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Bruce Lewis › Comments
Can't you see the writing on the (Facebook) wall? friendfeed still in serious decline. Another 21% traffic drop in November. - http://siteanalytics.compete.com/friendf...
Khader Shameer, Joe Bonner, Richard Akerman and 3 other people liked this
Discuss. If there's anyone actually on here.
- Noah Gray
everyone left....
- Mike Nencetti
would be interesting to see average stay and visits/person over this period
- Mike Chelen
I still get better and more meaningful engagement on Friendfeed than any other site.
- Andy Bakun
All we know from the FriendFeed founders is that they intend to keep the site running "indefinitely" - i.e. until such time as they announce that it's shutting down. I see plenty of activity in my networks, but I also see "signs": broken features (search), degraded performance (updates), no new development and most of all - lots of development at Facebook - that the end might be edging closer. A shame, it's by far my favourite and most useful network.
- Neil Saunders
I agree with all comments. Well, except Mike N's, since I don't understand it. But anyway, I get nowhere near the interaction I used to get despite having increased numbers of subscribers. My narcissism doesn't allow me to think it is because I post crap, so I choose to blame the site. And the traffic numbers back that up. As do Neil's always thoughtful points.
- Noah Gray
i was just bumping the thread to generate comments.
- Mike Nencetti
I'm here, a sure sign of it's impending demise.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
Could it be lowered interaction frequency comes from everybody having more subscriptions and distributing attention more selectively? I'd like to see statistics for likes and comments per user and unit time over the last 12 months...
- Björn Brembs
Is that a nice way of saying "Yes, your links DO suck"?
- Noah Gray
Some limited stats at http://www.ffholic.com (room search seems broken). Would be fun to pull out the API and answer Björn's question.
- Neil Saunders
@Noah: lol :-) I did comment, didn't I? You know all Germans always lie! :-)
- Björn Brembs
Well, being half-German, I guess you have a 1/2 chance in correctly identifying when you should trust what comes out of my fingers...
- Noah Gray
My experiments with the API suggest that you can only go back 600 entries (late October in my case). So much for that plan :-)
- Neil Saunders
Well, where have they all gone to if the stats are to be believed?
- Frank
Uhh...Facebook and Twitter? Google Wave? Who knows. Why would we not believe the stats?
- Noah Gray
Compete unique visitors are US-only, so the Silicon Valley buzz factor is amplified. People interested in FF because of the startup story left when that story ended. People who like the features are still here.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Great! Then it's back to where it started! A fringe site w/ a great interface for specialists. <-- Somehow,I don't see that as boding well or progress, even if "progress" means a mass adoption and dilution. At least mass adoption would mean the site isn't going anywhere...
- Noah Gray
My tiny bit of observation would be that when FF allowed twitter feeds and such, that more people started using FF as a kind of dumping ground -- if it was good enough for twitter, it was good enough to feed here as well. So there is more noise than seemed to be the case a few months back. But I do not use twitter, so cannot vouch for a twitter-effect.
- Mickey Schafer
I still love FriendFeed, but I personally now have more interacations (both reading and commenting) on Twitter.
- Martin Fenner
@Mickey: I completely agree, which is why I deleted Twitter from here about 6-7 months ago and saw a much-better signal in my feed with regards to interactions and discussion-seeding. I think Deepak and Cameron might have played with this a bit as well but I don't remember what conclusions they drew...
- Noah Gray
Honestly, how can anybody interact on Twitter? Twitter and FriendFeed is like MS Paint and Photoshop...
- Björn Brembs
What Bjoern said.
- Bill Hooker
This makes me sad! :-(
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
...but even at the peak in the Compete chart -- August 2009 -- it was only 1MM uniques. the regulars at Friendfeed (like me) love it, but it was never in the same ballpark in terms of usage or relevance to average Net users as Twitter or Facebook. Not even close. A lot of the most active users, and loudest (like Scoble) have left, for the most part, and perhaps they were skewing the numbers far beyond what the site would have naturally had in the first place.
- .LAG liked that
@LAG, well the difference in usage is not difficult to understand, Twitter is like MS Paint and Facebook is like Photoshop... :-)
- Björn Brembs
Okay, everyone, which one should I go with?
mikepk, AJ Batac, Russellreno and LogEx liked this
I like the graph paper side, but then I'm a bit of a geek ;)
- LogEx
I'm kinda leaning over to that design, myself. :)
- April Buchheit
I like the graph paper as well. Is there an option to get it horizontal?
- Cristo
The horizontal one is more "you".
- Gabe
Gabe, do you like horizontal with or without graph paper lines though?
- Cristo
I vote for horizontal also. Easier to read when in a stack with other business cards or in a card holder or Rolodex.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Do people keep rolodexes anymore? When I worked as an admin, I remember spending an eternity scanning some exec's business cards and that was more than a decade ago.
- April Buchheit
horizontal.
- Jim Hearts FF
horizontal++
- Ruchira S. Datta
I also vote for horizontal (landscape). I made my business cards with LaTeX, and printed them out on our laser printer.
- Robert Felty
i just updated my calling card and decided on the "portrait" view. i haven't regretted it a bit. it often results in additional conversation when i pass the card and i think that helps folks remember me.
- MikeAmundsen
Grids. Totally.
- Jeremy (cropmarks)
horizontal+++
- AJ Batac
I'll be the contrarian. I much prefer vertical, I write small and I can fit lists and notes that way better. It mirrors the orientation of a regular piece of paper, just smaller.
- LogEx
Add a QR code...started using those recently for exchanging card info and super handy
- Tomas Remotigue
Tomas: what's a QR code?
- April Buchheit
from iPhone
2D barcode. So much (nerdy) fun.
- Andrew C
Tomas, are you using http://snapmyinfo.com/ by http://friendfeed.com/mikepk ?
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Thanks for the plug, Bruce. :)
- mikepk
Don't thank me yet. Tomas might reply that he's using a competing app. :-)
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Heh, the snapmyinfo userbase is still pretty tiny, so I'm sure he rolled his own. :) Edit: <plug my own stuff> the basic difference is being able to share with those *without* barcode scanners as well as those with. </plug my own stuff>
- mikepk
Who keeps moving my semantic markup and thereby hosing my ajax functionality?
Is this a problem jquery selectors could solve?
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
it's a problem that could be solved by better communication from the developer I'm working with ;)
- Brett Kelly
from IM
How about "Help" pages? : Ourdoings.com's official FAQ / Tips / How-to-begin pages would help most of users, I think. Although I know "blog of ourdoings.com" and this group's entries contain most of them. (So, just a customized search text field may do most of the case)
Bruce Lewis liked this
A bare start: http://ourdoings.wikispaces.com/
- Bruce Lewis
Howdy FriendFeeders - I feel bad for spending so little time here lately; how's everybody?
Jimminy, Michelle Martinez, Admiral Anika and 2 other people liked this
Good Morning.
- Eric Logan
Are you feeling better?
- Admiral Anika
Don't feel bad. FriendFeed is designed to be inclusive of people who can't be here all the time. That's why it has features like Best of Week and search.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
good morning Brett....
- VAL D. Zone
Anika - still in the middle of a week-long programming sprint to meet a Friday deadline. So, I'm pretty exhausted and drained of all will to continue. Otherwise, though, I'm doing well :)
- Brett Kelly
Everybody's fine, and how are you, enjoying life? Sorry, we haven't met on friendfeed yet.
- Richard A.
Bruce - I do a good bit of Twitter (as you can see from my feed), but I routinely miss the community over here. My business shouldn't be an excuse for not dropping in and saying hi when I have a few minutes :)
- Brett Kelly
Richard - Life is chugging along as it is wont to do, I suppose - relaxation and refreshment will be mine soon!
- Brett Kelly
Good to see you come up for air, Brett :) Everyone understands the need to focus. Hope the coding goes well.
- Micah Wittman
Micah! Great to hear from you, man. Coding is going well (although, it *is* PHP ;)
- Brett Kelly
Hi there.
- Derrick
Hiya, Derrick :)
- Brett Kelly
November numbers are out on Compete.com. Friendfeed lost another 20% of its audience month-to-month. Sad.
Bruce Lewis and Tapio Kulmala liked this
It's here: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/friendf...
- Jorge Escobar
My core friends are still very much active, I guess because we're all die-hard fans.
- Jorge Escobar
still here
- Mike Nencetti
quality > quantity
- Mike Nencetti
@Mike, agree.
- Jorge Escobar
Twitter was down 2% and has been flat since June - so much for "mainstream"...?
- Stuart Miniman
Unfortunately to survive long term FF has to grow in numbers/users -- since it is not growing it will not survive regardless of the usefulness and quality of the remaining posts/users.
- Brian Sullivan
@Brian absolutely. At this rate we might not have FF by Q2 '10
- Jorge Escobar
:( This isn't good. Why is FF so neglected?? I know they sold out to FB, but still... There is no substitute!
- Kamilah Gill
Kamilah, NONE. Absolutely none. It's a unique thing these guys created.
- Jorge Escobar
I think there is no doubt that Facebook's plan is to let FF whither and die. Former FF owners/developers/employees can protest all they like that FF is being supported and will carry on but without a plan to grow users death and a quick death is the inevitable end. There is no money and no effort being put into growth. All the people left (the die-harders -- and I include myself in that group) are on a sinking ship.
- Brian Sullivan
:(
- VAL D. Zone
I put some thoughts here http://jungleg.com/2009...
- Jorge Escobar
Can't we just go the way of Usenet? The more users we lose the less it costs to support us.
- Jimminy
Compete is US-only (click the ? by "Unique Visitors" and scroll down). That amplifies the Silicon Valley buzz factor.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
What about a widget to embed on sites that don't allow scripts? Flash would already help, or a simple image showing the last few thumbnails.
Kazutaka Ogaki and Bruce Lewis liked this
Cooliris heard you: http://friendfeed.com/cooliri...
- Bruce Lewis
cool :o)
- Flavio
"To allow Cooliris to read this feed you need a crossdomain.xml file at the root of your webserver"
- Flavio
Should be all set now.
- Bruce Lewis
There's still something wrong: when I enter the XML feed nothing happens, while if I use different feeds new images are imported in a couple of seconds.
- Flavio
Sorry, I was serving crossdomain.xml with the wrong MIME type. It appears to be working now. I tried both http://ourdoings.com/flapic... for medium-resolution photos and http://ourdoings.com/flapic... for high resolution.
- Bruce Lewis
great, it works now :o)
- Flavio
It wouldn't suprise me for that to happen with main.xml, but m.xml and mainmedia.xml should work. The main.xml feed is more like a blog site's feed, while m.xml and mainmedia.xml are more like a photo-sharing site's feed.
- Bruce Lewis
(the second comment, who is very similar to a previous, was actually sent before that via email and got delivered a day later! so just don't consider it.)
- Flavio
I like the lightbox addition to ourdoings. IMO, the top summary view thumbnails could be smaller size such that all the photos posted for a given day show up as thumbnails. Also, the lightbox vies in the "summary" view should be constrained to show the pictures from the selected day.
Bruce Lewis liked this
I can see that constraint making things work more intuitively. But some users might want to just keep clicking through big pictures, so I wonder if there's a best-of-both-worlds solution.
- Bruce Lewis
But what if I've taken 250 photos on one day? I don't want them all showing up in tiny thumbnails on the front page. I think if the thumbnails on the front page of my ourdoings site were smaller, the page would be aesthetically compromised. It would look like an array of barely-discernible, ugly splodges.
- empiricist
Maybe the thumbnail size suggestion and the suggestion to constrain lightbox sequences to a single day should be separate conversations. I was answering the latter and empiricist was answering the former.
- Bruce Lewis
I don't really like lightbox. I want the option to turn it off for my site.
- empiricist
It's the slideshow feature.
- Bruce Lewis
I'll make an option to turn off the lightbox as my first step in improving it. I'm not totally satisfied with it either. I spend too much time looking at blank whiteness.
- Bruce Lewis
The site info page now has a "Clicking a photo goes to" option to turn the slideshow off.
- Bruce Lewis
Someone’s Started a Flickr is Fascist Blog, Accuses Flickr of Anti-Gay Censorship Policies - http://thomashawk.com/2009...
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sofarsoShawn, RAPatton, Tanath and 32 other people liked this
"A community of ‘candid’ photographers of men in public situations (all of whom have paid for their accounts in good faith) has been displaced and silenced on photo-sharing site Flickr in less than a fortnight. Four prominent photostreams as well as countless photos vanished from July 6th 2009 to July 13th 2009 without warning or right to appeal. At least one site had over a million hits in less than a year. Flickr has stubbornly refused to give a reason for its recent axe-grinding mission against these sites, but one user was given the reason ‘voyeur content’ after more than 8 days of asking for a reason yet that particular site contained pictures of men in public which is legal. Flickr has refused to expand on the reason it gave, but cited its ambiguous and open-ended ‘Don’t be creepy’ clause in its Terms of Service asjustification for terminating at least one photostream. Flickr has also silenced debate about the issue on its Help Forum. When confronted with whether or nor the...
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- Thomas Hawk
Good! Flickr is out of control. They should not be allowed to delete a paying customer's photo or photostream without notifying the customer of the "problem" and giving them a chance to correct/explain the situation. It's just bad business. Flickr is a great site, but the negatives are slowly chipping away at the positives.
- Rob LaRosa
Yeah, Flickr is pretty out of control. I think I'll be letting my membership expire and using only Pbase from now on.
- Todd Walker
I just got banned from the help forum for posting a link to the new blog there: http://www.flickr.com/help...
- Thomas Hawk
Wow. How do I move all of my photos from flickr? I suppose I'll have to find somewhere new to put them.
- joey
I think it sort of sucks that I post a link to blog specifically about account deletions to a Flickr Help forum thread specifically account deletions and get banned from the public forum. The Flickr is Fascist blog is not mine, I was merely reporting on it.
- Thomas Hawk
Looks like it's time to abandon Flickr to Mussolini. And then kick it in the head.
- James (!?)
Uh oh. You've been put on the naughty step.
- Simon Wicks
Seems like the more we rely on web services the more of our rights we inadvertently give up. With web services being bought, sold, discontinued, or the arbitrary rules that they invoke, we are more and more at the mercy of whim of the site owner. It seems like it is time for some sort of universal user bill of rights that defines a minimum level of service we should expect and defines guidelines for disputes between users and service providers.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Well Thomas, as the CEO of a competitor to Flickr, it was only a matter of time before they tired of your "crusades" and troublemaking. (regardless of how worthwhile they are, and they are)
- Robert Kenney
I have kept my photos on Flickr, because that is where my family goes to, but I also have them on Zooomr, really not happy with Flickr
- Kim Landwehr
This is clearly a signal that Flickr is on the move. To be spun-off, sold, etc. As part of preparations for this, they have been given a mandate to clean-up the site of "less desirable" content to make it more marketable to a buyer.
- Robert Kenney
What are the best alternatives to Flickr?
- Johnny
Johnny, that depends on what you want from the site. If you want a community, then Flickr is probably the best. If you just want a place to host your photos or sell your work. there are plenty of other options. Here are several that come to mind. Zooomr, Smugmug, Picassa, Snapfish.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Robert Kenney: Thomas has been a critic of flickr, but he's also an advocate and user of flickr, in addition to being a competitor. The photo sharing biz is funny that way.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
i also don't like the fact that Flickr staff refers to me as "abusive" before kicking me out of the forum. My criticism has always been respectful. Simply because someone criticizes you does not make them "abusive" that's such a loaded almost libelous term. I resent that Flickr would call me abusive and then lock me out of the forum where I can't defend myself against that accusation.
- Thomas Hawk
Flickr is not a democracy, as they remind all of us again and again.
- Robert Kenney
Robert, but users should be able to expect a certain level of civility and recourse that you expect, (and is often required by law) when doing business with a brick and mortar establishment.
- Jeff P. Henderson
the anti flickr blog by the way has moved and I honestly have absolutely zero to do with this new anti flickr blog. I was simply reporting on it after the authors of the blog (who I do not know who they are) pointed it out to me. http://saynotoflickr.blogspot.com
- Thomas Hawk
Jeff, my point exactly.
- Robert Kenney
I've been arguing against arbitrary account deletions and censorship there pretty passionately for a while. Especially lately as the account deletions seem to have escalated (and especially anything associated with or male gay related). I suppose they don't like being criticized for their deletion decisions, but personally I think labeling me as "abusive" for it and censoring me is yet another bad tact for them to take.
- Thomas Hawk
don't like flickr's problems? put your pix somewhere else. It's a website, not a national government; it's not fascist.
- Chieze Okoye
Most of the time those being deleted have no platform to object and so they turn to the only public avenue that they know the help forum. I like sticking up for the little guy, especially when he/she's in the right. It is frustrating though feeling like you are banging your head against the wall with Flickr who just seem frankly not to care one bit about the criticism or even ever address their censorship choosing to simply lock any thread objecting to it.
- Thomas Hawk
no, Chieze, it's not just a "website," any more than FriendFeed is just a "website." It's a community. That's always been what's made it special. It's just too bad that those overseeing the community don't feel that they need to have respect for it.
- Thomas Hawk
My contention is that Friendfeed *is* just a website, though. It's kinda nice when they get stuff right, and kinda bad when they get stuff wrong, but at the end of the day, it's just a tool. Is your tool breaking or acting up? Try to fix it within your capacity (writing blogs sometimes works when you're not part of the development itself, but bandying about hyperbole like calling a website fascist usually doesn't) or just move to the next tool that will work reliably the way you want.
- Chieze Okoye
There's a huge audience that you only reach through Flickr. There's no "next tool" to reach that many.
- Bruce Lewis
Chieze, I didn't call Flickr fascist. I simply reported on the fact that *somebody else* started a blog called that. I pretty much report on everything that's related to flickr that I come across. I'm not sure why I should have been banned simply for reporting on it. We'll have to disagree on both Flickr and FriendFeed merely being "websites." I hold to my contention that they are far, far, more than just "websites," that they are very significant hubs for communities, both of them in fact.
- Thomas Hawk
The thing that bugs me most about the way Flickr deals with things is that they delete and/or block, giving the accused no avenue for recourse. If they want to accuse me of having photos on the site that aren't mine, that's fine, but don't take down the evidence. They should have to leave the pics up there and prove to me that they are right. How could I do that after my pictures have...
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- Kenton
Oh, Thomas, I realize that you weren't calling it fascist, I didn't mean to make it seem like I was conflating you with this blog's behavior. Sorry about that. We will have to agree to disagree about the tool/website thing, I guess. I'm not an avid Flickr user, so I don't have that passion (but I am an avid Friendfeeder, at least by my personal standards, and I still think the way I do...
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- Chieze Okoye
Also, @Bruce, at this point, no one should be surprised with Flickr's behavior. Yes there's great audience, but it's not like there NO OTHER photo sharing site that has a community of people you can connect with. Continuing my tool metaphor, it would be like if you had the world's best hammer, but that hammer had poisonous spikes on the handle. For some people who need it or really want...
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- Chieze Okoye
Chieze, I'm well aware there are other photo sharing sites. I run one. But for photographers with a professional interest in getting noticed, Flickr is not optional.
- Bruce Lewis
Saying there are options to Flickr is like saying there are options to Windows. Sure, technically there are but not may people use them.
- ChiliMac
Yeah, Flickr isn't optional if you want to build a brand/reputation or just get noticed. Which sucks, because I'd have dumped my account there in protest a while ago if that wasn't the case. What's idiotic is that I can't even fathom a reason for these absurd censorship policies. How difficult can it be to implement an holding pen for violating accounts and a review process before they pull that delete trigger?
- Eric P
My related blog post: Flickr Censorship Standards = Gay bashing? http://blog.seeminglee.com/2009...
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
posted your blog post separately See-ming. http://friendfeed.com/thomash... Ironicly, posting about this "Flickr is Fascist" blog is what got me indefinitely banned from the Flickr Help forum. I think that they are pretty pissed off about it. At least pissed off enough to ban me over merely mentioning it publicly.
- Thomas Hawk
@TH Thanks! I was not going to post it until I realize recently that it is happening to a lot of my gay friends - including some who cannot post to my groups anymore because they are having the same problem, which is very sad.
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
Also see related post on NowPublic by dysamoria: flickr: Racist and Homophobic, or Scamming? http://www.nowpublic.com/culture...
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
As someone who has, quite unfairly, had their name featured several times in the Flickr is Fascist Blog, and who knows who the perpetrator is I can understand why Flickr would want to protect it’s users in this way. The person behind it not only has a malicious personal vendetta against certain people on the site but also promotes the censorship, deletion and suspension of other peoples...
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- david Martyn
Ourdoings.com - Words for Living - http://ourdoings.com/wordsfo...
Bruce Lewis liked this
To Do: Start adding photos later today...
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
from Bookmarklet
If you run into any difficulty, let me know.
- Bruce Lewis
Bug report lol: a carriage return in a text only entry starts a new paragraph. Single spacing should be default.
Shift+Enter will do a single line break, to make a long story short. The long story is http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/punbb... and has to do with semantic markup, paragraphs, and word-processing software.
- Bruce Lewis
Not logical to me but I can live with shift+enter. Thanks.
- empiricist
When you get one of those digital picture frame thingamabobs, how exactly do you load your pictures on to it?
Bruce Lewis and Baroness Von SmashAHomie liked this
I mean, if most of your photos are already on hard drives and you want to put them on the pic frame, you have to transfer them to an SD card, right? Or can you just create a USB connection between the frame and the hard drive?
- Laura Norvig
Most of them have several ways including USB or SD card. My parents have one that uses WiFi connected to a Flickr stream; kids and grandkids can email pix to Flickr and they'll show up on the frame in a few minutes.
- Glen Mistletoe
Any recs for good, but relatively inexpensive ones?
- Laura Norvig
I just bought 2 Coby frames, 7", on sale for $20 each. Using SD cards to store pictures. Seems ok so far.
- FF's Bubba of Arizona
Glen, what brand is that? That model sounds exactly like what I'm looking for.
- cecily
cecily, I have a couple of wifi frames: one is a Samsung SPF-83V, the other a Kodak W820.
- Bruce Lewis
Thanks, Bruce!
- cecily
Full disclosure: I have an interest in people buying wifi photo frames, because my photo site supports them better than any other.
- Bruce Lewis
Tree pictures - http://ourdoings.com/brlewis...
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Kenji URUSHIMA, Kol Tregaskes, Kazutaka Ogaki and 10 other people liked this
We brought up all our Christmas decorations from the basement yesterday, bought a tree and trimmed it. Then it snowed. Our 3-year-old said, "I like this Christmas house."
- Bruce Lewis
Very nice!
- Laura Lou Who
I LOVE the second Christmas tree pic with the kitty in it :oD We're buying a(n artificial) tree on Thursday. We haven't bothered since we've been married and made do with a little table-top tree, but now we have an almost 3yo and he has asked for a tree.
- Mellissa Claus
Thanks Laura. The "Laura Lou Who" nick makes me imagine you speaking in a really cute voice. :-)
- Bruce Lewis
Gorgeous!
- joey
Mellissa, that's Honeybear. He's 13 years old and has graced a lot of our best pictures over the years.
- Bruce Lewis
Thanks, Joey. The snow melted off later that day, so I was glad I shot these in the morning.
- Bruce Lewis
These are gorgeous!
- Junebug (aka Sarah Jill)
nice
- Jim Hearts FF
LOL, Bruce! :)
- Laura Lou Who
Those of you with Christmas trees: real or artificial?
Kenton, Kol Tregaskes, MikeAmundsen and 6 other people liked this
Real but starting to get tempted by the catalogues with those pics of the prelit artificial. Might wait till kids are out of the house - five to ten years or so.
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
I have one of each. We have a little fake one we put up late Nov, and then we get an ENORMOUS real one (which we got yesterday). Can't beat that Christmas smell :)
- Penny
artificial pre-lit
- holly
Artificial. I'd really like to have a real tree, but I'm not sure with dogs in the house how they would be. Maybe next year I'll try it.
- Junebug (aka Sarah Jill)
We have an artificial "winter forest". Artificial because it's easier and a forest because it's more winter/seasonal than Christmas, because we're Jewish! :)
- Rochelle
Artificial. The one time we had a real tree when I was a kid I was still vacuuming up needles in February. I swore NEVER AGAIN!!!
- Give 'Em DBizness
artificial
- Sir Shuping
Artifical; high maintenance hardwoods.
- Nikki D.
real, gotta love the smell
- Lee
We've had an artificial tree for the last four or five years. This year, my wife decided she wanted a real tree. It's up and decorated already. Hopefully it will survive until New Year's. It's been a while since we've had a real tree (we had to go out and buy a stand and everything).
- Curtiss Grymala
Real, not up yet. But soon
- MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS
Fake, I have allergies and having a tree in the house for month really messes me up. I basically can't breath through my nose the whole time the tree is in the house. Plus real trees are messy and a significant fire hazard.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Real!
- Mary Carmen
Reusable with the flexible branches.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
real. always.
- Jim Hearts FF
Fake this year
- Katie: Whelmed Overly
We have an artificial tree that we bought for $19.99 when we couldn't afford a real one. It looks surprisingly decent. Now I reuse it every year. I had thought about getting a real (live) tree this year and then planting it outside after Christmas, but I was scared away by stories of huge spiders.
- joey
Fake I'm too hyper about a real pine tree drying out into tinder in my front room
- WarLord
REAL -- just picked up ours today
- Ladybug Heather
Unmistakably fake. 24" tall and Hawt Pank. And I got it for 50% off last X-mas Eve. My ideal tree!
- vicster
I've never had a real one, even as a kid (my mom hates the mess that pine needles can make). I have been tempted to get a big planter and plant a hardy rosemary bush in it. I could decorate it a little in the winter, then, but I could also use it for culinary purposes.
- Katy S
Fake...been that way for a few years now ever since tree prices went through the roof. The pre-lit ones are pretty nice too. Can't do that with a real tree.
- Chad McCoskey
Growing up, we always had real. Mr. B and I have had a pretty nice fake one for several years now.
- Laura Lou Who
Artificial. I am the frugal type and I like a tree that I only have to pay for once and it lasts 25+ years. It's not one of those "toilet bowl brush" types. This one looks pretty real and if I hang pine potpourri in small net bags in the interior near the pole, it fools most people, because then it even smells real.
- April Russo (app103)
Nice, April!
- Laura Lou Who
went plastic years ago. didn't like choppin' em down. been able to use the same tree over and over. paid for itself over time.
- MikeAmundsen
artificial
- Shevonne
real
- Patrick
Artificial.
- Kol Tregaskes
We have an artificial one for use at the wedding, but normally it's real.
- Alex Scoble
Depends on if we're in town for Christmas or not.
- Kenton
Real.
- Thomas Bøhm
gotta be real.
- chrisofspades
Only real
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
Fake, prelit. It's really pretty (to me). Sure it doesn't look real, but I don't see that. Plus my kitties go wild with real ones. Bad enough with fake ones. But maybe next year I'll try a real one (if they can come skinny mini style, we're cramped!).
- βℜ∀ñÐi
real..
- ★ Soner Gönül
Short-Term Memory and Web Usability - http://news.ycombinator.com/item...
"The best UI talk I ever attended was by a psychologist talking about memory. We got to the end and I realized he never talked about computers the whole time, even though it was at a UI conference."
- Bruce Lewis
I've moved alpha test http://alpha.ourdoings.com/ over to HTML5. Tomorrow if it tests OK I'll put it in production.
NaHi, Kenji URUSHIMA, Schadenfreude and Kazutaka Ogaki liked this
That's true. I guess my laptop is the only place where that kind of testing can happen. It will be out in production soon, though.
- Bruce Lewis
This is now live, along with tinymce 3.2.7 and some IE fixes.
- Bruce Lewis
Feeding FriendFeeders a FriendFeed cake
teh Dork Knight aka Kenny, Alfredo, ebru and 68 other people liked this
needs more pixels, or candles, or something
- Pete Delucchi
Needs Johnny's former beard. :P
- Mathew™ one of a kind
We're not dead, b*tches! :)
- Tudor Bosman
from Android
nomnom...
- Bash
cuts us all of a slice willya?
- Pete Delucchi
Nom. Also LOL Tudor!
- EricaJoy
But...I can't eat it in realtime :(
- Schadenfreude
F5 F5 F5 F5 delish!
- Pete Delucchi
LONG LIVE FRIENDFEED
- Josh Haley
Here, here.
- Mitch
Woot!
- Ross Miller
Start clicking Share :)
- Micah Wittman
LIKE LIKE LIKE!
- Pete Delucchi
Great!
- ★ Soner Gönül
It was super yummy too!!
- Rachel Lea Fox
Sweet!
- Mona Nomura
Nice. What was the occasion?
- Bruce Lewis
Great tips on hiring - http://pavan.gunupudi.info/2009...
Bruce Lewis liked this
Racism is real, so institutions need to do something to combat it. But I agree Aaron has great tips. I just can't think of a way to institutionalize such an informal process. I also question how effective your university's practices would actually be in reducing the effect of people's unconscious prejudices. The questions may all be the same, but how people listen to the answers may be different.
- Bruce Lewis
Asking the same questions to all interviewees as in the current procedure guarantees no equality since the interviewees are different. Unfortunately in govt funded orgs, the interview procedure is institutionalized. While they don't ensure any real equality, the procedure makes it harder for the interviewers to find the right people for the job. So to answer your question, as a procedure, I don't this guarantees equality but does pay a lip service to it. That's the exact issue I have with it.
- Pavan
Headed to Building 46 to pay homage to the Google overlords. #twd
VAL D. Zone, DeWitt Clinton, Igor Poltavskiy and 3 other people liked this
sorry to miss it!
- Jenna Bilotta
Oh it was a total blast, Jenna. <name deleted> showed off the new <service deleted> <version number deleted> and we all drank <deleted> and ate <deleted>. <name deleted>, <name deleted> and <name deleted> were all there! You missed out! It was epic.
- Louis Gray
ooh ooh I know! You drank Diet Coke
- Jesse Stay
You got me, Jesse. Guilty as charged. Now I have to disclose that I got a free Diet Coke again!
- Louis Gray
I'm good :-)
- Jesse Stay
Google never invites me to show off cool new technologies :-(
- Jesse Stay
you aren't alone Jesse
- Allen Stern
It's a proximity thing.
- Louis Gray
I don't think so, Louis. I'm only 26 milliseconds away from www.google.com and they've never invited me.
- Bruce Lewis
Of note, be sure my comment to Jenna is teasing her, Bruce. I wanted her to feel left out.
- Louis Gray
le sigh. I had an interesting day, nonetheless... but still haven't seen <service deleted> yet!
- Jenna Bilotta
The diet coke has nanogooglebots that are busy indexing your insides.
- Amit Patel
Difficult situation: I got an email from someone who was a friend once, but for various reasons too numerous to mention, we are not friends now (and probably never will be). In her email, she expressed condolences over the death of a mutual acquaintance, a death that, while sad, I'm not mourning and wasn't particularly affected by.
Bruce Lewis, Jennifer Dittrich and SAM liked this
Should I even acknowledge her email? I don't want to give the impression that I'm interested in corresponding with her.
- cecily
No
- Andrizzle Gizzle
I'd say no too.
- Katie: Whelmed Overly
No. There's a reason you kicked her to the curb. She needs to stay there.
- Helen Sventitsky
no.
- tiffany
Absolutely not.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I would not...
- SAM
Well, having been kicked to the curb recently myself, I understand better now how it feels. And in the interest of trying to be more forgiving and accepting of people, I've been thinking about a lot of past relationships and whether it is worth it for me to try to at least make some sort of overture. It's something I struggle with: whether I should do the right thing or whether I should just let dead things stay dead.
- cecily
Does it sound like she is mourning/affected? If so, respond kindly. Love your enemies. The world needs it.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Huh. I'm interested by the responses. I would respond--after all, she's the one who made the real overture, and responding is, to my mind, a basic kindness and civility.
- laura x
I really like the last 3 responses... including your further exposition on the matter. I revise my suggestion... (and personally, thinking harder on it, I can't let any correspondence go dead willingly, just not in me)...
- SAM
It might depend on the circumstances surrounding why the friendship was terminated in the first place and the relationship she had with this mutual acquaintance. I don't think that something simple like "Thank you for your kind words and concern" would be inappropriate or suggestive that you'd like to resume a correspondence with her. It'd be polite to respond to this email and then if she contacts you again, I'd say it would be fine to ignore future attempts.
- Junebug (aka Sarah Jill)
Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines as Sarah June. A polite response to this one would probably be the high road.
- Jàson Puçkett
ditto here
- VAL D. Zone
I wrote back, thanked her for her concern, and left it at that. And having done that, I actually feel better. Thanks for helping me suss this one out, people.
- cecily
Good form, Cecily. :)
- SAM
Thanks, Sam.
- cecily
Well done. I hope I would have done the same.
- s t e v e
Do you think that if a person has to start all over again later in life (relationship-wise) that it would be more difficult to establish true intimacy? Easier? The same? And by intimacy, I don't mean sex.
Penguin It's Cold Outside, Caroline, Kol Tregaskes and 7 other people liked this
Easier, but the person will perceive it as being more difficult, having forgotten how much work it was the first time.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Depends on how much baggage they're bringing from the failed relationship and whether they actually learned anything.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I think it would be about the same, if not easier in some respects. One of the best things about being older (if you're lucky) is that you are more comfortable in your own skin.
- J. Abdul-Qahhar
I think it might depend on how they look at their past experiences, with a positive eye and say they learned from them or with a negative eye and say they were burned by them.
- Katie: Whelmed Overly
I'm with Rasheen - I think a lot depends on how/why the person is starting over. If things were positive, it might be easier. If they were terrible, and overwhelmingly negative, I can see it being very hard to let someone in.
- Jennifer Dittrich
I think it would depend how much each of the people have been hurt, burned, betrayed in the past. And how good each of them are at forgiving and trusting again. Without trust, relationships are doomed to fail, mostly.
- Morgan Haley
It really depends on the person's past experience and what he/she has taken away from it.
- pea
I'm thinking it would be harder for a number of reasons as you get older : fewer available/interested partners, more set in your ways, maybe being a little more wary of people.
- cecily
I'm stuck between it actually being harder for the reasons you stated, C., and what Bruce said. I'll bet it's somewhere in between. And if the person is lucky, they'll find someone who is ready to meet them half-way, something we're not always keen on doing when we're young and (fill in the blank).
- Ayşe E.
All over again? I've yet to get started. :(
- Derrick
I'm 55 and haven't been in a relationship for over 20 years. The idea of entering one now spooks me. I'm not sure if I could adjust to the situation like I could when I was younger.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
I love Jack.
- Derrick
I agree with pea, there are too many factors for each individual. And it changes for each individual over time. One can believe themselves as unable as possible only to have the world turn on its head and themselves and their fears as well when someone turns it.
- Michael W. May
What This Site Needs: Me Full-Time - http://ourdoings.com/ourdoin...
Kenji URUSHIMA, Kazutaka Ogaki, Mo Kargas and 4 other people liked this
Cool, sounds like you've got a good plan, best wishes for success!!
- Chris Myles
Thanks, Chris. It won't be easy, but this is definitely what I want and what will be best for the service.
- Bruce Lewis
I wish you the best of luck. The first step is the hardest. I am in an unstable state on my personal projects and I need to move forward as well. Reading what you wrote inspires me to go for it.
- Jorge Escobar
Jorge, let's make things happen and then we'll really inspire each other.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
You got it. Maybe we can set milestones or something to feel bad if we miss. I'm for it.
- Jorge Escobar
Good luck Bruce! If you want to do another lunch sometime, just let me know.
- mikepk
Best of luck Bruce! My only concern is that 2) might come after 3) + additional personnel and investment ;)
- Pavan
Pavan, doing it that way would require funding. I can't count on that. I've also heard that the best way to get funding is not to need it, so either way it's the same plan.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Sadness is getting on CalTrain and finding out that your MiFi's battery is dead.
Awww.
- Louis Gray
I'm surprised the MiFi gets so much press when you can turn your iPhone into the functional equivalent with MyWi. Yeah it's $10, but BFD.
- Otto
MBTA commuter rail trains have wifi and outlets.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
just rob someone elses!
- Allen Stern
Tags support
eheh you knew I would ask for this
- (``-_-´´)
Photo tags? Entry tags? Here's where having a hybrid photo/blog site gets tricky.
- Bruce Lewis
actually it's an "hybrid" between a photo site and a blog. Flickr is a photo site, Ourdoings has photos organized by date and allows you to add a description for the date, so in this way it's closer to a blog and entry tags would make more sense.
- Flavio
I was going to make a text only site a while ago for writing haiku and tanka until I realised how bad the text input mechanism is.
- empiricist
I'd rather just be able to do a text search on headings, captions and any entry text...with an optional date qualifier.
- empiricist
Definitely any tags support I create will be unobtrusive for people who don't want to use it. One option I'm considering is not showing any tags UI until someone uploads a photo that has IPTC keywords in it. So you have to do tagging in your photo management desktop software first.
- Bruce Lewis
I don't like that much, since most of my photos are sent from mobile,or from PC with zero edition ( just copy to dropbox ). please take a quick look at how posterous does this. it does a great job on how easy its to add (both on email, and online), and no burden to those that have no need for it.
- (``-_-´´)
from email
Forcing people to always use photo management software for tagging seems like cruel and unusual punishment :-) ...Those of us who don't like tags can easily ignore the tagging elements I think.
- empiricist
empiricist true
- (``-_-´´)
after re-reading this thread i *think* we are talking about different things, are we not?? only that would justify so much indecision. all I want is to tag albums and photos, via web UI, so that i can group them into similar context. example: bdays, weather, sports events, #Me, etc. is everyone in the same page?
- (``-_-´´)
I don't think we're talking about different things...but do you want tags mainly to make finding photos easier, or to make virtual albums, or both?
- empiricist
both, i guess. tagging will certantly limit the number of photos to look at when trying to find it, and grouping them into virtual albums is the main idea, sure.
- (``-_-´´)
I'll just note that a "birthday" tag is only helpful for grouping birthday photos together across years. Finding them is already easy. But there are other categories where it would help you find them too.
- Bruce Lewis
_fix_ RSS
Currently all the RSS feeds use Media RSS, so that the images are structured data rather than escaped IMG tags in the description element. Making some alternate RSS feeds that use the latter technique would be helpful for greader, etc. Media RSS works well with FriendFeed.
- Bruce Lewis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Who knows, they've made a lot of improvements lately. Maybe this will be next.
- Bruce Lewis
GReader is not the only app having problems in reading the mediaRSS, as Bruce knows well I tried in many other places and unsuccesfully. Try to import your OD feed to Facebook or other aggregators and you'll get the same result, no pix :o(
- Flavio
I'm thinking about creating a separate private FriendFeed account and using their Facebook app to share my family doings on Facebook.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce I'm not sure i'm understanding. care to explain? .... for a moment it almost felt like u were about to end ourdoings services, and moving out to FB... grrrr
- (``-_-´´)
Facebook doesn't import Media RSS with pictures, but FriendFeed does. FriendFeed has an app for automatically feeding its items, with pictures, to Facebook. I was just thinking of seeing how well the OurDoings->FriendFeed->Facebook chain works, at least for technically savvy folks like the ones here. Eventually I'll need to create a more direct way to feed Facebook, since a lot of people seem to want that.
- Bruce Lewis
Not sure how they did it, but I think Tumblr has maybe the best way to send their data to FB. Photos and videos are imported just perfectly!
- Flavio
I would guess they used the Facebook API and made their own app. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time doing that now and then soon the FF team renders it unnecessary by making FB import MRSS.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
<quote>Currently all the RSS feeds use Media RSS, so that the images are structured data rather than escaped IMG tags in the description element. Making some alternate RSS feeds that use the latter technique would be helpful for greader, etc.</quote> ...Will you be doing that? -GReader Lover.
- empiricist
I've put it on my list, but it's below themes and improvements to the lightbox.
- Bruce Lewis
Thanks Bruce. I'm looking forward to OD in GReader one day.
- empiricist
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - http://ourdoings.com/images...
 |
Bruce Lewis liked this
Looks cool. What's happening in that picture?
- Bruce Lewis
A bridal procession.Thanks.
- jagannath rao
from email
Today is a day long coming... A day of sadness... A day I want to just lock myself away and hide... but a day I know I can't, that's not what he would have wanted and not what he taught me how to operate... I'm so scared...
rowlikeagirl, Kol Tregaskes, Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah and 13 other people liked this
:/
- mjc
:(
- Anne Bouey
My boss passed away this morning...
- Johnny Worthington
Yikes! Sorry to hear Johnny. =(
- ronin
jeez :'( that sucks rocks :( we're all here for you man
- mjc
I am very sorry Johnny. I wish I could give you some strength today, know I am thinking of you and hugging you mega tight in my mind.
- aden
:-( Sorry to hear this.
- Junebug (aka Sarah Jill)
Oh, Johnny. I'm so sorry. Hugs and prayers for all of you.
- Laura Lou Who
Johnny, I'm really, really sorry. My condolences.
- josh neff, geek at large
My condolences Johnny
- MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS
I'm sorry, Johnny.
- The Letter M
so sorry you're going through this.
- Joe Silence is not dead
My condolences to you and all of his friends and family. You're in my prayers.
- joey
So sorry for your loss, Johnny.
- Anne Bouey
Condolences to you and all his family and friends.
- WorldofHiglet
Sorry to hear it, Johnny. My condolences to you.
- Jim Hearts FF
My condolences.
- Sarah G.
hey johnny sorry to hear about your loss. my thoughts and prayers are with you.
- (jeff)isageek
I think it is special that you cared that much for your boss. My condolences. *hugs*
- Yolanda
Sorry to hear that, Johnny; Yolanda is right, it's special you cared that much for your boss..
- Andrew Terry
He was a groomsmen at my wedding and is Georgia's god father... He was more than a boss...
- Johnny Worthington
Oh, sorry to hear it.
- s t e v e
I'm sorry for your loss
- Alan Simpson
:( Sorry for your loss, Johnny.
- Alex Scoble
sorry to hear it.
- Morgan Haley
you gotta be strong and remember the good times. My condolences to you and all of his friends and family
- Peter Dawson
I'm so sorry to hear that, Johnny. We're thinking of you and your family. <3
- Rochelle
I am so so sorry my friend. :'(
- Kamath (नमः)
I'm sorry for your loss, Johnny. :-(
- pea
*hugs*
- Michael W. May
If he had a friend like you, I'm thinking that he was a quality man that is now in a much better place. Thoughts and prayers for all that knew and loved him.
- Morgan Haley
So sorry to hear this Johnny, my condolences. :(
- Charlotte M
Aww, fcuk, man, that's rough. When/if you're ready to talk about it, you know we'll be here, mate. If not, well...., you know we'll be here, mate. :-(
- Andrew Terry
Sorry to hear about it. You obviously held him in high regard. That's not always the case with bosses. Sincere condolences from half-a-world away.
- .LAG liked that
You guys are helping more than you ever will know :)
- Johnny Worthington
So sorry to hear this... :(
- Cheryl Jones
Damn, Johnny. Big hugs coming to you straight from Los Angeles. I'm sorry for you and your fellow employees.
- Derrick
Sorry, Johnny. Bad news is bad news.
- Louis Gray
Sorry to hear, Johnny.
- Jeremy (cropmarks)
:((((( Sorry to hear that Johnny. :(((((
- AJ Batac
Sorry to hear Johnny :-(
- Rasmus Lauridsen
Sorry, Johnny. Hang in there.
- Michael Hocter
So sorry hang in there
- Sarah Slaven
Very sorry to hear this, my condolences to you and your boss' family.
- Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕
Sorry for your loss, man.
- Carlos Ayala
No! Oh, dude...Man, I'm sorry.
- Josh Haley
:o( Very sorry to hear it. Big hug?
- Katie: Whelmed Overly
((JW))
- VAL D. Zone
I'm very sorry for your loss. Your boss and all who loved him are in my thoughts.
- vicster
Shit man, sorry to hear :(((
- Mo Kargas
Wow, sorry to hear that... Was it sudden? My condolences to you and your co-workers.
- Lindsay
Oh, wow...I am sorry to hear that, Johnny. Condolences to you and your workmates.
- JA Castillo
{{{{{{{{{Johnny}}}}}}}}}
- Mellissa Claus
Sorry for your loss :( With someone so close to you, that means there are a lot of good memories. Remember them in his honor
- Tamara
So sorry for your loss, Johnny. Condolences.
- Mona Nomura
I'm sorry, Johnny.
- Helen Sventitsky
Sorry to hear it Johny :(
- Joe Pierce
I'm so sorry for your loss, Johnny. :-(
- Anthony K. Valley ©
from iPhone
Sorry to hear that.
- Bruce Lewis
Hang in there bro!
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Sorry to hear :(
- Bindu Reddy
:(
- Rodfather
I'm so sorry, Johnny. It's great that you cared so much for your boss - or that you worked for someone you cared so much about, looked at another way. But that does make it harder now. {{hugs}}
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
=(
- Beau Liening
*hugs*
- Nathalie, Dreamer of FF
Very sorry to hear this.
- Kamilah Gill
:( *hugs*
- Michelle Martinez
No doubt he'd have been pleased to hear you held him in such high regard. Good thoughts during a hard time.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
Oh my gosh, Johnny. I just saw this. I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you, your coworkers, and your boss's friends and family.
- Call me Bronco
My condolences Johnny :(
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
So very sorry.
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
sorry you're hurting, take care
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
Sorry to hear this, Johnny. Sounds like he was also a friend / mentor.
- Richard ¿digame? Walker
My boss killed himself back in February. Didn't feel the same as you, TBH. Dude was a real PITA to deal with. Condolences anyway, sorry for your loss.
- LANjackal
Hugs to you and your family, Johnny. So sorry for your loss... :-(
- Lisa L. Seifert
Oh, Johnny, I just saw this now. I'm so sorry for this loss. The pain of it helps tell you that it's real; the friendship and the beauty of knowing and caring for someone deeply. My heart goes out to you.
- Micah Wittman
Sounds like a special guy, sorry to hear about the loss, buddy. :(
- Pete Delucchi
..
- ★ Soner Gönül
I'm so sorry Johnny, I wish I could offer more than condolences and prayer.
- Glenn Slaven
Sorry to hear that, Johnny.
- David Cook
Hand on shoulder bro
- Christopher Galtenberg
giant hug.
- Laura Norvig
My condolences, - and a big hug..
- Jeannette Høvring
Very sorry to hear that. Prayers and thoughts go out to family, staff, and friends.
- Bryan R. Adams
Enjoy your memories of your boss. I hope you find comfort in them.
- phil baumann
Adrian, Bruce Lewis and NaHi liked this
午前中は総合公園で遊んだ。天気が良くて、光線も素晴らしかったので、カメラを連れて行った。
- Kazutaka Ogaki
日本の（太平洋側の）冬は本当にいい色と光に溢れてますねぇ。
- Kazutaka Ogaki
from f2p
Beautiful! Fall is quite over where I am.
- Bruce Lewis
Part of the reason Twitter succeeded was that they didn't have many super-smart engineers who rushed to add a bunch of features. They were almost forced to keep the site simple for many years..
Roberto Bonini, Nia, Chris and 30 other people liked this
There are techniques out there to slow things down if you have too many super-smart engineers. If three-martini lunches don't work, try making them use PHP.
- Bruce Lewis
whoa
- Josh Haley
:-) Couldn't resist.
- Bruce Lewis
for 3 years and they are making subtle changes.
- ashish
I think he's saying they didn't have too many really good chefs in the kitchen making you too much food.
- Mattie Kenny
from fftogo
Does that mean that super smart people tend to make changes in the system?
- ashish
Your comment sounds like a fact, but it's just an opinion right? I don't think the site's simplicity was an accident or just a case of Twitter not having enough SSE power. There's a post from 2005 from @Ev, with rule #1 "Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful." http://evhead.com/2005... Seems like Twitter's gone out of their way to uphold that rule from the start.
- Adam Kazwell
This seems like a simplification of what could have happened..I feel simplicity was the only option because they were busy getting their back-end infrastructure right...resolving all those fail-whales in the initial stages must have taken a ton of effort...
- Mahesh CR
Adam, agree it is just an opinion... not fact. I should rephrase that. Mahesh, my point exactly if they had some backend engineers they would not have that much trouble with the backend infrastructure...
- Bindu Reddy
You use friendfeed don't you? That's got a lot of features and hasn't evolved that much since the beginning.
- Richard A.
Less is more
- Ozkan Altuner
from iPhone
I dunno, its probably lucky more than anything the Twitter development team always struck me as ad hoc and accidental about features.most real innovation ie replies, hashtags etc driven by users and other things like retweets messed up when "coded"
- WarLord
Richard, when FF was being worked on there was a lot of iteration and change. I suspect the FF team is not working on it right now....
- Bindu Reddy
I think they were too busy trying to keep Twitter online to worry about new features. Fail to the Whale.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
WarLord - yes you are right about the Twitter innovation being driven by users
- Bindu Reddy
My impression was that Twitter started off as a proof-of-concept project that blew up way beyond what the creators initially envisioned.
- Victor Ganata
Pet rocks and hula hoops also succeeded. I'm not sure anyone has figured out the formula for what will be popular at any given point in time.
- Cristo
Victor I often speculated that Ev was playing when he came up with Twitter and thats why the selling thing is such a dance - really just his hobby that got out of control...
- WarLord
Cristo - agree. I am just making an observation /stating my opinion after the fact.. WarLord, I thought Jack Dorsey was the guy who came up with twitter
- Bindu Reddy
Bindu, you're likely correct I thought it was ev and biz
- WarLord
Originally, I thought Twitter was just one of many incubation companies that Evan Williams was funding. He stepped in when it seemed like it was becoming successful. I wonder what happened to the others.
- Cristo
The others were not successful or probably were abandoned to focus all efforts on Twitter? Randomly speculating :)
- Bindu Reddy
nicely put Bindu.
- Mehmet Aydin
Pity not having Super Smart Engineers didn't work well for friendster. :-)
- Piaw Na
Some things succeed despite not being great, and others fail despite being great. A lot of it is timing, but I wouldn't aim to emulate the success of things that succeeded despite not being technologically advanced. E.g. Just because Windows was a huge success, doesn't mean you should create bad user interface in order to succeed. It wasn't the element that caused it to succeed.
- Cristo
Piaw Na - Ha, the standard confusion between co-relation and causation :))... Cristo, completely agree with your point..
- Bindu Reddy
I'm liking this post because of Bruce Lewis's first comment, not because I endorse the belief that Twitter's engineers aren't super-smart :)
- Tudor Bosman
Tudor - this is my lame attempt at posting a rant about super-smart engineers :)
- Bindu Reddy
Bindu, what are you? :)
- Cristo
Cristo, Not a super-smart engineer....
- Bindu Reddy
You're just saying that because you want to be successful like Twitter. ;)
- Cristo
Biting off more than you can chew and being the lucky one who was able to chew through all the crap doesn't make you sucessful, just lucky. Twitter isn't sucessful yet. It's still in a fad stage. It only got there because some people with names started using it and it became hip. Fads come and go, let's see if Twitter is still sucessful in 12 months before giving them a smilie stamp on the hand.
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
Cristo - yes I am trying desperately to understand and replicate Twitter's success :) But Johnny says they are still a fad. So I guess my attempts are meaningless anyways.
- Bindu Reddy
I by no means implied that their experience shouldn't be studied or admired, just it's they are still a boat rocking on the sea of trends looking for a harbour. If you want to be infamous, make something simple and get a lot of celebs to use it... Beyond that, I got nothing
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
I just want to emulate Johnny's success. Still trying to grow a beard I can shave, and then I'll do a radio show on social media. ;)
- Cristo
Doh! It never occurred to me until now.. Of course you have to make something really really simple if you want celebs to use it. :)
- Bindu Reddy
If you can't get a celeb to answer what something is in a soundbite to Oprah, you have to do it the old fashion way... which takes longer. Souffles are lovely but collapse when out of the oven to long... Christmas cake lasts for years...
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
Yup. Probably Likaholix is too complicated for Ashton Kutcher. Need something like Older-womenholix. :)
- Cristo
Demi isn't going to be pleased...
- Bindu Reddy
Burn!!!!
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
Johnny, did you hurt yourself?
- Cristo
If you really want to know, here is the secret. Write on a whiteboard the word 'Why'. The underneath write three words 'Hardcore', 'Casual' and 'Walmart'. Now, under them write a single sentence for each telling them how they would use it and why. Depending how many of the three you can explain, that's your audience. If my wife (Casual) and my sister (Walmart) can understand it, you have a winner. 1 sentence each...
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
I will say this: people say that if you have more users than your system can handle, it's "a good problem to have". I think Twitter should serve as a cautionary tale that it's not always a good problem to have; Twitter spent a lot of time and engineering effort dealing with scalability problems brought about by their success. They did emerge successfully, and maybe this is proof that...
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- Tudor Bosman
Tudor, you may be right or you may be wrong about it being a cautionary tale. It's possible that playing hard-to-get is a good strategy for cementing user loyalty. It's possible that twitter outages had the same psychological effect as someone playing hard-to-get. I don't know how one would go about testing that hypothesis, though.
- Bruce Lewis
I think what's interesting is why other similar services that existed before Twitter failed and no longer exist. Was it really just the complexity of those services? It really does seem like it was a timing issue. I'd rather be lucky, than actually good, I guess :D
- Victor Ganata
Twitter is a success?
- Schadenfreude
Maybe it's the times. It think we've gotten used to setting the bar really low, and have defined success as not having failed (yet) :)
- Victor Ganata
Hey, it's 1996 again!
- Andrew C
And Victor, there were social networks before Facebook. Heck, there was Sixdegrees long long before Friendster and Myspace, but Sixdegrees died like a dog. Timing definitely matters.
- Andrew C
I think behind the scenes, the work Evan Williams, Chris Sacca, Fred Wilson and others have done to make strategic decisions and evangelize to celebrities and traditional media is paying off. The service is what it is, but I think it's been highly (and intelligently) leveraged.
- Cristo
Andrew, I don't think it's a matter of timing, Friendster had crap engineers, as did six degrees. None of those sites scaled. Ebay had outages early on as well, but the business kept going and growing anyway.
- Piaw Na
Has Friendster failed? It's actually still continuing to grow in Southeast Asia if you believe the numbers.
- Victor Ganata
Yes, it has failed in the none of the initial investors/employees got anything like the payback they hoped for.
- Piaw Na
That, again, seems more like a timing issue. The new investors seem to be doing OK. And as far as I can tell, it still looks like the same technology.
- Victor Ganata
I think Friendster managed to get a handle on their scaling eventually. It was too late in the US by that time, though. I don't remember Sixdegrees very well. I used it too infrequently to notice outages...
- Andrew C
Friendster was unusably slow for a while. It didn't just have outages. If Twitter had those kinds of problems, I think we'd be talking about a different micro-blogging service today.
- Cristo
no actually they had very smart engineers , who understood the concept "less is more" , same here in FF :)-
- Peter Dawson
I've always thought Twitter embodied the philosophy of doing only one thing, and doing it well (or at least trying to.) But I really think--as in most cases of technology--that the social phenomena and their implications are much more significant than the underlying tech itself.
- Victor Ganata
I think Cristo's and Victor's thoughts are square on. One thing to add: the role of the SMS features shouldn't be underestimated (remember the twitter get's protester out of jail type stories that cross-over into mainstream news.) So, twitter had the mind-shared and evangelism of the SXSW crowd which helped create a critical mass of a certain fervent breed of user and it fanned out enough to get influencers in the politics/news/celebrity business.
- Micah Wittman
ahhhhhh.. I see that some1 remembers the SXSW luanch. On that day it was said the nay sayers said "oh no-- not another micro bloggin tool" !! :)-
- Peter Dawson
It's what I read in the history books... and we all know who writes those texts ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Micah Wittman
It's not clear to me that Twitter did one thing only well -- obvious scalability issues aside, I think a lot of Twitter's success can be chalked up to timing, although I will give them credit for the 'follow' feature which distinguished them from many other sms-to-web gateways that existed before. Still, I dislike a huge volume of human communication taking place over a proprietary...
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- Ray Cromwell
so lets start this: i would like to have a tumbs galery allowing me to view all my photos :)
I'm not sure I understand this one. Just jam all the thumbs together in one big grid? It sounds like every other photo site.
- Bruce Lewis
Then why use ourdoings? The whole point of OD as I see it is to escape the tyranny of creating albums and tags. I hate having to manage my photos. A curse on tags. Finding a particular photo has always been a problem with digital photography, and I think it always will be, despite Google's and Apple's face-recognition attempts. I think a chronological timeline is as good a way as any of...
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- empiricist
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