Is considering installing a heavy bag out on her porch. That might be my Xmas gift to self - the opportunity to punch something whenever I need to, in a healthy, legal manner.
As mentioned earlier today, Twitter seems to have capped your ability to follow at 2,000 people, which just so happens to be exactly where I am. The goal, in theory, is to stop marketing-oriented spammers, but it could be another way to reduce stress on the system. So what should I do now, delete "less favored" people, or wait for Twitter to figure this out?
- Louis Gray
from email
Maybe it's the legacy talking, but I'm really not bothered by this. :P
- l0ckergn0me
I can see why they do it, but it does suck for the people who do it legitimately and are not using stupid mass follow scripts.
- David Risley
I'm not super-concerned either, but it does answer why all of a sudden, I started getting these errors last week. It could be part of their "Making Progress On Spam" initiative via the blog, but it hasn't been spelled out all that clearly.
- Louis Gray
let blame this one on Scobles... :)-
- Peter Dawson
Louis, I think cap is more of the architecture the system. Making it into a more robust platform. Now watermarks have been set, it becomes easier to build consistency of experience and application behavior. <Edit > wait for Twitter to figure it out.. Marketing spammers are targeting the 'stupid' one that have the auto follow !!
- Peter Dawson
gotta like it, if I'm the one you are trying to follow!
- Ben Hedrington
I don't think there should be limits like this, but I guess everything can't be infinite
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I honestly am indifferent about it; Twitter is going to hell and i tried my best to convert it; oh well, Hell has cookies
- Gordon Swaby
I"m only following 49... with 106 followers..
- Ian May
so what do you think, Louis, is benhedrington worth going to the mat for?
- Nathan Rein
I'm sure I can find someone to unfollow in exchange for Ben.
- Louis Gray
Twitter needs to build in groups functionality a la tweetdeck for following 2K+ to even be practical.
- Nicholas Molnar
Louis: You need to convince the new people to head over here :)
- Justin Korn
I'm just curious what the rationale is for following that many people.
- Paul Rodriguez
Well, maybe that's why Louis always seems to know what's going on before anybody else.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I've noticed that most of the time I get followed by somebody with a big number, it tends to be marketing play. It triggers the email to you and then you go look and click on their bio link which takes you to the pitch. Very irritating. I always block em.
- Mark Schulz
@Paul Rodriguez, I was wondering that too. I wouldn't have even guessed there are 2000 interesting people in the world </cynicism>, but what fascinate me is that i'm following like 83 people and only about 14 of them tweet regularly. I can assume most of those 2000 do not tweet regularly. Add in the fact that I'm a WAHM to two toddlers, and do other stuff, there'd be a lot of stuff I'd miss.
- Admiral Anika
New profit center? Sorry, but now you'll have to join Twitter Pro ....
- Charlie Anzman
Very interesting. System limits is going to be a topic that we all work through in this early phase of the Social Web. It seems to me that it's reasonable to cap the number one follows to 1,000 or 2,000. On the flipside, one would clearly like to enable a very high number of followers. With respect to bi-directional connections, the real number should max at 1,000 to 2,000...
- John McCrea
This is awesome! Incidentally, Scoble (@Scobleizer) is still following over 30K.
- Vincent van Wylick
So where is the point following 30k people? You might as well hit the main timeline. The only thing that is bad about this limit is that it was not there from the beginning.
- Alexander Kohlhofer
so what's going to happen to those who follow over 2000?
- Wayne Sutton
you follow two. thousand. people.??? never mind twitter; there may be a law against that.
- jeneane sessum
I like the new limit. I cannot see how anyone would be able to legitimately follow (and pay attention to) more than 2,000 people. Frankly, even that limit seems higher than it needs to be. If it helps keep Twitter a little more stable, go for it.
- Dennis Metzcher
Couple thoughts: the limit impacts the ability to use the service as a direct message router -- for some people. It also reinforces the need for dectralized microblogging -- so if you want exceed the limits you can do so on your own infrastructure. Lastly, nothing prevents you from following everyone or a subset of people through RSS/feeds.
- Chris Messina
Are we sure that Twitter has set a 2,000 limit are or we cranking up the rumor mill? I've seen image before with respect to my own account - an account which just reached 1,000 followers today. According the Twitter rep who contacted me, I got - ahem - put in "Twitter Prison" for "Aggressive Following" My ratio of Followers to Following was kinda out of whack - at that time I had only ~800 people following me while I was following ~2,800 - They suspended my ability to follow more people. I removed 2K.
- Vincent Wright
I don't understand the motivation for following 2K people if you're not a spammer... someone explain?
- Jason Carreira
Jason: For a entrepreneur/VC/angel networker, it would be very easy to hit 2,000 contacts (assuming you used Twitter like a rolodex). From one networking meeting, I might pick up 0-100+ business cards (more at conferences), and during a heavy season I could be doing 7-10 meetings/week. As a angel, I might want to follow 5,000-10,000+ projects/people. Anyone might have a really good project 2-10+ years down the pipe... I've got cartons/boxes of 3-ring binders of business cards in plastic sheets.
- Mitchell Tsai
@Mitchell @Charlie - Rumors aside, do you think the cap is a gesture towards monetization? Going after the power networkers? Seems you would have good cause to pay for a Twitter Pro, or would it just not be worth it?
- joneilortiz
I use Twitter as both a professional development tool (following people who say useful and interesting things abt health / edtech / social media / libraries ...), a personal tool (friends and folk who are amusing), and a reference tool (following a lot of news streams and information resources). You can hit 2000 fast. A friend says that people are imagining new ways in which Twitter could be used, but Twitter seems bound and determined to force them back into some small box of how it "ought" to be.
- Patricia F. Anderson
I would happily follow more than 2000 people, heck I am almost there. And I don't need to see every message. With Tweetdeck it's manageable. I see some Friendfeed users here have thousands to tens of thousands of subscriptions, should we also say it's good to have a cap here? No, please no. I understand that perhaps it has to do with monetization or stressing the system less, these are alas viable reasons.
- Jacob
Brogan is right. Except I am getting recognized in weird places lately. A TSA agent at SFO recognized me, which freaked me out. I've been showing this stuff to a lot of people lately, too. Demonstrated FriendFeed to thousands of Cisco employees yesterday. And even my taxi cab driver in Boston had an iPhone and was playing around with it. So, watch out, the "real world" might soon be joining us on all this weird stuff we do.
- Robert Scoble
It's only a matter of time. I remember being shunned for using MSN, ICQ and all those IM programs, a few short years later, most non-techies were online and using these. With Facebook reaching wider and wider adoption there's bound to be an ever increasing uptake of services we use regularly.
- Mo Kargas
Things I'd like to learn (or learn much more about) so I can be a better librarian: basic programming (XML, Python, Java, Ruby on Rails); setting up servers; qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques; web design; database design; assessment of student learning; teaching philosophies;...
That's an interesting list. I had to set up a "Lifelong Learning Plan" for a class, and that was pretty much what I put. Getting the skills can be hard on top of everything else, but probably worth it.
- Kendra <3 Three Lions
More effective management of psychotic and sociopathic patrons.
- Rochelle Rochelle
better implementation of open access tools
- Abigail
I know most of the things on that list. My library school taught web design, database design, and research methods (qualitative and quantitative analysis), a course called "the instructional role of the librarian" and two systems courses (one on XML, one on ILSes and computer systems). The server and web dev stuff I learned on my own.
- cecily
I would have loved it, though, if they had Perl/PHP available when I was a student, and would have really benefited from some MBA courses on management, administration, grant writing, and fundraising.
- cecily
I would add ASP and C-sharp (at least here at MPOW)
- JSNFLMNG
It's funny the way this thread keeps highlighting programming languages. Wonder what that signifies exactly...
- Stephen Francoeur
maybe that is the one subject we all think we should have devoted more time to, but now find that time is in short supply? Although I would love to go back to school for a minor in stats...
- JSNFLMNG
For my MLS, I wish I would have taken a Gov Doc class -- sometimes, they just mystify me. For my undergrad, I wish I would have taken some Anthro and Geology classes...
- joe is...
I wish i would have paid more attention to cataloging and taken a specific class on it... and developing thesauri... i only got the quant/qual stuff in my doctoral program, and i would still like to find time to study more on survey design.... spent much time in qualitative classes but would like to take a couple more stats classes
- Christina Pikas
Yes, the UBC Library School was pretty good wrt the 'techie' side of librarianship. I just wish more of those courses were required instead of elective.
- cecily
Joe: Your comment reminds me that I wish I knew more about legal research. Searching in Westlaw and the legal side of LexisNexis always gives me pause.
- Stephen Francoeur
What's a librarian? I'm an information location specialist. :-)
-
JMS, you were gone *forever*. And I'm a librarian.
- B. Hatin
Librarians rock the social media / collaboration space. As a programmer/analyst I feel underequipped sometimes. That's why I write my blog though, to catch up and apply my skills to the domain.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
"Von Teese said the Wonderbra range was inspired by the glamour of the 1940s and 50s. "I love it when you can go about your daily business with the knowledge that you have a little secret of your own on underneath," she said. "Lingerie shouldn't be something you just put on for your lover; you should do it for you."
- RAPatton
from Bookmarklet
I'm an LL Bean girl myself. :-) So from a comfort and practicality perspective, the first is a fail. The third is a little bit better, but not much. My vote is for the center one, but in black. I love the hairdo though.
- Joanmarie
I like the first one best also, but it is very much in line with what I have always liked. The third one's glove and crossed straps are less common, and I thought deserved some praise.
- RAPatton
I've noticed that I'm getting tired of it too. We really need a much better way to talk to the database on FriendFeed. I'd love to see all items in a real reverse-chronilogical view (no bubbling up of attention-getting items), along with only displaying items that get two likes or more and one or more comments. Imagine if you could do that? Now imagine if you could filter out things. Like, remove anything with Obama or McCain in them. That would let me build a much better news river than I can get anywhere else.
- Robert Scoble
I think that the bubble effect works well if you have subscribed to just a few people but I would think that if you have thousands of "friends" then it would be almost impossiable to keep up. I did like the idea that somebody suggest of being able to tag some of you friends as real and then either giving them higher priority or creating another tab with just their feeds in.
- John Cooper
When TiVoing the Olympics and not wanting to read spoilers, I'd filter out Olympics, Phelps, etc.
- JD Lasica
I agree a keyword filter would be great, and it should be reasonable to implement a feature like that. As for the bubbling, I'd like to keep that for me.
- Thomas Frütel
the true leading edge doesn't have a community, as there are very few who are there
- clarke thomas
if they only displayed items that inky had 2 or more likes, or at least one comment, then no one would see anything, since in order for it to appear, it needs to be liked. In order to be liked, it needs to appear.
- Andru Edwards
I think Robert (and the rest o'yaz) are right that better filtering is needed. I know noiseriver and some others are working on this (and of course the FF team.) Would be great to "weight" people, services, and keywords...
- Anthony Citrano
Some of you apparently need a "Web Service of the Month Club" membership. ;)
- abacab
Filtering and chronological sorting, setting like tolerances is all possible with the current API. Adding data to people (like weights) would requires a database. I think it would be cool to have a 2 column layout, the left column in true chronological order and the right with standard "bubbled up" content.
- Paul Reynolds
Bubbling is essential to maintain a conversation. Without it, everything becomes even more ephemeral. Just hide what you're done with.
- LogEx
Robert - I found this item through Google Reader (I subscribe to Friendfeed - Best of Day, which I flow to my A feeds folder). Because of the noise and information overload issue, I've pretty much given up trying to use Friendfeed by browsing from http://friendfeed.com/
- Sean McBride
@Scoble - sounds like mioNews might do what you want if I could just get the relevance ranking engine turned back on. It is designed to auto-filter out the stuff you've "hated" in the past and bring up to the top the stuff you've liked in the past.
- Patrick Lightbody
from mioNews
Allowing you an *option* to rate your contacts on a 1-10 scale and then allowing a best of hour, day, week, month incorporating these ratings into the algorithm would at a minimum produce an alternative "best of." And probably more relevant than relying only on social metadata (likes, comments) alone. This tool could also be used for custom filtering certain subsets of contacts as well. Eg. Show me content from all contacts rated 6 or higher, etc.
- Thomas Hawk
I love it more than ever. Last week though, I did do some artful pruning of my subscriptions, and that has toned up my experience. Agree strongly with the request for friend grouping and friend weighting. Vital. In my opinion this functionality is FriendFeed's "fire alarm" and it's what they need to implement soon to balance things out.
- Steve Isaacs
If enough users begin to filter out items based on the number of comments and/or the number of likes, how would anyone see anything at all? Everything would be filtered out and nothing would get through. What am I missing here? I understand filtering certain types of content (e.g., Twitter, etc.) but I don't understand filtering based on the number of comments or likes.
- Gregory Pittman
from twhirl
You just can't treat FriendFeed like Twitter, subscribe to a massive number of people, and expect a good experience. Although I like the ideas that Robert suggested, and would like to see them implemented, I also think that the best way to control the noise, at least for now, is through thoughtful subscriptions. FriendFeed currently remains for me now what Yahoo! was for me in 1996: the center of the web.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Gregory: there would still be those of us who like seeing all the noise and "liking" the best of it.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, that's a good point. I guess I would be one wanting to see the noise for fear of missing something no one else thought was valuable. For now any way.
- Gregory Pittman
from twhirl
And use rooms effectively. They can be a great asset if the right people join and participate
- Deepak Singh
While the FF UI is far from perfect at this point, it's pretty annoying to hear a certain class of people who incessantly whine about how they suffer from information overload when they subscribe to thousands of people. Allow me to humbly suggest that the problem *isn't* some deficiency in the UI, but rather the problem is that *you subscribe to thousands of people*. The unmanageable noise level is your own fault.
- Eric P
The biggest feature for me would be to auto-detect and merge the multiple posts about the same article... Make the new submission a like or comment on the original, but keep it all in one place.
- Jason Carreira
Eric, I wouldn't go so far as to say that 'you're doing it wrong'. Those use cases are valid ones. You can't design a customer-facing product and then demand that they only use it within a strict set of guidelines. FriendFeed needs to mature to handle the Scobles of the world as well as the Moskovitzes. Although I think that subscription maintenance is part of the process, at least for now, I don't think that wanting the product to fit your personal use case is call to accuse anyone of 'whining'.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Eric -- at the moment I am subscribed to 78 people (not thousands) (and have 117 people subscribed to me). The problem is fine-tuning the stream to push the best *combinations* of people, topics, links and comments to the top of my queue. So far I am relying on Google Reader to try do the job. When Robert Scoble remarks, "I've noticed that I'm getting tired of it too," perhaps one should listen and understand.
- Sean McBride
I have a problem with only wanting to see items that are liked. Then you only see top 10ers. If I have something to contribute, you may never see it. Kind of turns it into Digg. I like the fact that it's easy to see smaller conversations easily. Filters for keywords would be nice, though.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Sure Friendfeed could continue to evolve and improve its service. However, I would posit a theory that perhaps the "shiny newness" of it all is wearing off. It is the problem with the echo chamber, it is too hard to stick to the new services when it takes so much time to play with new things coming out in a torrid pace. Sure some will disagree with me but I think this contributes to it to a great extent.
- Lou Paglia
I was using it a lot less lately myself and wondering the same thing. I've unsubscribed from a lot of the social net noise and found that this has freshened up the experience a lot.
- Nick
What Nick said. I think it's a much more interesting place if you avoid those who are FFing about FF and so on.
- Anthony Citrano
I think it's Shiny Object syndrome, too (not referring directly to Robert here). FF has been slow on releasing new features. Some overhaul of the interface and taking up the many suggestions forwarded by its most active users would be a well-timed move.
- Chris Baskind
Too much noise on Friendfeed, and by the time I get around to replying to it, the conversations are over.
- Francine Hardaway
Francine: how can the conversation be over if you have something to say?
- Brian Sullivan
I still really like FriendFeed, but when you are busy doing many things, it is harder to keep up with the key discussion items and people you need to follow the most. I think FF will find ways of making this easier in time. I find I need breaks from all socnets periodically to keep my life and focus in balance. The breaks help prevent "Shiny Object Syndrome" and fatigue.;-)
- Cathryn Hrudicka
@francine: two things cut down on the FF noise for me: 1) i 'like' all of the threads i find interesting, and then go to the 'ME' tab to keep up with them or comment on them later; 2) i 'hide' everything that's not of interest.
- .LAG liked that
Firstly, no one should need to apologize that they are using a website or not. Really! Anyway, I've always likened FF to chat, and I'm not a big fan of chat rooms. Something about FF seems to emphasize the immediate. I think this is what Francine refers too. There are some vauable nuggest of info, but I'm really not seeing the same richness of 'conversation' I find in blogs and blog...
more...
- bernie
My FriendFeed experience is still good. Agree with those who recommend "thoughtful subscription". Remember too - it's searchable. I think the archival aspect is just as important as the real-time aspect.
- Neil Saunders
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - FriendFeed needs the ability to collect friends into groups - and be able to view the feed of a single group.
- Jonathan Beckett