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Thomas Hawk

SFPD Officer Threatens to Break Skater's Arm "Like a Twig" - http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news...

October 2 from Digg - Comment - Like - Share

Anthony Citrano, Jeff P. Henderson, Helen Sventitsky and 5 other people liked this

Well, was the skater really scrawny? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

47 more comments

Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Thomas Hawk

Yup, the kids were in violation of at least two laws. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Damn, can't skateboard in SF? That sucks major ass - Maxamad (Amazigh)

Yeah, that does suck. I wasn't aware of that law. Are Segways legal in SF? On a side note, it's usually not a great idea to call a police officer a fucking dick, or direct any other profanity at them. Things usually go a lot better if you are polite. - Cristo

Cristo, indeed, the kid was an idiot for calling the cop that. But being an idiot isn't against the law and as the one with the gun and badge and obligation to protect and serve, the cop acted poorly. If you are going to be given the privilege of a gun and badge in society you can't break down simply because someone is disrespectful to you. Being disrespectful is not a crime. - Thomas Hawk

No, but, Thomas, you seem to continue to skip right on by the fact that the kids were committing a crime. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Speeding is against the law, and I've gotten off with a warning plenty of times by being polite to the officer that stopped me. The kid could have avoided going to jail and having his skateboard taken if he had kept his mouth shut. I'm not defending the cop, I'm just being practical. - Cristo

Also, I'm not sure being given a gun and a badge is a privilege. It's not a job that I would want, and I'm glad there are those who are willing to do it. Not for enforcing skateboarding laws, but for keeping the truly bad people away from me. - Cristo

Anyone have a link to what the actual law is regarding skateboards, segways, and scooters on San Francisco city streets? - Cristo

If law enforcement keeps behaving in this fashion, then it will only get worse, because people will get less and less respect for the police, be more rude, etc. It's a vicious circle which I think needs to be broken by the law enforcement agencies. - Rene Wirtz

MVB, violating the law should not result in that kind of police harassment. Skateboarding is largely a victimless crime, like jaywalking. Not allowing skateboarding in SF by the way is an idiotic law. - Thomas Hawk

"Not allowing skateboarding in SF by the way is an idiotic law." -- I certainly agree with this. - Cristo

Sorry, I'm siding with the officer on this one, unless you can explain to me when disrespect of anyone, let alone directed at an adult police officer by a child, is appropriate. Perhaps you have been in the Peoples Socialist Republic of Berkley too long, but, if that was me, my dad would have whooped my ass for saying that to anyone. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

"while also claiming that at no point did he threaten anyone." Um. - Andrew C

Yup, Andrew. That, too was wrong. Here's the deal: you can not use the behavior of one to excuse the behavior of the other. That, ultimately, is my point. The kid broke a few different laws, including resisting arrest. The officer should have been a little more polite. The result ends up the same: kid goes to jail. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

MVB, the thing is that we have laws though and disrespecting a cop isn't one of them. Even then though threatening to break a citizen's arm is uncalled for. Cops need to have level heads. This guy does not have one. - Thomas Hawk

So, you think disrespect is perfectly fine? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

"not perfectly fine" != "deserves threats of violence from authority figures". - Andrew C

Disrespect is wrong, but the one person that should always be respectful is the police man. If he gets to be disrespectful, where does it end?! - Rene Wirtz

MVB The cop needs to be the adult here even when the other adults are acting childish. - CW™

and "valid arrest" != "comes with a side of threats". - Andrew C

Because after threats comes unnecessary tazering or shooting. - Rene Wirtz

I give up. There is no use when everyone jumps up defending a snot-nosed, belligerent twerp who clearly has an out-of-control case of "entitlementism." Like I said before, if I acted that way my dad would have doubled whatever I got and I'm better for it. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

@MVB: I am not fully disagreeing with you. It is true that kids today are a lot less respectful, but cops these days are not how they used to be either, when just raising their voice a little bit would keep people in check. The skateboarder was wrong, but the cop was also wrong and he should have behaved better. - Rene Wirtz

MVB, I think everyone here would agree the kid was disrespectful and broke the law. - Kenton

Apparently all but one, Kenton. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

MVB, I don't think disrespect is fine at all. The kid was in the wrong for calling the cop what he did. But disrespecting the police is permitted via the 1st Amendment and until that's repealed I'm not sure it will ever be considered illegal. An unlawful use of force is in fact illegal though, and although the officer did not actually follow through on his threat, threatening an... more... - Thomas Hawk

Thomas, did the kid deserve to be arrested? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

No he did not. He deserved to be cited for the crime of skateboarding and released on site. It's a stupid victimless crime, like jaywalking. Question. Do you think this *very public* video builds cooperation, support and partnership between the SFPD and the community? - Thomas Hawk

Insulting a cop is not a crime. Yet. - Andrew C

So, what other crimes can I commit for which I should not be arrested? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Speeding? - Kenton

Smoking marijuana. Almost all traffic violations. Usually you are not arrested unless it's a misdemeanor or worse. - Cristo

Infractions != misdemeanors != felonies. however, committing an infraction, then acting like a moron can instantly get someone into "disturbing the peace" - a misdemeanor... and incidentally, while i think the cop stepped over the line, i have no idea what it's like to be one and i have absolutely no interest in creating some new set of rules that they all of a sudden need to be super-polite either. - Jeremy Toeman

Sorry, way, way too politically correct for me. Try talking to me the same way that little punk talks, and I'll guaranty the officer looks like Mother Teresa. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

"politically correct"? Perhaps you mean _legally_ correct. - Andrew C

MVB, it's a crime to park at an expired meter. Do you want to be arrested for that? There's a big difference between crimes that actually require someone to be arrested for public safety reason (say a murder, a flight risk) and a crime that's minor (as a traffic infraction). Should he have called the officer a dick? No, even if he has a protected right to, it's not wise. It just pissed... more... - dannysullivan

@Jeremy - my problem is people inventing "new set of rules" that ordinary civilians basically have to kowtow to police. - Andrew C

Apparently, it might not be illegal, either http://sf.metblogs.com/2009... - dannysullivan

dannysullivan++ - Andrew C

@Andrew since when does "being polite to those who risk their lives for us" (and yes, they do - not every day/all the time, but that *IS* their job) == "kowtow"? again, why is anyone defending this punk kid's actions? do you think cops should have to be treated this way while doing their jobs? - Jeremy Toeman

We're not defending his actions. We're upset that a police officer threatened to break his arm. Mouthing off does not = I'll break your arm. He's a minor, right? Give him a ticket. No ID, arrest him to issue the citation, hey, that's fine too. But no, I don't think we need police officers venting their frustration that people might assume they're assholes by acting like them. He gives... more... - dannysullivan

I saw that memo also, and it wasn't clear to me what the law is now in 2009: http://www.sfgov.org/site... - Cristo

"2. Prohibits motorized skateboards on streets, sidewalks, "or any other part of a highway or on any bikeway, bicycle path or trail, equestrian trail, or hiking or recreational trail." (CA Vehicle Code §21968. Interestingly, California passed SB441 in October 1999 allowing motorized scooters on public roadways under certain conditions1.)" -- This one is particularly interesting to me because I have an electric skateboard. Apparently I'm not allowed to use it anywhere though. :( - Cristo

@Jeremy - no, police shouldn't be treated that way. But, yeah, what dannysullivan said. The appropriate response to rudeness to cops is not police violence, nor a threat of it. I could turn it around on y'all - why is anyone defending this cop? - Andrew C

See, if the kid had just yelled "you lie," that would have been much better. Imagine the campaign contributions! C'mon, gotta lighten it up a bit around here :) - dannysullivan

Are all streets in San Francisco considered to be in a "business district?" - Bill Slawski

I ask because SEC. 7.2.13. NON-MOTORIZED USER-PROPELLED VEHICLES (NUV) (as amended in 2008) of the San Francisco Municipal Code would appear to allow skateboarding on city streets that aren't in a business district. Has the law changed, and the online version of the municipal code not been changed? Or did this arrest happen in a business district? - Bill Slawski

Robert Scoble

Watch next week what @davewiner does with RSS (decentralized Tweet distribution):

September 4 from email - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Rui Pereira, Stephen Edgar and 54 other people liked this

If this is all working Dave Winer will see this post, via Twitter, in his RSS aggregator via the RSS Cloud. What does this mean? We will soon be able to build our own Twitters that interact with both Tweets as well as old-style blog posts via RSS. Oh, yeah, all in near real time. At most a minute between publish and reads. Right Dave? - Robert Scoble from email

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By the way, the bridge is beautiful tonight and a good metaphor for what Dave is building: a bridge between Twitter and other things. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I like this because I have faith in Dave, not because this paragraph was completely coherent. - Jimminy

Jimminy: it took me more than a year to get RSS. Hopefully I can explain this better soon. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Got it! http://images.scripting.com/archive... - Dave Winer

After finally getting RSS and now Twitter, now we have to figure out how they intertwine. Hopefully that will be easier. - Robin Whitson

This is Scobles cloud-enabled feed, emanating from Twitter. http://twitter.rsscloud.org/Scoblei... - Dave Winer

Robert, It's just the one sentence in the middle that I'm still trying to understand, I'm guessing you mean we can use our source to interact with Twitter and Blogs. I'm guessing this is posting to both locations. I still can't use Google Reader, it doesn't feel right to have to sit on a site to wait for feeds, my browser should update me when something new comes in. - Jimminy

What does it mean Dave? - Chris Saad

Ya, I am a little confused about that paragraph as well and I have a good understanding of what RSS is - Holden Page

oops, I tried seeing mine. Access denied. :) - motownmutt

Dave, you must tell me more. :-) How is this different than just subscribing to Scoble's Twitter feed RSS in your favorite reader? (PM me if I can try it) - Jesse Stay

I have a client doing simultaneous video viewing and messaging in a viral, shareable platform now - Karma Martell

Hey Robert I heard you were dissing my friend Mahendra, whats up with that? - Joe

You leaving him out in the cold? - Joe

Jesse, it's explained here. http://rsscloud.org/ - Dave Winer

J: not that I know. Huh? - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Dave - very cool, so is this competing with Hubbub then? Robert, you can already create your own Twitter by publishing to your blog and subscribers getting updates via RSS. :-) This makes that stream real-time, which Twitter doesn't have. - Jesse Stay

http://ff.im/7Fmve Robert this is what I mean, he feels left out in cold! - Joe

Jesse, this was developed in January 2001. http://www.thetwowayweb.com/soapmee... - Dave Winer

I wondered why I can't read my rss stream in twitter, other way round is possible but not functional. - Michael Jung from Android

J. deakins: I had no idea who he is. I've followed him now. Jesse: the thing that this opens up for me is real time RSS and the potential for building Twitters we control. The world feels a lot like 1993 right now. Apple controls mobile. Twitter controls microblogging. Sort of like AOL and Compuserve did. Then things changed in 1994, and I see this as a step toward that. - Robert Scoble

I know that folks in business and media are all asking themselves why they are giving Twitter control over their brands and lives. Think about all the free advertising CNN has given Twitter this year. For what? So that we can take away their news brand. That seems monumentally stupid to me even though I'm benefiting from this stupidity on media's part big time. - Robert Scoble

so you think they should be using Twitter or what? - Holden Page

Holden: I think they should say "follow our Twitter at CNN.com/twitter" instead of at "twitter.com/CNN." Get it yet? - Robert Scoble

oh GOD yes - finally :) - Chris Saad

makes sense and would be smarter but I see it as not stupidity, just an oversight. I give them kudos for adopting social media to begin with. They'll work out the kinks as they go along - Holden Page

totally unrelated but what were you doing up there tonight? it has been ridiculously beautiful lately. - metalerik

Robert, the only thing different about it that I can see is that it's real-time. You've been able to create your own Twitter since 2000 (or whenever RSS came to be). - Jesse Stay

metalerik: I picked my son up in Petaluma and are now driving home. Well, except now we're in an Apple store. :-) - Robert Scoble

Jesse: real time is very important. - Robert Scoble

Dave, so the only advantage is that it pre-dates Hubbub? I'm just curious, constructively, what the advantages are. - Jesse Stay

Robert, Twitter isn't real-time though - Jesse Stay

Holden: it's more than an oversight. Of course, I have the same sins (I give my brand over to Twitter and FriendFeed and Posterous and Facebook). Maybe that's why I recognize that sin in others. :-) Of course I didn't have the world's #1 news brand and don't charge thousands of dollars per minute for advertising, which CNN is now giving away for free to Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Robert - Apple store good. Getting home on time unlikely - Arthur Coleman

Jesse: Twitter is real time enough. Note that Dave got this original Tweet within a minute. - Robert Scoble

I'm glad YOU said it Scoble :) - Chris Saad

Arthur: I pay $6 to cross the bridge and $50 to buy Snow Leopard. Steve Jobs tax paid. Now we can go home! :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: It's a new arena for many large corporations. They are adapting quite quickly all things considered. - Holden Page

"yeah, you wouldn't belieeeeeeeeeeve how bad the traffic was..." heheh - metalerik

Holden: yup. This is why RSS Cloud is interesting. It is yet another bridge between Twitter and owning your own brand again. - Robert Scoble

metalerik: it was horrid. It seems like I've been driving all day. Oh, wait, I have been. Sigh. - Robert Scoble

Dave is on a roll. This is super! - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

i'm pretty sure i never lost my brand dude... - Jeremy Toeman

this gave me a post idea and you brought up some interesting points scoble. Will have to make sure to link back to this convo. - Holden Page

Robert, when I post to my blog you get it immediately as well. - Jesse Stay

i can't help but feel this is all about something relevant to the 0.000001% of people who *both* create AND consume a tremendous amount of content, not the majority of people who barely do either... - Jeremy Toeman

Jesse: excellent. Now you'll get everything I do immediately. :-) - Robert Scoble

Jeremy: true. Most people don't care, which is why most people use Facebook. But anyone who has a monetizeable content brand, like CNN, should care deeply. - Robert Scoble

so you think CNN has "lost brand value" because they use twitter? - Jeremy Toeman

BTW - here's your missing bridge piece. :) http://images.earthcam.com/ecnetwo... - Jeremy Toeman

Here's an example: http://friendfeed.com/staynal... - Jesse Stay

Or even faster: http://friendfeed.com/jessest... - Jesse Stay

Jesse FTW. - Jeremy Toeman

super happy that robert is trying this out. i hope this makes RSS more interesting to you again :) these are good times. REDUX! - sull

Need to play with this and think through it but I believe that several of our brands are going to be interested in this - thanks for sharing Robert, and thanks for continuing to push the boundaries Dave. - Bill Sanders

Robert: Have a good weekend syncing Snow Leopard with Exchange - it's big new thing, I hear - Arthur Coleman

Next piece in this thread: RSS has no Fail Whale. http://www.scripting.com/stories... - Dave Winer

That last comment is spam. - Garin Kilpatrick

BTW -- Robert has oversold here a bit. First, don't look to what I do with RSS next week, look to what others do with it. And it may not happen next week. That's why I, as an engineer, generally don't make promises like the one Robert made. Slippage happens all the time, the best laid plans of mice and men... http://wiki.answers.com/Q... - Dave Winer

Does anyone - besides Dave and Scoble - still use RSS? I always wanted to love RSS, but I simply don't don't see the reason. It's a solution looking for a problem. Even without all the scalability problems - Twitter already delivers much more value than any other rss-based method ever did. I like the idea of a distributed microblogging system like Dave proposes for rssCloud, but don't think this will happen with RSS ever. - gui ambros

Robert Scoble

Mashable and LA Times discussed here (I changed this post to remove inaccuracy in headline).

September 2 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Thomas Hawk, Darren Heydon, Rob Diana and 20 other people liked this

Well... What can you say? They've used my video work before with no credit/links. Is it typical of the site now? - Jolie O'Dell

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That's why I love TechCrunch. - Guilherme da Rosa

TechCrunch isn't the best about linking back, either. Just sayin'. I still love TC, though. Good reads. - Jolie O'Dell

TC is pretty horrendous about linking back. but this is pretty bad on Mashable's part - Holden Page

If the article's down, I'm sure it's cached. - Jolie O'Dell

Copying? In what way? I saw the statement (on Current) and wrote an article. The image I found in a cc search. If it's copyrighted, I'll take the image down asap. - Ben Parr

Ben: Can you link us to the post in question? - Jolie O'Dell

Ben posted his article before this was posted, it looks like it happened the other way around Scoble. http://mashable.com/2009... - Jimminy

@Jolie: If we use your video work without credit/links, just email me and I'll fix it. - Ben Parr

jimminy good find. Mashable is good again - Holden Page from IM

It was part of a post on Dan Zarella's work. Pete referenced the video but made no mention of the fact that it was originally created for and published on RWW. Now, to be fair, Dan asked and received permission to use the video on his own, but it just doesn't look good for Mashable. And people notice. - Jolie O'Dell

I just sent you a DM Scoble. It sums up to this: I do not appreciate your attacking my journalistic integrity. I have never, on purpose or ever, stole content from anyone and liberally link back if you were a consistent reader of my articles - Ben Parr

Furthermore, the LA time piece came AFTER my article, published on September 1st, not the 2nd. - Ben Parr

Glad to hear this one was a misunderstanding... whew. The drama! - Jolie O'Dell

Ben, actually there is a copyrighted article in the Op-ed from 6:30 yesterday. http://www.latimes.com/news... - Jimminy

Oh, the irony! ;D - Guilherme da Rosa

Scoble. do you intend on retracting? - Holden Page from IM

Fight - Wayne Sutton from iPhone

Jeez... - Jolie O'Dell

Scoble doesn't have to, the first link on the page linked to my second link. - Jimminy

im on mobile im so I can't really tell lol - Holden Page from IM

What a hot mess this is. - Jimminy

Why do I get the feeling we're going to read all about this on Techmeme later today or tomorrow? Can we all just get along? - Wayne Sutton from iPhone

Jimminy - thanks for the link. I took the statement from - http://current.com/sl... and credited it to Current in the article. I never take or steal from anyone purposely for any reason. Ever. - Ben Parr

Ben: how did you get the release? From Current.tv? Why not link to the original? I've Tweeted all of this. - Robert Scoble

I #BlameDrewsCancer - drew olanoff

ROFL @drew - Jolie O'Dell

I believe ben has linked - Holden Page from IM

Ben: why didn't you link to the original? - Robert Scoble

go drew lol - Holden Page from IM

someone dog pile on someone please. - geoff hines

And, Ben, someone sent me this post. So, perception out there is why I wrote this. Glad you cleared it up and I'm sorry I questioned your integrity. I didn't see attribution in the original and it looked strange. - Robert Scoble

that statement was of sufficient public interest that I figured the lack of attribution wasn't the biggest deal in the world. I read the statement on mashable and was glad to get the chance to. of course generally speaking attribution is important, I'm just saying. - Marshall Kirkpatrick

Scoble: I did link, to current.tv's homepage. The statement appears on the homepage when you visit the first time. It changes after the first time you visit the homepage. That is something I will remember for the future. - Ben Parr

...and if you ever wanted to see a navel-gazing blogger sh*tstorm in six minutes flat... HERE WE ARE!!! - Jolie O'Dell

Even though he was wrong, I'm glad Scoble is now the copyright police. AP was doing a really bad job. Kidding, it's an important issue and it's good it gets talked about. - Dominic Jones

Scoble, he got it from the Current site, it's front page there currently. There is no link to the LA Times version on Current either. - Jimminy

Interesting. Regardless of linking back or not, I'm tired of bloggers not coming up with their own stories/angles and writing posts ABOUT other posts, period. My unsolicited $0.02. - Jennifer Leggio

Marshall: it's always best to explain how you got the information and link to the original, if it's on the web somewhere. It's like forgetting a footnote in a college paper. - Robert Scoble

Check your facts, always, plz. Kthx. - Andru Edwards

Jennifer, in our mutual defense, only so much news happens in any given day. And unlike @arrington, not all of us can just make sh*t up. ;) - Jolie O'Dell

Lmao jolie - Holden Page from IM

My question, how the f*ck did the LA Times get a copyright on this when it came directly from Laura and Euna on the Current site. - Jimminy

Jolie, Yeah, but letting news drive all of the content is just lazy. Then again I tend to veer toward more feature / interview type stuff anyway. To each his - or her - own. :) We're in agreement about @arrington, though. ;-) - Jennifer Leggio

Is this Armageddon? Tech blog wars! - Jesse Stay

wow!. Well, I do like Mashable, now and again but their overly PANIC headlines and thier sometimes shady reporting makes me think twice before retweeting. The incident that stands out he most to me was the whole 1984 Kindle thing, when I just took 2 minutes and was able to find it in the Kindle store at Amazon.com and also was able to download a copy to my Kindle. - PJ Edwards

Jimminy: LA Times puts copyright on everything. Truth is LA Times didn't link either. which is why my reader was confused. By the way, I've just apologized to Ben on Twitter. See, it all works out. - Robert Scoble

Jennifer: I am worried about that trend as well. However, most stories are broken by just one (of millions) of instutitions, or are reporting on a public statement and we all pick up on it. I try to give a smart analysis on those stories though. - Ben Parr

Ew. - Kishau Rogers

Robert: I appreciate it, apology accepted. These misunderstandings happen. - Ben Parr

I just want everyone to know that I love all of you - group hug? - Jesse Stay

PJ - I've seen a lot of comments lately about Mashable feeling more "tabloid" like. - Jennifer Leggio

@Jesse Stay: It's a Twitter prank ;D - Guilherme da Rosa

Ben - Agree. A unique angle helps, but sometimes I think those unique stories are diminished because everyone is racing to get the most page views. - Jennifer Leggio

Ben: the thing is, Mashable has a rep as per http://live.louisgray.com/2008... and that's why I jumped in. - Robert Scoble

GROUP HUG! - Jolie O'Dell

<3 - drew olanoff

I agree Jesse, and I also agree with Drew, we'll just #blamedrewscancer - Jimminy

s2 - Guilherme da Rosa

I wonder what we're going to blame things on after Drew beats his cancer? - Robert Scoble

Also - I'm going to wager Current didn't link back to the holy la times because they broke the release story. ChloeS had the inside track before the times knew it was daylight. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

You. - Jolie O'Dell

I'll still blame his cancer, and scoble - Jesse Stay

#BlameScoble! Or... not... Ok, I'm outtie for now. Be kind, peeps! - Jolie O'Dell

I own blamescoble.com. Dave Winer thinks I should create a wiki out of it - what do you think? - Jesse Stay

Jennifer: It's not that I have anything against it and I do in fact RT Mashable a lot, it's just something that might need some work. Like constructive criticism. - PJ Edwards

Robert: I was not editor then, and it's a much larger and stronger team now. - Ben Parr

@robert: seeing as how you KNOW PEOPLE AT MASHABLE, why didn't you bother to verify it as accurate before making it public? - Jeremy Toeman

Jolie: Group hug! Jennifer and PJ: Always feel free to email criticism or thoughts at ben@mashable.com, and I will email you mine. - Ben Parr

PJ - Agreed. I actually wrote a post that dug into the topic on PR 2.0 last week. I would link it, but I don't want to post whore. :) - Jennifer Leggio

I think Scoble should do a guest post on Mashable - Wayne Sutton from iPhone

Jesse, I say we take Scoble's avatar and replace his mouth with a text input and then we can cram the stuff we blame Scoble for down his throat. In a nice way. - Jimminy

So what's the verdict on the Gmail piece?? - Minu Nianda

Jeremy Toeman makes the best point in this thread. - Jennifer Leggio

Jeremy: in hindsight that probably would have been better way to go. I live in public, though, for better or for worse. Sometimes better. Sometimes worse. No one can accuse me of playing footsie behind closed doors, though. - Robert Scoble

Crap happens, and I'm glad to have people like Robert Scoble paying attention. I'm sure it wasn't anything purposely done, but the fact that we have checks and balances and a code of conduct is a great thing. - drew olanoff

@Robert: what kind of a BS answer is that? you PUBLICLY ACCUSED them. period. no footsie, no nothing. now if *anyone* thinks they actually did that, you are to blame, because they might not have noticed your follow-up tweet. it's irresponsible. - Jeremy Toeman

I don't see the link on the Mashable article to the Current page. Where is it? I find it funny that Ben Parr and Mashable are being called out for using a statement, and ostensibly linking to Current, from Current employees instead of the LA Times. Considering the story is identical on Current and the LA Times, it's almost likely they issued the statement to multiple news outlets.... more... - Mark Trapp

Thanks drew. Truth is, a reader of mine sent me this and wondered why Mashable does this. So, glad the perception was dealt with in public. - Robert Scoble

@Drew: yes, the code of conduct is to VERIFY RUMORS before making accusations. - Jeremy Toeman

@Robert: something you could have verified and cleared up in private, there was no reason to do so in public. - Jeremy Toeman

Mark, we've already concluded the direct-from-source version was the one on Current, still haven't seen a proper link to it though. - Jimminy

Jeremy: fair enough. I work in public. That's my tool of choice. - Robert Scoble

One reason not to link to the original is because then your readers will see how little value you added to the piece you copied. - Dominic Jones

Robert - But to Jeremy's point, if you're trying to serve the community, don't you owe it to the community to check accuracy? Otherwise it's perpetuating the problem. We went straight to an issue of accused plagiarism to one of potential libel. - Jennifer Leggio

Jennifer: true. I went over the line. - Robert Scoble

Jimminy: fair enough. Thought I was blind with the link, because in this discussion, Ben Parr said he linked the story to Current. - Mark Trapp

Wow, everything unfolded and wrapped up in 45 minutes. Talk about real time. - Mona Nomura

I added a clarification to the bottom of the article in question so nobody else gets confused. Hopefully that ends all confusion and @scobleizer and I can be friends again. If there are future issues, I respond to emails fast and DMs faster. - Ben Parr

Mark, the post has been amended, the link is at the very bottom of the article now. - Jimminy

Pete Cashmore stole my heart with his good looks! - sean percival

I hope Armageddon ends up in a group hug like this - Jesse Stay

this reminds me of that time Glenn Beck misconstrued something someone said and then got called on it and apologized...wait, dammit, that didn't happen that was just a dream I had last night argh - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

here is engagement;p - zʍıɔ

What you didn't see in the video of Robert interviewing me was that we were, in fact, playing footsie. Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. Sorry, Robert. It had to be said in light of all this public venting. :) - Lon Cohen

Here we go again..... So I had a look and coming in late on this I see at the bottom Mashable link to Current - OK, all fixed everyone happy. I went and read the louisgray.com post @Scoble linked to above and Louis links to a post on parislemon.com regarding Ars Technica so I read that and am then having a quick look at the Ars post and a 'similar' post is recommended by Ars to me on... more... - Stephen Edgar

Jeremy Toeman

had no idea i was using a very outdated version of NeoOffice (Snow Leopard wouldn't launch it!) - big fail on my part. upgrading now!

August 30 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

I don't see the point of using NeoOffice with OpenOffice for Aqua, @bigtoe - Prolific Programmer from IM

been using it for a while, really used to it. any major arguments for OO? - Jeremy Toeman from email

Andrew Fowler

@jtoeman Love to get your perspective: You can comment here: http://friendfeed.com/guhmshoo

August 12 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

but commenting here doesn't get the comment back to your blog... - Jeremy Toeman

8 more comments

We made a decision a while ago to turn off comments on our blog. See: http://www.newsvetter.com/2009... Not everyone agrees with this policy, but no one has cared that much either. Do you not want to comment here? - Andrew Fowler

commenting here is fine, but it'll only reach a ridiculously tiny fraction of readers of your post. which basically means its more of a discussion between me and you, which we might as well do over email. - Jeremy Toeman

to put it another way, there's very little emotional, personal, or business incentive to comment here - which is the problem of disassociating your comment stream from your readership... - Jeremy Toeman

Thanks Jeremy. I hear what you're saying. BTW, Tom Foremski reposted our article over at: http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/. Your comment will likely get more bang for its buck over there anyway. - Andrew Fowler

i'd be very happy to have my comments show up on your site - not really looking for any particular bang, but to relegate discussion to friendfeed without it showing up elsewhere is just not productive... - Jeremy Toeman

Wow. This must be some comment. Let's have it. :) - Andrew Fowler

it's only the best comment ever! ;) - Jeremy Toeman

Ok. I'll turn on comments. Do not disappoint. - Andrew Fowler

Hmm. Do I approve Jeremy's comment or not? - Andrew Fowler

Franklin Pettit

The Rise and Fall of FriendFeed - http://www.fpettit.com/2009...

August 11 from A Blog by Franklin Pettit - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Iain Baker, abacab and 3 other people liked this

I don't think FriendFeed has a user base of 45 million. Thats roughly twitter's user base. - DGentry

4 more comments

Ok. That number was not solid. I pulled that from another source. I should have linked it and stated that the number was not verified. - Franklin Pettit from email

It is estimated that FriendFeed's user base is between 170,000 and 200,000. - Louis Gray

I'd wager no more than 200K "registered users", and no more than 15K "active users". The most popular users have no higher than 50K followers, and considering the similarity of user profiles (Scoble, Leo, Mashable, Kevin Rose, etc) it's likely that they shared many (most) users. This is substantiated by casual browsing the most popular and most active users subscriber base. I could be wrong, but I see no evidence to point to higher numbers than that... - Jeremy Toeman

366,112 users being tracked via FFHolic.com - AJ Batac

ouch, so much for my math! - Jeremy Toeman

Robert Scoble

Talk about Facebook buying FriendFeed here (on FriendFeed, of course):

August 10 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Chris Martin, lolise and 164 other people liked this

I'm not sure what it means, but I hope the goodness of Friendfeed stays intact. - Tom Landini

224 more comments

About time! - Rob H. from iPhone

I guess Facebook just got real time search engine! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

What do facebook get out of it? - Ruchit Garg

Fact or fiction? - Jason Cronkhite from iPhone

I haven't seen likes and comments stream real-time this fast before. - ydfeed

It depends on who lays claim to our posted and aggregated material. - jcunwired

it could work. if Friendfeed completely replaces Facebook - Edgar Rodríguez

I think it's a brilliant move, although bringing this into the Facebook walled garden would ruin it. - Derek Shanahan

how much for? - Ruchit Garg

Is it true Robert? - Kevin Whalen

BAD 'n SAD :(( - sid 【ツ】

Great match to take on the Twitter machine. - Ryan Cummins

what is next..facebook killing twitter integration...SCORE....?? - Denis

++Edgar - Ryan

Good for Facebook, BAD for us. NOOOOOOOOOOOO - Nir Ben Yona

Presumably a technology acquisition then, Facebook is buying the team and the tech. - DGentry

I don't like it - Jason Hargrove

Bad news, if true. - LogEx

Just because Facebook bought Friendfeed, doesn't necessarily mean they will do anything with the service. At least maybe not right away. People need to chill out. - Alex Knight

hope it doesn't mess w/ twitter integration - Ken Seto

makes a lot of sense - f.b. now has a power house of real-time all-stars. fixes many of the feature 'wish' lists for f.b. - actually a major positive sign for innovation. congrats to the F.F. team. - michael sean wright

How can i shut down my ff account? - Fotis Alexandrou

I need a few hours and possibly large amounts of chocolate - Bwana ☠

If you are right, that "Facebook just got real time search engine", that is good - as FB really, really needed it for a long time. - Bora Zivkovic

:( - Sinem Co

yes, this is fast. Reminds me of a few hours ago when I was on Freenode - Ian Tindale

There goes your data. - Jason Hargrove

This will probably be bad. like all purchases, it will be an "afterthought" and never be fully allowed to develop and flourish. - Ryan Jones

Man this is really SUCKS!! :((( we all know Facebook strategies on the web :(( Whey will drive FriendFeed to the helll and I'm pretty sure of this :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( BAD SUCKS SAD :((( - FFTornado

It almost seemed inevitable since Facebook has been copying so much of Friendfeed in recent months. It's good for the founders of FF and may benefit those of us who use both on a regular basis. Maybe they'll just leave FF alone? - Kenley Neufeld

Funny thing is, if you posted about this on Facebook, 99.9999% of it's users would go "huh, what's FriendFeed anyway?" - Richard Matthias

someone tell me what they will do with it? Nothing maybe? Kill it, maybe? - Francine Hardaway

Wonder how they'll integrate, separate services with more interaction or FF swallowed by Facebook. - Steven Cains

Buy as is use it's IP and close it down or run as separate business? Either way, didn't see that coming. - Keith Bennett from BuddyFeed

It was bound to go down. Like we used to say on the block shootin' dice "Big Bank Take Little Bank" - professor daddyo

I do, however, wish tha tmore sites would implement this commenting engine. - Ryan Jones

Fotis: haha, wait too long, and you'll never be able to close your FF account ;) - Jason Hargrove

not believing it until another source confirms... - Benton

Congrats to the friendfeed team. Worried about the future though. - Andy Roth

Whats FriendFeed anyways? - Marco Horta

so that Facebook can maybe copyright the "Like" button? lol - Than R

How are we going to abbreviate it now? FBFF? FFFB? F^3B ? - Harry Wolff

I receive the breaking news via BNO News at this moment: Facebook acquires FriedFeed... - Torsten Eckert

haha you're right Richard - Ken Seto

I am stuck in Texas and have not confirmed myself. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Wow - Rodfather

OMG. - Nathan Chase

maybe they can implement threads? - Jeremy Toeman

It looks like a defensive move. I think it's better fro FB to acquire FF than incorporating twitter functionalities in their status feature. - Pablo Paniagua

double wow. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Friendbook? Facefeed? - Jeff Harbert

If it's true, I suspect FriendFeed as we know it will be gone, but Facebook will be greatly improved. - Costa Walcott

bah. i will go do something else. this news isn't helping - Edgar Rodríguez

trying to look on the bright side - maybe we'll get those iPhone/Blackberry apps for better access to FriendFeed - Stuart Miniman

But if it isn't true we would have heard by now. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

apprehensive about this - Liz Polay-Wettengel

Official: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Brandon Titus

I want to hear the $$$ number - moo yu

Congrats to ff team...but how does this work? I have 2 different accounts...and I like it that way...I don't want to share/spam my friends on facebook with what I have here... - brainno722 (Peter)

It's official: http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - Costa Walcott

@robert no we wouldnt have - Jeremy Toeman

Originally posted this to your other FF/FB post before you astarted this one: I don't see the point of Facebook acquiring FriendFeed. They are pretty much identical services (well, FF represents just the News Feed portion of Facebook) I don't see how they can incorporate FriendFeed into Facebook. If they really did buy it, then I see this as them going for programming talent more so... more... - Christopher A. Wichura

From FF blog http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - Tom Landini

I'm hoping this improves Facebook (just like everyone else). Facebook has gotten horrible stale for me of late. - Harry Wolff

Bad bad bad bad bad bad ::runs screaming down the hall:: - Kandeezie from fftogo

This stream itself is the evidence of WHY Facebook bought FF. - Steven Walling

What's looking shiny and new now? :-) - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

I've been needing a reason to get re-interested in Facebook, this could be it. - JonInteractive

Friend management will need to be enhanced/overhauled. Otherwise, the noise will make the combined product unusable. - Peter Ghosh

No! I am going to cry! I HATE FACEBOOK! I have a Facebook account, but FriendFeed is way better. Life is over! Apocalypse. - Zachary TG

Seriously, how can i shut it down? - Fotis Alexandrou

We'll have to wait for more details to see exactly what Facebook is planning to do with FF. - 321

Bodes badly for FriendFeed. --rj - Roger Jennings

Bad bad bad bad bad bad ::runs screaming down the hall:: - Kandeezie from fftogo

I think this is more of a "send the friendfeed traffic to facebook" than any kind of technical leverage. My biggest concern here: in order to exchange dialogue with people on facebook I need to be friends with them vs. being able to do it on friendfeed without having to friend them up. I find this valuable as there may be a topic or 5 that I want to engage with user "X" on, but I don't... more... - Erik Boles

I am disappointed by this news... I don't like Facebook at all... And I'm afraid they will just kill FriendFeed with their awful cluttered interface... - Her Lindsay-ness

It depends on how they integrate it. Did they buy it for the search engine, or did they buy it as a potential for extending the reach of Facebook into real time conversations? It's all about the life stream now right? So probably Facebook's attempt to stake a claim there. - Tony "Frosty" Welch

bad days are coming - Ahmet Soyata

Fotis, why do you want to shut down our FF account? - Alex Knight

This is bad news for Yahoo 360°. Oh wait, too late. - Ian Tindale

Bad bad bad bad bad bad ::runs screaming down the hall:: - mary

Crap! - Zachary TG

This is disgusting. - Zachary TG

First of all, I love the name "Facefeed." ROFL Second, this is business boys. Happens all the time. Why do you think innovation keeps happening. FB will integrate or kill off FF, and something else will happen. It's a natural cycle. - Francine Hardaway

For a second I thought it was a joke, but then I checked Friendfeed's Blog. http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... Damn it. - Alejandro

Nir Ben Yona +1 - Muge Cerman

Turmoil - Ian Tindale

wondering if i should continue aggregating all my online activity in frienfeed now that facebook owns it!! - Gtp19

I can't begin to process this right now. Too much work to focus on. Later when I read this 10,000 mile long thread and have a glass of Cab in hand. - Michele Lorito-Chase

Geeks and fb not a good mach - thomas elton from iPhone

We fear change - Ian Tindale

Not feeling real good about this, hope fully Facebook will do right by the FF community, but I'm not holding my breath. Glad for the FF team though - Kim Landwehr

Twitter dissed again. - JonInteractive

So FB failed to buy Twitter, - so they buy FF which is just a UI for twitter.. - Nick Halstead

if you look closely at FF the large majority of FF posts are twitter posts, so there was not that much original content on FF in the first place... - Ingmar

Makes a lot of sense for Facebook. And we find this very healthy ^^ - twitscoop

People need to stop freaking out. The Facebook/Friendfeed buy out was just announced. Wait for details people. - Alex Knight

It could be bad, it could be good. As long as Facebook doesn't try to port their functionality over, I'm fine with it being a financial acquisition. - Adam Reyher

Crap, its official ! - Peter Dawson

This is really bad... a wonderful tool based on killer technology will go over into this mass market teeny poking culture. Bah! - Markus Tressl

then again it is great for linking FB, TW, flickr and so on - Ingmar

Here is the FF post on the acquisition: http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - Mrinal Desai

Great, why did I bother creating an account here? I could have held out. - desinole

if this is true, for the love of god, please don't Facebook go and mess up FriendFeed as they have their own system, Facebook is a mess these days, Friendfeed is one of the 2.0 sites that actually has concentrated on doing a few things well, complete opposite to Facebook. - Carl Grint

I suppose Friendfeed was considerably lacking in LOLcats. - Ian Tindale

Cuz we all know that facebook doesn't respect user's privacy and you've got basically everything on ff, youtube, twitter, digg whatever you do - Fotis Alexandrou

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - tollie williams

Paul Buckheit will now be a house husband:-) - Francine Hardaway

Confirmed by FF http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - David Peacock

Smart for Facebook but I prefer Friendfeed the way it is.What, we'll be throwing rabbits next? - Janet Fouts

FriendFeed listens to the community. Facebook doesn't. Not to mention they're ENTIRELY different communities. - Adam Reyher

If they keep FriendFeed as a separate site, and still upgrade regularly, this is fine. If FriendFeed winds up in the dead pool, then it sucks. - Steve Sill

If true, congrats to the FF Founders! - Jason Cronkhite from iPhone

Maybe I should rediscover my Orkut account. - Ian Tindale

I was just thinking how Friendfeed had stayed out of recent takeovers, mergers and hence cyber attacks. Will Friendfeed now be taken over by celebs and spammers too? - Nils Geylen

Not sure why this news makes me nervous. Please tell me it's going to be ok Scoble... - Lucas

FF has been FB's incubator for awhile. - Peter Warnock

it's true damn!!!! - Edgar Rodríguez

How can I spam on this thread please ? Any idea ? - Toucouleur

Facebook has ZERO respect for users' wishes... Friendfeed is incompatible with that. Friendfeed will be going away. :( Their blog post says as much: "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally **for the time being**. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product" - tollie williams

Quickest/Biggest thread ever - Ian Tindale

Ideally, FB will leave FF to do the sweet innovating they are doing and just take the awesome features and put them into FB - Ryan

This is the first time I've used Friendfeed in a year. Good move on their part. - chantelle

How Much ? $$$ ;-) - Jacopo Gio

I'm heading back to Jaiku where it's nice and quiet - Ian Tindale

So, where do we migrate to now? - Byron McCollum

FriendFeed functionality on Facebook would be nice. The reverse, not so much. They're trying to address two entirely separate purposes and as such, need to remain completely separate. - Adam Reyher

back to the twitter - emresezgin

I want numbers. how much did facebook pay? - Zac Bowling

soon friendfeed will = Jaiku - johnny2009

Hum...let's see what happens. - Chip Hanna

Stay here until FB does something dumb with FF - Ryan

The rhetoric seems a bit too "Facebook will do what they want with us" and not "we will remain FF and continue forward". Seems as if FB went for the tech and we could lose FF as a seperate entity. Boo. - Derek Shanahan

confirmed by facebook press release. - Zac Bowling

Love 'em or hate 'em....Facebook made a phenomenal purchase. - Kevin Pruett

I see a ton of Wall Spam. Facebook users just don't get it when you port your twitter updates over. There is too much for them to wrap their heads around. This will be a hard transition. - Ryan Cummins

And I was REALLY getting fond of FriendFeed. From now on only downhill applicationwise? - Bart

Not happy about this. I use Facebook, but don't like it. It reminds me of AOL from 10 years ago. - David Sharpe

I agree that I don't want FB to mess up FF, but this will also give FF a higher profile and bring in many more users...which we may or may not like, judging by what happened on Twitter. I hope FF doesn't die off like Jaiku because I really think FF offers a more valuable and useful interface. - Cathryn Hrudicka

One thing to consider is this: If we have "trusted" the FriendFeed people not to screw things up, hopefully we can trust them to make sure they're still in control in the terms of the acquisition. - Adam Reyher

What's it going to be called? Failbook? - Ian Tindale

Its going to be called Facebook. - DGentry

I hope this is a joke.. Damn it, I dont like Facebook now there is nowhere to go... F*** - Jacque

I am trying to imagine how this will be a good thing for existing FF users. It feels so right and so wrong all at once!...Maybe at least my kids and wife will finally get what I've been ignoring them for over the past year. - Thom Kennon

FeedFace - Ian Tindale

Is that means we're going to see more extremist groups around, now that FB has acquired FF? - Nir Ben Yona

so where do all the cool kids go now? we need another startup, stat! - h1ro

I am afraid... what johnny2009 have said can really be the future... soon friendfeed will = Jaiku - Ahmed Mubbashir Khan

Damn,I've just"got friendfeed,and i love it.I definately don't like facebook.What does it mean for twitter? - Paul Downing

Any investors want to predict the buyout price? - Kevin Pruett

am gonna wait for google wave... coz in facebook, i cant access the complete stream for a month ago, the site goes down very often while browsing, and privacy issues galore!! congratulations for friendfeed but its jus me!!! - Gtp19

Maybe we´re seeing here one of FriendFeeds biggest discusions ever. I´m sceptic about the future of FF as a standlone service... - Torsten Eckert

What concerns me most is what happens to my friends here (and that I have to interact with my friends THERE). Will we have to be friends to interact in the same way we have the last couple of years? - jcunwired

This is very good for FriendFeed as long as Facebook doesn't corrupt them. I would have preferred to see Google buy FF but I know with their focus on Wave I don't think it would have been a good fit. I like the Facebook platform, but they have done too many shady things in the past for me to trust them. - Adam Teece

all of the conversation is happening on FriendFeed and Twitter - nothing on Facebook. Think we'd scare away Facebook if everyone starts having lots of conversations there - like on Scoble's fan page? - Stuart Miniman

They can or don't have to fix FF's FB app now. - ydfeed

Is Twitter going to buy Myspace? - marcus bösch

Ha Stuart - great point *Facebookers take cover* - Kimberle Kelly

That does it. I'm going back to usenet. - Ian Tindale

What's next- Macy's buying Gimble's? - Thom Kennon

Apple buys China - Ian Tindale

what do you think Robert? - courtney benson

All I can think of is now a lot of people can feel the pain the dedicated Pownce community felt, but at least you're not getting shut down, just yet. - Mike Lewis

I'm not a big facebook user, but my gut feeling is that like twitter buying summize, it will mark the end of major innovations. I hope I'm wrong. But they should totally go with the facefeed mashup name. - motownmutt

I dont see any potential for competition with twitter FB and Twitter serve different purposes as does FriendFeed - iluvblackwomen

Sorry but renaming Facebook to 'Facefeed' is utterly stupid. - Alex Knight

It'll be called ScobleFeed - Ian Tindale

does making google reader more social has anything to do with this buyout??! - Gtp19

yeah this was good for facebook. bad for anyone who liked friendfeed. - Liz

FriendFeed is very good, a better way to use Twitter & etc. Knowing this, I still rarely use FF. Not going to start using Facebook more. - Nicole

Actually, this could be death for Twitter when you think about it. The people I know who are in FB are not likely to add TWO more nets to their lifestream. FriendFeed makes more sense for them. Maybe Twitter just stays as the dumb pipe it's become for many of us here. - Thom Kennon

Echoing what others have said - My guess: Facebook will get better, Friendfeed will get worse, Twitter will matter a lot less. - Matthew Blaisdell

Good for FB UI and search, questionable for the FF community and its independent spirit ... - Bo Stern

last comment 2 hours ago on FF by Paul Buchheit, FF CEO, was just " :)" http://friendfeed.com/paul #friendbook - Jacopo Gio

The main reason why I came to FF was because when I tried to treat FB the same as FF, i was talking to a wall. At least people interact here. At FB, it's all about the cheesy games/apps. - Matthew Horton from iPhone

http://friendfeed.com/sunipey... - emresezgin

Just like most acquisitions, it could be good and it could be bad. I trust that FriendFeed will live on as FriendFeed, only sharing their tech with Facebook. Possibly more integration between the two sites. If you were FF/FB, what would you do? - Nick Humphries

Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook are three entirely different animals. Facebook eats Friendfeed and poops out little bits of content that once belonged to us. Twitter continues to thrive as the broadcast conversation-wannabe that it always was. - jcunwired

Nick - think again. Its going to go away - read the tea leaves in this statement: "Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users" - Bret Taylor in this post https://friendfeed.com/friendf... - jcunwired

Please no. I don't like FaceBook... - Svartling

We need a Friendfeed alternative: http://www.fftogo.com/e... - Marcos Marado from fftogo

Facebook must want real time soc-net search badly... - martin smith

The biggest thing here, at least within the Twitter context, is that this merger will combine 'verified' identity (in terms of Facebook user ID being slightly more 'real' than Twitter) with real time status updates. - Dan Patterson

I'm looking forward to what this brings to Facebook. I have enjoyed both networks but wondered when FriendFeed/Facebook would face-off and/or be absorbed by the other. I think FriendFeed's tech will improve the Facebook experience. - Jacob Sloan

FriendFeed + Twitter = disruptive. FriendFeed + Facebook = one more app for FB . Facebookers dont know the power of FriendFeed. I agree with : "" So FB failed to buy Twitter, - so they buy FF which is just a UI for twitter.. - Nick Halstead "" - Rocky

Most likely scenario is Facebook assimilates the FriendFeed guys, has them work on improving Facebook newsfeed/realtime/status, and lets FriendFeed die a slow unmaintained death. - Richard Akerman

Well, my friends on FB doesn't give a damn about sharing links, news, pics, vids etc. So I'm not sure how I will use FB+FF now. I don't think FriendFeed will exist, just implemented in Facebook. The name FriendFeed will die. And: on FB you don't want the whole world to see everything you're doing, just your friends. And it will stay this way. So the question is: Who will build the new FriendFeed? - Patrik Johansson

Do this mean, by the way, that we (the FriendFeed users) should start to connect with each other on FB? How will they like that? People who get's 2-3 maybe 4000 connections? - Patrik Johansson

Robert, it means all the time you invested building friends lists and updates there will go to Facebook :-) - Loic Le Meur

could someone start to develop a Frienfeed clon , please ? ASAP ! - Rocky

Seems bloody terrible from this users perspective. Good for Friendfeed the company though. - Quasar

Given Facebook's past, this could be really bad. Given FriendFeed's past, this could be really good. No real way to speculate without talking to the FF crew. - xero

+3273 Quasar! (one for each of my Likes, already on a death march) - jcunwired

Robert, do you know if Facebook is going to put on limits here at FF??? Oh crikey... so much for our citizen journalism here.... Admittedly I am bummed. Uber bummed. - Arleen Anderson

EndFeed. - Alex Schleber

your blog is the most important thing you can own on the web. these sites can come and go. it's a great social point but true friends you've made here you talk outside of ff, right? - Terry O'Fee from BuddyFeed

It's a good time to sell to Facebook, cause Google Wave is imminent and is going to destroy all of Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed. I think FriendFeed employees might even go back to Google eventually as soon as their contracts with Facebook are up. - Charbax

Robert - wow. just wow I am stunned. Sorta sad actually. I love FF innovation and don't want to see that stop !!!!! - Susan Beebe

(RE: Your tweet earlier) When you say the minor league team going to the majors, I don't always feel that this is a positive thing. As in this case, it's like Ferrari being acquired by Ford. I don't think I like this acquisition. - Richard Merritt

the free ride couldn't last forever. I know it sucks that things will change, but they've got a lot more sense than Twitter has about these things.. - Terry O'Fee from BuddyFeed

You must all assimilate to the new FaceFeed - Jonathan.Rivera

From what I'm gathering, this acquisition is more about FB acquiring the talented engineers of FF than it is about the FF software itself. A smart play by FB. Unfortunate for us that value FF. I personally feel that FB is just slowly becoming the new Myspace. Which I don't think I need to explain how lame that is. - Richard Merritt

According to WSJ — FB paid $50 million — a mix of cash and stocks. http://bit.ly/SVTA5 - Richard Merritt

If you ignore all the crappy apps and just comment and post photos, your main feed on Facebook is fundamentally a pretty similar experience to FriendFeed - people post stuff, people comment on it. That is, at-least, the way my network tends to use Facebook. The main difference is that Facebook defaults to being very closed and private while FriendFeed defaults to being very open and... more... - Edward Coffey

edward - pretty much. it's FF for the layman. remember back in the day they used to have forums too? - Terry O'Fee

I think it helps Facebook a lot since now it will have real time news feed. Their old one was pretty lame. It also helps FF since klutzs might have heard of it but never would have joined without such a big announcement. - PJ Edwards

friendfeed is very cliquey. you have your group of people who usually gather round for conversations. now imagine some of this friendfeed stuff in facebook. done right it will help them a lot. - Terry O'Fee from BuddyFeed

I don't think I am liking this but FB does need to add the "edit" feature like on here. - Marika Dye

FriendFeed is Facebooks Summize. It’s All About Search. http://bit.ly/11ZW6l - paul mooney

Thinking Out Loud: Echo issues during a high profile tech show http://www.talkshoe.com/talksho... - Alex 'BuckyBit' Covic

FF acquisition is expected. But, as a user, I would be bumned, if FF would become a feature of FB. As, I tend to use Twitter as my social network and not FB. - Vasu Srinivasan

It doesn't make much sense talking about 'Facefeed" and 'Friendbook'... Facebook simply bought a cool 12-people company called Friendfeed for its great search technology paying 15M plus some shares, which is really very cheap in this context, given the value of FF's technology (as it is perceived by us). They are also hiring the talented FF team, which makes the deal even more interesting for FB. Probably there are also some deeper hidden motives and implications that I am not able to get. - Liviu Barbat

I would love it if Facebook integrated the FriendFeed features. I would love it if Facebook had FriendFeed's flexibility with Facebook's privacy control. It sucks that the world may lose FriendFeed, but it is great the Facebook will likely get better. - Andrew

Andrew, Facebook will get better - over time. There won't be any Vulcan website meld of FB and FF overnight. - Bill Sodeman

thank god someone understands that, andrew. it's like "i liked this band better before they went to a major label!" ;) - Terry O'Fee

Bill - But we can dream, can't we? :) I mean, what I love about Facebook is that I'm interacting with my friends as my friends, not as usernames and avatars. But I hate their bookmarklet, the weird delays when I post anything, the comment system, and I hate the Photo gallery tech. I love the FriendFeed community, but would love bringing the FriendFeed technology over to Facebook even more. If only Facebook could buy Flickr next... - Andrew

as long as fb start thinking in creative commons terms... one day .. - Terry O'Fee

they are both great services I think will be a good thing - Logan Lindquist

oh NO! I don't spend much time at FB (everybody there's too busy playing stupid games, at least in my little network), and besides it's more private unlike FF. And now they've gone and bought FF? And I just joined! I guess I won't be around here for long, since FF won't... - Dennis Jernberg

I don't like it... - Harry Mahardhika

No mention of Yahoo. Totally irrelevant these days. Sad. - Scott Schnaars

This deal makes sense! Now fb developers do not need to figure out how ff does it because they can just ask! - Garin Kilpatrick

One of my facebook accounts got closed up. Into this account I fed my friendfeed. And into friendfeed I fed for example my socialmedian shares, diggs, stumbles etc. - Wilhelm Bauer

Time for the next generation app. *Taps foot impatiently for Google Wave* - Karen Masullo

I don't think it's about getting Friendfeed it's self; but having the developers and the information about real-time search. - Chris Martin

Robert Scoble

Is a Twitter retweet or a Facebook/FriendFeed "like" better. My answer my surprise you:

August 3 - Comment - Like - Share

kensuke, Iván Abrego, Mitchell Tsai and 63 other people liked this

The retweet is better. Why? - Robert Scoble

82 more comments

1. The retweet shows up as a top level item here in FriendFeed. Which gets you more branding. - Robert Scoble

Yes, but your tweet got me to FriendFeed for the first time in months. So now I'm totally confused. - Jennifer Leggio

Facebooks like system is pointless. - Simon Wicks

2. A retweet usually gets retweeted, a lot. I retweeted a guy this morning saying that Eric Schmidt had resigned from Apple's board. That got retweeted a lot. - Robert Scoble

Likes, just "bump" content, while a retweet duplicates the content and potentially gets shared several times. - Rob Diana

I like retweet better. But if facebook had a dislike button, I would be equally happy! - Dakota O'Neill

like is only promoting to shared friends where are retweet is promoting to everyone. No? - Edwin Khodabakchian

3. A retweet gets you credit, while "likes" just get you buried and no one is sure why they got lots of engagement. - Robert Scoble

Facebook is a joke. Like on friendfeed is pretty simple too. A retweet say a lot about your content but I think generating an actual discussion in friendfeed is the most powerful - Johnny

The retweet also directly acknowledges the original author, building relationship. FF Likes on Twitter have no such attribution. - Peter Kelley

Johnny: A retweet will get more conversation going and get you branded more than clicking like will. - Robert Scoble

That said, I love likes. You can check my likes out at http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... -- that's something that's hard to do with a retweet. I've done 21,000 likes so far. I don't know of a way to count how many retweets I've done. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I agree. I was saying that generating a conversation (like this one) is more powerful than likes and retweets. - Johnny

I think that you're right, Robert. The Twitter retweet is better because there's some action behind it. In my opinion, the Facebook "like" feature really doesn't do much. It's more of a placebo than anything. Facebook's like is just a "slap on the wrist" letting the author know that it's "approved" by other people who come to the site. There's no reward for getting the most "likes" - it's like Digg but more retarded and something you wish you could euthanize already. - Kenneth

Retweet overall but both have benefits - Travis Tasset from iPhone

A like is just FB's way of trying to copy twitter and facebook, but I guess google reader has the same thing now - Billy Fung

Also, here, likes can be used to search. You can tell FriendFeed's search engine "show me all items about Google that Scoble has liked." - Robert Scoble

I think likes are great, but FriendFeed should also work on its presentation of reshares. I'd extend the datamodel to support an optional "originating item" for each item. The text (via: [url]) looks a bit messy. - Meryn Stol

your #1 reason for why RT is better than something is because it ends up in friendfeed??? not much of an incentive for the ~44 million twitter users really, is it? - Jeremy Toeman

With a retweet, it can be shared with multiple friends across MULTIPLE networks - my tweets can be posted onto Twitter, FriendFeed and even Facebook. Where does the Facebook "like" come into play? No where! Tweet away! - Kenneth

Exactly my thoughts too Meryn. Twitter should implement that as well. The original source gets lost after a couple of RTs. - Sumanth Kolar

Kenneth: you can send your likes on FF to Twitter, I do - Peter Kelley

Too much noise on Facebook, I still keep RTs in high regard. - Amy Chorew

Jeremy: a large percentage of my Facebook friends are sending their Tweets over there. Facebook has a similar liking system. I guarantee you that there's more than 44 million on Facebook (last number I heard was 250 million). And I'm getting WAY MORE engagement here on FriendFeed than I am on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Twitter's reach is the key -- added to FriendFeed's real-time conversation, it's a powerful combo. Facebook is still too much of a walled garden. - Don Tamihere

Peter: good point. I think I was dragging on Facebook's "like" and not FF. Now if you want to compare FriendFeed's likes with Facebook's...that's another can of worms I don't wanna go into. - Kenneth

The database guy in me (my left elbow) is screaming that re-tweets duplicate data in a way that isn't easy to track. The social effects are nice, but can't this be replicated in a way that's a lot cleaner and more useful? - Ryan Massie

but ya said friendfeed, not facebook. :) - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy: read the headline again. I specifically mentioned Facebook. And, anyway, we're all here on FriendFeed. How did THAT happen? - Robert Scoble

well i came here because i wanted to see what you were up to and since you don't blog anymore... ;) - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy: heh, why blog when I can have engagement with you here? - Robert Scoble

RT as it feels like more of a commitment to the content rather than a passive vote - Daniel W. Rasmus

because you need to keep up your overall internet presence. doing it here is not in your best interests. IMHO that is. :) - Jeremy Toeman

On a side note: currently Google Reader "likes" are worthless as you can´t even subscribe to someone else´s like-stream. It´s even hard to find a way to see your own like-stream in Google Reader (although there /are/ at least 4 ways...) - peter huesken

Yeah, duh, likes aren't viral! - James Watters

Re-Tweets have this very natural word-of-mouth feel, but I'm concerned that you loose metadata by doing it the way twitter does. Instead of taking the firehose data to re-assemble this metadata after the fact, shouldn't the platform build the metadata as part of the process? I'm not saying that the word-of-mouth feel should go away by any means, but how accurate are the re-tweet counts that I have been seeing on sites recently? - Ryan Massie

James: They're more viral on FriendFeed due to the friend-of-a-friend views than they are on Facebook. But you're right, it's nothing like twitter. - Ryan Massie

Also Re-Tweeting has another problem: How do you retweet a tweet of more than 133 chars without paraphrasing at least part of it? - peter huesken

FriendFeed Likes are much more elegant than a retweet - the Grey Poupon of SM. :) - Nick in Manila

Why does one have to be "better" than the other? They are two different apps for sharing thoughts about content. The RT works well on Twitter, you just RT anything you like (and feel other might find interesting). When you like someone's content on FB, you give it a vote and everyone who is a friend can see it. If you want to add a comment you comment. If you want to share it, you use the share function. Now you can share tweets RTs on Facebook anyway, I'm not sure why it even matters which is better. - nicky jameson

A retweet takes more time to do and shows more interest. - Randy Allen Bishop

This is wrong. A retweet is copying someone's work and trying to drive traffic towards yourself using it. A like and/or a comment is much better as you are acknowledging the work of the author. Retweeting is parasitic. Liking is symbiotic. - Alex Scoble

Alex: that's interesting. As a content owner I'd rather you retweet, though. Why? Gets my ideas greater distribution. - Robert Scoble

What Randy said. A "like" means different things to different people. To me it might mean, "the title of this sounds good, the topic interests me, but I don't have time to read it." I would "Like" something like that, but I would *never* retweet something without visiting the link first and at least scanning it, preferably reading the whole thing. Also, Alex, I don't think a retweet is an attempt to drive traffic towards yourself. How do you figure? - Laura Norvig

Because when people see the retweet they are seeing what you wrote. It's the same as if I copied a blog post from Robert and put it on my blog with attribution to him. I'm doing this to get people to read my blog, I'm not doing it to help him. If I really wanted to help him, I would link to his blog post and write something about why I agree or disagree with that. A retweet is parasitic... more... - Alex Scoble

Alex: first of all, nothing you write in 140 characters is going to have much value, and certainly won't be enough value to charge for it. Second of all, if you RT: properly you also link to the source person or URL. Third of all, it's nothing even close to copying an entire blog post, but that really is sweet that you think Tweeting is blogging. They both have the same attributes, I... more... - Robert Scoble

RT's on Twitter are more manual and take a little more engagement then Like unless you are using SW to manage your tweets - RT duplicates... - Robert Freeze

Alex, your logic is twisted, no? RT is intended to share with your followers something someone else said or found, who they might not already be following. If traffic is driving anywhere it's to them; those reading your RT are already following you. Your point also assumes everyone's playing the numbers game. - Jim Barry

@Scobleizer It looks like you RT % is 1.85, of total tweets. Data from: http://tweetstats.com/graphs... - David Damore

First off, I don't write in 140 characters, because I do all my posting from friendfeed. 140 character limit is whack, but that's another argument. Second, nothing about Twitter really builds participation. It's all about islands versus on friendfeed, which is why reposting (I hate the "tweet" non-word) is even necessary. The fact that it's necessary is a symptom of the problems of the... more... - Alex Scoble

They serve different purposes. FB/FF like is just a quick shared bookmark. Twitter has a Favorite option that's similar, but it's geared toward recall more so than sharing/recommending. Retweet is not even a built-in Twitter feature, but many Twitter apps have the feature and people use it to share/recommend other people's tweets. - Lawrence Liu from twhirl

Alex: if you visit my blog you'll notice that my like feed isn't showing up in the FriendFeed widget there, while my retweets are. That's a huge problem and one I don't know how to solve. - Robert Scoble

How about the share option in FF, then change the FWD: to RT? - Lee

I will like things here when I don't want to comment, but I hadn't thought of it as a proxy for RT. Now you have me thinking about forwarding my likes here twitter. - dthree

You could combine the feeds using Yahoo Pipes. It's a bit messy, but here's my combined posts, comments, and likes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes... - Ryan Massie

Isn't this just like a Scobelizer chat room? - Peter Mullen

I think I'm going to take the core of your question Robert and post it to my Facebook non-social media friends and see if they can even parse the question. I'd expect some funny "uh...what?" responses. - Elliott Ng

the like SHOULD be much better. this is a voting system. FF needs to help you filter content this way however. retweets just confuse things even more and create even more noise. FF should have default searches that are all your friends with 2+ likes...this is your personal best of the day. if FF does not make use of these advantages, then it will continue to muddle about. - lew

Here's why Robert and I disagree. He sees these spaces as primarily a marketing tool for building a brand and getting his media out to eyeballs. Reposts work great for that because it's like a ball thrown in to a room of mousetraps. I mostly want to have conversations and am here for fun. Reposts suck for that because they fragment conversations. I don't like that...AT all. :) That's why both services can coexist. - Alex Scoble

++ Alex... services like this don't succeed because they are good marketing platforms, they succeed because regular people like to use them. - LogEx

as soon as we have threaded conversations on twitter, i suspect you will hate conversation being distributed on duplicates (retweets). My vote is for likes on ff. - Sajida H Khan

when i like something it gets tweeted... so it's like a retweet for friendfeed content... it doesn't come back over here as my own, but that's okay with me - Chris Heath

The ReTweet is -sometimes- better as it keeps track of the last RTers. - Thierry R. Andriamirado

Once again, FriendFeed and Twitter are complementary: it's better when a FF 'like' is ReTweeted again and again. Facebook's like.. huh.. it's.. different (?) - Thierry R. Andriamirado

Retweeting on twitter is equlivent to "share" on friendfeed. Retweet and like are uncomparable, in the same way that twitter's favorite and ff's like are uncomparable. - Andy Bakun from Android

the spammers are here - how do we report the guy above? - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Taken care of - boom! Like That! - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Robert, I think you're completely wrong. FriendFeed ranking is poo. A retweet is mostly poo --- depends on the context of your Twitter experience, and your POV. Is your POV "Is it better to BE retweeted? Or liked as a status update on FaceBook" ? or "Is it better to retweet someone ELSE'S Tweet or to Like someone else's FaceBook update?" I'd argue in both cases, the retweet sucks.... more... - Gib

Gib: where do you get the poo from? Sigh. - Robert Scoble

Robert: OMG! you're like the fasted gun in the west! By poo I mean, as a person without your scaling issues, if someone Retweets any random Tweet of mine, I'm like, "huh? THAT'S what you want to repeat to your following?" For mortals, viral stuff isn't everyday occurrence. On the other hand, as a mortal, on FaceBook, when a few people like a photo or update or comment, my other friends... more... - Gib

I agree with Andy that a Twitter retweet is more like a FF share than a like. "Retweet", in my opinion, is simply Twitter-speak for "share". - Dennis Jernberg

On the moment itself an RT is better, but a 'like' has a longer life, since it can be used in FF search queries. - nooble

RT was a community generated method, and can easily be done in friendfeed or facebook - Mark Essel from iPhone

I think we can expect Google Reader and Facebook, among others, to emulate FriendFeed's useful "Like" system in more ways, including likes in feeds, as a search filter, etc. SOON. - Ryan Sholin

+Alex. I agree much more with his sentiments than Robert's; likes are a much better way of showing appreciation for a post. 1. I don't care about building my brand. 2. Why wouldn't likes propagate just as well as RTs? They both show up in my FF stream. 3. See 1. Don't worry, Robert will come around eventually, just like he did with following people on Twitter. - Niklas Morberg

I guess I'm against the grain on the RT versus Like feature. I don't hate RT but I think they can become Spam noise in some ways. If you follow several people who follow the same people, you get an endless flow of the same tweet for a while with no extra value. Whereas a "Like" (in FriendFeed) bumps the conversation back into many peoples focus. In both FF and FB, the "like" also tags it to your attention when future comments are made. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

If you use Feedly in Conjunction with Retweets and Tweets you can kind of follow your Karma and get feedback on how they are dynamic and changing - Robert Higgins

RTs are better so I can continue to play with extracting valuable trends from them on my little experiment http://www.retweetradar.com! - Ben Hedrington

We all know Twitter is the front-end & FriendFeed is the back-end ;) Hype builds quicker on Twitter, FriendFeed hosts the discussion. - CannonGod

You can add ur own opinion on a RT if space permits. with ff its commenting and liking which are 2 different things. U can comment and not 'like' the post. - Freddie Benjamin

Very good point Freddie but that usually gives you no room when you include the "RT @username" or the new person alters the original tweet (I hate this). RT is to Like as @ reply is to commenting. Both serve close to the same purpose but work very different. FF's direction keeps everything tighter coupled while Twitter is very loosely coupled in the approach. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

This one is worth a retweet in itself: That said, I love likes. You can check my likes out at http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... -- that's something that's hard to do with a retweet. I've done 21,000 likes so far. I don't know of a way to count how many retweets I've done. - Robert Scoble - Riaz Kanani

Facebook is closed, essentially, as I will always only ever see a "like" from either someone who is already my friend or a friend of a friend. Twitter is open, in that when someone I'm following retweets (from either someone they're following --- a 1st gen RT --- or a 2nd/3rd gen RT of someone they're following is also following or exposed to...whew!...) well, then I am exposed to a... more... - Thom Kennon

Shari Weiss

Louis Gray: All 50 of us are excited to meet you at SFSU this Wednesday, some time between 1:15-5. What works for you?

August 3 - Comment - Like - Share

Louis Gray liked this

My name is McKenzie and I am in Shari Weiss's class, cant wait for your presentation!!!!!!! - McKenzie Hanson

4 more comments

Shari - I just left a message on your cell phone. Wednesday looks good. Let me know what would be the order of things, if you want me to conclude the class, go in the middle and leave time at the end, etc. I would be more than happy to show up at 2, 2:30, 3, 3:30 and take the time you need. Reach me at 408 646 2759 - Louis Gray

My name is Jay and I look forward to your presentation in Shari's class. Loved the RSS blog post. - Jay Chanthalangsy

Thanks, Jay and McKenzie. :) If you see Shari, tell her to call me back. - Louis Gray

LG - you going to be in SF long enough to grab a coffee? if so, shoot an email! -jt - Jeremy Toeman

louis :better warn the wife you may end up with a few lipstick smudges on yer cheek ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Jeremy Toeman

i think i'm finally convinced to use Napster (mostly with my @sonos ). like rhapsody, but $5/mo. i see no downside here...

July 29 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Morton Fox liked this

$5/mo for 10 years is $600 - and what happens when you die? can you transfer it to your kids? - Chris Heath

4 more comments

so are you saying that's too high a price? and i'll just put it in my legacylocker (duh!). :) - Jeremy Toeman

You lose tour music once you stop subscribing - orionstarr from iPhone

understood, but i do get 5 mp3's a month to download, and for $5 to listen to virtually anything all that time, i can't see any "better" ROI... other than bittorrent of course - Jeremy Toeman

wow...so you pay 99c a song for 5 songs AND get to listen to virtually anything else you want? Sounds like a good deal to me. - Sidney

Do it then - orionstarr from iPhone

Robert Scoble

Yes @v08i I haven't done a long-form blog in awhile. Gotta fix that. But Twittering is blogging.

July 27 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Travis Koger, Susan Beebe and Brian Hendrickson liked this

And FriendFeeding is Twittering on steroids. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

11 more comments

Twittering is blogging? - Holden Page

Micro-blogging, yeah. - Bryan Zirkel

Holden my 1994 blog looks a lot like Twitter. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Yes because you post in public and attempt to garner comments. - Brian Hendrickson

Guess I don't find 140 characters to be a blog of any sort. - Holden Page

A microblog is a humane blog :-) - Brian Hendrickson

twittering is blogging is like saying writing twitters is writing a novel. it isn't. twittering might be "life-casting" or "sharing" in written format, but it is not otherwise like blogging in any way. - Jeremy Toeman

But saying blogging is like writing a novel is akin to saying sprinting is like running a marathon. You could argue that you could turn your blog into a book, sure. But then again, someone has already tweeted their entire novel. A blog in its most basic form is a web log, right? A log of events, thoughts, etc. Tweets can be that too, just in a trimmed down format. - Bryan Zirkel

Yeah, blogging is more akin to writing an essay or a paragraph...it is not writing a novel. And quite frankly when taken in aggregate, you could write a novel on friendfeed or a blog, one paragraph at a time if you so wanted to. - Alex Scoble

Blogging wasn't always long form. In the early days it was weblogging, or just reporting what you were doing. Very Twitterish. It's only recently that it became known as long form writing on the web. - Robert Scoble

Times have changed though. i think people see blogging now as long form most of the time. - Holden Page

Twitter is definitely micro-blogging. Blogging is quite a bit different writing experience. - Mark Davidson from BuddyFeed

Robert Scoble

I also just uploaded a second video, and link to a TON of news about the new Sonos CR-200 touch wireless controller and link to those here:

July 27 - Comment - Like - Share

Patrik Bernhardsson, Liviu Barbat and James Stratford liked this

http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... er, here. Damn FriendFeed's sharing feature sometimes bites me. - Robert Scoble

hmm, sonos is the most usable/reliable multizone music system around, but the CR200 looks a little lacking... i don't mind knocking off successful UIs, but where is the improvement over the iphone app? i'm looking for drag and drop, coverflow-style browsing, global search.... - ishak

@ishak it's not about comparisons vs iphone app, it's about comparisons vs the older controller. not everyone has an iphone... - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman

still testing

July 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Whatcha testing? - Justin Korn

image uploading - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman

testing

July 24 - Comment - Like - Share

John (a.k.a. dendroica), Kevin J Hatton and anna sauce liked this

You look kinda different. - anna sauce

this was before i trimmed my beard - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman

other than on my grill... RT @emilyfields: anyone know where to find #grass-fed beef in SF? i'm looking for steaks that come from happy cows

July 24 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Um, steaks come from dead cows. They're usually not very happy about that. - Glen Campbell

i think we're talking about their state prior to being dead... and unless you have some special knowledge that i don't have, i don't think they are either happy or sad about it... since they're dead. but i do believe they deserve to be treated well while they are alive, hence the grass-fed... - Jeremy Toeman

Love grass-fed beef. So good and better for you. - Derrick

Robert Scoble

Most say they don't care about Yahoo. OK Yahooligans, convince us. Why should we care? Tell us here in real time:

July 20 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

Amir, Violet Mae Lim, Sajida H Khan and 14 other people liked this

Anyone? - Robert Scoble from iPhone

74 more comments

Y! mail and Flickr continue to serve me well. Your mileage may vary. - Bernie Goldbach

Rabble rouser! - James D Kirk

I use Flickr, but that's about it. - Jason Mayoff

Don't yahoo own,flickr.Must say I use them for my primary e-mail,and find them very good. - Paul Downing

Yahoo Sports has some of the best writers - KyNam Doan

Y! matters because it is one of the most powerful firehose available on the net. A link on that homepage means hundreds of thousands of clicks... - Edwin Khodabakchian

I get more visitors to my blog from Y! than from Bing. - Bernie Goldbach

James: I just wonder if anyone from Yahoo cares to try to convince us this is cool. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Bernie I don't get many from either - Robert Scoble from iPhone

No, RS. I get where you're coming from and why. I get you. I'm with you in the envelope pushing, brother! - James D Kirk

Note: I did NOT ask if Flickr matters. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

With Facebook Albums i dont care a lot about Flickr. Not that it is not good but i like the integration it gives. - IyerTalks

it's not really whether or not they "care", it's whether or not they can be bullied into answering it on FriendFeed, right? - Jeremy Toeman

Robert - While the tech community knows what has been going on at Yahoo!, the reality is their front page is one of their most important assets along with Flickr (and this could be a big plus ..... or not). IE: There's still a whole bunch @yahoo.com's out there ... (even some @aol.com's :). - Charlie Anzman

I only care for Flickr and using my 1999 my.yahoo account as OpenID for sites I currently visit - Robert J Taylor from iPhone

Well: let's put it that way: if Yahoo starts to open up that firehose, which they have started to do with Buzz and are extending now, more websites will need rackspace to make sure that that link on the homepage does not mean their death... :-) - Edwin Khodabakchian

deleting my flickr comments and moving on... - Dean Terry

Oh I remember the days of rummaging around the lists of links on Yahoo. Those were the days. The days before search that is. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

Flickr continues to be the shining service within Yahoo. (at least that's according to my usage) - Clarence Chiang

Y! Mail... Yahoo Games, and iPhone wheater services. - Özgür D. Cyric

@IyerTalks Facebook really destroy the quality of your images with the bad compression. The only value is the privacy and the sharing with family and friends. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

If yahoo fails the terrorist win! #justsaying LOL :) - Dave Mora

Yahoo is Flickr, Delicious and selling out Chinese journalists to the authorities so they can be jailed. - Tom Raftery

@JP Holecka - Jaypiddy We always have Picassa if you want to upload photos with minimal loss. Understood there is a limit but still it is better and integrates nicely into all my other google services. - IyerTalks

Edwin: now you are talking! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Looking at your other post...I think that you are right that they could try to innovate more and social should be a bigger part...but they have to start somewhere...and my understanding is that they have serious code integration issues when it gets to the homepage (because of performance requirements)...so hopefully this is a first step of a longer journee - Edwin Khodabakchian

Tom, companies in other countries must follow their laws regardless of our personal view. - Dave Mora

Yahoo still a player in the email market: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats... - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

I still use their email although I'm starting to use gmail more and more. - AJ

Well actually they are 16.19% to MS collective 50+% - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

JP: yeah the market share argument again. I don't care about that one bit. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I can't think of one yahoo app (excluding flickr) that google doesn't do better. - Luke Kilpatrick

Gmail only has 5.27% market share of email. http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats... - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

personally yahoo needs to evolve. Personally I think search is dead. They need to figure out how to rank by "Authority". Why I think search is dead? Because search for something now. When was the last time your search did not take you to a mashable, digg, techcrunch article, wikipedia or a paid listing? My searches are now provided to me by the users on social networks like Friend Feed or Twitter. - okay I am don with my rant. Good night. - Dave Mora

Luke some say Picasa is pretty good. Flickr is my choice too. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Why we should care: Easy the market needs the competition Yahoo needs to keep up. - Paul Downing

Sure Dave, so if Yahoo! were in Burma they'd sell out dissidents there too? But of course, Yahoo! are not in Burma, are they? Why not? Not a big enough market. If there is a big enough market (like in China), ethics are for sale. - Tom Raftery

I don't think you'll find yahoo joining the chat here, so let me just echo what current employees of the santa monica office tell me. 1) Yahoo is too slow, its impossible to do anything new there 2) upper management doesnt understand or want to be part of the larger social web 3) management is also for the most part clueless to current online trends 4) employee happiness is at an all time low - sean percival

@Luke: Yahoo Finance is better than Google Finance and Yahoo Email is easier to use than Gmail for average users. - Edwin Khodabakchian

My content, news and email lives outside Yahoo. It doesn't really stand any ground on my turf. Even my Flickr mileage is bad. But it may not matter to me, but maybe to many out there. Many bloggers value their Yahoo SEO rankings that drive traffic to their blog/website - Amir from iPod

Would MSFT be making an offer on Yahoo today? If it did, would anyone care? - Robert J Taylor from iPhone

yahoo is too "noisy" and when it does do something very well, such as "yahoo pipes", it doesn't know how to make it so that "simple things are simple, and complicated things are possible" - it just does the "complicated things are possible", thereby increasing the learning curve... and who's got time for that for most things on the web now! - simran

The question would be if yahoo went away tomorrow, is there 1 service that they do that is unique? is there any service that isn't done some where else as good if not better? - Luke Kilpatrick

I think that Yahoo and MySpace are at a very similar tough spot and they both need their ipod/hulu moment - Edwin Khodabakchian

Sean: I can tell. At least Microsofties would show up to try to convince us. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

that being said they own some monster verticals and will likely continue to own them for some time. they are simply too well entrenched with certain demographics of internet users. - sean percival

Yahoo is in too many directions and needs focus or at least a core focus. Search was it but seams to be diluted now. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

Yahoo Finance is excellent, Yahoo Pipes is way useful and innovative - Bob Morris (polizeros) from iPhone

Taylor Microsoft should still buy Yahoo. Late adopters are very monetizable. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Yahoo is becoming the Tyco of the Internet. No one can tell you what they really do anymore. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

I think MS and Yahoo would be a good combo as they do get the internet, and really msn never really has. Full Disclosure: I have been a fan of yahoo for sometime and I interviewed for a few positions there recently. The one area I do think they might have a shot in is Mobile if they do it right. They are one of the few companies that supports the older "dumb" handsets. - Luke Kilpatrick

@JP Holecka: I think that Yahoo is an content/entertainment portal with a great email/communication component. We just do not happen to get it because as early adopters, we get most of our content through more social channels now. - Edwin Khodabakchian

Ah - that's a good point... Sorry I mixed topics, Scoble...I meant to focus on the has-been feel of both and not the economics of the acquisition. My fault! - Robert J Taylor from iPhone

@Edwin Khodabakchian I agree but to the masses it's hard to clearly communicate what Yahoo is anymore. What is there brand promise? - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

pipes, flickr, delicious, and that search engine people who don't know how to search use (whose name I forget) - Daniel Morgan

JP: exactly they are too all over the map. They used to be hand selected search back in the day, sort of like what mahalo is trying to do again. - Luke Kilpatrick

The promise is that they make it easier for you to access to good content. I do not think that their promise has changed over time. It just happens that their early adopters moved from homepage -> my yahoo -> rss reader -> twitter client. And now people look back and what they see is mainstream and boring - Edwin Khodabakchian

Most people don't associate flickr with yahoo. It has it's own brand personality and very little yahoo in it. From what I have read recently flickr is still not in the black. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

I look at Yahoo Movies before I see a movie. I like Pipes, Flickr, Messenger... Observing my mom, she's been using Yahoo Mail for almost a decade and I doubt she'll ever switch. She's probably like most loyal Yahoo users and will never change, not even for Google Wave. - Gus

Flickr is the _first_ online service I've paid for. And it's been the only one in a long time (until I met the RTM Cow). - Jean-Charles VERDIE

They have outstanding backlink tools http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ - martin121

I see a lot of people using it around the world.. - Mason Legg

Zimbra zimbra, zimbra zimbra zimbra. Man I hope it doesn't get brought down w/ the ship! I love me some zimbra! ;) - not to mention zimbra works great on a rackspace cloud server! - JP Maxwell

Having more web hits per month than Google has got to be worth something - Stephen Pickering

flickr and delicious are the two I use the most - Logan Lindquist

Isn't Yahoo Pipes pretty powerful? I have never really tried it out, but that's not the point ;) - Frankie Warren

Yahoo has plenty of valuable web properties. They have obviously had a great fall since their height, but considering all they own, they could even make a comeback (dare I say) if they play their cards right. It is such a shame their current homepage looks like a tabloid. - John Wright

There are few better sources of comedy than Yahoo Answers. It must survive! - adam garrett

Yahoo Answers is another thing, its :( - polou/indigo_bow

For me, Yahoo is only good for instant messenger because it is the only one I can get in text messaging.. AIM keeps telling me my password is wrong and I have no idea hor to use msn in sms. - David Gross

Yahoo? What's that? Is it anything like Lycos? - Big K

Yahoo is soo much of an "Also Ran". From the ordianary user perspective - the Yahoo IM was really cool - until all of us got texting on our phones. The e-mail was nice, but them we all got unlimited Gmail with our own names (Yahoo increased the size later), they bought out GEOcities which is where I learned to code and made my first web page - but oh ya, they closed that down . . . I... more... - Sonya

Yahoo does some pretty cool behind the scenes integration stuff - Pipes is their most well known option but the YQL stuff they have worked on is a really cool abstraction of a ton of web services; it's a killer powertool for mashup creation. - Bill Rawlinson

Nobody has said YUI and Douglas Crockford yet. Yahoo is one of the hubs of web frontend engineering innovation, and YUI is #2 Javascript framework, right after jQuery. :) - Jaanus Kase

Well I certainly use more Yahoo stuff than say Google. Yahoo mail, flickr, and delicious to name three. - Quasar

Robert Scoble

Techcrunch published Twitter documents. Tons of details about Twitter's internal plans laid bare. - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

July 16 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

sedef tenim, Parthasarathi, Susan Beebe and 14 other people liked this

Interesting stuff here... - Bill Kinney

7 more comments

@techcrunch post is SAD blow 2 Twitter - Cloud Computing is Gonna pay 4 this @google - iTbay

The world is better off knowing this information. - Matthew DeVries

Woah acquisition targets - Colin

CoTweet must be rubbing their hands together right now - Matt Mastracci

from nothing to boom! information, I was enjoying the enigma until now - Matthew Wridgway

@JesseEngle may enjoy the news... but really... this seems like a salacious move. Unless @Ev & @Biz intentionally leaked stuff. - Courtney Engle

Is it ethical for techcrunch to put eveything on public domain? I am guessing if not them, email sender would have ...not sure. - Ruchit Garg

@ruchit no, it was not ethical. ethical actions are rarely questioned... - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman

had a great realtime lunch today featuring realtime conversation with a realtime friend. now i'm realtime full and ready for a realtime nap

July 10 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

FFing Enigma (aka Tina), Chris Heath, RAPatton and 5 other people liked this

hahahaha I also have a wireless pencil! yay! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

3 more comments

nap directly following lunch makes me think alcohol was consumed - anna sauce

@anna yes, we had some realtime beer - Jeremy Toeman

and the bear was drunk in realtime? - anna sauce

no bears, just beers. - Jeremy Toeman

Robert Scoble

The #crunchup crew says I'm up next with discussion with @arrington about online mobs. Watch live at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel...

July 10 - Comment - Like - Share

Alberto Saavedra, Mark, metalerik and 7 other people liked this

please update FF when you get on, the search discussion was boring me so i turned it off. - James Hull

56 more comments

Robert: Can you ask Michael about his comments regarding 'mobs' in social media? (If it's not off topic.) - Jim Connolly

James: just stick here. - Robert Scoble

Yup. - Robert Scoble

I'm really beat. It's 9 p.m. here and it's been a long week. - Robert Scoble

last i heard lunch was next - they are 1 hr behind - Allen Stern

this realtime search is boring. Can you tell them to hurry up :p - Darren Stuart

Allen: yeah. Hopefully Arrington doesn't keep me up for long. :-) - Robert Scoble

You're gonna knock him down in a bit :-) - Amiroo ™

What's the topic of your spot with Michael? - Jim Connolly

Robert: So, my request to ask about online mobs was pretty accurate? Cool. - Jim Connolly

Will still be a few more minutes. Sigh. Jim: he wanted to beat me up about the mob like behaviors of many here on FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble

Could you ask him if he believes the mob is organized, or if it's 'organic'? - Jim Connolly

online mobbing goes well beyond friendfeed... have you seen the issues with teens & myspace? the topic should NOT be about "how techies get offended that not everyone likes their content"... - Jeremy Toeman

The mob is getting restless! - Richard ¿digame? Walker

*popcorn is almost ready* - Eric Logan

thumbs up - metalerik

volume - metalerik

Nice, Robert's got a lumberjack shirt on! :P - Brandon Titus

volume scoble - metalerik

This is nuts! - Jim Connolly

crap, you're off again - metalerik

If only we can hear you ??? - Anne Haynes

lol no production values lol what did they spend the hundreds of thousansds of dollars revenue on ? - Mark

point them here so you can type it scoble :) - metalerik

use your Mime art skills! - Capn' One Eye - adrift

Sucky. I'm not doing anything different. - Robert Scoble

Hopefully you get a chance to talk, Robert - Herb Hernandez

can you hear them? - metalerik

The audio coming over is sucky. - Robert Scoble

I can hear them, but the audio sucks. - Robert Scoble

if not, you can always start a Mob conversation here on FF. - Wizetux

can they read your text and speak for ya? - Mark Essel

I want to join a mob. - Matt Soreco

Mark: nah. - Robert Scoble

can you call arrington on your cell? - metalerik

turning comments off would be crap - Darren Stuart

we can hear you know scoble - metalerik

FriendFeed with comments off, means there's no 'real' feed. - Jim Connolly

I heard you - they just need to stop talking and let you - Anne Haynes

know = now - metalerik

yup, Robert's just waiting to hop in - Mark Essel

Robert: What does the t-shirt say? - Jim Connolly

Raise your hand, Scoble. - Wizetux

yay! - Capn' One Eye - adrift

we can hear you! - James Hull

like - metalerik

i waited all this time for that! wah wahhhh - James Hull

well that was a waste of everyones time lol - Mark

Mark: yeah. It sucked. - Robert Scoble

Arrington couldn#t even HEAR you Rob, they said - Mark

I didn't want to drag it out any further. - Robert Scoble

scoble, what did you just put up? - metalerik

Wow, auction for the EFF. think of all the starving children that will be saved! - Capn' One Eye - adrift

my Hugh card. http://www.gapingvoid.com - Robert Scoble

nice - metalerik

scoble shame about the sound - AV

Glad Arrington and Techcrunch are coming back hope things work out - Kim Landwehr

Robert Scoble

Tech execs: how to reach “normal” users with PR and with TechCrunch/GigaOm et al - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

July 4 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Parthasarathi, Susan Beebe, Kathleen Craig and 17 other people liked this

The PR advice in the New York Times I read really is horrid. - Robert Scoble

40 more comments

It's amazing how bad most tech companies do when it comes to PR. By the way, I laid out the best advice I ever gave on this topic back in 2003: http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003... what did I say there? Talk to the grassroots first. That is why I use Twitter and FriendFeed. That's where the grassroots are. - Robert Scoble

I deal with this every day when I talk to NY firms. It's frustrating that they think they only way to get through to people is either cute videos or TV ads. Why don't we just ASK our customers what they want? - Tyler Hurst

Great write-up. Surprised that you mentioned Techcrunch over Mashable. In fact, you didn't mention Mashable at all..! Any particular reasons for that? - K N Ajit Narayan

KN Mashable isn't nearly as influential as Techcrunch is, most of my friends don't mention it. Mashable is switching to a Twitter news network, too, which makes them influential on Twitter, but not overall. Mike really has owned the tech news space and continues to do so. - Robert Scoble

K N: also, note, I was riffing off of the New York Times article that mentioned TechCrunch and not Mashable. There's a reason for that. - Robert Scoble

Robert, also keep in mind that most of your friends are in Silicon Valley. Mashable is very talked about on the East Coast. I think it's definitely worth considering, personally. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: exactly. Notice that Brooke Hammerling lives in New York. Even SHE doesn't talk about Mashable. - Robert Scoble

Robert, good point - regardless, people always end up looking to Silicon Valley for their news. - Jesse Stay

Isn't this more general than PR? The main point, as I got it, was about cynicism. Isn't any communication of opinion, whether cynical or not, contributing to the multi-faceted picture that people get of ... well, anything that we want to hear about? - John W Lewis

Jesse: I thought Pete Cashmore even moved to SF to cover Silly Valley more. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I agree that TechCrunch is more influential but Mashable has been coming on strong. Look at this comparison on Compete.com http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mashabl... - Mike Doeff

John: yes. - Robert Scoble

BTW Robert, welcome to the UK! Hope to see you tomorrow. - John W Lewis

Mike: traffic does NOT equal influence. I can have more influence than you have by having just one reader. Think about it. If Obama read me and you had 1000 "normal" readers, who has more influence? - Robert Scoble

Robert, is he in Silicon Valley now? Interesting. Sounds like he needs to be networking more then. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: I've watched both work. Mike digs for news more and is more tied into the VC infrastructure here, which gets him more news. - Robert Scoble

I know when I tried to talk to him I was practically ignored, even though it was about a common client. Not that it would have had any effect on influence. I've just had a better impression of Arrington, personally. - Jesse Stay

Robert, I agree that TC still has more influence but still, Arrington can't be happy about that trend line on Compete.com. - Mike Doeff

Mike: Mashable is outplaying Techcrunch on Twitter and Mashable is better at writing articles that get Google page rank, like reviews of lots of products. That doesn't equal news influence, but does get traffic. I also think Arrington also made a huge mistake deleting his FriendFeed account (FriendFeed is a top three traffic driver for me already). - Robert Scoble

Robert, why did Arrington delete his FriendFeed account? You are right about Mashable. On Twitter, one gets the impression that Mashable is more popular than Techcrunch. But that may not hold true elsewhere. - K N Ajit Narayan

K N: He got mad at the "mob" that formed here after his fight with Leo Laporte and deleted his account. Repeat after me, popularity does NOT equal influence. - Robert Scoble

Arrington like like a nice guy. Yes, popularity does NOT equal influence. LoL - K N Ajit Narayan

The chance that an individual will be sufficiently interested in something to pass it on and, thereby, create a mob effect depends on many factors (and, surely, these have been well studied?). Presumably, something must be significant, remarkable (literally), relevant, and so on. The source of the thing has an effect, I guess, in terms of credibility, reach, etc.. And for the original... more... - John W Lewis

Yeah, I always used to tell people they could get more great PR by going to parties at conferences (or better yet, throwing them) than they could get with a big expensive PR firm. When I was a big fancy magazine editor I would habitually filter out any incoming messages from big PR firms, since they were usually content-free at best, and BS-laden at worst. People who I met at parties had way better stories, rumors, and other intell for me than PR flacks! - Fred Davis

I used to work for a technology consulting firm. Many new client relationships originated from conversations with people in neighbouring seats on flights. We often suggested dropping the advertising and giving everyone a free trip once a month! - John W Lewis

John & Fred - yes and more yes. Talking to people is remarkably effective. Who knew? - Tyler Hurst

well I commented here http://scobleizer.com/2009... - Darren Stuart

The NY Times story was terribly unflattering. I can't blame Ms. Miller - some of the voices quoted were the antithesis of what I've aspired to be. If that's what she's experienced, we as a profession need to take a serious step back and re-evaluate our purpose. I was so peeved I spent my 4th trying to craft a reasonable response. (http://bit.ly/113wnu). So much for BBQs. - AllisonWagda

Hacks continue to paint flacks as they are. But that these flacks represent what is going on in the industry and the sea change afoot couldn't be farther from the truth. - andy

Robert - really didn't like how you generalized PR people in your article. Further, the reality is there are very few people in Silicon Valley at all who actually know anything about taking products to the real mainstream. Very, very few. - Jeremy Toeman

Let's not overgeneralize about Valley PR people then. There are plenty that know lots about taking products to the mainstream (Margit at Outcast being one of them). - andy from email

Outcast was the sole voice of reason quoted in that story. - AllisonWagda

Damn right. - andy

That article was PR for Brew and looks like it worked. It wasn't about PR. - Shahin Khan

Classic NY article on the goings-on in CA, completely missing the boat. Btw did anyone notice that most of the NYT Sunday was about California? Happy coincidence or something else? - anna sauce

Great article, Robert. - anna sauce

I disagree. Was definitely about Brew but also pretended to understand the new art and science of PR. - andy from email

You are right but it was Brew's agenda. No different than other pieces that cover a topic but sell a product. And who's to say that wasn't part of the strategy? (To be that bad.) That's giving too much credit probably. Of course it should have been a tweet and save me a bunch of time (and still annoy me!) - Shahin Khan

Would have been much better to have spent time on War & Peace - andy from email

I read that NYT article along with the Arrington's article, my jaws dropped at first, but I do get some of the pt. not 2 original post link: http://ff.im/4SVFw... I forgot to note, sounds so tongue and cheeky, doesn't it? - polou/indigo_bow

There's an issue that's not covered here, in Arrington's piece or the original NYTimes story, namely that just as PR firms have to change the way they work, tech companies have to adjust their expectations as well. A lot of companies are stuck in the mindset of the "Big Bang" launch, where you put out your news and suddenly you get tons of attention all at once. That's just not how the... more... - Kevin Pedraja

Zee. to Zee.'s feed, TheNextWeb Forum, Startup Success

Seesmic changes direction and Loic Le Meur gives a brutally honest assessment (video) <-- must watch if you're into seesmic, a techie or web entrepreneur - http://thenextweb.com/2009...

June 26 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Davide D'Incau, Craig Deakin, Josh Asbury and 53 other people liked this

Definitely the right move. I look forward to seeing the new site as well as the iPhone app when they release it. I know it's more of the norm in web/tech companies but it's really refreshing to have people who run companies and make business decisions communicate those directly to the user base instead of through some PR person. - Mike Bracco

20 more comments

THIS is what a Company Leader should be willing to do! Bravo! - ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift

if only Loic could refrain from shooting videos of himself and, instead, merely post what he has to say. His accent is unbearable (no improvement since he moved to the bay area) and obviously (but will he ever?) not prepared hence a poor delivery. - lelapin

i don't think the accents too bad really - heck, its a french accent...not much can be done there - Zee.

Yeah I must admit his accent has gotten me once or twice. But I quite enjoy it.. Does everyone have to sound the same all the time? On the video, I must say I like his decision and the passion he shows for that decision. Looks like it was tough but he did it.. Kudos - Rasmus Lauridsen

@lelapin His accent is not CA-based, obviously, but Loic speaks with his heart, not reading a PR. You may see it as not prepared where others would just see genuine sincerity. - Jean-Charles VERDIE

accent? hey he's french, the things is what he says not how he says. good luck @loic - alex

Perhaps he should have just given it in French - I love speaking French - It's a lot nicer language to listen to when compared to English. And @Loic, about your accent - never try to loose it. - Robert Freeze

Yeah I can clearly understand what Loic is saying so I'm fine with his accent. Regarding the actual message, I'm thinking that this is a smart move as well. Starting to build community from ground up and bringing videos back later might be something what we read later from web business related books as an example. Well.. at least if he succeeds. - Petteri

I remember writing that this wasn't going to work when Scoble et al were singing Seesmic's praises. Geeks often call me an idiot (like when I predicted the Kindle would do well), but I'm usually proven right in the end. This is the problem with Silicon Valley, IMO. Too many of you guys create only for yourselves, expecting the wider world to think and behave like you do. - Dawn

i guess i'd give more props if they hadn't raised TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS... loic's a fine leader and all, but there's just something amiss with the amount raised and the lack of success on the investment. then again, maybe this'll get them where they need to be... ? - Jeremy Toeman

i support loic and this move, you people need to be less focused on the funding here. - sean percival

good for you. you people need to stop lumping us people in with each other. - Jeremy Toeman

i say that not just to these comments, sorry, but to comments left all over the place on this news. - sean percival

but maybe some of us feel it is extremely relevant... are we not entitled to feel that way? - Jeremy Toeman

Wow... I can understand. That has to be tough, but necessary. - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

Must be a hard move for Loic, but its the right one if there is no growth in video, you can't build and maintain a company based on it. I wish him and his company the best. - Kim Landwehr

To be able to openly admit your product and direction needs re-thinking is admirable. Frankly, I thought he was a brown-nosing walking cluster of fluff, but this makes me see him in a completely new light. Best wishes to Loic and Seesmic. - Mona Nomura

He's making the decision that is necessary for the company to move on. Why is he doing that? Hes doing it to protect amongst other things those "TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS" that have been invested. Most companies don't start out making the products that they end up finding competitive advantage in. A good leader is not afraid to take a company in a new direction when it is needed. It looks... more... - Rasmus Lauridsen

@loic Hard move! but the best choice these days; you've got all my support big guy (if needed) ; ) - ledretch

lelapin, maybe we could find you a board titled "really great accents that know nothing about business" you would feel more intelligent commenting on. I am sure Andy Grove had an unbearable accent when he arrived here but thankfully he did not take his accent and his company back to Europe early in the game. I think that to highlight someone's accent and miss the business lesson is the... more... - Chad Harris

I agree. This is the right move for seesmic, and I am happy that it was announced in this fashion. Leaving stuff like this to PR people or some random web site announcement wouldn't have nearly the same impact. With that said, what a great use for video.... - Josh Asbury

Alex Scoble

What economic forces will lead to job creation instead of job losses?

July 2 - Comment - Like - Share

J. Abdul-Qahhar, The Bohemian Penguin, Chris Rogers and 17 other people liked this

Stabilization of real estate market will reinforce liquidity into banking and allow business more flexibility to spend and grow. - Chris Greene

43 more comments

If that's true, I wouldn't expect to see a recovery any time soon. - Alex Scoble

Less tax burdens on small business... http://www.drjeffcornwall.com/2009... - Paul Reynolds

Consumer demand which will require at least a slow down in layoffs to sub 150k (arbitrary number) - Geoff Schultz

I'm with Geoff on consumer demand. Businesses will begin hiring when they see that hiring people means increased revenue. - Mike Reynolds

China will stop accepting near-worthless US dollars, forcing us to make our own clothes, shoes, electronics, etc. - Ladybug Heather

I agree with Paul - it's all about the small businesses. the amount I pay in tax to run my little company is ridiculous considering the tax breaks the big guys get. i should just tell the government i actually transport corn soaked in oil instead... - Jeremy Toeman

when the government stops spending money it doesn't have and decides to become economically sustainable by tackling entitlement programs in this country that threaten to bankrupt far worse than any mild recession is, or might...there will be no growth in this country until we get our long term fiscal house in order. - Zachary Adam Cohen

You won't find many economists of worth that will agree with you when it comes to federal spending. - Alex Scoble from IM

Government investments will help with consumer trust, which in turn leads to consumer spending increase. Plain and simple Keynesian economics, I have yet to see it fail. But of course, that is far too socialist for this country to adopt. - Rene Wirtz

LOL, Rene, we're already doing it albeit our stimulus doesn't go far enough. But yeah, our government will have to spend MORE and not LESS to get us out of this recession. - Alex Scoble

It's not just the stimulus check, it's about government in investing in infrastructure, education, social environment. Right now that's exactly where they want to or are going to pull the plug, with the adverse effect. - Rene Wirtz

people buying stuff. - Moved to Facebook

The housing and other construction sectors can be a driving economic force. - John D Reasor

The government may be able to stimulate some growth in the economy by dumping truckloads of money into work creating jobs. But that is fake growth and long term means nothing....The corporate tax rate in this country is one of the highest of the western developed nations. That is outrageous. Cut corporate tax rates like Ireland did and you'll see companies shifting operations here and... more... - Zachary Adam Cohen

And yes, Earl, people buying stuff....I have no problem with a knowledge economy. I have no problem with losing a 55k a year auto parts job, as long as we create the 80k knowledge job. - Zachary Adam Cohen

Alex: Who cares what economists think? They are always wrong...dismal science and all...John D. the housing market still has a LONG way to go before asset values normalize. Commercial real estate has yet to collapse like residential housing has, and when that happens, well, you can expect to see Dow 6000 and unemployment around 11%. I bring the pain hardcore from the pain - Zachary Adam Cohen

Even the ones who get it right mostly think that Keynesian theory is the proper way to go. That has been borne out through historic evidence and observation. Of course that doesn't mean that the government spends unwisely. They have to put the money where it will do the most good. That's a problem in a democracy. - Alex Scoble

++Heather - Janet

Cut government spending and reduce corporate taxes. - Russ Jackson

That's exactly the wrong thing to do, Russ. - Alex Scoble

I'll do my part by buying and iPhone 3Gs in September - Jim Hearts FF

Well the first thing is wrong...the second one may be ok. - Alex Scoble

does anyone trust any government to spend this money wisely? of course not..so why try? What happens when a person is in debt? Do they take out even MORE debt? of course not. they spend less and save! Why should a government act any differently? - Zachary Adam Cohen

It doesn't matter if you trust them or not, it would be a HUGE disaster for the federal government to cut spending in the current economic climate. They are the spender of last resort. Unless you are banking on the situation getting worse than it already is, there's no reason to call for a decrease in federal spending. None. - Alex Scoble

How can you increase government spending and reduce corporate taxes at the same time Alex - Russ Jackson

CA is a prime example of what will happen to the US if we continue to spend and tax. - Russ Jackson

By accepting the fact that you'll run up the debt in the interim while stimulus and tax cuts are making their way through the system. And no, CA is not a prime example. California is a very poor example because their legal requirements for passing a budget is quite different from the federal government. - Alex Scoble

Agreed on CA process. But they spend beyond there means. But our debt is beyond being able to be paid back. The Chinese are already beginning to put in place a way of dumping massive amounts of t bills on the market as soon as they have agreements with other countries to use a different form of currency. - Russ Jackson

We the people of this great country will not accept higher taxes to pay for bigger government. - Russ Jackson

If bigger government means more efficient government I would agree, sadly one hand does not know what the other is doing and bigger will just make it a cluster **** of epic proportions - IMHO - Janet

For my part, I have been trying to spend more money, at groceries, at restaurants. I am lucky to be able to afford it, even though the wiggle room is very very small. But saving, or hoarding, money is definitely not the right way and if government gives the good example by investing in things that are useful for everyone, it will have a positive effect on the people. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. - Rene Wirtz

@jlt you are right big government will never equate to efficiency. - Russ Jackson

@rene if the government invested in meaningful investments like our infrastructure, ( similar to the way China has done) than people would not have to hoard money. At this point saving money is the prudent thing to do as we will most certainly have hyper inflation in the next 5-10 yrs. - Russ Jackson

Just a random thought here. How much of the taxpayers money goes into let's say campaigning for president? We are a computer age so stop the months of campaign trail and do town hall skype type meetings. More green for the earth, less time spent NOT doing your appointed position so in a sense better time management for the government. - Janet

@Russ: saving is always prudent. What I meant was that people should not curb spending completely and hoard as much as they can. If you spend a little more and save a little more (it sounds contradictory, but it's really not, because all you need to do is spend wisely) it will help the economy more. - Rene Wirtz

Have another country take the United Nations. The cost NYC would save for parking tickets alone could pay for a good deal of better healthcare for the entire state as well as all the illegal things done under the cover of diplomatic immunity. Lessen the pensions for top government officials to match the average pension for a regular worker, percentage and not full pay with yearly increases. - Janet

@Rene, well said. With the government continuing to spend out of control it will eventually starve small business owners like my wife and I out of business. That's why I'm of the opinion save save save. - Russ Jackson

alex: I actually DO believe the situation must get much worse than it already is in order for the real long term changes that are necessary to be put in place. I don't want the economy to rebound too soon, cause that will mean we will have escaped paying the piper. We can no longer afford to do that. In order for the US to get back to a long term growth plan, we are going to have feel... more... - Zachary Adam Cohen

Rene, Russ: I agree completely that getting our national savings rate higher, and keeping it there, is prudent. I expect the economic situation to worsen rapidly this fall. This holiday season is going to be awful. But even if disaster can be staved off, consumption habits are not going to return to 2006 levels anytime in the next ten years. There has been a massive psychological break from that behavior. - Zachary Adam Cohen

It would have been cool if the bank would be willing to loan us money against purchased stock. But meh, I won't need a bank in a few years and then they will want to loan me money. Kinda funny really. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Ease lending to small and medium businesses ASAP. Give second-time, third-time etc home buyers the same incentives. - Charlie Anzman

Innovation and creation of startups. Support your local mom-&-pop businesses. - imabonehead

@imabonehead well said new and small companies may lead the way out. - John D Reasor

Confidence and innovation. People and businesses who are not afraid to spend money. Creative and entrepreneurial ventures that are not stifled by over regulation or large corporations who feel their market may be threatened. - Chris Rogers from iPhone

Robert Scoble

Really Secret Scoble - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

July 2 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Dobromir Hadzhiev, Chris Jones, Marcos Silva Costa and 29 other people liked this

If you really want to get good value from conversations, keep them to less than 20 people round a dinner table. - Mark Littlewood

24 more comments

Interesting perspective in the smaller groups. I manage 3 twitter accounts and the latest I am only following 500 and it is the one I actually pay attention to the most because it was more select in terms of who I followed. You actually get to know people a little better per Mark's comment. - Lyn Graft

Mark: actually I found that a group of four is the best for conversations. Any more and the conversation starts to split and get distracted. - Robert Scoble

How many groups do you have Robert? - Lyn Graft

I'd call this account "justrobertscoble" :) I've read your post, sound practical. After we all tested twitter for two (some of us three) years, we understand that the more we follow people the more we get lost in tons of conversations, that I (for example) not even sure I'm interested in. I don't see how any of this will change without groups. It's just too much content to digest each day. (will, i can always unfollow people I guess) - Orli Yakuel

Lyn: just three. - Robert Scoble

Interesting. Um, I have a secret Twitter account where I follow key people I'm interested in my industry who share valuable links and relevant information that can be used to keep track of big picture trends in a focused way. However, I don't respond on it, just keep the signal to noise ratio high so patterns are more easily discernible. - Sally Church

So what I am hearing here from this conversation is twitter user base is inflated (I myself have 2 accounts). I however never felt the need to have 1000s of followers as most of the stuff is gibberish. I am following a very selected amount of people and I am very selective of the people that follow me. If I am engaged in conversation and I see that person that I value engaged in... more... - Richard Gallo

I was thinking about this very topic today, I have consciously kept my follows as low as possible for since I started on twitter, but have recently been considering jumping on the wagon.... Now I have a secret twitter account and starting to ramp up the numbers to experiment. - Alistair (alpinefolk)

I love how you have Ijustine in your secret twitter group. I guess you need to keep up with all her valuable insights right? CaliLewis? - Mark

@mark - yes - those are some of the most amazing times, dinner, a small group of folks and some interesting conversation. :-) - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

it is just become clear to me that you actually opened a group on twitter. and for that you needed to open another account, hmm... it's not easy to navigate between two accounts (even with desktop client) - Orli Yakuel

The maximum size of a group, in which you can "know" everyone, probably depends on the richness of the communication channel (bandwidth, opportunity for response, "liveliness" [real time?], etc). This reminds me of W L Gore & Associates lattice management approach and the way that, as business units grew, they would deliberately subdivide them to remain below of size limit of about 150, if I remember correctly. - John W Lewis

I hear the small group argument entirely. Very good point -- I hate big conferences since I feel like I have to say hello (and goodbye) to everyone for that reason. The networking events are even more difficult. You have friends who expect you to be with them during the evening but you also want to say hi to older friends and meet new faces. - Tamar Weinberg

This sounds like a few other business ideas: if you make a resource scarce, then everyone will want one. Or to put it another way: "There is a sucker born every minute" - How do _I_ get in ? :) - Ric Johnson

This is a bit off topic, but one that I think about everytime I visit your blog. Why is the Google connect bar at the bottom of your site and how do I prevent it from loading in my browser? - Davis Freeberg

Davis: I don't think you can prevent it from loading. I'm playing with Google Friend Connect to learn what Google is going to do to get into the social networking business. It's a little forum down there. - Robert Scoble

Sorry, I have to speak up along with Davis - it's positioned part-way down the page (and incompletely anyway) on my iphone. The last blog post page I tried keeps crashing Safari mobile (after a minute) each time I try it. - Micah Wittman

This reminds me of child 'rearing'. When I was much younger and my kids were little one of the things I learned when they would engage with multiple pals at the same time, still holds true today for me as an adult. Even numbers are always best with regard to interaction. Odd numbers and someone gets left out, like it or not. Pairing is natural, and I mean that literally. Multiples of 2... more... - Sheryl

weirdest thing on this one is I saw your "other" scoble account a while back, but thought it was someone else trying to mess with you in some way so never paid it any attention... :) - Jeremy Toeman

Curiously, given that "Really Secret Scoble" spells out RSS, this hasn't hit my RSS feed, and I happened to bump into it on FriendFeed. Ever since you made the changes to WordPress, there have been issues. - Louis Gray

I echo Jeremy as well. I thought it was a "Really Fake Scoble". - Louis Gray

Same here. Initial impulse was to DM Robert through FriendFeed to ascertain whether it was real. Then I thought, "Duh! Search FriendFeed!" - Hutch Carpenter

hmm... doesn't this just point to the lack of "groups" support in twitter!? I use @troynt greasemonkey script (http://userscripts.org/scripts...), which provides groups support among other things. - Shivanand Velmurugan

I've had two groups in both Twitter and FriendFeed for months now. One is called "Influentials" (which @scoble is part of) and the other "Cool-Friends" which are people who share similar interests or affinity. I always keep 3 tabs (one for all, the other two with these groups) and have gotten a lot of value out of that approach. On Twitter I have the lists as columns in Seesmic Desktop. - Jorge Escobar

honestly I do have multiple twitter accounts 4 different purpose, but sumtimes they do overlap, yes u r still the same person, but u r selling a brand, or a company or a non-profit or topics that r different. U need to keep track or straight. - polou/indigo_bow

Zee. to Zee.'s feed, Appetite, TheNextWeb Forum

Ok, who's on the Gadget Site with the coolest domain name ever...? Lets get following! (add urls please just your username!)

July 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Xavion Saltair, Tobias W., Steve Lowe and 23 other people liked this

I thought long and hard, and decided to go with: http://user.gdgt.com/Zee/ - - Zee.

62 more comments

http://user.gdgt.com/dsims Zee, you have no gadgets!? - Daniel Sims

http://user.gdgt.com/Rodfath... - Rodfather

http://user.gdgt.com/aaron - Aaron Draczynski

You can find my shenanigans at http://user.gdgt.com/options... - Steven (optionshiftk)

http://user.gdgt.com/DariusM... it's 10 seconds old, don't expect great yet - Matthew DeVries

Did Peter and Ryan start a gdgt room on Ff yet? - Matthew DeVries

http://user.gdgt.com/jwang - John Wang

i submitted a product, but it goes to like "under review" or something. wonder how long it takes for a submitted product to get added. - John Wang

This site makes me feel like I have a lot of old lame shit LOL - Matthew DeVries

http://user.gdgt.com/vzx Neat site! - Vezquex: God of FF

http://user.gdgt.com/LANjackal no surprises there, haha - LANjackal

http://user.gdgt.com/kmohr25 - Kevin Mohr

http://user.gdgt.com/bjtitus/ - Brandon Titus

BTW, no user RSS feeds? No site RSS feeds? WTF, I'm shocked. Even Hulu generates an RSS feed for each user's activity. I'm disappointed, looks like the site launched half baked IMO. Don't see myself being there much. - LANjackal

http://user.gdgt.com/mitcht/ - Mitch

http://user.gdgt.com/Ancyru - Andrew Trinh

Can't verify my account. Just keep getting error messages and there is no contact point or help on this issue. Oh, well, Sigh. - Martha

http://user.gdgt.com/fredyga... - Alfredo

http://user.gdgt.com/mastercko - Chieze Okoye

http://user.gdgt.com/tonybls... - tony bland

http://user.gdgt.com/chinster im adding everyone who comments on here btw - Cassidy

Yup, I've added you all as well. - Steven (optionshiftk)

I think we can assume everyone created an account with the same name as they have here :P - LANjackal from IM

http://user.gdgt.com/vdegeor... - Vince DeGeorge

http://user.gdgt.com/reechard - Richard ¿digame? Walker

there are some weird oddities with things not appearing on top of other things (hellooooo, widget) and no visual indication of a follow going through, but overall, a pretty slick site, so far. - Chieze Okoye

http://user.gdgt.com/patrickj/ - Patrick Jordan

http://user.gdgt.com/she/ - SportyGeek Adj.

http://user.gdgt.com/bwana - Bwana ☠

http://user.gdgt.com/Techzen - Andrew Johnson

http://user.gdgt.com/JoshuaJ... - Original, no? - Joshua

http://user.gdgt.com/skyfirex/ - Kevykev

http://user.gdgt.com/barryow... - Barry Owens

http://user.gdgt.com/jnathan - Jamie

http://user.gdgt.com/jeber/ - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

http://user.gdgt.com/ronin/ - ronin

http://user.gdgt.com/atmasph... - just started adding some things - Jonathan Greene from iPhone

http://user.gdgt.com/gabediaz/ - Gabe Diaz

http://user.gdgt.com/seanper... - sean percival

http://user.gdgt.com/dalziel/ - Glenn Slaven

posted site on likaholix - http://likaholix.com/she... - SportyGeek Adj.

http://user.gdgt.com/tomit/ - tomit

Why, Zee why? Now I own 1 gadget but not really, and tried to add my Asus 1008HA to the db.. aaaaaargh! Messy! (edit: HTC Dream != Android dev phone 1) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

I'm not on the site. What's it about? - Outsanity & Kate + Hate

bragging rights, apparently... (edit: that's not fair of me!) - Richard ¿digame? Walker

/jeremy - sweet - Jeremy Toeman

http://user.gdgt.com/ratherf... - Tsega Dinka

http://user.gdgt.com/michael... - Michael Fidler

http://user.gdgt.com/buru/ profile management is rather unintuitive, btw - Pavlo Zahozhenko

Mine is http://user.gdgt.com/eng1ne - Phil G

http://user.gdgt.com/simonwi... Woo - Simon Wicks

Just like almost everywhere else ;-) http://user.gdgt.com/holgr/ - Holger Eilhard

http://user.gdgt.com/ardiba - ardiba

http://user.gdgt.com/zsafwan/ - zsafwan 

http://user.gdgt.com/om3ga15... - Mike Child

What the heck is up with the indignation? The site is about sharing info about your gadgets and gadgets that you might want. If you can't afford more than the iPhone, who cares? Go to the forums, discussions etc and talk about your iPhone, learn tips and tricks, review stuff, etc. That's the point of it. It's all about easing that type of interaction. Edit: oh wait, I might have missed the joke. I can't tell. I hate the internet, sometimes. - Chieze Okoye

http://user.gdgt.com/rjcc/ - Richard Lawler

http://user.gdgt.com/amygeek of course! - amygeek

http://user.gdgt.com/steplow/ - Steve Lowe

Plain and simple: http://user.gdgt.com/thomasw... - Thomas Ward

My username is "tamar," obviously :) - Tamar Weinberg

http://user.gdgt.com/Tob1as/ - Tobias W.

http://user.gdgt.com/glemak/ - duh ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

Jeremy Toeman

Answer: 38

July 2 - Comment - Like - Share

Question: how many of Robert Scoble's items did I have to scroll through to find one with no comments or likes - Jeremy Toeman

Rachel Lea Fox

Anyone how to best trim a zucchini plant? Do I trim the leaf at the base of the stem or just take the leaf off at the top of the stem? Will trimming at the base of the stem leave a big hole where the water and nutrients will leak out? experience anyone?

July 1 - Comment - Like - Share

mjc and Alex Scoble liked this

Any particular reason why you're trimming it? Best I recall, zucchini and squash are kind of rambly and prefer it that way. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

17 more comments

because I got the bright idea to plant a zucchini in my aerogarden, and I have extended the arm to full height and the leaves are still reaching for it and also blocking their own flowers below from getting enough light I think. - Rachel Lea Fox

Well, don't quote me but I'm not all that sure that the actual flowers need the direct light. They'll get their energy from the leaves, and chances are you'll be hand pollinating if it's not self fertile anyways. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Yeah, I'm supposed to hand pollinate. It just seems like the flowers should have opened by now. My outside one seemed like they opened sooner, but then again, that one isn't on my kitchen counter where I watch it all the time. - Rachel Lea Fox

Perhaps there's not quite enough airflow? Rambly plants get staking both to prevent breakage and to encourage airflow. Maybe if you propped up some of the longer stems and put a fan in the general area to increase the airflow, that would help. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I was under the impression that zucchini flowers grow underneath the leaves to help protect the fruit that's produced behind the females? I know I've never seen my flowers get real direct sunlight. I've also never tried to grow zucchini indoors. Isn't that huge? - Jered Hofker

here are photos of my indoor zucchini experiment. yes that is a pepper plant beside it. I just lifted the arm with the light today, this now its highest height. I lifted it a notch yesterday and today it was touching the lights again. I expect it to have grown to the lights by tomorrow again. http://friendfeed.com/phoenix... - Rachel Lea Fox

Tina, I can open the window behind them for the afternoon. Do you think that would help? Jered, I do not claim to be good at this, I didn't totally think it through, I just wanted more zucchini and in the aerogarden "seemed" like a good plan. - Rachel Lea Fox

That is a really small zucchini plant, Rachel. Not sure about growing them indoors, but in general they would get *much* larger than that (about 3-4 ft in diameter all around). If you trim it, there's a chance you won't have future flowering/fruiting. You could try trimming back one or two stems (say, those closest to the pepper) and seeing how they fair. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

personally, i've found the best solutions is to google rather than ask communities. there are SO many gardening forums out there you'll be more likely to find the "right" answer... - Jeremy Toeman

Ooh, yikes. Not sure I'd wanna trim that back much. To me it looks like that guy isn't big enough to flower yet. - Jered Hofker

He is a little over 2 feet from the base to to top of the tallest leaves. - Rachel Lea Fox

Jeremy, I've been doing that too, there just tends to be so much information on many of the gardening forums that I get lost and questions don't always get answered very fast so I thought I would ask here too. - Rachel Lea Fox

So maybe I will just leave it alone or trim just one leaf and see how it goes. It is an experiment anyway, if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. Tina, if I trim one leaf would you do it near the top, middle or bottom? - Rachel Lea Fox

Is the aerogarden its only light source? I know next to nothing about aerogardens, but you may be right -- that doesn't look like a lot of light. The leaves all look like they're straining to catch more of it and blocking other leaves as a consequence. Maybe transplant to a 5-gal bucket and set it out in the sun? ;-) - Jered Hofker

Jared, it gets 18 hours of high intensity light from the areogarden and is hydroponic with water aeration underneath. I'm not sure if I could get it out as all the roots are rather tangled down in the water. It is definitely getting enough light, the spread is just not very wide. so it just can't go very wide like it normally would. I shouldn't have planted the pepper too, then it could have had larger light space. :( I'm still learning. - Rachel Lea Fox

Yeah, that could be tricky! That being the case, maybe trimming is in order to get more coverage? So, uhh, now I've arrived at the point you were at when you asked the question. D= I know I (accidentally) broke off stems on my zucchini last year and they still did great. Also, have you considered just trimming back the leaf, rather than the whole stem? Could be a better way to go. - Jered Hofker

Jered, I was wondering if taking just the leaf would be okay, I think that is what I would rather do, I'm just not sure if that is the right way to trim. It is encouraging to hear that you broke some leaves and it was fine. Thanks! - Rachel Lea Fox

Something you could try, Rachel, is cutting some of the leaves in half horizontally. This is pretty common when transplanting: it leaves some leaf area to feed the plant but less leaf area to hog the resulting food. I would be leery of taking the growing tips from the stems, as that would affect the future flowering and fruiting of the plant. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Paul Buchheit

Ant mega-colony takes over world (and also my back yard and house) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth...

July 1 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Petr Buben, Bertrand Doux, Kol Tregaskes and 28 other people liked this

"In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the 'Californian large', extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan. While ants are usually highly territorial, those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of kilometres apart. Each super-colony, however, was thought to be quite distinct. But it now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

8 more comments

Time to refine the definition of 'colony'. - Kevin Fox

Ants have certainly infested my house. They bite too! I wake up every morning with a bite. - Ana

Now how can I get myself in charge of that colony... I could rule the world... egggzzzelllentttt - Thomas Mader

I have them everywhere. They even invade the house and I don't even know what they're going after most of the time. Yesterday they were all over the living room floor. Going for that cereal bit under the sofa? No, they were swarming a piece of junk mail. Sometimes, they just come out via the hot water knob of the tub and just mill about. - Anika

Scary. I'm glad to be in Canada where the cold weather keeps things like this at bay, for the time being. - Mitch

@kfury it's a colony all right. Just wait till their galleons come for the loot :) on another topic, I just read that there are, in fact, only about four dandelions in the whole USA - genetically. It's just that every one of them covers multiple states, being represented by millions of separate plants. - Michael Bravo

hate ants. hate hate hate. - Jeremy Toeman

Me too! In small, medium, large and extra large. They laugh at the ant traps. They gobble down the poison like it's hot fudge sauce. They crawl across my bed. I am in despair . . . - Amy℠

I hate mosquito's, but that's probably because I didn't meet an Argentinian ant yet. - Ton Zijp

Thomas Hawk

FriendFeed's changed their recommended users when you sign up for a new account. The default screen that Tamar showed yesterday with the most popular 32 FF users now only shows the most popular 12. Now you can't just be popular you have to be *super* popular!

June 30 - Comment - Like - Share

Mitchell Tsai, Jim Braux-Zin, Micah Wittman and 57 other people liked this

Off the FriendFeed recommended list now: Steve Rubel, Bret Taylor, Jeremiah Owyang, Evan Williams, Fred Wilson, Tim O'Reily, Louis Gray, Thomas Hawk, Paul Buchheit, justine, Guy Kawasaki, Amber Mac, Chris Messina, Darren Rowse, Ed Dale, Jeremy Zawodny, dan faber, Marshall Kirkpatrick, will wheaton, Jeff Jarvis. - Thomas Hawk

72 more comments

Tamar's screen from yesterday: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Thomas Hawk

This list needs to go and in the short-term a very simple list could take it's place. Simply average a person's popularity ranking with their activity ranking. I'd also say that it would make sense to show more than the top 12. I'd show the top 80 actually or maybe even the top 100. - Thomas Hawk

I'm still not convinced this is the ideal list. There's a large percentage of those Web 2.0 personalities who do not interact at all with FF. They merely aggregate their feeds here. That ain't community involvement. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar, this list is no better than the old one really. It's just more exclusive. The problem is that the current recommended user list does not value FF community involvement at all. It's kind of actually insulting to the people who really do in fact contribute and live here. An averaging of the most popular with the most active would create a far more vibrant list reflective of what FF... more... - Thomas Hawk

I agree Tamar. It is about those that are actually involved, not those that just aggregate... maybe a sub list for those that comment as opposed to those that just post. The majority of those that have been removed do not get involved, although Bret Taylor might be considered one of the involved. Yeah you too TH, oh and Paul Buchheit. - Travis Koger

Putting up a list of the most popular is simply lazy and is not what FF should be about. Feeding into some sort of web celebrity A list is distasteful. Certainly it makes sense for FF to recommend users. It's also important that they do it objectively rather than subjectively like Twitter. The answer is actually quite simple. Average activity/popularity and the popular users who don't... more... - Thomas Hawk

I bet someone at FF could write this script in less than an hour to change this. If they don't change it they should in the spirit of transparency at least explain why they won't. - Thomas Hawk

Travis, I wouldn't recommend a "sub list." These users should be primarily highlighted. The "sub list" should be those who are "also on FriendFeed (but do not contribute to FF itself)" ... of course, the parenthetical statement is mine alone. - Tamar Weinberg

I don't think that this is a replacement for the original list, Thomas. I see what you have posted, but I don't think this is the final in any way. I don't know why you have an abbreviated list, but I don't think this is a result of any changes in the last 24 hours. - Louis Gray

Louis, sign out and sign up for a new account and see for yourself. You'll get this same thing that I do. I used to get the list that Tamar posted yesterday. Now I get this. - Thomas Hawk

Tamar, yeah I agree, a sub list is not optimal, I actually meant the other way around, sub list for the popular main list for the conversationlists. - Travis Koger

This is kind of stupid if you can't pick what your interests are, etc. Why just give a list of people with the most followers? Why not try to provide a better experience, instead of just *more*. - Steve Lynch from twhirl

Steve, exactly, which is why this list needs to go. Given that it would be so easy to change it, the only reason why it won't change would be if FF philosophically believes that this is in fact a better way to promote members. If they do in fact believe that then I think they owe the community a response as to why. If not then they should change this list in the short-term to one that averages popularity/activity for now and come up with something better down the road. - Thomas Hawk

Totally agree that it would not take the FF guys much time to get this sorted and would once again provide yet another better function than THAT other service! ;) - Travis Koger

The whole concept of a fixed list of recommended users is poor. It creates competition inside whats supposed to be a community platform and puts the wrong incentives for participation in place. The system should be smart enough to recommend based on some type of interest/content, not just be a big silly popularity contest. niche niche niche... - Jeremy Toeman

I don't always find myself interested in everything Kol posts, but he posts a crapload of good content. He should be highlighted. Narrowing by interests should not be a determining feature. People should follow those awesome contributors and then figure out how to use FF -- then they can assess who else to follow. By following Veronica or Loic, for example, they won't even know what... more... - Tamar Weinberg

Jeremy, right, and in the longer-term FF should figure out a better way to match interests with new users. If a new person hates photography, I'm probably not a good match for them. - Thomas Hawk

Kol should definitely be highlighted, Tamar, and he would be if you averaged activity/popularity. Louis Gray probably belongs on this list more than anyone currently on it except Scoble. If you averaged popularity with activity he'd probably be number 2 right behind Scoble. - Thomas Hawk

Yup. Louis one of FF's biggest community evangelists and they don't even seem to realize it. (I am sure he knows I always thought he deserved to be highlighted.) - Tamar Weinberg

@Tamar in all candor, I don't think the FF staff has a specific vision of their own service. don't get me wrong, they are smart, nice, etc, but I feel there's a lack of clarity about what they are building, who they are building it for, etc. and the further the site roams randomly down this aimless journey, the more the opportunity window is closing IMHO. - Jeremy Toeman

@Thomas @Tamar - I disagree, they shouldn't be highlighted just because they are highly active. that's NOT a good enough reason. it should be based on the NEW USER's interests, not based on the power user's... - Jeremy Toeman

and Louis was highlighted yesterday Tamar, but no longer today, but yesterday's system was also bad as you noted in your post. Unless FF includes a component to reflect activity, this list will be at odds with their community. They should recognize this and correct it. Twitter's taken a huge amount of heat over the unfairness of their list. A list that averaged popularity/activity would be far fairer than one that simply recognizes subscribers alone. - Thomas Hawk

Jeremy, absolutely, they should be highlighted based on a new users interests. But sometimes you don't know what those interests are and making someone fill out a survey of interests might be a barrier to easy adoption of the service. Certainly though as FF gets to know what you like, they could reshape this list to best reflect your interests. But absent that data, with a blank slate new user, presenting a list which averaged activity/popularity would be a better list than one based on popularity alone. - Thomas Hawk

An option to list interests that brought up a short list of contributors that share those interests, irrespective of how popular by numbers of followers they are, would be a good place to start. Just because you have a gazillion followers doesn't mean I'm going to find you interesting. - Gilbert Harding

Jeremy, that's where I disagree. People have varied interests. I used Kol as an example earlier in this discussion to highlight exactly how eclectic our interests are. FF does not survey your interests at sign-up, nor should they have to. If they use a guy who contributes a lot (read: is active), chances are there's *something* there in their stream that will be interesting to a new... more... - Tamar Weinberg

No worries on my part. I have no desire to be on that list. I like being little old me. :-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

a list of interests would seem to make sense, but adding a step to the sign up process *might* discourage signups. maybe not though. but building that sort of a system would probably take more time and thinking as to the best way to do it. In the short-term though simply averaging activity/popularity would change this list dramatically and could be a stop-gap solution until a better system was built. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas makes a good point, but I don't think we really need to focus on adding a new "interests" feature, to be perfectly honest. They can work with what they have already. "Popularity" isn't the word I'd use here. I am one of the topmost followed users here and I know so many people who are far more deserving of being highlighted as a top contributor on this service. - Tamar Weinberg

I wonder why they changed it from 32 to 12. I wonder if it was to drop Evan Williams off the list. - Thomas Hawk

I would love to see FF improve the page, too. A list of interests and the popular/active people made available with the click of one button would be great. Additionally it would be nice to see a list of the most popular threads and rooms; Plus a link to the faqs. - LPH™ and his dog P™ from BuddyFeed

100% agreed with Tamar's first comment here about the list. - Brandon Mendelson

@thomas ive' looked at the stats, they are growing slowly, which implies general product dissatisfaction. so adding a step to signup to create a better product overall is worth it... - Jeremy Toeman

I've touched on this in response to a similar SUL thread from Scobie Doo... basically, each SUL should be tailored to each user based on things like content (as Jeremy pointed out) as well as FOF (friend of friend) relationships, reputation analysis/tracking, profiles, etc. ... there is a whole new field of "friend management" brewing... and SUL's are definitely a part of that... - Fred Davis

Agree the list needs to change, a combo of most popular/active would be ideal, perhaps randomised (20 users from the top 100). Fairly simple list. Users who post only their Twitter stream are not the best people to demonstrate FriendFeed's capabilities and new users will find it hard to interact with those users who don't actually use the service a lot if ever. - Kol Tregaskes

I like the randomized idea even more Kol. It would also be much more inclusive. Maybe have a list of 50 or so users on the suggest page and have them randomly pulled form the top 500 FF users when averaging their popularity/activity. That in fact would be super slick. - Thomas Hawk

Yep. Also, I've exchanged a few mails with FF and have suggested some sort of tutorial for new users as at the moment new users are dumped on the home feed with virtually no clue as to what to do next. I read a lot of users saying "just joined, now what?". So this needs to change, FF tell me they are working on something - cool! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Also, on Tamar's thread it was suggested the list be a combo of the most popular/liked/commented on/active users. Either way it shouldn't be just the most popular! With pretty much no effort some FF users are getting on this suggestion list and gaining lots more new users. - Kol Tregaskes

You also have to be a geek. Lame. - Dawn

I dislike the web 2.0 personality slant of this list. If you're trying to win over a new user and you want them to stick around, don't inundate them with repetitive tech noise. Have some variety. For example, throw in Jess Lee to get some fashion chatter in there. Thomas Hawk for some photography and pretty pictures (which will help show off the photo thumbnail features). An initial spate of lots of tech/web noise will probably not help new users see the value in FriendFeed. - EricaJoy

Am I wrong in that no official FF'ers are chiming in on this thread. Hmm. Yeah I think you could make an easy algorithm of # followers to #followed, % of activity, recency, and then post a top 12 of that, each week. - anna sauce

I'm showing 30 people in my list right now FWIW - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Richard, that is because you are an existing user. It appears that this is just for new users. - Travis Koger from iPhone

RE: the deleted users: They should keep Louis and you on there, but no one else on that list participates on FF regularly. I think it's necessary to have active users on that list, because new users will easily find other active users to follow by FOAF. The way to keep people interested is activity, not popularity. - Trish R

Yeah, but the list should include the RIGHT active people, Trish (and I have no clue how you would algorithmically pick the RIGHT people). If a new person who's primarily in to social media connects to friendfeed and gets the "actives" list from ffholic, they will be completely underwhelmed (however the LOLcats lover who just joined would be quite happy). That's what makes the challenge interesting. - Alex Scoble

I'm not for everyone, nor do I want to be. I'm doing this for fun, not to "be a brand" and I'd like to keep it that way. :) - Alex Scoble

Why would Wil Wheaton ever be on any recommended FF list? I don't think he participates in FF at all, right? - Internet's Tad from fftogo

Correct. I think it's pretty easy to see who should NOT be included in the list, but picking who SHOULD is much tougher. - Alex Scoble

Alex, FF absolutely should not be in the business of *picking* who should be on this list. Even as much as it makes sense for Louis to be on a list like this over say will wheaton, the problem is once you turn this list into anything other than an automated list you start immediately alienating people. That's exactly what Twitter did. They created a subjective staff picked list which is... more... - Thomas Hawk

Whether they do it using a human or by algorithm, they are picking. I think it would be fairly easy for them to write an algorithm to determine who shouldn't be on the list, but a lot harder to come up with a good algorithm for who should be on the list. - Alex Scoble

keeping the list objective and formulaic exempts FF staff from allegations of bias. It's not perfect but it's better for them to be able to point to an algorithm than personal choice. The forumula just needs to be tweaked ever so slightly and you'd have a significantly better list. The very simple act of averaging popularity with activity would create a list that i think that 99% of the... more... - Thomas Hawk

Alex- I already wrote it! Not patting my own back (too much) but it seems simple to me. I'll recap: # followers to #followed, % of activity, recency, and then post a top 12 of that, each week. Also, added a "floor" on the #followed/#follower so that the ratio isn't skewed by smaller #s. - anna sauce

And what did your app determine, Anna? - Alex Scoble

personally I think 12 is too small a number. I'd like to see them put 80 on this list but I too would be interested in what your algorithm produced Anna. - Thomas Hawk

Tad, will wheaton was on the list because it is simply based on who has the most followers. When you sign up for FF it asks you if you want to add your Twiiter/Facebook/etc. contacts. What this means is that those that are super popular on Twitter will be the ones that FF ends up recommending. Since adding in the import your Twitter contacts to FF feature the rank of the popular FF users who are popular Twitter users has jumped. - Thomas Hawk

1) Do you like social media? 2) Do you like LOLcats? 3) Do you like to argue? - Alex Scoble

Those were funny questions, Holden...although a No, yes, yes response would definitely point them my way. :) - Alex Scoble

I did an experiment last night on what it was like to be a new user again. I did it with my original account, which I rediscovered yesterday. I was going to write something about what I learned later, but this change is the exact opposite of what needs to be done in order to improve the new user experiencee. I hope it's only temporary. - Michael Fidler

How the HELL did I make that cut? :P - l0ckergn0me

@Chris you I like on the list. You participate and talk about more than tech babble. That's good stuff. - EricaJoy from IM

Holden, and averaging popularity with activity would remove 100% of the pipes from this list. - Thomas Hawk

Not that there's anything wrong with the people on this list, but any list which doesn't include people like Mona, or Kol has something wrong with the way it was formulated - Michael Fidler

As soon as you say "any list that doesn't include ..." I shut you off. Fail. - Joel Bennett

+1 Joel. Everyone had different preferences. That's why it's like Alex said, there's no right formula to find recommended users for each different user. - Trish R

I said like; Kol and Mona are just examples of what's wrong with this list. - Michael Fidler

:) -

Jeremy Toeman › Comments