He could have linked to a Seagate site. (j/k) Actually, the conversation will fragment whether we like it or not. - Ontario Emperor
Exactly. Those who want control will rarely find what they are looking for. You gain control by giving it away. - Robert Scoble
Scoble, right or wrong is "authentic", Risley, not so much. - Robert Seidman
"Those who want control will rarely find what they are looking for. You gain control by giving it away. " Scoble is right here. When people are proprietary about things, photos, the conversation, comments, it will always backfire. Robert is one of the most popular bloggers out there. It's like karma. - Thomas Hawk
He wanted the Google Juice that comes with a link directly to the post. Me? I didn't want to give it to him. That's the snobbery. - Robert Scoble
Very well said, Thomas. Robert, I like the "No Scoble Google Juice for you!" thinking. - Robert Seidman
Blood and ashes, this is turning into junior high. We have the right to discuss a post wherever we darn well please. If I post to my blog, and find a discussion about that somewhere else, I say "Cool!" not "They really should be discussing it on my site." - Brent Newhall
If we can perfect the technology so that it's easy to find all of these conversations, then most of the objections to conversation fragmentation will go away. - Ontario Emperor
Don't care about the Google juice, Scoble. Just surprised you did. - David Risley
I vote yes. Must at least give the artist's vision and intent an initial listen. Unless we're talking the Jonas Brothers or something. Can't imagine they put much thought into song flow. - Carla Thompson
Agreed with Carla here, if the artist is of any value, songs are ordered for a reason. After first use.. mix as you please! - Matt Harwood
I agree. Why spend money on someone's artistic vision if you aren't even going to attempt to enjoy it the way the intended you to, at least ONCE. After that shuffle all you want. - jon
Ooh, that's a fun thought: what albums must always be listened to as produced? NIN's The Downward Spiral immediately comes to mind. Dark Side of the Moon of course.What else? - Carla Thompson
I imagine a giant fire hose where a giant mass of reader heads are flowing out like marbles. Louis Gray has this fire hose in his hand and points it at your site with an evil grin on his face. I should make this a comic, but I can't really draw :( I need more coffee. - Bwana McCall
It's fun to read something like this, but what do you mean? And what does that look like as far as impact for your blog? - Louis Gray
Louis, you have taken over as the one people look to when they want new stuff. After your 5 bloggers for May post my RSS item usage on Feedburner doubled and subscribers are increasing steadily so thank you. - Colin Walker
Colin, that's great to hear. I'm glad you're getting success. And it's not because of me. It's because you're a good writer and blogger. If I can help expose more people like you doing a great job, then I'm happy. It's what I like doing. - Louis Gray
Louis you are like Will Smith (Hitch) but for Bloggers! - Joe
I've recently jumped on the Louis Gray bandwagon, and its been a fun ride so far. I can see why there's all this positive energy around any mentions of LG! - Shafqat
Seriously, in two days my subscriber count has increased 25%. Not bad at all. - Rob Diana
Louis Gray got me onto FriendFeed and my life has never been the same since. - Robert Scoble
One would have thought this would have happened a long time ago, rather than to keep going on and exhaust both parties both mentally and financially. - cmiper
I find it hard to believe HRC will concede until the DNC at the very earliest. Her self-interest needs outweigh the Democratic party at-large. - Scott Jarkoff
As an outsider....she looks a bit mental doesn't she. That forced smile creeps me out. I'm sure she actually very nice....but eeegggghhhh. - Chris Nixon via twhirl
Yes Chris, the media always picks the *best* photos the can find to represent her. ;-) - cmiper
This just makes me very sad today Right now I only see 1 way I will not vote for McCain in November - sorry, there is just something about Obama I do not trust, and I hope in the next few years I'm not sitting here saying, at least I didn't vote for him just like I didn't vote for his predecessor. :( And, I can assure you I am not the only one who feels this way. - Paula
I know what you mean Paula. How can you trust someone who refuses PAC and special interest money, has the courage not to pander to voters with a bogus gas tax repeal, and opposed an immoral war from the very start. This guy sounds dangerous. He might actually do something in office. - Leo Laporte
Love the sarcasm, Leo, allows me to see you in a new light and reinforces to me that I've been right all along to keep my viewpoints to myself. So sorry to have gotten involved in this HRC bashing. :( - Paula
Obama is the only one I trust to do the right thing. HRC will just say anything to get the vote, but she'll continue the same failed politics. McSame will just give us 4 more years of Bush's politics. - Mike Cohen via Alert Thingy
Mike, I see your point with McCain, but in my eyes it is him or throw my vote completely away on Nader.... Those same failed politics you are speaking of worked very well in the 1990s - for those of you old enough to recall, who did we all say was running the White House at that time anyhow? I was working with the federal government during this time, and I recall the amazement at the budget simply balancing! In an article that I read summarizing Obama's appearance on Meet the Press over this past weekend, the first point that was made was that Obama claimed he has the DNA to be the better president, because he is descended from both Caucasion and African ancestors. What kind of crap is that? I couldn't read any further. I only stopped to read it because I knew I needed to get used to the idea that he was going to beat HRC - but no, I can't vote for someone who is going to say that their ANCESTRY makes them a better candidate. - Paula
I'm sorry you see my post as "Hillary bashing." In fact, it is not. I am sad to see HRC go. I would have gladly voted for her had she won the nomination. My real problem is with the notion that since, for some undefined reason you "don't trust" Obama, you would consider casting a vote for McCain. Set aside McCain's self-professed ignorance on the economy, and hawkish position on Iraq. The next president will fill at least two, maybe three Supreme Court seats, giving him or her a huge and lasting impact. - Leo Laporte
Paula, I think you misunderstood the statement. Obama is in a a unique position to change the face of the Presidency because he's been on 'both sides of the fence' and could unite the country like no other. To me, that's very attractive because that's exactly what this country needs... A leader that people can rally behind. I just happen to agree with his political stances as well, with lobbyist being the scourge of progression. HRC is 'old politics'... McCain is really old politics. - Vince DeGeorge
I wouldn't vote for HRC if she got the nomination. She's every bit as bad as McSame. In that case I would stay home on election day rather than vote for either of them. - Mike Cohen via Alert Thingy
Paula let's get it right: "You know, I'm somebody who is born to a white mother and a, and an African father. It's in my DNA to believe that we can bring this country together and that the people are the same under the skin. And that's what I've been fighting for all my life, and, you knowto a large degree, everything that I've done as a community organizer, everything that I've done as a state legislator and a United States senator embodies those ideals that we can get people who look differently or speak differently or come from different experiences to recognize what they have in common. - Leo Laporte
Paula, I think it's pretty obvious now that you're a crypto-Republican, misquoting Obama to fuel racist mistrust on McCain's behalf. I expect we'll see a lot more of that through November. If you really are a HRC supporter, I would hope you would chose this time to start talking issues and stop feeding these specious doubts. - Leo Laporte
Good point, Leo. It's great for everyone to have their own way of looking at this race, and some people will, unfortunately, decide to vote against their best interests for whatever reason - hell, middle-class Republicans have been doing it for years - but the idea of putting words into Obama's mouth simply in order to try to bash him with them and, as you point out, fuel racist mistrust, is frankly despicable, if not downright Rovian. - Brad Farris via Alert Thingy
Very interesting to see this much discussion on this topic. I'm in a very conservative state, (ND) and many Republicans here are looking to Obama as a chance. Most don't trust McCain and they surely don't trust HRC. Every time anyone has ever asked me why Obama I've said. "It's a difference in how they conduct politics." HRC and McCain represent old Washington politics. Honestly everything I've heard from my friends involved in the Democratic Party they are suspecting this will get drug out to the National Convention. I really hope that is not the case as the sheer amount of negative press that each side is stirring up is giving more easy fuel for the GOP. - Bryan
WOW I've been called a lot of things in my life, but never a Republican or a crypto-Republican. I said I read an article discussing Obama being on TV, I did not watch the show, I did not read the article any further, but I know that the post I was reading was written by someone who has staunchly supported Obama for the past several months. Call me names if you must. I hope it makes you all feel better. - Paula
Vince, wanted to make sure I thank you, from the direct quote, yes, I must have misread something, or something was miswritten. And, I just wanted to add, that no one has even bothered much to give me a reason to want to vote for Obama, just to not associate with most of you involved with this conversation. - Paula
Paula, the most important part of this whole affair is discussion. It's fantastic to see people "talk" politics and really be involved. No, name calling is not necessary in any case. If this election has taught us anything, it's that people, when pushed, are VERY passionate about what they believe in. This debate, no matter which side you stand is very healthy and much better than the apathy that resulted in Bush's re-election. I urge everyone to go beyond the "media" and really look. - Vince DeGeorge
Thanx Vince. In all seriousness, I have waited 8 years for HRC to run, and dammit, I'm pissed as hell that she has blown it the way she has. I know she is better than these silly 'faux pas' she has been making over the past several months. I also know that it is time to accept that HRC has blown it, I accepted that fact before the PA primaries. :( Since then, I have tried to read positive blog posts about Obama, but I keep finding things like http://online.wsj.com/article/... - Paula
I like you Leo, I do. You work hard and your a good guy and you do a lot for new media. But honestly, you have to be kidding. I didn't realize anyone really used the term "crypto-anything" as more than a punchline for paranoia. Sadly it just adds to the growing impression I have that your biases really do cloud your commentary on technical (and now political) issues. - Soulhuntre
As an Obama supporter.Odd as it may be, I actually appreciate the "intense" campaign HRC ran. It served to prepare him for the assaults he will likely be the target of all the way until November. Not only that but it gave us, the voters, the opportunity to see him operate under pressure and address some of the most volatile topics in American society. So for that, hats off to her. That being said, it's time to step aside and work towards unifying the Democratic Party. - Geoff
Paula completely misquoted Obama. He didn't say his DNA would make him a better president he said: "You know, I'm somebody who is born to a white mother and a, and an African father. It's in my DNA to believe that we can bring this country together and that the people are the same under the skin." Completely different than what you heard. I don't understand when people say they don't like Obama, and have no reason to back it up. BTW, transcript is here from meet the press: http://blogs.suntimes.com/swee... - Patrick Binder
Patrick, it's a feeling. Can't help it. We all have feelings and we all have our right to feel whatever it is that we feel. Great thing about living in America is that we have the right to express those feelings as we wish. Thank you for the direct quote again, someone else beat you to the punch and slapped me down for misinterpreting a third party review of the interview. You want something to discuss, please see the Wall Street Journal link I gave above. Or, give me a reason YOU like Obama over HRC.. - Paula
I don't need a soundbite reason to distrust someone... humans make judgments on many, many factors. Tone of voice, cadence, word choice, facial expressions, eye movement, body language.... further, we refine those judgments the more we see of someone. There is also the totality of integrating all that into all the knowledge we have of someone. - Soulhuntre
My feelings about Obama including my distrust come from the totality of my experience with him, not a sentence or a soundbite. Just like many who find him charismatic do so from the totality of their "Obama experience". Fortunately few people judge someone only on the words they actually say - or we would all be trivially easy to fool. - Soulhuntre
Paula: Obama seems to get it. He talks about and I hope he could deliver the ability to unify this nation because it is severely fractured. Who knows if it could be done, but atleast he is willing to try. That is the big reason. I also like that he is running a more clean/positive campaign than HRC. His campaign is also being run very well. AND he doesn't have his hands as deep in lobbyist's pockets. - Patrick Binder
Who the hell am I kidding...I am actually basing my vote on the best looking website...and Obama is clearly ahead of the competition. HRC's website is better now, but is still too cluttered. THESE are the real issues ;) I like HRC, but her campaigning tactics have turned me away. - Patrick Binder
Maybe it will help Twitter's servers, but I don't think this is really a problem for users. In Twitter and FriendFeed, someone can only spam you if you let them. Spammers can subscribe to you; you don't have to subscribe to them. - Hutch Carpenter
Cool. I can't believe 10 of my first 24 followers were spammers. :-) - Mitchell Tsai
Good - when an account is so obviously spam it's customer service to ban 'em. Hopefully they can use the number of blocks as a filter to then have a human check out - Jason Kaneshiro
basically they are not saying dropping but deleting. imagine you want to go on twitter some day and find out "you are a spammer, everything in here is gone, go away" - how would you feel? do you have a backup of your tweets, of your friendslist, of your dm? - Nicole Simon
Nicole, according to the Jesse Stay post, Twitter will contact the accused first, thus theoretically ensuring that a Scoble/Facebook-like issue won't recur. - Ontario Emperor
talking about licorice - there is country in the world, where every edible and mouth-able thing exists in licorice variant: e.g. licorice ice-cream... ;) - silpol
@Trance If kids get bubble gum then adults should get whiskey or bourbon or beer. - Kevin D. White
My 2 1/2 year old uses Tom's of Maine's "Silly Strawberry" (http://www.tomsofmaine.com/tom...) which I have to say tastes pretty good but when I tested it out, it felt like I was brushing my teeth with sugar -- a very counterproductive feeling. - Stephen Mack
Champagne toothpaste. I am ALL over that. - Carla Thompson
imagine pepper or wasabi flavoured paste. also, people long touted an idea of meat-flavoured chewing gum. - 9000
We used to see a lot of feedback from users who would open GMail accounts in the names of their newborn kids and then treat them like permanent archives for notes, photos, clippings, etc. It was pretty amazing to see the trust people had in the GMail platform sticking around for, essentially, ever. Plus, they secured namespace for their offspring early on. :) - Sacca
Xoopit is a great Firefox plugin that will archive everything in GMail for you. - nancy
Just commented on the blog but have a typo in the web address. Argh. Yahoo! deserves high praise from users. High five, Jerry Yang! Heh. - Alex Williams
MSFT is getting there. As with the 'internet the ship turns slow, but it turns. Mesh is great, hook it to WHS will be better. 2008 si a stron OS and Hyper-V is top class. Good stuff. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
MSFT has deep pockets, great minds and a culture that is willign to change tempered by the stability large infrastructures need. There will always be room for Apple / Linux, but MSFT is here to stay. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
MSFT is the fat, one-time bully who's slowing down under its weight. Finally looking around at the scene, it realizes it's already been held back a few grades, and the kids around it are not only younger, but smarter. - Louis Gray
That is an intriguing analogy Louis. Probably pretty close to reality, but I would bet that the prevailing attitude and self-image is not nearly so negative. MSFT has a pretty high opinion of itself. If I was to guess, I'd think they would see the other kids' youth as a sign of immaturity, and their smarts as dumb luck. - Todd McKinney
Microsoft needs to remember it's roots, go back to the t-shirt days and change their corporate culture. They're doing fine and still one of the largest market cap companies on the planet. They need a plan to move forward. They already have the cash. Yahoo was a bad plan (at the price). - Charlie Anzman
Microsoft is so large it doesn't have one head or body. It's a set of conjoined twins that don't always get along. The problem is separation is scary and may kill one of them. - Kevin D. White
I like Fake Steve Job's take: "that's what Microsoft has become -- the big stupid retarded giant lurching into the Valley, like King Kong with a lobotomy and a shotgun and a bottle of tequila, stomping around and beating its chest and then stumbling away, having wiped out most of the city." - Michael Galpin
I think it would be a dumb more to try and re-invent themselves by buying something else as big as Yahoo - from all account Microsoft culture is not compatible with large percentages of population, why would they think they could integrate a brand like yahoo? - ben rogers via twhirl
Fake Steve Jobs is out of touch. Then again, has he said anythign relevant lately? - Soulhuntre via twhirl
Agree, FSJ comment is intended to make headlines. What a lame metaphor. Yahoo, blew it. - Ryan
The Facebook-killer may have arrived... - Mitchell Tsai
Nah... its yet another aggregation service... there's gonna be tons more soon so get ready! - Dan Delphin via twhirl
*Cough* Alexa data *Cough* But really, we FriendFeeders probably have a toolbar that is stuffed with valuable bookmarklets, so we're probably greatly under represented by the Alexa "data". - Mike Reynolds
FriendFeed has a lot of "first adopters" of the "first adopters" (FAFAs). Not sure if the current FriendFeed interface will be welcoming for non-tech non-high-imformation-load people. Not enough pictures and visuals. I'd love to get tiny pictures extracted from each blog or article - maybe smaller than the current ones, and off-to-the-right, so we see the same number of articles on each pages. - Mitchell Tsai
As I've noted previously, if you go out on the street and ask people about FriendFeed, most of them will think you're talking about a potluck. - Ontario Emperor
Like Mitchell, I'm not sure of the appeal for the non early adopter or techie info junky and I'd bet no CIO from any Fortune 500 company has used it yet. That doesn't mean there's not something unique here. It will never be Facebook because there just aren't that many information junkies -- but i still think it does something very cool with the "social graph" that not even Facebook does. - Robert Seidman
FriendFeed-like picture sharing could be great with the masses. Likewise recipe-sharing. Anybody want to shepherd a new startup? :-) Being a CEO is exhausting. - Mitchell Tsai
Oh. Oh. This is turning into a SPAM post for new CEOs. :-) - Mitchell Tsai
"My expectation is that someone (Google or Facebook) will acquire them" .... Friendfeed was created by ex-googlers so I doubt they'll be aquired by google :P - Chris Farrugia
Yep, I sure do! I love it! I live in FF :-) Don't you?! <smurk> - Susan Beebe
Ah! Bonus. Now subscribed to Jason Goldberg's Friendfeed. - Ashton
Robert - Late adopters are not some small set of people. They're basically the rest of the internet. Generalizing across them is..not quite right - Sriram Krishnan via Alert Thingy
Sriram when people call me names for being an early adopter, will you stick up for me? Why is it OK for late adopters to make fun of early adopters, but it's not OK for early adopters to make fun of late adopters? - Robert Scoble
I dont think it is correct to generalize from the few to many. Calling literally hundreds of millions of internet users 'late adopters' and then generalizing across them is incorrect. In fact, the term 'late adopters' is in itself incorrect - the right term is 'normal people'. - Sriram Krishnan via Alert Thingy
I see late adopters as the rest of the world that doesn't know what they're missing. Getting my family on flickr is a struggle. They don't have the internet understanding to know why it's a good tool for them. They fear security breaches. Perhaps we early adopters could do a better job of showing them the way. It's hard work, and they may not want to listen, but I bet some of them would thank us. - Roadgoer
Not sure if it's totally deserved to mock the late adopters. I've waited a darned long time to buy a next gen HD disc format and I'm glad I waited - didn't spring for HD-DVD and waste money with that. Now I'm just waiting for prices to come down on stand alone Blu-Ray players. I know what the tech is capable of, I know what I'm willing to pay for, and I know it all gets cheaper. That's smart instead of just jumping on whatever new comes along. - Jason Kaneshiro
But web services are almost all free. That's the beauty: no financial barrier to involvement. - Roadgoer
I think, in life, you have to go with what drives you. If your identity / fulfillment comes from being on the edge ... then do it well. In the process, a little bit of trash talking (i.e. calling out late adopters for being ... late) is fair game ... as long as they get to make fun of you for when your style bites you in the @#$ (may that day come only rarely). - Tim Bauer
Late adopters are, basically, your family. But without them, none of us would be adopters, early or otherwise. - Tom Landini
Sounds like a new form of class warfare to me. Betaheads vs RTMites - Lindsay Donaghe
For me it's always like having to expect and explain the willingness to a complete paradigm shift when I explain these things. You have to hand it to Bill: the name "windows" was a good term to explain to older generations (thos 10 or more years older than us) what happens with a shifting view on things. I use that model often. Usually to no avail. I guess it has to "click" - a complete paradigm shift, or it won't work. - Alex von Halem
"Late adopters" (as used by the "Crossing the Chasm" writer Geoffrey Moore) is not quite the same as the "masses". "Late adopters" describes the REALLY slow group, which refuses to use even after 90% of the public uses (e.g. no cell phone even now). (1) Early Adopter -> (2) Early Mainstream -> (3) Bulk of Mainstream (4) Late Adopter ... There are interesting marketing & design considerations when marketing to the "safe" "late adopter" - Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell: yes, and I just joined all thosee other groups together and call them all "late adopters." It all depends on your point of view anyway. Remember, only 1/6th the world has had their hands on a computer at all. So, we're all early adopters if you look at it that way. - Robert Scoble
I guess it doesn't matter what we call people, "early", "late". Are there different communications, usage, safety, and money-spending characteristics which we ought to know about? - Mitchell Tsai
Only 1/6? Puts things in Perspective. Makes me happy to See Ubuntu grow and hopefully explode with the low cost computers so everyone can benefit from Tech. But there will still be divisions and divisions within those divisions. Being first or last doesn't matter as long as you are in the race...imho... - Anthony Farrior
Funny: I have some business friends who called me an "early adopter" for finally doing Facebook/LinkedIn in mid-late-2007. I found blogs again 2 months ago via some paper book written when you worked for Microsoft. What the h*ll would I be? The "early adopter" and "late adopter" terms are maybe too 1-D. Like the good book 3-D Negotiation http://tinyurl.com/6gmh7c (on sale $8) which suggests that 1-D win-win or win-lose negotiations leave a lot of money on the table. - Mitchell Tsai
Perhaps frustation towards late adopters reflects an underlying anxiety that what we've chosen to "early-adopt" will turn out to be irrelevant. - Rick Powell
Rick: that might be it. But, it's the same frustration that Douglas Engelbart tells me about when it took the industry 20 years to put his concepts into use (he's the guy who invented the mouse -- he showed us that in the 1960s and it took until the 1980s to see it used in a consumer product). - Robert Scoble
I think this is true. I found myself doing it with Flickr video. Now I use it (though only for "Family"), because the quality is better than YouTube. - TranceMist
