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Brian Frank › Likes
#scspn “Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences” - Jonathan Zittrain
Brian Frank, Kubke and Steve Koch liked this
Slide 22 of http://www.slideshare.net/wilbank...
- Daniel Mietchen
Just requested Here Comes Everybody from the #UWO library. Hopefully I can read enough in time for the discussion.
Brian Frank liked this
Visual evidence that you live in a bubble.
LōrÐ ҒarhaÐ, Kol Tregaskes, Jimminy, CoG of FF and 40 other people liked this
From 4 minutes ago. :)
- Louis Gray
HAHAHA!
- Sheryl
I thought for SURE I was the first to notice... :)
- Seth Gray
lol
- Anika
I seriously hope this guy was being sarcastic...
- Joshua Schnell
He just doesn't live in _the_ bubble.
- Micah
<twitter>Facepalm</twitter> Wonders why people think the universe revolves around Twitter. Anyone would think the world had suddenly stopped spinning. FF has kept me amused and informed to a degree that I was only peripherally aware that the whale had failed again - Steve
- CdL Creative
what else is news?
- Houseofmax
This is crap. I demand a full 15 minutes of fame.
- Carter Shanklin
15 whole minutes! It's been 2 hours already. :)
- Louis Gray
awesome. little known fact. i can't believe i'm the first person to notice the sun comes up each day. never seen anyone talk about that, either
- dannysullivan
I twittered my rat's ass over 2.5 hours ago! Didn't anyone get it?
- ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift
Bonus Points for the subject of the post joining FF just to have his say. Gotta love it.
- Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)
I'm sure that is not only visual, but could also be read in Braille. More bonus points.
- Red Label
"Liked" for Carter's comment and what Kamilah said.
- Micah
Reaney's Pick- The Back Alley Arts Festival- Lady o' Lakes - http://www.londonfuse.ca/blog...
Brian Frank liked this
My speech today from the ONA Conference (most of it anyway): http://paidcontent.org/article...
George Brickner, Laura Zickus, Larry Etchison and 18 other people liked this
Leo, that is one of the most informative tech talks I have ever heard. I can wait to see TWIT lead the way.
- Jim Adams
Awesome idea to get on the Roku box Leo. My wife will hate you more now that She has to hear you in the car and see you on tv :D
- Anthony Farrior
I didn't intend to watch the whole thing, but it was so interesting I just couldn't stop. :o)
- Ken Morley
GRAND SLAM, Leo at ONA - look forward to getting a Roku box; this from a football AND tech fanatic; one quibble - in a world where Glenn Beck prospers, I sense a bifurcation in the "meritocracy"
- heretic_twit
Great Speech, hope you get on Hulu also, I think you nailed it. I look forward to the TED speech as well
- Rick
Leo, your talk was very informative and inspiring. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your passion.
- Rob Cairns
Really great Leo.
- Todd Hoff
Loved the speech. I really do enjoy hearing about behind the scenes stuff. Especially with something that I really love.
- Andres
Leo I enjoyed your speech from the ONA conference. It's very cool to hear about some of the stuff that happens behind the scenes. Keep up the great work that you do at the Twit Network!
- flashtrader
I think we are luck to be living in these times and working our way through this information revolution. Having someone like you, who is so articulate, informative who has had foot in both new and old media, and who is willing to take us along for the journey. Fantastic.
- John
Was very interested in your comments about the difficulties surrounding the delivery of podcasts. So true.There's that tension between the ease of pushing a button to watch TV and find nothing on vs the tech effort and skill (for a lot of people,) to get Podcasts that serve niche interests. Yesterday a guy asked me to help him with his iPhone. I nearly collapsed with shock, he's only using it for contact management and phoning people. Not even a second page of Apps.
- John
Super, but you diss your audience at 19 minutes in. Careful you don't do a Gerald Ratner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Richi Jennings
After signing the papers :)
caj needs a haircut, Semih Masat™, Jimminy, CoG of FF and 462 other people liked this
hide
- JCunwired
What's with the fists, Paul? :)
- April Buchheit
congrats Paul
- Zee.
I thought it would make a funny picture April.
- Paul Buchheit
Secret backyard meetings FTW. :)
- EricaJoy
What? No lawyers in suits? Mark's setting a pretty low bar on the dress code for this sort of thing...:)
- Tomas Remotigue
Our lawyers were wearing shorts actually -- no air conditioning at their office on Sundays I guess.
- Paul Buchheit
Zuckerberg's the only one from FB who could be bothered to show up?
- Andy Bakun
American big business such a formal affair
- Robert Higgins
Contrary to popular misconception, lawyers don't actually enjoy wearing suits. Haul us into work on a Sunday, and we'll definitely be dressing comfortably. :)
- Brian Chang
Andy, the person on the left is Vaughan Smith from Facebook. Sanjeev (the fourth FriendFeed founder) is not pictured because he was boarding an airplane.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, that's so awesome. FB's an awesome company to do business with.
- Jesse Stay
Must have been exciting, congrats.
- sean percival
Yeah, wishing you guys all the best, its been good fun hanging around here thanks!!
- Mel Buckpitt
Congrats to you guys!
- Jack Wilson, K4SAC
Congratulations you guys!!!! I love the Teak Conference Room table :)
- Susan Beebe
:-(
- Vicarbott
Hey Paul congratulations - FriendFeed has been leading the way since its inception. Are the photos you've posted copy-protected or could I use them in a story on the deal?
- Mitchell
Mitch, feel free to use the photos.
- Paul Buchheit
where's the ...friendfeed shirts then?? ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
SWEET!!! Congratulations!
- Chad Lester
...congrats.can't wait to see what happens with both FF and FB as a result of this.
- .LAG liked that
Please try to keep Friendfeed like it was if they let you. Either way, congrats on the financials!
- Josh Haley
from iPhone
Congrats and best wishes for the future.
- Jeff Stannard
For $50m you could at least have hired a photographer who doesn't shake so much. :)
- Rodrigo Jaroszewski
FF was the cutting edge whereas FB is quickly becoming the mainstream. Unfortunately, the mainstream does not necessarily equal innovation and pushing the envelope. We all suffer when innovation is chilled. But on the other hand, congrats to the FF crew. They made their money!
- blackChinahand
I think the Tiger suit would have been more appropriate! But hey....shorts in a backyard is pretty cool too.
- Drea Lester
Congrats!
- CG
Whatever the outcome, Friendfeed is terrific. Congratulations.
- Ashish
LOL, click through if you want to see pics of newly rich geeks in casual wear.. ->
- Alex Schleber
congratulations! keep the innovation coming...
- ozlubling
VERY happy for you guys. Possibly even owe you one or two. Are we getting FriendPhone next?? Think Mark should seriously think about 'Friendbook' :)
- Charlie Anzman
Congratulations to you and your team.
- Maria Niles
just showed the pictures to my students and they were like, "they look like normal people!" Congrats on the deal, onward and upward!
- xxx xxxxx
Congratulations, Paul -- to you and everybody at FF.
- Eric Johnson
Congrats Paul, Bret and the rest of the team, this is awesome news! The big question on everyone's lips is: Who gets to have http://facebook.com/paul? :)
- Fenn
Congrats, and thanks for taking us all on such a terrific ride! Big ups. :)
- Pete D
You've done a great job! You deserve this and more... Congrats!
- Ricardo J. Valle
Congratulations to everyone at FF. Whose house was the deal made?
- seman
I am sad .. !!! I do not know .. why .. for me its not good news
- Nayan
Congratulations!
- Made Adi
++Mark
- David Cook
Awesome! Congratulations!
- michael silverton
hey, congratus Friendfeed team!!!
- K.D.
+Lindsey
- Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)
I call this pic... "Six Happy Dudes & 1,000,000+ Pissed-Off FriendFeeders"
- Brad Williamson
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
- Mathew™ aka Youngblood
Looks like Mathew™ has found a UI bug by flooding contiguous characters.
- Jay Cuthrell
I don't get the negativity - did no one realize FriendFeed was a business? The object of a business is to sell eventually (either privately or publicly). We should be celebrating their success. This is a huge win for them, as well as Facebook. I personally think it's a huge win for the "loyal users" as well. So now we stab them in the back when they do something huge?
- Jesse Stay
Not to mention we know *nothing* about what this will mean for both services. These guys haven't let us down yet, have they?
- Jesse Stay
Congratulations to all of you!!
- Steve de Mena
The FB/FF deal rocks. Total win for users and developers.
- Steve Gillmor
Facebook announces the acquisition of FriendFeed http://facebookmania.net/en...
- Vincenzo Piromalli
Congratulations guys.. and good luck! ;)
- Vincenzo Piromalli
Congratulations Paul. I hope for nothing but the best for you and FF.
- Martha
We should start a PhotoShop meme on this.
- Ben Hanten
Lindsey, I'm with you completely. Bad timing. Too bad there weren't photos of money being thrown in the air.
- Ben Hanten
++Ben
- David Cook
Congratulations Paul, you should have got more, but I guess $50m is nothing to sneeze at. Have a great wedding anniversary too, I'm sure you both deserve it. Much happiness - :)
- Chris Loft
Congrats! The hard work paid off
- Becca
Those are the kind of business meetings I could get used to - no suits... but selling to Facebook? Hmmm... Good for someone of course but I suppose we'll see where this ride takes us.
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
Congratulations, FriendFeeders! I'm anxious to see what changes this will bring. FriendFeed is my favorite site to visit, so hopefully y'all will find a way to maintain the FF spirit somehow.
- Keith Pelczarski
No matter the type of big change, there are those who will not like it, often simply because it's change. I for one am very pleased that two of the services I use most are joining forces, and am eager to see the new developments that come of this acquisition. Congrats to EVERYONE on the FriendFeed team. You all deserve it! You've done a great job with a small company. Now lets see what you can do with a large one :)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Nicely put, guruvan.
- Anne Bouey
What I wonder is ... a 50-million dollar deal and no one has a camera capable of taking a clear photo? :P
- Nicholas Kreidberg
Congratulations
- SteVe C
@Jesse Stay re: "the objective of business is to sell eventually" : Ummm, the objective of many businesses is to become profitable by providing a valuable experience to their users. Businesses that feel they can't do that are the ones that sell.
- Shane Gibbons
LOL! ♫ ♫ "ooh, take the money and run"!! ♫ ♫ ;)
- Vincenzo Piromalli
Congratulations to everyone involved. Well done.
- Darius Dunlap
This is a very sad day in friend feed history. It is horrible because I like friend feed for how it's different from face book. I use facebook but I find it really annoying and I wouldn't use it if my friends and family weren't using it. So if Friend Feed becomes another facebook then i donno if I will keep coming to friend feed.
- Colide81 (James)
from iPhone
Grats. :)
- Joshua Schnell
Congrats to the FF staff, but you'll have to pardon my lack of exuberance. I have mental pictures of being forced to use the FB UI and it makes me sad =(
- FFing Enigma
Very happy for the Friendfeed team. These pictures say it all.
- Christian Burns
from iPhone
Congrats -- may the FF UI stay alive!
- RateBrain
Where are the photos of everyone celebrating? No beer or champagne?
- Shane
Great match-up guys ! The Fabulous Friender Boys ! - Let's see some integrated mashups and extensible apps and FF UI. Given Google and Twitter a run for their money... Looks like they are going to have to "hook-up" now !
- Mike Schmidt
Congratulations Paul and the team! Hopefully we'll still get the same simple UI for FriendFeed. I'm sure however that no matter what you do, things will turn up nicely.
- Ovidiu Predescu
Enjoy!
- Paul Mayne
NOOOOO! I _LOVE_ friendFeed and this will change it forever. Yeah - this will improve Facebook. Great deal guys - I can not wait to see how this works out
- Ric Johnson
Congratulations! :)
- İdris Cin
hayırlı olsun
- Sinan İŞLER
congratulations to both parties. intuitively, it feels like the right move.
- raheel naqvi
Congratulations guys :)
- Yalcin Parmaksiz
Congrats Paul, Bret and the rest of the FF team. Your smiles are priceless!!
- Mohamed J
Hayırlı işler...
- Onur Selek
Congratulations gentlemen!
- Mutimba
Congratulations Paul. Yes, I do hope Friendfeed users and community are "treated right".
- Paola Bonomo
shit all FF VC's and CO-FOUNDERS! YOU DID THE SHIT! you can safely accept all spam "app" invitations on FB.
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
Ahmet: I'm disappointed to even be on the same service as you and I really can't wait until you leave.
- Robert Scoble
Congrats! Maybe you'll make FB usable again...
- Eran Kampf
from iPhone
cngrtlti.ons I hope you will understand what i mean!
- Atif UNALDI
Great vibe :)
- Sharel
from FriendFeed API Example
@Scobleizer: Come on you're a genius and can not realize future of FF? Turkey was one of important countries which is using FF! They asked no one about this! We hate fcking morons and stupid people on facebook, and I'm sure that this post will be real, just read it: http://ff.im/6pRmM
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
But Ahmed you are still being an ass about it, trying to rain on their good times. Go find a hole under the bridge where you belong. You can be sad and not have to come out all bitchy about stuff. Clear thoughtful comments instead of going all into "fuck you" mode.
- Rasmus Lauridsen
OK, that's great. I hope you can be successful at Facebook Dev Team and enjoy spending that money.
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
Ahmet: I hope this helps with your inquiry -> http://friendfeed.com/about...
- Clifford Kennedy
@Clifford, haha LOL.
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
Bilseydik biz alırdık :)
- Hamdi Yaman
wohoo, lets celebrate that ff owners for selling the land they have hired us - now we have to find another place
- MobilAdam
very nice FF! Amazing team! - @RecruitingDiva
- Sangeeta Narayan
valla kelepire gitmiş, fotoğraflardan belli..
- Mücahit Yılmaz
Who took the pic?
- Marco Massarotto
from iPhone
@MobilAdam + 1.
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
@Mücahit +1 :D
- Hamdi Yaman
böyle önemli bir iş için fiyat açıklanmadı ama 50 milyon $ deniyor. Bu kadar lakayt bir ortam olur mu yau. Uzaktan baksan gençler eğleniyor dersin
- Fatih Hayrioğlu
Şİmdi yorumları okumadım ama çok kişisel bişi söyleyeceğim. Bu gençlerin milyon dolarları çeviriyor olması durumuna şaşıyorum. Bizim memlekette bu seviyeye gelecek mi veya? Kaç sen uzaktalar bizden bu gençler?
- mustafa can
Bizim şirket sahipleri konunun belli saatler arasında, belli kıyafetlerle ofiste oturmak değil, yapılan işin niteliği olduğunu analdıkları zaman gelir tabii. Ama bence bu gavurların dediği gibi "When the hell freezes over".
- özlem ercan
bu postu türkçe commentlerle doldrmak süper fikir.. sarcasm diil ciddiyim
- MobilAdam
Bakmayın böyle güldüklerine arkada buyuk yatırımcılar olmasa batar gider bunlar..Adamların yatırımcıları işi biliyor...
- Zekeriya Pehlivan
tebrikler.congratulations.gratuliere !!!
- muratt
Sorry but as an FF user, I've just tried to express my thoughts about this acquisition: http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs46...
- ibrahim özdemir
Congratulations! :)
- Ruben Sanchez
Great result Paul. In such a short time, millions of users, 1 new interface and a marriage with internets' celebrity. This is a period which you should write down to make it as an on-line business case. You people are really wise businessmen. Nice job, congrats! :)
- Olcayto Cengiz
Not happy happy congrats bullshit from me-I used FF.
- frankiecarl
Frankie, a lot of us use FriendFeed and are concerned about where things are going from here. As I said in my comment above: I'm happy for the staff but displeased with who they chose to sell to. I'm perfectly capable of feeling both emotions at the same time.
- FFing Enigma
@Tina ++++
- Shevonne
wonderful so normal so ordinary so simple
- Thomas Power
MZ looks like he has just returned from the gym
- Joe Dawson
Awesome, nice to see they are actually in fact human still.
- Robert Schultz
Congratulations, Paul!
- Bill Sodeman
Great photographs showing the very reason why 99% of all people start their own business - money! Well done and good luck for the future.
- David Jagger
this is so great! congrats paul! im really happy for u guys!
- Jason Pollock
congratulations guys!
- Liam Daly
congratulations from me, too! mind to stay (y)ourselves. ;)
- Valentina*
L-O-V-E the attire, guys. Did you end the evening with a nice barbecue and a dip in the pool?
- Giulia B.
"Hi my name is Mark, I do $50m deals in my shorts!"
- Simon May
Congratulations. I'm sad for us and extremely happy for you and your team.
- Arleen Boyd
congratulations...can't wait to see the success of the collaboration!
- Katy Barrilleaux
We better run away!
- Constantine Nicolaou
Congratulations. I'm sure that this acquisition will be beneficial for both parties.
- Volkan Özçelik
the one in the green shirt is hawt. just sayin'.
- Jessie
eew, that causes diseases
- Jim Norris
congrats Paul & evereyone !
- Thomas Mader
Is that Mel sitting on Paul's left? http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- j1m
CHA CHING!!!!!
- The Real sofarsoShawn
congrats guys - well done!!!
- Gerd Leonhard
Business is Business and we can only move forward with social-media applications as we herald a new interactive platform. Albeit thanks to the Mothers of all Mothers, Google. Frank Burns
- frank burns
The worst day for us, but ultimately not the end, many of us thought.
- Jimminy, CoG of FF
Open-Source Innovation: IDEO's Human-Centered Design Toolkit - Fast Company - http://news.google.com/news...
Brian Frank liked this
Open-Source Innovation: IDEO's Human-Centered Design Toolkit Fast Company As designers working to improve the quality of life in other countries, the firm IDEO has spent more than 10 years ...
We started including FriendFeed subscriber counts when we crawl your blog's feed - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...
Amarnath Prabhakar, HealingBrush, Ruben Sanchez and 175 other people liked this
This means that, if you use a service FeedBurner, your subscriber totals will include FriendFeed subscribers in addition to subscriber counts from Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. For a lot of people like me, this will be a pretty significant boost in your overall subscriber numbers.
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
This is great! Thanks!
- Stephen Mack
Not sure why it is called "friendfeedagg" right now :) We will ask them to make the name a bit friendlier, but the stats are there nonetheless.
- Bret Taylor
What service did Kevin use to make that pie chart in the example?
- Stephen Mack
Thanks again to the FeedBurner team for working with us on this one - they were incredibly responsive and great to work with.
- Bret Taylor
Stephen: the chart comes from FeedBurner ( http://feedburner.google.com/fb...)
- Bret Taylor
from email
Very interesting !
- Farzad
Great!
- انجل
You can add your blog to your FriendFeed profile (if it isn't already there) at http://friendfeed.com/setting...
- Bret Taylor
not sure if i like it...
- zio bonino
There is a problem. My followers on FriendFeed follow all my feeds, not only my blog. So the "attention focus" is different between one user that follows directly my blog via RSS and an user that follows all about me. Two different counts in the main page of FeedBurner, RSS and FF, would be great.
- Alessandro Di Nicola
and for the reach stats? it's crawled?
- Felter Roberto
I'm not sure this was the right thing to do. Yes, there are 200 people subscribed to me on friendfeed, and my blog entries fly by in their feed. But from the Google Analytics stats, there are essentially no referrals from friendfeed to actually read the blog posts. Someone who subscribes to the blog RSS feed can be said to have an intent to actually read the blog, A subscriber on friendfeed doesn't necessarily have such an intent.
- DGentry
Unfortunately I suspect we'll see a TechCrunch article soon about "How To Inflate Your Subscriber Numbers Using friendfeed.com!" Edit: like the one they wrote about netvibes http://www.techcrunch.com/2008...
- DGentry
I agree with DGentry and Alessandro, this may not be a good idea. The problem could occur when Twitter and Facebook start reporting subscribers in the same way. This could start a very bad trend.
- Rob Diana
Hmm, I'm not sure if I like that. It surely inflates the subscriber-stats for the Feedburner-Feeds.
- Marcel Weiß
I think this is a disaster for feedburner. I publish a full feed from my blog so subscribers get the same content they would have if they visited the site. I can lump that into traffic as if they were a site visitor. But friendfeed merely publishes a headline so those friend feed subscribers have a very different experience than the ordinary RSS or email subscribers. In looking at recent traffic, only 10 referrals out of 7,000 came from friendfeed.
- Doug Cornelius
I agree - I am not loving this for my feedburner stats, seems not quite right. To me it seems like FF subs are subscribing less to my blog feed and more to me and my general commentary/presence on FF. It seems a little inflationary for rss sub numbers. I prefer to keep them separate, rss subs and ff subs.
- felix
but feedburner shown who "WANT" read our feed o who CAN read it? i think the second. And now it's the same. :)
- Felter Roberto
I'm awaiting Louis Gray's opinion. I think he had 8,500 RSS subscribers before, and now has 13,814. Which is the more accurate representation of the number of regular readers of louisgray.com ?
- DGentry
perhaps is better crawl blog's feed really show in FF. If i go out and my pc in off all the day, my google reader don't read any feed e my ff don't show me any message, Feedburner count me for FF and don't for google reader. And tomorrow, when i turn on my pc, my google reader download all the feed and i can read also the post of the day before, but FF show me only the last message and i lose all of the post.
- Felter Roberto
Whoa, awesome!! FriendFeed rocks! :) My new blog at http://susanbeebe.com now has a huge potential for additional subscribers due to this great new feature FF just added, THANK YOU! :)
- Susan Beebe
Wow my subscribers just jumped up 3000%
- Ralph Whitbeck
What's done can not be theoretically undone - so if this is the way it is, it should stay, or our one-time blips will look odd, won't they? DGentry, I don't know if I am in love with it. I think Rob is right in terms of it rendering the number meaningless. I've been excited to see my numbers go from 5,000 to 8,000 naturally (I guess) in the last two months. This means I can't celebrate that jump.
- Louis Gray
Doug said: "But friendfeed merely publishes a headline so those friend feed subscribers have a very different experience than the ordinary RSS or email subscribers." A lot of people use Google Reader in list view, which is *almost* the same thing as just seeing a title. There's no way to differentiate between those subscribers and ones which see the full content. Or subscribers that choose to mark all your items as read or just ignore them without even looking at the titles.
- Tony Ruscoe
For Louis, I guess the saving grace here is that you can see the breakdown in FeedBurner and choose to ignore FriendFeed if you wish. That means you can still watch your "normal" subscriber numbers climb and celebrate hitting 8,000 subscribers naturally. (You just can't share that number in a chicklet...)
- Tony Ruscoe
Tony: agreed these issues already exist for RSS subscription counts, and for web based readers such as gReader users could be counted even if completely inactive
- Mike Chelen
If someone subscribes to me on FriendFeed but also subscribes via other means - are those deduped or do they essentially get counted twice?
- AJ Kohn
AJ, I assume yes.
- Louis Gray
They get double counted, naturally.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
What if more than one user has the same feed, like Philipp and I do for the Google Blogoscoped blog feed? Does that add together both of our subscriber totals? And does it include all the subscribers for all the groups where it's been added too? (Cross-posted from http://ff.im/47QNJ.)
- Tony Ruscoe
One clear flaw of this is that my wife's blog at http://www.thegrayeffect.com, says it now has more than 9,300 readers, up from 50 yesterday. That's clearly wrong.
- Louis Gray
This is very bad! Of course I'd like higher numbers of RSS subscribers but this is a fake number. Please consider this again...
- Marko Saric
Louis I think thats the general problem: when someone subscribes to you on ff, are they also a subscriber to you on every one of the services you import? You import thegrayeffect.com as an RSS feed, and you have 9270 subscribers here, therefore thegreyeffect.com has 9270 new readers. More broadly, does a subscriber to the aggregate feed also count as a subscriber to every individual component of that feed? Or is the sum greater than the individual parts?
- DGentry
I saw a huge jump in subscribers today. I thought that Feedburner was broken. This explains it.
- Gary
Tony and Louis, the multi-author blog is one of those feeds that causes problems. I did not like this to start, and I am beginning to think I like it even less.
- Rob Diana
I hope Twitter and others don't get the same idea...
- Marko Saric
Hummm. As much as I like the idea, it seems destined to provide incentive for people to beg for subscribers here on FriendFeed which is exactly the behavior that I seek to avoid, and has been generally devoid on FriendFeed to date. It rewards FriendFeed usage and - as such - helps FriendFeed grow but ... is it the *right* growth?
- AJ Kohn
OK. Now I understood why my Feedburner count was inflated. I think, this is not a right thing to do.
- Krishnamoorthy
I actually REALLY dislike this A LOT. My subscriber count was a great measuring stick for me and also a solid indication of how many people -might- actually be reading my content. The vast majority of my subscribers here aren't reading my blog. It's very misleading and makes the RSS subscriber count a lot more meaningless to me.
- Ryan Stephens
Rob, one of the oddities here is that FriendFeed shows more than 9,000 adds to TheGrayEffect, but only about 5,000 to louisgray.com. That may be due to deduplication, but it is certainly odd.
- Louis Gray
howtomakemyblog: Twitter and Friendfeed are in this regard completely different services and I therefor don't see any way in which Twitter could do something like this. But Jaiku might do it.
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
I'm wondering, though: are people who hide the blog feed substracted from the number of subscribers?
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
The easy fix is to disconnect my blog feed from FriendFeed. Otherwise the subscriber numbers are useless. --- So I did. That seems like a bad result for FriendFeed.
- Doug Cornelius
Wow Doug, you chose Feedburner stat purity over FF conversations? That's pretty surprising to me. I suppose you can always tweet your posts into FF if you really want 'em to show up.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
I just deleted my blog feed from FriendFeed... it's a stupid change really... fake, inflated numbers... it's much easier to get a FriendFeed subscriber than a real RSS subscriber. And also a real RSS subscriber is much more likely to take a look at your article than a FriendFeed one.... spammers that want to boost their RSS subscriber numbers will love this though!
- Marko Saric
I can't help but notice that Marko and Doug have 350ish FF comments each. I suppose that shades your perception of this change in a different way than it might for someone who - like me - has orders of magnitude more FF comments than blog posts.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Daniel, the fact that they have a smaller comment count should be concerning to FriendFeed because those are the users they need to keep. People like myself and more active users are not going anywhere.
- Rob Diana
HAHAH - now i see what happened - i don't use my feedburner feed here for CN - but for my other sites I do - so now I see I got about 2,000-2,500 bump for those feeds today - yea, like 2,500 people coming to insidetransit every day - i wish! as Rob says, these numbers are meaningless and shouldn't be reported this way. just like the other "defaults" on some of the other services like google reader. mystery solved.
- Allen Stern
Oh yeah I'm not saying FF should keep the feature as is - it's misleading at best - just that I was surprised that anyone values their Feedburner count over their FF stream's purity.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
So who's really at fault here? FF for taking advantage of Feedburner's poor implementation of subscriber counts or Feedburner for offering the possibility?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Do you think FriendFeed had any idea there would be this many people talking about it?
- Rob Diana
So is it better to turn it off altogether or to make it a toggleable feature that users can choose to use or abuse at their discretion?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
@Rob - Who knows what FF expected, but it's really cool to see discussion evolving around this in a live FF thread. People are being mostly civil and constructive and it's all happening right here on the FF thread. I guarantee you FF HQ is reading this and staying hands off for a few hours until they can figure out a solid response.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Instead of deleting your blog feed from FriendFeed, you could just provide FriendFeed with your actual feed URL instead of the FeedBurner one. (I don't think the feed URL actually gets published anywhere by FriendFeed, does it?)
- Tony Ruscoe
daniel - you cant do that - then x blog says "we have y subs" while z blog says "we have a subs" and x gets the ad deal because they have more subs, etc. sadly advertisers and agencies still don't get that the number is meaningless.
- Allen Stern
@Allen - Most of us here aren't directly making money off of subscriber counts, but I appreciate that this would be an issue of great importance to you.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Daniel: No matter how active you are on FriendFeed, if you think a FriendFeed subscriber is just as valuable to your blog as your RSS subscriber, you are fooling yourself. And I am talking about value to your blog as that is what RSS subscriber number represents, not about relationships / conversations etc. you might have wit hyour "subscriber" on FriendFeed...
- Marko Saric
I think my Friendfeed network is more valuable to me than my blog's readership, but I still keep the blog around for the few unique things it can offer me: A well-developed body of work to point to in professional situations, google juice, and a place to share long-form ideas.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
So if I could get Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis and Leo Laporte to add my post-every-six months blog to their feeds, does that mean Feedburner would show I have 100K subscribers?
- Ken Sheppardson
This will definitely be abused by spammers who will use it as an opportunity to inflate their RSS numbers and make their blogs seem more important to potential advertisers, readers, subscribers etc who are unaware of this FriendFeed change.
- Marko Saric
Jason Calacanis To Pay Friendfeed $200,000 For Spot on Suggested Users List
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
+1 Daniel
- Allen Stern
There's no reason Twitter couldn't turn around and do the same thing, right? Heck, they could set up a service to automatically tweet your RSS feed over to Twitter on your behalf, then just add the number of Twitter subscribers you have to their stats. I think this is more a Feedburner fail than a FriendFeed issue.
- Ken Sheppardson
Seems like maybe somebody took all the "Have you ditched Google Reader for FriendFeed" threads the wrong way... hm.
- Ken Sheppardson
What about making this optional per feed?
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
Ken, right now Twitter doesn't request any feeds though. Those numbers get into FeedBurner by FriendFeed providing a subscriber count in the USER_AGENT header when they request the feed.
- Tony Ruscoe
I'm surprised Feedburner agreed to this. Next Twitter will ask that followers on their service count as readership.
- Aviv
Aviv - that presumes that FF and FB had a discussion about this. It reads to me like FB always allowed polling agents to specify a subscriber count via their API and that the FF team just decided to change the way they utilize that feature.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
If someone subscribes to your blog feed using Google Reader, it doesn't mean they read it. Likewise, if someone subscribes to your FriendFeed, they may or may not read your blog posts. Subscriber numbers are all about reach. I see no difference between FriendFeed and Google Reader. Your subscribers see what you're posting and decide whether they want to read it. Using web analytics...
more...
- Tony Ruscoe
tony +1
- Horst Gutmann
from IM
Tony, you're right about RSS subscribers being able to skip over your posts at will but there's still a disctinction to be made between subscribing directly to a blog feed (traditional) versus subscribing to the totality of a person's shared activity (friendfeed). The former implies an explicit interest in the blog, the latter does not. Moreover FF makes it trivial for a user to subscribe to a person and then perma-hide their blog posts if for example you like talking to Louis Gray but not about his blog.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Tony, you have to agree that subscribing on Google Reader means at the very least that right now, at the time of adding that subscription, you have the intention of reading future blog posts. But with FF, I don't think I'm even aware of blogs maintained by 90% of the people I'm subscribed to.
- Aviv
VERY cool.
- Shey
Daniel, Aviv, good points. But I think that by subscribing to a person, you're generally interested in them and what they have to say. Blogs are merely a subset of that person. The big problem for me is that there's no way to verify that you own a blog feed, so (I think) it will inflate your subscribers if it's added to multiple user accounts and groups even without your permission.
- Tony Ruscoe
To put it another way, should anyone in your field care that your mom reads your blog? We all know she's just doing it because she loves you, not because your blog is so gosh darned wonderful. FF subscribers in FB stats are the same thing - people like *you* and while that might carry over to a limited interest in your blog it certainly doesn't imply that many of them have ever read it.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
I subscribe to blogs of people I know because of who they are (in addition to blogs which interest me) even if I'm not particularly interested in the subject they write about just in case they write something I like. The fact that I know them and like them as a person often means we've got at least one thing in common. And vice versa. I like reading lots of my FriendFeed subscriptions' blogs but I've never subscribed in Google Reader, so FriendFeed is currently the only way they can see me as a statistic.
- Tony Ruscoe
Fb must count only the number of post link shown on FF, exactly how count how much feed google reader download from the blog. it's different that to use the contact number at all. it's possible? i don't know
- Felter Roberto
from twhirl
Innovative. I don't use FeedBurner on my blog, so not seeing the effect. Still relying on the Google Reader count of subscribers.
- Hutch Carpenter
Yet another great reason for a blogger to invest time in the friendfeed community!
- Garin Kilpatrick
So ... if I convince other people to use my blog as one of their fed items, then I pick up the amount of people who are subscribed to them as well? Or create a new account and put a few different blogs on it and get people to subscribe. Or 'trade' a feed for a feed with others to boost each other's counts? The more I think about this, the more I dislike it.
- AJ Kohn
Hmm nice. Just jumped from about 5 to 148 with tobiasverhoog.com I do think though that friendfeeders may read my feed differently than subscribers via Google Reader or another feedreader.
- TobiasVerhoog.com
Uh, maybe it's because I have not had my coffee but where do I see this shiny chart? Friendfeed? Feedburner?
- Rick Cogley
Rick: you can see it in FeedBurner
- Bret Taylor
from email
Bret: thanks. Yes indeed it's there. :-)
- Rick Cogley
and another thing to add onto what Daniel has been saying: hides. if I have 10 FF subscribers but 3 of them are hiding my blog entries, does it report the subscriber to Feedburner as 10, or 7? if it's the former, then the Feedburner stats become really inflated.
- chrisofspades
also, there's nothing in FriendFeed that stops me from importing someone else's blog, which means I can artificially inflate their Feedburner stats without them even knowing I did it. seems ripe for gaming, to me.
- chrisofspades
Right, Chris. As I have 9,000 potential to add to you, I'll start selling slots for $9k.
- Louis Gray
as enticing as that is Louis, I don't have a blog ;)
- chrisofspades
how does it know to link it to your feedburner?
- Gary
Gary, first of all you need to be using FeedBurner for your blog feed. Each time FF requests your feed, they include the number of subscribers in the user agent string. FeedBurner then uses that number to include in the stats for your feed. (If you don't use FeedBurner, you'll still be able to see the stats in your web logs each time your feed is requested.)
- Tony Ruscoe
from fftogo
If people are being exposed to my blog headlines, no matter if it’s on an RSS reader or FriendFeed, they should be counted as potential audience. At the end of the day, the much more important metric to measure is the actual visits to your blog and how often they visit afer that. I've posted some thoughts about it here http://bit.ly/N0jQc
- Jorge Escobar
So that's what happened....
- Spot us
GOOD DAY! @GuyKawasaki Tweeted & @Scobleizer commented on my new post: http://jessenewhart.com/twitter... Both have taught me so much :)
Roberto Bonini, Louis Gray, Brian Frank and 2 other people liked this
It was a great article Jesse, congratulations. The more that spread the word about using Friendfeed, in addition to Twitter, the better.
- Sharon McPherson
Melanie Jagolino, Stuart Miniman, Iván Abrego and 5 other people liked this
@jowyang: here's a list of places where it's acceptable to wear a Bluetooth earpiece: 1) while you're driving -- end of list :-)
Brian Frank, Herb Hernandez and greg brown liked this
Is @ev helping out @aplusk for @oprah show? I'm getting tons of messages from people who realize they can't unfollow that account. I can't either.
zokiboy, Bernard Moon, Paul Stamatiou and 50 other people liked this
wait now they are blocking unfollows?
- rob friedman
Yep, I cant unfollow him.
- Christian Burns
This is not right at all. We should have the right to unfollow him if we want to. Personally, I'm not following him, but still, THIS IS NOT RIGHT!
- Michael Forian
rob: yeah. I can't unfollow @aplusk
- Robert Scoble
oh BURN!
- rob friedman
as aplusk woud have said on That 70's show
- rob friedman
Nope, I can't unfollow Ashton..but I can unfollow other users
- Sam Houston
Oh that is cheap Twitter, You can't unfollow @Aplusk!! I am glad I didn't do it at all!!
- Paul
The beginning of the end... Twitter has sold it's soul to Oprah.
- Trad Robinson
You can't stop following? -- that is lame. I guess you have to be special to get that set up?
- Brian Sullivan
I've tried to unfollow @aplusk and I cannot do it, either.
- Anthony K. Valley ©
I'm so glad I never followed that one. Maybe they moved @aplusk to it's own server and have the SQL update/delete locked down.
- rob friedman
Leo was just talking about that. Makes the whole platform a joke.
- Eric
I can't follow @Aplusk, let alone unfollow. Twitter's just borked. No conspiracy here folks, sorry.
- drew olanoff
I followed him, but it took a few minutes to register - maybe unfollowing is the same?
- Caffeinated Sue
Glad I never bothered to follow him anyway!
- Chris Charabaruk
Eric: the whole platform has been a joke since day one. Didn't stop all of us from joining.
- Robert Scoble
lol @ own server
- Stuart Evans
from twhirl
Twitter cant afford to have that account go down
- Christian Burns
Weird. Twitter's been acting wonky the last few days tho.
- Tiffany Monhollon
wow.....
- MikeAmundsen
Twitter is becoming the new VH1 "Where Are They Now" countdown special.
- Eric
And @aplusk's follower count is still going up.
- Michael Forian
definition of Twitter = Wonky
- rob friedman
Twitter's infrastructure is just falling apart, as always
- Michael Krigsman
@aplusk is adding about 2-4 followers a second from what I can tell.
- rob friedman
I've tried to unfollow for a couple of hours. I have successfully unfollowed marketers and spammers in the same time frame, just not Kutcher. Getting this error message on him "Whoops! Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and try again!"
- Anthony K. Valley ©
Okay, I just tried to unfollow, it didn't work. Has anyone tried to unfollow CNN?
- Caffeinated Sue
I was unable to unfollow @aplusk, but I did just unfollow @scobleizer. Just a test ;)
- Ryan Kuder
I tried to unfollow both of them and it gave that Whoops error
- James Rowe
You can't unfollow @cnnbrk either. Wow, this sucks. Twitter's obviously trying to cover their parfaits.
- Michael Forian
Brings new meaning to the term, "default"
- Jesse Stay
Being pretty new to Twitter (two years but very sporadic until the last few weeks) I hadn't heard of @aplusk until today. Anyhow, I went to try to follow him in the last few hours and none of my attempts were successful. My conclusion: the race is rigged by joint PR effort, they want him to break the million just as he appears on Oprah. Or something like that. I have to say that, given it's a free service, I didn't mind too much. But I probably haven't invested as much of myself as Scoble and others here :)
- Richard Drake
Well, the million follower scandal will hopefully show us technical folks what not to do if we ever hit it big. http://twitter.com/aplusk... Hacked really? pfft.
- rob friedman
can't unfollow, but I can still block. Let's all punk him and block him. (I did.)
- Michael Markman
1,000,000 blocks that'd be nice
- rob friedman
Honestly I don't remember ever following @cnnbrk, and I don't see updates on page, or tweetdeck
- James Rowe
So, what does blocking do?
- Dennis Jackson
Twitter's TOS: "General Conditions - We reserve the right to modify or terminate the Twitter.com service for any reason, without notice at any time." Wow. This blows big time.
- Michael Forian
blocking makes it so that user when they are logged in, are unable to see your msgs
- rob friedman
I see the TOS. I still don't think it's right they are doing this. They need to make it fair. :( boo..
- Dennis Jackson
I wonder if it has to do with the "aplusk's 1,000,000th follower gets this and that and the other thing" promises that people/organizations like EA are making. By blocking people from unfollowing those accounts, they could be hoping to prevent people from unfollowing right after he hits 1,000,000 and the jockeying to become the "real" 1,000,000th follower that's sure to come.
- Gord McLeod
This is common for users with a lot of followers. I see it with our users on SocialToo all the time - it's some sort of bug in Twitter, assuming it's not a conspiracy.
- Jesse Stay
You can block him though http://twitter.com/aplusk
- Christian Burns
I just don't see how blocking him does anything.
- Dennis Jackson
Hrm, that certainly takes some wind out of Twitter's sails...
- Trish Ridgway
Ashton is saying on his twitter feed that his account is getting hacking continually. Maybe this is a protective measure?
- Karl Kovacs
Guys, I think I've figured it out: the "unfollow" only takes effect after a few minutes. This applies to both @aplusk and @cnnbrk.
- Michael Forian
After a few minutes? I tried unfollowing Oprah and Ev and those don't work either. I wonder if it's my browser.
- Dennis Jackson
I can't follow him either. It pretends I'm following him, but when I refresh, I'm still not following him. I don't think this is what everyone thinks it is. Seems more like the account state is frozen.
- Cait
I've seen something lke this happen to regular users - follow again, clear browser cache, reload page, try to unfollow again. If that doesn't do it, try blocking. I would never have followed @aplusk in the first place, so I can't perform the test
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Maybe it's a scaling/load issue with their database.
- Gord McLeod
digg it: http://digg.com/d1ovKP
- Chad DeHaan
Ashton's closing the gap: http://chartbeat.com/cnnvsas...
- Caffeinated Sue
Looking at the stats for @aplusk and @cnnbrk, it appears they maybe working on a tie instead of a win. The numbers have gotten too close to call.
- Karl Kovacs
Karl's got it. Almost certainly a preventative measure in case the accounts get compromised. I'm wondering though... a) Does this take the heat out of Apple's one billion app milestone? and b) Does it really matter because Oprah will storm past both of them (indefinitely) once she starts tweeting.
- Smashing
I was able to unfollow @cnnbrk for sure.I was able to follow @aplusk and THEN I COULD NOT UNFOLLOW @aplusk
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Maybe he paid for that little service. It's one way to monetize Twitter. Then Twitter will charge us to unfollow those people.
- Mary Wehrle
I was able to block @aplusk just fine
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Ashton watching it live: http://www.ustream.tv/ashton
- Caffeinated Sue
http://www.ustream.tv/ashton idiot has too much money, so he spilled champange on his macbook.
- rob friedman
guy makes me ill
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
"i read all your @replies" - ashton
- rob friedman
yea, fan mail new low.
- rob friedman
I should block aplusk while I still can! :)
- Morton Fox
FWIW: I first unfollowed @CNNbrk,worked fine then followed @aplusk could not unfollow, blocked @aplusk then followed @CNNbrk and was not able to unfollow @CNNbrk
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
darnell: No...starting a little while ago..bug or not. This is going to blow up already starting to
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
perhaps twitter did not do this intentionally. their app may be hitting some functional limits! They've got to be scrambling over there... kinda feel sorry for them! LOL
- Susan Beebe
there's really not much that can make me feel sorry for them. starry-eyed, failing to manage their business for their customers (and I'm talking outages and lack of notifications esp) sympathy gone.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
oh no! there's gonna be a recount and lawsuits. what will the country do until we know the final answer? oh my! least it's cheaper than a sorry ass movie.
- Landon
No Way! A Twitter PR Disaster brewing quickly! Twittersphere speak it loud.
- Kemp Edmonds
I'm seeing a lot of noise about this already....lots of RTs (and coincidentally lots of follows on my account LOL!)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
This sounds like an interesting topic...
- coldbrew
Surely if CNN actually stated tweeting (they haven't done any since they took over the account) and they put it on their program, they would have a huge surge. CNN isn't taking this seriously. Maybe it is because it isn't!
- CJPhoto
That's what you get for following any of them in the first place. You keep trying to leave, but they keep pulling you back in.
- dewtheone
aplusk had 1.9 million users, and now I see just 1 million ?! Something is not quite right.
- Ahsan Ali
Ahsan: what, you expect Twitter's engineering to be good? You have GOT to be kidding!
- Robert Scoble
I personally think this is because to not allow people to unfollow and then follow him back to get a 1millionth follower gifts from EA... my opinion...
- Hameedullah Khan
When I unfollowed CNNbrk, then followed CNNbrk again later tonight as per my experiment, I could not un follow. no gifts from cnn right?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
what a joke...
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
@Scoble I was just understating my outrage ;)
- Ahsan Ali
Mark, looking for 0 tweets is pretty much dead giveaway
- rob friedman
from twhirl
Mark well I'm sure there could easily be a collaborative effort given the amount of people using the service, and the amount of companies or projects using the firehose, we could easily find new users, and check their followers out, and who they may follow, then give that back to twitter to judge who is "real" or someone. Adding spam watchdog would be easy too since someone already does spam and link checking.
- rob friedman
Someone posted that Twitter disabled the unfollow feature for this jive
- Outsanity
Weird this was I couldn't even ADD Ashton to my other Twitter account. So maybe both functions were disabled. But, if that were so, then how did he hit 1mill? Odd...
- Outsanity
Thank you for asking that question.
- Prokofy Neva
Chris: So If I can run a big contest to gain followers I giving away fabulous prizes, Twitter will fuck other people around for me too. Yet another example of Twitter really only giving a damn about the big name stars & companies,
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I wonder how many million follower user accounts it will take before Twitter does something drastic?
- rob friedman
I unfollowed him, the 1st day he made that proposal....what happens when he hits 1MM followers? what next? 1.5MM?
- clarke thomas
Really?
- ChiliMac
Chris: Fabulous Idea! I'm gonna march right down to @ev's office with a bunch of cupcakes and get my refund today! :) heh. -But seriously, its now how I was damaged personally but about how Twitter is making sure there is the "great divide" between the Followed and the Followers. The more they've focused on the stars the less Twitter is about real interactions between real people. This damages the community, and I am sad to see it happen this way
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I would have been more impressed with Twitter overall if it had taken the opposite approach and shown us what value there is in following ordinary people who have interesting things to say. But instead, they show extreme favoritism towards people who have large draws. Go ahead and ask to see if you can have a special favor from Twitter so that you can draw in an even bigger crowd than you already have. It doesn't hurt you, no, but sure doesn't help you either. What's wrong with wanting equality?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Nothing's wrong with wanting equality. Internet is becoming just as assymetrical as real life is. The more crowd you already have the less job to take to build even bigger crowd. Sorry, but Twitter can't help you. It's not the matter of Twitter. It's the matter of what kind of people use it and what goal they achieve using it.
- Денис
No Twitter can't help me, or you. But it can and does help: Mashable, Oprah, Jimmy Fallon, Tony Robbins, etc, etc, and now Ashton & CNN. It is a matter of Twitter and what kind of people they strive to attract.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Yet another reason Twitter has launched a high velocity missle over the shark for this user. I'm still using it, but most of my time now is here on FF.
- Mark Traphagen
It's the too big to let fail doctrine applied to social network chosen ones. wow.
- Micah
Mona's ff post to Rafe's cnet How To on unfollow technique that seems to work http://beta.friendfeed.com/monasfe...
- Micah
Its easy to unfollow send a message: "off aplusk" in Twitter. Simple as that. I suggest a mass unfollow in order to avenge this dirty trick.
- Alexandre
Alexandre: I don't think that unfollows; it just keeps his updates from showing in your timeline. So no message sent that way.
- Mark Traphagen
AP's Jim Kennedy. “To the Untrained Eye It Looks Like We’re Stupid” http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/2009041... Right, and the trained eyes are all behind you, Jim.
John (bird whisperer), Karim, amirra and 4 other people liked this
LOL - have you seen this? "Journalism school is like foot-binding? Rly?" http://tinyurl.com/cohtjk
- Bora Zivkovic
And this is the silly response: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-da... which, while snarky, completely misses what Sarah Lacy was saying in her piece: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
- Bora Zivkovic
i like jim but he does have an incredibly tough job especially since its a rough time for not only the ap but all news orgs - dealing w/ change is never easy...
- mike "glemak" dunn
If you didn't go to J-school you ridicule the notion that anyone should go to J-school. If you did go to J-school, you feel differently. This describes 99 percent of the columns written about J-school. Sarah Lacy's column obeys this rule completely.
- Jay Rosen
Or, if you do go to j-school today, and get disillusioned? http://scienceblogs.com/clock...
- Bora Zivkovic
I guess it depends on which j-school. If it is one that still teaches as if it was 1980s, I understand, but if it is one of j-schools like the one here are UNC, it is a completely different animal - they prepare students for the online journalism world. I know several profs and several students there, and that is what they say they do.
- Bora Zivkovic
Hmmm, I went to J School and everytime I speak at a J-school I think all those kids are not very smart for spending their education dollars doing that.
- Robert Scoble
i have to agree w/ bora robert, i spoke to dan gillmor's class at asu a few week's ago, those kids are being prepared to become multi-media producers as part of their j-school curriculum - http://cronkite.asu.edu/faculty...
- mike "glemak" dunn
I think whenever we talk about j-schools we have to be explicit about Where (which school) and When (now or when the current journos went to school).
- Bora Zivkovic
This is about as bad as I have ever written about J-schools, teaching the mechanics of journalism, but no expertise in any topic they will cover: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... and I guess _some_ j-schools nowadays require study of a topic as well.
- Bora Zivkovic
"I don't want to promulgate the mean stereotypes that those who cannot pass their math and science freshman requirements end up in journalism schools, but it is a fact that most j-schools do not require co-majors and that most of their students do not graduate with expertise in anything else but the mechanics of journalism. They know how a newspaper (or a radio or TV show) is put...
more...
- Bora Zivkovic
On the other hand when Johnson and Horgan did bloggingheads.tv a couple of months ago and talked about it, Johnson was left with just one argument: professional journalists (he says) are better at using English. Is that really all? Perhaps for journos of his generation.
- Bora Zivkovic
Mike: Dan is the best of the best. Most J Schools aren't like what he is teaching. Personally I got lucky at J School. I still hold the record at San Jose State for most articles printed in one semester. I looked at school as a lab where I could prepare myself for the future. A couple of years ago I spoke at SJSU's journalism school and found that half wanted to work for newspapers. I said they were smoking crack.
- Robert Scoble
Sarah Lacy is right and I went to SJSU which is a highly regarded J School. I was lucky, though, and took advantage of lots of things other kids didn't. I wrote a tech column back then when other kids were covering sports. I had a job after school when they didn't.
- Robert Scoble
Bora: the one class that was worth attending in J School was Media Law. I minored in Economics and got through second year of calculus. I was going for a computer science degree until the 1989 earthquake.
- Robert Scoble
this is a good thread, i wonder if jim is even aware its going on :(
- mike "glemak" dunn
What I found funny is that I studied every morning in the cafeteria with Steve Wozniak. He never got bugged. Most students had no clue who he was. Jounalism. Hah!
- Robert Scoble
I am spoiled here next to UNC campus, schmoozing with journo visionaries like Paul Jones, Jock Lauterer, Kirk Ross, Tom Linden et al. But I can imagine many j-schools still teaching the old outdated stuff. And I see even UNC j-students having a slow learning curve about their ideas about future careers - they grew up with their parents' papers.
- Bora Zivkovic
Mike: I doubt it. Most journalists have no clue about friendfeed or why it is significant to their world.
- Robert Scoble
So, I am really happy to see how the new editors of The Daily Tar Heel are changing the course right out of the starting stalls. And print-only Rival, Web-only Carrboro Commons that feeds content into Web-to-Print Carrboro Citizen, etc. http://twitter.com/BoraZ...
- Bora Zivkovic
Bora: yeah, I was lucky to have some great mentors and was able to see early that news wouldn't be done on paper for long. Now we have to build new distribution channels.
- Robert Scoble
I know. But it will hurt. It is all about money and jobs (when you read all the articles and blog posts on the topic). The new ecosystem will have room for pros, but for far fewer pros than today, just because of the change in the medium. Many journalists will not be able to find jobs as journalists any more. Competition for the remaining slots will be fierce and will go to those who grok the Web first.
- Bora Zivkovic
unfortunately i think you're right robert, though i do think some are starting to look at better tools available - i'm personally interested in what semantic web tools have to offer...
- mike "glemak" dunn
Bora: I think we will discover some new ways to monetize content that will prove very successful. I am pretty hopeful about the future.
- Robert Scoble
I think so. We are living in interesting times. The system will settle one day into a more stable configuration. Important: it is not one new business model replacing one old business model. It is a plethora of new business models replacing a plethora of old business models. McClatchy's is not the only journalistic business model out there today (or in the past)...
- Bora Zivkovic
Bora: exactly right. My working for Rackspace is a new model.
- Robert Scoble
Yes, one of many. Exciting to watch. Some business models will do better than others, some will do better in particular places than others, or for particular kind of information they are giving, etc.
- Bora Zivkovic
During my term as chair we altered our requirements so that every undergraduate has to double major in a liberal arts discipline. You cannot get out of NYU with a J-degree without a double major. At the Masters level we frown on accepting students with a journalism degree. We prefer work experience or a strong academic record in a liberal arts college. Our Science and Environmental Reporting program requires an undergraduate degree in one of the hard sciences. Does Sarah Lacy know any of that?
- Jay Rosen
No, she does not. However, all is not lost. I would use this Q & A Sarah Lacy conducted with Mark Zuckerberg as a textbook demonstration of not to do an interview with a well known person, and of how not to react when criticized. http://tr.im/iEmV And I would certainly use her essay on how stupid it is to go to journalism school as motivation for NYU students.
- Jay Rosen
trained eyes are always behind all of us!!
- amirra
Thanks for the link - I heard about the "famous Zuckerberg interview" but did not read an account before. So, that's her, I see...
- Bora Zivkovic
Jay: Sarah still blames me for the criticism of that talk (I was one of the first to complain about it and was one of the most vocal about it on Twitter) and Arrington says I was wrong. Interesting how everyone can have a different point of view on these things.
- Robert Scoble
That is absurd. Her Q &A was one of the worst train wrecks I have ever seen in live interviews, but far worse was her reactions after. This is Lacy at her finest. http://tr.im/iEpC
- Jay Rosen
funny, i thought it was this: http://twitter.com/sarahcu...
- Karim
@Bora ftw: "A lot of conventions we despise, e.g., "we report you decide", "what someone said prompted by me is news, not the news itself", "he said she said" journalism, "gotcha" journalism, "false equivalency/balance", etc. are actually taught in j-schools as the Way to do things. These days, some journos stick to it, filly believing this is the right way, and get mad when it is...
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- j1m
It is often editors who inject those bad forms into journo's work.
- Bora Zivkovic
Assume that I'm going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the "common good". Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest it in the S&P500, give it to the US government, give it to a school, other?
tonybishop01, Jimminy, CoG of FF, Kishore Balakrishnan and 85 other people liked this
Bonus points for giving your answer in ranked order (best to worst use of the money, for the common good).
- Paul Buchheit
"The common good" is too broad. Pick issues that are important to you and strategically invest in them. Could be non-profit/foundation or for-profit, but the key is that you know your issue and you have identified people who are effectively dealing with it.
- Jason Wehmhoener
That being said, I'd say Kiva is very interesting.
- Jason Wehmhoener
Jason, assume that I don't know anything, which isn't far from the truth :)
- Paul Buchheit
For the common good? 1. Invest it in a startup. 2. Buy a hybrid car. 3. Give it to the Gates foundation. 4. Give it to a school. 5. Invest it in the S&P 500. 6. Give it to the US government.
- Robert Scoble
Trick question: Stuff it under your mattress!
- The Real sofarsoShawn
the car, benifits you, and sets example by doing what needs to be done
- chaz2b
local school, Gates Foundation, startup, hybrid, S&P, gov't
- MikeAmundsen
Hmm. Knowledge is power. $20K to one startup is a wise investment, $20K to another is just lighting it on fire.
- Jason Wehmhoener
school, car, gates, startup, S&P, gov't.
- AJ Kohn
Use the money to connect others to The Skoll Foundation. Fund Social Innovation projects that are transparent, under phenomenal governance and are making a huge difference. Start with NGO's - start your own - read -http://www.youngfoundation.org/publica... (free pdf)
- michael sean wright
I think you should keep it local and focused on education, and I have a particular fund in mind: the ACDRF -- Adam College Debt Relief Foundation. Though your generous contribution would cover but a small part of this fine organization's operating costs, every dollar helps! Tax deductible status is admittedly questionable, though.
- Adam Lasnik
The startup hires people, which increases all sorts of jobs in the economy. It has the biggest leverage. The hybrid car hires people, which is also good leverage. Giving it to the Gates foundation hires people, which is good leverage. Giving it to a school helps educate people, which is longer term, but is a good thing for society. Investing it in S&P helps increase stock prices, which increases our mood and makes it more likely others will go out and buy cars. Giving it to the government? Not much leverage
- Robert Scoble
1. Invest it in a startup. 6. Buy a hybrid car. 6. Give it to the Gates foundation. 6. Give it to a school. 6. Invest it in the S&P 500. 6. Give it to the US government
- Matsis
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
- Mona Nomura
By the way, I bought two hybrids this month.
- Robert Scoble
Mona: Bill and Melinda Gates can't give your $20,000 the most leverage. For one, they can't spend the money they have already. For two, your $20,000 really wouldn't help them that much.
- Robert Scoble
Gates Foundation or any other philanthropic foundation you support would be #1 for me.
- Mark Krynsky
Mark: that is NOT best for the "common" good.
- Robert Scoble
startup. s&p. school. gates. hybrid. gov.
- Kiran Patchigolla
1. school 2. startup 3. gates 4. hybrid car 5. s&p500 6. us government (1 & 2 are very close w/ a big gap to 3 and beyond)...
- mike "glemak" dunn
Leverage is a dirty word these days by the way. The idea should be to increase the odds of a smash hit with high return for all of us. An investment in a Startup is the only one of the offered options, where 20k may have a significant influence.
- Matsis
Kiran: the Hybrid does more for the common good than the school or S&P does. The Hybrid increases chances people will get hired, and, anyway, it will make the S&P go up more.
- Robert Scoble
www.heifer.org
- Victor Ryden 美久太阿
Robert...ok...how about a startup with a business plan specifically to benefit non-profit organizations? I'm all about killing 2 birds with one stone.
- Mark Krynsky
Mark: that works. But it wouldn't have as much leverage as a startup that would attract customers and other investors.
- Robert Scoble
Another biased option (since I work for X PRIZE) is to use the money to help fund a promising team in one of our competitions. Perhaps one entered into the Progressive Auto X PRIZE http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/teams
- Mark Krynsky
You could save 4,000 lives with $20,000 worth of mosquito nets. I'm not sure that is the best thing for the "common good", but it is hard to do better than saving lives.
- Matt Griffith
Give it to Unitus to fund tens of thousands of Moms in Africa and their businesses
- Jesse Stay
Matt: good point. I see the passalong effects of putting people to work. If you start a startup that goes all the way you'll create thousands of jobs and then there will be a lot more $20,000 piles to hand out to make mosquito nets. Look at how many people made money on Google.
- Robert Scoble
Jesse: Unitus was started by Microsoft money.
- Robert Scoble
Jason: yes, but when one succeeds it creates a HUGE amount of good for society.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, it was also started with my Uncle's money. Dave McClure is also on the board.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: Dave's money is PayPal money. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert, and my Uncle's money is FreeServers.com and About.com money :-)
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: all startups that got successful. Leverage.
- Robert Scoble
If you give it to me I'll invest the money I make from my business and invest in Unitus. :-)
- Jesse Stay
Robert: Or you could do a start-up like PlayPumps. They improve/save lives and create jobs at the same time.
- Matt Griffith
Jason: yes. But even a failed startup will employ people which increases the common good. Those employees will probably buy a new car. Or a new house. Or just will have money to buy dinner tonight, which keeps some restaurants open.
- Robert Scoble
Or you could fund a lot of small businesses through micro-financing.
- Matt Griffith
Matt, and now we're back to Unitus :-)
- Jesse Stay
Matt: yes, that's what Unitus does, actually. Jesse beat me. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I heard you but I'm a big picture person, and firmly believe no one is doing it better than The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Sure, $20,000 may not seem a lot to the billions they spend, but something is better than nothing. Plus, they are extremely detailed and transparent about their philosophies, methods, and work. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learnin...
- Mona Nomura
Ah, sorry, didn't recognize it.
- Matt Griffith
Mona: Bill and Melinda Gates are fabulous, but you won't get enough leverage there for the reasons I outlined. Your money will work a LOT harder by giving it to a startup.
- Robert Scoble
When I say "leverage" I'm going for a multiplier effect. Startup is better than Bill and Melinda Gates. Even Bill would admit that.
- Robert Scoble
1. Invest in startup 2. Local school 3. Hybrid 4. The rest
- Michael Matuzak
Robert: Better for whom? I assume "common" good here is the world -- not US only?
- Brian Sullivan
I am thinking 1. Gates 2. School 3. Hybrid 4. Startup
- Brian Sullivan
But how do you know where your money is going and how it's being used, both for start-ups and charitable causes. I wouldn't give any money to start-ups. I've seen start up CEOs brag about private charter planes, when their product is generating zero revenue. My faith in a lot of start-ups is close to zero and I do not want to see another x and x 'clone'. Do you? OH! Paul, are you allowed to donate to FriendFeed?
- Mona Nomura
Mona, I assure you that none of the startups that I invest in are getting private charter planes :) Not yet at least, and by the time they are successful enough to do that, I'll be happy with the investment. Jason, seed money from a handful of angels can keep a small startup alive long enough to demonstrate their ideas and either become profitable or raise a larger round.
- Paul Buchheit
Robert, I'm of the opinion that we probably don't need a lot more people working for failing startups and buying new cars.
- Jason Wehmhoener
This has led to interesting discussion, but if this is a real question I think it may be the wrong question. Without specifics about the startup, the school, and what difference the $20K would make to the Gates foundation, you're really shooting in the dark. It might be better to just hold onto the money until you can get specifics.
- Bruce Lewis
Paul, here in California, give that money to your local high school foundation - it will make a real difference in their education - and the common good.
- Scott Loftesness
Bruce, you can assume that it would be a startup or school that I thought was good, but ultimately we are always shooting in the dark. Our knowledge has severe limitations and we never really know what the total effect will be, even after the fact.
- Paul Buchheit
If I were to donate money to local causes, I'd purchase what they need. ie: supplies, books, software, computers, etc. Cynical, maybe, but I have no trust in our 'system'.
- Mona Nomura
I agree we can never know the total effect of our actions. We can be careful to avoid waste, however. Look for tangible results from previous investments made by people you trust...
- Jason Wehmhoener
internships for promising disadvantaged youth (other), school, me (other), foundation, startup, car, S&P, gov't
- MiniMage, enterRUPPted
Oh, that's different. Not knowing anything about the startup I would have said that the hybrid and the startup were on equal footing. Buying a hybrid is more funding R&D at this point than directly helping the environment, I think. But if you know the startup and school are good, I'd say 1. School, 2. Startup, 3. Hybrid ... not sure about ranking the others.
- Bruce Lewis
A good school is an almost sure-fire way to make the world better. A startup is too, but it only in that it educates the people who work at it. Other good effects on the world from the startup have lower probability, even for one you know is good.
- Bruce Lewis
Compared to a Hybrid, $20K worth of compact fluorescents is probably a lot more bang for the buck.
- Matt Griffith
Start a scholarship fund for academically gifted but financially challenged students.
- Victor Panlilio
Give it to a school, invest in a startup, buy a hybrid car, give it to the Bill Gates Foundation, give it to the US government and last give it to a S&P 500 company, in that order. Give it to a school, because through the use on endowment that money can be used and increased over a number of years to help educated the people who will build the hybrid cars and do the start-ups.
- Kim Landwehr
i try to remember to *optimize the system" rather than "maximize the output" it's not about whether your contribution will have a big bang, but whether it will be a catalyst; cause a chain reaction; increase serendipitous results, etc.
- MikeAmundsen
Invest it in clean water infrastructure. I like WaterPartners International http://www.water.org, and UNICEF does this. Unsanitary water is the number one preventable cause of disease, which keeps kids from going to school and adults from going to work.
- Ruchira S. Datta
donate to eff.org because they are fighting for our rights
- Kyle Weller
I support all charitable causes and global efforts are fantastic. However, we have A LOT of domestic issues that needs to be addressed... :\
- Mona Nomura
I certainly understand the sentiment that the government can't be trusted. But we *are* the government. Maybe we should all consider what we could do make our government more trust worthy. Perhaps some of the hypothetical $20K should go to Change Congress?
- Matt Griffith
We need a lot more than $20k to fix the problem of politicians who claim to represent us but carry out their own agendas.
- MiniMage, enterRUPPted
Education. Period. It needs to be changed from the core, and who else can do that?
- Mona Nomura
1)hyrbrid, 2)school, 3)Gates, 4) invest, 5) startup, 6) energy fund, 101) govt.
- clarke thomas
MiniMage: You are right. But a lot of people giving a little money can add up.
- Matt Griffith
I like Ruchira's answer. If we're talking about the common good, it's nice to focus on the fundamentals for life. One thing that goes with clean water infrastructure is water conservation. There are businesses to be started around the world involving improved water saving irrigation infrastructure in places that need it.
- Jason Wehmhoener
The question is paul and to everyone, what would be "most effective". Sure you can donate to a big charity that distributes the money, buy why not distribute it directly to a smaller organization or group of people where you can see the "greater good" it does with your own eyes. I honestly would distribute that money to a organization like eff.org because they have proven results in what they do. Or any organization where you can see the result of your investment directly.
- Kyle Weller
People are thinking too big and too much in general, give it to a group/organization that will use the money effectively and make an almost immediate impact, a small amount like that in research and other things wont do much in the long term.
- Kyle Weller
Startup, car, school, Gates Foundation, 500, and then finally government.
- Mathew™ aka Youngblood
Or what you could do is invest it in yourself so you can further support those foundations for the long term.
- Kyle Weller
Invest in S&P, then let the gov't take their cut of the dividends, then give the leftover dividends to a school in need. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
- Nathan Wenzel
Yeah, I will say it: Common good is a bourgeois concept. It has political and social utility, mostly for rich peoples guilty consciences, but doesn't make much sense practically. 20,000. Dont spend it in the U.S., thats all I can say. Scobles optimism would be contagious if it werent for the statistics belying it.
- Rick Powell
Loan it out thru Kiva, and just reloan it when it's paid back. I'd say reloaning over and over should count as 'giving it away' and it would have great and immediate impact.
- Matt Brady Meisenhelder
bill & melinda gates foundation does a lot with schools and public education, so that is killing two birds with one stone. they also work with microcredit and other financial services for the poor, so there's Kiva. and they work on medicine and agriculture, which may save someone's life, and that person (because they LIVED) might go on to found a promising startup company, which in turn...
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- Karim
ha.
- edythe
@Karim - "they work on medicine and agriculture, which may save someone's life, and that person (because they LIVED)" - see http://www.theamericanview.com/index...
- Victor Panlilio
Victor, i didn't realize they gave money to Planned Parenthood, thanks for the heads up. this may or may not be an issue for Paul -- i don't know if they specify whether the grant is for birth control/family planning, abortions, or what. if he's Catholic or pro-life/anti-abortion, then i guess it turns into some pretty grim accounting of lives saved vs. lives lost. he *may* be able to...
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- Karim
A startup + your endorcement will create more value than just the $20K.
- Martin Añazco
If you want "leverage" donate it for use in a third-world country. Much more bang for the buck.
- Brent Logan
$20k doesn't even buy you a hybrid, does it? I'd think this type of money would have much more impact locally. "common good" doesn't necessarily mean "greater good." I've been watching @smallcanbebig here in Boston - www.smallcanbebig.org - if I could provide $20k to someone(s) else, that's the type of organization/service I'd be looking for.
- Sally - Skyrimmin' It
I'm with Sally, think global, act local. Imagine if we all did that?
- SteVe C
1)give it to a school;2)promising startup;3)Gates foundation;4)S&P 500;5) hybrid; 6)other 7)us govt
- Karoli
Paul: Give the money to me, and I'll homeschool my kids.
- Gabe
I was about to suggest using Kiva then I checked and saw it suggested before. Definitely a very good wa to make many people (and their families) happy. Loan. Repeat. It may also start a new good trend after you post about what you did here.
- Nenad Nikolic
I suggested a scholarship for gifted but financially challenged students. My former high school classmate, Dr Cymbeline (Bem) Tancongco Culiat, is lead researcher for NellOne Therapeutics, which aims to restore function to cardiac muscle damaged by heart attacks (http://tinyurl.com/cjmbyo). Cardiovascular disease is the top killer worldwide (http://tinyurl.com/55xg9a). Bem is an example of what can happen when you help fund the education of poor but gifted students, especially in developing nations.
- Victor Panlilio
@Ruchira "Invest it in clean water infrastructure" @Jason "One thing that goes with clean water infrastructure is water conservation" Indeed. See http://bit.ly/T0pcJ
- Victor Panlilio
More recommendations here: http://lesswrong.com/lw...
- Tim Tyler
Gabe, why would you homeschooling your kids make the world a better place? You already influence what your kids know?
- Clare Dibble
Did we settle on a definition of "common good"?
- Ken Sheppardson
invest in a startup, and then give the benefice to some charity or may be to some wise person :)
- abdellah
Startup today, then charity funding from your returns of Investments, when it comes giving away. Schools nearby, Gates foundation, and so on, at last a hibrid car. :)
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
from Nambu
Startups and buying things create value. Charities and governments distribute value. Education creates potential future value. Startups are, by far, the best way to create short-term "common good." Teach a man to fish instead of handing him a fish. Or, even better, invest in his fishing boat and he'll feed the whole village.
- Robert Scoble
Start your own business, become wealthy, do all of the above.
- Robert Hafer
For the "common good" spending it is enough [dutch]"geld moet rollen"[/dutch]
- Willem (@wim66) ☠
invest in a startup
- andy brudtkuhl
Robert: that's called "investing in a startup." :-) Willem: starting a new business is a far better way of "spending" than, say, buying a Hybrid, if all you care about is creating the most for the common good.
- Robert Scoble
Oh, I forgot step 2: work hard
- Robert Hafer
Robert: step 3: get lucky.
- Robert Scoble
ok, I am just intrigued by the mention of GATE foundation, is the common subconscious fascinated by VIP charity? or are they all equal?
- abdellah
A lean and mean green startup would get my $$$ (if I had any). I can ask Ken Thompson (Gates Foundation Research librarian) what he thinks a $20k donation to Gates Foundation would do, but I tend to agree with Robert. Or give it to a local school that has had all its $$ and programs cut.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Robert: A funny man once said "money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy."
- Matt Griffith
Robert: P.S. FriendFeed is the first place since the off.ramp that I've had an interesting conversation online.
- Matt Griffith
I am late to the conversation, but I say give it to a startup (i.e. mine). In all seriousness, I think the Gates foundation may be the best one.
- Rob Diana
Robert, I understand the "teach a man to fish" argument, but I'm not buying the "create value/distribute value/potential future value" thing. it seems like it's all "potential future value." you keep pitching the startup as if it were a sure thing with a guaranteed return. aren't you confusing speculation with investment?
- Karim
On the list, give it to a school. Not on the list (ie what you would normally ignore) go to Kiva, loan the money and then if it is repayed do it again.
- Andrew
Karim: let's use friendfeed as an example. They hired 13 people so far. And those people all are paying rent or mortgages and buying cars, etc. The leverage a dollar invested in such a startup gets is many times more than the leverage you'll get doing any of these other choices. And this DOES have a very fast short term effect (much faster than giving to a school, for instance). Friendfeed is not a profitable business, by the way, and probably won't be for quite some time.
- Robert Scoble
Gates
- Jeff (Team マクダジ )
Jeff: wrong.
- Robert Scoble
None of them. Give it directly to the people who need it most. That's what we do at the 1 in 8 Foundation.
- Brandon Mendelson
That's almost enough to pay my tuition for culinary school. File under 'common good' I want to teach inner city families to grow and cook their own healthy food.
- ChazFrench
I really don't get giving it to the Gates Foundation. They have $29,700,000,000 in their asset fund, and you'd give them another $20,000? For me "think globally, act locally" would be the guiding principle here, and I'd either give it to a local school, job retraining program, something like community services... or better yet, leverage the $20K on fundraising or marketing training for local efforts. The orgs I'd try to help are those like http://www.hcnkids.org
- Ken Sheppardson
My water infrastructure idea has a lot of leverage. Once the infrastructure is in place, it lasts a long time, preventing disease (much cheaper than curing it) and thus relieving human suffering, allowing poor children to get educated (and possibly preventing cognitive deficits) and poor people to go to work and lift themselves out of poverty, creating a virtuous circle.
- Ruchira S. Datta
School directly. Find one that is doing the type of good work in education that will yield responsible, thinking, feeling, well rounded adults and help them out. It's the future of this world.
- Martha
Ruchira: yes, investing in the right kind of infrastructure has a lot of leverage. Heck, our government invested in the Internet which made friendfeed possible (and Amazon and Google and eBay and Yahoo, etc).
- Robert Scoble
Not sure what qualifies as "common good," but I think you should keep giving out loans w/ it on Kiva
- CG
Oh, wait... I want to change my answer. Everybody talking about investing it in a start-up has given me an even better idea: I'd use it to stake a weekend of blackjack in Vegas. That way I could turn it into $200,000 and *then* I could give it to local community services or something like Kiva. Gambling FTW.
- Ken Sheppardson
Use 5K to go (twice!) to a third World Country (chosen at random). Go to a town of less that 1000 inhabitants (chosen at random). Ask around who is the best person in the town, don't tell them why. Give that person 15K. Return in a year... Write an article about what happened.
- Alfredo Octavio
I wouldn't invest it in tech. Invest it in people who will then bring the good tech, among other important benefits. It's a people matter, ultimately, isn't it?
- Martha
Investing in water infrastructure can be done through a startup like PlayPumps as Matt suggested. If it came through foreign aid from the US government, we might be able to add to the leverage: the goodwill investment would improve our national security. Unfortunately foreign aid is a small fraction of the federal budget, and it's unlikely to go to programs like this unless US contractors, rather than native startups, are involved.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Donate 100 OLPCs and set friendfeed as the default home page :P
- Lasse Johnsen
All investment is a crap shoot; including investment in charity.
- Robert Hafer
Seriously though, with $20k you could sponsor quite a number of teachers for a year in a country like africa. not sure what organizations do this, but that could make a big difference for a lot of kids that cant get education.
- Lasse Johnsen
Lasse: and microfinance organizations have shown that you can get even more leverage by funding small businesses. Especially those run by women. For instance, in a poor country you can buy a family a cow which DRAMATICALLY increases their quality of life and usually makes it possible for their kids to go to school. Investing in schools alone does NOT give leverage. Look at all the idiots who have college degrees.
- Robert Scoble
@Nicholas James, If you start you're own business there's still no sure thing, but at least you know where the money goes. If you are a success, you have created jobs and can afford to give as well.
- Robert Hafer
Interesting Robert, I found SendACow (https://www.sendacow.org.uk/donate) but im skeptical to these ORGs, you dont know really how much of your money arrives and how efficient they are. There are a lot of "could"s on that page.
- Lasse Johnsen
Robert: That's exactly why I recommend Kiva -- those loans will actually make a big difference in ppls lives, guaranteed
- CG
those Micro-finance programs are amazing
- Jeff (Team マクダジ )
I have some contacts in Costs Rica; when McDonalds gave $millions to save the rain forest there, by the time the Orgs took out admin cost, there was enough left to buy a few white SUVs. Our Eco-forest project has done more and will hopefully soon be turning a profit.
- Robert Hafer
1. A School would be first thought of course it would depend on which school. There are schools in our area that are really hurting and falling behind while others are able to spend tons per child (which is a great thing, they just don't need more). Our education is hurting and NCLB forces schools to spend on certain things that only help test scores and not always retention and true...
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- Rachel Lea Fox
Robert, I don't think you can just keep talking about "leverage" without putting some numbers on it. If the startup is an investment, as you're implying, and not a gamble or speculation, you should be able to promise Paul some number of dollars out for his $20,000 in. But how many startups have a profitable exit? Is that $20,000 going to turn into $40,000, $400,000, or $4 billion? Are...
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- Karim
Karim: It's likely that $20,000 invested in a start-up will turn into $0
- CG
Many poor people and their children spend hours every day lugging water back to their homes from distant, dirty sources. Clean water is "shovel-ready": we know exactly how to solve this problem. All it takes is money. http://water.org/waterpa... is currently advertising $25 to provide someone with access to safe drinking water for life, $150 to meet the water needs of an entire family. $20000 will go a long way.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Startup, of the listed options, has the most potential to help, but reading your intentions I would suggest giving it to a group that provides micro loans to entrepreneurs around the world. You money will be split into many lots increasing the likelihood of success, and can provide real help as oppossed to what many resources do
- RAPatton
Hmm, RAPatton's idea makes me realize that converting it into $1s and dropping it from an airplane might be interesting.
- j1m
water.org says they need $20000 to drill a new water well in Kenya. (http://water.org/waterpa...) But lifewater.ca says they only need $3200 to drill a new well there.. (http://www.lifewater.ca/help...)
- Lasse Johnsen
1. Give to school 2. Give to Gates Foundation 3. Invest in startup 4. Invest in S&P 5. buy hybrid 6. Give to US gov't
- Hookuh Tinypants
Not Gates, not car, not US government, the others are good...
- Marcos Marado
from fftogo
invest it in a promising startup
- Alp
Robert: I am for green economy and agree with you on those points. If the question was should i buy a hybrid car or a non-hybrid car for 5K less, I would have said hybrid. The current question implied that Paul does not need another car. I rather not get any more cars than necessary on the road.
- Kiran Patchigolla
Karim: let's assume that friendfeed (a startup that Paul is well acquainted with) never makes a single dollar and never is sold for anything. Well, the money invested in it is already creating value for the employees who've been employed there. 13 or so if I remember right. They are then spending that money in the economy, which keeps all sorts of people employed. That's called leverage. It's amazing how few people here understand how an economy works or what is "the greater good."
- Robert Scoble
the problem with the "invest" heuristic is that it very rapidly goes -- often in centers of business like Silicon Valley -- from the "Wise Steward" to the "Cheap Bastard." say you can save 100 lives with $100 today. only if you invest at 3% for a year, you can save 103 lives next year. then you withdraw the money in a year and realize that if you re-invest, you can save even more lives...
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- Karim
If you don't have a job you really won't care if someone figures out how to drill a water well halfway around the world. The reason you are drilling that well anyway is so that PEOPLE CAN HAVE JOBS! A well can create a farm. Can keep people from walking three hours a day to wash their clothes or have a drink. Think of all the jobs that are created because of water. Semiconductors can't be made without water. Intel and AMD and friendfeed couldn't happen without water. But a water well wasn't on Paul's list.
- Robert Scoble
The thing that will create the most "good" for society on Paul's list is an investment in a startup. That will create the most value throughout the chain. It is where $20,000 would have the most leverage and biggest multiplying effect. If it fails it'll have a bigger multiplier than giving it to the Gates foundation (which could also fail, by the way).
- Robert Scoble
So, if you want to save the most lives, create the most value "for the common good" the only choice here is fund a startup. This is why when I went to Davos I came home depressed. Governments don't understand this very well and don't talk about this much. If you hit the home run with a startup, by the way, you create another Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I wonder if you asked Bill Gates back in 1975 about this would he have taken his $20,000 and created a foundation? No. Why not?
- Robert Scoble
When I talked with Larry Page, co-founder of Google, though, at Davos, he said job creation comes after spending increases, so buying a car will help this process too, but not nearly as much as creating a new company would.
- Robert Scoble
Half of all jobs in USA are with small companies. Create a few more small companies and you create a whole crapload of wealth that can be used to fund the next Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (or give to a school, or give to the government, by the way).
- Robert Scoble
When you say "Common Good" all I can think of is contributing to a Funding organization like UNICEF. Considering the fact that loads of little kids and children still need our help.
- Praveen Vasudev
Robert, i don't claim to be an economic genius, but the "value" you are creating by investing in the startup that eventually goes bankrupt seems to be the same "value" it creates by giving a man a fish. it extends "years of life gained" (YLG). the knock-on effects are more complicated in our economy, but in the developing world, $20,000 buys a lot more fish meals (YLG) than it does worth of sushi in Silicon Valley.
- Karim
Karim: absolutely NOT true. You need to study economics. A dollar invested in a new job actually creates more than a dollar's worth of value down the road. Giving a man a fish is just giving him a fish.
- Robert Scoble
Praveen: "common good" is how well the economy is doing. I talked with Israeli President about this. He said the only way they'll get peace is to improve the economy on both sides of the fight. Give a man a job and he stops fighting cause he can feed his family and can see hope for the future.
- Robert Scoble
Get good paying jobs and you create wealth that can solve all these other problems.
- Robert Scoble
A good economy IS the number one "common good" and is why microfinance was such a brilliant idea (that won the Nobel Peace Prize, by the way). More on microfinance (which, really, is investing in startups): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Robert Scoble
First, let's say the man is starving to death -- his crop failed one year -- and you can prevent his death by giving him a fish. if he then recovers and has a normal life, normal harvests etc. and is able to contribute to the economy, have children who are in turn successful, etc., how is that "just giving him a fish?"
- Karim
second, what i'm asking you is, ok, you're saying startup creates wealth, it's an *investment*, so what kind of return are we talking about? Paul puts $20,000 into a startup, the startup goes bankrupt 12 months later. What is the "more than a dollar's worth of value" Paul got for his $20,000?
- Karim
Karim: if you are looking at "common good" you are NOT looking at one person's quality of life, but looking at the leverage you can get. If I let one man starve, but save 10 other people's lives, I will have increased the "common good" more than you have by feeding that one guy a fish.
- Robert Scoble
Karim: Paul created some jobs with his $20,000. Again, it's not about the value to Paul. It's the value to the "common good. How much value, how much leverage, what kind of multiplier effect will he get for that $20,000 for all of society, not for Paul himself.
- Robert Scoble
Karim: the reason the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is doing such great work is they are looking for getting the biggest multiplier effect for their money. What will help the MOST people? That's why curing disease, helping education, etc are their target places to spend money. Other rich people at Microsoft are helping microfinance, because they know that's how they can get the most leverage for their money.
- Robert Scoble
Oh, and if Paul was lucky with his $20,000 he might create the next Google, which would employ thousands, make thousands millionaires (Microsoft created more than 4,000 millionaires) and would enable whole rafts of good for society as that new money was spent on some of these other projects.
- Robert Scoble
Robert is right :)
- Alp
in the US you might maintain a few jobs (lifes) for a short while with $20k, but how many lifes can you maintain in africa by creating new wells for 6-7 villages? And one of the guys you saved might actually live to make a successful business that feeds even more.
- Lasse Johnsen
I didn't say anything about the value to Paul, Robert :-) You say "multiplier effect;" I'm asking what's the multiplier. You said, "The leverage a dollar invested in such a startup gets is many times more than the leverage you'll get doing any of these other choices." -- I'm saying, "show me." clearly you know more about economics than I do.
- Karim
Lasse: you are right, but that wasn't one of the choices on the list -- building a water well in Silicon Valley made Intel and AMD possible, so there. Karim: the multiplier will vary depending on the industry. Karim: I'm trying to find some stats to help it out.
- Robert Scoble
The United Way has a "Common Good Index" http://www.liveunited.org/goals... Education, Income, and Health are listed. Funny that the wealthier nations tend to do best on all three. So, the best way to increase the common good is to increase economic health. That starts with job creation as job #1.
- Robert Scoble
1. Give it to a school. 2. Invest it in a startup 3. Give it to Gates Fdtn, 4. Buy an American hybrid. Neither the S&P500 or the government operate for the public good.
- Francine Hardaway
Francine: why is creating an American job more important than creating a Chinese one or a Japanese one, if we're talking about "common good?" Are Americans worth more as human beings than Chinese are? I don't think so. There's a SERIOUS bug in your thinking there. Giving it to a school creates a very small multiplier effect, at least short term. Gates foundation and giving it to a school probably are very similar (especially cause the Gates love giving money to increase education quality).
- Robert Scoble
I want to start a new thread: what's better, giving money to a school or giving it to Wikipedia. I am learning a whole lot from Wikipedia. Much better for the "common good."
- Robert Scoble
Call me biased, but find a local not-for-profit that is committed to their mission and $20,000 can mean taking steps closer to fulfilling it or going under. The smallest donation to our not-for-profit theatre sometimes means the difference in making payroll or not for the week.
- Warner Crocker
Warner: saving one particular set of jobs is nice, but is not a good way to look at helping "the common good."
- Robert Scoble
Robert, a few replies :-) 1) if the Gates Foundation is "doing such great work," then why aren't they following your advice that "The leverage a dollar invested in such a startup gets is many times more than the leverage you'll get doing any of these other choices?" 2) Yeah if Paul was lucky, he might create the next Google. But how lucky does he need to be? Do the odds compare favorably with $20,000 worth of Scratchers at the 7-11?
- Karim
Karim: because Bill and Melinda Gates are trying to focus on things that business can't. But, look at how they created their foundation: someone invested in their startup. Investing in their startup HAS to come first before they can give away billions.
- Robert Scoble
I'm pretty certain there isn't such a thing as the common good.
- Hayes Haugen
Also, they ARE investing in startups. I met a TON of entrepreneurs who say their businesses wouldn't have been able to start without their investments (who do you think is doing the hard work of their foundation?)
- Robert Scoble
Geeky people tend to be attracted to difficult/intellectual problems. The Gates Foundation may be subject to this. I think the work I currently do is the point of greatest leverage for my *brain*. Fighting, e.g., MDR and XDR tuberculosis through the Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases http://globalhealth.berkeley.edu/cend... is a worthy cause. But I still think clean water is the point of greatest leverage for *money*, especially a relatively small sum.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Hayes: oh really? Tell me, do you think that we're better off today than we were, say, 50 years ago? I sure do. That means "the common good" increased.
- Robert Scoble
you can't learn how to read, write, add or subtract -- or even conduct solid research -- from Wikipedia.
- Peggy Dolane
Scoble, all depends on where you start and stoop defining. Just like asking questions does.
- Warner Crocker
I still think over the long run an educated public is the key to increasing the common good.
- Kim Landwehr
Kim: what is an educated public? The microfinance revolution shows that education and jobs goes hand in hand. Finance someone getting a cow, for instance, and you also need her to learn how to milk it. That's education.
- Robert Scoble
3) The "Common Good Index" listed "Education, Income and Health" -- how you got "JOB CREATION" as the take-away #1 goal from that is beyond me. Ignoring education & health for the moment, the income goals listed are "Cutting the number of financially unstable working families by half requires strategies to help people increase income, save, and grow long-term assets." Increasing income...
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- Karim
Karim: how do you do any of those things if you don't have a good paying job? How do you create jobs most efficiently? Invest in startups. Most of the people in America, Karim, have had jobs with little leverage lately and/or that have been attacked by globalization. It used to be that we had a monopoly on making cars. We don't have that anymore. But that's a different argument for a different thread.
- Robert Scoble
you can sit your child down in front of wikipedia and see if he or she learns to read from those links.
- Peggy Dolane
I can think of something that would help "the common good". There are a great many developers that for ethical reason choose not to charge a set price for their software. They allow the user to set a price they think is fair & that they can afford. Unfortunately, most of the world is selfish and thinks that means it is freeware and never donate to support the applications they use. I say you split it up and spread it out to donationware authors. DM me if you need help finding them.
- April
Peggy: you'd be surprised how fast a child learns to read wikipedia lately. My son is 19 months old and is more interested in what's on screen than what's on paper books. My 15 year old learns regularly from wikipedia. This is the new ocean they swim in an they are information sponges.
- Robert Scoble
@Robert. "Common Good" sometimes seems like a blunt instrument used to herd the masses toward totalitarianism and war. My personal view is that things such as education and justice make society a better place for _me_. But for me to tell you what is best for you is basically religion.
- Hayes Haugen
Robert: Glad your children are off the charts on intelligence scale. No way would my kids learn to read from those links unless I was homeschooling them. My 10 year old looked at that wikipedia page and said "it was weird" and he didn't want to look at it for 30 seconds. Now if Xbox had a reading program, there would be a tool to invest in!
- Peggy Dolane
Pay a developer to improve the comment system on FriendFeed!
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes: I guarantee you that having people around them who are doing well is far more important to their "good" than having education and justice. Both of those are things that spring from having wealth. Don't believe me? Travel to a poor country sometime and see the difference.
- Robert Scoble
Peggy: my son is learning management techniques from World of Warcraft. He doesn't know it either. :-) My kids are not extraordinarily smart, I just guide them when I can. My dad used to make me look up words in the dictionary when I said "what does that mean?" I do the same thing with my kids when they have a question. My son argued censorship very effectively with Jonathan Adelstein, FCC commissioner. Where did he get that? I really don't care, as long as he got it.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Once you are fed and housed I think it almost always comes back to education. Reasonable people will disagree on how to achieve that though.
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes, you're right about that. Many "educated" people I know are idiots. So, did it really work?
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I agree that wikipedia is a great tool, but it auguments, not takes the place of the work done in the classroom. My original point was that you have to learn the basics before you can go out and learn on your own. The whole teaching kids to be independent learners mantra of our educators is grounded in the same values you are talking about.
- Peggy Dolane
Robert, assuming there's a job out there to be filled, how do you fill it if you have no education and can't read? how do you fill it if your health is bad? your priorities are backwards. you have to be a) alive b) healthy and c) educated before you can d) get a job and contribute to the economy. that's why the "Common Good Index" *didn't* conclude, as you did, that job creation is job...
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- Karim
Uneducated people are bigger idiots, Robert.
- Francine Hardaway
Peggy: excellent idea. Xbox has a community games area where devs are doing interesting new stuff. A reading program would probably be well received by some parents.
- Hayes Haugen
Karim: look into the microfinance revolution. Please. It educates and provides jobs at the same time. Does someone who milks cows for a living really need to read? Really? I didn't know that's a skill they needed. You're living in my world, where that's true, but that is NOT true for billions of people around the world.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: to be clear I don't think you are advocating that the cow milker doesn't need to learn how to read, just that that's not the first thing he needs. Cart in front of the horse.
- Hayes Haugen
the cow milker may not need to be educated to milk a cow, but it would help to have basic education if he wants to sell the milk and not get ripped off
- Kim Landwehr
I'd say invest it into a home and rent it out super cheap. Nothing improves peoples lives more than a place to live that doesn't take up all of your income.
- alphaxion
alphaxion: that's called your parents house. If it's so good, why don't we all live at home? :-)
- Robert Scoble
One interesting point is that the expected cost to you of some of these things is less than the other -- like, they're investments -- which of course means you can afford to put more than $20k into them. In particular, you can easily afford to put all of your $ into the S&P. Since I think the charity value of the S&P is zilch, I don't think that's very interesting, but micropayments or angel investing are a different story.
- j1m
Another way to look at this is through the eyes of http://www.zoho.com , a tech startup. Did you know that they take uneducated kids in India and teach them how to program? It's true. They have hundreds of employees and found that they can almost always teach someone to program, if they are interested in learning. So, there's a case where investing in a startup improves education, gives them a job, and creates other jobs too. Multiplier effect in full force.
- Robert Scoble
One thing is for sure, if it wasn't for the investors of the startup i work in, i wouldn't be having this pizza right now!
- Lasse Johnsen
Robert, if, quote, "The leverage a dollar invested in such a startup gets is many times more than the leverage you'll get doing any of these other choices," why would i waste my time researching microfinance? weren't you saying startups were better? not sure what your point is about the cows -- are you asking Paul to invest in a Silicon Valley dairy farm? ;-)
- Karim
Karim: if you had enough money for a Silicon Valley dairy farm you'd be rich. :-) Microfinance IS funding startups.
- Robert Scoble
Given the original question and the subsequent definition of terms (+arguments) I'm going to have to side with Robert.
- Hayes Haugen
Robert -- ohh, okay. so when Paul says he is considering investing $20,000 in a promising *startup*, we should read that not as some outfit in Silicon Valley getting a couple of new servers, but a dozen dairy farms in Bangladesh getting a chilling plant? Arrington's going to start covering dairy farms in Techcrunch now? :-) funnily enough, the Gates Foundation works with dairy farmers too: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learnin...
- Karim
there was a cautionary tale the other day on NPR -- think it was "This American Life," but i'm not sure -- about some guy who advised his kids NOT to put their nest egg with Madoff. at the time, Madoff was highly respected on Wall Street and his returns were enormous. the advice was based on being against the "all your eggs in one basket" heuristic. they took the advice but were ridiculed for years -- right up until he was Madoff was arrested for fraud.
- Karim
most people realize the stupidity of putting all your eggs in one basket. you don't need a degree in economics to know this. this is why venture capital funds are *pooled* investment vehicles. the gates foundation is also a pooled investment vehicle. some of the money goes to immunizations, so maybe the next Einstein or the next Bill Gates won't die of malaria at age 12. some of the...
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- Karim
putting it all in one Silicon Valley startup and praying it turns out to be Google seems like buying a $20,000 lottery ticket.
- Karim
I'd give it to Change Congress or the Sunlight Foundation.
- Matt Cutts
Robert: Wow, Zoho teaching kids to program is a fascinating story. Did they blog about this? Want to find more info on that.
- Kiran Patchigolla
Is it too late to ask for a tabulated summary of the answers? Perhaps people's answers would illuminate why we have taxes in the first place.
- Mr. Gunn
Buy silver. Oh, and read this: http://goldprice.org/buy-sil...
- Michael Forian
robert: such a poor and flagrant answer, you're comparing a whole home to a single room at your folks? you can't deny that providing super cheap rented accommodation to society won't make a massive change to it. lets ask the homeless or those who have to do several jobs just to afford their current place without any spare money to help up their standard of living or save for the future.
- alphaxion
you live in an apartment that's bigger than 1 room at your parents' house, i guess? lucky you ;-)
- j1m
Alphaxion that wasn't one of the choices. I choose to live in the world as it is. Not to mention that houses are a thing of limited supply so if you gave them away you would increase the price for everyone. Oh, yeah, that is EXACTLY what happened over past 10 years. I would rather work on increasing everyone's real wealth which will increase numbers of people who can afford housing.
- Robert Scoble
j1m: exactly, I'm lucky I live in a 3 bedroom flat with 3 others.. but it's cheaper than other places, but it's still not cheap. There are some that pay a relative fortune compared with how much they earn for very little space (often with loads of people too). When you are left with next to no money after the top 2 expenses (shelter and food) it's a daily struggle. Very low quality of life and no savings to allow for something to look forward to.
- alphaxion
robert: notice I said "rented" accommodation.. you're not giving anything away apart from the ability for a person to save some of their money so they can lift themselves instead of bleeding them dry and keeping them from affording to improve their situation. Also, coming from someone who lives in the UK, I firmly believe that housing is extremely overvalued - when you have a system that is prohibiting first time buyers due to rediculous pricing for very little space then the system is already broken.
- alphaxion
and when the alternative is to rent at such a steep price that it stops them from being able to save up for the future then something is wrong. If I *ever* get a personal fortune behind me I will spend a good chunk of it on securing places to let out to people at very cheap rates. I'd rather try to change the world instead of living with such abuse.
- alphaxion
1. startup, because of Paul's knowledge that would come with the money 2. school, assuming it was a kind the promotes paul's school of thought 3. buy a hybrid car, but give it to someone driving a crappy, low mpg car, not replacing one of his relatively efficient ones or just adding a car, 4. give it to the US government (the government isn't all bad), 4. give it to the Gates foundation, 4.invest it in the S&P500,
- Clare Dibble
First I'm joining the chorus in favor of startup seed funding. Second is the school -- as long as it's *for* something (optimally, an entrepreneurship program?) and not just adding a rounding error to the school board's balance sheet... I'd put the hybrid car last because (unless you actually need a new car) I think that sends false signals: for each car that doesn't sell, maybe companies are going to work even harder and smarter to innovate.
- Brian Frank
1. Invest it in a promising startup like FriendFeed. 2. ??? 3. Profit. 4. Give it to the Gates foundation.
- Jim Norris
1.5 (in my list above) "other" => I think art and travel is missing, in that they open peoples perspectives. "art" is tricky, but you could just log on to etsy and buy whatever strikes your fancy, then give it as gifts or tell the artist not to actually send the item if you don't have room for it all (or burn the art at burning man or other flammable occasion).
- Clare Dibble
1.5 (in my list above) "other" => Donate landscaping in the form of a garden to a public park or other place where people actually go. Being around plants is good, and get the food to, for example, people who are hungry or those who regularly eat "food" (fast food, etc).
- Clare Dibble
1.5 (in my list above) "other" => some way to protect privacy of people who want it. I know this is nebulous, but the only ways that I can think of involve suing or sponsoring a law suit, which doesn't seem quite right.
- Clare Dibble
Robert, you say you're interested in increasing everyone's real wealth, but that is exactly what people thought they were doing in the housing bubble. that is the other thing that happened in the last 10 years. and a lot of the jobs that *were* created were in the housing sector. so we had jobs creation and apparent "real wealth" creation that turned out to be smoke and mirrors.
- Karim
1.5 (in my list above) "other" => travel, I would buy trips/ foreign exchange fees/ etcetera for the age group of 8th graders or high schoolers who couldn't afford them in close minded places (India, the midwest, etc.) to let them know there is some way out of here. if they want it.
- Clare Dibble
@karim: the problem with the housing bubble was the allowance of massive loans that could never be paid back realistically.
- alphaxion
alph, not trying to dissect root causes of the problem. just pointing out that people recently thought they were creating "real wealth" and jobs when they weren't.
- Karim
++ Jim Norris ;), especially step 2.
- Clare Dibble
Good point Karim: a lot of people were mistaken about "creating real wealth" in the housing bubble. But the mistake wasn't that "creating real wealth" is never a valid reason to do anything. The lesson was that people will make mistakes no matter how sure they are.
- Brian Frank
Brian, i was hoping the lesson would involve learning from our mistakes. http://www.theonion.com/content...
- Karim
wow, great thread. Scoble wins :) # 1. STARTUP - my immediate thought as well. #2 SCHOOL but please choose wisely; # 3 HYBRID #4 Gates Fnd. #5 OTHER - Donate to a Non Profit that is serving the "common good" (helps abused children, unemployed, poor, etc). The S&P and Gov't will not manage your money well, just a waste (go burn it in your backyard instead, more fun
- Susan Beebe
Scoble said, "The leverage a dollar invested in such a startup gets is many times more than the leverage you'll get doing any of these other choices." I don't see how this can be true, given the fact that most startups FAIL. Does he have some kind of *guarantee* that Paul is investing in the next Microsoft?
- Karim
You're right, Karim. Given the criteria of the common good, this money shouldn't be gambled, which is what happens if given to any risky venture. It should either be given to an efficient organization directly helping people, or to a diversified concern that balances any risky elements with guaranteed or at least highly probable benefits.
- Tinfoil 2.0
Remember Paul mentioned a "promising startup" - I suspect he knows what that is ;)
- Susan Beebe
Thanks, Logical -- I was puzzled. I've read about a UNICEF project that was able to calculate the cost of saving a human life at $500 (http://www.unicef.org/media...), and one from WHO saying that for every $1 invested enables more than a $5 gain to the economy (http://www.rbm.who.int/gmap...). So Scoble is essentially saying that this startup is going to provide a...
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- Karim
Susan, is that a wink-wink nod-nod way of saying the startup is Friendfeed? Does the $20,000 get them OC-3 bandwidth for a month? Or new Aeron chairs for everybody? Because that's so worth it, compared to, you know, 40 human lives :-D
- Karim
but it totally explains why Robert kept saying put it in the startup. LOL
- Karim
An engineering/medical scholarship to 1 or 2 students who really deserve it. Or maybe use this money to kickstart a scholarship foundation for this to wich other people can contribute... The key is to have people who can select the candidates correctly based on the talent and passion of the candidates...
- Arun Jacob
Robert, if the startup *is* Friendfeed, I grant you, they're a promising startup. I'll even grant you that they will inevitably be successful (unlike most startups!) and eventually will have hundreds of employees contributing millions of dollars to philanthropic causes. That said, this $20,000 clearly ISN'T NEEDED to get them to that point. It's not a make-or-break amount for the...
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- Karim
here is a greatly oversimplified game theoretic look at the problem: http://i39.tinypic.com/2h4dhyu... -- the values in the cells represent utility ("common good," lives saved, dollars put into the economy, etc.) "minimax" is highlighted in green. it's the rational solution, the minimum column maximum, the best possible outcome out of the worst possible outcomes.
- Karim
realistically it's more complicated because the startup has a *probability* of success. my *guess* is that you would want to give the money to the startup to the extent it's probable they will succeed (and the money is required for success). so if the startup has a 25% chance of a profitable exit, you'd want to give the money to the startup 25% of the time and to the charity 75% of the time -- again, assuming the money makes the difference between success and failure to the startup.
- Karim
it's irrational to always go for the situation with the highest payout potential *despite* the odds. then again, people buy lottery tickets so what do i know.
- Karim
For me, it would be school, startup, Gates Foundation, hybrid car, S&P, US government in order of best to worst. IMO, there are thousands of potentially better common good uses of $20k than giving it to the government, which best I can tell is the functional equivalent of throwing your money into an incinerator.
- Kevin Scott
Pay training programs for some laid off workers of declining industries.
- xyz
I'm so confused by the comments in this thread. Paul identified the criteria as common good, not investment advice. In other words, benefit to society. I agree with Kevin, US gov't is dead last (it's a very inefficient incinerator at that). S&P 500 doesn't lack for liquidity, so that's out too. Hybrid car... not convinced of any overwhelming benefits compared to other options. "Startup"... well it really depends on the nature of the startup, but by far most are too narrow and too risky to be best use.
- Tinfoil 2.0
@Clare Dibble - close minded places like India?!! Many people think of it as the number one destination for opening their minds, so I find the idea that India would be first on someone's list of "close minded places" mind-boggling. When were you last there, and where did you go?
- Ruchira S. Datta
What an amazing thread! Anybody totaled these up yet? Or shall I take a stab at it?
- Eric Johnson
If you are interested in this thread you should read The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs.
- Matt Griffith
Investing in a startup can only work in parts of the world that aren't stuck in a poverty trap. What happens to a business if the sole proprietor can't work because they get malaria? What if the woman applying for microcredit spends the majority of her day collecting clean water? The Gates Foundation is focused on those problems because you must fix them before anything else will work.
- Matt Griffith
Others have talked about the problem with the idea of "common good". I would instead focus on things that have the biggest positive impact on the largest number of lives. 25,000 children will die today. In the time it took me to write this comment dozens of children died around the world.
- Matt Griffith
I took a shot at tabulating results in a Google spreadsheet. "Startup" got the most responses, with "School" a close second. And there were 49 other suggestions. Here are the complete stats: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...
- Eric Johnson
Anybody want to help me do some meaningful analysis here? I'm hitting the limits of my standard deviation knowledge :)
- Eric Johnson
There is no efficient market in utilons. Different organizations have literally orders of magnitude difference in how much good they do per dollar. The big, showy charities that deliver lots of status and warm fuzzies can't compare to small, startup, strange charities working on points of maximum leverage. http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/, http://singinst.org/, http://methuselahfoundation.org/....
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- Eliezer Yudkowsky
The Results: Forget meaningful analysis, let's score this as Formula One racing, with 10 points for first place, 8 for second, etc. Funding a startup wins with 288 points. School funding is a close second, with 283 points. Gates takes third place, with 202. Everybody else does pretty badly, with the US Government scoring a dismal 46 points. Among write-ins, Kiva scored 58. http://www.casefoundation.org/blog.... See my spreadsheet for details.
- Eric Johnson
Kiva
- Patrick Breitenbach
Tip Michael J. Totten: http://www.michaeltotten.com/ I'd say that's for the common good.
- Rick Powell
@Ruchira I dunno, but I thought if I were gay and open in India, my mind might be opened, against my will, to the idea of prison. Correct me if I'm wrong.
- Rick Powell
Still waiting for the check ... Oh wait. I wasn't on the list
- Charlie Anzman
Nth vote for Kiva
- zimpenfish
Gates foundation OR Clinton foundation... both have records of great use of money for good cause.
- marshia Armstrong
If you are still looking for ideas, this one might be worth your consideration: http://friendfeed.com/app103...
- April
Here's an interesting twist on the startup: http://www.mercurynews.com/columns... "...Silicon Valley has always been about making the world smaller. And Ratra, who cofounded Akraya with her husband in 2001, has always been about helping women in business. So when she heard last spring about Peace through Business, an international effort to pair female business owners from two...
more...
- Ruchira S. Datta
Change the life of a child (e.g. middle-school) by lighting a fire for science & technology through involvement in an innovative and engaging summer program.
- Jason Miller
Help make it easier for young people who start their college education at a community college to transfer a four year school and earn a baccalaureate degree in a timely fashion. Do it in science & mathematics and you'll have a HUGE return on your investment.
- Jason Miller
Those of us who view social media as an opportunity for friendship/learning vs networking/marketing are not naive and we're not going away.
marziah, suzanne vara, Chris Heath and 19 other people liked this
And I want to add... I think advertisements are fine as part of social media products and participation, as long as they're transparent and authentic. For instance, I recently posted an dropbox affiliate link in a FF note, but didn't feel bad about it. It was pretty clearly marked, and I even joked about being a shill... and the bottom line is, I DO love (and use) dropbox. Some might find the difference here subtle, but I don't think it is.
- Adam Lasnik
I use it for both. I enjoy the convo as well as trying to get people to watch my vertical slice videos and take part in them with me by providing feedback and even items to use.
- alphaxion
I have a bottle of tequila I share with my social networking friends.
- Robert Scoble
I use it for all of that, but to different ends in different venues.
- Martha
Must be a big bottle of tequila...
- Cliff Gerrish
Well said, Adam.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Some people are too shy about self promotion. I wouldn't mind Thomas Hawk mentioning Zooomr more often. I didn't even learn he was the CEO until recently.
- Bruce Lewis
Amen. I don't mind promotion if what's being promoted adds value (and it's maybe impossible to add value *without* a little self-promotion), as opposed to just trying to leech attention and energy out of the community.
- Brian Frank
Tomas Hawk is CEO of something? I didn't know that, and I follow him and like it.... goes to show that if you are actually good/ important you don't have to make a big noise about it.
- Clare Dibble
Arrington and I disagree on future http://m.kyte.tv/ch...
Cedric Chee, John Downey, Dadah and 72 other people liked this
word up.
- john erik metcalf
I'm writing a post about this. Arrington believes that Twitter has won and that this is a winner take all market (the microblogging world, that is). I explain why this game has only just started.
- Robert Scoble
Gillmor Gang:http://gillmorgang.techcrunch.com/2009... Arrington's points here have me disagreeing with him.
- Robert Scoble
Agree a lot...want will be needed is to have the babble of all real-time web information being filtered by a core set of people that I trust...I need a service that says..."from all the noise that is out there right now..the people that you trust think the following is important...the following is funny...the following is bunk etc...
- Mike Aikins
if you can't dominate the market, redefine it.
- MikeAmundsen
The majority of the "big bloggers" that I've read over the past week (esp re: FF beta) I think that most of these guy have got the whole thing wrong. The tech market is never a "winner take all" thing. It a winner takes the current level, but then we bring it all up to the next level There was IBM, then Mircosoft, then Google, now (Twitter, FB, FF?) -But what's after that? And like Microsoft grew from the relationship w/IBM who grows from this market?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Mike, can't you do that now: e.g. friends:justinlong likes:20 or some such?
- Justin Long
I agree Robert. The argument Arrington is proposing is similar to the search engine wars of the mid-90s, with prognosticators stating that Altavista was the search engine.
- LPH™ and his dog P™
I honestly can't remember the last time I heard anybody agree with anything Michael Arrington said. He seems to be quite out of touch with the "community" and his credibility / level of influence are on a steady decline.
- Nicholas Kreidberg
Nicholas, I wouldn't count him out yet. For me personally his credibility / level of influence is rebounding. And it doesn't matter so much if his opinion is wrong. A-listers don't need to be right from the start. They just need to start conversations.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: Arrington once told me he's an entertainer. As long as everyone is paying attention to him he's going to do just fine.
- Robert Scoble
While I started out in micro-blogging on Twitter and also found it a great service during Australia's recent bushfires for volunteering, I wouldn't call it the be-all-and-end-all. After all, one period of unexpected downtime on twitter had me looking at the new beta here on FF. And this morning, I'm even looking at jaiku and identi.ca. Who says Twitter's won?
- George Hall (Australia)
I stopped paying attention to Arrington last year, but I'm starting to pay attention again now. Something good happened in Hawaii.
- Bruce Lewis
we all here?
- Nick
Nick, I'm here.
- Robert Scoble
Ah. Peace and quiet.
- Andrew Fowler
That picture is priceless.
- Pat Hawks
well hi, then. I don't think ppl will move to ff the same way they didn't pick up on pownce, which (a year ago) was (already) better than twitter in terms of feature-set — it had photos, content, an air app, etc.
- Nick
the key for the survival of sites like Friendfeed is not try to compete with Twitter, but to do things that Twitter doesn't. This is not a winner take all situation.
- Kim Landwehr
sorry, i missed that (on kyte). how do you use office w/ google docs?
- Nick
Nick: if someone sends a Word Doc to my Gmail address I can open it up in Google Docs.
- Robert Scoble
John: sounds a lot like Twitter/friendfeed, huh?
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Unless its a .docx format....?
- Justin Long
I'm sure the issue for FF isn't search. Search isn't the first reason for users to get their friends in a specific service. People go to Twitter because Twitter is the place to go. People went to Hotmail because others were on Hotmail. Now, and only now, people realize that Gmail is better. Unfortunately, it took years for Gmail to emerge. I guess people will learn how to use the real time web on Twitter and 5 years later, they try to optimize their usage with FF. Years.
- Jérôme
Justin: probably not, but those should be even easier for Google to read.
- Robert Scoble
Wouldn't you think people would go where the majority of their friends are? I'm kind of divided between FB and Twitter. I wish more of my friends used FF but...
- Justin Long
Robert: 1) I agree totally w/ twitter being an entirely useless way of finding ppl of value — ie it's good for following existing celebrities, and may even be O.K. for finding local randomers, but no good for finding services of value (those most likely to advertise in a highly targeted online setting!) 2) I take ALL my school notes on gdocs and i wish i could mass export just to be safe
- Nick
Jerome: right. But now friendfeed will be the place to go. Why? Because I can send you a link to something of great value.
- Robert Scoble
If I look at my geeky friends, they all try to "manage" Twitter, and still refuse to get lost on FF (the Twitter for "advanced" users).
- Jérôme
Jerome: two years ago all my friends told me that Twitter was the lamest thing they'd ever seen.
- Robert Scoble
Then they all shifted when more of their friends got onto it.
- Robert Scoble
See, that's what I think: the center of gravity isn't features, but friends. You have to have people in order to have substantive conversations. You go where you have a preexisting pool of sharers.
- Justin Long
Unless you have enough "pull" to be able to go into a new service and bring a bunch of people with you... like Scoble...?
- Justin Long
Robert: so they should have left Hotmail for Gmail once they knew Gmail had big storage, good search, threads, etc. My friends and family all know that Gmail is better, but making the change is psychologically hard. Now, the problem in social networks is that leaving Twitter or adopting FF means you've to move your friends with you. That's not the case for webmail and that's why I'm concerned about FF's future. People may admit that FF is better, but it will take years before they move.
- Jérôme
Scoble: do you think it is meaningful to compare the live feed on YOUR account to that of the average user? I dont think ANYONE else has numbers similar to yours in terms of updates/minute (or even /second)
- Nick
Wish there was a way to better integrate Twitter's stream into Friendfeed... so that you could see both streams and update them... that would make it easier to migrate to FF! Maybe so you could see your twitter stream but no one else could unless you happened to comment on something or like it??
- Justin Long
Jerome: right. This is why Twitter has won. The first inning of this game.
- Robert Scoble
Nick: I used to be the only one following 1,000 people on Twitter and everyone made fun of me. Now that is a common thing to see.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: but Twitter is your friends' first Twitter-like service. People are still learning how to use it. I'm sure FF may be the next winner, but in years. And in months, Twitter will probably have launch likes and comments. Then, what would be FF's raison d'être? Why do you think you'll want to stay on FF? You've already said that you go where your audience is...
- Jérôme
I didn't realize how bad Twitter was at searching until recently. That's why I've migrated to FriendFeed as well. The 140-character message is similar to the traditional Unix bias toward flat files. It works for simple uses, but if you need metadata, you have to use more elaborate methods. FriendFeed is analogous to a relational database.
- David Delony
Jerome it took Twitter three years to get to 20 million and be considered a "mainstream success."
- Robert Scoble
FriendFeed has a character limit, too. It's just more than 140 is all. I would have predicted the "Disqus" and "Intense Debate" type service would be dominating the borader conversation by now... I would have been wrong.
- Matt Shaulis
Matt: metadata on friendfeed does NOT take away from friendfeed's size, though. On Twitter typing "RT: " takes away four characters and typing tags takes away even more.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: It's good for everyone though. It prevents rambling, hyperbole, and bloat. It has not prevented text messaging from becoming a global craze...
- Matt Shaulis
Why is Twitter a mainstream success? Because of how it was used in certain cases and what sort of publicity it got by those cases. Mumbai, the Hudson River plane, Australian bushfires. FriendFeed can get the same sort of thing, all it needs is imaginitive use of FriendFeed capabilities in a crunch. The added bonuse of aggregation greatly enhances its use in such cases, too. Do it properly, Friendfeed will hold its own.
- George Hall (Australia)
What takes more time and resource: implement FF's features in Twitter or gain Twitter's number of users? I love FF, but without a big promotion push from its community, I fear that FF will never go mainstream.
- Jérôme
George: But FriendFeed lacks a cute name meaning the "bubble headed bleach blondes" will not like saying in on the air. ;) hehehe
- Matt Shaulis
Jerome: I guarantee that in two years (Twitter is two years older than friendfeed) we'll be talking about friendfeed and not Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
I agree something like Friendfeed will be more interesting, certainly.
- Dominick R. Brady
what makes twitter a mainstream succes is the cases that goerge mentions PLUS the mobile aspect FF weill never get there until I can have it on EVERY mobile devices
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
How boring is it to say "I posted a FriendFeed message" versus "I Tweeted" .... Come on... it might sound silly, but it's marketing 101. The media and the glitterati will not adopt FriendFeed because it's not "fun" to talk about. (Not to mention, it is confusing to average people and will only get moreso.)
- Matt Shaulis
guruvan: what if every mobile device becomes a clone of the iPhone? That's where it's headed.
- Robert Scoble
I tend to agree. I am already really into this new version- even being in beta.
- Chris Parton
Matt, all its missing is a cute little mascot. The name's good enough...and cute enough...but it needs something visual. Mascot, visually identifiable immediately. Something that stands out in the minds of a bubble-headed bleach blond. Hmm, do bleach-blonds HAVE minds?
- George Hall (Australia)
Matt: fair enough. Twitter has a fun attitude.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: don't you think there's going to be legacy TXT for a while though?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
WOW, scoble. that's a bold statement. i have a hard time believing that. they just dont have the brand equity
- john erik metcalf
but yes the clone of the iphone is for real
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
George: yes yes yes.. the mascot too.. all the way. Great point as well.
- Matt Shaulis
John: so did MySpace two years ago.
- Robert Scoble
twitter is becoming a household name.
- john erik metcalf
@Matt and George. Marketing is FF problem right now. Media coverage, for sure, name maybe.
- Jérôme
John: so was MySpace two years ago. Twitter is only used by 10 to 20 million. Facebook is 200 million. If Twitter's success means anything then it shouldn't even exist.
- Robert Scoble
Medai coverage + Name + Mascot + Etc. == Marketing
- Matt Shaulis
Matt: Financial Times is writing about friendfeed on Monday. And so it starts.
- Robert Scoble
friendfeed could easily become a household name too if there were 50 different clients to meet everyone's different wants and needs for friendfeed
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob: friendfeed is simplifying its API to get more people to be able to write for it. Twitter's API is so simple even I could write an app for it. Friendfeed's API is far more complex.
- Robert Scoble
Even google figured out android needed a visual mascot. It's worked, too, for linux, having Tux the penguin. Twitter has the bird and the fail whale. At the moment, we have the incredible Scoble, but due to similarities with the Hulk, we have copyright and trademark issues there. Other suggestions?
- George Hall (Australia)
Robert: LOL @ Financial times.... hehehe... I suppose it is a start... but it's no Tonight Show with Jay Leno. :-D
- Matt Shaulis
Ellen and Jay talked about Twitter for a good 2.5 minutes
- Matt Shaulis
Matt: In a year Ellen and Jay will need to talk about something else.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: my gut tells me that if that is true, it won't be FF. It will be something newer. But yes... Google will soon buy Twitter which means it is getting shelved and we will all have to move on.
- Matt Shaulis
Matthew broke FF.
- Rochelle
Speaking of third-party stuff and API's, the iphone clients for Friendfeed need some work. Too much crashing in motherfeed and and Nambu
- George Hall (Australia)
Robert: agreed re: twitter api simplicity...I think I could do it too. Eager to see easier ff api and more clients esp mobile ones....then I can get tons of people to take it everywhere they go....then people will really be engrossed in their phones walking thru traffic ;)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Matt: there will probably be something new that +I+ will be onto, but I usually look for the newest and best way to do something.
- Robert Scoble
Well, Jive.ly's certainly not it!
- Chris Parton
Chris: when I see it I'll probably talk about it here all day long and get everyone pissed at me. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Facebook seems to be doing alright without a cute name or mascot.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: so does Microsoft and Google and Amazon.
- Robert Scoble
And Seesmic seems to fail with a good name AND a cute ratoon :)
- Jérôme
You sure Microsoft's success isn't because of Clippy? :-)
- Bruce Lewis
And remember Microsoft's Windows emblem? That's practically a mascot/trademark instantly identifying it
- George Hall (Australia)
Google has also its Clippy, it was for Google Docs, to make it mainstream :D http://blogoscoped.com/archive...
- Jérôme
I try to jump out on Seesmic every now and then; I want to get into the video interaction but it always seems like the same 15 people are out there. Like a big video conference on odd topics
- Lou Paglia
seesmic is certainly trying to branch out and make more interaction happen
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Hey, i started on Seesmic this week...it's actually quite good. I like it more than Tweetdeck. It's only let down in one area, the userlists. As groupings, they're too static. Tweetdeck lets grouped friends be a column that's actively updated. Other than that, it's superior to Tweetdeck.
- George Hall (Australia)
Patrick: thats actually why I like FF so much...as I get better and better at it it relieves the fatigue by aggregating my content and republishing it for me
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
George: I am a huge fan of peoplebrowsr ....way more powerful than anything I've used ....better than tweetdeck for sure
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I think the aggregation makes people more voracious -especially when they see how it reposts to where THEIR friends are. If friendfeed were to be able to repost stuff to Facebook as well as twitter it would be a SMASH hit
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I think that, as I grow more and more into social apps, FF grows at a comfortable pace with me. But that's just me +shrug+
- Chris Parton
Chris: good point...I think people are generally comfortable with the pace on facebook (and myspace and similar) and they're just becoming comfortable with the pace on twitter - the pace on friendfeed is a little more hectic even still (omg with the realtime feed even more so) and will take some getting used to for people, but they will.. Especially if FF develops the outbound feeds...out to twitter is good, but it needs to go to where the people have their friends ....whereever that is
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I don't know my history too well, but in my limited time following you, you guys don't totally agree too often :)
- Bwana ☠
Very good points. I feel as though I have outgrown many of the other services and am ready for a fluid and fast-paced real-time entity. Also, my FF doesn't seem to be posting to Twitter haha!
- Chris Parton
100% agree - if everything feeds into everything else, in the end it may just be a question of interface / controls. Friend Feed is well on its way to being a streamlined interface for both Twitter and Facebook at the same time with all the relevant meta data. An interface, that I personally prefer. But, ultimately, agreed we are in the stone age and this is barely started much less over! P.S. Love the edit feature : )
- JP Maxwell
Chris: I bet if you tried to hit their website youd get you a failwhale...doubt its on FF's end ;) -----and I agree about out growing the others...but my friends have not, so I still use them...but more and more, as a way to get stuff into FF
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Robert's goin' Green! Ahhhhh!
- Charlie Anzman
Bwana: lol! probably not, but which guys are you referring to?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
And how fun would the discussion be if everyone agreed on it all....little mutual lovefest and that's it heh.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I was referring to Arrington and Scoble
- Bwana ☠
My extended family is set up to get a weekly FriendFeed summary by email. It doesn't get more comfortably paced than that.
- Bruce Lewis
Again, just so right on w/ Twitter being just the beginning. When you introduce something new to a group of people previously not exposed to it, often the simplest thing wins at first. It is only once the adoption has occurred that people start wanting more. The simplicity becomes limiting and people demand this or that, but you never could have started out with it all.
- JP Maxwell
And the internet itself is founded upon the idea of using the simplest thing as the base layer and then building onto that base....FF build well onto the simplest layers like twitter - being able to like and comment on tweets over here is a great addition...but still leaves twitter as an important piece
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Laying down the gauntlet. The drama!!!
- The Real sofarsoShawn
Robert, true, the game has just started and we do need better filters, but there is nothing stopping Twitter from implementing some of the same features we see on Friendfeed, Facebook and more. Threaded conversations and a like button do not constitute barriers to entry.
- Erick Schonfeld
Can someone please tell me how either of these startups are going to make money? Please?
- Bwana ☠
which startups?
- wannagot
Erick - twitter has only just got its service engineered to handle it's existing features, whereas FriendFeed has been built as a well maintained scalable infrastructure right from the start. I wouldn't underestimate FriendFeed's technical lead - it may be larger than Twitter's user-base lead. Not to mention the fact they'd have to lead their user-base perhaps unwillingly.
- Robin Barooah
google wasn't first, but they had a great idea and incredible execution. FF might have the same effect on soc-net.
- MikeAmundsen
Robert I agree with you 100% on the value of the "meta data" aspect of FF. I'm not so sure that advertising isnt already viable on twitter. Google adwords functionality integrated into the side bar of twitter would be much more targeted than the google content network. So even on a basic level it is viable. I agree that it could be much more. Google can just sit back and integrate into any or all existing social networks. The myspace deal paid of in much the same way.
- James Ketchell
Ewww, Cheyenne yo you do know he's married.
- The Real sofarsoShawn
That is true.
- The Real sofarsoShawn
correct...current state of information is chaos, jumbled mess...need organization...ff is a start
- Michael
Alasdair: advertising is a $300 billion a year business. THAT is why I concentrate on it.
- Robert Scoble
nice - the difference between *THE* answer and many solutions. It's just what solutions dominate, what ends up being a robust niches and what dies (and it's an ever shifting playing field in this case).
- Stuart Miniman
FF FTW!! :)
- Susan Beebe
the metadata angle to the discussion on twitter versus FF/FB is an interesting one. for first time users harder to grasp; on the other hand richer metadata structures make it indeed much easier to really filter the information; not only for directly using FF, but also for third party engines building on top of FF API's
- Jeroen De Miranda
Alasdair: Advertising is far from dead. Just because you're not a fan doesn't mean the rest of us are not. The truth is advertising is prevalent in our society because we need it. You need to know where those people, things, services and such are. The best of anything goes to waste if no one knows about it. The key to advertising, though, is to deliver it to you in such a way that you like it, and is relevant to you. Most current media doesn't allow for that. Social medial advertising does offer potential.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Who cares what Arringtoin says? Last week he said Google was buying Twitter
- paul mooney
I think twitter has much more metadata capability than we see on the surface. A good search correlation algorithm could take temporal and spatial metadata as weighting vectors; more weighting vectors: indexing + analyzing link targets (and their metadata), retweets, replies, follows, tweets sources, and the kicker indexed RSS feeds from the top N news/info/media web sites, etc. Correlate a search term against these vectors and self-tune using user rating. $.02
- Ankush Narula
I disagree with you on so many things, Robert, but I watched this video, and you make excellent points. I do believe you're right.
- Stan Scott
Get arrington to set up a realtime private room for techcrunch staff
- Christian Burns
This is the future speaking: you are both wrong.
- Todd Hoff
The meta data and "likes" you are describing that is the advantage of friend feed is reminding me of what Plurk is trying to do. I don't like it over there, and I'm trying to figure it out over here on Friendfeed. Maybe when you have 19,000 subscriptions FF makes sense, but for the little guys, it's not so transparent.
- Peggy Dolane
Twitter's victory will be short-lived and potentially Pyrrhic. It's a cool toy everybody can play with but not a great tool for serious users. I still can't see it paying for itself over the long run unless as a data collecting device for Google. And the best point: all the metadata is currently within the 140 characters. And apps not limited to 140 characters are so obviously more useful.
- The Web's Wendell Wittler
Definitely love Robert's calling out of Mike at the end. They're both nice, smart guys, and I'm glad we have a system (the Internet) where they can discuss this for all of us to see, and discuss with them/each other as well.
- Tyler Hayes
hint you on the next challenge: Servers will distributed into multi-region server farms management that somehow will focus on local activities but still synchronized with primary server farm.... That would be how megatons of meta data will be delivered seamlessly without causing too much traffic collision and bandwidth waste... I think..
- Pico Seno
I finally understand the value Robert gets out of FF, and it's because he can easily pool lots of useful metadata (likes, links, comments) to each of his own posts out of the vast trove of friends. For the rest of us, there's the live feed, which works better on Twitter than FF. I still think that in the future, we will all be Scoble though and have gadzillion more friends.
- Prokofy Neva
Sound off here if you are using friendfeed. Let's show Michael Arrington what's what and what nobody looks like.
Rick Cogley, Jesse Newhart, James Michael Mike DuPont and 259 other people liked this
No I'm not.
- Mike Nayyar
HAI!
- Eric
Ding.
- adf
um... wait, lemme check.
- Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)
I think so...
- Juan Pablo González
here I be
- paisano
*bing*
- Glenn Slaven
I'm only here now because it broke Twitter
- Sally - Skyrimmin' It
*lets off a sneaky one*
- Johnny
Present.
- WiseYoda (aka Patrick)
Cheers!
- Scott Jarkoff
Who me?
- Deepak Singh
not as actively of late.
- Alan Le
Ok, watching this thread real time is cool!
- Juan Pablo González
tl;dr (Please buy my book!)
- Daniel J. Pritchett
FF rules, twitter drools
- LPH™ and his dog P™
...
- Kevin Johnson
Here!
- Rebecca Lasley
Nope
- Michelle M
I use it on and off. The new beta interface with live updates is amazing enough that I might use it nearly as much as Twitter.
- Dion Hinchcliffe
Yep.
- Rochelle
Who me?
- Micah
I only seem to use it when twitter is down. A better iPhone app might bring me around more often more "reader" like features (ie, let me add feeds and info that only I see like my google reader subscriptions and all of the tweets from my account on twitter)
- Scott Watermasysk
Were we to use a horn or just a loud cow bell?
- LPH™ and his dog P™
More cow bell.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Definitely needs more cow bell LPH.
- Dion Hinchcliffe
Oy!
- Steve Lowe
sounding off
- Mattb4rd
Hi all. I'm pretty much always on FriendFeed =)
- FFing Enigma
What's FriendFeed?
- Andrew Trinh
I am using it. Still on the regular UI though, as that's what's bookmarked in my browser
- Ian May
Same as Tina. FF is by far my favorite
- Mattb4rd
Present and accounted for.
- Rui Pereira
Friendfeed's the new brain feed.
- JCunwired
on both in tabs.. ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
Me!
- Karoli
Saying "Hi!". It's 3:14 here in Paris, but there's no night for Friendfeed.
- Jérôme
Using FF.
- Ghennipher
Sound off. One, two.
- iluvgimp
Beep beep
- Steve J
using FriendFeed, but not as much as tweetdeck
- Ken Gibbs Jr
!
- lautaro
FF stand up! Right here. Would use more if there was a TweetDeck-like tool for it. (FriendDeck isn't it)
- Ms_Krista
59:65:73:1f:20:49:27:6d:20:75:73:69:6e:67:20:46:72:69:65:6e:64:46:65:65:64:21
- Jason Nelson
Always and Forever
- Jason (not an Argonaut)
FF works.
- WoH: Minding her Steves
I think the sound was muted. Lemme change that.
- Beau Liening
Hee
- Rodfather
Holla?
- Andrew
Weeee!
- AJ Batac :)
Hoooty Hoooo!
- Rah-PM 2012
W00t!
- LB so u no it's real
Rasheen - Did you just see a cop? :)
- Andrew
Does this message construe usage of FriendFeed?
- rob friedman
yup
- Hutch Carpenter
Present and accounted for
- Devlin Dunsmore
from twhirl
Present!
- Larry Hawes
*bum dance*
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
Keeps me coming back.
- Tom Landini
Blue leader, standing by.
- Chris Charabaruk
Check.
- Warren Butler
Yep
- John Collis
!?!...
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Hells to the yeah.
- AJ Kohn
Wanted to smack Mike Arrington tonight.
- Mol, FF Music Lover
I'm a noone!
- MiniMage, enterRUPPted
wow it's empty in here!
- BEX
Somebody in the house. Love the redesign.
- Steve Isaacs
Techcrunch reported 637K unique users for the month. Michael doesn't read his own publication apparently.
- Paul W. Swansen
w00t! FF rocks!
- ~C4Chaos
Duh
- Louis Gray
Yo Yo Domino!
- Spirit 2.0
Testing...testing...is this mic working?
- Jack&Cleo
Ciao baby :)
- enza (aka iVenus)
Reporting in from The Netherlands. P.S. Michael, you're an asshole! Oh no, I didn't really mean that. Love you Mike! ;)
- Meryn Stol
here and thoroughly enjoying the Arrington roast
- Daltonsbriefs
Arrington is a twat. That is all.
- nouhad
Oui.
- Tinfoil 2.0
using FF everyday.
- MikeAmundsen
maybe (Arrington's personality) is a persona---like Andrew 'Dice' Clay (remember that guy?)
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Everybody is a somebody, unless they are a nobody?
- Joe "Brrzzzzzzt" Pierce
Sweet...keep it going y'all!
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
count me in!
- Jay
O HAI. I IZ NOBUDDY
- Josh Haley
What's Friendfeed? Is it cool?
- JR
Sound off 1 2 3 4.
- Russellreno
Here
- Bluesun 2600
Present
- Herb Hernandez
One more. BTW, who's this Arrington fellow?
- ha3rvey (Hugs 50% off!)
BUELLER? BUELLER? FRY? FRY?
- Josh Haley
Aaaaaaah!
- Jeff P. Henderson
I need to catch up, because I don't know what he did now. I didn't bother to read his embargo-breaking story.
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
here, here.
- Thomas Hawk
better yet, go to his post on FF today and post your thoughts on why you like it more than twitter. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
- Thomas Hawk
If it's not on friendfeed, I'm not interested, Thomas. :)
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Uhh oh, don't I act like that sometimes, CW? *goes and cries in a corner*
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
People are complaining about me? *goes and cries in a corner*
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
What be this friendfeed you speak of?
- ronin
You say that as if it's a bad thing, Joel.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I thought only scoble fans use FF? :) or Andorid App Devlopers..
- Fred Grott
Tell that to the librarians who have no idea who Robert is and don't care.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
I use.
- vimoh
I AM!!
- iTad
w00t!
- Adam Lasnik
You mean yesterday's news Arrington ??? Or today's embargo Arrington?
- David HC Soul
I just read Arrington's post and commented via FriendFeed (not to make any philosophical point, but because I'm on an older mobile phone right now using fftogo). While I had some quibbles, the fact remains that there are far fewer FriendFeed users than there are Facebook users. Then again, there are far fewer Twitter users than Facebook users, so simplicity isn't everything...
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
The word I heard him use was "nobody", not "fewer", "nobody"...Perhaps I'm wrong though...either way, I don't care. I find friendfeed to be eminently more entertaining and useful than Twitter or Facebook.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
That's what schema-less SQL said.
- Mitch
If Twitter closed tomorrow, my life would be the same, If FriendFeed closed I'd lose all of you...
- Jamie Ginsberg
huzzah!
- Nathan Chase
And far fewer Mahalo users than any of them *rimshot*
- Michael W. May
bbq
- AJ Batac :)
I would just give him this link to see what "nobody" looks like: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei...
- April
I'm a nobody.
- Jeremy Brooks
nothing to see here for nobody...move on people. ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
Here's one more nobody for the roll call.
- Lindsay
There's a blank line above this comment. Strange
- nouhad
"Liked" FriendFeed...(have love hate relationship with twitter and its whale mascot!)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
what's a twitter?
- SteVe C
What is a Michael Arrington?
- Fred Grott
We are here, we are here, we are here.
- Larry Kless
Here too
- Carl Pruitt
*raises hand*
- Justin Korn
Present *raises hand*
- Drew
I am nobody and I love friendfeed.
- Robert Scoble
are we going for a million comments?
- Robin Barooah
It's a bit like I'm a PC. Unfortunately not that cool. FF is actually pretty cool though.
- Joe Bland
the battle for the real time web has really just begun. magic happens. here.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Oh, looks like I missed somethign good. Oh, well.
- Mona Nomura
Woot!
- Aaron Tinling
Hello, Switzerland friendfeeding on the beta.
- Richard A.
What a shame, there's nobody here.
- Anika
I love friendfeed.
- netvista
Go Friendfeed!
- Edwin Khodabakchian
me too netvista3987
- Majento
and me
- Richard Jones
I'm going with Scoble, and betting on this horse. This new UI is just a thing of beauty. This is how it should be. They're the ones who've found the Grail Castle. This is it right here. I'm just loving it.
- Web Nex
Here. But off to bed soon. Back later. G'nite, FF.
- Lisa L. Seifert | FHG™
Love the new beta. Really nice job to Team FF!
- Marc Chung
Who is this Arrington fellow?
- Quasar
Wow, a whole ~120 people ... over 5 hours. I used to play on MUDs 10+ years ago with more simultaneous users. FF is 98% Scoble-hype noise, 2% RSS crawling.
- Dossy Shiobara
@Dossy- your naivete is showing!
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
@bec rowe - fine, I'll be generous, suppose there's a whole ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more users, 10x or 1,200 ... this is a big deal? Most major IRC networks each have 60k+ concurrent users and that's tech that's 15+ years old now.
- Dossy Shiobara
???
- vijay
for such a "new and improved" UI, why do I have to scroll ALL the way back up to click the "comment" link? what, did none of the UX people think "gee, putting it at the bottom of the list of comments would be a good idea"?
- Dossy Shiobara
seriously, people, stop being sheep. FF is cute but it's a pet rock.
- Dossy Shiobara
uh, no Dossy.
- Josh Haley
Dossy - I'm not sure if that was a joke or sarcastic comment or not, but just in case it wasn't...I strongly disagree.
- Justin Korn
Well to be fair, I know my real life friends would never understand FF -- especially the filters. It's too much effort to set up.
- Mona Nomura
Mona - I agree with that statement, but still disagree with Dossy.
- Justin Korn
@Mona Ditto. But I don't come here for RL friends. I come here to connect with people like me.
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
Arrington is a stupid.
- Wo
Exactly -- I come here to escape from Facebook and when I want more conversation than Twitter :) Sheep we are not. ;)
- Mona Nomura
I have 3 tabs locked into the first three positions of my always-open Firefox window: Google Reader, Gmail and you guessed it... FriendFeed.
- Brooks Bishop
I am using FF because it's awesome.
- Aaron Hood
from BuddyFeed
Obviously using FF Beta right now
- Arnold Zafra
All the time! FF Beta at the moment.
- Anton
From out the Blu, I am.
- Benjamin
What's a Michael Arrington?
- Pete D
Nothing much, something Europe doesn't care for ;-)
- Richard A.
*beep*
- Lorenzo Strambi
from twhirl
yes yes yes
- Davide D'Incau
Sure, but as a casual user I don't see that much usefulness. Fun, yes.
- Johan Mellberg
from twhirl
I'm loving the new version. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Beta? Yes. Standard? Never used it. Barely got the hang of Twitter!
- caj needs a haircut
Bring - It - Onnnnnnnnn!
- Vicky
is arrogant arrington squirming yet???
- Rob Sellen :o)
yo yo
- Kelly W.
Here is to both platforms. Twitter for ease of use and Friendfeed for search and aggregation
- Karen L Thompson
from BuddyFeed
I'm on it!
- Tracy Mendham
Nope, I'm not using friendfeed. Sorry to disappoint.
- awd
(like Horshack) "ooooh ooooh ooooh"
- Bryan R. Adams
Absolutley! Great aggregator, but have to use Twirl or other app at work
- Jonathan Decker
from twhirl
Who the hell is Michael Arrington, and why should I give two tugs of a dead dog's cock what he thinks?
- Steven Perez
damn you steven perez... speak ya mind for a change!!! ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
Perez: Some meatbag with an overblown sense of self importance
- Mo Kargas
Arrington is a Web 1.0 dinosaur trying to make himself relevant still by being Jerry Springer without the entertainment value.
- Bob M. Montgomery
from twhirl
love it
- Brian Frank
Just to note: I know damn well who Arrington is. He's that meatsack whose website couldn't hold its load for a few hours. But I'm serious about not caring what he thinks.
- Steven Perez
that's r scoble too mo... ooops I'll get bashed! :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
what's FF nation? where you hear about that? arringtons blog by any chance?
- Rob Sellen :o)
I'm using it and loving it!
- Samuel Driessen
i'm using....friendfeed beta
- Alejandro
Conspiracy Theory: Alex just wants to have a post with more comments than Robert. Discuss :D
- Bob M. Montgomery
from twhirl
I'm in.
- Aravind Jose
hello
- Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど
ff ftw!
- minus-one
go, go ff!
- graywolf
Michael who?
- Anthony Citrano
Nobody goes to friendfeed anymore, it's too busy
- Christopher Galtenberg
that techcrunch guy is pure noise - ignore at all cost :-p
- mike "glemak" dunn
O Hai! :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
I use FriendFeed all the time. Rarely if ever read TechCrunch anymore.
- Andy Roth
What's TechCrunch?
- Great Scott! Needs a Ham
Jelly beans!
- Bwana ☠
Nobody here but us chickens.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
huh!? What?!
- Just Katie
Arrington knows I use FF - I too need "intervention" :)
- Susan Beebe
I'm not sure 219 people prove him wrong...
- Carter ♥ HTML5
Arrington who ??
- Peter Dawson
Bump :)
- Stephan Miller
from Friend Deck
I'm a friendfeed - its offers better value for the investment
- Chris Rogers
from Nambu
Using ff more every day
- Gordon Corte
still going
- Josh Haley
yep
- Elena
new to friendfeed and liking it very much
- brainno722 (Peter)
bumpity bump....
- Rob Sellen :o)
um....... :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
Huh? What?!?
- Just Katie
I never use friendfeed and I'm never ever on it. I can't believe you'd accuse me of such a thing!
- Vicarbott
hey
- stanjourdan
Something tells me he's not impressed yet.
- Shey
something tells me THIS proves how little he uses this place ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
That's OK, I get the sense that most people here couldn't care less. :) We use friendfeed because we like it, not because some A-Lister that doesn't even participate here thinks we should or shouldn't.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
*comment deleted to keep up appearances that I'm a nice guy*
- Michael W. May
I agree.... :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
Loves me some FriendFeed
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Shouldn't this be on a TC post since all those comments will be sucked into the blog itself?
- coldbrew
agreed alex, if you watch your brother's video of the pre-beta walk through from last weekend, mike was there, engaged and asked good questions of bret and paul, but then he goes off and belittles ff & those using it - immature or trollish not sure which it is...
- mike "glemak" dunn
But Alex.. your bro is a supposed A-lister...
- Rob Sellen :o)
dunn: Arrington is providing feedback. I'm sure team-FF can handle it.
- coldbrew
yeah the feedback he provides is..."the worse way to use friendfeed" :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
My brother also participates here a lot, so when he says something is great or sucks here he has some authority...certainly a lot more authority on the subject than you know who.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
drive by - I'm in
- Rick Bucich
You'll notice TC's FF integration is one-way (i.e. FF>TC), not synch.
- coldbrew
FF is the FFuture
- Alan Cheslow
Who's Michael Arrington? ;-)
- Kenton
I'm soaking in it.
- Mark Dorgan
FriendFeed is the best social service; just too much for many people to handle...yet!
- Neal "thePuck" Jansons
I do like FF - but it can be a lot to handle.
- Bill Sodeman
yeah.....
- Rob Sellen :o)
It doesn't get much better. Still here after a year.
- David Cook
from fftogo
yeah...great eh :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
i am and its soo much better. Tell mike the tech rumors are better here, too.
- Roberto Bonini
my head hurts. || button is my friend
- Todd Randolph
Right on Alex! To enhance what I said yesterday, FriendFeed is the "coolest app" to consume information on the Internet and interact with smart people.
- Eric Berlin
I use FF!
- Damond Nollan
:o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
ding dong.
- Tobias W.
AOL!
- Alex Scrivener
from twhirl
Who the F is Michael Arrington?
- Mattb4rd
He's some dude who unwisely said that nobody uses friendfeed.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
So much better than twitter!
- Bo Stern
Nah, I never use FriendFeed. FriendFeed uses me! Don't ask.
- Brad Butner
from twhirl
It's Michael Arrington. His ego is the size of the Sun and is infinitely expanding like the universe. All I hear is "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah."
- Zach Flauaus
Love the new FF
- Leigha Baer
Go FF!
- atanas
Hear, hear, Alex W. Something needs to happen with comments.
- Kamilah Reed (K. Gill)
so.... arrinwho?
- Rob Sellen :o)
I luuurve friendfeed!
- Rob Sellen :o)
;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
:o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
ho
- Laura Norvig
Aloha! Been here for over a year now.
- Bill Sodeman
blurp
- Johannan Edelman
linky to another similar thread ... http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Peter Dawson
My thread was first and my brother was just being a copycat. First!
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
yep, that Scoble is a copycat !! :)-
- Peter Dawson
I think the only way to settle this is with a good old fashioned slap fight. Or a drinking contest... Either way we need video of it.
- Joe "Brrzzzzzzt" Pierce
But I said "First!" That's the internet beat down right there.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
more comments than likes? how can that be... you commenter's who have yet to like...like.. and those who have yet comment...comment..and like ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
I'm down with FreindFeed. My usage has skyrocketed since the beta launch.
- Tim
People sometimes complain that my FriendFeed comments are out of context on Twitter. I kind of agree, but isn't that normal on Twitter? At least there's a link so that you find the whole conversation. I have no idea what this person is responding to, for example.
Edward Zwart, Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど, Susan Beebe and 26 other people liked this
The other reason that I send my comments to Twitter is to leave breadcrumbs for Twitter search, which seems pretty useful.
- Paul Buchheit
That's the problem with Twitter. No context just blaaaaaahhhh.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
For example, if I mention "zappos" in my comment, someone from Zappos will probably show up to see what I'm saying, because people use Twitter search to track their brands.
- Paul Buchheit
Yeah, it should be hah
- Charles Ying
Part of the problem is that without the @reply out front, you generate a lot of noise for people who aren't yet part of the conversation. Twitter might not have much more context than the link back to FF, but at least it keeps the side-conversations from being too invasive.
- Mike English
Is there some way that I could change the format of my comment tweets to make them more useful / less annoying?
- Paul Buchheit
Yeah, prefixing with something (@friendfeed?) would help I think. Can't think of a better solution at the moment.
- Mike English
@Mike: how does the @reply help? So you can know to skip over those tweets?
- Dan Hsiao
What if the "re: http://ff.im/..." were in the front instead of at the end? More or less annoying?
- Paul Buchheit
Well, the stuff that auto posts blogs to twitter starts with "New Blog Post". Perhaps starting "From FF" would work...
- FFing Enigma
@Dan it hides the tweet from people not following @friendfeed.
- Mike English
in front.
- lemuel
The problem is, for every character of 'context' you put it, you lose a character of 'content'. This is a fundamental drawback of Twitter for me so that's one of the reasons I use FriendFeed. Until Twitter gets their ducks in a row, why amend your output for their service. A series of 'tags' inside your comments would be more annoying here than more helpful there...
- Johnny
@Mike Thanks, never noticed that.
- Dan Hsiao
Something like Tina says would be ideal methinks. I don't think I would like the ff.im link at the front.
- Kol Tregaskes
@Paul out front probably fits better, but still doesn't really solve the noise problem. Mostly it's a problem when someone you follow on Twitter gets into a fast-paced discussion in comments here. You get flooded with tweets and you don't even know what they're about until you click through.
- Mike English
Just yesterday, I was telling a friend that there could be a «FF» at the beginning of the automatic post to Twitter. Oh, and if the posts could be evenly timed (instead of a bunch every hour or so), and come next to their comments, the experience would be better. But I rely a lot on the feature and I'll keep it, anyway.
- Jorge Martins Rosa
I get flooded with FF comment tweets from @stevegillmor a lot. Often tempts me to unfollow.
- Mike English
PS: And an option to include/exclude comments or keep them in the same post if postTitle + comment < 140 chars. Maybe this last one is asking too much...
- Jorge Martins Rosa
I'm going to turn on Feed Publishing to Twitter as an experiment. We'll see if it's too much noise for my (small number of) followers.
- Mike English
subscribing to you on twitter to experience it first hand for a little while.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
YEP!!! so true!
- Susan Beebe
Constructive Capitalism - Umair Haque - Daytona Sessions vol. 2 - http://www.daytona.se/session...
Brian Frank liked this
"To our international visitors: Umair Haque is Director of the Havas Media Lab, a new kind of strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs, and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management, business model, and strategic innovation. Umair also blogs at Harvard Business Publishing. Daytona Sessions is a recurring conference about the future of business and Internet held in Stockholm, Sweden. It is hosted by the interactive agency Daytona that works for clients such as Nokia, Handelsbanken and Skanska. The other talks at Daytona Sessions are in Swedish — sorry. :)"
- ~C4Chaos
from Bookmarklet
This is what the new Friendfeed feels like! - http://www.tvland.com/photoga...
Matthew, Adam Cohen, Mark Krynsky and 71 other people liked this
ha ha
- MG Siegler
That is hilarious!!!
- Al Stevens
Only without the great chocolate taste!
- Al Stevens
exactly - no time to take something of the convey belt!
- Nick Halstead
I'm not a fan of automatically being on real time. talk about firehose
- Yolanda
Steve its a river with dams - just use them (searches, filters, lists, etc). Might as well as them to slow down the stock market. Welcome to the realtime web!
- timepilot
Classic - literally and figuratively. Nice...
- Christian
I can see the pies falling off the end.
- Khürt Williams
ROFL!
- Mathew™ aka Youngblood
If that's true, we're in luck, because chocolate is great, and that episode is a classic!
- Louis Gray
Brilliant analogy.
- Sean McBride
I am, in fact, currently stuffing Comments in my shirt.
- Ken Sheppardson
hahaah totally!! good one Steve!!
- Susan Beebe
I've had a long-term policy towards web pages that move in any way -- I avoid them like the plague. I am a text-oriented person, and I like my text to sit still, so that I can quietly contemplate it.
- Sean McBride
I agree. The new Friendfeed does not help me get information, it crushes me under the relentless pace of items that cannot be read. The old interface at least pretends to be friendly enough that I can read interesting items without rushing to catch them before they vanish.
- Shamir Katsu
Ah, how sweet and refreshing is the refresh button. Such a simple and brilliant component of any intelligent and well-designed UI.
- Sean McBride
Frum on Maddow-10_13_08 - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Nick Martin, Alejandro, Mattie Kenny and 8 other people liked this
This is a fascinating discussion- about the lack of issues in both parties & the media- and McCain rallies and the horrible threats being yelled, etc.
- anna sauce
1) Insofar as political pundits on TV go, Maddow is best of breed. So nice to see a talking-head on either side of the spectrum actually converse, instead of rant and rhetorically grandstand. 2) It's a pity Frum couldn't own up to the lack of equivalence between the right's attacks on Obama and the left's attacks on McCain, because, otherwise, he has a very valid point and he, otherwise, presented the point quite reasonably.
- Chester
A master of doublespeak does what he is good at. As to your point Chester, doublespeak would not work if it was not wound thoroughly into & about valid points and fundamental truths. Frum uses this tactic while also using a language that the Republicans have developed over the years that frames issues and lead to conclusions by people that otherwise might not even accept the starting premise if it was explicit rather than being buried by the framing technique. On such things are successful ideologies built.
- David HC Soul
I kinda have a girlcrush on Rachel. Seriously, same age, she's smart, good career. Why can't I BEEEE her... OK over that. had to get it out.
- anna sauce
my parents recommended her the other night, now I record it too
- anna sauce
@David: I don't see Frum's line of argumentation as being doublespeak, necessarily. He's right that left-side pundits -- even moderate ones -- engage in political commentary that is misleading or unproductive. But Maddow's show is a poor forum upon which to make the point, because she's least worst. Nonetheless, his general point is perfectly valid. @Anna: I'm not even a woman, and thus have no chance with her, yet I harbor a doomed crush on her.
- Chester
@Chester if only I was gay. She has a wife so pffftttttttt
- anna sauce
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