Jeff Sayre - Comments

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Just was talking to http://www.friendfeed.com/garin and we came to the conclusion that if you are going to comment on a friendfeed item you should either be first or last. Why? They always are visible. So, here's your chance! :-)

May 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Roshan Ramachandran, Amit Nangare, Jeff P. Henderson and 58 other people liked this

zaloom! - Kevin Johnson

194 more comments

If we are really cool we'll get on this list http://friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Kevin is first, who will be last? I just want to be the penultimate commenter! - Robert Scoble

first and last words are all that matter on the FF. - rob friedman

Okay. Everyone stop NOW! - Kevin Sablan

great. now FF is going to be filled up with those annoying ass people that comment "FIRST!" on everything. - Enrique Gutierrez

ok - Shawn Snodgrass

Aw crap, I could sit here all night waiting to be last, so may as well comment now. - Sharon McPherson

8th! - rob friedman

Any worthy FF thread will engage interested parties enough to read most of the comments. - iTad

Do I get bonus points if I end up being the thread killer? - Kevin Johnson

Kevin you could always delete your 1st comment. :) - rob friedman

Kevin! Yes, and we're having a great time watching this. It will get old fast, but for now it's really fun! - Robert Scoble

Hey Enrique.. that would suck. Oh... LAST! Oh Jeff... Last. - Ted Bradford II

That's why these threads just go on and on and on... people just want to have the last word. ;-P - Chris Heath

Chris: I don't want the last word. I want the penultimate word. :-) - Robert Scoble

Nope, I like the riffng of the conversation. Jump in anywhere. Enjoy the free flow of ideas and worry not about being seen by the scanners. Those who take the time to expand the thread have such a richer experience. - michael sean wright

if i wasn't so tired i'd play that out Chris (as my last post was truly in jest). Late here in East TN. Gonna go tip a few cows and call it a day. - Ted Bradford II

Ted: so was mine ... didn't you catch the winky tongue? (i'm on cape fear so i'm soon to bed as well) - Chris Heath

Good point, unless you're actually using the RT chat aspect of FriendFeed, I guess... - Andy Werner

Chris- I did, but needed a segue into a cow tipping joke... cause I've never done so before. I do know this, tomorrow I will use the word 'penultimate' and dazzle family and friends. Hope alls quiet on the Cape bro. These storms have been a biotch. Annnnnnd Jeff just trumped us all. Tell him what he's won Enrique... nite all. - Ted Bradford II

Second to last is always visible on my screen. :) - Bwana ☠

Clever way to get the most commented upon comment on FF ever.... - Barak B

Ted, if you haven't dozed off- i'll have you know that the coastal winds tend to keep a lot of the storm systems at bay- if you're close enough to the water - a mile or 5 inland can make a big difference some days - and spot t/storms can be localized around here big time - for instance yesterday it rained (for a short period) at my house while i was at work 5 miles away getting no rain - only knew cuz the ground was wet when i went home for lunch... ok - it's really time for sleep now - g'nite FriendFeed - Chris Heath

so in other words, last is not least? - Julie Bovee Hill

Barak: check out this idea for a long thread (still nowhere near the longest on friendfeed, but the idea.. ) http://friendfeed.com/ajbatac... - Chris Heath

Chris: Yes, that is a good one too. This is better though and I predict with end up with more comments. - Barak B

Yay! I am last as of now :) - Amit Nangare

lets see how long this lasts for! :) - Paul Kinlan

Another one of these? From Scoble this time? Wow. BTW, last post. - Chris Charabaruk

I will be the penultimate commenter! - Garin Kilpatrick

That way I can be the ultimate one. - Chris Charabaruk

Nope. - Barak B

friendfeed should allow for "liking" comments so top comments can be the ones shown, no matter the chronology. And allow the users to watch comments by likes, threaded or chronologically. - Charbax

A blatant attempt at gaming the FriendFeed statistics for no real useful purpose... Oooh, can I be last, Please Please!!! - Peter Kelley

No, Peter, you may not be last. That's my position. - Chris Charabaruk

Last Post!!! - Richard Hurt

well, the last comment is always changing, isn't this like having your 5 nanoseconds of glory? - Liviu Lica

This thread is now closed. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

No, NOW it's closed. - Chris Charabaruk

Or is it? :) - Liviu Lica

Perhaps now... - Garin Kilpatrick

thats me! :) - Roshan Ramachandran

based on what you say, it easier to simply click like :-) - Orli Yakuel

:) - Michael Fidler

"Comment on a friendfeed item"? which one? ;) - Thierry R. Andriamirado

Are trying to go for the longest comment thread again? - Amit Morson

Amit: no, most times one post gets hidden. - Robert Scoble

In a different timezone you can have the advantage :) - Rene de Vries

Okay, people, nothing to see here. Just walk on. This is the last comment. It's all clear now. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

What if you write backwards? Does that help? - Kieran Daly

It would be nice if we could pick the number of comments shown at the top and bottom, I'd like to see the first 3 and last 3 for example. - Kol Tregaskes

I usually read all the comments of something I'm interested in. I don't just read the top and bottom ones so I don't care where I come in. I comment on what I want to because I want to say something. It's nice if the original poster reads/responds to it, but not absolutely necessary. Most of the time the most fun/interaction comes from other commenters. - Molly

Sounds like an online auction...Is there any deadline? Then I'll prepare my winning speech 17,3 sec beforehand. - Zack Brandit

I'm not falling for your postbait, Scoble! Oh wait...crap. - c.a.j.

Cow tipping - That's Funny - Brent - Yes I am

Good point. - Jack Boyle

I feel sorry for the cows. And the grass. I am weakhearted I guess. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

I guess I misunderstood. You were talking about that fat waittress in Crazy Mick's Breakaway Cafe, weren't you? - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Fine, I'm in - Don Bonaddio

Nope - Jérôme

no - mjc

Yeah, you were last. Congrats. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

In ur timezone, stealin ur commentz, kthxbye :) - Peter Kelley

ok, I'll hold on to last place for visablity! - PaulJohnson

I was going to add something witty, but i got nothing. sorry.... - Mike Nencetti

No problem. Participating is more important than winning, we say in the Netherlands. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

It's the long-tail of real-time - zeroinfluencer

Excellent point David ;) - Don Bonaddio

Being last has one drawback. It makes you a thread-killer. I'm not sure some of us like being that. Sometimes I'd rather see the discussion keep going. - George Hall (Australia)

Do like the suggestion made earlier that there should be bonus points for being the thread-killer... - George Hall (Australia)

but who wants to be last? - mcvictor

Ok Robert, please close this thread now. ;) - Meryn Stol

I disagree, and I'll tell you why below... - FFing Enigma

We already did this thread, I'll post the link right after Tina's rebuttal - Rahsheen?

You don't really believe that Robert. Content is key! :-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

But if I post last, I'm first in the thread on Twhirl! Double win! ;-) - Julie Barrett from twhirl

amazing - David Gross from email

Always happy to be last .... but it probably won't last :) - Charlie Anzman

llllllaaaaasssssstttttt - mjc

You'd be right Charlie :P - Jay

And there is nothing I hate more than reading that first comment that childishly claims "First!" and nothing more. "Last!" (until the next comment comes along) - Jim Espinoza

By the way, I'm the last commenter in a very participated thread recently started by Robert Scoble, but that didn't gain me almost any new follower. I'm fine with this though, as I'd find silly being advantaged for being the last commenter ;-) - Opensource Obscure

Agreed :) - Fabian De Simone

How do I stick my comment to the bottom so that it will always be last? :) - Jeff Sayre

How long can this go on? - Tom Landini

Last! ...for now - Scott

So this if why Scoble goes nuts over realtime feeds - he can be the first to comment. - Tom Landini

Well, every comment gets to be last for at least a couple of seconds. Or fractions of a second with RT. - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

If you want to understand the power of last you need to read this thread http://friendfeed.com/mikenay... - WoH: Professor MOTHRA

"There is no final solution. There is no last word.” ~ Carlos Fuentes - Sharon McPherson

First is way better, because the last post can always change :) - Tim McDougall

http://last.fm - Garin Kilpatrick

Easy to be first, harder to be last. Kind of like trying to win a silent auction, you always have to go back - Lorraine Ball

but what if it took me a while to find the discussion, and i still want to be last? ;-) - Courtney Engle

Firs...Last. - Rob

@Rob - in yo' face! - JoEllen

The one who will comment after me is so stupid I would'nt like to be him :P - stanjourdan

Yoink! - Zach Lytwyn

112 comments - but there can never be last comment, can there? Unless there is a FF limit on the number of comments - Paul, is there a limit? - WoH: Professor MOTHRA

The current last comment is the next penultimate comment. - Brian Sullivan

Not everyone is on here to market themselves to infinity. Why people, other than people who actually make money off of exposure, insist on wanting the most friends on ff/fb/ms/tt is beyond me. Not everyone is a Scobilite! Yes I did just make that word up... where do I copyright it? lol - Jason Williams

Didn't someone blog about tinyurl's dominance a while back - about how they have too much power. Might have been Gillmor or Winer - Bwana ☠

Winer. I don't think they have too much power - Steve Gillmor

I'm going for last. - Derek Markham

I've got last:-) - Francine Hardaway

instahide - Edward Zwart

How can we compete against Robert - Peter Meng

Peter: why compete? Just come in last! :-) - Robert Scoble

ok - Kevin Johnson

Just checking. I heard this thread was closed, so I wondered if commenting still works. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

wow that's pretty rad :-) - Patphelan

@Jeff, it's not spam if you opt in ;-) - Kevin Johnson

wonder what the value of posting on page length increments are... as people page down your comment is visible ;) - offbeatmammal

Jeff: do you still get email if you hide a thread? I bet you do. That sucks. Now I know why I don't turn on email notifications. - Robert Scoble

There is no last. - Mobius Loop - Robert Couture

to infinity and beyond - Jonathan Grimes

@Jeff - same here - noworries - Kevin Johnson

- Rob

This. Will. Never. End. - Michael Forian

Pay me $10 and I'll delete this thread. (Future friendfeed monetization technique). Sigh. - Robert Scoble

Your comment is always the last! look at mine :) - Luis Benavides

Welcome to the neverending thread :) - Garin Kilpatrick

Garin: I'll delete it before it ends. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: That would be a shame. You'd be up $10 at least though :) - Garin Kilpatrick

The last shall be last - Peter Meng

There can be only one. - Kevin Johnson

I seem to be last on many of Steve Gillmor's posts @techcrunchit, the kiss of death to many a conversation. I should be so lucky here. - Aron Michalski from fftogo

Yes, you should be so lucky :p - Jesse Newhart

I'm going to change my FriendFeed ID to "145 more comments" - Mark Traphagen

Getting a piece of the pie... :) - Jan Ole Peek

I've often found myself to have the last comment. It hasn't benefited me yet that I've noticed...let's try that again. - Mike Lewis

first is forever....last is a very transient honor indeed. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

and being both is probably meaningless, but I'm still going to claim it - Kevin Johnson

Do others ever get more than 2 comments on their posts? :) - Cameron

Doing it!! www.radarla.com - Drew Lucas

So, if you are last and then someone comes behind you, should you re-comment to be last again? - T.S. Elliott

Probably so T.S. but it won't last long ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Sorry Rob:-) - Michael Fidler

1 - Robert Kenney

2 - Robert Kenney

As a fine-art platform, as a painting, do you think anyone would be interested in a full-screen image feed animated by Judith Supine? http://www.flickr.com/photos... - stephen harlow

He who comments last... - Abbas Haider Ali

comments as: - Kevin Johnson

Tag- Im it - Ryan Gerritsen

not anymore you're not ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

zaloom! - Kevin Johnson

for one moment I could imagine that every comment was Kevin Johnson and his "zaloom!" - WoH: Professor MOTHRA

ANd so I do and then another and another :) Fun huh. - Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa

not really... but hey... whatever - Chris Heath

So to comment or to like a FriendFeed item is to promote it.. and to promote the promoter. Great great great! - Thierry R. Andriamirado

173rd!! - Mark Traphagen

Controlled noise... - Joe Dawson

Indeed it is official :) But not for long let me bask in it's glory for a moment hahaha. - Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa

It was fun while it lasted. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Okay, Thanks. It was taking too much of my time anyway. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Nicholas: Except this thread is far more epic :) - Garin Kilpatrick

back again...to claim last place! - Zach Lytwyn

Good for you Zach! - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Cannot. Let. This. End. - Robert Couture

Have. To. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

hit hit hit - Hans Mestrum

Kol: Cool idea, it would be neat to be able to choose how many of the first and last comments were visible. - Garin Kilpatrick

Last - Michael Fidler

I like most anything distilled...information, bait...(distilled bait...is that like the worm at the bottom of the mezcal?) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

The difference would be that in this case the worm will stay on the bottom. No matter what. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

I am not quite sure about that. But willing to accept it. (Wait! You just called me a worm? The most underrated but valuable animal on the planet, that brings us fertile ground and eats dead stuff? It is a nice compliment, but might be a bit much). - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Yesterday somebody asked: 'if you pass the number two in a race, which place are you in?' and I answered wrong. Passing the last one in this race will be hard... - Ruud van Wijngaarden

The last comment shall be mine! :) - Garin Kilpatrick

Woot, last comment. ;) - Jimminy IS Everybody

mine - Michael Fidler

NOPE - Jimminy IS Everybody

Mmmm. I always hoped I would be last. - Ruud van Wijngaarden from email

I think it is hard to be first and even harder to be last.. just look at this thread.. http://ff.im/1hqgl - David Gross

Last comment? - Jeff P. Henderson

you mean Twitter Gar1n? You were talking on TWITTER WEREN'T YOU! LIAR "friendfeeed Garin" pfttttt still the same bi-polar - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

Interesting comment, SFSS, very interesting indeed. So interesting, in fact, that I think that nothing further needs to be added to this thread. Ever. - WoH: Professor MOTHRA

אתם כל כך מלא חרא, אבל זו בעיה שלך, לא שלי :-) - David Gross from email

actually i don't know how not to be the last commenter :) - İ. Emre Kutlu

Me too.. - David Gross from email

If only I could puncture the depths of Scoble's scratch-the-surface brain fart, techno-vangelizing, then I'd actually care WHOLE HEARTEDLY about this meaningfully retarded thread. - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

The only way this thread can be made even more ridiculous and anachronistic is to move it to identi.ca.. Myspace would work, too. - Tal Shafik

Interesting ;) - Alex

And since you can't guarantee being last unless you are the originator of the thread or can convince the originator to end comments (but since Robert is AWOL that is unlikely) -- you better be first. ;-) - Brian Sullivan

Stuff - Jonathan Hardesty

Okay, admittedly being the last IS visible...but who REALLY wants to be the thread-killer? - George Hall (Australia)

apparently, some people http://friendfeed.com/ajbatac... http://friendfeed.com/silas21... http://friendfeed.com/mikenay... (notice 2000+ comments!) - Chris Heath

I think I remember commenting on one of those threads...and it's STILL going???? - George Hall (Australia)

Hey, this one's from May... it's about to hit its own anniversary! - Chris Heath

I'm surprised this only has a little over 200 comments. - Jason Williams

201 - David Gross

don't be so sure about that... there's lots of people who like to be thread killers or last... just wait and watch - Chris Heath

Sage words Robert - Sage words indeed! - PaulJohnson

See??? I told you! - Chris Heath

It doesn't seem to work in the long term. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Robert Scoble

I wish Twitter would sell to Google so it would die like Jaiku and Dodgeball. But I won't post this over on Twitter. I really don't have much love for the service, even though I know I'll be stuck using it for the indefinite future. Jesse Stay has it figured out. It's a horrid place to try to communicate anything other than a bit of self pimping.

August 19, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

polymath22, Can Karaca, Anthony Citrano and 150 other people liked this

Here I can write the equivilent of an entire blog post. And even make changes. And even have a conversation. And use it as many times an hour as I want (Twitter rate limits my apps after a while cause I'm too heavy of a user). - Robert Scoble

134 more comments

werd. - imabonehead

I can sense already that FriendFeed is slowing down now that it is joining Facebook, while Twitter still has the best flow (and best system for following people and best mobile clients). So, we're stuck with Twitter, which is too bad, because the technology here is a ton better. - Robert Scoble

Twitter is a piece of crap - BUT it's where the audience is (currently). - Jim Connolly

Now it is starting to feel like FF again with you bigging it up again Robert ;) - travispuk

Twitter is the new MySpace. - imabonehead

Maybe google wave will change the way we use twitter, etc. again. Haven't tried it yet, but it might succeed where friendfeed "failed" - getting enough people to use it. - Frank S.

Travis: I had to go and clean out my Twitter and Facebook accounts and spread out my usage. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I'm thinking of setting up a facebook account for my Marketing blog - what do you think? - Jim Connolly

@Scobleizer I don't think Friendfeed would be quite so popular if it weren't for twitter - Prolific Programmer from IM

Twitter is the new Myspace - HAHA - this quote made my day. For me it is just becoming a multiplicator for my friendfeed but it is important for that! - Sascha Pallenberg

Prolific: I'm not so sure. Blogs made Twitter. So, what if there were no Twitter? We would still talk up something else. But maybe FriendFeed wouldn't have thrived anyway. Twitter hit a sweet spot with its easy to program API, it's easy to use interface, and its cute name and branding. - Robert Scoble

Twitter works extremely well on mobile devices. I constantly see people tweeting whereas it's more difficult to do with FriendFeed's interface for a typical user. - imabonehead

Really think that Twitter is annoying it's users too much. There's some problems out there that are really being ignored. Here's an example of a problem that could be solved very simply, but no action is being taken (if it was solved it'd create a lot of goodwill) http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter... - Edd McArdle

Robert, now that FriendFeed's people are working for Facebook, and since Facebook has already been making changes to make it more "open socially", do you think eventually that Facebook will become the best place to have serious conversations? - Carlton Hackett

Carlton: yes. - Robert Scoble

I've been thinking so too. Although, I wonder how the non-Soc/net junkies will respond to that? - Carlton Hackett

Robert, two thoughts. #1 - do you think Google really would let it die? Acquiring Twitter would be more like its YouTube acquisition than Jaiku (in terms of price and # of users). Secondly, what would Twitter have to change for you to change your opinion? - Ben Parr

I really, really, really want Twitter to work out is the thing. It's just a pain in the neck to communicate without either losing the conversation or spamming useless banter over multiple Tweets because you can't fit it in 140 characters. That's just my experience. Those still spending most their time there don't mind it I guess. - Jesse Stay

I like Twitter. The conversation flows pretty well for me, and to be fair, I get more @replies there than I get replies here to my posts. - Chris Nixon

I think a combination of the Retweet API and a true threaded replies architecture and UI could change some of my opinion on that though if they do it. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: It's NOT just your experience. Twitter is getting less valuable the bigger it gets. The spam / porn / bots issue is insane and ruining the experience. - Jim Connolly

Chris: I have a twitter account with over 20,000 followers and get ten times as many replies here as I get there. Here I only have a small following. The calibre of people I connect with here is better too. - Jim Connolly

Jesse, have Twitter improved their communication with developers since you wrote about it in April? - Edd McArdle

Edd, over the last week I have noticed a difference, yes, but it's hard to tell if it will remain that way. They now seem to have a project manager over the API dev team (Ryan Sarver). He seems to be putting a filter on some things and keeping devs updated elsewhere. They're still learning though, much slower than FB or FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

agree on spam and bots, but it still is a nice little thing, if it remains what it was made for! marketing and reviewing thing isn't/shouldn't be there, true friendfeed is more effective as a tool for sending your message across, it is simple and strong - testbeta

Testbeta: ... and FF works. - Jim Connolly

Jim, Jesse, Robert: Value varies. For me, Twitter value continues to increase. I use it to find out what's happening, meet up with people, get random insights into how people are doing, find new people. It all works well. There are many different use cases and one tool does not have to do them all. - Rachel Clarke

i couldn't agree more! - lilian

Rachel: "It all works well"? Really? Twitter? - Jim Connolly

Rachel, I agree with you. I just don't think Twitter works well for conversations, that's all. I use FriendFeed and Facebook for that. I use Twitter for different purposes, and I agree it does still have value. - Jesse Stay

sometimes i think of Automattic's intense debate, but well friendfeed is intense debate, such a experience was never had on blogs, the commenting, liking, and so fast it propagates, even disqus commenting systems can't achieve what we have here on friendfeed, but i can't just throw away twitter, twitter still is good, true for the serious types it's word limit, reply system is a bit of... more... - testbeta

I would love to have FriendFeed as the commenting system on my blog. - Chris Nixon

Chris, there are a few plugins that do that. I haven't tried them though. - Jesse Stay

Chris: Check out what Scoble's doing with FF on building43.com - Jim Connolly

Jim: yes. It works well for what I want it to do (I'm ignoring the ongoing issues with the DDOS). It's a free tool that adds far more value than it costs me to wait for odd outage. - Rachel Clarke

Just checked your Twitter account and now understand exactly what you are saying. - Jim Connolly

Jesse: agree, I use Facebook, Friendfeed, blogs, comments etc, all for different things. I even use the phone as a phone occasionally to talk with people ;-) But the assumption that one tool/service can do everything - and should do everything - is something I have a problem with. If something does not work for a person, don't use it. - Rachel Clarke

The twitter ecoverse is cool, can do Psychological Profiles, can do Social Network Analysis. All those services that spawned as a result are amazing. I am also amazed at how dense Asians Languages are on Twitter, think about it they get about 60% more per tweet. - Robert Higgins

Ben: at this point I am not sure what Twitter could do to win back my love. I will use it just like I use AT&T and United Airlines. I have very little love for those even though I use them frequently. Twitter wins because it is simple and flat and has great clients. I wouldn't cry if it disappeared, though. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

So why do you hate it? - Raanan Avidor

You want it to die? Such an odd statement. I have met so many great people through Twitter, and the news information I can find through search or news agencies or even people who are newshounds are amazing. I know it's not perfect and the last few weeks have definately proved that, and the spam is just awful. But to want to kill it, what a strong statement. - PC Easy from twhirl

Twitter is not abot writing blog posts or having conversations, its about small pieces of information being communicated to anyone who wants to listen. You do not have to listen, if you want a conversation use a forum or FriendFeed, use WordPress for blog posts. Stop trying to make Twitter into something it is not designed to be. - Darren Rollett

I really used to like Twitter, still do sometimes. What I don't like is the Twitter hype. I don't seem able to turn on any media channel these days without reading/hearing or watching about it. Even the BBC reported that Twitter was under attack recently on the main BBC news. FFS come on, there must be more happening in the world than a micro blogging site with a few million users... more... - Nick Bristow

If you owned twitter would you sell to google? - cheapsuits from iPhone

Robert, Atleast something positive could come out of it. If Twitter sells to Google they might(though its not guaranteed) make it opensource and then a federation of twitter server(ala wave servers) can co-exist happily and that way we'll own our stuff(as Anil Dash and other points out). Or they might integrate it in Wave framework. Not that people are not gonna complain about it but thats a different topic. - Abhishek Sharma

Surely an improvement in the service would be a more positive wish? - Chris Nixon

Say what you want but something with the architecture of friendfeed is far more conversational then twitter could ever be. - cheapsuits

I don't know why people think Twitter is the place to converse. It's really not built for that. I find myself enjoying the flow of conversations more on Facebook and FriendFeed. - Naomi Williams

Self pimping? Hmmm... Perhaps not for all of us. And besides, self-pimping isn't limited to twitter. - @JonAston

PS - Maybe it's just me, but you seem bitter lately. Hope you turn that around for yourself. - @JonAston

Jon: You are right. People pimp on FriendFeed too; as I say in my new book.... :-) - Jim Connolly

@jim, they will do anywhere, this is human nature, they do even in real life, so why not in virtual one? - abdellah

Abdellah: Absolutely. - Jim Connolly

"(Twitter) It's a horrid place to try to communicate anything other than a bit of self pimping." AMEN - Alejandro

Personally I wish Google would buy both Facebook and Twitter so they could both die. - Brian Sullivan

@brian, hey where could I read to you then?!! - abdellah

@Frank S. Google Wave will only be valid if you actually have other friends/collegues who use Google Wave. Otherwise you'll be using it with the *crickets* - Naomi Williams

Oh yeah -- forgot that due to circumstances beyond our control FF is now Facebook. ;-) - Brian Sullivan

oh yeah , they share the same vision, they got the same perception... - abdellah

I hope the FaceBook people will take comments like these to heart. I do like twitter but the functionality FriendFeed brought was the next generation in stream notification. - Chris Jackson

Mark: Yeah - all I need is a title. Oh, and a book....and the time to write one....then I will be pimping like a pro! - Jim Connolly

Wow Robert, I was thinking this the past few days and could never bring it to words...well done - Braden Douglass

I was gonna call the Funky Phantom. (That really dates me.) - Jim Connolly

Robert, I challenge you to stop using Twitter for a month and then blog about the experience. And that includes hiding all Tweets in FF. - Mike Doeff from iPhone

Lets face it, Twitter was built as an update service - a big Internet megaphone. The natural transition has been from update service to marketing service. Big Internet Megaphone. It's good at that, but it's not at conversations nor at discovery. The larger problem is people still approach Twitter like a true social engagement tool - and it's simply not. The disconnect between perception and reality results in the poor adoption numbers and other soft metrics. - AJ Kohn

twitter is noise. filter it and you can find some gold. imho, that's beyond mere self-pimpage - Rob Schieber

i'd love to meetup with fellows and see what api scraping is going on - know where threads are for that? - Rob Schieber

Idk, This seems so much better then twitter. - SeanParnell

It does have a lot of noise, granted - but if it went away now, I'm not sure where everyone would run to. Facebook is too silly, Linkedin is too stolid, and everything else is too fractured for me to communicate with all the people I want to in a single shot. Guess I'd end up doing everything through ping.fm after all. - Ciaoenrico

Wow, Isn't online chit-chat such a fuss? :) - SeanParnell

Robert, just a week or two you were saying that Twitter is beating FriendFeed because of scanability http://friendfeed.com/scoblei.... And you had lots of complaints about the FriendFeed user interface. You also talked about how Twitter was much better after you un-followed everyone and hand picked who you're following. I have to ask, what has changed in the past few days to make you say that the service should die? Feels like you're flip flopping. - Mike Doeff

Can't you apply for extended API limits? - Tristan Seligmann

love the single post/status page, i mean like this: http://twitter.com/twitter... - testbeta

I noticed that in the past two weeks, the tweet intensity has greatly decreased from all my follows in Twitter. Granted, I'm not following too many, but the ones I do follow have traditionally tweeted a lot each day. Is this a trend (has Twitter become a has been) or is this simply a coincidental anomaly? - Jeff Sayre

Robert I find myself on friendfeed more these days - (jeff)isageek

@brian would you consider myspace if both facebook and twitter die?!!(ps: sorry I forget the LOL) - abdellah

Myspace -- don't know. I haven't really tried or paid attention to it. But probably not -- isn't it Facebook like? Maybe usenet? ;-) - Brian Sullivan

brian, let forget all those techie and go irc :) - abdellah

IMO, people who don't like the limitations of Twitter and whine about it hampering them are using it wrong. Twitter is not a place to pimp your blog or drive traffic to your site. It is not an SEO tool. It's not a place for you to compete in order to get more 'followers'. If you've ever tried to do any of these things, or if you ever followed more than a few hundred people, then yes, no... more... - Otto

Well said Otto - Chris Nixon

Jesse Stay: you should stop complaining so much about twitter when you build an entire business based on their lack of functionality and other issues. - Mihai Secasiu

Mihai, I'm not complaining - they can do what they want. As I said I really want them to succeed. It's a matter of fact that they do have their flaws - I'm hoping to help them fix those, assuming they're listening at all. What are you doing to help Twitter get better? - Jesse Stay

it is like twitter if for what,where, when and friendfeed is for why, how - testbeta

Mike: just because I use a service doesn't mean I love it. I use ATT and United all the time and they suck too. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

And yes Twitter has some good things about it. Doesn't mean it is all good. Personally it is overused and overhyped and YES I am partially responsible. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Apostol I get value out of Twitter. You aren't listening. I get value out of AT&T too but it COULD be so much more. Chris I tried to be positive but Twitter just doesn't respond to positivity. Plus they are cynical AT BEST about their users. Read the Twittergate documents to see just how cynical they are. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Twitter was just there at the right time. It's not the best solution to the problem (microblogging), but it's good ~enough~. - Trent Hamm

You seriously think Twitter will die once it gets bought by a 'bigger' company? - Mike Shields

Mike: do you use Dodgeball? It was bought by Google. So was Jaiku. - Robert Scoble

Trent: did you just call Twitter the Microsoft of microblogging? Yeah, that's sorta what I was trying to say too! ;-) - Robert Scoble

I just find it amazing that all the early adopters get really snobby about Twitter now it is getting more mainstream. There is something snobby about people's attitude to Facebook as well. I'm not a fan of Facebook but I know more people who use Facebook than use Twitter or Friendfeed combined. Even my mum has a Facebook account but she'd never be on Twitter or Friendfeed. Twitter... more... - Paul Nash

I liked Pownce. I wonder what SixApart has cooking up for them. So there's really no chance for Plurk to make a comeback and take back the community? With all the outage problems Twitter has, I would think Plurk would try to capitalize on that. Guess not. - John Wang

now if the Google Reader team could just get their new commenting system streamlined and real-time ... :) - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Paul: it's not hard to understand if you are in our shoes. Here's why. When a company is young and struggling to get noticed, they love having early adopters. After all, that's the ONLY WAY a company gets to the next stage. I've never seen a company go straight to Oprah stage without getting early adopters excited. Then once the company gets enough traction they usually start mistreating the early adopters. In this case Twitter stabbed them in the back. Leo Laporte, for instance ... - Robert Scoble

...got me excited about Twitter and was THE REASON it was the big huge deal at that 2007 SXSW. He had more followers than Mashable last year. But did he get put on the Suggested User List? No. So now Mashable has more than a million and Leo has a knife in his back. And you think it's amazing that early adopters turn their backs on Twitter? Really now. - Robert Scoble

I don't see how Leo has a knife in his back. There was no preconceived notion that anyone would be added to that list. Who cares? He was fine before that list was created, and he can be just as fine now, and just as engaging. - Andru Edwards

Andru: when he was hyping up the service and telling his users to use it, he was getting something in return: being at the top of the follower lists. When Twitter artificially put its own people at the top of the follower lists, and handed out grants of followers (worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, by the way -- Mashable has changed its entire business to be Twitter centric) they specifically dissed Leo and many others. Most of whom won't point it out in public. - Robert Scoble

Sadly true. I'm in much the same boat -- Twitter is a necessity for professionals and bloggers to stay on top of things, but other socialnets like Brightkite and FF are light years beyond it, which doesn't look to be changing any time soon. Don't even get me started on the spammers and the get-rich-quick'ers. - Ryan Meader

But before the SUL was released, didn't Leo abandon Twitter in favor of Jaiku, due to Twitter having "Twit" as part of its name? Just saying, if I owned a list that I had complete control over, and someone showed that behavior towards me (whether it was right or wrong, I am not judging), I would think twice before putting them on a list that will result in many people seeing they they... more... - Andru Edwards

I can't agree with you more, Robert. - Jon Ursenbach

Scobe: I very much disagree that it is about self pimping. Perhaps your senses are mush because you follow too many? I absolutely love getting that link to a new article or research, or to get a tweet from that celeb that makes me think and provides insight into a new world. I also use it as a research tool, for exploratory purposes. Twitter, as you know very well, is about what you make it, and that is a tenuous notion that really is influenced by who you follow. - Chad Gesser

Andru: again, the list did NOT exist in the days when we were hyping up Twitter. So, there was a "promise" to early adopters that if they invested time in the service they could be at the top of the follower lists. Sort of how PlayFoursquare is today promising users that they can become mayors of places they frequent more than anyone else. What Twitter did was the equivilent of PlayFoursquare telling everyone that their "mayorship" doesn't matter anymore and that Oprah is now mayor of everywhere. - Robert Scoble

Chad: one thing you have to remember about me is that I see that Twitter has 1,001 uses. Stop seeing the world as black and white. This is one post I'm making about Twitter among thousands. Translation: I already agreed with you. But you have to admit that many people use Twitter for self promotion. - Robert Scoble

Andru: and anyway, the SUL is hardly the only reason to diss Twitter. Twitter still goes down all the time, it still has stupid rate limits. It still can't block spam effectively. It still has no friend management. It still has no features that didn't exist a year ago. And it is, in many respects, behaving worse. I'm hearing from developers that Twitter is becoming more closed, not more open (to monetize) and we're seeing them pick winners before the marketplace is done (bit.ly anyone?) - Robert Scoble

The nice thing about Twitter is that it keeps your message short and to the point. Friendfeed is great but it doesn't lend itself well to an external app out of the browser. Also FriendFeed and any of these services you don't own your content - Seth Goldstein

Seth: bing! So, back to the blog we will go. Except, why are we still here? ;-) - Robert Scoble

Awww Twitter the "me" network :) - Wayne Sutton from iPhone

Anyone tried Streamy? - cheapsuits

because the interraction is in real time - abdellah

Wayne: retweet me. :-) abdellah: I thought it was because of all the sex. ;-) - Robert Scoble

that was my expectation too ;) - abdellah

Robert: But what do you want from these companies ? Chaps like you give them the oxygen of publicity they need and they court you and then when they become successful you suddenly start to criticise them. Friendfeed has become successful (in great part to your endless plugging of it) and the founders will now go on to make money through their company being taken over by Facebook. You,... more... - Paul Nash

Scoble: no doubt....I can deal with the self promotion, the e marketing and spam garbage though to me is what has gooootttt to go - Chad Gesser

Paul: my role in life is to use what will be, not what is. I don't turn on many companies, but Twitter isn't one that dealt with early adopters on good faith. - Robert Scoble

nick: I explained why above. - Robert Scoble

Is there a "social media" company that has dealt with early adopters in "good faith"? Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr I suspect don't qualify ? Any that do? - Brian Sullivan

all platforms seem to have self pimpering styles, why so passionate against twitter? Objectional question, not one of rhetoric. - nick tadd

Brian: I didn't know that any of those have actively dissed their best early adopters. Facebook kicked me off, but only because I broke the TOS. It's always been straight up with me. Same with Flickr, although I do watch Thomas Hawk's talk about their censorship. - Robert Scoble

none as brian says, they all deal with them, and "the earlier adopter" contribute to their evolution until they sell (sorry) - abdellah

nick: because it's so prevalent there. "Look at my blog post about xxx" is almost a staple on Twitter. It's a new RSS reader. Which is fine, I use it too for that! :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, I think you may have the makings for one of your future blogs here. Perhaps you do it for that reason? ;) The thing about Twitter is always going to be its LBE. It's a mainstream LBE to Social Media. For that very reason its perfect for business, government, and non profit to take public temperature and promote. The other "noise" is the "MV", the "mainstream voice". The conversation is 4 way.(and yes sometimes only 1 way) but there it is and its not going to go away any time soon. - Melanie Reed

Yes, indeed, Twitter is the Microsoft of microblogging. It's good enough, but not the best - but it has the huge advantage that everyone is using it, so you have to use it for compatibility reasons. - Trent Hamm

DAMN Robert I HATE that you are right on this one!!!!! - Arleen Boyd

Hopefully you use it for positive self pimping and not for negative pimping... which is inevitable - Kevin Burrell

Alex, they are taking mobile seriously - they sold to Facebook. :-) - Jesse Stay

What makes people think Facebook or Twitter is all-conquering? There's a new generation coming through, and they aren't using these services. It's very important not to get sucked in by the hype of a service you use. Fanboys will talk up the positives and ignore the negatives, giving you a skewed message. The truth is somewhere in the massive grey area in between. - Chris Nixon

The new generation uses Facebook a lot, but not Twitter. - Steph (sh_skew) from email

Let me say that it is not twitter per se. It is the population of twitter to make it the place it is at the moment. Whenever there is a (free entrance) place crowded of people, there will be spambots to pollute it. - funkyboy from Posty

Twitter is just a temporary solution for a quick mixture of instant messaging + status updates + chat forum. - Bora Wiemann

Just having a discussion today that Twitter will eventually go bankrupt when the hype is over - Khuram Hussain

I don't agree with you Robert. Twitter is easy to use, succinct and versatile. I've made multiple very meaningful connections through my use of twitter. I do like friendfeed's threaded conversations which are great but in a way it only helps those who have big followings like yourself, because people are more apt to comment on your thread than say mine because they know the conversation... more... - Lon Cohen

For example - how do I message you directly so you know I'm speaking to you (i.e. Twitter @ reply) but all your followers and my followers know that we're having a conversation in Twitter back and forth so that they can follow and interject when they want. Everytime we do that we have to start a brand new discussion thread and I have to "tell" you somehow that I'm talking to you. Twitter is like email/phone conversations and friendfeed is like collective blogging/commenting. - Lon Cohen

Amen, Robert. - Lindsay

The power and beauty of twitter originate from limitation. Think of it as conversation haiku. - Brendan

Watch Divx Movies online free http://bit.ly/zhGGl8 - Can Karaca

Robert Scoble

I just spoke with FriendFeed cofounder Paul Buchheit. Did you know that he promised family that FriendFeed would continue? More:

August 16, 2009 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

immaterial, Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど, deceth and 272 other people liked this

He told me they messed up by not communicating better last week. The deal happened so fast that they didn't pay attention to everything. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

276 more comments

I like how this is starting - Robert DeBord

o0o0o0 - Mark

as its own service? - Lee

you are the one who keeps proclaiming its death - Mark

That's what Compaq said when they purchased DEC. (for those of you old enough to remember) - RobinDotNet

A promise is not a guarantee. - Amit Morson

Such a tease, Robert. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

More smoke-blowing. I don't care of Paul swore on the graves of his ancestors. Actions speak louder than words. Some vague promise to a group of people I'm excluded from doesn't do much to assuage my unease. - Akiva

Akiva, you're right, but it's not smoke. - Louis Gray

Okay, Louis, true. I retract that first sentence. The rest of it, however, I'm sticking by. - Akiva

Akiva: well I feel a lot better about things today. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Continue just as it is? Or with key changes? - Karma Martell

I would expect them to post more on this topic soon - on their personal blogs. - Louis Gray

If that's what Paul wants to promise us, he needs to release some kind of official statement, not send a message through Robert. - Rochelle

Soon. - Louis Gray

I bet you as part of the contract, its in there not to shut this down - Stephen Pickering

Rochelle: there are too many unknowns to make a definitive statement yet. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

keeping my hopes up. but i do remember working at a few radio stations that were bought, we'd get a memo saying 'the format is not going to change' about three weeks before we switched to spanish. i think there is just too much here for ff to vanish. keep the dream alive! - michael sean wright

How can he when it`s lost all of its autonomy? Supplanted by Facebook, bought outright no? - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

It couldve been part of the deal not to let the site die - Stephen Pickering

Robert, like you said, one can hope. However both of us know how corporates work and it takes one small decision from share holders to close down the service, no matter what. - Nir Ben Yona

They want to get to Facebook and get those unknowns nailed down first. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Holden and Rochelle, etc., let's be patient. If you see the post I put up last night and add Robert's comments here, we should be feeling a lot better today than we did on Monday. - Louis Gray

Robert, all right. Well, after my initial freak-out over this, I've gone into complete wait-and-see mode. More of these vague promises and 'coming soon' messages don't really do much for me. When someone say something definitive, then I'll be there to consume it. The rest of this just doesn't add up for much. - Akiva

That was a great post Louis - Stephen Pickering

Thanks, Stephen. I thought it was important. - Louis Gray

Akiva, exactly, waiting for official word. - Kol Tregaskes

Nir: the way it was told to me contractually it can't be closed down anytime soon. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I hope they don't change it so you have to have a Facebook account to use it. I have one, but share it with very few; I use Twitter and FF for everyone. I want to be able to use it the way I do now. - RobinDotNet

Like any takeover/merger, some details just take time to work out. Hopefully FF can stay around in some form and help make FB better. We'll just have to wait and see. Thanks, Robert, for the info. - Mark Edwards

I agree, we haven`t seen anything substantive in the way of contract etc but fingers crossed. - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

But doesn't mean it won't be shutdown at some point? - Kol Tregaskes

And, Louis, I didn't see your post from last night but I'll read it as soon as I get back from the store. - Akiva

was Pownce a bit like Friendfeed? I never used it - Mark

I can't get my hopes up when Facebook is in the picture. :-( - Jannifer @wordsforliving

Stable Door and Horse comes to mind. - Kevin J Hatton

The fact that the FF folks haven't yet said "This is how we want it, so this is how it's going to be" is just evidence that they don't have the final say on the matter. If it's subject to some additional authority/approval, nothing is certain at this point. - Ken Sheppardson

Kol: it won't be shut down anytime soon. He was quite clear about that. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Kol, the truth is they work for Facebook now, and therefore, FriendFeed can/will change, and it may not change 100% how you and I want. It may be part of Facebook's site later, and it may not. But Facebook is changing from what we know of it now to something new where they overlap. - Louis Gray

In other words that was in the contract. Makes sense, since they were hesitant anyway - Stephen Pickering

Robert, OK but maybe at some point though. - Kol Tregaskes

I sure would like it if FF continued indefinitely. - Jason Nunnelley

Kol: nothing in life is guaranteed. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Patience is a good thing. That said, if FriendFeed wasn't growing at a rate much higher than it has been, something would have to change. You don't bottle up such talent and experience and have it work on a product that was losing. - Louis Gray

Robert, What about death and taxes? - RobinDotNet

Good to hear. I am sure they will take time to decide what exactly to do with FF. How to integrate them together. What to do etc. FF the R&D for FB I think it could be - Robert Anderson

Robert, true. All a bit vague still though. - Kol Tregaskes

Scoble: encourage Facebook to keep FriendFeed as a premium brand. Let them tie it to Facebook data or whatever, but keep the system separate. - Gary

Louis, right, this gives them legitimacy and exposure - Stephen Pickering

Kol... if they wanted to grow they way they "deserved" to grow, this place would have changed underneath your feet to something you might hate. This is one way to put real capital and people behind the site as it is now. - Louis Gray

If this thing grows by leaps and bounds, FB is not going to close it - Stephen Pickering

Mark: anytime a blogger says something is dead ALL that means is that it is less interesting than yesterday. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Over time, we will learn, Sam. It's a classical marketing/engineering decision. Do you build for the current user base, or the potential user base? With change. some were bound to leave anyway. - Louis Gray

Louis, not arguing that at all. My point was about shutting it down or not. I'm at the wait-and-see stage, waiting for more news from FF. - Kol Tregaskes

And any time I write a headline that says it's NOT dead... maybe I know what I'm talking about. :) - Louis Gray

But this service grows more useful the more users there are - Stephen Pickering

Something needs to happen. Twitter is useless now - maybe a new denial of service attack. I would love to see the Friendfeed technology spread to the mass user base that Facebook has. - Frode Stenstrøm

Well, at least he acknowledged they messed up. - Rodfather

Frode: that was what Paul told me too. He wants the tech here to be used by everyone. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I don't understand why Google didn't buy it instead. - Jannifer @wordsforliving

Rod, FriendFeed has no PR or Marketing. Maybe if they did, this would have been handled differently. Some things come naturally, and others are hard. But I bet you will see a lot more soon. - Louis Gray

I've heard the same from another founder, Robert. - Anne Bouey

Franz, no official word, just wait for an announcement from FF. - Kol Tregaskes

They didn't want to work for google again. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Makes you wonder about a due diligence ckecklist and the speed of getting this deal done - courtney benson

Kinda why they left. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Right, look at Google Reader. They don't know how to do social - Stephen Pickering

It's all wonky and hard to understand - Stephen Pickering

But GR is going in that direction. - Kol Tregaskes

Companies come and companies go. They can go by closing their doors or by being acquired. Only time will tell whether FriendFeed has come and gone. - Jeff Sayre

GR is trying, but its all wonky and totally un understandable - Stephen Pickering

Oh. I just don't trust Facebook at all and can barely stand using it after being here. - Jannifer @wordsforliving

Jannifer, I think we have to look beyond the caricatures of people like Zuckerberg, and recognize that he too may want the same things we do. Facebook is growing up and I bet FriendFeed and its team is a big part of that. - Louis Gray

Louis, hope so. - Kol Tregaskes

courtney: Paul talked about that too. He said once the team made the decision they knew it had to be closed overnight to prevent it from leaking. - Robert Scoble

Louis I think its a perfect marriage, genius engineers + genius Marketers - Stephen Pickering

Well, he didn't quite say "prevent it from leaking" but he said "it's important to do it all at once." I knew what he meant, though, that it had to be done fast to keep things from getting crazy, like they do once decisions like this get taken into public sphere. - Robert Scoble

I am sure paul is truthful in that he would like for it to go that way, but this is a M&A situation, and even if it is written into the agreement, there are a million ways around it. At the end of the day, shareholders make the rules in a majority vote. If ff isn't integrated in fb somehow, I fail to see how it benefits fb. - Erik Boles from iPhone

Kol: Paul was emphatic that Facebook is a far more interesting company at this time in both company's history. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Somehow this doesn't sound too convincing. If Friendfeed has been losing a LOT of regular users because of their deal with Facebook, they'd be concerned. Friendfeed is likely to get you to speak on their behalf, since you are their most popular user. Maybe Paul is trying to convince you, so that he can indirectly convince others too. That might save an early end to Friendfeed brought on by the rapid loss of users. - K N Ajit Narayan

I totally agree with Paul, by the way. Facebook is a much more interesting company to join right now than Google is. - Robert Scoble

Facebook = Microsoft 2.0 - scott anderson

Robert: Did he mention anything about Mashable reporting an acquisition had been talked about since `07? - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

YAY! thanks Scoble for letting us know - i feel alot better today! - Chris Clayton

Hey, Microsoft had a decent run - Stephen Pickering

Louis: yeah, Zuckerberg is a lot smarter and a lot more down to earth than most of the press gives him credit for. He's always been straight up with me. Much better than other companies have treated me. - Robert Scoble

And that's even including getting kicked off of Facebook for 24 hours. - Robert Scoble

@ Scott, LOL Facebook = Microsoft 2.0! I see your point, but it far surpasses Microsoft Live attempt at a social network. - Nakeva Corothers

Erik: technologies that have great audiences don't get killed. If anything will kill it, it will be us. By leaving. - Robert Scoble

Robert, cool. Well if they can ditch a lot of their annoying features, like this FB Lite might be, then I might be interested in moving over with all the FF features implemented but I just can't work with FB in it's currently state. I had another go this weekend and still didn't like it. But I'd be even happier if FF stayed here. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

this is gonna be an interesting story to follow for sure. For now I am just using friendfeed the way I have been and see what comes out down the road. life is about changes. - (jeff)isageek

sofarsoShawn: I don't know what you're talking about regarding Mashable. - Robert Scoble

Maybe I missed it earlier in this thread but why can't they just come out and say something directly to the community? Obviously a lot of people are concerned and anxious about it... Why do we have to hear second-hand? And why has it all been so vague? No news is not necessarily good news in cases like this. - Lindsay

Robert, Leo called himself Leo Scoble today because he deleted his 5000 FB friends and moved them over to his fan page - Stephen Pickering

jeff: yeah. Visiting Facebook is going to get more interesting. He also said that the first month at Facebook (which starts Monday) will be all about learning about Facebook's code. So, no new features will come quickly. - Robert Scoble

Ok. I hope Facebook changes a LOT so it's more tolerable. Although I don't like it, I need to set up a good Facebook page for business so I can remain competitive. - Jannifer @wordsforliving

I hope they do right by you. You brought them to the party. I hope that gets recognized somehow monetarily. - Jim Posner

Saying that it might be shut down at some point doesn't tell us anything new, though; after all, any site might be shut down at some point due to going out of business etc. - Tristan Seligmann

When anything comes out of this it was always going to be long term. - Kol Tregaskes

Can i just add - Paul never said friendfeed was going to die in the first place... instead they said the complete opposite - "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team." - Chris Clayton

sofarsoShawn, yes, Facebook had been talking to FriendFeed since 2007. - Louis Gray

Lindsay, I bet the FriendFeed team has a very busy week and maybe you hear from them on all this soon. - Louis Gray

Robert: "technologies that have great audiences don't get killed..." oh, come on, you know better than that! My dad worked at IBM so I've been seeing tech companies kill great stuff that their customers liked for most of my life!!!! - Fred Davis

Jim, Scoble has gotten no money from FriendFeed (nor have I). Neither one of us expects to, as that would change the relationship. - Louis Gray

Fred, right, the Innovators Dilemma, but in this case its cost of running a website is halving every year - Stephen Pickering

Louis: yes, but Paul told me that when I last was in the office they hadn't yet decided to go to Facebook. Everything happened in the past two weeks. I think you even walked in on one of their key decision points. He said they worked all weekend long on the agreement. - Robert Scoble

Fred: nothing in life is guaranteed, yeah, you're right. But there's no business reason to turn this off anytime soon. If we all leave there will be. - Robert Scoble

Robert: e.g., consumer company changes focus to biz or gets acquired... new company direction leads to consumer products getting killed despite popularity... that's just one of many ways that good tech gets killed all the time!!! - Fred Davis

No disagreement on that at all, Robert. I know I walked in on something big, and that was my mistake for not calling ahead. - Louis Gray

Seems their valuation stood on Roberts shoulders to some degree. At the least, a public thanks would have been nice. - Jim Posner

Jason: i know, thats what got me freaked out too - i just thought i would add it in incase anyone missed it :) and because im a little bored! lol - Chris Clayton

Fred, can you give any examples? Any software I used to use that is no longer available was replaced with something better. - RobinDotNet

No business reason that WE understand... 'cuz we don;t go to Facebook board meetings ;-) Facebook may have their own agenda... in fact, I assume they do... - Fred Davis

Jim: I do this because I love it, not because I expect thanks or goodies. - Robert Scoble

Why even bring this up if they can't talk about it? Nothing has changed just more innuendo and smoke and mirrors and a lot of 'what ifs'. Wake me when there's something concrete. - Derrick

Robert: when you talk to paul next, can you push him into doing a public announcement on it all? Just give him a nudge in the right direction! :) - Chris Clayton

RobinDotNet... god, too many to count! First one I was bummed about was in '85 when Musicworks was the best MIDI program on the Mac... got acquired by some jerky game company that decided it wasn't a game and stranded all the users! Yeah, eventually new better stuff came along... but that didn't do the users of the current any good at that time... - Fred Davis

Derrick: sorry, I totally disagree. I didn't know that contractually they can't kill the service anytime soon. - Robert Scoble

Derrick, there is more than smoke. - Louis Gray

It makes sense, they had leverage to make that deal - Stephen Pickering

Fred -- Okay, so that was one that was 24 years ago. Have any more recent examples? If you can't think of any, then they obviously weren't that important. - RobinDotNet

Because they were hesitant, they had the leverage to make that part of the deal. Makes total sense - Stephen Pickering

Um, apple buys leading music sequencing package and kills of PC version because, um, they want to force you to use a mac... come on, the list is endless!!! Companies screw customers by killing good products for their own reasons all the time.... - Fred Davis

Fred, you keep saying the list is endless, but the only one you can name is one that came out about 2 years after the 1st Mac, 24 years ago. I'm just saying.... - RobinDotNet

Fred, but what if part of the deal was not to kill it? - Stephen Pickering

Derrick: believe me, Louis and I have been talking and concerned about the messaging coming out of this deal more than anyone. We both invested a lot of our time/careers here. Louis has been talking with the team too and that's where his post came from yesterday. I suggest you read it and read between the lines too. - Robert Scoble

Understand Robert, Really not about your motivation, just good manners in my opinion for Friendfeed to thank you publically. Maybe they have and I missed it. I think you did more for promoting the service than the founders. - Jim Posner

now, what facebook decides to do with friendfeed... who knows... Yahoo kept Flickr going... so far... but that seems like the exception... no one's really using jabber any more, but it lives on in the upcoming Wave and as XMPP at Google... - Fred Davis

Jim: thanks, appreciate it. Paul did thank me in the interview I did with him right after the announcement was made. - Robert Scoble

If there is a contractual obligation on FB's part to keep FF running, the obvious question is what does this contract state and does it give a duration. Hopefully we'll hear more later. - Kol Tregaskes

Why? What would be the point? I respect you two enough and all that you do in the world of social media and that's fine. I want a place I can converse, post my pictures, air my gripes, and continue to establish the friends I've made via Friendfeed. Will I be able to do that or not? I'm so tired of the conjecture. Some of us, are just people who love the service and more than anything, very simply, we just want to be able to utilize it. - Derrick

Kol: I call it the "Paul is sleeping on the couch for a month" clause. ;-) - Robert Scoble

LOL, Robert. - Kol Tregaskes

For a company like Facebook, I would imagine that the consolidation of branding advantage would lead me to suspect that even if Friendfeed is kept going in some way, it will be re-branded as Facebook... just like Longs, Wamu, and Wells Fargo are going through right in Facebook's backyard. - Fred Davis

Derrick, this is the place to do that. :) - Louis Gray

"For now". ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Throws sheep at Kol - Louis Gray

Hehe, Louis. - Kol Tregaskes

The other main issue I have is that, now we are creating content for Facebook. Facebook owns our data. For some reason I didn't mind Paul and his team, they were blacksheep. If I wanted to make Facebook richer I would type in Facebook in the URL. I dont want to make Facebook richer. - Robert Higgins

What are the alternatives to FF? Isn't there Streamy, Plurk, SocialThing? - Eric

Louis, I'll be counting sheep soon, need sleep. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Of course, since I'm hoping Grabbit will replace Friendfeed for most people, I'm more than a little biased, and that makes me care a lot less about what happens to Friendfeed... even though I love the service, and hope Facebook keeps it going. We're already planning to support Friendfeed in Grabbit, and the new Friendfeed API is awesome, so who knows what the extent of the disruption... more... - Fred Davis

Sam, I know there is something. I am upset, because I wanted to buy FF someday! :) - Eric

There has to be an alternative. - Eric

Jason: too early to know that for sure. I'd start with the API. From what my friends are telling me who are good developers the API is actually very well thought out. - Robert Scoble

There was an alternative, but I think it shut down. - Eric

There is no need to replace FriendFeed. That there are options to decentralize our info is great, but I'm not going anywhere. - Louis Gray

It was called SocialThing. - Eric

Fred: I just don't like Facebook's service for WHAT I DO. For my wife? It's freaking awesome. And the execs there have always treated me very well (Zuckerberg walked around Davos with me, while every other journalist was drooling over the opportunity to do that -- he's a lot nicer and smarter than most people give him credit for). - Robert Scoble

Eric & Jason: my new web thingie Grabbit, will do everything Friendfeed does and more, so much more... it's still in alpha, and the beta won't be out until next month... but already the alpha features better Facebook and integration than Friendfeed, IMHO... so, check out grabbit.net and ask to be on the beta list, and we'll keep you posted... - Fred Davis

It was called Rejaw, and it was shut down. - Eric

Fred: can't wait to see more about Grabbit. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Hey dude, I TOTALLY agree with you about Facebook! I've been telling people for a while that I think Facebook is in the process of Yahoo-ing themselves... and that ain't no compliment! - Fred Davis

FriendFeed family or real family? - Mona Nomura

FF is crazy to sell. They should've sold to Google, what were they thinking? - Eric

louis i agree with you. i am not going anywhere either. this is the place i love and think is awesome - (jeff)isageek

Robert, is Paul referencing his FriendFeed family or real family? (not expanding thread - too long) - Mona Nomura

Mona: real family AND FriendFeed family. They are one and the same if you look at it the right way. - Robert Scoble

Sam: what do you mean "intergrate email" friendfeed already has email features so it depends on what you mean... - Chris Clayton

Same here, Jeff. If FF is still around I'm not budging. It it goes FB on us then it's bye-bye. - Kol Tregaskes

Google Wave is like FF? - Eric

Sam, got that in Grabbit... email, RSS, blog alerts, news alerts, and more... plus the coolest friend management stuff to help you sort all that out, not just the messages, updates, and alerts... - Fred Davis

Mona: if you want me to do something for you, talk Maryam into it first. :-) - Robert Scoble

Eric: just like the others you mentioned, it has 1 or 2 similar features, but completely different! - Chris Clayton

and twitter, facebook, friendfeed, etc., of course... we're starting a signup on grabbit.net... - Fred Davis

I used to use FeedEachOther which was like FF. - Eric

Now there is Google Reader. - Eric

Google reader is improving, but still has a long way to go. On the social side. - Bluesun 2600

That's the one thing I've always liked about FriendFeed - the founders (and staff) interacts with the community, as do their family members. The community members were treated like family, too. :) Whatever which way, hopefully Facebook will integrate FriendFeed's functions to carry on the "feel" over there as well. Personally, I have the more the merrier approach! BTW see you Thursday, Robert! Gnomedex sold out! - Mona Nomura

I'm not up to speed with this discussion, but FB must have bought FF to merge FF tech into FB. FF for everybody, not just Scoble and tech friends. - Zato Gibson

Sam: i was actually looking for a way to have the subjects of my emails show up on my friendfeed dashboard awhile ago - do you mean like that? Because that would be awesome! - Chris Clayton

i would love to see friendfeed get a killer mobile app...maybe improve on fftogo a little more - (jeff)isageek

Google Reader is my current alternative btw. I've found the share box today and now using it like FF's share box. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Google Reader is great, but it's not built to replace FriendFeed. It's not an aggregator, for one. - Louis Gray

one thing is I don't think you can share images from pages as easily as FF's share. - Bluesun 2600

Life2front has anyone heard of it? - Eric

i think you can look at two services that were bought up and never really changed all this time in flickr and delicous so hey maybe friendfeed stays around as it is...maybe just integrates a bit more or something with facebook - (jeff)isageek

Well you can put your services into a folder then create a bundle and share it. But no not quite like FF. It lacks a lot of features and Comments view is awful. - Kol Tregaskes

and look how long google had grand central before they really even started doing anything with it. - (jeff)isageek

So Friendfeed stays on as a side project instead of being abandoned. Does that really make a difference in the grand scheme of things? The service isn't going to grow by leaps and bounds either in audience or functionality now. I guess a slow death is easier for people to deal with than a quick one. - Dare Obasanjo

Sam: i love that idea... email services dont have RSS (not that i can find anyway) i was looking for 5 hours for one afew months ago so i could put it in a private group to show up on my FF stream. but i ended up being dissapointed! - Chris Clayton

I hope we all converge over to Google Wave and that some clever sod codes a FF-type service built on the Wave protocol. :-) GWave is great fun to use! - Kol Tregaskes

Kol: are you going to send me a download link? :P im still waiting for it from the 'sneak peek' survey i filled out AGES ago! - Chris Clayton

Whhhhhhat how`d you try it already? - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

Dare: there are lots of things that don't get many new features but are still very popular. FriendFeed still has way more features and is better technology than anything else I've seen in the marketplace. Maybe someone will eclipse it, but that won't happen soon and, yes, a slow death is definitely better than a quick one. Why? Cause you can make plans and change your behavior. - Robert Scoble

Download link for GWave? Don't work like that. ;-) Just wait until 30th September, Chris. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Kol: but september is too long to wait :( blame scoble for making me a social media addict! :) - Chris Clayton

Hehe, it will fly by. - Kol Tregaskes

Robert: if this is just about whether they'll shut off the servers or not then why is this even causing hubbub? Given the complaining of a vocal set of users I'm sure that even if they planned to shut off the site, it'll keep going for a while. However it seems obvious that all their innovative ideas and day time hacking should be filled with innovating on Facebook not here. - Dare Obasanjo

As both Louis and I have said - these guys have been nothing but actions thus far and haven't let us down. I see nothing changing from that yet, so I suggest everyone continue that trust. They have done nothing to break that trust yet. And like I wrote about, Facebook needs them as much as they need Facebook - Facebook wants to change into something more of what FriendFeed is, from what I've seen and read. - Jesse Stay

It's not about shutting the servers off for some (most?) folks, it's a matter of how you reconcile FriendFeed and Facebook's views on content licensing, ownership, and privacy; whether we'll continue to see innovation at a pace faster than what Facebook's user base has historically been comfortable with; and whether we'll see a continuation of Friendfeed's openness towards third party developers and the open source community. - Ken Sheppardson

And as I've said over and over again, Jesse, I think most of us trust the FriendFeed folks as individuals, but that trust doesn't necessarily transfer to Facebook as an institution. - Ken Sheppardson

I second Ken. Zuckerbergs plans/dreams are also a kind of wild-card here. They could be favorable to us FriendFeed users, or not. Up till now, Zuckerberg hasn't done much favorable for me. That sucks. I wish it were different. - Meryn Stol

Say what you want about Facebook but Zuckerberg and/or Facebook has revolutionized the Internet by forcing people to be real. (not real-time) It even reflects on Youtube - the commenters aren't as moronic as they were say three years ago, since more and more people are using their real names and identities. - Mona Nomura

It's always like this and it never turns out the way Paul says it will, though I believe his intentions are honorable. At some point you no longer work for the old company and you start working for the new one. My guess is this has already happened. Soon people from the old team will have their new assignments, and then one day the server will go down. They'll bring it back up, but... more... - Dave Winer

Damn, Dave. And I thought that *I* was a cynic. - Akiva

Akiva, I've been through it myself, and been in Paul's position. - Dave Winer

Dave, I don't doubt that at all. It's just amazing from my perspective to see it put so honestly. Well put, sir. - Akiva

Only when I was in Paul's position, I had a simpler situation cause we were developing shrinkwrap software and our mission was supposedly unchanged. We didn't have servers that had to be kept up 24-by-7. Even so, six months after the merger, the whole thing was turned upside down and the team had all-new priorities and tons of people had left, including the top guy (me!). I would get... more... - Dave Winer

Well put, Mona! - Jesse Stay

Dave, I expect it to change, but I also expect that Facebook is doing this for not just the team they just acquired. I think Facebook really wants this technology. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, that may be true but they'll want it for Facebook. And if you're a fan of Facebook, that's great, Facebook's going to get better. But if you're not? If you're a a fan of FriendFeed? Then all you're going to end up with is a bastardized FriendFeed with lots of dipshit apps. - Akiva

Jesse: I'm not so sure. The technology will need to be rebuilt for the Facebook infrastructure. That's one reason why Paul doesn't have good answers for us yet. He said he needs a few weeks to really dig into Facebook's code base before he even has a good idea of where he and the FriendFeed'ers can really add value. - Robert Scoble

Akiva, I'm a fan of both. And you know you can ignore those apps - that's not something you can do on FriendFeed or Twitter. FriendFeed would have gotten just as bad as it grew. - Jesse Stay

Dave: thinking back on why I joined FriendFeed, it was because I expected that the team would do something interesting in the future. That reason has now been fulfilled and now that these guys are at Facebook it'll be interesting to see what they do. - Robert Scoble

Jesse, where is the button to ignore the apps? I want to ignore all of them, all the time. Instead, I have to click hide on every single bloody one of them and still get notifications from people wanting me to add apps. I'd tolerate Facebook better if there was a magic "no apps, ever" button. - Rochelle

Somewhat selfishly, I have just gained a whole load of new friends on Fb, here and on Google Reader and have learned loads about sharing and subscribing for which I thank you all :-) I will just watch and wait now, but I do agree that if everyone dashes off somewhere else and deserts FF, it could well hasten its demise. Best to try and use all the services and interlink them if we can. - Julia Ault

Rochelle: I want you to install the FriendFeed app. :) - Louis Gray

I am sure that FB was not happy if FF was going into MS hands or Google hands ,they bought it and now they will be the most important live and live search player on top of the best social community,,I am happy for them and for us as well ,they will keep our home and thats great news - Johni Fisher

Jesse, this is true. I guess my real point is—aside from the easy-as-punch Facebook app snarking—that the very philosophies on which each service was built are essentially different. I'm not saying that these divergent ideas can't be unified. I'm just not convinced that they're compatible enough to be integrated without irritating one group and overwhelming the other. I'm sure the... more... - Akiva

Wish I was a millionaire like him :/ - Mark

"I'm just not convinced that they're compatible enough to be integrated without irritating one group and overwhelming the other. " - very well put, Akiva. - Meryn Stol

Akiva, who says they will become one site? Why not enable the two communities to remain separate if they want, under the Facebook brand? I don't think we know yet what will happen. - Jesse Stay

Good news because I love friend feed in it's current format. - Rob Cairns

Robert, yes, we don't know for sure, but then again we don't know for sure - I don't see reason to change too much of our trust until something actually happens. I do know Facebook wants to open up more, while still retaining your right to privacy. The privacy thing is something FriendFeed (or Twitter) doesn't have, and I think would be a welcome addition. - Jesse Stay

Rochelle, you have to do it either by app, or individual (unless I've missed the option). That said, I would kill for the ability to do that on FriendFeed or Twitter. They don't even have that. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: FriendFeed doesn't have apps, so I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to; if you mean the ability to hide posts aggregated from a particular service, that's already there. - Tristan Seligmann

Last I checked, Jesse, FriendFeed didn't have MafiaWars or Superpoke. - Akiva

(If you click on "Hide", and then "hide other items like this one", you get a whole list of options) - Tristan Seligmann

FriendFeed has a finite number of things to hide ("all items from Bob", "all Flickr posts", etc.). That's much more easy control than the thousands of apps on Facebook. It's like playing whack-a-mole over there. It feels like the more I hide, the more they appear. - Rochelle

Akiva, Tristan, it's only a matter of time before the auto-dm apps appeared on FriendFeed. So long as FriendFeed grows, they will come. So long as it doesn't grow, it *does* disappear. There's no "hide all from the app that generated this DM" option on FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, and, with all of the hide options already present on FriendFeed, you don't think the devs would have had the presence of mind to include something similar for any supposed FriendFeed apps? - Akiva

Akiva, I trust that they'll add that as much as I trust they'll continue to fight for FriendFeed at Facebook. - Jesse Stay

They don't even need any extra options; you can already hide direct posts based on the application that created them. For example, if you hide this post of Robert's, you'll get the option to hide all posts by iPhone. - Tristan Seligmann

Jesse, I think no-one doubts that *they* will fight. The question is if they win. They're just employees now. - Meryn Stol

Again, I'm surprised that my own cynicism—legendary in its own right—is being beaten about the face and neck in this thread. - Akiva

Meryn, I also know the Facebook team - they're just as competent as FriendFeed's. Their original audience started different than FF's, but they too have to expand. - Jesse Stay

Holden: engagement. - Robert Scoble

It's hard for innovators to stop innovating, and for entrepreneurs to lose the total freedom and self-reliance that drives them. Every entrepreneur that I know personally (only a few, alas!) who has sold for the big bucks has eventually gone on to create something else. - Kathy Fitch

Jesse, as I said earlier, my lack of knowledge on the plans of Zuckerberg is the problem. Do you know Zuckerberg? In the end, he's gonna decide what appears on Facebook or not. Also, it's not so much a matter of competence than it is a matter of vision and taste. - Meryn Stol

I'm sure the FB engineers are competent. - Meryn Stol

And wouldn't it be fascinating to have a gander at the kinds of separation agreements folks who leave FB must sign? Almost as interesting as seeing the acquisition agreement in this case. - Kathy Fitch

It's totally unclear if future conversations we might have on FB will ever be indexable by Google. (or any other search engine) That all depends on Zuckerberg's final say. I can't look in the guy's head. - Meryn Stol

Sure seems like you're scrambling, Robert, to place yourself in the center of this when you were completely blindsided by the sale. Justs sayin' - Mattb4rd

Louis, nope! Those are two separate worlds for me and I intend to keep it that way. - Rochelle

Once you stop owning something you lose the ability to make promises about it. Good intentions or no. One hard headed business decision like FF is not earning its keep or we need the resources elsewhere and it's done. Been on both sides. - Todd Hoff

The only thing that would make a real difference in this case would be an unambiguous statement from Mark Zuckerberg himself. Let him address the FF community and actually say what he will commit himself to. I suppose he's a man of his word. - Meryn Stol

Good news. Doin' the right thing! - Rob Schieber

Yeah sure! Promises Promises!!! - Jose Luis Santos

Hmm. A whole lot of the sale was in stock options. Takes awhile to get fully vested. The next few years should prove very interesting. - Kathy Fitch

How can you live up to that promises when you no longer own it? - John D Reasor

Actions speak louder then words, and the key is the final decision is no longer up to him. I am sure Paul means every word he says I just not sure he is going to be able to keep it. - Kim Landwehr

"Promises are a bourgeois invention and, anyway, they're meant to be broken." [V. I. Lenin quoted from inexact memory] by - ianf ⌘

@louisgray's »If you see the post I put up last night...« <http://friendfeed.com/scoblei...> If you cared for others to read that post, you'd have included a direct link to it. It's the essence of hypertext, and any "Silicon Valley early adopter, tech geek blogger" worth the name would have done just... more... - ianf ⌘

It would make some business sense to keep FF as some kind of separate site/module, if just to stop another site taking it's place and becoming another competitor. - Robert Littlejohn

Hi Ian! I get what you are saying, but sometimes, dropping links to my own posts in other people's threads looks like spam. I also believe a good number of people saw it, and know how to get it otherwise. That said, it's right here: http://www.louisgray.com/live... - Louis Gray

Robert - To say Facebook is more interesting to work for than Google may be a stretch. While Facebook is growing exponentially and has challenges, Google faces HUGE challenges just staying Google ... while exploring new areas of growth. Keeping the index relevant is a big challenge in itself. On the other hand ... the 'FF guys' have worked there already and know how they feel about what direction they wanted to go ... which .. I think ... makes a little more sense? - Charlie Anzman

Charlie: remember most of this team already worked at Google. Facebook is pre IPO. Google is not. The potential rewards are much larger at Facebook and the potential to have an impact is much larger at Facebook too. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Posting links (references) to one's other posts "looks like spam"? That's news to me, and a lame excuse. In any event, given main difference between worlds of analog and digital publishing being ability in the latter case to refer back to source in unambiguous and granular fashion (rather than, as in analog, to indicate issue, chapter, page, verse, line, etc - if at all), not including... more... - ianf ⌘

ianf, I agree, but it feels like spam when you're doing it. Encourage him nicely. - Bruce Lewis

i suspect that, if FF were to survive relatively unchanged it will be through an open-source effort. i doubt FF will survive as a stand-alone site w/ Fb paying the freight. - MikeAmundsen

Keep in mind that despite the best intentions, nearly half of all sincere promises end in divorce. - April Russo

Robert: I agree that the technology with great audiences don't get killed off, but the name of the game to the shareholders is money. It makes a ton more sense for facebook to integrate friendfeed into facebook, an already monetizable model, vs. leaving it as a de-coupled technology that has to have a new revenue model built for it. - Erik Boles

like x1000 - Vezquex

With so much money still on the table in the form of stock options, there's certainly plenty of motivation to make FB stellar. If FF ends up being treated well, too (for whatever reason--a promise, a warm fuzzy feeling, its potential role in helping to make FB stellar), then I'm all for that. - Kathy Fitch

There is a way to argue keeping FF going makes sense to FB: The important thing in social software ISN'T the software, it's the people who use it. If the people who use FF are sufficiently different to those on FB, then it could make sense to keep both services. Possibly they may end up using the same software, but have different brands. Think of VW group in cars (SEAT/Skoda/VS/Audi are... more... - Nick Lothian

Interesting thread. I think that Paul has the best intention and he will do everything he can to keep the existing service up. Dave Winer has a good summary of the forces he will have to fight against. Making a Facebook vs. Google vs. Microsoft decision was probably a hard one. I am wondering if Twitter was in the race too...Twitter + Friendfeed could have been a great team to go... more... - Edwin Khodabakchian

Why the outreach now and not earlier in the week? Has something spooked the FF team? Seeing people looking for alternatives, and poking around Google Reader, Streamy, SocialThing, perhaps? Robert said it himself, if people leave here, FF dies, and the team doesn't have a whole lot to sell to FB (yeah, arguably) and that could scotch the whole deal. So I'm just wondering why the outreach now? - Dominic Jones

ianf: don't you know, links are dead? ;) - Tristan Seligmann

read it from the begining, I'm happy FF crew is beginning to acknowledge the questions, Dave definitely has a point, but all-in-all I thought death was near, it looks like it gets delayed for some time. The main thing is ppl are still here although reader is the new playground...unfortunately the communication with their team isn't all that good... - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Dobromir, "read [297 more comments] from the begining" is not a good advice for anything, least of all here, in the Kingdom of Perpetual Constant Fragmentary Attention Overload, where realtime fly-by comments are the rule. - ianf ⌘

Robert, thank you for sharing this info. I hope everyone got the message clearly. Wonderful news! - Michael Fidler from iPhone

It is not whether Friendfeed lives or dies. It's whether our free-wheeling, anarchic, community-driven approach will be replaced by the bland family-oriented guidelines of Facebook. Will we still be able to chuckle of Asian men on a beach, for example? - Aaman (Clone of FF)

hey all, we can't return to the past, what happen has already happened, now the question is this one, may a micro community survive inside a large community, the answer is YES, FF community can and may have the same social behaviour it has here, and when move to FB, we need just to preserve our connections, and to maintain the same behaviour. that all, but even ancients tribes don't survive without scarifying some of their tradition. - abdellah

Will Friend feed just get - morphed into Facebook now? clearly they want to take on Twitter. I noticed that I tryed to remove my Friend feed from facebook recently because less techy friends complained that I take over there Friend feeds...! But I can't... mmmm - PRBristolco.uk

FaceFeed. Nom nom nom. - Marlin Forbes

My goodness, there needs to be a way to search comments...I scanned to see if Paul had chimed in, but didn't see that. - Chad Gesser

Scobe: I hope he does chime in. I think he needs to since you broke that. - Chad Gesser

Chad: I think he'll say more after he has a little time at Facebook and can give definitive answers as to what the FriendFeed team is going to do there. He told me that will take several weeks. - Robert Scoble

no i didnt know that - Chris Nwakalo

if so wonderful news - Ronald

Facebook is genuinely interested in best in class customer experience. I can't yet envision what features or practices are incorporated or left behind, but it seems a positive move for users. There is always a die-hard loyal following that doesn't want to see their Freind (feed) go away. Heck, I still record The West Wing on Bravo. - Jeff Marmins

Yeah i sure hope so robert. . i really rather not be on facebook. - RamirezG

Chad, to aid in scanning, you can do a Ctrl-F (or equivalent) and search the current page for "- Paul Buchheit" and/or install my user script that adds a mini avatar to the beginning of each comment http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Micah

Scoble, why do you think FriendFeed won't get sacrificed by Facebook management? Most sensible thing, to me, is to get FriendFeed integrated as a feature of Facebook, then eliminate the individual brand. Fact is, it's Facebook's decision at this point, unless the FriendFeed guys got something in writing to the contrary (which likely didn't happen). Sometimes you've got to go with your... more... - Jason Nunnelley

Jason: it doesn't really matter. I've been on Facebook all morning and they already have a lot of FriendFeed's features. Soon the rest will be moved over too. And the servers won't get turned off anytime soon, based on conversations with FriendFeed and Facebook. So, for now, use it and be happy. Me? I've already been spreading out my social networking time just in case. - Robert Scoble

and before he disappears into a part of the web that I can't find.....how do you say his last name? Boo-Kite? Buck-heat? Really, I don't know and I wanna know. Just so I know, You know? - Morgan

Robert Scoble

I am a convert to http://www.screenjelly.com thanks to @zegig --it is the "Twitter" of screen sharing. Simple. No installs.

August 17, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

murray, Iphigenie, metalerik and 10 other people liked this

Weird brand name, nice idea - Jeff Sayre

2 more comments

Wow. Very interesting idea! - Dorian DeLuca

Wanted to check this out but alas I am running IE6 on my Vista which doesn't want to take IE7. On to Firefox - Houseofmax

Just checked this out and it looks good! Thanks. - Kirk Bryan

Jason Calacanis

BREAKING: NASDAQ down 2%+, $GOOG $APPL $YHOO all down 3%+ is this the end of the recovery, start of new bottom, retest of a bottom? what?

August 17, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Roberto Bonini liked this

lol - Mark

http://twitter.com/JasonCa... - From October 2008 - Mark

Retest would require another ~30% decline in DOW, 35% decline in NASDAQ, and a little more than a 30% decline in the SP. This also is not a consolidation that is forming a new, higher bottom. I think recovery will continue to be protracted. Stocks will likely trend lower into the fall. From there, who knows. - Jeff Sayre

Jason Calacanis

@trelian good point. The sharktank guys are all lording over the entreprenurs--which you don't do as an investor. You support them!

August 17, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Joey Gibson and Nispell liked this

So far, for the most part, it appears that the "Sharks" are more interested in turning a quick profit than turning a fledgling company into a thriving, profit-generating entity. This show has a much different flavor than its parent show the Dragon's Den. - Jeff Sayre

Robert Scoble

Real-time contest. Who is doing the geekiest thing right now? Answer on FriendFeed here:

August 15, 2009 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

Carlo Maglinao, K.D., Bora Zivkovic and 48 other people liked this

Following FF live feed :-) - Bo Stern

188 more comments

Converting some values on my HP-16C. - Tinfoil 2.0

Setting up signatures in Thunderbird. - John Fox

Trying to make a Google Latitude mashup - first attempt - Pon

Watching old Dr Who on streaming Netflix. - Michael Groner

Installing Windows 7 RTM in a virtual machine on my MacBook running Snow Leopard. - BeauGiles

watching a twit-vid of @amandapalmer singing 'creep' with a ukelele on one screen whilst reading blogs in the other - Rob Clark

running diff's on about 1.5 million rows of data and piping to another perl script for scrubbing - Erik Boles

Reading @techcrunch post on iPhone Apps and downloading them. :) - emon hassan

I am not geeky enough. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

watching old filmation cartoons on hulu. (more nerd than geek though) - Jason Phillips

I'm working on my own development project management tool in Emacs, doing some documentation and cleaning up Emacs Lisp Code. http://github.com/Nafai77... - Travis B. Hartwell

Erik wins so far! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Sharing a mash-up of Rick Astley ("never gonna give you up") and Nine Inch Nails ("The hand that feeds") with all my friends! http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Alex Linebrink

Reading a Klingon blog - http://bologh.blogspot.com/ - Derrich

Q: How many of you are here on the East Coast? I'm in NY. - emon hassan

Remoting into a computer that's less than ten feet away, because i can! - Joshua Odneal

Watching old WWF Royal Rumble 1991 and playing club bing for prizes. - David R

Derrich wins hands down - Jodi Church

Streaming old SNES Batman games, playing TF2, and listening to Twit.tv - Carlton Prest

ironing work shirts - getting ready for work tomorrow *sigh* (ultra geeky ey!!) - Mr K

David R - Royal Rumble RAWKS!!! - Erik Boles

Watching how the Earth was formed and reading Louis Gray's blog post about FriendFeed. Why am I not getting drunk at a strip bar? - Stephen Pickering

Indexing mysql databases - Mike

I thought my answer was good, but Derrich kills it. - Michael Groner

watching buffy & angel, lmao - Brendon Wadey

Stephen: then you could be 'On FriendFeed at a strip bar'! - BeauGiles

Setting up my roommate's new Airport Express so he can use Airtunes, and potentially hack it to play Spotify over it as well. - Daniel Zarick

I'm trying to get someone to shoot me a Google Voice invite, just because the geek in me wants to try it. - Scott Voss

Dang, has Emacs and Lisp hacking lost its geek cred? :( - Travis B. Hartwell

And with the iphone still geeking out! - Stephen Pickering

Google Voice no longer uses invites, just from google directly - David R

I am watching Fox News Channel. <--- WIN. - Rob Sterling

@Travis Lisp never loses geek cred. As far as Emacs goes, I'm a vi guy. :) - Michael Groner

TRAVIS -- not at all, I just like VIM over emacs, much more flexibility, but you be a geek my man, for shizzy - Erik Boles

:) - Travis B. Hartwell

getting hands on writing the Windows Sidebar gadget... - esaarem

Learning and trying Slinkset ,listening to cafe del mar 5 :-) - Johni Fisher

Editing pics on my iPhone and posting them to social sites.…plus checking FF - Herb Hernandez from iPhone

writing an iPhone app and listing to leo laporte - Jeremy Lane

Discussing reference audio and A/V surround-sound set-ups with your brother. - Akiva

Scoble: Whats the prize for this contest? - David R

David, you get punched in the throat with a deflated football. - Akiva

watching systm on how to build a combat robot - Sean Montgomery

@David R: FriendFeed fridge magnet, - Derrich

I'm watching Youtube videos on how to emulate Mac OS 9 on an Intel Mac, full screen so I can run old apps for old time's sake, while listening to Chris Pirillo talk about being a geek. - Justin Lowery

ill take that magnet - David R

watching Big Brother feeds. Jordan won HOH. Natalie still a nutjob. - geoff hines

rebooting PC after BSD - Phani Raj Kuchibhotla

Making a map of a fictional city (in a fictional country) while listening to JoCo - imperator3733

Installin Expression Bleand while listening to TWIT - Rohit Harshvardhan

@SEAN M. - Watch the one on kegbot, pure awesomeness. - Erik Boles

Playing Wow! - Bill Skoros

installin uber twitter beta 4 on my BB 8900 from Mexico City! cheers - Carlos

changing my friendfeed theme to custom - thegeniusfiles

@Justin check out 'Classic on Intel (COI)' - have had luck with it in the past when trying to play SimTower! - BeauGiles

EB: that's in the queue to be watched next...gotta start on step one of robot building - Sean Montgomery

researching why the USS Voyager's warp nacelles fold up - Justin Ruckman

first iteration done, more scrubbing to do, so more perl to write, maybe some awk, peace kids. - Erik Boles

@BeauGiles I was looking into SheepSaver. I'll have to take a look at COI also… - Justin Lowery

You're all *nuts* - it's Saturday night, and you (me too) are in front of the computer. <sigh> I'm reminded of my horrible high school art teacher who said artists never have "week-ends." Bastard. Damn fool was right. Substitute "geek" for "artist" and Bob's your uncle - or auntie, depending on how she swings. - Yule Heibel

watching the syfy channel (alien agent), while surfing the internet and playing the enchanted ds game - half a level to go and i've beaten the game! - ann glenn

Writing a fiction futuristic piece for my final in Tech in Society class. Cyborgs and robotic secretariats. My favorite line so far is when my main character tells his house bot to go screw a toaster. - Kenny Rayl

@BeauGiles Oh duh, same thing. Looks like I just finished downloading it. - Justin Lowery

This weekend geek: robot building...next weekend non geek: Vegas baby.... - Sean Montgomery

and i'm watching the very end of the Seahawks/Chargers pre-season game. - geoff hines

David: prize? My undying respect! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Here you go, David R - http://bit.ly/a7eGF - Derrich

Watching Anime and talking about the MMA match on Facebook with my Blackberry 8900 through my access point. Only WPA encryption but have a long key and I live in the woods so I should be safe. That my friend is a geek combo :) - Tony from fftogo

Reconfiguring MythTV on my HTPC. - Edward Coffey

Reading FF instead of going to bed. Probably should be writing copy of some sort, but this is the time of night where I'll start to babble if I get sleepy. - Mary B: #TeamMonique

Installing apps for the new 3Gs - Denverken

Keeping up with this thread - Reyna Carlos

Babbling in writing is just pathetic. - Mary B: #TeamMonique

Checking Tweets while at GenCon - can'tget much geekier than that... - Dean Browell

Go Denverken! - Mary B: #TeamMonique

I am watching Conan O'Brien on TiVo and Reading Scoble's FriendFeed. - Louis Gray

Reyna Carlos wins - Jeremy Lane

@Yule H. Having a lazy sunday afternoon over here in Australia - almost 3pm :) - BeauGiles

Trying to get inspired to design a web site for a client so I can get my geek on. Instead, sitting here reading Robert Scoble's FriendFeed! Much more entertaining... :) - Laura Zickus

digging deep into xml/css for start-up site... working on new web software that is like a next-generation friendfeed... grabbit.net - Fred Davis

Building out the infrastructure to setup 500 live web cams across the US to let people like me and you report crimes on the street in real time! (2-5 second delay). Someone starts a fight, cops are called within 10 seconds. 500 cameras are going up by December. 10,000 more in 2010. Yes. it's effing hard! - Adam Jackson

http://ourblock.tv & http://www.crunchbase.com/company... - Adam Jackson

Using new de-soldering station to repair a bad MB to use in another dedicated system for climate prediction or seti@home...or some other grid computing project. - Jimmy

On the loosers side: having a drink of JW Gold and reading this at an strippers bar while I wait for the next performance! - Marco ILLESCAS from iPhone

Trying to get my LazyFeed /just/ right. - Shea from iPhone

...actually, grabbit is really much more than just a next-generation friendfeed... but since that's one of the closest things so far, the comparisons are inevitable... even if they don't do grabbit justice ;-) - Fred Davis

Did a brand new install of a family tree / genealogy web app, then imported the GEDCOM file from the previous install (which was an older version of the same app: http://www.phpgedview.net/ ). #ShinyNewVersion - Micah

Tweeting back to @IvankaTrump about her Thunder Cats movie request [http://twitter.com/mjcarra...] - Michael J. Carrasquillo

...usually I'm the geek of the week every week, so I hope someone is doing something nerdier than tweaking CSS style sheets! Especially on a saturday night! Sheesh! Good thing my GF (@lisapadilla) is a geeky girl, so she understands... in fact, she's nerding out on some grabbit stuff, too, right now ;-) - Fred Davis

Watching Season 4.5 of BSG - lisa padilla

My God, Doc Searls was right, we're all living in Scoble's butt! - Stephen Pickering

hehe, thx Mary Baum!, really love it so far - Denverken

Was smoking a cigar, tweeting from iPod touch and thinking about buddha. Does that count? Or should I have also been coding in PHP & reading slashdot? - Jerry Garcia

yes, Robert's friends all need to get a life! Ha! - Fred Davis

Reorganizing my iPhone apps, comparing Newstand to free RSS feeds, & researching/pondering the best way to archive my Twitter stream after reading Mashable article - Alexis from iPhone

Watching Android get ported onto an MID - Netbooknews

watching a bad movie with about 15 other people on IRC.. movie is "Frankenstein Island" - monkeystick

Lodging DMCA takedown against a scraper. - Sheila Scarborough

I guess biting the head off of a chicken doesn't count for geeky any longer? Early last century it would have been a huge draw in Kansas. - Jerry Garcia

I made a red necktie for my Brain (Pinky and the Brain) action figure. Now he's not only not naked, but looks even smarter. - Fred Jones

Going thru 104 comments on this thread. - Winston Teo

Shape Collaging FF followees http://friendfeed.com/glongma... - Capn' One Eye - adrift

Playing with TwitPaint and editing a video - Outsanity

I was wondering why my Android phone couldn't find Jupiter on Skymap, when I knew exactly where it was - Kevin Marks

reading scoble FF - Ruchit Garg

hmm, watching two long running procs on vm's, running a couple rsyncs to a new terabyte server, monitoring FF/IRC/IM, farming on WoW, preparing two servers with NGINX and i'm always keeping an eye on munin/monit/screen sessions -- but that's not geeky really, just a normal weekend - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Checking frienfeed at a wedding while everone else is dancing - Jim Goldstein from iPhone

Sean: thanks, I just wanted to see if something were happening on Twitter that wasn't here. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I'm writing blog posts in gmail and saving them under the label "Posterous Drafts". And something something circuit board something thermal something capacitor. - Brett Kelly

zeroing the hard drive of an old G4 that's going to be recycled. - David Newman

Writing a paper about Artificial Intelligence in Expert systems :D - Yahya

playing with django framework - vinod

playing with Facebook FBML and pages (and hating it) - Keith - @tsudo

Just chilling with an ice cold Bud and listening to a live Jimmy Buffett concert online. And smiling reading all the posts. - lily taylor

Sitting at the keyboard in my jammies and reading FF. - Technogran

reading FF & shooting my duck hunt background (just 'cause); listening to music on blip.fm; picking out fall fashion (posting to delicio.us/polyvore/blogspot...) & texting my son. Not sure what I would do w/out connection =) - Charl Lee

Listening to Bob Seger, Janis Joplin and The Who on vinyl. Guess that would be contra geek? - John Nissim

checking out laptops on pc mag. # - Franc, a rememberer

trying to set-up Streamy (the "new Friendfeed') - Bill Powell

Reading friendfeed on one monitor with 50 tabs open and watching the Second Life Citizen's Convention live music stream in Second Life on the other monitor. - Sue - Friendfeed is best

LOl @Stephen P. - Franc, a rememberer

to the wedding geek: sounds like sth. I'd be doing. lol - Franc, a rememberer

@Franc. I'm still reading this thread... Uber geek LOL - Jim Goldstein from iPhone

Upgrading my desktop computer to Windows 7 - RobinDotNet

Setting up a Linux server and giving it a static IP address, manually assigned DNS server settings, restarting the networking stack, and pinging the router on my local network all via the command line in the Terminal. Also doing a traceroute from this Linux server inside a virtual machine on my MacBook Pro to my website at www.thebrentcameron.com to see how many hops it takes and the time it takes for each of those hops. So do I win or what? - Brent Cameron

My idea of optimizing Firefox is by uninstalling it. - Alex Knight

running macros on my G15 to bulk process 500 kids soccer pictures, while browsing friendfeed, listening to techno on headphones while my son watches star wars episode IV - Robert Higgins

Making my 4th LEGO city model of the day while watching 2 screens of FriendFeed (main feed + this thread). My wife is on Facebook on our hackint0shed netwbook while my 3 year old daughter plays games on the iPhone - Johnny

Just got my new iPhone 3GS. Recorded video and uploaded to youtube http://youtube.com/bryansays then used qik app to upload video as well http://qik.com/bryansays then took a pic and uploaded to my blog via posterous. :) - BRҰANSAҰS from iPhone

Watching Conan the Barbarian, quoting far too much of it, analyzing too much of it altogether (like did they get all of the out of work Star Trek (original show) musicians together to do the score? It's way too similar.) - Lucretia Pruitt

Coding an iPhone application which connects to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, and fetches RSS feeds off the web :) - Fahim

Taking some downtime from the SLCC as an opportunity to work on writing for my blog. - Tim Maly

Figuring out if I can get android running on a dell axim. - Jim Connolly

Scampering between sites/browser-tabs like a headless chicken is hardly geeky but that's what I've been doing this Sunday morning. Google Reader, Friendfeed, Facebook, Twitter, Social Median, Lazy Feed, et. al. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Setting my Ruby on Rails environment up on my new Windows Laptop. I know it's the easiest platform to do it on, with InstantRails, but might install it on Linux, just for the crack :) And checking out the Mosso plans. - Steve Farnworth

running a twitter experiment #chromeexperiment to see if I could actually replace firefox with chrome. - Rohit

Writing a custom extension module for vTiger CRM which combines data from two other modules and working on my custom Layout Management & Authentication Libraries for the CodeIgniter MVC framework which I intend to release as open source when complete. - Usman Bashir

Umm, searching for iPhone formatted porn. Does that count as geeky? - Keith Bennett from BuddyFeed

Making a few more custom buttons for firefox. - April Russo

Answering stupid real-time contests on friendfeed. - Ben Pashkoff from twhirl

fighting the headache with some reader and friendfeed...and maybe twitter...maybe not - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Configuring virtual server/machines and network - for home use... - Jemm from fftogo

Drinking my morning coffee..... - Roberto Bonini

it's unlikely to be me - checking friendfeed while things compile (contributing to a linux distro this week), reading up on vtiger (coincidence? someone is vtigering above), and wondering what's for lunch - Iphigenie

Reading Robert's friendfeed updates IS the geekiest thing one can do ^^ - Paul Papadimitriou from iPhone

And Coffee is the spring of all good ideas :) So it IS geeky :) - Roberto Bonini

I'm out on this one. Relaxing 'computer off' Sunday planned with my wife :) - Charlie Anzman

When this was posted? Sleeping. Hows that for geeky? - DGentry

Joelle: It has to be coincidence what else can it be. :) - Usman Bashir

Trying to use lynx to browse the web, most sites fail - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Editing videos from my holiday - not geeky enough - and 8 hours late for this post! - Martin Bryant

We'll, when this was posted I was cutting some zzzs. Now I'm coding the privacy component for BuddyPress--a nice relaxing activity for a Sunday morning. Hum? - Jeff Sayre

Compressing and archiving a load of files on JungleDisk, trying to convert a Drupal module intended for use with the Twitter OAuth API to work with FriendFeed, and drafting the OpenStream specification... - Tyson Key

....multi-tasking between sourcing UI icons for a new app, scanning FF live feed, coding PHP, browsing Seesmic and now commenting on a thread where i appear not to be geekiest person here on a Sunday. Oh, and now i have too many tabs open in firefox, so i'm using Safari as a fill-in. - Matthew Ogston

Browsing Google Reader, Friendfeed best of day, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Social Median, Twine while copying a video off my Flip & uploading to Viddler... and on my iPhone: getting the Kindle & audible format of a @TedDekker book (Showdown) to take along on my kayaking trip down the Juniata river this afternoon. In the background, Mythbusters is busy figuring out how the Hindenburg blew up. - Courtney Engle

ohhhh.. i forgot: downloading my entire list of domains for backup before moving servers. Add FTP to the list. and drinking freshly ground coffee in my french press travel mug. The coffee was purchased from a Guatemalan farmer my sister met while there. - Courtney Engle

A couple of people have mentioned coffee. I just had my tea (I'm not from England). I think that may be even more geeky than drinking coffee! - Jeff Sayre

Playing Super Mario Bros. on NES. - Ashish

I'm singing a song about robots with my one year old daughter ... "Robot parade... Robot parade .... Robots obey what the children say!" - Trent Hamm from iPod

Selecting photos + editing videos from the U2 360° Tour - I went to see last nite! Every geek will love the high-tech specs of the tour: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - stunning visuals! - Frank Da Silva

Reading FriendFeed to see what geeky things everyone is doing - Cathleen Rittereiser

http://rsscloud.org/ - Dave Winer

Backing my computer up to my home network, while using regedit and preparing to install Win7. Oh +Twitter and FriendFeed are running in the background :P - Aram Zucker-Scharff from twhirl

I'm backing up The Internet. And storing it in the cloud. - Micah

Micah +1!. Better than me - sister in law just dropped of HP laptop with Vista and said "it's slower now." so I get to play with the cleaning of spyware and the uninstalling of a billion little apps that HP feels are so necessary that they should be part of startup just to ensure that it takes a full 5-10 minutes before you can use the machine. But I'm not bitter. - Michael Pardee

I'm commenting on this post. Can life get more "geeky?" - Jimmy Walker

Configuring a Sonicwall router. - Norm McKenzie

Writing code in Scala. - Joey Gibson

I'm crocheting but I don't think that counts. I'm ripping out am old unfinished to use the yarn in a new project. Next up: a slouchy beret using DPNs then circular knitting needles. - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart from iPhone

I am redesigning some code for my intelligent search engine which I have been working on for over 12 years now! http://www.cleversearchengine.com - Benjy Felsham

reading friendfeed and catching up on my rss feed on google reader. - Fuad Arshad

OK - and now - in English! WOW - I only "get" about a third of the comments! feeling very ungeeky! - Robyn Hawk

I am wasting my time by writing comments on FF .. it's slightly after midnight in Central Europe now. Shower and bed next! - Jan Horna

Ditched my wife at the airport to get free wifi. I'm flying virgin she's flying southwest. You snooze you lose LOL - Jim Goldstein

Trying to decide about paying for Tweet Spinner . . . - MikeEllsworth

Writing custom PHP code that will pull data from a MySQL database to present a technical class schedule in WordPress. - Michael Carnell

playing Ikariam and WoW while on FF and watching Nature - Heather

Converting/Creating Direct Response Television Ads to Direct Response Web Video and distribution http://www.directresponsetelev... closing deals before the site is even populated. - Jim Peake

I think Robert should announce the winners of the contest now:) - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Is there anything geekier than organizing a tech conference? Yes, organizing a science+tech conference: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

following Scobleizer is pretty geeky - Shari Weiss

working on new version of picollator.com - piaff

Installing IE8. - Rob Schieber

Reading on FF instead of working... - DAL

compiling Erlang - Brian Hendrickson

_as if_ you can beat me :-) - Brian Hendrickson

Hey Chris - How are your Twitter ads going? Would be interested in the feedback you are getting. - Jim Connolly

OSgrid - paniaguai

Robert Scoble

Craving intimacy in our social networks - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

June 29, 2009 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Garin Kilpatrick, Tate and 33 other people liked this

not so much looking for a better way as much as better ways to use what's already there. FF is at present the app of choice, then Twitter. FB doesn't do much for me but it may be purely an issue of bias. - thinfilms

19 more comments

@Robert: do we need our own "private" FF/Twitter networks? or is there something else needed? - MikeAmundsen

I use Friendfeed and Twitter to find out what's going on in the BIG world. I use Facebook to know what's going on in MY world, friends of the past and present. There IS a difference. - Steve Hampton

Steve, you make a good point. Perhaps configuring one to interact with the other [big and small] in flexible, relevant ways is the key here. - thinfilms

Yeah, I guess it would be really great if I had one tool to handle both the big world and my world, it would be great, But there are times that I like the separation of the two. - Steve Hampton

@Robert: I find myself using Twitter less and less, FF only marginally, and have an FB account but do not use it. For intimate, more personal discussions, I find that niche social networks are best for me--networks that are created with a specific demographic in mind. I'm very involved with the development of BuddyPress (BP) and see some interesting niche social sites being created using BP. - Jeff Sayre

@Adam, BP is not about forums, although that is one component of the platform. With BP you create your own social networking site. It's obviously not for everyone, but it is more intimate than a one-size fits all approach like FF or FB. http://buddypress.org/ - Jeff Sayre

Steve: I've been working away in my mad scientist's lab for the past 6 months trying to solve that (and other) problems with these real-time stream and friend/frenemy-related issues. You never know, but I think that me and my partner (Lisa Padilla @lisapadilla) may have come up with a solution for your problem... it's called Grabbit, and we're on track with our development team at... more... - Fred Davis

Robert Socble talking @140conf (recorded) LIVE now -> http://www.livestream.com/140char... - @LarsenTweet

I ment Robert Scoble ;) - @LarsenTweet

really interesting.. talking about cnn's coverage on Iran - @LarsenTweet

Find Jeff Sayre comments interesting. Buddy Press could be something that people will explore and like as it is more intimate. - courtney benson

Robert - I agree although I'm not sure if any social network by nature can perfectly fit into the "biz" or "personal" pigeonhole. I personally use FB only for private sharing with "real" friends - my postings are completely closed to non-friends. I use FF, Twitter, Google Reader, LinkedIN as extensions of my "professional" life. This "firewall" between personal and professional helps me... more... - Jim Tierney

Robert, I use twitter and friendfeed, have FF but don't use it. Still in a research mode.Like FF for professional and ability to go beyond 140. Beginning to get pretty annoyed with the spammers on Twitter and I expect it will only get a lot worse - courtney benson

Jim: As these social network platforms evolve, new tools and functions become needed, and then those need to evolve, too. What is needed is further evolution of what I call Friend Management, which should ultimately do simple things like sort out personal from biz, and also more sophisticated things like reputation tracking, relationship tracking, etc. ... back in web 1.0 I was working... more... - Fred Davis

@Steve Hampton I like having that boundary too, though I use LiveJournal for the private part. - Zian Choy

One of the main reasons I'm on FF is the private groups. I've setup a private group with a couple of close friends and we use it very frequently. We were using Twitter with private users, but I prefer having the inline photos and video here. The problem with FaceBook is that although I really like my friends on there, I don't particularly want to socialize with that many people that frequently. - Chip Ramsey

@Steve Hampton: I agree completely, well said. - David Ziembicki

@Robert I'm convinced the biggest reason people use our site, totspot, is the very search for intimacy that you describe in this article. well put. - Michael Broukhim

I do not crave intimacy from my social networks, only honesty and transparency. That is why I like Facebook so much, because people are who they say they are. Twitter would do good to do more to copy Facebook in this respect. Twitter is at odds with itself because when you sign up for an account it encourages you to use your real picture and name, and then they show you the suggested... more... - Garin Kilpatrick

Robert, have you ever done research into the history of two way communication online and some of the robust communities -- including private ones, as well as ones people pay to be a part of that have been around for nearly ten years? I think in order to really talk about this form of engagement/interaction online, everybody should have sort of a sense of the history of it. I'm sure with... more... - Patricia

Robert Scoble

I just followed a bunch of my Twitter friends here on friendfeed. Welcome! Geeks, please say hi. How did I do that? See here:

May 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Fabretti, Jason Williams, T.S. Elliott and 47 other people liked this

I used the "Find/Invite" friends new features at http://friendfeed.com/friends... - Robert Scoble

52 more comments

Hi Mr Hulk! - Russell

I have a folder called "twitter" because I've found Tweets usually are noiser than other data types, so I imported you all into that folder. - Robert Scoble

Hi - Erik Knorr

As people show they bring tons of good stuff instead of just telling me what they had for lunch I move them over to my home feed. If they are really high value I move them over to my "Tech News Makers" list. - Robert Scoble

I initially did this, but got shot of most of them because I'm finding it better to use FriendFeed to interact with FriendFeeders, not people who have just imported a bunch of services and then never ever come back. - Jalada

Hi - Tim Levad

Hi Erik. - Robert Scoble

Hi. If someone knows you do... what's silver bullet to keeping up to date on all the sites I'm on now? - Blair Klein

Jalada: the trick is to import them into a separate folder. Do NOT add them to your home folder, or you'll be sorry. - Robert Scoble

Nice to connect with all my Twitter folks on friendfeed, thanks for the follow Robert. - Abhimanyu Chirimar

Hey! - robertocastro

Blair: my feed on friendfeed has ALL of the things I do on the Internet. - Robert Scoble

I also imported all my contacts that I had in Gmail. The quality of info on those items is much higher to me than the ones I imported from Twitter for some reason. ;-) - Robert Scoble

Hi - Marga van Rijssel

Hello there good sir! - Cameron Battagler

Robert: instead of doing that, I hid tweets that didn't have likes / comments. Still didn't like it; too many people have signed up for Twitter and then never come back. I'm finding FriendFeed more useful for the discussion it encourages. But there's more than one way to do it of course :P - Jalada

See where? - Lloyd Budd

hi! - Lorenzo Strambi

Cool! Hi! - e Man

hi Robert! - Sunshine

Robert: it's awesome that you continue to make yourself accessible like this! I wish more journalists and public figures would do this (as well as companies, CEOs etc). I'm sure the temptation is to become more closed off the more popular you get, cheers to you for fighting that. - Justin Laing

hi Robert! kudos for the accesibility...any plans to make it over to Italy... - Nazim Beltran

thanks for showing us how to do this! I was wondering :) - Kirsten Wright

Nazim: not soon, sorry. Would love to get there. - Robert Scoble

Sunshine: you need to add some feeds to your account! Welcome. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I like the way you're redirecting discussions from Twitter to FriendFeed. I recently joined Twitter, I avoided it for a long time as I thought it was too much "what I had for lunch" focused, as you say. After joining, I think I was correct. Some decent tidbits of info get communicated, but Twitter tweets make it hard to carry on discussions. I'm considering following your model... more... - Jeff Sayre

A tutorial with visuals is here: http://www.louisgray.com/live... - Louis Gray

Hi Robert, it is always good to see how you add value to networks! - jacky

I've always wondered what filter or folder I lived in under Scoble's Friendfeed :P - Mike Lewis

Ever think about giving another live session on how to use FriendFeed? I am sure you have tons of insight to share! :) - Altan Khendup

Neal Jansons, you also have the option of trying a userscript (friendfeedFilterByService, which I wrote) that can filter out Twitter or whatever list of services you define: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... (just turn the script off to see tweets again). At this point, settings are currently manipulated in the "Configuration" section of the script, which is definitely geeky, but just ask if you need help. - Micah

re finding twitter friends on FF and tweets pointing to conversations on FF...Did the same a few weeks ago. Found a lot of twitter followers who are also here on FF. Great way to stay in touch across the two networks. I am also seeing how the two work together. For example, last night, a person I follow on twitter said in a tweet, "great conversation going on on FF about twitter desktop... more... - Mike Lizun

I hide all my Twitter stuff off of the front page, and have a Saved Search for Twitter from Friends and Groups. - Kreg Steppe

You're welcome, Mr Jansons. - Micah

From one Robert to another, thanks for taking the time to follow :) - Robert Svihla

Wow..I may actually start using FriendFeed if they keep adding super easy integration of other social spaces...Any chance of a LinkedIN integration? - Danny Keith

Yea. Even I have a group called twiiter; which I hardly pay attention to. I am glad I dint end up in your twitter folder. ;) - Lakshman Prasad

I wish they could do this for Flickr. - Thomas Hawk

Alcarcalimo: every day for the past year people have been asking that. They asked that back when 500 people were following me. Now 35,000 are. I wonder when people will stop asking that? - Robert Scoble

ciao :-) - wolly

But you followed me from FB not twitter :-) - wolly

Hello! - Doug Millison

HI - Ahmed Ramy Zaky

Hi - Brian Hendrickson

Hiya and Aloha - Matt Kramer

I did that a few days ago, it's easy :o) - David Gross

Gee, that was quick and easy. Tonnes of people sourced from Twitter and a relatively trivial amount sourced from Facebook. What gives? - Andrew Long

Andrew: on Facebook we are limited to 5,000 friends, on Twitter we can have lots more so the numbers will be bigger. - Robert Scoble

Ah, so that's why so many people are subscribing to my FriendFeed all of a sudden! - Leslie Carbone

What's the story with your avatar image? Did someone make you angry? - Lenny

I joined Twitter quite awhile ago...to follow tech people I enjoy mainly. Then I tried Facebook, but much too static, boring, etc. Then after reading tweets about FriendFeed, decided to give it a try and I love it. I find out so many things from FF and love all the interaction. I don't really have a lot of followers which is not necessary because my "lurking" has really paid off! - Bonnie Foster

Maybe I'm missing something but haven't you always, if at least for the last couple months, been able to add their twitter friends on here? - Jason Williams

hmmm....don't recall getting your following notification Robert. There must be a problem... - Paul Fabretti

Robert Scoble

My new fuzzy look: - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

April 27, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Cristian, Tweet Feeds, Rob and 40 other people liked this

I am a little fuzzy and it's not just the lack of sleep I have been dealing with. Heheh. I don't like it, though, so don't be surprised if this new look doesn't last very long. - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

31 more comments

Bill Storage shot this photo of me. His lens is sharper than mine is. Can you tell? - Robert Scoble

You kind of have a Jack Bauer look with the fuzz - makes you look more dangerous ;-) - Jesse Stay

Oh, and Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, will appreciate the hat I'm wearing. - Robert Scoble

scruffy tech! - Rachael Depp

Rawr! Boxers or briefs? - sofarsoShawn ~presque... from fftogo

Looks sort of like a high-pass filter. - Colin

Flippity: I don't think so, but I haven't had a Diet Coke, red meat, or as much dairy in a couple of months now. - Robert Scoble

Very "Lost" - Tim Bray

+1 Tim, I thought I saw Ben Linus hiding in the background in the picture. :P - Molly Song ;)

definite potential for use as avatar image - Brian Hendrickson

Interesting. Definitely makes you look different. And yes, nice hat. - Louis Gray

Survivor: TechBlogger Island - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

I feel lost! Heheh. - Robert Scoble

Wow - Beau Liening

The Scoblandloper look, makes you more foolhardy-ish. - Nir Ben Yona

I think this one better from Thomas Hawk: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Robert Scoble

Nope :/ like this one better than @thomashawk's - sofarsoShawn ~presque... from fftogo

That one's good, but this one is definitely avatar material. Good angle for your face. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

I like this one, kind of gives you the feeling of a war journalist :) - Liviu Lica

could be an old Life cover, if the lens was black :-) - Brian Hendrickson

I think you look just fine. Got that outdoorsy yet smart look about you. - Janet

Beards are in :) - Rob Brammeld

Something not quite unlike very casual ;-) - Allen Harkleroad

Looks like a redneck - orionstarr

You're looking California with some Hemmingway rubbed in. - Monique

Robert, it's a good look! I suggest trying a gotee. Although, my wife is not that fond of mine. - Jeff Sayre

I like it..but this picture looks a little photoshopped. - Kreg Steppe

Much better - Özkan Altuner

I see a mash-up b/t Anthony Edwards and Daniel Stern... with a touch of Richard Dryfuss. - Zach Lytwyn

Robert: I have a beard too! Way to go dood! - Tony C

Scruff is hot right now. All the guys are doing it. :) You didn't even get to trend set this time! Keep it for a while...see if you like it. - Sheryl

I have to say it now, you all the time remind me Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert. Here I said, finally. Probably I'm not the only one. - ilterocktive

building43: Robert Scoble

What does it mean to be "fanatical about the Internet?" Who are the 43 people who most fit that description? Answer here:

April 23, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Thomas Power, sofarsoShawn ~presque... and 16 other people liked this

We're working on a list of our own right now. - Robert Scoble

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Tim Berners-Lee should be at the very top of that list. - Victor Panlilio

Victor: yup, he's on our list for sure. - Robert Scoble

I would put Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht on that list. And iJustine. - Mathew™ aka Youngblood

Mathew: good ones. I would love to drink some more beer with those two guys on my couch! :-) - Robert Scoble

Vint Cerf. Bob Metcalfe (even though he is somewhat controversial). - Victor Panlilio

If anyone is more fanatical about the internet than i am - they should be locked away, seriously. But me aside, i'd have to say you Scoble and...Le Meur come to mind - Zee.

Zee: heh, we're fanatical, that's for sure! - Robert Scoble

Matt Mullenweg, Tim O'Reilly, Eric E. Schmidt, and how about you ;) - Jeff Sayre

there are many answers, but let's see if you can set this list apart form every other list, and include some women on it. - sarahlefton

sarah: my list has lots of women. Who would you say are fanatical about the Internet, though? - Robert Scoble

Esther Dyson - Jeff Sayre

About the Internet, or about the Web? Vint Cerf, Ian Hixie, Mark Pilgrim, Tim Bray, Sam Ruby, Zaheda Bhorat, Me, Tantek, Chris Messina, DeWitt Clinton, Joe Gregorio, Shelley Powers, - Kevin Marks

Louis Gray, Tom Friedman (he's a dark horse pick, but something to think about), Chris Anderson - Brandon Mendelson

I nominate Joseph Smarr, David Recordon, and Chris Messina - John McCrea

Kevin: the Internet includes the web, but I'd rather say the Internet just to have a little less confusion and be less limiting. - Robert Scoble

Kevin: you put forth the first name of someone I wasn't familiar with Zaheda Bhorat. Thanks! Off to use "the Google." :-) - Robert Scoble

For all you OS X users reading this: highlight, Ctrl-Click > Search in Google - Victor Panlilio

@Robert I bet you could get in on an episode. I wouldn't really see why they wouldn't do one with you. - Mathew™ aka Youngblood

Hmm. How about...Larry Page, Sergey Brin, AND Marissa Mayer? - Victor Panlilio

Also, if you asked my girlfriend and some of my friends they would tell you that I'm fanatical about the internet. I spend copious amounts of hours on the internet, half that spent trying to carve out my own spot on the internet. - Mathew™ aka Youngblood

Victor: they all sit in Google's Building 43 too, so they are sorta default members! :-) - Robert Scoble

Key enablers of the Internet and the Web include Vint Cerf, Len Kleinrock, Mark Andreesen, Jim Clark, Eric Allman (sendmail), Jon Postel (deceased), Duane Adams (DARPA), Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Caillau (CERN). These are people who were all sufficiently fanatical about the Internet to make today's Net possible. - Tony Wasserman

Dave Winer should be on that list but I am thinking Robert Scoble should be as well. - Brian Sullivan

I don't bound it on purpose. So far everyone mentioned here fits, plus everyone who is participating as well! I think the self selection system is working well so far. - Robert Scoble

Edwin Khodabakchian, Amber Mcarthur, Lawrence Lessig - Kim Landwehr

Robert: some of us have been on Usenet since the late '80's and I'm sure some people reading this might even be ARPAnet greybeards. :) - Victor Panlilio

Ken: Maybe they're not on Twitter or FriendFeed, but there's a pretty good chance they were on Usenet, back in the Multics (pre-UNIX) days. - Victor Panlilio

I'm going to say Ed Han, our CEO, you'll meet him soon enough. Hard to say outside of the names already mentioned because I wouldn't consider myself heavily "influenced" by an individual on the Internet until recently. With the emergence of social media for the masses, the players on an individual basis are really emerging. I'll probably never know the names of those that really inspire me, like the creative minds behind Mozilla. You and Louis Gray make my short list. - Rick Bucich

I'd definitely put myself in that category but others not listed might include Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Zefrank, Robert Cringely, Leo Laporte, Jared Spool, Jason Kottke, Joshua Davis. Did I mention me? - Andrew Smith

Chris Pirillo is a good candidate - Brian Sullivan

Maybe a definition of what it takes to be considered a fanatic would be a good start. I think almost anyone who uses the internet prolifically probably fit the category, you know...the ones who have to have their smart phones, can't go on a pleasure trip without a laptop or netbook, the ones who d/l podcasts, sign up for every beta, sign up for every alpha....geeez this list could get HUGE! I wasn't involved in the whole 80's exodus to 'net. SO I don't count. I was raising children. My first PC came in 89 - Sheryl

Ken: you DEFINITELY fit! - Sheryl

Ken: VT100 and the 'talk' utility = instant messaging for us old fogies. I even had a rollup foam cushion in my grad school office and was well-acquainted with the cleaning staff in the building. Talk about fanatical. :D - Victor Panlilio

Victor: Maybe not ARPAnet greybeard but I'm definitely a Usenet greybeard--or at least greygotee! - Jeff Sayre

Jeff: the Google Groups index can only find my posts back to 1992, but I was on Usenet before that, when our school was still on Multics (pre-AIX). - Victor Panlilio

Robert, I am not fanatical about the internet but am here. I am fanatical about human progress though - Tweet Feeds

Um, how about Roy Fielding? Founder of the ASF, co-author of HTTP specs, and definer and defender of REST. - Shane Curcuru

Gotta have some women. Mena Trott and Mitchell Baker spring to mind. - Tim Bray

Brad Fitzpatrick, Donovan Preston, Dan J Bernstein - Eric Florenzano

Robert, a curve ball: Bob Kerns - John McCrea

IMHO Reid Hoffman is an interesting add. - Renée Barrett

Flickr co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake (who just started hunch.com) - Victor Panlilio

Leo Laporte is definitely fanatical about New Media on the Internet. Redefining the relationship, or creating new relationships, between content producers and consumers. - Chris Gardner

This list seems to be less about "fanatical about the internet" and more about "people who affect change on the internet." I call someone a fanatic when they cannot shut up about the internet, in all its forms. From dreams about fixing spam problems on the web to teaching their kid how to code standards compliant sites to figuring out how big the cloud will get to trying to insure everybody in the world has access to the internet and so on. Those are the people I call fanatical about the internet. - EricaJoy

Mark, that's an awesome idea. We've brainstormed our own list. Let me boil that down and put it on a wiki somewhere along with the great suggestions above. It's interesting that we already had about 70% of the ones suggested here on our own list, but got some really great suggestions we didn't think of. This is why I like friendfeed so much -- you all know a lot more than we do. - Robert Scoble

Mark Essel -- how about the Flickchart approach to ranking Internet leaders and visionaries? - Sean McBride

Mark: Flickchart http://www.flickchart.com elegantly implements a concept I've been thinking about for years: binary picking. You are presented two choices (in this case, movies) and you pick the one you prefer. Over time, and after dozens, hundreds and thousands of picks, the data begins to acquire considerable depth and subtlety in teasing out and extracting your tastes and... more... - Sean McBride

This is a great concept. To my mind there are a couple of important factors. Will the attention be on those who are having the greatest impact and influence online, who are the most successful, and an examination of what they are doing and how they have done what they have done. Or (and this is not mutually exclusive by any means) will it be about those who are most innovative, about... more... - Alex Hammer

Mark -- actually, the binary approach is infinitely extensible and capable of representing any degree of complexity in one's preferences, sentiments, profile, etc. Its simplicity is its power. Matters become interesting after one collects a sufficient quantity of binary relations and rated pairs. - Sean McBride

Recordon, Smarr, Messina for their OAuth work, Twitter/Matt Sanford for the best implementation of that, Winer for thinking out loud better than anyone else, and Evan Prodromou for figuring out how to create a network of social networks and publishing a spec along with his software and service. - Brian Hendrickson

Kol Tregaskes I'm sure you've seen him around :) and Sarah Perez for sure my favorite ReadWriteWebber www.sarahintampa.com - sofarsoShawn ~presque...

Difenetely dave Winer. I'd also put Chris Saad for hid Data Portability propaganda - Kirill Bolgarov

I'd say...Tim Berners-Lee, teaching his first HTML class at the W3 Conference Chicago in 92. Fun. - Kay Designer

Shawn, yes very fanatic. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

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