Fast Company

رونوشت به میلاد :D :D - Maryam Ardakani

my no.1 rule -- stay away from liquor & cigarettes! - Cee Bee

my no.1 rule -- eat Organic and natural foods.! - Mahdi Ebrahimi

مريم :)))))))))))))))))))))) رونوشت به ويدا - Mil∂d

My mom didn't drink. Ate super healthy. Worked out. Etc. Died at 66. I figure I am going to have fun with my life. - Robert Scoble

I agree, Robert. Let's have fun :) - Baard Overgaard Hansen

has anyone ever eaten an unorganic food? The term "organic food" has always been a bit of a silly one in my eyes >.< but yeah, when death calls it calls. you could be 17 or 170, the key is to have enjoyed your time here and experienced as much as you can before the clerk is free calls your number. BTW, who here thinks that St Peter should have joined a union.. being a bouncer 24/7 for eternity is a poor deal! - alphaxion

I think that the bubble effect works well if you have subscribed to just a few people but I would think that if you have thousands of "friends" then it would be almost impossiable to keep up. I did like the idea that somebody suggest of being able to tag some of you friends as real and then either giving them higher priority or creating another tab with just their feeds in. - John Cooper

Forgiven ... for now. - Charlie Anzman

Good point, Robert, I would filter out "iPhone". - Ryo

When TiVoing the Olympics and not wanting to read spoilers, I'd filter out Olympics, Phelps, etc. - JD Lasica

the true leading edge simply doesn't need to be here, or facebook, etc. - i would like to see discussion around an idea all in one place, not here, then over at louisgray, plus what i missed at dave winer ... - Gregory Lent

I agree a keyword filter would be great, and it should be reasonable to implement a feature like that. As for the bubbling, I'd like to keep that for me. - Thomas Frütel

the true leading edge doesn't have a community, as there are very few who are there - clarke thomas

if they only displayed items that inky had 2 or more likes, or at least one comment, then no one would see anything, since in order for it to appear, it needs to be liked. In order to be liked, it needs to appear. - Andru Edwards

I think Robert (and the rest o'yaz) are right that better filtering is needed. I know noiseriver and some others are working on this (and of course the FF team.) Would be great to "weight" people, services, and keywords... - Anthony Citrano

Some of you apparently need a "Web Service of the Month Club" membership. ;) - abacab

Filtering and chronological sorting, setting like tolerances is all possible with the current API. Adding data to people (like weights) would requires a database. I think it would be cool to have a 2 column layout, the left column in true chronological order and the right with standard "bubbled up" content. - Paul Reynolds

Bubbling is essential to maintain a conversation. Without it, everything becomes even more ephemeral. Just hide what you're done with. - Logical Extremes

Robert - I found this item through Google Reader (I subscribe to Friendfeed - Best of Day, which I flow to my A feeds folder). Because of the noise and information overload issue, I've pretty much given up trying to use Friendfeed by browsing from http://friendfeed.com/ - Sean McBride

@Scoble - sounds like mioNews might do what you want if I could just get the relevance ranking engine turned back on. It is designed to auto-filter out the stuff you've "hated" in the past and bring up to the top the stuff you've liked in the past. - Patrick Lightbody via mioNews

Allowing you an *option* to rate your contacts on a 1-10 scale and then allowing a best of hour, day, week, month incorporating these ratings into the algorithm would at a minimum produce an alternative "best of." And probably more relevant than relying only on social metadata (likes, comments) alone. This tool could also be used for custom filtering certain subsets of contacts as well. Eg. Show me content from all contacts rated 6 or higher, etc. - Thomas Hawk

I love it more than ever. Last week though, I did do some artful pruning of my subscriptions, and that has toned up my experience. Agree strongly with the request for friend grouping and friend weighting. Vital. In my opinion this functionality is FriendFeed's "fire alarm" and it's what they need to implement soon to balance things out. - Steve Isaacs

friendfeed is just passing notes in class, and about as fulfilling, you can find out who you want to meet out in the parking lot later. - Gregory Lent

If enough users begin to filter out items based on the number of comments and/or the number of likes, how would anyone see anything at all? Everything would be filtered out and nothing would get through. What am I missing here? I understand filtering certain types of content (e.g., Twitter, etc.) but I don't understand filtering based on the number of comments or likes. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl

You just can't treat FriendFeed like Twitter, subscribe to a massive number of people, and expect a good experience. Although I like the ideas that Robert suggested, and would like to see them implemented, I also think that the best way to control the noise, at least for now, is through thoughtful subscriptions. FriendFeed currently remains for me now what Yahoo! was for me in 1996: the center of the web. - Akiva Moskovitz

Gregory: there would still be those of us who like seeing all the noise and "liking" the best of it. - Robert Scoble

Robert, that's a good point. I guess I would be one wanting to see the noise for fear of missing something no one else thought was valuable. For now any way. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl

And use rooms effectively. They can be a great asset if the right people join and participate - Deepak

While the FF UI is far from perfect at this point, it's pretty annoying to hear a certain class of people who incessantly whine about how they suffer from information overload when they subscribe to thousands of people. Allow me to humbly suggest that the problem *isn't* some deficiency in the UI, but rather the problem is that *you subscribe to thousands of people*. The unmanageable noise level is your own fault. - Eric P

The biggest feature for me would be to auto-detect and merge the multiple posts about the same article... Make the new submission a like or comment on the original, but keep it all in one place. - Jason Carreira

Eric, I wouldn't go so far as to say that 'you're doing it wrong'. Those use cases are valid ones. You can't design a customer-facing product and then demand that they only use it within a strict set of guidelines. FriendFeed needs to mature to handle the Scobles of the world as well as the Moskovitzes. Although I think that subscription maintenance is part of the process, at least for now, I don't think that wanting the product to fit your personal use case is call to accuse anyone of 'whining'. - Akiva Moskovitz

Eric -- at the moment I am subscribed to 78 people (not thousands) (and have 117 people subscribed to me). The problem is fine-tuning the stream to push the best *combinations* of people, topics, links and comments to the top of my queue. So far I am relying on Google Reader to try do the job. When Robert Scoble remarks, "I've noticed that I'm getting tired of it too," perhaps one should listen and understand. - Sean McBride

Keyword filter is essential. Meanwhile, keep FF #'s low. - Malcolm Gault-Williams

I have a problem with only wanting to see items that are liked. Then you only see top 10ers. If I have something to contribute, you may never see it. Kind of turns it into Digg. I like the fact that it's easy to see smaller conversations easily. Filters for keywords would be nice, though. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Sure Friendfeed could continue to evolve and improve its service. However, I would posit a theory that perhaps the "shiny newness" of it all is wearing off. It is the problem with the echo chamber, it is too hard to stick to the new services when it takes so much time to play with new things coming out in a torrid pace. Sure some will disagree with me but I think this contributes to it to a great extent. - Lou Paglia

I was using it a lot less lately myself and wondering the same thing. I've unsubscribed from a lot of the social net noise and found that this has freshened up the experience a lot. - Nick Munson

What Nick said. I think it's a much more interesting place if you avoid those who are FFing about FF and so on. - Anthony Citrano

I think it's Shiny Object syndrome, too (not referring directly to Robert here). FF has been slow on releasing new features. Some overhaul of the interface and taking up the many suggestions forwarded by its most active users would be a well-timed move. - Chris Baskind

Too much noise on Friendfeed, and by the time I get around to replying to it, the conversations are over. - Francine Hardaway

Francine: how can the conversation be over if you have something to say? - Brian Sullivan

I still really like FriendFeed, but when you are busy doing many things, it is harder to keep up with the key discussion items and people you need to follow the most. I think FF will find ways of making this easier in time. I find I need breaks from all socnets periodically to keep my life and focus in balance. The breaks help prevent "Shiny Object Syndrome" and fatigue.;-) - Cathryn Hrudicka

@francine: two things cut down on the FF noise for me: 1) i 'like' all of the threads i find interesting, and then go to the 'ME' tab to keep up with them or comment on them later; 2) i 'hide' everything that's not of interest. - .LAG

Firstly, no one should need to apologize that they are using a website or not. Really! Anyway, I've always likened FF to chat, and I'm not a big fan of chat rooms. Something about FF seems to emphasize the immediate. I think this is what Francine refers too. There are some vauable nuggest of info, but I'm really not seeing the same richness of 'conversation' I find in blogs and blog comments. I think the non-linear exchanges between blogs (and occasionally in blog comments) tends to generate more thoughtful (and more valuable) exchanges. That sums up why I've been neglecting FF. - bernie

Few years ago I was consulting for ENI, one of the biggest energy group in the world and they used to have economists and of course a chief economist. I know in Fiat group they have economists roles too. Banks and financial services are also common employers for economists roles. - Marcello Del Bono

A very interesting article. I think Google will be much bigger than Microsoft in a very small amount of time. - Toby Graham

Alot of large companies have legions of economists on the payroll. Generally speaking the job is to estimate the state of the home market and pinpoint the best foreign markets. The job is brilliant because it involves sorting through data, but awful because it involves attending lots of meetings and powerpoint presentations..sorry, got a little sidetracked - Cains

Toby, Google has a LONG way to go to overtake MSFT. In FY2007, Microsoft had revenues of $51 billion, compared to Google's $16 billion, with operating income of $18 billion compared to $5 billion. The only measure by which you can put the two in the same league is column inches on blogs :) - Ian Betteridge

In other words: Microsoft makes more in profits than Google makes in revenues. - Ian Betteridge

Another place Google excels over MS: a far more adept Corp Comm group. - Sprague D

Ian: Yeah, but Microsoft's been around for much longer than Google, and Google's caught up that far in this relatively short period. - Brent Newhall

Some thoughts on the article and a pattern at the NYT: http://www.ratdiary.com/2008/0... - Sprague D

Brent: Quick growth like that isn't actually as unusual as you might think. For example, Apple grew from a $1 billion business to a $10bn one in the ten years John Sculley was CEO. Google has grown to $18bn in 12 years. Google is riding a fast-growing market - but how far will online advertising expand? Will it continue to dominate that market, when there's no "lock in" (as there is in the software market)? There's too many questions to say that Microsoft will be beaten by Google any time soon. - Ian Betteridge

Ian: Oh, certainly agreed; I don't think Google's going to beat MS's market share or earnings any time soon. Just saying that Google has grown quite far, quite fast, and if the trend continues, things will be interesting. Of course, trends rarely continue. - Brent Newhall

I didn't see anything new in the NYT article but it confirms what I already thought - "winner takes all" on the Internet Front. I suppose the only thing, now, that can stop Google, is, perhaps, the Internet, itself, collapsing - something that's not that likely. - Marshall Sponder

To me the key point of the article--and the most meaningful difference between MS and Google--is the former coerces to achieve its network effects while the latter co-opts. This reveals a more fundamental difference in world view: negative versus positive sum. - lang davison

“You have to be big and bad, not just big.” time will tell if Google goes past MS profits. But the article raises an interesting question about the behavior of big companies. Hard to tell which direction Google will go, especially if the global economy darkens. Morals hold pretty well in good times; not so sure during the bad. Temptation is perennial. - phil baumann

@ paul: I agree. The thing is that in these perilous ecomomic times we now live in, Google cannot easily consolidate like outher industries would to help them get over the worse.Google may well arrive at the point that it cannot continue as it is. - Roberto Bonini

In all those emails subpoenaed from Microsoft, are there several stating "say, let's all apply the network effect today!"? I just have trouble believing that either company was premeditated about this network effect during their first 5 or 10 years. Its just economists analyzing it long after the fact. Microsoft is arrogance, bluster, and jumping up and down on stage. Google instead has something called "execution". Versus the 5 years Microsoft spent on Vista, for which the word is "train wreck". - Indio Apache

Seems like a puff piece. The author has clearly not read "Linked" by Albert-László Barabási (one of the world's leading experts on network effects). On page 103 (you can read the preview on Amazon), Barabási compares Google and Microsoft. He says Google exhibits the behavior of a "fit get rich" network, in which the fittest node becomes the biggest hub. "The winner's lead is never significant, however." - Karim

Barabási then describes a second type of network, "winner takes all," in which the fittest node grabs ALL the links (star topology), and behaves like a Bose-Einstein condensate. "And there is a network in which we cannot fail to notice one node that carries the signature of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The node is called Microsoft." - Karim

There are many ways of being paid - Fast Company

Robert lies -- he is interested in everything - Brian Sullivan

If this were not an accusation then why use the word "pimp"? Connotes negativity inmho. - James

Hey Robert - is FriendFeed user "Fast Company" yours or actual account for Fast Co? Just checkin before I add. kthxbai. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I dont get it...? Just because someone is popular and likes something and others like it too because it is actually useful and valuable, where does pimping enter into it...? One can smell pimping and shameless shilling a mile off, if you can't, well then, get off my lawn!!! - Mario Olckers

Mario: I'm all with you... until "my lawn", there I wonder - directeur

It's more like Scobe says "this is cool" and we all wonder what he's seeing that we aren't. - Justin Whitaker

The"Fast Company" account on FriendFeed is not owned by someone at Fast Company, nor is it run by me. When I say I have "no interest" in FriendFeed, I'm talking about financial interest. Obviously it interests me greatly. - Robert Scoble

I doubt it. Credibility would be gone in a flash if that kind of thing was going on.FF is just an interesting evolution of RS's sphere of interest - john conroy

Isn't it possible that he just really likes it? Why the cynicism? - Chris Johnson

By the way, I do have a FriendFeed sticker on my cell phone and I was not compensated for doing that: http://friendfeed.com/e/bf5934... -- I just like that it drives Steve Gillmor nuts. - Robert Scoble

Scoble is an evangelist for everything new and shiny. He finds it for us and we follow. Some stick and some don't. Knowing that going in is the key. - gfurry

I can attest that Robert Scoble speaks from the heart about the various services that he gets passionate about. He is no shill. - John McCrea

He did so for one of my projects, and I can swear you guys that it's simply IMPOSSIBLE for me to pay him a dime. He ignores how I look, what's my real name, in which continent I live... - directeur

More importantly though Scott, why does it matter? - Out Wrong

If he's pimpin' then I'm a "John"... - Vince DeGeorge

No one is that good of an actor. ;) - Larry Rubin

What's even a better question is how you can be objective about anything Apple when you own stock in it.... - Richard Galvan

He's paid in services. Web services. Friendly feedy web services. - Ranjit Mathoda

Scott completes this conversation here: http://friendfeed.com/e/fef813... - Robert Scoble

Actually Richard you're completely mistaken. Sold all my Apple stock more than six months ago. And when I did own it I disclosed it. Now that I've emptied your clip got anything else? Didn't think so. - ScottBourne

LOL - 'friendly feedy web services' - love it. - Sonciary Honnoll

@directeur: it's a /. joke, sorry if you didn't get it...? - Mario Olckers

Speaking of defensive - it's even more interesting that because I asked a legitimate question that I seriously did not know the answer to, several of Robert's minions feel the need to defend him. Hmmmm... - ScottBourne

ScottBourne: loyal fans are something that are absolutely wonderful. Ask Leo Laporte about this. But, seriously, loyalty comes from being transparent about such questions. I don't mind getting them. I think the answers here are due to the more than 1,000 interviews I've given without asking anything in return. - Robert Scoble

I knew you'd be okay with this question Robert because if you were not, just about everything you've built your reputation on would be suspect. It's the response of your fans that has me thinking now, but perhaps your explanation is right. The fans don't necessarily need to worry about anything other than the "Go team" aspect of such an exchange. - ScottBourne

Scott: that's Scoble for you - he just genuinely loves this stuff :) - Frederic

ScottBourne: I'm not one of his minions, and I disagree with a lot of things he evangelize... I once told him that I don't like "insults" and I mean it. But I also feel the need to give back to Cesar what belongs to Cesar :) - directeur