and then I will comment on whoever follows me here...
- Alpay Erturkmen
Louis, I recently got the "high five" DM spam, too. So off-putting!
- Robert J Taylor
from iPhone
I just need to spend more time setting up FF so it is my friend that intercepts all my social media content but only from who I want to read!
- Pentaxfan
Friend feed seems like mainstream to most serious ones?
- jibzy
Friendfeed has it's strengths once you get it setup
- Chris
@robert whether or not FF is technically better than <insertsocialnetwork> its really a question of said network reach
- Sean Scott
Once a week I go through my followers and delete most/all of the spammers, but I only have like 50-60 so it's not hard to do.
- Allison Warnock
Let's hope the spammers and bots and etc don't attack us here on FriendFeed next. I won't tell them if you don't.
- Louis Trapani
from iPhone
Sean: well, FF has better search, grouping, real time, a better community, and more.
- Robert Scoble
I think you're already following me.
- Danny Minick
In two years on Twitter I have never used any bots nor even tried to sell anything. I always look at profiles personally before following anyone and have never been concerned with how many are following me.
- Gord Young
See, cross posting that offer to Twitter is misleading
- Kevin Krewell
It is fun to watch my follower ## on Twitter go between 200 and 230 it is a constant battle to see what I post. Just not that interesting at times!
- Pentaxfan
Interesting project! Please follow us @streamfile :)
- Kimmo Gläborg
Checking in here...hope we continue to follow each other, Robert!
- Cathryn Hrudicka
I'm pretty sure I've commented here before Robert, but you don't follow me here or on Twitter. Not that I want you to under just for the sake of it...
- Gurpreet
Today's secret password is "cheese".
- Andrew Smith
And you don't have to read everything we say, my God we can't keep up with your feed! But it's nice to always be assured there will be something in my Friendfeed from Scoble. And more Scoble and more Scoble!
- Keith Rowland
...only if you actually find my tweets interesting enough.
- Gurpreet
It's Unfollow Sunday. Just purged all the bots, spammers, SEO/social media types from my own Twitter account. I never autofollow. Still got the "high five" DM spam, though...
- Dennis Jernberg
Nice when you integrate Facebook and twitter and multiple accounts so you can read all at one place. I have to say I use Seesmic to read posts more than FF.
- Pentaxfan
bit bucket... here i come :) ps: scoble, what if we just "like" your post ;)
- simran
@pentaxfan of course. not wanting to start a FF vs Twitter debate. just saying the glasses through which we judge better or superior are diff based on our interests. Plus in the end FB will take it all :P
- Sean Scott
This is a sly way to get us to sign up for FF :)
- valb00
According to my following list, Scoble was the second person I followed after joining Twitter. A long time ago that was.
- Stephen Sclafani
UX tip for FF. Be nice to be able to click on the comment link at the end of a comment stream. Having to scroll back up on these long threads breaks flow.
- Sean Scott
Kimber: wait and watch http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... and see if I like any of your posts. I read a LOT and if you are posting interesting stuff I'll probably like it.
- Robert Scoble
Sean: click twice on the time stamp and you'll get a window of just this chat and you'll see a comment entry area at the bottom.
- Robert Scoble
Sean Scott: Click on the timeline (the '5 minutes ago' bit) :)
- 1x29
You will end up following me anyway. They all will. :)
- Matt G
But you're already following me here on Friendfeed, Robert. How is Twitter going to be different?
- Mahendra (SkepticGeek)
FriendFeed is better, deeper, yet Twitter works better on the go
- Majento
There's a lot to like about FF, except it needs a bigger community. Twitter is like the iPhone - for iPhone it's all the applications, with Twitter (and Facebook) it's all about the number of poeple.
- Kevin Krewell
@Sean, that is why we are always looking for new and improved apps to operate at a better level with more consistency. Take it easy! I'm off to bed for my 5 hours of mediocre horizontal time out.
- Pentaxfan
Hi Robert, you are obviously going to be following a lot more people. Thanks.
- Rob Zachritz
And I return. (Just cleared my account so I can start afresh with friend lists) :)
- BeauGiles
Robert, you have lost a lot of followers. I have been watching all night.
- TheHenry
I don't get the appeal of auto-following. I for one would not want thousands of updates showing up in my timeline.
- Alex Knight
Twitter -ly ♪ and FriendFeed -ly ♪ livin' in perfect har-mony ♪♪♪ LOL Why can't we be friends ♪♪♪
- RetiredTeacherD
Just created a corporate FF account so you can follow our corporate Twitter at http:/www.twitter.com/senderok - Plug-in with anti-phishing icons for the inbox and photo business cards in the header pane
- SenderOK
I'm here I'm here! :D just curious, what do you have against SEO and Social Media experts?
- Celia
Really? BTW I'm just a regular geeky gal.
- Teresa O
TheHenry: and I will lose even more this week. No biggie. I don't define myself by who follows me, especially if they are there just to get a follow back.
- Robert Scoble
We're already facebook friends. And I think friendfeed friends too. But FF just hasn't hit critical mass yet. It'll be cool when it does. Nice job throwing another rock at the hornet's nest! :-)
- Dan Becker
Rory: the catch is I might like one of your posts and then you'll have to deal with my other friends. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I'm glad to know that you are still interested in hearing from us :), I'm @tsudo
- Keith - @tsudo
Robin: I have only seen a handful of spams here. They are easily blocked and there are other defenses against them that I won't talk about here.
- Robert Scoble
Are we not allowed to comment if you are already following us?
- RobinDotNet
Are all those SEO types you're unfollowing now following me?!
- Dennis Jernberg
Thing I don't like is that FF doesn't have a very good topic when the primary line is directed at twitter. There may or may not be a link to something after FF part. Which means FF becomes a bit of a treasure hunt. I like FF for commentary but I hate the initial post.
- Justin Howard
Robert: Thanks mate, interesting and probably efficient idea. I'll do the same for quality content, tired of those "I just used whateveryoucallit.com to gain 300 new followers right now!".
- Nir Ben Yona
whateveryoucallit.com domain name is already taken :-]
- Stephane Tsacas
Hi Robert, I had to do the exact same thing to nail all the twit spam I was getting. Hope you get it all sorted!
- James Brown
Even as we sit here, my iPhone dings with new follow e-mails from spam/marketing people. Sigh.
- RobinDotNet
Stephane: LOL, probably. I took this line from Chris Brogan's "Twitter Etiquette Guide".
- Nir Ben Yona
The joys of not being internet famous means I can check out followers personally, block where required and I've only ever got about 2 DM spam. But with the volumes that Robert gets, it's obviously not possible.
- Rachel Clarke
TwitterEtiquetteGuide.com is available ;-)
- Stephane Tsacas
I think Twitter needs something like captcha to keep the bots to a minimum, IMHO.
- Dennis Jernberg
Robert -- yes, on twitter. It seems the more you tweet, and the more people you communicate with, the more spammers follow you. Hoping for auto-follows I guess (I disappoint them in that regard.)
- RobinDotNet
No offense, but what is the utility of being "followed" by someone who already follows tens of thousands?
- Derek Pangallo
Good way to filter, you know the spammers don't actually read anything or participate
- Justin Luey
What is the utility of being "followed" by someone who doesn't tweet and who follows thousands? What do they do, sit at their terminal and watch the tweets go by all day long?
- RobinDotNet
hi Robert u r already following me how r u?
- Gaith
First day on Friend Feed and Robert Scoble is available. What a welcome.... Carey@holisticdds
- Carey O'Rielly
What will you do when the spammers/SEOs infest Friendfeed, as they will, or do you believe this is better crowdsourced and will be able to hold against the hordes?
- Aaman (Clone of FF)
Rachel -- But numbers alone don't mean anything. Are they that shallow? That must be a stupid question.
- RobinDotNet
Is this going to be the 'most-commented-ever' post on Friendfeed? 240+ already!
- Mahendra (SkepticGeek)
Aaman: FriendFeed is FAR more defendable against spam than Twitter is.
- Robert Scoble
and how would this benefit people who follow Robert Scoble?
- Seyfi Erol
That seems like a good idea, but I think you're already following a lot of these people
- Carlton Prest
Seyfi: why don't you follow me and see how it goes?
- Robert Scoble
I've gotten 4 follow e-mails since my first post here from people I don't want to follow. Do the bots start running right around midnight?
- RobinDotNet
Mahendra, you're not following the threads in Russian (that's my only hint) :D
- Micah Wittman
Robin: oh yes. But I'm never sure what's worse. the people who just want to talk about the numbers or the people they may be able to impress.
- Rachel Clarke
Aaman - Friendfeed doesn't make link-tracking easy, so it's less interesting for spammers to infest.
- Mahendra (SkepticGeek)
Is this a test of interaction or more likely a sort of audience verification?
- Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh: it is what you want it to be. For me I followed you.
- Robert Scoble
If twitter is noise, and FriendFeed is conversation, Robert Scoble followers are their own discussion. It's like using an entirely different website.
- Carlton Prest
Rachel, that's a good point. Is Facebook the same way? I joined that and suddenly got all these people I've nothing in common with who want to be my friend. Creepy.
- RobinDotNet
Scoble: you convinced me! (thought you just needed self-validation, sorry)
- Derek Pangallo
Derek: heh, yeah, I am watching this, among other things running across my screen.
- Robert Scoble
Robin: Facebook is the same but I think to a lesser extent - it's harder to find people I think. But still got a load of friend requests that I ignore as I don't know them
- Rachel Clarke
Robin: you mean like people you went to high school with and didnt' like adding you on FB
- Derek Pangallo
I already do. what i mean is if we don't keep FF, Twitter limited to our interests, wouldn't it be garbage we already try hard to get rid of. Or how far can we extend our interests in life or amount of information we consume?
- Seyfi Erol
Derek -- I mean people I really have NO connection with at all. I've only friended a couple of people I work with, and 2 other real friends. I'm getting friend requests from people I don't know at all.
- RobinDotNet
Seyfi: you haven't discovered FriendFeed's groups and lists yet, have you?
- Robert Scoble
I got a Russian-speaking follower on Twitter. I didn't follow him because I don't understand a word he tweets.
- Dennis Jernberg
Did you know that Facebook has started selling parts of itself to the Russians? At end of May, they sold 1.96% stake of Facebook to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies for $200M.
- RobinDotNet
Robert: I shouldn't have underestimated you. You probably have started much longer comment threads on Friendfeed before.
- Mahendra (SkepticGeek)
Mahendra, Robert, I agree, FF has been very good at keeping out junk
- Aaman (Clone of FF)
Mahendra: I have. I gave away $5,000 once and got more than 1,000 comments on that. But that cost me a lot of cash. Can't afford to do that again.
- Robert Scoble
DST is run by Alisher Usmanov who is closely tied with Putin. You feel ok to that, but re-read the company's user agreement where it says it can share all of your info with third parties. Of course, it's irrelevant to this thread, but I thought it was interesting.
- RobinDotNet
FF is interesting assuming the topic is FF... and/or Scoble's next devilishly clever stunt to generate FF comments
- John Hardy
John: there are lots of interesting topics here on FriendFeed. Did you know you could search by them based on number of likes? Click "Advanced Search" and try.
- Robert Scoble
Very bold, I like it, are you going to keep the people you follow under 2000?
- Joe Dawson
from iPhone
Tell me the newest best way to use FriendFeed!
- Shoichi
I notice that one of the prolific thought-leadering traffic drivers I follow on twitter basically tweets everything he reads, before he reads it. This has lead to spam a few times. disappointing.
- Derek Pangallo
Yo Robert: a man has to do what a man has to do, so one surfer to another: go for it!
- Geer
Here here! A good cleansing is good, now and then... Starting fresh is the way to go, get all of that nonsense out and maintain a core group of people for solid conversation!
- Brian Partridge
Great taking the tour w/ you, Levar Burton & @VegasBill during CES 09 at the Atomic Testing Museum. I would appreciate the follow back. Thanks Robert!
- Chris R
Thanks for following back on Twitter Robert. Cheers from Las Vegas!
- Vegas Bill
I'm pretty sure we're friends here, only just wish there was a easy way to check... and if there is, that some one will let me know....
- Grant Bierman
Just out of curiousity, why are there fewer spammers and bots on FF compared with Twiitter? Is it because they haven't discovered FF yet?
- Sally Church
from iPhone
there are occasionally spammers on FF but I think they mostly get handled quickly vs Twitter where more than occasionally clusters of spammers just follow each other...
- Shannon Clark
What if your already following me? Do I still need to comment here?
- Uncle CW™
Sally: I don't explain spam defenses in public. I don't want spammers to figure them out. But there are quite a few defenses against spam here.
- Robert Scoble
I was surprised about the spammer comments, until I started getting female nude model followers and I'm a women. Maybe a nude male model but not Sparkle or Hootie McBoob
- Corrine Pearce
Corrine: hope you don't see that here on FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
Why are you doing this? You have one of the best listening audiences on twitter! Is there a point to prove that we will post here or go to wefollow?
- David Cole
David: and I can prove that. Twitter's audience has become less and less engaged lately.
- Robert Scoble
Wow, powerful shift by Robert Scoble, I'm really interested in seeing how this works for you Scoble. I slept through all the big news here tonight.
- Jimminy Fuller
Interesting experiment. This is probably one the most commented feedfriend threads in history!
- Menno te Koppele
Plus, David, if you all are listening, you are listening because of my ability to find cool stuff. Mostly that's been because of FriendFeed over the past 18 months. Now I've seen how ascerbic Twitter's spammers have gotten on my accounts.
- Robert Scoble
Interesting. This is going to boost 1000 egos for sure :-)
- Freddie Benjamin
So will it be a matter of just trying to say ahead of the spammers by jumping from one early adopted social network to another?
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
JP: no. I am not leaving Twitter. I AM, however, deleting all their accounts so I will no longer be passing them juice.
- Robert Scoble
I wonder how will your FF homepage look like after this.
- ahmet bulent
Does this make you anti-social media?
- Cory Brown
To follow commenters from here on Twitter will be a lot of work for you Robert. Or do you have some magic tool that helps?
- Tibor Holoda
Robert, how many of the 100k do you think you'll still be following when you are done?
- RobinDotNet
~~~> Robert!! Follow me back again. [a] I'm a real fan of the @Scobleizer... and [b] I'm much nicer than some of these sassy bloofers. ;)
- Kim Sherrell
So what if you have all 58k + comment on here? And you have to keep everyone! And your plan is foiled, sir. Okay give or take 10k for the neglected abandoned twitters and the spammers. Btw, you're already following me on both twitter and here. But come on, you're not really. : /
- Lise
That's cool. I am finding the spammers too much to manage these days myself.
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
Because I can't keep myself from doing math, that's 1.1%.
- RobinDotNet
Lise: I see you a few times a day, but you're right. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
Are you trying to make a point about FF v Twitter? I have spammy things to say about my amateur photography, potential homelessness, and run-ins with public-run health system in the US. Isn't all Twitter spam--just spam you want? :)
- Dean Hall
the auto-refresh on this thread is mind-blowing, fun to watch
- nchenga
Do you ever worry about SM burnout Robert? How do you pace your self?
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
Interesting to note many of most commented threads are in languages other than English. Can we suggest FF has a better international appeal than Twitter?
- Kaan Bingol
Good idea, as you say, stop juicing up the spammers - it'll be interesting to see the stats once you've finished.
- Andrew Piggott
Dean: your Tweets aren't spam. I might keep you. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
I only followed people who were interesting to me, otherwise it is like trying to find a needle in a haystack of brain dumps.
- Daniel Durrans
Exactly. So I expect to be cut. And considering I'm in a crowd of close to 60k, it'll be the same thing.
- Lise
There should be a counter in front of the comments...
- Willem Karssenberg
Lise: and because FriendFeed's search engine is better here too.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, yeah I know. Thought you might have meant for your secretscoble twitter account ;)
- Travis Koger
It's kind of like a giant SM break up Robert. *Oh the hearts you are breaking...*
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
I'm fairly selective about who I follow and I follow so maybe you will follow me back!
- Richard Cunningham
from iPod
Robert, care to explain how you use groups in this kind of context? Because I don't get the point of following people who are then placed into a "I don't read this much" kind of group. How do you use groups so that you're (1) not overwhealmed, and (2) actually read what people are saying?
- Ian Betteridge
How many people do you expect to end up with, Robert? What is a reasonable number?
- Lise
You don't have to follow me on Twitter. I think the FriendFeed party palace is mighty fine.
- Josette Torres
from fftogo
(Not that I'll probably see your response, btw - something at the bottom of 350+ responses is effectively buried until FF has better threading tools. Which I'm sure it will, some day.)
- Ian Betteridge
@Daniel - ditto, and for me it is generally development related also. Robert - I know you have to try and keep up with everything going on in the social media space, but I'm always surprised when people follow so many others as it must be extremely difficult to find the wheat in amongst all the chaff.
- Donald Matheson
Robert: I did not know about that search trick. Thanks!
- Menno te Koppele
Ian: a "I don't read this much" kind of group is awesome for serrendipity. Also, anyone who I find there who is high value gets quickly moved to a smaller group.
- Robert Scoble
What? Are you saying you're not following me already...? ;-)
- Jarno Peschier
Lise: on Twitter? Less than 2,000. I can't follow more.
- Robert Scoble
Jamo: I am already following you. Scott: why not? I am already following you too.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, it might be a problem for me re-gaining your following as my tweets are not 100% English only (whether that means trying to speak English or no English at all ;). How do you deal with occasional non-English tweeters? As that's clearly a noise for you.
- Tibor Holoda
if only twitter were as engaging as FriendFeed has become, and as instantaneous as things like this comment thread, then maybe I would use it more. Hence why I'm all for unfollowing who you conceive as uninteresting; and if that includes me, then so be it!
- Nick Soden
Tibor: I just skip over most of them. Sometimes I translate them to see if I was right.
- Robert Scoble
It is my hope that I provide you with something as interesting as what you provide me with. Either way, I will continue to peruse your posts with interest.
- James (!?)
Hi, I'm still newish to this social media thang - but good on you for taking a stand.
- Jus
Do you prefer night owls? Because what about all the poor people in SV who went to bed at a decent hour and missed your post? Bummer for them, huh?
- RobinDotNet
I'm back from picking my wife up at the airport and ran across this on my way back to sleep.
- nuBound CEO - Mark
The wild and woolly blogosphere is replete with all sorts of good stuff. Hard to follow 500 people, let alone 1000. I applaud you for trying to take the reins.
- Jack B
It funny you put spammers, SEO experts, bots, social media experts all in one bucket. What are you implying? Btw, I'm none of these...
- Peter Chee
.. and it works!! Just got a mail saying Robert is following me now... :)
- Sudar
Peter: I did that to piss off the SEO experts. :-)
- Robert Scoble
This makes me realise that posting from Twitter as opposed to "to twitter from FF" allows the Twitter stream to grow on the back of FF comments ! otherwise not : as in my case - what do you think Robert ? FF to Twitter ? Or FF aggregating all your tweets ?
- Nicholas Paul Gordon
from iPhone
Nicholas: shhhh, you are discovering my secrets! I'm doing more and more from FriendFeed lately.
- Robert Scoble
I comment and you follow me. Its totally worth it
- Arvind
Arvind: even better I was following you before. Mobilepax: no. I really don't care about followers. Inbound is more important than who is listening to you.
- Robert Scoble
and does that mean I have to write in English from now on :)
- Mobilepax
Nice one - it's cool that you give friendfeed (and all the commenters of course ;-) much kudos.
- Alex Vermeule (@alexve)
If you just follow everyone in this thread, won't you just wind up with noise from 'engaged' people. I mean, does this solve the problem?
- Missionary Broadcasting
Good thing its 4am and my car alarm went off, otherwise you wouldnt follow me! I had to look up a video online how to break the key fob apart becuase aparently its battery leaked and was self activating the panic switch. Damn VWs! a replacement key is only like 150 bucks!!
- Charlieray
Missionary: no. You have not discovered that FriendFeed has groups and MUCH BETTER search.
- Robert Scoble
Its funny that if you say "SEO" on twitter its an instant 10 followers
- Charlieray
I'd rather follow you on Friendfeed, Robert. Your tweets get cross posted here anyway, and there's a much greater sense of engagement in that conversation than there is over at Twitter.
- Andrew Terry
Everyone that "follows" you really does know you love FF. So did you build a tool to follow everyone back that comments on here or are you seriously going to manually follow people back?
- Peter Chee
Theres 451+ comment here, do you really follow *everyone*?
- Fajar Nurdiansyah
Because I am up at 1:20 a.m. PT, why not... I must be your target audience then.
- Georgiana Comsa
It must show you how many people enjoy engaging with you Robert, with the number of people posting here.
- Steve Farnworth
Amazing to see the comment thread to this entry expand constantly in real time.
- Christian Bolstad
Peter: I've manually followed everyone on this thread so far.
- Robert Scoble
Peter: although to be fair I've already followed quite a few people who have commented here.
- Robert Scoble
Hi, you are already following me. My solution to get rid of spammers on Twitter is to block them, that is what I do. If everyone started blocking them, I think things would improve
- Asgeir
What about the SEO experts who accidentally find this feed?
- phil baumann
Robert, but you're following commenters here, not on Twitter, right? Not that i care about Twitter that much, as for me it's just a pipeline. FF and FB are conversational platforms for me, or the places i hang out these days.
- Tibor Holoda
Aaman: Sleep? some of us are just starting the day. We're waiting for the US to go to sleep so we can talk about you ;-)
- Rachel Clarke
Spammers being blocked doesnt do anything as they are hoping for that 1 in 100 hit of someone clicking that link, eventually they get banned and create a new account.
- Charlieray
the term SEO expert is a crock of shit
- Charlieray
Marko: not true. It's better because it has very little spam. It's better because it has a better search engine. It's better because it has comments and likes. It's better because it's an aggregator. And more.
- Robert Scoble
you don't have to follow back. but i'll take the chance to say great work with building 43.
- Alexandre Gamela
from twhirl
Massimo: right up top. Heheh. Alexandre: thank you!
- Robert Scoble
After 6 months out of the social media loop I came back to a whole bunch of follows that I either couldn't remember who they were or why I had followed them - how can that be relevent? So, I culled my follows back to less than 200. I'm now just looking to find the signal amongst the noise.
- Colin Walker
What about FriendFeed? Is there any @notsecretscoble too?
- Ludwik C. Siadlak
Friendfeeding for Scoble to follow me while on vacation in Montauk. There is something wrong with me.
- Mitchell Schneider
Mitchell -- you just don't want to miss the fun.
- RobinDotNet
robkeynes -- nice to see you up and about
- RobinDotNet
Ludwik: no, because here I can just start a new list of users.
- Robert Scoble
Well, this has been fun to watch, but it's almost 2 a.m. and I have to be very smart tomorrow morning, which is easier when I'm not too tired, so everyone have a great [whatever comes next in your time zone].
- RobinDotNet
Robert, I'm trying to understand this follow/unfollow strategy you are applying as Napoleon Bonaparte on a battle field ;) Interested to know the result
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
pushing this thing to its limits just to see what happens? interesting.
- livefast
I really do think the way Twitter has changed in the last few months, with all the media attention, certainly begs for it to be used differently now.
- Nicola Quinn
Wow that's a whole lot of people commenting in the last 2 hours, Rob - How many of the new people you are following from this list are NEW to friendfeed? (estimate?)
- Roy Herrod
Does this constitute a comment or are you looking for some insightful commentary on the state of new media? ;)
- Iwan
40%? This must have turned out to be one of the biggest promotions in FF history, even if it wasn't intended that way. BTW, I'm new to FF too.
- Dennis Jernberg
guess it's good to clean up the list once in a while.
- shadow
Ha ha, nice.... So any major ramifications from the mass unfollow?
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
Alistair: other than losing about 1,000 followers so far? No major ramifications.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I'm coming out with a project in the Continuing Medical Education field in the next weeks so if you are interested, I wouldn't mind if you will follow me :-)
- Marco Fabbri
Won't tell anybody, specially Seo people, ssshhhh.....
- Giorgio Burlini
from iPhone
You had me at don't tell the spammers...
- Sean Kelly
I think it's a hoot. Now I'm wondering whether to reverse my recent move towards following more, not less. I do believe that from my experience so far FF is more attuned to building/maintaining community than is Twitter.
- Des Walsh
Des: on FriendFeed you can do both strategies at the same time. You can follow a lot more in one list while following even fewer in another.
- Robert Scoble
Des - Once more people re-engage in the conversation here, they'll realize the continuing outright potential of Friendfeed. I still some here before I read my e-mail
- Charlie Anzman
Hi Mr Scoble, I'm with you (but on a smaller scale) I unfollowed about 150 users on Friday, felt good! I pretty much hang out in FF now at my home page and my groups
- Lee
from iPod
wow...just wow :) Robert, you have many fans !!
- Hayk H.
Good luck on hiding from the bots, they have ways of finding people.... :)
- Chris Holm
well, who am I to refuse such a nice offer? here I am!!!
- niccolò vecchia
Good to hear! I have only ~2000 followers, but I can't follow more at the moment due to Twitter's follow limit rule.
- Martin Lindeskog
Great way to test the chemistry between FF and Twitter. I like it.
- E-Advocate Network
Robert - I'am definitely not a spammer when it comes to broadcasting anything to people, who doesn't want to hear it :) but I do sometimes respond (mostly on twitter so @reply) to some tweets not aimed on me, but that's what everybody actually asks for when publicly broadcasting anything.
- Dušan Šimonovič
Shhh...don't tell anyone but I'm neither of those (the spammers, SEO experts, the bots, or the social media experts,) though, I like the heck out of the concept of this thread...
- Vincent Wright
Good idea about the unfollow. It was an interesting experiment whilst it lasted but given your lifestyle I'm sure most Twitter messages just passed you by. I never DM'd you however, it was nice to think that I had the option if I wanted to. Anyway I've been on FF for ages now, and what I need is a good FF app (for pc), any ideas anyone?
- Nick Bristow
Nick: I just use a browser with FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
Only 530 comments so far? Come on people you are not even trying.
- John Cooper
@Rob Sellen, did you see the comments on the most recent ffundercats podcast entry. http://friendfeed.com/ffunder... Over 1000 in a very short period of time. Although I expect that this post will also get up to those levels.
- Travis Koger
NOTICE: I am closing comments here because I gotta get some sleep. I'll consider doing this again sometime. Sorry if you didn't get in, but see you tomorrow night.
- Robert Scoble
Awesome news - Windows 7 rocks. This is what Vista SHOULD have been (but then Vista is much better than the detractors would have you believe)
- Colin Walker
I disagree. I get a lot of value out of all FriendFeed accounts, even those from people who signed up, added their blog and a few other things, and who have never come back again. Why? Cause now I have a new way to see their stuff and comment on it. Who really cares if they don't know about the comments?
- Robert Scoble
LOL Robert, without them knowing about it, how can you have a conversation with them? I remember some guy talking a lot about the importance of conversations... :)
- Ian Betteridge
Ian: funny thing is, everytime I talk about someone on their stuff they seem to show up. Funny how that works, isn't it?
- Robert Scoble
Robert: It's because we're all obsessively tracking your every move :)
- Ian Betteridge
No. I think most bloggers are egotistical and track everything said about them. :-)
- Robert Scoble
@Robert - my point is, if you physically can't interact with FF then what use is it? You say you have a new way of commenting on their stuff but you can't do this on a mobile phone at present (iPhone excepted probably - not seen the UI). Just being able to see it in another place is pointless WITHOUT the ability to interact.
- Colin Walker
Does anyone see any irony (or humor) in the fact that all of this commenting is occuring IN Friend Feed AGAINST the Twitter message feed that LINKED to the original post? Someone COULD have made it more complex by Stumbling the Tweet, I suppose... :)
- Mark Dykeman
Colin: I can comment here on both my Nokia N95 as well as my iPhone and do regularly (at least with my iPhone).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: ah. I can't like or comment from my phone (Windows Mobile) hence the post. Thanks for letting me know.
- Colin Walker
Mark: I'm getting 2x to 4x the number of comments here than I am on my own blog. Havinga conversation on Twitter sucks. Having one here rocks.
- Robert Scoble
When there are many (many many) times the current users on FriendFeed, do you think having a conversation will be more difficult? It seems like there would just be an endless stream of comments which would make it really hard to keep up with and respond to.
- Jordan Hofker
Having a conversation here is a lot easier than having one on my comments. For one, FriendFeed's page is a LOT faster to come up.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: is it possible that more people are commenting on your stuff in Friend Feed now because they think that you're more likely to respond here?
- Mark Dykeman
Mark: that's possible, but I noticed the same trend for many other people who are a lot quieter about FriendFeed than I am.
- Robert Scoble
Not to beat a dead horse, but to rephrase my previous point: we're not commenting on Colin's blog here, nor are we even putting these comments to the feed of his blog post. We're putting these comments on the Tweet that linked to his post. The conversation continues to spiral further away from the source.
- Mark Dykeman
Mark: That's a feature that people want, and that will happen. Disqus, for example, is I believe working a feature which will let comments posts on FF be also posted back on the originating blog (and vice versa). That way, FF becomes a true two-way aggregator: a method of aggregating comments that don't spiral away.
- Ian Betteridge
Mark yes, that's true. But conversations OFTEN happen away from their source. You think that when we talk about you at a cocktail party that you're there to hear all the dirt we're talking about? I don't see this as a big deal. If they are smart they'll see this stuff show up on Google or some other search engine eventually.
- Robert Scoble
And as you say, Robert, us bloggers are out looking for it ;)
- Colin Walker
Good article. I like how you start off with the Social Network Lockout Syndrome
- Nils Geylen
from Alert Thingy
Maybe I should have done a survey before the post ;)
- Colin Walker
Robert: I guess Oscar Wilde's old saying is true: "There is only one thing was than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." So, if you do mention me at your next cocktail party, please accept my thanks in advance. :)
- Mark Dykeman
It's a question of whether having static FF accounts will add to the noise or not. It depends on whether those ppl are just a part of the echo chamber or if they present a different take on what's already out there. My opinion is that the noise can be balanced by more signal: contribution to the conversation and new points of view.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
Shey, it's not about static accounts - its about a static page - more specifically if you can interact on any given platform (e.g. your phone)
- Colin Walker
Interesting topic. One of my friends looked over my shoulder at FriendFeed, shook his head and said "information overload".... it works both ways.
- Jonathan Beckett
I agree that the commenting on FF is what I come back for. It's not what I first thought FF would be. I thought it was a great way to aggregate all your online activity Instead of telling my non tech family and friends to look at 5 different sites now they can look at one. The downside here is your original blog post will live much longer than these FF comments and no one going directly to your blog will know this discussion ever happened. We need a way FF comments can live with the original content.
- Kevin Shannon
@Kevin, there is a WP plugin which brings comments back but only if they are on the post listing - this conversation will not be recognised. Full 360 degree commenting would be great.
- Colin Walker
FriendFeed is clearly a different beast than Twitter, but far fewer users and no external ecosystem to speak of. Will it scale? What if it loses data? Or do people not care because this talk is all just ephemeral anyway?
- LogEx
I'd probably like FF (and twitter and pownce) more if some of my RL friends were online. They're all luddites.
- ha3rvey (Ho)^3
Its funny to see comments, in FF, similar to "what use is it?". Obviously, you find some use in it - you are exploring the links and conversations presented, commenting on them, and otherwise contributing. As with all effective collaborative tools, the use is in the community. Twitter is a tool, FriendFinder integrates that tool and enhances the content by means of aggregation and discussion. I gain a good bit of knowledge here, whether on topic or off :)
- jcunwired
This conversation thread proves the value of FriendFeed... We have articulated a problem and are collaboratively brainstorming on a solution, e.g. two way feed aggregation between the original data source (blog post) and friendfeed. I hope Disqus can get this implemented as it will set a precedent in online comment management so folks can participate in "discovery" and "commenting". I think bloggers should include a link to the FF convo in the meantime to share the convo with their readers.
- Susan Beebe
BlackBerry Curve 8830 phone - no Friendfeed access - bummer! waiting...
- Susan Beebe
I found friendfeed was useful to me for just aggregating, though commenting is very nice, it'd still be a worthwhile service to me ;-) ps:G1 seems to leave comments fine
- immaterial
Galaga rules - where's my Mame installation......
- Colin Walker
I just wish the aliens would stop killing me. And what are those tube sock medals in the corner? I thought they were bombs because everyone has always told me they were, but no one has bothered to tell me how to activated them.
- Admiral Anika
For me it has always been a positive - it is far easier to work with a train of thought over a series of posts rather than treating them in isolation.
- Colin Walker
from fftogo
@Colin - fair point. EVERYONE: feel free to discuss this within FriendFeed - this will give you a chance to expound further
- Mark Dykeman
I only self-link if I have a good reason. It is beneficial for your blog, as people can link together your thoughts. If you start to worry about doing "enough" self-linking, I would assume it could affect your blog negatively because you may start to "force" the content to fit with other posts.
- Rob Diana
@Kyle - hahaha, yes I'm around. Not much but around ;)
- Colin Walker
from fftogo
It should be limited. I've seen internal linking out of control, especially at larger blogs who take keywords and point them to prior coverage. When I call out prior coverage it's done as a "See Also:" with a full headline, so people aren't tricked.
- Louis Gray
I agree with Rob Diana's points. I feel that internal linking easily shows your train of thought. Louis has a great point as well.
- acedanger
Yuvi did an analysis if Engadget a few months ago and found that 70% of their links were to themselves. Wow. Now if thats not out of control as per louis's point, I don't know what is. Yuvi?
- Roberto Bonini
@Roberto- the one that was a few months ago was TechCrunch, not Engadget. Engadget too has a similar ratio though.
- Yuvi
@Yuvi: thanks for the correction. TechCrunch too? So does this excessive linking have a bearing on quality?
- Roberto Bonini
I've never had a problem -- I end up discovering content I forgot about!
- Tamar Weinberg
@Roberto: Quality can never be reduced to a number.
- Yuvi
True, Yuvi. But what I'm getting at is that does this amount of self linking hurt or help. Personally, I think it makes getting infomation a bit difficult and you tend to go around in cricles.
- Roberto Bonini
Positive impact: Users can go back and see what else I've written on a certain topic. It's really beneficial when writing tips about apps or reviewing apps so users get to see related apps or previous thoughts about a service.
- Corvida
from twhirl
I always try to say "bla blah like I wrote about last week blah blah" rather than just slide it in without comment. Sometimes it's hard. Quick, someone write up a guideline for me!
- Daniel J. Pritchett
My thought is, on an opinion site self-linking is very beneficial. If I like the way someone writes I want to read more of them. But on a gadget blog or (even worse) tech site for a major newspaper that does not allow external linking in their articles, self-linking is effing useless. CNet has gotten better over the years, but it used to be really bad about this.
- Phil G
OK, let's try a different tack here: is it acceptable to self-link in order to increase the visibility of your blog (i.e. SEO, so your blog posts rank better with search engines)?
- Mark Dykeman
Its a tough one. Obviously it depends whether you sell ads on your blog or not. But many may just want to improve the visibility of their blog. Personally I think that the best way to do that is by promoting it - FriendFeed, Twitter, etc.
- Roberto Bonini
My jury is still out on this one. SEO codex would say it is necessary, so I'm doing it. I think the YARPP plugin for WP has been one of the best benefits. I'm finding with increasing readers on specific topics they are digging into the site more. However, most just read the latest post. - just my meager observations from the sidelines.
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
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
from 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
Quote: We’re going to have to find our voices beyond the conversation we have with one another. Otherwise, it won’t be enough. - so true!
- Colin Walker
o.0 wow. didn't know you had it in you. i see you as a hippy towing Sarah McLachlan trance REMIX kinda guy...
- Caroline
honda civic...stoneridge...nirvana shirts...goth girls...getting reminded again
- Pete Delucchi
Beastie Boys were doing some really interesting things during this period - "Sabotage" and the like. Now I'm moved to beef up the Beastie content in my last.fm library. (Just don't expect "Brass Monkey" - I hate that song.)
- Ontario Emperor
i downloaded hello nasty which this song is off that album and listened to it on my drive into riverside today and it's alil mellow-er then i thought! actually i wish they would have done more upbeat but they were in there 30s when they did hello nasty...different life experiences @Ontario i think you would like it it's kinda trancey
- Caroline
Back in the mid 1980s I was reading MAXIMUMROCKNROLL, and people in the letters section were loudly proclaiming that the Beastie Boys shouldn't claim hardcore roots because they were sexist and other politically incorrect.
- Ontario Emperor
Ontario - maybe they were just ahead of their time ;) look at just about every rapper these days. Those letter writers would be shocked. Oh, and maybe it might have been because they were white.
- Colin Walker
My Google Reader usage has actually gone down directly related with my FriendFeed usage
- Jorge Escobar
actually there's a part of me that thinks its going to crap because of ff
- Allen Stern
The number of folks subscribed to my google reader shared items continues to climb consistently.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I share and read less from GR, but I read much more content originated from GR share via FF links.
- jcunwired
Don't get it, Allen. I'm with Hutch - I think the value has gone up because of FriendFeed. People don't really subscribe to my shared items, but I can quickly share what I find interesting with the FF community while simultaneously knocking my feed items out.
- Shawn Farner
I use reader more than ever. I even disconnected it from FF to reduce noise. People who read my shared feed are not on FF for the most part. If I want to share something on FF, I visit the site itself and use the bookmarklet
- Capn' One Eye - adrift
I agree with Geoff -- the FF posting from the bookmarklet (with picture and comment options) is much higher value and timely than a Google Reader share.
- Brian Sullivan
Agree with Hutch and Shawn, more people are reading and commenting on my shared items and I'm enjoying reading a greater variety than before. It does get tedious if too many people share the same item though.
- Sally Church
I'm sorry Shey - is that the Readburner that pimps the same set of blogs every day? (techcrunch, xkcd, readwriteweb) ?
- Allen Stern
Can you tell the same thing for Twitter? Do you think the value of Twitter has gone up because of FriendFeed?
- Kerem Ozkan
Although sharing stuff is somewhat akward, I prefer much more Netvibes than GR. Also the FF bookmarklet is quite cool for sharing. Otherwise just use delicious with automatic sharing.
- Hayk H.
@Allen Stern (allenstern): I think sharing on FF is finished. At least for my friends, as far as it goes. We all use Google Reader, we avoid the echo chamber, and regardless of what aggregator it gets poured into, it ends up on FF anyway. FF's a cacophany that I occasionally surf to see what certain people, largely NOT my friends, are doing. FF gives me too much noise and no way to...
more...
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
Alexander - have you tried the Friends lists as a way to manage only those users you want to see?
- Hutch Carpenter
it's funny - no one actually asked me what I meant by my statement!
- Allen Stern
+1 Hutch. I was sharing pre-FF, but I share more now. Of all the ways to share things, GReader shares are the easiest for me to use because I'm always in Google Reader
- Duncan Riley
I perform my Google Reader sharing in harmony with FriendFeed, which is one of the reasons that I (usually) share no more than three items per hour.
- Ontario Emperor
I just checked... and happy to report that our code is 100% pimp free at readburner
- Thomas Connors
@Hutch Carpenter (bhc3): I have, but given the inheritance of friends-of-friends, I STILL get a hook into the cacophany. At root, FriendFeed is a mechanism for finding things other people have already seen. GR is a mechanism for discovering things others haven't seen YET. Which is why I read most stuff via RSS from blogs/etc on GR, and it feeds my FF. FF is a truly crappy discovery...
more...
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
Alexander - you can turn of FOF inside each Friends list. That's what I've done.
- Hutch Carpenter
Ok - let me clarify my comment. 1. Thomas, as I've said from the beginning readburner is about pimping - I wish it wasn't that way - with the talent you have onboard it's hard for me to believe you cant fix it. 2. as for my initial comment, i am tired of bloggers sharing every single item on their blogs - first, if the blog has 4-5 writers, that's an instant 5 shares on ff and rb, etc....
more...
- Allen Stern
@Allen Stern (allenstern): Which, to be fair, wouldn't be that big a deal if FF unified on referred URLs so they only got one entry and Comments, etc, descended therefrom. The duplication's a killer.
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
ReadBurner pimps what the people share. It's our job to evangelize the technology, and then more content will come. Do you think that Techcrunch even cares that it's pimped on ReadBurner? Doubt it. We get nothing from it, we want to see quality content, and right now people associate quality with a big name. We are going to demolish that notion.
- drew olanoff
I can't help but wonder if this is some sort of backlash against the inability to monetize one's Reader sharing...?
- abacab
As Alexander says, the big issue with GR etc. on FF is the duplication. I've had apost in the works for about 6 weeks on what we share and how based on our intentions and the potential audience. Do we share things differently based on where we know the share will be seen? Do we/should we hold back if we have already seen a number of others share the same story or do we share anyway in order to boost that item up the ranks on sites like ReadBurner? It's an interesting dilemma.
- Colin Walker
from fftogo
Drew - people associate quality content with big names? I seriously doubt that.
- Allen Stern
Colin - that's an interesting analytical path you're going down. Good stuff.
- Hutch Carpenter
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
from 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
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
from 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
Your permalink for this story (the link on Friend Feed) is 404'ing for some reason, even though the story is clearly visible if you go directly to Scripting News.
- Ed Ryan
Not sure if it's an IE thing but can't open the email address confirmation URL. Yes, it was IE - ok in FF3
- Colin Walker
Wow. It's getting pounded now. I'm looking at the PHP source now.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Okay - I'm impressed, OpenID registration flow worked pretty smoothly. XMPP confirmation process worked.
- Dossy Shiobara
Interesting, free software is one thing and well and good, but who's paying for the infrastructure and the manpower to watch said infrastructure? Still, it's funny that the software is called laconica, I appreciate that. :)
- felix
Blah. "Open source" for a Twitter-like service doesn't mean squat unless there's a server-to-server protocol, like IRC, so one can start up their own server and participate in the "cloud" ... otherwise, you're just standing up lots of islands of attention. Who needs more of _that_? ugh.
- Dossy Shiobara
Interesting. The license is a version of the GPL that compels the release of modified source even if its just used to deliver a service.
- Erik S
@Dossy, there is a server-to-server protocol. The docs are sparse, but it's there.
- Dave Winer
Feels very familiar... with the slow page loading and everything! :)
- Yolanda
sbisson there (as everywhere!)... so now we'll see how it goes
- Simon Bisson
from twhirl
Dave, I just posted a question (waiting for moderation) in the Control Yourself blog http://controlezvous.ca/?p=5 regarding the underlying architecture. I must admit, however, that their interoperability plans sound impressive.
- Ontario Emperor
Well, using HTTP POST and OAuth piggibacking doesn't seem like the optimal solution for the server-to-server substrate to me. Why are we constantly reinventing new protocols? We have XMPP with Pub/Sub extensions, we have JXTA...
- Vlado Handziski
one can run xmpp over jxta: eg http://collab.netbeans.org ... not sure if that codebase has surfaced or not but i demo'd it at j1 '06
- James Todd
"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
"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