A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my first six months experience selling images through Getty’s Flickr Collection. While overall I’ve been pleased with my experience with Getty, one of the things that I always felt was a limitation was the fact that the Getty/Flickr program was invite only. And while literally thousands of Flickr photographers have been invited thus far (the Flickr/Getty private member only contributor group on Flickr counts over 12,000 members and Getty says that the collection now includes over 60,000 photographs) there wasn’t really a way for a photographer to try and be included in the program if they didn’t get a Flickr invite. Until today.
- Thomas Hawk
I'm not the target audience for this (my stuff is too "all over the place" and not high enough quality) but I'm encouraged that this seems to be opening up for the little guy and not some Flickr Clique like it originally seemed. The whole point of Flickr should be inclusiveness and community and strapping the Getty wall into the middle of it really pissed me off. I don't think any...
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- Sam Posten
My (at the time 14-year-old) son argued porn and censorship with a FCC Commissioner and people are up in arms that the President is talking with their kids? This country is just so idiotic sometimes. I guess they forgot what the last President was doing on 9/11. That is right, talking with school kids. Sigh.
It amazes at all of the lows people do to bring the President down. It's rather pathetic.
- Minu Nianda
Heaven forbid anyone just step back and thinks people could be up to a couple good things, good grief.
- Chris
Sadly, I think that (general) America has forgotten that every society before us has crumbled, be it from war, poverty, starvation, political dispute every society has fallen. It's just a ticker now as to when we follow suit.
- Adam
Please. I have no problem with our President talking to our kids. As long as I'm in the room as well in order to call his BS. No matter who the President is at the time.
- Chris Kalaboukis
completely different - bush was reading to students - not pitching his agenda. read the paper the dept of education sent to the schools. and you liberals forget the last time a president spoke to school kids was in 91 when Bush Sr talked about staying off of drugs - and you liberals screamed and yelled that it was inappropriate. now its ok. i love the liberal hypocrisy.
- Tony Kanzia
Chris: you sir are an idiot. You can do that at home.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Typical liberal - if you don't agree with them, then you're an idiot. What a shocking response.
- Tony Kanzia
I took my son to see a Whitehouse and President I despised.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Chris, you think teachers are any less fallible? Do you accompany your children to school and sit with them throughout the day to call BS on things a teacher might say as well?
- Andru Edwards
This is all so ridiculous. If you don't agree with what he's saying, teach them to be proud of that opportunity, teach them to listen to their President, and then talk to them about the things you don't agree with when they get home. Don't conservatives believe in family values any more?
- Jesse Stay
Tony: I live this stuff. Have you taken your son to see a President you didn't like? I have.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Chris & Tony, thanks for being on hand to demonstrate the exact kind of intolerance that Robert is talking about.
- Jeff Harbert
what i think got everyone up in arms was the curriuculm that went along w/ the president's speech. while this has since been taken down, people feel they are being told from the government what to teach their kids
- Jonathan Jesse
E Pluribus Unum - "Out of one, many". Once the President is chosen, we all have to unite. We don't have to agree, but he is still the representative of this nation and we should respect, and be proud of that.
- Jesse Stay
Tony how is Obama pitching his agenda to kids when he's simply telling them to stay in school? Give me a break.
- Minu Nianda
or that bush sr. talked with school children as did reagan. i suppose it's only ok if repubs do it (shocker).
- Kayce Maisel
I find it even more fantastic that parents don't think their kids can think for themselves.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Teaching our kids not to respect the President takes away that unity. If we don't agree, we should instead be sharing what we don't agree with, not removing the opportunity altogether. This is ridiculous! (note that I was saying the same thing to things the liberals were doing to Bush as well)
- Jesse Stay
Jesse Stay- You hit the "nail on the head" so beautifully!
- earl wallace
Complete idiots are people who think that their kids hearing a few words from ANYBODY are going to hold sway over the impact of their parents, their environment and ability to think freely.
- suecosby
@tony i agree with you on most of the comment. the problem with the speech i had was the accompaning lessons, since removed from the d ept of educations website
- Jonathan Jesse
You know, I just read the speech, and I don't see ANY political agenda in it, much less a liberal one. "And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself." Sounds pretty conservative to me. Read it here: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009...
- John Craft
For those on this thread who are freakin' paranoid about Obama pushing a political agenda on little children, here are his prepared remarks. http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaRe... You can now STFU about it. You're welcome. :)
- Helen Sventitsky
Jonathan: the "offending" lesson was what could you do to help the President.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
@jesse i don't think anyone has said anything about teaching their children to disrespect the president, just that they don't agree w/ what he says
- Jonathan Jesse
Let's all join hands and recite the pledge of allegiance. Come on. I know you want to.
- Sean Montgomery
from iPhone
Jonathan: I disagreed greatly with what Bush did but I still took my son to see him and meet with his Deputy Press Secretary.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Jonathan I see people flat out telling their kids they can't listen to the President. That sounds like disrespect to me.
- Jesse Stay
Maybe school SHOULD be about learning where other people are coming from.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
It is up to parents after school to teach them their own values.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
In Arizona, kids have to get permission slips to listen to the President. That's disrespectful to me.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: it is worse than disrespectful. Where were theywhen Bush spoke to kids?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Jesse: yeah. Gotta have a permission slip to learn.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Let's see, how does it go? I pledge allegience to Robert Scoble...wait that's not it.
- Sean Montgomery
Robert, you're absolutely right... but I can't help but wonder where the promises were from this administration on working across the aisle and having full transparency. I think this administration has provided the fanatical opposition with all the ammunition it needed to take situations like this and blow them up. Once again, I agree that all children should be able to hear the President speak without opposition. I just think this administration is blowing the PR front.
- Douglas Karr
Robert I am giving you a fist bump for this man. Well said!!!!!!!!
- Joe
@robert i think the heart of the problem is what you stated "Parents should teach values" and i don't think that is happening whether political, religious or moral and too many people are relying on the school system to do so.
- Jonathan Jesse
Helen Sventitsky- I just read Obama's speech and I don't think I could have put it any better' I do not detect any undercurrents or subliminal manipulation. I heard the same advice when I graduated from high school.
- earl wallace
"too many people are relying on the school system to do so." - and this is President Obama's fault how? Are you saying that, since the parents aren't doing their job of teaching values, no one should be allowed to talk to their kid about values?
- John Craft
Robert - I'm a conservative but agree with your original point. POTUS should be able to speak to students. You have to acknowledge that if W. had tried to do the same thing (national satellite address) to students, liberals would've been just as outraged as many conservatives are now.
- Paul Goldsmith
Let's face it - there's a significant portion of this country's population that, if Obama gave a speech about puppies being cute, would launch into an apoplectic rage randomly spewing the words 'liberal' and 'socialist.
- John Craft
Paul: you are wrong. Bush spoke to students and I don't remember anyone so angry.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Really? Bush gave a national address to school kids? I honestly did not know that.
- Paul Goldsmith
@robert, Bush 41 spoke to students in '91 and there was opposition from the Dems.
- Kurt Starnes
Kurt: I will take your word on that. That is stupid too.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
This is an amazing opportunity. Until now it simply wasn't possible for a single President to speak to an *entire* nation of school kids. Until now it was only possible to do it in person on a school-by-school basis. When I was growing up it was an extreme privilege to have the President visit your school. We should be embracing that! I don't care if you agree with Politics or not.
- Jesse Stay
Kurt: will we have a better country where kids are encouraged to learn and think critically or are they going to learn that politics is like sports?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
There was opposition from Dems in '91, but there was no ranting and raving that Bush Sr was going to indoctrinate school kids.
- Rene Wirtz
@Robert Watched a great documentary on text books and our kids are NOT encouraged to learn and think critically. They are misguided. That's one of the key downfalls with our education system... which is controlled by people trying to indoctrinate their own beliefs and avoid criticism from any extremes.
- Douglas Karr
It's funny I've been so inured by the idiocy, venom & deception coming from the White House for the past 8 years I have a hard time even grokking there are people who don't view the new guy as a massive breath of transparent, humanistic fresh air. And also that a US president talking to our kids could be a bad thing. Altho the guys in this thread who disagree may not be idiots, generously I would at least characterize them as "Fox-addled".
- Thom Kennon
@Robert - I'm with you on those thoughts re kids learning to think critically. I may not agree with Obama on many things, but I would encourage my Daughter (almost 11 y.o.) to listen to any of his speeches. I do think there is some hypocrisy on this school speech issue, though. FWIW.
- Kurt Starnes
Just for the record, I think it's awesome that the President has the opportunity for a national address to students. Great opportunity for the President and children alike.
- Douglas Karr
1991: "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," the New York Times quoted House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'" Decent article on the history of these school speeches here: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs...
- Kurt Starnes
@Thom transparent? Like the close-door, one-sided bills that have been rammed through? Stop watching Fox OR MSNBC. Start reading http://factcheck.org/
- Douglas Karr
BTW, I wasn't following the Bush 41 school speech in '91, but would think the opposition to Obama is very likely much more heated than it was for Bush 41.
- Kurt Starnes
Kurt: OK. So where will we be in eight years? Will your guy speak to school kids?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
@Robert - I don't have a guy or a party that represents me (See Jesse's sentiments). :-\ In an ideal world, Presidents would speak to kids apolitically and all parents would support such speeches. And I would ride off into the rainbow on my white unicorn.
- Kurt Starnes
@Kurt @Robert Everyone should have the right to speak and be heard... what are we teaching our children through censorship of our very own President? Regardless of whether or not his speech is political, it should not be fought. He is OUR President and OUR childrens' President. PS: Robert... don't you mean in 3 1/2 years? ;)
- Douglas Karr
I just had to laugh at the person who said Obama was transparent. Wow. Don't read much do you? Obama just made sure 8 months of Presidential White House visits will remain secret. How about those meetings with drug companies, huh?
- Spencer
@Douglas - I generally agree with you. But, just as Obama has the right to give the speech, folks have the right not to listen, even though I think all should listen. Some conservatives seem to have missed the point that neither schools nor the WH require *mandatory* viewing! Folks still have a choice and this, to me, makes all of the protestations seem so silly.
- Kurt Starnes
@Kurt we agree... and I also don't fall for the rainbows and unicorns.
- Douglas Karr
In fairness, I think the ONLY real objections were over the slip that the president wanted children to tell him how they were going to help him. Most people don't like the idea of indoctrinating children. They didn't want their child coming home to harass them about why healthcare reform wouldn't pass, etc. This might be a paranoid nutter fear, but for all the political manipulation many parents are used to via their children. My children are constantly bringing home political notes about taxes, funding.
- Jason Nunnelley
This whole debate is sorta silly. If you don't want your children indoctrinated, then listen what the man has to say then give them your opinion -- teach them the value of free speech which is to let all ideas out into the world and let the good ones stand. Taking your kid to the White House to se a President you hate? Makes perfect sense to me.
- Dean Rodgers
Wait a second don't we spend years indoctrinating our kids on everything from how to eat properly to what sports team to follow? I guess it's just other people's indoctrination we don't want them exposed to? ;)
- Eoghann Irving
Eoghann, // I AM NOT COMPARING THE PRESIDENT TO THE KKK // But, how would you feel about your child attending a meeting where they taught that certain races were immoral, corrupt or otherwise less worthy. Sure, you could just explain that the bigot they listened to was wrong. But, children are impressionable. That's exactly why we work to brainwash... ahem, excuse me, train them young about things like pollution, recycling, civic responsibilities, etc. It's why schools have them to recite the pledge.
- Jason Nunnelley
For the record, I'm looking forward to my children listening to the president. It will make for good dinner conversation.
- Jason Nunnelley
My point is that sending someone to school and then complaining because they might be "indoctrinated" is a ludicrous position. Of course they will be indoctrinated. That's why we're sending them there! The objections to Obama's speech that I have seen are entirely party political and not motivated by any real concern for social or moral damage.
- Eoghann Irving
Jason, FWIW I did attend a meeting that told me exactly that when I was about 11 at a local baptist church. There was a book and tape burning afterward. My mother was mortified when she came to pick me and my sister (9) up. Neither my sister nor I was 'impressionable' enough to take what we were told at face value, and we had a very lengthy conversation with my mom about what we thought...
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- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
@Jason: you hit on something crucial. There's a lot of white folk (especially here in the South) that do not want the president to talk to school kids, because it may just empower black kids.
- Rene Wirtz
Eoghann Irving, well sorry. I reserve the right to choose what indoctrination I subject my children to and I don't much care whether others think I'm backward or ignorant for reserving that right as a parent. I consider one's refusal to exercise that right cowardly. Even allowing my child to attend public school, and attend the Obama presentation is a decision that is mine to make. I won't whine or complain. I'll take physical action to stop people from doing anything to my child I don't like.
- Jason Nunnelley
Tina, I can't defend the position taken by a minority of paranoid parents that their children shouldn't be exposed to the president's presentation. But, I do defend their right to be notified and that decision belongs to the parent. I think withholding your child's attendance is a poor decision. But, I think the suggestion that parents don't have the right to direct their children's education and experiences in childhood is unacceptable in a "free" society. I determine who trains my child, nobody else.
- Jason Nunnelley
Jason Nunelley, I'm curious where you think I said that you didn't have the right to raise your children any way you see fit. Or that it was ignorant or backward to reserve that right. I don't think I made either statement. My point remains that this isn't about any real concern for the welfare of the children. It's a politically motivated stunt.
- Eoghann Irving
Eoghann Irving, you said "sending someone to school and then complaining because they might be 'indoctrinated' is a ludicrous position." That statement indicated to me that you think taking action to limit said indoctrination is likewise ludicrous. The rest of my statement wasn't aimed at you personally or your comments but more the generic conversation. There are lots of people openly calling concerned parents racist and stupid for even suggesting that the curriculum shouldn't be political.
- Jason Nunnelley
What I'm trying (and perhaps failing) to argue is for people to give the real reason they are pulling their children from school. It's not because they're "being indoctrinated" which is a vague phrase that has negative connotations which makes it hard to argue against. It's because of something specific. And the reason they're not giving a clear reason is that it isn't really about the...
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- Eoghann Irving
Rene Wirtz, this is a major disconnect between reality and perception. People who don't like Obama's tactics aren't all racists. They're not fearful that black children will see his example and obtain an education, get a better job, etc. They're fearful that Obama's policies will usher in big Orwellian government. I'm hopeful that Obama will inspire black students. But, I don't want his legislation to pass. I'm also southern, but that doesn't mean I'm a bigot.
- Jason Nunnelley
jason totally onboard with your statement, though i know it will get me some less than lovely responses. i definitely do not want Obama's policies to to become embedded because I think they are the wrong ones, not because I want to see him personally fail. I think the best chance for the country to succeed is if his policies sputter
- Zachary Adam Cohen
Eoghann Irving, I agree with you. The Republican "protect the children" spin is disgusting. But, I disagree with you on this idea that none of the parents are sincere. A significant number of parents don't like having their children used as pawns. I tire of it in my redneck, backwoods southern town (so you can all assume it's because I'm a racist :). My local school pulls this crap...
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- Jason Nunnelley
Though I consider the reaction these parents have to be bad. I respect a parent's right to opt out of a political stunt. Do I consider the firestorm the Republicans are fanning a political stunt? Of course. But, I don't automatically assume the parents are insincere, or racists. My kids are enjoying logical discussions on why some of the president's desires are noble and some are less so.
- Jason Nunnelley
@Jason: I wasn't calling you a bigot, far from it. But I can see and hear from my relatives there is a deep seeded mistrust. And it is doubly so, because Obama is black and because he is a "socialist", two things that are not very popular amongst the mostly Republican voter base. I do want him to go a progressive course, but to call Obama's political course socialist is laughable at best.
- Rene Wirtz
Rene Wirtz, I knew you weren't calling me a bigot. It's the southern comment I'm chastising. Since we're both in the south, I think we should be careful not to further feed this idea that southern people are bigots. It's just not true, at least no more so that Californians or New Yorkers. If J.C. Watts had run and won the presidency, these same relatives would love him. It's not a fear...
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- Jason Nunnelley
I think we need a "back to school" czar.
- Spencer
I straight up asked my daughter what she wanted to do and her response was "I'd rather do something else". But how about this - I respect the president's right as president to address children in the public school system, why can't MY right to not have my 7 year old daughter listen to it regardless of message be respected?
- Michael Koby
@Scott - You think they're nutty, they think you're nutty. Ain't America grand? :-)
- Kurt Starnes
Isn't it interesting how the "left-leaning" commenters cometely ignore the fact that it's the Dept. of Education lesson plan that people were upset about.
- Robert Hafer
from iPhone
Robert: I didn't ignore that and I'm left-leaning.
- Robert Scoble
Scott, in fairness I think you know they changed it due to public feedback.
- Jason Nunnelley
It might be more worthwhile to have Al Franken teach them how to draw a map of the United States.
- SuezanneC Baskerville
does anybody think that, independent of what obama is going to talk about, it's not the president's job to address the nation's kids and this is not appropriate for thim to do in a free country? http://masstrovato.tumblr.com/post...
- masstrovato
How do you get from people being upset with a lesson that insructs children to write an essay on how they can help spread the President's message to them being racist?
- Robert Hafer
from iPhone
Scott, (answering q1) Bill Ayers, though people may argue Obama didn't actually associate with him. Jeremiah Wright, though people will argue Obama attended church for twenty years and didn't fully understand the lessons Mr. Wright preached. Obama's nominee for Green Czar, Van Jones, though I realize people will claim that nominating someone to a cabinet position doesn't mean they agree politically.
- Jason Nunnelley
Scott, I sincerely appreciated Mr. Wright's willingness to be honest about his message. While Obama tried to pretend he didn't understand that message, or that the preacher didn't mean what he said, Mr. Wright had the courage to say that Obama had no choice but to disassociate himself from that message but that he stood by his statements. I don't like Mr. Wright's message, but respect that he has the guts to say it and stand by it.
- Jason Nunnelley
Scott (answering Q2) Originally, the president intended to ask students to participate in an exercise to describe how they would help the president. I view this as relatively innocent, but some do not. That has been changed in reaction to public response. Now, though I find it innocent, I don't like it. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...
- Jason Nunnelley
Scott, I don't have a problem with his present version. But, pretending people are reacting to the version out now and ignoring the history that brought this controversy to most people's attention ignores the true motivations. I'm just suggesting you should consider the reality that your link isn't the source of the controversy.
- Jason Nunnelley
I think kids in all 57 states should have the opportunity to hear him speak if their parents don't object.
- motownmutt
I had forgotten what Bush was doing that day. That is a great point. If I remember correctly, wasn't the book he was reading to the kids upside down? Or is that an urban myth?
- Mike Kirkeberg
Agreed. Robert. Kids today are more evironmentally concious, know whats right and wrong and better perspectives of life, bring on anypne who wants to talk to them, there is no guarantee that they will listen as they are independent :)
- Shashi Bellamkonda
The reaction to Obama's original plan is not in a vacuum. The movement to recruit children and young adults into new nationalist organizations concerns some people. It's not so much right-ring Republican types, but more the anti-government types. Pretending this is a flame alone in a desert isn't intellectually honest. http://www.youtube.com/watch...http://www.youtube.com/watch... << The rhetoric that spikes the concern.
- Jason Nunnelley
Your son sounds like a genius. You sound like a liberal elitist. Sometimes liberals are so annoying. Sigh.
- practicehacker
Thanks for the links, Jason. I knew some Norwegians who I believe served one year mandatory military service. I thought it served them well.
- motownmutt
This administration is serious about engaging young people in quasi-military service. Its cabinet members talked about it openly during the campaign. You can pretend that didn't have an emotional impact, but that's just hiding your eyes to reality. That rhetoric set the stage for the sensitivity you see today over something as innocent as the president encouraging students, even to...
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- Jason Nunnelley
the President is not just talking 2 kids, he wanna the kids to be tech wizards I hear? I wouldn't mind Prez chatting with kids but talk 2 what they wanna @ least
- polou/indigo_bow
polou/indigo_bow, you might want to actually read the speech before assuming anything.
- Jeff P. Henderson
We should print up threads like this and share them with our kids. Let em see how people with opinions and passions discuss stuff. Good practice for filtering out Presidents --- and teachers, and parents, and professors and cops and newscasters and Jon Stewart and Rush and the deli guy and ...
- Thom Kennon
Jason Nunnelley, Seems that just further backs up my argument that this is a politically motivated and cultivated hysteria. Doesn't surprise me that it's been tried before.
- Eoghann Irving
Eoghann Irving, I live in a bedroom community in rural Alabama. We're a 70% Republican community. I've not heard a single parent complain about the presentation - not one. The only thing I've heard is reports that the original message contained a curious question from the president to the students, and the president (being much better a man than his political activist supporters) removed it to avoid the conflict. There is no [widespread] fear about Obama's presentation to students.
- Jason Nunnelley
Eoghann Irving, this idea that there's widespread panic over the president addressing students is akin to Sarah Palin claiming David Letterman joked about someone raping her daughter. It's a stunt. But, that's different from the hand full of people that have legitimate concerns about this administration's "statist" tendencies. And, I continue to encourage people to avoid dismissing...
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- Jason Nunnelley
citing Bush talking to school kids on 9/11 is not the best evidence that it's a good idea. Sigh
- Michael Markman
Wow, @scobleizer fail on this one! http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion... Democrats wigged out so bad, they even had an investigation of Bush's speech to a single classroom! I still think you're right - it's idiotic to get all up in arms. But looks like (as usual) both sides are just as guilty.
- Douglas Karr
It's Pathetic* The Repubes + Brainwashed Flock have shown Time + Time again that it's Their Way or the Highway - they don't even want People to THINK!! Scary + Frightening Poop*
- Billy Warhol
My childrens' school didn't run the speech today. I am so embarrassed. I completely missed this one. Since I don't listen to hate radio or watch the news, I thought I was up to speed based on the more cerebral conversations on this topic. I thought the whole controversy was already squashed when the president dropped the assignment "what can you do to help me," which I thought was...
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- Jason Nunnelley
I'm back to my original reaction to the vitriol on both sides of this conversation. Politics is for suckers.
- Jason Nunnelley
When I first heard that people were up in arms about the President speaking to school children... I thought maybe I had fallen into prolonged sleep and was not aware that Hitler was at the head of state again. Plz people. Can we get to what the REAL issue is at hand... and I don't like to play that card ... but sometime it's just too obvious when THE CARD is being played from the other side.
- Jim Turner
What is at stake here is not the fact that the President wanted to speak to the kids--that is good. The issue was that it was framed as how we can help the President (hint, hint--his agenda)--and that my liberal friends is what the commotion is about. Obama is about the most disingenuous President I have seen in all my years of closely watching politics. He had the audacity to say that...
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- Sean O'Reilly
orvaratli posted a photo: I went out last Sunday to capture some shots of the now ever shorter and earlier sunset. Since I opened my shop at Laugarvegur, I found out that foreigners really like shots with lava in it. Quite a few places close to where I live in Hafnarfjörður have good lava formations. I got some good shot (will post them later) but on my way home I decided to try some seascapes aswell. After seeing some nice seascapes by hallgrg from Hvaleyri I decided to give it a try. I found these nice rounded slimy stones near the huge aluminum factory next to Hafnarfjörður. I was quite pleased with the result.
He told me they messed up by not communicating better last week. The deal happened so fast that they didn't pay attention to everything.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
More smoke-blowing. I don't care of Paul swore on the graves of his ancestors. Actions speak louder than words. Some vague promise to a group of people I'm excluded from doesn't do much to assuage my unease.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva, you're right, but it's not smoke.
- Louis Gray
Okay, Louis, true. I retract that first sentence. The rest of it, however, I'm sticking by.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva: well I feel a lot better about things today.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Continue just as it is? Or with key changes?
- Karma Martell
I would expect them to post more on this topic soon - on their personal blogs.
- Louis Gray
If that's what Paul wants to promise us, he needs to release some kind of official statement, not send a message through Robert.
- Rochelle
I bet you as part of the contract, its in there not to shut this down
- Stephen Pickering
Rochelle: there are too many unknowns to make a definitive statement yet.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
keeping my hopes up. but i do remember working at a few radio stations that were bought, we'd get a memo saying 'the format is not going to change' about three weeks before we switched to spanish. i think there is just too much here for ff to vanish. keep the dream alive!
- michael sean wright
How can he when it`s lost all of its autonomy? Supplanted by Facebook, bought outright no?
- sofarsoShawn
It couldve been part of the deal not to let the site die
- Stephen Pickering
Robert, like you said, one can hope. However both of us know how corporates work and it takes one small decision from share holders to close down the service, no matter what.
- Nir Ben Yona
They want to get to Facebook and get those unknowns nailed down first.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Holden and Rochelle, etc., let's be patient. If you see the post I put up last night and add Robert's comments here, we should be feeling a lot better today than we did on Monday.
- Louis Gray
Robert, all right. Well, after my initial freak-out over this, I've gone into complete wait-and-see mode. More of these vague promises and 'coming soon' messages don't really do much for me. When someone say something definitive, then I'll be there to consume it. The rest of this just doesn't add up for much.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Thanks, Stephen. I thought it was important.
- Louis Gray
Akiva, exactly, waiting for official word.
- Kol Tregaskes
Nir: the way it was told to me contractually it can't be closed down anytime soon.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
I hope they don't change it so you have to have a Facebook account to use it. I have one, but share it with very few; I use Twitter and FF for everyone. I want to be able to use it the way I do now.
- RobinDotNet
Like any takeover/merger, some details just take time to work out. Hopefully FF can stay around in some form and help make FB better. We'll just have to wait and see. Thanks, Robert, for the info.
- Mark Edwards
I agree, we haven`t seen anything substantive in the way of contract etc but fingers crossed.
- sofarsoShawn
But doesn't mean it won't be shutdown at some point?
- Kol Tregaskes
And, Louis, I didn't see your post from last night but I'll read it as soon as I get back from the store.
- Akiva Moskovitz
was Pownce a bit like Friendfeed? I never used it
- Mark
The fact that the FF folks haven't yet said "This is how we want it, so this is how it's going to be" is just evidence that they don't have the final say on the matter. If it's subject to some additional authority/approval, nothing is certain at this point.
- Ken Sheppardson
Kol: it won't be shut down anytime soon. He was quite clear about that.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Kol, the truth is they work for Facebook now, and therefore, FriendFeed can/will change, and it may not change 100% how you and I want. It may be part of Facebook's site later, and it may not. But Facebook is changing from what we know of it now to something new where they overlap.
- Louis Gray
In other words that was in the contract. Makes sense, since they were hesitant anyway
- Stephen Pickering
Robert, OK but maybe at some point though.
- Kol Tregaskes
I sure would like it if FF continued indefinitely.
- Jason Nunnelley
Patience is a good thing. That said, if FriendFeed wasn't growing at a rate much higher than it has been, something would have to change. You don't bottle up such talent and experience and have it work on a product that was losing.
- Louis Gray
Good to hear. I am sure they will take time to decide what exactly to do with FF. How to integrate them together. What to do etc. FF the R&D for FB I think it could be
- Robert Anderson
Robert, true. All a bit vague still though.
- Kol Tregaskes
Scoble: encourage Facebook to keep FriendFeed as a premium brand. Let them tie it to Facebook data or whatever, but keep the system separate.
- Gary
Louis, right, this gives them legitimacy and exposure
- Stephen Pickering
Kol... if they wanted to grow they way they "deserved" to grow, this place would have changed underneath your feet to something you might hate. This is one way to put real capital and people behind the site as it is now.
- Louis Gray
So what? Do they continue try to grow friendfeed as an individual product? Or do they just leave it alive for those of us who actually use it?
- Sam Guzman
If this thing grows by leaps and bounds, FB is not going to close it
- Stephen Pickering
Mark: anytime a blogger says something is dead ALL that means is that it is less interesting than yesterday.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Over time, we will learn, Sam. It's a classical marketing/engineering decision. Do you build for the current user base, or the potential user base? With change. some were bound to leave anyway.
- Louis Gray
Louis, not arguing that at all. My point was about shutting it down or not. I'm at the wait-and-see stage, waiting for more news from FF.
- Kol Tregaskes
And any time I write a headline that says it's NOT dead... maybe I know what I'm talking about. :)
- Louis Gray
But this service grows more useful the more users there are
- Stephen Pickering
Something needs to happen. Twitter is useless now - maybe a new denial of service attack. I would love to see the Friendfeed technology spread to the mass user base that Facebook has.
- Frode Stenstrøm
Yeah, I understand. Maybe some of the extra publicity from the acquisition will lead to an increase in users...curious people signing up to see what it's all about.
- Sam Guzman
Well, at least he acknowledged they messed up.
- Rodfather
oh sweet, I just spent ages adding friendfeed people, setting up privacy and setting up FF to stream to my FB....now this might be a waste of time?
- Franz Sittampalam
from IM
Frode: that was what Paul told me too. He wants the tech here to be used by everyone.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Rod, FriendFeed has no PR or Marketing. Maybe if they did, this would have been handled differently. Some things come naturally, and others are hard. But I bet you will see a lot more soon.
- Louis Gray
I've heard the same from another founder, Robert.
- Anne Bouey
Franz, no official word, just wait for an announcement from FF.
- Kol Tregaskes
Companies come and companies go. They can go by closing their doors or by being acquired. Only time will tell whether FriendFeed has come and gone.
- Jeff Sayre
Google Reader is nothing like FF. No one really uses the social features.
- Sam Guzman
GR is trying, but its all wonky and totally un understandable
- Stephen Pickering
Oh. I just don't trust Facebook at all and can barely stand using it after being here.
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
Jannifer, I think we have to look beyond the caricatures of people like Zuckerberg, and recognize that he too may want the same things we do. Facebook is growing up and I bet FriendFeed and its team is a big part of that.
- Louis Gray
courtney: Paul talked about that too. He said once the team made the decision they knew it had to be closed overnight to prevent it from leaking.
- Robert Scoble
Louis I think its a perfect marriage, genius engineers + genius Marketers
- Stephen Pickering
Real real time would be awesome in Facebook. I really hope it comes soon.
- Sam Guzman
Well, he didn't quite say "prevent it from leaking" but he said "it's important to do it all at once." I knew what he meant, though, that it had to be done fast to keep things from getting crazy, like they do once decisions like this get taken into public sphere.
- Robert Scoble
I am sure paul is truthful in that he would like for it to go that way, but this is a M&A situation, and even if it is written into the agreement, there are a million ways around it. At the end of the day, shareholders make the rules in a majority vote. If ff isn't integrated in fb somehow, I fail to see how it benefits fb.
- Erik Boles
from iPhone
Kol: Paul was emphatic that Facebook is a far more interesting company at this time in both company's history.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Somehow this doesn't sound too convincing. If Friendfeed has been losing a LOT of regular users because of their deal with Facebook, they'd be concerned. Friendfeed is likely to get you to speak on their behalf, since you are their most popular user. Maybe Paul is trying to convince you, so that he can indirectly convince others too. That might save an early end to Friendfeed brought on by the rapid loss of users.
- K N Ajit Narayan
I totally agree with Paul, by the way. Facebook is a much more interesting company to join right now than Google is.
- Robert Scoble
Louis: yeah, Zuckerberg is a lot smarter and a lot more down to earth than most of the press gives him credit for. He's always been straight up with me. Much better than other companies have treated me.
- Robert Scoble
And that's even including getting kicked off of Facebook for 24 hours.
- Robert Scoble
@ Scott, LOL Facebook = Microsoft 2.0! I see your point, but it far surpasses Microsoft Live attempt at a social network.
- Nakeva Corothers
Erik: technologies that have great audiences don't get killed. If anything will kill it, it will be us. By leaving.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, cool. Well if they can ditch a lot of their annoying features, like this FB Lite might be, then I might be interested in moving over with all the FF features implemented but I just can't work with FB in it's currently state. I had another go this weekend and still didn't like it. But I'd be even happier if FF stayed here. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
this is gonna be an interesting story to follow for sure. For now I am just using friendfeed the way I have been and see what comes out down the road. life is about changes.
- (jeff)isageek
sofarsoShawn: I don't know what you're talking about regarding Mashable.
- Robert Scoble
Maybe I missed it earlier in this thread but why can't they just come out and say something directly to the community? Obviously a lot of people are concerned and anxious about it... Why do we have to hear second-hand? And why has it all been so vague? No news is not necessarily good news in cases like this.
- Fa La La La Lindsay
Robert, Leo called himself Leo Scoble today because he deleted his 5000 FB friends and moved them over to his fan page
- Stephen Pickering
jeff: yeah. Visiting Facebook is going to get more interesting. He also said that the first month at Facebook (which starts Monday) will be all about learning about Facebook's code. So, no new features will come quickly.
- Robert Scoble
Ok. I hope Facebook changes a LOT so it's more tolerable. Although I don't like it, I need to set up a good Facebook page for business so I can remain competitive.
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
I hope they do right by you. You brought them to the party. I hope that gets recognized somehow monetarily.
- Jim Posner
Saying that it might be shut down at some point doesn't tell us anything new, though; after all, any site might be shut down at some point due to going out of business etc.
- Tristan Seligmann
When anything comes out of this it was always going to be long term.
- Kol Tregaskes
Can i just add - Paul never said friendfeed was going to die in the first place... instead they said the complete opposite - "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team."
- Chris Clayton
I'm not sure why everyone dislikes Facebook. What's wrong with it?
- Sam Guzman
sofarsoShawn, yes, Facebook had been talking to FriendFeed since 2007.
- Louis Gray
Lindsay, I bet the FriendFeed team has a very busy week and maybe you hear from them on all this soon.
- Louis Gray
Robert: "technologies that have great audiences don't get killed..." oh, come on, you know better than that! My dad worked at IBM so I've been seeing tech companies kill great stuff that their customers liked for most of my life!!!!
- Fred Davis
Jim, Scoble has gotten no money from FriendFeed (nor have I). Neither one of us expects to, as that would change the relationship.
- Louis Gray
He said FF would continue operating normally "for now". That was what freaked people out. But I'm glad to hear that Paul and company have plans to keep the service running for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't want to wake up one morning and find my favorite service was shut down.
- Jason Huebel
Fred, right, the Innovators Dilemma, but in this case its cost of running a website is halving every year
- Stephen Pickering
Louis: yes, but Paul told me that when I last was in the office they hadn't yet decided to go to Facebook. Everything happened in the past two weeks. I think you even walked in on one of their key decision points. He said they worked all weekend long on the agreement.
- Robert Scoble
Fred: nothing in life is guaranteed, yeah, you're right. But there's no business reason to turn this off anytime soon. If we all leave there will be.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: e.g., consumer company changes focus to biz or gets acquired... new company direction leads to consumer products getting killed despite popularity... that's just one of many ways that good tech gets killed all the time!!!
- Fred Davis
No disagreement on that at all, Robert. I know I walked in on something big, and that was my mistake for not calling ahead.
- Louis Gray
Seems their valuation stood on Roberts shoulders to some degree. At the least, a public thanks would have been nice.
- Jim Posner
Jason: i know, thats what got me freaked out too - i just thought i would add it in incase anyone missed it :) and because im a little bored! lol
- Chris Clayton
If FF were Twitter, we'd be screaming bloody blue murder about how they don't "get" user communication, etc., etc.
- Chris Baskind
Fred, can you give any examples? Any software I used to use that is no longer available was replaced with something better.
- RobinDotNet
No business reason that WE understand... 'cuz we don;t go to Facebook board meetings ;-) Facebook may have their own agenda... in fact, I assume they do...
- Fred Davis
Jim: I do this because I love it, not because I expect thanks or goodies.
- Robert Scoble
Why even bring this up if they can't talk about it? Nothing has changed just more innuendo and smoke and mirrors and a lot of 'what ifs'. Wake me when there's something concrete.
- Derrick
Robert: when you talk to paul next, can you push him into doing a public announcement on it all? Just give him a nudge in the right direction! :)
- Chris Clayton
RobinDotNet... god, too many to count! First one I was bummed about was in '85 when Musicworks was the best MIDI program on the Mac... got acquired by some jerky game company that decided it wasn't a game and stranded all the users! Yeah, eventually new better stuff came along... but that didn't do the users of the current any good at that time...
- Fred Davis
Derrick: sorry, I totally disagree. I didn't know that contractually they can't kill the service anytime soon.
- Robert Scoble
It makes sense, they had leverage to make that deal
- Stephen Pickering
Fred -- Okay, so that was one that was 24 years ago. Have any more recent examples? If you can't think of any, then they obviously weren't that important.
- RobinDotNet
Because they were hesitant, they had the leverage to make that part of the deal. Makes total sense
- Stephen Pickering
Um, apple buys leading music sequencing package and kills of PC version because, um, they want to force you to use a mac... come on, the list is endless!!! Companies screw customers by killing good products for their own reasons all the time....
- Fred Davis
Sorry, things are moving fast in this thread. There's a contractual obligation on FB's part to keep FF running?
- Jason Huebel
Fred, you keep saying the list is endless, but the only one you can name is one that came out about 2 years after the 1st Mac, 24 years ago. I'm just saying....
- RobinDotNet
Fred, but what if part of the deal was not to kill it?
- Stephen Pickering
This whole "Friendfeed is dead" mantra is, has, and always will be nothing more than an attempt to get attention. Friendfeed is successful and Facebook would never do anything to destroy that.
- Paul L. McCord Jr.
Derrick: believe me, Louis and I have been talking and concerned about the messaging coming out of this deal more than anyone. We both invested a lot of our time/careers here. Louis has been talking with the team too and that's where his post came from yesterday. I suggest you read it and read between the lines too.
- Robert Scoble
Understand Robert, Really not about your motivation, just good manners in my opinion for Friendfeed to thank you publically. Maybe they have and I missed it. I think you did more for promoting the service than the founders.
- Jim Posner
now, what facebook decides to do with friendfeed... who knows... Yahoo kept Flickr going... so far... but that seems like the exception... no one's really using jabber any more, but it lives on in the upcoming Wave and as XMPP at Google...
- Fred Davis
Jim: thanks, appreciate it. Paul did thank me in the interview I did with him right after the announcement was made.
- Robert Scoble
If there is a contractual obligation on FB's part to keep FF running, the obvious question is what does this contract state and does it give a duration. Hopefully we'll hear more later.
- Kol Tregaskes
Why? What would be the point? I respect you two enough and all that you do in the world of social media and that's fine. I want a place I can converse, post my pictures, air my gripes, and continue to establish the friends I've made via Friendfeed. Will I be able to do that or not? I'm so tired of the conjecture. Some of us, are just people who love the service and more than anything, very simply, we just want to be able to utilize it.
- Derrick
Kol: I call it the "Paul is sleeping on the couch for a month" clause. ;-)
- Robert Scoble
For a company like Facebook, I would imagine that the consolidation of branding advantage would lead me to suspect that even if Friendfeed is kept going in some way, it will be re-branded as Facebook... just like Longs, Wamu, and Wells Fargo are going through right in Facebook's backyard.
- Fred Davis
Derrick, this is the place to do that. :)
- Louis Gray
The other main issue I have is that, now we are creating content for Facebook. Facebook owns our data. For some reason I didn't mind Paul and his team, they were blacksheep. If I wanted to make Facebook richer I would type in Facebook in the URL. I dont want to make Facebook richer.
- Robert Higgins
What are the alternatives to FF? Isn't there Streamy, Plurk, SocialThing?
- Eric
Louis, I'll be counting sheep soon, need sleep. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
@Eric, we've been evaluating alternatives in the CloneFeed/OpenFF room. None of them really come anywhere close to what FF offers.
- Jason Huebel
Eric, none of those services are really similar. SocialThing is closest, but FF is still quite a bit different.
- Sam Guzman
Of course, since I'm hoping Grabbit will replace Friendfeed for most people, I'm more than a little biased, and that makes me care a lot less about what happens to Friendfeed... even though I love the service, and hope Facebook keeps it going. We're already planning to support Friendfeed in Grabbit, and the new Friendfeed API is awesome, so who knows what the extent of the disruption...
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- Fred Davis
So the word now is that FF will be around for a while AND Paul's mentioned the possibility that parts of FF might be open sourced. Any idea what parts?
- Jason Huebel
Sam, I know there is something. I am upset, because I wanted to buy FF someday! :)
- Eric
Jason: too early to know that for sure. I'd start with the API. From what my friends are telling me who are good developers the API is actually very well thought out.
- Robert Scoble
Fred: I just don't like Facebook's service for WHAT I DO. For my wife? It's freaking awesome. And the execs there have always treated me very well (Zuckerberg walked around Davos with me, while every other journalist was drooling over the opportunity to do that -- he's a lot nicer and smarter than most people give him credit for).
- Robert Scoble
SocialThing got bought by AOL, and it wasn't as good as FF anyway. You could see people's activity, but there was no real interaction. FF is what it is because of the interaction.
- Sam Guzman
Eric & Jason: my new web thingie Grabbit, will do everything Friendfeed does and more, so much more... it's still in alpha, and the beta won't be out until next month... but already the alpha features better Facebook and integration than Friendfeed, IMHO... so, check out grabbit.net and ask to be on the beta list, and we'll keep you posted...
- Fred Davis
@Louis, I'm not going anywhere either. But this acquisition not only scared people that FF might go away but also that their data would go with it. So there is /some/ need for alternatives.
- Jason Huebel
Fred: can't wait to see more about Grabbit.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Hey dude, I TOTALLY agree with you about Facebook! I've been telling people for a while that I think Facebook is in the process of Yahoo-ing themselves... and that ain't no compliment!
- Fred Davis
Sam, got that in Grabbit... email, RSS, blog alerts, news alerts, and more... plus the coolest friend management stuff to help you sort all that out, not just the messages, updates, and alerts...
- Fred Davis
Mona: if you want me to do something for you, talk Maryam into it first. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Fred: Then I am really excited to try it.
- Sam Guzman
Eric: just like the others you mentioned, it has 1 or 2 similar features, but completely different!
- Chris Clayton
and twitter, facebook, friendfeed, etc., of course... we're starting a signup on grabbit.net...
- Fred Davis
I used to use FeedEachOther which was like FF.
- Eric
Chris: Like the friendfeed stream, you could login and see all your friend's activity, but also see your latest e-mails (Could be easily accessed with a sidebar link, like direct messages). By commenting on an e-mail, you could reply. Just like FF direct messages, but it would send a real e-mail response. Does that make sense?
- Sam Guzman
Google reader is improving, but still has a long way to go. On the social side.
- Bluesun 2600
That's the one thing I've always liked about FriendFeed - the founders (and staff) interacts with the community, as do their family members. The community members were treated like family, too. :) Whatever which way, hopefully Facebook will integrate FriendFeed's functions to carry on the "feel" over there as well. Personally, I have the more the merrier approach! BTW see you Thursday, Robert! Gnomedex sold out!
- Mona Nomura
I'm not up to speed with this discussion, but FB must have bought FF to merge FF tech into FB. FF for everybody, not just Scoble and tech friends.
- Zato Gibson
...would continue as independant application or as zombie inside "failbook"? ;-/
- Claude LaFrenière
Sam: i was actually looking for a way to have the subjects of my emails show up on my friendfeed dashboard awhile ago - do you mean like that? Because that would be awesome!
- Chris Clayton
i would love to see friendfeed get a killer mobile app...maybe improve on fftogo a little more
- (jeff)isageek
Google Reader is my current alternative btw. I've found the share box today and now using it like FF's share box. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Google Reader is great, but it's not built to replace FriendFeed. It's not an aggregator, for one.
- Louis Gray
one thing is I don't think you can share images from pages as easily as FF's share.
- Bluesun 2600
Chris: Yes, maybe have a subject show up in your feed, and clicking would expand to reveal the full e-mail. Reply's could be generated by commenting on the e-mail. I'm sure FF won't integrate this, but I'm just throwing it out there. It's something I wish some social service would integrate. Either that, or make e-mail inboxes more social. Kind of like Yahoo e-mails new features, but better executed. How cool would it be to login to your e-mail and be greeted by a FF like social stream.
- Sam Guzman
i think you can look at two services that were bought up and never really changed all this time in flickr and delicous so hey maybe friendfeed stays around as it is...maybe just integrates a bit more or something with facebook
- (jeff)isageek
Well you can put your services into a folder then create a bundle and share it. But no not quite like FF. It lacks a lot of features and Comments view is awful.
- Kol Tregaskes
and look how long google had grand central before they really even started doing anything with it.
- (jeff)isageek
I guess what I'm saying is, don't keep e-mail so separate from the rest of your online social activity. It should be more integrated than it is now, in my opinion. Why not include it in a service like FF?
- Sam Guzman
So Friendfeed stays on as a side project instead of being abandoned. Does that really make a difference in the grand scheme of things? The service isn't going to grow by leaps and bounds either in audience or functionality now. I guess a slow death is easier for people to deal with than a quick one.
- Dare Obasanjo
Sam: i love that idea... email services dont have RSS (not that i can find anyway) i was looking for 5 hours for one afew months ago so i could put it in a private group to show up on my FF stream. but i ended up being dissapointed!
- Chris Clayton
I hope we all converge over to Google Wave and that some clever sod codes a FF-type service built on the Wave protocol. :-) GWave is great fun to use!
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol: are you going to send me a download link? :P im still waiting for it from the 'sneak peek' survey i filled out AGES ago!
- Chris Clayton
Whhhhhhat how`d you try it already?
- sofarsoShawn
Dare: there are lots of things that don't get many new features but are still very popular. FriendFeed still has way more features and is better technology than anything else I've seen in the marketplace. Maybe someone will eclipse it, but that won't happen soon and, yes, a slow death is definitely better than a quick one. Why? Cause you can make plans and change your behavior.
- Robert Scoble
Download link for GWave? Don't work like that. ;-) Just wait until 30th September, Chris. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Chris, yeah, and I think what I'm describing would take more than just RSS integration. But Kol is right, maybe Google Wave will be the answer :) I can't wait to try it! Especially if other services can be integrated like in FF.
- Sam Guzman
Kol: but september is too long to wait :( blame scoble for making me a social media addict! :)
- Chris Clayton
Robert: if this is just about whether they'll shut off the servers or not then why is this even causing hubbub? Given the complaining of a vocal set of users I'm sure that even if they planned to shut off the site, it'll keep going for a while. However it seems obvious that all their innovative ideas and day time hacking should be filled with innovating on Facebook not here.
- Dare Obasanjo
As both Louis and I have said - these guys have been nothing but actions thus far and haven't let us down. I see nothing changing from that yet, so I suggest everyone continue that trust. They have done nothing to break that trust yet. And like I wrote about, Facebook needs them as much as they need Facebook - Facebook wants to change into something more of what FriendFeed is, from what I've seen and read.
- Jesse Stay
It's not about shutting the servers off for some (most?) folks, it's a matter of how you reconcile FriendFeed and Facebook's views on content licensing, ownership, and privacy; whether we'll continue to see innovation at a pace faster than what Facebook's user base has historically been comfortable with; and whether we'll see a continuation of Friendfeed's openness towards third party developers and the open source community.
- Ken Sheppardson
And as I've said over and over again, Jesse, I think most of us trust the FriendFeed folks as individuals, but that trust doesn't necessarily transfer to Facebook as an institution.
- Ken Sheppardson
I second Ken. Zuckerbergs plans/dreams are also a kind of wild-card here. They could be favorable to us FriendFeed users, or not. Up till now, Zuckerberg hasn't done much favorable for me. That sucks. I wish it were different.
- Meryn Stol
Say what you want about Facebook but Zuckerberg and/or Facebook has revolutionized the Internet by forcing people to be real. (not real-time) It even reflects on Youtube - the commenters aren't as moronic as they were say three years ago, since more and more people are using their real names and identities.
- Mona Nomura
It's always like this and it never turns out the way Paul says it will, though I believe his intentions are honorable. At some point you no longer work for the old company and you start working for the new one. My guess is this has already happened. Soon people from the old team will have their new assignments, and then one day the server will go down. They'll bring it back up, but...
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- Dave Winer
Damn, Dave. And I thought that *I* was a cynic.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva, I've been through it myself, and been in Paul's position.
- Dave Winer
Dave, I don't doubt that at all. It's just amazing from my perspective to see it put so honestly. Well put, sir.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Only when I was in Paul's position, I had a simpler situation cause we were developing shrinkwrap software and our mission was supposedly unchanged. We didn't have servers that had to be kept up 24-by-7. Even so, six months after the merger, the whole thing was turned upside down and the team had all-new priorities and tons of people had left, including the top guy (me!). I would get...
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- Dave Winer
Dave, I expect it to change, but I also expect that Facebook is doing this for not just the team they just acquired. I think Facebook really wants this technology.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse, that may be true but they'll want it for Facebook. And if you're a fan of Facebook, that's great, Facebook's going to get better. But if you're not? If you're a a fan of FriendFeed? Then all you're going to end up with is a bastardized FriendFeed with lots of dipshit apps.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Jesse: I'm not so sure. The technology will need to be rebuilt for the Facebook infrastructure. That's one reason why Paul doesn't have good answers for us yet. He said he needs a few weeks to really dig into Facebook's code base before he even has a good idea of where he and the FriendFeed'ers can really add value.
- Robert Scoble
Akiva, I'm a fan of both. And you know you can ignore those apps - that's not something you can do on FriendFeed or Twitter. FriendFeed would have gotten just as bad as it grew.
- Jesse Stay
Dave: thinking back on why I joined FriendFeed, it was because I expected that the team would do something interesting in the future. That reason has now been fulfilled and now that these guys are at Facebook it'll be interesting to see what they do.
- Robert Scoble
Jesse, where is the button to ignore the apps? I want to ignore all of them, all the time. Instead, I have to click hide on every single bloody one of them and still get notifications from people wanting me to add apps. I'd tolerate Facebook better if there was a magic "no apps, ever" button.
- Rochelle
Somewhat selfishly, I have just gained a whole load of new friends on Fb, here and on Google Reader and have learned loads about sharing and subscribing for which I thank you all :-) I will just watch and wait now, but I do agree that if everyone dashes off somewhere else and deserts FF, it could well hasten its demise. Best to try and use all the services and interlink them if we can.
- Julia Ault
Rochelle: I want you to install the FriendFeed app. :)
- Louis Gray
I am sure that FB was not happy if FF was going into MS hands or Google hands ,they bought it and now they will be the most important live and live search player on top of the best social community,,I am happy for them and for us as well ,they will keep our home and thats great news
- Johni Fisher
Jesse, this is true. I guess my real point is—aside from the easy-as-punch Facebook app snarking—that the very philosophies on which each service was built are essentially different. I'm not saying that these divergent ideas can't be unified. I'm just not convinced that they're compatible enough to be integrated without irritating one group and overwhelming the other. I'm sure the...
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- Akiva Moskovitz
"I'm just not convinced that they're compatible enough to be integrated without irritating one group and overwhelming the other. " - very well put, Akiva.
- Meryn Stol
Akiva, who says they will become one site? Why not enable the two communities to remain separate if they want, under the Facebook brand? I don't think we know yet what will happen.
- Jesse Stay
Good news because I love friend feed in it's current format.
- Rob Cairns
Robert, yes, we don't know for sure, but then again we don't know for sure - I don't see reason to change too much of our trust until something actually happens. I do know Facebook wants to open up more, while still retaining your right to privacy. The privacy thing is something FriendFeed (or Twitter) doesn't have, and I think would be a welcome addition.
- Jesse Stay
Rochelle, you have to do it either by app, or individual (unless I've missed the option). That said, I would kill for the ability to do that on FriendFeed or Twitter. They don't even have that.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: FriendFeed doesn't have apps, so I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to; if you mean the ability to hide posts aggregated from a particular service, that's already there.
- Tristan Seligmann
Last I checked, Jesse, FriendFeed didn't have MafiaWars or Superpoke.
- Akiva Moskovitz
(If you click on "Hide", and then "hide other items like this one", you get a whole list of options)
- Tristan Seligmann
FriendFeed has a finite number of things to hide ("all items from Bob", "all Flickr posts", etc.). That's much more easy control than the thousands of apps on Facebook. It's like playing whack-a-mole over there. It feels like the more I hide, the more they appear.
- Rochelle
Akiva, Tristan, it's only a matter of time before the auto-dm apps appeared on FriendFeed. So long as FriendFeed grows, they will come. So long as it doesn't grow, it *does* disappear. There's no "hide all from the app that generated this DM" option on FriendFeed.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse, and, with all of the hide options already present on FriendFeed, you don't think the devs would have had the presence of mind to include something similar for any supposed FriendFeed apps?
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva, I trust that they'll add that as much as I trust they'll continue to fight for FriendFeed at Facebook.
- Jesse Stay
They don't even need any extra options; you can already hide direct posts based on the application that created them. For example, if you hide this post of Robert's, you'll get the option to hide all posts by iPhone.
- Tristan Seligmann
Jesse, I think no-one doubts that *they* will fight. The question is if they win. They're just employees now.
- Meryn Stol
Again, I'm surprised that my own cynicism—legendary in its own right—is being beaten about the face and neck in this thread.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Meryn, I also know the Facebook team - they're just as competent as FriendFeed's. Their original audience started different than FF's, but they too have to expand.
- Jesse Stay
It's hard for innovators to stop innovating, and for entrepreneurs to lose the total freedom and self-reliance that drives them. Every entrepreneur that I know personally (only a few, alas!) who has sold for the big bucks has eventually gone on to create something else.
- Kathy Fitch
Jesse, as I said earlier, my lack of knowledge on the plans of Zuckerberg is the problem. Do you know Zuckerberg? In the end, he's gonna decide what appears on Facebook or not. Also, it's not so much a matter of competence than it is a matter of vision and taste.
- Meryn Stol
I'm sure the FB engineers are competent.
- Meryn Stol
And wouldn't it be fascinating to have a gander at the kinds of separation agreements folks who leave FB must sign? Almost as interesting as seeing the acquisition agreement in this case.
- Kathy Fitch
It's totally unclear if future conversations we might have on FB will ever be indexable by Google. (or any other search engine) That all depends on Zuckerberg's final say. I can't look in the guy's head.
- Meryn Stol
Sure seems like you're scrambling, Robert, to place yourself in the center of this when you were completely blindsided by the sale. Justs sayin'
- Mattb4rd
Louis, nope! Those are two separate worlds for me and I intend to keep it that way.
- Rochelle
Once you stop owning something you lose the ability to make promises about it. Good intentions or no. One hard headed business decision like FF is not earning its keep or we need the resources elsewhere and it's done. Been on both sides.
- Todd Hoff
The only thing that would make a real difference in this case would be an unambiguous statement from Mark Zuckerberg himself. Let him address the FF community and actually say what he will commit himself to. I suppose he's a man of his word.
- Meryn Stol
Hmm. A whole lot of the sale was in stock options. Takes awhile to get fully vested. The next few years should prove very interesting.
- Kathy Fitch
How can you live up to that promises when you no longer own it?
- John D Reasor
....hmmmm, we got the wrong impression then?
- Mark Essel
Nevermind, I'd feel a helluva lot better with an unattached open social media where I could rely on keeping contacts and connections however weak for as long as I chose to continue using the service.
- Mark Essel
Actions speak louder then words, and the key is the final decision is no longer up to him. I am sure Paul means every word he says I just not sure he is going to be able to keep it.
- Kim Landwehr
I don't expect FF to go away right away. I just expect things will definitely be different. I do hope that FB does improve, but I am also branching out given the sale.
- Kevin Whalen
"Promises are a bourgeois invention and, anyway, they're meant to be broken." [V. I. Lenin quoted from inexact memory] by
- ianf ⌘
@louisgray's »If you see the post I put up last night...« <http://friendfeed.com/scoblei...> If you cared for others to read that post, you'd have included a direct link to it. It's the essence of hypertext, and any "Silicon Valley early adopter, tech geek blogger" worth the name would have done just...
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- ianf ⌘
It would make some business sense to keep FF as some kind of separate site/module, if just to stop another site taking it's place and becoming another competitor.
- Robert Littlejohn
Hi Ian! I get what you are saying, but sometimes, dropping links to my own posts in other people's threads looks like spam. I also believe a good number of people saw it, and know how to get it otherwise. That said, it's right here: http://www.louisgray.com/live...
- Louis Gray
Robert - To say Facebook is more interesting to work for than Google may be a stretch. While Facebook is growing exponentially and has challenges, Google faces HUGE challenges just staying Google ... while exploring new areas of growth. Keeping the index relevant is a big challenge in itself. On the other hand ... the 'FF guys' have worked there already and know how they feel about what direction they wanted to go ... which .. I think ... makes a little more sense?
- Charlie Anzman
Charlie: remember most of this team already worked at Google. Facebook is pre IPO. Google is not. The potential rewards are much larger at Facebook and the potential to have an impact is much larger at Facebook too.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Posting links (references) to one's other posts "looks like spam"? That's news to me, and a lame excuse. In any event, given main difference between worlds of analog and digital publishing being ability in the latter case to refer back to source in unambiguous and granular fashion (rather than, as in analog, to indicate issue, chapter, page, verse, line, etc - if at all), not including...
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- ianf ⌘
ianf, I agree, but it feels like spam when you're doing it. Encourage him nicely.
- Bruce Lewis
i suspect that, if FF were to survive relatively unchanged it will be through an open-source effort. i doubt FF will survive as a stand-alone site w/ Fb paying the freight.
- MikeAmundsen
Why don't the FF founders release an official statement saying how long the site will continue and what we can expect if we stay?
- Tomy Thomson
Keep in mind that despite the best intentions, nearly half of all sincere promises end in divorce.
- April Russo (app103)
Robert: I agree that the technology with great audiences don't get killed off, but the name of the game to the shareholders is money. It makes a ton more sense for facebook to integrate friendfeed into facebook, an already monetizable model, vs. leaving it as a de-coupled technology that has to have a new revenue model built for it.
- Erik Boles
With so much money still on the table in the form of stock options, there's certainly plenty of motivation to make FB stellar. If FF ends up being treated well, too (for whatever reason--a promise, a warm fuzzy feeling, its potential role in helping to make FB stellar), then I'm all for that.
- Kathy Fitch
There is a way to argue keeping FF going makes sense to FB: The important thing in social software ISN'T the software, it's the people who use it. If the people who use FF are sufficiently different to those on FB, then it could make sense to keep both services. Possibly they may end up using the same software, but have different brands. Think of VW group in cars (SEAT/Skoda/VS/Audi are...
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- Nick Lothian
That makes me feel better about trying to switch mainly to Friendfeed.
- Hunt
from iPhone
Interesting thread. I think that Paul has the best intention and he will do everything he can to keep the existing service up. Dave Winer has a good summary of the forces he will have to fight against. Making a Facebook vs. Google vs. Microsoft decision was probably a hard one. I am wondering if Twitter was in the race too...Twitter + Friendfeed could have been a great team to go...
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- Edwin Khodabakchian
Why the outreach now and not earlier in the week? Has something spooked the FF team? Seeing people looking for alternatives, and poking around Google Reader, Streamy, SocialThing, perhaps? Robert said it himself, if people leave here, FF dies, and the team doesn't have a whole lot to sell to FB (yeah, arguably) and that could scotch the whole deal. So I'm just wondering why the outreach now?
- Dominic Jones
read it from the begining, I'm happy FF crew is beginning to acknowledge the questions, Dave definitely has a point, but all-in-all I thought death was near, it looks like it gets delayed for some time. The main thing is ppl are still here although reader is the new playground...unfortunately the communication with their team isn't all that good...
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Dobromir, "read [297 more comments] from the begining" is not a good advice for anything, least of all here, in the Kingdom of Perpetual Constant Fragmentary Attention Overload, where realtime fly-by comments are the rule.
- ianf ⌘
Robert, thank you for sharing this info. I hope everyone got the message clearly. Wonderful news!
- Michael Fidler
from iPhone
Ok, I hadn't time to read all the comments on this thread. But this sure sounds promising, and I do trust Robert and Louis when they're saying something. So I'm hopeful:)
- Patrik Johansson
It is not whether Friendfeed lives or dies. It's whether our free-wheeling, anarchic, community-driven approach will be replaced by the bland family-oriented guidelines of Facebook. Will we still be able to chuckle of Asian men on a beach, for example?
- Aaman (Clone of FF)
hey all, we can't return to the past, what happen has already happened, now the question is this one, may a micro community survive inside a large community, the answer is YES, FF community can and may have the same social behaviour it has here, and when move to FB, we need just to preserve our connections, and to maintain the same behaviour. that all, but even ancients tribes don't survive without scarifying some of their tradition.
- abdellah
Will Friend feed just get - morphed into Facebook now? clearly they want to take on Twitter. I noticed that I tryed to remove my Friend feed from facebook recently because less techy friends complained that I take over there Friend feeds...! But I can't... mmmm
- PRBristolco.uk
My goodness, there needs to be a way to search comments...I scanned to see if Paul had chimed in, but didn't see that.
- Chad Gesser
Scobe: I hope he does chime in. I think he needs to since you broke that.
- Chad Gesser
Chad: I think he'll say more after he has a little time at Facebook and can give definitive answers as to what the FriendFeed team is going to do there. He told me that will take several weeks.
- Robert Scoble
Facebook is genuinely interested in best in class customer experience. I can't yet envision what features or practices are incorporated or left behind, but it seems a positive move for users. There is always a die-hard loyal following that doesn't want to see their Freind (feed) go away. Heck, I still record The West Wing on Bravo.
- Jeff Marmins
Yeah i sure hope so robert. . i really rather not be on facebook.
- RamirezG
Chad, to aid in scanning, you can do a Ctrl-F (or equivalent) and search the current page for "- Paul Buchheit" and/or install my user script that adds a mini avatar to the beginning of each comment http://friendfeed.com/friendf...
- Micah Wittman
Scoble, why do you think FriendFeed won't get sacrificed by Facebook management? Most sensible thing, to me, is to get FriendFeed integrated as a feature of Facebook, then eliminate the individual brand. Fact is, it's Facebook's decision at this point, unless the FriendFeed guys got something in writing to the contrary (which likely didn't happen). Sometimes you've got to go with your...
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- Jason Nunnelley
Jason: it doesn't really matter. I've been on Facebook all morning and they already have a lot of FriendFeed's features. Soon the rest will be moved over too. And the servers won't get turned off anytime soon, based on conversations with FriendFeed and Facebook. So, for now, use it and be happy. Me? I've already been spreading out my social networking time just in case.
- Robert Scoble
and before he disappears into a part of the web that I can't find.....how do you say his last name? Boo-Kite? Buck-heat? Really, I don't know and I wanna know. Just so I know, You know?
- Morgan Haley
We've been acquired by Facebook! We are really excited about joining the Facebook team. (Note: FriendFeed will continue to operate - see the blog post for details)
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
I am hoping this will lead to nice integration for cross posting! Currently using Twitter App on FB to post and I hate those ff.im links that end up on Facebook.
- Ivan Zlatev
it was good while it lasted, Friendfeed. :(
- holly
"FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team." Those are NOT encouraging things to read as a FF user.
- Scott of Two Countries
Sniff... not sure if I'm excited about this. But I have enormous respect for the FriendFeed team... so, I assume they believe in the move as more than an exit strategy.
- Michael Leggett
@#$& that's all I have to say. For now.
- Zachary TG
Facebook should have been aquired by Friendfeed. Why they hell would you give up your better product to a worse one? Did none of you give a shit about this service to begin wiht?
- Matthew DeVries
Coolest web 2.0 site I've ever seen & used. I hope things don't derail. Ads will be coming soon, which is fine, but.... then what 's next? Please no quizzes!
- Ben Hanten
Who would have thought that after Facebook were shamelessly being "inspired" by FriendFeed, the inevitable would have happened?
- Tyson Key
I'm pissed off. I wan to throw away the whole Internet :
- DarkBls
Hey guys, keep in mind that Facebook is blocked in workplaces across the nation. 250 million casual users commenting about last night's party does not intelligent conversation make.
- Hector
I really can't see how FB would buy FF only to shut it down. There are way too many innovations and features FF has that FB honestly needs. I'm looking forward.
- Harry Wolff
Oh, this does not make me happy. Not at all! I've stayed off of Facebook intentionally and FriendFeed is my favorite social network. This is like when the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. :>(
- Larry Hawes
i have stopped using FB for the most part and liked FF alot more. now FF will go the way of FB. screwed again.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
Congratulations. Enjoy the new challenges of acquisition, and I'm looking forward to the result!
- Wade Dorrell
Berge Gazen beat your score in Mafia Wars
- Berge Gazen
Enjoy your fat paychecks, guys. You've sold us out.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Bravo Bret! Been following your successes ever since we had the opportunity to work together on the YellowPages.ca / Google Maps Canada deal. Congrats!
- Sebastien
I wished it was Google or even Yahoo!, instead...
- Tyson Key
i really hope ff stays as it is. fb is kinder carder while ff is a great tool.
- jkkmobile
Not sure what to make of this. It could eiter be a big win or a huge fail.
- dorn
It could have been Microsoft, which would have been worse for everyone. :(
- Tyson Key
Can I take this opportunity to say I HATE facebook?
- Alex Scrivener
seems the only ppl happy here are the ones in the biz or who stand to profit from the merger.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
I guess we should get ready to get poked by our supposed friends and have various shit thrown at us? Plus 5,000 requests by apps that nearly all suck.
- Joey Gibson
There is zero way this could have been a win for anyone, but the now rich founders.
- Matthew DeVries
If I have to go to FB to use FF then it's a lost cause
- Randy Pollock
Painful. And apparently I completely misunderstood what FF was trying to accomplish both technically and as an organization. I guess Facebook must have dangled a pretty big bag of money in front of them.
- Ken Sheppardson
FriendFeed is Dead! Long Live FriendFeed! :/
- Tyson Key
I will reserve judgement, i don't like or use FB but if FF maintains it's current goodness i don't care who cuts the checks.
- Steve C
I hope this doesn't turn into an APP filled hunk of crap. I love FriendFeed, it was the untouched gem of microblogging. I don't want Mafia Wars invited in my FriendFeed!!! Congrats on the sale though.
- Jay Farmington
@Philipp: until the new masters start flexing their muscles and bringing in their own people to enforce their own vision.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
I read the blog post and one statement stands out to me "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being." The time being. This is not just bad, I think it may be #FAIL
- berchman
Facebook obviously liked FriendFeed a long time ago. Why would they have copied so many features (feed item comments and the "Like" action, to name a couple) otherwise? It was only logical for this to happen eventually. Doesn't mean I like it, but acquisition is part of the game. I have the same feeling I did when SocialThing! was acquired by AOL, though.
- Voyagerfan5761
"Relationship Status: It's complicated" comes to mind. ;)
- Tyson Key
Wow, I finally sign up, and read this. This could end up being a very bad thing for FF fans: "Your FriendFeed friend just signed up on this poll, would you like to too?"
- Brian Bommarito
Congrats guys. And thanks for your continuos effort in helping promote and integrate web services, like mine, Wakoopa. That's awesome and I hope FB gets better because of it.
- Robert Gaal
This will give FriedFeed the attention it deserves. Otherwise it would have been a geek thing forever.
- Michael Netsch
Will there be a super poke feature launched tomorrow?
- Matthew DeVries
aw, this sux!! Congrats to the Friendfeed team though!
- acedanger
Does this mean that we'll be seeing an influx of webcam spammers, a la Twitter? Along with abolishment of the rooms feature, crappification of the search feature, and more "privacy features" that really just put more nails in the openness coffin?
- Tyson Key
Some people will do whatever their friends request........
- Michael Muller
I really don't see why people would be anything but excited about this Facebook freindfeed deal. Great news as far as I am concerned. The Friend feed team is going to go over facebook and make it that much easier to connect, share... isn't that what the social web is about?
- Kevin Murray
I know a lot of people who use Facebook and enjoy it and that's fair enough. It's just not my cup of tea. The chaps from Friendfeed will get rich and the technology will get absorbed in Facebook but I can't see Friendfeed continuing in anything like it's present form.
- Paul Nash
Don't be so negative, something good might eventually come of this...
- Tarmo Aidantausta
Congrats! I know you all must be crazy excited right now.
- Michele Lorito-Chase
chance for FriendFeed to become more mainstream... congrats FriendFeed team!
- Jeroen De Miranda
Nothing could make me happier than if they integrated the good tools from FriendFeed into Facebook, which is where all my friends are. So a big "yay!" from me.
- Ian Betteridge
happy for you guys, but not for all of us
- Flavio
congratulations. this is going to be interesting.
- Dave Beckett
I think I preferred the non-mainstream version of FriendFeed...
- Tyson Key
I'm turning on my black shirt, my black trouser, my black socks, my black shoes. Although I probably must be happy for you.
- Ton Zijp
NASTY NASTY BAD BAD. But we'll see...
- Daniel Morgan
Given that the FriendFeed team has never been anything but awesome & respectful of its community, I think it's unfair for people to assume that the Facebook acquisition is going to change that.
- Jess Lee
Why in god's name are we flying over this shark?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
- Matthew DeVries
Facebook is like a giant who listens to nobody. Please keep your attitude but I don't think you will be able to do so.
- Burak "cyrus" Bayburtlu
I don't know, Like it? or dislike it?
- Ömer Balamir
What happens to all the content that we've created and imported here, and the associated metadata? Will all that disappear into the ether?
- Tyson Key
If the FriendFeed guys can make FaceBook useful and responsive again, this seems like a pretty positive step!
- Robin Barooah
Robin, the Facebook users don't want that I'm afraid.
- Rutger Blom
I have big loss of data concerns. See http://ff.im/6pHjo Is there any way to archive all my FriendFeed posts, likes, comments, and pictures (friendfeed-media.com) off-line? Can some Archive.org-like snapshots of FriendFeed be made (Once a month starting Sept 2009)? I'd like to see the cross-links between my posts & other people's posts, even in 2020. -
- Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell: the FriendFeed site is not shutting down. Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users.
- Bret Taylor
I just overheard a coworker mention FriendFeed. This is how the world ends...
- CannonGod
kafa sayımı yapıp köyü satan ağalar geldi aklıma
- Alper Ömer Esin
Then provide us with a way to easily make a back-up of all of our posts and all of the posts we have Liked and Commented on.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Same question as Mitchel Tsai. How do I export my data? I don't want it to be handed off to Facebook.
- Zio Bonino
I don't see good things coming from this. Although I like Facebook, I liked Friendfeed more. Partly because of the environment and the smallness of it. That is now going to be ruined. So, 10-1 odds that Friendfeed will be no more within a year after it gets intergrated into Facebook?
- Mathew™ one of a kind
I doubt it Robin. Bret can only give us assurances about the "near future." Here's what I think will happen. Just like Twitter acquired Rael Dornfest and his awesome web services, Stikkit and I Want Sandy vanished (and so did he), Facebook will acquire all the talent from Friendfeed, shut this service down and Facebook will continue to suck.
- Jim Is Not Smart
Same question as Mitchel Tsai. How do I export my data? I don't want anything to be handed off to Facebook. And I don't want to lose anything.
- Zio Bonino
Congrats obviously, but im not sure about the feeling,, different user groups which can not integrate but collide.. hope there wont be an huge integration in the future.
- Yunus Tunak
I'm happy for FriendFeed! But, at the same time a bit worried about the future. Hope you guys convince FB to not be evil too.
- Vishal Verma
I can't believe it! damn! facebook tos will apply to friendfeed too? should i start to move to another service? why anyone would think that facebook public is friendfeed public?! damn! friedfeed was my favorite! I can't understand this move! they want to kill friendfeed or what?
- paula simoes ☃
"I bet I can find 1.000.0000 people who dislike this deal."...Welcome to FriendBook.
- Jacque
Well, huge congraulations to you and your team, you deserve every success. To be honest I had presumed this would happen sooner or later - the only business model cool little startups have is to hope they get bought by someone bigger for their brains and technology. I'm going to be in San Francisco in a couple of weeks and was going to stop by your office to bring you a cake and thank you for a great product - maybe I still will if you're still there and there's still a FriendFeed!
- Alex Lomas
The FF founders must have know this would be a very unpopular move. Most users I know here are not too fond of FB.
- Rutger Blom
"Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users" There's a bit of a contradiction in your statement, Bret. Nice try though.
- jcunwired
Now I can break my Internet plan at home.
- DarkBls
Grats Bret and the rest of FF. To all the naysayers... Lets see what happens before we start bitching....
- Rasmus Lauridsen
This ties in nicely with the fact that you soon will have the opportunity to make your Facebook profiles public and get followers there.
- Michael Netsch
I don't mean to be negative but there's got to be a win-win logic to each merger&acquisiton. Audience high in only quantity is clearly not a win for friendfeed in the long term by considering its unique selling points. Let's wait and see who will benefit from friendfeed's death now.
- ayca
It's all about the money. I would have payed a couple of dollars each month to use FF.
- Rutger Blom
Seriously, what is this? It's like Bret just announced that he's killed all your mothers or something. It could turn out good, it could turn out bad, but at the end of the day, who cares, it's just a website (I mean honestly, come on). I could see it going either way, but in the near term, this is a pretty big win for the FF team, so congrats guys.
- Chieze Okoye
To be honest, my heart sank a little but I am happy to congratulate you and the team for building such a good brand. Well done.
- Kevin J Hatton
I'm just surprised, that's all. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (it certainly isn't for the owners of FF). I'm willing to sit back and see what happens.
- Jason Huebel
Wow, I specifically use friendfeed b/c it is not facebook. Sounds great for the friendfeed team, but not necessarily for friendfeed users.
- Evan Parker
Born to be sold, like in the old "new economy" era. Remember the late nineties?
- Federico Bolsoman
Sudden desire to check out Strands again... but hey, kudos on the incoming $$ for FF team
- Leslie Poston
This is wisdom. Bracing for Google Wave is a good idea.............
- Kevin J Hatton
this is clearly a talent aquisition... why am i not excited about this? could it be because facebook has been blatantly stealing features from friendfeed shamelessly. Likes were clearly not an original facebook idea...realtime feeds is another i could go on...
- Tate DA FF MVP
While I'm sad, because I suspect this means the best things about FF will disappear or I'll be forced to use FB in some way, if the buyout was for some awesome amount of money, I can't say I blame 'em for taking an offer -- I would.
- Andy Bakun
I came to FriendFeed because I don't like facebook. Now the question is, will facebook become more like friend feed? or will they just take friend feed and turn it into facebook?
- Tom Ray
FF could be a good R&D arm for facebook.
- Andy Bakun
My biggest concern here is that FB has a completely different audience than FF.
- Rutger Blom
Fucking morons. FriendFeed is doomed now. Think logically. Facebook has NO REASON to keep FriendFeed alive. It will simply take FF's best features, suck the life of out of it, then trash FF. Way to go, FirnedFeed, damn.
- Jeremy Buff
This announcement should have been held off until the plans for Friendfeed were known. Regardless, this is *bad* for FF users. Best case: it continues on, but with stagnated feature development. Worst case: it's gone.
- tollie williams
I don't want my FF feed on Facebook :( I use both, but maintain both profiles separate
- Leandro Ardissone ⍨
Sigh... Happy for the team if this is what they want, but baffled by the move. The users that are going to leave because of this will make FF a graveyard and the users it gains, well... Hello spam? Sorry, but I don't like it.
- Vince DeGeorge
from iPhone
Well, I guess it is time to dismantle my friendfeed. We all know where this is headed. So, so glad I didn't move all my rss feeds from greader to friendfeed like so many cheerleaders suggested.
- Matthew Speicher
Dang, and just as I was starting to get used to how FF works. FF is useful on it's own. I hope this only improves FF's system, rather than having it disappear into Facebook's wake.
- Don Faulkner
My big question to everybody here is this: What are the potential downsides / upsides to this acquisition? I mean on paper I just don't see what the pros OR cons are. I don't care for Facebook but I don't see how them acquiring FF is going to change everything.
- Nicholas Kreidberg
furthermore they are 2 different things: I follow a lot of people here that are not in my facebook list, which is for IRL friends!
- Flavio
I don't know where to go next either. I had just settled down to make imaginary friends for all my non-FF tweeps, etc. now, I'm not sure if I should bother.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
I hope friendfeed continues to operate normally but it does not look good.
- ashish
integrate best features of ff to fb, then try to innovate in fb if possible, then kill ff... that's it, cheers, all the best. grrrr...
- Kemal
niczak has good points. FF & FB aren't exactly competitors, but they aren't orthogonal either. Let's hope FB's smart enough to see the difference and improve both platforms.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Nicholas: The upside for Facebook is they just bought an engineering team that's built many of the feature's Facebook's going to need to stay competitive. The upside for FriendFeed's engineering team is $$$ and the ability to build system for a wider audience. FriendFeed's user base is small enough that it'll either get absorbed into Facebook or move on, and FF will become a footnote on the Internet timeline.
- Ken Sheppardson
Don, I don't think FB wants to maintain two platforms.
- Rutger Blom
first tr.im (heard about it yesterday), now this. I wasn't a heavy tr.im user (yet), but sad to see it go, even if I think url shortening is silly.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
As FB said they're interested in the people and not in the site, what if the community will keep running FF without its current staff?
- Flavio
I'll have to go with Flavio's position too. Given this news (plus tr.im and who knows who's next), I'd tend to favor community supported or federated services for things like this in the future.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
I am purposely not on facebook because I don't really want to talk to people I have not talked to in 20 years.
- Andy Bakun
Once again. I'm happy for the FF team. They worked hard and now collect. That's fair. Wonder if they're sitting in a bubble pool drinking champagne while we cry out here ;-)
- Rutger Blom
trouble is (from my perspective), that the philosophies of the two platforms are at odds. FB wants to bring people to the site and keep them there, while FF is a hub, bringing people in and then sending them back out. (That's part of why it's hard for the newcomer to understand, IMHO.)
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Quote «Taylor and Cox say that the Friendfeed product will live on independently, and eventually Friendfeed will be merged into Facebook. But the Friendfeed team is not being kept whole. Some employees will now report to Cox, others to engineering head Mike Schroepfer. In my opinion that means, long term, the Friendfeed product itself is unlikely to be a big priority.¶ But Facebook is...
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- Philipp Lenssen
+1 Kol for the techcrunch article!
- Don Faulkner
from IM
techcrunch: "Cox agreed, noting that Facebook is focused on being a platform and a service, and not just a destination site." I certainly hope so!
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Brilliant move by both Facebook and friendfeed. Congratulations!!! I have theories of what they have planned, but I doubt you would verify any of them. This is going to go so well with their SocialTV which they have been developing. I'm so happy for you!
- Michael Fidler
I don't see what's so bad about it since no one knows right now what the outcome will be, everyone is just making assumptions that could possibly be wrong..... Might help just sitting back and seeing what happens first before complaining.
- ChaCha Fance
Nooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrghh! I´ve resisted getting a facebook acct for so long...
- Thomas Bøhm
ChaCha, if everybody would do that there would not be much discussion would there? This is part of the fun.
- Rutger Blom
I wonder how the discussion over on facebook would compare to this?
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Don, I doubt there is any discussion going on there. They're too busy throwing quizes at each other.
- Rutger Blom
Congrats, FF! I'm approaching the situation with cautious optimism. A lot of my friends only share stuff via the Facebook wall/feed, so if Facebook is able to make their feed more like the FF feed (i.e. good, instead of sucktacular) through this acquisition, it's mostly a win for me in the end.
- Brian Chang
At least my Feedburner stats might go back to normal again.
- Rutger Blom
/me pokes Rutger. (just getting in practice. ;)
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Where will we go for the FFunderCats, bacon memes, and angry artists fighting over photo reshares now? ;)
- Tyson Key
If anybody has doubts as to what happens to the FriendFeed community or our stored information here, read this statement from Bret (in this thread) "Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users". Now maybe you can see "whats so bad about it" and curb your optimism. Not good.
- jcunwired
Congrats FF. Fix their live feed situation please.
- Edward Barnieh
@josh: do you think FB will throw away all the crap people use? various quiz, pick 5 and so on?
- Flavio
@jc: our data will not go away in the near future. what will be in few months? in a year?
- Flavio
Let's see if you can do a bit better than just not being evil this time around.
- Tim Tyler
Wooohooo!!, seems like we are being sent back to "good" old Facebook. Congrats Bret!!
- Danli
Looks like I'm going to repeat the same thing many others did. My first reaction was "Oh my..." I have refused to join Facebook due to its philosophy while I have been with FriendFeed from the beginning for its. I'm sad and somewhat apprehensive.
- Sean Leather
Congrats. I suppose this means the end of FriendFeed but hopefully a better Facebook.
- Harry Toon
Please say that facebook.com will be shutting down, and the combined company will still be called FriendFeed... I bet it won't happen, though.
- Tyson Key
"Regarding FB/FF - Here's how it's [probably] going to work. You will most likely have an account merge, all of the services FriendFeed supports will now be aggregated on Facebook, and all of your FriendFeed friends will be in a "list" on Facebook. The FF Groups will become Facebook Groups. The FF lists will become Facebook Lists." http://ff.im/6pNxq
- Ozgur Uckan
Nothing like an early retirement payout :)
- Owen Greaves
Congratulations Bret. For me this merger makes a lot of sense. Facebook will provide the "quantity" of users, which friendfeed deserves :).
- Karthick R
FriendFeed + Facebook... Oh noes FriendFace is coming (http://www.youtube.com/watch...)! Now sorry for that link, and seriously, thanks for your work, guys. Please don't let the spirit of FriendFeed to be blown away =)
- Anton
hey, that is great guys! interested to see how you integrate.
- Brian Walsh
Mind blown. Never expected this. I'm also disappointed, yet optimistic at the same time.
- Angus Burton
Kinda curious to see how this will all pan out...although i wouldnt want the friendfeed stuff just integrated into facebook. I feel like im among a group of people who i genuinely share interests with here...dont want to lost that.
- Cassidy
Best case: Facebook will continue to support and develop FriendFeed. Worst case: this is great news for Amplifeeder.
- David Gaw
FAIL. Facebook is the new myspace, and now friendfeed will become a part of that BS. Can't say I'm too surprised because eventually we all sell out. BTW I don't see friendfeed lasting more than the rest of this year, if that. The good news is that we can all be subjected to add 'Are you related to a monkey?' and Blackjack apps while having annoying personal ads on our profile pages. Fuck this shit.
- Tomy Thomson
Well done, well deserved, I hope FB's means and infrastructures empower your guys to even better things. But if quizzes appear in "my" friendfeed, evil things will haunt you and your descendents for 3 generations.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
♪ ♪ This is the end.... beautiful friends ♪ ♪
- All for design
Well, I don't see the point of sticking around here if I have accounts in both and this is going to get swallowed whole into Facebook anyways. Put simply, goodbye.
- Micah Collard
The social community that has been behind FriendFeed creators have built a wonderful product. Only problem is, we don't have Zuck's checkbook :(
- jcunwired
friendfeed is a beautiful product, only god knows what facebrook will do to it. Hopefully the ability to upload files (such as mp3s) will not be removed. Zuck is a tool.
- Nibi
Congratulations. I'm sorry to say that I don't plan to move with you.
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Facebook is lucky to have such a talented group of people ... Congratulations FriendFeed!
- Rob Kurrus
doesn't look like a bad joke, better be for the good then, but... Well congrats anyway guys, you did something AWESOME now let's see where Mark takes it
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
That's too bad. Liked the openness if FriendFeed, and the lack crap that is on Facebook. Once FriendFeed dies, it will be Twitter only.
- Mike D.
Congrats, but concerned that FriendFeed and its tools may disappear. Merging the tools with Facebook seems impossible.
- Mike Reynolds
So, what does the acquisition of FriendFeed by Facebook mean to us, users of both websites: Can I make a friend request from FriendFeed, and be approved for both, on one click
- Reyna Carlos
Exciting news guys. I am actually looking forward to your collaboration with / work for FB. No matter what people may or may not like about FB, it does succeed in reaching a more "diverse" audience compared to most other Web 2.0/social web companies. Paired with your team's excellence in realizing features that succeed in pleasing the geekiest of Web 2.0 affine individuals, I think you are steering towards exciting waters :)
- Mustafa K. Isik
*heart sinks* actually a bit of shock - I think that Facebook will leave Friendfeed as-is but I don't think there is hope for future innovation in Friendfeed since their best superstar team members will be pulled onto 'more important' Facebook issues...
- Pon
And the metastasizing, walled-garden that is Facebook, continues to eat the Web. Bring on Google Wave.
- Christopher A Carr
:-) + :-( very happy for the team, huge achievement, hoping to see export of innovation but not a shut down of this unique community and location
- Majento
There goes FriendFeed down the toilet. well I WAS having a good day. until hearing this crap!
- Scratch5150
Congratulations, and best wishes for your future together! :-)
- Ruchira S. Datta
Wow, I was beginning to use Friendfeed as my defacto social site...Facebook is more for real life friends. They'll just take what makes Friendfeed great, add it to Facebook and slowly kill this site.
- Manuel Mas
What is the big deal? I think it'll make FF bigger and better. You should be happy about that!
- orionstarr
I am disappointed. I don't want to have to go to Facebook to do what i do here. I can not imagine they will port over all the features we enjoy here. We lose a lot for only a slight benefit to Facebook.
- Robert
It could be worse, myspace could've bought them lol...
- orionstarr
Awful news for users but congratulations to you guys. Ideally, FB will run FF as a distinct service but I'm not hopeful. I don't want the diversity and noise that facebook brings - people doing quizzes on which movie star they resemble and playing silly games. I also wanted to keep my day to day social activity distinct from the targeted information and discussion I use FF for.
- Rajit
Only just started taking a serious look at FF after hearing acquisition by FB. Sounds like I'm laggard rather than a leader in use of web 2.0
- ManojRanaweera
I think how Pon said it is what I'm feeling: *heart sinks*.
- Andy Bakun
Congratulations, i am really happy for you guys!! :)
- Mona Nomura
I'm not a Facebook fan, but can't begrudge the FF gang their chance to reap the rewards for all their hard work. However, it would be a shame if FB ruins the good thing we all have going here.
- Ken Morley
So what now? a name change too? FriendFace? FeedBook? FaceFeed? god Facebook really sucks. oh well. Adds anyone?
- Scratch5150
Congrats to the FF team... I hope the service doesn't disappear into a fold of light and heat.
- Brandon
if all the things that make FF great are brought to FB then I'll be happy to use it
- Mike Chelen
The community won't be there. Been on FB longer than any other, don't have nearly the relationship or sense of community there that I do here or on Twitter.
- Karoli
Karoli: that is due to the effectiveness of the FF platform and interface, which help to join conversations and find interesting people more so than FB does
- Mike Chelen
Mike: I suspect that FB wants FF for the search possibilities, not the community-building aspects. But we'll see.
- Karoli
i guess congrats are in order, but I'm going to now go and remove everything I have that feeds into FF, and I have to ask -- do I have any rights over my archive? I have a private feed, and I have no interest in offering up my lifestream to the FaceBook data-miners. I hope the FF folks get what they hope for out of the deal, but my FriendFeed experience has been effectively killed.
- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
I just learned about the FF acquisition by Facebook - WOW~! Congratulations Bret, Paul and FF team!! holy cow ........Mooooooooo! Where's the FF Acquisition Party? :)
- Susan Beebe
RT @alirizaesin FriendFeed, R.I.P. Home tweet home!..
- Ozgur Uckan
Congrats to facebook. Now, Twitter is the best.
- Ebru Baranseli
Congratulations to the FriendFeed guys on the Facebook Acquisition. Not a big fan of Facebook, so I hope my favorite Uber Aggregator, Realtime Social, Microblogging site of awesomeness is not entirely absorbed into the Facebook infrastructure. I wait with baited breath to hear what "normally for the time being" means ;).
- Tom Horn
Can I now have comments propagate in both directions as far as Facebook/Friendfeed is concerned?
- Piaw Na
*checks date*. Damn .. not April 1st, must be for real. While I'm happy for the FF team, since I guess this is what they wanted (congrats guys!), I can't help but think this is the beginning of the end for a great service and a vibrant community. There are reasons I don't spend any time on Facebook and do spend lots of time on FF, and some kind of "FF integrated into Facebook" just won't cut it. I hope this service will live on for at least a few more years.
- Andrew Perry
Gratz to the FF team but as a user I'm not completely happy. In short, I like the FF team/product much more than I like the FB team/product. Best of luck to all.
- timepilot
Dang! I've killed another site! Sorry guys... FF was doing fine until I started coming here again! Same with Pownce! Went there and liked it... went underground for a spell... came back and still liked it, so I stayed. A few months later... BOOM! I have the touch! (I'm thinking I'll start devoting a lot of time to Twitter... maybe I can kill that one, too!)
- Mark "DerBingle" J
Bret, congrats on the acquisition. You guys put in a lot of hard work to create this community. I just hope you learned the mistakes Pownce made, Jaiku etc, and ensured that you didn't sell out your community, but that you helped it evolve into something as great as this into something better. Good luck in future endeavors!
- Mike Lewis
Oh yeah? Ok: take tour money and go to the hell. :-(((
- Claude LaFrenière
Yay for you guys, I mean that seriously, I 'like' what this means for you personally, but -1000000 cool points for doing it with FB. Sad day.
- Threepwood
Karoli: FF search is so useful because it is integrated with all the other great features that help to find relevant content. if FB wants to have a similar capability, they must also develop the underlying architecture.
- Mike Chelen
from IM
shakeel, the reasons for friendfeed to join facebook are probably about other things besides money, since many of the FF staff left high-paying jobs to join in the first place
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Well I've thought about it, and I'll stick around until I start seeing that crappy Facebook logo, I only have 71 subscribers here, I hate to do it but I'll probably scrap the whole thing and start over somewhere else. still can't believe that shit.
- Scratch5150
Congrats, team! It's bittersweet, though.
- Anne Bouey
So now we will have FriendFeed blocked at work too. Darn.
- Mark Scrimshire
"Your data will not go away any time in the near term future" is not exactly inspiring for the long term for those of us who came here to escape Facebook for a) it's walled garden and b) privacy concerns. Nice for the Founders to make a pile of cash but for the many of us, it feels like we got sold down the river. Sad.
- Sally Church
cacarr: updates for FB have progressed rapidly in the past, count how many months since new features such as api calls and site redesigns have have been implemented
- Mike Chelen
from IM
I can't believe it either. I feel as if — for the moment — I am lost in the wilderness, adrift.
- roamin
Congratulation to the FF team! You guys deserves this. I just hope that Facebook does not change the directions of FF.
- Vinko
Congrats Bret! Hope the transition goes smoothly for you guys.
- Cristo
I hope this means better integration: liking here will auto-like on fb and such :D if that's the case, I won't mind the ads *wink* *wink*
- 'Like' robot (frɐnc)
Franc, cant stand facebook ads in their current format, hope they will be fixed eventually :P
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Grats, dont spend it all in one place.....
- Robert Higgins
congrads. I think it will be good for BOTH companies.
- Logan Lindquist
Now that you guys have $$$ you should swap out the not so very pleasing default avatar!
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
Hope you guys enjoy your new jobs. Meanwhile we get to watch a great alternative to Facebook with a promising future go down the tubes. A really sad and unfortunate day.
- Todd Holmes
Congratulations to all the FriendFeed team. I hope you'll be able to keep the FriendFeed spirit up at Facebook. Kudos for all the great work you've been doing.
- Paul Papadimitriou
I use FriendFeed and Facebook so it would be awesome to see FF features in Facebook. Congratulations!
- krzychukula
from IM
judging by the nearly 600 comments as i type this, including my own earlier one, FF could use a Don't Like button as well. or would, if we were going to be using it much longer.
- kelly
Nice, i like to wish you all the best for your new job (and it's really hard, i know). I'm happy, but... don't let die FF!!
- Seo (ignobile) Guru
Hope FriendFeed remains open. Love the spirit of FF
- Bernaldo Barrena
Seriously, what a coincidence! Just on Saturday I claimed to be both twitter- and facebook-free. I loved FF product and personally helped to bring at least a dozen of my friends into the community. I'll stick around for a while though.
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
This deal makes sense, now fb developers do not need to figure out how ff does it because they can just ask! Congrats facebook and ff!
- Garin Kilpatrick
I suppose Facebook had to do it, with Twitter and Google Wave as competitor...
- Alexander Kruel
I am noticing a lot of people going to re-esumate their lifestream.fm account now!
- Flavio
I don't think FB acquiring FF is bad. But I don't think it's good either. We'll see. :-) In the meantime, keep up the good work!
- Alexander Gieg
Oh shit. Love FF, hate FB. I'll NEVER, EVER merge my two accounts. I'd rather unsub from both than merging. I'll wait for the developments, and in the meantime look for an alternative.
- Alliandre (la Ippe)
How long until ex-FriendFeed employees start jumping ship from Facebook? I wonder...
- Tyson Key
Thomas Power still believes that Facebook/FF/Linkedin (2010) will be acquired by Apple (2011) and this is a transitional acquisition in the SN market cycle. The world is shifting to Mac, iTunes, iPhones and FB own the next generation. Apple have $29bn of cash on deposit price is not an issue. Google must jump for twitter while MS fiddle in the sticks with Yahoo. BillG will be back at the MS helm 2012.
- Penny Power
:( Happy for FF people, sad for the service. Was going to move from fb to ff this week..
- Martynas
Flavio: never heard of lifestream.fm before, but I'm going to go check it out. I'll reiterate, though, that I'm now shy of any service like this, since it can disappear just as it's getting good. I heard about sweetcron.com last night (via http://ff.im/6pR2w). Maybe it's time to move from centralized to distributed again.
- Don Faulkner
Just finished setting up my lifestream.fm at http://lifestream.fm/dfaulkner. Lifestream does what it says, and no more. FF's search blows lifestream away. FF is more flexible about adding source feeds, but lifestream does fine without the flexibility I suppose. FF still wins, or would, if I thought it would be sticking around. :P
- Don Faulkner
I also hate facebook, not because of their silly quizzes and pokes, but because I suspect they would like to maintain massive user base as the determining factor in choosing a social network. I would love to switch to orkut as I use so many other google services, but I can't because nobody else does. That should not be my criteria.... I thought friendfeed would try to make social networks work together.
- Ru Viljoen
I don't understand why everyone is so negative about the situation?
- orionstarr
@orionstarr - it's like Starbucks buying your neighborhood coffee shop and saying it still cares about the customers. You know it's just not going to be the same as what you've come to love.
- Robin Barooah
Presumably FF will go on the back burner - and the team will try and "fix" Facebook.
- Tim Tyler
I've watched Facebook morph from a relatively organised and well implemented social networking tool into the hulking mess it is now - and I really, really hope that a similar thing doesn't happen here with the inevitable changes this will bring about.
- Leslie Moore
Come on guys, out with the long-term game plan, this is tedious.
- Andrew Eglinton
NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I mean Cool.
- sofarsoShawn
Teach Facebook how to be FriendFeed. Let the small but fast teach the big but slow. Don't forget what Paul says - don’t be evil.
- whatidiscover
If Facebook actually does open their platform, and adopts more of FF's open philosophies it can be great. They could also try and just absorb FF and use all the tech internally. Hope not.
- Nick Young
That's my main concern, that they see this as buying the people and not actually getting the site/users/technology. Because FriendFeed knocks Facebook flat on its ass when it comes to usefulness, but it's also a different target market and a different use-case. If they're going to try to "integrate" the two, then FriendFeed will be simply robbed of all value, as Facebook encroaches further into it.
- Otto
When they combine FB pages with FF discussion platform I'll cheer.
- Gus
I think both services has their own strengths. I use Facebook a lot and I am starting to use Friendfeed more and more. I completely agree with you.
- Parvez Halim
But Leo, I just literally heard on TWIT about FB's 240MM uniques! :)
- Gavin Adams
huge win for both companies ?? is it a win for the FF community ?? who comes first ?? the business or the users ?? I bet you within 6 months, I wont be using FF as much as I use it now !!
- Peter Dawson
i agree - facebook has been getting on my good list this past year and I just love friendfeed.
- Chris Jackson
Just as I re-dedicate myself to using FF, FB acquires them. If FB can integrate FF's deep feature set, it would be a win-win-win.
- Jim Duncan
True or false: Facebook needs FriendFeed more than FriendFeed needs Facebook.
- Joel Zehring
I'm excited too, but at the same time I'm afraid facebook may make some wrong moves with their acquisition. We've seen this happen before.
- Steven (optionshiftk)
If this makes it so I have one LESS place to go to follow my social media, then it will be great. I already have too many different places with different people and different conversations for differ purposes that overlap and make it unnecessarily complicated.
- David Rondeau
FF > FB? not great, actually. diversity is better than monopoly. and i'm concerned about aggregation features getting deprecated (in the name of progress and chrossing the chasm and all that jazz.. of course ;)
- jacek
This is a IP, technology and talent grab.. I don't see the 2 sites being consolidated
- Dave Senior
It may be a big win for both companies but is likely a big lose for FF users.
- Brian Sullivan
FriendFeed functionality on Facebook would be nice. The reverse, not so much. They're trying to address two entirely separate purposes and as such, need to remain completely separate.
- Adam Reyher
I hope Facebook turns into FriendFeed. That would be great!
- Wo
I'd really love to see the real-time threaded conversation feature of friendfeed be adopted by facebook.
- Steven (optionshiftk)
Looking forward to your analysis Robert
- Ken Seto
I can see development of FF slowing down as the team brings the tech over to Facebook
- Dave Senior
Indeed, Brian. FF devotees should be pissed over this. I can't believe Facebook will do anything but carve out a few choice pieces of FF meat - likely making them even more Twitterish - and dump the rest. FF will be gone within six months.
- Shéa Bennett
This is a huge win for both companies, and a huge fail for every net surfer.
- TiTi
yeah it may not be that bad. maybe i'm exaggerating.
- Edgar Rodríguez
Well, I think the FF team can certainly help the Facebook UI. But, all I take away from this is FF going away.
- Yolanda
One thing to consider is this: If we have "trusted" the FriendFeed people not to screw things up, hopefully we can trust them to make sure they're still in control in the terms of the acquisition.
- Adam Reyher
Yes, Robert. Like TiTi said, huge win for both companies, huge fail for the people who like FriendFeed. "Welcome to FaceFeed! Would you like to take a quiz?"
- Zach Flauaus
I think this is definitely a huge win for both but maybe not for the users. I think it could be good or bad for users but I hope that Facebook will allow FriendFeed to continue and push the envelope with emerging technologies. I imagine this is Facebook and FriendFeed teaming up against Twitter.
- Brandon Titus
.-( Good for Friendfeed, but horrible for people that like friendfeed and hate facebook &their UI or where FB is blocked
- Del_
It's good timing. FF uniques fell almost 10% in July.
- Shéa Bennett
this is bad news for twitter, me thinks.
- Brian Ries
Absolutely, Robert. Its a very good tech acquisition for Facebook, they get a great team with a well developed technology stack. It lets the FriendFeed founders get a good, early exit.
- DGentry
I hope so. I know my initial reaction was not as negative as most of the others I'm seeing in my stream. Maybe I'm just being naive.
- Herb Hernandez
Hopefully this means the power of friendfeed will be utilized. Awesome news
- Marcus
This is why I follow Mr. Scoble, yes that is Mr. Scoble :) always has his fingers in the breaking news.
- dennis podgorski
I'm fired up about this union between FriendFeed and Facebook. With the exception of my social media group, I've used FriendFeed primarily as an aggregator--despite it's being my favorite GUI and functionality. I think this is going to bring the substance to FriendFeed that it's been missing. Very exciting!
- Jim W
I have a hard time drawing my line of Public v Personal. I use Twitter & FriendFeed for public use and I use Facebook for private use. I have not even once made a status update on Facebook. I am not sure I want FriendFeed on Facebook. I am intrigued about the possibilities of integration but I am not sure I will adopt.
- thestaticfrost
The power of FF will be used -- but it won't be pretty and won't be for good.
- Brian Sullivan
I have to agree with Robert on this. I think this is likely to be a great deal moving forward. I'm excited about it, and happy for the FriendFeed crew. They've done an AWESOME job.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I am not as excited about this. I don^t like Facebook as much
- nchenga
i think this is going to add more value to Facebook
- Lee Kent
It certainly makes sense, and I agree that it adds value to FF. I wonder how many of the 250 million users of FF will be using it in its current form.
- courtney benson
Just surprised this didn't happen earlier. Facebook has been mimicking FriendFeed's functionality for a while now. Nice that FF is finally getting paid for their R&D efforts.
- Aaron Strout
I think this will make me drop friendfeed or facebook
- Nicolai Rygh
Please explain - this may be win for Friendfeed - but as far as us the users/fans... we're the big losers in this right? I really really can't stand Facebook :-( Help us have hope...
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
here is the explanation, FF have t sell the soonerr, better then laterr, they choose the right momment, wave is there and it is a big promise
- abdellah
when Google start wave, they surely shown their non desire to acquir FF it was implicite
- abdellah
The idea here is growing on me. I see the business case...I'm still not sure as to the impact on Twitter and different users who prefer one tool over another and/or use the two differently.
- Derek Shanahan
I'm trying to defer my pessimism...but I feel an "I Want Sandy"-type fail in the wings. As for FF needing to sell, that wasn't the case; the founders had the money to keep it going for as long as they wanted, basically. We'll see, I suppose. We'll see.
- Ken Kennedy
This is really interesting. This will bring a bigger pool of social media services to people. As it is now, regular folks don't venture further than Facebook, with this acquisition, many will realize that there is a plethora of great other services and social media websites that they can engage in.
- Rami Taibah
Ya know when you get a bad feeling about something - I have one about this deal. Can't put my finger on it, but it don't feel right.
- Jim Connolly
FriendFeed now to get BIGGER than Twitter?
- Jim Connolly
"when Google start wave, they surely shown their non desire to acquir FF it was implicite" - I think that probably covers it.
- John Craft
Isn't this the kind of daring move that Yahoo should have made?
- Andrew Warner
Seems like a HUGE win for Facebook. Not so sure for the future of FF, though.
- Chris Wood
This is really interesting. This will bring a bigger pool of social media services to people. As it is now, regular folks don't venture further than Facebook, with this acquisition, many will realize that there is a plethora of great other services and social media websites that they can engage in. On the side of the coin, I am kind of worried about FB privacy issues and data portability
- Rami Taibah
is there a dislike button anywhere? I did exactly the opposite FB never appealed, FF rocked...
- Valeria Maltoni
FriendFeed will not be the same place, in terms of the community, but this keeps friendfeed around for a while. Awesome! Where's Arrington? Did he reopen his account?
- Benjamin Taylor
Whatever FB and FF does, don't tell Oprah... That's a sign it's over..
- Timothy Latz
FF isn't blocked at work, FB is. FF usefulness would nose-dive for me if blocked.
- Brett Veenstra
Brett: this is likely to pave the way for more client applications for Facebook, which will not be blocked at work.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Well I guess this means I'm going to have to start spending time on Facebook. I don't really see anything else as compelling as FF on the horizon. I just logged into FB for the first time in about 3 weeks. I had 34 or so friend requests to approve and a ton of facebook email that I'm still wading through now. Sigh.
I loathe Facebook also, and now I am going to have to change the way my company pushes out upgrade information and interacts with clients.
- Travis Koger
I don't hate FB, but I don't like it that much either. But it does serve an entirely different purpose to me from FF.
- James Myatt
I use FB and FF for completely different things, I don't want them to be integrated.
- Kenton
I'm with you, James and Kenton... I use them for entirely different purposes. Wondering what the impact will be.
- Herb Hernandez
If I thought they would make FB more like FF I wouldn't be that bothered.
- Andrew Roche
I check in once or twice a week. It's useful and improving all the time. I couldn't imagine spending time there regularly right now! That might change as they change. Who knows?
- Michael Fidler
Thomas, Did I miss something? Did friendfeed get acquired by Facebook?
- Michael Fidler
I retract my first statement. I just logged on here today and your post was the first thing I saw. Brilliant move by Facebook. This fits my theory about what they are planning. WOW
- Michael Fidler
I have to say that I'm unfazed. Much as I tried to like FF, it just never really got to me. I'm fairly new at Facebook, but I'm also giving it a try.
- William Beem
I'm with Bwana & Kol. Thing I'm wondering- was the FF team jsut totally off the pulse of the community or was this mass exodus/dissatisfaction expected (and they didn't care?)
- anna sauce
well got through a bit more of the email. I feel bad responding to people 3 weeks late on stuff. Oh well. I should probably check in on Facebook more than I do. For a while I was doing it at least a few times a week. The thing is that FF as we know it is probably dead in the water. So you have to ask yourself if it makes a lot of sense to spend significant time here now knowing that...
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- Thomas Hawk
" You have 270 group invitations." sigh.
- Thomas Hawk
ok, had to press ignore on all 270 of those one by one. Next: "You have 91 Page suggestions." lovely.
- Thomas Hawk
I dont have as many as that Thomas, but it's something i have to do almost daily as well. If only there was a block all, would make so much more sense. Maybe its a feature they will now implement just as we can 'hide all' over here.
- Simon Wicks
got all the page requests done, now I'm working on ignoring all of those crappy little apps and I get this: No Network Transport error (#1001) while retrieving data from endpoint `/ajax/reqs.php': A network error occurred. Check that you are connected to the internet. sigh. I thought Facebook was supposed to be "fun."
- Thomas Hawk
Sounds like a cop out to me Thomas, if you really like FF and do not prefer FB, why waste your time learning FB? FF won't go away for a while, and there may just be an other shiny new service that pops up out of the wood work to take it's place in the future. There always is isn't there? A great big gaping hole of opportunity just opened up for some other service to fill.
- Jeff P. Henderson
As several others have pointed out, many people use FB & FF to do entirely different things. Many people do not want to mix their personal friends with their on line friends. Not sure how merging the two services would actually work. It would not work for me any more than if FF and Linkedin were to merge.
- Jeff P. Henderson
Facebook is closed and icky. Do not want.
- Lurking Grue
why invest significant time in FF going forward if it's going away.
- Thomas Hawk
I will tell you this, it is an absolute pain in the ass to have to ignore all these little app requests one by one by one. Why can't they just have a button that ignores them all?
- Thomas Hawk
I get immediate gratification out of FF, but personally I don't see any long term loss if I continue to participate utill the day it goes away.
- Jeff P. Henderson
The thing about Facebook is that "making users' lives easier" isn't necessarily a core value. There are lots of UI decisions that are so apparently hostile it makes me question Occam's Razor.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Thomas, as FF in definitely being integrated into FB in the long term I'd agree. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
What I mean by that is they are getting paid to deliver your eyeballs and clicks to various places so they may not always see it as being in their best interests to let you shape the flow however you see fit.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
FB: You have a pokemon request. Me: Block This Application FB: Something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. You may be able to try again.
- Thomas Hawk
My experience with FB is spending 6 minutes trying to NOT give it my gmail account. It just insisted on my webmail passwords or it wasn't going to continue. Not cool.
- Lurking Grue
FB: You have a pokeman adventure request (as opposed to just the regular old pokeman request I tried to block earlier). Me: click on the "Please Block My Friends' Pokemon Adventure Invitations :.( " FB: "Allowing Pokemon Adventure access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work. Allow or Cancel?" Me: I have no idea what i'm supposed to do to make the Pokemon people go away.
- Thomas Hawk
FB: "By proceeding, you are allowing Pokemon Adventure to access your information and you are agreeing to the Facebook Terms of Use in your use of Pokemon Adventure. By using Pokemon Adventure, you also agree to the Pokemon Adventure Terms of Service."
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas you just picture it so well, I ran away from fb and pokemons but as it seems it never ends!
- Jacque
from fftogo
Thomas, your experience has just convinced me to not use FB any more than I already do now, which is about once a month....
- Jeff P. Henderson
whew! Finally got all that crap cleaned out of facebook. That took me about an hour. What a waste.
- Thomas Hawk
Yeah, but next week there will be more of it Thomas, it keeps on coming and doesn't go away!
- Sally Church
Hoping this will lead to an improved/cleaner interface for Facebook...I prefer Friendfeed
- Rick Bucich
so, so sad. I like(d) Friendfeed much more than facebook
- Francisco Kemeny
home run for FF.. Facebook will be able to give developers a treasure trove of data one thing that Twitter is dominating on right now. Twitter has a huge developer community but isn't managing that. Here FB is poised to be huge
- John Furrier
So classic that Robert has the first interview about this...Where's Louis? :)
- Anthony Farrior
How do they plan to mix the teenagers with the geeks?
- Jordi Soler
Amani: I am excited! Facebook has 800 employees and 300 million users. This makes both companies much more important.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
here was a comment on SiliconANGLE blog .. very funny .. "Hey, since we've copied almost every innovation you've had, guess you might as well play on the company softball team!"
- John Furrier
Nice strategic move - Interesting to see how this will integrate and looks in 12 months
- Alex Vermeule (@alexve)
to be honnest I was predicting google offer, then facebook preceed google on this, they are doing well, now rarding FF this is great, the sucess is to know when to pass to something else, the future will make the abtle wave, facebook rude for all geek it is time to code.
- abdellah
You rascal Robert, bet you had wind about FriendFeed and FaceBook merger before today? Yes? Have not used either SM apps. much UNTIL Twitter locked my account. May have been a fortunate mishap as it turns out. Getting to know the beauties of both apps. =)
- SashaKane
do you have a small amount of FriendFeed shares Robert?
- Torsten Eckert
NOOOOOOO. Damnit! I am praying that Facebook doesn't wall up Friendfeed. I was starting to build a site around Friendfeed :(
- beersage
beersage: as Facebook is trying to break their users into a more public world, I doubt that you really have anything to worry about there.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Starting to listen to this now. Hoping you are right, Rob.
- beersage
I hope so to. But regardless, I think that it was in reality necessary for FriendFeed to sell to really put the technology in front of a sufficient number of eyeballs. Facebook is probably the best acquirer that FriendFeed could have. (I would have not felt the same had FF been acquired by Google)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
The thing with Friendfeed though is how I can share things outside of a 'wall.' I prominently feature the FF widget on my site. I'm just concerned of losing that capability as I was tinkering with delivering a new site w/ content primarily running through my Friendfeed account. I am to this day unable to do much outside of the wall. I am unable to subscribe to Fan Page updates in Google reader for instance. That is what concerns me about FB acquiring FF given my goals.
- beersage
Robert sounded quite breathless in that interview. Thanks Robert.
- Roberto Bonini
Wow! I'm in shock. I can't wait to hear this interview.
- Micah Wittman
from iPhone
This deal was about getting Paul and the team and nothing else
- Stephen Pickering
@stephan, are you serious? FB is buying a concept, a technoloie, a structure, a content and a user list
- abdellah
now how could a team that left google resist under a unique perception system, where the leader vision is upon any thing
- abdellah
Unconvincing Paul Buchheit, the team is more exited of being part of bigger story - logical for them to move on
- patrickdh
They want a way to turn their white pages into a yellow pages and the only guy on Earth who knows how to do it, is Paul
- Stephen Pickering
It was only about the technology and the people. Most people are on also FB anyway.
- James Myatt
My guess is that Paul got a tooooooooon of options and will soon be the No.2 guy at Facebook
- Stephen Pickering
Glossing over of that "short term" question by the FF boys. It just seems more about the individuals at FF than it does the users of FF. "Their (Facebook) long term goals" Nice interview, Robert!
- Melanie Reed
Well, it looks as if pass-through of FriendFeed Likes, Comments, etc. to Twitter is down. Will it be for good? Did Twitter do this in response to the acquisition? Or is it just a regular (though curiously timed) hiccup?
- Alex Schleber
this is why your own personal website is always more important than friendfeed, Twitter and all the rest. that's never going anywhere
- Terry O'Fee
from BuddyFeed
Shouldn't California INCREASE their assessment so they can collect more taxes, to climb out of their financial problems? Someone has to turn it around.
- Keith Rowland
LOL I wouldn't mind too much loosing $350,000 at least then I would have had it to loose :)
- TheBigBentley
Keith, California should stop spending money they don't have - that will turn it around
- Jero
Good as long as you weren't planning on moving or forced to move.
- Phillip Stewart
As long as you're not planning on moving out, I don't see why this would be bad news?
- Tom Ribbens
Now thats what I would call a Market Correction. Things are only worth what you can sell them for.
- Christian Burns
I'm getting in to real estate. Going to invest 10k in an area that is not yet developed, wait 50 years and I'll be selling condos for 100 times that.
- Myles Cloutier
Wow... I prefere indianapolis! hahaha Houses there are almost free.
- Alberto Lung
If my house dropped 350k, it would be worth -150k!
- Ed Naggiar
from iPhone
same here Ed, you know us regular guys that bought houses we can afford, we're not the problem.
- Charlieray
Wow...different tax guidelines where I'm from in Illinois. My value went down by 35% and my taxes actually went up 15%.
- Steve Council
I live in TN. My house is worth $103,000 and it's four bedroom with a little land. lol $350,000 will get you a mansion with 30 acres here
- cbmeeks
Guys, $350k is nothing in CA. Leo's house is probably worth over a mil easy. I knew my TWiT donations made a difference. lol
- cbmeeks
I'd love to even own a house at half that value...
- dann
Cbmeeks, in West Tennessee, half of that will get you a mansion!!
- Benjamin Deming
That's really good news unless you planning to sell soon. I'll buy it. how much do you want for it?
- James Glenn
Good thing I'm a renter. I could have lost $350,000! ;)
- Sarah Lane
Take your accountant and property advisor off your christmas card list
- Matt Jarvis
Maybe things work differently there, but here tax assessed value is always lower than actual appraised value, by as much as 20%. Here's hoping it's the same for you.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
A few months ago a mortgage on a building I have was called by the bank because the value had dropped significantly below the balance due. That was a scary few days. Made me empathize a little with folks in the same boat with less avenues of recourse.
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
from iPod
Bummer if the previous value of the house was $350k
- Jason Tokarz
We have a "don't laugh, it's paid for" house - didn't skyrocket, didn't drop. I'd never sell, though, so it's irrelevant
- heretic_twit
It's the house value that went down...not the home value. The value of the housing market isn't of much consequence until you trade down or sell up entirely. The assessors value will go up again soon enough. In the mean time enjoy the extra cash. It's still the same home with the same family in it.
- Chris Nixon
If my house dropped $350K, it would be worth -$250K
- Michael
My house increased in price by 350million, don't know what all the fuss is about.
- Mark
Your primary residence isn't an investment. Without it, you'd be paying rent. Now, you're paying rent (in the form of a mortgage) at a higher rate but you wind up with some of that "rent" stored up at the end.
- Trent Hamm
Don't complain ... in 3 years it will increase by $1,000,000 and they will access taxes at ful value instead of 25%
- Stephan Romeo
Join the club bro. We are in the same spot. Not $350k thank god.
- Nathan Gibbs
well if just dropped to $350K.Reality is in the coming years it will drop further.This is unfortunate, but we are in the beginning of the restructuring of the U.S. and European economies.Be prepared to see housing values to go down further as we go through this shift
- Baba
be a good liberal and send them the $5000 anyway... think of all the people on welfare that depend on you Leo.... dont disappoint them...
- John Hillestad
That's only relevant if you bought it at a price between the higher appraisal amount and the currently lowered value or (big OR) if you refinanced or took out a second mortgage and the total mortgaged value is at anything above the currently lower value. But if you bought the home at a price lower than the new value and haven't refinanced then you're fine, you never really had the value...
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- Lon Cohen
We're not upside down yet, but nearly all our equity is gone. This isn't a mansion, or even a McMansion folks. Just a modest 3BR, 2 1/2 Bath, 2000 sq foot home in California. It's the "Northern California" part that makes it so expensive.
- Leo Laporte
I think a lot of people miss the point. While I'm sure Leo will be fine, how many people have lost all the equity in their home? How many of them had worked hard to earn that equity over 20-30 years? And how many of them were planning on that equity as a large portion of their investment income when they retire? That's the point.
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
If it's anything like here in FL they are taking into account the foreclosures in your area when assessing your property values. It stinks!
- Dayngr
Time to buy if you're in the market for getting out of renting and into mortgaging.
- Emmanuel Losier
That assumes your home will NEVER go back up in value which is not the case. Statistically you should be back up in 5 - 7 years. By the time your mortgage is paid off you should be up quite a bit. The fact is that if you need a place to live it doesn't really matter what it is currently worth. One of the reasons the country is in the shape it is in is because people treated their homes...
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- Chris Johnston
Another reason the country is in the shape it's in is because mortgage companies and banks were too greedy and leveraged their money 60-70 times over while forcing people into mortgages they couldn't afford. When I was buying my house in California there were a table full of people (realtors, brokers, etc) trying to get me to buy a house that was 3x what I was comfortable buying. I had...
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- Robert Lindsley
from iPhone
Hey, Leo, I thought you wanted to pay MORE in taxes for socialist agenda items since your friend achieved the White House,
- Mike