These guys are pissing me off..give me a break talking about how much better the apps are - Android just needs a little more time until the apps are mature - iPhone didn't have apps at first. The 1st version of the Facebook app wasn't perfect, there have been enhancements, upgrades etc
- Kenny
Android is where the market is heading, more so outside the US, where iphone is a bit player.
- mark w webster
mark: when I travel overseas I see iPhone usage very heavy.
- Robert Scoble
I am very happy with my Droid. The apps are updating for the new Android 2.0. A new update to Twidroid will be out next week according to a tweet from the developer today.
- Mike Shulman
True Robert, but I think Android will only improve as time goes on, just like Apple and the iPhone did.
- Kenny
I can see the back of Robert Scoble's head right now. This is too much real time web. ;)
- Eric @ CS Techcast
The bar should not be set solely on platform and hardware -- the devs are a huge part of a phone's success. If Android developers step up, and the iPhone stays proprietary to AT&T, that opens up a whole new ball game.
- Mona Nomura
HTML5 may make the apps more irrelevant.
- Rob La Gesse
How is it that guys like this who love Tech, are considered the Top of Social Media all have the worst Web Cams, Audio Levels at all ranges and are crying about cutting each off like they are in some Playground, this is why nobody pays attention to them, blah!
- Lorenzo
the Droid is just one phone. think about the difference between G1 and Droid. the next leap will be just as significant.
- scott anderson
Not if your data plan cannot support it. AT&T's 3G is garbage and I don't have the patience to wait for sites to load. Hence, apps FTW.
- Mona Nomura
HTML5 is key - the new platform for mobile web on all phones
- Kevin Marks
I love all the commentary regarding Apple control of the app store. You should have tried building apps for Verizon. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get an application cleared to be put into their deck. You couldn't even write apps for Verizon if you didn't have a small war chest.
- Jerry Schuman
Even RIM hardcore fans are ready to jump to Android.
- Karoli
I suspect the most disruptive thing to happen to the handset industry will be a regulatory end to carrier lock in in the next 3-5 years.
- Ken Sheppardson
@Lorenzo I am a big fan of these guys. By the way, who was that guy in the East Coast Vegas video?
- PC Easy
Am I really listening to grown men talk about Cell Phones? This country is doomed
- Lorenzo
iphone market share over here tops less than 5%, though app availability is high on buyers minds, Android is making good strides in that area, it's a two horse race IMO.
- mark w webster
RIM will be implementing WebKit browser in 2010
- Marc Delurgio
RIM hasn't progressed - at all, and their attempts have been nothing but FAIL. BB Storm? Really??
- Mona Nomura
Scoble - I have ridden with you while you use a cell phone for navigation - it is VERY scary!
- Rob La Gesse
Palm Pre was introduced only recently here, a real Turkey, just in time for Xmas.
- mark w webster
Lorenzo - I've seen you on Twitter and I know you use vulgarity.
- PC Easy
Apple doesn't do cloud services. A single iPhone app developer will have a hard time competing with Google on that front.
- scott anderson
Android will take over handsets because Windows Mobile is pitiful and iPhone OS is not available to 3rd-party devices.
- Vezquex: God of FF
PCEasy, are you not the person on twitter that continues to make horrible comments about Leo's face?
- Lorenzo
Rob: that's because iPhone doesn't do turn-by-turn so you have to look at the screen.
- Robert Scoble
WM is dead, or at least, its in dire need of defibrilation
- mark w webster
I still think the Droid reminds me of the feel of a 80's Transformer. I think the HTC Hero is a much more polished phone and will get better with Android 2.0.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Google Nav does work pretty well, especially since its free, but it does need some improvements - but it's good enough that I canceled my Verizon Navigator
- Kenny
apps will die - web apps will prevail
- Marc Delurgio
The Pre does turn by turn, for free and it works great. I still think the Google map app is pretty good.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Robert Scoble, why is it you top tech geeks cant get your audibles to the same level, let alone have a decent webcam? Also, do you feel that 1938Media is slightly over-rated? Thank you
- Lorenzo
HTML5 is not Reality. Not until we get rid of IE6
- Luke Kilpatrick
Lorenzo: that's Steve Gillmor who has control of audio levels.
- Robert Scoble
Luke: IE6 isn't a problem on smartphones :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
IE6 is dead. anyone who develops for it is a fool.
- Karoli
Who is 1938media? I heard he's telling lies but I blocked him so I don't know what he's up to.
- Robert Scoble
Lorenzo: I don't care. He lies. That's all I need to know.
- Robert Scoble
IE only when my machine needs to dial home to Microsoft for something
- Ken Sheppardson
I tried Chrome in Ubuntu and couldn't access any https:// pages.
- Vezquex: God of FF
Yes but as a developer that builds web apps I still have to target IE6 which sucks majorly but its still the standard at enterprise.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Android is licensed with Apache 2.0, a very business-friendly open source license
- scott anderson
Every iPhone developer enters a royalty agreement with Apple.
- Rob La Gesse
"Large market share" isn't the same thing as "network effect"
- Ken Sheppardson
IE6 is the main reason I like doing Mobile dev better than just core web dev as you only need to target 1 main rendering engine - Webkit. Although there are some differences between iPhone, Andriod and Palm Pre. iPhone has the best implementation.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Still waiting on my Ribbit Voice invite code.
- Jerry Schuman
On the net - Apple could fade like AOL, The Apple Tablet will make Iphone, android Apps quite secondary. Phone will have a much smaller earprint.
- Arnie Klaus
imagine if our phones ran on closed networks
- scott anderson
It's really just a question of whether any node can listen and talk over the network.
- Cliff Gerrish
How do we define variable communities?
- Arnie Klaus
Scott: they would be like IM was for years.
- Robert Scoble
Scott: They do. Call Sprint and ask them if you can use your iPhone on the "open" phone network. Or the device you slapped together from parts you got at Fry's
- Ken Sheppardson
good comment Robert (there's your break)
- scott anderson
Will the textbook publishers allow that to happen without lowering profits? I hope they realize that new form interactive ebooks can create more market opportunities.
- ashish
another great show Steve. Your production keeps getting better.
- Paul E. Ester
what? It's OK now? Or is it true that "Paul Bucheit wrote that they no longer had access to Twitter's firehose, so it sounds like it may have had something to do with Facebook's acquiring them, but don't quote me on that. - Jorge Escobar"
- Steve Gillmor
I think both Louis and Jorge are saying the same thing
- Jesse Stay
Right, I'd like to hear Paul or Bret confirm that.
- Steve Gillmor
Well, on a maybe related note, the Innovation Management Group (http://friendfeed.com/innovat...) has not updated for 24 hours now. That Group includes direct Twitter accounts, Twitter searches, Delicious RSS for a specific tag and SlideShares with a specific tag. No update at all for 24+ hours. Most odd and frustrating.
- Hutch Carpenter
also not finding older posts in search that used to be there. did this change too?
- Brooks Bayne
Twitter shut off the firehose, but made available a replacement API called birddog. We're about ready to switch that on (which will restore realtime Twitter updates), but are waiting on some final approvals from legal. I'm hoping it will all be resolved this week.
- Paul Buchheit
I liked this part: ---Users specify high-level desires: *“99%ile latency for accessing this data should be <50ms” *“Store this data on at least 2 disks in EU, 2 in U.S. & 1 in Asia”
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
since we all know FriendFeed is a parasite of Twitter, it would appear that if MG is right that Twitter is a ghost town. The innovation halting, however, is a ticking time bomb for Facebook.
FriendFeed would be fine without Twitter in my opinion... I block most tweets anyway. Why do you have the impression that it is a parasite of Twitter? I am not happy about the lack of support and innovation here now though. But I'm gonna ride this boat till it grounds because it's still the best ship to be on, IMO.
- Her Lindsay-ness
MG is missing the conversations in FF, which were not a parasite of Twitter. In fact, the FF faithful deliberately avoid commenting on Twitter-originated content, which I think is a significant driver of FF's slow downward spiral.
- Christian Anderson
Part of the fun is knowing that the Twitter-only readers don't read my responses, don't get the value of a threaded conversation and are yet again just blowing their bugle into their own beadspread.
- Aron Michalski
from BuddyFeed
The twitter V Friendfeed rivalry is fascinating to watch from the outside but I'll say that my engagement is far higher on twitter and the boycott of tweets does the FF no favors. Could just as easily be symbiotic but whatever ;)
- WarLord
To be clear, are these /conversations/ -truly- threaded or are we reduced to lumping another row on the bonfire of banality?
- Jay Cuthrell
Well, point taken but having to go look for replies on another page or a column of a client seems counterproductive. As it stands it doesn't matter with me as I often will post and never have any response. I guess I'm not interesting or inflammatory enough.
- Aron Michalski
from BuddyFeed
I like sharing with FF as a mechanism to push back into Twitter. I periodically stop importing Twitter into FF. I've tried FF as a dumping ground and didn't like it longer term. Facebook seems more about presenting applications with annoying graphics in front of me. Reminds me why I stopped watching TV. Facebook will likely be next.
- Jay Cuthrell
the point is, ff is no deader than twitter. neither is. where's stream splicing?
- Steve Gillmor
Steve it hurts my feelings that not only don't you tweet on twitter, but you have given up on mp3 files too! And the irony is that the TriCaster is a vestige of the Amiga...
- Michael Pinto
Many people hide Twitter in FriendFeed, and watch Twitter somewhere else.
- Louis Gray
Interesting...Scoble pretty much (unless I just misunderstood) said the reverse.He thinks FF is the ghost town and Twitter is the place to be. I didn't realize either had problems. Both seem just as active to me, but I'm just a user too.
- George Gray
posting Dare's FB comment here: Dare Obasanjo That's a bogus statement and you know it. Friendfeed was a Twitter app that lots of people used. People have moved on to other apps since the FB purchase (Brizzly?). This isn't a reflection on Twitter just a sign that people no longer treat Friendfeed as a primary destination for conversations around microcontent
- Steve Gillmor
Interesting that Dare's comment is on Facebook, not Brizzly? Once FB solves the orphan comment problem, many will move there. For now, I see little difference in FF since the acquisition except for frozen development, as MG points out. Brizzly or Seesmic or Threadsy do not provide a replacement for FF, at least for me, at least not yet. What has changed is the time FB has to bridge the...
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- Steve Gillmor
Michael I tweet on twitter thru here, just like others use Tweetie, etc. I haven't given up on mp3 but rather moved to mp4. YouTube is currently not providing an RSS feed for my stream, and the approval process for downloads seems stuck for the last few episodes. I used my Amiga and Toaster until they stopped supporting them, and the Tricaster goes well beyond the Toaster.
- Steve Gillmor
i had to remove twitter from friendfeed to prevent doubleposting on facebook. (as if there were no problems in our world)
- kosmar
kosmar don't understand your problem. I post here, it goes to Twitter, which pipes it to Facebook. However, Facebook comments to my posts are orphaned on Facebook.
- Steve Gillmor
Steve, I can't believe how many comments missed the semantics of the post - that the pointy end of the stick was jabbing at Twitter. It may be a style thing I'm already used to, I don't know. :)
- Micah Wittman
steve, well i want all ff lifestream aggregation be on facebook - but the ff app on facebook only posts "posts" on the wall, which look ugly and therefore are less conversational it seems. i would prefer to have my fb-status changed by the items the ff app pushes (like twitter app does) - best twitter to facebook seems tweetpo.st (but is handicapped by twitter follower ratio issues at...
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- kosmar
… orphaned comments are one big problem. if all would be wave (or maybe pshb), that could be fixed, i guess. - but then, if someone talks about you on the phone, that will forever be orphaned anyway (i do hope so)
- kosmar
it just seems to me having recently tried ff in more frequency that with facebook and twitter it is far easier to request contact and it feels more direct - unless i am missing a way to have this dynamic in ff
- Alexander Kitingan
Network effects suggest its wise to work with many networks, not against them. Tis a bit arbitrary and capricious for a user to 'prefer' one nascent platform over another.
- Just some guy
See, that's where I disagree. 140-character limitation? Needs to go. Lack of 'threading'? Needs to go. I don't want to Plurk it; I want to address its shortcomings.
- Akiva Moskovitz
heh, yup. Twitter = shouting into the void and hoping someone notices
- Joe Silence is not dead
I dunno, DS. I've increased my activity over there recently and I'm having discussions. Sure, it's no FriendFeed but there's more to it than what I thought.
- Akiva Moskovitz
IME, Twitter is not easy to have conversations on. for me it's like being in a room full of half-deaf people who are shouting at each other while strobes are flashing. i used to be far more active there and it hasn't really improved much. the lack of threading is what really screws it for me.
- Joe Silence is not dead
DS, that's what my idea addresses, though. Basically, it allows people to use it in a flat way like default Twitter or to 'explore' threads.
- Akiva Moskovitz
IMO, Twitter's excellence has always been its gut-wrenching simplicity. In a media environment of clips, soundbytes and such, 140 characters seems like it fits most folks' window of share/discover attention for any particular idea/item.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
from iPhone
Twitter works best with a 3rd party application that allows breaking people you follow into groups. That way you can have some conversation within groups. But even that limits any conversation to a single session, and it's hard to reference it afterwards. The threading capability is much more effective.
- John (a.k.a. dendroica)
Twitter's main competitor is yelling out of a window.
- Andy Bakun
from Android
are you concerned that it is not worth it because no one will use it? there are lots of us out here who are looking for the next round of social innovation beyond Twitter
- nan braun
What client are you using for Twitter Akiva? Your mate uses coTweet, same for you?
- Matthew DeVries
Can you group and save custom realtime searches? Pseudothread your conversations?
- Matthew DeVries
I'm not a hardcore user of it so I'm not sure.
- Rochelle
I really like CoTweet, too, but I don't like web interfaces. I use Tweetie for everything.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Figured it'd be a Mac Centric thing....every time I think I can start using you a life coach and role model you kick me in scrote with your Mac-ness.
- Matthew DeVries
Dude, how can I coach an 'I'm a PC' neanderthal such as yourself? I mean, c'mon, really, can't you see that I'm clearly wearing a turtleneck?
- Akiva Moskovitz
Hey, you want to cover the $4000 I need just to get used 5 year old Mac desktop running OS-Pound-rescued-tabby-with-mange, I'll be all over the damn thing
- Matthew DeVries
Miley leaving Twitter is one of the things making me considering returning to it.
- Matthew DeVries
I had a thought too. Ok, a half-thought. If someone can code up an server-side app that just concentrates on moving an active post (that is likes/comments happening) to the top of a feed page and let Disqus handle the comment threading. How would that be architecture/engineering? Like I said, unbaked half of a thought - just throwing it into the ether.
- Micah Wittman
identica / statusnet recently added comment threading
- Mike Chelen
Understood, Akiva. Sometimes the big plans we all hoped for don't come to pass. It's no coincidence I'm still in Vegas writing that. It sure would have been nice to have some other hopes come true this week!
- Louis Gray
True enough. I just hope that Robert's also right about these other awesome features that Twitter plans on introducing. I just can't get past the 140-character limitation as always crippling the long-term experience there.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I think Robert's right, as usual. Friendfeed is still insanely useful for me during our shows (see the TWiT-Conversations room) and I hope I can continue to use that functionality here or somewhere, but I find myself no longer using it all the time. Twitter is back, alas.
- Leo Laporte
Akiva: there are lots of ways around the 140-character limitation. I actually like it because it enables mobile phone usage. FriendFeed is very hard to use on my iPhone compared to, say, Tweetie.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, what do you think about a 140-character truncation hiding a longer post?
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva: it doesn't bother me. There are already post shortening services like that that work with Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
If you could just auto-add every twitterer you follow as a "ghost friend", Friendfeed becomes a superset of twitter...
- Kevan Emmott
Robert, true, but those links take you outside of Twitter where there is no guarantee of the target site being mobile-friendly or even up and available. And this doesn't even get into the fact that it's impossible to have discussions there.
- Akiva Moskovitz
And by there I mean Twitter and not a particular target site.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Btw, Arrington was right. Scoble was wrong.
- Dawn
This saddens me too. I keep trying to like Twitter, but it just doesn't have the engagement Friendfeed has/had. Will stay cautiously optimistic about new features.
- Martha
Kevan, you've always have been able to do that and in May or June, it was made easier to add people you follow on Twitter, Facebook or Gmail.
- Anika
Wish things were different, but that's a solid write-up, Robert. +1 Akiva for all your points above.
- Micah Wittman
Dawn, you may have correctly prognosticated the impending demise of FriendFeed but you did so using all the wrong reasons.
- Akiva Moskovitz
why is 140 limit of twitter been so hated? i think it is the reason for twitter's popularity
- ffcode
No, I mean auto-create *ghost users* for people who don't have Friendfeed accounts who you follow in Twitter. You can easily add the ones that have accounts - I've already done that - and you can create ghost users, but that's a bit of a pain.
- Kevan Emmott
ffcode, just because something's popular doesn't make it good. It's tough to have a real conversation about anything on Twitter because of that limit. Try having a conversation with more than one or two people at once. Each @reply eats up some of that precious space.
- Akiva Moskovitz
friendfeed is a great place for discussions better than forums/blogs/wave
- ffcode
Akiva: agree with you on that, but as a nibble logger it is still a great place
- ffcode
'Nibble logger'. Well, that's something I'm going to be repeating constantly for the next few days.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I can speak that from personal experience, during an acquisition it is the most important thing to keep the team acquired in place. Some acquisitions are made purely for the product or technology. Others might be arguably for the customer base. However, successful acquisitions always focus on 1) successfully keeping the core leadership and customer-touching teams in place, 2) augmenting...
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- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
Akiva, the essential reason FF is failing is because it's always been too much like Twitter, even when it was "better" than Twitter. FF needed to differentiate themselves in a remarkable, unique way, and they failed to do that. Twitter had already won the public's imagination in this space, so the window of opportunity for FF as a real competitor was closed a long time ago. That you and Scoble and others are just now waking up to the symptoms doesn't mean I'm wrong about the cause.
- Dawn
I don't think any of us are just now waking up. Most of us came to terms with it in the wake of the Facebook buy-out. And I still believe it is that that spelled FriendFeed's doom and not the change to the UI.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Dawn: I have talked with hundreds of people about Twitter and FriendFeed and NONE came to that conclusion but it doesn't matter.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Sadly, I have to agree with everything Robert's said (which is slightly painful). I love this place, but Friendfeed's going nowhere. That is, unless something BIG happens and happens quickly.
- Jim Connolly
I just have to say that I incorporated FF into my Introduction to Sociology courses, with over 120 students, and it has been quite useful, dare I say extraordinary. It is an extremely useful "aggregator" of sorts, and a fantastic organizational tool for me as instructor. I can do some pretty cool, nearly real time integration of information with my students with my iPhone, Google Reader, Twitter, my blog, etc...and FriendFeed.
- Chad Gesser
It seems to me that the integration of information into FriendFeed has been incredibly overlooked and undervalued. It remains to be seen what kind of impact Wave will have in pulling people back to their laptop/desktops, but there is an interesting trend of the use of mobile devices for learning, and FF has made that possible in ways for me this semester that I have never thought. Granted my iPhone is a very important part of the capabilities.
- Chad Gesser
Am happy for you guys mine is like hell
- Pam Gwenzi
Ken Stewart: Another reason to do acquisitions is to just kill a competitor. Since apparently FB didn't lock in the FF engineers you have to wonder about their motivations. It will be ironic if the FF acquisition just strengthens Twitter, FB's biggest competitor, which is mostly what it seems to be doing. If I was on the FF team and FB didn't lock me in, I would take whatever they got out of the deal, leave and start a new FF, under a new name, assuming there isn't a no compete.
- Ed Millard
I sure would like to read the contract for the FF/FB deal. It seems.... odd.
- Ed Millard
Chad: FriendFeed might turn into the equivalent of Notepad. Useful for some things but no one ever talks about how cool Notepad is. It hasn't gotten many new features in decades, but it still is used every day by probably thousands of people, maybe even millions. If FriendFeed turns into that I'll be happy, and FriendFeed will indeed see a second life as a lightweight conversation tool. Google Wave sure shows what happens when you get a ton of features. Yuch.
- Robert Scoble
I would be *very* happy if FriendFeed lasts as long as notepad. The main reason I started posting stuff on FriendFeed was to make an on-line notebook where I can search for previously found items. Along the way I surprisingly found that some people actually like looking at what I post. I miss the more active FriendFeed days, but I would be ok if the activity moves to Facebook etc...,...
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- Mitchell Tsai
+1 Chad: "integration of information into FriendFeed has been incredibly overlooked and undervalued". I continue to get high value for that reason.
- Hutch Carpenter
I do think FF will get its "second life", probably soon. I still think it's the best social media aggregator by far. It's what I use to bring all my social media stuff together. I even use it as my preferred Twitter client when I'm not on the Twitter website. Still, I don't think Facebook realize what they've got here other than just another competitor to squash, Yahoo/Google-style...
- Dennis Jernberg
Robert, then nobody in Silicon Valley understands mainstream dynamics. What a surprise. :)
- Dawn
*raises hand* doesn't this beg the question why the hell's he been on FF all day? I can recall a time when Twitter was vile & corrupt according to Scoble, so he must've misread those chicken entrails as he's back cheaping cheaping away like Tweeting was life giving air
- sofarsoShawn
Sofar: Twitter is still corrupt. But it is where the things and people I want to read are.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Nice post, btw. I think the only reason why I use FF now is when Twitter may be down (which, seems, doesn't happen very often...but appears to be down now for me). For now, I'll glance at FF but rarely use it as a primary way to track threads of conversation.
- Chris Judson
I'm using Friendfeed more now than I ever have. I think in part because of the community problems at Flick due to the censorship. I've largely abandoned Flickr for community and we've (at least temporarily) moved a group of people over here to Friendfeed in DMU. Friendfeed has been censorship free and largely unmoderated in contrast to other communities on the web. Rather than tell you...
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- Thomas Hawk
Robert: I confess, I too have found myself moving away from FF and spending more time on Twitter. I agree with some of your points but for not so geeky reasons. If you're building brand you want to be where the people are, well if you're doing anything really. In order to have success we have to be where everyone is, unless the place you are is so cool and has such a huge upside you...
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- Owen Greaves
Friendfeed is a social aggregation service for me more than anything else. I use it solely for posting other message to Twitter. The problem is that while it is great for that, its main focus is being the client you use to interact with social media, not just a background wiring. Until they start progressing with things like search capabilities, I don't believe it will really turn into the 'client' you use to work with social media.
- Tyler (Chacha)
I agree with Tyler. Friendfeed has some unbeatable (at the moment) social aggregation features. I also find some of the conversations tend to be more in depth and less fleeting than Twitter. However, there is a lot of competition out there that continues to drive innovation and Facebook will need to continue to invest in Friendfeed or it will lose its share of the social market.
- Chris Rogers
from BuddyFeed
I have no expectation that Facebook will make any further investment in FriendFeed. Bret and Paul should come clean about this. Not doing so is just being evil and a sign that they have sold out the FriendFeed community. They have probably drank too much of the Facebook Kool-Aid though to venture back from the dark side.
- scott anderson
Excellent read, timely as that other commenter said, especially since my last 12 logins (~2 months) included something about its changing appearance to the users. A vision I wasn't sharing but is beginning to be understood well. A educational documentary on the situation would be perfectly suited as its themes and definitions are all in the 'net entity's peripheral processing and...
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- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Doh! 911 characters hehe, that 'comment', I suppose, would've not happened if FF wasn't. Not with FB, nor Twitter. Nothing presents us with this like this. That's all. Maybe a small-timer commercially, but for the current user it's not the point.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
friendfeed's embedable realtime feed rooms are amazing - they're so easy to drop into blog pages and add content to instantly via a bookmarklet. the friendfeed tech is just so powerful and simple that i'd hate to lose it, especially since i don't think anyone is near it in functionality. maybe facebook embedded content will get more powerful, but until then... i really hope it sticks around
- Kevin
Kevin: FriendFeed isn't going anywhere. I don't know why people think I'm saying that the technology will disappear. I doubt it will for years and only after Facebook matches its feature set and provides an upgrade path. But what I am saying is we won't see many more features here.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: FriendFeed has for all intensive reasons all but disappeared really, 30% drop in usage, virtually no communication from the new owner what they may or may not do with the technology, or when they will integrate the real-time / search I should say.
- Owen Greaves
Robert, it's occurred to me on a number of occasions to put together a timeline showing when you were pushing Twitter at the expense of FriendFeed, and when you were pushing FriendFeed at the expense of Twitter, and how often it has flip-flopped completely. But it's not worth the effort to wade through 18 months of noise. You generate interesting conversations sometimes, but I've...
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- LogEx
I 'm not cool enough to receive Twitter List yet :-(
- Vera Hannaford
Vera: most of the 5,000 people (approx, I'm guessing based on how many users I've seen so far) who got lists were picked randomly (I started keeping a list of all of them).
- Robert Scoble
Thank you to my 50,002 followers. Look through my followers here and compare to my Twitter followers and what do you notice? I see fewer spammers. Fewer bots. Fewer social media experts. Thanks for joining me on FriendFeed! It has been an awesome two years!
You're welcome ;-) A question though, where do you think we geeks will congregate next? I'm thinking that since Facebook now owns the Friendfeed devs, FF will eventually starve to death... hopefully not.
- Roberto Teixeira
But I notice a lot of users interact on FF via Twitter not directly on FF. Also FF faces tough competition from the likes of Posterous and Tumblr which offer more functionality with similar ease of use as FF.
- Roger
Roberto: Not so long ago this very FF post from scobleizer would get something about 300+ likes and 150+ comments. Sadly, FF users are surely looking elsewhere.
- Arvind
FF is ok, but its not the be all and end all Robert.
- Micky
I too think that friendfeed is still a winner... people that left just filtered themselves out of my conversations. They are no longer discoverable here to me. Their loss (imho)
- Chris Heath
Your welcome :). Friendfeed really really is awesome
- alfred westerveld
Yes Robert and Friendfeed is massively technically superior - Makes it even sadder that the platform here's being ignored by the new owners.
- Jim Connolly
Still the best place for discovery to me despite less interaction.
- Eric Logan
Robert - I love the community and friends here on FriendFeed. I am so happy I was on FF in early 2008 and got to experience it's wild and wooly growth path. Chatting with you and all these cool geeks is really fun. I've learned TONS from you guys and I truly appreciate the friendship too! :)
- Susan Beebe
I agree, way less marketing gurus and spammers =)
- Brodie Beta
Wewt! We are awesome, especially me </ego>
- Danny Minick
In my experience, I've been using ff more rather than less since the fb aquisition. I don't see why I would migrate to another community ATM. To me, Friendfeed is king. :) King of social media, that is.
- Bicentennial (Franc)
Me, I'm sticking with FF for the foreseeable future. I'm even going to do my part to promote it, at least to my (right now) 1K+ Twitter followers.
- Dennis Jernberg
Friend Feed is the Future Robert and you just may be our Faithfull leader! :)
- PeaceMakersInc
Thank you, Robert. I have learned quite a bit from you-and you have created/moderated some tremendous discussions/issues. Best wishes to you and your family.
- Harold Cabezas
LOL. I agree. I have 413 followers on Twitter. When I ask a question, I get no responses. Same here. Does nobody like me?
- Zachary TG
zachary check their subscriptions against their subscribers and you might have an answer there
- ffcode
yup! there is a decline...don't know what friendfeeders are upto...foursquare might not be the complete answer
- ffcode
I'm still here. I tried doing the Google Reader thing. While it's a great reader, I think it SUCKS as a social platform. I still use it, but I don't expect as much out of it as I used to. FriendFeed and posterous are what I like best for what I do. Facebook is getting a little chaotic for me. I've made lists, but I think I need to start pruning... LONG LIVE FRIENDFEED!
- Kimber Scott
U do like normal folks like us, who does have a life, like having hobbies such as movies, taking pictures, making jokes and listening 2 old radio jokes on the Internet lol...and wondering why spell check doesn't work somedays
- polou/indigo_bow
Has it really been 2 years? OMG that was fast.
- Elliott Ng
ROFL! No bots; just wait! The bots are coming, they always come.
- Brandon Smietana
In twenty years I would be surprised if the bots were not more human than the humans. "Statistical Natural Language Processing: When Humans Fail the Turing Test", coming to a research journal near you!
- Brandon Smietana
"The Buddhist view is that to die a good death, one must have led a good life. The knowledge that death represents the return of the individual life to the great universal life prior to another phenomenal manifestation is a source of splendid strength, rich with compassion and wisdom.
And we heard someone drinking coffee or something as well
- Pierre TAMISIER
Love these British accents and guys who sound like they're talking in tunnels
- Francine Hardaway
Just what I need. An explosion of data coming into the stream
- Francine Hardaway
Sorry, Robert. I'm typing. Then again, I'm not on the call... didn't realize it was disruptive ;-)
- Ken Sheppardson
I want tweetdeck or seesmic to be a full "real-time" web browser : with all real-time information in there : Twitter, Facebook... etc, but also Gmail, my RSS feeds,... etc
- Julien
Ken, that doesn't mean we can't hear you.
- Cliff Gerrish
Francine: I haven't seen any of that stuff on my stream yet. Probably has a big impact on search.
- Robert Scoble
Julien => it sounds like google wave what you want
- Pierre TAMISIER
Cliff: So you can hear the Blue Angels overhead too then?
- Ken Sheppardson
Keep looking, I have 10.01 via iTunes.
- Ken Morley
I know but the live format isnt always convenient from a timing perspective. some of us work! lol
- Jamie
Francine: I use them less and less, usually only for conferences. And even then I hate them.
- Robert Scoble
Oh, and people now spam by putting hashtags on irrelevant tweets
- Francine Hardaway
I need a visual map on how these things work or I can't adapt easily.
- Arnie Klaus
Bored dog just countersurfed in my kitchen, took the top off the crockpot and tried to take out the chicken! Thank goodness a fail!
- Francine Hardaway
Can someone please move the pointer out of the middle of the screen?
- Matthew Schrock
I like Brizzly's take on a wikified hashtag index right inside the client. It's got flaws but it's a good start. Would love to see an "official" hashtag wiki. Then again, Twitter doesn't feel like a wiki-friendly company. More on Brizzly at http://www.louisgray.com/live...
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Laura's not odd -- just far more like everyone else
- Ian McGee
Matthew, we just have to live with it for this show.
- Cliff Gerrish
Robert, I'm curious, are you aware of Cliqset? Some of the issues you've brought up are problems we're very interested and about to help solve.
- Darren
Yeah, I'm barely aware of Cliqset, I will be interested in trying that out. Probably this weekend.
- Robert Scoble
looks like we need a standard for these activities in a stream... oh wait there's one! What we need is an easy wait to be a "source" with existing clients (ie. making seesmic/tweedeck activity stream clients for many services, not just twitter/facebook)
- Sylvain Carle
Creating a simple and effective way for a social media publishing workflow (avoiding duplication) is very difficult at the moment.
- Mark Krynsky
Yea, the came in the client... but never further than that : Mosaic would have never been the web browser if it couldn't browse any website : http://blog.superfeedr.com/Real-ti...
- Julien
"Privacy" means "multi groups" while "public" means "one group", no ?
- Baptiste Cadiou
Just signing into Cliqset to see if it solves anything
- Francine Hardaway
Public means multiple scale free microcommunities.
- Cliff Gerrish
Public = you determine whether or not you're a member, Private = I do.
- Ken Sheppardson
Agree with Mark K - GR does a good job, feedly is a fine app which also provides suggestions.
- Dave Martin
I wrote about Twitter Times yesterday which Kevin just mentioned http://lifestreamblog.com/custom-... It's a great way to filter Twitter links by the people you follow on Twitter.
- Mark Krynsky
Well, it shouldn't have to be just your friends... I'd like to see some sort of wizard that let you build up groups, e.g. "Create a group of all the peole my friends follow, and show me trending topics among those people"
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, if Twitter rolls out lists soon and allows that data to be passed to the API Twitter Times could leverage that automatically.
- Mark Krynsky
I want to see the principal that Twitter Times has released to be created on a wider scale. Imagine that logic expanded across multiple social media services and the people you follow on each of them. Then mash the data across all of them. It become far more interesting and useful at that point.
- Mark Krynsky
Kevin, TwitterTimes looks like something actually useful.
- Francine Hardaway
"a scavenger feeding on the bloated corpses of at least two industries – media and advertising." I believe we have finally found an honest man!
- Tom Teuber
Read and recommend the book. While Bob offers no solution set he does manage to poke a stick into the cage and rouse the beast within
- Dave Martin
"Today, we are launching an all-new Yahoo! Search experience that makes search more personally relevant. We tested the changes in August with a percentage of users, and now the new page is available to everyone. The new page is designed to help you easily find and explore the things that matter most to you. The Yahoo! Search team is delighted to demonstrate our commitment to innovate in search technology and deliver an amazing user experience."
- Glen Campbell, B.A.
from Bookmarklet
Maybe Saturday for the baby, Robert? Here's hoping all goes well!
- Robert J Taylor
social media is dead, huh? wonder how he feels about the public option. :D
- Karoli
you should invite @caro on Gillmor Gang, Steve - she'd be great
- Kevin Marks
I wish Facebook allowed multiple accounts on threadly
- earl wallace
a design comment on this page: If the rackspace sponsor icon were above the video screen, the friendfeed discussion would line up with the video better.
- Karoli
For me, I'll be much more selective about who I share my location with. And I'm not likely to send a friend request for a location-based system to someone who I haven't met and consider a "real life" friend.
- Mike Doeff
guys, has scoble been saying we should share our location or something ?
- Mark
The evidence to me that we're on the path to everybody becoming Scoble one day will be the existence of a second person like Scoble :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
I share my location via BrightKite to my friends, and I use Navizon on my jailbroke iPhone to update a map on my Facebook page every 10 minutes. Kinda fun.
- Otto
Fire Eagle enables the sharing of location between services quite well.
- Otto
Have to agree with Scoble on the sharing capabilities of things like Foursquare ... not worried about the privacy issue at all
- Robert J Taylor
Fun, Otto, but you really don't want people knowing where you live. I have been stalked and it's scary
- Francine Hardaway
Francine: The only people that can see my location are people I know. I don't friend people on social sites if I don't know them. Facebook especially.
- Otto
I use Foursquare. But once again not in mmy home
- Francine Hardaway
I've had people (on FriendFeed and my blog) threaten me and my family. Since then I'm very careful revealing my location. I want control - I think utilizing Facebook privacy controls is the best way to do this.
- Jesse Stay
BrightKite offers a neat feature to make specific locations more private than others, so you can use it at home, but only your BrightKite Friends can see it (as opposed to the world)
- Otto
Francine, you tweet your location out a lot...I hate the whole idea of letting folks know where I am in real time unless there's some purpose in that notification.
- Karoli
But there's a fundamental difference between something like "track" and geolocation serivces. People don't know what "track" is, but they know what "everybody knows exactly where I am at all times" is.
- Ken Sheppardson
people make @foursquare venues for their homes that don't have addresses on, so they can check in, but only those in the know can find them
- Kevin Marks
yeah i have my place but not my apt number
- MG Siegler
Foursquare is crap. It doesn't work in any city within 400 miles of me. How the hell can a company sustain that sort of thing? They're totally ignoring like 80% of the bloody country.
- Otto
Definitely am an outlier. I like sharing my location so people who know me (or want to) can join me. Works well in my home town and in towns I'm visiting.
- Robert J Taylor
Main reason me and friends use BrightKite is to check in at places so that we can meet up without having to trade texts and calls and such. Much nicer than how it was before, having 20 people call to ask what bar we're hanging at
- Otto
Dave, if I were stuck on a country road in the dark and wanted someone to come get me, it would be extremely handy. (that's actually happened to me in the past)
- Karoli
yeah i've seen a few things like that coming soon also
- MG Siegler
Not to throw a legal question into the mix but at what point do we all become default public figures as a result of our election to disclose personal information? The privacy myth writ large.
- Dave Martin
By the way, was talking to someone who work kids trying to get guns off the streets, and they were explaining that one of the biggest problem they have these days is girlfriends with cellphones.
- Ken Sheppardson
with latitude you can choose what to share with who (share best location, city level, hide)...
- Antonella Stellacci
@Karoli good point but we would probably agree that you would want to somehow limit those who were made aware that you were alone on a dark road
- Dave Martin
Dave: If that actually occurred, it would be a horrific fail and the backlash would be tremendous. Can you image how many people would get ticked off about starbucks tracking them?
- Otto
Otto: I think that the same thing was said about Twitter - who cares what you're doing, besides some friends? Now we're talking about "where are you"...
- Robert J Taylor
Thanks Steve, Kevin, Seth, MG, Robert, good show
- Dave Martin
Just joking Otto, we agree, there are two issues, having access to the data and application of the data, collection/mining will be the science, application will prove to be the art
- Dave Martin
@Kevin: Yes, foursquare supports 21 cities. But I live in the 19th biggest city in the country, Downtown no less, and foursquare doesn't have it. Lame, lame, lame.
- Otto
yeah crowd-sourcing cities is coming soon. will open it to a lot more
- MG Siegler
I live in the 7th largest city -- no Foursquare love for San Antonio. Always pretends I'm in Austin
- Robert J Taylor
Crowdsourcing should have been in there in the first place. Gowalla has 50-60 locations in my city, and I was only the 3000th user or so. What the hell good is a location based app that doesn't work in almost all locations?
- Otto
I live in the 10th largest City, San Jose, and I have to tell @foursquare it's San Francisco...
- Kevin Marks
Kevin, I had the same problem in Boston. It doesn't work well with suburbia.
- Jesse Stay
San Francisco is a suburb of San Jose. If you go by population.
- Gabe Wachob
One thing is certain, GPS will redefine "local" to mean not DMA, block code or any other crude marketing/census definition but local as EXACTLY where you are in the moment.
- Dave Martin
or san jose is a suburb of SF if you go by white upper middle class cultural associations
- mary
Actually, San Jose is part of the so-called embedded San Francisco metro or DMA/SMSA definition.
- Dave Martin
100 FriendFeed Picture Groups & 3 Video Groups [Last updated 9/16/09 2:47 am EDT - most of the room counts are from 8/10/09] - http://friendfeed.com/rooms...
Also, here are ~50 people at FriendFeed with cool pics (remember to check their likes & comments) http://ff.im/Bd3Lhttp://ff.im/BqOL This page was motivated by Thomas Hawk's "What is your most viewed set on Flickr? Mine is my my 10 faves or more set" discussion (5/24/08) http://friendfeed.com/e... I finally made myself a "Picture Rooms" list. :-)
- Mitchell Tsai
Let me say this: A computer programmer/network engineer/security engineer not using both brain sides are not worth to be hired. He/she needs the right brain to picture everything, and the left brain to actually get down and dirty with details. And the details must then be verified against the big picture by the right brain. And if there are something that's "not right" (call it a hunch,...
more...
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
from fftogo
So, when I interviewed applicants for the IT position, I made sure that I tested the applicant's left *and* right brains.
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
from fftogo
@Paul Minor comment: the href in the first link "risk and opportunity" is missing the "h" in "http".
- Chris Lasher
how do you know if someone is using both hemispheres ( though we all have both)
- amitava lahiri
@amitava: actually, you can't. Not unless you actually consider Sebastian's suggestion for an MRI scan seriously :-) That said, I made sure that I hand my interviewee real-life and simulated problems that require both logic and visualization to solve. Composing a set of such problems is not easy, but it's worth it: I can now easily prune 'paper-certified candidates' from 'the real deals'.
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
from fftogo
I'm enjoying your blog posts. One benefit of no longer heading up a startup - a little more time on your hands?
- Laura Norvig
Amazing! He tried one like that at Match point in the fourth set of the 2005 Australian Open final against Safin - it didn't work, and he went on to lose the match in the fifth set...
- Michael Nielsen
I only saw it because I tuned in for 60 Minutes early. Not really a tennis fan, but I can certainly appreciate that shot.
- Tom Landini
awesome match. I've seen federer put a few of these winners in before, so awesome.
- Art