“Just wondering how many startups are still on dedicated servers and how many have made the switch to the 'cloud' of Amazon, Google, etc. We're looking at some cost cutting in the next few weeks and trying to price out different options to keep things alive (cheaper) as the going gets a bit rougher.”
FWIW, we have several dedicated boxes with an added bandwidth package from our hosting company that runs us between $4,000-$5,000 a month. We're probably going to drop at least one or two boxes, and possibly move some of our heavy storage requirements to the Amazon cloud to save on bandwidth costs. But I've definitely been tasked to look at all options. - Andrew Leyden
We are about to release a widget for Wordpress that we'll quickly move to other platforms. We costed it out a while ago and decided (quite easily) that moving to VMs on the cloud was the best solution. It's cheap initially and can scale fairly quickly. - mike
We're on the verge of going cloud. We'd probably go cloud before going dedicated. The way the balance of our needs work out, we can probably keep our site on a beefed up VPS for the time being, and move the service API workload out into the cloud. - Andrew Badera
Talk to Oren Michels or Scott Rafer at Mashery...entirely cloud based from get go... - Alan Edgett
Unfortunately we are a dedicated hosting environment. Both managed and the cheaper unmanaged. We still see growth in both areas, but the cloud makes sense for certain areas. - Chris
@ andrew leyden You might want to check out BlueLock www.bluelock.com I think their monthly packages start significantly lower then $4,000 a month - Lorraine Ball
I'm hearing a lot more people switching to the cloud. - Steve Spalding
I'm still on a dedicated server for each site. i think until you really (need to) scale up the cloud isn't a huge issue.I'm more interested in scaling 3rd party services (e.g. entry level consumer of 3rd party data) - weblivz
Those of us whose models depend on scale, or anyone whose app takes off suddenly, anyone who has predictable troughs in demand, are perfect candidates for the benefits of cloud computing. And, it's better, IMO, to already be in the cloud, if there's no additional cost associated, rather than trying to go cloud WHEN or AFTER demand hits. - Andrew Badera
I see the latest Twitter blog post - Ev admits, like every startup, they started without scale. I agree the cloud is *easier* to be part of than it used to be (Twitter used s3 for it's images since the start i think), but exclusively? - weblivz
via twhirl
Can someone explain how switching to the cloud works? We are a not-yet-started startup. We have a VPS and 12-hour backups to S3. Before we go 'live' we will have a failover to another VPS as well. I understand the concept of backing up to S3, etc. but I don't understand how switching would work unless I am reading too much into the word and it means using the cloud as an extra backup location? - david
Depends on the nature of your needs. Some places, like EC2 or Rackspace, offer fullblown IaaS. Others like Google App Engine lock you in with PaaS, which restricts you to writing Python apps to serve your needs. Hadoop offers a data cloud. Nirvanix offers CDN/SDN cloud-like facilities. - Andrew Badera
If you need Google's BigTable, Amazon's SimpleDB, or Microsoft's SSDS (in beta), then you also need to recognize, and understand how to employ, access, iterate, Entity-Attribute-Value, or "horizontal" data structures. These are all graph or graph-like databases. - Andrew Badera
In my case I have a website that's relatively low traffic, but a web service API that needs to scale. So, I part my service calls out to a cloud service, let the cloud handle the demand, then pump the data down to a data warehouse for conventional OLTP and reporting. - Andrew Badera
david, amazon web services are much more than a storage facility (S3), you can have EC2 (elastic compute cloud) instances running and fire them up as/when needed. They are basically images of a OS of choice running off with the calc power and memory you chose. If a small EC2 becomes unresponsive (for example too much load on that one) you can fire a bigger one up and smoothly (and instantly) migrate to that one. you may want to give a look at the AWS developers doc, there are a lot of very nice examples - lezionidistile
We have been moving clients (and our own services) to the Mosso cloud system. Capacity scales automatically, the environment is straight PHP and / or .NET from our point of view and we have non of the crazy hoops to jump through to configure for EC2. - Soulhuntre
There are team members in our group actively learning the tricks and traps of EC2 with the goal of moving off a hugely expensive dedicated rack of servers. - Capn' "One-Eye" Longman ☠
Care to share some of those tricks and traps? Your team keeping a blog by any chance? I'd love to share in their insights. - Andrew Badera
“Well, I feel honoured for being asked to join a room of unique smartness & unbelievable genius. Not sure what I can contribute but if ever I feel uncommonly intelligent I shall put down my beer and post my wisdom.”
i just warning you @directeur if you invite stephen hawking I won't be able to bring myself to utter another word in this room again - Marco (aureliusmaximus)
Clearly I've got to smarten up my act here -- I even had to Google BDFL, for heaven's sake. - Eric Johnson
lol whew glad i wasn't the only one @eric was going to let it go but u made me feel better about googling it - Marco (aureliusmaximus)
hm, the definition I found says "Benevolent Dictator For Life"...isn't that an oxymoron, a benevolent dictator? Although I can imagine worse things than being under directeur's dictatorship ;-) - Gaby Benkwitz ☼
“I've noticed something. Amongst the people I know and what I've read online, everyone who says we have two terrible candidates has said they're voting for McCain. Everyone I've read online who says we have two of the best candidates in years/decades is voting Obama...”
... Please note that the second half of that is "Everyone I've read online" because I very literally haven't heard anyone in real life say we have two good candidates (even my Dem sister). - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
The poll numbers seem to indicate that Mona's sentiment is common. I agree; they're both "not good". - Mattb4rd
I'm curious, what's mediocre about Obama? I don't think he's the best candidate ever, but I highly respect his character and the appearance that he'll truly listen to all sides of an issue and make an informed decision. I haven't followed his political career very closely, so I could be quite naive in my opinion (not about his character, but about his political skills). - Cheryl Jones
You have tapped into something that is very true online. Those that support McCain understand that he is not the best choice and is a flawed offering. Conversely, those online that support Obama are really smitten. This probably plays against McCain, as even the supporters are not as gung-ho. It worries me that many Obama supporters will not admit any weakness. - Eban Crawford
Obama has great vision...but, many people wonder if he will follow through. McCain doesn't really have great direction, but at least you know what to expect from him. - Sean McGee
Then again, when was the last time we had a "good" candidate? That's not a rhetorical question. I honestly can't think of one in recent history -- especially when you measure "good" by the measuring sticks that most of us are -- sticks that more often than not would disqualify you from national politics. - Steve Spalding
Obama has the personality but lacks some of the wisdom required. McCain lacks all personality but has some of the wisdom. They both have decent ideas and like most candidates, either don't actually have their ideas fully developed or suck at explaining them when required. I'm leaning Obama because he still has room to grow and the energy to do it, the House, Senate, Cabinet, and advisers should even out the lack of wisdom in certain areas (usually). Given all of that, I'd consider them both mediocre. - xero
This is going to sound absurd, but part of me believes that we would all be better off if they dropped their running mates and just ran together. - Kevin Donahue
Kevin: Couldn't agree more. That's been my sentiment since after the primaries. lol - Mona N.
Everyone I know who says we have two terrible candidates is voting for one of the other four. - Alan Cheslow
Palin is the deal breaker for me. The more you learn about her the scarier she is. That and I am not going to take another 4 years of this. If Obama doesn't work out at least we get a new direction until the next election. We need a change of pace. - Paulo
via twhirl
I think we have only one candidate that makes sense for the future of this country, and his name doesn't start with J and end with N. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
I just hope he's brought up to speed regarding oil geopolitics, energy, and our economy lol. At least he shifted his perspective on genocide, which is optimistic to say the least. Hooray for advisors and staff lol. - Mona N.
Mona, advisers and staff are *so* important. I wish they were required to publish a list of who they would like to tap for what to help voters make their decision. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
I can't vote, but I think we have 2 stupid candidates. Who would I vote for if I could? Obama for sure. Why? Because McCain is too old and the media is making Obama look better. - Michael Forian
Why do you label Obama as stupid? Because he got a law degree from Harvard instead of a PHD in physics from MIT? - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
you are 100% wrong... even this thread is proving you wrong. many of the Obama people think he is an idiot. I think McCain is the best candidate to come around since Lincoln. I <3 the guy, but you see I'm a moderate that would vote for social spending if the economy were better. many of the people you are talking to are Republicans in better economies. for me if U got it: do good with it,but I don't get adding 800 Billion in spending when we are in debt 700 Billion and planning a bailout of another 700Bil - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
Noah: since the part about the people I know in real life saying it is true, I'm technically not 100% wrong only 66% ;-) In the realm of idiocy, and in comparison with our current president (who I will grant is 'crafty'), I would in no way call either Obama OR McCain an idiot. I would say that they're both idealistic and naive, but that in no way connotes idiocy or stupidity. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
Yeah, NDS's odd comment aside, I'd like to hear why people think that an obviously smart, well educated and knowledgeable person is stupid. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
Are you sure Obama is naive? Or are you saying that because of his message of Hope, Yes We Can and One America? - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
Calling -either- of them "stupid" seems like a gross simplification. - Steve Spalding
@Alex: It's scary that many seem to see intelligence as a flaw. I'm not saying he's brainiac the magnificent who has all the answers but ... why are so many so quick to throw mud on academic achievement. - AJ Kohn
IMO neither one of these candidates is strong enough, knowledgeable enough, or is willing to face the most important issues in America with a good, decent workable plan that won't drive us further into a hole. However, I'm voting for the one least likely to do damage in the next 4 years while we find a true leader who can make us strong economically and globally. Neither one will be able to do this. However, one will definitely put us in greater danger within the world, kill the middle class as we know - JMakesAwesomeSauce
it, and destroy the spirit of what America was and can be again. I fear for our country and its citizens. We are facing precarious times. This isn't meant to be fear-mongering. It's just how I see things. - JMakesAwesomeSauce
Alex, I say they're both naive (which IMO isn't necessarily a bad thing) for many reasons, one of which is the static nature of their tax plans in the face of the ever changing economic situation. But again, I think a certain amount of naivete is refreshing in a candidate, it makes it feel like there's some 'new blood', a new perspective coming in (and I think that his naivete is part of what draws some people to Obama). - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
Yeah, Tina I see where that's coming from and if he is actually naive, that will last about 5 seconds when he gets in to the White House. The thing about him is that he's shown incredible poise and cool under the pressure of the election circuit, unlike John McCain. The first term for any president is sink or swim time and John McCain looks like he's got lead weights attached to his feet and he's not wearing scuba gear. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
the one thing I don't think Obama is.... is stupid... wake up people... the dude is SMART. Very Very Smart... if he were stupid I wouldn't fear him. you people who think you are voting for the Black Forrest Gump got another thing coming. Obama is going to cater to multi nationals like Soros. He is going to use America as a PR vehicle so the rest of the world can destroy itself while all eyes are looking at so called "Green" America. your eyes aren't on the ball. Obama is going to turn America into a a sorority sister in a soup kitchen... and you know what happened to Patty Hearst? - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
Tina, I don't know if we can afford naivete anymore. Bush has been naive about a lot of things too and look where that has got us. - JMakesAwesomeSauce
JMS, like I said I think McCain is naive in much the same way (i.e. his econ plan has also remained pretty static). Working from the standpoint that neither one of them has a totally clear picture going in (and really, which president has other than Wasington?), we have to rely on who the winner will chose for the cabinet. That's where the real wealth of experience comes into play. Bush's cabinet was in many ways a nightmare. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
about that cabinet.... http://xrl.us/ObamaFascist I'm not ready to pee sitting down just yet. as I said above "Obama is going to turn America into a a sorority sister in a soup kitchen... and you know what happened to Patty Hearst? " Stupid... right? not! - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
Yeah, Tina...Nightmare on Main Street. Anyhow if he executes on a well thought out strategy for any one of our problems like how he's run his campaign, we should do OK. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
@Eban: I don't understand how you interpreted my comment to mean that I don't admit Obama has any flaws. He's a politician. Politicians have flaws. Anyway, I could say the same 10 or a 100x over for McCain supporters. Many of his supporters don't even see his campaign's smear tactics as anything out of the ordinary. It's the worst hate mongering I've seen in an election. I haven't heard a lot of substance from him in the debates, either. And don't even get me started on Palin. - Cheryl Jones
All I can gather from McCain in the debates is that he's not willing to accept any kind of timeline to get out of Iraq (probably the biggest thing ailing our economy, beyond the housing bust). And he's adopting some plan to buy up bad mortgages that just benefits the banks again, and not the people struggling to stay in their homes. That $5k health care credit isn't the great idea he believes it is, either. At least Obama is willing to spend on education to help the US improve its dismal standings. - Cheryl Jones
His health care plan isn't all fleshed out, but it sounds more comprehensive than a $5k credit that won't even cover the average health care costs. Plus he seems to have a greater grasp at how important it is to use diplomacy. I don't believe McCain is going to use diplomacy as much as Obama would. Am I wrong in my impressions of the two candidates? - Cheryl Jones
Found a couple articles that flesh out health care details for both campaigns. I'll take back my argument about McCain's lack of health care details. I actually forgot about being able to buy insurance nationwide that he talked about in the last debate. According to this article, http://newsblogs.chicagotribun..., neither side's plans will result in noticeable improvements early on. It'll take a while for the money to become available due to the economy trouble. - Cheryl Jones
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We believe that all music artistes should control their destiny because ultimately it is their art and endeavours that create the pleasure and emotion enjoyed by so many." - Eric Johnson
via Bookmarklet
I agree it's important to think about the importance of services like friendfeed and twitter. My experience is that real in dept answers which combine to a discussion are sooner found on blogs than on friendfeed. On twitter discussion are very hard to follow altogether. You have chosen to comment on Robert's blog by writing your own blogpost and not by writing a comment on friendfeed or his blog. I do think you're not giving especially friendfeed enough credit when you say it's just like a bar and only good for some entertainment. (We could have a discussion about the value of a bar some other time :-) If you keep the person who comments in mind, you often have the most skilled people commenting on post of the subject of their expertise. On friendfeed those subjects are rather going to be social network, internet marketing and new media. Ofcourse subjects like politics and science are also discussed and there your point about Stephen Hawking is true I think. - Tobias Verhoog
Tobias, I do believe there are experts around here. But I also find the level of "discussions" are lowered by the boldness that people use to "discuss". We talk more than we listen so to say. In real life we use more senses to interact. Sight, hearing, feelings, etc. Here a discussion ultimately is limited by the number of words Friendfeed allows you to input into a discussion ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Isn't the effect of using aggregators more (and thus more useless) information? More voices... more opinions... all need to be analysed if you want to make some sense of it. By its nature I agree that the chances of finding good economic experts on FF are rare, but have you looked for them? Everybody connects to other people within his field of interest and frankly... detailed economy isn't one of mine. - Tom Vanlerberghe
@Tom My point wasn't really that there are no experts here, I think there are quite a few (very similar types). But the way Friedfeed works and the culture I see here is that it is quite hard to have a "discussion". Too many opinions, more statements than people asking questions. Just look at what I'm doing now, I'm trying to make a point here too ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
@Tom btw I fully agree that aggregation is often quite useless. it's too much sharing without intent. Makes the stuff that gets shared often less valuable to the receiver. - Alexander van Elsas
Alexander, I value your writing, but I didn't laugh at Robert's post. When he says he's warming to Andrew Keen's argument that's significant. There has been a trend to devalue offline expertise as elitist and luddite (Matthew Ingram, Jeff Jarvis, etc.) -- Robert's reappraisal helps restore some balance. - Sprague D
Last night I was arguing religion and politics with a believer who didn't know who Ralph Reed is. We have become a nation of Sarah Palins and we wonder why she is so popular. Sigh. And this is on FriendFeed where I assume we are smarter than average. - Robert Scoble
@Robert Scoble- I recently had a revelation that my perception of you last year was incorrect; that you were a neurotic with an undeserved audience. I had begun to see recently, that you are indeed thoughtful and accomplished. However, quotes like "we have become a nation of Sarah Palins..." is hypocritical when the other side is in the midst of their most dramatic lying, phony charade ever. I can't believe how many otherwise smart people are willing to ignore so much. Folks want to bash the Right? Go for i - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
..Go for it, they deserve it!! But at least call the Left on the massive bias, lying, bullshit. There is NO credibility left on the left either. None. http://tinyurl.com/538x72 - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
Ed: you would do the right a lot more good if you didn't try to defend Palin. I used to be a Republican and I would like to be one again (I am actually a fiscal conservative) but as long as people on the right stick up for religious idiots like Palin I will hold my nose and hang out with tax-and-spend liberals. Not to mention that the deficit went up with a Republican-controlled President and Congress. Oh, I want to believe in real conservatism! Oh, and regarding lying, McCain does a lot more of that then Obama. You should look into it. - Robert Scoble
@Sprague I feel we (elite online media experts) are often a bit overconfident of our own expertise (yes I include myself here). That's why I like reading books and use other resources to be able to tap into really smart people. Out here, we mostly sound very smart ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
@Ed Shaz you just proved why it is hard to have a focused conversation over at Friendfeed. You are hijacking it to move towards political opinions ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
@Robert I'm not defending the right. They've whored our nation down the drain. But the dialog from the Left, and in the mainstream media makes 'disingenuous' a compliment. There's so much complete fabrication, that the population has NO chance at an honest discussion, which leads to us fighting each other for a thousand powerful fat cats in DC. It's uncivil war. The citizens lose while the Dick Cheney's and Chris Dodd's get away with murder. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
Alexander: I have made it my life's work to meet and study smart people. The folks who hang out here are generally very smart. But it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. You should travel America sometime and stop in a random bar to get a sense of how good it is here. - Robert Scoble
Great post, Alexander. As someone who drops in and out of the conversation (and observes US political discussion from my Canadian arms-length viewpoint), I can accept this form of socializing as akin to a cocktail party where in-depth conversation rarely (but occasionally) happens. - David Muir
In other words, Abraham Lincoln would never vote for Barack Obama. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
Ed: Well, you might have convinced me had you not started out by defending Palin. That just tainted everything you have said since then. Start over by admitting she is an idiot and then we can talk. - Robert Scoble
@Robert, I was at an American bar just a few days ago. Had conversations with @NVineberg, @ck, @stoweboyd, @JoshMcHugh and other really smart folks from many different companies. I used the bar metaphor because I felt it fit. FF gives great and fun conversations, but if you want to know smart things it's best to sit down with a real expert than have a public "I know it best" conversation over here on FF". Can't comment on American bars in general though, not enough expertise there ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
@Robert, just to be sure, I do not doubt there are smart people on FF, I just think (just like you do) that the medium doesn't provide a lot of in-depth expert conversations. - Alexander van Elsas
In my mind FF is like the main room of the cocktail party and in depth conversations can spin off from there -- onto blogs or other platforms for people to voice and then hear other people's opinions. By the way, being an early tech adopter qualifies people to have in-depth opinions about the economy as much as being a successful actor does. But as Robert pointed out yesterday, people can bring widely diverse experiences to the conversation (so don't limit all FFers to the "early tech adopter" slot). - David Muir
@Alexander On the contrary, implicit in this thread is the evidence that thought exchanges of value occur in social media arenas. The deviation from your singular intent, is common in web 2.0. How many bloggers initiate a discussion which the voices take off with, which results in excellent dialog? Original flight plan? No. Valuable, legitimate, edifying? YES. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
David: I didn't realize that being an early tech adopter means you don't know anything about anything else. I know congressmen, librarians, architects, teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc that are early tech adopters - Robert Scoble
Robert: I actually tried to echo your point from yesterday (not only that other kinds of experts can be early tech adopters, but that those who are primarily considered early tech adopters can have widely diverse experiences). Sorry if that didn't come across in my comment. :-) - David Muir
@ed In real life conversations are hardly "singular intent" either. But trolling is a term that was invented in "web 2.0". Hijacking here is easier and different from real life conversations. I tend to disagree with your conclusion that the dialogue then becomes "excellent". Imo it merely takes a different direction - Alexander van Elsas
Wikipedia's definition of a troll "An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." - Alexander van Elsas
Wait, Scoble knows all the cool people, and the rest of us aren't smart or capable enough to see them or realize they exist? Thanks for the constant reminders, Robert! *cough* Alexander, you could easily have just left "conversations" off your post title. - abacab
Hm. Do you feel that face to face, off-line conversations are not "hijacked" or don't deviate from the initial kernels of thought and discussion? I've seen that plenty too. And I've moderated conversations both on, and off line, where I had to nudge folks back to focus *because* resolution of a question was critical. If you want to ensure a particular outcome, Alexander, you'd have to install parameters. Perhaps a private room, with a hand chosen few. Or install mirrors. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
i find huge value in friendfeed, so the statement you made that its only for entertainment is out to lunch and seems more like linkbaiting to me - imho of course - mike "glemak" dunn
> abacab actually this is a major problem with social networks. I call it the "friend divide." If you joined FriendFeed and don't know the difference between Alexander and, say, Tim O'Reilly, wouldn't you be at a disadvantage to those who DO know the difference? I think so. And to say there's no difference is just plain wrong. Attacking people who know the difference and are willing to point it out is also wrong. - Robert Scoble
@Ed when you are sitting with a few people the overall conversation moves into different directions too, btu the process is different. We use many stimuli and sort of find it okay for this to happen. Here you just use CAPS LOCK (its a metaphor) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
@Robert are you referring to the fact that Tim is American and I'm Dutch ;-) You are right of course, the playing field is leveled here, anyone can be a pop star or an expert and it is nearly impossible to validate anything being said. I think Tim is WAY smarter and experienced than I am BTW. - Alexander van Elsas
@David you are right, it's a "simple" view. Not all FF users are early adopters, but very few of them are mainstream (how could they be here) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Robert, you do post frequently (often rather casually and indirectly) dismissing others for not seeing what you see. You also spend a fair number of posts telling us all about who and what you know. Maybe you just don't see you're doing these things. Ironic, no? I think there can be a divide, but I think it's something most people already understand exists. This space is essentially no different than real life in that regard, despite having arguably better access to the "elite". - abacab
@abacab not to defend Robert, he can do that himself. I assumed he meant to say it is hard to see who is an expert and who is not. I think that is true. On FF or anywhere else on-line it is hard to decide to trust the 'expertise' of someone making bold statements. I for one would warn you not to assume everything I write is correct. It is, and remains to be, my personal view of the world ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
The thing that astonishes me about the veneration of FriendFeed is that it's fundamentally just a link-injected BBS where instead of users posting to the forum they post elsewhere and talk about it here. It's faster than the old way, for certain, but it does seem like it makes discussion more disposable and less considered than it otherwise might be - and information becomes fragmented when the original posts don't point back to the associated discussions. - kris. nuttycombe
Alexander, rest assured that I do not assume anything anyone writes is ever automatically correct. That includes my own writing. I tend to put people on a level middle ground; I don't hold those with more social 'gravity' in higher regard. I tend to (as objectively as possible) examine the content itself long before I (usually subjectively) consider the person behind it. Anyway, this is a -social- space, not a thinktank or a research group which would and should demand different thinking and attitudes. - abacab
"Google SMS channels currently works only with with phone numbers of India but they are working towards making this service available to international numbers." - abacab
We need this in the US. Google alerts are only searches to email right now (Google SMS & GOOG 411 are response-based). Yahoo does RSS and some other things to SMS. - £ogical €xtremes
I wish Google would let you send SMS messages from IM or Gmail. - Kevin Mohr
Also, is this partly from the Zingku acquisition? - Kevin Mohr
3jam and others must be crapping themselves - adolfo foronda
Google Singapore, are you working on this already? - Jonathan Kong
wow. Great functionality for all those mobile phone users around the world without access to computers and the web. - Richard Crocker
@Richard, I sense sarcasm. Even though I have a web-enabled phone, I still would prefer SMS for short, high-priority alerts, delivered to me as available rather than having to think about it and go find it. - £ogical €xtremes
Jeremiah, like a lot of people, misses the point of Friendship. People aren't relegated to mere collections of topics to be parsed into hashtags or filters: they're above and beyond that. News and content discovery needs to be better removed from the whole social connection process, but it's not going to make "Friending" obsolete. Being able to follow people, not topics, is the appeal to the rest of the world outside of social media and web strategy experts. The intelligent web ought to include how to follow people we care about better, not removing them entirely from the equation. - Mark Trapp
Friending to me is saying I enjoy that person's perspective. If everyone tags using "#relatedmusic" then there is no perspective anymore and you are just getting a big dump of everything. The curator feature of relationships is difficult to do away with. - todd
+1 @todd...i love that word 'curator.' people--as filters--will always matter in a so-called 'social' context. - .LAG
mark: i agree w/ your perspective but i saw the post as stating that a better way to discover and auto-follow "friends" would be possible via this systemic approach to topics/themes/memes/interests when some of these capabilities mature - one of the potentials of semantic web right? - mike "glemak" dunn
Mike: but friends aren't merely collections of topics. Better filtering and content discovery is one part of the solution, but easier ways to figure out what your existing connections are doing are just as important. I go back to an example I used a while ago: I may have no interest in car talk, but I want to know when my friend gets a new car, and I want to hear what he has to say about it. Merely reducing it to topical analysis means I miss a big event in my friend's life. - Mark Trapp
love the idea of curator. Works especially well with faving photos that show up in FF. - Thomas Hawk
mark: totally agree, not ruling out presence aggregation (i think ff already works really well for this & the primary reason i like it so much) - saw this post as augmenting an already existing social net - btw, i don't think the current system of manually finding/following is broken - but that's just me ;) - mike "glemak" dunn
A lot of folks missed the point of the whole post. This isn't about 'friending' that's just but once example. The bigger point is = the web is going to be a sentient being. - Jeremiah Owyang
Jeremiah: you wrote about how the act of friending would be obsolete because we're teaching some nebulous system a set of rules to figure out how we determine friends. I'm saying Friendship isn't programmatic: it's not just a different form of interest profiling. Rulesets can apply to a lot of things in social media, but Friendship transcends a list of rules to be parsed. I've written about this subject here: http://marktrapp.com/tags/frie... - Mark Trapp
Mark... spot on. I may not even want to friend the same people on different services, may use different filters on different services for the same friends, etc. I want this kind of thing to be manual. I want to retain control of how my time is used and what information I see. - £ogical €xtremes
Mark. Have you seen Xobni? It's already tracking who my contacts are by email usage without my explicitly saying that someone is a friend. This is already happening. - Jeremiah Owyang
agreed jeremiah - web as sentient being is a stretch (which i'm sure is the way you meant it) but not the progress that will help to produce the semantic web which should be very revolutionary... - mike "glemak" dunn
I've not said the "S" word Mike. I'm trying to approach this 'next next' without using any buzz. Taking a pragmatic approach. But yeah, we agree. - Jeremiah Owyang
Jeremiah: your contacts are not necessarily your friends. I have a list of people, like vendors, who I have to email regularly, nevertheless, I don't care about their daily lives and I don't have a sense of real attachment to them. You're conflating two different terms here: Friendship isn't a keyword search, it's not your address book; it's more than that. - Mark Trapp
Jeremiah: I agree that there's a lot of stuff, programmatically, that could be done to figure out very useful relationship graphs: most frequently contacted, business associates, etc. But you're always going to need to explicitly state "This person is a friend." It's not reducible to a parse, and for that group of people, your actual friends and the people you care about the most, "friending" isn't going to be obsolete. - Mark Trapp
hashtag is a metadata. With enough metadata, you can find out relationships between people or information. Though I think the next step is finding relationship or connection without having explicit metadata. - Leon Ho
Might be instructive to take a page out of (formal) social network analysis...look at users' behavior to infer/interpolate relationship information. This has been done (for example) analyzing massive amounts of data from cell phone users' anonymized call logs. Not too hard to figure out which phone numbers belong to friends, which to family, which to Domino's, etc. Watching users' interactions can educate a "smart enough" system about the relationships (friendships and other kinds) among the users. - Andy Shaindlin
I have been (and still are) interested of how data mining allows to create maps of social connections and information they share between each other. There are huge privacy risks in that kind of things but it looks like that world is getting more and more full of all kinds of sources of data. Sooner or later people start to notice that there are tons of information about themselves even if they haven't shared anything publicly (or that is the way many people think). - Daniel Schildt
Jeremiah wrote about "Teaching the System" and while there are issues related to connecting different systems together, there will be more and more conversation about how to connect huge databases to create massive pools of data. Even if that data is located in separate locations, application interfaces allow systems to communicate between them and make distributed data mining by just transferring results to another service. - Daniel Schildt
I just find it distracting that in longer run at least some of the systems will become tools to track and control people. It's not the functionality, it's how features are used. There will be more talk about ethics of data mining but does that really change much of how things are getting to on later stages? - Daniel Schildt
People's identity in on the way to "higher level" as it's being digitized in many ways from credit card data to click and location tracking online and offline. Some people say that they don't have anything to hide. OK, it may feel like that but do they really think that in future? I don't want to be paranoid, not even close to that kind of feeling but I'm just kind of pessimistic of ways many things look they would be going to. - Daniel Schildt
In my opinion there should be more conversation of what are privacy aspects of society where information is openly traded between different systems maintained by individuals, companies and governments. Who controls the data or are things getting little bit out of hands? Or is the free flow of information best way to do things always when we are talking about amount of private and public information there are already in databases around the world? Who says the last word on how that info is used? - Daniel Schildt
So knowing that, isn't it our choice to decide how much to put out there? Also, there are sites / services that aren't indexed. Why not go that route? - just asking. - Mona N.
I'm not saying that it would be bad that public information gets indexed and combined. I'm just saying that in long run the difference between private and public is going to get mixed. It's our choice to decide what we publish or not but there is much information about ourselves that most people don't even know to exist. That is the main thing that makes me to be somewhat pessimistic of future. - Daniel Schildt
I'm optimistic about the US economy in 5+ years. The faster we can clean up our financial mess, the faster we can grow again. I'm believer of an innovation economy. The US will continue to dominate technology and business innovation, even though it's imperfect. - Harry Chen
I'm optimistic all the way through. I was betting on a slight recession (2-3 quarters of 0 to -2% growth). I'm now betting that we will exit 2008 with an overall positive growth rate of between 1 and 2%. - Kevin D. White
I'm not as optimistic. While I think most of the acute issues are being realized now, it's unknown what effect all the nationalizing will have. Most likely we'll end up with a more european economy, which isn't heading in the direction of an innovation economy, An improvement in the next couple months such that we end up with net positive growth by the end of the year is inconceivable to me. As nice as it would be, I think I have a better chance of winning the lottery. - Mr. Gunn
We haven't had a negative quarter yet this year. Every quarter has been positive but below the long-term average of 2.5-3%. Exiting 2008 at a net negative rate would require a rapid steep decline over the next few months. Wall Street bailout or no, I don't see that happening. - Kevin D. White
“Well, it seems that Friendfeed is just as divided as Congress is on the bail out bill. Since I've been here I've never seen a more heated debate on a topic, site wide. But, I will say that we are still smarter and more organized then Congress, no matter what opinion we have.”
BS. It is amazing to me the FF readers aren't actually speaking the truth. Politicians have to get elected, not the big brains here. This has one prime root: Dems reduced the barrier to acquiring credit to win votes. Fannie and Freddie is their mess and the seeds of our destruction. It isn't debatable, but folks here want to skip it for their own political agenda, and blame anything and everything else. - Morgan Warstler
Morgan: interesting. So the Democrats were responsible solely? I seem to remember quite a few years in the early part of this decade where we had a Republican Congress and a Republican President. Truth is, we're all to blame for letting this mess happen. Even if you don't believe that, let's get past the blame game fast. Work the problem. What do we do TODAY? Do we let the credit system burn? - Robert Scoble
Definitely not name calling, legitimate comments. Me likes. - Eric @ CS Techcast
So the answer then is to force every congressman (and woman) and every senator to have a mandatory weekly online video town hall. That's representative government in this new world. (and in the process, they should select a less expensive HMO plan for themselves) - Charlie Anzman
Too true. :D Remember, in this country the most important things are not done by government, but by each and every *individual*. That is what freedom is. - ☺ KevyKev ☺
Don't go blaming all this on Democrats. Yes, they had a hand in it. But, for many years this country was solely run by the Republicans. And they are the ones who got us to this mess. The Democrats have just been unable to get us out of it. Partly because the Republicans can't get their heads out of their asses and think about the country instead of...ok...ok...calm down. Anways, its everyones fault, not one party over the other. - Mathew Ballard
Morgan, a reduced barrier is not in itself an inducement to cross said barrier. The fact that it became easier to lend money doesn't mean that lenders suddenly HAD to lend money to everyone who came in the door. Bankers saw an opportunity for profit and the regulatory structure made it easy to strike out at that opportunity, but if they'd been responsible, bankers could have and should have held more money instead of throwing it around. Speaking of which, there's enough blame to throw around. - steplow is Steve
Why don't we stop trying to assign blame (which seems like America's pastime nowadays), roll up our sleeves, and do something. I mean that metaphorically of course, since there's not much Joe Citizen can do at the moment. - steplow is Steve
I wish I could do something. But, I have no idea what so ever how to fix all this. And I had to go and be a designer and photographer. - Mathew Ballard
Steve - actually there is. Call your representatives, fax and e-mail along with all the media you can reach. Agreed on the blame game. - Charlie Anzman
Sorry Scoble. This is about blame. If we place it carefully, we will never again have a gorvernment program to buys votes for Dems. Fair is fair. A reduce barrier is "in and of itself" a reduced barrier. Barriers are there for a reason. deal. - Morgan Warstler
@Morgan No, offense but you seem to be one of those far right people that makes it difficult for others of us to bring change about in this country. We need to get out from this mess that a republican government got us into the past eight years and yet there are some that just seem to want to keep us there. - Mathew Ballard
@Mathew, wrong. You seem like one of those people who wants to pretend that "great intentions" was a reason to let bad individual credit risks be securitized by the government. This is on you buddy. Chickens. Home. Roost. That's not far right, that's just right. - Morgan Warstler
Morgan, I'd rather have a gov't program that buys votes for Dems than a gov't bought and paid for by Reps. As I said, there's enough blame to go around. If you want to play the blame game, go ahead. The last thing this country needs right now in the midst of this crisis is short-sightedness, i.e., an inability to see past November 4. - steplow is Steve
No. I'm one of those people who believes that credit companies got to loan happy and now we are all suffering for it. Therefore we need to have OUR government do something to fix the situation so that we don't end of going in to a depression and losing most of what we have. I am one of those people who lost their job at the beginning of the year because their company couldn't afford them anymore and have been struggling to work since and haven't been able to get a job in his career. I'm one of those people. - Mathew Ballard
Matt, banks couldn't get loan happy if Fannie and Freddie weren't securitizing the deals. You need to recheck your logic. - Morgan Warstler
I never said anything about Fannie or Freddie. All I said was banks got loan happy. I don't care what the reason was, I don't care if its because someone put a gun to their head. It happened, now we are suffering and we need things to be fixed. And if you don't want things to be fixed, then you are one messed up person. - Mathew Ballard
@Mathew: If you don't blame the Dems - they will continue the practice!! In 3 years, they'll start moaning about how banks aren't helping poor people get loans - and they'll use this stupid bailout to justify it. You really do own this huh? No real thinking, just want handouts to "work." - Morgan Warstler
This is why The Fountainhead (http://cli.gs/j3j4ZH) should be a required text in college. I am absolutely not a fan of Rand's extremism, but her idealism is worth a personal study by every American. - Stagekid
I will just say one more thing. In the past 60 years or so, everytime a democrat has been president the enconomy has done great. And most of the time when a republican was president the economy hasn't done so well. Thats all I'm saying about this. Time to move on to something that is less stressful then this hellish economy. - Mathew Ballard
@steplow: "The fact that it became easier to lend money doesn't mean that lenders suddenly HAD to lend money to everyone who came in the door." Patently false. The law was written such that lenders were required to lend money to "everyone who came in the door". Not lending would bring a lawsuit claming discriminitation. - Chris Hynes
@steplow, @Scoble: Agreed the blame game isn't productive. But we also need to figure out which policies were responsible for this, and thus be able to fix the problem. Without knowing the cause of the issue, you'll just end up just running around like headless chickens trying this and that with no particular reason for any course of action. - Chris Hynes
Smarter? More organized? I don't think so, because I see a lot of bitching about the bill not being passed, and no original and votable alternatives being produced here. - Ernie Oporto
When I wrote that I really stood behind it. But, now after all the comments left on it, some by me, I will back off of that some. But, I will still say that compared to those on capitol hill we are (for the most part) acting as saints. - Mathew Ballard
I have always wondered why people want to blame someone else than their favorite. The reason for many failures is mostly in the combination of errors and failures that every person in this world does. It's just that sometimes it hurts more when people doing mistakes have much more power and effect on the others. I don't blame one person or political party since everyone does mistakes, sometimes too difficult to handle yourself. - Daniel Schildt
I just hope that people would get together and instead of trying to blame another person they would find right decisions on how to stabilize situation and do things in best way as possible. There is power in collaboration, I just hope that people would want to be talk about financial problems in healthy way and try to find ways to solve issues. - Daniel Schildt
Is there anything we can do to help our industry, our community, our jobs, ourselves? Especially if a real deep economic troubling time is on its way? - Robert Scoble
eliminate consumer debt and start saving - at the very least, everyone should have at minimum, 3 months' living expenses in cold, hard cash, today. - Jason Kaneshiro
Four Rs. Retrench, Review, Recover, Renew. How long that takes is the mystery. - Andrew Leyden
as Jason mentioned, 3 months of living expenses should be the norm for everyone. the problem is that hardly anyone in america saves. - Jonathan Jesse
also not spending money we don't have on credit. the problem though is by doing this can help keep the "economy" down as well - Jonathan Jesse
when you buy, buy local. keeping your cash circulating locally will help improve economic conditions in your home town. - MikeAmundsen
we need to 1) get re-focused on actual business models add value that someone will want to pay for 2) find a way to entice investors to invest in SMB - SMB always leads recovery - Brian roy
This is a GOOD discussion to have...thanks Robert. We all need to really think carefully about what's best for our families, communities and country with regard to any potential economic woes, and hopefully not - but possible - a depression - Susan Beebe
Support your local mom-&-pop businesses. Establish business relations with them. Network, network, network. - imabonehead
another angle: what things can web-folks do to use tech to make life better for folks who are in a bad way? kiva-type sites? sites that help business get buy on less thru co-op? sites that help helping-orgs reach more donors as well as more folks in need? - MikeAmundsen
The best thing we can do as employees is to stay focused on growing our businesses, staying innovative and profitable. Regardless of the market, there will always be a need for differentiation and product leadership. The quest becomes how do you transition that into real revenue when budgets are tight.
Having been at the same company for eight years now, I weathered the first Bush recession and look like I get the opportunity to go through another one. It’s important to be smart about the money you hold, and to not sell low, and not put yourself in debt. If you and your business have cash and no debt, it makes the process much easier. - Louis Gray
Hoard copper, tin, zinc, iron, steel, etc. It's inflation proof. - Jason Carreira
Cut unnecessary costs in your business. Another excellent thing you can do to successfully combat worries about economic depression, is to go out and help others, like the homeless. The life you save may well be your own. You help the homeless and you'll get a better natural high than putting in a grueling physical workout at the gym. - J. D. Ebberly
Barter, network, form guilds, support local businesses, save, manage your debt, make sure your business model is actually a business model, blog, connect with your community so you stand out and people pick you over the competition. - Eric_T
Having 3 months worth of expenses saved is a good idea, but I don't think it will help you in a depression. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble
Cash is king in a depression.... - RHinNC
via twhirl
Fear, my friends is not the best decision motivator in a time like this.. it only brings exactly what you're afraid of happening. Everyone getting scared and pulling out of their banks/investments will just speed up the crashing process. - mortisha
Were not anywhere near a depresion tho, so far the only sector affected is the financial sector. All others are healthy. - RHinNC
via twhirl
@RHinNC the problem is the financial sector isn't lending others in the sector money. cash isn't flowing as quickly around as it used to - Jonathan Jesse
Take responsibility. we should stop being asleep at the wheel. Stop spending beyond our means to look like we have more than we have. Stop feeling entitled to XYZ amount of money. We will only make what the market can support so expect it to be lower and live with it. Start paying attention so we are aware and educated to make decisions. When was the last time you saw a large protest like those that changed civil rights, etc.? We're said to be one of the stupiest, laziest countries - so let's make it cool not to be that. The majority of our country will still live better than 90% of the world despite our economic situation. - Patricia
For those with the ability lend money via services such as Zopa. For others use Zopa in preference to the banks for that loan needed to renovate the house or start a business. - We need to rebuild the whole financial system from the ground up as Umair (http://www.bubblegeneration.co...) using the technology and skills that we have. - Simon Cast
science, engineering - we’re going to need to build real things. our biggest export can’t just be debt.
this will take a lot of time, but if you’re a parent - exposing your kids to science, engineering, electronics, computer programming is an investment that will actually pay off.
so my challenge to “Techcrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, Center Networks, Mashable” would be for them to cover some of the cool and interesting people/companies that make things. we are what we celebrate… - make
I think we will see people going back to school, CS degree enrollments are way up this fall off historical lows. Great for colleges (full disclosure, I teach). - dan
I think there's a lot of things as individuals we can do: live within our means. Shop local. Eat local food. Go to the farmer's market. Buy handmade. Buy American. Spending a little money now to greenify to save money later over the winter when energy bills go up. The latter is something I personally plan to focus upon; I live in a 99 year old house with 99 (and 40) year old windows. That needs to change so what little savings we have don't go out the window, literally. - Amie Gillingham
This is the moment when economic neccessity and climate issues should help all of us reevaluate our consumerism. - susan mernit
Posts like this one from Scoble are a good start. Focus on solutions instead of focusing blame. Come together rather than allowing politicians and talk show personalities to further divide us. Don't let panic cloud judgment. - Howard Keziah
Start a movement, so that instead of government trying to bailout the banks and financial institution, let the goverment subsidize the gas and electiricity. That will provide buying power for the middle class. - Ranjith Antony
