Carsten Pötter

A koan for the rest of us! - Tom Landini

+1 Tom - Karim

I'm a little confused here... :P - Mark Forman

Your right... They are default. - "Czar" DJ Peterman

Come on Allen, you already posted this story. http://www.centernetworks.com/... This is just linkbaiting. - Mark Trapp

Mark - this is completely different. The one you linked to discusses the right panel that's not a default so-to-speak. This analysis today is based on the defaults that FF is providing to 9 people. It's not the same and I don't believe in linkbaiting. - Allen Stern

This is important and should be fixed. The decision was probably made to help entice A-listers to the service, but that's no longer necessary. Thanks, Allen. - Sprague D

The real problem is these services are really lame if you have no friends. This was an attempt to fix that problem. I agree though that FF should only recommend participants on the first few screens. If you aren't participating why would FF want to feature you? - Robert Scoble

Great video -- and yea definitely not the same post. I would see this an expansion into the topic and showing the results of tracking the patterns of a new user signup experience... - Gary Bacon II

i´m just subscribed to robert - for me the other 8 people have no value in their content and i wondered all the time why they are there... but robert should be default ;) - Dieter Schwarz

Robert's point is fair. The defaults shouldn't be a random selection of users, but a few of the most dedicated participants. I look forward to seeing edythe replace Arrington. ;-) - Sprague D

Great post Allen, FF is also VERY susceptible to bots doing mass adding. I haven't really seen any one take advantage of this yet. Then again, its not easy to see a users followers/following stats. - sean percival

i only saw this as a problem if you tend to be a sheep and just subscribe because a service recommends someone vs default which to me implies they auto subscribed you when you start which they did not, i'm only subscribed to a few of these 9 folks, very similar to who i've sub'd to in other services - this seem a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill to me folks - mike "glemak" dunn

Great post. In order for FriendFeed to become mainstream they should watch this video! Otherwise FF will risk being a web 2.0 only social network. I understand why FF is by default adding Scoble and other early adopters though...word of mouth! It's to attract the fast followers.... like us.....creating the herd effect so to speak. I would suggest that FF still have these guys as a default(maybe under the category web 2.0 thought leaders?) but add a default page based on interest areas as well. - Chris Herbert

This FF entry has been reshared to:"Social Media, Making It All Work" room. http://friendfeed.com/rooms/so... - Chris Herbert

Great job on researching. I definitely realized that FF was not nearly doing the job Facebook does when looking for friends you may know or recommendations. - ☛ Adam Helweh ☚

This isn't cool. In my book, this is kissing up to the big guys so they'll talk about you and get you exposure. Whether they know it or not still doesn't make it okay. - Raoul Pop

@mike, if you want to know why what is presented to the "sheep" is important, check out Chris's reference to "herding". Chris, if they want to become mainstream they need to change the target of their marketing from "fast followers" to common users, who would also like the chance at building an audience. A good way to do that would be by randomly presenting dedicated users. - Sprague D

I thought this might be the way for FriendFeed to gain popularity as well. Get some of the most active internet peeps on Friend Feed, make them feel that their subscribers are coming in droves, and the rest will follow. Yes, no? - ☛ Adam Helweh ☚

Paul: I actually agree. Who is following you is not important. Who you are following is VERY important. I'm following about 3,000 people right now on FriendFeed, all hand added (I just added you for making a good point). - Robert Scoble

Raoul: when I joined FriendFeed I wasn't on the list. I moved up the list because I brought a lot of people into FriendFeed from my popular Twitter and blog. Live isn't fair sometimes. You might notice that FriendFeed is at the top of TechMeme right now and that FriendFeed is growing very rapidly. But I'm writing a blot post about the "Participation Premium." If life is unfair, why are 5,000 more people following me than Mike Arrington? After all, his blog is more popular than mine is... - Robert Scoble

paul: excellent comment - mike "glemak" dunn

But Robert, why are that many people following him at all when until recently he didn't even participate here other than posting his feeds? - Cyndy

Robert: people follow you because you follow them and pass along the conversations so others can enjoy too. Mike A. doesn't include everyone.. - LPH™

Sprague: what I would do if I were FF is this: I'd have config options based on interest areas, top FriendFeeders, recommended FriendFeeders, and "randomizer" (as you suggested), and most popular FriedFeeders. - Chris Herbert

It's not the same 9 people everytime. It depends on who you subscribe to. There is a short list of prominent people on FF that get recommended, but in order for them to be recommended they have to be a contact of one of your existing contacts. The list is in alphabetical order by first name. If you don't have any contacts FF won't recommend anyone to you. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas: not true. I just signed up a new account and it recommended users to me. - Robert Scoble

cyndy: ff primarily is a very valid presence aggregater - whether someone then chooses to interact in ff via comment/like is secondary to me - mike "glemak" dunn

Thomas is referring to the "Recommended" link on the friend settings tab; Allen's video is about the sign up process. - Sprague D

It seems to me, with all the social aggregation, FriendFeed should be able to discern your interests and participation among other networks and provide an appropriate set of defaults at signup. TweetStats.com can show who I most actively talk to on Twitter, for instance, and as one element of an algo maybe that data can provide a better cross-section of suggested followers. - Aaron Brazell

The Participation Premium: http://tinyurl.com/6elnjf - Robert Scoble

You may be interested in a little personal research I've done to find out the social weight of FF users and the number of followers: http://user21.com/2008/07/04/f... - Yuval Atzmon

I'd call these defaults an excellent marketing campaign from FF's standpoint. Those default FF users pretty much represent the same echo-chamber 'attractors' in the technology/web space. I think it's a little disingenuous when you ask how those people became popular FF users. It's obviously a well calculated way to market to the major technology attractors; or was that comment meant to be tongue in cheek? - Jim McCusker

hmmm Robert, I signed up a new account as well and found that under the "Recommended" link it wouldn't recommend anyone to me unless I first added at least one person as a contact. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas - what I am discussing is the people you are presented with when you create a brand new account - not on the right side - Allen Stern

Thomas, check out Allen's video, it's cool. - Sprague D

@atzmon, your list ranking users by #subscribers shows (for the top 10) almost perfect correlation with the "defaults" presented to new users. If Allen needed any more proof of his thesis, there it is. - Sprague D

fail bird http://www.seanpercival.com/bl... - sean percival

So........ why is it a big deal to have so many followers on FF? Is it worth it? Is it beneficial? Why is everyone trying to have so many followers? - ChaCha Fance via Alert Thingy

Why do all the interesting posts seem to happen on Sunday when I've got family things to do?! I appreciate the recommend list because I'm relatively new to all of this. Scoble and Lois Gray are a good "in" to all of the noise (good human filters). - James Hull

@James, I think Allen's original motive for posting was that there are *many* excellent "human filters" available here, but because of a marketing decision by FF, only a certain few are provided as default recommendations when new users sign up. - Sprague D

My main complaint with your video is that you printed out the pages from FriendFeed. Who uses printers anymore? Couldn't you have taken screen grabs? - Ben Kessler

2nd that nope - mike "glemak" dunn

I'd say some concrete examples would bolster this essay. Unfortunately, I can't really think of any. - Dan Kaplan

also not getting this analogy - I think the sweatshop one is closer than MLM. - Jason Kaneshiro

it was just a thought that came into my head this morning and I felt like exploring it. But Jason's analogy could work as well I imagine. - Steven Hodson

I do get your summary and feel you're pretty well on track. I also agree your argument would be easier to "sell"(couldn't resist that) with concrete examples. - Mark Forman

Some truth here for the worst of the start-ups. The best ones have a genuine quality to them. - Hutch Carpenter

Sorry, those of you with those very short and decisive answers must've just answered the title instead of actually reading the blog post. Very astute observation, Steven. I've been discussing this very thing with a few friends of mine over the past 2 weeks or so in terms so similar I'm kinda freaked out right now. Yep, I see a lot of MLM in social networks. A pyramid of evangelists channeling eyeballs and attention to the same small group of personalities. - Jim Stanger

Remember, these systems won't work unless you bring your friends, family, and co-workers in. And when you get them in so many people will be stroking The Usual Suspects the clicks will flow their way. All very generalizing, but with so little space for each comment it's that or spell it out in a blog post no one will read. At least yours shed some light on it, Steven, kudos. - Jim Stanger

It's a big conundrum for many of us. The tools themselves aren't bad, and the personalities for the most part are interesting and knowledgeable people. The problems arise out of divergent agendas. Those who use these tools to just use them (be social, learn new things, and share what we, in turn, know) tend to get drowned out by those who rely on these systems to make a living. It often feels like holding a cocktail party or book club in the middle of a stadium full of Vaudville acts and circus sideshows. - Jim Stanger

I disagree Steven. I think you're wrong about this one. - Corvida

Related to MLM, but without the money...money...money. And much more flexible. We have a bidirectional graphs of supporters/publishers/followers/consumers rather than MLM trees (where the people at the top stay at the top). Social media doesn't keep people at the "top" unless they are really worth listening to, unlike MLM where you can just rest on your laurels. Unfortunately social media seems to stress people out "trying to keep on top of everything new" and "not miss anything". - Mitchell Tsai

FF provides a means for all to be social and sane at the same time. The granularity of views means you can stay in the main stream without the big giants heads dominating the chatter. If we want to expand on a topic and pow-wow with more like minded folks we can just take it to a room. Very cool, indeed. Apologies for the little comment storm here. I don't blog about socnets so this is really the only method of analysis and feedback I give myself, and only when the context is right. - Jim Stanger

Linkbait, oh cranky one. ;) - Cyndy

Naor, for you, I'll do a separate post, because that's going to be longer than three FF comments, and three is my absolute limit. ;) - Cyndy

i posted some thoughts on PassPack a little while ago - I think I had a diff't use case than Cyndy did - I was looking for more of an all purpose secure text db. If you're curious - http://is.gd/J9s - felix

Good call, MK - Aaron Brazell

Can't they already track it back to you anyway by doing a google search for "your name" + Friendfeed? I stopped worrying about what my employer will think of my comments. Part of my new 100% transparency campaign across socnets. I got nothing to hide from anyone. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Mine is on FF, and I've been noticing my LinkedIn profile has been ranking higher in Google searches lately. Maybe they've improved their SEO, because I haven't changed my profile for a while, as far as key words. Thanks for the reminder, I should update it. - Cathryn Hrudicka

Good placeholder until FriendFeed adds a true profile page for users. - Hutch Carpenter

I just checked, I already linked mine. Feel free to stalk me now.;) - Andrea Baker

ouch - Marc Canter

Agreed, FF should pull in data perhaps from linked services to populate a user profile page. Lack of user profile info here is one of the strangest things about FF imho. - Marshall Kirkpatrick

"strangest things about FF" - but thats what makes it different. Tell me seriously do I care where you worked or what you did ?? I care about what you say or linked into FF and/or commented in this space. If I wanna to know more about MK, then there are other methods to accomplish that :)- - Peter Dawson

Good tip. Had mine in place since day 1. I believe having Linked-in added increases the chances that someone will subscribe to you as well. - Mark Krynsky

Okay, I just followed your reco. - wrecks

I think at this point in time, I won't link in. in the future yes, but currently going through transition of new owner @ moment - clarke thomas

And... done... It's a little more complicated to "go public" on LinkedIn than it should be! - Ben Hedrington

I agree 100%. In fact, one of the first things I do before friending someone is seeing if they have a LinkedIn profile. - Mike Reynolds

I can comment quickly too. - Louis Gray

LOL :-) - Alexander van Elsas

I'm beginning to think Louis is a script. ;-) - Chris Baskind

Chris, LOL, I thought so too for a while, but he says pretty smart things for a script ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

If he is a script, he just spawned some child processes. - Phil Glockner

@J.Phil: This must be humor week on FriendFeed... - Yuvi

+1 J.Phil - Hao Chen

Soooooo, anyone got anything interesting to say about the post itself, or should we keep making these Louis Gray jokes (Sorry Louis) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, you always write very thought-provoking posts. I will re-read it again in the morning and maybe I can pull together something halfway intelligent. - Phil Glockner

+1 J.Phil - Atul Arora

Thx J.Phil and Atul Arora ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Alexander - going to re-read in the morning with coffee .. operating on 3hrs sleep is starting to catch up on me. - Steven Hodson

The whole concept of "lifestreaming" is not really accurate. I'm not streaming my life when I use aggregation services. All I'm doing is having them track my behavior on some sites that friends and peers may find interesting. Lifestreaming things like meals, bodily functions, and the mundane are completely not interesting. But the idea of "always on" doesn't mean "broadcast everything". I like being always on. It's not just being on, it's being connected and engaged. - Louis Gray

re: trend 1, prediction: "homepage" will be dead in 10 years. A big company like Google will control a semantically connected device that is always online (maybe attached to you) that you can communicate with. That will be the destination. - Hao Chen

@Steven, good night. Louis, I probably should have used a different term, but when you combine services like Twitter, Dopplr, Beacon (-like services), I'm thinking these streams are depicting more of our actions in life (hence life-stream). - Alexander van Elsas

Louis, what interests me in the "always on" thing isn't just the streaming part. It is also interesting to think what will happen if your kids grow up, and there comes a clash between "always on" and events happening in real life. i suspect that when more people are reaching a state of "always on" there will be more interferences with physical life. It would be interesting to see what happens then. My feeling is that people will disconnect on purpose, to make a clear distinction again between on and off. - Alexander van Elsas

Hao, sounds like something I wouldn't trust Google or anyone else with ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, true about the need for a destination but then web sites have been fighting to be our home page ever since the birth of the browser. The ideals of a user-centric web are great but - in reality - how many people want the levels of data portability that the campaigns demand? We already have cross service IM but, as far as social networks go, many join a particular service as that's where their friends are and have little (or even no) need to climb the walls of those gardens. Perhaps behaviour will alter but until social media becomes more prevalent we will not have a true picture of peoples behaviour in this area. - Colin Walker via fftogo

And, with regards to your second trend - you already know where I stand on the need to disconnect from time to time ;) - Colin Walker via fftogo

Alex: Viewing all these Flickr photos is really keeping me motivated to travel more (not less)! Although now it's strange to take 1-3 hrs/day when traveling to blog/e-mail/FriendFeed/call-friends... - Mitchell Tsai

Colin, I'm thinking about a destination that is mine, that I can truly call " home" . I am not sure what it would look like exactly, but it would have to be a user-centric place. What I mean by that is that I dictate what that home looks like, but more importantly, I get to dictate the underlying business model. I might pay for it, or allow advertisement, or whatever. But it wouldn't be something that forces a business model upon me (like Facebook does). This topic would justify another post ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Interesting thoughts... - Colin Walker via fftogo

Sachendra says in a response on the post " When the novelty wears off, we’ll see the similar types of human behaviors as we have now." I think he is right up to a point. I responded "@Sachendra, that’s a bit what I am thinking. But I do think human behavior is a bit affected by the new uses of technology. So it will be more ” balancing out”. Technology will and has been leaving it's trace on our lives. - Alexander van Elsas

Now if all this socialization will make us unplug and meet in person that would be best! ;-) - Igor The Troll

Igor LOL. But honestly, I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing to be socializing on the web. Being able to connect overcoming place, time, and distance is great. But it's just a matter of finding the right balance really. As more people will start using social media I think the novelty of "always on" will wear down and people will find balance once more ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

I think you are right. Looking forward to bumping into you in Thamel Nepal or Varanasi. Just please do not Stalk me, I know Kung Fu! LMAO - Igor The Troll

Given that no one service can do everything that we would want, the "home" you want could end up being just a personalized homepage like iGoogle or Netvibes. If you put the right widgets on your page it definitely could be your "home". The problem is finding the right combination of services that suit your needs. - Rob Diana

Rob , maybe, I'm not sure. the problem with the examples is that they aren't really mine are they. There are business models over there that don't fit my need. I was thinking more along the lines of a private space. It needs to be a place where I can save the important stuff, where I can grant people access to parts whenever I want. I envision it to be the web version of a real home. That should be mine, not Google's ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

So, maybe we are looking at our own hosted site but do we host it remotely (say with our ISP), our own webspace or even at home (such as Windows Home Server). One way or another someone is going to have to write the platform that we all tweak to our needs wherever it is hosted. - Colin Walker via fftogo

We should host it in Sweden so it is neutral. lol - Igor The Troll

@Alexander, I was not recommending iGoogle or Netvibes I was just using them as examples of today's personalized homepage. In the future, I am assuming that the personalized homepage will change, and most likely existing ones will change as well. I know some service has the concept of private/public pieces, I cannot remember which it was though. There is also the problem of push vs pull (again). - Rob Diana

Colin, it could be something running on your own computer (or in Sweden for that matter HA HA), but where it runs isn't nearly as important as who is in control. I need to be in control. That ensures a business model is used that fits my own needs. That could be a subscription or an advertisement based version or whatever. - Alexander van Elsas

Rob, I got that, sorry if that wasn't clear ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Trend 1 - wouldn’t your home on the Web naturally be the place where your master data resides? Trend 2 - agree - Mark Dykeman

@Mark, thx for your response. Let me point out that I'm not so concerned if I'm right, it is merely a thought exercise to help me understand the present ;-) But in response to your question. Your data currently resides with Facebook (figuratively speaking), do you want them to provide you with a home, or would you like a more user-centric home? Wrt to the second trend. It is interesting to explore the disconnect thing. How would it work, or in other words, how would we find balance? - Alexander van Elsas

These are quite beautiful. - shelisrael1

Aren't they? I looked twice to make sure they were real. So ... imagine a hot air balloon tour of Holland when the tulips are in season. - Chris Baskind

They look like textiles. That's cool. - Abby Martin

Wow - Michael W. May

Imagine a world covered with tulip farms and salt ponds : http://www.flickr.com/search/?... - Ken Sheppardson

Good link, Ken! We need to find more ... - Chris Baskind

Is this where they grow plasticine haha??? - Joe Dawson

I've always loved tulips. I would LOVE to fly over & see something like this. I'll have to check whether anything like this can be seen on Google Earth. - Kamilah Gill

Way Cool. I'd love to see them up close. Believe it or not they used to grow bulb flowers like that in Fremont California of all places. But the fields and greenhouses are now long gone, replaced by condos and high tech office buildings.... - Jeff P. Henderson

Breathtaking! - Nicholas Kreidberg

I think the tulip is the most underrated flower. - MG Siegler

WOoOW! Tulip is one of my favourites. - Maryam Ardakani

oh my god. no way! wow. - edythe

fantastic - Greg

If I were an alien, this is where I would choose to land my spaceship. Clearly a sign of an advanced civilization. - Karim

Amazing colors - johnpiercy

That's really nice. - Nicholi via twhirl

That's pretty impressive stuff - things that most people would never see or dream of. Thanks for sharing. - Benjamin "Zeus" Heide via twhirl

That's amazing. - vidsaw

That's a beautiful photo. I love tulips. We visited Keukenhof when I lived in The Netherlands and it was extraordinary. - Trish R

that's fantastic !! - Mahdi Ebrahimi

Very pretty. - Alex Hammer

I remember how fascinated I was as a child when we drove through tulip farms in Holland. It was amazing. - ※Fu※

We've got some big tullip farms around Holland, Mich, not far from here, but like that is only a town mimicing a country, those farms do not compare to this - Michael W. May via twhirl

There's a similar patch of bliss in Lompoc, California *just north of Santa Barbara. - Susan Beebe

My favorite. We put in 1K bulbs in our beds for a spring display. - Mrsth

A thousand bulbs? Wow. I hope you post pictures the next time they're in bloom. - Chris Baskind

All sorts of gorgeous - Dominik Hofmann

Wow that's really cool stuff. - Robert Occhialini

Oh wow. Thanks for sharing those. Gorgeous! - Kimberly J via NoiseRiver

neither, it's the people whining about whining users :) - Jeff Quinton

E doesn't know how to type "I." And E can't edit comments in fftogo. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Jeff, Steven isn't whiny, he's cranky. :) - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

I hide all Twitter whining threads because it's such a played out conversation. What more is there to say about it? - Mike Doeff

@Ontario Emperor - I guess I was whining about him whining about other people whining too. How far can this go? :) - Jeff Quinton

Will someone explain to me why anyone is complaining about a service that they don't pay for being down? Supreme Court said we have the right to bear arms not the right to bare our souls on Twitter 24/7 - Cathleen Rittereiser

@cathleenritt - even if twitter is free, there is a time investment. after some number of whales the effort isn't worth it. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

:-) - Mitchell Tsai

Steven is your blog down? - Mark Dykeman

Looks down from here...:( - Pete Gilbert

BOTH! :D - Lora Lufark

yes it was down :( apparently the web host is still having problems and I'm getting fed up but can't do much about it at this time - Steven Hodson

The best way to stop twitter whining - stop using twitter. I gave up on it about a month ago, and don't even notice the outages (or the whining) anymore. The whining comes from the wishy-washy who can't commit to supporting them or quitting. Just pick a side and move on! - Jason Kaneshiro

I've flipped two of my sites already, and will end up implementing Disqus everywhere. I couldn't be more impressed. - Chris Baskind

"Daniel said that having others in the field helps to reassure him that it's a good market to pursue. If nobody else was interested in the space, he would undoubtedly be wondering just why." Damn straight + the fact he recognizes this is a definite positive. - Duncan Riley

And another comment via Friendfeed. Who knew comments systems would become so competitive ;-) - william stewart

FF intergration would be great, And not just on Disqus, but for all blogs. I'm starting to notice more and more Disqus comments showing up in my FF feed. I've never actually used it before, but wider avaliablility would change that. - Roberto Bonini

I've already passed through Disqus and just integrated FF comments in to my blog postings. I don't think Disqus is going to last too long since FF brings both comments and community. - Brandon Werner

If it ever comes to wordpress.com, then I can really enjoy it. Still, great idea Daniel. - Hutch Carpenter

Funny, I found myself not being able to comment on blogs that implemented Disqus because I have not had the chance to sign up. I have hard enough time remembering my passwords for the services I already use... even for your post, I am glad you integrated FF as that is what I am learning at the moment. My other concern is integration - I've had a hard time with TypePad recently. For me it will be wait and see. - Valeria Maltoni

Brandon, if you're only using FF comments you're blocking every person who doesn't use FF from being able to comment on your blog, which is not something I'd consider wise. Once (or if) FF starts offering anon or non-registered blog commenting, then maybe I'd follow suite. In the mean time though Disqus is great - Duncan Riley

all this buzz around Disqus is nice until their first crash... this kind of service is about "reliability über alles" and not Twitter-kind-of reliability (and I'm sorry to say that but also virtually all web 2.0 reliability) - silpol

I have gotten over the "must have full control over!" feeling re: comments, but dang if I'll switch over to a solution that doesn't even let my comments be indexed by major search engines <sigh>. - Adam Lasnik

In theory. the law of evolution and specialization applied to social web can create a niche for narrowly-specialized services like Disqus next to social heavyweights like FriendFeeds and SocialThing. The downside is that heavyweights have an option of implementing/emulating the same feature (set). - Nenad Nikolic

I love the features of Disqus, I love the usability of Disqus, I love the style of Disqus. The only thing I don't like about it, is the one thing that will stop me using it