“Classmates.com really has their heads up their asses on their business model. Every few months I get an email alert of a guestbook entry. But to see it you have to upgrade to a paid account. How are they still in business?”
because that special girl senior year was so hot and you're dying to know what she looks like today, basically. I'm not actually sure who pays though, I wouldn't. - Thomas Hawk
Facebook & LinkedIn do a much better job than Classmates. However, more high school friends seem to find me at Classmates than any other site. Maybe that's how it works... (I haven't paid. I just leave a note saying "google me"). - Mitchell Tsai
I deleted my account, those emails are so annoying. - J. McConnell
I deleted my account for the same reason. Annoying beyond belief. - Rex Hammock
You aren't upgrading, but some folks do. And it probably doesn't take a high conversion rate to make this model work. - AJ Kohn
They are both still in business. Their model is nothing but "bait and switch". Aimed at very unsophisticated "little ol' lady" consumers. Bottom feeders. - Frank Derfler
I signed up for Classmates a few months ago because we were doing a buy on them. I don't understand why anyone would use the site to begin with. Horrible. - James Ferguson
“Ive felt shittly lately. Terrible headaches. Out of shape. I used to be a big jock, lifted everyday all that shit. I need to get back into shape. Like no joke. Gotta quit smoking, coffee, all that shit. Great.”
I learned the hard way in March how important this is. (unstable angina 8 days after my 40th b-day. 3 stents placed.) - Adam Turetzky
Quitting smoking will give you the greatest improvement in health/fitness! I quit in September, and haven't looked back. Best decision I've ever made. Ran a half-marathon yesterday like it was nothing! - Granteezy
Dude, I started on a regimen. Running/walking. Going long. You're already in good shape...but cool to get ripped up. That's the best. - Frank Roche
Same situation for most people here I guess. - fbrunel
Like Frank said. However, I suspect you're all-or-nothing and you'll do it when you're good and ready. - Donna Mugavero
I'm going to. When I was an actor it was a requirement to be ripped. Since I always get the gig now I've really let myself go. I used to be a real ass kicker would run with the brothers all day, now a chubby 5'7 greek geek kicked my ass. I wanted to literally die in his driveway from shame. - loren Feldman
Howlett its amazing you are even alive. - loren Feldman
Keep your head up! I used to smoke, booze, eat all kinds of nasty fast-food etc... Then I decided I wanted to be a better athlete, and I dropped over 40 lbs, quit smoking, drinking, and it wasn't that difficult either. You can do it dude! - Granteezy
I have a client whose son lost over 30 lbs in a month JUST cutting out soda. I used to run too, now I can barely run 2 miles. I'm changing that. - Andrew Jecklin
Some months ago I went to a training Boot Camp religiously and had a better cardio profile than I had in years. This thread is kicking my ass to get back to that. - Donna Mugavero
My "best of" page has zero FriendFeed stories and one Twitter story. I agree that we need to improve the diversity constraints on the best-of though. - Paul Buchheit
"You can find me on FriendFeed here." Good way to end it. - Hutch Carpenter
MG, here are Paul's subscriptions: http://friendfeed.com/paul/sub... As far as unsubscribing goes you could unsubscribe from everyone who talks about Friendfeed too much, but I agree we need a global exclusion and inclusion operator of some kind. For instance, I'd love to follow certain people but only see their links or comments when they mention a certain keyword (like the word "google" for instance). - Philipp Lenssen
Paul doesn't follow me. Thing is I get sucked into the FriendFeed threads like this one. - Robert Scoble
@Paul you mean like - tags? To sort / profile it better? ;) - Nicole Simon
@philip - The thing is, as I mention, I DO want to see the talk a lot of time - I just want the option not to see it as well at times. - MG Siegler
Ironically, but predictably, this is now my #3 "best of" story for the day. I think I'm close to breaking the FriendFeed/Time Continuum. - MG Siegler
Quick glance at my daily 'best of': (1) Scoble's "Participation Premium". (2) Homemade Flame Thrower. (3) Allen Stern's FriendFeed Follower Patterns Exposed. (4) Steve Rubel's post about Likes as bookmarks. (5) edythe's apartment therapy unplugged. - Hutch Carpenter
such is the nature of the best -- get ready for all the likes :) - Shey
@hutch - so 3 out of your 5 are about friendfeed, slightly better than mine - MG Siegler
But I do think that eventually this phenomenon will die down as the FriendFeed community grows and matures in size. I think this is true for any other service. Write a post on Mixx and submit it to Mixx and it will get voted up, guaranteed. - Shey
This is the only FF-meta post on my summary page. Also featured: dog and baby pictures, quality chairs, and Google daycare kerfuffle. This is the benefit of not being subscribed to the blogosphere talking heads, I guess. - Alex Power
Yup. I didn't even Like or comment on edythe's, but nice to see it in there. - Hutch Carpenter
fight club had better rules. First Rule don't talk about Fight Club. Second rule is Screw the BLUE STATE FASHION TYRANNNY... oh wait... that is my rule - Noah David Simon
the one thing Twitter has it is that it was first before FF in that space. And that brings name recognition to the "masses" and a large inertia that you have to overcome before you can become a true replacement, no matter what technical advantages you bring to the table. I have 5 times more followers in Twitter than FF, and sadly a mass migration doesn't seem to be happening for these folks. - Daniel Robitaille
couldn't agree more with you about twitters down time being a superficial issue. - Richard
Your post to a given site takes on more life when it hits the pages of friendfeed. It's almost like you weigh where you want to "release" a post first knowing that it will get "picked up" by friendfeed. - todddoubleu
I do not think Twitter will survive as CMS systems that run into message bus systems are the hardest to scale on ruby on rails nd they do not have the money to fight two fronts ruby on rails scalability and new features to stave off competition. - Fred Grott
good link, allen. some additional default choices would be fantastic. read: better discovery mechanisms. having only members of the echo chamber as default choices makes for a duller feed. no offense to present company. ;) - Wolfsbayne
I think all this FF > Twitter discourse is seriously, seriously underestimating the power of Twitter's unparalleled portability. It's 100% usable through SMS and has an iPod-esque ecosystem of third party tools and add-ons that hook into it. These things brought Twitter to its throne, and now you guys aren't even factoring them into the equation because of a little downtime. - David Chartier
i'll post some thoughts on my blog, but one thing that is still annoying is represented in this post... where your friendfeed shows all aggregated iterations of this post here on ff and it just feels silly as i can choose which iteration to leave a comment on. that's an issue. maybe you should turn comments off on the other instances. except that you cannot because its not a feature. also, check out http://friendfeed.com/frendfee... to see some aggregation bugs. - sull
Jason, that's a brilliant "There Will Be Blood" reference. And so true. I'm afraid that Twitter is just a couple of weeks from being bludgeoned with a bowling pin by FF. - Frank Roche
I think the removal of a character limit would hurt twitter more than help it. Twitter was never meant as a conversation platform. I think keeping it small and simple makes it much easier for people to use. One of it's biggest strengths is that it's a short form messaging service, and to take that away would make it something that isn't twitter. - Austin Brown
Jason, I fully agree with what you say here. - Steve Rubel
I love the fact that there is no premium linked with the number of connections you have. In twitter the greater the number of connections, the higher you appear in the "following" list of your follower. That has become a reason of spam, lowering the quality of the twitter network. Plus, FF works. - Marcello Del Bono
I can see how Twitter is useful for people who post via SMS, but while Im at the computer FF is far more useful and also more fun to use - Jeff Hoard via twhirl
I could offer my agreement here on your entry's content, but I'd rather tell you how much I dug the entry's title. - Donna Mugavero
I'll put it this way, i never used twitter because I'm not part of the technorati community, but I do use Friendfeed because it allows me to bring together all my online content and then share it with the people I want. That alone is enough for FF to beat out Twitter for me. - Alfredo Padilla
I think one of the things we have missed carries forward or plays forward a Robert Scoble post, see : http://scobleizer.com/2008/07/... ..let me put it in non tech terms as it pertains to start-ups. FOUNDERS MUST PARTICIPATE IN THE COMMUNITIES THAT FROM AROUND THEIR PRODUCTS! When I state founders I mean also the ones building the product. - Fred Grott
What it comes down to me is *noise*. FriendFeed is just noisy, what with content from all my social media friends all being dumped into one stream with no organization whatsoever. I look at my FF friends page and I can't make any rhyme or reason to what I'm seeing, even with little favicons to identify which service I'm reading from. Twitter, is clean and organized. - Stephen Lopez
School of ALL CAPS is a little loud... ;-) - Mitchell Tsai
I think Center Networks (Allen) has an interesting analysis. I'll be curious to see if the high profile FF users are as interested in commenting on other people's feeds as having their own words commented upon. Twitter just seems like a more democratic forum to me. Personally, I don't care if it is down a couple hours a week. FF only supplements it, it is not an adequate replacement. And I like to write more than 140 characters! Still Twitter is my first choice. - Liz
PS... Because I use the Flock browser, I get all my social media updates right from the Media Bar and People Sidebar, without ever having to open Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Pownce, Digg, etc... Everything I want is right there at the click of an icon. Flock > FF. - Stephen Lopez
I wouldn't underestimate twitter's connection through sms. It makes it the first legit mobile social network, and that is significant for mass adoption and use. Most people don't have internet on their phone to use a web app (iPhone Facebook, Tumblr, etc.) or internet (twitpic, friendfeed, etc.) to send email to update or submit to services. But they are very likely to have sms service, and are used to using it. - Tony
my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard - Tyler
I agree to what you say but besides Twitter reliability, its major flaw is really the reply (or conversation) system which is close to be useless. I guess FriendFeed gained a lot of people (at least myself) because of its efficient conversation system. - fbrunel
Jason, I agree with you a lot of the time but not in this case. I think it would be suicide for Twitter to get into a features arms race with FriendFeed. They would lose that battle. Twitter needs to focus on keeping it simple, getting stable, and becoming a short messaging infrastructure - not a destination. - Mike Doeff
Mike, I think you're right on. Twitter would do better to solidify its differentiation. - Clay Newton
Agreed. I have flip flopped a couple of times on which service I prefer, but FriendFeed is clearly in the lead. If they launch a great iPhone app next Friday it could be thing that pushes them over the hump. - Scott Watermasysk
Ahahahah... ok I get it now. Quick, someone Digg Kevin's tweet and then we can all laugh at how lame twitter is when it buckles under the load of a Digging! - Paul Short
If he paid attention to me, he would have known better. :) - Aaron Brazell
I would have made them stand in the corner and think about what they've done, but I guess I'm just old-fashioned like that. - Daniel Smith via twhirl
Im confused about this. For instance, I've noticed on many occasions where you basically say something like: "Come follow me over on FF, the conversation is over there". Isnt that the same thing? Trying to get people to come follow you? I dont mean to be critical, just trying to understand. - Andrew Baron
:D I unblocked him just to verify, and yes it was him!! - directeur via NoiseRiver
Somewhat relatedly, it's weird that I didn't think twice when Louis Gray asked us to digg a story for him. But in hindsight if it wasn't someone I knew, I would've considered it spamming/gaming digg. Interesting. - trextor
He needs another pole to broadcast actually, he won't participate in the discussions. I hate this kind of mentality. - directeur via NoiseRiver
Andrew I don't remember ever asking you to follow me. If I ever do, yes, that should earn me a block. There is a big difference between saying "here is a conversation" and "follow me." - Robert Scoble
Kevin pissed off the Friendfeed hall monitors. ;-) - Chris Baskind
directeur: exactly. This is my way of helping retard Twitter-style noise here. - Robert Scoble
LOL, I just submitted his tweet to Digg. - Paul Short
Here is a conversation about following me... I wonder if that would fly. :) - Aaron Brazell
trextor: agreed. That is interesting to watch. - Robert Scoble
Aaron: you are always experimenting with my block button. I will call you director of block R&D. :-) - Robert Scoble
Being a good sport gets the Like button! :) - Aaron Brazell
Robert, right. I blocked him before because of this actually. Look at his digg page for example. He submitted only 374 news on Digg ang got 364 popular. I don't know if we see the same thing, but it looks _wrong_ for me. - directeur via NoiseRiver
Robert: I'm directeur! Don't mess with my brand ;-) Aaron is just Aaron! And please follow me! oh wait, you're already following me! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver
I've seen a few people post follow me messages. I'm here to follow not be followed - LPH
I just blocked someone for being a total asshole. Can dish it but can't take it. Know what I mean? - Dennis Howlett via twhirl
What I don't like is all of his fan base coming over here not even knowing how to use ff, or caring to use ff, but just adding him simply because they like him. Sigh... I was back and forth on the reason you were blocking him, but I completely understand now. - Dennis Jackson via twhirl
Go home, Dennis. You have more important things to do than waste time on FriendFeed anyway, right? - Aaron Brazell
I'm yet to block anyone. I think I just like being annoyed. - Mike Lewis
(Raising hand timidly) How do you define begging for followers? What action signifies that? - Abby Martin
haha, I guess I missed the memo that we entered high school again. I need to brush up on my drama. - Danish Khan via twhirl
Any clues who wrote it? Do you still have the chain e-mail? My older computer died, and all my old e-mails are on a DVD backup. Too lazy to restore them... - Mitchell Tsai
Hutch: Wish I were in shape. Sigh... Started running again & I can only do a few miles. Once upon a time marathons were ok. Time to work up to road race. There was a 75-yr-old guy (now probably 85) who was always faster than me. My goal was to get faster times than him. Also met a guy 100+ who was gunning for the "oldest guy to run a marathon" record. Unfortunately, there was a guy 5 years older who was still running...waiting for that guy to die... :-) - Mitchell Tsai
Mitch, next time, how about strategically placing a stick on his path. - Anna Haro
To be 100 y.o. and able to run a marathon. Damn that's tough. - Hutch Carpenter
My grandmother turned 102 this year. Uncle is 80s and still walks 5 miles around a lake every morning. - Mitchell Tsai
@HC--Ditto. And this is what inspires me to really be healthy and active. I am 29 and for the first time ever, I am realizing my body has a mind of its own--damn it! But seriously, I would love to be like those older runners, beating people much younger than I, like Mitchell. j/k Mitch ;) - Anna Haro
In 1992-95, there was a 65-yr-old lady who was like "smoked lightning". Her running times were also better than my fastest-ever times (even my age 18-25 times...) I've been out of running for 10 years, but I'm willing to bet people now are in even-better shape. It's a weird dichotomy. As a population, we're now super-obese (~25-35%) but we also have more super-fit. Maybe like with FriendFeed, the information-junkies can learn even faster...while "joe shmoe" thinks there are 48 states in the US. - Mitchell Tsai
When I was 17 and ran four marathons, best time was 3:14, I ran with a 50-year-old woman who ran 100-milers and regularly kicked my ass. - Robert Scoble
At UCLA in the gymnastics "open gym", I was telling someone the story of how "48% of Americans don't know that England is an island"...and one of my friends said "I think I should take a geography class". I was looking for the nearest hole to crawl into.... :-( The average person (not the IQ 120 UCLA type) is ...very... uninformed & FriendFeed would be totally overwhelming (unlike how it delights the information junkie addicted to reading and learning)... - Mitchell Tsai
Robert. Cool time! As a former 115 lb high school geek, I was only able to eeek out a 3:54 in the 1994 Los Angeles Marathon. My one & only time running more than 21 miles. There was a super-fat lady who I just passed a mile before the finish line. Embarassing. I could barely run 400m in 60 sec. Best event would have been 800m 2:24 (like a slow female college Div 2 runner). 100m at 14 sec. An Asian with no sprint speed. - Mitchell Tsai
Your work is amazing! My favorite is the flower! - Daynah
Daynah: Wish I could take credit, but these are pictures from other people. My work is all on Google Picasa (or my website). - Mitchell Tsai
Directuer, this is part of urban warfare and survival tactics training. Maybe this kid got his hands /idea from the some army guy or he just did it for kicks :)- - Peter Dawson
Somehow, I'm reminded of this joke: What does a redneck say before he dies? "Hey y'all watch this!" - Hutch Carpenter
I'm still pretty low key.. been good at not integrating my real life with net life... tho FaceBook has kinda messed it up for me... I'm looking at peacocks right now. Pictures to follow - Mona N via fftogo
@Mona--Admitting it is the first step. We can start a support group next week in the basement of my church. I'll bring the coffee. You supply the super wrong donut hamburgers. - Anna Haro
ok I carry myblackberry into restroom and reply to emails sometimes etc.. its just a fact of our lives now..Like screw that fr wherever I Am sending emails from. ,You got a response /info correct and in time ? :)- - Peter Dawson
Mark , that was a very subtle pun you throw out there :)- - Peter Dawson
Peter-somebody's gotta represent for subtlety here -:) - Mark Forman
HA! This is like confessional for me since I have no other outlets to dump my sudden vents. Believe it or not I'm not THAT socially retarded... HA - Mona N
@Mark--I just went back and read. LOL! that's my kind of funny. :) - Anna Haro
iPhone autotext replacement ftl. seriously. my typos are ridiculous :( - Mona N
If you're going to participate in the conversation, there's not much you can do about privacy. Just don't engage in known felonious behavior here, i guess is one approach. But what also concerns me is potential commercial use of this kind of information about me. I don't want to see unsolicited sales "offers" based on my online discussions. - Tom Landini
Mike, good post. My sense is privacy is a myth (btw, law enforcement uses NCIC, a comprehensive, powerful federal data base). Should you want an unvarnished look at the practical issues of privacy and tech today check out No Place to Hide by WaPo reporter Robert O'Harrow, Jr. - Dave Martin
Is does not seem to be a strong argument to counter "Will FriendFeed kill Twitter?" with "Did the web kill e-mail?" - let us see.. Will FF add SMS support? - Kishore Balakrishnan
I tally +5, but that is without numbers for the final two portions of the date (nor does it include any post-date in-house euphoria or disgust) - Michael W. May
I didn't invite him in if that's what you mean - Michelle Miller
So what about the ex gf talk and the phone call? Am I being petty? - Michelle Miller
Well you know how I feel about the phone call thing. You need to give him a break on the ex talk. He was probably just making conversation. - Rick Schmidt
was the phone call time sensitive or was he just shooting the breeze? Did he apologize? As for the exes. it depends on what he said. - RAPatton
Unless the phone call was about someone in the hospital, I'd say it's rude. The ex-girlfriend talk is a classic first date mistake. Sordid romantic lives is second date material. Both indicate a level of inexperience dating. - Mark Trapp
Talking on phone during date = FAIL ....and of course I return the courtesy, when I'm quiet on FF it means I'm on a good date ;) - Mona N via fftogo
ps people who talk about their pasts on first date = EMO. seriously. red flag. Michelle, move to SF. The female to male ratio is SO unfair. Our favor of course ;) - Mona N via fftogo
Don't get me wrong guys. He was VERY sweet. I don't wanna be too petty but those really bothered me. It's not a deal breaker or anything. @mona Packing now :) I wish! - Michelle Miller
What would a date be without the out-of-context harsh analysis of other people? Keep us updated! :) - Mark Trapp
did you twitter while on the date ?? next time do that.. yeah talking on the phone a big mistake . and even bigger mistake is talking about ex-g/f =EMO wreck !! WTF is he doing dating a girl with da ex still on is mind eh ? - Peter Dawson
I put my phone on vibrate. No twittering or anything. I'm trying not to snap judge but there will be another date :) - Michelle Miller
Awesome! It's like our own little friendfeed soap opera. Talking on the cell phone was a definite minus but talking about old exes (as long as its not gushing) doesn't really bother me. Thank god he didn't "ask" to kiss you . . . that's just awkward - Lindsey Smith
@lindsey Thank you. I've talked to my friends about this and several of them say they would like the guy to ask before they kiss them. Not me, he surprised me and it was GREAT! lol - Michelle Miller
Well if I ever need to go back into the dating game, at least I know that there is a support group here. LOL - Aaron Brazell
The interesting part to me is the phone calls. First date, let it slide. Second date - tell him after he answers the first call that is a no no. Ask him what is so important that it cannot wait. - Russellreno
@russell I know and I will. I mean I love my crackberry but there is a time to put it down. AND I'm an addict. Maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am. - Michelle Miller
Waiting for the first "man that's backwards thinking man from the suits who want to control our thoughts man information needs to be free man don't need to fact check anything man" comment. - Mark Trapp
"Neil Turok - Cambridge University
The evidence that the universe emerged 14 billion years ago from an event called 'the big bang' is overwhelming. Yet the cause of this event remains deeply mysterious. In the conventional picture, the 'initial singularity' is unexplained. It is simply assumed that the universe somehow sprang into existence full of 'inflationary' energy, blowing up the universe into the large, smooth state we observe today. While this picture is in excellent agreement with current observations, it is both contrived and incomplete, leading us to suspect that it is not the final word." - Robert Seidman via Bookmarklet
Very cool, skimmed through it in hopes of watching it in full later. I like how you can sum all knowledge about theoretical physics in an abbreviated line. - Mark Trapp
Enjoy your posts Robert, especially the science things you post here. - Hutch Carpenter
Thanks, Hutch. I didn't write a post about my *own* sharing strategy. Maybe I should -- it's mostly to share stuff I'm interested in that I don't think many other people will share. - Robert Seidman
I think the reason why we see less of this thoughtful sort of writing from folks and more extremist stuff is because the former is harder to frame, harder to communicate, harder to headline. But it's worth it. - Adam Lasnik
Thanks directuer, and Adam. Sometimes it seems people seemingly want to aggregate around the extremes. Do we like being polarized? I dunno, but sometimes it seems that way. My own experimentation indicates extremism is much better for trafic than a balanced approach. In a system of capitalism that leads me to believe extremism will thrive. - Robert Seidman
@Adam and it also isn't a popular as the quickie newsie type of stuff. I know I try hard to writing more thoughtful posts but that definitely isn't the road to *popularity* - Steven Hodson
Robert, I generally call this sensationalism. I don't know if it's the right word in English too but it's all about catching attention. There's so much noise all arround that it becomes harder day after day to get attention. - directeur via NoiseRiver
I've been wondering about the extremist headlines/declarations angle of blogging. Over time, if you do too much of that, don't you risk undercutting your integrity with readers? - Hutch Carpenter
That's a great question, Hutch. But one of the unfortunate aspects of, say, TechMeme, IMHO, is that sensationalist bloggers / headlines will still get featured again and again, and given the traffic on Techmeme, that traffic is gonna result in major clickage. - Adam Lasnik
Adam: The avalanche effect. Once you're at it it keeps on rolling. Current systems of notoriety are so simplist that they are silly sometimes. - directeur via NoiseRiver
I don't see it as being limited to the blogsphere. We love to pit things against another. Obama vs. Hillary, O'Reilly vs. Olbermann, Apple vs. Microsoft, Yahoo vs. Google. I don't know how to move the needle on that to keep all of that exclusively in the realm of "Dodgers vs. Giants". On some level, we love the competitive extremes and that extends to the blogsphere because its part of our nature. - Robert Seidman
Great point on the speed with which the A-Listers have built up their following on FF. Getting your existing base of followers to follow you somewhere else will always be fast compared to the time required to build that initial base. - Mike Doeff
SMS isn't why Twitter will survive. The iPhone is why FriendFeed will thrive. - David Weiner
Robert-good post but best comment you made was on competitive nature of people. Thanks for the grist-great way to start my day/week. - Mark Forman
If Twitter is a communication service as you said, then it's conversation system is completely broken. It's far more easy to have a conversation on FriendFeed than it is on Twitter. I agree that Twitter can't be compared to an aggregation service, but it can't be complete without a good conversation (replies) system. - fbrunel
I agree with Dave for once. I love FF iPhone. - Michael J Cohen
Fbrunel: television and radio are communications systems that lack the conversational ability. Twitter doesn't work for me personally very well as a conversation or communication tool. But American Idol doesn't work for me either, but 25 million to 30 million people don't care what I think :-) -
