Vidar Andersen - Comments

I clearly do. Scoble believes that few people do...I just think that few people socialize within Google Reader - Zee.

281 more comments

Only via Feedly (in Flock). Does that count as a no? - Ruud van Wijngaarden

no - Farshad

Yup. - Kol Tregaskes

yeah, for sure that counts Ruud - Zee.

Absolutely -- and sticking with it -- Google can do big things with it - Christopher Galtenberg

Indirectly, through Feedly. - Grey Drane

Rarely - Baard @ Pixum

I use it for the few valuable feeds that I can't receive anywhere else...But overall, FF and Twitter have replaced it. - Chris Rossini

Yep. I agree, few socialize in GReader. - Tanath

Yup, but through its API in Eventbox. I understand R Scoble says a lot of things. - Thomas Bøhm

Yep! - Julie Barrett from twhirl

yes - Alfredo

Yes, I do! - Filipe Rodrigues

Yep, but I don't really connect with people there. I just read stuff. If I want to talk about something, I share it here. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Using more and more FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook and less Google Reader - Ralph

Clearly my most used online app, so yes. All the other tools revolve around it in my world. My dad read the newspaper every morning, I read Google Reader all day. - Bwana ☠

Yes, it's still the best way to track blogs that write about stuff I like. - arjo

Yes, but only from feedly - Philippe Mongeau

YEah. I used to use Feeddemon but I like having my feeds synced over multiple devices with the least amount of hassle. Google Reader works perfectly for that. - Bhavishya Kanjhan

I use it, but I don't use it in a social way. - Alix Whitmire

Of course! I also use FF a lot, but it didn't actually reduce my activity on Greader - Stanislas Jourdan

Yup - Simon Wicks

I use Google Reader almost every day - Peter Stuifzand

Yes. I used to use Bloglines, but I like Google Reader much better. - Joey Gibson

Yes, by far the best RSS reader I've tried. - Martin Bryant

All day long. - Graham English

yes all the time :) - martha

No. - اميــــــــــــــر

Yes, I do :) - María A.

how do you you read your news Amir? - Zee.

no - Steven Hodson

yes - CW™

Yes, but not directly, I skim entries via my program ( http://ff.im/38Yl8 ), if I am interested I click. So to FF/twitter/gmail/and other urgent feeds - Yu-Jie Lin

Without a doubt. - © b e e n s w a n k

Occasionally. - Gordon Herd

If anyone wants to share feeds; feel free. http://www.google.com/reader... - © b e e n s w a n k

Yep. Still use Google Reader. - Beau "Slick Foot" Liening

Yes, quite a bit. - Dustin Sallings

Yes, since 2006. I used Bloglines and Sage (Firefox add-on) before. - LouCypher

No. I stopped using it a long time ago when I switched to FeedDemon, then I stopped using that too (keeping up with 200+ feeds was just too much). Now, I use Gmail's Web Clips with 14 feeds (including the feed for popular bookmarks on Delicious). If the item is new and the title is interesting enough, I click. Still, I keep saying to myself: "I should go back to FeedDemon someday." - Yaser Sulaiman

yep - Rich

yes - AJ Kohn

the best app to read news and keep track of favorite blogs ~ Google reader - Srikanth AD

Duh. - Louis Gray

Yes a lot - M F

yes sure, most of the time via feedly though - Naor Mark

Yes..it's the only RSS reader I use. - Bill Johnson

yup, Tried a few others but always went back to Greader, now using Feedly to read my feeds with. - Tony C.

No, never. - Ton Zijp

@Louis Gray you say 'Duh' but Scoble doesn't believe so - Zee.

@Zee It's Scoble. Go figure. - © b e e n s w a n k

Yes, I do. Not regularly though. - Katie: Witch Of The West

Yes, usually daily. - 321

Occasionally - Lu Liu

Yes. It's one of the few things I can access from work so sometimes it's my only contact with the outside world. - Michael Hocter

I use it quite often. Have a widget on my iGoogle home page and still really like the iPhone interface. - David Imielski

Yes, I read from several different computers. GReader is great. - David Slattery

Tried it, don't use it. - Bruce Lewis

I use Bloglines. - Alex Scoble

Use it occasionally. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Daily. I love it. - Andrew

yup - vijay

I use it on a daily basis. It is my primary means of keeping up with all the latest news. - Bob Blunk

I setup google reader with a few local news links, so if I share something it's sent to friendfeed and then twitter. dont use it alot, forget to. I have FF, I let other people find interesting links for me to read. - Mike Nencetti

Yep. No other readers sync with the iPhone as well. Sure, there's NetNewsWire, but I don't like it. - Larry Hudson

Yes - matthew john ernisse

@Alex Keeping it old school. - © b e e n s w a n k

Yes, love it. Also the mobile version and with feedly. - TobiasVerhoog.com

Yes, former Netvibes user, but Google Reader is much better for RSS feeds - Kristian Salonen

Yes via Feedly, which shakes it up and presents it magazine style. - Kate Foy

Yes, sort of - Will Higgins™

yes every day. - Tendonitis' Bitch

Yes. Best. Feed reader. Ever. - Jason Mayoff from Nambu

Via Feedly - Grant Bierman

Yes, but am really searching for an alternative that allows me to have smarter results... some blogs have posts I am not interested in. Today I just started trying out bytagg. - Sid Burgess

Yup from me. Love GR. - Roger Benningfield

now where's Scoble at? I wanna gloat... :P - Zee.

Most people say RSS is dead because Twitter takes over by being real time. The issue with that is that we ourselves cannot be available real time, all the time. RSS helps you cache that information to make it available when you cannot be in the stream. - Bhavishya Kanjhan

well said Bhavishya - Zee.

I use it, but don't socialize with it - xero

Zee: gloat? With a few dozen comments? Come on, please do be real. I have 89,000 followers on Twitter, 5,000 on facebook, 38,000 on friendfeed. When you get close to those numbers let me know. Then I'll let you gloat. - Robert Scoble

@Scoble How do you mean "what I get close to those numbers?" - can you clarify - Zee.

Use it, but not as a social tool. - invariant - farewell FF

Robert: I don't think he wants to gloat about his numbers. It's about the fact that a lot of people still do use Google Reader or other RSS Readers; they just don't socialise with it as much as they do with Twitter or FF. - Bhavishya Kanjhan

Yes, but I feel I'm wasting to much time with it. Browsing entire RSS feeds is not really targeted and Google Reader doesn't filter. - Oliver Bouchard

I use it for my feedreading, but not socially. - Scott Bulloch

Yes I do, keep it opened in a firefox tab almost all day. - Vineet Bhatnagar from Nambu

I'm still waiting to hear what Scoble's crap about "89,000 followers on Twitter, 5000 on facebook and 38,000 on Friendfeed" was about. - Zee.

Yes I do! - Victor Ryden

@Zee Don't hold your breath. - © b e e n s w a n k

Nope - RAPatton

naa, he'll respond - at least i hope so. Because I'm really hoping i'm wrong about what i think he was implying there. - Zee.

yes I do = but I am quickly finding FriendFeed and Twitter replacing some of the feeds I used to subscribe to. - Tony

Yes! I use Google Reader constantly, in my web browser and on my iPhone. I have RSS feeds set up for my common Twitter searches, too. I also use Yahoo Pipes that I've developed over time to have very targeted RSS feeds. But I don't socialize via Reader. - Kurt Rosenkranz

Yes, I still use Google Reader, voraciously. It has NOTHING to do with comments/followers. Rather, GReader is a tool for being better informed. Sometimes I use my GReader learnings in the real world - in conversation - where we don't formally have followers and such. - Mike Reynolds

R.Scoble: What do follower numbers have to say in this matter, or at all ? I thought you had a statement about quantity vs quality some time ago as well ? - Thomas Bøhm

I use NewsFire, and occasionally Resc Newws! on my PalmOS phone. I guess I haven't joined the "everything's in the cloud" revolution yet. - Joshua Lee

<whisper> I've never used it. </whisper> - Derrick

Thomas: follower users tell you how many people use a service and map pretty closely how many people are using a service, if you can see them in aggregate. - Robert Scoble

Zee: it's not what 80+ people on friendfeed say. It's how many people ACTUALLY use these services. Google Reader just doesn't have the numbers. My follower numbers are a very accurate indicator of that. - Robert Scoble

R. Scoble: people follow more people on Twitter than on Facebook because Facebook means you share a lot of information, so I'm not sure if those numbers mean much in the way of that. - Joshua Lee

@Scoble But how do you know how many people use Google Reader? - Zee.

I don't use google reader, and I use twitter, facebook, and a bit of friendfeed. ;-) - Joshua Lee

But Robert, I use GReader EVERY DAY, but I'm not really socially connected with anyone on it. GReader's main function can be used without any social integration at all - so how many people follow you or vice versa isn't really relevant. Even leaving aside the issue of whether number of followers is relevant at all - it certainly isn't relevant when the core function of a service isn't connecting with other people, but consuming content. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Yes: it is a convenient tracking system and I like the email alerts - Anita Hunt

I use google alerts without GReader - Joshua Lee

GReader != social - Mike Reynolds

Yes. It's an essential daily tool for must-read feeds, as well as for discovery. Social media does not give me the same content as my must-read feeds. - LogEx

Sometimes feeds generate data for social media.... I share a lot of links via email and occasionally facebook or twitter. - Joshua Lee

No. Currently it does not cater for my feed reader needs. - Vidar Andersen

I used to use a similar online newsreader, bloglines I think it is called, but after a while I found having to check a website unweildy - the whole point to RSS is to not have to play with your browser to read information. - Joshua Lee

If you want to follow blogs directly on their site, at least for Blogger, you pretty much have to do use Google Reader. I know I've had that feedback from my followers. - Fossil Huntress

Yeah, blogger is a bit of a closed ecosystem. Very ungooglelike. - Joshua Lee

/me uses his best Ronald Reagan impression "Mr. Brin - tear down this wall" - Joshua Lee

every day for real work needs. for all the rest, FF, Twitter and Facebook - Giovanni De Stefano

Yes. Daily. But I overlay it with Feedly - www.feedly.com - which makes it rather prettier. - Stephen Collins

Much ado about nothing. - © b e e n s w a n k

Clearly Scoble doesn't really want to get too involved with this discussion. Which is disappointing considering he was the motivation for the post in the first place. - Zee.

Google will eventually add real-time and social networking stuff to Google Reader, and especially with algorithms to suggest the best posts to read, then all will use that most - Charbax

I use it. But I don't share anything with it. I just use it to keep on top of a few news sites and forums. - Jan Ole Peek

no, but I'm ashamed to admit it. I used to use bloglines. - Laura Norvig

I live in Google Reader. It's my life line for discovery, digestion and distribution. - Mike Fruchter

Yes. - Deborah Fitchett

I do. I could live without FF, Twitter et al but Google Reader is a time/life saver. - Murray Barton

Not much anymore. I push most of my rss feeds through FF. That way I still get RSS goodness without constantly fighting an unread count. - Tech Introvert

Yup. - Mathew A. Koeneker

Yes - Shevonne

Sometimes. - Jon, the Beartato of FF

I do. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

I do w/feedly - Dave Martin

I do when I'm bored. It's more a bookmarking spot for me than anything. - Mitch

Yes, I use google reader and RSS is not going anywhere - Wayne Sutton

Yep, pretty much everyday - WRider from twhirl

yes, daily - Brian

well clearly according to Scoble, all of you guys saying that you use it are not part of the majority...and Google Reader is actually a very quiet place - Zee.

Went from Google Reader to NetNewsWire simply because of the syncing ability between the Mac client and the iPhone app. - Mike Bracco

Yes - constantly - Threepwood

Zee: sorry, I had to drive Patrick home. There are a variety of ways to see how popular Google Reader is. Look at Quantcast. Alexa. Compete. Compare referee logs with others, etc. I have kept on top of the usage numbers and Google Reader isn't keeping up with growth in other agregator types like Facebook and friendfeed andthe people I compare numbers with see a lot more traffic from... more... - Robert Scoble

Yes, I love it. - Kate

Absolutely! Key tool 4 R&D. - Jan Friman from Nambu

@Scoble thanks for the clearer and less agro response. I'm really going to dig in and do some research into it because although I definitely believe that Facebook & Co. are growing much faster...as a news source/tool - i still believe it's number 1 and has huge potential for further growth - Zee.

i do and love its integration into everything - Zach Scott

I use it a lot. Get and collect most of my "news" there. - kilbuda

Yes. Ugly as it is. - Robin Barooah from Nambu

@Robin check this out http://thenextweb.com/2009... - Zee.

Sure. Save the good stuff with Read It Later & Evernote. - David Hayes

Yes. - David Cook

Yes - just to read - J.D. Deutschendorf

Yes. I've been using it less because of FriendFeed and Reader's content/ attention data lock-in. If Reader: 1) allowed us access to our attention stats, labels etc. through interactive UI or flat file export (Diigo), I'd use it more. 2) added a simple WYSIWYG editor to the comments feature to improve it as a blogging platform, I'd use it more. 3) allowed for Gtalk chat's around articles with chats that could be appended to the articles (think Gmail with appended Gtalk chats), that would be useful as well. - Jack Frizzell

Yes. Recently I love to use GReader via feedly.com - yezi

Yes, especially to share - Janaree Nore

I'm a long-time Reader fan. - Kevin Fox

Yes, though a lot less since Friendfeed came along - jcunwired

I stopped a few months ago...but now I'm back to using Feedly - love the magazine layout, just a cleaner better way to read (for me that is ;) - Aline Ohannessian

Religiously. - Steven Perez

Off and on. - Parth Awasthi

Yeah - Nicholas James

Yes, at least twice a day... every day. - CJ Guest

no, only a handful of times - Chris Heath

I just import Robert Scoble's and Louis Gray's .... it's much easier - Charlie Anzman

don't know how i would get all the rich data w/ out gReader and Feedly. - michael sean wright

Yes - I don't always read it, but yes. - Brent - Long Live Rock

i don't feedread anymore. tired of the echo - Richard A.

Everyday - Roger Teh

Yes, probably my second most-visited site after FriendFeed. - John E. Bredehoft

yes - Duane

sure - Alper Umut Çimen

Yes. I need my feeds everywhere - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Yes, love it. - Mark Krynsky

yup - Alejandro

yes! - Randy

Yes, every day! - Jonathan

Yep, I'm an avid user. - Lode Nachtergaele

Almost as much as gmail. Don't view or need it to be 'social'. - Adi

yes. :) - Laurentiu

extended firefox with feedly this evening -- thank you all for that recommendation, gReader looks so much better, especially where the folders can be customized with different views: magazine stylesheet enhances the readability of content. [I'm looking into the exposure of private feeds when feedly services are used. Comments? It was surprising how they got to my subscriptions without my password.] - Adriano

Adriano: Feedly is well done, isn't it? It's the only thing these days keeping me from abandoning FF completely for Chrome. - Christopher A Carr

[off-topic @cacarr : ditto, cf. extensions like Zotero, It's All Text (w/ vim ;-), or even Read It Later] - Adriano

Yeap feeds and alerts all in there. - Jonathan Kong

Yes I do, and I'm also pretty impressed with feedly/firefox, but I use that in addition to slogging through my greader feeds. I'm in the process of re-organizing my feeds so I can "mark all as read" without concern I'm missing something I need to see. "a1_events a2_casts b1_techblogs x9_other" etc. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Sure do, but a little les frequently than in the past - Alistair (alpinefolk)

I do. - Roshan Ramachandran

& my shared items get routed to Friendfeed+Facebook & from FF to Twitter... :) - Roshan Ramachandran

I do use Google Reader but just to read news feeds not sharing or whatever. The number of updates is getting a bit unmanageable now and I end up bulk-marking a lot as read, but it's good to skim through the headlines or less active feeds. - By_tor

Yes, but must admit my usage of it has dropped off a cliff since I started using Twitter more (mainly because it was easier to digest content on a mobile), but think the noise ratio is greater on Twitter, so may go back to Reader when I get the next iPhone. - Paul M Evans

I experience the entire internet through google reader - even twitter and friendfeed are read in google reader. - Ian Tindale

If I share stuff in Feedly it ends up in FriendFeed and Twitter. Someone has to put the good stuff up there to retweet... - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Absolutely! Google Reader is still the first webpage i hit in the morning to read my "a-list" tagged feeds. - Niklas Sjostrom

absolutely! - Goktug Gedik

yes i do! but less and less - Michael

yes i do but since friendfeed came on the scene it gets less and less - (jeff)isageek

yes but mostly through Feedly, and i do use Friendfeed to replace some stuff too. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Yes.. I would never socialize on it as well, the tool is of course, fantastic.. - Daniel Tal

Yes. I hate to admit it but Google did a great job with Reader. At first I didn't share anything but after some tweaking I got addicted to it. The gadget is great too (when it refreshes of course) - Carlos Lorenzo

Yes - Martin Liechti from fftogo

Yes. the only RSS reader I use. Haven't checked out feedly yet. - Ravindran Navaneethan

yes, a lot! - Thomas Lemberger

Yes -- mostly for local/major news sources. I don't really read too many blogs (but do have a handful in there too) - mark

Fuk yea and how ! - viki saigal

yes - Seltoon

Bloglines seems to be less reliable than Google Reader, but I stick with it because it's much easier to use. Complete navigation with single key strokes. Google Reader forces me to use the mouse. Too fussy. I'd prefer a desktop client, but haven't found one that is as good as Bloglines (on Linux). - Peter

Yes I do - Sampad Swain

Yes. I have hundreds of RSS feeds that I read via Reader. I haven't found a better Web-based replacement. I do not use Reader for it's social networking aspects though. - Glenn J. Ward

No, I prefer Bloglines. - Dimitar Vesselinov

Yes - Spencer

Yes, for all of the sites I follow. - Robert Kenney

yes - Sarah Peterman

Yup. Everyday. - Stephen

Nope. - Rochelle

Yep - Mustafa Tan

Nope. - Akiva Moskovitz

I was just checking Feedburner actually and noticed that 60% of our subscribers (8000+) at TheNextWeb.com use Google Reader.... - Boris

Yes, every day! - Hamza Şamlıoğlu

Yep! - Adnan Taşkıran

yes - clarke thomas

I use it and Feedly - Nathan Chase

yep - Jayavasanthan J

y, don't get to read everything tho - Artyom

It's the only RSS reader I use. I've tried several RSS apps on my phone and a couple on my computer and none are anywhere near as good as the web based Google Reader, either on my phone or on the computer. So I just stick with it. - Nathan Mylott

Zee - thanks for the link - I followed it and found 'helveitreader' which is nicer still. However, I have issues with the interaction as well as the style. (http://ff.im/3d9Np [http://ff.im/3d9Np] is real) - Robin Barooah from IM

Every day - on iPhone and Mac ... - Patrick Jordan

Yes..I push out my shared feeds to a Google Reader widget published on my blog. - George Dearing from BuddyFeed

everyday - me also having a dedicated widget on my blogs. - diego morelli

yes daily - Lu Tao

yes, daily, for now Twitter and twitter-like services are not replacing it... - roland legrand

Yes, daily. - George Brickner

Daily, it is a complement for specialized interests. - scottnewell

Yes, but I don't use it very often. - robin a.d. from Nambu

Yes. - Mark H

Everyday, all the time! - Patrik Johansson

Yes. only way to keep track of 250blogs, and its the only remotely Social media style site that isn't blocked by my work IT department. I share stuff not in Greader but on here more so. - Yant

I use reader, but keep looking for ways to cut myself off from it. I hate feeling that I have to read everything. - Daniel Zarick

Zee, why don't you use ffpolls? :) http://www.ffpolls.com/ - bilge kagan

ffpolls is broken for me - Robin Barooah from IM

@Robin Barooah; It's working correctly now. - bilge kagan

Yes. - Blake

@Bilge: Not for me: http://screencast.com/t... - Robin Barooah

Thanks Robin, i told about failure to founder. - bilge kagan

Yes, weekly - Ahmet Alp Balkan

Robin can you tell me poll title and poll answers? - F. Batuhan Icoz

Yes, and I love it. - Amy H.

I use it every day to skim what is going on but don't use it to socialize - Sandra

part of my core tool set... - Richard Zeidel

yup - docrivs

Sure do - Andrew Leahey

I use it all the time. - Pete Gilbert

every day - chrisofspades

Yes - OnuRC

yes. (btw @robin: it's fixed i think. can you please try again?) - Yusuf Güzel

Yes, but not actively. I use it to aggregate my favorite newsfeeds into one giant RSS feed, which I feed into Wizz RSS reader (Firefox plugin). Wizz automatically checks for updates at specified intervals, so I stay on top of the latest news from all services. I also use it to search mp3/filesharing RSS feeds that I subscribe to, and to bookmark useful posts. - LANjackal

Used to use it all the time, but I still check on my feeds from time to time through it. - i80and

@Yusuf yes - works for me now: http://ff.im/3eQqx - Robin Barooah

Yes - Yavuz Karakişi

Nope, i mean i used to but than came FriendFeed - Majento

All day every day, yes. - Ms_Krista

Everyday! - Anthony DCosta

Yes, everyday. - Cristian

I used to use bloglines, but once google added the ability to search only my feeds, they had me hooked. - Davis Freeberg

Yes, its my central information repository.Where i aggregate all interesting RSS ( from almost 150 different sources) so i never miss a beat. There are certain desktop apps which are better then Google Reader but whats great about it is its online repository which works for every device i use to access it. Though i clearly think there is a hell lot of improvement needed. In its current avatar it can be pretty unmanagable specially if you read a lot and you can't be online 24*7. - Abhishek

jah - Furkan Tunalı

Everyday. I have it set up so a can create keyword specific feeds to selectively send items to other sites. - Kevin Shannon

Yes and I cannot live without it :) - Michela Cimnaghi /cimny

Yes. The best reader out there. - "Jazzperous" Isaksson

Yes, everyday. - Peter Kruit

yes, I do everyday. I do sharing too. It works like a champ for me. - Mitchell Hislop

all the time! - Egyirba from twhirl

only with feedly otherwise it's clumsy and ugly looking - Cee Bee

love google reader and sometimes use feedly - sean808080

via Sharaholic only (to share, and seldom), I've never been to the official site, I don't do browser based RSS/Atom - Michael W. May

yup its taking over bookmarking.... - cysko

Nope - Vincent van Wylick

Nope. - Pandu ● IT Optimizer

No. - l0ckergn0me

love it, but wish there were more people on my google social graph - Saul Howard

I'm inclined to agree about the socializing in the reader. Otherwise, as a reader, it's ace. - Bronson Harrington

I do however so few of my friends do I do not socialize there. - Brian Bufalo

yep and I use it with feedly firefox addon - Adrian

No, I don't use Google Reader. - Thierry R. Andriamirado

yep! - Gio

Yep! I love GR - jonas

Yes i use it everyday! - Brian Moore

obsessively - Chris Rogers

"Dave, I'm afraid you sort of lost me here. To me you are mixing apples and oranges and then some. If you are not happy with the signal coming in through your twitter stream, do some selective defollowing. @spam is like any other spam; it's never going to go away ever - learn to live with it. As to thinking that others/brands want a twitter, you might be right that they would think of it, but I think you both would be dead wrong about the viability of such a solution. Think about it for 2 seconds. Twitter is twitter because it's twitter. Period. To think that one could set up a sustainable and equally successful clone is pretty weird. The free and open source alternatives are here, everybody's welcome to them but they are not taking off for anyone. Everybody wants to be on twitter because everybody is there, because - hypothetically - everybody can hear you, answer you directly. It's your voice, peer to peer on a levelled playing field. A walled off copy is not going to get much love..."

Yay! But this is awfully ambiguous: "When setting up a new Exchange ActiveSync account on your iPhone, all existing Contacts and Calendar events will be removed from your phone. Please make sure to back up any important data before you set up Google Sync." Will it re-merge them back in when I sync my phone to my desktop next time, or do I have to enter them back in by hand? A little detail that might be nice to know before I wipe my phone... - Kevin Fox from Bookmarklet

14 more comments

Sounds like they need to work on this still. I have been really wanting something like this, and was waiting with bated breath (I check about once a week) for Pocket Informant to be ready for the iPhone, but it is still not out (http://www.pocketinformant.com/product...). I am not sure I want to take the risk with Google Sync just yet, but it could be the solution I am looking for. If anyone wants to try it and report, that would help. - Ragani Harris

It works like a charm on my Windows Mobile phone. I'm impressed. - Benjamin Golub

Installed, currently waiting for the first "Push" to show up on my iPod Touch. Setup was very easy. - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

@Kevin Fox: Once you've setup an ActiveSync relationship the thing you're syncing won't sync via iTunes anymore. E.g sync Contacts via ActiveSync and it won't sync via iTunes anymore. I'd go with importing you contacts from Apple's address book into GMail then syncing you iPhone via ActiveSync. - Neil Dunn

Unfortunately, Google Sync for the iPhone is just as useless to me - and I suspect a few others - as it was for the BlackBerry. If you are using and depending on another service in your calendar and contacts mix, e.g. an Exchange server, Google Sync is most likely not going to do you much good. - Vidar Andersen

Anyone know if the user pictures are preserved? Do I still get the full-screen pic of my mom when she calls, or does it get downscaled to a buddy icon (or anything at all)? - Kevin Fox

It seems to me like the single-service limitation for calendar or contacts is on the iPhone side (i.e. it's the iPhone that displays the dialog at http://www.google.com/help...). What worked for me reasonably well was to sync my work calendar account, and since my personal calendar is a subscription there, I can now see both on the phone. - Mihai Parparita

The limitations with the iPhone ActiveSync solution for Google Sync are inherant with Apple, not Google. Apple needs to allow for multiple exchange accounts on the iPhone. - Kevin Whalen

FYI - We posted some important details/beta caveats on the Gmail blog that are worth knowing if you try this out on a Gmail account: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009... - Keith Coleman

I guess this pretty much kills Nueva http://nuevasync.com/ - sameer

Any more information from anyone regarding Kevin's original question? Will it bring my original contacts back from my Mac Address Book when I sync with my desktop again? - Blake Engel

Just did mine. Totally works. Thanks again for the heads up. Kevin's always bringing the good stuff! - Josh Haley

Blake, from wht I've been able to gather, you need to export your Apple address book using a tool called 'a to g', then import them into Gmail. Then use gsync and forget about using your Mac address book anymore (or sync that to google as well via a different mechanism). I'll be backing up my phone first, just in case. - Kevin Fox

Oh yeah, btw, it asked me (i use a PC) to either MERGE or REPLACE my contacts before it synced. I chose merge and all is well. - Josh Haley

OK, I totally love this new feature, but can anyone tell me how to get my shared calendar items (items I import from others' calendars) to show up in my iphone synced calendar? - Josh Haley

so far, no sync :( - Glen Campbell, B.A.

61 more comments

It seems to work great. Only 5 Google Calendars though. - Wallace Wilson

I'd try it out but iPhone has this odd limitation of only one "Exchange" account at a time and I already sync with my Work Exchange. :( - Paul Wade

Yes, this is ONLY useful if you don't already sync your iPhone to an Exchange server! - Stephen Foskett

Love this. Hope that Apple end up supplementing lost MobileMe revenue with increased handset marketshare. Want to know if GoogleSync and MobileMe can be used in tandemn (until MobileMe subscription expires). - Conor Ogle

Working well on WinMO so far, just needed to backup and import my outlook contacts into Google first. Looking forward to this thing moving - Tyler Brownfield

Conor, I don't see why not. I have my work exchange server and my mobileme account (along with Yahoo, Gmail (email)) all on the same iphone and it all works great. I just wish I could add a second exchange account for Google. - Paul Wade

Worked for me on my Windows Mobile, but I couldn't sync my calendar, as i'm already syncing elsewhere! - Les Zaldor

Thanks. Do you think a one-time sync to get Google in line with MobileMe is going to be enough? I'm concerned about one overwriting the other. - Conor Ogle

Google sync uses ActiveSync in Windows Mobile. This means I can't sync to both it and my work exchange server... such a bummer. - Alan Le

Conor, MobileMe and Exchange Activesync are kept completely separate on the iPhone. No data crossover at all. - Paul Wade

I like the thought, but I won't put it to use. I don't want my personal stuff, mixing with my work stuff anymore... Maybe another time, remember it's beta, but we all know google will keep it beta for like 2 years (i.e. gmail still beta) lol - Jayson Flint

So what happens to my Address Book? - Conor Ogle

Working here, fantastic - been waiting for this for a while. If you have multiple Google Calendars make sure to visit m.google.com/sync on the phone (not on the computer) and select the additional calendars you want to sync. - Ben

I've had this for some time now using nuevasync.com... but, now I can sync directly to google, and remove nuevasync from the equation. nice. - Neil Bernhart

This is a major game changer IMO. Why would any small business owner want Blackberry or Exchange servers at this point? GMail allows you to park a domain & gives you 7+ gigs for free. With OTA sync, you get the Blackberry-esque features, also for free. If I have 10-50 employees, I have the choice of hosting multiple servers onsite with multiple moving parts along with purchasing CALs, HW & SW maintenance, and dealing with never-ending storage needs. Or, I could let someone else do it for little to no cost. - Peter Ghosh

oh, and beware... push eats battery life on the 3G like there's no tomorrow. if you can live with getting updates every 15 min, I would stick with fetch. - Neil Bernhart

NuevaSync has been offering the same service from months on the iPhone and other phones. It can also do up to 8 calendars. - Chris Williams

Only one calendar is synced from Google. Nuevasync supports multiple calendars. - Jared B. Luther

Jared, you can sync up to 5 cals with Google Sync. Sadly, none of them can be shared calendars from what I'm seeing. Sticking with NuevaSync for now. - Kevin C. Tofel

@Kevin - they can be shared. I'm viewing shared and even public calendars with Google Sync on my iPhone. - Wallace Wilson

Is this one of those things that doesn't work with Google Apps for your domain? It doesn't seem to want to work for me. - Ryan Anderson

I am a Google Apps user and I am getting nada. Me thinks I will be heading back over to Nuevasync. - Matt Martin

@Peter, if I was a small business owner, one thing that I'd consider is the security. Google Apps doesn't give you any ability to manage the device. Both BES and Exchange allow you to remotely kill or hobble a device as well as push custom apps and security policies. You can get BES free for less than 10 devices or go to hosted Exchange/BES. Sure it costs you money, but businesses should be concerned about where all that data is going and being stored. - Kenton

@Ryan, I found the fix. You need to go into the dashboard for your domain and enable the sync. - Matt Martin

@Ryan and Matt: It DOES work on hosted domains. You need to login to your Google Apps admin control panel and enable sync. - Peter Ghosh

@Peter, thanks for the heads up. Seems to be working well.. - Matt Martin

I think for individuals and small businesses this is going to be killer in which data security and device management can be a bit more lenient. I wish just sucks I'm stuck with Exchange already at work. - Brian Bufalo

@Kenton - Good take on security. Given that this is using Activesync, I think the Google Apps-enabled kill switch is imminent (ActiveSync via Exchange has kill switch features). The fact that the domain's Google Apps admin has to enable sync'ing in the first place is a good start. - Peter Ghosh

btw, 1 hour in and this feature is nerdtastic!!!! - Peter Ghosh

Thanks for the tip on enabling it via the Google Apps dashboard; seems to work fine for me now. - Glen Campbell, B.A.

Nice! I didn't know about the activation from within the Admin panel of Apps for Domains, and now it's working great. Thanks Matt & Peter! - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Still no news and/or tricks on how to get the calendar to sync to the Nokia symbian phones? - Henrik Söderlund

I don't have any options for additional calendars on m.google.com/sync, just the iPhone setup instructions. Is this an Apps bug? - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Tried setting it up on my HTC Mogul and it no work. Had to change the username to cjwelle%gmail.com for the user name to get the domain to show up. But after that no sync of any information. Not ready for primetime in my book. - CW™

Setting up Google Sync now. updating my N82 firmware first. hope it wont delete my contacts list like it does for iPhone. - Sunil Joseph

Wallace, thanks for correcting me. I wasn't able to see my shared calendars, but after your comment I thought about it. My shared cals are from a Google Apps account and our admin likely hasn't enabled it for that one. Thanks! - Kevin C. Tofel

I've been using the version for BlackBerrys for a couple of months or so, but turned it off the other day as it kept retracting my appointments during syncs leaving me with an empty calendar and missed appointments! Not sure what was happening there, and it's hard to tell if there's a newer release for the BBs that's come out now too. - Benjamin Watt

Sounds like a good idea but I can't get it set up. Keep getting "exchange account validation failed" but no clues as to what failed. Are there any restrictions on usage outside the US? - Mark Warren

I use this on my BlackBerry and it works extremely well for me. - Christopher Howie from twhirl

I also found a problem here in germany - if you try to sync more than one calendar it said "this device is not supported" - adding ?hl=en to switch to english helped and I could sync all my shared and read only calendars: http://m.google.com/sync?hl=en - Frank S.

Works perfectly for me. Now I can stop using nuevasync... - Jorg Jansen

I've used the BlackBerry version for a few months now. It's great! - Rob Boek

Well, If you are using and depending on /or can't get around another service, e.g. an Exchange server, in your cross sync calendar and contacts mix Google Sync is most likely not going to do much for you. Las time I checked, Google Sync assumes the dominant position and does not let you specify any sync conditions you'd might come to expect from other syncing apps. E.g. syncing contacts to and from your Google account not optional. I'd like to be able to tell Google how and what I'd like to sync, though. - Vidar Andersen

If apple would simply support CalDav on the iPhone this would be a moot point. I can have iCal attached to Google Calendar and working off-line... but not the calendars on my iPhone. I don't get it... - Brian Roy

Proof of the pudding for me will be how it handles alarms. If that works well, bye bye MobileMe! - Chris Hearn

I wonder if using ActiveSync has any implications for Verizon users who have the $30/mo data plan for "Web Mail/Web Browsing", vs the $45/mo plan which is for "Syncing of Calendars/Tasks/Email/Web Browsing"? Could they be doing any packet capture by protocol? - Jef

works awesome. i've been using nuevasync since i got the phone but was waiting till google did their own. now i'm happily waiting for them to support sync for tasks with.... ? - tommy payne from twhirl

NO, it doesn't work great. It has all the same problems with any other Exchange Sync. Your phone is "slaved" to the "exchange" - once that happens - no other contacts, no other calendars (with Google Apps you only get 1 calendar). The limitations of this pretty much out-weigh the up-side. - Brian Roy

This is very tempting, except just this morning I was thinking that I need to start extracting myself from excessive dependence on the Google. I guess I could use this if I can figure out some other Google service to jettison. - Erik S

I've been using Neuvasync for the past 9 or 10 months. It's a free Exchange service that interfaces with your Google calendar and contact store. It worked extremely well providing near real-time OTA synch between my iPhone, Outlook (with a Google account) and the web. I've now switched over to Google's Exchange service. Since Google was already hosting my contacts and calendar there was... more... - Troy Forster from twhirl

I've noticed that if you setup Google Sync with your iPhone and have the OS X Address Book set to sync with Google, it appears the latter no longer happens. While OTA updates seem to work flawlessly between Google Contacts and the iPhone, if you intend to keep the Address Book in sync with the other 2 then something is in need of fixing. - Scott Jarkoff

Any difference between Exchange and MobileMe push on the iPhone with regard to battery life? - Chris Hearn

ilike :) works so far - videopixil

How is this handling fields that Google doesn't have in Gmail, i.e. birthdays? I'm a little hesitant to just sync contacts specifically, because Gmail doesn't have the number of related fields that the iPhone or the Address Book app does. - Aakar Shroff

its not new though... its existed on the blackberry for a loong time (and has been working quite well for me)... is the "new" just the version for the iPhone or am i missing something? - simran

Currently Google Sync only supports Contacts for my Nokia N95 Too bad I use GooSync now for my calendar, but it only updates a couple of weeks ahead. Wish Plaxo had 2 way sync with Google Contacts. And that I could use any address book in gmail. - nooble

Took a while to get this up and running well, but I've decided to forgo access to my work email/calendar to have my Google Calendar on my phone. - Bill Glover

I have never been a big fan of Google's contacts system. If contact photos (which I use in my iPhone for caller ID) don't get synced they way Outlook does it, I won't bother. Google needs to overhaul the whole UI and feature set of it's contacts system. Right now it is probably the worst of all the main webmail services. - Rolf Schewe

youll let us know? - Richard Binhammer from twhirl

I have a question for anyone who's used this so far. What happens with conflicts? How does it determine if a contact is the same and which one wins the conflict? Can this be set? It would be nice if the phone wins for phone number conflicts and Google wins for email address conflicts (possibly address, too), but that's a pipe dream, I guess. - Chieze Okoye

Also, what happens with contact images? I don't want to overwrite the ones already on my phone but it would be nice to have some pulled from GChat for the rest of my contacts that don't have them set already (so I guess I would like phone to win contact image conflicts) - Chieze Okoye

D'oh! only the main calendar on WinMob! Sucks! Oh well, guess I won't be using it now. Switching to Nuevasync, I guess. - Chieze Okoye

Yes. Think so. - Roberto Bonini

9 more comments

absolutely - Veronica

I think twitter should be very wary of entering into any sort gatekeeping or upsetting the playing field. - Vidar Andersen

Twitter shouldnt, the user should. Im sure they can figure out some creative ways to do this - Vin Turk

sure they should, would prevent a lot of confusion and also avoid senseless discussions about if somebody is real or not - Johannes W. from twhirl

who is a celebrity though? there are "online celebrities" that arent well known in the mainstream. Every niche has its own superstars. I dont see how this would be manageable. What about a challenge system so if someone does have your name you can claim it? - William Kapes

you're right that there are many (niche) kinds of superstars/celebrities. But they could at least try to verify publicly known personalities like Steve Jobs, The Dalai Lama, etc. upfront and let the user's, lets say, challenge/question the identity of others. - Johannes W. from twhirl

I think there should be a badge Twitter gives to those that are verified. That way it puts it in the celebs court and Twitter doesn't have to have a P.I. department. - MarkCarras

Define celebrity. Impossible. But anyone should be able to refute their own identity - Derek Erb

No. twitter doesn't verify who YOU are, so why celebrities? But unlike you, celebrities have fan clubs, and PR professionals, and agents, and managers, and dozens of different ways to manufacture press coverage on TV and radio, and the media, generally, where they can tell you where to find them on Twitter, if they really use it... and you don't. keep the playing field level. it's just 140 characters. .LOLz - .LAG liked that

If someone is compelling enough to follow or obnoxious enough to block, what matter that an alpha-numeric pointer represents an identity? Keep a healthy skepticism of everything on Twitter. - randulo

I agree about potential but disagree about buzz level ;) http://friendfeed.com/search... - Thomas Bøhm

See, I knew I should pay more attention to friendfeed. ;) Not sure I like the closed cramped nature of it though. - Vidar Andersen

Seagate should buy this company and rename it to "your Seagate in the sky." - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

26 more comments

Everything? Even the color of the sky? - l0ckergn0me

Got it installed yesterday. Very impressive so far. - Bob Starr

The intelligent caching is cool, and the only thing that sets them apart ? - Thomas Bøhm

A big company storing the contents might be OK, but I wouldn't rely on a startup. A product that virtualizes the location of the storage would be good for me--where I could store things wherever I want. Maybe someone in the community could code this up. Doesn't sound too difficult. - Loren Heiny

I must be missing the point - we're talking a virtual drive that is online, aren't there already quite a few - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Nice, so now you don't have to worry about your device having enough space, just enough bandwidth. I can foresee people moving their laptops in the air like cellphones trying to get better reception so that their presentation files will finally open. - Georgios Kasselakis

as much as i believe in the cloud as i do want to get a netbook soon, leaving critical files outta my hands no matter how trustworthy still makes me feel a little nervous - David

what is the fundamental difference here than with other cloud storage services, is it the application layer? - Lou Paglia

It won't change the fact that 200GB is too little, $60/month too much and that the article reads like fluff. - Vidar Andersen

I don't get it. I cannot trust that I always have a decent internet connection everywhere I go. I cannot trust that [insert your favourite cloud repository here] won't lose my files. I cannot trust that no spiteful snot won't hack into said repository and do something nefarious (steal, change, delete etc). So basically, I don't trust the cloud (or ZumoDrive) with important/personal/business stuff, no matter what the hype. - Steve Howard

I agree with @Vidar -- $60/month for 200GB is over-priced and too small. Then again, I currently use cloud storage as my catastrophic recovery site for when the local backups and external hard-drives fail, again. Their selling point may be synchronization, but when I have access to other synchronization facilities and able to use them for free, then this service has to, Has To, cause me to want to use them and I do not see a compelling reason. Nothing calls out to me. - Robert Miller

http://zumodrive.com is currently returning 500 file not found error. Are you willing to trust your data to a site that can't stay up? I paid just a bit more than $100 for a local 1TB drive. I can't see paying $60/month for 1/5 of that. I'd pay $100/year for 1TB - that seems about fair. Also, all of the screenshots I've seen only show OSX. Do they support XP or Vista? - Internet's Tad

Currently I give ZumoDrive.com a big FAIL. - Internet's Tad

With Godaddy and Yahoo having unlimited disk space web accounts, in a budget-conscious world, brute force methods appeal to the tech-savvy, vs hand-holding synch methods. - Mark Underwood

I'm a liking ZumoDrive quite a bit. They have some kinks to work out but the idea is very powerful. All of you complaining about the lack of a stable connection forget that most data stored on here is likely to be non-critical (music, random pictures, etc.) that netbook users and the like want to remove from their hard drive to make room for things that are more connection dependent (movies, RAW photos, etc.). The price is lightly steep and needs to come down but I think the concept is one worth pursuing. - Brandon Titus

What happens to your data if they hit the deadpool? At least with Dropbox, you've got a local copy. And is it really $60/mo? That's expensive! I could nearly buy one big assed drive a month for that much. All my "big" data isn't trivial to me - it's important data. I don't mind backup to the cloud, but the primary stage point for me will always be local. - Scot Mcphee

I use drop box on multiple machines. Its great. You can't beat having a local copy that is synced with all of your other machines. I wouldn't trust having just a copy online. The internet is not stable enough for that. - Jason Small

Mark, there's no way that Godaddy or Yahoo would let me store 200GB (or MORE) in an "unlimited disk space" account. I'm sure once I got over about 40GB they'd do what Dreamhost does and point out the fine print that says "only web-hosting related files" can be stored in the "unlimited" storage. - Her Lindsay-ness

They are not the only ones offering something like that with a nice slick layer - will have to look up my list in the morning, too lazy now. But I think the solution is something you don't even need to know about or use any software for, totally transparent, so if that is the way they go it's a good idea - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

I would love to have a place to do a full backup of all my important files and some images, yes, it would be 200GB or more. But I must say the price would have to be reasonable - else I might as well buy 2 external hard drives and rotate them, always having one away from home - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

wish that https://spideroak.com/ and ZumoDrive would combine and merge features - Jonathan

If ever a service screamed "commodity" to me, it's online file storage. Give me the choice of either a folder or virtual drive, make sure I can access stuff either locally when my machine's not on the network or via some web UI, and let me access the data from my choice of platform/OS. It's the early 21st century parallel of the dial-up ISP. - Ken Sheppardson

Brilliant idea - Glen Campbell, B.A.

Let's see... box.net, dropbox, Foldershare/Windows Live Sync/Live Mesh, JungleDisk, SugarSync, syncplicity, the yet to materialize Google Gdrive... who else is in this space? - Ken Sheppardson

I totally need to buy HasGDriveShipped.com and put up a single page site. - Joe Beda

Live Mesh is far more useful. It's starting to change how i store, share and move files around. The best part is that it does unlimited syncing between machines. You should really try it out. - Hayes Haugen

For me, DropBox is the current winner in this space. Local copies, cross-platform, and -- very important and as far as a know distinct -- version controlled - Ron Craswell

خیلی کارا و عالیه! دارم استفاده میکنم! - Business Blogger【ツ】™

I have been using iTweet forever and I don't even have twitter in my bookmark bar anymore because it is soooooo amazing! - Sweyn Venderbush

agree with Sweyn! - Business Blogger【ツ】™

I like the "in reply to" linking. Wish all twitter apps would implement that. - Andy Lewandowski

Leo won't get mad about the name! - Larry Hudson

so you guys like it ... Cool - Susan Beebe

Pretty nice iPhone interface too (though I'll stick to Tweetie). - Kenley Neufeld

oh shiny, the best thing since twitter put down the IM. loving it! - denise

Ooo. I'm using it now! - Mattie Kenny

The twitter IM connection is alive and well: http://www.techlifeweb.com/2008... - Vidar Andersen

new twitter app!! yay!! - Sarah Perez

That's really big news Robert, Thanks, the IPTV race is on. Keep us posted. - Larry Kless

21 more comments

ahhh. the distribution channels keep expanding for publishers. i love it. - Rodney Rumford

I find that YouTube loads very slow, all the other flash players load a bunch faster, and it isn't my connection, I'm on FIOS, so it sohuld be perfect, but it seems that they could some work on the CDN side - Andrew Fielding from twhirl

first the Apple, now the whole Tree, huh? cool. iThink. ;) - TheMacMommy from twhirl

Now you can see Youtube quality videos on your 60" TV. Lets hope that they are not just going to team up with the like of YouTube but open things up with something like miro. http://www.getmiro.com/. - John Cooper

? it's TVs on sale this year do YouTube. - Richard Lawler from twhirl

What about Vimeo, which is more fo a choice for businesses and professional usage due to its better quality? - Hayk H.

This will actually bring IPTV into main stream - Arjun

sure - and vreel.... well: I#m mostly looking at the lawyers now for figuring out how I can watch Hulu here in the old world... - Günther Mulder from twhirl

got a PS3 or 360 or other DLNA device Gunther? - Richard Lawler from twhirl

ah, I see, you meant outside the US? - Richard Lawler from twhirl

right - outside the USA (ie. Europe in my case) - Günther Mulder from twhirl

TiVo added the same feature to their series 3 Dvr's today. - JOHN SIMPSON

YouTube better improve their encode quality pretty quickly. Users better improve their capture quality pretty quickly. - Jon Price

how much is this tv? - Allen Stern

the PZ850s are top of the line, depends on the size - Richard Lawler from twhirl

Am interested to see how the current developments in internet enabled television will play out (especially tech like Intel's TV-based widgets and Panasonic's YouTube support). It would be very cool to be able to watch decent quality feeds from Revision3 / Justin.tv / etc in your lounge room on a flat screen. Hopefully this technology will develop to the point where internet video will represent a compelling (& free) alternative to cable/satellite/pay TV. - Nick Mutton

This may be a dumb question, but will there still be a 10 minute limit on the episodes? MicroTv? MicroSodes? - Dana Willhoit

not at all - but how much of TV is in a way already bowing to some kind of 10-minute rhythm. Short bits trying to keept you intrested for the next short bit. but I guess the 10 Minute thing you're talking about is more a thing of the computer-usecase, where you are even more fickle with your attention than in front of a TV-Set - Günther Mulder from twhirl

and how much will this new service cost us? how much will my cable or dish company charge for this as well? - Jonathan Jesse

Yay! Enabling even more YouTube comments to document human decline. ;) - Vidar Andersen

@Scobleizer re: your interest in internet-enabled TV & VieraCast. What do you think about TV-based widgets? Breakthrough or Teletext 2.0? - Nick Mutton

I want Youtube to get some HD love before it gets stretched to 60" :) - Josh

I never liked the idea. Conversations are between two people, they're nice, but it's not what blogging is about. Imho. - Dave Winer

Dave Winer: You know, it's actually possible - and it does happen - having great conversations with more than one person. DoNotGet. - Vidar Andersen

Okay I believe you, but I still don't think it's the point of blogging (and I haven't myself experienced a great conversation betw more than one person). - Dave Winer

Thanks Dave - Jeremiah Owyang

Dave: It's harder to stay focused, but you might get some interesting insights quicker - Melle Gloerich

not big on joining for joining sake although listening you learn ALOT. - Tanya

Listening, I feel is a an intricate part of this social movement. That is in a sense, contributing. - Pre Priyadarshane

Anyone else see the irony of Dave's comment? - Sprague D

+1 for Dave ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Uhmmm guess my life experiences and Dave's are quite different. Sure, I've had some great talks with one other person, in depth conversations, but for the most part the really great conversations have been with groups, have been discussions that were wide ranging, included input from a range of people, aired out real differences and very often lead to something more than just talk. So no, I don't get the idea in the least that a "conversation" is almost never with a group. - Shannon Clark

Maybe I'm stubborn, but whenever I see the phrase 'join the conversation' it has the opposite effect on me. - Sally Church

Makes me homesick for Chicago. - Oldengrey (Jay)

40 more comments

Lol, Jesse Jackson is one crazy ass mofo. - Andrew Fielding

Keith Olbermann had a good one on Obama and FISA. In case you missed it: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id... - Alexei Tolkachev

What's next on Obama's agenda over the next four or eight years, after the FISA thing -- inquiring minds want to know. - Sean McBride

Turley had some great words about it on MSNBC last night... in my recent feed. - Anthony Citrano

Jesse doesn't do cowering either. ;) - Oldengrey (Jay)

you're joking, of course - however don't be surprised if you're contacted by secret service for this "threat"... :-) - Andy Green

Anyone who has seen the content of the unwarranted wiretaps has fully supported them.... not saying that makes it right but it does make them necessary. - Aaron deMello

Aaron -- can you document your statement about the content of unwarranted wiretaps? - Sean McBride

Nothing makes them "necessary". What's happening now is exactly the type of oppression the sons of liberty revolted against. - Adam Turetzky

Even if _everyone_ "supported" the wiretaps based on the content, Aaron...the point is that it's not good enough. We have laws. - Ken Kennedy

@Sean McBride - the tricky part is getting into specifics, which I can't. I am in the surveillance biz (or was, rather) and the ugly aspect for law enforcement is that the 'bad guys' (for lack of a better term) are better armed - with PGP, HushMail, stenography, casual SecondLife or Habbo meetups, etc. Makes it almost impossible to trace their convos. For all the $ in the world I would not want the job of an analyst following up on a FISA warrant. - Aaron deMello

@Ken Kennedy - great name, btw - I agree in principle but data is like fishing - you catch it when its there in front of you, or you kiss it goodbye. The sons of liberty have a very hard time trying to find the balance between protecting our rights and exploiting technology for their goals - which protect our way of life. The FISA laws worked well in the past but today - rest assured that the guys we are looking for are far more adept at exploiting the tools than we allow our boys to be. - Aaron deMello

@Aaron...don't take this the wrong way, but spare me. If it's against the law, you kiss it goodbye. You and I both know that the FISA law as (it was at the time) written allows for "catching it when it's there"...it's just more of a pain. It's DESIGNED to be a pain. We're not /supposed/ to be spying on people without warrants. Once upon a time, we (rightly) condemned other countries for doing this. *sigh* - Ken Kennedy

And please, no movie plots. kthx. *grin* And thanks for chatting, btw. Seriously. We need to have these discussions out in the open; it's important for our society. - Ken Kennedy

@Ken Kennedy - sure, they are designed to be a pain. I just don't think its fair that we have to play the very same game under extremely different rules. Should our lofty ideals be preserved in the name of security? That is the question that will be debated for the next few generations but personally I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to those charged with tackling the problem, rather than us - the peanut gallery. - Aaron deMello

@Aaron...you laid that out rather well, thanks. And we disagree (which is ok) on alot. *grin* Probably the most important difference to me is actually at the end there; the peanut gallery comment. We're not the peanut gallery, Aaron...we are where those "charged with tackling the problem" derive their power from. This is no divine right monarchy; we're a cantankerous republic where the people ultimately run the show. Good questions, though! - Ken Kennedy

OMG, what a dumb-ass thing to do for a seasoned media guy like Jesse. FAIL! - John McCrea

If it was a Republican folks woudl be screaming racism. Apparently Jesse gets a pass. - Soulhuntre from twhirl

Had a flash on Obama and FISA. When he's elected Pres he uses FISA authority to legally eavesdrop on George Dubya Bush without court oversight, Private Citizen and ex-president, and leaks the juiciest bits to Olbermann. Puts him on the terror watch list, and while you're at it puts him in Guantanamo. Gives paparzzi full access. - Dave Winer

@Ken Kennedy - agreed. I believe in the end, perhaps not the means. - Aaron deMello

Aaron: How many terrorists have been convicted of terrorist activities in the United States as the result of warrantless wiretapping? How many cases against alleged terrorists have fallen part? How many times have neoconservatives accused their political opponents of being "terrorists"? How many despotic and state terrorist regimes throughout history have used the threat of "terrorism" to acquire and protect their power? So many interesting questions on this issue. - Sean McBride

@Sean - all those are very interesting questions and there are many more. My sentiment is that we are severely outclassed in the war on terror given all the legal restrictions that are not shared by the enemy. Even the simple act of getting a warrant to expose the phone calls of a unidentified pre-paid SIM card can be a living nightmare. How can one get a warrant when you don't even know if the subscriber is a suspect? These and other complex issues are the ones facing the intelligence community today. - Aaron deMello

Dave, I owe you an apology. I was sure you had made up that comment about what Jesse Jackson said. I think Jesse just threw himself under the bus. When is the last time he was relevant? - Ha3rvey (not Akiva)

I thought the fact that Obama voted for the FISA would be indicative that he was already neutered? - Vidar Andersen

Aaron: history proves that the most dangerous terrorists in the world are state terrorists, like the Nazi, Stalinist and Maoist regimes, which collectively murdered more than 100 million people in the 20th century. State terrorists typically define all their political opponents as "terrorists," and then proceed to spy on them, torture them and murder them without any legal restraints.... more... - Sean McBride

Aaron: If I don't break into your house to find the dismembered bodies, how can I prove that you're an axe murderer? - David Worrell

Dave, Obama's vot eon FISA was simply a political consideration. Need to get him elected, then fix the FISA problem. - ron k jeffries

Aaron: focusing on the first question: to the best of my knowledge, no one has been convicted of being a terrorist or being involved in terrorist activities as a result of warrantless wiretapping. Do you agree? I don't think it's worth trashing the Constitution and Bill of Rights to promote police state methods that were pioneered by Stalin and Hitler and that have produced such meager results. - Sean McBride

Ron: Obama's position on FISA demonstrates that he is politically tone deaf and may well not get elected. What made him a viable candidate was the enthusiasm of his base, which he has now destroyed. Most Americans do not support the FISA bill -- it's not even a "center" issue. It's a hard right neoconservative issue. Check out the discussion of this controversy on On Point Radio today <http://tinyurl.com/6crxv6> and especially note the exchanges between Tom Ashbrook and Glenn Greenwald. - Sean McBride

Ron, respectfully: I don't think it's right to 'play politics' with a bill that undercuts the constitutional balance of power itself. I'll still vote for him. But this makes him just another 'lesser evil' to me. - Madsimian

Dave Winer makes an important point: once a police state machine and culture is installed in any government, it will be used by any political faction that acquires control of it to destroy the political opposition. The American Founding Fathers were acutely aware of this problem, and that is why they created the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Bush 43 and the neocons are perhaps... more... - Sean McBride

Harvey, he's relevant to the companies he's shaken down for money and donations for percieved abuses. - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Sean: we will never know the answer to that question, which is the entire purpose of the warrant-less wire-tapping program. The results of the program were never going to be used as evidence, at least not in a public court. Like I said before, there are always challenges in a democracy where the need to balance public safety with personal privacy becomes a very gray area. As to the effectiveness of the program, this is something else we will never know, since we have no idea how many attacks were prevented. - Aaron deMello

Aaron: any totalitarian dictator anywhere in the world, following in the footsteps of Stalin, Hitler and Mao, could use some of the arguments we have seen here to construct a terrorist police state that is completely unaccountable. Neocons like John Yoo, David Addington and Alberto Gonzales really don't get America and the thinking of the American Founding Fathers, in my opinion. They are paranoid authoritarians by temperament who fear a free and open society which encourages political dissent. - Sean McBride

some say Jackson has a point?! not! http://www.slate.com/id... - ~C4Chaos

Sean: Paranoia does play a part in it, and some paranoia can be healthy. At the same time, I'd rather have hawks than doves protecting my freedoms, and will grant them the wiggle room necessary to do what they feel must be done. What did you think of the voting numbers? 69 to 28? - Aaron deMello

Aaron: any political movement which thinks nothing of trashing the Constitution, while labeling its mainstream American political opponents as "terrorists" and "traitors" (yes, the neocons have done this repeatedly -- check out the log of these events on Media Matters for America), is only interested in destroying our freedoms, not protecting them. The neocons are the last people in the... more... - Sean McBride

As has been pointed out to me, it's not the fault of the telcos that Bush and company failed to get the necessary warrants (which they can legally do after the fact). So there's good reason to protect the telcos from civil trials. Remember, it was Bush who broke the law. Don't make this about Obama. He didn't violate the 4th Amendment. That was the President, who's sworn to protect and uphold the Constitution. - phil.gs

Based on the FISA vote, there's nothing to cut. - Michael Markman

speaking of FISA, according to Lessig, "Obama has not shifted in his opposition to immunity for telcos" check it out http://lessig.org/blog... - ~C4Chaos

The main effect of Lessig's annoying taunt will be to further alienate what was once Obama's base. Lessig just doesn't get it. On the other hand, McCain is such a weak candidate that there is very little Obama could do at this point to lose the election. Word is that the McCain campaign is seriously demoralized. - Sean McBride

I'm waaay late to the blogging party, but does a "links I like" interface list count? - sergiooo

35 more comments

I still use one. I only rel=nofollow large sites; still share the link love with other bloggers. - Sprague D

sergiooooooo, yes, if its a roll in your sidebar. They're not extinct, but they are rare these days. Sprague, good to see you're still keeping the spirit alive - Duncan Riley

I used to use one, but it seemed as soon as I'd update it, people would go inactive, or I'd have to change it again. (Examples: GeekWhat and Kent Newsome, both who just about fell off the map) Now, I think the Google Reader shared items blog gives a good enough clue as to what I read and find important. - Louis Gray

I found that no one ever clicked on them so I removed it. It was just noise. - Kevin Gamble

I'm on the same boat as Kevin. No one ever clicked on them so, I just got rid of it. I have a section for "friends" that include a couple of blogs but that's it. - Candace

I have one on my dembot blog and really believe in it. - Andrew Baron

My blogroll would probably span a few screens.. Anyway blogroll feels slightly 1990s.. Don't you think so? - Winston Teo

Which reminds me, I need to update my blogroll. - Phil G

Still maintain one but update it about once a month as things change - Charlie Anzman

I still use them, but only for close contacts. I like them. - Jim Kukral

I once used them, when Zeldman was that name in the bottom of every blogroll (go figure why ;-) ) and then I stopped blogging - directeur from NoiseRiver

In my opinion, the best use for a blogroll is for a _short_ list of _related_ blogs that the reader can hit in order to get more information on the topic. The "600 blogs I read every day" doesn't seem to me to be the best use of a blogroll. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

I'm trying to convince myself to compile a decent blogroll since 2002:) - Federico Bolsoman

Perhaps it's time to convert the blogroll to a micro-blogroll. Better yet, I would like to display the people I find interesting (at friendfeed) as a widget. - Czar

I recently dropped the blogroll on my blog. No one ever bothered clicking the links. What people do click are the links in my blog posts (yes, it does still happen). The blogs to which I link regularly in my blog posts are a much better barometer of the ones I follow than my blogroll ever was. I really didn't keep the blogroll up to date. - Hutch Carpenter

Hmm, regardless of clicks, SEO's understand that a blogroll link is a vote in Google, or at least indexing priority. If you really like someone, you'll tell Google about their blog by blogrolling them. I never nofollow those. - Brian Carter

Czar: How do you describe your "intersting" people at friendfeed? - directeur from NoiseRiver

I have it on good authority that a new blogroll widget is in the works that will bring blogrolls back - well at least with this crowd. I probably shouldn't say who and I don't know when, but it sounds like it will be dynamic and awesome. So don't count them out just yet - David Knight

I have, in the past, advocated screwing them. http://allied.blogspot.com/2007... - jeneane sessum

My blogroll was too long for my sidebar, so I used to have a separate links page. I should clean it up and bring it back. Need to add a TON of social media bloggers I've been introduced to via FriendFeed these past few weeks. :D - Nathaniel Payne

are blogrolls that hump of cheese n the back of your fridge? :) - (jeff)isageek from fftogo

How about this for a theory: The blogroll has been superceded by Twitter and FriendFeed as the easiest way to track and associate oneself with others that are active, interesting and influential in social media - Daniel Young

It's crazy to me how many have dumped them when it's the first step in being social online if you have a blog... good for blogger to blogger luv and also good for pointing your visitors to additional related resources of value, so good all around. - Scott Bannon from twhirl

Duncan, this is so true. I was literally thinking late last night about doing a post on this as I was tidying up my own (relatively new) blog a bit and looking at the standard blogroll links that came with my Wordpress template. I had a quick look at a few fairly well-known blogs and there wasn't a blogroll in sight.. - Matt Hooper

Regarding the value of blogrolls for Google SEO. Check out this thread, about 3/4 the way down, for a comment on that by Adam Lasnik (Google search evangelist): "be careful about making assumptions on how Google does or will weight 'constant' links ;-" (http://friendfeed.com/e...) - Hutch Carpenter

I read blogs mostly in Google Reader. When I'm on a blog, I'm focused on the content rather than the sidebar. I like the blog roll concept, but it would reach a broader audience if it moved to the main column of content. For example, instead of showing a Last.fm widget in my sidebar, I automated a weekly post that shows my top artists from the prior week as a regular blog post. http://bit.ly/4rQvZU - Joe Lazarus

Glad you posted this to Inquisitr as well. For me a blogroll isn't about SEO (nothing about my blog is SEO and my stats prove it!) or even about related blogs but as Duncan said in one of his seesmic videos about this, it's kind of "here are some people I like" thing. I've even gone so far as to meet a few blogroll people in person. So even if the list is long, and even if the content... more... - Jim Hearts FF from feedalizr

I posted about this on OTB [http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archive...]. A commenter added a valuable suggestion: "It would seem to me that a tool that extracted the blog links from your posts, continually updating the top X number based on your posts, would be more useful than a blog roll. That would keep the blog roll up to date and reflect the sites you are talking about." - James Joyner

Mine got so big I figured you should just use Technorati! :-) - Robert Scoble

I only use the Blogroll widget on Wordpress to link to a few close contacts. I certainly don't continuously update my blogroll with the blogs I find interesting, but that'd probably be a better use. I have seen a fair few blogs start doing "Blog of the Week" where they have an image (usually a screenshot of the site) linking to the author's current favourite blog. Could that be considered the step up from the 'traditional' blogroll? - Jamie Clark

I stooped doing that long time ago, i "recommend" blog post individually and never a whole blog, using delicious, and Google Reader shared items. - Mário Pires

I'd really like to add one, but I'm afraid it'd clog my template! - Rubin Sfadj

For me, the Blogroll grew unmanageable. As I never quite liked the concept, I've decided to replaced it with links to the recent interesting things I've read on the 'open' web - simply my del.icio.us bookmarks for now. I would also like to see a widget to publish the recent friendfeed posts that I've 'liked'. - Vidar Andersen from NoiseRiver

the current module supported at blogger shows most recent X that have new posts (up to 10 I think). An okay compromise. - Ryan Gallagher

Since my target audience are small business owners, with limited level of comfort on the internet. I keep the blog rolls simple on my blogs. Called great resources, or my favorite sites, i direct my readers to a few other blogs so they don't get overwhelmed. I also use the blog roll to connect my blogs - Lorraine Ball

I replaced all widgets and rolls with the wordpress friendfeed activity widget / plugin right now. Let's see how it fares. - Vidar Andersen

The FUBAR project keeps being touted as a world-class development team, but it is not producing world-class, or even minimally-professional, results. This already shows up in the project delays and quality issues of the releases to date. What the team is - Vidar Andersen

Secrecy hasn't been a big part of the Netflix competition. The prize hunters, even the leaders, are startlingly open about the methods they're using, acting more like academics huddled over a knotty problem than - Vidar Andersen

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