I've always wondered why something which seemed like an obvious "push" service (content updates) was handled using a "pull" protocol. I guess when RSS was developed, the fallout from Marimba made any sort of push service unappealing. - Denton Gentry
Does Jeff think that, had stackoverflow been avaliable, it would help him build stackoverflow? I first heard this from the Chandler dev that kept saying that the perfect app to organise the project would have been Chandler. I think its an intersting question in terms of the quality of the product. A product THAT useful is worth it. - Roberto Bonini
Great question, Roberto. Writing it down. - Jon Galloway
I was going to start that hundredpushups thing this week, but my wrists have been giving me trouble lately. hundredjumpingjacks! - Jon Galloway
My wrists are bad so I did pushups on my knuckles. I failed the pushup per day challenge, but I really need to try the hundredpushups thing. - Matt Casto via bTT
So sad to read. Pandora is an awesome service, and a great part of internet radio. Independent net radio is still going strong and always will. This..just makes you sad. - Candace Holly
Crap. I'm pulling for you, Pandora!! I can't imagine re-bookmarking all of those songs and artists someplace else. The time it took to build up the small-ish library I already have... Oh, the thought of it. :-( - Lisa L. Seifert
I'm trying to stop hyperventilating at the thought of losing Pandora. WTF? "SoundExchange, the organization that represents performers and record companies, said it supports the higher royalties for Internet radio because musicians deserve a bigger cut of Internet radio profits." - Jeanine Walters
I wasn't aware of the different royalty rates. Not sure if Pandora is posturing. If Pandora shuts down, then Universal will win, since last.fm will become de facto standard. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
The level of stupidity at Sound Exchange defies belief. Why don't musicians deserve a bigger cut of terrestrial radio profits? They hate net radio because they don't understand it and don't control it, and a combination of ignorant, stupid and corrupt politicians gave them a way to kill it. So now they can go back to the safe little world they know and control. Damn it, I wouldn't know or care who John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, Derek Trucks or Jason Mraz were if not for things like Pandora and Last.fm. - Brian Norwood
Brian, I totally agree with you but it's not stupidity that drives Sound Exchange it's greed. Obviously the relative success of Pandora to attract a large audience spells dollar signs for a music industry that is seeing terrestrial radio die a slow death and CD sales plummet. - Jennifer Van Grove
It's greed yes, but also stupidity. Anyone knows a reasonable piece of pie is better than no pie at all. Pandora PAYS them MONEY. Why throw that away? - Brian Norwood
"As for Pandora, its royalty fees this year will amount to 70 percent of its projected revenue of $25 million, Westergren said, a level that could doom it and other Web radio outfits." - yuck.... Now imaging if the revenue could be split directly between Pandora and the artists.... - Tim Hoeck
I've bought a TON of music based on what I heard on Pandora, music that I would have never known about (and thus never purchased) without Pandora. I can't believe how shortsighted the music industry is. - David Worrell
Greed and stupidity both. Indeed. I'm also bothered by the fact that the person trying to broker the deal is the "Congressman from Hollywood", the media companies' best friend, Howard Berman - Didi Chanoch
Yeah, I too have found new music to buy based on Pandora. They shouldn't be paying anywhere near what broadcasters pay per song. Think about it, Pandora sends songs to individual customers. Broadcasters send songs to hundreds of thousands to millions of customers at once. Why is Pandora being forced to pay way more than broadcasters? It doesn't make sense. It is sheer stupidity for the content owners to do this to internet radio as it's probably one of the few bright spots for music right now. - Alex Scoble
This is sad. Pandora is such a great idea and the music industry is going to kill it. These assholes just don't get it. I like Pandora because I can find artists I never heard of - something you'll never be able to do with traditional radio. The music industry is once again shooting itself in the foot. - PC Easy via twhirl
I'll never understand, Citadel and Clear Channel get to syndicate the music all over the country for free, get to rake in billions in advertising, and they are helping the artist? Pandora and the likes who rake in enough to stay afloat, hardly advertise, rarely profit from playing music, and actually DO help the artist by exposing us to stuff we'd never otherwise be exposed to, and they are punished and get charged million$. Soundexchange should be paying Pandora for all the exposure! - cmiper
Greed is making the record company folks shoot themselves in the foot (oh wait, PC Easy said that). How many of us find and then BUY new music because of Pandora or Last.fm? I'd wager that number is high. Lose the free music, lose the ensuing purchases. Dumbasses. - William Harryman
The last 5 or so music purchases I have made were through either Social Media introduction to the band...Last.fm, Myspace, and Pandora, or I bought because the artist got the money, not the music store, not the record co, etc. I got sick of hearing how little the artists actually made on a sale, how much fluff was on a full length CD for only one good track, how inflated the cost of CDs were, and listening to the RIAA tell us that WE are the ones hurting the artists. - cmiper
Also, remember about 10 or so years back, when the record COs wanted to penalize the sale of used CDs by tagging on a royalty fee? It should have been apparent then that they were out of control. - cmiper
I think it was apparent, but how do you stop a rabid dog? Too many people are trying to be reasonable with BigMusic instead of regulating them into the ground. It's a shame most corporations can't just be happy to be making a healthy profit--they scream the minute they find they aren't getting every thin dime they could possibly get. They're not like sharks. Sharks die. - thepete
Also, I've heard all sorts of absurd rumors about that Sound Exchange group, too--like they collect royalties on *all* music, even if the music is from an independent artist--so if you're the musician, you have to sign with them to get your money. Anyone know if this is this true? - thepete
Pandora is the best. :'( They've been saying this is a big problem for some time now. I really don't think it's posturing. - Tanath
@Tanath, the "double the fee" law would go into effect in another year and a half. That is what they are in panic mode over. - cmiper
I've been a huge fan of Pandora since it started, I've bought a great deal of music because of Pandora, I use Pandora to organize much of my music, and I am going to be extremely angry if some Old Media ignoramuses who don't understand new technologies manage to force Pandora's shutdown. (Yet again, I am also taking note that cloud computing is highly unstable and unreliable. Mediamax went under. Now Pandora?) - Sean McBride
What can be done to help... I can't imagine music without Pandora - it's how I discover new bands. - Vince DeGeorge
@William, it is an interesting and great POV, though sadly, I think Sound Exchange would see it more of a victory than a self inflicted shot to the foot. - cmiper
@cmiper, yeah, I suspect you are right. Too bad. - William Harryman
It really is too bad. I think if all of the sites that are playing/paying the rules right now made a concerted effort, they could shake things up, but I can't see it happening. Last.fm, Pandora, Anywhere.fm, Deezer, Jango, and a few others I am sure I am missing, if they all drew a line in the sand and said "we will pay X amount or nothing...radio is radio, none of it should be treated any different than the other"...they could put SE in check. - cmiper
nooo! They can't do this! My job already blocked my Muxtape access today, too. - Kamilah Gill
The go to guy on all things internet radio is my pal Kurt Hanson. If you are interested in the real behind the scenes stuff on internet radio check out his online newsletter. http://bit.ly/PvMED - Dave Martin
Yegge posts are created by a Markov generator on old Joel On Software posts and Reddit threads. 10 pagedowns and no images? - Jon Galloway
TLDR. I tried. Would've preferred something with substance towards the top instead of a lame story about how the article came about. Get into it already! - Paul Whitaker
Yeah, they're long, but I like Yegge's posts. There is a conversational humor to them. - Denton Gentry
I'd love to see a reblog site that just summarized Yegge's long posts. Maybe it could be automated, who knows. LucidYegge.com? - Jon Galloway
The reason I say this is that the adoption curve for Twitter, well took a while. Friendfeed adoption curve is steeper, with more folks coming on faster. Early micromedia adoption from twitter paved the way for FF to quickly take off. I'd guess that if FF came before Twitter, adoption would have been slower. Your thoughts? - Jeremiah Owyang
Jeremiah, I think you're right. For all its troubles (which seem to be under control now), Twitter was the trail blazer. I wouldn't be using any social media if it weren't for Twitter. - Gregory Pittman
I think the migration pattern is more interesting.. why have many Twitter users moved over to FF .. secondly what is the 'stickiness' factor of Twitter. The core philosophy of twitter was- what you doing.Whereas, with FF its feed me interesting stuff. Like Scobles sez, smart people are on FF, does that mean smart people are not on Twitter ? Nope, it just means that different methods for different people. IS/was Twitter a gateway to FF, in a way Yes. But, on the other hand new comers to Twitter see a post in - Peter Dawson
<cont> inbound from FF and then are sucked into FF. Remember, there is not much you express in 140 char. - Peter Dawson
Totally agree. Twitter alone didn't hook me, but combined w/ ff, did. Related thought - how does Twitter differ from kids relentlessly changing chat client status messages? I've seen those get to 140 characters or more too (for those that have seen how teens use chat) - Kim Mahan
Peter, I don't think it's a migration. Twitter will co-exist. The fact of the matter is Friendfeed is an aggregator, it sits on top as an overlay. (although some conversations have completely shifted over here) - Jeremiah Owyang
Each person has a different experience with twitter and ff, so I don't think this is a universal truth. For my part, I'm fascinated by twitter and bored with ff. I think the constraints of twitter are part of what make it more fun -- as well as the additional visuals -- peoples' faces, choices of backgrounds, etc. My ff is analytical, and twitter is whimsical. I expect the flavorings of these otherwise similar services (not limited to these 2) to continue to specialize and for distinct cultures to emerge. - Ruth Kaufman
That has to be the best explanation of the transition I have ever heard. - Rob Diana
the "gateway drug" in a concoction that can be made with many "social" ingredients. Twitter is almost always a key part of that recipe. - Kevin Sablan via twhirl
I'm new to all this, but I think Friendfeed is really phenomenal. The discussions and the content all in one easy to digest thread. I'm really enjoying it here and I am looking forward to making more friends so I can feed. - Jonathan
gateway drug my ass ... show me the MONEY trail ... on friend the user is the broadcaster-content provider-distributor (with club-like access restricted rooms)-MIDDLEMAN... Sad but true Friendfreed makes it clear that there is no disintermediation! Friendfeed make you the middle - whose monetization? Let's see how that works out for US - reintermediation as user- generators of units of bandwidth/relevance !!! The gateway is the speed of payment & velocity of fees by payment companies !!! trade bandwidth !!! - Mad Inchina
Gateway Drug -- a great line! I think the addition of the 'Share with note' feature in Google Reader was the gateway for me. I had very few friends using Google Reader (ouch!) but loved finally being able to share and comment on the stuff I was reading. I was hooked on FF immediately. My Google Reader use has dropped quite a bit. - Richard Crocker
I went hardcore straight away, and still I feel it's not "hard" enough for me: e.g. why comments are not treated just like posts (I want to like/reshare/comment-on a comment to), why you can't follow reshares of a post, etc. I guess I'll have to write something "as soon as I marry my daughters" (to borrow a phrase from my mom) - The Dod
Thetes a story in Dreaming in Code of how the Chandler dev team used stickie notes on a whiteboard to plan future release features. Took most of the board and the windows. They wrote a big DO NOT ERASE sign. Why, for all our technology, do we continue to fall back on whiteboards time and time again? - Roberto Bonini
Imabonehead - that wouldn't help here in the South-West where most of the folks in the cleaning staff don't read English. Most places, however, have a strict no-erasing whiteboards policy. - Tad Donaghe
I used to work at a financial company where the cleaning staff once cleaned *all* the whiteboards, including the CIO's. Confusion reigned for a few days. - Jon Galloway
