Well if you have nothing nice to say maybe you can offer solutions to them? - Candace Holly
That's very nice of you. I'd like to see the post. I also like Candace's idea. ps. Shouldn't you be sleeping? Big day tomorrow! - Daynah
my momma always told me if you can't find anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. but i don't always pay attention to that myself. - Justin Long
The acid test for me: How quickly can I determine 1) who they are and 2) what they do? - Robert Linthicum
I think Robert pretty much says it in terms of what a web site should accomplish with in the first 30 seconds of avisitor landing on the site. Otherwise it becomes fustrating. - Roberto Bonini
4-way lefty high five, Penny, Mel, Caroline, Pete! - Pete Delucchi
I'm right handed but I can type on the keyboard using only my left hand. haha! - Randy
James, yes. Another interesting figure, US Presidents. McCain AND Obama are both left handed, as were Carter, Reagan, Bush H, and Clinton. George W isn't. - Duncan Riley
Pete, don't know, but wouldn't surprise me :-) - Duncan Riley
Duncan, I was just thinking I don't mind my sharing my left-handedness with Obama and McCain, but I don't want Palin to have any part of it. It's selfish, and deeply politically motivated, but I just hope she isn't a lefty. - Pete Delucchi
I am so gullible sometimes -- my dad had me convinced at one point that I wasn't eating Chinese food properly because he brought the right-handed chopsticks home from the restaurant. - Pete Delucchi
how could 11 % of the population be on friendfeed? - Caroline
me! once had a uni (college) lecture in statistics do the probability on 9 of 11 people in his class including him where lefty. He decided more geeks are left handed ;-) - Nick Cowie
not. but I learned to shave, write, and use chopsticks with the left-hand. Left-handed chopsticks really bothers my parents - freaks 'm out. - Mitchell Tsai
@mitchell - lefthanded chopstick use does freak people out, was in China in 87, wait staff amused by half dozen Europeans not capable of using chopsticks. I could use chopsticks but only in my left hand, staff either tried to convince me to use them in my right hand or just look horrified. - Nick Cowie
“As someone who has put his foot in his mouth far too often, I'm willing to give Scoble a free pass on his startup comments. We all make mistakes, even if this one was a doozy.”
My foot is actually an extension of my mouth / blog / twitter ;-) - Jason Goldberg
I'd actually prefer TC etc to be more critical, not just cheerleader 90% of the time. Most of the messages seem to ignore the fact that most of the sites do indeed suck, and RS provided links to them. - Indio Apache via twhirl
I'm getting tired of the attitude that I need to "rah, rah" all startups just because someone put a lot of work into them. Sorry, that doesn't pass muster anymore. So many people came up to me tonight and said "I won't say it online, but you were right that those sites did suck." Well, why can't anyone say anymore when things DO suck? I didn't realize that was an unwritten rule in the blogosphere. - Robert Scoble
Agreed. I really don't like how some commenters went for personal attacks. Sorry, if you insult Robert or anyone else about how they look, their weight, or whatever, what you say is going to be ignored by me. - Mo Kargas
I love getting noodles from the shop down the road... They are the best in Australia! There shop is a complete dump (peeling paint, broken chairs etc) but their noodles are still the best... - John Worthington
i don't how the hell you actually deal with that amount of criticism. I'm guessing you learn to with experience... - Zee at WeDoCreative
Is it not about being REAL and the entrepreneurs opportunity to figure out why they suck and make the site better? - Jason Cronkhite
I'm all for constructive "it sucks" messages. just don't be to quick to cry FAIL and always make sure to give some substantive reasons for why it sucks....and always be open for the company to come back and show you why they no longer suck. Best story in startupville is the company that earns a suck and then proves they no longer suck. - Jason Goldberg
Good point Jason. It's about the determination to figure things out and make things even better. What's your opinion on "Constraint Creates Innovation", a bootstrap principle. - Jason Cronkhite
@jason cronkhite I'm a HUGE believer in forced constraints. The worst thing we ever did at my first startup was raise too much money early on....made us feel like we could do more than we should, hire ahead of needs, believe beyond our reality. It is absolutely critical in the early days that startups be forced to treat every decision like a critical decision, spend every dollar of cash like it is equity, and build to user needs vs. grand visions. - Jason Goldberg
oh, and startups should expect and plan for the fact that they are going to get a lot of things wrong in the early days. - Jason Goldberg
Jason: funny, lots of entrepreneurs are messaging me to check out their crappy Website now. - Robert Scoble
Aren't you the idiot who claimed SimpleDB was an Oracle killer. STFU. - Roebot
Robert, I don't think there's anything wrong calling a spade a spade. It's how you take the input and how you react to it. If you told me my product/service was crap I'd just ask, "how do I fix it to be better for you?". Simple 1-to-1 communication and if these folks you're critiquing can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen eh? - Jason Cronkhite
Roebot: did I ever say that? I don't remember saying that. If I had, it would have been wrong. First of all, anytime I say something is "killer" I'm wrong out of hand. I should just do regex to convert "killer" to "product is getting more relevant." Oh well. - Robert Scoble
Robert, my issue is that you've written them ALL off based on a quick flick, without looking at their business idea, or their sites post launch. First, not all the sites were as bad as you made out, but certainly some were borderline pathetic. But some are launching new sites, and some have some great ideas. I know you're not that shallow, so I'm saddened that you've dug in on this: your comment was wrong, unless you've turned into that Ted idiot and hate the lot now. - Duncan Riley
You can say things suck, but you don't have to be an extremist either way. It's good that you can see the BS now, but lets not go to the other extreme! :-) - Duncan Riley
NO Scoble! You didn't write that! Duncan Riley wrote that. Re-read my comment. - Roebot
I can't figure out this f*n Friendfeed interface. I thought I was commenting on Duncan Riley. Apparently not. errgg...See DM is useful Scoble! - Roebot
Scoble, I think that you having critical thought to startups is a positive. But don't get carried away. I find the Valley shallow, and when I had to pay for my last trip to the States, I purposely didn't head there. But you and I know that for all the noise, all the crap, that there are real people doing amazing things. If you've forgotten that, then so be it, but even Drama 2.0 and Feldman came out against you, the 2 biggest cynics. - Duncan Riley
I think this sort of review - and the effect - show us the problem with his quantity "skimming" ingestion of information. You thought we were a "sound bite" culture before? Twitter, Freiendfeed and RSS hasn't changed that in many ways. As it goes on we are effectively "outsourcing" our initial critical research to river filters - people of high influence who have a high turnout of digested news. Thats not a bad thing - but we need to be aware of the effects of all this and not think it is all different now. - Soulhuntre
Duncan: anyone who quotes Feldman makes me laugh. He's ALWAYS against me. Kevin Rose agreed with me. So did Andrew Baron. If you read the comments most people agreed that they mostly sucked. - Robert Scoble
Scoble, I'm writing my embargo posts now. I hit a site that was so awful that I mentioned you in the post (not live till the morning), but the idea itself was interesting. Surely aesthetics alone isn't the final judgment, as much as I'll concede that they do help. - Duncan Riley
Bloggers are becoming like politicians. Every one is waiting to take umbridge with something. - Andrew Warner
Second image is all wrong, not the joke but that you ALWAYS have to use the furthest possible urinal from your fellow man! It's the unwritten rule. - Toby Graham
Guys usually try to put a buffer stall between them and the other guy to keep that from happening. - Adrian
Never mind our enemies. We know who they are. Pacifists (and crypto-European Americans) will be the death of us. - William, CPU Media
thats how democrats think - they can reason with anyone. i hate to be the one to tell them this, but you can't reason with someone who straps c4 to their chest and blow themselves up along with innocent women and children. those aren't the kind of people who are going to sit down and negotiate. Obama and the democrats don't have the guts to know sometimes the gloves have to come off. - Tony Kanzia
I agree. Let's just send more of our own off to the meat grinder instead of trying to resolve differences. Much better idea. - Ernie
I'm not saying I like war, but sometimes its a necessary evil. Do I think we should be getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Absolutely, we can't do much more in either place. But we can't just up and abandon those new governments. But those nations need to step up and take control. - Tony Kanzia
Sometimes it is a necessary evil. The past few have been light on the necessary and heavy on the evil. We had no reason to go into Iraq. We could have turned Afghanistan into a giant sheet of glass and the world would have been in our corner, but we lost the plot and here we are. - Ernie
I think both were necessary. They both are running too long, but the Taliban and Saddam needed to be removed. It was far better than waiting for one of them to try and attack us again on our soil. That being said, its time to start transferring power and security back to their respective governments and get the heck out. Ultimately we need to stop being the World Police and start worrying about ourselves. - Tony Kanzia
I think you're about half right. Saddam was a bad dude, but he wasn't a threat to us. I don't believe for a minute this had anything to do with "liberating the Iraqi people" or "deposing a tyrant" -- it had everything to do with attempting to secure oil supplies for the multinational corporations and strengthening our military presence in the area. I see neither of those as necessary when it only leads to profits for some and bloodshed for others. Other than that I agree with you. - Ernie
crypto european americans must die. usa usa usa - Gregory Lent
@Tony - I have never seen any of the so-called terrorist state leaders strapping bombs of C4 to their chests...and you never will. - Jim McCusker
diplomacy is one of the things that hold this world together. watch this video. try reading the book. then get back to me if you think diplomacy is still bullshit - http://bit.ly/1eCbAh - ~C4Chaos
And American foreign policy is working soooooo well at the moment..... - Duncan Riley
If McCain wins, i'm not sure if i can relocate to the US - Chris Dahl
Is it really better to keep occupying and invading countries in a vain attempt at peace through war, when actual terrorism is done by small amounts of people in loosely connected ideological groups who often have no affiliation with any actual country?? This isn't tradition warfare anymore. This is 21st century terrorism. All we do by using broad military solutions is stir up the hornets nest against us.... - Ňicķ
Who said diplomacy was the ONLY choice. Its a much better first and second choice whenever possible. Its not like we all lived in this country for only the last 8 years. Come on. - Adam Helweh
William, how fucking ignorant are you? What the hell are crypto-Europeans? You're posting on FriendFeed and you work in tech- not exactly red-blooded small-town blue-collar yourself, are you? - Alexander Carlill
Alexander: I'm exactly where you know I am. Get it? Non? Tant pis! Go blow a gasket someplace where somebody cares. No time for BoBo-BaBaCrevards. - William, CPU Media
Nice write up, Kyle. :) ...oh wait, I forgot. I don't like you anymore. Now I need to go confess why. HA - Mona N.
Nicely done. I'd also like to mention one anonymous poster who made me teary eyed. They posted how they are disabled and contemplate ending their life. A lengthy thread followed. The anonymous poster replied to us letting us know they would pursue some type of help and thanked us for it..promising to keep the thread when they feel down. - Candace Holly
Others have found some interesting support for other issues like; eating disorders, relationship problems, things they thought they were the only one on etc. I'll admit I don't find an internet friendship real until it goes to an off line level (meeting in person, phone calls etc) but this room is hard to think of on a superficial level. - Candace Holly
It's going to be interesting to see how this develops. One of the great things about FF in general is that if I don't like the things I'm seeing I can virtually 'move away' from people by unsubscribing from the source. It's worked like magic so far I have not yet understood how this will work for public rooms. - Robin Barooah
(please don't take that as in any way critical of the posting - I am genuinely curious to see how this all works out and don't like the idea of a closed clique) - Robin Barooah
A good post. I was there as well but I had to unjoin the room because of tech problems with FF. The strenght of socialmedia is that is made by (real) people, for (real) people and your post is an excellent answer to those who think FF is only noise - Niki Costantini
"If you thought that the stereotypical rapper's crib was plush because of their Scarface curtains and stripper-swings, these custom-made chandeliers are about to change the gaudy interior-design game. The bedazzled ceiling decorations were made by Netherlands-based design house Rock & Royal, who've been producing one-off luxury chandeliers since 2005. Their latest gang of products include a champagne bottle, skull and cross bones, two guns, a bomb, and uhh...a penis design that will give new meaning to a 'well-hung' chandelier." - Corie Allison via Bookmarklet
I wonder if they've actually sold any penis chandeliers?? - Corie Allison
“Sometimes I have very little patience with people; even people who I honestly like. Now is one of those times. When that happens, I just need to get away from the keyboard which is what I'm going to do now.”
I totally agree with you, Akiva. I don't allow myself to get on chat rooms like IRC or similar, I tend to get really involved, rational thought becomes harder as emotions start spiraling out of control. Once I take a step back, sanity returns like a breath of cool air. - Phil (scribkin)
well, i'm not really sure. they raised it at one point...but i still seem to hit it about once a week. :| - edythe
Edythe, you and MWM are like the Neal Armstrong's of FF -- you're always trying to test your limits and break the barriers. I love it. Every time they raise the limits, I hope you feel like you just broke a new world record. I know I would. - Pete Delucchi
Rochelle: I think the "like-limit" is 400-500/day now, for Polly at least. Polly might have special dispensation from the FF powers. I remember hitting the limit at 200/day when Polly had more than 1,400 likes/wk. Paul first raised the limit to 150/day on May 6 http://friendfeed.com/e/dc7a7b... - Mitchell Tsai
“One of the funniest adsense blocks I've ever seen (it's on a post about Chrome): 1 - Try Google Chrome, 2 - Fix Internet Explorer, 3 - Fix Internet Explorer, 4 - Internet Explorer (download).”
All I can gather is that it has something to do with marching on the drumline - Rahsheen
The press called him the "Maverick" back in 2000 because he wasn't (at the time) what you would expect from a Republican...he was pretty moderate compared to Bush back then... - Sean McGee
If you criticise him for his spelling mistake, the terrorists win! So keep quiet you unpatriotic people! LOL!! :-) - Mark O'Neill
Is this what you do all day Mr. Laporte? Surf the Internet looking for ways to look down on your fellow Americans because their political views differ from yours? It's a shame TechTV/G4 fired you. You might just have the right level of maturity to host Hurl. Nah, maybe you're not that mature... - Laura Smith via twhirl
I enjoy listening and watching Leo, Dvorack, etc. when it comes to technology discussions. The more I see the higher echelon of FF and Twitter talk about politics, the more I wish there was a filter I could apply. I mean, this was just a funny picture that gives Obama supporters another means to look down on people who do not support Obama, but I've seen Dvorack's outrageous blog post about Palin's children, and I've read Scoble's mistatements regarding Huckabee's speech at the convention. - Charles LePage
Perhaps if one admires mavericks, one spells words whatever way one wants. - James Swing-r
The democrats' signs were much slicker. With every speaker at the DNC they passed out new ones -- there were hillary ones, biden ones, michelle etc. all beautifully printed on nice sanded sticks. Not a hand painted sign in the crowd, all the perfectly the same, and no chance for a misspelling. Good stagecraft. The hand painted signs make me cringe from a design/spell check pov, but they are authentic. - Jay Tannenbaum
What is this? The Republican Friendfeeders coming in to comment swiftboat style? Lighten up for Christ's sake! Obviously you've yet to discover what a sense of humour is. Let me know when you find one and I'll teach you how to install it. - Mark O'Neill
Geez, Mark, maybe you could lighten up a little. The Republicans were commenting on the headline, which was perhaps uncharitable and directed at them. I think Leo is great, and I think Dvorak has no problem taking care of himself. They are completely entitled to their opinions outside the world of tech. That's why I subscribe to them. We live in a great country, don't we? - Jay Tannenbaum
Misspelling and bad grammar goes across the board, even at MoveOn (http://skitch.com/chilimac/i87...). I've been known to make a mistake once in a while my self. I know, shocking. Maybe that will be the next big tech idea. Electronic campaign posters with built in spell checker. - ChiliMac
I read a medical report once that read "cervical dysphasia" - it was supposed to indicate "cervical dysplasia" epic phail typo. No, it was not my cervix. :) - Mattb4rd
Matt: Some new kind of ventriloquism or lack thereof? - Jay Tannenbaum
If I'm ever around one that talks, I will run. - Mattb4rd
Mark, from Wikipedia: "Swiftboating is American political jargon that is used as a strong pejorative description of some kind of attack that the speaker considers unfair or untrue—for example, an ad hominem attack or a smear campaign. Most accurately, it refers to the repudiation of a politician's personal history by people who were present as that history was made." Does the speaker (Leo) consider my comment to be untrue? - Charles LePage
if he's maverick whose goose ?his lady friend he just hooked up maybe. LOL. - nick
Seriously, they look like fake little people with no mental capacity. It's truly scary how much make-up and hairspray they use on those kids. I can't even begin to contemplate how much trauma that causes. How do those poor misguided kids grow up into normal adults? - Damien Franco
@Damien: They don't grow up into normal adults. - AJ Kohn
They don't. Those kids are traumatized I am sure. No little girl should be wearing make-up that looks like it was applied by a dim-sighted hooker. Ditto the outfits. I hope there is a special place in hell for their stage parents. - Abby Martin
Duncan - As I see it, you're only one killer media application away from bursting your cap. Seeing that your consumption was almost 50% of your cap seems to leave you little wiggle room for future growth. - Jim McCusker
Umm, wow. I sure hope I completely misread and misunderstood that article. - abacab
abacab - Well, he stated he got 65GB (peak). I looked at the chart for the first 10 days and saw that he used 14.2GB (1.42GB/day avg). Multiply this out to 31 days and I get 44GB which is actually 67% of his monthly allotment. Even worse than my initial estimate! - Jim McCusker
Jim, what more could I consume? I'm 50gb at a full stretch, usually around 30-40, no where near 250gb. Most people will never notice the cap...indeed the figure is 99.9% exactly :-) - Duncan Riley
LOL! I thought the title meant INTERNET CAPS, not caps on bandwidth... I was very confused about the differences in cost to store them in the comments until it dawned on me! - Lindsay Donaghe
Duh... I misread that you had a cap of 65 GB peak... not 250GB. Which is actually in line with Amazon bandwidth pricing (assuming you pay about $50/month for internet) - Jim McCusker
"Nevermind!" - Rosanne Rosanna Dana :-) - Jim McCusker
“Heh, the alleged list of books that Sarah Palin is making the rounds in the email circuit now. If true it's a pretty shocking list of books one would try to ban. Catch-22? A wrinkle in time? The Harry Potter books? Still waiting for snopes to confirm the list.”
Just from an interesting side-point... How would that go for digital audio books? - John Worthington
I taught two of those books to fourth and fifth graders in downtown San Jose -- nobody wanted to ban them then. - Pete Delucchi
Why push this if you think it is fake? Heh. This is a word for word cut and paste job from here: http://tinyurl.com/5qh5bu Keep trying. Something will stick. Or "wait" for snopes. - Jay Tannenbaum
I believe that it's fake, but having said that it would be interesting to know what she was trying to ban. Book banners = not good people - Duncan Riley
Does it really matter "what" she was trying to ban? Would we feel better if she was trying to ban Stuart Woods novels? I don't need to know what books, only that she expressed an interest in doing so, pressured the librarian and was only turned back by the community. - AJ Kohn
Of course it doesn't matter AJ. It won't matter that she didn't do it. You guys are desperate. - Jay Tannenbaum
@Jay, yes, I'm desperate to keep a person who would ban books out of the White House. You should be too if you care about the principles that the USA was founded on. That is one of the most repugnant thing I can think of for an elected official to do. It's the basis for the best new nickname for Palin: Mooselini. - Jason Carreira
as far as digital audio books go, Biden would probably throw you in jail if you ripped one. - Thomas Hawk
@Laura, and I wouldn't believe anything from Michelle Malkin without seeing it from other sources... in fact, seeing things that Malkin says makes me believe things LESS. She's a frightening pathological liar. - Jason Carreira
keep in mind, *the list* is not the issue. the list is a smoke screen. the issue is banning books. Sarah Palin considered banning books. that's the point. one book, 100 books, doesn't matter. - MikeAmundsen
A Wrinkle in Time was my favorite Madeline L Engle book! WTF! - David Cook
I didn't say the list was correct, but the accusation that she tried to get a librarian to remove books and tried to get her fired when she said no is another matter. Michelle Malkin is demonstrably a liar along the same vein as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. Of course, the genius of Karl Rove was realizing that facts don't matter. - Jason Carreira
Do a search for "Michelle Malkin lies"... there's really too many to list... Her book defending the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and suggesting the same for Arab Americans now is a particularly disgusting piece, and, while not lies, technically, is all anyone should need to discount her opinion. - Jason Carreira
So it's not that she lies, Jason, it's that you don't like her ideas? Oh, I see. Differing opinion = lies. Sounds like a dangerous line of thought. You sure you wanna go down that path? - Gregory Pittman via twhirl
Jason: Bush, Rush, Michelle, O'Reilly, Rove! Show me when she tried to get the woman fired. What's her name? Show me when she tried to get the books removed. Show me the facts. - Jay Tannenbaum
@Jay: "In December 1996, [librarian] Emmons told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her -- starting before she was sworn in -- about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose." http://www.mcclatchydc.com/hom... - MikeAmundsen
Rhetorical. Did she ask her to remove any book? - Jay Tannenbaum
