Obama didn't blow it - the Clintons have far too much baggage. But it's a pretty savvy move by McCain. - Chris Selland
yes Obama did screw up but also McCain picked her because conservatives such as my self want a ticket that I can agree with. I don't agree with Obama, and want to know that McCain values my vote. I know that now he does. - Colide81
McCain, by picking a 44-year old, just invalidated his argument that Obama at 47 isn't experienced enough to be president. - Peter Ghosh
By not picking Hillary, no. By not picking a woman... perhaps. Their seems to be an eagerness among the electorate to start down this path of expanding the office beyond white male power. Palin could work out good for McCain, if she doesn't have any skeletons lurking in her closet. - Brian Norwood
I agree Jason...politics aside, the strategy of the move was brilliant... - Live4Soccer
Peter, Palin is a governor. Obama is a first-term senator. She already has more experience than he does. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl
Stupid choice and desperate. McCain hits on lack of experience and this woman is a first term governor. McCain is not young so if anything happened, this is the person who will be your president. I think this move shows desperation - Grant Gochnauer
Alaska politics seem rife with corruption and protectionism problems, they're almost as bad as New Jersey. There will be skeletons somewhere. Biden will have a field day. - Sally Church
Gregory, maybe true. It'll be interesting to watch to say the least :D - Grant Gochnauer
I agree with Grant. If something may happen to McCain (he is quite old!), we'll get our first woman president. She just happens to be a first term Governer with very little experience. - Ricardo Vidal
I dunno about the rest of the former Hilary supporters, but I'm not going to vote for McCain just because he chose a female running mate. - Richard Klein
I'm Canadian, so I don't have a lot of the inside scoop. However, I've though from day 1 that McCain would win. Now if in fact he chooses a woman running-mate (and she doesn't have any serious skeletons), Obama has no chance. I think there are a lot of electoral similarities between the bias against Conservative governments in Canada and Democratic governments in the U.S. In Canada... - Kenton
... the Conservatives start out with a disadvantage, no matter who the leader or what the policies. I think the Dems start out at a disadvantage and everything needs to be perfect in order for them to have a chance. By choosing a woman (no matter what her capabilities, I hate to say) MCCain has pushed the Dems further into the hole. Just my Canuck opinion. - Kenton
McCain locks it up with Palin. It's all over. At least this year it won't be close - didn't want to go through another 2000 and 2004. - Rob Sterling
Wow. Some very unintelligent commentary going on here. "McCain locks it up." you don't know anything about Palin I'm willing to bet. No one can say anything is locked up with anyone but especially this unknown first term governor currently under investigation. Jason's question is silly. This is not a "checkmate" for that assumes the game is over. No prochoice, pro-gun, pro-drilling woman will get a "big slice" of Hillary's 18m DEMOCRATIC voters. Let's think about this please. Or better yet, not. Stick to the tech man. - Baratunde Thurston via twhirl
and folks need to stop buying into this hillary obama thing. it's over. democrats vote for democrats. the stuff you're hearing is mostly hype by a loud few amplified by a lazy media culture - Baratunde Thurston via twhirl
@Gregory Pittman - um, she was the mayor of a small town (~8000) before becoming governor. At least Obama was a state senator. . . - Peter Ghosh
Good points Baratunde. This doesn't make it a lock because not all the Republicans are even going to be happy with this choice. Was there this much debate over Obama's choice? - JMS
No, because Palin is the anti-Hilary. If Hillary voters go Rep. just because she has a vagina, then it would, to me, defeat the purpose of women wanting equality for reasons too long to explain here. - ::Kristen::
So far, as an independent conservative, I am impressed by Sarah Palin. She's exactly what McCain needed: not from Washington, conservative on issues I care about. That should quell some of the "third Bush term". Her inexperience will suit her as the VP. It's the VP slot that can be used for training, not the President. - Graham Bates via twhirl
Doesn't this pick wake Hillary up? I mean - she has to hold a small chance that she will be able to make a presidential run again....she wants to be the first elected into the white house. She's not going to want this woman to spoil her show..... - George Smith
Obama's game challenge was he had the first move with this week's DNC . Had he picked Cinton, McCain would choose someone else - Pat Kitano via twhirl
@George - so say Palin is VP in 2009. Then Hilary may have to run against her in 2012. Palin will have "experience" to trump Hilary. This may be a sly repub move to thwart Hilary from ever being the first woman president. I have to say this VP pick is quite shrewd. - Jason Kaneshiro
palin is kicking butt in her speech ... but obama didnt blow his choice.. the pairs are fine .. a good conversation is possible if americans cared about issues... they don't - gregory lent
for the record, this woman was the Mayor of a town of less than 9000 people less than 2 years ago. how can anyone responsibly even consider her a viable number 2 in charge??? - Jeremy Toeman
High approval ratings from a state that has kept Ted Stevens around doesn't mean much. And to say that the Republicans have now locked in the female vote because Palin is a women is either a gross underestimation or a very contemptuous view of the intelligence of the fairer sex. - saeba
@Baratunde - I've been following Palin for six months and rooting for her as VP the whole time. I know all about her and I think she locks it up for McCain. - Rob Sterling
Umm, Peter, she has executive experience. Mayor, yes, not a big deal. But she's a governor. Obama has no executive experience. Being a senator provides no actual qualifications to be president. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl
Palin is a gift to the Obama campaign just watch all the skeletons that fall out of her closet. - adolfo foronda
Adolfo, you may very well be right. But I highly doubt it. My hunch is that Palin has provided the Obama campaign its worst nightmare. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl
Sheesh, reminds me of when they give smart kids extra work because they finish early. - Heather
In America, where you're not supposed to make anyone feel 'inferior' to anyone else, yes, it is. Stories like this get my blood boiling. If the kid is that good, then that's one lucky team to have him. They shouldn't be penalized. If the other kids suck against him, then they are learning a valuable life lesson that there are people in life who are better at things than you are. - Joey Gibson
Someone on my flist on LJ posted this yesterday. Their argument was that its dangerous for him to play and its just a matter of time before he hurts someone. And I kind of agree. Its not just that he's better, but he's a lot better. And when it comes to sports, it can be dangerous. - Araceli
While it isn't completely without merit, I just don't know if I buy that argument, Araceli. It's like they're saying he's too good to play with my kid but he's not good enough not to hurt my kid. Which one is it? Is he too good or not? But the larger issue for me is they're penalizing his excellence. He's probably too young to play in another league, so that option is removed for him. Their suggestion is to move to a position he isn't as good at. They're rewarding mediocrity. - Gregory Pittman
I don't know. But you'd be ok with him pitching a ball that fast at your kid? - Araceli
“Choosing between Obama and McCain is like being offered the choice to have your leg amputated or get shot in the head. Obviously, the first choice is better than the alternative but it ain't good for me and I don't have to be happy about it.”
I don't agree with you on which one is the stubby leg, and which is the hole in the head, but your general argument is sound. :-) - Joey Gibson
I feel the same way, only with the players reversed. And with McCain, it may be more like having both legs amputated. Or one arm and one leg. Or an arm, a leg, and a few fingers. Come to think of it, getting shot in the head may be quicker. - Gregory Pittman
I felt the same with Kerry and Bush. Kinda' lost my enthusiasm for democracy after that one! - Paul Reynolds
You have to be pretty narcissistic to run for President. I don't think it's that she believes he doesn't have the right stuff. It's just that she really believes she's the very best and no one else is as good as her. As Obama thinks about himself, as does McCain, as does pretty much anyone and everyone at that level. Either way, I'm confident that she thinks any D is superior to any R, and that's really all that she needs to think or convince anyone of. - Eric
From what I understand, his administration thought they knew how to do everything so didn't listen to the experts in the government...Hmm, that sounds familiar. - AlexScoble(Robert'sBro)
you are correct. He'll be known for his overseas diplomancy post presidency - Ryan
he was a disaster of a president. couldn't manage the economy and his foreign policy proclamations gave the leeway Russia needed to go crazy on their nuke program. - Morgan
But he wasn't a bad president either. Had a very bad series of events that were out of the control of any president but which either reflect on the president or require a no-win decision by the president. Much of Carter's problems with the image of his presidency wouldn't exist today because of the sophistication of PR. - stammers a lot
Morgan, i think that's too harsh. The economy was virtually out of control. Like now, there's little a president can do about it. The problem is, people expect a president to do something and when they can't or they try an it fails, it reflects on them. - stammers a lot
nicerobot, please. If you think that all it takes to erase the problems of a poor presidency is the increasing sophistication of public relations, then I look forward to your excusing Bush of the problems of his administration in 30 years' time as well. - Akiva Moskovitz
Jimmy Carter is the Democrat mirror to Dubya. Failed presidency. Very likable man though. History will be kind to him. - Brian Norwood
I can remember the peanuts, the slow, heavy southern drawl accent, the nasty inflation, the gas lines and gas "lottery" ...disasterous!! I am impressed with his post-presidency career however...very active and effective - Susan Beebe
Dhimmi Carter hasn't done much to impress me. Ever. - Akiva Moskovitz
Misrepresent my comment all you want. It doesn't change the fact that action or not by a president, it matters how they present themselves on the issues. Bush would have been impeached years ago if not for his PR (which lied and produced propaganda to avoid it). - stammers a lot
+1 Brian, from me too. History is already being kind to him. Noone really discusses the 444 hostages he tried to rescue from the US embassy in Iran and FAILED. Not to mention the failure of the SALT II treaty and the aforementioned gas "lottery". - Helen Is SOOO Not Of Troy
nicerobot, although I appreciate your sentiment that the perception of one's action often overrides the actual consequence of that action, I would hope that leaders of nations are held to higher standards than that. - Akiva Moskovitz
Carter was a total write off as a president. He was likable enough - but being liked isn't what is needed in the presidency. Given that Obama is basically Carter II, this is relevant information to remember. - Soulhuntre
Helen, people also forget that the so-called 'peace accord' Carter supposedly orchestrated didn't really work at all as Arafat never for one second ceased working with terrorist groups to bring about the destruction of Israel. - Akiva Moskovitz
I'll take Carter 2 ANY day over Bush 2. Any day. - Tad - just Tad
Helen, I think you make my point. Carter can't really be held responsible for the hostage situation nor the failed rescue but he was responsible in the public eye. The gas shortage and prices weren't his fault either. And when he told the truth about it, people took offense. And SALT's failure was largely due to opposition in Congress. - stammers a lot
I would like leaders held to higher standards too. When they lie to the public to get us into war that is destroying 100Ks of lives and hurting our own economy, I'd like to see lots of people held accountable. Those are actions that a presidential administration is fully responsible for versus the crap everyone holds Carter responsible for which were mostly out of his control. - stammers a lot
Carter's not an innocent no matter how desperately you try to adjust his PR. Bush is no innocent either. If one should be held accountable for his actions, then so should the other. Just as no one can whitewash Clinton's mistakes, or Reagan's, or even Kennedy's (hello, Bay of Pigs), you can't whitewash Carter's. Well, you can TRY to whitewash all you want but anyone who knows history will see through the smoke and mirrors. - Akiva Moskovitz
I'm not really intended to claim Carter didn't have problems. I just never saw it as bad as people have claimed. Like I said, He wasn't good, but he wasn't bad. GW, to me, is bad, bad, bad. To me, there is a huge difference in the actions GW is responsible for which make him bad and the issues Carter had which, to me, are what made him appear bad. Simply: GW's actions are bad. Carters reactions were poor. - stammers a lot
nicerobot, good points but don't you see most of GW's actions as merely poor reactions? How different do you think his term would have been if 9/11 hadn't have happened? Isn't that something that was, like Carter, beyond his control? - Akiva Moskovitz
nicerobot - if the president (in this case, Carter) can't be held accountable for how he handles events that affect the course of the nation, then GW can't be "bad, bad, bad." - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Akiva, the big one for me is getting us into war with Iraq. That was hardly a reaction. It was premeditated. And to worsen it, lies and propaganda used as justification were sickening. I don't think it would have been much different for GW because they were planning a way to go into Iraq prior to 9/11. They also had an agenda to edit EPA reports and were meeting with Enron about Energy. GW is far from a reactionary president, which is really a great president, if only his actions weren't so horrendous. - stammers a lot
The only real problem with Carter's presidency being remembered for what it did to help this country is that most of the real helpful environmental and ecological legislation was all undone by the next 12 years of Republicans. Carter never needed whitewashing, he would face up to anything and anyone. Integrity isn't perfection. It's just what we need in Washington x1000 - Chris Kim A
Chris, there was nothing--and I mean nothing--positive about Carter's presidency. He would have lost his bid for re-election against anyone. In fact, his first term was so bad he lost his second election by a landslide. Not just any landslide; he lost by over 430 electoral votes. It was the worst presidential election defeat in nearly fifty years. So, no, Carter's only real problem was not that he was followed by 12 years of Republicans. His only real problem was that he was elected in the first place. - Gregory Pittman
Echoing Tad: Waaay better than Bush. At a Harvard reunion, people were reminiscing that they thought Truman was the worst president ever...until Bush arrived. They appeared unanimous in thinking that Bush has set a new record for "worst president". - Mitchell Tsai
18% mortgage rates, a hostage situation he did nothing about, gas prices through the ceiling, and a USSR becoming more and more aggressive and powerful every minute. Yep, Jimmah was likeable, but anyone who doubts he's the worst President ever is so blinded by anti-Bush hatred they aren't to be taken seriously. - Vincent Ferrari
Like I said and think I've demonstrated over and over above, most things were beyond what _any_ president can do. Carter's biggest problem was appearing and being spineless. Anyone that can explain to me how a president can affect mortgage rates, gas prices, and kidnappers and I'll consider changing my position on Carter. - stammers a lot
nicerobot, your point that what is out of control of a presidency excuses the president of the responsibility of his involvement in it just doesn't wash. Most everything is out of a president's control: by nature, all presidents are reactionary. A president creates nothing and reacts to everything. Carter's reactions to all of those things were part of the problem. They don't absolve him; they incriminate him. - Akiva Moskovitz
Furthermore, I honestly wish people would stop whining about Iraq. People fixate on that as if it's the only thing that defines Bush's presidency. Look, if you take Iraq completely out of the equation and look at what he's done other than that, you'll find out that, yep, Bush is still worse than Carter. But that doesn't stop Carter from still being worse than just about everyone president that had come before. - Akiva Moskovitz
Signing statements, torture, Iraq, vacations, wire taping, massaging world leaders, editing EPA reports, lying, propaganda, the mounting debt, ... These are all _actions_ (or due to) that make Bush a flop. Several of the main things Carter is accused of are also applicable to GW. I don't think GW sucks because houses have lost half their value nor because gas is so expensive. GW sucks because he's acted shitty. - stammers a lot
It most certainly does wash that when something is out of your control, you are excused of the responsibility. You're not excused of the decisions you make in response and I never said anyone was. Someone runs their car into you when you're stopped at a light, are you responsible? Ridiculous if you think so. But if you get out and beat the person or you just drive off, both are poor responses for which you are accountable. - stammers a lot
If you think GW is even close to being the worst president, you'd be wrong. Woodrow Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... makes GW look like a rank underachiever and Woodrow isn't even ranked as the worst president ever. And I'm saying this as a guy that thinks that GW's 8 years have been a complete failure. - AlexScoble(Robert'sBro)
This would be a bad move on McCain's part. Announcing right after the convention to try to take control of the press cycles would be fine. Announcing in during the convention to steal control would just come across as petty and childish. At least it would be portrayed as such. He can't win that one. - Gregory Pittman via Bookmarklet
Any reason the article is titled as a threat to a candidate when there was also a threat to a *sitting* president? - Gregory Pittman
Pretty sure you're referring to an incident that happened a month ago. The latest threat was made exclusively against Obama, and I assume that it the story to which Jason refers here. - Lon Harris via twhirl
"By November, I suspect that most voters will have heard enough to know that Barack Obama is unqualified to be a middle-manager in a well-run company, let alone President of the United States." Let's hope so. Although, I still say the alternative isn't much better. - Gregory Pittman via Bookmarklet
It's a simple rule: If you arrive at the gate after it closes, you can't board the plane. - Mo Jawhari
Alaska left me at a gate with eight minutes to go. Here's the rules. You must be at the gate before 10 minutes before your scheduled time. You must check your bags 45 minutes before your scheduled time. If you don't have bags, you need to print out your ticket with 30 minutes to go. There are some slack to these rules, but not much and if they feel like being strict for some reason they WILL bump you. - Robert Scoble
Oh you mean they did not make 400 people wait for you and then miss their takeoff slot and then delay the next flight that plane was due to make all because you did not bother to get to the airport in good time? - John Cooper
John - They did that for me once. Tunnel was retracted, I had to climb the steps up into the plane. Continental FTW! - Matt Musgrave
John: sometimes shit happens. One time on the way to the airport there was an accident and I was stuck in traffic for three hours. Missed two flights there. It's very frustrating to get to the gate a minute or two after they closed the door and watch the plane sit there for 20 minutes. Guess you are perfect and always on time for everything. - Robert Scoble
I've found that most airlines use the '10 minute cutoff' in order to allocate seats to standby passengers, and that they won't close the gate sooner than 3 minutes prior to scheduled departure. If I were on that plane I wouldn't be upset if they waited until 9:57am before closing the doors. John, would you insist they close the doors at 9:51am, knowing there were people who were a couple minutes away? Also, 400 people? Hyperbole much? United's largest plane (747-400 Vers. 2) maxes out at 374 passengers. Presumably no more than 369 if they stranded 5 at the terminal. - Kevin Fox
Scoble, it's not about being perfect. Getting to the gate late will cause you to miss your flight. It's not about not being able to put you on the plane physically, there is luggage to worry about and other tasks that happen in a very timely manner to avoid delays. A lot of people are doing many things to put the flight in the air on time. The airline is not to be blamed for a passenger's frustration. - Mo Jawhari
Mo. Almost every time I've seen this happen (that people are running for a flight) it's actually because the previous flight is late. Ever have to run through London's airport to try to make a connecting flight? I have. It's often not due to arriving late at an airport, but rather due to some other problem. The Alaska one, though, was due to a very long security line. Some of those take an hour to get through so it's easy to get tripped up, even if you get to the airport on time. - Robert Scoble
If you have 1K status, they are more likely to hold the door for you. - Jauder Ho
Jauder: I have 1K status. Not to mention they whisk you through security lines too. But that only helps on United. On other airlines they treat you like the cattle that you are. :-) - Robert Scoble
Ya, Heathrow is probably the worst airport to get around in, especially with the construction going on now. I still think that letting minutes decide your fate is not a good strategy. Arrive early, hours early, and make sure you get a good seat :) - Mo Jawhari
Flying is a chore... not a pleasure... the security is window-dressing... admit it... airports are disasters in general... but i guess most of all too many passengers put their brain in stupid-mode as soon as they enter one... it's unbelievable the things you hear and see... anyways... - Steven Pelsmaekers
To be on time do not exist, it's a concept. Either you're in advance either you're late! - Stephane Bourzeix
United is the WORST airline now in my opinion. I only fly American - Grant Gochnauer
i would switch from united but they have the best rewards for people w/ status and the other option from my airport is NW - Jonathan Jesse
Robert, that's mostly the case with US carriers. Try flying Singapore Airlines sometime, it's actually an enjoyable experience. - Jauder Ho
AA seems to be good about waiting a few extra minutes to close the gate if there are stragglers, and then bust a$$ to get in the air on time. I've done a lot of travelling just in the past few years, and AA is my favorite, but Frontier has the best planes. - Chris Martin
@chris martin: the one time i flew frontier i really enjoyed it wish i could catch more flights w/ frontier but they don't fly anywhere i usuall fly. i stick w/ united cause of status - Jonathan Jesse
Also United abandoned their pension obligations in bankruptcy court, dumping it off on the US Government instead. I'm sure it was legal, but completely unacceptable to me. I won't fly United any more. http://www.forbes.com/markets/... - Denton Gentry
I can see both sides of the argument. Jason, were you making a connecting flight, or just running late getting to the airport? :-) Also, "9 minutes" is not exactly the biggest span of time -- if United's clock is slightly fast, or yours slightly slow, that makes the difference less than 9 whole minutes. As for the airline, United has generally treated me well. The first class lounge in Frankfurt has awesome food. :-D - Karim
I don't know why people are moaning about someone who's missed the plane by a couple of minutes - when if something happened to them - i.e. there was a crash and it delayed them etc they'd be the first to complain pfft. - Nicholas James
I'm tired of all these Twitter copies. Pownce. Plurk. Identi.ca. Now Rejaw. Aren't you? How many more chat room, er, live web technologies do we need? Interesting that Meebo has 10x more users and is never mentioned in comparisons here. - Robert Scoble
How many new clothing styles do we need? Fashions change every year because, well, I've never quite figured that one out :-) - todd
I think there's room for a handful of these sites. I don't see one uber dominant player that is all things to all people. Just like social networking sites or IM clients, that fill the need of a certain demographic, I see several twitter clones populated with like people. For example, plurk might serve the Myspace crowd. Had Twitter not stumbled so badly for so long, it might have secured a hammerlock on the space, but given its troubles, people want alternatives. - Christian Anderson
I think there will be more before there are fewer. What is interesting to me is watching to see who wins dominance and how the space gets defined. You mention Meebo, which is really thought of as a Facebook competitor. Facebook too has Twitter-like functionality and 140x the users, but I don't think of them as chat room / live web tech. - Christian Anderson
It does seem to be a bit of overkill when the new services are not all that different and don't offer that much more than current services. I think of all the services Pownce has the best feature set (allows you to be as simple as Twitter or a bit more complex if you need to be) but I think their private beta went too long and they were never able to attract a decent user base. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl
It's not that there's not room for them, it's just that we can't seriously try them all. A new player would need to do mega-marketing to get my attention, or else do really well with a social media campaign. It's easy to try the "first" of something, but being the 3rd of 4th is a serious disadvantage. - Jason Kintzler
It has to be *really* shiny to get my attention at this point. I'm in web service overload. - Chris Baskind
Christian - arguably, there will be one uber player. The network effects of these services are so important. So the one that emerges with the most people gets into a virtuous cycle. You want the network, you join where the network is. Which increases the number of connections on the network. - Hutch Carpenter
Twitter was the first for me, i'm not changing just to keep up on some new "trend" - orionstarr
Jason: i disagree -- especially with this crowd. we're a fickle bunch and move on and off shiny new web toys very quickly. All one of these sites needs is for a few of the whale connectors to commit to them and actually leave Twitter. I'm not advocating that, but think Twitter is in a very precarious leadership position. - Christian Anderson
Each of these clones does seem to have a different flavor. Where Rejaw excels is in near real-time chatting. It's much more like IM when you participate in a hot topic. Conversations on Rejaw tend to swirl around single topics then move on. It's by design - Rejaw locks conversations that have no new posts after three days. If Twitter did not exist, and have such a huge user base, I think Rejaw would be a strong contender. - Leo Laporte
Hutch: i agree there will likely be one uber player for specific demos because of the network effects. Tech early-adopters will likely congregate on one (while trying others). Disagree though that the one uber player will be the same across demographics. I can see Plurk securing a large following and a leadership position with MySpacers, Rejaw could do the same with photographers because it handles pix and video well, etc. - Christian Anderson
Christian- That's true. I forget that I'm speaking for myself and not the critics in the crowd. I totally agree about the Plurk/MySpace connection - I've been thinking that also, much more "chummy" where twitter seems more grown-up- is that possible? - twitter is grown-up? - Jason Kintzler
uber FriendFeedstress Mona N ... funny :) - Charlie Anzman
so many magazines on the racks, so many cars on the road ... different specalities, interests, appeal ... more chat/message sites will be supported than exist now - gregory lent
Rejaw seems like a credible player. The challenge, as always, will be reaching critical pass. My take: http://bit.ly/rejaw - Dion Hinchcliffe
Always good to us. Healthy competition is good for the market, is good for innovation. Let them create more and more. This is the reason that we use FriendFeed for example, pull everything to one place. :-) - Tiago Vieira
Next week, something newer and shinier will come out and we'll stop talking about Rejaw, just like we stopped talking about Plurk. - Morton Fox
Morton: and Kwippy, and identica, and Utterz, ad infinitum. - Mark Trapp
Mark: We talked about Kwippy? I think I missed that. - Morton Fox
Morton: for like an hour. There's a cadre of FriendFeeders on it. It's a shame, because it has non-silly XMPP support. The web interface isn't all that great, though. - Mark Trapp
I give everything a fair chance. Plurk was poop from the start. I like Rejaw so far. I added Rejaw to my ping.fm services so I can update them all until we settle on a microblogging site. No harm done. - Matt Musgrave
Dion: what? no link love? :) Morton, agree, next week we'll move on and talk about what's next. that is what is great about this group -- the discovery. meanwhile, plurk and others are growing nicely. If Plurk continues to grow like it is, you can bet we'll be talking about them again. - Christian Anderson
I'm sticking with Twitter until the end. The rest of them can screw themselves. Got better things to do than chase followers on every microblog that comes along. - David Risley
The problem I see with all of them is technical... they've re-created the technical problems that plague Twitter. If they ever get popular, they'll have the same issues (or worse, without $20 million to try to fix them) - Jason Carreira
I see it as our responsibility as early adopters to stress test these new services. Complain about the shortcomings of each so they either listen to us and change, or others learn from the mistakes to create something worthy for mass consumption. So keep bitching people. It drives the evolution of technology. - Matt Musgrave
Jason: I pinged Danny Burkes – Architect at Rejaw about scalability. Let's see what he says. - Christian Anderson
why do we need rejaw? it's too much like twitter, pownce, identi.ca, etc. What can they possibly add to the space? - David Ward
There's a lot to be added to the space, it's just that you have to meet the baseline, and meet it better than the pre-existing solutions, before you can move on to the new stuff. - Jason Carreira
David - Isn't that the essence of Web 2.0? 1) Start company with catchy name that cannot be found in dictionary 2) Develop clone of your favorite free service 3) Acquire VC funding 4) Profit - Matt Musgrave
just like there is not "one" digital camera or "one" ipod to fit all peoples like and dislikes . I think social media microblogs will continue to develop microblogging sites that borrow bits and bites from each particular model .Competition is healthy . - fotographic
"The phenomenal success of Twitter has shown us that we were missing a communication medium" -- Dan York and that's why the services are popping up like, um, weasels. But the winner will be the one that's based on standards, and allows you to run it on your own site a la blog software. - Brian Hendrickson
@Brian, no it won't be, because that would lose a lot of the advantage. - Jason Carreira
@Jason I didn't reply to your question about Twittervision or other services atop a federated network, but any site in the network could easily report its activity to one or more hosts. The default install would report to a search service. Installing additional "apps" on a site would add to the list of services it connects to. If a friend installs the same app then we see each other through that apps' centralized server. Other apps could work site-to-site, and all of this is available now with OAuth. - Brian Hendrickson
...and you're back to the bottlenecks as hundreds or thousands of separate services all try to send a constant stream to a central aggregator... - Jason Carreira
..and then you get none of the aggregate effects of a large userbase... see how this goes around in circles until someone builds a scalable piece of software, in which case why federate in the first place? - Jason Carreira
@Jason yeah we should keep doing this all day! I got a fresh cup-o-joe. Now I'll say my part again. Seriously, though, I do believe that your architecture is a "correct" twitter, and that you understand the problem better than I do. Can you imagine what it was like, after 8 weeks of work, to have my codebase talk to evan's codebase? Jesse said your architecture should capitalize on this standard and I was thinking the same thing. low end: omb, middle: laconi.ca high: carreiraware.com $20M/server - Brian Hendrickson
See, but I think a federated service REDUCES THE VALUE... The value increases exponentially with the number of users on one service (i.e. the network effect). - Jason Carreira
Do you really think it can "take off" if people can not put it on their own server? It sounds like your marketing angle is "you won't see the fail whale here" but that might not be enough to supplant. I'm guessing that Rejaw has a better back-end than twitter by far so it will be interesting to see. But being able to have your 'friends' in your own PostgreSQL db, that's cool. Also, their profiles auto-update from their home server so it's a live address book. - Brian Hendrickson
I'm guessing from the profiles of the people on Rejaw talking about Rails that they have a similar back-end, driven by a database (probably MySQL) and having the same scaling problems when loads get heavy. Having a technically better and more scalable micro-blogging platform is just the price of entry to the space, for me. I've got several big ideas I want to add after I get that far, one of which I think will be huge when we get there. - Jason Carreira
I'm still working on everything it takes to put up a reliable service, though... I'm an experienced software guy, but a first time entrepreneur and no good prior contacts in the VC / Angel funding world. We'll see how it goes. - Jason Carreira
OK, I'll stop buggin' you. But I would love to see you create an interface on your system for the omb spec. Regarding my own effort, the schema is well-normalized, you can have multiple OpenIDs per user, each message is stored only 1 time in the db no matter how many people receive it, each message gets transmitted to a given host only 1 time, the download is 600k, you could run it on an iPhone or any tiny device that can pump a php4 binary. It's totally fun. Cheers. - Brian Hendrickson
Lets not forget with identi.ca you can run your own. - Matthew
“News anchor on the brand new NBC station just said "There's breaking news in Murder Beach, ummm, Myrtle Beach ..." Michael Maely, you might want to practice up the name of the market you are in”
I could have done that in this show, but Big Comedy Tuesday precluded doing any O'Reilly references. It would just be too much. If/when you hear, you'll know what I mean. - Dave Slusher
LOL...I never get enough of that, Paul. - Ken Kennedy
Yeah, me neither! I have at least one LIVE moment a day. - Paul Reynolds
So the Big Comedy isn't exactly that, but it is in that genre. - Dave Slusher
