Louis Gray

Rawr! - Bwana McCall

Trial by fire, I say! - Bradley McSpinn

Yeah it can be pretty over whelming at first... but most tools like this are... I guess. - Adrian Nadeau

Maybe someone should put together some themed rooms for newbs and newb graduates - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

i say jump on in the water's warm! - Morgan

They should join the same way my dad says he was taught to swim. Just jump in, if you make it, YAY; if you don't... ;) - ha3rvey

I've been here for a few weeks and would have freaked out if I signed up to the intense users. I feel like I'm slowly getting the hang of it, adding people a little at a time, and participating more and more... - Corie "Viper" Jones

Don't scare the newbies! scare the devs! MORE API! repeat after me: MORE API ! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

A newbie coming to FF will have their lists populated by their friends, first and foremost. That kind of goes to the point of the name, I think. There's no reason they WOULD sign up for the noisiest people. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

I'm only here for the Twitter. - Cyndy

That's not true at all. I came here because of one person who told me about it. Other than that, I knew no one and couldn't get any friends to join. - Corie "Viper" Jones

I'll be franck: I'm building in my small and humble sorcerer's lab a smarter "recommended page" that when optimized will be the cure for noise! Hear me Scobleizer? :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

agree with Louis, I guess for many there must be too much noise, so that they can't even think of a thing to say themselves - Peter Efland

I signed up for a lot of noisemakers because i didn't have any friends who would join. I still hide a lot, a LOT. But I do think that the recommended page should be geared towards a variety of interests other than 'how to write a blog' and 'twitter wahhh' and 'iphone blahblah.' Rooms need exposure and love. - sergiooo

They also need an automatically scrolling version to make it look like something REALLY important is happening in real time. - Mike Seidle

@Peter Efland (phefland): I dunno, there seems to be quite a lot of folks saying quite a lot all the time. They just have their own insular environments / friend nets which yours (and mine, likely) don't necessarily intersect. Beyond that, as I've said elsewhere, if you own a theatre why does everyone have to be an actor all the time? An audience is not just good, it's necessary. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

@sergiooo: I like the " 'how to write a blog' and 'twitter wahhh' and 'iphone blahblah.' " :-) More of that coming soon. - Louis Gray

Deep dive or nothing - Dave Hussein Martin

Good suggestion. I am on firehose setting for now... but I am here INSTEAD of Twitter. :-) - David Muir

@alexander williams: True - good comment - Peter Efland

@Alexander Williams (squidlord): Totally agree! very wise! - directeur via NoiseRiver

Why not give newbies the opportunity to view a short intro-to-FF clip, perhaps narrated by LG, showing them the basics. Things like how to follow/stop following people, the hide feature, etc. Having a basic understanding of how to use the service and being signed up with one or two noisier, not the noisiest, people seems reasonable. - Dan Boggs

Louis, shock therapy worked wonrders for me. If I hadstarted with the light version, I would not be so psyched about it. - Rodrigo Leme via twhirl

@Luis Gray :) I'm not saying those feeders shouldn't be recommended, just that there is a whole world outside of the few topics that are so well represented, and if the goal is some sort of mainstream acceptance a bit of diversity deserves the same opportunity. - sergiooo

LOL...good one. I started using FF a few weeks ago and find myself spending alot more time reading, commenting and looking around than on Twitter. Much more interactive and engaging. - Geoff Peterson

I had mentioned in another post that it would be great if you could individually select the portions of one's feeds to have piped in. That way you could open up the fire hose and skip what you have not interest in (i.e. last.fm posts, etc). - JA Castillo

I thought FF was a cult =( - Mona N.

I need FF Lite some days, too. LOL - Sarah Perez

Got outa control myself and made a mess ... Finally back. This is Louis right ?? :) - Charlie Anzman

Sink or swim - Tad - the Meme Maker

FF lite: Putting friends on a diet. LOL - LPH™

I quickly put together that Scoble and Laporte = Noise, so I discovered the Hide feature. Then I closed off the Friend of a Friend bit. Bam! It was readable again. Now I just follow too many interesting people to keep track of everything. I get about 11 pages worth a day. - xero

yes, it would be easy to say 'What are you interested in' on sign up. From there filter specific services and... oh yah, KEYWORDS! - Tim Hoeck via NoiseRiver

FF lite: subscribe to just the a-listers. :O - Hao Chen

i cannot follow anybody, that would leave no time for following the flow ..... - Gregory Lent

Interesting idea on FriendFeed Lite, they would have to subscribe to a lot of people to be overwhelmed though right? - Joe Dawson

I'm a newbie and I'm already overwhelmed! All it takes is adding two crazy FF'ers and joining two active groups. - Judy L. Lin

Along those lines I'd like to control which users I promote from my profile too. See this http://friendfeed.com/e/f27543... - Mark Krynsky

Perhaps FF should have an equivalent of Twitter Packs (http://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com...) that could be offered to newbies. - Andy Murdoch

An easy and non-obtrusive way to implement would be a simple checkbox on reg path that says "Start out with just blogs, flickr, etc... You can add more services to your FF anytime!" And new users must opt-in for that "light" service - Eric Berlin

lmao - that's actually a great idea - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

Nah...throw them in the deep end and see how well they swim - Live4Soccer

But that's the whole point of FF isn't it? To swim and survive in the sea of "noise".. - Winston Teo

took me about a week or so to fine tune my likes with others after adding to my feed without interaction. at first it can be a bit overwhelming, especially with the nonsense about "a-listers" and this and that, but you find your niche no matter what - Cee Bee

Maybe make one of the best of the day/week/month thingies the default for newbies? - Rudolf Olah

LEWL. - Brandon Klevence