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iPhone: Wao || 大号真皮人偶

iPanties: Slide to Unlock Lingerie May Require Jailbreak - iThong - http://gizmodo.com/5241432...

May 7 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

sugatch, Kheireddine BATECH, RAPatton and 11 other people liked this

O_o - Wao || 大号真皮人偶 from Bookmarklet

Thomas Hawk

So the Los Angeles Times Thinks It’s OK to Rip Copyrighted Photos From Flickr? - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

August 31 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Kreg Steppe, João Almeida, Colin Charles and 29 other people liked this

that's sad, but unfortunately it's common - Rafael

19 more comments

I don't think anyone that follows the stealing of photography is at all surprised by this. It sucks but so common. - Adam Jackson

I hope that the LA Times is not one of the papers that is attacking Google for grabbing news from them and making money off of it. - Travis Koger

Thomas: Did you see your post on Flickr is currently image number 3? http://ff.im/7qTF6 - Holger Eilhard

@Holger, brilliant capture. I love the pic title also. That is almost like looking into a mirror, looking into a mirror. The circular copyright infringement going on here is spectacularly good. - Travis Koger

BOOOOOOO! - sofarsoShawn

But photos are "meant to be free like the wind when placed online" or they used to be by your account not too long ago. Interested in blog traffic or the issue? Has your stance on photo rights evolved? - Jim Goldstein from iPhone

@Jim: If I remember correctly (?) TH's point is that they are meant to be free, until someone - in this case the LAT - is making money with them... - Holger Eilhard

Jim, you're confusing how I feel about a mainstream media company flagrantly taking photos for publication in a for profit venue vs. people getting wound up over every little instance of copyright infringement including people printing out their photos for personal use. Something people have very little control over and involves no commercial application of the work. One can easily live... more... - Thomas Hawk

Unfortunately your take on "commercial application" is not that of everyone else. The issue of selling or licensing photography is anything but black or white some people license photos, some sell prints, some just want them to be seen on blogs, some want bloggers to pay for use and some want all or some combination there of. Copyright terms are there to express the preferred limitation... more... - Jim Goldstein

Jim, weren't you hosting a copyrighted mp3 file on your own website a while back. Does copyright only apply to photos or does it apply to music as well? Aren't you being a bit hypocritical here extolling the virtues of copyright in your pure black and white world but thinking that the same rules don't apply to you? - Thomas Hawk

Copyrights matter for any creative medium and that's why creative work that finds its way to my web site or any web site I manage is used in line with the licensing terms set by the artist or special permission is sought by the artist. To your question no I was not hosting a copyrighted mp3 file, but ~20 seconds of a song was embedded in a .mov file for a limited period of time. If... more... - Jim Goldstein

"that's why creative work that finds its way to my web site or any web site I manage is used in line with the licensing terms set by the artist or special permission is sought by the artist." So did you get Brian Eno's permission when you hosted his music on your own website? I'm confused. http://web.archive.org/web... - Thomas Hawk

Anthony says over in his thread (http://friendfeed.com/photo-u...) that it's (finally) fixed now. - Stephen Mack

good to see. :) I'm still interested in if Jim Goldstein had permission from Brian Eno when he decided to host Brian Eno's music prominently on his website as a background music track to his photographs. Given that Jim states that "creative work that finds its way to my web site is used in line with licensing terms set by the artist or special permission." and seems to feel so... more... - Thomas Hawk

I'm not sure what you're after other than avoiding the question at hand in relation to your post and your thoughts Thomas. I wasn't born with the innate knowledge of our legal system, but I make the effort to learn it, make adjustments and disseminate accurate information. As stated if improperly used material was placed on my site I've made effort to remove it as fast as possible.... more... - Jim Goldstein

Jim, you say that you weren't "born" with the innate knowledge of our legal system. I'm not suggesting that you posted the copyrighted file to your website the year you were born. I'm suggesting you posted it late last year. Were you unaware of copyright law last year? Is this something new that you've only picked up recently? What I'm after is simple. Did you violate Brian Eno's... more... - Thomas Hawk

Dude http://www.filetransit.com/freewar... You can watermark your Pics and prove ownership, Then do something about it for real. Be cool Dude protect and demand what is yours by rights Later Dude - ThatDBD

So Jim, was your use of Brian Eno's music late last year as background music to your images on your own personal website a copyright violation or was it not? Still waiting to hear if you had personal permission from Eno to use the music as you said earlier: "creative work that finds its way to my web site or any web site I manage is used in line with the licensing terms set by the... more... - Thomas Hawk

@jimgoldstein. Regarding your tweet. http://twitter.com/jimgold... First of all it's not slander when it's written it's libel. Secondly. Hypocrisy = someone saying one thing and doing something else. When someone says that copyright is black and white. And then they say that any content on their sites is properly licensed or is used with artist approval. And then I... more... - Thomas Hawk

Fun stuff. - Dane Deasy

Dave Winer

FB buying FF is bad news for FF users.

August 10 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Youssef EL ABASSI, Yinka, Stanislas Jourdan and 222 other people liked this

Agree totally Dave - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

78 more comments

Why do you think so Dave? - Tim Akinbo

10000% agree, its dreadul and the big boys like Leo and Scoble cant seem to see it! - Mark

Leo laporte says "This is a big step toward an open Facebook. This has been their goal all along: a distributed Facebook." What a Crock of SHITE - Mark

They bought the people! - Mark

yeah... but it is also a smart move, they got the team.. - Rob Sellen :o)

I'm trying to give the FF team the benefit of the doubt...but I'm having a hard time with it as well. - Ken Kennedy

Born to be sold, we were used to say in the new economy era. - Federico Bolsoman

They bought the people. We Stick with that. FF guys are Smart/fast and have deep Google knowledge - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

Woah. I step away from the computer for a couple hours and this is what happens? - Travis B. Hartwell

I agree an independent Friendfeed might be preferable for we few brave FF users. But the writing was on the wall. For most users it's Twitter or Facebook or nothing at all. Aligning with Facebook is smart long term thinking if FB is planning to open up as I am convinced they are. - Leo Laporte from BuddyFeed

Let's hope that FB doesn't block people from using the 'competeition' while on FF. - shelter watch

Seems everything's headed for an autumn war Facebook <> Google Wave - Jordi Soler

At first I like the idea of FF & FB, but now I'm starting to think it's bad for FF - Ray H

hmm, an open, new version of FB that uses all of what makes FF great would be nice. - Dusty Edenfield

Leo's got the right idea, and independence is a myth - Steve Gillmor

Well, how could it possibly be a good thing? - Fleagle

Agree, I'm not a Facebook fan although I try but.. I'd definitely take FF over FB anyday. - Sharon Dexter

I prefer a FriendFeed folded into Facebook versus a FriendFeed that quietly fades away, which is the direction this was going. - Mike Doeff

Totally agree - facebook is so tedious and slow. FF is wonderful. - Zphotogal

+1 mike - Riaz Kanani

We imagine FB with the SEO juice of FF, thus intercepting search traffic... - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

I can certainly see the best ideas from FF being folded into FB but not sure what that says about the future of this site and the data it contains - Keith Harrison

Except for the whole FriendFeed dying slowly in the obscure ghetto of the digirati part. As Mike said, FF in FB is better than no FF at all. FriendFeed users are far better off having it than watching it its gradual anemia grow worse and worse until one day it vanishes. - Curtis Schweitzer

While this may never happen, consider it a possibility - your entire FB feed now available in FF. - Tim Akinbo

It is really hard to see how FB will do more than incorporate staff and ideas from FF. FriendFeed's design of being a very open aggregator is very different than FB's walled garden ethic. I also think part of what attracted me to prefer FF over FB is the clean interface, as opposed to FB fire-in-a-bordello presentation style. I hope FB really listens on the UI side and not just on the aggregator side, or works just mines out the staff. - David Lounsbury

This is a good thing for FF and FB both. This will lead to a more open FB and steal Twitter's thunder. - Tim

"the writing on the wall?" ... that's just hyperbole, Leo. Paul Buchheit himself said in his interview w/ Scoble that they could have kept the service alive "for years"...there was no financial issue forcing this, like tr.im or something. And while I suppose there are those that believe the most popular site/music/art/people are always the best, I think that's both a shallow way of... more... - Ken Kennedy

Like 4 Ken - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

What I care about most is having a Facebook profile that is *actually* public, viewable by non-users. - Andrew Roche

I definitely DONT LIKE IT grmphhh ! - laetSgo

@andrew that's one thing FF team is very good at: climbing Google :) - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

DOnt like it either. I'm off to a self hosted http://sweetcron.com/ or wait for a http://kakuteru.com/ invite. - Mario Valente

One thing that can be said about social communities - its the people who build the product. Had we not given excellent feedback to FriendFeed developers in creating our perfect world FB wouldn't have had an interest. Its our fault. :( - jcunwired

i'll agree to wait this one out before being totally devastated about Facebook buying FriendFeed - Chris Heath

Let's leave "en masse" - Giorgio Burlini from iPhone

Motion carried, motion passed. - Zachary TG

Facebook is banned from my work computer. - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

Live *open* BadHair podcast in 8 minutes. (347) 843-4661. Call in if you have a comment or question re FB/FF. Starts in 3 minutes. - Dave Winer

Wait and see ... - Kate Foy

It means you'll have to share. wahhhhh - Andrew Smith

I think it is a bad idea. I don't like to use Facebook except for frivolous reasons. FF has been good for reliable information. I suppose I'll stop using it so much now. We'll see. - Barbara K. Iverson

I want to see where this is going but definitely my favorite social site just got folded into my least favorite. - Braden Douglass

It depends entirely on what direction FF would have taken next (and what direction it will take Dave). Think most of us that have been around FF since almost the start (when it was a MUCH smaller place) miss that but this actually might be a good thing. - Charlie Anzman

Agreed if they lose the FF interface. - Wei-Yen Tan

If we put all our faith into a single platform or a single solution [Twitter/FB/Goog] then we lose touch with people, processes and where history is taking us. In this case, we’re headed more in the direction of where .tel and Identi.ca are stumbling, consciously or not: towards a non-web-centric, permission-based polycephalous set of systems, where discussions and messaging transpire... more... - A Mitchell

Google Wave is coming to replace all this stuff. And Google Reader will get more social features including item recommendations through comparing users likes, and so Google will win this. Good time to sell. - Charbax

Interesting convo we had there dave, thanks for letting us call in and participate. - Chris Heath

But the real question is who will take over who? Isn't there a possibility that FriendFeed will takeover Facebook! I hope FB make it work as I like the idea of FF but it doesn't have the critical mass of people talking about what I am interested in! - Phillip Molly Malone

Very bad I'm sure there will be some changes - Annika from Nambu

I agree it's probably bad news for FF users.FF has reliable info. I don't want it to become chatter. - Leigh Marriner

I'll admit to being a recent convert to FF but it was the best social site I have used yet (and I have used them all). I am sorry to see it lose it's independence. This will not end well for FF groupies. But my reading of the tea leaves is that FF options as a standalone service were not good. I guess this is a sign of a maturing market. Can a Larry Ellison acquisition be far behind? - Michael Liss

simply but clear - Gioia Feliziani

I agree with Dave's original assertion. I'm struggling to imagine the value Facebook could add to FriendFeed, and I can certainly imagine the downsides. Having an aggregator that sits independently on top of the commercial pile, while fleeting as a free service, is a valuable one. - Allred

disagree. - Gus

I have my suspicions too. But Facebook have been wanting to open up more for some time (e.g., they're eliminating regional networks), and I'm guessing they see FF as the key. I'm betting they'll fuse the two services soon. But let's hope they use FF to improve FB. But there's always a big chance FB will ruin FF. Stay tuned... - Dennis Jernberg

+1 for A Mitchell's insights. If tr.im and FF have taught us anything, it's that no matter how many open api's there are, a closed platform is still a closed platform, and it can disappear overnight. We need a decentralized yet federated way to do all that FF did (and more). If it's not decentralized, we don't have redundancy. if it's not federated, we lose community an conversation. - Don Faulkner from BuddyFeed

another +1, Don and A Mitchell. I just finished a blog post along almost exactly the same lines, Don...decentralization and federation are both key. Good news is, this is historically how things go...nerds only, then mainstream joins, but centralized (think AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy...services and email that couldn't talk to each other). As the systems mature, then value of decentralization becomes apparent. This week could actually be an important milestone in speeding up that process *here's to hoping...*. - Ken Kennedy

But Facebook buying friendfeed is great news for the 250+ million fb users! (And most ff users have fb :) - Garin Kilpatrick

It would have been better (slightly) if they were acquired by Twitter. I'm not a Twitter fan, but I think FF would bring more to twitter, it would be a better fit and the users and the interface would have a better chance at "integration" - Mario Valente

I've read its good for FF, it's bad for FF. It's better than being sold to google, it's better than being sold to twitter. Myriad variations on a theme, which leads me to conclude we haven't got a clue what the future will bring. - Mark

FB will better integrate FF than Google or others ever would -- one hopes. let's see what happens and go from there. Good news is that it will generate a ton of news for you peeps to report on. - Gavin Adams

It's simply time for a distributed story for this type of application. You shouldn't need to rely on any providers who can be down or might be bought. - Christian Scholz

"Google Wave is coming to replace all this stuff." And lock you into yet another platform owned by one company. - Ian Betteridge

@Ian...Wave is a federated, decentralized, (to be) open-sourced solution. It's complicated, but it's at worst an architecture lock-in (ie, it might be hard to move a large corpus of Wave-annotated data out of the Wave infrastructure). Unless Google is pulling a flat-out lying fast one...there won't be any reason why you can't run your "own" instance of Wave and connect to the rest of the Net. So not standard company lock-in. - Ken Kennedy

Ken, to be honest, I'll believe it when I see companies other than Google taking the code and running an equivalent service. Flat out lying? No, probably not. But "only able to do something useful if you're connected to Google in some way"? Probably. - Ian Betteridge

@Ian, I hear ya, but I've read enough of the technical specs to lay my money on the other side of that bet. - Ken Kennedy

At least Google is one company that's not likely to turn coat on its social community and sell out. - jcunwired

Really? I think the old Jaiku community would disagree with you on that. And the people who stored their bookmarks in Google Bookmarks, too. - Ian Betteridge

why? - Thomas Power

Sorry - I meant Google Browser Sync rather than Google Bookmarks. One is dead, the other alive and well(ish). But the point is that Google has a track record of killing or abandoning services when it suits. - Ian Betteridge

True, Ian. Google's "do no evil" doesn't keep them from killing things that aren't panning out for their world domination strategy. They're marginally more saintly than Facebook. - Sean Gallagher

Is it because of the Facebook ad approach that Dave W and Scoble are looking to jump ship on FriendFeed? - Sean Gallagher

Sean: I'm not jumping ship. But I will follow early adopters wherever they go. - Robert Scoble

Or Google Notebook. Even given that and Jaiku, though, which did do a blow to my faith in Google, I would rather a Google-FriendFeed than a Facebook-FriendFeed. Mostly because I think they'd let it do its own thing rather than assimilate it. They left YouTube pretty well alone. Oh well. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

disagree with FF and LI nxt year bottled up inside Facebook this forces Google MS and Apple to get seriously social and start playing rather than just watching. Google-Twitter, Apple-Facebook versus Microsoft-Bing now that's a battle I want to (socially) watch with all you guys. Oh what fun. Can't wait. - Thomas Power

I'm not sure Facebook or FriendFeed are entities whose well-being I value so highly; users, I care about, and having FriendFeed developper work their magic, their talent and their stand for open standard to benefit 300M people sounds more important to me then having them spend more time tailoring the digerati's private network. I'm far for believing you can't improve FriendFeed, but I'd... more... - Bertil Hatt

@Bertil_Hatt: if there's one thing that FriendFeed isn't it's a private network. Facebook is the one who, on the other hand, operates like a "walled garden" or a private condo. - Miguel Caetano

Only if you believe the FF has a sustainable business model? - Gary Walter (gwalter)

FF is F'ed - Shivanand Velmurugan

Robert Scoble

I am sad that Kodachrome film is dead. Out of all my dad's and my photos the Kodachrome ones look the best by far. But for me digital killed it. I used to show the customers in camera stores that I worked in in the 1980's how to use it. More on Kodak's blog: http://homepage.1000words.kodak.com/default...

June 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Ňicķ, Richard pancakhaus Walker, Colin Charles and 17 other people liked this

Mama don't take my kodachrome away. - Steve Lowe

18 more comments

This is one reason I work at Rackspace. We must find ways to make our memories last longer than Kodachrome. - Robert Scoble

My oldest took photography in high school this year and complained that he had to develop in film. His words, Why do I need to do that, can't I just take pictures, with my digital camera and then use Photoshop? My youngest, who is Six says, Hey I just took these pictures lets post it to flickr for grandpa and grandma. Kodachrome, unfortunately, is joining the buggy whip, the LP, and others into the graveyard of technology... - Eran Even-Kesef

By the way this entire post was made on the new iPhone. Damn it is nice to have copy and paste. - Robert Scoble

Made all the world a sunny day? - Matthew DeVries

Eran: I haven't used film for years now. - Robert Scoble

Matthew: nothing like a Kodachrome sunset. - Robert Scoble

I still shoot film. I like how it looks and appreciate its benefits and limitations. It is getting harder and harder to find developing shops, but I am not ready to turn in my AE-1. - Martha

Ditto on being sad its ending. I am surprised it lasted this long considering the inroads digital photography has made. A great product for a long time! - tbeal44

Well, there are digital replacements. DxO labs (and I'm sure there are others) has a software that emulates dozens of films, including Kodachrome. You can even mix and match color reproduction and grains from different film types. - Jan Ignatius

What is the world coming to, Robert?! Are you expressing delight at being granted "copy and paste" capability on only the third version of an Apple product, 25 years after the release of the Macintosh?! Are we really moving forward? This is somewhat "tongue in cheek", but it does smack of "Stockholm syndrome", don't you think? (By the way, Symbian S60 has had this for years; when do you think you might get multitasking?) - John W Lewis

Going to miss it. But if you were good at using Kodachrome the switch to SLR digital was a piece of cake. My dad's photos still look great, too. - Gary

Was your avatar done with kodachrome? Or the new iphone? I think whichever it was has a color balance problem. Or is it an impressionist portrait? Perhaps you are in the same boat as they possibly were: http://www.revoptom.com/index... Only joking. - Jack Jones

Death of a medium is not as important as death of a message. Kodachrome or Ilford (film/paper) matter less than photographers who used them. Go see Robert Frank's Americans (http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibit...) and forget that you're "shooting" digital. Btw, Robert: how Rackspace is going to make (my) memories last longer? (serious question). - jacek

jacek: my first two years of my blog are gone. Why? The system hosting them is gone. So, Rackspace has the economic activity to stay around a lot longer (we're the world's largest hosting company) so that's one way. But developing cloud systems that are hyper resilient to all sorts of stuff is our job #1 right now. - Robert Scoble

do any of u think film would disappear? - polou/indigo_bow

polou- no, just like painting it will take a back seat in terms of practical documentation use but live on as a valid means of artistry. also, when most people think "film" they think 35mm, but there is also medium and large format film. these still offer extreme resolution at a more affordable price point that their digital equivalents. lastly, every film camera can be digital by scanning the negs. - Marco

i think kodachrome died because of the weird development demands. not very many labs can develop it - Marco

I still have 80+ rolls of unexposed film in the freezer (mix of 35mm and 120-size), including an unopened brick of PKM (Kodachrome 25 Professional - ISO 25). Should I shoot it or sell it? - Victor Panlilio

Robert, do you think that Paul Simon shares your sadness? ;) - Melanie Reed

Loic Le Meur

I have met many entrepreneurs recently who are getting significant $ revenues from Google Adsense (like up to $1M/month!) they WANT Bing ...

June 21 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Igor Poltavskiy, Colin Charles and americanm liked this

Why? - Colin Charles

Jeremy Zawodny

I just downloaded all of the current English Wikipedia. Heh. It was about 9GB and came down in just over an hour.

June 18 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Mykola, Myroslav Opyr, Daniel Rowley and 8 other people liked this

And only maybe 1GB you can actually trust. Way to go! - Akiva Moskovitz

10 more comments

I'm curious why you would want to download the whole thing. What will you use it for? - Rochelle

I read somewhere that a recent survey found that Wikipedia has about the same general level of accuracy as the Encyclopedia Britannica - Ian May

Ian, that is correct. i remember hearing the same study on the BBC - Johnny Worthington

9GB? But enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2 is 4.8G. 9GB uncompressed, maybe? - ⓞnor

Maybe he got the one with all edits? - τorƍue

Did you do this just to test your bandwidth? hehe - imabonehead

jzawodn@t61:~$ du -sh enwiki-latest-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2 9.3G enwiki-latest-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2 - Jeremy Zawodny

I was going to use it to show off indexing documents using Sphinx for next week's Linux Magazine column. But I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Hmm. - Jeremy Zawodny

I'm positive that Ian is correct because I read it in Wikipedia ;) - Sam Pullara

Did you get the pictures as well? enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2 is text only. - Melinda Owens

Well, Britannica only recently started offering free access in exchange for contribution if I recall, so they may be worried about what Ian said. - Richard pancakhaus Walker

Paul Buchheit

I'm surprised that people think everyone subscribed to their RSS feed actually reads their blog. In Google Reader, I'm subscribed to hundreds of feeds (including a number of bundles), but really only read a couple of them. The same for iGoogle, etc. (re: http://friendfeed.com/friendf...)

June 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Sergi, Alif Rachmawadi, Internet Strategist and 108 other people liked this

Do you read all of your feeds? - Paul Buchheit

105 more comments

I skim them all quickly. The 'j' key is my friend: next, next, next, ... - Fred Yankowski

I do. If you call reading, browsing "all items"... - David Schmidt

Same here; I've got about 500 feeds in bloglines, most of them in folders I literally never click on. - Casey Muller

Hmmm... I wonder if there's a better way to get at those couple of things you read? - Cliff Gerrish

I think I make it a point to read everything in about 15% of the blogs: otherwise, it's just skimming through the headlines. This is exactly what I do on FriendFeed, so this Feedburner business is fine by me. I'd like to figure out why my projects feed got the FriendFeed bump when my blog feed didn't, though. - Mark Trapp

I thought the same thing when I saw people complaining about the FF stat change this morning. I read more through FriendFeed than I do RSS subscriptions I have, which are many. - Keith Bourgoin

I guess people are very optimistic :) - Paul Buchheit

I have 2 tiers of feeds. Top tier always gets at least headlines read, articles read based on interest level. Bottom tier only gets attention if something stands out, or if I have some extra time. - LogEx

People should think instead that everyone subscribed to their RSS feed feels bad about all those unread items. - Johannes

Why would you subscribe to things you don't read? - Gabe

I've trimmed my feeds down to a number that I can check out each item. Why subscribe to hundreds of feeds if you aren't going to read them? Search? - Sam Grover

Cliff, it works reasonably well for those couple of feeds I read because I can login every few days and skim the headlines (I don't read the full content of anything). Gabe, I basically subscribe to anything that sounds like it might be interesting, then simply stop reading anything that doesn't keep my attention. Google Reader makes this very easy, and there's really no downside to staying subscribed. - Paul Buchheit

Gabe: would you consider skimming headlines and reading things that spark your interest from there the same as reading a blog regularly? Most of the blogs I subscribe to have maybe 1 in 10 stories that'll interest me: because of that 1 in 10, I subscribe to them. I wouldn't consider myself reading the blogs, though. - Mark Trapp

I think that attitude spills over to FF and Twitter as well though - especially a problem with real time FF. At least FF has a mechanism for bringing things to foreground that might be more important. - Brian Sullivan

The scale of my available time for reading feeds varies over time. The number of feeds I'm subscribed to only increases over time. Occasionally I "start over". - Jason Wehmhoener

I read the majority - Shevonne

no not even close - andy brudtkuhl

I don't read every article of every feed, I don't think anyone does. However from the feedburner reach stat, I see that about 50% of RSS subscribers do fetch the complete article (can't tell whether they actually read it). From referral logs, way less than 1% of people subscribed to me on friendfeed click through to blog postings. Thats a big difference. - DGentry

That's because the subscriber count metric is useless to begin with. So why pad it now with even more numbers? - Aviv

I skim the titles to find interesting items. I read < 10% of the items. - Gary Burd

My intent is to read most everything...like Jason, though, I have to start over at times, and toss out what I'm not actually getting to. (there's also a separate category of utility feeds like Steam game releases, crimewatch info, etc. that's not really the same as real people writing stuff. I skim those pretty much 100%) - Ken Kennedy

Not even close to all, I have +150 feeds on GReader and follow +120 tumblrs. There's no way to read all this stuff and it not be my job. - Cornelius Toole

I don't think it's useless Aviv. It's not exact, but a blog with 10,000 subscribers will almost certainly have more actual readers than one with 10. (the proportions are useful) - Paul Buchheit

Agreed, Paul...you can basically figure out where something is on the power law graph, but not exact rankings. - Ken Kennedy

Yes, I read everything I subscribe to in Google Reader. I only subscribe to full feeds, I use Expanded view, and I hit "J" scanning each article. If a site doesn't offer a full feed, I don't subscribe. I don't personally consider FriendFeed a feed reader, and won't until and unless it (1) displays full articles (2) gives me the option to mark articles read/unread. - Ken Sheppardson

There's no cost for the unread, except to the extent it makes reading those one or two items difficult. - Cliff Gerrish

Lots of people have magazine subscriptions and newspaper subscriptions but never or rarely read them -- and are often just to lazy or unaware to unsubscribe even when it costs money. RSS subscription costs nothing and is easy to subside -- I am guessing many subscribe in good faith thinking they might read, then never or rarely read and just never bother to clean up. - Brian Sullivan

Paul, that's certainly true, but it's like saying that a site with 10,000 unique visitors must have more visitors than a site with 10 uniques. My point is, should the number of a blogger's FF subscribers count as unique hits in their Google Analytics page? - Aviv

Brian, right, so if Maxim opens a FriendFeed account and gets 20,000 people to subscribe to their account - should they tell advertisers they just earned 20K new subscribers to the magazine? - Aviv

Paper publications play all sorts of games with numbers talking about subscribers and readers as different numbers but there are standards. So they can't claim subscribers to the magazine because of the FF subscribers. - Brian Sullivan

Aviv, there's a difference between what Feedburner stats should show, and what they actually show: there's a case to be made that Feedburner should be as accurate as Nielsen PeopleCounters, and we should all be able to use those numbers to determine things like advertising revenue, but the argument being posited here is that Feedburner was never that accurate (or that they aren't meant to be that accurate), and adding FriendFeed stats doesn't change that for the worse. - Mark Trapp

Brian: oh, well, I wasn't aware that bloggers don't have standards... - Aviv

Bloggers don't have standards -- not in the sense that they are agreed upon between publishers and advertisers and auditible. - Brian Sullivan

I read everything I'm subscribed to or I unsubscribe. That is why I can't use FriendFeed except as another filtered source for my RSS reader (spoonfeedr.com) - Sam Pullara

I'm sure I'm subscribed to tons and haven't opened up my RSS reader in months. - Thomas Hawk

I don't think FF stats should be reflected in metrics that measure blog readership - at least not yet (still waiting for the day I can click on a little plus sign and read the blog post inline;). Look, I'm subscribed to you, because I enjoy your activity on FF, but just a moment ago was my first ever visit to your blog. - Aviv

By the way, how much of an article do I have to read before it counts as "read"? The whole thing? The first paragraph? 50%? Does it depend on how long the article is? - Ken Sheppardson

Aviv: but the point being made is that even without FriendFeed statistics, Feedburner doesn't accurately show blog readership via the "subscribers" metric anyway. Whatever Feedburner does show doesn't seem to be affected by the addition of FriendFeed subscribers beyond a sudden jump in the number. Taking the Feedburner statistics, without FriendFeed, as being an accurate representation... more... - Mark Trapp

Well, if FF knows that FB's numbers are bogus to begin with and doesn't mind adding some of their own numbers even though they obviously don't represent actual readership or anything close to that, then you're right, no point to even argue. :) - Aviv

Next thing you know, twitterfeed.com will start reporting to FB and count followers are readers. And why should FB have a problem with this? After all, it's always nice to see the blogosphere growing.. ;) - Aviv

I do read lot of them. Not daily. But i try to catchup once in a while. I have 150+ - Vivek Puri

I read all my feeds. I don't expect everybody reads mine every day. - Louis Gray

i think its important to trim subscriptions once a month. we like to think that we can read everything we want to read. Everytime i add an RSS feed i get tickled with excitement that i'll soon be melding that blog our site into my internal matrix and knowledge machine. I think being a self arbiter is really important. Also, seeing so many unread blog geeds can be discouraging...always saying to yourself...oh i should be reading more. when in fat that is not the case. Reading less can very well be more... - Zachary Adam Cohen

@louisgray cough BS cough ;) - Zachary Adam Cohen

I skim the titles. It's nice to know though how many are interested in/by your blog even if they don't read each and every post. - Matt Soreco

Confession time! Yep, I've got tons of "unread" items in my gReader. It's become a wasteland of abandoned feeds. (ok bookmarking service?) LOL ... I live here in FF, Tweetdeck, Techrigy SM2, etc. Don't get me wrong, I dont' ignore my feeds, I found it much easier to just make lists and imaginary friends (feeds) here in Friendfeed - way better client than gReader - Susan Beebe

No - Oğuz Serdar

Nope. I have all my feed broken down in lists, though, and only manage to read around 50 of the 200 feeds in there. - Brandon

I find that I am reading quite a few more feeds since switching to Twitter, and reading them more productively. - Sean McBride

Interesting -- I've just asked a few friends to send me their OPML files so that I can do a little network analysis. (1) Lots of people tell me that they're using Twitter and serendipity to keep in touch these days, and that they're using their RSS readers less. (2) *everyone* on the list is in danger of info overload if they're REALLY reading that many blogs. Here's an interesting post from 43 folders about avoiding RSS overload - http://bit.ly/1H6Ty - Mat Morrison

Zachary... I read all my feeds. I never mark all as read. - Louis Gray

I try to read them all, but if I notice that I'm regularly marking all of the items in a particular feed as read, then that's typically one step north of removal (for me, at least). I keep a pretty tidy feed list, for the most part. - Brett Kelly

I usually skim all items in my All Items list of Google Reader, just like Robert Scoble showed in a video http://www.viddler.com/explore... a few years ago. If I find something interesting I will read the post right in Reader or if it's to long (and sometimes videos) then I will ctrl-click to open it in a new tab. When I completed skimming the whole list I will read the opened tabs. - Peter Stuifzand

I scroll through and read headlines quickly. If I see one I like, I'll read the article. - EricaJoy

Agree w/ EricaJoy. That's the general purpose of RSS, to skim through sites/feeds that you have some interest w/o going to the page unless there is something of interest. RSS Readers are almost personalized, granted mostly not intelligent (yet), Search Engines or enhanced Bookmarks. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

I'm subscribed to a lot of feeds too. I always say I'll read them later... later never, ever comes and I end up unsubscribing a year or two later. - t i n y m

I subscribe to a number of feeds, and read all but two. Those two frequently get the "Mark All As Read" treatment. - Piaw Na

i don't read all of my feeds - but i do search them for certain topics all the time - mike "glemak" dunn

I religiously unsubscribe from anything I notice that I'm not actually reading. Keep the clutter to a minimum! - Murray Barton

If I'm not interested in reading a feed I don't subscribe. Do I read every article in depth....no....read some, skim some, and save some to read on the weekend when all my feeds have less activity, and I have more time. - Bonnie Foster

Every feed, over time, sure; every single feed item, no. - Grant Bierman

why subscribe, then? Curious... - Valeria Maltoni

i switched all my feeds over to friendfeed. i don't even look at google reader anymore - Tyler Gillies

Blogs are for slow consumption. Friendfeed, Twitter are my quick glance channels. They provide rivers of information I can dive into if I feel like it. I use GReader to subscribe mostly to people that actually take the time to think before they write. No TechCrunch or other networks there. I get slapped around with that on any other channel I'm watching. GReader is my e-book/essay reader. I try to read it all and I enjoy the slow consumption as it makes me smarter ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, you might... but not everyone else does.. Feedburner numbers are BS anyways.. :) - Tim Hoeck

Not trying to convince anyone, just explaining what it is I do. GReader for the long and in depth stuff, everything else goes in the firehose - Alexander van Elsas

No, not all...just a few Favs & Essential/Pro feeds. & ya i use GReader :) - Roshan Ramachandran

There's also a difference between skimming the headlines and actually "reading" the entire article. Also, rarely do people click through to the blog on Google Reader - on FriendFeed that happens much more, as I'm sure you have stats to prove. - Jesse Stay

@Jesse, my personal experience with FF makes me sometimes wonder if people did actually read the original item. Often initial comments and discussions seem to start in a different direction then the item that was posted. It seems to happen most often with blog items. Not saying that is bad or anything. But I do wonder.... ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Blogging isn't dead. What is dead is READING. Blogs and sites in general especially Newspapers need to transition to VIDEO. I mean, you'll read things you find compelling, but you're 10x more likely to watch a video of it. There's nothing sacred about text. It was the means of recording of its day, but now video is the recording of its day. - Stephen Pickering

Paul, is it possible to make the numbers going to Feedburner a choice based on the user? Personally, while I think there are a few quirks, I like the decision and would prefer you not go back. - Jesse Stay

@Steven, I like video but I rarely watch it. I turn it on as radio in the background ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, yes, I agree, maybe I should have emphasized SOUND as well. When I listen to Video Podcasts for instance, I usually listen in the background too - Stephen Pickering

I'm surprised people still think people read. - Eric Nakagawa

Yes, most of them. The ones that accumulate in the unread pile get unsubscribed to because it's a signal that the information isn't that compelling or useful. I unsubscribed to many high-volume blogs because I *will* see them via FriendFeed. So the feeds I *do* have in RSS are fairly well groomed and read - I'll certainly get around to all of them in a week. - AJ Kohn

@erik, you must be living on another planet than I do ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

i sadly agree with stephen @pickering . "what is dead is reading" - bora "head" basman

i agree with you up to some point. I don't miss the personal blogs but big websites such as Rollingstone or digg offer a lot more content than I can possibly spare time to read. Most of the time I miss them for a few days, then I notice that there are 1000+ entries to read. - Yiğit Arda Türkoğlu

I just read and skip to important blog or news. Too many things to read these days, too many information - Hendra Saputra

I use my feed readers in a somewhat deviant way: I create categorized folders about the topics I'm most interested in ( RSS / OPML, Firefox, Twitter, Online Reputation Management, etc). When I come across a feed of interest, I 'feedmark' it by adding it to the appropriate category. Each of these folders become reading lists. Most of the reading lists I create are publicly available at... more... - Marjolein Hoekstra

The way for Newspapers to save themselves is to become video centric, not throw their paper up on the net. Boring. They need to become to internet TV stations. They need to be 24/7 real time. That's what the world is. They need to hire a Leo Laporte for every category and it needs to be totally interactive. When you go to the NYtimes.com it needs to be a totally different experience. Look at the money they have compared to Leo. They could transition to this in a second. - Stephen Pickering

I read almost all my feeds. If I stop reading a feed, I generally remove it so it won't distract my attention. - 9000

nope, I only read faved feed. When faved feed is running out of interesting stuff, then I go dig the rest - Toni @ NavinoT

This is why I declare bankruptcy regularly in Google Reader: So I can read all my feeds. This is also why I don't have 1000+ unread. I subscribe to sites I read, not to popular sites. - Bwana ☠

I skim all my many subscribed RSS feeds and if they don't update in a few weeks I move them to a special folder-of-death. - Rick Cogley

I'm very selective and hate skipping items. So yes, i read (almost) everything. In fact, when i can't read all, I unsubscribe. - Stanislas Jourdan

BTW, friendfeed is precisely the tool complementary with FF because they are different : in FF you can't read everything (but the community filters what is important) whereas on reader, you're more likely to read everything. Very different use IMO - Stanislas Jourdan

Despite my best efforts - many feeds go unread. That is why the reach number is so important vs. actual total readership. - Eric

It seems to me that the main point of this discussion is that we need to develop advanced news recommender systems that automatically push the most important news to us on a person by person basis. I wish that Friendfeed would seize this bull by the horns. That most important news should be sifted from all the news in the world, not just from our feed collections. - Sean McBride

I think that people who don't read almost everything just don't use their reader as they should. But that is just my point of view. - Stanislas Jourdan

there are a few select feeds that go in my "must reads" folder, everything else gets skimmed. Mark All Read gets used a lot on everything else. it works well. - Bill Kinney

The "Mark All Read" button is a form wishful thinking. Perhaps, it'd be better labeled "Don't Care." - Cliff Gerrish

what's funny is that when I see an item pass through friendfeed that I know I've already subscribed to in google reader, I'll skip it and wait to read it in g-reader. - chrisofspades

Jason -- an effective news recommender algorithm should fit your mind like a glove: the prioritization of global trends PLUS your most intense interests, as determined by your clickstream. - Sean McBride

Can't read everything - too much stuff ;-) I have basically two categories for feeds - I read all of the majority of my feeds, but I have a dozen or so news/cool stuff feeds that just produce far too much to read it all (on those i skim the latest news occasionally and they often have a couple of hundred unread items) - immaterial

OK, I'm dense... where'd the friends reports go for my account? Can't figure out how to see them like I used to... - Walt Ruppar

Paul's statement above makes sense but I think the spirit of the subscriber count change intentionally dilutes feed reader measurements. I've written a long-form response here: http://friendfeed.com/dpritch... - Daniel J. Pritchett

Every blogger should read this thread re:"Think everyone sub'd to your RSS feed actually reads your blog?" - Alex Schleber

Jason -- I disagree. A newsreader should know your own "cloud tag" by using historical behavior. If that maps to top trends in Twitter great but I certainly don't follow that rule. If that was the case, I'd being reading things about #iran and #squarespace at the top which should not fit my profile unless I started to tag those trends. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

I don't read all of my feeds and I don't think anyone does. I scan my feeds though, via ff. People need ways to aggregate our content, and the smartest people are using social platforms like friendfeed, instead of using RSS readers. One reason why is because filtering the noise is highly efficient with friendfeed lists, and conversation is only a click away. Plus ff is ad free and I can connect with people who have similar views. This approach is working great for me so far! - Garin Kilpatrick

Good point - LANjackal

I don't read everything, I don't have enough time :-( There are feeds that I do read completely (the whole article), some I just check the headlines to figure out which article is cool, and some I clearly don't read (my 'bulk' folder, with zillions of entries each day). - TiTi

For the little guy it works... Logged into feedburner and was like Woah... I may actually put a subscriber badge in my site now. - Walt Ruppar

There are some magazines you just leaf throught and others you read entirely. It's the same for my RSS feeds. I read the first ones on FF, the others on Google reader. - Stanislas Jourdan

I understand why you don't read everything because if you did there would be little to no time left for work. It might be a great idea to reply to direct communications from folks that promote FriendFeed across other Social Networks - at least sometimes. If you don't they are likely to move on to somewhere their input is valued. - Internet Strategist

apparently not only doesn't Paul read, he doesn't participate to the conversation he starts, either. There is tremendous value in reading - not just for the mind, but for the brain. Video cannot supplant that, only supplement it. Just because it's easy, it doesn't mean it's better :) - Valeria Maltoni

Matt Cutts

Using an Android phone as a bar code scanner: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog... Done in 6 lines of Python code!

June 9 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Tracy, Sumit Chachra, Gordon Saunders and 33 other people liked this

Wow, the Android Scripting Environment sounds really cool. Now I want an Android again. Can someone over there send me a G2? :) - Paul Buchheit

9 more comments

Actually, if you could send over a box of 6 or 7 G2s to the FriendFeed offices, that'd be great. - Kevin Fox

And one to me! Even though I already have a G1. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

sweet dude. Is the ASE available for download in the market or where can i start using python on my android? anyone?? - Chris Jackson

As long as the camera quality is high enough res to actually *read* the bar code...rubber, meet road :) - Jamie Beckland

I'm waiting for a G2 dev phone :) - Peng-Toh

it's not in the market yet, afaik, it's open sourced on google code though: http://code.google.com/p... - coffee

The books.google.com Library looks pretty cool - this poses the question, do I now need to subscribe to LibraryThing, or just use Google Books Library? Hmm, choices choices - Colin Charles from twhirl

I just got my new Android - I am VERY excited! - Ric Johnson

That's cool! I'm really looking forward to get a G2 phone. - Peter Hoffmann

After putting in some time using NESoid today to play my favorite classic Nintendo games I couldn't possibly be more in love with my Android phone. - Alex

Wayne Schulz

Palm Pre reports all over the discussion forums. Excess heat. Poor battery life. Make a note of blogs that failed to mention this. I am.

June 9 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Altan Khendup, Daniel Rowley, Andre P. Siregar and 4 other people liked this

Nathan Chase to Nathan's feed, The Apple Room, iPhone, 3G iPhone

"For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB)." WTF?

June 8 - Comment - Like - Share

Mark Krynsky, LPH™ and his dog P™, Alfredo and 24 other people liked this

they're basically saying, "You love your iPhone? Well too bad for you cause you're gonna have to bend over to get a new one." - Nathan Chase

40 more comments

there's no way better battery, speed, and camera is worth $600. No way in hell. Who would pay that? - Nathan Chase

I just got off the phone with ATT They say you are eligible after 18-20 months I got mine 8/08 & I'm eligible 4/10 - Ryan Brancheau

What is a "non-qualified customer"? - Rochelle

Rochelle - anyone who bought an iPhone 3G, with a 2-year contract - Nathan Chase

Rochelle, people who are still locked in their 2 year contract. - Ryan

Really no different than any other phone for which you are under cotract at a subsidized price. - Kevin Whalen

it's still ridiculous to completely shut out every 3G user from not having a decent upgrade cost - Nathan Chase

I for one will not be upgrading at that price. AT&T and Apple can suck it. - Akiva Moskovitz

Akiva, agreed. I can take video already with my jailbroken 3G just fine. - Nathan Chase

Akiva POWER! - Christopher Harley

I heard the 3G was subsidized already so need to wait until out of contract before upgrading. Last summer I upgraded first generation to 3G without penalty but the original was not subsidized. - Kenley Neufeld

AT&T wants a 750$ deposit from me .. They'll never get my business when I can go to TMobile pay 0$ deposit and get a G1 .. think I'll do that instead - John Blanton from twhirl

Damn, that sucks. I got my 3G around Christmas, I think, so I've got a while. :( I might go ahead and jailbreak mine at some point, though. I want video, damn it. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

What a heaping pile of nonsense. I've purchased an original iPhone plus an iPhone 3G for my wife, and I've been a (frustrated, but) loyal AT&T customer for over 6 years straight now. I cannot even renew my (bloated, expensive) contract and pay the contract price for a new iPhone 3GS? Infuriating. The second I spot an alternative carrier to switch my entire family to, we're running away... more... - Dan Dashnaw

Wait, what? - joey from Nambu

Dan, the problem is that ALL carriers do this. They all allow you buy a phone at a subsidized price in return for a 2 year contract. What we need is an industry wide change. - Kevin Whalen from email

O2 in the UK are stealing our money too. We have to pay off our excisting contract if we want the new one, then buy the new one with another 18 month new contract. Cant just pay the couple hundred pounds for the new handset, and take the 18 month on top of what we are currently outstanding from the last one. + Tethering is 15£ a month for 3gb's. No, i'll stick with my jailbreak thanks. - Simon Wicks

I am outside the lock-in window, so I can upgrade my 1G iPhone for 199/299. Doing so now. - Joey Gibson

Yes, Kevin - but my situation is slightly unique. I used my iPhone 1G 'upgrade' to get my wife a 3G this Christmas (her AT&T Razr was not eligible for an upgrade yet, I think - so I used mine). So, I bought the 1G at full (non-subsidized) price when it first came out, then bought a 3G at $199. And although this doesn't place me into the 'eligible' category, it certainly pisses me off. I... more... - Dan Dashnaw

And now my balloon is successfully deflated. :( - Josh Haley

Just login to your AT&T Wireless account online and try to upgrade the phone. If it is eligble then it will let you select a phone. If not, if provides a date. Mine says my iPhone 3G "will be eligible for an upgrade at a discounted price on 03/25/2010. - Kenley Neufeld

That does suck Dan, and I am no fan of AT&T, or any carrier for that matter. There business model sucks. - Kevin Whalen from email

Hm. My account is a Premium account through work so I get a discount on the voice plan. So I don't see that. I did find in My Profile, my contract ends 07/17. - Rodfather

@Kevin - the business plan does suck, but I remember the massive uproar around the unsubsidized iPhone prices when it first came out (despite the fact that most other smart phones had a similar unsubsidized price point). They took a huge hit on that; "lowering" the price via contracts sold a lot more phones. - Jennifer Dittrich

So what about those of us that bought the original, first-gen iPhone when it came out? My contract is about to be up.. do I get the subsidized price? - Blake

Blake - You should be eligible since the first gen iPhone was not subsidized. You can check your eligibility here: http://www.apple.com/iphone... or on your AT&T account. - Kevin Whalen from email

thanks, Kevin! - Blake

What a bummer. - James Hull

Wait...is this right? Just tried to upgrade (bought my phone less than a year ago) and it says I can get the 16GB 3GS for $399, the 32GB for 499$, which is less than the OP but much more than the 299$ I thought I was going to pay. Says standard upgrade happens on 12/12/2009 - James Hull

AT&T says I can upgrade 7/19/2009, but doesn't give me a price. - Shawn Hickman

This is a fine example of people agreeing to a contract without knowing what the contract states. - Otto R. Radke

well I can get it for $199 on 12/13/2009. Merry Christmas to me, I guess. - Nathan Chase

Otto, does anyone read those contracts? They are pages and pages long and you have to be a lawyer to truly understand what it says. I think this is a fine example how contracts are complete bullshit and should vanish from cell phone companies. (Not that it will change anytime soon) - Shawn Hickman

Get used to it. If these companies get their way, you'll soon be signing similar contracts just to surf the web. - Fleagle

@James Hull Yeah that's right. Shows the same thing for my account. Standard upgrade is when you can get it for $299. - ronin

And yes, this type of business model has been around for years. Way before the iPhone came around. Existing users always get the short end of the stick when it comes to the latest & greatest phones. Not just an AT&T issue, you get shafted no matter which provider you're with. - ronin

+1 ronin this is nothing new, standard upgrade pricing within a 2 year contract - Kiran Patchigolla

This is ugly for sure. - Louis Gray

This "standard" practice will put eventually put all carriers out of business if they don't change their business model. And it certainly won't bode well for AT&T if they lose exclusivity on the iPhone. - Kevin Whalen from email

@JohnnyB Lol - yeah but why would you want a G1? - Jennifer

It would be cheaper to cancel your account, pay the cancellation fee, and then re-up fo the new phone. lol (Obviously that wouldn't work but WTF is that about?!) - David Cook

Paul Buchheit

I.B.M. Withdraws $7 Billion Offer for Sun Microsystems - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...

April 5 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

kozmic, Wayne Sutton, wowfreeze.blogspot.com and 83 other people liked this

"After weeks of negotiations, I.B.M. withdrew its $7 billion bid for Sun Microsystems on Sunday, one day after Sun’s board balked at a reduced offer, according to three people close to the talks. ... After the legal review, I.B.M. shaved its offer Saturday from $9.55 a share, the offer on the table late last week, to $9.40 a share, said one person familiar with the talks. The offer was presented to Sun’s board on Saturday, and it balked. The Sun board did not reject the offer outright, but wanted certain guarantees that the I.B.M. side considered “onerous,” according to that person." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

22 more comments

By my reckoning, IBM reduced its offer to Sun twice. You can't reduce an offer twice, and retain any credibility as a serious buyer. So IBM will have lost its credibility with Sun's Board - which includes Sun's largest shareholders. That means it's not Sun's management rejecting IBM - it's Sun's shareholders rejecting IBM. Either IBM did this because it didn't really want to do the deal; or IBM is not used to doing deals where it needs to behave in a credible way. - Simon Brocklehurst

This sounds like what happened with the Apple deal in the '90s. - Gabe

Simon - that was my thought. This price thing is more indicative of cold feet. - Hutch Carpenter

Like for relevance. Dislike for content. I think the IBM deal would have been good for Sun, and kept its Java IP in reasonably competent hands. Plus, I hate navigating Sun's web pages; it's sad to say that IBM's are actually better :P - Joel Webber

Sorry, Joel, but I can't think of any company that was really better off after being acquired by IBM. Rolm? Lotus? Rational? Informix? No on all counts. - Gabe

@Gabe: Well, maybe you're right about that (I was an intern at Lotus during the IBM acquisition, and people were leaving like rats off a sinking ship). I'm thinking more of what's good for those of us who care what happens to Java. I know most of it's open in one way or another at this point, but it could still use good technical leadership, and I don't really see Sun doing that so much anymore. - Joel Webber

+1 @Joel. And some of the alternatitives are pretty bad - Imagine Dell owning Sun. Hewlett Packard (or Cisco) have got no idea how to do software. - Nick Lothian

I like it that IBM and Sun still remain as separate entities. - Winston Teo

Joel, the problem is that IBM is not technically competent. That IBM people think SWT is a good idea demonstrates they don't even understand the problems, let alone have any ability to figure out high-quality solutions. People tend to confuse IBM's super strong sales and business development capability for it having strong technical ability. IBM's business model is such that the weaker its staff are technically, and the worse its software, the more money it makes. Clever stuff, business-wise. - Simon Brocklehurst

@Simon - does Sun have alternatives? (Also - it's not like Swing or JavaFX give me huge confidence in Sun sometimes...) - Nick Lothian

Nick, there's always a "Plan B". In the event of no buyers, Sun can do massive layoffs to return to profitability. If Sun cut enough to have $1B in annual profits, market cap would be higher than IBM's offer, which would provide a better exit for major shareholders. More than possible to do this, given Sun's annual R&D budget is $2B. Re: JavaFX - it's at least modern in concept; SWT is a flawed idea, that was known to be flawed (by everyone except IBM) more than a decade ago. - Simon Brocklehurst

@Simon - there are other things Sun could do to make a short term return to profits, too eg, try and moneterise Java more aggressively,drop the software business and become a patent troll, etc, etc. I'm not sure any would be good for Java. - Nick Lothian

@NIck - well, several parts of Sun's software business, including Java, are profitable currently. No need to drop these if they look like staying profitable. The trick is to cut the overhead (under-performing middle managers, sales people that can't sell etc.); and cut the R&D to a size that reflects the size of the business today. I'm not sure growing the top-line in the short-term is realistic in the current economy. A return to profitability, though, should be possible. - Simon Brocklehurst

when you pull the piece of gum out of the pack it snaps on your fingers like the gum trick. - rob friedman from twhirl

@Simon: I really don't want to turn this into an SWT/Swing argument, as I feel like they both suck for various reasons. But I don't think it's fair to say that SWT is proof that IBM lacks technical competence (From my limited experience, IBM's technical competence varies a lot among different groups within the company). - Joel Webber

With SWT, they wanted to solve a specific problem very well from an end-user's perspective -- i.e. it should feel like a native app, and be fast. And they did so quite well, IMHO, even though it sucks to have to use all those native libraries and platform-specific jars. But the Eclipse UI still feels a lot better to me than IntelliJ, and I think SWT's the reason (obviously this is a matter of opinion, but I know plenty of people who far prefer a SWT UI, so it's at least open to debate). - Joel Webber

Sorry, Sun - Jayavasanthan J

Paul are you going to buy Sun? - Shakeel Mahate

I never understood why IBM would want to buy Sun other than that it was cheap. Obviously they decided it wasn't cheap enough. - Kenton

Glad I didn't buy any Sun stock. - John Flynn

@Joel, you're right - it doesn't prove it; rather I think it illustrates it And clearly, it would be overstating things to say the *whole* of IBM is technically incompetent. However, there are *many*, *many* weak people there. Everyone I meet that has dealt with IBM - customers, collaborators, competitors - has stories to tell; and almost none are positive in terms of technical capability. Conversely, everyone is impressed by its ability to win business and put dollars in the bank. - Simon Brocklehurst

Didn't we see this coming? - Brad Arsenault

Wow, how did we not all see this coming. What is IBM going to do with Sun? Just purchase Java from them, not all of Sun. - Zachary TG

AJ Batac

I shot the serif.

May 28 - Comment - Like - Share

Tanath, Frode Stenstrøm, Michael R. Bernstein and 233 other people liked this

Font humour. ;-) - Brian Sullivan

25 more comments

ouch... :) - mikepk

That's a capital offense. - Chris Baskind

*dead* - Yolanda

But I did not shoot the descender. - LogEx

hee hee. very funny! - Morgan Haley

hey look, Morgan's here! - Yolanda

Ha...awesome :) - Type Micah

If this isn't a T-shirt yet, it should be. - Type Micah

Micah: I totally want that shirt. - Sue Radd

Me too! - Type Micah

LOL - Caroline

:-) - Alan Le

lol, creative! - Rick Cogley

Micah, here ya go http://www.loiterink.com/i-shot-... - AJ Batac

So.Awesome.....head.exploding - Glenn Slaven

Epic Win! - Olcayto Cengiz

I'm up late working and I really needed the laugh. Thanks! :).....but I didn't shoot Helvetica! heh - John Blanton from twhirl

Great! Thanks for the chuckle! - Reading Eagle

Tea very nearly came out my nose there! - Toby Graham

Tea He... - Gilbert Harding

haha! love it - Carmen

Every designer needs one - VP Medical

We're showing our age! My 28 y/o said huh? - Donna Payne

Sometimes the serif shoots back http://images.google.ca/imgres... - Micah Wittman

That's funny. - Karl Heinz Kremer

IS NOW MY DESKTOP. - teh Dork Knight aka Kenny

Thomas Hawk

Face recognition comes to Flickr | Webware - CNET - http://news.cnet.com/8301-17...

April 22 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

TiTi, Göze Sencer, Lars Clausen and 70 other people liked this

Without any big fuss, a face-recognition feature has been added to Flickr. The new feature was launched recently by Swedish start-up Polar Rose. It lets users import all their photos from a Flickr account to an account on Polar Rose, where the images are then automatically assembled into groups dedicated to various individuals. As with similar features in Google Picasa and Apple iPhoto, names eventually show up next to faces in the photos once the user has identified the faces. The labels then get sent back to the Flickr account. Polar Rose, founded by Swedish mathematician Jan Erik Solem in 2004, intends to license its technology to numerous Web sites. - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

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I wonder if it'll work any better than the crappy face recognition in iPhoto... - Shawn C. Reed

trying this at Polar Rose right now. Not sure how well it's going to handle my trying to import almost 24,000 photos into the site. - Thomas Hawk

I saw Hakan Dahlstrom use it and thought "FINALLY" - Shevonne

Catching up with Picasa, huh? - bnoise

it's still "processing" my images after several hours now. I'm not so sure this thing is going to work for me. - Thomas Hawk

I think I will wait till Flickr implements this internally. Surely they will have to implement it at some stage. - CJPhoto

Google should have developed a face recognition system out of Picasa Web Albums. An API or something. They could have offered a way to identify faces on your PC, on Google Image, on FriendConnect-enabled websites and even Street View 2.0. - Jérôme Flipo

Giving it a try now. Estimates 30 minutes to process my 900 photos. - Andy Roth

No estimate for m 24,000 photos. simply a "processing your photos" progress bar with no progress indicated. - Thomas Hawk

There aren't any faces in my Flickr stream, however I do use the face recognition in Picasa Web Albums and it works very well. - Kenton

I'm alpha testing the face.com Photo Finder in Facebook, and that process seems less complex (at least to the user). Rather than explicitly telling you that Facebook photos are being exported to a separate account, Photo Finder allows you to appear to remain in Facebook as your photos are being processed. - John E. Bredehoft

Same here... hours later, and still processing. Hmmm. - Herb Hernandez

Herb, how many pictures do you have? - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

24,000 pictures at once ? going by Andy's estimate, 13 hours worth. plus (hopefully) a 100% penalty for being silly enough to do so many at once. - martin english

my ff crashed & facebook account would not let back in 4 now, thats ff's problems, I need 2 try w/Windows. I was using Kubuntu, one of the flavor of Ubuntu. - polou/indigo_bow

so far Polar Rose has performed poorly in recognising other instances of the same person, though it generally knows when there is a face in the photo (although it also spends quite a lot of time asking me if rocks, lights, twigs, shadows etc are people) - Ned Baker

so far I'm very unimpressed with Polar Rose. I checked it today and it only imported about 2,200 of my 24,000 photos. Worse than that though, performance on the site is awful. I keep getting a Firefox error message about an unresponsive script taking too long. They don't segregate out which of your photos have people in them vs. photos that do not so you are paging endlessly looking at thumbnails that are way to large to try and even find a photo you've got with a photo in it. Not at all user friendly. - Thomas Hawk

I'm wary of apps like these now. I tried out Fotonaut several weeks ago and the app silently deleted my tags. - Jauder Ho

Tried again on Win7beta, hmm, face recognition r precise. I am mixed about these kinds of recognition unless they r used for login or security or confirm friendship purposes??? What do u folks think?? - polou/indigo_bow

What do I think? Disclosure - I am employed in the biometrics industry. However, I assert that the possibility of Big Brother ganging up on the populace is remote. For example, after 9/11, it took YEARS for the FBI and DHS to exchange data. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

I believe the military has been doing this for a while. - anna sauce

Leo Laporte

Question for you all. I have a trademark for TWiT® - first used in May 2005, trademark applied for May 2006 and registered March 2007. The trademark is in "Entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows." http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin...

May 25 - Comment - Like - Share

Dobromir Hadzhiev, Richard Thomson, Dakota O'Neill and 186 other people liked this

Up until now there's been no conflict with Twitter itself because the brands were in different arenas. (We have, however, sent out cease and desist letters to companies using "twit" in their name and doing audio or video). But now Twitter is doing a TV show. The confusion between TWiT and Twitter is mounting. What do I do? Defend my mark? Or let my brand be swallowed by the big guy (even though we were first by several years)? I need your advice. What does the community think? - Leo Laporte

267 more comments

Defend your trademark, 99% of people will totally understand, you have to do it, or you'll loose it! - Chris Lloyd

Defend it. People that watch Twit Tv will also defend it. - Jason Rundell

Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Does TWIT still stand up as an accurate brand for all the new stuff you are doing with TWIT Live? Might be time to find a new visual/brand identity. - BryanSchuetz

At the SF MusicTech conference a lawyer called "tweets" "twits" repeatedly. Let's just say I think you should defend your mark and let TV chew up and spit out twitter. - Richard pancakhaus Walker

I don't see how the brand of Twitter infringes on your trademark. Plus trademarks are an outdated ideal. You need to market and promote your brand and the people will come. - Bob Blunk

Bryan: The TWiT name carries alot of weight in tech circles, it will take alot of money/time/effort to make a completely new name for something that will probably outlast twitter anyway - Chris Lloyd

Incidentally, Twitter just got their trademark approved May 11, 2009 in the following "Telecommunication services, namely, providing online and telecommunication facilities for real-time interaction between and among users of computers, mobile and handheld computers, and wired and wireless communication devices; enabling individuals to send and receive messages via email, instant... more... - Leo Laporte

There is nothing ideal about any aspect of IP law. - Richard pancakhaus Walker

Chris: I think Leo's name carries more weight than TWIT and (for me at least) he IS TWIT so I don't see it as quite such a big deal. - BryanSchuetz

Of course, there's a larger long-term problem because of the way that Twitter has weakened _your_ brand. It might be less expensive (and a better use of your time) to rebrand TWiT into something that strengthens your brand and moves it away from Twitter; avoiding any future problems (and there will be future problems). You can't fight Oprah. - Professor Messer

I guess Leo started a shit-storm here...The question goes far beyond the argument of Twitter vs. TWIT. It begs the question of how do Brands defend their government protected trademarks in a time when trademarks are failing to adequately describe what a company does. Do we need a trademark to know that Leo creates awesome podcasts and streams realtime shows via the internet? Plus, how could a trademark impart this knowledge to newcomers? - Bob Blunk

Leo - your brand, as most evidenced by your show and content is awesome - for a small group of peeps who have had a chance to discover it and enjoy. I'd use the overlap in marques to leverage Twitter in some type of promotional / service partnership, whilst still retaining your brand and the equity you've built. Don't fight em, join em, at least tactically. - Thom Kennon

Never give in to the big guy! - Brian Harper

I'm with the majority, defend your trademark and your legacy. - jcunwired

Defend it Leo. You built the brand and they need to honor that. - Robert

I always thought calling the network the same name as a show on the network was wierd. But it's a recognized brand, and I wouldn't give in. Send some mails to all the twitvid.io's out there. - Anton Tanderup

Is the BIG guy really that Big? Plus, with the way busines is changing one thing seems to remain the same...protectionism, let's sue someone it's easier. I'm suggesting your desicion is easy here Leo but in light of the landscape changing do you really have a chance? The other question to ponder is this, Twitter is the hot thing now but will it be 5 years from now and will it be true... more... - Owen Greaves

speaking from a british point of view a twit is someone who is a little silly or stupid. I think your podcast can stand up against the everising onslaught of twitter. Why not rise above all this discussion and say what you are This week in technology, a fantastic poscast full of wit and essential information for gadget freaks such as myself. Let the owners of twitter gabble on, in my book baby creatures twitter and you are certainly no TWIT. - Chris Jennings

@ Professor Messer 'You can't fight Oprah' is not totally correct. You can FIGHT her, can you win? Maybe. I think, offline, Leo VS Oprah would go several rounds. Tweetfight says otherwise. - Jason Rundell

Defend it Leo. What's the use in having a trademark if others can infringe upon it. - TechListReport

Sorry to say, my girlfriend recently yelled at my for watching 'Twitter' when I was really watching TWiT live. Confusion does exist for people who don't fully understand what each service is. - Wo

The good thing about trademark law is that it's well established and legally documented. The problem with trademark law is that it's well established and legally documented. You need a brand to create awareness, and you need the trademark to protect your established brand. This one is sticky because TWiT is well established but it's going to be an expensive brand to protect. Twitter's... more... - Professor Messer

@Jason Rundell, don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a cage match between Leo and Oprah (who wouldn't?). But it'll cost a lot of time and money. Sometimes it's better to be smarter than the legal system. - Professor Messer

I'm not sure I fully understand where the perceived trademark issue is. The names are similar, but clearly different. I don't know that Twitter is making any efforts or attempts to infringe on the TWiT brand, particularly in the area specified ""Entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows." I agree and understand the brand... more... - Ken Camp

The fact is, the brand that really matters here is not TWiT, but Leo Laporte. I came to TWiT because of you, Leo, not because of the name. That being said, I'll stand behind whatever decision you make. - Darren Landrum

Oh, and I think this is just the opportunity we need to resubscribe our iTunes and take over the top 10 lists. :) - Professor Messer

Can I ask - did TWiT exist before Twitter? Or did Twitter exist first? And - is your name TWiT based on Twitter, at all? - Chris Loft

Chris Loft: TWiT predates Twitter and comes from This week in tech... - Chris Lloyd

I think it's only right to defend your trademark Leo. You were there way before Twitter and just because they have gained significantly increased attention and media coverage, doesn't mean you have to lay down and submit to Twitter. I would defend your mark vigorously if I were you. You've worked hard to build your brand. - Marty McPadden

Chris Loft proves that there is confusion between the two. - Anton Tanderup

Leo - TWit is an incredible brand and network of invaluable podcasts - you simply have to defend it - Robert Davies

Fight for it. When they try to get additional financing make your move. Asserting your trademark will cause them to settle or buy you out when they go public. - Alan Morris

I think that once you see the Twitter television show, you'll probably want to distance yourself as far away as possible. - Professor Messer

Defend your trademark. I get more intellectual engagement from the TWiT network of shows than I do from most of my Twitter community. - Eric Geller

Use whatever legal tools you have available to defend your brand, especially if Twitter is talking about crossing into audio/video. You have a strong product, and Twitter is creating brand confusion in the market. A hard line needs to be drawn between your product and theirs, and it's clear that they are not going to keep a respectful distance with TWiT. - Jason Miller

You have to rise above the emotion and make a business decision. How much will it cost you to defend versus how much will you gain? Simple cost/benefit. My guess is that this fight will cause you to lose focus on your work, be a financial hardship as you go up against a company with VC backing, and all for the "possibility" that you will win and maybe get some compensation from Twitter.... more... - Tom Sheppard

I thought twitvid.com was the new video netcasts Leo has been talking about, boy was I surprised! - Daniel Rinaman

It has to be defended.Giving up and letting another company take your brand, no matter how big the company or personal feelings toward the owner, can not be an option. You built your brand and should defend it. - David Z

Defend it Leo! - Gunny doesn't side-hug™

Don't think you have much choice do you. You either protect it or lose it. If you don't at some point they will try the other way. - nef 919 from Nambu

You need to defend it Leo. You had the trademark first. - imperator3733

How about a name like LeoCast... No confusion there. - Rustic Thoughts

Agree don't let the big dog scare you..you have the law on your side - Randy Pollock

It's YOUR mark Leo and you have worked hard to make it as well-known as it is. Defend what's yours!! - Jim Connolly

Twitter will be virtually gone like Classmates and MySpace in a few years... Keep the name! - Rick Harvey

Leo: As others have said, you can initiate legal action, but I doubt you'd win. TWiT is based upon an acronym (This Week in Tech). Twitter is not an acronym, it's a word unto itself. Twitter doesn't use the term "twit" by itself; the word is always used fully (though some people snidely call Twitter users "twits"). Until you launched a microblogging area on your site, TWiT and Twitter... more... - Dwight Silverman

yes defend your trademark - Alfonso alatorre

Add to all this another twist. While TWiT is trademarked, twit is a common language word which can't be trademarked. That adds a dash of ambiguity to the whole issue. - Ken Camp

Twit came before Twitter I think you should defend it. it is dumb anyways Twit and Twitter is not even the same word, it would be like CocaCola suing Coconut because of COC - URLREVIEWS

Twitter is going to be a realty show based on stalking celebrities. It wont last more than one season. - Rustic Thoughts

I say let it roll. Your a 'big guy' in your own field, but Twitter is bigger. Play off of them. You could be bigger. Look at all the petty stuff that Microsoft did..and where did it get them? Bad Press. - Gene

To keep your trademark you must defend it if it's being violated. - CT Raider

I think Twitter has the brand and you don't right now. Maybe Twitter should buy it from you or you should collaborate with twitter to monetize and add your TWiT to twitter - Amit 'zyaada' Mittal

I certainly think you should defend your trademark, isn't that why you registered? - dcale1965

I checked Twitter's own site and it looks like Twitter launched March 1, 2006. TWiT was around well before then. Being in tech, I find it hard to believe they hadn't heard of him. It was a big podcast even then. I knew of TWiT well before Twitter. This may seem like a dumb issue to some, but a lot of people I recommended the podcast to now ask me if "it's a Twitter thing." - JeffreyVC

Ev told me that when they were considering names for Twitter they knew about TWiT and decided it didn't matter. In their defense, they had no idea what or how big Twitter was to become. We talked about trademark early on and both agreed there was no conflict _as long as we were in different spaces_. And therein lies the rub. - Leo Laporte

Apple Computer and Apple records recently went through this -- what was the outcome there? - Brian Sullivan

I thought it wasn't clear infringement when Twitter came out but now that there is Twit video the infringement is very clear. I would defend. - Robert Scoble

Lawyers are expensive. Legal fights are draining. You could spend the rest of your professional life fighting this battle. I don't know what's been going on in the back channel, and you probably shouldn't say publicly, but if you haven't tried approaching the Twitter board members privately, you might want to. Lay out the facts carefully, and if you're open to a settlement, say roughly... more... - Dave Winer

Legally, if you do not actively defend your trademark in every infringement then you will have difficulty *EVER* defending it. This isn't an anti-Twitter thing, just a simple business practice, Leo. - Kevin Donahue

"Clear Infringement". How exactly? It's a lose/lose for Twitter if they choose to encroach or even litigate. - Adi

Yeah but Leo added video later. And now Twitter is adding video. The real issue is that there is no clear separation between a radio/video network and a social microblogging site these days. And our trademarking system is so ridiculous that these kinds of conflicts go completely unnoticed all the time. - JeffreyVC

I'd say it's time to either re-brand TWiT or defend it. Deferring the decision and just living with the confusion and ambiguity is no longer an option. - Ken Sheppardson

Defend your trademark - Lars Clausen

Defend your brand Leo.The World Wide Fund for Nature took on the WWF and made them change their name to WWE. If they can do it, so can you. - Bryan Lee

The big problem with defending it... beyond the unfortunate fact that it's a drain on resources that could be better spent elsewhere... is it's not clear how you'd win. They're not going to change their name. They'll forever be Twitter. Is it sufficient to somehow "ban" them from ever doing anything in video? Enforcing that in perpetuity's would only raise your blood pressure. - Ken Sheppardson

I would take the emotion out of the equation -- find out what it would cost to defend and determine what it is worth to have exclusive/non-exclusive use (maybe some subjectivity here) and make the decision using that information. - Brian Sullivan

I say defend it but only so much as to bring more media attention to your brand... once you have the media's attention you can use that to change the brand identity if you so choose. Your followers myself included will stay fans no matter what you call your brand, but I think you have an opportunity to expand and use twitter as a means of gaining media attention! - Nathan McClain

If you don't do this you wont have a leg to stand on in the future when you need to really protect it. I can piss all over your trademark if you do not defend it. - David Lloyd

Leo: in a trademark fight what is the ROI? I am sure it will be very expensive and not sure you will get much in return but if you forced Twitter to change its name I am sure they would quickly settle with you. - Robert Scoble

I still think Twitter will be as irrelevant as MySpace in 2 years, but it's your brand to protect. - Mike Lewis

Ideal Outcome: A $$$ settlement sufficient to comfortably fund the rebranding of TWiT. - Ken Sheppardson

Robert makes a very good point. This could get messy and expensive, although it seems like those guys are VERY hard to work/interact with. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

while bryan lee makes a good point, their battles took a long time to resolve. but, don't let this deter you. i would suggest you defend it. if anything, i see you have a strong case and whatever happens can be in your favour. it's possible twitter can concede in infringing in your trademark and may be even consider licensing through the course of the battle. but be very, very patient for any outcome to happen. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Dave: wrong. Leo is who got me on Twitter. His marks were more popular and predated Twitter's. - Robert Scoble

Leo got me into twitter too! - Jim Connolly

I think Leo has a good chance at wining his case since he did register the copyright first. Twitter is still not a money making business. They are living off of VC money. They will probably not have the funds to mount a case since their money will be tied up with keeping twitter afloat. Am I right? - Bryan Lee

Leo also got me on Twitter shortly after they went public. - Mike Bracco

regarding AMF, Inc. v. Sleekcraft Boats, 599 F.2d 341 (9th Cir. 1979) the battle was very different. one of the things found was that the company had an 'infinity' of other brands to choose. it's a very different situation in detail, although it looks comparable at face value. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Or just have them become a premium sponsor. There used to be so much twitter talk before, I think they really should be owing you some gratitude for the traffic. - Adi

As part of any settlement, you should demand Ev and Biz concede that individual Twitter entries are "Tweets", as embarrassed as they seem to be by that. They're net "twits" or "twitters"... they're "tweets". - Ken Sheppardson

i'm sure something can be negotiated with twitter. a lawsuit in this case would show you're just defending your trademark because they are encroaching in your territory. you're not taking them on what they are known to do, their core competency. rather, it's stepping into your own grounds. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

not doing anything on purpose may weaken your trademark. many court cases also end up not going through the entire ordeal. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Yep, I agree the day has come where it's either fight or flight. And I don't mean that quite the way it sounds. :-/ - Ken Sheppardson

Defend!!!! - Mark Williamson from BuddyFeed

I don't think you have much choice. Either you defend it or you lose it. - Pascal Sijen

dave johnson: true, there's always a degree of uncertainty; but that doesn't mean giving up in defending one's investment in a trademark. it can be argued pragmatically and it's to the point where leo must defend his territory upon which twitter is encroaching. aye. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

I'm not sure you can win, are we aren't even sure what they're going to call it yet. If it ends up being Twitter.TV you have no chance to beat them. - DarknessFalls

There is even a shortening service called: http://twitpwr.com/ - The brand must be defended. - David Z

Leo: You must defend it or lose it. They need to know you also have the muscle behind you. I have the attorney that did all the trademark work for Terminator 1-4, Rambo, old timer who knows every angle. I have him on retainer and would love to join your cause. I can arrange a chat with him at no cost, then you can decide to move ahead, or if the cost seems to steep, I would be interested in partnering with you on the trademark. Fight on Leo! Let me know if you want to chat Thx Chad - Chad Harris

Reading this I'm also thinking, if you move forward as some here suggest, be ready to go after Twitpic.com and every other Twit* variation to aggressively defend everywhere or lose steam on all fronts. Is that a good identity move? This is not a simple question to consider when everything is taken into account. - Ken Camp

I'm of the opinion that twitter's initial success back in 2006 and 2007 was in part due to piggybacking on the brand name recognition that Leo had built over the years prior. - Chris Heath

I think defending it is what you must do, but perhaps take a different look at it all together and suggest some kind of mutual PR blitz leading into a partnership or new brand identity for TWiT. Just don't call it SyFy! - Aaron T. Harvey

The question here is would a "Reasonable person" confuse the two? I would like to think I am a reasonable person (even though I can't spell) and I would not be confused in the least. I love the Twit network and watch several hours a week, but I don't see the issue. - Rob

I agree that since Leo has been a twitter evangelist all these years, they should be able to strike an accord somehow. Maybe even partnering up on the whole Twitter TV Show since Leo has the video presence online. - Bryan Lee

You have to defend now, or 5 years from now you'll have a weaker case against the twitty podcast network. - Robert Hafer

Rob, the question isn't whether or not you or I would confuse the two, but do the people who watch Oprah and maybe catch Leo on The Tech Guy confuse them...and they do. - Aaron T. Harvey

Aaron...Do you really think they would. Am I that out of touch with the "Normal People"? If that is the case then I guess I would have to conseed that to be an issue. But I am still not quite convenced. - Rob

Funny - I would enjoy the extra publicity - You have a loyal set of listeners - and none of us are confused. If people end up on your site -cause they are looking for twitter, maybe they will take a listen. People who are looking for podcasts on technology though i doubt will find twitter in a search. - Laurence Gold

Rob, I've seen it happen, even with people "in the know". People think that TWiT is somehow connected with Twitter because of the name. It's a mistake that, while not happening with everyone--and maybe not even the majority--can end up costing Leo and co. money. - Aaron T. Harvey

Protect what you worked hard to build - Shawn Hickman

Had Apple been named "TWiT," you can be assured there would be no talk of a TwitterTV... - Christopher A Carr

Of course you should perfect TWIT for media and tech. You have the prior art, use. It's an obvious move for Twitter to exploit their 'brand' into media. You must pursue Leo. You have been a crusader for fair-use, but there are times (like this example) where fairness requires accountability. - michael sean wright

The commenter who noted that if you do not enforce your rights they may be weakened is generally correct. I suggest seeking an agreement that is mutually beneficial and recognizes your rights in the TWiT(R) trademark. - erik pelton

The problem with defending your trademark is the public backlash it can generate. Think O'Reilly and Web 2.0 or Apple and Profit Pod. But in this case, if you are indeed convinced that there is some infringement of TWiT by Twitter, I think you'd be doing us all a favor if you could somehow head off their plans for a celebrity-stalking TV show. - Dave

The problem is not really twitter, or a twitter video show, but all the people who says they just sent a twit. Also all the small companies with twit in their name, who are in the video/audio area. Twit radio, twitvid.io etc etc. I see no problem in protecting the brand. However it ends out you'll get a lot of publicity. - Anton Tanderup

Leo, this could be an opportunity for you to come out ahead. Yes it's an awkward situation and yes you could fight this on legal grounds, but there's no win for you there. Here's a way for you to win. Today your brand is a split brand--split between "Leo LaPorte" and "TWIT." You can win by focusing more on building the Leo LaPorte part of the brand. "Leo LaPorte" doesn't equal TWIT, yr... more... - Michael Metz

man you gotta defend your name and trademark,whats next a twitter podcast network? - cliff whitefoot

I think Ken Sheppardson sums it up nicely. I don't think you even need to retain a lawyer to start with the cease and desist letters, then see if they are amenable to a settlement, partnership or other remedy. It doesn't have to, and hopefully won't ever, come to a legal battle. However, it's clear enough that unless Leo hands them his mark and re-brands on his own dime, he must defend... more... - Richard pancakhaus Walker

Its funny... in a way you helped make twitter the juggernaut it is today.... all the free advertisement that you have given them over the years....LOL.. Maybe they should return the favor - Nathan McClain

Hasn't Leo said he wants to add a second host to the network? Wouldn't it also confuse viewers if they were watching the Leo Laporte Network and the show was hosted by someone not named Leo? - Norm Corriveau

Leo, some other people have made good points, if you're going after Twitter your also going to have to go after the other sites with Twit in the name: Twitpic, Twitpwr and Twiteverything or your case will be thrown out. - DarknessFalls

DarknessFalls: he'd only have to do that if they all launched TV shows too. - Martin Bryant

darknessfalls, you're not getting the scope. it's about leo's twit trademark on video and what twitter plans to do that's associated with it. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

If you haven't done so already, explore the Apple case, both the legal and business issues that Apple Corps encountered. And if you DON'T defend your trademark, what's Plan B? Remember that Twitter (or its future owners) may someday sue YOU. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

Leo, take your mark and make them all change names. Is this Ustream show even official Twitter? it looks pretty lame, like they just used the word, visual branding like twitter.com. http://www.ustream.tv/channel... - rob friedman

Don't sue unless you can find a business case and a lawyer to take the case on contingency with enough potential gain that it all wouldn't have been a big waste of time for a couple hundred dollars. But I am not a lawyer (IANAL). In fact, the grown up thing for twitter to do would be to link to you with an explanation that they aren't you and visa versa. - Eric Standlee

Defend yourself, Leo. - Devin Baines

Defend your trademark. Why else would you have filed it in the first place? - phil baumann

The best solution would be for Leo to produce the official Twitter show as part of the TWiT network. - Martin Bryant

The brand is big because of Leo yes, but having the TWiT brand is important. There are shows on the network in which Leo is not in. - Anton Tanderup

Whats the question? TWiT is yours Leo, you need to protect it, the TWiT Army is not only at your back but with 60% of new Twitter accounts not coming back, all you have to do is hold out and wait on it to fold anyways. - Bush Williams

Anton, the band is TWiT - twit.tv? - TWiT netcast network... that is the brand... - Chris Heath

It is totally unfair, but I want to see all of your focus and money going towards content, not legal actions. You will be endlessly sending out C&Ds or worse as long as Twitter is popular. That said, I do think you should squeeze some money out of Ev in order to cede the brand. - invariant - farewell FF

Twitter offers more value to me than TWiT ever could. Sorry Leo, but this just seems like sour grapes. - Shannon

Leo: You should do a This Week in Law on this btw. - Anton Tanderup

Shannon - how much value you get from either brand is not what is at question here. - Chris Heath

I'm not sure if this was already mentioned in the nearly 150 comments here, but Leo's link doesn't work. Here's a better link that I hope stays active: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin... - Eric Geller

+1 to chris' comment. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

You have a "defend or lose" obligation under trademark law. The TWiT brand has significant value, both from a revenue perspective and and the potential cost of re-branding al your sites, moving twit.tv etc., if you lose it. Protect the mark that secures your brand. Oh yeah, on that whole "big guy" theme: Because of your stable business model vs Twitter's Twitter's evolving one, an... more... - David Lounsbury

Shannon, the post asks for advice on how to be the best caretaker of a network and its trademark - your assignment of personal value should guide your own choices, but is irrelevant to the question at hand. How can it be sour grapes if failing to act now _could_ result in losing the standing of a trademark/brand which preceded those of other players who _may_ be crossing the line to the point of infringement. - Micah Wittman

TWiT offers more value to me than Twitter ever could. Sorry Shannon, but this just seems like sour grapes. - invariant - farewell FF

What a conundrum. I can't speak much to any legal considerations. But, on an emotional level, I would imagine that not defending and potentially losing the name must feel like smiling politely as an immigration official pins you with a random Anglicized name because your real, "ethnic" name is confusing to the masses in the new world, and making a fuss is to gamble the welfare of your... more... - Micah Wittman

@Ken Camp: Isn't twitter also a common english word which can't be trademarked? EDIT: Or Windows, for that matter? - invariant - farewell FF

invariant -- you mean like Apple? - Brian Sullivan

word, err, I mean Microsoft Word - Micah Wittman

I think your best brand is "Leo Leporte". TWiT is just where Leos at. - Matthew Snape

So I think we've established that common English words can be trademarked. So what's the criteria? Has to be a noun? - invariant - farewell FF

of related note, i realise that twitter is indirectly facilitating twit offshoots upon registration. this is how: registering anything with 'twitter' in the username is *banned*. so, for a user already having their heart set on using twitter as part of their 'brand' might think of using 'twit' instead. this opens up a new can of worms figuring out who is using the twit name and doing video. like how they are doing now with 'twiter', they can stop it at registration to avoid further confusion. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

I say defend it. If they are doing a TV show, they're definitely stepping on your toes. Nevermind that I can't imagine their show would be any good, but that's a different story... :) - Jan Ole Peek

What about TwiTips? If that isn't entertainment then what is? But seriously I own several trademarks myself and I know if you don't take action then you could lose the Tmark. You have a conundrum because Twitter is so popular. So I would recommend seeking a compromise so that you won't lose your mark and appear like the bad guy with the public. Perhaps a clearer definition of the terms... more... - BLOGBloke

Other than I think he needs to see a surgeon to fix that lean to the left he has,... I love the guy and have been listening to him for about 15...16...dang probabaly close to 18 years about tech news I love the guy. And to top it off! He knows what he is talking about!! Leo makes am radio worth a listen on the weekends! - John Apostoli

TWiT is a network providing audio and video broadcast covering issues related to the tech field. Twitter is a social network used to connect people using the basic SMS tools. While people *may* confuse the issue by referring to Twitter messages as "twits, there is no evidence that Twitter has used or endorsed the term. Unless & until Twitter (as a company) starts using the term "Twit"... more... - David J. Garcia

I've said this privately, but I guess I will say it publicly.Defend your mark. It is your livelihood. There WILL be confusion if it gets to TV, where people are not tech savvy and have no idea who you are - Francine Hardaway

Yes, it may be expensive, and yes, these fights are draining, Dave, but until the laws are changed (an entirely different question), Leo could lose part of his livelihood through the confusion, especially since he has advertisers who would probably want him to defend. Everything in the universe doesn't happen in Silicon Valley:-) - Francine Hardaway

David - until now that has been the case, but Twitter is planning on doing a TV show (which would definitely be infringement), which is why this debate is happening. - imperator3733

I would certainly want you to defend it but i don't think its gonna be possible for two reasons. First Twitter is a bigger, more powerful and certainly more loved brand with more money. and you were first to infringe the unofficial agreement by hosting Twit Army. in that perspective you might not be able to defend it legally.besides the audience you've built ain't gonna be affected by what twitter does.So consult a legal advisor & take best course of action. Best of Luck - Abhishek

I think if you approach it in good faith--initially without lawyers--you have a very good chance to work something out. Ev seems to be a very reasonable guy. Perhaps it's best to draft a strategy with counsel before any discussions though. What's really in your favor(perhaps legally, perhaps not) is that Twitter can't deny how your support and promotion for it was incendiary to the... more... - Gregg Scott

http://www.googlefight.net/... - ouch - Nate

What's the point of a googlefight here Nate? - Chris Heath

Sorry but the Google fight site is loaded with pop-ups that even show through popup blocker. - Usman Bashir

Usman, I didn't get any popups (using chrome on winxp) but still it's a hideous site - Chris Heath

Twitter has a lot of investment, but I'm not sure all of that is liquid money. You may be even in the money spent defending your Trademark. I say go for it. Do it now though if you do. - Jesse Stay

Leo must Defend! - Jim Mahon

If it was me, I'd defend it. While Twitter is still worth something! Talk to a lawyer first and see if you have a valid case. - John Frazer

You must defend. - Will Bostwick

I can't believe how long this thread has gotten! - Bryan Lee

Seems like you are getting a lot of FREE promotion as a result of twitter. My bigger concern would be not having the twit.com URL to go with your brand name. That's a big issue! - Craig Shipp

@Craig, twit.com was registered in 1997, and it's parked. - rob friedman

Twit is your trademark for the company you have built up. It seems rather unfair that they would brand their idea so similar. I would defend it and all the hard work you have done. - Matthew Davis

Defend it Leo. Things may get ugly, but sometimes they just gotta. - David Chartier from BuddyFeed

Fight for you trademark! Especially since they knew of your prior use and now they are doing a TV show which they should know is stepping on your trademark. - russellcoleman

Defend, owning Twitter may not be useful for you yourself, but you could make a profit off of it if you were to sell it. Go for it Leo! - Zachary TG

If you decide to fight this I'll up my monthly donation. - KyleHase from twhirl

What Kyle said!! - jcunwired

Leo, FriendFeed community, let's get practical here - Twitter has more resources and probably a decent case defending against what you could file. It would be a blow to your image, to TWiT's image, and be bad press overall. You have a far greater chance of losing credibility than gaining trademark protection. You need to look into other strategies. - Ben Parr

There is no such thing as bad Press - Jesse Stay from email

I would thin kthat the thing to do is to gently but firmly convince them that they are infringing on your brand, that litigation would be damaging to both of you, losing community goodwill over the fight, and that it would be simpler, faster, and cheaper for both entities if they were to pay for your rebranding effort. Be prepared to present them with the estimated costs of litigation,... more... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Defend your Trademark. It's the responsible thing to do as a buisness. - Donald Forth

Defend your trademark - Russ Jackson

what Kyle & guruvan said. Does anyone else think we need threaded comments for conversations like this right here? - Richard pancakhaus Walker

I'd defend the TWiT trademark. - Jonathan Bloom

I'm not as thunk as you drink I am - David Lloyd

Also there is this guy who has a "beef" with twitter http://twitter.co.uk/ - rob friedman

@rob friedman - That guy says Twitter doesn't require you to validate your email address. Wow, that's ripe for abuse! - invariant - farewell FF

Defend. - Tony Meyer

Talk to a lawyer. - Zian Choy

More than a hundred comments, the community is twitting even on friendfeed. A legal action would be very difficult. You should first define your objective in doing so. Do you really want to protect your brand or settle for a lucrative compensation? Even if you get some sort of legal protection limiting Twitter to use or endorse the word "twit" to some extent, people will still be... more... - Cem ARGUN

Cem: I'm afraid I don't understand that first sentence of yours. Can you explain? - Christopher A Carr

It's only infringement if trademark string parser is case insensitive TWiT® != Twit® - KyleHase

Prior art (and obligatory MP reference) http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Jay Cuthrell

Maybe a dead issue? At least as far as the potential fight w/ Twitter, Inc. Mashable says Twitter responds no official Twitter TV show http://mashable.com/2009... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

And now for something completely different... watch the meetup room if interested in seeing Spamalot in SF as a group... - Richard pancakhaus Walker

I would say defend it. Of course, I'm just a Twit.tv fan and not a lawyer. - Joey Gibson

You lose so much credibility with all this nonsense. - PC Easy from twhirl

'all this nonsense'?? wtf is that supposed to mean? - Chris Heath

Just leave it alone until they manage to make some real money off it, then litigate. That's how it's done you know. - Will Higgins™

Yeah this is nonsense. If you think you really have a case, then don't make a big stink about it on Friendfeed. Just go take them to court. - PC Easy from twhirl

Leo, I am a long time fan and constant listener to all of you work. You are a more than fair and wholly honorable man. You have had TWIT long before I ever heard of a twitter. Go with your heart Leo. I am behind you. I understand you would impede progress of any positive kind. But a cease and desist letter. Seems harsh. I think you have a winner. Let them buy the TM. Power to the people. Go Leo, you deserve it. You do only good. You are one of a kind! RodneO - RODNEY OLIVER

PC Easy: I don't think Leo's making a big stink. The idea that twitter would get into the tv/video business would be a big thing since they have a verbal agreement with Leo not to get into that business. This may be all for nothing, since the mashable article guruvan linked above states that twitter will not be doing a show. Leo was doing the best first step (imho) in asking the community for guidance in the event that the original reporting was correct (which it does not appear to be now). So moot point - Chris Heath

I think if I was you Leo I would try to license rights to them and get some mula out of it. Remember "Leo Laporte" goes a lot farther than TWIT does and most importantly ever will. - Eric VM

there's a current backlash on twitter trending topics right now w/ hashtag #notwittertv. the examiner has an unfavorable article here: http://www.examiner.com/x-264-C... even alyssa milano is against it: http://twitter.com/Alyssa_... - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Its going to suck and bomb... guaranteed. - Rustic Thoughts

Maybe just sell it to them Leo for a gazillion dollars and retire. Keep the leaches out of it..meaning the lawyers. What the heck, Leo you are great at trend setting, you practically put twitter on the map. They owe you something.for all the pub you have given them since their inception. - John Apostoli

Defend. There's really no reasonable alternative. - Jason Clarke

You gotta defend it Leo. What's the point of trademarking in the first place. - Joel Lovato

You have to defend what is legally yours. - Michael Hansel

Twitter Responds: There is No Official Twitter TV Show- Mashable (May 25th, 2009 | by Pete Cashmore) -- http://mashable.com/2009... -- There is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast! In dealing with networks and production companies we sometimes have simple agreements. Regarding the Reveille and Brillstein project reported today,... more... - Chris Loft

Leo, suggest you go "open source co-branding" on this. Monetize your "twit" brand through creative brand licensing with emerging entertainment and multimedia microblogging companies that want to ride the "twitter" bandwagon. I can see creative corporate and individual co-brands like, TwitSounds, TwitFilms, TwitMedia, TwitCats, TwitBitch, TwitMechanic, etc... - Mike Schmidt

If I hear the word "monetize" one more time, my eardrums will begin bleeding. That is all. - wyclif

I don't want to over simplify this but if Twitter do branch into video and even streaming TV, surely the content would have to be substantially different to what TWiT already provides, otherwise they are at risk of spoiling their brand identity. Stay strong and true to the Tech news content and let Twitter, well do what ever they may do. Personally, I think it would be a mistake for them to go down this road. Time may be better spent further improving the existing service. - Kevin J Hatton

the mashable news is taken directly from the twitter blog: http://blog.twitter.com - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Maybe it's a good time to Re-Brand. Twit has unfortunate connotations in some areas of the English speaking world. On this side of the pond a twit is an idiot. Until I became aware of Leo I gave TWiT a very wide berth. Branded simply as This Week in Tech it would have got my positive attention a whole lot sooner. Time to move onward and upward. - Gilbert Harding

This was copied and pasted but sums it up so well : Of course, there's a larger long-term problem because of the way that Twitter has weakened _your_ brand. It might be less expensive (and a better use of your time) to rebrand TWiT into something that strengthens your brand and moves it away from Twitter; avoiding any future problems (and there will be future problems). You can't fight Oprah. - Professor Messer - Fragtastic

A very worthy point - "I think that once you see the Twitter television show, you'll probably want to distance yourself as far away as possible. - Professor Messer" - Fragtastic

I'll admit to being a little slow on the uptake to both TWiT and twitter and it took me some time to figure out that they were different things. I was listening to TWiT before I found twitter, and at first I wondered if I was mixing the names up in my head. I think there is real potential for confusion between the two names. Good luck in whatever you decide to do, Leo. - Rick Reynolds

You could ride the wave of popularity Twitter is experiencing by allowing that confusion to blossom. Perhaps more people could start listening and watching your netcasts *because* of that confusion? - David Hepworth

You need to defend your brand, however since you know the guys at Twitter maybe you can come to some sort of agreement that is the best interest of both TWiT and Twitter. - Jim Lavin

I say defend the brand. I fully believe Leo and TWiT will outlive Twitter. It would be a shame to surrender the brand only to see it disappear in 1-2 years. - Martin Johnson

I think you should definitely defend it. Whatever it will be called, Twitter-TV will make a big splash and Twit, being less mainstream than Oprah, won't even make a dent. And if they want your trademark, they should pay for it. - Vincent van Wylick

I say defend it, if you don't the that opens the door to other infringements. - Hunter

since you clearly took your name from This Week in Baseball, which deputed in 1977, should MLB defend their trademark with you? - glenn simmons

Defend it! definitely, the trademark is rightfully yours and you need to hold on to it...I like twitter, but I like TWiT even more... - Raymond

Glenn, you are wrong. There are many registered trademarks that contain "this week in" - russellcoleman

See what you have started Leo? Twitter TV is not a patch on what you do. Now if it was professionally done, with great audio then maybe, - Kevin J Hatton

Dealing with a similar issue (though not as big as dealing with Twitter). I say throw out a warning shot to protect your brand. Worst case they ignore you and you have to spend gobs of money to defend it. Best case they make you a $$ offer. - Brian Niles from Nambu

russellcoleman, exactly so why is Leo crying about twitter - glenn simmons

Glenn, because "Twit" is Leo's trademark in the area of entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows. - russellcoleman

Defend it! - Kiran Patchigolla

Sorry Leo, does that mean I can't call people Twitts? Does it mean no one in a television or audio show can use the word twitt? I mean Twitter...TWIT...they have 3 more letters and their brand is based on communication not entertainment. Give up the ghost against Twitter by now dude. IF they were doing what you were doing MAYBE but what you are saying is noone can use the letters T W I or T .... don't become the next Monster. - Sidney

Defend. No retreat. No surrender. - Barry Biddlecomb from twhirl

Sidney, it means they can't use twit as part of their brand if they go into the areas Leo's trademark covers. We are talking about branding here. - russellcoleman

Again, Twitter is a communication company looking to capitalize on providing television content the ability to have immediate interactive component...Nothing that TWIT does...so no infringement. Leo has always had the axe to grind with Twitter...if he was going to do something he should have done it immediately... - Sidney

My understanding is that Twitter is going to have a TV show and that may infringe. My point above was to the suggestion that no one could say the word twit. - russellcoleman

@Christopher Carr, I meant that twitting has become a generic expression going far beyond Twitter. Here on friendfeed we are twitting, an these lines are in fact twits... :) - Cem ARGUN

As an anecdote, until now I thought TWiT was something twitter related, and I basically ignored it for that reason. I have learned over time that I'm often not a good representative of anything, but there was certainly brand confusion in my case. - Robin Barooah

Robin: You're not alone. I thought TWiT was Twitter-related too :( - Tech Introvert

At first, yep, I thought Twit spawned Twitter. But in a few nanoseconds, I knew otherwise. But in the mind of 'ordinary' (horrible term, sorry) user coming at Twit from Twitter surely they'll get the idea. But Twitter is SO pervasive, I'm glad that you've decided to take advice. I know nothing, but I feel you should protect your brand. Don't change your name. Change the game. On another tack, you checked out http://audioboo.fm ? - John C Wesley Barker

"Again, Twitter is a communication company looking to capitalize on providing television content the ability to have immediate interactive component." - Sidney That is exactly what Leo's doing - Anton Tanderup

news of twitter tv just hit the local abc news. they mentioned there's already direct opposition by celebrities ashton & demi who (according to their tweets) will quit twitter if this reality show sees the light of day (paraphrasing). this could mean -as they say & putting it lightly- 'my enemy's enemy is my friend?' odd yet amusing opposition from the hollywood. however, no mentions of twit and leo. :-\ - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Twitter can look to capitalize on providing television content the ability to have immediate interactive component all they want. But I don't think they should do it in a way that can cause any confusion between them and Leo's network. - russellcoleman

Sorry the only confusion people have had is what Leo has brought to the table himself. He should have stepped up long ago if he felt Twitter was going to create confusion and admittably it has and TWIT and Twitter don't even cross streams. I know for one if Leo wastes his money on litigation I for will be disappointed and believe it will harm the TWIT brand. - Sidney

i know this thread is too long to read for many. re-quoting what leo said here for those who keep saying he should have stepped up long ago: "Ev told me that when they were considering names for Twitter they knew about TWiT and decided it didn't matter. In their defense, they had no idea what or how big Twitter was to become. We talked about trademark early on and both agreed there was no conflict _as long as we were in different spaces_. And therein lies the rub. - Leo Laporte" - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Very tough choice. I think these comments provide you with a fairly good sample of public opinion from people in tech, but it would be interesting to get input from the rest of the world on Twitter who have never heard of TWiT. It certainly won't cost much to send in a warning shot so they take notice and to demonstrate defense of your TM, but I would follow that up with a request to... more... - Phil Ashman

Give it up Leo ... You may win the battle ,, but you wont win the War IMHO ,, Unless you have deeper pockets than Twitter ... is your time/money worth fighting over it ? Only *you* can answer that! - johnpiercy

This twitter thing is just a flash in the pan, you can wait them out ;-) - Wolfman-K

If he fights and loses, at least he defended it, which is required to keep it. If Leo does nothing, he could lose it. - Bwana ☠

How do people feel about Monster Cable suing companies that use the word Monster in their name? I feel the same here...except that Twitter just happens to have the same four LETTERS as Twit, as the beginning. They arent using Twit as a standalone word. C'mon. - Andru Edwards

The only justification I can see in Leo going after Twitter is so that he can at least show he is defending his TM so he doesn't lose it as Bwana said...otherwise I think it is a losing game that will be a waste of resources that TWIT could utilize in other productive pursuits. - Sidney

The Monster Cable example doesn't really work. They were suing companies that were in different spaces. Now with Twitter doing a TV show, that is in the same space as TWIT and Leo has the trademark for it. - Mike Child

Everyone should read this: http://blog.twitter.com/2009... It has been linked a few times in this discussion up above, but bears linking again based on recent comments - From what I can tell, it doesn't look like twitter will have a tv show - so this whole point is moot - leo may have to defend his trademark against these 'other' shows if they use the word twit in their name, but i don't think they will - Chris Heath

Leo -This is a battle that will be HELL. Yet, it is critical you fight it. I had a couple situations very much like it in telecommunications late '80s early '90s. I should have fought. Give them a run for their money. It will cost you $$ and resources. But, with Twitter's new direction - man - you're a journalist at heart... You already know - you've got to fight for your right! - Arleen Anderson

Man this is a tough position to be in. Honestly, I can't see TWiT or Twitter changing brands/names. However, Leo, you were first and you have the trademark to back it up. I say defend it! - Doug Jones

Biz responds to the Twitter TV show on the blog: http://blog.twitter.com/2009... - Doug Jones

not reading the thread befire i comment... but seems to me that TWITTER does not equal TWIT. what else is their to know? - sull

Leo, I think the law is very clear, if you don't defend your trademark you may lose it. - David Angel from twhirl

Leo a firestorm is brewing over twitter tv http://www.nydailynews.com/tech_gu... - dday

Make them pay you a million in cold hard cash for the TWIT name and change your name to TWIG - This Week In Goodness :-) - Richard Bitting

When you see such services as "TwitThat" (http://twitthat.com/), with that spelling of "tweet", there is an incredible amount of confusion waiting to happen ! - arnaudt

arnaudt, good point. and again... TWiT does NOT = twitter - so leo has no case. twitter themselves dont use 'twit' in any way. they barely if at all use 'tweet' in any way. they began as 'twtr' in like 2006. twitter is NOT an abbreviation for anything as TWiT is. twitter is not solely behind producing an entertainment property.. they are granting rights to others to do so and in some... more... - sull

sull, TWIT does NOT have to = twitter for Leo to have a case. People just have to be confused enough to adversely impact, or even potentially impact, Leo's business. - Chris Gardner

Chris, i think it does for him to have a 'good' case. You cannot prevent Twitter from letting media entities use twitter as part or their 'shows', even if twitter as some levell of partnership. In the end, it will cost Leo money to lose a trademark case. Proving, for example, that an MTV show tentatively named 'what you're watching' that uses twitter and facebook etc as fundemental components for audience interaction has any negative effect to the TWiT podcast. - sull

sull, there just needs to be a likelihood of confusion. The Court there announced eight specific elements to measure likelihood of confusion: Strength of the mark - Proximity of the goods - Similarity of the marks - Evidence of actual confusion - Marketing channels used - Type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser - Defendant's intent in selecting the mark - Likelihood of expansion of the product lines - Chris Gardner

Oh, and TWiT is not just a podcast. It is a live streaming net video network. There are on and off talks to take to cable also. - Chris Gardner

Chris, thanks for pointing those elements of liklihood. Still, i think that even for the case to have a leg to stand on, twitter would need to have a 'show' specifically named in a way that may cause confusion. That has not happened. Trying to prevent the word 'twitter' from being used at all in marketing and branding via "visual and audio performances" because of the TWiT trademark seems a stretch and will prob result in negative publicity for Leo. Anyway, maybe we'll see. Interesting. - sull

sull, agreed interesting. Also, this will probably not go anywhere near the courts. Ev Williams and Leo know each other and get along (not many in the industry that Leo does not get along with). They will work things out. - Chris Gardner

For those who are unaware, people have to take action to protect their brands otherwise they lose their trademark. My suggestions and observations: 1. Look for win-win 2. It all seems moot anyway http://blog.twitter.com/2009... tho this is a fascinating thread 3. If twitter did ever go ahead with this it would be a fairly simple compromise for them to... more... - Isha (Marysia)

You need to defend it. I don't know that you'll stop twitter from launching their show but you have to fight it to keep your trademark valid. You for sure need to go after twitvid.com and twitvideo.com! - The Griff

Defend the trademark. It could make the difference on winning a future trademark case with another company. - David Ebaugh

Defend it. It was your long before Twitter was even around. Like someone else said what is the point of calling your network that if as soon as a bigger fish comes along you cave. Don't give in to the man Leo! - Mr. Thomas

Leo. I am not a lawyer and don't play one on the Internet. It sounds like you have no real case against Twitter, but the producers of the rumored tv show are a different story. Even then, it depends on what they are doing with the subject matter. Is it *about* Twitter, or simply about people who use Twitter? Will they ever use the term, "twit" in the show? It certainly couldn't hurt to... more... - Jake Overton

While this is getting a lot of buzz now, it didn't even occur to me till it was posted. I think both have built their brands, both have similar sounding names but are different. Isn't TWiT an acronym? I would be more concerned with TWiB (This week in Baseball) going after Leo if he goes on TV as his show title is clearly a play on theirs, and not Leo being concerned about Twitter... ;) Either way Leo, you got some free publicity for your program/site out of this. - mike wood

Let's not forget that use of anything in an editorial context is considered fair use. - Ryan Brodkin

I also feel that you have an opportunity for even more publicity if you can work the TWiT shows into the TV show, joining them rather than fighting them. You will get publicity either way, but there seems to be a high road and a low road (or perception thereof). Good luck and keep up the great shows. - Jake Overton

Leo fight them. - johnny

we neec to fight for TWIT - Richard Thomson

So far I don't think there is a conflict with Twitter, unless there is a Twitter TV show. Although you should fight sites like http://twitvid.io . Plus if you win, you could have an awesome domain for video downloads when you want to offer them. - Mister IQ

Apparently there's a popular twitter client app in Japan called "Twit" http://wakoopa.com/softwar... It's the first "twit" result on Google Japan and Yahoo Japan. - KyleHase

Robert Scoble

I visited Kevin Marks at Google today. Here's the video of what he showed me: http://www.blip.tv/file... -- how to make your blog more social by adding FriendConnect to it. More details shortly here:

March 26 - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Dimitar Vesselinov, Shay West and 73 other people liked this

His blog is at http://www.kevinmarks.com Google FriendConnect is at http://www.google.com/friendc... - Robert Scoble

27 more comments

I shot this with my Canon 5D MKII. Unfortunately I have to manually focus and everytime I do that the noise from me manipulating the camera gets transfered to the video. Sorry about that. Still learning how to use this new equipment. This is the kind of video we'll be doing more of for Building43.com. - Robert Scoble

I shot this in 1080p on my Canon, brought the file into iMovie, saved it out at a lower bit rate, uploaded it via TubeMogul.com which pushed it over to Blip.tv. Pretty good quality for on camera microphone. I was using a fixed 24mm F2.8 lens. - Robert Scoble

Kevin is on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kevinma... and here on friendfeed at http://friendfeed.com/kevinma... - Robert Scoble

I look forward to this integration as well.. maybe over the weekend - Sardar Mohkim Khan

I hope to make a lot more "how to" videos for http://www.building43.com -- what do you think? Do you like these? If so, we'll do more from other companies too. - Robert Scoble

more more more! - Nitin Gupta

Hi Robert - also note that we published details of the Portable Contacts +OAuth API for Google contacts today: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2009... - Kevin Marks

Considering the room we were in was just fluorescent lights, the colour came out pretty well. Nice camerawork. - Kevin Marks

really cool video. I tried friendconnect on my blog, but because of my small blog community, it didn't show much friends, so I uninstalled it. But watching this video makes me want to install it again :) - xavier vespa

Kevin: this camera (the Canon 5D Mark II) rocks. The more I use it the more I fall in love with it. Only problem is it's a bit tough to manually focus and that also causes audio "clicks" to be generated. I'll work on that, we're getting external microphones for these. Both Rocky and I have a 5D MKII now. - Robert Scoble

interesting, Blip was displaying the MP4 file up to now. In the background it was transcoding to Flash. Now it's playing the Flash and the quality isn't nearly as nice. The full MP4 is here: http://blip.tv/file... -- much better quality, if your computer can display it. - Robert Scoble

I've had friendconnect on my blog for a while, it's been great. Google chatback is great for interacting with visitors to the blog, too. - Iain Baker

It's nice to watch an interview where the image is so sharp. - Richard A.

Can everyone play the MP4? If so, this quality freaking rocks!!!! Check this out if you can play it: http://a1.video3.blip.tv/0020000... Richard, you ain't kidding! It's amazing that I can shoot and deliver this quality now from an SLR that isn't even optimized for video! - Robert Scoble

The quality is really good but the shallow DOF is a bit of a problem when viewing Kevin's laptop screen. - Yuval Atzmon

Yuval: yup, and that's with a 24mm F2.8 lens. Makes it hard to focus, too, because the screen is too small to see properly (you can't focus through the lens, because the mirror is up to allow light to go to the sensor). I'll get the hang of it, though, and I'll also play around with fstops to get more depth of field. - Robert Scoble

In the flash video version I can see jumps when the camera is moved fast. Will try mp4 version. Edit: The download took serious time, server had a low bandwidth... quality of the video is great, but I still have horizontal and angular cuts when camera moves back and forth between his face and the laptop screen. Might be because of my refresh rate and/or DirectX-graphic card version though. - ilter

Watching the mp4 feed via Silverlight 3 beta 1 which now supports mp4 video, playback, quality very good, but agree about shallow DOF issue. - Martin Duffy

I like the idea of more "How-To" video's. However, I would consider taking the time to do more editing. Like how about having the interview cut between you and him talking, to a screencast that is nice and clean/visible. Basically, keep the great dialog but improve the video of the screen you are both talking about. - Kevin Keeney

Kevin: we will try to do more, especially as we construct building43.com since we have two camera and Rocky does editing but I have tried to do this several times and it is pretty tough to justify/do. Why? One reason I get the access I do is because I don't take much time. Doing this would require a lot more time and access to the interviewee's computer. Not to mention editing time, which costs money. Keep in mind I am mostly playing around right now until we get building43 up and running in May. - Robert Scoble

I'm still wondering, what can FriendConnect do for new blogs, not the static ones? - Toni @ NavinoT

Robert & everyone, I'm trying to listen in on these conversations for Building43. Regarding the comment about doing screencasts (time and cost), what if you could do both simultaneously? Robert, you could do your video for the live interaction effect while the demo/interviewee is processing the screencast and edited/voiced over later. Using something like Jing could achieve this but its just a thought. - Jason Cronkhite

Just enabled this on my site interested to see if it draws people into the conversation. Feel free to stop by KnowtheNetwork.com - Keith - @tsudo

Pardon the hijack, but I'd love to get people's recommendations for screenscasting software ... looking at SlideShare and Evernote.... - Richard pancakhaus Walker

Love the How To video, more please. Would be interesting to see Facebook Connect as a comparison, although guess its slightly different? ;-) - Steven Horner

@Richard - neither of those are screencasting software - andy brudtkuhl

nice, been using friend connect for a while, glad you got it working - Wayne Sutton

Glad you finally got it up on your blog Robert, now add some gadgets. - Kevin Marks

Thomas Hawk

My Photography Workflow 2009 - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

May 7 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Jérôme Flipo, Tristan Seligmann, graywolf and 176 other people liked this

Thanks for sharing! - Scott Loftesness

43 more comments

Awesome, thank you Thomas! - Holger Eilhard

Interesting differences on how I use to do it. I usually copy the photos of the CF card to my desktop, geotag them (either automatically using an Amod GPS logger and GPSPhotoLinker or - just like you - manually with Geotagger - thanks to @craigstanton for that btw) then import them using Lightroom and apply some keywords during that step. From there it's pick, edit, output, upload. - Holger Eilhard

Nice thank you for sharing, cool read. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know about Pro Photo Tools - I'll have to look into it. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Holger, I don't geotag first because 85% of my photos or so I never finish or publish. It would be too much unnecessary work to geotag everything for me. I suppose if the entire shoot was at one location this might be preferable, but frequently I'm walking around a lot and don't want to do any more keywording and geotagging than I have to. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas, have you ever considered getting a logger that you carry around to ease that process? Or using the - well, pretty expensive - automatic Canon solution in form of that WFT battery grip? - Holger Eilhard

Holger, I have thought about that and will probably end up doing that in the end. I'm not crazy about having to use the battery grip with my 5D M2, which is already very heavy and bulky and I'm also not crazy about having to synch up software and my images later with an external unit. Most likely though I'd expect to begin using the Canon solution (probably within the next year) on walks where I'm moving around alot and not using it for single location shoots which are easier to mass geotag. - Thomas Hawk

I know there are GPS units for Nikons that sit on the flash shoe and are pretty low profile. That might work better than a battery grip. Excellent post, by the way. - Ken Davidson

I hope Canon will release a cheaper solution to solve that problem. Getting an 700 Euro BG + 100 Euro GPS receiver isn't really the way I like... The Nikon thing is just ~200 Euro and gets the job done. - Holger Eilhard

Ken, for Canon there's only the battery grip (wireless file transmitter, not the regular BG) which allows you to plug in a GPS receiver... - Holger Eilhard

Thanks for sharing this. Was wondering why you don't keyword before you export the .jpgs. Also, since you don't mention DNG, I'm assuming you don't use it. Was wondering what your thoughts were on DNG. - Andy Roth

Andy, I suppose I could keyword before I export. I'm not sure what I really gain from that though. I suppose I like keywording later because I can get my developing done faster on individual images and export them out --that way I can begin seeing processed photos on my screensaver faster. This way if there blemishes I can still fix them. - Thomas Hawk

The advantage is, if you keyword before you export, both the RAW files and the .jpgs will contain the keywords. - Andy Roth

As far as DNG, I've never felt like I get much from that over RAW. As the photos are already RAW it seems unnecessary to do an additional conversion to DNG when I don't really understand the value of that format other than it is a more open format than Canon's proprietary RAW format. Personally I think that I'll always have a way to access those Canon files or at least have access to a... more... - Thomas Hawk

In terms of keywording RAW files, I guess I haven't really seen the value there when the exact same image is keyworded in JPG. It's pretty simple for me to search for a JPG file either on my hard drive or on Flickr/Zooomr and simply refer to the date in the metadata if I need to find the original RAW file, but I suppose whether you keyword before export or after export really is simply a matter of personal preference. - Thomas Hawk

Interesting that you use the Canon Camera Window for downloading. You may be the first pro I've run into who depends on it, but it makes sense. - Nick Savides

Nick, it's just super easy and reliable and gets the job done. There may in fact be better ways of doing it but it's probably one of those things that because it's not broke, why fix it. If I saw tangible evidence towards a better way to offload photos I'd certainly consider it. For a while I was annoyed that Camera Window would auto start Canon's processing software after it finished transferring the files, but then I just deleted that software and it stopped autoloading. - Thomas Hawk

the other thing about Camera Window is that it's lighter than Lightroom and takes less memory/resources. So if I'm out on a shoot and take a coffee break for a few minutes to offload files I don't need to boot up Lightroom necessarily. Normally under that scenario I just want to get the images off my card as quick and fast as possible. It does mean that later I need to synch the folders with Lightroom but that's not really a big deal for me. - Thomas Hawk

I liked your thoughts on using A and B folders to order your uploads. I've been doing that for a while, but in general I got tired of the manual upload process. I figured time could be saved by automating this, so I wrote a script that runs each day and chooses random A and B pictures to upload via the Flickr API. Once they're up. they are removed from the A and B folders. I never miss a day uploading, and it keeps me motivated to replenish those upload queues. - Tom Harrison

Great TH! More stuff for me to change. In the process I realized how out of date my workflow posts are. Time to update them methinks! http://www.phillprice.com/index... - Phill Price

Tom that sounds like an excellent way to automate thing and establishes your geek cred at a much higher level than mine. ;) I'd have no idea how to do a script for that. I actually like the manual process though as I can determine the exact order that they are to be uploaded in while looking at them. - Thomas Hawk

Haha, yeah Computer Science nerd here. I might publish the script at some point. - Tom Harrison

10 TB of photos is a _LOT_. I hope to one day get there but I my D40 doesn't make big enough RAW files. :) How do you search across all those images? Is there software reliable and powerful enough to not choke on that much data? I wish I could buy some sort of white label Flickr for this purpose. - EricaJoy

(I just use pixelpipe to upload from LR or if a delayed post I send a delayed email (through pixelpipe) - it posts to phillprice.com automatically (through my own WP plugin) when there's a new photos with the same title in all four places (smugmug, ipernity, zooomr, flickr) then th fave and comment grabbing comes in too; bliss! - Phill Price

Nice write up TH and well explained. Your process is almost identical to my current process except for a few minor things such as your geo tagging processes. - Justin Korn

Thomas - thanks for sharing; both your workflow and your photos. We mere photographic mortals can only aspire to your throughput, but sharing elements of the workflow lets us feel just a bit closer to the bar you're setting. - Rob Kramer

As a side note - fiddling w/ LR means it now rather handily imports photos off the memory card, and drops into folders organised and named by date, which works great for organising. Also, Jeffrey Friedl's got a great series of plugins that export to Flickr (and Facebook, among others) with the bonus that a metadata field for 'uploaded to' either service is marked yes or no - another option for keeping track of what's been published. - Rob Kramer

Yes thanks for sharing. This technical stuff is always very intriguing. Here's an interesting question - how much awareness do you have of what's in your photo library and where it is? I'm thinking about my own library of about 13,000 images of which 4,300 have been processed and I can still usually see a photo and know when and where it was taken. I'm wondering at what point that starts to become more difficult. Or does one never lose track much? - Tom Harrison

I don't know how he did it, but it's amazing - Daniele Di Gregorio

...great share @THawk! - .LAG liked that

You shoot so many photos I'm surprised you're manually geo-tagging photos the way you are. I would recommend a more automated method. I run a little app on my iPhone 3G called Trails which records my movements as I do a photowalk. It records a number of way points along the way and in the end you end up with a GPX file. Jeff Friedl has a cool little plugin for Lightroom... more... - Kenny Louie

Simple, yet effective. Inspiring for me to get up to speed - Bruno Raymond

Thanks for doing this Thomas. Always useful to share and understand workflows regardless of the topic. - Mark Krynsky

Thank you for sharing. How do you carry your stuff all day? Backpack? Bags? I know that having the camera with you full time it's the rule no. 1 but I believe it must be really tiring. When I go shooting I always try to limit as much as possible the extra lenses I take with me, just to be more free and comfortable. - ialla

Interesting article about your workflow. About DNG there is one huge advantage in my opinion. You keep all your metadata in one single file and get rid of the sidecars. The main disadvantage is the time it takes to convert the RAW-files to DNG. Otherwise I work very much like you except that I use Lightroom for import and HoudahGeo for geotagging. - Håkan Dahlström

Thanks for sharing this Thomas, I am actually thinking of implementing part of your workflow in mine. I think I have really come to a point now wehere I have to start thinking about my own personal workflow very seriously. One question: Do you delete all unflagged photos afetr your LR Session? - Alexander Kesselaar

thawk, great post. and some great comments. 1) you should consider releasing your lightroom development presets (like Matt does http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/archive... ) 2) in order to get the flickr pics onto my blog (using BlogEngine.net), i wrote a little extension that grabs the latest, formats them in a "lightbox". AutoFlickr. that saves me lots of copy&pasting. http://autoflickr.codeplex.com/ demo--> http://webguide.hopto.org/autofli... - big luzer

ialia, I use a Lowepro camera backpack (the CompuDayPak) that goes with me everywhere every day. Erica, I often will use Flickr or Zooomr to search for photos by tags and then look at the date of the image and go to that folder when need be. Sometimes I'll use desktop search if I can't find an image, but it seems to be slower. - Thomas Hawk

As for geotagging: Wouldn't it be nice if I could correlate my 'date + time taken' data in my picture with my iPhone GPS information? How close would you have to synchronize the clocks to get a reasonably accurate stamp...? - Charlie Owen

Crap. Kenny Louie said above you can already do this. Amazing. - Charlie Owen

Thomas, great, same backpack as I have. Still weighs I lot though... - ialla

And behind the scenes...All this takes a very very long time so it is peppered with brief gasps for air, hugs & kisses for his wife whenever he comes w/in 3 ft, playing hoops with the 2 boys, reading to all 4 children, providing guidance on homework & conflict resolution, pouring his wife a glass of wine nightly followed by a foot rub & netflix to coax her to sleep so he can continue... more... - Mrsth

@Mrsth: I can totally imagine that whole scene in my head. Incredible. :) - Bryan Villarin

Thomas, I would love to know your secrets on time management...I honestly don't see how you can do it all and still have a full time job to boot! Whew! @Mrsth I am impressed! - Susan Dennis

Paul Buchheit to Paul's feed, FriendFeed News

We added a 1-click login for Twitter users, so now it's easy for all your friends to try http://friendfeed.com

May 5 - Comment - Like - Share

Liz, hIpPy, Adam and 418 other people liked this

To RT, click http://twitter.com/home... It uses OAuth, so no password is required, and it automatically finds your Twitter friends on FriendFeed! It also imports your profile and picture. Big thanks to http://friendfeed.com/bgolub for making all this happen! (also, existing users can go to http://friendfeed.com/friends... to find Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail friends) - Paul Buchheit

72 more comments

fan bloody tastic! So we can post here and Twitterers can comment away without any complaints! The only think you need to try and do is bring in comments (about a share) from twitter into here! :) - Zee.

This is great...should help new users quite a bit. - Mark Krynsky

Bravo!!! Very nice! - David Cook

nice - Joe Azzara

thanks for making it effortless - Vedran Agovic

That's fantastic! Keep it up guys!! :) - Chrimmus Tad

I'm hoping this will help to entice people over here. I'd much rather talk to people via FF than Twitter - WorldofHiglet

FrF + OAuth. Like. - tobe

Refresh your FriendFeed to see an updated first comment from Paul, including a link to RT this news: http://twitter.com/home... - Dan Hsiao

OK, I admit I'm dense. As an existing user will this help me find the folks I follow on Twitter? - Laura Norvig

Cool, is it possible we could have the ability to bulk import or non-FF Twitter friends as private feeds so we can track them in FF? :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Laura, existing FriendFeed users should just go to http://friendfeed.com/friends... and click on the Twittter (and Facebook and Google) icons to find their friends. Kol, not yet, but I'm hoping to add something like that soon (improved imaginary friends). - Paul Buchheit

Thx, Paul - guess I haven't been to that page since the launch. btw, I'm definitely coming around to the new friendfeed (colors notwithstanding). - Laura Norvig

Great to see the standards working -OAuth fro Gogole and Twitter login on Friendfeed - Kevin Marks

That's a great tool, Paul! Found a few from Twitter and Facebook I didn't realise were on FF...:) - WorldofHiglet

Oh man, that is suh-weet. Works really well. - Laura Norvig

Paul, that would be wonderful, thank you. I'm keen to use FF as a kinda Twitter client. I'd love the ability to import my group I've created on Tweetvisor too but that would additionally require exporting facilities from Tweetvisor, and from asking them they've told me it's low priority (which is fair enough). - Kol Tregaskes

That's fantastic! Sharing with all of my not-yet-friendfeedified twitter friends. Thanks, Paul! - Eric Johnson

This IS good. Thanks for the hard work, Benjamin Golub. - Micah Wittman

Love that you guys are making the entry more enticing. What about refining what FriendFeed is further? Like: Twitter + conversation. For new people who don't get it and most without the time to get it, simplifying the message or experimenting further with your "first impression" on your splash page might be worth a try. Example: wouldn't it be cool to have a live conversation streaming to show just how FF has a leg up on the scattered Twitter stream? - kilbuda

this is fabulous!!! - Angela P.

It's so convenient for new comer like me! - tsssimon

Just tried it and it works great. - Iván Abrego

i have tried this too and am richer by 33 Twitter friends - jagannath rao

Nice work. Keeps getting better around here :-) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

WOW! 313 new Twitter people! Amazing what the OAuth did. Amazing. That just completely Rocks! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

That was just too easy, and found a bunch of Twitter people. I just subscribed, but I hope they participate. I'm sure I'll have to trim later. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Thanks for everything Benjamin and the others, that is really great. :) - Alp

I was subscribed to exactly 100 of the people I follow on Twitter. Added 93 more. Funny, this is actually helping me find people I *don't* want to follow in either place. - Laura Norvig

I'm looking forward to the "advanced imaginary friends" section which lets me as an existing FriendFeed user view all the twitter updates from people that don't use FriendFeed. - Brian Sloane

很好，继续努力 - Kunshou（困兽）

Sweet! - Don Strickland

Just posted this to my stream then saw this, Cool stuff Paul - Charlie Anzman

Some time ago I spent lots of time in removing my Facebook-Friendfeed integration, and didn't succeed, Facebook refused to remove it. Since that - no info about any other my services to Facebook, ever. - orie

Happy to hear that there will be an improved imaginary friend option! - Jacob

The improved imaginary friend feature will be great. No need to visit Twitter much then! - Pinksy

How do we give virtual bucks to Paul, oh I see a like button here. Off to work on the influence funnel, who cares about dollars, I want eyes ;) - Mark Essel

FriendFeed is constantly bringing new value to the service. I'm loving it! - Amie Gillingham

its relay cool - Kaspar Minosiants

great idea - andy brudtkuhl

Oh Thanks i was looking for something like this - Asahi

Is the imaginary friends feature completely disabled for the moment? Or am I just not looking in the right place? - Mark Jacobs

Mark: imaginary friends have been replaced by groups. - Robert Scoble

When is OpenID coming up? - Mohammad Abdurraafay

This feature is AWESOME :) Bravo! - Iain Baker

I just imported 8,000 new Twitter friends. Worked MUCH BETTER than last time. - Robert Scoble

Smart move guys. A quick way to grow FF users is to tap into the current hot properties. Can't believe other Social Networks are so slow to respond. - Neill Adamson

Paul, is there a way to sync it so that people I no longer follow on Twitter are unfollowed on FriendFeed? - Jorge Escobar

Great news on the advanced imaginary friends. That plus the ability to comment back to Facebook posts as easily as we reply to Twitter would be killer. - Kevin Kuphal

Finally! :-) - Richard Joerges

Not sure why this wasn't implemented a while ago but it's a welcome addition. - Jason Williams

None of my Facebook contacts are on ff. - JECO Photo

So how do existing FF members use it? - Tiffany Monhollon

Ca passe 50 fois par jour ce truc là sur FriendFeed ! C''est pas possible d'arr^ter, j'en ai marre de le voir franchement ... ^^ - Jean-Marie Gall from twhirl

Tiffany, existing FF members should go to http://friendfeed.com/friends... to find their Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail friends. - Paul Buchheit

Encore ?? C'est pas possible ! ;( - Jean-Marie Gall from twhirl

RT'd ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

@Robert cannot seem to do that with groups. What I want to do: Concentrate different RSS feeds (e.g. newswires) which do not necessarily have an account in any other social network into one imaginary friend's collection of feeds. - Mark Jacobs

Mark, "groups" (formerly "rooms") are able to import feeds just like regular users (and imaginary friends). See https://friendfeed.com/xoogle-... for example (imports the blogs of all known xoogle startups). The only thing special about imaginary friends is that they don't have usernames (or rather we assign a random 128 bit username). - Paul Buchheit

Paul, the DM option on imaginary friends should perhaps be removed. Also, imaginary friends do not show up on the search dropdown list when you type in their name in the search box. - Kol Tregaskes

Paul, is it possible to automatically create "imaginary friends" from twitter following list? What I would like is to read all my Twitter in FriendFeed; many of twitterers though are not on FF, so I have to create them by hand which is tedious. Also, it would be nice to allow to add them to some special list. - Ihar Mahaniok

Ihar, see my comment up in the middle and Paul's reply. Looks like FF are working on it. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Nice tool, discovered some more contacts ! - François Granger

love this guys wonderful - Thomas Power

This must be the reason for all the new follows I've been getting over the last few days. Congrats! - Michael Fidler

That's actually quite useful. Thank you! - snapixel

Still would like an imaginary friend than making bunch of Groups to simulate peoples that doesn’t use FF. BTW, unlike the Facebook Connect login, when I tried logging in using Twitter, it made a new account for me on FF instead of opening my own (which also has Twitter activity added). - Natsuki Seika

ditto to natsuki... - Steve Austin

Wow, real nice and simply to add my Twitter friends :O - Rosenkrieger

Good move! - Lantrix

Is it possible to add this to a wordpress blog? - Arturo Pelayo

@Arturo: http://wordpress.org/extend... - Saxtus

hi me sid m new member of dis site......... - Sidra Kanwal

Robert Scoble

Who has the best SEO/SEM info? Post URLs here:

April 19 - Comment - Like - Share

altblog, Brian Watkins, 'Like' robot (frɐnc) and 145 other people liked this

Google webmaster blog is well-known as reputable: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/ - Matt Cutts

73 more comments

Live has a good webmaster blog too: http://blogs.msdn.com/webmast... Their most recent post about getting out of the penalty box is quite good. - Matt Cutts

It is important to get back to the basics once in awhile and I am rebuilding my blog from the foundation up, which is why I am asking. - Robert Scoble

Is SEO/SEM still relevant? - Mona Nomura

Google also just started a video channel for webmasters: http://www.youtube.com/GoogleW... Over 30+ videos already up to answer common questions. - Matt Cutts

I'm a big fan on http://www.seobook.com (Aaron Wall) and http://highrankings.com (Jill Whalen) - Jason Kane

Thanks Matt! Does anyone have a good checklist? - Robert Scoble

The Yahoo equivalent is the Yahoo! Search blog: http://ysearchblog.com/ - Matt Cutts

SEO Book: http://www.seobook.com AND SEOMoz: http://www.seomoz.org - Vinny

http://blackwaterops.com - Brandon Wirtz

I am not shocked that a Google employee was the first to answer this, by the way. - Robert Scoble

@Mona: ...can you expand on your question? What has made optimizing content and Web sites for search engines less relevant? - .LAG liked that

The only SEO that has been able to show me actual results is http://NowSourcing.com - MarkCarras

SEOmoz for sure. - mjc

@virante.com (http://www.virante.com/seo-too...) - Mark Traphagen

Mona: yes. Techcrunch tells me 60% of it's traffic comes from search. - Robert Scoble

http://centuryhouse.net/ upcoming SEO Blog - Robert Enriquez

This post will open the floodgates. Another vote for SEOMoz here however - Mo Kargas

Let's see. There's my blog of course: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ . For search news, Search Engine Land is quite comprehensive: http://searchengineland.com/ . I often check Google Blogoscoped http://blogoscoped.com/ or Google Operating System http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/ for other interesting news. - Matt Cutts

Robert -- while not a one place checklist, visit http://forums.digitalpoint.com/. I've implemented some of their recommendations thus far and I feel like it's already making a difference. - Aanarav Sareen

I've recently heard Google changed their algorithm, plus with aggregating sites indexing for us (FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter), there are many outlets and methods of people reaching our media -- that is, if we remember to segregate to keep various audiences interested. ie: staying away from ping.fm like services. - Mona Nomura

And then there's the HTML documentation that we offer for webmasters: http://google.com/support... plus our help forum http://www.google.com/support... - Matt Cutts

Thanks, Robert. - Mona Nomura

I'll let other folks suggest additional outside info. There's everything from Eric Goldman who talks about legal aspects of search http://blog.ericgoldman.org/ to SEO by the Sea http://www.seobythesea.com/ which talks about patents related to SEO/SEM/search. It's a really broad field. It's almost like asking "What are some good sources for information about blogging?" :) - Matt Cutts

What a timely question Robert :) I'm just studying up on this whole subject for my own site, and didn't really know where to start. Nice - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Yes, another vote for SEOmoz here. This checklist is pretty comprehensive: http://www.seomoz.org/dp... - Craig Bailey

Must read SEO blog: http://www.thegooglecache.com/ - Mark Traphagen

"Does anyone have a good checklist?" We wrote an SEO beginner's guide at http://googlewebmastercentral.... that I proofread before it went live. You can also do searches like [wordpress seo guide] and there are several good resources in the search results. - Matt Cutts

http://delicious.com/search... - Jay Neff

Mona, Yes. something like 90% of all traffic starts with a search engine, so unless you are a destination site ,you rely on search to send your traffice. There are times when RSS Subs can be more valuable, like when you are doing loyalty building, but generally NEW users are finding you through a social media or through search. More people are in search than social media..Ergo its still relevant - Brandon Wirtz

Aanarav, I would recommend some caution regarding Digital Point. Some of the more aggressive stuff that gets pitched in corners of DP can get you in trouble. - Matt Cutts

I am a fan of Search Engine Guide http://www.searchengineguide.com Great advice and solid writers. - Ross Dunn

The sites listed here are (mostly) excellent for sure. I'm also kinda partial to the SEO Success Pyramid (since I wrote it). http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/the-seo... - Matt McGee

I'm adding all these to http://delicious.com/jayneff... thanks! :) - Jay Neff

TR: http://www.seoteknikleri.com , http://delicious.com/wolkanc... - Volkan Yılmaz ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶

This is a MUST read in my opinion: SEOMoz http://www.seomoz.org/article... - Doug Lawrence

Of course Google is going to be the Dali Lama of SEO but there are many gurus of interest: http://www.searchengineacademysc.com - Laurel Phelps LaFlamme

Not that I'm biased, but LinkMoses http://www.ericward.com/article... and the Link Building Best Practices QandA http://www.ericward.com/bestpra... are on my must read list. - Eric Ward

@seomoz great docs, great tools, and a fun and informative blog & community - Julie Bovee Hill

Interesting how few SEOs seem to hang out on FF. On Twitter this would be a massive swarm of link dropping. - Matt Cutts

For WordPress I recommend http://www.yoast.com - Erno Hannink

Matt: this went to Twitter too. I have good PR's on both friendfeed and Twitter. - Robert Scoble

What about excellent content? Is that still important? I mean, useful material for human beings? Shouldn't that be well ranked by search engines? And of course, a usable and web standards compliant site. - Alexis Bellido

me - chaz2b

Thanks Scoble! I've been looking for this info myself, actually. - Adam C.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog for technical specs on SEO and http://www.seobook.com/blog for business insights in relation to SEO - Dave Fuentes

Thanks for this list. It finally showed me that value of FriendFeed over Twitter and Facebook. Good answers. Rock on. :-) - Martin Seibert

I just want to mark this for building43 which I just did with this comment. Oh, I wish I had invisible comments to add metadata/metatags to items like this. - Robert Scoble

Leather: I never liked delicious. It isn't setup to have a conversation like what happened here. - Robert Scoble

Leather: when I search friendfeed for building43 I want this post to come up. Here, take a look: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... No need to create another item in delicious. - Robert Scoble

www.SEOmoz.org, www.SEObook.com , www.SEOquake.com and also www.webpagefx.com is quite useful. - Hayk H.

As Alexis Bellido says, "a usable and web standards compliant site." I recommend http://www.w3.org for brushing up on the compliance side of things (even if it gets a bit technical). It's the standards by which the web runs, from the horses mouth, so to speak. - David August

You may want to try #Neil_Patel & his #Quick_Sprout outfit http://www.quicksprout.com/about... See his post: "How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines" http://bit.ly/JeXq1 - informative & good free advice. I've been digging into this subject myself for the benefit of a product one of my companies is incubating and this chap and his firm keeps rising to the top of my list. I am also fairly certain that he will advise you for free in return for a good word to your "subjects" ;) @AAinslie - Alexander Ainslie

This post and more importanly the timeline of the replies are in and of themselves useful as a measure of which SEO/SEOm firms are paying attention online. Not that this is an automatic measure of capability or quality, but you gotta question how good any site is that doesn't link drop on this particular post, be it a self drop or otherwise, given who the author was/is. I*'m, amazed there haven't been more. This might be tell us a thing or two about FF and the SEO community. - Eric Ward

Just a comment regarding Digital Point, they commonly recommend greyhat/blackhat techniques, and offer lots of stupid stuff for a price. The same advice can be had for free on BlackHatWorld.com. Information wants to be free. ;) - Lee Ingram

http://www.seobook.com with Aaron I rate highly, digital-point is probably a good place for short term success on splogs but nothing sustainable long term for a proper business. - Mark Edmondson

If this is about your blog vs SEO in general, that's a bit different. For blog SEO you might try Aaron's lengthy article on SEO for bloggers, http://www.seobook.com/blogger... Joost DeValk's Blog http://www.yoast.com or Matt Cutts favorite commentator: http://www.wolf-howl.com - Lee Odden

Some of my favorite WordPress SEO recommendations are from Yoast: http://yoast.com/article... - and this is an outstanding presentation on WordPress Blog SEO: http://wordpress.tv/2009... - Don Campbell

Eric, thanks for your offerings. I think that maybe the lack of SEO people here may be down to the fact that we are all working hard implementing all these techniques for our clients. There are plenty of SEO companies who merely do the work, rather than write down what they are doing and share with the rest. http://dragonsearchmarketing.com/blog... , the shop I work at part time is running really hard right now, with 3 new hires in the last 2 months. - Mark Zip

As to the reflection on the Ff community, perhaps that is because FF is bleeding edge and most work in the trenches of SEO is being done short of the bleeding edge, where there are more "regular" folks. - Mark Zip

Just joined StomperNet . Not a plug as I am still new with them (1 Week) http://stomping2.com/ and would like to know how others view them. They provide very detailed info through video. Seem to have an impressive staff on board. They are a paid subscription but think it is worth it so far. Would especially like to hear what Matt Cutts has to say about them. Should I cancel my subsription or not? - Jonathan

Jonathan: I know some of the StomperNet folks, they are very smart. - Robert Scoble

It does feel special to be using this service and be so connected in such a varitey of topics. Just tried the similar search (after reading comments on Matt Cutts ff) and did my usual search to see how a system works. http://similar-images.googlelabs.com/images... Need to get more non naked pics going :) - Jonathan

Jonathan, that would be a longer conversation than the FF textbox has room for. - Matt Cutts

Confidential SEO Secrets Book (down to earth and real). ;-) http://www.allenharkleroad.com/Home... - Allen Harkleroad

Matt Cutts, should i use them or not? Are they doing harm? I am trying to learn but not move into the black hat. - Jonathan

Various guys: Seobook, seomoz, www.searchandsocial.com - gareth【ツ】

Black hat is an attitude. - gareth【ツ】

http://yoast.com/article... - Sprague D

Killer SEO / SEM info for Small Businesses http://www.flowtown.com/blog :p - Ethan Bloch

SEOMoz is good, Seobook is good, I would also recommend WebmasterWorld as well. Supporters area on WebmasterWorld has some of the best minds hanging out there... - Bill Hartzer

Robert - The most recent article I did on free SEO resources is here: http://anzman.blogspot.com/2009... Hope it helps! Charlie - Charlie Anzman

Here's a bunch. http://www.seomoz.org, http://www.seobythesea.com, http://www.mattcutts.com, http://www.searchengineland, http://www.searchenginejournal, http://yoast.com, http://www.seobook.com, http://www.seoptimise.com, http://www.thegooglecache.com, http://seo2.0.onreact.com, http://wiep.net and of course http://www.blindfiveyearold.com or look at my delicious bookmarks http://delicious.com/ajkohn2... - AJ Kohn

I found http://www.waferscale.com as the best website which provides meaningful and easy to understand articles on SEO - Xelios

now if you have a CIALS site the above would be like a fart in a Gail,not much of an impression. - tomartomartini

Thomas Hawk

Police delete London tourists' photos 'to prevent terrorism' | UK news | guardian.co.uk - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk...

April 17 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Baard @ Pixum, Paulo Gomes, flaimo and 26 other people liked this

"But the tourists have said they had to return home to Vienna without their holiday pictures after two policemen forced them to delete the photographs from their cameras in the name of preventing terrorism. Matkza, a 69-year-old retired television cameraman with a taste for modern architecture, was told that photographing anything to do with transport was "strictly forbidden". The policemen also recorded the pair's details, including passport numbers and hotel addresses. In a letter in today's Guardian, Matzka wrote: "I understand the need for some sensitivity in an era of terrorism, but isn't it naive to think terrorism can be prevented by terrorising tourists?" The Metropolitan police said it was investigating the allegations. In a telephone interview from his home in Vienna, Matka said: "I've never had these experiences anywhere, never in the world, not even in Communist countries."" - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

12 more comments

^ The last quote is saddening. - Jérôme Flipo

I agree that this is really sad. Is there any justification for the extreme steps the U.K. seems to be taking, or is it just paranoia? - Stan Scott

Every story like this makes me NOT look forward to fall trip I am planning to London...since photography is key to any trip I take, might have to consider other destinations. - Greg Lato

I've never been a victim of this over-zealous approach by the police but because of the horror stories you do hear I have come up with a plan should it ever happen to me: when the police invent their own version of the law I'm going to ask them to state clearly which law they're upholding for the hidden film crew (give thumbs up and wink into the distance, at a van, a window, etc.) and get them to choose whether they want their faces blurred for the programme when it's aired. - Mark H

WHAAA???? omg FAIL - Susan Beebe

dis-like - Ozgur Poyrazoglu

This is going the wrong the way - Martin Liechti

Yeah, I think the UK is much worse than the rest of the world right now for photographer's rights. It's sad. Fortunately I'm not planning on heading over there anytime soon. - Thomas Hawk

Wonder what the police will do when every camera is internet connected and offloads the photos to a distant website automatically. - Joakim Erdfelt

I'm very optimistic by nature, about both technology and governmental actions. However, I'm very concerned for the UK. Last semester, I lived in Islington - London - where I couldn't spend a day without being watched by a "CCTV Mobile Enforcement Vehicle". They're cute and tiny, but they look really frightening when parked in the dark (http://www.flickr.com/photos...,... more... - Jérôme Flipo

@ Joakim good point - Martin Liechti from Nambu

Exactly: "Memory card? What memory card?" - Tristan Seligmann

To be fair ... Yet another isolated incident. Neither side knew their rights which is a shame. Don't let it put you off shooting our fine city! - Phill Price

Robert Scoble

Why @brandon_wirtz is wrong about Twitter being a great place for a conversation (discussion here over next few minutes):

April 17 - Comment - Like - Share

Jay Neff, Colin Charles, Mark Aitken and 26 other people liked this

1. You can't bundle Tweets up and permalink to them like I can here. - Robert Scoble

404 more comments

2. You can't participate on Twitter live where everyone else who isn't following you can see what's going on like this: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

3. Finding the item that started a conversation can often be a real pain in the ass. Not here. - Robert Scoble

Ooooh, someone with my last name ... don't see that very often! - Rene Wirtz

4. People can't add onto the metadata of the original tweet, which makes it easier to find. You can do that here. For instance, I can add a keyword, say "wirtzwrong" and in a few seconds you can search for that term and find this item. - Robert Scoble

4B. The search is already indexed: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Robert, I really like how you're starting to write tweet-saavy posts here - auto-tweeted to Twitter - that are drawing the conversation back to FF for comments, etc. - Scott Loftesness

Agreed. That is why FF should focus on being where twitter conversations occur instead of actively ignoring tweets - Christian Anderson

FF just does conversations better than Twitter - Christian Anderson

5: Brandon Wirtz is an idiot. Proof: http://twitter.com/brandon... he wants to monetize my conversation. So embed this widget into your freaking blog and monetize me! - Robert Scoble

Well put Scott & Christian - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Actually that was #5: you can embed this chat widget into your blog. Embedding a single conversation over on Twitter is difficult. - Robert Scoble

I don't think stuff is any easier to find here. Search twitter, search ff, no diff. Threading nice here, yes, but this is kind of a silly discussion when placed into the real-time context. Your points fly out the window. - Karoli from BuddyFeed

#6: I can keep this conversation free of off topic comments, noise, and spam. You can't delete other people's tweets on Twitter so any search will be full of noise, spam, and off topic comments. - Robert Scoble

twitgrid is pretty horrible, and it's all over ustream.tv just creates massive amounts of link spam and garbage @replies - rob friedman

Karoli: that is provably wrong. - Robert Scoble

I think stuff is way easier to find here. I can narrow the search better. And Save it for ever - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Karoli: I can permalink to this thread: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... Try doing that over on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Karoli: and I can search for this conversation in the future using "wirtzwrong" and find it. I can't do that on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I dont know that you'll get a lot of argument about conversation being better here. They simply are. The new beta features make this that much more pronounced. - Christian Anderson

This just kills me from this guy "I hate friend feed because the disucssion doesn't near my ads" - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

trying to follow a conversation on twitter is sometimes like playing the old game of telephone, you only get half of the conversation and have to guess the other half, and you can't go back , on friendfeed you can join the conversation at anytime - Kim Landwehr

my challenge with FF is it or its community don't see it as a conversation engine. - Christian Anderson

Rob: exactly. Brandon is all about getting more from his Google Ads. - Robert Scoble

I love friendfeed for driving traffic where I want it to....sure does it better than just a tweet about the same thing - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

The built in discussion threading in Plurk is appealing, but it's too web bound--the unique interface doesn't travel as well. Nice to have it all in one spot, though. Twitter on the phone, on the web, from TweetDeck, in FF, to blogs, from blogs--not so sure I want the thing to take over like that. - Kathy Fitch

Getting the money is one thing, I don't really have a problem with it...he's just missing out on a huge traffic source because he doesnt get that conversation drives interest - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: true enough. I get a lot of traffic now from friendfeed to my blog, even though most of my comments happen here. - Robert Scoble

Friend freed is not nearly as intuitive as Twitter either. I'm not stupid, and friend feed just doesn't click with me I hunt for how I find the disuccsion, I still cant figure out how to go directly to this thread rather than see it on my view. - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: that's bullshit. - Robert Scoble

And I hit enter so apparently that was Post? rather than Hey I want a new line? - Brandon Wirtz

Totally agree with your points, Robert. I miss Twitter two years ago when real conversations would be going on for an entire hour or more, and random people would see and join in. Great community. Not today. - Marina Martin

of course they do...and the more people are interested in your conversation, the more they're interested in your blog and everything else they do - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

On Twitter your comments are mixed in with everyone else. Here? All we have to do is permalink to a single conversation. http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

I think we need to take one for the team, all jump onto the most popular platform, and go from there. Accuracy of information is higher when it comes from more people, and Twitter has more people. - Colin

You can't point oprah to this or grandma and have them just know how to use it. - Brandon Wirtz

and I've said it before, I get WAY more traffic from a tweet that comes from friendfeed saying "Liked" than just a tweet about the same thing....and the like gets retweeted at least 5x more than any other tweet - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I see FF as a place for chatting and Twitter as a place for announcements/questions (though they're harder to get answers for nowadays). I can't turn on SMS notifications via FF to hear when my Seattle friends are at a local bar, for example. - Marina Martin

Colin: that's also bullshit. Accuracy of information does NOT go up with a larger crowd. Brandon: you are telling me that I can't link Oprah to this and have them understand how to use it? http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... Then they don't deserve to be on Twitter, either. - Robert Scoble

I'm happy if Oprah cant use this - Lasse Johnsen

Marina: announcements are about all its good for anymore - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert what is provably wrong? - Karoli from BuddyFeed

Lasse: Oprah can use this. It's just like Twitter. It's not rocket science. - Robert Scoble

Scoble, it's not bullshit, filtering can be improved on Twitter as well. All I have to do is thread conversation, add meta data like "likes", and Twitter has to open it to real-time - Colin

Karoli: that searching on friendfeed isn't dramatically better than searching on http://search.twitter.com - Robert Scoble

Threading is nice, but there are tools to view conversations on twitter as threads. And yes twitter sucks because if one of Scoble's friends responds to me we may have a convesation no one else can see. but Right now having this disucsssion I type, and type, and type, and you dont' see it until I post, and I dont' see what you are talking about. So it is really only good if I'm going to rant, not if I'm going to discuss - Brandon Wirtz

Colin: Twitter doesn't have likes or comments or threading. - Robert Scoble

FriendFight! - Jesse Stay

What if someone gives it those? - Colin

wow - rob friedman

Colin: then it'll be copying friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

lol Jesse - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: what the hell are you smoking? - Robert Scoble

But it will have Twitter's user-base. - Colin

Colin: a bunch of spammers and celebrities? - Robert Scoble

Colin: did you notice that Ashton's millionth follower hasn't even Tweeted yet. It is a bot. I am laughing my ass off. - Robert Scoble

A bunch of people period. I listen to everyone before I make my opinion. (Or try to) =) - Colin

It is a fact that Twitter has not added any new fetaure related to usability for a long time. Friend Feed makes a fantastic job at beta.friendfeed.com. It is good to see some competiton ! - Leonardo R Nogueira

lmao @ the bot for apluk - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

To my sensibilities, it becomes more of a "correspondence" than a "conversation," per se. The back and forth over days on the same subject might not even be more than exchanged haiku, but it is a sharing of a sort of spiritual connection you would never think of the internet as fostering. I see the change in ways of texting as a reconnection to the old customs of letter writing and correspondence on theories, ideas, politics and humor. I understand your point, but a limited tool is what you make of it. - Phil Boiarski

Putting the widget on the blog is technically against Google Adsnes TOS since I dont' control the content, if you leave racist, profane, or what have you comments on my post about sponge bob. - Brandon Wirtz

Rob: here's the millionth follower of Ashton: http://twitter.com/Sinners... - Robert Scoble

I agree with Colin that Twitter + third-party apps can be a full-fledged FriendFeed competitor. Speed will remain an important problem for Twitter though. Right now, it's really 10x slower than FriendFeed. If Twitter gets its infrastructure in order, the race will get interesting. - Meryn Stol

Well, you can't *make* people like something, even if it seems for all the world as if they ought to like it, and it would serve them well. I'm guessing most of the folks endlessly pushing the "be a social networking guru" recipes on Twitter aren't all that interested in conversational spaces like this. Feels like a threaded BB. For real rapid fire conversation, I'd still like to head into a MOO, but I lost. Too many folks just didn't get it, didn't see the appeal, found it overwhelming. - Kathy Fitch

hahahaha! that's pathetic. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

how many of those bots do you suppose are aplusks own bots ? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

And Yes as someone who makes 200k a year blogging monetization is an important part of that strategy. People may say that makes me not a blog purist, but you know what I can blog 8 hours a day because I'm a sell out 4 hours a day. - Brandon Wirtz

Meryn: if Twitter relies on third parties to make conversations and live chat possible, it will fail to come even close tohere. - Robert Scoble

Brandon: how you making money off of my Tweets? - Robert Scoble

hmm - rob friedman

What if Twitter keeps buying 3rd parties and integrating the best features into their own brand/site? - Colin

My 2 cents? As Karoli is saying, I think, people are talking past each other here. Real-time chat is often more about socializing than "discussion. A forum (e.g. Nabble) is a threaded discussion. FF is a bastard hybrid of both, but is still more like blog comments on steroids. Twitter is a hybrid that more resembles a "wall" where something gets noticed in a large or small crowd. They all have a place, imo. - Shoq

Threaded conversations from twitter is easy to put on a blog page, Chris Pirrilo had a tool built. - Brandon Wirtz

June 21, Robert Scoble: "Twitter is for telling the world what you are doing (taking a shower) not for having conversations. They just don't work here." http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Majento

Brandon: you could embed a widget like these: http://friendfeed.com/embed and you would be able to make money off of my friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

Phil, you sound like someone who would find the flow of a MOO conversation very satisfying. - Kathy Fitch

Karoli: press 'q' to pause/unpause if comments are "flying out the window" - Mark Traphagen

Brandon: wrong and I use Pirillo's tool. That's static, not live. - Robert Scoble

Robert, why? As long as its back-end is fast enough, it won't matter. You can do anything with those 140 chars messages. Maybe at some point, no-one looks at the actual tweets anymore, and we only look at apps (supporting pictures, videos and more than 140 char messages) - Meryn Stol

Shoq: so I'm not replying to you here? Oh, please. - Robert Scoble

Meryn: I still read thousands of tweets every day. TweetDeck to the rescue! - Robert Scoble

robert you gotta get something that works better than tweetdeck ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

By the way, did you know you can open this conversation up in a popup window? Visit here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

Robert, what I meant was that - in the future - you may read those tweets in a whole different way. Also with threading, >140 chars (spread over multiple tweets, but invisible to you) etc. - Meryn Stol

Robert, remember this? Nothing changed IMO http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Majento

Then click the timestamp again. - Robert Scoble

I love those popup windows - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I see nothing happening here that I can't do in twitter, most of these comments are no more targeted or on topic than the randomness of Twitter, the comments are mostly under 140 characters, and so I see no added benefit, and since Twitter has a larger audience I get more value from twitter. - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: I just gave you a ton of things that Twitter does NOT do. I guess you can't read. I prefer people who can't read stay over on Twitter. They fit in with the celebrities and spammers better there. - Robert Scoble

the threading you cant have for sure on twitter brandon...that's actually up to the replyer to click the right button or it's not threaded - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

All that said... I hate Twitter. It just sucks less than this does. - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: rooms? lists? filter? meta-data? photo? embedded videos? - Jérôme Flipo

Guess he's never heard of FriendFeed then. - Nicholas James

Twitter is a recognizable brand, and I just want to get a lot of people into the conversation. - Colin

@Brandon you should stop arguing, big green robert scoble is about to explode :) - xavier vespa

A FriendFeed-like UI could be built on top of twitter right now, except for the speed. It would be limited to the speed of Twitter API, which is a total joke. - Meryn Stol

heheh xavier - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

so lay your trap on twitter than drag them back to your cave(friendfeed) - rob friedman

Colin: I have 80,000 followers on Twitter and I'm getting far fewer responses to things than I am here on friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

that works really well rob - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Colin: my blog is getting more traffic from friendfeed than from Twitter on most days, too. - Robert Scoble

lay the trap from frindfeed to twitter - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Ohh, thanks for the link to the pop up. Faster and much more MOO-ey. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon, i've shared more than a few threads with comments of over 140, around 350 :-) - Majento

Robert, You introduced me the same Day to both FF and Twitter. You may have more traction here, but for reaching an audience that is monetizable, sustainable, and in my opinion enjoyable, I prefer twitter. - Brandon Wirtz

That's because FriendFeed is threaded, real-time, but probably mostly because you are FriendFeed's biggest speaker? =) - Colin

the internet is all about cannibalizing one service for another, we early adopters just drag our friends 20min late to the beginning of the party, and in a year or so we'll be dragging them somewhere else. - rob friedman

Brandon: it's pretty clear you are religious about Twitter cause you aren't even able to admit that it has a lot of things that Twitter doesn't do. - Robert Scoble

I would also say twitter has better ettiquette because you would never have called me an idiot at a conference, or on twitter. And you will on FF. - Brandon Wirtz

Hmmm. This conversation itself makes Robert's point. This is the first real discussion I've ever had that at all flowed from Twitter. So! - Kathy Fitch

Brandon: how are you monetizing my Tweet? - Robert Scoble

Brandon: I'd gladly call you an idiot on Twitter. I've done that to lots of people over there, when they earn the title. - Robert Scoble

It's been said before, but there is in fact room for both. No one is an idiot for choosing one, the other, or both. Its a personal preference. I'll be glad if everyone one day realizes that. But if they don't that's their choice as well I suppose. - Tony, Paradox of FF

Well, the first one I've ever witnessed, anyway. "Idiot" is fairly tame as epithets go, though, isn't it. - Kathy Fitch

I monetize your tweets all the time. You make a point, I make a counter point, and my followers who aren't part of the cult of scoble have a discussion with me about it. I sell services all the time because of things you and Guy Kawasaki argue over. - Brandon Wirtz

I remember Robert suggesting that people call him out "Robert you idiot!" :-) - Majento

Troy: that's not my point. I use Twitter all day long. I have a computer that does nothing but run TweetDeck. But TweetDeck is a horrid place to have this kind of back and forth conversation. - Robert Scoble

Rob is right about the constant moving west, I think. - Kathy Fitch

because... Twitter has more people with money to spend. It's not near as elitist. - Brandon Wirtz

Early adopters are restless creatures. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon: you are funny. - Robert Scoble

<--never spends a dime on any twitter related item. - Kathy Fitch

Indeed Robert, Tweetdeck UI is a joke for conversations. Only thing it's usable for is monitoring/search. - Meryn Stol

Kathy: yes we are, aren't we? Notice we haven't seen a fail whale here. - Robert Scoble

Tweetdeck is excellent for aiming one's attention effectively. - Kathy Fitch

Kathy: these discussions happen frequently (and yes robert...never a sign of a whale!) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Why use Tweetdeck when you can use a relatively good web service that parses twitter efficiently? - Majento

I like it. - Kathy Fitch

It's reminiscent of a MOO discussion--cool. - Kathy Fitch

haha - Majento

Can't throw things at you, though, so I do miss the object orientation. - Kathy Fitch

Kathy: here's a list of all conversations that have had more than 100 comments: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... Brandon, that's another thing you can't do on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

ty robert. - Kathy Fitch

its interesting watching the conversation here, and in the FF air app, sometimes the webpage updates first, sometimes its the air app. obviously you can only reply using the page. - rob friedman

peoplebrowsr works way better majento and runs on the web - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert, Love you as I do, you bring audience with you where ever you go, which makes your view of things very different than others. on FF you are a leader, and everyone on there knows who you are. But like your loathing of Facebook, when you step in to a more mainstream medium you dislike it. - Brandon Wirtz

You are right a lot of Twitter is illiterate, you only get 140 characters not much room for 12 letter words - Brandon Wirtz

Facebook is eminently loathe-able, though. - Kathy Fitch

/me throws wifi card @person - rob friedman

Brandon: I don't loath Facebook. It just isn't that useful for someone who is trying to have public conversations with lots of people. - Robert Scoble

cracking up at rob. - Kathy Fitch

guruvan, i think i tried it before... - Majento

Here's all conversations that mention Brandon Wirtz. Another thing Twitter can't do: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

But there are 100 fold as many Twitter users, and I make money monetizing the masses. - Brandon Wirtz

beta out very soon majento - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Thing is, who cares if Twitter sucks for conversation. If someone doesn't like it that much they'll try to find something better, and may end up here. Though I have seen a lot of people say are just fine with the way twitter does back and forth. They are not wrong. It is their opinion. If it works for them, fine. - Tony, Paradox of FF

awww Brandon has a man crush on Scoble. :) - rob friedman

Rob, in a MOO you could whisper behind backs, too. - Kathy Fitch

And as soon as Twitter can do that Scoble? What does FF have over Twitter then, it's design? - Colin

lol @ rob - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Kathy: I'm whispering behind your back on DM's here. - Robert Scoble

I think one of the FF devs said something about new DM features. maybe whisper? - rob friedman

Twitter isn't a conversation, though. It's noise that sometimes resolves into a shape, but often doesn't. - Kathy Fitch

Robert and I have debated things for 5+ years we were both MVPs and both worked at MSFT with the title evangelist, and we got stuck in death valley together. - Brandon Wirtz

Kathy you could do thast with am IM client ;) or in a DM conversation - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

DMs work the same way as regular conversations - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Btw, there's another great service when it comes to threaded convo, it's small, Kwippy.com - Majento

Colin: I've been on Twitter nearly three years waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.... more... - Robert Scoble

Rob, I've never loved IM - Kathy Fitch

I really did love MediaMOO. - Kathy Fitch

I'm not a huge fan....but it works...and like I said for a whispe send DMs on FF - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Colin: wake me up when Twitter adds these features, then we'll talk. @ev says he doesn't want to add metadata to Twitter (like comments and likes). Why? It would make Twitter more complex. - Robert Scoble

I'll keep that in mind, Rob, thanks. - Kathy Fitch

I loathe Face book as well. I dont' get why people like it. I'm much more a linked in person. - Brandon Wirtz

This is my first time on FF. - Kathy Fitch

Most social Media Platforms suck. - Brandon Wirtz

For those who are just joining this argument, er, conversation, you can join in live here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... Oh, Brandon, Twitter can't do that. - Robert Scoble

I use facebook and linkedin alot - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I've avoided developing yet another interest. I need a clone or three. - Kathy Fitch

ive loved all chat when it works well, IRC, jabber MUC, MUD's, dialup BBS forums. - rob friedman

Comparative thinking is over rated :-) - Majento

Colin: Do you really use FriendFeed? - Nicholas James

What if someone else adds those features, not Twitter itself - Colin

I use FB some, because it seems requisite, somehow, but I've no affection for it. - Kathy Fitch

Nicholas, I don't, not until now ;) - Colin

Rob: chat sucks. I used to help run Leo Laporte's chat room and I can do a thesis of why it never took off. - Robert Scoble

I do a lot of reading instead! - Colin

Colin: wake me up when that happens. I figure it's about another month before Facebook copies the new features of friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

pwd! - Majento

The instant transcript here is nice. It both moves and stays. Easy to reference and return to. - Kathy Fitch

Robert, granted its not for everyone who is not computer litereate, but that what's software is supposed to do, by lowering the bar. now there is IRC web apps and other craziness - rob friedman

Kathy: and guess what? Google indexes it! So does friendfeed. You can search for anything in here and find it. - Robert Scoble

do you yeally think thsat facebook has the infrastructure to run realtimte robert? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

(sry bad typos) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I see the appeal, Robert. If you hadn't twittered the invitation, I wouldn't have given it a whirl. - Kathy Fitch

guruvan we all love ya - Majento

:) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: yes. Facebook has the infrastructure. They have to rebuild some of its technology, though, because they have 200 million people and not everyone is on the same data center. - Robert Scoble

Bill: Leo Laporte is doing some of the most innovative media around. And he is making more money off of this stuff than Brandon Wirtz is. - Robert Scoble

GSLB - rob friedman

Facebook always seems awkwardly organized to me--especially now--and that's why I hate it. - Kathy Fitch

Yeah Robert, like Rob, I have doubt if Facebook can follow FriendFeed with real-time. At least in that time-frame you suggest: one month or so. It may take them quite long... - Meryn Stol

I don't like it for the sutpid apps I gotta block all the time - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert you see it as a feature list, I see it as obtainability curve. I don't think you will ever get Oprah on Friend feed. And you would argue you don't want her on it, But.... I would argue that any of the mothers of any of the girls I date would end up on Something Oprah and Ellen are on. And that means I can have a discussion with them. And even if that discussion is hampered by the medium being substandard, it's like clubbing in LA, if I can't get my friend in the Club, Its not a club I will enjoy. - Brandon Wirtz

Meryn: Facebook had real time running and it's very close to realtime anyway. Their users hated it cause they didn't like the idea that they'd have to deal with a feed. - Robert Scoble

I not sure the people on Facebook want it in real time, most of the people I follow on facebook are my family and friends from college and they are not ready or wanting real time. - Kim Landwehr

I loved the old newsfeed....esp the realtime one - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: you would have said the exact same thing to me about Twitter two years ago and you would have been wrong. - Robert Scoble

Agreed Brandon - Colin

Brandon: celebrities show up when large audiences and hype shows up. - Robert Scoble

Twitter is a good place to get a conversation started, but a lousy place in which to conduct it. - jcunwired

I like the pre-celeb days of tools. Way more fun. Sigh. - Kathy Fitch

Hmm yes, well maybe I'm mistaken. I'm not an expert on these matters. - Meryn Stol

jcunwired--well put. - Kathy Fitch

Robert: good point - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: Facebook has 200 million users and is far more complex than Twitter or friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

This is a very nimble thing, isn't it? - Kathy Fitch

Also very driven by literacy, though. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon: how did Facebook get 10 to 20x more users than Twitter and 100 to 200 times more users than friendfeed if complexity matters? - Robert Scoble

Colin: Facebook have added some of FriendFeed's items. Also you haven't added anything to your feed once you add items to your feed and engage in converstation etc you'll realise the value of FriendFeed as a conversation agent which you can declare by "liking" something or commenting on the particular content. Which unlike Twitter other people can participate at the same time without the "@" constantly which is hard to keep up with especially if there are as many people involved & as many comments like this - Nicholas James

Regarding Twitter two years ago... You and I are in agreement... I am saying of all the gin joints of all the world, I'll hang in the one with the crowd that gets me the most bang for the buck. And While that makes me a lemming... It makes me a lemming who is well fed. - Brandon Wirtz

That should keep the celebs away in droves. This is also a very cool platform for just organizing things, isn't it? - Kathy Fitch

FF needs to put in a way for you to mark where you left off in comments, for when you have to afk, like I do now. - Tony, Paradox of FF

Shoot--I'm going to end up putting time in here, too, now. - Kathy Fitch

But I also think that I could have as much of this discussion on Twitter with little loss in the quality of the conversation - Brandon Wirtz

Lots of the academics on FB use it for conversation, but Brandon, I've never seen a conversation at all like this on Twitter. - Kathy Fitch

Agreed, Leather. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon: What would be the mechanism for easily tracking conversations in Twitter? @? #? For a small group, maybe. - CAJ, somewhere else

Kathy, You must follow the wong people, I have these debates daily on twitter - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: You seriously think that this many people can participate, with this level of conversation and actually keep up? - Nicholas James

The #groups can kind of foster it, though. That seems to be growing. - Kathy Fitch

Kathy there is celebrity at all levels of interaction. We all follow a group mentality to some degree. - rob friedman

Brandon: link me to one. - Robert Scoble

Oh, yes, I enjoy following all of the wrong people. ;-) - Kathy Fitch

it doesnt work that well tho kathy - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Leather, you are right. it' too noisy in twitter. - netvista

people have to remember to use the tags - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I had a debate about AmazonFail the other day with a good 15 people and another 20 popping in and out. - Brandon Wirtz

and not mis type them - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

you can't possibly have the huge debate on twitter if you follow 3k people - Brandon Wirtz

I agree, Rob--you have to visit the page. So conversation via Twitter is always about moving someplace else. - Kathy Fitch

Not much conversation in a club, Brandon--you have to head to the kitchen, for that. This spot is very kitcheny. - Kathy Fitch

The comments go by to quickly. but on twitter lots of times I am in two debates at once. - Brandon Wirtz

very correct kathy - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

These Scoble Salons are really cool: lots of interaction in hundreds of comments over a really short time. And they provide a wealth of information on using Friendfeed. We're having a great conversation on FF, but it's about FF itself. Nothing wrong with that, but it leaves me hungering for more conversation on more subjects. Just sayin' - Tom Landini

mmm speaking of kitchen, im kinda hungry - rob friedman

Brandon: right. Twitter conversations are where information goes to get lost. - Robert Scoble

I can do more than one conversaton at a time on FF brandon - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

POPup windows! - rob friedman

laughing - Kathy Fitch

lol@ Scoble Salons heh - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Kathy, its all about who you are going to dance with :-) And many of the lounges in LA are pretty quiet off the dance floor. Aqua Lounge in Beverly Hills, has plenty of quiet corners. - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: You can engage in several conversations constantly on FriendFeed. Infact you can also participate with 100+ people in a conversation on FriendFeed. Try doing that on Twitter. - Nicholas James

Well, I've certainly never happened into a long conversation via Twitter--folks seem very intent on the RT there, and on building followers, and pushing blogs. - Kathy Fitch

Not a lot of room for conversation in that. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon--this is a quiet corner, no? And you are here. - Kathy Fitch

I've had some long conversations on twitter but they're usually one on one and irritate other people - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

And here, I've spoken with you for the first time ever, a thing unlikely to have happened in Twitter. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon you've even said you can't have a conversation on Twitter when you follow 3k people. Twitter isn't a conversation agent - FriendFeed is. - Nicholas James

I would have to say that trying to watch more than 30 ppl chatting at the same time on FF could get very messy and scroll the bottom down way too much if you can't keep up. it would be nice if the comment textarea was a static bar at the bottom of the page - rob friedman

nite bill - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Mostly I don't want to debate 100 people at once. I want to pick 4 people and pick the points that matter. 100 people is a mob. I can't change 50 people's mind at a time, I can change 2-3 - Brandon Wirtz

rob mine is - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

rob - click on the timestamp if you want to watch a fast-moving conversation like this one. I'm looking at a page with a textarea that stays at the bottom. - Bruce Lewis

My Follow list adds and subtracts relevant people based on the conversation, or I use Groups - Brandon Wirtz

Yeah--real conversations require conversation sized groups. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon: we're just talking 1:1 here. - Robert Scoble

@Rob Friedman: I was thinking the exact same a minute ago - Nicholas James

If I group the eco nuts, and am in an eco nut mood I go argue with them - Brandon Wirtz

NO, my text area is at the bottom, I'm on the page for this thread - rob friedman

Robert, that statement above may be true, but twitter is also a very good place where conversations may be found. Again - not conducted. FF is the place to conduct a conversation (if comparing the two). - jcunwired

I think you pick one person to go up against and work on them..... Like Robert! ;) - Colin

I just want to be able to read scroll back and type an entry at the same time! - rob friedman

If I'm in a What is Robert and Jason Calacanis and Guy talkign about I tune to that channel - Brandon Wirtz

@Bruce Lewis - Thanks! - Nicholas James

Pauses to wonder what an "eco nut mood" might look like. - Kathy Fitch

Brandon: please link to one of those Twitter conversations. I want to get something out of it, but I can't figure out how to find the conversation. - Robert Scoble

Would like to see that link, too. - Kathy Fitch

twitter is a place where some good ideas are found...but not conversations usually - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

robert, http://search.twitter.com/search... - rob friedman

We are talking 1:1 here robert, and this doesn't suck. But going back to the club analogy... We're hanging in the quiet corner but there is not dance floor. I can get my intelectual needs fulfilled but much less of my Friend / Social Needs. - Brandon Wirtz

Often, I just let things roll by, scanning for interesting patterns or differences--one of these things is not like the others. But on Twitter, there's a whole lot of echo chambering going on. - Kathy Fitch

Or, at least, I can't figure out how to find the entire conversation. By the time I see Brandon saying something the other side has already disappeared and it's too hard to engage. Here? No. You can engage on this thread in six months. It will still be here. - Robert Scoble

This starts to feel like IRC again. fun. :) Instant chat rooms for anyone, though they are not really rooms, but more like "meetings". The thread is the meeting. And each meeting gets its url. - Meryn Stol

#journchat might be one of those robert....but you have to use it via 3rd party web page to use it well - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Meryn: very good point - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Good night, Bill. - Kathy Fitch

rob: that's just three grunts, not a conversation. Where's a conversation on Twitter? - Robert Scoble

and without all the kicks and bans - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Good night Bill Heslin. I would never hear you loved us on twitter since I'm not following you. FriendFeed is where the party is and I can mingle with everybody. - Bruce Lewis

You know that joke about social media expert with 70 phone apps for the different mediums? well most normal people have one realtime App, and one What ever "time" we are calling Facebook - Brandon Wirtz

Robert, don't ask me I just performed the search query based on the topic of the conversation he said he had on twitter. - rob friedman

Rob: you do realize I can delete your items here, right? So if you get out of hand I can clean up your mess. I can also block you, in which case you can't even see this to engage on it again. - Robert Scoble

Good Night Bill. And Brandon why don't you just admit that FriendFeed is the place for conversations - we all know its true - Twitter its practically impossible to do so. - Nicholas James

People are either Myspace, or Face book. they are Twitter, or FF - Brandon Wirtz

If a conversation can't be found or revisited and reconsidered, then . . . - Kathy Fitch

Rob: this decentralized moderation is VERY powerful. - Robert Scoble

I know that but it's not a games here robert - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: not true. I know thousands of people who are on all of the social networks. - Robert Scoble

on IRC it's a game - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert, part of what you are saying is that conversation (to the extent that it can occur at all) loses value, disappears, may as well not have happened. - Kathy Fitch

Robert, I know you can block me, that's fine if you choose to do so. I'm just here participating, if you'd like me to go just ask k? - rob friedman

What's decentralized moderation? - Tom Landini

And I know Millions who are on only 1. - Brandon Wirtz

Tom: no central admins - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

each person responsible for the threads they create - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: I am all. I know alot of people who are also on all. - Nicholas James

Kathy: right. I had a lot of conversations the night of the Chinese Earthquake. I can't get to those anymore. They never existed if you can't get to them again. - Robert Scoble

Tom: you can delete things underneath nodes you create. I can delete things underneath nodes I create. - Robert Scoble

Nodding at Robert. I totally see what you're saying. Value requires that a thing not be utterly ephemeral. - Kathy Fitch

Rob, it's actually much like moderation of blog comments. And the blog model scales. It has proven to scale. - Meryn Stol

I don't disagree with you robert on the archive thing... Twitter sucks for that. - Brandon Wirtz

but you are a trail blazer and you use tools to their fullest - Brandon Wirtz

Meryn: correct again - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: I guarantee that in a year you'll be saying that Twitter sucks for a lot of things. I notice you tend to follow me by about two years. :-) - Robert Scoble

So interesting, but I must run. Thanks so much for letting me play in your sandbox. - Kathy Fitch

hagn Kathy :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Kathy: I'll come over to your sandbox next time! :-) - Robert Scoble

And you'd be welcome there! Night, all! - Kathy Fitch

Twitter sucks for an amazing number of things. - Brandon Wirtz

and it's still good for a few...like announcing a conversation on friendfeed - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I see FF sometimes as the realtime blogosphere... The model is quite similar, but MUCH faster. What's really different from blogging is the Friend of a Friend feature (that you see where your friends have commented on, or what they liked). Take that away, and it's like blogs, but then realtime. - Meryn Stol

but... Twitter can get me paid, and Twitter can get me Laid. I dont' know of to many people who find dates via FB, or who have been able to monetize it. - Brandon Wirtz

Scobleizer, I think you're wrong. - Bruce Lewis

In a year Brandon won't be talking about twitter at all. - Bruce Lewis

Bruce: that's possible. Even probable. - Robert Scoble

brandon, the conversation here drives tons of traffic ON twitter... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: I know people who have monetized Facebook - they run some applications there ;) - Nicholas James

you can tweet right from FF too ...and drive the traffic to your blog... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: Twitter is good for a LOT of things. Starting conversations is one of them. Building text-based apps like the Washington State Department of Transportation did to tell you how long waiting times are at the border, is another. - Robert Scoble

Robert I am ahead of you on monetizing every medium you had a 2 year lead on. - Brandon Wirtz

thats a great app robert...theres all kinds of cool things that can use twitter as a transport - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: I don't debate how well I'm monetizing but I will put my tax return against yours anytime. - Robert Scoble

Robert, yes, but this all would work just as well on FriendFeed. Plus this would take away the 140 chars limit. - Meryn Stol

Win vs Linux, FF vs FB, FF vs Twitter, anything else? it sucks! - netvista

@netvista: FriendFeed and Twitter are not competitors. Nor are Facebook and FriendFeed. - Nicholas James

Ok I'm really off to bed now... This thing is addictive as crack. ;) - Meryn Stol

That might be interesting. I'm pretty sure I made more at MSFT. and This year I'll approach 7 figures. - Brandon Wirtz

Hmmm...netvista has a point. Scoble, when are you going over to Disqus? - Bruce Lewis

Meryn: it's worse than crack. - Robert Scoble

If not surpass it - Brandon Wirtz

Bruce: soon, soon! - Robert Scoble

is that all that matters though brandon? money? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: congratulations. Unfortunately I can't discuss my Fast Company deals in public. Let's just say I'm very happy. - Robert Scoble

Robert, sure you are "replying," here, but in a linear comment thread which is useless when you have 300 comments like this. People can't auto-thread, or remember what they replied to. And I was not knocking this, only clarifying differences. As I read most of your points, you want to mash all the best features together, and frankly, I do too. But where that happens is still an open issue. You seem convinced it should be here, and perhaps you're right. - Shoq

That will be cool. As much fun as I had saying, "Scobleizer, I think you're wrong", it's more fun to get coverage of cool tech, which Disqus definitely is. - Bruce Lewis

Shoq: I can see what everyone is replying to here. Oh, you mean if someone came in right now and they wanted to reply to something said an hour ago? Well, it's not that hard. Want me to demonstrate? - Robert Scoble

Observation: When threads like this get popular, the interaction on other parts of FriendFeed gets pretty dead. This didn't seem to happen as much with the old UI. - Mike Doeff

Rob Nelson: no. but if I can do what I like to do because it pays the bill I don't ever have to "work" - Brandon Wirtz

That may be a yes. - Brandon Wirtz

Every moment we argue who is the best, no result! just like win or linux, even Qt vs Gmome in Linux world. - netvista

Mike Doeff: That will change as more communities adopt FriendFeed. - Bruce Lewis

but it keeps coming back down to just that for you brandon - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Has anyone heard of TweetChat? http://tweetchat.com/ It turns the concept of those # tags into a chat atleast somewhat resembling this. - Tony, Paradox of FF

Well the crux of the argument was "is twitter a great place for conversation" - Brandon Wirtz

I hold that it is people who make a great conversation - Brandon Wirtz

Rob: Brandon does things for money. Except I'm wondering what he's doing here. Heh. Brandon: no, the argument is that Twitter sucks for having conversations. There's no way we could have done this over on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

and I find that less and less on twitter by the day brandon - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Same Difference. I say FF sux for conversations because Oprah, can't or won't come. - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: FriendFeed isn't "mainstream" like Twitter is. - Nicholas James

Brandon, FF is where I meet people for great conversation. Retweets aren't as useful for finding interesting people as open comment threads like this one. - Bruce Lewis

you say Twitter sux, because it lacks features and not as many peopel can participate - Brandon Wirtz

Yes Robert, I would like to see that demo. Still new to FF, mostly - Shoq

You know what we are both right. - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: I don't judge things are good only because Oprah uses them. If that was the case then Twitter sucked until this morning and I've been on that for three years. - Robert Scoble

Once it hits "mainstream" which it eventually will especially with the new BETA then it will be alot better then Twitter infact it already is - just the celebs aren't using it because, they have their aids running their accounts and the can't "like" and "comment" in the way the real celeb will. - Nicholas James

Brandon, Scoble has no problem admitting when he's wrong. Just give a link to a conversation on twitter made great by Oprah's participation and he'll admit your point in a heartbeat. - Bruce Lewis

Twitter is the dive bar that lets everyone in, and is a little crowded, and a little noisy, but everyone is welcome, and your more likely to run in to some one you wanted to have a conversation with. - Brandon Wirtz

Shoq, here you go. Let me argue with something Christian Anderson said "my challenge with FF is it or its community don't see it as a conversation engine." Christian: the "belief" of the community about what friendfeed is is about to radically change, particularly when we get live search feeds here. - Robert Scoble

Oprah may be a bad example she was just top of mind. - Brandon Wirtz

she tweeted he lunch order today - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brandon: you have not been able to back up your points with proof. Just link to a good conversation you had back and forth with other people and where i could join in and also be seen. - Robert Scoble

And the problems with looking back in history on twitter is not lost on me - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: if you had a good conversation and we can not see it did that conversation really happen? - Robert Scoble

Robert if you had a good conversation and we can not see it did that conversation really happen? - Brandon Wirtz

By the way, we just passed 375 comments here. Try THAT on Twitter and see how many "unfollows" you get. - Robert Scoble

It's like human memory, not very good ;). - Colin

You have history, I have reach - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: Show me one Twitter conversation with a conversation like this, with as many participants and with people not being confused. - Nicholas James

Acutally everytime I have good debate on twitter my follow count goes up - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: you have two followers here on friendfeed. I have 33,000. By the way, will you add some tweets and blogs into your friendfeed account please? - Robert Scoble

I have no idea how I have 2 followers. That's like 800x as many as I should - Brandon Wirtz

Brandon: one of them is me. Heheh. - Robert Scoble

heh - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Increasing your follower count does not equal good conversation - Christian Burns

Anyway, this conversation is no longer more interesting than me getting a glass of Merlot, so I'll leave you and see ya later. - Robert Scoble

enjoy your wine robert :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert, I think another part of the problem is the user paradigm. Professionals who want to have focused discussions like this, can adapt to this linear style of pseudo-chat. The music freaks love meembo's real time chat, the JustinTV people are using twitter-style chat AND real time at the same time. This conversation is getting to the point where it's more of a chat. But none of this is what Twitter users are doing with @aplusk, or even their co-workers. They aren't discussing. Just tweeting :) - Shoq

Christian: true, but he was saying he has more reach. Not in today's world. I have more followers on friendfeed than he does on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Technically, this whole thread could have started at http://tweetchat.com/room... instead and everyone could have followed every comment just like they are here. The only problem is everyone else not in the room also sees it. - Tony, Paradox of FF

Tony: tweetchat isn't nearly as satisfying and if I tried doing back and forth like this I would have gotten at least 1,000 unfollow messages. - Robert Scoble

I don't know about the more reach. I could be thsat if I asked around to my friends online, they would mostly know the name Scoble, and not Wirtz - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Shoq: Oh, you can use friendfeed to broadcast out URLs and self-serving tweets too. I do that all the time! :-) - Robert Scoble

regardless of blog derived income - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: I know a lot of rich people who don't blog at all. Imagine that! - Robert Scoble

haha...most of the rich people I know don't blog robert - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

friendfeed is wonderful for the selfserving tweets I'll second that - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

@Robert The satisfying part, thats personal preference. The resulting unfollows, yes I agree that's still lacking in the alternative. But it is evolving and that issue could be addressed. But thats my whole point, its all evolving. - Tony, Paradox of FF

Rob: even better, with one self serving tweet on friendfeed you can hit both friendfeed AND twitter. So, if you are a lazy monetization engine like Brandon you get a two for one special! :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, don't forget to add in ping.fm to add to the distribution of the social networks. :) - rob friedman

Tony: yeah, it's evolving. Friendfeed is an addon to Twitter right now. You did notice how effectively I got Brandon to come here instead of wasting my Twitter follower's time with an esoteric argument, right? Right? - Robert Scoble

OK, 400 comments is enough. I'm going for that glass of wine now and am off to think about Obama's new CTO. - Robert Scoble

You can do wine and FF at the same time, can't you? I'm cleaning the kitchen and still participating. - Bruce Lewis

Exactly on all points. :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

does anyone know how many items in FF come from twitter? if twitter isn't exit, how about FF? - netvista

Bruce: yes, but Milan wants to play too. Anyway, I'll see ya all later. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Admittedly I hadn't thought one way or the other about Brandon. I just remember you asking for an example of how a conversation could be followed on Twitter the same way it is here. So I gave one. Though the execution does need more work. - Tony, Paradox of FF

Alright Robert. Looking forward to Disqus. - Bruce Lewis

have a good night robert... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

It's not possible to have conversation with multiple people on a topic(simultaneously) because of no threading and Thanks Majento for your comment:) - Mayank Dhingra

it is possible but you have to pay closer attention. touch typing skill helps - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I really think Twitter is a great place for conversation, just not a great place to converse. - Michiel Sikkes

twitter is a better place to START a conversation not have one. Surprising what can be said ion 140 characters, though. - Sheryl

Sheryl's onto it...More and more I find conversations start on Twitter and then pick them up here on FF. Or - sometimes a thread is sparked on FF and then I find new peeps joining in when they catch the feed in Twitter or FB. A lovely, tangled mesh, innit?!... - Thom Kennon

OK, late to the game, but isn't the only point here that we have conversations where the people are almost regardless of the technology? FriendFeed is in my opinion for the power user far more useful for reasons above. But Twitter is media hyped and very direct to get into. - Mark Aitken

I'd also like to see Google make sense of Twitter for indexing. Might be a very good reason it's not bought it yet. - Mark Aitken

Robert Scoble

Why Dominos video response at http://www.youtube.com/watch... is going to be textbook:

Why Dominos video response at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6AJ49xNSQ is going to be textbook:

April 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Will DeLuca, Edward Zwart, HD Johnson and 157 other people liked this

1. They did it in video. THAT is the way to respond. Not text. Video says MUCH MORE than text can. - Robert Scoble

91 more comments

2. They went overboard with the response. They closed down the store and "sanitized it." - Robert Scoble

3. The CEO did it and repeated that nothing is more important that our trust. He demonstrated he understood the issue. - Robert Scoble

4. He thanked influencers for helping Dominos understand the issue and making sure that others knew about it. - Robert Scoble

5. He responded while the issue is still "hot." - Robert Scoble

6. He responded on YouTube, which is where the crisis started, not on their own video platform. - Robert Scoble

7. He communicated that there was "immediate" action including arrest warrants, and people getting fired. - Robert Scoble

Impressive. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

He didn't look straight into the camera, however - as pointed out by Steve Garfield. - l0ckergn0me

8. He knows that the real problem is that they hired idiots and are "reexamining" all hiring practices. THAT is the best way to make sure you get a good brand. - Robert Scoble

9. He used personal language "it sickens me." Not marketing speak. - Robert Scoble

Interesting mix of being apologetic and totally pissed at the same time. Overall thumbs up from me. - Mike Doeff

10. He is working to "regain our trust." - Robert Scoble

Is there anything else he could have done to answer this crisis? - Robert Scoble

He didn't offer us a coupon to make us feel better. I didn't feel condescended to. - Kevin Fox

Good lead, Robert. Glad to see discussion around the response. - Valeria Maltoni

Now if he could just work on making the pizza not taste so bad. - Dave Roth

now is the best time to go to Domino's in Conover. clean as a whistle. - nesman89

Fantastic job, I thought. - Matthew Freeman

Ok, so how bout some back ground? - Matthew DeVries

I don't mind that he didn't look straight into the camera. That shows he isn't "slick" or "overcoached." - Robert Scoble

Yes, it would have been better if he had looked into the camera, but given that a teleprompter is an expensive item, and rigging a two-way mirror with a magnified view of a printed script is a hassle... I think the minor shortfall can be forgiven. All seven of Robert's points remain absolutely valid. - David Muir

Matthew: Here's the background: http://beta.friendfeed.com/thomash... - Robert Scoble

Textbook is the best way to go. Swift and done. Now in time, people will forget, crave cheap, fast, and delivered food, and it's over. - Mike Lewis

Very well handled. I agree with you, Robert, this will make its way into textbooks alongside Tylenol's response to the poisoning crisis three decades ago. - Stephen Mack

Matthew: I already posted a link to the background. http://beta.friendfeed.com/thomash... - Robert Scoble

Or here if you wanna go straight to the source: http://consumerist.com/5210648... - Stephen Mack

They just taught a lot of clueless PR people how to handle a crisis like this. Well done. - Inside Alaska

I think theyve been handling this like pros from the getgo. Good job - Rasmus Lauridsen

Pretty slick. Many can learn from it. - Katie Dob

The woman is also a registered sex offender apparently: http://ncfindoffender.com/details... - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕

so far this year, that's, what, rats in the peanuts, perchlorate in the babby formula, prescription drugs in the drinking water, snot in the pizza... what was safe to ingest again? - Karim

Bravo, Dominos. Nicely done. Speak up or be spoken for. - kevin j higgins

But he's using a teleprompter. He's evil. - teh Dork Knight aka Kenny

tehKenny: I don't think he was. I bet that he was looking at some notes, though. It didn't come across like he was reading. For someone not experienced with a teleprompter you can not use one and not come across like you're reading. - Robert Scoble

Their response was appropriate and in a timely manner which is key now. - Christi

Anyone who has ever used a teleprompter realizes how hard it is to use one and how hard it is to look natural doing it. I bet he had someone off to the side of the camera he was talking to who was holding notes up to remind him what to talk. - Robert Scoble

I wasn't there, obviously, but watching the CEO look off-camera yet speak as if to a person made me think he was looking at a person to stay "real" and "personable" and not canned or offering a performance. - Bloom Seed

It's just pizza - Ari Braginsky

Carmen: "W" had a LOT of media training and a team of people to tell him how to do it. I doubt this CEO has had much media training. - Robert Scoble

rewatching it makes it clear that he's reading notes (his focus starts at top, moves down as recording proceeds). Still, though, comes across as a real person. Not everything needs professional actors, producers, makeup, sets...imperfect may be the new perfect, as far as communicating genuineness. - Bloom Seed

Comes across as very heart-felt, and almost makes me want to order with them (I'm not sure we have them here in this town)! Shouldn't they have added something like "We'll now be installing cams in all our kitchens streaming direct to Ustream, making us the ONLY food delivery you can trust to not mess your food"? :) - Philipp Lenssen

Philipp: well, that would certainly be cool but would be way beyond something they could deliver on in two days. - Robert Scoble

I mean, I'm not a big fan of Dominos, but this helps them establish themselves as giving a crap. Good PR move. - Mike Nayyar

Great video response straight from the company president. As for watching food getting prepared, the Papa John's locations that I've been to are open and you can basically see them making your pie. Not sure if Domino's has stores like that... - Doug

Carmen, it's the "polished" vs "timely" tug of war: http://fftogo.com/e... - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

solid performance-- came across naturally and believable, blend of professionalism and good ole fashion ass-kicking anger. It was smooth but not overly slick; no suit or tie and shot in store surrounding. Content was solid too, assuring customers everything that could be done was being done. One minor tweak: he doesn't appear to be looking directly at the camera. - mark ivey

I wonder if they thought about making it a response to "that video" on youtube to get the eyeballs needed to make this count.. - Tom Masiero

Ari - it's more than "just pizza" - it's the livelihood of 125k employees. We are focused here on a textbook response, but this is also a clear demonstration of the power of leverage that SM holds: two idiots can do major damage to the brand, the company, and by ultimately to the employees. Hat's off to Mr. Doyle and his advisers. - Bill Sanders

good response for sure, way to go - sean percival

Rewatched it and yes he is reading it. Regardless, I think it was handled pretty appropriately. - Jay Neff

good job. small nit: next time they need to move the teleprompter (or cue cards) either over or under the camera. - MikeAmundsen

Video is good if Good Messenger (which Domino's guy IS) But also put the incident on my radar screen, which hitherto I was unaware of. - JimmyJet

Wasn't aware of the incident but sure feel bad for the independent operator.. - MiaD

The woman in the Wendy's chili fraud case ended up sentenced to 9 years in prison and her husband (who bought the finger off a co-worker who lost it in an industrial accident) got 12 years. http://www.bluemaumau.org/wendys_... - Kevin Fox

I wish that he was looking at the camera instead of a telepromter. Just sayin. - Andrew Baron

Andrew: he's not looking at a teleprompter. I bet someone is holding a notepad with an outline on it for him. - Robert Scoble

I haven't had Domino's in a long time. But, I'm happy to see that they put up this Video response to the malicious destruction of their Brand and business practices. - rob friedman

good job. that was a classy way to 'avoid the noid.' - grant fox

Hey Robert, can I use some of your reasons in a blog post in writing up about the Domino's issue? - Kenneth

Kenneth: yes, feel free! - Robert Scoble

Thanks Robert! - Kenneth

"Everyone else is doing it right." Yeah, right. [What are the odds of that?] - Craig Brownell

I kept hoping he'd actually look into the camera. - James Miao

I agree with James. I was hoping that he would look at the camera like he's talking to his customers. I get that he needs to make sure he says exactly what needs to to said, but the way he kept looking away from the camera made it seem a little "stiff". - Kenneth

like when dirk diggler looked into the camera during his documentary. that was powerful stuff. - grant fox

Kenneth: that's a mistake someone who isn't media trained makes. I actually don't mind that because it makes it less slick. - Robert Scoble

My guess is that they're multiple cameras and he's looking at the expensive one - Bwana ☠

Robert: Really? If corporate heads are on camera, they should NOT look at the camera especially if they're not being interviewed? It looks natural not to look at the camera? You're definitely right...I'm not media trained. :) Looks like he was reading off of a script and didn't notice a camera at him. - Kenneth

Who was he talking to? The sound guy holding the microphone to the right of the camera? - Diego Barros 

Kenneth: the only time you should look at the camera is when you want to speak directly to the viewer. You are right that he should have been speaking directly into the camera. Knowing where to look is part of media training. A good PR team could have helped (IE, one that had worked a lot with video before) but I can't really blame him. I still have trouble figuring this out. When I was on the BBC it was very difficult to look into the camera (it was aplate on the wall). - Robert Scoble

i just have to say, that by him not looking in the camera, or really doing any of this before it seems adds to his character that he's a regular guy, not some PR trained monkey doing a dance for us. - rob friedman

I dunno, I think it's more important that the response seem unrehearsed. I'll bet he did it in one take. - Ken Morley

Well done Robert: not a surprise to see this crew recognizes excellence when they see it. Dominos did virtually everything right on this aspect of its response. having seen a few crises, this example is among the best. blogged it here: http://www.mediadeluge.com/post... - Christian Anderson

Just to let folks know: the teleprompters I am familiar with allow the newscaster or talking head to look directly at the camera AND read the script. The result is like a HUD (heads-up display) for those familiar with video games or jet fighters. - David Muir

Right David, but there are all kinds of "teleprompters" some low tech and some higher tech. the point is he was reading. It was okay, he did a great job in one take. It would have been better if he hadnt read it and looked directly at the camera, but because everything else was so well done, the reading gets a pass - Christian Anderson

Not a fan of their pies, but kudos to Dominoes for the forthright reply and apology for the miscreants who brought this upon them. Hope they rebound well from this. - JA Castillo

Definitely a canned response but still heartfelt and sincere. Plus we learned its a federal felony to stuff cheese up your nose on camera. Imagine what happens at McDonalds on a daily basis - now that's frightening. - Chris Sparno

Very lucky that they had a CEO that even was willing to talk for YouTube in the moment; let's not now criticize him for his media training, or none will ever have the guts to do it again. - Francine Hardaway

Rich: This is deadly serious for him. He's right to take it seriously and I'm sure he genuinely does. - Michael Krigsman

So the real question is, who feels comfortable enough to order Domino's this weekend? - Chris Bartow

I do Chris, even more-so now than before. This weekend will be the cleanest in the franchise's history :) - Bwana ☠

@Karim: "snot in the pizza... what was safe to ingest again?" Years ago, I ordered a pizza (not from Domino's) and was surprised to see a piece of broken glass in it — and this particular glass shard had part of the pizza company logo on it! When I phoned them about it, they replaced the pizza in record time; of course, they asked for the broken glass back, too, so I couldn't keep the evidence. - Victor Panlilio

Victor *shudder* i think i would have just given up eating pizza after that :-D - Karim

The comments on You Tube are negative I don't agree with them, what is your opinion abut them? (They say Doyle is not sincere) - Maurizio Goetz

Rule #0 - Youtube comments have the value of a single molecule of feces - Bwana ☠

+1 Bwana!! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

His response was right on and pretty smart for doing it via a video. It's sad but we are at the mercy of people that prepare our food. :-( I kind of feel bad for the kids because what they did shows a complete lack of intelligence. It would be nice if they took responsible and apologized in some sort of public forum. - John McCullough

@John McCullough "we are at the mercy of people that prepare our food" and people who pilot the planes we fly in, treat our municipal drinking water, etc. I daresay we only appreciate them when things go horribly wrong. - Victor Panlilio

@Chris White "The founder of Domino's supports Right to LIfe and Operation Rescue, which IMO, is worse than putting farts on sandwiches" Really? Watch the video at http://www.abortionno.org/ and see if you can stomach the idea that we dispose of unwanted human beings so cavalierly. - Victor Panlilio

Victor, your comment as well as John's above you, reminds me of that line in Fight Club: "We do your laundry, cook your food and serve you dinner. We guard you while you sleep. We drive your ambulances..." - Aaron Kurtz

@Aaron - almost everything we take for granted in "civilized society" depends on the everyday goodwill (and conscientiousness) of anonymous others. I've always thought that we need to become more mindful of the benefits we daily receive from these enablers of our well-being. Count your blessings, etc. - Victor Panlilio

Victor, I couldn't agree more. - Aaron Kurtz

Thomas Hawk

A Video Prank at Domino’s Damages Its Brand - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...

April 16 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Silver Hage, Rajiv Doshi, Anthony Farrior and 76 other people liked this

When two Domino’s Pizza employees filmed a prank in the restaurant’s kitchen, they decided to post it online. In a few days, thanks to the power of social media, they ended up with felony charges, more than a million disgusted viewers, and a major company facing a public relations crisis. In videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration. The two were charged with delivering prohibited foods. By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. References to it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter." - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

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OMG, that's freaking gross - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

This is like Michael Phelps. Why tape or take pics of yourself doing something that can be your demise? - Shevonne

Customers are not the only source of bad buzz for the brands... - Aurélien

I bet this seemed like a good idea at the time. What idiots. - Kreg Steppe

criminal arrests and now a civil lawsuit. Not smart. - Thomas Hawk

You can mess up your life and your brand very quickly online. Glad these two people aren't making food anymore. - Robert Scoble

I've only ordered pizza delivery from Domino's once in my life. Never did that again because if I'm at home, I might as well cook something. - Morton Fox

Such an endemic problem in the fast food business: young people, first job, bad management, insufficient training. Add in social media and you have quite an explosive dynamic. What should/could Domino's corporate do? - Francine Hardaway

Vile. I'm so glad I don't order from Domino's right now. *adds this story to the why you need to monitor your social media presence even if you don't have one on purpose file* - Leslie Poston

I just ate a Domino's pizza :| - Parth Awasthi

Yes in the viral webs it's a lot harder to quietly fire idiots like this. Dominos needs to a) do it publicly, and b) launch a whole "see how clean we are campaign". - Ryan Stanley

This is why I link to the conversation @dsilverman -- in this case the conversation here is just as interesting as the news item. Also, this is why you need to hire smart people if they are going to post stuff online. You no longer have any control of our employees and whether or not they talk with the public. So you better hire well and train them for the new PR world. - Robert Scoble

"As the company learned about the video on Tuesday, Mr. McIntyre said, executives decided not to respond aggressively, hoping the controversy would quiet down. “What we missed was the perpetual mushroom effect of viral sensations,” he said." - A lesson every company needs to learn about the Internet - BCK

Even more "ick" than previously thought of the company (buy local pizza!). Reminds one of http://www.crunchgear.com/2008... - Shane Curcuru

...but it makes me wonder about the food "security" of ALL restaurants. you think Domino's is the only food chain with sketchy employees? This is the best argument I've seen for cooking at home. Hello Food Network. - Landor Associates

I think Domino's did as well as they could handling this. They seemed to get on it pretty early. I'm not sure that there is much else that they can do. I don't eat Dominos pizza generally speaking, but this video wouldn't keep me away from it. This could happen to any company. Remember when that woman faked the finger in the chilli at Wendy's? - Thomas Hawk

I stopped going to the local Burger King because of racism. I also stopped going to the local Taco Bell because the manager yelled at me. I'm not even going to speculate on what they've been putting in my food. Fast food chains really don't have much control over their employees beyond firing them when something bad comes to light. - Morton Fox

It was disgusting. A lot of damage control to do with the credibility of employees under scrutiny. - Kannan

Looks like they weren't able to avoid the Noid. - Rob

Domino's fiasco also about video camera/phone in workplace? Many folks are not allowed. I think we will see a growth in corporations taking cell phones @ the door similar to schools. - Catholic Meme

Problem is we never know about this kind of stuff until after the fact. And the brands are at the mercy of franchise managers and the potential psychos they may have hired. Could be *any* food service provider. - Ryan Stanley

@Shevonne: I think they did it because they thought it was funny... - Landor Associates

that's all well & fine, but I can't remember the last time I ate Domino's on purpose... they're like pretty much last on my list of pizza options - Krikit Media

This will also force more businesses onto social networks. If I worked at a large brand with millions of customers I would have teams online that would work just to make sure that if something like this does happen that there wold be people to answer it. - Robert Scoble

I don't think it's wise to assume such acts are rampant across fast food chains and yes having an online team for such large organizations is a must. So how do you think they handled the situation ? what could they have done better ? - Mayank Dhingra

Trust is a big issue. Over the years we've placed a lot of trust in others who prepare our food. Anyone remember when Julia Child accidentally dropped a chicken on the kitchen floor, placed it back on the platter and chortled "no one will ever know." - J.D. Deutschendorf

Robert is right, all these exposes seem to be happening via social media, yet businesses still have to rely on traditional media for their damage limitation. - Iain Baker

Iain: businesses have no clue anymore how stories are built. The quotes from the Domino people demonstrate that. They assume that bloggers or Twitterers with 15 followers don't have any power. I know they do. - Robert Scoble

Iain: when I quit Microsoft I told 15 people and in three days had millions of media impressions, according to Microsoft's PR firm. 15 people can DESTROY a brand, if they have something like these videos in their hands. - Robert Scoble

Wow, this is a great example on so many fronts. Think before you act, Think before you POST (most certainly)... and Aurélien makes a great point about customers not being the only source for publicity with Robert really fleshing out some of the reasons why. AND this is why I love FF... so many great comments describing varying facets and the ripple-effect this type of medium now offers. - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

@Chris White. Zachry's does make damn good pizza. it's also a coop with a majority of the business owned by it's employees. I'd think employees would have a strong incentive to make sure that this sort of thing would never happen there. Their Mediterranean pizza is amazing. - Thomas Hawk

Robert: Absolutely. We're going to see more of this sort of thing happening, can't understand why firms aren't preparing strategies to deal with it. - Iain Baker

Iain: most businesses think this stuff is unimportant because it seems "small." Businesses are committees. Ask 100 people whether the New York Times is important. You'll hear 99 yesses. Ask them whether some Twitterer with 15 followers is important. You'll probably hear 87 nos. - Robert Scoble

Chris: objectivity is overrated. - Robert Scoble

Hmmmm, I don't think it's a question of making social Media important, it's about recognising that information and news, good or bad, flows freely along whatever channel it can find. - Iain Baker

Paging the Darwin Awards. - Mike Doeff

BTW, I noticed no one has posted the video. Here it is! http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Andrew Baron

What a silly couple. Didn't they know they were getting into trouble? Or maybe they wanted trouble and attract attention to something... uhhmm... I wouldn't be surprised if we see these two running their own show on MTV. - Alexis Bellido

Domino's video response http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Valeria Maltoni

Valeria: good response. - Robert Scoble

I wonder how much this really "damaged" their brand. They don't make very good food. They are a bottom-rung fast food joint. How much do people really expect from them to begin with? - Jeremy Brooks

@Chris White: If you are close enough to get Zachary's, you are close enough to get a real pizza from Lanesplitter. ;-) - Jeremy Brooks

The response from Dominos is going to be text book. Here's a discussion of why: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

Sorry, here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

Kamikaze 2.0! - Dimitar Vesselinov

Urgh *barf* :( - Tyson Key

Based on the photos, these two aren't 16 working their first job. - Bill Sanders

So the question I have at this point is which SNL cast member gets to play Kristy in the reenactment of the skit this weekend on snl? - Thomas Hawk

they may call in the big guns for that one - another gig for Tina Fey. - Karma Martell

Where's the video? - Outsanity

Paul Graham

A Local Revolution? - http://www.paulgraham.com/revolut...

April 15 from Paul Graham: Essays - Comment - Like - Share

Agustín Méndez, roel, Paola Bonomo and 20 other people liked this

That's a very narrow definition of startups. Surely Silicon Valley isn't the ideal startup hub for food, fashion or oil. - Peng-Toh

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Actually, the bubble-tea revolution in Silicon Valley was started by Silicon Valley engineer importing a drink from Taiwan. :-) So was Jamba Juice, which was funded by one of the Silicon Valley VC firms. - Piaw Na

I thought it started on the East Coast first (imported from Taiwan). Now there seems to be another bubble-tea-like phenomena coming from Taiwan or Asia, these 'make your own yogurt' shops - Ray Cromwell

the irony is to build the cloud we need to be physically close to each other. hence, the cloud is more than one generation away. it takes a social shift which isn't happening. - xyz

Well, those Taiwanese startups were never VC funded. :-) Jamba Juice is the real story here. But yeah, food startups are rare, because it's rare for them to experience the kind of hypergrowth you see in technology. - Piaw Na

Page and Brin are cited as examples of startup productivity. That's just bad statistics. Most startups go belly up. Innovation comes out of large companies or institutions too (Xerox PARC, CERN). Like the "best schools are small" fallacy, looking at exceptional cases is not very helpful to understand a phenomenon. - Antonio Piccolboni

What about Quiznos? They came out of nowhere about 8 years ago (well, 7-8 years ago in Vancouver) and got huge (locally) super-fast. - Andrew C

Robert Scoble

How to Sell Your Soul on Twitter and Who's Buying - ReadWriteWeb - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...

April 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Cathryn Hrudicka, Luke Robinson, Erica OGrady and 57 other people liked this

Awesome post by Marshall Kirkpatrick. Companies, do you really think this helps your brand? Give me a freaking break. - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

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More to the point, who's advising them on how to use Twitter? - Jim Connolly

They're affiliate links managed by networks. Not the brands themselves. Commission Junction is one of them. - Mike Buechele

Jim it is all from Magpie :) but personally I blame twitter, everyone have to clean his own house. - abdellah

Right @Michael... goes to my argument that someone using aff links in a tweet or blog post is fine if they use/like/recommend a certain product or service, but it annoys the heck out of people when folks turn over their very intimate spaces to "services" like Magpie which are intrusive and not kosher. - Sam Harrelson

The marketing people behind the brands, should know the negative way these 'interruption messages' are viewed by Twitter users. - Jim Connolly

They should also realise that using Magpie to advertise their brands isn't the best way to use Twitter. They should follow in the footsteps of brands like: Zappos - Nicholas James

@Sam If I have a twitter following of vegans and I tweet a Burger King ad, they should get upset. If I tweet about a new veggie burger then I'm adding value to the community. Why should it matter if the Tweet is automated or not? Wouldn't it make it easier for me and the community? The tech isn’t there yet though. I'd be curious to see how that would look. I'm thinking something like a contextual targeted Popshops. - Mike Buechele

Even Guy Kawasaki pimping alltop a few times, made me unfollow him. So how long can anyone promote anything in Twitter successfully? - Smith W

Do it carefully and rarely. Once in a blue moon, I can mention my novel. One day even offer free copies, perhaps once every few weeks. The rest of the time, I don't mention it at all. - George Hall (Australia)

I am not entirely into the affliate marketing or automated offers, but I think that one needs to be careful in saying there's is no room for this. That is up to the individual and who they follow and how they want to engage on twitter or anywhere for that matter. The beauty of twitter is that unfollow is a lot more precise than opt out in email. - Patrick Boegel

Scoble, have you read Allen's post? http://www.centernetworks.com/blogger... - Zee.

I think everyone here should read this to get both sides of the story then ponder about it: http://rizzn.com/blog... - Michael Forian

and to give a balanced side as we maybe read Mark's http://rizzn.com/blog... - Steven Hodson

It's shitty, it's offensive but ultimately it won't bother many of us. First, i see a tweet like that and i can smell it, so can you and so can a half intelligent average user. - Ian Wright

you might be able to smell it, but that doesn't help with all the wasteful practices of the medium and advertising dollars which could be spent on more positive things. - rob friedman from twhirl

Magpie = deceptive "user endorsed" lame commercials on twitter! AUGH... crap! - Susan Beebe

its only wasteful if it doesn't work and if it doesn't work then after awhile most companies will stop using it. - Kim Landwehr

tempest in a teapot. I've been unfollowed a few times because of Magpie ads, which I've intentionally prefixed with ADVERT, something that's easy to do, and I often go to FriendFeed and comment, hopefully humorously, on these companies trying to put words in my mouth.But selling your soul? Fer crying out loud. When's the last time you shared an article about torture or Gaza? Then we'll talk about selling your soul. - Rick Powell

Doesn't Kirkpatrick's article contain an inaccuracy? Isn't his whole post based on a misunderstanding? I can put whatever prefix I want in front of ads, including DON'T BUY THIS, or I DIDN'T SAY THIS or whatever mischievous message one wants to put. A company might try to put words in my mouth, and I'll just put my words right back. - Rick Powell

rick it isn't about individual right to type what ever they want, it is may I says about Twieeting Ethic or tweeting civics. when people share the same community and enjoy the same community this implicitly engage them in the maintain of the community, they have to do in order to get a long term community benefits. it is a kind of community ecologic regulation, let us don't pollute our social sphere :) - abdellah

the so-called pollution is inevitable... facebook already does it quite well... so what's the big deal? if you see it and you don't like it - unfollow the user. If you don't notice, then who cares?? - Ankush Narula

nothing is inevitable until people give up and surround to their own inability to take the challenge, so it begin by the inability from twitter for making a suited mechanism to their users to monetize their tweet, and then it come from the twitter api - application developer's inability to produce strong app that go beyond "mushup" and to monetize them and the last one's fault users that consume tweet , that are now adept of the cult of "too many follower guru". twitter is just a projection of it users. - abdellah

What is the difference with putting adsense on your personal blog? - Michiel Sikkes

abdellah... there's no escape from promos... the most recent ridiculously overt example of which must be when Fox's show "24" has the President grant immunity to some jackass over Cisco's WebEx Live Digital Signature platform. Promotion is pervasive and will continue to be. Does it bug you that on social networks it is highly targeted and becoming more seamless? Is that duplicitous? or is it just product placement 2.0? - Ankush Narula

Michiel and Ankush, I am not discussing the right to promotion, I am just thinking that not "all support" are suited for promotion. will any one accept to promote coca-cola via a tatou on his head? will any one promote pepsi by a large wide space tatou on his baby? no hope that no one will, and this is the main argument, twitter isn't just a support what the author of the blog post, attempt to says is that some support like twitter are too friendly closed and not suited for promotion (explicit one). - abdellah

Commercial companies should be on Twitter mainly for LISTENING (to market pulses). - Nir Ben Yona

Nir I agree, add to this a tweet is just 144char no more, what efficient promotion content could some one insert and how long it should be in order to keep space for user content? 144 is a constraint. - abdellah

144, 140, whatever it takes. - Matt Danger

Matt I confess it I am fascinated by 144=12*12 - abdellah

Can I just say, if I thought I could sell my soul and could get a decent price, I would do it in a heartbeat? No one is buying, unfortunately. - Rick Powell

No one's buying? Or no one's offering what you think is a decent price? Maybe you need a better broker.....Here's my card ......... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

This is precisely why I'm predicting the Death of Twitter. I give it another year - 2 tops before it goes the way of MySpace & Dodgeball. The Spammers have definitely entered the building. - Erica OGrady

Erica: I won't cry if that happens, but I don't see that happening soon. If you are saying it, though, that's pretty significant. - Robert Scoble

Erica: I think you're being optimistic. We ain't even seen the real beginnings of spam until the aftermath of this weeks race an account transactions - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

and dead is a relative term...twitter may well survive a long time as a broadcast medium since it has services like friendfeed that depend on it. (and serve it and make it usable for non-bots) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Social Media took off because people stopped tuning into traditional advertising. The more a Social Networking sites starts to look like Traditional Advertising (as seems to be the trend with Twitter), the more people start to tune out. - Erica OGrady

I'm working on a presentation called Social Media: A Night At The Roxbury. And earlier I made the following analogy with regards to Twitter. If Social Networks were Nightclubs, Twitter would be the Roxbury. And the Roxbury is only as cool as it's clientele. - Erica OGrady

The minute the "Creepy" people start showing up...then all the Cool Clientele leave. They go to the next hottest Nightclub on the block. We've seen this time and time again. It's nothing new. Friendster, MySpace, Dodgeball, etc... - Erica OGrady

Erica: That's really a genius way of looking at it. And you're absolutely correct. As Twitter turns into !E TV and Times Square looking spambot heaven, yes people will tune it out. Especially because they'll have the tools to filter out the noise in it (Like FriendFeed) .....You hit the nail right on the head with "only as cool as it's clientele" But this means that we'll have to build bigger cooler tools to filter out the Friendfeed noise in a few years ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Thanks Guruvan. All I know is that after witnessing the last few weeks on Twitter - I'll be spending more time on FriendFeed. I also noticed today that tons of people (mostly early adopters) were adding me to Foursquare. People are searching for alternatives because they aren't interested in selling their souls. - Erica OGrady

@guruvan If I said, no one's buying, then that's what I meant. - Rick Powell

Erica: I see it very much so, especially in the last 2 weeks as well. Last week I blocked most of the new followers I saw for being aggressive followers, spammers, or "mlm social media marketing experts" or selling "twitter secrets" . I signed up for all the services that I hadn't gotten to yet. I'll be at Foursquare tomorrow. (new one on me!).But home base will be here with a stong presence still on facebook. I'll still be on twitter, but more filtered. Thank god for better tools than tweetdeck - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rick: :-) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

There's that phrase again, selling one's soul, which no one seems to mind in the least. There are all sorts of situations in which that phrase might make some sense, (I'm reading Atonement, and so I have been thinking about these things) other than as self-involved, sensationalist hyberbole, that is. Language matters. All of you are involved in selling something, but prefer to wrap that up in more palatable words like brand. - Rick Powell

And, I wonder why that is. - Rick Powell

Erica, I've got to take issue with the idea that "Social Media took off because people stopped tuning into traditional advertising." First, people haven't stopped tuning into ads (they usually say they have, but when you test vs silent cells, good ads affect behaviour). Second, I don't think there's any connection with the rise of social media, which stands on its own as a positive, engaging thing. - Ian Betteridge

guruvan, Twitter already has a terrific tool for filtering out noise. It's called "unfollow" :) - Ian Betteridge

Ryan Block

Sounds like Digg is taking the feedback to heart; DiggBar only for logged-in users is a good way to handle things. http://blog.digg.com/?p=664

April 15 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Rob Haas, Daniel Rowley, Chris Heath and 15 other people liked this

I'm impressed at the amount of plugins that were created to prevent your site from serving stuff from the DiggBar... Just read Daring Fireball, for a complete list. And now, Digg responds, and fixes things. It sure seemed to be real noisy last week... Another shortener, ow.ly seems to be like the DiggBar (noticing some use on Twitter now). - Colin Charles from twhirl

Not quite clear why what they're doing is a fix. The fact that it exists at all is what is at issue. - Mike Shields

Chris Messina

Get your own public Google profile URL (they beat Facebook!): https://www.google.com/account... (via @dewitt)

April 14 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Michael Lehman, Bob Morris (polizeros), Donovan Watts and 3 other people liked this

Google Profiles - finally here after all those years - rob

2 more comments

looks like there was a land rush, all permutations of my oddly spelled name? taken. - Paul Lindner

Nice to see that we finally get this from Google. I wonder how much more "serachable" or how much more SEO one gets from this... Its not like they use nofollow in the links (which I'm thinking is a good thing). - Colin Charles

My name is common, Did grab it! - Bob Morris (polizeros)

Chris Messina

Penguin Day - Exploring Free and Open Source Software - http://www.penguinday.org/

April 13 from Mento - Comment - Like - Share

Colin Charles, wyclif, Jeremy Osborne and 9 other people liked this

"Penguin Day started in Philadelphia in March 2004 by a working group of nonprofit technology organizations: Aspiration, NOSI and the LINC Project. Established with the intent to bring together open source developers and technology support staff for nonprofits, the event began an important conversation about the challenges and opportunities we face." - Chris Messina from Mento

Dave Slusher

The whole #amazonfail brouhaha actually is an example of why I push back on the whole Gillmor "supreme importance of realtime data flow" thing. I think giving people time to think before reacting isn't a bad thing. Less real time, more quality time.

April 13 - Comment - Like - Share

Peter Efland, Quasar, Colin Charles and 61 other people liked this

Dead on, Dave. I don't have any problem with people expressing their opinion, but I agree that realtime isn't the best way to make actual meaningful decisions about issues. You need validation of what's happening, background info, etc. Otherwise, it's just herd mentality. - Ken Kennedy

91 more comments

typical contrary evil genius. only problem: it's not one or the other. - Steve Gillmor

Just like in combat, reaction time in every domain has been reduced by a factor of ten. I hope Amazon does an "after action review" to learn from this one. That's the key. - Tom Guarriello

Steve, do you think there is some Schrodinger's cat situation at play? Either #amazonfail warriors reacted without thinking or they didn't. Both simultaneously is not an option. - Dave Slusher

validation, debate, investigation are all part of the real time flow -- part of creating quality. - Cliff Gerrish

Hey Dave, did you delete one of your threads? - Alex Scoble

Interesting strategery, laying theoretical upsides against empirically observed downsides. - Dave Slusher

Alex, no. Not sure what you are talking about. - Dave Slusher

hey this telephone we're talking on is squeezing my brain. click. - Steve Gillmor

Ahh, I figured it out. Just a brief moment of dementia. I commented on this similar thread http://beta.friendfeed.com/willia4... and for some reason thought it was created by you, heh. Oops. - Alex Scoble

Put another way, some of you are saying "real time can give more time for analysis to happen and people to react better." I'm saying, "Yes but it didn't." - Dave Slusher

Yeah, I'd disagree with anyone saying that real time gives more time for analysis. Ask any cop in a dangerous situation about what real time does for their ability to analyze and make good decisions. - Alex Scoble

One of the ways I used to deal with flame wars (this is BBS/GEnie era) is to put myself on mandatory 1 hour minimum delay. If the conversation made me so mad my hands shook, that value climbed to 12 hours. Every unsatisfactory interaction I've had on FF in the last 6 months involved a short cycle pile on that I wished I could enforce a delay on. - Dave Slusher

It's in no way a failure of realtime, it's the failure of disconnected retweets instead of threaded conversations. If it had blown up with the use of likes and dialogue instead of misinformation in tweets and blog posts we could have gotten to the bottom of it sooner. - Christian Burns

I don't understand why you're blaming real time. I have intentionally not commented on the Amazon issues until I understand them better. That's a choice, not driven by real time or delayed time. Controlling one's reactions to real-time data is not the responsibility of real-time data. It's an individual one. - Karoli

When the ethic is for everyone to get the drop on each other, this sort of thing happens. We hate it in the 24 hour cable channels, why do y'all love it in Twitter? - Dave Slusher

Karoli, I'm blaming the culture of twitchy hyper-responsivity. If that isn't what real time is trying to enable, what good is it? - Dave Slusher

If slow food is generally healthier food and a healthier lifestyle, why is the analog for information so controversial to y'all? - Dave Slusher

dave why are you responding to this in real time? seems contradictory and not a little ironic at best - Steve Gillmor

Sometimes real time is useful. At the very least, it sparks an investigation. There's a difference between an investigation and jumping to a conclusion. - Francine Hardaway

So let me refine some. ~50 AD, Apostle Paul: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Note, not money but the love of it. 2009 AD, Apostate Dave: "The love of realtime and retweeting as quickly as possible is the root of fiasco." - Dave Slusher

you're blaming the messenger, or in this case the tools, for what some of us like nd appreciate. I don't mind you spamming me with this thread, why do you? - Steve Gillmor

by the way dave, I assume you're not using the realtime view but preferring to pause it and refresh at your leisure. - Steve Gillmor

Sheesh, Steve...can you maybe be a little less prickly over this? I think Dave's larger point is more than valid. He mentioned the "G"-word, though, and you appeared and started poking him. C'mon...you think you could relax and consider the actual issue rather than the fact that he dissented against the gospel? *rolls eyes* - Ken Kennedy

Ken, I appreciate your having my back but please everyone, let's walk this back from the ad hominem. I love Steve, even when he thinks I'm not right in the head and vice versa. - Dave Slusher

No worries! I like Steve and the Gillmor Gang as well. Feel the love. - Ken Kennedy

My point is that the data toolset is currently outrunning human cognition and judgment. It's like giving the toddler a weed whacker. They might well edge the yard beautifully but that might not be how the smart money bets. Everyone in this thread might be responsible with the tools but demonstrably many are not. - Dave Slusher

I'm not saying "turn off the tools", I'm saying "This may not be the infotopia we are being sold." - Dave Slusher

I saw this in real time and "liked it." - Robert Scoble

What was the brouhaha? URL please. - Robert Scoble

Robert, are you being ironic about #amazonfail ? If you liked it 3 hours after I posted it, you are really pushing the definition of real time. - Dave Slusher

Am I out of the loop or are you talking about http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_... - Holger Eilhard

Dave: I agree 100% with "My point is that the data toolset is currently outrunning human cognition and judgment." but I don't think that's anything new, is it? That's been a problem since the "toolset" was just a guy standing up in front of a crowd turning them into a mob in real time. - Ken Sheppardson

BTW, if this is to be another of these pile-on threads, let me just say now: Go register for CREATE South - http://www.createsouth.org/ April 25th, Myrtle Beach. - Dave Slusher

People say stupid things in real time and negative real time. Rarely does less timeliness gate stupidity . You have co-mingled timeliness and insight. A first order category error. - Jim Posner

Dave: I saw this on the real time feed. I don't get all things in real time. I do sleep once in a while, too. The engagement this item was getting in real time brought it into my view when I was working on the screen. Now that I'm engaging on it, I see everyone posting in real time. Jim just commented, for instance, while I was talking here. - Robert Scoble

Dave: real time is not forcing me to think faster, just gives an opportunity for interaction WHILE something is on our mind. This is far better than the world of 2000 when it took hours for us to see each other's blogs. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you spanked me publicly for reblogging something Andrew Baron posted about you leaving PodTech a few years ago, where I didn't stop to consider something well enough and just ran with it. You calling me "full of shit" is still a high google hit on my name. This is me having learned the lesson you taught me. - Dave Slusher

Dave: good point. - Robert Scoble

Of course now everyone is searching Google for that, which will raise that result even higher as we all click on it. Heheh. - Robert Scoble

Here's the Google search you talk of: http://www.google.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Of course I left PodTech four months later. So all things become true if you wait long enough, I guess. - Robert Scoble

yes sir, that is it. Even without your name qualifying it, it's high on the list for me. That thing from Chuck Olsen was also the first Tweet I ever saw, which left me snakebit for a long time. - Dave Slusher

The more interesting post of yours, though, is this one: http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/wordpre... - Robert Scoble

I am still trying to escape from PR people. - Robert Scoble

Just tell them to send the tequila my way, Robert. ;) - Alex Scoble

I can tell Dave isn't using the new beta of friendfeed yet. His replies are too slow. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: Or he's off thinking. - Ken Sheppardson

Or trying to find the "block" button again. :-) - Robert Scoble

And I still haven't joined Facebook. In the time since I posted that, I have joined and dropped Twitter; joined and used FriendFeed and then dialed back that interaction. I think the sentiment of that post holds up better than most. - Dave Slusher

... or I have a day job - Dave Slusher from IM

Real time threads are like a fire bell, it tells everyone there is a problem that needs to be taken care of, however it is is not the best time to do an investigation. - Kim Landwehr

Dave: day jobs do retard social networking participation, I've found. :-) - Robert Scoble

I thought we were all supposed to be making a living commenting on FriendFeed discussions by now. What's the deal? - Ken Sheppardson

Some intelligent thoughts on #Amazonfail: http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsa... - Bora Zivkovic

Are there perhaps some topics where we benefit from a real-time response - e.g. a plane crash and others that don't? How would condemning Amazon for alleged censorship benefit from being done 'urgently' as opposed to accurately? Aren't a lot of people joining in because they want to be where the attention is? - Robin Barooah

I don't mind the real-time responses of their customers. It gives them true reaction-based feedback, and i'm sure that their marketing department is intersted in that. What i wouldn't want is for Amazon (or any other company) to make a similarly "real-time" decision on how to handle the problem. Their actions should be "less real time, more quality time" (via Dave Slusher) - Matt Danger

+1 Matt - Robin Barooah

Matt, I agree with you, but can you separate that out? Most of the customer criticism I've is in part or total taking Amazon to task for the slowness of their response. - Dave Slusher

Dave: at Microsoft I had a tactic I used for things like this. I simply acknowledged that we saw the thread and needed time to get an official response out. That way you stop people from throwing metaphorical rocks through your front windows to get your attention and you give your internal team enough time to get a decent answer done. - Robert Scoble

As a unrecovered packrat, I also recognize the general strategy justifying real time. It's the same one I use to justify the clutter that fills my house, the 1 time in 500 when it proves valuable. Mostly, it just makes my life harder. - Dave Slusher

Robert, we've just crossed the point where I'd call the Amazon response slow (if there hasn't been one.) Now it seems reasonable to me, calling them on it at 8 PM EDT on Easter Sunday was just silly. - Dave Slusher

Dave: Do you have the same issues with, say, the telephone vs. writing letters by hand? - Ken Sheppardson

...and that's honestly not intended to be snarky. - Ken Sheppardson

Ken, when there is a meltdown at work and my phone rings off the hook with executives wanting an update every 3 minutes, yes. I have to stop answering the phone and just email them if I am to fix the problem. - Dave Slusher

But should we turn back the clock on the technology or just recognize that we need to change the way we use it? - Ken Sheppardson

(see also "Luddites") - Ken Sheppardson

Ken, what makes you think my pushback isn't on the way we use it? - Dave Slusher

Well, I can see this both ways. These companies now are huge global corporations that run 24/7. They are willing to take our money 24/7 so need to be supporting us 24/7 too. Zappos does that with 400 employees who are on Twitter. My Toyota died on a Sunday and it really pissed me off when I couldn't get support. On the other hand, you are right, we need to be more patient as a people and all this real time stuff isn't helping us do that. - Robert Scoble

Weren't people angry about Amazon's slow response because they thought Amazon was guilty of something? i.e. they were holding Amazon guilty until proven innocent? In this regard I think it was important that Amazon did *not* snap to attention to get a response out in real-time - because that would be establishing a pattern of needing to respond to every misinformed mob. - Robin Barooah

"I think giving people time to think..." Do you mean "giving" or "taking?" Or, "forcing?" Because here you all are chatting about the quality of the information, as if anyone at this point can really know. This real-time flurry is very efficient at sifting, sorting, and reacting to complex info. Think of yourself as a single cell in a great big investigation organism. Fast. Cool. No way could Amazon have harnessed this much power alone. - Nancy Folsom

Dave: Sorry, I guess I'm getting this all confounded with the pushback I hear RE the changes in FriendFeed, etc., with people calling for things to be rolled back. - Ken Sheppardson

Robert: you know - over time it might actually help us learn to be patient - I'm sure there are some people who added vitriol to the outrage who are now feeling embarrassed about reacting without verifying. - Robin Barooah

I haven't been following the #amazonfail brouhaha but this write-up gives insights into the genesis of the whole affair. http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823... - Jim Posner

Nancy - how about "requesting?" The seriousness of the accusation should correlate with the care taken to verify the claim. - Dave Slusher from IM

I am reminded of when cellphones started to become popular and people complained that they could now be reached at any time. Some people learned to switch off their phones when they didn't want to be reached - whilst many people still find them a source of stress. - Robin Barooah

Dave- I don't disagree with you if your point is people should be careful about spreading rumors. But that's a fairly bland idea, right? Like don't kick puppies. Sure. I agree. But most of what I read were not accusations, but facts. What wasn't a fact was being shot down as fast as it was voiced. At least where I was. Are you asking for information to come out as a neat package? - Nancy Folsom

Robin- I can still go days without answering my phone. Unplugging. It's teh awesome. - Nancy Folsom

Ken- First, damn you all for such an interesting discussion! But, "real-time." It's not as obvious to me as it seems to be you all what you mean by "real-time." How much time should have passed? And, sadly, that's no guarantee the time will be used to come to any better judgment. IAC, I'm most struck by what this looks like if you pull out far enough you can't see the individual anymore. - Nancy Folsom

Here's Ed Champion calling for an amazon boycott yesterday, full of presumption of guilt. http://www.edrants.com/amazonf... We are better than this. I'd argue this action is the dark underbelly of real time. Calling a business immoral and deciding this is a deliberate business practice requires proof IMO, same as if you were to say it about a neighbor. - Dave Slusher

Epitome of our country on full display, sped up. Emotive decision making is quite embarrassing. Hopefully, these events will kick up our critical thinking skills. - Mona Nomura

Gee, if only there were some way to counter the presumption of guilt in real time... - Cliff Gerrish

The truth has always had trouble getting it's boots on and thanks to real time, it may happen faster. - Jim Posner

Jim, you don't think the most salacious thing will travel farthest and fastest, like say is happening RIGHT THIS SECOND? - Dave Slusher

Let me reiterate this one more time - I think the culture of real time is harmful, and I don't like the fast twitch desire to treat news inputs and outputs like a first person shooter. This is not about technology, this is about people being spastic. You can't point to isolated successes without factoring in the general wear and tear and blood pressure elevation across everyone involved in the twitchosphere. Taken in total, it's not worth it to me. - Dave Slusher

In putting money where mouth is, I have a huge amount of CREATE South work to do tonight. No real time for me the rest of the night. Did I mention April 25th in Myrtle Beach, http://www.createsouth.org/ ? Come participate and tell me how wrong my views are. I'll even feed you free lunch. - Dave Slusher

No matter what basic clock speed the system is running at, it's always going to take more cycles to read and comprehend the entirety of an event or what somebody else has to say, do due diligence, think, and formulate a logical response vs just respond with a knee-jerk emotional reaction to a headline. It's certainly possible that as the system runs faster and faster, it's more likely... more... - Ken Sheppardson

Dave-Misinformation has always traveled faster than the truth. Just ask the Meher Baba folks in MB http://www.mehercenter.org/ :-) - Jim Posner

Does anyone have any opinion about why Amazon got such an intense reaction when there are so many other bad organizations that don't seem to draw such ire? New thread: http://beta.friendfeed.com/rbarooa... - Robin Barooah

based on Amazon's statement, there wasn't anything nefarious going on. Just a very widespread and unfortunate bug in their catalog system. - Garrick Van Buren

Everbody's just cruising along with all sorts of preconceptions, opinions, and cognitive filters and as soon as something comes along in the real time stream to trigger them, it's like sharks smelling blood in the water. - Ken Sheppardson

For now that's true Ken. Once it becomes the norm, those reaction triggers will dull, people will adapt to the true worth of the knowledge for it's age. People will learn to wait and what to expect from knowledge at age in which you consume it. Like wine. A "new" wine is not terrible, it can be consumed, you won't be revolted, but if you let it age properly it will be more valuable to you, if you let it age too long, or in the wrong way, vinegar. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew: You're more optimistic than I am. ;-) - Ken Sheppardson

Mashable

The 17 year-old founder of StalkDaily has claimed responsibility for today's Twitter exploit: http://www.bnonews.com/news...

April 11 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

This kid really doesn't realize he's going to jail, does he? - Eric Florenzano

18 more comments

Like this guy (3 years in jail for the MySpace worm) http://namb.la/popular/ - Eric Florenzano

Sadly Eric, I think he has no clue. Poor kid. At 17, he's a few years younger than Paris Hilton when she was in a sex video. - Cait

Twitter should hire him ... that's all I'm saying. - Brandon

What will they pay him with? Followers? - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

No, they will pay him cold hard cash for his insight into how he reverse-engineers Twitter. -- So they can help prevent such things from happening again. - Brandon

Perhaps....after he gets out of jail.... - Bora Zivkovic

For some reason, I'm not understanding how this was all that slick of a trick. He exploited a gaping hole. "Hrm, I wonder what happens if I put random crap in my bio....OOOOH! Looky Here! Looky Here!" - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

He won't go to jail, he'll get press, he'll start consulting Twitter and other services. - Brandon

Does that mean he gets to collect $200? - Jim Norris

He should go to jail: he totally failed at crashing twitter - sofarsoShawn

And THAT is exactly why I do NOT like teenagers! I am so glad I don't have them anymore. I think they all need supervision because they have no real Life experience AND they all have poor impulse control! I agree with the comment thread...they have no clue! Do not feel sorry for the 17 year old. Let him learn that it is not amusing to tinker with our lives. - Laurel Phelps LaFlamme

Actually, this guy reminds me of another teenage script kiddy we had during the Victorian bushfires who hijacked the #bushfires feed to a private group this s.k. took credit for originating/inventing. I'm not particularly wanting to reward such twit kids for doing some really dumb things. The kid could have pointed out security flaws to Twitter without all that stuff today. - George Hall (Australia)

A great idea to get twitter off their ass, bad follow through. Instead of possibly getting a college education, this kid will get barred from computers till he's 25 or so, and come out even more pissed off at the world. - rob friedman

It would also seem this kid has a history of this type of actions with website applications. http://stickydrama.com/2009... http://stickydrama.com/wp-cont... - rob friedman

Twitter really has become a cesspool. How many rounds of funding does it take for them to prevent stuff like this from happening? - Kevin Whalen

While the kid is completely responsible for exploiting the hole, no different than someone breaking and entering by walking through an unlocked door to your home, the question arises as to why Twitter's door wasn't locked in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods on the planet — the Internet. How many decades will it take before programmers learn to fully validate all user input? We're at over 2 decades and counting already. - Tom Sheppard

well, the difference is the malicious intent and use of the computer to effect a greater population. B&E usually is just one home, or a string of home, not hundreds of thousands of people, and the machines they touch, which numbers more than the humans i"m sure. Twitter should have tested their site better. I never saw the hacker tested badge on their site like I see on shopping sites... more... - rob friedman from twhirl

Wake up Brandon-anyone who hires a vandal like this is as irresponsible as he is. Twitter SHOULDN'T need a spotty oik to point out their security flaws, anyway (whole different discussion!). He needs to spend some time behind bars, and a message sent to other kids. If he had spotted the flaw and disclosed it to Twitter and worked with them to plug it, THEN I would advocate hiring him. - Bob Walder

Bob, that is a brilliantly stated point. The different between a criminal and a brilliant mind is how they view opportunity. - Peggy Dolane

Kevin Fox

People choose boring colors for cars - http://www.carlist.com/blog...

April 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Aaron Schaub, Dennis R. and 43 other people liked this

And auto makers too often only offer boring colors for cars. It's a chicken and the egg problem, but is a big problem as I want to get a factory paint job in a striking color. - Kevin Fox from Bookmarklet

16 more comments

My car is a luxury (Acura RL) colored white, with a gray trim. Take THAT, conformity! - Mike Nayyar

Boring colors stand the test of time for those who keep their cars longer, avoids getting sucked into what's fashionable this year but dated-looking next year. White and black are hard to keep looking clean, thus silver and gray tend to dominate. It's like "relocation beige" carpeting in a house. - LogEx

I have wanted a copper orange car badly for the last 4 years! *sighs* - Rachel Lea Fox

one of my favorite weird colors for a car is burnt orange, like the 40th anniversary lotus - http://twitpic.com/376pu - mjc

"The designers meet with three different paint houses, we go to fashion shows, we read magazines such as the Trend Union, a bi-annual trend forecasting book that shapes colors and lifestyles for seasons ahead." Wow, they read a *magazine*? That's advanced design methodology! - ⓞnor

If you've ever seen a big parking lot on Google Maps (or MS's Live Local or whatever they call it), you've seen how boring car colours are. Though in fairness, those photos might not be as saturated as real life. - Andrew C

Anyways, it's a shame. - Andrew C

I am so tired of seeing mostly white, black, silver, gray, and gold cars on the road. So boring. - Anne Bouey

Yet another reason I like my green Mini :) - Joel Webber

I'm only half boring, with a red car. - Amit Patel

I like silver, so bite my shiny metal ass. - Alex Scoble

I used to have a funky colored beetle five years back.. before it finally aged out - Sardar Mohkim Khan

its 2009 when it the changeable paint going to arrive? Click a button your car is orange. Tire of orange? Switch to green. Then blue. Formal event, Black sounds good. - gfurry

love any color as long as it's black - Carlo B. (brodo)

Rachel - the Chevy HHR makes orange. I'd guess it's not very popular since 99% of them seem to be owned by Avis. Rental car lots are great places to see some more experimental colors not often seen on the road. - Sarah Miller

Sarah - thanks!! This is actually the exact car I want: http://images.cars.com/main... Mazda 3 in burnt orange copper. They sold it as an anniversary edition about 4 years ago for one year only. According to salesmen, it is continually one of their more popular colors and if they get one in used they can't keep it very long. You would think they would learn from that and bring it back!!! But no, the 2010 colors are released and no orange. :( - Rachel Lea Fox

Ours is silver. Sometimes makes it hard to find in the parkinglot. - Alix Whitmire

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