dave mcclure - Likes

FriendFeed is the easiest way to share online. Learn more »

Bret Taylor

Happy holidays from the FriendFeed crew! - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2008...

December 23, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Keiko Yamada, HealingBrush, Pelin Hazar and 292 other people liked this

Thanks to Kevin for another great logo... - Bret Taylor

40 more comments

YAY! Snowmens! - Yolanda

Cool logo! :) - Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ

I think they need scarves. They look cold. - Yolanda

Great logo! Simple and fun. - Brandon Titus

great :) çok sevdim bu logoyu :) - Burak Budak

Cool :D - Pedram

Kevin - that is an awesome logo!!!!! - Susan Beebe

A nice tribute to Bill Waterson :) - MVB (Grinch of FF)

+102 for Bill Waterson references in picture Kevin or words Sinterclas - Steve C

cute but what happened to festivus this year? - Laura Norvig

Merry Christmas to the FriendFeed team. You guys rock! FriendFeed reacts quickly and you're adding wonderful features all the time (Thanks soooo much for the "edit" feature.) - Mitchell Tsai

Happy Festivus! - ◄ani625Ξ

Happy festive season to you all as well :) - Niki Costantini

Happy Holidays!!! - David Cook

love it~ - Sunny

Love!!! - BeeLing

Glad you like it! (And glad people picked up on the Waterson influence :-) - Kevin Fox

Merry Christmas! :D - Ron

Happy Holidays FF crue -- you've made this an excellent and memorable year for many of us. Facebook couldn't have done it without you! :) - Christopher Galtenberg

w00t you gave me the best online year in 15 years!!! ;p Thanks a lot, everyone, for what you've done here XD - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

Merry Christmas to all - Craig Eddy

Merry Christmas! - Svein Håvard Djupvik

Haha! I love horrified snowmen. Merry Christmas to FriendFeed! - Chris Lasher

Joyeux Noel a tout le monde! - Mathieu Ayel

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! - Anne Bouey

Feliz navidad a ti! - JA Castillo

Thanks! Happy Holidarys! Merry Christmas! - Bill Romanos

happy christmas, chanukah and kwanzaa. - D. Eda Goze

happy chrismas and a happy new year!!! - ethan meccage

That's when they loved us :( - Christopher Harley

Awwwww sniff - Kevin Fox

Happy holidays! Take good care of yourselves and... enjoy those days off! <o> \o, - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

Merry Christmas! - Ian May

Tks and love you all !!! - Renchin(Reina)

ahh, the good ol' days. - MikeAmundsen

Happy Holidays FriendFeers! <superbump /> - Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ

cool!! - Ferzvladimir

*bump* - imabonehead

Sigh. Sometimes it is the little touches, like seasonal logos or easter eggs, that mark a site as a living project, and that you really miss when the developers have all moved on to something else. - Michael R. Bernstein

ای جان چقدر خوبه این - WALL.E

1 yıl geçmiş üzerinden bretim taylorum vay anasına dimi.. - Taylan GERDAN (Tylolhot)

Jesse Stay

Recently my cousin's head was run over by a car. This is what's left of her helmet. My cousin completely survived because of this helmet. Please think of this before riding a bike without a helmet next time!

July 29, 2008 from twhirl - Comment - Like - Share

Harold, Michael Pardee, Amy and 80 other people liked this

I've ridden only once without a helmet in as long as I can remember. Felt vulnerable! - Adam Loving from StumbleRead

32 more comments

It's true. They work. - Andrew Feinberg

wow... that's amazing. how old is your cousin jesse? - dave mcclure

dave, my cousin's 30, just 1 year younger than me - Jesse Stay from twhirl

You can read her story, in her own words here. I'm inspired: http://thetopotheworld.blogspot.com/ - Jesse Stay from twhirl

This happened to a friend of mine at the beginning of the month. He didn't do so good in the accident, but the helmet obviously saved his life. Thankfully is on his way home tomorrow: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit... - Steve Lacey

I used to ride my bike without the helmet even though it is mandatory in Chennai, India. But after reading this I am not even going to the next street in my bike without helmet. - Sudar

I never wear a helmet. When hearing things like this, I always think of this article.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1.... In the Netherlands no one wears a helmet. It seems safe to me. - Peter Stuifzand

I was hit while riding to work in summer 2006 & did not want anyone to touch my helmet at all costs. If my brain was scrambled, I did not want anyone to touch my egg:) I highly recommend a helmet especially if you think you will not need one! Mine was almost the same color too & manufacturer, but there is no conspiracy there:) - Roney Smith

Bicyclists/motorcyclists that don't wear helmets are better called future organ donors - Brian Sullivan

Thanks for sharing. I ride often at traffic time between cars. always wear my helmet...itsg good to know that It does work :) - jonathan from twhirl

that's incredible... - Jamie Allen from twhirl

Wow, glad to hear your friend is doing well after that. I agree, helmets save lives. Regardless, I've many intentional close-calls by drivers who don't want to share the road. Unfortunately, this is the common attitude where I live (southern US). - pete

we wear helmets for everything: mtb, snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding & even surfing - skulls are fragile why not put a protective layer around it (i also try real hard to not ride on streets - a high percentage of drivers are oblivious to bike riders)... - mike "glemak" dunn

I always ride in my helmet and stay to bike lanes as much as possible. Nice to know the safety tools work. Now, if I can just avoid that NYPD cop with a penchant for knocking people off their bikes. Hopefully, he won't transfer to LAPD. - Jason Toney

Peter Stuifzand, my cousin would be dead if she did not wear her helmet. That article is BS. Wear your helmet! - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Point blank. You are a moron if you ride without a helmet. Sorry, but that's true and you're just going to play into Darwinian theory should you continue to ride without one. Any 'real' cyclist (e.g - you've been hit by a car - and yes, I have been) will tell you this without reservation. Helmets work without a doubt. - AJ Kohn

I survived a nasty motorcycle crash in my youth and would also be dead without that helmet - which cracked in 2 like an egg (that would have been my head, as the nurse aptly put it!). - Susan Beebe

A friend who's a cop refers to motorcycles as donorcycles whenever she sees someone riding without a helmet. I figure that applies for bicycles, too. - ha3rvey (Ho)^3

I was on the way to work Monday morning while it was raining, when the third car in front of me spun out of control and flipped twice into a ditch. When I pulled over to help her out she was just fine. She only had a scratch on her left shoulder from the broken window and was not hurt anywhere else. THE REASON: She was wearing her seat belt. It's nice to hear that these devices are actually helping us! - David Cook

Awesome. I ride my bike to work everyday and I see a lot of people with no helmets on. I don't know how they do it. - Clint Ecker

Wow! I wear mine! Didn't for years - I was lucky I guess. Thanks for posting that! - matthew hunt

OMG... Jesse, do you have a link other than here on FF? I have friends whose kids refuse to wear theirs, and seeing this may help. - Cyndy

Cyndy why not just link here - http://friendfeed.com/e... - Brian Sullivan

Dutch don't wear helmets and they don't get killed by cars http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterd.... - Peter Stuifzand

Actually they do get killed by cars. But culturally they are not inclined to wear helmets. - Brian Sullivan

Cyndy, with this being dug out of the grave, I just noticed your question. That particular picture is from my cousin's blog here: http://thetopotheworld.blogspot.com/2008... You can read the full story here: http://thetopotheworld.blogspot.com/2008... Search for "run over by car" and you can read about her entire ordeal. - Jesse Stay

My brother would not be alive today if he did not wear his helmet while riding his motorcycle; please wear a helmet! - Sandra

man - Shey, Jamaican of FF

If it's nice enough to ride, I probably won't be bothering with the human-powered bike any longer. I always wear a helmet on my gas-powered bike. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

As long as we won't have mountains, we Dutch will not wear those things. Otherwise we won't be able to recognise the tourists on bikes. - Ton Zijp

Thanks for sharing - I had a mishap with a car, wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, was lucky. If they don't see you, it doesn't matter either way. Wear the helmet! - Rick Bucich

This isn't as extreme as this but when I fell off my bike onto a sidewalk and broke my arm, I thought I was fine for a while. Later, my dad noticed that the whole front of my helmet was all scratched up and the visor in front was torn off! I realized that if I wasn't wearing my helmet on the 2 minute trip down the road, I probably wouldn't be typing this comment right now! Not that I'd be dead but I would have suffered some head damage, limiting my ability to do most things. - Kevin Lyons

Helmets for cyclists are mandatory in Australia. Still gives me the shudders when I'm travelling and see bareheaded bicyclists on the roads. - Kate Foy

Thomas Hawk

My 16,000th Photo Uploaded to Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

September 14, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rui, Slade Publishing, David Cook and 194 other people liked this

16,000 down, 984,000 to go. - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

45 more comments

Not long to go! - Andrew Trinh

And what a fine one it is! Congrats - Michael Fidler

it'd definitely going to take me a while to get to a million. I'm publishing about 200 photos to flickr a week right now and at this pace it will take 92 years to get there. I'll get the pace up to 400-500 a week in the future though. Better technology should make processing easier and someday my kids will be grown and I'll be able to quit my day job and focus on this even more. The best photos have yet to be taken. - Thomas Hawk

When I think about this I realize your best days are ahead of you. - Russellreno

That is a great photo - Darin aka iGoByDoc

What's your shot/publish ratio? I mean, on average how many shots do you take to produce those you publish? - Yuval Atzmon

atzmon, I probably average about 2,000 shots a week that I shoot. And I'm probably processing 300 or so of those a week at present, so I'm probably keeping about 15%. The other 85% never get processed and are kept in my archives. I'm trying only to process and publish the shots that I think meet a certain quality criteria. - Thomas Hawk

You upload a lot more than I do. I have about 40,000 pictures but only about 2000 uploaded. Mostly because I have not gotten around to processing more. =) - Jauder Ho from twhirl

Wow and Congrats!! - Vox

Dude, you're a machine. - Zee.

Jauder, the good news is that processing will only get easier in the future. I've watched it get better with each successive Adobe release. Lightroom 2.0 is the best processing tool yet. It's not necessarily faster per se though because with more tools there are yet even more ways to tweak a photo hence even more time. But the tools to speed things up are coming too. auto geotagging, better anti dust tech, faster processing speeds, easier online tools with faster broadband are all around the corner. - Thomas Hawk

16,000 ?? Yikes. Cool number. Congrats. - Charlie Anzman

big numbers don't mean squat - Ivan Pope from twhirl

big numbers means someone (Thomas) is dedicated to his art. He is pretty talented as well! - Michael VanDervort from twhirl

Perseverance furthers. - Michael Markman

This photo is total awesome. It is made even more awesome by the knowledge that there are 15,999 more photos just as awesome as this one. EDIT: This photo is now my desktop background. :) - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Congrats! - J. McConnell

beautiful, congrats! - Carmen - Happy 2010!

Awesome!! Keep going Thomas!! beutiful work... YOU are such an inspiration... thanks! - Susan Beebe

congrats Thomas! - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Damn that is all kinds of awesome. - Mattb4rd

<3 - Nicholas Kreidberg

Wow, quite an accomplishment! - Jeff P. Henderson

Great job Thomas. Keep it up. - Andrew Smith

Congratulations.. keep going! we'll be watching :) - Juan Pablo González

Congratulations Thomas! - Holger Eilhard

Congrats & cheers TH. Your images confirm, you are, indeed, sui generis. - Dave Martin

Beautiful shot! Congrats for achieving this landmark! - Muhammad Ahmed

Amazing image ,,, TH ... - johnpiercy

Always loved that quote " The best photos have yet to be taken. - Thomas Hawk" - johnpiercy

Congrats, I even don't think I took so many photos in my life. :) - Ferhad Fidan from fftogo

@thomas: Yahoo should be giving Flickr to you for free. You'd do a great job with it. And it would be historical: the first user-generated (company) acquisition :))) - Alberto D'Ottavi from fftogo

Beautiful!!!! - Rafael Montilla

awesome!! - Rhoda Meek

For 1M images you could do a multi-part movie (1080p) miniseries averaging an hour per episode. - Jay Cuthrell

wow from last year, I'm almost at 29,000 photos uploaded to flickr now. - Thomas Hawk

And only 971,000 to go ... :P - Rene Wirtz

That's Awesome! - John Holzer

Keep 'em comin' Thomas! - Charlie Anzman

I guess the metier of 'photo editor' is kaput...or, at least, greatly altered.... - Chris Gulker

You know they are going to delete your account without warning once you hit 999,999, right? :) - Ace

Ace, I hope not, I'd be so pissed. Actually I think alot of what gets me so upset about all the content/account deletion issues is that I really do worry that it actually will happen to me. Flickr staff hates me and they'd *love* to delete my account. I worry that I'll wake up one morning and everything will have been nuked. I suppose that's why I'd like to see them enact the ability to... more... - Thomas Hawk

Holyshit! You have taked just couple of photos... - k00pa

Why your flickr page says 28,974 items ? - k00pa

Because this post is from September last year k00pa :) - Simon Wicks

@Chris Gulker. Someday I hope to work with a photo editor. God knows I need to. I like to think of my Flickrstream today more as the raw material in a lot of ways for future projects. A good photo editor adds tremendous value to shaping a photographer's imagery. - Thomas Hawk

Scott Loftesness

If an airplane full of payments geeks went on an around the world tour for a week, where would they go/stop? - Discuss it here!

June 11 - Comment - Like - Share

dave mcclure and Alicia Roisman Ismach liked this

I've been watching the tweets from Dave McClure's GeeksonaPlane tour of Japan and China - and it brought to mind the question of where in the world a group of geeky payments types would want to go to observe new and interesting developments and opportunities in the world of electronic payments? - Scott Loftesness

17 more comments

Perhaps a first stop at PayPal? - Scott Loftesness

Then off to San Francisco for a visit to Twitter? And a related stop at Wells Fargo to see all of their social media efforts up close? - Scott Loftesness

Next, to Marin County for visits to the mobile players: mFoundry, ClairMail? - Scott Loftesness

Maybe a swing over to the East Bay to visit AccountNow and Javelin for some unbanked/prepaid and consumer research inputs? - Scott Loftesness

Then a stop by Visa on the way to SFO. - Scott Loftesness

From SFO - to where in the world next? - Scott Loftesness

Larry Lebofsky writes: "after the bay area, next would be a puddle jumper to LA to visit green dot then take a tour of all the start up ISO's started by ex-CardService executives." - Scott Loftesness

@tjmazurek writes: Toronto (Guestlogix - Pay on Plane); Nigeria (Mobile Payments); Europe (Chip-N-Pin); India (Micropayments) - Scott Loftesness

Dave Glaser writes: Today they'd be in New York City at the W in Union Square for the 2nd Annual CyberSource NYC Customer Summit. - Scott Loftesness

If you are in a Bay area tour, don't forget SeerGate! Bringing banking payments to social networks, we can show you how the future of banking payments' architecture should look :) - Alicia Roisman Ismach

I also think that Brazil and its online banking system is a great destination, we can arrange a great tour there, who joins? I am in. - Alicia Roisman Ismach

Ah, I overlooked at stop at Zong Mobile Payments in Palo Alto! - Scott Loftesness

James Van Dyke writes: to the far east, to some mythical city recently visited by a conference speaker's brother-in-law's friend, who swore that everyone is paying for everything with a mobile phone. - Scott Loftesness

Charlie Jadallah writes: hmmm - geeks huh - how about Fresno, CA where the first merchant was signed up then to San Mateo, CA, where the fist data center was (basically a low end PC in todays world), on to Omaha, NE, for FDC's first headquarters, Amex in NYC....then - more later. - Scott Loftesness

Abe Kleinfeld writes: Avoid air travel and head to Starbucks, where having a Starbucks payment card now gets you free WiFi! - Scott Loftesness

Martin Haeberli at 8:53am June 11 Martin Haeberli writes: Kenya. Check out M-PESA. (For virtual tour, see the talk http://etech.blip.tv/#1878503 at OReilly ETEch this year). Also check out AITI: aiti.mit.edu Talk of the Nation in the last week or two had a "talk of the world" where they talked about payments and cellphones. South Africa was also cited as a great example - Scott Loftesness

Would be interested in South American countries Brazil, Columbia, Chile, Argentina... Asia: Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia... Africa: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa.... that's just a start.. :) - Albert Drouart

Count me in to help with the SF Bay Area, at least, and hopefully beyond. I've done some interesting things with Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America over the last three years and have some good contacts. - David Snyder

Robert Scoble

I've uploaded six videos from the flight deck of the USS #Nimitz -- make sure you watch them in HD. Details here: - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

May 31 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rick Bucich, Andrew Nystrom, Denise Aday and 29 other people liked this

Click on each video, then make sure that you click on the "HD" button to see them in HD goodness. I was using a Canon 5D MKII with a 16-35 mm F2.8 L series lens for these because we were so close (literally feet away). I also had a Rode microphone on my camera to try to get better audio (although the audio doesn't do the actual experience justice and at home you can't smell the jet fuel fumes). - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

2 more comments

Seems that sound is an issue with the Canon 5D MKII, anything else that you noticed that one should know about? - courtney benson

Reason the sound is total bonkers is that it's so loud (jet engines, right...) that you get the equivalent of +140dB or smth, where +-0dB is the absolute maximum without distorsion. A compressor would do the trick, but that's not something I see Canon installing by default. Let's just say the Canon 5D MkII sound recording works fine in most "normal" circumstances... - Oskar Lissheim-Boethius

that cable about hit you. Neat. - wowfreeze.blogspot.com

Mona Nomura

LOVE STORY (Taylor Swift) meets VIVA LA VIDA (Coldplay) - Piano Cello - by Jon Schmidt - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

May 19 from YouTube favorites - Comment - Like - Share

Ron ALLAN, Alfredo, Beau Liening and 3 other people liked this

Long-time fan of Jon Schmidt - Jesse Stay

4 more comments

Ya, this particular one made me cry. I think it's because of the dedication to his daughter. lolll - Mona Nomura from IM

Very nicely done. - ronin

I love music -- especially when you can feel the emotions. I've had it on repeat and it *still* makes me cry. - Mona Nomura

I'm not ashamed to admit that I like that romeo and juliet song...it's a catchy tune. If you see a car driving around with a FriendFeed logo on the back and hear someone singing poorly it's probably me. - Benjamin Golub

wow - Alfredo

Mona Nomura

FriendFeed? This is me. - http://friendfeed.com/e...

September 16, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Dh'ennis Dömingö, Bahman and 160 other people liked this

what a lovely couple - break out the USB rings! :) - WorldofHiglet

38 more comments

hahahhahaa! Hey wof? I thought I was subscribed to you but your bubble's white. Bizarre! Fixed. - Mona Nomura

@WoH - anna sauce

thats totally me right now. - Admiral Anika

TOTAL Night crew status omg HAHAHAHA - Mona Nomura

LMFAO!!! I do that with my laptop in the bed - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I.do.that. I bought an Asus EEE just to do that. *frowns, sighs, hangs head, turns around and walks into the distance* - Kamath (नमः)

genius! ... I'm definitely gonna try this tonight! - Jay

I have multiple laptops that I lay on the bed and work with. - Uncle CW™

hahaha - Kyle Lacy

oh goodness I just really looked at this picture. it so fits me right now becuase i am trying to stay awake until the season premiere of House - R. Ferguson

how can I get my setup like so? - Justin Korn

22inch screen rotated to portrait ---> - Johnny Worthington

You know, if you are looking at your monitor rotated clockwise and look at this, it looks normal :) - Justin Korn

HAHHHAHAHAHA Jason, I'm on a conference call and LAUGHED OUT LOUD! - Mona Nomura

@Jason hilarious! - anna sauce

Painfully true - Majento

You have to tell me.. is FriendFeed as good as everyone says in bed? :P - Tim Hoeck

I don't think Mona is the kiss and tell type... - WorldofHiglet

and work desk ---->http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny... - Stefano

hang on, I think I've just about got the configuration mapped... - WorldofHiglet

that's hardcore friendfeeding :-) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Wow... - Anthony K. Valley ©

Hahahhahaa And a few months later, this is *still* me! - Mona Nomura

...and you're still a lovely couple :D - WorldofHiglet

Hahaha! Looking at all the older posts is making me nostalgic. My feed is now boring filled with Tweets. I'm going to start posting fun stuff again. - Mona Nomura

Why not do that with an iPhone or something? - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Because it wouldn't be as funny! - Mona Nomura

iPhone won't work in this application anyway: it keeps rotating the screen...don't ask me why I know that.... - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

That is me except with the blanket pulled over my head and iphone in hand when I'm supposed to be sleeping! - Violet Mae Lim

That is beautiful! (I was doing this last night but on my back with the computer on my tummy) - Martha

=))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) - Saop

this is a real photo of every friendfeed user :)) - Alooche

you really should have a flat-panel mounted on the wall. - shaun mclane

Scott - jealous - I want 8 gb of memory - Brent - Loving Life

I would have used keyboard as pillow! :-) - Rohit Shah

Hilarious! Great post Mona! - Fossil Huntress

man, this is so old - amazing! :) September time...imagine someone replying to a tweet that long ago. #WHYILOVEFRIENDFEED - Zee.

This is total win. But an aside: how is that pillow thingy, or anything else, _that_ much fuchsia?! - Micah Wittman

Love! Make it fftogo on a phone and it's me at night. - David Cook

Robert Scoble

A dollar bill taped to the floor of friendfeed's offices: - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

July 7, 2008 from Flickr - Comment - Like - Share

Monique, Pat Hawks, Erik S and 152 other people liked this

This is a dollar bill taped to the floor of FriendFeed's headquarters. It's a bit of social engineering. They figured out it kept people from tripping on the cord cover because people noticed the money on the floor. - Robert Scoble

29 more comments

Hahaha, now that is brilliant stuff. Awesome. - James Mowery from twhirl

This is a fantastic idea. - Jeremy Botter

Wouldn't last long in my office. - Ralph Whitbeck

Amazing.. think I could use this idea in a few places. - Roberto Bonini

Clever! i love it. - Federico [Kurai] from twhirl

Simple, clever, great idea. That FriendFeed crew is a bunch of smart fellers! - Brandon Wood

My employer is too frugal to do that. - Jonathon

Inexpensive risk management. - Dave Pelland

Ha! Very clever. - Brent Newhall

brilliant - mjc

Wow! I'm speechless. - directeur from NoiseRiver

nice - Mike Collett

The dollar bill trick doesn’t work with strippers though ;) - Tony C

@Earl: Consider it a stripper-filter, then. You know someone's a stripper if they trip over it. - April Buchheit

for some reason i expect a "stripper filter" to be something coded using regular expressions. sad, i know. - Karim

The message here is that Web 2.0 companies are so ignorant of money and revenue that they even step over a dollar on the floor - Jason Carreira from twhirl

Genius!!! - Joe Dawson

Interesting. The photo has been viewed more than 500 times, but has only earned 62 likes and 19 comments. So, for every 1 thing we can see here there's another 9 people hanging out lurking in the shadows. - Robert Scoble

@Scoble the old 90-9-1 rule :) (well almost) - Naor Mark

You could always just superglue some road kill to those things. Nothing gets people's attention more than a dead opossum. - Andrew Leyden

wow, that's funny smart! - Susan Beebe

I stubbed my toe on that dollar. - Michael Muller

Heath And Safety in the UK would not approve....but I do! - Toby Graham

"but has only earned 62 likes". This currently stands as the most-liked Flickr photo of all time. - Raphael, Raphael

I forgot about that photo. It does work, though. Everytime I visit friendfeed's offices I see the dollar and I'm careful not to trip over it. :-) - Robert Scoble

That's dumb. Why couldn't they afford to run the cord somewhere where it wouldn't be in the way in the first place? - Robert Peña

As an IE I can state that's definitely not something to publicize. Definitely not OSHA Kosher. - Adi

Great idea will have to remember this. - Laura Gonzalez

Reminds me of the deli counter in grocery store in Scotts Valley across the street from NorCal offices of MetaCreations (the Fractal Design arm of it). Local companies'd go there for lunch daily. PROBLEM: Deli counter pencils (for marking your sandwich menu) disappeared at frightful rate. SOLUTION: Deli affixed pencils with price label. Price: $100.00. Pencils stayed at store. :) - Susan A. Kitchens

Haha I like that trick for keeping Pens from going missing Susan! - Garin Kilpatrick

FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

My theory of cooking: garlic and onion are like cowbell. You can always use more.

January 24, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

myMBA, Dobromir Hadzhiev, Andy Bakun and 71 other people liked this

Especially garlic! - Kevin L

26 more comments

hear, hear - Michael W. May

That's the way to go. - Christian (Simply X)

Don't forget the basil! - Mattie Kenny

I'll leave the basil for you, Mattie, too much of it winds up tasting like licorice to me =P - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Agree!! - Uncle CW™

Mmm, it's coriander (cilantro) for me. Can't get enough!! - Bec Rowe @d0tski

I like ginger as well.. - Bindu Reddy

God yes. The more sauteed onion and garlic the better. *sigh* Now I want some steak. - EricaJoy

If I could handle the chopping time it would take, I could eat a full dinner of sauteed onions and garlic. Throw in some mushrooms, a smidge of butter, and lots of cracked black pepper... NOM! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Is that your prescription? :) - WorldofHiglet

Same with cilantro, BBQ sauce and ginger - Alex Scoble

and Diet Coke - Josh Haley

Yes! - Nicholas Kreidberg

I'd have to add some meat to that, Tina. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

In their appropriate cuisines, I agree on the cilantro, BBQ, and ginger everyone has mentioned. However, I can't make any thing without garlic and onion. Except candy. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

i would order a high res version of that to put on my wall - Geoff Schultz

This post finally go made me see why the hell everyone goes on about cowbell. I really could have done without seeing Ferrell's belly, but it was slightly amusing. The funniest was the drummer. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

I HAVE A FEVER! - Terry O'Fee

OMG that' s the funniest skit ever! - Dawn

THE Bruce Dickinson - Terry O'Fee

and when I put on my pants I make gold records... - WorldofHiglet

Definitely Garlic! - David Cook

yeah... onion and theonion ftw - Prashant

Bumping this because I'm making spaghetti tonight with about 1.5 cups of chopped onion and a good .25 cups minced garlic. NOM! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Tina, I think it needs more Cowbell - Uncle CW™

YES! Love the garlic and the cowbell...so how awesome would a garlic cowbell be? - WorldofHiglet

Garlic and onion shepherd's cowpie. Err, bell. - Daniel Dulitz

Robert Scoble

A famous VC told me this week that Facebook is raising another round of funding at about the $6 billion valuation mark. I wish I could invest! Would you?

March 7 - Comment - Like - Share

Delip Andra, Mike Koss, David Berrebi and 85 other people liked this

Can't wait to see how big their round will be... - Daniel Brusilovsky

132 more comments

not sure I'd invest as the upside would now be relatively limited - Shannon Clark

He told me he was considering putting in $25 million. Asked me if I would do that with my money, if I had it. I said "yes." Of course it wasn't my money, but Facebook is the success story. Far bigger than Twitter and thanks to Thursday's announcement I can see a way for them to make a ton of money. - Robert Scoble

I'm still not convinced that they will ever make decent revenue. That being said, if they were public I'd probably pick up a few shares. - Blake

Nope. Too late to make the bib gux - Francine Hardaway from twhirl

No i would invest in twitter. - Mark Overy

Blake: I wonder if we thought about that when the yellow pages first came out when the telephone was very new? - Robert Scoble

Is there information involved in that yes that isn't public? Like what the books look like (how much revenue are they generating anyway?) - What is the burn rate? etc - or just because you think they will "get there"? - Brian Roy

Brian: he didn't give me any other information than this. I'm just going over their growth rate, they are growing a service the size of Twitter every 10 days or so. - Robert Scoble

what is their annual profit value? how much of that money would you be likely to get back in real terms - "potential" doesn't count, I would want a real idea on how much money their business is generating before ever considering investing. (I don't have the cash so it'd be a moot point anyway) - alphaxion

I call Facebook "the velcro of social software services." They have tons of ways to hook you onto the service. Far more sticky than Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Invest in a company that lost $8 billion from its valuation 16 months ago? No thanks. - Mark Frost

alphaxion: in 1991 could you have answered that question for Google? No. That's why VC investing is risky. - Robert Scoble

Robert: 25 million seems small for Facebook, considering their last round was $100M, but of course that is only one VC. Did he tell you how many where in this round? - Daniel Brusilovsky

Mark: every company has lost billions in values in the past 16 months. That attitude toward investing seems pretty stupid. - Robert Scoble

Robert - totally agree with the stick factor. My question is how good is the plan to turn lots of users into actual dollars. If that plan is good (in a non-obvious way) I'd invest. - Brian Roy

Daniel: no, he just told me what he was considering. I'm sure if it's a $6 billion valuation there will be a large pool of folks in there. - Robert Scoble

Scoble: Good analogy. I'd like to be optimistic about it, but I just feel in my gut that the whole social networking business model still hasn't been perfected. I definitely agree that Facebook will eventually crush Twitter. - Blake

Brian: you have to read between the lines, but now they are letting brands be full members of the social graph. I see a TON of ways to make money with that. - Robert Scoble

Brian: here's my audio report from the Facebook announcements this week. http://friendfeed.com/e... -- in there I explain a bit about how I think Facebook will make money. - Robert Scoble

No, at least not in long term. - andrei_c

This doesn't seem like a good idea. $6 billion?! Robert, when you say Facebook's announcement last Thursday are you referring to the new page layout for companies? How much money can that bring in? - Nidhi Makhija

Robert - agree. But revenue is about execution. So it isn't just seeing how you might/can do it but being able to get to it effectively. That is Google's genius. I'm guessing they have the team/leadership to do it... which is why I'd invest (once I heard the plan). - Brian Roy

Nidhi: my bet? Over next 10 years? 100's of billions. Look at Google. Facebook is facing an opportunity that's in Google's neighborhood. Of course a lot of implementation is to come and they might not get there. But I see a way that they'll make billions. - Robert Scoble

If they monetized as well/heavily as Myspace, they would only have $1B revenue. Is he really going to get a 10x return with a $60B exit? Common or preferred? - Andy Beard

Brian: right. And who is on executive team at Facebook? They are executing pretty damn well. Just go see Sheryl Sandberg. She was an executive at Google and knows the secrets to delivering value. - Robert Scoble

depends on liquidation prefs, but assuming i got at least 1x preference i'd be an investor for anything south of $10B. at $6B i'd be pretty bullish; that seems like a reasonable number if you look out 3-5 years. - dave mcclure

A $6 billion valuation would make Facebook more valuable than: Salesforce.com, Sun Microsystems, or NetApp. In fact, you could buy Sun + eTrade + Sirius Radio + TiVo and still have more than a billion in pocket change left over. - Louis Gray

Not a chance. I'd run screaming from the building before I invested in Facebook. Sticky does not mean profitable. I remember that 1.0 adage "Get the eyeballs first and then monetize". Lots got the eyeballs - few figured out how to monetize. - AJ Kohn

Andy: the opportunity here is a lot bigger than $1 billion. MySpace is small change compared to what Facebook is going to do. - Robert Scoble

Andy: When I go to MySpace it tells me NOTHING about my friends' behavior when it comes to other businesses. The social graph is very powerful for businesses. Much better than what MySpace built, which is why key executives are now leaving MySpace. - Robert Scoble

I'd invest too yeah - Kaysha

I would invest. I believe Facebook is the OS for social media and something more. They are the White Pages of the Internet. And with an upside limited only to the imagination. - Jeff Pulver

Robert - You'd really feel safe investing in a company whose valuation isn't stable though? - Mark Frost

@Jeff - gawd I hope not .. if that is the case then the net is truly a wasteland - Steven Hodson

Negative. not at $6bn. We have absolutely no idea what it's worth, let's be honest. Nobody does. It's a straight gamble. I'd prefer spend the cash on buying into cloud-enabling companies like Cisco and server manufacturers, and the best placed players in the cloud ie Google and MS. Maybe... - john conroy

"going to do" ... Digg, Facebook, Twitter ... they all say they're "going" to figure it out. Show me a profit stream (even a small one) and I'd invest to help scale it but ... until then Cuba Gooding man ... Cuba Gooding. - AJ Kohn

Mark: that's why it's investing and not a "safe bet." VC is risky. So is buying stocks in companies. - Robert Scoble

Does anyone know for sure - does Facebook lose money every time they sign up a new user? In other words, is the reason they're raising money because their revenues are not growing to cover the costs of their growth? - Simon Brocklehurst

...further to my comment above: I guess what I'm really saying is that at $6bn you're talking about a blue-chip, and Facebook isn't a blue chip. It just isn't. - john conroy

Only tonight I glanced down my 'All Friends' list in Facebook and noticed how many have no status. They have not logged in for 7 days or more. In many cases a lot more. The fascination is on the wane. My money? No chance. - Darren

Robert: Oh I know that, I'm just speaking as someone with a very light wallet. ^_^ - Mark Frost

Darren: tell me how that is any different from this: http://twitter.com/TechCru... -- I bet your Facebook friends are more engaged with you than these Twitter followers of TechCrunch. Click on 100 followers of Techcrunch. How many have more than one Tweet? 2%? 10%? Not more. - Robert Scoble

john: Facebook is signing up 700,000 new users PER DAY. They are growing the size of Twitter every 12 days! Blue chip? Absolutely. Just like Google was. (We had the same arguments over Google six years ago). - Robert Scoble

Sticking the money into GOOG currently would be a better deal, or AMZN - GOOG 2008 revenues were close to $22B http://finance.yahoo.com/q... - based on similar can you see Facebook making $15B yearly revenue? - AMZN is currently worth only 6x gross profit - but then the VC neds to invest his money somewhere, and GOOG and AMZN are not an option - at the end of the day FB is relatively low risk and an easy way to do your job as noone will criticize you for it - Andy Beard

Andy: you probably said that sticking money into Alta Vista back in 1999 was better than Google. Wrong. - Robert Scoble

and yet - the fact they are raising money shows that we have not found a revenue model that can cope with the costs they incur - they could self-implode in 1-2 years unless they find an effective route to making break even - Nick Halstead

Read today in Times magazine an interview with Zuckenberg stating that monetization is not a priority yet while Facebook is not getting break even. By the way, did you notice that the fan pages are changing and look now as profile pages??? - Zack Brandit

Zack, yes. That's exactly what I was talking about here: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Robert Scoble

Chris: that's wrong. Everyone on my forums were talking about Google in 1999. Google didn't have a business model until 2004. - Robert Scoble

The problem Facebook has is that people seem to get bored of it. Most people I know are using Facebook less today than they were a year ago. I never saw this pattern with Google. - Simon Brocklehurst

Scobe: Are you saying that Twitter's model isn't working, so Facebook's will? Twitter v Facebook comparisons are fruitless. - Darren

Darren: no, I know that Facebook has 175 million who has signed in in the past 30 days. How many does Twitter have? - Robert Scoble

Chris: OK, I'll grant you the 2003 Google. Same points still hold. You're not feeling it? I look at how addicted my wife is to Facebook (and all her friends). This is the Google of this time. - Robert Scoble

VC is certainly risky.. but a good VC wouldn't fritter their money away on something that wouldn't give even a little bit of ROI. Otherwise they simply wouldn't be a VC for very long. It's all well and good saying "I can see a lot of ways to make money", but visions and actual money making are 2 different things. So again, please answer the question and say how much they're currently making. - alphaxion

"Everyone on my forums", is exactly what White said, "hardly anyone" and he is correct. - coldbrew

I am not saying it is a bad investment, but just imagine Facebook had already IPOed last year, and had managed to figure out their revenue to bring it up to Myspace level, which would then make a $6B valuation on $1B revenue in line with GOOG and AMZN current market valuations. - that isn't necessarily a VC deal - unless they were looking to use the money for a cash purchase of Twitter at a much lower valuation than $500M - Andy Beard

coldbrew: this whole conversation sounds exactly like the ones we had about Google in 1999-2004. - Robert Scoble

I seem to remember a company called Netscape was all the rage once. - Jan Simmonds

@Robert: No, Facebook is not the Google of it's time. Why? Because Google had a very clear business plan. Sell relevant ads on search results. Direct marketers (me) got it and ran with it. It took time to build but it was a clear business plan. Facebook doesn't have that. Unless of course they turn Facebook into a search portal - if they did that then the size and stickiness of the site benefits them. Outside of that, SocNet advertising doesn't seem like a viable business plan. - AJ Kohn

I have concerns about Google if I'm honest. They too fritter their money away on investments that fizzle out to nothing (look at how many companies they've bought for massive amounts of money), they're limited by the size of the advertising market (think as to why they've been slashing their returns on adwords). Now, their positioning as a content delivery caching network is a far more promising one. - alphaxion

Robert - "no, I know that Facebook has 175 million who has signed in in the past 30 days. How many does Twitter have? "- you're still doing it! Comparing Facebook favourably to Twitter does not mean Facebook have a good long-term model. I'm not saying they don't, but if a Twitter comparison is the best these dudes can come up with then "I'm out" as they say on Dragons Den. Using your sort of comparison, who is to say that Facebook is now Google 2003, whilst Twitter is Google 2000. Which one has more upside? - Darren

AJ: you are totally wrong. Google didn't have a clear business model until 2004. I know the guy at Exodus who almost shut down Google because Google couldn't pay its bills. - Robert Scoble

I think most of you people hang out mostly with technophiles; I do not. - coldbrew

Chris: I'll never been that rich. I'll buy you a mojito at the Ritz, though! - Robert Scoble

@Robert: Just because they couldn't pay their bills doesn't mean they didn't have a model or plan. It took time to build the momentum ... the world of search had to 'tip' - and when it did Google was well positioned *because* of their plan. I just don't see that with Facebook. What are they positioning for? - AJ Kohn

I can say most of my 30-something friends only found FB w/in the last 6 months. - coldbrew

Facebook fatigue has certainly been kicking in for myself over the last few months whereas as my Twittering has been increasingly steadily; it is just more "useful". That said, they certainly do appear to be functionally converging, so who knows where we'll end up... - Kevin Bluer

Who cares about Facebook or 6 billion. What are your plans after Fast Company? Is it true they fired you? - Bruce Curley

Kevin: I can see an argument about why you're right, too. On Gillmor Gang right now is Paul Buchheit of friendfeed and he points out that Twitter's API is far easier to develop on. That ease is turning into all sorts of interesting apps which make Twitter more useful. Well, we'll see. That's why VC is risky. - Robert Scoble

If I were a VC I would definetly ask for a clear plan of privacy policies before investing. This might be an issue. I would also ask for some guidelines on future updates since FB seems to change its homepage very frequently, which might result in a potential failure. - denizoktar

Bruce: I was not fired. I resigned my video show to do something else. I still am working part time for Fast Company. I have plans, but will not disclose them in public until SXSW on Monday. - Robert Scoble

@Robert: BTW - this famous VC you mention ... are *they* investing or not? - AJ Kohn

AJ: they didn't say, they said they were considering it, but sounded like they were going to the way they were talking. - Robert Scoble

At this point, I would not invest in anything except gold. Do I sound like a nut? Just check out this video. Actually look at a bunch of his video over the years. Peter Schiff called it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Dan Cornish

I'll point out again that while VC is an inherently risky business, it's still not a case of blindfold and a dartboard. A real VC would do at least a bit of research and see if they're likely to make a return. If not then they're not a real VC and would either be someone who can afford to lose the money as it's merely a diversion (kinda like how some people will play the lottery) or a fool. - alphaxion

Dan: Gold and Guns sounds like a good investment strategy over next year. Me? I'd rather be in Facebook, but then I have a front-row seat. - Robert Scoble

Chris: that's funny! But no. :-) - Robert Scoble

@Robert: Interesting. Always appreciate the information and opinion. I disagree and don't see it myself but ... I've been wrong before. Been right before too though ;) - AJ Kohn

You all need to read this: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... Indie Facebook Developers are making over $700,000 per month. Like I said, there were billions and billions here. - Robert Scoble

Chris: I do not have any compensation or investments coming from or going to Facebook. I was invited to a press conference on Thursday and I have a front row seat because I know many of the players involved and I read a lot of RSS feeds. :-) - Robert Scoble

YES, I would invest!!!!! - Susan Beebe

how many of the indie developers are making those figures compared to the rest? also, advertising revenues, again, are the core of it. How about revenues that don't involve advertising, as in real and repeat direct spending of the users not the whim of other companies? And of this, how much money are facebook themselves making, since this money fountain could all vanish should facebook itself fold. - alphaxion

I bet the sum of the people advertising using Adwrods are making more than Google in total as well - the people using Paypal owned by Ebay are most certainly making bank, but for some reason Ebay isn't even worth 2x their revenue. Facebook developers making $700,000 is nice, great return, invest in the app developers if there is longevity. - Andy Beard

@chris that's my fault.. I called it adwords in a previous comment - that's what 5 beers does to my word association skills! >.< - alphaxion

coldbrew: sorry, I just fixed it. NO need to keep an error in my comments here. - Robert Scoble

Was just watching you on TWiT Live, streaming to my 52" TV via my PS3. Look fwd to seeing more of your stuff on TWiT Live in the future Scoble. - Jason Cartwright

am I the only one who seems to feel a certain air of "ponzi scheme" when your questions are met with answers of "look at these people, they're making money from it" without actually answering your question? And don't think I'm being snarky for snarks sake. I'm really trying to gain an idea of why people are yelling "buy this!" without really backing their claim up beyond "trust us". - alphaxion

I'd rather buy Citi stocks. - Mona Nomura from fftogo

alphaxion: when you are getting 700,000 new people a day you'll figure out a business model, especially since you know so much about each of those people. People who understand media understand the very real value that Facebook is aggregating. - Robert Scoble

again with the vague "well, we'll figure something out... just keep pumping us with money" answer. It doesn't matter how many new people you are getting onto your service if there's no tangiable sense of where the money to pay for it all is going to come from. It is very similar to youtube. They were burning through cash, plenty of people were saying "it'll make loads of money somehow" and yet google are *still* looking for ways of making it profitable. It's the kind of economics that leads to bubbles. - alphaxion

there simply aren't enough people that sit down and ask "so, how much money are you making and how much do you project this to grow realistically". Which is the basic tenet on which all companies have been founded upon. - alphaxion

@scoble... yes, people who understand media understand the real value that Facebook is aggregating, but not if they understand it in the OLD way. if this just turns out to be another advertising play, because they've 2 billion+ eyes, another way to sell people products they don't need, then, hell, I may as well pull the plug and turn Amish... not really, but all of the stuff I've been hearing so far doesn't make be feel confident that FB will end up being anything we haven't already seen... time will tell. - .LAG liked that

Robert this question sparked such interesting comment you should ask more like this. FB to me is a fad unless they buy Twitter which with Twitter Search could be a new Google. Agree with Chris White MS-Facebook is a likely outcome. Google must acquire Twitter before Vodafone wise up. Keep leading the debate Rob. - Thomas Power

What are they spending all that money on? Or is just banking money to survive the future? - Brian Sullivan

@chris actually, I'd say google was all about weaving themselves into the sites they lead you to and the apps you use to access this info. Having dealt with administrating systems, it's scary just how many apps and system builders integrate their toolbar and desktop apps and how many sites use their services that then collect data on the visitors/users. A question I don't see asked and answered often enough is "why?" - alphaxion

@ChrisWhite I certainly meant Adwords not Adsense - people advertise to make money (well unless they are Auto manufacturers) - I look on the Facebook App platform in many ways as an advertising platform, though the transaction that takes place between Facebook and the App developers isn't currently a financial one. Maybe things would be different if Facebook had their "FacePal" payment... more... - Andy Beard

Chris: that's an interesting question. CEOs should never say never when it comes to future business decisions. - Robert Scoble

Social networking seems like a commodity to me. Glorified address book + activity stream. Long term, why is it likely that one company will continue to command a proprietary premium on this? Do we not forget the staggering claims for these companies made doing the last bubble? Lots of similar claims by many companies in the 90s about # of user signups, stickiness, etc. If social networking platforms are so valuable, they're gonna get commodified. Wordpress isn't the only way to host RSS now is it? - Ray Cromwell

I can feel a Metcalf's law retort coming. :) It's like Godwin, but for business model debates. - Ray Cromwell

Chris: really? I don't agree with you. If you can survive through a depression you'll come out of it with rocket burners on. Google gained steam through the dotcom bust. Facebook is gaining steam through this downturn. - Robert Scoble

Chris: agreed. Facebook is not going to have an IPO this year. I can assure you of that. The investors will keep them going for two more years at minimum. - Robert Scoble

Can I buy Twitter instead? - Patrick from twhirl

@Robert: You're thinking "aggregated rich user data" is going to be the Facebook gold mine? Advertisers and brands I chat with think it's of marginal value. Big brands already have deep databases with multiple reporting lines. Prizm data gets you 75% of the way there most of the time. Facebook might be another reporting line but it's not going to be a game changer. Search re-targeting has more value IMO. - AJ Kohn

@AJ .. I would have to agree with you. Just think of all the data that things like those Air Miles cards collect, or credit card companies or even national brand shopping cards ... one would think that the data collected that way would be a lot more valuable than anything that FB could produce. Makes one almost think that this whole Social Media as a marketer and advertising goldmine might not turn out to be Fool's Gold - Steven Hodson

Nope, two reasons. First, I won't invest unless I agree with the core mission of the company. Second, FB may do well in its early times after going public, but it's not at all clear to me that it will be a great company in the 5-10 year range. - LogEx

@Steven: Exactly! Air Miles. Grocery Cards. Credit Cards. Warranty Information. Rebate Information. (You'd be amazed how many people register their stuff!) It's a bit scary what can be obtained from credit bureaus as well. Facebook is the corner, the stoop - it's where people stop to talk and shoot the breeze. Not much gets sold there. I need to connect with them when they're walking past the mall. - AJ Kohn

Think about the data a company like Mint.com or Quicken Online collects and compare it to the data that FB has on spending patterns and interests. They know enough (but currently don't use this info) to definitively tell you that you're spending $50 a month on BlockBuster, and could reduce it to $20 a month if you change to Netflix, saving you $30. - Ray Cromwell

How many more rounds of funding would you expect? It seems like you might get washed out by later rounds. - Todd Hoff

Everything you hear lately makes it sound like he's had to change that point of view about $15b if he wants capital. - Hutch Carpenter

Great discussion. Some points: the "No one can monetize this space" argument is false. As an advertiser (and a top 3 one at that), We are. And, quite well. #2--However, I wouldn't discount MySpace just yet. FaceBook is a wonderful white pages, it's possible MySpace will be a wonderful Yellow pages. We'll see. $6B is steep, but one difference this data has from the others mentioned (credit cards, gas cards, etc) is it's voluntarily provided--which is a much different data stream. - Alan Edgett

I would, in an instant. Many Facebook apps alone have 10 times the number of users Twitter has. - Jesse Stay

If they gave me a way to keep certain people unaware of my presence, I'd go back - Aaman (Clone of FF)

If I had the choice, I would rather invest in LinkedIn. Facebook has a phenomenal growth there are still a lot of open questions: You talk about businesses creating pages in facebook. This is probably a good idea in the sort term but in the long term as a company you probably want more control and ownership over your community and like AOL had to open up the walled garden, Facebook will have to do it to or someone else with do it for them. In that more open world, monetizing the graph will become even harde - Edwin Khodabakchian

wow...another around... - Kenyth

Interesting. Most seasoned entrepreneurs will tell you funding isn't an ideal expansion, that multiple rounds is not a good sign. Means it isn't making money. Social networks are nothing more than message boards with different user features - and have always been very hard to monetize. New competition is coming fast into the market from places none of y'all are looking at, and we're... more... - Patricia

Patricia: Google had multiple rounds. So did many other big Silicon Valley companies. - Robert Scoble

Chris: I know all about dilution. The reason Zuckerberg is so smart is he's taken a few rounds without getting diluted much at all. Got $300 million from Microsoft and only gave up, what, 1% or so of Facebook? That's brilliant. - Robert Scoble

Robert, yes, i know. it can be an asset. it just depends on if they can find a way to make money. google found it. let's hope facebook does too. i root for all businesses to succeed! - Patricia

still all I am seeing is the taking of money with no idea on how it'll generate money back, which is the whole point of investment. It seems to be the whole mantra of web apps "get users, then figure out how to make money" instead of the way every other industry functions. Do you really think this is a lasting way of doing business or will the web have to mature and show they can make money with their creations before investors will part with large sums of money? - alphaxion

when thinking about it, it is a particularly Valley way of doing business - I don't see this kind of investment internationally, they demand to see what will happen with their money and how it is likely to generate its own revenue instead of going cap in hand back to the investors. - alphaxion

and I do agree that this way of investing does lead to some really innovative things that ordinarily wouldn't stand a chance of making it. But, it is a big concern that the sites can't stand on their own without VC's propping them up by pouring round after round into them with nothing more than "it's gonna be huge!" as the reason. It'll only ever be huge if a cogent business plan exists, otherwise the only huge thing will be the bill VC's nurse at the end of it. - alphaxion

Facebook is finished - paul mooney

FB has the most chance of success because that's where non geeks go. It's the one service they want to use. - Richard A.

I don't get what non geeks has to do with FB's sucess ? - Asankhaya Sharma

Asankhaya: one word: "mainstream" - Claudio Cicali ♋

Interesting to note Apple could pony up $6 billion for Facebook and still have some $18 billion left over. - Mike Reynolds

@Mike .. maybe so but if there is one thing you can say about Steve Jobs is that he is a smart businessman who doesn't like to lose money - Steven Hodson

well i would not invest, fb has been for sometime now in a few years what ever profit could be made should have been made by now, the next big idea will kill fb forever, with the investment totally sunked in - briandsouza

UPDATE on this: Investors in Facebook are telling friends of mine that Facebook is not raising another round. It's possible that this is an opportunity that's being offered by someone who has stock already and is looking to get out. I'll try to find out more and report back. - Robert Scoble

I definitely would! - Pico Seno

Robert - whoa, "someone ... looking to get out." wow. yes, more info please. What is their rationale? - Susan Beebe

I wouldn't. I would rather invest in something simpler like twitter or friendfeed. - Siddharth Mitra

Interesting that the round is at $6 Billion. I heard that Facebook are supposedly only accepting external investors providing they are investing at the valuation of Microsofts investment. - Nicholas James

Mona Nomura

Happy Valentine's, everyone. :) Click at own risk - NB (no bacon) NSFHP (Not Safe for Hungry People) http://www.shopsucre.com/index...

February 14 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

jyamasaki, Fa La La La Lindsay, Dave Martin and 26 other people liked this

Happy VDay!!!! - Shevonne

19 more comments

*drools* Happy Valentine's Day, Mona! - Penguin It's Cold Outside

You too 'vonne and Penguin!!!!! :) - Mona Nomura from IM

Happy Valentine's :) - Rodfather

You too, Rodfather!! :D - Mona Nomura from IM

Happy Valentines Mona! <3 - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Oh wow! Scrumpdilyicious! Happy Valentine's Day to you! - Martha

Happy V-day to everyone! for me it's another working day! - imabonehead

OMG the "like" button is a heart!!!!! - Mona Nomura

Happy Valentines Day! I refuse to call it VDay because nobody wants VD on Valentines ;) - Joe Pierce

I'm sitting here with friends and we're drooling, gazing at the lemon cupcakes and this site with weakening macaroons, NSFHP it is, Sweet Valentine's Mona! - Majento

The best I can do virtually! Shower you guys with food p*rn!! :) - Mona Nomura

<3 Mona! Happy VDay Miss M. (hey have you ever shopped here....everything looks so good.....WANT!) - Carlos Ayala

Very nice! - Derrick

Happy Valentine's, Los!! :) I've tried their macarons - too chewy (imho) but the packaging is SO ultra pretty and the marshmallows are BOMB. - Mona Nomura

FF's gesture of heart icons is cuter than any google logo - Majento

And their holiday logos are TOP notch. The attention to detail blows me away. Little things :) - Mona Nomura

thanks for the hook up...that Sucré Bark is callin me. - Carlos Ayala

I love pretty food. :) Keep us posted! All right FF, I'm off to a late lunch - see you guys later and sorry my feed is filled with food porn today. Happy Valentine's! - Mona Nomura

Happy Cupid's birthday!! - Amani

yummy: http://tinyurl.com/cw6grf (via @mona) - dave mcclure

Gabe Rivera

According to Google, @kevinmarks's spoken English is somewhat incomprehensible to Americans and requires captions: http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2009...

February 6 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

dave mcclure and Igor Poltavskiy liked this

Mona Nomura

We All Fail, Get Used To It - http://pixelbits.wordpress.com/2009...

February 5 from Pixel Bits - Comment - Like - Share

TobiasVerhoog.com, Dobromir Hadzhiev, Rob Diana and 20 other people liked this

I guess the big thing is the failing is an end point. Life continues, and so do new opportunities. The hard thing to realize is that you only get those opportunities because of every single decision and experience you have ever made or had up unto this point. In that sense, you only fail if you stop, so don't stop. - James Fridley

8 more comments

As well as deciding how and waht you choose to do with the feelings that comes with failing... - Mona Nomura from IM

I guess my point is failure is not possible as you never know what "bumps in the road" it might lead to. So the feelings of sorry, embarrassment, heart-ache, or whatever, that are all just stepping stones to what you going to feel/do/experience next. - James Fridley

But it takes a lot to reach that point. ;) - Mona Nomura

Really? I thought you were really well liked :) - Bindu Reddy

True enough. Hindsight makes it alot easier (and I am not saying that I have not wallowed in my own pity before), but at the end of the day, I can either stay drunk, drugged or unhappy, or I can find a direction and go for it. It is kind of funny though. I have stopped making goals and started choosing directions. I find that along the way I will change direction many times, and end up somewhere, but so long as I stay focused on a direction, the the distance that I have traveled is meaningful. - James Fridley

very true sentiment, Mona! - anna sauce

And for agreeing, you get my butt crack plant, Anna! - Mona Nomura from IM

I'll add it to my butt crack collection... in my butt crack - anna sauce

I used to want to get used to the being made fun of. But, that probably isn't a good idea because then we might lose our compassion and empathy. *hugs* - Yolanda

Louis Gray

Happy Birthday to Mona Nomura - A Fascinating, Unique, Lady Geek @Mona

January 28, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

dave mcclure, John Wang, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 156 other people liked this

Mona Nomura - Awesome FriendFeeder: http://www.friendfeed.com/monasfe... - Louis Gray

90 more comments

I was first introduced to Mona's feed through Chris Pirillo, who said he found her entries most fascinating. I checked out what she was posting, and it was like nobody else on FriendFeed. FriendFeed, which had largely been the refuge for geeks who liked to talk about tech, all things Google, Apple and social media, all of a sudden had a new voice. - Louis Gray

So I subscribed to this interesting person. New pictures, comics, food items, and silliness ensued. I watched, but didn't really like it. So I unsubscribed. (True!) - Louis Gray

But Mona noticed, and hit me up on Facebook - what's the deal?, she asked. I said we were focused on different things, and tried to talk my way out of it. Didn't work. Days later, I resubscribed. - Louis Gray

And as Mona's feed got more activity, I could sense there was a sharp, tech-oriented geek hiding underneath the bacon and the giggles. Her first blog post, which wasn't even fed into FriendFeed, made Techmeme. - Louis Gray

But, as she says, Pixel Bits is "a hot mess", so I asked her to take her tech talk to my site, and she's been a perfect fit ever since. Mona has become more than just another popular FriendFeeder. She's a real friend. I probably average a few e-mails with her every single day. And not just always about tech. - Louis Gray

Mona is fun because she is real. She is silly, but she is sharp. She is lonely, but she is friendly. She is easily excited, but can also get annoyed. And she has a radar for fun items that have become her trademark. Bacon. Star Wars. Lego. Mobile phone news. - Louis Gray

I could probably highlight a FriendFeeder a day this way, as many of you add real value to my online life, but Mona stands out and on this, her birthday, we thought we'd tell you why. I hope we continue to keep her feeling valued, and that she wants to be part of this community for a long time. - Louis Gray

Happy Birthday, Mona! - Louis Gray

It's finally here on east coast time! Happy Birthday Mona! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Happy birthday Mona - Brian Roy

Mona, I love you!!!!! Happy Birthday my bacon-lovin' gal! <3 - Daynah

Happy Birthday, Mona - ·[▪_▪]·

happy birthday Mona. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

I heart Mona with all 4 chambers and the aorta. Happy Birthday, Mona!!!! - Kamath (नमः)

That was the best bday story I've seen. Happy birthday Mona (even though it's not quite your bday here yet) - Tamara

Louis - you are my rock, my mentor - and the big brother I never had. Thank you for seeing through all the 'fluff' and I... don't even have the words. Reading through what you wrote made me LOL. I remember when my feelings were SO hurt you unsubscribed haha! Now that I think about it, you're the reason I turned off FF notifications. ;) But thank you so much for the love. And to the FF community I HEART YOU GUYS!!! - Mona Nomura

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONA!!!!! we love you too :) you make my day - everyday!! :) thanks!! - Susan Beebe

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MONA!!! <3 - Anna Haro

happy birthday Mona! - Duncan Riley

誕生日おめでとう Mona-san. :D - Randy

Happy Birthday Mona! - Jesse Stay

Louis created this graphic and I have to tell you I LOVE seeing it pop up on Friendfeed! totally makes me smile! Louis I am totally digging this "carpet of bacon" concept!! LOL :) nice!! - Susan Beebe

Happy Birthday Mona! - jcunwired

MONA!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! A whole lot of awesomeness wished your way! <333 - Parth Awasthi

Happy Bday!! - Sarah Perez

Happy B'Day Mona - sirishkumar

all the best bacon - esther ♥ ♫

Happy birthday again :) - Niki Costantini

Happy birthday mona :) - ژنرال فرهاد

Happppppppppppppppppppppppppy birthday mona :) تولدت مبارک مونا جان / با دو زبان هم گفتم - MAS

Happy Happy Joy Joy Wifey!!! :-D - Live4Emma (L4S)

Happy Birthday Mona! - Igor Poltavskiy

Happy birthday!!! - Tyler Gillies

Happy Birthday! - Anne Bouey

Happy birthday, Mona! - Scott of Two Countries

Happy birthday to you Mona, from Belgium. Thanks for your delicious posts ! - Guy Vander Heyden

Happy Birthday Mona! - Rob Diana

Happy Birthday to Mona!!!!!! :D - Sasha Kovaliov(.com)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XOXOXOXOXOXO!!! - Michael Forian

Happy Birthday Mona :D - ♥ Stephiepooos ♥

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL MONA - Mr Jojo

Happy Birthday Mona! - Jen

Happy Birthday!! - Robert Couture from twhirl

Happy Birthday Mona!!! <3 - Emma

Happy Birthday - Peter Efland

happy birthday! - Nathan Rein from twhirl

Happy Birthday you amazing powerhouse of womanhood, you! - Cheryl Allin from twhirl

Happy birthday!! - Bob Gannon

Happy Birthday :) - Yuvi

Happy B'day Mona! :) - vijay

Many happy returns, Mona! Have an awesome day :-) - Sally Church

Happy Birthday, Mona! - Mike Fruchter

Happy birthday, Mona. And here's to many more! - Derrick Burns

awesome ! Happy Birthday - Mattb4rd

Happy birthday! - Christian (Simply X)

Happy Birthday Mona!! MUAH!!! - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Happy Birthday Mona! - Iain Baker

I said it b4 Ill say it again - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! - Martha

Happy Birthday! - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Happy birthday Mona! - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

Happy Birthday! - Tyson Key

Look at those cheeks! Now that's pure cheer! Happy Birthday, Mona! - Christopher Harley

Happy Birthday! :) - teleken

Happpy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Thomas Hawk

Happpy BDay to the Fabulous Mona ! !!!!!!!!!! - johnpiercy

Happy b-day Mona ^^ - Kristian Salonen

Happy Birthday, Mona! - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau

It's fairly clear that Mona is a superstar (that is what you are). Happy Birthday :) - Bob M. Montgomery from twhirl

Happy b-day! Let the b-day meme begin :p - Jim Goldstein

Happy Birthday, Judge I'm late to the party. Mona your one of the reasons I pretty much still am on here. - Shawn aka ringking

happy birthday! - andy brudtkuhl

Happy birthday!?!?!!??!!?!?!? - "Joey"

Mona: have an extra terrific day for your birthday :-)! - asiriusgeek

Lolomgwtfnsfw! Happy! Birth! Day! Mo! Na! - Pete Delucchi

Happy Birthday! - Jauder Ho

Happy Fantabulous Birthday, Mona! - Reuben Thum

Happy b-day Ms. Mona! - Hutch Carpenter

Happy birthday! - Eric P

Happy Birthday Mona! - Nate Pilling from twhirl

heck yeah. Happy Birthday Mo! - Tsega Dinka

Happy Birthday. Hope the day's been great, despite cauliflower smells and such ... - Patrick Jordan

Happy birthday monaaa!!!! - Alemsah Ozturk

Happy birthday Mona! You rock! - Andrew

What everyone else said. Mona. - Russellreno

Happy B-Day. You are so nice to people you've never met. We feel the love. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Happy birthday Mona!!!! :) - Tanju Yildiz

Happy Birthday Mona! - Justin Korn

Happy Birthday Mona! - TheHenry

You're old. - Colby Olson

Many happy returns of the day Mona! - Morgan Haley

Yay! Happy Birthday Mona! - TheMacMommy

Mona Nomura

HULK SMASH PC (literally) - most useful USB gadget yet. [ Windows only ] - http://www.dreamcheeky.com/index...

January 28, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Tyson Key, Brandon, "Joey" and 11 other people liked this

I want! - Shemp DeYoung

it's not easy being green. I mean mean. I mean green. - dave mcclure

Jeremiah Owyang

Picture 058 - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

January 28, 2009 from Flickr - Comment - Like - Share

Lu Tao, dave mcclure, Grant Bierman and 5 other people liked this

Hawaii! - Susan Beebe

gotta look at these before heading out and start up my snow thrower to clear the driveway..... - Joe Buhler from twhirl

l0ckergn0me

Yes, it's true - I'm now the Tech Expert for CNN.com. :) http://www.cnn.com/2009... - I should find a better photo...

January 27, 2009 from Ping.fm - Comment - Like - Share

david beckwith, jswi_jim, Gavin and 113 other people liked this

Chris that brilliant! The gig, that is. You are right about the pic....:) - WorldofHiglet

48 more comments

Congrats! - Admiral Anika

Awesome news. Congrats man! - Thomas Hawk

Fantastic. - Russellreno

Cool, big time! Keep them from going left wing on tech reporting. - Douglas Hopkins

Congrats! I disagree with that article, but hey congrats anyway!! :) Yeah, that photo... yeah... it's ok..but...yeah..you can do better :) - Bwana ☠

Congratulations, Chris!!! - Fa La La La Lindsay

Congratulations! - Karoli

Congrats! - Hutch Carpenter

Congratulations - Kreg Steppe

Excellent!! Congratulations Chris! - Tracy Lee Carroll

And you thought I wasn't participating in FF as frequently because I didn't like you... :) - l0ckergn0me

@Norwood - I'm actually a registered Republican. :) - l0ckergn0me

Congrats Chris =) Perhaps we'll be seeing CNN on FF sometime n the future? - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Cha ching? You deserve it, bro. Go get 'em. - Josh Haley

that should help that MASSIVE new monthly expense eh? - andy brudtkuhl

wow, cool - congrats - Peter Efland

gratz Chris! - timepilot

Chris, that's awesome! Congrats!! - David Finch

Congrats! - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Fantastic, congratulations! - Ginger Kenney

well done - Mattb4rd

How cool is that? Congrats Chris - Charlie Anzman

Nice! - Jennifer Leggio

Chris had to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Miles O'brien to secure this position. - Chrimmus Tad

you have come a long way my friend :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Good job! - RAPatton

Does it pay anything? If not, turn it down:-) - Francine Hardaway from twhirl

Congrats Chris, I can think of no one better - Aaron Krug

Congrats Chris - that's great to hear, and you're perfect for the job. - Jesse Stay

Congrats! nice! - mikepk

Yeah!!!!! CONGRATS Chris!! that is soooo cooool! - Susan Beebe

Awesome Chris ... great news .. your famous - johnpiercy

Awesome to hear! - Helen Sventitsky

A better photo? Like this one? http://img185.imageshack.us/img185... (sorry, had to. go ahead and delete this comment) - Josh Haley

OMG! BAD JOSH! I much preferred the one with Palin, didn't know that one was out there :( - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Congratulations on the gig and the article, both excellent. - Rubin Sfadj

Congratulations! Looks like they found the best! - Cheryl Allin from twhirl

Congrats! :D - Ron

Brilliant. Just brilliant. - Phil G

Congrats! - Igor Poltavskiy

well deserved, congratulations! - Rajiv Doshi

Awesome. Us geeks are taking over. - Mark Krynsky

gratz! - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Article on FriendFeed forthcoming, we'll assume. Yes, and congrats are in order. Nice one, Chris! - Pete Delucchi

Congratilations! - Nia

Make that money and make us proud...in that order :) - Anthony Farrior

I sure hope they don't make you wear a suit and a serious face! - Glenn Batuyong

Congrats, Chris! I want to see you duet with Andrerson Cooper sometime! - susan mernit

Great! It will be great to see you there! ;-) - Erhan Erdogan

Mona Nomura

FACEBOOK USERS: READ. NOW. - http://pixelbits.wordpress.com/2009...

January 23, 2009 from Pixel Bits - Comment - Like - Share

"Joey", Søren Larsen, LouCypher and 58 other people liked this

HELLO? There is a major Facebook scam and we (FB users) haven't been notified. If you're on Facebook, this applies to you. - Mona Nomura

23 more comments

thanks... ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

It was covered by TechCrunch on the 20th and WSJ yesterday - my friend almost fell for it today. This is no joke... - Mona Nomura

They've gotta be in a quandry - if they say something, they may cause a panic and severe loss of confidence in the whole system. If they don't, the problem gets worse. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

They need to at least put in chat: "Do not give money to anyone asking via Facebook chat." - Mona Nomura

on the other hand, if you want to scam your friends out of some money, use facebook and in a few days just blame it on getting hacked. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Serious! They have so many PR problems, and now more without putting out a warning - sofarsoShawn

If I saw a friend's status as: "Need urgent help, I've been robbed." I would help them right away - this is scary. - Mona Nomura

reshared it and shared it on facebook. - Rob Sellen :o)

Thanks, Rob. :) - Mona Nomura from IM

I'm also resharing this on facebook. People should know. - Carmen - Happy 2010!

What is the most baffling is, Facebook knew about it for a few days. How many people need to be scammed before Facebook finally notifies us? I guess we'll find out — on the six o’clock news. Unacceptable. Thanks Carmen. :) - Mona Nomura from IM

NEED URGENT HELP! Have been Lazy! Please send beer/pizza immediately! - MVB (Grinch of FF)

I've tweeted it, weird it doesn't show a dupe - sofarsoShawn

Thanks you guys - it just sucks that there are people who take advantage of good hearted people. :( - Mona Nomura from IM

I'm good hearted, but none of these hot women will take advantage of me - Josh Haley

@Mona & that those who can help prevent it don't do so ie Zuckerbum it's pissing me off enough I"m going to bookmark it everywhere - sofarsoShawn

Sean - Facebook has a lot of problems. My friend's friend had issues finding the contact form to report the fraud... :\ - Mona Nomura

for sure, contacting them is next to impossible & response time is forever ~ I just sent that pic though w/ the URL through both slide & funspace I know I'm a troublemaker - sofarsoShawn

:o not good. - Nia

Thanks for sharing this info on FB accounts being hijacked. - sean808080

Has there been any acknowledgement from Facebook on this scam yet? - Kevin Whalen from twhirl

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt spoke to WSJ. - Mona Nomura

reshared on Twitter - Leslie Poston

Thanks, Leslie. A lot of people are commenting amongst the lines of: "If they're stupid enough to fall for that scam, they deserve it." I disagree. If the Facebook spokesman can address the WSJ, they should warn users. - Mona Nomura

Zee.

How blogging was born (by Hugh Macleod) - http://www.gapingvoid.com/

January 24, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Moses Kpetigo, Glen Group, "Joey" and 102 other people liked this

i think this has been shared on here before...but am sharing it again all the same... - Zee. from Bookmarklet

5 more comments

true - Roman Zolotarev

I think Hugh could update this cartoon and use Twitter or FriendFeed instead of blogging -- would work just as well. - Brian Sullivan

I am so gonna blog this. - Steven Perez

brilliant! - MicahBear78

It came from Dave Winer's Sripting News. He posted it yesterday. - Jordi Soler

Dave Winer posted this yesterday? I didn't realize. I just got it from the above mentioned site. I would have linked from there if I'd seen it there. - Zee.

Tamar Weinberg

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008 - http://www.techipedia.com/2009...

January 5, 2009 from techipedia | tamar weinberg - Comment - Like - Share

Nicole Simon, Nikpay, Michelle Barsi and 7 other people liked this

Have been waiting for this post of yours for quite sometime. Last time's post was overwhelming and quite fruitful :-) - Sampad Swain

4 more comments

This is a GIGA list. - Sam Fefer

funny, i was looking for this on your blog just 3-4 hours ago & couldn't find it yet... guess you must have heard the psychic request :) - dave mcclure

Bumping this one up cuz the Twitter message is getting all the love. And yeah, Dave, I saw you online at that ungodly hour. I was tweaking it then and kick-starting my birthday ;) - Tamar Weinberg

Oh this is sweet. - Mike Fruchter

fabulous selection of articles - thanks. - andrei_c

Paul Buchheit

Overnight success takes a long time - http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2009...

January 4, 2009 from Paul Buchheit - Comment - Like - Share

Nicola Junior Vitto, Gavin, Iggy Mwangi and 184 other people liked this

Thanks Paul... great post. - Brian Roy

37 more comments

Most overnight successes take an Alaskan winter. - Akiva Moskovitz

Great post, Paul. One of the running themes of a lot of the posts yesterday seemed to come from "well, it's been a year: FriendFeed should be in a much different place," but great things take time to do. - Mark Trapp

Scott Berkun wrote a really fine book entitled "the myths of innovaiton" (http://www.amazon.com/Myths-I...). He points out that perhaps the greatest myth of innovation is that the innovation arrives in it's entirety in a single moment in time. Essentially that the innovation was a single flash of insight and execution. The reality is it comes piecemeal over time. - Brian Roy

Nice Paul, there are a whole boatload of startup / project myths I wish we could bust. The "overnight success" is one of the worst. - mikepk

Brain, exactly, and the myth there is the "one idea" that precipitates success drives me crazy too. I wrote a post (and reposted it a few months ago) about this one. http://mikepk.com/2008... - mikepk

excellent Paul and while I have expressed my thoughts before I just may take you up on the "post your ideas" - Steven Hodson

Amen!! Peeps tend to see "web celebs," for example, once they're up there ... but no one sees the *years* of hard work prior! I like to say I'm an overnight success 10 years in the making!! :) - Mari Smith

Another interesting effect is that the VC cycle is predicated on hyper growth and 2 to 5 year return on investment. That helps push some ideas to failure even though, if given a more natural growth curve, they might have succeeded. - mikepk

+1 Mikepk - VC funding creates a hyper-focus on geometric growth instead of creating a sustainable company... Those two are NOT the same thing. - Brian Roy

Hyper-growth is dangerous because it forces a lot of short term moves, such as hiring the wrong people because you need them _now_. I suspect that better companies come out of busts than booms because they are able to grow at a reasonable pace. - Paul Buchheit

Epitome of why I love, trust, and believe in FriendFeed. Classy, Paul and thank you for sharing with the community. - Mona Nomura

Tell me about it. I got the arrows in my back to prove it. :-) - Dave Winer

Nice summary, Paul. As I mentioned in a comment on the post, it's clear you understand we care, and that we didn't intend to open the door for those clamoring for you to fail - but it was a natural result. - Louis Gray

"Once we launched, the response was surprisingly positive, except from the people who hated it for a variety of reasons. " - Clare Dibble

Although I have a love-hate affair with FriendFeed and my interest periodically peaks and wanes, Confucius says 'never trust a man who wears a beret the wrong way round'. - Andy C

@Paul - "Yes, technically you're doing my work for me, but it's mutually beneficial because we'll do our best to create a product that you like". Was this supposed to be an indirect response to Dave W asking you to pay him consulting for his ideas? - kartik vaithyanathan

Paul Buchheit +1 - Duncan Riley

So true. People think that from registering a domain to becoming a millonaire takes 1 idea and a couple of months. It took our company 10-years to do something "successful". - Martin Añazco

Been around this block a few times myself Paul. There is a pheneomenon out there around second ventures after the first was a winner. Let's have a talk about this over a beer after the outcome of FF is known. And also, I wouldn't necessarily count on the experience of selling a "product" inside a juggernaut like Google as being the same thing as making something work in the blogosphere or where ever it is FF is supposed to be planted. - Dave Winer

One more thing -- you're a very good writer -- but there's something else that isn't in your post. The odds against all startups are overwhelmingly against them. Ask Ev about Odeo someday. Your post is remarkably like the things he was writing about that product. And like the stuff I was saying after my company's IPO and was starting my second company. Unfortunately this was before blogs, so you'll have to take my word for it. I didn't really consider the possibility of failure. And of course we did fail. - Dave Winer

at least 24 hrs... ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Great post Paul. Too many companies (see Webvan and slew of others) thought rapid growth was enough. But good businesses grow slowly, even on the Internet. - AJ Kohn

Nice post and great perspective. Nice position to be able to compare your own gmail experience to your FF experience. - Bankwatch

Here's Joel Spolsky talking about the same thing: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/article... - Piaw Na

The comments on your blog are awesome, e.g. "Gmail would be a lot better if it allowed registration of usernames < 6 characters wide." Proposed reply, "Oh, you can, but every single one has already been taken" - j1m

I commented in the post, but I saw a comment in FriendFeed that noted how another well-known service had a well-executed marketing introduction, followed by rapid growth, followed by severe technical failures. Not to imply that one growth model is always right and another one is always wrong (plus, that company solved its technical issues). - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

Paul, keep up the good fight to properly manage FF for optimal growth, scalability and integration of features. Rushed products typically fail. However, a healthy burn rate is good too. Release timely updates in response to user demand. There are some important UIX features that should be released soon as users are clamoring for ease of use features and FF could risk losing more users if these basic UI features are not implemented within a reasonable amount of time. Good Luck! :) - Susan Beebe

I commented over at the post. Really nice entry, with great perspective. - Martha

Paul: I've read this post three times and it's a work of art. Thank you and thank you for creating a service that has addicted me for almost a year now. - Robert Scoble

Not to one up Scoble, but it's the service itself that is the work of art. - Jim Addz No Value

i appreciate this blended perspective. today i am dealing with the often elusive "balancing" objective, i.e., what is an acceptable pace towards those "goals posts", while honoring the organic nature of the quest! - Gregg

+2 Paul - Varun Mahajan

Paul, FriendFeed just rocks... It's already great today... - Aad 't Hart

Impressed with the loyalty I see many have for Friendfeed. - Scott M Iseman

Nice stuff.... some great comments etc.. thanks to mona for pointing me to it. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Paul's piece got reprinted at All Things D. Nice exposure: http://voices.allthingsd.com/2009010... - Louis Gray

Paul, I think FriendFeed is the best thing that I saw in 2008 on the web. It is still rough and needs to figure out how to best reel in the casual user, but there is so much promise in this service. The core of it is so powerful really and you guys are months if not years ahead of anyone else working in this area right now. Good luck to you and your team! - Thomas Hawk

+1 Thomas! Couldn't agree more... keep up great work FF team!! :) - Susan Beebe

Dave Winer

Haven't gotten a piece on TechMeme in ages even though I was posting all thru Xmas and know what -- I'm fine so fcuk off Gabe.

January 4, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Iggy Kin, AJ Kohn, JMaultasch and 20 other people liked this

See, you didn't need to write a whole blog post about what is wrong with techmeme... you 140 chars sums it up nicely :) - Brian Roy

43 more comments

I've never had something on TechMeme, Slashdot, or Mashable. :P - MarkCarras

you don't need him. You were there before Techmeme, and you'll be with us long after they delete the techmeme entry from Wikipedia. - Duncan Riley

http://twitter.com/davewin... :) - Loic Le Meur

The very fact you've posted this proves to everyone that you are obsessed with (not getting on) TechMeme. Plonk (again). - Andy C

Loic: lol - Eric Florenzano

Andy -- it does, for at least the moment when I wrote it. I had just read something insipid on TM that no one was pointing to. When ever I see that I think what poor taste Gabe has. And I'm reminded that Scoble says, and I agree, that TechMeme is just Gabe's blog, and absolutely nothing more than that. He's got a lot of people snowed into thinking it's got some magic, but I don't buy it. - Dave Winer

Yes Loic, and that moment too. Thank you for reminding me that I am an imperfect human being. :-) - Dave Winer

Duncan I'm not so sure about that, but thank you for the vote of confidence. - Dave Winer

Dave we all are :-) happy new year to you. I will not that sentence you used for my next imperfection! - Loic Le Meur

c'est pas grave :) - Richard pancakhaus Walker

http://www.techfuga.com probably will have this. - Robert Scoble

+1 Loic - Karim

interesting line on it being Gabe's blog. Good line from Scoble, and very much accurate. Why people believe it's some sort of magic ranking system is beyond me, given the evidence to the contrary. Sad thing for Gabe: the advertisers will work this out soon as well - Duncan Riley

I meant "note" of course - Loic Le Meur from twhirl

@DaveWiner: i bet if you upped ante on "fuck off gabe" tweet -> a blog rant it makes @TechMeme (pulls up chair & some popcorn ;) - dave mcclure

dave, most times i don't care -- i had just read something idiotic (like what you suggest) on tm and thought what a waste. then i got over it and went on.save the popcorn for arrington's latest shoe bomb. - Dave Winer

@davewiner lots of people have issues with techmeme. Duncan Riley even has a new name for it CRUNCHMEME - Sidharth Dassani from fftogo

To be fair, Dave, you didn't break any important news or start a bitchmeme lately. I am sad that you've joined the mob in shooting the messenger on this one. It's not Gabe's fault that people aren't linking to you. People aren't linking to anyone much any more on their blogs, be that the Twitter/FriendFeed effect or just that there is a real news drought underway. Bitching at Gabe is pointless. - Paul Montgomery

Paul -- I'm just sharing my point of view, and that is never pointless. That's the credo of blogging. - Dave Winer

Paul, what Dave is pointing out is that exactly because of the news drought, at least some of the stuff that he put out while other didn't should have been there. - Amit Morson

Paul, Dave's proposed among other things a Feedburner alternative. A 2 second check of his link profile refutes your entire comment. But I do agree with one point: bitching at Gabe is pointless. He won't hear, his heads to far up Arrrington's arse to notice - Duncan Riley

Duncan: Are other bloggers picking up on any of the things Dave is writing? Bitter comments from slighted bloggers aside, TechMeme is algorithmic, even if Gabe selects stories manually as well. None of the blogs I've read have been linking to Scripting News lately, so I wouldn't expect Dave's blog to register as noteworthy by TM (no offense intended). - John Zipp

John, have you been watching TechMeme -- they include quite a few posts that no one is pointing to. Just FYI. (And I could use some perjorative terms to describe you, but I won't -- just note that it's not generally a great thing to do to someone who's right here -- if you want non-flamey discourse.) - Dave Winer

John, it's not exclusively algorithmic. It's a mixture of link profiles and hand picked links. And it weighs links depending on the source: I'm completely banned, and as I've proved in numbers before, it treats sites like Mashable poorly as well, as it is with Dave. Context: Loic LeMeur is on the leaderboard. Love Loic, but numbers and links vs Dave...do some homework - Duncan Riley

They like Fred Wilson too, and inexplicably (ha) two posts from the TechMeme blog ranked highly as well, even though no one was pointing to them. And that's just from memory. If I were taking notes there would be lots more, but I'm working on other things. - Dave Winer

Josh, agree. - Duncan Riley

Who cares? Techmeme is artificial and stupid. My RSS feeds are way better any day of the week. - Andru Edwards

Good one, Mark. Doubt he's ever heard that one before. - Akiva Moskovitz

Techmeme tried to be fully automatic but couldn't pull it off. The human intervention there however is partly motivated by ego and personal "issues". - Amit Morson

Dave: telling someone to F off is usually pointless, and hardly constitutes a cogent point of view. I think I might have to (gasp!) blog about this issue to get my point across more intelligently. - Paul Montgomery

Tips on getting past the velvet rope. Advice from social engineers http://tinyurl.com/7kc9bl - Jim Posner

Looking for a way to shoehorn this quote in "Dance like no one's watching." - Eddy Cole

Paul thanks for the personal advice. I got it. If you don't stop soon I'm going to tell you to fcuk off. :-) - Dave Winer

Wouldn't be the first time, Dave. :) - Paul Montgomery

You don't say. What was the first time? - Dave Winer

I've got into minor squabbles on your blog comments. Plus there was some mailing list shenanigans, I seem to recall. Nothing too severe. It's all part of the rough and tumble, no hard feelings. - Paul Montgomery

Cool. BTW, I meant to say that Gabe should fcuk off -- with lots of love! :-) - Dave Winer

TechMeme is like Head-On. Love the product or is that I hate the product. Can never figure it out. But it makes me feel like shit, except when I'm number 1 then I feel great. Most often it makes me feel like shit. Give me a way to kill it and I'll go for it. I'll even put some money behind killing it. Not a lot, but some. And with that I bid you all a good night. :-) - Dave Winer

Psst.. did you hear Techmeme shot JFK and sold nuclear secrets to the Terrorists? But seriously. Techmeme has an audience because it's useful. That audience happens to be bigger than the 5 people that complain about not getting linked. Gabe doesn't have to make Techmeme link to anyone. - Nick Gonzalez

Dave Winer is being discussed over here by Gabe Rivera: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Robert Scoble

I was on Fark for like 6 years, had a sub 2K user number and only had like 5 front page posts in all that time. - Matthew DeVries

Are you coming to the CES Tweetup at HP? Details at http://ariburton.blogspot.com - Ari Burton

Winer? - David Beach

Enough about Dave. Lets talk about Dave - gfurry

Louis Gray

The Gray Effect: Got Apple? Apparently, being a Mac fan is genetic. - http://www.thegrayeffect.com/2009...

January 4, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

rawwell, americanm, Igor Poltavskiy and 54 other people liked this

Picture taken at a recent family post-Christmas gathering. L-R (me, my sister, brother and sister in law) - Louis Gray

25 more comments

CREEPY - Mona Nomura

Haha:p I've been thinking, should I move over to Mac? And if so, why? - Patrik Johansson

it's like a CULT - sofarsoShawn

I hope you were all sending IMs to each other. - Shawn Farner

no shawn - they were all on friendfeed liking each other's stuff :) btw what mac laptop is the woman in the middle btw the two guys using? looks small - Allen Stern

Awesome picture... - Dennis Goedegebuure

1) Nobody was using IM. 2) At one point, my brother asked us to play a Monopoly game online (much faster than the board game) and 3) the MacBook being used in the middle is one of the new 13.3" models, while we have the 15.2" Pro versions. - Louis Gray

haha! - David Cook

It's true. All of my offspring are Macfans. What you grow up with is important. - Phil Boiarski

okay .. I don't know about anyone else but this is frikken scary (in a good funny kind of way (I think)) ... LOL - Steven Hodson

Heck, other than the apple logos, looks like my living room on a typical afternoon -- wife, stepdaughter and I all bathed in the light of our laptop screens . . . I guess we aren't as weird as we thought! 8-) - LJF Wolffe

we play boardgames around christmas - right low tech - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

If smart is genetic, being a Mac-fan must be :P - ·[▪_▪]·

Same as my family. All got mac laptops. a couple of mac mini's and g4 cubes around too :) - Simon Wicks

True, Jason... not pictured would include my mother's Mac desktop and laptop, my wife's laptop, my iPhone, my sister's iPhone, and a small variety of iPods also in the house. - Louis Gray

Cult of Gray. But I say it's nurture not nature. :) - Josh Haley

"Hi! We're a Mac!" .LOLz - .LAG liked that

But are they all running Windows Vistas on those Macs? ;) - Jemm

love it! amazing... you guys do like your Macs ...I guess :) hehehee! - Susan Beebe

Funny! That's exactly what my brother's house looked like for a couple of hours after Christmas dinner. Well, except that he has a Mac and I don't. :-( - Lisa L. Seifert

Love the pic. Looks like our house- more variety on the mac front iBook, MBP, mini - Elliot Christenson

Haha! Cracks me up =) - Andy DeSoto

Amusingly, my wife asks, "is there any way to get these comments back on my blog?" Maybe I should send her some of my previous posts. - Louis Gray

can someone please hide this permanently; it's like "Children of the Corn(Mac)" - sofarsoShawn

Shouldn't you guys be taking advantage of the face-to-face gathering rather than interacting via your respective Mac? - Vinko

@Vinko: When conversing through computers, they can check from logs who said what first, when things get heated. - Jemm

Tamar Weinberg

It's my birthday today!

January 5, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Alfredo, Nicholas James, Mattb4rd and 64 other people liked this

happy birthday, tamar - Baard @ Pixum

71 more comments

happy birthday tamar! - Rob Diana

Happy Birthday !!! - Nir Ben Yona from twhirl

happy birthday - have a lovely day - ♥ Stephiepooos ♥

THANKS :) - Tamar Weinberg

Happy Birthday girl! - Orli Yakuel

happy birthday. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

happy birthday tamar!!! - Danli

Happy birthday, Tamar! - Erhan Erdogan

happy b'day - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Happy birthday! - LouCypher

HAPPY BORTHDAY - Amit Morson

Happy Birthday :) - Muge Cerman

Hoppy Birdie! - Michael R. Bernstein

Happy birthday! - Yolanda

Happy birthday!!! - Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ

Many happy returns of the day! - Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty

A very happy birthday to u!!!! - kunwar

Happy Birthday!@ - Nation Hahn

Happy Happy BD! :) - Sasha Kovaliov(.com)

Happy Birthday! - Steve Rubel

~~~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMAR!!!~~~ Wishing you a fabulous day !! eat cake!! :) - Susan Beebe

Happy Birthday, Tamar! :) - Dee S.

Happy BDAY - Shevonne

happy day to you - Nathan Chase

Happy Birthday Tamar. Have a great day! - Trish R

Enjoy your day :) - Steven Cains

happy b-day! - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Happy birthday!!! - Shawn Farner

and yet, you gave *US* the present: your post summarizing best internet marketing posts of 2008! (happy bday tamar :) - dave mcclure

Happy Birthday Tamar! - Web20Critic from twhirl

thanks Dave, now I hope you're available this week ;) (and thanks to everyone else too!!!) - Tamar Weinberg

Happy birthday :) - Joe Dawson

Tamar, Happy birthday! - Mike Fruchter

happy birthday!!! - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

happy birthday! - Sarah Perez

Happy birthday Tamar! - Mitchell Tsai

Happy Birthday, Tamar! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

yay! happy birthday! - Marshall Kirkpatrick

happy bday tamar - MG Siegler

Happy bday! - Matt Cutts

Think I did this already somewhere else this morning ... but Happy Birthday Tamar! (anyway :) - Charlie Anzman

thanks everyone :) - Tamar Weinberg

PS: This is turning into a great 'starter kit' of people to follow on Friendfeed ! - Charlie Anzman

Happy Birthday! - Trish Haley

Happy birthday! - Morton Fox

Happy Birthday to you! -

Happy Happy, Joy Joy to you!!! :-) - Live4Emma (L4S)

Happy Birthday !! - Mo Kargas

Happy B Day! - Helen Sventitsky

Happy Birthday :) - Kamath (नमः)

Happy Birthday! - Rodfather

Happy Birthday. - Todd Jordan

Happy Birthday again! Hope you're having a great day. Any chocolate cake? Carrot with cream cheese icing? Candles? - Internet Strategist

hsapp[y b-day - MikeAmundsen

Go shorty it's your birfday! - BEX

Happy bday! And remember, no matter how old you get, if you were a turtle, you'd still be too young to leave home. :-P - April Russo (app103)

Happy Birthday!! - Fa La La La Lindsay

happy birthday - Cee Bee

HBD! - Nick Humphries

Happy birthday! - Phil G

What Phil Said! - Bill Sanders

gonna party like it's your birthday - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Happy birthday. - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE from fftogo

Happy Birthday! - Pete Delucchi

Happy Birthday ... pick an ascii art cake: http://www.geocities.com/soho... (and turn up speaker volume) - Micah Wittman

Happy Birthday to you Tamar! =) - Randy

Happy belated b-day! - Mathew™ one of a kind

Happy Birfday! - Darren Heydon

HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY BIRTHDAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY - Adriana

Happy Birthday!! (10 minutes left...) - Justin Korn

sorry i missed this Tamar, happy birthday! - Zee.

Mike Fruchter

Isn't it funny the ones predicting FriendFeeds death, are the same ones who wonder why there are no comments and likes on their FriendFeed feed. This is someone who does NOT even participate on FriendFeed at all.

January 4, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ, Igor Poltavskiy, Hutch Carpenter and 64 other people liked this

I figured with the subtle clues most would know who it is :) - Mike Fruchter

21 more comments

Should we tell him? ;) - Tamar Weinberg

Eyeroll. His last FF post was Nov. 25. You can't complain about a service if you're not even using it. - Rochelle

Yeah I was surprised by this whole thing. I unsubbed from his twitter and blog. C ya! - Richard pancakhaus Walker

I like Stowe, but I have to agree here. You only get out of a service what you put into it. - Duncan Riley

Methinks he aggregates his feeds into FF and expects comments just like that. Unfollowed from his Twitter when he kept live tweeting about various 'bloggers blogging about blogging' conferences and filled my stream with blah. - Sally Church

Sally, exactly. It's just like Duncan stated, you only get out of service what you input in. I'm surprised Stowe does not understand this. - Mike Fruchter

who is stowe? :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Only FF old timers can see how retroactively amusing Duncan's comment is. :-) Good work, Duncan! - Louis Gray

LG - I was just about to say how funny Duncan's comment was!!! - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

Imagine if tomorrow, FF wasn't here. Mike F would probably need a 'social readjustment' ! :) (Keep 'em comin' MF) - Charlie Anzman

Charlie, could you imagine? I would have to check myself into a mental asylum. Happy new years, and good morning :) - Mike Fruchter

Seriously. I can't figure out what's so hard for people to understand about FF. But then I'm one of those folks who tried Twitter and never got into it, then tried FF and I never, ever want to let it go. It better not die. Where would all of us go?? - Kamilah Gill

There certainly is community here in FriendFeed, but it's actually mix of many since people use service in different ways. I have feeling that while conversation is mainly in English, there should be more language specific Rooms so that location specific conversations could also be more actively apparent in FF even while most of the system is in English. - Daniel Schildt

I dunno, I didn't partake in pownce and could guess that was going under, and plurk probably won't last and I don't partake there - I disagree that FF will go the same way but don't agree you need to use a service to predict demisii - Mark Edmondson

There might be slowdown in some part (at least I have certainly been using FriendFeed much less than previously) but it might be that usage is growing up (not in numbers but in level of thought). - Daniel Schildt

I know this is kind of off topic, but I found a bug! There's a person on this thread blocked me via FF and I can see his FF comment here. That is all. kthxbai. - Tamar Weinberg

who would block you Tamar? weird and dumb IMO! - Susan Beebe

Duncan did. - Tamar Weinberg

Maybe he unblocked you? - Mike Fruchter

Maybe we should all tweet him links to some newbie guides to FF. Then he might understand why he doesn't get any comments. - April Russo (app103)

April, he will just delete them, as he did with the comments I left on his post. - Mike Fruchter

Mike, no, because I can't see anything else of his. I checked before I wrote my comment on this FF message. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar Weinberg

finally! after 4 weeks, my "best internet marketing posts of 2008" is live. http://www.techipedia.com/2009...

January 5, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

andrei_c, Juan Luis and dave mcclure liked this

great work ! a ver si alguien hace algo parecido en español :) - Juan Luis

Tamar Weinberg

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008: Social Media, SEO, and More » techipedia | tamar weinberg - http://www.techipedia.com/2009...

January 5, 2009 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

dave mcclure liked this

Steve Rubel

Tamar Weinberg is out with her "Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008" - http://www.techipedia.com/2009...

January 5, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rob Diana, fshamsi and dave mcclure liked this

news.ycombinator.com

The End of the Financial World as We Know It - http://www.nytimes.com/glogin...

January 4, 2009 from Hacker News - Comment - Like - Share

dave mcclure liked this

Atul Arora

Op-Ed Contributors - The End of the Financial World as We Know It - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/glogin...

January 4, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Sriks7 and dave mcclure liked this

dave mcclure › Likes