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michael arrington posted an entry on TechCrunchIT

Google: Where Companies Go To Die

July 16 at 4:54 pm - Link

Denton Gentry, Jonathon, Umesh Kakkad, John Budnik and 11 other people liked this

Is Google stalling or inhibiting the innovation? If they can't do it (lack of bandwidth), don't even let others do it.. Acquire it.. Kill it. Before it becomes pain or yet another disruptive tech to deal with. A typical CEO stratergy? - Umesh Kakkad

Robert Scoble posted a link

Why is there a dollar bill taped to the floor at FriendFeed's headquarters? (I was there today to pick up some stickers for our lunch tomorrow in Seattle). See...

July 7 at 2:07 pm - Link

Guy, Bec, James Hull, Norman Hammer and 24 other people liked this

Very clever - George The Writer

That's really cool - Will Hirsbrunner

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lol! - Shivanand Velmurugan via twhirl

Until they get so used to seeing the dollar that they don't look anymore and then trip on conduit..... ;P - Jeff P. Henderson

What are you going to be in Seattle for? Is it an open lunch? - John OBrien

Robert, just curious... why post a duplicate link when there's already a conversation in the published flickr photo thread? http://friendfeed.com/e/64c033... - Alan Le

Thanks for getting the stickers! - Erica Toelle

Alan: when I posted this there wasn't a conversation there. They both took off at the same time. - Robert Scoble

When people get used to seeing the dollar bill, they'll have to upgrade to a $5 bill. This could get expensive! - Morton Fox

What lunch tomorrow? Can anyone go? - Ryan Stewart

Ryan: you really need to subscribe to my Upcoming.org page: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/user... It's the FriendFeed lunch and, yes, anyone can go. - Robert Scoble

Wipeout (a Chevy's sister restaurant) has $5 bills stuck to the floors underneath the bar stools, so you can laugh at all the drunks trying to scrape them up. ;) - Kevin Hessel

We could use this technique at our offices. We're in some old historical mill buildings in Manchester, NH...lots of uneven floors. - Sonciary Honnoll

Jeeeze, I guess so. Subscribed. - Ryan Stewart

I thought this said "Why is a three dollar bill taped to the floor..." and thought Robert was making homophobic insinuations about the FF team. - Dan MacTough via Alert Thingy

Total revenue to date? - Geoff

@Sonciary Honnoll the office would need to set up a new budget, floor tripping budget maybe? - Chris Harris

Chris - Good thinking, I can prove my point by 'Flipcaming' the serial office trippers. :) - Sonciary Honnoll

heh I should have sent you Seesmic tshirts and stickers too, next time! - Loic Le Meur

Robert Scoble posted an entry on Scobleizer -- Tech geek blogger

The “Participation Premium”

July 6 at 1:23 pm - Link

Tapio Liller, oliver gassner, Sarah Perez, Andy C and 97 other people liked this

Nice post, in total ageement - Patphelan

Wow. Great post Robert. Hope you & family had a fun 4th. I sure did! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

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Brian, thanks. we had a great time. Nice and relaxing. - Robert Scoble

Good point. That's driving good-quality participation instead of spamming attitudes. That could really improve the conversations. - Marcello Del Bono

Robert, I agree with this, but regarding your comment on Allen's thread, the fact of the matter is that there are still 9 default people that get recommended when someone signs up. It's true, there is a "participation premium", and for good reason, but the big names still get rewarded simply because they're big names. I just wish I could see active FF users get highlighted now and then. The algorithm could be made up of # comments, # likes, # comments on that person's own content and # likes on that person's own comments, in some proportion to be worked out. - Raoul Pop

It's not a conversation if there's no participation. Good points, Robert. - Jack Carlson

Raoul: active FriendFeed members get featured all the time. You should learn how "Friend of a Friend" works. Anytime I like or comment on someone all 15,000 followers of me get to see that person's post and they can easily subscribe to them by hovering. The recommended list is totally useless for me, by the way. So I do wish they'd make it a lot better. - Robert Scoble

What's amazing to me Robert is how much influence your *Likes* have. After you like something of mine, I usually see a rush of Friend adds. It's a very interesting dynamic to watch unfold. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

great post. one reason why friendfeed's popularity will increase. the more one participates the more one gets back. - Parvez Halim

This is a great post! - George Smith

@Raoul I definitely agree with you on the idea of changing who gets displayed in the first Recommended list. @Robert regardless of whether you pay attention to the Recommended list isn't really relevant IMO. The fact is that I would bet the majority of new arrivals to FriendFeed do indeed pay attention to it. - Steven Hodson

Well, there probably has to be a combination of both - you can participate all you like, but if you don't do it in a meaningful and public way, it won't really matter. Still, a heartening thought that participation can be more important than name recognition alone. Gives some power to us little people (popularity wise, anyway). - Erin

FF offers a remarkable way to participate. In fact, it's downright unique. Which is probably why FF will be HUGE. It has a pliancy of participation that's just unmatched, and it keeps getting better. Encouraging post. - phil baumann

Yep. But, isn't "Participation" your full time job description? If it isn't, what is? - Yuvi

Nice post. You're spot on with the analysis. The two of you use FF differently. Both of you are highly valuable to me as information sources, but in very different ways. Mike is a conversation starter. You carry and share conversations and link people that wouldn't otherwise connect. FF is smart to have both of you as recommended follows. - Christian Anderson

Yuvi i spend everyday trying to figure out what my job is. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: you're doing for free what no "community manager" could ever do. I'd like to know how much engagement on FF, Twitter is directly related to the Scoble effect. - Christian Anderson

So Robert, is there a certain point where you loose interest in a site simply because of the onslaught of new users? Does the signal-to-noise ratio go down as more users discover and start to use a site from your perspective? - Jim McCusker

@Robert: Figured it out yet? ;) You are the only *classical A-Lister* whom I know as being really "approachable", as in I can tweet at you and expect to get a response (or leave a comment here and there's a reasonable chance that you'll respond). - Yuvi

It's so true, it all boils down to interaction. - Fredrik Nordmoen

Participation is key. - Thomas Hawk

Robert Scoble: I just want to let you know how much I appreciate seeing your feedback and constant participation on FF. Because of this sole factor, I would much rather meet up with you than Mr. Arrington (I follow and respect you both) over a cup of coffee or during a photowalk. To be honest, I don't know how you keep up with it all, but keep it up! - Justin Korn

Link to related conversation: http://friendfeed.com/e/617791... - Sprague D

what makes Robert and his posts become more viral and engaging is that he does not post and run. He engages in conversations, and unlike Arrington, he is rarely confrontational and doesn’t have the same arrogance. I have followed him for a while, but became a real advocate after his trip to DC. I thought his coverage was engaging, informative and it was awesome that he included your son. - Fred Neil

Jim: that is a question that needs its own blog post. I generally find that early adopters do tend to get bored but what gets us to leave are jerks and spammers. I think FF might be more resistant to all of these negative effects but we'll have to see. - Robert Scoble

What Justin said. - Yuvi

Great points Robert, thanks for not stealing ALL the points I wanted to make in my next post :) - Shey

fail bird http://www.seanpercival.com/bl... - sean percival

Robert: trying to inspire new blog posts? not me! ;-) - Jim McCusker

I liike that Mike Arrington just liked this. :-) - Robert Scoble

@Robert and he left a comment on the blog post itself :) - Steven Hodson

I agree about the participation factor. But I do think that this post and the "Off of the tech entertainment train" post should both be encapsulated in <ego></ego> tags. - Tom Quinn

Robert, the thing is, you ARE a 'popular kid' in this niche, whether it's on your blog or on FriendFeed. 10x your blog readers puts you BOTH in the top fraction of blog rankings. You call it the "Participation Premium," I call it "people keep you on their friend lists if you're not dead weight." - Andy DeSoto

Robert, great read the only thing I disagree with, is the comparison to Twitter after four months and FriendFeed after four months. As the logic goes, if hundreds (maybe thousands) of Twitter users are jumping the ship, (or, as I imagine, there is quite a bit of overlap), then the logic follows that many of them would land on FriendFeed (and hence follow you). Even though I consider Friendfeed and Twitter to be two very different products, FF is in part riding the micro-blogging wave, which Twitter helped to spearhead. - David Adewumi

Scobleizer theorem of social media = participate indefinitely - Kerem Ozkan

David: I don't think many Twitter users are jumping ship. I think a lot of them are finally seeing the utility of using both twitter and friendfeed together. But I do agree that it is easier for newer services to get quick adoption because of Twitter. The next big thing will happen even faster than FriendFeed did. - Robert Scoble

I think the difference from Twitter to FriendFeed is that the casual Twitter followers never made it to FriendFeed. I don't know many casual Twitter users who continue to use Twitter with all it's issues. - Sal Distefano

Exactly right. Investment of yourself pays dividends in many ways. - John Federico

I do see the utility of using Twitter and FF together. I'm sure both will help break the hot apps of the near-future. Just goes to show that discussion is not exclusive to how many people you know, but that the internet, in many ways, is leveling the playing field in discussion and influence. - David Adewumi

yuvi, participation is -everyone's- full time job, all life is interaction - gregory lent

Robert: BINGO BABY! you nailed it with this post... thank you for writing it! Not only is participation key for conversation, but also evangelism of the service; plus, community management. I would expect those as a bare minimum...not, "Oh gee, hey these guys are popular in the blogosphere; on some other service elsewhere so let's tell everyone to follow them here" (doesn't make sense, especially since *some* of them don't even really use FF yet except to aggregate a couple of feeds (cross-post / backup). - Susan Beebe

This was a great post! As a natural worrier, I held my breath for a while after you said that this community is friendlier than any other. Surely the taint of the general way the Internet seems to operate will eventually ruin this place too? (I really hope not!) - David Muir

Robert Scoble shared an item on Google Reader

Google Labs Set to Expand and to Become "More Transparent"

July 4 at 2:47 am - Link

Tanath, Nikpay, Brandon Wood, Carlos Ayala and 24 other people liked this

I hope it opens up more APIs, I'd love to see some development ontop of the Gmail platform - Cains

@Cains: FYI - there already is a GM API for Gmail http://code.google.com/p/gmail... - simonpure

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@simon Thanks for that, I hadn't seen that before. Sadly it lacks the functions I'd want to use but it's a good starting point, cheers - Cains

When will everyone start to realize that Google is taking over the entire web and it's time for everyone to stop kissing their ass, I mean really enuff already. They are going to kill everyone. Should we all just give up and buy GOOG stock? - Donovan Slennon

@Donovan Is google acting in a way that is harmful to the "entire web"? Are they taking steps to reduce competition or innovation? It seems to me, and I use many google services, that they are innovating and encouraging other innovation. The nice thing about the web is the choices - I think you can ignore google if you want - although, I haven't tried. I mostly like their services. - Sean

Agree they are brilliant and innovative but Google are mowing down all competition in every related field one by one - have you seen their media server - pow, another few markets decimated in a matter of years; health - pow, lets just kill off health players; are we all just going to plug into the beast - i know i haven't expressed it succinctly or even well but if you can't see that Google is all powerful and is all about profit then we all need help. Someone needs to look at some antitrust law and save us - Donovan Slennon

@Donovan - ok, thanks, that is what I wanted to know, where they have been anti-competitive. However, in their defense (and I don't know why), there is a difference between anti-competitive and better than everyone else. I will be watching more carefully in the future. - Sean

Cool; I don't know my antitrust law but when you use your market power in one market to squash competition in another then you are abusing your power - key is the definition of the market - but helen keller could see that they are the standard oil of the 1900's. The extent to which the leading market commentators are silent on this is reminiscent of the free ride given by the media to Bush's Iraq invasion - no one stopped to look around until after the mess; so we desparately need some dialogue - Donovan Slennon

Donovan, Google has not killed the health field; there are a number of competitive products (HealthVault just to pick one), so if people gravitate to the GOOG (whether its good or bad), unless they took some specific anti-competitive actions, what's the problem? Outside of search and search advertising where is the field where they have more than even 30% market share? Ok feed readers perhaps :). I use their services if I like them. If not I don't. - Deepak

Respect your opinion but I don't think you're smelling the roses b/c of all the lovely scented sht that google has emeshed us in; just ask anyone with a web or web related business what the #1 issue/risk in their business is and it's those 'do gooders' from mountain view - one of the greatest pr machines of all time - Donovan Slennon

Since I am quite sure I have never bought into any PR, lets agree to disagree. I use what I like. A decent chunk happens to be from Google, and that's what it happens to be. YMMV of course - Deepak

How about just "make more stuff" :) - l0ckergn0me

I have a difficult time calling Google anything other than a 'good' company considering that I use a ton of their products and I don't pay a dime for any of them. Yes, they are a threat and competion for many companies which means those companies need to try harder for my paid business - it's pro-sumer. My message to those who don't like Google: Be better. - Vince DeGeorge

Mike Fruchter posted an entry on MichaelFruchter.com

Friendfeed.. How do you like it?

July 1 at 8:07 pm - Link

Zulu, Tim Hoeck, Alan Le, benedikt and 25 other people liked this

I guess I'm a selective one :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Nice article. (1) There's a non-liker. I've noticed a few people who post a lot, but have 0-50 comments/likes (as opposed to some who post...nothing...completely blank feed, and do all the activity in comments/likes). (2) I'm not sure if wanna-be-noticed likers exist. I would imagine that commenting & liking would be way more effective than just liking. - Mitchell Tsai

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Hate to say it but I'm just "average." :) - Oliver Ortega Chua

(3) "Vanishing Liker" Liker who unlikes later (maybe related to the "like to go back to it later Liker") (4) "Caught by the cops" liker - Liker who likes 200/day and hits the limit... ( ---> (5) "Tag-team likers" (haven't seen this yet) Way to get attention on FriendFeed: (A) Post (B) Get two friends to "like" post (C) Just one person says "Amazing post!" - Two people would be overkill (D) Have one of the friends be Robert Scoble... - Mitchell Tsai

Mitchell, I like your feedback. I think I might add that to the list. - Mike Fruchter

Mike: I "super like" this blog. Heheh. - Robert Scoble

@Scoble HA! :-) - Mike Fruchter

8 different types? that's a lot and still I miss a category for persons who are not really aware what the like-function on FriendFeed implies. Among the german users recently someone mentioned the fact that "like" can also be used for oneself to find good stuff later again. - Matthias Schwenk

Love FriendFeed I am addicted and I will shortly be crossing over into the thousand comment/like mark. Deserve's a t-shirt hey ha!! - Joe Dawson

Matthias Mitchell mentioned that in his first comment, I will add that to the revised list. I also like the ""Vanishing Liker" , some one who unlikes later on. - Mike Fruchter

Big fan of Friend Feed right now... looking forward to continued enhancements and improvements. - Ron Emrick

"Vanishing liker" = like that one - Hutch Carpenter

I don't 'like' articles. I might be interested, they might be relevant, but 'liking' them has too many connotations. - Sam Pullara

Sam you define the Friendfeed "Non-Liker" - Mike Fruchter

According to your definition, I must be a selective liker. Although, the flickr content is so good here I usually "like" every set I see. ;) - Alejandro S.

Robert Scoble posted an entry on Scobleizer -- Tech geek blogger

Blog comments are dead: discuss

June 30 at 2:35 pm - Link

Sonciary Honnoll, Nikpay, macromediax, Brandon and 26 other people liked this

So, if my FriendFeed on this is embedded on my blog, will it be considered a comment? Blog posts are daily journals that are dead, until comments bring them back alive and keep them living! - Michael Sheehan via twhirl

sorry Robert but you're wrong - Steven Hodson

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"Trying to control where comments on your blog posts are displayed is fruitless" would be be my version of your post - Brian Sullivan

Heheh. Already more comments here too. - Robert Scoble

Isn't the web meant to be "hyperlinked" at first? - directeur via NoiseRiver

Dead? No. Being re-invented as we speak? Yes. - Mike Doeff

So Robert...where are you more likely to respond to a comment? Here on FF or over on your blog? - Jerry Chacon

If FriendFeed would just partner with Disqus to handle comments, we'd have a comment system that cut across all the channels, no? - Ken Sheppardson

I'm against "centred" things. Look at twitter. The most distributed things are, the best it is. - directeur via NoiseRiver

Jerry: I'm equally likely to respond to a comment here as well as on my blog. Ken, Disqus can help, but not really. I still like commenting on FriendFeed better than on people's blogs. For a whole lot of reasons. Much of which has to do with UI and iPhone accessibility. - Robert Scoble

It's because people want to OWN their own comments. You can store your own comments wherever you like because they belong to you. I wonder how many people started blogging because they wanted to join the conversation on their own blog rather than just replying on other people's blog? - Chris Paton

@Robert - I commented here strictly based on your headline as I am in the middle of a post and your post hasn't shown up in my reader yet (yes I could have clicked the link but I'm busy - post reading can wait) - I very often comment on the blogs if the post is *sufficently interesting* enough to entice me to post a comment. - Steven Hodson

directeur: cool. My experience shows that most people don't care about those issues. Including on Twitter. When it's up I still see a Tweet every second coming into my account. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I'm clearly quite visible here, but even for me, I still get more comments on the blog than on FriendFeed, in most cases. See my article about that here: http://www.louisgray.com/live/... - Louis Gray

Heh...I commented on your blog Robert, but I'm seeing a "waiting moderation" message. Score 1 for FriendFeed (you're seeing this comment immediately). - Hutch Carpenter

I second that comments are being reinvented. I also agree with people wanting to own their comments. I've just become so used to Disqus and FriendFeed that I couldn't believe that some blogs still had the old Wordpress commenting mechanism. - possible248

Louis: I still am getting a lot of comments, but I'm definitely seeing the tide switching. I bet that much of your audience doesn't know you are on FriendFeed all the time yet. - Robert Scoble

I'm thinking that the "latest" section on my homepage should just be my brand's Ffeed - Tom Beardshaw

Cool. And the comments are all here on FriendFeed.. Very cool. Of course, for Joe.Blogspot the thesis is incorrect. But maybe it's a trend. - john conroy

FF allows us to cross-post back to twitter when responding to tweets in our FF feed here. Wouldn't it be possible to send our FF comments to Disqus comments back to the blogs? - sedgewick

If it's a blogger I know is on FF, I'll comment on FF. - Tom Landini

I think he's right...if not dead, they are close - George Gray

We've had several very useful discussions on scripting.com recently. - Dave Winer

the-iBlog doesn't get many comments, and I'm not commenting on other blogs as much either. - Oli from the-iBlog

gee i never got many blog comments in the first place - Andy Sternberg via twhirl

A bit premature but inevitably I think you will pan out to be right. It seems like more of a chore checking my own blog's comments lately, and I seldom leave blog comments for lack of patience with login/typekey/captcha lameness. The ease and speed of commenting here has made blog comments seem downright stale. - Steve Isaacs

Not totally dead but getting there! You should add FF comments to your blog, I just did and love the integration: http://www.seanpercival.com/bl... - sean percival

Your post does have some merit, Robert. Before FriendFeed (and still currently), people's actual visits to blogs were diminishing, while reading through rss readers and such was increasing. This is especially true for tech blogs. I think people were longing to be able to comment via their feed reader without having to go back to the blog. FriendFeed seems to solve this, and I think will only get better as they improve. - Jesse Stay

I don't want blog comments to die... I love receiving them! - Paul Stamatiou

I want to also add that there's nothing wrong with people not coming back to your blog if you have a way for them to still build community around your blog, outside of the blog itself. If you can still monetize that audience or turn that audience into some value as a blog owner, traffic on blogs themselves will decrease even more in the future, while community around those blogs will only increase. - Jesse Stay

Mine have always been pretty dead... - Fraser Smith

FF/Disqus are disruptive technologies but if they prevented blog owners from getting at comments on their writings and integrating them back into the page, you'd better bet that bloggers would work around that. - Andy Murdoch

I've noticed most blogs don't get many comments, and the ones that do tend to get comments of a spammy sort (people pimping their own blogs in Techcrunch comments, for example). For the most part, real discussion still takes place on forums, or various incarnations of the such (which I'd classify Friendfeed and even Twitter as). People that like to have conversations tend to gravitate towards places where they can decide what to talk about - people's blogs don't really offer that. - Eric

Depends on the blog, however, on the majority of blogs comments are dead. - Dave Martin

Bernstein was right. http://www.markbernstein.org/A... - Boris Gordon via twhirl

Here is the comment that I left on your blog: "Robert, you are a master at baiting, I’ll give you that. :) On a separate note, clearly people weren’t wrapping their heads around the car post. Perhaps it’s because automobiles are outside of your perceived areas of expertise?" - Mark Dykeman

It's more than just comments that are changing. Comments aren't dead but they are 'moving' . Clearly a sign of both Friendfeed's appeal. It's happening faster than this guy expected. Most users will still go directly to the blogs and websites they like for a long time. I had several blogs with the comments turned off and they still were relatively easy to SEO. The dialog is clearly better here. Go Disqus and FF! - Charlie Anzman

Claiming that "XYZ is dead is dead". I think FF comments and the like are interesting, but unless it's easier to create the intersection for the average user, this is going to be an inside joke. Maybe that's why people like it. - tim

Now... can I replace my commenting system on my WP blog with Friend Feed? I mean, I'd be sad to see ID go away, but it seems there's more activity here. Edit: Found this: http://wordpress.org/extend/pl... - Adam C.

Comments are definitely in a state of change, not dead though. Maybe once Friendfeed gets more mainstream we'll see more blogs using the FF plug-in, along with Disqus and Seesmic to enable more conversations between platforms. David Risley has an interesting perspective on this: http://www.davidrisley.com/200... - Larry Kless

Wait till the spammers start targetting FriendFeed - Peter Reavy

I for one accept our new commenting overlords. - David Cohn

Over the last year, we've seen an increase in the number of comments on our Boulton & Co. blog, but not an increase in their quality. I see, however, that the Huffington Post has a loyal band of "commenters". I think you're more advanced in this area in the States than we are in the UK. - Miranda Richardson

not sure if i fully agree with you (even your 2/3 dead posted elsewhere), but this is exactly why i love reading your blog and why i'll follow your conversations wherever you have them. and so my thought: comments aren't dead, they are just simultaneously getting more dispersed (friendfeed+twitter) and easier to follow (disqus). however, commenting is still the domain of the few. i think new and very different forms of interaction around content will come soon (i'm working on one myself). - mike

Really ;-) - sachin sawant

When I comment on a blog, I take my time to write a thoughtful and researched response. On twitter or ff it is more a quick opinion or thought. Different medium, different use. - Tamara Gruber

Not dead maybe, just evolving. Always evolving. - Sonciary Honnoll

Robert Scoble posted a message

“I didn't realize how much I missed Google Reader. Reading items there I feel a lot smarter than after just reading headlines in FriendFeed. I definitely need to rebalance my reading between the two. Anyone else feel that way?”

June 30 at 9:29 am - Link

Josh, Patrick Jordan, daniel morgan, Brandon and 79 other people liked this

Love Google Reader. I end up with both news and insights that I never would have gotten anywhere else. - BISQ

I can't seem to get away from Google Reader. There's so much interesting stuff in it that haven't been shared to Friendfeed yet. With Toluu, I'm finding more and more things that I like, and just haven't made their rounds on Friendfeed. - Mark Trapp

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I had been neglecting my Google Reader, lots of actual reading to catch up on. - Kevin Cuneo

Google Reader is my everyday start. - Hakan Dahlstrom

I feel like if I don't listen to NPR in the monring I miss the news all together. If I just read the things i see on FF or Twitter I get a whole lot of random web news but not much whole world news. - Whit Scott via twhirl

I always read through Google reader before coming to FriendFeed in the morning. - Louis Gray

I read everything through Google Reader. - Josue Sanchez

Back and forth between the two. - Andrew Smith

Google Reader seems to offer me more control over what I see. Also -- much more variety. FriendFeed offers a wider range of subjects. (Content developers don't need to subscribe to FriendFeed.) Plus -- anything Google I am a fan of. - Charles Barthold

Absolutely. FriendFeed has a bit of a swiss army knife feel to it at the moment, with lots of folks trying to using it to replace a bunch of specialized tools like feed readers, forums/threaded comment systems, IM, etc. - Ken Sheppardson

FF has really cut into my feed reading time. I need to rebalance, too. - Harvey Simmons

yeah FF is just grabbing more and more of my attention - Stefan Hayden

Exactly. Feedfeed is great catching trends but I learn more from my regular readings in Google Reader. - Leon Ho

I used to hit FeedDemon in the morning after email, but now Snackr and Netvibes (thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick's suggestion) let me get the quick hits and news. I glance at FriendFeed via Twhirl as it ticks by just to see what's up. - Tris Hussey via NoiseRiver

Yeah, but I don't necessarily agree that it is Google Reader as much as it's an RSS reader of your choice, with my choice being NetNewsWire. - Andru Edwards

There's something about seeing the full text of an item that makes reading feeds much more satisfying (and more efficient, because here in FF I have to click on interesting headlines and wait for the item to load to read it). - Robert Scoble

Google Reader all the way. - Andrew Ruess

Actually, at this point I prefer SocialMedian - it gives me a fast view w/ summaries - Lucretia Pruitt

What is it about FF that makes it addictive - that (1) people like it (2) but they still think they are using it too much? Maybe other social media startups need to figure out what the FriendFeed-juice is? - Mitchell Tsai

The key to Google Reader is balancing volume with quality. I'd rather follow many feeds that have only a few entries per day than those that have dozens. - Georg

I am using a mixture of FF/Google Reader and Netvibes - riaz

Feedly is quite nice when I can get it to work through my corp proxy. - Greg

Yes, this is why I really like the practice of using the "Share with a note" feature in Google Reader to quote a relevant part from the original content so that it can appear as a summary comment here on FF - Vlado Handziski

I moved all my RSS reads to Feedly. It's foundation is Google Reader, but served up in a magazine format. I can get through it in less than half the time as directly through GR. - Bob Finch

Google reader, for sure. I like FF for the random stuff it throws at me that I can follow up on somewhere else, but I need Google to feel caught up on the things I need. - K Welch

Good lord, Robert -- I never left Google Reader. GR is vastly more efficient for processing news feeds than Friendfeed. With a few tweaks, FF could bring itself up the level of GR, but so far we haven't seen much feedback from FF developers regarding these suggestions. My lead folder in GR is a stream of pure gold with no dross or distracting trivia. - Sean McBride

FriendFeed is more about specific people. Google Reader is more about feeds in general. We all need to balance the specific and the general. - Mike Abundo

Would you rather have a sandwich or a snickers bar for lunch? I love the snickers bar, but most days I will definitely choose the sandwich, if I must choose. - J. Phil

I'm a netvibes man, it enables me to peruse 90+ article titles on one page/tab and I have 7 tabs. The sharing option on Google Reader makes me jealous though. - Toby Graham

For me, FF is good for tech geek stuff, but my GReader is much more science focused so I balance the two probably more in favour of GReader atm - Sally Church

At one time, I tried reading all my feeds through FriendFeed, but quickly returned to Google Reader...they serve different purposes. - Chris Rossini

Feedly is quite nice - LPH

I've never stopped reading in my RSS reader (spoonfeedr.com). FriendFeed is much more manageable there than on their website. - Sam Pullara

I second BSCQ - Martin Liechti via fftogo

Starting to use Feedly rather than GReader - it's perfect, stops me reading so many articles without being boring. I looooove it! - Richard Bradshaw

I find that I read articles on FF that don't show up in Google Reader and everything else in Reader. - Roberto Bonini

Totally. Plus I have full text and robust filing systems. - Steve Rubel via fftogo

Pretty surprised that you even considered ditching a newsreader to begin with. Sure you're feeling ok? - David Chartier

Google reader is my main RSS feed reader. I'm totally addicted. I just added Feedly and now I get recommeded feeds which add another dimension of social news aggregation. - Larry Kless via twhirl

I spend quality time in Google Reader. Try Feedly. It displays your Google subscriptions nicely. - Michael Tefft

Feedly & FriendFeed are the ticket, gReader alone seems like a one sided conversation. - Roger Penguino

Yes. I find myself scanning FF for blog posts. - Andy C

I'm all about the netvibes: www.netvibes.com/kdoohan - Kevin Doohan

I honestly don't know what I did before Reader. It is the best thing out there for me, for sure. Plus I can use it on my phone! - Ann Coleman

I can't stand gReader's inability to start FF-style "conversations" around shared items. And I can't convince my gReader buddies to move over to FF :( - Jake

I've abandoned Google Reader and all RSS Readers at this point. Traditional RSS readers are dead as far as I'm concerned. Social filters are much better at delivering content than RSS readers. Every second spent in an RSS reader is a second spent away from a socially filtered news and information experience. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk: I think that you are right. This is why all RSS readers have evolved towards social filters. Let's not forget that Google Reader invented the concept of shared feeds. - Edwin Khodabakchian

If you subscribe to the right feeds and blogs, you get a better perspective on the topics you care about. That's something that these services can quite do it as good as a feed reader. - Jay Cruz

did You try Feedly? It works with GReader, great! - Luca Conti

Its like reading a newspaper and talking about it. One won't replace the other, so I'm happy with the serious Google Reader _and_ the friendly cosy FF. Thanks to "best of day" I can balance the time spent with both. Not sure I want one app to rule them all :) for now, a mix of GR and FF is quite ok. - Dani Radu

I'll have to give feedly another look, but lately I've been subscribing to my FF RSS feed in gReader, so almost best of both worlds in one - nick carrasco

Hey now that you're reading feeds again, how about doing a shared item feed just for new tech products, or features of tech products, or reviews of tech products, even ones that aren't new. I promise I'll use the feed and give you credit of course. I'm going to ask Marshall to do one too (I bet he already does). - Dave Winer

I jump between the two anyway, I wouldn't abandon one over the other as they both have many plus points!! - Joe Dawson

yes, deep breath. as awesome as friendfeed is, it's not going to replace google reader, it's not going to replace twitter, it's not going to replace _______ . it makes all these services more useful, but you need a starting point. google reader is one of them. - MG Siegler

Google reader, never leave home without it! Friendfeed is definitely not a replacement. I see feeds on my reader that don't make it to the Friendfeed universe. - Alexander van Elsas

Although, I use GR less, I could never do away with it. FriendFeed does help a lot because I find myself marking a lot of stuff read (wish there was an easier way to do that) and being able to move on to to other content. - Shey

None of these services are an either or thing. They joy is in how they all work together. - m.0

can't get enough of Google Reader especially when I can find more exciting, techy blogs in the "Discover" section which I cannot live without. In respects to reading Friendfeed headlines, I don't really see this site as a news site. More as a conversation ABOUT the news! - Josh Chandler

I suffered your pain. Then, as some kind of experiment, I spent some time creating imaginary friends and tweeking feeds and the list of people and rooms I subscribe here. Awsome, now I cannot think about swapping FriendFeed by something else like an RSS reader. I still have to better manage my FF, specially trying to reduce the noise, but this is definitively better than the "old way"... - Marcos Marado via fftogo

I just found 44 items from you on your Google Reader shared items feed. I guess you're back. :) Google Reader allows me to more easily see things from a particular person; if I had to rely on finding them in their FriendFeeds, I'd probably miss them. - Ontario Emperor

Here's my balance: http://friendfeed.com/e/6250a4... - Bwana McCall

I don't know if I feel smarter when reading google's reader, but I feel like I am smart when reading it. - Mike

@Robert start using feedly with Firefox 3. Now that feedly has integrated Friendfeed into their plugin, I'll never leave Google Reader. - Chris Rodgers

yes - rambn

Robert - a combination of http://mionews.com + creating a private room with your RSS feeds in it may get you best of both worlds. Though I know you don't like that mioNews isn't a river-of-news, but we're working on that :) - Patrick Lightbody

I feel the same and I like it even if you did not like me saying thanks to friends saying that they liked my roadmap video - Loic Le Meur

Yes, I'm reading both. I read a lot more than I have time to share, but it helps to have both Google & FF formats available. - Cathryn Hrudicka

I'm using both, but for different purposes. Add Feedly, which is getting some of my casual browsing. - Chris Baskind

I agree but the issue is if I find something there and want to then ind the conversation here about that post I can not easily do so. I can post my own link but it would be nice to find the relevant posts here for any given item in my Google Reader. - Joel Ordesky

I've been wandering away from Reader for a while. See too many headlines that don't interest me. - shelisrael1

I've always felt that Reader did a fantastic job of presenting the content I want to read. - Trevor Carpenter

I tried giving up reader for a day - FF just doesn't replace what an rss reader can provide - Jesse Stay

They serve two totally different functions in my workflow. Google Reader gives me the news from the outlets I value while FriendFeed gives the news (and other stuff) of the people I value (I wouldn't consider all you internet celebs friends, sorry!). FriendFeed complements Google Reader. - Dennis Laumen

Yes. In fact, I read my Friendfeed through GoogleReader. For me, FF is a subset of Google Reader. Just another "Outlet." - Francine Hardaway

FF is great for finding things you may have missed in GReader, but it's no replacement. - Sarah Perez

Adding my 2 cents to the many comments here - I read both - Google Reader is a must for me and I don't see anything replacing it. FF is the conversation for me. - Kevin Cearns

GR is news, FF is conversation. They serve different purposes for me. - brian junyor via twhirl

GR is daily homework, FF is hanging around with friends - Nikos Anagnostou

get the cream from Friendfeed and then go on with gReader - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Absolutely, I get my best ideas from some of the great feeds I subscribe to. I realize too that I tweet and share much less when I don't go through my reader. - Sonciary Honnoll

First of all,FriendFeed & Twitter - Igor Poltavskiy

Friendfeed needs j + k shortcut keys like Google Reader. It'd make scanning through things much easier. - Martin Bryant

Eric Berlin shared an item on Google Reader

Friendfeed will Change Journalism, PR and Marketing

June 10 at 12:01 pm - Link

Cains liked this

Bret Taylor posted a link

Economic View - This Global Show Must Go On - NYTimes.com

June 8 at 11:03 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

carson mehl, Mike Reynolds, Josh Jenkins, Jennie Lin and 3 other people liked this

"Despite all these gains, the prevailing intellectual tendency these days is to apologize for free trade. A common claim is that trade liberalization should proceed only if it is accompanied by new policies to retrain displaced workers or otherwise ameliorate the consequences of economic volatility... Yes, the benefits of a good safety net are well established, but globalization is not the primary source of trouble for most American workers. Health care problems, bad schools for our children or, in recent times, bad banking practices have all produced greater disruptions — and these have been fundamentally domestic failings." - Bret Taylor

Great article, there are plenty of ill-informed comments from isolationists here in the UK but the results of globalisation have been fantastic. I'm a little concerned about the widespread support in america for Barack Obama as I find most of his economic policies to be bad for trade, investment and ultimately, the population. - Cains

Which economic policies are those? I can't say I agree with his support for renegotiating NAFTA or for corn-based ethanol subsidies, but I'm not much of a fan of McCain's gas tax "holiday from reality" either. I think Obama has demonstrated a much better grasp of the economy than McCain, who not only admits a lack of understanding but chose Phil Gramm as his chief economic advisor IIRC. - Jim Norris

Obama doesn't seem very excited about corn ethanol, but he's unwilling to give it the scorn it deserves. In any case he's surely far more sensible than McCain, also wondering what Cains has in mind. - ⓞnor

@Jim Mostly his renegotiation of free trade agreements and his general opposition to free trade. Also his reluctance to really cut subsidies for farming (amongst other things). He just appears to be taking a very anti-corporate populist stance which is great for getting votes but bad for the economy. - Cains

Joi Ito loved a song on Last.fm

The Clash – Train in Vain

June 7 at 11:52 pm - Link

Dan Covington and Cains liked this

Eric Berlin posted a message on Twitter

“The online video monetization equation (or, how do you make money on this stuff?) - http://tinyurl.com/5o5zws [OMC]”

May 7 at 7:24 am - Link

Cains liked this

Robert Scoble posted an entry on Scobleizer -- Tech geek blogger

Early adopter angst

May 1 at 10:27 am - Link

Mitchell Tsai, ChangeForge, Sarah Perez, lilbyrdie and 15 other people liked this

great post!!! - Hernan Garcia via twhirl

It's interesting to see this all going on... no one seems to be saying the most important point. It's fun to be an early adopter, isn't that why we do this? - Sean Reiser

@sean I use twitter because it has proven to be a great medium for communicating information and corresponding with people. that and the sweet "twitter early adopter" t-shirts we all got - acedanger via twhirl

Robert Scoble shared an item on Google Reader

An Open Challenge to Silicon Valley

April 29 at 6:21 pm - Link

Atul Arora, Jason Kaneshiro, Alexander van Elsas, Susan Reynolds and 4 other people liked this

I think living outside of the valley should be considered mandantory to get back in touch with reality. ;) - Nicole Simon

@Nicole I touch with reality == away from eager VCs - Andy Murdoch

@andy it takes more than that, trust me. ;) - Nicole Simon

Not seeing any action on the http://www.havasmedialab.com/ site - one post, almost a month ago? - Dan Keldsen via Alert Thingy

Definitely something to consider. Real problems out there, begging for tech solutions. - Jason Kaneshiro