Colin, forgot to mention, it is good to have you blogging again.
- Rob Diana
Thanks Rob. I'm not back entirely but this train of thought was reignited so it was the right time to post it.
- Colin Walker
via fftogo
I agree that the linear presentation of FriendFeed will not scale when the same information is reblogged through multiple channels by multiple persons. Ultimately the solution is in aggregating all items and conversations related to the same info (url): this is what Moopz is starting to do... Also socialmedian seems to be doing a reasonnable job on the input feeds.
- Antoine Bertier
Yes, we have gotten far too demanding. However, browsers are a well known arena and people will expect more especially if it comes from google. If Google had launched with plugin capability, you would be seeing much more praise.
- Rob Diana
I agree, mostly. But I disagree with the notion that a public beta is so early in the cycle. A beta should be an essentially feature complete product put out to users so they can unearth bugs. No? So, aside from robustness and a bit of spit and polish, one should be able to judge a product from the beta. Google uses beta as it's get out of jail card free and I personally believe that this it is ridiculous. - more importantly, thoug this is a first version and that means much more interesting things to come.
- felix
So maybe this should have been called an alpha. Still, let's face it, Google are a company in perpetuial beta ;) No doubt APIs will be announced in future but I still think it's better to get the core stable before exposing it to an amalgam of 3rd party code.
- Colin Walker
via fftogo
felix hits it on the head; people have forgotten what "beta" actually means in the software sense. Google did indeed release a beta browser. I have less problem with Google calling their stuff beta than I do most other companies putting out barely-alpha garbage and calling it "beta" so we go easy on 'em.
- abacab
"Kyle, Thanks for the comment and, I must say, I've been reading some of your recent posts with great interest. I'm not sure how often I'll be posting at the moment but it will be more a case of posting when I've really got something to say rather than due to a misguided need to make sure there's new content."
- Colin Walker
"I always said it was just a hiatus and had planned to see how things were after August."
- Colin Walker
Heh! Google Chrome cannot be installed here at work - we've had an email go round about "several security risks" and it must not go on any machines. I know about the old java issue due to the old webkit base but anyone come across any other security issues with it?
Had a look at it at home though and am quite impressed. There's some nice touches. Being able to drag and drop tabs on/off the window is cool, and the desktop application links are nice. On the other hand, I like where MS are going with IE8b2 - some good work going on there too. The browser wars are hotting up again.
- Colin Walker
via fftogo
"Steven, Don't forget about the whole IE in standards mode stuff. You might like to add a meta tag to your template and try your site in IE7 compatability mode: <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" /> See if that helps (you'll most likely have to click on the little button that appears at the end of the address bar to use the right rendering mode."
- Colin Walker
"Steven, Don't forget about the whole IE in standards mode stuff. You might like to add a meta tag to your template and try your site in IE7 compatability mode: <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" /> See if that helps (you'll most likely have to click on the little button that appears at the end of the address bar to use the right rendering mode."
- Colin Walker
"Nils, Your navel gazing point is exactly where I was looking but the desire to expand beyond navel gazing can be self defeating at times. We have to achieve a balance with the things we, as individuals, discuss and the people we follow - just saying "I want to follow more people talking about different things" doesn't work as you end up with a stream full of stuff you don't care about. We have to manage the signal to noise ratio but it is very hard to actually find the right blend. As the number of users increases the ratio grows ever in favour of 'noise' which is of course relative to our own interests but, also, the level of banality increases. If anyone is guilty of being protectionist about anything then it's about keeping healthy disussion rather than filling social networks with rubbish. My previous experiement on Friendfeed with a new account showed that people are posting far wider reaching things than just the social web but not much of it is actually getting discussed - it..."
- Colin Walker
"Thanks everyone. I'll definitely enjoy the time off. I think that we can put ourselves under too much pressure to churn out the posts and can lose the enjoyment sometimes so, who knows what tomorrow brings."
- Colin Walker
"There is no obligation that the conversation must take place in any given location..." Too true. It seems as if you're not in the conversation unless it's fragmented or taking place anywhere else but in its initial location, e.g. a blog. I don't care whether this comment shows up just here or gets cross-posted in a dozen other places. We're getting too focused on acting social instead of being social online. Good post.
- Nils Geylen
The individual should use social media as they see fit. There should be no requirements or restrictions on where a conversation is started or where a conversation ends. The herd mentality will always play a part. Feelings should not be hurt if a said individual is not participating on a service, or is using the service in a one way format.
- Mike Fruchter
I'll admit that I over-simplified the point of Phil's post but it is a worrying trend that people consider there should be a right or wrong way to use these services. And there is always the unsubscribe button.
- Colin Walker
via fftogo
Nice post. I agree that the echo is an issue.
- Czar
"The difference with sites like Digg etc. is that they are specifically platforms for sharing and the implication is that you will sharing other peoples stuff. You would not be called a spammer if you submitted hundreds of links to other blogs etc. You are only considered a spammer if you fill them up with your own. The point of aggregation, however, is that you are gathering all of YOUR stuff in to one place so that it can all be accessed together rather than jumping off to multiple sites. Even if you don't like or comment or even follow anyone else how can using a core function of FriendFeed be considered spamming?"
- Colin Walker
"Phil, I completely agree that those that aren't active shouldn't be listed as recommended people to follow on FriendFeed and, yes, I over-simplified your post but it is a worrying trend that people consider there should be a right or wrong way to use these services."
- Colin Walker
"But do you actually have to be 'active' anywhere? If FriendFeed is only being used as an aggregator why is there a need to be active? As you say, it is personal choice and some choose not to be active in certain locations."
- Colin Walker
Twitter issues? Twitter says I have 324 followers but according to slandr it's 415. Others also report that Twitter is showing less followers all of a sudden.
Yes, they're working on it apparently: http://twurl.cc/311 - and it's not just missing followers, but the number of people I follow has taken a dive too.
- David Young
Here's an analysis I did of my Twitter missing followers. Looks like a weirdo spotty rollback to June 4 6:59 pm - 8:53 pm http://friendfeed.com/e..., but Twitter may have had other issues in the past month.
- Mitchell Tsai
@Colin Isn't it funny how things like that work out?
- Jason Shultz
via twhirl
And another hosting facility does on Mark Trapp's Happy Fun Blacklist of Hosting! That's pretty terrible. In the UK, we use Bytemark; haven't had an outage in close to 4 years of using them. Might want to check them out if you're looking to move.
- Mark Trapp
Ouch! Hope you guys recover soon... For big sites, I often recommend having 1-2 backup locations ready.
- Mitchell Tsai
If you ever decide on a new host, I would recommend Verio, or NTT UK.
- Mike Fruchter
It just sucks - Sal launched a new venture got some interest and then bang! Now any interest has evaporated as she is getting criticised for not being able to keep the site up :(
- Colin Walker