"How to match up internal search terms (i.e., terms that people searched for from your site's internal search feature) with the terms that people used to find your site in the first place." - Erik Dafforn
HOW quickly would Usain Bolt have run the 100 metres at the Beijing Olympics if he hadn't slowed in celebration before the finish line? A team of physicists have calculated an answer: the Jamaican gold medallist could have slashed his time from 9.69 seconds to 9.55 seconds. - Erik Dafforn
via Bookmarklet
When will we see the 9 second mark shattered? - John Lustina
I'll probably try to do it this weekend sometime. - Erik Dafforn
Good find Steve. But weird that the same thing happens with [obama bayh] and [obama clinton], etc. So I'm curious about how much of it is *reflective* of actual searches and how much is some sort of predictive algo improv... - Erik Dafforn
"...one of the rider's goals for the day was to eclipse 200 mph on the IMS front straight. Suzuki engineers said the bikes topped out at about 190 mph..." - Erik Dafforn
via Bookmarklet
I saw Eddie in December and he looked great for a regular 52-yr-old, but really great for a 52-yr-old chain-smoking rock star. Thin and ripped but not emaciated. His hair was (and is) very short, so these pix are, at a minimum, not current. Yes, I have an unusual need to defend him... - Erik Dafforn
Hi Josh, we are working on this bug right now. I apologize for it showing just a blank page. You are right, it will show you other Toluu users who are similar to you. - Caleb Elston
Noticed the same thing, good to hear it isn't just me, also good to hear it is being worked on! I can't wait to see who all the weirdos are I match up with. - Geoff Schultz
matching up with internet weirdos is always a fun way to kill time. - Josh Miller
Whew. Same here. This is much better news than what I inferred, which is, "No one is remotely similar to you." - Erik Dafforn
We will be posting about the update here and on the blog when it is done. We are also making some core changes so that the matches page loads 10-20x faster. - Caleb Elston
Hey Guys quick update. We just made the first upgrade to the matching backend system, so now your matches should be showing for all of you, and much faster for those who have many many feeds. Let me know if you see them! - Caleb Elston
One thing.. it would be awesome to get a "add" button under the user icons in the match results window (or really anywhere a large user icon appears). - Doug Brooks
Doug: Glad it is working better for you! And the 'add' idea is a great one, it is on our list. - Caleb Elston
working great. thanks for the follow up! - Erik Dafforn
Erik: No problem and I am glad it is now showing your matches. - Caleb Elston
Very nice blog! Us fathers do go the extra mile no matter what the embarasment.. Key in point walking out of Kung Fu Panda the other night with 1-year-old throw up all over me. - Chris Reed
awesome picture, by the way. (in the tub for some reason. dad looking kinda bored) - Ňicķ
Consider this a way too good to let it get buried bump - Michael W. May
thanks everyone! i should have had a caption for the picture: that's a pic my mom took after we walked around washington dc all day on the fourth of july and our feet were so blistered we had to soak them in the tub. - Ginger Makela
Great post, Ginger. I miss working with you, but I'm glad your time is freed up for reflections like these. - Tödd Nëmët
oh, Ginger. That was terrifying! But worth it. And I love the picture, too. I have thought about the embarrassment I would feel if I started choking or drowning somewhere public...but I am not sure if it occurred to me that everyone might be immobile with fear. scary. - edythe
In addition to everything else said here, your brother is clearly a badass. - Erik Dafforn
Very moving post... Dad's are amazing! I am annoyed by all those brain-frozen dummies working at Arby's - Susan Beebe
@directeur Chris means "we fathers", not U.S. fathers, I believe. - Anne Bouey
I pulled all of the Shared feeds from our staff and dumped them into a Yahoo Pipe, the result of which is our "Required Reading" feed. Now that GReader lets you leave a note (AND that they have a bookmarklet for pages you're visiting that are NOT in your reader), it's a very effective tool. - Erik Dafforn
It takes all kinds to make the world go round. - John Honeck
Indeed, John. But I think we already learned that by looking at our e-mail spam (and I learned that, too, by working on web spam for Google :P) - Adam Lasnik
I am a HUGE Bee Gees fan, and seeing Chewy hit "You Should Be Dancing" -- with a Jawa, no less -- took me right back to 1977-78 AND shows me that there's really no reason we can't all get along. - Erik Dafforn
Whoa. This Men's Health feature -- detailing the truth of what we may often put in our bodies -- is entertaining, informative, and downright sobering. Did you know, for instance, that eating the fried onion strings at Chili's is the recommended caloric equivalent of TWO WHOLE DAYS for a petite woman (or well over a recommended full-days worth of calories for a large guy)? I am not. touching. that. stuff. again! :o (equally shocking, by the way, is the nutritional info on many other sweet and savory favorites) - Adam Lasnik
the book is quite good and on amazon you can view the first dozen pages or so which gives you basic foods to eat each day. if you eat those, coupled with some protein, you'd have all the dietary needs your body requires. - Justin Long
I hate this article because my favorite Outback appetizer is the number 1 worst food in America. French fries + melted cheese + bacon + ranch. Yes it is disgusting. But Yes, it is french fries + melted cheese + bacon + ranch and it is fucking delicious. - Roshan Vyas
Sigh - why is the "worst" always the "best"? I mean, I know why - our bodies are set up to have once chased after our food - and to go a significant time without nourishment. Our bodies CRAVE calories and fat by design. The years of evolution did not, of course, take into account we'd one day mostly become sedentary creatures pounding away on keyboards. Our ancestors would have done well to be lazier :) - Vince DeGeorge
Calories can still be burned. I worry more for the preservatives, fillers, artificial crap, etc I take in; that's the stuff evolution or intelligent design never factored in ;) - Michael W. May
via twhirl
I'm glad MH didn't use the stock shots provided by the restaurants. They seemed to take pictures of the food they ordered which made those foods look completely unappetizing. - Erica Baker
It's no shock that, say, a Baskin Robbins dessert is bad for me. Duh :). What freaked me out was just how horrifically bad. e.g., the same amount of fat as *dozens* of strips of bacon, more calories than FIVE Big Macs, etc. - Adam Lasnik
You're home free at this point, for all intents and purposes. Most of the twins in my world - and for some reason there are several - were born from 32-34 weeks. And all are healthy and happy. So excited for you! Life is about to get very interesting for you guys. On that note, we should start a FF room for baby advice once they arrive. You may need a place to vent and ask opinions. - Carla Thompson
Nice! I'll add the first item to it as a christening. - Carla Thompson
Now the real question is, are we going to add the REAL parenting advice or just the stuff you tell first-time parents so as not to frighten them? - Cyndy
OMG, some of my favorite e-mails include Carla's "observations" after her first daughter was born. The room is a fantastic idea and you have to keep it "real." - Shellee
Shellee, in the interest of FriendFEED I think you should share them. Just for giggles. ;) - Cyndy
My general rule: before they're born, keep it polite and only share the nice stuff. After: all bets are off. It's honesty time. - Carla Thompson
You're about to witness a moment of happiness that is unmatched and indescribable. Think of winning the World Series, the lottery and Scrabble on Facebook all at the same time. ... That said, the best advice now is one word: Sleep. This weekend, no alarm clock - just sleep in. Spend the whole weekend in bed if need be. It will be ages before you do again. - Chris Reed
@Chris Please define "ages." Oldest is 8.5 and the only weekend I've spent in bed I was sicker than a dog and still had to drag boxes of cereal to the children. - Cyndy
@Carla and @Cyndy... bring it on. We can have fun with this. - Louis Gray
LOL Louis. I'm not sure... I've had friends tell me that conversations with me are effective birth control. - Cyndy
@Cyndy: Ages as in I think they have to age and leave the house, then you get to sleep again. - Chris Reed
Charlie makes a really good name - Boy or Girl ... :) - Charlie Anzman
Lots of twinnage here at FF!. Our boys were born @ 34 weeks, after 6 weeks of very scary hospital-based pre-term labor. Now they're almost 4 and I can't imagine life without them. To be honest, I remember about 8 minutes of their first 6 months. I agree with Chris Reed. Take a nap. Now. Not because you want to, but because you can. Once they arrive, try to eat right, because it will be very tempting not too, and you need a lot of resources to battle your imminent lack of sleep. - Erik Dafforn
I agree with the others here..take a nap. Right now. Once your twins arrive, you'll soon be posting on - 'What is this 'rest' you speak of?' :) - Mia
hmm.. at present you've got 143 comments and 162 likes this week. my prediction is after 20 days from now you never hit these numbers again. :) - Jeremy Toeman
My wife is 30 weeks pregnant with twin girls so we're getting closer too. And we have a 13 month old daughter. Yes, we are crazy. - Jason Dettbarn
@Jason Yes, yes, you are. Certifiable even. Although I have maintained since #2 that if ANY of our kids had ever made it to 2 without me being pregnant again, we'd only have one child. ;) - Cyndy
The only things I tell myself (to stay sane) is: we get through the next year or two we'll be golden; after this we're done having kids, so why not get it over now?!; they'll all be great playmates in a short time so we won't have to entertain as much... ahh, heck, who am I kidding? We are crazy. - Jason Dettbarn
Well, golden until the teenage years. Then I'll be taking up the shooting range as a hobby to scare off the boys. - Jason Dettbarn
Before our first was born, my wife had this thing: It would be two kids or four, no odd numbers (could have been from my being a middle child for a while). So after our first son was born, she said "2!" and I knew exactly what she meant. - Chris Reed
@Jason Ohohohoho. Hee hee hee. hoo. Sorry... I laughed til I cried. Four kids here in 3.5 years. Sorry to burst your bubble, but no, sir, you will not be "golden" in a "year or two." I look back on those days with three in diapers where some stayed where they were put with great longing. - Cyndy
@Cyndy and Jason: As I sat there last night, taking my eyes off of my 1.5 year old son for only seconds to watch a small snippet of the basketball game, only to find him seconds later pouring yogurt and milk all over the coffee table, the remotes, my lap, his lap, and the floor, I also longed for the days of waking up every three hours in the middle of the night to feed the monster, change the monster, and put him down again. "Hulk Smash" has nothing on "Toddler Smash." Still, I love every minute. - Rob Reed
@Cyndy delusional? maybe. but it's all I got left. ;-) What I mean was more getting used to the routine and actually having 3 kids, without going insane and destroying our relationship first. I think if we survive the first year or two, we'll be able to handle it no problem. Thanks for the insight! - Jason Dettbarn
"getting used to the routine and actually having 3 kids" Darnit, that was another hysterical laughing fit. And I think you made me wake up the only child who is actually napping! - Cyndy
Well, I guess I'll stop commenting here... sorry to hijack your comments Louis. Obviously every family of 3+ is exactly the same, so I should stop pretending things *might* be OK. - Jason Dettbarn
Sorry, Jason. Mine isn't the only big family I know and we unanimously agree that we lost our sanity LONG ago. My kids have friends in another family with 4 and two with 6 kids each and "ain't none of us right." - Cyndy
Hijack all you want. The thread's yours for the taking. I don't "own" the comments. :-) - Louis Gray
Good luck, Louis! My nephew just arrived last night (about 2-3 weeks ahead of "schedule") -- a healthy baby! - Andy Sternberg
"Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected." - Paul Buchheit
Wow. So if they made it so nobody with blue eyes could become a policeman and rejected everyone with blue eyes, that's not discrimination? - Robert Seidman
I think the key is that the intelligent are not a protected class. It's pretty funny that they automatically exclude people based on IQ tests though. - Paul Buchheit
Regardless of the legality of excluding smart people, wouldn't you be pissed if you lived in New London and you found out that they were actually turning away potential public servants because they were too smart? - Keith Pelczarski
@Keith - exactly. And bypassing the whole question of legality, I'd love to see the testing and rationale behind that policy. What is it about "smart" people that makes them bad police officers? - Erik Dafforn
They'll be promoted quickly and take the top jobs from the existing "leadership"? - Dan Hsiao
Brilliant ... discrimination against smart people cuz we don't want *those* guys protecting our country. They're too smart and won't eat donuts everyday! DOH! - Susan Beebe
Blue eyes are not a protected class either, but I'd be really interested to know how they legally justify that rejecting high intelligence is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ). - Logical Extremes
Interesting. I haven't read the article but my off-the-cuff guess would be that the police dept don't want people who are too smart or clever.. a lot of police jobs are insanely boring and perhaps invite the sort of techniques you see in the movie "training day" - Phil Glockner
The City of New London contends that applicants who score too high on a pre-employment test are likely to become bored in patrol jobs, and leave the force soon after the city has paid to train them. Similar cutoffs, it turns out, are frequently used by employers when they are looking for workers who must follow rigid procedures, including bank tellers, customer service representatives and security guards. http://tinyurl.com/5t2jbz - silpol
Oh man, this opens the door for discussion of police intellect. - TranceMist
I think they will it's just a matter of time. It's already happening on Facebook and Myspace. With the amount of growth FF has had, I'm sure the time is near. It will take one major brand to be the catalyst. - Mike Fruchter
The thing with social media is that it takes a presence and continuing effort. My guess is that most companies will have trouble getting over their core marketing instincts. Press releases, ads, planned events with a defined duration, employee turnover and quarterly results changing the marketing approaches. Becoming a "presence" on places like FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is really different for them. - Hutch Carpenter
Hutch, great post. I totally agree that this is going to require brands to change how they think -- to get out of the broadcast + "campaign" mindset -- that social media "marketing" is going to be, as you said, a continuing effort. - Ginger Makela
Let me echo Ginger's comments -- very nicely written. Agree that *sustaining* an effort and jumping into the conversation without fear and paranoia seems to be the hard part. I just don't think that most non-tech corporate hierarchies are cut out for that (yet) -- even in marketing, which is traditionally a little more experimental. You also need a company that isn't afraid to venture into a realm that isn't *instantly* measurable. Too few of those. - Erik Dafforn
Friendfeed still has less than 0.1% the traffic of Facebook or MySpace. Anyway, I thought hired shills ("viral marketers") were (seriously) current best practice for social media marketing. - ⓞnor
jacksonfish.com -- I am there right now and they get it. Watch for them to participate soon. They have one of the top designers in the world working for them. - Robert Scoble
oooo. jacksonfish.com looks super cool. - Ginger Makela
@Ginger - thanks! You said it right: broadcast + campaign is what it's all about today. - Hutch Carpenter
@Robert - Jackson Fish Market has to be one of the coolest agencies out there - I love looking at their work. - Steven Hodson
@Erik - and the the thing is, it really only takes a couple of employees to get started in this. For companies with 10,000+ employees, it seems to have a fairly low hurdle to get going. The employees would have to be well trained, understand the different facets of the company's business, and have the temperament to participate. - Hutch Carpenter
@ⓞnor - True, true. FriendFeed doesn't yet rank with the big boys in traffic. But maybe that makes it a good place to get your feet wet. As for the viral marketing specialists - I'd guess they are more about maximizing the YouTube/Digg/StumbleUpon worlds, less about interacting with the market. Right? - Hutch Carpenter
@Robert - I think it'd be fun to see a company engaging folks here. If you know jacksonfish.com is on FF, let everyone know. - Hutch Carpenter
I was just looking at Coldplay tickets on Ticketmaster .... $94.50, $74.50 and $46.50 are the three tiers... that's before Ticketmaster's outrageous convenience charges. brutal. - Frankie Warren
I can't even hear the word "Coldplay" without thinking of Chris Martin's appearance on "Extras" and him wanting to get home because "Gwyneth's making drumsticks." Then I start to giggle and look around to make sure no one's listening. - Erik Dafforn
I just wanted to thank Ana for posting this now that it has been stuck in my head for 3 hours. Thanks a lot Ana! - Geoff Schultz
I refuse to listen to Colplay because Chris stole Gwyneth from me. - Mike Yang
I guess I'm not cool, but I have no problems with Coldplay - Viva la Vida is a catchy enough song - I just don't think the Roman Cavalry had a lot of choirs marching with it... - Frederic
The uncool part comes in with the emo crowd. For old farts like me, they are to the current emo crop what Green Day was to us old school punk rockers. They sold out. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Had Viva la Vida going through my ipod during my vacation and it is awesome. Always hated how some folks claim a band "sells out" after they achieve success. Let me see you go without a salary for a while. - Chris Reed
@rizzn - tell you how much I'm out of touch with the music scene - I didn't even know Coldplay was considered emo... - Frederic
As a capitalist, the only band I criticized for selling out was Rage Against the Machine (or as I like to call them "Snorting Rails of Coke With the Machine Off the Back of a $2000 an Hour Hooker"). Communists can't earn that much money and remain true to their values. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
This conversation may be the first time I've felt compelled to hide one of my own entries :) - Ana
the only issue is the link to an apple commercial...i love apple (and coldplay), but i keep thinking apple commercial when i hear the song. is that bad? - Pokai
Pokai, I'm the same way with U2's Vertigo. Every time I hear that song I have a sudden urge to buy an iPod. I surrender to Apple's marketing department. - Mark Trapp
