Charles Ju › Comments

Obama won the debate; well, actually that "Joe the Plumber" dude might get it! - Susan Beebe

Check out Gillmor gang on uStream.. live now - Darius Dunlap from twhirl

Accd to various channels and their focus group and the instant polls...seems like Obama did very well when compared to McCain. - kamla bhatt

cool thanks! - Susan Beebe

I can't even listen to Gillmor, I don't know about watching video :-P - Shawn Farner

JoePlumber.com watch and read the interview. - MyLocator

McCain. Obama, however, will still win the election, and the perfect storm of a diminishing economy, an ineffectual and unpopular Democratic Congress, his political ambitions and his lack of understanding regarding the Presidency or the role of the federal government in our lives, will lead to a situation where you will no longer be able to put off the decision: who and what are you going to serve? - ComicList

Peter: about who 'obfuscated' Mccain vows to use hatchet across board on expenses - has no use for scalpel approach; no new expenditures; cut everything evenly / then insisted he would fund good parts of school initiates and every other program spend that came up. He can't have it both ways - is it hatchet like he promissed, across the board or not ... Doublespeak pure and simple - David HC Soul

Obama saying he would use a scalpel is like a drug addict saying he's going to only give up the worst drugs he takes. Obama's comments regarding capital gains taxes shows he does not under taxation or the economy. - ComicList

Kevin, what I don't get is how you have people following you who think McCain won. This is a legit screen-grab, not even joking. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141... - Chris Menning

FOX News instant poll (via txt msg) McCain 87 percent Obama 11 percent - Robert Hafer

Rob Hafer, what's your point? Quoting Fox News is like quoting a forwarded email from your aunt's church group. - Chris Menning

FOX has higher ratings than other cable news combined so they have the largest sample of viewers, represent most of America - Robert Hafer

Robert Hafer: lol. Good one. Obama won, hands down. McCain was too offensive and the public clearly saw through his bs. This campaign is done, Obama has won, lets talk about something else, like how to fix this economy! - Charles Ju

Duh! Obama. - ◄ani625Ξ

Bush said we were addicted to oil. So what expert opinion decided that treating an addiction is done by feeding the patient even more of the same drug? Drill, baby, drill? - Glenn Batuyong

@Robert Hafer hmm... then in that case there some be something totally screwy with the math that says that Bush only has a 22% approval rating. The mainstream media obviously hasn't asked the real media *ahem* FOX viewers what they thought. - Glenn Batuyong

Kevin, you missed out. There was a lot of attacking, defending.. plumbers, and this: http://friendfeed.s3.amazonaws.com/49faf3d... - Daynah

if it ever comes out... - Danilo da Silva

I'm waiting for the Gphone. - Andy Roberts

I think Android is doomed to be subpar. 1. Apple has almost 30 years of making commercial operating systems, Google has 0. Same with hardware. 2. Too many phone types. Hard to program applications to utilize each type of phone layout. 3. @rickg I agree, gphone or any phone running Android has yet to exist. 4. iPhone is at 7 million sold? Probably 12 million by Dec. That's not too bad. - Charles Ju from FriendFeed MT Plugin

oh oh .. getting to predictable - Steven Hodson

Liked the piece Steven. I think there's more mainstream potential than you do. Commented on the blog. - Hutch Carpenter

Steven!!! Funny, I just did a Qik video about comment duplication and Kevin Fox stuff and it hits on this big time. FriendFeed needs a new UI. I keep trying to spread it and I keep getting pushback I never got with Twitter. The people who run FriendFeed aren't delivering noise-reducing tools, either, and insist that the noise is good (duplication from one micro-node of friends to another). I don't think they've done research with real users. - Robert Scoble

FF should steal some ideas from Digg on commenting. It should also steal some of Digg's recommendation features. I think an interesting addition would be to have most popular threads and discussions for the global FF network, among other types of recommendations. - Charles Ju

Fragmentation and duplication are serious ills of FF - oh how I wish we could tag a conversation so we could have unified conversations around a topic; but just think how LONG the comment thread would be...wow. Rich convo but too long?! - Susan Beebe

Robert, you "don't think" Kevin's done user research, or you asked him and he told you he didn't? Kevin, what do you say? - Jason Wehmhoener

I agree with Robert, Friendfeed needs a new UI if it wants to go mainstream. Maybe some sort of homepage like the new facebook profile. More noise-reductions tool would be good too. - Alejandro

Well, considering most people I talk to still wont use a feed reader, you may be right. I think part of the mainstream problem is that there are so many different services out there and friendfeed can potentially pull all of it together for them. For me, I want to be able to read blog posts, shared google reader items, digg articles, etc right here, I mean heck - there's an awful lot of screen real estate there to the right-hand side....let's have some AJAX-y fetching going on of the actual content. - Rob Neville

I think you're incorrect, Robert: mainstream people are not as interconnected as people are in early adopter communities. I think Kevin's got a point: let's say you remove the early adopter audience. Do you think one person's friends really cares what you, or me, or potentially 50 to 100 strangers think about something? They care about what they're friends are doing. Just look to real... more... - Mark Trapp

To my point, I really don't care that 500 other strangers shared a story, or that there were 80 comments with people I don't know talking about it. I care about the people I'm following. I want to have a discussion with people I care about, not strangers. I think the reshare and fragmentation facilitates that. If say, James Ferguson shared a story, I'm interested in that, because it... more... - Mark Trapp

well then we need a feature that locks out superconnectors who have, say, more than 50 friends. Or at least locks them out for, say, a day so that a micronode conversation can happen first. - Robert Scoble

I was watching Michael Arington's Stanford Startup School presentation and I think a good point he made was that after your site gets to critical mass, the comments start to become trolly and the community loses its close connection. I can foresee this being a huge problem for FF as it grows. - Charles Ju

Robert, maybe even if there was a way for the content producer to say "Do not allow friend of friend on this post." So, it becomes sorta like an on-demand private feed. You can still see it, but your like and your comment doesn't expose it to 15,000 other people. And of course, there'd be some visual indicator: could even use the lock icon like it does for full private feeds. - Mark Trapp

Mark: point taken...I suppose what I was getting at, although not articulating quite well now that I read it again is that I think the key for taking FF beyond us abnormal folks is to make it a one-stop-shop to remove the confusion of so many social interactivity services and feed readers, etc. I think FF has the capacity to do that with some tweaks. - Rob Neville

I agree with you Robert Neville; I apologize, my response was directed towards Robert Scoble. There's a few assumptions that I think we take for granted that's lost on most people: 1) privacy is an illusion, 2) we're all interconnected, 3) we spend an acceptably large amount of time online. No matter how true those sound to us, for most people, there's a lot of pushback. Which is why,... more... - Mark Trapp

I think Kevin (and FF as a whole) is correct in realizing the value of fragmented conversations. The issue here is that super-connectors with 20K subscribers are bound to expose those fragmented conversations (that otherwise would go unnoticed by the masses, as intended) quite often - all they need to do is 'Like' whatever random item that shows up in their feed. Not only that -... more... - Aviv

Best two lines in this conversation: "We're abnormal" [Mark Trapp] & "we need a feature that locks out superconnectors" [Robert Scoble]. The rest is just noise. :P - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

a more compelling UI would truly elevate FF...but then, that could be said about many Web apps - .LAG liked that

on the contrary, i would much rather have a service that is up and running all the time than a fancy prettified site that is virtually useless. the past few days, facebook has crashed my browser SO many times, the only time i go on is via phone. myspace? every since their overhaul i NEVER go there anymore - Mona Nomura

some of my favorite services are niche! - Ross M Karchner

I actually like the FF interface in its current form. It's lightning fast ( damn facebook is getting irritatingly slower these days ) and its UI is simple much more Googlesque. It's quite unique that its social graph is not bi-directional (like many other social networks), and it gives me tons of useful links and is gradually becoming where i come for personalized information discovery.... more... - Krishna Gade

Friendfeed will go mainstream when the applications that fuel it go mainstream (which might be a while). Whoever mentioned that people don't even get feed readers was right. Even among tech-savvy types (non-web), concepts like RSS and Social Bookmarking are still completely foreign. - Steve Spalding

*sigh* niche tools are so important both digitally and in meatspace - why does everything need to become mainstream to be viewed as a success - the majority of businesses and products in the world would be considered niche and in aggregate far out weight the aggregate of what would be considered mainstream - no disrespect to you steve for writing this post but anytime i see "this will never be mainstream" sentiments i can't help but think that its a myopic view - mike "glemak" dunn

FF depends on a whole lot of users using open services like Twitter Flickr etc. I know no one outside of tech who uses them. Most people are locked into the privacy world view and wouldn't dream of openly sharing their stuff. FF is SV/tech niche only. Sadly......... - Sean Kelly

+1 Bwana - I am highly responsive by email; not everyone is - Susan Beebe

I'm noticing that now too, especially with the younger generation. I received very few replies from a recent email invitation and noted that many of my contacts haven't checked their email lately. They all collaborate via SMS or social network messaging nowadays. In fact many young adults reminded me that email is the method to connect to "old people." - Glenn Batuyong from twhirl

I get more email than I possibly can answer so I don't even try anymore - Robert Scoble

I like email and plan to never give it up. It works, as long as you know what to expect from it. Some conversations are better left to IM, or even better (when possible) to a phone call -- or, as we're doing here, to sites like FF or Twitter. - Raoul Pop

I find that services like Twitter, FriendFeed, and RSS Readers give control back to the consumer of information, unlike email where upwards of 40% a day is typically corporate spam (i.e. CCs, status, etc). If information and status were broadcast-based, I could better use my email channel for delegating and receiving actions. - Shawn Dahlen from twhirl

Brian - blogged about this very subject recently: http://bhc3.wordpress.com/2008... - Hutch Carpenter

I have to wonder sometimes whether junk filters are at fault. Maybe at least some of those people never even received your message? - asiriusgeek

Thanks for all the responses & talking points. Nice post too Hutch! Thanks for sharing. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

The followup should be how long will spam take to crawl its way onto Twitter and FriendFeed. From a quick glance, I don't think programming a spam bot to game either Twitter or FF would be too difficult. - Charles Ju

Email has an audit trail... it's harder to deal with threading, archiving and compliance issues on FF and Twitter. - Bill Sodeman

That's a very good point Bill. We still don't OWN our data across all these socnets, which is very frustrating to me. I want my own personal archive in the cloud that stores, backs-up, and indexes the whole of my meta. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

E-mail is still my primary preference for anything that doesn't require immediate attention; then you should IM me. However, most of my friends don't use e-mail much at all and, instead, try to leave messages on IRC of all places. - Akiva Moskovitz

It depends on your contacts. They may ignore email, have dumped you via their spam filters and might not know a tweet from a bleat. Try im or the phone :-) - iSteeve

When are they going to be powered by solar energy? 3rd, 4th generation? - Fernando

I'm looking forward to iPods powered by kinetic energy. Like those watches that power themselves through everyday normal wear.I wonder if there is enough power in that to run the shuffle though... - Charles Ju

Just curious, I don't want to start a potentially ugly debate, but how exactly is it insulting? Thanks. - Randy

Randy: It's not, not in general. But I can think of any number of reasons why an individual might *feel* insulted, and they're entitled to their feelings. - Roger Benningfield

So it insulting and demeaning for playboy to post a head shot of Sarah Austin, for a poll and she wants it taken down. Fine it is her image and that is her right. Though is it also insulting and demeaning that Sarah spent todays entire episode of Pop17 playing the Wii fit girl video over and over? http://www.viddler.com/explore.... Will she pull down that episode if the Wii fit girl ask her too? - Charles Dick

Um, settle down, Beavis. :) The "insulting and demeaning" thing is Leo's. I asked Sarah here on FF if she was offended by Playboy's offered opportunity, and she said she wasn't. It's possible that she's just not comfortable being put in a competitive position with these other women... not everyone loves a contest. Don't project Leo's bias on to her. - Roger Benningfield

I'm happy whenever a decent guy defends women's rights to not be objectified. Go, Leo! - kiwinerd

Yeah, I don't know the whole situation, but this is *Playboy*. I think we all know what their motives are. And in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a male, but I think it's all about the way in which it's presented. Some women may feel as though this is akin to walking down the street and running into a bunch of guys going ga-ga and saying, "Whip out dem tits baybee!" But unlike real life, if you don't like what you're seeing in the Internets, you can close the window/tab and ignore it. - Randy

From what I understand and, have read quite a few of those women (if not all) were made aware by Playboy that their pictures and bios were going up in the poll. Although, apparently they weren't aware the winner may be asked to pose nude. Given that and, the fact a commenter here said she wasn't offended, I wonder why she wants it taken down? - The Geek Media

I also can appreciate and respect her desire to not have her "brand" associated with that one. Insulting may be a little strong however. After all PB is not exactly triple X material. - Robert

It's totally insulting. Playboy values women only for their looks. "Win" the poll and get an invite to pose nude. Yick. Would you ask Einstein to pose nude? I would hope that Sarah is more interested in being valued for what she knows than how she looks. If you think Playboy's vah vah voom attitude isn't demeaning to women you might want to examine your values. - Leo Laporte

To tell you the truth, I hope that the winner chooses not to pose (especially if it's Brigitte, because I follow her video blog). Somehow something important would be lost IMHO, whether it's a perception of innocence on the part of her followers or something else. Somehow it seems wrong to me, it's hard to explain - Thomas B from NoiseRiver

"If you think Playboy's vah vah voom attitude isn't demeaning to women you might want to examine your values" Luv ya, Leo, but couldja show me your "I'm a middle-aged guy entitled to speak for women" certificate? I believe these legal adults made their own decisions - and some had "poser's remorse" afterwards (posus interruptus?) - Dean Barnett

Well that's a good question. Did Playboy ask permission? They certainly don't have to - all the women are public figures. If Playboy did, that's great. If Sarah said yes and then regretted it, I can certainly understand, but at that point Playboy has no obligation to take it down. - Leo Laporte

Yeah, wow Leo. Tone down the snark a bit. Oh, and I wouldn't ask Einstein to pose nude because 1) He's *dead*, and 2) He isn't sexy to me. It's as simple as that. Playboy isn't drugging up runaways on Sunset Boulevard, they're saying, "Hey, flat out--we think you're attractive and some people may want to see you naked. Cool? It's not? That's cool too." - Randy

Unsure about the Playboy thing. After all, @shelisrael and @Scobleizer posed topless. Maybe if more male bloggers--never mind! - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Now seeing someone only for their looks is one thing. But this started based off their jobs.. AND, its saying that they have the brains to be in this position, and yet also have amazing looks. It's hardly insulting unless someone takes offense to what most would consider a compliment, or a dream offer. - InsaneNinja

I agree with Leo. Its simply an opinion poll. The only thing they could possibly be asked to take down is the picture, and that was probably taken by their own photographers anyway, so no take-down there. The Funny part I think is what is it with Mothers taking their 8 year olds, to go to a signing for Playboy Models.... Please someone explain that. But besides that, it brings and interesting question of how companies deal with polls. Do you think its right for things like that, be put live without consent? - Tyler (Chacha)

Well they are meant to be fun. But i was wondering if they ask for the Bloggers to agree to be on it or not? I don't know that. - Jorge

I think that just the simple fact that they're objectifying these women can be construed to be both demeaning and insulting. However, on a personal basis, I wouldn't mind Playgirl putting my ugly mug on a poll. Further, since they are public figures, I don't think Playboy has to ask to do anything with their faces and bios. - Charles Ju

Leo: I have so many problems with what you're saying that I scarcely know where to start. :) Saying that Playboy only values women for their looks is like saying that ESPN only values Kobe Bryant for his athleticism... um, yeah, so? If Einstein were hot and alive in 2008, we would have already seen him at least half-naked via Perez. And since when is life a series of binary options? Why can't a woman be valued for what she knows *and* how she looks? *And* how she can belch the Constitution's preamble? - Roger Benningfield

Leo: But most of all... "examine your values"? That's an awfully high horse you've got there, Mr. Laporte. Beware the steeplechase. :) - Roger Benningfield

Roger: I am kinda with you on that one. I mean if we can not value someone for their looks than Hollywood should just shut down, modeling should become illegal and teeth whitening the subject of tabloids. Also all of those old oil paintings in the Louvre? Confiscate them. I think people took their clothes off for a lot of them. PB is about as Americana as Elvis by many people's estimates. To be sure a lot of extreme adult stuff is distasteful to a majority of people. Not sure that I see this in that light. - Robert

I don't much care for Playboy either, but seriously don't get why the intelligentsia is so anti-beauty. It's weird. I'd just reiterate what I said more extensively in this conversation: http://friendfeed.com/e... , which is: beauty is just as valid a way for the world to unfold as is anything else. Kinda agreeing with Roger and Robert here. - Anthony Citrano

I'm an adult woman and a loyal member of the "TWiT army", and I back Leo strongly here. Leo's defence, on air and off, of women's and girls' rights - like the right to not be objectified - is way admirable. Leo Laporte is the Chief TWiT for a reason, and it's not just for his technical, journalistic, and teaching prowess and friendly demeanour. Leo's a fundamentally decent person, a role model, which is why it matters that he exerts leadership. Leo, you're my hero! - kiwinerd

Well said @kiwinerd! I believe that is why so many good people are drawn to Leo. - Jim Bednarz

I don't know why you people are criticizing Leo for openly protecting the liberties of another human being. It's pretty ridiculous that Leo has to defend his stance, you guys are immature and should be ashamed. Just think if your wife, gf, sister, or mother was put into a Playboy poll, would you be ok with that? If not, then you're a hypocrite. - Charles Ju

Doesn't the poll just boil down to "Who would you rather see naked?" That seems like a pretty crude and immature question to me. - Mark

So, Mark, once one "matures", they don't like to see girls naked? I'm also not getting what's "crude" about naked women. I dislike Playboy, too, but because of their unapologetic tack and ordinariness, not that they aspire to worship at the altar of women they find attractive. - Anthony Citrano

Ask yourself why it's important to get female bloggers naked, and yet nearly everone wants to keep the male bloggers fully clothed. It doesn't strike you the least bit odd that only guys can be noteworthy simply for the work they do? I've been playing around on the net for 15 years, and I learned quickly not to let people know I was female. No one asks for pictures if he thinks you're a guy; it's what you say that's important. Reveal your gender, and the request for pictures -- clothed or sans -- begin. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

I was trying to say that the concept of the poll, any kind of poll like this, seems just kind of stupid. I agree with those that say these kind of layouts make women objects - I think MiniMage makes this point very well. As a man, I know I have to fight the temptation to see women only in terms of their appearance. I think things like Playboy and this poll play to almost a caveman instinct. Is this really what being a man is all about - voting on which woman I would rather see naked? - Mark

Examined values, don't think it is demeaning. We've seen the emails asking permission. They didn't even need to do that. - matthew

I see what you mean Mark. I'm just saying I don't get why saying a woman is sexy/beautiful is objectifying. Pointing out one asset of a person in no way diminishes the others. I mean, if someone says to me "that's a great article you wrote" or "what a great picture you took", I don't stomp my feet and get indignant and whine, "is that all I am to you? just a string of words?! what about my heart, my soul, my cooking, my business skills??" - Anthony Citrano

@MiniMage - the reason men ask for pictures of women is because men are far, far more visually motivated than women. Guys care what women look like more than women care what guys look like. I also disagree with your premise; women can be noteworthy simply for the work they do - plenty are. But if one is beautiful, I just don't see why that's a bad thing. The world gives everybody certain gifts - and beauty is no more or less a gift than athletic ability, speaking skills, or being a good programmer. - Anthony Citrano

@Anthony Citrano (acitrano): The premise isn't mine; it's the message I get from Playboy. I get that guys have the visual "on" switch. Furthermore, I'd be lying if I claimed my eyes only looked at my beloved technology. However, I think this goes beyond (beneath?) "this blogger is an excellent combination of functionality and form." Can't women be beautiful without looking like they're about to cater to a fella's, ah, reproductive instinct? - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF from NoiseRiver

@Mini - understood. And I'm not sticking up for them; as I said, I'm not a fan. Just was exploring our reaction to the broader issue of beauty. I think sometimes people have this knee-jerk reaction that's weirdly anti-beauty, or at least anti-beauty-appreciation. And you're right that they're not pitching the whole product, no. But they're in "entertainment," so what can we expect? :) - Anthony Citrano

yes - Robert Scoble

Yep, no reason you cant! - Matt Harwood

Yeah, 3rd party apps can't run in the background but some Apple ones (such as the iPod app) can! - Martin Bryant

Can those notes sync to your desktop now? (MobileMe maybe)? - Soulhuntre from twhirl

I haven't tried it but Mobile Me has a Notes sync option under System Preferences, so looks like it! - Martin Bryant

This is great to know - at the moment I use a Palm Tungsten for this - and it's surprisingly good at it. It was the one useful purpose I still carry it for. - Jonathan Beckett

yep indeed yee can - Dan Rockwell from twhirl

of course I still have to wait until September when my contract runs out before buying an iPhone... - Jonathan Beckett

Yes to both the mental capacity to multithread that task and the capacity of the iPhone to allow both notes and music to be played at the same time. - Charles Ju

evernote is an excellent note taking app which is available in the iphone store for free, has desktop and web clients and syncs to the cloud. This is the KILLER app for the iphone and ipod touch - Jonathan Denison

I like microtransactions, as opposed to a full blown subscription model. - Charles Ju

i have to concur, i should only pay when i'm fully engaged, although that doesn't help with reliable revenue flows for any of these companies - Jeff Woelker from twhirl

[Looks into crystal ball] I predict an ad slowdown from the recession will push content providers back to a Pay for Premium model. Which would be fine by me. I don't mind paying for services. - Sprague D

The freemium model works but only for products where there is a real value proposition for the premium version. Flickr is a good example, where lots of us have paid to upgrade because we wanted more photo albums, etc. But it's really hard to do with services like Twitter, where heavy users use the same capabilities, just in higher volume. Sure, you could charge for the ability to follow... more... - Barry Graubart from twhirl

Interesting article. I have worked for two different companies that embraced the walled garden and both those companies 'went free' to compete. It was also interesting that although those companies had subscriber fees, they also had ads. - gregory

I'm someone who benefits from all of these great web services and wouldn't mind if I had to pay for some of them, (like Flickr before I paid for it) wanted me to host my own content. I have tons of web space that I'm not even using. I think I'm drifting from the point, sorry. The point is that I don't like monthly subscriptions but I'm happy paying for Flickr and Quicktime Pro. I don't mind microtransactions either. I'd probably pay for a big set of Friendfeed filter and thread management tools too. - sergiooo

'Facebook is offering its own application at the iPhone App Store.' - Be interesting to see Facebook's statistics in three months time! - Joe Dawson

@joe yeah just downloaded it - MG Siegler

I feel that a native fb app is a little bit redundant. Their web app is really excellent. - Charles Ju

I will be tomorrow night at least - not sure who else is joining me yet :) - MG Siegler

there's already a line at the palo alto store - David Vasileff

@david - i'm sure that's the case at quite a few of them. not sure what time i should show up at... - MG Siegler

Waves!!!! - Joe Dawson

hey joe, welcome - MG Siegler

Hey MG it's currently 17:46 GMT how many hours until it all starts rocking where you are? - Joe Dawson

@joe think i might head over around 8 or 9 pm, not sure if it gets crowded maybe earlier or maybe later - MG Siegler

I'll play the contrarian and say a 190 close. - Kevin D. White

Agreed, it will end down, just like last WWDC. It doesn't matter if Jobs reveals that the iSphere can cure cancer, the stock will take a hit. - Phil G

178.35 - Louis Gray

Wasnt it down after the iPhone announcement at Macworld 2007? - Jamie

170 if no iPhone and 200 if iPhone and something else crazy :-D - Akshay Dodeja

It's not today that will matter. It will take the Street a while to digest the fact that the iPhone will now work in Corporate Environments (Exchange Active Sync) which means that Fortune 500 will be dumping Blackberry and going iPhone. This news has been out for months, but those Wall St guys aren't so smart. - Stuart Hall

182.8 and firming up for a move..i cant believe hedge fund managers are timming this move to the key note - Turbo

AAPL vs RIMM 1 day http://finance.google.com/finance...& - Andrew Smith

184 - Steve Jobs will pull a bunny out of the hat and the market will react accordingly. - Charles Ju

182 :( - Turbo

$179 ... Mr Market is in a bad mood - Turbo