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Twitter
Steve Rubel posted a message on Twitter
Twitter
Robert Scoble posted a message on Twitter
Twitter
Robert Scoble posted a message on Twitter
Blog
mathew ingram posted an entry on mathewingram.com/work
Yammer: This thing is a prize winner?
September 11 at 8:08 am - Link
I was totally shocked. Lots of other things were more deserving - Robert Scoble
18 more comments
This blew me away, I figured swype had it for sure. It was interesting, but in the end it was a threaded twitter clone. I was mainly rooting for swype and adgregate markets. I think they were the most revolutionary. - pcnerd37
I really liked Swype and GoodGuide. I thought GoodGuide would take it. - David Ward
It sure wasn't predicted :) http://broadstuff.com/archives... - Broadstuff via Alert Thingy
commenters are unhappy about it too. Some say that the company behind Yammer is a TechCrunch sponsor? - James Kendrick
I don't know if they were a TechCrunch sponsor or not, but wouldn't be suprised to hear they paid off the judges somehow. I would not have even had them in a top 5 list. - pcnerd37
This surprised me also. - Jay Tannenbaum
Twitter themselves could've done it. Just add special groups for domains. - Morton Fox
It reminds of an episode of Project Runway. What was the challenge? If the challenge was to create something avant-guard, which the show defines as something nobody has seen before, then a garment that looks like it came off the rack at Macys will not do. Or is the challenge to create something that will feel comfortable in a mall department store? Then a puffy glittery thing won't do. It seems this contest was of the department store variety but the early adopters want it to be avant-guard. - todd
I summarized my thoughts in my first of many posts about the companies at the TechCrunch50 on my Global Geek News Blog: http://globalgeeknews.com/blog... I will say that all things considered, it was an amazing conference and I continue to thank Jason for inviting me. - pcnerd37
was surprised Swype didn't take it, lame whatevs - adolfo foronda
It seems that it is "Twitter, but works better" or "Twitter, with a different twist"... Unfortunate pick for winner. - Trae Ruge
This was a HORRIBLE pick to win this conference. How is this considered original? There are tons of other companies creating enterprise Twitter-like apps and there is only so much differentiation you can have between apps that do the exact same thing. Personally I thought Swype should have won. It's basically T9 2.0 and if v 1.0 is already shipping on like 3bil handsets how successful could this be since it is designed for multiple devices, not just cell phones. - Devlin Dunsmore via twhirl
You know, this has been around for years. At my last job, we just had our own IRC channel. Plain, simple, and free. - Wizetux
IM is also pretty widely used by developers. - todd
Yes, and multi-user chats on Skype can do the job as well :) - Svetlana Gladkova
The kind of feedback I am hearing here and offline, makes me think Yammer is going to be successful. When someone says "but this is so similar...", "we already have...." about some service, it usually means they are getting a better advanced version of something they already like/use !! - Sumit Chachra
What is/was the selection process? - Brian Sullivan
definitely frustrating... - luca Filigheddu
First thing i've said was: "a clone just won". - Nir Ben Yona
it's definitely not... one of the reasons why TC50 this year, according to my sources, sucked. Want a serious conference? Come to Mobilize, it rocks guys - luca Filigheddu
Twitter
Hutch Carpenter posted a message on Twitter
FriendFeed
◄ Chris Nixon ► posted a message
“As an outsider, it looks to me like politics and religion are inextricably linked in the US. Is this actually the case for the people that live and work there?”
September 4 at 5:34 am - Link
+1 (I have the same question) - Yuvi
63 more comments
For many people who go to Evangelical Churches, yes. (I went to one for more than a decade). They see it as their duty to get involved in politics to protect their world view. Particularly on things like abortion (which they view as murder equivilent with killing an adult). For those of us who aren't in churches, or who are in more non-political churches, no, it doesn't get linked. For me this is a frightening trend since many of our families moved here to get away from countries that have a strong political/religious tie (my wife was moved here from Iran for exactly that reason by her family). - Robert Scoble
great question. - Michael J. Cohen (mjc)
Yes, very much so. Unfortunately living in this country that is supposed to embrace all religions, religion is a very big part of our government, which, by the Constitution should be separated. It's stupid really.... - Paula Hawk
You can tell that the politicians aren't willing to piss off religious folks because they always end their speeches with "God Bless America." The religious voting blocks are very important. Did you miss that CNN and both of the Presidential Candidates visited Saddleback Church for a little "conversation?" And Saddleback is a pretty laid back church with a very nice and intelligent pastor (I interviewed him earlier this year) compared with a church like the one I used to attend. - Robert Scoble
Look at the Palin videos from when she spoke at her church and you'll see the kind of ties that she sees between religion and politics. She calls things "God's will" like getting a pipeline or going to war. That kind of language was exactly what I heard in church every Sunday. - Robert Scoble
After he left office Tony Blair started to talk much more about his faith, and admitted that he hadn't done so while in office because he was worried that UK voters would think he was a whack-job. I always find this an interesting contrast to US politics. - Graeme Shaw
No, they're not inextricably linked. In fact, that was the whole point of "the American experiment". - Craig Eddy
Yes and it sux. - orionstarr
Craig: really? Why does our money say "in God we trust?" Seems like religion plays a HUGE role in our politics. - Robert Scoble
That's my observation too, though I think it's similar all over the world - Mo 'Killer Sauce' Kargas
Haha! Goes to show you that there are many varying opinions on this! :) - Paula Hawk
Ahhh, OK, working without coffee, need to clarify my first comment - Christianity plays a huge part in our government - not all religion. :( - Paula Hawk
And if religion was not intertwined with politics, there would not be so many passionate debates about gay marriage and abortion. - Trish R
whoever says they're not linked is in denial. religion and politics are practically one in the same for a large population of the american public. let's be honest, folks - Cee Bee
Not at all. The reality is that religion plays a large part int he decisions of... the religious but is not deeply ingrained in our structures. Obviously religious folks will use those believes to make decisions like who to vote for or what to support - but every human makes decisions according to their belief systems. Its impact comes from these personal choices not from institutional power though obviously in a democracy all those individual choices do matter. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
There's a long history of intermingling religion and politics in America that dates to before the revolution. It's part of our national heritage. Read Bernard Bailyn's 'The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution' for a very good treatment of the subject. http://tinyurl.com/5f229t - Peter Simard
@Graeme It's very true, in the UK, politicians wouldn't touch religion with a barge pole. It does seem very different in the US, but that's just a feeling I get from the media. - ◄ Chris Nixon ►
I just find it interesting that our ancestors came here for religious freedom, yet religion plays such a key role in everything here. - Trish R
Soulhuntre - I won't deny that, but we are talking about politics here - all the politicians speak of God in some way, God's will, God bless America, etc - Remember all the hoopla because people thought Obama was Muslim? A non-Christian would never get voted into the Presidency in this day.... Perhaps one day but not today. - Paula Hawk
@Robert Scoble - even at its most extreme modern American churches have NOTHING like the power that those in many other places do - especially the middle east. While there IS concern here (I am an atheist myself) lets not confuse even the extremism of someone like Rev. Wright with hardcore Muslim honor stonings - for example. - Soulhuntre
Coming from the UK where they are less obviously linked (virtually separate) one of the things that struck me most about the US is how much they are interwined, especially from a Christian standpoint. People here view the US as one nation under (Christian) God, except that religious tolerance is probably less than any other country I have visited. A lot of my friends are nervous of Obama precisely because he is Muslim not a Christian, for me, faith is irrelevant - people are people wherever you go. - Sally Church
I agree with you, Trish R - that is why I called it stupid :) - Paula Hawk
Soulhuntre: true, we're far better off here than in Iran, for instance, but that doesn't mean we don't need to be vigilant. We've all seen what happens to societies that aren't vigilant against this kind of stuff. - Robert Scoble
Our money says In God we Trust, but we also have this separation of church and state in our roots, there to create an environment which is welcoming to all religions. Concern of many with the evangelical Christians is they believe the first part God we Trust trumps separation ... I don't - Lorraine Ball
@Paula Hawk - you might be right and while that is a bummer for me (again, I'm an atheist) the reality is that in a democracy the strong believes of a large group of citizens will have an impact. That is kind of the point of a democracy. The beauty is that in the US the constitution is a strong moderating influence. - Soulhuntre
Sally Church - He isn't Muslim - go to http://www.snopes.com/politics... and send the link to your friends. - Paula Hawk
Sally: Obama is a Christian and attended a Christian church. You do realize that, don't you? - Robert Scoble
@Trish R - don't forget they came her to be free to practice a religion - not to be free from religion. As an atheist I face no day to day persecution because I don't support a church. I am pretty much free to live as I want - and so are they. Religious freedom also includes the freedom to practice one. - Soulhuntre
So assuming they are linked...why are they linked? Is it because religious leaders want political power too, or is it because political leaders want religious funding and votes? Or both? Or something else? - ◄ Chris Nixon ►
In some elections more than others. 1976 was of course the huge year, but 1980 was big too. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Lorraine: it is true we have separation of church and state in our governing structures, which is good and is a huge part of why it's great to live here instead of, say, Iran where they are intermixed. But religion controls our public debate. Instead of discussing science, technology, innovation, and education we talk about whether a candidate is for or against abortion way too often. That hurts us as a nation overall in a big way. - Robert Scoble
@Robert Scoble - absolutely. Vigilance is called for and for the most part well entrenched, as an example legal challenges to most church / state violations often come swiftly and almost always work out the right way. I keep one wary eye on it all the time - but in general we do well here. - Soulhuntre
Chris: it's intermixed because of all those factors. Funding is a HUGE part of it (that's why politicians visited our local church, which was a pretty rich one in San Jose). It's also part of our culture. Many of us, when we get together with friends and family, would rather talk about stuff that interests us than more important "heady" issues like how to get a better educational system. Journalists even cover those issues a lot more because they know it leads to more traffic/sales of media. - Robert Scoble
@Chris Nixon - it is because many, many voters are deeply religious. Since they do vote - they get to have a large impact. That is democracy for you... voters having an impact. - Soulhuntre
@Robert Scoble - I think these questions head of large political debates because as a nation we don't expect science to be the governments thing... we almost always get much better innovation, science and advancement from our private sector. Thus issues of constitutional law and defense and taxes will always dominate the presidential debates because for the most part those are the things we depend on the fed for. - Soulhuntre
When I lived in the US I got the impression religion was used as a way of suporting / driving political agendas rather than from any religious sentiment per se. Rendering unto caesar (and mammon) what is God's as it were. - Broadstuff via Alert Thingy
In America, religion and politics are strongly linked, but not inextricably. The strength of religious political organizations waxes and wanes inversely with uncertainty. While some hold to religion for it's uplifting of the sanctity of life, others are driven away from it by stubborn positions on Creationism. Time and education may do for religion in America what it did for geocentrism everywhere. Ptolemy's view of the Earth as the center of the universe was pretty and easy to believe - it was just wrong. - Phil Yanov
FREEDOM of religion as what is important.. you can believe what you want as long as it doesn't affect me, and i can believe whatever i want as long as it doesn't hinder your religious freedom... religion = man's bastardization of faith - paisley via twhirl
"Protect my family and me. Forgive my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will." -- @Robert - any guesses who said this? Any different than Palin's videos? If any, I'd say a bit stronger language and meaning, especially the part about "instrument of your will". - Ron Emrick
@Paisley Love the bastardization of faith line! - ◄ Chris Nixon ►
Paula, Robert: Yes I did, but get exasperated trying to explain that one to friends here and send them links to no avail. I don't know where they got the idea from, unless they made a bigoted judgment about the name. Should have put ' ' round Muslim for clarity. - Sally Church
When I started this conversation I thought that some evangelist leaders involved themselves in politics to show their political strength, after this chat I leaning more towards 'politicians will say what it takes to get elected'. - ◄ Chris Nixon ►
Well, yes and no - the religious constituency has a stranglehold on American politicians because they actually go out and vote en masse. Unfortunately, many others don't. We are all driven to look for someone with the same belief system that we have; however with a country as vast asa ours, esp. with the large rural and suburban populations that are disproportionately religious, that belief system tends toward the religion for many. It's too large a constituency to ignore. I wish it were otherwise - Your belief system can be in line with an agnostic or an atheist if you look at the real issues. But for some, belief in god trumps all else. - Lorita (Ba) Vannah via twhirl
It's interesting that in the UK there is no official separation of church and state - the Queen is the head of state, and also the head of the Church of England, until July this year Christianity was the only religion that had a legal protection from blasphemy - but in practice religion plays almost no role in the politics and governance of the UK. In contrast, church and state in the US are officially separate, but in practice religious issues seem to dominate political debate. - Graeme Shaw
I should also point out that a christian minister in the UK is rarely going to touch on party politics. This will only piss off half the congregation. They tend to partake in non-partisan 'issue politics' but nothing more. - ◄ Chris Nixon ►
@Chris Nixon - if a politician in a democracy wants to get votes he needs to convince those holding the votes he will act in their interests. That is the same world over. - Soulhuntre
That may have sounded arrogant...it wasn't meant to. Just highlighting a difference as I see it. - ◄ Chris Nixon ►
It didn't at all. The thing is, it IS the same. Whether a politician is promoting his religeous views or promising to cut the work week to 4 days he is doign the same thing - trying to show voters that they can count on him on the issues they care about. This is no different in Europe. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
@Chris We have a large amount of religious extremists in the us (something like 30% iirc). If you don't pretend to believe in god you can't get elected to higher office in many cases due to the very even split between our right and left wings. this being said, most politicians just pander to religion without actually working to support their causes. - Sam Levine
+2 (the same question here) - Ronald
Well, sadly they are connected, though I don't think they should be. Too many believe this is a Christian government. It is not. Yes, a large % of the populace is Christian and there are *some* balances. Yet, I fear that the future could be in proselytizing and conversion to enact change instead of campaigning on the issues. - AJ Kohn
graeme: Don't forget that the Church of England has a contingent of bishops in the House of Lords (the UK equivalent of the Senate, sort of). - Roberto "Maverick" Bonini
I think religion (both personal faith and the organized group activities that support that faith) *does* and *should* play a role in politics. One's worldview and values should influence how one votes and how one seeks to shape the society we live in. This doesn't preclude a belief in religious freedom and the right to choose. In fact, Christianity has a strong belief in personal free-will -- God gave you the freedom to make your own decisions! - Elliott Ng
Obama is the first Democratic candidate in recent history to be truly proud of his faith and to speak of it in a way that connects with people of faith. This could be a turning point for the Dems to reengage in how faith leads to the policy positions that Dems have -- anti-poverty, social justice, engagement with the World, etc. - Elliott Ng
God is an American. That is why we are winning the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war in Iraq, and why we have national healthcare, a strong dollar, a balanced budget, and neutral balance of trade, no death penalty, and so few citizens in the prison-industrial complex... - Indio Apache via twhirl
there's constant interplay between religion and politics. they're linked because of how we view the nature of our laws. the constitution is said to embody a law that transcends the people elected to lead the government. this notion of transcendent law is itself a sort of religious view of where the law comes from - that there are rights and obligations that arise apart from the government and society. this creates a sort of civic religion that is often expressed - for better or worse - in sectarian terms. - Derek Karchner
unfortunately that is the case... voting based on one's religious beliefs is one thing but many appear to want religion to play a part in state policy, something that is prohibited under the Constitution... for some reason, people just can't accept that - Shawn Duffy via twhirl
The big story: .Judeo-Christian fascism in contemporary American politics [topics] Abrahamic cults, AIPAC, Chabad-Lubavitch, Christian Armageddonism, Christian Zionism, Clash of Civilizations, CUFI (Christians United for Israel), George W. Bush, Global War on Terror, Jerusalem, John Hagee, Joseph Lieberman, Judeo-Christian fascism, neoconservatism, Noachide Laws, Old Testament cultism, religious Zionism, Third Temple, World War IV, Zionism - Sean McBride
Bush + his Brainwashed Flock are thee Scariest Clowns on the Planet! I can't believe how Idiotic Religious Taliban-like Fundamentalism has Gripped America!! Completely Insane* Separation of Church + State is a Faded Memory* + Jerry Falwell Control the Supreme Court + take away People's Right to Choice! U Don't base Laws on Phony Religious Beliefs - Keep dat Crap in da Closet* It's 2008 People Wake Up! READ Richard Dawkins God Delusion + Hitchens god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything!! Peace* - Billy Warhol
God is an American. That is why we are winning the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war in Iraq, and why we have national healthcare, a strong dollar, a balanced budget, and neutral balance of trade, no death penalty, and so few citizens in the prison-industrial complex... - Indio Apache via twhirl
God is an American. That is why we are winning the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war in Iraq, and why we have national healthcare, a strong dollar, a balanced budget, and neutral balance of trade, no death penalty, and so few citizens in the prison-industrial complex... - Indio Apache via twhirl
Or as the Australians say "Bloody glad we got the convicts and they got the Puritans"... - Indio Apache via twhirl
@Sam Levine - So you're saying that 30% of the people in the US will murder or commit acts of violence against those who don't believe because it is sanctioned by god? Or are you referring to born-again Christians and evangelists who see God as the most important part of their life and dedicate themselves to educating others about that? - Chris Mayer
To me they are very separate. Only in the 50's did religion become more closely tied in with politics here. McCarthyism got "In God We Trust" in as the country motto in direct response to fear about Communism. Separation of Church and State is a common debate in legal circles and a common rally point with evangelicals. Most like the separation. Extremists do not. - Jim Goldstein
every country has a tie-in between religion and politics , and the common denominator is belief in something unreal as real. - Gregory Lent
Blog
michael arrington posted an entry on TechCrunch
So Is Chrome The Fastest Or What?
September 4 at 2:34 am - Link
Chrome is apparently faster on the tests, can't say that it made an appreciable difference as a user when I ran it vs FF and IE - Broadstuff via Alert Thingy
9 more comments
Chrome is way faster than IE on sites like Google Reader. It's also faster to startup and close in my tests. - Robert Scoble
I may be mistaken but after a few hours of idle running in the background it seemed slower than Firefox even - Svetlana Gladkova
It is faster, but your system runs slower because Chrome uses more CPU than any other browser. - Aram Zucker-Scharff via twhirl
Has anyone here used XULRunner/Prism? I use it all the time - whooosh! - Slippy Lane
I've been trying it on some of our Intranet web applications this morning and it is noticeably faster compared to IE. - Richard Peat
@slippy: yes I do. I use WebRunner, Prism prototype - LouCypher
I was very impressed with Chrome. I wish it had more support out of the box for add-ins, sidebars, etc. like FF/Flock does. Maybe I missed those, maybe they're coming soon. I did not like the "application links" feature: it opens the page in a browser window all by itself and doesn't (seem to) allow you to open a new tab. - Craig Eddy
I'm with you Mike, regardless of what the tests say, google chrome flies. By far the fastest browser I've ever used. - Geoffrey Hamilton via twhirl
I happen to love all the Chrome coverage. If there was some other huge internet event this week people think they're missing out on, maybe they out to specify. And hey, I'm pretty sure -reading- it all is voluntary. - Jaemi Kehoe
its faster when there is lots of Ajax. Using it for all my Google Apps - Rehan yar Khan
netvibe ginger feels a little faster on chrome than IE - Keren Dagan via twhirl
Disqus
Louis Gray commented on a blog post on Disqus
Re: louisgray.com: There is No Social Media Overload
August 25 at 1:15 am - Link
"For me, there's a sense of ownership, especially if I find a site early or "first", kind of like a parent will support their kids even if they are awkward. Because I was early to Social Median and Strands (and very visible on FriendFeed though not the first), I've got a stake in getting them to work and for others to understand why I find value. I feel guilty when I like a site and nobody else does (AssetBar, BlogRize, Mergelab for example). But there will always be examples of that. I'm most happy that sites like Toluu, ReadBurner and Feedly are well-known now, considering they started here. They're not as well known as the big name brands, but they're growing, and they're doing so because they deliver something of value, which has me coming back time and again." - Louis Gray
Riffed on this one over here - How do I love thee - let me count the ways http://broadstuff.com/archives... - Broadstuff
FriendFeed
Rick Powell posted a link
The Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke -- Printout -- TIME
August 6 at 1:16 am - via Bookmarklet - Link
"The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" — reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements — is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wingers who deny the existence of global warming and insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or of left-wing Earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply." - Rick Powell via Bookmarklet
@ Rick Powell - right, and he worked that out 30 years ago iirc ;-) - Broadstuff
Twitter
simon wardley posted a message on Twitter
FriendFeed
Paul Buchheit posted a message
“It seems that there is a cognitive limit to the number of social relationships a person can maintain. Twitter created an interesting product in part by limiting updates to 140 chars. What if they also limited them to 140 friends? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...”
July 25 at 3:42 am - Link
social MEDIA relationships have no limit :) - Luigi Centenaro
49 more comments
Nice idea. Though when you hit the limit, you would end up having to chose who to kick from your list. Unless that kicking were automated. Which brings us back to the original problem that defining such relationships in the first place often adds more worry than an auto-triggered-by-your-everyday-actions kind of approach (which does have its own world of problems, admittedly...). - Philipp Lenssen
Did they meet Scoble? - Steve Rubel
Tag+Rate>set strike out limit/Filter/reduce/visible tags+but hopefully soon lists fold/collapse>file view../ Tag/Rinse repeat. This will come in handy also for Stephen Colbert when he joins his Thetruthiness room;-D, and I bet for you too Paul/FF Co, for the wood for the trees it may need a nice hot air balloon/or summat like a hand held mini helicopter which runs on its own propulsion! filter etc, Anyways a bit of Friendfood for the road, speaking of which its tummytime!:-P - Jason Brooks
The number of relationships one can maintain is clearly limited but the number of information sources one can process is far greater. I suspect most of the Twitter/FF/other social media friends are much more like RSS feeds than relationships. - timepilot
I seem to remember reading some research that theorised that the maximum size community/relationship we can maintain is limited at around 200 people. I'm trying to find where I read it now... *edit*: hah-nevermind, clicking on your link showed me exactly the research i was citing. - David Adam
Social media apps need multiple friend "TYPES", i.e. family, real-life friends, colleagues, online friends / acquaintances, and business contacts. This way you could have multiple groups of friends. I can dream... oh, wait Facebook already has this - they have groups with permission controls - and yes I really use that set of features!! I love that! - Susan Beebe
Dunbar's number is usually taken to be the maximal size of a cohesive group, not the maximal number of relationships one person can maintain. Some sources (including the Wikipedia article) confuse the two. It's an interesting question how the social sites would change with a friend limit. A room size limit on FriendFeed would also be an interesting experiment. - Michael Nielsen
Limiting Twitter friend count to 140 would drive slackers to other micro-blogging platforms. ;-) No really, we have (an growing number of) tools to filter relevant content from much greater number of users. - Nenad Nikolic via twhirl
Let us also not lose sight of the fact that, all other things being equal, the human organism is an engine of adaptation. I don't have a background in neurobiology or in developmental psychology, to say nothing of anthropology, but it's hardly dizzying leap to imagine that the emergence and subsequent evolution of the human mind was (and is) an exercise in testing and overreaching boundaries...[to be continued] - Derrick Burns
[continued]...which is to say: humbug. The internet with its shiny social media toys is nothing more or less than a novel environment, with its attendant resource distributions, evolutionary pressures, and selection mechanisms. What I think we'll find is that those pressures and mechanisms will affect us not only intellectually, but, over time, physiologically as well. Have 140 friends, or 1400. Whether for the better there's no way to say, but we will adapt. It's what we're best at. - Derrick Burns
150 relationships to maintain, sure: but isn't the old mantra of if you aren't building your network, you're doing it wrong also true? You may only really interact on a regular basis with 150 people, but if you only choose to subscribe to or friend 150 people, you'll never find out about new people or new ideas. Maybe subscriber 151 and higher are people trying out for slots 1 through 150: oh dear, did MySpace have it right with their top friends list? - Mark Trapp
I wonder how much that limit may be changing, though. It seems like we interact with more and more people all the time. - Christopher Granade
If you assume that the sole purpose of Twitter ought to be to the maintenance of social relationships then this might make sense. If on the other hand you look at Twitter as partially being about maintaining social relationships but also partially about getting fast breaking news early, meeting new friends, forming new social relationships, being informed about interesting subjects by fringe connections, broadcasting your own social media, etc. then the 140 limit becomes a significant barrier to use. - Thomas Hawk
depends on the degree of reciprocity. I can be a follower to many (with the right tools), maintain a sense of their identities (sometimes aided by good UI), and have only rare interactions with them that, while ephemeral, can be rich, useful, and/or meaningful. I think the new forms of asymmetric friending/following and the tools for interfacing among these folks change the rules. What is a "social relationship" in 2008? What is the cognitive overhead to "maintain" it? - tonx
LiveJournal did this for a while. People just got multiple journals and X-posted between them. An online friend isn't always the same thing as a real friend. - Jonathan Tang
What is better needed is an actual way to filter the significance of a large pool of social relationships from strangers to closest friend. The answer here is relatively simple and straightforward. Allow users to use a 10 point rating system for every contact with 5 being a default. By incorporating this rating data into future systems of rank, relevancy and eventually search it would be more powerful than anything that exists in social media today. - Thomas Hawk
There was an argument a while back that Free Twitter should be limited to say 150 followed, more should be paid for as that is increasingly the realm of pro-sumerdom. That would also allow us to discover the marginal value of online friendship. - Broadstuff
I don't think we have much in common with the villages, tribes, and other organizations that Dunbar was studying. All of the groups he studied had a common interest in cohesion as a unit as a means for survival. I'm not convinced that many of us view our social network interactions as "necessary" (at least, I don't see it that way). - Jason Wehmhoener
Dunbar's number is the reason I prefer to work for companies with fewer than 150 people. - Ginger Makela
If you can and want to keep up with 150 people then you will. Some of them will fade in and out of your social circle, effectively giving you many times that number if needed, but only around 150 at a time. (In your head that is.) - xero
The Dunbar number was arrived at by studying primates picking fleas off each other, not tribal humans ;) - Broadstuff
=Derrick, =timepilot. Also, note that even though we know about Dunbar's number, no one imposes an actual limit of 140 real-life friends. - j1m
I'm not sure that the people I have on my FriendFeed are what I would term "friends" or even "associates." They are contacts whose opinions I value, but if I don't hear from them in a while, it's not like I go out of my way to get back in touch. Same with some twitter folks...?? - Justin Long
agree with susan beebe. need to be able to group and prioritize friends. tweetdeck is starting to get at this - rob zand
The issue largely is that fringe contacts and even strangers produce valuable information even if infrequently. But by subscribing to large numbers in order to best get the chance of getting this information you also have to manage noise. Hide helps here. But fundamentally there are top contacts that are more important to you than strangers. By allowing users to rate these contacts as 10s and strangers as 1s you get the best of both under a new category of daily information based on personal relevancy. - Thomas Hawk
As Seth Godin always says it's not how many but who that's important - Jeremy Campbell via twhirl
We deliberately made the UI limiting within 30Boxes so that you would only try to keep up with 2-10 people (ostensibly those that matter most and impact your scheduling and decision making)... - Narendra
Thomas, I agree with your thinking completely. But in theory I can stay under the Dunbar's number here on FriendFeed (I am currently, and I hope to keep it that way) and still get the best of all worlds and the most valuable info so long as a few of the people I am subscribing to uber aggregate like you and Scoble. - Robert Seidman
Robert, even subscribing to the uber aggregaters though you miss a lot. Do a search for a term that you're interested in more broadly on FF and you'll find people you aren't subscribed to that are sharing interesting content that the uber aggregaters might miss. A system that allowed you to rate your higher priority contacts while still including the occasional quality content producer could produce the pinnacle of personal relevancy. - Thomas Hawk
Why does everyone try to define social software by just "friends?" That really sucks. People online are NOT my "friends." They are people I want in my social network. I have more than 8,000 business cards. Are you going to tell me that I haven't met 8,000 people and that I don't need to find a way to keep 8,000 in my rolodex? I would NEVER use such a software. Facebook limits me to 5,000 which makes it far less useful for business purposes than if it didn't have those limits. That said, I'm sure... - Robert Scoble
...that there is a market for such a limiting service. It might even be very popular. But then lots of stupid things are popular on the Internet. - Robert Scoble
140 chars limit instead of duct tape on Scoble's mouth ;) - silpol
This assumes a lot. Like that Twitter can count. - XDpaul
Paul this limit was invented by the famous 150 number in a time when society worked completly different. This is like saying "because a hundred years ago a person would read 10 books in their lifetime and could not grasp more, how about we limit it to the same number today?". People just need to learn what works for them, how _they_ are comfortable using these systems and then apply it. - Nicole Simon
Thomas,Even at 140 people I had to utilize a lot of the hide always functionality to make things manageable, and that was with a lot of time to screw around with it. Using "search everyone" to follow topics of interests works very well for me as is, and they could retool the "Best Of" some to surface the best stuff across wider areas. There are perhaps a lot of ways to achieve being the pinnacle of personal relevancy but none of them are easy :-) Still, I'd love to see it achieved. - Robert Seidman
Twitter's 140-character limit wasn't arbitrary, it worked well with SMS making it useful on the go. Is there some specific thing that having only 10 friends would help you with? - ⓞnor
Here's the problem with "best of" today. Everyone's "best of" ought to be influenced by personal relationships. If my wife posts something with 3 comments and 3 likes this is more personally relevant to me than a thread about what music people are listening to with 30 comments and 30 likes. By weighting my higher value contacts you ensure that my wife's post is seen in my personal "best of" daily stream even if it pushes out the overall higher ranked thread on music. - Thomas Hawk
perhaps a better system would be 10 friends and 100 people you know then unlimited follow relationships. You could even automate the promotion of people from follow to know. Then weight the best of pages with this info. - John Cooper via fftogo
Dunbar's 150 limit theory is a group theory, not and individual theory. A group is pretty united at that number, but if it passes the 150 limit "people start becoming strangers to each other". But an individual can handle way more interactions. I mean, it all depends on how you view "friendship". If you believe that intimacy is a must to consider people friends, than your # will be low. - Jay Cruz
I think that would be an interesting experiment. And I'm sure it would have avoided some of the scale issues they hit. - Dave Hussein Winer
Jason realized that his limit was 750 .. (but why email?) - Vishwajith
aren't all relationships social? - Jeremy Toeman
It is surprising that there's not more implementation of XFN across social web apps; as imperfect as it is, it certainly adds much-needed value to the "friend" paradigm. - mabisa
Implementation of XFN or FOAF? "That's the wonderful thing about standards-- there's so many to choose from!" Of course, with so many services implementing APIs nowadays, it's not unreasonable that someone could use Google AppEngine or similar to create XFN from pre-existing services. Such tools may spur more services to start directly implementing XFN. - Christopher Granade
that's a really cool idea...maybe I'll stop at 140 on identica and see what happens! - Sarah Perez