the landing page looks great, but go a page deeper and it feels pretty kludgy.
- Christian Anderson
Yep. I'm really liking the directions Microsoft has been taking with their web sites. Bing is fantastic and this looks really good, too.
- Akiva Moskovitz
The one thing Microsoft needs to get away from is underlines for links. No one likes 'em, no one wants 'em. Either change colors or, in a block-oriented layout like this, have the backgrounds of each block change color. That'd be a far more interactive UX right there.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I hate it. It's too big and full of stuff I don't want, and won't resize properly.
- m9m, Crone of FriendFeed
Resizes like a champ in Chrome Mac. And as for content, well, it's a generic portal. Most likely if you sign in, you'll be able to customize it 'til your heart's content.
- Akiva Moskovitz
*turns up unrequited love-esque country and western song on the radio of his pickup and dreams of what might have been*..............
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
I normally never share personal stuff but this caught me so off guard I Tweeted it as a knee-jerk reaction. Stupid mistake I ever made. But now I know. And knowing is half the battle!
- Mona Nomura
so you're NOT getting married? damn, it would have been a fun wedding to go to :)
- Tudor Bosman
No I'm not, but when I *DO* get married, you bet your butt it'd be fun. And all my FF peeps are invited. Wedding favors would be like conference schwag: t-shirts and totes. Food would be like conference food: gummi bears and Swedish Fish. FTW.
- Mona Nomura
*lol* A conference themed wedding would be totally awesome! Would the groom be required to attend Mona 101 earlier in the day before the ceremony?
- Rachel Lea Fox
No, his only duty would be to make sure there are enough power strips and the WiFi is working ok LOL
- Mona Nomura
Oo. I want a badge.. and a title. We'll toss our business cards in fishbowls to see who gets the center piece.
- Rodfather
lol that's not nice, Mona. If you did marry Chris, you too could have two 30" monitors connected to a tricked out Mac Pro. Not a bad deal, there.
- Danny Minick
I would have an MsSurface for folks to exchange contact info. And quit bringing up Pirillo - seriously, I'd rather eat a tub of year old bacon grease (like I said up there) or even a garbage bag full of popcorn jelly beans (which I HATE with a passion) than marry him. Seriously. GROSS.
- Mona Nomura
Or drink an entire gallon of egg whites. With pickle juice. Mixed with Spam. Omg I just threw up in my mouth.
- Mona Nomura
No he does, but I think it's also time you get some sl... Sleep is a waste of time for the unproductive. I don't think you've been unproductive lately get some sleep.
- Jimminy
I'm looking left. I'm looking right. Back. forth. back. forth. In the space between truth and fiction I am playing PONG.
- Micah Wittman
lol this is classic - and very brave of you to post ;)
- Chris Saad
Brave, indeed. The arched brow says everything. :)
- Mark Evans
We all try to show our best side to the outside world, particularly when it's with regard to business. But is it really disingenuous to show a happy face any more than it would be to show a scowl? Neither represents you or the collective us 100% of the time. Does this mean we need a chart with all our moods on it to greet potential clients? :) I do like the arched brow. hehe
- Sheryl
Sorry to say this, Louis, but I will attempt to run away if I see someone coming to me bearing that smile you have on the second photo. I'd be like, "Darnit, here's another salesman wanting to pressure me into buying some thingamajig again..." No offense, Louis. But even for marketing, I really think you can do without the oh-so-friendly smile :-)
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
from fftogo
I never ceased to be amazed by how so much is done by so few. Everyone in that picture rocks. I'll even give Camilla a wee fistbump.
- CAJ, somewhere else
since we all know FriendFeed is a parasite of Twitter, it would appear that if MG is right that Twitter is a ghost town. The innovation halting, however, is a ticking time bomb for Facebook.
FriendFeed would be fine without Twitter in my opinion... I block most tweets anyway. Why do you have the impression that it is a parasite of Twitter? I am not happy about the lack of support and innovation here now though. But I'm gonna ride this boat till it grounds because it's still the best ship to be on, IMO.
- Lindsay
MG is missing the conversations in FF, which were not a parasite of Twitter. In fact, the FF faithful deliberately avoid commenting on Twitter-originated content, which I think is a significant driver of FF's slow downward spiral.
- Christian Anderson
Part of the fun is knowing that the Twitter-only readers don't read my responses, don't get the value of a threaded conversation and are yet again just blowing their bugle into their own beadspread.
- Aron Michalski
from BuddyFeed
The twitter V Friendfeed rivalry is fascinating to watch from the outside but I'll say that my engagement is far higher on twitter and the boycott of tweets does the FF no favors. Could just as easily be symbiotic but whatever ;)
- WarLord
To be clear, are these /conversations/ -truly- threaded or are we reduced to lumping another row on the bonfire of banality?
- Jay Cuthrell
Well, point taken but having to go look for replies on another page or a column of a client seems counterproductive. As it stands it doesn't matter with me as I often will post and never have any response. I guess I'm not interesting or inflammatory enough.
- Aron Michalski
from BuddyFeed
I like sharing with FF as a mechanism to push back into Twitter. I periodically stop importing Twitter into FF. I've tried FF as a dumping ground and didn't like it longer term. Facebook seems more about presenting applications with annoying graphics in front of me. Reminds me why I stopped watching TV. Facebook will likely be next.
- Jay Cuthrell
the point is, ff is no deader than twitter. neither is. where's stream splicing?
- Steve Gillmor
Steve it hurts my feelings that not only don't you tweet on twitter, but you have given up on mp3 files too! And the irony is that the TriCaster is a vestige of the Amiga...
- Michael Pinto
Many people hide Twitter in FriendFeed, and watch Twitter somewhere else.
- Louis Gray
Interesting...Scoble pretty much (unless I just misunderstood) said the reverse.He thinks FF is the ghost town and Twitter is the place to be. I didn't realize either had problems. Both seem just as active to me, but I'm just a user too.
- George Gray
posting Dare's FB comment here: Dare Obasanjo That's a bogus statement and you know it. Friendfeed was a Twitter app that lots of people used. People have moved on to other apps since the FB purchase (Brizzly?). This isn't a reflection on Twitter just a sign that people no longer treat Friendfeed as a primary destination for conversations around microcontent
- Steve Gillmor
Interesting that Dare's comment is on Facebook, not Brizzly? Once FB solves the orphan comment problem, many will move there. For now, I see little difference in FF since the acquisition except for frozen development, as MG points out. Brizzly or Seesmic or Threadsy do not provide a replacement for FF, at least for me, at least not yet. What has changed is the time FB has to bridge the...
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- Steve Gillmor
Michael I tweet on twitter thru here, just like others use Tweetie, etc. I haven't given up on mp3 but rather moved to mp4. YouTube is currently not providing an RSS feed for my stream, and the approval process for downloads seems stuck for the last few episodes. I used my Amiga and Toaster until they stopped supporting them, and the Tricaster goes well beyond the Toaster.
- Steve Gillmor
i had to remove twitter from friendfeed to prevent doubleposting on facebook. (as if there were no problems in our world)
- kosmar
kosmar don't understand your problem. I post here, it goes to Twitter, which pipes it to Facebook. However, Facebook comments to my posts are orphaned on Facebook.
- Steve Gillmor
Steve, I can't believe how many comments missed the semantics of the post - that the pointy end of the stick was jabbing at Twitter. It may be a style thing I'm already used to, I don't know. :)
- Micah Wittman
steve, well i want all ff lifestream aggregation be on facebook - but the ff app on facebook only posts "posts" on the wall, which look ugly and therefore are less conversational it seems. i would prefer to have my fb-status changed by the items the ff app pushes (like twitter app does) - best twitter to facebook seems tweetpo.st (but is handicapped by twitter follower ratio issues at...
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- kosmar
… orphaned comments are one big problem. if all would be wave (or maybe pshb), that could be fixed, i guess. - but then, if someone talks about you on the phone, that will forever be orphaned anyway (i do hope so)
- kosmar
it just seems to me having recently tried ff in more frequency that with facebook and twitter it is far easier to request contact and it feels more direct - unless i am missing a way to have this dynamic in ff
- Alexander Kitingan
Network effects suggest its wise to work with many networks, not against them. Tis a bit arbitrary and capricious for a user to 'prefer' one nascent platform over another.
- Just some guy
Here are the MLB playoffs in one, handy calendar. Down below, there's ticket availability and ticket prices for the upcoming games as well as wins and losses for the ones that have been played.
- Christian Anderson
Where is this FriendFeed in-crowd I keep hearing about and what do I have to do to to get into it? I'm sick of not having any comments or likes on my junk. I think I'm just going to quit FriendFeed.
If you posted your junk, I'm sure I would comment.
- Andrizzle Gizzle
See what I mean? This was posted 12 minutes ago and only has 6 likes and 6 comments. If I was part of the inner circle of FF, it would have a bajillion likes and comments already. This site is just a popularity contest.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
NOW IT ONLY HAS FIVE LIKES WHAT DO YOU THINK NOW :( :( :(
- Andrizzle Gizzle
LMFAO! I know you did not just unlike my post...LOL! I'll have to remember that technique in the future. Too funny.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
With the current state of the economy, I believe you forgot the new policy: you have to pay $1 for every like or comment. :)
- imabonehead
Well, that just proves this site is a rip-off. I'm going back to MySpace
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I hope you felt punished, I have since forgiven you.
- Andrizzle Gizzle
i would say something, but was told too never argue with the coach
- chaz2b
You cannot smite me. You may be the God of FF, but I am Rah, God of the Sun. I am unsmiteable, my friend.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Oh, hey now, omnipotent sun God. I don't comment more, because I'm not at all sure that FriendFeed is ready for (some of) my opinions. I mostly lurk on FF, but I'd miss you if you weren't here.
- Yvette Ferry
So you're saying I'm part of the inner circle of FF, Rahsheen?? I get pretty good responses, but I'm nowhere near the most popular person here. I think they key is *pictures*. You haven't posted any in a long time.
- Kamilah Gill
Pictures, Kamilah? How long do you think it would take us to learn to draw like you?
- Bruce Lewis
Oh, just for the record, I was totally kidding here because, once again, I was seeing a bunch of "Woe is me, nobody is liking my junk" threads and I just don't understand why people complain about this type of thing on FF, but it seems they just shut up and deal with it everywhere else.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I think it's probably because it's more noticeable on FF. On Twitter, no one else sees how many @ mentions other people get. However, on FF, you see everyone's comments to every person you're following (on top of that, you see the entire thread when someone you're following comments on someone else's post). It makes it more obvious that you're not as popular as other people. Some of us...
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- Curtiss Grymala
And those who whine about it become even less popular. I love those who put up content that is interesting, engaging, entertaining... If the only reason folk are on twitter, FF or other social media is straight-up, self-centred marketing. they bore me and get deleted. I'm good with a balance, but all marketing and score keeping without sincere content leaves me cold.
- Fossil Huntress
Hmmm. Wolf. We can't see the "bunch of threads" you see. FYI.
- Yvette Ferry
You get into the "in" crowd by being here a lot, posting interesting stuff and being an active part of the conversation. But you already knew that, lol
- LANjackal
How come Coach of FF quit in this way? ;)
- ashish
I was just kidding. I'd never quit for such a silly reason :)
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
The defending Super Bowl champion Steelers fell out of the #1 slot in the FanSnap FanDemand rankings this week as they travel to Chicago to take on the Bears. The Bears now sit atop the FanDemand rankings. Steelers and Bears fans will be vying for the hottest ticket in the NFL -- seats at Soldier Field on Sunday. (see the complete rankings below)
- Christian Anderson
I think I should be worried. My 3 yo just asked me, "Mama, why is that (edit!) man pointing at Barack Obama?" How does my 3yo recognize Obama from behind? o.O
- Admiral Anika
I call Scoble by the nickname "that" all the time
- Steve Rubel
LOL I fixed it. This heat is making me drop words all the time.
- Admiral Anika
People recognize Michael Jordan's silhouette too - remember the cologne logo?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
"How does my 3yo recognize Obama from behind?" - I remember reading about a study that found that you are actuallly more likely to recognize someone from behind.
- John Craft
Barack: Wow, look at the way that guy points. He should be president, not me. Who is he? No, never heard of him. I know an Alex Scoble. Are they related?
- Slippy "WildBeard" Lane
Social Obama looking at a Social Robert Scoble's picture? This one is great!
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
++Adrian Malone "Caption: "Unfollowed. O. Here's Why;______"
- Robert Higgins
Security Briefing: Anything goes bad during your Presidency, well... just "Blame Scoble" -that guy on the screen. Oh yeah, he's a huge geek that tweets so much the Twitter servers crash often, thus the famed "fail whale" image shows up. :) hehe!
- Susan Beebe
from iPhone
The Internet Wants YOU. - says Uncle Robert.
- Call me Bronco
@Christian - It's an iPhone app. No desktop version that I know of.
- Grey Drane
twitterfon still does it for me .. keep going back to it ,, paid for Birdfeed , meh
- johnpiercy
Twitterrific has even more features. I especially like the "compress text" and "shorten url´s" auto functions. Very useful. The visual style is very good. The usability, especially that i begin with the latest tweets and "go forward in time" not the other way around. The search ist great. And there is a LITE version, which is for free. I would really suggest you try it for a while. (Winner of the apple design award) But without landscape keyboard, that is the only thing i really miss.
- Flynn (Michael A. Volz)
twitterific best for me so far. I tap for coversation and double tap for a profile
- Walter Logeman
Walter - Yeah, I'd like to see SimplyTweet implement some of Twitterrific's UI ideas, too, like double/triple-tapping and tapping links directly in the main feed view (without having to view the individual tweet full screen). I think Twitterrific has the slickest interface, but is still missing some important features, and I suspect it might cause battery drain/heating on my phone (happened a few times after I started using the app and hasn't happened again since I stopped).
- Grey Drane
Yet another Twitter iPhone client... oh ok! I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip.
- Diego Barros
Well, a landscape keyboard and landscape mode in the in-app browser first off. Push notifications, too. Viewing follower lists. I guess these are the main ones, but there are other little things, too, like hashtag inserting and Posterous support (which could be a biggie, but I'm still just playing around with Posterous).... (Note: these are all things SimplyTweet does that Twitterrific doesn't AFAIK.)
- Grey Drane
from IM
Great blog appreciate all of your "likes" that I would not have noticed before. Thanks for all the time you spend educating us.
- Gary Prechtel
auto-follow always seemed like a bad idea. people can always msg you but your stream will get totally cluttered if you dont do a little bit of housekeeping.
- William Kapes
Oh you are getting quite a response here!!!! I'm commenting so you'll follow me but the thing is you're going to LIKE following me because you'll learn all about Sedona through tons of videos and you'll love it so much you'll want to pack your camera and head out here! =)
- SedonaTV
Thanks for the mentions, Robert (and you know I'm not commenting just for the follow - I just like to follow you, which is what counts!)
- Jesse Stay
Guess I might as well delete that overpriced twitter app I bought last week.
- Shea
from iPhone
Actually Robert, now I've seen you've tidied up your twitter, I'll probably follow you there again too. :-)
- Tim
Meh, who cares really, not like you read everyone you followed. Plus unfollowed you anyways, not like you have to say that's interestined except friendfeed spam.
- Steve
@scobleizer just created the most important tech follow list on Twitter.
- Christian Anderson
aww shucks, and here I was thinking it was just me who you unfollowed.
- Jess Sloss
I underwent the same situation, Robert - I unfollowed almost everybody on Twitter who duplicated their accounts here on FrF. I got a tempest of fury for this action. web3 is too personal still ))
- massagin
I feel fortunate that you're still subbed to me on FF. I haven't even noticed whether you unfollowed me on Twitter. But you following me, still hasn't gotten me the chicks. :P Always fun seeing your posts, long as you don't block me, it doesn't matter if you follow me or not. :)
- Arlan Koizumi
I did the same thing some weeks ago after avoiding twitter because it got too noisy. It was instantly better. But in the mean time I started to use FF more and I like it better here so I hardly go near twitter now.
- Murray Barton
You already follow me here on ff, which i use more than twitter.
- dthree
Don't think you are following me on Twitter anymore..please do and best regards
- Karma Martell
I'm still trying to figure out the following... so I'm watching how you do it scoble.
- Matthew Schrock
Good plan. I'm looking forward to your results. I'm trying to figure out all these social media elements. I would appreciate your Twitter follow.
- David Stanley
Odd internal response, I don't follow everyone who follows me cuz of the very noise you talk about. And, there's no good reason for you to follow me since I'm unlikely to deliver news of interest to you. And yet, here I am, posting on FriendFeed so you have the OPTION of following me, a stranger who is not the same kind of SMART as you. Who'd have thought...
- Della Mauler
Interesting statement about original content value of FF independent of twitter. Twitter is where you keep your noise level down...
- James Watters
This seems like asking for trouble to me, Scoble. But, it's your time and bandwith to do with what you will. Since only a handful of people (by that I think I mean just one) follow me on Twitter, it's pretty easy for me to weed out the bots. The people I follow are my internet nerds (mostly the Rev 3 crew) so I know their interests are in line with mine. Hit me up for some edifying conversations about Lost and video games, Robert.
- Jeremiah Green
Here you go Robert! [also via twitter: @Scobleizer Therefore: only approx. 1.7 million "active" human @Twitter users contribute 50%+ of all activity, right? #engagement] Regards, @AAinslie
- Alexander Ainslie
You're still following me - does that mean I'm a smart feller? ;)
- Brett Kelly
so glad I mail Robert a business card every month :)
- Christian Anderson
Della: the thing is here I can follow you and put you into a list and watch you less frequently than some of my other people. So everyone wins. But only here on FriendFeed. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Some of us have been doing this from our start. Kind of cool, eh? But our numbers don't grow quickly so we were tagged as "slow." Nice to see you catch up with us! Also, this may shock you, there sre folks who follow and communicate with only 3 folks on twitter and they are HAPPY! Imagine....
- lynda spangler
I've long thought the entire Twitter "etiquette" of always following who follows you to be a bit of a folly. I'm following 114 at the moment, and the stream still moves too fast for me to keep up with.
- Darren Landrum
Good test, count me in... I don't follow tons of people, I follow a few prolific Scoble-types and the rest are more focused in areas I'm interested in.
- David Ziembicki
I'm not following tons of people, just a select few. More to follow on FB when facebook has completely integrated Friendfeed-funcionality. ;-)
- Wolfgang G. Wettach
I only follow people I know or have something interesting to say, did you really have 160000 people that said something worthwhile???
- Gerard van Schip
Gerard: everyone says something worthwhile once in a while. The trick is to see it when it happens. Here on FriendFeed, by the way, you have a better shot because good stuff usually gets liked and commented on, so it pulls up higher into my view.
- Robert Scoble
Nice post Robert, and no surprise it's an improvement. ;o) I have seen it for me too.
- Rob Sellen :o)
1 thing I find Robert still worth following @Scobleizer when I am not on friendfeed & on my Hootsuite or PeopleBrowsr. therefore not much affected, not much 2 bother me, ego not gone at all. luv your post Robert it is a frank posting
- polou/indigo_bow
Follow me Robert, I promise I'm not annoying. :) @cluteman
- Greg Clute
from iPhone
Robert, thank you! I follow you and enjoy your "likes" and your energetic takes. I also enjoy your Building43 interviews! I am a constant FriendFeed user now. Thank you!
- Tobin Truog
This made me realise I must be more active on FF and comment/post more :-).
- Mats Pettersson
I think I'll give FriendFeed a go! Never tried it, but looks easy and I need to understand the interwebs better. @CodeSamurai_Com
- CodeSamurai
butt-kissing is not a prerequisite for being followed, he will follow you anyways :D
- Mark
You can follow me, but since you follow a lot of people, you probably can't pay attention to the stream of tweets.
- Alex Knight
Alex..that's the WHOLE point he did this... ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
IMHO 1,647 is still way too many people to follow.
- Alex Knight
I will NOT get baited into ... ah CRAP. I follow very few people on twitter, mainly only to find info from Android developers (my topic of choice). If you mention anything about the food you are currently eating, etc.. you will probably not be followed. If you post 80,000 times a day, you will not be followed, since Twitters interface sucks (not so for FF). Also, no offense to other social users, but if you resend your FF/FB/<insert other social site here> entries to twitter, I probably won't follow.
- Tim Hoeck
Oh..Oh... Mr. Kotter...Mr Kotter..follow me!
- Scott Booher
Glad to see you're writing more than 140 characters on that blog. Doesn't that feel liberating? Maybe we should be allowed character# based on your metric for powerful/smart/newsmaker
- Noah Bloom
You already follow me here on FF, for which I thank you. So, I'll just say thanks for the phone call the other day. :)
- Jeff Harbert
Ok, so follow me again and I will follow you back. Thanks!
- Audrey
Robert - I fail on most of your criteria so I'm not expecting you to follow me. The thing is I don't care if you follow me back - this is social media and everyone has their own choice. I choose to follow you because you entertain and inform me. The relationship is 100% one way and I am more than happy with that!
- Pon
Robert - Last night at GDGT Party the person at the Blackberry booth said: 1) She had 'heard of Twitter, never friend feed' uses neither 2) Is SCOBLE is coming tonight 3) Wow, your Blackberry is really "archaic" and find out when contract lets you upgrade. F-D UP? Booth babes need primers.
- Liza
Interesting theory... people who comment more apt to contribute?
- Mark Philpot
I know someone else who tried this strategy last year, with similar results. I've been debating it. Once I got over 3K followers on Twitter life just got weird. Started to spend X amount of time every day blocking porn spam.
- Patricia F. Anderson
Liza: yeah, sorry for not coming to the party. I went and saw Obama's CTO instead.
- Robert Scoble
Steve Lynch: my Dunbar number is higher than yours is. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Nice summary Robert on the whole Unfollow thing, but would it be too repetitive if I re-post on my FF?
- Keith Rowland
What is the best friend feed aggregation strategy of non-friend streams (eg RSS, twitter, etc)? Imaginary friend per service, then add to lists? Multiple services per imaginary friend or 1 to 1? Or add the services to a group? What are the considerations?
- John Brown
Keith: you can repost anywhere you like, thanks!
- Robert Scoble
still wondering how you are able to handle such a big load of subscribers here and e.g. so many followers with twitter o_0. I am already (sometimes) lost with the few i got till now. Lately with one sweep almost 40 to 50 contacts in twitter disappeard and i have no clue why ... boah, how are you handling the noise? Hell, with so many ppl in, you might have a terrific noise? Or you wear just good headphones ;)?
- Ronald
I very much agree that being choosy is the key to Twitter. I'm not nearly on the scale that you are, but in my experience, freely following people (whetther they follow me or not) and then mercilessly cutting back on them over and over again results in a kind of darwinianly better and better signal to noise ratio.
- Tim Maly
Liked the blog post and totally agree. I've been meaning to do something similar. What I do is occasionally prune and then add some "better" replacements, so my total is always 2000 follows.
- Bora Zivkovic
I don't see how anyone can manage so many users without groups. Then again, with groups you could just make an "ignore" group.
- Oscar M. Cantu
from iPhone
Great blog post. I totally agree on the noise level. I figure I have blocked a few hundred accounts on Twitter, and my noise level has dropped dramatically. Thanks for the follow!
- Tony "Frosty" Welch
Robert - I figured you were in DC from FF, but she had NO IDEA what a CTO is. Point is, she was eager to give you a Blackberry, but not me, and I wish I had a Scoble costume to pretend for 5 minutes.
- Liza
@Robert I think you are starting another mass follow again.
- Steve Chou
from fftogo
Steve: that's not the problem. As long as spam doesn't enter the system I can deal. Keep in mind here I can choose how I follow. I can put you all in a folder that I never look at, if I wanted to.
- Robert Scoble
my feelings were hurt that you unsubscribed to me on twitter, but i agree with your methods
- Brian Appleby
Brian, yeah, but I follow you here. So there.
- Robert Scoble
really doesn't matter as long as i can follow you, that's the beauty of these services
- Brian Appleby
How did you come to follow so many to begin with? I get annoyed with ppl and unfollowing is easier than sifting through their garbage constantly.
- R1CC1
Autofollow was a horrible idea to begin with.
- David Chieng
I kind of tired to keep an eye on who follows me now,the ones I'm following is much more important.:-)
- Steve Chou
from fftogo
Robert: we need more intelligent spam-follower-filtering on Twitter! We need to fix this.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
@David +1 I think auto follow is such a bad idea to begin with,and people like Robert now even need to pay to unfollow these people.
- Steve Chou
from IM
How much did SocialToo charge for running the unfollow script?
- Shane
I've always been very picky in who I follow on twitter. I follow 40 people, and I can't guarantee that I see every single tweet. I don't scroll back usually, unless it's my "Real Life" column in Tweetdeck that couldn't fit on my screen.
- Tom Ribbens
My birthday is also January 18th, therefore you must follow me Robert! ;)
- Chris Luckhardt
from BuddyFeed
Thanks Steve! $25 is pretty reasonable. Wonder if anyone else will be jumping on the bandwagon
- Shane
Sometimes the tortoise beats the hare after all... building organically based on getting to know people and interactions tends to avoid the ghastly spammers, seo peeps and bots
- Sally Church
I'm outside your sphere, but bootstrapping is bootstrapping right?
- Travis Bedard
Tuesday night for the first time in 2 months I UNfollowed everyone on Twitter who wasn't following me. Since you had UNfollowed me, yup I unfollowed you. My Twitter account is so /FUBARed! It only goes to page 506 to show who I'm following and after that it is BLANK! I don't even know if they show in my Home stream. So Robert, I value what you say. Know I can tweet profusely - but it's as @replies to others with the occasional micro-blog thrown in. Question, what DID I do to cause you to UNfollow me?
- Arleen Anderson
Oops - I also meant to ask, Robert: how are you managing to follow the couple thousand that you are now re-following on Twitter? You must be using groups, I guess...any other methods? I find ~500 people to be a near max in terms of how many folks I can fully read.
- Lance M. Brown
Following your inspiration, I unfollowed almost 100 people last night and blocked about 1000 spammers, cam girls, MLM marketers, and the like. Twitter is more like it was a year ago, its almost like I gave my Twitter account an enema and it worked. Thanks for the original idea.
- Mark Edwards
Robert, I started out only following those I know and those I am genuinely interested in. I've only followed back a few of the people who've followed me. I have a second account that I decided to experiment with. I followed about 700 people on there. It has had about double the followers of my main account consistently. I am about to try some new tricks there with an auto-follow script I'm writing but I think I will stay the course with my main account.
- Paul The Raven
Robert, I tried the "follow everyone" (almost) method for a short time - then I'd unfollow about once-a-week. Now I try to schedule a "follow new" once a week. TweetDeck's group feature makes following lots of folks bearable. So does FF, but you've been saying that for-ever!
- Kathy E Gill
I will follow you if you follow me (Genesis)
- Keith Barrett
I may not be smart, but I'm smart enough to follow you!
- John Pfaff
It occurred to me (and surely to someone before me), that different definitions of "following" might be a big factor here. If I'm following someone, it means I'm following along with their updates. But others might see themselves more as becoming part of a person's "following". Not that they are necessarily reading the person's stuff, but they are willing to be considered part of that person's inflated Twitter posse, as part of the influence-trading aspect of Twitter.
- Lance M. Brown
Robert, I think that the biggest thing that changed is not that you were "wrong" (to follow everyone) before but that the Twitter population has changed so much. A year ago, pretty much everyone on Twitter was real, and interesting - now there's so much automated gaming the system going on that the signal to noise ratio has gotten unbearable. So I think anyone who cares about more than...
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- Matthew Blaisdell
I can't imagine how it would happen technologically, but it would be great if there was a way to ditch followers who weren't actually reading your tweets.
- Lance M. Brown
Enjoyed recent posts and look forward to more from you! Keep it up.
- One Degree Connected
All right, I'll bite :) - although I'll say that I did the mass-unfollow-thing months ago - long before it was cool.
- Justin
from Nambu
Your most active followers are on FF. No loss.If you really wanted to make a bold statement you ought to have blocked all of your followers and started from scratch.
- Benjamin Taylor
Been a while since I put you and Shel On the record...Online
- Eric Schwartzman
Good article Robert. I honestly enjoyed the perspective. I found the same to be true, but on a much lower scale, of course ;-)
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
I don't get it - so now you are using Twitter kinda like a normal person, and its some kind of miracle that it works better?
- Nick Lothian
I'm impressed you can keep up with 1600 people. I have trouble enough with the little amount I have. I did find that making FriendFeed imaginary friends and putting them in groups for those I'd like to read occasionally (but not on a regular basis) has helped a lot
- Tamara
me! i offer nothing but the warm feeling of having accepted a ff reject.
- Marco
ok. so how will you filter the noise now
- Kfir Pravda
Ooo, I've won the lottery. You'll follow me now. Wheeee! (how do you have the time to go through all of the names by hand? VA assistance?)
- Peggy Dolane
Interesting trend on twitter - I always wondered what sense it made to follow tens of thousands of people, too much noise. I'm finding it hard enough to follow 2900 (looking to cull even that down as I mostly tweet about 30 people!)
- Tia Singh, Life Coach
I like your ability to influence so many people. I'm following you (mostly here - on FriendFeed) because it's one of the ways to learn how you do it (but, please, do not follow me if you do not see anything you could learn from me :-).
- Hanna Wiszniewska
I would come up w/ a better vetting process.
- Joe
got to get a pic up so i can fit the criteria, I only follow 45 people and some of them are on thin ice ( Im lookin at you Scoble)
- James Hunter
"Where in The Net is Robert San Diego?" (cit.) :-)
- Luca Perugini
from iPhone
I'm not kissing your arse,but i do learn a lot listening to you.
- Paul Downing
@scobleizer why would you randomly follow people who comment in this post when you just got done knocking FFollo and having to unfollow a gazillion people on Twitter?
- Bryan Zirkel
Bryan: because I'm following people one by one and putting them into lists on my screen. Autofollowing means you aren't doing ANY of that thinking. Also, autofollowing will get you spammers, if they ever show up (and they will).
- Robert Scoble
@Robert: Read your blogpost and that's indeed what I look at to follow people too. No autofollow and even close friends have to tell something interesting for me to (keep) following. Friends who are new to Twitter (no tweets yet) get the benefit of doubt.
- Patrick Mackaaij
If you follow me, great, but if you don't I'll understand. :) And I ought to do some pruning myself...
- Grant Bierman
I still don't understand how you want to follow someone who just writes a comment over here. Well, this is not the first time. I did not understand why and how you followed 100k people. I find it hard to properly follow 100 people.
- Sumanth Kolar
Sumanth: obviously there are degrees of "following." When you read the New York Times, do you read the entire paper word for word? I don't. Same when I'm following. I only get random slices of some of my lists. Others, which have 500 people on them, get 100% read.
- Robert Scoble
I'm still here . . . although tired after teaching all day. Louis Gray came to my PR class at SFSU and WOWED the 50 students [except for one who thinks we are making too much of social media] We won't be following him.
- Shari Weiss
I still like the "stranger stream" of Twitter vs "friend feed" of other applications. I don't feel the need to read all tweets from everybody - and tools let me check my fave tweeples. I think mass unfollowing destroys some of the social contract - Robert you are lucky because you are well liked and can do some risky things but companies for example (not Brands of One) would be in...
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- Laurel Papworth
As @charleneli predicted back in January, 2009 will be the year of de-friending on social networks. It's here.
- Mark Evans
Laurel: yeah, you have to navigate these waters carefully if you are representing a brand, that's for sure!
- Robert Scoble
i will not get followed back: not powerful, don't have a brand, not a news maker... but i kinda understand the reasons
- Dani Martínez
I still think it all goes into how you use twitter. If your using it as a communication tool it depends on if you are looking for broadcast or 2 way. Its interesting to watch as some of the bigger names turn back from the broadcast and go back to the 2 way.
- Luke Kilpatrick
@Robert so when you're taking in information from FF do you have a feed of several dozen/hundred "key" people and then categorize the rest, or are you mainly searching? Do you utilize groups at all or mainly just rely on what comes across your feeds? I guess I'm curious as to how you're using FF to collect information.
- Bryan Zirkel
I have found Twitter becomes noise rather than a conversation once the following/follower thing gets over a certain mark. I think this is the dirty little secret of Twitter - if it just turns into white noise, rather than a filter, then it becomes less than useful.
- Michael Liss
I'm interested in how we'll all feel over the next few years as social networks continue to change and more people and organizations get on them. Obviously, many of us are getting fed up with spammers and are unfollowing them on Twitter and Facebook. I am also having a hard time keeping up with new subscribers on FriendFeed because I know less about them from their profiles and have to...
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- Cathryn Hrudicka
BTW, I feel like I'm finding lots of interesting new people to follow from these discussions that Robert and others are holding on FF. Cool!
- Cathryn Hrudicka
Am I too late to comment and get followed?
- Hichame Assi
LOL! I follow those I find interesting and which can give me useful information. And hope someone follows me for the same reasons.
- Flavio
Very interesting post - I've always thought that you guys who follow loads of people must get completely swamped by noise! Like you, I've found it useful to follow companies I use that have interesting products like Zoho and Evernote as a way of keeping up to date with their latest innovations. Excellent idea spelling out your "follow criteria" - it needs to become standard etiquette for social networks so that people don't get offended when they aren't followed back :) .
- David Meredith
aren't you doing the same thing here, that you did in Twitter? Choose carefully who you follow, filling your brain with pollution doesn't make you smarter
- Allison
Just finished reading the Mashable post on your unfollow exercise. It's attracting attention from all the other big names now.
- George Hall (Australia)
Very interesting indeed, I only to unfollow a few, cause I just never had auto follow on.. So now I just unfollow the ones I'm bored of..
- Jaap Willem
Seems like a good idea. Although Louis Gray also has a few valid points on his latest blog post why it might be a mistake http://bit.ly/19UKxk
- Silver Hage
I've never understood the auto-follow procedure on any social network. Even on Facebook, where it is obligatory, one can still lower the noise by simply hiding the updates of those who want to follow you, but perhaps also have little personal connection and therefore can be hidden.
- Noah Gray
It seems like the unfollowing was the easy part. Choosing who to follow again must have been a chore. I think it is crucial in twitter (and FriendFeed for that matter) to have a clear out every six months or so otherwise you get bogged down in an information feed you don't really care about.
- Chris Nixon
I can totally understand why you had to do this. I'm following 2700-ish folks on Twitter and I need 3 groups to manage it (using TweetDeck). I feel I am keeping up with most of my local community and the general tech community at large though I'm sure I'm still missing quite a bit of stuff from people who are not in the 3 groups. I also wonder how much more I can actually handle.
- Ken Seto
Um... well, I made something of myself, but then I didn't like what I made, so now I'm doing it all over again. Not sure how that fits with your criteria! Plus, I really don't have a brand or any influence to speak of. I do look great in boxers, however.
- Mark Jepsen
OK, OK, changed my picture. Instead of a green clock (a clock is my personal brand) I put a picture of myself. A lot of people told me to do that....
- Bora Zivkovic
I am still looking for info on holographic technology being used for news delivery. Perhaps it's a technology that hasn't even been invented yet or is sitting on a shelf somewhere. What say you? http://specialdee.wordpress.com/2009...
- Denise
Hoping your new look account has had the desired effect. No need to follow me, I'm not the interesting type, I'll just be glad if your insights, links & content continues. Congrats & good luck
- JanLawrence
Here's what's interesting, Robert, I've noticed an uptick in followers even if you reply or RT or like someone's tweet, not just if you follow that person. Then again, perhaps that's the intent - if you like or RT someone's idea, that's a kind of stamp of approval.
- Aaman (Clone of FF)
The Scoble Pendulum.. How long till we go back to FOLLOW!! FOLLOW!!! FOLLOW!!!! ? :)
- Adrian Scicluna
I did a purge on Facebook for the same reasons a few months ago. It's under 300 and it's people I actually care about. I've come "this close" to running a purge on Twitter but haven't yet. Maybe this will spark me to do it. I've kept FF tight from the beginning.
- Rob Williams
moving from FB to FF ... fewer, longer, more meaningful threads. welcoming your follow. cheers
- marc calamia
alright - follow me... - thx in advance Robert Scoble...
- Nilesh
All that commenting in the past counts for nothing?
- Kevin Gamble
Hey Robert... Great post... On FriendFeed, I increasingly put people without meaningful and valuable content on a separate feed that I rarely check... Its a more "sensible" way to unfollow, i think... I only unsubscribe if I get pissed at someone etc. I wish, FF gave users the option to only unsubscribe from comments and likes (but keep the main feed). This would be a good tool to control the noise...
- Onur Kabadayi
I agree with Robert (duh!). I very briefly made the effort of checking out the new follows and deciding whether to follow back. I think once I hit a thousand I shifted to a model of occasionally saying, "If you want me to follow you, talk to me." Hit two thousand and quit saying anything or checking followers. I don't care if they follow me as long as they either say useful things like real people or don't talk at all. I've never autofollowed back. This strategy works for me.
- Patricia F. Anderson
I have a large difference between people I follow (around 2000) and people who follow me (around 1800) - I choose people who are important sources of information. People choose me if they think I am an important source of information to them. I never thought it would have to be a one-to-one relationship as to who is useful to whom: some are informative, others are good listeners and learners. I learn from people I follow and I hope my followers learn from me.
- Bora Zivkovic
I also think that those of us who follow larger numbers of people don't use the stream in the same way. It is more dipping in and out of the stream, trusting that the important stuff will be repeated enough to float to the top, engaging with conversations of the moment. I wrote a blogpost on this earlier this year: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/2009...
- Patricia F. Anderson
Someone told me twitter can be separated into two types. (id say at least two)
- Kay Proskin
Scoble, I am beginning to think you are a cult leader :). Look at all these comments! I am using FF more and more these days... Useful for eGuiders.com that's for sure.
- Marc Ostrick
I like Robert. He was one of the first people I followed on Twitter and brought me to FF. But I don't understand why people are desperate to have him follow them. Status? Some kind of virtual autograph?
- Tech Introvert
What the heck. Follow me if you like. I'll be as entertaining & informative as I can.
- Aaron Schaub
from iPod
Been considering doing the same. Your post just might be the flame that lights a fire you-know-where to get it done.
- Kate
I only follow a few people and keep losing track so lord only knows how you managed to even begin to keep track of a conversation before friendfeed came along
- Iain
from BuddyFeed
Well done! Who need followers that aren't reading your tweets anyway.
- Sean Rasmussen
I'm considering doing same once I'm more confident in my use of FriendFeed. I RT'd this and it resonated with at least one of my followers.
- Tony Hollingsworth
'Hand-crafted personal network' is the meme of the moment, and whilst I can see the workmanship, where's the value going to be for you, Robert, in following this rag-tag (no offence people :) ) of folks from a gazillion different verticals. (OK, so they're mostly life scientists).
- Andrew Spong
I use to want to be Bob Dylan. Now I am not so sure.
- aTechDude
My take: you can't be an authentic, credible voice to your community if you let 'sex & dollars' spammers hang on to your coattails. Spam followers matter.... in a bad way. Allowing them to be associated with you diminishes your potential value to genuine followers. It's a pain. It takes time. It's worth doing. More on this, if interested: http://tr.im/vJwb
- Andrew Spong
Hope to see more "old fashioned blogging", like it better than tweets. Tweets are bound to disappear into oblivion the moment they're posted.
- Willem (@wim66) ☠
"Spam followers matter.... in a bad way." - I certainly agree with this. I block pornbots just as quickly as they follow me. I'm less vigilant about the commercial follows, but usually they go away by themselves after a while.
- John Craft
You're already following me here (don't care about twitter tough), so i just hope you don't un-follow, even though you probably don't understand what i'm talking about most of the time, since it's in portuguese.
- Diego Sana
So what happened to the advantages to following so many people you always talked about?
- Bas
Thanks for connecting here, still learning all the advantages of FF
- carece
@Andrew Regarding spam followers and the idea that allowing them to follow you somehow dilutes your credibility, I just have to disagree. To me that places the burden on the wrong person. I don't have time to waste pruning those who follow me, unless they are overtly annoying.My stream is public, they can follow me anyway. What matters to me is that the spammers leave me alone. If they don't, I block them. If they keep quiet, I don't care.
- Patricia F. Anderson
What is important is not who follows me, but who *I* follow.
- Patricia F. Anderson
Follow me if you want, but I gotta warn ya, it's scintillating stuff!
- Pierce Presley
Funny my twitter feed is much noisier but I have been very selective on who I follow. I have tried to make the feed relevant and actionable. At times I post things that seem out of the norm on my twitter feed but that is mainly for the few people who follow me that don't get it but I am trying to keep up their interest level. I also control who follows me, yes this breaks the model but I think the follow everyone model was broken and reckless
- Richard Gallo
Am I interesting? Dunno. I'm often controversial, tho. ;) BTW, we met in person at a Pittsburgh Blogfest, but I really don't expect you to remember that.
- Eric Williams
Enjoyed the post. I just started Twitter a few days ago to get away from Facebook. I like friendfeed the best - can't wait until it becomes more mainstream.
- Robby Parker
Awesome move. Consider that my comment please :)
- Charlotte Barker
friendfeed is definitively more evolved that Twitter. Conversely, user bases of Twitter is still its real (and unique) point of strenght...
- Marco Castellani
Don't want you to follow me (unless you find my stream of interest) but it's quite interesting the number of people that comment to get you to follow!
- Ben Drury
Hey Robert! So, I would like to talk to you about a social media company I'm working with right now. They launched a few months ago and their trajectory and momentum is pretty amazing. Oh, and I started unfollowing the noise in my Twitter after I commented on your blog post.
- Gregg Le Blanc
Great ideas. I've been selective (though it fluctuates) about following people/accounts on Twitter since I joined about 2 years ago. I can't take too much noise.
- Joe Lance
from twhirl
I'm asking the same thing Bas asked... what about your video on the benefits of following so many people? I took a stab at that method of madness by starting to follow all kinds of people, and following anyone that followed me... but I always felt like I was missing good content from good people because of all the "spam". I started to use TweetDeck to create groups/columns for...
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- Timothy Federwitz
@Patricia - reminds me that I should probably review all my twitter followers and thin things down. :)
- JA Castillo
I did almost the same thing - unfollowed about 1000 from my 1500, no attention is way better
- Maarten den Braber
Couldn't agree more. It's about time we all grew up. BTW Don't follow me. :-)
- Gee Ranasinha
Robert what's the deal with Twitter?
- stockmanmarc
Your post makes good sense. I didn't auto-follow & still find folks to unfollow because their noise gets too loud.
- Debra Ellis
Very clever. I imagine the signal to noise is sooooo much better.
- Chris Brogan
I've been thinking about unfollowing a bunch twitter folks as well. I'll look at SocialToo again. My initial experience with SocialToo wasn't good. However, it was during their infancy.
- Ron Hudson
I don't blame you at all. Leo was all over that yesterday.
- Daniel B. Honigman
why would simply leaving a comment prompt you to follow me?
- David Wescott
You're not going to change your mind and mass unfollow us are you?
- walidmREALTOR
I suspect it identifies you as a real person interested in dialog, David.
- Eric Williams
Followers are currency and you have plenty to spend
- Lee Odden
Bob, did you do anything on Twitter recently ? Did you massively refollow people ? Seems like you screwed up Twitter : down for a while... ;-)
- Enikao
Your ego is amazing. You make it seem like it is a special deal to be followed by you. I'm glad there are many very bright, talented people here who follow others, regardless of class, education, social status and not based on some snobbish criteria.
- RuthNH
Wow, this is a lot of comments. And kudos for following Followable people who have something interesting to contribute to your day. I'm glad you did it, because that means you'll find AND share more interesting things. This, in turn, makes you more followable too. Thanks for seeing the light, so to speak.
- ax0n
Did this take down Twitter this morning Robert?
- frank barry
That must of taken a long time :-) I've always been a fan of twitter, but I must say they have struggled in the last few weeks. We are working with their API on a project and their seems to be an issue every other day that causes problems. Do they have what it takes?
- Chris Nadeau
I follow under 200 people and it's great. I can't imagine 1k+ . I add about three or four a month.
- Mike Janicke
I unfollow people when I find I ignore their tweets/updates. After reading your blog, I think we ALL need to be more judicious.
- Janet Barker-Evans
Is this why Twitter is down? LOL! Can't check to see if you unfollowed me. Hope not. You, Shel Israel, and Jeremiah Owyang were some of the very first people I followed way back before Twitter even had 100,000 people on the service. -- It's been a fun ride but, of course, the spammers always show up to make things difficult.
- Brenda Young
How do you really know if you should be following someone until you follow them for a while? Sometimes I don't start talking to someone until I see a common interest, then I tweet back and we start talking, but that could be months later. I don't follow everyone back, but I follow back those that interact. I will unfollow once I see that won't happen, or I don't like their tweets.
- Nadine Gilden
Twitter is victime of it own success, they have to re learn how to scal better, but more important they have to learn to share better.
- abdellah
looks like you'll need to follow at least 343 people LOL
- Shari Weiss
Friendfeed takes over for twitter finally?
- Thomas Resing
@Patricia I don't want potential followers to be put off by who is following me. I wouldn't want them to think I care more about have n+1 followers than I do about what they're going to see if they review who I've allowed to follow me. Not to cull spammers suggests I care more about my experience than theirs. To a great extent, the quality of their experience will determine the quality...
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- Andrew Spong
1600 ... isn't that a big number too? It could be you'll think again before you follow every one here :)
- Mario Gastaldi
Still waiting for my Building 43 t-shirt. Not that I'm bitter or anything. ;-)
- Donna Tuttle
Be sure to come by Dallas when you swing through Texas!
- Zaneology
from Nambu
Respect your opinion Robert but we'll have to agree to disagree. Yes I despise all the FakePornSpamBots who follow me. I block as many as I can, but can't keep up. Our views differ regarding what is important to SEE! I treasure home Home stream! I read it, refresh, read, refresh and in minutes I have the pulse of the world... at least MY world! EVERYONE has something of value to share at some point. If I UNfollow tens of thousands, I will miss so much worthy of consideration.
- Arleen Anderson
Just another reason why it's good to diversify, I can still read your posts here. :)
- Luis Sandoval
Funny. I was catching up on news on Friendfeed for some odd reason. Great post; plenty for new and long-time users alike to consider there.
- Alex Howard
I'm still waiting for the ultimate tool to manage my followings - I can only manage to keep up with about 1/3 of those following me. I'd love to see something that can tell me what friends of mine also follow those that I am or those that are following me. Maybe it's out there and I missed it?
- TheDiva Rockin
Anyone interested in assessing the quality of their followers should check http://tweetblocker.com. It's pretty chastening. I aim to improve on my C rating. http://www.buzzom.com is a fun, fast way of decoupling yourself from non-reciprocal followers. You can select individuals to purge, or flush 50 random non-reciprocal followers at a time.
- Andrew Spong
Robert, your timing could not be better. ;-)
- Dave Martin
Great post, with perfect timing! Dang it, Dave Martin just took it off my lips.
- Vadim Lavrusik
I hereby rename this comment thread neoTwitter <waves at followers>
- Andrew Spong
Awww, you gotta admit, saturation, the level of influence that you have, because of your high follower, count, is a tool of mass destruction. Seriously, did you think if you recommend an online service that people would not try it out? Was this an asassination attempt
- Peter Murphy
I'm glad i'm not the only one who misses /me actions from IRC, Kevin. ;)
- Eric Williams
With today's Twitter outage your timing is pretty stinking good, Robert. :)
- Chris Cree
Now to get the rest of the world to follow that same logic when it comes to follow/unfollow! I only started being more selective as Twitter (and everyone else) started getting aggressive with spammers or anyone that even remotely did a single spammy tweet. Now if only there were the same contact management tools available for the other social networks as with Twitter. No matter what though, I'll continue updating my status when I eat a peanut butter sandwich! (With Fluff of course!).
- Paul Monaco
Now I think that it is time to think about a way to make money using Twitter.
- abdellah
@Mark, +1. When in doubt, the default delegation of blame goes to Robert.
- Dave Martin
what is critical mass for twitter? Too few and nobody interacts, Too many and spam bots overwhelm, Is it 1K or 2K needed to get a real experience?
- WarLord
Hmm can you unsubscribe from "comment notification via e-mail" in FF on a *specific* topic? This one :-)
- Patrick Mackaaij
Of course I thonk it is a different experience if you hand follow reading each bio from the beginning then these mass purges are unnecessary
- WarLord
I am intrigued how RT addict will RT now?!! (ps: FF please don't post this to my twitter)
- abdellah
I have been keeping my twitter account private a majority of the time lately b/c I am going through a divorce, but I really kinda like it. Have been reducing followers as well as the number I follow.
- Jackson Miller
You should follow me here in FF and on Twitter too!
- Karthi
hopefully most of us have proven our worth beyond commenting on this single thread
- andy brudtkuhl
If you are already following me on ff does that mean I get a cookie or something? ;-)
- Tomy Thomson
I'll add my name to the list. I came back to FF after the Twitter DoS outage. Maybe Scoble broke Twitter by all his unfollowing. He was the "glue" holding Twitter together. :-)
- Tom Newman
Robert: Here's the bit you missed off the end of your title here: .... and put them in that group I don't read :-)
- Jim Connolly
add me for your social media and the practice of law news!
- Rex Gradeless
Great post. I'm sure that some people might say that this kind of mass unfollowing will hurt Twitter, but I think it's just the opposite. Users who are following people they have no interest in just to pad their own numbers are diminishing the meaning of "following."
- Mark Denton
To stave off being unfollowed we need to comment here ya say?
- Jason
you are already following me here... perhaps you'll consider re-following me on twitter too
- Michelle
I don't know how you ever did it the other way. I am not in the tech world near as much as I used to be, which wasn't a whole lot. I just followed some random people I saw on SMugMug-related people on here when I started. You were one of them. I had no idea who you were (and still don't :-), but you talked about Twitter a lot too, which got me on there as well. Both services have really...
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- James Schipper
Quality over quantity in all things, including (perhaps especially) Twitter. Loved your friending methodology -- those are the same rules I've applied since being on Twitter. Posted them onto Posterous to share the love with credit to you: http://lorilaurentsmith.posterous.com/
- Lori Laurent Smith
it's not about unfollowing, it's about filtering...
- Barak Hachamov
I started out following everyone on Twitter.Then I got wise. When someone's stream becomes more noise than signal, that's when I consider unfollowing. I realize that threshhold is different for everyone, but I'll take "what I had for lunch" over a dozen bogus "marketing tips" any day.
- Julie Barrett
from twhirl
Well, I am trying to use FriendFeed more after watching Scoble's video on all those monitors he had up. I'm not a big consumer of information and don't own a TV but this online social stuff has been a perfect fit into my life because I can connect with people who are fountains of knowledge on a specific subject or are "human mashups". I like both!
- Adria Richards
I've been reading al of this unfollow bits, and this point of yours:
- Donna
Hey, I think that today you might make your point about FriendFeed being more interesting than Twitter. Hope you are well. Talked with @fransteps this morning and she is excited to work with you at Rackspace.
- Kami Huyse
I've been reading all of this un-follow posts lately, and this point of yours in WHY you unfollowed: "#2 Because I personally care about everyone I am following their noise level is a LOT lower. ." Is exactly what I do. And now I am starting to understand Friendfeed more. and using posterous to do aggregate posts. So is this overload making more people sit up and think first? I think so. At least the intelligent ones.
- Donna
This is a great move, Robert. It's also a lot more human...I was almost convinced that you were the only person who could actually drink from the fire hose without choking.
- Steffan Antonas
That sounds fair. After this morning, I've renewed my love for FriendFeed and Tweetworks. Until the next DDos attacks, of course. I will miss the fake porn stars, but I did when I moved from L.A.
- Scott Pierce
Steffan; I agree...there is no way anyone else could do what Robert S. does. It's good to see him become human.
- Robert Jones
This has been my problem for about the past six months. I routinely go in and unfollow, get the noise level down to where I want it, and then end up following back a bunch of new people, some of whom I'm incredibly grateful to get to know. When I had track, it was a whole lot easier to manage the stream, but I suspect even that tool would now be out of hand. I have a set of rules for...
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- Karoli
hee hee. i am commenting not so much to beg your follow but what a clever pitch:)
- Tresha Thorsen
Robert - I have not read all 416 comments so if this was asked and you answered forgive me. What was the all of a sudden revelation that caused you to reverse stance on Twitter Followers?
- Jeff Vreeland
It's difficult to maintain and filter a list on all the social networking sites. I cannot even imagine maintaining the kinds of lists you must deal with, Robert.
- Jeremy Brooks
Dude, you broke Twitter! When you unfollowed all of your 100,000 the other day you pulled the rug right out from under it, so it fell down and now it can't reach its beer. :-)
- Robert Morrison
Actually I felt rather sad being fav'ed by you on FriendFeed then dumped.. But again. I get more from you from FriendFeed, so oh well, stop talking about Following and Get on more with Tech! :P
- Du Senyao Peter
i like the idea of importing favorite tweets into friendfeed. i haven't used that favorite feature much because i haven't seen any real use in it. thanks!
- Jonathan Blundell
When twitter is down I always wish I could tweet: checkout friendfeed. Nevertheless, how will following folk that leave a message here really improve the quality of your input? While I don't want to judge many of the fine folk on this thread, are they all that interesting? In other words, isn't this the start of the same problem you had on Twitter...
- Jon Mountjoy
Robert, but why clutter your FriendFeed stream? This comment is not to get you to courtesy follow me on FriendFeed, think you've established you've changed your thinking. :)
- L.P. NEENZ FALEAFINE
OK, I have enough people to follow so I will close the comments on this thread. Thank you everyone, I will try to get to everyone today.
- Robert Scoble
Left this comment. It's waiting for approval: "Sorry, but nope nope nope to the first half of your story about tweets not being able to rank in Google. Here's a perfect example that I ran into just in the last couple hours. Tonight my wife and I attended a Kathy Griffin concert at the Mountain Winery. Steve Wozniak was in the audience. On the way out of the concert, my wife did the...
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- Matt Cutts
By Google "juice" I'm not talking about being searchable, I'm referring to pagerank, the importance that Google assigns to content. There is a big difference here. There would need to be a system that collects and collates all your online personas along with your website/blogsite.
- Tom Foremski
The real-time web is no so important. Not yet anyways. And it's not reliable, it's basically a huge mess. mostly a waste of time and noise. Once Google Wave starts working it will be another story.
- Charbax
another sign up for the realtime isn't real deadpool list
- Steve Gillmor
There's an opportunity for someone to complete the circle on real-time and static web and of course, Google is best positioned for that. And that's why "real-time" isn't what's going to crack GOOG's dominance.
- Tom Foremski
realtime isn't gonna crack anybody'd dominance - it is extending it
- Steve Gillmor
Google juice is fine and can be attributed - real-time does something far more powerful - flocking and virility. Google search is for residual traffic, Real-time is for live conversation.
- Chris Saad
Real-time is just a feature though, there are other profound features that will coalesce into a new phase of the web
- Chris Saad
a feature, then your app is an implementation of a feature - don't think so
- Steve Gillmor
It's a feature - an important one, but a feature none-the-less - There are some other important features that need to come together as well for a real sea-change
- Chris Saad
realtime v. sea change - take rt and the $
- Steve Gillmor
I disagree - IRC was 'real-time' - the point is not just real-time - it's also about concrete identity, distribution, aggregation, implicit and explicit gestures and more
- Chris Saad
Don't give up on your genius from the old days Steve - you were right - just ahead of your time - like all of us - Gestures still need to play a role
- Chris Saad
I still say realtime is the wrong emphasis. It's about flow, and persistence.
- Kevin Marks
Yes Kevin - that's part of my point - would love ur input on that link too
- Chris Saad
Yes, I did :) But I wasn't clear enough on the "problem." I'm thinking in terms of investment of time between blog and the real-time world and how much time should I spend here and there...
- Tom Foremski
More content on my blog gives me an investment that translates into a better pagerank which is a lasting benefit. But it's not clear how lasting are the rewards if I spend more time in the real-time world...
- Tom Foremski
Why is it either/or Tom - why not integrate real-time on your blog?
- Chris Saad
tom's post points out the obvious. "You've got to do both. If you abandon your static web presence for your real-time activities you will find it harder to build your overall social media capital". of course a single micro-message is not *typically* going to have any weight as it's often just a pointer to the real content value. the largest percentage of the so-called real-time...
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- sull
i also think real-time is a feature of the larger evolving digital infosphere. in a way, realtime is like rapid failure.... meaning... the speed and volume of the data flow to analyze and grade and filter and stock... the greater the value realtime offers to intelligent systems (ie. google). slower data flow translates to a slower realization of what content is not only generally good...
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- sull
The other day, @bitlynow gave me a link about someone who died. my first thought was... hey it's bitly, they are good at what they are doing so i gave the tweet artificial value by reposting it only to realize moments later that the link and story were part of a hoax and possibly part of a worm. perfect example of why faster realtime data flow and analysis are critical to avoiding bad data from propagating.
- sull
sull - well said... Some people however, aren't using pointers, they have nothing to point to, and that's a mistake.
- Tom Foremski
Maybe realtime like ff? And not censor the trends? And not suck in general?
- Tomy Thomson
from iPod
I'd be happy if they simply added the ability to retweet. Something that has become such a big part of the site is still missing
- El Freak
Does anyone go to the home page. Hope they fix that stuff regardless of the new home page.
- Christian Anderson
from iPhone
Blocking and Search are most important, do we really care about DMs?
- Veetrag
Veetrag: yes. People DM me a LOT. And that's not counting all the spam and auto DMs I get. Sigh.
- Robert Scoble
@Tomy since most of the client's provide realtime feature, twitter does not need to put that kind of load on their servers. And as far as I think, people who use web directly are not heavy twitter users.
- Veetrag
@Scoble @Holden Ok, I get it now. Just a quick question, what is wrong with current DMs system. I see only problem is count and sometime delay.
- Veetrag
Veetrag: how many ways would you like me to list? 1. I can't reorder them. I have 4,000 DMs. Try to get to #3,500. You can't. 2. I can't CC anyone on them. 3. You can't send more than 140 characters. 4. You can't "chat" with someone, like you can on FriendFeed. 5. You can't forward them to someone else. 6. You can't share them among multiple people (very important for businesses).
- Robert Scoble
I just hope they fix the bug on my account when I see the new homepage...it's getting annoying now and if they fix any other features it will be a nice suprise :)
- Nicholas James
@Holden @Scoble yes, seems like a problem for people with many followers. I get DMs in my gmail and try to organize it there, that is the only work around I could get.
- Veetrag
Holden: sorry, you're wrong. Twitter is now a business platform and is moving there more and more. Celebrities and businesses NEED those features. If you're just chatting with your mom, that's one thing, but if you are getting business messaging, you need a whole nother kind of feature set.
- Robert Scoble
Do you also think that 'replies' option should be brought back, where we can select what kind of messages are shown on our timeline?
- Veetrag
I think they should fix the favourites option whilst they are at it to make it more like a "likes" system which can/auto-retweet if you select that option for instance if you select it in the settings.
- Nicholas James
They may be fixing the spamming issues. im short about 50 followers i think all bots. i hope they were all bots.
- Giancarlo Caparo
Twitter is as much of a business tool as Second Life was... meaning it isn't. I seriously doubt that it ever will be. I'm still hearing it in the buzzword context. It's a curiosity to most people I know. I can see it used for gauging public reaction to your products and services, but it's just such a poor communication tool compared to FriendFeed. A nice idea that caught on and now needs to die for better tech, like the "tagging" craze a few years ago.
- Ryan Massie
Ryan: I disagree and have some personal accounts. Rackspace is doing some pretty sizeable business because of Twitter. The thing I do agree with you on is that it sucks for doing business for a variety of reasons (some of which I've covered here).
- Robert Scoble
Rackspace probably would have done well regardless of the medium. They're a great company doing innovative things. I'm not sure that the same wouldn't have happened if twitter didn't exist and a more elegant solution to blog search, blog comments, and trackbacks had gained as much popularity. I think good companies can market and be successful in surprising ways. I doubt that a corner store could have the same success on twitter.
- Ryan Massie
Meebo was successful because the kids could get on to their favorite IM platform from inside school firewalls. =)
- Ryan Massie
I still think that the value of these microblogging services are in the firehose data and in search. If you can get people to have richer conversations over your service, then your firehose data will have more value.
- Ryan Massie
Not holding my breath..re:"Scoble: @karaswisher says Twitter will turn on new home page next week. Will they fix search? DM's? Blocking?"
- Alex Schleber
that's wild 'cause my count went up since this morning (and i haven't received any notifications at all). actually that's not true. it went down by a few.
- Cee Bee
Iran's Disputed Election http://www.boston.com/bigpict... Following up from last Friday's entry about Iran's Presidential Election, Tehran and other cities have seen the largest street protests and rioting since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Supporters of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, upset at their...
"Twitter covered" is inaccurate right from the get go. Twitter is a medium. It doesn't cover anything. And, yes, there was a fair bit of well founded griping about the lack of msm coverage.
- Christian Anderson
I'm afraid to. Because of Glims, Safari 4 Beta would crash until they finally updated it. I haven't seen anything yet that indicates the latest version of Glims works with the latest version of Safari.
- Fleagle
Getting ready for building43's launch on Thursday. We're doing a joint event with TechCrunch (it's their fourth birthday too). There will be a virtual component, too, and lots of Facebook stuff.
Thanks, it's just a start. Brainstorming, getting a team together, figuring out what Building43 will be, and getting the engine to start turning over has proven pretty difficult. Hopefully we can meet the expectations.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I will be covering the launch on the blog too.
- Jim Connolly
Christian: unfortunately it's an invite-only affair because the place we're hosting it at can only hold 200 people. But we'll be doing live video and there'll be some fun friendfeed integration (thank you to Paul Buchheit and the friendfeed team for help, even over the weekend!) It all happens Thursday afternoon, more details to come soon.
- Robert Scoble
Looking forward to it, Good Luck with the launch Robert!
- Gary Gannon
Looking forward to seeing it all, hope it all goes smoothly :)
- Sam Webb
Can't wait Robert - wish I could be there.
- Jesse Stay
Sam: it's a launch. They never seem to go smoothly. Sort of like taking off from an aircraft carrier.
- Robert Scoble
THAT is how you build a brand online. There are LOTS of rich guy VCs out there (I have hundreds of their cards). How many can you name? I can name only a handful and Fred is one of them.
- Robert Scoble
He's a wonderful role model for all the businesses and people getting into the online world. There isn't a shortcut to this. If you want to be known, if you want followers, if you want engagement, you MUST participate. I guess there are other ways (already be a celebrity like Oprah) but they don't lead you to a good outcome. What is a good outcome? To have a better life. To me participation is key.
- Robert Scoble
Congrats to Fred for shunning the conference circuit and investing that time in all of us. I appreciate it and am a loyal reader because of it.
- Robert Scoble
but he' ant the only VC that participants.. there are others too .. !!
- Peter Dawson
Fred was an early Twitter 'celebrity' for exactly this reason. He engages. This is why he'll continue to have a strong online brand. I think we'll start to see a backlash against people who don't engage. Fred as nothing to worry about when /if that happens.
- Christian Anderson
Peter: there are others, but Fred stands out for some reason because of how he participates.
- Robert Scoble
His blogs are very informative - in fact, I was just reading the latest "Is Twitter A Substitute For Set Top Box Data?" http://www.avc.com/. Excellent. Ditto to your findings regarding Fred.
- courtney benson
yeah, but i don't participate enough in FF. i wish it were easier to do that from my blog comments.
- Fred Wilson
Hmmm sounds like something that would be easier with...Google Wave!
- Californian
Fred: seems to me you invested in a company called Disqus that should make it easier to do just that, no? ;-)
- Robert Scoble
@robert - i agree. right now it just pumps my comments here which is not the right model
- Fred Wilson
One thing I like is that he keeps it classy. But, participating in comments is strategic too-- drives page views, encourages community.
- Patricia
I am starting to think I need to talk to Fred and the Disqus team :)
- Rob Diana
So to be considered a 'suggested user' you must be in the so-called top echelon? This is just a carryover from values classification...A big ship just sank there are 5 people on board and only 4 life jackets. Who gets them?
- Sheryl
What a tedious list of wankers. I follow almost nobody on that list. Am I missing out?
- John Speck
Please do, and keep in mind it's a work in progress, as all these clients are. If you need help, just @ me here or on Twitter or @Statuzer over there.
- Vlad Bobleanta
Oh, and I'm in no way affiliated to it/it's creator. I just like it very much :)
- Vlad Bobleanta