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karl dotter › Likes
@mintylewis i love serving ants on a log at parties. great icebreaker, hard to act cool eating celery.
karl dotter liked this
NYT on confusion over how Kiva loans work - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
karl dotter liked this
nonprofits carefully balancing effective marketing and donor expectations
- Andy Baio
wireframing time saver - helveticons vector icons, glyphs and symbols based on helvetica typeface http://helveticons.ch/
karl dotter liked this
THE LAST DAYS OF THE POLYMATH - http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content...
Maxamad, Sean Kelly, я был в лесу and 41 other people liked this
"The monomaths do not only swarm over a specialism, they also play dirty. In each new area that Posner picks—policy or science—the experts start to erect barricades. “Even in relatively soft fields, specialists tend to develop a specialised vocabulary which creates barriers to entry,” Posner says with his economic hat pulled down over his head. “Specialists want to fend off the generalists. They may also want to convince themselves that what they are doing is really very difficult and challenging. One of the ways they do that is to develop what they regard a rigorous methodology—often mathematical. “The specialist will always be able to nail the generalists by pointing out that they don’t use the vocabulary quite right and they make mistakes that an insider would never make. It’s a defence mechanism. They don’t like people invading their turf, especially outsiders criticising insiders."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
There is definitely a place for polymaths in some form: someone needs to be that people-person guy from Office Space who takes information from two or more disparate groups to form a coherent picture. But the requirement of an agreed lexicon from specialists isn't a defense mechanism: there's a lot of time that can be spent on trying to flesh out terms which could be better spent...
more...
- Mark Trapp
I do think there is a tendency for specialists to overcomplicate things though. Even though I know quite a bit about computers, I still don't know what people are talking about half of the time (and it usually turns out to be something simple). Making up fancy terms makes the work seem so much more magical and important, like you're on the Star Trek or something. Now go realign the tachyon beams with the anti-matter stabilizers :)
- Paul Buchheit
Haha. My background is in philosophy, where everything one can talk about probably has an -ism or a -ness or a -itude attached to it. The terms lock out people who only dabble in the hard problems, but they are great shorthand for those who are versed in it. Descartes writes about a philosophy of mind in his Meditations on First Philosophy, and a bunch of people over the course of 300...
more...
- Mark Trapp
Me likey
- Michael Ehline
"The question is whether their loss has affected the course of human thought. Polymaths possess something that monomaths do not. Time and again, innovations come from a fresh eye or from another discipline. Most scientists devote their careers to solving the everyday problems in their specialism. Everyone knows what they are and it takes ingenuity and perseverance to crack them. But breakthroughs—the sort of idea that opens up whole sets of new problems—often come from other fields."
- Clare Dibble
The problem with specialization is that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Then if you encounter a screw, and hammering a screw is precisely the wrong thing to do. That's why you need generalists.
- Piaw Na
it's axiomatic that: a specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until he finally knows everything about nothing
- Ervin
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A Heinlein
- Bill de hÓra
I have to disagree with you Mark, as also having a background in philosophy, I find it is just as easy to get locked into a semantic argument about some term as it is a possible shortcut to a broader discussion. Most of time time I find people who throw around -isms would prefer not to discuss things deeply because they don't want to ever re-evaluate the basics, it's too frightening,...
more...
- Ňicķ
Michael Bierut is my favorite speaker/designer, bar none. http://the99percent.com/videos... (via @scanna283)
karl dotter liked this
First, FriendFeed is _not_ going away. (in fact, we're working on switching it to new servers) Second, I know everyone wants to know what the team is working on, but we don't pre-announce things, so for now all I can say is that there's good stuff on the way. Re: http://friendfeed.com/jworthi...
Dallas Cao, Tsali, The Native of FF, Nick Uva and 316 other people liked this
I know that doesn't answer everyone's questions, but I hope it helps.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, working on friendfeed.com stuff or facebook.com?
- Kol Tregaskes
I like the first sentence. The rest is just gravy.
- Derek Coward
I'm totally happy if we just reside on decent servers, and get occasional IT help... We'll keep the rest of the ship running :)
- Christopher Galtenberg
Paul - is that why it's been slower lately vs.pre-fb ?
- Allen Stern
Paul please repeat it in re-phrased form: Friendfeed is NOT going to repeat destiny of Jaiku? Y/N
- A.T.
*processing statement...*
- Micah Wittman
Can't wait... **Fingers tapping desk impatiently**
- AJ Batac
But what does "going away" mean, Paul? And what does "team" mean? And when you say "pre-announce", are you talking about the Palm Pre?
- Ken Sheppardson
Allen, the slowness is due to growth (more users and more data), but I put in a few fixes yesterday that should speed things up a bit.
- Paul Buchheit
thanks paul
- Allen Stern
Paul, sometimes when I open up threads I get the Opps... error. Is that related? It has been happening more and more these last few days.
- Kol Tregaskes
Still better than twitter and facebook. Thanks for the update!
- Mike Nencetti
Paul, thanks for the incredible work with FriendFeed. Please, keep it alive! and most importantly keep it FriendFeed!
- Ciro
as long as FF doesn't go dark or fall to pieces due to lack of maintenance, i think most ppl would be appeased.
- Joe Silence is not dead
Does this mean that the sky is not falling and we should stop running around screaming GODZILLA! and pointing in the direction of FB?
- Moved to Facebook
from fftogo
also, thank you for making such a great service in the first place!
- Joe Silence is not dead
Paul: Did you see http://www.thetechnewsblog.com/2009... & can you understand why it got so many people talking / blogging?
- Jim Connolly
I second that!!
- Kol Tregaskes
Thanks Paul.
- CW™
Always nice to hear Paul talking about Friendfeed.
- ashish
Thanks Paul for the update.
- Roberto Bonini
Thanks for the update! Would like to know if there will be actual development done on FriendFeed in the future (other than bug fixes/minor updates) but I understand if you can't really talk about that too much.
- Brandon Titus
Paul: so still no answer from you as to if your 'good stuff' is being developed for FB or FF? The silence suggests it's FaceBook you're working on, or at least transferring FF into an 'add on' for Facebook?
- Jim Connolly
Kol, fb platform and openness, primarily.
- Paul Buchheit
David Recordon FTW
- Jesse Stay
i made a post here - http://www.centernetworks.com/friendf... - one interesting note - maybe FB keeps FF running nice and smooth to keep the early adopters happy as it's a great way to get new features out to them via this channel... just a thought.
- Allen Stern
Wow. I've had to eat my words before but these are the best-tasting ones yet!
- Akiva Moskovitz
from BuddyFeed
Akiva, just add salt. You know which kind :)
- Micah Wittman
I'm anxiously waiting for FF->FB Platform integration (drools...)
- Jesse Stay
These are the best words I could have expected by Paul. There is obviously a cultural difference between the two platforms and audience and I'm assuming both the former FF team and the FB team recognize that and are sensitive to the community. Thank you Paul and I hope you are feeling better....
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Allen, you're in good company on that thought - there were musings on that concept right after the buyout.
- Micah Wittman
Damn, 20+ likes within a matter of 2 minutes.
- Maxamad
When the leader speaks, everyone listens.... :-)
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
I feel a few "I told you so's" coming though... :-)
- Jesse Stay
Thanks Paul. Glad you're working on maintaining/improving performance. I've definitely seen issues here. Looking forward towards your influence and changes over at the blue giant.
- Mark Krynsky
Paul - thank you for letting us know, and I do hope you feel better!
- Jennifer Dittrich
The big question though is will FriendFeed continue to add new features? There's a difference between that and it going away. (and hence my argument w/ Scoble the other day)
- Jesse Stay
Paul: Seriously weird that you're there reading this, and totally ignoring each relevant, yes no question. No one's asking you to pre announce anything - just genuinely concerned (and increasingly so) that they do NOT include developing for FF.
- Jim Connolly
Jesse +1
- Jim Connolly
I for one want to say: I'm excited!
- Jorge Escobar
Jesse: Paul answers that question - BOOM - rumour mill dies and we finally get something positive to say. Ya know what - we won;t get an answer though. He's reading this, he knows the answer, but he won't.
- Jim Connolly
Jesse: For now, FF has more features than any other platform for this type of niche. There's some catching up to do before I'm worried about new features.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
AWESOME!! Thanks for helping to quell some concerns Paul. Looking forward to what comes next, but hope that FF never dissappears also.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
Shouldn't we be asking the facebook guys, and let Paul keep working? Or is he wearing many hats (friendfeed head honcho and facebook openess builder)?
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Paul: I'm right, right? There's something stopping you from saying that you are no longer adding new features to what 'we' know as Friendfeed?
- Jim Connolly
Not for nothing, but I took my friendfeed embed off my tiny blog for a few weeks after the facebook buy out. There was just this empty spot on my eyesore of a website, so I put the embed back. We care because we like the connections we've made here and don't want to lose them. It's personal for us to.
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Paul: Amazing how quickly you guys have adopted the Facebook attitude to silence. Pity.
- Jim Connolly
Paul: blink twice if you will add new features to FF. I won't tell anyone, honest.
- Edward Zwart
FWIW he did just upgrade servers. My e-mail notifications are almost real-time. Sounds to me like they're still improving the service.
- Jesse Stay
Jim: Don't blame Paul on that, it's not fair. He's only allowed to say so much at this point but I'm very satisfied on what he said.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Jesse: The questions not if they keep the servers running - we want to know if this is a dead platform.
- Jim Connolly
Jim: in Paul's defense Facebook's PR is more controlling than FriendFeed's was. I'm sure he's having to consider the effects his words will have on other people inside Facebook. But, I'm VERY HAPPY that Paul is here giving us hints as to what's coming. I wish it had happened six weeks ago so we wouldn't have lost so many people, but maybe that would happen anyway.
- Robert Scoble
Jim, there may be a few new things, but as I said, the team is mainly working on fb platform and openness, so it's unlikely that there will be any big new features of ff (except maybe one that I've been thinking about for a while...).
- Paul Buchheit
Did the Walrus think about Feed Splicing? :-)
- Robert Scoble
Paul: Finally - THAT'S what we were wondering.
- Jim Connolly
Cool Dude: Need it to have a classier forum than the parent; Parent is still good but the options here make it just a bit nicer.
- ThatDBD
Paul: Pity. At least we now know not to expect any developments or improvements. Thanks for answering the question. Whilst it confirmed my fears, it's good to know what's happening.
- Jim Connolly
Johnny said it nicely here: http://www.johnnyworthington.com/...
- Mark Essel
I have no problem with FB integration (notice my drool above). Hoping for good friend conversion tools to bring subscribers over as friends or fans on Facebook from FriendFeed. (Connect.registerUsers FTW!)
- Jesse Stay
Jim: I'd modify "any" to "many."
- Robert Scoble
As a result - Jim has left the platform.
- Jim Connolly
Jim: this is a change from last week, by the way. My sources were telling me that we weren't going to get any new features and now Paul is refuting that and saying we might get one new feature here.
- Robert Scoble
I'm still drooling - anyone have a towel?
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: I'll buy you a virtual one over on Ning.
- Robert Scoble
personally, i would be happy just to have FF not fall apart and die. given the post-acquisition situation, anything beyond that is gravy!
- Joe Silence is not dead
Robert, I heard Ning is dead - care to send me one on Facebook? ;-)
- Jesse Stay
Robert, think of it as 20% time. If there's a feature I want, I'll just add it :)
- Paul Buchheit
Thank you for the clarification, Paul, and hope you are feeling better.
- WorldofHiglet
a communication channel that will be around and getting improved no matter what happens, our blogs :D I'll be commenting on yours Jim. 20%, that's a helluva light better than 0%, that's actually much more than I expected. Could we crowd source funding to buy you more %?
- Mark Essel
Even if there no new features in Friendfeed, I am happy with Friendfeed just staying on.
- ashish
how many users are there on friendfeed is there any chance we could buy it out (and get a full time dev staff back)? This platform rules, the dev team is incredible (albeit on facebook stuff now).
- Mark Essel
Paul, if you wanted me to bake you some cookies, all you had to do was ask, GEEZ.
- Derrick
Question: how many facebook bucks do we have to buy in total to get Paul and team working on friendfeed more of the time (100% ;)
- Mark Essel
Twitter doesn't accept cupcakes any more (just check Foursquare when at their offices). How about FriendFeed? :-)
- Jesse Stay
Mark, I'm okay with better Facebook integration. There's a lot of power in that (hence my drooling).
- Jesse Stay
I've got mixed feelings Jesse. I have friends on facebook. Then I have people that get excited by the same stuff that I do on friendfeed
- Mark Essel
Mark, I'm really hoping it ends up the best of both worlds - that would be really cool
- Jesse Stay
im going back to efnet - i got a bus for 7pm - anyone want on? :-P
- Allen Stern
I don't think you can mix the two sites at all. This has been repeated over and over. FriendFeed's technology might be portable, the concept, no.
- Jorge Escobar
Is it too late to do something about it. If it's a question of funds, can't we raise some? I mean this is the best communication platform I've come across yet. Facebook could be, if they just handed over the reigns to Paul, but its unlikely that sort of shift could happen.
- Mark Essel
Is the user perceived need of a full time devoted dev staff a fallacy?
- Mark Essel
I think you could make the case that some sites and services can in fact be "done" at some point, and simply require resources to keep them up and running.
- Ken Sheppardson
Thanks, Paul.
- Josh Haley
Ken: That's a potential advantage of turnkey application-level hosting such as App Engine: the resources to keep them up and running are almost entirely outsourced. ~All costs are variable costs, monetization improves over time, variable costs decline over time, so services that are "done" can literally just coast.
- Daniel Dulitz
They could open up something like friendfeed. Distributed social networks, with many servers would make search more challenging (search like status could help). The Internet keeps on chugging, it's a distributed information network that's been alive for many years. Our social networks should live, as does the underlying Internet.
- Mark Essel
Nice Daniel, I've been having fun playing around there (frankensearch.appspot.com). I'm using it to get to learn a little more about scala and lift now.
- Mark Essel
might be a full-time job times 2 or 3 for any fresh devs - safe to say Paul's got a bit of a head-start which changes that equation significantly! .... Also maybe almost as important is simply keeping spammers in check - that makes the difference between a ghost town vs the happy place here we want to keep coming back to enjoy ...
- Dan Freeman
Yes, this helps a lot. Thank you, Paul. We were beginning to fight amongst ourselves over these things.
- Kamilah Gill
I bet a good contextual advertising box off to the side could generate 35-50million dollars in 6 months with a user base of 1 million people. The assumption is that the average user spends 100-200 bucks on the site making purchases they'd normally make anyway and the affiliate percentage goes to the social host.
- Mark Essel
Friendfeed's health needn't be measured by the team's willingness to add new features. Shovels haven't changed in hundreds of years, but nobody is running around saying shovels are dying. A shovel is a great tool --a simple one, at that. If anything, I'd take away features on FF, but that's just me. Thanks for jumping in, Paul.
- Chris Baskind
Chris: the problem is that a shovel doesn't get more utility the more people that use it. FriendFeed does.
- Robert Scoble
I think the problem is that some people feel extra messianic some days (which is perfectly okay), and then refuse to see/believe/accept when others don't feel the same way AND point it out. The refusing part is not really okay, I guess.
- Michael Bravo
Thanks for these reassuring words Paul. Have been working hard to get more Flickr users over here after the recent rash of censorship there. Friendfeed's TOS and lack of censorship is a breath of fresh air compared to Flickr.
- Thomas Hawk
I wouldn't say lack of censorship, but community moderated filters. ;)
- CW™
I think you're unnecessarily complicating the discussion by adding new vocabulary, Robert. Now you're talking scale, not features. A product needn't expand its feature set to remain useful. Feature creep is the devil, anyway. ;-)
- Chris Baskind
You can’t predict what the future of technology will bring; so trying is a fool’s game. You can only adapt to the new realities as best you can. Paul's word is that it is still worth the time to invest in FF the tool. The tool may stay in this form but that's still a better design for me than Twitter. If FF is a shovel, Twitter is a spoon feature-wise. Audience volume-wise, it is the reverse.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
"Feature creep is the devil." truer words!
- Joe Silence is not dead
Now this makes me feel hopeful!:)
- Patrik Johansson
Ok here's an example of what the social media + contextual ads could like like (sorry can't embed iframe twitter they go full screen so I showed it with friendfeed). But the idea is clear: http://victusmedia.com/social-... This works by sending your tweet stream to zemanta, and then does some backend stuff (which we're working on improving) to get relevant ads from amazon
- Mark Essel
I've been rough on you guys in some comments around, but I'm VERY encouraged to see that you guys see a future for FF. Thanks for shining some light, Paul.
- Scott of Two Countries
Clarification is appreciated.
- DGentry
A respectable amount of information. Thank you.
- Matthew DeVries
Chris: Pownce had more "features" than Twitter did, yet it died. So did other aggregators like Jaiku. It's not "features" that matter in social software. Well, at least not completely. It's a combination of features with crowds that matter. If the crowds leave FriendFeed has a lot less utility to everyone than if they flow in. Look at this item here. Why is it interesting? Because there's people here talking about it.
- Robert Scoble
take your time PB Bear take your time
- Thomas Power
This is definitely more of the answer we were looking for. Thanks, Paul.
- Alex Scoble
Thank you
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
All I can say is "thank you" for letting us know what's going on. I'm glad to hear FF will be around for the foreseeable future. :-) LONG LIVE FRIENDFEED!
- Jason Huebel
yea - happy happy....
- Chris Jackson
I can't find any wave that is even remotely comparable with friendfeed's conversation, if you found one will you invite me? (muzzle at googlewave)
- Emme Ci
Great news, I await the new functions eagerly
- Mo Kargas
looks like good news ...
- johnpiercy
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the best thing I've seen ALL day!! woo hoo!! Thanks Paul :) {{{ HUG }}}
- Susan Beebe
Just a few words of assurance go a long way, Paul. Thank you for finally giving us something more solid to stand on. It's been frustrating for a lot of us waiting for the other shoe to drop and this news makes it much easier to keep investing time in FriendFeed. Please don't be shy about reaffirming that it's not going away on a regular basis because it's always good to hear.
- Her Lindsay-ness
I will say it for the least time! Friendfeed kicks ass :). The rest who is saying friendfeed is dying. please SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
- alfred westerveld
Good to read.
- Grant Bierman
Tnx Paul, people just want to see that are not "alone"
- Lucio Riccardi - CantorJF
from FreshFeed
"As a result - Jim has left the platform. - Jim Connolly" - Was this guy ever on the platform?! A quick glance at his most recent posts [first page] show pretty much 100% of posts made from other platforms. Cut him and his blood runs blue. Twitter blue :)
- 1x29
IF you glance over the Right Wing guys publications-there is some serious Terrorism encouragement from those sociopaths. This looked like a real strong example of what they are encouraging their followers to do??? Been saying we need to pay attention they are respectable foes to intelligence and their agenda is to win at all costs. Dudes they are great foes, need to,got to, have to pay attention to what they are doing. Peace love your neighbors dudes.
- ThatDBD
@ThatDBD I think you're responding to the wrong thread...
- Her Lindsay-ness
still curious, but understand
- Kim Landwehr
It's fascinating that so many people seem worried about new features. Until recently Twitter added almost no features at all and yet it continued to grow in popularity. FriendFeed's recent slump is all about perception, not tech.
- Eoghann Irving
Exactly Eoghann.
- Maxamad
these conversations take too much time for narcisists with tight schedules (stars). Publicity skyrocketed Twitter to the limelight. Friendfeeds champions are tech geeks, and folks that love chatting and sharing. There aren't many of us though. Give us time, or let us own the platform with a public ipo /buyin from facebook. Free friendfeed!
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Looks like it's official then: FriendFeed lives! On new servers, even! (At least for now...)
- Dennis Jernberg
Hoorah!
- Ron Bailey
Very glad to hear it!!
- Rosalinda Mojarro
word!
- Dylan Casey
This is great news! Thanks, Paul, for the update, and if you get a hankering for a feature, great! I'm fine with the tech being your personal sandbox in exchange for keeping the service alive. Robert, I hope this means we'll see more of you and your family - and hear from the ones who have mastered the art of rolling over. Johnny, thanks for having the courage to ask the hard questions (and Louis for helping you frame the issues.) wow - life feels good again!
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
from iPhone
This is brilliant news from Paul! Now can we put this FriendFeed is dying business to rest please? It's a self fullfilling prophecy because by saying FF is dying, folks begin leaving, causing a downward spiral which would then cause it to come true!
- technogran
Wan't it to stay? Then begin spreading the word! Get others to use it! At the moment its not mainstream so encourage ordinary users to use FF! The more popular it becomes the less likely it is to fold.
- technogran
Yes :) Paul . Thanks. we love ff :)
- sunipeyk
Questions? No just enjoy it.
- ★ Soner Gönül
technogran: sorry, today you see what's going on. Bing? Displays your Facebook and Twitter tweets. Google? Twitter. Where's FriendFeed in this equation? Now do you get why FriendFeed is destined to be a tiny niche player and why the real action is on Facebook?
- Robert Scoble
Good news :)
- Maryam Ardakani
from FreshFeed
Is not FF that is going somewhere else (?). Is its user base.
- Claudio Cicali ♋
Good to know.
- orionstarr
from iPhone
Robert, if FF gives me what I'm looking for, why do I care where "the real action" is? If FF serves its niche well, what's the downside?
- Scott of Two Countries
Robert, do you mean that Google doesn't index Friendfeed posts? Friendfeed is the first site that comes up if you search for my name.
- Victor Ganata
Excellent point Victor - but FF only imports a small % of twitter's posts. Ergo Google is still not getting Twitter.
- Roberto Bonini
@Scobleizer - this item is not interesting because of the conversation. it's interesting because of who it's from, and what he said. The fact that there's a conversation around it and that conversation is easy to find and read is a bonus (a feature) that sets this service head and shoulders above others (IMHO). There's really not much interesting in the comments here, if you ask me. You could get rid of all the comments that aren't Paul's and the value of the entry doesn't diminish that much.
- Chris Heath
That isn't to say that conversations around items aren't ever useful or valuable (or interesting as robert says)... but in this case i would say it's who it's from and what he said.
- Chris Heath
Chris: you nailed, in a single paragraph, why Twitter is winning. You now can choose who shows up on your screen and under what context. Well, I can because I have list support. Everyone else will get that next month. Victor: Roberto is right. I barely see ANY of the good stuff I see on Twitter come over here. Well, it comes here because of my favorites feed, but that isn't in nearly as useful a form as it is over at http://www.twitter.com/scoblei...
- Robert Scoble
Robert, you keep saying that's the reason Twitter's winning - I can do that in Facebook and FriendFeed as well.
- Jesse Stay
Well, the problem is that Google doesn't seem to index tweets as well as it indexes Friendfeed posts. And Google has never been able go inside Facebook's walled garden. Hopefully that will change.
- Victor Ganata
(and I have been able to for the last year or so)
- Jesse Stay
Victor, that changed today - see ReadWriteWeb's post. Facebook is opening up public status messages to search engines now.
- Jesse Stay
Why is Twitter/Facebook/FriendFeed a zero sum game? I use both Twitter and FriendFeed a lot - they have different strengths - and they feed into each other. Facebook I use less, but that's a personal issue because I simply like it less. Why does there have to be a winner? And +1 Scott, if I'm in the niche market that FF is serving and I'm happy with it, why should I care if "the real action" is on Facebook? If that's the case, I'll take FF's "fake action," thank you very much.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Good point Jandy
- sunipeyk
Paul: Thank you for letting us know status as much as you are able. The fact that you took time to write anything says a lot. So thank you for that. And thank you for FriendFeed in general. It truly does rock. Have a great day.
- Morgan Haley
Thank you.
- amygeek
Why don't you just give us all Facebook accounts for the one's that don't have them and be done with it. But the Turbocharged FF/FB accounts!!
- Gene Williams
@Gene, sorry, you'll have to wait for a FB invite like everyone else!
- Andrew C
@Andrew Oh that sucks, I'm still waiting for my Facebook invite. Do you have one to spare?
- Patrik Johansson
FF team needs 20% time at FB to keep inventing the next.
- Christopher Galtenberg
This is great to hear, it would be bad that a major peice of my microblogging arogration just died off.
- denzuko
Bump for clarification and Happy Birthday Paul!
- Charlie Anzman
Carl vs. Mac - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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karl dotter liked this
looks like carl needs the new magic mouse.
- karl dotter
A List Apart: Articles: The Myth of Usability Testing - http://www.alistapart.com/article...
Vinay | विनय, Rob Schonberger, Sebastian and karl dotter liked this
"For the Hotmail team to have identified all of the “serious” usability problems discovered in the evaluation process, it would have to have hired all nine usability teams. In CUE-4, to spot all 61 serious problems, the Hotel Penn team would have to have hired all 17 usability teams. Seventeen! Asked how development teams could be confident they are addressing the right problems on their websites, Molich concluded, “It’s very simple: They can’t be sure!”"
- Kevin Fox
from Bookmarklet
AWESOME: Emigre releases 'Mr. Eaves', a sans-serif companion to Mrs. Eaves. - http://www.emigre.com/EFfeatu...
karl dotter, Matthew Gifford, Jenna Bilotta and Tony Ruscoe liked this
I've previously listed Mrs. Eaves as one of my very favorite type families ever and I'm thrilled to have a sans-serif companion font!
- Kevin Fox
from Bookmarklet
Love mrs. Eaves. Caint wait to meet the mr!
- Jenna Bilotta
from Android
Van ness muni station waterfall - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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karl dotter, Anne Bouey and Spidra Webster liked this
Hey, some people pay a lot for a water feature like that!
- Spidra Webster
@k4rl go ahead, just don't hawk your wares in front of my table (#531). Can't wait to see more comics dude.
karl dotter liked this
thanks doc, I'll be a fair salesman :) appreciate the encouragement.
- karl dotter
Photoshop for iPhone released. This is kinda awesome. - http://www.appleinsider.com/article...
China Internet Rumors, Richard Chen, Arnaud Fischer and 36 other people liked this
It's not full-featured, but it kicks the ass off the iPhone's (nonexistent) native photo editing abilities.
- Kevin Fox
from Bookmarklet
Nonexistent? Pssh. You can delete 'em. That's a form of editing, right?
- Stephen Mack
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObje... US and Canada only. Why the fuck do they need to restrict a photo app to some countries?
- Jérôme Flipo
Not to rub salt into international wounds, but it's also free. :-)
- Kevin Fox
Jerome: likely due to patent issues.
- Mark Trapp
Nifty! Thanks for the heads-up.
- Paul Wilcox
Do they have Levels? Because aside from Crop, it's the most important feature to have in an image editor.
- Gabe
Sucks it's not available here in Japan.
- Rick Cogley
Photoshop with no lens flare? Madness!
- Stephen Mack
from iPhone
A New Web Tool to Take Control of Your Health - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
Robert Scoble, Daniel Rowley, Gary Burd and 8 other people liked this
"That is why on Tuesday, a start-up company led by Adam Bosworth, former head of the Google Health team, plans to become the newest entrant to the online consumer health business. ... The ideal, health experts say, would be to combine personal data with health information to deliver tailored health plans for individuals. That is what Mr. Bosworth and his San Francisco-based company, Keas (pronounced KEE-ahs) Inc., mean to do. Using the Keas system, for example, a person with Type 2 diabetes might receive reminders, advice on diet and exercise, questions and prompts presented on the Web site or delivered by e-mail or text messages — all personalized for the person’s age, gender, weight and other health conditions. Although success is far from certain, Keas has some big partners, including Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault. "
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
I sincerely hope these guys don't get gobbled up by the big insurance cos. Having worked for a recently acquired division of a big insurance co (<cough>UnitedHealth</cough>) all innovation goes out the door once the company gets bought.
- Jesse Stay
wait... web and my health? no, I do not think so... not enough privacy
- A.T.
tell that to mint
- sridhars
karl dotter liked this
so many awesome pictures of awesome people.
- karl dotter
thanks! just wait for the APE sequel..
- nate beaty
awaitin'! I've got shaky hands working on my comic right now, vacationing in picturesque brooklyn. I should do chicago one of these days.
- karl dotter
well, you've got a place to crash if you ever end up here.
- nate beaty
Should Facebook Remove Subject Lines from Messages? - http://mashable.com/2009...
Nicholas James, Jason A. Samfield, Diego Barros and 72 other people liked this
I tried to remove the subject in Gmail, but people revolted. I really like that FriendFeed (and Twitter) don't have a subject -- it's just a message.
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
If there's no subject line, how will I know to ignore the message?
- pea ♥ fierce as a woozle
How do you know on FriendFeed?
- Paul Buchheit
I think email would be better if they removed the body instead of the subject.
- Jim Norris
On FF, there's a high assumption that the message I'll get is wanted because only people I sub to can message me. That's not the case with email. Sorry, you were talking about FB. Got derailed by the Gmail comment. I'd be okay with no Subject line in FB messages.
- pea ♥ fierce as a woozle
well, I can guess what's spam on gmail by the subject line. Since I never got spam on facebook's inbox... that could take things right to the point.
- Caio
Friendfeed removes the body from most messages, so you have to do the 'write a comment on your own message' trick to put it in
- Kevin Marks
That's a good point Kevin, a lot of people treat the first comment by the author as the subject line.
- Eric Florenzano
Which makes the feed API annoying for longform stuff
- Kevin Marks
People are using "pseudo tagging" on FF with the [something] syntax just to provide the "context" for their message. So, yeah, title is here to stay (where used).
- Claudio Cicali ♋
I tend to delete emails with no subject lines without reading them, since it's usually just one of my friends or family forwarding me some crap (Note: I have filters to remove Re: and Fwd: and similar additions to subject lines). So in that sense, subject lines are necessary if you want me to read what you have to say. I would extend this same concept to the Facebook Inbox as well:...
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- Otto
Hmm.. On a related note, I should just setup an auto-responder for no-subject-line emails. Tell people "no subject, no delivery", and also warn them not to send me their forward spam. Might work.
- Otto
summarize, FTW!
- Claudio Cicali ♋
+1 for Otto's comment.
- Curtiss Grymala
Twitter has just the subject line, no body. ;)
- Amit Patel
It's the other way around Amit, which is why Twitter is better than Atom/RSS (RSS has titles, Twitter is just short messages). See http://friendfeed.com/paul... for an example.
- Paul Buchheit
"Twitter is better than Atom/RSS"?!? - splutters!
- Tim Tyler
it is very useless btw you also have to change the share box to old way.. It is very difficukt when you want to share a message to another user not to your profile
- Atif UNALDI
Instead of no subject, i often send email with no body, or the same in both. only use body when I need long form.
- David Stratton
Twitter and ff exclude the long-form use case. For email, subject lines should at least be an option. I don't use fb enough to comment on their messaging.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
No subject does totally work. Sometimes I really stuck trying to fill Subj form. Just have no idea how to summarize words like ”How d'ya do”. What's the subject here? No fkcng subj needed, for real.
- Кто это тут у нас
Bruce, the solution is to simply make the "subject" a part of the body, so that there is a smooth transition.
- Paul Buchheit
If there's one general problem I have with Gmail, it's the institutional attitude that they know what's best for the user. e.g. "You don't need to be able to sort by columns." I'm thankful they didn't let you dump the subject, Paul.
- Ken Sheppardson
How do you get users to do that? People don't naturally start long-form messages with concise summaries. Not that a subject line nails this problem, but at least you can prompt the user if it's blank.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
People don't write concise summaries anyway Bruce :). Ken, sorting by something other than date in nonsensical in a conversational context.
- Paul Buchheit
Facebook having a proprietary system that mostly competes with email, but is mostly incompatible with it is kind-of feeble.
- Tim Tyler
Paul: Perhaps, but people aren't always operating in a "conversational context" when they're dealing with email. For something as flexible as email, or messaging systems of any sort, I find it annoying when the system tries to dictate what my workflow and thought processes should look like.
- Ken Sheppardson
Maybe it's a dying use case, but subjects are really great for automated messages that are guaranteed to have a useful subject line. I can scroll through server notices, security advisories, and so on quickly and download the full message if I need to know more. The fact that you can download just the subject line (or rather, the email header) before downloading the entire email is still pretty useful to me.
- Mark Trapp
Ken, I'm referring to the UI. For example, sorting by sender doesn't make sense when there are multiple senders, as is the case in a conversational ui. The ui was designed to solve use-cases, not fill feature checkboxes.
- Paul Buchheit
Also, Gmail wasn't meant to cover all possible use cases. I think it's better to have a product that's very good for many people than mediocre for all people. It has open interfaces (such as IMAP) so that it's easy to use other clients.
- Paul Buchheit
I agree 100% with Ken. I almost always sort my e-mails by date, then subject (in Evolution, I can actually group them by thread, which is really nice). If I just kept all of my e-mails sorted strictly by date and none of them had subjects, I would have no idea which ones were related to each other. It's completely counter-intuitive to remove the subject line from an e-mail. Further,...
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- Curtiss Grymala
It's not meant to cover all use cases, but it's meant to be interoperable, right? If email originating from Gmail is not supplying subject lines (because they're hidden/downplayed/discouraged), but everything else relies on subject lines (like IMAP clients) to weed through the email list, the spirit of interoperability seems to be violated.
- Mark Trapp
I get that, Paul (re use cases vs features) and was just about to mention that I'm thankful for IMAP support, so I can use Thunderbird, Outlook, etc for those instances where my workflow calls for sorting by size; sorting a set of messages with well-formed subjects by subject; using sorting as a quick, visual proxy for search, etc.
- Ken Sheppardson
Mark, I didn't say that it wouldn't supply a subject line :)
- Paul Buchheit
What would it be? The first n bytes of the message? I guess that could work.
- Mark Trapp
i rarely use the subject line in my email
- andy brudtkuhl
yes
- Christopher Harris
it doesnt mean it is the best way if you use something in a way for a long time. i think no subject for emails is a good approach if you really think on it. it is the change scares us.
- Eren Emre Kanal
from iPhone
People who send me emails without a subject rarely have anything to say that I want to read. If you're too lazy to write a subject, then I'm too lazy to read your ramblings.
- Otto
The business world relies on subject messages for threading and sorting, and I anticipate will do so for some time. I would keep it.
- Louis Gray
Doesn't anybody ever take any business communications classes/training any more? Email without subjects lines is like a meeting without an agenda. Oh, and get off my lawn. Humbug.
- Ken Sheppardson
a direct message? no subject line. an email-like message? subject line for sure.
- Jim Hearts FF
This is why ultimately we may need to abandon email. It's broken in many ways, but difficult to change.
- Paul Buchheit
If by "broken" you mean "people don't take the time to learn how to use it effectively", I agree. ;-)
- Ken Sheppardson
For something meant to be so essential to communication, it shouldn't take time to use effectively: it should be a natural extension of what we do. If we're relying on everyone to use it correctly, that's not very efficient.
- Mark Trapp
ya i dont no why anybody wood half to lern how to do stuff it shuld all be natural
- Ken Sheppardson
Is it the norm to expect everyone to be bilingual? Why not expect electronic communication media to be an extension of the one form of communication that we all spend years to master? Why is it necessary to have to spend another large tract of time to learn another form of communication?
- Mark Trapp
Paul, do you think Google Wave will solve this problem? It doesn't have a subject line and it's much more different than email.
- Eren Emre Kanal
Eren, I don't know what will happen with Wave. It's a very interesting concept, but I suspect that it still needs a lot of refinement.
- Paul Buchheit
Now I'm curious what the subject-free gmail would have looked like, especially messages to/from other email systems.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
It's less different than you would imagine Bruce. The biggest change is in the composer. Gmail already kind of merges subject with body in the inbox. Unfortunately I didn't figure out the right ui until sometime after wanting to remove the subject. If I had thought of it sooner, we might have been able to do it.
- Paul Buchheit
At least I (mostly) got rid of it on reply though :)
- Paul Buchheit
Writing concisely, knowing what a paragraph is/should be, understanding what a "topic sentence" is, and being able to summarize a document in a single sentence aren't skills that are unique to email. Blog posts, reports, books, magazine articles all have subjects... except we call them "titles". Seems like the people I work with all use email in a ways that's fundamentally different than some of you. I don't really get where the idea that subjects are superfluous is coming from.
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, when I call up a friend or family member, I don't start the call with "This phone call will be about the weather. Hey Dad, how's it going?" Conversations are not written prose, and the premise being put out is that emails are extensions of conversations.
- Mark Trapp
That's a great example Mark. Subjects are very formal.
- Paul Buchheit
As is most business communication.
- Ken Sheppardson
Email is formal, chat isn't...
- Johnny Worthington
Mark: I notice that most if not all the entries on http://marktrapp.com/blog have subjects/titles. Why?
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, because they're prose, not conversations.
- Mark Trapp
Paul - the fact that you say you "mostly got rid of it on reply" is exactly why subjects are so necessary. How else do we keep those conversations inline when dealing with other e-mail clients? Not all e-mail clients are able to thread conversations the way Gmail and Evolution do. With most of them, we have to rely on being able to sort/group by subject in order to keep related conversations together. As long as that functionality is broken, the concept of a subject has to stay in place.
- Curtiss Grymala
Curtiss, I'm not talking about removing the RFC822 header, I'm talking about changing the ui so that people don't have to waste time thinking about subjects.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, I have to disagree with eliminating email. It's VERY useful for me in the way that I use it and for the people with whom I correspond. Of course, I don't have Wave yet so I may be eating my words soon.
- Jim Hearts FF
OK, I'm out. Y'all can continue to imagine this sort of topicless/subjectless world where email's just about "conversations"... good luck with that.
- Ken Sheppardson
But, somewhere that subject still needs to originate. Especially when we are talking about formal business communication, all of our messages (assuming you are using a snippet from the beginning of the message as the subject) would have a subject of "Greetings, _____" or "Dear ________" which would be completely counter-intuitive.
- Curtiss Grymala
Imagine a typewriter.
- Paul Buchheit
In the old days, when letters didn't have subjects, there was no easy way to automatically file them together or find one you were looking for. I would hate to go back to that.
- Gabe
Imagine, if you will a typewriter NOOOOOOO!!!! I'm so glad computers came along! I had a temp job working on a selectric, on a 3-carbon forms. It was a nightmare.
- anna sauce
I just figured out how to filter my gmail for no subjects. Took a while, but subject:"no subject" will do the trick. Looking through those, they're almost all crap. I'm going to give them their own label for a while, see how they look. If they continue to suck, I'll set up a canned response to tell the sender to stick a subject on there before sending it.
- Otto
What would be a great innovation is if an email program let you assign a subject to email conversations that the original sender wasn't polite enough to write for you.
- Gabe
+1 for Gabe.
- Curtiss Grymala
repeating how the ui might play out: snippet of body becomes the subject for a long form email, or short form email message is completely scannable in the message list.
- karl dotter
Kevin is spot on for why subjects world is better.
- Matthew DeVries
I agree with Kevin. I know I'm late to this thread but to answer Paul's "How do you know on FriendFeed?", the original post in FriendFeed/Facebook is in a lot of ways like a subject. It generates an overall topic that makes replies the body. When dealing with large conversation flows such as FF/FB, this tells the reader whether it is worth reading beyond. In many ways Twitter is the...
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- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
To add on, FriendFeed/FB Walls are in a lot of ways equivalent to being the flat file view of a message board's group of discussions/topics. Without subjects, it's just a bunch of unstructured data.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
There's the expectation of the subject field to be there - it's a hard habit to break now - and it does give a bit of context and scanability to mail clients. But the process of labeling up mail could be migrated into place - 'mail tags', so to speak. Which could work for both sender and receiver and could make mail archives more like a folksonomy - and thus offer more integration with other web services.
- David Bausola
I second that David, i was thinking along the lines. I would rather see the subject line being replaced with tags. Just keywords, no summary. Less thinking needed to summarize the message into one sentence, thus more productive and even useful for e. g. semantic purposes.
- Tibor Holoda
Hey - getting back on topic (we all got derailed there for quite a while) - I see no reason that Facebook really needs subjects on their messages. Since the messages are basically only used inside of the proprietary Facebook platform, which already threads the messages anyway, there's no real need for the subject.
- Curtiss Grymala
For what it's worth, Wave takes the first couple lines and makes it a pseudo subject, from what I can tell... It made it bold in the body of the wave (is it called a body?) and then added a dash in the inbox. Check out this example: http://img.skitch.com/2009100... all i did was type "Hi Louis!" as the first line of my wave and it did the rest
- Frankie Warren
Nope, don't need subject line. Instead, use labels (tags) to filter content (folders / views)
- Susan Beebe
For Facebook messages, the subject line isn't important; context doesn't need to be set. For "business" messages (Gmail/Outlook), it's more important, because the subject line is (usually) used as the first method of filtering/prioritising.
- Andrew Terry
+1 Andrew.
- Curtiss Grymala
yup, subjects with small updates is clumsy and noting but extra line that is not needed at all
- testbeta
I don't understand the problem. In the newsfeed there is no subject-line. In the message box, which is meant for long(er) form messages, there is one for fairly obvious reasons. It allows people to summarise the message and saves space. P.S. I use Facebook messaging as email nearly as often as I do Gmail, which I also want to include the subject-line.
- Vincent van Wylick
Yes.
- Meryn Stol
Yeah! Why do we always need to be formal?? Huh!? Is It social networking thingy or office networking thing? Lol! Good question, they should remove this. :)
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
from iPhone
The whole argument is pointless because in FB the subject is optional.
- Jason Williams
from iPhone
Wow, so much complaining. For subject haters, is it really that much of a problem to leave the box blank?
- Rebecca Sun
Furthermore, if you're writing just to say "hi" or whatever, put it on the wall! (Unless you're trying to keep your relationship a secret)
- Rebecca Sun
In comic shops tomorrow: Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit: Book 1! Info/previews/reviews: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index...
karl dotter liked this
Jordan Crane interview on We Love You So, the blog for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are: http://weloveyouso.com/2009...
karl dotter and RAPatton liked this
forgetters: The Myth of the Perfect Storm: Why We're Not Going to Make It - http://forgetters.blogspot.com/2009...
karl dotter liked this
The Great White Honky Visits France - http://natebeaty.com/journal...
karl dotter and esther liked this
Tantek recommended an article : Facebook Exodus - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
karl dotter and Xavier Badosa liked this
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did, you’ll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she disliked how nosy it made her. Another ...
- Tantek
Just finished The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition with Eliot on my lap. His favorite part: the yak's wax lips in Marley's mansion.
karl dotter liked this
A cordless future for electricity? - CNN.com - http://www.cnn.com/2009...
karl dotter liked this
Electronics such as phones and laptops may start shedding their power cords within a year.
- Bill
Crowdsourced product design at quirky.com: "Every few days we bring one product from sketch to store." (via @brady) http://www.quirky.com/home...
Michael R. Bernstein, Mike Koss, karl dotter and Jose Maria Pelaez liked this
Chris Messina shared an idea in Mailplane "Hide links in Gmail's default header" - http://getsatisfaction.com/mailpla...
karl dotter liked this
Chris Ware + robots + t-shirt + 826 = buy - http://www.fantagraphics.com/index...
karl dotter liked this
RE: @krynsky Nice screencast walk-thru of the new AIM Express beta with lifestream! http://lifestreamblog.com/aol-rel...
karl dotter liked this
I need dual tazers built into my drawing desk. And a cell+wifi signal blocker. And a whiskey spring.
Kris Kowal, karl dotter and esther liked this
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