Christina Warren - Comments

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@Scobleizer thanks for the support

October 13 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ryan, Jason Young, Christopher Harley and Robert Scoble liked this

You deservedly got pwned by @Scobleizer. You're a better writer than that. You were very good @TUAW, but this piece for @Mashable is wrong in so many ways. - Jason Young

2 more comments

to each his own. I liked the service. My first thought was "this was what FriendFeed should have done" when I saw the demo and used it. - Christina Warren

Christina: you have done 25 comments here. 6 likes. It's pretty clear you haven't even used FriendFeed so how are you supposed to know what FriendFeed should have done? Hint: the aggregator isn't the real power here. The search is. The real time feed from Twitter is. If it was just about the aggregator SocialThing or Jaiku would have won. - Robert Scoble

And in your comments it's clear you really didn't understand ANY of the features of FriendFeed. But this isn't about FriendFeed. It's about accuracy in journalism. Your headline is 100% wrong. Glad you are able to admit mistakes after you make them. - Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble

I don’t feel safe with Wordpress, hackers broke in and took things - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

September 5 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

carl morris, Tyson Key, Susan Beebe and 87 other people liked this

Well, if you have fixed the hole by upgrading; you should feel a lot safer now. I guess strong user adoption does bring the wrong kind of attention. - Anindya Chatterjee

174 more comments

Anindya: we're watching. Looks like they haven't gotten back in since the upgrade and some of the other changes we made. Knock on wood. - Robert Scoble

I'm very tempted to switch to a SixApart install. As a Perl programmer I'd be much more familiar with the backend. - Jesse Stay

Robert, btw, I'm sure between all your users you can find a backup. I have a bunch via Google Reader I could get to Rackspace to import for you. I'm sure others have even older entries than I have. Let us know if you want help restoring the old scobleizer.com! - Jesse Stay

robert - i can tell you this - you need to watch it like a hawk - when i thought i was safe - i wasn't - InsideTransit continues to get hit - and I still believe there is some patches and stuff that RS can do as well - the bigger issue is what's on the server - because that's where they put the shells and then they can do whatever they want. - Allen Stern

Not cool, hopefully things will work out. - Kim Landwehr

Jesse: luckily it was July and August, when I wasn't doing much blogging. No biggie. Thanks. Allen: yes, Rackspace Cloud has a security team now and they are actively looking at ways to make Wordpress safer for our customers. It really sucks getting hacked. Let me know if you find any other ways to protect the systems. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Yea getting hacked sucks. My early days with my blog aboutonlinematters.com I got hacked and luckily my ISP had a backup. Since then I have treated my Wordpress blog like any dev site - with a subversion repository and complete backup. But there are days... like today... when I think strongly about a platform like typepad. - Arthur Coleman

what i have found is locking down the files helps - but you need to ftp into your site and make sure that nothing has been edited or added - in my case, on all my sites, the hackers put files all over that were base64 files - and what they do is include them into WP or they just run them direct - nearly a full shell. i've asked RS to create a way so that i can be notified of any changes to files - they say it's too heavy to run. - Allen Stern

Robert, I just miss the traffic from your "You are SO Unfollowed!" article. (one of the casualties) ;-) - Jesse Stay

There's a lot of great info they deleted - I'm a little ticked they would be completely insensitive like that to prove a security flaw. It affected much more than just you. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: yeah, that's probably the one blog that I miss. It's also the one that got me to notice they deleted a couple of months. - Robert Scoble

Jesse: that still is cached over on Google at http://74.125.155.132/search... - Robert Scoble

No way "You are SO unfollowed" is out? I loved that one! :-( thanks for the cache Robert - Sofia @ SoMaFusion

If you have no time to take care of yuors blog, maybe it's better if you choose the pro offer from wordpress.com ( I think scobleizer.com can have the minimum requirement to stay there). - wolly

here it the VIP hosting http://en.wordpress.com/vip-hos... - wolly

wolly: it's not just about time, attacks come from all directions so you've gotta have a holistic approach to security. How many of you regularly change passwords and make sure they are really good ones? (Twitter got broken into not because of hacks, but because they didn't practice good password security). - Robert Scoble

It saddens me: it is morally reprehensible your hosting company convinced you to switch with the seduction of plugins and customization without emphasizing or handling the increased responsibility of upgrades. Your blog was not unique and not a special target, the worms sweep across millions of blogs indiscriminately and hit whatever is vulnerable. If your host is lax in upgrading, the... more... - Matt Mullenweg

that's true :-) I use password very strange and very verylong that I cannot remember and I use a service like clipperz.com to login. - wolly

wolly, Robert was hosted on WordPress.com for about 4 years -- he was actually the very first VIP. Although there were dozens of security updates to WordPress in that time, his blog never had a problem because it was always up-to-date. He only switched away a few months ago. - Matt Mullenweg

Ciao Matt :-) I didn't know that, so scoble come back to the light side :) - wolly

Matt: yup, that's true. I've learned my lesson. Running your own servers are a lot harder than just having them hosted on Wordpress.com. - Robert Scoble

To be frank, it completely breaks whatever trust I had in Rackspace. - Matt Mullenweg

But Matt, I've been talking with many blog owners, including at TechCrunch, and they say that Wordpress' updates break their custom plugins. That's why they don't upgrade immediately. So, sounds like Wordpress has a mess on its hands that the hosted version of Wordpress didn't have (I couldn't run a lot of plugins and video embeds and other fun things on the hosted version of Wordpress). So, to blame it on my hoster/employer (Rackspace) exclusively isn't really a good attitude either. - Robert Scoble

Robert, It happens. We were hacked too. My observations lead me to believe that this summer was the worst in a long time. Its a war and its going to be a war until the attitude towards hackers changes. Let's stop being fascinated in the least bit by how they do it (this goes towards Kevin Mitnick and his supporters- I don't ever want to pay good money to read about your scams on the... more... - Melanie Reed

Matt's got a point that with greater power (self-hosting) comes greater responsibility (more need to keep an eye on security), but I think to say that Scoble's blog was not a special target is a bit disingenuous. High-profile sites are always a higher-value target. - Rachel Luxemburg

Matt: I think you need to really look at all the damage that's being done to a wide range of sites, many of which are NOT hosted at Rackspace, before throwing more barbs. That's bull. Sorry. But I added a link to this conversation to my blog so people could see your point of view. - Robert Scoble

If a plugin is preventing you from upgrading (did it?) then let's figure out how to fix that plugin. All I can do in WordPress is build in the notices (your blog was asking you to upgrade for months) and the one-click updates for both core and plugins. I agree it's not your (Robert Scoble's) fault because I don't think you made the conscious decision to take on the increased responsibility. - Matt Mullenweg

Matt: the reputation around the Net is that upgrades on Wordpress break things. This wasn't a Rackspace recommendation. It's also a problem with all upgrades. I've gotten hosed by upgrades elsewhere. Look at all the people upgrading to Snow Leopard who are having things break. - Robert Scoble

Matt: TechCrunch hasn't upgraded its blog either and it wasn't hosted on Rackspace (at least not until a couple of days ago). - Robert Scoble

I'm not saying there isn't lots of misinformation around the net, I'm saying "how can I help your blog, please." If it's a plugin preventing you from upgrading, let me know the plugin and we'll fix it even if we didn't write it. That's the beauty of open source. - Matt Mullenweg

Robert -- Avoiding upgrades because they're annoying to deal with isn't a viable longterm strategy. - Rachel Luxemburg

they need to take care of Scoble's blog, well for he is a VIP and the smashing they would have would do a lot of damage to your customer base and otherwise, would they reply to an ordinary guy say like me? i think not,well wordpress/automattic is having their tough moments, hope things get well and they get their repute back - testbeta

Matt - you blaming Rackspace for security vulnerabilities in YOUR software platform is kinda like blaming Dell when a Windows box gets hacked. I think you are being irrational. - Rob La Gesse

Matt: in my case it was the REPUTATION of Wordpress's upgrades that was keeping me from upgrading. I was waiting to see what other people reported broke. I didn't realize the severity of the security problems. But, I am now upgrading automatically. So I'm fixed. But you still have a reputation problem. Lots of people are reporting things break when they upgrade. - Robert Scoble

Rob, I'm not blaming them. I'm saying it's the responsibility of any host, of any software, to stay up to date. If there was a SSH vulnerability on Robert's box I would say the same thing. Software updates are inevitable, there is no such thing as bug-free code, so staying up to date is a must. - Matt Mullenweg

Isn't all this open source code? If it's broken, why not fix it? Doesn't everyone have the responsibility to do that? It's not any one source's fault in that case. - Jesse Stay

Matt - I agree with you. So make Wordpress upgrades SAFE, automatic AND do some internal validation of plugin code to let users know they may be running something that is potentially insecure. - Rob La Gesse

Matt, agreed. Not when its turned out as fast as people are yelling for it. People can't have it both ways. - Melanie Reed

Matt: all Rackspace was providing to me was a Linux host. I was responsible for getting my upgades done on anything I ran on that system. But now we have a team making sure we're following best practices. That is NOT Rackspace's problem, though. That's like blaming Microsoft for a bug in Adobe software. - Robert Scoble

I never listen to the reputation, I always upgrade as a security upgrade is out, and if a plugin doesn't work or I deactivate it or I fix it. Security is much more important than a plugin and Matt knows how many plugins has my blog (when he looked my backend he was very sad ad he said that it was the first time for him to see so many plugin in a blog :-) ) To have a self host blog it's difficult and time expensive. - wolly

There are several very useful plugins specifically addressing security issues; and monitoring WP for suspicious activities (both on file and database level). Here are some articles with tips to harden your blog http://bit.ly/sZgh6 (delicious bookmarks). I only install plugins from authors from whom I know that they implement top level php; no breaking of upgrades on my 3 WP blogs has taken place (2.7-2.8-2.8.4) - Jeroen De Miranda

Yeah, plugin issues are the responsibility of the plugin developer, not Wordpress's. I don't see how this is Wordpress's or Rackspace's fault. - Jesse Stay

By the way, Matt, Sheamus, over on my comments on my blog, says he has the latest upgrades in place and he's still being broken into. You might help him figure out how the hackers are breaking in still. - Robert Scoble

Sorry, I was under the impression Rackspace had recommended you move away from WordPress.com and taken responsibility for the system. I was worried about your blog -- I emailed you about this in August but never heard back. It breaks my heart when someone's WordPress gets compromised. - Matt Mullenweg

I understand the feeling though - if people are still being broken into after being told a fix was made, especially if you're not a developer, that can be a little scary. I'd look to other solutions in that case if it were me, and it's no one's fault. It's just perception and fear, very valid fear. - Jesse Stay

I do believe there is a false sense of securty that WORDPRESS fosters by hosting plugins. I think many assume that because they download the pluging VIA Wordpress, and FROM Wordpress, it is somehow vetted. - Rob La Gesse

Matt: no. I wanted to move to my own install of Wordpress so that I could run many more plugins and start doing stuff other professional bloggers were doing. I am learning very quickly just how much work goes on behind the scenes to make sure my words were protected. - Robert Scoble

Once you've been hacked once if you don't clean up every trace (preferably a systems person does this) it's very likely something is left that allows the spammers to easily break back in, regardless of what version you're on. That's why the trouble with upgrading is worth it, it's much, much less than the trouble of fixing a hacked blog. - Matt Mullenweg

Jesse: yeah, at Microsoft when a box got broken into they wouldn't let you use it anymore. They forced you to reinstall it with all patches loaded. They assumed that it was compromised and that someone stuck a back door in somewhere. That's a lot of work too. - Robert Scoble

install either wp-backup or wp-dbmanager and configure database backup: every day; download to your local pc (or to a system other than your hosting provider); run a check once a month to see whether you can reconstruct the blog in case of calamity, That is my procedure; works fine. - Jeroen De Miranda

if a commoner gets hacked, then he should move to wordpress.com services or what? - testbeta

they should just make it not have any security holes! - Mark

Robert, if you like I'd be happy to host your blog for you (and I'm on Rackspace servers). I can keep it secure as well. I'd only ask some mention of SocialToo somewhere (or payment of some form in order to cover the cost of bandwidth). - Jesse Stay

I would also be able to keep it backed up for you. - Jesse Stay

So the take away messages are: 1) hosting services like Rackspace support the hardware and OS layer and you're are on your own for everything else, 2) maintaining your own website is difficult work, even for experienced IT professionals, 3) social media experts may not really know how to use the social media tools they are recommending, and 4) while hosted applications like Wordpress.com provide less flexibility, they take less effort and can be more reliable for the average small business. - Steve Wilhelm

I'll also install any plugins you're interested in trying - Jesse Stay

Jesse: in my case, I now have a team of the top security guys at Rackspace working on it and making sure my system is up to date and backed up. They also are learning a lot about this and other people who have had problems and are building a list of best practices. - Robert Scoble

This is eventually why I didn't go with Mosso. The service looks good, but you still have to manage your app yourself which opens you up to problems like you've experienced. It would be cool if they offered another layer of management on top so apps could be completely hands free. - Todd Hoff

the alternative (i.e. strong vetting of all plugins) would turn the whole WordPress ecosphere into something such as Ning.... only some 300 addons (as far as I know); little flexibility very intransparent how to get your addin accepted .... Not an attractive model for me.... - Jeroen De Miranda

Robert, excellent - just wanted to make sure the offer was out there. Maybe that could be a tiered service for Rackspace, although I'm not sure it's something Rackspace wants to get into. Bluehost barely makes any money off of that type of service. - Jesse Stay

Steve: I think that's a reasonable set of assumptions. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. When I was on Wordpress.com I was always jealous of blogs that were able to run the latest plugins and use the latest embed codes from various sites. - Robert Scoble

Robert, it's even more fun when you can customize the plugins and themes as a developer. :-) - Jesse Stay

@testbeta wrdpress.com is a very good choice if you don't have time or you don't know how to manage security on yors self hosted blog - wolly

wolly: that takes out the open source fun part ;) well i have nothing much to do on my blogs so i keep mine updated ;) - testbeta

I agree with you :-) but many people love blogging non update theirs blogs :-) - wolly

when my sites were hacked - a wordpress employee reached out to me- i dont remember her name but we sent a few emails - i could write for days about what happened to my 5 sites - my take is simple - i think the issues are a combo of rackspace (my host) and wordpress (my software) - i can tell you this - in 3+ yrs on drupal, i was NEVER hacked. and Matt is right - the real issue is that... more... - Allen Stern

Allen - what version of WP are you running today? - Rob La Gesse

2.8.4 on all of them - Allen Stern

Allen - good :) - Rob La Gesse

If there's a shell script on the same server as you, even if it's not your account, everything on that server is at risk regardless of the software or its version. - Matt Mullenweg

Matt - that is NOT true - Rob La Gesse

I would switch to a new server if I were infected at this point. - Jesse Stay

Properly configured, user space can be isolated and these scripts cannot cross-pollinate. - Rob La Gesse

It can be -- but publish a shell login on your server and we'll see. ;) The right answer is to scrub that sort of access. - Matt Mullenweg

Matt - that comment on the "shell script" is silly. What are you actually trying to say? - Robert J Taylor

Some sort of backdoor that allows a remote user to execute code -- it's super common. - Matt Mullenweg

rob/matt - that wsa one of the biggest issues with my RS account - i had all the sites together in one "client" so when they hacked one - they were able to move around with their shell script into all my other sites - now each site is in a sep. "client" so the damage can only hurt me on one site - and believe me it does hurt :( i believe insidetransit and centernetworks are hit in google - Allen Stern

@Scobleizer I'm sticking with @wordpress it doesn't worry me that much, plus I always update and have backups of db and site emailed to me - Justin Yost

Allen - that was within one user space though. So what I stated above still stands true. - Rob La Gesse

Allen and Robert are big enough that if they had a problem they could contact us and we'd help them, though as far as I know neither did, but I worry a lot more about smaller folks who get hit in the same way. The knowledge for how to properly clean up after a hack is more systems than software and not widespread. - Matt Mullenweg

As Allen mentioned above, he did have a conversation with Wordpress. - Rob La Gesse

matt - thanks for putting me in the same category as robert! *blush* - i did reach out to you - and your security guy was helping me big time - it seemed to turn out that the WP Contact Form 7 was the thing that caused it to start - i didn't document it all online because the security guy wanted time to get the plugin developer to fix the upload hole. - btw his name was mark jaquith and he was great - Allen Stern

So why not some scheme where Wordpress vets a plugin and "blesses it" - perhaps a small charge for this service? As long as Wordpress is advertising plugins on the dashboard I think there ample reason to hold Wordpress to some level of accountability for those plugins - Rob La Gesse

rob - that's what i told mark - they should offer that service for a tiny fee - stamp a "certified" stamp on it. - Allen Stern

Just updated all my sites, doesnt look I was hit. - sean percival

sean - no one would hit you - they know you would lala all over them - Allen Stern

sean - happy for you! - Rob La Gesse

I've read almost all of the comments here, not hearing these mentioned once: Robert did not backup, kept the default 'admin' username and failed to update. These are three of the most basic security measures out there. Not blaming it on Robert, because we all fail on this sometimes, but these basics really are important! - Abounding Media

http://twitter.com/markjaq... warning of Mark in April - kept me away from WP contact form 7 - Jeroen De Miranda

Abounding: yup. And the lesson here is don't host your own version of Wordpress unless you have a security team making sure you're doing it right and backing up (something I never did on Wordpress.com, by the way). Oh, and Twitter taught us that even if you do all of that you've gotta make sure you pick great passwords and think through ways that social hacks could be done to get into your accounts. - Robert Scoble

I've written a much longer post on this: http://wordpress.org/develop... - Matt Mullenweg

http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2008... some great tips of Mark Jaquith on writing secure plugins - I use these and other tips when scanning the PHP code of new plugins that I intend to use (before deploying them) - Jeroen De Miranda

Jeroen, thanks for posting that. I've had phishers getting into one of my WP installs recently, but couldn't tell which plugin it was. I deactivated two plugins, including CF7, the other day, and haven't had any more problems. And a shoutout to Ryan Boren on the WP dev team for helping me to de-infect. - John Craft

Robert: Welcome to the world of web development for impatient users and disgruntled hackers - Melanie Reed

http://wordpress.org/develop... great post of Matt Mullenweg about WordPress security! - Jeroen De Miranda

john - the CF7 is what killed me a few months ago - it's because the form allows uploads even if you don't actually have them on - i believe they patched it but i have not gone back there. - Allen Stern

anybody know if a little smily face appearing in the lower right hand corner of ones footer is a sign of a compromise on a self hosted wp blog? - Richard Reeve

John, your are welcome! SQL injects attacks specifically exploit data entry fields used by the plugin; one should at least scan the PHP code of these plugins, and look at what kind of escape functions are used around handling of the data entry. - Jeroen De Miranda

"it's because the form allows uploads even if you don't actually have them on" - wow. That's bad. - John Craft

Richard is wp-stats smily :-) - wolly

"anybody know if a little smily face appearing in the lower right hand corner of ones footer is a sign of a compromise on a self hosted wp blog?" - if you didn't put it there, it probably is. In your admin go to appearance, theme editor, and read the footer.php file. - John Craft

Richard - are you using the WordPress.com Stats plugin? - Andre Natta

some plugins worth considering to install are: wp-exploit-scanner, wordpress file monitor, WP security scan, anti virus - Jeroen De Miranda

I don't understand why people are worried about a plugin breaking when it comes to upgrading WordPress. If a plugin does break, disable it for the time being. I rather have a secure installation of WordPress running and would worry about fixing the plugin afterwards. - Jason Hansen

Hmmmm . . . I run WP Stats, but see no smiley face. - John Craft

ah...thanks folks...stats it is. phew...so I'm not paranoid... - Richard Reeve

There appears to be some a-holes who can break into wordpress blogs very easily. I'm not sure at this point that the new Wordpress Thesis blog that I'm interested in getting is safe either. There is some security issues with Wordpress and their incompetence to fix the problem is growing every year. They keep coming out with new versions to replace the old versions yet they still have a problem. This is serious guys. - Jeunelle Foster

The problem with WordPress is that it forces you to upgrade. Imagine if Microsoft forced everybody to upgrade to Vista/Windows 7 in order to get their security holes plugged. WordPress should release security patches for the current and at least for the previous version. - Nikolay Kolev

They dont force you to upgrade. If you dont want to patch, you can leave it at the current version ( but with a risk ) - Kashif Khan

Where's the patch for the 2.7 version then? - Nikolay Kolev

Their versioning strategy bumps up numbers even for patches . And how many versions behind should they support ? - Kashif Khan

Many of the WordPress security issues are not coming from the WordPress itself, but from the poorly written WordPress plugins. I think it would be nice if Automattic starts an "Automattic Certified" program giving blog owners the peace of mind they need. Every hacker can upload a plugin at WordPress.org, advertise it as something great, bloggers install it, see that it's nothing as advertised, uninstall it, but the WordPress instances are already hacked. - Nikolay Kolev

Plugins are open source and free and nobody (well, with some exceptions) would pay to get their free plugin certified. The only way to do this is by having a community review process, based on some credibility score and voter authority system where 1,000 fake hacker accounts won't, for example, outweigh Matt's or Mark's votes. - Nikolay Kolev

part of the problem is the cry wolf syndrome - if i updated every day wordpress had a security problem i'd want to be salaried on the payroll :D Wordpress needs some sort of alert notification - twitter or something that indicates if there's an update AND the severity and if its severe enough sends it to my phone. - mal

let me play the other side of the coin - i've been using vbulletin for my forums for probably more than 5 years - and it's never once been hacked - why is this - is it because it's paid? is it just more secure? would love to get some input on why wordpress seems to be the attacker's gold. - Allen Stern

@allenstern because it pays back better to have wp hacked - A.T.

Another devil - I have clients using Expression Engine for years (with plugins) and haven't had a problem either. Checking security sites, EE has had very few vs the many with WP and some with Drupal. Matts suggestion that one hosts with him to avoid problems and keep updated just isn't in the cards for business sites. Just too many vulnerabilities with WP over the years for me to recommend it. - PXLated

i can tell you that within 2 days of moving from drupal to wp, my sites were hacked - all of them - and it made me seriously question the move - the reasons i moved were because wp is a bit easier to edit/code than drupal and because the admin panel in wordpress is awesome compared to the crap panel in drupal - i wrote up a whole post about why i moved - i'd like to see matt write a post about their qa and security procedures for their releases - Allen Stern

Alen, once Drupal 7 get released, you may actually go back. :) - Nikolay Kolev

Robert - If I were you I'd move away from Wordpress and fast. Its security record is dire and has been for ages. Other solutions are a lot more stable, whereas Wordpress seems to have security bugs every second week. Why anyone puts up with it is really beyond me. I moved to MovableType and haven't had to worry about caching issues or security problems - Michele Neylon

#somethingpersonal WP calls you "technical evengelist", Robert. When you say «Yes, I didn’t have a backup. I should learn to do backups» I call you a mediawhore. Nothing TECH-NI-CAL, just bulled ego. Learn Security, Performance, Reliability, you ignorant piece. - Капитан Сильвер Буллет

Robert - "the reputation around the Net is that upgrades on Wordpress break things" I'm sorry but that's just not true, I use many many plugins across about 20 sites and I've only ever ONCE had a plugin break during a WP upgrade. - John O'Nolan

Definitely check if Google Reader has your lost posts - as of a few months ago, it didn't handle deletes very well :) - Michael Herf

This recent wave of WordPress incidents shows the negative side of using open source software. Matt says that there are many people looking into WordPress' source code, but the problem is that probably half of those people have malicious reasons for doing so. - Nikolay Kolev

@Matt - why not have a module that adds *automatic* upgrades? The one-click update feature is very nice, but zero clicks is better. With a decent snapshot/rollback system you could update most people securely right away--email them and let them rollback if something breaks. - Michael Herf

@robert: we might be able to help you recover the lost blog posts if you want. Google Reader has an archive of them and we helped another blogger in the past recover her losses. Let me know if we can help. - Edwin Khodabakchian

@matt when do you start to care about poor people unlike robert... who can't afford *VIP* i am willing to pay $25+ per month of course with my adsense ads :} - Imran Jafri

@robert by the way you made one of the worst choice to move away from wordpress.com i think it wasn't price issue rather you wanted to be brand *ambassador* for rackspace which was only possible if you host your blog on their damn servers... if i get enough visitors i would switch to wordpress.com vip without taking 2nd breathe........ - Imran Jafri

I run just a few plugins, and research and vet them first. And upgrade to new WP versions within a week. Look, attacks happen, running self-hosted can get complicated. But this is true with any software or OS - Bob Morris (polizeros) from iPhone

Nikolay, it's always better to have more people looking at the code, because a bug that's been found is better than a bug that hasn't. WordPress used to get almost no security problems and people thought it was because it was coded differently, when in fact it was coded far worse than it is today it just didn't have enough users to make it worthwhile to target. Also where many... more... - Matt Mullenweg

Nikolay: I would also push back against your assumption that using Open Source software equals less security. Microsoft Windows and OS X are both closed source and both have security holes - there is a competition each year to help MS and Apple find them and fix them. Both Apple and Microsoft came away with security holes to fix this year. So just because it's open source doesn't... more... - Tim

that's what you get for the fun of installing and hosting your own installation, instead of using "the cloud". - Ihar Mahaniok

Robert - I recommend WP S3 Backups for backing up your database to off-site storage. Amazon S3 is a great place to host backups of your Wordpress database and is relatively inexpensive. You *always* want backups *off* the server so in case the server is compromised, the backups are still clean. This plugin works like a charm, is automatic and could have saved you. Cheers! - Scott Jarkoff

anybody know of a test that can be done to see if a wp blog has been compromised? Has a few strange user subscriptions about a week ago...but not noticing any thing else...I did upgrade weeks ago, but soon enough? - Richard Reeve

bug exploits keep security IT folks in their day job, sad but true. - Jim Posner

In IT it keeps me busy but the reality is if you update your software on a regular basis you can minimize these from affecting you. - Rob Cairns

Robert, any chance archive.org has some of your old blog posts? Google Cache? - drew olanoff

Matt, another thing to note is that Wordpress.com is often blocked in China (even if you have your own custom URL like scobleizer.com). There are advantages to NOT being hosted by Wordpress.com although your point about increased responsibilty for keeping up with security patches is still valid. - Elliott Ng

Drew: yeah, but what do I do? Just republish them? - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Sure why not. Scoble's best of. Reason why I hate stuff on the net sometimes is good stuff gets lost. - drew olanoff

Give a try to the "WordPress Database Backup" plugin for WordPress and you'll receive regular backups on your email - Francois Lamotte

Robert, You can get all of your lost blog post html out of Google Reader. I'm not exactly sure how to link Disqus back, maybe it's as simple as re-adding the old posts with the same title/date i.e. Url (I don't use it). Yet another reason to use FULL RSS feeds (instead of summary). See RSS isn't dead.. it's now a backup tool too! (http://ff.im/7JrlC) - Chris Myles

Wordpress is a great blogging tool. It is however the largest target now - much like how Windows gets a crap-top more virii because it's the most used system. Someone used Drupal as am example of security... well I'm sure if Drupal was anywhere near the scale of usage Wordpress is you'd see hacks for that too. - Gregory Wild-Smith

Robert: Just repost them with the dates set to the original dates they were posted. Simple, and no-one will ever know ;) - Gregory Wild-Smith

I have always had a bad feeling about Wordpress. YMMV. - Gordon Joly from twhirl

Robert It could be a Rackspace problem and Not a Wordpress Problem. They might to increase there security on the Rackspace!!! You should checck into that!! - Paul

One of the reasons I waited 2 years to switch from MovableType to WordPress was due to the security issues. I felt that the track record improved over the past year and moved 11 sites over. I can say this I employ a very extensive back up scheme but still worry about it. The ability to upgrade with a single click of a button has made it much easier to upgrade, but I always worry which plugins are going to break as I use a lot of plugins. - Todd Cochrane

It's interesting to me to see the number of people who are "afraid" to implement a security update because it might break a plugin. I wonder if these are the same people who don't run system updates on Mac or Windows because it might break SIMBL or some other haxie. Your core = your core... without it you're smoked. Case in point: Scoble. If your plugins aren't working after an update, let the author know and request an update, but BY ALL MEANS don't ignore security upgrades. - Kevin Donahue

hmm... I think that a lot of this conversation is missing something. Most software security updates are usually tested in hosts and thus delayed in their own releases by at the minimum of a week's time usually. This is due to hosting internal testing of patches before rolling it out to all servers. Now, whether or not RS actually performs these types of procedures, I don't know... but I... more... - Ben Hwang

First: I keep my blog up to date. Always. Fuck plugins, I decided that when I made the decision to use WP for my blog that updates would be a priority, only because of all the security issues that I remember from the early early days. Having said that, I have to agree with Robert that the perception with WordPress, despite all the work with auto-updates and in-blog notification is STILL... more... - Christina Warren from iPod

I am spending the day finally making a back-up of my web space, then the upgrade. - Sebastian Keil

you are right to not feel safe: when you are on the dominant platform, holes get taken advantage of really fast. At least it being open source you know it will also get plugged fast - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

"what do I do? Just republish them?" - Robert, you can set the published date to the original July or August date in the "new post" form. Where it says "publish immediately," click "edit". - John Craft

I couldn't disagree more that the reputation is that an upgrade will break a plugin. How many plugins reach into the Wordpress core and screw around with it? Less than 5%? Any examples of plugins that broke w/ 2.8.4? - beersage

Somebody hacked into my WordPress blog earlier this year as well. It was a bummer because I was working on a draft copy of a blog post that was very rough and had not been edited and they published it. I was on vacation shooting in Chicago and didn't figure it out until several hours after they'd already published it. Fortunately they didn't seem to do anything malicious other than... more... - Thomas Hawk

@Robert: "[Rackspace] are learning a lot about this and other people who have had problems and are building a list of best practices." Is it possible this list is something RS might share? - John House

@Matt Mullenweg: I do like WordPress (even though we had a public argument with you and another Automattic employee on TechCrunch a while ago) and I am a passionate supporter of open source software - don't get me wrong. But sometimes open source code makes it a bit easier for hackers! For example, one hacker hears about an exploit and without communicating with others, finds the hole independently by just looking into the source code and starts exploiting it on his own. - Nikolay Kolev

Gregory Wild-Smith Bingo! - Melanie Reed

Social Media Club blogs got hit as well as several of our personal blogs (still sorting it all out). We try to keep up on most upgrades, but every time we do, simple plugins (like the Event calendar) break. Seems silly, but we have hours of work after each upgrade to try and keep everything intact, and sometimes, we end up downgrading until the 'essential' plugins catch up, which... more... - Kristie Wells

I have 2 wordpress blogs. One on my own domain and one at wordpress central. Still can't get my head around their upgrade gymnastics - may just stick with eBlogger after all. - Houseofmax

i don't know what will happen in times to come but from the existing platforms, i love wordpress and i am not going anywhere, but that doesn't matter for wordpress right? ;) - testbeta

Robert, at the end of it is just only your bloody laziness in upgrading that led you here :) Jokes aside, please at least be honest and say you didn't upgradede twice... :p. - Matteo Flora

Nope. I upgraded to 2.8.4 as soon as it was out but the hackers had already broken in. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

The fact that WordPress is currently being exploited doesn't mean that other platforms are immune. For example, the recently discovered XSS issue with Ruby on Rails makes not only blogs, but every unpatched site a target. So, the only issue I'm having is forcing us to upgrade to a new major version without much time to do proper testing (I'm not talking about personal blogs here). I... more... - Nikolay Kolev

So Techdirt was hacked a bit ago. See their reaction: http://www.techdirt.com/article... it is the reality of owning a web site guys - ANY software is hackable if someone really wants in. - Adam Singer

@Robert: as I see it Wordpress is as vulnerable as any other web app. Upgrading does good, but preemptive security does more and better. I know Matt and he knows I'm in awe with him and Automattic but simply spoken I DON'T TRUST WORDPRESS as I don't trust any other software. A little WebApp Security Firewall (or at least a little .htaccess rules for admin and preemptive locking of... more... - Matteo Flora

i find it interesting, and depressing that people are blaming Rackspace, they're blaming Wordpress, they're blaming Robert, but no one, *no one* seems to be willing to blame the only, ONLY people who deserve blame: the evolutionary failures that attacked Robert's blog. - John C. Welch

Thanks to your post, I found backdoor Admin in my own blog (created yesterday apparently). Promptly deleted it, upgraded blog and took other measures, which I blogged about - Adi Rabinovich

@Matt Mullenweg: "so staying up to date is a must. - Matt Mullenweg" You gave the birth to one of the coolest piece of free software on the net, also your community is strong an love-full, you can do some PRs listening to Scoble that is crying, but you couldn't do anything better than you did. Take it easy man, all your competitors still suck. (PS. also a cleaning utility to understand better if everything is ok on our hosts would be cool ;-) - righini riprova

Matt: What does a user need to provide, in order to be considered for a VIP wordpress.com account? - Jim Connolly

caveat operator - Mike Chelen

Take technology out of the picture. Something bad happened by some bad person. Happens every day... it's called crime. If a bad person got into my house because I had a weak lock or left my door unlocked, what do people usually say? "That bad person shouldn't have done that!"? Well, sure, but bad people do bad things... nothing we can do to stop them other than make it harder or... more... - Chris Hearn

I would simply like to reiterate the point that if you're going to put free open source software on a rented web server, you need to either know how to administer it or hire someone to do it for you. Neither Rackspace or Wordpress are to blame here. We discuss this with our clients all the time who view web development as a one off expense, then get upset when their site is hacked because it wasn't maintained. - JP Maxwell

One more point, I think there are way too many false lines drawn over aras of responsibility - "I'm systems, not a PHP programmer. I'm a PHP programmer, not a Javascript person. I'm a designer, not a programmer or a systems person." If you are a WEB developer or responsible for maintaining hosted WEB applications, you need to know a bit about it all. It simply isn't sufficient to demarcate your knowledge sphere and point your finger at the other guy. - JP Maxwell

Wow ! - ★ Soner Gönül

Christina Warren

Quarkbase : Everything about a Website - http://www.quarkbase.com/

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Line25 Web Design Blog - http://line25.com/

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30 Brilliant Typefaces For Corporate Design | Fonts | Smashing Magazine - http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009...

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Robert Scoble

More arrogance from Twitter. "Normal people," huh? Here's why what @ev said is stupid: - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

March 4 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rod Stewart, Rodney Rumford, Rob Schieber and 103 other people liked this

Saying "normal people" will be on the service in five years is stupid. Why? Because it's calling current customers who are on the service "not normal." I find I'm hearing more and more arrogance toward Twitter's existing user base from its management. That arrogance is stupid. Facebook already has normal people, as Ev puts it, and is far more "sticky" than Twitter is. Twitter is actually becoming harder to follow as more "normal users" come on the service. - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

126 more comments

Here's a tweet on my screen right now: "Back from the Quizno's breakfast run." Is that really more interesting to follow than photos and videos from your closest friends, which is what my wife shows me every night on facebook? No way. And friendfeed has better noise filtering mechanisms than Twitter does BY FAR. - Robert Scoble

For months now I have felt that twitter should be run be more involved users of the service rather than Ev. I'm happy to see that you too feel this way. It makes me feel less prejudical about the subject at hand. - Richard A.

Yes, I found that peculiar. - Jim

"Normal people" will soon figure out that Twitter isn't all that great. Already I'm seeing engagement go down on twitter. As I go around startups I'm seeing more and more addicted people who are trying to escape from Twitter because watching Tweetdeck all day long keeps them from getting anything done. - Robert Scoble

I'm not sure that I would see that statement as arrogant. The fact that you say more "normal" people are already on Facebook kind of illustrates the fact that Twitter is not in the norm...yet. It's steadily rising to that position, but the truth is, at least from my meager perspective, Twitter is full of those who are NOT in the norm. - Carlton Hackett

One thing I'm hearing from a lot of users is that they don't feel like there's a real community on Twitter. Here I really feel there are people I know. Mona, for instance. Or Louis Gray. Plus the employees of friendfeed are ALWAYS here. That's something that I never felt from Twitter's founders/employees. Go read @ev -- is he doing anything to build a community? No, he's always on Charlie Rose or at TED bragging about how many users he has. That will backfire. - Robert Scoble

I'm normal, and I was on Twitter early on, 2 years ago or so. I don't see what all the fuss is about tho Robert. Just unfollow the Quizno breakfast guy and find a less noisy one. FF isn't stick to me because there's too many accordion folds of comments to follow. Twitter plus Search key word is enough. - Prokofy Neva

I believe that by saying "normal" he means people that are not early adopters, and if that happen and Twitter becomes more crowded, are you going to stop using Twitter? - Ahmed

Not sure that engagement is decreasing on Twitter. It's about to explode here in Australia. I do find it odd however to devalue the contribution of the very people who have made it so compelling. - Jim

Carlton: I don't agree and I agree at the same time. That's the problem with using terms like "normal." There is no "normal" in human beings. That term is arrogant. - Robert Scoble

Prokofy: find me a single Twitter user who isn't noisy some of the time. I've looked. Even TimOreilly is noisy some of the time. - Robert Scoble

Ahmed: early adopters have already moved to other services. They are on Twitter less and less. - Robert Scoble

Jim: late adopters don't engage. Sorry, but they don't. At least not at the level that early adopters do. Want to prove this to yourself? Go look at the followers that @ev has. Look at how many Tweets they make. Most have zero!!! Now compare to my followers. Almost every one of my followers has many many Tweets. Especially when you compare to @ev's (Ev is a recommended Twitterer so he's getting a LOT more "recent" Twitterers). - Robert Scoble

Well I think that he meant "normal" like in "mainstream", which I, for one, find elitist too, because imho: Being an early adopter doesn't mean you're smarter enough to use a product. Or smarter than others that don't use it yet. http://friendfeed.com/e... - directeur

I suspect that Twitter is in the phase where it needs someone else to take it to the next level. The Twitter founders have created this wonderful thing but seems to me they need to hand over the reigns. - Jim

directeur: exactly. - Robert Scoble

Robert this is so true! Facebook and Twitter get worse when more people join. I also love the noise filters on Friendfeed. But above all I love it that they don't force their users to use this or that site or services. This is great while I am slowly removing myself from twitter. - Bart LePoole

"Normal" people will not use Twitter anymore, if their support can't/doesn't want to answer to a "normal" help request. Mine, after more than one month, is not assigned to an operator yet (my timeline is empty!). Perhaps because I am not a V.I.P: I have seen tweets by "non-normal" twitterers about similar problems, fixed in few hours... - PaperDoll

To prove the engagement point, visit http://twitter.com/ev... -- click on 100 followers. Almost all have no tweets. Most have no photos. Now visit http://twitter.com/scoblei... and compare. Late adopters, er, "normal people" are lame. I don't wish ANY service gets those! - Robert Scoble

Robert, I guess you misinterpreted "normal" people. I think that at the moment "normal" people just beginning to recognize Twitter. Before it was for more or less Geek and/or their friends. I don't think it's arrogance. But I agree with you that all this talking about "normal" and other should be finished. I hate elitist behavior. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

I think there is something missing in the early adopter/follower conversation (not going to touch "normal") which is am examination of the world of twitter from inside the perspective of the social media in-crowd, vs. that of digitally engaged folks at large. An examination of this dynamic and what it means would be particularly fruitful, as in the end, the success or failure of Twitter for 1,500 social media experts is one thing, and adoption by a significant slice of the population at large is another. - Robert Davis

"normal" can also mean...not having superpowers gang. "normal" is a reference to people without extraordinary technical knowhow...and they are 80% of the population... so in anyone's definition normal that would be. In fact by "normal" he means "less than"... meaning people who have less than tech savvy...oy c'mon people don't be so sensitive. - davidlee

Ryo: "normal" people that @ev is attracting are people who do not participate and who have vapid tweet streams. Is that who Twitter is going to build a business around? Really? - Robert Scoble

I didn't experience this the same way. What you took to mean that Ev was saying we were stupid, I just took as meaning the current Twitterbase is more the early adopters and later it will be more mainstream. And yeah, it is harder to use as more people come on board, which is why filtering apps like TweetDeck are becoming critical for anyone following more than a hundred or so people. - Lisa Creech Bledsoe

Lisa: and that belief is bullshit. Why would mainstream join in Twitter? Look at Ev's own follower base. That is "mainstream." They do not participate. Now compare to Facebook! I bet that the average time spent on facebook by "normal" people is 100x more than on Twitter. Twitter is going to need engaged users to build a business. - Robert Scoble

RE engagement @ev @britneyspears etc are all going to have those types of followers. My interest in Twitter has peaked of late due to the increasing diversity in conversation - and engagement with "normal" people. - Jim

Scoble... you are just mad that Twitter is gonna take off and leave FreindFeed in the dust. :) You put your chips on FriendFeed and it's a bet you are losing... it's okay... you just have to get your head around the fact that when it comes to websites you (and most of your thousands of followers) are not "normal". And you have got to stop being so sensitive about being called out as the exception rather than the rule. Time to face the facts: we are not "normal people". :) - Matt Shaulis

Robert: What services would you say the early adopters have moved onto? And I agree with you that the people that will sign up now as Twitter hits "mainstream" are more apt to tweet much less, if at all. They will sign up to see what the fuss is about and fall off the radar quickly. - Jason Kane

Ev has no idea what twitter is about. None of those at twitter really understand how twitter is used, and how strong it is. Best example is SMS in Europe and how they removed that. - Richard A.

i have been known to say Facebook is for civilians. does that make me evil? twitter was initially used by geeks, not "normal people". Robert- you, for example, are clearly not "normal". think about the terms like a graph- a normal distribution..... twitter isn't normal in terms of adoption yet. far from it. we're still living in the future. - James

Maybe it depends on your community, where I live facebook is now mainstream, twitter is not yet. I do think that twitter will become 'mainstream' though, the main advantage being the ease of use. Maybe some of the 'mainstream' users will tweet less, but there are many different ways to use Twitter as a tool (none more right or wrong than others) and one of those is to receive information, which does not require a profile pic or posting tweets. - Angela

Angela; twitter can't become mainstream until the technology is ready (mobile wise) and ideologicaly, when people don't feel sitting at a computer is geeky. - Richard A.

I hardly think EV's statements are arrogant. I actually think it's pretty accurate. Current Twitter users aren't "normal" they are internet savvy, early adopters, and people that have a general interest in being public. It isn't a slant towards the user base. It isn't a slant towards people who don't use it either. To me, it seems your statements are just shamelessly plugging friend feed. However, there are some substantial differences between Twitter and FriendFeed to market before the offensive. - Eric Moretti

about what @ev said...twitter existence, 5 years from now sounds very pretentious for me. People still has a sense of time very last century, they think things change every 50 years. - Sarah

Eric: that was true a year ago. It no longer is true. Twitter is being talked about on CNN and BBC many times a day some days. The user base is WILDLY switching. Go to @ev's follower list to see how. Really really bad trends for Twitter are there. No engagement. Vapid tweets. Focus on celebrity or getting on TV. Not on discussing ideas. Those are NOT good trends! - Robert Scoble

3 'normal' people asked me what Twitter was today. I explained the history and the application of it. The response was, and I quote, "Oh, that's intresting. So it's like SMS. Why would I want hundreds of SMS's". 'Normals' will come, realize how useless it is, and never come back... - Johnny Worthington

Johnny: bingo! - Robert Scoble

The antonyms of normal are peculiar, abnormal and deviant. I don't find it that arrogant but it is a word that should be used carefully in any context when describing people. - M F

Wildly switching to what? Vapid tweets/comments/profiles etc are going to exist across all social networking outlets. I think what we are seeing now is a steep curve to ambiguous use by all of them, some will fall from grace as media darlings (MySpace) will others will see a drop in user base, but maintain a substantial following (Facebook). To me social networking is still in its infancy so it's hard to make any assumption of what will fail and what will succeed. - Eric Moretti

Eric: Myspace is popular though, for music lovers. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, use it to find lot's of music. It's just part of a sub-culture rather than mainstream. Means the user base is more engaged as a result. - Richard A.

Eric: you are missing what goes on here on friendfeed. Here we have a way to hide noise and accentuate the signal through liking and commenting. On Twitter you do not have those mechanisms. Clicking "like" for instance does a TON behind the scenes and makes that much more searchable, for instance. It also shows that item to all your followers. Which makes it more likely everyone in the system sees some signal instead of vapid tweets flowing by. - Robert Scoble

Richard: hundreds of millions of people use MySpace. But that service is stagnating. Other music discovery services, particularly on facebook, are starting to eat away at its dominance. - Robert Scoble

@Rich: This might be true. I personally can't stand MySpace. Too messy in terms of advertisements and user controlled pages. It gives me a headache, which is why I think the general public over 30 won't stick with it. - Eric Moretti

Twitter is the Post-It-Note, FriendFeed is the Memo Envelope... I scribble things down on Twitter, I get stuff done here. - Johnny Worthington

I enjoy the analogy :) but FF is more then a Memo Envolpe - abdellah

Robert, Twitter is going to turn into the myspace of microblogging. By that I mean that myspace has one purpose whereas facebook has many. People jumped to FB as a result. We'll find the same with Friendfeed, once it gets easier to use. It offers more value to the user. - Richard A.

I agree... But since it's midnight here, my analogy generator is defragging :) - Johnny Worthington

Richard: bing! - Robert Scoble

oh it is still working, what could it generate for the facebook case :) - abdellah

Robert: Well, hey give me time, I just joined. I'm not arguing Twitter vs. FriendFeed. I think the comment was more directed being over reactionary. For the record, I like it, but working full time, school full time leaves very little time. Does Friend Feed have an Android App? - Eric Moretti

Depends on what he meant by 'normal people' - Moses Kpetigo

Eric, on Android just use http://fftogo.com/ - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

But am I a normal person or just stupid to want a direct message feature in friendfeed? - Bart LePoole

Anyone who really knows me (not those who just know me through Twitter) will agree that I am not normal. I guess if it was possible they would describe me as "clinically" not normal. Perhaps what the issue is too many people, many of those I follow, are just using Twitter to market their goods, website or new shows.I don't particularly find people who do this "engaging" .The good news is that the unfollow button is easy to find. - Keith Beucler

Bart: stupid. You already have direct messaging in friendfeed. It's called Gmail. (Seriously: the worst feature of Twitter is DM'ing. It's a horrid feature. I wish it had never been implemented). - Robert Scoble

no you aren't, but what make me in trouble is the fact that there is so many way to be in a direct relation with some one :) comment like and damn there is email too :) - abdellah

Robert: DM is stupid, I will give you that. Why limit a DM to 140 characters? Moreover, the people who I would actually DM, I have their email address. - Eric Moretti

i am wondering not about the normal people comment - but the 5 years part - really that long? how many new sites or addictions will pop up in the mean time? - Damian Holmes

Damian: good point. Facebook is five years old. They got 175 million users already and are growing 700,000 every day. Facebook is the Silicon Valley success story of the year. - Robert Scoble

I've always thought that 'normal' people, when talked about in these terms, are people who aren't like you. Everyone thinks they are a little different, so normals are everyone else - Rachel Clarke

Robert my desire for DM is to keep one conversation thread and not to have to move to another platform. I want one conversation bundled as one conversation. This you have pointed out is one of those great features of FF. - Bart LePoole

Robert, thanks to you, I'll never strive to be "normal" again :) - MiaD

There is a big push to get these services "mainstream". And maybe Ev was tired of saying the word mainstream over and over, so "normal" fit the bill. :-) - Louis Gray

All my normal friends are exchanging virtual nonsense on Face Book. or they are trying to figure out what to do about these causes. http://bit.ly/h07n Why be Normal ? - Eric Logan

Robert, I'm not a twitter-fan but I'm not sure you're right. I believe you should follow less people on twitter than you follow here on FF or on Facebook, just because you have less filter tools on Twitter, and because you should be interested in what your friends are doing, not anybody wherever he is. And that's what "normal" people would do, if they ever get there. - Markingegno - Donato

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but valid point that the masses (normal people) have not yet latched onto Twitter. - David Lanning

By the time "normal" people figure out Twitter, the rest of us will be onto something else. - The Way Things Are

I signed up for twitter a week ago and I still don't see any reason why I'd use it for anything that facebook or friendfeed don't already provide me in a way that's much easier to use. It really seems like facebook status updates that don't have comment threads. So, I feel like I'm missing the whole point of twitter. - Steve Koch

Plus: I hate birds. - Steve Koch

one makes the world "idiot" proof and then the world will make a better idiot !! If your not living life on the fringe or the edge, then you are taking too much room on the this planet :)- - Peter Dawson

@scoble: thanks for starting this thread. I thought @bart's comment was the best line here: "...Facebook and Twitter get worse when more people join..." Ironically, those are exactly the conditions FB and TT need in order to become viable businesses... but from a user experience pov, it's a race to the bottom as more people get on. <sigh> - .LAG liked that

Twitter isn't built for 'normal' people. All my real friends hate me because I refuse to add them... but I talk to them via IM. I don't need to know if they bought a new pair of shoes or if they're sick - AGAIN. What I don't understand is why Twitter gets as much fuss and attention as it does. - Mona Nomura

@scoble I really think you are blowing the word "normal" out of proportion. He's clearly referring to non-early adopters. Goes back to the common "my parents" metaphor all consumer internet folks refer to. It's flawed, but quite pervasive. - Clay Newton

@Mona: +200! Seriously, Twitter wins for most over hyped site. I frankly contribute to that through stomping around about how much attention it gets for so little added value. The sands are shifting under Twitter and I'm not sure they get that. People are on overload, they're shifting to trusted networks. And Twitter is now overflowing with affiliate, spam and black hat SEO. Not a peep (or chirp) out of Twitter on how they're dealing with that and the very quick backlash it will likely get from users. - AJ Kohn

Jason - that doesn't really describe why it's getting buzz. What a lot of the Twitter early adopters (I wasn't) were saying about the usefulness and versatility of Twitter has finally been recognized by...uh..."normal people". Well, as normal as Shaq and Jimmy Fallon and Karl Rove are. - Hutch Carpenter

Shouldn't it get recognized once it is finally stable (FailWhale after it was mentioned on The View by Barbara Walters? Still?) and monetizing? What kind of standard does this set for start-ups across the board? - Mona Nomura

Normal just means people between the tails of the bell curve. Which, come on, we all are. - Matthew DeVries

2.0 is to Twitter and 1.0 is to Pets.com ???? - AJ Kohn

PEOPLE: Pile off Robert. This is obviously one of those mulligan overly sensitive statements he warned us all about yesterday that were going to be coming. Give the dude a pass and move on. - Matthew DeVries

Mona - monetization is not something the average user obsesses about. You think the news guys that are getting on Twitter spend a lot of time worrying about that? Fail Whale is an issue, it nearly brought the service to its knees last year. It's better, but needs improvement still. - Hutch Carpenter

Robert, I'm advising for a company that is doing an amazing alternative for Twitter, targeted just at Moms. I'd love to give you and Maryam a demo some time. (I think Maryam would really love it). I'll e-mail you some more details shortly if you're interested. - Jesse Stay

Oh, perhaps I was misunderstood. Why is this service (Twitter) garnering as much attention as it does when there is no guarantee it would even last? It just heightens its worth for a buy-out. What kind of standard is this setting for products and services moving forward? - Mona Nomura

@scoble I think this is totally blown out of proportion. He clearly meant, "not tech obsessed" or cutting-edge. Like Clay said, he meant people like my parents. My only disagreement is that it'll take 5 years -- it's already happening. Of course, how long people stay or use the service is always the big question, but people who aren't plugged in (like my sister) are already trying it out. - Christina Warren

Mona - YouTube - Hutch Carpenter

Here's what I don't get - why would anyone keep working there? With all the new financing they've been getting, normal employee stock has got to be mostly diluted at the moment. I wonder if they realize that. It's no longer worth working there as a "startup environment". - Jesse Stay

Hutch - Indeed. As well as many others. But seriously, is Twitter *that* useful? - Mona Nomura

Mona - I think it is, because of its relative simplicity. Ultimately, of course, "useful" is a market call. Right now, the market says "yes". - Hutch Carpenter

I just think it's a good example of how not everybody was meant to do press junkets and interviews with Charlie Rose. Time to invest in a PR person - Dave Powell from twhirl

Robert, do you think the language is a call back to the days when developers used the terminology "dumb user"? It seems that way to me as well..just the "lite" version of the arrogance that sadly has been endemic in developer culture since at least when I came on board in the late 90's. I'm even ashamed to admit that our university allowed instructors to use this "geek-speak" in the classroom as part of the curriculum. Esoterica often provides its own set of "ear-muffs" to its users. - Melanie Reed

I think we contribute greatly to the market saying it is useful, by hyping up a service that is still missing many rudimentary features. I truly don't see why Twitter is a great marketing tool. Supplementary, yes but it certainly doesn't deserve all the attention it gets as a service since it's the people on Twitter, not the tool itself that makes it 'useful'. - Mona Nomura

@Mona is on fire. + 1MM. - AJ Kohn

Mona: That's like saying the Interstate isn't a good tool, it's the cars on that move the people are the useful thing. - Matthew DeVries

Mona - I hear the argument about how easy Twitter is to build, nothing special to it. The *concept* was special. The early adoption was critical. The community is the barrier to entry. Twitter hit 'escape velocity' while others failed to do so. - Hutch Carpenter

Matthew - I don't see the correlation. Interstates are a necessity. Twitter isn't. And Aaron? The mainstream is bigger than Twitter AND FriendFeed. - Mona Nomura

I thought by not being into sports I would get out of this my ___ is better than yours thing. Guess not. - Stephan Miller from Friend Deck

Evan Williams says "normal people" and the ones who are offended are the geeks on the social networks. I rest my case. - Shawn Farner

@Aaron: I use Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation. - AJ Kohn

I always love the Twitter bashing on FF...especially from Scoble. We all know that 'normal' is mainstream and we also know that most of us are far from mainstream. Twitter is entering that sphere and as many people that think Twitter is useless there will be 2 more saying, 'Whoa! this is cool'. I'm far from a tech guru and love being able to keep in touch with friends and family via Twitter and SMS. It is the broadcast aspect that beats out plain old SMS. - Sidney

Shawn - maybe that's why I call my blog "I'm not actually a geek". :-p - Hutch Carpenter

Why be normal? - Thomas Hawk

It's like Pepsi or Coke. Preferences only. And people start a war. I don't care unless I own the company, lol. But I guess it's a good time waster. - Stephan Miller from Friend Deck

Nonsense? Blasphemy Aaron! There is nothing more important than discussing services and measurements that clearly have no resolute answers!! ;) - Mona Nomura

Mona - that's why I tend to be market-oriented in a lot of my opinions. Probably the closest approximation of the "answer". - Hutch Carpenter

Mona - Interstates are not necessary, and when Eisenhower built them, everyone on Route 66 thought no one would use them, and died. - Matthew DeVries

Hutch - indeed. Only time will tell. @Matthew - I still do not see the correlation with Interstates to Twitter. But it's me, not you. :) - Mona Nomura

FF is futureproof. FF acknowledges that other services exist and encourages you to not be centralized. FF provides a platform for integration. Twitter wants you to use only twitter. This is what causes vapid content on twitter, it offers nothing, and doesn't have the potential to offer anything other than what you see in front of you. Twitter is a talking platform, FF is an integration... more... - Andy Bakun

I agree with Andy, except to say, perhaps FF will go away (noooo!), but something that does the same thing should rise to take its place if that happens. - Kamilah Gill

Andy's right. - Thomas Hawk

@Andy I would disagree to a point. It would be rude of me to walk up to a group of people and go, "I'm heading to the movies" and walking away. They'd expect me to sit around and wait for a comment from them. With Twitter I can say it and be gone. If someone wants to comment they can and I can get said comment on the go. Phone, generally one on one. Email, you can broadcast but again, no sms integration which is vital to reach people mobile. not everyone has email on their phone. Twitter does it all - Sidney

agree w/ thomas - andy nailed it, exactly my pov too :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Arent all humans noisy?? Prokofy: find me a single Twitter user who isn't noisy some of the time. I've looked. Even TimOreilly is noisy some of the time." Scoble???? - Francisco Kemeny

The reason why Twitter works is because of the number of people who use it. Yesterday I was having issues with Better Gmail 2, I did a quick twitter search and realized other people are having the same issue at the same time, I replied to them and we talked about it. Can't do that on Google or FriendFeed. I love FF but bottom line is most people I follow on twitter are not on FF, so I have to manually enter these people as imaginary friends to filter the twitter noise - this is a pain. - Kelly Johns

OMG. I agree completely with Robert. - Chris Baskind

Robert: I am completely amazed by the way people use Twitter and I think the possibilities are endless. I just hope these boys at Twitter don't invest all their time and money trying to make this all about celebrities. Cause then it becomes very lame. - PC Easy from twhirl

I was helping somebody set up a new Twitter account today and noticed that during the sign up process they bring up a list of recommended people on Twitter to follow with the check marks already highlighted so you have to actually uncheck them to not follow them. Among various brands such as Dell the number 2 recommendation was a blogger, @dooce. Some of her tweets are very explicit. She refers to herself on her blog as a Sh*t A** H* M*****r F*****r (dooce.com). Interesting pick for #2 - Mike Elliott

Another thing to consider is how twitter could change their feature list or UI such that anything new wouldn't seem "bolted on". I don't think they can. If they added the ability to "browse" tweets and show threads (in the right order), something I think it desperately needs, rather than just a list of obviously ephemeral and no longer relevant entries with the most recent at the top,... more... - Andy Bakun

Mike Elliott: +100. Insightful observation. - Robert Scoble

I am new to FF, but I like the context and conversation I can get from FF. Twitter seems masturbatory. - Rick Cogley

Naturally he says normal people. Robert, I hate to break it to you, you are far from normal! I am certainly not normal either. Early adopters are, as a general rule, not the norm. That's fine. - Daniel W. Crompton

I believe both FF and Twitter serve a purpose. FriendFeed, for me, is much like a university library whereas Twitter is much like the university cafeteria. It depends on 'type' of conversation one wants/needs at a particular moment. - ka3drr

lol - no not library, twitter is like the roxbury (full of posers) and friendfeed is like a park outside a library on a sunny spring day (chilling with friends and having interesting conversations) imho of course :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Scoble is wrong on this one, normal people are on email not twitter - imran

Hmmmm, I'm normal, or at least, I THINK I'm normal... I use Twitter to communicate with people I normally wouldn't be able to find with any other means. I use it for information gathering too. And, bouncing ideas off of people. I don't know, I like it, and I am pretty sure that I am normal. I use Facebook for my real life friends and family, and that's it. Facebook I have locked down, so I can be more at ease there. - Danielle Closs

My mom is on twitter - she's pretty normal - Antonio Altamirano

this thread with the amount of quality comments back and forth illustrates the viability of FF as a great medium for debate! IMO: As busy as Mr. Scoble is, he should get mad props for starting and maintaining the discussion. - shayne catrett

This is a nonissue. Evan's point is that like blogging was 5 years ago, twitter today seems a little offputting. To technological optimists, twitter will always be awesome, but to joe sixpack (or joe-who-has-no-blog) it may be sometime before twitter does not incite: "Well who the hell would want to know what I'm doing all the time?" The idea of 'normal' does cannot be so quickly reversed into "Evan just called me a freak." Grow up. - Daniel Morgan

Guess I was not so stupid after all... Friendfeed implements DM ! - Bart LePoole

paisano

the caterpillar becomes a butterfly when Twitter comes back up?

November 18, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

For real - Christina Warren

Brett Kelly

the (former) blogger in me wants to know how many rss subscribers my tumblelog gets

November 13, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Heh. No feedburner esque stats for Tumblr? - Christina Warren

It just shows the number of people who "follow" you, not actual subscribers. I really shouldn't care anyway :) - Brett Kelly

Louis Gray

Want to Be A Community Manager for Drobo? - http://drobo.com/Product...

October 27, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Chris Johnston, Morton Fox, Thomas Hawk and 18 other people liked this

The Drobo personal storage solution has been among the most sought after tech tools to hit in the last few years. Thomas Hawk, Scoble and others swear by them. Now, the company is looking for someone who "lives on the Web" and can help manage forums, feedback, etc. for their product. Interested in what could be a very interesting full-time job? Let me know. - Louis Gray from Bookmarklet

24 more comments

I love Drobo, but I doubt they could afford me... ;-) - Stephen Foskett

The company's founder is a good friend of mine, former colleague, etc. If you are interested, or know someone who is, let me know here, or at louisgray@mac.com. - Louis Gray

where is drobo located? the valley i presume? - andy brudtkuhl

Andy, they are based in Santa Clara, CA. Given this is a Web-facing position, I'm sure they are flexible on geography. - Louis Gray

I'd like to talk to them, storage is something we all need. - paul mooney

Louis, you know how much I make here in Utah - if they're willing to pay the bay area equivalent and move me out there I'd love to talk to them. - Jesse Stay

I love these devices, I just need to get one on a slight discount :-) - Chris Miller

Louis, Are they posting this job, or is it more informally listed? - John Metta

The note from the founder essentially says: "We need to hire somebody who lives on the web and can manage online forums, feedback etc for Data Robotics." So, Paul, Jesse, etc., send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll send your data directly to the CEO. - Louis Gray

hmmmmmmm... - Mona Nomura

ooooooohhhh...aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh - David Cook from twhirl

@Chris ask and ye shall receive! http://www.amazon.com/Drobo-F... - Stephen Foskett

before I start hammering them... :) "I have been looking at the Drobo unit but it has a couple of shortcomings that I am sure a Linux distro must be able to overcome. Firstly, it is a USB device with no Ethernet and secondly it is fairly expensive." http://tinyurl.com/58u6m6 - A.T.

I'd offer, sadly they're selling for an extortionate amount here in the UK and my argument with the dealers ended in a "would you stop a company making more money in a market where they can recoupe development costs more easily" knee jerk reaction of "It's a great product, I just resent paying over £300 for it when I could buy it in the US, ship it and pay import tax on it and still be choosing the cheaper option". - alphaxion

Do I get a free Drobo for doing so? - xero

@silpol - they have an Ethernet add-on device for it now. The new one also has fireware. - xero

@xero, you would have to talk to the hiring manager and HR on that. I don't work for Drobo, but I can see how the position might be very interesting to some people here. - Louis Gray

The thing I don't get about the Drobo is that you have to pay extra to get the network connectivity - shouldn't it be there out of the box? - Andy Davies

Andy, no doubt many agree with you. I don't have their roadmap in front of me, so who knows what they have planned. Whoever gets this job will probably get that answer before the general public. - Louis Gray

Interesting. I live very close to them... wonder if I should give it a try? - CW™

@Louis, all the same I know a few people in the UK who rave about the Drobo so they must be doing something right... - Andy Davies

Do I get a free Drobo? - cecily

Who do I contact? - Christina Warren

Chris and Christina, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I can pass your data along. - Louis Gray

my drobos are awesome. Replicated primary storage all the way baby! - Thomas Hawk

paisano

I wish there was a way to jump to different inboxes with one click on the iphone. The back and forth shuffle is annoying! Still..it rocks

October 27, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

You can do it with the BlackBerry! OK, OK, I'll stop. - Christina Warren

Christina Warren

How to Clone Mac OS X to a New Hard Drive - http://lowendmac.com/ed...

October 20, 2008 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

For grant - Christina Warren

Jay Cuthrell

I wish there was a universal filter or kill file for Henry Blodget posts. SAI once again underwhelms me with their lazy prose and lack of taste. - http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008...

July 21, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Christina Warren liked this

And the guy is wrong. It isn't shareholders business. Does not knowing negatively impact stock, sure -- but let's not be total assholes and demand to know every CEO's medical history. Let's have some freaking tact. - Christina Warren

Exactly!!! - Jay Cuthrell

Michael Gartenberg

Do you use Vista? Why or why not?

June 26, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Donnovan, Steve Spalding, edythe and 3 other people liked this

Because my laptop came with it. Pretty happy with it. Didn't see problems with it until I upgraded my Desktop. My desktop has crapped out since then. Is it related?...Don't know yet. - David Cook

31 more comments

I 'upgraded' my desktop from XP to Vista 18 months ago and it worked perfectly for about 12, now its just sluggish, will be going back to XP shortly - Arthur Guy

My laptop was "Vista Capable" when I bought it, and Vista was out, so I upgraded. I downgraded after about 8 months, I couldn't get anything done or use any of my work tools on it without having to jump through hoops. XP runs like lightning on it now that I had to beef up the memory for Vista. ;-) - cmiper

I prefer the vista UI and I find vista has lots of little nice touches all over the place. However, I have good hardware which is all compatible and have no driver issues impacting Vista stability. But there are no killer reasons to switch to Vista though. Office 2007 on the other hand is v annoying.... - Ian Fogg

Yup, mainly for the Tablet PC features. - Kevin C. Tofel

Yes, partly because I work in IT and need to keep an open mind about what's available to the constituency we support. Also, my home system is pretty beefy (quad-core w/4GB RAM), so Vista's rather hefty overhead isn't a problem. - Melissa Woo

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude. - l0ckergn0me

My hardware is more than capable, so I do run Vista on both a home and work laptop. I like the new start menu, built in search, and media center enhancements. - Sean Brady from twhirl

I use Vista and XP. Depends on the hardware you have. If older, stick with XP - Photo Larry

came with my laptop, but last update has been messing with my photoshop - Vincent

Nope, because I moved to Linux. - João Almeida

Yes, but only for gaming and such; rest of the time is spent using OS X - Sean Dunn

Only use XP in a virtual machine on my linux tablet for Outlook/Exchange. - darodave

No, I prefer Leopard. Have XP Pro on a Dell... decided not to switch 'cos so many people were having problems with it. Whenever I tried it on someone else machine there always seems to a crash on it. - Sally Church

Nooo. Last year, I paid for the upgrade and had it on my laptop for 3 weeks. It was awful. Now I have a Mac. - Christina Warren

I upgraded to Vista for one reason. Direct X 10 and the promise of better gaming. So far I've only played a handful of games that have used it. Otherwise I would have stuck to XP. - Mark Krynsky

I really liike the start menu search and the new interface .. just need a better video card then a 7950GT :) - John Blanton from twhirl

Because it came with my laptop and now I'm used to some of what it has to offer (smarter multi-monitor support-- excellent!) and I tolerate the rest. - Rakesh Agrawal

no. don't want to deal with its issues. xp is fine. - edythe

Yes, and I've had almost no issues with it, but I did disable the UAC straight off and I haven't messed with the hardware any. - Mr. Gunn

http://www.youtube.com/watch... - l0ckergn0me

yes on a laptop and desktop and had NO issues with it. I love it - Richard Binhammer from Alert Thingy

I've never used Vista (on a machine that I own.) Although, sometimes a job will require me to use or fix Vista... - Czar

No. I ran the Vista adviser but the buzz said don't bother. - Russellreno

Nope. Very happy with OS X and Ubuntu. - Jonathon

When you have Ubuntu and Mac why bother with any windows? - Greg Bond from twhirl

like Kevin, it's the best OS for my tablet. - Kenneth LeFebvre

Chris...thinking you might want to remove the date from the top of your video for whatever you plan on doing for next year as it detracts from the effect immediately :) - Mark Krynsky

I am very happy with Vista on my ThinkPad X61 ... great tablet experience - Steve Holden

I use it at home. It is fine, but the UAT is annoying - RAPatton

I use both,but I use xp more because some of my hardware is not compatible with vista - Donnovan

Yes. I like it. Don't like its bloat though (both HDD space and RAM). - Dileepa Prabhakar

i have a sony ux umpc running vista, and a hp 2710 running xp. who'd have thought! - Alphonsus Lee from twhirl

SYTYCD!: Pokai

SYTHCD (Joshua/Katee): One of my favorites - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

June 12, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Rachel Lea Fox liked this

One of the best routines in SYTYCD history. - Christina Warren

New link (starts 2 minutes in): http://www.youtube.com/watch... - JAbbott

sytycd: paisano

This is my favorite all time performance on SYTYCD! The Argentine tango by Ivan and the amazing Allison! - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

June 12, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Allison was awesome! - Christina Warren

Lisa Hoover

My son is under my desk giving me a pedicure. He's strange. http://twitpic.com/1kjs

May 28, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

That's kind of awesome - Christina Warren

Louis Gray

PC World says Twitter, Digg amongTop 100 Best Products in 2008: http://www.pcworld.com/article... FriendFeed, Google Reader don't make the cut.

May 27, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Chris Harris, Rick Mahn, Natitude and 10 other people liked this

don't care. pc world is king of pc world? absolutely no! i only seldom use twitter and digg. - huixing

17 more comments

pcworld is lamezaur - Tyler Gillies

PC Who? - Yuvi

gawd - Charlie Anzman

they even listed YouTube and Craigslist. They're confusing the word best with common - Duncan Riley

PC World (Political Correct World?) - Baard @ Pixum

What's a PC? - Chris Nixon

Chris, PC is what the "rest of us" use. - Yuvi

I'm only kidding. I mostly use PCs too. - Chris Nixon

I think they don't even know about Friendfeed. And as for Google Reader: They RSS feeds have content summaries, so I don't think they've really understood the idea behind feed readers yet. - Meryn Stol

"I'm only kidding" - Me too! ;) - Yuvi

I think Duncan's comment is right on - acedanger

For "best" read "most used" - Slippy "WildBeard" Lane

I just realized I don't have PC World in my GReader feeds. What does that mean? - ha3rvey (needs soup)

eh, Dvorak probably bitched until they removed twitter from the list - Brett Kelly

Yeah, OK - but have you ever used Newsgator (also not on the list), it kicks GReader's ass in every conceivable way. - Christina Warren

I've worked at multiple IT trade pubs...and I would honestly be shocked if the people who wrote the article *use* Twitter or FriendFeed or Google Reader...typically, they have so much technology to follow that's in their beat, and so many stories to write, it's hard to find time to "play" with new and emerging stuff. - Melissa Chang

I just think that Friendfeed/Google Reader is a power user tool. Not so much mainstream. That's like saying that National Geographic is not a popular channel. - Mike Lewis

One more nail in the PC World coffin. Wait... did I just say that? Yes, I think I did. They are way too old-media and behind the curve. - Cyndy

Brett Kelly

The one thing all of the twitter "alternatives" lack = the twitter community. that's what keeps me here, and I'm sure that's true of most.

May 28, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Absolutely. Even though I don't consider Twitter "the service" a community, I have forged a community here w/other users. - Christina Warren

Christina Warren

Mike Doe -- making comedy from scratch! (www.mikedoe.net) - Journal - http://mikedoe.net/

March 1, 2008 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

So funny! It's where I get all my pop culture laughs. - Christina Warren

Christina Warren

Mike Doe -- making comedy from scratch! (www.mikedoe.net) - Journal - http://mikedoe.net/

March 1, 2008 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

So funny! It's where I get all my pop culture laughs. - Christina Warren

Christina Warren

StumbleUpon - mikedoenets web site reviews and blog - http://mikedoenet.stumbleupon.com/

March 1, 2008 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

Mike is hilarious! He's witty and sharp and also playful - fantastic! - Christina Warren

Christina Warren

StumbleUpon - mikedoenets web site reviews and blog - http://mikedoenet.stumbleupon.com/

March 1, 2008 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

Mike is hilarious! He's witty and sharp and also playful - fantastic! - Christina Warren

Christina Warren › Comments