Dropbox is similar but requires registration - and invitations... - David Young
I was playing with drop.io yesterday with the same purpose in mind. Each drop gets a phone number you can call. After you're finished, the MP3 file shows up in the drop. Lot's of nice features. - Kevin Shannon
"Using Google Trends, you can see the near-death of older Web 1.0 brands, like Netscape, Lycos and Alta Vista, the plateauing of early Web 2.0 brands, like MySpace, and the deflating balloon of weakened brands, such as Technorati, Digg and Microsoft." - Mitchell Tsai via Bookmarklet
A little more than a week ago, Google Trends made news by introducing the ability to track data on Web sites, but the service's core element helps shed some light on the fact that the interest level in Technorati has been slashed in half in just the last 12 months, that MySpace peaked a year ago, as did Digg. - Mitchell Tsai
...I sold my MSFT stock around 1999 for 100 (some friends sold at 110-120). In 9 years, it hasn't recovered. Good thing I didn't take a full-time job with them in 1998. :-( Nice observations Louis! - Mitchell Tsai
“How do you think Friendfeed will monetize. Although still in the very early days, Friendfeed is showing traction with a small group of influeners. Think two years out with 10 million active users. How will FF monetize? Have you noticed FF appeals to the 'creator/critic/collector/joiner' ?”
Yeah, I would have no problem with Pro accounts (not sure what functionality would be limited, number of rooms? number of friends?). Nor would I have any beef with injecting text ads into the river - as long as they flow down the page, not pinned to the top. I wouldn't have problems with banner ads either, outside the main content area. - felix
I think that you will see a continuos process of standardization in the whole realm of "social networking" and "aggregation" (data portability) and that it will become in the end a standard service of the internet, like i.e. email or ftp some time. At this point MySpace, Facebook and even FF will prolly not die, but maybe become providers for this networking service, like Gmail and Hotmail are providers for email today. And then - same monetizing as usual :) - Sebastian Küpers
@Yuvi: flickr is getting only 3% (TBV) of the money back from premium...wouldn't call this "worked"... - Luigi Centenaro
I would go for sponsored rooms and in a softer than facebook beacon model... - Luigi Centenaro
There is definitely an opportunity for partners and sponsors to do some engaging activities in FF Rooms. The Rooms feature are a great staring points for virtual communities within FF for users (and potential customers for partners/sponsors) with specific interests. - tekspectator
@Luigi: Yes, I was wondering the same thing. 25$ a year isn't goanna keep something as big as flickr running... - Yuvi
Paid access to additional privileges. Things like a profile bio, perhaps a directory of users or a directory of FriendFeed Rooms. Things pro users would be interested in. - David Risley
Current 11 Page Limit/Lowered Like/Comment Limits for Non-Pro folks? - Yuvi
Getting theend users to pay for what is essentially a communications service I believe is not something that the masses will open their wallets to. The service has to appear to the end user to be "free", either subsidized by partners/sponsors engagements or user action/context based ads (even though Fb Beacon doesn't seem to take off). - tekspectator
Ads from aggregated content? Think of FriendFeed as a scraper that scrapes content with creators' permission. ;) - Mike Abundo
@pixelsebi sound like a reasonable assessment. Google Connect in someways provides that layer of social features. The interesting part is how they (in theory) can harvest attention data coupled with context of virtual communities with special interests. A bunch of e-gaming companies are already doing just that with larger poker communities for instance for customer retention. - tekspectator
Perhaps offering the service to be used within a corporation (customize it) and charge for it. Bring Social Media within an organization? - tanya
anyway a service should be premium on functionalities that give some sort of return (reputation, money, business, etc)...not stressing the "early adopters" with a fee... - Luigi Centenaro
I would think contextual advertising but I've heard that's not the case. Perhaps data mining for ORM purposes? - andy brudtkuhl
Since FF doesn't have some other business, there's no potential for indirect benefits here, unless some other company acquires them. So, I'm guessing the strategy is either advertising or acquisition (or none at all, but these folks seem too smart for that). - Jason Wehmhoener
Yes Tad, back in the good old days of phreaking - Ross Maguire
I remember these - I used to break these apart and look at the metal pieces inside them when I was "young" (I guess I was 8 then). I broke 3 of three of these phones and one big Radio thing. Good ol' days when I can break things and not get shouted at... - Yuvi
I can remember when this was all fields, far as the eye can see. Course, they don't make 'em like they used to. Kids today? Don't know they're born. OH MY GOD I'VE TURNED OLD!!! - Slippy Lane
The most demented thing I think I've seen yet. My parents actually still have two rotary phones at their house. The kids look at them and yell for help. - Cyndy
@Tad try being able to remember the old 1 long 2short ring crank phones :) when my parents first moved out of the city the small town we lived outside of still had its own local exchange and we had a party line phone - private line phones were horrendously expensive :) - Steven Hodson
RETRO FTW! childhood memories come flooding back... ahhhh! - Susan Beebe
“You can't use Qik in the Oval Office but you can Twitter. How do I know that? Because today Congressman John Culberson met with the President and he said the Secret Service wouldn't let him do live video but he did Twitter from there. ”
Why do I find it hard to believe that the president who touts using "the Google" and the "Internets" uses Twitter? Lord knows, McCain has yet to master Windows solitaire. - Chris Reed
Thanks for the Twitter link. It will be really interesting to follow a politician on Twitter. - Chris Rodgers
I wonder if Obama will tweet from the Oval Office - Mike Cohen
Where can you find the Congressmans Qik Feed? - amarquart via twhirl
Robert: I recant. 140 characters might be just the thing. ;-) - Chris Baskind
unfortunately you can't take pictures inside the West Wing either - WH press room is ok, Rose Garden is ok but not in - Marco
Following. - Holy moly, he just followed me back (probably auto...). - Vince DeGeorge
Picture the monkey in office Twittering launch codes... "Twitter is over capacity.
Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try to invade Iran again". - Andrew Smith
I follow him also - Twitter name - #johnculberson - Craig Thomler
Commenting here so I remember to add him as an imaginary friend later (since I can't do that on FFToGo) - Tad Donaghe via fftogo
Culberson was by far the best conversation of the day. He clearly loves his job and wants new technology to do it better, even if he has to learn. Amazing, amazing guy. Can't wait for his Town Hall tomorrow! - Andrew Feinberg
wow, you guys had FUN!! so jealous... twitter in the white house holy cow! McCain is soo screwed! - Susan Beebe
So Scoble is the Maxwell Smart of tech? - Mark Forman
surprised they didn't just put a jammer on the the area - clarke thomas
I'm sure we'll be able to sum up all the positive things the Bush administration accomplished in less than 140 characters. - Kevin Shannon
About to find the John Culberson Twitter account now. Wonder what he's saying about the Scoble effect. :) - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
very cool -- like what i see... following Culberson now. - Andy Sternberg
very interesting to see that Culberson also follows you back- almost immediately unlike some of the other politicos mentioned in yesterday's blog post. - Nathan Eckenrode
John Culbertson followed me back immediately and then we even tweeted. I am still unsure about the other two mentioned. I can't seem to find the rep from OH and the rep from AZ (I think) his tweets have the feel of a staffer. Bears another look today though. By far the best thread yesterday! - Mathew A. Koeneker
I had a back and forth with Congressman Culberson last night on gas prices on Twitter; pretty amazing, really. - Lee Stranahan via Alert Thingy
I got an immediate followback as well-- Lee, great to hear he is genuinely on the service. - Doug Haslam via twhirl
Rep. Culberson and I don't agree politically, but it was civil and it was a real conversation - a couple of people DMd me and said 'wow! this is cool!'. Tim Ryan is a Congressman, also on Twitter - but he follows nobody. - Lee Stranahan via Alert Thingy
I disagree with just about all of his politics, but I love his twitter gumption. :) Go Culbertson! - Jarrod Morgenstern
"diving into the capabilities web technology to see if this can help to resolve the real issues in this world." Alexander you are right, I believe it is worth all the effort we can give. - Franklin Pettit
Franklin, thanks, but the original credits should go to Umair Haque who wrote the post that started the thinking process of Fred Wilson who wrote a post that started my thinking process ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
I've been thinking this more and more lately. What is missing is the hackers and people who make stuff. In the early 1990s they were the most visible in the blogosphere. Then TechCrunch, TechMeme, and Valleywag showed up and they've been marginalized. We want "entertainment" now, and no one is asking for "smarter conversations." - Robert Scoble
@Robert: That could be a commentary on our culture as a whole and not just about the Internet. - AJ Kohn
@Robert, so true. There are people out there making things, but they don't get nearly as much attention as those that create publicity around no-real-life-value stuff. But the technology can be used to get smart people together if needed.There is enough potential, but we have to unleash it. Cradle to Cradle, for example, is really taking off in Holland. But only because the founders are creating a lot of noise around it. It is a framework that others should start using as well. But it needs more attention - Alexander van Elsas
Alexander: in the World Wide High School a fight in the quad gets more attention than the geek in the science lab. Me? I'd rather create content for the geeks who care about what's going on in the science lab, even if it gets me derided as "boring." - Robert Scoble
Robert: I guess that's the TV-ization of the internet. Look at the "unscripted" shows like Big Brother, etc. They might have been remotely interesting from an experiment point of view when they came up, but nowadays they are everywhere and boring. Interesting shows on TV (or the internet) aren't that easy to find today. - Holger Eilhard
agreed with robert and AJ - our modern culture is very entertainment, and short attention span. Big problems seem to only enter people's consciousness for a short time, then it's move onto the next thing. The problem is left unsolved, vs. a short period of "throw some money at it". To change this needs leadership in many areas. - Jason Kaneshiro
Some people want smarter conversations and the Internet makes this abundantly more possible than it was before the Internet. Let's look at this problem differently. How can we use social media to encourage people to be more...curious about stuff? Can it be done? - Robert Seidman
I don't think it matters that a lot of people are distracted. Revolutionary change can and often does come about in a petri dish. I am a producer. I make stuff. It is my experience everybody wants to or wishes they could make stuff. Interactive is the future,we all get that here. Take an hour today and try to knit, or pull some weeds or plant some basil, just for the experience. Doing is more fun when it balances basking. It is about practice. - Mary Anne Davis
hey alexander, thanks for the kind words. robert, i agree about hacking - in fact, you guys might want to read my "hacking the industrial economy" post from a couple of weeks ago...if we make things more hacktastic, i think the culture problem goes away (maybe :) - umair
Really smart people (and there aren't very many of them) always find one another and create their own knowledge communities -- it has been this way since at least the age of the ancient Greeks. What is interesting about Friendfeed is that it enables various knowledge communities and social groups to organize themselves rapidly. - Sean McBride
@Robert social news sites like Digg and Reddit show people are definitely curious and searching for new information. - Jason Kaneshiro
Weird, doesn't seem to work in Fluid. Clicking the link quickly shows the loading circle on the right, then does nothing. Works fine in Safari 3.1, though. - Mark Trapp
Liked just so people see my name when they test it out. - DeWitt Clinton
I notice another change. "You" is the first name listed for all the things I've liked in the past. Even those where I haven't clicked on the expand Likes link. This wasn't previously the case. A bit of work on the Likes sort methodology? - Hutch Carpenter
Noticed that too, Hutch: do you think it's sorting based on order of likes now? Obviously, with "You" always being first and outside the order. - Mark Trapp
Mark - definitely putting "you" out front is a change. I still don't know the basis for ranking the other Likes. Maybe the guys will comment here. Or blog it. - Hutch Carpenter
I like this addition. Clean, intuitive, simple, perfect. - Tsega D
a long list of names isn't too useful; why dont you bold the ones that are my friends? - peter
peter: all your friends are listed first. - Bret Taylor
More recent likes come first, so as new friends "Like" things, you see them. - Bret Taylor
Peter, bolding is a great idea, not just here, but in general. It would be an easy way to find friends that you have not yet subscribed to. - Scott Beale
+1 for bolding names that I'm already subscribed to. - Mike Doeff
I tweaked the sort order to put "you" first, but apparently I forgot to tell Bret. - Jim Norris
Indeed Shey, http://ffapps.com/showlikes/ is no longer required. Seeing a list of people who liked a particular entry is a great way to explore and discover users who share similar interests. - Aviv
چه قدر سریع,ایده اش همین صبح مطرح شد,اسمایلی جیمبووووووووووووووووووو:))ه - shandiz
Expanding shows a lot of Likes up in this post! - Joe Dawson
“I'd like to be able to see the names of everyone who likes an entry. Could you offer an "expand" button/chevron/link, please? (e.g., Alan Smythee, Joe Sample, Betty Boop, Eyoftha Teiger, and _14 other people_ liked this)”
Of course...with all the other Likes, you can't see his Like anymore! But my Comment memorializes it. - Hutch Carpenter
I can see it still... FriendFeed must order Likes based on presence in your subscriptions. - Voyagerfan5761
@Voyager5761 - Oooooh...that's something I didn't know. I can no longer see Kevin's Like on this entry, but you can. I didn't realize the order was user-specific. Hmm.... - Hutch Carpenter
@Hutch: It makes sense, doesn't it? You probably care more about Likes from people you know and/or trust than those from strangers. - Voyagerfan5761
Well, isn't seeing the likes of people that you have not subscribed too a good way to find people that you want to subscribe to? - possible248
@possible248: True, but you're more likely to click something if it was Liked by people you already trust, I think. - Voyagerfan5761
@Voyager5761 - I'm pretty much subscribed to most of the people I see Liking this. How about you? - Hutch Carpenter
The ordering of 'likers' based on their association to a users is great. Wonderful even. I too have wondered if there is a way to see all the 'likers' ... could be as simple as turing the (13 other people liked this) into a hyper link that reveals the full list. - Tsega D
What about a way to see all of the recent Likes+Comments of your friends in one page? - xero
@ xero, not sure if that would be of too much use, it would end up being too similar to my main feed! however, it's nice to be able to peoples "/discussion" pages, whenever you need to, and the functionality for this seems to work ok for the moment - Iain Baker
Just implemented. Dang, I gotta make more suggestions here.... :D - Adam Lasnik
Oh god, why do people have to see every online tool through the lens of blogging? First there was Twitter, which got turned into "micro blogging". Now FriendFeed. Please - stop this madness. Start using the tools as they're intended, rather than trying to turn everything into a blogging engine! - Ian Betteridge
@Ian - I quite agree - FF is my snapshot and discussion tool for the web and blogosphere and should never become a blog or tumblr in itself. - Nick Lewis
I would prefer some interface... but pure HTML is a bad idea. maybe friendfeed should take a cue from plurk here. putting in media should be an automatic visual - Noah David Simon
if FriendFeed adds tags to "share something"... what will it become? Would be really nice..Why not? - Kishore Balakrishnan
Steve, I think that's exactly why they are not going to do that. - marcel weiss
and if they could add the image upload feature, that would just make it perfect :) - Amit Agarwal
Eh, I'm not sure how much I'd like HTML. - Aaron Myers
HTML would make it look like MySpace. But paragraph breaks would be nice. - Logical Extremes
No problem, I did it for myself. I was frustrated at not being able to find rooms. :) I hoped to leverage the power of the crowds to build this bad boy - I'm sure that eventually FriendFeed will do something to make this obsolete, but for at least a short while it could be good. :) - felix
Thanks everyone! :) It's filled up a good bit in the couple hours it's been public! Charlie, I'm going to look into sub-directories, but want to let it fill up more to see how any sort of sub division ought to look. (and thanks J, for the link to the original! :) - felix
Thank you. I will add the couple that I created in. - Mathew A. Koeneker
what if you added a routine to scrape the google search for rooms to prepopulate the list of rooms and then let users categorize them? - Kenneth LeFebvre via fftogo
I added most of the rooms I know about. A few errors. Also, I can't change my mind and move a room to a different category. Maybe some rooms do fit in more than one category too. - Morton Fox
oh, and expose a simple api so someone can make a grease monkey script to add to your directory while creating the room! - Kenneth LeFebvre via fftogo
I wonder why this isn't something friendfeed has. They should rip off the irc entirely and allow both public and secret rooms exactly like the irc. - Doug Brooks
Morton, I didn't make any public admin interface because there's no backup of the BigTable on App Engine and I worried about someone coming in and messing around. So for now, it's just me - if you have things shoot me an IM or so. :) - felix
Kenneth - hm.. wonder if anyone'd care to greasemonkey that, but it's super easy for me to build, so I'll throw something together for next rev. - felix
Summary: The social networking and search mashup is big and extremely monetizable. It will create a business around social contextual advertising. Will Friendfeed be able to scale? Time will tell but someone will make this work - Friendfeed, Facebook or maybe even Google. - Steve Rubel
"complements aggregated content from friends" as in ranked by li
![On the Web, If You're Not Growing, You're Dying [Louis Gray - 6/30/08]](http://friendfeed.s3.amazonaws.com/9b4b244e1803f91027f2aab81a5041b2c6172ce1 "On the Web, If You're Not Growing, You're Dying [Louis Gray - 6/30/08]")
