This morning we changed the format of FriendFeed subscription email messages to include more information about people who subscribe to you. Please let us know if you see any problems, and keep an eye out for more email improvements in the future.
I'm all for improving the format of notifications, but wonder (aloud) if it is such a smart move to include the Approve/Reject link right at the top (unless it only appears in private feeds to which someone has requested access). Right now we have the option of blocking/ rejecting a subscriber at any time but presumably not at the very outset. This may lead to more of a walled gardens' mentality, already very prevalent at FF.
- ianf ⌘
ianf: approve/reject is only for private feeds. Public feeds just have a link to subscribe back :)
- Benjamin Golub
I noticed this one! Such informations about people who subscribe to me on FriendFeed are useful, and makes it easy to quickly get in the conversation. Thanks for the good job!
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
Gmail automatically showed me the images in a subscription email, even though I never told it to (you know how gmail has the 'display images below' option). further, it doesn't give me the option to hide the images. not that I'd want to, but how are you bypassing gmail's security feature to hide the images?
- chrisofspades
Chris, we don't do anything special. I'm not sure how gmail decides what images to show, you'd have to contact them or check the gmail help.
- Casey Muller
Casey, you sure FriendFeed's founders didn't use some of their "we created Gmail" mojo? ;)
- chrisofspades
Chris, the "show images" only applies to external images hosted on other sites. Gmail doesn't show those by default because doing so would allow people to "bug" email. We include the images with the email so that they can be displayed immediately.
- Paul Buchheit
Hippie Herb 'pot pourrie' (euphemism for smoking mix that you're not really 'supposed' to smoke in joints)! Smells good, tastes alright, most importantly gets you wrecked.
- Casey Muller
"The season finale of the popular TV show House, which will air on May 17th, was filmed entirely with the Canon 5D Mark II."
- Casey Muller
from Bookmarklet
Thank you for this voicemail transcription, Google Voice:
Yeah their transcriptions are atrocious
- LANjackal
I've found them to be just awful or spot-on. Then again, I've seen the same with Gmail's spam filter. Some accounts are terrific at blocking spam and others are pretty bad.
- Kevin Fox
It's fascinating what comes out of statistical learning when something goes wrong. I just got a transcription that said "Hi. See you later." The audio was just a couple of clicks. But those phrases make sense statistically, if you assume the caller must have said *something*. The good news is that it will most likely get a *lot* better over time, as more training data becomes available.
- Joel Webber
Joel: sounds like a pretty accurate translation to me.
- Jim Norris
Don't forget to donate bad voicemail transcriptions: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2009... Given that Google Voice respects your privacy, providing voicemails as training data has to be an opt-in decision.
- Matt Cutts
"With the introduction of the XMPP service to App Engine, it's now possible to write an App Engine app that communicates with users - or even other applications - over XMPP, otherwise known as Jabber or Google Talk. In this article, we're going to walk through an example that covers all the basic functionality of the XMPP API."
- Casey Muller
from Bookmarklet
In Gotham City, the people are represented by three separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders and *Motherfucking Batman*. These are their stories. - http://www.reddit.com/r...
"Though just six years old, Taobao — which means “to search for treasure” in Chinese — already has 120 million registered users and 300 million product listings, and generated nearly $15 billion in sales last year. The company says that sales through its Web site are already larger than those of any Chinese retailer. And this year, analysts say, its online sales will double, surpassing the expected $19 billion in sales by Amazon.com."
- Casey Muller
from Bookmarklet
Egads: "“I work in an O.E.M. factory that produces laptops and electronic devices for Sony,” said a seller who called himself Mr. Feng, referring to an original equipment manufacturer, which produces for global companies. “We have Sony’s core technology and exactly the same raw materials and components, so we set up our own store selling netbooks and laptops on Taobao.”"
- Richard Chen
I love how they're so matter-of-fact about knockoffs. Just run the production lines a little longer and produce extra units, slap on different label, and done.
- Ray Cromwell
seriously - what did people think was going to happen?
- Robin Barooah
from IM
Too bad this isn't an actual FriendFeed prank, in the spirit of Harvard-MIT :)
- Ana
Great nytimes quote: "[Bill] Clinton still stays up late ... playing Oh, Hell, a card game Steven Spielberg taught him in 2000" - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...