"awesome -- thanks, Alisha ...already had found your Twitter page, but not ICUC's ... they should have that on their site (or at least I couldn't find it) cheers, Graeme (Minneapolis)"
- Graeme Thickins
Apprehensive and trending toward depressed.
- James (!?)
If facebook will do a better Twitter with the FF tech - it will be great
- Johni Fisher
I use my real name on two services sparingly. If FB plans to play that stupid game with FF (should it survive), I'll check RScoble's tweets for the next playground. Watching and waiting.
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
Time will tell. Hard to take for those who invested a ton of effort into Friendfeed, but we don't have any choice but to hope that Facebook will morph into something resembling what we like here.
- Louis Gray
Facebook will never be able to morph into what we have here. To do so would alienate the bulk of their users.
- LogEx
Too early to judge. Depends on what happens between the services. Some sort of merging? Abandonment? Each serves a unique purpose for me...too much consolidation would ruin both for me.
- Sally: gift wrapper
Facebook hired some engineers and killed a potential competitor. That's it. There will be no "merging."
- Christopher A Carr
Mark true - but it's still very sad. The question is, where do we go now? identi.ca?!
- Matt Hooper
Agree with Louis - we can hope that the small crew at FF will have a disproportionate impact at FB, but I think it's highly unlikely. Best case scenario is that FB really does see this as acquiring an R&D Lab and leave Paul & Bret alone to continue to innovate, but I'm not holding my breath.
- Bill Sanders
Hate it. Christopher Carr - EXACTLY - "Facebook hired some engineers and killed a potential competitor. That's it. There will be no "merging."
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
I'm a serious FF loyalist and not ready to jump to ANY conclusions yet. Echo Matt Cutts sentiments
- Charlie Anzman
Mark lol or Jaiku? Charlie - we can only hope that FF will remain intact, but I have grave doubts. I have NO desire for my activities across the web to be pulled into FB if they decide to 'integrate' FF into FB
- Matt Hooper
"InYeahvitable": the roll-ups of pieces will help us all experience the information in more enriched ways.
- lisa padilla
Logical ...good point. A lot of people I know who are FB-savvy never got the point of FF when I showed it to them. If you're not somewhat of an info-junkie, FF has limited appeal. I think that for the majority of people, FB may be enough -- that's why it has mass appeal.
- .LAG liked that
If anything, FB will adopt more FF technology... I don't think FF will change much. They might tie in your Facebook profile as other sites such as Lala do, but beyond that, I don't think it'll change much.
- Gus
cue the song: "Turn out the lights, the party's over"
- Graeme Thickins
Gus: What makes you think that FF will continue to exist as a separate entity?
- Christopher A Carr
Good mediatisation for FB and Mark Zuclkerberg who is in dire need of good news. But alas no strategical sense or content in this move apart from hiring 4 brains and hope they will be welcome by the FB tech teams. Sam for the innovations they will be bringing, does their culture corresponds to Facebook public and flavour ? I do not know, it seems to be a big mess ahead. Let's not forget the poor move Yahoo made in buying out Geocities...
- Thierry Lhôte
Yeah but wont work for me personally. Two different use cases
- Mel Buckpitt
I agree with Matt Hooper: "I have NO desire for my activities across the web to be pulled into FB if they decide to 'integrate' FF into FB." I have different ways I use each and don't want them merged, but there's probably not going to be a choice here. It will put more pressure on Twitter.
- Pat Lovenhart
Yay. It's like anything else where a group of people "knew" about something before it went "mainstream". People get upset when the secret is out and they are no longer elite.
- Ben Foster
To be honest. I would have been more excited if FF and Tweetdeck merged. I like FF but I think it lacks the systems to filter and sort your conversations and channels properly.
- Timo Luege
The whole point of me not using facebook is I don't want facebook in my business. i'm afraid I'm gonna have to go. Lemme guess, tho... Facebook already claims ownership to my data and I can't take it with me and have it dusted out of existence...? Hell,my posts here are probably already selling shampoo or cat litter over on FB. NO thanks.
- abacab
Yeah, good move for FF. But still wonder whether FB could do a similar service like FF on their own and merge into their existing site, their current home page had a lot of "inspiration" from FF anyway. May be it's only the FF team, they just wanted ex-googlers on board.
- Kaan Bingol
don't really use it a whole lot, but I sure as heck did when Twitter was down -- and it was for me for a *very long time* ]
- Graeme Thickins
from email
We're installing it at Leoville.com today. I love Disqus but Echo seems even more powerful.
- Leo Laporte
Leo, thank you for always trying new things :)
- Andre P. Siregar
I use backtype for this, but I'll check out echo too.
- Ghworg
Actually, no I won't - "It's important to point out, though, that the most interesting features, including real-time updates and comment aggregation from third-party sites like Twitter and FriendFeed are not available in the free version of Echo." (from readwriteweb).
- Ghworg
They never buy anything due to advertising, right. Billions of dollars in the advertising industry, much targeted at young people because it is clear it doesn't affect their purchase habits.
- Lou Paglia
from iPhone
great point, Lou... they don't respond to advertising, my ass! no, they don't *admit* they respond to advertising because, of course, saying so isn't cool
- Graeme Thickins
Or advertising is succeeding even more than they think, it affects them and they don't even realize how much it does! Hi, I'm a Mac and I'm a PC...
- Lou Paglia
from iPhone
It's lame to have been in China on a Tea Tour? Give him a break, and let him look into it today as he promised.
- John Fogarty
from twhirl
You know what's lame? Techcrunch writing a link-bait article based on one tweet from someone they could easily get in touch with for further explanation and or comment, but instead going ahead with a quick speculative article with no real information besides the tweet itself... THAT's what lame
- Chris Heath
I am putting together a presentation that highlights some of the best bloggers who help their company, but are unofficial. The focus is mostly on enterprise, but I would be eager to see what you are reading.
- Louis Gray
Heh. It was actually my original answer, but I saw Louis nab the first comment with a 'Placeholder' comment so I decided to mock him before I put Matt in. I didn't see yours till after.
- Kevin Fox
Jeremiah Owyang; Fred Wilson is my first pick, but perhaps AVC is too closely aligned with Union Square Ventures.
- Mark Evans
GM's CEO has gotten some heat for things he has said there
- Mike Bracco
Kevin, I don't mind your mockery. Paul, you should log in as admin and delete it for him or make Kevin have said something else and then lock the comment. :)
- Louis Gray
Stephen, who is the best in the storage and networking space, which I know is your forte?
- Louis Gray
Paul - LOL too funny! BTW, I was gonna say Matt Cutts too!! LOL
- Susan Beebe
Pablo, in theory, yes, but as Scoble has forged his own brand and was blogging here prior to Rackspace, I think it's not a perfect fit for this example.
- Louis Gray
David Armano helped Critical Mass a lot... until he left, which raises the question of what happens when that great unofficial blogger goes elsewhere
- Pablo Melchor
Paul Allen - http://paulallen.net - he is CEO and founder of FamilyLink, who does the We're Related app on Facebook. He is also founder of Ancestry.com (now Generations Networks)
- Jesse Stay
Sergei Brin FTW http://www.too.blogspot.com Imagine if he was here, Friendfeed would have to change the stat message to "about 2 posts per *year*" :D
- Jérôme Flipo
2nding Chad Sakac of EMC & all the storage guys. There seems to be a long (in blog years) tradition in that area of technologists operating outside the corporate domain. Also Duncan Epping of VMware has been critical to the VMware tech community: http://yellow-bricks.com/
- John Troyer
A long time ago (in web years) it was the trio Matt Cutts for Google, Robert Scoble for Microsoft, and Jeremy Zawodny for Yahoo. Now, only Matt remains to work at the same place.
- Philipp Lenssen
"yep, I agree, Matt -- determining *how much* of a pain point a customer has is important... to try to ascertain what they will actually be willing to pay for that's why customer research is so important -- nothing beats getting out there and talking to customers... but the beautiful thing about the Internet is that it offers many ways to do that even when you can't get face-to-face with enough of them to do adequate research sorry I missed you today at our Social Media Breakfast! so much going on, and so many people that want to talk! let me know if you're up for coffee sometime soon... I want to hear about what cool things you are up to cheers, Graeme"
- Graeme Thickins
Oh no! You'll miss the DandyID / Brightkite party on the 16th!
- sara olive
What? Bummer...I was looking forward to meeting you there.
- Mark Krynsky
Eldon: because if it isn't bringing in revenues or increasing audience I won't be doing it.
- Robert Scoble
Jim: yes. Next year is going to be tough for events.
- Robert Scoble
Being a possible vendor at events, the one thing I do know, is the best possible future customers will be at these events...if they're spending money to be at a show, they must be investing in their business. But not even sure I can go this year. I even know of one conference that was moved from April to September in hopes people will more likely attend at that time.
- Scott Sorheim
Scoble - i just emailed you about a celebrity charity event for SXSW that we want you a part of. it will increase audience. lemme know when you get the email. we had a few recording artists, an actress and "other leading blogger" confirmed...more to come as just only started getting the word out this morning.
- Christine Lu
Robert: Maybe you can take a cue from @jowyang and start hosting networking tweetups in your area to help eager professionals find good jobs? Call it WhoAreYouCamp! You are in a unique position to promote a lot of events locally that will help your local community and inspire your readers globally.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
would Fast Company let another company sponsor your trip to SXSW? is it a cost issue or a focus issue?
- Christine Lu
what happened 'today' specifically?
- Mrinal Desai
Mrinal: what happened today was a rethink of what we will be doing at Fast Company.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, glad they kept you, shows you have proven value to their strategy.
- susan mernit
Yeah: SXSW is hard for me to justify because the attendees are very heavily people I hang out with anyway and it is very heavy with bloggers and influentials. I love it because it is a big party but I can't justify doing that this year. I totally agree in focusing on smaller events and on events that will help people get jobs.
- Robert Scoble
That's right! I'm not going either. Woohoo!
- Veronica
You should totally go to PAX 2009, Robert.
- Alex Scoble
why don't you do your own conference - you probably got enough branding for scoblecon! make them come to you and charge em back for all the years.
- mal
I'll send you some BBQ if you cant make it.
- Jim Turner
Robert, do you think that even if there will be less attendance at SXSW it will also mean that there will be less interest about this event? May be it would be right choice to go there as those who cannot come would appreciate your coverage? This way you will get more visitors to Fast Company.
- Taavi Uudam
Taavi: SXSW is a conference for bloggers and web pros. I bet you will hear more about it than nearly any conference in the world. Veronica: we should do something fun together.
- Robert Scoble
Maybe we'll have an anti-SXSW Tweetup :)
- Veronica
well for me it is the people i like to hang out with but dont see that often ;)
- Nicole Simon
This is my first year going (yes, I'm late to the party) and like Nicole I was looking forward to meeting many people I've befriended online. It's a shame to hear Robert, Veronica, and many others won't be going this year. Moreso with an anti sentiment thrown in. For FF'ers that are going keep up in the SXSW room here http://friendfeed.com/rooms...
- Mark Krynsky
SXSW Interactive is much more then a bloggers and Wed designers conference, Austin welcomes us and the community is transformed, Time is the biggest commitment we give to go the SXSW and the friends we meet and the friends we make is the reward.
- paul mooney
I live in Austin and won't be going to SXSW. Just haven't seen anything compelling enough to get me to go down town.
- Bryan Bartow
from twhirl
I live on the north side of town and it's a 30 minute drive. That's like 30 cents in gas.
- Bryan Bartow
from twhirl
CES said that they were ready for an 8% drop in attendance this year, but the number was 22% drop. I was not able to get the attendance numbers for Oracle OpenWorld, but friends told me it was down from last yr. I made my hotel & air reservations for SXSW & was able to get a good deal. Looks like hotels and airlines are having problems too. This is real, and it will take a long time to recover... but now more than ever companies need to focus and listen to consumers. I see good things some companies.
- Julio F ~ @SocialJulio
Julio: SFO's parking garage was empty tonight. Two years ago you would struggle to find a spot on Friday night.
- Robert Scoble
i've got a wish list about attending conferences this year, and i've got to limit this year's to the XMPP Summit or Future of Web Apps.
- Jason Salas
You should go to the one day Accelerator on the 16th. See up and coming companies (sort of SXSW's version of DEMO and TC50). Then we would at least get you for a day..
- Micah Baldwin
Robert: maybe Cindy will pay your way ;) ... seriously though, I'm sorry to see you have to go through such changes and feel terribly for Rocky.
- J. McConnell
funny how, when the economy tanks, echo-chamber events just aren't that important anymore...
- Graeme Thickins
Well, I still want to know when you do make it back out to Austin, Robert. Just so I can shake your hand. I probably won't make it to SXSWi this year either, but for me it's just the cost.
- Phil G
Graeme: I really want to go. I might go on my vacation time anyway. Networking events are even more important during downturns.
- Robert Scoble
The .com bubble recession saw the end of Comdex. Don't be surprised if your favorite shows are toast in 2011.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
"Chris Anderson has a charming way of stating the most excruciatingly obvious stuff, doesn't he? Remember, this is him writing here -- not the Wall Street Journal. He is simply a guest author. His point, as I see it, is that the focus now has to be on the business model. (Agree: big huge duh.) Too bad he doesn't cite some examples of newer Internet business models that are, in fact, working (rare as they may be). But is "freemium" all there is? It seems Anderson is putting out a call that more creativity is needed here. It's amazing how many 'Net entrepreneurs don't focus more on the hard question of "what will people pay for." Identifying customer pain points is great, but I think overly simplified. The next question has to be: Will doing away with such pain mean said customer will unload some cash? cheers, Graeme"
- Graeme Thickins
"Got another one: I will not follow you if you are spewing your politics. If you are, you're an idiot, because you're regularly pissing off half of Twitter. Zap - gone!"
- Graeme Thickins
"totally agree, Zoli... I tweeted about this the other day, linking to a story on the insanity hell, Jobs doesn't care: he makes 30 points off of this junk! and of course loves what it does to sell more hardware.... after this story broke, I just had to go out of my way to happily blog about a new app that actually *does* do something useful... what a concept, huh? http://graemethickins.typepad.com/graeme_...... cheers, Graeme"
- Graeme Thickins
Excellent news! Congrats and carry on in bringing this content to the 'mainstream'- it's needed if we want to continue to push these conversations forward..
- daniela barbosa
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
"how is this story a copy of the MacRumors story? they're both good... what I find amazing is that, by most reports, there are still only about a thousand apps up there to date we're a developer with three apps so far on the App Store (doapp inc, http://www.doapps.com), and we heard from Apple almost two weeks ago that there were 4000 apps backed up awaiting their approval! kee-rist, how many must there be by now? hey, can we pick up the tempo a bit, Uncle Stevie? how about you have Al Gore do something productive - he needs a job"
- Graeme Thickins