I feel like I'm missing a central "address book" for all these services and each service requires I follow all the same people all over again. - Sergio Cruz
What's Facebook? You mean that social media site that was popular in early 2008? - Jason Theodor
Be Like Me UN-Famous ! As a member of the Unwashed I only have received one request An SEO Nerd who wanted to me me famous ! - marshal sandler
this is because of their recommendation system...happens to many of us - ouriel
I get LinkedIn contact requests from people with Yahoo.com addresses. Twittermarkerters try to Follow me everyday, so now feedless folks want to jump into Friendfeed. - paul mooney
Vicious cycle of socnets ...augh! I get some weird folks trying to "friend" me up on FB - run, Nooooes!!! - Susan Beebe
Maybe they are Alien Zombies who want to clone you? LOL - Igor The Troll
I don't see a problem. It takes me two seconds to research someone on the Internet and find out if they're interesting... If so, I'll gladly be their 'friend' - I've met a lot of great people this way. - Vince DeGeorge
Steve - Have to agree with Vince. 30 seconds to see if someone can be a benefit, interesting or just fun. Of everyone I've green lighted, I only had to stop two. You never know who has the next interesting story or product. - Charlie Anzman
Illustrates the circles of friend-ness in the mediums - following on Twitter/FF/Digg is viewed to be not as intimate as a being connected in Facebook where LinkedIn is just a research system for a job... - Todd Bremner
There are some people who are simply stretching out, following new folks for new influences. They're not all spammers and stalkers. - Chris Baskind
I recently felt weird about that too, but instead changed my strategy for how I use Facebook. Instead of denying contacts, I've just changed/deleted my personal info like my street address and private data, etc. SO now I can participate with anyone there that wants to participate with me, without worry. - Andrew Baron
@AndrewBaron - That's a great point. Though there is a strange dichotomy between the site as a friend book or a networking site ... - David Weiner
I have a limited view friend list and if the person seems reasonable, ie a non spam mer, and like they have a reason to want to link, I will add them in that category. means there is not that much to see, tho. For me FB is a good contact manager for less professional associations than linked in. - susan mernit
What would it take to make this "centralized address book" that Sergio talks about? will something on top of OpenID do it? - jonathan
I reserve Facebook for people I know. I turn down a lot of FB requests. But if they are a FOAF or someone interesting, I include a note explaining how I use FB and suggest we connect on Twitter or FriendFeed. - Ryan Kuder
Steve, those of us who experiment w/ all these platforms need to discuss how we're using each. I'm like you, I don't follow via FF as many as I do other ways. But at times find it redundant to twitter. I'm still trying to figure out exactly where I want to stamp out redundancy and where redundancy makes sense. - Rex Hammock
it would be much better if they actually wrote a brief note in the friend request and told you why they wanted to be your friend and a bit about themselves. Just because you don't know them does not mean you should not. ;) - Rodney Rumford
Since when do you have to know someone to friend them on a social network. That's just crazy talk. - Bwana McCall
I think it's that Facebook doesn't allow you to "subscribe" to people you don't know, so you have to "friend" them instead to see what they're up to. Steve, you're just popular and people want to know what you're up to and they're just not early enough adopters to know about friendfeed. Come to think of it WHY ISN'T FACEBOOK API'd into FF? - Chris Aldrich
I use the same rule on Facebook and experiencing several friend req's per day as well. If I don't remotely know you I don't accept you on FB - James Andrews
ask for a fans page like I did, they can just add you, you don't have to add them - Loic Le Meur
I find that sort of reasoning a little odd...the whole point of all of these networking tools is to broaden your network. If I don't know someone, I let them prove their worth to me. It's easy enough to delete a contact or block a follower later on. - Justin Whitaker
I turn down many because I DO know who they are... - Tim Wright
Whatcha gonna do with the Great Unwashed? ;-) - Chris Baskind
I don't have a problem with strangers, but I really do not like it if they pollute the newsfeed. They can do that on Twitter/FF, potentially, Facebook is reserved for the people I know. - Vincent van Wylick
via fftogo
A stranger walks by and says hello. You ignore them because you don't know them. Is that social? - LPH™
@LPH In NYC yes because 9 times out of 10 they're either going to try to rob you, beg from you, or scam you. I think the same rules can be safely applied to the internet. - Erica Baker
The rule for Facebook used to be: if you walked by the person on the street, would you say hello? Yes, they are your friend. No, reject. People seem to have lost that as the site scaled and now think it is MySpace. - Nicholas Molnar
Just an interesting question here! How can you know if someone is interesting or not if you have blocked them on Friend Feed not based on your interaction with them, but just because a power user has bocked them? Can you answer this for me? - Igor The Troll
Many people who request to add me as a friend I really don't know personally but we've met on some social sites and I only know their nicknames over there which are often not their real names (that they are presented with on Facebook). So when I send a request to such a "social network" connection myself, I invariably add an explanation like "It's Svetlana, we are connected on..." - and I expect the same courtesy from others. I don't think it takes much time to add a short note. - Svetlana Gladkova
They're in the process of losing me. Which is why I'm taking considerable time to integrate the ability to categorize and tag my FF likes and comments on my own blog - James Hull
The del.icio.us notes feature got a lot more useful because of Friendfeed. My del.icio.us notes finally have people to read them. So when I tag now, I tend to add commentary about the link for my subscribers here on Friendfeed. Smarter bookmarking. I also have several "conventions" that I use del.icio.us tags for. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
very much so. Yahoo had an early lock on social search. But then they just couldn't put the pieces together. Amazing to me really. - Thomas Hawk
The key seems to be, giving readers the ability to add meta info to a submission and then discuss that info, rather than just the submitter adding info like del.icio.us does. (edited for clarity) - Paul Short
I've always used the notes, partly just for myself, but also because I have pulled a feed from my bookmarks into my websites for a long long time now. I'm having more "fun" thinking about how to use Friendfeed better. - Laura Scott
via Alert Thingy
Two questions 1) FriendFeed is basically for the short-term. --- liked a lot (with a little sadness) On the flip-side, should FriendFeed offer an option to categorize and save links and just crush Delicious to bits? 2) "save links / saves" - is that not "share something" ? --- - Kishore Balakrishnan
just another quotient of luck & timing ... & investor patience ... who owns the user-generated meta-data? kinda like who owns fan supplied data on pearl jam's ten.net ... just extended into other forums/granularities of interest (bandwidth) - Scott Moskowitz
I agree w/ Thomas Hawk - Y! couldn't put the pieces together. However, on the flip side, FriendFeed does not really have any pieces -- so will I really use this as my primary bookmarking tool or photo sharing service after I have 4,000+ bookmarks on delicious and 1500+ photos on Flickr? - Rex Hammock
Delicious has survived storms and even when Yahoo is not looking so good in business right now, I will hold my delicious account and of course keep pouring more info on Friendfeed... - TonNet
The bigger question in my mind is whether Outlook can be the FriendFeed to the mainstream? - Joe Fernandez
Delicious is pretty good at being delicious. It's got its niche. I love it, apart from the truly abysmal search - john conroy
Delicious is useful as a substitute for browser bookmarks to avoid syncing if you move between different computers or browsers. - Mike Hussein Cohen
Thing is, I'm not sure if it's laziness, stupidity, craven pandering, or all of the above. Personally, my vote is on craven pandering. Selling to the extremes, well, sells. - Adam Lasnik
Extreme headlines get read. Headlines that state the truth do not. - Robert Scoble
Would you prefer P send a shot over O's bow? - Erica Baker
Adam - we'll never get rid of these types of stories. Sometimes arguing the extremes crystallizes thinking in people. I personally like the nuances, because that's where future trends emerge. - Hutch Carpenter
Adam I think probably craven pandering plus high frustration level with Twitter. But Scoble is right. Jason's post will get wayyyy more views than my own honestly headlined one: http://tinyurl.com/honestheadl... - Robert Seidman
I think most of us thoughtful folks would really appreciate more nuanced reporting. But what's to be done about it? We're clearly in the minority. Fox News rakes in the dough, far more than, say, NPR. When people want to be pandered to rather than challenged, what's the solution for us (dare I say it) elite? :D How do we improve the discourse online, at least? How do we start? - Adam Lasnik
Fox News rakes in the dough even more than CNN. Interestingly though when there is "real huge news" (which doesn't happen often) people tune (en masse) to CNN, not Fox News. You ask good questions Adam. Hopefully FriendFeed is a good start to improving the discourse? - Robert Seidman
Thanks, Robert! And I do think Friendfeed is off to a great start. Lots of collegial give and take, lots of thoughtfulness. I have only blocked two people (for being extreme jerks), and that's not much given how much time I've spent on here and how many threads I've read :). And btw, excellent commentary on FriendFeed/Twitter! - Adam Lasnik
I vote for greed. Friction creates drama which creates viewers which creates advertising revenue. Manufactured partisanship sells more new and improved Clorox 2. - AJ Kohn
I recomment really to everyone the book by Gene Schwartz: "Breakthrough Advertising". The whole first chapter is about this kind of headlines. BUT, a sensational headline is generally not enough to catch attention. You need a promise - directeur
via NoiseRiver
Okay, directeur: "10 Ways Friendfeed Gets You Better Sex Than Twitter, Guaranteed!" It's got everything. A number, a comparison, sex, and a promise/guarantee. Damn, I shoulda been a journalist :D. - Adam Lasnik
Adam: I would have liked that story. :-) - Robert Scoble
Adam: A copywriter you meant ;-) And yes, this is the type of headlines :) - directeur
via NoiseRiver
Is does not seem to be a strong argument to counter "Will FriendFeed kill Twitter?" with "Did the web kill e-mail?" - let us see.. Will FF add SMS support? - Kishore Balakrishnan
Due to the girl's smaller size, under 2 KG, she'll be in the NICU, but the boy is already with mom, getting acquainted. Kristine is in recovery from the C-section, but I expect will do well. On with a new stage! - Louis Gray
Yeaaaaahhhhhh!!!! Funny, Milan spent the first three days of his life in that same NICU. They are really great there, so your daughter is in good hands. Names? - Robert Scoble
Lisa: you should open a day care for FriendFeed'ers. Heheh. - Robert Scoble
YAHOO! (the word not the company). Big congrats to Louis & wife. Now the fun REALLY begins. Thanks so much for sharing the experience on Friendfeed. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
That's awesome. Congrats to you and your wife! - John McCrea
Congratulations! We look forward to chatting with them online as soon as you can prop them in front of the computer. ;-) - Chris Baskind
Hmmm.... day care for friendfeeders = new biz model. I gotta got get some VC @now :) - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Congrats Louis! And hat's off to Kristine for the long labor followed by the c-section! Glad to hear things are good with the li'l ones. They'll be home before you know it. Fantastic! - Hutch Carpenter
I promise photos soon. Names too. I'm tired and so is Kristine. Thanks for being part of a very real community here on FriendFeed and indulging me. - Louis Gray
Lisa: our house is child proofed just for you. Or is it for the kids? I don't know, but either way, we're ready for the influx of FriendFeeding babies! :-) - Robert Scoble
Louis: if you think you're tired now, just wait a couple of weeks!!! Enjoy your sleep when you can get it. We'll be here when the kids wake you up again. ;-) - Robert Scoble
Congratulations Louis and family! All this twittering / FF'ing on the excitement of babies being born is reminding me of my own sons' births inspiring my proto-social-web baby pool project (admittedly it's Web 1.5 - not all shiny/ajaxy but hey, it debuted in 2004 which is like a lifetime ago in web-years). Anyway, thus ends my shameless plug: http://bebepool.com/ - Micah Wittman
Congrats, Louis. I was (and am) a twin, 2lbs, 6oz though. 4mos premature. - Andrew Feinberg
Louis - you are one of the anchors here on Friendfeed! It's been an honor sharing this experience with you, and your family. Wishing you, Kristine, and the twins the sweetest of dreams. Sleep well. You deserve it! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Wholehearted congrats. Our first was in the NICU after being born premature and those folks do wonders. Dylan is now a tall, healthy, 48-inch-tall five year old towering above the rest... - Chris Reed
Luis fantastic duded. Congratulations to you and your wife!! - Alexander van Elsas
Congratulations Louis & Kristine, & welcome to your son & daughter! You're tired now? Wait 19 years...I have twin daughters that age; I can barely type ;-) ! Twins are special, all enjoy your new life together. - David Peacock
via twhirl
Congratulations to you and Kristine on your new arrivals, really proud for you both! - Joe Dawson
Well done - the hard work starts now! Our youngest was in NICU for three weeks (he was 4 10 and had to be delivered seven weeks early as my wife had a life threatening condition), but the great thing about NICU baby's (well in the UK anyway) is that they get trained to sleep!!! - Andy Davies
Mazal Tov to the new parents! Congrats!!! - Mike Fruchter
Congrats Louis and glad to hear mother and twins are fine and enjoy your rest you'll need it! Only 12 weeks before our new one arrives and I'll be going through the same thing :) - Russ G
Congrats! Hope everything goes really well! - Matt Cutts
there are so many comments here i can't possibly read them all, but that's awesome louis, congrats to you and your wife. do the babies have names yet? - MG Siegler
Congratulations! All our best wishes to mum, babies and your good self! - John Samuelson
Congratulations! As a life-long end user of parenting, I know that you will require the best of luck. And here's a towel, just in case. The towel will be with you... always. - Cyvros/fyc
I think I teared up there a little bit. Congratulations Louis! I know how exhausted you guys are and hope you're getting some much deserved rest right now. You're all in my thoughts this weekend. - Carla Thompson
~~~B~A~B~I~E~S~~~A~R~E~~H~E~R~E~~!!~~Y~E~A~H!!!!! Congratulations Louis & Kristine!!! So happy for you guys and your family!! (Sorry I feel asleep after 1AM EST... long week) - Susan Beebe
Congratulations Grey family. "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." - Clare Dibble
“I am working on a post about the implication of Friendfeed, Mahalo and other human discovery engines on PR and journalism. Interested in your thoughts please share. ”
I liked and will comment later. There are deep implications at least in the way that I utilize them. I must get ready for the day job now. - Mathew A. Koeneker
In relationship to news delivery, I hope commentary and reporting don't become blurred. I spend a lot of time in FriendFeed reading, but I still go to traditional news outlets for fact verification. I worry that FriendFeed posts and re-posts, comments could become diluted - the Web 2.0 version of the telephone game. - Liana Lehua
you put friendfeed and mahalo together? - Allen Stern
@Allen The FF / Mahalo connection I see is that both aggregate user-submitted content. Even if the content shared by a user on FF is that of a link to a story from a traditional news source (versus a bloggers perspective piece, for example), the ability to add commentary very much makes it a "human discovery engine" (Mahalo). - Liana Lehua
would someone explain 2 me what Mahalo is. I get the feeling it had something to do with that Calacanis guy n I noticed it listed4example this morning all the newsoutlets coverage of Obama's headscarves censorship. http://www.mahalo.com/Obama_He.... It looks for topics and congregates them on the same page? Wouldn't a google search do that same thing? and why would friendfeed be mentioned in the same concept in this question? Why not just say that the technology has changed language and knowledge - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
Use Social Media to make the news not let Social Media control the news. We as Social Media journalists report the news to Mass Media! - Igor The Troll
noah - easiest way to describe it - they scrape links off google (news, search, etc) and then add some text from the scraped links to create robust pages of content. - Allen Stern
I use social media to hear about what's going on. I learned of Tim Russert's death from FriendFeed. As for using this content to influence what I write for magazines and blogs, I probably would say that other than a few trusted sources, most of it just helps get the idea going. Then I work directly with sources. The echo chamber makes most of this stuff too unreliable to count on as a sole source for me. - ScottBourne
I work in PR and the understanding of social media from clients is very thin. Having to explain to a client the importance of having a dialogue with their consumers on an ongoing basis and then needing to explain how much time it will take is quite a challenge. My role is changing, as is the role of PR, from acting on behalf of a company to encouraging companies to engage directly themselves. - PaulJohnson
friendfeed put me in touch with a lot of voices I had previously not even heard of. I wonder what it will do once it moves out of a small circle of people. - Günther Mulder
via twhirl
Mahalo is a roach motel, last week I looked for Roadrunner computer on Google, Mahalo was the sixth result so I clicked....three Mahalo pages later I found my way to the IBM home page where I searched again. Now I have a blog post about Roadrunner, but does Mahalo know? - paul mooney
I'm thinking a new corporate position and title will emerge from all of this. Companies won't want to pay PR hours to monitor and post to the blogosphere and it WILL become a full-time job. Director of online communications? - Steve Poppe
Every marketer in the world should want to influence and monitor search when it comes to their product or service. Google is one of the top places that people turn to to find information out about products today. FF is essentially building social search disguised as an aggregation service. Social Search will have huge implications in the future. Savvy PR folk will use FF to both monitor and influence search with regards to their brands. - Thomas Hawk
Journalists want and need fast access to interactive information. FF provides a platform for that, re Marshall's discovery post yesterday, or in fact this very post of yours today Steve. Some early journalists like Chris Nuttall (FT) and Jessica Guynn (LATimes) are already building a presence here. More will come and it will be a resource that they can use to quickly poll and get quotes and source leads. - Thomas Hawk
seems like pr and journalism have very different needs. pr likes people to reuse teh message. to journalists, that's verging on plagiarism. - Seth "Seth" Gottlieb
via twhirl
If you're working in or covering the online community, FF can provide insight into what people are thinking, or can help you identify trends or sources. On the flip side, the potential danger is that since social media haven't hit the broader mainstream, relying on it too much can give you an "inside the beltway" view. - Dave Pelland
you are talking about Apples and Seeds and then asking about the relevance of fruit. friendfeed is a seed. Google is the fruit and Mahalo is the stupid packaging that makes it look snazzy in the store - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
Another instance of precommenting. i liked that - Varun Mahajan
I actually feel the only way FF is 'part' of journalism/PR is using it as this example. PR people can post updates on client/company news, and have interactive commentary with interested parties. Similarly, journalists can post stories in progress and gain feedback/ideas from the outside world. Just as you have done here. :) - Jeremy Toeman
I certainly don't think that FF is going to replace PR - there is simply too much value in a compelling story delivered at the right time to be ignored, but I also think that the roles are about to get a lot blurrier, and people are going to find huge success utilizing this stuff to bring new products and services to market. - Eric Hamilton
Hutch -- the bigger question is what does it mean to figure out Social Media for brands (especially big brands). Scoble can explain the Gary V. side of the equation and everyone will agree. There are metrics to support the case. Where are the metrics for determining if Comcast being on Twitter mattered? P.S. I'm asking for numeric documentation of success -- not speculation or emotional responses. Scoble may get misty-eyed at Gary V., but Gary V. could show you why it matters to him. I doubt Comcast can. - Robert Seidman
Seidman: or another case is HRBlock on Twitter. They saw enough goodness to come out of that. These things aren't really done for metrics, though. It's like "what's the metrics" of a press tour? Or a speech at a conference? Businesses do things all the time for a lot of reasons other than just pure ROI. - Robert Scoble
Comcast has metrics for their ROI on their PR team (quantitative AND qualitative). They don't have any quantitative analytics on social media. Until they do -- it's all kool-aide talk. what's more valuable to Comcast: three more people on ComcastCares or three more people on the phones? How do you measure and how do you decide? I think the answers to these questions are very worthwhile. I can't comment on H&R block since its primary business is capitalizing on people who are afraid of basic math - Robert Seidman
Look it is all about fine tuning the noise into the Signal.You really need to have the passion for this to work. We are redefining the marketing model. Explosion! Bang, Bang The Coke Machine Blown up in Cyber Space! - Igor The Troll
it's a dramatic change for the press. No longer are they confined to corp.reports press offices and senior level interviews for the "facts" with corp. bloggers and others spewing opinions and data. The risk is we are already seeing the blurring of lines between commentary, opinions and "real journalism" (hold your attacks). The old editorial checks and balances are rapidly giving way to a much looser, faster--and more interesting--form of "news" delivery (i was a writer for BusinessWeek in a former life) - mark ivey
Paul: If you look at the road runner computer page you'll see it's a well written Guide Note with citations, tons of facts, and a GREAT place to start. It's not intended to be the final destination, but rather a starting point for folks. Allen Stern calls what we do "scraping" but that's not accurate. We actually select our links across many, many services and Google is the last place we really look to be honest. We need interesting links and places like stumble and delicious are the best places for those. - Jason Calacanis
jason, to some extent no matter where you are getting the links, it's still scraping the links, and it doesn't mean it's bad - of course what i like is that you link back and don't take the content - that's a good thing. - Allen Stern
10 years from now, each of us will be kicking out feed entries every time we blow our noses. FriendFeed is - to my mind - a way for people to get control of the feeds they generate and focus them toward a coherent narrative. - Rob Sterling
Jason, you saying Maholo works, but I will disagree with you. My travel agency Website that is 8 years old, in DMOZ, IATA registered is not in Mahalo, while some crappy non IATA agency is! You tell me how is Mahalo doing a good job? You just scraping not contributing to evolution and improvement of search. - Igor The Troll
it really puts a spotlight on the fact that journalism is a process - not a product. We have forgotten that journalism is a series of steps: collect, filter and distribute - information. Sites like FriendFeed enable journalism without the media. I found out about Tim Russert's death via Twitter. It wasn't "media" - it was just people living their lives and sharing information. It's news without newspapers, journalism without media, etc. - David Cohn
Allen, you know very well what scraping means... it means taking something not yours and doing no original work. We hand curate our results... they are all hand selected. Robots scrape... humans curate. - Jason Calacanis
I think it's interesting that Steve calls FF a 'human discovery engine' while it really is so much more. Journalism (and delivery vehicles) have already changed dramatically. There have already been social and financial shifts. Twitter played a role. FF will be larger over time (in m opinion). Traditional journalists need to learn and read (quick) or they will simply be downsized and replaced by more prolific writers (that know what they're talking about) right here on Friendfeed, and elsewhere. - Charlie Anzman
discovery = learning. FF, Twitter and similar ramp up my discovery, therefore increasing my rate of learning. - Paul Moss
Jason Calacanis many Social Media industry leaders are following me, but you are ignoring my concerns. We are not in Sheepshead Bay hanging out at your table with your friends in Kingsborough Community College. So, what value do you bring to search when you fail to include authoritative business sites to your index? - Igor The Troll
