"Welcome to I Dose, the perfect Binaural Beats experience!
Binaural Beats, affects our brainwaves directly, and can simulate various states, such as altering moods, behavior and consciousness.
Sounds crazy? We thought like that too. But guess what? we tried it, and it works!" - felicia via Bookmarklet
The 12-15 minute audio streams are not quite what I expected, but I am completely fascinated by this. - felicia
Good post, Hank. So bad at PR, so good at Marketing. Are the two inversely correlated? Certainly not in every dimension, but Apple's secrecy regarding product launches and future developments is a big part of their marketing strategy. And they seem to be unwilling or unable to abandon this secrecy in other parts of their communication (MobileMe problems, iPhone SDK). - Ole Begemann
I've wondered the same thing. How can they be so good at marketing but suck at handling their image after the sale? - Yolanda
Its funny, I am waiting to see how long it takes for the crazed fanbois to attack over this. it seems to always happen. - Hank Williams
The other disadvantage (in the UK at least) is their repair service. 7-10 days return to base. Buy a similar machine from Dell at around the same total cost and you get 3 year, next-business-day, on-site repairs. - Russ
“I refuse to think I have had nothing interesting to say for the last few days, but I am getting absolutely no action from Friendfeed. No conversation. I am trying to feed, but friends are nowhere to be seen.”
Mark Trapp's 5 secrets to Friendfeed action: 1) Make sure Twitter is not the majority of your feed. It should be no more than 1/3 of what you share. 2) When sharing using the Friendfeed service, use pictures and a clear title. 3) Unless it's your blog, you will never break a social media story, and chances are, everyone's already seen the story you're sharing. Expand your sharing to other topics. 4) Unfollow anyone who is an a-lister unless they follow you back. They give a distorted impression of interestingness on Friendfeed. 5) If you see someone interesting in FoaF, immediately follow them and find out what they like and why they're interesting to you. You'll become a better sharer. - Mark Trapp
Hide hide hide. Get rid of the junk so you it doesn't push down the interesting stuff. - Shey
Yah .. hide things to find the good stuff. No offense to the people who do it but I get a lot of things like RECENTLY PLAYED TRACKS and other "noise" feeds. Block those out. I know some people like seeing new music but it's just not for me. A bit of work and you'll eventually get a nice setup going. - Bartek Gniado
I understand where you are coming from. I am still trying to understand this crazy FF world. Sometimes I wonder if I should comment/like people I don't know, like I am bugging them or something. Then again, I feel like if I don't do that, I am missing out on what this whole things is about. (and thanks Mark for the tips) - Aden
Aden, a huge amount of value comes from discovery and interacting with those discoveries. Absolutely "like" and "comment" on things that interest you, even if the person doesn't know you or you don't know the person: the more active you are, the more people notice you. It's name recognition, and people aren't going to get to know you (and you're not going to get to know them) if you don't participate. - Mark Trapp
Aden, definitely comment and like. If people didn't want anyone else to see what they've shared, they'd hide their feed. And like Mark said, how else will people know you if you don't chime in? - Yolanda
Great thread - Mark thanks for those comments, they're very insightful - nathan
“Yes Mark, Thanks! I have posted before regrading the desire NOT to be part of the echo chamber. I don't want to break stories. I also don't want the only way to participate in FF to be dedicating 4 hours a day. Theres gotta be balance. Great tips.” - Adam Helweh
I think they saw a LOLcat on the other side :p - zoblue
I tumbled this a week or so ago. Great picture! Happy dogs! - J. Phil
J. Phil: Do you have the original photographer and/or a better source than Pixdaus? I like to give credit and/or link to people's websites. Thanks! Also, Pixdaus (or the Pixdaus posters) often downgrade the photo quality. I'm trying to put together some cool slideshows & desktop pictures. - Mitchell Tsai
@Corvida ... could you ping me on GTalk when you havea minute please - Steven Hodson
I really hope your post is some sort of joke. Here is what I see: 1/ it doesn't matter that me and others got screwed, as long as they have $12mil in their account, 2/ it is ok to start it from scratch over and over again 3/ you don't care that me and others lost all our connections, as long as you still have thousands. Conclusion: it is a VERY BIG DEAL, as they have lost my data. If they would have lost their own data, I would have said nothing. But for the moment, it is my data they screwed. Have good traffic! - Alex Popescu
I rarely joke on my site Alex. It's just another perspective and far from a joke. I don't have thousands and you should be backing up those connections elsewhere anyways! That's not Twitter's fault that you didn't take the opportunity to move those connections off of Twitter and on to somewhere like your damn phone let alone your email contact book. Twitter didn't screw anyone. This is a possible price to pay for putting all you eggs in one basket that's been having issues since its inception. - Corvida
Corvida, I like the take in your post. I like your comment above even more : ) I'd understand Alex's rage if he was paying $20/mo. for the service, but he isn't. Disappointment and frustration with a free service, sure, ok. Rage? Not so much. - Robert Seidman
Twitter is a free service. You get what you pay for... especially if you didn't export your connections to Plurk, FriendFeed, or another service. - Bill Sodeman
Your exactly right Robert. It's a free service and that changes the rules a bunch. It's frustrating yes, but I don't believe it's something that can be thrown entirely on Twitter. - Corvida
But don't forget to factor in that because of the "free" users, funding is able to be obtained and the service can be adapted for paid models. Many services are free now because users won't pay for something that doesn't work if there's a free alternative, so who's going to be the first to charge and take that chance? The idea that hey, it's free, don't complain could be the downfall of an otherwise promising company. - Ro (Lilyhill)
You can't really be angry at Twitter just because it's unstable and ate your followers. They made you no promises and took none of your money (that I am aware of). What you CAN do is either stop using it, or protect yourself from future mishaps by backing up your contacts. - Rahsheen Porter
The fact that the service is free is not the point. Sites that collect data and provide a service have an implied responsibility to it's users. If Google was to suddenly lose peoples emails would folks have the right to feel pissed? Of course they would. If you can't provide the service intended then you shouldn't be providing it, no matter how cheaply. I'm good. I got my 3 followers back. And I am glad that the folks who run Twitter got things back in order in a reasonable amount of time. Kudos! - chartreuse
You say that because it's free it promises you nothing, but what if Gmail suddenly obliterated 1/2 of everyone's e-mails, including yours? Would you be singing the same tune? While there is not an explicit promise that comes with an exchange of money, there is, I think, an implicit promise that, in exchange for your attention and data, this free service will not totally make your life difficult. Letting companies that do this off the hook because they are free is not what good consumer behavior is about. - Dan Kaplan
Continued. The good news is that this was a temporary thing, but if it hadn't been...damn. - Dan Kaplan
Dan, G-Mail is at least monetized with advertising so it's a little different. Plus, by the time it launched in beta all those years ago Google was already a very profitable, stable and big company. If G-Mail went out for even half a day, there'd probably be little else on TechMeme. But for now, e-mail remains a much bigger deal than Twitter (perhaps not with you, but with the world) - Robert Seidman
When this happened yesterday, I was hoping it was a temporary glitch from which they would recover. There's a big difference between losing contacts for a few hours and losing them forever. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Just in case I was confusing, I do not agree that they are free to screw you over because the service is free. I'm just saying there is no point in being angry about it. If a free service/company burns you, all you can really do is move on. It's not like you can get a refund or credit for service. I have ditched Twitter completely. - Rahsheen Porter
I didn't think it was that big of a deal when it happened. Twitter communicated what was going on and now all of my followers are back. - Albert Willis
Very interesting to think about. I think this will be a good thing, as tv advertising tends to be the most toxic. The case for the end of radio seems stronger though. - Paul Buchheit
i guess newspapers should be the first one .... - Raza
If internet TV can produce shows of the quality I'm used to watching (Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Heroes, etc...) then I can consider it. But when I hear stories of Internet Radio dying, I don't get the feeling that Internet TV will fare any better against traditional media. The obituary hasn't been written for newspapers yet. - Ernie Oporto
I agree with Raza. Newspapers are, sadly, already on their way out. It's melancholy for me because I used to work in the industry. - Akiva Moskovitz
I think everything our televisions will be multi-media centers at the home so television has a secure future. - orionstarr
I also want to add that i do agree with the final sentiment of the article: it's the networks that will go away, not the televisions. We'll end up with a la carte broadcasts where you subscribe to television series and will have them available to watch whenever a new episode is released. I, for one, look forward to that. - Akiva Moskovitz
+1 for the notion that it is the traditional broadcast television network, and not necessarily the media itself, that is being outmoded. - Derrick Burns
What about radio? Hasn't that pretty much fallen with the rise of satellite radio and mp3 players? - John
John, maybe in ClearChannel land but independent stations are doing quite well. - Akiva Moskovitz
I miss independent radio stations. A lot. - Derrick Burns
Derrick, kexp.org. Streaming 24/7 all day every day. - Akiva Moskovitz
@Akiva: Thanks for the tip. Am listening right now. Like the look of the playlist a lot. - Derrick Burns
Neat....we should all do something like this...btw I'm reading Book One of The Bartimaeus Trilogy b/c of you, also on a bus on my way to work, and liking it a lot so far. - Snay Trivedi
thanks everyone! I look forward to your videos! - Stefan Hayden
Thanks for the brief but informative introduction, Stefan - TDavid
It was weird turning it in. At first I thought I'd be all "Screw you guys. I'm going home."</cartman> but on my way to my team lead's office, I felt sorta weird. - Harvey Simmons
It took so long, I had this terrible feeling that something went wrong in the background check. I figured they found about my dad running moonshine back in the '50s or something. :) - Harvey Simmons
She probably signed up just to check out FF To Go. All mums like to know what their sons are up to you know... no matter how old they get! ;-) - Tony Ruscoe
Benjamin, if your mom has a smart phone and wants to keep up with FriendFeed, I have an excellent recommendation for her. (And no, it's not MojiPage.) - Ontario Emperor
Wow your Mom rocks. Mine can barely check her email. I can't imagine what FriendFeed would do to her. - Carla Thompson
My mom's on FriendFeed as well. Who can find her account? - Louis Gray
My mom barely, just barely uses e-mail, but she enjoys watching Taiwanese TV over the internet. It's amazing traveling the world in hostels, watching people IM their moms over the free internet connections. In 1984, going to Europe was a real distancing thing with very expensive phone calls home. Now free Skype at some hostels. Grandma turned 102 this year. - Mitchell Tsai
Wondering what my mother would think of FriendFeed.. :D - Daniel Schildt
Good post Marco. Although I came to help expose the podcast to more people (I was not here to build a castle), I find the conversation and interaction has been great. The problem of losing almost all followers though, makes it hard to kick start this thing again. Some people followed because I said something interesting, and now they will likely never follow again. It takes time to build those connections. Thank goodness for FF. - CS Techcast
thanks @cs - pretty much same here - once I saw the level of interaction and conversation here I was hooked but I have always like the fact that Twitter is much more mobile friendly (especially for those of us in BB world) - Marco
@Marco, friendfeed has a decent mobile interface, even for a crackberry. I prefer fftogo.com however and it looks decent on my Curve. - Rob Diana
FF on Windows Mobile with Opera is very usable. Just signed up for Identi.ca, going to give it a try. - CS Techcast
@rob i've tried fftgo but for whatever reason wasn't thrilled with it - i need to give it another look. There is just so much more information on FF it makes it tough to take in and process on BB - Marco
Probably the best headline of the day. Anyone else plan to beat it? - Louis Gray
I love articles that strategically use bold text to emphasize key points. Easy read. Good post Marco - Bwana McCall
lol @anthony does that come with a prize? if so can I request the return of the people I was following on twitter? @louis i may just have to print and frame your comment ; ) a guy's gotta do something to compensate for the content! - Marco
That was a very good post. Loved your writing. - Michael Narciso
Good points here Marco. It's always been about your existing network with Twitter. That's what's carried it through the tough times. I expect Twitter will survive this issue though. People are losing followers, but I see numbers like "had 2,500, now have 2,100". The big numbers are still there. - Hutch Carpenter
Okay guys this is just stupid. Can a few of you go over to the blog and comment? Is that too much to ask? I just went there and read the article because 25+ people liked it and a dozen commented but no one took the time to say a word on his site.. This is wrong in my opinion, make an effort to grow a guys on-site community. - Roger Kondrat
@michael ty - @hutch ty and I hope you are right - but I do worry that this has now opened a door that can't be closed. If they communicate their plans to help people reconnect with lost subscriptions (if thats possible) and what measures will be put in place to prevent this from happening again I think they can pull it out. I think people were willing to deal with the intermittent outages so long as they could still communicate with their group later but if users can't rely on that... - Marco
its a definite black eye on anyone who just adopted twitter in the past 6 months or so, its basically taking money out of your pocket, taking expectations out of your hand. The service going down, I can take that, taking away what I earned, that sucks royaly. Like going into an WoW and seeing all your characters gone, well right then at that moment its well, I guess I can leave this place now, too much work to redo. But twitter has the wild card of addicted adoption, WoW players can start again, so can twitters, not fun, but we can do it. - Dan Rockwell via twhirl
Roger - your comments sometimes verge into troll territory. - Hutch Carpenter
@CS I totally agree. Its always that way i find. - Roger Kondrat
@Roger - First, calm down. Second, blog commenting is over rated, it's very hard to carry a conversation on a blog compared to FriendFeed. We comment here because it's easy for everyone to look at what's been said. No offense to Marco but I don't frequent his site enough to really comment on his blog so if I commented I would probably never go back to see what else has been said. - Michael Narciso
I agree with you. This is a strategic blunder. Curious to see if this clips Twitter's wings or if it's got Phoenix on it's side. - phil baumann
@roger you thoughtfulness is very much appreciated - I still wrestle with posting a comment on a blog or adding to the comment stream on FF. Not a big deal in my case - I am eager to learn, share and interact and love having the blog to log thoughts that take up more room than a FF comment box but my fascinations are far too broad to develop a focussed topic theme necessary to really build a core of readers so I don't worry about it too much. @michael none taken at all - Marco
the followers migrate to the same people here. if you cultivated fans you won't lose them - Noah David Simon
Marco thanks for the post. As a user who has not "invested" much in twitter and actually only signed on due to Friendfeed, I'm very interested in how this plays out. Problems aside, the overall concept of twitter as a web/mobile/aim service is a great one that doesn't have a true (even ident.ca) competitor as far as I can tell. - Jon-Paul Bussoli
@Hutch yeah I have been a bit Trolly the last couple days. Don't know why. On this though I just get a bit 'protect the little guy' and of course it was unfounded but a knee jerk reaction anyway. Sorry to those who felt my poor nature over the last 24hrs and thanks @Hutch for pointing it out. - Roger Kondrat
great headline ... shorter article? nice style... - gregory lent
@Marco I love your post really can’t comment much beyond that because it was like you took the words out of my mouth.
But I will say this when blogs first came about they were said due to trackback, and pingback to allow for the first time a fluid single conversation to occur across multiple voices. Twitter did this really well in its own way too. - Roger Kondrat
What is interesting is during the drama at Twitter everyone has focused on their pitfalls and has in my own opinion possibly missed another important factor in Twitters existence and that is the market has changed or rather is in the midst of a major transition.
Conversations are now being initiated on Twitter and Blogs but they are being aggregated elsewhere. Initially this happened with the support of bloggers through the use of Disqus, Intense Debate, but not it seems to be skipping over them and heading directly to a new kind of service altogether. - Roger Kondrat
Friendfeed and their kind (socialthing,etc) are where the micro-conversations are occurring. These sites are extending what Twitter started out doing so well but in the end it is and always will be a slow and inflexible service when compared to the new breed (FF SocialThing, etc). - Roger Kondrat
excellent post Marco...I like your approach and analysis. The last 24 hours for twitter have been devastating. I can't even begin to imagine how the staff at twitter must feel right now. But as a customer, i know how I feel - NOT happy! First they screwed up the follower/follows counts and then sent tweets with my name on them (I did NOT write those) - so the twitter database is hosed! not a good moment for twitter to say the least. - Susan Beebe
(1) twitter deserves what it got. forget the tech issues. they went fascist and decided to punish people for using the interface as best they could. they used a few uptight people in a mob to create a witch hunt against people who were importing feeds and had a lot of followers. They are getting exactly what I warned them about (2) they hoarded the technology and did not license it out. if they had licensed twitters technology out it would of been a very profitable standard. (more...) - Noah David Simon
(3) back to the fascist issue. they promised free thought in a public forum and they never delivered. the block concept is a stupid idea. obviously I proved that with panopticons and they went to shoot the messenger. twitter's architecture is a public forum open to any viewer. In being such it betrayed itself and created its own *CANCER* by implementing a block. This will be friendfeeds downfall in the end as well because if I want to look up Robert Scoble and see what he is up to I can. I can go and wait for Robert Scoble to post off his own comments and flame him. The best concept is if I can see it then I should be able to talk. - Noah David Simon
I agree about the importance of the subscriber functinality - Mark Dykeman
again... I believe in security. I'm not a purest, but I believe the elegance of a system should not be compromised. there are plenty of walled gardens on the internet. twitter was not supposed to be walled. ...and friendfeed isn't a good place for walls either. there are plenty of opportunities for elitism in life. despite some nut jobs, it is beneficial for there to be some free expression. people should be able to turn a thread off when they want to. We all deal with aggravations. - Noah David Simon
back to (1) and the license issue. if it had been licensed then it would of never become over populated and different flavors of a good thing would of happened. ... maybe even a version of twitter with and without block. it just seems they are guilty of trying to contain the wind. they could of owned the wind's license for a while, but they were too greedy. - Noah David Simon
@noah completely understand that there are plenty of things that need fixing - problem is that over a decent length of time a number of very unique communities have sprung up around the service - if the service dies those communities go with it - that is part of the reason for this http://tinyurl.com/5sxmzy - Marco
I can't remember a single service that has attracted more meta talk about itself... Twitter is not (at least should not) be a mission or business critical function to anyone -- its a social interaction vehicle... They are improving, and I'll bet in a year's time the "fail whale" will be just another internet colloquialism. - Mark Philpot
my basic point is that it failed to capture the positives of the brand name. it failed to reflect the free spirit of the community. It failed to take advantage of its strengths. instead they plaid police man... and they weren't very good at it. Their product was not like facebook (which seems harder to copy).... being simple was twitter's brilliance and it's downfall because everyone else could make one. If they had early on started encouraging other people to start their own twitter it'd b different - Noah David Simon
Steve, if FriendFeed had a better profile it would be a fantastic idea. Without that type of information, it may be a bit confusing. Twitter is straightforward in what it does, FF is quite intimidating for new people. - Rob Diana
seriously good point Steve. I run ny ff stream on my blog sidebar, and its the most complete view of me. For others, FF has 43 services which can be aggregated into FF. - bankwatch via twhirl
My FF URL is what I use now for every time I am asked to share a link.... cool! - Susan Beebe
It would make sense for now as FF starts to be the central place. - Joao
I still think your blog is the way to go - Allen Stern
i use my handle's domain so that i can point folks to whatever my favorite online locations are at the moment - this stuff changes to much... - mike "glemak" dunn
Steve, thanks for the kind words. I think I'm off the fence now and on Allen's side of it. - Robert Seidman
@rob, @ robert, good points maybe steve could put friendfeed in a frame. use steverubel.me, setup a 200px or so frame with business card type info on the left and on the right friendfeed. - shawn
shawn's suggestion is good, but instead of redirect you could render the contents of http://friendfeed.com/steverub... in a more "you" way. As other people say, dumping contacts into FriendFeed UI might be a bit much. My opinion is "brand it as you so people know they're talking to the right person, then pass through to FriendFeed (or whatever service) you want to use for them to stay in touch." (And optionally, get the service to pay you for doing so, if the connection is not payment enough.) - Wade Dorrell
stick with the blog only - that should be enough for anyone to find you online as well as any other communities you're an active member of (FF, Twitter, Facebook and so on). - Ron Emrick
What a contrast...first the USA Today write up last week and a serious FAIL this week. Not looking so good... - JA Castillo
Either Louis' account has been compromised (he should reset his password asap) and/or there's even more data integrity screwups coming from FAIL WHALE land. - Susan Beebe
Is it Twitter that did that? Louis wrote a blog entry where he mentioned using Twitter Karma (which means he logged into a 3rd party application, not associated with Twitter - with his Twitter login and password). If he did not change his Twitter password immediately after using that service - Twitter cannot be held accountable. This may not have been a Twit
![dogs jumping over fence (700×525) [gripweed, Pixdaus]](http://pixdaus.com/pics/1216932625LZNPX8x.jpg "dogs jumping over fence (700×525) [gripweed, Pixdaus]")
