way -- Mashable has changed its entire business to be Twitter centric) they specifically dissed Leo and many others. Most of whom won't point it out in public. - Robert Scoble

Sadly true. I'm in much the same boat -- Twitter is a necessity for professionals and bloggers to stay on top of things, but other socialnets like Brightkite and FF are light years beyond it, which doesn't look to be changing any time soon. Don't even get me started on the spammers and the get-rich-quick'ers. - Ryan Meader

But before the SUL was released, didn't Leo abandon Twitter in favor of Jaiku, due to Twitter having "Twit" as part of its name? Just saying, if I owned a list that I had complete control over, and someone showed that behavior towards me (whether it was right or wrong, I am not judging), I would think twice before putting them on a list that will result in many people seeing they they... more... - Andru Edwards

I can't agree with you more, Robert. - Jon Ursenbach

Scobe: I very much disagree that it is about self pimping. Perhaps your senses are mush because you follow too many? I absolutely love getting that link to a new article or research, or to get a tweet from that celeb that makes me think and provides insight into a new world. I also use it as a research tool, for exploratory purposes. Twitter, as you know very well, is about what you make it, and that is a tenuous notion that really is influenced by who you follow. - Chad Gesser

Andru: again, the list did NOT exist in the days when we were hyping up Twitter. So, there was a "promise" to early adopters that if they invested time in the service they could be at the top of the follower lists. Sort of how PlayFoursquare is today promising users that they can become mayors of places they frequent more than anyone else. What Twitter did was the equivilent of PlayFoursquare telling everyone that their "mayorship" doesn't matter anymore and that Oprah is now mayor of everywhere. - Robert Scoble

Chad: one thing you have to remember about me is that I see that Twitter has 1,001 uses. Stop seeing the world as black and white. This is one post I'm making about Twitter among thousands. Translation: I already agreed with you. But you have to admit that many people use Twitter for self promotion. - Robert Scoble

Andru: and anyway, the SUL is hardly the only reason to diss Twitter. Twitter still goes down all the time, it still has stupid rate limits. It still can't block spam effectively. It still has no friend management. It still has no features that didn't exist a year ago. And it is, in many respects, behaving worse. I'm hearing from developers that Twitter is becoming more closed, not more open (to monetize) and we're seeing them pick winners before the marketplace is done (bit.ly anyone?) - Robert Scoble

The nice thing about Twitter is that it keeps your message short and to the point. Friendfeed is great but it doesn't lend itself well to an external app out of the browser. Also FriendFeed and any of these services you don't own your content - Seth Goldstein

Seth: bing! So, back to the blog we will go. Except, why are we still here? ;-) - Robert Scoble

Awww Twitter the "me" network :) - Wayne Sutton from iPhone

Anyone tried Streamy? - cheapsuits

because the interraction is in real time - abdellah

Wayne: retweet me. :-) abdellah: I thought it was because of all the sex. ;-) - Robert Scoble

that was my expectation too ;) - abdellah

Robert: But what do you want from these companies ? Chaps like you give them the oxygen of publicity they need and they court you and then when they become successful you suddenly start to criticise them. Friendfeed has become successful (in great part to your endless plugging of it) and the founders will now go on to make money through their company being taken over by Facebook. You,... more... - Paul Nash

Scoble: no doubt....I can deal with the self promotion, the e marketing and spam garbage though to me is what has gooootttt to go - Chad Gesser

Paul: my role in life is to use what will be, not what is. I don't turn on many companies, but Twitter isn't one that dealt with early adopters on good faith. - Robert Scoble

nick: I explained why above. - Robert Scoble

Is there a "social media" company that has dealt with early adopters in "good faith"? Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr I suspect don't qualify ? Any that do? - Brian Sullivan

all platforms seem to have self pimpering styles, why so passionate against twitter? Objectional question, not one of rhetoric. - nick tadd

Brian: I didn't know that any of those have actively dissed their best early adopters. Facebook kicked me off, but only because I broke the TOS. It's always been straight up with me. Same with Flickr, although I do watch Thomas Hawk's talk about their censorship. - Robert Scoble

none as brian says, they all deal with them, and "the earlier adopter" contribute to their evolution until they sell (sorry) - abdellah

nick: because it's so prevalent there. "Look at my blog post about xxx" is almost a staple on Twitter. It's a new RSS reader. Which is fine, I use it too for that! :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, I think you may have the makings for one of your future blogs here. Perhaps you do it for that reason? ;) The thing about Twitter is always going to be its LBE. It's a mainstream LBE to Social Media. For that very reason its perfect for business, government, and non profit to take public temperature and promote. The other "noise" is the "MV", the "mainstream voice". The conversation is 4 way.(and yes sometimes only 1 way) but there it is and its not going to go away any time soon. - Melanie Reed

Yes, indeed, Twitter is the Microsoft of microblogging. It's good enough, but not the best - but it has the huge advantage that everyone is using it, so you have to use it for compatibility reasons. - Trent Hamm

DAMN Robert I HATE that you are right on this one!!!!! - Arleen Boyd

Hopefully you use it for positive self pimping and not for negative pimping... which is inevitable - Kevin Burrell

Alex, they are taking mobile seriously - they sold to Facebook. :-) - Jesse Stay

What makes people think Facebook or Twitter is all-conquering? There's a new generation coming through, and they aren't using these services. It's very important not to get sucked in by the hype of a service you use. Fanboys will talk up the positives and ignore the negatives, giving you a skewed message. The truth is somewhere in the massive grey area in between. - Chris Nixon

The new generation uses Facebook a lot, but not Twitter. - Steph (sh_skew) from email

Let me say that it is not twitter per se. It is the population of twitter to make it the place it is at the moment. Whenever there is a (free entrance) place crowded of people, there will be spambots to pollute it. - funkyboy from Posty

Twitter is just a temporary solution for a quick mixture of instant messaging + status updates + chat forum. - Bora Wiemann

Just having a discussion today that Twitter will eventually go bankrupt when the hype is over - Khuram Hussain

I don't agree with you Robert. Twitter is easy to use, succinct and versatile. I've made multiple very meaningful connections through my use of twitter. I do like friendfeed's threaded conversations which are great but in a way it only helps those who have big followings like yourself, because people are more apt to comment on your thread than say mine because they know the conversation... more... - Lon Cohen

For example - how do I message you directly so you know I'm speaking to you (i.e. Twitter @ reply) but all your followers and my followers know that we're having a conversation in Twitter back and forth so that they can follow and interject when they want. Everytime we do that we have to start a brand new discussion thread and I have to "tell" you somehow that I'm talking to you. Twitter is like email/phone conversations and friendfeed is like collective blogging/commenting. - Lon Cohen

Amen, Robert. - Lindsay

The power and beauty of twitter originate from limitation. Think of it as conversation haiku. - Brendan

Watch Divx Movies online free http://bit.ly/zhGGl8 - Can Karaca

Brad Williamson to Brad's feed, Media News and Analysis, TV Talk

TV News Giant Don Hewitt Dies At 86 - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...

August 19, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Ayşe E., Alonis, Robyn Hawk and 4 other people liked this

"Don Hewitt, recognized as a father of modern television news and the creator of the medium's most successful broadcast, 60 Minutes, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday. He was 86 and had homes in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York, where was with family at the time of death. Hewitt was executive producer of CBS News, the title he took when he stepped down from his post as executive producer of 60 Minutes in 2004. Hewitt's remarkable career in journalism spanned over 60 years, virtually all of it at CBS. As a young producer/director assisting at the birth of television news, it was usually Hewitt behind the scenes directing legendary CBS News reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, using a playbook he had to write himself. He played an integral role in all of CBS News' coverage of major news events from the late 1940s through the 1960s, putting him in the middle of some of history's biggest events, including one of politics' seminal moments: the first televised presidential debate in 1960." - Brad Williamson from Bookmarklet

Mr. Hewitt came to visit my electronic media course while I was going to school at SMU. He was a kind and absolutely fascinating individual. I remember wishing that he could keep telling stories all day long. - Brad Williamson

Don was a genius that enlightened us. - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

Does friend feed have a Maximum Posts Per Hour Limit?? Seems things being so threaded together here, it wouldn't necessitate it.

August 18, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

i dont think so or scoble woulda written an essay about it, ;) - chaz2b

Chaz - good point!!! Caroline... post post post post post!!! WhooooHoooo! - Arleen Boyd

Arleen Boyd

Aloha FriendFeeders! What's the latest word with Facebook??? Any changes on the horizon here in our sector?

August 18, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

what was the word about FB? I haven't heard anything new? - Aimee

Aimee, I've been of line for most of the last week, so I was hoping to find out the latest... when I do hear I'll let you know! - Arleen Boyd

Scoble, Alex Scoble

Dead people shouldn't have copyrights...it's stupid.

August 17, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

John E. Bredehoft, Stephen Edgar, Jason Nelson and 64 other people liked this

Dead people don't their estate does. - Chris Greene

156 more comments

Yeah, that argument makes it less stupid? Not. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

+Chris. Or companies which may have invested in the intellectual property. - τorƍue

@Alex - Sure it does. Tolkein's kids have a right to everything their parents left them. - Chris Greene

Copyrights is like an inheritance to the kids, but rather than estates being given, they are giving their intellectual property. - Wizetux

Alex, I agree with the sentiment, but if a copyright is invalidated upon death, then a sufficiently valuable copyright would provide incentive to off the owner. :P - Tanath

Like hell they don't...They have a right to the money/property he bequeathed them at death, not to keep on making money based on his works. That's not how copyright is supposed to work. It's supposed to grant a limited time for which a creator can recoup the costs of their work. It's not supposed to transfer to their children and to their children's children. It should be a lot closer to the patent system. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

I think it's stupid that copyrights last much longer than the average human lifespan. I think it actually does a lot of hamper innovation. - Victor Ganata

Why are patents for 17 years but copyrights are effectively without end? It's stupid, that's why. It's all so Disney can continue to make money off of Mickey Mouse without coming out with new content. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

The patent system is borked too... - Tanath

@Alex -According to you argument intelliectual property shouldn't be transferred. If that's the case, then why does a company get to maintain ownership of IP after the creator passes? - Chris Greene

Because they bought off Congress. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

@Alex - Adding to that, then if the company is passed on to realatives they no longer own that IP? - Chris Greene

LOL, blunt & to the point. :) - Tanath

@Alex: copyrights have an end: in the US it is 70 years after the death of the creator. - Wizetux

@Alex - So a company is not property then? - Chris Greene

That would certainly provide incentive to innovate... - Tanath

The whole point of the patent/copyright systems are to spur innovation and the creation of new works. The current system actually runs counter to this goal. And no, copyright is not property. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

I didn't say copyright, I said a company - Chris Greene

I don't care about companies. This conversation isn't about companies, it's about copyrights. All arguments that don't deal with copyright, but with other ideas other than copyright and patents will be ignored by me. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

By the way, a company's copyrights now last for 95 years. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

It is. I asked if a companies IP (and copyright) is transferrable once the originator dies. As such, is the company transferrable? - Chris Greene

Wouldn't copyrights force people to not copy off others work, and come up with something of their own? I don't get how they inhibit innovation/creation. - Heather Rantypants

The original U.S. Copyright Act granted rights for 14 years with a 14 year extension. Now it's 70 years after the author dies, or if it's a work-for-hire, 95 years after publication, or 120 years after creation. - Victor Ganata

But it would force creators to come up with new stuff every few decades, instead of milking their one good idea for the rest of their life. The current system encourages mediocrity. We shouldn't be surprised that that's what we get. - Victor Ganata

Patents do stifle innovation: http://www.physorg.com/news167... I think the argument generalizes to copyright as well. - Tanath

Heather: If you and someone else are both offering the same service/product, which one are people likely to choose? Without the copyright/patents, it forces competitive innovation on everything, including existing products & services. - Tanath

Copyright law isn't spelled out in the Constitution. :) And I've done plenty posts about it here on friendfeed :) - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

So I come up with a great book and publish it a month before I die and never personally benefit from its greatness. It's stupid that benefit can't go to my estate for a reasonable time. - Tinfoil 2.0

Yes, copyright law has been mutated into something ugly, but that doesn't mean we should swing the pendulum all the way the other way. As usual, the right answer is somewhere in the middle. - Tinfoil 2.0

Yeah...17 years should be the answer. :) - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Oh and I wrote a letter to my state senators and my congressman to not pass the DMCA once...they just told me it was in my best interests...yeah right - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Lindsey: "Just because I'm dead doesn't mean they stop being mine." It kinda does, since you don't exist anymore... - Tanath

Logical Extremes: Public policy is supposed to be about what benefits society, not individuals or companies & corporations. - Tanath

I'd rather see a fixed period like how the patent system is. Problem is that big companies like Disney just pay off congresspeople to extend the rights. - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

I'm surprised that they haven't been able to do so with patents - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

I always thought that an intellectual property, whether it is copyright or patent, should be moved permenantly into the public domain unless an effort to bring to market is displayed by the owner within a predetermined period of time( <5 years). - Geoff Schultz {TF}

That would be a step in the right direction. - Tanath

I'd like to see lifetime + 21 years or 70 years, whichever is greater. Maybe nudge it to 80 out of respect for expanding lifespans. Actually, my idea would be a fixed cap of, say, 20 or 40 years, but small steps, y'know? - Roger Benningfield

The world isn't restricted to changing in small steps... - Tanath

It's probably too much to ask that the pendulum go back to where it was originally, but at least the pendulum should start shifting in the other direction of decreasing duration. 120 years is a ridiculously long time. - Victor Ganata

Alex: What do you think about eliminating copyright and/or patents? - Tanath

I don't think that would be a good idea...I think that would have the same effect on innovation that having copyright/patent periods too long does - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

How so? - Tanath

For instance, drug companies wouldn't bother spending the billions it takes to get new drugs made unless they got the guaranteed exclusivity that a patent brings - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

I don't know about that... and there are other ways to deal with stuff like that. Public funding is one option. - Tanath

Tanath: Short of full-scale, violent revolt, yeah, the world is generally restricted to small steps. And I don't plan on offing anyone just to get Warner Bros. to surrender Superman to the public domain. - Roger Benningfield

copy rights should be timeconstrained, thats it (like 20yrs) - chaz2b

Roger Benningfield: I disagree. The advent of the internet for instance has changed & will change things rather quickly. Change is accelerating. And while you may not be one to off someone, the incentive would still be there, and from time to time it would happen. - Tanath

You know, if we adhere to cavet emptor, and choose not to protect the consumers from bad purchases, why should we protect the rich companies from bad investments? If they invest in something that everyone else duplicates (right away) isn't that called competition? - Paul W. Homer

So your against inheritance - why should a copyright expIre ? - Nicholas Paul Gordon from iPhone

Copyright still expires, just not within our lifetimes. The original intent of copyright was never to provide indefinite protection. - Victor Ganata

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that copyrighted works should have the same protections as physical property in 1834 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Victor Ganata

Just for the records, it's not an issue only at the US level. Since the Berne Convention, a lot of these questions are discussed at an international level (look for WIPO, ACTA,...) - Laurent

Dead people have descendants! And they SHOULD have rights! Dude... Dad up! - Arleen Boyd

Given the time frame they first specified, it was totally not the intention of the founding fathers to let copyright pass into the next generation. - Victor Ganata

Luckily for Disney, the strict constructionists of the Republican party saw through to the true, *hidden* intentions of the founding fathers! - Andrew C (✓)

Even better, they've managed to criminalize infringement. - Victor Ganata

Man, you are soooo onto something screwed up about this perpetual copyright concept. - Jason Nunnelley

I'm finding this discussion very interesting, although it seems that everyone knows a lot about copyright that I don't so I'm a little behind. But I would like to contend that the intentions of the Founding Fathers (dun dun dun and lightening) aren't the relevant concern. - Heather Rantypants

Can't blame the GOP entirely. The Dems were still responsible for the 1976 act, which extended it to 75 years or creator's life+50 years. - Victor Ganata

I don't know. I still believe the purpose of copyright is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries", and not simply to allow people to ride the gravy train into infinity and beyond. I suspect I'm not the only one who believes similarly. - Victor Ganata

Interesting use of "to infinity and beyond". ;) BTW, I can't figure that Wikipedia link out, I think my brain has melted but I don't know what it means. - Heather Rantypants

I'm in favor of prohibiting "authorship" transfer. And, the original term was 15 years - Now, it's 70 years after the death of the author, and transferable to holding companies and trusts. Not to mention, Disney's artists are "work for hire." Copyright has become the tool of corporations and investors. - Richard Walker

IANAL, so the case write up itself is pretty opaque to me, but going by the summary, one side of the case contended that copyright is a natural right of a creator of any work, and that it should last in perpetuity, and that a copyrighted work should have the same protections as real and tangible property does. The case went to the Supreme Court, and they said, no, copyright can only exist as decreed and enforced by the state and it isn't the same thing as real and tangible property. - Victor Ganata

Oh yes, except China. They don't have to comply for some reason - perhaps because we can't make them pay, perhaps because they haven't signed any treaties. But maybe, the complete absence of "regional pricing" that makes sense is yet another problem with copyright today. - Richard Walker

I agree 100% http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Geo Meek

I'd be all for a fixed term like 15 or 20 years or something like life +5 years. - Don't feed the Steve

Oooh, thinking about Alex's original post I'm coming up with a great near-future sci-fi story where anyone who comes up with a hit song or story or movie immediately has hire serious bodyguards to protect themselves from the IP assassins who try to have them rubbed out so their copyrights will expire. - Don't feed the Steve

I believe Microsoft Office would cost a small business in China their entire budget for a year.. A CD would cost one family's income for a month. Or thereabouts. - Richard Walker

Ah . . . the Mickey Mouse clause - every time the copyright on Mickey gets close - the 'fixed term' gets extended. Copyright is driven by American capitalism ?? - Chris Loft

I'm not a capitalist? - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Because I don't believe in unfettered capitalism, doesn't mean I'm not a capitalist - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

How is that not capitalism? I believe in responsible capitalism. Fettered capitalism is what we have now...more or less. :) - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Trading in knockoff goods should be analogous to illegal music downloads, meaning that cheap handbag should cost you literally millions, according to the Jammie (Jamie?) Thomas disaster. - Richard Walker

LOL Dave, and this is where we obviously diverge in opinion. Business has been allowed to run so rampant over society in the last 20 years that it's caused a lot of problems. - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

curious Alex: so the family of an arist should've benefit if a work is published posthumously if the work was finished on his deathbead? - Sean Reiser

Yeah, I think if you read my comments, I'd like to have a fixed period of ownership (no longer than 30 years) rather than the system we have now...This would give families in the situation you propose some benefit from the works of a loved one. - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Sorry Alex missed it scrolling through... we're in agreement. - Sean Reiser

Patents without an intent to market are even worse - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

What is it Warren Buffet is doing he's left his kids "Enough money to do whatever they want and not enough that they can do nothing" - Sean Reiser

Yeah, in my mind, corporations living off the teat of the dead is even a bigger problem than the "welfare rich" - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

I feel like if *poof* all copyrights were over after 30years from origination there would be a lot of shitty movies in production in a year or two. Plus, I understand Disney is the devil and whatnot, but if a character (like Tinkerbell maybe) is still popular and stuff involving the character are still being produced, shouldn't that reinforce the copyright? Going back to Tolkien, LotR... more... - Heather Rantypants

Heather if Popularity is a factor in copyright then Shakespeare and Dickens are still under copyright - Sean Reiser

Heather, I think a law against shitty movies would be a great thing. - Don't feed the Steve

Hate to break it to you, but there are already a lot of shitty movies getting made. - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Do we need more? lol - Heather Rantypants

And one could argue that new works that are derivative of previous works would be protected under new copyright - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

LOL - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

I'm all for peeling away copyright laws. In a totally unregulated world, copyright would not exist. - Victor Ganata

Apparently I thought this thread was dead, while y'alls comments were queuing up. My bad, I don't mean to talk AT the thread LOL - Richard Walker

Heather, just a bit of background on why Disney deserves derision - Mickey Mouse was ganked, cribbed, stolen, from Steamboat Willie, and much of their huge money makers are derivative of the Brothers Grimm, H.C. Anderson, etc. etc. Song of the South, though, is entirely original I think :) And what others have said about Mickey driving copyright extension is true. So, the fact that none... more... - Richard Walker

Heather, I think you're mixing trademarks (like the characters of Tinkerbell, Mickey Mouse, etc) with the copyrighted works they appear in. I don't think anyone is saying Disney should lose their trademarks, but IMO old works very well should have copyright expire. - Andrew C (✓)

Heather, 30 years from publication solves your problem nicely. A derivative work can get its own 30 year term, paying as appropriate to the work.it derived from - Richard Walker

By the way Alex, you've hit on my preferred solution exactly, with one small addition: rights of "authorship" can't be transferred meaning Yoko can't prevent a derivative Lennon work. That is Lennon's call only. Not inherited. The heirs to "Gone With the Wind" attempted and failed to prevent publication of a re-telling from the slave's perspective, "The Wind Done Gone". I know my Lessig :) - Richard Walker

Arleen, you should concede that you missed the point, that inheriting the right to profit from a REASONABLE copyright is not the issue. Lessig has written extensively on why the ridiculous, RETROACTIVE copyright extensions have perverted the intent of copyright, and created a monster, namely effectively perpetual copyright bought and sold by holding companies, trusts, and media conglomerates. And occasionally a Michael Jackson. - Richard Walker

I love this thread! by the way. - Richard Walker

Good for bringing up this important topic Alex. Copyright lasts way too long. Disney and mega corporations ought not hold sole creative license to remix these important works from the past. Copyright should not last past your death. That's just wrong. - Thomas Hawk

Why is it "just wrong"? There is as much to justify copyright being passed on to estates as chattel or property, Maybe copyright shouldn't exist at all? - Brian Sullivan

It's wrong because art needs to be recycled and prohibiting past creative efforts from becoming part of new creative efforts is harmful to art and the creativity that is possible. It puts limits in place that the artist has to deal with unnecessarily. Copyright is put into place as an incentive for people to create art. There is no need to extend that incentive on to the artists' children, grandchildren or businesses. All copyright should die with the artist. - Thomas Hawk

well, some sort of right to the proceeds generated by one's efforts is warranted. If that could be accomplished without a set of laws, fine (I didn't read this whole thread... maybe something like that was proposed). - Jim the Blatant

I agree. I also believe that once you are dead, your image (publicity rights) should belong to the ages... in other words, public domain. Amazingly, in Tennessee, publicity rights last forever... literally. - Mitch Featherston

Thomas -- your statement offers no argument -- just sentiment and bafflegab driven by emotiion. If intellectual property ownership exists at all as a concept there it seems most logical to treat it the same as all other property. Do people need incentive to create art? I think it is one of those have your cake and eat things. Basically you can't. - Brian Sullivan

Copyright ceases to be meaningful when it is allowed to be sold, assigned or passed to abstract entities - corporations with no accountability and a very long lifespan perspective. There are companies out there that do nothing but milk old pieces of music - they are ought of copyright in normal use, but the rights of use in film etc. are still held and charged at a premium. These companies are specialist at snatching those rights from failed projects, estates, and individuals and milking them. - Iphigenie

Intellectual property simply isn't the same as real and tangible property. At least, that's how the law stands now. - Victor Ganata

That's how it works now, but there's a bunch of authors who -more or less respectfully - dissent. This debate is as old as the public domain. - Laurent

Well, wouldn't someone just kill you to make your copyright expire then?? - Dave Hodson

Making intellectual property equivalent to real and tangible property requires state intervention, requires writing new laws. Copyright and patent rights don't exist without the government backing it up. This is clearly not laissez-faire. - Victor Ganata

The best solution is still probably a fixed term. Something like 20 years, regardless of whether the content creator is dead or alive. - Victor Ganata

Dave: you should write a book about this :) - Laurent

I have yet to see a convincing argument that copyright or "intellectual property" should exist at all. - Tanath

Sure it does Brian, my statement does offer an argument. I'm arguing that intellectual property should be treated different than tangible physical property. Ideas are just that. And I don't think that an idea ought to be transferable after someone's death to the detriment of the rest of society. That the benefit of transferring ideas intergenerationally is less than the benefit of allowing ideas to freely flourish unbridled by ownership for society as a whole. - Thomas Hawk

You seem to support the intergenerational transfer of copyrights Brian. Should copyrights be transferable intergenerationally forever if not why not? - Thomas Hawk

I think we should release this thread into the public domain. Because if you don't say otherwise, std. "all rights reserved" death+70 copyright term applies. Some legal minds think you can copyright as little as 5 words strung together. Now, does anyone still think copyright today is reasonable or sensible? - Richard Walker

This is the internet, remember? US law doesn't apply globally. :P And actually, common law copyright was thrown out in the US (see earlier in thread). - Tanath

Tanath, I realize that. But I'm not going to take your word for the second part. That is NOT my understanding of current law. You do not even need the little (c) anymore. - Richard Walker

You don't need the (c) but you DO need to register a work in order to properly pursue infringement cases. - Mitch Featherston

Common law copyright is the notion that copyrighted works ought to be treated the same as real and tangible property, which the Supreme Court repudiated in Wheaton v Peters in 1834. Common law copyright is also not valid in the UK, from what I understand. - Victor Ganata

Yes Mitch, my point. If we do not release this thread into the public domain, someone can steal it and register it. I'm just pointing out how ridiculously things have been stacked against common sense and the "public domain." - Richard Walker

Tanath, the thought is that if copyright and patents didn't exist, no one would ever feel compelled to publish anything. Scientific endeavors would slow down considerably as the flow of information would be hampered, and there'd be no way to get anything peer-reviewed. - Victor Ganata

Victor: How do you justify that claim? - Tanath

Tanath, I can't prove that it's true, but that's the idea behind it. But if there were no protections, I really do think the sharing of research would slow. It would be way too easy to steal someone else's ideas without crediting the originator, and credit for original research is basically the currency of academia. - Victor Ganata

Simple proof of "prior art" would fix that problem. Not that the copyright & patent system works perfectly for that function either. It was Tesla that invented the radio for instance, and only recently that it was acknowledged in court. - Tanath

Thomas -- I don't support any specific amount of time or number of generations a copyright is to apply. Once the principle of intellectual property is established in law as it is in western countries-- it will be subject to variances. Arguing for one length or another then becomes an emotional rather than a factual issue. I am thinking that the abolishing of the principle of intellectual property might be the ultimate solution. - Brian Sullivan

Tanath, it's true that copyrights and patents won't really deter anyone who is intent on stealing someone's idea, but without them, the aggrieved party would have absolutely no ability to attempt to gain redress. - Victor Ganata

Unfortunately, Lessig's supreme court case about copyright terms Eldred v. Ashcroft failed to impress the justices. http://www.wired.com/wired... I'm not very hopeful any of this can be remedied frankly. - Richard Walker

Here is a good TED video "Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity" http://www.ted.com/talks... - Richard Walker

Brian, I doubt you'd ever see copyright abolished. I do think that someone ought to be able to exclusively earn money from their idea for a limited amount of time. But I think that a reasonable amount of time has been pushed to excessive lengths by big business copyright protectors like Walt Disney. I spent a summer working in Walt Disney's corporate legal department which was eye... more... - Thomas Hawk

I highly recommend Matt Mason's book The Pirate's Dilemma to almost anyone makes (or wants to make) a living from intellectual property http://thepiratesdilemma.com/ - Richard Walker

Victor: I don't think "stealing" is the right word. That applies to physical property where something is lost. What's wrong with letting everyone make use of everyone's ideas? I'd also recommend looking at The Pirate's Dilemma and Lessig's talks. - Tanath

Thomas - I had no idea you spent time in the belly of the beast. That's complete vindication of my suspicions. Thank you! - Richard Walker

I think one of the funny things about this conversation is the constant usage of Disney as the worlds worst offender here. For those of you who didn't know the character of Mickey Mouse was created by Ub Iwerks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) and his rights owned by producer Charles Mintz. You could also say that Ub and Walt co-founded the Disney studios back in the day after... more... - Chris Greene

Yes Chris I mentioned Mickey being ganked in the "background on why Disney deserves derision" - Richard Walker

I just don't agree with the negative press they get. It's a two way street. If I create a character while working for Disney I expect them to own the rights to it. It's the price I pay for a regular paycheck instead of forging out on my own. John Lassiter isn't complaining that he doesn't own the rights to the "Brave Little Toaster" after he was fired from Disney for suggesting that... more... - Chris Greene

A lawyer working for a RIAA file sharing defendant recently made news with a radical challenge - "file sharing IS fair use" - Lessig thinks that's going too far - I'll follow up later if I find anything. - Richard Walker

Chris - you also are confusing copyright and trademarks. - Andrew C (✓)

Chris, I don't have a problem with "work for hire" - but people should be educated on what's theirs and what's the employer's, and what can be negotiated in the employment contract. - Richard Walker

"Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works."Firstly, copyright is a body of work so Steamboat Willy would be copyright, correct? That lead to the creation of the character and the trademarks that... more... - Chris Greene

No, the design of a character and the name is a trademark...that's a separate issue, however, I find it odd that I have no problems with a company or family being able to protect their trademarks in perpetuity. - Scoble, Alex Scoble from IM

Richard - I am a working artist and I am very aware of what rights I have to property (intellectual or otherwise) I create under my current contract. If you are not aware of those rights you shouldn't be working for someone else. - Chris Greene

I'm skipping most of the comments, but tell me if this is right. 30 years after a book is written or movie is made, someone else could redo the work (changed names ect) and it would be legit "recycling" of art? So it's not really about Mickey Mouse, it's about the cartoons containing Mickey? - Heather Rantypants

Chris - yeah, what Alex said. Steamboat Willy the cartoon is copyrighted. Mickey Mouse, the character appearing in that cartoon, is trademarked. - Andrew C (✓)

Andrew - That's what I said, not Alex. Look above. - Chris Greene

Alex, trademarks have to be defended, where copyrights don't, and trademarks can't be transferred. So it's not that odd, really. - Richard Walker

I'm glad to hear that Chris. Good for you. I suppose you have nothing to say to people contemplating such a line of work. They should just "know", hmm? - Richard Walker

Chris, my point is that copyright has always had a finite period, whereas trademarks can last in perpetuity. So just because the work has passed out of copyright doesn't mean the trademarks that came out of it have to as well. Also, preserving trademarks doesn't mean the associated works' copyright needs to last in perpetuity. And no, I was referring to Alex's comment that starts "No, the design of a character..." - Andrew C (✓)

Well if you;re asking for advice I can put a couple of things out there. First, make sure any original work you create on your own you copyright before you submit to anyone else for distribution marketing etc. As an artists you should know that any work you do while under contract to an employer or as a supplier becomes the property of the employer (or vendor). - Chris Greene

One of the research projects I worked for Disney on (now this goes back almost 20 years ago during college) was to research copyrighted works that had trademarked characters in them. I think copyright at the time might have been 50 or 60 years but trademark was 75 I think. Companies were releasing the oldest mickey mouse films and Disney was trying to argue that even though copyright... more... - Thomas Hawk

That's helpful, Chris. - Richard Walker

Fascinating, Thomas! - Richard Walker

I used to have to send out cease and desist letters also everyday from Disney. They would send them out over the stupidest little things. I remember having to send one out to a guy with a little tree cutting business. A solo practitioner who had put Mickey Mouse on his business card and someone had turned him in. My cease and desist letter would include an acknowledgment form that... more... - Thomas Hawk

Tanath, yeah, maybe stealing is the wrong word. I'm not trying to equate intellectual property with real, tangible property. I'm not sure what a good turn of phrase would be, though. In an environment where only original work can really guarantee your livelihood (i.e., tenure), I just can't imagine too many people wanting to freely share their ideas without any protections. The concept of prior art doesn't really exist without copyright and patent law. - Victor Ganata

That's very true, Victor - I was able to put some stuff in Creative Commons only because of those protections. I can share "non-commercial" rights and keep the other. - Richard Walker

Well, they vote! - Kreg Steppe

I agree! Apparently they can also be sued by the RIAA. - Logan Lindquist

Here's an article that's relevant: http://techdirt.com/article... "Why Virtual Property Doesn't Make Sense" - Tanath

Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

WE'RE ENGAGED!!! :)))

August 16, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど, MoTO Gutter Bumbershoot, Paul Buchheit and 185 other people liked this

YAY!!!! CONGRATS you two!!! - FFing Enigma

100 more comments

Congratulations! - Josh Haley

CONGRATS. - Holly is Happy

Thank you, everyone! :) I'm just trying to figure out what to do next. The next several months are going to be really interesting. - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

WOW! Awesome! - BEX

WOOOHOO!! :D - Joe Silence

Congratulations! - Spidra Webster

Congrat!!! - YoYo_P

w00t!!! Congrats you two! *sings like ole boy did at the wedding in Coming to America* :D - Derrick

CONGRATS! - Mo Kargas

congratulations!!! - Bren

congrats!! - Allen Stern

Congratulations, you two! - Anika

Congrats! - John (bird whisperer)

Congrats!!!1 - Rob H.

CONGRATS!! - iTad

Congratulations....can't go wrong with someone named Harold.... :O) - Harold Cabezas

Yay!! Woo-hoo! :) - JA Castillo

w00h0! Congratulations! - Sean Reiser

Congratulations! - .LAG liked that

Rock on! - Michael McKean

Congratulations! - Damond Nollan

congrats!! - imabonehead

Congrats! - anna sauce

CONGRATS folks! :) - directeur

Neat! - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

Congrats! - Hutch Carpenter

Congrats! - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Congratulations! Good on you two! - Absentee

CONGRATULATIONS! - joey

Congratulations!!!!!!! - Amit Morson

Congrats! - Pete D

congratulations, you crazy kids :) - a runcible MiniMage

It must be in the water....Congrats!! - Gabrielle

Congratulations! - Bonnie Foster

Congratulations! Cute couple. - Sarah Lane

Congratulations! The ring looks gorgeous!! - Ange Recchia/angesbiz

That's fantastic! Congratulations! - Fikisha from BuddyFeed

Fantastic, Congrats! - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Congrats you two! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Congratulations! - Joe "The Enforcer" Pierce

Congrats to both of you. - Mark Krynsky

Grats! - Neal "thePuck" Jansons

Congrats you guys! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Congrats!! - Bee

Congratulations! - Anne Bouey

Félicitations, tous mes vœux de bonheur. - Bob Lyr

Whens the wedding? Are we getting invites?! Will there be a Buffet? *hopes for buffet* - Alan (Giraffes)

Thank you so much, everyone! :) - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

Congrats :) - Rodfather

Congrats ;) - Alejandro

Congratulations!! - RAPatton from iPod

CONGRATULATIONS!!! :-D - Ordinarybug Heather

YAY!!!! Congratulations and best wishes you guys!!! <3 - Yolanda

CONGRATULATIONS KAMILAH! <333 - Parth Awasthi

congrats ^_^ - Shandiz

CONGRATS you :)) - MutfakTeyze

Congratulations! - Vinay | विनय

hey congrats!!!! I wish you guys all the happiness! - (jeff)isageek

مباركه!!!!!!!!!!! - Babak

Congrats - Randy Allen Bishop

Congratulations. "I'm just trying to figure out what to do next." - get married, obviously. ;) - Meryn Stol

CONGRATS! - Shevonne

Congratulations! - Ruchira S. Datta

Congrats!!!!! - AJ Batac (/-_-)

Congratulations! - Iain Baker

congrats to you crazy kids - Cee Bee

++++ Congrats!!!!! - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Happiest congrats! - Ayşe E.

YAH!!!!! Congrats! - Just Katie

Candles all around, congrats. - SteVe "Beefy Miracle" C

Congratulations!!!!! - Katy S

con'grats !! - Peter Dawson

congratulations!!!! That's so exciting :) - Anna Lynn M.

love kicks ass ! ♥ - Mattb4rd

man, that is lovely news...congratulations Kamilah - Zee.

congrats! - alphaxion

Yay! - Tyson Key

Congrats! - Eric - 100% Choice Cuts

oh, wow! hey, congratulations, Kamilah and Harold! The ring is lovely. Mazel tov! - edythe

Congrats - zsafwan 

Congratulations! - Rick Cogley

Congrats! I know how you feel being recently engaged myself! http://twitpic.com/cedzg DO have your future spouse watch this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Arleen Boyd

Awww :) - Rahsheen the Dream

gratz! - timepilot

Congrats! - Angelo Rodrigues

Awesome! Congrats!! - David Cook

congratulations - Ufuk İŞMAN from BuddyFeed

congrats!! - Goktug Okan Oguz

CONGRATS! - Shey

Congratulations! - Jim the Blatant

congrats!!! - Nilesh

Congrats! - Tracy Benham

Congratulations :))! - Neya

Congratulations! Wishing both of you all the best! - Suddenly LB

Congratulations!!!! That is wonderful! <3 You two are so cute. - Carmen

wooooo hooooo!!! - metalerik

Congrats!!! - Alessandro

One more congrats from me ^_^ - Nico van der Merwe

You started the #engagementmeme -- and another congratulations! :-D - Ordinarybug Heather

congrats! - Craig Deakin

Congrats !!!!!!! Great news :) - Nir Ben Yona

FFing Enigma

Why I love FriendFeed: I've gotten to see my friends fall in love, get married, and have babbies. I've tried to comfort friends who've lost those they love, and those battling for their lives. You are awesome people who just happen to post interesting stuff from around the web, not the other way around =)

August 16, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

ravi karandeekar, Amy Flynn, Suddenly LB and 74 other people liked this

Tina, wow. I've never really thought of that way before but you're right: we ARE awesome! - Akiva

16 more comments

Please note: I said "awesome people", not "awesome sheep"... ;-) - FFing Enigma

[crying while self-shearing] - Akiva

baa? - Tom Horn

Tom: hover over Akiva's name =) - FFing Enigma

Ahh :). I was mostly being silly. Actually, I am mostly being silly. - Tom Horn

LOL! That's ok, because silly is also one of the reasons I love FriendFeed. And since Akiva is self-shearing I suppose he would make it into 'awesome' under the silly clause. - FFing Enigma

As a self-shearing sheep, Akiva has guaranteed employment. - Spidra Webster

well said tina - (jeff)isageek

Tina, FF the awsome people's 'watering hole" :)- we share, just about everything, I think ! - Peter Dawson

That's why I love FriendFeed, too :D - joey

:) - Josh Haley

Ohh thank you :) - Melissa Taylor

Totally agreed, Tina. Just want to thank everyone again for all the well-wishes for Harold's & my engagement. The response went far beyond what I expected :) That's part of why I love this place, too. On Facebook, I barely caused a blip of response (granted, I spend very little time over there). Even the GReader people that just met me were supportive! I love all of you guys! *group hug* - Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)

You too, Tina! *hugs - Shevonne

Kamilah, I loved that you and Harold both posted the announcement at the same time. It was like your own personal moment of win =D - FFing Enigma

Tina, you nailed what it's all about Girl!! The world is better because we share more, communicate more... we love more... more different people we've come to know, love more deeply those we already know, and know one another to levels that were previously not possible. Aloha! - Arleen Boyd

:) You and FF are the best! - Tracy Benham

Myrna to Myrna's feed, Foods, friendf00d

The Rubix Cubewich (via http://friendfeed.com/foods...) cute idea

August 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Mustafa ♮ Sadedil, mahyar, welee and 59 other people liked this

Very interesting :-) *now me thinks: how to make it without meat*...hm...? ;-) - Hanna Wiszniewska

19 more comments

more different cheeses, but please please do'nt ruin the beauty of it with *shudders* tofu.. - Rasmus Lauridsen

you can also add more colours with some vegetable (spinach, potato, peppers, etc.) frittata/omelette cubes. The original is really nice & yummy though :-> - Stefaniav

You could make that with tofu or jello too. - Adrian

The cubes are perfect, I'm still astonished - Stefaniav

Thanks for the suggestion Adrian :-) - Hanna Wiszniewska

Hanna, what about switching meat for tempeh? Wonder if Rasmus shudders from tempeh lol but anyway, its your cubewich to do with it what you want. :))) - Myrna

beautiful - sorina_gt

Very classy. I could spend hours rearraging the cubes. Hey! New dieting idea. - Bob

I can help solve this puzzle! *pulls all the ham pieces out* - Daynah

LOL Daynah, what about the other meat. It has the chemical preservatives...ugly causes cancer. And what to put instead? - Myrna

Never tried Tempeh, I might have to go hunting for it. Anyone know a store in Denmark that carries it? - Rasmus Lauridsen

Try an Indonesian, Malaysian or Thai market. - Bob from email

Awesome! - Mitchell Tsai

Do I detect some Spam in that? - Arleen Boyd

Rasmus, you know what tempeh is, yes? Of course you have health food stores? - Myrna

Yeah I wikipedia'd it :-P So yeah I'll have to try the local health food stores - Rasmus Lauridsen

رونوشت به خودم :) - 1Fathi

Great idea! I would love to make this with vegetables!! I don't now how though:) - Konstantina (exei gousto)

or with fruits?.. - RussianSeason

Konstantina, I can think of boiled sweet potatoes and pumpkin as some of the vegetables that can be cut in such cubes O_o also carrots maybe... and definitely more cheese. plus some mangoes?.. - RussianSeason

Louis Gray

I used to always hide Tweets unless they had likes or comments. Today I unhid them in FriendFeed. Let the noise ensue.

July 11, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Scoble, Alex Scoble, Mac Sharp, Aviva Gabriel and 43 other people liked this

Why did I do this? Because I was missing the occasional nugget from people I like hearing from. Now, we'll see if this helps or hurts. - Louis Gray

22 more comments

Overall, I've enjoyed the random bits of fun that pop in from the noise by not hiding anything. I kind of dig letting all the information just wash over me. - Jonathan Hardesty

I've gone back and forth over it but I eventually decided to let tweets in and then began permanently hiding the irritating ones. After a little tweaking, it ended up being a better experience for me. I've actually quit Twitter entirely now thanks to some suggestions from Johnny Worthington: I subscribe to a feed of any @replies I get and pipe them into FriendFeed's IM alerts so I can respond to them if I want to. - Akiva

i'll give it a shot... ;) I had 14 hidden entries on my home page feed, now none. We'll see how it goes. #IBlameLouisUnhidingInFriendFeed - Nathan Chase

I wish you luck, Nathan. - Louis Gray

I let the tweets stay in. Well over half are @ replies which are nonsensical out of context, but there is the occasional gem. Unfortunately most of the time if I comment on the gem, the original tweeter never responds the comment. There are a largish number of neglected friendfeed accounts. - DGentry

Well I had them hidden, had not even been allowing my own to show, but after a conversation with, ahem, someone else, I changed my tune. Then I started paying attention to others twitters too! - Sheryl

I let them stay in as well. Things go by quick enough they don't bother me. Plus the top stuff moves to the top naturally. That's the beauty of ff! - Sullivan from iPhone

I recognize that intelligent comments worthy of discussion can be tweeted by people who don't wish to type (or in my case, since I use a Tablet PC, write) things twice. This is why I have never automatically hidden tweets. - a runcible MiniMage

Is there really a difference between a tweet and native FriendFeed post? - Hutch Carpenter

:0 - chaz2b

Hutch, there is typically a massive difference between a tweet and a native FriendFeed post. In this example, there is less, but native FriendFeed posts are geared toward conversation starting, while Twitter updates are for conversation ending. FriendFeed native posts also contain images, and show the person is here and active on the site, not just broadcasting. - Louis Gray

sounds like some good information. - Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa from IM

Guess it depends on the person if they're doin' some conversation ending. Do they end tweets with kthxbai? Glad you're not doing a blanket hide on tweets though. There's some good stuff out there. - Hutch Carpenter

I use Twitter as a conversation starter: I guess I'm doing it wrong. I'm not convinced that the difference between Twitter and FriendFeed posts is that massive now: with the removal of service icons, it's very hard to tell which is a regular FriendFeed post and which came from Twitter, and a lot of people don't bother putting in pictures or other rich media with their native FriendFeed posts anymore. - Mark Trapp

same thing here. should be a default in friendfeed - Ouriel Ohayon

Mark - those are good points. The @reply tweets can be annoying, but generally there isn't a massive difference between a tweet and native post. Is there an option to not see @replies? - Hutch Carpenter

Not currently, but people are always requesting it in FriendFeed Feedback. I bet you could use a saved search to filter out @replies. Edit: never mind, it looks like searching for @ either is ignored or breaks search. That stinks. - Mark Trapp

@Louis: I'd actually like to start conversations with my tweets. Doesn't really happen, though. - a runcible MiniMage

MiniMage stole my thunder. Although, I am more and more starting the conversation from Friendfeed and then bouncing to Twitter and back to Friendfeed. - Mathew A. Koeneker

And so it begins... FriendFeed will truly compete with Twitter! When Robert Scoble told me I shouldn't turn off my Twitter interface... I hesitated and often did, until last week. Hope I don't drive everyone here crazy! Big Mahalo for support and encouragement on FriendFeed! (and Louis For God's Sake... show me your web interface!) - Arleen Boyd

Arleen, how can I show you my Web interface? You mean lists and what friends are where? What I use to find the best data? - Louis Gray

Yay! Twitter is really my only way to post in FF these days. Once school is done, you can re-hide Twitter, Louis. ;-) - Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™

Wondering how to hide tweets directly in Twitter...I use Twitter's web interface (not third-party interfaces) most of the time... Anyone know how? - Aviva Gabriel

Arleen Boyd › Comments