Eric Litman

I'd personally like to see developer fees to keep the crap away - Adam

The Top 100 free/paid lists would have to be replaced with something else. Maybe a Digg style system to get on the 'top' list? - Jim Bergman

2. Almost everyone on this list is a popular blogger. - Robert Scoble

3. There is a definite tech bent to this list. - Robert Scoble

4. In the first 100 I see only a handful of names that I didn't know a year ago. - Robert Scoble

5. Most of the people on this list have been to at least one conference or event I've attended in past year. - Robert Scoble

And yet the most of use don't really care about them... http://www.ffholic.com/Entries... - Johnny Worthington

So, lessons? 1. it's hard to get onto the top of the popularity lists and wasn't made easier when a new service came out. 2. such lists favor people who network their behinds off at physical events. 3. Participation in FriendFeed helps you move up a little bit, but only if you are both very active and throw interesting content into FriendFeed (like, say, Mona). What else do you learn by looking at this list? - Robert Scoble

Johnny: well, you might claim you don't care about them, but in aggregate I see that most of us follow people who are already popular, not people who actually participate. Of course, since FriendFeed is, at top, an aggregator, just putting your RSS feeds into here is participation, I guess. - Robert Scoble

We do subscribe to them, because they are beacons. But you also have to weigh that list by the amount of 'active' users who subscribe to them. I know of at least 5 people who are members here on FriendFeed, who subscribe to most if not all of the top 20 yet never come on here. The core group is what matters. Those who are recognizable names will always get more follows, but the core of the group http://www.ffholic.com/Users.a... is what drives it. Rankings are always skewed. - Johnny Worthington

I think part of this is that many people use FriendFeed as an aggregator. - Aram Zucker-Scharff via bTT

This list just looks like every top 100 for every mainstream (in tech) online service. It shows that in the main, the top 100 don't use friend feed but send feeds to it, I don't think that = participation, at all. - Kevin Dixie

Kevin: there is a participation effect, though. On Twitter Leo Laporte has twice the followers that I do, but not here. Why? The participation effect. I've gathered quite a few followers by participating here. - Robert Scoble

I agree - participation is key to any community see my example here (a userguide to my community) http://www.fuelmyblog.com/inde... Online has the very same rules as offline and glad you are showing that - Kevin Dixie

FriendFeed is far more of a 'community' than Twitter is, participating here counts for far more than almost anywhere else, however, participation (and how much you participate) is also a lot less visible here, in my opinion. FriendFeed (as a system) favors those who create content to import into the stream, not those who contribute to the community. - Aram Zucker-Scharff

The smart people (like you, Tina, Mona, and others) know better. The result is that being active on the community nets your rewards from the community itself, not the system. Is that a bad thing? - Aram Zucker-Scharff

Kevin : I disagree, when you are sending feeds in FF, you are pointing at us, poor human, what you find interesting. I think this is a kind of participation. Robert is doing that very well (too well ?). The only exception is twitter for me. I find it very hard to follow a twitter conversation here on friendfeed. - Olivier CASTETS

Good discussion. I interact and participate much more on FF than on Twitter. Why? Because FF is a much better tool for enabling engaging communication. I find myself being very careful conversing on Twitter because I feel it's easy to pollute the stream, whereas on FF you can do this without the same effects. - Mark Krynsky

The first thing I notice about the list is that NOBODY on FF has more than 20,000 subscribers. I reach more people through my blog on a regular basis. Is FF really all that influential? It does seem to be a great way to connect with the geek elite, but is that its only value? - Eric Hamilton

Is finally FF the blogging tool of the near future? You just posted one line and a link and the most interesting and remarkable thoughts and comments appeared in minutes from all over! - philos

well, he can drop the style, and be real, and come back to it one of these days .. - Gregory Lent

Steven, when your boss hired you, he knew what he was getting....Re Lyons, is it possible that this is an elaborate stunt? Lyons has been known to pull such stunts before. Probably unlikely, but one can hope. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Who? - Mona N.

It's hard to understand. I don't speak the language. But the people in the back are very interesting. Great vibe. - Robert Scoble

its @davidfeng - Web2Asia

@Web2Asia, sorry, I just copied Shel Israel. - Robert Scoble

Blame it on Shel :) - anna awesomesauce

you've been there a week, you'd think you'd speak fluently by now...jeez... - Zee from WeDoCreative

If you can't understand it then...ok, nevermind! - WorldofHiglet

Looks like someone should've invested some time with Rosetta Stone. - Akiva Moskovitz

any cool tech company addressing the language issue? seems like a huge opportunity to make this country and whats happening more accessible - simonpure