Hayes Haugen - Comments

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November 4 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Aaron D'Souza, Daniel Schildt, ǝuǝƃnǝ and 31 other people liked this

That looks fantastic. - Kevin Fox

Omg I love it! Lately I've been doing more wireframes than actual mockups, and I wanted them to be team-editable as well, so I was using Google Doc's drawing tool. This is way better. Great find! - Jess Lee

It's Hypercard! (edit: no it's not) - Hayes Haugen

Neat. It's a canvas app. - Scott Ludwig

Anyone had experience with Balsamiq? Wondering how mockingbird compares - Adam Kazwell

Nice, but I don't think many clients are going to enjoy being told to 'just upgrade to a PROPER browser!' when they discover they can't view the wireframes in IE - Duncan

"Proper: Of the required type; suitable or appropriate" Could have chosen a less aggressive word, but it sounds like IE isn't a browser of the required type, so the word is technically correct in this context. The question of whether IE *should* be improper is another matter. - Kevin Fox

I don't think it's a case of whether it's a proper browser or not, regardless of the definition; the usefulness of the app would be somewhat stunted if one half of team have problems using it. Or at least, I hope I'm not the only one who's had clients who still use IE6, and, for one reason or another, can't upgrade. Anyway, I'll shut up now, this is beta software, just hope that moving forward, they at least support IE8! - Duncan

There is no sane reason to be developing software for IE6 anymore as it's past for even Microsoft. Yeah, they still make some random updates to it but if some companies are stuck with IE6 (for other reasons than having some software that are binded to that specific version) some might ask if their security policy is working or not. - Daniel Schildt

It's good to develop software that works in most browsers but there is no good reason go get stuck in the past while creating something totally new. Mockingbird is meant as development tool and if some client does not want to have properly working browser, it's their problem. Wireframes are just the beginning part of UI development so there isn't need that have this kind of software working in ancient browsers (as if developers would still mainly develop everything first for IE6...). - Daniel Schildt

Hayes Haugen

As people have left, FriendFeed has gotten more interesting, again. It's a condensing community. What might pop out?

Friday - Comment - Like - Share

Helen Sventitsky, Victor Ganata, Darryl and 8 other people liked this

The "condensing community" description is an interesting one, Hayes. I think that's a significant factor. Add to it the fluidity with which you can become an acquaintance, then a familiar, then an integral part of a group. With persistence and patience, some amazing things are facilitated here. - Micah Wittman

6 more comments

It has the forum problem: more interesting when it is a small focused group. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

@ Micah well-said. - T. Brent, technopeasant

Maybe a lot of the boring people left. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from iPod

MVB exactly. Robert: sorry right now I don't want to solve the forum problem. I'm emailing my friends cool links to old MC5 vids instead of posting those links. And I'm thinking about that. - Hayes Haugen

Thing is Robert, my group sizes here have been stable from before the buyout and since - and rewarding/high quality. It didn't get un-focused during the highest absolute visitor count era, and it's not too narrow now. In other words, between the built-in tools of FF + how I used the site, I've maintained what for me is an optimal set of connections. I can only speak for my experience, but there you go. - Micah Wittman

Hayes and Micah: How do you make it work for you? Give me a couple hints. Right now I'm getting mostly Robert Scoble and links, which is fine, but I know I'm missing other interesting tech stuff. Everytime I broaden my follows or add a list I get too much junk. Any specific ideas? - Leigh Marriner

Low expectations. - Hayes Haugen from email

Gary Burd

Boat Ramp at Marina Park - http://www.panoramio.com/photo...

Saturday from Gary Burd's Photos - Comment - Like - Share

April Buchheit, Lynn Colton, NaHi and Scott Ludwig liked this

Taken with your new camera? - Scott Ludwig

4 more comments

Yes, taken w/ recently purchased camera. - Gary Burd

....and which camera would that be? Don't make me get all exif on you. - Hayes Haugen

The exif has probably been stripped by FF. - Scott Ludwig from iPhone

S90? - Benjamin Golub from fftogo

s90 - Gary Burd

Hayes Haugen

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

Sunday - Comment - Like - Share

Some people like to work with their hands. - Hayes Haugen

Andy Baio

In 1935, Social Security passed the House by 372-33 and the Senate by 77-6. 1965, Medicare passed by 313-115 and 68-21. Not nearly as close.

Saturday from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

If legislation passes with more than 50% of approval then you didn't ask for enough, if it's less than 50% you asked for too much. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Watching Godfather I and II on the tv with ads and bleeps. Hours later still works for me.

Saturday - Comment - Like - Share

buffered on dvr though - couldn't actually do the commercial breaks in real time. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

When I'm doing stuff I like the all in ones better than the lappies.

Saturday - Comment - Like - Share

Micah Wittman, Gary Burd, John (a.k.a. dendroica) and T. Brent, technopeasant liked this

http://www.6502.org/users... - Scott Ludwig

I was an apple ][ guy so this picture is for this post only! to your link: 6502 machine code is what I cut my teeth on baby. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Did any of the FriendFeed Facebook acquisition discussions occur over Gmail? I have to give up gmail for work related activities.

Thursday - Comment - Like - Share

Is your company afraid that somebody at Google will read your mail? - Gary Burd

4 more comments

I guess my question is really about the changing landscape of data security and control. What organizations out there are comfortable with their email and documents living "out of house"? Obviously the City of Los Angeles. I understand both points of view. - Hayes Haugen

The City of Los Angeles represents an interesting move for Google. LA's data will be stored in the "GovCloud" which, as reported by InfoWorld ( http://www.infoworld.com/d... ) would be 'encrypted and "physically and logically segregated" from Google's standard applications. The data would be stored only in the U.S. and only... more... - Kevin Fox

Browser support for json cryptography could make the point moot. Data would only ever live in cleartext in a browser or client. Heck you could practically get rid of ssl at that point. And it's a lot easier than supporting private clouds. Thanks for the LA info. - Hayes Haugen

It's hard to build a search index on encrypted data. - Private Sanjeev

Good point. - Hayes Haugen

Gary Burd

Red Lake

November 4 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Koss, Wulffy, Mark Essel and 13 other people liked this

My house faces East. - Hayes Haugen

7 more comments

I can see Cap Hill to the SW. Do we have line of site between our houses? - Gary Burd

There's a slight ridge between me and the lake so no. Can you see the Man Spire of St Joseph's or the Lady Dome of Holy Names? - Hayes Haugen

I think dome is visible halfway between the two clumps of tall buildings. I am guessing that spire is in front of the tall building on the right. Zoom in all the way and let me know what you think. - Gary Burd

I think so. They are on the same street which is roughly parallel to the bridge. I'm going to go climb up on the spire and shoot my laser pointer your way. Give me 10.... - Hayes Haugen

I have the binoculars ready. - Gary Burd

I will take a picture tommorow night with tripod and telephoto lens. - Gary Burd

Probably no vis: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens... ...maybe you can try from your office during your day job? - Hayes Haugen

perfect colors... - Kubilay Onur Güngör

Paul Buchheit

I tend to agree with Scoble about the "forum problem", but at the same time I really like seeing comments. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think it's less of an issue if you keep groups relatively small. re: http://scobleizer.com/2009...

November 3 - Comment - Like - Share

Marc Dong, John Serra, Bertrand Doux and 81 other people liked this

I think the current FriendFeed approach is close to optimal. Do you not see it that way? - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

266 more comments

FF has the inherant ability for the user to take control, both of what they see and the comments they allow. If a user is judicious in their lists and/or filters they should see mostly relevent content (IF that's what they actually want to see). The ability for a poster to moderate comments on their own post gives us the ability to avoid trolls/spam and/or steer the conversation (again,... more... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Scoble and other "super users" have this problem much more than regular people because they have thousands of subscribers. This is also part of the reason that Twitter probably works better for celebrities -- it's more of a broadcast channel. - Paul Buchheit

They could have a million subscribers and it wouldn't be an issue, Paul: turn off comments on his FF posts and it would be all broadcast all the time. It's the number of people they choose to subscribe TO that is the issue. To be honest, it's like someone walking into a football stadium and then complaining that it's too loud. If one chooses to follow thosuands of people one must surely expect that the amount of 'noise' is going to increase. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

One thing that was tossed around a while back was the ability to disable comments from anyone you're not subscribed to: that'd allow those with a lot of subscribers to have high-signal conversations that their subscribers can still see and gain value from. - Mark Trapp

Perhaps he'd like a 'hide user' button similar to FB? This would prevent the "brings people into YOUR life that YOU DID NOT INVITE!" effect... of course the conversation could be rather disjointed. Maybe a small 'additional comments hidden' status that would show them when desired... Of course, without the conversations, FF == twitter? - Eric Borisch

Paul, can you help me test something? :) - directeur

The features that would make FF optimal would be to let users follow each other's hides and blocks. For most users this would be a nice, small improvement. For users like scobleizer it might make a huge difference. Of course, implementation details matter. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

The problem is that we don't keep groups relatively small. There are always those who are like me who like to connect, for one, but even normal people add tons of people to their groups. It's just natural. I remember I was first to add 1,000 people to my Twitter account and people thought I was weird. Now thousands of people do that. - Robert Scoble

One thing with Facebook is they capped it at 5,000 friends. Which kept it from being used by super-connectors but also caused it to be seen as a place where you talk with just your real life friends. Now that public pages are coming on strong, we're seeing that change. - Robert Scoble

Bruce: the FriendFeed approach is far from optimal. Many, many people told me they don't like joining a forum and like just lurking instead, which is why they chose Twitter (Tim O'Reilly is not the only one who told me this). Tim Robbins likes that on Twitter he can listen to his heros. He sees it as a learning engine. Those of us here love FriendFeed because it lets us talk. But it definitely turns off lots of people. - Robert Scoble

Paul: the solution is to let us toggle comments on and off. Give the USER CONTROL. If they just want to listen to their friends, hide all the other noise. But then give us who like commenting ability to turn that back on. - Robert Scoble

You have the ability to toggle comments on and off: Edit -> Disable Comments. - Mark Trapp

Robert, comments _are_ content. - directeur

Mark: that is on a PER ITEM BASIS though. Totally useless for what we're talking about. - Robert Scoble

directeur: yes, but they are content a LOT of people don't want to see or deal with. - Robert Scoble

Robert, but then you'll be a megaphone broadcasting "your" views. - directeur

Robert has the same comments (or the same potential) on his blog as he does on FriendFeed, so I don't think it's the comments themselves. I think it's the fact that FriendFeed makes comments almost on equal level as the original post, instead of burying them way down at the bottom of a page or requiring a click to view. Out of sight, out of mind, right? - Daniel Sims

Nothing in the API precludes someone from writing a FriendFeed client that hides all the comments so you just see a river of feed items. That's how Twhirl, AlertThingy, and all the native iPhone apps implement FriendFeed. - Mark Trapp

I have two arms. I barely use my left one. Please cut it off! - directeur

Turning comments off entirely would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you could authorize other users to delete comments on your items, you could minimize the forum problem. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

directeur: that's right. That's what most professional publishers want. - Robert Scoble

I really think the "comments are awesome, why would you ever want to get rid of comments" argument falls on deaf ears at this point. The solution ought to be how to turn off comments if you want to get Scoble (or the people he's saying he represents) back on the FriendFeed train, or to say they're not worth it. I do think if it weren't for the comments, there'd be at least a half dozen other things Scoble or people like him would come up with to not like FriendFeed at this point. - Mark Trapp

I like the idea of having another options to disable comments for people you're not subscribed to. That way you can allow conversation, but limit it to people you "know" if it makes you more comfortable or limits the noise. I think you should have the ability to set the option as a default for all new posts but be able to override it on a post-by-post basis: 1) public comments 2)... more... - Her Lindsay-ness

Her Linday-ness: I want that but it would be hard to design. - Robert Scoble

Mark, I think you make a valid point but then the question becomes: if there are no comments, is FF still the best medium to use? If so, then the ability to turn off comments on one's entire feed should be easy enough to code and implement. I suspect, though, that all things being equal (meaning: there's no ability to comment on an item) FF would no longer be the best medium for a broadcaster. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Mark: I don't think these people will consider FriendFeed at this point. Too much momentum over on Twitter. Look at the news brands: http://twitter.com/Scoblei... you're not going to get them to switch off of Twitter at this point. Sorry. That game is over. - Robert Scoble

I think the real game is how does Facebook evolve? - Robert Scoble

The real game is an open decentralized solution. yes, I'm a dreamer. - directeur

Which leads everyone to wonder why you're trying to nitpick a feature like this, or base your argument on the lack of the feature. The real reason why you (and others like you) aren't into FriendFeed isn't because of the forum problem or the lack of a feature, it's because you think Twitter is better and that's where everyone is. That's fine: that's a great argument. The rest of it is inconsequential to that argument, and wouldn't invalidate it even if you got your way. So what's the point? - Mark Trapp

I've been talking with a lot of brands and celebrities and regular people. For public studying they like Twitter better. That has Facebook wondering what it will be in the future. - Robert Scoble

Mark: sorry, but I spent two years talking to thousands of people about FriendFeed and I'm just passing along why they didn't like it. Take that feedback or leave it. Your choice. - Robert Scoble

Mark: did you speak at dozens of conferences about FriendFeed and Twitter? Did you show hundreds of tech influentials FriendFeed and listen to their feedback? - Robert Scoble

But your feedback doesn't correlate to the real reason why you, and the people you say you represent, are saying why you won't ever use FriendFeed. You said there's nothing anyone could do to get people to use FriendFeed. - Mark Trapp

Mark: if I want to listen to ONLY tech influentials, I can on Twitter. I can't on Facebook. I can't on FriendFeed. http://twitter.com/Scoblei... - Robert Scoble

Robert, if you're going to pull the "don't you know who I am?" crap, it falls on deaf ears. Let's have a constructive conversation on what you're trying to talk about. - Mark Trapp

Can't you make lists in FF? - Dragon Goldmaple

Sure you can: you can import feeds and lists on FriendFeed. - Mark Trapp

Mark: times change and at this point it would be hard to get anyone to take FriendFeed seriously. That said, I believe that it IS possible to move people from Facebook to Twitter or Twitter to Facebook, so THAT is the real battlefront. - Robert Scoble

any comment thread about 20+ without threading and community promotion/demotion becomes difficult to participate in (for me). Though there is a difference between discussing the radiator on a 94 Subaru and the nature of discussion forums. - Hayes Haugen

Robert: is the problem really comments or the fact that each time an item gets commented, the items pops back at the top of the list? Regarding the noise, I think that the "problem" with friendfeed is that it was much easier for people to plug in automated feeds and that as a result, there was less of an explicit action. I do not know how other people feel about this but I really miss... more... - Edwin Khodabakchian

Mark: OK, show me your public list the way I did on Twitter. You can't do that here, sorry. - Robert Scoble

Hayes: BING BING BING. - Robert Scoble

Ok, so it's not about who you read, it's who you can show that you are reading. - Dragon Goldmaple

Bing goes the internet! lol - Marshall Kirkpatrick

Sure Twitter has a lot of momentum now, but how quickly the winds change. Frankly, it's a shame that FF is going to be neglected... I wish that someone with as much motivation and insight as Paul and the original team could take it over now that FB has consumed them. There is still SO MUCH potential in this platform that it is depressing to see it squandered. @Robert - I don't think it... more... - Her Lindsay-ness

Robert, I don't use public lists: I believe you read my blog post about why I don't. But Hutch Carpenter does, and here's his FriendFeed public list on Innovation Management: http://friendfeed.com/innovat... - Mark Trapp

Robert, who do you call "influentials"? Do they talk "tech" all the day? Isn't it unhuman? Let's go back to spring/summer 2008, and redefine "smart" for me, please :) - directeur

Edwin: the problem is on FriendFeed it has the chat problem -- it gets noisy and gets noisy fast. - Robert Scoble

directeur: influentials are people who influence. I picked them. Shoot me. - Robert Scoble

The noise is largely proportional to the circles you're in. If you put yourself in a huge room, it will be a loud room. - Kevin Fox

Robert, do you remember the "MOAR NOISE" phrase? It was THE reason why I built NoiseRiver. Filters, I used to say when you were always saying: MORE NOISE! - directeur

Kevin: exactly. But on FriendFeed the room gets big VERY QUICKLY because as more people join they drag in their followers with them. - Robert Scoble

Facebook has the same problem. While we're chatting here, tons of tech news diversity have swooped by. - Robert Scoble

So Robert, should there be something built in to "warn" others of becoming "chatty". Something that says: "This comment is irrelevant. You may post again when you have something relevant and germane to our discussion"? So WHO makes those distinctions and judgements? - Melanie Reed

Compare this chat to http://twitter.com/Scoblei... which one brought more information to you? The chat is more fun, cause we're engaged, but it's noisy and if you don't care about it, a waste of time. - Robert Scoble

Melanie: in a chat room you can't control people that way. - Robert Scoble

Robert: True, but [big number]*[average number] is far larger than [average number]*[average number] - Kevin Fox

Hayes you are correct. Slashdot has actually had the best discussion forums for more than ten years because it has threading and community moderation. Its not a trendy social networking site though so no one notices. If you had a social network site where you post topics but with Slashdot like forums it would rock. Only down side is moderators tend to inject bias but /. has good signal after moderation kicks in - Ed Millard

Robert, I don't care about more information. I have more than enough. :) - Melanie Reed

Does it really have to be one or the other Robert? - Internet's Tad from fftogo

(Where you (scoble) are the big number) - Kevin Fox

Kevin: the problem with FriendFeed is if you and Melanie were having a conversation it would be pretty small, right? But I follow you. The second I touch your conversation it gets big. - Robert Scoble

If only someone could figure out how to make a room that gets big very quickly appeal to broadcasters... - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

This problem doesn't happen on the private Facebook because you have two-way friending there and a cap of 5,000. But on Facebook Pages? Absolutely. Noise baby noise! - Robert Scoble

Bruce: broadcasters don't like any of this because there's no way to monetize. Why do you think Arrington really hated this? - Robert Scoble

Robert, I don't care about more information. I have more than enough. :) What I would like is what Tad is implying in his comment. You know you can have "...two opposites that have learned how to blaze together" ;) And excuse me, but is wrong with a big conversation? - Melanie Reed

"The chat is more fun, cause we're engaged, but it's noisy and if you don't care about it, a waste of time. " If someone doesn't care about it on FF, they can hide it and not see it again. Problem solved. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Chatting is not intended to provide information. It is like planning -- it is the process of chatting that is what is useful not the words that are spoken/written. - Brian Sullivan

Thank you, Tina! and Brian! - Melanie Reed

Melanie: I love big conversations. That's why I loved FriendFeed. But most people aren't like me. - Robert Scoble

Tina: there are so many things going by on my screen in FriendFeed that hiding them all would take all day long. - Robert Scoble

Robert -- why is it that you think that people are like you and things should be done for your needs? - Brian Sullivan

FF is too busy!! - Joe Silence is not dead

Brian: again, it's not about me. - Robert Scoble

Robert one word: APML. I used to yell it back in 2008, no one cared. You want "filters" by personal interest. - directeur

FreiendFeed sold ME on it two years ago. I've been trying to sell others on it. The feedback I'm giving is from OTHERS. - Robert Scoble

The Forum Problem is a problem? - teh Dork Knight

directeur: APML will never work. - Robert Scoble

oh dear, don't hate the messenger. - Joe Silence is not dead

Robert: who are these "others" and what are their numbers? - Melanie Reed

Paul nailed it - Twitter is a broadcast channel. Massive amounts of subscriptions are fine there - it's all about reach. But if you want discovery, if you want to engage, then FriendFeed and FoaF is where it's all. They're NOT the same. One you can subscribe/follow as many as you want, in the other, subscription abuse will cripple your ability to view and interact. - AJ Kohn

Finally, a thread on this subject that makes sense. - Akiva Moskovitz

Threading may or may not help... it seemed to hurt with GoogleWave... it was so hard to follow all the tangents... of course without threading a lot of the tangents just get lost anyway. I guess I have given up on trying to catch everything... If it's important and I didn't see it the first time, eventually the concept will bubble up enough times for me to notice. That's one NICE thing about following lots of people and participating in lots of convos. - Her Lindsay-ness

why won't APML, or something like it, work? i missed that memo - Marshall Kirkpatrick

Robert, go say this to Last.fm or the BBC :-) Smart recommendation engines are the future - directeur

FriendFeed may make some audience/discussion leak out, but also makes audience leak in through seeing what your friends are talking about. Arrington may be mostly concerned about the leak out. Other broadcasters may be looking for the leak in. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Marshall, me neither! :) - directeur

Also, the meta around the content in FF (likes, comments) is what helps turns random data into information. It's annotated and qualified. - AJ Kohn

Lindsay: true - Hayes Haugen

Thank you, AJ, yes. And you can sort that out when you want to on your own time. That's the utility of it. - Melanie Reed

Perhaps one solution to the 'forum problem' is to allow posters to selectively choose who can participate in the discussion but still be viewable to the public. - Rodfather

I love the noise but I don't subscribe to thousands of user. - ashish from iPhone

So maybe the real question is, why do some people prefer conversation over broadcasting and vice versa? Is the broadcast-mentality simply a matter of popularity (the inability to reciprocate all the connections, so just broadcast instead) or is the effort it takes to connect with people on a more meaningful basis a major turn-off? Or is it just the tools that people use and what makes it easier for them? - Her Lindsay-ness

Rodfather, this will bring wars. Trust me. I'm not a commercial object. So you want to SHOUT and ask me to close my mouth? :) Moreover, close comments, other threads will be started and the noise you wanted to avoid will be even greater. The Streisand Effect, anyone? :) - directeur

For example: this discussion has 80+ comments and rolling. I don't mind that at all. I am engaged. I am also updating a web page on our web site as I do it and switching over to grade 30 some PRF's for students on the play Macbeth. I am not having any trouble with the "forum problem" or any "chattiness" I learned the "ropes" of FF when I joined and accepted that it as it was. - Melanie Reed

To me FF turns data (the river of content out there) into information (the good stuff - explained). The tool set FF provides is superior in this way - but it takes time to dial in the right set of filters to apply to the data set (which changes!) and many simply overwhelm the great filtering system they've provided. - AJ Kohn

A lot of people don't want to put in the time and effort to make the tool work for them like you, AJ and Melanie. I can empathize with that. I think it also has to serve their base inclination of either broadcasting or conversation, and the tool choice is also influenced by whether they already are part of a community on it or not. Most people won't leave their community even if it us using the less appropriate tool for their inclination. - Her Lindsay-ness

directeur, then those people can make their own thread and allow everyone to comment. I'm thinking of in case there's a roundtable event where certain 'experts' in a field can have a thread to discuss a topic among themselves without worrying about others cluttering the thread. - Rodfather

AJ, indeed - the task is to build new concepts with and for filters. Filters, not to shut stuff out, but to mix it better to create a constant flow of narratives. - David Bausola

AJ, is it more that FF provides the platform for the users to turn that data into information? The users are integral to FF. Now with Twitter you can program a week's worth of tweets (I have heard) but I don't wish to do that. Facebook... you could almost do that-although it does have engagement -you could certainly use it without. But FF runs on an engagement engine - Melanie Reed

Marshall: I don't trust automatic systems to guess what I'm going to be interested in next. Never seen a system yet that works. But we should debate this. - Robert Scoble

Robert, we should debate it! The robot that makes all my decisions for me says it's quite likely I would enjoy doing that! ;) - Marshall Kirkpatrick

That's getting into intelligent agents and AI once full blown - Melanie Reed

if you ask me, and you don't, the problem has always been lack of comment moderation and threading. Too many users isn't a problem if no one sees them. Slashdot was one of the first doing this, using an interface which is actually very similar to FF and it seems to work there. - Vincent van Wylick

Web tech needs to look outside their dev environments for richer influences in filter design: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - David Bausola

Is the problem that Robert is looking for a single service solution. I see the same 'content' on Twitter and FriendFeed but I scan Twitter for 'raw information' and go to FriendFeed to 'discuss' it with others. I watch the news at home on TV but I talk about it with my friends or work colleagues around the water cooler or coffee shop table. I am comfortable existing in several spaces - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

@Lindsay: I don't know. I'd rather educate people on the power that FF can provide with a little effort. Or, that it actually doesn't take LOTS of subscriptions. Max it at Dunbar's number (which is what I do for my home feed) and you'd be fine. - AJ Kohn

+++ Johnny Scotty would be proud of you: The right tool for the job - Melanie Reed

@David: Exactly! My home feed - I tweak it. I use people like Robert and Rob Diana and Michael Fruchter and Anthony Citrano and Thomas Hawk and numerous others to bring a mix of themes and concepts into my feed. - AJ Kohn

So are we saying that its not the tool itself...but HOW it is or is not used that maxes utility? If so I agree! - Melanie Reed

@Melanie: Yes, the users are the key. The users are the filters. http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/soylent... And the engagement provides a rich annotation and a secondary level of filtering. So yes, users and their engagement absolutely matter. - AJ Kohn

Sure, yes, how you use it maxes utility. But it also helps if it's suited to how you WANT to use it... if not it's a struggle. And people don't like to struggle, even if it's possible to make something do what you want it to... easier to use another tool if it fits your purpose better. FriendFeed fits my purpose so it's not a struggle for me... but for someone with a more broadcasting mindset than a conversational one, it's going to be tougher. - Her Lindsay-ness

Vincent, most long-time FriendFeeders have spoken strongly against any sort of moderation/rating system for comments. No one wants mobs of people trying to control what other people can see like what happens on Digg. It's why every time the topic of 'Unlike' comes up, people rise up to talk it down because it creates an aura of competition and negativity. - Akiva Moskovitz

AJ, yes! users are the filters. - Melanie Reed

Akiva +++ - Melanie Reed

Anybody use Mailchimp here? It is tangential to the discussion. They have a cracker jack built in user educational system that monitors and makes usage suggestions. - Melanie Reed

Is lunchtime finally over yet? - Hayes Haugen

I'd love to peek in on the recommendation engine discussions. I'm in the 'they don't work camp' myself but I'm open to being convinced and perhaps technology has approached a point where it could work but ... from working in eCommerce I've seen it fail time and time again. Random factors, contextual issues etc. - AJ Kohn

@Melanie: Know of Mailchimp but don't use. The 'monitor and makes usage suggestions' sounds interesting though. - AJ Kohn

AJ, that's because the devs didn't pay attention when their instructors (ahem) were teaching it to them. ;) - Melanie Reed

Another point I'd like to make is that no one is forcing anyone to read the comments here. If people want a broadcast-only medium, it's fairly easy not to click on the 'x more comments' link. Unfortunately, Robert makes a painful observation: he played FriendFeed cheerleader for two years and the people who needed to take the bait didn't or did but then cut loose. That pretty much means... more... - Akiva Moskovitz

Johnny: I am comfortable with all of these too, but it's not about me. But, anyway, the business battle now is between Facebook and Twitter and it'll be interesting to see the choices that Paul's team makes and how those compare with the team NK over at Twitter is making. Then the market will choose which one is best. - Robert Scoble

Akiva: If I were at Facebook and knew that they could turn into the next MySpace I'd put every single engineering minute onto Facebook. Wouldn't you? - Robert Scoble

Like I said before, there is still SO MUCH potential here... and it's a shame to see it squandered. I think there are a lot of ways it could be taken to the next level. For sure it could be a contender to Twitter with a few enhancements, but fat chance of that now that there is no longer a dev team, and that it's "parent" is a competitor. - Her Lindsay-ness

Robert, here's a good example: You want to debate intelligent recommendation agents? Allright, I know that you know Chris Saad. Chris is a very cool guy in fact! But do you know Deniz Oktar? Deniz, who is not as popular as Chris, is a SMART Turkish guy too and works on the same subject. If you limit your view to "popular" people, you'll definitely miss him. And debating such a subject without alternative ideas likes Deniz's or humbly mine, won't be perfect :) - directeur

Not sure, Robert. Is turning into the next MySpace a good thing for you or a bad thing? For me, it'd be bad. - Akiva Moskovitz

Akiva, go take a look at (and experience) mailchimp's monitor and make usage suggestion system. It's adaptable for a number of scenarios - Melanie Reed

I think the business battle (other than the marketing to consumers end of it) will be occupied and won by Wave. Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed are mere toys in that world. - Brian Sullivan

Melanie, I'm not complaining about a solution that MailChimp could provide. I'm fine with FriendFeed as it is (for the most part). - Akiva Moskovitz

directeur: most people choose news brands to curate and find new people that will have something valuable to say. See http://twitter.com/Scoblei... for instance. That already is TOO MUCH so telling people to get more people or more things into their lives just isn't going to cut it for most people. - Robert Scoble

Allowing public panels where only the influential can talk certainly would have a useful role, Its just like panels at conferences. A lot of people would no doubt like to just follow the influential in these forums. On the down side it would make the already influential more so and it would probably lose some audience if it was done a lot because there is no democratic engagement. The people who don't spend all their time cultivating their fame and networks do say interesting things too. - Ed Millard

directeur: and, anyway. if he's in Turkey and not in San Francisco he's far less likely to influence tech in a major way. So I disagree. - Robert Scoble

(FYI - look at this conversation and tell me where else anything like this could take place.) - AJ Kohn

No, we're completely boring and worthless, Ed. We're not worth paying attention to. I mean, who wants to see a picture of our kids? ;) - Her Lindsay-ness

IRC or a phpBB messageboard! - Joe Silence is not dead

Akiva, I meant for those who might struggle "getting" FF but would enjoy and benefit from it once they do. There's an "on ramp" to FF that rivals North Corridor Dallas coming out of an apt complex on to 50mph+ 4 lane traffic. Some of us are better at that than others, but you still see a lot of cars on the road. :) - Melanie Reed

There has also been a lack of creative uses using the FF tool sets. Good uses of the tools inspires participation + it's easy to criticize -- harder to create. - David Bausola

@Robert: Whoa, whoa. Weren't you arguing that adding 8K new people from Twitter Lists was a good thing? Is more better, or worse? - AJ Kohn

+++David - Melanie Reed

@David: Good point, no real developer platform. That's been a big boon for both Facebook and Twitter. - AJ Kohn

Robert, yet he DOES. You just aren't into that speciality :) If you think that every "tech" thing must happen in SF you really miss A LOT. - directeur

Woah, Robert, so you are saying anyone who doesn't live in SF doesn't count in a tech discussion? That's a little self centered isn't it? - Ed Millard

I understand it but I really dislike any discussions where the topic seems to be "how can we turn this thing that the people who use it like into something that people who don't use it and would only use it for selfish reasons like?" Screw them. If something's not as "techy" as Slashdot and it's more chaotic because the comments aren't threaded like Slashdot and there's no moderation... more... - Mark H

Lindsay, I want to see a picture of your kids. I only wish I had some to show back. ;) - Melanie Reed

Ed: you are NOT a careful reader. - Robert Scoble

Robert's not saying that those ideas can't happen, or that a true revelation can't come from elsewhere, but that ... the likelihood that someone outside of SF to influence tech is less. The Capital of the Internet is SF. I'd agree with that. But that doesn't mean it'll always stay that way, nor does it mean that tech from other areas can't be influential. (least that's how I read it.) - AJ Kohn

OK I just read it, you still said if you don't live in SF there is very little chance you will have any influence on tech. If you have no influence then you either have nothing to say on the subject, or even if you do have something to say it wont matter. - Ed Millard

Hrm, I think the whole thing is overblown. My personal FF landing page still has as much utility as my first day (if not more). Bleh, whatever. - Chieze Okoye

@AJ The FF API is beautiful, I don't think dev communities saw the richness that you can create with the aggregation of FF streams. A few valley PR oriented bloggers pushed 'conversation' as FF's 'killer app' - whereas, the realtime aggregation streams and republishing of content is radical and unique. - David Bausola

Well I'm pretty sure all the people in Seattle, Toronto, Paris, London, Moscow,Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Bangalore, Boulder, etc. probably disagree - Ed Millard

@David: I'll take your word on the API and wouldn't doubt it given the FF team's chops. But fostering usage, that community - that's where things may have gotten shaky. Too few people leveraging it. It could still resolve back to an inability to really grasp what FF can do for them. - AJ Kohn

AJ, I think you're on to something. Back in the day, usability (including general user and disabled) use to be a well-known topic. Universities made it a part of the curriculum. Everything before and including e-commerce got the once over. But it occurs that the latest generation (including GLS and SM) have outpaced the community standards for usability. It's really the wild west again-... more... - Melanie Reed

Akiva: I suspect the noise problem Robert's describing from others isn't that comment threads get too long. It's that items keep popping to the top as new comments show up, when they don't want to see the new comments. I don't see any way around that except a separate client. It would take too much away from the FriendFeed experience for the default interface not to work this way. - Bruce Lewis

Mark, I didn't mean to suggest /. is the only solution to the forum problem. If you have really big forum discussions /. is time tested way to control noise and raise the signal level. On the other hand it would probably be a horrible solution for intimate and friendly discussions among friends. Someone earlier Lindsey? kind of had a good suggestion. When you make a post have a row of option buttons and let the poster set the kind of forum for that thread, broadcast, panel, open, modded, thredded, not.. - Ed Millard

Ed: I specifically said "far less likely." I didn't say there is very little chance. But, seriously, this is an argument for another thread. Lots of people think they have influence but actually don't have as much. For instance, I love to think I have influence on Facebook but I'm far less likely to influence that then Paul Buchheit is. Facts are facts. - Robert Scoble

Chieze glad you like FriendFeed. Me too. It's awesome. But that doesn't mean much to the rest of the world. - Robert Scoble

Robert, how often do you use "Add This"? It's germane :) - Melanie Reed

OK we will agree to disagree on that one and drop it. I've lived in the bay off and on, I think there are pluses and minuses to being there. - Ed Millard

Melanie: "Add This" being the "Add Photos" at top of FriendFeed? Not as much as I should. - Robert Scoble

Robert: No this service: http://www.addthis.com/ This is fast becoming the SM share button for many websites. Ours uses it. And FF is on it. Take a look at the entire list - Melanie Reed

FriendFeed's feature set will mean a lot to the rest of the world when it's fully integrated into Facebook in 2011. - Bruce Lewis

Bruce: I don't think it'll take that long. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you may be right, in which case FriendFeed is a relevant thing to look at. Maybe it isn't actually too far ahead of its time. - Bruce Lewis

Just like Lisp can make you a better programmer in other languages, FriendFeed can make you a better thinker when writing about other social networks. Popularity isn't everything, even for a blogger. - Bruce Lewis

You mean, it's not all about attention? :D - Her Lindsay-ness

Who really knows why Twitter got all the traction? Does Scoble? I very much doubt it. I think there's a great effort going into finding a logical explanation for Twitter massive success and FriendFeeds more modest gains. My own best guess is that it has more to do with the madness of crowds than it does with any limitation in FriendFeed. Twitter had a decent enough foothold already by... more... - David Hall from FreshFeed

Twitter got the traction because Twitter's easy. It requires very little effort to get into and it requires even less to participate. It's the same reason why YouTube comments are the cesspool of the Internet and MetaFilter's comments are not: anyone can sit around and watch videos all day and then trash talk them but you make people pay to comment and you'll weed out the chaff almost... more... - Akiva Moskovitz

David: I was there from early days on Twitter and studied how it grew. I know more than you might think. Remember, I was the first person to follow 1,000 people there and I was the 13,800ish user to join. - Robert Scoble

This link is the most illuminating one on FF traction at the time of the buyout. It indicates FF was just starting to regain traction after it had stalled out for a while and it suggests if maybe FF had stuck it out a while longer things might have changed. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... - Ed Millard

Twitter got hot in the early days because of Leo Laporte and because of SXSW and because it was goofy fun way for tech influencers to talk to their friends. It just kept growing from there. Another factor in addition to simplicity (Akiva's right there) is the API. Tons of clients and tools and services are built on top of it. FriendFeed got nearly none in comparison. - Robert Scoble

The difference may be luck of the draw ( a la Gladwell) - Brian Sullivan

People had to build tons of clients, tools and services for Twitter because the default web UI is so bad. - Ed Millard

Ed: what that graph doesn't show you is what we now know. Google Wave sucked a lot of attention of geek influentials away (IE Hype) and Facebook's Connect is running away with another game. I went into FriendFeed the week they decided to sell and asked them because I knew Twitter had new features coming that would make FriendFeed less interesting. I think the FriendFeed team looked at the competition and decided to fold. - Robert Scoble

How could I have ignored the API? It's like Firefox's plug-ins: it's the only thing that makes Twitter usable for many users. Without it, they wouldn't touch it. Heck, if it weren't for Tweetie 2, I wouldn't touch it either. - Akiva Moskovitz

And Facebook's Connect platform is getting incorporated everywhere. I think FriendFeed was hoping to become part of the general web, like what we did over on http://building43.com and that just wasn't going to happen because Facebook's Connect platform is rocking and rolling now. In fact, I made a fundamental blunder by not going with Facebook on Building43. If I had, our traffic would have been much higher than it is now. - Robert Scoble

You can be sure that once CNN and other assorted media outlets started plugging Twitter it was game over. Once the band wagon was rolling every "personality" was going to hop on. It is a little disturbing that Miley Cyrus has now joined the "everyone should delete their Twitter accounts" camp. - Ed Millard

David Hall +1 Steven Berlin Johnson would be a good reference - the persistence of babble is incredible valuable in phatic communications. FF, through the web interface hides a lot of that. Instead, the babble was more bookmark centric and less about 'having a sandwich'. That's why you have, on the whole, better conversation threads on FF, and ending up having to duck out of the way of... more... - David Bausola

Disturbing REALLY????? My word, Miley is absolutely right <sarcasm/> - Roberto Bonini

To paraphrase Louis Gray's wife, "nerds in startups are fickle". I speculate they had a lot of self doubt when they stalled out prior to that up tick, and decided to sell just about the time FF was starting to take off again. Someone waves $50 million at you during a period of self questioning that is a potent motivator, I think Zuckerberg saw that and he did nip a potential competitor in the bud. - Ed Millard

But all the above comments is about public sharing. I use FF a lot for project planning and development - it's fast - you can discuss items with good archive search, and you can post media. I wonder how many people use FF in this way, and ignore the public babble? - David Bausola

Having read most of this thread (and Robert, comments are VERY valueble) the"forum problem" is NP-complete. Comments are valuable becuase seeing people reason is often just as enlightening, if not more so, than the original information. - Roberto Bonini

Ed - mind you, there's only a few ways you can get to the helm of the FB API design and product development. :) Who's to say this isn't all going according to plan? - David Bausola

Roberto: me and you agree on that. In my research most people do not. They see these things as noise. But, if you make the comments toggle on and off we BOTH win! Plus, comments REALLY help search! - Robert Scoble

Ed: correction, it was $50 million. - Robert Scoble

Robert you keep talking about "your research". Is this anything more than anecdotal conversations? - Brian Sullivan

David, Well maybe Paul and Co. are doing a trojan horse on FB but what I've read about Zuckerberg he doesn't seem likely to relinquish control of anything he cares about and I am skeptical you are going to turn FB in to FF with their entrenched user base. - Ed Millard

@Scoble you're arguing from authority again. I think on a broadcast platform like Twitter that's an easier one to pull off. On Twitter it's a big "so what" if you've posted a load of BS because most people will simply miss any challenge to your "content." Post the same on FriendFeed and you get tackled and you get tackled in public. Reasonable enough grounds to explain your current stance and certainly as good as any reason I've heard you put forward yourself. - David Hall

Robert, I stand corrected, and it is corrected, this editing your posts thing is one of FF's scarier features. - Ed Millard

OPEN QUESTION: Is FF gaining or losing users? I see very little here now - but I'm told user numbers are going through the roof. - Jim Connolly

Ed: tell me one thing. What's the biggest difference between FF and FB? There's already not as much difference as you'd might think. The one thing I miss over there? Real time search. - Robert Scoble

Twitter got big because it's about ego. Look at me, Me, ME! Twitter flourished because people like to talk about themselves. (FF is not, which is why it hasn't gained nearly as much traction.) It was developed as an update service. It has evolved into ... something else. As for comments, they are invaluable. - AJ Kohn

and the ability to edit comments, moderate comments, import all my feeds, bumping up of older posts - Holden Page from IM

Jim: user numbers are not going through the roof here. I don't know anyone credible who has said that. The registered numbers are going up, but the active numbers are going down. - Robert Scoble

AJ: FriendFeed is just as much about ego as Twitter is. If not more so. - Robert Scoble

Ed, the goal is to design influentially for the web. Paul B does seem to give that ethos in his startup camp talks and general interviews. I would think FB would warm to that ideology. - David Bausola

Very true. Robert. - Roberto Bonini

@Robert: How? Seriously, I'd like to hear your opinion. - AJ Kohn

Robert: In other words, as people like yourself, Arrington and even those little guys like myself with a couple of thousand subscribers leave - we're being replaced by less active users. Makes sense. I used to check in on and off all day. Now, 2/3 times a week, - Jim Connolly

Jim: not true. I don't see a lot of people joining in here and I'm watching it closely. Sorry. More people are leaving the back door than are coming in the front. - Robert Scoble

To me the two big ones are 1) perception that it more walled garden networks and not as open though certainly it has avenues which are more open like FF 2) its home to massive quantities of apps, games, spam from people trying to get rich that hold no interest to me, though obviously many others like them. FF is probably just overlooked by that crowd, if it were bigger it would be infected with all that crap too. FF seems to mostly just be good people from my limited time here. - Ed Millard

All User Centric Design is modeled around the ego. Good software design keeps that in mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - David Bausola

AJ: Twitter is, for many people, about business now. Not ego at all. News brands: http://twitter.com/#... no ego. Tech companies: http://twitter.com/Scoblei... No ego. But here? It's ALL about ego! - Robert Scoble

David is right. - Robert Scoble

On Twitter the default is to show number you follow, number of followers, number of Tweets. That's all playing on ego and popularity. Nearly everything (even lists) is geared to stimulate a innate need to acquire more of something as a way to ... validate contribution or perceived influence or authority. FF does not show this in the default mode. - AJ Kohn

Companies and brands are the most aggressive form of ego there is, and they usually are direct reflections of the ego of the company's CEO. - Ed Millard

Alright Robert. In order to reduce the signal to noise ratio, we can do one of two things, we can use "Likes" to filter the comment stream. If I Like more posts from Robert than i do from LG, Roberts comments appear but not LG's. We can use semantics to (somehow) sort the thread and show comments relevant to the original post. (simply dumping noise isin't a solution - not all noise is noise all the time. Likewise, increasing signal in an echo chamber is fruitless) - Roberto Bonini

@Robert: Oh, I think Twitter is a great business tool! It's a marketers paradise. But I'm not sure that's what most people believe it to be. People still think they're going to get some sort of social dialog there. I think it's why Twitter churn is so high. People get it thinking it'll be one thing and quickly find out it's another. - AJ Kohn

+1 AJ, there are some people that use Twitter in awesome, constructive, useful, ways like Tim O'Reilly and Jay Rosen but a lot of people its pure self promotion. As for news outlets using twitter they are going to go wherever the eyeballs are, and they will go to multiple networks not just Twitter. Those are pure broadcast, no engagement, they aren't really a ringing endorsement of why Twitter is great. - Ed Millard

I'd bet FF *would* take off (but be worse for it) if it listed how many times the content I fed got liked and commented on, and that (along with subscribers etc.) were all listed right there at the top of my home feed. And that upon signing up, I'd get suggested users based on subscriptions but also who got the most likes and comments. Yet, I don't think that's conducive to what FF really excels at. - AJ Kohn

@Robert, biggest difference between Facebook and Friendfeed - reciprocal connections. Without a doubt. The apps, the ads, other stuff, is true, but for me the central difference, and the thing that betrays a fundamental difference of worldview between the two apps is whether or not you can follow someone's content without them having to follow you back. You can only do that on Facebook... more... - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

@Ed: I realized a long time ago that Twitter was a big Internet megaphone. And if you could get a lot of people to 'listen' to that megaphone well, that's powerful stuff. It's about Reach. Twitter gives your message reach. Nothing wrong with that. I just don't see it as ... transforming. - AJ Kohn

Those who study the art of propaganda consider reach to be everything, because following reach is influence, and following influence is control. TV is losing its reach in the Internet era so most of those "brands" and "personalites" are rushing to find a way to regain it, enter Twitter and FB. They are better because they are bidirectional. - Ed Millard

*Noise* :) - ashish

@Ed: I'd be interested to see more on how reach leads to influence. It often does but ... not always. Plenty of multi-million dollar ad campaigns in the graveyard as examples. Reach + ? = influence. - AJ Kohn

Ed I think you're right. I caught that TC piece at the time too. Seems to me that the FriendFeed guys had a bit of a crisis of confidence and grabbed lunch while it was on offer. In any case I always figured FriendFeed as a place to graduate to once you'd rammed up against Twitters limitations. And, as I'm sure you know, that doesn't take long. That's how I got here. I was actually on... more... - David Hall

You don't have influence until you have reach so its the prerequisite. Then it a matter of how effectively you craft the message and push the buttons in your target audience. Some people are good at that part, some aren't, some fail, some succeed. - Ed Millard

Robert, I just wonder. Isn't twitter more about consuming the information and FF more about sharing and discussing? Look at http://twitter.com/Scoblei.... What can anyone add to that or comment on that? I agree it is getting a lot noisy in here (exhibit, this post). But not all posts will be this noisy I think. - Amit

+1 Jandy, she answered Robert's challenge to me better than I did. - Ed Millard

@Ed: I'm not sure. New memes start with someone small sometimes. Say ... keyboard cat ... and someone who has reach communicates that message and it goes big. So who has the influence? The creator of keyboard cat or the person to has the reach to make it go big? I find it very interesting. - AJ Kohn

Jandy: +100. You just nailed for me why I like Twitter and FriendFeed better than Facebook. Agreed. - Robert Scoble

Robertt, maybe this post and the scads of comments prove your point, but maybe your point is limited to your own experience due to your unique position in tech. You speak, noise follows. But that does not make Friendfeed irrelevant or useless for the average or even just left or right of average user. You have a unique experience that is going to color any forum you put your time into.... more... - Martha

+++Jandy - Melanie Reed

Well put, Jandy. - Akiva Moskovitz

I think the forum problem is not as big in smaller more intimate groups. Recently I've been very active in the DMU group here that includes a lot of folks who've migrated here from Flickr. The relevancy is much more higher in these venues than in the main feed because it's a smaller controlled experience. I do wish though that groups were more full featured like the rest of FF though.... more... - Thomas Hawk

oh of course and photo voting pools for groups would by awesome too. ;) - Thomas Hawk

Lists are not enough. Twitter, FF and other social networks need tagging by default, then filter on list + tag. That's the element that would kill the noise and turn them into interest networks. - howard shippin from BuddyFeed

Martha: you might have a point if we were just talking about me. But we're not. So, try again. Again, I've talked with thousands of people about these things. They tell me they don't like the noise that public forums bring. I've been doing this for 25 years and this isn't the first time I've heard this pushback. Facebook, by the way, on its iPhone app, handles it perfectly: it hides all... more... - Robert Scoble

You all keep referring to this as either chat or comments when actually its a discussion. I think that the ability to discuss anything on Friend Feed or anywhere else for that matter IS where you learn the most. I'm not techy like most of you, I'm just an ordinary 'average' user, but I see twitter more as a 'newsreel' of info, shallow but instant, whereas Friend Feed is more a 'thrashing out of ideas and opnions, and is therefore all the richer for it. - Sandra Large

Sandra: chat/discussion/forum/comments are all pretty much the same thing. Yes, the two are different. There CAN be lots of learning here, it's just that this is a lot noiser than other online things in some ways. - Robert Scoble

Robert, about noise: when you or other tech influencers introduce FriendFeed, you show the things you're excited about, which tend to be big and noisy, right? And if you're the first person someone follows on FF, they're going to get a noisy first impression. The slower growth that doesn't come through tech influencers may have less of a back door. - Bruce Lewis

And about the 25+-year-old forum problem: Moderated Usenet was great until moderators slacked off. Decentralized moderation fixes that, at least for small discussions. Larger discussions can lead to whack-a-mole (though I notice this one hasn't), but with one of the suggestions I made earlier in this conversation the number of whackers could scale with the number of moles. - Bruce Lewis

Moderation = censorship. Censorship sucks. Give the users control to hide and block. The less censorship the better. - Thomas Hawk

@Paul - what about a view to only see the user's posts/content ie no comments of others and no likes => then it becomes twitter like - Kishore Balakrishnan

Come on, it's hardly messier than Facebook, since the default view only includes the first and last comment. Basically the gist I'm getting is that people who think they're important don't want to listen to people who they don't think are important. Such is the human race, I suppose. - Victor Ganata

+++Victor hammer meets nail. - David Hall

Robert said "FB iPhone app ... hides all comments with an arrow that you can then use to expand the comments. That is so much better than this mess here that it isn't funny". Robert, I must be missing your point because FF also hides most comments until you expand them because you want to read them... Don't want to read FF comments, don't expand them, problem solved. Or are you saying FF is a "mess" because it shows first and last comment? - Ed Millard

235 comments! I really don't want to expand *that* on FF! Is this a pain-point for anyone else? - Space Cowboy

Not for me. If I'm interested enough in the topic or dialog I'll click the time stamp and open the post page to read everything. The text amount is comparable to a medium length blog post: if I have the time to read that I have the time to read this if it interests me. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

A typical blog post? Dragging & copying the comments only (which took about a min. of scrolling) produced 9200 words and 23 pages of text. Blog posts also tend to have a more easily read narrative. - Vincent van Wylick

The problem is for big conversations like this one you need threading and maybe moderation, but for more normal conversations that are smaller flat is better. Allowing a switch between the two adds complexity. For big conversations FF lacks the button to reply to a specific poster so the viewer can thread, at least as an option. Much of the noise level in this conversation is due to people having to manually try to fake threading. - Ed Millard

The threading vs. flat conversation is interesting to me - we've tried multiple times to put Disqus or Intense Debate on a film blog I write for, and every time we meet huge resistance to threading ESPECIALLY on long threads. People say they have a lot of difficulty finding the new comments when they aren't all at the top or bottom. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Why can't there be a summary fly-out with timestamps based on response rate to single comments and a "last comment made" link as well as "thread count" links and lastly, "participants in this thread" link? Collapse everything else except the initial post. The initial interface looking like this one, should always be available for those who want to "sort through". You want the... more... - Melanie Reed

Jandy, you kind of have to let the user flip between threading and flat to solve the chronology problem. Slashdot has a popup menu at the top that lets you view in "Threaded, Nested, Flat, No Comments". The down side is the UI gets progressively more complex both to implement and use unless you are going to force everyone to lowest common denominator UI. - Ed Millard

But Ed, that's what I have against the traditional "threaded" approach: all the fork like structure. It does get complicated real fast. What's needed is somewhere a "summary" for those jumping in late to "catch up" but also the "single comment" link to democratize the discussion. Threads have all the indentation problems of trying to follow that way IF I am picturing what you mean by thread. - Melanie Reed

+1 Ed - Bicentennial (Franc)

My other observation is this: everyone creates a "story" about the ideas and information they are taking in and immediately starts associating connections in their mind creating a mental picture whether they realize it or not when they are perceiving that information. Our user interfaces don't yet lend themselves to that especially where it come to dialogue and forums. We've accepted a... more... - Melanie Reed

Here's why you don't need indented/tangential threading: FF discussions tend to be small enough to fit in the "RAM" in one's mind. It curtails many threads that might ramble; the exception (like Paul's thread here) comes when the power of the topic/zeitgeist and vibe of a live chat going strong overrides that usual point of decay. Predictablly, one or several commenters here will start a new thread or escalate it to a blog post and summarize their thoughts based on what transpired on this stream. - Micah Wittman

Melanie, have you used Slashdot, they did forums earlier and better than anyone. The forum starts out flat, and then starts threading. Random community moderators start modding up the insightful posts, and burying the trolls, crap, etc. Once the moderation kicks in the "summary" is all the posts that were modded up to 5 which are shown expanded. All the lower moderated stuff is there but you have to clck to see. Slashdot would suck like YouTube comments if they hadn't solved the forum problem. - Ed Millard

It's organic, not hierarchical. As other have stated, there is as much to learn from watching the process unfold as there is to gain from end result. - Micah Wittman

Ed, no, I haven't used Slashdot but I'm willing to give it a try. I'm pretty adaptable. But when I see a problem and it becomes "the picture" for me, in this case a circle then I know its time for the leap out of the present "prison of one idea". ;) - Melanie Reed

Micah, its true threads are bad for small friendly forums. Some of this discussion is about what happens when the forums on "celebrity" social expert's threads get so big they overflow readers brains and they turn in to *noise*. One noise problem is organization, the other is some post and some posters are better than others in the mind of the celeb and the reader. - Ed Millard

Slashdot dealt with most of the forum problems ten years ago, they had to to survive the trolls. The problem is their UI needs to be complex to be flexible and keep everyone happy. Their audience is also mostly geek power user. When you get to social networks the other UI school is demanding the UI be dirt simple so the unwashed masses can cope, but dirt simple mean its inflexible and it ticks off nearly everyone, especially power users. Hard problem to solve... making everyone happy. - Ed Millard

Ed, conferences have break-out groups. The same idea should be employed. - Micah Wittman

Ed, yes, you offered a little explication for others of what happens when you lost the ability to categorize your"story" into a mental picture that is associated with previous "stories" you have stored in the brain. That end result is "noise". Some of us are better at doing that than others, that's true. But there come a point of over flow for all of us. What our UI needs to do is to amplify and assist in that "story" constructing process. - Melanie Reed

Break out groups is a nice idea, but it seems a bit cumbersome. You need to make a new post, post a link here and get some critical mass from the first forum to move. If you do it five times you would splinter the first forum and lose critical mass, especially in a "real-time" forum where people will only watch one forum at a time. Chances are most people will cling to the first forum if its interesting. - Ed Millard

Ed and Micah, what I hear both of you saying, and Robert as well, is that at some point in the "story" constructing process, the dialog from the forum needs to end in the narrative of a blog. Up till now, the blog component has been a random, unattached part of the discussion. AM I hearing that you think that in some way it should become part of the UI? So that the discussion gets... more... - Melanie Reed

Not sure I follow, blog is kind of a one voice, one direction thing, only way a forum morphs to blog is when once person splits off the forum to make a more in depth point and posts the blog link to the forum. I'm mostly just talking about the various methods for restoring order in a big forum, and improving signal to noise ratio. Most entail putting more options and more UI in and around the forum and making the UI more complex which many think is bad on a social network. - Ed Millard

Ed, as I was writing this, it occurs to me that what I'm suggesting is what I may have just figured out (finally) that Google Wave is trying to get us to do. But if so, I beleive FF could actually do it better. the "noise" problem that was created by the various forms of SM, inside and outside of the platforms, was the inability to "connect the dots". We didn't have a framework for how... more... - Melanie Reed

One of the problems that we haven't solved is the usefulness of digression and random access of connective tissue in the "story" process. That's the wild card that often comes up as "noise" - Melanie Reed

I can't speak for Robert. Some of his issue "seems" to be he only wants to see the Silicon Valley/SF movers and shakers in his feed talking about tech and social networks, and he doesn't much want anyone but that same group to be posting on forums under his auspices. Friend Feeds openness is bad for that. The same is true for all the Twitter celeberati. They don't want peons anywhere near their online presence to tarnish it. - Ed Millard

Only way I can see to maintain FF openness for those who want it, and celeb broadcast only mode for the celebs who demand it, in one social network is you have to have an option when you make a post on your feed to control the forum methodology (i.e. broadcast only peons can only look on, panel mode where only my social elite are allowed to speak & peons can watch, private where only my circle can speak and see (FB mode), or completely OPEN(FF mode). - Ed Millard

There also seems to be an issue where someone you follow, through the "like" process, can inject pictures of kittens, babies and man titteh in to your feed. Of course that is kind of the original point of social networks, seeing what your network sees. I think some just want hard core tech news and talk and twitter lists probably do allow an uber though somewhat lifeless feed like that. - Ed Millard

Ed, well, that is the territory of the heart when it comes into contact with the machine. And oddly (or maybe not so oddly) there is a post on my feed that addresses that theme: http://friendfeed.com/faithx5... ;) Digression and Random access at work. lol And I find that refreshing. I'm always excited about how some new idea may be generated because I allowed what... more... - Melanie Reed

@Melanie: I fully believe in non-linear learning. The ability to take input from diverse thematic content and synthesize something ... to apply something from one world to the other. That's where I think we're heading. I think of it a little bit like a digital version of Burroughs' Cut Up technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - AJ Kohn

I can't believe I read the whole thing - Michael Slattery

Such a simple and obvious solution: provide an optional *LIST* view for Friendfeed items. Open the comments only on items that look really interesting. Am I missing something obvious? Then Friendfeed could easily emulate Twitter on all essentials (and surpass it in many other areas). - Sean McBride

Sean, I think the obvious thing you are missing is there are no FF developers any more so FF probably isn't getting anything it doesn't already have. And there are camps here that don't really like the alternatives that FB and Twitter offer which is why this is such a hot button issue. I wish there was one social network that had lists, open forums, walled gardens, and broadcast mode based on the wishes of the person running a feed so everyone could be happy in one network. - Ed Millard

Hayes Haugen

King County election results page http://your.kingcounty.gov/electio...

November 3 - Comment - Like - Share

Gary Burd liked this

Looks like this isn't a continuous results thing. They posted tonight at 8:15 and then daily updates at 4:30 pm. It's all mail in so today's results are "Mail ballots counted on election day". More here http://www.kingcounty.gov/electio... - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

It sometimes seems that I spend more cycles managing Firefox than the OS it runs on.

November 3 - Comment - Like - Share

...and frickin Adobe just snuck in McAfee virus scan on me in the flash update. I'm sure there was a checkbox but yuck. Is this really how you want to roll Adobe? - Hayes Haugen

Gary Burd

Why do we have an IMG element? - http://diveintomark.org/archive...

November 2 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

NaHi, Daniel Rowley, Gary and 17 other people liked this

Love it. Woke up long-dormant memories of the browser wars and "Netscape-proprietary tags." - Stephen Mack

4 more comments

Stephen - And that's a good thing because...? - Curtiss Grymala

That's a great bit of history. - LogEx

His assertion is "Why an <img> element? Quite simply, because Marc Andreessen shipped one, and shipping code wins." At least in this case. - Hayes Haugen

But he does allow that: "[Shipping] Code is necessary but not sufficient for success." - LogEx

I saw the WWW before the IMG element. It didn't look promising. I wonder what would have happened if it had taken longer for graphics to be embeddable in HTML. - Bruce Lewis

Hayes Haugen

http://www.vimeo.com/7387796

November 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Vimeo made my already dark video even darker. Gamma? Also can't get an embedded player going here in ff. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Untitled - http://media1.miqlive.com/media...

November 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Kitchen from Italy on one more leg of its journey. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

on island demoing the kitchen and cranking the achtung baby!

October 31 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

I am waiting for the pictures that you promised yesterday. :) - Gary Burd

Yes, but the landing craft with all its awesome photo ops left hours before i thought it was leaving. I was not on it and had to drive slow in our 22 foot boat across the wonderous rosario strait instead. Got some pix to post when i get back. I heart humans. - Hayes Haugen from email

There are a bunch of pix on my camera right now i want to share. Its not a phone though. - Hayes Haugen from email

Bret Taylor

Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model « abovethecrowd.com - http://abovethecrowd.com/2009...

October 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

eighty, Joff, Jess Lee and 36 other people liked this

"While it is obvious that this maneuver creates a problem for the multi-billion dollar GPS market, it also poses real challenges for the leading smart phone players – RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone. Without access to their own mapping data, these vendors now face an interesting dilemma. Do you risk flying naked without free navigation or do you suck it up and swallow the above average royalty fee for each and every handset? Neither option is stellar. This problem isn’t nearly as daunting as the one now faced by the Windows Mobile and Symbian teams. As software providers, they are lucky to get a per unit royalty equal to that extracted by the GPS data guys. If they are now forced to integrate this data merely to keep their product competitive, their gross margin just went negative. Ouch!" - Bret Taylor from Bookmarklet

12 more comments

I would love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond - Ray Cromwell

I'm psyched to get Google maps powered navigation. they provide much better directions than tom tom ever could... and if they calculate live traffic as well thats good. but i'm curious as to why Verizon doesn't seem to mind since their nav package is normally $15/month. - Matt Ellsworth

My experience with Google has been completely different. They were notably subpar when they stopped licensing the leader in map data a year or two ago, and their directions now are as bad or worse than MapQuest. I split the difference now between them and a GPS unit when I need to, but generally prefer to use an actual map for most accurate directions. - Cole Jolley

I think this is likely to change in a big way once they fully leverage their Street View database. Still, I can't argue with free when the errors are few IMHO. - Ray Cromwell

Is this an example of "open" systems putting people out of business? (of course, it's not personal, it's just business..." - Cliff Gerrish

What I really don't understand is: why are there so many lost people? - LogEx from iPhone

Does Google actually make any money from their maps? How many Google behaviors are enabled by their huge search revenues and how many of those can continue as their dominance wanes? Also as the article mentions Nokia owns Navteq so the "Symbian" problem is a non issue (unless you think there is a viable Symbian outside of a Nokia context). - Hayes Haugen

Now the droid initiative on verizon finally makes sense to me. I watched the demos as they showed off feature after feature that verizon likes to charge extra for thinking no way is this not going to be expensive. But with google paying verizon on search ad revenue, verizon doesn't have to nickel and dime their customers for every added feature. - dthree

"I would love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond" - things may be just as interesting in Cupertino. - John Craft

Google's move is similar to MSFT's free browser play. - Cliff Gerrish

I'm wondering how Apple's purchase of PlaceBace is going to play out. Are they going to ditch Google Maps on the iPhone? - Matt Mastracci

I also have issue with the "less than free" thing as a new disruptive thing. Pay-to-play on a platform or a device is not new (e.g. anti-virus software). - Hayes Haugen

@hayes yes, you're darn rite about Navteq thingie... - A.T.

Joe Beda

We told Annie that in 2 days the Halloween witch comes and steals the leftover candy. Is that mean?

October 30 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

It's only mean if you eat the leftover candy. - Gary Burd

4 more comments

Don't do evil. - Henner Zeller

You won't know for 20 years. - Hayes Haugen

Kids aren't very good at accounting when they're all wacked out on high fructose corn syrup. My mom used to steal small amounts of candy from my stash as I ate it, so I thought I was consuming the whole lot, and didn't even notice the missing pieces. Also, I still love my mom. - Bill Strathearn

Children need to bring their A game to accounting. - Hayes Haugen

I know someone who introduced the concept of 'taxes' to his kid with candy charge to be delivered to the parents. The very first year (kid was very young), the tax was 100%. - Henner Zeller

Gary Burd

The barge seen N of 520 this week - http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News...

October 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Hayes Haugen liked this

florp, I did not hit delete. Did you? - Gary Burd

Yes I did hit delete but twissors keeps track. - Hayes Haugen

Rochelle

2506 N 38th St, Seattle, WA 98103 | $2,400,000 - http://www.redfin.com/WA...

October 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

rowlikeagirl, Hayes Haugen, Live4Emma (L4S) and 19 other people liked this

House for sale in my neighborhood. So pretty! - Rochelle from Bookmarklet

20 more comments

Okay, we'll buy that one if you insist. - Akiva Moskovitz

Wow, amazing. - Dragon Goldmaple

That's the MTV Real World Seattle house where that gay guy beat up that unhinged chick and the dude with the brooklyn accent got all emo over a producer. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, the Real World Seattle house was on the piers, down on the waterfront. This house is on Lake Union. - Rochelle

I thought I could see water behind it there. - Matthew DeVries

Pretty!! - Mona Nomura

I used to tutor the gay guy on the Seattle Real World; me and his sister were in the same class. - Derrick

Holy crap it's Mona!!! *tacklehugs* - Matthew DeVries

I see that house on my way to work every day. I'm surprised it is on the market as it seems like they just finished it and it was lived in. In any case -- add to my cart! - Joe Beda from iPhone

Matthew :) - Mona Nomura

want! - imabonehead

wow! - Josh Haley

PRETTY. :D (ps - Real World Seattle was filmed at Pier 70...got drunk and tried to molest the building from the sidewalk once...DON'T ASK) - tinypants - Hagitha of FF

That looks like the perfect house for someone who has two wives to live. - joey

It looks like it might be like living in a fish bowl from this view: http://maps.google.com/maps... - Gary Burd

I drive by that house everyday on my way to work too (Fremont WA, not Fremont CA). Joe do you work at Google or Adobe? or x? - Hayes Haugen

Hayes, Joe's FriendFeed profile says that he works for Google. - Gary Burd

Thank you Gary. - Hayes Haugen

Maybe we could all pitch in and have a FriendFeed house! PS Matthew, I haven't seen *tacklehugs* for years! Taking me back, man. Taking me back. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF from iPhone

Hayes & Joe, maybe you guys live near each other given that you both pass this house on the way to work. - Gary Burd

Capitol Hill. Gary please come over for lunch or whatever in Fremont one day. Bring Scott! - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

RealNetworks hires tech veteran Skorny for mystery cloud push - http://www.techflash.com/seattle...

October 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

"a product and service that will provide the casual user the ability to backup their most prized content (Photos, Music, etc) and access that content on their computer, mobile device or living room device." - Hayes Haugen from Bookmarklet

DeWitt Clinton

Peladophobia n.- Fear of bald people. Boo. Via @yes

October 29 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

alieb liked this

Fear me! - Gary Burd

This season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has been hitting the bald theme. Including a police line-up scene. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Received the keys to a truck that towed a trailer holding a kitchen that came from San Francisco via a shipping container from Trieste. That was step 1.

October 28 - Comment - Like - Share

?? - Gary Burd

I'll post pix of step 2 on Saturday. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Market Responds to Google Maps Navigation – Garmin & TomTom Off | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search - http://blumenthals.com/blog...

October 28 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

I wonder how many ideas, startups or small businesses have perished with the publishing of a blog post? Hopefully fewer than were born. - Hayes Haugen from Bookmarklet

Hayes Haugen

developer.android.com reportedly blocked in china.

October 28 - Comment - Like - Share

any info why? - Scott Ludwig

Not that I saw, just people complaining on the forums. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Official Google Blog: Similar Images graduates from Google Labs - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009...

October 27 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Can I point it at an url and have it find images similar to it? - Hayes Haugen from Bookmarklet

It's nice. I like. - Hayes Haugen

Benjamin Golub

Paul Buchheit - Been at your job too long? QUIT! - Startup School 2009 - http://vimeo.com/7240218

October 24 from Vimeo favorites - Comment - Like - Share

Felicia Yue, Alexander Arsky, Sachin and 88 other people liked this

couldnt agree more - sean percival

30 more comments

I wonder how long he means when he says that. 5 years? 3? Less? - Diego Barros 

I don't know, I was with my first company for 4.5 years. That still made me kinda the new guy, as a lot of employees were there 20 to 30 years. I guess it depends on industry. That was the insurance industry, and as long as there was a way up I was happy with that company. Now working in dot coms, working at a place more that two years is impressive. In some ways I don't necessarily... more... - Dario Gomez

I was at my last job 8 1/2 years. In that time, Facebook and Twitter were started, Google grew up, and Bush started two wars. Maybe I stayed too long. - Louis Gray

I'd rather my longevity at a company be determined in terms of achieving some goal. If it does not look like I will be able to accomplish something interesting, novel, or useful then I'll bail. Idiotic politics usually short circuits that game plan though. - scott anderson

I've never worked a job for more than 2 years. I like finding new levels of experience. If they kept it a learning experience I would stay longer, but never found a company that did that. - Jesse Stay

Scott, your reasoning led to my longevity there. I wanted to reach an end, be it M&A, IPO or something else. But it eventually became time. - Louis Gray

Louis: The goals I set are more personal and typically are not dependent on what the company and/or my division achieves. I have been fortunate in that I have always been able to drive the projects or sub-projects that I have worked on. That said, politics and the agendas of other individuals still find a way to mess up the best of intentions. - scott anderson

http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Hayes Haugen

++ scott. I agree with, "If you’ve been in your job for awhile, you should quit. Google was really comfortable. I knew all the people. It’s important to do things that will make you uncomfortable." with the caveat that it is important to find a place where you can accomplish something and stay there long enough to give it legs or cut it loose. I hear overnight success takes a long time. Otherwise you are just uncomfortable for no good reason. - Clare Dibble

Bold advice in hard times. - Tim Tyler

great advice for people who don't have a mortgage or a family - Terris Linenbach

+1 Terris - Bill Hooker

Terris, I have a family of 4 kids and a mortgage. As I said I've never had a job longer than 2 years. As for going out on your own, it's difficult, but very possible. It involves a lot of sacrifice though. - Jesse Stay

Going out on my own was the one of the best decisions I ever made in my life (even with a mortgage, family and a new baby at the time). I ended up back at a company, but this time I had founded it. There are many ways to make your life work on your own. If you really want to do it, just step off the cliff. You'll figure out a way to make it work. - Matt Mastracci

Matt, funny how that happens - my wife was pregnant when I went out on my own as well. I still don't know how we managed all that. :-) I agree though - it was the best decision of my life. I may end up at a job again at some point, but as Paul said, at the time it "sounded like the right thing to do". I've learned so much from being on my own, and the freedom is priceless. (Paycheck, much of the time is not so priceless) :-) - Jesse Stay

Actually it's a great advice for people who have mortgage and family and are taking it responsibly rather then being complacent in hope their current employer is here forever. - ǝuǝƃnǝ

eugene, yeah - one thing I've learned more than anything is that control is a good thing. Even if I work for someone else I always want to be sure I've got my own thing of some sort going that I could resort to at any time (a book, side-business, blog, investments, advisory roles, etc). Of course you have to be careful about that at the same time in that your employer knows of such things and is okay of you owning that IP. - Jesse Stay

To be clear, if you have kids, etc, find a new job before quitting your current one :) - Paul Buchheit

It was such a pleasure to be in the audience for this! - Jay

Paul, how long do you think is too long? - Diego Barros 

Whenever you get "too comfortable" :o) - Susan Beebe

Yeah, the correct answer obviously depends on your situation (how much you will learn at the new job vs the old), but in general I'd guess that "too long" falls in the 5-10 year period, though if your job is bad, "too long" may happen much sooner :) - Paul Buchheit

Totally agree with this, esp the quote at the end "It's important to do things that make you uncomfortable". IMO, people grow the most when they are forced out of their comfort zone - Dave Hodson

It's important to do things that will make you uncomfortable because.......??? - τorƍue

Growth and flexibility. Obviously not all uncomfortable things are good though. - Paul Buchheit

Paul Buchheit is Sarah Palin? - Jim Norris

One of my friends has been at Apple for 10 years. She's a brilliant engineer (I've known her since college). Her reason for staying: "I've got 3 kids. They need lots of care and nurture, and they're providing plenty of challenge in my life. I don't need more." My mom sacrificed her career for her 3 kids. Her sister continued pursuing her career, since she only had one. When looking at... more... - Piaw Na

That's very reasonable Piaw -- I agree that good parents are more important than good toys or schools. The "quit your job" advice was more for people looking to start a company or something. - Paul Buchheit

Paul agreed - entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. My dad tried it, decided it wasn't for him, and he'll be retiring in about 10 years or so after years and years of building a very successful career in the professional world. If it's for you, there are ways to make it work and provide for a family - it involves a lot of work though, and make sure you're prepared when you do it. (I sold... more... - Jesse Stay

@Scott Anderson - absolutely - I'll leave when the job is done or the politics make finishing what I need to do impossible. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

@Jesse It's not about providing for the family. I'm sure entrepreneurs manage to do that or they go out of business very quickly. It's investing time in the family that's usually the missing ingredient. I know, since I did have a largely absent entrepreneurial father. - Piaw Na

Paul Buchheit

Great systems presentation by Jeff Dean: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/project... (I especially like slides 23-35)

October 17 - Comment - Like - Share

Sean Kelly, Bruce Lewis, Andres Montano and 114 other people liked this

really liked the numbers, much better than just saying "registers < memory < disk" - Ertuğ Karamatlı

5 more comments

I liked this part: ---Users specify high-level desires: *“99%ile latency for accessing this data should be <50ms” *“Store this data on at least 2 disks in EU, 2 in U.S. & 1 in Asia” - Ahmet Alp Balkan

really good document thx - Nicolas Dufour

Don't just like it - read it. - Hayes Haugen

#WTF - sofarsoShawn

I would love to see more information like this :) Ideas on where I should be looking (other than FF of course!) - Susan Beebe

Interesting stuff. I'm downloading the PDF now... - Tyson Key

Louis Gray

Friendfeed co-founder Buchheit: Most interesting part of Facebook is that it’s not Google - http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009...

October 24 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Buchheit, Kol Tregaskes, Amani and 22 other people liked this

I like this part, "Even if you’re not going to start a startup right away. If you’ve been in your job for awhile, you should quit. Google was really comfortable. I knew all the people. It’s important to do things that will make you uncomfortable." - imabonehead

6 more comments

I totally agree. Comfort leads to stagnation - Kevin L

Quitting to be uncomfortable assumes that you have enough money to make it awhile without being paid, which many people don't. - Robert Felty

I love what he said about how it's dangerous to believe that once one is done with school they can stop learning. Life is one big learning opportunity. - April Buchheit

Robert, having enough money for sure helps. And, because it's reality and not a novel, one needs to be realistic and not romantic about one's chances. But many people, perhaps most, have more actual resources to draw upon than they think, so they talk themselves into keeping the life they have. Young "exceeds expectations" people with strong friendships, a little savings, and a lot of... more... - Daniel Dulitz

I've pretty much moved on whenever I've felt that there wasn't anything new to learn, or if I wanted to try something that couldn't be learned where I was. Getting comfortable somehow just doesn't seem right. - Deepak Singh

I agree with Daniel. Money certainly helps but age is a bigger factor. It's easier to take risks and make mistakes when you've got a lot of time to make things right if they go wrong. - Benjamin Golub

I can tell you from experience: NOT having enough money can be a powerful motivator. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes Haugen

Are Solar Panels Really Black? And What Does That Have to Do With the Climate Debate? - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com - http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...

October 24 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

"The politicization of science has a terrible impact on the unfettered discourse of ideas that is so important to making progress." - Hayes Haugen from Bookmarklet

Hayes Haugen › Comments