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Amazon.com: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd Edition) (9780136042594): Stuart Russell, Peter Norvig: Books - http://www.amazon.com/Artific...

November 9 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Space Cowboy, JoeCamel, Melita and 14 other people liked this

We sent the final pdfs of the new edition of this book off to the publisher. The market reacted by gaining 2% on the day. - Peter Norvig from Bookmarklet

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Nassim Taleb would be proud. =) - Darren

Bet you are pleased to have that behind you; great to see Alan Turing -http://tinyurl.com/no85d4 - on the front cover. Seb. - Seb Schmoller

What is new in the third edition? - Brandon Smietana

Brandon: I think if you value your time at about $5/hr or more, you should buy the third edition. What's new: http://aima.eecs.berkeley.edu/3rd-ed... - Peter Norvig

That is a bargain; I end up paying about 25 $/hour in tuition to sit in lectures. Thank you, for writing such wonderful books! - Brandon Smietana

Paul Buchheit

So I finally tried Wave... - http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2009...

November 28 from Paul Buchheit - Comment - Like - Share

Bertrand Doux, JSLeFanu, Tyson Key and 76 other people liked this

Integrating into Gmail -- never thought of that as a possibility before. - Brian Sullivan

34 more comments

Think of it as "live email" - Paul Buchheit

The only problem I see is that advertising may not be the best way to make money from it. - Brian Sullivan

@paul, Is it correct to replace email? - Hasan Ozgan

Hasan, I don't understand your question. - Paul Buchheit

A wave-gmail integration sounds like quite the challenge. Perhaps the real-time text updates will happen and will be useful, but I can't see the conversation fragmentation of Wave being a good thing for Gmail. - Mitch

While I admire the approach of releasing something that's pre-beta, it seems there is quite a risk that people will think, "oh, I tried Wave and didn't get it," and they will not come back to it for a long time. - Laura Norvig

Laura - Google wants developers in there making cool stuff in the lead-up to the public release. If it were only developers trying out each others tools, things would be stagnant. - Mitch

I live and work in Gwave - business partner could not access wave due to inferior connections in Manchester and working in docs again was such a backward step! - Callie O Farrell

That's true, Mitchell, I forgot about all the gadgets people are developing. Also, Gina Trapani pointed out that the one interface that most of us see when we opt in to "try wave" is not the only interface available. I would love to see some samples of simpler/different interfaces. - Laura Norvig

@paul will wave ever replace email? - Hasan Ozgan

Hasan, no, it will augment email. - Paul Buchheit

The fact that Google Wave was not part of Gmail's roadmap and in fact is positioned as "the future of e-mail" was a sign to me that Google is now large enough to suffer the kind of organizational dysfunction that has done in its predecessors. As you mentioned, e-mail will be with us for a long time. It would have been better to position it as "the future of collaboration" and indicate... more... - Dare Obasanjo

Speaking of gmail-wave integration: http://www.engadget.com/2009... - Mitch

There was shortage of wave invites when it came out but now people are waiting to give wave invites. I didn't see any of my friends returning to wave after they used it once. I log into wave everyday just to see if there are any improvements. - ashish

Paul - Great insights! I too feel Wave is most suited as a team collaboration / productivity tool. The biggest hurdle is loss of context and convo structure. Once the wave team better organizes the UI, then it can go mainstream. Wave integration with gmail would be super cool and highly useful, plus it greatly would speed up user adoption. - Susan Beebe

I just posted my comment above on your blog, facebook and here - LOL :) - Susan Beebe

Mitch - cool share, thanks - Susan Beebe

"The chronological flow of the conversation is lost." That's exactly the issue. Playback tries to address it but doesn't quite. I think there are other ways to do this, that will be tried both inside and outside Google. I'm thrilled that Google didn't force the Wave team to be part of Gmail from the start, because that would have added all kinds of unnecessary constraints. This way Wave can try lots of new stuff and Gmail can adopt what sticks. - Daniel Dulitz

It's Sharepoint started from the web side instead of Office - Nick Lothian

I had assumed that at some point Google would merge Wave and Gmail. It seems the natural progression. Also, I think the linearity problem will be addressed when they can figure a way to easily mark the new replies so that you can quickly see them - maybe in some from of selectable overlay or view of the wave - Martha

Don't we think they should merge Gmail and Wave because we don't check our waves as often as our emails? What if we all had a cross-browser and mobile notification system for both Wave and email? Since I have installed the Chrome checker extensions for Wave and Gmail, the question of a merger doesn't make any sense. I can easily email and wave the same way I use Facebook, Friendfeed and... more... - Jérôme Flipo

PS: here's the Wave extension I use http://www.jeremyselier.com/entry... - Jérôme Flipo

No, I think Google should merge Gmail and Wave because many times in the middle of an email conversation I wish I had wave functionality. Because the conversation has gotten hard to understand and I want to play it back. Because different subthreads have different people on them for no good reason. Because an idea has turned into a proposal and the words aren't quite right. - Daniel Dulitz

Here's a specific type of merger I think could work. Wave "merges" with Gmail, GChat, and Docs, in that whenever you create an email/IM/doc you are creating a wave. Anyone can see that wave in its full realtime nonlinear glory from the product Wave. Any wave you have (whether started from Docs or email or...) can be seen in Wave. But Gmail, GChat, Docs, etc. provide only some functions... more... - Daniel Dulitz

@Daniel Dulitz sounds somewhat like how social networking aggregator such as friendfeed works. This way Google wave will aggregate all the activities of gmail,Gchat, docs and other "google activity" in one place. - ashish

I am not so sure about Gmail or Gchat and how you would integrate them-- as Wave seems to have similar and some cases superior functionality that supplants them but being able to collaborate on the production/editing of Google docs in real time perhaps using Google voice conferencing would be nearing a game changer. - Brian Sullivan

That would be great, Daniel. But I think it would require *a lot* of work for some teams at Google and some good explanations to users. I'm sure we'll find specific usages for Wave. Personally, I would let the service grow by itself, without complicating other services. Imagine if I start a Wave and some of my friends participate in it through Docs, some other from Gmail: many troubles... more... - Jérôme Flipo

@Dare: I disagree that Wave is evidence of organizational dysfunction (not saying there *is* not such dysfunction, but Wave certainly doesn't prove it). Whether you love it or hate it, and whether or not you think it will be successful, I believe it's evidence of a company that wants to continue to take risks and innovate in the face of organizational momentum. Why wasn't Wave part of... more... - Joel Webber

It seems like the only big issue is the non-linearity of Wave. So, instead of merging other products to offer alternative (somehow), why not let the creator/owner of a Wave choose if blips should be linear? - Jérôme Flipo

Well Paul, I also think Wave is very clever. Yet I see a few problems regarding the launch process: 1. They launched it exactly like Gmail, by reducing invitation supply & delaying invitation delivery. Yet, unlike an e-mail account and a web based e-mail client this is a collaborative tool that you can not use alone. That's the main reason most influencers and early adopters are... more... - Cem ARGUN

Regarding my proposed merger... I think part of the problem of Wave is that it has too much capability for many people, but real experts (may) like the full-on experience. So let's make everything a wave. Experts interact with those things in Wave or some other full-on experience. But people in the slow lane can interact with _the same wave_ using "views" they are more familiar with --... more... - Daniel Dulitz

Jérôme, in addition to "linearity" there is also the issue of edits versus replies. Also, what do you mean by allowing the creator to choose if blips should be linear? Transforms are sequential today; the whole question is how to extract "(conversational) linearity" from "mere sequence." Linearity is a UI issue. Why allow the creator to specify the reader's UI, instead of leaving it up... more... - Daniel Dulitz

My definition of linearity is rather basic, as is my English :) I meant "non-threaded" conversation, just like here. I think most of the confusion comes from realtime hierarchical conversations: we can't determine easily where the discussion is going at a given moment. As a doc, a Wave must support sub-threads, but as a conversation it may be helpful to oblige participants to respond to... more... - Jérôme Flipo

Keep in mind that's there's a difference between the Wave Protocol/Architecture, and the Wave client, just like there's a difference between SMTP/IMAP and Outlook (vs Gmail). If the UI is not streamlined for a particular use case, then perhaps other clients can be designed which leverage Wave infrastructure, but provide a more optimal experience for a given problem space. - Ray Cromwell

Jérôme, in my view not even email obliges people to respond only to the most recent email in the thread. Maybe Wave should always show a compressed "timeline" view of every event. Perhaps a very zoomed-out icon of the whole wave in the upper-left corner of the wave, showing its blip structure, nesting, etc., with hotspots everywhere there's a change you haven't read yet. To the right of... more... - Daniel Dulitz

Roadkillrefugee

RT @TeresaKopec: Epic. Jon Stewart on Glenn Beck. Takedown of the year. http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/...

November 6 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

Srikanth AD to Appetite, WebWare24, Friends of Mashable, Social Media Club, Social Media, RWW: The Future of Tech, TheNextWeb Forum

Search for Similar Images with GazoPa | Tech Inspiration - http://www.ekoob.com/search-...

November 5 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Rowley, LouCypher, Roldano and 6 other people liked this

This is like tineye, the reverse image search engine. Just remembered. - TrafficBug

John Resig

The most important part of Google Wave uses jQuery: http://wave.google.com/mainten...

October 30 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Rowley, Kemal Hadimli, Ted Gilchrist and 2 other people liked this

DeWitt Clinton

@harper No, I hadn't seen calibre (http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/) before. Nice tip. Will give it a try.

October 25 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist and Nick Lothian liked this

Paul Buchheit

First, FriendFeed is _not_ going away. (in fact, we're working on switching it to new servers) Second, I know everyone wants to know what the team is working on, but we don't pre-announce things, so for now all I can say is that there's good stuff on the way. Re: http://friendfeed.com/jworthi...

October 21 - Comment - Like - Share

Lu Tao, H0llywoodWh0re, Dallas Cao and 316 other people liked this

I know that doesn't answer everyone's questions, but I hope it helps. - Paul Buchheit

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Paul, working on friendfeed.com stuff or facebook.com? - Kol Tregaskes

I like the first sentence. The rest is just gravy. - Derek Coward

I'm totally happy if we just reside on decent servers, and get occasional IT help... We'll keep the rest of the ship running :) - Christopher Galtenberg

Paul - is that why it's been slower lately vs.pre-fb ? - Allen Stern

Paul please repeat it in re-phrased form: Friendfeed is NOT going to repeat destiny of Jaiku? Y/N - A.T.

*processing statement...* - Micah Wittman

Can't wait... **Fingers tapping desk impatiently** - Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ

But what does "going away" mean, Paul? And what does "team" mean? And when you say "pre-announce", are you talking about the Palm Pre? - Ken Sheppardson

Allen, the slowness is due to growth (more users and more data), but I put in a few fixes yesterday that should speed things up a bit. - Paul Buchheit

thanks paul - Allen Stern

Paul, sometimes when I open up threads I get the Opps... error. Is that related? It has been happening more and more these last few days. - Kol Tregaskes

Still better than twitter and facebook. Thanks for the update! - Mike Nencetti

Paul, thanks for the incredible work with FriendFeed. Please, keep it alive! and most importantly keep it FriendFeed! - Ciro

as long as FF doesn't go dark or fall to pieces due to lack of maintenance, i think most ppl would be appeased. - Joe Silence is not Santa

Does this mean that the sky is not falling and we should stop running around screaming GODZILLA! and pointing in the direction of FB? - Moved to Facebook from fftogo

also, thank you for making such a great service in the first place! - Joe Silence is not Santa

Paul: Did you see http://www.thetechnewsblog.com/2009... & can you understand why it got so many people talking / blogging? - Jim Connolly

I second that!! - Kol Tregaskes

Thanks Paul. - Uncle CW™

Always nice to hear Paul talking about Friendfeed. - ashish

Thanks Paul for the update. - Roberto Bonini

Thanks for the update! Would like to know if there will be actual development done on FriendFeed in the future (other than bug fixes/minor updates) but I understand if you can't really talk about that too much. - Brandon Titus

Paul: so still no answer from you as to if your 'good stuff' is being developed for FB or FF? The silence suggests it's FaceBook you're working on, or at least transferring FF into an 'add on' for Facebook? - Jim Connolly

Kol, fb platform and openness, primarily. - Paul Buchheit

David Recordon FTW - Jesse Stay

i made a post here - http://www.centernetworks.com/friendf... - one interesting note - maybe FB keeps FF running nice and smooth to keep the early adopters happy as it's a great way to get new features out to them via this channel... just a thought. - Allen Stern

Wow. I've had to eat my words before but these are the best-tasting ones yet! - Akiva Moskovitz from BuddyFeed

Akiva, just add salt. You know which kind :) - Micah Wittman

I'm anxiously waiting for FF->FB Platform integration (drools...) - Jesse Stay

These are the best words I could have expected by Paul. There is obviously a cultural difference between the two platforms and audience and I'm assuming both the former FF team and the FB team recognize that and are sensitive to the community. Thank you Paul and I hope you are feeling better.... - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Allen, you're in good company on that thought - there were musings on that concept right after the buyout. - Micah Wittman

Damn, 20+ likes within a matter of 2 minutes. - Itachi

When the leader speaks, everyone listens.... :-) - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

I feel a few "I told you so's" coming though... :-) - Jesse Stay

Thanks Paul. Glad you're working on maintaining/improving performance. I've definitely seen issues here. Looking forward towards your influence and changes over at the blue giant. - Mark Krynsky

Paul - thank you for letting us know, and I do hope you feel better! - Jennifer Dittrich

The big question though is will FriendFeed continue to add new features? There's a difference between that and it going away. (and hence my argument w/ Scoble the other day) - Jesse Stay

Paul: Seriously weird that you're there reading this, and totally ignoring each relevant, yes no question. No one's asking you to pre announce anything - just genuinely concerned (and increasingly so) that they do NOT include developing for FF. - Jim Connolly

Jesse +1 - Jim Connolly

I for one want to say: I'm excited! - Jorge Escobar

Jesse: Paul answers that question - BOOM - rumour mill dies and we finally get something positive to say. Ya know what - we won;t get an answer though. He's reading this, he knows the answer, but he won't. - Jim Connolly

Jesse: For now, FF has more features than any other platform for this type of niche. There's some catching up to do before I'm worried about new features. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

AWESOME!! Thanks for helping to quell some concerns Paul. Looking forward to what comes next, but hope that FF never dissappears also. - Travis Koger from iPhone

Shouldn't we be asking the facebook guys, and let Paul keep working? Or is he wearing many hats (friendfeed head honcho and facebook openess builder)? - Mark Essel from iPhone

Paul: I'm right, right? There's something stopping you from saying that you are no longer adding new features to what 'we' know as Friendfeed? - Jim Connolly

Not for nothing, but I took my friendfeed embed off my tiny blog for a few weeks after the facebook buy out. There was just this empty spot on my eyesore of a website, so I put the embed back. We care because we like the connections we've made here and don't want to lose them. It's personal for us to. - Mark Essel from iPhone

Paul: Amazing how quickly you guys have adopted the Facebook attitude to silence. Pity. - Jim Connolly

Paul: blink twice if you will add new features to FF. I won't tell anyone, honest. - Edward Zwart

FWIW he did just upgrade servers. My e-mail notifications are almost real-time. Sounds to me like they're still improving the service. - Jesse Stay

Jim: Don't blame Paul on that, it's not fair. He's only allowed to say so much at this point but I'm very satisfied on what he said. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Jesse: The questions not if they keep the servers running - we want to know if this is a dead platform. - Jim Connolly

Jim: in Paul's defense Facebook's PR is more controlling than FriendFeed's was. I'm sure he's having to consider the effects his words will have on other people inside Facebook. But, I'm VERY HAPPY that Paul is here giving us hints as to what's coming. I wish it had happened six weeks ago so we wouldn't have lost so many people, but maybe that would happen anyway. - Robert Scoble

Jim, there may be a few new things, but as I said, the team is mainly working on fb platform and openness, so it's unlikely that there will be any big new features of ff (except maybe one that I've been thinking about for a while...). - Paul Buchheit

Did the Walrus think about Feed Splicing? :-) - Robert Scoble

Paul: Finally - THAT'S what we were wondering. - Jim Connolly

Cool Dude: Need it to have a classier forum than the parent; Parent is still good but the options here make it just a bit nicer. - ThatDBD

Paul: Pity. At least we now know not to expect any developments or improvements. Thanks for answering the question. Whilst it confirmed my fears, it's good to know what's happening. - Jim Connolly

Johnny said it nicely here: http://www.johnnyworthington.com/... - Mark Essel

I have no problem with FB integration (notice my drool above). Hoping for good friend conversion tools to bring subscribers over as friends or fans on Facebook from FriendFeed. (Connect.registerUsers FTW!) - Jesse Stay

Jim: I'd modify "any" to "many." - Robert Scoble

As a result - Jim has left the platform. - Jim Connolly

Jim: this is a change from last week, by the way. My sources were telling me that we weren't going to get any new features and now Paul is refuting that and saying we might get one new feature here. - Robert Scoble

I'm still drooling - anyone have a towel? - Jesse Stay

Jesse: I'll buy you a virtual one over on Ning. - Robert Scoble

personally, i would be happy just to have FF not fall apart and die. given the post-acquisition situation, anything beyond that is gravy! - Joe Silence is not Santa

Robert, I heard Ning is dead - care to send me one on Facebook? ;-) - Jesse Stay

Robert, think of it as 20% time. If there's a feature I want, I'll just add it :) - Paul Buchheit

Thank you for the clarification, Paul, and hope you are feeling better. - WorldofHiglet

a communication channel that will be around and getting improved no matter what happens, our blogs :D I'll be commenting on yours Jim. 20%, that's a helluva light better than 0%, that's actually much more than I expected. Could we crowd source funding to buy you more %? - Mark Essel

Even if there no new features in Friendfeed, I am happy with Friendfeed just staying on. - ashish

how many users are there on friendfeed is there any chance we could buy it out (and get a full time dev staff back)? This platform rules, the dev team is incredible (albeit on facebook stuff now). - Mark Essel

Paul, if you wanted me to bake you some cookies, all you had to do was ask, GEEZ. - Derrick

Question: how many facebook bucks do we have to buy in total to get Paul and team working on friendfeed more of the time (100% ;) - Mark Essel

Twitter doesn't accept cupcakes any more (just check Foursquare when at their offices). How about FriendFeed? :-) - Jesse Stay

Mark, I'm okay with better Facebook integration. There's a lot of power in that (hence my drooling). - Jesse Stay

I've got mixed feelings Jesse. I have friends on facebook. Then I have people that get excited by the same stuff that I do on friendfeed - Mark Essel

Mark, I'm really hoping it ends up the best of both worlds - that would be really cool - Jesse Stay

im going back to efnet - i got a bus for 7pm - anyone want on? :-P - Allen Stern

I don't think you can mix the two sites at all. This has been repeated over and over. FriendFeed's technology might be portable, the concept, no. - Jorge Escobar

Is it too late to do something about it. If it's a question of funds, can't we raise some? I mean this is the best communication platform I've come across yet. Facebook could be, if they just handed over the reigns to Paul, but its unlikely that sort of shift could happen. - Mark Essel

Is the user perceived need of a full time devoted dev staff a fallacy? - Mark Essel

I think you could make the case that some sites and services can in fact be "done" at some point, and simply require resources to keep them up and running. - Ken Sheppardson

Thanks, Paul. - Josh Haley

Ken: That's a potential advantage of turnkey application-level hosting such as App Engine: the resources to keep them up and running are almost entirely outsourced. ~All costs are variable costs, monetization improves over time, variable costs decline over time, so services that are "done" can literally just coast. - Daniel Dulitz

They could open up something like friendfeed. Distributed social networks, with many servers would make search more challenging (search like status could help). The Internet keeps on chugging, it's a distributed information network that's been alive for many years. Our social networks should live, as does the underlying Internet. - Mark Essel

Nice Daniel, I've been having fun playing around there (frankensearch.appspot.com). I'm using it to get to learn a little more about scala and lift now. - Mark Essel

might be a full-time job times 2 or 3 for any fresh devs - safe to say Paul's got a bit of a head-start which changes that equation significantly! .... Also maybe almost as important is simply keeping spammers in check - that makes the difference between a ghost town vs the happy place here we want to keep coming back to enjoy ... - Dan Freeman

Istanbuldan buyuk bir eferimi hakketti bu cocuklar, bizim icin calisiyorlar - MobilAdam from fftogo

Yes, this helps a lot. Thank you, Paul. We were beginning to fight amongst ourselves over these things. - Kamilah Gill

I bet a good contextual advertising box off to the side could generate 35-50million dollars in 6 months with a user base of 1 million people. The assumption is that the average user spends 100-200 bucks on the site making purchases they'd normally make anyway and the affiliate percentage goes to the social host. - Mark Essel

Friendfeed's health needn't be measured by the team's willingness to add new features. Shovels haven't changed in hundreds of years, but nobody is running around saying shovels are dying. A shovel is a great tool --a simple one, at that. If anything, I'd take away features on FF, but that's just me. Thanks for jumping in, Paul. - Chris Baskind

Chris: the problem is that a shovel doesn't get more utility the more people that use it. FriendFeed does. - Robert Scoble

I think the problem is that some people feel extra messianic some days (which is perfectly okay), and then refuse to see/believe/accept when others don't feel the same way AND point it out. The refusing part is not really okay, I guess. - Michael Bravo

Thanks for these reassuring words Paul. Have been working hard to get more Flickr users over here after the recent rash of censorship there. Friendfeed's TOS and lack of censorship is a breath of fresh air compared to Flickr. - Thomas Hawk

I wouldn't say lack of censorship, but community moderated filters. ;) - Uncle CW™

I think you're unnecessarily complicating the discussion by adding new vocabulary, Robert. Now you're talking scale, not features. A product needn't expand its feature set to remain useful. Feature creep is the devil, anyway. ;-) - Chris Baskind

You can’t predict what the future of technology will bring; so trying is a fool’s game. You can only adapt to the new realities as best you can. Paul's word is that it is still worth the time to invest in FF the tool. The tool may stay in this form but that's still a better design for me than Twitter. If FF is a shovel, Twitter is a spoon feature-wise. Audience volume-wise, it is the reverse. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

"Feature creep is the devil." truer words! - Joe Silence is not Santa

Now this makes me feel hopeful!:) - Patrik Johansson

Ok here's an example of what the social media + contextual ads could like like (sorry can't embed iframe twitter they go full screen so I showed it with friendfeed). But the idea is clear: http://victusmedia.com/social-... This works by sending your tweet stream to zemanta, and then does some backend stuff (which we're working on improving) to get relevant ads from amazon - Mark Essel

I've been rough on you guys in some comments around, but I'm VERY encouraged to see that you guys see a future for FF. Thanks for shining some light, Paul. - Scott of Two Countries

Clarification is appreciated. - DGentry

A respectable amount of information. Thank you. - Matthew DeVries

Chris: Pownce had more "features" than Twitter did, yet it died. So did other aggregators like Jaiku. It's not "features" that matter in social software. Well, at least not completely. It's a combination of features with crowds that matter. If the crowds leave FriendFeed has a lot less utility to everyone than if they flow in. Look at this item here. Why is it interesting? Because there's people here talking about it. - Robert Scoble

take your time PB Bear take your time - Thomas Power

This is definitely more of the answer we were looking for. Thanks, Paul. - Alex Scoble

Thank you - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

All I can say is "thank you" for letting us know what's going on. I'm glad to hear FF will be around for the foreseeable future. :-) LONG LIVE FRIENDFEED! - Jason Huebel

yea - happy happy.... - Chris Jackson

I can't find any wave that is even remotely comparable with friendfeed's conversation, if you found one will you invite me? (muzzle at googlewave) - Emme Ci

Great news, I await the new functions eagerly - Mo Kargas

looks like good news ... - johnpiercy

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the best thing I've seen ALL day!! woo hoo!! Thanks Paul :) {{{ HUG }}} - Susan Beebe

Just a few words of assurance go a long way, Paul. Thank you for finally giving us something more solid to stand on. It's been frustrating for a lot of us waiting for the other shoe to drop and this news makes it much easier to keep investing time in FriendFeed. Please don't be shy about reaffirming that it's not going away on a regular basis because it's always good to hear. - Fa La La La Lindsay

I will say it for the least time! Friendfeed kicks ass :). The rest who is saying friendfeed is dying. please SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! - alfred westerveld

Good to read. - Grant Bierman

Tnx Paul, people just want to see that are not "alone" - CantorJF from FreshFeed

"As a result - Jim has left the platform. - Jim Connolly" - Was this guy ever on the platform?! A quick glance at his most recent posts [first page] show pretty much 100% of posts made from other platforms. Cut him and his blood runs blue. Twitter blue :) - 1x29

IF you glance over the Right Wing guys publications-there is some serious Terrorism encouragement from those sociopaths. This looked like a real strong example of what they are encouraging their followers to do??? Been saying we need to pay attention they are respectable foes to intelligence and their agenda is to win at all costs. Dudes they are great foes, need to,got to, have to pay attention to what they are doing. Peace love your neighbors dudes. - ThatDBD

@ThatDBD I think you're responding to the wrong thread... - Fa La La La Lindsay

still curious, but understand - Kim Landwehr

It's fascinating that so many people seem worried about new features. Until recently Twitter added almost no features at all and yet it continued to grow in popularity. FriendFeed's recent slump is all about perception, not tech. - Eoghann Irving

Exactly Eoghann. - Itachi

these conversations take too much time for narcisists with tight schedules (stars). Publicity skyrocketed Twitter to the limelight. Friendfeeds champions are tech geeks, and folks that love chatting and sharing. There aren't many of us though. Give us time, or let us own the platform with a public ipo /buyin from facebook. Free friendfeed! - Mark Essel from iPhone

Looks like it's official then: FriendFeed lives! On new servers, even! (At least for now...) - Dennis Jernberg

Hoorah! - Ron Bailey

Very glad to hear it!! - Rosalinda Mojarro

word! - Dylan Casey

This is great news! Thanks, Paul, for the update, and if you get a hankering for a feature, great! I'm fine with the tech being your personal sandbox in exchange for keeping the service alive. Robert, I hope this means we'll see more of you and your family - and hear from the ones who have mastered the art of rolling over. Johnny, thanks for having the courage to ask the hard questions (and Louis for helping you frame the issues.) wow - life feels good again! - MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF from iPhone

This is brilliant news from Paul! Now can we put this FriendFeed is dying business to rest please? It's a self fullfilling prophecy because by saying FF is dying, folks begin leaving, causing a downward spiral which would then cause it to come true! - technogran

Wan't it to stay? Then begin spreading the word! Get others to use it! At the moment its not mainstream so encourage ordinary users to use FF! The more popular it becomes the less likely it is to fold. - technogran

Yes :) Paul . Thanks. we love ff :) - sunipeyk

Questions? No just enjoy it. - ★ Soner Gönül

technogran: sorry, today you see what's going on. Bing? Displays your Facebook and Twitter tweets. Google? Twitter. Where's FriendFeed in this equation? Now do you get why FriendFeed is destined to be a tiny niche player and why the real action is on Facebook? - Robert Scoble

Good news :) - Maryam Ardakani from FreshFeed

Is not FF that is going somewhere else (?). Is its user base. - Claudio Cicali ♋

Good to know. - orionstarr from iPhone

Robert, if FF gives me what I'm looking for, why do I care where "the real action" is? If FF serves its niche well, what's the downside? - Scott of Two Countries

Robert, do you mean that Google doesn't index Friendfeed posts? Friendfeed is the first site that comes up if you search for my name. - Victor Ganata

Excellent point Victor - but FF only imports a small % of twitter's posts. Ergo Google is still not getting Twitter. - Roberto Bonini

@Scobleizer - this item is not interesting because of the conversation. it's interesting because of who it's from, and what he said. The fact that there's a conversation around it and that conversation is easy to find and read is a bonus (a feature) that sets this service head and shoulders above others (IMHO). There's really not much interesting in the comments here, if you ask me. You could get rid of all the comments that aren't Paul's and the value of the entry doesn't diminish that much. - Chris Heath

That isn't to say that conversations around items aren't ever useful or valuable (or interesting as robert says)... but in this case i would say it's who it's from and what he said. - Chris Heath

Chris: you nailed, in a single paragraph, why Twitter is winning. You now can choose who shows up on your screen and under what context. Well, I can because I have list support. Everyone else will get that next month. Victor: Roberto is right. I barely see ANY of the good stuff I see on Twitter come over here. Well, it comes here because of my favorites feed, but that isn't in nearly as useful a form as it is over at http://www.twitter.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

Robert, you keep saying that's the reason Twitter's winning - I can do that in Facebook and FriendFeed as well. - Jesse Stay

Well, the problem is that Google doesn't seem to index tweets as well as it indexes Friendfeed posts. And Google has never been able go inside Facebook's walled garden. Hopefully that will change. - Victor Ganata

(and I have been able to for the last year or so) - Jesse Stay

Victor, that changed today - see ReadWriteWeb's post. Facebook is opening up public status messages to search engines now. - Jesse Stay

Why is Twitter/Facebook/FriendFeed a zero sum game? I use both Twitter and FriendFeed a lot - they have different strengths - and they feed into each other. Facebook I use less, but that's a personal issue because I simply like it less. Why does there have to be a winner? And +1 Scott, if I'm in the niche market that FF is serving and I'm happy with it, why should I care if "the real action" is on Facebook? If that's the case, I'll take FF's "fake action," thank you very much. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Good point Jandy - sunipeyk

Paul: Thank you for letting us know status as much as you are able. The fact that you took time to write anything says a lot. So thank you for that. And thank you for FriendFeed in general. It truly does rock. Have a great day. - Morgan Haley

Thank you. - amygeek

Why don't you just give us all Facebook accounts for the one's that don't have them and be done with it. But the Turbocharged FF/FB accounts!! - Gene Williams

@Gene, sorry, you'll have to wait for a FB invite like everyone else! - Andrew C

@Andrew Oh that sucks, I'm still waiting for my Facebook invite. Do you have one to spare? - Patrik Johansson

FF team needs 20% time at FB to keep inventing the next. - Christopher Galtenberg

This is great to hear, it would be bad that a major peice of my microblogging arogration just died off. - denzuko

Bump for clarification and Happy Birthday Paul! - Charlie Anzman

Peter Norvig

Test Your News IQ - Pew Research Center - http://pewresearch.org/politic...

October 17 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist, Dan Hsiao, Tzury Bar Yochay and 9 other people liked this

A short collection of pretty easy questions -- I got 12/12 -- but 1/3 of the public did no better or worse than random guessing. - Peter Norvig from Bookmarklet

2 more comments

It seems as though Americans have higher News IQs than other folks :-( - Tim Tyler

Most of those questions are related to american politics/legislature/etc - and after random(intelligent?) guessing, I got 8/12 correct (7% of the public). :) - Space Cowboy

Fun. - j1m

Holly Rae

My First Google Wave Robot - Enterprise Integration Patterns - http://www.eaipatterns.com/ramblin...

October 16 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Shea and Ted Gilchrist liked this

OAuth

Dont's get me wrong, the Google Oauth Playground Tool is great. http://tinyurl.com/4ohwbp I guess I need the Jumping Gym or someting - http://twitter.com/egilchr...

March 26 from oauth - Twitter Search - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

NewsHour

Student Voice: A Young Cancer Survivor's Take on Health Care Reform http://www.pbs.org/newshou...

September 18 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

Paul Buchheit

How American Health Care Killed My Father - http://www.theatlantic.com/doc...

September 16 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Drew Raines, Dimitar Vesselinov, Kohl S Gill and 46 other people liked this

"Would our health-care system be so outrageously expensive if each American family directly spent even half of that $1.77 million that it will contribute to health insurance and Medicare over a lifetime, instead of entrusting care to massive government and private intermediaries? Like its predecessors, the Obama administration treats additional government funding as a solution to unaffordable health care, rather than its cause. The current reform will likely expand our government’s already massive role in health-care decision-making—all just to continue the illusion that someone else is paying for our care. But let’s forget about money for a moment. Aren’t we also likely to get worse care in any system where providers are more accountable to insurance companies and government agencies than to us? Before we further remove ourselves as direct consumers of health care—with all of our beneficial influence on quality, service, and price—let me ask you to consider one more question. Imagine... more... - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

80 more comments

This is a very good article. - Paul Buchheit

My paternal grandfather died pretty much the same way (hospital-borne infection), so this article hits home. But is the proposed solution workable in the current political environment? - Dennis Jernberg

Yeah, unfortunately it may be impossible to actually fix the system due to all of the vested interests, though the author points out that perhaps after the current round of changes fails, perhaps greater change will be possible. Regardless, we should spend some time thinking about what the "right" system would look like instead of limiting ourselves to that which is perceived to be politically feasible. - Paul Buchheit

Great read indeed, thank you Paul for sharing this article which is highly thought provoking and sad all at the same time. Why do we as a country only wake up after Epic Failures?! - Susan Beebe from BuddyFeed

Personally, I want more options for small businesses that want to innovate in healthcare. If we just get rid of the major powers and allow for competition again, I think we'll see serious change. - Jesse Stay

I say this, having worked for UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest health care companies in the world. I learned there that these Health Care companies themselves are too big, and at the same time the government isn't any better. - Jesse Stay

I've consulted to both Gov't and BCBS Heathcare Plan clientele across the U.S. My Govt customers had better operational maturity than BlueCross and way less red-tape and politics. healthcare is deep in the hole. - Susan Beebe from BuddyFeed

Susan, and Gov't Healthcare still has problems! That shows you how bad it actually is. Dealing with Healthcare EDI technologies at UHG the government entities we worked with were always the ones still sending data over dial up, breaking HIPAA rules, and were the hardest to deal with from a technology standpoint. There are huge problems and huge holes in both the big health care and government if you ask me. - Jesse Stay

Maybe on really good health care plans nearly all expenses are covered, but on more basic plans only a minimum might be. - Mike Chelen

You can't order health care a la carte. That's simply not the way medicine is practiced in this country. You also have to get the people who actually provide the health care to play along. Atul Gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporti... covers a lot of the same ground that David Goldhill covers, but Gawande seems skeptical that a consumer-driven system would actually succeed in keeping costs down. - Victor Ganata

Yeah, I think Goldhill's proposed solutions aren't workable. ( http://friendfeed.com/silas21... ) - Andrew C

The problem with the LASIK vs MRI scenario, is that a consumer knows enough to seek elective LASIK surgery on their own, but what consumer can determine whether they need an MRI, CT, contrast MRI, Ultrasound, etc? Self-referral has its own share of misallocation of resource issues. It's a traditional libertarian model that is simple and appealing, but I'm not sure it solves the problems... more... - Ray Cromwell

sorry people, but I think you are missing the real point: HEALTHCARE IS NOT A BUSINESS! and I would run away from any system that would see me primarily as a customer. Putting a price on something is NOT a way to make it work better for my health and that of my family is priceless to me. Now tell me which economic system will take that into account? The only reasonnable approach is to... more... - Yann Abraham

Ultimately, things do have a price, since we live in a world of scarcity and there will be limits, therefore, some people will encounter economic rationing or time delay, and hence die waiting. The arguments are over the best way to allocate these things, simply ignoring that things do effectively have prices won't solve the problem. - Ray Cromwell

@Ray I am not ignoring the fact that someone has to pay for doctors, hospitals and drugs; I am questionning the fact that we accept some people will die because those things are expensive. The point is: are we, as a society, wealthy enough to afford it for everyone? Since I think the answer is yes, I think politicians hiding behind cost arguments are just dishonest - Yann Abraham

Yann: the problem is that everybody will eventually die of something. Researchers can keep inventing more and more expensive ways of keeping us alive, but at some point you have to accept that it's not worth it and must cut people off. Right now the cut-off point is determined by what people can afford. How would you determine a cut-off point? - Gabe

@Gabe is this a joke? Are you suggesting it is perfectly fine to let poor people die from a disease because they cannot afford a cure? And if you are asking me for a cut-off point, may I offer that one: http://tinyurl.com/nseyjq ? - Yann Abraham

@Gabe Indeed, choices must be made. But having the cutoff point determined by what people can afford is heartless. Cost/benefit analyses can be made, even in emotionally fraught circumstances. (Witness the 9/11 Victims Fund) What I would argue is that the analysis should be made as a society, as a group, as a family, together-NOT to enrich Aetna's CEO. - Michael

Yann: Who pays? Are you paying? Are you donating your funds to charities? Or do you just think that it's okay to have your say over other people's money instead? The problem with your arguments is that you're not talking about *your* money going to help others, you're talking about everybody else's money. And yes, at some point I would indeed stop paying to keep a person alive. The... more... - Otto

One more comment: Anybody who is for this health-care plan and who does not right now give at least 10% of their income to health care charities or toward health insurance is a hypocrite. The current plan requires everybody to get health insurance, and the estimated cost of that for the average family is around 13%. I agree with the article in that health insurance should be made much... more... - Otto

@Otto I live in a country that has a health care plan (Germany), which means that a percentage of my monthly salary goes to pay for my health insurance and that of my family: so much for the hypocrisy. And, your point goes back to what Michael and myself are saying: I want doctors to decide what to do and when to stop. Not you, me or anyone: doctors, and certainly not 'money'. To quote... more... - Yann Abraham

The point where you withdraw care is going to be different for everyone, but I do agree with the sentiment that when that decision is made, it should be made with the patient's best interests in mind, and not in the best interests of the CEO or the shareholders of an insurance company. - Victor Ganata

And health insurance coverage for only catastrophes strikes me as foolish, because, unlike fires, floods, earthquakes, or tornados, a lot of medical catastrophes are actually preventable--or at least they can be mitigated--if you come in for timely care instead of waiting for the paramedics to wheel you in. - Victor Ganata

@Yann: Well then I'm in full disagreement with you, because under absolutely no circumstances would I want *doctors* in charge of my medical decisions. I want to be in charge of my own medical care. I get to decide when to stop, and I get to take all the relevant factors into account. You just enjoy your medical system over there, and let the government decide when you are not worth saving any more. I'll enjoy my freedom over here instead. - Otto

Well Otto, I don't want you in charge of my healthcare, so why does your opinion matter more than mine? Typical American sense of superiority thinking that this broke ass system is better than any other countries, it must be, BECAUSE LOOK HOW LOUD I AM SAYING IT! I wonder if these people (and Otto I am grouping you with them because they all sound alike) have experienced anyone close to... more... - Andrizzle Gizzle

Why should my life be more important than a schizophrenic person who will never be able to get health insurance because of his pre-existing condition, whose family would have to go broke to have him treated for life, because without treatment he will end up in jail or on the streets, but with treatment could lead a productive life? Who gets to make these decisions? Oh right, some guy... more... - Andrizzle Gizzle

In response to this quote from the article "Imagine my father’s hospital had to present the bill for his “care” not to a government bureaucracy, but to my grieving mother. Do you really believe that the hospital—forced to face the victim of its poor-quality service, forced to collect the bill from the real customer—wouldn’t have figured out how to make its doctors wash their hands?" My... more... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

FFing Enigma: that is where the article seems incomplete, it lists a number of legitimate issues, then asserts somehow these would be addressed if patients were billed directly - Mike Chelen

Hypothetical scenario: civilization becomes so rich, that food, water, shelter, transportation, power, and other basics are practically non-scarce. Everything else produced is surplus. In this scenario, why would it be bad if 80% of GDP was spent on HealthCare and Education? You've got to spend the money on something (foreign aid?). What I'm saying is, IMHO, improving health and life... more... - Ray Cromwell

Mike, it somehow implies that billing a crying family would make it all more 'real' and 'important' to the doctors giving the care than if they're billing an insurance company. Which is a load of crap: doctors already deal with the crying family, it's the hospital's business office that handles the billing and they don't see the crying family until they can't pay the bill and come in to try and make arrangements after the fact. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Andrea G: Yes, in fact I have experienced that with a family member. Insurance paid for it just fine. Also, fuck you for thinking you know anything about me or my opinions. If you don't like what I say, then learn to disagree with civility instead of with personal attacks and generally being an obnoxious bitch. - Otto

haha A++ response, thank you for proving your toolishness. - Andrizzle Gizzle

Otto, you'll note that I commented on how many people use the I AM THE LOUDEST IN THE ROOM debate technique. You can't respond to me on point, so instead you start throwing out cusses and misogynistic name calling. This is exactly why there is so little reasonable discussion. Instead of saying, "FYI My father had cancer and he was covered 100% by BCBS with no out of pocket expense at all" you just start screaming. That is why I do not take you seriously. - Andrizzle Gizzle

@Otto setting aside your argument with Andrea, could you please tell me what makes you so certain that your judgement is better than the one of doctors, and by the way, how good would you trust your judgement after a stroke that left you with no speech and hemiplegic? And, just to emphasize it once again, I want (and currently enjoy having) doctors deciding what's best for me: it's... more... - Yann Abraham

@Andrea G: When you start throwing personal attacks my way for absolutely no reason (note that I never used caps once, or "yelled", or anything else that you're accusing me of), then yes, I'm going to respond in kind. However, since I did ask you to be civil, and this is apparently not possible for you, then by all means, welcome to my block list. You are user number 2. - Otto

I'd also like to point out that anyone who has had treatment for a serious disease has probably paid less money for their health insurance than the cost of the care they have received. That is really the whole point of insurance - to spread risk. Why is it that the same people who don't want the government option also don't want to get rid of Medicare? - Robert Felty

@Yann: It's my body and my health. That makes everything that happens to it solely my decision. Not yours, not the doctors, not the governments. Mine and mine alone. I may listen to my doctors or I may not, but in the end I'm not trusting anybody else with my health except me. Are you seriously any different? Do you *really* want to give control of your health over to somebody else? That strikes me as frankly insane. - Otto

@Otto: No. Health care decisions involve at least two parties. The patient and the physician. You have no right to compel your doctor to do something against their judgment, either. - Victor Ganata

Which people are you referring to Rob? There are obviously many points of view on this topic (all of them wrong ;). This article does a good job of explaining many of the fundamental problems with all of the present systems. Unfortunately it's very hard to fix because there are so many vested interests and because it's such an emotional topic (as demonstrated by this thread). - Paul Buchheit

@Robert: Your notion is wrong, because you're basically suggesting that insurance is some kind of magical money creation fairy. You cannot get out more than goes in, period. If everybody was to pay less for health insurance than they get out of it, then they'd be negative on funds. - Otto

@Victor: There exists more than one doctor, and I will not give control over choice of my doctor to anybody else either. - Otto

Otto: shouldn't that be a joint decision between the patient and doctor? installing piping in my house is at my discretion, but i'm certainly going to involve a plumber in the discussion - Mike Chelen from IM

Otto, the idea with normal insurance (such as car insurance) is that most people pay in more than they get out so that nobody risks bankruptcy by being unlucky. Health "insurance" is broken in part because it covers all costs, just as car insurance would be broken if it also covered gas. - Paul Buchheit

@Mike: No, it absolutely should not be a "joint" anything. It's MY decision. End of discussion. I will hear input from the doctor and take it into due consideration, but in the end *I* make the call. Period. - Otto

@Paul: Now yes, I agree with that 100%. - Otto

@Otto: yes, you can choose your physician, and yes, you can refuse treatment, but you can't compel anyone to treat you in a certain manner just because you feel like it and are willing to pay. That's all I'm saying. Of course it's your call. Except when you no longer have decision making capability. - Victor Ganata

@Robert, there are public option opponents who oppose Medicare as well. They're usually either fringe nutjobs or keep the latter opinion under wraps because they know it won't fly. - Andrew C

@Victor: You're not making any sense. You don't need to "compel" anybody to do anything. If one doctor won't do it, you find one that will. Simple. - Otto

@Paul, I think making people pay for checkups has as big a downside as upside. ... see Victor's comment from yesterday. - Andrew C

I oppose Medicare, mainly because it's hemorrhaging cash and is highly inefficient, like any government run bureaucracy. - Otto

How inefficient is it? - Andrew C

@Otto: Trust me, there are lots of things people ask for that no doctor who had an interest in keeping their license and not going to jail would ever perform. Obviously, there are those who are willing to cross that line, like Conrad Murray. - Victor Ganata

Medicare has been far more successful than private insurance at keeping costs down. - Victor Ganata

@Victor: I assumed that *I* was the one making the decisions here. I am not a crazy person who would ask for stupid medical procedures. - Otto

Medicare keeping costs down? Are you out of your bloody minds? You have the internet, people. Use it. Medicare regularly pays *twice* the cost of any other means of obtaining the same services. - Otto

@Otto: Sorry, but I don't know anything about you. But all I'm saying is that, in the bigger picture, the idea that only the patient and no one else has any say in the treatment they receive is simply flawed. - Victor Ganata

"You have the internet, people. Use it." ... Thing is, "I don't have my supporting evidence at hand, please google it for me" is never convincing. - Andrew C

The reimbursements from private insurance and from Medicare are usually pretty close, since most private insurance companies peg their payments to Medicare RVUs. But most physicians will say that Medicare pays them less than private insurance does. - Victor Ganata

So Medicare sucks because it pays double what private insurance pays AND because it pays less than private insurance. This is better than having tea and no tea at the same time. - Andrew C

According to CMS, since 1970, the cost per Medicare beneficiary has gone up by 8.8% every year. In contrast private insurance premiums have gone up by 9.9% every year. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/Nationa... - Victor Ganata

@Andrew C: "I'm too lazy to look it up myself, so I'll just argue complete nonsense and force you to continually disprove me" doesn't really work well either. Again, you have the internet. Use it before writing commentary. Learn the facts yourself, don't expect other people to continually set you straight. - Otto

@Victor: No, it's not flawed, it's the only ethical way to operate. I mean, are you seriously suggesting doctors should perform procedures on a patient without their consent? The patient must sign off on everything, every step of the way. Anything less is simply abhorrent, and I find it hard to believe that anybody could possibly argue against this. The patient is the only person *allowed* to make medical decisions for themselves. Nobody else can override him. Nobody else can overrule him. - Otto

@Otto You still have not answered this very basic question: how do YOU know what is good for you when anybody else is taking the opinion of someone who was trained for at least 5 to 6 years before even coming close to a patient with a simple cold?!? I mean you sound a little extreme when you claim that you know better, and again, what if you suffer from a stroke or other disabling disease that takes your judgement away? - Yann Abraham

@Otto and last but not least, I disagree with you as much as you disagree with me, but in the end, my position does not deny you the right to die your way, while your position is denying me the right to be cured regardless of what I can pay for. Sorry to say but I would favor the position that gives most people the most options - Yann Abraham

Paul, I can't cite anyone in particular who opposes a public option and supports medicare, but I haven't heard many people arguing that we should get rid of Medicare (mostly because people on Medicare would have a fit, and old people like to vote). Unless I am mistaken, I think that health insurance functions under the same principal as auto or home insurance. People who are healthy pay... more... - Robert Felty

If I had to decide how to cure my cancer, I think I would try bloodletting. I have heard that works pretty well. - Robert Felty

@Yann: What in the hell are you talking about? I never said that every person had to know how to self-diagnose. I said that they have to make their own *decisions*. "Making your own decision" is not the same thing as "not taking your doctors' advice". I mean, get a grip dude, you act as if I'm saying that listening to doctors is a bad idea. I'm not saying that at all, I'm saying that... more... - Otto

On a more serious note - thanks to Victor for pointing out that Medicare actually does keep costs down more than private insurance. On a related note, Canada spends about half as much per capita on health insurance than the U.S., and has lower infant mortality rates and longer life expectancies. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues... - Robert Felty

@Yann: Furthermore, you seem to be saying that people should not have a choice. That they should be forced to do everything any doctor tells them, ever, and that all of society should be forced to pay for it. That's the only interpretation of your words that makes any sense. Otherwise I cannot possibly understand why you're opposed to the idea of making your own decisions. - Otto

@Otto: I don't dispute the fact that patients are entitled to autonomy in their decision-making (unless, of course, they don't have the capacity to make decisions.) All I'm saying is that a patient can't just demand whatever the hell they want and expect to get it. That would be just as abusive to the doctor-patient relationship as the doctor trying to force the patient into undergoing some procedure or treatment. - Victor Ganata

@Otto well if I go to doctor and he tells me I am going to die in a month, however much I disagree with him does not make a single difference and going to a different doctor will not change the diagnosis. What kind of decision am I supposed to make when I do not have a single clue about what is going on? And please, don't try to tell me that you would ask a doctor to cut your life support simply because it's getting too expensive... - Yann Abraham

Otto: patients have a right to refuse treatment which supersedes the doctor's suggestion, still the medical opinion is crucial to the process - Mike Chelen

Paul: probability is a relative measurement, on a reasonable timeline all events can be determined to occur at a statistical rate - Mike Chelen

Health insurance no longer works in the presence of side information like family history, genetic predisposition, and pre-existing conditions. Even if the insurer isn't allowed to use some (or all) of these in determining rates, there is nothing keeping the consumer from using it. As a result, there will be an inevitable trend for those likely to need more medical converge to choose the... more... - Eric Borisch

@Victor: If the patient wants one thing and a doctor refuses to provide it, then the patient should seek out a new doctor. Duh. If you want your plumbing fixed a certain way, then you find a plumber who will do it your way. Doctors are no different. @Yann: Second opinions are critical to all fields. Doctors are not magical fairies that are incapable of error. Judgment is involved in... more... - Otto

@Eric: Players at the high roller tables *are* the ones most likely to win. "Streaks" are a real and statistically valid phenomenon. Thus, large winnings can only occur in the short term play, as the law of averages means that the house always wins in long term play. So, if you're betting more, then you're likely to win more in the short term. Success at gambling is all about knowing... more... - Otto

@Otto: *shrug* All I'm saying is that just because you pay good money for your health care doesn't mean you can order health care providers around like you own them. It's a partnership, and if you don't accept that fact, all your encounters with health care professionals are going to be adversarial, and you're probably not going to get very good care. - Victor Ganata

@Victor: Speak for yourself. I do not pay anything for health care, as I have not been to a doctor in ~20 years, nor do I expect to see one for around another 15 or so. I do not have, and have no current need for, health insurance. - Otto

@Otto: so basically you're talking a lot of trash about something you have no experience with even as a consumer. Excellent. - Victor Ganata

@Victor: Not once did I talk any trash, of any sort. I think you're reading subtext into my words that is simply not there. I would request that you go back and read them again, only this time without your pre-existing bias. Thanks. - Otto

@Otto: At this stage I think it's pretty disingenuous to be disavowing your stance on the health care debate. Of course, maybe I'm wrong, and you don't really think doctors (and other health care professionals) should always do as you say. - Victor Ganata

Fred Grott

TwitTornado: Real-time Twitter using Tornado - http://twittornado.com/

September 16 from Hacker News - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist and Roberto Bonini liked this

That was fast. - Roberto Bonini

Aron Michalski

Thought the Lincoln Memorial event was interesting; a generational shift with tv and politial schmaltz that never is avoided.

January 18, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

OAuth

Twitter's OAuth Support Now In Public Beta - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

March 16 from Delicious/tag/oauth - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

Morton Fox

The 7 Stages Of Being Fat - http://www.bspcn.com/2009...

August 28 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

OAuth

Twitter and the Password Anti-Pattern | FactoryCity - http://factoryjoe.com/blog...

February 2 from Delicious/tag/oauth - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

Brian Roy

Does anyone talk about SMTP? Nope, they talk about email... there is a message in there for the VoIP community.

January 7, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

Karoli

YOUNG GALLERY - http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photogr...

February 9 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

amazing photos. just incredible. - Karoli

OAuth

ゼロから学ぶOAuth:第3回 OAuth Consumerの実装(応用 : smart.fm APIおよびGoogle Data APIsの利用)|gihyo.jp ... 技術評論社 - http://gihyo.jp/dev...

March 24 from Delicious/tag/oauth - Comment - Like - Share

Ted Gilchrist liked this

Louis Gray

Re: louisgray.com: Is Requiring a Firefox Plug-in Akin to Designing for IE Only? - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

January 19, 2009 from Disqus - Comment - Like - Share

Robert Couture, Hugh Isaacs II, andy brudtkuhl and 2 other people liked this

"This is the first I've heard of Add-on-Con. Sounds nichy. It would have been interesting to attend and see the many viewpoints of developers, now that Chrome and Safari are making headway, how they see the browser market changing." - Louis Gray

3 more comments

Yes, I would argue that it is the same. The whole reason behind firefox was standards compliance so that you can use any standards compliant browser. - Chris Heath

yes - andy brudtkuhl

Yea, I've been thinking this and as with everything that tends to catch on with the internet, we're going to need some kind of browser extension standard at some point. - Hugh Isaacs II

i don't like the idea of a browser extension standard, but web standards are needed - Chris Heath

Robert Scoble

Why FriendFeed's designer, Kevin Fox, is to blame for FriendFeed being too difficult to use: he f**ks with affordances. (UPDATE: he answers me toward the end of the comments with a GREAT set of answers).

August 9 - Comments disabled - Like - Share

29travels, Lucas, FFTornado and 138 other people liked this

Affordances. They are important. What does that mean? A door knob "affords" being turned. It almost demands it. Yet FriendFeed is screwing with things like links. Here, click on "hide." That should just hide one item, right? That's the affordance. Yet you'll soon find there's a whole world stuck under that little link. You can hide Tweets. You can hide me. You can hide all sorts of stuff. - Robert Scoble

324 more comments

Is it difficult to use? - Manuel Mas

Hmm.. is it difficult to use?! - Orli Yakuel

It's a peace of cake - Mark

i heard larry wall once say about perl "make simple things simple, and hard things possible"... the simple things are definitely *not* simple in ff, increasing the learning curve right at the start... i rekon if they fix that... they have it made! :) - simran

Ooooo. One does not often see Robert swear. He's really worked up about it. Care to respond Kevin?? - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

#2 Look at the time stamp. Did you know that's also a link? Where's the affordance? Not there. Yet did you know you can click that and that is your permalink? Many people have trouble figuring this out. But here's an ultra affordance killer. Did you know you can click it twice and get a popout menu? Not many people do. Kevin has overloaded links with too many features and he has broken the affordances of what links usually do. - Robert Scoble

Orli: actually, yes, it's difficult to use. - Robert Scoble

Scoble: You may be right now that I read what you had to say. I don't think there is a proper FAQ/guide for all the little details hidden in FF. - Manuel Mas

And noses were designed to support eye glasses. - Todd Hoff

well I just managed to wipe out my entire friend feed account when I was trying to add a new one for a different twitter account - NW Angel

I agree - too many possible results from a given action. Manuel, no one reads FAQs and if you need to, the app is DOA - Sameer

Well, I don't see it as difficult to use. Its more that there are many things in here hidden that would aid users if there were more upfront. - Manuel Mas

Most of us get basic functionality out of the site with how things are at the moment. - Manuel Mas

Look at this complaint too about FriendFeed being difficult to figure out: http://twitter.com/sethgol... Seth Goldstein runs a tech company. He's a geek. Adverse to more pain than a lot of us. Yet he can't figure out how to delete a list. He's not the only one to tell me that FriendFeed is too difficult to figure out. FriendFeed still needs a design rethink to make these issues go away. - Robert Scoble

Sameer: Agree. - Manuel Mas

Valid points, Robert, but a complex interface, once learned, becomes simple, too - although that's not the best design philosophy for a massively public website. - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Its the visual impact of seeing too many options even if you dont use them. V. overwhelming for the try and buy new comer - Sameer

I think it is one of the worst UIs on the web today. Which is why I hardly use it. It violates all the rules of good design. Stuff is not obvious, it is not easy and it is not even quickly learn-able. I've spent years in product management and really, this is one of the worst. - Shripriya

I think the issue here is Discoverability. There are a lot of little hidden secrets to FriendFeed that become obvious only after you've figured them out. They're not very obvious on their own. Personally, it doesn't bother me but that's because I know it. If I were a new user, I'd be at a loss as well. It seems to me that the primary design goal at FriendFeed is a minimal UI (perhaps at all costs). - Akiva Moskovitz

Roberto: I can't think of another web app that messes with link affordances the way that FriendFeed does. Can you think of one? - Robert Scoble

People who figure out how to use a system are often the last ones to recognize how difficult it is to use. It's a self selection thing. - Ken Sheppardson

But affordances are subjective and reliant on the end-user. Take the @ sign or hashtags for instance. Unless you're talking about Apple, it's hard to blame a designer for affordance rule enforcement. - Sam Harrelson

There is a balance with "affordances" though -- if you have a very complex set of features you could have a knob/button/link for every feature but that would not work either - Brian Sullivan

@Robert, do you think FF need More Icon? - abdellah

Sam: we've all clicked on hundreds of thousands of links. We all have an idea of what happens when you click a link. - Robert Scoble

Sam, the @sign in Twitter was emergent - something users created. - Sameer

Sure, but I've seen lots of platforms use the date function as a permalink enabler. - Sam Harrelson

Manuel, agree. Robert, I wouldn't say it's difficult, but confusing (or useless sometimes). I'm not sure it's a design problem though. - Orli Yakuel

abellah: an icon is probably better than a link, yes. I know that Kevin (from an interview I did with him more than a year ago) likes sparse UIs. He is of the school that you just watch where people trip over themselves and then build UI for that. I think that's smart, but I wish that FriendFeed would iterate its UI faster to pave paths where people are having troubles. - Robert Scoble

Robert, sorry, but you're late on this trend too :) First, being not to follow everyone on Twitter. FF ui has always been terrible. Most tech people I know don't understand how to use it. And I think I use less than 10% of the available features. - Shripriya

I like FriendFeed as it is. It's obviously a power users tool as is, but then I wouldn't want it stupid simple reminiscent of installing a Windows OS. There just needs to be a decent screencast on the home page explaining all the features. No one reads FAQs these days. Video Game designers just turn the first level into a tutorial for 99% who won't read the manual and I don't mind. Maybe FF needs a tutorial when you first sign up? - CannonGod

Think about the affordances of FF and compare them with Twitter. Then compare the relative effectiveness of desktop / mobile applications developed for both. There is not a one good app for FriendFeed. This is because of the MANY "extra shite" links and an overly complex API, not because of popularity differences in the services. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Holy shit this item is already in Google: http://www.google.com/search... -- Google is going real time! - Robert Scoble

Great designs shouldn't need tutorials. - Manuel Mas

@Sameer right, but we created the @ sign to do a certain feature. Folks on identi.ca have their own signifiers. That will inevitably happen here as well as folks grow comfortable with this platform. - Sam Harrelson

Shripriya - I think most people who come back dont find it confusion. Its the first timers that run away - and thats FFs biggest problem. - Sameer

Needless to say, we all love Friendfeed, but we also need a Greasemonkey script to learn which service was posting into the time-line, and the entire issue of groups/rooms really needs a rethink because it's so hard to find any, especially If you're a newcomer.. - Nir Ben Yona

Engagement is deep; Adoption is sparce. - Sameer

TV ads (at least in australia) are considered misleading if "a person of slightly less than average intelligence" misinterprets them... i think you will find that it takes "smart techies" a while to figure out the nuances of ff, not saying everything should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, but the defaults that way would give everyone a great start... especially when introducing innovative stuff (like "the live web") :) - simran

Scoble: That Google real time thing is even more impressive than this discussion! - Manuel Mas

Manuel - Yes. I like to say that if you need to write a manual for your product, it's too complicated. - Jeff Harbert

Shripriya: I've been complaining about this stuff both in public and in private for a long time. And I wasn't behind in following everyone on Twitter. Come and study how I use FriendFeed to follow small groups of people closely, especially for Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Wow, this did get into Google fast. - phil baumann

Robert: Holy shit, that's impressive - http://www.google.com/search... - sod Twitter I say, if you're in marketing then you need to get on FriendFeed for instant Google indexing of a subject! - CannonGod

@Manuel there will be always a need to manual and tutorial, people have to sell or to promote so event if you have to explain a basic evidence, write a document make it in pdf format, sell it or share it, but for the sake of simplicity please never ever do FB style document. - abdellah

UI design is a very difficult thing to do because so many people have different ways they use things. However, I do agree with you Robert that FF does need a redesign to make more of the feature more user-intuitive. - Jack Wilson, K4SAC

Sameer - I've been back many times, I still barely use it. All the stuff Robert mentions, I had no clue. And its not worth my the time investment. - Shripriya

i would expect to see the tweet before this one.. http://www.google.com/search... - Orli Yakuel

Robert - the twitter thing (ie. unsubscribing and not following everyone) was a bit of a joke. But on FF, you are the biggest proponent. If you can't get them to change, no one can. - Shripriya

Phil: THIS THREAD IS NOW ABOUT GOOGLE REAL-TIME INDEXING! XD - CannonGod

Agree Sam, but Twitter nor identi.ca expose a gazillion features in the core app.. Its about managing the "first impression is the lasting impression" thing - Sameer

Here's the interview I did with Kevin last year: http://qik.com/video/73962 Shripriya: yeah, I keep hearing that from other people I try to evangelize FriendFeed to. One guy, who is a tech advisor to celebrities in Hollywood told me they will never use it because it's too hard to figure out and because there aren't good mobile clients for it, like there are for Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Jake - :) - phil baumann

@Sameer That's true for a certain demographic, but I look at sites my 8th graders frequent often and I have no idea how they put up with the features. Or take an xBox 360 controller... lots of buttons that do way too many things for my old 30 year-old mind, but my students find it intuitive. - Sam Harrelson

http://scobleizer.com/2008... - 18 months ago you said their UI was brilliant :) - Mark

Shripriya- thats ok. Plenty of people I personally know that have signed up for Twitter and never come back because they couldn't find a use case. No app is for everyone. Its about appealing to a large number of folks that see relevance. - Sameer

Wow, not only is this indexed in Google, but the Likes are getting indexed as well. Don't see the comments indexed yet, tho. - Sam Harrelson

Maybe FF will always be the power aggregation tool online that only a few use. But is the "few" large enough? I wonder. - Shripriya

47 emails in my gmail inbox already from this thread (as i commented and said follow updates on twitter)... surely they can batch them at least by the minute... after all... email isn't realtime :) - simran

Search results for "I don't get FriendFeed" - http://friendfeed.com/search... - phil baumann

Mark: you took me out of context. I said it both sucks AND is brilliant. That is true. Even today. - Robert Scoble

@Robert, can I add that UI is so clean that functionality are just a part of the design, they need to make more light on them (hey they are all blue link the same sized blue link) :) - abdellah

The missing mobile client certainly is a downer. I love a lot about FriendFeed, but lack of a *good* mobile client, and other minor annoyances may keep me from staying here. Sure I know I will come back from time to time (and I haven't left yet), but not sure I can live here on a daily basis like I can with Twitter because of the great clients for my desktop and phone, like TweetDeck. - Timothy Federwitz

Sam, the feature laden apps you mention that your students use, have intent built in them. The purpose is known before you came. XBox = don't do homework. Hell, Id learn how to use very button too :) - Sameer

I think FF is a different beast altogether and not as easy to create a mobile app for, based solely on service functionality and what we actually do here. - Manuel Mas

Tim: that's why I like the IM integration wtih GTalk. Gets around the site UI and works great on the mobile as well. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Scoble: I think this was a pretty rude way of giving your feedback. Why are you being so provocative lately? - Eric Florenzano from iPhone

difficult for who? the basics are easy....getting the most out of all the tools available is a different story but at least the tools are there. Not so in twitter - Craig Shipp

Sameer: Yep, good point. Similarly, I see FriendFeed having a very useful apparatus in my work/personal flow as a news/twitter/info client. I mostly use it via IM but also find the site pretty intuitive for how I use it and prefer it over Twitter, etc. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Eric: because no one engages unless you make a strong point and I sure wish Kevin would fix this stuff so I can evangelize FriendFeed better. - Robert Scoble

Craig: I have shown FriendFeed to many hundreds of people over the past year and I keep getting this complaint over and over. - Robert Scoble

I disagree with that approach Robert. A strong point is not always necessary. Most times it's a turn off and sets the wrong tone. Sure you get a lively discussion, but half of it is trying to explain you're not reallllly upset about it. - Bwana ☠

It's fine to complain but I don't see any useful suggestions here from Robert or any other commenters. A problem without a proposed solution is essentially a whine. - Brian Sullivan

Bwana: we've been complaining about these issues for more than a year. And I am upset about it. It keeps me from having a good time evangelizing FriendFeed. Just search here for how many people don't get FriendFeed. And those are the ones who'll tell you in public. - Robert Scoble

Just reading this, I have learned 4 things I DID NOT KNOW about friendfeed functionality. - Liza

Back again, to say FF still isn't cool! - K.N. Ajit Narayan

Robert: I couldn't disagree more. Please don't fall into that Arrington/Loren Feldman trap. People engage in a more constructive way when the topic is interesting. Just look at Leo's shows for proof that I'm right. - Eric Florenzano from iPhone

I didn't say this wasn't a case for a strong point, I'm simply stating it's not always necessary per your statement "no one engages unless you make a strong point" - Bwana ☠

Liza: that's another reason I did it in a strong way. I knew it would get engagement. WHen you get engagement your item gets spread to more and more people and that helps out the community overall. - Robert Scoble

Timestamp? Click, double click? Permalink? I wish I knew all of this before. - Liza

Ultimately the best thing to happen to FriendFeed would be the mass proliferation of 3rd party apps that offer a better user experience overall. Let the market sort out best functional IxD. How many highly active Twitter users use Twitter.com regularly? Not many, because there are several Twitter apps that afford a more active Twitter experience. Without them, Twitter would be news from 2006. - Laura Scott (@lauras)

I disagree. I came here because I agree with the point (as I stated in another thread), not because of the strongness. You may attract certain types with that, but not moi. - Bwana ☠

I also show twitter and friendfeed to a lot of new Internet users and they get confused easily. I think the only solution is to show one simple process and then after they master that for a week or so then show them another feature. - Craig Shipp

The best level of engagement that I've seen regarding Leo Laporte is when Arrington called him out openly and there was the big fuss of him getting thrown off the show. Just saying. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Eric: OK, heard and understood. But name another designer who does stuff with links that Kevin does. That needs to be pointed out strongly, I think. But then I get crazy about design, especially when people keep telling me over and over that FriendFeed is too hard to use and figure out. Even Liza, who has been here a lot, didn't know all that stuff was "hidden" under the affordance of the link. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I appreciate your sharing this info, but it feels strange that all of this seems like a secret. Intention is bizarre. - Liza

So Robert, do you really think Kevin and FF are actively ignoring this issue? - Bwana ☠

Bwana: yes. Why? Because it's been like this for 18 months. - Robert Scoble

As a user, I do feel like it is intentionally hidden. - Liza

Interesting - Bwana ☠

It isn't about ignoring. It's about continuance. These affordances have been here since FF started. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Michael: and they f**k with the affordances that everyone has learned on EVERY OTHER WEB SITE. This is why I used strong language. - Robert Scoble

Oh, and the "new ui" upgrade that happened a while back did nothing but add to the hidden complexity - Michael Owens from iPhone

Robert, The UI's difficulty is best expressed in comment threads with a huge number of comments, such as yours - http://friendfeed.com/bitchfe... - Aaman (Clone of FF)

And I am tech savvy, not an idiot, but the argument is, oh, you just aren't enough of a techie to get it. - Liza

I think the beauty of friendfeed is the fact that it can be used as a very basic tool but also has the power to do much more in the right hands - Craig Shipp

Who are the right hands? - Liza

And once these get fixed, the real thing that people can't figure out is what is new. On every other website there's an affordance for that. Even in SimplyTweet new Tweets are green. Quick, figure out what is new here that you haven't seen from the last time you were here. You can't. - Robert Scoble

Robert speaks truth. - Bwana ☠

Craig: That's the biggest copout I've ever heard. Maybe Kevin needs to go bak and read "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Liza: people like me who click on everything looking for secret features. :-) - Robert Scoble

Don't Make Me Think ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) by Steve Krug may be the kind of design you are looking for. - Todd Hoff

@Todd: great minds think alike - Michael Owens from iPhone

Robert: but even Wordpress.com uses the date affordance as a permalink. http://bit.ly/Dwnm6 I understand the concerns about the mass of feature clarity here, but I don't see that particular date/link function as a standard bearer. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Scoble: OK point taken. So let's make this constructive: what should they do to fix it? For the timestamp, my suggestion is to make it bluer and underlined--which everyone associates with links. Do you agree? How can they fix the hide functionality, though? I'm struggling to think of a way. - Eric Florenzano from iPhone

Liza: I found a lot of bugs in WIndows 95 by unplugging my mouse and trying to use the entire UI via the keyboard. But then I'm weird. Most people will never try anything. In fact, Google's own research shows that fewer than 1% will click on "advanced search." These weird affordances are even harder than THAT to figure out. - Robert Scoble

So if this doesn't change, FF may not get as wide of an adoption that it deserves. Hide, permalinks, and little things make a huge difference. The technology is too good for this to be its downfall. - Bwana ☠

Not having older items shaded or otherwise marked as old does effectively contribute to noise. - phil baumann

I'm not saying friendfeed can't be made better. I'm just saying it can be used from a basic level with little training. - Craig Shipp

I was accused of working for Friendfeed at an event 2 nights ago, for being an evangelist, and I still know very little about the functionality. AND I do like to think, I do click on a lot, but I also appreciate the intention of inclusion. - Liza

Eric: I would NOT put two hidden features under one link. They need a tab of "customizations and secret features" and put all that stuff there. - Robert Scoble

I'm not sure it's ever going to change at this point... which is sad - Bwana ☠

Liza: everyone knows I'm so excited about FriendFeed that they whine when I don't bring it up. Seriously. It's funny. - Robert Scoble

Whoops sorry Michael, didn't see yours. But it is a good book. Affordances is a bit abstract. He does a good job making the idea concrete. - Todd Hoff

what social site is better? - Craig Shipp

Twitter made a big improvement with contextual menu, such may add a value in FF too. - abdellah

Craig: define better. Twitter is easier. Facebook has more hooks and more users. - Robert Scoble

Which social site has the better UI? - Bwana ☠

Bwana: which is why I used strong language. - Robert Scoble

Until FB and twitter update in real time they aren't even in the game as far as I'm concerned - Craig Shipp

Robert: Twitter has the best UI? - K.N. Ajit Narayan

better UI!! ask myspace ugly by purpose. - abdellah

The problem is w/o knowing the affordances, Newbies create too much noise, feel embarassed and retreat - felt that but did not retreat - Liza

Facebook used to have a great UI imho. It's changed so much, now I can't find anything - Bwana ☠

FF has the better UI would be my guess. But better is such a subjective word. - Brian Sullivan

K.N. define "best." It's certainly easier to understand than FriendFeed is. Especially if you use a great client like SimplyTweet on my iPhone or Seesmic on my desktop. - Robert Scoble

Scoble: I'm not sure about the tab idea. It would add a lot of visual load on ever pageview. Instead, I'm thinking maybe if hide was a hover dropdown. When you hover over it, it says "Hide just this item", and "Hide all items like these" so that you know what you're getting into. This could work just like the top subnavigation items in many websites, which people are familiar with. Thoughts? - Eric Florenzano

Agree Twitter's UI is great - was in a studygroup of power users - most of us use web interface with multiple browsers rather than Tweetdeck, b/c simplicity is preferred. - Liza

Eric: this is why I'm not a UI designer. I like your solution better. - Robert Scoble

Hover is an evil thing in a real-time interface - Bwana ☠

I may repeat it but contextuel menu, yes do it well, that all , FF have to do that , twitter have done it. - abdellah

i hate chasing links - Bwana ☠

Bwana: Ahh yeah, good point. Maybe it would have to pause realtime (considering you are actually doing an action) - Eric Florenzano

Robert: Was talking about Twitter, the site...It's really easy to work with, provided you are not following too many people.. - K.N. Ajit Narayan

On FF you can type in the box and hit enter. How difficult is that? - Craig Shipp

Yeah Eric, it would have to - Bwana ☠

Even this thread is hard to read. No ability to specifically reply etc. Another reason I rarely visit. - Shripriya

FF used to pause real time whenever you your cursor was over a posting or its comments-- somehow that feature got removed. - Brian Sullivan

Basically, Robert, you're saying that FF is too clever for its own good. - Mistletoe Glen

Shripiya: This conversation will definitely stink unless you find the hidden permalink - Bwana ☠

lisa, that's one thing and four words :) - Craig Shipp

Which supports Robert's argument - Bwana ☠

I don't know if I will be able to handle a better FF - Craig Shipp

I went to grab a glass of water, and have no clue what is going on now - see what I mean? - Liza

@Craig Oh for sure you can remember the alpha version and when beta come. - abdellah

Maybe using IM is best, don't know, but, for now, I find it labor intensive vs. Twitter. I like BOTH, and I will continue to use BOTH, but that does not mean there are not simple fixes to improve the UI. - Liza

@liza no you know for sure what is going on , you know that this thread is about "....", you remmeber what you have said before, you remember the person for whome you talked so for sure you know were you are at the discussion. - abdellah

It would be nice to see some of the FF team on this discussion, Kevin Fox in particular. - phil baumann

I want to reply to indiv comments, it is impossible unless I say @robert or HEY BWANA, that is silly, crappy design. Am I missing something? Plus, everyone calls me LISA not LIZA, so I can hardly answer the questions directed at me without looking for both. - Liza

Robert should have cc'd the FriendFeed feedback room - Bwana ☠

Phil: it is Sunday and they do need some time off of their work. Hopefully Kevin will show up tonight or tomorrow. - Robert Scoble

Liz: yep, I love FF's IM integration. I've got a popout window open on the side of my desktop and can keep up with things (from this thread and everything I monitor on FF) much more easily. - Sam Harrelson from IM

LIZA - not lisa or liz, ha ha - Liza

With that said, I love FriendFeed's comment UI. That's what hooked me to the service - Bwana ☠

After reading about affordances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...), it appears the problem is that many of them are hidden when they should be perceptible. - Mistletoe Glen

Robert - I am clicking on everything in site, so if I blow up something, oops, sorry. - Liza

Liza apologies. multi-tasking fail. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Glen, yep, that's where discoverability comes in. Things should be easy to discover based on visual cues. It shouldn't be like playing a game of Myst. - Akiva Moskovitz

UNaffordances - Liza

Robert - yeah, even if they read this tomorrow, there's good stuff here that's important if the service it to grow in use. - phil baumann

Say it with me folks : User-friendly-ability. We HAZ NONE here. - Sean

Robert - now that you are here, I also think it is a mistake to expect users to choose FF or Twitter - recently you have backed off and choose to use both, BUT many of your "followers" are testy with those of us who use both. Until FF is easier to use, I will use both. That is my choice. Positioning FF as Twitter hating is bad move, ppl. - Liza

Who is positioning FF as a Twitter hater? Some people hate Twitter (I personally think Twitter is a waste of mindwidth). How does that have anything to do with FF other than the fact that they post on FF? - Brian Sullivan

Brian, do a search, you will find MANY ppl are positioning FF as anti-twitter, and I don't agree with the approach. I personally get a LOT of grief from both sides of the fence for using both, and I am not going to pick a side just b/c others tell me I should. - Liza

Annoyance: There's no comment, like, etc link at the bottom of the comments. So... I read 160+ comments and have to scroll back to the top to comment? WTF? - Kevin Donahue

Kevin - yes, that is a frustration. - phil baumann

Kevin, totally agreed with that comment, especially when using via the iPhone. It's nice to see comments per OP, but the UI for managing things is horrible and wastes a lot of time, denting my enthusiasm for more participation. - Sally Church

Officially PISSED OFF - using IM FAIL. Opens new page for every feed. Then I respond in Gtalk and get unknown command. F this. Time to breath deep and try not to explode. - Liza

Liza, type in "help" for the list of commands in IM or there's a list on the site. Not sure about the page thing... I don't get that in GTalk. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Liza: consistently when people meet me they ask "what is next after Twitter?" I don't answer FriendFeed, I wish I could. - Robert Scoble

I don't like help menus or reading instructions. I appreciate your efforts, but I am just pissed off in general b/c I like to figure things out on my own. I can't spend yrs clicking on FF for hidden treasures. - Liza

People always ask me why should they use FriendFeed over Twitter.... it gets old after a while - Bwana ☠

Robert - exactly, if we knew what was next, it would be dull. Beauty in playing, mashing, exploring. - Liza

Wow Robert, way throw out an HCI term! Are we going to discuss GOMS or Fitts' Law next? :-) - Bill Welense from iPhone

Bwana - I gave it a shot yesterday with some success in the last day. - http://ff.im/6kbAN - phil baumann

Robert - nice comment. Would love to tweet it to share, but don't know how to isolate it on this f-d up interface. - Liza

Liza - I'd like to be able to tweet comments they way Disqus allows it. - phil baumann

This is Liza frustrated and cranky, sorry for letting my evil twin out, but this feed triggered it. #blamescoble - Liza

I'm wondering if FriendFeed will remain the domain of us geeks. Is that a BIG enough market for their business model though? - Jim Connolly

I secretly hope so, Jim. Twitter was great in 2006 B.K. (Before Kutchner) when it was populated only by geeks :) - Sam Harrelson from IM

Holden: Well, I'm pretty sure someone hopes to make some money from FF. - Jim Connolly

Sam: I have to admit, I would hate to see FF flooded like Twitter is. - Jim Connolly

The fact is Robert that These problems have never crossed my mind. Actually, come to think of it. A unified settings page would be nice. However. Just becuae the UI is unconventional, going against the grain, does not mean it's a bad UI. I'd love to see a mockup of how you would do it better. - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

Holden: I didn't say it wasn't great. I still use and love Twitter. I just miss the good ole days. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Don't even get me started with a wish list of options. - Liza

CONFESSION: I did not know until now about double clicking on the time-link to get a pop-out window. - Jim Connolly

Holden: Twitter's a spam-filled hunk of crap. - Jim Connolly

Holden: You may not automatically see a business model, but they would have had to produce something to get $$$ funding. BTW: Twitter's got the audience, though. It's where the people are. Only reason I use it. - Jim Connolly

Friendfeed is not difficult to use. It is so intuitive. I love that I can easily block certain things, search for items that have a specific number of likes, see a user's likes, etc. It's wayyyyyyy easy. - Ben Hanten

Ben: A lot of new users tell me they can't figure it out. - Jim Connolly

they're not trying then, Jim - Chris Heath

If this was put up to a vote, I would vote to have a better FAQ, but I would definitely keep the design as free of extra buttons as possible. - Ben Hanten

Hmm, wow, lots of comments fast on this post. Too bad it's a Sunday, I imagine Kevin is up to other things right this second... - Jason Wehmhoener

Can someone help me find the link to create imaginary friend? - Krishnamoorthy

Holden, well that's their loss if they can't 'get it' - friendfeed is simple and IMHO if you can't 'get it' then that's your problem, not friendfeed's - Chris Heath

http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Chris Heath

Krishnamoorthy - http://friendfeed.com/setting... - phil baumann

the Imaginary Friend function is now a part of Groups. for example, I created a private "group" with my wife's name and brought in all of her feeds since she's not on FriendFeed. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Ok, the imaginary friend thing is a different story. Awesome concept; but way too much work to add a bunch of users. - Ben Hanten

I think a good start would be to have a totally different "entry point" for setting up hiding rules. Also, defaults might need to be reconsidered. Is it the best to always start off by showing everything from a user? FF already asks you to select your "top five" feeds you want to show off in your profile... Could it make sense to only show stuff from people's top five by default, so one needs to opt-in to get any more of their feeds? - Meryn Stol

Perhaps a big, dedicated "mute Twitter" (though I'd prefer "Kill Twitter" ;)) button would also make sense. After all, Twitter is in itself responsible for most items - and thus most potential "noise" - on FriendFeed. - Meryn Stol

you can still quickly create an imaginary friend (as Sam said it's part of groups now) but if you don't want to choose the private group setting yourself just go here http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Chris Heath

maybe i'm wrong and an imaginary friend is different than a private group, but the functionality seems the same - there was a discussion a few months ago about this: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris Heath

Chris, yep... good point. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Imaginary friends are easy to setup, but... you really should be able to do a whole batch of them. - Ben Hanten

Ben, it's rather janky, but my students have private Twitter accts for labs in my class that I read and interact with using the Imaginary Friends + private Groups feature. Plus, I have a nice archive of all student activity that I can search through. Not a great solution, but a good workaround for my extreme case. - Sam Harrelson from IM

there's a lot on the friendfeed roadmap, and i think that's one of the items... if you participate in the friendfeed feedback room you can get lots of answers to these types of questions http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris Heath

You can search for the official FriendFeeders' feedback, as Chris suggested, with this saved search: https://friendfeed.com/ffss... - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Interesting topic. For me personally I use FF for reading rather than contributing or commenting, and via mobile more than the web, but I do agree the UI isn't the best. I would like a google reader or better still, a Feedly style interface. I want to know about what I haven't seen that's in my groups or feeds. And I want that simple and easy with no hidden features or maybe simple and expert interfaces. - Keith Bennett from BuddyFeed

You'r right Robert. - ALPER DURUKAN

It's not the UI that's keeping the mainstream from using the site. This is akin to asking why the mainstream has yet to discover the wonders of traditional message boards. Fact of the matter is most people don't have the desire (not to mention spare time) to continually engage with a stream full of random social media tidbits on a regular basis. But if that's your cup of tea, I think the UI is excellent for sharing, discovering, and keeping up with the real-time chatter. - Aviv

ANNOYANCE: Why is it so difficult to find a list of just my "likes"? I can't find it at all. I can only find my likes through the "My discussions" link. Ugh. - Kevin Donahue

Kevin, it's pretty simple to get to your likes. http://friendfeed.com/samharr... - Sam Harrelson from IM

Has Kevin Fox responded to this thread? - Manuel Mas

Not sure he should -- seems like Robert made vicious and personal attack -- and a lack of response might be appropriate and classy. - Brian Sullivan

I certainly wouldn't join into this pile-on if I were Kevin. "Oh hey, I noticed you all were kicking me while I was trying to have a weekend, here I am now, go ahead for another round!" - Jason Wehmhoener

On the bright side, you know your service is about to hit mainstream when your biggest cheerleader starts to hate it (see Twitter). - Aviv

Aviv: nah, that's not a good predictor. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Have you noticed that the time stamp behavior of acting like a permalink is pretty much the norm across many sites? Check facebook and twitter for example. - Tsega Dinka

One thing I would like to know is, where is the link in friendfeed to the application key? I always have to search it from google. - Ru Viljoen

it's unnecessary to be brutally rude RB but these comments are valuable, we are expecting alot from 12 FF supergeeks, they cannot be perfect but they are incredibly good already. - Thomas Power

I think "hide" was perfectly designed. The user doesn't get smacked in the face immediately upon loading a page in friendfeed that resembles the control panel of an old fashioned telephone switchboard. One simple hide link, that the user will click when they want to hide something, that then asks what you want to hide. It's called not overwhelming the user with too much info at once,... more... - April Russo (app103)

April: they can put a lot of functionality into "settings" that would also do the same thing as hide does today. Most people don't figure out that the hide link has extra functionality. - Robert Scoble

It's better than what facebook does, which is to hide their multi-function hide button, until you hover over the item. I'd rather have it the friendfeed way and at least know it's there by looking and not by having to play "find the invisible features" game by moving my mouse all over the page waiting for all the little facebook easter eggs to make themselves known. You have no idea how... more... - April Russo (app103)

I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE YELLING! I LOVE LAMP! - Mark "DerBingle" J

(I'm being facetious. Robert's STRONG points are still pretty tactfully expressed, IMHO.) - Mark "DerBingle" J

http://ff.im/6n4fT - hachure

And I don't understand how any twitter user could possibly not know that the timestamp is a permalink. Timestamps on twitter are permalinks too. Ok, the clicking again thing was a bit of an easter egg, but how else could you add a nifty little feature like that without adding any clutter? Even if you gave a full tutorial FAQ, how on earth could you present all these little extras in a way that doesn't overwhelm a newbie and make them run away without reading the huge FAQ? - April Russo (app103)

Missing the point, not about geeks vs non-geeks, even geeks disagree on UI issues,and it is dismissive and insulting to act as if mainstream is not geeky enough to understand crappy UI. My opinion matters, and it was not until a fellow geek, Scoble, brought it up that anyone acknowledged that there may be some UI issues. - Liza

So go back to using twitter. - jcunwired

I know of a site that has worse issues, for example, clicking the RSS icon on a page takes you to a forum thread with a gazillion posts explaining how to subscribe to the content you want, using all the custom crap they have. You basically have to learn how to build your own RSS url before you can subscribe. And don't click the "Mark" button on a forum thread there unless you want to... more... - April Russo (app103)

FF may be messing with affordances, but I don't see it as f*cling with them. I see it as an attempt to innovate. The 'nonintuitive' behavior is a bit of a PITA, but it adds richness to the app. It is also innovation in action. The most painful upshot of suck innovation ia the fet associated with playing with a UI's functionality - you might end up breaking something really important or... more... - Jason Miller from iPhone

JCUnwired That is not helpful or constructive. Stick to one-sided debates. - Liza

Funny thing is though... I have used Excel and Word without ever reading a manual. Now I'm pretty ninja at both but never had any formal training. Neither has about 95% of the people I know how use it, yet everyone I know has worked it out enough to use it well. See, they have these things up the top like File, Edit etc that hold the functions. Those things are not always required and... more... - Johnny Worthington

Well put johnny - Mark from iPhone

Which social app has the best interface? Easy Facebook. - John Hardy

As far as I can tell "affordance" and "discoverability" are different ways of looking at the same concept. And I've been complaining about the timestamp thing for a long time. - Karl Knechtel

I've been complaining about FF's ease of use since I started using it. I'm glad there's some traction on it. ridiculous that the time stamp is not displayed as a (permanent) link. - jbrotherlove

Never mind that the timestamp isn't displayed as a link. The problem is that it makes no sense for the timestamp to be the thing that is clicked. - Karl Knechtel

I like it, its a nice gate. It keeps FF tech based. It keeps things relevant. Its an Acid Test. There are plenty of alternatives. And those alternatives that cater to everyone, are full of Blither Blather. If you pass the gate, and pass the Acid Test, you learn about the community and the discussion. With a robust Community and Discussion, Self Policing and Spammers are annihilated. Self Healing Robust System. - Robert Higgins

Apostol Apostolov, Ana ( http://friendfeed.com/ana ) has confirmed that they're on the issue of adding recipients and groups after posting an item about a month ago - http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris Heath

I totally agree with Robert HIggins & Johnny Worthington's recent comments - Chris Heath

Robert, thanks for your thoughts. Three quick responses: affordances aren't something that someone fucks with, they're something that a designer gives to a design and it's fine to say that you don't think I'm designing a product with proper affordances or strong enough affordances, but the implication that I fucked them up is that I took the gestalt natural affordances of something and... more... - Kevin Fox

The above distinction is important because the argument then becomes one of whether or not FriendFeed has been imbued with proper affordances or not. Now naturally the answer varies from person to person, as it does with any UI for any product. FriendFeed is trying to balance functionality with simplicity and, as is the case for any product with that task, any point on the spectrum could be criticized for either hiding too much of the complexity or showing too much, even at the same by different people. - Kevin Fox

So the strategy then becomes, as has been mentioned here, one of making the simple things easy and the complex things possible. The most common tactic to enable that strategy, and one we rely upon a lot at FriendFeed, is that of progressive disclosure. This works for some people and not for others, but it's usually an excellent way to make a UI that's not intimidating to a new user, and... more... - Kevin Fox

As for the timestamp also acting as the permalink: Well, you're absolutely right. This is a completely improper affordance that only makes sense if you happen to be familiar with blogs that use the same convention. Fixing this (with something less heavy-handed than a link that says 'link' or 'permalink' or (gasp) an icon of two links in a chain) is high on our list and I want to fold it... more... - Kevin Fox

When we get that worked out in a way we're happy with then we'll roll it out. Until then, it's also important to consider user confidence, and that tweaking a UI too often when trying to find the right answer makes users less comfortable with the design and their ability to manipulate it, even if they don't consciously notice any change. For this reason a few things stay rough a little longer until we have what we think is the right answer, not just a stopgap one. - Kevin Fox

As always, thanks for the feedback, and for trying to make FriendFeed a better place. - Kevin Fox

Wow - Bwana ☠

Wow. +500 xp to Kevin. - Sam Harrelson

Kevin I love you because you explain why you are messing with the affordances! :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Doesn't sound like they're ignoring it to me, Robert :) - Bwana ☠

Bwana: me neither! Glad Kevin explained. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I'm liking this article simply because of Kevin's explanation of why things are the way they are here on friendfeed. He knocked that one out of the park. - Alex Scoble

Kevins camp. In Japanese there is one word for beauty. Kirei. Actually, it is the same word for Clean Kirei. 奇麗 FF for me is clean and beautiful. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Leonardo daVinci - Robert Higgins

So if we're going to change the time stamp from being a permalink, can we use it to sort posts chronologically? That is the one affordance no one can discover. - Andrew Smith

I didn't read the full thread, but reading the top and (what is at this point) the bottom really helps me understand what the UI people do. Thanks Robert and Kevin! - Andrew

Big props to Kevin Fox. - Sameer

Kevin rocks. Even on a Sunday night. They pay me to say stuff like that at work. The thought of having to step up to the plate anytime 24/7 with that level of professionalism is daunting, to say the least. So yah, big props to Kevin Fox. - Jason Wehmhoener

I actually like the current UI. I like the feature set. I agree it DOES need a more intuitive and quicker way to know about and learn the deeper features. - George Hall (Australia)

There is something to be said for having the conversation first - then Kevin calmly explaining his pts. It gives others a chance to respond honestly, and then Kevin gets far more valuable feedback. Selifishly, I also like the fact that I can see others' views - many who did not address UI issues but showed a defensive sense of entitlement (see Louis's chart on new adopters)...Robert,... more... - Liza

Great responses Kevin. For the record, I'm a fan of the "progressive disclosure" approach. - Mike Doeff from iPhone

Really great points, Robert. I've learned some things because of this discussion. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. - Brian Adrian

One answer to Kevin. Blogs, since the beginning of when I started to use them used the "permalink" or "#" convention. I guess the thing is that in FriendFeed the CSS here is hiding the blue underline, so people don't know that the time stamp is a link. It's tough designing for the web, I know. That's why I don't do it. At least very often. :-) - Robert Scoble

Twitter uses a time stamp as a perma-link as well. </fuel to fire> - Bwana ☠

Yeah. I just tweeted about that myself. </more fuel to fire> - Dennis Jernberg

Fascinating. Didn't know about the timestamp as permalink, but I didn't suffer from unnatural affordance issues prior to reading this discussion either. Not an ubergeek, but I don't suffer. So, maybe FF is not "above the heads" of the average, but merely yields enough at any level to meet whatever the particular need might be, wacky affordances or not. And people who avoid it because it is "too hard" need to toughen up a bit. This is 2009 and the Internet, after all. - Martha

Also, the "Share" link exposes the permalink as well which I think was a great addition to alleviate the time stamp confusion. - Bwana ☠

Wow. How did Kevin get those 5 paragraphs contiguously posted? Copy-paste-post. Copy-paste-post? Or is there some other secret weapon not yet released? - Nick in Manila

Nick - I'd bet 1000 gil on Notepad/Textedit :) - Bwana ☠

I'm waiting for the twitter theme for friendfeed, to show people exactly how easy FF is to use considering its features and exactly how braindead twitter's UI is. - Andy Bakun

Nick & Bwana: Textedit and copy/paste/post. As I was c/p/p-ing I thought about how I could make a tool using the API to allow for this kind of thing, then envisioned how that would break FriendFeed and banished the thought. (and then I just commented about it anyhow. Oh what have I wrought? I am become death, destroyer of words.) - Kevin Fox

Bwana: hey, at least FriendFeed's designer listens and answers back. That might get more mud thrown his way, but a whole lot of love too. Personally Twitter's design isn't very good, but everyone thinks it is because it doesn't have many features so they perceive that as simplicity. I perceive it as inferior but that really pisses off the Twitter types and they start arguing with me about stuff like the above. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I was just thinking that. We would NEVER get this kind of interaction with a Twitter dev on a work day. - Bwana ☠

Part of me knew Kevin would address this at some point. It was merely a matter of when. - Bwana ☠

I hope this thread/conversation doesn't end any time soon, either here on this post or elsewhere. I want FF to be the best it can. - phil baumann

I think FF is waaaaaay easier to use than Twitter and recently started using FF to follow my twitter feeds. Images and videos are inline and comments are threaded (no silly @ replies). I only wish more of my friends were on it!! (also, it would be nice if comments were formatted with the commenters name first which seems to be the convention on most sites i.e. "May: blah blah blah"). - May

To go back to the top a little bit: does anyone think it ISN'T weird that not all the links on FF are blue? Not just the time stamp: the service your content was imported from, your name at the top of your profile, and the time stamp are all non-blue links. Is there a logical reason for those inconsistencies? I've never understood that. - Andrew

Awesome explanation by Kevin. I happen to love FF's progressive disclosure. I think the 'hide' feature is a great example of this. You could argue that they might make the second stage a bit more obvious, but it's still a lot better than a huge drop down menu at the start. - Ben Reierson

Even Twitter has a ramp up time. It took me about a month of working it to get comfortable with it. Only slightly longer than it took me with Twitter. And it is light years better in most every way. I agree with Robert's desire to enforce change through public criticism, but I think it important to keep it in perspective: FF is generally a better experience on all fronts. Kudos to Kevin Fox and the rest of the team. I feel confident they are more than capable of seeing issues and resolving them. - Martha

i never really had a problem with that Andrew, and I never had the problem with the permalink either... if your mouse changes from pointer to finger, then it's a link and you can see the destination in the status bar - Chris Heath

Andrew: I actually hate blue underlines. Designers have hated that affordance for years. They look ugly. They make text harder to read. I'm in Kevin Fox's camp on that one. Get rid of underlines! Just make affordances that people can figure out without being told about (like clicking twice on hide or clicking twice on the time stamps). - Robert Scoble

robert, i don't get your clicking twice on hide problem... hide seems fine, and while i don't use it much i don't recall clicking twice, like with the timestamp - Chris Heath

Chris: normal people don't mouse over every word in a UI to discover whether there is a secret link there. Also, explain how hovering over "hide" would tell a user that there's different functionality there if you click twice on that word? - Robert Scoble

Chris: if you click twice on the word "hide" you will get different UI that will give you different choices. If you click twice on the time stamp you will get a popout window. Not intuitive at all. - Robert Scoble

when i click hide i get an undo and hide options links, that seems the correct UI - i agree with you on the timestamp, but the hide thing isn't the same - Chris Heath

++Kevin - Cristo

Chris: Hide does act differently, I agree, but most people, in my experience, don't look at the second page because they don't expect to see more options. Remember 99% of people never click on Google's Advanced Options. Do you REALLY expect people to click twice on Hide? I don't. And even if they did, shouldn't those features be in settings too? Where people expect to find them? - Robert Scoble

i don't buy your beef w/ hide, but i agree on the timestamp - i also agree with you on not having to hover everything to see if it's click-able and also don't like underlining, so there needs to be some other visual cue of the link/feature - Chris Heath

sometimes features do need to be learned/taught and everything can't be intuitive... i think we might be overshooting our ideals for usability. remember the days of three ring binders and books and manuals for using any given system or software package? we've come a long way, but users do have to learn some things. i think friendfeed has done a good job of making the site usable for the... more... - Chris Heath

Given a top complaint about FriendFeed is too much noise, Hide needs to be more intuitive. - Bwana ☠

Since I still get the dumb blonde / not techie treatment from many, I am going to go w/ it and say that even I figured out hide early on. The timestamp stuff was news to me. - Liza

I'd wager at least half of FriendFeed doesn't know about the second page of hide options. I've had to explain it countless times and a ton of people didn't even know you could selectively hide services based on comment/like behavior, etc - Bwana ☠

Kevin, Thanks for listening and major props for taking your time to listen to constructive critisicm. - Jack Wilson, K4SAC

9/10 of the folks that use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc don't know all the features and functions. Having every single function be completely intuitive and/or labeled is not needed for mainstream acceptance or usage if that's what we're all worried about here. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Every single function, I agree. Hide, needs to be more intuitive. - Bwana ☠

Bwana, I agree as a power-user, but how many folks would actually use "Hide"? It's an edge-case function that will/would never catch on with the mainstream. I just don't get these complaints. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Sam: you're right. But I didn't get this kind of pushback when I evangelized Twitter and Facebook had many more hooks to get people into their system than FriendFeed does (and keep them there) and even Facebook doesn't have a lot of the weird affordances that FriendFeed does even though it's more complex. The complaints I get consistently on FriendFeed (a lot of which have to do with... more... - Robert Scoble

Oh, and the number of comments here tells me a lot of people feel very passionately about FriendFeed and want it to be better, even if they are telling me I'm full of it. - Robert Scoble

The complaint is noise. There's too much. There's too many duplicates. I don't want to see "X". These are complaints I see and answer often. The solution is hide and they don't know about them. It's not a power user function imho. - Bwana ☠

FF lost a lot of users during the initial launch because people didn't know about or want to properly hide unwanted stuff. - Bwana ☠

"FriendFeed is full of baby photos" Classic complaint. Solved by hide. - Bwana ☠

It's always the user's fault. Always. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Robert, I got on Twitter around Thanksgiving of '06 b/c of your evangelicalism (thank you/curse you btw!). But the concept there was/is much more easy to grok. Of course folks are going to think FF is hard b/c it is hard. But to bastardize JFK, "we choose to go to the moon and do these other things in this decade not b/c they are easy but b/c they are hard!" - Sam Harrelson from IM

friendfeed isn't hard...unless you think a blank piece of paper is hard. - Alex Scoble

Depends on your definition of hard. Some people think complicated or inconvenient is hard. - Bwana ☠

Alex, have you ever written a book for a publisher that loaned you money and expects the money back? A blank piece of paper is incredibly hard! - Sam Harrelson

Look at lists. Very powerful tool of FriendFeed, but for some, it's too much work. Some may call it hard, some may call it.... too much work :) - Bwana ☠

Sam: but this blank piece of paper can write itself thanks to the integration with other sites :) - Andrew

I know in the apps I've tested, if the UI was difficult for the end user, they would avoid using it. - Bwana ☠

Andrew, you are completely right. Good point. I'm thinking from a contributing point of view (b/c I'm a teacher and I always want to influence, etc) but you're right. - Sam Harrelson

Alex: is blank paper sort of like a blank Wordpress entry screen? I get it then. - Robert Scoble

Seeing a real-time stream of the full conversation is highly desirable and one of the best features of the service. I design and use software all the time and didn't know about the time stamp link until someone told me about it. Robert is doing them (another) favor by using controversial language to bring attention to the issue. I bet we see an update in a week or two and the service will be better for it. - Chip Ramsey

I can see it now: if entry["from"]["id"] == "scobelizer": theme = "lots-o-links" - DGentry

either that, or entry["body"] = pigLatinize(entry["body"]) - DGentry

Wow ... Great dialog. Kudos to Kevin for his comments! I have demo'd Friendfeed for more people than I can count. Most of the issue has to do with people's time vs value (or just fun). Is it harder than Facebook? NO! Nobody says you have to use it all and 9 out of 10 people I've demo'd Facebook for have NO IDEA what a permission is (Think about that ... and the defaults?!). Twitter has... more... - Charlie Anzman

Then ... The Friendfeed Browser and OS! - Charlie Anzman

Robert, given Kevin's responses, you might want to edit/tweak the Original Post/headline. I wish there was a way to promote the comments so they were 'pinned' to the OP - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Aaman: what's an OP? The headline? - Robert Scoble

Oh, thank goodness. I was wondering what an OP was, and feeling dumb that I didn't know. I didn't want to have to read 328 comments to find out. - Mistletoe Glen

Yes, the Original Post - I wasn't familiar with the term myself, and saw it first on this very thread, then googled it. (It can also mean Original Poster) - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Glen: I'm not scared of feeling dumb. I feel dumb every day given the quality of the people I hang out with. - Robert Scoble

@Kevin: wondering if there could be a link that would take you to a page that would show what features have been added, disabled, or removed. - Harold

Robert, you should lock comments, so it's immortalized properly at Kevin's reply - Matthew DeVries

Matthew: you make sense. I've locked the comments here so you can see Kevin Fox's reply without digging back too far. - Robert Scoble

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