Brian Wilson - Likes

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FriendFeed has been almost completely blocked in Iran as far as we can tell. We have a large number of very active Iranian users, and we noticed a steep decline in activity yesterday. Graph below.

June 15 - Comment - Like - Share

ILLA, egza, Ozer Wrzl (EN) and 791 other people liked this

:( - Paul Buchheit

205 more comments

:( :( - Rachel Lea Fox

:-( - Kol Tregaskes

Related to the election? - τorƍue

:( - Ross Miller

that's so bad... - Eren Emre Kanal

:-( - Kevin Fox

τorƍue: Yes, as far as we know - Bret Taylor

این نمودار نشاندهنده افت فرندفید به دلیل بسته شدن آن در ایران است - Mycaptain

Bret: Is this based on IP numbers located in Iran, or actual activity from those users? If it's IP based, it'd be interesting to see the activity on a user basis and see if they've been able to route around the blocking. - Ken Sheppardson

:( - Marina Remi

Could it be related to Twitter being blocked (and therefore the twitter traffic import being blocked)? - Stephan Osmont

): - Jim Norris

Some users are definitely going through proxies. This is total # of unique visits from IPs originating in Iran - Bret Taylor

That tells it's own, sad, story. - WorldofHiglet

:((( - Oğuz Serdar

Wow. - Rochelle

If Twitter were blocked and FriendFeed weren't, I'd expect an uptick in FriendFeed activity, not a 92% drop. - Kevin Fox

I.e. given all the users who've previously accessed the site from an Iran IP number, how many have been active from different numbers in the past 2 days. - Ken Sheppardson

Sad. - Jen (SquirrelGirl)

Instead of "liking" this, shouldn't we have an "unlike" button? - Steven Melfi

:( Bret: According to Stephen fry, these are the iran proxies: 218.128.112.18:8080 218.206.94.132:808 218.253.65.99:808 219.50.16.70:8080 . Can you track these IPs? - Roberto Bonini

I knew this day was coming. Too bad. - Robert Scoble

Steven - same feeling here. I always feel weird "liking" bad stories on FF - Mike Bracco

How does traffic from China look? Or North Korea? - τorƍue

:( - Helen Sventitsky

do not like :( - Tamara

@τorƍue Twitter has been restored in China - Stephan Osmont

Hey... we saw issues with blogfa.com as well: http://blog.spinn3r.com/2009... - Kevin A. Burton

like for spread but not like for the situation - Imprenditore

I wonder what the international community can do about stuff like this. Eventually the "bad guys" will lose. - Michiel Sikkes

Hopefully, we'll never see a graph like this for Turkey... - Onur Şentüre

that's because the government has blocked access to friendfeed,twitter,facebook,youtube and ... after election and after protests in Iran cities ! - Farshad

Man... :( That's really a corrupt government. Hope it gets better soon. - Peter

That's horrible. - Barış (beyn.org)

Kheyzaran mentioned over the weekend that both Twitter and FF were blocked for Iran starting I believe on Friday. He is using a proxy when possible to keep us updated - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Bret, any analysis about how many people unable to access FF directly are still able to access it via proxy? - Daniel Dulitz

:-( - bookmeister

:( Let the voices be heard! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

So sad... - Luka

Sigh :( - Havang

can you suggest a way in friendfeed to show the situation in iran to the world ? its very important - Farshad

I doubt any regular North Koreans have computers τorƍue - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Daniel: Well, we are still getting a bunch of Farsi comments and posts. They may be Persians from outside Iran or from Iranians using proxies. We don't have a detailed analysis breaking those down at this point. - Bret Taylor

The stigmata of evil. - Tim Tyler

all cominucation devices are blocked .even phone & cell phones ! - MohammadReza

see this for example : http://abcnews.go.com/Interna... - Farshad

Watching the "guerrilla cyberwarfare" aspect of the elections and reactions has been fascinating. Iran's universities are obviously full of resourceful, passionate geeks. - John Craft

not good in terms of freedom - Sheri Fresonke Harper

this is really bad. i hope there's some resolution to this. the people or iran have shown a lot of strength and courage to protest the illegitimacy of recent events. i don't think this will stop things - Cee Bee

Is it possible that the same folks from Iran that are active on Friendfeed are the ones out protesting? - MVB (Grinch of FF)

please help us , we are under attack ,change friendfeed logo if you can - فرزاد

we need a new way - Semiramis

@MVB we all are Protests - MohammadReza

That's sad. - EricaJoy

:( Dislike. - Ruchira S. Datta

:( - © D/\\/IIID ℠ ®

P.S. Kevin should turn the logo green in support of the Iranian's being disenfranchised. - EricaJoy

:(( - ramin

For those that are in Iran: Have you tried http://fftogo.com as a workaround? - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

make a room for us, invite your friends we will fill it with latest news - Farshad

I'm completely for having a fair vote, but I'm not sure that I'd want to try and align FriendFeed with a particular candidate, which is what a green logo would imply. - Kevin Fox

Many iranians using proxies to access FF. and therefore their IPs changes to fake IP . - آدمیرال

MohammadReza: Maryam's mom is still able to call her relatives and friends in Tehran, so they are keeping some voice traffic open, if not all. - Robert Scoble

Farshad, I'm trying to post news here: http://friendfeed.com/world-n... - Kol Tregaskes

No words for that... - Frank

thanks kol :) - Farshad

@Kevin, totally understandable. - EricaJoy from IM

If Iran thinks they have nothing to fear, then why block Friendfeed? - Frode Stenstrøm

Frode: because the government is like China: they believe that by retarding the flow of information they will reduce the threat of protests and governmental overthrow. - Robert Scoble

Very reminiscent of the prelude to the fall of the Shah - Alan Morris

I don't speak Persian, so I don't know all the searches, but there are still (luckily) a lot of Persian users posting: http://friendfeed.com/search.... If you are Persian and looking for updates, try our search engine to find the few users who still have access. - Bret Taylor

Frode: and in Iran's case, they are run by conservative religious authorities and they don't like the fact that they are not in control of information flow like they used to be. They like to think they can still control information sources and, since they can't, they try to block places where their citizens can go to share information. - Robert Scoble

is it a joke? iranian users seems the %90 of friend feed. it could not be real! - Fırat DEMİREL

Firat: There are no units on the vertical axis of the chart. - Ken Sheppardson

Firat: This is a chart of traffic from Iran, not of FF's total traffic. - Kevin Fox

Firat, i doubt that this graph is a percentage graph... probably more likely that it's measuring hits, sessions, or total data transfered (mb, kb, etc) - Chris Heath

Kevin: what impact did this have on FF's overall traffic? - Robert Scoble

Robert: Iran is the #6 country for FriendFeed in terms of page views per day. - Bret Taylor

something is cooking out there... - mehdi

Thanks all for answers. i told that it could not be real.. :) excuse me, i ve just read Bret's notice and looked at breaking point. i saw what i've missed before.. bad news for ff and iran.. :( - Fırat DEMİREL

These statistics are incredible, especially the normally heavy useage of FF in Iran. - Curt Mercadante

Bret Taylor, we can tag our pix and vids about iran election by an english keyword such as 'iran' or 'iranelection'. I think it will help to ff non-persian users to find out more about unrests in iran. - آدمیرال

Iran restored cell phone service Sunday that had been down in the capital since Saturday. But Iranians still could not send text messages from their mobile phones, and the government increased its Internet filtering in an apparent attempt to undercut opposition voices. Social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter were also not working. - Üstün Üzüm

Do *not* like. :( - Pete Delucchi

:( - Russ Jackson

:( - Mitch

http://www.boston.com/bigpict... - فرزاد

آقا یکی توضیح بده اینکه من(ما) لایک میزنیم! عملا دیسلایک ه ! :( - younes

Younes says that our likes to this graph mean dislike to tehran's regime censorship - آدمیرال

I can't find any evidence of Twitter being blocked in Iran. Anyone? - Martin Bryant

TechCrunch just picked this up: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... - Robert Scoble

Thanks for the translation آدمیرال ! - Ross Miller

ممنونم آدمیرال عزیز - younes

خواهش دوست من. - آدمیرال

martin: those words are not mine actually from a news article from washinton post. - Üstün Üzüm

On twitter people are retweeting the IPs and ports of unblocked proxies, can we do something like that here? - Canageek

martin, i'm from iran. twitter is blocked. what evidence you wanna? screenshot!? - آدمیرال

yes Canageek. we use proxies for tweeting - آدمیرال

Authorities blocking the internet are just reinforcing solidarity between people, can't they understand ? - Stanislas Jourdan

Stanislas: not to mention they encourage their smartest and richest people to leave (the ones who have technical skills). There's a reason why Silicon Valley has 10,000 or more Iranians living here. Their government sucks and the people are getting tired of it. Of course if their government was great I would never have met my wife (who grew up in Tehran). So, there is good to come out of a crappy government! :-) - Robert Scoble

it has always seemed to me that the iranian user base is ENORMOUS here. wow. unbelievable. - edythe

It is interesting how much civil unrest that is brewing across the globe towards their governments. The knee jerk reactions in attempting to block certain websites shows how much they didn't expect the net to become such a widespread conduit for cutting through the bs and informing those that wish to know. I wish those who take a stand all the best. - alphaxion

:( - Roberto

Another way for those that are in Iran is to access through Netvibes (but I don't know if it works or if it's blocked too), adding Friendfeed, Gmail and so on such as modules - Roberto

Thanks for sharing this, Bret. It's valuable evidence of what's going on, evidence which wouldn't have been available even a few years ago. - Michael Nielsen

sad - Pedro Beltrao

Very interesting...so much for democracy and voting rights in Iran... - freedom fighter mom

If anybody in Iran feels up to it, can you temporarily disable your proxy and run a traceroute to friendfeed.com and twitter.com then post the results here? - EricaJoy

Bret and Paul, can you let us know if the traffic comes back, which would tell us they've unblocked FriendFeed? - Robert Scoble

Robert: absolutely, we will let everyone know when it comes back up - Bret Taylor from email

Steven: You Like that it was posted, not the content of the post. - Tanath

Bret, thanks for sharing the info about the dive. Shame, but what could we have expected from the Iranian status quo? - Jon Osterholm

البته یه چیز هم هست اونکه بعد از فیلترینگ همه با آی پی غیر ایرانی می ان فرندفید و برای همنی آمارشون اینجا ثبت نمیشه ... وگرنه فکر نمی کنم از لحاظ تعداد نفراتی که میومدن کم شده باشه ... بلکه هم بیشتر - HΛMΣD ƧΛFΛ

Yes, it happend and we have to use proxy to access friendfeed. Look at democracy in Iran... - Zahra (raoros)

The coversations and comments here are educational. - Seek Ground

@بی بی, you might try https://friendfeed.com/ - Jim Norris

:( - imabonehead

Damn. - Steven Perez

http://mojipage.com register in this website and add ff widget! twitter is blocked in iran so I am posting twitts by a script or choqok(http://choqok.gnufolks.org/) - ★amin.m★ from MojiPage

Good luck to all of you trying to get around the censorship. I hope the big sites are doing what they can to help out. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Looking at the potential of this event in the future for numerous causes is mind-boggling. Really amazing. - Charlie Anzman

Come to think of it, does FF have a presence in China? I'd imagine it's blocked there. I've seen Chinese on here, but never sure if that's from China or speakers outside. - anna sauce

Tnx Bret - C o n f o r m i s t

Thnaks :) - Exir

این چی میگه؟ - Lord hozeh

ببین شب انتخاباتی چکار کردیم با این فرفر. wow! - ali

چه همه لااااااااااااااااایک! - ali

:(( - AJ Batac

Damn. - Derrick

Expected. - Michael W. May

Yes, Friendfeed is blocked in Iran. Right now the papers and TV channels here are ‎controlled by the government and our access to satellite channels is blocked too. ‎Friendfeed and Twitter are quite vital for us now. Our main source of exchanging ‎information and news is Friendfeed. Via Friendfeed we let everyone know that where ‎people need help and where to go and how to help them and... more... - Selma

Selma: does https://friendfeed.com/ work for you? - Bret Taylor

Nope, they have blocked all https addresses, we have had to sign in to Friendfeed via anti-filters for the past few months. - Selma

its a shame. it was one the main media we used to inform ppl. thats why they filtered it. now many users cant sign in - Myri∂m

Can't we "help" in some way? Providing proxies, I don't know, the kind of stuff pirates do. Pirates, and people trying to make a Revolution happen.... - Zackatoustra

It may not be long before Turkey joins the party. - Sarp Tüzün

It's very sad to see this happen - Michael Fidler

tnx all of you... - emin

internet was our last hope ...but it block...and we cant use it easily... - Opium

:( - Caroline

I just spoke with my friend Andres, the main BBC correspondent for the Middle East/Afghanistan, and he mentioned the web is being fire walled in Iran much the same as the the "Great Firewall" during last year's Olympics in China. - sofarsoShawn

The Iranian websites that people used to exchange information about the election protests ‎in Iran are under cyber-attacks by the government forces and from anonymous sources. ‎Many of them are down right now. These Iranian websites were our few last remaining ‎channels to inform people. What can we do about that? Is there anyone out there who can help us with this?‎ - emin

i was 53rd active user in friendfeed until this filtering. now i can open FF with proxies and if i can fine. a Vpn but many Vpn here come from companies that have relations with security services, i thunk they allow us to bypass filternig and then, they will arrest who has wrote against their goals - خیزران kheyzaran

Can't we transfer the data/databases of the sites you, iranian guys, use to any new domain we could buy? I want to help. Not by throwing rocks to "security service" forces, but, at least, by making possible for what YOU have to say to go public, worldwide. - Zackatoustra

FF is a useful website for Iranian People to get reliable information about demonstration against presidential election. - پارسـا

so so sorry for iran people... I hope they will win... - Tanaydin Sirin

and Now Yahoo messenger and google talk blocked in iran :(((( - پارسـا

Some amazing images from Iran - http://ff.im/42pgD - Brent - Loving Life

http://i.friendfeed.com/376e729... - Lord hozeh

Does http://fftogo.com work still? - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Selma: 1- I don't use a proxy but clearing all but one (deleting them all logs me out) instance of each friendfeed.com cookie name and refreshing the page always solves this for me in Firefox. Has never happened on Lunascape or IE. Good luck. - Alexandros Georgiadis

google block fftogo for iranian users!!! - ★amin.m★

Friendfeedがイランでblockされているというコトらしい。いったいどういう理由でだか分からないけれど……もし、国内のゴタゴタの影響であればいずれtwitterも、ということになりかねないのかも。／でも、fftogoを使えば迂回できるのかな？ - Sakurai.Catshop

What about email, amin.m? Are you able to post to FF by emailing share@friendfeed? - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I don't know about email. now I am using freegate or another site like http://mojipage.com - ★amin.m★

Could http://dev.ctor.org/f2p, http://frienddeck.com or http://peoplebrwsr.com work for friendfeed? - Alexandros Georgiadis

Very sad. - Parth Awasthi

The reason I ask is because if you can email a post, then try sending it to share@friendfeed and also to YourUserName@friendfeed. Then when someone comments you'll receive an email about it and you can comment back to the thread via email as well. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

:(( - Nimaa from MojiPage

No wonder why ! - Pelin

@Alexandros Georgiadis:for frienddeck.com I see this:You are accessing this page from a forbidden country! but dev.ctor.org/f2p worked! thank you :) - ★amin.m★ from MojiPage

+ don't use your ISP's DNS server, verify your Firewall, search for rootkits.. + If you really wanna use Tor, be 'mobile', check the onion's status, don't be too confident, continue to use encrypted protocols & 'mobile' ports. At least, read Tor's docs and articles about Tor & privacy/security.. - Thierry R. Andriamirado

now chat like gmail or yahoo messenger are blocked too - egza

I don't know if these can help but I put them here anyway http://www.noiseriver.com/ http://moopz.com/ - M F

for me,yahoo messenger is not blocked yet! - ★amin.m★ from f2p

Alexandros: Frienddeck could work for certain parts - posts and queries against user accounts are proxied through the App Engine, searches are direct against Friendfeed so they could probably not work. - Paul Kinlan

Thanks :(( - مـهدی معتمد

:( booooooo - Duncan Rawlinson

:o - FKU

DAMN! - Vicey

whoa, NOT good - Susan Beebe

We wish the people of Iran well in these difficult times - Marc

Not good at all. Best wishes to the Iranian FFers. I hope this whole mess gets cleared up quickly and with as little violence as possible - Kamilah Gill

this is terribly wrong - Francisco Costa

A government that takes away people's Friendfeed will not last long. - Goran Zec

WOW CRAZY - Matt Kaufman

I like that 667 people liked this, that's 667 people hoping it all gets resolved justly and peacefully. - Steve C

now we are 676 people who liked that =) hoping too everthing gets resolved peacefully. - Ibrahim Tarlig

Bret, is there any update on this? Is activity still low? - Kol Tregaskes

Yes, we are still being blocked - Bret Taylor

:-( - Kol Tregaskes

:-( - Arif Siddiquee

definitely DON'T LIKE this... >_< ...would love to be able do more than retweeting proxies - Daniele

Best regards from Chile to all iranian people, we know a lot about bad government and human rights. Good luck, strength and courage to all of you. - Roberto Arancibia

:( - Shey, Jamaican of FF

It's to bad there is such attempts to block free flow of information, how long will it be before there is more amazing differences happening? Such limits, hmm. - Ray Marr aka Knatchwa

They have to keep the militants in check. Thank goodness for the pipes that were broken. - tony

بیا بالا ای فید من - egza

Digg.com is block in Iran now. - Sahandram

:-( - Paolo Valzania

:(( - Mitchell Tsai

Interesting censorship- same can happen in America - I would like to talk to you abt Friendfeed and bringing over some large groups do you have time? - JanSimpson

I've seen those censorship about FriendFeed (Iran). Do you know some interesting and objective blogposts about it? - Thierry R. Andriamirado from email

:( - Rachel Lea Fox

Do you have a similar graph as ff's been blocked in China? - K.D.

#GFW - xywf

And China now has a similar blockage. You should also check on it. - Kenyth

Sometimes we forget how easy we have it than other countries. But until people revolt & I mean a HUGE revolution injustices will still go on. - Gabriella Sannino

ای بابا این فید رو شخم زدن :)) - egza

پرلایک ترین فید فرفره این - ramin

jeddi? - HΛMΣD ƧΛFΛ from IM

آره حامد آمارشو قبلا در آورده ام - egza

che jaleb , oonvaght por comment dartarin feed kodoome? bebinim mishe feed 2khtare mardom e farzad davan davan ro be oon beresoonim? - HΛMΣD ƧΛFΛ from IM

حامد اینجا رو ببین http://friendfeed.com/amirsem... - egza

ba mobile am ... to bebin bara manam tarif kon :D - HΛMΣD ƧΛFΛ from IM

بعد از این فید که هستمی این http://friendfeed.com/funny-p... در رده دوم لایکه ,اینجا شش هزار و خورده ای کامنت داره http://friendfeed.com/ideali... این فید از فارسی زبانان فرفر همین نیما خودمون http://friendfeed.com/nimaa... در لایک 204 تا این هم از آیدا http://friendfeed.com/elaheye... بیشتر از 2400 کامنت داره - egza

Jesse Stay

Facebook Getting Ready to Charge for Vanity Nicknames? - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

April 22 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Wayne Sutton, Shawn C. Reed, Brian Wilson and 2 other people liked this

Only if you're a 'celebrity' - Mona Nomura

3 more comments

I just want a Facebook t-shirt - Jesse Stay

They have to charge because there are tons of people with the same name on Facebook. See my comment at http://www.louisgray.com/live... - Brian Wilson

I just hope they don't price out the little guy, you know? I have a URL pointing to my Facebook, but it would be nice to have facebook.com/whatever so I can use that domain for other things. - Brandon Mendelson

Extremely useful for profile business pages. Being able to add a fan by mobile phone opens up to a lot of potential functions. - Eric Logan

Robert Scoble

More arrogance from Twitter. "Normal people," huh? Here's why what @ev said is stupid: - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

March 4 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rod Stewart, Rodney Rumford, Rob Schieber and 102 other people liked this

Saying "normal people" will be on the service in five years is stupid. Why? Because it's calling current customers who are on the service "not normal." I find I'm hearing more and more arrogance toward Twitter's existing user base from its management. That arrogance is stupid. Facebook already has normal people, as Ev puts it, and is far more "sticky" than Twitter is. Twitter is actually becoming harder to follow as more "normal users" come on the service. - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

125 more comments

Here's a tweet on my screen right now: "Back from the Quizno's breakfast run." Is that really more interesting to follow than photos and videos from your closest friends, which is what my wife shows me every night on facebook? No way. And friendfeed has better noise filtering mechanisms than Twitter does BY FAR. - Robert Scoble

For months now I have felt that twitter should be run be more involved users of the service rather than Ev. I'm happy to see that you too feel this way. It makes me feel less prejudical about the subject at hand. - Richard A.

Yes, I found that peculiar. - Jim

"Normal people" will soon figure out that Twitter isn't all that great. Already I'm seeing engagement go down on twitter. As I go around startups I'm seeing more and more addicted people who are trying to escape from Twitter because watching Tweetdeck all day long keeps them from getting anything done. - Robert Scoble

I'm not sure that I would see that statement as arrogant. The fact that you say more "normal" people are already on Facebook kind of illustrates the fact that Twitter is not in the norm...yet. It's steadily rising to that position, but the truth is, at least from my meager perspective, Twitter is full of those who are NOT in the norm. - Carlton Hackett

One thing I'm hearing from a lot of users is that they don't feel like there's a real community on Twitter. Here I really feel there are people I know. Mona, for instance. Or Louis Gray. Plus the employees of friendfeed are ALWAYS here. That's something that I never felt from Twitter's founders/employees. Go read @ev -- is he doing anything to build a community? No, he's always on Charlie Rose or at TED bragging about how many users he has. That will backfire. - Robert Scoble

I'm normal, and I was on Twitter early on, 2 years ago or so. I don't see what all the fuss is about tho Robert. Just unfollow the Quizno breakfast guy and find a less noisy one. FF isn't stick to me because there's too many accordion folds of comments to follow. Twitter plus Search key word is enough. - Prokofy Neva

I believe that by saying "normal" he means people that are not early adopters, and if that happen and Twitter becomes more crowded, are you going to stop using Twitter? - Ahmed

Not sure that engagement is decreasing on Twitter. It's about to explode here in Australia. I do find it odd however to devalue the contribution of the very people who have made it so compelling. - Jim

Carlton: I don't agree and I agree at the same time. That's the problem with using terms like "normal." There is no "normal" in human beings. That term is arrogant. - Robert Scoble

Prokofy: find me a single Twitter user who isn't noisy some of the time. I've looked. Even TimOreilly is noisy some of the time. - Robert Scoble

Ahmed: early adopters have already moved to other services. They are on Twitter less and less. - Robert Scoble

Jim: late adopters don't engage. Sorry, but they don't. At least not at the level that early adopters do. Want to prove this to yourself? Go look at the followers that @ev has. Look at how many Tweets they make. Most have zero!!! Now compare to my followers. Almost every one of my followers has many many Tweets. Especially when you compare to @ev's (Ev is a recommended Twitterer so he's getting a LOT more "recent" Twitterers). - Robert Scoble

Well I think that he meant "normal" like in "mainstream", which I, for one, find elitist too, because imho: Being an early adopter doesn't mean you're smarter enough to use a product. Or smarter than others that don't use it yet. http://friendfeed.com/e... - directeur

I suspect that Twitter is in the phase where it needs someone else to take it to the next level. The Twitter founders have created this wonderful thing but seems to me they need to hand over the reigns. - Jim

directeur: exactly. - Robert Scoble

Robert this is so true! Facebook and Twitter get worse when more people join. I also love the noise filters on Friendfeed. But above all I love it that they don't force their users to use this or that site or services. This is great while I am slowly removing myself from twitter. - Bart LePoole

"Normal" people will not use Twitter anymore, if their support can't/doesn't want to answer to a "normal" help request. Mine, after more than one month, is not assigned to an operator yet (my timeline is empty!). Perhaps because I am not a V.I.P: I have seen tweets by "non-normal" twitterers about similar problems, fixed in few hours... - PaperDoll

To prove the engagement point, visit http://twitter.com/ev... -- click on 100 followers. Almost all have no tweets. Most have no photos. Now visit http://twitter.com/scoblei... and compare. Late adopters, er, "normal people" are lame. I don't wish ANY service gets those! - Robert Scoble

I think there is something missing in the early adopter/follower conversation (not going to touch "normal") which is am examination of the world of twitter from inside the perspective of the social media in-crowd, vs. that of digitally engaged folks at large. An examination of this dynamic and what it means would be particularly fruitful, as in the end, the success or failure of Twitter for 1,500 social media experts is one thing, and adoption by a significant slice of the population at large is another. - Robert Davis

"normal" can also mean...not having superpowers gang. "normal" is a reference to people without extraordinary technical knowhow...and they are 80% of the population... so in anyone's definition normal that would be. In fact by "normal" he means "less than"... meaning people who have less than tech savvy...oy c'mon people don't be so sensitive. - davidlee

Ryo: "normal" people that @ev is attracting are people who do not participate and who have vapid tweet streams. Is that who Twitter is going to build a business around? Really? - Robert Scoble

I didn't experience this the same way. What you took to mean that Ev was saying we were stupid, I just took as meaning the current Twitterbase is more the early adopters and later it will be more mainstream. And yeah, it is harder to use as more people come on board, which is why filtering apps like TweetDeck are becoming critical for anyone following more than a hundred or so people. - Lisa Creech Bledsoe

Lisa: and that belief is bullshit. Why would mainstream join in Twitter? Look at Ev's own follower base. That is "mainstream." They do not participate. Now compare to Facebook! I bet that the average time spent on facebook by "normal" people is 100x more than on Twitter. Twitter is going to need engaged users to build a business. - Robert Scoble

RE engagement @ev @britneyspears etc are all going to have those types of followers. My interest in Twitter has peaked of late due to the increasing diversity in conversation - and engagement with "normal" people. - Jim

Scoble... you are just mad that Twitter is gonna take off and leave FreindFeed in the dust. :) You put your chips on FriendFeed and it's a bet you are losing... it's okay... you just have to get your head around the fact that when it comes to websites you (and most of your thousands of followers) are not "normal". And you have got to stop being so sensitive about being called out as the exception rather than the rule. Time to face the facts: we are not "normal people". :) - Matt Shaulis

Robert: What services would you say the early adopters have moved onto? And I agree with you that the people that will sign up now as Twitter hits "mainstream" are more apt to tweet much less, if at all. They will sign up to see what the fuss is about and fall off the radar quickly. - Jason Kane

Ev has no idea what twitter is about. None of those at twitter really understand how twitter is used, and how strong it is. Best example is SMS in Europe and how they removed that. - Richard A.

i have been known to say Facebook is for civilians. does that make me evil? twitter was initially used by geeks, not "normal people". Robert- you, for example, are clearly not "normal". think about the terms like a graph- a normal distribution..... twitter isn't normal in terms of adoption yet. far from it. we're still living in the future. - James

Maybe it depends on your community, where I live facebook is now mainstream, twitter is not yet. I do think that twitter will become 'mainstream' though, the main advantage being the ease of use. Maybe some of the 'mainstream' users will tweet less, but there are many different ways to use Twitter as a tool (none more right or wrong than others) and one of those is to receive information, which does not require a profile pic or posting tweets. - Angela

Angela; twitter can't become mainstream until the technology is ready (mobile wise) and ideologicaly, when people don't feel sitting at a computer is geeky. - Richard A.

I hardly think EV's statements are arrogant. I actually think it's pretty accurate. Current Twitter users aren't "normal" they are internet savvy, early adopters, and people that have a general interest in being public. It isn't a slant towards the user base. It isn't a slant towards people who don't use it either. To me, it seems your statements are just shamelessly plugging friend feed. However, there are some substantial differences between Twitter and FriendFeed to market before the offensive. - Eric Moretti

about what @ev said...twitter existence, 5 years from now sounds very pretentious for me. People still has a sense of time very last century, they think things change every 50 years. - Sarah

Eric: that was true a year ago. It no longer is true. Twitter is being talked about on CNN and BBC many times a day some days. The user base is WILDLY switching. Go to @ev's follower list to see how. Really really bad trends for Twitter are there. No engagement. Vapid tweets. Focus on celebrity or getting on TV. Not on discussing ideas. Those are NOT good trends! - Robert Scoble

3 'normal' people asked me what Twitter was today. I explained the history and the application of it. The response was, and I quote, "Oh, that's intresting. So it's like SMS. Why would I want hundreds of SMS's". 'Normals' will come, realize how useless it is, and never come back... - Johnny Worthington

Johnny: bingo! - Robert Scoble

The antonyms of normal are peculiar, abnormal and deviant. I don't find it that arrogant but it is a word that should be used carefully in any context when describing people. - M F

Wildly switching to what? Vapid tweets/comments/profiles etc are going to exist across all social networking outlets. I think what we are seeing now is a steep curve to ambiguous use by all of them, some will fall from grace as media darlings (MySpace) will others will see a drop in user base, but maintain a substantial following (Facebook). To me social networking is still in its infancy so it's hard to make any assumption of what will fail and what will succeed. - Eric Moretti

Eric: Myspace is popular though, for music lovers. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, use it to find lot's of music. It's just part of a sub-culture rather than mainstream. Means the user base is more engaged as a result. - Richard A.

Eric: you are missing what goes on here on friendfeed. Here we have a way to hide noise and accentuate the signal through liking and commenting. On Twitter you do not have those mechanisms. Clicking "like" for instance does a TON behind the scenes and makes that much more searchable, for instance. It also shows that item to all your followers. Which makes it more likely everyone in the system sees some signal instead of vapid tweets flowing by. - Robert Scoble

Richard: hundreds of millions of people use MySpace. But that service is stagnating. Other music discovery services, particularly on facebook, are starting to eat away at its dominance. - Robert Scoble

@Rich: This might be true. I personally can't stand MySpace. Too messy in terms of advertisements and user controlled pages. It gives me a headache, which is why I think the general public over 30 won't stick with it. - Eric Moretti

Twitter is the Post-It-Note, FriendFeed is the Memo Envelope... I scribble things down on Twitter, I get stuff done here. - Johnny Worthington

I enjoy the analogy :) but FF is more then a Memo Envolpe - abdellah

Robert, Twitter is going to turn into the myspace of microblogging. By that I mean that myspace has one purpose whereas facebook has many. People jumped to FB as a result. We'll find the same with Friendfeed, once it gets easier to use. It offers more value to the user. - Richard A.

I agree... But since it's midnight here, my analogy generator is defragging :) - Johnny Worthington

Richard: bing! - Robert Scoble

oh it is still working, what could it generate for the facebook case :) - abdellah

Robert: Well, hey give me time, I just joined. I'm not arguing Twitter vs. FriendFeed. I think the comment was more directed being over reactionary. For the record, I like it, but working full time, school full time leaves very little time. Does Friend Feed have an Android App? - Eric Moretti

Depends on what he meant by 'normal people' - Moses Kpetigo

Eric, on Android just use http://fftogo.com/ - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

But am I a normal person or just stupid to want a direct message feature in friendfeed? - Bart LePoole

Anyone who really knows me (not those who just know me through Twitter) will agree that I am not normal. I guess if it was possible they would describe me as "clinically" not normal. Perhaps what the issue is too many people, many of those I follow, are just using Twitter to market their goods, website or new shows.I don't particularly find people who do this "engaging" .The good news is that the unfollow button is easy to find. - Keith Beucler

Bart: stupid. You already have direct messaging in friendfeed. It's called Gmail. (Seriously: the worst feature of Twitter is DM'ing. It's a horrid feature. I wish it had never been implemented). - Robert Scoble

no you aren't, but what make me in trouble is the fact that there is so many way to be in a direct relation with some one :) comment like and damn there is email too :) - abdellah

Robert: DM is stupid, I will give you that. Why limit a DM to 140 characters? Moreover, the people who I would actually DM, I have their email address. - Eric Moretti

i am wondering not about the normal people comment - but the 5 years part - really that long? how many new sites or addictions will pop up in the mean time? - Damian Holmes

Damian: good point. Facebook is five years old. They got 175 million users already and are growing 700,000 every day. Facebook is the Silicon Valley success story of the year. - Robert Scoble

I've always thought that 'normal' people, when talked about in these terms, are people who aren't like you. Everyone thinks they are a little different, so normals are everyone else - Rachel Clarke

Robert my desire for DM is to keep one conversation thread and not to have to move to another platform. I want one conversation bundled as one conversation. This you have pointed out is one of those great features of FF. - Bart LePoole

Robert, thanks to you, I'll never strive to be "normal" again :) - MiaD

There is a big push to get these services "mainstream". And maybe Ev was tired of saying the word mainstream over and over, so "normal" fit the bill. :-) - Louis Gray

All my normal friends are exchanging virtual nonsense on Face Book. or they are trying to figure out what to do about these causes. http://bit.ly/h07n Why be Normal ? - Eric Logan

Robert, I'm not a twitter-fan but I'm not sure you're right. I believe you should follow less people on twitter than you follow here on FF or on Facebook, just because you have less filter tools on Twitter, and because you should be interested in what your friends are doing, not anybody wherever he is. And that's what "normal" people would do, if they ever get there. - Markingegno - Donato

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but valid point that the masses (normal people) have not yet latched onto Twitter. - David Lanning

By the time "normal" people figure out Twitter, the rest of us will be onto something else. - The Way Things Are

I signed up for twitter a week ago and I still don't see any reason why I'd use it for anything that facebook or friendfeed don't already provide me in a way that's much easier to use. It really seems like facebook status updates that don't have comment threads. So, I feel like I'm missing the whole point of twitter. - Steve Koch

Plus: I hate birds. - Steve Koch

one makes the world "idiot" proof and then the world will make a better idiot !! If your not living life on the fringe or the edge, then you are taking too much room on the this planet :)- - Peter Dawson

@scoble: thanks for starting this thread. I thought @bart's comment was the best line here: "...Facebook and Twitter get worse when more people join..." Ironically, those are exactly the conditions FB and TT need in order to become viable businesses... but from a user experience pov, it's a race to the bottom as more people get on. <sigh> - .LAG liked that

Twitter isn't built for 'normal' people. All my real friends hate me because I refuse to add them... but I talk to them via IM. I don't need to know if they bought a new pair of shoes or if they're sick - AGAIN. What I don't understand is why Twitter gets as much fuss and attention as it does. - Mona Nomura

@scoble I really think you are blowing the word "normal" out of proportion. He's clearly referring to non-early adopters. Goes back to the common "my parents" metaphor all consumer internet folks refer to. It's flawed, but quite pervasive. - Clay Newton

@Mona: +200! Seriously, Twitter wins for most over hyped site. I frankly contribute to that through stomping around about how much attention it gets for so little added value. The sands are shifting under Twitter and I'm not sure they get that. People are on overload, they're shifting to trusted networks. And Twitter is now overflowing with affiliate, spam and black hat SEO. Not a peep (or chirp) out of Twitter on how they're dealing with that and the very quick backlash it will likely get from users. - AJ Kohn

Jason - that doesn't really describe why it's getting buzz. What a lot of the Twitter early adopters (I wasn't) were saying about the usefulness and versatility of Twitter has finally been recognized by...uh..."normal people". Well, as normal as Shaq and Jimmy Fallon and Karl Rove are. - Hutch Carpenter

Shouldn't it get recognized once it is finally stable (FailWhale after it was mentioned on The View by Barbara Walters? Still?) and monetizing? What kind of standard does this set for start-ups across the board? - Mona Nomura

Normal just means people between the tails of the bell curve. Which, come on, we all are. - Matthew DeVries

2.0 is to Twitter and 1.0 is to Pets.com ???? - AJ Kohn

PEOPLE: Pile off Robert. This is obviously one of those mulligan overly sensitive statements he warned us all about yesterday that were going to be coming. Give the dude a pass and move on. - Matthew DeVries

Mona - monetization is not something the average user obsesses about. You think the news guys that are getting on Twitter spend a lot of time worrying about that? Fail Whale is an issue, it nearly brought the service to its knees last year. It's better, but needs improvement still. - Hutch Carpenter

Robert, I'm advising for a company that is doing an amazing alternative for Twitter, targeted just at Moms. I'd love to give you and Maryam a demo some time. (I think Maryam would really love it). I'll e-mail you some more details shortly if you're interested. - Jesse Stay

Oh, perhaps I was misunderstood. Why is this service (Twitter) garnering as much attention as it does when there is no guarantee it would even last? It just heightens its worth for a buy-out. What kind of standard is this setting for products and services moving forward? - Mona Nomura

@scoble I think this is totally blown out of proportion. He clearly meant, "not tech obsessed" or cutting-edge. Like Clay said, he meant people like my parents. My only disagreement is that it'll take 5 years -- it's already happening. Of course, how long people stay or use the service is always the big question, but people who aren't plugged in (like my sister) are already trying it out. - Christina Warren

Mona - YouTube - Hutch Carpenter

Here's what I don't get - why would anyone keep working there? With all the new financing they've been getting, normal employee stock has got to be mostly diluted at the moment. I wonder if they realize that. It's no longer worth working there as a "startup environment". - Jesse Stay

Hutch - Indeed. As well as many others. But seriously, is Twitter *that* useful? - Mona Nomura

Mona - I think it is, because of its relative simplicity. Ultimately, of course, "useful" is a market call. Right now, the market says "yes". - Hutch Carpenter

I just think it's a good example of how not everybody was meant to do press junkets and interviews with Charlie Rose. Time to invest in a PR person - Dave Powell from twhirl

Robert, do you think the language is a call back to the days when developers used the terminology "dumb user"? It seems that way to me as well..just the "lite" version of the arrogance that sadly has been endemic in developer culture since at least when I came on board in the late 90's. I'm even ashamed to admit that our university allowed instructors to use this "geek-speak" in the classroom as part of the curriculum. Esoterica often provides its own set of "ear-muffs" to its users. - Melanie Reed

I think we contribute greatly to the market saying it is useful, by hyping up a service that is still missing many rudimentary features. I truly don't see why Twitter is a great marketing tool. Supplementary, yes but it certainly doesn't deserve all the attention it gets as a service since it's the people on Twitter, not the tool itself that makes it 'useful'. - Mona Nomura

@Mona is on fire. + 1MM. - AJ Kohn

Mona: That's like saying the Interstate isn't a good tool, it's the cars on that move the people are the useful thing. - Matthew DeVries

Mona - I hear the argument about how easy Twitter is to build, nothing special to it. The *concept* was special. The early adoption was critical. The community is the barrier to entry. Twitter hit 'escape velocity' while others failed to do so. - Hutch Carpenter

Matthew - I don't see the correlation. Interstates are a necessity. Twitter isn't. And Aaron? The mainstream is bigger than Twitter AND FriendFeed. - Mona Nomura

I thought by not being into sports I would get out of this my ___ is better than yours thing. Guess not. - Stephan Miller from Friend Deck

Evan Williams says "normal people" and the ones who are offended are the geeks on the social networks. I rest my case. - Shawn Farner

@Aaron: I use Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation. - AJ Kohn

I always love the Twitter bashing on FF...especially from Scoble. We all know that 'normal' is mainstream and we also know that most of us are far from mainstream. Twitter is entering that sphere and as many people that think Twitter is useless there will be 2 more saying, 'Whoa! this is cool'. I'm far from a tech guru and love being able to keep in touch with friends and family via Twitter and SMS. It is the broadcast aspect that beats out plain old SMS. - Sidney

Shawn - maybe that's why I call my blog "I'm not actually a geek". :-p - Hutch Carpenter

Why be normal? - Thomas Hawk

It's like Pepsi or Coke. Preferences only. And people start a war. I don't care unless I own the company, lol. But I guess it's a good time waster. - Stephan Miller from Friend Deck

Nonsense? Blasphemy Aaron! There is nothing more important than discussing services and measurements that clearly have no resolute answers!! ;) - Mona Nomura

Mona - that's why I tend to be market-oriented in a lot of my opinions. Probably the closest approximation of the "answer". - Hutch Carpenter

Mona - Interstates are not necessary, and when Eisenhower built them, everyone on Route 66 thought no one would use them, and died. - Matthew DeVries

Hutch - indeed. Only time will tell. @Matthew - I still do not see the correlation with Interstates to Twitter. But it's me, not you. :) - Mona Nomura

FF is futureproof. FF acknowledges that other services exist and encourages you to not be centralized. FF provides a platform for integration. Twitter wants you to use only twitter. This is what causes vapid content on twitter, it offers nothing, and doesn't have the potential to offer anything other than what you see in front of you. Twitter is a talking platform, FF is an integration... more... - Andy Bakun

I agree with Andy, except to say, perhaps FF will go away (noooo!), but something that does the same thing should rise to take its place if that happens. - Kamilah Gill

Andy's right. - Thomas Hawk

@Andy I would disagree to a point. It would be rude of me to walk up to a group of people and go, "I'm heading to the movies" and walking away. They'd expect me to sit around and wait for a comment from them. With Twitter I can say it and be gone. If someone wants to comment they can and I can get said comment on the go. Phone, generally one on one. Email, you can broadcast but again, no sms integration which is vital to reach people mobile. not everyone has email on their phone. Twitter does it all - Sidney

agree w/ thomas - andy nailed it, exactly my pov too :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Arent all humans noisy?? Prokofy: find me a single Twitter user who isn't noisy some of the time. I've looked. Even TimOreilly is noisy some of the time." Scoble???? - Francisco Kemeny

The reason why Twitter works is because of the number of people who use it. Yesterday I was having issues with Better Gmail 2, I did a quick twitter search and realized other people are having the same issue at the same time, I replied to them and we talked about it. Can't do that on Google or FriendFeed. I love FF but bottom line is most people I follow on twitter are not on FF, so I have to manually enter these people as imaginary friends to filter the twitter noise - this is a pain. - Kelly Johns

OMG. I agree completely with Robert. - Chris Baskind

Robert: I am completely amazed by the way people use Twitter and I think the possibilities are endless. I just hope these boys at Twitter don't invest all their time and money trying to make this all about celebrities. Cause then it becomes very lame. - PC Easy from twhirl

I was helping somebody set up a new Twitter account today and noticed that during the sign up process they bring up a list of recommended people on Twitter to follow with the check marks already highlighted so you have to actually uncheck them to not follow them. Among various brands such as Dell the number 2 recommendation was a blogger, @dooce. Some of her tweets are very explicit. She refers to herself on her blog as a Sh*t A** H* M*****r F*****r (dooce.com). Interesting pick for #2 - Mike Elliott

Another thing to consider is how twitter could change their feature list or UI such that anything new wouldn't seem "bolted on". I don't think they can. If they added the ability to "browse" tweets and show threads (in the right order), something I think it desperately needs, rather than just a list of obviously ephemeral and no longer relevant entries with the most recent at the top,... more... - Andy Bakun

Mike Elliott: +100. Insightful observation. - Robert Scoble

I am new to FF, but I like the context and conversation I can get from FF. Twitter seems masturbatory. - Rick Cogley

Naturally he says normal people. Robert, I hate to break it to you, you are far from normal! I am certainly not normal either. Early adopters are, as a general rule, not the norm. That's fine. - Daniel W. Crompton

I believe both FF and Twitter serve a purpose. FriendFeed, for me, is much like a university library whereas Twitter is much like the university cafeteria. It depends on 'type' of conversation one wants/needs at a particular moment. - ka3drr

lol - no not library, twitter is like the roxbury (full of posers) and friendfeed is like a park outside a library on a sunny spring day (chilling with friends and having interesting conversations) imho of course :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Scoble is wrong on this one, normal people are on email not twitter - imran

Hmmmm, I'm normal, or at least, I THINK I'm normal... I use Twitter to communicate with people I normally wouldn't be able to find with any other means. I use it for information gathering too. And, bouncing ideas off of people. I don't know, I like it, and I am pretty sure that I am normal. I use Facebook for my real life friends and family, and that's it. Facebook I have locked down, so I can be more at ease there. - Danielle Closs

My mom is on twitter - she's pretty normal - Antonio Altamirano

this thread with the amount of quality comments back and forth illustrates the viability of FF as a great medium for debate! IMO: As busy as Mr. Scoble is, he should get mad props for starting and maintaining the discussion. - shayne catrett

This is a nonissue. Evan's point is that like blogging was 5 years ago, twitter today seems a little offputting. To technological optimists, twitter will always be awesome, but to joe sixpack (or joe-who-has-no-blog) it may be sometime before twitter does not incite: "Well who the hell would want to know what I'm doing all the time?" The idea of 'normal' does cannot be so quickly reversed into "Evan just called me a freak." Grow up. - Daniel Morgan

Guess I was not so stupid after all... Friendfeed implements DM ! - Bart LePoole

Robert Scoble

We’re in a death spiral - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

October 6, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Steven Perez, Brian Wilson, Luke Foust and 19 other people liked this

I have always found it odd that since the stock market is a reflection of the perception of traders, it is the traders that more or less determine the health of the stock market. Of course there are other factors, in this case they are actually real world factors such as people losing their homes and massive layoffs that affect spending power, but basically there is enough money among... more... - Devlin Dunsmore

45 more comments

Liked what you said, but I'm not hoarding. That only fuels the fear fire. - Kevin C. Tofel

oh, and look. They passed the bail out bill and the dow is still going down. That sure was a good use of 700 billion dollars. - Wizetux

Is this not the time for someone to step in and give us 'hope'? Take a deep breath, calm down. Or are we being sent the message and no one is listening? On the other hand we are in the free market and the market is supposed to be always rational :p - Sheraz Mahmood from twhirl

What are you hoarding? - Morton Fox

@Devlin but the trader's perception is generally based on the outlook of the companies they're trading which is based on the strength of economies. - ·[▪_▪]·

i'm hoarding bacon - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

Campbell soup time. - Geoff Schultz

Positive news from my Grandma who lived through the Great Depression: It could be worse. - Todd Hoff

For those who can master their fears, this is a huge opportunity. I can assure you Warren Buffet is on high alert and will be taking massive advantage during the downturn - and I can tell you SmugMug is planning on "doubling down" on super-star talent during the downturn, too, as we watch our competitors without business models flounder. The news is only doom-and-gloom if you look at it that way. Instead, look at it as a buying/building/solidfying opportunity. - Don MacAskill

He's hoarding cell phones. - Brian Newman

Wizetux: it would be far worse if the banks weren't bailed out. Morton: my cash. I have some that was budgeted to fix a shower that we're not fixing. Kevin: it's time we face our fears and stop trying to pretend this market is healthy. The sooner we hit the bottom of our fear, the better off we are. - Robert Scoble

+1 on Don's comment. It is going to suck in many ways, but keep the long view and see how you can make the best of the situation. This is a huge correction to our market that has been building for a long time, but this too shall pass. - Jeremy Hall

Preparation is the arch-enemy of fear..... IMHO - Bwana ☠

Fear may be bottomless. Actively countering fear could work better. - Todd Hoff

I'm at the point now where I only want to hear positive news about the economy, or at least my own future. I hope that in the short term my programming skills will prove useful to folks - in the long term, I know they will. - Chrimmus Tad

Don: that is great advice, but if you buy too early going into a downturn you can do yourself real harm. Let's say you think the market is going up from here and it goes down to 7,000. That isn't smart. I'd wait to see the bottom of our fears first. We aren't even close to being there yet. - Robert Scoble

track the "Fear Index" [http://www.marketpsych.com/mkt_ana...] - MikeAmundsen

Maybe I'll regret it but I've been buying stocks. Bought some AAPL today. - Mike Doeff

If you plan on buying, i think you can start buying soon and plan to dollar-cost-average all the way down. That's only possible if you think you won't need to touch any of that money for a few years. But it's a good way to buy into good companies. Another option, save and wait until things start recovering ~2010. - ·[▪_▪]·

Mike: if you have $10,000 to invest and think the market will go up soon, I'd dollar cost average into the market. There is no way to time this market. Now, what do you do if you are totally into the market and think it's going down to 8,000? Do you stay in for "long term" along with you guys? :-) - Robert Scoble

@Mike. That is a good thing. Buy low, sell high. And you won't regret it in 3 years when the DOW comes back up. - Wizetux

Wizetux: if the market comes up in three years dollar cost averaging in now will be MUCH better than buying all in today. - Robert Scoble

Dollar Cost Averaging means if you have $10,000 you don't invest all $10,000 today. You put $1,000 into the market every month (or, if you are more conservative, $500 every month). That lets you get your money into a market without trying to time it. If the market goes down to 7,000 before starting back up, then this strategy will make you a ton of money. Chances are this market is going down a lot further. The bad side is if it turns around and starts going up today. - Robert Scoble

I agree with scobleizer. If you're wanting to invest $10K, divide it up into weekly or monthly portions per investment over a year or two and invest it on a schedule. You'll be way better off than investing it all at once. - ·[▪_▪]·

Robert, I've been doing very small trades - not betting the farm. I still have some dry powder available if it goes down further. - Mike Doeff

This is painful...but there is no real solution around it...it will take time. I do not think that it is just the fear cycle. We need time to regroup, refocus and start innovating again. I think that this crash is the end of speculative markets. If America wants to stay ahead, we need to go back to innovation and productivity. The good news is that there are still tons and tons of problem to be solved... - Edwin Khodabakchian

At what point does the President Suspend Trading completely? - CW™

"The good news is that there are still tons and tons of problem to be solved..." Contrary to how I would expect for this statement to make me feel, it actually gives me some hope!! - Fa La La La Lindsay

@Robert, except that over the long term, the market has been shown to return more on the dollar than that of the inflation of the dollar, so in the long (more than 5 years) run, buying now will always be better than keeping your dollars. - Wizetux

Christopher: why would the President do that? Does he have the power to do that? Wouldn't that freak people out even more? - Robert Scoble

But I also agree, that buying in small portions is always the better method. - Wizetux

Wizetux that's absolutely wrong. It is because you are averaging in the good years with the bad. If you can avoid the bad years your money will do even better! - Robert Scoble

Robert, He can. He can declare a state of emergency (i.e. Martial Law) and I believe that includes the markets. We can thank 911/The Patriot Act for that. Since congressman were apparently threatened with Martial Law if the bailout bill didn't pass, I wouldn't put it past the current administration. http://www.wikio.com/video... - Bwana ☠

Yeah, and if I knew what the lottery numbers are going to be tonight, then I would buy a lottery ticket. However, since I don't, I am going to play the option with the best return at my acceptable rate of risk. The stock market is not a a method to make quick cash, but something that makes you money over the long term. According to the last 50 years, the good year of the market have always out performed the bad ones. - Wizetux

Robert, you misunderstand me. I'm not pretending that the market is healthy because it's not. I'm simply trying not change my spending habits as a result. I've always been a saver and while I hate to see big unrealized losses, I have no need of my long term investments for 20+ years. My income hasn't changed (luckily) so I'm fighting to keep my spending habits at normal for as long as possible. - Kevin C. Tofel

Being that I am 27 years old, I can afford to have my money in the stock market because I have at least another 40 year to work and make more money. Now, I am not going to put all of my money there because I need to eat and I will loss more taking money back out of the market in the short term. Now, if I was 50 and looking at retirement in 10 years, I would only have a very little of my money in the market because it won't make enough there and the risk is too high. Thus I would buy CDs or Bonds. - Wizetux

isn't talking about suspending trading and declaring martial law a little premature? doesn't it add into the fear this post is supposed to help counter? - Jonathan Jesse

Jonathan, I didn't say it, the congressman did. I'll tell you one thing, it's best to be prepared than to be caught off guard. There's a difference between panicking and planning. But I'm just a fear-mongering, conspiracy theorist, don't listen to me :) - Bwana ☠

The fundamentals of many companies have been ignored. Now without hype being used to sell, you've only got the balance sheet. Have a look at what typically blue chip stocks have been trading at; 12-24 Price:Earnings. It's still a correction and it is justified - Steven Cains

Robert, chill. Don't get people all panicky. Yes, the economy is taking a hit, but the Dow is only one metric. We need to be strong and willing to shoulder this burden together to turn things around. - Teresa Valdez Klein

Teresa: I can't chill. I've been reading the Wall Street Journal and the Economist and they aren't chilling. :-) - Robert Scoble

I didn't get out in January when I had some gains and it's too late to get out now, no point in buying high and selling low. I'm young enough that it's better for me to just ride out the storm. Plus I'm automatically doing dollar cost averaging via my 401k. - Alex Scoble

Alex: the market could go way down and stay down for a few years. As long as you can risk that, I'd stay in. Me? I don't have enough market money to worry about and I'm just staying in anyway. I wish I had gotten out earlier too, but that's water under the bridge. - Robert Scoble

Hoarding or Saving? Is this like Bail out or Rescue plan? - Steven Cains

Cains: saving is what you were doing (or should have been doing) six months ago. Hoarding is what you are doing differently today. See the difference? I do in my own budgets. - Robert Scoble

i think everything will be OK ! just live life. relax. be smart - Adam Singer

Joe Dawson

Google Logo - http://www.google.co.uk/

September 10, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Grant Bierman, Brian, Chris Luckhardt and 36 other people liked this

Hmm...this will be the last thing I see before a massive black hole engulfs us all. The End is Nigh! - Jigar Champaneria

6 more comments

In a few years we will all have one of these in our kitchen! - Joe Dawson

damn i'm living near switzerland, i'll be one of the first to be sucked oO - TiTi

I'm disappointed that there has been no real action, we want meltdown... - Joe Dawson

are there any news? maybe we are already in a black hole and don't know about it yet? - Timo Heuer

I reckon it's all gone wrong, Stephen Hawkins has merged with the LHC and is now destroying France as we speak... - Joe Dawson

It will tested in december - dudtn

So the end of the World is going to be DecembARRR!!! - Joe Dawson

Chris Brogan

Here's me in Facebook: friend, friend, friend, ignore group, ignore event, block app, block app, block app, block app. Sigh.

September 1, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

edythe, Susan (Kang) Nam, Berker Peksağ and 33 other people liked this

+1 Chris.. I just did that.. 10 mins later... No I don't want to be in your Ninja/Mafia Gang - Kyle Lacy

16 more comments

I would honestly rather check Myspace than Facebook. Way less hassle. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I get great satisfaction in leaving everything but friend requests pile up then doing a mass Ignore All... strangely satisfying :) - Johnny Worthington

Sounds like you need better friends...haha - George Smith

Whoa.. I don't know about that Rah.. ;-) glitter-ati - Kyle Lacy

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, "delete stupid spammy email from yet another SXSW panel picker vote requester." - Chris Brogan

The only reason I still go there is to see what people I knew in high school are doing and laugh a little when I find out that they never left our small town. :P - Rochelle

lol +1 Chris - Kyle Lacy

It's due again: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Glitterati? LOL. I don't get any of that crap. I also hide comments via CSS, though... - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

blocking has probably converged (too far) when you can't find you own postings.. :) - Amund Tveit

I still die laughing every time I watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Justin Levy

No fresh tech stream on FB:( - Igor Poltavskiy

I liked and unliked 11 times, Chris. And that video you Tweeted = GOLD - Mona Nomura

Yep - me too - Euan

Precisely. - Keith - @tsudo

block app, block app, block FB? :) - Igor Poltavskiy

Here's me: Log -in, sigh, log-out. Done. - Chris Nixon

Robert Scoble

Google’s Swings and Misses - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...

August 22, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Parthasarathi, Devlin Dunsmore, Nicholas James and 17 other people liked this

The Economist has an article looking at how Lively, Google’s attempt to establish a foothold in the virtual world market, has flopped. - Mitchell Tsai

16 more comments

Seems a little early to label Lively a "flop" - TDavid

Yeah, they should at least wait until it's out of beta. - Kevin Fox

The article describes five other flops (non-successes) - Mitchell Tsai

+1 @kevinfox. lolz - .LAG liked that

Gmail's a 'miss' because it doesn't yet surpass Y!Mail and Hotmail in market share? MacOS must be a miss as well... - Kevin Fox

Sorry to make an obvious point, but Google doesn't seem to do well with "community" building applications. Just search. Do search companies have a hard time with social apps for some reason? - Elliott Ng

Google Calendar could become a "miss" because it only offers simple ICS and basic CALDAV. However there is literally zero social functionality for events. I would rather post events on Eventful (though ugly) and let it auto-export to Upcoming and Google Calendar (ics) - Glenn Batuyong from twhirl

I guess from a strict numbers comparison, then (in the case of gmail) Google might have missed. But seriously, the other two mail services don't come close. So from my tweeny perspective, Google has swung and hit. Same with the other Google Services I use. I guess that's why I use them. - Stu Andrews from twhirl

Lame article. We don't expect Google to be Midas. We expect them to innovate, take risks, and occasionally fail on the way to creating great new products. - Ozan Onay

Its not only comm building that Google does not seem to be on cutting edge. Even its core, Search engine, was innovative, simple and worked better that the rest at the time of its inception. Currently, it is still prefered by many and has a stable growth of usage and following, but its one-time advantage (back in 1998), based on page indexing, is not any more competitive. The reason why Google still dominates in the West is its excellent branding and simplicity of search engine. - Hayk H.

I find it sad that they've reached that pinnacle where it's time to knock them down. I want to believe in Larry and Sergei & am thankful they have power. - timedalkat

Stupid article. While I am a not a cheerleader, I think they have done just fine. I really couldn't care if Less people use Gmail than YahooMail - GMail is so much better. Suprised they never mentioned Dodgeball or Jaiku. - PC Easy from twhirl

Hayk: The Google advantage for me is not "page indexing" but "CACHING". When pages change/go off-line, Google has an old copy. I didn't like Google any better than HotBot for actual searching. - Mitchell Tsai

Comments on orkut in the US press really highlight US-centricity. Makes me wonder how much else about the rest of the world is grossly mis-reported. - Moishe Lettvin

I have no interest in the virtual world market. Still trying to get a handle on the real world. - Ernie Oporto

Mitchell, Doc Searls had recently posted a blog http://bit.ly/TSsfl about which, Yahoo Search or Google Search, is better. He thinks Yahoo does a better job. - Hayk H.

One thing you've got to admire about GOOGLE...they keep on trying. They haven't become complacent with just being #1 for search. - Jonathan.Rivera

Louis Gray

I like Obama and will vote for him, but I'm not a huge fan of the site being for contributions first and information second. I'm not an ATM.

August 23, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Tyler (Chacha), Mona Nomura, Stephanie Booth and 6 other people liked this

I agree. But it works. So there ;) - ~C4Chaos

5 more comments

It's a pretty understandable setup. I agree that his information outflows could be better (do I really need more PR? Does it help anyone?) but it shouldn't surprise anyone that he is covering every inch of his site with "GIMME MONEY!" buttons. - Andrew

The issue today anyway is that barackobama.com redirects to https://donate.barackobama.com/page... - Louis Gray

granted his current trail, you _are_ an ATM... - A.T.

I think the site is fine. - Eric Florenzano

Maybe that's a sign of things to come...Take money first (By Taxing us) and then everything else second. - Jonathan.Rivera

Seriously, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm just very concerned about the tax issues. - Jonathan.Rivera

Barack Obama

"I look forward to calling you Mr. Vice President" - http://my.barackobama.com/page...

August 23, 2008 from Obama HQ - Comment - Like - Share

Kevin, Sally Church and Brian Wilson liked this

Robert Scoble

Who should be USA’s CTO? - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

August 21, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

J. McConnell, Jeff P. Henderson, Sean Garrett and 24 other people liked this

Having served in that role for a Governor, I can tell you the cross-agency politics are maddening and incredibly difficult to navigate - even at that level and even with the full support of the Chief Executive. At the federal level, across the entire Executive Branch, I can’t even begin to imagine how compounded that would be compared to my own experience… Having said that, I do think... more... - Anthony Citrano

32 more comments

One more thing - I agree with Lessig (at least what he seemed to be saying) - you need someone who is both geek and evangelist. But also, that person needs a huge amount of political / diplomatic deft, the ability to negotiate, and (while bold) they do need a sprinkling of personal humility. Find me *that* among geek evangelists… ;) - Anthony Citrano

I vote for Paul Graham http://www.paulgraham.com/ - John Trainor

Robert, are you looking for a new job? ;-) - Jordan Hofker

the problem is cross agency politics as Anthony mentioned. I do a lot of consulting work in state and local governments and it seems that the department that sets IT policy for the entire state doesn't understand what each agency does, so the individual agencies ignore the "standards" setup by the state CIO. I think this would be even worse on the federal level were no one works togther... more... - Jonathan Jesse

also it seems that greed just becomes a factor as well in what technology they use. sales staff love the lucrative contracts which the federal government provides which is why we have 3 million dollar toliet seats - Jonathan Jesse

@ Anthony Citrano--I like the idea of a strong CTO, but who would that be? Mike Arrington? I think a huge problem here is that a vast and diverse skill set is needed for the job. I agree with you on the qualifications (tech nerd, known and respected in the tech community, a great speaker, and very politically savvy), but I really don't know of any people who can fulfill that role. I wonder who Obama will find for this position if he wins (not when). - Brian Wilson

Actually, when I read the article, my first thought was Arrington, but I think he may be "too abrasive" for that post. Basically the same reason Scoble would not be a good fit. They would tell people how wrong they are, and it seems like you really have to walk on eggshells in those political circles. Paul Graham is an interesting idea, but I do not think he would be interested in a demotion :) - Rob Diana

Someone from Microsoft..they could make Vista mandatory that way - Michael VanDervort from twhirl

I am not trying to be a troll but there are a number of reasons why I think this would be extremely undesirable. I understand the attraction of having someone tasked with understanding and advancing a tech-related agenda but I have to wonder how many innovations would still be little more than a thought in someone's mind if this position had existed already. There are some actions that require government involvement and there are others that thrive without it. Not enough room to get into it but I vote no - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

the US CTO s/be like Sam Pitrodo of India !! He is a hecka kewl guy with a lot of tech vision. He created the Indian Telecom and IT infrastructure landscape that exists today ! Go figure -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... !! BTW C-DOT was a great place in em old days to gain technology stuff in india !! :)- - Peter Dawson

Vinton Cerf - Since most people probably have no idea where the phrase 'surf the internet' even came from ??!! (plus he knows the international landscape) - Charlie Anzman

-quote - "tech nerd, known and respected in the tech community, a great speaker, and very politically savvy" and an academic. The academic piece is very very important. A show stopper IMO. - Kevin Gamble

Kevin Kelly - Dave Martin

Bill Gates! He is about old enough to start his political debut! Plus it would be really hilarious. - Geoff Schultz

You can't argue that Bill Gates wouldn't be a good choice IF he was completely removed from Microsoft. If he still had an interest in MS it would be very similar to GW and DC having a stake in oil companies winning contracts in Iraq. Vint Cerf would be my other choice, he just seems more diplomatic. - Devlin Dunsmore from twhirl

Not Lessig -- he's a zealot and we already have too many of those in Washington. Meg Whitman maybe -- built a huge business and had the good judgment to get out before it tanked. Ironically, since she's such a close adviser to McCain, Carly Fiorina probably stands a better chance. - Sprague D

Scoble, you announcing your campaign? You know I come out of politics if you need a solid campaign manager :-) - Richard Binhammer

Richard and Jordan: I have no interest in being in politics and I don't have the skills to do this job properly anyway, even if I was interested. Thanks for the ego boost, though! - Robert Scoble

@Rick Wolff: Why don't you want the federal government to be tech savvy surely that was in jest... The better we can automate through technology some of the business process the more we can cut pork that isn't needed and save us money by eliminating taxes. - Jonathan Jesse

here's a winning strat: pick a politician (CTO) *and* an engineer (Dir of U.S. Tech). this is the pattern used by embassies. The ambassador is the 'front' the one who attends parties, travels, gives, speeches, pushed policies. the 'head of the embassy' is the 'technician' the one w/ the real skills in lang, culture, history of the region, etc. - MikeAmundsen

Robert...yes you do have the skills, youd be a perfect candidate :-) - Richard Binhammer

Arrington?? Arrington?? Sorry, but that's hilarious. God, what a circle-jerk this "social media" world can be. Thinking about a guy like Vint Cerf, on the other hand, starts to make sense. - Anthony Citrano

It's possible the people best for politics are the ones that have little interest in it. - ·[▪_▪]·

Scoble, if you get named USA CTO we're definitely doing a photowalk in the White House. - Thomas Hawk

I bet photo walk + photosynth would be pretty sweet - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

robert: funny. just commented on a call for a national CTO yesterday. bottom line; we need a cabinet position with real tech policy authority and it should be the commerce secretary: http://463.blogs.com/the_463... -- we really should grab coffee to talk tech policy - Sean Garrett

I am still having a hard time understanding why everyone wants to create a position that grants someone the power and provides them with a huge bully pulpit to advance tech policies that, at some point, will invariably benefit large tech-related businesses at the expense of smaller innovators and users. Again, I understand the desired outcome of the idea but the unintended consequences are massive.... - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

...Creating a cabinet-level Tech Czar post will not guarantee adoption of efficient practices by govern bureaucracies any more than having a cabinet-level Labor issues czar effectively ushers in sweeping changes in support of federal workers. - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Marco, true, having a cabinet position does not guarantee anything, but having "bully pulpit" with no authority does guarantee ineffectiveness. - Sean Garrett

Al Gore? - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

Efficiency in government is not necessarily a good thing. A certain level of sand in the gears reduces the amount of interference the civil "servants" can force into our lives. - John Ahrens

I've read Robert's post and I fail to see any connection between those people and a CTO. Indeed, the named ones are great people but most of them have nothing to do with a CTO. - Alex Popescu

+1 for Vinton Cerf. - Nicholas Kreidberg

Ryne Nelson

Men's Basketball: US Dominates Again - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/olympic...

August 12, 2008 from Digg - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Wilson liked this

MG Siegler

When Gmail comes back I'm going to send a mass mail to every one of my contacts that it's back up.

August 11, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Czar, Chrimmus Tad, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 8 other people liked this

its back for me - Allen Stern

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me too, but for now I'll just use Friendfeed :) - Erick Schonfeld

Still down. I think Allen had them shut down my account. - Louis Gray

Mine still down too. I would use Yahoo Mail like Allen says but I forgot the password and I think it sends it to my Gmail to restore it :) - MG Siegler

okay, now i think it's back. i'll stop acting like ron burgundy in his glass case of emotion now. - MG Siegler

mg - that might be the funniest thing i've heard all day - Allen Stern

louis, dont post any screenshots, mmkay? - Allen Stern

Still down as of 3:07 PST - Mike Doeff

That's probably what took it down in the first place :) - CynicRoot

down as of 6:18pm, (though kevin fox's tip did do the trick :) - Will DeLuca

Basketball: Jordan Lyall

“Olympic Basketball + NBC = Classic "NBA on NBC" theme song. You know the one: http://twurl.nl/jgymrp” - http://friendfeed.com/e...

August 10, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

fijidaddy, Ryne Nelson and Brian Wilson liked this

that song was so great. - Richard Lawler from twhirl

2 more comments

caught that instantly and it was so weird, but it's still a great theme song. - Brian Wilson

brings back many memories - fijidaddy

I hate (and love) you, Jordan, for posting this! I'm on my eleventh consecutive listen! Ah! - Ryne Nelson

Mitchell Tsai

Bloggers' Interactions With Readers Decrease With Prominence [Hutch Carpenter guest post at Louis Gray - 7/22/08] - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

July 22, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Igor The Troll יִצְחָק, Richard Binhammer, Joakim Hilj and 22 other people liked this

But at some point, bloggers seem to move into a different point in their blogging career. They no longer need the interactions with readers so much. They've arrived. And in the case of Jason Calacanis http://calacanis.com, after arriving, they leave. Del.icio.us http://friendfeed.com/e... - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

9 more comments

Two characteristics of Stage 3 "Established Voice" bloggers also emerge: (1) The sheer volume of readers makes keeping up with all of them impossible. (2) A new kind of reader shows up, people who exhibit troll-like behavior. - Mitchell Tsai

The blogger really is playing a different game at Stage 4 "Industry Legend". At this point, you've become established in the market, you're busy with a lot of non-blogging endeavors, you've got too many readers to count, the trolls love to come at you and you've become expert in a field - Mitchell Tsai

Not surprisingly, your interactions decline. Jason Calacanis folds up his blogging tent. Seth Godin and Marc Andreessen don't accept comments. Even Robert Scoble feels it. - Mitchell Tsai

Robert Scoble is a Stage 4 blogger who interacts more than anyone on earth. He is truly the exception that proves the rule. But the limits of his interaction have been tested as well. In a post entered this morning http://scobleizer.com/2008..., he decries the types of comments he receives on his blog as those from people "with an axe to grind". Digg readers' comments "are simply disgusting cesspools." - Mitchell Tsai

There are physical limits as well. Once your number of readers hits a certain level, there just aren't enough hours in the day to personally interact with each one of them. Those with superhuman energy like Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk do better than most anyone, but it's nearly impossible to maintain that level of engagement. - Jeff Beckham

yup, this is true, staying interactive at high levels is pretty difficult, especially because there are more demands on your time from other places. - Robert Scoble

With my very busy friends (e.g. CEOs), often all I get is a few-word-e-mail in lower-case from their Blackberry, but I know from their schedules that even that takes a huge effort on their part. It's why golf is such a great business skill - spending hours of time with people normally unreachable (or charging $1,000-10,000+/hr). - Mitchell Tsai

Context-search (50 posts, 66 likes, 51 comments) http://friendfeed.com/search... Discussion at Louis Gray (30 likes, 24 comments) http://friendfeed.com/e... Context-search for "My Cameo Appearance on Louis Gray’s Blog" (7 posts, 16 likes) http://friendfeed.com/search... - Mitchell Tsai

Whoa - thanks Mitchell! - Hutch Carpenter

Digg Hutch's article at http://digg.com/hardwar... (up to 6...and hopefully more...) - Mitchell Tsai

Sarah Perez

Twitter vs. Congress - http://www.pheedo.com/click...

July 22, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Wilson, Mo Kargas, Carlos Ayala and 5 other people liked this

“Citizens are overcoming their fears about engaging online, and Congress should follow suit,” said the Sunlight Foundation, the non-partisan group that set up the Let Our Congress Tweet petition. (from the article cited). I'd add, public libraries should follow suit, too. I'm working on this in my own library. - Sia Stewart

Robert Scoble

Hitting a nerve… - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

July 22, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Chris Jones, Carlos Ayala, Thomas Hawk and 20 other people liked this

Robert, you are hitting a nerve. Blogging isn't what it was. It is becoming an echo chamber of pr crap and lists. - Steve Olson

6 more comments

I think that small corners of blogging is that. to ascribe the entirety of blogging the aspects of a few bloggers isn't looking at the big picture. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Agree with Mark. You're almost exclusively speaking of the silicon valley tech blogosphere (or subset thereof) and the PR/Marketing blogs where the echo chamber and shallowness is such an issue - Deepak Singh

Don't know that I necessarily agree, since we strive to be different, find things that people aren't talking about (while still also talking about the things that they ARE talking about), and I know a bunch of others who do the same. You just aren't reading enough varied blogs. Step out of the chamber ;) - Andru Edwards

It's easy to get caught up in the PR game. Writing "real" reviews is hard work and it is just easier to tell people about the upcoming products. Once engadget struck it rich with their linking to PR stories - others followed in hopes to get the money. Slowly people will realize that "sharing" also includes experiences with the product and finding better ways to use the product. As always, thanks for the thoughtful posts. - LPH™ and his dog P™

The nerve has been struck Robert. And here I thought I was the only one who felt this way. Thanks for bringing this to light and getting back to what makes the tech industry the best industry to follow; the innovations themselves. I mean really, can you see us all getting together to discuss the waste management industry? - Aaron Krug

Thanks Robert. I do agree and have watched on the sidelines contributing only to my corporate blog and twitter regarding tech to avoid the fray. Kudos for saying what everyone is thinking. I suppose it's time to start contributing to the change instead of waiting for it. Keep it up - you're making a difference. - Bill Sanders

@Mark, Deepak, and Andru, The big popular blogs are becoming echo chambers. Not all. No doubt, there are great blogs out there, but if you aren't using a specific formula which is becoming trite, you don't seem to go anywhere. It reminds of Hair Metal in 1990. - Steve Olson

Outsanity

Do you think with everyone making 2.0 web ideas, there's still a slither of something new to come along?

July 22, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Wilson liked this

There is something coming--I think it will involve the total acceptance of online relationships as legitimate, instead of people just thinking that techies are just spending time on their computers alone. - Brian Wilson

Robert Scoble

Has/How/Why tech blogging has failed you - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

July 22, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Yaroslav Nikolaev, Adam, Dimitar Vesselinov and 174 other people liked this

Long rant, sorry, had to clear the air so I can start blogging again. :-) - Robert Scoble

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Wow...I'm very interested and excited to see/hear/read what is to come from Scobleizer land next. - Justin Korn

I hope I make your list and if not, please let me know why so I can potentially improve. - Allen Stern

Glad to see that you are starting to realize, despite Techmeme that the world doesn't revolve around just the bay area. - Harold Gilchrist from twhirl

Gotta say you're bang on the mark there. Tech blogging should be about the tech, not the biz. - Luke Robinson

Allen: I like your blog. It's just that I love hanging out with all of you and talking geeky stuff a lot more than talking about this deal and that deal and all that. - Robert Scoble

Harold: I've always realized that. I feel I got unfairly tagged with believing the world only was about the Bay Area. I guess I deserved that to some extent, but this area is quite dominant in the world of tech (including the tool you're typing on right now) so some of my boosterism is to be expected. Funny that the top Israeli company has offices here too. - Robert Scoble

Kudos to you Mr. Scoble, what a very bright post you delivered today! Thank you for bringing some fresh perspective, that's always refreshing and welcome. I'm also happy you cite Lifehacker as an example. They focus on the smartest digital experience possible and help us improve ourselves. That's the biggest deal of all. Techbloggers should never forget it. - c0wb0yz

I love the tech first and foremost but the business is important too, especially in respect to the sustainability of said tech. - Jamie

Jamie: I agree. But the business needs to serve the customers and the customers/participants/users or whatever you want to call you and me aren't coming first in this industry anymore and that's worrying. - Robert Scoble

Wow funny enough thats the way i have been feeling for a while now I am looking forward to seeing what is next from the Scobelizer... - John Spencer from twhirl

I agree overall - CN has only a small percentage of biz - most is trends, analysis, and reviews. I had an interesting discussion about this with someone last week - if i had a computer that could handle video, i'd make a quick video to explain - there's an important part you are missing - Allen Stern

Next is to get some sleep. Gotta be up at 7:30 to be at Fortune Conference at 8 a.m. for breakfast. It's an incredible conference, hope to see some of you at the Tweetup at 5:45 p.m. - Robert Scoble

Allen: will be watching in the morning for what I was missing. I'm sure I'm missing a lot. I had to stop ranting at some point, it was getting too long! :-) - Robert Scoble

This is often relevant from major blogs/ celeb bloggers. The smaller and more personal blogs are still focusing just on tech ;) Perhaps you need to update your feeds :-) - Dennis Bjørn Petersen from twhirl

Dennis: I know. It's why I spend a lot more time here lately than on blogging. The smaller stuff shows up here a lot more regularly and I see a lot less "Yahoo business news." - Robert Scoble

Excellent post Robert. It's why I don't read Techmeme as much as I used to. The life and joy in exploring, playing with and dissecting tech, the geeky exuberance in 'new stuff' has been lessened across almost all tech sites in general, leaving a bland veneer that is just business talk. Things a geek like me doesn't care about, as I'm not an investor. - Mo Kargas

Techmeme has suffered because most of the tech blogs they follow have become nothing more then PR outlets like you said. - Harold Gilchrist from twhirl

As I posted in your comments, that's a really good post. It's great to see the old Scoble back - the one who I started reading back when your "latest thing" was Tablet PC! Welcome back, mate. - Ian Betteridge

Robert, blogging is becoming commercialized, as it becomes popular. I do not see it as a problem. It just might mean that you and a bunch of other likely minded people have to move on to a greener, more fascinating and less populated pastures. Like friendfeed, etc. Luckily, there are lots of them around and tons in the pipeline. Enjoy! - Павел Романовский

I don't know, Robert. On the one hand I agree 100%. And can I say that as editor of WebWorkerDaily I am the one who gets those 15 press releases a day and I *constantly* have the "is this useful?" filter on. I hope that's clear in our postings. Anyway...Your post is kind of like the person who is used to picking their own corn complaining about the supermarket because it's not the same garden. It's not. The grocer has to pay its bills, as does the paid tech blogger. - Judi Sohn

I know I am a newie to all this but I have been reading blogs for a while. I've bee thinking up a response and I'll post later. Long comments on the iPhone make for one queasy bus ride. - Derick Valadao

Finally. Thank you. I follow 357 feeds. Everyday. Granted I have many pop-sites (lifehacker, engadget, etc) on the list. But not one is of these "new breed" of tech bloggers out there. Even though I am in the industry, they do not speak to me. They are just another form of CNN to me. Linking to each other and regurgitating the same gibberish, no matter how relevant or important, it does not speak to me. Anyway, welcome back! This is very refreshing news to me. I will be following it with much interest. TY! - Carlos Ayala

We should all just organize a "Tech Blog Strike", unsubscribing to those blogs that only push press releases. Let's see how they sweat when they see their subscriber count falling... - Jorge Escobar

Obviously my previous comment was "tldr". I just wanted to say how great it is that a person in your position is able to repurpose his content to better fit the goal you are trying to reach with your content. It's a great direction to take in a time where most blogs are just trying to echo up to the top. - Derick Valadao

Excellent post on the state of the blogging nation. - Sheila Thomson

My only real problem with tech bloggins is how easily ideas take hold and spread to get page hits. This is very easily seen in the Vista hatred - there was never any objective reasonf or it... but it was so useful for traffic generation and looking cool that it was rampant. - Soulhuntre from twhirl

It's probably less about the business/tech divide, and more about me-too echo blogging - Dave Pelland

I think so... tech bloggers are jsut as easily victims of peer pressure and memes as anyone. Once an Idea ("love google") defines someone as "getting it" then few will look at it objectively. - Soulhuntre from twhirl

This is a welcome breath of fresh air. Fantastic. - Pete Gilbert

Scoble. Great post. Agree completely. - Tom Quinn

Super excellent post and, ironically, exactly what blogging is all about. One good thing about an economic downturn, it will weed a lot of fluff out of the infosphere -- with less incentive to act as promotional platforms for startups, blogs may get more informative about using established tech. - Sprague D

Great article Robert. It is your authenticity even more than your tech blogging that has made you the great writer that you are. Anyone can report Apple's earnings yesterday. You have always had an honest voice though that makes your writing stand out. - Thomas Hawk

The take away is 'sensational headlines'. Add to the "Rumor:" and we don't need this stuff unless it's coming from a tabloid format site - Charlie Anzman

Blogging is about saying what I want to say, and sharing things that I like with anybody who cares to listen. I'm not interested in driving traffic (thank goodness) or repeating what others have said, but contributing to a discussion. - Chris Nixon

Great post Robert. Very good read and right on the mark. I religiously read feeds in Reader, but only a few that help me. I love Lifehacker. Almost everyday I find something new and useful to my job. - Gary Schmidt

The Techie audience thirsty for knowledge is much smaller then the Get-rich-quick audience, but the largest demographic are the Free-lunch boys. The blogs with the most revenue have tricked their advertisers into believing teenage boys are business decision makers. - paul mooney

I love tech bloggers and the things they write about. The good ones will always come at a common topic from a different angle and I just LOVE that because it makes me think outside the box and start connecting dots all over the place. Robert you are definitely one of those bloggers that I love to read and I don't think any of the ones I read have failed me. - Devlin Dunsmore from twhirl

Awesome reading! THX a bunch!! - Ronald

I have to agree about the comments system though. One thing that we started to see a while ago was data portability and being able to communicate accross services. I think Disqus does that quite well and it's a great first step to making sure that the comments system becomes a little more useful on blogs. - Derick Valadao

Well said Robert, left a comment, said my piece, cheers! - Steve Spalding

Wow, an impressive and honest assessment of some major issues in the techblogosphere. - Richard Akerman

Robert - I'm not in the tech industry. But I love what lots of tech stuff has done for learning stuff in my life and for others. And I want to keep on learning. You've certainly helped me here - I wouldn't know a fraction as much about using Friendfeed productively, for example. Glad we're going to see more of this kind of stuff. Welcome back. - Tom Landini

Knocked it out of the park. If we can just get back to being geeks again, a lot of this drama will calm itself... - Jared Smith

this, along with Luis Grey's article today about Techcrunch and Techmeme, are both really interesting features on why blogging, and more specifically high-profile bloggers that were once more passionate, more personal, more engaged, more interesting, are falling to the wayside - Kevin from twhirl

Great read, but kind of depressing the way things have gone. I just like being a bit geeky and all things will work out in the end. - Alan Ashley from twhirl

The key issue for me is that there isn't enough analysis. Just reporting what an app does is useful, but very baseline useful. What are the implications? That's where tech bloggins has really failed. - Shripriya from twhirl

Shripriay, you hit it on the head. It is a shame that all the tech bloggers just wants to be Engadet or Gizmodo these days. - Harold Gilchrist from twhirl

Nice writeup Robert. I enjoyed your detailed analysis & history of the situation. Perhaps you can lead us in a new direction? - Mitchell Tsai

i read the tech bloggers then try to actually use the gadget. would like to hear more results from the usage angle. - Lee Kent

Shripriya, I agree with you wholeheartedly. My original comment was much longer but got cut due to length. I wish more blogs were like Louis Gray and Lifehacker which take a step back and then hit us with posts that are useful/interesting almost 100% of the time. Zero Punctuation is a great example for the gaming crowd--one post a week, internet fame. - Derick Valadao

Hmm... A Scoble article I like.... Is this the Seventh Seal? Seriously, you're right on in that the echo chamber of groupthink has made tech blogging boring and predictable. I think there's a few people out there fighting it, and FF makes it easier to find them. I think you're off on the business side, though... I think it SHOULD be about the technology, but the entrepreneurs coming out of the Valley have made it necessary for us to discuss the business side by not having solid business plans. - Jason Carreira

Anyway, hope this is a sign of things to come from you. - Jason Carreira

Thanks Robert. Great read, and perspectives. Love to see more on productivity, like Lifehacker. Just became a GTD convert BTW and loved the David Allen piece. - Jericho

Thanks for that Robert -- perspective is key. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I'm sorry but those that don't scale are toast, from a commericial and traffic standpoint. I know that is part of the point (varying aims and objectives of blogging etc.) - Alex Hammer

Slap your self and get back on that horse Robert. You have NOT failed us. Human nature makes us want what we do not have. For some it's page views/revenue, for trolls it's attention, and others it's n-list status. The rest of us are looking to quench our thirst for knowledge. And please give our group a little credit. We have become ever-so-skillful at weeding out those sources that do not provide this knowledge. I repeat...You have NOT failed us. - Andrew Smith

I appreciate what you are saying, and am glad that others share the same opinion as myself. What happened to being the guys who always had some tech trick that seemed like magic to the uninitiated? The joy of tech for me is showing that magic to others and getting them interested in what's out there too, and lately we have all become business whores a little bit. I look forward to the future content coming from you, and getting back to what made tech cool in the first place, the tech itself. - Aaron Krug

One of the things I value most about Robert is his inner homing mechanism. He's very prone to get lost, but something always shakes him loose and he re-calibrates. Or is that re-boots? (Kind of like iPhone 2.0 now that I think about it.) - Michael Markman

I agree w/ your article, Robert. The wonder that makes so many of us interested in tech does get lost at times- I never saw tech blogs as the place for that stuff, but appreciated it when I found it there. - anna sauce

Alex: While scaling is necessary if you want more people to view your content, why should that come at the cost of the content itself? Too many startups are trying to replace a solid marketing plan with social media and end up trying to use big blogs as a means to advertise their product and ride the traffic tail to customers. From what I gather, this tends to make jaded bloggers who... more... - Derick Valadao

I kinda find this funny.. the comments are so distributed between FF channel and Scobles blog channel ? which one am I too follow ? I mean yesterday we had this big huge augments about cluster and fragmentation of conversations. So Robert, here's a suggestion. Turn off comments on your blog and let your readers comment on FF only. Else dont post your blog entry to FF and break your own... more... - Peter Dawson

I just approved a bunch of comments that were held in moderation. Now there's 88 comments over there. Whew. - Robert Scoble

melmcbride: good point. It's easy to just stay on FriendFeed all day. It's hard to come up with something new to say that takes more than a short paragraph. Damn, I'm sounding so old school. The neat thing is when I do a longer blog is comes in here and improves everything. - Robert Scoble

i think this is part of the echo chamber that is the silicon valley. people who live there use the "new" thing for so long they soon get sick of doing it. they are same people who think everyone elses use technology the same way they do and feels the same way they do. - Jonathan Jesse

Scoble steps out of the bubble and takes a breath of fresh air... hopefully more follow or we're going nowhere fast. - Harish V

I thought this was great! Robert, I think what I hear is your desire to just do whatever the hell you want to without regard to "The Man". Go for it. You of all people can do that! - Elliott Ng

Robert the real issues is that everything really only needs to exist once. Conversations don't neeed to exist in many different places. Your blog comments and the conversation here are all the same conversation. I'd love to explain the solution as i see it but it'd take too long. - Anton Mannering

Robert I am still lost- How can you profess to be be a convo aggregator , yet approve 88 comments on your blog ? @Anton, no Blog comments and these comments on FF, are two different sets of conversation happening on the same topic. Lets not confuse this fact !! There is a fork in the convosphere. - Peter Dawson

@ Anton: I sort of agree with you, but i don't think comment fragmentation is all bad. Sometimes well-written comments appearing somewhere else can draw attention to good ideas. If I don't subscribe to a particular blog but see the feed posted here on FF, I'll pick it up and then maybe I'll go straight to the blog. There's value in fragmentation along with the frustration. - phil baumann

I think a service like disqus should be used so that friendfeed comments on links to blog posts (with comments therein) will all show up no matter which medium you use to discuss them. Does this exist yet? I thought disqus would have this covered by now. - Derick Valadao

Great points as always Robert. We're with you on this. - Missionary Broadcasting

Peter: I approved about 40 that were being held in a moderation queue. I don't let newbies post a comment on my blog because then it'd be overrun with spam. FriendFeed has a much better system to protect against spam than my blog's comments. I think that it'd very cool if I could replace my blog's comments with FriendFeed, but that'd require an API that would make a URL, return it to my blog, and get it linked in, all really quickly. - Robert Scoble

I haven't read the comments here, but feel I can comment. Robert, as someone who as known you for five years now - just before the mania began - I am pleased to hear this. What got me into your blog in the first place was your ENTHUSIASM for technology, particularly GTD. Never let that go. You be you. I will be me. And everyone else will be everyone else. In the end, you gotta follow what you love. It works for everyone from Steve Jobs to the Pope. Your friend online and off - SR - Steve Rubel

@ phil bauman Ok 2 things. First of all I didn't say it shouldn't appear in many places. I'm saying that if you're in Roberts comments and I'm on Friendfeed then we should be able to see ALL the conversation from both. But it need not exist in a whole bunch of places only be visible from there. Second I think the argument that there is value in fragmentation is similar to saying there is value in using a ploughshare pulled by an ox. Ther is but not to most people. - Anton Mannering

@ Robert Scoble: Interesting you should mention your blog comments being friendfeed. I know a startup or two working on those problems. In reality though the issues become way bigger when such a service is subject to really large numbers (non-tech crowd). Solving those problems is where the fun and games are and I only know one startup with a real solution for that. - Anton Mannering

Ironic, isn't it--the influences (PR, marketing, big media) the original bloggers were trying to break away from are--surprise-- still here and the game hasn't changed as much as we thought. PR people still push their stories, tech and news blogs focus on a few big name co's and start looking like traditional media, etc. What's needed is more of the energy, enthusiasm and original thought that Scoble and others brought to the game earlier on--otherwise, we've only duplicated the old media on a new platform. - mark ivey

I send you a tweet also but I believe that I must also write here how spot-on was your post... I can't wait to see more real Tech news coming from you and I hope that this will force other bloggers to remember how they started back then... - Manos Matsakis

This is clearly your best post ever. Thank you for all of your hard work. I read your blog because it entertains me. I would love more posts "sharing geeky things." On the other hand, if you blog about news, technology, and a few pro-company biases, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you (or any other blogger) do not provide a perfect balanced news experience does not mean that you have failed. People are responsible for finding their own news this day in age. - Brian Wilson

Great post and I totally agree. "What's needed is more of the energy, enthusiasm..." - Eric_T

Great stuff Robert. As blogging and social media continues to spread outside of tech and into other niche industries and verticals, those of us facilitating and evangelizing that spread should continue to look back at this post so history isn't repeated. See you at the Ritz tonight. - J.J. Toothman

"I think that it'd very cool if I could replace my blog's comments with FriendFeed, but that'd require an API that would make a URL" - yeah I second that motion. If I had a widget that could do that but with bi- directional flow , that would really be a convo aggregator. This will certainly be an interesting challenge to some of the geeks out here ! - Peter Dawson

You can, if you're willing to give up the content. Glenn developed a great plugin that allows for bi-directional flow. It works for Wordpress and (I think) Blogger http://blog.slaven.net.au/wordpre... - Steve Spalding

Great timing :) I got strange looks this weekend when I said that I don't review anything that has been 'pitched' to me - but rather things I discover that I think are cool. I discovered something this weekend at BlogHer that I will review. But no one sent me a press release. :) It's just a really neat gadget! - Lucretia Pruitt

I think you should watch the movie 'Resurrecting the Champ' - its about a Writer. Drew the analogy to your post and the movie (that I just happened to see yesterday) http://mrinal.vox.com/library... - Mrinal Desai

Enjoyed that rant, Robert. I'm not a tech geek, I don't read techmeme or techcrunch as the gist and trends can be followed here on FF, but I do read blogs like yours, Louis, Jeremiah and Hutch's, mainly to learn new things. Before FF I had never heard of Rescue Time, Jott, Evernote or TSheets for example, but hearing about new ideas and then experimenting with them myself, well that gets me interested and excited. The corporate enterprise stuff leaves me cold, it isn't nifty or flexible enough for users. - Sally Church

Nice post. The PR influence bit reminded me of this article by Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/submari.... Agree to the fact that Tech blogging has been less 'tech' than it was a couple of years ago. - Nikhil Dandekar

I loved the rant earlier yesterday, and even more impressed by the ff reaction. My take on your blogging, having followed you since MS days. Stay on what you think, not what others think. Avoid the whole Gillmor Gang bs, and associated groupthink. - Bankwatch

I think that every new medium matures as it becomes possible to make real money at it - this is inevitable. I don;t think it will be the death of blogging certainly but we are in a new phase. Older blogs will mature and still keep that flavor or they will stagnate and die. The personalities will decide that. One of the things I like about your work Robert is the enthusiasm. Sometimes it makes you a bit naive, others it makes you a little to fast to declare something game changing but it is always good input - Soulhuntre

Robert, just read your wonderful post now, and I'm still fascinated by it. I'm commenting here because I know you'll read here first. You know, this competition that you were taking about, almost cause me to stop blogging, but then I realized that I'm writing because I like it, so as far as I'm concern, I'm not trying to compete anyone, this is why I'm taking things easy and on my own... more... - Orli Yakuel

Orli: you know me too well! :-) Yup, agreed. Just do it because it's fun. The problem is that posts that make us all smarter don't stick around very long because of the flow. - Robert Scoble

Robert, maybe it's because 'blogs' are not so unique anymore. Lets take Friednfeed for example: everyone can get noticed here just because they favorite picture on Flickr or dugg story on digg (regardless if they writing a blog, or giving any other opinion in the subject) this and other massive content mixed up together on a daily basis is flowing so fast, it almost seem that if you'll... more... - Orli Yakuel

Robert Scoble

How much time are you wasting on Twitter? - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

July 18, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Fuad Arshad, Sean Oliver, Ronald and 29 other people liked this

actually, less now that I've started friendfeeding. Please dont ask the follow up question though. - Aziz Poonawalla

31 more comments

none. lots on friendfeed though ;-) - Gaby K. Slezák

i moved almost completely off of twitter. i still set off a tweet here and there when the subject is not FF worthy; like "I'm drinking my protein shake by the pool". All in all its alot more interesting on FF. - Carlos Ayala

I tried Twitter and didn't like it. Since starting FF, I hate to admit it, I actually like FF. It is sort of like a group instant messaging utility. - Herschel

Since I used RescueTime for a week, I have reduced all my soc net time down drastically. - Sally Church

I don't waste my time on twitter anymore. I spend all my time on FF; that's where the conversations are. - John Budnik

I'm addicted to FF rooms! Fantastic! - David Sim

Well, most of the people I follow on twitter are here, so I turned off device updates on twitter. And as for the rest, twitter has not been sending me IM's for a few weeks now. So outside a short twit now and then, or my script posting what I'm listing... I'm not wasting much time on twitter. - Grant Bierman

None at all. Just FF. Anyone worth talking tech with on the internet is here on FF. We could use a bigger crowd, but for now this is where it's at. - Chrimmus Tad

define "wasting". - David Howell

I am sure my boss would say to much. Between Twitter, FriendFeed and Plurk someone would say to much. - Admiral70

@jeffb or even too much. - Kirk Skodis from twhirl

better question should be how much time are you wasting on the internet - Dan Rockwell from twhirl

Well, I used to waste a lot of time. But since I got Twhirl, no time gets wasted. It is a marvelous tool. - Rodrigo Leme from twhirl

I think an interesting related question is, "what are you accomplishing on Twitter? " - Brian Wilson

great video - Jason Calacanis

I use little twitter, more FF and fftogo lately. I'm not a techie so I hope to not bore folks as I try to broaden my geekish horizons :) - kbourke

I use Twitter for communcating with some clients, and also now use Twhirl. - Ian May from twhirl

"gmail expects the same respect as outlook" - tell that to the Corporate IT .. and see what the response is !! - Peter Dawson

I wrote about RescueTime when they first launched, but I never dared to try it myself for what it might find :-) To answer the headline question: hardly any at all now. - Duncan Riley

I mostly use Twitter in bits of time between more meaningful tasks. Standing in line, waiting, switching between tasks, etc. - Jack Collins

I have a blackberry and I live in Canada. There is no easy way now to read/follow twitter since the IM feature is gone; I used to read twitter via google talk. I find that twitterberry and m.twitter don't allow me to read more than a page or the past hour and using SMS is painful. Every 250 messages I need to delete my mobile number online and re-add it or I would have to wait a week for new messages. I read it when I'm on the go or need a break from my writing. - Phillip Jeffrey

Um, roughly zero lately - Michael Hocter

I waste more time on friendfeed a lot more than twitter because of how much more content is available - Justin

I use time very wisely on Twitter - no more than 30 mins/day actively. Scans messages while it runs in background on Twhirl. - Jim Turner from twhirl

i rarely use twitter, but i wouldn't say that it's because of ff. necessarily. it's just become unreliable as well as "spammy" - Cee Bee

Next to none since friendfeed. Loving me some friendfeed! - joshua fouts

I would love to use Twitter and Friendfeed more - if only they were more mainstream here in Australia. - Jim

Isn't Twitter like breathing? I don't stop breathing. - Carolyn Chan from twhirl

Great app, helped me cut my social shennanigans under an hour a week. - Sean Oliver

i use twitter a lot since it helps me connect with real people and real solutions. the conversations on friendfeed are ones that drive the thought process and creativity though . - Fuad Arshad

Sounds like a great tool, though it vaguely sounds like a rip-off of something else. I don't consider my Twitter/FF time wasted though. I learn so much in the course of goofing off, and save so much time venting rather than stewing in my own frustration that it's a wash. - Tinu Abayomi-Paul

j sven

who thinks jasonclacanis email "thing"-replacing blogging with emailing - will be a total fail? I vote fail. I already have too much email

July 16, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Wilson liked this

I agree. It is totally going to fail. Very quickly. It sounds more like a blog post or advertisement than an e-mail. - Brian Wilson

Robert Scoble

Why do I block? Certainly not to silence my critics. Like you can control a critic anyway...I block to keep jerks out of my living room and on the "everyone" tab where they belong. I also block jerks because if they aren't constructive I figure they really would be better off reading/viewing someone else.

July 16, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

xero, Candace, LPH™ and his dog P™ and 40 other people liked this

Well, on Twitter anyway, I block Twitter spammers so that Twitter will delete their accounts. - Morton Fox

33 more comments

Precisely. I can't control what they say, but I can certainly control what I have to deal with reading. - Bradley McSpinn

...someone else. Oh, and I do block some that keep dragging the jerks into my view. My attitude has improved 100x since I don't see them here every morning. - Robert Scoble

@Scoble - err, dragging the jerks? - Yuvi

@morton Does that work? I certainly don't follow everyone who follows me but only block those who are obvious spammers. Once they're "out of sight, out of mind" I don't really care if Twitter keeps their accounts open or not, but it'd be nice to think that spammers are dealt with appropriately. - Sally: gift wrapper

If you didn't block, you'd end up pulling a Calacanis and retiring from FF - Jason Kintzler

I think blocking is appropriate... like that comment thread I got into the other day on your blog. At some point as these social tools mature, we, as users, have to develope methods to filter the noise. Unfortunately, there are a small minority of people in the world who make a lot of bad noise and disrupt the conversation. On my blog I wrote about Cyber Bullying...... more... - Herschel

this is why I can't chat on message boards anymore! - orionstarr

Sally: I'm not sure but I've heard that Twitter does look into accounts that are blocked by lots of users. I only block obvious spammers too, i.e. those who started Twitter accounts just to promote a get-rich-quick website. - Morton Fox

There is a danger though that in an emotional moment you will block someone who is a valid critic and you should be listening to. My attitude is block with extreme caution. I use killfiles on nntp but every once in a while I delete them and start from scratch to make sure the trolls are still trolls (if they are even still there). There is no easy way to find out who you have blocked on FF though. - Brian Sullivan

Brian: believe me valid critics are still well represented in my living room. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: No doubt but are there also valid critics in your block list? - Brian Sullivan

It's a fairly reasonable 'live and let live' attitude, I think. - Phil G

@Brian Perhaps you've come up with a new FF feature. Adding a block duration (hours, days, months, forever). Might be useful, especially if the blocked person knows they are being blocked temporarily. A digital version of shunning. :-) - Jim McCusker

I get the impression that most of us have only blocked a handful of people. I've blocked exactly 3. I'd like to think that we all have good, well-thought-out reasons to block. Like Robert said, I want to keep jerks out of my living room. For me to block another user, they have to really want it. - ha3rvey (doesn't dance)

I'm not sure "live and let live" is exactly the solution. I don't think anyone with an open mind is afraid of respectful criticism. It's when "critics" go beyond the issues and get personal is when the line gets crossed. I'm without no sin on this sometimes and I find in responding to attacks I can respond with passion and that can lead to personal attacking. - Herschel

Brian: no. A reasonable critic isn't a jerk and/or doesn't try to bring one into my world. - Robert Scoble

I find myself concerned that Scoble has blocked me even though I am a nice guy hehe :0 Great post Robert, I like it and will block people if I ever get enough people to care and follow me. I think we are all figuring out that we have some responsibility to control the noise using our mouse and keyboard and that the system (twitter or ff or whatever) is not entirely responsible for controllling it for us. Thank God for editing comments - Cody Heitschmidt

Robert: Everybody acts like a jerk at some point in their life (I am sure even you have at some point). - Brian Sullivan

Brian you miss the point (my opinion) and take the conversation down a dismal path... Scoble is not saying every time someone could possible be considered a jerk... He blocks them, he is saying he enjoys the oppurtunity to be able to decide in his own friend feed world that someone is a jerk and get rid of their noise. Same thing as having a home. We all love our home because we control it, I can invite Robert Scoble over if I want and if when he comes I don't like him... I don't invite him again. - Cody Heitschmidt

Cody: exactly. Plus I still see the jerks on ego searches on the everyone tab. - Robert Scoble

You hit the Everyone tab? Don't think I've ever used that, to be honest. - Bradley McSpinn

my fav shows r where you are yourself. um think huell howser. for tech :) http://www.calgold.com/ appreciate your work! keep it up!editing this to add that suits r awesome but not always needed as you make us feel comfortable when you are comfortable! thanks again! - Tanya

Blocking is perfect for when you need to filter out the negative crap from FF. I second Scoble's use of it! yeah for FriendFeed block feature!! keep the jerks, trolls out of my life - thank you very much. :*) - Susan Beebe

Is there a way to know if someone has blocked you? - Shey, Jamaican of FF

excellent points, I might try that! Grazie - Danny Bo'itanni

Blocking is cool. Freedom of speech doesn't imply that anyone has to listen. - Ian Betteridge

Shey: as I discovered yesterday, you'll figure out you're blocked when they post, but don't show in your timeline. You cna still see them by going to their page directly. If you comment on a thread, it won't move to the top of your timeline -- even if you're apparently subscribed. - Chris Baskind

How do you find out who you have blocked ? - Brian Sullivan

Freedom to speak and freedom to block are two sides of a same coin. ;) - Yung-Hui Lim

Robert: what's your process for following and subscribing by default ? With so many followers on FF and Twitter how do you decide who is your feed and who is not? Do you build a "friendship" first or do you follow and subscribe friends of friends, etc. What about others in this discussion? What do you do? - Larry Kless from twhirl

To me it seems important to recognize that with an open-ended tool like Friendfeed, different people will use it different ways. Personally, out of principle, I'd prefer to avoid blocking anyone, and I haven't yet. But I'm low-profile anyhow. If I were Scoble -- or if I were female -- I'm sure I'd use the block feature liberally. My blood pressure, you know. I just have no need to see overtly negative or hostile posts. - Nathan Rein

@Larry I use Twitter/FF to follow industry analysts and other noted personalities. As my interest in a person's feed grows, I start to look at their followed and followers and expand my own list accordingly. Sometimes I'm interested in following particular people and sometimes it's following particular conversations. Either way, I like the open flow of information. - Sally: gift wrapper

larry I subscribe to anyone who catches my eye and is nice. - Robert Scoble

I block spammers. I don't typically block trolls or people that disagree with me. This isn't my living room after all. For Robert though, he would have to block or it would drown out the signal. - Sam Pullara

Outsanity

Is it fair to say that everyone is subscribed to each other at this point on FriendFeed?

July 15, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Helen Sventitsky, Brian Wilson, Igor Poltavskiy and Andraž Tori liked this

No. There are easily 100,000 people on FriendFeed and I'm only subscribed to 3,000 or so. Heck, I have 16,000+ followers, so I'm only subscribed to less than 1/4 of my own followers! - Robert Scoble

14 more comments

I don't think so - catepol

First it's not necessary; second, the " friend's friend" can greatly extend the subsciption network, eg, You subscrib 3,000 friends, and each of your friends subscribe 100 new friends in avarage, then you got connected to 300,000 people. - K.D.

No. The top users are probably all subscribed to each other but that's not the case with the rest of the users. - Yuval Atzmon

It's hard enough to make sure that you're subscribed to everyone who is subscribed to you and visa versa. - Judi Sohn

It IS fair to say. Im seeing shared items and postings from friends of subscribed friends. A lot of them without any interest to me. But agreed - a lot of the "non-subscribed" noise is actually pretty interesting... - Migger

I do like the "friend-of-friend" posts because you tend to see interesting posts. - Outsanity

You're not subscribed to me, so no :) - Kate

I wish there was another tab: friends of friends, so I could pop over when I had time, but didn't have to skim through alot of this when i really just want to catch up on friends. Unlike Robert, I don't think i want to follow 3,000 people - Lorraine Ball

I unsubscribed from several hyper-posters with zillions of friends because the page was getting too crowded and difficult to read. - Andrew Leyden

Not yet. - Steven Perez

In FriendFeed requests over the past few weeks, I've seen more folks than usual who just don't add to the conversation. Personally, I don't subscribe to people whose last few pages' worth of contributions are "lol" or "yeah, you're right" - Brent Newhall

Nope. For an extreme example, take myself: I'm new to FriendFeed, and I don't think anyone is subscribed to me. And I only have a few subscriptions so far. But I think that will change with time. Especially if Twitter doesn't recover... - Brian Wilson

Robert Scoble is the BIG BROTHER of us all? - Noah David Simon

better friendfeed then twitter. http://simonstudiotheatre.blogspot.com/2008... TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008 twitter is social media abuse (@jack @Biz n @EV is under the influence of the leftist bigots of aMANdaChapel PurpleCar and eMailOurMilitary) - Noah David Simon

I'm sure there are some to whom I've not subscribed - Morton Fox

Robert Scoble

It’s worth the hell - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

July 11, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Martin Gommel , Thomas Hawk, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 22 other people liked this

Apple is an amazing company. One that can abuse you, and make you love it at the end of the process. - Robert Scoble

33 more comments

And raise and lower prices with 1 day of backlash ... I'd say more Jobs than Apple. Incredible - Charlie Anzman

Great post! All in all, I'd say Apple is better-positioned to weather this "storm" than Microsoft would be (not that *that's* the competition at hand): 1) they can probably react quicker to make the fixes necessary (Microsoft REALLY needs to overcome their "build lethargy" and be more nimble in that regard) and 2) the fanbase & the detractor base is much more forgiving of Apple-the-up-and-comer than they are of Microsoft-the-evil-behemoth. - Craig Eddy

Good point! Apple is the only one that can do that. Any other company would get flames! - fbrunel

It means that products are so good that people can endure anything for getting them. - fbrunel

I'm trying to want to go get an iphone.. really. Can someone tell me something it does that I need? Specifically, I'm rarely more than 5 minutes away from a computer so I'm struggling with upgrading my 40$ att plan to a $100 one? I passed the first time around, but I serious need a new phone and waited for launch hoping to be wowed. - Doug Brooks

I still can't download the iPod touch firmware. I wondering if I ever will be able too. - Jim Williams

Robert, I think you're right about nothing else coming close to the iPhone. But I'll tell you what - I wouldn't repeat today's frustration. As someone once told me "one 'oh, shit' cancels five 'atta-boys'." Let's all learn something from this. - Tom Landini

I can't even fully describe exactly why I love my first iPhone. It's just amazing, despite the activation problems. Long term, Apple will recover from this hurdle...and I'll buy iPhone 4G! - Brian Wilson

I bitch. But you know I have to agree as well. - MG Siegler

So Robert, was the atmosphere in line as interesting as it was while waiting for the original iPhone? Was it worth being in line from the social aspect? Do you think you will bother waiting in line for the third gen iPhone? - Jeff P. Henderson

Funny, but I never have any such issues with my blackberry - no queues, no activation nightmares. I still say it's the corporate choice... - Tom Quinn

Jeff: I only waited in line a couple of hours. The Palo Alto store is geekier but last year was extraordinary. The lines were fun, though. - Robert Scoble

Just linked to the piece ... bottom line ... it's true :) - Charlie Anzman

I waited in line 4 hours in NJ. Well worth it! Better than my stupid work Blackberry. - Ernie Oporto

hmm let me try a different approach.. does anyone know if you can return a phone and cancel a plan if it's not your thing? - Doug Brooks

I agree, it was worth it. Nice article Robert. - Eric Thompson

It just amazes me that microsoft, sony, google, nokia et alia have let Apple get away with this massive coup. They must have all seen the iphone coming a mile away and yet all these years later none of them has yet managed to launch a decent competitor. How hard is it just to copy? - Charlie

The reasonaApple gets away with it is they appeal to the desire to feel elite and special. Features wise the iPhoen is sadly lackign and the companies support for it is miserable. They picked the worst carrier on earth to boot. But since they can make folks feel special for having one, they win the mindshare. The same 10% will pay any price to get that feeling. - Soulhuntre from feedalizr

"Apple is an amazing company. One that can abuse you, and make you love it at the end of the process. " I've dated women like this. :) - Adam Turetzky

CHarles - why copy it? Honestly. No MMS to speak of, a bad camera, no video, no copy / paste, no background tasks, weak gps, locked in OS and a difficult developer kit. Yes, it loosk cool... but other than that the hardware and software is well below current standards for Blackberry and Windows Mobile systems. I know, I'm a heretic. - Soulhuntre from feedalizr

Lol at the I-phone hype. It keeps amazing me :P - alfred westerveld

You cut the line? - Jim Kukral

You cut with your son?? - Sam Harrelson from twhirl

Not loving Apple today-- My cool aid appears to be tainted - Mark Nassal from twhirl

It really wasn't so bad at all. The launch today was a bottleneck of too many people and: 1) not enough technology (the servers), and 2) knowledge (AT&T). I was inconvenienced for a while in the afternoon, but once the servers opened back up, It was all systems go with the 3G and I was back in a state of wonder at what a great product this is. - Steve Isaacs

Did you really cut the line with your son? Just to be first?Tell me, was it worth it? How many people were there before you? Do you really think that it was fair, or are you both that "special" that you get to jump the line. I am sorry, but to brag about jumping the line is tacky. You didn't even acknowledge, nor thank those who supposedly let you jump the line. Talk about gratitude or lack of. Oh well. - Becca

The moral of the story, son... it's good to be King (Douchebag) - Shawn Collins

I thought he jumped the line so he could film the event, not to get his own iPhone. - Victor Ryden

RAK: I didn't cut in line. I was invited into the line by the group of people in the front. Everyone saves spots. We did it last year for people, too. Or did you forget that I bought Dave Winer and Steve Gillmor's iPhones last year? (I waited in line, they did not). - Robert Scoble

I think that the kool-aid the tech world is drinking has not caught on mainstream. Not even close. Was talking to a group of friends today, they don't even know what the iPhone 3G is. Awesome phone (over-hyped of course), great tools, app store launched, etc. But it'll take some time for the average, non-wealthy Joe to care why it exists ...maybe the iPhone is not really changing the world the way everybody thinks it is... - David Adewumi

In the meantime, new iPhones are now selling on Ebay for close to $2,000 :-) Definitely worth the hell... ;-) - Jesse Stay

They should have put big hamster wheels along the lines, so that people waiting could get some exercise. - Tal Ater

Hamster wheels a good idea - we should get them to generate electricity by connecting them to the grid - the queue could get some excercise and actually do something useful - Brian Sullivan

Glad to hear your son made it out of there ok. :) - David Cook

Robert Scoble

The community wins - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...

July 10, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Czar, Mike Fruchter, Peter Efland and 8 other people liked this

I think one of the things you fail to realize is that the community only gives people tons of productive feedback if said people already have some sort of popularity or leg into the productive side of a community. It’s hard to break the status quo and become part of any “in” group. You are luckily influential and popular on FriendFeed, so you get lots of feedback. - Brian Wilson

10 more comments

I've definitely been enjoying your stuff lately. The inside looks at seadragon have been especially cool. btw, I notice that you aren't following me on FF. It would be great to get in on that group. :) - Ben Reierson

I've only been on FF for two weeks and have 26 people following me including several 'high profile' people. If you participate, you can quickly become part of the community. If you have something interesting to say, people will follow you. If you just lurk, then you experience will be much less interesting. - Jeff P. Henderson

+1 to Jeff P. Henderson - Justin Korn

Yeah, I certainly agree with that. Participation is a must, and hope I didn't imply otherwise. There is a lot of noise on here as well. I think sometimes you happen to catch people's eye, but just as often people will slip through the cracks. I think as FF evolves it will hopefully focus on making it easier to find the most interesting contributors. For instance there is no way to mod your comment up, which would be nice. - Ben Reierson

are you using the WordPress module to get FF into your site? Do the comments on your site come here? Because I see Brian's comment here and blog but not allen's .. just curious. Oh, tried to get Gail and Martin from TabletKiosk onto FF. So, even Face-to-Face conversations are influenced by FF - LPH™ and his dog P™

I agree with Robert. If it wasn't for the community, I wouldn't be coming back to read stuff. I'm still trying to get the hang of it though. There's a lot of noise and I'm now unsubscribing a bunch of people that I added when I started. - Franklin Naval

LPH: no, Brian just copied his comment to both places. I haven't yet gone with one of the new fangled comment systems. - Robert Scoble

When I first joined FF, I was asked to subscribe to a few "popular".. Robert Scoble is like the starter's package. I haven't added many others so far yet. Robert and his friends' entries take up most of the entries I see everyday. That, in a way, is to say there's quite a lot of noise but it's a good introduction to the FF itself as well. Heh. - Chris Chua

Chris: I try to keep the noise down to a dull roar. Let me know if I'm getting carried away. - Robert Scoble

I loved the live chat room but interested as to what the interactive elements will be.Update - It'll be 2am on Saturday morning here so I won't be able to watch :( - Toby Graham

Ben Reierson: "Participation is a must" That all depends of course on how you want to use FriendFeed. - Rutger Blom

Robert Scoble

Debriefing of our DC Trip - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...

June 28, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Joseph Ferris, David Recordon, Atul Arora and 11 other people liked this

It's actually a little depressing. I guess it's good to know that there are people in DC who realize the problems. Hope that they will actually try fixing them. - Kevin Shannon

That was a great post. But I have to wonder, were all of these politicians briefed on who you are beforehand? Were they just normal politicians who say anything to stay in power? I hope you were not duped by anyone you met in Washington and I’m looking forward to hearing more about your trip. I posted more of my thoughts on that post itself before I created a FriendFeed account. - Brian Wilson

Brian: they all knew a little bit about me, at minimum. Some knew a lot about me and have interacted with me on Twitter before. Duped? Well, let's talk about that after you see all the videos I filmed. I don't know what they would dupe me into believing or doing. - Robert Scoble

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