Hans Eisenman - Likes

Come to FF! - Simon Wicks

236 more comments

Give Friendfeed a shot? - Rubin Sfadj

Hopefully they don't come to FriendFeed :) - Robert J Taylor

Hang out on FF - Roberto Bonini

they will spam friendfeed instead? - Denis

They are so freeeking out. - SolidSmack

I couldn't tweet about it, so I told my wife instead. - Patrick Lightbody

Big ups to the FriendFeed massive! - Josette Torres

I tried retweeting that. *sigh* - Andy McIlwain

Call them to join friendfeed, and make - Madhav Tripathi

Hopefully FF won't get killed by the Tweeters flocking over here. - phil baumann

ok.. here ya go..twitter being down has forced me here. Haven;t tried FF yet so... - cheapsuits

just like ya possibly twiddle their thumbs... - Baba

I suspect the bots will rejoice.... - walidmREALTOR

Let's see where these so-called "social media experts" go to fill the void of Twitter. - Christian

I can't open twitzap.com - ybs

Can FF servers manage such a massive movement? - Samuel Goëta

since bots supply at least 25% of Twitter traffic, should we feel the worst for them right now? - Kevin Norman

write a post about twitter being down as a threat to humanity, may be?:) - Nikos Anagnostou

Twitter down... can't post on Facebook,,. so it's FriendFeed! - carrotmadman6

So your're not responsible for that ? Strange... :-) - Enikao

lay on the floor and spin in circles - SolidSmack

Maybe the SocMedExperts will go back to Plurk since Scoble likes Friendfeed. :) - Jay Gilmore

thank God, now we can get back to work - E.P. Scott

if they are the experts they claim to be then they should be here! - Mark V. Fusco

Facebook seems frakked too. - Gregg Le Blanc

I get tweet trough tweetdeck... - Giorgio

I need serious help with FF. For an idiot like me this isn't so intuitive really. Help section is nice but I need someone to hold my hand ..bleeech. Don't get me wrong I am sorry I was reluctant to try FF before - cheapsuits

I blame Scoble. It's always his fault :-) - Keith Barrett

but how am I going to tell the world I need a cup of tea???? nooooooo - Rachel Clarke

Giorgio - I'm seeing some activity through the Twitter API, too (that's what TweetDeck uses, I believe); not a lot, but some - Robert J Taylor

I thought it was just my connection. ;-) I'm also having problems with Facebook today. - Timothy Federwitz

yeah, it seems the web interface is down but the api is working.. - Giorgio

I think the social media experts are going to spend the next hour talking about Twitter being down - Keith Barrett

Maybe read a book for a change? - Yiorgos Adamopoulos

Scoble's followers where the glue keeping Twitter together! now that he's 'pulled the pin' and released them all, Twitter has fallen down and can't get up. - MikeAmundsen

Seems to me like some sort of an (DDoS) attack on Twitter and Facebook. - Jari Hakkarainen

I'm so lost this morning without my cup-o-Twitter - frank barry

You broke it Bob! All this follow/unfollow madness. - ZuDfunck

They'll comment on it, much like I just did. - Marlin Forbes

Man imagine if this had happened on #followfriday... - Rob Paller

Yiorgas: read a book for a change? I do that anyway, but only about 10/month. need more twitter time to balance it out - Rachel Clarke

Facebook is copying twitter too closely...even to going down at the same time - Robert Littlejohn

Does Twitter have what it takes to be a big player? We've been working with their API on a project and every time there is something out of whack. Anyone else have the same issues? - Chris Nadeau

twitter is really down, I think twitter itself should have a site that tweets when it's down :) - Ata İsmet Özçelik

They will use FF to inform their friend that twitter is down - Didier Girard

They'll use Identi.ca ;) - Nicholas James

No actually the blog: http://status.twitter.com/ ("We are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly.") - Patrick Mackaaij

Show up here I'm thinking. :-) - Dion Hinchcliffe

Huge exodus to FF! - akihito

We will start feeding friends and keeping up our identi.ca 's - JuneM

They're probably crying so loud right now that they can't do a thing ;-) - Caio Cesar

What's been the longest twitter outage on record thus far? - Dusty Edenfield

hmm at least they found a solution with a blog :) - Ata İsmet Özçelik

I don't understand why you maintain an account when you have such contempt for Twitter & those who use it. - Liz

they will cry in their soup - Bobby Griffith

holiday - Ronald

Well Robert, where will you go when they all come here? - Tokyo Dan from iPhone

it's back up. made ya look - Kevin Norman

Strangely, search.twitter.com is up. - Marlin Forbes

Tokyo: I already have a private group setup. Sort of like a bomb shelter in case the rats take over. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

i noticed that twitter is down... anyone know how facebook is ssOOO slow 2...???? - Sebastiaan van den Akker

Just noticed it... - k00pa

do not waste time and do their job :D - Roldano De Persio of FF

twitter outage and news of the PubSubHubbub feature in Google Reader (http://is.gd/24YvH) make FF look pretty good right now. - Dusty Edenfield

facebook too! i guess i'm going to have to do something like "get a life" which is abhorrent to me... ^_^ - Kayce Maisel

friendfeed is having some issues but for the most part is still up and going :) - (jeff)isageek

find another medium such as friendfeed ;). - rick

Roger, Mr. Scoble! - akihito

@Sebastian they connected somehow... ahhh scary :) - Dani Martínez

good. so not the only one with issues with FB.. wel atleast is FF is going strong.. - Sebastiaan van den Akker

what we all are going to do??? =) but if seriously i remember this video on youtube - trouble with twitter: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - obolonskyi

They will all sit in their chair and stare at their monitor! - Gabe Diaz

@Dani, who knows... the might merge or something... explain the strange twitter is pulling fb down 2.. - Sebastiaan van den Akker

Did Scoble bring Twitter and FB down as he unfollowed everyone ? winks -) - Del_

This is still up... even this FF tweet. http://search.twitter.com/search... - Johann Chiang

In the event that twitter goes down I tend to frequent FF more. - © b e e n s w a n k

This is very interesting that it is impacting more than one social network ... can't even speculate what the cause is yet. Not getting much work done today I'm afraid, going to be following these conversations.. - Joe Magennis

I haven't been on twitter for days. I guess I picked the wrong morning to jump back in. - Jeff Stannard

Robert: The most important question>> How many new sign-ups for FF today? - K.N. Ajit Narayan

...and who wins? FF great :) - Dani Martínez

Was just able to post to Facebook but took several tries. Wow. FF FTW! - Tom Guarriello

so!! - abdellah

The smart ones will go to FriendFeed ;) - Helene

The spammers should go to MySpace... - Dennis Bjørn Petersen

Tweeple will come to FriendFeed! - LauraLee Dooley

That's why I joined FF a while back. Then I found all the useful features- and the bonus is having Scoble here to show the way. - Brenda Young

No, the smart ones are ALREADY on FriendFeed :) - Susan Beebe

and? - abdellah

@obolonskyi nice. vid.. ROFL... never seen it before... - Sebastiaan van den Akker

GUILTY ! I have had a FF account for awhile just never used it-- - cheapsuits

What the celebrities like you do. Talk about it on Twitter. - Tad Chef

This actually made me laugh out loud, because I was thinking the same thing! - Dan

This kind of reminds me of a line from Office Space: "I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail." - Jari Hakkarainen

haha lets get FF down also :D - Salim Sarımurat

Could this mean that CNBC was right??? Nooooooooooo! - Travis Koger

I was planning to unfollow a bunch of followers due to Twitter's follow limit rule kicking in at the ~#2000 user level. I have to wait with that then... ;) - Martin Lindeskog

FF FTW - Eran Even-Kesef

Is the Twitter bubble bursting? - Travis Tasset

Let's see how well Friendfeed handles this Twitter outage :) - Rene Silva

Re previous comment of mine, 'Nooooooo!' was for CNBC being right, not that twitter is dead. ;) - Travis Koger

life goes on - Eran Even-Kesef

Hey don't tell anyone about this FF thing, its our little secret - Jeff Wiant

Twitter better be back up by the time Rick Sanchez is on CNN this afternoon or he won't know what to talk about ;) - cjcubs

telnet 80 twitter.com ? - Gordon Joly

@gordon wont work - k00pa

FF was down for me for about 10 min just now. - Dusty Edenfield

Blogger's having some trouble as well - Crispin Heath

No address associated with nodename (twitter.com) - Gordon Joly

If friend feed ever gets as popular as twitter were will everyone go to to avoid the popular crowd? - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

Panic? - Dean Clark

@scobleizer I'm seeing issues with twitter and facebook. Social website attack? - Michael Fierro

Panic? Aren't we all used to this already? :) - Sasha Kovaliov(.com)

if this is the North Koreans with a coordinated attack I WILL laugh - cheapsuits

@scobleizer I'm seeing issues with twitter and facebook. Social website attack? - Michael Fierro

Robert, please follow back 106,000 and everything will be ok))) joke =) - obolonskyi

I can not play 140mafia!!! This sucks sooooo bad :( - Sam Beckett

Twitter outage is causing issues with both facebook and friendfeed. I guess we know where everyone is going instead of twitter. - April Russo (app103)

facebook? no way :) - Sasha Kovaliov(.com)

Twitter being down is a a relief to me this morning! Now I can stay OFF it rather than fitting it into every 30 second change of task! n - Arleen Anderson

at this rate they will have to start sending out junk mail via the post office again... oh the humanity - Terry Bruce

Let's all chat on Friendfeed - johnpiercy from iPhone

Nothing seems to work, I think it will be the Friend Feed greatest traffic boost ever - Jacob Kobi Gamliel

guys, is it Ddos attack? or smth like that? as I understand twitter is hosting somewhere and this datacenter is down. am i right? - obolonskyi

FriendFeed traffic is rocking now... - Jacob Kobi Gamliel

social media "experts" might need to actually find other work to do. - Luis Sandoval

thanks God, Youtube is working - obolonskyi

More info needed. Where is there an alternate feed to real time news? - SenderOK

seems unlikely I'll do anything productive in the interim - WarLord

Friendfeed is an excellent choice :) - Hunt from BuddyFeed

http://theloopzilla.blogspot.com/2007... - Gordon Joly

Hopefully they will move to FF :) - Martynas

it could be ff provocation - obolonskyi

I feel like we are all stranded on a tropical Island together - Jeff Wiant

was afraid for a moment that out IT blocked all social networks or something horrible like that. Thank god FF came back up quickly. This might have gotten me to use FF more. I often neglect it. - Ryan Cummins

Wondered why tweetdeck wasn't loading anything. actually got some programming work done. lol - Justin Long

friendfeed rules! - Kevin Dolan

twits will move, but only until twitter is back online, then there will be a mass exodus. Remember during all of the 2007/2008 fail whales users still flocked back to it regardless. - Travis Koger

Twitter, Facebook, now Posterous... 4chan organize an attack or something? - Sam Harrelson from IM

Thank goodness FF is still working. :) - 3Cinteractive, L.L.C. from twhirl

http://status.twitter.com/post... - Martin Lindeskog

Friendfeed + Facebook :) - Rafa Lacerda

http://whentwitterisdown.com/ - Josette Torres

From status.twitter.com: "Site is down 1 hour ago. We are determining the cause and will provide an update shortly." - Martin Lindeskog

Having issues with Facebook as well as Twitter. Can sign into FB but unable to go to anyones profiles- process just hangs - outofmyarse

chinese attack? :) - Roldano De Persio of FF

Touché Robert, Touché - Jeff Woelker from twhirl

"We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly." from Twitter Status - Kurt Jarchow

North Koreans I tell ya.... - cheapsuits

took inordinate amount of time to get into ff today as well - A Zmaj

Hmmm DoS attack...someone wanting a ransom from Twitter? - Mike Gargano

Guess they'll have to either pick up the phone or do some work :) - Graham Bunting

Can someone with 94k followers really mock the the celebs and experts devoid of Twitter? - Augie Ray

Hey, no bogus follow messages in my inbox for a while! ;-) - Julie Barrett from twhirl

This is teaching us something about the framework of the current Internet traffic patterns. We're watching cascade scale problems from one major Internet program going down. - Melanie Reed

Facebook is giving up the ol', "Transport error (#1001) while retrieving data from endpoint `/ajax/inline_comments.php': A network error occurred. Check that you are connected to the internet" message now. - 3Cinteractive, L.L.C. from twhirl

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com - Martin Lindeskog

I think this is bigger than Twitter and FB... I think it's some interweb routes or something. I had a VoIP call going with a party local to me and two across the country and I lost the two across the country, but maintained the local party. And others are commenting on other sites showing signs of outages. - Timothy Federwitz from Alert Thingy

Twitter is Down....panic..run.,,SOS! - Veetrag

Yeah, had all the characteristics of a DDoS attack. What do perpetrators of such attacks get from doing that, I've never understood. - Jari Hakkarainen

What will they do? Use FriendFeed! - Chuck Huckaby

It's official. Twitter's problem is a DoS attack per twitter/status. - Roger Jennings

http://status.twitter.com/ - giuny

shhhh they'll come here - andy brudtkuhl

The real bummer for me is, now I actually have to listen to the radio to get the word of the day! - Travis Owen

is twitter connected with FB or Friendfeed? I am having page errors with both, Ajax issues with FB intermittently , I am no tech geek so I have no clue whats up and come here to learn - lisa coultrup

Maybe Ev's interview on the BBC last night didn't go down well with the Iranians! - Andrew from iPod

Status Blog says "We are defending against a denial-of-service attack." Mmmm... http://status.twitter.com/post... - akihito

Friendfeed it is then. - Aren Grimshaw

Now, It's up! - Martin Sliacky

Posterous isn't working properly either, at least for me. - Steven Melfi

http://status.twitter.com/post... We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly. - Zalt Woo

What does DoS mean? - Kimberle Kelly

denial of service - Justin Long

I meant what does denial of service mean? (dumb blonde here sorry) - Kimberle Kelly

If it's true..or is it propaganda? - Alex Schleber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Zalt Woo

It's down, again. - Martin Sliacky

Tracing route to twitter.com [168.143.162.100] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 172.16.1.1 2 25 ms 29 ms 28 ms lo1.br57.fra.de.hansenet.net [213.191.64.45] 3 24 ms 24 ms 23 ms ae1-252.prju01.fra.de.hansenet.net [62.109.64.13 7] 4 24 ms 23 ms 24 ms fra32-hansenet-3.fra.seabone.net [89.221.34.61] 5 120 ms 119 ms 195 ms ash1-new50-racc1.ash.seabone.net [195.22.206.2] 6 125 ms... more... - Zalt Woo

Thank you :o) - Kimberle Kelly

Ev coming onto the BBC last night and saying that they were asked by the US Goverment to keep Twitter up and running during the Iranian protests cannot have gone down well in Tehran! - Andrew from iPod

DoS on large portions of the internet. Is this 4Chan... Chinese... N. Korea... durkadurkastan... - Ryan Cummins

now having trouble getting to Friendfeed - Justin Long

look, few days ago Clinton back home with two imprisoned american journalists from North Korea and today Korea is attacking twitter? it is revenge))) - obolonskyi

maybe Robert's great unFollowing crashed the servers... no loss! Go FF - Jay Shapiro from BuddyFeed

some government is DDOS'ing the real-time internet to cover up something :-) http://leeprovoost.posterous.com/the-twi... - Lee Provoost

hmmm - abdellah

As I said, I predict a baby-boom in 9 months... wait and see! - Jordi Soler

SEO Experts can analyze their charts, celebrities and wannabe's can entertain us with video (maybe some cool Twitter Whore like stuff) , and social media experts can quickly become Fail Whale Experts. - Michele Lorito-Chase

@Lee Provost don't you thing you're going to be a little apocaliptic ? :-) - Filippo Ronco

Twitter downing has to be a lesson for all of us. if sometimes gmail or even google will be down. what we all are going to do in that situation??? - obolonskyi

@Filippo i've been suprised many times that reality is often more wacked up than the conspiracy theories of geeks :-p - Lee Provoost

I'm hoping the social media experts go away and do something useful. - Parvez Halim

@Lee this is true too :-) - Filippo Ronco

@Jordi LOL, considering that there are a vast amount of single male computer geeks out there in the twitter community, baby boom effect might be negligible :-D - Lee Provoost

what is bad here? here doesnt exist reply button =( - obolonskyi

@Lee single male computer geeks - LOL)) - obolonskyi

The realtime updates of the comments is great. FF rulez. Would be better though to have the comment link not on top - Flynn (Michael A. Volz)

Go back to MySpace? - Juliana

Maybe some will switch to FF if twitter is down for a while - Flynn (Michael A. Volz)

The twitter bots are rebelling - Charles

@Flynn, go check out this Greasemonkey script, solves it: http://userscripts.org/scripts... - Alex Schleber

Come here and moan about it! - Kami Huyse

Read post on 100k unfollow - I love how people are commenting and blaming Twitter being down on that! lol - Helene

@AlexSchleber: thanks, great :) - Flynn (Michael A. Volz)

AAANND.. it's back. At least for a moment I guess.. - Alex Schleber

AAANND it's GONE! ..Again. At least I managed to send out a quick FriendFeed SOS, as in: "Still think you shouldn't have all of your favorite tweeps in a "backup system" on FriendFeed? Join here: www.friendfeed.com/alexschleber " - Alex Schleber

Either collapse or back to use their phones in voice only mode, do some shopping, get eye to eye contact ... Blame god, and then. Give a serious try on FF ;p - Marco ILLESCAS from iPhone

They will still be able to Tweet to themselves - not sure if they will realize it is down until it comes back up. - Phil Harrison

I hope everyone will be ok...lol - April Mendez

Hey, can I hang out here on FF while my Twitter is down :) - Kevin Krewell

Welcome to FF Kevin! You can tweet from here too! - Arleen Anderson

Thanks Arleen. I hear all the kool kids hang out here now - like Scoble and you! - Kevin Krewell

I'm glad I joined FF yesterday, great timing! - CodeSamurai

I also micro-blog or create my own Twitter, but in more than 140 characters. - polou/indigo_bow

FF and Tumblr are working fine! :-) - Tim Moore

A good FF day- new familiar faces on this thread. - E-Advocate Network

What will the blackhat SEO experts, the SM spammers, and the social media experts do during a widespread outage? The answer is obvious: While sitting out the crisis they're fine-tuning their methodology. Seriously, your question offends me. There's a gazillion of SEO experts out there who do not abuse social media. - Sebastian

Sebastian there can't be a gazillion SEO experts! What's 10,000 keywords times 20?? (and that's being generous!) - Arleen Anderson

Would a social media expert consider it to be a crisis? If they rely so heavily on just one or two tools that it's enough to throw them into a tizzy, their expert status would seem to me to be ... questionable, at best. - Gord McLeod

Agreed. - Greg

Arleen, 10,000 keyword phrases times 20 is a tiny fraction of the search terms that are worth optimizing for. Think of the long tail. Also, consider lots of webmasters and even publishers / site owners / bloggers / Web developers ... SEO experts who are able to optimize their stuff quite successfully but don't sell or publish their expertise. Many of them, and even many SEO consultants, do make sensible use of social media, as plain users. - Sebastian

Gord, in a social media spammer's book 2 hours of outage, IOW 2 hours w/o sales from sneakily distributed links to questionable sales pitches, can sum up to way more than a good day's beer money. ;) However, "crisis" might be a term too strong for this potential loss. - Sebastian

+1 Sebastian - Bill Sodeman

I'm hung up on hop 12! - bev

I love FF! - John Giglio

come to Friend Feed? Not - Rob Cairns

You must be dying of laughter now Robert! - Arleen Anderson

Arleen: yes, reading this is fun. Sebastien SEO types are so easy to wind up. ;-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Gotta love it... @RobCairns says "come to Friend Feed? Not" and then his page shows ONE POST from Twitter in the past 18 hours! And that one talks about how Twitter seems to be slowing down again! (Sorry Rob, but that's just too good to let pass!) - Mark "DerBingle" J

Robert, admit it, you broke Twitter by massively unfollowing people. The DDoS attack reports have just been a ruse to cover up the fact that you were the backbone of Twitter all this time. - Louis Trapani

Louis: that is true. I pissed the bots off. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Keep running into the wall a few times then find alternate outlets such as ff, linkedIn, etc... - Kirsten Mitchell from iPhone

Looks like the devious plan to move everyone to FF is working well. LOL :) - Geer

Ha! The whole Facebook Twitter slowdown may have been just people clicking on spam (not a DDoS botnet). How funny! Manual DDoS. See Bill Woodcock's theory at CNet, AP, SF Gate, and The Register http://ff.im/6gLmO - Mitchell Tsai

There you go again implying the only ones that use twitter is SEO experts, the celebrities, the spammers, the bots, and the social media experts - This is definitely SPIN. Perhaps you should join CNN also LOL - RetiredTeacherD

Ironic, given your status as a celebrity social media expert who constantly spams about bots... :-P - David Kettler

Now they'll have time to shower and do their laundry! - Ron Hagenhoff

Saying thank you and being polite should be a universal behaviour, not just a Canadian behaviour. ;) - Chris Luckhardt

38 more comments

Thank you. - Michael McKean

Thank me very much. ;) - Craig Eddy

I agree. A simple thank you or expression of appreciation goes a long way. - Trish R

Thank you!! - Roberto Bonini

Robert, thank you for that free consulting the other day. I've already implemented some of it. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Sincere thanks shows empathy and respect. Even thanks by protocol (less sincere) _can_ be good, and potentially leads to the real thing - even better. Great thought to share, Robert. - Micah Wittman

Did the United Airlines employee thank you for your friendfeeds? - Charbax

Starting at home, too. Maryam does a lot for me and I don't say thank you enough to her. - Robert Scoble

It's too easy to take things for granted. - Michael McKean

Apology accepted - Dave Hodson

Robert, thank you for improving yourself by thanking others more often. ;) - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

Saying "please" and "thank you" is always welcome, thanks, Robert. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

A great reminder. Another thing I'm learning is to be more gracious when others say 'thank you' and to say 'you're welcome.' Often, I say 'no problem,' which is kind of self-diminishing and also doesn't convey that they are worth doing a favor for. I don't know if this makes any sense, but I'm trying to train myself. - joey

One airline used to say "Welcome Mr. xyz as soon as you were on your first class seat and asked what you wanted for a drink ... they have the list of passengers with the frequent flier level. Basic customer service. - Julio F ~ @SocialJulio

I worked for some folks as a horseback trail guide when I was a kid. Everyday, no matter what, they thanks me for coming in and doing my job. Taught me the power of a thank you from a group that normally takes you for granted (your employer) - the same holds true for thanking customers. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Julio: I have flown 300,000+ miles and hearing thank you is a rare enough occurence that it is notable when it happens. - Robert Scoble

Wouldn't it be great if @ev said thanks to some of the early adopters who tirelessly promoted Twitter? It struck me when he tweeted from the Time awards dinner thanking his employees. He doesn't get how hard we work, for free, to make him successful. - Dave Winer

@Dave - do you want some stock or something? If you feel like you need to be recognized and aren't, use another service - Dave Hodson

"Thank you" is something you don't notice unless it's missing. My previous job I got very few "thank yous" from the management, it was a little upsetting. I still did the work of course but it would have been very nice if people simply replied to mails, for example, with a thank you. It seemed there that that was wasting an email. No it's not! :-( - Kol Tregaskes

What does being a "loyal customer" mean? I have loyalty to ideals, to my country, to my family ... not so much to companies. There are exceptions, but I don't think any airline would apply ... - John Koetsier

John: I did 120,000 miles with United last year. That is loyalty. - Robert Scoble

I had a patient carry business type cards with a lovely verse about how little the world recognizes good service, kind nature and such. I truly was taken for a pause when she gave me one. - Janet

Janet, that is a fantastic idea. - joey

Just give thanks that you actually have a career as many do not right now in this country. - Steve

One of my friends trains dentists and their staffs how to boom their new patient numbers through word-of-mouth referrals without ever saying the "r-word". It's basically done through very well-worded thank you messages. Extremely powerful and the staff absolutely love doing it. - Hans Eisenman

I agree and the power simple gestures have always amazes me. - Craig Mische

You are welcome Robert, LMAO - John (ColderICE)

Funny. My boss's birthday was today. We have to give words of wisdom on our birthday's at work. He told us a story about the importance of thanking and acknowledging. - amarquart

I think it is easy to forget the times we get good service, because the bad service sticks out so much more. But it is a worthy note to take, pay it forward. - Patrick Boegel

Steve: I'm always thankful for that. Not to mention that about half the world's people live on $2 a day. I thank my dad for being the first to go to college in our family, get a PHD, and moving me to Silicon Valley. Of course if we had stayed in Jersey maybe I would be working with Gary Vaynerchuk now. That would be fun too! - Robert Scoble

Awesome! Amazing how something so small can be so big - Andy A.

Amazing how a simple "Thank You" goes a very long way.. - Ricardo Bueno

Look at all of the positive press UA is getting from this and it didn't cost them a cent! Just good policy and good employees. - Jeff P. Henderson

When said honestly and properly, thank you can be very powerful. We all should use it more. - arik

Thank you. - Jack Humphrey

I like to ask speak to the manager of anyone who has been very helpful to me so that I can request that it be noted how great he or she was. - metalerik

metalerik, that's great. - Bruce Lewis

I had a very positive experience the other day after being delayed for five hours and being stranded overnight in Denver (United put me up for the night). About 20 minutes after landing at SFO, I got an apology email with a $250 credit for future travel. http://bit.ly/AMEH4 - Rocky

Robert, thank you. - Michael Forian

Didn't think you ever had time to enjoy music. Good pick. - Derek Pangallo

12 more comments

Original here: http://vimeo.com/4189528... It was filmed in one take, which is pretty cool. Derek: I get around more than you might expect! My producer helped his dad build Neil Young's studio. Someday we're going to get him in front of our cameras. - Robert Scoble

You've got the coolest crew ever Robert ;) "amazing musical taste too" - Ahmed

Filmed with a Red One camera. Behind the scenes video: http://nyellee.com/wordpre... - Robert Scoble

I'm not a fan of this music - but the video is very well crafted - Andy Gongea

andy: i'm not a fan of this type generally either, but this had a good message and a lot of variation. diggit! - Derek Pangallo

That was fun. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Red is amazing. Wonder if the Scarlet is ever coming out. - Rodfather

Bravo! - Tony C

Liked the moving photography, reminded of an amazing one shot lip syncing masterpiece http://www.dailymotion.com/video... - david miron

I recommend the Vimeo's Staff Picks channel: http://www.vimeo.com/staffpi.... They're quite good to find very cool videos. Check this one: http://www.vimeo.com/staffpi... - Jérôme Flipo

starting with 6 simple notes one voice joined one at a time by others demonstrates to me that strength of collective voice & collaboration. I also liked the clarity and simplicity of the visual as well as the build up of the voice & the message within the rap. Thanks Robert. - JuneM

That was great. Not surprised it was shot with a Red One, either. Fantastic cameras. - Jeff Harbert

Thanks for posting Robert, skipped it on Kanye's Blog but watched it here. Great song and in one take, great stuff. Starting my morning off right. - Ryan

1. If you base your ego on something you don't control you'll continually be unsatisfied. Now we REALLY don't control how many followers you'll get. It's like winning the lottery. If you thought that winning the lottery mattered in some way to your life then you'll always be unsatisfied. - Robert Scoble

155 more comments

2. The list of top Twitterers now has no integrity and everyone knows it, so being on that list no longer matters. It's sort of like the number of results that Google says it has. That number is a joke too and no one pays any attention to it. - Robert Scoble

3. Who is listening to you has absolutely no impact on your life unless you are selling advertising. Who is TALKING to you DOES have an impact on your life. That's probably why I spend so much more time on friendfeed than on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

4. Even if the list had some integrity there would always be someone more popular than you. Even Barack Obama will be passed someday. - Robert Scoble

Robert, there is a saying in business. When somebody doesn't stop talking, it's marketing. When they shut up and listen, its sales. - Patricia

Was it Twitter's "Suggested Follower" feature that's changed your mind Robert? http://tinyurl.com/cc66ow - Jim Connolly

5. Talking to masses is fun and I hope everyone gets lots of friends to talk to because there is some value in having lots of people to respond to your questions or bring you the latest news, but I find when I wake up in the morning I head first to my list with only 150 people on it. Why? Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans. - Robert Scoble

But how else can you tell who wins? - Glen Mistletoe

Jim: yeah, that feature pissed me off last night. Why did I get pissed off? Because I bought into the meme that how many followers you have matters. But, it also reminded me that I am not in charge of how many followers I have. It is not based on any objective criteria (at least now, I thought it had at least something to do with objectivity and that you could earn followers by putting good content out. Now I see that you can earn followers by some subjective criteria and that led to this post). - Robert Scoble

6. Due to http://search.twitter.com and friendfeed's search (and discovery items) you can have conversations with people without having any followers. So, having tons of followers is having less and less value as people go to Twitter search more and more (or use TweetDeck's search features). - Robert Scoble

The list of top twitters has integrity - we know exactly what is and it's true to that - it's just not the way you would like it... - yanwoo

@Glen: is twitter a contest? - .LAG liked that

yanwoo: no, it has no integrity anymore. You have no idea why someone is at the top. You used to know, not anymore. Now if I worked at Twitter I could make someone go to the top of the list just by putting them on the suggested friends list. - Robert Scoble

.LAG: all lists are contests. That's why they piss off so many people and why they are defended by people who are rewarded by them (me included). - Robert Scoble

Robert: You will appreciate this then - How I deleted 23500 followers in 5 minutes (AND why I reset my Twitter account to zero.) http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2009... - Jim Connolly

@LAG Some people obviously think so ;) - Glen Mistletoe

Robert, the # of people following a person on twitter is a bit like a black box. Sure, we know all the accounts that are following someone, but we have no idea if those accounts are real people, marketing spammers, casual users, or something else. Until I can point at a users account and say "This is a real person, I know how to tell 100% of the time" then follower numbers are meaningless HS popularity contests. However, I do feel like once a person gets over a critical mass of real followers, the potential - Daniel Spisak

re: #3... if you are saying good things, and people are listening and being informed or inspired to do good things, then it matters. Maybe not to you, but potentially to others. - LogEx

...for crowdsourcing becomes possible and this is where Twitter has a lot of benefit to the user. - Daniel Spisak

Jim: you are a braver man than me. Based on my talks with geeks who are increasingly finding themselves distracted and addicted by Twitter and friendfeed I would expect more people to do that in the future. - Robert Scoble

Daniel: due to retweeting and Twitter search (and friendfeed) how many followers you have doesn't matter to crowdsourcing (as much). - Robert Scoble

Robert: Thanks! It was getting stupid - Now, I can enjoy the small amount of time I spend on Twitter and DON'T NEED tweetdeck. - Jim Connolly

I don't think this new feature of suggested users is any different from the throwback days of twitter when we had 10 highlighted users on the public timeline a year or so ago. why were you not beefin then? People received "extra credit" back then too. - Liz

Glen, how will you know you've "won?" I judge myself off of how many times I get retweeted. That demonstrates readership, credibility, engagement, interest, etc. Those are attributes I like judging myself by. Not whether I won some popularity contest by figuring out how to get Biz or Ev to put me on some subjective list. - Robert Scoble

The LA Times was also unhappy: http://bit.ly/Zp61T It doesn't bother me too much. There are plenty of lists online, so I won't get too worked up about Twitter suggesting people to follow. It would be nice if they allowed users to suggest who ends up on that list. But, as Robert points out, numbers don't matter, conversations do. - Paul Rodriguez

@scoble, @glen —then, godd*mn, I'm getting my *ss kicked on twitter! i should give up. i'm so far behind, i'll never catch up. wonder if there are performance-enhancing drugs i can take to get back into the game. .LOLz - .LAG liked that

Liz: I don't even remember that. But no one ever looked at the public timeline after Twitter got popular. It also didn't let you add one group with one click. - Robert Scoble

Jeez, Robert, you just caused me to read that whole thread about Arrington, look at the Find People feature inTwitter, and try out Mr. Tweet. Spent an hour. Did it do me ANY good? I doubt it. - Francine Hardaway from twhirl

Paul: @leolaporte was unhappy. People who make their livings off of advertising find this stuff disturbing because Twitter can decide who will have businesses on its system (number of followers could translate into money. @techcrunch says that already 2% of his traffic comes from Twitter). Me? I'll have to earn my money the old fashioned way: good content. - Robert Scoble

Francine: I think this stuff is all good. It causes us all to think about the tools we're putting so much of our lives into. Hope things are going well for you, can't wait until you're back in Half Moon Bay again. Let's go get a drink, I have lots of things to tell you when you're back. - Robert Scoble

@scoble: perhaps it's the advertising model that's broken then. - .LAG liked that

Robert, what are the big drivers of traffic to your money-making content among friendfeed/twitter/facebook/flickr/etc.? - Bruce Lewis

Bruce: my referrer page usually has Twitter #1, friendfeed #2, Google Reader #3. When I'm on Techmeme it usually jumps to #1 or #2 for a day. - Robert Scoble

.LAG: bing! Bing! Bing! You win the award of the insight of the day award. - Robert Scoble

Content drives traffic, so it's the quality of the Followers not thew quantity - paul mooney

Facebook has tons more users than friendfeed. Funny that you don't get lots of traffic from there. - Bruce Lewis

Robert, it's hard for me to believe that you actually "bought into it" last night. You've stated numerous times and times again that followers don't matter and we understand what you are saying. But, if it is so hard to stand by what you preach, then don't preach at all. - Michael Forian

Michael: I'm human. I fall into traps just as often as anyone else does. I make mistakes just as much as anyone else does. - Robert Scoble

Bruce: facebook does not have the expectation that you'll discuss science or technology or news. The stuff that comes into my news feed is generally pretty fun stuff, but is not that. When I put videos into Facebook, though, it brings me good views and engagement. - Robert Scoble

@scoble: but otoh, what are the alternatives to advertising? yes great content is critical, but it doesn't guarantee revenue or viability by itself. and then if you're a site with great content, eventually, you too, will probably end up advertising. i think the guys from 37signals have some wonderful ideas about how to survive and thrive using a different model, it starts with not worrying about being so BIG. - .LAG liked that

I'm yet to see any convincing proof Scoble's human :) No one's online THAT much. - Jim Connolly

I was a little confused because you at one time were saying the number of followers shouldn't be included in a tweet pagerank (http://scobleizer.com/2008...), so using the number of followers in this context shouldn't make sense either. Or do you see them as different? - Todd Hoff

.LAG: if I had some answers I would be implementing like mad. - Robert Scoble

The number of followers does not matter... to a point. However if you are a business, charity or person with a strong message to get out you have to also remember that your message means nothing if people don't hear it. So while the number of followers should not matter to your ego or self-worth, it definitely matters when you are shouting on the rooftops. You need a huge number of followers to have a greater impact. To that end followers are extremely important. - Patrick Allmond

Todd: I believe that even more today now that the follower popularity rank thing has been messed with by Twitter's fooling with it with a subjective choice. - Robert Scoble

Patrick: that is true, sort of. I can get my message heard without having any followers. I've seen that proven over and over again lately. How? More and more people are reading http://search.twitter.com or Friendfeed. Let's do a test. You open a friendfeed account. No friends. You post something. You tell me about it. I'll like it. That will put that item into view of all my followers. So, how many followers do you really need? None. - Robert Scoble

Patrick as right. The hard thing is that # of followers is one of many things that do matter, but that we can't completely control. We have to constantly adapt. - Bruce Lewis

Robert, Patrick is still right. What if Robert Scoble didn't have any followers? Who would you tell about your content then? Somebody has to have followers to make this work. - Bruce Lewis

attachment = suffering - William Harryman

"Zen and the Art of Tweeting" by Robert Scoble - coldbrew

This is a great list and SO true! I still cannot figure out FriendFeed though. Many people who follow me on Twitter are just following to see if I will follow them back and are truely not interested in what I have to share and discuss as topics of interest. - Hummie

Even if the list was correctly pointing out who is "the best Twitterer", why does it matter. Millions of people post that don't subscribe to anyone but just people they know. You need to not base your selfworth on the Internet and instead on your happiness. - Jennifer

*in conclusion read the stream of "the REAL Shaq" his twitter diharreaha proves that # of followers doesn't mean the followed is spitting out gems - sofarsoShawn

Would Scoble care about this if he were on it? I don't think so. - coldbrew

Jennifer: if you are in the content business you are getting paid via advertising. Advertising is paid by "CPM" or, per 1000 readers/visitors, etc. Let's say you were making $25 CPM. Well, then, having another 10,000 readers is worth $250. If you can get those people to visit every week, that's a pretty nice chunk of change. - Robert Scoble

coldbrew: I disagree. I am not allowed to accept gifts from the companies I cover. I cover Twitter, so getting this kind of reward isn't acceptable. I also care about the integrity of the communities and tools I use and interact with. I would definitely speak out about this feature and would pull my name out of it to protest that it was using subjective criteria to make people popular. - Robert Scoble

Bruce: I know a lot of people who have lots of followers. I bet I would be able to convince at least one of them to RT my messages. If not, I get traffic from http://search.twitter.com -- just write about something that's trending and you'll get followers from that. - Robert Scoble

So, basically this boils down to $, like most things. Personal motivation is an interesting topic in itself. Anyone that checks their web analytics daily (pageviews/ uniques, email subs, rss subs, followers, friends, etc.) is simply on a completely different wavelength than myself. - coldbrew

By that logic, Scoble, you should request FF to remove you from suggestions, as you do not know, specifically, the criteria for getting on such a list. - coldbrew

coldbrew: yup, when you do this as a business those are the things you care about. My wife, though, isn't doing it as a business and she still is caring about lots of those things on her Facebook account. So, even people who don't do it for money care about things like who is following them. It's a huge trap to fall into and one that isn't very satisfying. Humans are weird, aren't they? - Robert Scoble

Humans are weird for a lot of reasons, but caring about popularity and influence is not one of those reasons. - Bruce Lewis

coldbrew: that is absolutely NOT true. I already figured out the algorithm for how friendfeed works. Did you know that I'm NOT on the default list there? Here, try it. Open a friendfeed account with no friends. First of all, it will recommend NO ONE. Huge difference from Twitter. Second, add someone who does NOT follow me. I will NOT be on the recommended list. - Robert Scoble

coldbrew: friendfeed presents a different list to everyone who comes here. Its algorithm HAS INTEGRITY. It is based on the most popular person OF THE FRIENDS YOU ADD. - Robert Scoble

Just asked my good buddy and girlfriend about how many friends they had on FB (they' barely know what Twitter is). GF, "200 something" and my buddy, "No idea", so I'm sure you are having an impact. - coldbrew

coldbrew: on friendfeed no one is getting rewarded who did not earn that recommendation FROM THEIR FRIENDS. This is one reason I really like friendfeed. Friendfeed really engineers things a lot better than Twitter and thinks through the consequences of doing something wrong or removing integrity from the system. - Robert Scoble

Seems to me it was pretty inevitable as Twitter got bigger that any sense of meritocracy w/ followers would dissipate. I suspect more things will crop up to counter it's importance and offer different views of the best and most interesting Tweeters. Stocktwits is probably an early example of how Twitter may get sliced up. If that is a trend that plays out then #1 tweeter will become a database statistic :-) - yanwoo

Robert, that's only partial integrity. First, that process has an accelerating effect that makes the most popular even more popular. Second, it's popularity rather than interestingness. - LogEx

It is still your perception of some method for bestowing authority, rather than concrete knowledge, that is leading you to the conclusion. - coldbrew

Logical: that is true, but that happens in life anyway. It is based on meritocracy, though. I spent thousands of hours on friendfeed last year when people thought it wasn't important to pay attention to. - Robert Scoble

I'm speaking facetiously about "winning," of course, though some people seem to think it's a contest. Twitter's a bullhorn; even the # of retweets is a factor of how many followers you have. - Glen Mistletoe

I agree with Robert on this one, it is not the number of followers; it never can be the number of followers. What it should be about are people who like you, who you like, who you want to share information with. It should not be a clique, you need to allow new members in and allow for diversity of opinion, yet in the end it will always be about like minds, sharing information that has the ability to change the world, and if not the world, at least the location that you live in. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

coldbrew: wrong. I've done extensive testing of the http://friendfeed.com/setting... feature and understand how that list was decided on. Plus, you can do your own tests to verify what I say. On Twitter the list is totally random and subjective. - Robert Scoble

Glen: I disagree with you about RT's. I've seen people get massively RT'd who only had a few followers. - Robert Scoble

Campbell, most of *us* knew where you were coming from at the outset. Your thoughts on retweeting are spot on. - coldbrew

Scoble, edge-cases, especially anecdotal stories, aren't the stuff that comprises the guts. - coldbrew

80/20 rule? - coldbrew

coldbrew: You've got some good points to make, but it might be easier to move on if you'll first admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations. - Bruce Lewis

coldbrew: oh, yes, there is an 80/20 rule here in place. Just like most of life. - Robert Scoble

"admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations" You mean that they seem to be more equitable than Twitter? Or, something else? - coldbrew

That one can empirically determine that Scoble isn't automatically on the recommended list. They aren't entirely a black box. - Bruce Lewis

Bruce: they aren't a black box at all. You can very easily figure out who and why people are on the friendfeed list. Oh, and the list is infinite and you can't automatically add the entire list, so you've got to click one by one and add people that way. There isn't a huge reward for being on the list the way there is on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Robert, my only point was that a person with 62,798 followers has a statistically higher probability of getting retweeted than someone with only 281 followers. There's simply more chance of seeing what got tweeted in the first place. - Glen Mistletoe

Glen: that's true, but is getting less and less true over time as more and more people use things like Search.Twitter.com. Anyway, I'd rather have 100 active followers who actually talk with me than 1,000 followers who are there just to collect my name on their follower list. - Robert Scoble

Agreed, But the fact that Twitter's recommendations are a "black box" is not what indicated to me (a long time ago) that # of followers was not something to obsess over. Also note: FF does not make it easy to determine how many followers a given person has. - coldbrew

coldbrew: true, but ffholic does that. - Robert Scoble

Search only helps if you're happy to ride an existing trend. If you want to start a new trend it's useless. - Bruce Lewis

I have 1000+ followers, but less then 100 I really know. So in essense, I have 100 followers - Lorraine Ball

I don't use ffholic (it is funny that they use ASP.NET :-), but you'll notice FF obscures these numbers (probably based on values they would like to instill). - coldbrew

When the community is small and relatively homogeneous, a scalar metric like follower count might be a reasonable proxy for influence/popularity. However, as the community gets larger, more diverse, and "multidimensional" a single metric like followers breaks down. - Ken Sheppardson

It's a bit like eBay feedback: consider two members with a 1000, 100% positive feedback score. You can get that by buying 1000 fifty cent Pokemon cards or by selling a $X million worth of collectibles. The bare number means very little, at least when used to compare members. - Ken Sheppardson

BIZ Stone's quote from the LA Times: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone acknowledged that offering “suggested users” wasn’t the ideal solution and suggested that the service might evolve to cater to particular users’ interests. “Right now it’s sort of like staff picks at your local bookstore,” he wrote in an e-mail. - Jim Connolly

Your point is well taken, Sheppardson, that multiple variables should be considered. There was a rumor at some point that Twitter intended to monetize based on this suggestion "engine" which I do not believe had any merit. It is akin to allowing payment for organic SERP placement. - coldbrew

I think it is ironic that one of the best gadget bloggers of our time, Ryan Block (who used to run Engadget), has 1/10th as many followers as his girlfriend, Veronica has. Veronica will see someday why this system has no integrity. Jim: that quote shows the kind of engineering care that Twitter puts into things. That might explain why I see the fail whale on a regular basis. Well, that just verifies that I made the right choice last year to spend much more time here on friendfeed than on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I like FF better than Twitter and spend much more time here. You made the best choice in terms of quality. But I'm not convinced you made the best choice for driving traffic to your money-making content. Quality matters, but quantity matters too. It's a tough choice. - Bruce Lewis

How much of Twitter's power comes from tight SMS integration, and why doesn't some "Twitter clone" just make a play for simple SMS services horizontally (B2B style)? - coldbrew

Quality versus quantity. And at end of the day it doesn't matter *if* you're contributing good content and simply using the service. The follower number plays to a person's ego ... it is, in my opinion, a real drawback to the service. It encourages the wrong type of behavior. I think FF has intentionally made these stats less obvious for a reason. - AJ Kohn

Bruce: friendfeed has been growing faster than twitter did in its first year. I'm pretty sure the quantity will show up here too. And, anyway, I do have a few followers on Twitter so I can reach the audience I want to reach. - Robert Scoble

coldbrew: not much anymore. SMS mattered a lot more two years ago than it does today since the iPhone came along. It will matter even less in the future after more people get smartphones. But, yeah, it does matter a little bit today. - Robert Scoble

Coldbrew: I think apps like http://www.tatango.com will provide the SMS glue. That's a cool company, I'll have a video of them up this week. - Robert Scoble

I know about tatango. Funny you should mention that. They seem to be sitting on their hands - coldbrew

"Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans" -Robert Scoble Or rather it is more important to those who are conscious of the love God puts inside all of us to act upon or not: (Matt.5:3) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage... (Psalm 42:7) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage...; And this brings into perspective what we enjoy as opposed to what we love. - Melanie Reed

SMS matters a whole bunch b/c it makes the field more open. SMS was built on the pager tech and I can get SMS when I'm out of phone range. - coldbrew

All these problems will be solved when twitter acquires friendfeed. - Edwin Khodabakchian

Ed, is that an opinion or are you airing fact ? - atul abraham from twhirl

Kambiz: I did not delete any comments here. Not sure what you are talking about. - Robert Scoble

in our personal egoic minds, it should not matter, which is what you point out quite well - as I was expressing yesterday at NV09, I really tweet for myself... some ppl take that to extreme and tweet for themselves to be popular, playing games so they can sit at the cool kids table :( but bigger 'reach' creates more power to make a difference (when used for good). More access to network also means more access to better information (ie, my passport problem) which makes difference in our lives at key moments - Chris Heuer

Good point re: who is talking to you, vs. listening to you. I've stopped following twitter people with a bad ratio - too many followers to who they read. Exceptions: hodgeman & anamariecox. I just don't like the ego of people who have big followings but don't engage. - anna sauce

Last week, Mashable featured me as a twitter professor - in the 16th spot down the page http://mashable.com/2009... The first person listed was our friend (who you should be following) Chris Penn - he added 1400 followers in one day and I received just over 700 in same time http://twittercounter.com/chrishe... - http://twittercounter.com/cspenn (mentioned as real data point) IMHO the 'top100' shows the power laws of the A-List challenge in action, more pop u r, more pop u become - Chris Heuer

Chris sounds like a catch-22 - anna sauce

Featured on mashable? Sounds prestigious... - coldbrew

One must have amazing insight if featured by mashable, knowing how exclusive that site is about coverage. - coldbrew

Nobody deleted comments, you just got confused about where you left your comments. - coldbrew

If Scoble were covered by mashable for his usage of Twitter, he'd gracefully decline b/c it would be a payoff. - coldbrew

Robert prove that you're not on the FF payroll - Bob Sonin

Bob: Techcrunch looked into it. Arrington thought I should be getting paid by friendfeed. But I did not give friendfeed anything it didn't earn. - Robert Scoble

Kambiz, this is the Dr. Jekyll post. You commented on the Hyde one. :) - jcunwired

Then in the interests of full disclosure/transparency, what 'did' you give them - Bob Sonin

Bob: links on my blog and tons of praise. - Robert Scoble

nice work, cool - Bob Sonin

ANA - perhaps, but not really - my argument is for disclosure so people know when its paid placement versus genuine recommendations - not passing judgment on the act, seeking clarifications and trying to further the conversation --- cant say its bad for everyone and then say I am dong something similar - more nuanced discussion then that, which you can read about in this post I just wrote http://bit.ly/30cKv "Is it ok for companies to pay to be featured users in Social Media sites?" (key is word USERS) - Chris Heuer

Thanks for stopping by and dropping a link, Heuer. Stay classy man. - coldbrew

Heuer, quick question: how many comments have you made without leaving a link to one of your own sites? [EDIT: specified type of link] - coldbrew

@scobleizer, I disagree. Of course it matters. Number of followers matters and being at the top of the list matters. BUT, like the weather there is very little you can do about it, so it's probably not worth a lot of time worrying about it. - Christian Anderson

coldbrew - generally about 90+% since I so seldom blog - on this page, with this comment 50% - is there a point you are trying to make? BTW - it seems I mistakenly was commenting on the other question (too many comments here and too many tabs open on my browser) - sorry about that --- do you not think that everyone has the right to start their own conversations and questions and then make others aware of that by sharing the link (insofar as it is on topic) - Chris Heuer

I like your point #2 especially. Also, I have seen a few people who are gaming the system where a few people just retweet each other. Like they have a mob or coordinated thing to up their standing. Also, there are lots of people that are just trying to increase there followers and this is all they care about and you get junk Tweets and it fills the channel up with noise. Just fyi, if you follow lots of people you follow none. The channel will be crowded with junk. Trust me. - Bill Romanos

Ana - are you asserting that people who have more followers then people they are following all have big egos? that they are not engaged? or are being disrespectful of people who follow them? (re: ur statement above) I couldn't disagree more vehemently with your broad brushed stereotyping - the majority of those with big followers and equal follower/following rations are quite the opposite of ur assumption - they are usually the ones in it for their egos - to be at the top of the list and using you to do so - Chris Heuer

Ana, more importantly - what are your tips for dealing with the deluge of inbound communications from thousands of people into your SMS account? clearly you need unlimited text plan for $x per month first - then you need to resign yourself to the fact that you are probably going to miss things that are very important because of the decreased signal to noise ratio... This is a complex issue which IMHO requires us all to respect how other ppl choose to communicate, especially when its not causing any harm - Chris Heuer

This conversation brings up a lot of ideas for me, but I can say simply that, in my gut, quality and not quantity is the way to go in ANY interaction. On-line, off-line, I don't care where. So, numbers without substance isn't going to do you any good on twitter or elsewhere. I guess the only time quantity works is for ad-clicks, because who cares if it is quality if you are just counting ad clicks. - Martha

Heuer, I will spell out my point this time, though I do not believe it requires an IQ of significance to comprehend. You barely interact here on FF, and when you do, it is usually (>50%) in order to get people to take actions elsewhere (e.g. read your blog post, fill out a survey, etc.). - coldbrew

Get it? Fairly insulting, imo. - coldbrew

coldbrew - of course the real reason for putting a bit.ly link to my blog post that reframes this question is because I wanted to get the google juice from Robert - that is clearly what my track record shows to be true. Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that there are limits on the size of comment within FF... btw - with this comment, its over 70% of my comments on this page that dont have a link. wondering why you have a private feed - would be interested to see what you do without registering - Chris Heuer

coldbrew - ah, so I am not native enough for you in FFand you dont like that I use twitter as my primary communications vehicle? well too bad - thanks for initially trying to thinly veil your insult and criticism and for ultimately feeling comfortable enough to insult me openly - no offence taken here at all because clearly you dont know Jack either... - Chris Heuer

I realize having a private feed and not pimping myself at every opportunity would confuse you. I'm at a loss to explain it to you other than to say I value information and candid, honest conversation. - coldbrew

PS - for people who actually care about these issues instead of trying to pass judgments on others, the very simple reason I request others to look at these things is so that we, as a broader community of practitioners, can connect the dots across communities to learn from one another and take collective action outside of any given echo chamber which creates insular feelings like those expressed by my new best friend here - thanks for making the point clear to all - I dont use FF daily, I am elsewhere often - Chris Heuer

"for people who actually care about these issues "? Are you fucking serious? I have no ulterior motives, and I'm not trying to position myself as a "social media expert"; and, I certainly don't have a site that focuses on "social media" as something one should "leverage." So, before you go on espousing your integrity, take a look at the facts. - coldbrew

OMG, what a spat! Chris, ignore him. - Francine Hardaway

Frankly, I'm a bit tired of the sausage festival that is tech blogging. Veronica is a breath of fresh air. She has the power of "it" and "it" rules the world. - Mattb4rd

@Scobleizer not that you'd worry, but I read what you write because it often gives me something to learn and think about that I would otherwise not find easily somewhere else. And you have a unique way of doing that. The fact that so many people choose to do the same is irrelevant to why I read your material :) - Valeria Maltoni

Yes. When one is interested in finding some sort of "truth" through discussion, the best choice is to ignore those with differing opinions. Brilliant strategy, Hardaway. - coldbrew

Hardaway, I realize you only came into this conversation at the last minute, but allow me to explain. There was a perfectly good discussion being had here, when Heuer (someone with whom you are apparently familiar) decided to chime in with a link to a semi-relevant blog post inspired by this very comment thread. He did not make his argument *here* where the discussion was being had, no; what he had to say required many more words than FF makes available. - coldbrew

So, an entire post was written and Heuer made his weekly FF comment with "appropriate" shameless plug to his post. I suppose I can see how people that only come to FF occasionally don't grok the issue I'm having here, but that won't stop me from making it. - coldbrew

I come here all the time, and often find a blog post comes out of a discussion I'm having here, or a comment on someone else's blog. - Francine Hardaway

That is good. I just ask that you don't suggest someone ignore me for expressing my opinion. I'm no expert, but I do try to be informed about the topics in which I participate. I was offended, and I took it up directly with the offender. Please suggest to me what I might do differently in such a situation. - coldbrew

I would have felt better about Twitter's recommended follows had it been some sanitized Google algorithm but this feels like some whorish self promotion and takes a lot of shine off Twitter. - Ernie Oporto from Nambu

i agree with @scobleizer here. the suggested people to follow in twitter has totally screwed with the 'meaning' of the rankings - Chris Heath

Until WSJ publishes a US$/followers Forex rate I will continue to believe that number of followers is fundamentally worthless - Jeffrey J Davis

For me, it was kind of strange to see the issues of "how many followers do I have" when I started reading blogs in 2008 for the first time. Seems like people like followers for many reasons (1) good conversations (2) boost to self-esteem (3) improve career prospects (4) share knowledge with others (5) etc... On the $ side, one of my friends with a labor-of-love website created over 7 years, now makes $1,000s/day (not thru advertising, but selling his own products)... - Mitchell Tsai

Traffic can help connect people with services & products they like. In some cases, sharing pictures, articles, news about kids-friends-relationships, may be our gift to the world community. Sometimes, people are finding new jobs, developing new life paths, getting helpful therapy or support, or simply enjoying themselves. It's sometimes a little annoying for me to hear people criticizing other people who are here for reasons other than their own, but it's "free speech". - Mitchell Tsai

Even with "trolls", I love the community on FriendFeed (Admittedly, I'm spending more time on Facebook...and unfortunately many people who share pictures there decline my requests to share them on the wider web, so I don't repost Facebook pictures on FF). More power to the people who are having fun accumulating "friends" or "followers". - Mitchell Tsai

It's even useful to connect with 10-20 very-active-spammy-type-friends/followers. I no longer connect with spammers (unless truly interested in their stuff, which occasionally happens), but my few spam connections help me see if other people accept those spam connections. I suppose if my Facebook limit starts hitting 5,000, it'll be time to delete the spammers (after sending them a note explaining why I'm pruning my Facebook connections). P.S. Scoble, you rock! - Mitchell Tsai

Good food for thought as I'm developing my conceptual 'follower' definition. I'm returning to value added in our network. - ka3drr

+1 Ryo - You.

Ryo: I regularly do things to get them into Google for myself to pull out later. The fact that other people are here doesn't matter. - Robert Scoble

Ryo: it's funny, though. You don't need any followers to participate here in this conversation. So, why do followers matter? http://search.twitter.com displays your Tweets even if you have no followers. That way you can find other people interested in a topic. I find lots of things on google.com that have no followers either. Not saying that it's not nice if they show up (followers are wonderful) but they certainly are NOT a precondition to participating and having people participate with you online. - Robert Scoble

Even if you *do* think they matter, using a save search in Twhirl can help you find folks to share with... I have 2000+ in Twitter and I'm nothing huge...just a bit strategic. ;) - Cheryl Allin

The problem with an ego is that sometimes the holder of said ego cannot see over it ... well because it's an ego. - Joe Breen

LOL, Ryo. So true. I can't tell you how many things I've posted on FF, and I get NO RESPONSE. I'm either painfully boring, or I need more followers so that I have a good chance of someone finding it interesting. - You.

comp goes for 2 months from today. think we are gonna see who loses the most percentage wise since we are all 3 different weights. - (jeff)isageek

Good luck! - Nation Hahn

I started a weight loss plan on Feb. 1. Hang in there and best of luck. - Sergio Cruz

We +must+ address executive pay in this new economy. It is ridiculous to have CEOs taking so much cash out when they are sending so many jobs overseas, or, worse, not investing in the future. - Robert Scoble

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Many of the US CEOs are exuberantly compensated one form or another - salary, stock options, and perks - whether the company is making a profit or a loss. It's quite entertaining to see a CEO take $1 salary. - imabonehead

realistically, what cam we expect from an economy that produces little at high cost, then spends profligately on non-products like security and war, and let's a very few skim off more than what's left. Mass delusion? - Marc A Meyer

A lot of it, I believe, stems from the work ethic difference in eastern companies. Japanese workers seem to be a lot more loyal to the company overall, putting in more time to make sure things work well in the long run. North American companies are in it for a quick buck. - Angelo Rodrigues

Angelo, I agree. It's the business culture that's different. Companies in any country still have that same bottom line - make profit, but it's how it's done supported by the business culture. - imabonehead

The big 3 CEOs all took their own company jet to DC to beg for money. - Brian Newman

Brian: if I were in charge of their PR I would have had them drive their cars in a "road trip to DC." - Robert Scoble

Robert: I doubt that they would appreciate that. Common folk drive on roads. I can't say with absolutely certainty what they were thinking, but they're not really asking for a handout, they're asking for a loan so they have to show that it's not something they need to have to survive. - Angelo Rodrigues

new rule: any auto maker that gets a bailout must pay it's top exec's $1 year - just like Lee Iaccoca for the Chrysler bailout. - MikeAmundsen

Wagoner's cash compensation is about $3.4M of that. With a stock price of $2.65, the rest of his compensation is worthless, including the options or stock that hasn't been sold. I don't like ridiculously high CEO pay, but I also don't want to see the government regulating it. That's between the CEO, the board, and the stockholders. - Chris Mayer

@scobleizer When it comes to the auto industry, exec pay is nothing more than a PR problem. If the problems of the auto industry could be solved by removing $20 MM in cost, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's healthcare and energy policy that are the major issues. - graham mudd

graham: I know that, but it sets a tone for everything else underneath. Executive pay in America is way out of wack. - Robert Scoble

That I agree with. Just think it's a bigger issue. Fixing exec comp would be a welcome change - I just think it gets too much focus because it's seemingly outrageous and easy to grandstand about. That said, the idea that Goldman Sachs' CEO turned down a bonus this year and Wagoner is still raking it in clearly illustrates a flaw with the system! - graham mudd

It all seems to depend on the CEO, so it shouldn't be as big a problem as people are making it out to be. That being said, regardless of how much we expect CEO's to re-evaluate their positions, it won't happen. The majority of CEO's are in for about 5 or 6 years and then they're replaced. In that time, making the most amount of money is important. After that, who cares? - Angelo Rodrigues

This chart: http://www.ezimages.net/DR... displays the growth in exec compensation vs. growth in employee compensation (and other measures) since 1990. I'm looking for other data on the ratio of exec to employee compensation as well. - Steve Lowe

CEO of Zuosa, Alex Mou, a Chinese Twitter Clone. - Robert Scoble

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Wow, many, if not most, popular Web 2.0 apps are cloned by the Chinese. And they're bringing them online fast. - imabonehead

ima: yeah, and most have been cloned multiple times. Now, though, the services are innovating on their own and adding some really unique things. Micropayments, for instance, are way ahead here in China vs. the US. - Fast Company

Interesting and yet kinda scary. US tech companies definitely need to be aware, if they're not already. As for me, I probably should move to China, the land of my ancestors, to start a Web 2.0 startup. :P - imabonehead

interesting, though its surprising something like it would be around in China with the Chinese government's censorship, namely seeing as how ours has labeled twitter as a potential terrorist tool, it'd seem they would be hesitate - BCK

BCK: Interesting to me is that neither China nor Iran have blocked FriendFeed. Both block my blog. I bet both services will get blocked eventually. FriendFeed is VERY fast in China, though, while Facebook is dreadfully slow. - Robert Scoble

it's a pure surprise to see Robert Scoble in Guangzhou(Canton). What a pleasure to talk to Robert about the Chinese Twitter: www.zuosa.com - Alex Mou

I guess the chinese government doesn't have any early adopters on the staff :P - BCK

Alex; Zuosa looks great, though I obviously can't read any of it - BCK

@bck their net police force is more advanced than many people think. - Alex Mou

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