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Charles Barthold › Likes
What's your favorite note-taking tool? We hope it's Evernote. Lifehacker wants to know: http://twurl.nl/iudsec
Jose Luis Santos, Laurie Woo, Forrest Cox and 28 other people liked this
it's not desktop tool for me. It is webtool called diigo. It's integrated with browser both for taking notes on a web page(annotation) and retrieve them as bookmarks. Yes evernote has a nice OCR technology.
- pankaj
Jott for voice/txt notes. Evernote for pictures of labels, business cards and screen snaps.
- Jay Martin
Google Notebook.
- Morton Fox
It was Google Notebook but I am giving Evernote a go
- Mel Buckpitt
Evernote is it for me now. We're editing the demo now, will be up on Monday. Great stuff.
- Robert Scoble
Evernote definitely has the best functionality, I just haven't been able to push myself to start using it.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
Gee, sry but it's still a pen and paper.
- Adrienne Van Houten
Adrienne: that's because you haven't seen what Evernote can do.
- Robert Scoble
Notepad. Viva la Old School! Yes. I'm serious.
- Art Lindsey III
Onenote most often, but Evernote is a good clip capture tool.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
Evernote - use it every day. Notebooks need to have sections or chapters, and the Mac version needs to add audio recording, but otherwise it's great.
- Dean Terry
best notetaking for me is my moleskine for on hand, and jott when behind the wheel.
- sean808080
Notepad++ largely, but increasingly using Google Notebook.
- Derrick Burns
Evernote. mostly use it to keep track of real estate listings. (used to use OneNote--haven't opened it in months!)
- Jasmin Smith
Franklin organizer. Paper is the best.
- Victor Ryden
Jott for voice notes, Evernote for pictures and text but iPhone produces very blurry and unusable business cards with Evernote so far, needs a focus-adjuster app to be effective.
- Sally Church
Google Notebook. Trying to find practical uses of Evernote. It still doesn't seem to have a collaborating notebooks feature.
- Chris Chua
mindjet mindmanager and moleskin
- adolfo foronda
Evernote, has more flexibilty then Google Notebook. There are a few fearures I would like to added but it does the trick for me.
- Paul
from twhirl
evernote all the way. rich internet app with clients for most major PC and mobile platforms, and sync to cloud is quick and reliable. text deco of images is a nice bonus. they do need to spend some time observing the list features of OneNote and the search search ux of Spotlight - even the best apps can always improve.
- Jon Price
Right now it's Gmail and IMAP but I am playing with Evernote. I do have concerns though about trusting my info with your cloud. You're doing all the right things. It's just that you're new and I need to get to know you. I trust Gmail.
- Steve Rubel
Vim! In second place comes Mousepad. Third place is "cat - > note.txt".
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
Evernote is a great service/app, but I still find I can write faster in OneNote.
- Rafe Needleman
what about notepad++
- Eric
Rafe: I'd be convinced if you could get me OneNote on my iPhone.
- Robert Scoble
Evernote + Reqall is a killer combo on the iPhone/Web/Everywhere
- Nicholas Molnar
Google Notebook on computer, Jott when mobile.
- Ian May
I love Google Notebook, need to find a good mobile alternative.
- Rahaf Harfoush
Honestly, a moleskine notebook and a decent pen. A recent development for me, but it's working great. I get WAY too distracted taking notes on a computer where there are so many fun things I could be doing with my spare seconds! :-)
- Josh Bancroft
I have a voice recorder on my mp3 player and on my phone, but I still mainly use a moleskine and a box of mechanical pencils. Old school, that's me.
- Steven Perez
While on foot, it's either my Nokia N95 8GB or my Moleskine, but with computer access it's either Evernote or Google Docs.
- Niklas Pivic
from Alert Thingy
Mail.app. Comes pre-installed. Easy to use. Notes are synchronised across all of my devices (Mac Mini, MacBook and iPhone). Notes are also available online via MobileMe. I don't need to wait for any app to launch since I always have Mail.app running anyway.
- Paul Grav
Evernote is great but needs a printer driver and better inking. OneNote is king on TabletPC's for inking. Evernote is king for syncing.
- Andrew Forde
from twhirl
Evernote has great features, but I still find the desktop client a bit hard to use at times. Would like it a lot more if there was a proper app for my Symbian phone.
- Sam
from twhirl
3x5" index cards.
- Brent Newhall
/agree with @Dukeswharf. An S60 client would be awesome. I've been trying to get the imap setup to work but it doesn't seem to want to cooperate.
- patrick
I've made a list of todo/GTD tools out there on the web; Evernote > http://evernote.com/ scrivener > http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scriven... DevonTHINK / DevonNOTE > http://www.devon-technologies.com/product... SohoNOTES > http://www.chronosnet.com/Product... Voodoopad > http://flyingmeat.com/voodoop... journler > http://www.journler.com/ Mori >...
more...
- Thieme Hennis
it ALL gets dumped into Evernote. And occasionally I sort it.
- james
Evernote for me right now, though I find it a little slow at times, that may just be my net connection.
- Anant Gairola
Evernote for me!! Excellent tool
- Jose Luis Santos
Why I'm leaving Forrester - http://blogs.forrester.com/charlen...
Wesley Barrow, tariqkrim, Rebecca Pruzan and 40 other people liked this
Best of luck Charlene
- David Churbuck
from Alert Thingy
Good luck on your future and your book is outstanding.
- Jon Erickson
I seriously hope you'll continue to be 'visible with your occasional thoughts' in other ways. Best of luck!
- Charlie Anzman
I hope you maintain a blog about your thoughts. Good luck.
- Hutch Carpenter
Best of luck to you in your new adventure! So excited for you. - steve
- Steve Rubel
Congrats Charlene! You've been a great inspiration for women in tech
- Kathy Johnson
I'm sure whatever you do will be most importantly good for you and your family! Good luck.
- Jim Kukral
Good luck. Your book has been a big help.
- Charles Barthold
from Alert Thingy
Congratulations on your decision and best of luck. Enjoy your improved work/life balance!
- Adam Sherk
Good luck in your career! You were very informative at the Web 2.0 Expo SF 2008. I enjoyed your presentation at the Social Media Strategy workshop
- Glenn Batuyong
from twhirl
Best of luck! I liked that post about reinventing your job every 18 months.
- Jeff Woelker
Thanks everyone for all of the good wishes. I'll be blogging again soon and will let everyone know when and where I re-surface.
- Charlene Li
Charlene, best of luck to you and your family. We will all miss your insights and analyses.
- warren sukernek
from twhirl
Good luck, and thanks for being so public about wanting to strike a balance between work & family. Working parents of both genders will be cheering you on!
- Dylan Tweney
Best of luck, Charlene. You're leaving big shoes to fill. I look forward to reading you again soon.
- Christian Anderson
Congratulations on your decision, and best of luck!
- Steve Bauer
good luck with your future endeavors! looking forward to more of your social technologies insights online.
- ~C4Chaos
good luck!!
- Jeremy Toeman
Wish you the best Charlene, I've always found your research, ideas and energy inspiring :)
- Brooklyn Art Project
Congratulations on your graduation and best of luck in this next big thing!! Cheers
- Mark Kingdon
Best of luck Charlene!
- Mitchell Tsai
Best of luck Charlene!
- Marc Dahan
Charlene, sounds like an enlightened and well considered choice. Congrats. Let us know if we can do anything to support your next-next steps. Be Great. Cheers! silva
- mark silva
good luck Charlene!
- Kingsley Joseph
I completely understand your move - being a career mom carries strong feelings of regret and dissonance, which you always need to solve. Thats a tiring process...Enjoy your time of resonance.
- Trendsspotting
Best of Luck Charlene... I think this is a great decision, obviously, one that came after much thought. Finding Balance is sooo key to happiness and productivity at work and home! Good Luck! Keep us posted on how you make out on this change!
- Susan Beebe
Good luck with everything - your research on social media has helped me tremendously! We'll miss you in "the scene". Cheers - Lorna
- Lorna Li
Mahalo.com Being bought by MS??
Chris Heuer, Mark Douglass, sean percival and 17 other people liked this
What? No.....
- Pat Hawks
are you sure??
- Fred Grott
MS will not get Yahoo and they need some search winner, why not Mahalo.com?
- Fred Grott
Heard something similar, but it was TimeWarner
- Ken Sheppardson
Microsoft trying to buy Mahalo would make sense but, I doubt it's true. I haven't heard anything close to that.
- Candace
lets see does Jason have a recent to valley trip planned?
- Fred Grott
Wait a second, Microsoft just bought Powerset. Why would they go and buy yet another search engine when they just acquired one?
- Candace
link to source?
- Matthew Wayne Selznick
@CandaceHolly because microsoft is confused over what they are? at least that is what the internet would have you believe :D
- The Geek Media
Will it be MSN Mahalo or Windows Live Mahalo? :)
- Morton Fox
I think this might have contributed to the rumors: http://scobleizer.com/2008...
- Robert Scoble
yeh right!!!
- Jeremy
request for source generates sound of crickets chirping
- Matthew Wayne Selznick
@Matthew - A google shows no sources at all. I think it was more an open ended question backed by a reason that we're not aware of yet.
- Candace
As If !!!! But microsoft is on a spending spree when it comes to search engines, remember? And there was that indicator from Scobles interview linked above, remember?
- Roberto Bonini
weird how jason isn't in on this discussion!
- Gavin
But notice that Robert Scoble is
- Fred Grott
I just Twittered Jason, but I don't expect him to comment. Most CEOs won't comment on rumors unless they are true, and even then, they usually comment on their own schedules, not someone else's.
- Robert Scoble
That said, if Microsoft bought Mahalo and Powerset that'd be the first signs of a search strategy inside Microsoft in years. It'd be smart to do.
- Robert Scoble
Where is jason when you need him
- Akshay Dodeja
This simple FF question is going to snowball into a blogging rumor mill within 12 hours. I'll bet money on it.
- Candace
I heard it was Pfizer or Nabisco
- MG Siegler
Hum, I guest Stevie is anxious to buy anything and everything that is associated with the word "search"
- Shane
Maybe someone should set up a Rumor Mill room on FriendFeed.
- Mike Doeff
It's on the Internet so it must be true.
- Charles Barthold
Powerset is shown to work great on factual, structured data. Why wouldn't Mahalo with its human editors and coordination + Powerset be an excellent combination?
- Mattie
I hope it's true, Jason congrats if it is!
- E.B.
guys be serious a minute, if MS want to buy technology (cuill?) not grotto-workers
- Virtualgoodz
it would make sense and would be inline with this: http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008...
- nik
i don't know any reporter who would run this as a post, unless they're shooting it down as an example of an unfounded rumor. we'll see who writes a post entitled something like "Rumor: Is MS buying Mahalo?" personally, i've run stories that i've doubted, but i've always had more to go on than this, and i very heavily qualify myself. if anyone here wants to write a rumor-mill post on this, be my guest -- but you'll experience the backlash that causes reporters to not run such unfounded stories. geez.
- Eric Eldon
@ Mike Doeff: Done- http://friendfeed.com/rooms... . @Robert Scoble - think wider: Live Search + Yahoo + Powerset + Mahalo = very compelling search offering.
- Roberto Bonini
Grotto-workers?
- Lon Harris
from twhirl
Who says a reporter would cover it? I said bloggers. Big difference considering the majority of bloggers aren't journalists. As far as this rumor..first, we've had zero source to go on. Second, not one word from the person who would know for sure. I chock it up to a rumor but..I think this rumor is about to get fun.
- Candace
@Candace - A rumor that makes sense!!!
- Roberto Bonini
@Roberto - a rumor that makes sense is still a rumor. Though this would be a great experiment. How much of a buzz could a rumor on friend feed start? Hmmm...
- Candace
ok sure, this is a fun conversation. i can think of some other ones, too, like this http://digg.com/comedy...
- Eric Eldon
If Mahalo is snapped up by Microsoft for some undisclosed fee, it will be a clear signal that Microsoft is on the warpath. Startups everywhere, beware!!!
- Roberto Bonini
At least GOOG would have access to the Vatican Library. That'd go a long way towards their goal of organising the worlds information.
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
Seems a bit crazy...
- Alex Barredo
@ Alex: Ain't nothing too crazy to be true.
- Roberto Bonini
@Jason Shultz. At least I'd be able to do Google searches to learn what's really inside of the Vatican Library, instead of relying on Dan Brown novels.
- Eric Eldon
he was on Leo's TWiT last night....
- Tanya
seems like it would be a smart move by MS, hedging bets on the future of search by investing in a variety of areas, which is more than google has done recently
- craig
No comment.
- Jason Calacanis
Three more Tesla's for Calacanis... lol
- John Denver
no comment means yes. If there were no discussions then calacanis wouldve just said no. Gotcha Jason:)
- Grant
or "no comment" means come visit Mahalo... driving traffic
- Adam Hansen
very curious indeed. i'll see if i can get the inside scoop....
- mike fabio
I can't believe there's this much discussion on this without any comment from anybody. Incredible.
- Charlie Anzman
I can't believe people still think Mahalo is a search engine. Jeez, it's a wiki/directory with a search feature. Edit: and lately, it's been more of a current news/blog than anything else.
- Paul Short
life is grand...
- fijidaddy
The other night I actually was pondering this very acquisition idea. Though I've never really used Mahalo for anything, I enjoy Calacanis and Mahalo Daily. Is it search, wiki or news?
- THX152
and the train has left the station... the comments, rumors are flying at "friendfeed" speed.
- michael sean wright
=D
- sean percival
THIS TIME Jason is ALSO going to take the money.
- Rob Sterling
/me envisions Mahalo Live! lulz
- rob friedman
Unlike. Fake rumor. See >>> http://www.parislemon.com/2008...
- Mike Reynolds
Sometimes I don't understand the FriendFeed "bounce to the top" logic
Mitchell Tsai, Opensource Obscure, Ňicķ and 8 other people liked this
I just added my Like to Corvida's blog post about email (http://friendfeed.com/e...), but I didn't see it pop back up to the top of my FriendFeed screen. What drives the logic?
- Hutch Carpenter
Maybe it's time sensitive. 1 hour ago..maybe not.
- Hao Chen
From what I have seen, it only pops to the top on a page refresh, not the inline updates.
- Rob Diana
Julian - but there are times I Like something and is does bounce to the top. Maybe Hao is hitting on it - there's some sort of time element.
- Hutch Carpenter
Rob - I did hit the refresh button after the Like. Corvida's entry didn't appear though. At least not in my FriendFeed. Maybe for others?
- Hutch Carpenter
I think the FF devs have added a time var -- older items don't pop up if you like them or even if you comment, I think. Probably because some were complaining about "old" items resurfacing.
- Sprague D
Sprague D - I'm going to go comment on Corvida entry to see what happens. Back in a second.
- Hutch Carpenter
And there it is, at the top of my FriendFeed with the comment.
- Hutch Carpenter
it's just like a forum.... it's not a feed reader
- Stefan Hayden
I've been tracking the bump logic for a month or so now, and this is what I've found out: likes will stop bumping a story after a certain amount of time, and comments will always bump to the top if either a) it's your story, b) it's someone you're subscribed to's story, or c) it's a FoaF AND a friend of yours comments on the story AND it's the first time your friend commented on the story. Everyone else's comments won't bump it. For scenario c, Paul had mentioned to me that a fix for it was in the works.
- Mark Trapp
I seriously disliked it, at first. But when reading it in Twhirl, I really like the forum idea.
- Bradley McSpinn
@Michael - that is a good observation. A subtle way to manage what's relevant to you. But my comment on her entry did bounce it back to the top, whereas the Like didn't. Hmm...
- Hutch Carpenter
Great info Mark. The subtleties of FriendFeed. So powerful.
- Hutch Carpenter
FF clusters items i.e. FF items are clustered, google reader items are clustered etc. So if you don't have a like or comment for your item, if you add a new item of the same kind it will push the cluster to the top and push your item on top as well. I have seen this for folks who twitter a lot. Their twitters always bubble to the top.
- Atul Arora
There's a lot of stuff in the feed logic of Friendfeed that once you figure out winds up being a "holy crap, that's genius!" moment. It'd be cool if they had a "For Nerds" page, that describes why things happen in a certain way on Friendfeed, although I guess that's really their collection of trade secrets at this point.
- Mark Trapp
I know this isn't the case with Hutch's instance, but if you like/comment on a FOAF post, it doesn't bounce up in your timeline
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
@titanas: tech people are way ahead of the journalists, by the way. I spoke to a group of journalists and none are using cell video. Sigh.
Susan Beebe, Charles Barthold, Bryon Thomas and 3 other people liked this
The BBC have tried some mobile video in the last couple of months, Rory Cellan-Jones has a post up about it here http://is.gd/A6F (even includes a link to you Robert)
- Mat
For US TV broadcasts (over the air) I seem to recall there is a requirement/regulation that XX% of your broadcast be of a certain 'broadcast quality' level and only YY% be of a lower quality (i.e. camcorders or cell phone video).
- Andrew Leyden
this is much more about cost containment than lack of desire for some robert - cnn has been doing cellular video reports for awhile
- mike "glemak" dunn
Mike and Mat: yeah, I know that there are some exceptions. But this was to a future of journalism conference. There should have been more. And a Nokia phone is a VERY CHEAP way to get photos and videos on scene at stories. So, if cost containment is a big deal, they should be handing these things out like water in the desert.
- Robert Scoble
don't disagree regarding cheaper and should be handing out but when you look at the scale and day-to-day issues in media companies - cost containment is always an issue unfortunately - mit media lab is doing a very interesting project called civic media focused on this exact issue
- mike "glemak" dunn
Shame and it's so easy to use Quix - even politicians can do it - like this: http://qik.com/video/114722
- Craig Thomler
Robert - "future of journalism conference", in that case, Sigh++
- Mat
Tools and techniques are just that, got to put them to good use if they are going to be useful. In that respect, perhaps Journalists will be better at that when they learn how to use them.
- Mário Pires
AFP has been using the N93 for over a year now. We have about 40 deployed throughout our network. Some journalists shoot, edit and FTP to Paris right off the cell. Some shoot and return to the bureau to edit and transmit off their desktop.
- Jon Dillon
I think that's just a quality issue Robert. Qik does not look good at all on a T.V.
- Erik Weese
You should talk to @dkiesow at http://nashuatelegraph.com in New Hampshire about what his newspaper is up to with N95/Qik.
- Ryan Sholin
"Tech" people should be ahead of journalists w/ tech stuff, that's what they do. Plus I wouldn't call Qik a fully fleshed out "cell video" service. Basically, you have one phone N95 (plus iPhone). Many tech people--early adopters still complain about the N95 flakiness.
- Pokai
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?
Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Josh, Patrick Jordan and 77 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
Google Reader is my everyday start.
- Håkan Dahlström
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
from twhirl
I always read through Google reader before coming to FriendFeed in the morning.
- Louis Gray
Back and forth between the two.
- Andrew Smith
I read everything through Google Reader.
- Josue Sanchez
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.
- ha3rvey (just a friend)
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
from 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 Kanani
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
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.
- Phil G
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™ and his dog P™
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
from fftogo
Starting to use Feedly rather than GReader - it's perfect, stops me reading so many articles without being boring. I looooove it!
- Rich
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
from 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
from 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
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!
- BaltimoreGal (Ann)
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 :(
- jakebf
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, Jamaican of FF
None of these services are an either or thing. They joy is in how they all work together.
- m.0
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
from 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...
- Bwana ☠
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
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
from 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
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
Hilight of my Washington DC trip? Having my 14-year-old son talking about porn with the FCC Commissioner. I'll blog that later.
Jeff P. Henderson, Victor Ryden, Rishabh Mishra (p248) and 58 other people liked this
Oh I have to hear about that.
- Kreg Steppe
Would have loved to have overheard that one, heh.
- CJ
Patrick, my son, told the commissioner that if he tries to censor the Internet it'll make him just want to seek it out even more. I shared with him how smart the kids are and how they will get around any blocks you try to put in place. Patrick told him he turned on all of his own parental controls just to see what they did on his Mac. He said they made his computer unusable. I love that...
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- Robert Scoble
Putting this in my "Unexpected sentence of the day" file.
- John Craft
Wonder how the commissioner reacted... :)
- Vinodh Nandakumar
The commissioner is trying to protect kids from porn. I told him that Patrick and a group of kids visited whitehouse.com (back then it was a porn site) because a teacher told them not to (that was when he was seven years old). I told him that wasn't the surprising part, but that one of the kids knew how to delete the cookies and history in the browser so that the parents wouldn't be able to see that they had visited that site.
- Robert Scoble
Vinodh: when my son said you won't be able to stop it, the commissioner said "we've got to try."
- Robert Scoble
Thank you Scobleson, it may get though their thick skulls one day!
- Dave Pook
We are smarter than you realize. Wonder why Patrick ain't on Twitter/FF?
- Yuvi
When will they ever explain WHY they've got to try, especially with a living, breathing example of why it won't work right in front of them?
- Rick Powell
I am a firm believer in getting the government out of the censorship biz, so don't take this wrong. Generalizing this to everything is flawed, however. It is true that kids are more than smart enough to find ways to do all sorts of things we probably should discourage them from doing - so just because controlling something is hard does not ALWAYS mean we should give up trying.
- Soulhuntre
why does the govt think it needs to take the place of good parenting, before the internet kids found their parents playboys - what's the govt suggestion that?
- clarke thomas
I don't mean answering these questions in terms of feasibility or technology. I mean asking the basic question as to why regulating content for particular users or any user is the government's business at all? And sorry, asking that question is what a conservative would do. A fundamentalist would not see the point of asking that question at all, and so to answer your implied question, that's the reason why he would never give up trying.
- Rick Powell
@Soulhuntre - I agree - there are areas where I think censorship is good. But porn didn't do any harm to anybody, so why censor? The best thing to fight negative consequences of porn shown to children (like thinking that sex is, well, like in porn movies) is to tell them about it. Censorship won't change anything, it makes it much more interesting. (I like Austria's law that punishes denial of the holocaust, on the other hand. We are able to control Neo-Nazis violence pretty well through that.)
- sebmos
And yes I think that fundamentalists are currently in charge of this administration.
- Rick Powell
Tumbled this quote, with link to FRIENDFEED, not Twitter.
- Phil G
I just finished reading Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother" so this tweet really resonated with me. Censorship, ultimately, is a futile excercise- not the least because people dont like being told what content they can or cannot consume. The solution is not censorship, or any other enforced form of protection. If they want to protect kids from *anything* don't you think it would be more...
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- David Adam
Explaining the reasoning for things to kids is a good first line of action - but it is not always going to work. For one thing, younger kids are KIDS and in short their brains and logic functions simply do not always function rationally. Any parent knows this. Children are absolutely worth talking to and reasoning with - but sometimes that will fail.
- Soulhuntre
sebmos - I personally find laws like that to be no better than censorship of porn. Saying "I support free speech - but obviously not THAT speech because it offends some people" seems odd to me. That is exactly the argument used to control porn.
- Soulhuntre
The difference: Neo-Nazis commit violent acts against all kinds of people (political enemies, foreigners (especially asylum seekers), non-believers) - they still do - and they make an obvious lie. Porn doesn't harm anybody, it's not a fact that can be proven wrong, etc. Neo-Nazis don't offend people, they kill people. (And try to destroy democracies, which is their stated goal, much like the NSDAP back then.)
- sebmos
A modern democracy should do everything it can to stop people from violent acts, especially if they are politically motivated, and especially if they have the goal of destroying the democracy.
- sebmos
Explain why the fact that parenting is subject to failure, in other words, that kids and parents are human, is a reason for government to intervene? The FCC Commissioner can't, he just knows it's true, deep down in his heart. Not good enough, sorry. Unless we make elected officials answer these basic questions, we will only go in circles.
- Rick Powell
A few thoughts - one I am not advocating censorship - my point was that imperfect control is not universally a reason to abandon mitigation efforts. In the specific case of the FCC - we are having the wrong discussion. The FCC censors because "we the people" have asked them to do so - they CAN censor some areas because, in theory, "we the people" own some communications media (spectrum). Frankly that's OK with me ethically - those that own something can control it as the please.
- Soulhuntre
So if the body politic owns something, then as a nation we can elect to control it. What bothers me much more is government censorship and control attempts of PRIVATE communications channels (the internet and so on) but that isn't in danger from the FCC but the court system. BTW the laws that most often are used to censor speech and obscenity are NOT Republican ones in the main but bi-partisan or left sided. Every religiously driven censor is matched by an extreme feminist or political correctness thug.
- Soulhuntre
With the final caveat being, as long as it doesn't violate the First Amendment, which, actually, is why we are having the right discussion.
- Rick Powell
@ sebmos - I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that 'porn doesn't harm anyone.' A 10-year-old who's looking at some of the extreme stuff available can come away with a distorted view of what healthy sexuality looks like - that's 'harm' in my view. That said, FCC intervention isn't wise, because it worn't work. What does work is proactive parents who aren't afraid to talk openly about sexuality with their kids.
- John Craft
@sebmos - your point about the neo-nazi thing is fine - but not, to me, good enough to censor. There are many who feel that porn drives violence (they think it drives rape) and denies what they see as a "war against women" and purports a lie (that women should / want to be raped). Their feelings are as strong as yours so why not let them censor too? Its a very slippery slope.
- Soulhuntre
@John Craft - The average 10-year-old won't see extreme stuff, but "normal" stuff in best case. You really would have to search for extreme stuff - something I'd say they won't, because they are happy with what they can find easily.
- sebmos
Great. Patrick is going to be the catalyst of some new legislation. Another Scoble rocking the boat. :)
- Kreg Steppe
@Soulhuntre - There are actually studies that suggest that porn decreases violence against women, because men have easier, other ways to satisfy themselfes. Also, this is a different thing: It doesn't work. Porn isn't controllable. No matter how hard you punish people, it won't change anything. Just look at the Middle East. Or look at the US, which is strict compared to European countries. Or look at the Middle Age.
- sebmos
@sebmos - remember, I am not arguing FOR censorship of porn, I am arguing against censorship in general. My point is simple, for everyone who agrees with you in objecting to one form of speech (holocaust denial) there are lots who all agree on censoring something you would not want censored. The only way to not get in trouble is simply avoid censoring in all but extreme circumstances. To many, the case for stopping porn is as strong as the case to avoid denial commentary.
- Soulhuntre
@johnacraft - the issue isn't (to me) the FCC with porn - frankly they have almost no impact on the adult industry (which I am part of). It's federal law that is out of hand and off kilter. The "2257" stuff, not the FCC, is the real problem.
- Soulhuntre
good discussion here. as a typical mom, i worry about my son on the 'net. currently, standing over his shoulder works (when he goes 'net, i turn on extra monitor in kitchen. he knows i watch). i do have porn concerns for children. awful, raunchy stuff i do not want my under 10 (or even 14 yr old) to see on 'net. terrible images of women. terrible. sooo, bigger question to wise folks here, how do you handle this issue?
- Barbara K. Baker
@Barbara - You're watching what your children do on the internet with an extra monitor? Omg... (That's definitely the wrong way to handle it. They'll find a computer you can't monitor and will do it anyway, but in secret. They loose trust because they have to keep secrets from you, they won't go to you if they really have questions about sex.)
- sebmos
You think things are kicking off now? Wait till kids that have had the internet their whole lives start making waves I'm thinking the next 3 years it's going to be really hard just to keep up with what's going on. Great story, sounds like he's a good kid, must already have a big set of Cojones to banter it up with the FCC commissioner!
- Toby Graham
Smart People, Stupid Tweets. Fake News Spreads Fast on Twitter. - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
Susan Beebe, Igor Poltavskiy, Rex Hammock and 25 other people liked this
fact checking? what's that? :)
- tomio geron
A little skepticism goes a long ways...
- Kirk Kittell
Is Kevin Rose responsible for this? :)
- Bradley Goetsch
The LA Times just ran the Twitter/Jared/Kevin Rose story. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscou...
- Louis Gray
freaking a-lister's at it, AGAIN !!
- Peter Dawson
The Pros and Cons of Twitter as News Source - http://red66.com/2008...
- Carlos Granier-Phelps
Question is: who's at fault here for not fact checking? The guy who posted the original tweet? Or the thousands who re-tweeted it?
- Carlos Granier-Phelps
Sometimes Smart Tweets:)
- Igor Poltavskiy
Ross's FriendFeed Tutorial #1: Using FriendFeed's "Hide" features - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008...
Charles Barthold, Adam Kazwell, Derek and 31 other people liked this
Yeah, that Hide feature works really well with that noisy Louis Gray. ;-)
- Hutch Carpenter
haha yea but seriously taking advantage of the hide feature can mean the difference between being able to interpret and manipulate a noisy account, or being inundated with crap you dont care about and missing valuable content.
- Anthony
Ross - in all seriousness, nice job on this video. I see so many people asking questions about how to do things here. One more idea - include some written tutorials along with the videos (there are times you just want to read something quickly). I know Louis wrote a post on the Hide feature (http://tinyurl.com/6h37zl). Maybe something like that.
- Hutch Carpenter
Thanks Hutch! Great idea... I just didn't want to steal any of louis' traffic ;-)
- Ross Miller
@Hutch: Yeah that Louis Gray guy is quite a nut! ;)
- April Buchheit
I'm falling asleep to the sound of Ross's voice... not quite Gary Busey's but give it ten years of a pack-a-day and he'll be there :)
- Peter Butler
Hehe... glad to see you checked your FreindFeed Pete!
- Ross Miller
I thought you said they weren't going to use your voice!!! Heheh. Sweet. PS You hid one of my posts in your video! How dare you!!
- Amber
Louis is definitely one noisy nut!! LOL ;-) That's why he did that blog post about the *hide* feature too!!
- Susan Beebe
You know, we could just start a separate thread for Louis abuse. Who wants to do it?
- Louis Gray
after all this fruity madness recently, i dream about search'n'hide ... or better search'n'shoot
- A.T.
Louis we need a ROOM to contain all the abuse! http://friendfeed.com/rooms... So when you're bad we can send you to your room! lol
- Susan Beebe
Oh... Look Bwana's taking the lead! He's already abusing Louis and having lots of fun at it! See it live here --> http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Susan Beebe
Gas prices can change several cents overnight. Hotel room rates change much less frequently. So why are gas station prices still posted manually, but many hotels show digital prices? Discuss.
Raphael, Raphael, Matt Shaulis, Mark Trapp and Charles Barthold liked this
Only in America, I think. Most Canadian gas stations use digital signs, or at least signs that can be changed electronically. It's also unusual to have hotels advertising prices on their signs like they do in the states.
- Trent Olson
Around New York, there are a a great many gas stations that post manually, but the larger chains like Mobil and Sunoco moved to digital starting a few years back. The problem is that there is a very slim margin on gasoline (it's meant to get you into the store where things have higher profit margins) and thus no impetus or money to upgrade the equipment to digital.
- Mark Trapp
hotels with prices posted aren't usually hotels I'd want to stay in
- Jeff Quinton
Jeff, you're right, of course. Motel 6 will show the price. The Hilton wouldn't.
- Louis Gray
In the 80s I suggested to a grocery chain that they should develop shelving with digital pricing instead of manually pricing items. An idea that's gone nowhere.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
Is this really "social media" or is this "wow, there are some really bored-@ss people on a Sunday"? Discuss. ;-)
- Robert Seidman
Hey, I spent my obligatory 1.8 hours on the shore. Brutally hot out, what better way to unwind?
- Mark Trapp
If you have to ask, you can't afford it. ;)
- Cyndy
Thanks, I think, for the prop on my employer. Louis
- Mathew A. Koeneker
But of course the difference between most Motel 6s & Hiltons is location: Motel 6s are on the side of the highway, when you're looking for somewhere to stay before getting up and continuing on the road the next morning. Motel 6s are actually more akin to gas stations/service stations than the Hiltons etc.
- Trent Olson
Louis, I don't know how places like Motel 6 do their pricing, but my wife works at a limited-service hotel that's affiliated with a larger family of hotels, and she sets her prices as far out as a year for a particular night in many cases. A lot of forecasting too, and a very limited chance to change prices for a weekend if a new event pops up.
- Jeff Quinton
Digital in the UK too....but then we pay a lot more.
- Chris Nixon
I prefer prices disclosed to me in a book. That's classy. (Full disclosure: I have never had prices disclosed to me in a book)
- Mark Trapp
Perhaps people trust signage more when it has to be changed manually. It takes some commitment to get the number plackards out, the pole used to place them up. It takes far less effort to punch in some numbers on a computer, and therefore it might be assumed that there is a greater chance of error or tampering. Then again, if it is easier to change, you could compete with the guy across the street in real time as Julian might be alluding to.
- Nick Dynice
Price signs are mostly digital in the UK now due to Health and Safety laws introduced a few years ago....the forms needing to be filled out if you are sending someone more than 2 metres into the air on a ladder cost more in man hours over a two year period than changing over to digital....
- Gary
Only in the US... Guessing that hotels want a more modern image, whereas gas stations don't really mind.
- Rich
Because you can't reserve a pump.
- TranceMist
Tech Journalists: How Much Street Cred Do You Need? - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...
Joe Mac Stevens, Jennifer Van Grove, Phil G and 17 other people liked this
Great point. Some developers have a very elitist attitude toward normal people who don't code and this occasionally leaks out. Usually that attitude is misplaced, though, and does them more harm than they realize. Developers who know how to explain their ideas to other, less technical, people are worth their weight in gold (and, in discussing this with tons of people in the industry,...
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- Robert Scoble
Agreed Robert! Finally something on which we agree :)
- directeur
in my experience the best tech writers have technologist backgrounds: jon udell & david berlind come to mind, those that don't show their level pretty quickly & develop a way to fake it by baffling w/ babble & buzzword bingo
- mike "glemak" dunn
its funny how the timing of the posts worked out :)
- Adnan
1) People come here 2) People get inspired 3) People write on their blogs... go to step (1)
- directeur
The first problem is defining what constitutes journalism versus editorializing. The best blogs are a good mix of the two, and subject matter expertise helps. Me? Former Linux developer, studied history of technology as an undergrad, have been a blogger on and off and now work in tech journalism. The mistake many bloggers (incl Arrington) make is doing the questioning in an editorial voice. He should have done what Robert did in his Qik interview the other day. Asking questions is not demanding answers
- Andrew Feinberg
I'm a tech journalist who's written maybe a dozen lines of code in my life. Sure, John Udell and David Berlind are sharp as tacks (full disclosure: David is a colleague). However, I've been immersed in the technology industry for a long time. And I bring something to the work from my journalism background: The ability to separate fact from rumor, write clearly and concisely, and digest complicated subjects and explain them.
- Mitch Wagner
IMHO Mitch is right, the task is the synthesis and this is an art by itself. I've written many things on things I totally ignored before (I'm a coder), it's all about collecting the info, choosing the accurate, and make something of this. The creativity lies in this process.
- directeur
hey mitch, pls don't take this thread personally, just answering the question - both jon & david were first to come to mind (both friends) - i'm sure you do fine work for informationweek, though can't say that i read it - its not aimed at folks like me, i'm more of an infoworld type ;)
- mike "glemak" dunn
@Robert But does a writer (blogger/journalist) lose some credibility when that lack of street cred shows through? The example Adnan linked was a perfect example; that one little issue buried in a long piece immediately drew attention and ire. @Andrew But how do you change your voice? Blogs make journalism moe personal; as I've said before, I'd make a sucky reporter but a great columnist. ;) @Adnan I know! I went back to add yours as soon as I'd posted. Perfect timing!
- Cyndy
Cyndy: absolutely! This isn't only true of tech bloggers/journalists. I followed John Edwards around and saw how he'd give a really great reporter more time and better answers. I absolutely get better access because I ask better questions than many other people in the industry (and, even when I ask dumb ones, it's clear that I enjoy using their stuff anyway -- Mike Arrington, for instance, said he doesn't use Firefox 3.0 to Firefox's CTO. Who do you think will get asked back for an in-depth interview?)
- Robert Scoble
In an ideal world? Me. LOL. But seriously, you. In reality? Arrington, because TechCrunch pulls so much weight. LMK which one happens. ;)
- Cyndy
Cyndy: from what I can tell: both. Like you said, Arrington has weight. But Fast Company is no spring chicken, either. We print almost a million copies of that magazine.
- Robert Scoble
I'm with Scoble on this. The devs I like the most are those who don't take my lack of deep code knowledge as a barrier to explaining stuff. They're also the ones who seem to understand far better than others what it is that users REALLY want to achieve.
- Dennis Howlett
from twhirl
dennis: you of course don't need deep code knowledge to be a good tech writer/blogger - the willingness to ask the right questions and actually listen to the explanations are necessary though, those w/ an actual operating background in tech tend to get this because in the real world of tech that's the way it works day-to-day, especially in big tech orgs no one individual is able to grok everything at every level - most of you zdnet folk do a pretty good job of this, its those that fake it that are wrong imo
- mike "glemak" dunn
@Robert True, but looking at the mentality of people looking for attention, the combined reach of TC with the "It" factor is pulling more right now than established publications with a huge audience. I blame Gabe. ;) @Dennis/Mike I think I agree. Obviously, I haven't been doing more than little web sites in over 8 years, and I knew 6 months out of the game that I couldn't go back. But is a basic understanding of things like development practices something readers expect writers to have? ...
- Cyndy
... (cont) How much immersion is required to establish that street cred? Can a newbie writer do it, or is there some sort of apprenticeship in the minds of the readers?
- Cyndy
this is over simplifying it but don't pretend to be a subject matter expert if you're not - the tech writers/bloggers who think because they've been writing "about" something they are now sme's on their topics - this is when i start to tune-out/unsub - again both jon and david don't have this trait which is why i appreciate their work...
- mike "glemak" dunn
I have to agree with Mike, a person does not need to be a coder to be able to write. Listening and being able to translate geek speech into common language that is clear and understandable is the key. Secondly, a good tech writer s/also have the ability of take concepts and be able to convert it into Geek speech. Both directions are important. Neither party- Dev/Writer is actually an SME within the vertical. They are only knowledgeable. Tech Writers/Bloggers out there (most) are only opinionated ....
- Peter Dawson
If Facebook had done its job right FriendFeed would never have happened.
Ralph Poole, Igor The Troll יִצְחָק, Ashton and 65 other people liked this
The best thing about FriendFeed, besides that it's so much fun, is that it forces Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. to make their services better. Twitter should have added hide a long time ago. Flickr should have shown you more than the last 5 contacts photos. Competition is a beautiful thing.
- Thomas Hawk
@Scoble So true. @Thomas Twitter needs to figure out how to scale before they add any new features.
- Jon Gosier
Yes competition - but more so: open communication - is truly a wonderful thing. Developments here at FF and twitter with respective apps like twhirl, AlertThingy etc. just go to show how quickly last years fad can become extinct (facebook?). Of course it would be even better to find fb add something truly novel.
- Alex von Halem
Early adopters may have moved on but the herd continues to graze like cattle on the hillside at Facebook, MySpace, etc. Eventually, they will learn about other forms of social media and move there, but by then there will be something new that the fleet-footed have mooooved onto while the slow stampede contiues ruminating.
- Phil Boiarski
I think it's quite possible that friendfeed has totally superior DNA. If I were to bet on facebook vs friendfeed now, I'd bet on friendfeed, even with facebook's huge headstart. Because, if Altavista would have done it's job right, Google would have never happened...
- Meryn Stol
It's like a great brainstorming session where people build on each other's ideas to get to the best solution. So I think it's less about FB doing a better job, then fresh blood building upon the ideas to make the better solution.
- Jane Quigley
from Alert Thingy
I think it's all an evolutionary process, the good thing is anyway that the idea spreads. Facebook could save some money though and implement open standards right now. They have to in the end anyway. FB won't be a working Passport or anything like that.
- Christian Scholz
from twhirl
I think the "secret" force behind friendfeed's succes will be the discussion of the tech bloggers here. It looks like unintended crowdsourcing. There are so many feature (and strategy) suggestions flying by. I think some people *want* friendfeed to win, and friendfeed provides a way to let those people help them. It's gonna be a powerful combination. The only question is if they can hire good programmers fast enough to keep up.
- Meryn Stol
Still get to the bottom of FriendFeed, but liking it more and more every time
- David Orban
Same here @David, @Meryn I like your perspective and also your terminology 'crowdsourcing' more like crowd surfing!
- Joe Dawson
For all who don't know, crowdsourcing is quite common jargon. It's what Starbucks (MyStarbucksIdea) and Dell (Ideastorm) are doing. This will beat the crap out of companies who don't.
- Meryn Stol
If IBM had done its job right Microsoft would never have happened. etc
- Stuart Woodward
great observation about crowdsourcing meryn, friendfeed seems very interested in hearing what people have to say
- Chris Jones
from twhirl
I don't use facebook anymore, I just pipe my friendfeed stream back into facebook
- Mark Ramsey
from twhirl
Im going to go on record here with a prediction for the future: Facebook is the greatest hyperbole the web has ever seen. I know it's worth a lot because so many investors put so much money into it, but Im expecting it to earn the title for "Most Inflated Value Ever".
- Andrew Baron
@Mark Ramsey, I do the exact same thing
- Chris Jones
from twhirl
BTW, if George Bush had done his job right, everything would be worth at least twice as much.
- Andrew Baron
tut tut ...forgive n forget was what my mum always told me.
- viki saigal
I think Facebook and Friendfeed cater to different purposes. FF is great for sharing ideas while Facebook is good for maintaining profiles and contacts.
- Vishy
FriendFeed brings the "NewsFeed/Mini-Feed" out of Facebook. Most of my friends are not on Facebook, so this is great! I can give people links to interesting articles/photos/discussions on FriendFeed. Signing up for Facebook overwhelms many of my friends. It's too complicated to set up an account.
- Mitchell Tsai
Facebook was never useful for this. Way too heavy.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
this is exactly right. A while ago I had an idea similar to FriendFeed and Pete Cashmore told me, nah, Facebook is already doing it. As it turned out, Facebook had the chance but didn't capitalize on it.
- Stan Schroeder
from twhirl
i could be wrong, but I don't think Facebook is (a) losing users to FF, or (b) incapable of making this a reality for the masses
- Jeremy Toeman
FriendFeed is much more about content. Content and insight defines the "friends" I pick, whereas Facebook has a greater social context. I would not follow by nieces tweets in FriendFeed, but she would be on my list of "friends" in facebook.
- Ralph Poole
from twhirl
If FF added better mobile access and posting a nice real client, i'd have less and less reason to use Twitter. None at all actually
- Michael Gartenberg
Ralph, I agree wholehearted facebook is a different beast all together. A different beast that thankfully doesn't have a zombie game or super wall :)
- Doug Brooks
Not sure I agree about Facebook. It was built for college kids, not for people looking for useful information.
- Mike Reynolds
Of course Facebook and FriendFeed both serve different purposes. It's also entirely possible to use both. I think we'll have to observe what services suffer due to FriendFeed in order to see what competes with FriendFeed.
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
not everyone is capable of flyfishing in the river of posts that is friendfeed. some folks just want to go out and get sushi with their friends, and then get back to their lives. facebook is for them.
- Chris Hollander
But that would break facebook's business model - collect the data we input and sell it back to us....
- Robert O'Callaghan
friendfeed is way better and way simpler than facebook. Andit's app, poke and zombie free. Damn brilliant if you ask me.
- DC Crowley
@Mike R "It was built for college kids, not for people looking for useful information." Funny!
- Jack Baty
Don't think so. FF is a different site built on a different premise. Its lighter and more agile while being very powerful. Facebook is way more profile centred while FF is more like Google Reader on Steroids.
- Roberto Bonini
Radio still does it for me bigtime. You just need a great station and we've got a bunch now in nyc
Bryan Thatcher, Daniel Shaw, Charles Barthold and Tom Conrad liked this
What stations do you listen to? I listen to streams at work all day, and have found that different cities suit different moods. I switch between home (madison, WI), L.A., and London now. I would love to add some N.Y.
- Michelle Darnell
There are a few shows I like to catch on the radio, most of the time it's Last.fm all the way now though!
- Joe Dawson
No more smooth jazz in NYC though right?
- Steve Rubel
interesting, radio sucks here in Seattle. I just listen to podcasts and NPR now :>
- Sam Levine
Anyone a big fan of radio here in San Francisco? I'm not really all that impressed.
- Hutch Carpenter
Radio is great for road trips, especially satellite radio.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
As long as I can get NPR and some sort of non-ClearChannel station, I'm probably okay.
- ha3rvey (just a friend)
Radio does not suck here in Seattle because of four little letters: KEXP.
- Akiva Moskovitz
in nyc i listen to wfuv (adult alternative), wbgo (jazz), wrxp (rock), and the new wnew. i also listen to wehm (amagansett). for those who like listening to streams at work, i recommend wnew and wehm
- Fred Wilson
i heart sirius
- Morgan
What are your favorite stations in NYC?
- Bryan Thatcher
from twhirl
FriendFeed is NOT taking off ... why? (I gave some reasons over on this blog post but wonder why we aren't seeing a LOT more FF activity?) - http://www.profy.com/2008...
siavash, ※Fu※, edythe and 41 other people liked this
I've been showing FriendFeed to tons of people and most try it out for a few minutes and then leave. It's clear to me it's not really taking off the way, say, Twitter did. I am getting pretty consistent feedback from people who say they don't see the value in it -- I left my ideas of how to get FriendFeed participation to go to a new level on the post I linked to on this cluster here. How about you?
- Robert Scoble
no great desktop client; too complex, particularly compared to twitter; web ui sucks
- wlai
wlai: yeah, the desktop client is tough, because of the two-level commenting system here. But if they implemented XMPP that'd solve that pretty quickly.
- Robert Scoble
@wlai i'm using MySocial 24x7 Sidebar. a pretty good firefox extension, but still not as convenient as Twitter IM bot.
- Jansen Lu
Why hasn't FF added any new feeds in several weeks? There are plenty of sites they could add.
- Elliott Plack
Has Robert found a new toy? Is it Plurk? ZubHub or whatever? lol
- Aviv
I made FF my home page but still struggling with it. I could just about keep up with Twitter but on here I get to see what the friends of my friends say on a tricky to navigate webpage. It's too time consuming for people that have normal jobs (no Robert, you job is not an average normal job).
- Gerard van Schip
No, FF is THE toy for me right now. I just want to get other people in here and I'm getting a LOT of resistance when I sit down with people and watch what they want to do with it.
- Robert Scoble
I think all these social apps need beter interop
- Charles Rice
from twhirl
Cyvros: links work in Google Talk. Just convert them to URLs.
- Robert Scoble
Cyvros: mostly I want XMPP for listening to the system. Not for posting.
- Robert Scoble
The value in FF is the potential of personal relevance and engaging in discussions without feeling overwhelmed or lost. Threads with 30+ comments are becoming more common these days, and so are 50+ likes. The thing is, Robert, I think super-users such as yourself with 2000+ friends expose individual entries to... too many people. Some complain that FF is fragmenting the conversation. Quite the contrary - I think FF will need to find ways to fragment it even more as it grows.
- Aviv
from ffreader
Cyvros That's the part I don't get. FF seems quite intuitive to me -- whereas other tools don't. That's not to say some refinement is not in order, mind you.... I need to give this some more thought (i.e. WHY is FF intuitive to me?).
- Joanmarie
Robert, I actually like how Friend feed is right now and understand people's dislikes about it but I think it still has some potential that we will see in the coming months!!
- Paul
Aviv: if you read my feedback, being able to hide completely some users is very important. The fact that I am able to "leak" into every conversation here is a huge negative for many people.
- Robert Scoble
Aviv: not being able to control the noise (and the noisiest users) is a major reason why people get turned off when they first see FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
I think part of the reason is that FF is billed as a lifestream aggregator - for people to combine their blogs, twitter, delicious, shared items, etc into one stream. But the average person doesn't have that many feeds that they need a lifestream aggregator to manage, in my opinion. Also, the desktop client thing that you guys have mentioned is important as well.
- Derrick Kwa
Well the obvious answer is that for people that aren't on Friendfeed the value isn't all that clear. I'm on Friendfeed and for me it's a tool. I don't like the aggregation aspects of it, but enjoy the discussions that float around. But the main issue with ANY aggregation service imo is that it lacks intent. To me it seems that unlike early-early adopters most people don't really have a need for a constant stream of unintentional shared content. Intentional personal sharing is much more valuable to them
- Alexander van Elsas
Paul: of course it has potential! Think about everything that's in the FriendFeed database that we can't yet pull out. Can I show you every item that has "n" likes? No. Can I show you every item that has "n" comments? No. Can I show you every item that has those things but with Robert Scoble hidden? No. So, YES there's HUGE potential locked up in the FF database that isn't yet available to us.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, we are very much aware that FF needs a lot more work (it's a young product), and that not everyone "gets" it right away. We are definitely working on making it more intuitive and approachable. That said, the blog post you linked two was written last month, and activity on FF has grown about 3x in that time :)
- Paul Buchheit
FF is very confusing - People who don't use many web2.0-sites can't profit from the unification of your web-presences. Using FF just for the coments is simply not appealing enough for the mainstream user.
- sdfx
Alex: You are right the intentional personal sharing is much more valuable to them but that makes it that much harder for the unintentional shared content. it makes FF just that more harder to understand. I know they are working on this little problem of FF, and I'm sure it will get fixed but I also know they will have to wait and see attitude!!
- Paul
Paul: awesome. I think the reason you are getting this feedback is cause you've built something that has huge value already, it's just frustrating for those of us who are being FriendFeed advocates because we don't have the right tools to convert other people into FriendFeed lovers too. For those who don't know who Paul Buchheit is, he's one of the co-founders of FriendFeed. I'm happy it's growing, but it could grow a lot faster if we had a few more tools to show people the value locked up in FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
I use them both (Twitter and FriendFeed), and I actually see more and more people (among my friends) that use FF a lot more than before. I posted some little stuff that I wish FF to add (here: http://friendfeed.com/e...) but those are really simple changes compared to what you ask for Robert :-)
- Orli Yakuel
It's two things for me: 1, Twitter gives me all the info I have time to digest and 2, to make full use of FF I'll need to sub to all the people I'm linked to elsewhere. Did I mention time was an issue?
- Rod Nicolson
While the room feature is a step in the right direction, we need to be able to create filters, that are accessible easily and are nondestructive to the main page. Perhaps Like Gmail, we could see all of the stuff at once, or just one filter at a time. In this case I'd have one for tech luminaries that post a lot, and people I really know.
- Elliott Plack
FF is a great way of aggregating al my feeds, and I love it for that. If all my friends were on it rather than just Facebook, then they'd find out more about me, because I don't just post to Facebook. Why should they have to get a signon and subscribe to a dozen different services just because that's how I chose to publish my content?
- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
What would be great desktop clients for FF? Thoughts?
- Prakash
Robert, I read your comment on the blog. Re #2 and #5 - I agree that tracking topics is especially important on FF. I personally don't want IM notifications and all that - I want a pure FF interface play. I played with some ideas a while ago, see http://ffapps.com/stickys... - it doesn't take into consideration min number of likes or anything like that, but this is how I personally think FF should approach the need for real-time tracking.
- Aviv
from ffreader
Robert, it's all because of the user base and the ease of use, I'm guessing. I use Plaxo more than FF. And really, use Twitter more than 10x more than either of them. Not just for making updates, but to get updates from others, headline relays, etc. I use BrightKite and sometimes Twitterfone or Jott when I'm sending an update on the go, but they have value for me precisely because they all feed Twitter. Pownce arguably outperforms Twitter in terms of flexibility and reliability, but who uses that much?
- mark zero (Jason)
@aviv, is this thing works? http://ffreader.com/ or just for you because you built it?
- Orli Yakuel
The comments by Cyndy Aleo-Carreira are pretty apt actually; it is actually irritating to see information repeated; i don't like the reordering either; and discussions stripped from the blogs onto itself is understandably annoying to several people.
- Parth Awasthi
Since it is a lifestreaming application I believe most people use FriendFeed as a secondary application to Twitter. Also I think it would do alot better if the FriendFeed-is-Clunky-on-Twhirl issue would be fixed. For example, half way through writing those two sentences Twhirl updated the FF stream and everything I typed was lost. I almost said screw it and just didn't comment, but...
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- william douglas watson
from twhirl
FF is my all-in-one Web 2.0 Solution and there are enough excellent desktop clients - FF is my new center to the world! ;-)
- Dieter Schwarz
from Alert Thingy
The complaints that FF is too complicated are perfectly valid for a lot of people. Something like FF is geared towards the early adopter, those already on a mutlitude of other services and are looking to pull it all together in to one melting pot with comments. Joe Public doesn't work, think or behave like this - many just want a simple messaging system which is why Twitter clicks and...
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- Colin Walker
Aviv, will be really glad to test it! Robert, take a look at this: http://ffreader.com/
- Orli Yakuel
Scoble: I've not built this, this is not Paul Bucheit. I just know that some of this is coming it has to because if it didn't this wouldn't grow. I also know that people will have there problems just like DIGG people didn't like Digg because it had it's own little problem and you see how many flock to be over there!!
- Paul
having fun rather than using social networking as a serious discussion tool. We need a change of mindset or to just accept that fact that different services will attract different people and ne'er the twain shall meet. A service has to identify its target audience and then fully understand it, providing those features that audience demands rather than trying to convince those outside of...
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- Colin Walker
Orli: I can't log into ffreader.com. I'm using Firefox 3.0 RC1.
- Robert Scoble
It's like I'm living in a bizarro universe here. FF is dead simple to me - and was right off the bat. You add services, you add friends and then watch and participate. Pretty easy to me. I also don't know why people bring up twitter all the time when talking about FF. I don't see them as remotely similar or in any kind of competition. They're two apps that have a similar "audience" but that's it. Two different purposes and needs fulfilled. I'm baffled by some of the responses here.
- Vince DeGeorge
Cyvros/fyc: I am sure they are going to fix the commenting problem. They probably hear about that everyday they check there emails or watch the FF scroll up and down. I also know that the fixed width is not so bad once you understand that it's to show a comment or a link!! I understand how frustrating it can be and can't wait for the changes that are inevitable because without Change there is no community!!
- Paul
Vince: Twitter and FriendFeed are joined at the hip for me. I see them as different things, too, but I'd like to see FriendFeed adopt a few of the things that Twitter showed the world first. IM integration for one. Track for two. SMS capability for three (er, and a mobile client).
- Robert Scoble
Vince: I say you've hit the nail on it's head with Twitter and FF, You can't possibly do this type of commenting and discussion with Twitter!! Twitter only allows 150 characters!!
- Paul
robert, FF is growing. it's growth in the past couple weeks is outstanding. you aren't going to get everyone to use it though. and you really should stop comparing it to twitter. because it's fundamentally different. twitter is a microblogging service. it's where we go to post things that are quick, easy, and brief. FF is a social media aggregation (and hopefully re-aggregation) service. they are both important tools and their growth should happen together. and that's happening. be patient and positive.
- Fred Wilson
FriendFeed needs a better commenting system ie Disqus. I have to confess I joined and then didn't use it for a while. Now I am totally hooked. I think some people try it and leave before they truly understand it. It's up to us to convince everyone to stay.
- Michael McGimpsey
@vdegeorge I totally agree. I found FF completely simple to set up. I just keep adding my feeds until I run out, and give people my FF URL. They don't even have to actually subscribe if they don't want to. It's perfect. Of course, Twitter updates go into it, so they don't need to go to Twitter to see them, or Facebook, or Flickr, or my blog. In fact, I'm not even that bothered about the conversation functionality, which does mess the homepage up a bit, I just want to publish my content so people can see it.
- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
This is in fact strange; I am not a twitter user, but I am a FriendFeed user. I really like FriendFeed far better then Twitter. And the community part here in FriendFeed is what makes me coming back and check out what is going on. Twitter has too much noise for me...
- Joao
Fred Wilson: patience? Patience? Heheh. Good point. We all want it and we want it now. I don't see where I'm comparing it to Twitter, although, to tell you the truth, if it added a few things it could get me to switch even more of my usage away from Twitter. Twitter is doing that on its own, though, by going down so often. I know FriendFeed wants to be different than Twitter, but it has enough similarities that it begs for a few more.
- Robert Scoble
Part of the thing with whether FF will take off mainstream or not is based on how people want to use it. I think the discussion thing that we're all into here is a mainly geeky tech-person thing to be into (and proud of it!) but my Mom isn't going to bother. However, if like me you're mainly bothered about your friends seeing your new Flickr photos even though they're not personally on Flickr, then it's got mainstream appeal. I mean, people don't even have to actually subscribe to FF to see my updates.
- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
Robert - you keep talking about how you need and like the noise. I guess some people prefer the signal...
- jeremy ettinghausen
jeremy: you missunderstand what I'm saying. It's pretty clear you aren't reading what I'm saying. +I+ don't mind the noise. I can deal quite well with FriendFeed how it is. That's not the point. The point is that I'm trying to get other people into FriendFeed. They DO NOT deal with noise as well as I do. They want far better tools to remove noise (remove Scoble is just one of those tools). I want more people here, to get even more noise, but to do that we've gotta have better tools. The tools are for THEM.
- Robert Scoble
Jeremy: That's a good point. The feeds are the signal (Flickr, Twitter etc) and the FF comments are the noise, as far as I'm concerned. However the comments are the feedback, so depending on your point of view, they're arguably more interesting to the originator.
- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
Fred Wilson: where in this thread did I compare FriendFeed to Twitter. I went back and reread everything I've written about this and I don't get why you are saying I'm doing that? Just because I want IM/XMPP? Is that a Twitter exclusive feature that no other "live web" service should have?
- Robert Scoble
Neil: to me comments (and likes, which are just really a different kind of comment) are the signal that the original post or tweet or photo, etc isn't noise and is worth paying attention to.
- Robert Scoble
robert, i am not talking about this thread, i, like many people, follow what you say and do. it's the entirety of your stance on FF and Twitter that I am talking about. but that's not really the point i am making. FF is an amazing service. so is Twitter. and i believe they are both going to get better and better, and easier and easier to use.
- Fred Wilson
I think a bare-bones FF platform might serve it better in the long-run, since it will undoubtedly result in a bunch of third-party products and add-ons that enhance (or even finally enable) the FF experience for specific audiences or purposes (meme-tracking, desktop photo browsers, etc.). Either way, I think right now we're not seeing much innovation from third-parties beyond basic FF...
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- Aviv
from ffreader
one of the lessons from Twitter and other services we invest in is if you let the activity happen outside of the web service (via the API and other things), you actually get more users back to the web service itself. so that's why I am so interested in getting these discussions pumped elsewhere, like my blog via disqus (when the discussion is about a blog post i wrote). if that happens, then FF becomes even more relevant, more important, more useful, and more used.
- Fred Wilson
Scoble: Which is a perfect illustration of my point - people want different things out of FF, and we all have our own terminology. For you "noise" means something different to me. Of course, comments on my own FF entries isn't noise, it's "feedback", and that's different :). Anyway, when it comes to "FF isn't taking off", I think it could be a target market issue. I'd say FF has more...
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- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
I'm going out on a limb here - the reason people don't understand FF is because no-one has really defined it yet. Egs: If I saw it for the first time and saw a thread with 50 replies, I'd think it was like a forum. If I only saw lists of feeds I could subscribe to, I'd see an aggregator or feedreader. Seeing an item rise to top when comments were left, I'd think it was like digg, etc. I'd want to know the implications and results of using it in order to be more interested.
- Paul Short
>>For you "noise" means something different to me. Here's a definition: NOISE: you talking about lunch. SIGNAL: me talking about lunch. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
>>so that's why I am so interested in getting these discussions pumped elsewhere, like my blog via disqus. Fred: I am totally in agreement here. It's one reason why I put the FriendFeed widget on my own blog (and am evaluating other schemes to integrate comments here and there).
- Robert Scoble
@Paul Short - good point. Is FF trying to be too many things to too many people and is this why it doesn't appeal? The information on the About page is minimal and, whilst it conveys what FF is about at its core level, the way the service moves on is determined by the way it is used. I have no doubt that FF would be a completely different animal if it were populated by a different set of people rather than the usual suspects we find here.
- Colin Walker
Colin: We agree. I still maintain it's a target audience issue. The people using it will make it what it is. This is exactly what happened to Twitter. It started as "answering one simple question: 'what are you doing?'" and turned into a messaging/communication system by virtue of the way people used it. The same will happen to FF over time. I'm using it in a totally different way to...
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- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
dying already? I thought it will get the necessary traction and kill socialthing before it gets launched.
- Palin Ningthoujam
Palin: I'm not using Socialthing, am I? :-)
- Robert Scoble
SocialThing is pretty much dead in the water anyway. Scaling back on services supported, too long in closed beta, not supporting the most popular web browser - all bad decisions which caused it to get left behind.
- Colin Walker
As compared to Twitter, I get to see more meaningful conversations here in FF (no word limit.. yay!). It's more difficult to follow conversations in Twitter too even with those 3rd party tools like: Quotably etc, and I think I get to socialise with more people on FF. But I agree that it's difficult to sell the concept of FF to friends.. It's either you get it, or not.
- Winston Teo
@Winston, there is a word limit it's just significantly higher that's all.
- Colin Walker
@scoble: In http://secondbrain.com we have a different approach to aggregation.We organize all the content into personal content libraries where it can be browsed by tags and remixed into collections among other things.
- Lars Teigen
@Scoble - I *totally* agree with you. FriendFeed adoption rate is impacted by lack of end-user tools to manage the frenzy of information aggregated in FF. For example, when I scrolled down to "catch up" this morning, I was notice this 1 post had over 97 comments! Holy crap that's way too much information. *Sigh*. This application is geared towards users that have a high capacity for information and can navigate a complex weave of conversations, posts, photos, blogs & other social media widget outputs!
- Susan Beebe
I think FF only starts making sense once you get a nice, active network of friends. It's the conversation that makes FF interesting to me. Without it I might not be here.
- Benjamin Golub
Susan: You're totally right, unless it's not the comments you want. If you just want to use FF as a content aggregation tool though, you lose the "noise" that is the comments.
- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
The Comments is my *favorite* feature! but this is where most users would give me the deer-in-the-headlights look and close the application
- Susan Beebe
Susan: Which goes back to my point (buried in the previous comments :)) that it depends on what people want it for. People who glaze over at the comments might not want it for that.
- Neil Barnwell
from twhirl
In my opinion, FF needs to focus on the Feed. Think of the current web UI as a "default" presentation of the Feed that underlies it. This means, make the API the most capable API possible; even at the expense of the UI. Things like import, integration, automatic creation of Imaginary Friends, etc. *Other* people will innovate on the UI, if the API is at least as capable as friendfeed.com is. When I import a new service, I would like to carry my network of friends from that service into FF, creating...
- Kenneth LeFebvre
...Imaginary Friends as necessary, to keep my network complete. Give me the ability to merge Imaginary Friends, so I can manually make the connections across networks. Give me two-way participation from FF back to all those other networks, and I will use FF as my client for everything. ...just my 2¢... :)
- Kenneth LeFebvre
Neil - true. Need a way to "hide" comments as well perhaps for those users who don't want to see them. I will *not* be in that use case! ;-)
- Susan Beebe
At the risk of repeating: I think that FriendFeed is one of those tools designed for Mavens, Connectors, and Salespeople (i.e. Tipping Point concepts). Gather and discuss info, form opinions and ideas, crystallize thinking. Is it the best tool for broadcasting back out to the world? Don't know, maybe that's where Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku belong.
- Mark Dykeman
@Paul B It was written last month, but the increase in traffic over that month has made the points I made in my post even more obvious. More activity doesn't fix the problems; it only makes them more apparent. It's the main reason why I don't follow Robert, but pick him up on occasion as FOAF. He shares something. Then odds are Louis shares it, or Duncan shares it. Then Corvida shares it and Diggs it. Sarah Perez shares it. Then maybe Steven Hodson shares it.
- Cyndy
taking off with early early adopters or early adopters? This seems a tad premature. Twitter is 2 years old...it didn't take off until..what.. a year into it? year and a half? a month ago?
- Bwana ☠
@Bwana Twitter is 2 years old, uses a much less "early adopter" mentality for its premise (messaging vs. aggregating), and, well, isn't doing so hot at the limited amount of "taking off" that it's doing.
- Cyndy
Is it just me is or are aggregators like FF not going far enough in aggregating? I want to comment to a blog post fed here and have the comment go back on the blog. I want to frigging import my twitter followers/ees into friendfeed without manually creating an imaginary friend for each one that isn't on FF yet. I want to go to one place and not have to worry that i'm missing some part of a conversation. FF is aggregating, it's more of a window on different pieces of different fractured conversations.
- S. Charles Balazs
Being in the minority (e.g. not in the Internet / Web industries or one who's presence is across a multitude of services), I came to FF due to the aggregation aspect. I don't have much to aggregate (I only have three services connected), but I totally grooved on the commenting and interaction aspect of the service. I found FF to be quite intuitive and the sharing of so many "tidbits"...
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- JA Castillo
@Bwana - I was just thinking the same thing. @Robert - Not taking off the way Twitter did? Twitter really just hit its inflection point in March of this year. Let's look at where Twitter was at this time in its life to get an apples-to-apples comparison.
- Hutch Carpenter
Clay Shirky nails it in the WSJ: "It’s almost universally the case with social software that the software that launches with the fewest features is the stuff that takes off...nobody wants a door with 37 handles. Twitter has six features, and it launched with only one. A brutally simple mental model of the software that’s shared by all users turns out to be a better predictor of adoption...than a completely crazy collection of features that ends up being slightly different for every user."
- Michael Nielsen
Michael- but by that logic FriendFeed should be huge and Facebook should've flopped...
- Mike
wow this entry has ganied a lot of comments- 90++ , a harvest of users thoughts for FF :)-
- Peter Dawson
Have to agree with Hutch. It took Twitter a year to get beyond the techies and early adopters. A couple of weeks in the bigger spotlight doesn't determine whether FriendFeed will make it or break it. Give it a chance. I'm placing my chips on it.
- Robert Sanzalone
Reasons -- too much info flowing in; hard to figure out. Twitter is about as basic as it gets. The Ipod of IM.
- Charles Barthold
Mike - Everyone I know described Facebook the same way early on: "It's a way of connecting and keeping up with your friends". I've never heard two people give the same explanation for FF. "It's like Twitter, but with longer tweets". "It's like Twitter, but with other stuff." "No, it's an aggregator for information!" There's no shared mental model, and so the network effects are much weaker than Facebook.
- Michael Nielsen
FF's complexity (which is really elegant simplicity to those who get it) is its greatest asset. FF exposes the Z axis in an otherwise XY web. If that were represented visually on FF (as a toggle?), more noobs would adopt - more topics would appear, more friends, more feeds, more goodness.
- Noah Carter
FF doesn't seem complex to me, but it does take a bit of time at first to see what one can get out of it. FF seems to be different things to different people - but that's one of the things I like about it. It's useful in more than one way. Aside from the echo effect, the posted link doesn't seem to have much in the way of good criticism. People keep complaining about noise; that's what the hide feature is for.
- Tanath
I fully admit that I tried out FriendFeed for a day and quit. It initially wasn't easy for me to pick it up. But, I kept hearing about it on Twitter and gave it another try. I now use FriendFeed much more than Twitter.
- Patrick
The thing with Twitter is that peeps can just post and answer any echoes back, it's low intensity. FF however, requires the user to be a bit more ballsy, if you like. To get the most out of it, you have to be prepared to chime in, post and have a debate or convo with a multitude of people you've almost never met. The two are very different.
- Sally Church
I like Sally's thinking. I've often thought Twitter is for all people comfortable with chatting/instant messaging. Friendfeed seems geared more towards the type of people who'd post in forums or leave comments on blogs (a smaller group). However, I don't really have a sense for what % of FriendFeed users are voyeurs or what its potential is with people who'd like to view it all (even the conversation threads) without participating.
- Robert Seidman
@Parth Thank you, and I agree. Love that it's generated 100 comments, though. ;) @Mark Dykeman I think you have the core demographic nailed there. @Robert I love forums, but forums are WAY more organized and have nowhere near the duplication as FF does.
- Cyndy
Feature request - Place a # next to each comment so I can refer back to # x comment above. This is a standard feature on many blogs' comments. This post with over 100 comments in reply is a perfect use case to justify this feature!!
- Susan Beebe
Susan: that's called anchors :) http://www.w3.org/TR...
- directeur
Main reason I use it: condensing all my feeds into one spot, both those I read and those I produce. Main gripe: no way to quickly highlight what I haven't seen.
- xero
Another feature request - Let me subscript my friend's tweet only(not including flickr etc). This can be done by `Imaginary friend` but it would be more useful with one-click feature.
- satoko
Friendfeed Store on Cafepress - http://www.cafepress.com/friendf...
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Charles Barthold, Tris Hussey, ben rogers and 3 other people liked this
I am definitely getting something! (Via Louis Gray)
- Steve Rubel
Same question as Michael
- Deepak Singh
it is the official store http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008...
- David Vasileff
fwiw I think they should setup shop on zazzle, better products there.
- David Vasileff
Why You Shouldn’t Get Involved in Social Media - http://bub.blicio.us/?p=952
Mitchell Tsai, Martin Hall, Phil G and 5 other people liked this
Well, it's "Why SOME people shouldn't get involved........." but great reading, nonetheless
- Iain Baker
thanks and PLUG!!!! ha ha ha... I didn't get it. worship me now.
- Noah David Simon
Iain, I agree with you. Social media is not for everyone, especially those who don't wish to get lost in the noise. The "He who has the most connections wins" section is well worth the read.
- Joseph Ferris
from twhirl
I think Iain nailed it on this one. Great article. Someone should make it part of the EULA on the "next great social network" :)
- ha3rvey (just a friend)
I am getting lost with all my different social media accounts. Will we at some point be able to move to a single online identity (including authentication)? is it a pipe dream? is it already possible? Would it be a *bad* thing? Who could do it? (Google? Facebook? WordPress?) - http://www.cogniview.com/convert...
Riayn, Oliver Ding, Mitchell Tsai and 4 other people liked this
me too - it's all getting out of control
- Darren Rowse
In the linked article I am kind of hoping openID, open social or even gravatars will be the plumbing to allow us to create a single account, but not sure everyone would want that (big brother?)
- Chris Garrett
Isn't it the reason behind Friendfeed and other social platforms this messy online social life?
- doruk tokçabalaban
We still have to log in to all the social platforms individually though?
- Chris Garrett
Keep in mind that this is all Early Adopter...once even a small percentage of general internet users start adopting social media it will become even more confusing. The company that can tie social media into a more manageable format (especially for the Enterprise Users) will be worth millions.
- OnDemand Beat
I every network supported OpenID or oAuth and XMPP or Atom Publishing, life would be very much simpler but the only USP for each network would be its members.
- Andy Murdoch
I go through my spam email and find sites that I had forgotten about being removed by my email program... short term it is making life a bit easier but worries me about all the good stuff I'm missing that I've already joined to participate with! :P
- Paula Hawk
I am starting to consolidate. going through my accounts systematically and getting rid of those I don't use. hard decisions, but it also does not look good if you have a lot of dead pages on the web with your name on them.
- Stephan Dohrn
I'm getting lost too, but I think the future will provide some solid integration between them all. Hopefully. Ohh, and sites should always offer a 'delete account' option. Not all do.
- Mo Kargas
How @replies work on Twitter (and how they might) - http://blog.twitter.com/2008...
zsafwan , Eric Daams, Kenichi Matsumoto and 15 other people liked this
I didn't realize the @ replies worked that way.
- Tom Landini
i hate the way @replies work.. its a pita to figure out what the reply is about.. assuming you DO want to know. What is wrong with attaching the @reply to the original message, so you see them in the order the occurred, with the msg they were about? Isn't that how forums work and have worked for some time? If it ain't broke, don't mess with it.
- Tim Hoeck
Well, the @ link is approximate. Oft times, it points back to the wrong thing.
- Jauder Ho
Agree -- it's more confusing than helpful in my mind.
- Charles Barthold
it'd be nice for less ad hoc method to arise. @ replying to multiple people is kind of disfunctional, for example.
- felix
LOVE the way @replies work. it is finely tuned to show me EXACTLY what I want to see... conversations within my Twitter social graph. LEAVE IT THE WAY IT IS but explain it better...
- Elliott Ng
@ works fine for me -- just wish Twitter web would pick up @s anywhere in the tweet
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
I can see a book series coming. How to use Twitter, FF, Stumble, etc. etc
- Charlie Anzman
Twitter and the Architectural Challenges of Life Streaming Applications - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...
Mitchell Tsai, Anand Sharma, Andy Davies and 7 other people liked this
I was going to comment on this but the FF comment box was too small so here's a link instead. http://twurl.nl/m0wxxa
- Jauder Ho
Why DF are peple writing about this. We should be hearing about this from Twitter.
- Dennis Howlett
from Alert Thingy
60,000 duplicate feeds removed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...
Charles Barthold, Hutch Carpenter, Shey, Jamaican of FF and 5 other people liked this
Good work, Caleb.
- Louis Gray
Toluu is slowly steaming ahead, Toluu has become a daily destination for me, defiantly a main stay in my book.
- Mike Fruchter
do you do it open source? :)
- A.T.
Very cool. Good that your focussing on the backside. In the end, it's all easier with a good foundation.
- Meryn Stol
Thanks for the kind words guys! It was a big job especially going through and updating all the feed ids for users who had feeds that got merged. Over the next few days expect even more improvements to issues that you have been having. Thanks for the support!
- Caleb Elston
I would add that before we added conditional GET support that we were pulling down a lot more unnecessary traffic. Unfortunately, there are still quite a few feeds that do not support this and other methods need to be used. Eventually, integration with ping services will help.
- Jauder Ho
@getshust that's pretty cool. Best business card I've ever seen? Buzz Aldrin's. Says "Astronaut."
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins, Mark Trapp, Steven Hodson and 6 other people liked this
and instead of "phone number", it says "2282.5 MHz" ;-)
- Karim
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