dave #13 and Scott #15, good call, I've added QuickBooks to the article now and edited that part. mea culpa.
tom #25, while I usually ignore criticism from people who don't leave their name, I will say that you're wrong that we haven't used any of this software. It shows you didn't even read the article. I've tested out many online accounting packages, for use in our business. I said as much in the article, so your blanket criticism was pretty rude. However clearly I got the bit about Intuit wrong, for which I apologize (not to you, but to actual readers). - Richard via FriendFeed MT Plugin
@Robert - how are you planning to "track" / follow the chatter on this topic coming out of Redmond? Will you get phone calls? email? Tweets? IM? DM? What does MSFT typically do when they reach out to you? Do they often reach out to you or do you usually go out and seek specific teams/products to go interview and write about? Curious about your past process of engagement. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Brian: Frank Shaw is on Twitter and has my phone and email. I've gotten Microsoft stories all sorts of strange ways. First of all, back when I worked there I never dealt with PR -- I'd hear about interesting things on their email mailing lists, or I'd find out about stuff through the grapevine and just call up the dev involved and asked if I could come over. Now, though, I can still do that somewhat, but usually I have to get PR involved at some point since there are rules inside companies against ... - Robert Scoble
...talking to the press without having a PR person in the room. Frank already Twittered me once tonight, so it'll be interesting to see what he says in the morning. - Robert Scoble
Believe me, I know all about those rules working in the enterprise SW space for a publicly traded company. Can't wait to see what kind of response you get though. btw - great to see you again and meet Maryam in person. Good times! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Nice post Robert. Did there really used to be 8 levels? Wow, that would have been a bundles of laughs. Or pain. - Stu Andrews via twhirl
Stu: that's what my friend said. He might have been off one level, though. - Robert Scoble
Robert: Yeah okay. Even so, still boggles my small-devteam mind though. - Stu Andrews via twhirl
Enjoyed this piece - some interesting insights and ideas about development. It will be interesting to see if Robert gets to follow this story further, in the way that he wants to. - Mark Dykeman
I can understand MS not wanting him to gain that access, but man I hope they do. Big step for Robert, big step for MS, big step for the importance of the blog as a medium for change. - Stu Andrews via twhirl
Robert, great article, or entry or whatever they are called these days. Really enjoyed reading it and for a change I don't disagree with you on it. Will be interested to hear how things shape up - Jonathan Jesse
that's a great idea/article, and i hope you get the access you want. i would love to follow that story! - idnan
I really hope you get this article. From a software development perspective I would be extremely interested to see how these changes affect the quality of work produced. There is just so much potential for some great knowledge to come out of this work, I think you would definitely do it justice :) - Devlin Dunsmore
Nice blog post! ;) Let's wait and see what Win7 is gonna be! - Mehrdad Afshari
not really irony. it is part of why web 2.0 is different to the rest before, we do change the way we see society and the typical labels in it. in decades to come people will look on this and say 'this is when it changed'. - Nicole Simon
oh and anyone else thinking this should be tagged with entp and intp? ;) - Nicole Simon
My son had corrective boots with bolts on the bottom and a bar bolted across them and he succeeded in walking at 10 months (we had to take the boots off out of pity). Once they start most are absolutely determined. I am sure it won't be long. - Brian Sullivan
Nah, my son takes the impatient route. Stand up, take 2 steps, realize that this isn't moving faster than mommy anymore and drop back to hands+knees. - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
At 32 years, a friend of mine is STILL trying to perfect this. It's amazing/amusing. - Akiva Moskovitz
Walking, founding a start-up company, learning how to do <insert task here> -- this rule applies throughout life. - Nicholas Kreidberg
Begin to lock everything openable in your house and under 1 mt of height. - Federico Bolsoman
I would make the kid wait until it's at least 18-years-old before it should try ecstasy, Nicholas. - Akiva Moskovitz
I had one who just took off. Darned if I can remember which one. Had to be one of the girls since the boys both had PT. ;) - Cyndy
you missed the "put video on youtube for cheap pops" piece - Allen Stern
sounds like a company or two I've co-founded - Dave Hodson
Process of learning to walk is applicable to running a business, making art, being in a relationship, doing anything well.:-) - Cathryn Hrudicka
That sounds like my morning ritual walk to the coffee maker. - Steven Perez
And TotSpot is meant to keep track of this all... - for tots, not companies, that is... - Michael Broukhim @TotSpot
the story of my life - just too stupid to know when to quit! - Bill Sanders
"I got to pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again" - Peter Tosh - Larry Kless via twhirl
It's probably a good thing that nobody yells "FAIL" while you're learning to walk. - Ray Grieselhuber
I think there are two types of toddlers, when learning to walk. 1) Carefully pull yourself up on furniture, keep one hand on something solid, reach for the next handhold. If you feel unsteady, sit down immediately. 2) Lean in the direction you want to go, try to keep your feet under you, and hope for the best. - Denton Gentry
I'm too excited to sleep. Have you had your grubby paws all over one yet, Robert?? Interested in hearing your review, especially after hearing everyone's latest Apple woes... - Lisa L. Seifert
Are you? It is happening... google is that powerful. - Jack
Not to sure how scary this is because at the end of the day this is true for any service you use. The power company could cut you off tomorrow if they felt they had due concerns. Google reopened his account once they had completed the investigation. - John Cooper
Backups, folks. So many of us have been using a centralized cloud for our backups without thinking the cloud could up and float away. 1TB drives are cheap. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
FWIW my new Google account was just canned: I've had it for two days. Even the username is showing as available. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
we're in the middle of setting up Zoho Projects for our Field Marketing staff. It's much more functional and almost as easy to use as Basecamp, which we had been using. The smartest thing Zoho does is set up a "services wide" account for you once you begin an account with them. I can now use all of their services based on one log-in without having to opt-in. - David Connell via twhirl
My company also uses Zoho. I do feel kind of bad about it though. They are like the Canal Street of software vendors. So many of their products seem like blatant knock-offs with less polish, which really irks me speaking as a developer. Speaking as a user and business owner, It's great to get so much functionality for such an affordable price even if it isn't always pretty. - Chip Ramsey
I've used a few Zoho tools to test out options for the company I work for. Ultimately we chose Central Desktop for project management as we liked the pricing model better. I was pushing to go all in with Zoho though. The ability to have their CRM tool integrated with their Projects tool seemed very intriguing for business workflow (capture -> execution). - Chris Stevenson
Chris, you will see more and more integration from Zoho, that's their main focus now, rather then just pushing out new products. That said, Central Desktop is a great product. - Zoli Erdos
Which half? Half of those online? Or half of all US adults? - Stephen Pierzchala
Bogus! --- "However, it's worth noting that in this particular study "social media" includes text messaging. Combined with blogging and social networking, these three technologies are used by 50% of U.S. adults for communication purposes." - David Knight
I'd be very wary of these numbers. I tried to contact a few hundred old friends/acquaintances (age 38-48) and only saw about 5-7% on Facebook. LinkedIn is by far the non-e-mail system they use the most often: 25-30%. However, a HUGE percentage of those people abandoned their accounts and/or are VERY light users, so that contaminates the numbers. - Mitchell Tsai
Last time I checked, I think LinkedIn had 22 million accounts opened, but 3 million cancelled. Many friends took 3-5 months to respond to a "friend request". Maybe 10% because they're picky, but most just answer "friend requests in batches". Very different world from FriendFeed 15-min-response. For my Tribe.Net friends (age 21-80), I'd say that 50% have not updated their accounts in 1 yr+. They started due to peer-pressure/peer-interest & left. - Mitchell Tsai
Even out of my super-techy friends (CTOs, Tech CEOs, Computer Science Professors) who used to use everything....at age 38-48 - almost no one (less than 5%) use Twitter. - Mitchell Tsai
Does anybody have the numbers on how much oil we burnt since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and how much still is in the ground? I guess it wouldn't matter so much if the latter figure was only a small percentage of the former (then most of the damage would have already been done) but I don't think that's the case. - Ole Begemann
Sure, but the real goal is to keep having a robust offer of affordable energy while transitioning to alternative sources. - Jaap Stronks
(And quickly depleting oil reserves will make overall energy prices skyrocket and strangle the global economy) - Jaap Stronks
Because, as a species, we tend to wait until it's too late to take action on something. Scarce resources are being spent on things that seem to be a more crucial priority at that moment. - Ernie Oporto
so what are you saying, that we should be burning more fuel faster? - Vincent van Wylick
the sooner you realize there is plenty of oil the sooner we can do something about the cartels and our gov't. - Jack Scalfani
arrington, if you're going to start making oil/energy related pronouncements, i highly recommend you add www.theoildrum.com to your rss reader. simply burning oil fast is NOT a good path to a solution. the transition is key, and that transition needs to be planned, coordinated and financed. - Baratunde Thurston via twhirl
Imagine where we would be now if we focused on alternative energy during the energy crisis of the late '70s. What a shame. - Jody C
Reminds me of the saying "For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong" - Jim McCusker
As soon as we run out of oil we can try to find another way to make the plastic that coats all of my favorite gadgets. Great. - Aaron Krug
Kinda makes you wonder why the hell we didn't think of this before, back when we first started using oil. - Nick Humphries
I tend to agree - with the mod that the higher the prices of oil, the sooner our hand will be forced. Its precisely the reason the middle east will do its best to bring oil prices down. In order to combat the competition. - Aspi via twhirl
I think it is as soon as we broadly start to panic about the impending shortage, then we will fast track alternatives. The will still just isn't there yet. - Sacca
Oil is the weapon of mass destruction, we'll be history before we burn the last drop - paul mooney
Where is the panic button when you need it? - Aspi via twhirl
The sooner we consume all the alcohol in the world, the better we'll be at AA. - Phil Boiarski
and yet oil is still the cheapest energy commodity available to man. Too bad it's so bad for the environment. The move to renewable energy needs to focus on the idea that the money we spend on it supports terrorism, and pollutes the environment. Bitching that it is too expensive is not going to force the government's hand. - Bob Blunk
Harnessing Dark Energy now thats the future!, anyone looking into this? If so would love to hear from ya, I have just designed a new prototype rocket, however its in need of a few plugs etc and but I'm sure we could get it working. Please dial 1-800-Dark energy universal transporter. We are waiting for your call. - Jason Brooks
It's true, it's cynical, but it *is* the way we work. - Dave Winer
We need someone to drink our milkshake. - Frank Roche
Why is that that if Michael Arrington writes something banal like “the sooner we burn all the oil the sooner we'll be forced to figure out alternative sources of energy” 36 people like it and 30 comment on it, and if I write something of actually any interest nobody cares? :) - Simone
Of course if people hadn't been paranoid about atomic energy we coudl have been much further along by now :) - Soulhuntre via twhirl
That's some funny stuff. I still get a kick out of my flickr pool: http://flickr.com/groups/impos... (not promoting it, I just created it for my own amusement) - ·[•_•]·
First friendfeed spam I've ever seen. Thanks john - Nicholas Molnar
Dave Winer: why haven't you deleted John's comment yet? That's really lame to leave spam here. - Robert Scoble
OK, that's too funny. Individual FriendFeeders and their last 5 entries. And yes, it perpetuates the A-List... - Hutch Carpenter
Nick: no, on my FriendFeed! (Guy Kawasaki: Nick is a mover and shaker tech geek in Washington DC, keeps one of the top Facebook blogs). - Robert Scoble
Nice list and format for checking out some of the top FriendFeed users (at least as picked by Guy Kawasaki and team). - Robert Scoble
Hutch: the A list is NOT dead. It's just that everyone will be on the A list soon. - Robert Scoble
Too bad many of the people on that page are not really actively participating in conversations here. I say down with lists ALLTOgether. @guykawasaki meh. I'd love to see that page filtered to only show native Friendfeed entries/comments. I bet it would look pretty empty. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Wow - all that does is convince me that AllTop is moving into really useless territory. Why would I EVER go to AllTop to find new people to follow on FriendFeed? I'm even on an AllTop list (journalist) but think it has little value (get an RSS). - David Cohn
Thing that really sticks out about that list is that it's all tech and social media. FF is already broader than that (not that there's a thing wrong with tech and sm). - Chris Baskind
Self promotion is a good thing. However, whoever made that list should have titled it "Subscribe to my friends on FriendFeed" - Candace Holly
another list polluted by who Guy likes at a given time. It was my issue with alltop to start with, and still is. I made fun of Trumors at one stage, and I've been banned ever since - Duncan Riley
Well I somehow made this list. This concept is somewhat similar to Crowdstatus. I created a page a while back to track users behind the top Lifestreaming services http://lifestreamblog.com/usin... - Mark Krynsky
Apparently, I've been too quiet on FF - at least I can still hang around with y'all over on the Twitterati list. But I don't blame guy - apparently, the list was compiled for him. :) - Lucretia Pruitt
Yeah - very interesting list - I really don't see many of those involved on FriendFeed much. Curious how he compiled that. - Jesse Stay
Every time there's a list it perpetuates the A-List. "Everyone" will never be on the A-List as long as there are lists. - Cyndy
What Cyndy meant to say is that if there is "a list", there will be "a list" unless there is "no list" - Louis Gray
the truth is that lists have always been around and are here to stay, part of life... - Dobromir Hadzhiev
Dude. That was before caffeine. At 6:30 or so. After a night with a kid in bed with us. I seriously need a new bed. I'm thinking of moving into the bunk beds since they are so rarely occupied by actual children. I swear it made sense. - Cyndy
I enjoy lists that show me NEW people to follow, interesting people who I might not have heard of or seen, not a carbon copy of other lists or the same names repeated everywhere. I guess I don't get it. What's the point of these lists? - Trish R
The lists are a great idea and I can't complain since my two main blogs are both on Alltop lists. The problem, especially with an emerging medium like FriendFeed, is that it perpetuates the existing hierarchy very quickly. Simply by being on the list, you'll get more subscribers and stay atop the list. - James Joyner
Alltop's Frienderati page looks like the A-List "elite". I agree with Lucretia, it appears this list was created for Guy and he shared it. ;*) - Susan Beebe