I tend to look for bloggers and alerts on sites that I've never heard of rather than those big hitters online. I love the underdog! - Douglas Karr
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was recently reminded of the importance of doing this. I'm overcompensating a bit this weekend. - Mark Dykeman
Every day. That's 85% of what I do in Google Reader and FriendFeed by sharing and "Liking" other people's posts. That passes them to my friends and helps them out. - Robert Scoble
I do a lot of that all the time, especially finding small, new blogs and promoting them, mixing their links with the links to Big Ones, hoping this will make them see each other, so the other Big Ones start promoting those newbies. - Bora Zivkovic
Very often. Many of the posts I make here are promoting others sites and stories. Some of the blogs I follow are very niche or have small followings so hopefully they get additional traffic from their exposure here. - Jeff P. Henderson
@RobertScoble Curious, do you have time to read comments on blogs, or just the posts? Thanks. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
Ed: I often read the comments too and participate in them a lot, although FriendFeed is changing my behavior there. - Robert Scoble
Robert- Do you mean FF has enabled more time for more in-depth intake? I'm trying to understand how folks like you and Brogan, and... absorb the volume of info you do. Can't say more out loud. And thank You for replying -Ed - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
Ed, I read a lot in Google Reader, which makes it hard to see comments unless I get interested enough to see what's going on and click over. FriendFeed makes it a LOT easier to post comments on posts, like what I'm doing here. - Robert Scoble
Chris Brogan asks an excellent question here. For me, blogging is about sharing great information. I always link to anything I think my readers will enjoy. I also blog about the blog I read - and recommend people like Robert Scoble, so my readers can discover new places to find great content. - Jim Connolly
I try to only link out to personal blogs when possible, end many posts with "What others are saying" like to give readers more backstory than my own - sean percival
Not so much promote, but if someone is looking for an intern, assistant, or advice of some nature and I know a friend or acquaintance (weak ties), then I will put them in touch with each other. - Phillip Jeffrey
I try to do it often, mentioning people in my posts and retweeting, linking, etc. I also maintain my blogrolls. I try to promote who I see as the "up and coming" more than the current bigwigs. I am more likely to mention Mona or Rahsheen than Scoble, for example. - Neal "thePuck" Jansons
Brogan is very smart about asking, sincerely, the question "What do You think?" constantly. Beyond giving folks an open voice, with the notion they're really being heard, it encourages a mindset where linking out no longer feels like reader leakage. - Ed Shaz/NextInstinct
Aww shucks, thanks Neal :) -- I actually enjoy promoting those that deserve it. I also think promoting blogs/individuals that are not necessarily on the radar helps keep things interesting and keep us from getting trapped in a box. I'm going to avoid the buzzword here, you all know what I'm alluding to. :) - ♫ Rahsheen™
as much as I can, it's one of the key reasons we've added a range of external links to the front page. It's good form. - Duncan Riley
It's crazy when you don't sneak over to FriendFeed, and then find another whole conversation going on over here. Cool! - Chris Brogan
As often as I can, hence the constant linking, sharing Google Reader items, highlighting five new bloggers each month, and increasing guest posts. - Louis Gray
often, if it's a good read/watch/listen I'll promote it - scott
Only when someone punches through my incredibly low boredom/interest boundary layer. - Slippy Lane
Offline very much so, online not so much, I need to change that. - Ron Amundson
Sharing daily .... or more. In posts, I try to at least once or twice a month. More often than not, here on FF and Twitter. - Charlie Anzman
Added you. Also new to FF. I think it might be information overload, though... - John Storer II
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I added you two weeks ago. Guys and Gals - use the hide button to reduce the info overload. - Russellreno
yea I am trying to figure out how to make my friend feed posts go out to twitter - Jason Stephens
Jason: why? post to twitter and bring them in. - klecu
klecu: because then I have to leave friendfeed, I want to do everything in here...when I share I want it to go out to all my services too.... - Jason Stephens
I think you've got it backwards. FriendFeed is drawing in everything, not sending out. - John Storer II
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exactly my point...I think it could be a twitter replacement though...i like posting to hear better then posting on twitter. I'd like the messages I share on here to go out to my twitter followers to help grow my subscriber list - Jason Stephens
So is it Ping.fm that does that (posts to Twitter) then, not FriendFeed? - Jeff Kopp
That is, of course, a very valid example. Unfortunately, It's sort of like the AIM/ICQ Fiasco. All your friends are on AIM... why should they switch, even when AIM now sucks? I just got into FF, so I am not sure it could handle the excess traffic like twitter is dealing with. - John Storer II
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The method to comment and reply is much better on friendfeed, I think this definitly should either be bought by twitter or find a way to cross integrate them better. I see the option to "also send this comment as an @reply twitter from jpstephens" but thats not EXACTLY what I mean - Jason Stephens
Jason: I totally agree, if you can post out to all your socials then someone tell me how. If not, then FF should have the option or I smell yet another social network for social networks. ;) - Mark
You could try Mahalo share to post to a lot of your socials at once, but wouldn't this create a bit of a spam effect to FF if all of those socials are showing up here? Interested to hear comments from anyone with that experience, because of course you don't want to spam your FF friends, but not everyone is using FF... conundrum - Dave Earley
Glad you got it Kevin. Friendfeed lends it self to more engaging conversation and sharing. - Larry Kless
Problem is, you have to Friend back. :) - l0ckergn0me
Did Scoble block you for begging for followers? - Ryan Kuder
yeah there's real potential. but it's so damn hard to manage your friend list! same as with twitter - this is a huge barrier to the usability of the site. there should be a subscribe/unsubscribe button next to every post from anybody. - Mickipedia
Friendfeed is awesome Kev. Everything at your fingertips. - Vipin Chamakkala
This is a common refrain - people admitting that it takes them months to get FriendFeed. And for those of us who aren't honest enough to publicly admit this, it takes us months to use FriendFeed effectively. Is there a way to reduce this learning curve, so people can productively use FriendFeed from day 1? - Ontario Emperor
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There are all sorts of things they could do to improve FriendFeed. I guess we have to remember it is version 1.0 - Jonathan Beckett
You don't get it Kevin unless you're willing to friend us back. I believe same goes for Twitter. Why add you to our community if you're not willing to listen to us? - Jesse Stay
So the question now is: Will Kevin friend us back? All of us? Or selective friending? - Winston Teo
Yea, welcome on Board Dude ;) Good to see you here ... - Martin Gommel
FriendFeed's concept does take a bit to grasp at first because we are sooo used to Twitter (uni-directional, broadcast communications tool) and FF is truly a multi-directional comm tool designed to illicit conversation around cool stuff you share via FF directly or thru nearly 50 Social Media "feeds" you can port over here. I love FF and have been super happy since I joined back in March! ;o). Glad you're here and having fun!! - Susan Beebe
I still don't get it. There seems to just be too much noise. I get crap from people I don't know and I'm not following. Every item that hits my feed and has any comments takes up stupid amounts of space so it's hard to scan through. Twitter is just light weight and simple, and in that way it's more effective. If you could have a 1 or 2 line summary for each item then it'd be great, but as it is it's cluttered and overpowering, and I only have 6 follows, I can't imagine what it's like with 100s - Mark Benson
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About time you showed up. Now I can remove your twitter's entry in my Imaginary Friend. Real handy feature to track non-adopters. - klaatu
I've explored every nook and cranny of Friendfeed now, grasped the interface and culture, and I am fairly certain that in its current incarnation it will catch on with only a very small percentage of Internet users. I have a fairly good track record in spotting major trends in Internet technology, and I don't think this is one. The main problem: way, way, way too much noise and redundancy, and not enough tools to whittle it down effectively. For most busy people around the world, a Drudge Report-style interface -- a few dozen important headlines packed on a single page -- is ideal. - Sean McBride
I like FF because you can have more conversations. I think the look/feel of FF needs some work though. Not enough easy ways to search and sort through. - Geoff Peterson
The nuclear bomb of getting songs out of your head is the "mana mana song" http://www.metacafe.com/watch/... beware! It will get whatever is in your head out of your head, BUT it becomes that new song. - David Sifry
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Fred: A great post. Here's one way we at The Star-Ledger are trying to use these tools to address some of Umair's points: http://www.nj.com/helpinghands. Basically, it's a platform for blogs by non-profits and volunteer organizations across New Jersey. A partnership with the United Way allows groups and volunteers to find each other through a searchable database of events, interests and opportunities. - John Hassell
Revolutionary products often start out looking like toys, such as the PC. Of course that does not imply that all toys are revolutionary, but it's important to remember that the impact is not always obvious beforehand. - Paul Buchheit
Incidentally, the line at the Shake Shack was awesomely short right after the rain storm ended ;-) - j1m
I've noticed that 'likes' happen first and comments follow. I would speculate that the formula goes something like this: If a user finds an interesting item, they're more likely to 'like' it if it has few or no 'likes' yet. If there's an existing conversation, a user is more likely to add to the conversation. People are less likely to leave the first comment ('star the conversation') on an item shared by someone they don't know. Put these rules together and you get a group behavior of an interesting item getting several likes with no comments, then a comment, then a great deal of increased activity in both 'likes' and comments. Of course, it would be interesting to gather data to support these hypotheses. :-) - Kevin Fox
Kevin, as a general rule, I comment when I know what to say or quote after reading a peice and I like when I don't. - Clare Dibble
In a world where our media consumption is evermore occurring on an individual level (feed readers, Kindles, iPods vs the family radio and TV) humans still crave shared experiences. The same forces leaving me confident that the live music business will remain healthy for years help me understand the emotional value of endorsement of a FF post. Even if we discount a "like" to zero, I think it still serves as a sign of vitality and gives this service a pulse. Often it's just nice to know others are listening. - Christopher Sacca
good post Fred. I personally have completely given up on "Web 2.0" as a term - it's just the Internet now (with Ajax, RSS, rounded corners, and "social" stuff). but I do think "Internet Ennui" is a recurring cycle, and considering the run we've had recently, we're probably closing in on another wave of it... - Jeremy Toeman
Not everything has to be about social change. Sometimes, we just want a place to hang out and relax. - Morton Fox
@Kevin - One thing I like about the friendfeed bookmarklet (and also feeds from delicious), is that you can include a comment right off the bat, which I think is more likely to spark a conversation. I think that having that first comment there might also entice people to read the link. @the article - I think this depends a little on how you define web 2.0. Is it the technology aspect (ajax, json, etc.) which allows websites to be more interactive, or is it the social aspect, or some combination. - Robert Felty
john, i'm glad to hear it - good stuff. morton, the point is that more value can be created by solving bigger problems than just entertainment (in fact, hanging out can be part of the solution). fred, that was (really) a killer, eloquent post. - umair
I want to link to specific comments here on FriendFeed for the same reasons. - Robert Scoble
<sarcasem>I can't wait to repost this comment as a full blog post! </sarcasem> - Stefan Hayden
@Stefan that brings me to the point that a lot of blog posts are only comments ;) - Sebastian Küpers
@Stefan: Love the <sarcasm> bit. I think a universal sarcasm font would be most appropriate. - AJ Kohn
Isn't the sarcasm tag going to be part of HTML 5? - Richard Bradshaw
I want to be able to link to comments, comment on comments, like comments, bookmark comments, email comments, etc. Comments are sometimes more valuable than the items that inspire them. Comments are standalone documents. There should be a dedicated central search engine to index all comments across all sites on the Internet. - Sean McBride
Any blog that isn't 100% original content is a comment to something that is 100% original. Somehow comments need to become as decentralised as blogs. Perhaps a Disqus-type system will take off... I hope so! - Richard Bradshaw
Must have sarcasm font! My whole schtick is sarcasm and some people just don't get it! - Aura Mae
ending with /sarcasm works well for me when it /must/ be ephasized as such - Michael W. May
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Great point! I suggest to folks that if one of their comments on a blog post is getting to be more than two paragraphs, build on that comment (or simply copy&paste) into a blog post of your own. It extends the conversation outwards. - Mike Sansone
more often than not if I find a comments either on my blog or someone eleses that sparks a creative thought I included it as a part of the post plus link back to where it originated. - Steven Hodson
Mike: you add them as a friend in Google Talk. There's a page to manage them, too, but I forget where. - Robert Scoble
This kind of headline is condescending. I wish I could have recorded my discussion with Chris from last week and play it back for everyone here. The team is __SHARP__. I remain bullish on Google Reader. - Louis Gray
arrrrgh! my google reader is broken now. BROKEN!! - Sarah Perez
It is a little broken. Viewing all items is hard. I have to at times go feed by feed. - Louis Gray
Same here. Feed provider by feed provider. Full list unavailable? - Charlie Anzman
@louis - i'm sure they're sharp, i'm bullish on them too, but you should know as well as anyone that they've been lacking in certain areas - areas that a lot of us have seen for a while. perhaps they had their reasons for waiting to roll out features such as these, but just because they're sharp doesn't necessarily mean they are doing everything right at all times. with them being sharp, i'm sure they'd realize that as well. - MG Siegler
@louis Seems to be working now. So far, looks like A LOT of improvement. @MG There's gotta be a reason that these teams 'hold off'? I've noted the Blogger team could do tons to potentially catch Wordpress. I did test a few features of Blogger in Draft today and they're cool but imagine if they made a dummy proof WYSIWYG competitor to WordPress?? Like I said, I really think there's more here. There's a lot a VERY talented people at the Plex ?! - Charlie Anzman
"Last week, for example, Mr. Buchheit’s followers on FriendFeed were treated to what he himself had discovered and found valuable online: links to interviews with the investor Peter Thiel in Reason magazine and the Google co-founder Larry Page in Fortune, an article about Justice Antonin Scalia’s views on torture on a political Web site, and a YouTube video of nine kittens moving their heads in rhythm to a song, among other Internet ephemera.
One benefit of the feed sites is that they make conversation around online media both less voluminous and more meaningful. For example, YouTube users left an impenetrable 728 comments, many of them trivial or nonsensical, on the dancing-kitten video. Mr. Buchheit’s friends left two comments about the kittens — perhaps the right amount for a video that speaks for itself. They left 14 thoughtful comments about the Justice Scalia article." - Paul Buchheit
The dancing kittens made it into the NYT! - Paul Buchheit
And a mainstream audience is exposed to FriendFeed... - Hutch Carpenter
Is this the 2nd time FF has been in the NYT? - Adam Kazwell
Yes, we "launched" the company back in October with an NYT story. There may have also been a small story when we officially launched FF in Feb. - Paul Buchheit
The NYT didn't mention that we also left 47 unthoughtful comments on the Scalia article. - Jim Norris
@Adam The first time was on October 1, 2007. - Anne Bouey
Wow, nyt makes it official: ⓞnor and Mark Trapp are thoughtful. - j1m
I read this story via the iPod Touch while at the A's game. Your making me inattentive to the game was probably why they lost! FriendFeed FTL! - Louis Gray
It's OK Louis. I just blogged it. You can just link to me :) As far as the A's ... yep, it's probably your fault. - Charlie Anzman
It's weird when I know so many people who are getting into the New York Times. I'm off to check if Cathy Brooks has blocked me. Sounds like the author of the article did. :-) - Robert Scoble
j1m - nice tie-in with google trends. Up, up, up and to the right! - Ginger Makela
Cool to see some more press for FF. As I grow my friend base, it becomes much more useful. Scoble knows how it is! - Bartek Gniado
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