John Bush

There are two misguided notions: 1) that Identi.ca is a "federated" service out of the box (it isn't), and 2) that because it's open source, it automatically means all features anybody wants gets put back into the identi.ca service (it doesn't). It does allow you to run your own microblogging service and hack it up, if you want. Number of people who are going to do that? Very, very few. - Mark Trapp

Yeah, I get "playing around" with it. I do that with everything too. But after playing around with it it just seems like Twitter, unless I'm missing something. If I'm going to invest time in something it needs to be a step forward, not backwards. Feels like a step backwards to me from FriendFeed. - Thomas Hawk

the open sourced potential distributed hosting nature of it is whats interesting to me thomas - not a replacement for friendfeed which is conversation & discovery central for me but it could be an interesting experiment in what a short msg'g platform could be if architecturally done right - very early though - mike "glemak" dunn

It is an interesting point and brings up the question of how viable an open source FriendFeed clone would be. The primary motivation for the Twitter clones has been performance, but perhaps there would be other advantages? Just a thought. - Ray Grieselhuber

We like the concept as you can tell.. Just like twitter but not buggy!!!!!!! - JegerPhil - Phil

@thomas: what about http://utterz.com/ ?? - mhmazidi

Actually, now that I think about it, identi.ca will never be a real player until FriendFeed starts working with it. - Akiva Moskovitz

I see no point to go backwards, of course first you have to try it if you want to compare it. http://ubervu.com/ this is what I wanna try when will be public. - dan

I signed, but will use twitter for post feed distribution and the occasional chat, but i agree that this platform is where we should spend most of our time, when we are not creating content. - Mário Pires

i keep my ff twitter free! micro-blogging belongs to twitter and co - Dieter Schwarz

I second utterz, also left a message asking to intergrate its cross posting with FF, this way we can select if we want some or all messages input to FF. - Tony C.

Damn, I wish you could "like" comments, because what Winer said here is exactly what I'm feeling, even if I'm not a developer. - Mike McCallister via NoiseRiver

I agree and I still find that I post to twitter. My network on FF is really limited and I get absolutely no feedback here. So until more people i know get on board or I become more interesting I post on Twitter and look enviously at people who can get feedback here. Either way, I've signed up for identi.ca but I'm not using it. - Jeremy Kunz via twhirl

People want all these new things because it's "trendy" to have a bajillion social networking tools. I have trouble keeping up with the ones I have, but then that's the product of a 9+ hour workday coupled with a 3+ hour round trip commute and finding time to spend with the family. - jerry

Great dialog Thomas. Think most of us would agree that FF and Twitter are essentially two different avenues and that if a SOLID replacement to Twitter came along (with an importer) before they fix it .... could (will) see an exodus of a lot of users. - Charlie Anzman

Amen to that! FF is a winner, hands down in my opinion! - Jason C.

Hi Thomas. You make me wonder where are Pownce, Twine, and the whole. of course it's definitely the triumph of less is more: less functions, more community, that's why we're still twitting - - Alberto D'Ottavi

FF will be the clear winner of this all when it gains SMS functionality - Glenn Batuyong via twhirl

I second Glenn Batuyong, SMS support is really a selling point for twitter IMO - Jeremy Kunz via twhirl

@Glenn that would be a great feature! - Joe Dawson (beta)

twitter (when it works) is still better at being distributed and easy to understand - Samuel Bostock

What's great about Indenti.ca is that IT IS a Twitter clone. No need to make it "fancier" or "Feature-packed", and what was great about Twitter is that it did ONE thing well (when it's available). FF is only useful for people like you, Winer and Scoble who have followers commenting on YOUR posts. For me, with 0 followers, I rely on my "friends" timeline to read what you guys are writing, and there's WAY too much noise. Especially the most annoying feature the "friend of a friend" posts. - Terry

Of course, I just realized you hit "hide", then "see more options...", then "hide all friends-of-friends". That's a big fail in my book. - Terry

Terry (and everyone else pissed off about noise), protip: if you don't like noise, don't start using a service only following A-listers. Those people are interacting with hundreds to thousands of people, and will introduce you to a huge amount of noise, even on Twitter. If you can't find people to follow that aren't A-listers, maybe being on that service isn't the best thing for you at this time. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. - Mark Trapp

The stole the whole thing from Zobzee.com anyway. - Jim Kukral via twhirl

You know if they were an EXACT clone of Twitter (minus the downtime) I think they'd do very well. - Leo Laporte

It's just another tube that feeds into FriendFeed, to me. - Josh Bancroft

their IM works, me and another were having a convo through indenti.ca with IM which i miss with twitter. i just like playing around with new things as well, that and "reserve" my username on the new launches, just in case. - Chris Harris

@Leo Yeah, They just have to do all the same features, and then we will just need a skin on it that makes it look 'exactly' like Twitter. Fail-Whale and everything :P Honestly, I've kinda moved away from the conversation on Twitter and Identi.ca. I mainly post on it with Ping.fm, but I don't really look at replies that much until I get a app. I don't know why, but I really just need something that will Pop Up, tell me what happened, then fade into the background. Browser won't do that - Chacha

Mark, I'm one of those very very few people then. Already talking to a developer about adding identi.ca's platform to The China Business Network's re-launch. Let the hacking for niche communities begin. :) - Christine Lu

Christine, don't get me wrong: that's really, really cool. And I'm sure there are going to be others like you that find uses for laconi.ca. There's this notion that open source = perfect software, and it's really being pushed today and yesterday with identi.ca. It's not a game changer. The "it has potential" argument only goes so far. Many, many, many projects have potential. It's what an enterprising person or group of people do with it that matters. - Mark Trapp

@chacha - you want Twhirl - Leo Laporte

@thomas hawk. you nailed it - rob zand

hopefully as identi.ca comes along they will become more feature rich and faster. I for one like their support of open standards. And the fact that they are hosted outside the U.S. and thus perhaps subject different laws - Freemor

I couldn't agree more. Why have a new service that is just a clone of another? Unless identi.ca can do something that Twitter can't, then thanks but no thanks. - Brandon Wood

@Mark Trapp I totally understand about the A-lister noise, but up to certain point I LIKE the noise. I don't really care that one of my friends is about to take his dog for a walk, but I AM interested in Dave Winer's thoughts on whatever-new web app. Twitter for me is the perfect blend of quasi-feedreader and cult of personality. FF seems to be "everything that everyone's doing everywhere and sometimes more than once". Plus, I like the @ reply system. - Terry

@leo, but it won't work; also friendfeed I think is more prone to take over a huge chunk of say what facebook does, rather than a huge chunk of what twitter/etc does. you still need the pipes to feed into the main. I'd also add that a more dynamic/distributed way to have a microblogging like community flow between IRC style chats and twitter like status blogging, so sort of the way to go... - tycho garen

Let me just say, for once, I am enjoying my FriendFeed experience. Maybe it's all about participation. On Twitter, I can just read what others are saying and make an occasional stupid post... but here, it seems more enjoyable if you're actually INVOLVED in the conversation. - Terry

SMS support isn't important to me. I prefer managing my interaction with a microblogging site myself rather than be interrupted. For me, and I may be unique here as a photographer, photos are also extremely important. That's why I liked Pownce a lot more than Twitter when it came out. But FF has them all beat hands down, so I'm still not sure why I'd invest time in something like identi.ca now. - Thomas Hawk

I would have to agree with you on identi.ca. If twitter has this many problems already, would identi have the same issues as well. I really like FF much better then twitter or identi. - Jeff Chilton

I'm with Thomas Hawk on SMS, too. I can just open up IE on my WM5 phone and hit Twitter or FriendFeed just fine. - DeathByNinja

"open sourced potential distributed hosting nature," that sounds cool and all but it reminds me too much of stuff like OpenID or Ubuntu, or whatever it's called. Sounds really good but wayyyy too geeky to ever get broader adoption which is what makes a community site work best. FF has the traction at this point and a nucleus of interesting people sourcing interesting content filtered through social interactivity. Beats anything else out there at present. - Thomas Hawk

I hope that things like this with their mobile extensions will see the end of the rip off that is SMS. - John Cooper

I'm finding FF/Twitter great, but am exploring identi.ca - Chris

It could be that folks are just looking (desperately) for something that will be more stable than Twitter, while having all the interesting people on it. - Randy Hall

Sign-up is down, Twitter Part Deux - Ryan Taylor

@leolaporte said it all. I get all of the luminaries tallkng to me in real time, and that reaks of awesome. AIR might just be the killer app of the year. - Adam Garrett via twhirl

Right now, Indenti.ca is Twitter, minus a bunch of things. Comparing Twitter and FriendFeed has always been an apple and oranges comparison anyway—one isn't better than the other, since they do different things. Twitter is essentially in beta right now; things should get interesting when Twitter is completely back with XMPP, track, etc. - Albert Willis

@thomas Hawk and @deathbyninja Being someone with an unlimited data plan, I have to say that the usefulness of SMS should not be overlooked. Not everyone has unlimited data, and in some cases, that data is a walked garden (like T-Zones). Plus not everyone has a smartphone, and in some cases, it's just easier to slam out a text message (especially when in an area with crappy data coverage). I find myself jumping between mobile web, Twibble, and SMS (most often the latter two). Any service that lacks a mobile application or SMS tends to see less use by me (see Pownce, FriendFeed seems to be the exception though). - Ivan via fftogo

@Thomas Yes, I agree "open source, decentralized" sounds very geeky, but all that techie talk will be TRANSPARENT for ALL users once it all just works! http://is.gd/LlY - Hao Chen

i agree. Fun to try different systems! - Harry Myhre

It's the fact that it's open source is what is most alluring, to me. - possible248 via NoiseRiver

Most people just went to plant their flag, get their name, just in case ;-) - Stuart Forsyth

Yes, but *you* have a private feed! I wanted to share with all my friends, too. :-) - Kevin Fox

what restaurant is this? - peter

Looks different than the restaurants in Guangdong, China that have the live cats in the cages for the Dragon, Tiger, Phoenix hotpot. - Mark Forman

you guys are sick.. - Caroline via twhirl

am i the only one who finds a kitten about to be fork stabbed disturbing? not. cute. imho... - Mona N.

Like when we were in North Vietnam, and my wife (who is Vietnamese and loves dogs) says to the taxi driver, "Oh, look at all the dogs on the porches of this town.", and he says, "They are food." - Chris White

btw I'm Japanese, not Chinese.. we'd eat your pets too but goldfish sushi? do.not.want! - Mona N.

Chopsticks would clearly be the more appropriate utensil here. - Chris White

@mona disturbing... yes... - Caroline via twhirl

Reality check-many pets are food or pets then food in other cultures. Disturbing maybe. People that eat animals for food are kind of fascinated on how pet lovers spend so much money on an an animal. Not saying either side right or wrong just different. - Mark Forman

Mark: The live fuzzy kitten about to be forked stabbed is disturbing.... not the choice of delicacy <-for lack of a better word =\ - Mona N.

Mona-agreed. - Mark Forman

Bowl of kitten every morning, the breakfast of champions. - Morton Fox

similar to nekonabe in japan. see http://weekly.yahoo.co.jp/38/n... - huixing

Chile con Kitteh! - Bwana

oh, heeee! it's still cute!!! - edythe

:-) - Mitchell Tsai

+Like for Rose, not Kevin! He is a copy-paster :-)) - Erhan Erdogan

O noz! Iz not froot! - Clay Newton

0:50 - Kevin Fox

ha, the old chin-pownce! - Ňicķ

but i still want to play! - Hao Chen

0:50 ftw - Mona N.

In our house, I play the part of the dog :) - John Craft

@Scoble: let me know what you think. I know you use FF a lot on your phone, and you are quite a power user, so I have a feeling you will have a strong opinion and/or notice things we left out. - Bret Taylor

Finally, it's here! - Philip Ryan Johnson via twhirl

I know you guys aren't out to compete with twitter directly, but putting that post text box at the top of the interface removes my last reason for twittering. - Robin Barooah

looks great but interested to know why you chose to remove the hide function. It would seem well suited to mobile browsing and removing the noise a little more on the small screen - Jon Dillon

Awesome job; renders well on my phone (a Moto Q9c) too - Benjamin Golub

Wish I had an iPhone :( - directeur via NoiseRiver

@Jon: You're right, we should add that back in. - Bret Taylor

renders perfect. clicking youtube videos just work as intended... Here's a quick request. Search is at the bottom and scrolling endlessly to reach is a bit boring. Can you guys insert an anchor for a quick access to page bottom? And another anchor there for teleporting back to top. - Berk D. Demir via twhirl

Niiiice! Thanks guys.:) - m.0

Perfect for the sidebar of Firefox - João Almeida via twhirl

again, enjoy the pic :) and the interface even more! - MG Siegler

Very nice. I'm also posting from my iPhone. FF lends itself well to mobile use. - Chris Baskind

The anchor to jump to the bottom would be nice. Tip: On any web page you can tap the 'status bar' at the top of the screen to jump up to the top of the page. - Kevin Fox

Bret, trying it now. - Robert Scoble

Hhhhhhhhhoooooolllllllyyyyyyyyyyy jjjjiiiiiimmmmmmmmmyyyyyy. This is cool. 15 Likes for FF team! - Robert Scoble

works nicely - Jamie

I don't want to take credit for this or anything, but I just did ask about this today. I'm kidding by the way. - Johnny Baker

This works REALLY WELL in a sidebar or Fluid App site specific browser. WAY better than the googlegadget URL we've been using. This interface in Fluid is my new favorite way to interact with FriendFeed. It's teh Awesome! Thanks! :-) - Josh Bancroft

this is AWESOME - posting from my touch! - Charles Hudson

Excellent. Works like a charm. - Jonathon

A much needed improvement. This will be awesome on a 3G iPhone as well. - Chris Rodgers

i'd still like to see the Comment/Like buttons made a little bit easier to hit. They have close proximity to the article link and using a finger isn't as accurate as a cursor. - Jamie

Congrats. This "just works". - Amir Gharaat

Yeah, I just started using friendfeed today and can't see how you guys/gals did without this spiffy interface. Rocks! - Christopher Medina

It looks fantastic, thanks guys it's a great job. FriendFeed is now even more useful. - fbrunel

I would love the option to run links through the Google transcoder. FFtoGo has that and it's invaluable. - Steve Rubel

You can also use http://tiltview.com to view the iPhone version of the site from your computer or other mobile phones . You need to select iPhone as a mobile type. - seman

Love it! As soon as I open up the MBP I'm going to fire up Fluid.app and make a menu app with the iPhone interface. - Ryan Cates

Seesmic videos could theorically been played on an iPhone. The Seesmic API also provides a link to the video in MP4, that's would be awesome to do that in the FriendFeed iPhone interface. - fbrunel

@semen just use http://friendfeed.com/i on your desktop browser, FluidApp, etc. No need to emulate the iPhone browser. - Josh Bancroft

Why do the "comment" and "like" links the load after the rest of the page? I almost missed them with EDGE's slow data. - Frankie Warren

awesome! Anyone else want a bit more space around the "comment" and "like" links? I mis-poked on my first attempt. - Kelly Norton

So awesome, great work! I love it. I'm sure you're aware but longer (horizontally) posts, such as those with multiple photos, do funky things to the layout. - Jake

@Jake, et al: we will do some work for posts with a lot of media to make it work better. Thanks for the feedback. - Bret Taylor

It looks like the UAT testing with Scoble and team worked marvelously well - nice job Bret!! :*) - Susan Beebe

Finally! I love it, great job, guys. - Guillermo Esteves

This is FANTASTIC! Thanks so much for it. Just picked it up about an hour ago. - BISQ via twhirl

Bret: found one thing missing: "Hide." Where did it go? - Robert Scoble

using it now. Perfect! - shaun mclane

I guess I am in the minority. Thanks for letting us go back to the old version. :-) - Michael Carter

nice. Testing comments right now! - Ben Gracewood

I am back to the old version too. I miss Everyone tab, Search, and Hide features - Robert Scoble

i agree with one of the comments. why a separate blog to capture comments - get them all using FF. easier to follow discussion. iphone interface looks great - i think i'm going to find myself using it a lot on my phone - naveen

need's hide. - Thomas Hawk

Awsome! It just needs search and it would be perfect! As far as the old interface went, it was pretty good for the iPhone as well. - darnell

@Scoble: thanks for the feedback. They were known problems, but I think we can find the space to fit them in. Search is at the botto of every page, FYI. - Bret Taylor

Very nice. Much prefer it to FFtogo ... - Patrick Jordan

Very nice. However, on the iPhone it's very easy to jump to the top of the page (just tap the top bar) and very hard to get to the bottom of a long page (lots of scrolling). Can search be moved to the top? - Stephen Mack

Very nice. Makes it much more useful on my iPhone. Like the picture option... - simonpure