I think there is a full roll-out happening today, stay tuned. Lists have finally made Twitter useful again, a real game changer indeed.
- Mike Fruchter
Wasn't it Rob Diana who wondered if "discovery" was the holy grail in social media? Listorious looks very nice.
- Meryn Stol
Meryn, You are correct, those are Rob's words. I thought Indiana Jones discovered the Holy Grail ?
- Mike Fruchter
Awww Mike, thanks for including me on this Twitter list!
- Shevonne
Jorge, it looks like its pulling directly from the Twitter API. I'm not sure how real time it is though.
- Mike Fruchter
Jorge, I think you have to be "chosen" to be part of their developer beta - I asked and got turned down.
- Jesse Stay
As always, I appreciate being included. Many thanks.
- AJ Kohn
I want Tweetie's sleekness, non-use-of-AIR, and pop-up media (but on the PC as well as Mac), Tweetdeck's groups, and Twhirl's integration with ping.fm and useful notification pop-ups. Tweetdeck just displays "[account] has received x new tweets" or whatever, but you have to go to the app to see what the messages are. I'm interested to see the new Nambu when it goes public - I liked the last build a lot, but it was too unstable to really use.
- Jandy
And you would not be alone in wanting that, Jandy. It's interesting that none of the 5 I was looking at had desktop support, Web and iPhone. And Tweetie for PC doesn't exist. I don't use Groups as much (but probably should), so it's not a big deal for me. Lists on FriendFeed are critical. That's why I said making it perfect is impossible. Too many options, so nobody will ever have a monopoly.
- Louis Gray
I don't really care about having the same app on desktop and iPhone - I tend to need different things from them. And at home I'm happy with Tweetie + Growl. I only really need the more power-user tools at work (where I have a PC and can't use Tweetie anyway), where I need groups to keep the flow down to something I can easily monitor while still concentrating on work, and notifications...
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- Jandy
@Jesse you could use for example Fring with the twitter extension to get Push on your iphone. @Louis, and what about images and videos? I find Brizzly very good in Images support, showing many of them directly in my stream..
- Jaap Willem
Jaap, I like Brizzly a lot. You can see my mentioning the support for pictures and rich media in the post. I tried to make sure I didn't leave anything out.
- Louis Gray
@Louis, yes I saw that indeed, maybe it's nice to implement it as well in the chart the next time? As well the option to have the shortened URL's already expanded inline? But thanx for the great article
- Jaap Willem
Jesse: SimplyTweet does push notifications on the iPhone, for Twitter.
- Otto
I think FF will certainly change (or, worst case, cease to exist).
- Brett Kelly
maybe FF can just be the test box and we're all beta users, then port what works over to FB ... everybody's happy? yeah, it'll never work.
- John
My guess is FF will pretty much freeze it's feature set and code base. FF engineers will start working on adding functionality to Facebook, and at some points 6-12mo from now, FF will go the way of Pownce.
- Ken Sheppardson
I think the probable outcome is the Feedburner scenario; it still works, they just stopped innovating.
- Gerardo Capetillo
when will they realize we do not necessarily want everything linked together. it is not always about trying to hide your idenity has it is just using different social media tools for different purposes.
- R. Ferguson
I think Facebook will just kill Friendfeed
- Terry Cleary
That's the spirit. I'm tired of the "when are we jumping" posts - this is the right attitude.
- Jesse Stay
That's because you're "pro-Facebook", Jesse... of course you'd be tired of the anti-Facebook backlash.
- Ken Sheppardson
I don't have a good feeling about this either. Hopefully FF and FB get better, only time will tell.
- Kolomona
Does this mean I'll have to log onto my facebook page? I've been ignoring fb since January.
- Dale
Facebook is going to just "flop" friendfeed, i can see it... but i would hate to see it end that way, friendfeed is that social networking site that really matters, and us "true" early friendfeed users will alway remember it as the best site ever!
- Bryce Campbell
Ken, I'm not just "pro-Facebook". I understand it. I know the team. I also understand FriendFeed and somewhat understand their team as well. I think I'm more qualified to say that than anyone.
- Jesse Stay
I don't see this as a good sign for FF....innovation will be geared for Facebook, FF could be a FB labs sort of thing, but it's not the same. I have yet to see mergers or acquisitions not kill off or turn whatever was eaten into a dead pile of junk. Time Warner -- AOL anyone?
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
FriendFeed will change about as much as Flickr changed after Yahoo took over.
- Gus
I think that this will end up seeing FF becoming the central feed for FB. Possibly something along the lines of the public timeline for Twitter, but with FF becoming the public timeline for FB.
- Andrew
Andrew, exactly. I think Facebook desperately needs and wants something like this. I don't expect it to go away.
- Jesse Stay
Somehow I don't believe that FriendFeed will survive this. Let's enjoy it as long as it's still around.
- Patrick Harms
Yahoo! bought Flickr and Delicious. Conde Nast bought Reddit. Those are still around and in good form. Let's hope FriendFeed gets better instead of disappearing.
- Jeff Harbert
When something that you use is bought up by a giant I think that you feel that you lose something.Looking forward to seeing the outcome.Ger
- gerald miller
I'd love to see Mike be right - FF = labs.facebook.com - Keep the innovations happening here on FF, and see those innovations find their way to the Facebook feed. While that would necessarily mean that FF innovations would have an eye towards how those would work on Facebook, really, where's the harm in that?
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Given that the code of the two platforms is completely independent right now, I really can't imagine why Facebook would want to divert engineering effort to extending FF.
- Ken Sheppardson
I just don't think FB can pull it off. They have so many 'brokens' in FB all the time
- Lee Kent
Leo Good Day, Sir. I'm on here an hour and I like it, I'm a big Twitter fan. I think it's exciting personally, a lot to like and some cool features like direct ermail back to someone if you have email alerts. Facebook, seems to me, will only make it better. Cheers and thanks for all you do, I'm a fan.
- Paul Roberts
Don't you think they will change it, Leo? I'm not as excited about this as you are. I like friendfeed but I'm not much of a facebook fan. I don't know if I can learn to love it. I guess I'll try. But I don't know if it's gonna happen. I think friendfeed as we know it is no more.
- Lise
I love that Bret, Paul, and Kevin checked in. They probably are looking at their screens and asking "what do we do now?" how about ship some new features before Facebook overlords take you off to do bigger things?
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
I feel sorry for all you addicts. My use of it is purely social.
- Bruce Lewis
I do like FF and use it almost every day. Wouldn't it be great if FB either left it alone so we can continue to use it as "professionals," or somehow incorporate it into a more "mature" version of FB that didn't have all the annoying, time-wasting apps, games, etc. I'd much prefer a totally customizable FF "wall."
- Cathryn Hrudicka
I think FFundercats HO!!!!! would have worked but I'm here anyways.
- Jimminy IS Everybody
Checking in by phone while on vacation. :)
- c.a.j.
from iPhone
here. anecdote: a friend of mine just signed up for FF this evening. apparently the FriendFeed hype of the last 24 hours pushed him over the top. leaves me wondering whether FF has actually gained users today?it would be a crafty way of marketing the service. I'll wake up tomorrow to discover that there was a problem with the paperwork and the FriendFeed team have had a change of heart.
- JSLeFanu
from BuddyFeed
Count me in even though I was just starting to get hooked. I guess it's time to find a rehab and get all sobered up until the next relapse with some other new addiction. Isn't life grand?
- Usman Bashir
oh hey, look, the added an "add comment" link to the end of the comment list. Huzzah!
- Brett Kelly
from iPhone
++Jay. I was going to do the same thing yesterday but I didn't want to pay the money.
- David Cook
David -- this was a $9.95 session but you can get them for $7.95 and there are also 25% off coupons if you do online check-in prior to your Delta flight. That's an incentive for folks to use that service and offload kiosk use at the terminals. Very savvy marketing by the folks at GoGo and Delta combined.
- Jay Cuthrell
Yo Scobey! I like Dave Winer's thoughts on user owned tech companies ... been thinking similar things.
- Jason Cronkhite
well, it's 12:12 a.m. and I'm perusing FF from my iPhone via BuddyFeed before turning in. so yeah, I guess I count. "Here!" (raises hand)
- Don Faulkner
from BuddyFeed
I recommend FF to some of my clients, and there are some companies and nonprofits with presences here—not like Twitter, but I'll be curious how that will be affected when FB takes over more. Most have FB fan pages, groups and/or causes, too.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
И так чятег, пока Скобл не поговорит с нами представителями СовиетФрендфидика, все мои записи теперь можно читать в этом тредике. Пользуясь случае передаю Парню Бухайту и его команде большой привет, в связи с тем что [He can has sleep naw].
- ideali
точно! поэт, пародист, переводчик. известный блоггер.
- милый мой дружочек
я вчера был в издательстве, с меня сведения об авторе просят. давайте, говорят, напишем, где учился, что генеральный директор. и что известный блоггер.
- милый мой дружочек
а можно получить профессию известного блоггера? какие экзамены сдавать надо? какую специализацию лучше выбрать - микроблоггинг или аудиоподкастинг?
- милый мой дружочек
Один чувак пришол в чятег и говорит я известный блоггер кто тут тру на первый второй рассчитайсь. А ему говорят чувак у тебя сертификат есть что ты известный блоггер? Вот иди Зайке экзамен сдай потом приходи. А Зайка стоит такой с топором и улыбается. Щас думает счастливым его сделаю.
- милый мой дружочек
Я потерял интерес в данный момент. Я буду скрывать, как и любой другой. Это хромой, что вы захватили этот. Пивные правила. Спокойной ночи. :-)
- Matthew Horton
Hi, I'm Bette... I don't know if I'm an addict, but I can't stay away... I keep checking, just to see if something's new... and I cry if I get no responses to a post. Is that addictive behavior? :D
- Bette Cooper
Yup, I have blocked all the impersonators now. You will still see them, but I don't see them and they no longer can comment on any of my items.
- Robert Scoble
@scobleizer As far as I can see you have blocked not only the impersonators (who renamed themselves back the moment they found out you have a problem with this) but most of the folks who chatted there.
- милый мой дружочек
@meatreach yes, see next thread. Scobble becomes anti-Russian.
- Never Impersonate You
Maxatma: well, that's just too bad. I speak English. Sorry. People who don't speak English really don't have any business commenting on one of my items, except in rare cases.
- Robert Scoble
Why you, Robert Scoble, don't block users from Spain or Italy? China or arabic countries? Those users that comments on non-English languages?
- Never Impersonate You
@Robert, in fact they do speak English. But they also do make fun of Friendfeed and everything that's going on there. You can block them or take part in this fun. ;)
- милый мой дружочек
I prefer FF over twitter and facebook, but all my friends are on twitter and/or facebook. Maybe facebook will get it right this time now that it has acquired FF. If they simplify it a bit more without removing functionality. Then I would spend a bit more time on FB. Lets hope all goes well with the merger. If not I'm jumping ship and going over to Google Wave. oh wait, I'm going to go with Google Wave regardless! ;-)
- Captain Jack
Bu arada Russian friends Turkiye'ye selamlar gonderiyor.
- ideali
@scobleizer i can speak english and i beg you to remove bann from all russian friendfeeders, because we are all from it-community, working in internet companies and we came with peace, you asked for feedback from friendfeed addicts — we show you how really it is being frf addicts, we change names, we chat, we making things that are not serious. Why so serious? Unlock people, they are not bots, they just playing the game of real addicts and have fun. Common.
- ideali
shaun: I started this post to demonstrate that a lot of us are still here and aren't likely to leave. At least not quickly. So, life goes on after FriendFeed gets acquired by Facebook. Point proved.
- Robert Scoble
Beyler, bana bir sey anlatin, bu kadar ciddi olmaya ne gerek var? Translation: Guys, why so serious?
- ideali
ideali: have them send email to scobleizer@gmail.com and I'll unblock anyone who says they weren't impersonating me.
- Robert Scoble
Hector: good morning! I need coffee.
- Robert Scoble
@robert yes they (we will) stay here, I think tat the migration process will take time and after reading @Paul Bucheit, I think that what we all are trying to get even if we don't say it explicitly is to preserve a kind of intimacy (beeing a part of the Huge faceBook community) don't mean that FF community will preserve their intimacy, why should a community be a plan one, (let imagine a community as a set of sub-community) that all.
- abdellah
Wow!! So many likes and comments; is it a record Rob?
- Erfun
@scobleizer thank you, for understanding. be cool, guys we just want have fun here a little. Take care.
- ideali
@Robert RE "I have enough noise in my life. I don't need to have more" - isn't it a lot of noise having 26K subscriptions and 46K subscribers on your frf account? I'm kind of surprised - you create a community that large around yourself, yet when you see a new and unusual activity you just block it right away.
- милый мой дружочек
@Robert, patience? Who's talking about patience? It's about curiosity, not patience. When something strange and unusual happens around you, you can either try to stop it or try to see what it can develop into. You choose to stop - and it stopped. Well, not stopped - just moved to some other place. And do you really know what it was and what it was about to bring you?
- милый мой дружочек
I'm here all the way from South Africa! I dig this service and I'm not quite ready to give it up. Regardless of the news about the acquisition, this remains an awesome service.
- Paul Jacobson
I'm new to ff but find more valuable information here than anywhere else!
- Janet Crance
I'm sure this is part of Scoble's plot to poll all the people who really read his posts, and unfollow the rest. So I raise my hand.
- Shivanand Velmurugan
Just a wannabe. Not an addict (yet).
- Carole Hicks
It might also be a way for me to filter down my "following" count (diff (my followers, scoble)) are the only people I really need to follow. Those that scoble follows, I can safely unfollow and use Scoble as my social media filter :)
- Shivanand Velmurugan
Loading this thread on the iPhone uses 1% battery life lol
- Mark
from iPhone
pardon the arrogance but it really sucks this great forum of sharing will turn into a myspace humdrum. Now I have to find another SM where first adopters and well informed techies won't haft to compete with general "noise"
- earl wallace
I just mention the 1500 mark since it was such an iconic query to see... that and the 500 Likes club of FF posts. It's pretty exclusive stuff... but it's also sobering to note that the subject matter required to get to these levels isn't always a uniform mix of cares/concerns.
- Jay Cuthrell
When I heard the FaceBook news, I tried to quit FriendFeed and I couldn't... I'M HOOKED
- The Web's Wendell Wittler
i clicked the "1488 more comments" and my computer nearly exploded. and yes, i am using an amiga 500.
- jack
Now that I have instructions (thanks LouisGray) and figured out my Bookmarklet! I am LOVING the ease of use! addict - not quite...
- Robyn Hawk
Actually, I lied. I am not a die-hard friendfeed fan. I desperately want to be but have just not been able to get into a good "feeding" rhythm. Maybe I need to add some more friends
- Anant Gairola
I don't need to be addict. I'm just here, everyday, absorbing so many geeky info :D There's no place like FF
- Lysender
I'm still with ya, Robert. Whatever FB paid for FF, it wasn't enough!
- Donald C. Lindsay
New here, but learning. Tips for best use?
- Barbara Langham
@bdlangam From my perspective the #1 tip in this category is: Explore and define "best use" for yourself. Despite potential "finishing" impression of some productive consolidations in this collective-collaborative cognition space, the emergent #cognosphere is still WAY too nascent to assert anything other than initial impressions. March to the beat of your own drum; build your own...
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- michael silverton
yeah sorry, late. was at Shambhala Music Festival, I know tardy, sorry...
- sofarsoShawn
I'm getting hooked, still figuring it all out
- Michele McGraw
I think I do. Not enough contacts to make a impression.
- Michael Schlag
Sanki takip ettigim, tanidigim herkes like'lamis. | It's like everyone I follow, know liked this. | Habidi dubidi du.
- Jeaquares
Like'imi verip geri aldim cunku IPHONE'DAN GONDERILMIS!!! | I gave my like but took it back because IT'S SENT FROM IPHONE!!! | Habidi zubidi kubudu ANANIBUDU BU.
- Jeaquares
Or from a browser's interface. Google is "good enough" and it'll take more than "10% better" (which Bing is in places) to rewire my brain from Google to Bing.
- Robert Scoble
There are some exceptions, though. Verticals. I could see using the video search. Or the travel features. They both are very nice.
- Robert Scoble
And I will consider the "cash back" for shopping. But it's going to be tough to get me off of Google, how about you?
- Robert Scoble
Agreed. Does not feel different enough. Google is safe for a few more years.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Edwin: yeah, and I don't like the "look" of it. I think that's because Google is burned into my brain. It's going to be difficult to get that unburned. On the other hand, I can see the hundreds of millions of people on Hotmail trying it, if it's integrated well.
- Robert Scoble
How much will the 'well, it's the search engine that came on my computer' play into it. My sister still uses MSN search
- Johnny
And it is definitely a credible effort on all the searches I've tried so far. That's a HUGE difference from older search technologies Microsoft put together.
- Robert Scoble
Vaibhav: I know that having a credible competitor will keep Google innovative for a lot longer than if there were never any competition from anyone else. Now Google has some fire underneath them. No longer can Google's executives ignore the main search experience, which hasn't seen much innovation for a while.
- Robert Scoble
Bing has done a great job in its UI as well as for some other features (excerpt on results, image, map, videos, etc.). I'm still waiting for comments on how good their indexing/ranking is. I hope it'll be better than before.
- Dave Fuentes
I'm just impressed the results are not the subpar crap from before. It's as good as Google down to even the minor computational stuff I've thrown at it.
- Arawak
I have the same feeling as for the Google and competition. There is no silver bullet, and there shouldn't be one BIG and SMART and whatever else company. Wish there would be email solution better than Google Apps. Wanted to pay for Apple's MobileMe but I think almost nobody is using their Web mail. And they still do not do custom email domains. So, Google is a winner for now... though, I beg for competitors :-)
- Olexiy Prokhorenko
You can't use things like "comfort" and "what you're used to" as reasons, kids that aren't used to anything, and are better at picking up new things will see Bing for what it really is. Now what that is, I still have no idea, we'll see how it performs the next time I need to find something I guess.
- Colin
I think Bing's novelty as a fresh face will wear off soon, and there's really nothing earth shattering about it as a search engine. I definitely think competition with Google is a great thing, because it's competition between two entities like Microsoft and Google that could really drive innovation (hopefully in OS building someday?). But I guess framing "Bing" as a competitor is a...
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- Victor Barrera
From the little that I've tried it out, it seems to be work fine; not better than Google, but mostly on par. But, like you said, after years of using Google exclusively, I won't be switching search engines unless something that is clearly better comes out.
- Antoniu
There was a time when AltaVista was the king and I couldn't have imagined to use something else... I don't see why I couldn't make a switch again.
- Jemm
Found the T&C document for the cash-back: "You can participate in the Live Search cashback service if you are 18 years or older, reside in the United States..." and there I stopped reading.
- Edward Coffey
Love the "I think that's because Google is burned into my brain" quote. This is [scary] true
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Cashback service? What was that Edward? They payed people to use Live Search?
- Colin
Also, the pr0n biz might feel the heat from the video search it's got. Just sayin'. ;)
- Arawak
Google is more famous, and more common, so for now I will stick with google. Bing does have some interesting features though. They are worthy enough to look into, but google is still the one. At least for me it is. Bing will eventually evolve, and who knows, it could become the next big thing.
- TheHenry
I think it is going to be baby steps. If MS get 2 to 3 % increase in market share that will be good enough for now. They have to keep improving though and yes Google needs competition.
- Rohit Harshvardhan
Simple vanity-searches on Bing for some of my friends and family who aren't famous but have active online presences actually put links to those presences in the first few results. Google prefers genealogy data of long-dead relatives, or the inactive, boiler-plate staff profile pages of university professors.
- Edward Coffey
Its frustrating that because I'm in the UK, I can't test the service. Would like to put it through its paces.
- Jim Connolly
That is pretty weak Tech News Blog, the whole point of the internet is that it doesn't have those boundaries.
- Colin
Christopher and Edward: both search engines put my old blog up top. Really pisses me off, I wish they'd move it down. Google puts friendfeed up where it belongs, though, while Bing has my wife's friendfeed above mine. That's VERY weird.
- Robert Scoble
Nice change of direction, i have tried it and the results have been good
- Deepa
Andy: I can see it now - Thanks! On Friday, I just got a redirect page.
- Jim Connolly
Over here, the bing.com domain is active, snow leopard and all, but the search results are just identical to Live Search (see query "hotel brussels" - http://www.scrnshots.com/users... ). None of the fancy stuff from the announcement video's is there.
- Dirk Houbrechts
For me, the biggest issue is that '10% better' learning curve. Until a search engine is SIGNIFICANTLY better/different than Google, it's going to be hard to convince me to chance.
- Cory OBrien
@stuart: I think it changes everyday. Soon snow leopard will be the thing of past (in more than one sense) ;)
- Jemm
I see the same results that Live search gave( when I tried a week back) . I don't find the site "snippet" to be useful as well.
- Krishnamoorthy
@Robert - what do you like bing to do that would make you swtich to it ? I understand core relevance improvements. but what else ? are there any potential directions that you think would make the user do a swtich...
- Krishna Gade
@jemm It might be geographical as well. I don't see the Leopard, I was getting a Nebula and now a bunch of hot air baloons over Turkey. I'm located in The Bahamas.
- Arawak
Krishna: real time search that's better than friendfeed would get me interested very quickly. Integrating real time feedback underneath business listings would be even better. Do those two and then you change the game.
- Robert Scoble
Why would you need to rewire your brain? If I like a particular search engine's results, I'll just set my browser to use it as a default search. Do you actually go to the search engine's website and type your query into their search box? Gah.
- Stuart Schram
Robert: Real time search for any search engine is at best difficult. Google as an example has server farms located all over the planet and the databases are not all updated simultaneously. Not all that long ago Google only updated once a month and it took a week. They do it a lot quicker and more frequently now but you can see the implications there for real time search. Plus the...
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- Gilbert Harding
Oh, and FWIW, if I have to choose between the two, I'd much rather a mapping website simply fail to work than get effed-up results from Google Maps that send us more than 3 miles deep into Deliverance country so that I get griefed for the next 15 minutes while everybody in the car wonders if we're going to be made to squeal like piggies.
- Stuart Schram
I liked quite a few features, but it just didn't feel quite as clean as Google, and it didn't produce results quite as good (for my handful of sample searches). The best thing to come out of this will probably that Google learns a few new tricks from Bing & does them better.
- Gurpreet
Here's a question Robert, what makes this better than Yahoo search?
- Bwana ☠
Completely agree. I see no reason to switch from Google but it's nice for Google to have someone to compete with.
- John Munro
An incremental evolution of search isn't going to unseat Google. Google is more than "good enough", and even if Bing does turn out to be marginally better that's not enough to get a lot of switchers (and Google can easily clone Bing's features). MS needs a game changer and Bing doesn't seem to be it. And while I don't agree with Robert's enthusiasm for "real time" search, I do feel that...
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- Eric P
I like Bing pretty much but hey lets be honest its still half baked as with so many other MS products (unlike Windows Seven)
- Abhishek Sharma
It's not a competitor for real if people don't use it, Robert... Be part of the solution, not part of the problem! =)
- Andrew C (✓)
Scoble: I am really loving Bing as well. It with this Greasemonkey script (http://blog.mikedavidsmith.com/...) that allows you to add Twitter to the side panel (I really hated Twitter at the very top of the search) is very usable. The problem is that I go to Google for Gmail, Reader, and Calendar among other things. But I might try changing the base search engine of my Firefox awesome bar to Bing and see how it works (http://www.howinthetech.com/changin...).
- Sweyn Venderbush
I don't think I'll be using 'Bing' as a verb any time soon. Google IS search.
- Vince DeGeorge
I'm am finding it works as well as Google as a default provider in Chrome but I agree it will have to be a lot better than Google or have some unique extremely useful features before it will make any serious inroads. But it could creep up on Google search if Microsoft continues to press on all fronts (features, marketing, real time/speed of indexing) and if Google strays doing other stuff like Wave and neglects new search functionality.
- Brian Sullivan
I switched to Bing about a week after it came out; I wanted to take it for a trial run to see if I could leave Google and Yahoo (I was using both of them.) Needless to say, I've stuck with Bing. I really like the picture homepage; I look forward to learning something new every day about some unique place or thing in the world. I also find its interface less straining on my eyes: it's a...
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- Wonkette
Students that want have a success look for a reliable <a href="http://quality-papers.com">essays online</a> service to order their argumentative term paper from. That actions we do as well.
- Gemma33
I just used bing for the first time and I liked it fine enough. I just cant help typing in google. I don't even think about doing it.
- Kelsey Groff
In my profession, Bing is just not a viable research tool.
- Ralph Slatton
Robert that video was awesome to watch. That setup is amazing. You get your audience involved, respond and recognize them. Changing the game each and every day.
- Geoff Farinha
from Nambu
I can only hear the audio - there is no video...what could be the problem?
- Mahesh Patwardhan
Mahesh: do you have the latest Flash player.
- Robert Scoble
Steve, the audio on the Qik site works fine for me. I do get black on the embedded version - guess I need a flash upgrade.
- Laura Norvig
The video was blank for me here as well. Using Windows XP with Google Chrome [updated today]. Was able to watch on the Qik site. Great video Robert ;)
- David Damore
I have the latest flash player... theres still no video here.. however I can watch it on the qik.com site.
- Mahesh Patwardhan
If you use the Qik link instead you won't see the blank video. I think the problem is on the FF side.
- Alexander Grundner
I'm torn between thinking - "that is awesome" and "what's the point?". For Scoble it makes sense as his job depends on keeping up with all this and commentating on it. For the rest of us, not so sure this realtime river of news is really where the future is taking us.
- Barak B
Love this video. You gave me an idea on utilizing feeds on a vertical screen
- Thomas Chai
Apparently, Scoble either wastes his time watching 3 friendfeed columns instead of writing a new book or revising Naked Conversations (in real time) OR he just showed us how the job looks like for some community managers.
- Michael Jung
Amazing how many posts come in. More data than the NYSE.
- Bill Hertzing
when i grow up i want to be a geek like Scoble
- daniela barbosa
You'd have to become a child to be more like Scoble :) His child like wonder is his trademark
- Chris Saad
serious overload. i'd tune it all out. it's too much.
- Don Martelli
Don: of course it's too much, but that's why my list of searches grows by about five every day. I want to have the best list of geeky searches in the industry.
- Robert Scoble
...Scoble, i am as realtime nuts as u with 65 soc news monitors therefore it irritates me that the new friendfeed doesn't allow realtime button-refresh twitter updates into the feed - or i was too stupid to find the icons. it also s*ks that u cant add all u old icons to make automatic refreshes in case there is some glitch. anyone else can help out in case scoble is busy ?
- ewing2001akaNicomedy2010
I read somewhere that Scoble singe-handedly save (or something to that effect) FF. Now I can see how. Thanks for sharing this. Btw, I also got black screen here, but fine video in Qik, using OSX/Firefox.
- waraney rawung
ewing: I have no idea what you are asking for. Tweets come here within seconds. Seems real time to me, why do you need a button update?
- Robert Scoble
Darth Scoble is more machine than man now.
- Rolf Schewe
interesting.. Scoble is watching the world in his war room.. :D
- Pico Seno
Proves once again how sorely track (realtime search alerts) is lacking. The setup as it is now is better divided between right and left eye serving corresponding brain hemispheres. The streams then should be tweaked in accordance with brain hemisphere functional/cognitive asymmetry; the result would be hyper-realtime web/personality blend leading to eventual zombiefication and madness :-)
- Mindaugas Dagys
That's amazing, that's the reason why you're the best at what you do. Thank you for sharing that video, Robert.
- Diego Espinoza V.
Can someone please tell us how to setup the Twitter stream like Robert has?? I want to set that up sooo bad.
- Jeff
Jeff: You turn an Apple monitor sideways. YOu open up three different Safari or other browser windows. You stretch those windows to look like my screen. You point them at various Tweet streams.
- Robert Scoble
I guess this is not live and you are saying what are you seeing here LOL I am seeing a black screen :o(
- David Gross
David: not live. It works here. Do you have the latest Flash player?
- Robert Scoble
hmm.. didnt work in Chrome, doesnt work in IE, I havent installed Firefox yet LOL
- David Gross
yes, have latest flash, would not play in friendfeed but when I clicked on link it worked on the qik site
- David Gross
I watched half of it till I started getting dizzy and shut it off LOL dont know how you do it Robert.. I guess gradually you can. ever use Pocketwit? LOL you would miss 90% of tweets.
- David Gross
btw I would like a windows mobile app for friendfeed or website :o)
- David Gross
Wow, that is so cool. Watching the long monitor is very hypnotic
- Asgeir
you can find some fake accounts on friendfeed. :).
- batuhan
Useful , reminded you and your profile :)
- Kristo Magno
basit bir script ama dört dörtlük hale getirmişssin,başarılar! (sonradan ekleme ; bu kadar ingilizce yorumun altına Türkçe biraz havalı kaçtı sanki :) :P
- Mehmet ALP
It's a real issue with FriendFeed: they consume from all sorts of sources, but can't turn it into threaded content unless it came from them.
- Joel Bennett
why send your stuff to frienfeed if you're not going to be on friendfeed to reply to comments made on the stuff you send there? doesn't make sense allen - now i'll go read more than the first few paragraphs
- Chris Heath
Allen: you do have a point about the duplication (but that's up to the user - ff should make it easier to detect and fix)
- Chris Heath
Also, the comments on blogs being pulled into ff as separate entries (disqus/backtype/etc) is something that should be better - i still stand by my first comment, and it's tied to my second comment. If you're going to use a service to aggregate content (friendfeed) why would you not be there to see what happens to that aggregated content. It's the users responsibility to hold up their end of the social contract. If you don't participate your value diminishes because you're not being social.
- Chris Heath
It's true that this is a real issue, but I don't have a solution. The best I can say is that each FriendFeed is user is responsible for making his stream intelligible. In other words, the fact that aggregation occurs automatically does not absolve the user of administrative responsibility. As for the given example, if Twitter itself doesn't support proper message threading, I don't think it's reasonable to expect to FriendFeed to thread imported Tweets. Tell Twitter to clean up their own mess.
- LANjackal
Well, I think it's the user's responsibility to not have dupes like that. There are so many work arounds to not having dupes, that laziness is the only reason I can come up with for them being there.
- Anika
Pro-active responsibility could well be assisted by passive machine checking for duplicates of the same content from multiple sources, and mini-aggregating them within a feed. So a single item would appear just once and end up being cumulatively credited with "1 hour ago from Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader and 4 other services" (or a derivative thereof).
- ianf ⌘
@ianf: as I said, Twitter itself doesn't support proper threading. Don't ask FF to fix that. Ask Twitter. Maybe this is one of those things that will make people realize how fundamentally weak Twitter's functionality is. In any case, there's also a hole in the original article: you CAN reply to tweets from FF and have them show up on Twitter - it's an option in FF itself. Clearly Allen...
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- LANjackal
I wasn't talking about Twitter actually. I happen to consider FF as something above mere aggregator and dumping ground for Tweets. I was talking about what FF ought to do about duplicate postings as such. An article appears on the web, and suddenly dozens of people that happen be in the same group(s) as myself post the same so-so descriptive headline+link to their own, and to our...
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- ianf ⌘
What we will need is a filter that filters and groups postings based on the content regardless of the source, a la how Yahoo pipes works, to filter, group, streamline/reorder./sort incoming status updates/posts or thats what I believe.
- TrafficBug
@Chris' "comments on blogs being pulled into ff as separate entries " <http://tinyurl.com/ph73nt> - if FF can not cope with aggregating these back into already existing threads, then the least it could do would be to let us associate one post of ours to another, in effect turn a post into a FF-comment with selectable place in hierarchy after the fact. This could be extended to turning a post into last comment in a thread posted/owned by another ffuser.
- ianf ⌘
@TrafficBug "filter that filters and groups postings based on [1] the content regardless of [2] the source" - yes to the latter, but as for [^1], not so much the content, as the base target url it carries (base being the part between "http://www." and any possible trailing slash, or question mark - this would allow "mini-aggregation" of items pointing to both main and any "?pagewanted=all" or "?print=yes&random=" etc. variant urls).
- ianf ⌘
@ianf: OK, I see what you're saying. Yeah generally speaking that's a good idea.
- LANjackal
btw fred wilson replied and blames friendfeed for poor disqus implementation
- Allen Stern
Content duping can be solved if FriendFeed would do the distributing of content. Jason Calacanis, in that example must be forwarding content from within those other services to Twitter instead of using FriendFeed's post to Twitter function. If you do it from within FF, it knows if the post is a dupe or not since it forwarded it originally. I had the problem and fixed it myself. I just hope FF adds that post forwarding function for Facebook and other services as well. This is a content management issue.
- Rolf Schewe
I can't work out how the separate windows work? I think it's as though you've opened the user's profile page but it pulls their updates into Adium.
- Andrew Trinh
Biz writes, "Every time someone wrote a reply Twitter had to check and see what each of their followers' reply setting was and then manifest that tweet accordingly in their timeline—this was the most expensive work the database was doing and it was causing other features to degrade."
- Louis Gray
But on FriendFeed, every time you see an update, FriendFeed checks if you subscribe to someone, and if you have hidden any service, or even any specific blog from any service.
- Louis Gray
FriendFeed knows when you post an update who can see it and who can't see it, based on who is following, and what services they have opted into or out of. And when you think of how many different ways the database has to be set, the unlimited power is very impressive.
- Louis Gray
FriendFeed checks by list, by service, by name of service, and can even check by if something is liked or not, how many times, has comments, and how many, and who from, if you use the search. There is a ton of data behind the data.
- Louis Gray
Math is hard </barbie>. Sorry, but this seems like a serious cop out to me. If FF can design the DB to function as quickly as it does with as many selection parameters, surely Twitter could do the same (if, that is, they have the proper backend platform to do so, and it doesn't look like they do).
- FFing Enigma
And yet, FriendFeed continues to add features and have near-flawless uptime without slowness.
- Louis Gray
I agree...it is a major copout. We have been using that technique in online chat systems since the early 1980's. It is not difficult and does not take as much power as @biz seems to be implying.
- Semipro
I am serious. They had downtime last week, and that was a blip. And what slowness, Glen? (Referring to FriendFeed)
- Louis Gray
My comments should have run together. Tina helpfully interrupted. :)
- Louis Gray
Yeah, the "And yet, they continue..." sorta started down the road to Ambiguity.
- Ken Sheppardson
(Edited for clarity) and Glen, look forward to that happening.
- Louis Gray
@ in the middle must be a lot less frequent than @ at the beginning thus saving processing power
- Matsis
But a beginning @ is index 0, there's no seek time compared to an any position @.
- Micah
also I believe a fair comparison would be twitter removing the @ replies to all (lame) with FF removing FoaF entries from lists other than the home feed. And twitter search is real time - that's probably eating up processing power
- Matsis
Good point re: Friend of a Friend, Matsis. FriendFeed already has to check if you have it enabled or not, and then if you have it enabled for a specific friend or not, and then, execute. I neglected to mention that.
- Louis Gray
Leather: When the "see all @ replies" was an option, Twitter had to decide how to handle @ replies (whether to propagate the tweet to you or to hide it, depending on your setting), which is expensive to the database. So, either they make everybody see all @ replies (which changes the setting of 98% of the users), or they sacrifice the 2%
- Andre P. Siregar
Micah I think twitter's point was that they didn't want to go check the setting (too much work for them) so they removed it. We b*itched and moaned so they gave back something less than what was. Or in other words, if the feature is available, and Oprah has a back and forth with aplusk (say replies 10-15 times), twitter dies. Also what Andre said :)
- Matsis
This is a good lesson for all comp sci students. The @-reply was not a feature Twitter had when they first launched. It's sort of a hack from the community that later got incorporated. But the architecture didn't anticipate this feature. And now it's hard to change the foundation when the house has been built
- Andre P. Siregar
Andre, I also think it's fair to say (many have stated this many times) that the whole of twitter's original architecture wasn't built with the anticipation of its current use.
- Micah
I think it all has to do with the schema-less design on top of MySQL FriendFeed is using. They're simply making smarter choices ahead of time, rather than reactive choices.
- Jesse Stay
So, by the presumed logic, no one's going to a see any new features that involves a follower dependent setting regarding anything tweet in stream. Well, ok then.
- Micah
Jesse, I have no doubt Friendfeed made smarter design decisions. When Twitter started the whole micro-blogging thing nobody really knew back then how it was going to grow and be used (now Twitter is much more than just about "I'm having lunch"). So when Friendfeed started, I'm sure they took some lessons learned from Twitter and others
- Andre P. Siregar
Micah, yes regarding Twitter's original architecture. IIRC, Digg went through the same re-architecting exercise a few years back when their users started to skyrocket.
- Andre P. Siregar
It's typical to have to re-architect a system once you realize how much the userbase is skyrocketing. Ideally you've constructed it in such a way so that you can rip out modular pieces and replace them as necessary. It seems to me that the whole of Twitter's backend is a much more serially constructed system, which is why they have to have complete system outages still now at three...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
And though I wasn't on Twitter to see it, Robert suggests that they've been seeing these problems since he had about 1500 followers.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob: that's absolutely true. Twitter was crashing even back in 2006. The architecture they chose was always horrid. It's getting better, actually, but still is having sizeable problems. Friendfeed has been down twice, once for an hour, and once for more than an hour because of a power failure that took down the entire data center. (At least that I remember). Twitter seems like it was down every day in 2008 and even this week has been down more than friendfeed has ever been down.
- Robert Scoble
It's hard to compare the two systems DB functionality because of the lower traffic FriendFeed has compared to Twitter.
- Rick Cogley
Rick, you can compare them based on the time of their lifespan though, and FriendFeed is doing much, much better. See the interview Scoble and I did with them last year when they had a very similar user-base to FriendFeed's.
- Jesse Stay
Rick: absolutely NOT true. Friendfeed today has MUCH higher traffic than Twitter did two years ago.
- Robert Scoble
It is easy to look at the total user base and make excuses for Twitter, but what I'm talking about is the fact that FriendFeed is accomplishing much more complex tasks, and not missing a beat. Even when they are 10 times bigger than they are today, I expect they will scale smoothly, because of their talent and their track record.
- Louis Gray
Leather: I'm assuming the difference is with the amount of WRITE operation in the database (which is much more expensive than parsing)
- Andre P. Siregar
I would love to read how friendfeed has architected itself to avoid the problems twitter is having.
- ian kennedy
Traffic may be one thing, but I would venture to guess the activity in the database is higher in FF than in Twitter for the same number of users
- Andre P. Siregar
ian: on friendfeed there is more metadata to study and filter with. I can say "show me all items that mention Obama" on both services, but only on friendfeed can I also say "and display only those items that have a like or more." That is how friendfeed can remove a major amount of spam (and I use it all the time). Spam doesn't get likes. Another way?
- Robert Scoble
On friendfeed I can delete any comment underneath one of my items. So I can help keep my corner of friendfeed clean. And if I see any underneath, say, your items, I can let you know about it. But what about on Twitter? We can't do shit about spam except report it and hope that @biz or someone gets to it.
- Robert Scoble
Leather: Twitter is more than three years old. Friendfeed is just about 1.5 years old. You aren't factoring that in. Go and compare the two services all along at the same age. I don't compare my 1.5 year old to a three year old, and neither should you. That's a HUGE mistake you are making.
- Robert Scoble
When Twitter was 1.5 years old it had fewer users than friendfeed and was FAR LESS COMPLEX yet it was going down about 100 times more often than friendfeed is today. Twitter's architecture was NEVER thought out very well and we're still seeing the artifacts of that.
- Robert Scoble
Leather: I'm comparing friendfeed today to where Twitter was 1.5 years ago.
- Robert Scoble
Leather: true, but friendfeed is a LOT more complex than Twitter ever was and it also has more users than Twitter did when Twitter was 1.5 years old.
- Robert Scoble
Leather: then what are you arguing with me about? Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
Scoble, yes the filtering on advanced searches is impressive (it even supports simple exclusions). I am impressed that they can keep it all running with every page updating in*real*time. Is each page an open session?
- ian kennedy
ian: I believe it is. Leather: go to compete.com or any traffic site and compare. But adjust the dates.
- Robert Scoble
Leather: keep in mind I've been on Twitter 907 days and I'm not going to do your homework for you. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Louis, you're absolutely correct about FF accomplishing much more complex tasks much more effortlessly. Overall the leaders of this team are more effective. We had a saying back when I was consulting ISP startups "The network IS the business plan" In an online business that depends entirely on its systems for potential revenues, the architecture of the network becomes a model for the...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Leather: believe me, Twitter didn't grow that fast until the last year. The first two years Twitter grew slower than friendfeed did and had a TON more problems (and was even less complex).
- Robert Scoble
Leather: 900 != 700. Heheh. That's a huge number of days in this world. And, anyway, both traffic and complexity are higher on friendfeed and amount of time down is MUCH lower here. So, by either metric friendfeed is winning HUGE.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, here's the screen capture from Compete.com: http://twitpic.com/57bgl Y'all seem to be forgetting about non-Twitter-account web traffic. FF is flat; Twitter skyrockets. And yes, FF is "younger" but is built on top of Twitter so it did not start from the same "zero" point -- nor does it have as many API calls -- nor is it as accessible off-the-laptop (iPhones excepted).
- Kathy E Gill
Kathy: you have NOT shifted the graph to show equivilent times. At 4/2009 Friendfeed is STILL far younger than Twitter was at 4/2008. Shift the graphs and come back. Also, at 1.5 years into its life Twitter didn't have that many apps either and Twitter's API is far more simplistic than friendfeed's is. Twitter didn't take off until after it was two years old. Friendfeed is already growing faster. And who cares what it is built on top of? Twitter was built on top of blogs and we don't hold that against it.
- Robert Scoble
Kathy: Benjamin Golub of FF wrote fftogo.com. FriendFeed on any phone.
- Johnny
Twitter started March 21, 2006. Friendfeed started October 1, 2007. You must shift the charts to compare apples to apples.
- Robert Scoble
I just don't understand why it's so hard to compare apples to apples. If you want to compare the two companies, you have to compare them at similar stages in their lifecycles. it's really simple.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob: because our tools make it hard to do the comparison. But I was there and saw how Twitter grew. Twitter was crashing before it even got to the famous SXSW and I only had something like 1000 followers then (and that was in March of 2007).
- Robert Scoble
I use fftogo almost every day. and I use the IM on the other days (twitter isn't really even sophisticated enough to keep their IM service running)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I don't know about that Robert. We can grok how to compare money from today to money in 1920. We should be able to adjust stats about companies in our brains. We don't compare the revenues of a 3yo company to the revenues of a 30yo company, right (unless the 3yo is performing Outrageously). I haven't heard a single person disagree with what you've said about "the old days" of twitter either. So I can only assume that it must be true. These problems don't sneak up on a company.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob: Twitter's management will admit they've always had technical problems. Remember, their architect was fired (Blair) and @ev admitted that it was a test project that they never expected to get so big.
- Robert Scoble
Ok, well the first step to getting well is admitting you have a problem, right? Never expecting a thing to get so big is a lack of vision, and not a very good quality for a management team IMO. Since they never expected it, and now that it is, they should be stepping aside as they are certainly no longer qualified to lead it. And THAT is the true sign of success of management teams....
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Choose Success, not failure. But, it's interesting to note that "fail whale" and twitter are synonymous. Fail is practically in the name. And that needs to be corrected. It affects team spirit and morale, and causes it to become a vicious cycle.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob: you have to go back in @ev's history, though. Remember when he started Pyra? They made Blogger. Remember how often it was down? A lot, just like Twitter. How slow it was? Very. How much spam it had? A lot, just like Twitter. Yet it made Ev a lot of money, just like Twitter will. So, since he's been down this path before, why not repeat? It actually doesn't make sense to over...
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- Robert Scoble
And that's where I come back to the lack of vision. If you "aren't sure" then you don't have the vision. You're right that it doesn't make sense to over engineer something if you have doubts, but if you have doubts, why jack with it? But in some sense it does make sense to over engineer things, because in a pinch you can often sell the company for the technology that's running it to someone who has a different vision for it, someone who knows what to do with what you've built.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Robert, I was talking about now, but I see your point about comparing two years ago. However, it's still hard to compare two different systems, different db's, different programming languages, different ways of indexing data, etc, in my opinion. It's pretty apparent that FF has been very stable, comparatively, however.
- Rick Cogley
lots of testosterone on this thread, did we at least all agree that twitter's "organic architecture" sucks now just like it did from inception & friendfeeds "designed architecture" should scale nicely just like it has from inception?
- mike "glemak" dunn
correction! Tweetstack DOES support MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS :)
- Susan Beebe
Just configured my 3 twitter accounts on TweetStack iPhone app - bye bye tweetie!
- Susan Beebe
I like the idea but hate bubbles, can the UI be changed to a more space efficient look kinds like TwitterFon? Will buy it if I can.
- Kevin Muncie
Kevin - Yea, I am not liking the bubbles either - they aren't efficient use of iPhone screen space. I have not used twitterfon yet. I like the tweetie interface much better. I am not seeing anyway to modify the UI settings
- Susan Beebe
Thanks Susan, that's ashame. I wonder why any developer would choose the bubbles. Not going to spend the money now.
- Kevin Muncie
I just wrote a review for the app and mentioned the need to offer users a UI choice (bubbles / no bubbles)
- Susan Beebe
I am not able to get the TweetDeck import working for TweetStack. I am also encountering crashes with TweetStack. The UI needs some improvements also. I cannot figure out how to bring up the Stack preference pane if there are tweets in the Stack.
- Vinko
has anyone seen anything about the tweetie osx app? if that has groups, maybe there is something similar in the works.
- Frankie Warren
Look around, don't forget about Nambu. tweetdeck isn't the only player out there.
- Richard A.
TweetStack supports multiple accounts which gives it a huge advantage.
- Jaica Kinsman
Hi - sorry to not reply earlier! I'm the dev for TweetStack. We will be addressing the bubbles/space saving tweet view issue in release V1.1 with a whole host of other features - see http://www.b1te.com/tweetst... for more info.
- Matt Brooke-Smith
fyi TweetStack will also integrate with TweetFollow soon - noticed you commented on TweetFollow earlier in your stream.
- Matt Brooke-Smith
groups is obviously a welcome development but the UI for the app as a whole needs a lot of refinement.
- Jamie
Its a good app it needs more refinement to compete with the likes of tweetie , etc..
- Isaac Zahavi
Matt - Hello! Glad you found FriendFeed :) TweetStack is great - make the UI look like Tweetie's and you're my BFF! I like the idea of integrating it with TweetFollow... excellent idea. I was surprised when I saw 2 apps and thought to myself - why didn't they just add the "follow" feature to TweetStack? keep us posted here on this thread... thanks! You may want to consider creating a "Feed" (formerly known as a "room") for TweetStack so folks can subscribe to it and get updates on your product dev.
- Susan Beebe
I tried to send a tweet this morning with TweetStack and it took over a minute - had to cancel it... grrrr
- Susan Beebe
Susan, yes, I followed TweetStack's instructions. I was finally able to get it to work by totally removing TweetStack, my Twitter accounts and redoing everything. I am still encountering crashes though.
- Vinko
Vinko - perhaps sending a tweet to @TweetStack may get you some support based on your feedback
- Susan Beebe
Yes, I had been working with them. They say that 1.0.2 may resolve my issues. Although the the UI issues, particularly the way to bring up the Stack settings pane when a stack contains more than a full page of tweets. The double clicking to bring up the Stack settings is a bit hit and miss.
- Vinko
Susan - sorry to hear you had a problem sending - sometimes the Twitter API connects, then takes ages to respond. Perhaps we should lower our timeout value.
- Matt Brooke-Smith
TweetDeck import should run fine if you run it *before* you install the app. We are working on a method to ensure it works after you have downloaded, installed and run. Look out for V1.02. Ill let you know when we have submitted to Apple.
- Matt Brooke-Smith
Susan - thanks for the suggestion regarding a Feed/Room. Ill look into it! Always keen to keep people involved.
- Matt Brooke-Smith
I just recommended this to @KristieWells today -- she was very happy to learn of TweetStack ... rock on!
- Susan Beebe
Sadly Eric, I think he has no clue. Poor kid. At 17, he's a few years younger than Paris Hilton when she was in a sex video.
- Cait
Twitter should hire him ... that's all I'm saying.
- Brandon
What will they pay him with? Followers?
- Rahsheen?
No, they will pay him cold hard cash for his insight into how he reverse-engineers Twitter. -- So they can help prevent such things from happening again.
- Brandon
Perhaps....after he gets out of jail....
- Bora Zivkovic
For some reason, I'm not understanding how this was all that slick of a trick. He exploited a gaping hole. "Hrm, I wonder what happens if I put random crap in my bio....OOOOH! Looky Here! Looky Here!"
- Rahsheen?
He won't go to jail, he'll get press, he'll start consulting Twitter and other services.
- Brandon
Does that mean he gets to collect $200?
- Jim Norris
He should go to jail: he totally failed at crashing twitter
- sofarsoShawn
And THAT is exactly why I do NOT like teenagers! I am so glad I don't have them anymore. I think they all need supervision because they have no real Life experience AND they all have poor impulse control! I agree with the comment thread...they have no clue! Do not feel sorry for the 17 year old. Let him learn that it is not amusing to tinker with our lives.
- Laurel LaFlamme
Actually, this guy reminds me of another teenage script kiddy we had during the Victorian bushfires who hijacked the #bushfires feed to a private group this s.k. took credit for originating/inventing. I'm not particularly wanting to reward such twit kids for doing some really dumb things. The kid could have pointed out security flaws to Twitter without all that stuff today.
- George Hall (Australia)
A great idea to get twitter off their ass, bad follow through. Instead of possibly getting a college education, this kid will get barred from computers till he's 25 or so, and come out even more pissed off at the world.
- rob friedman
While the kid is completely responsible for exploiting the hole, no different than someone breaking and entering by walking through an unlocked door to your home, the question arises as to why Twitter's door wasn't locked in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods on the planet — the Internet. How many decades will it take before programmers learn to fully validate all user input? We're at over 2 decades and counting already.
- Tom Sheppard
well, the difference is the malicious intent and use of the computer to effect a greater population. B&E usually is just one home, or a string of home, not hundreds of thousands of people, and the machines they touch, which numbers more than the humans i"m sure. Twitter should have tested their site better. I never saw the hacker tested badge on their site like I see on shopping sites...
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- rob friedman
from twhirl
Wake up Brandon-anyone who hires a vandal like this is as irresponsible as he is. Twitter SHOULDN'T need a spotty oik to point out their security flaws, anyway (whole different discussion!). He needs to spend some time behind bars, and a message sent to other kids. If he had spotted the flaw and disclosed it to Twitter and worked with them to plug it, THEN I would advocate hiring him.
- Bob Walder
Bob, that is a brilliantly stated point. The different between a criminal and a brilliant mind is how they view opportunity.
- Peggy Dolane
I have FriendFeed via Nambu on my iPhone too...but since the beta, it tends to crash a bit after roughly ten minutes of use. Perhaps the Nambu crew (and motherfeed developers) need to get an update soon that solves this. Nambu is very good when it's working, even for identi.ca.
- George Hall (Australia)
Yea, Its way too slow. And if you config. more than two Accounts then the Interface gets busy.. See, the new Yahoo!, Inquisitor App in AppStore.. They are way too fast and responsive..
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
Yahoo!, Inquisitor??? Is that one or two apps? Haven't heard of Inquisitor.
- George Hall (Australia)
Jesse, hmmm...if there were to be a FriendFeed detention room/group...what would it be composed of? I suppose the most annoying components of 'social media' (for lack of a better term)...Britney tweets maybe? I know if there was Facebook detention room I would toss those darn quizzes in there..."so if you were a US President you would be John Adams huh? Imagine that..."
- Jeffrey Marsh
Nambu - Webmonkey (HOT Twitter client, tons of people are talking about it, wonder how it competes with new Seesmic Desktop?) - http://www.webmonkey.com/blog...
yeah i wrote a post about it titled "Last night I cheated on Tweetdeck and I liked it." http://thenextweb.com/2009... ...most people seem to love it, but it's not without bugs...it is a preview release after all
- Zee.
Looks pretty amazing, but with no Windows support they are leaving a big segment of users on the table. It amazes me that people still only write to one platform.
- Tim
I was all excited until I saw it was for Mac. Still, anything that's not written in AIR gets my vote!
- Michael McKean
I was mildly excited by Nambu, but I'm STOKED to hear that Loren Brichter (@atebits) is working on a desktop (Mac) version of Tweetie, and that its release is "imminent" - http://blog.atebits.com/2009... . THAT is the Twitter client I'm looking forward to. I've long wished for a desktop Twitter app that could do everything Tweetie can, and be as well designed. I've got high hopes for Tweetie for Mac.
- Josh Bancroft
*None* of these guys are targeting businesses. They all suck. Check out CoTweet when you get a chance (and let me know if you want an invite, Robert).
- Jesse Stay
Nambu has been great. It's about time another client that supports groups came out. I've been eager to drop tweetdeck (it got up to using 1.5gb of memory the other day.) Seesmic Desktop isn't anything special but at least it added group support as well. If you are running OSX give Nambu a try.
- Jeffrey Vanneste
I used it until last week when it somehow managed to call the FriendFeed API so many times that they blocked my IP address. Of course the really screwed up thing is that the FriendFeed functionality is not even enabled in Nambu. So what the hell gives with that? It took me 5 days to get my access restored thanks to Ana Yang at FriendFeed - she's the one who told me that Nambu overused my FF API limit. So hell yeah... I uninstalled it.
- Ankush Narula
I'm scared to look ;-) Don't want to like it and then face starting from scratch to recreate the groups on my Tweetdeck for hundreds of followers.
- Mark Traphagen
Jesse, I use Twitter (sometimes) for business, and i'm happy with the current clients. What would a "business-targeted" client do? Honest question.
- Josh Bancroft
Jesse - Ah. To me, CRM is the wrong approach to such a personal medium. @marshallk summed up my thoughts on it pretty well in the last few paragraphs of his post on how @Comcast uses Twitter: http://bit.ly/Cy9sT
- Josh Bancroft
A little buggy but a very nice native client for Mac
- sasamat
You should get out and find a good fit at http://www.wikimatrix.org/. That said, I've run PmWiki and Screwturn and found them both pretty straightforward. How many users do you have? Are you looking to have multiple namespaces within your wiki?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Disclaimer: I have an MS in CS, so my concept of "easy" or "fun" might be unrealistic.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Ushahidi uses DokuWiki. I'm not too fond of it though.
- Meryn Stol
Multiple namespaces would be like "MainPage::MarketingDepartment" versus "MainPage::SupportDepartment". In other words, as a wiki grows you could have multiple discrete sections of the wiki that contain pages related to a single project. Those projects might want to have the same basic page names in effect, and namespaces allow you to do that. 3-4 people can work around it without much trouble.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Wikis are great *because* of the lack of official structure. Develop your own internal wiki usage conventions and people will do just fine - as long as they can search.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
I was pondering on using Drupal as an alternative. Any downside to this? I know its primarily a CMS system.
- Mike Fruchter
Great recommandations on stackoverflow. Thanks, Daniel
- Mike Fruchter
I strongly recommend you get some advanced login capabilities, e.g. linking up with a windows domain or using Facebook Connect or something. Remove as many barriers to contribution as possible. Layman's version: If people have to log in, they won't bother.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
I have not used Drupal or any other CMS as a wiki... I'm not even sure how you would do that. Sure you can create posts/objects and link them to one another, but that doesn't feel like a wiki to me. The #1 thing that makes a wiki is the fact that I can type [[Name of a new page]] and that becomes a clickable link to said new page.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Using Drupal as a wiki is possible: there are installation profiles that'll set up and configure everything for you. That said, it's not dedicated wiki software, and it feels like shoehorning a wiki experience into Drupal's user experience. Edit: looks like there's no Wiki installation profile for d6, which stinks.
- Mark Trapp
@Michael - I've setup WP instances with this plugin for wiki only purposes.. .just like you are thinking for drupal
- andy brudtkuhl
I'd recommend Deki Wiki by Mindtouch. There's an open source version that installs under Apache or as a virtual machine. Editing and organizing information is extremely easy, and rivals some blogs. Includes hooks into multimedia, video sites, etc.
- Glenn Batuyong
Mike, if you want to use Drupal, another way to go might be the Book module: since you can customize permissions all over the place with Drupal, the Book module might provide a reasonable alternative to the wiki experience: http://drupal.org/handboo...
- Mark Trapp
If Deki Wiki is not too hard to install (no experience), I'd surely try that out. It's also used by Mozilla. (interview: http://www.ddj.com/web-dev... )
- Meryn Stol
I would've suggested Zoho as well, but Mike insists on self-hosting. The big reason I like Zoho is not its UI (kinda irritates me) but the fact that it accepts Google and Yahoo! logins. No new account required!
- Daniel J. Pritchett
For installation and testing purposes, be sure you try JumpBox-style virtual installs of these wikis. It will save you a lot of time for testing different systems you might end up discarding. Here's one for MindTouch Deki: http://www.jumpbox.com/app... You can run it using the free VMWare Player.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
MoinMoin is my favorite (featureful, community, Python, themed), but has a little admin setup upfront cost. TiddlyWiki is the simplest/fastest/lightest I've used and is all-in-one no admin, plus mobile. Being a single HTML/Javascript file, you can even put it under VCS.
- Micah Elliott
SocialText has a pretty good self-hosted solution. And they're Perl so even more bonus points.
- Jesse Stay
Mike: If you know PHP, be sure to take at least 10 minutes to look at PmWiki. Doesn't get any easier. I've installed/managed MediaWiki, TWiki, DekiWiki, a .Net engine called Flexwiki... and no matter how easy *any* wiki claims to be, none of them really seem to deliver on the promise of being... well... frictionless. They all have a learning curve, idioms, etc. My recommendation would be to just pick your poison, chose something that's well-supported and popular built in a language you know, and dive in.
- Ken Sheppardson
Great thread! Ounce for ounce, high level of nutrition. Thanks, all. If I recall correctly, PmWiki was used by identi.ca (before it moved to Trac) as a bug tracker, and was so quick and simple I submitted a bug report that I otherwise would not have bothered with had I faced more complicated software.
- Micah
One very good commercial (but free for non profit) wiki is Confluence from Atlassian. To my knowledge it is the only wiki that natively supports distinct spaces. Although it is a good wiki, it is not the silver bullet that addresses all our community needs.
- Olivier Biot
Regarding Drupal and wiki support, there are possibilities to implement a "wiki page" content type for which you can enforce unique page titles with the "unique field" module (http://drupal.org/project...). Or get inspiration from resources like http://cwgordon.com/how-to-...
- Olivier Biot
I went thru this exercise recently, used wikimatrix for research - was going to self host and tried a few but then opted for hosted instead -http://glemak.pbwiki.com - the wiki space is very full and socialtext is still the best enterprise at scale option though for 3-4 users it'd be overkill
- mike "glemak" dunn
Doing a major ERP implementation and using Confluence for the documentation of the design during blueprinting. Team of 50 using it. Works well, but like any wiki, content is inconsistent at times and requires editing. We won't use it long term. Also using Sharepoint within our corporate portal. Would NOT recommend it..
- Dave Ploch
For easy and hosted and good integration with videos, online presentations, etc, try Google Sites (aka JotSpot) http://sites.google.com
- Scott McMullan
@Dave - Sharepoint is great if it's the only wiki your IT department will let you install. I agree that it's rarely a first choice for any particular project though.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
FOSWiki (was TWiki) might be interesting.
- Tyson Key
Confluence WIKI - there's a reason that there's a Universal WIKI Converter product for all these other brands - b/c you out grow them and need the rich feature set of Confluence WIKI if you are serious about collaborating, business needs, and Enterprise 2.0 with the WIKI as a core technology bringing it together. I recommend to not underestimate these longer term objectives. http://is.gd/k1NT A migration can always be done, but better to start on right and best of breed tool at the get go. Cheers!
- Ellen Feaheny
We have done multiple wiki projects in our agency. The best enterprise wikis are Foswiki for open source wikis and Confluence for commercial high-end-solutions. MediaWiki is only for public wikis similar to Wikipedia best of breed.
- Martin Seibert
"Google's big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers--each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts. [...] It may sound geeky, but a number of attendees--the kind of folks who run data centers packed with thousands of servers for a living--were surprised not only by Google's built-in battery approach, but by the fact that the company has kept it secret for years."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
Hmm, I was in a Google data center two years ago (not one of their big ones) and it didn't have individual power supplies and didn't have machines in shipping containers. Seems to me that the shipping container would impede heat transfer and would add unnecessary expense. I'm sure they dont use them everywhere.
- Robert Scoble
Has CNet been "Scobled"? Site's pretty much toast.
- Kenton
That's pretty darn cool. Hope it's not an April fools joke.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Alex: I wonder. The servers I saw inside Google had Seagate drives. These are Hitachis. But I know that Google refreshes all its machines quite often. This looks real and makes sense.
- Robert Scoble
Paul: I know Sun was doing the shipping container thing, but that only makes sense when you need one small data center on premises, or something like that. Building a whole warehouse/data center like that doesn't make any sense.
- Robert Scoble
Google has lots of data centers all over the place, though, and I could see Google using a shipping container in some weird location. Just not in its big datacenter up in Oregon.
- Robert Scoble
Scoble, MSFT has data centers that are silos for containers. Makes a lot of sense if you think of having to swap in and out huge numbers of machines every 18-24 months.
- Aaron deMello
Aaron: wild. I'd love to visit one of those huge data centers and see how they do airflow management.
- Robert Scoble
By the way, CNET is down right now (all of CNET, not just the one this article points to).
- Robert Scoble
Yeah, I wonder if it's more efficient in the long run to have separate air and power handling for each container. Probably makes it a lot quicker to build up large server farms. Just connect the modules and download the software.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
The shipping container thing could make sense if they were stuffed into a shelving system - open the one end to allow for cooling, plug the whole box full of boxes in, and go. There was one company that was doing prefab hotels in this kind of fashion. build shell, and stuff pre-fab rooms in the slots. Do the datacenter the same way.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Yeah, CNET is having problems but it seems to be intermittent.
- Scoble, Alex Scoble
Robert, each of the large vendors has their own solution to airflow management. Take a look at what Rackable and Verari are doing, quite interesting. Verari's are actually portable and designed to work outdoors.
- Aaron deMello
With these sorts of cooling requirements you'd think they'd bury the shipping containers 20 feet underground or in old coal mines or something.
- Andrew Leyden
The one thing I can tell you is that no Google employee will go near commenting on something like this. It is made *very* clear that anything touching datacenters is super-uber confidential.
- Joe Beda
I think it's a very smart design on Google's part. Years ago, when I worked in the Sprint's Central Offices the telecom battery backups were hideously large and only used when the diesel generators failed. Matter of fact, I think many of those beer keg size batteries were decades old.
- Donna Payne
This "secret server" was revealed in 2006 (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive...). I personally looked at the power cable coming out the back of the power supply, being routed back *in* the case, *under* the mobo and out through the front, and had a Luke Skywalker reaction: "What a piece of junk!" Which I suppose is the cue for Han Solo to walk out of the...
more...
- Karim
my favorite quote from that 2006 article: " he said that in his first week working [at Google] they flew anyone who wanted to go, to denver to go skiing.... during the work week too ahaha" soooo it's like "super-efficient data centers, scrimping and saving every penny OMG DID SOMEONE SAY SKIING? FIRE UP THE PARTY PLANE!!!" :-D
- Karim
Ok, so how many of you are now trying to build one of these at home? That would be a good MAKE episode.
- Andrew Leyden
I bet all those $15 batteries would be a maintenance nightmare in a typical datacenter.
- Gabe
The article has been updated with additional photos and details: "Google's PUE [Power Usage Effectiveness] scores are enviably low, but the company is working to lower them further. [...] "[From] early on, there was an emphasis on the dollar per (search) query," Hoelzle said. "We were forced to focus. Revenue per query is very low.""
- Simon