Most coveted job title on Earth right now, huh? So, now you're on the squad, what's the minimum bribe to get you gushing forth to the guys on the merits of being able to tag our own (or each others) posts? - Slippy Lane
Congratulations!! Smart move by FriendFeed. :) - felix
I want to "like" your last comment, Paul :) - Eric Florenzano
Also, should they be proud of the fact that her 17-year-old daughter is getting married? To me, it seems like "making a second mistake", but perhaps most people will see it as "taking responsibility"? - Paul Buchheit
Paul, I agree. This is interesting. I won't vote for McCain, but I find her and her story fascinating. The latest dirt says she was part of a secessionist movement? I read George Patton's auto-biography years ago, and he said when he was LT. he wanted to win the political game and he did by doing and saying things that got people talking. Simple, right? But hard to do without controversy. She certainly has people talking. It helps McCain becaus he is a boring old curmudgeon. He isn't interesting. Palin is. - Steve Olson
The Beltway Boys, of whatever persuasion, are quivering in their shoes. They're used to dealing with lobbyists and other Hill creatures, not armed Alaskans. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Initially, the media does seem to like her. - Clare Dibble
a wild card is great thing for politics, somethings need to be shook up every so often - clarke thomas
Well, the stuff being mentioned so far isn't going to be the big problem... The story starting to hit the mainstream press tomorrow about her being a former member of an Alaska political group whose goal is the secession of Alaska from the USA and formation as its own country is going to be a problem... I expect she'll be gone by Wednesday. - Jason Carreira
Total Sarah Palin weirdness: few folks seem to have yet noticed: in order to beat down rumors that Sarah Palin had been covering for her daughter's pregnancy, Sarah Palin announced to the world that her daughter is pregnant! Think about it. Just at the point when those who had been looking into the pregnancy rumors were feeling soiled and backing off, Sarah Palin put the issue in play for the entire world. This story just keeps getting weirder and weirder. (And what is even weirder still is that the rumors about the original pregnancy story still haven't been put to rest, and probably won't be until the official medical records are released to the press.) - Sean McBride
I doubt her motivation was to distract from the DailyKOS diary story/smear. Why would someone even respond to that anyhow? Probably more preemptive since someone was bound to find out. - Peter Simard
No, Peter -- the Palin campaign explicitly said that they were responding to the original pregnancy rumors when they released the news about the current pregnancy. Bizarre! That is what really caught my attention -- they took the rumors very seriously and felt enormous pressure from the Internet. Why didn't Sarah Palin release official medical records to put down the rumors instead of moving her daughter front and center into the spotlight? Think about it. - Sean McBride
It's impossible to hide something like that when running for president Sean. It appears that the story was already coming out before they announced it: http://www.jdunderground.com/t... - Paul Buchheit
http://tinyurl.com/6d67p5 "Adding to the day's drama, McCain aides said the announcement was aimed at rebutting Internet rumors that Palin's youngest son, born in April, was actually her daughter's.... Sarah Palin's fifth child, a son named Trig, was born in April with Down syndrome. Internet bloggers have been suggesting that the child was actually born to Bristol Palin but that her mother, the 44-year-old Alaska governor, claimed to be the mother. Palin spokesman Bill McAllister emphatically denied those rumors, and McCain adviser Mark Salter said the campaign announced the daughter's pregnancy to rebut them." - Sean McBride
understand your pt Sean but bottomline she was not going to be able to hold the baby in front of her stomach but for so long. By releasing it when they did in the midst of the focus on the storm, they are hopeful it will come and go as a news story. As there are several other questions about Palin, they likely will get their wish. - Ruth Ferguson
Damn, you can't make up stuff as strange as this. - Sean McBride
Ruth -- bottom line: by their own admission, they used Bristol to rebut the original rumor in a way that put the public spotlight on her. Can you think of any reason why Sarah Palin didn't instead rebut the rumor by releasing the relevant medical records about herself? - Sean McBride
hey don't get me wrong, she does not earn mother of the year award in my opinion...LOL - Ruth Ferguson
Back to secession - I'm sure there are a lot of libertarian-types who would love to secede from the US and its "big bloated" government. And some (non libertarian) cities have already partially seceded from the US, proclaiming their intent to only follow certain US laws and not others. Come to think of it, this is also happening at the state level (re the fights between California and the Feds over medical marijuana). - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
@Paul B. For one, states, except Texas, can't secede. Entry in to the Union is a one way ticket. Some may argue that but the Civil War pretty much settled the question of secession. Texas is exempt because it was part of the deal they made when they joined the Union. At the time TX was a republic and the retained the right to leave the Union if they choose to. - Peter Simard
Peter, Texas seceded with the rest of the Confederacy. What were the conditions of its readmission? I'm wondering if it still has the right to secede. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
And, for what it's worth, the US didn't have the right to secede from the UK either. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Ontario - we didn't secede, we had a revolution against oppressive tyranny. :) - Peter Simard
To quote Ben Franklin: Revolution is always illegal in the third person. Such as they rebel. It is only legal in the first person. Such as I rebel. - Paul via twhirl
Secession is a problem because VP is the second highest position in the land, and you're sworn to uphold the Constitution and protect the Union. An "Alaska First" secessionist movement is treasonous to the USA. - Jason Carreira
For Palin seccession is a problem because the Republican's continually want to paint anyone disagrees with them as traitors or anti-American. - Paul via twhirl
Secession is a problem for Palin because the vast majority of Americans think it is extreme and associate it with slavery and the Confederacy. I don't. But I am well aware that I do not hold mainstream opinions. - Steve Olson
No, I just said 1st Season of Voyager > 1st Season of TNG ('coz that's all the TNG I've seen!) - Yuvi
@Eric: I'm honestly on the fence between the two. If this had come up last year, though, you might have had to unfollow me, too, since I used to unconditionally like VOY above all else. - Voyagerfan5761
I'm impressed you survived after such a massive overdose of Jar Jar, sorry, Neelix. - atzmon
@atzmon: I object! Neelix is cool. Jar Jar Binks is no comparison at all. - Voyagerfan5761
I have no idea of Jar Jar Binks, but Neelix is pretty cool. He is made cooler by the fact that according to the story, he bought Kes on board... :P - Yuvi
I just wished people would stop calling it a "feature". Until there's a big button that says "Fake Follow"- it's a loophole, if anything at all. - Paul Reynolds
nay, i like the binary idea of friends or not friends. there should be no reason for FakeFriends on FriendFeed. I actually take it a step further. I subscribe to those that I want to be Friends with. There are many metrics that i use to justify the subscription. In my mind I think that the feeling should be mutual. I give her/him 3 days to reciprocate. If this does not transpire, I unsubscribe. The reverse is also true. If someone subs to me, I immediately go to their feed. If we are a match I reciprocate.. - Carlos Ayala
if all i see are twitter entries, for instance, i do not subscribe. - Carlos Ayala
I think that term needs to die and 'grouping' should be spun in a more positive fashion. Efficiently Managing Content to Interact with Your Community, type spiel. But then again, I'm not a Social Media expert :) - Mona N.
awesome post, Mike! You sure put some thought into the idea. - Tim Hoeck
What if you're removed from the main Friend feed but included in one or more groups that are regularly checked? A better metric of your relevance to followers is some weighted calculation of likes (ok), click-throughs (good), and comments (great). - Amir Gharaat
I should add, your ratio of posts to follower engagement should be considered in the metric. Also, your posts about knitting may be highly relevant to the target audience, but your barrage of Lolcats are largely ignored. How will semantic analysis address these? - Amir Gharaat
Good stuff, Mike. I think everyone is well aware of my stance on the issue. Why waste energy faking it? - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
Agree with Tim (Did I say that :) The whole concept is out of control and always has been. There will always be two groups. Those looking for value (and/or fun) and those looking to 'establish a base'. Digg has made numerous attempts to stop it. It continues. Bottom line. Why worry? Do what's right for you. PS: Just tried FriendVenn for the first time. Very helpful categorizing with the new Beta! - Charlie Anzman
agree w/ paul - not a feature but rather a loophole - the concept alone is so small minded, i personally could care less about any of my counts/stats but i do know some folks do, their prerogative of course, but if they have to game the system by fake following that's just lame - as for notifying when unsub'g sure, but then lets also notify when blocked and send a real msg... - mike "glemak" dunn
Mike, I agree with sending notifications to people when unfollowing and blocking. Instead of a canned email,
we should have ability to add a message with the notification. With the usage of unfollow notifications, one could use this as feedback to increase the quality of their postings and learn what caused that individual to unfollow them in the first place. - Mike Fruchter
I like the idea of a pause button. Perhaps with a timeout? And I send Mikes iea above. - Roberto Bonini
except for trolls & spammers mike, they are the uneducatable scum of the online world - for them vaporization is best imho :-p - mike "glemak" dunn
I'm a little late on this one, but NAY NAY NAY. Specifically for FriendFeed, I've written up how I pick my subscriptions (http://blog.justinkorn.com/ind...) and I stick by it. Subscribe to those that provide you information you are interested in. If someone subscribes to you, do them the favor of checking out their feed, but I don't think you should be obligated to subscribe back. - Justin Korn
As for the unsubscribe notice, I'm all for it, as long as you can turn it off if you are uninterested. - Justin Korn
Does anyone have any ideas on how this could be implemented with jQuery? I could do it with letter count, but without a monospaced font its bound to be inaccurate. - Eric Florenzano
I think I figured it out. scrollHeight, scrollLeft etc. to the rescue. - Eric Florenzano
nice improvements Paul & Co. - feedback seems positive so far - Zee at WeDoCreative
It all looks very well thought out, i like it a lot - sergiooo
looks good. I like the different classifications of "friends"... and the imaginary friend is pretty sweet in a kinda stalkerish kind of way - Scott Lockhart
Steve, it should auto-refresh the same as the old interface. - Paul Buchheit
my first thought was "holy FaceBook convergence!" Other than that, I like it a lot, much cleaner & easier to navigate. Particularly like the friend classifications, easy link sharing, and access to rooms. - Jonathan Tang
Great design. Sidebar is awesome.It is definitely going to increase the usability of groups.It is a great idea to present feeds of someone’s subscriptions as a part of the profile page. This will help to discover new people. - Kerem Ozkan
well I was only off by about two weeks LOL - Steven Hodson
Looks great! I'm a big fan of the new friends categories - huge value-add for me. I'm disappointed, however, that there is no easy way to discover rooms. Any chance the FF team is working to surface rooms better? - Andrei M. Marinescu
"Haha, I'm not going to lie: this submission was a bit of an experiment. I do genuinely like the idea of Rabbiter, but usually my submissions get lost in the shuffle. This time I was sure to make the title provocative enough to get some attention :)" - Eric Florenzano
"Haha, I'm not going to lie: this submission was a bit of an experiment. I do genuinely like the idea of Rabbiter, but usually my submissions get lost in the shuffle. This time I was sure to make the title provocative enough to get some attention :)" - Eric Florenzano
"What's your pathetic, cheap CLICK BAIT bullshit title all about?? Cashing in on the popularity of the iPhone (even with 7 or 8 videos at a time!) just to peddle your low-end crap, ridiculously touting is as some potential comparison to the iPhone's interface??! LOL! How utterly ludicrous!" - Tad - just Tad via Bookmarklet
I'm still debating the Strands thing. I just signed up for Rejaw. We will see. - Kyle Lacy
Rejaw: no comment. Strands: it's a FriendFeed/SocialThing/SecondBrain clone with groups built-in and trending features. Those features are neat, but the UI is really busy and the refresh is slow. - Mark Trapp
Tell me abou it Shey...I genuinely am starting to lose it. - Zee at WeDoCreative
I agree on the UI being busy. It was hard for me to use the system at first. - Kyle Lacy
it has groups...damn, i gotta go check that out again... :) - Zee at WeDoCreative
I do not like Strands at all whatsoever. I don't see the point. I think I feel about Strands the way a lot of people feel about Rejaw, although I think Rejaw is awesome. And there, folks, is how you tie it all up at the end..LOL - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
Shey - Rejaw I just liked .. period. Strands I just literally did because I liked what Duncan Riley said about Drew (and I think it's totally friekin' ridiculous that Louis feels the need to put a disclaimer/disclosure on his site now. So, I done it out of principle :) ... but feel the same way you do. This is way outa control ! - Charlie Anzman
Rejaw is pretty nice in that it does not bore the daylights out of me, Strands not so much. - Simian DA (Amber)
same here. Gave Rejaw a shot - liked it, bit more low-tech conversations it seems, but... anyway, Strands i'm not even gonna look at. - Peter Efland via twhirl
I would recommend at least looking at Strands. It has some cool features that the other sites haven't utilized. Check out Louis Gray's breakdown of Strands: http://www.louisgray.com/live/... - Kyle Lacy
these new social apps are popping up way too quickly to give any of them a fair shake...and all of them are thirsty for a critical mass of new users. so, do you abandon the app you just signed up for last week to try the new one? it's getting too hard to keep up with all of the new stuff that's launching, let alone join them and evaluate them properly. dayamm! - .LAGizmoto
To really take off, they need a bunch of users. But the more sites that pop up, the more fragmented the user base gets. Good to be either (1) early, like Twitter; or (2) Really head and shoulders above everyone else. - Hutch Carpenter
Have we reached critical mass? :) Even for social media nerds? - Kyle Lacy
Kyle: the rule of thumb is more than 30-50k users; estimates put FriendFeed at about 75-100k users. - Mark Trapp
I meant' critical mass for US the users.. not necessarily the amount of users.. I have reached BRAIN critical mass - Kyle Lacy
I have been in Hesitant Adopter mode for a while. I'm not saying I won't try new things at all, but I am becoming exhausted by the profusion of web services and pressure to migrate to the next Shiny Object. - Chris Baskind
Totally agreed. Seems like copies of other things, with slight value add. I don't need value add for FriendFeed, specifically...I want value subtract, if anything. - Eric Florenzano
I think if you really want to have staying power, either 1) you have to do something that nobody else comes close to doing, or at least nobody with a big user base does, and that something needs to satisfy a pressing need for people online, or 2) your tool needs to come out precisely when people are most dissatisfied with the tool you're attempting to replace. FriendFeed and Facebook are examples of these two principles. The rest are just going to get a small, loyal follower base and never really hit mainstream. - Mark Trapp
Shey, the Rejaw room on FF is a good place to start, since a lot of the information and discussions are consolidated there :) Im sure there is a Strands room , somewhere, and LG also did a piece on it. I WOULD link you, however I don't have copy and paste :p Guess what I'm FFing to go from? ;) - Mona N. via fftogo
Strands makes me feel limited. I can't explain it. maybe the UI, but I feel like I'm in a box. I also got bored of following people, they should make that easier. New services should not make you visit a profile just to add someone. I may try it again, but it made my stomach hurt so I'm taking a break..LOL - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
actually, rejaw is the better of the strictly microblogging platforms, but it came too late to the party... when it comes down to it, it's got 2 major strong points - 1) real time updates, 2) a team of developers that is listening to its users and responding to them quickly. - Lucretia Pruitt
@Kyle, I consider it a challenge, and it's fun. Part of the idea is also two-fold: You don't know which service will win in the end, so it makes sense to participate if you can, and secondly, if conversations are happening around your content, you should be there, whether it's any of these sites, or Twitter, Shyftr, etc. - Louis Gray
Good point Louis but still (being humble aside) you have social media powers. - Kyle Lacy
@Kyle, I guess there's also a sense of responsibility. I believe I was the first to cover Social Median back in April, and I haven't seen Strands discussed anywhere else either (though it probably has been). When I get the opportunity to debut a site, I can get over-engaged. I wasn't the first to FriendFeed, but early on, I was one of those who saw its potential early... and look what happened. :-P - Louis Gray
The difference is our recommendation technology. It's the core of everything we do, and we want to help you use it to find cool stuff and cool people. - drew olanoff
Ah, I guess if I thought people were talking about my stuff somewhere, I'd want to be there. - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
I have had a Strands beta account for almost 3 months now. I think the interface has a polished look, but is very chock full of stuff like most have said. Considering the fact that it sounds like many of you are trying it out now it might be as quiet around there as it has been. Don't forget to download the STrands Tracker app that goes along with it. Thats definitely something unique amongst the competition. - Adam Helweh
Adam is right about Strands Tracker. It's pretty good, and ties into the Mac OS X menubar. - Louis Gray
download software? Like...directly onto my harddisk? What is this, 1997?! - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
For me if it's not much extra regular work to maintain it then I'll try it out. For Rejaw it just another one of these micro-blogging sites that I can add to Ping.fm or Helloxt (please?). As for Strands, I joined more for the Strands Tracker to see what that is about. On top of my keen interest in photography I'm also a huge fan of music and hope this tracker will add to Last.fm in the recommendations department. We'll see. Not much effort to join up to all these new services, so worth a go IMHO. :-) - Kol Tregaskes
Fine, signed up for Strands. Rejaw, we'll see. - Shey
I have a piece of paper with nearly 70 logins and passwords to various social web 2.0 sites. 68 of them I don't use anymore. Unless I get a really good reason to add ANOTHER one I'm out. - Jason Kaneshiro
I've had this idea for a while, but didn't have a good project idea to demonstrate. I'm probably 30% of the way through coding the site itself, and once that's finished I'll begin recording the screencasts about how you could do it. Needless to say, everything will be free and open source. - Eric Florenzano
