Eric Johnson - Likes

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Ivan Boothe to Ivan's feed, nptech, #4change

Will "web 2.0" help advocacy groups hold officials accountable? Case study of unprecedented live, online Q&A btw Sudan advocacy groups and the White House: http://rootwork.org/blog...

November 18 - Comment - Like - Share

E-Advocate Network, Michael R. Bernstein and Eric Johnson liked this

Meryn Stol

FriendFeed best-practice (at least in my eyes): When you post something, search for other people who have posted about the same website/article/tool/event as you did, and "like" the posts you like (duh). Why? It's pro-social (e.g. friendly towards other FF users) and adds to the overall metadata. It helps the best content rise to the top.

November 12 - Comment - Like - Share

Eric Johnson and Fulaan, inna Hebel liked this

And, with Twitter's upcoming native retweet feature, I think this will soon be a Twitter best-practice too. - Meryn Stol

I think that would work Meryn if FF was topic oriented rather than person oriented. What happens when you search is there is often a dozen people who have shared through reader, twitter etc, and there's no logical way to make a choice. - Todd Hoff

nptech: Ivan Boothe

MySpace Causes shuts down, abandoning 184,674 nonprofits supporters. Is it time to demand some openness? http://rootwork.org/blog...

November 7 - Comment - Like - Share

Michael R. Bernstein, Eric Johnson and E-Advocate Network liked this

Its time to for 3rd party apps in the nptech "business" to focus their usability and functionality on creating strong relationships between supporters and nonprofits. Social change happens outside the application - in the real world. Apps should be connectors - the abondonment would not have been relevent if this was already a goal. Causes tech philosophy is inverted, despite good intentions. - E-Advocate Network

7 more comments

It's time to pull the plug on MySpace - Call me Bronco

I think that conclusion is based on stereotype Sarah- MySpace leads by 14% in family density. Parents using social media is rare majority and find on social media. LinkedIn had 20% with children in the home. It would be a huge loss to nonprofits that focus on families. - E-Advocate Network

If you think TechCruch's synopsis of MySpace catering to "people of color," it is wrong. It only leads in hispanic women making up to $100,000.000 per year. This demographic migrates to Facebook after 50 years old. - E-Advocate Network

Where it falls behid is graduate degrees, yet it stronly leads in female majority. I think what we are seeing is women choosing motherhood over graduate school. It also had the same percentage of middle class users, yet falls behind by 8% total in the higher upper classes. - E-Advocate Network

sorry, it was an off-the-cuff remark. I know MySpace still has users, I just can't stand the site personally. - Call me Bronco

That is your taste, strongly not others. Out of all social sites (especially Twitter) MySpace has the smallest level of passer by users, the largest percentage of dedicated users and "addicts" It is a dedicated, vibrant community for those who use it. - E-Advocate Network

This is a Causes design failure because it is not working on a social change paradigm - it is working on an internal, gated app paradigm - E-Advocate Network

Ivan!! Have you been to MySpace Impact or A Place for Impact. There is an entire suite of tools that does what you state MySpace users are now without. Does anyone writing about this have a relationship with, know the demographics of, or use MySpace Impacts tools? - E-Advocate Network

Louis Gray

"I even remember what it was like before Robert Scoble got here!" - http://louisgray.com/live...

August 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

ydfeed, rtshiva, Shea and 100 other people liked this

i do miss festivusfeed. airing of grievances brought about actual FF updates, right? - MG Siegler

13 more comments

there should be a "love" option for things like this. lol - shaun mclane

Great example of how the FF culture was a big part of growing a love for the service that will no doubt be eaten by the FB dragon. - Mark Krynsky

++Mark - vijay

Awwwww - Susan Beebe from iPhone

Will this be the butterfly? - Jesse Stay

Bump for the good times. - Mark Krynsky

Jesse roflol! - Melanie Reed

Jesse wins! - Micah Wittman

How many users did FF have when FestivusFeed was implemented? - Cristo

Cristo, not enough. It was in December of 2007. :) - Louis Gray

Louis, I know. I was using it. But I'm still interested to know what the number was. 5K-10K? - Cristo

FriendFeed has never released user statistics, to my knowledge. - Louis Gray

No reason for them not to now though, right? I mean, who cares how many users they had in 12/07 except us? - Cristo

I forgot about this one, a true classic. I need to have a high-trafficked site just so I can pull out gag logos. - Vezquex: God of FF

Johnny Worthington to Johnny's feed, Louis Gray

Now we just need some VC funding and we're set, sir! (http://friendfeed.com/louisgr...)

August 13 - Comment - Like - Share

edythe, Paul Buchheit, Jimminy and 71 other people liked this

good couple,sir:))) - K.D.

23 more comments

Come on Vs and Cs - Giddy up! So we can get on to: http://friendfeed.com/micahwi... - Micah Wittman

lol - Jemm

what kind of capital do you want? - K.D.

Hahahaha, priceless! - Mladen Srdić

I'm keeping my firefly quotes to myself, I'm keeping my firefly quotes to myself, really... - Rachel Lea Fox

I'm in!! - Chris Myles

"Take my site. Take my brand. Take me where I have no friends. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take friendfeed from me." (I couldn't keep my Firefly quotes to myself, I'd explode.) - DGentry

Bahahaha!!! - Mo Kargas

May this image stay with you throughout the day...Goodnight everyone :) - Johnny Worthington

hahah this is awesome!! - Susan Beebe

Is FriendFeed going to end the same way as LHotP? Spending that VC money on dynamite? - Andy Dustman

*dead* - WorldofHiglet

WHAT THE SAM HELL IS GOIN' ON??? - Josh Haley

Josh, don't you mean "DO ANYBODY NO?" - Yolanda

not this time...I used my backwoods accent for this one - Josh Haley

LOL - Dobromir Hadzhiev

JohnnyMal (to Facebook): “Now think real hard... if your hand touches FriendFeed, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.” - WorldofHiglet

...After reading DGentry's entry, it was sort of obvious :) - WorldofHiglet

We don't need VC funding! There's gold in them there hills! - Louis Gray

LOL! - Susan Beebe from iPhone

Bump for the good times. - Mark Krynsky

ROFL - I missed that one! - Jesse Stay

*wants to LIKE again* - Micah Wittman

"I married me a powerful ugly creature." "How can you shame me in front of new people?" "If I could make you purtier, I would." http://www.imdb.com/title... - Christopher Galtenberg

Paul Buchheit

There was a lot of chatter about the future of FriendFeed this weekend. The short answer is that the team is working on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. Transformation is not the end. Consider this the chrysalis stage -- if all goes well, a beautiful butterfly will emerge :)

October 19 - Comment - Like - Share

Alfredo, Fabrizio, david beckwith and 243 other people liked this

What is transforming... FriendFeed, or the idea of FriendFeed? - Christopher Galtenberg

117 more comments

Thanks for the update, Paul! - Anne Bouey

THANK YOU! - teh Dork Knight aka Kenny

Fabulous News :) - Susan Beebe

Noticed the "leaked" Facebook UI screenshots and the groups blog post today, and both seem FriendFeed inspired: nice to see Facebook trying to bring the stuff we like about FriendFeed to a larger audience. - Mark Trapp

To Robert Scoble: I told you so ;-) - Jesse Stay

Sounds like they're adding some of FF's features to FaceBook. yay - Internet's Tad from fftogo

Mark - got link? - Susan Beebe

Thanks Paul :) - ashish

Devil is in the details: "couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" == Facebook projects with FriendFeed-like elements == no work on FriendFeed itself. - EricaJoy

Paul, FriendFeed rocks as Gmail does ;) - Orlando Pozo

Thanks for the update, the more you communicate, the less we have to speculate. - Peter Hoffmann

The fact that these improvements are coming to Facebook and not friendfeed will not sway those who like friendfeed but dislike Facebook. - Alex Scoble

Thank you Paul for bringing "FriendFeed goodness to the larger world" -- THAT sounds awesome!! - Susan Beebe

integration with facebook? - Rocco Galluzzo

@Alex Scoble: That's true - Jorge Escobar

Susan: http://blog.facebook.com/blog... and http://mashable.com/2009... - Mark Trapp

I hope out of the chrysalis emerges an infested Kerrigan. That'd be awesome http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki... - Ivan Kirigin

Thanks Mark, much appreciated... I'll check those out - Susan Beebe

+1 Ivan :) - Benjamin Golub

But we knew this was the deal the moment the full details of the purchase of friendfeed by Facebook became public. - Alex Scoble

Yeah, I don't give a crap about Facebook. I want to know about FriendFeed. - Rochelle

Is it the interface people dislike about Facebook or the people they're friends with on Facebook? I can imagine being able to import all your subscribers from FriendFeed and have them in a separate group that doesn't interact with other groups you may have on Facebook. - Cristo

sadly, no one with any power seems to care about FF anymore. - Joe Silence is not dead

I'm glad to hear this. I prefer FriendFeed to Facebook any day of the week. - Nathan Clayton

And the answer for me would be some of both. I have real life friends and family that I don't necessarily want to get into the same discussions with as I do with people here. - Cristo

And there's your answer, Rochelle. friendwho? friendwhat now? Oh, you mean Facebook! (No I mean friendfeed) friendwho? (rinse, lather, repeat) - Alex Scoble

there are some ui differences (and i tend to prefer friendfeed in those cases) but i have friended quite a few FF people in FB and the experience is remarkably similar in many ways. - Jason Wehmhoener

Another big difference is I don't think you get the same FOAF interaction on Facebook as on FriendFeed. - Cristo

yep - Jason Wehmhoener

I hope my FaceBook peeps are ready for the FriendFeed firehose ... past experience would say that they're in for a shock. - Crutis

Thanks for the transparency on the Friendfeed "ghost town" matter Paul. Much appreciated. - Alex Knight

Thanks Paul... bring the special sauce to Facebook: http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife... - Andrew

I like the "chrysalis stage" analogy - sounds cool.... goes an looks for FF goodness butterfly! - Susan Beebe

Good to know that FriendFeed still has some fight left; hope that translates into a viable and sustainable platform/utility for the masses (though I quite enjoy the close-knit, uber-geek community that it's become). - Christian

I don't like the chrysalis analogy. The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis and buggers off leaving the shell. Of course, it might then also get eaten by a bird. Tweet, tweet. - Mark H

Mark LOL nice, ... haha - Susan Beebe

Note that he didn't say that FriendFeed.com was going away, only that they're diverted to bringing it to a much larger audience - Jesse Stay

The problem is Scoble (Robert) and MG both just sent half of FriendFeed away so most of those that would benefit from this announcement won't even see it. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, I didn't get that from Paul's comment. I read that some of the friendfeed ideas will be going into FB. I like that idea, but I still prefer FF to FB because of the different conversations here that I don't have with friends and family. - Travis Koger from iPhone

Yeah, Paul's statement won't help friendfeed. This will just either give people more reason to go to Facebook or find another service entirely. - Alex Scoble

What Alex and Rochelle said. This sounds like a "we're bringing FF to Facebook" announcement, and I don't give a damn about Facebook. I want to know what's happening HERE. And Cristo, both, but more the interface. I care about the friends I've made here, and I'm connected with many of them now on Facebook as well, but I prefer to interact with them here, because I like it better. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Travis, he didn't say that - you read that, but he didn't say that. I'm willing to bet FriendFeed.com will not go away. - Jesse Stay

As much as I agree about Scoble and MG driving people away, they have also effectively flush out some comment from the FF team. - Travis Koger from iPhone

Travis, there are better ways of getting the FF team to comment - Jesse Stay

:( I quite liked the caterpillar. - Nick Lothian

I think it's the opposite, the butterfly is becoming this crawling caterpillar :) - Jorge Escobar

Oh I don't think FF will go away, and damn will hope it doesn't either! - Travis Koger from iPhone

What I do see is more Facebook integrated into the FriendFeed environment - I think that's a good thing - Jesse Stay

The critical difference between Facebook and FriendFeed is the social model. With Facebook as it is today, you need to be mutual friends to see each others content. There is a "fan page" model but it is oriented toward "publishing/celebrity" rather than information sharing. FriendFeed has an asymmetric model like Twitter, where you can easily discover someone's content without any "friend" gesture whatsoever, and you can follow without friending. This makes the converation more discoverable, and useful.. - Adina Levin

Agree Adina. - Travis Koger from iPhone

If the integration is bringing public/asymmetric to Facebook, then it will be very useful indeed. If the integration is to add FriendFeed-style service integration into the symmetric/private Facebook model, it will be much less useful - it's more of the same - I'll be able to more easily share updates from youtube or last.fm or delicious to my friend network, but be unable to discover new people and infomation. - Adina Levin

Adina: And unless Facebook goes radically toward that model, it won't suffice for me. I could not care less about their upcoming redesigns. - Christopher A Carr

@Jesse - I can't see any sign that they are working on FriendFeed at all. All the indications are that the FF team is now working on Facebook, and only Facebook. That's great for Facebook, and I'm sure they will do wonderful work there. But don't delude yourself that FriendFeed is going to get anything more than critical fixes, and maybe the occasional thing done in someone's spare time. - Nick Lothian

Butterflies look totally different than caterpillars and they also fly away - Melanie Reed

Crickets chirping... is this site alive?? :) - Christopher Galtenberg

+100 Adina. The things I like best about FriendFeed (easy content/people discovery, FoaF, asymmetrical following and being followed) are completely opposite to Facebook's core model. That's why as much as people keep talking about Facebook adding FF-like features, I don't see the REAL FF core features making it over, because the mindset is different. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

I don't see this announcement as anything new, or as reassuring. We knew from the time of the acquisition that there would be would be some movement of FF capabilities into FB. The real question is whether this means absorption of FF into FB or attracting the FB user base into FF. The comment about "bring[ing] FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" still leaves that question open. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

+1 everything Alex Scoble has said. Friendwhat? What's a feed? Who uses RSS anymore? We've got PubSubWTFOMGBBQ now! - Mr. Gunn

Agree with Jandy on +100 Adina. - Amy℠

Also, I agree with Jandy and Adina's comments. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Nick, Paul just said they're working on other projects right now. That still doesn't mean FriendFeed is going away. I'm not deluding myself at all. I'm telling everyone else they're deluding themselves by assuming it's going away. All the FriendFeed team is still using FriendFeed, and Paul just tried to give us comfort not to worry. For some reason we all don't want to believe him. It's actually kind of amusing. - Jesse Stay

I wonder what the powers that be mean by "FriendFeedy goodness"? Is it understood what WE like about it vs. FB? - Amy℠

Paul - Wishing you all the best as you tend your new butterfly garden :) I'll be here to enjoy them! - Susan Beebe

Jesse: "For some reason we all don't want to believe him." <-- Don't want to believe what? He didn't really say anything. - Christopher A Carr

This is not the news that Friendfeed fans were looking for. - Vezquex: God of FF

The issue isn't belief that they are going to do something. The question is what they are going to do, and whether that will continue the core value of FriendFeed, which is not just information aggregation but discoverability. - Adina Levin

I know more about the "Last Days" and heaven than I know about what's going to happen to FriendFeed as we have come to know it than was given in your rather cryptic answer, Paul. :) And while that may not be a fair comparison (God actually gave details and signs), there is something definitely not forthcoming about your response. A person usually withholds details that affect another... more... - Melanie Reed

Melanie, in other words, Paul works for a technology company in Silicon Valley that doesn't disclose future features, products, and services until they are ready. - Cristo

Hopefully this helps to quiet all of the "friendfeed is dying" talk. Because this thread proves ff is alive and well. - Garin Kilpatrick

@Jesse - I read it differently to you. To me, Paul is saying "We are taking what we were working towards on FriendFeed, and trying to bring that goodness to a bigger audience". No one is claiming they are going to shut down FF. - Nick Lothian

@Jesse - Want to make a bet on the number of new features added to FF before the end of the year? - Nick Lothian

You read my mind. Having seen a few acquisitions, I am wondering if FF staff was told to put the site in bugfix mode. - EricaJoy from IM

Cristo, to deliver some straightforward talk is not about giving away company details. If you have a product that is original and stands on its own, you don't need to refer to it as a "butterfly". Many companies even promote something new and upcoming especially to their loyal user base. It gives a signal. A proper one. It tells your users and future users enough so that they can make an informed decision about what they want to do instead of keeping them on tenderhooks - Melanie Reed

"the chrysalis stage in most butterflies is one in which there is little movement" (via wikipedia) So if you follow that metaphor then eventually FriendFeed will go through a metamorphosis -- that means it's not dead... really how hard can it be to get what he's saying? - Chris Heath

Its pretty hard :) The burning question is if they are putting FF goodness in to the walled gardens that are Facebook or are they bringing FF openness to FB too. I think the people here want the open forums that are FF not the closed ones that are FB. If FB is going hybrid with both walled gardens and open forums that would be OK too. People on FF want open forums... like Twitter and FF... without the crude interface that is Twitter and without the uncertainty that is FF now. - Ed Millard

Facebook is gonna have to rip off much of the privacy to maximize their product in the real-time web world. I am going to assume FF goodness is going to be applied to FB :) *crosses fingers* - Susan Beebe

Just a thought... why does "longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" JUST mean facebook.com? What I get from this is that they are working on a range of things, maybe bringing the FriendFeed sauce to a range of sites, powered by the Facebook back end. Who knows what that means. A FriendFeed service powered by FacebookConnect? Also to...... more... - Johnny Worthington

LMFAO. Johnny++ - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

FB needs to leave the privacy for the walled garden and the inner circle. Their current user base likes that. They just need a second feed that is an open forum and you can talk there without it bleeding in to your inner circle feed. - Ed Millard

Seems like the inner circle is breaking down some now, what with parents and other relatives friending teenagers. I'm guessing the information posted on the walls these days is not as private. Is there a way on FriendFeed to limit what on your wall can be seen by particular people and groups? - Cristo

Yes, but blocking doesn't work so well since you can just use Chrome's Incognito mode to get around it. - Alex Scoble

Translation: if you haven't switche to Facebook yet, you better do it now so you can get a good vanity URL. - David Chartier from iPhone

I don't know what all the fuss is about. But could we have the long answer too, please? - Laura Norvig

Although I'm interested, FB != FF. I don't see how the two mix in a way that makes me feel otherwise. Mixing audiences is not a good thing for me (with a few exceptions) and I know others share the same thought. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Did anyone notice that Robert Scoble didn't comment on this thread? What does this mean? Does it mean Robert Scoble won't exist soon? He must be working on a Monday afternoon, no? ;) - Cristo

Paul, will FF be here in 1 year, 5 years? - Robert Higgins

Robert, will you and I be alive in 5 years? - Cristo

Thanks for the update Paul.. - Chris Myles

Cristo I am funking nobody, I would like Paul to quantify his post. Simple. Will FF be here in 1 year? Will FF be here in 5 years? - Robert Higgins

Robert, I was trying to make the point that he might not know and can't predict what will happen over time. - Cristo

IMO friendfeed shoud attract more general audience... Facebook and twitter are having more general users. Most of the FF users are tech bloggers or those who needs aggregation services... I dont know it's just my feeling or not . but this is my impression on FF. but it's great service.. the features are too good... but we will roam were we meet our friends... thats most of the people are into twitter and FB. - Sarath

Sarath, is there a place you can get away from tech bloggers? :) - Cristo

Ohhhh a perrrttty butterfly, I'm moist with anticipation. - sofarsoShawn

Glad to hear it, Paul. - WorldofHiglet

Cristo: i almost made the same observation an hour or two ago when i first read through this posting and its comments. I was skimming and kept seeing alex, alex, alex... and thinking to myself... where's Robert!?! - Chris Heath

Great news. Thanks! friendfeed team. :D - 'Like' robot (frɐnc)

@Sarath - I have a lot more in common with the people I've met here on FriendFeed than FB or Twitter. Twitter is too hard to search, and FB (and Twitter to a good extent) is driven by the people you know in RL (and unfortunately I don't have nearly as much in common in RL with my family, co-workers and acquaintences as I do with people scattered all over the world who I have met on FF).... more... - Lindsay

I think that in his cryptic statement he means, and a lot of people here agree with me, that more Facebook's going to get more FriendFeedy. Which doesn't mean that FF still isn't dead or doomed. After all, he works for Facebook now. FriendFeed=open forum, Facebook=walled garden, totally opposite master metaphors; but I don't think Zuckerberg gets it, and FF belongs to Zuckerberg now. So this is really about FB; FF's still in limbo. Still, some FF people friended me at FB, and I put them in a special list. - Dennis Jernberg

@FF-team keep on rocking :). BTW I also think it's really cool you guys open-sourced tornado. - alfred westerveld

+1 what alfred said, and good to hear words like "longer-term" & "beautiful" coming straight from The Walrus - keep that vision strong. Hope all goes well for FF team doing some good re-inventing the Octopus Garden of FB - seems you've got your work cut out for you there! It would be so nice if any way to keep a "simple & pure" form of FriendFeed alive (maintained and developed - more open source?) for us to enjoy, but no worries .... you've simultaneously raised the bar and paved the way for the rest! - Dan Freeman

Good luck with the development Paul! Hopefully Zuck has some positive insight. - Garin Kilpatrick

I like butterflies. - Harold Cabezas

Paul: If someone offered me a bag of money to do what you guys did, I would have done exactly the same (probably a lot faster too). However, it would be nice if you spent an hour answering some of the questions here. It might also give people like me a little more faith, in what used to be your primary project; Friendfeed. You made the best platform on the planet - why not use it to let us know what the heck's going on? - Jim Connolly

I'm assuming that Facebook wants to keep their roadmap quiet. I respect that but leaving you community in the dark for a brand that the applications stand for community building is rather ironic. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

SUPER!! I don't Blame ya 1 Darn bit fer Dumpin' FacePOOP Paul!! ;PPP Wait FacePOOP is the Maggot Stage!! ;)) - Billy Warhol

If I can still have all my friends that I have here on friendfeed and share things with them the exact same way, I don't care what "www" address I have to type in to get it. I just hope i don't have to give up any of FF's awesome features! Thanks for the update Paul! - David Cook

The problem is I don't know whether to wrote an app on your API or not because i'm not sure whether it will all be dropped in the "transformation". Imagine speding late nights and weekends coding something up only for it to be dropped suddenly. Need a decent long term picture. Looking at Cliqset. - Steven Livingstone-Pérez

Good point Steven - and one of the reasons many of us are spending so little time developing our networks here. - Jim Connolly

waiting.... - ffcode

ffcode: Good luck with that ;-) - Jim Connolly

So the changes are at Facebook not FriendFeed, Paul? - Kol Tregaskes

And good luck to all of your team - Ozkan Altuner from iPhone

This is a truly disappointing/concerning post and I think it would have been much better to hold comment until something more tangible could be discussed. Thanks for adding to the confusion/drama Paul. - Nicholas Kreidberg

yemezler - MobilAdam

I do care about what happens next, but this is the best news of the day nonetheless ! thanks for giving us updates at last ! and I do hope FF will awaken again ! such a great tool, but letdown since the announcement of the buyback by FB - laetSgo

will I see this post in my "best of week" email from FF? - Kirill Bolgarov

If Facebook is going to get fixed, please remember that it needs fixing politically, not just technically. It needs to give people the option to open their data to Google - for instance. A walled garden where the walls are fixed in place sucks. - Tim Tyler

@Paul, or perhaps an Alien will erupt forth from its stomach? (kidding, kidding!) - j1m

Paul Buchheit to Paul's feed, Collaborative Charity

Text books seem generally expensive and insipid (http://friendfeed.com/paul...). Are there any promising open-source textbook projects? (high quality content and likely to see actual use)

June 25 - Comment - Like - Share

Julia, Fulaan, inna Hebel, Nahnu and 45 other people liked this

http://twitter.com/bookmaid - RIT Rochester Institute of Technology has their own text book exchange on Twitter :) - Susan Beebe

19 more comments

Obama's chief technology dude (can't remember his name) headed a project like this before taking the cabinet position. The folks at Buzz Out Loud (@acedtect @Mollywood @raygun01) would know about this as he recorded a message for their 1000th episode last week and we were reminded of the program (somewhere on the east coast). - Kevin Arth

paul - Literacybridge.org is a great non-profit focusing on this issue. there are numerous issues here in terms of language localization, cost of print and transport of books, ability to have access to and understand content, etc. many textbook programs also assume one basic fact that is not necessarily true - literacy. although i am a fan of building schools and education, the reality... more... - Joyce

IMO, most textbooks betray a massive bias of quantity over quality, in part because quantity is confused with depth. If professors were doing their jobs (some are of course), they'd concentrate on distilling out the key points rather than partake of the laziness/spoils of the rigged textbook market... most textbooks are the equivalent of a public works program. - Alex Schleber

I am planning on using an open-source book for the intro programming class I am teaching next fall at Colorado University - http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpy... - Robert Felty

Doesn't the Wikimedia Foundation have a project for open source textbooks? EDIT: Why yes, yes they do, although YMMV. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki... - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

I agree with Alex. Sometimes a good curriculum or at least a lesson plan is more important than a textbook. That's why I think a great project is Curriki.org. It is an online community, where educational resources can be created, shared and re-used in an open license environment. They concentrate mainly on K-12 curriculum, however it seems like it can be a great tool to share the... more... - Maciek Zielinski

Paul I agree that textbooks are way too expensive. As you may know, because of the way textbooks get adopted by some states, most of the kids in the country end up learning from books that were specifically designed to get approved in Texas and California. So how's this for an idea of how to give away your "lots of money": fund the development of a complete set of textbooks through an... more... - Peter

Flat World Knowledge: Check it out: Professors donate time to produce textbooks. Students get them for free. - http://www.flatworldknowledge.com - scott willeke

Note the importance of audio to building literacy - http://literacybridge.org/talking... - Ed Dodds

Consider also that if a person "open schools" all the way up through university material, there is no way to CLEP a degree. The US Department of Education should issue guidelines for the degrees where this makes sense. - Ed Dodds

...i suspect that the textbook business is terrifically profitable for publishers, and that they'll fight any move to displace them tooth and nail. - .LAG liked that

There's also http://ck12.org/ They make it easy for teachers to put together custom textbooks by reusing existing pieces of content (chapters and such). - Meryn Stol

The South African "Free High School Text Book" project has a reasonable reputation: http://www.fhsst.org/. There are a lot of free non-textbook resources available through OERCommons (http://www.oercommons.org/) - Nick Lothian

@Peter - curriki looks pretty interesting. Do you have any kind of harvesting facilities? - Nick Lothian

@Nick. Yes. Curriki provides several ways to export materials from the site. Each of the 30,000 free and open source resources can be downloaded on to your computer, where they can be printed. You can also get the XML data for any resource. In both cases, you just have to mind the specifics of the Creative Commons license requirements. You can also embed a widget for any learning... more... - Peter

Here is a project that I have tried to contribute information to and one of my websites is actually listed there because at their request, it was easier for me to start a site of my own with the info I gave them, than for them to list all the book titles and links I provided them with. http://textbookrevolution.org - April Russo (app103)

Curriki is a knowledge exchange which is the 21st century textbook. EVERCHANGING, always adding, always collaborating. When I see this, I don't just see worksheets... I see customizable games- good easy to change content. I see LEARNING ACTIVITIES, best practices, I see collaboration, I see a whole curriculum FOR TEACHER INSTRUCTION- on learning how to use and implement different... more... - Sharnon Johnston-Robinett

Ditto on Flatworld, but @scott, profs are not donating their time for free -- basic web-version of text is made for free, with chapters, learning materials, etc. available for fee-based download -- don't have to use the fee-based material, but is very nice to see business model that offers a good hybrid between paper-only and web-only content. In my classes, students often print out material because they want to work on their computers and have something "hard" to refer to. - Mickey Schafer

Check out my new blogs on Curriki, we address this issue and hope the community will make sure we are sustainable. - Bobbi Kurshan

http://www.cnx.org and http://ocw.mit.edu - joe is... from iPod

Timo Luege to Timo's feed, Social Media, nptech

Fwd: Why "RSS -> Facebook" is bad for you - http://sm4good.com/2009... (via http://friendfeed.com/timolue...)

October 6 - Comment - Like - Share

Laura Norvig and Eric Johnson liked this

M F

Latest Data on Facebook’s US Growth by Age and Gender – October 1, 2009 - http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009...

October 1 from M Farber's shared items in... - Comment - Like - Share

Nispell, Aspa and Eric Johnson liked this

umair

Wanted: Your Thoughts on Awesomeness - http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque...

September 25 from Umair Haque - Comment - Like - Share

Eric Johnson liked this

imabonehead to imabonehead's feed, All Things Open Source, Ruby on Rails

How Ravelry Scales to 10 Million Requests Using Rails | High Scalability - http://highscalability.com/how-rav...

September 22 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Eric Johnson liked this

"Ten years ago a site like Ravelry would have been a multi-million dollar operation. Today Casey is the sole engineer for Ravelry and to run it takes only a few people. He was able to code it in 4 months working nights and weekends. Take a look down below of all the technologies used to make Ravelry and you'll see how it is constructed almost completely from free of the shelf software that Casey has stitched together into a complete system. There's an amazing amount of leverage in today's ecosystem when you combine all the quality tools, languages, storage, bandwidth and hosting options." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

Mitchell Tsai

100 FriendFeed Picture Groups & 3 Video Groups [Last updated 9/16/09 2:47 am EDT - most of the room counts are from 8/10/09] - http://friendfeed.com/rooms...

May 31, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Daniel Rowley, sean808080 and 52 other people liked this

The Apple Room (5,672) http://friendfeed.com/applero... Funny Pics and Videos (2,100) http://friendfeed.com/funny-p... iDesign (2,033) http://friendfeed.com/idesign Persian-cam (1,941) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Photography as Art (1,371) http://friendfeed.com/photogr... - Mitchell Tsai

25 more comments

Photography United (1,161) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Fotograf (1,063) http://friendfeed.com/fotograf Typography (1046) http://friendfeed.com/typogra... Crazy Gadgets (990) http://friendfeed.com/crazy-g... DSLR (971) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

Creative Design (936) http://friendfeed.com/creativ... ART ROOM (888) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Lovefest (840) http://friendfeed.com/lovefest Decork ::: Home Decoration (785) http://friendfeed.com/home-de... Funny Funny (767) http://friendfeed.com/funny-f... - Mitchell Tsai

Ideas & Inspiration (728) http://friendfeed.com/ideas-i... All Things Apple (640) http://friendfeed.com/all-thi... Photographing (497) http://friendfeed.com/photogr... Web Design Inspiration (433) http://friendfeed.com/web-des... Photoshop (409) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

Photo Gallery (409) http://friendfeed.com/photo-g... Love-pic (400) http://friendfeed.com/love-pic Graphic (370) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Architectural & Interior Design (355) http://friendfeed.com/isunix Flickr Central (351) http://friendfeed.com/flickr-... - Mitchell Tsai

Dog Lovers (315) http://friendfeed.com/dog-lov... Illustration (311) http://friendfeed.com/ill Arts and Culture (303) http://friendfeed.com/arts-an... Ads of the World (283) http://friendfeed.com/ads-wor... Science News (282) http://friendfeed.com/science... - Mitchell Tsai

It seems Persian-cam is in top Ranking !!! - Mahdi Ebrahimi

Yep! Persian-cam is the popular photo room on FriendFeed! You guys find the best pictures. - Mitchell Tsai

Thank you Mitchell for collecting data from all FriendFeed photo room - Mahdi Ebrahimi

Photography Tips, Tricks, and Know-How (280) http://friendfeed.com/photogr... Design (Tasarım) (280) http://friendfeed.com/tasarim CoolPics (274) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Cat Lovers (272) http://friendfeed.com/kitteh Comic Book Goodness (259) http://friendfeed.com/comic-b... - Mitchell Tsai

عکس (irphoto, 251) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Beautiful Women (221) http://friendfeed.com/beautif... Nature (204) http://friendfeed.com/nature Photographers sharing links, photographs,and tips! (198) http://friendfeed.com/brandyl... IRANIAN photos & photographers (189) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

Parenting-A-Go-Go (189) http://friendfeed.com/parenti... Persian Pictures (174) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Wallpapers (140) http://friendfeed.com/amazing... Fashion (Moda) (130) http://friendfeed.com/fashion... Legos (117) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

FAILpics (110) http://friendfeed.com/failpics Graphics 'N Design (109) http://friendfeed.com/the-gra... ستاره شناسی (Astro-fa, 108) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Photo Walking (101) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Contemporary Art (101) http://friendfeed.com/contemp... - Mitchell Tsai

British & Irish Residents (101) http://friendfeed.com/brits-i... Animals (96) http://friendfeed.com/animals Fun Stuff (90) http://friendfeed.com/the-fun... Architecture (87) http://friendfeed.com/archite... Question of the Day (82) http://friendfeed.com/questio... - Mitchell Tsai

Cool! (74) http://friendfeed.com/coolness Silver Screen (71) http://friendfeed.com/silvers... Vintage Photos (69) http://friendfeed.com/oldphot... Fine Art (63) http://friendfeed.com/fine-art BabyFeed (59) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

Art - painting (55) http://friendfeed.com/art-pai... The Solidarity Project (53) http://friendfeed.com/the-sol... Classic Novel Challenge (51) http://friendfeed.com/classic... Oh So Cute (49) http://friendfeed.com/oh-so-c... Movies (41) http://friendfeed.com/movies - Mitchell Tsai

Places (38) http://friendfeed.com/places Coming up NOW (35) http://friendfeed.com/enginee... Lovemetender (34) http://friendfeed.com/lovemet... furniture design (30) http://friendfeed.com/furnitu... Motion Graphics (29) http://friendfeed.com/motion-... - Mitchell Tsai

FRIEDFeed Hall of FAIL [sic] (28) http://friendfeed.com/friedfe... Digital Photography (27) http://friendfeed.com/digital... Fails (25) http://friendfeed.com/fails Digial Photograph [sic] (22) http://friendfeed.com/digial-... Squashy Frog Photography (21) http://friendfeed.com/squashy... - Mitchell Tsai

FFrooms (20) http://friendfeed.com/ffrooms About books - quotes, etc (16) http://friendfeed.com/about-b... Redl1ne (16) http://friendfeed.com/redl1ne Fotos (16) http://friendfeed.com/fotos The Photogenics (14) http://friendfeed.com/the-pho... - Mitchell Tsai

Masaüstü (8) http://friendfeed.com/masaustu Kinda Funny Pictures (7) http://friendfeed.com/kinda-f... Uphaa - Odd Things Around the World (6) http://friendfeed.com/uphaa-o... Web & Teknoloji (6) http://friendfeed.com/web-tek... Simply Life (3) http://friendfeed.com/simplyl... - Mitchell Tsai

NSFW rooms: NSFW Stuff (145) http://friendfeed.com/nsfw-st... i love your beautiful ass (142) http://friendfeed.com/i-love-... Nudes, artistic view (+16) (136) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... NSFW Posts - Images, Videos and Messages (136) http://friendfeed.com/nsfw-im... sexy moments in pix (+18) (128) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

NSFW rooms: Polysexuality (19) http://friendfeed.com/polysex... Side boobs (18) http://friendfeed.com/side-bo... Big Boob (10) http://friendfeed.com/big-boob I Like That (NSFW) http://friendfeed.com/i-like-... Hotts http://friendfeed.com/hotts nancydancy http://friendfeed.com/nancyda... - Mitchell Tsai

[Video] Funny Pics and Videos (2,100) http://friendfeed.com/funny-p... Best of YouTube (368) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Interesting Videos (74) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

Defunct rooms: Funny Pics (was 91 - doesn't exist) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Thomas Hawk (60 - not used since 6/20/08) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... Flickr images (17 - last pic 8/10/08) http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Mitchell Tsai

Truly impressive. :-) - James (!?)

Also, here are ~50 people at FriendFeed with cool pics (remember to check their likes & comments) http://ff.im/Bd3L http://ff.im/BqOL This page was motivated by Thomas Hawk's "What is your most viewed set on Flickr? Mine is my my 10 faves or more set" discussion (5/24/08) http://friendfeed.com/e... I finally made myself a "Picture Rooms" list. :-) - Mitchell Tsai

[Update Wed 9/16/09 2:46 am ET] Fashion photography (378) http://friendfeed.com/fashion... Technology News (105) http://friendfeed.com/alt-new... Big Pictures (74) http://friendfeed.com/thebigp... FriendFeed Art (10) http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Mitchell Tsai

Jeremiah Owyang

The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras - http://www.web-strategist.com/blog...

April 27 from Web Strategy by Jeremiah - Comment - Like - Share

Rajif Krobat, Baytech, Björn Klose and 113 other people liked this

Interesting stuff...thanks for sharing - Hugo Guzman

19 more comments

Great info! I agree fish where the fish are :) - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Agree on the whole. I always find these categories a little artificial: Really "Forrester-speak". :) I think the recommendations are the most interesting. I'd make a separate post out of that. - Meryn Stol

You say it yourself: "What’s interesting isn’t this vision for the future, but what it holds in store for brands, " . I'd like these recommendations to be fleshed out with concrete first steps to take. Doesn't have to be more than links to relevant resources. - Meryn Stol

Meryn The recommendations are fleshed out in the actual reports. Our clients (brands) have access to see them. - Jeremiah Owyang

Hmm ok... Then I'll need to get the details elsewhere I guess. :) - Meryn Stol

Interesting categorization of the development into eras. Any consideration to the impact of scale on the 5th era? Just as a recent example with Facebook, their format evolution was not well received by what is not an insignificant number of members, and yet the reality is - that change - negative impact not withstanding is not rolling back. - Patrick Boegel

There will be a give and take between communities and brands. The thing is, Facebook doesn't have a competitive alternative that users could go to. In my report, we suggest that active communities could define specs for products, and bid MULTIPLE companies to build it. - Jeremiah Owyang

I completely understand that Jeremiah, just wondering if the nature of scale impacted or perhaps better said impacts the thought process for very complex long term brand relationships, ie Health Insurance, Financial Services, a college/university choice, where consversation and user invovlement can be complicated. Very interested in the full report either way. Thx. - Patrick Boegel

good stuff Jeremiah, enjoyed and some good thought provokers there for the future - Richard Binhammer

Nice paper but really expensive for young people. $750 means $41 for page. - Alp

Great information, understanding the future's potential is more important than ever on the social web. - Maria Reyes-McDavis

Interesting, but very general and hard to apply. I see companies more as å provide of tools/stage for conversation, aka the gold rush mining vs selling tools - Anders Dahlberg

Alp, Many of Forrester's clients are large brands who have a subscription. We're still sharing a great deal on this blog, and have given the report to bloggers to cover, so there's value to be had there. - Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah (and the team), a great piece of work and, I imagine, a labour of both love and loathing at times! I have been very interested in this area as I have looked at the shift in skills to deliver social media activity changes from one of basic coding knowledge to much more human, interactive skills. - Paul Fabretti

Fantastic article! I found it SO intriguing that I've even printed it out! - J. D. Ebberly

"How Brands Should Prepare" is a great bit of information. Jeremiah, it would be nice (i'd be reading) if you expanded in future blog posts about the "How Brands Should Prepare". - frank barry

That's likely to be a research report I'm thinking about writing Frank - Jeremiah Owyang

Probably correct in assuming that most online social networks will neither spawn nor solidify to the point of being considered ‘affinity groups’ with the level of cohesion, unified budgetary authority or organized implementation capability of NGOs, churches, or employee aggregations. Even in the era of social commerce. I hope I’m wrong. - A Mitchell

Great post, understanding the future's potential is more important than ever on the social web. - Vlad Hrouda

Just found this... great stuff! - Gerd Leonhard

Paul Buchheit

Don’t! The secret of self-control. - http://www.newyorker.com/reporti...

May 12 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Mark Crowley, Christian Burns , WorldofHiglet and 99 other people liked this

"At the time, psychologists assumed that children’s ability to wait depended on how badly they wanted the marshmallow. But it soon became obvious that every child craved the extra treat. What, then, determined self-control? Mischel’s conclusion, based on hundreds of hours of observation, was that the crucial skill was the “strategic allocation of attention.” Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow—the “hot stimulus”—the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.” Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten. “If you’re thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you’re going to eat it,” Mischel says. “The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.” In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it’s what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings. (When Odysseus had himself tied to... more... - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

15 more comments

This is an interesting quote because it implies that "will power" is more about mental strategy, not some kind of mental strength for forcing yourself to do something. I have the same strategy with food -- I eat whatever I see, so in order to not eat something I just need to put it out of sight. - Paul Buchheit

effectively "out of sight, out of mind" - alphaxion

This is where the magic of science is: you spend time and resources to prove a proverb. - .i.m.a.r.s.o.r.a.m.a.

"The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds." - J.D. Deutschendorf

Sometimes I worry my metacognition is slowing me down because I'm spending less time just cogniting. (that oughtta be a word.) But no, in all seriousness, I think something, then realize the thought was there before I subvocalized it, and then I go in a circle several times subvocalizing those same thoughts as I examine the process of thinking. Frustrating! - Andrew C

Some friends and I refer to this study often, pointing out when we've failed the marshmallow test. Staying up late is my most common mashmallow test failure (sacrificing morning time to enjoy a few more bleary hours NOW), but it's easy to spot this sort of behavior and fun to have a standard vocabulary to highlight its ubiquity. - Seth

Episode on Mischel's marshmallows on RadioLab -- http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiola... - Alex Haar

As a parent, I consciously used this strategy to distract my children whenever they got in mischief, behaved badly or acted out. As a grandparent, I often send a box of tricks, things like super balls, an "uno" deck, paints, a book, a yoyo or top, for my daughter to use with my grandchildren when they are driving her crazy and need to think about something other than running around screaming. - Phil Boiarski

OK, that makes sense, but let's flip this on its head - How do you instead keep your mind on something and prevent yourself from getting distracted? You can't distract yourself from your distractions. Andrew C, the word you're looking for is cogitating. - Mr. Gunn

Mr Gunn, thanks. Though I think 'cogniting' is a touch funnier. - Andrew C

Some chimpanzees use this strategy as well, though not all of them. - Björn Brembs

i think bhudda had some theory on this too...:/ - Paul Moss

I'm going to marshmallow-train my kids!! - Jess Lee

Today my 4yo daughter was having trouble waiting for a treat, so I told her (and my wife) about reading this article last night. I talked about the ability to distract - and I thought I was doing a pretty good job of explaining it in 4yo terms. When I was done with my paraphrase/lesson, I asked her if she understood. "Uh-huh," she said. Then after a few moments, she asked if we could stop and get some marshmallows on the way home. All I could do is laugh! - Gary Walter (gwalter)

I read a different writeup of this experiment a couple years ago, when our daughter was about 1 year old. Its something that can be taught, and encouraged. She's now very good at distracting herself from something which she knows she shouldn't do or would get into trouble over. She's not easily distracted in general: she can focus quite well on something she wants to do (and is allowed to do). - DGentry

The experiment: http://friendfeed.com/haggis... - Jérôme Flipo

Marshall Kirkpatrick

A Closer Look at Facebook's New Privacy Options http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...

June 29 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Eric Johnson liked this

"We think most other reports on the news missed a key point, too, though. Everyone focused on the new option for shared messages to be publicly visible outside the constraints of a Facebook user's friends network - people called it a shot at the wide open paradigm of Twitter. In fact, the biggest change may be that sharing options are becoming much more granular - more human." - Eric Johnson

This is an interesting article and I think that not only should facebook be clear about its privacy options but it could also make editing settings & other stuff on facebook more user friendly. It can take a while to work out how to turn something off or on and there is a minimum of info to guide people. facebook obviously know what they are doing but the truth is they are serving a very large public & they may need to remember that. Thanks for the post! Pemo Theodore, AstraMatch Blog - Pemo Theodore from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Anthony Citrano to Anthony's feed, Photography United

Isn't the Los Angeles Times violating copyright law and/or Creative Commons terms by using people's photos commercially *and* without attribution *and* without a link *and then* asserting their OWN copyright thereon? http://www.latimes.com/news... #fuckinglame

August 30 - Comment - Like - Share

Mitchell Tsai, Alex Scrivener, Jeff P. Henderson and 63 other people liked this

That is some freaking lame-ass shit right there. How can the LAT think they've any right? - James (!?)

39 more comments

That's very lame. Almost as lame as looking at the fullsize pic and then trying to click onto the next image.... - WorldofHiglet

They have a very creative use of the term copyright. - Pete Delucchi from iPhone

And now they're using several of mine (screenshot: http://www.citrano.com/pix...) -- I've e-mailed their editorial staff and am eager to hear the explanation. - Anthony Citrano

They just pulled it right off your Flickr? That's lame. (without attribution and slapping their copyright on it.) - Gus

Sounds like it's the MSM doing the pirating this time. - Dennis Jernberg

@Gus: correct. @Dennis: well said. - Anthony Citrano

Depends how they are doing it actually. If they are only pulling off Creative Commons licensed photos then they'd be ok. If they are pulling of all rights reserved photos and creative commons non commercial licensed photos they'd be in violation of these licenses. In either case they are violating Flickr's terms of use which require them to include a link back to the original image on... more... - Thomas Hawk

Perhaps they intend the copyright to apply to entire content of the page versus the specific content of the photo. In any case, I agree quite lame. - Khürt Williams

FWIW their attribution link is hidden behind that 'i' at the bottom. They do this *all* the time and each time they get more and more clever about hiding the attribution from the pictures they pull from Flickr. Still, they need to stop pulling in photos by keywords and pay attention to the CC license. Too time consuming? Then don't do it, LA Times. - Captain Bubbles

"Do link back to Flickr when you post your Flickr content elsewhere. The Flickr service makes it possible to post content hosted on Flickr to outside web sites. However, pages on other web sites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr." Per the community guidelines at Flickr. the L.A. Times is not linking back. - Thomas Hawk

Well, it looks like today they added the "LINK TO OWNER" thing within the "i" button. This was *not* there last night - I looked, very hard (and much harder than 99% of LATimes readers would look). But they're still ignoring the main issue. I've seen several today and last night with various license settings, including many marked "All Rights Reserved". - Anthony Citrano

I am just trying to get my mind around how this is much different than if the pictures where posted on FF. - Brian Sullivan

@Brian - (non-stolen) pictures on FF (such as flickr favorites, etc.) are always linked back to their creator and are (ostensibly) being used noncommercially. Further, a user is not asserting their own copyright. Yet further, I have long howled about FF users who steal images and then upload them directly to FF without credit - not because of the money or lack of respect for the artists but because they (the FF user) essentially orphan the work by doing that. - Anthony Citrano

The linking back is the only issue I can see. Here it could be said it looks like FF is asserting copyright -- much the same as LA Times put a copyright notice on the page.See http://friendfeed.com/briansu... where I used the bookmarklet to post pictures from your Flickr site. - Brian Sullivan

@Brian - sure, for my stuff, which is CC, but if you did that with someone's images that were marked "All Rights Reserved" then what you did there would be illegal. That is to say, it would not qualify as "fair use" (but I'm no lawyer) and the creator could pursue remedies against you and/or FF. - Anthony Citrano

But almost every use of the bookmarklet would then be deemed illegal and FF would the most copyright offending organization on the planet - the LA Times would be rank amateurs-- but maybe that is where this is all headed? - Brian Sullivan

Just for kicks, I marked one of my uploads "All Rights Reserved" just now. A few minutes later, there it was on the LA Times site. Brian - to your point about FF, let's set aside the general rule that just because other people do it doesn't mean it's not wrong - and think about commercial use. Say what you will about FriendFeed's future profit potential, but it's a hell of a lot more... more... - Anthony Citrano

Is the "commercial use" thing real though -- "all rights" would include even what happens on FF. - Brian Sullivan

Anthony, take a screen shot of your image and send them in invoice for $1,000 and see what happens. If nothing else it would make for an interesting story as you followed the progress of it all. - Thomas Hawk

@Thomas I want to see what they say first. They deserve a chance to respond. If I do send them an invoice, it will only be to make a point - and if the invoice is honored, the money will go to a non-profit. - Anthony Citrano

Anthony -- my name is Sean Connelley. I am the one who created the Flickr widget used on the LA Times. I wanted to just explain what happened from my side, in hopes it clear some of this up for everyone. The CC issue was an honest mistake on my part and in know way was I just trying to hijack or steal anyone's photo. When retrieving photos using the Flickr API, there is a parameter... more... - Sean Connelley

Interesting to see what Anthony says but good to see Mr Connelley giving an explanation. - WorldofHiglet

Sean, thanks for posting here with the explanation, but can you explain why both mistakes you detail were left up and running for more than a day before being corrected? I understand the point you made about wanting to rush out your widget, but even a few minutes of testing after launch should have revealed both errors to you. - Stephen Mack

Stephen -- All I can say is they slipped through. After initially finishing the widget, I debugged it for about an hour or so, for various problems. So I guessed I overlooked those. Also on the CC issue, I had no real reason to believe it wasn't working, I thought I was doing it right. I was alerted to the problem this morning and I fixed the link back to the user and I thought I fixed... more... - Sean Connelley

Sean, thanks for being forthcoming and posting the details. - Stephen Mack

Hi Sean - thanks for explaining what's going on here. We all make mistakes. I didn't think you guys were being intentionally malicious, just careless. And it appears you still are - I just went over to the widget and you are *still* using photos marked “Noncommercial” and “All Rights Reserved.” Are you asserting some kind of fair use claim with select images (which I really don't think you can legitimately do here), or is it still just coded incorrectly? - Anthony Citrano

For example, the first photo the widget is showing at the moment is this one by Theron Trowbridge: http://www.flickr.com/photos... which is marked with a CC Attribution-Noncommercial license. Images 4-17 are by Clayton Bruster, and all of Clayton's images are marked (C) "All Rights Reserved." (e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos...) And to... more... - Anthony Citrano

A great reason to establish your social media plan of attack parameters long before a crisis, so as to eliminate (or at least reduce) opportunity for error. This realm of reporting will continue to extend its reach into territories that continue to test the scope and spirit of traditional media. An editor must also wonder at which point does the life of a reporter (photographer) transfer to and from personal and professional. - FidelGonzales

interesting. Good to see the L.A. Times chime in, but it does seem pretty sloppy that it would appear that *still* all rights reserved photos are showing up in the stream. I just looked at it and the first photo that was pulled up was an all rights reserved one: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Thomas Hawk

The first photo that now shows up for me is also "all rights reserved" - http://www.flickr.com/photos... The second photos doesn't have a link (probably due to a too long description). Number 3 is this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos... LOL! - Holger Eilhard

Guess people need to start sending invoices. Maybe we should post onto the photo's comments that 'did you know the LAT is currently using your image?' - MikeDeal / ZoneDancer

I thought photos were "free like the air". Invoices would certaily be the way to go - Jim Goldstein from iPhone

Not to be obstreperous here -- but again I ask -- how is LA Times use any different than what happens on FriendFeed? - Brian Sullivan

oh, my nightmare continues... I assumed the widget was taken down. I have now corrected it, with a version that should eliminate any of your photos from being grabbed please check in a few minutes, also might need to clear cache and reload page. I apologize for these series of mistakes. - Sean Connelley

ok, I just checked... it does not appear to be loading any "All Rights Reserved."... Anthony to your question of why I didn't just check. I should of and I didn't, I wish I had a better answer. Can I ask this group a question. Seeing as you all seem to be passionate flickr user's and photographers. Do you see any value and/or need in a widget like this? Of course, a widget that worked correctly and respected copyrights and provided links back to the owners - Sean Connelley

side note - the power of FF! This would have not gotten visibility on FB due to the way privacy works over there - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

Sean, Yes this is a very cool idea, as long as you respect copyrights. It is a great way to croudsource news, as long as your not outsourcing your photographers. - MikeDeal / ZoneDancer

@Jeff: truth is, this has nothing to do with the power of FF. @Brian: asked and answered. @Sean: it looks to be fixed now, if a bit sparse. - Anthony Citrano

Sean, absolutely see value in a widget like this and am actually impressed by the ways that the L.A. Times is embracing social media. You guys are ahead of the curve in that regard. - Thomas Hawk

Anthony -- I'm glad that it is now working correctly and again apologize for the inconvenience I caused you and other flickr users. Unfortunately, the results now are a little discouraging but I what can you do. I'm just happy that it is working correctly now and learned a pretty good lesson from this. I'm going to try to expand my search tags to see if it helps bring in more content... more... - Sean Connelley

Benjamin Golub

I found out how to make FriendFeed publish "short" stories instead of one-liners at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authori...

August 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Scott Kuperus, Thomas Hawk, Chris Nuttall and 69 other people liked this

This will also include pictures :) - Benjamin Golub

22 more comments

Ben, if you ever need help in anything like that let me know - I'm all for helping FriendFeed integrate better with Facebook. :-) - Jesse Stay

If we have to, sure, this is awesome. This is a minor revolution. As usual, Thanks Benjamin! - Kamilah Gill

You rock Ben - Charlie Anzman

This works GREAT! Now if I could only select *which* FF entries I want to ship to Facebook, I'd be all set. - Phil G

I agree with Phil.. even if I could tag things with #FB it would help. My friends are already overwhelmed with my geekness, flooding them with ALL of my FF content would seal the deal!! - Chris Myles

Ben: I am only getting one-liners what else do I have change - a privacy setting somewhere? - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

I've tried this several times without success, will try again... Thanks, Ben. - Kol Tregaskes

it will post to facebook..but does not show pics if it has them in it. - (jeff)isageek

Woohoo! Thanks for getting this working! :) - Keith Bourgoin

nice! - .LAG liked that

Still doesn't work for me I'm afraid. It stopped posting a few weeks back and no amount of removing/readding/checking settings helps. Not even your awesome link :( - Alex Lomas

Alex: has just stopped working for me too! Everything is fine with the application ie it shows up on the tab but does not publish into the news feed... interesting... - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Peter and Alex: Have you tried this: http://www.facebook.com/authori... - Benjamin Golub

@Benjamin: Thanks for the tip - it always used to be set and I've double checked via your link and it still is. How long should things take to show up? - Alex Lomas

Thanks Ben this was not set on my side about to check, thanks for the help! - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

hey its working for me now!!! rock on. pic and all! - (jeff)isageek

Hm. The pics I just posted to FF never showed up in FB. Anyone know if this should be working? - Keith Bourgoin from IM

Alex: according to our logs http://friendfeed.com/alexlom... has already been posted to your Facebook profile. Facebook responded with a successful publish. - Benjamin Golub

@Benjamin - Wow, thanks for looking into that. Still not showing up on my wall, so I guess it must be something else :( - Alex Lomas

@Benjamin - Woohoo! They've appeared! But the stories were way down the bottom of the wall amongst posts from early this morning so I didn't initially see them. Maybe something to do with time zones (I'm in the UK)? - Alex Lomas

Ben: that solved it for me too! Pics also showing! Thanks for the help! 1 quick question for you :) when do you think we will be able to add the FF app to Facebook Public Profiles because that would be awesome! - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Cool. Thanks for the tip. - Mitchell Tsai

Very good, but I don't plan on allowing a merger between my facebook page and my friendfeed stream any time soon :-) - Slippy "WildBeard" Lane

Ozer Wrzl (EN)

[EXPLORE] When the sun goes down.../ Fishing "After Eight"

August 23 from Flickr favorites - Comment - Like - Share

Bluesun 2600, John (a.k.a. dendroica), Eric Johnson and 4 other people liked this

Kol Tregaskes to Kol's feed, FriendFeed Talk, Appetite

The Would-Be FFugees Shouldn’t Pack Up And Find A New Home Just Yet - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

August 22 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

NaHi, Charles LePage, Bonnie Foster and 9 other people liked this

"Following Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed, a lot of users in that community were up in arms. Basically, everyone was quick to jump to the conclusion that FriendFeed, as we knew it, was dead. And with the comments immediately following the deal, the parties on both sides did little to change that line of thinking, basically saying things along the lines of “we’ll see.” Many users were threatening to leave the service immediately, turning them into yes, FFugees. Well, now that the FriendFeed team is successfully in their new Facebook office and working to get up to speed on their new site, Steve Gillmor got a chance to catch up with FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit, and to ask him some of the questions that Mike didn’t touch on too much during his interview with Buchheit last week. Warning, the video below is quite long (over 50 minutes) and free-flowing at points, so I’ll summarize some of the key things said first." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

4 more comments

The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Kol Tregaskes

Still nothing very concrete from the notes anyway. Oh well, I'm just going to continue as normal. But sounds like very little new stuff will appear on FriendFeed for a while. :-( - Kol Tregaskes

OK, this is the first truly substantive interview by anyone from the FriendFeed team since the acquisition. A MUST-READ, largely somewhat reassuring re: the future of the service beloved by many of us.. oh, and how in hell is this not on Best of Day yet ?!?!?!?!?! You gotta be kidding, after all of the howling and gnashing of teeth last two weeks, one would think that people are hungry for this information. Must be a 5 stages of grief thing: 4 - depression.. - Alex Schleber

Must be the slightly insider-joke-ish title and post image that has people unduly ignoring this, anyway, I don't care that it's Summer, Saturday, or #Gnomedex...FriendFeeders, vote this up! - Alex Schleber

+1 "On the topic of the fears some FriendFeed users have about still using the service because their data may just disappear if FriendFeed does, Buchheit notes that if anything, the Facebook acquisition has lowered the chances of that happening. He says that in the big picture, it’s so little data, and takes very little to support. And Facebook is a huge, secure company now. (He is, of course, alluding to the fact that FriendFeed was in a much less stable position in the market.)" - Eric Johnson

AJ Kohn

Colors on The Web: Color Theory for Designers - http://designreviver.com/article...

August 21 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Eric Johnson liked this

"Psychologists believe color does more than impact our visual systems. For example, the same mechanisms which receive color input, also allow the pulses to reach the pituitary and pineal glands by way of the hypothalamus. The pituitary regulates certain hormones and other physiological processes. In fish, it is believed the pituitary may even regulate color. The pineal, interestingly, was thought by Decartes to contain the soul. It is believed generally that at least temporary responses affecting mood occur as a result of exposure to certain colors – red to stimulate, blue to calm, and so on." - AJ Kohn from Bookmarklet

Kol Tregaskes to Kol's feed, FriendFeed Talk, Google Reader, All Things Google, Appetite, TheNextWeb Forum

Is Google Reader The Next Friendfeed? - http://www.makeuseof.com/tag...

August 18 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Robert Grijalva, ДMIROVSKY☂امیروفسکی, Ola and 31 other people liked this

"With the news that Friendfeed was being sold to Facebook for an undisclosed sum, people have started flocking over to Google Reader, which shows you how fickle the internet can be. One minute they are all in Friendfeed professing their love for it and the next they are moving over to Google Reader just because they may not agree with the future direction of the other site. I have always been more of a Reader person than a Friendfeed person. I don’t know why but I feel more comfortable with Reader. Maybe it’s because it is tightly integrated with Gmail so I can email things to myself, maybe it’s because Reader has a really nice user interface so I can whiz about from post to post. I can’t pin it down but Reader has always been my preferred app. Say what you like about Google but they always instinctively seem to know what is good for the general net user and what works / doesn’t work. As a result, they have built an app which is primed to benefit from any disgruntled Friendfeed users if Facebook messes too much with it." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

8 more comments

I see that more promising than facebook - Leandro Ardissone ⍨ from IM

I can't agree with a Reader move until Wave is released, then the combination will be better. For now though Reader is incomplete. - Andy Ciordia

A GReader GWave combo would be ideal. - Kol Tregaskes

Just not feeling the love with Google reader. - cheapsuits

It has been very odd how Google seemed to ignore social networking through the years. Sure they have Orkut, but Google Reader, iGoogle and other Google tools COULD have been much better if they allowed you to add your own connections. Big miss. - Mike Reynolds

I can't handle the regular Reader interface. Much better via feedly. - Nils Sandin

Google reader has a long way to go before I become a regular user. The interface is crap and too jam packed with stuff. - Jon, the Beartato of FF from Android

Since I joined Friendfeed 14 months ago, Google Reader has been my Friendfeed client. Maybe because I'm more a "reader" person than a "comment" or "like" one? - Iñaki Arrieta Baro

I tried GReader as a FF client for a while but was too clumsy. For me FF is best read in FF, though GReader is a good alternative. - Kol Tregaskes

Steve Rubel

I am seeing a lot of my Friendfeed followers asking to follow me on Facebook but I treat the networks differently - for now.

August 13 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

testbeta, Eric Gourmet, Marco Castellani and 44 other people liked this

Me, too. I'm trying to think about what to do with that. - joey

31 more comments

I've seen the same thing. I haven't ignored any friend requests, but I won't be approving any until I get my privacy settings worked out. - Jason Huebel

Might actually make more sense to gather around Google Reader for now, in case Google advances it towards a more FF-ish interface. - phil baumann

I made a special group called "online friends" Now the question remains, can you have different privacy settings per group in facebook? That would be the best fix. - Bryan Lee

THat's my understanding. Somebody was talking about it Monday evening. I haven't tried it myself, though. It hurts my head to wade through the quagmire that is Facebook. - Jason Huebel

My FB friends are soooo different from my FF friends. I dread the day when I need to merge the 2 groups.. - Winston Teo

yes, total worlds collide problem. http://friendfeed.com/metaler... - metalerik

I can only accept more connections on my page at http://www.facebook.com/scoblei... - Robert Scoble

I think people are being prepared, and they will continue to be worried until they get answers. I am more than happy to invite all FriendFeeders into my Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/louisgr... - Louis Gray

Same here, it's a different level of connection - Amit Morson

I was already on FB. I set up lists to separate my family from my FF friends on FB. I'll set different privacy settings for each when I get to it. - Dennis Jernberg

My Facebook is here: http://jessestay.socialtoo.com - request away! - Jesse Stay

I'm loosening my policies regarding who I befriend on Facebook. Of course, I have separate lists for different groups of people. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

And I also operate under the assumption that nothing is truly private, privacy settings or no. I don't use Facebook to discuss confidential info with my work friends, or private family issues with my family friends. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

Fans aren't really connections, Robert--at least not in the same way. Not diminishing that, by the way. In many respects, I far prefer the sensibility of fan pages. Meanwhile, I'm here http://www.facebook.com/kfitch and happy to accept FF connections as friends. (I have more than one account on FB. Some who are concerned about boundaries might try that.) - Kathy Fitch

Robert has no choice but to use a fan page. And you can still interact on the wall of the fan page. I just wish fan pages weren't limited to one incoming feed. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

As I said, I far prefer fan pages in many respects. Very good for organizations and brands (and Robert is definitely the latter). Just a different sort of connection. (I have fan posting entirely off for one fan page. We'll see how that goes over time.) - Kathy Fitch

I see Facebook as a different animal. Hey there's a staggering amount of content here on FriendFeed, but it's not as overwhelming. I agree, different audiences. - Rob Schieber

I put two of my blogs on fan pages, primarily to keep them off my main feed. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

Yep I am the same. Friends on Facebook, business contacts on LinkedIn, Everyone on Twitter - Tony "Frosty" Welch

I think these walls are getting tougher to build, though, and maybe not as useful. When I built a new FB page more for my business/non-academic persona, friends from my other account started adding me. There's a fluidity about it that's appealing. Tsunamis aren't so appealing, though, so it's all about balance, I guess. - Kathy Fitch

It's funny. When I began with FB, *nobody* that I count as a friend in my personal life was there. Some of my nieces and nephews were there, but I didn't friend them--too intrusive. So, my early connections there were all academic--not classmates, but fellow professors. From the beginning, it has been a professional space, for me--friendly and silly, but professional. I don't do the post baby pics, frequent update on personal life, etc. thing at all, on any network. - Kathy Fitch

I'm waiting for the coming Fan feature. - Hugh Isaacs II

I got a friendfeeders list and a limited privacy list for the "others" Friendfeeders are more than welcomed to hit me on fb - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Same here. I use FriendFeed as a way to monitor what my contacts are doing, and occasionally to interact. I use Facebook primarily as an interaction vehicle. - Daniel B. Honigman

I plan to keep things totally separate; Facebook is for people I deal with in real life (with a few exceptions). If I can't find a similar service to FriendFeed, I and anyone following me are pretty much screwed. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

A while back I cranked up the public aspect on my Facebook account, and forgot all about privacy there. If my friends want to have a private conversation with me, the can use old-standards: Email and IM. Facebook is now the place where I get to know people. (and FriendFeed, but who knows about that now...time will tell) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I use LG as my model. - Pete Delucchi

I think people are jumping to conclusions. There's a mat for that. Facebook doesn't work like FriendFeed yet, and Facebook hasn't sent out a "quick, you've got to redo all your network using Facecbook before we delete your Facebook account" message... what's this rush? - Wade Dorrell

Up until recently I kept everything separate mainly out of respect and concern for my daughter, her privacy, and overwhelming her with stuff, but I have discussed it with her and she feels I shouldn't restrict myself and in her words "bring it on, it might be more interesting than your lack of posting has been." - April Russo (app103)

Regarding Steve's post on his blog, I'm going to share this tidbit (which I also posted to Steve's blog): "I'm really hoping that FriendFeed stays as-is and integrates lots of nice features into FB. It'd be really unfortunate if we lost all of our dedication (I share stuff on FF I like referring to) for nothing. Still, I begin to wonder if FF would have been sold to FB if the FF members... more... - Tamar Weinberg

I was on FB before FF and only opened the account because of some cousins, neice, nephew, sister.....even my mother is on it for god's sake....but I found it silly and drab. None of my family knows anything about technology to speak of. I even have some friends who won't go on FB because they know nothing about social media. When I found FF I was thrilled....exactly what I wanted, and... more... - Bonnie Foster

I use Facebook with my family and because of their lack of privacy I cannot accept business connections. - Eric Gourmet

Paul Buchheit

A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality - http://www.nytimes.com/2008...

August 18 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Eric Logan, Nathaniel Thurston, Nenad Nikolic and 42 other people liked this

"Today, she says, she is a new person, one who “can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere” on command and be “one with all that is.” To her it is not faith, but science. She brings a deep personal understanding to something she long studied: that the two lobes of the brain have very different personalities. Generally, the left brain gives us context, ego, time, logic. The right brain gives us creativity and empathy. For most English-speakers, the left brain, which processes language, is dominant. Dr. Taylor’s insight is that it doesn’t have to be so. ... people debate whether she is truly enlightened or just physically damaged and confused. Even her own scientific brethren have wondered. “When I saw her on the TED video, at first I thought, Oh my god, is she losing it,” said Dr. Francine M. Benes, director of the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, where Dr. Taylor once worked. Dr. Benes makes clear that she still thinks Dr. Taylor is an extraordinary and competent woman. “It is just that the mystical side was not apparent when she was at Harvard,” Dr. Benes said." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

11 more comments

Not often to read in Fashion & Style?! - David Schmidt

http://www.ted.com/talks..., her video, worth watching. - Lim, Kok Kim

watch her ted talk video. quite thought provoking - gunes ozturk yilmaz

I read her book, it was quite fascinating. - Ruchira S. Datta

I got the chance to speak to her in person last year about her experience, spirituality and religion. Fascinating stuff. - Thaths

Her video on TED is amazing - she really goes into detail about her stroke...wow! - Susan Beebe

I always wonder how her experience compares with various drugs. Obviously her's was different in that it left permanent changes and almost killed her (instead of simply wearing off in a few hours), but was her actual moment of "enlightenment" as unique as it's made out to be? - Paul Buchheit

I love her story - in WNYC's RadioLab she goes into a lot more detail than her talk at TED. Not sure about her book, though, haven't read that. no doubt it's even in more detail. - anna sauce

To me, Karen Armstrong is the more interesting one, having seen her on Book TV on Cspan - heretic_twit

I feel a bit frustrated since her talk was all "you guys should turn off your left brains like me" but her website says little about how one would do this (yoga and meditation are mentioned) - ௸ (k2g)

k2, yes, I think absolutely meditation can lead to this state. But it's not like flipping a switch. A sustained meditation practice will gradually develop the ability to turn off your left brain. Or you could try dropping acid. - Laura Norvig

No matter what message she's conveying (without even trying to much), one must admit Ms. Taylor's experience was an extraordinary one, especially she was someone who had a chance and capability to analyze and retell it. - Nenad Nikolic

Bwana ☠

I wonder how the developers feel about their investment in the FriendFeed platform. Share your thoughts? Has today's announcement changed the way you feel?

August 10 - Comment - Like - Share

Nispell, Kol Tregaskes, Larry Lewis and 12 other people liked this

TIRED —And I rarely feel so when I code for fun. The best eg. might be NoiseRiver which I made in a single month with people watching over my shoulder, _THAT_ was fun. - directeur

14 more comments

sitting looking at hours and hours of personal code now nothing but digital dust - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

At least it might be around for a while. - Rob Diana

Given the choice, would you develop for Facebook or FriendFeed? I would think Facebook - Bwana ☠

Now, you have to choose FaceBook. Would you invest time in a site where you don't know what will happen? (Outside of thinking that for any startup of course) - Rob Diana

I had a few hobby projects I was working on: no incentive to continue working on them. There's next to zero chance the API will continue in any situation; Facebook has its own platform. Facebook's platform wasn't appealing to me the last time I looked: maybe I'll go through it again. - Mark Trapp

I'm annoyed, I was seriously considering fixing up the FF Comments plugin because a few people had asked me to, but I just don't see the point now - Glenn Slaven

Personally as a developer, Not FF, this deal means that all the time and effort I put into my experimental personal projects may one day actually pay off. Not a waste of time after all. FF have shown that the dream is still alive, and congrats to them for doing it in this dreadful downturn. - Bryan Whitehouse

And thank you for that Glenn. - Captain Bubbles

Bwana - I suppose the same (maybe) that MANY Twitter developers felt over the weekend ... Don't put all your eggs ..... ?! We still don't know if FF will stay autonomous to some extent. Lots of conclusions being jumped to here. - Charlie Anzman

+1 @Charlie - .LAG liked that

Whoa. I got me a +1. (Thanks .LAG) Can I get some sleep now? Seriously ... People have Twitter Consulting businesses (some are actually real :). Can you imagine the 'new' client? "Hey you told me to tweet and then it got attacked ?!". The FF crew has always been extremely responsive. Have a question ... beef. POST IT! ... Maybe they and Zuck will read the Feedback Group??!! Why change now? - Charlie Anzman

The acquisition funding model isn't new. I'm thinking Twitter is envious about now. - Mattb4rd

Friendfeed's API is a dead end and Facebook's "API" (I put that in quotes) is the worst I've ever tried to work with. Lose-lose :( - Carter Rabasa from iPhone

I think I'm done developing tools for proprietary APIs. Between Twitter turning off features last year and this shift in FriendFeed's direction and business model, I'm tired of not having control. From here on out it's all about open standards and tools that work with multiple systems. (see also http://friendfeed.com/feedtech) - Ken Sheppardson

Ken++. Take a look on NoseRub... - Marcos Marado

Akiva Moskovitz

Google Reader's 'People you follow' is useful only if you want a stream of links with absolutely no context. My honeymoon with Reader is almost over.

August 19 - Comment - Like - Share

masstrovato, Chris Myles, metalerik and 28 other people liked this

And I'm just starting to find it useful! :p - 'Like' robot (frɐnc)

49 more comments

I was going to say the same thing about FriiendFeed FOAFs. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

FOAFs on FriendFeed are actually useful, though. They come from people who those you've subscribed to have, in a sense, vetted. You can immediately see where they came from, you can hide individual sources, you can hide entire people, you can hide individual sources from all people, etc. There is no control over there. - Akiva Moskovitz

I have mostly jumped ship with google reader. I have some feeds that port into my phone app and that's about it. Can't really stand the interface.. - Jon, the Beartato of FF from Android

Jonathan, yeah I hate the UI too. I was using NetNewsWire but gave the UI a good, solid go to mess around with the social aspects. I'm going back to NWW until Google stops half-assing their way to nowhere. - Akiva Moskovitz

Hey now. I was just at Google HQ today, and met with the Reader team. They are doing a good job in my opinion. Sometimes, their philosophy is to release early and iterate, so when you do find issues, please do call them out in a way that they can help with. They're one of the good guys. - Louis Gray

Louis, it's always different when you can put a face on it (usually); I don't have that kind of opportunity, though. As for just reading feeds, Reader's good. Its popularity should attest to that. But the social stuff tacked on top of it feels, well, just tacked on top of it. This certainly doesn't mean that it can't get better or that the Reader guys aren't doing a good job. But I do feel like the social aspects of Reader simply haven't jelled yet. They're there but they feel like a side dish. - Akiva Moskovitz

It's a cool feed reader, but I'd rather follow people and GR doesn't do that part well. - Rodfather

Louis.. just as an FYI you have a LOT more push with Google than any of us common folk.. I report bugs, enhancement and feature requests and I RARELY get feedback or status updates. It's not just a Reader thing, it a general Google issue because support doesn't scale as easily as their software does!! As a user and developer it can be incredibly frustrating and painful to develop products that rely on a combination of Google Products and APIs. - Chris Myles

Interesting context, Akiva. I've put together enough of a little social group over there, that, even including yourself, as folks share things they enjoy on Google Reader, I actually pay less and less attention to the hundred or so feeds I have dumped in there. Instead I jump to the comments section, and I just check out what folks are talking about. It's far more social and entertaining than pouring over the dry old feeds that used to cycle through there for me. - Pete Delucchi

Pete, I'm not denying that one can generate a community over there. My complaints are mainly in the UI. First, comments are completely independent of everything else. Second, there is no sense of organization in the 'People You Follow' section: it's just a mass of feed entries that are in no way identified. I have no idea where a particular entry comes from so, in a lot of cases, I have... more... - Akiva Moskovitz

I've got kind of a bias against gReader, so I've stayed mostly quiet as people have talked about it. gReader has sucked all the oxygen out of the RSS feed space so there's not nearly as much innovation as should be happening there. - mikepk

Chris, I am common folk. As I've been writing about Reader and using Reader a ton for 3 years, I've gotten lucky enough to know some of the people on the team. What's often unsaid is that building at the scale of Google is very hard. Synchronizing services like Reader with things like Contacts/Chat/Gmail, etc. takes work too, so these things will sometimes take longer than we like. - Louis Gray

That said, I have tried just about all the feed readers out there. After all, I am RSS obsessed. Google Reader is the best way to read feeds fast, and share them with the world. The link blog is the killer app. Now, they are trying to turn that killer app into a community and conversation, and I think we are at the early stages of seeing what they end up with. (Speculation - not based on any inside knowledge) - Louis Gray

sort of like when they just share them in globs here, pointless - sofarsoShawn

Akiva, If you're looking at it in list view, yeah, it's hard to tell what's what. I don't know if my way of interacting with my RSS feeds, or GReader specifically is unique, but I've got the the thing overstuffed with feeds and friends. Within a day or two, there's a 1,000+ entries. I never look at it but more than 10-15 minutes a day. I just don't have time for it. So, I just keep it... more... - Pete Delucchi

Louis, I know some people love gReader, but I don't think it's really an application for the mainstream. Problem is, developers are a lot more reticent to develop alternate paradigms for feed reading because gReader is a) free and b) backed by the 800 lb gorilla. - mikepk

Louis, and don't forget, I've been hyping Google as the next strong contender in the social media field. Personally, and this post here reflects this opinion, I believe that all Google is missing is integration across the board. Reader with Profiles with Talk, etc. As you point out, it's tough getting synchronization across products will be tough and even if I give up on Reader now and go back to NetNewsWire, it doesn't mean I won't be cheering them on. - Akiva Moskovitz

And the thing that annoys me most of about google reader. It may seem a minor thing.... They sort items by the date which *they* read them, which to me loses a large amount of temporal context to any larger number of feeds. Long tail feeds that have any large amount of flow can get "clumped" together by as much as 2hour increments, losing a lot of information in the process. - mikepk

Pete, for me, I apply an Inbox Zero approach toward feeds as well. I don't have OCD but I can't stand seeing that I have unread entries and I don't like just marking them all read when I haven't skimmed them because I don't want to miss anything good. So, for me, and my use case, Google Reader is good for solo feed reading alone. I've added people there but it's too frustrating to keep up with their combined feed of contextless stuff. - Akiva Moskovitz

I'm a fan of Reader as a feed reader, and many of the features like Send To have really improved it for that, but the comment and sharing functionality seem pretty immature and outright confusing in some cases. If FriendFeed disappeared I'd probably just hop over to reader, but I really hope that doesn't happen until they've had a chance to improve things substantially over there. - Ken Sheppardson

me = dead-horse-abuser but, read/unread is a really poor way to deal with any significant number of feeds. - mikepk

Akiva, for me "From your 105 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 842 items" <-- of course this doesn't show how many I marked as read. Probably 10 times that, at least. - Pete Delucchi

Akiva, when you say feed of contextless stuff, do you mean their shares, like the shares I put into FriendFeed? - Louis Gray

Louis, correct. I just see a list showing me who shared it, the title, the blurb, and the date. Although I'm not sure what the date is: is it when it was shared? when it was posted? Here on FriendFeed, I see who shared it and when and where it was shared from. I would just like to know what the source is. And, well, the ability to hide all future shares from that source. - Akiva Moskovitz

What I need is something between the list view and the expanded view. An excerpted view, if you will. The list view doesn't give enough information and the expanded view gives it all. - Akiva Moskovitz

It is the date it was shared, not posted. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Here I go, unabashedly pimping my wishlist for Google Reader once again: http://socialgeek.posterous.com/my-simp... - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Holden, about that God of FF thing... was there a vote that I'm not aware of? Isn't it a little presumptuous considering your stats? - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Is it okay for me to spam my own thread with my own blog? I hope so because here goes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.misanthropicgeek.com/2009... - Akiva Moskovitz

Hi all- I work on the Reader team and Louis pointed this thread out to me today. (sorry I missed it) I'd like to address a couple of the points all over this comment thread, (which is great by the way) First -- Chris-I wouldn't use the word 'easily' to describe scaling a service like reader ;) Second --Akiva-- You mention that you can't identify where the feed item that was shared came... more... - Jenna Bilotta

As for the higher-level point: the social layer in Reader is just starting to mature, and we've made a product decision that we are still primarily an efficient reading app. The reason why the social stuff has historically seemed separate, is because we want to preserve people's top priority, which we believe is jamming through a few thousand items a day. :) Comments and social is... more... - Jenna Bilotta

BUT, We are here, and we listen to as many channels as we can. We are a small team that likes to launch early and often, which is why somethings might seem "unfinished" or some larger (obvious) integrations not completed yet. Please, continue this dialog and just know we are listening and working away! :) - Jenna Bilotta

Wow, Jenna, thanks for taking the time out to address this stuff. I can't even begin to tell you how far this goes in not only encouraging my hope for these new features but in bringing down the wall a little bit between you and your users. It's funny, too, that I was coming to the same conclusions in the post I just linked to. Sometimes it's more about the user's expectations than it is the software's functionality. Keep up the great work! - Akiva Moskovitz

And, I do think a Summary View has some merit. A line with some title and share information and 2-8 lines of excerpt below that, and perhaps another line below with some other information or functionality. - Akiva Moskovitz

THanks for the feedback/response, Jenna. There is much good, and also much that is unwieldy with the Google Reader interface. The hierarchical structure is the most challenging, and lack of duplicate warnings - the same feed can appear in multiple folders, the same entry appears many times if shared by multiple people, and the whole putting people into groups is pointless. - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Putting people into groups would be useful if you could view by group. However, I'd like to be able to customize my own groups. - Akiva Moskovitz

Jenna: One of the things I find frustrating is the lack of read/unread status in the Comment view. When I'm viewing a feed or someone I'm following, I can can view "new items" or "all items", but when I go to Comments view, I get "Items with comments" or "All shared items"... which doesn't make sense, because I'm in *Comments* view to begin with. I'd really like to see the same choice here as with feeds: either items with *new* comments, or all items with comments. - Ken Sheppardson

Jenna, thanks! Akiva, happy that she jumped onto this thread and addressed your concerns. :) - Myrna

Jenna, thanks for listening and your comments! - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

@akiva - summary view is sort of what we are calling "Super snippet" it's what we use in comment view and search view. There is merit to considering this type of view for regular feed reading as well, for precisely the reasons you mention. - Jenna Bilotta

@Aaman - The same feed possibly appearing in multiple folders is a feature (if you can believe it). it's best to think of Reader folders like Gmail labels or tags. the folder name can apply to individual items, whole feeds or feeds can appear in multiple folders. This is something that is embedded in Google philosopy (we call it "Multi-inclusion") because it gives people the most... more... - Jenna Bilotta

@Ken - When you click on "expand this item" in comment view, it marks the item in your normal feed view as read, but doesn't otherwise. Comment view is optimized for conversations, not items, so we only show it in order of most recent comment. Your feedback makes sense though, and I'll note it for when we update comment view. Thanks! - Jenna Bilotta

Whew! Alright folks, I'm off to sleep now. Keep the feedback coming if you like, or join the "Google Reader" friendfeed group, which I track closely. (so I don't miss more threads like this.) You can find it here: http://friendfeed.com/google-... - Jenna Bilotta

Jenna: I actually never noticed the "Expand this item" link in the comment view... with lots of text links all over the place (vs buttons) I tend to get lost sometimes and can't distinguish between links that are part of Reader and what's part of the item. I appreciate seeing comments in reverse chron, but in "j"ing through the list of items, I have a hard time recognizing which comments I've read and which I haven't. - Ken Sheppardson

Main missing item: a My Discussion view, where one can see all items commented and liked. - Aaman (Clone of FF)

@Louis, I certainly understand the complexity issues and the time it takes to integrate them all. I'm certainly not complaining about Reader, I use it, Love it and "sell it" to all of my friends, the additional social features make it even more interesting. Developing products that use the APIs and Products is where it becomes difficult. I also think you have more pull then you realize, I certainly would never be invited into Google for a chat!! - Chris Myles

@Jenna I certainly wasn't trying to describe the software scaling issues as easy, but Google has obviously nailed it, Reader, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, Maps, Earth etc. What Google hasn't nailed is the support to those millions of users. The customer support forums are full of unsatisfied users who are trying to get *any* answer/feedback from Google, but support and customer... more... - Chris Myles

@Jenna BTW I'm not trying to pick on Google, I think customer support is a VERY difficult problem, especially with the number of users you have and the way Google products are compartmentalized. I have spent literally 100's of hours documenting bugs and feature/enhancement requests (in forums, groups and direct emails with PMs), but most of the time it seems like a complete waste of effort, considering I can get a guaranteed return by developing new features and/or supporting my customers. - Chris Myles

I can't stand that Google Reader displays the feeds I subscribe to in a stream. I much prefer the boxes as offered by services like Netvibes. If Google would ever change their UI to something like that, I'd probably switch in a second. - Miriam

"We do have an issue with "share with note" that creates a duplicate of the item and attaches the note, which is probably where you are seeing most of the siloing happen. That issue is being worked on.. but it's a bit hairy.. so it's going to take some time." <- Jenna, is this still going on? - Marcos Marado

Benjamin Golub to Benjamin's feed, Louis Gray, Jenna Bilotta

How to use the new Google Reader feature to "Send to" FriendFeed:

August 12 - Comment - Like - Share

Jeunelle Foster, edythe, edt and 170 other people liked this

But doesn't it already send to Friendfeed? I suppose you could send to a particular room - Deepak Singh

31 more comments

Deepak: this is a little different, but yes FriendFeed already pulls from Reader and is pushed data from Reader using PubSubHubbub. - Benjamin Golub

Ben ... will have to try it out. Have always wanted to send to a specific room from reader - Deepak Singh from IM

We also support http://friendfeed.com/... which reads a bit nicer :) - Benjamin Golub

... Ben, that looks rather interesting in ichat :) http://img.skitch.com/2009081... [http://img.skitch.com/2009081...] - Deepak Singh from IM

I am wondering why FriendFeed was left out in the default services - siva s

For copy: http://friendfeed.com/static... - NaHi from f2p

My shares already come to FriendFeed, as you know, and I won't be sending them to any other network (until forced). But appreciate the how-to. - Louis Gray

Is there a keyboard shortcut for the new "send to" feature in Google Reader? - Jesse Stay

It is shift-t, Jesse. - Louis Gray

Cool, Ben. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Done! Now all I need to do is find something to share... - Dennis Jernberg

Is there any way to make it include an image if there is one? - Simon Wicks

Simon +1, to include images I go to actual page and bookmarklet, wish there is an direct way in reader. - Jacque

Yeah, i'm sure people have managed to do it before somehow, but i've never figured it out direct from Greader. - Simon Wicks

Simon +1. pictures are needed. BTW, do we need "https"? - woodear

Interesting - geeky feature! :) I already use FF to pull in my gReader shares. How is this different? - Susan Beebe

Yes, I brought it into FF long ago via add/edit feature. - Rob Schieber

Thank you very much. - David Faulkner

Does this speed up the transfer? I've noticed the past 2 days have been a little laggy getting here. - Courtney Engle

So when I using this method try to "send to" Ff - It takes me to FF and just pastes the URL of that feed item into a posting box. Is that proper behavior? - Matthew DeVries

Yep. Similar to the behavior with other engines. You can then add other rooms etc (something not possible with regular sharing AFAIK) - Deepak Singh

Wonder if there is a way to get it to open and drop it into the bookmarklet instead of Ff proper. - Matthew DeVries

BTW, FriendFeed (and Tumblr) should now be a built-in option on Send To http://www.google.com/reader... - Mihai Parparita

Thanks, Mihai. - Louis Gray

So what is the code to send it to a particular room? If I wanted it to flow in the public FF I would just click 'share'. - Paul Arterburn

Whoa, sharing to a particular room would be epic :) Would probably have to create a shortcut code for each room instead of multiple rooms... - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕

Ya, I really just have one group for this - public share or private share among close friends (private FF room). That would also let me DM the link to a FF user if I wanted a *really* private share. - Paul Arterburn

What about diigo ? - Stanislas Jourdan

Would also like to know, if there is a way to configure Google reader to send to a certain group in FF? - Gerald Hildebrandt

At the very least, it's always good to know the code. - Mike Reynolds

tried 'http://friendfeed.com/$userna...', but did not worked out - Gerald Hildebrandt

AFAIK sending to a Room is a bit painful. I tag the item in GReader. Then subscribe to that tag's RSS in the FreindFeed Room. A little laborious to set up, but quick when sending - you just tag. And wtih GReader's pubsubhubhub they show up in Room immediately. - Nick in Manila

Louis Gray

I Love You Google Reader, But We Have Some Issues - http://regulargeek.com/2009...

August 17 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Rob Cairns, Bas and 22 other people liked this

I blame Louis for the proliferation of this style of blogging (relationship letters). It's a lot harder for someone like me to extract the feedback from this as opposed to him just saying: 1) You want me to create groups, but don't show them to me in Reader 2) Do all people subscriptions have to be connected to Google contact manager 3) ? - Jenna Bilotta

30 more comments

we are working on some of this stuff, but we prefer to release early and often and some features that seem reasonable are just bits that haven't quite been built yet for one reason or the other. - Jenna Bilotta

Hey now. :) For the record, when I want to make suggestions, they're direct. Like this one. http://louisgray.com/live... or this one: http://louisgray.com/live... - Louis Gray

I think the confusion I have seen here and in other articles stems mostly from people who are familiar with FriendFeed and are curious as to how much overlap with Reader they should expect. I find Reader to be fantastic, but I'm not looking for it to be my social network. Another similar article to Rob's is this one: http://shegeeks.net/google-... - Louis Gray

On the flip side, it seems clear that if LG uses GReader to share your GR rant, you can be reasonably sure that someone on the GR staff will read it :P - Daniel J. Pritchett

Jenna, I have not had enough sleep lately :) I tried to be somewhat clear when I was making the real point, but as usual failed to balance it. Basically, groups should be more directly obvious in google reader and maybe used within the interface as well. Using Contacts as the starting point and then having no reference to them (except in settings) makes it really confusing. - Rob Diana

And by the way, I really love Google Reader. Just check how many shares I throw around on any given day :) - Rob Diana

The other main point I was trying to make was that trying to integrate other google services like contacts can really confuse things, and even start people down the path of Google wanting to own everything. - Rob Diana

Rob - agreed. I'd say we are at the mid-way point for making group editing and use much much more robust without leaving Reader. (and I know contact manager is working on improvements as well). Thanks for the post, tho, and the feedback! - Jenna Bilotta

On the flipside of that, though, is that if you have all of your "people" or connection information in a centralized service, getting started quickly with content from people you care about on new services (or on old services in new ways) demonstrates immediate value. The android/latitude integration is just one example, but since I got my Gcontacts in order and sync them all to my... more... - Jenna Bilotta

Well, centralization/decentralization is an argument in computing that constantly goes back and forth. Both have benefits and issues. I think part of the problem is that Contacts needs work and Reader needs better group integration. If both happen, then you would probably get the benefits that you mention. However, given that Reader is evolving more into a social networking application,... more... - Rob Diana

I think what you describe is a mental model shift, fundamentally. Did you know that when you follow someone in Reader who doesn't make their contact information public, that person's info is stored in the Google contact manager as a reference URL only? Maybe it's a nomenclature issue, but the contact manager is becoming so much more than actually contacting people. It's a way to manage connections to people (and info) you care about. And yes, it needs to be better and so does Reader's links into it. :) - Jenna Bilotta

Jenna - Great to see Google Reader innovating so quickly! Fine with me to trade some rough edges for quick progress... - Eric Johnson

Jenna - Interesting. Could Reader be a bit smarter about how it adds folks to gcontacts -- at least if they've got a public profile? Right now Reader adds a gmail email address. Not name. Not nickname. Not shared google reader url, or profile url. So I'm left with gcontact orphans -- because nothing I know these folks by has made it into gcontacts. - Eric Johnson

Rob - That's what groups are *for*. One could, theoretically, place everyone who you share with into one contact group and your Reader contacts would be separate from your email contacts. Jenna - Reader has so many great features already, so I have to say that I am totally satisfied as-is. There are a couple of additions which would be (extra) icing on the cake though, so some of my... more... - Californian

holy cow! You made a doc! That's totally awesome! (sending it to team.) - Jenna Bilotta

Californian, I understand the idea of grouping all of my Reader contacts into one group, as that is what I am doing right now, but it seems to only be a partial solution. As Jenna has said, they are not done, so I am just waiting to see how they continue to improve. If you are looking for people to follow, there have been several FriendFeeders sharing their feeds, and I dumped them into a spreadsheet at https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc... - Rob Diana

Jenna - I'm thrilled that you read it! I hope it was helpful. :) - Californian

Rob - Maybe I don't understand what you mean by group integration. I'm looking forward to the improvements, too, but I don't see how contacts can improve much more. Thanks for that link. That's quite the list! - Californian

Californian, my thinking is that if we are using groups from contacts, then the group itself should be part of the google reader interface. So, under the "People You Follow" section, you would see the group names (like folders), and you could expand the groups to see the users. Of course I leave it up to the Reader team to do something awesome. - Rob Diana

Rob, we do show you your groups, under "sharing settings" but only the groups you check there will show up when you are editing an individual person. more to come. - Jenna Bilotta

Jenna, I did see the sharing settings stuff. I am just waiting to see what you can do to improve. No, I am not waiting patiently :) - Rob Diana

patience is a virtue! :) - Jenna Bilotta

Hmmm. Jenna, it's the "I'm not a fan of" that I'm not a fan of, because I find it ambiguous in a confusing, rather than an interesting, complex, way. Why not just say, "I don't like?" - Amy℠

@amy - confused. what are you referring to? - Jenna Bilotta

Oh now I get it! Yes, that *does* make sense. I added it to the request doc. :) Jenna - even if Rob won't be patient, I will! It's only possible to go so fast; there have been a lot of features added recently. Keep up the awesome work, and I'm sure even Rob won't be to mad about waiting! - Californian

I've always loved GReader. My #1 gripe after it became social is duplicates within shared items. The #1 wish list item is to allow mapping folder shares to contact groups. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

I have worked out in my own 'People you follow' why gReader (GR) keeps dropping the groups. Its because I had them stored twice in gContacts (GC). As @Jenna says above GR stores them as a reference URL only. If you look at the bottom of your GC you will have lots of 'unnamed contact' with a link to a google profile. This profile is a number only, but if you cut n paste, it takes you to... more... - Jez Arnold

@jez If you've added someone that doesn't make their name public, you'd get anonymous. But if you can visit the profile URL stored in the unnamed contact and see the name, that's a bug. (we'll look into it if so.) Related: Do you also use an andriod phone? (i had several unnamed contacts that I eventually realised were being created there) - Jenna Bilotta

By the way: for heavy lifting you can use the standalone version of the contact manager to work with your groups if you don't want to load all of gmail at contacts.google.com - Jenna Bilotta

@jenna.. i do use an android phone (but solved that issue last week!) To be fair the people I added who I saw in GC were not anonymous. Its people who are generally named above! it seemed to be a double entry - ie Rob Diana was /profiles/112624749923167968448 as well as /profiles/robdiana .. once i realised who they were by following the link, i merged the two and now GR works fine. its just time consuming. - Jez Arnold

@jenna.. thinking about it. I did go through to several people who were *JUST* numbers and no profile name (which everyone has worked out is the gmail address) - Jez Arnold

Joshua Nunn

With 81 subscribers on FF I get no response to anything I do or say here. I imagine I'd need to participate in the community more, which would involve subscribing to multiple hundreds of people, filling my Friendfeed stream with a lot more stuff to read. I chose not to do that, and it made FF less useful to me.

August 17 - Comment - Like - Share

anna sauce, Mike Nencetti, Tanath and 12 other people liked this

Could I offer some advice? - Johnny Worthington

23 more comments

Absolutely! - Joshua Nunn

Somehow, I feel as though all that is about to change... - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

When you subscribe to those people, put them in lists but remove them from your home feed via the check box. That way you can participate in the larger 'party' but still have your corner of the room for your important people. Your home feed would just be your current people but you can pop into other feeds as interact to grow some following. there are some other things about content, twitter and pictures etc but in a pure interaction sense, I would suggest that. - Johnny Worthington

Follow Johnny's advice. As you find more people in your new lists that you like what they post, move them in to your main. That way your home feed will grow slowly with the best content you like rather than just a mass-add and then trying to filter out the stuff you don't like - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

I have done that to some degree already. It's one of the reasons I tried advocating FF over Twitter to my friends, as I could mute things temporarily and only see what I wanted to. But I didn't think it kosher to add a tonne of people just to build up my reader numbers? I figured if what I was saying was interesting it would be shared and liked and seen. Maybe I'm just boring :P - Joshua Nunn

Joshua, it takes time, a long, long time. The core users tend to be a very incestuous bunch who seldom interact with outsiders (even if you're an insider, right Johnny? :) ). Just keep plugging at it, both participating and contributing, and someday you will be noticed. - jcunwired

Joshua, it's not just about content unfortunately... And I by no means am suggesting subscribing to a whole bunch of people for follow backs. If you subscribe to more people, you will have more opertunity to put your name out there on threads. You can still have your normal experience but if your '- Joshua Nunn' isn't infront of eyeballs, no one will visit your feed to discover your interesting stuff. I have to be very proactive in my FriendFeeding to get any response back. - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

I agree with Rahsheen... several of us right now have one foot on the FF base, but we're reaching for the next one (for many of us, the next base is GReader). Our trust in FF has been severely shaken, though we love it more than anything else online. - Kamilah Gill

participate. a certain amount of talking about yourself is okay, even good, but mostly bring in things that other people might find interesting. but participation is also about giving feedback/commenting and how you treat people weighs HUGE around here. also, forget about keeping track of your metrics, they're worthless here except as meaningless trophies. - Joe Silence is not dead

I actually started out this post to talk about why Google Reader is going to be even less effective for me... I pressed enter too soon! I actually decided not to focus on FF a couple of months ago, as I was having more interactions on Twitter and needed to choose one to focus on. It was my choice not to actively get involved with the community here. Thought I needed to clear that up, as I don't mean to whine about not being "recognised". - Joshua Nunn

Agreed with Google reader, I just can't get into it - Mo Kargas

Kamilah, while I agree, this kinda stuff applies universally to all social media. I don't want Joshua to think I am picking on him but if you look at his home feed, right now it's all text based and several @replies. Anywhere that wouldn't excite me to explore, regardless of FriendFeed or Google Reader etc. - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

Is there a blog post somewhere on the interweb which shows you the best tips for making FF lists. - Bryan Lee from iPhone

haven't bothered with Google Reader yet. - Joe Silence is not dead

*needs desperately to implement Johnny's suggestions from above* - Joe Silence is not dead

The problem is compounded for me with GR. I can't afford to subscribe to too many people, as their management tools are no where near as advanced as FF. And there is no "stream" to stand in and let the posts wash around you. - Joshua Nunn

Johnny, I appreciate you checking out my feed. I'm not sure how to rectify the lack of "interesting" items, as I don't actively go looking for pictures and gifs to share. I use the net, and if it interests me it gets bookmarked or shared, and eventually turns up here. Mostly that means text. If I have a question I ask it. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. - Joshua Nunn

No, not doing it wrong but the level of interaction anyone recieves correlates directly to the level of interaction elsewhere, name recognition and visual interest. It's the basics of advertising and PR. If you're not out there and getting attention, no one will know your brand exisits. Keep on fighting the good fight but in the end we are visual creatures with short attention spans and a lot of stuff flowing past our eyes... - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

I was kind of just mentioning GR as a "by the way", which is what I think Rahsheen may have also been doing. You're right about enlivening feeds with images and interesting links. If I don't see any pictures in a feed, I don't linger over it long (unless the person already has a lot of subscribers to recommend them). I very deliberately try to include an image with every more important post, and I try to have at least one image for something per day. - Kamilah Gill

To put it into perspective, most of my posts get interaction from about 0.5-1% of my subscribers. My top all-time posts are anywhere from 5-10%. The only reason it looks like a lot is because I've collected a lot of subscribers over a year. I'm willing to bet most everyone's actual engagement percents are actually quite close to the same, but 0.5% of 80 subscribers is a lot different than 0.5% of 1800. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

You don't need to subscribe to participate. Use search to find conversations that interest you, and comment on them. That will help build your name. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

Thank you for those numbers Tina. I didn't expect the activity percentage to be that low. I just want to be clear here that I never intended to imply that it wasn't my fault that I don't have huge participation on my items. I fully realise that I could participate more. - Joshua Nunn

What John said - AJ Batac

If you effectively use the FriendFeed bookmarklet (include teaser-text and photos with your entries), the FF community's response will come. I PROMISE. Bookmarklet... http://friendfeed.com/share... - Brad Williamson

nptech: Laura Norvig

Have you ever considered using, or are you using, Friendfeed as a tool for your nonprofit organization, internally or externally? If yes, how is it going? If not, why not? #nptech #monthlytopic

July 19 - Comment - Like - Share

E-Advocate Network, Eric Johnson and Joe Solomon liked this

We are using it in several ways but some of them have not taken off. The first is a basic aggregation of our content here: http://friendfeed.com/service... You can see we only have 65 subscribers - that's compared to 1,193 on Twitter. We take that aggregated feed and display it on one of our internal pages on our website here: http://nationalserviceresources.org/connect It's a handy way to provide a fresh mix of delicious links, tweets, and youtube favorites. - Laura Norvig

6 more comments

The second thing we've done is, I've created a private room for staff discussion/sharing. It hasn't really caught on, though, as we have many other more officially sanctioned (but not as versatile, IMO) ways of communicating internally. - Laura Norvig

The third thing I've done is create a place to listen to news in our field. http://friendfeed.com/service... - Laura Norvig

We've set up a FF account that's aggregating our content (http://friendfeed.com/volunte...), but haven't done much with it yet. Honestly not really sure what to do with it! I need to wave the 'information overload' flag on this one. I know I can set up filters, but I don't really get the impression that FF is a primary destination where people go to interact anyway. Since I can't engage everywhere, FF has taken a backseat -- at least for now. - Matt Koltermann

Yup, I think Friendfeed is still an early-adopter platform, so it's not yet useful for initiating conversation with constituents. It *is* useful as a listening tool, or an aggregation tool that you can than push out to your own website or blog. - Laura Norvig

FF's new embeddable search feature seems to be a promising way to aggregate and display relevant content on our website, actually. Speaking of aggregation, we've been bookmarking our Web mentions on Delicious (http://delicious.com/volunte...) and turned an RSS feed of our "mentions+news+bestof" tags into a dynamic new "CCS in the News" page, which just launched today! Still needs some stylistic tweaking, but we're very excited about this model: http://tr.im/ccsnews - Matt Koltermann

That is a cool solution, Matt, congratulations on that implementation! - Laura Norvig

We're doing something similar to Matt, where we use delicious and friendfeed to track mentions of our dinosaur trail and individual dinosaurs. We separate out based on whether the content is from an "expert" source (orange box) or an "amateur" (yellow box). See http://www.lifeandscience.org/dinosau... for the main page, and click on one of the dinosaur icons at the top of the page to see how it works for each individual dinosaur. - Jeff Stern

Beth Kanter

RT @carnet: My thoughts on Facebook Fan Pages http://www.imediaconnection.com/content... (How do I create a landing page?)

August 18 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Paula Camposano-Robinson, Eric Johnson and Joe Bonner liked this

Eric Johnson › Likes