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Jim › Likes
How To Slow Down and Enjoy Life â The Rat Race Trap - http://www.ratracetrap.com/the-rat...
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Jim and Jannifer @wordsforliving liked this
Great advice about living life at a slower pace and getting more enjoyment out of it as a result.
- Vin Miller
99% of 18-24 Year Olds On Social Media, But Only 22% Use Twitter - http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009...
Jim, Michael Forian and Maria Niles liked this
Because 99% of them like having everything in one place: FACEBOOK. Plus, most of them think that a social network based on the question "What are you doing?" is pretty lame.
- Michael Forian
agreed facebook is the place for high % of that demo
- mike "glemak" dunn
Companies need to identify the most effective social media channel for their business.
- Jim
Why Facebook has never listened to you and why it should NOT start now: http://scobleizer.com/2009...
Robert Clockedile, Ann Hudspeth, Michael Kacer and 88 other people liked this
I think you're right on the money about Zuckerberg: just imagine if Apple started listening to the peanut gallery. I don't think having companies try to pitch us every time we make a move online is the answer, and I think companies already know it (which is why you weren't contacted, among other reasons): if anything would cause a mass migration it would be that. People cannot stand...
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- Mark Trapp
Glad to see someone gets it. It's not about early adopters now for Facebook.
- Mike Seidle
Yeah, Apple does some really anti-user things once in a while. Rocky just got his new MacBookPro and said "where's the firewire 400 port?" Anti user. But, in the long run, probably the right thing to do.
- Robert Scoble
Mark: friendfeed is showing how to do the "better search" part. Already I can tell friendfeed "show me all items that have the word 'stroller' in them that have two or more 'likes'". That's not yet possible on Facebook, but I bet it will be by the end of the year.
- Robert Scoble
Brilliant article; right to the point.
- Pavel Senko
Similar to this is the story about Google currently testing around 50 shades of blue. It might seem crazy, but when you have Google's traffic volume, a miniscule change could significantly improve the user experience, even if only subconscious. Nightmare for a designer perhaps. But in the larger scheme of things, a good move.
- Graham English
Zuckerberg is smart. An insightful business machine with clarity! Excellent listing of the 7 phases of FB. It's easy to see the growth thus far and where the potential is. Thanks Robert! And congrats to you and Maryam!
- Amy Flynn
If Facebook did listen then nothing would have ever changed.
- Mathew™ one of a kind
By the way, Facebook hasn't listened to me, either. If it did, I'd have more than 5,000 friends. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert: if they do that, then they have it made. FriendFeed is nice, but its missing the information about who I am as a person, instead favoring to define me by what I do or like online. After a year of using FriendFeed, I'm not sold on that being the best approach, especially when things like "like" require other people to feed the engine. I'm really into philosophy of language,...
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- Mark Trapp
I get why people don't like the new layout on facebook but I actually like it. It seems more interesting. It seems like a lot more people on my friend list are engaging with it and sending out more missives. There is more of a stream of stuff. And I like that.
- Aidan Mann
Mark: yup, and I've told the friendfeed team they should let me skin my profile and add more data to everyone. Facebook is way ahead there and I'm not sure friendfeed will catch up. Friendfeed, though, is far better for creating public conversations and I don't see Facebook going there and Twitter has no leadership willing to piss off its current users to go there.
- Robert Scoble
Aidan: have you ever wondered why Twitter is getting more hype than Facebook despite Facebook growing in #s of people far faster? I have. Easy: Facebook doesn't yet allow public entities. IE, celebrities, news organizations, etc. That's going to change pretty quickly. Then what will happen to Twitter's hype machine? It will shut down.
- Robert Scoble
It's true. The great Business prof and writer Clayton Christenson always says one of the worst things you can do is listen to your customers. They will drive you right out of business. If they listen to their customers' demands they will leave themselves vulnerable to what he calls "disruption from below" ie, in this case FriendFeed and Twitter.
- Stephen Pickering
Apple does anti-user stuff MOST of the time, not some of the time.
- Matthew DeVries
Steven, I don't think Christensen said that at all. You aren't vulnerable to disruption from below until you've actually risen, and you don't rise far if you are always chasing new sales and ignoring your current customers. The mistake is only listening to your best customers at the expense of marginal customers. That cedes fertile ground to upstarts. That doesn't mean that it is smart to alienate much of your existing customer base, as FB seems to have done, trying to crush an upstart.
- Erik S
No offense to anyone :-D but the comparisons to Apple? I mean, come ON. Apple is *visionary.* Jobs said "I see a smartphone that people enjoy using," and lo, it was done. Jobs said "I see a day when music will be DRM-free," and lo, it came to pass. That's *vision.* Facebook is *imitative.* They are borrowing from Twitter and Friendfeed. Imitation is in their DNA, going back to Facemash...
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- Karim
I don't agree with part of what you say in your post, Robert. I think Facebook does listen to what its users say even if that doesn't always translate into doing what those users want. The terms of use issue is a great example of this as is its promise to incorporate user feedback if enough people demand a particular change to its future terms of use. Where I agree with you is that Zuckerberg must press ahead with what he and his team feel is the best direction for Facebook despite minority protest.
- Paul Jacobson
"Then what will happen to Twitter's hype machine? It will shut down" That is pretty bold :-)
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Great food for thought. But I strongly disagree. The previous changes to FB added to the site's functions, but in many ways the latest round of changes have changed the fundamentals of the way FB works. It smells to me of a company desperate to find a real revenue stream ... the ad network just doesn't work effectively, the applications and API are all but dead, and now the useful tools like events and groups have been pushed into the background in favour of a suite of copycat Twitter-alike functions.
- Toby Hede
I strongly disagree with you on this topic Robert. I have been a part of social networks in Turkey for a very long time now and I have seen why and how the trend shifted from one network to an other. The reason people settled on Facebook was because it was mainstream and appealed to the casual user. You and I can filter a massive feed from networks to see only what we need to see but the casual user can`t. Many will switch to an alternative if Facebook insists on its new model.
- Tuna
I actually think the outrage over this new design is less than the last time... and I hear everyone always threatening to leave if they don't switch back... please, it may happen one day but the very nature of facebook keeps them safe from people just leaving... people will whine, they'll threaten to leave, and then they'll get over it...
- Shawn Duffy
from twhirl
how to eat a big cake?!!a part at once. this is what FB are making they are trying to make the user adapt to change in a progressive way, many change are to come personally I enjoyed robert post, it is very instructive, and I agree at a point you may not listen to your costumer, but there is no reason to say it to them. leader some time have to keep some observation for themselves, and to not comment on any thing.
- abdellah
Google figured this out a long time ago. What users actually DO online far outweighs what they say they do. Hence, initiatives like Google Labs
- Jim
@Jim: I wish I could bottle that motto and make sure everyone understood it. Too many take qualitative research and let it guide decisions and then become confused when the product isn't effective.
- AJ Kohn
Because in the end it is about making Mark Zuckerburg (even more) rich off of our information. Recording each and every like, click, and post to better help target our eyes towards a bunch of useless garbage and trying to own our images, thoughts, and ideas along the way. I suppose knowing that might help avoid being played.
- Tim
I will wait. I like that you predict such nice things, but I am not sure that a bad user interface is what will bring in the business. On the other hand, I am still waiting for the revolution predicted in Naked Conversation and the Long Tail to happen, so a bit more wishful thinking won't hurt. I agree that FB has to move forward and they should go the way they want to go, otherwise it will end up in a mess.
- Roland Hesz
Reread the post, and yes, I am positive that the current user interface mess up has not much to do with the bring in the business. Making it harder for people to find anything will make it harder to move forward I think. But it Zuckenberg's toy, he should do it the way he wants. Probably has a long range plan.
- Roland Hesz
Robert, hadn't actually stopped to think why twitter was getting so much hype. I have a touring bicycle. It's inspirational to get tweets from Lance Armstrong. How this will translate to Facebook in the future will be interesting to say the least. My daughter works as a graphic designer, is more a myspacer than a facebooker, she tweets but mainly as a device to communicate with me. Her comment to me recently was that she has noticed business everywhere including twitter handles. Congrats by the way! ;]
- Aidan Mann
just think people don't like changes, so that's why they keep arguing bout the new design. Even if the changes are for good, people dont like it so they complain... not leaving, but complaining all time.
- Dani Martínez
Henry Ford said "if I'd given customers what they want, I would have invented a faster horse."
- Tom Landini
I'm not getting the "objects in the social graph" part of the later phases in Robert's post. Can someone provide an example? How about where to find out more?
- Tom Landini
people didnt like the fb change, yes, including me. After reading above blog i came to know the intent & agreed also. So, people could be making opinion just based on UI changes, without knowing the reason, like me? Was it possible for fb to handle it better?
- Roshan Ramachandran
from twhirl
Tom, I took that to mean things like, "You are now following @MarsPhoenix," "The U.S. Government is now following you," "You have a new friend request from the 2nd Floor Break Room Coffee Pot."
- Karim
Will Facebook listen to the public and change it's frontend, probably not until user numbers vastly drop. Do I like the new look? No. Will I stop using Facebook? No. Why? Well I know how facebook works enough that I can get the information that I used to get from the frontend other ways. It's just harder to get. It's for this very reason I believe the users will carry on using Facebook. They don't like it, but they can get by. Hence facebook will think the majority like it & it's the minority moaning
- Paul Bainbridge
@Karim: Thanks. So that means the US Gov't and the Coffee Pot can see all my posts etc. on Facebook, I guess. But if it also means I can see all of the stuff on their networks, that opens things up pretty wide. And I guess I can see who's been drinking coffee on the 2nd floor when I'm away.
- Tom Landini
sadly, the US Government almost never posts pictures from that wild party where it got drunk and destablized a foreign government. also, the Coffee Pot just tends to whine a lot about how you haven't refilled it lately (despite location awareness showing you were in the same room twice today), and it complains when you don't fill it up with the "right" brand of expensive coffee and then gets all petulant and moody because it thought you and it were friends.
- Karim
Pity people without Facebook; they never know what the gov't is doing and have to suffer the coffee pot's silence. Hey, wait and minute ....
- Tom Landini
....They get news from other places? Facebook seems useless from my point of view.
- ralphsaunders
@Karim - The Poor Coffee pot, will it ever learn? ;)
- Tyson Key
@Karim - i'm fairly certain the gov't can see what you're doing whether on FB or not. wave to the g-men!
- .LAG liked that
ErikS Facebook hasn't risen already? Are you kidding me? If nothing else he simply couldn't stand still while everyone was spending their time on Twitter or his business would die. He had to shake things up, even if it were just for the sake of shaking things up. I like it. Competition is fun and healthy and gives us more valuable products and services.
- Stephen Pickering
Stephen,are you kidding me? You said that "Clayton Christenson always says one of the worst things you can do is listen to your customers. They will drive you right out of business." That's a mischaracterization, I explained why. Taking it on your own terms, you're suggesting Facebook got as far as it did without listening to customers? I don't buy it, given that there are multiple examples to the contrary. True, sometimes businesses have to risk alienating customers. We'll see how it turns out this time.
- Erik S
Why Facebook has never listened and why it definitely won’t start now - http://scobleizer.com/2009...
Vinko, Ronny Arild, Frank Norman and 15 other people liked this
You are soooo right. I see people around me complaining about the new homepage who are now using Facebook MORE than two weeks ago - constantly on there, liking and commenting on stuff. Nobody is going anywhere any time soon.
- Bora Zivkovic
Facebook is evolving all the time - people bitch for a week or two, then learn their way around, get used to it, start liking it, and the whole cycle starts again: http://scienceblogs.com/clock...
- Bora Zivkovic
all this has happened before
- Richard Akerman
All this is always happening
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Not Sure the Twitter the way is everyone's way, but do like your perspective and ability to analyze in depth
- Morten Blaabjerg
My name is not a URL - http://factoryjoe.com/blog...
Stephen Edgar, Bob Hitching, John Serra and 33 other people liked this
"That everyone on Facebook has to use their real name (and Facebook will root out and disable accounts with pseudonyms), there’s a higher degree of accountability because legitimate users are forced to reveal who they are offline. No more “funnybunny345″ or “daveman692″ creeping around and leaving harassing wall posts on your profile; you know exactly who left the comment because their...
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- Meryn Stol
Give me real names any time. For me the "accountability" part weighs in heavy. I know that all my writing is "on the record" here, and I like that.
- Meryn Stol
I said this before: One of the things I like of FriendFeed is that so much people use their full name here. Also, it's so big improvement over that @username crap on Twitter. Communication here looks both "personal" and "professional".
- Meryn Stol
Armageddon upon us, I agree with Meryn 100%
- Matthew DeVries
"Durable identity" is a key phrase from the above quotation. With continuity people begin to identify with their pseudonyms and take responsibility for them, especially within communities where they become known.
- Rebecca
"With continuity people begin to identify with their pseudonyms and take responsibility for them, especially within communities where they become known." It's the only way to develop a reputation...
- Meryn Stol
Mohomed, I think it mostly ensures they will be relatively polite. And I can do without the smart but "anonymous" commenters. It's not that there's a lack of smart people on the web. :)
- Meryn Stol
Mohomed, except for situations where someone is in danger for expressing day-to-day opinions I consider this practice very weird - troubling even. I just don't understand it. I asked a question on FF some days ago about this... The answers kind of confirmed the "weirdness" of the reasons for not using a full name. People calling up "privacy" as an argument... What are they afraid for?
- Meryn Stol
- This may say more about me than others, but I can't help the feeling. Why can't we all talk in full daylight?
- Meryn Stol
Not forgetting that it is a fundamental human right - the right to pseudonym. There should be the flexibility to allow those of us who wish to use one or those who see their pseudonym as their name more than the one society deems "real name".
- alphaxion
"What are they afraid of?" Google search for a start.
- Rebecca
There is a fundamental shift in the role of internet and how its perceived in society. This has culminated in Second Life becoming defunct.
- Jim
Rebecca, "Google search" - and then? I know all what I say can be googled. Why would that bother me?
- Meryn Stol
I don't fear anything, this is my name. The one I wish people to identify with as me. It is more real to me than the name my parents gave me. Why is this such a bad thing?
- alphaxion
@mohomed Oh I know this all too well - I've seen the technology, it scares the crap out of me.
- alphaxion
Meryn, some possibilities: if you knew a mentally unstable person in real life who might harass you; if you were in the process of a divorce and didn't want your ex-to-be to follow you everywhere. I could think of plenty of other reasons. Some irrational reasons, too. :)
- Rebecca
Tamar, It is a sad fact that many people, even in the US, would suffer various forms of harm if they were 'outed'. I've seen people lose their jobs over expressing a political opinion, families shattered due to religious expression, and so on. It wasn't that long ago that 'fired for blogging' stories were popping up every month or so. We don't see that as much anymore because more people use pseudonyms now.
- Michael R. Bernstein
There are tons of Smiths and Singhs and Mohammeds in the world, so requiring real names isn't sustainable practice, but even beyond that, it's not about names, it's about identity. Google my username, then google my real name(William Gunn). Which one is more strongly my identity? I argue for OpenID, a URL, as an identity token that's more functional than a name.
- Mr. Gunn
I quite like the idea of my name being a URL. A resource on the web :). But seriously, it's not an easy generalization. For example, on LinkedIn, I chose to use a handle more related to my name as opposed to everywhere else. In addition to many of the things being mentioned above the idea of online handles are a time honored tradition of the web, even if you fully know whom you are referring to. Personally I miss Chris being factoryjoe.
- Deepak Singh
"My name is Earl."
- Bill Sodeman
from Nambu
I just try to make sure people know that "gotgenes" is really "Chris Lasher". "gotgenes" has fewer characters, and while "Chris Lasher" is a rare name, it's still not unique. I managed to bury the other Chris Lashers in the world on Google search, but what if your name is really, really common? An alternative, unique monitor might actually help. I probably say a few things online I might bite my tongue on in real encounters, but no more when you see "gotgenes" rather than "Chris Lasher".
- Chris Lasher
A cousin of mine had a name that was also the name of someone else (on Usenet) who was very controversial and he got tired of being mistaken for him. Let's say that name was "John Smith" (they had different middle initials). For a while he tried establishing an identity as "The Other John Smith", but then adopted a nom-de-net. Eventually, he came to feel that handle was his real name, so he had it legally changed.
- Michael R. Bernstein
vlb is me. I am vlb. If you don't know me well, why should that be any less my identity than "Vicki Brown"? They're just letters on a page. If you do know me, I've been using vlb whenever possible since 1983. As long as I've been on the net, I've been vlb. The only person with the right to chose my identity is me. It is NOT an option for anyone to tell me that I must choose some other combination of letters.
- Vicki Brown
Well, the right is actually the owners of the service to which you're agreeing to sign up. Your right is not to use the service if they force you to use a specific name.
- Matthew DeVries
More arrogance from Twitter. "Normal people," huh? Here's why what @ev said is stupid: - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
Rod Stewart, Rodney Rumford, Rob Schieber and 102 other people liked this
Saying "normal people" will be on the service in five years is stupid. Why? Because it's calling current customers who are on the service "not normal." I find I'm hearing more and more arrogance toward Twitter's existing user base from its management. That arrogance is stupid. Facebook already has normal people, as Ev puts it, and is far more "sticky" than Twitter is. Twitter is actually becoming harder to follow as more "normal users" come on the service.
- Robert Scoble
from Bookmarklet
Here's a tweet on my screen right now: "Back from the Quizno's breakfast run." Is that really more interesting to follow than photos and videos from your closest friends, which is what my wife shows me every night on facebook? No way. And friendfeed has better noise filtering mechanisms than Twitter does BY FAR.
- Robert Scoble
For months now I have felt that twitter should be run be more involved users of the service rather than Ev. I'm happy to see that you too feel this way. It makes me feel less prejudical about the subject at hand.
- Richard A.
Yes, I found that peculiar.
- Jim
"Normal people" will soon figure out that Twitter isn't all that great. Already I'm seeing engagement go down on twitter. As I go around startups I'm seeing more and more addicted people who are trying to escape from Twitter because watching Tweetdeck all day long keeps them from getting anything done.
- Robert Scoble
I'm not sure that I would see that statement as arrogant. The fact that you say more "normal" people are already on Facebook kind of illustrates the fact that Twitter is not in the norm...yet. It's steadily rising to that position, but the truth is, at least from my meager perspective, Twitter is full of those who are NOT in the norm.
- Carlton Hackett
One thing I'm hearing from a lot of users is that they don't feel like there's a real community on Twitter. Here I really feel there are people I know. Mona, for instance. Or Louis Gray. Plus the employees of friendfeed are ALWAYS here. That's something that I never felt from Twitter's founders/employees. Go read @ev -- is he doing anything to build a community? No, he's always on Charlie Rose or at TED bragging about how many users he has. That will backfire.
- Robert Scoble
I'm normal, and I was on Twitter early on, 2 years ago or so. I don't see what all the fuss is about tho Robert. Just unfollow the Quizno breakfast guy and find a less noisy one. FF isn't stick to me because there's too many accordion folds of comments to follow. Twitter plus Search key word is enough.
- Prokofy Neva
I believe that by saying "normal" he means people that are not early adopters, and if that happen and Twitter becomes more crowded, are you going to stop using Twitter?
- Ahmed
Not sure that engagement is decreasing on Twitter. It's about to explode here in Australia. I do find it odd however to devalue the contribution of the very people who have made it so compelling.
- Jim
Carlton: I don't agree and I agree at the same time. That's the problem with using terms like "normal." There is no "normal" in human beings. That term is arrogant.
- Robert Scoble
Prokofy: find me a single Twitter user who isn't noisy some of the time. I've looked. Even TimOreilly is noisy some of the time.
- Robert Scoble
Ahmed: early adopters have already moved to other services. They are on Twitter less and less.
- Robert Scoble
Jim: late adopters don't engage. Sorry, but they don't. At least not at the level that early adopters do. Want to prove this to yourself? Go look at the followers that @ev has. Look at how many Tweets they make. Most have zero!!! Now compare to my followers. Almost every one of my followers has many many Tweets. Especially when you compare to @ev's (Ev is a recommended Twitterer so he's getting a LOT more "recent" Twitterers).
- Robert Scoble
Well I think that he meant "normal" like in "mainstream", which I, for one, find elitist too, because imho: Being an early adopter doesn't mean you're smarter enough to use a product. Or smarter than others that don't use it yet. http://friendfeed.com/e...
- directeur
I suspect that Twitter is in the phase where it needs someone else to take it to the next level. The Twitter founders have created this wonderful thing but seems to me they need to hand over the reigns.
- Jim
directeur: exactly.
- Robert Scoble
Robert this is so true! Facebook and Twitter get worse when more people join. I also love the noise filters on Friendfeed. But above all I love it that they don't force their users to use this or that site or services. This is great while I am slowly removing myself from twitter.
- Bart LePoole
"Normal" people will not use Twitter anymore, if their support can't/doesn't want to answer to a "normal" help request. Mine, after more than one month, is not assigned to an operator yet (my timeline is empty!). Perhaps because I am not a V.I.P: I have seen tweets by "non-normal" twitterers about similar problems, fixed in few hours...
- PaperDoll
To prove the engagement point, visit http://twitter.com/ev... -- click on 100 followers. Almost all have no tweets. Most have no photos. Now visit http://twitter.com/scoblei... and compare. Late adopters, er, "normal people" are lame. I don't wish ANY service gets those!
- Robert Scoble
I think there is something missing in the early adopter/follower conversation (not going to touch "normal") which is am examination of the world of twitter from inside the perspective of the social media in-crowd, vs. that of digitally engaged folks at large. An examination of this dynamic and what it means would be particularly fruitful, as in the end, the success or failure of Twitter for 1,500 social media experts is one thing, and adoption by a significant slice of the population at large is another.
- Robert Davis
"normal" can also mean...not having superpowers gang. "normal" is a reference to people without extraordinary technical knowhow...and they are 80% of the population... so in anyone's definition normal that would be. In fact by "normal" he means "less than"... meaning people who have less than tech savvy...oy c'mon people don't be so sensitive.
- davidlee
Ryo: "normal" people that @ev is attracting are people who do not participate and who have vapid tweet streams. Is that who Twitter is going to build a business around? Really?
- Robert Scoble
I didn't experience this the same way. What you took to mean that Ev was saying we were stupid, I just took as meaning the current Twitterbase is more the early adopters and later it will be more mainstream. And yeah, it is harder to use as more people come on board, which is why filtering apps like TweetDeck are becoming critical for anyone following more than a hundred or so people.
- Lisa Creech Bledsoe
Lisa: and that belief is bullshit. Why would mainstream join in Twitter? Look at Ev's own follower base. That is "mainstream." They do not participate. Now compare to Facebook! I bet that the average time spent on facebook by "normal" people is 100x more than on Twitter. Twitter is going to need engaged users to build a business.
- Robert Scoble
RE engagement @ev @britneyspears etc are all going to have those types of followers. My interest in Twitter has peaked of late due to the increasing diversity in conversation - and engagement with "normal" people.
- Jim
Scoble... you are just mad that Twitter is gonna take off and leave FreindFeed in the dust. :) You put your chips on FriendFeed and it's a bet you are losing... it's okay... you just have to get your head around the fact that when it comes to websites you (and most of your thousands of followers) are not "normal". And you have got to stop being so sensitive about being called out as the exception rather than the rule. Time to face the facts: we are not "normal people". :)
- Matt Shaulis
Robert: What services would you say the early adopters have moved onto? And I agree with you that the people that will sign up now as Twitter hits "mainstream" are more apt to tweet much less, if at all. They will sign up to see what the fuss is about and fall off the radar quickly.
- Jason Kane
Ev has no idea what twitter is about. None of those at twitter really understand how twitter is used, and how strong it is. Best example is SMS in Europe and how they removed that.
- Richard A.
i have been known to say Facebook is for civilians. does that make me evil? twitter was initially used by geeks, not "normal people". Robert- you, for example, are clearly not "normal". think about the terms like a graph- a normal distribution..... twitter isn't normal in terms of adoption yet. far from it. we're still living in the future.
- James
Maybe it depends on your community, where I live facebook is now mainstream, twitter is not yet. I do think that twitter will become 'mainstream' though, the main advantage being the ease of use. Maybe some of the 'mainstream' users will tweet less, but there are many different ways to use Twitter as a tool (none more right or wrong than others) and one of those is to receive information, which does not require a profile pic or posting tweets.
- Angela
Angela; twitter can't become mainstream until the technology is ready (mobile wise) and ideologicaly, when people don't feel sitting at a computer is geeky.
- Richard A.
I hardly think EV's statements are arrogant. I actually think it's pretty accurate. Current Twitter users aren't "normal" they are internet savvy, early adopters, and people that have a general interest in being public. It isn't a slant towards the user base. It isn't a slant towards people who don't use it either. To me, it seems your statements are just shamelessly plugging friend feed. However, there are some substantial differences between Twitter and FriendFeed to market before the offensive.
- Eric Moretti
about what @ev said...twitter existence, 5 years from now sounds very pretentious for me. People still has a sense of time very last century, they think things change every 50 years.
- Sarah
Eric: that was true a year ago. It no longer is true. Twitter is being talked about on CNN and BBC many times a day some days. The user base is WILDLY switching. Go to @ev's follower list to see how. Really really bad trends for Twitter are there. No engagement. Vapid tweets. Focus on celebrity or getting on TV. Not on discussing ideas. Those are NOT good trends!
- Robert Scoble
3 'normal' people asked me what Twitter was today. I explained the history and the application of it. The response was, and I quote, "Oh, that's intresting. So it's like SMS. Why would I want hundreds of SMS's". 'Normals' will come, realize how useless it is, and never come back...
- Johnny Worthington
Johnny: bingo!
- Robert Scoble
The antonyms of normal are peculiar, abnormal and deviant. I don't find it that arrogant but it is a word that should be used carefully in any context when describing people.
- M F
Wildly switching to what? Vapid tweets/comments/profiles etc are going to exist across all social networking outlets. I think what we are seeing now is a steep curve to ambiguous use by all of them, some will fall from grace as media darlings (MySpace) will others will see a drop in user base, but maintain a substantial following (Facebook). To me social networking is still in its infancy so it's hard to make any assumption of what will fail and what will succeed.
- Eric Moretti
Eric: Myspace is popular though, for music lovers. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, use it to find lot's of music. It's just part of a sub-culture rather than mainstream. Means the user base is more engaged as a result.
- Richard A.
Eric: you are missing what goes on here on friendfeed. Here we have a way to hide noise and accentuate the signal through liking and commenting. On Twitter you do not have those mechanisms. Clicking "like" for instance does a TON behind the scenes and makes that much more searchable, for instance. It also shows that item to all your followers. Which makes it more likely everyone in the system sees some signal instead of vapid tweets flowing by.
- Robert Scoble
Richard: hundreds of millions of people use MySpace. But that service is stagnating. Other music discovery services, particularly on facebook, are starting to eat away at its dominance.
- Robert Scoble
@Rich: This might be true. I personally can't stand MySpace. Too messy in terms of advertisements and user controlled pages. It gives me a headache, which is why I think the general public over 30 won't stick with it.
- Eric Moretti
Twitter is the Post-It-Note, FriendFeed is the Memo Envelope... I scribble things down on Twitter, I get stuff done here.
- Johnny Worthington
I enjoy the analogy :) but FF is more then a Memo Envolpe
- abdellah
Robert, Twitter is going to turn into the myspace of microblogging. By that I mean that myspace has one purpose whereas facebook has many. People jumped to FB as a result. We'll find the same with Friendfeed, once it gets easier to use. It offers more value to the user.
- Richard A.
I agree... But since it's midnight here, my analogy generator is defragging :)
- Johnny Worthington
Richard: bing!
- Robert Scoble
oh it is still working, what could it generate for the facebook case :)
- abdellah
Robert: Well, hey give me time, I just joined. I'm not arguing Twitter vs. FriendFeed. I think the comment was more directed being over reactionary. For the record, I like it, but working full time, school full time leaves very little time. Does Friend Feed have an Android App?
- Eric Moretti
Depends on what he meant by 'normal people'
- Moses Kpetigo
But am I a normal person or just stupid to want a direct message feature in friendfeed?
- Bart LePoole
Anyone who really knows me (not those who just know me through Twitter) will agree that I am not normal. I guess if it was possible they would describe me as "clinically" not normal. Perhaps what the issue is too many people, many of those I follow, are just using Twitter to market their goods, website or new shows.I don't particularly find people who do this "engaging" .The good news is that the unfollow button is easy to find.
- Keith Beucler
Bart: stupid. You already have direct messaging in friendfeed. It's called Gmail. (Seriously: the worst feature of Twitter is DM'ing. It's a horrid feature. I wish it had never been implemented).
- Robert Scoble
no you aren't, but what make me in trouble is the fact that there is so many way to be in a direct relation with some one :) comment like and damn there is email too :)
- abdellah
Robert: DM is stupid, I will give you that. Why limit a DM to 140 characters? Moreover, the people who I would actually DM, I have their email address.
- Eric Moretti
i am wondering not about the normal people comment - but the 5 years part - really that long? how many new sites or addictions will pop up in the mean time?
- Damian Holmes
Damian: good point. Facebook is five years old. They got 175 million users already and are growing 700,000 every day. Facebook is the Silicon Valley success story of the year.
- Robert Scoble
I've always thought that 'normal' people, when talked about in these terms, are people who aren't like you. Everyone thinks they are a little different, so normals are everyone else
- Rachel Clarke
Robert my desire for DM is to keep one conversation thread and not to have to move to another platform. I want one conversation bundled as one conversation. This you have pointed out is one of those great features of FF.
- Bart LePoole
Robert, thanks to you, I'll never strive to be "normal" again :)
- MiaD
There is a big push to get these services "mainstream". And maybe Ev was tired of saying the word mainstream over and over, so "normal" fit the bill. :-)
- Louis Gray
All my normal friends are exchanging virtual nonsense on Face Book. or they are trying to figure out what to do about these causes. http://bit.ly/h07n Why be Normal ?
- Eric Logan
Robert, I'm not a twitter-fan but I'm not sure you're right. I believe you should follow less people on twitter than you follow here on FF or on Facebook, just because you have less filter tools on Twitter, and because you should be interested in what your friends are doing, not anybody wherever he is. And that's what "normal" people would do, if they ever get there.
- Markingegno - Donato
Perhaps a poor choice of words, but valid point that the masses (normal people) have not yet latched onto Twitter.
- David Lanning
By the time "normal" people figure out Twitter, the rest of us will be onto something else.
- The Way Things Are
I signed up for twitter a week ago and I still don't see any reason why I'd use it for anything that facebook or friendfeed don't already provide me in a way that's much easier to use. It really seems like facebook status updates that don't have comment threads. So, I feel like I'm missing the whole point of twitter.
- Steve Koch
Plus: I hate birds.
- Steve Koch
one makes the world "idiot" proof and then the world will make a better idiot !! If your not living life on the fringe or the edge, then you are taking too much room on the this planet :)-
- Peter Dawson
@scoble: thanks for starting this thread. I thought @bart's comment was the best line here: "...Facebook and Twitter get worse when more people join..." Ironically, those are exactly the conditions FB and TT need in order to become viable businesses... but from a user experience pov, it's a race to the bottom as more people get on. <sigh>
- .LAG liked that
Twitter isn't built for 'normal' people. All my real friends hate me because I refuse to add them... but I talk to them via IM. I don't need to know if they bought a new pair of shoes or if they're sick - AGAIN. What I don't understand is why Twitter gets as much fuss and attention as it does.
- Mona Nomura
@scoble I really think you are blowing the word "normal" out of proportion. He's clearly referring to non-early adopters. Goes back to the common "my parents" metaphor all consumer internet folks refer to. It's flawed, but quite pervasive.
- Clay Newton
@Mona: +200! Seriously, Twitter wins for most over hyped site. I frankly contribute to that through stomping around about how much attention it gets for so little added value. The sands are shifting under Twitter and I'm not sure they get that. People are on overload, they're shifting to trusted networks. And Twitter is now overflowing with affiliate, spam and black hat SEO. Not a peep (or chirp) out of Twitter on how they're dealing with that and the very quick backlash it will likely get from users.
- AJ Kohn
Jason - that doesn't really describe why it's getting buzz. What a lot of the Twitter early adopters (I wasn't) were saying about the usefulness and versatility of Twitter has finally been recognized by...uh..."normal people". Well, as normal as Shaq and Jimmy Fallon and Karl Rove are.
- Hutch Carpenter
Shouldn't it get recognized once it is finally stable (FailWhale after it was mentioned on The View by Barbara Walters? Still?) and monetizing? What kind of standard does this set for start-ups across the board?
- Mona Nomura
Normal just means people between the tails of the bell curve. Which, come on, we all are.
- Matthew DeVries
2.0 is to Twitter and 1.0 is to Pets.com ????
- AJ Kohn
PEOPLE: Pile off Robert. This is obviously one of those mulligan overly sensitive statements he warned us all about yesterday that were going to be coming. Give the dude a pass and move on.
- Matthew DeVries
Mona - monetization is not something the average user obsesses about. You think the news guys that are getting on Twitter spend a lot of time worrying about that? Fail Whale is an issue, it nearly brought the service to its knees last year. It's better, but needs improvement still.
- Hutch Carpenter
Robert, I'm advising for a company that is doing an amazing alternative for Twitter, targeted just at Moms. I'd love to give you and Maryam a demo some time. (I think Maryam would really love it). I'll e-mail you some more details shortly if you're interested.
- Jesse Stay
Oh, perhaps I was misunderstood. Why is this service (Twitter) garnering as much attention as it does when there is no guarantee it would even last? It just heightens its worth for a buy-out. What kind of standard is this setting for products and services moving forward?
- Mona Nomura
@scoble I think this is totally blown out of proportion. He clearly meant, "not tech obsessed" or cutting-edge. Like Clay said, he meant people like my parents. My only disagreement is that it'll take 5 years -- it's already happening. Of course, how long people stay or use the service is always the big question, but people who aren't plugged in (like my sister) are already trying it out.
- Christina Warren
Mona - YouTube
- Hutch Carpenter
Here's what I don't get - why would anyone keep working there? With all the new financing they've been getting, normal employee stock has got to be mostly diluted at the moment. I wonder if they realize that. It's no longer worth working there as a "startup environment".
- Jesse Stay
Hutch - Indeed. As well as many others. But seriously, is Twitter *that* useful?
- Mona Nomura
Mona - I think it is, because of its relative simplicity. Ultimately, of course, "useful" is a market call. Right now, the market says "yes".
- Hutch Carpenter
I just think it's a good example of how not everybody was meant to do press junkets and interviews with Charlie Rose. Time to invest in a PR person
- Dave Powell
from twhirl
Robert, do you think the language is a call back to the days when developers used the terminology "dumb user"? It seems that way to me as well..just the "lite" version of the arrogance that sadly has been endemic in developer culture since at least when I came on board in the late 90's. I'm even ashamed to admit that our university allowed instructors to use this "geek-speak" in the classroom as part of the curriculum. Esoterica often provides its own set of "ear-muffs" to its users.
- Melanie Reed
I think we contribute greatly to the market saying it is useful, by hyping up a service that is still missing many rudimentary features. I truly don't see why Twitter is a great marketing tool. Supplementary, yes but it certainly doesn't deserve all the attention it gets as a service since it's the people on Twitter, not the tool itself that makes it 'useful'.
- Mona Nomura
@Mona is on fire. + 1MM.
- AJ Kohn
Mona: That's like saying the Interstate isn't a good tool, it's the cars on that move the people are the useful thing.
- Matthew DeVries
Mona - I hear the argument about how easy Twitter is to build, nothing special to it. The *concept* was special. The early adoption was critical. The community is the barrier to entry. Twitter hit 'escape velocity' while others failed to do so.
- Hutch Carpenter
Matthew - I don't see the correlation. Interstates are a necessity. Twitter isn't. And Aaron? The mainstream is bigger than Twitter AND FriendFeed.
- Mona Nomura
I thought by not being into sports I would get out of this my ___ is better than yours thing. Guess not.
- Stephan Miller
from Friend Deck
Evan Williams says "normal people" and the ones who are offended are the geeks on the social networks. I rest my case.
- Shawn Farner
@Aaron: I use Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation.
- AJ Kohn
I always love the Twitter bashing on FF...especially from Scoble. We all know that 'normal' is mainstream and we also know that most of us are far from mainstream. Twitter is entering that sphere and as many people that think Twitter is useless there will be 2 more saying, 'Whoa! this is cool'. I'm far from a tech guru and love being able to keep in touch with friends and family via Twitter and SMS. It is the broadcast aspect that beats out plain old SMS.
- Sidney
Shawn - maybe that's why I call my blog "I'm not actually a geek". :-p
- Hutch Carpenter
Why be normal?
- Thomas Hawk
It's like Pepsi or Coke. Preferences only. And people start a war. I don't care unless I own the company, lol. But I guess it's a good time waster.
- Stephan Miller
from Friend Deck
Nonsense? Blasphemy Aaron! There is nothing more important than discussing services and measurements that clearly have no resolute answers!! ;)
- Mona Nomura
Mona - that's why I tend to be market-oriented in a lot of my opinions. Probably the closest approximation of the "answer".
- Hutch Carpenter
Mona - Interstates are not necessary, and when Eisenhower built them, everyone on Route 66 thought no one would use them, and died.
- Matthew DeVries
Hutch - indeed. Only time will tell. @Matthew - I still do not see the correlation with Interstates to Twitter. But it's me, not you. :)
- Mona Nomura
FF is futureproof. FF acknowledges that other services exist and encourages you to not be centralized. FF provides a platform for integration. Twitter wants you to use only twitter. This is what causes vapid content on twitter, it offers nothing, and doesn't have the potential to offer anything other than what you see in front of you. Twitter is a talking platform, FF is an integration...
more...
- Andy Bakun
I agree with Andy, except to say, perhaps FF will go away (noooo!), but something that does the same thing should rise to take its place if that happens.
- Kamilah Gill
Andy's right.
- Thomas Hawk
@Andy I would disagree to a point. It would be rude of me to walk up to a group of people and go, "I'm heading to the movies" and walking away. They'd expect me to sit around and wait for a comment from them. With Twitter I can say it and be gone. If someone wants to comment they can and I can get said comment on the go. Phone, generally one on one. Email, you can broadcast but again, no sms integration which is vital to reach people mobile. not everyone has email on their phone. Twitter does it all
- Sidney
agree w/ thomas - andy nailed it, exactly my pov too :)
- mike "glemak" dunn
Arent all humans noisy?? Prokofy: find me a single Twitter user who isn't noisy some of the time. I've looked. Even TimOreilly is noisy some of the time." Scoble????
- Francisco Kemeny
The reason why Twitter works is because of the number of people who use it. Yesterday I was having issues with Better Gmail 2, I did a quick twitter search and realized other people are having the same issue at the same time, I replied to them and we talked about it. Can't do that on Google or FriendFeed. I love FF but bottom line is most people I follow on twitter are not on FF, so I have to manually enter these people as imaginary friends to filter the twitter noise - this is a pain.
- Kelly Johns
OMG. I agree completely with Robert.
- Chris Baskind
I was helping somebody set up a new Twitter account today and noticed that during the sign up process they bring up a list of recommended people on Twitter to follow with the check marks already highlighted so you have to actually uncheck them to not follow them. Among various brands such as Dell the number 2 recommendation was a blogger, @dooce. Some of her tweets are very explicit. She refers to herself on her blog as a Sh*t A** H* M*****r F*****r (dooce.com). Interesting pick for #2
- Mike Elliott
Another thing to consider is how twitter could change their feature list or UI such that anything new wouldn't seem "bolted on". I don't think they can. If they added the ability to "browse" tweets and show threads (in the right order), something I think it desperately needs, rather than just a list of obviously ephemeral and no longer relevant entries with the most recent at the top,...
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- Andy Bakun
Mike Elliott: +100. Insightful observation.
- Robert Scoble
I am new to FF, but I like the context and conversation I can get from FF. Twitter seems masturbatory.
- Rick Cogley
Naturally he says normal people. Robert, I hate to break it to you, you are far from normal! I am certainly not normal either. Early adopters are, as a general rule, not the norm. That's fine.
- Daniel W. Crompton
I believe both FF and Twitter serve a purpose. FriendFeed, for me, is much like a university library whereas Twitter is much like the university cafeteria. It depends on 'type' of conversation one wants/needs at a particular moment.
- ka3drr
lol - no not library, twitter is like the roxbury (full of posers) and friendfeed is like a park outside a library on a sunny spring day (chilling with friends and having interesting conversations) imho of course :)
- mike "glemak" dunn
Scoble is wrong on this one, normal people are on email not twitter
- imran
Hmmmm, I'm normal, or at least, I THINK I'm normal... I use Twitter to communicate with people I normally wouldn't be able to find with any other means. I use it for information gathering too. And, bouncing ideas off of people. I don't know, I like it, and I am pretty sure that I am normal. I use Facebook for my real life friends and family, and that's it. Facebook I have locked down, so I can be more at ease there.
- Danielle Closs
My mom is on twitter - she's pretty normal
- Antonio Altamirano
this thread with the amount of quality comments back and forth illustrates the viability of FF as a great medium for debate! IMO: As busy as Mr. Scoble is, he should get mad props for starting and maintaining the discussion.
- shayne catrett
This is a nonissue. Evan's point is that like blogging was 5 years ago, twitter today seems a little offputting. To technological optimists, twitter will always be awesome, but to joe sixpack (or joe-who-has-no-blog) it may be sometime before twitter does not incite: "Well who the hell would want to know what I'm doing all the time?" The idea of 'normal' does cannot be so quickly reversed into "Evan just called me a freak." Grow up.
- Daniel Morgan
Guess I was not so stupid after all... Friendfeed implements DM !
- Bart LePoole
Facebook Pages Will Replace Traditional Landing Pages - http://www.allfacebook.com/2009...
Nicholas James, Benno, Angel and 7 other people liked this
How Gmail destroyed Outlook. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine - http://www.slate.com/id...
David Miller, Svartling, KARR 4.0 and 191 other people liked this
"As of this week, Gmail has reached perfection." Now maybe they can take it out of Beta :)
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
I thought Beta was part of the product name, Paul. :-)
- Louis Gray
That's the only logical explanation.
- Paul Buchheit
No, Gmail's not in beta. Google is. That's why the logo clearly reads "Gmail(TM) by Google BETA"
- Kevin Fox
Boo. :)
- Randy Holloway
from twhirl
We have Google Apps at work, but my boss is a Microsoft guru and LOVES Outlook. I LOVE Gmail, so I've resisted most of his attempts to get me to pop Gmail down to Outlook. It's a battle every day. :)
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
I use the Mail.app in Mac, but everything stays on the server.
- Aaron Hood
Mail.app <3
- "Joey"
Not sure I understand this debate. I use Mail.app to access my Google hosted mail via IMAP. Best of both worlds and Google in no way "destroys" my use of Mail.app. I presume Outlook could do the same.
- Nick in Manila
I love Gmail, but they still need better integration with other apps/platforms. For example, Google contacts needs to sync directly (and for free) with iPhone/iTunes, salesforce.com, etc.
- Peter Ghosh
@Kevin - They're going to rename the company to Google BETA, Inc soon? ;)
- Tyson Key
Sorry, I meant Google Calendar, not contacts . . .
- Peter Ghosh
Gmail is a great consumer webmail, but in no way "destroys" Outlook. How does Gmail allow me to book conference rooms, or recall errant emails, or follow SOX retention policies? Both have their place and are leaders in their own area, but one does not supplant the other.
- Ryan
Great writeup on Gmail.
- Mike Reynolds
gold master gmail!
- MG Siegler
one huge reason why Microsoft HATES Google, outlook is just one of the major pay for software offerings by MS that are being eroded in market share due to Google
- sofarsoShawn
Comparing GMail to Outlook is like comparing Apples to Fruit Salad. :) They're not the same, even if they overlap on a few features.
- Kenneth LeFebvre
I would guess that Gmail is likely destroying Hotmail -- Outlook not so much. Still reason for Microsoft to be pissed at Google though.
- Brian Sullivan
@psghosh, GCalendar has started syncing with iCal for some time now - check google's help for this: http://www.google.com/support...
- Peter Fedin
Creative Destruction - good news for the public!
- GlennIsaac
If you're not using Exchange, sure, gmail's a killer.
- Mr. Gunn
Well done article.
- Micah Wittman
I turned my tom(at)thomashawk.com email address over to gmail and I have to say that the reduction in spam is nothing short of remarkable. Every now and then I check the spam file and feel bad because real email gets trapped in there, but by and large it's awesome.
- Thomas Hawk
Feels like I'm preaching to the choir here but have been using gmail in one form or another since almost the beginning. After spending years using mac mail to consolidate accounts went full gmail a few months ago because it just works better and the extras are great. Don't see how anybody can top it. The only other one I've tried which shows some potential is zenbe.com.
- Mike Elliott
Agreed
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
Gmail rocks! Once you start using it there's no going back. Two niggles though: Multiple signatures and blind group mailings, please!
- Todd Brunner
from twhirl
Gmail seems great at first - but recently, I have seen several messages disappear from my Inbox while I watch. Sometimes they reappear next time I check - sometimes not. Searching for reports of Gmail eating messages turns up a disturbingly high number of hits. Destroys Outlook? Maybe. Destroys messages? Yes. Not good enough, even for a free service! What use is 7 Gb of space - when it isn't 7 Gb of *reliable* space?
- James
from twhirl
so gmail finally has complete windows compatible keyboard macros, syncs my to my mobile phones, I can do my mailings with them, has an integrated crm system, and more? great. </sarcasm> (and I say this as an avid gmail user ...)
- Nicole Simon
Switched to Gmail from Outlook and never looked back.
- Roberto Bonini
didn't Bucheit invent Gmail according to Louis G? The opening shot in the downfall of Microsoft...?
- sofarsoShawn
He was on the team, yes - and did the prototype for the Gmail Ads, i belive. Don't be modest Paul.
- Roberto Bonini
As much as I love gmail (I've got several accounts), I couldn't use it an office environment yet. Want to covert an email to an appointment or task just drag it to the calendar or task list in Outlook. Outlook also has search folders so I can set up folders for emails I got today. I know there are GreaseMonkey extensions to support search folders but Gmail's date searching is just crummy.
- Andy Davies
I wish people would stop killing the aps I use...I hate that.
- John D Reasor
As far as I'm concerned, Outlook destroyed Outlook: feeble support for IMAP, a tendency toward .pst corruption (chief symptom: messages that hang Outlook when you try to open them), no support for user data migration to new accounts / computers, etc., etc. These days I use Mail.app on OS X and Thunderbird on Windows, and I am much happier.
- Pat Rice
Dukeswharf: POP/IMAP> Thunderbird> Enigmail (PGP) = offline+security+no ads (but no "new" features)
- coldbrew
Nice. I still have more trust in self-administered PKI; is that naive? Are they using asymmetric or symmetric crypto?
- coldbrew
Outlook destroyed Outlook the way MS destroys it's other products (and I have been an Outlook fan since '97): it became bloated and slow.
- Peter Ghosh
I'll still use thunderbird since I have to centralize many different mail accounts (and want them to be clearly separated), but I must admit that Gmail made a good point here :-)
- Stanislas Jourdan
Jourdan: Do you use PGP? We should have a key-signing party room on FF. Maybe I'll make one now...
- coldbrew
Gmail is far from destroying Outlook. I still have to use Outlook for plenty of things. It is just a different tool. Feature by feature Google is way way behind Outlook.
- Patrick Allmond
Gmail is the small business solution. Major corporations are way too private to be communicating outside the Outlook box. Yet Outlook has been shown in the past to have vulnerabilities. Security is less of an issue with smaller databases. Suits prefer the worn path, the grey rut.
- Phil Boiarski
Sorry, I meant gmail's encryption. I don't think it has any PKI option. does it?
- coldbrew
As we saw this morning, Google is not infallible. When Outlook fails on one computer, only one computer and one user is affected. When Google fails, the entire world notices. Google Mail is a nice web-based mail service, but that's all it will ever be.
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
I don't understand that argument, Mark. By the same logic, Google couldn't be anything more than a niche search provider because nobody would trust a search engine that everyone uses.
- Kevin Fox
Speaking of gmail, I've been getting this nagging "Bad Request Error 400" message anytime I've tried to access my mail and it's getting to be irritating. It comes back up if I clear all my cookies and cache but then it goes back to the error message on the next checking of mail. WTF?
- Tsega Dinka
"When Outlook fails on one computer, only one computer and one user is affected." Right, because a software vulnerability in Outlook is programmed and rolled out on a per customer basis.
- virtually
Think of it a different way, Kevin: If Microsoft and Google both declared bankruptcy and shut down every server they have today, Outlook would still work but GMail would not. The odds of it happening are almost nil. GMail is a great web-based mail site. That's the problem it's web-based.
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
There's just no way I'll use email software that uses the one-message-per-row paradigm again. The productivity gains from Conversations are just enormous.
- jakebf
How does Zoho match up against Gmail?
- Kevin Whalen
from twhirl
Outlook has many, many, many problems, for sure. I just see the argument as (A Great Web App)<(A Great Desktop App). Does this clarify my thought?
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
@mark: that's entirely true, if kind of a moot point based on the probability. If visa went down tomorrow, nobody would be able to pay for much of anything. If Comcast went down, most of us would have no internet connection. It's clearly your prerogative to run all your own software infrastructure, but I'd rather have the convenience of web based software.
- Joel Webber
A lot of commentators are discussing chalk and cheese. Outlook is an email CLIENT / Application. GMail is another Client / Application. How you use each one is entirely up to each user. Most non-technical people think of Gmail as something they access via their browsers, whereas Outlook is a Microsoft Application that runs on their PC. Not entirely true. you can access GMail servers using any client (Outlook/Thunderbird).
- Chris Wright
from twhirl
Gmail+Gcal is an Outlook killer, no doubt about it. The day Gcal started sending SMS to my mobile with the reminders it also killed my old Palm Treo.
- Jordi Soler
What Gmail does is make using Email for the normal non techie person easy. The reality is most home users do not use the power of Ouitlook. The issue with Gmail is good lick syncing a pda or smart phone to it it works well for the calendar but not for contacts. Also Gmail does not give you an e asy way to store messages in tact offliine. Outlook has a PST file for offline storage and backup.
- Rob Cairns
As has been touched on in this thread. Gmail and Outlook are largely orthogonal. Outlook is a client. Gmail is a mail provider with a client. You can use Outlook with Gmail or another mail provider, but either way if that provider goes belly-up you're going to stop getting your mail for a bit. If you're concerned about your mail archives being hosted with someone else, then you should keep a local copy using a POP client, no matter what mail provider you happen to put your trust in.
- Kevin Fox
I went from using internal gmail at google to using Outlook at my new job, and while I think there are good things and bad things about the two platforms, I miss the speed and portability of gmail, but I like some the task/calendar features in Outlook. If I had my druthers, I'd use gmail.
- Ginger Makela Riker
"Gmail+Gcal is an Outlook killer, no doubt about it." Afraid not, Jordi, because GMail Contacts is a big ol' steaming cup of FAIL. When Google gets their act together on Contacts, then Outlook will be threatened.
- John Craft
Outlook is a platform for working with "items"... countless times I have dropped into the built-in macro language to do things with my email, tasks, appointments, contacts, etc., that I could never do with a webmail application like Gmail. I wish I could stop using it, because I'll admit it's a hog on resources, but there is no alternative that will do EXACTLY what I want to do like Outlook will with my custom scripts in it. :)
- Kenneth LeFebvre
GMail via a web browser is just using IMAP to access/control the mail on the mail server. You can set up Outlook/Thunderbird to access GMail using IMAP. It would be more accurate to say that using the GMail web interface has reduced the number of people using other client applications for accessing their email.
- Chris Wright
Why are people comparing apples with oranges here? Client vs service? Thunderbird may beat Outlook, but not Gmail itself. I do recognize the web client is good, but is not nearly as flexible as a standalone. Plus, as has been mentioned by others, I need multiple account processing. Gmail fails at this. Gmail will remain my service of choice in the end. Tbird at home, Outlook at work.
- Vince DeGeorge
I use gmail because of the spam reduction then feed it into Zimbra. Zimbra is an Outlook killer IMO.
- Nation Hahn
@kenlefeb: I'd love if you could enlighten me with the examples of what your custom outlook scripts can do for you, that you can't possibly do with gmail. My blind shot is that you probably can take a look at what greasemonkey scripts can do to muscle webapps, particularly gmail.
- Enver ALTIN
@Vince, GMail does support multiple accounts, see http://mail.google.com/support...
- Shakeel Mahate
@Enver: One example is automatically filling out my weekly timesheet from my calendar. Another example is automatically searching our company's online directory to grab mugshots for all my contacts, so I have their pictures to help me remember who's who... :) This is why I say Outlook is a *platform*. It seems to me that it would be an extraordinary amount of work to use something like Greasemonkey to actually add significant new functionality into Gmail, rather than just enhancing the user experience.
- Kenneth LeFebvre
BTW, I'm not knocking Gmail. I actually use it to host my own email domain... I'm just making the case that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to put Gmail and Outlook in the same category.
- Kenneth LeFebvre
Hotmail offline access has been available for over a year now with Windows Live Mail client. Can't make out why the same feature for Gmail is that exciting. They are not the first one to enable this feature. Zoho and Hotmail has been having these for a long time.
- Amar Shah
Gmail rocks... hate when some old relatives still write to my hotmail and I gotta go in there to get it, just because microsoft won't allow automatic forward to gmail.
- Peter Efland
I'm running Windows 7 here on my main computer. It's absolutely wonderful. I agree that it's the best Windows beta I've used. @davidlee41
Nicholas James, polymath22, Jim and 44 other people liked this
I agree.
- Spencer
Me too - installed it on my laptop and it works like a swiss watch ( ok, not THAT precise, but hey).
- Roberto Bonini
ditto
- Michael Fidler
from twhirl
I just installed the x64-version to my work laptop as 32-bit version worked so well at home.
- Jemm
anyone tried to add it to their WDS server? failed for me when I tried the one time.
- alphaxion
works like a charm on parallels desktop on my mac. but i can't enjoy the "preview desktop". won't die for this
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
WDS????? U mean Windows Home Server???
- Roberto Bonini
WDS = windows deployment service. It's the replacement for RIS (remote installation services) for the installation of windows OS across tcp/ip networks using PXE and winPE.
- alphaxion
Windows 7 is AMAZING. It's only a little bit slower than XP on my aging P42.8 HT, so am sticking with XP until I get a new machine. Games lag too much in Win7 on my box.
- Lou
what is cool for me is that all my audio and video works under windows 7 for the first time, didn't under vista. :-)
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Robert I agree. So much so I have it running on 3 computers at home. I have a couple of small issues my NAS box(Net gear Sc 101) and issues syncing my Samsung Jack phone but besides that it works great and is more stable. I am not worried about the Nas box but does anyone have a solution to my Samsung Jack sync issue?
- Rob Cairns
Agreed. Working fabulous on my Asus N10 netbook.
- Nir Ben Yona
I like what I've seen so far of Win7 compared to Vista. But I have one problem. I have Win7 running under Parallels 4 on OSX. I leave it running on a separate desktop, and twice now, it's just frozen overnight. Solid. If I go to that desktop I see the Win7 desktop, taskbar, etc. But they don't respond to anything. Only choice is to kill it and restart.
- Joey Gibson
I've had it lock up and blue screen if left unattended for 10 minutes on virtualbox.
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
agreed. runs perfect..
- subsky
It just BSOD'd for the first time. But runs pefecto
- Roberto Bonini
Joey do you have the preview button functional? I wonder if it may come from me integrated crappy intel graphics
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
Agree
- CW™
@jcverdie, not sure what you mean by the "preview button." Is that a Win7 or OSX thing?
- Joey Gibson
wow!... compare this to http://search.twitter.com/search...
- Siddharth Mitra
I have major problems with how the wireless connection comes back to life after the machine has been sleeping. Always have to use the troubleshoot connection to get it back. Otherwise I really like the automatic rotating Desktop background. They focused on some simple things here and its turning into a big win.
- dbcohen
@joey In windows 7, if you move at the bottom right, you are supposed to get all the windows disappear and just leave their edges like ghosts. If you right click you see two options : show desktop or preview desktop. The later is disabled here
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
Did you write down your special passcode after installing it..?
- Jules
@john any hint?I'm not a window guy at all :(
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
from twhirl
thanks @john. I just found that Parallels does NOT support aero effects :(
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
from twhirl
Got W7 on two notebooks. Works fine, but sleep mode is buggy. Sometimes it doesn't resume, and sometimes I can't launch any program after resume from sleep. Taskbar and new window management shortcuts are nice. Really helps to focus on doing my job.
- Kirill Petrovsky
I have it currently running on a test machine here at work, I like it seems to be working very well :-)
- Jayson Flint
@donor i got some problems on sleep mode and strange resets when i unplug it from ac power. i installed xp chipset drivers in compatibility mode. Now it works perfectly.
- Cristian Conti
agree, best Windows in years
- timepilot
I hear there will be several different versions. What fun!
- Phil Boiarski
With any luck they'll give you all versions on one Disc.. the screen that's floating around seems to indicate that much..
- Angelo Rodrigues
from twhirl
There is no way Microsoft is going to get rid of the multiple versions. That's what makes them a ton of money.
- Vaibhav
@ Vaibhav - They seem to do alright with just a home/server version. I hope they stick with something like that.. the whole 7 different versions with vista thing was a bit much for anyone to stomach.
- Angelo Rodrigues
from twhirl
I'd love for the concept of "home" and "pro" versions to get fucked... I tell everyone to replace the word "home" with "crippled". The only one that should have different versions is their server line of OS because it's actually warrented. I'm sure there was more than 7 diff versions of vista. home basic, home premium, ultimate, business, enterprise, home premium N, ultimate N, business N, enterprise N, and 64bit versions thrown on top.
- alphaxion
wow, lots of positive feedback from everyone about it :-). Scoble should be the nations CTO, I think.
- Richard Binhammer
@Angelo I agree. I am totally against having so many versions but I read an article about a year back which said they make more money having different versions vs one.
- Vaibhav
There should be only two versions Business and Home. Home should include Media Center and all the other features that is part of Ultimate today, but I guess that's just wishful thinking.
- Vaibhav
I still want to try it in a WORK environment, too many apps did not run on Vista, and vendors were in no rush to FIX their software to suit Vista, but I think they will not waste any time getting fixes for '7'!
- David Slater
from twhirl
It's the most stable beta, yes; but Microsoft does typically release in a junk/gold/junk/gold/junk/gold release cycle. So Windows 7 was a winner out of the gate; and Windows 8 will just as likely be a loser out of the gate. It's just the rise and fall of the OS tides.
- Robin Monks
from twhirl
Every time I try an OS beta I run into issues getting the Cisco VPN Client to work. I gave up on Win 7 because of this.
- Tom Wentworth
I've been Windows free for 3 years now. With such a great free OS to use as GNU/Linux, the reasons to voluntarily give up your freedom, put the shackles on yourself, and become a prisoner of user subjugating software, are becoming harder and harder to justify.
- Gregg H.
@Tom, I know of what you speak. Danged Cisco won't let their test clients out to everyone, just special people at my org, so until they give me the client, I'm screwed. It was the same thing with Vista. It's a PITA. Since we have multiple VPN solutions, I've been trying to get Citrix working, but no luck. At least our published apps seem to be working.
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
It's a Heavyside!
alamoon20, Jim, Atul Arora and 18 other people liked this
freaky!
- Lindsay
it's like watching evolution in progress... that is, if one believes in evolution...
- ௸ (k2g)
额....中间那个图看的好不舒服啊。。
- jasontsui
LS，为什么我觉得中间的那张最顺眼呢？
- Silent Stone
I've always thought they looked similar. Both rookies too. Hopefully it'll go better this round.
- Hayes Haugen
Wow I never thought they are look a like lol
- Jay
FriendFeed Blog: Find and subscribe to your Twitter friends on FriendFeed - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...
krispijn Beek, timepilot, Vesna Gerintes and 234 other people liked this
"We've just added a friend importer for Twitter so you can easily find and subscribe to your Twitter friends who are already on FriendFeed."
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
Try it out here: https://friendfeed.com/setting...
- Bret Taylor
oh finally. also it's more usable than twitter's thanks.
- Eren Emre Kanal
was thinking about this earlier - want Flickr too - deperately!
- Phill Price
Hurrah!
- Andrew Trinh
Aweseomeness and YES, definitely build the same thing for Flickr.
- Thomas Hawk
Finally, great news!
- Justin Stevens
O neat.
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
Cool!
- Vicky
Very cool, I just found like 11 people I wasn't subscribed to here! Thx Guys. :D
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
704 of your Twitter friends use FriendFeed. You are already subscribed to all of them.
- Thomas Hawk
Thanks a bunch. Exactly what I needed
- Christopher Howie
Nice! Just used it, thanks to the FF team. There were a couple odd mis-matches that I caught, though: Thomas Rauscher (https://friendfeed.com/wuz) != @hotdogsladies
- Micah Wittman
I'm confusednow! I think I need it the otherway around :)
- Vicky
Sooo. Does this collect non ff twitter users?
- Phill Price
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I also almost posted about such a feature this morning. I guess in theory I could create imaginary friends for all the twitter users I follow that are NOT on FriendFeed... is there a way to automate that? And then perhaps convert them to non-imaginary friends once they join? :)
- Dylan Parker
Some are not who they say they are.. Got a few in my list 'Mark Hobbs @patricknorton, Ron Perrella @leolaporte (private feed)' Other than those, great stuff, thought id done something like this to start with when i first signed up, guess not.
- Simon Wicks
Good stuff - thanks ...
- Patrick Jordan
Simon: we do our best to make sure someone is who they say they are before recommending them but a few could slip through the cracks. Your feedback definitely helps find the outliers.
- Benjamin Golub
oh we can also search other twitter users' friends, nice.
- Eren Emre Kanal
@Simon - noticed that too.. Some people are using FF for their personal RSS aggregator and pulling in content from other people. Most likely why they have their feed marked private.
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
Been waiting for this! Thanks FriendFeed!!!!!!
- Patrick Lightbody
Benjamin: Good stuff :)
- Simon Wicks
The only slight issue, which is not a big deal, is when people add other people's Twitter feeds to their FriendFeed account. In the search I got results for people who have added other people's Twitter feed to their FF account instead of the actual owners of the Twitter accounts I am following. I do this with imaginary friends. They must not know what imaginary friends are for.
- Rolf Schewe
This is cool! But noticing some bugs too. I.e. twitter/techcrunch goes to john rocker etc.
- Jauder Ho
Jauder: In that case it is likely because http://friendfeed.com/techcru... doesn't have @techcrunch added as a service. Once it is added we should recommend the correct FriendFeed account.
- Benjamin Golub
Sweet. That was easy. Nice job.
- Andrew Smith
awesome
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
No worries, I scanned the list manually and it added fine. I would suggest giving the ability to add to more than one list though. I created a new list called Twitter but would the people I just added be added to the home feed too?
- Jauder Ho
Hmm. It found 3 twitter friends for me, and none of the corresponding FF users are correct. Weird. [looks again] Oh, I get it...none of them are actually on FF, it's just that other people have imported their twitter accounts. Ugh.
- Ken Sheppardson
any chance we can get imaginary friends created automatically for twitter friends that are not using friendfeed?
- berkay
so so good...
- Zee.
BTW, there's a third party app for this. https://twitter2ff.appspot.com It can sync both ways.
- Ken Sheppardson
nice thanks ken - was wanting something that went FF to Twitter as well
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Oops. Smooth. Overwhelming. Added 62 & sent 8 requests. Simply good. Waiting for the big news wave now :)
- Markus Merz
this would really rock if you could do it for Flickr as well. It would also be interesting if FF was smart enough to delete imaginary friends with the real ones as they show up at FF.
- Thomas Hawk
Find your twitter friends on friendfeed
- Sean
Given I can put in any user ID, I can pull in any followers on Twitter, period. Shouldn't this tie in to the account you have registered?
- Louis Gray
It prepopulates with the account you have registered, but we let you type in any account because the info is available on Twitter, and you may have a Twitter account that you have chosen not to connect to FriendFeed.
- Bret Taylor
Thanks, Bret.
- Louis Gray
OK, don't everybody try to import @scobleizer's friends at once.
- Ken Sheppardson
Bret, make sure you add the link to this importer to http://friendfeed.com/about...
- Atul Arora
Nice. Thanks, Bret.
- Steven Perez
Sorry, I have a question Houston http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Erhan Erdogan
Erhan: we have some logic in place to figure out who "owns" a Twitter account so we always attempt to recommend the correct user.
- Benjamin Golub
Benjamin: Really wonder about this logic? Can you explain it?
- Erhan Erdogan
nice brett, next find and subscribe to facebook friends already on FF
- Bob Sonin
Bob, the Facebook app already finds which of your fb friends are on FriendFeed: http://apps.facebook.com/friendf...
- Paul Buchheit
Nice! Import Twitter friends to FF. That is great.
- Drew Lucas
from BuddyFeed
It was about time... Thanks!
- Alexandros Georgiadis
oops, forgot about that
- Bob Sonin
wasnt there some tool for that... or maybe that was the other way around - intreresting for sure. However, actually think I know my friendfeed people better than them on Twitter, so I´ll see
- Peter Efland
Darnell: The Facebook app finds your Facebook friends are on FriendFeed: http://apps.facebook.com/friendf.... We plan to support other services.
- Benjamin Golub
This is awesome. Thank you so very much.
- Sloan Bowman
this was realy helpful. thanks!
- graham mudd
This didn't work for me. Oh well.
- Robert Scoble
That's what you get for having thousands of followers.
- Richard A.
That worked *really* well. Hmm, maybe I'll just unsub those folks on Twitter as long as they are bringing their feed in here. Sorry, Twitter.
- Laura Norvig
Laura - you will gettheir Twitter statuses, but you won't get the replies to them from people whom you don't follow, if you follow what I mean. Gahh.
- Candy Schwartz
Oh, I don't typically dig that deep. Wouldn't that require TweetDeck or using Twitter search? You're right, though, if I happen to be on Twitter and someone asks an interesting question, sometimes it's nice to see the replies of the people I *do* follow.
- Laura Norvig
Thanks for the great feedback everyone! We just pushed some fixes that should make our recommendations even more accurate based on your feedback.
- Benjamin Golub
visual word cloud analysis of Obama inaugural speech compared to Bush, Clinton and Reagan; http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...
Jim liked this
Read The Inaugural Address - http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog...
Jim and Randy Holloway liked this
From the Presidential blog.
- Jason Shellen
Using Digsby for IM, Email, and Twitter - http://www.digsby.com/...
Jim liked this
You have arrived now that you're using Digsby. :)
- Patrick Yaeger
from IM
Likewise. Although I'm in 2 minds about the whole client software download thing. Meebo seems to do the job.
- Jim
Meebo is very cool. Their new room feature is really useful for embedding. Digsby is great in that it handles Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Chat and Gmail in addition to the standard chat services. And it gives you pop up notifications which are very useful.
- Patrick Yaeger
Aw, thanks guys! I'm still trying to figure out how this works! :)
- Keith Brooks
Human Slinky Is Freaky - http://xorsyst.com/videos...
Richard Chen, Nick Lothian, Rachel Lea Fox and 8 other people liked this
Amazing.
- Paul Buchheit
Awesome
- Jim
Yes, very interesting... I wonder what it feels like to be inside that costume? :)
- Danielle Closs
How to Apply ITIL to SOA Operations Management - http://soa.sys-con.com/node...
Jim liked this
pretty straightforward explanation of ITIL within the SOA context. A couple of approaches that are becoming ubiquitous.
- Jim
Rick Astley and Roderick Paulate Together... Forever! - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Tobias Boonstoppel, Just Ken and Jim liked this
The risks of using Google Maps - http://www.funny-potato.com/blog...
Dani Radu, Steve Isaacs, chenv and 53 other people liked this
A more mindful Google Maps user can avoid crashing into the origin.
- John Lam
Things to say during sex - ImageChan - http://imagechan.com/img/6002/
Emily Miller, minus-one, Chris Hofmann and 19 other people liked this
This is the best laught I've had in a while. Classic.
- Dale Adams
from twhirl
Usain Bolt Celebrates Early ... Very Early - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Ross Hill, Sam Allan, Jim and 5 other people liked this
@gwhalin I love my Mac Mini hooked up to my flat screen. It is great for renting TV shows from iTunes as a DVR replacement...
Jim liked this
agree 100%!! best purchase i made in 2007 was the Mini.
- Bryan Power
I've noticed that now that I use FriendFeed, I don't Twitter links as much anymore. Since I have so much piped in from Google Reader, Digg and Delicious here, it's just easier to do it that way. My tweets are becoming more personal again. Some people don't like that as much.
Vedran Rudelj, Eric Berlin, Hutch Carpenter and 46 other people liked this
I've almost completely given up on twitter. When I use it, it's a response to a tweet through FriendFeed. This is very close to the service I've wanted for a few years. My status updates are all through Loopt now.
- ·[▪_▪]·
I actually think it's a great emergent result from the introduction of a convergence tool. Apps are being used in their most optimal ways.. Instead of hacking it all through one tube. Best of all worlds.
- Dave Senior
I think if you want your tweets to be personal that's your business and not really something for people to complain about.
- Colide81 (James)
I always feel that I'm cluttering my twitter friend stream if I'm starting a conversation. I don't feel like this here, which makes it fun to answer about stuff and actually continue the conversation.
- Orli Yakuel
Personal is good! If they don't like it, they should follow you here. But like Colide81 said, you should do what you prefer. They're your tweets!
- Daynah
Must be those harassing tweetarazzi that won't stop following her trying to get tweets of her to feed their blogs.
- ·[▪_▪]·
LOL
- Colide81 (James)
Same here... use each site for what it's best at and let FriendFeed tie it all together. Twitter and FF have overlap though, and I'm not sure how to handle it best. I prefer to follow people on FF, but Twitter is fun on its own, so what goes where?
- Nathan Howell
Does somebody know how to update twitter and friendfeed through Gmail or Gtalk without installing anything ? I am using IE .
- diftin
@diftin I believe there is away to email things to friendfeed. You'll have to research it though.
- Colide81 (James)
You can update twitter through ping.fm, & I have a feeling ff as well, though not sure, and you can get twitter updates into a gtalk/gmail im with twittd
- David Miller
David Miller , thanks so much !
- diftin
You can also use Mail2FF to email items to FriendFeed.
- ComicList
You can update twitter and myspace + facebook using digsby - but doesn't update friendfeed. I'd loke an ap that combines ping.fm with digsby.
- Chris Loft
That's true for me as well-- unless it's s humorous or public interest sort of link.
- Kevin Gamble
Now you're getting it! The aspect of Twitter I liked was being able to share to an audience. FriendFeed makes that so much easier without having to use some hack or 3rd party to do it.
- Paul Reynolds
I told all my Twitter friends if they wanted to find me they'd have to come here. I've fallen off the Twitter-map. I like it that way.
- Morgan
same as NiceRobot
- R. Ferguson
Twitter should go more personal, like you say. Starting to get tired of getting tweets of @AlexAlbrecht going to see movie premieres. Love the guy, though.
- Josh Haley
Almost comprehensive milk products table - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
 |
YouTube - Larry Jordan (MJ's brother) dunking - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Jim, Adam Kazwell, Geoff K and Ryne Nelson liked this
Michael Jordan's 5'8 brother
- Richard Lawler
from Bookmarklet
I had no idea MJ's brother was so vertically challenged...in height, at least! :-)
- Ryne Nelson
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