Jill Howard Allen

those are your two words? :) And hey, yo, this actually wasn't what i was referring to as annoying. It was the other ones - like "Pain & Sorrow", "Life", "Friendfeed", "Damn". Crap like that...at least this is a direct request for comments , whereas others are cop-outs (not sure if that is juts a british term) - Zee.

Sounds good - Josh Haley from fftogo

are you taking the piss? - Zee.

Number Two - Josh Haley from fftogo

aaaaaaand scene. - Josh Haley

Hubber hubber! - Timothy Griffin

and josh, i really do like that song. [pouts] - Anika

Joy & Pain - Anthony K. Valley ©

Sunshine & Rain - Anthony K. Valley ©

Love & Happiness - Anthony K. Valley ©

Sorry Faboo! - Josh Haley

Don't Cry! - Josh Haley

maple syrup - Mark Wilson

good night - Josh Haley

good riddance - Josh Haley

Aloha hard - Josh Haley

Venereal disease - Mike Nayyar

... are not enough for how I feel about Newton feeling up an apple. What! - vijay

last comment - Simon Wicks

I sneezed - Richard A. from IM

September 25?? - Miriella

ok - vijay

Awe. some. - Chieze Okoye

I still - Anika

bum rush - Katie: Witch Of The West

love that - Anika

song, man! - Anika

Why not? - Lisha Sterling

Just because! - Mark Layton

Thanks Anika! - Josh Haley

squishy butt - Trish Haley

Mumble Porn - Christopher Harley

hidden cam - Onur Gündüz

bella donna - fijidaddy

Not Pregnant - Steve C

oh yeah - Alfredo

toilets pooh - Alfredo

Hi Honey! - Josh Haley

Who farted? - Joe Pierce

WHO ME? - AJ Batac

got milk? - Kevin C. Tofel

I win! - ♥patricia♥

Chocolate Rain - Onur Gündüz

cowboy up - JA Castillo

twofer - Micah Wittman

sexual chocolate! - Josh Haley

Body bag. - Katie: Witch Of The West

Pizza buffet! - Craig Eddy

Gabba Gabba - Jill Howard Allen

Butt muscles - Mike Nayyar

sapho juice - Josh Haley

too sweet - Vicky

ass maggots - Josh Haley

trust me - MikeAmundsen

going home - Josh Haley

Still Fine :-) - YoYo_P

short tweet - KyleHase from twhirl

desire fear - Phil Boiarski

Touchy feely - Mike Nayyar

10 over - Josh Haley

DAMN YOU! - Michael Forian

These nuts - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

YOU'RE BLOCKED - Shawn Farner

just kidding - Shawn Farner

BOW DOWN - Mo Kargas

perhaps never - Jon, the Beartato of FF

Deuce Syntax - Johnny Worthington

wondering-if hyphenation-counts - Kevin Johnson

why me - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Found you - Mike Nayyar

Old thread. - Akiva Moskovitz

iPod Touch - TheHenry

Friend Feed. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

fast breeder - Christopher Harley

premature ejaculation? - Josh Haley

fart ventriloquist - Ladybug Heather

Fah cue. - Christian (Simply X)

Dim Sum - Rod Bauer from twhirl

In vain. - Meryn Stol

Walkin' Boss - Christopher Harley

Day off! - Shawn Whitmire

Alons-y, Alonso! - Steven Perez

monkey jacket - Christopher Harley

Trish's Birthday! - Josh Haley

bitch lips - sofarsoShawn

Cold chisel. - Christopher Harley

Siberian Khatru - Josh Haley

wiggy wiggy! - Helen Sventitsky

holy thunderforce - Mo Kargas

refried beans - Jeffrey J Davis

antibiotics again - Josh Haley

Done? Already? - Alisha Vargas

stop thread - KyleHase

nice try - Josh Haley

Fried Okra - Brent - Long Live Rock

fried shoes - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

Southern Delicacy - Josh Haley

Yes, live - Jim Hearts FF

Steve Howe - Josh Haley

Who revived? - Nicholas James

Savoir Faire - Josh Haley

Tonsil hockey - Threepwood

Buzz Kill - DGentry

Fart Blossom - Josh Haley

Great Thread! - Threepwood

NUT SACK - Johnny Worthington

suck balls - Darren Heydon

Nice, Aden! - Josh Haley

Balls Itch - CW™

Scratch Well - Josh Haley

Dirty Sanchez - (jeff)isageek

IT BURNS! - Glen Campbell, B.A.

Gilmore Girls - Josh Haley

Shake Well. - CAJ, somewhere else

Suck it. The classic WWE D-Generation X line) - Thunderwing from twhirl

Apply liberally. - CAJ, somewhere else

Wet Paint. - CAJ, somewhere else

Afternoon delight. - CAJ, somewhere else

Major Tom - Josh Haley

Michael Savage. The most important conservative in talk radio - Thunderwing from twhirl

Thom Hartmann. The most important liberal in talk radio - Thunderwing from twhirl

Weird meme. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

enough already - KyleHase

no Way - CW™

please stop - KyleHase

Why now - CW™

sandy vagina - Josh Haley

not good - Internet's Tad

painful thought - Kevin Johnson

Take shower - Brent - Long Live Rock

Booger picker - CW™

CILANTRO, BITCHES! - Steven Perez

SONIC SCREWDRIVER. - Steven Perez

NUTELLA NOM. - Steven Perez

STRAWBERRY BLOND. - Steven Perez

STAR TREK. - Steven Perez

BABYLON 5. - Steven Perez

CAPSLOCK RULEZ! - Steven Perez

BOW DOWN - Mo Kargas

NO WAI. - Steven Perez from IM

My eyes!!! - KyleHase

Absolutely nuts! - Bonnie Foster

Me breakfast! - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

uh--what? - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

improvised eloquence - Josh Haley from IM

apparent disappointment - Jon, the Beartato of FF

inadmissible guilt - Mo Kargas

hypnotic marmoset - Joe Pierce

intrepid giraffe - Mo Kargas

Bitch, please. - Derrick

Fist Bump - Josh Haley from IM

It's 8am - Nicholas James

Marmalade Gandalf - Christopher Harley

Guardians unite! - Brome

No Netbooks! - Rick Cogley

DISTURBED RULEZ! - Steven Perez from IM

melted biscuits - Simon Wicks

Palm Pre - Kevin C. Tofel

not again - Josh Haley

oh dear. - Her Lindsay-ness

Par. Ty. - Brett Kelly

hi bye - Peter Dawson

good night - Ray H

NOM NOM - Steven Perez

uh oh - metalerik

Baloney nipples - tinypants - Hagitha of FF

cheesy crust - Chris Hofmann

bacon get! - Chris Hofmann

coconut balls - MikeAmundsen

YOU LIE - Josh Haley

Good evening - Ray H

word word - Mike Nencetti

Great photo. I lie. See soon. - TrafficBug

Humble Pie - Brent - Long Live Rock

Pirate Day - Josh Haley from iPhone

Go Cowboys!?! - Got Love For DB™?

Nice capture. - Rick Cogley

Want fries? - Rick Cogley

You what!? - Rick Cogley

I kid. - Rick Cogley

Like dogs? - Rick Cogley

brown sugar - J. Abdul-Qahhar

Awesome sauce! - Alex Scoble

I agree on the Cloud Contacts recommendation. I just had them scan more than 4,000 cards for me and it freaking rocks to have them all in a database. Sorry, nothing beats the ubiquity of business cards. If you're going to use Business Cards, make sure you follow the best practices. I wrote that up here: http://scobleizer.com/2006... - Robert Scoble from FriendFeed MT Plugin

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@scobleizer: "2) Make sure your card can be scanned. I bought a business card scanner so that I could get my computers into computer form." Heh. - wyclif

Thanks for leaving your comments, Robert! =) I agree that biz cards are ubiquitous, but they're so... icky? cheesy? wasteful? forgettable? At shows, I usually just wait to meet the really interesting people I actually WANT to follow up with, then I get their Twitter handle, follow them from my mobile, and let the convo go on from their. I guess that method only works b/c I'm particular about who I follow, tho. ;) Hi fives and see you around! - Jolie O'Dell

I keep seeing tons of different sites popping up online trying to replace business cards. Of course this doesn't work right now since everyone uses one of the 11ty billion different systems. It'll be nice once some format widely accepted pops up for transferring between something like smart phones. Virtual Rolodex with cards sorted by meeting times. - Dean Clark

Where's Poken? :-) - Paul Papadimitriou

Poken is a toy compared to these devices, especially at the open software services level. The best comparison I have heard (mentioned at the jury deliberations when mynameise won the startup event at the NextWeb) was: if poken is myspace then E is linkedin. - Werner Vogels

@ Werner, Is E technically superior in some way or is it just the casing that you don't like? - KyleHase

at the hardware level the E devices are indeed much easier to connect based on the specific radio technologies that they use. But what impresses me more is their vision around software/cloud infrastructure that makes sharing of these kinds of information independent of the specific devices.Where this service can evolved and be useful to all of us even if a year from now we have different devices. - Werner Vogels

BTW: for easy sharing of social networking informatie, here is my public business E-Card http://www.mynameise.com/werner - Werner Vogels

Werner, mine is here: http://www.google.com/profile... :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, you'll have to admit, mine looks a lot cooler. Which should appeal to you apple design aficionado's Plus I have the choice out of different cards that I can exchange, e.g. business vs leisure. - Werner Vogels

You guys missed retaggr: http://www.retaggr.com/page... - Aad 't Hart

Just what I need: Another device. The right way to do this is a voice print. Just say your name to your new friend's phone, that's it. Imagine OpenID/FF/FB/Plaxo/Gmail storing your voice print as part of your ID. You plug in, upload the new voice prints of your new friends and then get all the contact info needed. You could also add the words "friend", "business", "Facebook" or whatever... more... - Rebecca Rachmany

I hate business cards and love the suggestions in this conversation. I am checking out BeamMe. Thanks! - Jill Howard Allen

Thanks for the comments, everyone! We’re glad to see other companies moving into this space; it validates that the problem we’re all trying to solve is a real one and that we can do some real good by addressing it. As you may have seen in our Google Tech Talk, Poken too has a very open philosophy and Poken too envisions a world in which people can share identities regardless of device... more... - Bryan Guido Hassin

This is very helpful on business cards! - Sheryl Brown

How on earth does Starbucks get more mentions than Google? - James

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James, 'I'm in Starbucks with a latte and a muffin for breakfast'. - Gilbert Harding

AIG is #5 for the wrong reasons - Andre P. Siregar

Open up two separate Twitter searches on the terms "google" and "starbucks", then come back to the tabs after 10 minutes - there'll be ten times as many new updates for Google. - James

I love that the Twitter handles are posted for these brands as well. - Jill Howard Allen

Downloads replace DVDs, CDs. No question. And eventually, streaming replaces downloads. - Louis Gray

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While I agree in general with the points you list, there will always be content, of various kinds, that I want to own in a format that I can do with as I please, when I please, and where I please... commercial-free, proper aspect ratio and presentation (books and movies especially), and highest available definition. Restricted downloads and streaming is fine for disposable content, as long as the price is right. But subscriptions and DRM'd content also have significant liabilities. - LogEx

Without a doubt, as we speak I am staring at a dresser stacked full of dvds. Most of which I'll only watch one time. Streaming is much more efficient and even environmentally friendly than collecting physical media copies. I would say that the same discussion extends over into magazines and newspapers too. Would love to hear your thoughts on that. Thanks - Benin Brown

I'm doing my best to severely limit my purchase of meatspace media. I'm actually kind of creeped out a little now by paper books and, especially, DVDs. I'm not completely against' books and other media primarily because they aren't all COMPLETELY obsolete yet, but we are on the verge of complete obsolescence of physical media fetishes. - Internet's Tad

I think this also holds true for maintaining one's own library of music files, so I actually consider iTunes dated in that sense. The future belongs to streaming audio, perhaps with elaborate caching so that it works without an internet connection. That's the only future use I see for local storage for personal computers, as "cache", as "working memory". The cloud is the new hard disk. - Meryn Stol

Physical media is archaic, but the issue of conserving things for the long term isnt, and physical media really helps there. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

All my music is on iTunes. I'm not a big movie person and the only DVDs I have are from friends that insist I have them. Still having a tough time giving up books & magazines and haven't gone over to Kindle. Oddly, I really don't want to own books, I just haven't taken to other forms of media for these things. Meryn, I like your comment about the cloud being the new hard disk. - Jill Howard Allen

there is a cultural divide. people still like to own their music and rent their video. the younger generation will be more hip to borrowing from the cloud. - Richard Zeidel from twhirl

In before Tad says "how quaint". :P - Rochelle

For me anyway the age factor doesn't matter I'm 32 and I'd rather just "borrow from the cloud" as it were. Physical media is just something else my kids can break. - John Blanton from twhirl

The younger generation is <20. At 32 you grew up shopping in CD/DVD stores for media. You are accustomed to physical distribution. <20 will likely never have engaged with the physical; nor would they know what to do with it - - Richard Zeidel

Strangely enough the rare times I go in a music/film/games shop (once or twice a year when i miss a train), most of the people in it are <20 They have time to hang out, we don't - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

As the early tech gadget adopter my friends always ask me why i havent got blu-ray and that they want it. I tell them i get HD streamed to me via the web and blu-ray will be dead in 3 years - andy brudtkuhl

especially when Boxee comes preloaded on TV's - andy brudtkuhl

I generally prefer having my media in digital format. But every so often an artist puts together an "album" that deserves my keeping it on disk. Now, I know this sort of accomplishment is unusual these days, and maybe I pine too much for someone to match or surpass Moody Blues', Pink Floyd's or The Beatles' mastery of that element of the art form, but I feel obliged to hope. Some albums... more... - Bob Finch

I'll be there from April 29th until May 1st. See more in my Dopplr profile. - Robert Scoble

I can't see more in dopple you haven't allowed it yet :( - Sheryl from fftogo

Check out Loss Dos Molinos (602) 243-9113 8646 S Central Ave, Phoenix for some excellent spicy Mexican food. (Actually New Mexican) There are other locations as well. This is the best. - Jill Howard Allen

It seems like "Real-time" is a term that's getting a lot of usage lately and seeing a rise in terms of trends. Services that have some kind of real-time functionality surely receive more attention from users. - Orli Yakuel from Bookmarklet

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Thanks for this post, Orli - Giuliano [out1968]

Nice, Orli! You have been putting out some good stuff lately :) - Neal Jansons

I hadn't heard of TwitZap before. Funny to me that one of their features is 'sending tweets even when Twitter is down.' Wait. What? They should sell this to Google! It's like Gears, but online! - Benson Miller

From all this list I liked Zemanta plug-in the most, it's amazingly useful. - Orli Yakuel

Thanks for the list. Very helpful and I can't wait to try some of these out! - Jill Howard Allen

Google Documents/Writely should also be on the list. - Vivek Puri

Vivek, who calls Googledocs - Writely these days? - Orli Yakuel

@orli who know where it came from :) - Vivek Puri

Also page source of a Google Doc has enough mentions to writely - Vivek Puri

@loic started this with a script he had built. He unfollowed everyone yesterday and now only is following 22 people. - Robert Scoble

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@loic told me it feels like he took a bath. - Robert Scoble

@loic says that having a small number of people he intimately follows lets him build real relationships online again. - Robert Scoble

i just think people shouldnt take all of this so seriously. - Terry O'Fee

Is there a way to do this (as in mass deletion option?) Thanks. - hawk12online

@loic says that if you try to follow thousands of people there's no way to see all the tweets. That is true. If I refresh Twitter.com as fast as I can I can't see all the Tweets coming into my account. - Robert Scoble

I have been actively unfollowing--not everyone--but anyone that seems not directly relevant or familiar to me on some level. Twitter has become a far richer experience since employing this technique - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Well how will you will you filter than or get to the things you like? A group of people you follow is in my experience one of the best information filters you can have. - rick

I'm now following just over 100 people anyway - VIVANO

there is more than one way to do twitter. both the @loic and @scobleizer way are right. - Peggy Dolane

Oh, I'm sure it's an annoying mess with about 400 items per minute that mean absolutely nothing to you - Dorian Muthig

Are you gonna unfollow everyone too, Robert? - Reuben Thum

i have some really good friends i talk to on a regular basis. some i have conversations with. some proper celebrities because i cant help myself. the rest i suss out. if all they can talk about is ff and twitter, i may unfollow myself. - Terry O'Fee

@loic and I see that there's something new happening. First, search like http://search.twitter.com is totally changing our inbound. Second, using services like friendfeed lets you group and manage large numbers of followers, so you'll still have the inbound, especially as more and more people join both friendfeed and Twitter. - Robert Scoble

instead of unfollowing, I use FriendFeed to filter/group the tweeters according to their priority for me - Alexander Benker

I agree Robert- following folks sometimes can be a total waste of time and waste of twitter. Quality over quantity seems to be the new movement of late and I have to agree fro the most part-I am tired of getting spammed and DMed by spam which we all have to delete. But I have always followed quality- and that is why I am responding to your tweet dude. - DougFirebaugh

Sure when you have the amount of followers that you do and they will just listen it makes sense. But not for the average user of twitter. It's not about just being followed. I think you may have lost touch with the whole thing. You two are in the top 2%. Twitter is a completely different user experience than the other 98%. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

So are we calling this Follower Bankruptcy? - Mike Doeff

This one of the reasons to have track, so you can follow your real friends and still discover new people - Christian Burns

Robert, Twitter is a river of 140 char messages. Dive in when you feel like taking a bath. Get out when you had enough. Loic and you should stop whining about the drawbacks after you start following thousands of people ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

let's see robert unfollow everyone in friendfeed too. hah, that'll be the day. - Terry O'Fee

Reuben: I haven't decided to yet, but @loic sure makes a good case for it. - Robert Scoble

IMO, it's not a great idea. People will see this as a negative action toward them and unfollow you. If everybody were to unfollow everybody they know, twitter would become a meaningless array of nothingness. "If it ain't broke, don't unfollow it." - Zerhynn

I have never bought into the mass followers approach and find that I have to find at least 2 or 3 tweets interesting within a page or two, in anybody I would choose to follow. I am interested in connection with people with similar interests and I don't think it makes sense to just build up volume. - Kirti Vashee

There's certainly a buzz around this, we just talked about it on our podcast tonight. What sucks about unfollowing is losing the news-stream of information you're trying to capture--stuff you may not have notice/found. Maybe Twitter should implement groups, a'la tweetdeck? - Paul Salzman

Although I do agree that you do not need to follow thousands of people. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

interesting concept - guess that is what I use tweetdeck, friendfeed and socialmedian for to allow me to focus on issues because I carefully selected the people I follow after reviewing their sites I see merit in unfollowing everyone just as I see in using third party apps - it depends on the individuals preferences - Lionel Spearman

It's both good and bad. For one if your reduce the number of people you follow to a minimalistic amount you can build richer and more vibrant relationships with the select few. The bad however is that your world view is now much smaller than what it would have been. I'm actually thinking about unfollowing a mass of people to get back into a manageable range where I can read all of there tweets and then search for anything else. - Jimminy

Why is it a new movement when SM gurus start doing it? I follow those that have similar interest or to learn different point of views. I have no goal to have the most followers or the best twitter grade. Twitter is about the relationships you build. Friends are relationships that I have built over years of trust and loyalty. - Kyle

I would consider it, but I would have trouble shutting out that many. I am following 1000 and being followed by 1500 - Christian Burns

Having just decided to join the follow you movement I think unfollowing everyone is an unfriendly move, why not make a group for the 22 friends you really want to follow:) - Suzie Cheel

Then there are some who follow then unfollow and follow again. lol. - Carolyn Chan

One problem with not following everyone: only people you are following can send you direct messages on Twitter. That's one thing that's keeping me from running @loic's script. @loic points out, though, that most of my DM's are now spam. He's right. - Robert Scoble

I've been speaking about that for a weeks, and applying it, glad it's finally trickling to the a-listers. - Richard A.

So the question is, when will FF get DMs? - Christian Burns

you still have email, robert :P - Terry O'Fee

Not sure I agree. Even with a small "following" I get real nuggets via DMs. Besides - it is rude to mass unfollow :) - Rob La Gesse

I kind of wish I could limit my follows to 150 - Christian Burns

I have been thinking about this a lot. Recently I blogged about how opening up my Facebook to everyone who wanted to connect was not really resulting in meaningful relationships. We don't have the time to be engaged with that many people. We can put content out and discuss when they respond, but to actually use the medium in the way I used to when I had just a couple friends on there is no longer possible with so many people. Likewise, with Twitter. - AV Flox

I won't be sad or hurt if @Scobleizer unfollows me. Frankly, not all my tweets are that relevant to the guy. Just so long as he checks his @replies and answers me every blue moon, that still falls in the category of a good relationship on Twitter. @shelisrael has an unfollow/follow as you go motto described on his blog, it makes sense to me. - Phillip

It was my script. I'm the new guy at seesmic. I wrote it for loic today. if anyone wants it, I've got it. kick this movement into high stream. If you look at the first person in loic's follow list, its me now :-) - Zac Bowling

But Robert, I thought you couldn't check your DM's? I remember seeing quite a few tweets from you saying "DON'T DM ME - EMAIL ME INSTEAD" etc. - Brandon LeBlanc from twhirl

What a load of BS. Do the math. - Stephen Grant-Jones

Since I run much smaller number that Loic & Robert, my systematic subtractive technique works--if I had thousands of spamming DM--I would run Loic's script. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Brandon: I tried getting people to not send me DMs. Doesn't work. People were trying to do business with them (and still are). It's probably the single reason why I won't run the script. - Robert Scoble

I love the spontaneity and surprise of many friends. I would never give it up. I discover things every day that delight me. - John Kremer

Besides, if I really need to send Scoble a DM I can just call his Cell phone - Christian Burns

A lot of the conversations that are still happening are interesting but the relationships built are no longer as close as they were when I had only a couple of followers. It's funny that you tweeted about only having 150 followers on Friendfeed and that's more conducive to quality relationships. Isn't 150 the Dunbar number? Loic's movement is worth reflecting on. I've been making use of Tweetdeck again to scale down the groups. It's helped but Loic's solution is seductive. - AV Flox

This can be very short sighted. A great way to send the message, I don't want your business or money. - Sylvia Webb

it would almost be a good idea except for one thing - @reply can only be seen by followers. It would be great if this were not the case, and I can see the spam potential if it were, but limiting @reply to followers, if you;re not following anyone, means everyone is in a big room shouting over each other instead of conversing. - Brian Benz

New craze for newbies to twitter, following a small number of people and filter the rest for useful conversations. Quantity is not quality! - Carl Plant

People that I follow on Twitter, for the most part, aren't "friends" in any normal sense of the word. Most of them are unaware of my existence. I tend to selectively follow (previewing someone's stream before following) and actively unfollow (usually when I see a page full of "Welcome, @one" and "Welcome, @two" messages). - Glen Campbell, B.A.

i'm far more suspicious of those following me than i'm concerned about who I follow. I'm always looking to prune my Twitter follows and -- what can I say -- it's hard... lots of people in my twitterfeed tend to add value more often than not! - Andy Sternberg

Also, does this approach not create a new A-list in a different place? - Brian Benz

Just goes to prove that Steve Gillmor is always right, eventually you will see it his way :) - Christian Burns

Do what works for you. If it stops working for you then make a change. I don't think there is any reason for debate here. To each his/her own. - Katherine Druckman

@Robert it isn't possbile to say to people not to use DM. And if you feel like you should build up such a large crowd you follow or that follow you then accept the consequences. You get value because it lets you be an information hub and provides you overall sex appeal in the tech community. In return you will have to accept that people try to get access to you to get back some of that value for themselves or their products. - Alexander van Elsas

if it ain't broke. don't fix it. i wouldn't unfollow everyone but i do find myself filtering more. being open and keeping channels 2 way has allowed me to meet some amazing contacts interested in doing business in China. to unfollow people would be to cut off these channels for me. a lot of these contacts are via DM. everyone's got a different way of using twitter. - Christine Lu

Brian: why? Not sure what you're getting at there. - Robert Scoble

It's not necessary to see all the tweets. You can use Tweetdeck and other services to make sure you don't miss your favorites. I still love the nuggets I discover -- like this post -- that I would not discover if I stopped following so many people. - John Kremer

I can make it easy for @loic. Nuke the account and start over following the 22 people. - Christian Anderson

Am I wrong to say that if you use Twitter search @yourusername you can't see @replies from people NOT following you? I tried it and it seems to work for me. - Phillip

Christine: it's all broken, it's just that I have gotten used to routing around the fail whales and the stream flowing through Tweetdeck. I "media snack" and just sample from the stream flowing by. It doesn't bother me too much either way. I do find that friendfeed is a far better place and it's great to see more and more people discovering that. - Robert Scoble

Phillip: bing! Oh, by the way, I'm following everyone on this thread. :-) - Robert Scoble

Geez, Loic is like the drama queen of the web. - Orli Yakuel

Christian: actually that's probably what I would do if I was tired of a high-flow account: just start a new account with only a few friends and lock down the followers. Maybe that's the solution for true addicts like me. :-) - Robert Scoble

I'm unfollowing everyone on twitter and friendfeed who I don't know personally or isn't local. Sorry peeps, Twitter and friendfeed works best like that. Once I get everything clean, feel free to let me know you're still following me and I'll follow back. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Orli: oh, if you can't have some drama what fun is social media? ;-) - Robert Scoble

I have a simple, less radical set of rules: 1) use groups, 2) un-follow anyone who spams you with direct messages and 3) move questions/conversations to friendfeed. - Edwin Khodabakchian

Robert, stay as you are, please. - Orli Yakuel

Orli: don't worry, I'll always follow you. :-) - Robert Scoble

I too use FriendFeed's and TweetDeck's group functions to prioritize the tweets that comes in from my followees. - Vinko

52 pages, 1025 people I follow on twitter. Each one was added by me for a reason. No auto-follow. First person ever followed was Jason Calacanis over two years agao. - Christian Burns

My twitter name is @infoliberation. I find that Twitter is short and sweet and Friendfeed is for a much more robust conversation. I love the marriage of the two. I think Friendfeed is helped greatly by Twitter's jumping off point. What else can you say to that? - Phillip

damn...right when my followership just started taking off. :-( - Jason Salas from IM

I agree with Katherine, to each his own. I've got just a wee 2000 followers, but enjoy popping in to respond to whatever random tweet catches my eye or relevant tweets I've found through saved topic searches. Hey, I even got a new client today - so I'm doing just fine with how things are now. - Cheryl Allin

please people, let's try for tomorrow for a day on this where we dont talk about twitter or friendfeed. there's other stuff to talk about... - Terry O'Fee

Robert, come on... this is not what I'm worried about. I think that you really know most of your friends, or for at least trying to communicate with people you don't know. With Twitter you get to know new friends & content based on the same taste/interests - to follow only people you know, is like taking two steps back. (and thanks for following me!) - Orli Yakuel

Not sure why you would need to unfollow everyone to keep track of what your important people tweet. Just form a group of high-profile folks in TweetDeck and it'll do the same thing, plus you can still follow everyone else for when you want to jump in the stream. - Cory OBrien

i just unfollowed a couple of folks, it's true, we can live without twitter,facebook and friendfeed. How about for lent we give up facebook, twitter and friendfeed? - Dh'ennis Dömingö

Robert - Limiting followers = limiting DMs and replies and tweets you can see from others - In Loic's example 22 invitees (followers) that get to have a seat at the table while the rest of us can watch the action passively. TO me this would be as exciting as C-Span. :) - Brian Benz

I cannot fathom following hundreds of people. I was in the 90s a couple of weeks ago so I pruned my list down to 78. Even that seems high but I couldn't go lower. I'm slow to follow folks, on Twitter & FF, because I'd rather follow a small group of folks I've a genuine connection with than a ton of folks I only have a vague sense about. Some folks tell me I'm doing social media wrong but I think that's silly. For me, social media is all about fun so what need have I of 1000s of followers? - ♥patricia♥

I think everyone will find their own Twitter preferences. I'm following 606 right now. In a week or two I may clean out some of the driftwood - people who've gone silent or have switched to topics that aren't interesting, but then I'll add some new folks to make up for it. I don't catch every Tweet, but the stream keeps running. So long as it's populated with interesting folk, the Tweets that I do catch are more likely to be interesting as well. - Heidi Cool

Orli: I've decided that @loic is wrong. But he's also right. Twitter, you see, is really broken for interacting with large numbers of people. Friendfeed is much better. - Robert Scoble

I think Loic let things get out of control. Robert, considering how many followers you have, you seem to be able to manage your account better than anybody. If your truly are looking for a quality experience, you have to decide what works for you. I always thought it was about quality not quantity:-) - Michael Fidler

@loic I think its cool that you rebooted who you follow - Christian Burns

On Pownce I used to try to keep track of all posts (and followed fewer people) but Pownce was more indepth. On Twitter one can glean a lot from just a small percentage of what's there. - Heidi Cool

Robert, with that I agree: FriendFeed is better for long and real conversations. - Orli Yakuel

I agree groups in tweetdeck help you filter very well without missing some occasional random tweets. keeping up with your @replies is more critical than every single tweet. - Alistair (alpinefolk)

Robert - you should unfollow everyone and see what happens. make sure that script stores everyone you are following in a db in case you want to re-follow after the test. - Gerard

While I didn't unfollow everyone, I cut out a lot of who I was following. Might be rude, but it's not meant to be that way. i no longer have the time to follow so many people. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Gerard: it would cause too many messages to fly around. People get their feelings hurt if someone unfollows them. - Robert Scoble

If I unfollow people, then I'd be digitally talking to myself. I can do that IRL -

My feelings wouldn't be hurt - I'd doubt if I'd even realize it - that's not what I'm using Twitter for - just silly to me. - Cheryl Allin

Outsanity: that's not true. Who you are following is your inbound. You can get inbound other places, like http://search.twitter.com or http://www.twittervision.com - Robert Scoble

Twitter is what you want it to be. That's one of the fascinating things. My own view of it has changed a dozen times since I started. Everyone has their own philosophy about how to use it, and they are all valid. As for me, I'm simply not going to follow anybody who doesn't follow me, and I will follow anybody (as long as they are real) I just unfollowed loic. The World is flat. Will I miss out? Perhaps, but if I want to know what the 'important' people are thinking I can just go to their sites. - Stephen Pickering

Robert: You're currently "following" 69,188 people on Twitter. If one of those people has their feelings hurt because you unfollow them and they no longer have 1/70,000th of your attention, they have a screw loose. - Ken Sheppardson

Twhirl gives you inbound with saved searches, each search a tab stream. I love it. Create a saved search for keyword 'RT' and see what's hot or a saved search like 'chrisbrogan' and follow him and all who @ him. - Cheryl Allin

I say bite the bullet, clear things out, add some searches in Tweetdeck or one of the "track" services, and follow people manually as your real relationships warrant. You can alway run a script to just follow everybody later if you miss the noise. - Ken Sheppardson

Robert: I unfollowed according to three criteria 1. Does the person follow more than a thousand 2. Does the person respond 3. does the person tweet links and RT rather than content, the fourth is whether you're unlucky enough to tweet when I'm in unfollow mode. Result: A more social timeline. - Richard A.

Sounds like Loic needs to fix Twhirl to manage his followers better. He doesn't have to pay attention to every single one, but he does need a way to build relationships with those he wants to. Twhirl is horrible at this. - Jesse Stay

@Richard Azia: I couldn't have agreed with you more on your criteria. - Reuben Thum

@Jesse Stay, I use twhirl and it's fine for what I do, but that's because I culled my follow list removing all those that aren't active conversationalists. - Richard A.

Reuben, My timeline is far more fun now as a result :-). Took a few experiments to find the right method though. - Richard A.

I think people who find this idea good are those who were to liberal in following. I'm conservative when it comes to social network connections. I follow 64 on Twitter and have less than 40 friends on Facebook. - KyleHase from twhirl

@Richard Azia: I did the same thing like you did, too. Instead of auto following people blindly, I use an auto follow app, but manually unfollow spammers and users based on similar criteria you've mentioned. - Reuben Thum

At a certain point if you had autofollow on you have no choice but to start over because a) you can follow the number of tweets and b) you will stress the Twitter servers out. - Jason Calacanis

Reuben. I don't use auto follow, For me to follow someone new I want to see how converstional they are first. That's when I might consider them on twitter. - Richard A.

Robert: Is this the flip side of what Jason and Michael were taking you to task on a few weeks back on GG? Is it time to do more meaningful *listening*? - Ken Sheppardson

Robert: I 'think' I was the first person with over 20k followers to do this. Though in my case, I totally reset my account - zero following / zero followers. http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2009... it has been a universally great experience to me and massively increased the value of Twitter to me. - Jim Connolly

Ken: yes, I think this has a big part to do with addiction too. You keep trying to follow more and more until you snap. - Robert Scoble

An interesting idea, as I have found I have followers but a very select few who actually respond regularly, I wonder if it is matter of depersonalization, losing what it once represented as a means to an end. Certainly it could be a good idea, but many of those who I have found were those who had spoke on something of interest in the wide swath of sea that is twitter. So I will consider it, but am not sure if there will be follow through anytime soon. Though I guess it would depend also on how effective. - Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa

As someone has probably already pointed out in a more eloquent fashion, Loic's company makes a Twitter client. Surely he should build tools into that client to make the overload problem more manageable and certainly not try to set a trend of "hey it's cool to unfollow lots of people now". That sort of sends the wrong message to people about your company and it's thinking. - Pete Gilbert

I don’t see how this is even an idea to be considered. If we unfollow everybody and everybody else unfollows the rest, then Twitter will become a very lonely place. Boring place with no use what so ever… I strongly disagree with this. - Spyros Papaspyropoulos

This the Loic Le Meur trend he catch big head, because he is personnal friend of Sarkozy , the small napoleon - Yann from twhirl

agreed @peter, it's nonsense, companywise, to promote that kind of message when you try to spread your twitter tool.Anyway, I think it's more a trend problem, the 2009 fashion is to unfollow everyone and @loic cannot do unfashioned thing because this is how he builds his reputation and his company notoriety.Dommage... - Jean-Charles VERDIE from twhirl

There is no point being on twitter if your purpose is to broadcast. For broadcasting blogs and other platforms are more interesting. If you take dialogue away from twitter you undermine the most active members of the community because they will feel people are using the site too passively. Why do you think social networks fail, lack of involvment. At least by reducing the number of people you follow you increase engagement on a per person basis. It becomes personal once more. - Richard A.

@ J-C verde, as you said is dommage, Loic catch the big head , i guess when he will realize that will be too late - Yann from twhirl

It's beginning to feel like the @1938media technique--in reverse--sans personality shift. Loic will now certainly be the topic of many blog posts in the next day or two. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Spyros: totally wrong. We'd still be here at friendfeed and http://search.twitter.com would still show us other people. - Robert Scoble

@Robert and what is the criteria to detect people in such a huge stream? Come on, this is a network thing: you follow someone because someone else you share interest with has followed him, much more than picking up in twitter "all" stream... - Jean-Charles VERDIE from twhirl

Jean: I am very adept at scrolling through a huge list of names and telling you something about most of them. Friendfeed is where I spend most of my time, though. - Robert Scoble

GREAT idea Loic, way to prove your software really can't handle the numbers. This is a weird move from a very smart man. - Jim Connolly

Understand, Robert, but I think that setting up filters (like you did) is a better way than unfollowing people, which seems to be a "2009 trend" with no real reason, even more when you promote a twitter tool.You barely say "my tool suck, so I can't do anything but unfollow you'.Bad move, IMO. - Jean-Charles VERDIE from twhirl

I think Loic displayed a certain degree of immaturity in handling twitter as a tool. It is as overdone to follow everyone as it is to unfollow radically. Inspired by the debate, I felt a bit like Moses today ( ;-) ), and subsequently assembled bloggi's Ten Commandments of Twitter: http://bit.ly/ten-commandments - Mark Jacobs

Jean: agreed. I like friendfeed as an answer a lot more. Just open up a list and put the people you want to really follow in there and keep everyone else out. - Robert Scoble

If everybody unfollows everybody else then there is no twitter - Mark Fletcher

for the one devellop a twitter tool like Twhirl , i admit is a strange behavior, maybe is normal he is french - Yann from twhirl

@yann I'm also french and I don't understand too. - Jean-Charles VERDIE from twhirl

As Twitter's user numbers have INCREASED it's usability (to me) has DECREASED. Is it just me? - Jim Connolly

I can understand Loic's reasons, but I don't agree with it. I don't personally know 95% of the people I follow on twitter. It is however neither relevant nor important for that to be a pre-requisite to starting an interesting conversation. I don't auto follow people and i only pay attention to whoever I want to irrespective of the number of people i am subscribed to. Moreover, a large number of people have occasional sparks of interestingness. So if one can learn to ignore; the more the better. - Parth Awasthi

@Jim_Connolly It is the old law of decreasing returns when new media trivialize. But usually, I am pretty untouched by it since (having been around since February 2007 in twitter) I only follow some 350 people to this day. So I get a good result from my circle of followees. Also, I try to give by helping out new twitter users who have questions. - Mark Jacobs

@Scoble have you unfollowed everyone? - Waldemar Schott

@Parth_Awasthi I think, lioc created a big mess by first auto following, and now seeing no other way out than to unfollow. Somehow, it makes me giggle a bit :-) - Mark Jacobs

You guys have way too much free time on your hands with this nonsense. - Wayne Schulz

Too much drama. It's funny how many social networks bemoan lack of users and with Twitter, the opposite problem is the subject of complaints - "there's too many bots and DMs! oh my!" Bleh. - Eric Gonzalez

hey guy don't confuse is only one Guy got the big head this is not a trend - Yann from twhirl

I really don't share opinion about Loic putting this on a personal way. This is a strategy mistake (company-wise), a trend mistake (2009-ish fashion)...But not a big head problem. Loic had thousands reasons to have a huge head issue before and did not, so I don't see why it would be the case now - Jean-Charles VERDIE from twhirl

this become a hot topic, maybe to much for that - Yann from twhirl

at always promote himself as rock Star , finally he catch the big head - Yann from twhirl

Robert Scoble: What about the people that are using only Twitter? What about the ones that don't use FriendFeed? Ok, we might be crazy having many many accounts on most of all social platforms, but other only use one or two. By unfollowing everyone, there is no Twitter as Mark Fletcher said. - Spyros Papaspyropoulos

I'd agree with someone earlier Loic wants to keep his followers but follow less bet he wouldn't have started that policy at the beginning otherwise he would have a few k followers at most! If he had real balls then he would delete his account like @jimconnolly did and start fresh but he wont as he still wants to 'use' the big following he has, talk about one way! - roger byrne

don't have to start unfollowing anyone as i didn't start following everyone in the first place.. never really understood the auto-following of twitterers i started following.. you've got twittersearch to find people with common interests.. - Johannan Edelman

@scobleizer @loic So much as issues matter, people also matter. Unfollowing people because there is an alternative way to search for issues or interests is limiting the scope to generate them in the first place. Following more people signals belongingness and interests or issues heard. On the other hand, small followings signals selfishness and is the same as 'greed is good'. - Moses Kpetigo

Interesting: so would @loic also encourage all his followers to stop following him? so he could stick with his few twitter fellows? If I remember, he was the one all about numbers and authority. It seems like, once you've reached enough, you're safe ppl will follow you no matter what, you have good "authority" and then you can unfollow all the mass and become a Twitter snob? It sounds too much like a strategy to me. In which he succeed, no doubt. Will he lose credibility? I wonder. - May

I like Robert's snack analogy: I consider Twitter as a news source roughly tuned to my general interests via who I decided to follow. In this respect I could follow lots of people, since it makes sure that each time I go to Twitter, I will find something interesting to me. I know I won't be able to read everything, but I don't care, it's just like in a book store I know I can't read all the books, but I like to sample in the sci-fi shelves - Antoine Bertier

@loic is becoming way too elitist lately. i didn't hear him complaining when he was following thousands of people to promote seesmic! - Alensa

@antoine Exactly right imho most have never claimed and quite the opposite actually specified they don't/can't read every tweet but when they are on they are on and dip into the party! Loics party just got real small! ;) - roger byrne

while search.twitter.com is useful, twitter puts you on the front of the wave not searching to catch up afterwards - Mark Parssey

There are Wars currently on this planet, half of people dont have anything to eat, drink, there is a global economic crisis, but all that is bullshit compare to Twitter... Right? GrRRRrRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Didier Lahely

All in all, Twitter and FriendFeed are really nothing more than a Yahoo chatroom. Way too much noise and too many people that need to get over themselves. - Charles Baldwin

i constantly wonder how you keep up with sooooo many followers. doesn't it drive you nuts???? - Francisco Kemeny

My twitterverse contains people I pay attention to, people that I have so I can search and some that I just follow for a moment and then remove. - Josef Finsel from twhirl

Human attention spans (and time) are limited. Twitter and IMing are a large 'experiment' , still a work in progress--the jury is out! - JimmyJet

If you have so many followers that you have to unfollow because you didn't follow based on what the people were saying, but instead followed to up your "network", then Twitter probably isn't the venue for you. Check out MySpace and do that... - Nicki Laycoax

*yawn* what's new here? nothing. @fidlr and others started the twexpire type experiments (look up the script if you care) long ago; not loic or scoble. i specified the #egosphere vs. #cognosphere usage scenarios long ago. @JimmyJet and @DidierLahely sum it up well. In another sense, all of this is IRC and Usenet for dummies. - michael silverton

it's a good exercise to see how much you really miss the tweets of those you unfollow. And also see how many of them will remain followers after you unfollow. - Mihai Secasiu

I'd argue that having 23k followers is 'doing it wrong' & you should unfollow and start over. I follow 329 right now and the signal-to-noise ratio is manageable. It's a mix of people I know intimately, casually and professionally, and that's where I have the conversations and relationship-building. Next is a handful of news and interesting/high # of followers people. Then, a few individuals with similar numbers as me I found interesting, which has allowed for Twitter-specific relationship-building. - Laura Hall

I agree with @Johannan Edelman I have never used the autofollow function and have felt those I do follow provide value to me. - Jill Howard Allen

As an additional note, if I were to increase my activity and wanted to manage those relationships, I'd start doing filtered lists. - Laura Hall

Groups/filteting seems to be a more sensible and positive sltuion to the "too many followers" problem. eh. - Doug Haslam from twhirl

It's nice that people find what works for them, but there is no "doin' it wrong" There is only "doin it with clue" or "doin it clueless" ... if one doesn't know WHY one is doin' it, no life coach, guru, or A-lister can help. Form your own experiments and execute them. You need no approval or permission from any seeming authority figure. Look up #cognosophere and #egosophere if you care. P.S. PeopleBrowsr breaks ALL these assumptions; it's a completely new kind of literacy beyond Twitter and Friendfeed. - michael silverton

Loic forgot how he use Twitter for promte seesmic ...... why not unfollow him too ?? - Yann from twhirl

I guess I just like to see what people are up to. Isn't that what it was all about before the marketing types took over? Now it's about "getting value" and "managing relationships". I joined so I could tell people what I was having for lunch. - Shawn Farner

I like being in your Twitter stream, I like the idea that thought leaders and influential people like yourself occasionally get to read my updates. You know, once in a blue moon I come up with a great idea, and it's cool to know that in turn this might just inspire Scoble, or Fry for that matter, too. - Terje Fjelde

On the other hand I hate reading about strangers "spending the entire day in bed" or "being bored," so I only follow people who add quality updates on my own account - Terje Fjelde

the main issue comes from the fact Twitter does not help users follow and decide efficiently on new followers. Robert if you are interested we have created a new service called Topify.com. if you are interested i ll drop you an invite - Ouriel Ohayon

Twitter has provide me a way to build a network of people and experts very quickly in fields where I previously did not have contacts or experience. To blanket unfollow would be like cutting my nose off in spite of my face. - Stephen Terlizzi

How will this help...what will it do? - John Flynn

ouriel: sure, send it to scobleizer@gmail.com - Robert Scoble

robert: you ll get it in a few days, just after we migrated servers. i am sure you ll love it :) - Ouriel Ohayon

That's not new. Loic didn't start a trend. I've only bee using these services since May and I've done it on several occasions and not just on Twitter. Several people have. - Anika

I did that for a while on my first (now private/personal) account, and found myself going to 5-6 follower's Twitter pages to read the news (ala RSS reader days) a couple of times a day. Now that I have a public account, I creeped up to 75-100 again but am consciously rotating folks in and out of my "Top 50." My Twitterstream is like a living, breathing being, I guess! But by intensely following different people at different times, I learn something new and can move on. It's quality, not quantity. - Carolyn

Robert - the idea of reducing who you actively follow and relying more on search notifications is the premise of this post: "2009 Prediction: As Social Connections Reduce, Keyword Tracking Increases" http://bit.ly/hfQq - Hutch Carpenter

My .02 I do wish twitter had an "inbox" feature so I could divide up those I follow into categories and then read tweets as I like. I know tweetdeck does this but I don't like having to rely on two pieces of software to make it work. Feeding people into my rss reader would take forever. The FriendFeed model of being able to categorize people as you friend them is perfect. Then you can check up on a particular category of people anytime you like. (i.e. politicians, Social Media nuts, writers, etc) - Sid Burgess

I think a lot of the "unfollowing" noise is reaction to those who are gaming their follower counts on Twitter. It's upset the numerical dominance of the traditional A-listers, who were already stinging from the arrival of *real* celebrities to the service. So now there's a swing back to exclusivity. I'm not sure Loic is wrong, though: I'm planning on significantly downsizing who I follow on FriendFeed. This format seems more suitable for conversation. Twitter is fine for a big, noisy stream. - Chris Baskind

Chris: on friendfeed just stick the people you want to rarely follow into a list, or do what I did: put the people you REALLY want to follow into a list and read that everyday. That way you'll still have the massive inflows somewhere else when you want those too. - Robert Scoble

Chris: there is something to that, by the way. But you've only touched the surface of the breakage that happened the past month. Go deeper there and you will find the truth. - Robert Scoble

Chris - Lists have answered this quandary for me. The bacon memes are fun, but I didn't want them filling up my main feed. And during the day, I have a professional need to focus on the world of e2.0. Lists really do serve the purpose Loic set out to accomplish. - Hutch Carpenter

unfollow everyone on twitter, FB and every other social network. UK scientists sez that these SN sites actually rewires the nueural network within the brain and thereby making an individual more selfish and self centered. Thus cause pyschological damage to themselves.. :(- (p.s Link will follow- I just heard it this AM on FM while communting to work !!) - Peter Dawson

You have to be damn special for me to follow you, without you following me, and I try to only follow people with a near 1:1 ratio. There are of course, exception. Sarah Crisman unfollowed me one day, I never found out why, but I didn't drop her cause I like her content. - Matthew DeVries

Robert: I know that's an oversimplification. There are a number of factors upsetting the apple cart on Twitter, and not all of them are petty or nefarious. - Chris Baskind

Chris: even the petty ones are deeper if you dig beyond the ego damage. - Robert Scoble

Bad thing, and if you do it, you will confirm that you A-listers only exploited social media as your broadcasting tool for your own political agenda and not as a true conversation. - Prokofy Neva

I got over the ego damage quickly cause # of followers never did matter. But what remains? Twitter has harmed its community. This is an easy mistake to make and it's one that comes out of @ev and @biz's arrogance. They rarely use their own tools, by the way. Look at @ev's account and tell me he's really a great Twitterer that talks with tons of people. He does not. - Robert Scoble

Not a good thing...ummm. Wait... Are the major Twitter-User fear of their status, when too many other users get a lot of followers, too? What is the purpose of this discussion? - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

What's even funnier is that the guy who actually came up with the idea for Twitter, @noah, is not one of the suggested followers while other people on the team are. I should write a book about how funny this all is. - Robert Scoble

@loic seems to have quit over inane DM spam thanking for following, etc. Is there no way to stop automated use of the tools? - Prokofy Neva

Prokofy: that's not really a good reason to follow everyone. But there are plenty of other good reasons, so I keep doing it. @Ryo you're off the rails. Get back on track. You're close to the track, but not on it. - Robert Scoble

BS meme! the unfollowers just want to blast their mouths off and not listen to what others have to say - DC Crowley

Prokofy: no. Twitter's DM feature really sucks. It always has. I just use it because everyone else wants to. - Robert Scoble

Twitter's DM is a reinvention of a wheel named EMAILS. - directeur

directeur: only done in the most lame way possible. - Robert Scoble

Much like the FF comment system is a reinvention of vBulletin/phpBB, done in the most lame way possible. - Ken Sheppardson

Lame? I like it. - coldbrew

Prokofy: That is the same argument that went on for a few weeks back in November here on FF. @loic decided that unfollowing everyone was a better solution that to simply utilize the tools at hand to filter and refine his firehose. Instead of unfollowing everyone @loic could have taken these treasured 25 or whatever and put them in a tweatdeck group that brings only their DM's to him, with all the other DM's going ignored. DM's are NOT like email, there isn't an expectation of reply when you send a DM - Matthew DeVries

Everything is a reinvention of Usenet or E-mail, or N. Just like everything on the Internet is a repost of a repost. - Sam Levine

Let's play this out...if everyone unfollowed a significant % of those whom they don't care about...then it would INCREASE the ability to communicate with those they do care about without all the noise. I'm sure we would all agree this is a good thing. However, if we were to unfollow EVERYONE...are we little more than individual broadcasters that never allow for a two way dialogue? This would dramatically change the landscape of Twitter because a profound hierarchy would emerge: "follows" and "follow-nots" - Drew Sams

Drew, I've been writing about that topic for a while now, but especially in recent weeks with the influx of new twitter users who don't attempt to converse yet. - Richard A.

Don't you think it has incremental feature improvements each time though, Levine? - coldbrew

Depending on how you use FF, it is much like IRC combined w/ Usenet - coldbrew

Richard: most new twitter accounts I'm seeing lately are bots. Not real users and provably so. Real users display random behavior. The new accounts do not. Humans are never consistent. - Robert Scoble

Maybe they had a falling out and Noah is no longer welcome? - Tony C

Well, I feel kind of helpless about Loic's action. How should I react? I thought about unfollowing him, too. But I don't think that he or anyone else cares about. So well... Maybe that's the way things are going. The community makes you big, because they think, they can get use out of it being followed back, and then if you are known well enough, throw the cattle all out. Moooh! - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Richard, thanks for sharing...this has been a topic I'm really interested in. I'll head over to your blog and check out what you've written. Cheers! - Drew Sams

One way in which the FF comment system is lame: comments on Scoble threads move so fast that in the time I've typed this, there will probably be five other new comments. Yet FF will chose to hide some of them and instead say "20x more comments". When I click on that, the thread expands into 5+ pages of comments, and I have to scroll down and try to remember what I saw last. Lack of read/unread status and/or visible (non-mouseover) timestamps are pretty significant time sinks/inefficiencies. - Ken Sheppardson

Enough off-topic. I think this is ironic on a number of levels: - coldbrew

A way to think about Loic. There are a lot of gamers who follow huge numbers, then unfollow massively to look A-List. Loic is A-List. But even so, ask yourself what *you've* gotten from Loic. If you can't answer that question, your unfollow decision should be clear. - Hutch Carpenter

Drew: That's like saying in 1890 to communicate better with your friends/family, you need to erase the rest of the country so the mail man can find your people easier/faster. There are tools to filter and refine your communication with Twitter and Friendfeed. It is wrong to choose the nuclear option instead of just using the tools to organize their communication streams, as these platforms evolve they're going to regret casting people out and then have to be in a position to regather them again. - Matthew DeVries

Ken: The datastream is there, write an app to create what you want. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew: Workin' on it :-) Coldbrew: Who appointed you guy who gets to decide what's off-/on-topic? ;-) - Ken Sheppardson

Sheppardson, not sure. Just using the convention of looking at the post title. Do you have another metric by which to judge objectively?\ - coldbrew

There's the 1st piece of irony, DeVries, " There are tools to filter and refine your communication with Twitter and Friendfeed." Le Meur's company, Seesmic, makes one of them, but it can't do its job ;-) - coldbrew

coldbrew: I'd explain, but that'd be off topic :-P - Ken Sheppardson

2nd piece of irony comes from the fact that Scoble is disseminating it, but he seems to be keeping a very objective stance, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Le Meur's justifications for his actions. - coldbrew

Scoble, of course, is "well known" for following so many people all over the ecoshpere [edit: and that is ironic to me] - coldbrew

Coldbrew: Like a black fly in your chardonnay? - Matthew DeVries

I find the trend puzzling especially (as @Jim Connolly pointed out) when it's someone like Loic who actually built a tool to help bring method to this madness. Robert, you make it seem so easy and I am in awe as to how you manage to respond to thousands of your followers, both here and on Twitter. It's obvious that not everyone can do it, it's probably getting overwhelming for some. - MiaD

Matthew: TOTALLY agree with you. I probably wasn't the clearest in my comment above. While I choose to unfollow bots and spammers, I prefer to use tools like Tweetdeck and others to filter conversations. The second half of my comment is what I think will happen if we go the nuclear route: Social media will just become a marketplace where ideas are broadcasted but never sharpened through the dialogue process...I don't want another place where ideas and products are hawked at me without my ability to dialogue - Drew Sams

Well played, Sheppardson. - coldbrew

Anyway, promiscuity in public isn't good? - coldbrew

Unfollowing enmasse isn't good business. GKawasaki "gets" Twitter. @Loic either doesn't get it or doesn't know what 2 do with it. I unfollowed him back. - Now Voyager

first the morons were all bout braggin bout how many followers they had, now they realize "oh shit, I can't figure out who said what and when" so now they get to un-follow & that is news. Give me a fucking break, follow or don't follow for the right reasons.In reality at the most people can have 300 odd relationships with people and sustain it beyond that it is just Hello and good bye and that's about it. - Baba

"I unfollowed him back" Oh did ya' now? - coldbrew

This is like watching a movie about a young passionate teen as he slogs his way the the world, making mistakes, and learning right before your eyes. - coldbrew

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Unfollowing is always an option, but why do it without criteria??? - Jorge Martins Rosa

I could clean up a little, but I like following several hundred. I started in 2006 by following the broadcasters and some of the people that followed them and that they followed. I've slowly increased the number I follow since then. Some days I add about a dozen and unfollow about eight. I like to slowly see what people are saying, participate a little and really meet people. I can manage following hundreds. - Bill

this is you invite people in you're house and studently you kick everybody out without reasons, i remenber when L L M always ask to be followed on twitter . anyway i also kick out from every where and delete my seemsic account .................... some french people when they become famous they got big head - Yann from twhirl

Not sure I agree with @loic but have been thinking the same. The relity is you can only carry relevant conversations with a limited number of people. - RicardoSilva

I think you should do it. Just look at that number. 69,394. It does no good to follow that many people. Wipe the slate clean. - techky

I really think Twitter should have group and thread (at least one level) - Jeremy Chone

I found the original mail on the twitter-dev list:So I have kind of weird request. My boss, who is following 24,386 people (and has 22,752 followers) came to me and wanted me to hack something to wipe out all the people he follows so he can start clean again for various reasons. I'm curious if there is any tools internally at twitter that could help with this maybe because this seems to... more... - Daniel W. Crompton

It's insanely easy to "follow" lots of people. With groups and search in Tweetdeck (sorry @loic) and filters plus tag-focusing services like Twitterfall, I can now focus attention on a "slice" (i.e., a window pane or dialog box). It is very rare that I look at an unfiltered stream. I am almost always looking at a refined view of the entire stream. It kind of reminds me of the Matrix. The "operators" were able to see small nuances in the unadulterated feed. - Lorin Olsen

Nevertheless, I am intrigued by reducing the number of people I follow. I want to have "intimate" conversations and not just blast tones into an echo chamber. In fairness, that is one of the reasons I am doing more in Friendfeed. - Lorin Olsen

I think it may be good if people with large followings and who follow a lot of people had two Twitter accounts. One for broadcasting and having the ability to DM many people in your network and the second one solely for listening to quality and engaging with your core network. Doing this may solve the problems referred to above. - Bill Romanos

@Hutch is quite correct in saying "ask yourself what *you've* gotten from Loic. If you can't answer that question, your unfollow decision should be clear." Exactly!! that should be the criteria for everyone, A-list or not. I've unfollowed some "A-listers" who are focused on things which don't tickle my fancy. Nothing personal of course, the goal is to get focused. - Eric Gonzalez

By the way, I don't mind an unfollow, but what's up with the "tell me why I should follow you back?" business. Doesn't that seem odd? - Eric Gonzalez

what is this twitter of which you speak? - mike "glemak" dunn

Mike, I assume you are not following anybody so you don't need not to take any action. The proposed procedures only concern people who follow somebody else on this thing called Twitter. :-) - Tapio Kulmala

is there an auto unfollow ? - Antoine Bertier

Antoine, No. There was once a rumor that they have tested auto-unfollow in their lab. The performance testing results were alarming. They noticed that they should get rid of 90% of their servers in 2 weeks. The CFO decided that they could not afford that kind of capital losses. - Tapio Kulmala

I just went through my follows on Twitter and removed a bunch of people I'd never heard of before. I forgot I had signed up with socialtoo.com when Scoble mentioned it and it's all turned off now anyway. We'll see later if my own followers suddenly will now go away cause they're using the same type of tools. - Paul Wade

People feel slighted when unfollowed - decidedly unsocial. And with tools like Tweetdeck and peoplebrowsr allowing you to create groups (i.e. 'core people', or 'people I know' etc), there's no reason why you can't continue to follow loads of people and focus in on the ones who matter to you. It's social to follow back, and helps build relationships, but that doesn't mean you can't focus on the people who matter to you - there are tools. - Tom Beardshaw

I even had someone I'd met (and we'd made friends on Facebook) unfollow me then add me to a "<name>monitor" twitter account, saying "this is the account I use to keep track of a wider network" - which pretty much tells you they're not paying any attention to you at all. I promptly unfollowed him. Social is multidirectional relationships - I don't like one way relationships - they're bad for your health! I follow everyone who follows me unless they're trying to sell me something - Tom Beardshaw

loic did a reverse feldman trick http://twitpic.com/1nx2l - henry michel from twhirl

So that's what happened--Loic unfollowed and then refollowed me.;-) Someone constantly keeps doing that on my FB acct., too. I must say, the more followers I get lately who are trying to tell me about how to use social media and internet marketing to get rich, the more this option sounds good. Way too many spammers lately, or just folks who aren't bothering to find out about who you really are and how to have a conversation. Ugh. - Cathryn Hrudicka

Loic method may have been extreme, but I understand where it is coming from, at a certain number, its hard to follow who you are interested in and maybe starting over again is the way to go.. I actually created a second twitter account just for companies and organizations, because I was noticing they were taking over my original account. - Kim Landwehr

Well - Loic simply has one big problem: He doesn´t use Tweetdeck and the Group feature! LOL - Dieter Schwarz

Signal vs noise. - Steve Rubel

OMG huston we have a problum - Victor

I've already noticed a drop in my followers number. Doesn't matter to me though. - Paul Wade

Drop in follower, but any increase in participation. That's why I unfollowed so many. - Richard A.

Looked at who I was following and came to the conclusion most of the people I was following were unneeded, whether due to lack of interesting content or inactivity. Been unfollowing people for the last few weeks. Trying to keep it around 200 - BCK

With tools such as TweetDeck I can setup groups and searches for those tweets I care about the most. Makes number of following irrelevant. - Robert J Taylor

I give me a chance. follow them for bit see if there interact post anything of value reply to my tweets . If not its just pointless. - John Cusick

That may work for the twitter elite, but for users like me, it defeats the point of twitter, which is to build community by networking. - Kelly

My comment is ...I have no comment :)) - SRivera

I semi regularly prune for my following list for relevance (for multiple values of relevance) - Alec Clews

Terrible idea unless you want to experience true hermit status through the rate of being unfollowed prior to deleting your account. - Roney Smith

Loic Le Merde is a pompous French whiny assehole LooooooooooooooooooooooooL - Yann from twhirl

I have always kept a limited number of people I follow. The noise level has been very manageable. T is only one of the conduits for info. - Dave Ploch

thats retarded - tommy payne from twhirl

Like Dave, I'm careful about who I follow in the first place, and I've only had to unfollow a couple of people who got out of hand. - Julie Barrett from twhirl

I'm a careful user, and this realm showed me how people can react rapidly to certain things. I've been unfollowed more than I did unfollow. Note that I'm a curious type of guy and love discovering things in everyone. I think that can be a good thing for those whose critical to the point of stopping everything second to witness being too much analyzing those to unfollow. Else, why be that critical to the point of massive cleaning? Is digital managing difficult and tiring for some? Reminds me: GReader refresh - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

I got 0 value out of following @loic, so I lost nothing. I also unfollowed. - Mike Lewis

I can do the same thing via a Favorite list in FriendFeed. - Bill Bittner

my god the annoying post that never ends!! :P hahah - Terry O'Fee

Time, there is not enough time to follow everyone. It has to be narrowed at some point to still be productive in your business. I do not mind visiting a stream and subscribing..just like I do not mind unsubscribing. Just doing a total following everyone or not following anyone is absurd. - Brian McClure

At the moment this post has close to 400 likes plus comments. Which provokes the thought: rank Friendfeed posts by likes plus comments (for the total life of Friendfeed). Might be interesting. - Sean McBride

I deleted 700+ people just two weeks ago and it was the most FUN I have had on Twitter in 6 months. - Daniel Zarick

the one unfollow everyone help him to promote is business and push all follower to create a buzz , and decide when he have acheive is target , just take himself as Guru but in fact that will return straight on his face , he will kick out by the community ..... - Yann from twhirl

[∞][twitter needs to make an second time line to US [...] so, we got one to friends and other to network ][ I have 2 accounts to do this] - dbalieiro

Similar to the concept of declaring e-mail bankruptcy. - David Pappas

Then it becomes a broadcast, not an exchange. How about unfollow everyone that doesn't add value to your life. - Martha

Wow, that is interesting timing. Is it spring cleaning time for everyone or what? - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

At least once a week I go through several pages of twitter stream and take a look at everyone on it. I end up unfollowing at least five or six people. I still have hundreds, but it's much less than I would otherwise. - Sandra Fernandez

as for me, good reasons for unfollowing are ppl following you then unfollowing you immediately, or people not posting in ages, or people where after a while you see having absolutely no exchange on any subject or no common interest. I try to keep my following list clear under these criteria to avoid a bloated following list - Jean-Charles VERDIE from twhirl

i prune my list every few weeks and add and delete, keeps it fresher - susan mernit

I only follow a few people anyway. The "follow everyone you don't know" thing always seemed crazy to me. - TranceMist

I have no plans of unfollowing any of the people I follow. My setup fits my marketing strategy just fine.. Don't need to jump on the bandwagon. That's the beauty of twitter... do what works for you!! - Jim Turner

The best tool I've found for getting the most out of twitter is Tweetdeck. Set up groups to stay on top of the conversations generated by the folks you're the closest to. - Jim Turner

I do a combination of things. I've always been selective about who I follow; if anyone gets to noisy I unfollow them; I filter it through my FriendFeed; I have specific lists set-up in Friend-Feed (even one for "chatter"); I grab the rss feeds for the Friend-Feed lists I want to focus on and have those directly imported into the RSS feed section of my email client (Thunderbird at the moment.) My email feeds have folders and message filtering rules set-up to move everything to the appropriate sub-folders. - Gail Guy

... I can then quickly identify and scan my favorites, but best of all, I can use my email client functions to "tag" a message a certain color or "star" it as a favorite -- making it easy to find and review at a later time. - Gail Guy

I think this is brilliant. Curbs the spammers, takes away some incentive from the fakes and keeps Twitter honest. More of my thoughts http://tr.im/gMZ8 - Chris Leonard

As soon as I got Tweetdeck I started following by subject instead of by the person. - Carl Pruitt

I've read their whitepapers. Quite the read. They didn't happen to give you the elevator pitch for the measurement, did they? - Cory Hendrickson

97600 visits per second. That's crazy. What was that all about? Was it a breaking news? - charles

They have data centers all over the world that push and store petabytes. How many people manage all its datacenters? Six. - Robert Scoble

We looked at kgoradio.com and the detail on its audience is crazy. NGO can see how many visitors comes from Oakland. - Robert Scoble

97,600 is crazy. How does that compare to WebTrends I wonder? - Stuart Thompson

We looked at my blog and can see that 690 people viewed my blog last month from Microsoft. The amount of data that can be studied is crazy. Videos will be up by end of the week. - Robert Scoble

Charles: that is just everyday data. Sites report that to them. More on all this when I get home and get the videos up. - Robert Scoble

Thanks Robert. Will the link to the videos be published in this thread? Looking forward to seeing/hearing the interview. - Jeff Fohl

Very interesting data and very timely for me. I was doing some research on a site and this was very helpful! - Jill Howard Allen

Jeff: I'll try to get the videos up soon, not sure where I'll link them in, but will try to get back here and link them in here. They will be on fastcompany.tv - Robert Scoble

I like the accompanying video: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Rob H.

Do'h, I forgot to include the image. Sigh. The video was funny, I agree. - Phil G

My favorite spoken word rendition is William Shatner's Rocketman http://tinyurl.com/kwrwg - Jill Howard Allen

I've found a good rule of thumb to be that unless you are absolutely sure you will never need the Internet to help get you a job, act as though you may be laid off next week. What would you want attached to your name? Like I said on your tweet, probably the biggest faux pas I see is people bitching about their job. It's unprofessional. - Mark Trapp

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Robert I think this advice is for even when you have a job. I can't recall where but I remember reading that it's essential to network when you _have_ a job. Not only will it help you get a job when you don't have one, it'll help you move upward and diagonally across the proverbial ladder. - Bhavishya Kanjhan

These are some very sound and actually wise principles to adhere to. Thanks, I'm definitely marking this as a favorite, and will refer to it many more times in the future! - Carlton Hackett

This is one of my favorite Scoble posts so far. Great social networking and networking tips whether or not you've been laid off. - Bill Romanos

@scobleizer This is a terrific post that just oozes common sense. Key though is, do this 2 years before you are laid off. - Bankwatch

Great post. And I finally realized I was subscribed to a partial feed of scobleizer.com this entire time (which I thought was the only feed available); that has been rectified. - Tamar Weinberg

@bankwatch - how so very true, but there are ways of speeding up the process. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Awesome post. Seriously. Thanks! - Phil G

Really appreciate this timely post. Just had a very talented friend in publishing who was laid off and am hoping your post can make a difference for her. - Kirsten Hamstra

Great stuff you are really helping people - Thomas Power

Love it! I'm embarrassed to say I've been freelancing and wanting work in the social media space and have completely neglected my blog. I have incorporated links to the various social media tools/sites in my email signature (thanks AK for pointing this out!) and have received questions and comments about them. Thanks for the very timely post and opportunity for a very helpful discussion. - Jill Howard Allen

If one follows all of the advice in this post, they might not need a job...they could become self employed. - April Russo (app103)

Great advice. Thanks for posting it. - Kenneth Chu

That's a great post, Robert! An aside: I had to look up LOLCats, just to make sure I knew what those were. I guess I'm not looking for a job in entertainment or in working with children, eh? :-) I think my inner Capricorn ages me! - Yule Heibel

when i started contributing info to the online world, i realized that i was no longer anonymous. i try to follow these simple rules: 1) be professional with everything posted (images, text, vids, etc), 2) dont associate with unprofessional folks (i.e. those who post with disregard), 3) add value. The sooner you start networking and building a quality online presence the sooner it can be utilized for career gain. - TJ Trapp

Some good advice, some complete yawn-able BS. Be yourself, build enough social capital that your boss is scared of what YOU can do when you talk shit. Thats why I did :) - sean percival

also i doubled my salary twice last year :) #whatrecession - sean percival

So who should I be taking to lunch so I can get my story in the right ears in order to get the right next job? - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Joelle: what do you want to do with the rest of your life? - Robert Scoble

Enjoyed this post a lot, Robert. You've made a good point for me that I need to "marry" a couple of my blogs into one that states how I bring technology to ministry. I tend to keep these separate. And I also tend to do less blogging while I'm in school. I'll try and make more effort on the blogging. I'm in math courses right now as I'm finishing my degrees and I tend to get my head buried with those.;) - Melanie Reed

Hmm... do LOLTads count? http://friendfeed.com/e... - Her Lindsay-ness

Very nice post. I like the helping others part especially. What is your feeling about virtual business cards? Networking is still crucial. - Amani

My name is Robbie Allen and I'm the sole founder and developer of StatSheet.com and creator of the StatSheet Network (which includes StatFix.com and StatTweets.com). I'm a long-time sports fanatic and web entrepreneur, and I want to change the face of sports on the web. The major sports websites have yet to embrace the web as a platform for presenting and visualizing stats. It is time for a fresh perspective and my answer is the StatSheet Network, which comprises sites I've created as well as partnerships I've formed with other companies and organizations. The feedback I've received so far has been very positive, which is great because I've barely scratched the surface. - Stuart Watson

Looks interesting. Love college sports so I'll check it out. - Jill Howard Allen

I've written three blog posts in my life, and I've connected to over a thousand people. Blogging is not the alpha and omega of social connections. - Mark Trapp

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I'm connected to a ton of people but don't blog at all. - Rochelle

Wrong... I have NO blog yet, however I have *lots* of people I am connected with everywhere and a bunch of social sites. A blog might enhance those numbers, but it is not the end all for social networking / connecting with others - Susan Beebe

I dunno. Have people really moved that far away from blogging or is it more of a temporary lapse while something else is in vogue? - Mattie Kenny

I disagree with this as well. You can connect with me pretty easily by participating in my posts on FriendFeed. That's pretty much what the whole thing is about, connecting with people. - Her Lindsay-ness

Michael: Twitter and friendfeed ARE blogs. But don't tell Arrington, OK? I want him to remain clueless about what's going on here for a while longer. - Robert Scoble

I am trying to keep a balance. I have online friends in Twitter and FF that don't much read my blogs, and I have some friends that do check out my blogs, that can't see the point in Twitter or FF however much I bang on about how marvelous it is in here. That's the reason I try to do both. - Ian May

I Friendfeed more than I blog, but thats mainly because I don't want to write 12 articles a day - Tyler (Chacha)

I got more connection in 1 month of Friendfeed (when I started using it), than in 3 years of blogging. Blogging is not for social connections. It's for writing articles and spread your opinion out. Friendfeed and Twitter is for keep informed about people and things. Useful for blogs, or for replace them. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

I've been saying for quite a while now that FF is a blogging platform. In fact, I submitted a feature request for a "blog" post type here on FF to allow for a larger text box (blog entry) + profile page (premium user concept). - Susan Beebe

Totally agree with Ryo. :) - Her Lindsay-ness

Definitely disagree. Look how many people you just connected with by posting this here. Had you done an actual blog post, you may not have gotten so many responses. Engagement is easier here. Immediate. - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

I just ate a mango. - Josh Haley

1UP Josh. - Rochelle

I just mangled an eight... - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

I can process ideas outloud and enjoy connection-building conversations in planes, trains and automobiles (moment of pause for the comedic talents of Candy and Martin...) A remarkable experience on a train ride *does not* mean I'm abandoning other forms of transportation. Furthermore, why focus on the vehicle itself? (unless being fanboytastic is your whole shtick), focus on the sights, the sounds, the ideas, the people—you know, the journey. - Micah Wittman

I agree with Scoble. FF -- is a blog (btw I am one who has stopped blogging since becoming a FF user). I wish the blogging was a little more expressive here (like with multi paragraphs, longer postings and pictures in posts) but certainly I get more catharsis here than I did in my blog. - Brian Sullivan

FF/twitter are like blogs, but more ephemeral, and less useful. If you have something USEFUL to say, blogs are still the choicest medium. They're easy to archive/reference, and offer more robust forums for discussion. ff/twitter allow you to 'connect' to people to share useless information. Quitting blogging (in order to micro-connect) greatly reduces your relevance outside twitter/ff. - Will Higgins™

FF and Twitter are just shorter, faster blogs. Just different tools. Longer blogs with more detail and thought put in are not just a way to build social connections. They appeal to a whole different set of people who might never look at FF or Twitter. - Carl Pruitt

I follow a lot of people that don't blog, but make references/links to articles, blogs, tweets, etc. Their opinions, references and comments are what make the connection for me. - Jill Howard Allen

Microblogging will substantially displace blogging. Blogging looks so old. - Sean McBride

Show me your stream of consciousness. Engage in meaningful conservations about your thoughts. If you are interesting, I will pay attention. Don't get on your soapbox. Blogging is a bit soapboxy and non-interactive. - Sean McBride

Robert: I won't tell a soul ;) On another note, thanks for the feedback guys :) I actually don't blog all that much either (I used to on Lockergnome). I think my last post on their was about how great FriendFeed really is! :D - Michael Forian

I support Susan Beebe idea. Eventually, Friendfeed will become the place where all blogs, microblogs and whatever tools you may use are. Think of it as an evolved Google Reader: you use the Reader to follow your blogs through RSS; with FF you can not only follow them but comment in the same site + discover new blogs through relationships between users. Definitely a 'traditional blog'-killer. - Jordi Soler

@Will, I think "useful" is a very loaded word there. I get a lot of useful information from participating in FF. Maybe more of it is concentrated in topic-centric rooms, but I do get good information and advice that influences me beyond simple entertainment by my interactions here. Information that would never come to me on my blog, even if I asked for it outright. Maybe that doesn't make me popular outside of FF, but I wasn't otherwise, so no loss there, only gain. - Her Lindsay-ness

Plus it's easier just FriendFeeding and Tweeting, am I right? - Michael Forian

Easier != better. Blogging has many many pluses, I actually blogged about his here: http://www.alexwilhelm.com/alex_wi... - Alex Wilhelm (FF BLOWS)

If you only had a blog that no one knew about you would have no readers. It is a wise strategy to blog and also connect with others here and on other Social Networks and also to reach out to other bloggers. I've written several posts explaining how best to do this in your own blog, by leaving comments, and by improving what you share on FriendFeed. - Internet Strategist

Alex, well it is. It's all about information. Easier = more information in less time. Like I said, most people want to read novels on the net. They want the naked information, and then discuss about that. No place is more effective then services like friendfeed. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Internet Strategist: But why do you need to redirect all the people to your blog when your best texts are posted in here? Just because of the ads? Well, then let's hope FF masterminds allow us to mess with the design of our personal FF page so that we can include ads in it. I'm telling you, if I could write long posts in FF I would import my blog here and wipe it out! - Jordi Soler

ummmm except friendfeed and twitter ~ traditional blogging's becoming outmoded and surpassed by the new services - sofarsoShawn

@Jordi: Me, too. I just wait for more personalizing. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Great thoughts Wayne. I'd just like to see him really change his attitude. People would need to feel the genuine change in his perspective for all of this to work as well. - Jill Howard Allen

True, thanks for the feedback - Wayne Sutton

I've acquired the taste for both! :-) The fun thing is to watch what happens when you use both together. - Robert Scoble

I stand by my 2 year old tag line "Twitter. It's for everybody". (If I see my niece this weekend, and can get the voice done, I'll "show" you what I mean. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Love the comparison and love them both as well! - Jill Howard Allen

I just got a bottle of Laphroaig as a gift. Like Twitter, it's growing on me. - Sheldon Steiger from twhirl

I am a fan of both - although Twitter is good because it has more people I know from my life making it more worthwhile to stay in touch whereas I learn more and interact more on FF. - Nation Hahn

I've begun to notice this more and more recently - articles that have no business being split are spread across several pages. Are we losing the ability to scroll or something? - Slippy "Threadsbane" Lane

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By paging even short articles they probably aim to increase page view count, ad-hits etc on the expense of usability. Cheap. - Jemm

I think they're trying to generate more pageviews and ad impressions. - Jess Lee

i hate it and sometime even move away from the page when websites split articles into multiple pages ... - Raza from Alert Thingy

it is all about impressions. Some sites (like NYTimes.com mobile) give you a link to view the full text of the article on one page. Normally I use that option especially when on my mobile as I do not like waiting for next page to load. - Davide D'Incau

They forgot to add that when they have RSS feeds, they are not full text feeds. Partials really annoy me. Oh and media content that does not appear properely or play in an RSS reader/Google Reader - Ian D. Nock

I don't even bother anymore, I just skip to the printable version. - EricaJoy

I head right for the printable view as well. - abacab

Paging sucks. - Thomas Hawk

Duncan, stop Bitching! LMAO - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

Its time ad impressions stopped driving the design. - Pranav Bhasin

All great points/annoyances. Pop-ups and registrations are my biggest frustrations. - Jill Howard Allen

There has to be a balance. Pagination is good for page views but if an article is long it often helps readability as well. Sadly, when presented a long article, many just walk away. Chunking it makes it bite size, which doesn't overwhelm users and gives them a sense of accomplishment from finishing a page. Clearly shorter pieces shouldn't be paginated, but the attention span of the average user is ... - AJ Kohn

They won't listen to this, even if they believe 'Content is KING', they won't change their habits. Use the site and the real-estate of the site intelligently and the crowd will flock. But they won't do it. Mostly, I prevent visiting such a site and read via RSS or something. But how about those who don't give full article on RSS. And its right, I have never clicked on Ads, ever. - Jayavasanthan J

Sounds like we need a Firefox plugin or Greasemonkey script that will ping a server, find out if the page you're on has a "Print" link to the article, and display that instead of the original page. Printable versions are actually still pretty usable these days. - Jeff Eddings

I'm personally boycotting sites that throw interstitial pages up before showing the article -- I think they don't value me as a user. - Jeff Eddings

they are all still stuck on the pageview model, and will be so until their advertisers and ABC ratings move into the 21st century. By 2015 perhaps - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

I hate when they do that... Or when I'm at work and CNN, for example, has a headline that links only to a video, with no transcription. Seriously CNN, I can't always sit and watch a video at work, especially since I share my workspace with other people. - Adam C.

@Gregory, that doesn't make sense. What's stopping someone from tossing 10 Google ads along the vertical of a page instead of 2 ads on 5 pages? - Rudolf Olah

but what can they do when their advertisers use page views as a way to choose who they advertise on? ABC should be smarter but their rankings use that as well. If you dont do it, you end up being considered "too small" for many campaigns. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

the trick: go to the "print" view to get the article all on one page. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

I love you Duncan Riley. :) I think it all boils down to this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrici... - Patricia

What is the FF extension that puts all the separate pages into one? - Alex Williams

grr articles like that are not worth paging through. My mousewheel works fine, thanks. - Alan Le

Damn right. - DAVE ID

Google juice as a motive isn't always consumer-friendly - Pete Steege

Now Microsoft, these rock. Finally great marketing. - Robert Scoble

36 more comments

agreed - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Saw it tonight. Good ad. Look, I do actual stuff on a PC. Apple made it seem like you couldn't open a program without Vista crashing. Ridiculous. - Eric @ CS Techcast

I like these news ads, but I also liked the Gates/Seinfeld ads. The I'm a PC ads really have a message though. - David Ward

Awesome awesome awesome ads. The mac ads won't be that funny anymore. I'm a mac and a pc :) - Kamath (नमः)

I think the ads were great! - Giancarlo Angulo

Last time I used Windows, that's how it felt. If I installed the wrong app, it would bork my registry and force me to reinstall the whole os. I hear XP is not as bad as that anymore, but first impressions can be scarring. - Victor Ganata

Now, aren't Macs really PC's since they're running Intel chips, just without Windows?!?! - David Ward

MJC mention. :) - Andrew Trinh

These ads are the natural follow on from the Seinfeld ads, so I wonder where they were heading. These new ads are a good start but I think they need to go further - we know lots of people use them, they are the number 1 operating system in the world. What we need to know is why we should switch/not switch. - CJPhoto

Well, uh, PC stands for personal computer. My Commodore 64 was considered a PC in its day and age, as was my school's Apple IIe. So yeah, I'd say a Mac was a PC as well, but not necessarily because it uses x86 tech. - Victor Ganata

an advert is not going to make decide to switch or not switch. waste of money microsoft. spend some of this wasted money on fixing more bugs. - Joe Breen

...these are actually pretty good. - JA Castillo

I was in the minority appreciating the last set. But these are pretty compelling. - Chris Baskind

I liked the last ads and I think these are dreaful. What's more they feel so patronising, like some kind of Government ad that makes its obvious point in a silly, clunky 'inclusive' isn't this clever way - PaulJohnson

Absolutely genius. This is so true, and hits the point. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Microsoft have done a really good job with these ads... trying to break away from "that" stereotype and not really going head on with the Apple ads - Jay

Brilliant stuff, totally accurate. - Iain Baker

Good commercial (finally) but, http://beta.friendfeed.com/e... - Mathew™ one of a kind

Really? You like that? What about a better product? Something with WOW factor? - CW™

I'm a Mac fan, but this ad is actually pretty good. Saw it on TV last night. Was impressed. - Kate

2 more on the site now. And they're really good. - Steve Lowe

These are pretty good, I like them. Nice to see a graffiti artist in there :) - Thomas Hawk

I was sort of disappointed. It definitely has a clearer message, but I'm still waiting for them to show me: a) why I should love PCs or b) why I WILL love PCs ... not why I have to use PCs. - Tim Hoeck

1st I'm a 'both' but... Where is the one "I'm PC and I just use it for spreadsheets" or "I'm a PC and I use it to send emails to my grandkids" or "I'm a PC and I play videogames"... The Mac ads worked because they talked to how I use the computer, not how others do... Interesting start though :) - Johnny Worthington

The show a little imagination. I liked Seinfeld including the extended version. Will we get the directors cut and unrated versions soon? - Michael VanDervort

I like the ads, but I'm still afraid of Vista. - Jill Howard Allen

These aren't great, but they are by far better than the other ads. - Bryan

Great Ad... except my Windows doesn't boot any faster or run any more reliably. This warm and fuzzy won't last. You know, You can put lipstick on a pig... - Phil Yanov

night and day. gates/seinfeld = disaster. "i'm a pc" = almost good, suprisingly - cjmart

Excellent. Making Mac look mean for saying the rest of us (most of the world) aren't cool. Good marketing can make anything cool. The election has shown us that. - Roadgoer

not a bad ad for a flexible "it's OK to be just OK" hardware platform, but what does it have to do with Microsoft? Nothing. Fail. The "I am GNU/Linux" comment makes a good point, too. - No FB

I'm a Mac, and I like these ads. - Veronica

I'm a Mutt, and I like these ads - Socom

The PC is a lie. - Victor Ganata

good point regarding the elections. seems everyone is concerned with how well an "entity" presents itself rather than what it actually does. i could give a shit less how awesome any mac or pc ad is or how well obama speaks. just let me compute and fix the economy. - Todd Kitta from twhirl

I refuse to accept the definition that a PC specifies only Windows/Intel machines. I can't believe Microsoft bought Apple's lie. - Victor Ganata

Really really good ads! - Tin Kos

We use Emma as our email marketing solution of choice. We found them to be really great, and they hold your hand on as much as you need. They're slightly more expensive than their competition per message, but other than that, I highly recommend them. Others we looked at when we did research were Constant Contact, Vertical Response, and Bronto. Constant Contact's support is a joke, Vertical Response was pretty expensive, and Bronto's salespeople were jerks (to put it lightly). - Mark Trapp

Thanks Mark, I really appreciate your comments! - Jill Howard Allen

You should have a massive phone saber fight with them. - Dean Clark

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When I bought OSX in Soho we kept having these fashionistas come up to us asking 'what club are you waiting to get in?' - Andrew Leyden

We'll see if chicks dig apps as much as abs. I'm hopeful. - JD Lasica

People have asked me about what apps I've loaded. I love college football and have just loaded Sportacular for scores and news. Love learning about new apps so thanks for the Evernote mention! - Jill Howard Allen

I Am Rich would seal the deal ;) - Jonathon

You should see what the ladies say when you show them Shazam. - Ryan Kuder

Agreed - Shazam has some pretty solid "wow that's amazing" potential. - Steve Isaacs

Can't wait until Shazam and Midomi expand their databases. Too many non-recognized songs for even common stuff. They've been letting me down :( - Dana D

People are upset because they see you as a 'friend', and everyone hopes that their friends will be in the place they hang. This is why I'm a fan of standards, and not so much platforms. Can you imagine if I couldn't call you because you opted to get a white phone instead of a black one? If you couldn't call me because I have a cell and you're on a land line? "C'mon," I'd be urging, "Get... more... - Rob Clark

all these competitor 'products' are leading the way of IM, where you either have to be on all of them of 'force' friends to choose one. In terms of all the 'microblog/status' sites, I find it easy to post to them all at once with things like SocialThing (and now I'm playing with Ping), but trying to follow them all.... that part is definitely hard. And I agree, not all are right for everyone, I've been playing with kwippy, and I'm just not sure it is for me... anyways its very true, 'do what works for you' - nick carrasco

Agree Chris! You should feel wanted too! I'm trying Identi.ca and actually think it's much better than Twitter. It's not working for me though. My friends are on Twitter and that's what I'm comfortable with, so that's what works for me. - Jill Howard Allen

Marco, I guess I'm a little disappointed. I agree, I thought social media was an open space as well. Why the need to build an 'exclusive' club? Isn't the goal to include all? What would make me want to read this book if I wasn't included or even felt like I was invited? - Jill Howard Allen

The goal is to sell books -- nothing to do with social media - Brian Sullivan

How exclusive can it be if all you hafta do is buy his book. More gimmick than exclusive. Anyone wanna be a member of *my* exclusive tribe? Just PayPal me $100. - Robert Stribley

@jill Sorry - should have clarified - I didn't write it, I just ran across the article on one of the blogs I read (www.iwillnotdie.com) and thought it was interesting - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

I disagree that all social media has to be open to everyone. - Brent Newhall

I'm with Brent -- there's a nice social media app set up for my fraternity: two great tastes that taste great together. - Robert Fischer

@Robert Fischer would you see a difference between a fraternity vs what appears to me, to be a community you've created to sell a book? - Jill Howard Allen

I wasn't defending Seth Godin's stunt, but simply responding to the larger discussion of whether social media needs to be open to everyone. I disagree with that. (Seth Godin's not the first one to try stuff like that, BTW. Wrox Press does a lot of "buy the book, get the community!" kind of angle.) - Robert Fischer

Good list, Chris. I would add: get your co-workers/employees involved and participating on at least one of the three SNS you picked. Good example: Zappos. http://twitter.zappos.com/ (Repost because I stupidly commented on a Google Reader share instead of here or on your blog) - Hao Chen

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Chris -- I need to borrow your brain for a few weeks. You the man! - PodChicks

Thank you so much for all of your great posts on social media. I like the various suggestions on measurement, the focus on the networks YOUR customers hang out and remembering email. So many posts seem to forget not everyone prefers Twitter or RSS feeds. I know I tend to forget. :) I agree with Hao Chen, remember co-workers and employees involvement. The front line folks have great... more... - Jill Howard Allen

Could you be less productive? I've listened to 8 of your podcasts in the last 8 hours, plus reading your blog and clicking all the links...downloaded Adobe Digital Library to store your free reports and ebooks, referred my blog readers to your blog.. and that's one top of reading the 20-some other blogs I'm addicted to... I'm exhausted... Must get sleep... - Toni

Excellent stuff - Charlie Anzman

Great job! Thanks for taking the time to make such a detailed list. - Mitchell Tsai

very well written Chris! - Thomas Hawk

favorite - Pick 3 social networks to join based on where your customers might be. 3 might sound like too few, but it probably will be too many. - Todd Jordan

There's that word I love: consistent. ;-) - Barbara K. Baker

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