Tim Kersey - Likes - FriendFeed

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I'd like to reiterate my call for Facebook to open source the Friendfeed codebase (as AOL did when it bought Netscape). A federated OpenFriendfeed is the best for users - and fits Facebook's move toward an open social platform. I'll pay to run a server. Would you?

August 11 - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Hendrickson, helpmeguru, Justin Bradshaw and 223 other people liked this

I agree with this fully. - Akiva Moskovitz

76 more comments

I can't imagine that the terms of the acquisition would permit this to happen. Oh, wait... Facebook take FriendFeed open source? Maybe in two or three years after they squeeze every bit of life out of it, ala Google/Jaiku - Ken Sheppardson

Would that mean there would be dozens of Friendfeeds all trying to get us to come to them? - Mark

I support this fully - Ryan

yes what about a free GAE - abdellah

Oh I agree. But with Facebook's record? HAHAH! Oh god, I need a mint. - ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift

I'll file this away under "Never Gonna Happen"... - Andrew Terry

Jaiku is not dead. It was bought for a reason, and yes, it will resurface soon. you just wait n see. - binmugahid

yes - andy brudtkuhl

I agree with Andrew... - Suril Amin

I don't think I'd pay, but I'd love to have it open source - Jake Anderson

Worked for AOL. We got Mozilla and they got a much improved Netscape. - Leo Laporte

Leo, I think you have a little too much "hope" on this. Maybe you're just thinking if Facebook was smart, then they'd do that. - Mark

Facebook is much smarter than you're giving them credit for. I think. - Leo Laporte

great idea Leo, i'm 'cautiously optimistic' at this point in time about the future of FriendFeed... lets hope for the best people - Chris Heath

There is no value in that to them. Why open source something that give them a competitive edge. - binmugahid

I do not agree. It destroyed netscape. let Facebook use the best features of FriendFeed in it. Keep the talent like the four ex-google founders. Open source is not the answer to everything. sometimes Closed Source is better for the users as well. Just keep the innovations coming and it will be fine - hasanahmad

They've got the Friendfeed team. That's probably what they really wanted. Getting the open source community working on the FF codebase and contributing it back to Facebook is a win for everyone. - Leo Laporte

On the other hand, I ike to see Laconica (identi.ca) getting more like ff. - Chanux

Wow did this just happen today? - bravestface

yesterday - Chris Heath

Open-sourcing Communicator may have ultimately destroyed Netscape as a brand but without that move, I suspect we'd all still be developing for IE6. Great call, Leo. - Jared Smith

Excellent idea Leo. - Adi

I just can't stand Facebook. To many people I let in from my youth that I don;t want to see - bravestface

Yes. - .LAG liked that

You're assuming that Facebook bought the company JUST to get the developers, and not because they want to integrate many/most of the features into their service. If they want the features, they don't want a bunch of clones competing with them. - Joel Bennett

I'll send you a hefty donation for that Leo. - jcunwired

bravestface: That's not FB's fault you let them in. sheesh. - Gus

when will twitter be back up any 1 know - daveccorey

There already is an open source clone of twitter - see identi.ca and laconia or whatever it's called - Doug Holton

True. very True Gus. My own fault. Perhaps I need to setup an Alias account that encompasses what i really want - bravestface

I already run a Laconica server at http://army.twit.tv - I don't think we need another Twitter clone. We need something more like Friendfeed. Or maybe Wave will be the answer. - Leo Laporte

hay hay hay, sin duda un tema un tanto escabrozo, pero entre Facebook y Google, esto no lleva a nada bueno.. i'ts a hard theme, no doubt about that, but between facebook and google we are going to hell !!!!!! - Đoи яамoη

Or Pushbutton? - bravestface

This would be amazing. - Adam Teece

The Wave *protocal* might be a part of the answer... or just giving yourself over to whatever Google wants you to use might work (i.e. Wave, Reader, Gtalk, etc.)... but I don't really see Wave asdirect 1-for-1 FF replacement. - Ken Sheppardson

Too many systems in place - bravestface

They open sourced the Facebook code base (fbopen)... the license is very restrictive, however. FB owns all code modifications. Probably be the same license for FF. - Kurt

In know people that have replaced their email with Twitter....that just isn't right...we need one locator that many systems can reach - bravestface

Great idea Leo. Now let's see what they do, if they're listening. - Kelly Mitchell

Leo - your last comment is why I think Facebook bought Friendfeed: "We need something more like Friendfeed. Or maybe Wave will be the answer." This is going to be a product they will launch in opposition of Google Wave. It will surface Q1 of 2010 and will have some of the same features that Wave has - but be closed sourced to Facebook. - Jeff Vreeland

I see what you mean. Facebook and Google though don't really open source their web apps - Doug Holton

Facebook doesn't seem to have a good reputation with those kind of thing. Facebook promised to open their chat/IM system via XMPP. More than a year has passed since they announced this XMPP system it still did not happen. We still have to rely on screen-scraping methods to implement Facebook chat on third-party IM systems (like the 3rd party Facebook chat plugin for pidgin called pidgin-facebook). - Gideon Guillen

I would love to see friendfeed become opensource. Mostly as a developer I would love to see the code. See how friendfeed works. - mikemcmullan

An "open FriendFeed" could be Facebook's chance to get something lined up to compete with Google Wave. Without it, Google and Twitter are going to own the real-time communication space. - Derek Gathright

Completly agree! - Jamie-Lee Mclean-Davis from Nambu

Open source is the way to so that "The poeple" can do what they want or to a program. E.I. www.Openssourcemaps.com - D Lets from iPhone

Absolutely. - Ian Littman

OS FF would be awesome, but making it a federated service is an entirely different ball of wax. Just ask the Wave guys. They said during the original IO presentation that federation was one of the harder parts (though FF would be easier w/o the real time editing piece, but still). - Patrick Sullivan

OS FF - Malcolm Bastien

I think a integrated RSS/FB/FF/GW/Twitter client will be an interesting real time inflection point - Jim Posner

I totally agree Leo. I can't help but think that this deal is going to be a massive success or a massive flop - nothing in the middle! It's simple things like opening the FF source that can help make it a massive success IMHO. - Chris Cathcart

correction: Http://www.openstreetmap.org - D Lets from iPhone

I would just like to see the real-time commenting open-sourced. - patrick

wow Leo you sure know how to get a topic started - Joe Geeting

I would. It is hard using Friendfeed now not knowing its fate. - Hunt from BuddyFeed

I actually was hoping Twitter would be the one to grab it up. Seems like a natural progression for Twitter to make. I just hope Facebook doesn't bury it and they actually use it. As far as open source it? Could be interesting. - Michael Bower

In a secure and closed environment it could be a powerful communication/collaboration tool for businesses. Features of a chat, but persistent. Ability to share photos & files... - Ken Bauer

definently - Ryan Peach

Right-o - Myrddin Emrys

I would love for this to happen. Federated Friendfeed servers would be quite fun and is the logical step for a great Internet service which aggregates disparate information from all over. - rob friedman

You know what, Jaiku was open sourced. And nobody uses it anymore. The fact that "it" (FB open sourcing FF) will happen or not is completely irrelevant. Because you will all be hopping on the next early adopter miracle train (read:service) anyway. So stop whining and move on. Federated this, federated that. identi.ca tried that. Again, no users. It's nice to talk the talk. Especially at times like this. You just gotta walk the darn walk afterwards. Which people usually forget to do. - Vlad Bobleanta

Whoa... you should enhance your calm. Communities are finicky things and sources like Microsoft that are poo-pooing Open Source IMHO is the real problem. Me thinks that a better source of education to dissipate the FUD floating in the global porcelain bowel instead of modern political tactics are are needed to solve real problems. - Myrddin Emrys

very good proposition, i'd pay - Brian Appleby

Leo, like this idea. - Kol Tregaskes

adoption of open standards such as OMB, which is used by laconica, would allow federation among servers - Mike Chelen

It will one hell of a start, I doubt it though... - Dobromir Hadzhiev

It would be a good thing, but not sure it it will ever happen - Thomas Lee

I support this as well. - Carlos Ayala

Now this is something I would fly out to support at the launch... - Johnny Worthington

Another reason why Leo kicks ass - Mo Kargas

If FriendFeed went open source identi.ca / lamonica would be dealt a serious blow. FriendFeed could become even more powerful if the people could tinker with the code and add many features that remain missing, or strengthen features that currently are weak. It will be interesting to se how FB utilizes their newest acquisition... - Randy Shapiro

FYI, there's already an open source alternative: http://www.fftogo.com/e... - Marcos Marado from fftogo

absolutley ;) - Kenneth Reitz

i would pay - cheapsuits

ive all ready got a amp for 5 bucks 4 twitter that was suspsose to help twitter run better guess what it dont - daveccorey

no definitely not. it would shift everything to Chinese government... Damn, millions would have their rest life in prisons. - xiawinter

http://kennethreitz.com/blog... - Kenneth Reitz

Paul Buchheit

Obviously I can't provide a lot of detailed plans and guarantees, but I can tell you that I'll do my personal best to ensure that the FriendFeed users and community are treated right. I love this product too, and don't want to see it disappear.

August 10 - Comment - Like - Share

pastas9, Shey, Jamaican of FF, 1x29 and 484 other people liked this

That's great to read! - Diego Barros 

117 more comments

Thank you, Paul. - joey

:) - Internet's Tad

I hope so. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Good of you to recognize. - Bill Kinney

Thank you, Paul. Hearing something is always better than hearing nothing =) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I think this was a smart move fore FF and FB - Joe Hall

What about the service? - Amit Morson

Ok - Matthew DeVries

That's a start. Thanks for reaching out. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Thanks Paul. - sean percival

Thanks Paul - Mike Doeff

We don't want it to go either. - Yolanda

I would not expect any less from such a cool guy like you, thanks! :) - Susan Beebe from iPhone

Please keep it going for as long as you can or until you can make Facebook actually work. - AJ Kohn

That's heartening, Paul. Thanks. - Anika

Thanks Paul! - Darren Heydon

We love you guys and FriendFeed.. we are just a little hurt and worried.. just please give us details as soon as possible. - Tim Hoeck

FriendFeed lets me use people as filters to turn data into information. Facebook doesn't. Until it does, please, Please, PLEASE keep FriendFeed as a destination alive. - AJ Kohn

congrats guys! facebook needs what you got! - Lorna Herf

I'm sorry that I haven't said more about this. As you can imagine, it has been an extraordinarily busy day (and I've barely slept in the past week). - Paul Buchheit

I'll add my plea to the chorus: Please don't take FriendFeed away from us. And don't make us go to Facebook (because we won't). FriendFeed means a lot to a lot of people and the thought that it will dry up and blow away shortly is very disturbing. - Her Lindsay-ness

It's still great to hear from you Paul. Congrats on that new swimming pool full of cash. :D - Internet's Tad

Simply glad you're here now. You've always been a very responsive and transparent team. As much as I cringe at the thought of FF going away, I *am* happy for you and the team. - AJ Kohn

Thanks Paul. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Thank you kind sir. - Andrew Smith

I request you make it to the next scheduled FFundercats podcast to talk to the community. This announcement deserves a live appearance to the community. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Have been dealing unsucessfully with Twitter for two days, trying to get logged in...Their password reset page says"Snap we can't find you." I keep writing to Tech Support at Twitter and get their helpful auto-generated Twitter Trouble shooting email. My problem is not there. =( Hope FriendFeed does not get that blaise about helping users. @EV - SashaKane

If FB can't keep the service running, would you consider open-sourcing the thing, so we can? - Christopher Galtenberg from iPhone

Hi Paul, thanks for the assurances. In the future, I would highly suggest that you make this sort of statement shortly after the initial merger release. Thanks again. - Alex Scoble

Thanks for keeping the passion! - Shane

Nice to hear Paul. Thanks. - Mark Krynsky

I would like to give you a hug right now Paul. However, that would be awkward and April might beat me up so I will just say thank you and press the like button. - EricaJoy

Best news I have heard today. - Angus Burton

Thank you for affirming that. Much appreciated. - Karoli

A few more points that would be nice to have addressed soon. Ability to export data, tool to import friends to Facebook, and will ff.im urls continue to function? - Mark Krynsky

Amelioration?? - heretic_twit

Those that like friendfeed as is should be most pleased with this statement, as it probably means maintenance to keep the current system as is, without as much attention to new features. It's also good news for all those who like both friendfeed and facebook, as facebook will likely adopt the better features from friendfeed - Ivan Kirigin

That means an awful lot to me. - James (!?)

This has been quite a day! Can't wait to hear what is next! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Thank you, Paul. Thank you for coming out from behind the curtain and finally giving us some communication, some semblance of hope. - Akiva Moskovitz

Thanks, Paul. - Glen Campbell, B.A.

So we can expect a Facebook adaption of this? I like this technology over everyone else! - Shaggy Jenkins

Eric, my schedule is still a little uncertain at the moment, but I'd be glad to appear on a future FFundercats. - Paul Buchheit

That would be a good thing Paul. Thanks. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Cool :) - Susan Beebe from iPhone

I like this. - ashish from iPhone

Thanks for making FriendFeed what it is, and lets hope it stays that way, though there's slim chance of that - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Now that I think about it: are you kidding me? They've already stated that FriendFeed's going to be absorbed into Facebook. What kind of sleight-of-hand are you trying to pull now, Paul? - Akiva Moskovitz

@EricaJoy: I have nothing against hugs. :) - April Buchheit

Thanks! - Vincenzo Piromalli

Thanks, Paul. I've been getting more and more depressed thinking about the bad ways this could go. The reassurances help a bit, at least. In fact, just hearing you speak on the point is encouraging - the open lines of communication between the FriendFeed team and its users has always been one of the great things about FriendFeed that I'm afraid will be lost with the Facebook buyout. And yes, a FFundercats appearance would be a great idea. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

I don't want to read too much into this reassurance but the "personal best" remark made me think like there is not a united FF anymore and that it's up to your personal efforts to prevent it from being eaten by FB :) - Turker Keskinpala

you can sell the tech but the community can not be bought sold transferred or merged - Robert Higgins from f2p

Turker, I do believe that this deal was the right decision -- I'll write a bit more about that when I get a chance. I say that I'll do my "personal best" because I will -- it would be misleading to make promises on other's behalf :) - Paul Buchheit

Hoping so... practicing patience - Majento

Paul: I'm hopeful that this will be the best for both Facebook and Friendfeed. What you and the staff at FF have done is amazing, with only 12 people! I love the service here. I also enjoy Facebook (one I ignore all quizzes and stupid apps), but in a different way. Hoping some coolness can be brought to both. Good luck to you and your team! - Travis B. Hartwell

this echoes star wars galaxies, incredible unique community. but they upgraded it to be like world of warcraft. this is a replay of the devs soothing messages. the forums were livid the community evaporated. - Robert Higgins from f2p

When socialmedian was acquired by Xing they left it alone. I hope the same happens here. I'm sure you will do your best though! - Michael Fidler

http://friendfeed.com/akiva... - Akiva Moskovitz

On behalf of the Dutch citizens our Queen wants to let you know: Thx Paul. - Ton Zijp

Don't know what to say, so lets start with big congrats! from one hand, as an early member of Friendfeed I think we've created here a very cool, collaborative and tech-savvy/passionate community of great people that all probably wish to stick around as much as possible. From the other hand, I know how corporates work and it takes one small decision of share holders to close Friendfeed... more... - Nir Ben Yona

My first reaction is disappointment. I don't believe big corporations do better than small ones. Facebook is inferior to FriendFeed, although it's user base is much larger. Clearly FriendFeed won't survive in the long term, unless it is open sourced. Why not open up and embrace the wonders of the GPL instead of joining forces with the Walled Garden no #1? Facebook don't even operate with permalinks,. - Morten Blaabjerg

Thanks for the explanation Paul. Of course, I congratulate you guys. I think anyone would do the same thing if they were in your shoes :) - Turker Keskinpala

Very bittersweet clicking [Like] on this one. - Nicholas Kreidberg

A big congrats for you guys.. However, I feel kind of sorrow :) - Ozkan Altuner

good to hear - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Thank you - but I would very much like our content to stay intact. :) - Mona Nomura

Have I missed something. Why that speech... I mean thanks, but is Friendfeed in danger somwhow? - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Of course it is, Ryo. - Christopher A Carr

I iread it. Literally Friendfeed is dead. Privacy, security and the owner of facebook sucks, and so will FF now. But what's with my data now? When I delete my account, are my postings deleted, too? Can I backup my postings somehow? - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Ryo: if you delete your account everything goes away. I totally disagree with you about Facebook, but that's OK. - Robert Scoble

Good to hear. Unfortunately I think Facebook are going to download the brains of all FriendFeed staff then kill FF. - Michael McGimpsey

but Paul it is going to disappear - Facebook bought FF not for the site but for you guys. So obviously once its integrated into Facebook, development on FF will stop - Anthony Feint

If FriendFeed and all of it's functionality get integrated into Facebook I'm all for it. - Hugh Isaacs II

Thank you Paul! Congrats on the deal! - Garin Kilpatrick

Paul - that's great news. It surely can't cost a lot to keep this place running and it's a good place to try out ideas before they move to FB. - Martin Bryant

what about improving the product and making sure it gets more users, not only supports those who stay? - Ihar Mahaniok

Ihar - unlikely. Facebook bought FF for the developer talent, not for FriendFeed itself. - Martin Bryant from iPhone

Why should we believe this? I'm not going to hold my breath. - Mark Wilson

Martin - I also think so, and it is most likely. But I could still have a hope - Ihar Mahaniok

Paul, please - underpromise & overdeliver...they say it works. - A.T.

Nice to hear. Too bad you don't call the shots anymore. - jcunwired

FriendFeed is Dead! Long Live FriendFeed! (nice name for Facebook skunkworks) I'm sure everyone would love to see FriendFeed itself stay around, even if the innovations that happen are geared towards implementation at Facebook. Thanks for this note Paul! :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

There are a few promises and guarantees that you SHOULD be able to provide. Like, that our network of friends will remain intact and that the features that make this site great will remain. If you can't make those promises, then you shouldn't have done the deal. I sure do hope that the real-time search engine wasn't the centerpiece of this deal (it probably was), because that certainly... more... - Brad Williamson

Paul you did such a nice job with friendfeed, and I so want to believe you, but I'm not sure I can. Not because of you, but because of your new employer. Because your new employer is no longer you, and while I have kind of come to trust you, I do not trust your new boss. Not at all. Please prove me wrong, if they'll let you. - Jim Hearts FF

Paul - thanks for that reassurance. PLEASE stick to that! I was in the middle of reading and participating in a lengthy discussion off of a Robert Scoble post yesterday ... then I came up for air and saw your news. Congratulations - I have no idea what that feels like or how pumped you must be. There are so many things FF does that I LOVE...I know you know that. Please Please PLease dont' go away! Thanks! - Tobin Truog

Thank you, I think everyone here loves Friendfeed. :) - Hunt from BuddyFeed

Thanks for the personal note Paul. - Mike Reynolds

Phewww..relief ;-) - Ritu

This is nice to hear, and I really hope that FriendFeed will keep on living. I still have some pain in my stomach because of this :/ - Patrik Johansson

First zombie/mafia request and we're all outta here.... - Fossil Huntress

+1 Fossil Huntress The partitioning of the networks between friendfeed and facebook was a major feature that many people made use of, lacking appropriate controls for who sees what. Merging the two groups of friends isn't going to work, at all. - Mr. Gunn

It doesn't sound like you understand what has people worried. I wrote this to help: http://friendfeed.com/brlewis... - Bruce Lewis

And we'll appreciate this man! Try to do your best to help FF :( - FFTornado

Maybe Bruce analysis is too imaginary, but the question is THE question nobody answered: why did you do it, Paul? - Luca Sofri

I left a response on Bruce's entry (http://friendfeed.com/brlewis...). I'll write more about this on my blog when I get some free time. - Paul Buchheit

Thanks. - Bonnie Foster

we all know what needs to happen. the question is, where? ... FB needs, - apart from being/it is, a large, general, open application platform, - 1. Smart keyboard shortkatze - and Im a kbsCzar to go to, 2. Aggregating facilities, smart /RSS/ .. 3. Full blogging facilities, capabilities, not 140 chars. 4. Full real time comments facilities, capabilities. 5. Real time, live, but ALSO... more... - Petr Buben

I hope you're being open and honest with us. This time. :( - Kamilah Gill

Good to know , we´ll see :) - Yahya

Thank you! I am sure you will do great things at FB. I just hope that the great app you built here isn't destroyed. I don't know of any other aggregation app that I can embed into my site like this one! - beersage

Congratulations on your successes, best wishes for more. And thanks for continuing to look out for us loyal, addicted FFanatics! - Rob Schieber

I hope it continues, i'm a new user and absolutely love it (wish i knew the value of it before)! Congrats! - Luis D. Santos

As nice as it sounds I'm sorry to say that as a, now, Facebook's employee I'm afraid you'll have to comply to whatever your new boss tells you. Didn't MZ make it clear? - lelapin

and let me add second, obvious, "Facebook needs" - Friendfeed bookmarklet, and Friendfeed tools - widgets, embedding - real time and not - of posts, and groups ...to embedd, to inject oneself into this thing called Internet ..... so, if FB listens to FF engineering long enough, they are going to get it .. right - Petr Buben

Paul, what I am worried is not that you're brainwashed, but that there's simply no business need for Facebook to improve FriendFeed from now on, period. - Ihar Mahaniok

I have confidence Paul. While some of the comments were probably uncalled for, covering an investment (of time and money) in these times to move on and hopefully provide even 'better stuff' makes sense to me. It's pretty obvious there are a LOT of people that don't want to 'lose' Friendfeed. (I wouldn't hold a town hall for a few weeks though :) - Charlie Anzman

Congrats, Paul. It's sad that people have to make these uncalled for hatred comments about Facebook though. Why can't both sites work together. I think Facebook will do better with FF and vise versa. Take the good features of both services. Don't boycott FB, enjoy it. I'm sick of the negative comments going on, that's all. :( - Mol, Time Warping

Molly: What makes you think there's going to be a "vise versa?" - Christopher A Carr

Because I don't think Paul and the other FF developers would allow FB to do anything. I'm sorry, I am not going to think negative here like some here are. I guess I'm a fangirl for FB. - Mol, Time Warping

Finally something about the changes on the horizon that isn't all d0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0om and whining. Thank you, Paul! :D - Christian (Simply X)

The time to think about how you could do your 'personal best' to ensure FriendFeed continues to exist was prior to the discussions with Facebook. Not after. - Andy C

Paul, what about the content scam that FB T&C is, does it apply to Friendfeed now? Should we all start writing scripts to retroactively delete all content ever uploaded to Friendfeed? Elaborated a bit here - http://friendfeed.com/mbravo... - Michael Bravo

We know you'll try your best, Paul. But sometimes, you just can't win the dark side... - Winston Teo

Thanks Paul for all your efforts. Founders often want the best, but acquiring companies often have people with political/power issues or different/limited visions. - Mitchell Tsai

*throws a sheep at Paul* is that a good thing? - Joe.... from iPod

Yeahhhhhhh BOoooiiiiiiiii!!!!!!! - sofarsoShawn

yes, thank you, Sergeant Paul ... well, good to hear we go on ... because if not, how about starting www.anotherFeed.com ... or, www.Letsgofeed.com ...... anyway, lets boost blogging capabilities, post more than current amount of chars, lets have TOP POSTS / clicks count list at the head of each group, some stats, lets index group headers, lets have MORE keyboard shortcuts .. - now ...... more... - Petr Buben

Joe Hewitt

The app is pretty much done - we're just working on translating it into a bunch of languages.

August 7 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Findlay Colquhoun, Marco Fabbri, Tim Kersey and 2 other people liked this

Great news Joe. Looking forward to seeing the full capabilities of Three20 with the new Facebook app! - John Wang

cant wait!! - Matty J

Bret Taylor

Tiring week, but psyched that football is starting this weekend. Will be even happier in September when the college season starts.

August 7 - Comment - Like - Share

Atul Arora, Tim Hoeck, RAPatton and 5 other people liked this

Yay football season is almost here! - Susan Beebe from BuddyFeed

4 more comments

Go Bears! I was getting excited, watching plays from our latest WR recruit. http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2009... - Louis Gray

Thumbs up to that! (The college season starting) - heretic_twit

War Eagle & Go Jackets!! Can't wait for the season to start. - Adi from iPod

My brother is going to the Hall of Fame game. Marv Levy admired my nephew's Bill's jersey yesterday, but I am with you. The NCAA is where it is at - RAPatton

Go Ducks! - Christopher A Carr

GitHub

Microformats on GitHub - http://github.com/blog...

July 29 from The GitHub Blog - Comment - Like - Share

Tim Kersey liked this

Joshua Porter

Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn’t do market research - http://bokardo.com/archive...

July 29 from Bokardo - Social Design by... - Comment - Like - Share

Tim Kersey and karl dotter liked this

Christopher Sacca

If you read one thing today, read this. Twice. http://www.paulgraham.com/makerss..." (via everyone)

July 28 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

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Andrew Baron

The Apple TV - http://dembot.com/post...

July 27 from Tumblr - Comment - Like - Share

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Evan Williams

Fb 140: Find your Facebook friends on Twitter -- http://www.twables.com/fb140

July 26 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

zoupic and Tim Kersey liked this

Steve Gillmor

The Pushbutton Web: Realtime Becomes Real - Anil Dash - http://dashes.com/anil...

July 24 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Meryn Stol, Tim Kersey and Louis Gray liked this

Wait. Steve is reading Google Reader? Doesn't that use RSS? - Louis Gray

Yes it does. But I was actually using Reader's Note bookmarklet to link to a comment to Anil's article to push it here, not reading GR for some time now. - Steve Gillmor

Veronica

Watching The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien on Hulu Desktop while eating my lunch. I love him so much, I'm happy he's back.

June 2 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Tim Kersey, Eric Geller, Anna Haro and 5 other people liked this

You just reminded me to do this now! - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕

5 more comments

So what happen to Fallon? (Aussie here, who is out of the loop) - Jason Remnant

Fallon took over Conan's show when Conan took over Jay Leno's show :D - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕ from IM

He's the guy that took Conan's spot on Late Night - John Blanton from twhirl

ahhh so Leno retired? - Jason Remnant

I *think* Leno is getting a new show moved up to 9pm or something.... - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕ from IM

Hulu app is pretty cool! i love it - Fee501st

Evan Williams

Here's a little trick about Twitter: You can choose exactly who you want to follow—and so can everyone else. #followanyone #unfollowanyone

May 27 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Iván Abrego, Rob Williams, Owen Greaves and 6 other people liked this

Tim O'Reilly

@hardaway Why are you asking Wolfram Alpha questions that would be answered by a search engine. Kind of like using excel as a word processor

May 15 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Tim Kersey, Andrew, Karoli and 4 other people liked this

So "What is Twitter?" isn't the right kind of question for Wolfram Alpha? (http://twitter.com/hardawa...) - Ken Sheppardson

3 more comments

Apparently neither is "What is the square root of 123,456?" ... Ah... doesn't understand the comma. - Ken Sheppardson

Come on Tim. Like humans should have to choose engines based on their query. The very least it could do is instead of throwing up that I DONT KNOW page, it should pass the request on to the Google Gods. - Aaron deMello

Tim correctly noted that I too failed this rule with my Twitter and FriendFeed test. I must use the tool in a better way. - Louis Gray

Because Francine and I think in text, not math. It's an interesting exercise in being wired exactly opposite. - Karoli from BuddyFeed

Veronica

A peek at the Tesla Model S - http://www.veronicabelmont.com/2009...

April 11 from Veronica Belmont - Comment - Like - Share

Brian, Anand Sharma, Sylvain Nadeau and 10 other people liked this

Love Tasla. - Nation Hahn

5 more comments

I hope this is the future! - Fee501st

Fancy. - Mark Ogley

Thanks for sharing your photos and video! - Jeff P. Henderson

very sweet! - Chris Heath

nice - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

49 high res photos from the live reveal: http://www.autobloggreen.com/photos... - Chris Heath

Ryan Block

Tesla Model S hands-on - http://ryanblock.com/2009...

April 11 from Ryan Block - Comment - Like - Share

Matt Faulkner, Chris Brakebill, Tim Kersey and Joseph Ferris liked this

I love the 3G connected dash. So cool. Electric car aside. That's the kind of stuff big car companies need to be finding ways to implement. Pandora and other apps in my car? Yes please - Chris Brakebill

Paul Buchheit

Why Google Employees Quit - http://news.ycombinator.com/item...

January 18 from Backtype - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Juras Vetrau, Justin Kazwell and 40 other people liked this

"I remember when I initially read these emails (the thread is from last year), my first though was, "I'm glad that I don't have to work with these people." Perhaps this is unfair since they are just venting (and not all of the emails were in this category, some were reasonable), but there's something about their attitude that is just very unappealing. I can't quite put my finger on it though... Something about working at big companies seems to turn many people into whiny children. I think it's because they aren't really responsible for anything. Unfortunately, Google's transition into "yet another big company" is inevitable at this point. If you take the same fundamental structure as every other big company, and hire the same people as the other big companies, then you shouldn't be surprised when you end up looking like every other big company." - Paul Buchheit

21 more comments

Paul - What are you doing to keep Friendfeed different? How would you have them change course to avoid becoming yet another big company? - Bill

I don't think so Chris -- I don't recognize any of the names at least. You can email me if think I'm forgetting someone. That said, there were a few people that I didn't enjoy working with at Google :). Bill, that's a good question, but the answer is not simple. There are a few examples of companies that have done something different in this area (such as W.L. Gore), but ultimately I expect that it will require some serious innovation. But first we have to get to the point where it's an issue :) - Paul Buchheit

"Those that know don't talk, and those that talk don't know" - Christopher Galtenberg

Also, Chris, I didn't mean to imply that all of the people on the thread were in the "I wouldn't want to work with them" category. Some of them had totally reasonable stories/explanations. Also, I now see that I do know one of the people quoted on TC (I had only skimmed a bit), but his email was in the reasonable category. - Paul Buchheit

After reading some of the TC comments, I agree that most of those people who were venting just weren't the Googley type. That being said, as Paul already said, when you hire people from other big companies you end up turning into one yourself. - Gavin

Personally, I've never quite understood what "Googley" means. It seems to be used as a generic stand-in for "whatever it is that I want you to do right now". I was probably never very Googley by what I imagine the common definition is these days -- I generally preferred to be difficult :) - Paul Buchheit

really I thought it was all Scooter's and smiles http://www.time.com/time... - sofarsoShawn

Hmm. My management says I excel at being difficult. This means I should be much more successful. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Maybe I never really liked the public image of Google as being all "scooters and smiles", so when people complain that it's not actually all scooters and smiles, I see that as a good thing :) - Paul Buchheit

who can fit in that pint sized pool anyways :o) pic 4 - sofarsoShawn

There are many legit reasons to leave Google, but all I saw in this thread was a bunch of winers. - Dror Shimshowitz

@Dror please explicate on the the legit reasons - sofarsoShawn

Lots of Xooglers in these parts, and I'm not one, so I shan't discuss in a public forum :-/ - Dror Shimshowitz

If people aren't happy, they should consider leaving. I don't see anything wrong with that, regardless of their reasons. Often, the "reasons" that people give are just rationalizations anyway, and they may not even know the true reason for their own unhappiness anyway. - Paul Buchheit

I loved the last bit from "Scott" - "I watched newer employees join, talk utter rubbish, speak in nonsensical management talk, piss off agencies/clients (I know because they used to call me laughing) and get promoted (. . .) Before I left it just was a place full of quiet moans, talented people being undermined and a structure that created hostility and politics." This pretty much sums up my experience. There was good, of course, but the good was largely superficial. - Jeanette Bosman

How is this any different from any other large corporation (tech or otherwise) out there. I work for a largely failing (and large) tech company and it fails due to reasons discussed here - useless incentives that give no incentive to work hard, politics, power hungry senior leadership, selfish management etc etc etc. - EcoAussie from twhirl

@Dror Shimshowitz: leave Dave out of this =) - Jim Norris

I actually recognize names and know some of the principals involved. I don't think Google's particularly bad --- I know much smaller companies that were worse run. - Piaw Na

As a longtime Googler, I won't comment on the reasons to leave. As Dror says, there are legit reasons and people in this TC article are generally whining. But I will say that the intellectual horsepower of folks I work with is still super high overall. - Maneesh

I'd go postal working at big brother, who wouldn't quit that cult - sofarsoShawn

Liked for Paul's comment - Charlie Anzman

Paul Graham

The High-Res Society - http://www.paulgraham.com/highres...

December 4, 2008 from Paul Graham: Essays - Comment - Like - Share

Tim Kersey, Michael R. Bernstein, Bruce Lewis and 10 other people liked this

As usual, I think Paul Graham has some good points, but I think he overgeneralizes from the software world to the rest of the world. It is much more difficult to start a new company that makes physical products than one which makes software. - Robert Felty

Lots of good discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item... - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Veronica

くろねこくるくる♪ - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

November 25, 2008 from YouTube favorites - Comment - Like - Share

Matt, Sylvain Nadeau, nick and 6 other people liked this

Dare Obasanjo

User Experience is ALL that Matters - http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog...

September 28, 2008 from Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Comment - Like - Share

Tyson Key, accesine, Roney Smith and 26 other people liked this

I think you think that Android was created to compete with the iPhone... - DeWitt Clinton

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Nope. I think that Android is a smartphone OS just like Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS. So it competes with them both. - Dare Obasanjo

The user experience should be portable across devices and device types. Microsoft has not been able to achieve this. Apple is not going to try. - scott anderson

A better way to see it is as a way of competing with dumb phones. - DeWitt Clinton

DeWitt: I think you have started drinking your own kool-aid ;) People only have one cell phone. So any cell phone competes with all other cell phones. iPhone competes with dumb phones, and Android phones compete with the iPhone. Features and cost play a part, as they do with every other purchasing decision. Saying they don't compete is just expectation-setting, like the candidates telling the press how bad they are at debating before every debate. - Bret Taylor

Hehe. No, my argument is that now that there is an iPhone quality operating system available, open source, for free, there will be no excuse for every device not to be a smart phone. - DeWitt Clinton

Looks like Bret beat me to the punch. :) - Dare Obasanjo

Open isn't enough to win. It has to be good too. Note though that Android != G1, so even if you don't fancy that device, just wait.... there will be more. Did you read how companies are jumping in with Android? E.g. Motorola putting 350 people on it (allegedly). - Dion Almaer

Viz "people only have one cell phone" that may be true in the US but from where I'm sitting I can see 2 of my mobile phones. In many parts of the world the number of phones is greater than 1. According to wikipedia this is true in 50 countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Adewale Oshineye

Agreed with Dion that open isn't alone enough to win. But open *and* a phone that is as good as the iPhone, and thus arguably at least the second best overall, and now you're talking profound. And there are something like what, 10 million iPhones, but almost 4 billion phones in existence. That's 99.75% of the market that can be upgraded, even if the end goal for Android isn't sales numbers (sales are upside for the carriers to realize). That's not Kool-Aid - that's a paradigm shift. - DeWitt Clinton

I've been quiet publicly so far about my enthusiasm for Android. But now that the covers are coming off I can say that I truly believe that Android has the potential to change the world. I think of it like this -- Google would not have have been possible without open source software, particularly the GNU tools and compilers and the Linux kernel, and the open web ecosystem to nuture it. What future Googles will Android make possible? I honestly don't know -- only time will tell, and that's why I'm excited. - DeWitt Clinton

There will still be a market for cheap dumb phones going forward. They can be made to run Android and customized by adding one or more Android apps locked into the device by the carrier. The software will be free to the carriers and the hardware commodites. I don't know if Apple and Microsoft will want to compete in the dumb phone market. - scott anderson

Android is a smart phone OS, not a dumb phone OS. Part of what makes a phone a dumb phone is hardware limitations. No one at Google has been talking publicly about putting Android on phones like the ones in the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2008... and even then Symbian is more likely to make it happen given its popularity and maturity. Nice rap though. - Dare Obasanjo

True, to a point. But the dumbest of dumb hardware today is smarter than the smart hardware just a few years ago. A couple of years from now, just try buying a device without a capacitive touch screen, an 802.11 chip, a camera, flash storage, etc. And if you were building an ultra-low cost device for developing nations, wouldn't you chose the open source platform that was free of licensing fees? - DeWitt Clinton

And back to the original point, is no one else blown away by the fact that version 1.0 of Android -- the first public release -- is already being compared with the very best mobile OS, the iPhone OS? That Dare would even feel the need to write that post? - DeWitt Clinton

If Symbian is so popular and mature then why are they trying to steal the Android / OHA game plan? As far as I know Symbian will still have to cater to the OMA. That is a severe handicap for them. BTW, my definition of dumb phones would include a dedicated map device that you could talk to and a phone that only has a voice interface, something you would want to have while jogging, etc. You would operate all these devices over the same networks. - scott anderson

Dewitt, you should be a politician with your ability to switch positions so quickly. The point is that today Android is a competitor to smartphone OSes like Symbian, WinMobile and the iPhone OS. Of these Symbian is the most popular and iPhone has the most hype. So unsurprisingly the press is all about Apple vs. Google since is the Brangelina of trade press news. - Dare Obasanjo

Haha. I have the family name for it, too. : ) But I'll cede you the point. The Android OS *is* competitive with other smart phone operating systems, and maybe even to their market share. But what excites me is that the ecosystem -- the openness, the licensing, etc -- around Android is *nothing* like the other smart phone operating systems. Android is inventing an entirely new class there. So even if it failed against the smart phones (and I don't think it will) it will still change everything. - DeWitt Clinton

"That's not Kool-Aid -- that's a paradigm shift." ??? [reads packet of Google Paradigm Shift] hmmm... sugar, fructose, citric acid, calcium phosphate...Yellow 6 lake, Red 40 lake... artificial flavor.... What flavor? I honestly don't know -- only time will tell, and that's why I'm excited!!! Woo!!! - Karim

[grabs nearest passing stranger by the lapels] This drink has the potential to change the WORLD!!!!!! - Karim

Personally, I think we should be comparing the G1 to Apple's first phone, which was called the E1. You might know it as the ROKR: http://bit.ly/2062si . And just as Apple's OS and the phones that ran the OS got much better over time, so too will Android phones. With an open-source OS, anyone could write Exchange support. Dare, where are the docs on Exchange's APIs, just so people can learn about them? - Matt Cutts

Here you go - http://www.microsoft.com/about... - Dare Obasanjo

ROKR OS was not created by apple, not the slightest, Motorola made it look like the ipods of the time to add that extra oomph for the marketing department, but when everyone got to play with it they hated it. Not to mention the fact that it only came with 128 MB of ram out of the box. - Stepan Mazurov

have to agree with Stepan -- the ROKR E1 was basically a older Motorola E398 onto which Apple glommed a single application called the iTunes Client. (Which they then intentionally crippled to hold very few songs, so as not to cannibalize iPod sales.) You don't want to confuse a single app with an entire OS. [thinks about Chrome] Or *do* you? Muahahaha... :-D - Karim

Compare Mac OS 7,8,9 to Windows 3.0. Arguably, the former was way more usable. Guess which one achieved market dominance. The open system on an open architecture will beat the closed system on a closed architecture in the long run. (It wasn't obvious in 1989 that Apple was in trouble --- their profits weren't really affected until 1998 or so) - Piaw Na

Piaw, we're all dead in the long run. It seems pretty myopic to reduce the lessons of Windows vs. Mac and iPod vs. MP3 players to "openness wins in the long run". The best value for customers wins in the long run. Being able to run more apps on Windows proved to be more valuable to customers than whatever else Mac had to offer. This isn't the same dynamic in MP3 players (good luck waiting for openness to win) but it might be for cell phones. - Dare Obasanjo

One thing people seem to forget is that Google has so much cash flow that it frequently stakes out positions in markets with no immediate (apparent) strategic goal. The cost of developing Android has been miniscule for Google - perhaps Google just wanted to get in there with an iPhone OS competitor before someone else did. - Rob Sterling

Paul Buchheit

Damien Katz: REST, I just don't get it - http://damienkatz.net/2008...

August 14, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Yuval Atzmon, Kevin Scott, Tim Kersey and 13 other people liked this

"I guess what I mean to say is just because SOAP is a disaster, doesn't somehow make REST the answer. Simpler is better, and REST is generally simpler than SOAP. But there is nothing wrong with a plain old POST as an RPC call. If its easy to make all your calls conform to the RESTful verb architecture, then that's good, I guess. But if not, then just use a POST as an RPC call, keep it as simple as possible and be done with it. And don't spend another minute worrying about being RESTful or not." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

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I agree so much. Technical dogma is annoying. - Paul Buchheit

Agreed. - Ray Grieselhuber

support for intermediaries, distributed caching, payload as document *or* argument collection - as binary *or* text, dynamic typing via MIME, support for portable code-on-demand (ala javascript, applets, flash, etc), out-of-band authentication & authorization - by independent parties ... oh, yeah and PUT/DELETE, too? plus all of this extensible and outlined a decade ago. there may be a lot to "not get", but it's no dogma. it's the stuff that makes FriendFeed so possible. - MikeAmundsen

Mike, it seems that you're arguing that REST==HTTP, but then people write these blog posts saying "X is not RESTful" because they use POST instead of PUT, or some such silliness. I agree that HTTP is good though, in part because it's quite flexible yet relatively simple. - Paul Buchheit

Paul: you're right on it - "X is not RESTful" is dumb. REST is basically the codifying/documentation of how/why HTTP works so well. - MikeAmundsen

I blame the people who invented the REST concept, who waxed all philosophical about, well, representational state transfer, whatever the hell that means. If they had called it something like POHR (Plain Old HTTP Request) instead we would have been so much better off. Well, except that we wouldn't have a cute acronym. - ⓞnor

Roy Fielding had to was lyrical about it, it was his dissertation. That's what it's for. - Michael C. Harris

@paul "Technical dogma is annoying" +1. agree totally. how about trying to accomplish something useful first! - .LAG liked that

As a winforms developer that does some web development on the side, the whole idea of webservices is overcomplex. The touchstone for any particular implementation of a web serice needs to based around mission critical capabilitie: There is no point using it if it does not work. - Roberto Bonini

With .NET the web services are so easy to develop that some people don't even know about the XML/SOAP/WSDL behind the scenes. They are so well abstracted behind the tools. REST support is getting all the time better, too, though. - Jemm

SOAP is a disaster and REST zealots are annoying, but something was lost when people started doing custom encodings for every web service, instead of having a standard way to rep structs, lists and various scalar types. we had this solved in 1998 in XML-RPC, the predecessor to SOAP, which is not a disaster, and widely deployed. It shows how powerful the idea is. - Dave Winer

Yes, don't worry about REST, and maybe don't worry about open data and dataportability and service interoperability either. The main reason I'm a REST fan is the fact that it makes service clients easy. You build a client and can use it to query Flickr and YouTube and FriendFeed and BaseCamp with just minor modifications. It's difficult to design RESTful web services, but it's better for everybody in the long run - Dragos Ilinca from twhirl

Dragos, no one here is arguing against standards, and REST isn't even a standard anyway -- it's a design pattern, one that's sometimes useful but often inappropriate. - Paul Buchheit

Dave Winer

Twitter will kick themselves for missing this (Scripting News) - http://www.scripting.com/stories...

August 3, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

cori, S. Charles Balazs, Sylvain Carle and 77 other people liked this

Imagine if the world of Instant Messaging had been under one roof, if one vendor had invented it, and had 100 percent market share. Further, what if that vendor had the foresight that there would be other vendors and that compatibility between their services would make a huge market, and that incompatibility would keep the market fragmented and relatively small. What would that vendor have done? - Dave Winer from Bookmarklet

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Dave - I don't quite understand your argument for how Twitter could have been the NSOL of microblogging. Are you saying that Twitter should have been the site that binds every other micro-blogging service together? - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I don't understand your question, sorry. All I get from it is your first phrase that you don't understand me. So neither of us understand each other. Oh well. Maybe someone else can bridge the void.. - Dave Winer

Love it Dave. We're having a meta conversation about microblogging. Maybe I'll go craft an old fashioned blog post of my own to try and elaborate/clarify :) - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

It's kind of like this Apple commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Dave Winer

Exactly! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Another example, I read somewhere on FF the other day that people took a feed from a music room here and added it to iTunes and it knew what to do with it! I feel really proud of that cause it was made possible by some early foundation work I did with RSS, a long time ago, paying off now for users. Exactly the kind of foresight I would like to see Twitter do now. - Dave Winer

Now that I get. Thanks Dave. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Dave, yes you spot on (once again !). However, twitter doing it is basically like asking like asking water to turn to honey. Only a miracle can make it happen. The underlying architecture of Twitter, really can't support a framework of collaborative sharing of info with other 3rd party vendors. FB did a great job with creating the app that was actually a platform. FF seems to be like this, twitter is ouf of the window. - Peter Dawson

Do you think the problem lies in the fact that they are a Valley startup that needs to look like something Google or Yahoo would buy and put ads on. - Harold Gilchrist from twhirl

Harold, I don't think there's a "problem" -- they're overworked and head-down and faced with an enormous amount of opportunity. It must be hard to sort through it all, and to them, a missive like this from me probably sounds pretty shrill. "Oh there he goes again." I don't blame them for this, but I would be remiss if I didn't put my stake in the ground so we can play Monday Morning Quarterback in 2010 or so. (Murphy-willing, knock wood!) - Dave Winer

Network Solutions are the worst company ever, i don't know why you related Twitter to them. - Nicholas James

I suspect that the problems from this past weekend are only going to exacerbate the problem. http://tinyurl.com/5pkpjs Not only have they missed they opportunity, but poor communication and support are seriously eroding the customer base. That the victims of this weekend's situation included several strong Twitter evangelists has unfortunate potential. Even tho the folks involved seem to mostly still carry a fondness for Twitter, their followers witnessed the problems and were involved in the solution. - Patricia F. Anderson

"Imagine if the world of Instant Messaging had been under one roof, if one vendor had invented it, and had 100 percent market share." Wasn't that *mostly* true of AOL, though? Didn't AOL consolidate their position by buying up ICQ? Didn't they drag their feet for years and years on efforts to make their IM play well with others? By illustrating your point with IM, perhaps you have... more... - Karim

Likewise, Network Solutions is an example of *abuse* of a dominant position: in 1995 they charged $100 to register a domain name for 2 years, which led to an antitrust lawsuit. They've also been guilty of domain name censorship, domain name slamming, subdomain hijacking, domain name frontrunning, selling WHOIS information, etc. ad nauseam. - Karim

I, for one, am glad their business model didn't become IP of a namespace - Ross Mayfield

I'm really surprised that this weekend's problems of account closings haven't caused more of a fuss. It seems to me that it would be such a big deal, it would be the final straw that would get most of the major twitter advocates to finally pay attention to the whole issue of federation of microblogging. Also: this is the umptyzillionth thing that's made the thought go thru my mind that they must be *trying* to fail! - Tegan Dowling

@Karim: While AIM is definitely the dominant IM standard here in the US, it doesn't even come close to being so abroad. People I know in India and Australia, for example, don't even know what "AIM" is. Yahoo and MSN Messengers are both the dominant IM networks there. I think that Dave's example very much reflects why Twitter would have done better in the long-term with an open model. - Mohit

It would be great to see FriendFeed run their own laconica service (identi.ca). - Dan Cameron

Isn't Identi.ca exactly what you're looking for? FriendFeed doesn't support multiple instances of FriendFeed, but I'm already party of multiple Laconica (the source of Identi.ca) networks via one seamless interface. There are some kinks, sure, but I'm bowled over by how much they've gotten done in a month. - Marina Martin

Marina, I am an identi.ca user. How do I follow a user on another laconi.ca server? How do they follow me? Please post a pointer to the docs. This is very important. - Dave Winer

Dave, when you are on the profile page of a user on another laconica server (such as mine: http://waka.me/wil) just click on the Subscribe button. It will then ask you for your profile URL (yours would presumably be http://identi.ca/dave) then submit the form. Your browser will do an OAuth redirect dance, after which you should be subscribed to me. - Wil from MojiPage

Mohit, the market is badly fragmented *now.* QQ is huge in China. Yahoo! and MSN started beta testing interop only in 2006. Google whipped out their checkbook and paid AOL a billion dollars for interop, and even that is lame -- AIM users can't see GTalk users from AIM. My point was that AOL *used to be* the dominant IM, just as Network Solutions *used to be* the largest domain name... more... - Karim

(continued) be different. Maybe "We learn from history that we do not learn from history." -- G.W.F. Hegel - Karim

Robert Scoble

The Silicon Valley VC Disease - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

July 26, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Casey, Franklin Pettit, Piaw Na and 64 other people liked this

I actually read the title as "The Silicon Valley VD Disease" ..and nearly jumped out of my seat !! :)- - Peter Dawson

60 more comments

I think the bigger issue is the fact that startups want to scale quickly. What happened to starting slow and small and letting the product naturally develop, grow a natural user base, before getting VC and super expanding? I guess it's not as sexy... - Johan

Johan: startups have this attitude forced on them by the VC's. The VC's only give you enough money to go a year or two. If you don't build a business by then you either have to convince more VCs to give you another two years of cash, or you have to have a business up and running and generating more revenues than expenses by then. And the VCs don't like it if you just sit on the cash. They are hoping you come up with some dramatic business success. - Robert Scoble

I hope it's not contagious - paul mooney

Good post - my phone is not used to connect to the web but to text message. I can't get a handle on the iPhone yet, though. My daughter loves it and that's good enough for me. - LPH™ and his dog P™

The other term for this: Short-sightedness. - Eric Florenzano

ok I jumped off the seat and now back w/beer. :)_ yeah but if you have the right product and appliations , you dot need to shop for VC funds in the first place. The issue is that too many startups are in the markets and nothing really is getting innovated. VS are in to make money. Show me the money and I'll show you my term sheet. Simple investment talk. DOnt waste our time - Peter Dawson

+1 for Peter's "Silicon Valley VD Disease" .... LOL - Mitchell Tsai

Unfortunately VCs are not the best investors. Most are running scared. Even with their efforts, 85% of their investments fail (50% for the top firms). Creates a me-too mentality evident also in the Pharmaceutical industry. Real break-throughs may have less than 1% success rate. That is too scary for most VCs and pharma companies. - Mitchell Tsai

And you can only imagine how frustrating this is for biotech (and explains the lack of funding). Takes 10 years to see some results, 3-5 if you are providing services) - Deepak Singh

Thanks for writing this post, Robert. You're saying better than a lot of us what I'm sure some of us are thinking. It's unfortunate that this kind of thinking can actually prevent innovation and seems counter to the original American entrepreneurial spirit. We all lose when a good idea doesn't get funded to grow as well or as quickly as it could. - Cathryn Hrudicka

There's also the ROI and IRR disease in the VCs. Typical businesses have maybe a 50% success rate (where success is not the VC - 5X my money in 5 years, but includes I-just-want-to-pay-my-salary companies). The VC pressure to provide decent returns pushes many companies to failure. Rule of thumb: If you aren't willing to take out a loan at 40% annual interest (because your company's opportunity is so big & needs fast speed), don't ask VCs and smart angels. "Inexperienced" angels is ok. - Mitchell Tsai

P.S. I'm sitting on a lot of worthless pre-public stock. It's tough to be an investor too. - Mitchell Tsai

basically VC are getting funding via the global Hedge Funds bowl, w/multi legged swap options. so they (VC's) need ROI's to ensure that they can pay back what they took and make a profit at the same time. They win some and lose some, its a gamble.. Follow the money trail for dynamics of this landscape - Peter Dawson

VCs want companies to make money so they can recoup their investment and it's called a disease? The sickness is that many of the companies that get funded get funded when there is no hint of a business/revenue plan in place or even on the horizon. If more VCs had a strategy to invest in companies destined to actually make money of course there would be less SV whiny minor millionaires and more real business. - Brian Sullivan

VC/Angel is the "lottery for the rich": (A) ~15-20% annual returns (B) lottery chance to make $25 million on your $25,000 if you hit a Netscape, Yahoo, or Google. Most mathematicians who make a profit at Vegas gambling move on to stock markets, futures/commodity trading, financial derivatives, hedge funds, etc... - Mitchell Tsai

+1 for Brian: In the VC biz, that's called "pressure to invest". Not enough good ideas & teams to invest in. Conservative VCs won't find enough investments, thus the "pack" disease of VCs all funding hard drives at the same time. Much more fun chasing pictures on the internet. :-) - Mitchell Tsai

Brian: the companies that get funded that have no obvious business model (PodTech and Twitter, for example) are part of the VC Disease of go for a home run. They were hoping that PodTech would turn into the next YouTube and that Twitter turns into the next Google. Remember, Google didn't make money for the first four years of its existence, and, in fact, were almost shut down because they weren't paying their bills at Exodus. - Robert Scoble

Liking mostly because you say not to listen to Dave Hornik. I think I might actually be starting to like you, Robert. - Cyndy

Echoing Robert: Google burned through $26 million before finding profitability with Bill Gross's (IdeaLab) http://idealab.com/about_i... sliding-scale ad fees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... I would have been too chicken to put that much money into Google. The sliding-scale ad idea of Goto.com wasn't a "proven" revenue model either. "In November 2001 Gross defaulted on a $50 million personal loan he had taken from the Bank of America to invest in Idealab". - Mitchell Tsai

Using Google as an example of a company that didn't have a business plan but ended up a big success is getting tired as an argument for support of investment of clueless "businesses" and their founders. Investors in Google and the founders won the lottery -- that doesn't justify investing in the lottery as business strategy. Investing in Iphone apps in my mind would also be a waste of... more... - Brian Sullivan

VCs have to see a deal in this way: 3-5 years to get to 10X return. They can't wait 10 years for a payback, their fund is usually only 10 years as far as I know. So they can't fund things that are too far out. Although it seems clear that the iPhone can create opportunities that fit in this framework of 3-5 years to 10X return, so not sure why Hornick was down on it. Nice, controversial post to get us thinking... I think the disease is more like "groupthink" than it is "lack of long-term vision" - Elliott Ng

+1 Brian - Cyndy

Interesting post Robert. May be what Dave is saying is that when a company has proven their concept on the iphone is ready to scale to other platform, then the time is right to actually go after a bigger VC round. I think that both people like Jeff and Dave are key to the entrepreneurship ecosystem: they just target different stages of the company lifecycle. Another way to prove that is... more... - Edwin Khodabakchian

Brian: when I went to Israel a high percentage of developers there proudly showed me their iPhones. And there's not even an Apple store in the country. I HAVE GONE outside the country. Tons of the best iPhone apps are from outside of SV. I also totally disagree about iPhone not being the winner in mobile computing sweepstakes. At least not as the market is today. But I hear Nokia is coming out with something cool in January, so we'll see. And Microsoft told me they are bringing out something cool next year. - Robert Scoble

Brian, maybe the iPhone will wind up like the Atari, who knows. And I would add that many times investments are at least as much due to the people than to the initial technology. However, the iPhone is a game changer. I find that I'm using it more and more to read news, check the weather, etc--some which is new behavior for me, but also some of which I used to do on my notebook. The iPhone is winning out. Is it perfect yet? No. I want more, but there's a systemic change going on here. - Loren Heiny

Loren: the problem with people who don't own iPhones is they just don't see how big a game changer it is. I wish I could get Brian to carry around the four phones I currently have to see how bad these things all are compared to iPhone. The iPhone isn't perfect, either, but it's years ahead of the others. Of course, back in 1989 the Macintosh was years ahead of everything too and see what happened... - Robert Scoble

Deepak: Agreed, look at Amgen and Genentech as classic Biotech examples - Sally Church

Scobles , are yo sure that iPhones are just not hype ? - Peter Dawson

Mr. Scoble - I'll tell you... this disease causes Myopia too. There are SO many fine business opportunities being pitched right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Wichita... Sevin Rosen Funds has a guy here in Tulsa. EARLY stage oriented. Pre-money oriented. Why KPCB or Charles River (or whoever) doesn't grab some initiative and park a good couple of partners in middle-America and work some new land is beyond me. - Gerald Buckley

You'll get little disagreement from me on this one, Robert. But it's not just VCs, it's inertia. OTOH, Brian Sullivan a few comments up makes a great comparison...iPhone (and Facebook for that matter) are heading the way of BetaMax and MiniDisc, and MemoryStick. I may not use MySpace, but they're the VHS of the Social Network game right now. What we need is for someone to invent the DVD. - Andrew Feinberg

Robert: I have absolutely no need for the Iphone (or any "smart" phone) and certainly would not pay the ridiculous prices some people are paying to use them. These products and their supporters are making a couple of fundamental assumptions that I think are flawed: that most normal people are like California geeks that feel the need to be connected at all times and that people will... more... - Brian Sullivan

Peter D. define "hype"? I can't be sure that iPhone will "win" the mobile space (I seriously doubt it given current pricing). But they're bound to be closing in on their 10 million units worldwide goal, and especially given the price, that doesn't strike me as hype. - Robert Seidman

I completely respect yet disagree with this post. Most designers are not businessmen, VCs help in other ways than a chequebook. You bring the skills and the idea, they teach you how to squeeze money and create revenue. Great ideas change the world but they're not always profitable. VCs are there strictly for the money and you have to respect that. - Steven Cains

What's wrong with investing in Facebook apps, if you get the exposure it's like advertising on Taxi wheels (I've seen this one). As for the iPhone, it has changed the way people are surfing on mobiles and this advertising market is just at the beginning so i see many companies getting inside. The only question i ask myself is either the company can generate money within 3-5 years or not and should i put my money in as if it was after the bubble burst. - Nir Ben Yona

Brian, here are a couple non-California uses of an Internet connected device like the iPhone. Imagine you're in Nebraska in the spring. A storm rolls in. Tornado sirens blare. If you've got your iPhone with you in the closet or basement or wherever in anticipation of a tornado, you've potentially got access to an Internet radio, weather radar maps, 911, etc in your iPhone. Another... more... - Loren Heiny

Great post. I see no excitement surrounding any other phone. People I know who use Windows Mobile phones have to in order to have access to corporate email. Maybe that will change with Apple licensing AciveSync. - Brett Nordquist

Peter: I'm absolutely convinced that iPhones are not hype. Brian: mobile didn't get hot in California first. You really need to visit Europe or Japan or Korea. There we look pretty stupid in our usage of mobile. As for "needing" stuff, you probably 10 years ago would have told me you don't "need" a cell phone, but today I can't name a single person that I know who doesn't have one, except my baby. You need to travel more and watch what people do when a plane touches down. Everyone starts up their mobiles. - Robert Scoble

Has anyone decided if Apple's implememntation of ActiveSync is any good? - Andrew Feinberg

I guess I'm glad I can have whatever phone I choose, and no need to worry about syncing anything, as I'm not tied to a corporate and all the associated bloatware that goes with it... - Ian May

"First, our society’s most valuable audiences are getting iPhones." Really our most valuable audiences? Archeticts are these type of people? What about doctors, nurses, firemen, policemen, etc. They are way more valuable then any single architect in LA. Get over yourself.... That comment alone made me snort my coffee. I know 4 people who iPhones, neither of them would be somoen who i would define as society's most valuable audiences. - Jonathan Jesse

@Loren Heiny I have a co-worker who used his Windows Mobile device in a Tornado to upload video of the tornado, let people know about that he was safe via email all w/o an iPhone. and from the hotel's bathtub which was the safest place. - Jonathan Jesse

@Loren Heiny: when my son was born i used my windows mobile phone to take pictures and email those pictures to everyone i know from one device.... from a windows mobile phone - Jonathan Jesse

@Brian Sullivan: I completly agree.. I have a Windows Smartphone from work, it is also the only cell phone I have. try taking a vacation when you get constantly reminded that work needs you through emails. I am amazed about how rude it is for people to interupt converstations and text/sms/email/twitter whatever instead of talking with the person face to face in front of them. this is something that i am strugeling with as my phone is always "buzzing" with someething new. - Jonathan Jesse

Ok its not hype.. but with over 715Million users of Mobile technology in China alone. What does a 10M unit sold slice in terms of market penetration to these segments ? Just asking.. So you can see how thin of a slice that iPhone really has in terms of market share. A prodcut may have all the bells and whistles on it, but if major user base is not buying into it. then it could be some real issues. - Peter Dawson

I think the whole VC model is broken. We don't need millions of dollars for our startups anymore, we need $25k or $50k. When I hear about companies getting millions of dollars, I always think, what the hell are they doing with it!? - Dawn

To add scale to the 10M figure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... roughly 70% of those will be changing their phone within 5 years. ChinaMobile signs up almost 10M subscribers per month! - Steven Cains

I'll offer this, just me speculating. I'm not sure that the price point of the iPhone is the biggest factor these days. I think we're more bottled by the thought of paying ridiculous prices for sub-par mobile web. I mean seriously, what the heck is with the current rates for cell phone plans. Also, the thought of paying for SMS in 2008 is just silly. It should be included in all plans. Not for the purpose of cutting profits from our providers but rather for American's to catch on to the technology. - Ben Pettit

@ben I vaguely recall Mr. Scoble interviewing someone (was it the FCC commissioner conversation maybe) that had the US basically foregoing SMS and being off & onto the next big thing. SMS won't really stand a chance against what's coming is what I heard. Robert...? Care to put that in better context for us? - Gerald Buckley

Dawn: $25K, $50K, $100K These are the lower-price points for qualified angel investors, who work the lower levels below the first tier of $500K-$3M VCs. One VC person can maybe manage 10-20 investments, so you can divide the size of fund by the number of active partners (x10-20) and figure out what size investments are in a VC-fund's sweet spot. Complicating the issue are some micro-VC funds, angel-type funds, and $5-20K Y-combinator-type-groups. - Mitchell Tsai

Scoble: Great post. Hornik is a very smart guy, but he is hamstrung by the current VC model. VCs need a huge upside because the model dictates that they need to put in a ton of cash on the front end. Most of today's web startups don't require the kind of cash that VCs are used to putting in. That's why Hornik doesn't want to invest in iPhone apps. He wants to invest in companies with hundreds of millions in near-term valuation, not tens on millions. Imho, that is the VC disease -- in SV or out. - Christian Anderson from fftogo

Robert, I left a long comment on the post with my thoughts. I appreciate that some investors don't have the patience to bet early and let an idea run its course. That said, I don't think I am a good poster-child for that problem. August Capital has a long history of betting early and supporting our companies for as long as it takes to create an interesting business. - David Hornik

@cyndy Curious what I said or did to deserve your comment? - David Hornik

David: thanks, I just wrote a new post about this new world where people like you help us arrive at the truth by participating. Appreciate that a lot. - Robert Scoble

Gerald: SMS is seeing some pickup here, but, really, look at Twitter, which is what my son is using now increasingly, or Facebook. If you have an iPhone both of those are a lot better than SMS. Also, my phone is increasingly getting SMS spam, which will really piss people off and keep them from adopting that system. - Robert Scoble

This is not too dissimilar from the Innovator's Dilemma concept by Christensen. The "right" business decision ("right" as in profit-maximizing) would be to invest in big, rich markets: that's precisely why there is an opportunity for disruptors to enter the market. - Tito Costa

+1 for Michael Sheehan. - Mitchell Tsai

None of this seems like rocket science. Valley VCs want big returns in short amount of time. Asking them to invest in small slower-growing but sustainable markets is like going to Ford Motor headquarters and asking to buy a windshield wiper. It isn't the scale that they're working at. - Michael

While you make some valid points, Robert, I don't it is fair to call it a disease. Looking for investments with a short-term return potential is certainly a legitimate investment strategy. I can't fault them for opting for perferring lower risk, quicker payoff investments, rather than longer-term (and thus higher risk) investment that *may* payoff huge in 10 years. That said, there are other types of investment strategies out there -- I think your post highlights a void that needs to be filled. - Mark Carey from Moopz

I still think, after reading the post, the follow up and this thread, that a VC is perfectly entitiled to pick and choose investments based on the return. And I'm sure there will be a few start-ups that have a Walmart business plan - take two asprin and call me in ten years. Because thats the way it is in technology (not just SV). The issue here is that we don't hear form these companies. We may well get the next Google, Microsoft, Sun, HP, etc from there. - Roberto Bonini

I thing this disease is more of a symptom of greed and ego vs. making a difference in the tech world. But then again, isn't that what business is about? It is very hard for traditional business to grasp this concept, and is why real innovation wont be found there. - Venson Kuchipudi

The problem with VC's is not that they have a disease but that there is no quality control. I am sure the good ones are very good but most of us never get to work with the good ones. On the other hand, I believe many Entrepreneurs (in the Silicon Valley) are in fact infected with a disease which is that they think the only way to start companies and generate net worth is with VC money. VC's are like "former" mother-in-laws. They cease to be a problem when you stop sleeping with their daughters. - Denny K Miu

Robert Scoble

I just received Jason Calacanis' first email "blog." I'm very saddened that he decided to go back to email for a whole number of reasons. Let's talk about them.

July 13, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

peter huesken, David HC Soul, Alex Barbara and 44 other people liked this

Push model of communication vs. conversation? - Sprague D

101 more comments

Maybe you could start listing the reasons you know - Brian Sullivan

Email seems so closed off - it prohibits growth. At least, that's how I see it... - George Smith

I just received Calacanis' first email newsletter. Which is really his replacement for not blogging anymore. He makes several great points. 1. That commenters have destroyed blogging. 2. That Nick Denton's style of paying for page views instead of smart ideas has destroyed blogging. 3. That he seeks out a more intimate conversation. 4. That email is it. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Please forward them to post@posterous.com. Heheh. : ) - Erhan Erdogan

I am saddened because all of this is true. Except by going back to email he's taken us back to the 1990s where I can't share his ideas with others (he only will accept 1,000 subscribers, he says). He also is cluttering my email stream which is cluttered beyond breaking. Imagine if everyone did email newsletters... - Robert Scoble

I don't know about you folks, but I just don't need any more email. I can't keep up with what I already have. I've started replying to my co-worker's emails with Office Communicator, in an attempt to ease the deluge. You'd think IT folks would know that it's not always necessary to hit "Reply All." - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF from NoiseRiver

I think it harkens back to the glory days of yesteryear when there were email lists like the lockergnome. Maybe it's just nostalgia. I don't have a problem with commentors on my blog, but then, I don't have the numbers that Calacanis or Scoble have either. He says he has a problem and that an email list will alleviate those problems. We'll just have to see what happens and see if his experiment does work. - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Here it is: http://robert_zrxrc.posterous.com/ -- he already has 1,100 subscribers. - Robert Scoble

FF is the answer, possible a FF' room. Once FF becomes mainstream as a sharing and communication tool bogging activity will decrease significantly: if not FF will become the de-facto “bogging” platform. - Joao

"I'm very saddened" ? what makes you sad and why ? - Peter Dawson

that's one looong e-mail - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Robert - Jason hasn't taken anybody to the 90's except maybe himself. The whole thing smacks of ego anyway. I think better just to ignore Jason (I mostly did that before as well so not much change for me). - Brian Sullivan

Peter: because what Jason says is true. It's why I've slowed down blogging lately. Blogging used to be about discussing ideas. Lately it's been about getting on Techmeme. I share the blame in that part of things. But even while that's been going on I've tried to read many times more stuff than what I write. It's why I still read hundreds of RSS feeds and participate here on FF (I like many, many, many times more items than what I start). But I hate his choice of media. Email is just the worst place. - Robert Scoble

The remark on commenters is disingenuous -- he regularly turned off commenting on his blog when he didn't want to deal with blowback, unlike Robert who rarely disengages. For a guy who made $25 million off blogging, turning his back on the medium seems like bad faith, to me. - Sprague D

funny the other day his max number of "subscribers" was going to be hard and fast at 750 and now it is 1,000 ... as usual he can't seem to make up his mind [edit] now I see it is up to 1,100 - Steven Hodson

I think the cap on subscriptions is interesting. Pushing the scarcity button ("Act now -- supplies are limited!") is considered a fairly low Jedi Mind Trick. [waves hand] Wasn't the cap 500 at first? Then 750? Now it's 1,000? Because you can only have an "intimate conversation" with 1,000 people? hahahahahahah... - Karim

He *is* blogging -- after a sorts. Commenters haven't destroyed blogging, but many comments are noise and add no value. This is where the site owner needs to put on big boy pants and function as an editor. I can't fault Denton for paying for views. How does this affect Calacanis' site? Seeking Intimacy? Oh, the burdens of popularity ... ;-) - Chris Baskind

Brian: I agree with that. I subscribed, but with my luck the newsletter will get thrown into my spam folder. Interesting that many bloggers started out with newsletters (Chris Pirillo and Dave Winer both had famous email newsletters before they moved to blogs). - Robert Scoble

I don't like it , if you limit the communicatin to just who gets your email. Then it's a monologue not a conversation - Kim Landwehr

Another place Jason is right? The need to have one-to-one smart conversations. If I didn't have those every day and just did my blog I'd be one sad puppy. It's the smart conversations that matter. Most of which I don't have an audience for while I'm having them. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Will you go on forwarding these on posterous? : ) I subscribe your posterous. ; ) Thanks for sharing. - Erhan Erdogan

@robert , "Blogging used to be about discussing ideas. Lately it's been about getting on Techmeme." Agreed, but you can't solve a problem with the same mindset that created the problem and that goes to all the A-listers too.. They have always fought / jostled , manipulated the SM streams to get to their way to for google juice, page views/hits. etc Now all of a sudden, its like wait.. whatever happened to the original idea of exchanging ideas ? Whatever happened to passion and integrity ? - Peter Dawson

Erhan: I'll forward them when he has something smart to say. (and I remember to do it). :-) - Robert Scoble

Peter now you know why I've focused so much of my energy on FriendFeed. I'm having a lot smarter conversations here than other places. - Robert Scoble

I'll take the contrarian view: This email was the most relaxed, best, most enjoyable, insightful writing I've seen from Jason in a while. I'm an old school McLuhanite wrt the medium being the message. But sometimes, the message is the message. Sometimes the author is the message. Gotta let an author choose the medium. If this change boosts the quality of Jason's output, I'm glad he did it. - Michael Markman

Scoble: I think you're wrong about blogging being all "about getting on Techmeme." As a blogger in a niche community, I can tell you that the VAST majority of bloggers out there don't care about or plan to get on techmeme. This particular problem (and all of the problems that you mention) lies in a very small subset of the blogging community--the "A-list", as it's put. - Eric Florenzano

Robert: Calacanis's new official blog: http://robert_zrxrc.posterous.com/ : ))) You may change its name to "calacanissbug.posterous.com" : ))) - Erhan Erdogan

Robert, BUT BEWARE - the same thing is happening on FF too , the platform has changed, however the attitude is the same. http://friendfeed.com/e... - Peter Dawson

Robert, the one thing e-mail is severely lacking is the ability to thread a conversation so late comers don't jump in and ask the same questions that were already asked - or make the same points that were already made. Sure Jason has some points, but I'm not sure the direction he took is the road to travel... It does indeed sound like he wants to 'recapture' something that was lost, but I can't help hearing you (Robert) start ringing the innovation bell rather than what equates to throwing in the towel. - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

I blog, comment and email. I have a large target audience - non-tech, non-connected biz owners, who prefer the email format. Of course I invite conversation, and try to direct people back to my blog, but the large percentage of my readers are passive - so email works. - Lorraine Ball

I have to say I agree with Michael Markman on this one. I'm rather enjoying the tone of Jason's writing in these posts. It's brings me back to earlier writing of his that I enjoyed. - Cathy Brooks

I think the move is rather ridiculous. I never really pay much attention to his stunts anyway, but I think that if one-way conversation were what he wanted, he could disable commenting. Perhaps, though, he doesn't want people talking about his "posts" elsewhere, like on FriendFeed. Strange. - Jonathan Sterling

Peter Dawson, really great point. My aim is to find, create, join, or otherwise be part of mindshare... I want to expand my horizons and learn things. I like that I don't agree with everything out there - it gives me room to make a difference or move on. However, I would submit that I fear the Internet is finally starting to mirror the real world... but this is not a cause to despair but a reason to fight harder! - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

it seems that the A-list bloggers are exposed to a lot of "A-List Envy/Angst" and a lot of what comes out comes out as vitriol at not being as successful. It's a very negative energy and I could see how it would start to get annoying. I can't blame Jason for being annoyed by it anymore than I can blame you (Scoble) for blocking people who are always dumping negativity on you. That said, I agree with Ted Leonsis that Jason is pulling a Brett Favre, but I do believe the toll the negativity takes is real. - Robert Seidman

Well, it was only a matter of time before this whole transparency, aggregation, data portability thing started to freak people out. Walled garden, anyone? - Karim

I prefer this to: “I'm streaming live right now, come chat! - Oldengrey (Jay)

I always thought of a blog as a catalyst to cathartic discussion. While I love reading Jason's work, the mailing list is just a one-way distribution list. I have to use friendfeed, twitter, or another blog to discuss the content. If you're tired of clueless commentators, then moderate the comments. Wait a second. . . .isn't THIS a blog in a way? - Peter Ghosh

Sorry, but while I understand his reasoning, I utterly disagree w/ his solution. We don't need to 'go back to listserve' to have a conversation. In fact, I've been saying for a while now that the reason microblogging sites have done so well is that they really DO facilitate conversation. Blogging is more like lecturing w/ a Q&A session in the comments. Twitter, FF, and other sites have lead us into actual organic conversations. Jason's email is back to lecturing. I won't be subscribing. - Lucretia Pruitt

Peter: I'm still very passionate about having smart conversations and furthering our understanding of the technology that we all use every day. - Robert Scoble

Maybe it's all one big joke. I've learned that Jason and I have different senses of humor. - shelisrael1

I can't believe people actually believe any of this is serious. Calcanis is not retiring from blogging to do email lists. See the truth, see the evidence! - Ben Parr

Instead of talking about it, let's just ignore it. Don't subscribe. We have to make it as clear as possible that we've moved beyond these one-way conversations. - Shawn Farner

Maybe he wants more control over his own conversations? - Omar Vasquez Lima

It was a brilliant move. People who've never heard of Calacanis now do. He is going to be talked about by everyone. Even news organazations are picking up on this. It doesn't matter what you say anymore... it matters how you say it to get in the spotlight. He is a brilliant man in that regards. Can't everyone figure that out. It is all about being in the spotlight. I got that the moment I even saw the first headline. - James Mowery from twhirl

BTW, my aforementioned statements does not conclude that I appreciate such ways of getting in the spotlight. I'm disgusted with it, but it makes the Calacanis brand more widely known. Everyone else is the sucker for constantly talking about it. It doesn't matter if it is true or not. Calacanis already won because we are all talking about him. That is brilliant marketing folks. Think about it. - James Mowery from twhirl

@Karim I have it on good authority (i.e. I made it up) that he kept subscriptions open until 1095 because that's when Scoble signed up. I know, I know, you would have thought he would have done it sooner, but popular opinion is that he wanted to make Jason sweat. - Jason Shultz from twhirl

I think the fact that this move has created as much buzz as it has shows that it is working. How many more eyes will see this now that it will only be delivered to a select few? - Zach Chisholm

Jason, ha! :-D Somehow I'm sure he'll always manage to squeeze in another subscription or two for the "right" people ;-) I'd have more respect for these caps if they were given as powers of two (512, 1024) -- that way I'd just assume there was some technical basis. lol - Karim

I think Jason has a point. Techmeme and Valleywag have turned an idea culture into a celebrity culture. Trust me, I started to get sucked into the anger and negativity this week, and I didn't like what I was seeing in myself. But honestly? If he wants to push messages and have conversations back and forth without dodging trolls and negativity and egotism, he's got the right idea. If Leonsis is right, I'll be pretty sad. Speaking of Leonsis, LETS GO CAPS!!! STANLEY CUP 2009!!! - Andrew Feinberg

I don't see how you can get involved in 'drama' if you just stay the hell away from valleywag and techmeme - mjc

Zach, re "select few," I shouldn't be telling you this, but the Force can have a strong effect on the weak-minded. [waves hand] And please don't tell anyone I told you that, keep it just between the two of us. [waves hand] - Karim

Your going about it wrong... he didn't go "back to email", he decided to use a "distributed push blogging platform". Your so 1.0 with your blog on your server it's laughable ;-). - Robert Accettura

Email blog? *sigh* - Czar

We're all discussing it here, Score another for Team Calacanis. He's a great marketer, he creates tremendous buzz in a small community and can keep it spinning. It doesn't matter what medium he uses, he makes it work for him. - Steven Cains

I'm a "single inbox" advocate, and have all my RSS feeds fed to email, so Jason's really just saving me a step. I really wish FF could feed individual comments and posts to email, so I wouldn't have to come here. All these distinctions between blogs, FF, IM, SMS, twitter, email... I look forward to the day when it's all transparent, you simply subscribe to the content rather than the medium, and you choose whichever delivery mechanism you prefer. - Ken Sheppardson

Jason makes some valid points. I don't have anywhere near the audience of many of you, but comments are seriously problematic. On one hand they make writing pretty thankless, because often the only people who comment are ones who want to criticize or attack. On the other, you crave them because you're trying to start conversations. But having said that, I have made a considerable chunk of my living doing PR and I know buzz-building when I see it. That's not a criticism, it's just an observation. - Anthony Citrano

M. Cohen: that's the point. he's (at least trying to) remove himself a step or two from that medium. To be honest, I take more time reading and digesting an email than I do a blog post, because when you send mail to a list, you know who your initial audience is. Another thing? Mailing lists and Usenet (before outlook destroyed threading) had great conversations, better than many blog comments. FriendFeed actually reminds me of a Usenet-Listserv mashup in that way. (continued) - Andrew Feinberg

Most high-traffic blogs have way too many trolls, sock puppets, and other crap to make conversations useful anymore. Does anyone remember Slashdot in the early days? I do (my UID is 4 digits) and I never go there anymore. Why? Sock puppets, trolls, very few good conversations. The medium did not scale well. In many ways, Jason has been out sailing and has spied a FailWhale off his port bow. He's altering course to avoid, but the destination remains the same. Let's hope he gets there. - Andrew Feinberg

This is a personal decision for me and I realize that intelligent folks will disagree with my decision... however, I can tell you that after a couple of emails to the ~1,000 folks on the list I've a) learned more, b) gotten much more response (50-150 really well thought emails each time I send an email so far), and c) there has been no drama/haters. When you reach critical mass in blogging it implodes as the majority of feedback you get is from the haters and the mentally unstable (sometimes both). - Jason Calacanis

Jason: Agreed for the most part, but others on the list can't see the replies that people send to you :( I'd love to learn what you're learning. - Eric Florenzano

Robert - I think it's all a matter of perspective, when it comes to the benefit versus harm of doing exclusively email. I've shared some specific thoughts with Jason, but the overall point I'll make here. For you, it's hard because you're flooded already. For me, it's a chance to break away from what's going on during a day and read some thoughts that are shared to a very small and specific audience. I like what Jason's doing. I just, as I stated to him, hope that he's not cutting off his nose... - Bradley McSpinn

Eric: the responses from the email list to me are 1-to-1 and that is providing me with so much more value than public comments, which i've found tend to be for a) the promotion of the individual, b) the chance to lash out/behave badly, c) some combination of a&b. I'm getting much more considered response because people understand it's one to one... this means i'm more likely to email more--it's a virtuous cycle so far. i wonder what will happen with email 100 or 1,000. will it continue or go away? who knows - Jason Calacanis

I think at some point one wants to blog or write more intimately. Instead of e-mail, I think Ning.com would have been a much better solution. It also puts a face behind the names and they can share too. - Janette Toral

Email may be the worst place, but maybe Jason has something new brewing in email land? - drew olanoff

Jason - I read your email via Robert's posterous. I really enjoyed that post. I'm someone fairly new to this world of the Web. To be honest, my only impression of you is as The Mahalo Guy who tweets about his bulldogs. Didn't realize there was so much more there, especially your trailblazing in the genre. With a closed-off email list, you'll miss a lot of new people. As for Google juice, Techmeme, etc, look to Marc Andreessen as an example. Blogs only on his own time as he tends to his start-up. - Hutch Carpenter

I thought you posted the email message, someone Twittered about that. I think it's about exclusivity, or the perception of exclusivity and accountability, ability to quantify. I think if SAR was still around it would be the only (5 maybe?) email lists i would need to subscribe to, so that was the '90's. As far as the focus on Techmeme, you got to just ignore it. Why do people need to know which 50 stories discuss the same issue? I'm glad it's successful for him. There are haters, always have been. - angela penny

Didn't LISTSERV's die when www came out? This is a step backwards if you ask me. Another silo'd walled garden community. Meh. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I feel lucky to be on Jason's email list. - Owen O'Malley

Jason, if the responses are 1:1, you could end up answering the same question 1,000 times... and like Eric said, some questions don't get asked repeatedly when everyone can see them. - Karim

Who is parsing Jason's comments? - Anne Haynes

an email list is not a conversation, it is a one way street, Email lists are old fashioned, old school tech Most people have already been there, done that and are trying out all the new ways to communicate.We have moved on to Blogs, FriendFeed, Twitter, etc with new things showing up every day. Who else besides Jason wants to go backwards to the old list days? Negativity is always a problem, but does that mean we stop talking because of it? - Francine

Email is a follow-up medium IMO. It's what you might use once you find someone who you find worth having a more intimate conversation. I don't think most bloggers get an over abundance of these gems, but Jason achieved an order of magnitude that yielded a large cadre of intelligent folks. I get it. However, I'd blog simultaneously and see if other gems emerge that could be added to the email dialog. - AJ Kohn

I don't have any stats to back this up, but I suspect that despite all the twitterati/friendfeeders/bloggers hopes and dreams to the contrary, 90%+ of the non-navelgazing, productive activity on the internet is probably still conducted via email. - Ken Sheppardson

good for little jason. email rules - Big Jason Henderson

I can see (and have empathy for) a lot of the reasons why Jason (or anyone else) would decide to take a deep breath and opt out of the fray; a large part of the stakes in keeping blogging alive in the next - say - five years depends on a delicate balance between "taking" and "giving back" ideas from a communal place - when the former replaces the latter, things start getting less and less fun and interesting. Also,thislaptopspacebarisdyingonme. - dario

As for the Techmeme and page view stuff. I suppose if you're doing this for a living that might be a concern. Even then, it's still about content and ideas. I still believe that if you have the former, the latter will come to a large degree. Should you really be interested in traffic you might be better off doing SEO. - AJ Kohn

Annie, I tried to parse what Jason meant by the implication that answering the same question repeatedly had a greater value than not doing so :-) but I couldn't... I can see that it would *possibly* lower the amount of self-aggrandizing or hateful messages, because of the lack of a public platform, but it seems like the price is replying the same thing over and over, to potentially hundreds of people. Why even bother with replies, why not just make it a newsletter? Or a blog with no comments. - Karim

I applaud the move. Though I think it is a technological step backward, it seems to me, it is from a desire to move forward with, to me, what makes life valuable: relationships. And although disagreement is important to growth, detractors are less valuable than a reduction in disagreement. - ·[▪_▪]·

It won't last. - Jim Kukral

I was on Jason's old Silicon Alley email list years ago. There was something cool & useful about that list that was different from the blogging experience. - Paul Rodriguez

A few months ago I had a rather relaxed (blame tuscan red wines!) and interesting conversation with De Kerchove - a scholar who knows a thing or two about media - about the existence of collective intelligence and the concept of 'smart mobs' - the central point being 'are we starting to see something larger than the sum of its parts?'- the answer - more or less - is yes, but as any form of evolution, it takes lots of time and course correction along the way. - dario

My responses to the four points that Robert summarized above: "1. That commenters have destroyed blogging." - this is not new and many bloggers at many levels deal with hecklers. "2. That Nick Denton's style of paying for page views instead of smart ideas has destroyed blogging." - might be an issue for those bloggers who actually earn income from blogging. "3. That he seeks out a more intimate conversation." - less likely to happen if every E-Mail is posted somewhere. cont'd... - Mark Dykeman

"4. That email is it." - it could be a personal preference, but he could easily achieve the same thing with a public forum requiring a password-protected user account. All this would actually do is to prevent people from publicly criticizing him because there's no forum to do so within the E-Mail list. Unfortunately, there will be lots of other places to do that. More power to him if this is his true intent, but long term I don't think it will work. - Mark Dykeman

I can (occasionally) see Jason's point about comments, but, sorry, that's not a blog, that's a newsletter. BOO! - Helen Sventitsky

Why haven't bloggers incorporated "slashdot-like" rating into their comment systems in order to get rid of the noise. What am I missing? Let the community protect its own resource if they value it. - Derek Tutschulte

TechCrunch also wrote about this, but the comments here are a lot more interesting and smarter: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008... - Robert Scoble

Oh, and Jason, I agree that 1:1 conversations are the best. That's why I put my phone number on my blog. +1-425-205-1921 -- a troll of mine even called last night (seriously, she did) and I got to hang up on her. It was most satisfying. - Robert Scoble

Derek: Slashdot's comments don't work to get rid of the noise. - Robert Scoble

Scoble: You're right, it's embarassing for TechCrunch, really. In a way, it's validation of his move. - Eric Florenzano

Email is broken - paul mooney

Still fuzzy on why being able to weed out comments rated belowa "4" (5 being the highest) wouldn't filter out useless comments. Deputize your allies among your audience as editors that can rate comments and they clean up the mess. Forgive me, but why wouldn't that work? - Derek Tutschulte from twhirl

Kudos to you Scoble for keeping the conversation going. While I agree with Jason's sentiments, that the blogosphere needs to grow up a bit and stop focusing on views/clicks/getting on techmeme, etc - that's the responsibility of the blogger. You can have a blog WITHOUT being distracted by those things. Just... write the emails in a blog. That's why blogs are revolutionary. Email is for suckers. No way around it. Techcrunch publishing the email = fail. Is that really news? - David Cohn

SezWho has a plugin for WordPress. http://www.sezwho.com/ this can help a bit with commenters. - Ryan Lane

"This was a triumph. I'm making a note here, huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction..." -GLaDOS - Eric Rice

I wonder. Considering my first comment (up two comments) and your blog post @RobertScoble - if the course of action is to just ignore it all. I mean - we are feeding the ego-flames here and I think Jason wants/knows it. Robert - considering it's just an "email" newsletter, why not drop Jason's new form of communication from your inbox? Especially if it's a cheap ploy. Would be a bold statement from you. - David Cohn

Like everything in life, Jason decision probably has pros and cons, but my personal feeling is that his going backward with this one, kinda like Facebook before they joined Dataportability... (conversations remains hidden inside) - Orli Yakuel

You can follow his emails on http://www.calacanismail.com - Frans

Is not Jason stil bloggin ? hmmmmm.. I mean micro bloggin when participating in convo /Sharing on FF :)- - Peter Dawson

Here's how it went down: Mrs. Calacanis: "Hunny, you're on the computer too much." ... Jason: "OK babe... I'll quit blogging" - Jimmy Gleason

Jason is still twittering, so isn't that essentially blogging? - Green Screen Cinema

No, that's microblogging and/or lifestreaming. :) - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Full Disclosure: I work for an email marketing team, I like email. That said, I don't think email is dead, but not the best channel for two way, one-to-many dialog when you have volume involved. If you limit your distribution and allow reply to, then email can spark some very intimate or insightful conversations between the sender and sendee(s). If you become a high-volume mailer, then... more... - Melinda

Paul Graham

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July 8, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

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