Jonathan Fleming - Likes

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Where has my FriendFeed gone? The picture says it all. By the way, this is the "best of day" right now. Sad.

Mitchell Tsai, paniaguai, Ankush Narula and 65 other people liked this

Compare these two. FriendFeed has great pictures, but content that is, well, not interesting. Twitter, on right, has 6,000x better content but doesn't look as nice due to no pictures. Will Brizzly come to rescue? - Robert Scoble

154 more comments

I hope somebody comes up with a fabulous client to maximize content and serve up more media - Susan Beebe

And people wonder why I don't come here much anymore. Sigh. - Robert Scoble

FriendFeed used to be very heavy in tech discussions. Now it's rare I see a tech discussion on the "best of day" feed. - Robert Scoble

The cap on the left is infinitely preferable to the right. I can't tell you how glad I am not to be inundated with tech stuff all day long. One man's trash... - Jim in Real Time

Time to adjust your subscriptions. - Bruce Lewis

try PowerTwitter ...also, which service has 6000x more users? doesn't that affect content choices? - .LAG liked that

I keep looking for the comments link on Brizzly. - Tom Landini

PowerTwitter is a great add to the twitter website (Firefox add-on) - Susan Beebe

There's more to talk about than just "tech", seriously... - Rob Haas

Robert - Do you have any general news, world news Twitter lists/groups? I tried scrolling through you lists, but they all seem pretty tech-slanted. If Twitter is to replace Friendfeed and Google Reader, then we need to be able to get real news and information out of the thing. - Matthew DeVries

The left is a best of day from your 28000 subscriptions. The right is a heavily curated list focused on something you are interested in. Try "best of" on a curated list (there is a link at the bottom of every list feed to best of for that feed). - Benjamin Golub

agree totally with you Scoble, Bruce: adjusting wouldn't make a difference now - ffcode

Ben - great advise! - Susan Beebe

I know twitter is occupied with infrastructure and list improvements, but you would think they could be building brizzly-esque features pretty easily. - Sean Montgomery

Sean - right. Twitter has to stablize their platform, then focus on UIX - Susan Beebe

Matthew: I'm a geek. Other people are doing news lists. I might start one, though. You are the second person to ask for one. - Robert Scoble

and there aren't tech discussions here one of the prime reasons are Scoble left and he is usually followed by around 10k folks everywhere, and his predictions affect all, weak or strong minded - ffcode

I find it a fascinating observation: Twitter is better than FriendFeed because there's more tech discussions in my feed. Is that the criteria you use for judging other social media sites? Because, IMHO, social media is about connecting people, not about tech discussions. - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

ffcode: sorry, I'm tracking the geek participation here and sorry, the really geeky stuff has definitely gone down. - Robert Scoble

always wondered how your feed would look like but it is clear you are no different ;) - ffcode

Robert - I come to you because you're the best list builder and analyzer of signal to noise. - Matthew DeVries

Glen: sorry, where the geeks go generally the general public follows. Generally. And, anyway, compare this stuff to Facebook. Even there it's a loser, sorry. I watch my wife's feed all the time and compare it to FriendFeed and FriendFeed loses. She said "ew" when she saw my page here. - Robert Scoble

Glen: by the way, I can make such a screen shot for a bunch of different genre's, not just tech. Twitter has far more diversity and has far more flow of all kinds. http://listorious.com 's huge first weekend demonstrates that. - Robert Scoble

Jim: if you don't want just tech, check out http://listorious.com -- what list would you like? In one weekend Twitter got more diversity thanks to lists than FriendFeed did in 18 months. And no "ew" pictures. - Robert Scoble

You still have to come here. It's mandatory - Charlie Anzman

sad one of the best place is going down like this and it is going the way every other social network is "just for fun"....:( - ffcode

Charlie: I do, but now you know why I don't show off FriendFeed at conferences anymore. - Robert Scoble

FriendFeed's still here. Unfortunately when Scoble, FriendFeed's top user goes, so go the users. - Jesse Stay

number of places on the twitter display where you could see an inline discussion: zero. - SuezanneC Baskerville

I follow Scoble, but I'm not going anywhere, Jesse. - Jim in Real Time

Either that, or this just means FriendFeed has gone mainstream, and is no longer just tech users any more ;-) - Jesse Stay

Jesse - Robert left Twitter for quite a while (well, not left, but just had it parroting his FF) and it didn't seem to hurt Twitter any. Robert can't make or break a service all by himself. - Matthew DeVries

I guess I just don't get it. My Facebook connects me with friends I haven't seen in years and relatives I contact rarely. With Facebook, I can keep in touch far better than I ever have in my life. I learn about my cousin in the ICU with pneumonia, and my good friend in Indiana who just had a grandson. The whole format is not compatible with tech discussions; the length restrictions... more... - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

Code junkies best of week: http://friendfeed.com/code-ju... - Bruce Lewis

@Cristo: +3000. @Robert: Change your subscriptions. You just haven't curated your worldview here as much lately. Things change, so must your prism. - AJ Kohn

as usual, Robert's death of FF posts shoot up the charts. get it? - Steve Gillmor

Matthew, see my second comment. I think some of it is that FriendFeed's userbase has changed as well. It's not the tech early adopters any more. I expect with Facebook's acquisition it will become more so that case. - Jesse Stay

My point being this comparison doesn't mean much - Jesse Stay

What is "geek" to you Robert? Because I've been seeing plenty of "geek" posts in the subscriptions and rooms I follow here on FriendFeed. - Itachi

Mehmet: geek is someone talking about technology or talking about building something or excited about using such. Do you see any geek in the friendfeed screen shot? I don't. - Robert Scoble

Agree with Jesse here. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Bruce: is that the best example you got? All those items have no discussion! - Robert Scoble

And like Tom's comment [keep looking for comments link on Brizzly] LOL! - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

o.O Louis is pretty geeky. His kids already have Macbooks. - Matthew DeVries

The most active discussions I've seen on FriendFeed lately are only when someone proclaims or laments its decline. Sad but true. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Or when Jason holds a live chat. - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Robert, twitter=no conversation. I'll deal with the 'ew' pictures by simply using the 'hide' button, that's why it's there. You go your way, I'll go mine. It's all good. - Jim in Real Time

do anybody no why Scoble can't just leave us alone. Friendfeed is dying according to him, no need to make it a self fulfilling prophecy. The more you "high profile" users criticize FF the faster folks will leave it. - Gunny doesn't side-hug™

Coding geeks communicate best with code. Neither twitter nor FriendFeed let you indent. So there's going to be more sharing and less conversation for coders. - Bruce Lewis

Robert ,the best of the day are comments and likes on a post ,not content. all the contents from Twitter,blogs,Rss etc are here and its better to get them here or in public groups or in private , I am not sure that on Twitter ppl are acting ,they are just reading same as here - Johni Fisher

agree with Steve Gillmor, users are here but they are doing things way different now than they used to when Scoble was around - ffcode

agree more than 100% that "those" tech talks are just gone - ffcode

You're comparing a hand crafted twitter list to friendfeed's user-generated best-of-day? - Andy Bakun

Gunny, give the guy a break. He feels forced to be on twitter and misses the conversations on FriendFeed. Did you look at the right-hand picture from twitter? No conversation happening there at all. Zero. I can't imagine hanging out there all day. - Bruce Lewis

I skip all the tech anyway. Who says it's "better"? - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

Cristo: try seeing feed around those times when there when acquisition talks - ffcode

Why can't there be a friendly friend feed and a tech friend feed? Is there no other use for the internet than to talk about the internet? - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

Tech and coding news is primarily what I look for in FriendFeed, and I find it. Conversation happens, as well as users bumping things up with likes. Subscriptions (friends and rooms) help filter tech content that I want to see. A like is sometimes as good as a comment. - Itachi

and Andy: you are yourself stating what Scoble has been saying all the way twitter is place where you can get your taste now not here anymore - ffcode

Robert- regarding your early early comment- I find it refreshing that FF isn't about tech - anna sauce

+anna, +Glen, and even +cristo - Kamilah Gill

Does Plurk get this much attention about its inevitable death? Now there's a service that could really use the wake-up call. - Mark Trapp

Robert never got infatuated with Plurk, Mark. - Itachi

Robert most of the change is in the place that you decided to open a subject and to post ,I remember 3 months ago your posts here were with tooons of comments and interest and from the day that you are posting your Twitter FAV here, there is not much action ,just think on that ,I like to read your Twitter FAV but I would better have them in a group and get yr posts like in the past - Johni Fisher

Yeah, you're pretty geeky there when you have to search how to make screenshots - KapitanObvious

agree Johni - ffcode

thx ff - Johni Fisher

To be honest, any social network with content governed by who you're subscribed to, and having image media in a feed is going to come up with something you don't like. This is because no one is on topic all the time, especially on Twitter. If you want sanitized feeds from *only* tech experts, geeks and what have you, these sort of services aren't going to cut it for you.... more... - Mo Kargas

I sure like the interaction here, comments, community...this post shot over to Twitter, but there is nothing going on there about it. - Eric Matas

@Eric Yes exactly, to me it looks like a glorified RSS stream from different sources, fundamentally a list of content and that's it. The topics Robert is after may not be present on FF, but the conversation is far more intuitive. - Mo Kargas

"glorified RSS stream"...pretty much sums it up. - Itachi

Hey GUISE, we're forgetting that the list on the right will fail-whale often as twitter never seems to remember how to run their servers. As to the content on the left not being interesting, well...at least I know it's real people who aren't trying to get me to buy into some new brand or some interchangeable tech company that will just be bought by facebook one day and disappear. :) - Jon, the Chilled Beartato

I just can't wait for the day that Scoble ditches Twitter for the junk it is. Should give me a good laugh. - Itachi

Twitter has no "ew" pictures because it has no pictures. You can use the fftogo option that turns off media if you want no pictures. - Bruce Lewis

For conversations, friendfeed wins. For tons of blabbers and links, twitter wins. But agreed, activity has gone down heavily on friendfeed. Twitter mania has caught everyone. - Amit

Interesting tech discussions from http://friendfeed.com/paul... are "Think big. Code small" and the ooc one. - Bruce Lewis

One anecdote deserves another. I've posted on FF regularly for 1.5 years. I comment frequently on others' tech posts, but most of my own posts are not strictly tech-angled. This week I asked "FriendFeeders : NEED ADVISE: Best all-around value Netbook today - which one?" and it got 16 LIKES and 20 COMMENTS. The last time one of my posts hit/surpassed that threshold was early August http://friendfeed.com/search... - Micah Wittman

One thing I noticed is no conversations. Just straight links to other sites. Kind of boring. - Todd Hoff

BTW is it possible to stop getting the twitter updates from others on Friendfeed? Slowly I am seeing my friendfeed aggregating only the twitter updates. - Amit

Yeah, you can Amit. Just click "hide" on a tweet you see in FF, and then choose to "hide other items like this one"...and go from there. - Itachi

Robert is just being Robert, always stirring things up! LOL, I really do ♥ you for it though. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

No hatin' on the Vikings here, they try hard :p - Itachi

You know what makes me laugh... People who use FriendFeed in other languages probably don't see this or any of the stuff Robert is interested in... - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

+Johnny W. - Kamilah Gill

BTW... Heaven forbid we actually have fun on a Sunday... Your lawn's that way - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

You're really going to show me Wall Street Journal on your Twitter feed and compare that to Friendfeed's personal interaction? You know better, Robert. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com from iPhone

KapitanObvious++ for the burn. - Andrew C

One of the nice things about Friendfeed is the way you can hide a post like this and not see it ever again. It would be nice to have a way to filter posts from specific people if they contained certain words such as twitter, lists, dead, or friendfeed. :) - SuezanneC Baskerville

Robert GFY dude, seriously. - LANjackal

""glorified RSS stream" - yeah, except my RSS feeds have been culled down to sources that add their own insightful commentary so it's not an endless stream of retweets of _all the same damn links repeated over and over_. That Twitter screenshot looks really information-light once the repeats are filtered out... - Andrew C

FRIEND Feed. - Tad

And this coming from a man who posted this online: http://valleywag.com/assets... :P - Jan Ole Peek

The Friendfeed screenshot shows 222 total interactions in the first three entries. The twitter one shows 14 (and I'm counting the one at the bottom that is cut off). Oh wait, those aren't interactions, those are links to other places. - Andy Bakun

I think Robert is just confusing the point of the site. The name is FRIEND Feed, not interesting feed, useful feed, news feed, etc. This is where I hang out with my friends. - Tad

Robert, you're cool and everything, but sometimes the things you post make me think of you as an arrogant asshole. The beauty in friendfeed is that there are so many different flavors to sample from. There are plenty of sites to go to that are tech heavy if that is what you are looking for. Why bother here if it's not what you want? Move on and shut the fuck up about it. Jesus. - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

Amen. - Tad

For someone who doesn't like Friendfeed or thinks Friendfeed doesn't offer as much value as twitter, he sure does post here a lot. - Andy Bakun

This is exactly the kind of post I don't want in my feed. Adjusting my subscriptions now. Sorry Robert, but I gotta block you on Friendfeed. See you on Twitter. - Rodfather

Robert. You are stating the obvious: of course friendfeed is going to decline: there is no more engineering or innovation power behind it! The key question is: "is a friendfeed++ going to reborn as part of facebook and have a much more profound impact?". The jury is still out but knowing the quality of the team I would not bet against it. - Edwin Khodabakchian

I think this post is very rude to the posters in your screenshot, especially the second two. They are sharing themselves and their lives with us. If that doesn't interest you, unsubscribe or hide but to call them out and mock them as 'sad' is, well, sad. FriendFeed is full of people that I enjoy discussing all kinds of topics with, including technology, but they are more than just early... more... - joey

Thank you Joey. I find the screen shot to be particularly offensive considering the tenor of the post. Stop being a jerk Robert. - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

Holden: I have removed my Twitter favorites from FriendFeed because of your post and my Twitter account too. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Scoble, you need to clean your Twitter DM's like stat. - Outsanity

@Robert - Just because FriendFeed isn't 90% tech and personal branding posts doesn't mean it doesn't have value. You used to be such a big proponent of lists here and molding your subscriptions so they were full of info but not noise... now that you've neglected your pruning efforts and gone over to Twitter then your feed is full of more noise (to you) than info. It's not FriendFeed's... more... - Fa La La La Lindsay

Her Lindsay-ness: sorry, so many geeks have left and there are just more interesting information (FOR ME), more interesting conversations (FOR ME), and I'm learning a lot more over on Twitter (ABOUT WHAT I WANT TO LEARN). FriendFeed HAS changed and that's OK! For you. Not for me. And, sorry, I looked at rejiggering my accounts here, but the info just isn't coming here and Twitter is... more... - Robert Scoble

Then go away. What the fuck. Why keep coming back here to make posts about how horrible it is. It just makes you look like more of an asshole than you intend to be I'm sure. Seriously. If you think there is no value in it, then it's kinda counter-productive to keep posting here, right? You act like the guy that graduated high school but keeps coming back hanging out at lunch and during pep rallies. It's a little bit creepy. What is it that you hope to gain by that? - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

I agree with Gunny. YOU caused the mass exedus from Friend Feed Robert, by announcing its demise. Let's see what would happen if instead of moaning about its lack of techy feeds, you began promoting it instead. Look on it as an FF experiment. - Sandra Large

I like reading your stuff Rob but yeah --- if you're only going to come here to diss FF, perhaps you should just exit FF completely. Also, it's a FACT that Twitter is inferior to FriendFeed based on communication alone because look...here I am, discussing this topic and others can follow along w/o having to search through random comments and pages [they can even comment easily also! *gasp*!]. FF probably will die eventually, but Twitter was freakin' stillborn. Just a glorified RSS service... - Scott Carmichael

Its all becoming a Robert Scoble 'self fullfilling prophecy' lately on here. You can't have a conversation on Twitter like this, twitter is a newsreel of headline news, that's all its good for, Friend Feed is as its name implies, a feed for friends to discuss anything under the sun, and not just about technical stuff. - Sandra Large

I don't agree that a person who's become dissatisfied with a service should leave. I've often heard change should come from within. With that said, I'm not sure Robert is pushing for positive change. Can it occur? With Zuckerberg calling the shots, maybe not. Maybe he owns every idea that the FFounders will ever have for the next few yrs, keeping those changes for Zuck's baby. Maybe FF will improve, & maybe the techies who were drowned out on Twitter will find they can be seen & heard here. Who knows? - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

My post is up: http://scobleizer.com/2009... - Robert Scoble

Gone mainstream? - Amit Morson

it gone mainstream alright - Fajar Nurdiansyah

You can't blame Robert for the fact that the FF guys sold out AND left the ship more or less rudderless. If they had bothered to figure out even a tiny bit of a PR strategy around the take-over, then things might not have gone downhill so fast, or at all. And, yes, you can filter out all of the emo stuff (nothing wrong with it BTW, but that can be had from your IRL friends on Facebook)... more... - Alex Schleber

Robert: accepting the accuracy of observations about the amount of interesting conversations from your perspective, there still remains a question regarding what could be the cause? while one theory may be a decline in friendfeed activity, another possibility is the decline in your own activity. what evidence can support one hypothesis over the other? - Mike Chelen

methinks a service can go on without an ego? personally i pop back here every now and again for the occasional conversation. i'd prefer more intelligent discussions on here, not just tech related, maybe i'm not following enough people? eh. - Terry O'Fee

+1,000 joey. "emo stuff" that can be "found on Facebook"? LOTS of arrogance on display here from several directions. Alex, I know that you're tempering your statement by saying that there's nothing wrong with "emo stuff", but that's still awfully dismissive. FF is more like a number of simple blogs because the whole world can access the posts. FB is a walled garden, and tends to be way more dumbed-down (except for when I look at the FF people I'm subscribed to in FB). - Kamilah Gill

Hey, guys? Don't feed the troll. - Akiva Moskovitz from BuddyFeed

now you tell us. - Jim in Real Time

Friendfeed never gone..! - ★ Soner Gönül

Well if FriendFeed has nothing else going for it, I can at least read a deep exchange of ideas here as to why it's toast. Perhaps thats why I'm sticking. Btw, slightly off topic, but am I the only one finding Twitter list creation a complete chore compared to doing the same on FriendFeed? - JSLeFanu

I don't see the problem. My pecs dominate your feed. Who can complain about that? - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

LOL @Rasheen™ - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

Rahsheen, it's ok to let the one's own fun part of life intersect one's social media sphere http://friendfeed.com/tad... , but not when it's someone else and it can be used in the wrong context to misappropriate a point. - Micah Wittman

It amazes me how people will continue to use a service just to complain about it. Just STFU and GTFO. - Steve Lowe

Micah, I don't follow what you're saying... - Kamilah Gill

Robert - Just make Twitter fix the 140 character limit thing already! - Matthew DeVries

then it would be a blog or what a tumble log? - ffcode

strange people resist so much even when they know this is it - ffcode

Robert, setting aside your point, your methodology here is insulting. Why? My response is here: http://friendfeed.com/zeigen... - Stephen Mack

Kamilah, fair point. I'll explain without sarcasm. Robert's shower photo was a bit of fun that is fine and doesn't represent the whole of his on- or off-line contribution. Andy's photoshopped photo of Rahsheen doesn't represent the whole of Andy's contribution (which is very much technical, btw) or by extension the community's many contributions through the friendfeed medium. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. - Micah Wittman

friend feed is totally awesome! - Bishal Adhikary

great one man... - Bishal Adhikary

COMMENT 1) "There's a lot more than me here. http://friendfeed.com/ninjamo.... shows lots of things that are getting engagement. - Robert Scoble" http://friendfeed.com/ninjamo... ... COMMENT 2) "You are not following the right people. This is always the problem if FriendFeed isn't working for you. - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF" http://friendfeed.com/ninjamo... - Micah Wittman

I just looked, and http://friendfeed.com/ninjamo... still is getting a lot of engagement and there's is stuff to learn there. - Micah Wittman

Robert, I am considered a "geek" by a number of people, but I don't need or want to talk about technology 24/7. I have other interests and I like to see where they connect. I want to see coalescence. I can't get disparate connections always watching or listening to the same track. Even Richard Feynman believed that...as do many others in other "geek" fields. When I was little I happened... more... - Melanie Reed

Robert, are you reading the tech related groups? If you read Best of you are going to get all sorts of stuff as you know. I have lists and saved searches for specific topics and browse them for the likes of tech. Best of it not the best place for tech only (well any single topic). - Kol Tregaskes

I've come to the conclusion that all of Robert's posts must be read with one fact kept in mind. Even when he doesn't say it, his posts are based on the assumption that many/most people want and like what he wants. - Eoghann Irving

Robert, why do you constantly feel the need to shake the death rattle? We are well aware that FF is dying and even more aware that you see it coming. If you really did care about the service you would try to reverse the trend instead of speeding it up. - Jason Williams from iPhone

Robert I joined FF when I saw you singing praises of it on Twitter and have been loving it ever since, you seem to have a lot of interesting stuff to say, and a lot of people follow you. But, you seriously need to stop coming to FriendFeed and doing everything in your considerable power to kill it, and then complain because you are successful in doing that. Twitter is for people who like shouting through megaphones in a crowd of people shouting through megaphones, FF is for people who like conversations. - Ed Millard

@edmillard ..said the man who only imports one thing into FF, his Twitter account.. seriously though. Scoble can't kill FF because it's already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. And yes, I am still using it for a bit because it makes such a handy searchable archiving/surfacing tool, and for some aspects of the community. But the reality is that FF founder's sold out b/c they were lacking confidence that they could change FF sufficiently/quickly enough to sustain any real growth. - Alex Schleber

So FriendFeed founders gave up and sold out to Zuckerberg more or less for the liquidation value, i.e. for their IP and continued highly-skilled/paid labor for FB. It's that simple. Thinking about it any other way is a fantasy. 5 Stages of Grief... And yes, it pains me to say it. Had high hopes for this platform. I wish they would have found a way to evolve FF where it would have continued to grow, I don't think they were very far off. It's like the gold-miners who gave up 10 ft from the mother lode. - Alex Schleber

Alex you are mistaken, most of my recent posts are from FF and sometimes cross posted to Twitter if they are short and not FF specific. I didn't know the FF etiquette that twitter posts are shunned when I started. Most of my limited time here is spent in comments anyway, since I prefer the conversations to the megaphone. - Ed Millard

@Ed "Twitter is for people who like shouting through megaphones in a crowd of people shouting through megaphones, FF is for people who like conversations." You basically summed up my blog post about this whole thing (http://friendfeed.com/bluecoc...)... - Fa La La La Lindsay

Lindsey, same concept, yours was thorough, mine was short. I think part of being a geek is we opt for the superior tech, not the popular tech. FB and Twitter are popular but inferior for conversation. I had no interest in them until I found FF recently. Its a problem we geeks are letting Zuckerberg kill the superior tech here with his checkbook. I'm thinking we should launch an open friend feed like directeur is talking about, free of business conflicts. It is the geek thing to do but it would be hard. - Ed Millard

One bad day does not mean it is bad for the whole year :) - ashish

don't you ever get tired of hitting refresh every other minute? - Giancarlo Caparo

LOL, let's see you sort though hundreds of reply of Twitter, shoot a video of that... - Robert Higgins

*yawns* - T. Brent, technopeasant

Sadly, FF has largely become a photo sharing, jokes and food pics sharing site - tech community is gone. - Susan Beebe

Yes, Twitter really has raised the bar in that arena. - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

Glen LOL - Susan Beebe

ZING! I shared a lame joke a few minutes ago, Susan! http://ff.im/aTQG6 I don't feel really bad about it. That's true, many people know me as a developer, but I'm not only that. I'm a jazz/anime/languages... LOVER :) - directeur

If only someone would have told Robert that his feed is his own creation and if he is unhappy there is only one place to look fir the reason. Oh, wait... - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from iPod

seriously, talk about mis-matched comparisons. This general list is less focused than that built-for-a-purpose list? Well, no offense, but no shit, Sherlock. - Chieze Okoye

Robert Scoble

@beachpig heh! People talking about how many followers they have put me to sleep. Oh, and I had two hours of sleep.

October 27 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

John D Reasor and Jonathan Fleming liked this

Robert Scoble

Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook’s “official” R&D department! - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

August 10 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Stanislas Jourdan, Daniel Rowley, Hutch Carpenter and 88 other people liked this

My reactions to today's news! - Robert Scoble

36 more comments

SCOBLE YOU MUST GET THEM TO KEEP FRIENDFEED PURE-- and RUNNING!! AAAGGGH [ i just heard 5 minutes ago. I'm on vacation ] :) - Schneider Mike

Interesting thoughts. - Angus Burton

Bummer - not likely to be an improvement - Internet Strategist

Friendfeed is no longer .. all that's left is the flick of the switch. - John Blanton

It's nice for the FF peeps. They'll see what it's like to deliver new features for a decent size user base. - mrshl

Mike: I wouldn't worry about FriendFeed. I see it as Facebook's R&D department now. We're the test bunnies for what 300 million people will get! :-) - Robert Scoble

Now Friendfeed will be able to go head to head with Google wave! So long as the team are allowed to lead from within Facebook how can this possibly be bad? - Ade Lack

I want a FB test bunny t-shirt ;) - Jeff (the マクダジ of FF)

Nice comments. Also looking forward to realtime search and 300M+ users ... watch that in realtime! My screen will melt I guess. - Peter van Teeseling

I'm only really sad because it completely breaks my on-line life. I'm excited for the FF team and for FB but that's only one aspect and I don't see how it can be merged. - James Myatt

I think it'll make fan pages even cooler. - Gus

Mark: can you verify that this is a real account somehow? Tell us something about what we did in Davos together that I didn't share. - Robert Scoble

Robert, the user name for Zuck misspells his name, just like he misspelled yours. - Louis Gray

Mark, if that is really you. Please don't let people on FB find users on FF. Some of us are looking for the anti-social web. Private groups and no friend requests from long lost classmates was a big plus over here. - Chip Ramsey

Username is "markzukerberg"? .. - Mads Kristiansen

Robert: from what I can tell most FF users do not share your enthusiasm or optimism. From what I can see FriendFeed team members will be absorbed into Facebook R&D, FriendFeed as a property will whither and most will cash out as soon as they can. Do you have some other information that you can share that supports your optimism? - Brian Sullivan

My reactions to today's news! ~ http://ff.im/6pPEE :D - CannonGod

One of the worst things for me is that many employers, including the site I'm working at, block Facebook, but not Friendfeed. - James Myatt

James - www.anonymizer.com/ ? - Jeff (the マクダジ of FF)

Robert: Do you have *any* reason at all to believe that friendfeed will survive as a distinct entity? - Christopher A Carr

How does everyone know what's going to happen? I prefer Rob's tone of "what should happen" - fear vs possibility - Ankush Narula from iPhone

Really interesting perspective you provide here. I was thinking this whole time that this would hit Twitter hard, but I see now that Google might be the real target, because of the whole real-time search. Nonetheless, I love all the Google employees that are hoping facebook becomes more "open" in the process. Something tells me facebook doesn't care about being open, but being a... more... - Rahul Krishnakumar

Christopher: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... It clearly seems that facebook will use friendfeed to be a playground for future features. - Rahul Krishnakumar

Rahul: That's not encouraging. I don't see how you get that from that article. - Christopher A Carr

Wait I owe Scoble an apology. I read several places that he had a financial interest in Friend Feed. That information , if true,clouded my perception of his commentary of FF. If you believed that true, he comes across as a shill trying to protect his investment IMHO. In his blog post he denounces any financial connection. Now I feel stupid because good practices dictate that he would have disclosed such in his writings. I suck sorry Robert. - cheapsuits from iPhone

Hmmm - I keep my FB social, private, and mainly family. I keep FF public and work-oriented only. Will I need two accounts? Or just delicate messing about with privacy controls? I'm not looking forward to shifting - may FF last a long while still. FB is too busy, and FF is lightweight and gives me exactly what I want, with a much cleaner interface. Thanks very much Robert, your blog post is much appreciated! - Allyson Lister

cheapsuits: Robert has said 1,000 + times that he has no financial interest in ff. - Christopher A Carr

Robert, how can you say you don't get how FF users are sad and up in arms? FB's attitudes and culture are different enough for this to be a serious shock. In short, lots of people think FF=good, FB=bad, for better or worse. Your own list of cons is enough to get FF users up in arms. - Don Faulkner

Christopher I see it now. Easy to see what he said when it isn't filtered by FF haters. What more can I say then I suck? I surely am not going to kill myself over it. - cheapsuits from iPhone

Thrilled for Paul, but amused that FB's first big land grab is another biz that isn't monetized properly either! Arrogance or Ignorance? - Jan Simmonds

Jan, FF has some great technology and some great people. It's not about the service itself. - James Myatt

cheapsuits: I'm sure you are forgiven. ;-) - Christopher A Carr

Here's why people are up in arms: I think it's in the company's best interests to keep the properties existing separately ... especially since like you said, it's a geekier community on FF. Why not integrate the cool *features* FF has within Facebook but keep friendfeed.com as-is? - Tamar Weinberg

I agree this is more of a play against Google. I think eventually Twitter and Facebook will team up more to provide real time streams of user updates between the two systems. I wonder if the first step is using FF for the collection of these streams and the next step is acquiring the method of pushing these streams or content. - CodeSamurai

FF = Facebook Labs - Andrew

I like the separate sites and maybe they will allow both options, Facebook is too busy for me and Friend Feed cuts to the chase and I hope we don't see "FaceFeed" with everything combined without options. - MedicalQuack

They got some talented people at FriendFeed. - Kenneth Yeh

Robert Scoble

Facebook? Up 10%. Twitter? Up 16%. FriendFeed? Flat - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

July 9 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Allen Harkleroad, Voyagerfan5761, Susan Beebe and 178 other people liked this

My analysis of where FriendFeed has gone wrong. Keep in mind that FriendFeed is growing faster than many blogs are, and is outpacing TechMeme, for instance. - Robert Scoble

243 more comments

FF needs Shaq. - mtlb

yup, they need celebrities. bring them oprah! - Alex

FF is an incubator for Facebook - Peter Warnock

Someone said they can't believe FriendFeed isn't gaining momentum. It is, but not at the same rate Facebook and Twitter are. - Robert Scoble

I don't think FriendFeed can compete with Facebook. I don't think it should, they're different tools. - Glenn Slaven

friendfeed is not so easy for most people to "use" or view, I think twitter is the easiest, facebook is good for people who like it.. I 'use" friendfeed to post things that go to twitter and facebook but I do not come here a lot to read posts. After reading a page of posts and comments I have had enough, it is like reading 15+ blogs with comments, a little too bulky? - David Gross

8-10% of ALL techmeme posts are from TechCrunch why such a high rate? - Benjamin Taylor

Why compare? I like FF for what it is. I don't want it to be in the same convo as Twitter and FB. It has nicely defined user base, a distinct design and functionality and has 2 great uses: conversation and self-aggregation - Dave Ferrick

"The search industry has a dirty secret: 99% of people don’t click on advanced search, yet FriendFeed requires you to click on that button to use it in any useful way." You're right, but I find it interesting that FriendFeed's advanced search is the only advanced search I use. Maybe FriendFeed is a tool for the more advanced social networkers? Maybe it's not for everyone. - Kevin Gamble

FF needs SMS before it gets Shaq - Jesse Stay

I think FF is hesitant to make it a full-blown Twitter client because that would import all the spam. - Peter Warnock

In terms of FriendFeed it's a fantastic tool for setting up a "lifestream" feed to your blog. really simple way to own your social media without plugins - Benjamin Taylor

do they have an iPhone app ? are they "mobile" ? - Alex

Robert, FriendFeed will catch on...in 2010 - Benjamin Taylor

Compete can't measure everything. For example, they think fftogo.com had 320 visits last month. - Bruce Lewis

They can just make a really good FriendFeed client. What we are doing right now is the hidden power of FriendFeed. Allowing people to continue the conversation beyond the original post. - Dave Mora

@Jesse Isn't twitter the SMS input? - Peter Warnock

I find this a hilarious slap in the face for you Scoble, but honestly, FriendFeed does not have the simplicity of Twitter to be quite honest, and I have a much higher chance of using Twitter with a third party app than this. Still, it's all about if you're friends or people you want to watch are on here, and for me, they aren't, - Chris

Seconding alex's question. I would use a FF iPhone app in a heartbeat - Tristan Walker from iPhone

I mainly use friendfeed to post to it for people who like to read (bookmarklet and other stuff) and so friendfeed can post to twitter and facebook. I would like if it posted to myspace too :o) - David Gross

Dave has a great point, it's FF provides a deeper layer of the conversation - Benjamin Taylor

Robert, the list is backwards... it should be API, Mobile, monetization, etc.. - Alberto Saavedra

I can believe it. For the average joe twitter is easy and straightforward to get started. FF, not so much. You have a lot of credentials to input for your various services and the UI is like a corn maze even to some of my more techie friends. Also, having an established crowed never hurt. I appreciate FF and really see it's power, but most people do not and aren't willing to learn. - John Reynolds

They need SMS before an iPhone app - most of the nation still does not have internet on their cell phone - Jesse Stay

Alberto: it's 4 a.m. here in London and the list is in no particular order, just straight off the top of my head. - Robert Scoble

friendfeed is NOT mobile unless you are on an iphone.. - David Gross

FF tripped these past two months because of a lack of iphone apps, lack of a good SUL, lack of a good intro for new members, lack of comments happening for new members. While FF has moved forward on some fronts - they still need better integration into blogs then we'll see a better uptake. - LPH™ and his dog P™

John, exactly! The only thing I truly use this for is the occasional conversation bit and tying last.fm to my Twitter account. - Chris

SMS can't be the answer right away, particularly when the major value add for FF is in the threaded conversation. - Tristan Walker from iPhone

David, even on an iphone, FF trips - LPH™ and his dog P™

jesse: SMS=money. plus, how effective do you think FF could be via sms? - John Reynolds

Tristan - FriendFeed will never go to the masses if they don't have SMS support - Jesse Stay

even if we forget the thought of monetization - my idea about creating a whitelabel ff to replace forums would drastically increase the usage and the understanding of the service - http://www.centernetworks.com/friendf... - ff has to get out from under the early adopter rock - without going down the exact same path as twitter - my suggestion does exactly that. - Allen Stern

@LPH o rly? so it is not so easy to make it mobile.. - David Gross

John, as effective as Twitter. Most remote people can't access it via the internet, but they can via SMS. Twitter is making SMS work - FriendFeed can as well. - Jesse Stay

I agree Jesse, but what does that product look like? How does one keep up with the 'conversation' and stay relevant - Tristan Walker from iPhone

Tristan, the same way they're doing the IM link above - Jesse Stay

i disagree with the sms talk - all it would do is help the current users use it more - that's worthless for ff now - sorry jesse don't hate me :) - Allen Stern

sms would not work, even email does not work and I get that on my phone.. there is too much of it.. - David Gross

Allen, I think it would get new users. Many users use Twitter mostly through SMS - it's what made Twitter appealing for me. It's why I used Twitter in South Dakota and Minnesota and Wyoming and not FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

SMS is not the future people. The future lies in ubiquitous data connectivity from all mobile devices with a growing amount of the market shifting towards more flexible touch screen interfaces and the iphone the leader of that market, the iphone is a perfect platform to put focus. - John Reynolds

I like what Posterous is doing in terms of post methods - Benjamin Taylor

Twitter hit a major booster rocket with the Hudson and iran and prop 8 - coupled with CNN shitting the bed. Now that dictators know about twitter, they're derailing it ahead of incursions. We've not heard thing 1 out of china on the uiger uprising. Never tracked. Ff should fill that gap. We need to strat crawling the boards for blow by blow uigerstan massacre stories. Boom, ff is the bees knees - Matthew DeVries from fftogo

It's just not inviting. A fraction too complicated. I signed up but really haven't used it since but I'm active on twitter because it's simple and I can do it with 1% of my brain. FF doesn't give me that and yet I know why it is technically a 'better' more advanced system than Twitter - philhenley

I have to clean up my gmail before I go mobile because on my phone this conversation will be multiple messages even though in gmail it is one conversation lol - David Gross

jesse - as robert noted - most people using twitter have no reason to be on ff - my sister is one of them - she has no need to aggregate a bunch of services - so sms won't "move" or "add" new users from twitter. my discussion board idea would. - Allen Stern

The current FriendFeed audience is anti-SMS though. You guys will never be for it, but mark my words - the audience FriendFeed does want that will bring in the masses will come when they enable SMS - Jesse Stay

David - the iphone apps are not quite good enough and the mobile interface on the iphone is worthless if the subscriptions are too high. - LPH™ and his dog P™

Allen, FriendFeed needs a simpler layer, and I think SMS is part of that. People don't have to use the whole thing, or even know it exists. They need a simple way to post statuses from anywhere they belong. So long as we're comparing them to Twitter, they have to do what Twitter does. Otherwise, why are we comparing them to Twitter at all? - Jesse Stay

allen, I am on twitter and I love FF, I read blogs in google reader and any blog I share is posted to twitter through ff, I can favorite a youtube video from their mobile site and it is also posted on twitter through ff - David Gross

Frankly, Jesse, the last thing I want is my phone beeping at me 100 times a minute. Do you realize how many SMS messages you would get from just THIS entry? - Tommy Keene

Jesse I'm a big big fan of SMS..I use it for Twitter all the time...but I could not imagine using SMS for a conversation like this. Sms does the job when it comes to status updates and notifications. No brainer - Tristan Walker from iPhone

In terms of the gains at twitter and Facebook, flat isn't bad. Although a few percentage points would have been nice. - Michael Fidler

and actually, just making those links on the right anything but bog standard would really help FF look less like a beta product. It always feels to me like it's half finished - philhenley

Tommy, that's what preferences and options are for - Jesse Stay

Friendfeed missed the 'boom' that Iran and MJ brought to twitter and FB. The only rason I can think of it, it was easier for people to join convos about those topics in twitter and fb than 'find' them in friendfeed. FF is still growing so nothing to be worried about. it will grow in its own pace as it has been doing. - Freddie Benjamin

jesse - come to nyc - we will go to times square and ask how many people use sms or want to signup for ff to handle their sms and aggregate all their social services - you can even wear your social median shirt! - Allen Stern

Tommy, and frankly, the power of Twitter SMS aren't the status updates I receive - it's the ability to post SMS updates - Jesse Stay

My bad Robert, thought the numbers were priority. Jesse, unfortunately FriendFeed currently is perceived as a web app while twitter is kind of device agnostic - Alberto Saavedra

I don't want to micro-manage my 100s of subscriptions - Tommy Keene

I think Twitter and FriendFeed should just join forces and create a super social site: Fritter! - Shawn Hickman

Allen, only if you come to South Dakota and Wyoming and Minnesota with me to ask the same questions - Jesse Stay

Comment Control.. Cleaner interface (I never liked the redesign) ... and Media coverage :) - Tim Hoeck

Alberto, and that is unfortunate - it's why, so long as we're comparing it to Twitter, it will never have the numbers Twitter has - Jesse Stay

Jesse, so then post to twitter. And it gets put into your ff automatically. What's the problem? - Tommy Keene

jesse: ill mark your words, but i think they are wrong. the audience they want now, is anyone who will come. twitter is already going to get those people due to its popularity and simplicity. In a few years the majority of the audience will have moved to smart phones with broadband connections and advanced touch UI's. There needs to be an iphone app. NOW. - John Reynolds

Tommy, the problem is Twitter still gets that traffic - Jesse Stay

as I watch this thread I wonder.. why can't I "pop-out" a thread and watch it, like a chat room.. hard to follow a conversation.. - Tim Hoeck

tim - if you click on the time, you get a dedicated page - but i agree with you - a "control center" would be nice - Allen Stern

how about a mobile website before you make iphone app? is it so hard to make Like and Comment links that work in Opera Mobile or IE Mobile? - David Gross

Can anyone imagine trying to take part in this conversation effectively via SMS? I can't. This much data needs a well designed UI and smart, easy to use filtering and notification tools. - John Reynolds

It was SMS that enabled me to be the first report on the GreenPeace protest at Mount Rushmore - there was no internet there. It is those interesting Tweets that make Twitter interesting and appealing. It's the information, real-time content, and capability to post anywhere, any time that makes Twitter appealing. I can't necessarily do that everywhere with FriendFeed. It will never compete with Twitter in that regard. - Jesse Stay

Information is flowing away and not stocked. This is the main problem. Solution is in applications as you said. Friendfeed should create a great developer community to spread their APIs. They need an another funding for developer contests. Or just one acquiring may solve this motivation problem of developers, like Twitter's Summize sourcing. - Erhan

sms wont get new users. - Allen Stern

Allen, prove it - Jesse Stay

I like Allen's white label idea. - Michael Fidler

ahh.. thanks Allen.. guess that is one of those "usability" things :) - Tim Hoeck

I would not use ff in sms.. too many messages to go through, I would be way behind on my reading, it would be worse than my email.. - David Gross

thanks michael - i truly believe that it would open ff past the geekcore that it sits with now - sadly none of ff management has ever replied or commented on any of my ideas for them - Allen Stern

tim - i only learned that last week - i agree why there isnt a button is beyond me - Allen Stern

(Just got done reading the article and I can come right to the sidebar to comment on it. I love that.) I'm glad the growth is slow. Maybe the FriendFeed team isn't, but I love hanging out here and I don't think it would be the same if it was being hyped up as much as other services. - Mitch

And now - we can see the next challenge faced by FF. The majority of FF entries have a short life - the flip of the page - unless others see the thread and "like" or comment. If the entry is missed then there is no power to the entry (and no immediate gratification for the person). Next, there are multiple entries of the same topics. On Twitter, this is partially solved by retweets - but "top" FFeeders don't really re-share other people's entries - thus "killing off the young." - LPH™ and his dog P™

Keep in mind my comments are only in regards to FriendFeed being able to "compete" with Twitter. Otherwise Twitter is not competition. FriendFeed needs to figure out who they are and who they are competing with. I have no clue based on what you guys are saying. - Jesse Stay

There are other uses for FF we for example are using it as CRM with the secret mail it work perfectly ,as well I recommended some time ago to let other sites when they register their users to make an automatic parallel user here in FF ,for example a newspaper that has his social activity can make all his users FF users ,its a small API but an important one - Johni Fisher

Twitter is popular because, honestly, most people only want to hear themselves speak, and don't care that much about what everyone else thinks. However, there will always be those of us who like reading what other people think. - Curt

agree jesse - i dont think they know who they are yet either - i'd like to see them move AWAY from twitter comparisons as it's just not a battle worth fighting at this time. it's time for ff to get some marketing staff - Allen Stern

exactly curt - it's about people thinking they are a celeb. - Allen Stern

I do not know how many people actually have the time for all this anyway, I been watching this conversation for a bit but it is past bedtime.. good night everybody :o) - David Gross

take the experience out of the browser. i think a robust desktop app would gain FF a few more super dorky users, but wouldn't help them grow at the rate facebook and twitter are. - Jim Halligan @jim

Jesse: Friendfeed will compete with Google Wave or Google Search. Not Twitter or Facebook. - Erhan

Allen, agreed as well - so long as they want to be Twitter they need SMS. If they don't want to be Twitter they need to distinguish exactly what they are. No one knows right now. - Jesse Stay

Twitter has won their territory, FriendFeed needs to NOT be twitter, and find their "zone". - Tim Hoeck

Basically friendfeed has built an incredible communications platform that can be utilized in many different environments. The corporate market holds huge potential. White labeling friendfeed just makes sense. - Michael Fidler

And now another challenge to FF is shown in these comments. People start talking to each other - and when not noticed they either keep trying to "join" the conversation or just remove themselves from the conversation. Finally, someone who just discovers this is NOT going to be interested in reading everyone's comments - thus lowering a person's interest. - LPH™ and his dog P™

Erhan which one - those are two entirely different products right now. - Jesse Stay

Does FF have any recmmendation systems? With conversations like this I'd imagine that to be a killer opportunity - Tristan Walker from iPhone

If they want to be search, search needs to be front and center, like Google - Jesse Stay

i have to go to sleep im sorry but i still don't think sms will change that graph that thomas hawk posted. and not to harp on my idea but if they did start with the forum idea - think about how massive their real-time search index would be.... ponder that one - too many companies forget how much more is out there... it makes me very frustrated - ok be well everyone - Allen Stern

If they want to be like Google Wave, the private messaging has to be front and center, and they need to be more open - Jesse Stay

"real time" overload this thread is a prime example - Benjamin Taylor

It's just like a chat room - Benjamin Taylor

I just read Scobleizer's blog post. What's this about Facebook cloning FriendFeed? Did Facebook enhance "Like" to where I see non-friends' items on Facebook that my friends Like? Does Facebook have "Hide other items like this one" now? Last I saw, Facebook only had flimsy imitations of FriendFeed's functionality. - Bruce Lewis

except, the UI is not like a chat room... hard to follow. - Tim Hoeck

LPH, exactly right about the size. You can't have a conversation with a zillion people at once. Smaller groups are more effective, and that's why Facebook is popular, you control who you talk to... - Curt

Jesse: This data will be valuable than Google's crawled index. They must use this value. But I ve no idea which one they choose. - Erhan

Allen there are so many more people that can post content to FriendFeed (vs the other Social Networks in the graph) once they open up SMS. Much more content will go directly to FriendFeed, and not their "competition" (if that graph is really who they're trying to compete with - I don't think it is) - Jesse Stay

But you can update ff with text messages I thought. By updating twitter and feeding twitter. By updating fb and feeding fb. By updating wordpress and feeding wordpress. I thought that is what made ff powerful. Ff's original sin was obscuring and hiding the fact that it's made of feeds. Favicons for the fed services would help that. - Matthew DeVries from fftogo

Content *can* already go from SMS to FF... through Twitter.. I don't see the point. - Tim Hoeck

LPH, Curt: isn't that exactly what Google Wave will do? Have the ability to branch off? - Jim Halligan @jim

Benjamin: It's really hard to find the "comment" link when talking like in mIRC. : ) What is the problem. A "comment" link in the last comment's right may be useful. - Erhan

just give us a good old fashion frame so we can scroll :) - Tim Hoeck

What brought people to Twitter were the "tornado" and "earthquake" and "fire" posts. It made Twitter interesting and brought even more people to Twitter. The iPhone wasn't out then - how do you think people were posting those emergency Tweets at that time (and even now)? The media caught that and before we knew it even Oprah was talking about it. SMS is the root of what has made Twitter successful, even if the majority of users don't use it all the time. The "interesting" Tweets all come from SMS. - Jesse Stay

Perhaps every Friendfeed fan should take it upon themselves to introduce one new person to it. #Mentor - David Damore

age sex location? - Erhan

nooooooo.... - Tim Hoeck

23 m istanbul :D HAHA good nights! ; ) - Erhan

Bruce I think that FaceBook has other bug as well ,when you send a request to B a friend with someone even with out his approval you are getting at your wall his posts or part of them for sure - Johni Fisher

this is what i mean by taking the experience out of the browser. at least for me, chrome cannot handle this thread right now. - Jim Halligan @jim

Not being supported by developers is a big downside for friendfeed, The problem is there is little room for a ff client to add value like they do for twitter. - Alistair (alpinefolk)

Twitter growth = bots, spammers. - Mo Kargas

Facebook is confusing to me.. too much going on in their UI. Twitter is ridiculous to carry on a conversation. FF is for me. Just clean up the UI, and make things easier to manage. And word to the wise.. when I start getting "Which character from HBO's True Blood are you?" requests, I'm outta here! - Tim Hoeck

What's really interesting is that these 3 products are entirely different products that I think should be competing on entirely different turfs. The blogosphere for some reason wants them all to compete. - Jesse Stay

Forums, IRC, and Newsgroups all co-existed (and still do).. what's the difference? They all have their niche. - Tim Hoeck

I am learning about Friendfeed now, but feel Twitter has elements of Google, linkedin and real time convos, that Friendfeed does not make as easy or intuitive. But friendfeed offers full convo tracking. To me, it seems like merger mania on the horizon. Question: Who buys who? - Alan W Silberberg

FriendFeed vs. Google Wave? - Jim Halligan @jim

like Robert said in his blog, friendfeed is newer than either fb or twitter and is in similar place as when they were same age.. to me it seems like friendfeed can be like twitter when nobody comments or the page is full of tweets or it can look more like facebook when people post pictures and stories and leave comments.. It is like a mesh of facebook without the nasty apps and twitter... more... - David Gross

Frankly, I'd love to see one company own all three - I think it would make a really valuable product, and I think all 3 would still co-exist - Jesse Stay

Any "popular" alternative to Friedfeed? - People just don't get it. ( I use it ) - FranK

Ff does need a better mobile app. However there is no reason for it to compete with Twitter, they have different uses - Kim Landwehr from iPhone

This thread has me excited for the embargoed story Scoblizer dropped hints about. I think this is the typical right before big story provacative thread that robert starts, which the embargo'd announcement answers the question of. - Matthew DeVries from fftogo

Jesse, I think that sounds good, all 3 together in harmony.. and I have introduced my twitter and facebook friends to http://ff.im/1hqgl :o) #hive - David Gross

Not 100% off topic since it was mentioned can someone tell me why 8-10% of ALL posts on Techmeme are from TechCrunch? - Benjamin Taylor

Benjamin, others have their theories, but my view: TechCrunch also breaks 8-10% (or more) of all tech news stories. They're simply the first to the stories. - Jesse Stay

Benjamin: TechCrunch covers more tech industry news and gets linked to by more influential bloggers than any other site. Before TechCrunch deleted its account here, it was my #1 most "liked" FriendFeed account, too. - Robert Scoble

FranK: Facebook is the popular alternative to FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I think it's a different tool than FriendFeed. It's more for managing relationships. FriendFeed is more about information and aggregation. - Jesse Stay

Robert, I like it too, it's impressive based on the list of tech blogs/sites http://www.techmeme.com/lb - Benjamin Taylor

Yes Jesse, the 3 are entirely different and FF's perceived focus is realtime conversations but the service is not ready to scale (the value) yet, this conversation is an example... everyone should have the ability to create different threads in their own view and aggregate them (personalize) as preferred. But web development is not there yet, what FriendFeed needs is more developers excited. - Alberto Saavedra

Less is more. FF seems to be too much for the average non-techy user. Twitter is about as basic as you can get. Although ff is a great app, I find myself here rarely. - Tomy Thomson

Does anyone have an opinion on how FriendFeed might deal with Google Wave as a competitor? I see these two services being very similar, closer than Twitter & FF. Robert, I see how you use FF bring people from Twitter over here to discuss topics. Do you see yourself using Wave in a similar fashion, and what do you think the adoption rate will be like? - Jim Halligan @jim

Jim, I have not even had a chance to see what google wave is all about, just waiting for them to spring it on me.. - David Gross from email

Jim: I'm with David. Don't know enough yet about Wave. When they get it to me we'll check it out quickly. - Robert Scoble

wave might be a good thing, I DO use gmail.. maybe google will buy friendfeed? lol - David Gross from email

Robert, if you ever want to try it I have a test account I can let you play with any time. - Jesse Stay

Wave is more a competition with Gmail than it is FriendFeed, unless there's something they have yet to release or announce that utilizes the Wave protocol - Jesse Stay

Wave is a technology. If it's good, FriendFeed will use it, possibly better than anyone else does. - Bruce Lewis

Thanks. I believe that if they do end up competing, as much as I love FriendFeed- I think they might be in trouble because Google will be able to back the real-time search technology and they may also have a way to monetize the Waves from day one. - Jim Halligan @jim

Bruce: Very good point. - Jim Halligan @jim

Jim, I think Google would be better off just buying FriendFeed and integrating the Google technology with what FriendFeed already has. I think Paul and crew have carefully poised themselves this way. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, do you think the former googlers want to be acquired by Google? Paul B has talked about wanting to structure a company in a new, more sustainable way. Would he be happy back in Google's structure again? - Bruce Lewis

Bruce, I don't know Paul, but I'm willing to bet if the offer was right he wouldn't turn Google down. - Jesse Stay

Another option would be to sell to Microsoft or Yahoo, of course. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: Paul wouldn't sell. Doesn't need to. And if he did the offer would be so wacky and based on the numbers FriendFeed isn't going to get a wacky bid this year. - Robert Scoble

FB should pay FF to be an incubator, like Fedora and Redhat Enterprise. - Peter Warnock

I'm sticking to my guns on this one. I think they'll sell this year or next. - Jesse Stay

Anyways, back to vacation. :-) - Jesse Stay

Jesse, only 5 days to the Boston FriendFeed meetup! http://friendfeed.com/massach... - Bruce Lewis

I did see a feature in Google wave which might help here. They have a real-time grammar/spelling correction system, which was included from the start. It was included to to make the platform as comfortable to use as possible hopefully to appeal to a larger audience. Some people type slow or make grammatical mistakes; I'm the king of them. Personally, I would love anything that would help in this area. - Michael Fidler

Bruce, I'm looking forward to it! - Jesse Stay

I don't use FriendFeed as much as I probably should. And where is its RSS feed? - Sandra Large

Sandra - Check the bottom of the page. - Mitch

Jessie, I could completely see Google buying friendfeed. It seems to me that's been a possible exit stategy from the start. - Michael Fidler

Sounds like a wild prediction Michael, or are there some clues/hints that I'm oblivious to? - Mitch

Mitch, it's total conjecture on my part. It's just a theory, nothing more. I can see it as an exit strategy, but whether it was preconceived is nothing more than speculation. There isn't any bad blood between them that you know of, is there? - Michael Fidler

Curt's comment above: "Twitter is popular because, honestly, most people only want to hear themselves speak..." Good point. Of course there's a degree of that everywhere including FF, but the inherent length limit on a twitter is enough insulation for most users that, when faced with a call to debate, are comfortable with 1) Shooting out a curt, cryptic one-liner or 2) Not responding at all. The rich communication environment on FriendFeed makes not backing up what you bring to the party glaringly obvious. - Micah Wittman

Allen, your whitebox idea deserves more consideration, discussion and air time than it's currently getting. I would love to see forum software replaced or morphed by the power of the FF technology. I think one hesitation (at least for now) may be the worry of siphoning off too many staff resources to deal with the hosting/dev infrastructure + licensing deal issues that go with the territory. Regardless, we need more analysis on this, people! - Micah Wittman

I had no clue what I was signing up for when I signed up for friend feed. I thought it was just another social networking platform (e.g. same as facebook / twitter). It needs to be more obvious that friend feed can consolidate TONS of social networking tools and improve them. - duskstriker

TweetMeme up 78% - Nick Halstead

Good post with a lot of interesting observations. The one point I would push back on is the API: friendfeed has by far the best designed API - way better than facebook and twitter. The reason there are less applications on friendfeed is not because of the API but I think because they have not reached their critical mass yet. I personally think that this whole social networking/messaging... more... - Edwin Khodabakchian

Agree,Friendfeed is kind of noisy,many people like me doesn't use that as often as we used to. - Steve Chou

I think a good name could make a difference. Friendfeed, friendfood, friendfodder !!!??? - Nitin Nanivadekar

FF is doing just fine... It's a very, very powerful product as it is now. Yea it has many imperfections... So feedback is great, but also give it some time, and it will become better and better (it has been that way thus far), and will rock the world. Also, remember that slower growth may be a blessing for a product, too. - Onur Kabadayi

FriendFeed seems to be an important web application and, in hindsight, may turn out to be the ground breaker in a new class of applications. However, it is horrendously difficult to understand. Even as a reasonably technical user, the presentation of configuration information about what is input, what is output, what is connected to what, etc. is appalling. "My kingdom for a diagram!" - John W Lewis

As a developer that creates a lot of mashups etc, I disagree about the api, the problem with the api is not the api it's a case of what to do with it. The data that comes out of FF is much more complex than fb and twitter. I am working on something which should solve some of your issues and show it off. Lack of hype is also why there are not many apps. - Darren Stuart

Great article, Robert Scoble. Love your ruthless intellectual honesty in identifying some problems with a service you have heavily evangelized. It would be easy to address these issues, but I am beginning to think that FF management has a much different take on the noise problem than many of us (including Tim O'Reilly). - Sean McBride

I agree with Onur Kabadayi.. Robert says it in his post as well. Twitter's growth in the first two years was similar. Plus, given the fact that it is a more complicated tool, it will take some more time for management to get some "First Things to Do Now that you are on FriendFeed" kind of documentation, and for the users to really grasp all that can be done w/ Friendfeed and why it is better (the differentiation). Sean McBride, could you expand on "a much different take" when it comes to noise.? - John Serra

John: FF has a "much different take" on noise: some of us have been complaining quite loudly about the noise issue for over a year now, with no feedback from FF or moves from FF to address the problem. Perhaps this is a matter of individual aesthetics; perhaps Paul, Bret and the FF crew enjoy a large sprawling rambling chaotic canvas and don't see the world through the same eyes as Tim O'Reilly, Mitch Kapor, Tim Bray, etc. Twitter is growing much faster than Friendfeed because of its minimalism and brevity. - Sean McBride

Twitter is being blocked by China Government, evildoing! - Motor Industry

Exactly why I asked Sean.. I like the fact that there is noise, and I like the fact that I get to filter out what I don't want to see.. Yes, we could argue that the ability to filter should be better, or more explicit, but I believe we are still at an early stage of development for this tool.. So, yes, I believe it is only for early adapting power users (sorry for the generalization) at... more... - John Serra

FF does so much more for my work and my engagement with my professional community than twitter or FB have ever been able to. :) Thanks for the interesting post! - Allyson Lister

Friendfeed is a major player in real time search and it never sucks like Twitter( Its always down) - Michael_techie

Why? FriendFeed is a place for the more geeky type, and mostly all geeks already have a Friendfeed account. Friendfeed is for people who are in social media, who have many accounts on everything, like I do. Frienfeed isn't growing because it serves a different purpose, to connect the sites that connect us. - Zachary TG

I still feel like I am not being understood by many on the noise issue. I just clicked on my Peoplebrowsr tab and was able to scan *twenty* new mostly high-value Twitter posts from high-quality news feeds, many of which do not post directly to Friendfeed. I clicked back to my Friendfeed page, and am able to see only *two* primary posts. So: Twitter via Peoplepbrowsr usually offers a 10... more... - Sean McBride

I think FF is missing a huge opportunity to engage the Flickr community -- a large and established group of people and a community where FF could be a natural tool. 1. FF needs to allow you to import all of your Flickr contacts into FF matching up actual accounts where possible and creating an option for imaginary friends for the rest (to be replaced by actual accounts when others... more... - Thomas Hawk

Thomas - best thought of the whole damn thread - Matthew DeVries

Long-term, I think that FF can also expand in the direction of aggregating real-time sensor data like pachube (http://www.pachube.com/). As wireless smart-meters invade our homes, every one of us will have at least a few sensor data streams that can be fed to FF for commenting, analysis, mashing, etc. Making effective real-time search over that data torrent is the only thing that can... more... - Vlado Handziski

I'll second that. Brilliant idea Thomas! - Michael Fidler

Ironically, one of FriendFeed's problems is that its web experience is simply too good. Twitter's sucked (and still does), so it was the third-party developers who jumped in and as you said, are driving Twitter's growth. - Aviv

I'm not going to lie, I don't want more people to join friend feed, they are ready ruined twitter. Well, maybe not ruined, but the value is a bit polluted by the bots and many self interested people - Robert D. Fraser

Aviv, got to disagree with you about FriendFeed's web experience. A discussion like this one, with above a hundred comments, just turns "discussion" into the worst kind of flat-forum experience. It becomes impossible to find who's responding to who, because it isn't threaded (and you can't collapse responses). It's like an unthreaded Slashdot - simply unreadable. - Ian Betteridge

Ian: funny, I read every unreadable comment here. - Robert Scoble

Me too! This kind of thread is totally readable. - Jim Connolly

Ian, I agree with you on that, but other than that issue (seen most frequently at Scoble's threads, of course) you have to agree that the early adopter crowd really adores the slick UI that the FF team got us used to. Among those early adopters are also potential third-party developers who have absolutely no incentive to compete with FF on delivering better UI experience, especially... more... - Aviv

And since you mentioned flat-forum experience - that's another problem FF faces; It evolved into a forum-like experience. A real-time one, but still a forum experience. And we all know mainstream doesn't care much about message boards unless they're troubleshooting some Windows printer driver. I'm guessing that for most "normal" users, keeping up with what goes on on FF is fun for the... more... - Aviv

The deer in the headlights reaction by some as to not getting likes and comments (or to the desired degree) doesn't seem much different than case of dreamers who think moving to Hollywood or Nashville automatically means you'll get noticed. It's an opportunity. - Micah Wittman

Micah, that's not the same at all. I think that for some people, myself included, FF is just not as useful as it once was. 6 months ago I'd get some reactions to threads like http://friendfeed.com/aviv... and http://friendfeed.com/aviv.... Granted I don't have the network that... more... - Aviv

Aviv - you 're thinking/acting in single stream. Things only get burried if you have bad searches, bad lists, and bad groups. Real Time is infinitely more useful and I'm far less likely to miss things now because of the greatly improved saved search abilities and group making. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, I'm not talking about my own management of the FF stream. That I do well. What I find troubling is that so many don't, and as a result entries go unnoticed quite often. IMHO this will be most difficult for new users to comprehend and will be the biggest contributor to them not coming back. - Aviv

I guess I'm not seeing that. Participation on my content took off hardcore since Real Time. My FFHolic numbers have been insane. And my feed is not full of what this audience would consider useful or informative content, or even remotely connected to the field that 90% of you are in. Yet I am getting satisfactory traffic and engagement. So I find it hard to believe that someone who is... more... - Matthew DeVries

Aviv, thanks for clarifying. If your network puts you in a List, problem solved - but you already knew that. So the point you made was a lot of other people aren't leveraging lists and searches. So I'm thinking out loud with you here: what's the remedy? Maybe an algorithm that automatically puts what appears to be your core network into a List, and then flags you that there's unread activity going on in that List. I'm speaking in broad terms, but what do you think? - Micah Wittman

lol Matthew. Self fulfilling prophecy, right, that's probably it. Or not: I took a look at your feed and it reminds me a lot of Digg. So I'm not at all surprised that you're seeing increased engagement. But in any case, I don't see the increased engagement you're talking about. Your content gets at best 4 Likes. I guess you don't know what I'm talking about really. - Aviv

Wow Aviv. Just go on the meta attack. Wanna talk about my mom too while you're at it? The irony of calling me Digg-ish. - Matthew DeVries

LOL - Aviv

Really, the place you should be is Building43, and from your feed it's obvious you just want a tech group, talking tech things, with tech cred. You're right Ff is not for you. - Matthew DeVries

*rolls eyes* he really did just flame my feed...... Do we even do that here? - Matthew DeVries

I'm sure you won't be around much either, as soon as FlickChart implements forums. - Aviv

o.O Cause I use FlickChart a lot? - Matthew DeVries

So excited, my first ever flame war on FF. I guess it just became useful again. Where have you been in the past 2 years Matthew? - Aviv

So that's what you're looking for? - Matthew DeVries

Notice I haven't flamed you yet. It's just you deciding you're going to kick me in the dick for no reason at all. - Matthew DeVries

Move on man. Your feed really does look like Digg, so admit it and let's move on. :) - Aviv

So that's what you want out of this? People to get into old school flame wars? - Matthew DeVries

I mean, I don't know why you suddenly decided you hated me, and felt the need to break down my feed and judge it against they beauty of yours. Sorry for what ever it is I did to you. I don't think it warranted your needless rudeness. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, come on, are you serious? Can you not tell when someone is being sarcastic? - Aviv

That's not what you're doing. - Matthew DeVries

You two knock it off. - Robert Scoble

I'm fine if you want to mod it out Robert (though I know you don't believe in that, and I'm not going to Chris White up your joint) - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, I was just pointing out that your feed probably sees more engagement because Digg-like threads on FF bubble to the top more often than "serious" threads (actually I should say entries, because they rarely get the chance to become threads;) Scoble even says so in his post. I'm sorry if you feel that I attacked you personally, as that was far from my intention. - Aviv

The UI is my biggest gripe. Face it FF is geared towards techie users I don't know if that was the plan. I don't see how FF could bring in regular users unless they have something like Facebook apps. - sarvesh

I don't buy the API argument, it is the best of all the social networks. I developed the FriendDeck client using it, it is very very very clean for an API. As for clients, there is my FriendDeck app, it was way ahead of Tweetdeck for some features (web and desktop client with shared settings) - Paul Kinlan

Seriously, I will lead the development of a Friendfeed client if anyone wants, take my FriendDeck brand and grow it make it better. - Paul Kinlan

Jumping in a little late, but I have to say that I would be a much more active user on FF if the mobile site was functional on my BB. FF2GO just doesn't cut it since I can't change my settings or anything. I'm just not sitting at my desk or in front of a laptop all that often, but I always have my BB on me. - Matt Thompson

FF2GO rocks as far as web based things go, but Tim Hoeck is working on what is looking like a really great Moble App for friendfeed. http://friendfeed.com/andfeed There is the room for it - Matthew DeVries

Paul, the thing is, there's no need for such a client. Web experience is too good to encourage others to develop alternatives. - Aviv

Mobile app for FriendFeed: http://dev.ctor.org/f2p/ by http://friendfeed.com/nahi - Micah Wittman

Aviv: I don't buy that in the slightest, there is a lot of need, multiple columns, sub feed/list filtering, user discovery, verticals (video only feeds, picture columns etc - like amplifeeder http://paul.kinlan.me as an example), there are lots of things that a good client will do to enhance Friendfeed. - Paul Kinlan

Perhaps, but Twitter was ugly and near useless from day one, so the incentive (and need) for third-party developers was more obvious. It's also hard for a single third-party developer to enhance a service that updates its UI and functionality every other day. While the FF team is definitely doing a great job at that, it's much easier to develop on top of Twitter when you know it takes them 2 months just to charge the color of a link. - Aviv

interesting. I've avoided subscribing to you but maybe that's what I need to fully appreciate FriendFeed (my interest had been waning) :) - Paul Whitaker

@paul Nah, don't subscribe to Scoble (sorry Robert), I did for a while but it leads to information overload. Instead subscribe to a few people who do subscribe to him and you see the best bits as they 'like' and 'comment' on them. That said, this is redundant advice as you saw this post that way anyway I presume... and for me, thats the power of FF. - James Macgill

Aviv: I defiantly agree that friendfeed has an awesome service and it works on many levels better than twitter does and they are very responsive and proactive to change. The biggest thing about a desktop client is a desktop client, you would be suprised how many people's workflow require a desktop app started from the start menu (I don't personally understand it but the demand is massive) - Paul Kinlan

James: I don't mind seeing roberts posts at all, however the best bit of friendfeed for me are lists (i.e, lists of people I really follow etc), my discussions and the Best Of Day. - Paul Kinlan

Amazing to see Facebook items with 100,000 likes and 10,000 comments. Would the FF interface be at all workable with so much activity? It's already hard to find anything beyond the top layer of most popular stuff unless you spend a huge amount of time managing hand-made lists. Not scalable. I might be able to sort 1,000 people into lists by hand, but 100,000. Whoa. I need some help from... more... - Mitchell Tsai

Ahh, nothing like the insiders vs. the masses. I like comparing things to cars... Volvos might be pretty solid cars, yet do people go "OMG I sooooo want a Volvo!"? Fellow geeks, please learn the tradegy of the commons. Just cuz it's good, doesn't mean people want it. - Eric Rice

FF targets the wrong users! For some reason, I just find it hard to believe FF does not target publishers large and small in some ways, newspapers going out of business, it has very advanced feature set, however it wrongly serves the wrong audiences in many ways and should exit to target media companies, bloggers, newspapers, publishers and other groups. It's not built for the gossipy myspace crowd, it is targeted towards the wrong group adaptation in my opinion. - Jonathan Fleming

Good. The fact that everybody isn't using FF is the only reason I still use it, unlike FB and Twitter. Morons haven't taken over yet. - LAST DAY OF WORK

A mobile app for the iPhone would get me spend more time on FriendFeed - Bob Gannon

There are myriad of ways that Friendfeed can contribute to bottom lines i.e. monetisation. Smarties could be using Friendfeed for serious tribe building which is sales funnel basics, a private group for Brand Monitoring/Listening will reveal opportunities for the savvy, heck one could even use a private group as a continuity product. I could go on but Im sure you get the idea. If people can't see monetary value and other forms of currency in Friendfeed then, it might be worth a deeper look - Deano @ Byron New Media

I guess new users get invited to facebook, come to twitter and but mature users move to friendfeed. - Rohit

Friendfeed is the clear winner, in terms of who (whom!?) I'm interested in engaging with. - Hamilton Wallace

FF has many solid features, but it's not yet at critical mass to make it all work. - Rod

I love FF's features but, and I think this is the biggest problem you've hit on, the interface really needs work, it has no real connection to what your average user plays with online. The themes are pretty useless right now, what really needs to be done is moving some of the elements around. I still think that moving elements to the right of the content was a mistake and the loss of the pop-up window that was real-time in the old interface has really cut down my FF use. - Aram Zucker-Scharff

Here's an important factor some have eluded to. The FF web interface. It's one of the only web interfaces I actually go to. This and feedly are at the top. I use air apps for twitter, yammer and interact through other sites via email (only go there when I get an email.) the web interface (commenting) may need work, but it is a web interface that works. - SolidSmack

I stuck to my guns. The acquirer was wrong in this case, but I was right that FriendFeed would be acquired by someone (see my response to Bruce Lewis above, and where Robert said I was wrong). - Jesse Stay

"Paul wouldn't sell. Doesn't need to. And if he did the offer would be so wacky and based on the numbers FriendFeed isn't going to get a wacky bid this year. - Robert Scoble <--- I wish he had been right. - Rochelle

Louis Gray

Quick summary of #crunchup: Twitter Twitter Search Search TechCrunch Twitter Twitter Tags Search Realtime Twitter Facebook Twitter.

July 10 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jonathan Fleming, Adam Cohen, Daniel Rowley and 20 other people liked this

You forgot Seesmic. - Matt Ruiz

9 more comments

I heard: Twitter Facebook FriendFeed Other Twitter Facebook Twitter FriendFeed Twitter Other Other Twitter. - Kevin Fox

Wow, Kevin, you're on it. My mistake. - Louis Gray

you missed "stream" - Allen Stern

Nice summary :-) - Andy Bold

when I just hit the #crunchup hash tag, the search returned a few "view my sex tape" entries too, so it's got that going for it... - Ken Gidley

You missed mob, too - Michael Fidler

Yea, I was not that impressed. - Wizetux

hahahah - Bwana ☠

Wow, they mentioned Friendfeed? ::highfive:: - jcunwired

They better mention Friendfeed or one of the 'more influencial' guys might book outa there :) - Charlie Anzman

Robert Scoble

Did you catch Allen Stern of @centernetworks and CloudContacts on Building43? I love his business card scanning service. - http://www.building43.com/videos...

July 8 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff Delezen, Louis Gray, Tamar Weinberg and 12 other people liked this

Famous on FriendFeed too at http://friendfeed.com/allenst... - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

Thanks Robert!! - Allen Stern

Luke Krzysztofiak

Fleming Creative Group - The Story Through Design - http://www.flemingcreativegroup.com

July 2 from StumbleUpon - Comment - Like - Share

Jonathan Fleming liked this

among others, great graphic designers serving the real estate industry - Luke Krzysztofiak

Luke Krzysztofiak

Englewood 2 bed. - http://foreclosedchicago.blogspot.com/2009...

July 3 from ForeclosedChicago Blog - Comment - Like - Share

Jonathan Fleming liked this

Robert Scoble

I am walking around San Francisco checking out FriendFeed's Real Time Search, added today. Badass! My addiction continues...damn it!

July 2 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

Thierry R. Andriamirado, Brenda Young, Daniel Rowley and 71 other people liked this

Do you think this will be a feature that attracts any NEW users though? - Malcolm Bastien

37 more comments

Dont care, its awesome :p - Mark

Yes. This is a killer feature - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Would be sweet if Tweetdeck had a little window which you could set up the friendfeed search to constantly update. So every time someone mentioned Scoble etc on Friendfeed it pops up in that window in real time. - Mark

Robert, are you using it through the browser or is there an iPhone app for FriendFeed that I can't seem to find? - Joe Pruitt

http://friendfeed.com/search... You can see yourselves typing in this thread if you use the word Scoble - Mark

Yeah, it's badass. It really is. :-) - Chris Baskind

Yup. Very excited. - Johnny

Gotta persuade Loic to give us a little window to set up Friendfeed realtime search windows for our favourite tracking words in Seesmic DT - Mark

Malcolm: Well, now it matters a bit less how many you follow, as new users who set up a search would get a real time specific feed from the whole of friendfeed if they so choose. Instant gratification in a way I guess. - Thomas Bøhm

Robert Scoble: this is AWESOME: http://friendfeed.com/search... - Mark

Playing with it now. - Andrew

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... is the blog post about it. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

killer! - metalerik

Just want a tiny little window now in my twitter client so i can TRACK all the posts which contain the word "dave winer" for example. - Mark

True or false: "If FriendFeed was a woman... I'd hit it!" - Bas

wondering when any of this is going to appear in the API. Over in the FriendFeed API room the same question was asked and this is the response: "We're actively working on getting it to you Paul, thanks for your patience. - Casey Muller" -- so more waiting. - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

agree this is a killer feature. FriendFeed can now be used during events; the superior search function (compared to Twitter search: there I can only find tweets 15 days back+ not my whole history) will convert more twitter users IMO - Jeroen De Miranda

what kinda things do you search on Friendfeed? - PC Easy from twhirl

Give up, Scobleizer! You'll never escape! Never! - Bruce Lewis

PC Easy: support of an evetn, just added search for a web 2.0 event of the Municipality of Amsterdam to the blog http://www.amsterdam20.nl - next to a twitter fountain. As you can see, the twitter fountain only displays tweets; whereas in the FriendFeed search you can see and even replay the 12seconds.tv video clip! superior technolofy, plain and simple and very convincing now even for first time web 2.0 users! - Jeroen De Miranda

How is this one-week vacation from FriendFeed going? - Louis Gray

Not well. Things like this keep pulling me back in. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

it's an awesome feature. - Bill Kinney

Friendfeed has added one more distinct feature. - ashish

Interesting timing on FF's part, verrrrrry interesting... Resistance is futile, Scoble. - metalerik

Looks like they rushed it out in time for the conference at TC. They say on their blog they have more features to add in real time search but they are still in the oven right now. - Mark

I wonder will the friendfeed apps will get the same live search functionality? - ashish

How do I watch a real-time search for anything about Google or Android or Google Wave or ARM holdings or white spaces. I'd like to only see results liked by at least 1 other FriendFeed user, let me rate reliabillity of other friendfeed users, I want similar entries to be somehow grouped (could be something like TechMeme) so we can automatically combine all our discussions grouped entries somehow at one place (perhaps under the most relevant of the entries) - Charbax

Charbax: here's a search for "Google" or "Android" or "Google Wave" or "ARM holdings" with one like or more. You can't yet group entries. I hope FriendFeed really works on the duplication problem I'm seeing. http://friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Best yet. Just great stuff. - Charlie Anzman

oh ! yeah ! this really rooocks !! real time search ! awesome !! - Rocky

And the "Pop Out" option is a really cool feature - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Yes, the phrase "Pop It Out" is cool. - Louis Gray

Robert, I was able to use this feature and build a local FriendFeed on Steroids: http://friendfeed.com/lph... - LPH™ and his dog P™

Can we filter by language somehow in advanced search? - Svartling from iPhone

In PeopleBrowsr you can get your saved friendfeed searches in "near" realtime :) - Svartling from iPhone

There goes blogging...... again. - Roberto Bonini

I'm very excited about this feature and it adds more value for addicts like me - Michael_techie

Christine Kerner

Monterey blues festival...awesome!

June 27 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jonathan Fleming liked this

Robert Scoble

Exploring the 2010 Web - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

May 16 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Rowley, Franz Binder, christoph richter and 91 other people liked this

My blog's new design is up: http://scobleizer.com -- more to come soon as I have more fun with my blog again now that it's hosted on a Rackspace server. Thank you to Vid Luther at Rackspace for helping me get it up and running. - Robert Scoble

97 more comments

lovely Robert but not very unique. I just mean, isn't it based on a fairly popular wordpress theme? - Zee.

Zee: yes, it is. It's the Thesis theme, which is very nice. Great SEO, great foundation. I will be adding more personality to it over time. - Robert Scoble

I like it Robert. Simple yet elegant. :) I recomend trying out the wptouch plugin for a mobile-friendly layout. - Daynah

Surprised you went with Thesis. I was beginning to think it was too old school now that everyone is using it. - Dickie Maxx

I don't want it to be unique right now. I wanted to tear it back down to the basics. Plus, most people read me in an RSS reader anyway so the design doesn't matter that much (or you'll see my posts here on friendfeed or Twitter or Facebook and then you just want to be able to read the damn thing when you get there. - Robert Scoble

It's very plain but professional, it makes you focus on the content more than anything else. - Ahmed

Dickie: it works, which is why everyone is using it. - Robert Scoble

i love the thesis theme, dont get me wrong but i just think someone of your stature should have something custom built or heavily modified to suit you. But that's just me - Zee.

You sometimes produces some great matter worth reading it :) I like Robert too ;) - Mohammad Abdurraafay

Zee: what, the friendfeed component isn't enough custom? Heheh. - Robert Scoble

when i have some time, i'm going to put together a design for ya i reckon. Because although you're not a startup, you do deserve your own scobleized design...something that no one else has - Zee.

Zee: I'm open to it. Now that I understand what's going on in all the pieces I'm more open to playing around. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I like the general concept but I'd like to see a dark frame around the page, instead of the whitish one you tossed in. Second thing I'd use, is the "read-more" break that sends readers into the post instead of reading the entire article in the front page. IMO it's annoying to have such a long Home page. - Nir Ben Yona

its very simple..yet very readable. I like it :) - Saad Kamal

but don't get me wrong, i love the thesis theme - but i just think, as it is and considering who you are, you need something more unique - Zee.

Hey, I love the whitespaces....that's what makes me read blogs.... - Manu Srikumar

Nir: see, that's where I disagree. Most of my readers come from Google Reader, twitter, friendfeed, or later, from search engines like Google. If you are coming there to read a single article you don't want to have to click through. I +HATE+ that about TechCrunch. I assumed they did it to get more page views. I don't care about page views. - Robert Scoble

10 Ways to Customize Thesis and Enhance Your Blog http://tinyurl.com/dkgko8 ;) - Ahmed

It works for what it does: "Inform, Educate and Markets Your Passion" dont worry about design, you can freak it out later on with a flashy design or light colors. Thesis is very flexible, easy and you can create some serious new layout in time. I read you via Google Reader, so most time, I never to blog site anyways, keep experimenting, Tiger Woods broke his great swing to create a new one too, congrats - Jonathan Fleming

Zee: Interesting I would have thought the other way, because who he is that Robert doesnt nee something flashy. Me on the other hand I need something to wow people. - Dickie Maxx

Clean design. Needs a mobile or iPhone viewing option. Also wondered if too many posts showing on frontpage (this might be a consequence if accessing through an iPhone). - http://andrew-long.name

I use Thesis for most of my blogs - from highly customised http://www.websitedoctor.com/ to uncustomised http://sportcrazy.net/ - it's a great theme. I love using hooks - Alastair McDermott

Nice and simple. But it must be way past your bed time. Get some sleep - Tim Child

Hi Robert, i think it works for what you want it for, all your posts and all your updates and social spaces ... i think it works. The only thing i would say is that the social spaces section should fit inside the themes top lines. :) - clairestokoe

By the way, if you didn't catch the Real Time Search panel discussion I linked to there, you should watch that. Very interesting stuff is cooking in that field. - Robert Scoble

"by ADMIN", Robert? And the other articles say 'by on'! Aren't you supposed to be a tech guru? ;) - Shéa Bennett

I like the clean look, but the page is LOOOOOONG and takes a while to load. Maybe a prolific (micro-)blogger like you should go with more of a "newspaper" (or is it "magazine"?) layout (a là Feedly) that highlights articles and topics better. - Grey Drane

Shea: oh, crap. I forgot to log in as myself. Sigh. - Robert Scoble

Grey: most of my posts aren't so long as this one. - Robert Scoble

No, but the page shows a whole long list of full-text posts. - Grey Drane

Mature, newspaperish, classic, back to basics. I do like your previous theme more; the one with you and the camera at the top. - Tomi Itkonen

Grey: I just changed it to only display three posts. Thanks. - Robert Scoble

Personally, I don't like lime green (any citrus colours) with that much white. Layout-wise, I like wider rather than narrow. Otherwise, fine. And the link in this post's title can't be found - http://scobleizer.com/2009... - Mark H

Tomi: I'm going to introduce another banner photo. I will have Guy Kawaski shoot one of me on the Nimitz. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, it loads fast enough for me but excerpts are usually preferable to full articles on the front page. They should be long enough to get your interested in seeing how it finishes, but loads of front-page text can be off-putting. - Shéa Bennett

I'd love to see a live webcam of your browser in the right side - showing how you flip through content as you search for interesting ideas, play on FF, etc - LPH™ and his dog P™

I'm still seeing 10 full-length articles on the front page (not three). - Shéa Bennett

Robert: you got me right, I was referring to TC style, but I do hear ya on this one. That said, you should consider customizing the Thesis, I really liked the previous header [Edit: just noticed you're going to replace the banner photo after all]. - Nir Ben Yona

Shea: it should be three now, sorry. Mark, what link can't be found? It works here. Nir: I will bring back a header soon. - Robert Scoble

No header please Robert. I like the simplicity. - LPH™ and his dog P™

Looks simple and readable. But i read your blog posts in a rss reader - Shuuro

Robert: It's the link in your original post - "Exploring the 2010 web" - I just get "Page not found" and "Sorry, no posts matched your criteria..." - Mark H

Mark, weird. Here that links to this page which works for me: http://scobleizer.com/2009... - Robert Scoble

Clean, streamlined, classic. With utmost respect to Shea, I prefer full articles on blogs with one primary author. I'm there to read a person's perspectives, not browse like a news service. The "by" is reading Admin, which I'd change to Robert...a little more personal. :) Other than that I like the simplicity. Oh, and also like the '2010 Web' theme. Indicates forward thinking without seeming too bandwagon-y - AllisonWagda

Allison: I just changed that, should be working its way through the system now. - Robert Scoble

Allison, you don't think a lot of text can be off-putting, particularly if the first (lead) article is of no interest, and you have to wade down a lot of text/paragraphs to find the next one? I think the excerpt should deliver the hook, and you click through to read more, personally. Each to their own, I guess. :) - Shéa Bennett

Noticed you're posting as "Admin" -- should change that. Otherwise, looking great! - Christopher Golda

Great, then no complaints from here (at least from my 3 a.m. blurry eyes) - AllisonWagda

Its minimalistic and cool. - Zoran Vuletic

Robert, weird indeed. Tried with three browsers (and IE7 didn't like that error page at all - theme not working right there) and they all report the same. Maybe a transparent proxy somewhere along my route to your site. - Mark H

Nice and clean Robert I like it - Jim Lyons

I wish the friendfeed Widget wrapped comments better and also showed my likes and comments on other people's posts. - Robert Scoble

Oh, and I got rid of the green photo. Hope that makes someone happy. :-) - Robert Scoble

Shea, you're totally right, It can be off-putting - especially if you're looking to browse headlines and have to scroll endlessly. Maybe my opinion depends on how often he expects to blog. If more than 2 per day, I could be swayed to your side. If 1-2 per day, I'd rather have it served straight than have to click through to read the rest :) - AllisonWagda

nice clean design but right hand column would look even better if everything was the same width - Anita Hunt

Allison: I would expect to be one to five times a day, with bias toward one post a day. - Robert Scoble

The Facebook Connect feature by Sociable is a neat idea. I might have to look into that. - Shéa Bennett

I'll try to fix the widths in the morning. - Robert Scoble

I found it nice but a bit generic for u. Can I still push for an hand of a light gray on the background? Your profile pic, top right could be more "american". About this latter some Twitter background could inspire :-) - Daniele Beta

Robert: It's possible to get those FF comments in the widget to wrap (as they do with the "likes") -- look at the CSS for .friendfeed.widget .feed .entry .comment - Christopher Golda

Christopher: hmm, I gotta play with the CSS more. I tried playing around with it and couldn't get it to wrap right, but must not have nailed it. - Robert Scoble

Then my vote, FWIW, is for keeping the continuous posts - AllisonWagda

Robert: You have to "overwrite" FriendFeed's CSS for that selector -- specifically the white-space: nowrap. Hope that helps - Christopher Golda

Displaying three to five posts is a good compromise. - Nir Ben Yona

there's more about you than the stuff in the sidebar, your tv stuff, bldg 43 stuff, wikipedia link, etc. am not sure where is the best place to put all that - Tweet Feeds

Tweet: yeah, I'll keep tweaking it and making it simpler/nicer. Thanks to you and everyone for all the feedback! - Robert Scoble

how do you get the disqus comments to show up on FF? - Tweet Feeds

The fact that "It's all you" (minus "your tv stuff, bldg 43 stuff, wikipedia link, etc." as noted above) without bells and whistles is a breath of fresh air in a world where we're marketed to death by brands comnsuming every inch of space. But isn't web simplicity so 1994? (I jest.) - Kim

Kim: hey, they had SOME good ideas back in 1994. :-) - Robert Scoble

Tweet: Disqus is one of the services that friendfeed supports. You've got to add the service to your profile. Click "add/edit" on top of your page. - Robert Scoble

A rock solid header banner and a custom color detail (such as a border) is all you need to add to Thesis. Keep it white. Way to go! - E-Advocate Network

Wait have you not gotten to sleep yet Robert? - Mark Essel

Mark: right, I'm off to bed now. See ya! - Robert Scoble

hehehe, gnight - Mark Essel

Time for me to track down those widgets, too bad you can't have mini interactive friendfeed windows on your blog - Mark Essel

Robert: quick fix for "Admin" posts in Wordpress: Add New User: Robert, full admin rights, logout, login as Robert, Delete User: Admin, assign all posts to user Robert, done. Buy @AMcDermott beer. - Alastair McDermott

Alastair: I just renamed the Admin account to Robert Scoble. Seems to have worked. Did I miss one? - Robert Scoble

Robert: that's another way to do it - your userid is still admin, my way would have removed that (security by almost zero obscurity) ;) - Alastair McDermott

Robert: you also avoid having to buy me beer :( - Alastair McDermott

I like the simplicity; white space is good. Now you need to help the rest of us by, say, turn features such as your FriendFeed setup into WordPress plugins. And I fully agree on the choice of Thesis for a theme; great flexibility. - Jim Courtney

Note to self, switching blog will cost me a night of sleep someday - Mark Essel

Mark: switching to a self-hosted blog running on a good framework is a good investment of time; future proofing yourself - Alastair McDermott

I've been thinking about using the Thesis theme and growing up my blog from there. I like it! About Rackspace, I probably wouldn't need it for something as small as me eh?! I've been considering it, but like I've mentioned, I'm not that big! =) Nice setup. - Elijah Nicolas

You say that building the 2010 web is still too hard for average folks, but what about turn-key "bundles" like ning? - Dr. Headcrash

Wordpress is written in PHP, not Python ;-) - Jesse Stay

Love Thesis. Great theme, great SEO. VERY customizable. Can't wait to see what you do with it. - Bob Linger

Sup Scoble, the theme you've choosed looks a lot like the one i use in my blog, simple, clean and functional. I liked it. By the way, i see you're using the friendfeed widget. A few months ago i've coded for myself a wp plugin that connects to ff api and build a widget from your feed much like that one, with the advantage that's SEO friendly, easier to customize the style and with more... more... - Diego Sana

I thought Disqus would integrate with FriendFeed but perhaps not? There are 90+ comments in here on FriendFeed and only 30 comments in Disqus on the blog? Shouldn't Disqus synchronize both the blog and the FriendFeed thread? - Charbax

Charbax: good point. I need to figure out how to do that. I think Disqus only integrates them if you've added Disqus to your friendfeed account. - Robert Scoble

Quiet, clean, subtle design, not sure it's you, but let us get used to it :) - Michael Metz

mimetz: it's not very personalized, but it does work great on an iPhone! :-) - Robert Scoble

Looks really good on the iPhone, - Hunter

The new design is clean and "textual". Nice! - Rick Cogley

The only think I don't like in your new blog look is the Google Friend Connect bar in the bottom. - Miguel Caetano

I have a 1024 x 768 screen. The blog appears to be set up for a widescreen display. If I zoom out to where it fits on the screen horizontally, the text is too small to read. Sites that require that I either scroll horizontally to read, or adjust both the page zoom and the text zoom separately I often pass on by. - Chuck Baggett

nice! i love thesis - andy brudtkuhl

yeah, thesis is a good one... congrats, looks good - Peter Efland

Ground-breaking article, Robert. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. - Franz Binder

Brian Hogg

So if McCan loses next month, will he try again in 2012? Will it be a Palin/McCain ticket?

October 6, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jonathan Fleming liked this

How old will he be? - Jonathan Fleming from twhirl

Dave Winer

"John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes." http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archive...

September 10, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Cee Bee, Ayşe E., Bora Zivkovic and 8 other people liked this

Whatever you say sweetie. - Morgan Warstler

4 more comments

Let Pain have her 15 minutes of fame, it ends soon! :) LOL - Jonathan Fleming from twhirl

i smell desperation - anna sauce

Let's give the old white guys a chance. It isn't like they've had an opportunity to... oh. Right. - stretta from twhirl

Why is the attack ad about sex-ed an incident of race-baiting? - Chester

@Morgan love thy "sweety", brother / been to Samaria? @Chester it is a program designed to teach children how to identify/protect against those who may exhibit molester-like behavior or otherwise act inappropriately with children ... perhaps that provides context? - Scott Moskowitz

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