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Beebo Wallace › Likes
40+ Artistic Twitter Backgrounds http://www.dzinepress.com/2009... (via @3drockz)
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Experts Question the Difference Between Sugar and Corn Syrup Drinks - http://www.lockergnome.com/oztech...
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I hope they keep the Throwback versions permanently.
- Jason Thompson
pats0n 2.0 - остров Кокос с Okeanos Aggressor - http://pats0n.livejournal.com/203251...
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Hammerhead sharks. An entire school of them. Yikes.
- Steven Perez
Never Criticize Your Competitors - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Color Time [iPhone]: A representation of time through colour | CreativeApplications.Net - http://www.creativeapplications.net/2009...
Junal Rahman, Непротивлени Злу Василием, fijidaddy and 2 other people liked this
WEIRD BUT TRUE - New York Post - http://www.nypost.com/seven...
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At one point, the fish tugged him past a giant container ship miles off New Zealand's North Island. The fish moved so quickly at times, Watson was able to stand up fully on the board.
- Noah David Simon
from Bookmarklet
banzai
- Noah David Simon
Pipedreams on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
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Yahoo Pipes?
- Noah David Simon
from Bookmarklet
Reminds me of that old Windows pipe-making screen saver.
- Martha
somebody was layin some pipe ...
- Beebo Wallace
The New Evernote Web Clipper with Quicknote - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Ambiance: Create an Ambiant Atmosphere with this iPhone and iPod Touch App - http://crenk.com/ambianc...
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Gillmor Gang 02.21.09 - http://gillmorgang.techcrunch.com/2009...
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The Gillmor Gang - Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte, Doc Searls, Sam Whitmore, Loren Feldman, and Gabe Rivera - debate Twitter’s Suggested User “feature.” Recorded Saturday, February 22, 2009.
- Steve Gillmor
This is where I learned from Leo how Twitter's suggested friends feature works.
- Robert Scoble
this is a REALLY good one
- Christopher Harris
Last night I bought into the meme that #'s of followers matter again. I was wrong. Again. Here's why:
Roman Zolotarev, Gordon Saunders, Patricia F. Anderson and 94 other people liked this
1. If you base your ego on something you don't control you'll continually be unsatisfied. Now we REALLY don't control how many followers you'll get. It's like winning the lottery. If you thought that winning the lottery mattered in some way to your life then you'll always be unsatisfied.
- Robert Scoble
2. The list of top Twitterers now has no integrity and everyone knows it, so being on that list no longer matters. It's sort of like the number of results that Google says it has. That number is a joke too and no one pays any attention to it.
- Robert Scoble
3. Who is listening to you has absolutely no impact on your life unless you are selling advertising. Who is TALKING to you DOES have an impact on your life. That's probably why I spend so much more time on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
4. Even if the list had some integrity there would always be someone more popular than you. Even Barack Obama will be passed someday.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, there is a saying in business. When somebody doesn't stop talking, it's marketing. When they shut up and listen, its sales.
- Patricia
Was it Twitter's "Suggested Follower" feature that's changed your mind Robert? http://tinyurl.com/cc66ow
- Jim Connolly
5. Talking to masses is fun and I hope everyone gets lots of friends to talk to because there is some value in having lots of people to respond to your questions or bring you the latest news, but I find when I wake up in the morning I head first to my list with only 150 people on it. Why? Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans.
- Robert Scoble
But how else can you tell who wins?
- Mistletoe Glen
Jim: yeah, that feature pissed me off last night. Why did I get pissed off? Because I bought into the meme that how many followers you have matters. But, it also reminded me that I am not in charge of how many followers I have. It is not based on any objective criteria (at least now, I thought it had at least something to do with objectivity and that you could earn followers by putting good content out. Now I see that you can earn followers by some subjective criteria and that led to this post).
- Robert Scoble
The list of top twitters has integrity - we know exactly what is and it's true to that - it's just not the way you would like it...
- yanwoo
6. Due to http://search.twitter.com and friendfeed's search (and discovery items) you can have conversations with people without having any followers. So, having tons of followers is having less and less value as people go to Twitter search more and more (or use TweetDeck's search features).
- Robert Scoble
@Glen: is twitter a contest?
- .LAG liked that
yanwoo: no, it has no integrity anymore. You have no idea why someone is at the top. You used to know, not anymore. Now if I worked at Twitter I could make someone go to the top of the list just by putting them on the suggested friends list.
- Robert Scoble
.LAG: all lists are contests. That's why they piss off so many people and why they are defended by people who are rewarded by them (me included).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: You will appreciate this then - How I deleted 23500 followers in 5 minutes (AND why I reset my Twitter account to zero.) http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2009...
- Jim Connolly
@LAG Some people obviously think so ;)
- Mistletoe Glen
Robert, the # of people following a person on twitter is a bit like a black box. Sure, we know all the accounts that are following someone, but we have no idea if those accounts are real people, marketing spammers, casual users, or something else. Until I can point at a users account and say "This is a real person, I know how to tell 100% of the time" then follower numbers are meaningless HS popularity contests. However, I do feel like once a person gets over a critical mass of real followers, the potential
- Daniel Spisak
re: #3... if you are saying good things, and people are listening and being informed or inspired to do good things, then it matters. Maybe not to you, but potentially to others.
- LogEx
...for crowdsourcing becomes possible and this is where Twitter has a lot of benefit to the user.
- Daniel Spisak
Jim: you are a braver man than me. Based on my talks with geeks who are increasingly finding themselves distracted and addicted by Twitter and friendfeed I would expect more people to do that in the future.
- Robert Scoble
Daniel: due to retweeting and Twitter search (and friendfeed) how many followers you have doesn't matter to crowdsourcing (as much).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Thanks! It was getting stupid - Now, I can enjoy the small amount of time I spend on Twitter and DON'T NEED tweetdeck.
- Jim Connolly
I don't think this new feature of suggested users is any different from the throwback days of twitter when we had 10 highlighted users on the public timeline a year or so ago. why were you not beefin then? People received "extra credit" back then too.
- Liz
Glen, how will you know you've "won?" I judge myself off of how many times I get retweeted. That demonstrates readership, credibility, engagement, interest, etc. Those are attributes I like judging myself by. Not whether I won some popularity contest by figuring out how to get Biz or Ev to put me on some subjective list.
- Robert Scoble
The LA Times was also unhappy: http://bit.ly/Zp61T It doesn't bother me too much. There are plenty of lists online, so I won't get too worked up about Twitter suggesting people to follow. It would be nice if they allowed users to suggest who ends up on that list. But, as Robert points out, numbers don't matter, conversations do.
- Paul Rodriguez
@scoble, @glen —then, godd*mn, I'm getting my *ss kicked on twitter! i should give up. i'm so far behind, i'll never catch up. wonder if there are performance-enhancing drugs i can take to get back into the game. .LOLz
- .LAG liked that
Liz: I don't even remember that. But no one ever looked at the public timeline after Twitter got popular. It also didn't let you add one group with one click.
- Robert Scoble
Jeez, Robert, you just caused me to read that whole thread about Arrington, look at the Find People feature inTwitter, and try out Mr. Tweet. Spent an hour. Did it do me ANY good? I doubt it.
- Francine Hardaway
from twhirl
Paul: @leolaporte was unhappy. People who make their livings off of advertising find this stuff disturbing because Twitter can decide who will have businesses on its system (number of followers could translate into money. @techcrunch says that already 2% of his traffic comes from Twitter). Me? I'll have to earn my money the old fashioned way: good content.
- Robert Scoble
Francine: I think this stuff is all good. It causes us all to think about the tools we're putting so much of our lives into. Hope things are going well for you, can't wait until you're back in Half Moon Bay again. Let's go get a drink, I have lots of things to tell you when you're back.
- Robert Scoble
@scoble: perhaps it's the advertising model that's broken then.
- .LAG liked that
Robert, what are the big drivers of traffic to your money-making content among friendfeed/twitter/facebook/flickr/etc.?
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: my referrer page usually has Twitter #1, friendfeed #2, Google Reader #3. When I'm on Techmeme it usually jumps to #1 or #2 for a day.
- Robert Scoble
.LAG: bing! Bing! Bing! You win the award of the insight of the day award.
- Robert Scoble
Content drives traffic, so it's the quality of the Followers not thew quantity
- paul mooney
Facebook has tons more users than friendfeed. Funny that you don't get lots of traffic from there.
- Bruce Lewis
Robert, it's hard for me to believe that you actually "bought into it" last night. You've stated numerous times and times again that followers don't matter and we understand what you are saying. But, if it is so hard to stand by what you preach, then don't preach at all.
- Michael Forian
Michael: I'm human. I fall into traps just as often as anyone else does. I make mistakes just as much as anyone else does.
- Robert Scoble
Bruce: facebook does not have the expectation that you'll discuss science or technology or news. The stuff that comes into my news feed is generally pretty fun stuff, but is not that. When I put videos into Facebook, though, it brings me good views and engagement.
- Robert Scoble
@scoble: but otoh, what are the alternatives to advertising? yes great content is critical, but it doesn't guarantee revenue or viability by itself. and then if you're a site with great content, eventually, you too, will probably end up advertising. i think the guys from 37signals have some wonderful ideas about how to survive and thrive using a different model, it starts with not worrying about being so BIG.
- .LAG liked that
I'm yet to see any convincing proof Scoble's human :) No one's online THAT much.
- Jim Connolly
I was a little confused because you at one time were saying the number of followers shouldn't be included in a tweet pagerank (http://scobleizer.com/2008...), so using the number of followers in this context shouldn't make sense either. Or do you see them as different?
- Todd Hoff
.LAG: if I had some answers I would be implementing like mad.
- Robert Scoble
The number of followers does not matter... to a point. However if you are a business, charity or person with a strong message to get out you have to also remember that your message means nothing if people don't hear it. So while the number of followers should not matter to your ego or self-worth, it definitely matters when you are shouting on the rooftops. You need a huge number of followers to have a greater impact. To that end followers are extremely important.
- Patrick Allmond
Todd: I believe that even more today now that the follower popularity rank thing has been messed with by Twitter's fooling with it with a subjective choice.
- Robert Scoble
Patrick: that is true, sort of. I can get my message heard without having any followers. I've seen that proven over and over again lately. How? More and more people are reading http://search.twitter.com or Friendfeed. Let's do a test. You open a friendfeed account. No friends. You post something. You tell me about it. I'll like it. That will put that item into view of all my followers. So, how many followers do you really need? None.
- Robert Scoble
Patrick as right. The hard thing is that # of followers is one of many things that do matter, but that we can't completely control. We have to constantly adapt.
- Bruce Lewis
Robert, Patrick is still right. What if Robert Scoble didn't have any followers? Who would you tell about your content then? Somebody has to have followers to make this work.
- Bruce Lewis
attachment = suffering
- William Harryman
"Zen and the Art of Tweeting" by Robert Scoble
- coldbrew
This is a great list and SO true! I still cannot figure out FriendFeed though. Many people who follow me on Twitter are just following to see if I will follow them back and are truely not interested in what I have to share and discuss as topics of interest.
- Hummie
Even if the list was correctly pointing out who is "the best Twitterer", why does it matter. Millions of people post that don't subscribe to anyone but just people they know. You need to not base your selfworth on the Internet and instead on your happiness.
- Jennifer
*in conclusion read the stream of "the REAL Shaq" his twitter diharreaha proves that # of followers doesn't mean the followed is spitting out gems
- sofarsoShawn
Would Scoble care about this if he were on it? I don't think so.
- coldbrew
Jennifer: if you are in the content business you are getting paid via advertising. Advertising is paid by "CPM" or, per 1000 readers/visitors, etc. Let's say you were making $25 CPM. Well, then, having another 10,000 readers is worth $250. If you can get those people to visit every week, that's a pretty nice chunk of change.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: I disagree. I am not allowed to accept gifts from the companies I cover. I cover Twitter, so getting this kind of reward isn't acceptable. I also care about the integrity of the communities and tools I use and interact with. I would definitely speak out about this feature and would pull my name out of it to protest that it was using subjective criteria to make people popular.
- Robert Scoble
Bruce: I know a lot of people who have lots of followers. I bet I would be able to convince at least one of them to RT my messages. If not, I get traffic from http://search.twitter.com -- just write about something that's trending and you'll get followers from that.
- Robert Scoble
So, basically this boils down to $, like most things. Personal motivation is an interesting topic in itself. Anyone that checks their web analytics daily (pageviews/ uniques, email subs, rss subs, followers, friends, etc.) is simply on a completely different wavelength than myself.
- coldbrew
By that logic, Scoble, you should request FF to remove you from suggestions, as you do not know, specifically, the criteria for getting on such a list.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: yup, when you do this as a business those are the things you care about. My wife, though, isn't doing it as a business and she still is caring about lots of those things on her Facebook account. So, even people who don't do it for money care about things like who is following them. It's a huge trap to fall into and one that isn't very satisfying. Humans are weird, aren't they?
- Robert Scoble
Humans are weird for a lot of reasons, but caring about popularity and influence is not one of those reasons.
- Bruce Lewis
coldbrew: that is absolutely NOT true. I already figured out the algorithm for how friendfeed works. Did you know that I'm NOT on the default list there? Here, try it. Open a friendfeed account with no friends. First of all, it will recommend NO ONE. Huge difference from Twitter. Second, add someone who does NOT follow me. I will NOT be on the recommended list.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: friendfeed presents a different list to everyone who comes here. Its algorithm HAS INTEGRITY. It is based on the most popular person OF THE FRIENDS YOU ADD.
- Robert Scoble
Just asked my good buddy and girlfriend about how many friends they had on FB (they' barely know what Twitter is). GF, "200 something" and my buddy, "No idea", so I'm sure you are having an impact.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: on friendfeed no one is getting rewarded who did not earn that recommendation FROM THEIR FRIENDS. This is one reason I really like friendfeed. Friendfeed really engineers things a lot better than Twitter and thinks through the consequences of doing something wrong or removing integrity from the system.
- Robert Scoble
Seems to me it was pretty inevitable as Twitter got bigger that any sense of meritocracy w/ followers would dissipate. I suspect more things will crop up to counter it's importance and offer different views of the best and most interesting Tweeters. Stocktwits is probably an early example of how Twitter may get sliced up. If that is a trend that plays out then #1 tweeter will become a database statistic :-)
- yanwoo
Robert, that's only partial integrity. First, that process has an accelerating effect that makes the most popular even more popular. Second, it's popularity rather than interestingness.
- LogEx
It is still your perception of some method for bestowing authority, rather than concrete knowledge, that is leading you to the conclusion.
- coldbrew
Logical: that is true, but that happens in life anyway. It is based on meritocracy, though. I spent thousands of hours on friendfeed last year when people thought it wasn't important to pay attention to.
- Robert Scoble
I'm speaking facetiously about "winning," of course, though some people seem to think it's a contest. Twitter's a bullhorn; even the # of retweets is a factor of how many followers you have.
- Mistletoe Glen
I agree with Robert on this one, it is not the number of followers; it never can be the number of followers. What it should be about are people who like you, who you like, who you want to share information with. It should not be a clique, you need to allow new members in and allow for diversity of opinion, yet in the end it will always be about like minds, sharing information that has the ability to change the world, and if not the world, at least the location that you live in.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
coldbrew: wrong. I've done extensive testing of the http://friendfeed.com/setting... feature and understand how that list was decided on. Plus, you can do your own tests to verify what I say. On Twitter the list is totally random and subjective.
- Robert Scoble
Glen: I disagree with you about RT's. I've seen people get massively RT'd who only had a few followers.
- Robert Scoble
Campbell, most of *us* knew where you were coming from at the outset. Your thoughts on retweeting are spot on.
- coldbrew
Scoble, edge-cases, especially anecdotal stories, aren't the stuff that comprises the guts.
- coldbrew
80/20 rule?
- coldbrew
coldbrew: You've got some good points to make, but it might be easier to move on if you'll first admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations.
- Bruce Lewis
coldbrew: oh, yes, there is an 80/20 rule here in place. Just like most of life.
- Robert Scoble
"admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations" You mean that they seem to be more equitable than Twitter? Or, something else?
- coldbrew
That one can empirically determine that Scoble isn't automatically on the recommended list. They aren't entirely a black box.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: they aren't a black box at all. You can very easily figure out who and why people are on the friendfeed list. Oh, and the list is infinite and you can't automatically add the entire list, so you've got to click one by one and add people that way. There isn't a huge reward for being on the list the way there is on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, my only point was that a person with 62,798 followers has a statistically higher probability of getting retweeted than someone with only 281 followers. There's simply more chance of seeing what got tweeted in the first place.
- Mistletoe Glen
Glen: that's true, but is getting less and less true over time as more and more people use things like Search.Twitter.com. Anyway, I'd rather have 100 active followers who actually talk with me than 1,000 followers who are there just to collect my name on their follower list.
- Robert Scoble
Agreed, But the fact that Twitter's recommendations are a "black box" is not what indicated to me (a long time ago) that # of followers was not something to obsess over. Also note: FF does not make it easy to determine how many followers a given person has.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: true, but ffholic does that.
- Robert Scoble
Search only helps if you're happy to ride an existing trend. If you want to start a new trend it's useless.
- Bruce Lewis
I have 1000+ followers, but less then 100 I really know. So in essense, I have 100 followers
- Lorraine Ball
I don't use ffholic (it is funny that they use ASP.NET :-), but you'll notice FF obscures these numbers (probably based on values they would like to instill).
- coldbrew
When the community is small and relatively homogeneous, a scalar metric like follower count might be a reasonable proxy for influence/popularity. However, as the community gets larger, more diverse, and "multidimensional" a single metric like followers breaks down.
- Ken Sheppardson
It's a bit like eBay feedback: consider two members with a 1000, 100% positive feedback score. You can get that by buying 1000 fifty cent Pokemon cards or by selling a $X million worth of collectibles. The bare number means very little, at least when used to compare members.
- Ken Sheppardson
BIZ Stone's quote from the LA Times: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone acknowledged that offering “suggested users” wasn’t the ideal solution and suggested that the service might evolve to cater to particular users’ interests. “Right now it’s sort of like staff picks at your local bookstore,” he wrote in an e-mail.
- Jim Connolly
Your point is well taken, Sheppardson, that multiple variables should be considered. There was a rumor at some point that Twitter intended to monetize based on this suggestion "engine" which I do not believe had any merit. It is akin to allowing payment for organic SERP placement.
- coldbrew
I think it is ironic that one of the best gadget bloggers of our time, Ryan Block (who used to run Engadget), has 1/10th as many followers as his girlfriend, Veronica has. Veronica will see someday why this system has no integrity. Jim: that quote shows the kind of engineering care that Twitter puts into things. That might explain why I see the fail whale on a regular basis. Well, that just verifies that I made the right choice last year to spend much more time here on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I like FF better than Twitter and spend much more time here. You made the best choice in terms of quality. But I'm not convinced you made the best choice for driving traffic to your money-making content. Quality matters, but quantity matters too. It's a tough choice.
- Bruce Lewis
How much of Twitter's power comes from tight SMS integration, and why doesn't some "Twitter clone" just make a play for simple SMS services horizontally (B2B style)?
- coldbrew
Quality versus quantity. And at end of the day it doesn't matter *if* you're contributing good content and simply using the service. The follower number plays to a person's ego ... it is, in my opinion, a real drawback to the service. It encourages the wrong type of behavior. I think FF has intentionally made these stats less obvious for a reason.
- AJ Kohn
Bruce: friendfeed has been growing faster than twitter did in its first year. I'm pretty sure the quantity will show up here too. And, anyway, I do have a few followers on Twitter so I can reach the audience I want to reach.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: not much anymore. SMS mattered a lot more two years ago than it does today since the iPhone came along. It will matter even less in the future after more people get smartphones. But, yeah, it does matter a little bit today.
- Robert Scoble
Coldbrew: I think apps like http://www.tatango.com will provide the SMS glue. That's a cool company, I'll have a video of them up this week.
- Robert Scoble
I know about tatango. Funny you should mention that. They seem to be sitting on their hands
- coldbrew
"Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans" -Robert Scoble Or rather it is more important to those who are conscious of the love God puts inside all of us to act upon or not: (Matt.5:3) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage... (Psalm 42:7) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage...; And this brings into perspective what we enjoy as opposed to what we love.
- Melanie Reed
SMS matters a whole bunch b/c it makes the field more open. SMS was built on the pager tech and I can get SMS when I'm out of phone range.
- coldbrew
All these problems will be solved when twitter acquires friendfeed.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Ed, is that an opinion or are you airing fact ?
- atul abraham
from twhirl
Kambiz: I did not delete any comments here. Not sure what you are talking about.
- Robert Scoble
in our personal egoic minds, it should not matter, which is what you point out quite well - as I was expressing yesterday at NV09, I really tweet for myself... some ppl take that to extreme and tweet for themselves to be popular, playing games so they can sit at the cool kids table :( but bigger 'reach' creates more power to make a difference (when used for good). More access to network also means more access to better information (ie, my passport problem) which makes difference in our lives at key moments
- Chris Heuer
Good point re: who is talking to you, vs. listening to you. I've stopped following twitter people with a bad ratio - too many followers to who they read. Exceptions: hodgeman & anamariecox. I just don't like the ego of people who have big followings but don't engage.
- anna sauce
Last week, Mashable featured me as a twitter professor - in the 16th spot down the page http://mashable.com/2009... The first person listed was our friend (who you should be following) Chris Penn - he added 1400 followers in one day and I received just over 700 in same time http://twittercounter.com/chrishe... - http://twittercounter.com/cspenn (mentioned as real data point) IMHO the 'top100' shows the power laws of the A-List challenge in action, more pop u r, more pop u become
- Chris Heuer
Chris sounds like a catch-22
- anna sauce
Featured on mashable? Sounds prestigious...
- coldbrew
One must have amazing insight if featured by mashable, knowing how exclusive that site is about coverage.
- coldbrew
Nobody deleted comments, you just got confused about where you left your comments.
- coldbrew
If Scoble were covered by mashable for his usage of Twitter, he'd gracefully decline b/c it would be a payoff.
- coldbrew
Robert prove that you're not on the FF payroll
- Bob Sonin
Bob: Techcrunch looked into it. Arrington thought I should be getting paid by friendfeed. But I did not give friendfeed anything it didn't earn.
- Robert Scoble
Kambiz, this is the Dr. Jekyll post. You commented on the Hyde one. :)
- jcunwired
Then in the interests of full disclosure/transparency, what 'did' you give them
- Bob Sonin
Bob: links on my blog and tons of praise.
- Robert Scoble
nice work, cool
- Bob Sonin
ANA - perhaps, but not really - my argument is for disclosure so people know when its paid placement versus genuine recommendations - not passing judgment on the act, seeking clarifications and trying to further the conversation --- cant say its bad for everyone and then say I am dong something similar - more nuanced discussion then that, which you can read about in this post I just wrote http://bit.ly/30cKv "Is it ok for companies to pay to be featured users in Social Media sites?" (key is word USERS)
- Chris Heuer
Thanks for stopping by and dropping a link, Heuer. Stay classy man.
- coldbrew
Heuer, quick question: how many comments have you made without leaving a link to one of your own sites? [EDIT: specified type of link]
- coldbrew
@scobleizer, I disagree. Of course it matters. Number of followers matters and being at the top of the list matters. BUT, like the weather there is very little you can do about it, so it's probably not worth a lot of time worrying about it.
- Christian Anderson
coldbrew - generally about 90+% since I so seldom blog - on this page, with this comment 50% - is there a point you are trying to make? BTW - it seems I mistakenly was commenting on the other question (too many comments here and too many tabs open on my browser) - sorry about that --- do you not think that everyone has the right to start their own conversations and questions and then make others aware of that by sharing the link (insofar as it is on topic)
- Chris Heuer
I like your point #2 especially. Also, I have seen a few people who are gaming the system where a few people just retweet each other. Like they have a mob or coordinated thing to up their standing. Also, there are lots of people that are just trying to increase there followers and this is all they care about and you get junk Tweets and it fills the channel up with noise. Just fyi, if you follow lots of people you follow none. The channel will be crowded with junk. Trust me.
- Bill Romanos
Ana - are you asserting that people who have more followers then people they are following all have big egos? that they are not engaged? or are being disrespectful of people who follow them? (re: ur statement above) I couldn't disagree more vehemently with your broad brushed stereotyping - the majority of those with big followers and equal follower/following rations are quite the opposite of ur assumption - they are usually the ones in it for their egos - to be at the top of the list and using you to do so
- Chris Heuer
Ana, more importantly - what are your tips for dealing with the deluge of inbound communications from thousands of people into your SMS account? clearly you need unlimited text plan for $x per month first - then you need to resign yourself to the fact that you are probably going to miss things that are very important because of the decreased signal to noise ratio... This is a complex issue which IMHO requires us all to respect how other ppl choose to communicate, especially when its not causing any harm
- Chris Heuer
This conversation brings up a lot of ideas for me, but I can say simply that, in my gut, quality and not quantity is the way to go in ANY interaction. On-line, off-line, I don't care where. So, numbers without substance isn't going to do you any good on twitter or elsewhere. I guess the only time quantity works is for ad-clicks, because who cares if it is quality if you are just counting ad clicks.
- Martha
Heuer, I will spell out my point this time, though I do not believe it requires an IQ of significance to comprehend. You barely interact here on FF, and when you do, it is usually (>50%) in order to get people to take actions elsewhere (e.g. read your blog post, fill out a survey, etc.).
- coldbrew
Get it? Fairly insulting, imo.
- coldbrew
coldbrew - of course the real reason for putting a bit.ly link to my blog post that reframes this question is because I wanted to get the google juice from Robert - that is clearly what my track record shows to be true. Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that there are limits on the size of comment within FF... btw - with this comment, its over 70% of my comments on this page that dont have a link. wondering why you have a private feed - would be interested to see what you do without registering
- Chris Heuer
coldbrew - ah, so I am not native enough for you in FFand you dont like that I use twitter as my primary communications vehicle? well too bad - thanks for initially trying to thinly veil your insult and criticism and for ultimately feeling comfortable enough to insult me openly - no offence taken here at all because clearly you dont know Jack either...
- Chris Heuer
I realize having a private feed and not pimping myself at every opportunity would confuse you. I'm at a loss to explain it to you other than to say I value information and candid, honest conversation.
- coldbrew
PS - for people who actually care about these issues instead of trying to pass judgments on others, the very simple reason I request others to look at these things is so that we, as a broader community of practitioners, can connect the dots across communities to learn from one another and take collective action outside of any given echo chamber which creates insular feelings like those expressed by my new best friend here - thanks for making the point clear to all - I dont use FF daily, I am elsewhere often
- Chris Heuer
"for people who actually care about these issues "? Are you fucking serious? I have no ulterior motives, and I'm not trying to position myself as a "social media expert"; and, I certainly don't have a site that focuses on "social media" as something one should "leverage." So, before you go on espousing your integrity, take a look at the facts.
- coldbrew
OMG, what a spat! Chris, ignore him.
- Francine Hardaway
Frankly, I'm a bit tired of the sausage festival that is tech blogging. Veronica is a breath of fresh air. She has the power of "it" and "it" rules the world.
- Mattb4rd
@Scobleizer not that you'd worry, but I read what you write because it often gives me something to learn and think about that I would otherwise not find easily somewhere else. And you have a unique way of doing that. The fact that so many people choose to do the same is irrelevant to why I read your material :)
- Valeria Maltoni
Yes. When one is interested in finding some sort of "truth" through discussion, the best choice is to ignore those with differing opinions. Brilliant strategy, Hardaway.
- coldbrew
Hardaway, I realize you only came into this conversation at the last minute, but allow me to explain. There was a perfectly good discussion being had here, when Heuer (someone with whom you are apparently familiar) decided to chime in with a link to a semi-relevant blog post inspired by this very comment thread. He did not make his argument *here* where the discussion was being had, no; what he had to say required many more words than FF makes available.
- coldbrew
So, an entire post was written and Heuer made his weekly FF comment with "appropriate" shameless plug to his post. I suppose I can see how people that only come to FF occasionally don't grok the issue I'm having here, but that won't stop me from making it.
- coldbrew
I come here all the time, and often find a blog post comes out of a discussion I'm having here, or a comment on someone else's blog.
- Francine Hardaway
That is good. I just ask that you don't suggest someone ignore me for expressing my opinion. I'm no expert, but I do try to be informed about the topics in which I participate. I was offended, and I took it up directly with the offender. Please suggest to me what I might do differently in such a situation.
- coldbrew
I would have felt better about Twitter's recommended follows had it been some sanitized Google algorithm but this feels like some whorish self promotion and takes a lot of shine off Twitter.
- Ernie Oporto
from Nambu
i agree with @scobleizer here. the suggested people to follow in twitter has totally screwed with the 'meaning' of the rankings
- Chris Heath
Until WSJ publishes a US$/followers Forex rate I will continue to believe that number of followers is fundamentally worthless
- Jeffrey J Davis
For me, it was kind of strange to see the issues of "how many followers do I have" when I started reading blogs in 2008 for the first time. Seems like people like followers for many reasons (1) good conversations (2) boost to self-esteem (3) improve career prospects (4) share knowledge with others (5) etc... On the $ side, one of my friends with a labor-of-love website created over 7 years, now makes $1,000s/day (not thru advertising, but selling his own products)...
- Mitchell Tsai
Traffic can help connect people with services & products they like. In some cases, sharing pictures, articles, news about kids-friends-relationships, may be our gift to the world community. Sometimes, people are finding new jobs, developing new life paths, getting helpful therapy or support, or simply enjoying themselves. It's sometimes a little annoying for me to hear people criticizing other people who are here for reasons other than their own, but it's "free speech".
- Mitchell Tsai
Even with "trolls", I love the community on FriendFeed (Admittedly, I'm spending more time on Facebook...and unfortunately many people who share pictures there decline my requests to share them on the wider web, so I don't repost Facebook pictures on FF). More power to the people who are having fun accumulating "friends" or "followers".
- Mitchell Tsai
It's even useful to connect with 10-20 very-active-spammy-type-friends/followers. I no longer connect with spammers (unless truly interested in their stuff, which occasionally happens), but my few spam connections help me see if other people accept those spam connections. I suppose if my Facebook limit starts hitting 5,000, it'll be time to delete the spammers (after sending them a note explaining why I'm pruning my Facebook connections). P.S. Scoble, you rock!
- Mitchell Tsai
Good food for thought as I'm developing my conceptual 'follower' definition. I'm returning to value added in our network.
- ka3drr
+1 Ryo
- You.
Ryo: I regularly do things to get them into Google for myself to pull out later. The fact that other people are here doesn't matter.
- Robert Scoble
Ryo: it's funny, though. You don't need any followers to participate here in this conversation. So, why do followers matter? http://search.twitter.com displays your Tweets even if you have no followers. That way you can find other people interested in a topic. I find lots of things on google.com that have no followers either. Not saying that it's not nice if they show up (followers are wonderful) but they certainly are NOT a precondition to participating and having people participate with you online.
- Robert Scoble
Even if you *do* think they matter, using a save search in Twhirl can help you find folks to share with... I have 2000+ in Twitter and I'm nothing huge...just a bit strategic. ;)
- Cheryl Allin
The problem with an ego is that sometimes the holder of said ego cannot see over it ... well because it's an ego.
- Joe Breen
LOL, Ryo. So true. I can't tell you how many things I've posted on FF, and I get NO RESPONSE. I'm either painfully boring, or I need more followers so that I have a good chance of someone finding it interesting.
- You.
WTF? on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
Nicholas James, Thomas Tracey, Hutch Carpenter and 25 other people liked this
WTH?!
- ·[▪_▪]·
LOL...this is so the gift for me.
- Anna Haro
on iPhone, can't read...what does it say?
- Zee.
ah..cheers Mohomed
- Zee.
(sigh) stripping out all humor from our language.
- anna sauce
But there is no OMFGSTFU. I would think it's essential for dummies.
- Kevykev
Does it concern anyone other then me that there is a perceived need for such a book?
- Bastard Operator From FF
Go Sean! I mean, WTF???
- anna sauce
haha
- anna sauce
Is TMOZ a real thing?
- Andrew C
ROFLMAO!! :P
- Susan Beebe
They forgot POS (Parent over shoulder) :-)
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
+1 mohomed. OMGWTFBBQSAUCE
- Will Higgins™
They seriously didn't need to make a book for this
- Seckoa
I used to have a "WTF?" hoodie back in HS, nooooobody on the faculty ever called me on it. ( this one http://www.kaboodle.com/hi... )
- Will Higgins™
I may start using heck as a substitute. Heck you, heck off, go heck yourself.
- Larry Kless
An awesome free Flash player! - http://digg.com/tech_ne...
Beebo Wallace liked this
"I think one of the main reasons I post YouTube/Vimeo/Viddler videos on my site is the convenience of embedding it. Now there's a slick player that's easy to use, as long as you have an FLV (oh yeah, it also supports h.264 mov/mp4/m4v!). With FLVs, encoding is the only issue. I have Adobe Media Encoder, but most people don't. Does anyone know of a free or super-cheap app people can download to encode FLVs?"
- Brian
Who is doing the best job at helping people build best-of-breed business web sites? Discuss here:
Arvind, Mike Fruchter, Pavel Senko and 30 other people liked this
Amazon?
- Varun Mahajan
I ask because last night I asked a question for Printing for Less CEO about how to use social media to get business and Altan Khendup posted this site http://www.ignitingtherevolution.com/ which I checked out and liked a lot for marketing inspiration. Need the same kind of thing for web site inspiration.
- Robert Scoble
Amazon, CafePress, Ebay?
- Live Crunch Blog
from twhirl
Varun: Amazon's web services would certainly be discussed on such a site, but is Amazon the best place to go and learn how to build a better web site? I don't think so. For instance, would Amazon teach you how to use the Google Keyword Lookup tool at https://adwords.google.com/select... ? or would it be the best place to learn how to use Facebook Connect in the best possible way?
- Robert Scoble
http://stackoverflow.com is very close to what I want, although it's aimed at developers only. I want a site that is a bit higher level than that. That shows a little code, but also gives lots of case studies and demos and SEO info and marketing info and eye track results and AB testing results, etc.
- Robert Scoble
ignitingtherevolution.com layout is broken with Safari, I get punched in the face with some google ads with some weird layout
- Jaanus Kase
I've worked with a couple of usability experts but these guys really make a difference when helping determine best-of-breed sites: http://www.bunnyfoot.com/ although they're mostly UK they just opened an office in Hong Kong
- Colin
Well, back in the day, it used to be Siegal, the guy that wrote "Creating Killer Websites". Veen teaches the "art and science of" but I don't know of any off hand that deal with aiming for business right now (including standards for SM use)
- Melanie Reed
Colin: yeah, I'm looking for sites that will help for free, not just pitch me on their paid services.
- Robert Scoble
Melanie: yeah, I remember Siegal's site. Veen is a good guy, I should interview him.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: You might give Adaptive Path a try. Veen used to work there and was one of the founding fathers: http://adaptivepath.com/ Of course the site screams high end not free. :(
- Melanie Reed
Melanie: Adaptive Path is doing the work I'm looking for, but they don't share their knowledge on their site that I can tell.
- Robert Scoble
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/, http://www.marketingsherpa.com -- neither deals exclusively with websites, but include the tons of case studies, demos, A/B, eye-tracking stuff for marketing best practices across email, web, social, mobile, etc.
- Dale Larson
http://www.alistapart.com/ does some of what I'm looking for, but isn't really focused on building bleeding edge business sites that join social networks, java script components, media, and cloud computing technologies together in a fun way that is aimed at building better business sites.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I use a bunch of different sites for building client websites, my list is here: http://itafroma.tumblr.com/post... Absolute must-reads for any web developer/designer are emphasized.
- Mark Trapp
Ahh ok - I guess I could point you in the direction of company sites that spend serious cash ensuring targetted users feel like they are looking at and finding exactly what they want? May not be ideal for you though, inevitably they are sites for mass audience and online retailers...
- Colin
Dale: those are ingredients in the meal, thanks!
- Robert Scoble
Uhm, Joshua Porter? http://www.bokardo.com
- Federico [Kurai]
Robert: Yeah, thought it might be. No, they don't share. I'll keep on lookout in my cyber-travels and shoot anything to you if it crosses my path. blessings on your search.
- Melanie Reed
Colin: no, these things don't necessarily need to be very expensive. Building Facebook Connect isn't something that's very expensive to do, but is anyone out there showing how to do it right? Along with other things like talking about new cloud computing techniques like cloud bursting? (12seconds.tv uses that, if a file gets popular on its service they move it over to Amazon's web services and redirect all the traffic there).
- Robert Scoble
http://2advanced.com/ - they do a lot of rich media sites, but can engineer anything.
- David Gosse
The UI resources on Yahoo! are really good too. Maybe not all you're looking for, but it's a start :)
- Federico [Kurai]
Federico: bing! Yes, that's very close to what I'm looking for. Not quite in the form I was hoping to see, but it's the closest I've seen yet.
- Robert Scoble
This post came at an interesting time for me. I'm trying to build a website for my wife's museum that is a Non-Profit organization. I want to build a site that takes advantage of social media to get the word out about the museum. I also want to design a site that will help build a community online. Any suggestions? Build with straight HTML or use a CMS package like joomla? Their current site is http://amset.org
- Bryan Lee
web monkeys back and better than ever with a wiki at its heart and anyone can contribute http://www.webmonkey.com/ Also, um Google and Yahoo have done a great job with their product specific blogs and YUI. Google also has something called Google Doctype http://code.google.com/doctype... for web developers. It includes articles on web security, JavaScript DOM manipulation, CSS tips and...
more...
- mal
David: that site is ugly. I +hate+ all Flash sites. That's not the web I want.
- Robert Scoble
As I said Robert, they can engineer anything - look at their portfolio before you become a hater. Their site is not the way they design all client sites. Very surprised you had not heard of their portfolio of work.
- David Gosse
mal: more ingredients in the meal. Wow, I totally forgot about web monkey. This thread is EXACTLY why I like friendfeed. Where else on the web would I have learned about Bokardo and be reminded of web monkey?
- Robert Scoble
My company, 9, does a pretty good job of this. We're new but I have a high tech background with 9 years of user interface experience and know a lot of the UI tricks to keep users sticky to the site, etc. We reduce a lot of costs for clients because of our developer relationships. www.whatis9.com
- Patricia
Robert: Joshua Porter's book is great also. You should check it out.
- Federico [Kurai]
David: I'm sure of that, but to put that up as their calling card sends the wrong message about where the web is going and demonstrates the kind of stuff they probably want to build for their clients. This is how Las Vegas Casinos end up with unusable, but beautiful, web sites that have no human interaction.
- Robert Scoble
Patricia: whenever you put a URL onto the web you should ALWAYS include http:// so that it builds a link like this http://www.whatis9.com -- thanks!
- Robert Scoble
Yep, Mal, good jog! We used to use webmonkey all the time. I'm still using surveymonkey for some stuff.
- Melanie Reed
Well ... depends on scale but WP and Drupal come to mind. Great building blocks. The UI ... well, that's highly distributed and often conflicting in nature. Ion Interactive versus RAMP Digital versus Get Elastic versus Grok Dot Com etc. etc. etc. Plenty of flavors.
- AJ Kohn
AJ: exactly. Those are the building blocks of the modern site. What this tells me is that there's a need for information for business people on how to build a modern web site.
- Robert Scoble
I think SitePoint deserves some mention as a hybrid-free web design resource. They make their revenue off book sales but you can get enough free-stuff to satisfy. http://www.sitepoint.com/
- Melanie Reed
Robert: do you know http://nettuts.com ? They're articles cover some basic stuff, but some advanced things as well. Might want to check out they're site network too.
- Bruno
Robert. This is exactly what I am looking for as well. Great discussion!
- Bryan Lee
@Robert, thank you! My company also saw the need for how to build a modern web site. We don't just do that, but also help clients figure out what makes sense to them, so if they have community, it's the right format, etc. There's a definite need for it.
- Patricia
Bruno, no, didn't know that one. Thanks!
- Robert Scoble
Patricia: I bet you are losing a ton of business because you don't demonstrate what a modern web site looks like. You should build a demonstration site for a fake business (or your own business) and then explain how your designers/engineers will help me build the same thing for my business.
- Robert Scoble
@Robert, the site for 9 is part of our branding strategy - it's sort of all tied into a specific asthetic that makes sense if you know our brand. Your site should absolutely tie into your brand and make sense to the look/feel you're trying to create. 9 is not a development shop or an internet company. It's a cross platform consulting and content production comany - our work varies from...
more...
- Patricia
What makes a best-of-breed business web site? Is it feeds? Widgets? Community? Or just compelling copy. http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Peter Warnock
Peter: all the above, that's why I want to find a site that discusses all this stuff holistically.
- Robert Scoble
@Peter, relevancy - to its audience/user base, to their needs and how they interact, to the company and what it's vision is. The features are only important to how they're used, if they're used at all, etc.
- Patricia
@Robert, if you are interested in learning, I'd direct you over to ecommerce. During web 1.0, companies in that category conducted a ton of research to find what users do and how to keep them sticky to sites. Compelling stuff. If you notice all the top ecommerce sites are very similar. It's not by accident.
- Patricia
Patricia, Your concept, as Robert brings out, sounds VERY intriguing! But he's right. You could benefit from a gallery site that gives your user an idea of what to expect. Take them on a visual "tour" of the process for a few example sites and then sell them with your last comment to Robert.
- Melanie Reed
@Melanie, thank you! For 9, the corporate strategy and how we work doesn't really rely heavily on leads online. It's all offline, relationship based, recommendations, etc. When a prospective client comes in, we have a deck that shows our work, etc, but for us, the focus is different. I know it's an unusual approach, but that was the fun part. 9's just different.
- Patricia
@Patricia thanks for being so gracious. I kind of thought that's how you marketed. But maybe 9 will consider the online market more heavily in the future and that would be great! :)
- Melanie Reed
this tweet shows kind of shows the way site design is ideally moving.. sort of on the fly, loose pieces tightly joined... RT @timoreilly: RT @yishaym Want to change the world? learn Python http://is.gd/jv6d | interesting site/tech http://stimuluswatch.org/
- mal
@Patricia, kudos for being different, but I think you'll find through experience, that you only capture the low-hanging fruit this way. In my opinion, a good business web site, at minimum, delivers a powerful "elevator speech".
- Peter Warnock
@peter, i don't agree, but i do understand your point. none of our client leads come by way of the web, unless you count email. if the type of clients we're attracting are low hanging fruit, i'm sticking with the plan. :) i realize that it's hard to convince a tech crowd that business can be done this way, but this is kind of why we exist - because not all businesses can or should...
more...
- Patricia
@Peter not by any chance a Scot, are you? Looks like your icon is a familiar crest. :) Very similar to the McCleod crest
- Melanie Reed
@Scoble I am also a big fan of stackoverflow.com
- Varun Mahajan
Google has a blog that's a little of what I'm looking for here: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/
- Robert Scoble
lots of unconnected bloggers are the best resource for consulting businesses on how to build cutting edge sites. businesses can easily find this information if they try.
- Alensa
Great question. Well worth a thorough discussion and thread! Mashing it up imho is a big part of it. And how do you keep it unbiased?
- Rob Schieber
First impression: Plinky is to Twitter what Woot is to Amazon. [Caveat: I've signed up but haven't done much with Plinky yet]
Randy Holloway, Beebo Wallace, Richard Chen and 4 other people liked this
By getting everyone in sync, you can generate energy and discussion that you wouldn't when everyone's out of sync. Just compare review discussions on Woot with those on Amazon.
- Amit Patel
Also note that laser beams are really bright and powerful because the photons are all in sync. If Twitter is a light bulb, Plinky is a laser. Completely different uses.
- Amit Patel
Do cats like to chase Plinky? Anyway, woot has about 1/zillionth Amazon's sales volume, it's basically a cute gimmick by comparison. Is Plinky okay with having 1/zillionth of Twitter's traffic?
- ⓞnor
After reading more, my first impression may be wrong.
- Amit Patel
@nor: Woot seemed pretty big for a tiny company but I can't get good numbers for it. The only thing I found was a Wikipedia note that said they had a million dollars of sales in a two-day special event. Sure, that's nowhere as big as Amazon, but it's probably a factor of 10 to 1000, not a zillion. I can't speak for Plinky but I'd be happy with a web service that got 1/1000th the traffic of twitter, but provided something new and cool.
- Amit Patel
Doh, Wikipedia does have Woot revenue listed, but I never look at the sidebar. $117.4 million in 2007. Amazon's revenue was $10.71 billion in 2007. So that's a factor of 100.
- Amit Patel
Wow, I'm surprised Woot's numbers are so high.
- Andrew C
Long live woot! Compare away!
- Jason Shellen
Learn More About Who You Follow With TweepSearch - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
Bill Romanos, TobiasVerhoog.com, Daniel Rowley and 10 other people liked this
The best Twitter shirt I have ever seen by @caracouture see - http://brightkite.com/objects...
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How to Stream from the iPhone / iPod Touch - http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-...
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Watch Chris Pirillo On Your iPod Touch Or iPhone - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Add Favicon to FriendFeed Room links – Userscripts.org - http://userscripts.org/scripts...
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Open field panorama - http://www.raoulpopphotography.com/catalog...
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Philipp Mertens, Mathew™ one of a kind, Beebo Wallace and Tyson Key liked this
The numbers "15" and "49" are sold out in the NY state lottery.
Beebo Wallace and Jared B. Luther liked this
Why didn't Steve Jobs hold his news until they report financials next week? My ideas here:
Nicholas James, Kirsten Hamstra, Thomas Hawk and 36 other people liked this
1. Apple did better than expected in current quarter, so they wanted to get the bad news out of the way now. That way the stock will take the hit for Jobs being gone, then go up when they announce great financial results. Making it clear to everyone that the company will go on strongly without Jobs.
- Robert Scoble
He's sick and is going to take time off for treatment, and it can't wait?
- Ken Sheppardson
2. Someone threatened to leak the news this week anyway.
- Robert Scoble
But I don't know, why didn't they just hold the bad news until the financials came out? If the financials are bad, do you think they would have just blasted both bits of bad news out together?
- Robert Scoble
Ken: he could have disappeared for a week without anyone noticing. So that's not it.
- Robert Scoble
Maybe he's just not well. I know from family experience that this can (and should) override anything. Anyone suddenly feels as human and mortal as the next guy when given a really shitty piece of news.
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
They could've released the news next Tuesday and buried the lead with the inauguration and all.
- Mark Trapp
Wouldn't it be considered a material fact they'd have to disclose in their earnings report, if was already planned? Perhaps earning are worse than expected, and they don't want a double whammy. I think one can make up all sorts of scenarios.
- Ken Sheppardson
This gets back to my question : http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Will Higgins™
i suspect #2 is closest to the truth. doctors, nurses, folks at work. could be he had an episode in public somewhere...
- MikeAmundsen
What financials are you talking about? The Proxy just came out a few days ago
- Matt Bennett
Robert: Why don't you just go back to the yogurt shop and ask?
- Ken Sheppardson
Probably a requirement under securities laws: timely disclosure of something material that might affect the share price. The CEO's temporary incapacity sure is something material.
- Neville Hobson
People have been saying he was sick like this for a while. Not sure if we would have believed a "leak" regardless. Right now i'm more in shock of Steve's letter last week. Either it was a lie or he got some bad news really suddenly. Regardless, have to face the future.
- David Bisset (sn)
I do think that Apple just released that because people over there knows that Steve needs some rest, the guy is sick and he needs to take care of himself, and then maybe after he is okay he would look after the company's business once again and I think your first idea might be the right one.
- Ahmed
I hope he's better and ready to by next years CES!
- Brett Nordquist
I think he's trying to be more open with his employees and customers. I think this is very representative of the nature of our 2.0 world. Knowledge of everything can be found so it's best not to lie and hide behind a mask of supposed truths. Best to just be honest!
- Dane Deasy
Brett: me too! Wishing him all the best.
- Robert Scoble
Dane: I don't think this is Steve being more open. Just read his message. Just as cryptic, only said what it needed to. Steve Jobs *IS* the Citizen Kane of Silicon Valley.
- David Bisset (sn)
btw - IMO, this is not going to get better (sorry to say). i suspect Jobs' condition is chronic and probably progressive. he's proly been putting off this kind of talk for quite some time. it could be a rough year for him and those close to him. and a bad sitch for the company, too. i really hope i'm wrong.
- MikeAmundsen
Option 2 seems to be the more plausible. Apple and Jobs have both been lying about this and attempting cover-ups for some time now.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
Interesting that he'll be back in June--in time for announcing the next iPhone on stage?
- Ian Mikutel
There are no good ways to bring bad news. But openness is less bad than denial. Hold good thoughts for Steve's recovery.
- Michael Markman
Ian: that would make sense. Mess with the Palm Pre and Nokia N97 launches in June. Keep everyone slobbering over the next iPhone.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I think the 'June' return is just an arbitrary date which at this stage, could be either pessimistic or optimistic.
- Scot Mcphee
As accurate and truthful as Apple/Jobs have been about this topic... I doubt Jobs will be back at all.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
I think that he wants media to finally treat Apple as a "grown up" company and he plan to do this with shock therapy :)
- Hubert Taler
I think he is gone for good. Goldman indicated that he spoke to senior technology person who spoke to Steve who felt Steve was "deluded about his condition". That sounds bad for steve.
- themick171
from twhirl
What the hell does a senior technology person know about medical issues, though?
- Victor Ganata
@ michael dee - is that the same Goldman (from CNBC) who insisted just recently that Gizmodo were talking bollocks when they said Jobs' health was in serious decline, and that Jobs' health was 'totally fine' ???
- Patrick Jordan
It's that delusion about our conditions that keep us sane.
- Todd Hoff
Victor: as much as a yogurt store clerk.
- Robert Scoble
Wow, I too am surprised this news was leaked prior to the financials...odd. There's something fishy about that for sure
- Susan Beebe
@scobleizer in corporate/ DowJones land bad news MUST be reported as soon as known. Anything less gets you into Enron territory.
- Bankwatch
I agree with Ken Sheppardson and Neville Hobson. Apple knew the information and were reponsible by releasing it in a timely manner.
- Ontario Emperor
Of course, deliberately witholding critical information to manipulate the stock price is somethign people woudl scream about if any other company did it.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
@bankwatch makes a good point. But if Apple/Jobs knew this before the MacWorld announcement, and if they did and still put out the cokamamy story about hormone levels, Apple still should get a cursory look over by the SEC.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
Jobs is not coming back, ever. The news today was just a "baby step" to that end.
- oregon_tony
As a "grown up" company Apple will fail. Their primary tool is the faux elitism of their user base and the "cool" factor that lets them overcharge for minor hardware upgrades. As soon as they grow up (expand) that will fade.
- Soulhuntre
I'm sure many companies would like to fail as well as Apple has! Yes, their stuff is pricey, but its demonstrably superior. I guess if you don't value your time you can pretend to save money using XP, or the now obsolete Vista, and if you still haven't learned your lesson then go have fun with Windows 7...
- Indio Apache
from twhirl
AAPL would have been crucified if they had waited. Mentioning the news now takes away the material disclosure & sharp stock sell off if the news would have been disclosed "next week". Waiting would have opened a mega can of worms in case anyone started selling their insider shares or stock plan shares. Now everyone gets the info at the same time to avoid the SEC trouble Apple had before although they passed the fire trials then.
- Roney Smith
yessir soulhuntre, Apple, number 103 in the Fortune 500, 8th most profitable tech company... sounds pretty grown up to most grown ups...
- Indio Apache
from twhirl
Soulhuntre... Apple has always wisely resisted the temptation to grow too quickly, or address the least common denominator mass market. There are riches in niches, and Apple mines its niches well.
- LogEx
re: Mark VandenBerg - thats my thought too, that the earlier hormone announcement may at least get some SEC review.
- Bankwatch
@indio - depends on how your using the term of course. @logical - I agree... as a niche product / firm Apple excels but they have been increasingly tryign to go mainstream (sometimes well, sometimes badly). It will be interesting to watch.
- Soulhuntre
Awesome watching all the fighting in tech, they can sense the bubble bursting and they are terrified.
Nicholas James, David Wynn, Michelle Feldman and 4 other people liked this
Fine by me. I can still write about a bubble. :) Can others work in it?
- Shawn Farner
Now there's a thought... a jv between TechCrunch and UFC... Geek Ground and Pound 2009 with the proceeds going to charity. Isn't Calacanis a black belt in TKD?
- Jay Cuthrell
POP!!
- Susan Beebe
Those that make their living "from" the net (Loic/Arrington) vs those that make their living "because" of the net (Scoble)
- PXLated
Umm... Which bubble are you referring to exactly?
- David Wynn
@stopdoingnothin Panorama is free for Google Spreadsheet. We talk about that in the videos.
Beebo Wallace liked this
Why @techcrunch is playing hardball with PR: Could be that several CEOs have told me that Twitter is getting them more hits than TechCrunch.
Tyson Key, Alex Howard, Internet Strategist and 46 other people liked this
And these same CEOs tell me that FriendFeed is coming up fast and is #3. They tell me all other blogs bring far less than these three sources.
- Robert Scoble
Whoever breaks news first on Twitter gets the credit now, they tell me.
- Robert Scoble
Thanks God! At last truth happened
- directeur
Twitter news sources now validated by mainstream?
- http://andrew-long.name
When you want the exclusive news like TC wants, it's a perfect storm that Mike posted. Now he gets exactly what he wants. Great power play move.
- Rex
Watch out directeur, I'm going to break your news (he just showed me something which is most cool).
- Robert Scoble
I wonder if we'll start to see embargos on news that gets sent to popular twitter users before they tweet it...
- Cory OBrien
Cory: I'm holding directeur's news until he Tweets it himself.
- Robert Scoble
interesting - in my post just now i said exactly what you just said - let me add your twitter comment to my post - http://www.centernetworks.com/arringt...
- Allen Stern
TechCrunch is a PR Bot, you'll get differend points of view from Twitter
- paul mooney
Also, it's a little unfair to compare Twitter to individual blogs, b/c Twitter is an aggregator of all different writers and their communities. To compare apples to apples, you'd have to look at Twitter compared to every blog as one.
- Cory OBrien
techcrunch built it's popular blog on the good old journalistic standby of being first and being prolific, not on deep thorough analysis. If your job is to be first then embargo's are just an impediment and risk someone else being first. Startups need to realize that being covered on techcrunch is much less important than good technology and a solid business model, that will get everyone talking about you in this ocean of mediocre technology plays, businesses need business model and strategy to win
- karl
Haven't we all seen this coming? I remember this being talked about a year ago. With more users, it will only become more obvious.
- Shawn Kirsch
I wonder when Friendfeed will move ahead of Twitter. Within a year?
- Sean McBride
Mike's entire business model is built on controversy. We get at least one a week. He's good at what he does, but if he pisses off too many people, he may regret it.
- David Semeria
Robert, thanks a lot! :) You knew how I could ninja-kill people, and you respected the samuraï in me! I appreciate this :)
- directeur
Mike's been pissed off ever since he found that his particular brand of BS doesn't wash in Europe. @karl +1 I'm invested in one such. Never been on TC, no desire to go there and have our servers crushed for a day to the detriment of customers.
- Dennis Howlett
What if Twitter assigned authority to users based on several factors, then you could watch news break and be able to tell if it was coming from reliable sources.
- Kelly Johns
Doesn't the use of twitter democratize weather an item is newsworthy or not? Newsworthy items rise through the system organically and are editorialized by the many and not the few.
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
Old School: PR embargos, mass distribution, voicemails and Word docs; New School: Concise writing, great multimedia content, and open doors (transparency) and http://pitchengine.com
- Jason Kintzler
@Kelly Johns That's an intriguing thought.
- Shawn Kirsch
Will one source replace another, or will all sources complement each other? TechCrunch still has a wide readership. So does the Wall Street Journal.
- Ed Moltzen
I suspect we'll see TechCrunch peter out in the next couple of years. Why subscribe to it, when you can just use Techmeme to filter it and get the few worthwhile stories per week out of the dozens? I personally find that I am getting a lot more info from Twitter, and FF, than from the big tech blogs.
- Bruce Keener
Why? Attention seeking. Why else.
- Michael Krigsman
@Dennis Howlett word, yeah, it's an illusion that somehow your biz will take off if it get's coverage on techcrunch. You will get a lot of feedback via techcrunch comments, and some traffic but that will not sustain a business. A business model that creates value and attracts new customers is the winning formula and plenty of people want to write about that :-)
- karl
it's a great way of getting news out a lot quicker than the normal blog, usually because it's easier to write a couple of sentences than an actual well written blog. people like their news fast, simple and easy these days. also, i don't like this "i twittered first! this is my story!" BS. isn't the whole point of twitter and friendfeed to get the news out there, not for the ego?
- Terry O'Fee
As Richard mentions, the point of an embargo is to give a journalist time to prepare, ideally as recognition of their expertise and authority in the field. PR firms who send mass embargoed releases to writers with whom they don't have a relationship miss the point, but of course they're also missing the point when they spam and pester. As Twitter - or even RSS - becomes more common and people can get a direct line to news they want, this won't be an issue. And outlets like TechCrunch will lose relevance.
- David B. Thomas
this does remind me of pitchengine.com - digg for news
- Susan Beebe
Interesting take, but I'd be surprised if that's it. Arrington just wants more exclusives, plain and simple. Exclusives drive more traffic, and there's not a huge amount of value in writing up every story when 20 other sites are doing the same thing. Even if they lose 50% of incoming stories, but get a 10% rise in exclusives, it will more than compensate for any loss....
- Duncan Riley
Duncan: TechCrunch is going to lose more and more exclusives to Twitter and FriendFeed, based on what startup CEO's are telling me. You probably are right, though, that TechCrunch will win some by doing this.
- Robert Scoble
Getting TC'd is only about 15k hits over three days. Really not that big a deal, it's more for the general pr.
- Alex Wilhelm (FF BLOWS)
15 fantastic Christmas gifts for Mac owners - http://www.techradar.com/news...
sofarsoShawn, Bill Sodeman, Alan Le and 3 other people liked this
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