100 FriendFeed Picture Groups & 3 Video Groups [Last updated 9/16/09 2:47 am EDT - most of the room counts are from 8/10/09] - http://friendfeed.com/rooms...
Also, here are ~50 people at FriendFeed with cool pics (remember to check their likes & comments) http://ff.im/Bd3Lhttp://ff.im/BqOL This page was motivated by Thomas Hawk's "What is your most viewed set on Flickr? Mine is my my 10 faves or more set" discussion (5/24/08) http://friendfeed.com/e... I finally made myself a "Picture Rooms" list. :-)
- Mitchell Tsai
"As Facebook continues to roll out the full version of its new user profiles, it’s becoming clear that their primary goal isn’t, as they said in May, to simply create a cleaner user experience and allow developers to have more meaningful engagement points with users. It’s more about highlighting new content relevant to the user and fostering conversations about that content. And the result is that the Facebook home page looks an awful lot like the exponentially smaller activity stream aggregation service called Friendfeed."
- Louis Gray
from Bookmarklet
there is ONE thing Facebook cannot replicate from Friendfeed. Speed of execution. FriendFeed will always be better and will always be one step ahead
- Ouriel Ohayon
That would be the site with 60m monthly visitors Fred.
- Jamie
Coming from the other side, I’d like to see the Facebookization of Friendfeed (without sucking that is). FF is a great place for content and discussion, but not so much for community and social networking.
- Hao Chen
Facebook's largely self-contained, immersive "social" and "fun" walled garden works especially well for interpersonal relations, and the upcoming facelift improves on those same principles. I'm impressed. That said, it's too heavyweight for active group conversations. FF has far and away the most effective implementation of group discussions, especially around "the rest of the web". It's great to have both FB and FF, each optimized around their use cases.
- Amir Gharaat
The only thing I'm sure of is that Facebook will be unable to recommend the same 9 persons to add as friends to everyone - so hopefully we will still be able to choose exactly who we want to talk to.
- Svetlana Gladkova
Friendfeed = open; facebook = closed; this would be an area i'd be happy to see facebook copy
- Alex Gawley
@Thomas, LOL... I always crack up when I see, in any FB thread your "Facebook is boring".
- Juan Pablo González
Friendfeed lays it all out as a stream of posts and comments. It's like reading a newspaper. Just my style.
- david
Facebook has lost its mojo really fast, I winder if the same will happen to FriendFeed
- João Almeida
from twhirl
@Joao lost its mojo with who? The twittersphere? Facebook was doing just fine before and after they jumped on and off the bandwagon. According to FB, UUs and engagement are up every month.
- Jamie
Almeida: yeah, Facebook is growing as fast as ever and tons of "normal people" swear by it. Just because us early-adopter-inside-the-techie-bubble are over here playing on FriendFeed, don't assume that everyone else is. 110 million are on Facebook, maybe more by now. When I went to Israel all I heard was "Facebook, Facebook, Facebook." Same with my niece and lots of others here in Silicon Valley. Also, its event calendar brings tons more people than others.
- Robert Scoble
Typical conversation with Real World Friends: "So I saw this post on Friend Feed..." "What's that?" "It's this website where it aggregates everything you do on various social networks" "Social Networks? Like..." "Flickr, Twitter, Yelp..." (Blank Stares) "Websites like Facebook are social.." "OHHH FACEBOOK.. That's the best site ever. *blah blah blah"
- George Smith
Alex Gawley: Seems that Facebook no longer will be closed. "This week facebook will also launch their Facebook Connect product, which is designed to let users get that data back out of Facebook." http://www.techcrunch.com/2008...
- Alex Sauceda
but do you think the average FB user is going to use the "comment on news feed" feature? a quick scan of some of my heavy-user FB friends last week showed no comments on any news feed items, and then a couple days ago i noticed someone's status message was "I hate all these comment tags on facebook now"...
- Trent Olson
I love FF but all my non geeks friends and family are on Facebook. Seems that it works better for them.
- Alex Sauceda
Keep in mind, that 18 months ago you could not have had this conversation with anyone who was not 1) in the SV echo chamber or 2) in college. Web services start small and some inflect to a larger community and some don't.
- Christopher Sacca
My friends on FB go to Flickr for conversation. None of them are on FF. I add FF contacts in FB to view their bios.
- Russellreno
Louis - Agreed but I think the reason is more that they're trying to do an even better job with targeted ads (to keep the price in check) ... ala GMail. I find my Facebook list growing from my activity on Friendfeed. Hmm
- Charlie Anzman
Was the FriendFeed mini-feed on Facebook axed: no summary, just a note showing something was added? It's doing that for Feedheads too. Is this happening with others folks?
- Blake N. Cooper
Jim: Thanks! Does that mean that my friends would need to change this on their end to see more than 1 line? I have a lot of my friends who will stick to the default (i.e. will be overwhelmed by process for changing) and most likely will not see the content of my Google Reader Shared Items and FriendFeed activity. Sucks if that's the case. Thanks again.
- Blake N. Cooper
Jim: Is that option retaining the setting - I have it set to one line, short and full, but the new items still seem to default to one line.
- Richard Peat
Funny how one year later we are actually seeing the Facebookization of Friendfeed...
- Jean-Marc Liotier
"The stars come and go. They bleed Dodger Blue one year, and another color the next. They send home runs over the fence and win a space in our hearts -- and then they do something dumb like fail a drug test. Manny Ramirez was earning $25 million this year until his suspension last week. But the Dodgers don't need to pay that money to keep this fan. What I go to Dodger Stadium to see doesn't cost owner Frank McCourt a penny. I go to Dodger Stadium for the twilight."
- RAPatton
"With the fifth season of Lost coming to a close tomorrow, you probably already have your season finale party Evite sent to everyone you know who understands the importance of staying quiet in between commercial breaks – but in case you haven’t, we’ve asked a fellow Lost fanatic (and upcoming finale party host), for some ideas for celebrating/grieving this last episode. For more Lost clips and a killer deal on previous seasons, visit our Lost store. The penultimate Lost season finale is here, and any Lost fan has got to be excited. Our Losties are all back together on the Island (albeit in different “time zones”). We’re in the midst of Dharmaville, and John Locke is risen from the dead (literally and figuratively). Secrets are being revealed – at least kind of, which is truly Lost fashion. But the big question remains: how are you going to celebrate this end to the time traveling, plane crashing, paradox rupturing, season 5? Here are some ideas:"
- RAPatton
"1. Dharma products are all the buzz 2. Bring it on with some sweet 1970’s grooves 3. Theme it, with Hostiles versus Dharma 4. Try to predict the fight of the century (Locke vs. Jacob) with Wii boxing"
- RAPatton
"Ostentation is out, minimalism is in. That's a credo that applies to many things these days, including one of the least likely suspects -- the wedding dress. Pouf is passé. Slim is stylish, and so are soft lace, flowing fabrics and focused embellishment. The everywhere, over-the-top beading and embroidery of recent years? That's gone, for the most part, in favor of simple adornments on a shoulder, sleeve or waistline."
- RAPatton
SO PRETTY. I've always loved these styles - simple, yet elegant.
- Lis Miller
Lis, I think they are lovely too, but they also cost less it seems
- RAPatton
I finally wrote another blog post :). I thought it would only take like 5 minutes, but then I got side-tracked writing a little app to go with it (http://gzipcheck.appjet.net/), then got side-tracked from that trying out AppEngine (and then discovering that it strips away accept-encoding headers for some reason).
- Paul Buchheit
Implementing rev="canonical"/rel="shorturl", perchance?
- DeWitt Clinton
Though AppEngine wasn't useable for your particular project, its been a neat way to generate little web gizmos without any of the busywork in dealing with hosting (one of mine is a FeedBurner feedflare for friendfeed: http://codingrelic.geekhold.com/2009...). I hadn't heard of appjet.net before, it also looks interesting.
- DGentry
Thanks also for catching that Accepts-Encoding should be added to the list of unmodifiable headers: http://code.google.com/appengi.... This is done because the proxy App Engine uses sets 'Accepts-Encoding: gzip' and the proxy unzips it before the app sees the response. Issue opened to document it here: http://code.google.com/p.... Please open another if you want to suggest a change in behavior. Thanks, Paul!
- DeWitt Clinton
Interesting about nginx too. Great post!
- Daniel Dulitz
I am always flabbergasted at how many sites screw up gzipping, cache headers, and the like.
- Joel Webber
@Joel, you mean like gzipping GWT .cache.* files and setting expiry to forever. :) At one time, even code.google.com's GWT examples weren't config'ed right. :) BTW, nginx rocks.
- Ray Cromwell
@Ray: Exactly, IIRC, our examples on code site were wrong because we were hosting them in such a way that we didn't have control over the headers :(
- Joel Webber
It's true. I know because I had the bug to fix the codesite headers. : ) Not sure if I ever did, or if we just moved the examples. The latter, I think.
- DeWitt Clinton
With GAE/J, we now have a much simpler solution for hosting public samples with server-side code involved. AppEngine FTW!
- Joel Webber
YSlow is pretty good for checking this, too. But it's surprisingly difficult to get gzipping right (eg, the IE gzipped javascript bugs etc)
- Nick Lothian
Note that if you have a lot of client behind the microsoft proxy server (ISA), then they will request uncompressed pages, because ISA "the Accept-Encoding HTTP header is always removed from the client request" (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us...). I suspect this might have been a work around for the old IE6 bug with gzipped CSS files, but who knows for sure...
- Nick Lothian
Thankfully, to the best of my ability to tell, the IE gzipped js bug is long gone in the wild. While old IE6en still live in many places, the bug was in urlmon.dll, which gets upgraded, often by Office, separately.
- Joel Webber
@Joel. Yes it is, which is great. Except frickn ISA is still around, and still screwing things up. There's another well known problem where it blocks any double-encoded urls (eg, as parameters) to "block double encoding attacks". Basically that means "protect old unpatched IIS servers" - meanwhile it just screws up everything else.
- Nick Lothian
I'm using Firefox version 3.0.8 with Windows XP (work) and, seriously, I don't see the line.
- Stan Scott
What? 3.0.*8*? When did this happen? And why haven't I been auto-updated?
- Karl Knechtel
Ugh. Just the white space is much better IMO.
- Nick in Manila
If anyone's interested, I can see the grey line on both Safari and Firefox on my computer at home. But using Firefox on a PC at work, I can't.
- Stan Scott
Abby - I agree. I have no problem with what he's doing (not following him though). I applaud his "getting it" well before other mainstream celebs do. I also like Shaq on Twitter. Him, I follow.
- Hutch Carpenter
Shaq has always been a soundbite machine and he really likes joking with people. Twitter is a great venue for him.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Shaq, Ashton and Demi Moore all are pretty good. They interact and are interesting. I am disappointed in Chris Moore(author). I was happy when he joined, but he follows no one and posts random things he thinks are funny with no interaction at all with others. Even people like me he knows in real life. And then he says he doesn't get what the fuss is about
- Alan Simpson
Ha Abby! No problem on the thread kill. Let's restart it...Ashton Kutcher is dreamy and he's all that is right with Twitter.
- Hutch Carpenter
"Don’t you have a list of bigger bloggers - you know, influencers - that you want me to send these to? I had to count to ten before I responded calmly, “I want to send the book to people who WANT to receive it. People who are excited and are more likely to write about it, tweet about it, tell their friends, their bosses and everyone who will listen. I want to send my book to people who give a damn.” I got off the phone, thinking that, surely, the message came across. But no. I receive another message later that day asking for a list of ‘influencers’ I know. I reply, “Everyone is an influencer today.” And then I decided to write this post about math."
- Michelle Jones
from Bookmarklet
This is a really great post but really I'm sharing it because I wanted to share the photo of that Little Professor calculator because it's bringing back fond memories of the one I had when I was little girl.
- Michelle Jones
"Some of the clearest pictures ever of the surface of Mars have been beamed back to Earth from a European Space Agency probe."
- RAPatton
from Bookmarklet
@joe if there is no real atmosphere, life can be *disinfected* by space radiation (alpha- and gamma- particles)
- A.T.
I'd love to terraform mars, but I suspect when the time comes their will be a preservationist movement that will seek to stop it.
- RAPatton
@RAPatton, Maybe we should terraform it regardless. I think one day it will be necessary to give the human race's chances of continued survival a boost. The cost may prove cheap one day.
- Mo Kargas
I am all for it! Start dropping comets on Mars ASAP as far as I am concerned.
- RAPatton
Wow - these photos are simply astonishing.
- Sean McBride
I'm shamelessly grabbing this for my Mento feed. Wonder where the Telegraph got the photos; I don't see anything like this on the Phoenix site.
- Nathan Rein
The images are from the ESA's Mars Express, not from Phoenix.
- RAPatton
The colorspace is very 1960s/1970s. It almost feels like these were taken during the Mariner program
- Mark Trapp
Probably Mars haven't changed very much since '70s?
- 9000
Do you think we need a "newbie" group - somewhere where new users can ask questions and find out answers on basic usage of FriendFeed with us old timers helping them out? Or do you think there is facilities for this in place?
It's good, but I think there should be a way of linking to it from all layouts.
- Richard A.
Richard, is it needed though? Or do we think newcomers are finding the Feedback room and using that? Some new users might find it easier if there was a dedicated "newbie" room.
- Kol Tregaskes
I like the idea, Kol. I would definitely join and point others to it. I'm heavily recruting my friends into FF now; would be nice to have their first room be a place where they could get quick help on newbie questions.
- Mark Traphagen
Kol, speaking as a newbie, I think it would be useful. I was fortunate to choose good users to follow (Robert, Louis) which is helping me learn by lurking, and to be followed early by a few people who obviously care about building ff community out to include newbies/unknowns (Sarah Perez, Louis Gray, Phil Glockner, Meryn Stol and you). The FAQ and the FriendFeed Feedback room are not enough to bring someone like me with no social networking experience, but lots of interest, into FriendFeed successfully.
- Jack Frizzell
Might want to call it something different than newby, beginners, intro's something friendly, newby has a negative connotation, just a thought. Friendly is good, but you could probably get away with "FF For Dummies" room, with a big yellow black smile logo on it. Just a thought.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Kol, I nominate you to head up the beginners room- I think you'd be awesome at it. I'd definitely join and help out where I can.
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
+1 Dan. The name is important. Kol, if there is a group set up for that purpose, having useful information at the top (like in this group) and the admin membership (ff founders) add credibility in my opinion. That's what I looked for when I started here. Maybe as a bonus the ff crew could set you up with a more flexible header just for these "new to friendfeed?", "friendfeed Q&A?" type rooms? Also the parallel rooms for other languages. This really is a neat community.
- Jack Frizzell
I'm pretty sure there is already a newbie room, thought I could be remembering incorrectly. And Jack: nice to have you here =)
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Tina, I've not found anything that seems very active. Let me know if do you though?
- Kol Tregaskes
How does "FriendFeed for Beginners" sound? :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Bec, that's very kind of you. If we use the new room I don't mind be an admin but wouldn't mind some co-admins too? :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol, I just did some digging and so far haven't been able to find the room I remember seeing.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Kol, I'm not sure, but expecting someone new to do a search is not ideal.
- Richard A.
Joined. And Richard, do you mean a search to find the room, or within the room to see if their question has been asked before? EDIT: Kol, you might want to link to the FF search page so people know the terminology. Or, just include how to use or, and, etc.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I mean to find the room in the first place.
- Richard A.
That's what I thought, Richard. I have a filter for people who are new to FF and am trying to welcome the people it catches, so that means I can share the link as part of that if it would help.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Kol, I believe there is a thread with "help guides" for FriendFeed new users. You should import that into the group - I believe it is on Scoble's Feed ;)
- Nicholas James
We should all make a habit of inviting any FF newbies we run across to the room.
- Mark Traphagen
The inviting the newbies to the new room is the best option. At least that way they can chat within a more open environment.
- Richard A.
Tina, thank you for that I'll check for new users too. Richard, yes appreciate finding the room in the first place but not be easy but let's see how the room goes and, who knows, maybe FF will add it in a intro for new users at some point or point them in the direction of the room upon signing up. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
This is definitely where we need sticky posts, yes will look to add some basic stuff in there. Thanks guys. If anyone wants to be an admin just DM me or let me know here.
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol, I'd be glad to be an admin. Yes, I've only been active on FF for a week, but I've spent that week studying it carefully, and I think I know enough to help most newbies get through their FAQs.
- Mark Traphagen
I'm not sure about being admin but I can find new users and encourage them to enjoy friendfeed.
- Richard A.
As a newbie, I'd certainly like more help. I like the sentiment behind this proposal but what would really make it work (or even make it redundant) is just more thorough coverage in the FAQ, including screencasts. It seems to be a recurring failure of web services that they rely too heavily upon their community to provide good help rather than just making sure that their own is exemplary.
- Jonathan Schofield
I'd add that there is so much that I like about FF after less than a day that I want to persist with it. But if FF have aspirations to appeal to the (Twitter) masses (and maybe they don't) they _have_ to make grokking it easier.
- Jonathan Schofield
There's actually a lot of that kind of material around, Jonathan, BUT it's not the easiest in the world to find. Ideally there would be a resources thread in the room and a permalink to that thread in the room description.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Jonathan, I believe that is on the way. Having a room where you can pick our brains on stuff could also be useful. I know in the past having a person or a room/forum to ask questions has really helped me in the past. I'll try and put some generic info in there and will see how it goes. Thanks for your feedback.
- Kol Tregaskes
Bill, yep basically and then new users can ask any questions too.
- Kol Tregaskes
Darn, I wish the "moderate" option on posts would give us approval control. It would be useful for "sticky" posts but not to worry.
- Kol Tregaskes
Yes. Actually I think FF can have an edge here against Twitter: Coaching users on FF is much easier than on Twitter, because of the better conversational features. Helping others on FriendFeed is "cheap", commenting takes almost no effort, and most questions are easy to answer for people who used the service for some time. It's good to give the "socialization" (friendfeedization?) process some thought though. I'm glad you're taking the lead!
- Meryn Stol
Meryn, I've added lots of basic how-to and other posts to the Beginner's room. I've currently turned off commenting while we check it all over but hopefully in the next few days we'll get to tidy it up and properly launch it. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
I added some new How To's and a couple of add-ons to some of yours, Kol.
- Mark Traphagen
The "play squares" were from Wal*Mart. They are supposed to be used as floor mats, but we use them as barriers mostly. The cube was just a fun idea to give the kids something to tell the psychiatrist about later.
- Louis Gray