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LANjackal to LANjackal's feed, Chrome, TheNextWeb Forum, Appetite, building43, RWW: The Future of Tech

How to Install Chrome and Chromium Side-by-Side (So You Can Play with Extensions!) - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...

July 3 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

deusdiabolus, Tanath, Daniel Rowley and 14 other people liked this

"So how's another ordinary techie supposed to play around with all the cool new stuff coming to Chrome? The easiest way is to install a build of the Chromium browser side-by-side with your (stable) version of Google Chrome." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

A better URL for installing the latest working build for Windows: http://build.chromium.org/buildbo... - Ionut

the Chromium builds themselves are stable enough. - Matthew Imakyure from twhirl

Morton Fox

Smellr: It's like Flickr, but for your nose - http://www.smellr.com/#

April 2 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

bnoise, HealingBrush, earl wallace and 86 other people liked this

"Your smell. Deeply personal yet very social, it says so much about you. And now there's a social network for your nose, a friendspace for your fragrance, a place to share your opinions on perfumes and vote for your favorite smells. We call it smellr and it's online now." - Morton Fox from Bookmarklet

19 more comments

WTF is this shit? - teh Dork Knight

Is it compatible with Apple's iSmell? - stretta from twhirl

BWahahahahahaha @ Humility!!! - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

OMG. HAHAHAHA. - adf

O M G just what i needed. hahahah - kaieteur

If this would make me as cool as Robert, then it'd be the first time I'd wear a fragrance! - Meryn Stol

Oh I now see the other ads. I don't care about those guys. I mean how to show you *really* don't get it - with your perfume. :D - Meryn Stol

Genius... but where's "Megalomania" by Steve Jobs? :-) - Andrew Terry

Oh yes I'd wear Steve's fragrance on occasion too. :) - Meryn Stol

Andrew wins!! - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

or, "Dogmatique" by.... Oh, no, I couldn't possibly say. - Andrew Terry

Peter Shankman is winning! http://smellr.wufoo.com/reports... - AJ Batac

From the facial expressions smell not so good. - jcunwired

hahaha so funny! - Jorg Jansen

:) - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

BUMP - Josh Haley

is that scoble??? - Rob Sellen :o)

If I wore this would I be a Social Media Expert too? Besides smelling sooo dreamy... - sofarsoShawn

Hey - where's mine? - Internet's Tad

LOL - Caroline

Adam Jackson

EVERYONE FREAK OUT! TWITTER IS DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE!!!!!!!!

June 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Michael Marsalisi, Jannifer @wordsforliving, Valentino Valdez and 19 other people liked this

It's cool. I can chill..... - Tim Young

17 more comments

I'm sure they're pushing to get done as fast as possible. - Darren Landrum

While you're chilling, I'm freaking out! Watching Keyboard Cat videos to help relieve stress. - Adam Jackson

i call... for the Cone of FAIL! </Maxwell_Smart> - Karim

We can follow MG's post on things to do while Twitter is down. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... - Adam Jackson

They better be pushing, or the State Department will kick their asses... or something. - David Owens

Found FriendFeed, natch. - Brian McNely

FAIL!!!!!!! Hey, maybe it will slow down the faux Iranian gov't? - Michael Forian

Now to step two... - Tim Young

please refrain from any revolutions or earthquakes while Twitter is offline. thank you. - Karim

True Karim. Let's hope nothing newsworthy happens while Twitter is down. Thank goodness there's FriendFeed to keep us going. - Adam Jackson

http://istwitterdown.com/yes... - Adam Jackson

Karim: A "tree falling in the woods with no one around" thought crosses my mind. - Tim Young

While Twitter is down for maintenance, FriendFeed is open for business ;-) - iconic88

I'm cool! - tomit

We know tomit. You're cool. - Adam Jackson

as are you and your lovely lady! - tomit

http://playhimoffkeyboardcat.com/ That should keep everyone busy while Twitter is down! - Adam Jackson

Half way there, we can do it! - Greg Byrne

Charlie Anzman

No doubt, this is gonna be interesting

May 9 - Comment - Like - Share

Hisham هشام, ashish, Kol Tregaskes and 18 other people liked this

I keep hearing that, but why? Isn't it just another search engine? I'll admit that I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to it, but that's what it looks like. - Derek Coward

17 more comments

Derek - It launches in abt a week and is expected to be very different than Google ... and not an out-of-the-box fail (ugh ... Cuil :). Numerous reviews around the web by people that saw the preview. Most thought it was pretty interesting. With all due respect to the founder, they could have picked a better name ?? - Charlie Anzman

Like HAL. - DGentry

The live countdown is on! http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2009... - Charlie Anzman

Derek -- it's much more than just another search engine -- it's a computational knowledge engine, for real. It has a long way to go to fulfill it's full potential, but Stephen Wolfram has established an important beachhead. - Sean McBride

watching and commenting: http://ff.im/2W4Zp - Capn' One Eye - adrift

Since nobody's seen it yet, I wouldn't get too excited. What they are trying to do is difficult not only technically, but from a social sciences standpoint. I'm not so sure people search to find computationally-generatable results. - Aaron deMello

Actually Aaron - People are seeing it and commenting here and on Twitter #Wolfram - Charlie Anzman

Just trying to save humanity from Skynet, Charlie. - Aaron deMello

So far, seeing some not-so-good comments around the 'sphere'. We'll see. BTW .. The URL to test is http://www.wolfram-alpha.com/input... - Charlie Anzman

Wolfram is an industry & academic tool, so all those Googlers will be pretty at a loss. But that's fine. I can see myself using this every day for work. - CannonGod

Oh great, just what we need. Demons and vampires battling all over the place. - Slippy "Threadsbane" Lane

For scientists it's going to be immensely useful; I can see myself using it daily instead of getting frustrated with Google. For the average Googler, less so. - Sally Church

With all due respect to Wolfram and his team ... I keep saying Wolfman . - Charlie Anzman

I haven't heard too many details about it, but I know people are excited. What makes it so fantastic? - Adriana

Best thing to do is go there. It's different. Not apparently meant to be a Google killer and has a way to go but interesting. Not an out-of-the-box FAIL like Cuil was (and still is) http://www.wolframalpha.com/ - Charlie Anzman

Google is aimed at finding websites - this is aimed at finding information. Very different. People judge all search engines in comparison to not only google but their habits built around google. New search engines tend to be disliked because people are familiar with the behavior of google, even when the behavior is inadequate. Inadequacies in the system become things we expect, because... more... - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

We all have been googlized. - ashish

I wanted to like it but I haven't found much use to it on a daily basis. - Manuel Mas

Paul Buchheit

The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next - ReadWriteWeb - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...

May 1 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

HealingBrush, Bec Rowe @d0tski, michael sean wright and 196 other people liked this

"Paul Buchheit built the first version of Gmail in one day. Then he built the first prototype of Google's contextual advertising service Adsense, in one day as well. Now he's working on a much-watched startup called FriendFeed that he believes just brought to market the next big form of communication online: flowing, multi-person, real-time conversations." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

86 more comments

surely you've got another photo Paul! :) - Zee.

Dugg. "This is why one of the goals of the new design was to accomodate skinning/themes. We don't yet know the exact timing of the release, but we hope to have a version 1 of themes available in a matter of weeks." Thanks Paul + guys - Christopher Galtenberg

not on HTTP... - A.T.

In the interest of completeness, I should mention that those "built in one day" versions weren't very good. - Paul Buchheit

oh and how much are these guys paying you to follow them? i'll cough up too - Zee.

And on Day 2, Paul B. rested - Christopher Galtenberg

Great news Paul :) New friendfeed impressed me and I'll be including real-time feature to my next project. Thank you :) - Alp

um.. IRC? that kinda beat FF to the realtime, multiperson conversation ;) - alphaxion

I do look at FF like IRC on steroids - Deepak Singh

Simply put, Paul is the man. Thanks for all of the above! - Josh Haley

FF is to IRC what IRC is to the horn and copper wire - Christopher Galtenberg

the interview explains the intentions of the new design, but I think simplicity was taken to the extreme. you shouldn't have to choose between New Users and Early Adopters. You should find a way to keep both happy. - Alejandro

i hope we will see accepting news & irc on lagre scale as soon as possible. all substitutions at the moment are so worse then originals... - marcell mars

Sorry but real time conservation was invented before I was made. - Burcu Dogan

Of course Burcu. Two people standing next to eachother talking is "real time", so real-time is very, very old. Now the web is becoming realtime because of improved technology and ubiquity. - Paul Buchheit

My real-time conversation with you, Burcu, a person I don't know, who I know via someone I only follow by virtue of the existence this place, is very new - Christopher Galtenberg

"Things are changing fast at FriendFeed. Buchheit says that the company believes aggregation to be less important than real time conversation.." + skins?!?... this is so wrong. it's picking up the worst things from myspace, facebook and aol worlds... what about analysis and real time statistics about social and content graph... friendfeed vision fails big time... - marcell mars

Real-time conversation about whatever's hot (or valuable and just found) on the internet -- that's a failure of vision? Come on - Christopher Galtenberg

And it's conversation among your network, in other words that graph is built into the conversation. Now it would be interesting if you could get some analytics out of it, but if there's an API that's easily done, a la tweetstats - Deepak Singh

Aggregation is the means to real-time web conversation. It's the how, not the why. - Christopher Galtenberg

No love from news.yc though... http://news.ycombinator.com/item... - Paul Buchheit

just +1'd it on HN (but I think the aggregation is important) ;) - Andre

Paul, I suppose you were implying to the different phases of web. It was static, the big old-minded boss makes me get only what he wants. Then that old man started to listen me, making web dynamic. And now it gets even more than that and letting me join him even in making strategic decisions. You call it "realtime". But, it's more likely to be a scalability issue, not an innovation. Dont you agree? - Burcu Dogan

A nice http://enjoysthin.gs (my baby) mention in that article. - Ted Roden

Also, assuming realtime is what's next, smarter, more automatic filtering is only seconds behind it. - Ted Roden

Trakkies pick up a little more cred. - Ted Gilchrist

Ted it has to be. Without the ability to do that, you lose the other side of the coin - Deepak Singh

Marcell, that's the two points I picked up on this thread of the article: http://ff.im/2vvbh. - Kol Tregaskes

Yes it appears aggregation is less important and concentration is being put on the discussion aspect. Cool! So we don't need the service icons back. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Also the news of the themes coming soon is most welcome, so I'll plug this 'themes' group while I'm here: http://friendfeed.com/friendf.... I'll be able to remove the speech marks from around the word "theme" soon, hehe. - Kol Tregaskes

I fully agree. Real time is where it's at. - Drew Lucas

love from news.yc, Paul http://news.ycombinator.com/item... - Joe Pestro

I was a little thrown off by the changes even though I had checked out the beta. But as someone who used to primarily read and like on friendfeed I've found the new format more conducive to posting which I've done a lot more since the switchover. - Mike Elliott

Paul is the man, but most of the time, most people won't be able to keep up with real time in my opinion _if_ that real time includes everyone's everything. Filtering and searching to let me get my realtime on topics I want, in an easy-to-digest way, easier than IRC and with ways to grab something out of the stream for pondering or commenting later. (IRC's not hard, but you have to admit it's rather geeky.) - Rick Cogley

If Gmail and Adsense only took a day, I don't know why Paul is taking so long with FF. - Thaths

I think you are right, but I´m not so sure friendfeed is the place? What can friendfeed offer that you can not find if you combine twitter and facebook? - Terje Sorgjerd

Realtime might be the next big thing because it's an unaddressed niche, but not because it's the most optimal way to communicate. In fact, asynchrony lets people take their time and contribute more substantial things, whereas real-time is exclusively chatty. It's going to be more talk, less links and less text overall. - Mr. Gunn

Is it going to be a set of preselected skins, ability to customize with CSS, or both? - Bruce Lewis

I would have rather seen him put his talent and smarts into designing a flying car. - Rex Hammock

flowing good. multi-person good. real-time NOT IMPORTANT. If I want multi-user chat, I'll use IRC or something. Real-time is useful for monitoring conferences or alerts. Please make FF about conversations around CONTENT, flowing at the *user's* pace around the world across timezones, not jittering every second. - Richard Akerman

real-time is the future. Chats = FF?? HA! Laughable. - vijay

I'm with Mr Gunn and Richard Akerman -- real-time is a waste of time. - Bill Hooker

Right, "realtime" is just going to increase the noise to signal ratio. It's hard to follow, not a suitable content type for most. FF, please dont try hard to sound visionary. - Burcu Dogan

You want an empty marketspace to conquer, here's your slogan: FriendFeed, leader in worldwide asynchronous conversations around content. Rich conversations, informed and engaged user base spending lots of time (maybe once a day, maybe throughout the day, according to their inclinations and schedule)... hmm, you don't suppose a popular site like that might attract advertisers who can put ads NEXT TO RELEVANT CONTENT, not having to fight to be seen for the two seconds a realtime item is at the top of a page? - Richard Akerman

yet Richard, your comment is sitting like a duck for nearly a minute so far. hmm... - vijay

I wish people would be more imaginative and open minded. *sigh* Such short-sighted thinking. - vijay

If you don't like real-time, pause it. There's a button on the right side of the green bar at the top of the feed, or you can hit "q". It'll stay paused until you resume it. Even if you log out. - Ken Sheppardson

But please don't tell the rest of us we have to sit still with you. - Ken Sheppardson

恭喜恭喜 - 阿石

And Paul, you're damn right. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

In real life you can listen to one person at a time in FriendFeed real-time not so much. We need a slow/medium/fast switch like Flickr's slide shows. - Gregg Scott

I've never seen a discussion round or podium speech with a speed-switch. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

You've never seen a discussion round or podium speech with hundreds of people sharing on different topics..\ - Gregg Scott

Gregg, you have never been on an open symposium or open source fair :) - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

Touche Ryo. Hey. You are you calling fairy... - Gregg Scott

awesome article - goutham

Mr. Gunn: friendfeed and twitter combine the best real-time and asynchronous features of irc with social network recommendation - Mike Chelen

What about stats. I would like to be able to once and awhile see who finds me interesting and vice versa. What about trying to stop the dreaded same article from being shown over and over by different people in your stream. - Russ Jackson

I like some of the new FF features, the live view is not one of them. Why? I like the pause function to allow me to browse over my news feeds without getting them live dearranged while I am still not through. Second, I vote for customized and less noisy FF views, e.g. like http://tinyurl.com/cxzgpw , the user images do not add anything (just noise for me) and I have a wide-screen, and want to use it. - joergkurtwegner

I never tire of "new feature X adds nothing" comments. /facepalm - Daniel J. Pritchett

Starting to like FF more and more as a "front" end. Still need to jump on the "actual sites" sometimes, for maintenance, etc... - Stan Augustyniewicz

adding my 2cents re: substantial conversations on ff via this ff thread - http://friendfeed.com/glemak... - mike "glemak" dunn

@Paul - Let me put it differently. I am using FF, because it is since many years the first tool with the potential to reduce my information overload problem on my trusted friend network and news feeds. So, I have a certain reading style and I am *willingly to pay* for a customized view, e.g. as premium FF subscriber. For me the discussion with my friend networks is valuable, any fancy... more... - joergkurtwegner

What the scientists on Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/the-lif... have noticed is that this new style for FF, even when paused, promotes more "what's your favorite color" kind of stuff rather than more thoughtful content. That's the way Paul is going, we understand. It's the vacuous, personality-driven posts that get the most attention anyways. However, we scientists are content-focused people so the value of the "I'm eating a banana" chat is lost on us. - Mr. Gunn

We're also quite aware of the populist sacrifices that are required to get a larger mindshare. Compare the readership of People magazine to the scientific journal Nature. It's still OK for the most part, because most scientists on FF don't follow the chatters, and because we're handy with userscripts and styles http://www.flickr.com/photos... but the days of people in the life scientists room saying science social networks are dead because friendfeed does everything we need have passed - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn. Don't speak for all scientists. Science don't have to be dull. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

@ryo, he wasn't.. he was speaking for himself, and seems to have a solid foundation for his thoughts that i suspect most scientists would agree with. - simran from twhirl

btw, this "real time" stuff is overhyped... what's the "core difference" in ff's real time multi person conversatinos and a "group chat" (even ytalk did that like in 1993 :) ... its about the way you use it, and ff might "lead" to a revolution, but it ain't it itself... - simran from twhirl

Ryo, I can't figure out how you got from "the consensus of members of the Life Scientists Room(as filtered through my contacts) is that we preferred the old interface as it promoted more content-driven, thoughtful posts" to "science should be dull". More to the point, we tend to come down on the side of aggregation and not real-time chat, which is apparently where Mr. Buchheit thinks the money is. I don't think it's the first time many of us have found we liked that which is less popular. - Mr. Gunn

Aren't conversations already real-time? What does real-time really mean? - Daniel Brusilovsky

Mr. Gunn, I don't see the problem anyway. It's totally without connection to say the new design promotes things like "I'm eating a banana"... You could have the conversation in a room, like you already seem to do. How do the new design encourage scientists to write such things? But you can't "take over" Friendfeed and tell other people what to write, because some, and not all us scientists want the old design. You can still be for "yourself" in a room. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

i think when referred to this way its the difference between asynchronous and synchronous communications daniel... - mike "glemak" dunn

Ryo - You don't quite understand the point that's being made. It's admittedly a speculative one, but one that I've heard quite a few people make in slightly different ways. Essentially, there are two modes of use for FF - as an aggregator of activity on other sites and as a twitter-like service. The latter of those is the direction friendfeed is moving in, at the expense of the... more... - Mr. Gunn

I suspect that many of the people who think RT is important live in the same timezone as people they communicate with. - Nick Lothian

Mr. Gunn: methods of using friendfeed are mixed together, in some ways conversation & liking is a form of social aggregation - Mike Chelen

as usual - open versus closed - RT versus nonRT - public versus private - commercial versus noncommercial - adds versus nonadds - customization versus noncustomization - ... - just allow both and take the statistics of who was right afterwards. At the end of the day I care about what I get, and I strongly believe in the three possible principles ... love it, change it, or leave it ;-) - joergkurtwegner

I've asked the question how would to improve the real-time and/or the static mode to make it more usable here if anyone is interested: http://ff.im/2ylTv. I'm personally happy with the real-time mode, I've not hit the pause button since the first day or two of the beta release. After a while I've got used to it. - Kol Tregaskes

I'm also happy that the service icons are gone. The first day I wasn't be changed my opinion over the first few days of using the beta without them and found it brought more discussion to entries from particular services that were virtually ignored before. - Kol Tregaskes

The design is certainly not to my taste but yes that is down to my taste. I prefer a combination of Lindsey's mockup and AJ's comment-highlighting userscript personally but let's see what options we are given when the themes/skins come in a few weeks. - Kol Tregaskes

If you want some more comments, you might find these interesting: http://ff.im/2ugmx (in response to the inquisitr article, which was very negative but Paul kindly replied to some queries - thank you, Paul). - Kol Tregaskes

But lastly I like to thank FF for the new UI, it's great and look forward to the new features. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Paul, how can services improve speed of pushing to FF? RSS/ATOM is slow. - Cris Pearson

Excellent blog posting by Richard Akerman regarding real-time versus asynchronous conversation. Here's the friendfeed link http://friendfeed.com/scilib... and here's his blog link: http://scilib.typepad.com/science... - Steve Koch

I will agree that service icons and avatars may be up to a matter of taste, but the time zone issue remains a major hurdle, especially for people who don't live in the same time zone as their colleagues. - Mr. Gunn

I totally agree with Paul and I love friendfeed and it has great real time stream ;-) - Sakib Mahmud

The real-time conversation facet of FriendFeed is now only emphasize with the appearance of Google Wave. I hope FriendFeed will figure out its place in the emerging space. Would FriendFeed Wave extensions (Wave gadgets and robots) be sufficient to stay in the game? Is FriendFeed experimenting with Wave APIs? I hope it is. - Nenad Nikolic

FriendFeed could just use the protocol with their only features bolted on. Now that'll be cool! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Ryan

Oh, snap! Google hits town - http://www.starbulletin.com/busines...

April 20 - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Imakyure liked this

Google Street View coming to Hawaii (noted previously on TechHui and recapped on my blog). Story by @erikaengle in the @starbulletin, with prominent @twitter mention. - Ryan

YAY!!! I can now stroll the streets of Hawaii before I actually get there! ;) - Wendilou

I wonder if they'll roll by my home any time soon. - Matthew Imakyure

Tom Stocky

When you ride alone you ride with Hitler! - http://www.archives.gov/exhibit...

March 26 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

mjc, Thomas Hawk, dogan kaya berktas and 59 other people liked this

From the National Archives "Power of Persuasion" exhibit -- poster art from World War II. - Tom Stocky from Bookmarklet

23 more comments

When you sleep alone... ? - Kevin Fox

when you drink alone? - MikeAmundsen

When you code alone? - Kevin Fox

Sup dawg we heard you liked Hitler so we put a Hitler in your car so you could ride with Hitler when you ride alone. - Stephen Mack

Not to be confused with "God is my co-pilot" - Kevin Fox

plus eins für Stephen Mack! - MikeAmundsen

Well played, Stephen -- was not expecting the Xzibit meme to make an appearance here. =) - Tom Stocky

Also not to be confused with those horrible drivers that have the plastic, bobble-head Jesus' on their dashboards. I can hear them now: *I don't care if it rains or freezes, as long as I got my plastic Jesus!* - Morgan Haley

the dude's trying to jack a spot in the car pool lane w/ that janketty inflatable Hitler doll! what-up w'dat? - MikeAmundsen

@Morgan: "i don't care if it's dark or scay, long as i got my plastic Mary..." - MikeAmundsen

So... if I drive in the HOV lane with my computer logged in to FriendFeed... - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

I think that still technically counts as alone. Unless you were implying some of the members of your FF were also there in your car in person. - Tom Stocky

But... But.... That's where my friends live! - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Mark, I'm afraid FF can't protect you from Hitler riding with you, even in the HOV lane. - Tom Stocky

I love all of the old propaganda posters - Eric Berlin

They also had campaigns during WWII about growing your own food. Eleanor Roosevelt created a vegetable garden on the lawn at the white house. There was lots of conservation going on then. What did Bush tell us to do after we got bombed? "Go shopping". - Robert Felty

Bill Maher updated this for the cover of his 2002 book _When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden" http://www.amazon.com/When-Yo... - Ruchira S. Datta

Al Gore and his Nobel peace prize say, When you ride alone you ride with Dick Cheney. - Moved to Facebook

When you ride alone in your Prius, you ride in the carpool lane. - Kevin Fox

LOL @kevin - Roberto Bonini

I'm invoking Godwin's law,,,, - Nick Lothian

I would love to ride with Hitler. Take the chance to ask him a question or two. - Rutger Blom

Michelle Obama just planted a vegetable garden on the white house grounds too. - Christian Burns

Wonders what the secret service rotation is for keeping the rabbits from munching on the first veggies. - Moved to Facebook from fftogo

Steve Gillmor

Cloud Service Bus - http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009...

March 19 from TechCrunchIT - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Davide D'Incau, BuzzNova and 12 other people liked this

Thanks stevegillmor -- I linked this up with my post earlier today. - Karoli

14 more comments

liked your post too, but disagree that Twitter too big to fail. Facebook is, however. - Steve Gillmor

steve, i don't necessarily think Twitter is there. Yet. I saved them for last because I can see them going there, and think some of these questions should be addressed before they are. - Karoli

naah I think Microsoft will buy them with cash. - Steve Gillmor

and then we will have another mega-global-conglomeration that will be TBTF. Sigh. Small, simple, unbundled...? - Karoli

Yeah, you'll be able to bundle your phone, internet, tv, car,life and health insurance, your mortgage, your gym membership and your child's enrollment in a charter school for one simple payment. If you sign up now, the first 3 months are only $3700 a month! - Aron Michalski

don't understand what you're worried about. Google and Microsoft are at least two companies, not one economy - Steve Gillmor

I'm not worried. I'm asking questions pro-actively. Every financial rule we know has been broken in the last year. I would rather ask the questions now than be dealing with more broken companies later. - Karoli

Not worried at all; the idea of one monthly online payment for everything appeals to my fractured nature. - Aron Michalski

Aron, $3700/3 months is less than my current COBRA bill. :) - Karoli

the perils of an overdistended analogy - Steve Gillmor

I'd rather be out on the limb than not climbing the tree. - Aron Michalski

aron save me some of that would you - Steve Gillmor

I have to say it: I wish we were having this discussion on Newsgang Live... - Karoli

no newsgang live until my handout comes through - Steve Gillmor

Cabin fever and the blossoms of spring have put me further out than I've been in a while. - Aron Michalski

Robert Scoble

I just saw something mind blowing that I am under embargo for until March. Of course, they started out "we're not showing this to TechCrunch."

December 17 - Comment - Like - Share

Zack Brandit, darnell, Rasmus Lauridsen and 50 other people liked this

When did you join a Kisha? - Matthew DeVries

55 more comments

I know others that have sent stuff like that out before. - Jesse Stay

Why bother showing people something that is under embargo for 3 months? Why not let you write some sort of teaser article. - Rob Diana

Can you give us a vowel? - Ellie Javadi

*crosses fingers for portable iPhone keyboard* - Johnny Worthington

Jesse: yup, but in this case I believe it. This company has been working on this technology for two years in stealth and it's the second time the founder has met with me. It's amazing just how fast the TechCrunch post reverberated through the industry, though. Everyone is talking about it and thinking about it. That means Arrington wins. Again. - Robert Scoble

Rob, to have some feedback and tests. I've just done this with Robert today - directeur

Nice get Robert! Is it a consumer or enterprise product? Can u tell us at least that? - Randy Ksar from twhirl

Johnny, it'll be hard to type that way! - Scott of Two Countries

Rob: yup, feedback. I saw PeopleBrowsr three times before I was able to write about it and there are quite a few changes that happened in there. Let me just say that the Real Time Web is going to explode next year. In mind-blowing ways. - Robert Scoble

Randy: both. :-) - Robert Scoble

I hear Mike has experence waterboarding sorces, he'll make you talk! - paul mooney

Paul: I'll probably give Mike the exclusive. :-) - Robert Scoble

I'm hoping for a robust wireless entertainment box for online video as well as divx/xvid stuff - Josh Haley

I feel like this embargo thing is a big company problem. There's no practical reason for a small company to require media to hold off on publishing something. It's a bit like election formats--I favour first past the post in news releases. - Darren Barefoot

Josh: hmmm, there's something else I've seen under embargo that's similar to that. - Robert Scoble

I just saw something too that I can't speak about for a long time :-) - kamla bhatt

Darren: in this case the company doesn't want to get defocused while they finish off their product. If I told you about this product I guarantee that they'd have 100,000 signups the first evening. It would be on the top of TechMeme tomorrow and Digg and Reddit. It's that good. But they can't deal with 100,000 people yet, so are holding off until the stuff is done, but they do want some feedback. - Robert Scoble

Big companies use exclusives so they can get big name journalists to write about their products without leaking. Apple gave only four iPhones out to journalists, for instance, all of whom worked at big news papers or magazines. It's a relationship tool for the big companies. They use it to ensure that the big name journalists will write about them. - Robert Scoble

"How many shots of vodka does it take to get Scoble naked?" and Talking? - Majento

I wonder if they really hamstrung themselves or not. - Alex Wilhelm (FF BLOWS)

Majento: if you got me drunk and I told you about what I saw, you wouldn't believe me. You have to see this one working. It's like if I told you about the World Wide Telescope "oh, big whoop, a Google Map version of the sky." - Robert Scoble

They've cloned Steve Jobs? - Gilbert Marlowe

I hear you Robert, it sounds promising, i have patience & will be tuning in... - Majento

So they've invented the mythical "have your cake and eat is too" device? Or is the Staples Easy Button finally real? - Dean Clark

Dean: something like that, yes. :-) - Robert Scoble

Re: PeopleBrowsr there's much more to come - I can't say what either. - Jesse Stay

I can confirm the comments on PeopleBrowsr as well. Feedly another great example of an early briefing while the product improved. - Louis Gray

We're not worthy of your early knowledge - Bwana ☠

Ouch. - Lataz.com

I understand both sides of this. Man, have you ever worked with clients? Nevertheless, this is a new age and if you want to use the new media, you haz to deal with the unmanageable mess that makes it vibrant and evolving. - Phil Boiarski

Robert: Glad to hear of a new product that you get so excited about...neat! Now you've got us all curious and excited with you! But we have to wait till March! dang that's sooo far away and yet this year was a blink, so I guess it's not really all that bad. I remember how when you announced PeopleBrowsr we saw the "Scoble affect" in only a few minutes! Smart to scale the app to handle the load!! - Susan Beebe

Sounds interesting, I'm going for a cold shower! - Joe Dawson

Companies use embargoes these days because they feel they need to control the message precisely, 3 month embargoes are much rarer in software than hardware. But in either case the companies are deluding themselves, not just because many journalists wouldn't recognise good faith if it was stuffed up one nostril but because companies (like governments) leak themselves. My experience at Joost seems to cover both eventualities. - Simon Lucy

Thinking seriously of totally dropping the (TechCrunch) feed. These posts by Arrington may work but they're annoying. There's always TechMeMe and Google Blog Search.... - Charlie Anzman

Robert.... Ok it's March NOW... what is the BIG news?! :) out with it! - Susan Beebe

Yeah! It's March! - ursi

*taptaptaptap* - Matthew DeVries

Time to spill it! :P - MarkCarras

I second rob diana - Peter Efland

March 8th: not quite yet, don't have permission. - Robert Scoble

Hmmm. Interested to see if this links up. When's the embargo up, Robert? - WorldofHiglet

If it's as mind blowing as ClikBall, I'll hold my breath. Sorry, no offense :) - Eric Florenzano

WorldofHiglet: not sure yet, will ask. This is one of those things that was an estimate and might slip. I've been using it every day, though. There's a ton of other cool stuff coming this week. Been doing a ton of videos. - Robert Scoble

Eric: its better than ClikBall. I still like ClikBall but it needs to free itself from the browser. - Robert Scoble

Thanks. I have a sealed envelope with what I think it is written on it :) Oh, and did I tell you how awesome you were today, Robert? No? Well then, you are awesome, as I hope you understood from the comment I left on your blog (what's it called again?!). I'm even more interested in what *you* are going to be doing in the future than this announcement. - WorldofHiglet

Robert: Cool, well now I'm a bit excited despite my best efforts not to be. - Eric Florenzano

Okay, now I'm all curious. Can't wait to get more information. But no, don't say that name Arrin...yuck. I thought he wanted to step back because he was attacked for abusing people all over the globe? - Ryo / Fuck Facebook

To tell you the truth I had to think back at what I had seen in December. I've seen so many cool things since then. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, if you use it every day as you mentioned you have to know what it is :-p - Amit Morson

Amit: yeah, that's why I knew what it was. But I had to think back to when I first saw it. - Robert Scoble

The problem is that now it's overhyped in my head. I shouldn't do this kind of stuff. - Robert Scoble

is this it? "Wolfram Alpha Computes Answers To Factual Questions. This Is Going To Be Big. http://ff.im/-1puj4" - RicardoSilva

RicardoSilva: nope, that's something mind blowing that I didn't see coming in March. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: Got tricked by the bumped thread.... You know, you get used to this real time web thing and then someone picks a conversation from way back in December? Its like picking up a conversation from the stone age. :-)) - RicardoSilva

Tell me about it! - Robert Scoble

I am guessing you saw myphone - Ritesh

Robert Scoble

Bill Storage's gigapixel photos are cool. Here's more details: - http://www.bstorage.com/Photo...

March 7 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

polymath22, Guy Vander Heyden, Kent Looft and 81 other people liked this

I'm working on getting a video up with Bill Storage (a friend of mine I've known since the mid 1990s -- he's a long-time programmer and entrepreneur) because how he does these gigapixel photos really rocks (you need Microsoft's Silverlight to see them in full glory). His site is at http://www.bstorage.com and his Twitter stream is here: http://twitter.com/bstorage - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

16 more comments

Nice - Shevonne

these are way cool, did you see the one at the inuagration? - chaz2b

Oh, and he's the only guy I know who has had a naked Victoria Secrets model in his house naked and has the beautiful pictures to prove it (I don't think he has any of those online, but I'm trying to convince him). His wife helped him shoot the photos. I asked him how he kept it together with such a beautiful woman naked in his apartment and he said he was too nervous about doing a good job with the photos that he focused on the work and not on her. A better man than me. - Robert Scoble

chaz2b: yeah, that was cool. Bill is trying to find a better robot so he can use even longer lenses. He's a real innovator in trying to increase the resolution and he always comes up with interesting stuff. - Robert Scoble

His Flickr photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos... -- he loves doing cave work too. Spelunking, I think they call it. Really is a nut about that. His photos of caves are stunning. - Robert Scoble

thanks, and after i saw the resolution of the inuagration shot(s) i dont know how much better they can be (wow) - chaz2b

Spelunking videos would be neat. My bro is too cheap to buy his own camera. - coldbrew

Chaz2b: he's trying to build a robot that will use 400mm lenses, which would get the resolution even tighter than it is today. Plus he got a Canon 5D MKII. He is so precise he was able to show me resolution differences between the Canon lenses. Also, in one of the photos his wife is on the balcony of their apartment. You can't see her with the naked eye, she's so far away. - Robert Scoble

She's in this photo, somewhere in the middle of the image: http://www.bstorage.com/Photo... -- can you find her? :-) - Robert Scoble

wow, and i was impressed being able to tell thet VP Cheeny was in a wheel chair at the inuagration from how ever far away he was while taking the pics. thats some incredible info, thanks. - chaz2b

Mr. Storage's gigapixel photos. Makes sense. - Odi Kosmatos

Really nice! I love gigapixel photos. Have a look at some of my gigapixel views from London using the Gigpan robotic head. http://www.gigapan.org/viewPro... - Mike Hellers

yes! we used one of the inauguration in our class to explain size of images and why it matters. Then my friend played "where in the crowd is Yo-Yo Ma?" with his students :) super cool - Anna Lynn M.

I filmed a video of Bill explaining how he makes these images here: http://scobleizer.blip.tv/#186343... - Robert Scoble

I'd love to see it....but I refuse to install silverlight. Looks cool though. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Love the sky exposure too, and the reflections are nicely captured too! - Mark Aitken

Looks one of the "Blue & Gold" yachts. I play gigs on those from time-to-time. Logistically challenging, but beautiful. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Robert Scoble

Prove that Techcrunch did not pay @biz $10,000 to get on Twitter's suggested friend list. They sure were not more popular than @leolaporte two weeks ago.

February 21 - Comment - Like - Share

Wayne Sutton, Iván Abrego, Jay Neff and 114 other people liked this

Leolaporte deserves to be on the list -- he had twice as many followers as @Techcrunch did a week ago. Twitter's list is corrupt. - Robert Scoble

279 more comments

Interesting suggestion but hard to prove or disprove. - Liz

I'm out of the loop. Where is the list? - Will Johnston

How about prove that they did? - Omar Gallaga

Will: you go to friends/suggested friends on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

wow's he's totally left you for dead, he's a smartie that arrington - Bob Sonin

Omar: that is easy. Twitter has no criteria for getting on this list and mostly added big brands onto the list. - Robert Scoble

Why $10,000? Are you just making up a figure or are you privy to some information? (As an aside, I see Brooke Burke on the list with 62,000+ followers. Wow, when did THAT happen?) - Omar Gallaga

Bob: I will have the final revenge. In a year all the influentials will be on friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, I'm liking this, on the 'guilty until proven innocent' premise that Techcrunch seem comfortable in applying to all and sundry, including FB and Last FM within just the last week.. - Andy Connell

Scoble, interesting assertion, but... I must ask: who the f*ck cares? :) - l0ckergn0me

I'm on the list, and I certainly don't have $10,000 to give anyone. Do you think I somehow bribed them, Robert? Hmm? - Veronica

l0ckergn0me - I echo that sentiment completely. - Mitch

who cares?? i'd rather follow that interest me. not how many followers they have.. - Terry O'Fee

Couldn't this also be taken as a statement on the morals of TechCrunch? - MarkCarras

guilty until proven innocent? - Mark Collier

I just noticed Robert's not on the list. Oh my God, I think I just figured it all out! - Omar Gallaga

Robert, if you're so big on meritocracy, why have you, or the friendfeed founders driven by my ff posts without a 'like' or 1,000 retweets by now? You follow me. I've tweeted big news or quality stuff, and watch the "A-List" wait to see it from another "A-lister" before they'll retweet. Power liking some small fries mixed in with friends just so you can point to your proof is bs. Why hammer Twitter for the 1,000th time? - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

so now we know Twitter's monetization strategy - practicehacker

Way to spread FUD. - Veronica

way to spread BS :P - Terry O'Fee

Mark - yeah, gupi.. too complicated? - Andy Connell

Hmm, never checked the list before. Wonder if new users use it a lot, or maybe I'm the only one who doesn't. - Will Johnston

Ed: just today I Twitteted several people with fewer than 50 followers. - Robert Scoble

Veronica: prove it is FUD. THAT is why this feature is corrupt. - Robert Scoble

REALITY CHECK, ROBERT: NOBODY CARES. :) - l0ckergn0me

Please... prove it's true. Is this just TC you're accusing, or everyone on the list? - Veronica

Robert, you made the accusation. I think it's on you to prove there's something to your finger pointing beyond just... you know... your finger. - Omar Gallaga

Veronica: I am not on the list. Neither is @leolaporte. We both had more followers than you did (and more than many on the list). Now I am wondering. - Robert Scoble

@techcrunch and @veronica don't appear on my suggestedfriends list so is it a random list then? - Iain

l0ckergn0me - Reality check .. YOU don't care... - Andy Connell

Veronica - let's forget about Robert's question - being on that list provides more eyeballs and more pageviews for those on the list. for those of you on the list using twitter as a marketing platform (i.e. all of the list) - it provides more traffic and you know what that equals. - Allen Stern

Note too Veronica that I did NOT say you paid. It is just that the criteria for getting on the list is corrupt. - Robert Scoble

HAH! This is the funniest thing I've heard all day. Are you really just that bored this afternoon to accuse people of spending money to be on a suggested users list? #1 As Chris says, who the frak cares. #2 Do you honestly think someone like me or iJustine have that kind of money? #3 Wow, man, I thought we were cool. - Veronica

I've made several "who to follow on Twitter" lists for the publication I work for and it's never just about who has the most number of followers. Maybe they just find the people on their list more interesting/appealing to newbies, from their point of view. Why do you assume the criteria is only "most followers? - Omar Gallaga

Allen, I understand that. But the fact of the matter remains that I (I cannot speak for anyone else) never asked to be on the list, nor did I ever pay anyone to be there. - Veronica

Veronica: I did not accuse Techcrunch of paying either. Read my question VERY carefully. I did accuse Twitter of making a feature that looks corrupt. - Robert Scoble

Robert... Do you have any proof that this occurs? Is there any accounts of this occurring in the past (anecdotal or stated). I'm don't know either way but asking people to prove a something didn't happen without an established cause of suspicion is intimidation and, frankly, wrong. - Johnny Worthington

use a twitter client bypass the suggested list. twitter don't own u :) u decided who to follow. the end - Jay Martinez from twhirl

If you are not accusing us of paying, then how are the criteria "corrupt?" - Veronica

Veronica: the fact that Twitter is picking its stars with subjective criteria is corrupt. - Robert Scoble

thanks veronica - yea my point is the marketing and "top of mind" that being on that list gives you special folks - i am not discussing the money point, robert is. - Allen Stern

Robert -- aren't you the one always laughing it off when people unfollow you and saying that the number of followers you have isn't as important as the number of people commenting on Friendfeed? Now you're saying that if Twitter bases this list on anything other than number of followers it's corrupt? Or is your initial question in some third language I can't parse? - Omar Gallaga

Veronica: prove you did not pay. You can not. The feature is corrupt. I can prove I did not pay to get on top of friendfeed. You can no longer prove that on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Um, Robert... they onus is on you to prove they did... sorry. - Johnny Worthington

And what if they decide to rotate the list? If you're not still on there, will you continue to throw around accusations? Sounds like sour grapes, and you're better than that. - Veronica

Omar: yes. Who follows you does not matter. But that does not change fact that this feature corrupts the integrity of Twitter. - Robert Scoble

I agree with Johnny. C'mon, Robert! Show us some of that investigative blogging! Prove that TC (or I, for that matter) paid to be on there. Would you like me to send you my banking statements? - Veronica

Omar: it is corrupt because you can no longer trust Twitters' follower numbers. The people who are most popular on Twitter did not earn their position through objective criteria. That is corrupt. - Robert Scoble

I asked if you think a feature like this should be based solely on number of followers. Is that the only criteria you think is fair for making suggestions on who to follow? - Omar Gallaga

Veronica: you did not earn a position higher than @leolaporte. So why are you defending this feature? - Robert Scoble

Omar: it should be based on objective criteria everyone can figure out so no questions of propriety will stick. - Robert Scoble

Allen is on point with his comments. Being on the list does equal more $. Regardless of how folks got on it. But again this list does show that who you "know" is critical in the social web. - Kipp Bodnar

Perhaps, Robert, it is not a position to defend? Does Veronica use Twitter as a revenue tool? If not, this is moot. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

I think you should enter some criteria to generate the suggested user list (likes etc) - Iain

What criteria besides number of followers? That's the only one you've brought up. - Omar Gallaga

Robert the influentials won't be on FF, it's just an aggregator, the influentials will have their own quality medium with distribution - Bob Sonin

I do not know why Veronica is on the list and not @leolaporte so now I am wondering what is going on and no one can prove money and gifts did not get exchanged. - Robert Scoble

I'm not defending a feature. I'm defending myself from being accused of paying a company to feature me. - Veronica

Robert, you're a bank robber. Prove to me that you aren't. See how dumb that sounds? - Veronica

I heard he stole $10,000. - Omar Gallaga

That is easy: I have not received a gift from a bank I did not earn. - Robert Scoble

In that case Robert, you are traveling the path of Joseph McCarthy. Rather than presenting evidence of corruption, you are throwing around accusations and telling those you accuse to prove you wrong. - Johnny Worthington

Prove it. - Veronica

Johnny: people are getting gifts from Twitter they DID NOT earn with subjective criteria. Why? - Robert Scoble

@Scoble your headline is linkbait - but your point is valid - the recommender is crap. They should buy @mrtweet - Chris Saad

I think Robert is making weak arguments, but his base point is sound--if there is an algorithm that is making those picks, then it's not very transparent. If the list is editorial, it would be nice to at least know who has made the picks. - Eric Florenzano

Tell us what you think the criteria should be, Robert. Other than "being Robert Scoble." - Veronica

@ev posted that they just picked some names. It's not really that big of a deal. - Christian Burns

Veronica YOU received a gift from a corporation you DID NOT earn. I did not receive such a gift. This feature is corruptible. - Robert Scoble

Great question Robert... maybe you should lead with that rather than dropping corruption accusations. I actually think there may be some underhanded work in a few selected cases but unless I have evidence, I'll ask questions first, set up witch hunts later... - Johnny Worthington

Why didn't I earn it? Also, it's not a "gift," it's a recommendation. - Veronica

I say the feature is done by hand and the appearance of impropriety is nothing more than lack of research by an intern. - MarkCarras

@Veronica Robert is not suggesting he should be on the list. He has always actively worked to flatten these tools, not do land grabs which he could easily do. Suggesting that's what he is saying is not very productive. - Chris Saad

Chris, it's hard not to take personal affront to this bad logic. - Veronica

@Veronica, as I said his initial tweet is linkbait - it's clearly an exaggeration - but his underlying point is valid. - Chris Saad

@techcrunch prove to us that you are not plotting to take over the world while you pretend to drop out and take pictures of tropical beaches. I bet you aren't even going to answer me. - Christian Burns

Johnny: note that I did NOT accuse anyone of anything. PLEASE read carefully! I just am pointing out that some people are receiving gifts without earning them. This is why Fast Company forbids me from accepting gifts. So MY integrity does not get called into question. - Robert Scoble

In that case, I'd like my gifts BACK - Chris Saad

If someone added up all the pro ff posts, anti-twitter posts, link direction, they'd assume Robert was into the FF funding. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

This is absurd. What gift, in tangible terms, is being given? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Chris -- in a separate post Robert said " two weeks ago I was more popular than Techcrunch and @leolaporte was a lot more popular than me. Today Techcrunch is way more popular than either of us" -- that's flattening the tools? - Omar Gallaga

Robert, your inflammatory remarks and accusations (and they are that, no matter how many times you tell us to READ CAREFULLY) come off as really childish and insulting. If you have an issue with a feature of Twitter, there are better ways of pointing it out than accusing people who considered you acquaintances, if not pals. - Veronica

I just can't believe I am not on the list! I sent @biz 5 bucks too. WTF? - Beebo Wallace

Veronica: you did receive a gift. Advertising is sold by 1,000 viewers. Ask Ryan how much 1,000 people are worth. You did NOT earn that gift by any objective measure. - Robert Scoble

Must have some troubles with the American to Australian translation but without this thread for explanation, it sounds like you wondering out loud if Techcrunch paid biz to get on the list... - Johnny Worthington

@Omar ok well that's an even lamer way of expressing the point haha - Chris Saad

Beebo: obviously $5 wasn't enough. - Robert Scoble

It's well-known you can't "prove a negative". Or make logic with such as "clearly, pigs fly, because we have a black president" - more to the point, that list stinks, and bad -- McCain and Tony Robbins are on my list, and a bunch of corporations. - Richard ¿digame? Walker

Robert, you keep avoiding the question of what you think Twitter's objective measures should have been if not just number of followers. What do you think they should have been? - Omar Gallaga

I've been saying for years that recommendations should be based on interest overlaps, still, no one listens. www.socialwhois.com - Chris Saad

@scoble just admit you are asking Twitter to implement APML Profiling and Matching and let these people chill out - Chris Saad

Insulting people is a great way to get a point across. - Veronica

I think it is definitely a gift. You are gaining followers who are in turn being effected by your content. They aren't mailing it to you with a bow on it as in a physical gift, but they are making it much easier for you to generate revenue or web influence power. - AJK

Robert, there is no such thing as CPM for Twitter because followers -- and recommended user spots -- are not bought and sold. Period. You think they are? Prove it. - Ryan Block

Who gives a frak? Honestly. Accusing @techcrunch of paying $10,000 is stupid. How do we know he DID? Did Twitter contact you and say "the only way you can be on the list is if you pay $10,000?" And all the bagging on Veronica isn't necessary. It's a stupid list. GET OVER IT. - Zach Flauaus

Veronica: it is interesting that you feel accused. This feature sucks. Some day you will see why. - Robert Scoble

I feel accused because you accused me, and everyone else on this list. Not indirectly, directly. Oh, someday I will see why? When I'm not longer ON the list? Actually, Robert, that will be fine with me because I won't care. Because I haven't invested in BEING on the list. - Veronica

Zach: I did NOT accuse anyone of paying. I am accusing Twitter of designing a corruptible list. Friendfeed's list is defendable. This one is not. - Robert Scoble

Scoble obviously "deserves" some sort of recognition. If he doesn't get it, others must be paying. Right? - coldbrew

Read about this and other social media revelations in Robert's next e-book, "Scobleized: Destroying Relationships, Throwing Out Baseless Accusations and Talking Down To Peers." - Omar Gallaga

@Everyone who is saying the discussion is pointless just doesn't get it. These things are worth $. They seriously affect the way twitter works and who gets attention. Attention = $. Social tools are about finding niche audiences. If Twitter is biasing towards celebrities or given individuals (for whatever reason) it changes the medium and the message. Stop pretending that these things don't matter. - Chris Saad

@Omar - LOL. - Veronica

Robert... do you think that Techcrunch did pay biz $10,000 to get on the Twitter's suggested friend list? - Johnny Worthington

This whole discussion is rather petty and absurd. - coldbrew

@Johnny *sigh* he was making a point by giving a clearly exaggerated and baseless example. Our inability to prove it either way IS THE POINT - Chris Saad

has anyone tried to find out how the suggested friends algorithm atually works or are we assuming its a manually generated list cos they haven't said much about the suggested friends feature? - Iain

Perhaps the problem is that Robert should just say what he means. Also, still waiting for that objective criteria. Waiting... waiting... - Omar Gallaga

Veronica: well since there is no objective criteria for being on the list and since being on the list is a gift of tens of thousands of in earned followers and since you don't care anyway why don't you tell Twitter to make the list based on objective criteria and pull yourself off of that list until it is? That is what I would do (friendfeed fixed its list after that kind of pressure). Not to mention I can not accept unearned gifts anyway. - Robert Scoble

Chris.. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want my name used in this way. My issue is not with the point Robert is trying to make, it is the way he is going about it... - Johnny Worthington

Scoble: "Prove that Techcrunch did not pay @biz $10,000 to get on Twitter's suggested friend list." That's not accusing @techcrunch paid $10,000 to Twitter? Twitter designed that list for who they (read: employees) think people should follow. Perhaps it was money, but I highly doubt it. - Zach Flauaus

How has your follow rate increased since being on the list? My assumption would be that it has increased significantly since being on the list. - AJK

Yeah, this is like a high school kid whining about his brother having all the friends, and mindlessly laying blame. - coldbrew

@Scoble accusing @techcrunch is not making things personal. @techcrunch is a big boy and Arrington and Scoble are friends. It was clearly a statement to reveal ambiguity in the process - @Veronica no need to read any more into it than face value. - Chris Saad

Haven't logged into Friendfeed for a long time, but this is rather insulting, Robert. You're seeing dollar signs and personal gains in # of twitter followers? - Derek Reiff

@coldbrew I think everything is reminiscent of high school... I'm in the damn place. lol - Zach Flauaus

Johnny: no I do not think Techcrunch or Veronica paid to get on this list but there ARE brands on there. Did they pay? I have no idea. But this feature is as corruptible as shelf space at Fry's. - Robert Scoble

Robert -- you're saying that you would have asked to be removed from such a list had you been included? What if you and Leo were both on it, but this phantom "objective criteria" you keep mentioning was not transparent? - Omar Gallaga

One man's corruptible is another man's monetizable. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Definitely Chris! Recommendation algorithms MUST be based on something else than "popularity". We've discussed this, you and me, often, and I still believe that these algos could be 100 times smarter using "personal relevancy" — I'm sure you still share this opinion with me :) I hope I'll be able to provide a proof-of-concept thingy (yes, the one you've seen) still experimental but surely optmizable. - directeur

Omar: yes. I would be forced to remove myself from thiis list if added. - Robert Scoble

Robert: To me it looks like a list of people who aren't going to overwhelm new users and people that are going to be interesting. The reason your not on the list is because you would flood a new user and might make them want to leave the service. And all Leo does is promote TWiT and doesn't really present much value to the newer users except to lead them to his show. Honestly Scoble there is nothing corrupt about this. This list wasn't designed for us anyways, it's for new users, just let it go. - Jimminy

I'm checking out of this conversation now :) - Chris Saad

Robert, that's cool, but again without the context of your friendship with Mr Arrington and this thread for explanation, .normal' people will think that the list is corrupt and, by extension, cast dispersions on the name of the people on it (which I think is a part of Veronica's issue). While your point may be valid about the integrity of the list, please be advised that your words will have an effect on those not on the inside of social media. - Johnny Worthington

I am not allowed to accept gifts worth more than $100 and being on a list decided on subjectively is a no no for journalists. Especially those at Fast Company. - Robert Scoble

@directeur - is it popularity, an algorithm, or just a random sampling of people the folks at Twitter have heard of? it doesn't seem to be randomized whatsoever. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Robert. you have more than enough people following now. Why does this bother you so much? it's rather sad. - Terry O'Fee

Good point James. I never thought of those reasons for the picks. I think Robert posts stuff of great value most of the time, but the point is still very much on target. - MarkCarras

Terry: the integrity of the tools I use for my living concerns me a lot. - Robert Scoble

Robert -- did you ask to be removed from this Forbes Web Celeb list? Seems like that was quite a gift: http://www.forbes.com/2007... - Omar Gallaga

Mark, sure, it definitely is not random! It can't be random and show the same faces all over the web (friendfeed, twitter..) You've described very well "popularity". But the fact is, that me "directeur" (a given user) would really like to see people who'll share my interests, this is imho the next step in socialmedia: connecting people "smartly", and providing content for users smartly too! and this could really be done (I've crafted 3 modest proofs of concept) using notions like APML. This is really DOABLE - directeur

his ego would be mended! :P - Terry O'Fee

I have no stake in whether Tech Crunch did or didn't pay someone to get @biz on the suggested list on Twitter, I do however believe that the twitter suggested list it self encourages herd following , and that those who have a massive jump in following over a short period, have a very shallow following, while those who acquire their followers over time have a much deeper following - Kim Landwehr

I understand Scoble's point. His post is misleading and deliberately provocative, but the underlying point is fair: "Twitter's suggested friend list generates lots of followers for those who are on it." Decoding his original post: "1. Two weeks ago, @techcrunch was less popular than @leolaporte. 2. Then @techcrunch ended up on the suggested friend list. 3. Now @techcrunch is more... more... - Stephen Mack

The fact that we're having this discussion is just sad. Just one blogger's opinion, though. - Ben Parr

Mark: I totally agree that Robert posts stuff of great value but he can throw controversial ideas out that he can't back up sometimes, case in point. The main reason that I don't see him on the list isn't quality but moreover the quantity of his tweets. I wouldn't want to be on the list either just out of respect to new users. - Jimminy

Well, directeur, your model is incorrect unless it places Scoble at the top of everything. If it does not, you're taking a pay off :-) - coldbrew

ben - i agree. instead of using this for what its meant for, people cry that they dont get on the top of the list. it's hillarious.. - Terry O'Fee

coldbrew :) No, Robert will be just like you in this system. BUT, there's something else and I've had the pleasure to discuss it with a very smart guy: AUTHORITY. This is NOT popularity, it's smarter (should be - because the current used definition in socialmedia is wrong) more specialized and could be done too (collaboration planned with that smart guy) - directeur

directeur: The issue is that they can't predict who someone would like. We're talking about something that none of us should be using. It's an introductory tool not something you use once you have developed your network. It's impossible to create a recommendation that works using a non existent data-set. The only way they could modify it is if they ask the user some questions about themselves during registration, that's not user friendly. Would you like to be trown a bunch of questions when you sign up? - Jimminy

James, very smart question, and yes it's doable. The content submitted by a user, the content a user likes, comments on, retweets is a very rich dataset that could be used to establish an APML profile. - directeur

thank you, jason. probably one of the smartest comments ive seen on this useless conversation... - Terry O'Fee

Robert, would you be in the same position on this if you were on the list? Or would you promote the list and the fact that you made the cut? - Debi Jones

i wonder if he would of posted it on his website too... - Terry O'Fee

Firstly, can you prove they did? - sofarsoShawn

directeur: You didn't get me though, it's for new users they have no data, they haven't retweeted, followed anyone, hasn't liked or commented on anything yet. And the majority of people aren't going to have an APML. Therefore trying to pick people off of this nullset is impossible. Honestly if I want to follow someone on twitter I'll ask my current followers for suggestions. Starting out Tabula Rasa on a new service though it's not possible. - Jimminy

Looks like we have a good old fashioned weekend BitchMeme going on here. - Mike Doeff

what bugs me is it's impossible to find people/friends/followers with interests and careers outside of tech. I've been trying since October to get a good list of science posters, and I have a grand total of 1. Kiki Sanford, and she never retweets, so I can't poach people from her. - Matthew DeVries

I don't follow @scobleizer because he's a twooshbag. But I did learn that @brookburke twitters, so I'll be following her. - kchu

terribly done yes. Paid no. Twitter should just buy MrTweet or one of the location based twitter recommendation services so it would provide people close to the new people or related interests instead of throwing random bigwigs who don't respond, not related to their interests. - BCK

Wow I can't believe you are getting so bent out of shape about this "corrupted feature" Scoble. I respect what you do but I had to stop following you because it was just too much and became annoying after a while. But seriously, who cares? Why is being followed considered a "gift?" And why would you tell them to take you off this list if you were recommended? That's just stupid. Being followed is like me walking up to you and saying, "Hey I read your blog." Is it not? I can't believe you reacted this way. - Eric Bland

hmm.. look at it the other way: some new users are joining twitter and the twitter team is simply trying to improve the experience of those users so they put together *a* set of profiles to help. This is how it works in startups. Over time, they will improve that feature so that it is more transparent, targeted, effective but you have to start somewhere. I do not think that twitter is trying to bribe anyone: they are way beyond the point of needing to do that. Too provocative Robert! - Edwin Khodabakchian

Honestly, I would never recommend @scobleizer, or any frequent twitterer, to a n00b twitter user because he would scare them away. Scoble is for hard-core users. - kchu

The burden of proof lies with the party making the claim, as this is obviously not a case of prima facie. And even if it were true, who the hell cares? This is fascinatingly idiotic. - Mouse

This entire thread reads like petty, petty bickering, mostly on the part of Robert. It's this kind of narrow minded, stubborn soap boxing that gives blogging in all its variants a bad name. I imagine what really happened is a few folks at Twitter saw some fun twitter peeps with a high profile name and a nice signal/noise ratio and decided to throw them on a list without much second thought and then moved on to more important business of the day. - Joost Schuur

One thing I take away from this is that true journalism will never be dead. Robert saw something intriguing, something that didn't add up, something suspicious. In the Edward R. Murrow days, someone would have methodically, slowly, and doggedly chased the story, built the story and told the story. Bloggers however, have a whim and fire off a post. Yeah, it will precipitate the truth, as twitter is forced under the pressure of 100,000 voices to come clean or explain the algorithm, but I guess..... - Matthew DeVries

.....I just find Murrow's way to be more elegant - Matthew DeVries

OM NOM NOM ... hmmm these grapes are very sour today... - Terry O'Fee

Robert Scoble is playing the Bullshit card on TC! I see a war coming... -

The only thing to be answered by this unanswerable question is: you get tons of followers by being on Twitter's suggested friends list. - sofarsoShawn

Hell, I can't even prove that *I* didn't pay @biz $10,000 to get on Twitter's suggested friend list. - Glen Campbell, B.A.

I was on that list (@cinevegas) and did not pay to be on it. Somebody actually alerted me that I was since I didn't even know. - Roger @ CineVegas

Also this feature is a month old, why now are you attacking it? - Roger @ CineVegas

Lord all mighty. All of you don't get it do you? Twitter is about community, conversation, relationships. You are all to narcosistic to see that. Quit arguing like children. Just Twitter or shut up. Ge'ez! Act like an adult already. - Norbert Davis

What if it's just who Twitter happens to want you to follow? Was it corruption when the video store workers would all post their weekly pics? Was "Steve" on the take because he pick 5 Warner Brother's films? They should tell how that list is compiled, but you don't defame to force candor. This isn't fucking Nam, there are rules. - Matthew DeVries

The fact that this conversation happened on FriendFeed was not lost on me. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

it screws with the integrity of everything on twitter. in every way. i have 18K followers, but am not on the list. maybe i got all those followers in some side-deal with twitter that wasn't disclosed? or one day i lose 10K followers and my competitor gains 98K. is it because @biz was given some stock? or they didn't like something i said? it could all be totally innocent but it still taints everything. - Dave Winer

#followfriday = Communism - Andrew Smith

The thing is that the Twitter Suggested List is simply corrupt because there isn't an actual method behind it. - Tyler (Chacha)

Robert is simply saying the the list isn't based on popularity. - Tyler (Chacha)

I think that is a valid statement (I think I've ended the comments.... boo) - Tyler (Chacha)

ITS A CONSPIRACY I TELL YA! THE WORLD IS OUT TO GET US! - Tyler (Chacha)

Twitter needed to pick some suggested names that would be most likely to get a beginning tweeter to continue tweeting. If Twitter decides that Hammer is the way to get people to continue using the service, that's Twitter's prerogative. - Ontario Emperor

As long as it's obvious and transparent that this primer list completely due to some person or some committee's fancy with no metric whatsoever, then Twitter is doing nothing wrong. Have they admitted this? It should be apparent on the page itself. - Matthew DeVries

It's brilliant way for twitter to expand it's user base from tech geeks to the larger populace overall. - sofarsoShawn

It is quite reasonable for companies to make subjective recommendations to their customers. The Apple iTunes store, for example, provides several very subjective music, video, and app recommendations on its front page. Robert's employer just recently published a very subjective list of fifty companies that they thought its readers would find interesting. Time magazine compiled a list of 100 people they found interesting in 2008. Wait, wasn't Michael Arrington on that list? - Steve Wilhelm

Robert's argument are weak at best, founded on the assumption that Twitter's "suggest" feature should only be based on a user's # of followers. While it would be nice to know how they choose who makes it on the list, I honestly don't think Twitter has to disclose it. This is a parallel to Flickr's "interestingness" meter, which decides who make it onto their "Explore" page. The fact they don't tell you exactly how the photos are chosen, doesn't mean that it's corrupt. - Trevin

Prove to me that Robert Scoble is not an idiot. - ld

Coming to this late, but just want to thank Chris Saad for laying out the objection to an arbitrary list of recommendations in clear and sane fashion. (As opposed to inflammatory fashion, which resulted in all this hot air.) Saad's right: attention = $. - Ian Wilker

None of this will matter when celebrities and sports figures get on Twitter, and Twitter really goes mainstream. Scoble's 63K and Laporte's 90K will be dwarfed. Reality check: Twitter is much bigger than Scoble. - Mohamed J

@Mohamed J I would much rather have scoble who is real on Twitter than some PR person for a celebrity. - Michael McGimpsey from twhirl

MichaelMG: I haven't seen the suggested users list but @TechCrunch, @aplusk, @the_real_shaq, @mchammer are not run by a PR employee. Plus, Scoble is too noisy for the Twitter newbie (who is most likely not a tech head). - Mohamed J

Leather ♥ Donut - ftw. - kchu

A few questions: 1. Does 'suggested friends' imply impartiality? To me 'suggested' or 'recommended' connotes a subjective opinion while 'popular' or 'top' implies a strict numbers-based ranking. 2. If a service's 'recommended friends' list is created by number of followers and is in itself the most effective way to get more followers, then how can this help but be a feedback loop? How... more... - Kevin Fox

Put a different way: Why do we assume that Twitter should only recommend the most popular people? - Kevin Fox

Isn't this more about one person wanting a different set of criteria for 'eminence' in a list vs a set of criteria decided by another person(s)? Sounds like you should make your own list to your criteria; folk love lists and someone is bound to look at it. Their list, their criteria ... your list, your criteria. - Colin Wheeler

Even when you are on holiday you are causing trouble Mike - Chris Saad

just seems to me that twitter made a selection of accounts that might be of interest to a new user, trying to cover a wide range. Perhaps their criteria are not as ominous as you make it, perhaps they looked at a stream that someone new could feel would be accessible to newbies? - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Pay @biz :) - Josh Lam

@michael arrington HAHAHA!!!!! While I agree with scoble's premise that the list is fundamentally flawed. I do think this whole conversation is very very funny!!! Now has twitter responded with how they are making the list? - Benno

i am convertible to 1 e-token of intangible 'value' in this imaginary perceived point value system of social media numbers - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

& i rate your performance by the # of sounded claps i make @ a given rate per sec w/ respect to the db emitted. right this sec, this is convertible to 1/3rd the popularity rate unit counted in the perceived cumulative total + 1 in regards to the gross popularity total i just made up and substituted from other people's realities assumed to be true. this is my derived perception of social media popularity that may change at any time and may be replaced for another assumption. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Ah the smell of conspiracy in the morning. - Robin Wauters

I think twitter should replace all the little avatars with Tom from MySpace. - Wes Hoogenboom

Wow this stirred up a lot of shit. I actually have to go with lockergnome, why should we care. This article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technol... clearly states that the suggestions are staff picks and therefore subjective. The people that sign up and start following the twitter staff picks most likely are going to be annoyed and bored with most of the tweets because they dont know those people and because they werent served with suggestions by interest.. - Kahlil Lechelt

This should be re-named as "pre-selected list", not suggested. Twitter is just trying to quickly increase usage for future monetization. - William Mougayar

if recommend is synonymous of "most followed", then #1: @scoble you say the contrary all day long (followers are pointless) #2: this feature itself is useless since we just need a search engine "by number of followers". I therefore assume that twitter tries/is trying/intends to/ put value other than simply nr of followers. and how can you do this with objective measurable inputs? Finding someone interesting or not is based on your own standpoint. So the feature is controversial per se - Jean-Charles VERDIE

I'd pay 10K to get a profile there, do i twitpic a check in? - sean percival

To market my brand, I'd pay 10k, get put in front of 1m faces, and another mil or 3 over time after this post gets thoroughly read. All this attention is worth quite a bit more than 10k, wouldn't you say. - Zax Stevens

My first thought was that they would sell spots on that list if they hadn't already. Robert's topic is provocative only because Twitter's added a feature that looks so baldly commercial. Not that there's anything wrong with it! - Michael Pilla

Here's a simple test: Go to 2 different Twitter accounts you may have (e.g. personal/business). Check that list. It's the same! So, this isn't a "Recommended list" in the way that FF or APML might do it. It's not related to who you follow/don't follow & what you like. It's just a list that's marketed by Twitter- let's take it as it is. - William Mougayar

"Robert -- did you ask to be removed from this Forbes Web Celeb list? Seems like that was quite a gift: http://www.forbes.com/2007... - Omar Gallaga" So Robert, how about it? Did you pass on the "gift" Forbes made you? - Alexander Kucera

Wow, longest conversation every! - Sweyn Venderbush from twhirl

Omar and Alexander: I didn't pull myself off of the Fortune list because 1. that didn't end up getting me much of anything, certainly not provable. 2. It was a subjective list done by a professional group of editors and it was presented as subjective. 3. it reflected real-life popularity. In fact, one could argue that being high on Twitter and friendfeed follower lists is why I got onto Fortune's list. Before two weeks ago those follower lists had integrity. Today they do not. But no big deal, I'm over it. - Robert Scoble

I didn't see him on the list. - Patricia

This is eerily similar to a high school election. - Oldengrey (Jay)

Twitter has a suggest list? don't remember the last time I used it if ever - Jeff Quinton

Biz Stone - From The LA Times: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone acknowledged that offering “suggested users” wasn’t the ideal solution and suggested that the service might evolve to cater to particular users’ interests. “Right now it’s sort of like staff picks at your local bookstore,” he wrote in an e-mail. - Jim Connolly

Robert: I view the Suggested Users feature on Twitter as a Staff Pick in iTunes. They have no relevance to anything else. It's just what the guy behind the screen wants to pin. I was very sad to read this. I love the idea that the individual user is beginning to rise over traditional mainstream media. It's something I've worked toward for the past 3 years. However, I see this as the death of journalistic integrity. - George Force

Robert: You speak of Twitter's Suggested User feature being corrupt, however, within the same action you lay down egregious accusations. What ever happened to the days of fact checking? You have to keep in mind, no matter what your intentions are, you swing a big stick. Thousands of people are going to read what you say. If you do not intend for something like this to be taken as media, then you need to make clear what your intentions are. - George Force

Everyone has been waging war to try to win the popularity contest, and they've focused so hard on this that they've forgotten the basics. As the paradigm shifts, we are starting to create a high tech sewing circle where the words slander and libel have no meaning. We all need to work a little bit harder to try to remember that there are real people with real emotions on the other end of the wire. - George Force

George: read again. I did NOT lay down ANY accusations. I did not accuse anyone of anything, I just said this creates a situation where we can not be sure how they got on this list. Please read carefully. This feature is corrupt. Why does Ryan Block have 1/10th as many followers today as Veronica? (They used to be about the same). Because Twitter "picked" Veronica to be popular. That's subjective and ruins the integrity of the follower system. - Robert Scoble

George: right. Subjective systems pick stars for weird reasons. Do you pay to get on the iTunes list? I don't know, but given the music industry's past of payola I really wonder. How did the brands get onto Twitter's list? Did they pay? Why Veronica and not Ryan Block? Ryan ran Engadget. He deserves to be on the top of any list too. This system is stupid and lame and not well thought out (which even Twitter admits in the Los Angeles Times this weekend). - Robert Scoble

I understand that you want change on Twitter. I don't blame you for that. But why should they listen to what you have to say? You go onto their platform and out them publicly more than once a day. Twitter doesn't owe anyone but their VC anything. If you hate Twitter so much, then stop using it. It could easily be said that you're giving friendfeed a gift by going to Twitter and talking about friendfeed. Are you receiving a check from friendfeed? - George Force

Your whole argument could then be boiled down to, "Twitter made a poor choice in thinking about their recommended accounts feature and it is poorly thought out." Good thing this was just an FF thread and not a blog post. - coldbrew

There is no reason to say vile things about a service on their platform due to a matter of preference. If you don't like Twitter, stop using it. It's that simple. Twitter works very well for what I need it to do. friendfeed serves another purpose entirely. Twitter does not need to be friendfeed. You said in a different post about how we need to stop focusing on followers and start focusing on who's talking. I would say we need to stop focusing on followers and start focusing on what we're saying. - George Force

George: I do not receive checks or any compensation from friendfeed. I didn't receive any compensation from Twitter when I talked it up a LOT two years ago (my readers got sick of me talking about Twitter all the time back then too). - Robert Scoble

Now I'm going to go watch some guy get kicked in the groin on YouTube! - George Force

coldbrew: who said this is not a blog post? :-) There's no real definition for what a blog is. Friendfeed is blogging. So is Twittering. - Robert Scoble

George: I totally disagree. These are communications platforms and one of their uses IS complaining about how they are built. I used to use the telephone to complain about AT&T too. So there. :-) - Robert Scoble

I'd like to wrap up my opinion about the whole subject in 2 sentences: 1) Who are you to recommend people to me? 2) Recommending people to me means that you know me, that you know what I'm **interested** in. i.e. Every recommendation algorithm that **IGNORES** the user is by definition stupid. - directeur

Jason: I did not make any claim. Go and read it again. This time read it. Don't react emotionally. Read it like a computer compiler would. Parse each word. I will admit I was sensational and stupid. I did NOT call out Techcrunch. I called out Twitter. That's different. I did say that I am not sure how people got on the list. Why did Veronica get on this list and not Ryan Block? You can't explain it. Neither can I. So, that opens up the door to corruption and graft. Perception does matter. - Robert Scoble

The only fault I can find with twitter is that it has created a new breed of egomaniacs. - jcunwired

Because my name was used in Robert's post (and we discussed this ad nauseum on Gillmor Gang) I'd like to weigh in. I know it sounds like sour grapes when I say anything about this. And I suppose some of it is. I did enjoy being at the top of Twitterholic. And there's tangible benefit to it - it gives you cred (some, not a ton). I suppose Twitter leaves me off its recommended list because I'm not always a fan of how Twitter does business. That, in itself, points to a problem with how the list is generated. - Leo Laporte

Why does perception matter? Because you are not even able to unemotionally read a sentence without reading meaning into it. Now, try to read a sentence (like what Twitter is communicating by making Veronica a star and not Ryan Block or not Leo Laporte) and add that same emotionality into it. THAT is what I was trying to point out. - Robert Scoble

I do admit I made that point in a stupid and lame way, though, and for that I'm sorry. But it did get you to engage on this and think about it and for all the hurt feelings this morning THAT is a positive thing. - Robert Scoble

If you don't think number of followers is important, then the "suggested list" is irrelevant. And I think that's what Twitter is saying. "Who cares if Whole Foods is acquiring thousands of unearned followers a day? We just want new users to have someone to follow." My point is that Twitter has immense power to influence the course of Twitter. This simple suggestion list thrusts some users forward for arbitrary and opaque reasons. This is why an open solution is ultimately better for us all. - Leo Laporte

Leo: I prefer to use the words "algorithmic" and "objective" instead of "open" but I get what you're getting at. - Robert Scoble

Look, Robert, I'm not trying to bust you up. I respect you and what you've done for the community. What I'm saying is that "Prove that Techcrunch did not pay @biz $10,000 to get on Twitter's suggested friend list," sounds an awful lot like an accusation. That's it. Hence, the focus on quality. People need to stop a second and think not about WHAT they're saying, but HOW they're saying it. - George Force

@scobleizer That's because you want to preserve Twitter. I don't think _any_ private micro-messaging solution is adequate. It needs to be open, like email. No algorithm is going to make a proprietary solution acceptable in my mind. - Leo Laporte

George: the point is that I don't know what the criteria is. So, you can't prove anything about anything on this list. That causes a perception problem for everyone involved. I know people who WOULD pay to get on this list. Why? At some point thousands of followers will mean money. I used to work for a magazine with 110,000 subscribers that made millions every year. This list ruins integrity of community. It is corruptible. - Robert Scoble

Goodness gracious, folks. I'm in la la land right now and I still understand the point Robert was trying to get across. Pour out the Scoble haterade for two seconds. - Shawn Farner

Leo: ahh, I see what you mean by open. I thought we were just talking about the recommended follower feature. Now that you are talking about the entire system I totally agree. I have on my to do list to take another look at Identi.ca. We should start another thread about whether or not that's the answer and if not, why not. - Robert Scoble

I have to agree with Jason H. Robert, you DID accuse TC of paying off Twitter. You creatively arranged the words to make it look like you are not directly making an accusation, but we can read between the lines. You do have something against TC, but that is your issue to resolve, don't bring it here. Ba a man and either say it out loud and to Arrington's face or shut the hell up about this. If you have a problem with Twitter then bring it against them. Sack up or shut up. Investigate or go home. - Norbert Davis

Robert, I'm not disagreeing with you entirely, and I'm certainly not becoming overwhelmed with emotion. Would you be interested in having a round table with myself and Ben Heckendorn on my podcast? Leo would also be welcome. - George Force

I'm not trying to get ratings or promotion. I'm interested in this subject. - George Force

Norbert: Mike Arrington (founder of Techcrunch and I are friends. I picked Techcrunch because he would get what I was trying to say. He speaks out against corruptible systems elsewhere (like his competition with Demo conference, which companies pay to get on stage). I didn't accuse anyone of anything. I did say that this system raises the perception issue. This is why journalists aren't allowed to own stocks in the companies they cover and why they aren't allowed to take gifts. This is a corruptible system. - Robert Scoble

Scoble could post about the air-land speed of a European Swallow and get "engagement" much like TC and their one-word post, "Twitter." - coldbrew

Twitter needs the cash, good for them. It's about time they found a way to make a little $. Also, I don't think popularity is the best indicator of a friend. @Techcrunch has been good to me, Leo on the other hand...(-; - tarafireball

"And, therefore, Twitter is a witch. Burn Her!" - coldbrew

Spill it, tarafireball. What'd Laporte do? - coldbrew

Its amazing that this topic gets more comments than the ISP/wireless bill, that will affect us all. - Joe K

Here's Arrington's post with 442 comments: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008... - coldbrew

This post wouldn't have gotten nearly the attention with a less incendiary title. Even "I can't prove Techcrunch didn.t..." probably would have blown over quick. - Bruce Lewis

It'd be interesting to see some eye-tracking type analysis on threads like this to see, on average, how many comments people read before commenting themselves. Seems like there's a whole lot of repetition. - Ken Sheppardson

That's not entirely fair, Lewis, I wouldn't continue if I didn't have some assurance that some smart folks would chime in. - coldbrew

There are 256 comments on this post. I guarantee you I'll not be reading them all before I post this. - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

Rasheen, it is a summary about how they chose the Knights of the Round Table. Hint: The Black Knight always wins, b/c it is merely a flesh wound no matter what happens :-) - coldbrew

FTR, I read every last comment (like always), sigh. - coldbrew

As someone who moved away from just numbers to quality numbers, it's all a tempest in a teapot to me. I can reevaluate my relationship with either TC or Leo at any time, but the specter of payola makes it feel like 1999 all over again. - Scott Pierce

I am amazed at the level of BS people are spewing here to grind their personal axes - also amazed that some people would take this so personally as an attack when it clearly wasnt an attack on them at all. Robert, in a rush to post like he often is, did not craft his words carefully enough and issued a challenge using incendiary language and referencing a friend (who will survive the debate clearly). This sort of thread is what makes Andrew Keen squeal with delight... - Chris Heuer

Q1: is twitter adopting a pay to play model for being featured anywhere on its site? Q2: Will the user community (especially new signups) be better off if they are open about how they are doing it? NO DOUBT - FAIR DISCLOSURE ALA ADVERTORIAL Q3 Does this sort of advertising (and the sort that has GaryVee using adsense to promote his twitter account) have a positive or negative impact on folks or does it matter at all? does this use of money as power to get attention take away from open/meritocratic ideals? - Chris Heuer

one disclosure piece - last week I contacted the folks behind twitter counter to see if we (aka me for Social Media Club) could buy a 'follow us' ad on their top 100 page - as the noise gets louder, we need better ways for getting noticed. http://twitter.com/socialm... was in the top 100 there for several months until recently being kicked off list by hollywood celebtrities joining conversation - Q4 should celebrities and companies be on separate lists - should we have user 'types' to differenentiate - Chris Heuer

I own twegomaniacs.com. I will gladly accept $10,000 from anyone who wishes to be placed on that list :) - jcunwired

How is this at all different from Google Reader's suggested content bundles, or the defaults that are included on start pages (some of which actually do pay to be there). Frankly, I'd have no problem if Twitter did charge for these spots, though I'm confident they haven't done so thus far. People are clearly willing to pay (see twittercounter) ... it's a good biz model - Adam Ostrow

Robert, the fact that you claim over and over again that you didn't make any claims, makes it even worse. The implication is there, even if you didn't mean to suggest it. A lot of people read that implication as an assertion. You are a polarizing person, and people aren't going to be carefully parsing your words anymore. You must realize this by now, and if you don't recognize this passive aggressive aspect of your nature, then that is the real issue here. - Joost Schuur

Why does it even matter if Twitter is 'broken' just because they don't have a perfect way to recommend followers at a time when they've just started opening up to non techies? Twitter suggestions have been available for a few weeks now. Can't we just let the system try and balance itself out for a while, before we freak out? Twitter is going to improve the system on their end, and some... more... - Joost Schuur

Joost: OK. It was a lame and stupid way to make a point but I think we are all adults here and everyone can see I wasn't asserting that corruption had already taken place. I just wanted to point out that this is a corruptible system that is rewarding significant gifts to some people in the community. - Robert Scoble

It doesn't matter that Ryan Block has 13,000 and Veronica has 110,000. You are right. Onward! - Robert Scoble

FWIW, I follow you, and everyone else on my list, because you post what I find to be interesting content. Leo is also there, Techcrunch is not, Veronica is not. Isn't it more important to have a fan base that is fascinated by the work you do than the random choosing of an arbitrary list that few people take seriously? I'm not a fan of suggestions in this regard anyway, not unless there is a compelling reason why I might be interested, and Twitter doesn't provide it, so its useless to me. No big deal. - jcunwired

Leo shouldn't be on that list. He trashes Twitter. I wouldn't list him if he trashed my company all the time. - PC Easy from twhirl

PC Easy: so not being on this list is punishment for bad behavior. Got it. That is why I hate subjective lists. - Robert Scoble

Haha, we run mrtweet. We were #5 two weeks ago, and we were absolutely shocked by the massive increase in numbers by everyone. It is pretty puzzling for us - we are pretty sure we did not get recommended at all, since our growth remains very consistent. Oh well. ;) - ming yeow

This is why the top Twitterer lists have ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE ANYMORE. I think Twitter really screwed up by using the suggested users. - Bill Romanos

@ Robert: A) According to Merriam-Webster a gift is "something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation". So no, since you call being on Twitters recomendation list a gift, Veronica did not earn it neither did TechCruch and neither did Leo. B) Your statement "Prove that Techcrunch did not pay @biz $10,000 to get on Twitter's suggested friend list." sure sounds like an accusation of coruption. C) Your ranting is really only damaging your reputation and FF by association. - ChiliMac

Who even uses this feature anyway? I know I don't. I'm only going to follow people I find from other people I follow. That way I'm getting people with similar interests not what Twitter or FriendFeed THINK I might like to follow. PS. I just checked out my suggested user list and TechCruch wasn't on there. Maybe because I already follow him. But, in that case, if Robert knows he's on there doesn't that mean Robert doesn't follow him? - ChiliMac

ChiliMac: Re "Who even uses this feature anyway?" Every new Twitter user sees this list. After you sign up, you're first asked if you want to try to import friends from another service (i.e. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc.) The next screen is 20 users selected from an apparently larger (~100ish?) list --with all 20 checked--and a big "Finish" button. Following everyone in the random(?) group of 20 is the default for new users. - Ken Sheppardson

I think Roberts problem is not that they implemented this feature but that the way it has been implemented. If the selection method was clearly paid or algorithm based then I don't think too many people would have a problem with it. It would appear at the moment that the criteria is just "people that I think are good". That is open to abuse as it has a bearing on the influence certain... more... - Anton Mannering from twhirl

I bet $10 you are mentally handicapped :D - coldbrew

Wow, I think you can get posted in Who's Who for only $35. Who cares? - Todd Kulick

Well, it's either pay up or join the train of Twitter users who wave through the system and are fast approaching 40,000 followers even though you've never heard of them, nor have they ever added anything of value to your life. Coercion is a bitch. - matt

gila kuasa, gila nama... (power crazy, name crazy!) - Pajama Domain

How do I get on this list? I have all this money that Obama gave me to spend to stimulate the economy. Can I stimulate Twitter's economy? Where do I mail the check? - Stephen Antonucci

This is a provocative post, Robert. iJustine did give Evan cupcakes. I remember their public exchange and acknowledgment. Was that a coerced coincidence or just innocent cavity propagation? I think the real power of the "suggested" followers "scam" is choosing high profile folks while including the lesser folks you have been calling out. The nobodies who are now the most popular proves... more... - David W. Boles

There are a lot of comments, so if this is duplicating what someone else said - so sorry :) If you want a great way to get a REAL recommended list, head over to HubSpot's Twitter Grader - get graded and there will be a recommended list below. - Mitch Canter

lolololol - "Joey"

Not trying to bash anyone, but I'm curious as to why people think that twitter is under any obligation to make their free service "open". Twitter seems to be saying that they reject the meaning of twitter follower counts as defined by others. Twitter's ultimate goal, I think, isn't to be a public service so much as to be a profitable company. "Their house, their rules" so to speak. If people want an open system, then they would probably prefer services like those that Leo Laporte proposes. - James Brodman

James: For me it sorta boils down to a monopoly power argument. What's wrong with Twitter not being open (and thereby controlling the "micromessaging" market/protocol) is the same thing that's wrong with AT&T controlling the phone service market or Microsoft controlling the operating system market. - Ken Sheppardson

Robert, by your metric, wouldn't any celebrity (tech geek or otherwise) also have an unfair (and unmeritorious) advantage in getting followers? Thus, having unfair influence? Veronica, you did get a gift. However, I am not sure you can earn a gift. - Rob McNealy

"promotional consideration" disclaimers are standard practice in TV game shows. Why not on Twitter? - Michael Markman

Why $10,000? Do you a have a copy of a check or a receipt or some such? - Chuck Baggett

Robert Scoble

Facebook: You Own All Your Data. Period. (But See You at the Next Privacy Uproar.) - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

February 21 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Katy Pearce, Peter Efland, Kol Tregaskes and 27 other people liked this

Everyone overlooked the important clause in the Facebook TOS - Facebook only had rights to your content subject to your privacy settings. They couldn't sell it for broad distribution. But no one stopped to consider that aspect of it. - Hutch Carpenter

23 more comments

But your content is still under Facebook's control (and they tend to hide, rather than permanently delete, when you remove content), TOS can change at any time without notice, and FB is still struggling to find a profitable business plan. Personally, I will be migrating more of my content to my own hosting over time. - LogEx

Logical - it's pretty much always that way. What value does it have to Facebook with some limited audience to whom it could distribute? - Hutch Carpenter

How much content were you putting on Facebook before? It's good for photos you want to tag with friends names sure, but it doesn't compare to any specialized services for sharing pictures, music etc. and you can then just link to those from your facebook page. - Richard Lawler

Hutch, not sure what you mean by limited audience. With a change to TOS, current or previously deleted content could be used for anything. I just don't trust Facebook, never have and probably never will. Repeated privacy dust-ups, and I doubt this will be the last one. - LogEx

Logical - I mean this. I have my kids photos only accessible to my friends, no one else. That's my privacy setting. So if someone like Gerber wanted to use a pic of my kid, hypothetically, Facebook could only commercially re-publish the pic to my existing social network. This approach doesn't scale. - Hutch Carpenter

Hutch, I get that, and I know FB must balance every change with anticipated user response. But they have an incredible volume of social graph, and personal content and details, very tempting to be exploited in some way. Terms of use are written in sand. With great power comes great responsibility, but with lack of transparency, power can be too easily abused. - LogEx

Well, I can't argue against the logical extreme of companies deciding to trash their relationships with their members. I'll only note that such behavior is precisely the kind of thing that would kill any service. This isn't a government entity, it's a private company where people are free to leave as they want. Ripping off people's content and ignoring their privacy settings would spell the end of Facebook. Note this applies to any company: credit cards, grocery store loyalty cards, online ad companies, etc - Hutch Carpenter

Reports about Facebook's attempt to own its users' data were just the product of poor research and sensationalism. The problem wasn't an attempt to own data but rather a license that went too far and which basically gave Facebook the right to do anything it wants. - Paul Jacobson from twhirl

Paul: Surely that amounts to the same thing. It wasn't sensationalism at all it was proper concern. Companies like Facebook must be kept honest by their users. I see honestly no reason why FB *needs* to claim any kind of licence over my content at all. In fact by claiming such licence or right it potentially exposes itself to not being able to use the mere conduit defense. - Anton Mannering from twhirl

Hi Anton, I'm not defending Facebook. I am just saying that the claims that it took ownership were incorrect. Its license stops just short of ownership and was very problematic. Generally, though, these sorts of services do require a license to manipulate our content and provide their service. The question is how broad the license is. In this case it went way too far and TC didn't quite grasp the distinctions. - Paul Jacobson from twhirl

Anton - what specifically about Facebook's TOS concerned you? In a way that others holders of our personal info didn't? - Hutch Carpenter

Hutch - Apart from the fact that it's really dumb froa bunch of reasons for Facebook from a business perspective. Other people have disected this better. Amanda French http://amandafrench.net/2009... and Web Tech Lawhttp://webtechlaw.com/what-fa... are worth reading. - Anton Mannering from twhirl

pictures on flickr, videos on blip.tv, blog entries on wordpress. i still own all of my data and apart from a couple of photos my profile is a hub, with all these apps that show all of the stuff. - Terry O'Fee

ScottBourne: From Google's TOS: "you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." http://www.google.com/intl... - Hutch Carpenter

um i was under a rock i didn't know this about google. migration off their services begins asap. - Jay Martinez from twhirl

so if i read that right google owns my data and can do as they please? - Jay Martinez from twhirl

@Hutch... also FB claimed to retain all license even if you closed your acount. Google's license terminates, see section 13... http://www.google.com/account... - LogEx

Well, this is good. Scott - I can't argue if you're not using Google either. You're staying pretty pure here. Can you describe the sub-licensing distinction? - Hutch Carpenter

Logical - I hear you on that difference. But with the privacy restrictions, is Facebook really going to do anything with your content after you've left the site? - Hutch Carpenter

Is the issue "what can they do" or "what are they legally allowed to do"? - coldbrew

Both, in my mind. Arguably they could commercial distribute to your social network based on the privacy restrictions (what can they do). But not beyond that (what are they prohibited from doing). I guess "legal" would be a whole different realm, technically. - Hutch Carpenter

Scott - sorry, didn't mean to insult. Impressed you'll avoid Google for same reason you'll avoid Facebook. As for the sub-licensing...distribution of those images will still be subject to the same privacy setting restrictions. So maybe people in your social network could buy those images, but no one else. As a viable business strategy, it's non-scalable and only pisses off members. - Hutch Carpenter

Hutch, aside from any legal issues as Scott points out, any limitations that FB has with respect to privacy settings are only as good as the TOS, which can change at whim. But ALWAYS when an account is closed, all data should be deleted AND all rights should cease. FB has goofed big on privacy at least three times in the past, that's a lot of mistrust to overcome. Why does FB write terms that they would never execute on? Other services tend to stick to what they need to operate. - LogEx

Logical - my sense is this argument could apply to a lot of companies. What was the Twitter service where people entered their passwords, which then was sold the next day? That's shoddy. Facebook is in a different class of companies with 175mm members, significant capital and constant coverage. As with any company, you have to trust them. Applies everywhere. - Hutch Carpenter

Loic Le Meur

I am Auctioned on Ebay with Free Shipping - http://www.loiclemeur.com/english...

February 12 from Loic Le Meur Blog - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Imakyure liked this

o_O - coldbrew

No offence but if I was going to buy a geek it'd be Julia Roy :-) - Richard A.

Chris Brogan

Don’t Be Afraid To Have Opinions Or Take Sides - http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009...

February 7 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

David Finch, Thomas Tracey, Matthew Imakyure and Jens Christian Freund liked this

Thomas Hawk

Flickr User Asks Flickr to Check if Her Self Moderated Account is OK, Flickr Responds By Deleting the User’s Account Without Warning - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

February 2 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Bryan Villarin, Mark Shoemaker and 33 other people liked this

Another Flickr account permanently deleted without warning. Her crime? Asking the Flickr staff to review her account to make sure that she had her moderation settings set up correctly. - Thomas Hawk

22 more comments

direct thread in the Flickr Help forum here: http://www.flickr.com/help... - Thomas Hawk

The problem is that there's no real alternative to Flickr: A community this big combined with an infrastructure that just works (most of the time at least)... - Holger Eilhard

Thomas - this is starting to get out of hand. Is this the year that Zooomr really starts to go mainstream because of Flickr's folly? - Damien Franco

WTF? I guess now's the time to start manually archiving our Flickr accounts, as tricky as that'd be. :( - Tyson Key

Schadenfreude, Flickr style. - Christopher Harley

Something's definitely wrong with flickr and has been for some time now. BTW, notice that a staff member named heather responded in that forum thread and said "I'll look into this when I get into the office this morning and respond to you". - Yuval Atzmon

With a name like 'flashergirl77', I'm not thinkin' photography, I'm thinkin' something else. - David Wilson

Yuval, the response will probably be "We decided to close this thread"... :( - Holger Eilhard

Hmm, what did the "Urination" thing mentioned in Flickr's reply have to do with anything? I'm puzzled... - Tyson Key

David, certainly her photostream is of the adult variety. But the point is that this sort of stream is allowed at Flickr if you self moderate your images and label them as "restricted" which she in fact did. She was playing by their rules but to be safe wrote them to make sure and they just deleted her. That's not right. - Thomas Hawk

Oh I totally agree, I was just taking the opportunity to make a joke about her choice of username ;) - David Wilson

I posted an update to my story from Heather Champ on my blog post. They are now calling this one a "mistake." Convenient since it's gotten a lot of attention. Part of the problem though is that Flickr doesn't have a way to undo account deletions. Once they do it it's done with no possibility for retrieval for the "mistakes" that they seem to make over and over again. That's not right either. - Thomas Hawk

Flickr has now apologized, http://www.flickr.com/help... - Jake Rome

Pity that they can't restore her account back now Jake. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas I don't understand why they can't restore her account. Surely there's a backup? Why isn't there an intermediate step -- suspension rather than deletion? - Karoli

Karoli, you are preaching to the choir on that one. People have been asking about that for years. Check this out. If you search for "censorship" and "mistake" in the Flickr help forum you get 93 threads returned: http://flickr.com/search... You'd think that they'd figure out by now that putting these deletions into some sort of temporary state rather than permanent deletion would make more sense. - Thomas Hawk

it's also interesting how many of the threads regarding censorship or mistakes in the Flickr forum have been locked or closed by Flickr. - Thomas Hawk

I can understand that Flickr doesn't keep backups of all user data, because even though storage space is cheap these days, we're talking about peta or exa bytes of data. A better solution would be a temporary state prior to permanent deletion. - Rene Wirtz

Rene, they don't even have to keep backups though. All they need to do is simply change the account to a private account. This way nobody but the owner can see it. It effectively removes it from the system but allows that to be reversed for the "mistakes" that they make. There is no reason why they can't do that. - Thomas Hawk

There has to be better procedures that Flickr staff can and should take. This is just another feather in the cap for how dumb they can be over there. I love Flickr, but can see why so many have jumped to SmugMug and other services that proclaim that they won't treat you the same Flickr does. - barl0w

Then there must be some sort of way to persuade Flickr to do that in case of investigations of possible violation for an account? When Heather mentioned that there is no Job Well Done Flickr forum it may be useful to raise this through Flickr Ideas? - Rene Wirtz

"Deleting" an account shouldn't even be a tool in their box. The proper procedure any sane company would use is to disable or make private the account, notify the user explaining their offense, and give them some time period to either correct the problem or otherwise challenge the decision. - Eric P

@Eric P I completely agree. It boggles the mind to think they can just wipe away years of community, participation, and work. I've downloaded all of my photos from their site. While I plan to continue using it, I've curtailed my community activity there since I can't trust them to respect me enough to allow me to make an argument for keeping an account I pay for. - Karoli

Chris Messina

Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) - http://www.amazon.com/dp...

January 12 from Amazon.com wish list - Comment - Like - Share

Christopher Taylor, Aram Zucker-Scharff, Beverly and 20 other people liked this

One of the best books I've ever read. EVAR. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

25 more comments

I concur - Matthew Imakyure from twhirl

Indeed. I've read it three times, I think. :) - John McCrea

#8 in my Top Ten books. - Anika

That's the second reissue in two years I think. It's finally been noticed. Which book do you suppose it was that brought him this attention? I've read most of his books, but I'm not sure which one broke into public attention first. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Cryptonomicon is probably the one that got him into the mainstream - Adewale Oshineye

I think it was this book. After the first time I read it, I was telling everyone about it. I practically forced my neighbors to read it. They loved it and told their friends...I know very few people who haven't read the book now. - Anika

This was the book that resurrected 'Cyperpunk', and gave it a funny and ironic twist. - Michael R. Bernstein

I heard that you can skip "Cryptonomicon" but that Snow Crash and Diamond Age are must-reads. Anyone got a copy they want to loan me? ;) - Chris Messina

Skip Cryptonomicon? Never! You must be thinking about Anathem. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

Many people find cryptonomicon "too intellectual" and "puzzle based" - that should probably tell you whether you fit into that camp or not. I've not had a chance to read Anathem (not out in paperback in UK yet as far as I know) - Cameron Neylon

Still to get around to Snow Crash. Loved Cryptonomicon - a friend lost my copy at sea on the way to Tonga. Cryptonomicon is a real geek-fest; if I say "Van Eck phreaking" and you say "wow, cool", then you'll love it :) - Neil Saunders

I am currently reading Cryptonomicon. As always with Stephenson's the book was hard to read for the first part but keeps getting better as you read on. - Davide D'Incau

I liked Diamond Age better than Snow Crash, cryptonomicon was quite good and I also liked Zodiac - Yann Abraham

Does anybody else remember The Big U? This was Stephenson's first book - Adewale Oshineye

@Ade I've been trying to find The Big U in audio format. No success thus far. - EricaJoy

It's not a great book but it has a lot of the political edge that typified Stephenson's early work (e.g. Zodiac, Interface, Cobweb) and it has a brevity that's missing from everything Stephenson's done since Cryptonomicon. - Adewale Oshineye

One of my favorite books. I loved this and Cryptonomicon. He's got several others that I need to read as well. - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Oh, and I read Diamond Age as well. I forgot till I just looked it up on Amazon. That was a good one as well. - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Interesting alright! - Mark Dunne from IM

Zodiac! How could I forget Zodiac! Brilliant stuff - Cameron Neylon

so what is everyone's opinion of the baroque cycle? - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Cryptonomicon was fantastic. The 3 books that were explicitly included in the Cycle were good but ultimately unsatisfying because he left so many questions unanswered. - Adewale Oshineye

Anyone else read "The Cobweb", which he wrote with his uncle? I found it quite good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Nick Lothian

I've read everything Stephenson's ever done. Well I've read all the books. However most of his articles are too long and my copy of Anathem is gathering dust with a bookmark in page 20 - Adewale Oshineye

I encourage everyone who faltered to keep at Anathem. It's by far my favorite book of 2008. - Internet's Tad

I loved the Baroque Cycle. Not sure which unanswered questions Adewale is referring to, but I thought it was, as a collective work, sheer brilliance. I liked Snow Crash too, but have enjoyed his work since Crypto much more. - Jim Hearts FF

Thomas Hawk

Top 10 Tips for Getting Attention on Flickr, All Fresh and New for 2008 - http://thomashawk.com/2008...

July 28, 2008 from Thomas Hawk's Digital... - Comment - Like - Share

Alex Williams, Dennis Goedegebuure, Benjamin Golub and 113 other people liked this

Good article. I guess you've got to work smart to get noticed on Flickr. - Adam Christie

42 more comments

Very good advice, Thomas. A comment on no. 6 ("Groups"): I remember Flickr staff mentioning that not only photos that are in too many groups (more than 10-15, as a rule of thumb) get penalties for their Explore rating. Allegedly, this is also true for photos that are in the *wrong* groups, specifically the ubiquitous "post 1, comment x" groups. So not all photo critique groups might be good when you want to get your pictures into Explore. - Ole Begemann

Ole, I hadn't heard that certain groups penalized photos but have seen Flickr staff in the past mention that posting your photo to too many groups will reduce it's visibility with their algorithm. - Thomas Hawk

Re: no. 5 ("Explore"): more criteria that seem to influence whether a photo makes it to Explore: the presence of EXIF data, geotags, title, description has a positive influence; faves and comments from people who are not among your contacts seem to count more than from contacts; faves and comments from popular photographers count more than those from nobodys; a photo that gets 2 or 3 faves within minutes after uploading is more likely to make Explore than one that gets faved 15 times within 24 hours. - Ole Begemann

Thomas, I'll try to find a reference for this. - Ole Begemann

Good point on EXIF data Ole, yes, photos in Explore are required to have EXIF data. My own guess as to why this is is that if a photo has EXIF data it is more likely to be your own photo vs. something you simply ripped from the web. Not foolproof of course but I'd guess that this policy is in part due to a desire to increase the authenticity of the photos promoted on Explore. - Thomas Hawk

If you look at the photos in Explore, the only "Leave a comment" groups that I see with any regularity are TWTME and 1-2-3 groups... what makes them special I'm not sure, other than they're amongst the largest groups in general. But you see very few of those award groups or "leave x comments" groups in the photos in Explore, so I suspect that Flickr must be penalizing them. - Eric P

Thomas, that's a great refresher on the original article. Some great tips. - Tom Quinn

And Thomas, throwing reciprocation in as a "bonus"? It should have been #1 or #2. The vast, vast, vast majority of comments and faves that I receive are from people whose stream I previously visited. The only real exception to that is when a photo is high in Explore, which results in a torrent of views/comments/faves from strangers. - Eric P

Yep Eric. Reciprocation is very high. Bonus tip might not be the best place for it. It's very important. Faving back when people fave your work, commenting back. Adding people back as mutual contacts, etc. All encourage activity on your photostream. - Thomas Hawk

Eric, participation groups don't penalize your photo from Explore best I can tell. This photo http://www.flickr.com/photos... from a few weeks ago was in the Deleteme Uncensored critique group and was #3 on Explore as well. - Thomas Hawk

In fact just searching flickr for the save10 tag from the DMU critique group along with "explore" brings up a number of photos: http://www.flickr.com/search... - Thomas Hawk

Good post, *IF* getting attention is important to you, as opposed to using it as a vehicle to just share photos with people - Eric Rice

After I read your original article on Flickr popularity a while back, I began reciprocating every comment received. That worked very well. - Tom Harrison

Eric, true. Some people have no interest in their photos receiving attention. I do think that the majority of people posting on Flickr though do appreciate when their photos receive some attention. Lots of people do not though. I have friends that only publish private photos that their friends can see and opt out of every public aspect of Flickr. I think these people though are the exception rather than the norm and think that Caterina's quote is pretty typical of the most active users on the site. - Thomas Hawk

Thanks for digging my article Aaron! :) http://digg.com/arts_cu... - Thomas Hawk

Alright, I found something. Flickr staff member acknowledged almost 2 years ago that "groups that force people to comment/fave on certain photos with no choice" do in fact hurt your Explore chances. Also, "weight of comments and favorites from contacts is quite low in interestingness calculation." (http://www.flickr.com/groups...). A very old post and the algorithm has changed since then but we can probably say that the gist of it is still true. - Ole Begemann

interesting Ole. I hadn't seen that. I think it would be difficult for Flickr to manually track every group that encourages tags and comments as participation. Per the links above though, photos in DMU have definitely made it into Explore anyways. - Thomas Hawk

Yeah, I have no idea how they maintain a list of the "bad" groups. Further below, SilentObserver mentions his business is writing algorithms to filter them out automatically, though. - Ole Begemann

Here's another good summary of nearly everything the community knows about the Explore algorithm: http://www.flickr.com/groups... - Ole Begemann

Here is an example of tagging. I did not know this woman was a celebrity until after got this shot. It appears on the first page of the image search engines and it has received over 12,000 views. http://flickr.com/photos... - Russellreno

So far I got 3 (!) photos into explore. Their common factor? They all were faved by you (TH) soon after I posted theim. - Guillaume Lemoine

Flickr used to say "who" faves your shots was a part of the Explore algorithm. It wouldn't surprise me if the algorithm weights faves by different people from the Flickr community differently. For instance, Pro accounts where people actually have paid for the service might be weighted higher than non-Pro accounts. More active users might carry more weight with their faves then less active users. Just speculating on this part. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas - I don't think that participation in all groups gets a penalty, just that there are some groups that are penalized as far as Explore is concerned. I simply don't see Explore photos in "Post 1, Comment X" groups - so either there's no explore-worthy photos in those groups (not likely IMHO), or Flickr is penalizing the photos in those groups. - Eric P

such a great post Thomas, thanks for writing it - Dobromir Hadzhiev

As a note to certain groups penalizing your photos...I had a photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos...) that went to explore spot 150 or so. After, I added it to a few groups to see if I could bump it higher. It had the opposite affect and immediately dropped off. I can't say which group exactly did it or if it was the number of groups I submitted to, but adding to groups definitely does come with some sort of penalty. - Justin Korn

If you use FeedBurner, you can splice your Flickr photos into your blog feed. I have it splice my last two photos and I find those have at least 5x the number of views as the ones that aren't in my spliced feed. - Mike Hussein Cohen

Awesome post Thomas. I signed up for Flickr a couple of years ago, but only started using it more regularly after the purchase of a digital SLR camera - so this post is particularly relevant to me. I am still patiently waiting for that first comment/favourite on one of my photos to truly experience the emotions as described by Caterina Fake. - Jeff Smith

Thanks for this post, Thomas. Great tips! - Eric Johnson

Great article Thomas... I was also wondering about what my friend calls 'Shooting for the 75'. That is, a great majority of people only ever see a 75 x 75px thumbnail of your photo. When he processes, he always does a square crop to test how it looks in the frame. Would you like to see proportional thumbnails as an option? - Johnny Worthington

I actually really like the square thumbnails. Heck I really like the square crop period. I think I'm cropping more and more of my photos 4x4 these days. Maybe it's just that I've always loved medium format photography so much, not sure why I'm so drawn to the square crop right now though. I much prefer Flickr's square thumbnails actually. Still would love to see larger sizes on FF like SmugMug's thumbnails. - Thomas Hawk

you're right though. Frequently it's the thumbnail that draws people into a photo. A good looking thumbnail is more likely to be selected by viewers for clicking through to full size viewing, commenting, faving, etc. - Thomas Hawk

One of my very first Flickr experiences was someone in a critique group cutting me down for a square crop. It was a rose in a perfect spiral petal pattern, could only be cropped square as far as I was concerned. LOL...I didn't change it either. - Karoli

Haha, that's funny Karoli. so much of the criticism in critique groups on Flickr is so lame. You should have seen the deleteme critique group ravage a Henry Cartier Bresson photograph who is probably considered by most photo historians as the greatest photographer who ever lived. Read some of these comments on this photo for a laugh: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Thomas Hawk

I used to work to get photos into explore. I think I probably take better pictures now, but I don't have the time at the moment to put in the work. Lots of community building and commenting went into the mix. I confess, there's a real rush to hitting the front page. I had three in the top 10, and it was a lot of fun. - Karoli

I have been doing a lot of panoramic shots over the past year and I have started to play around with vertical cropping. Taking a portrait photo and cropping a really tight vertical crop: http://www.flickr.com/photos... It's all about how the picture looks to you in the end. Square, circle or hexagon, it's about the sensory reaction :) (and now I'm going to square crop for this week just to try it out, thanks guys) - Johnny Worthington

Thomas, those comments are a hoot! I met some nice people in some of the critique groups, but it didn't take me long to know the critiques weren't helping. I do love Flickr's community...even if I haven't spent a lot of time in it lately. - Karoli

yeah, the attention from Explore can be fun. But I'm pretty unimpressed with a lot of the photos there. I think Flickr could do a much better job with that algorithm. I do find filtering explore just by my contacts though produces more consistently interesting photographs for me. I use this script to do just that: http://www.drewmyersphoto.net/flickr_... - Thomas Hawk

Agree on the photo quality on Explore. Seems like a lot of the same sort of gimmicky stuff lands there. Looking forward to trying the script. - Karoli

Thanks for the article, that opened my eyes up a lot - Alex Carpenter

Hey Karoli, here's you and your daughter by the way. I uploaded this to Zooomr a while back when I was taking a break from Flickr but uploaded it tonight on Flickr. Great fun on that photowalk. http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Thomas Hawk

Hey, cool! Thanks for the pointer. It was a great photowalk, would love to do another sometime soon! - Karoli

Here is one more way to get attention: Comment on this post with a link to one of your photos. I received a hit today from the comment about. http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Russellreno

Good stuff. Worked for me: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Demetri Mouratis

The Apple Room: Zee.

µTorrent for Mac Released - http://mac.utorrent.com/beta/

November 26, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Halil Gökdal, Kevykev, zsafwan  and 24 other people liked this

awesome... looking forward to trying it out - Philip J Beyer

11 more comments

Now I'm wondering should I get this or stick to Transmission? -

I'll be trying it out but will continue to use Transmission until 1.0 - Brandon Titus

my flatmate got barred from using the internet for the last 36 hours because a company sent our web provider an email saying he was illegally sharing the firms product via torrent. Watch out! - Zach Landes

Well, that has nothing to do with the client you use (or even torrents themselves) but with what you choose to download and seed. - Akiva Moskovitz

When will the linux version come out. Hating Deluge these days. Likes rtorrent. - cnu

Waiting for linux version, but this is AWESOME! - k00pa

Meh. Transmission has the advantage. - Rick Powell

Azureus/Vuze is java based and runs great on Mac. But I agree micro is micro. - Mihai Tarmure

Not sure why this is so amazing when Transmission has been available for the Mac for quite a while. Native too! - Glenn Batuyong

@Mihai, I used to use Azureus on the Mac, but when they switched to being Vuze, I looked for an alternative. It was far to big and klunky and hard to figure out. I found Transmission and haven't looked back. - Joey Gibson

Vuze is in constant change and the has a lot of power under the hood. Feature wise is among the most advanced clients out there. I agree, for the regular user this says nothing and I accept, because is Java based it tends to eat more resources. I havent had bad experiences with micro torrent on PC and I always recommend it to novice torrent users. The fact that its available for mac is only good news for everyone. - Mihai Tarmure

@Joey Transmission is nice. Too bad some trackers will ban you for using it. Not sure why, but when they put it in their rules not to use it or else, it doesn't give too much latitude for me. Besides, I like the way Vuze looks. I have to agree with @mihai, it is one of the best bittorrent clients out there. - R. Alexander Spoerer

Ryan

WWW - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

November 29, 2008 from Flickr - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Imakyure liked this

Ňicķ

Pork's Dirty Secret: The nation's top hog producer is also one of America's worst polluters - http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...

July 29, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

ThePicMan, costis, Ryan and 35 other people liked this

Sorry to spoil the bacon fun, but as a veg, I could only let it go on so long. The pork industry is rotten to the core. - Ňicķ

23 more comments

I buy my pork related products from sources that aren't horrible. If you buy your meat from Whole Foods, you'll pay more but get much higher quality meat that's nothing like the company profiled. Yes, much of the pork industry is disgusting. - Internet's Tad

Nick, THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS!!!!! - Anna Haro

I'm not a vegetarian now, but when I lived in rural Missouri I was. Whole Foods cannot be found on every street corner, and not everyone can afford it anyway. What's really sad is that if you're poor in the midwest you're probably eating pork and therefore contributing to massive pig-shit lagoons that are extremely dangerous to your own safety. Vegetarianism is a nutritious and affordable habit we could all learn something from. - Jason Wehmhoener

don't blame me! I'm Hallal - Noah David Simon

i'm hitting the LIKE button very reluctantly. in this case it should be called "DO NOT FORGET" - sean808080

Luter, the owner of Smithfield, wants to expand in Europe, particularly in Poland and Romania. The bastard! After having killed millions of fish, made countless people sick here in the US, and ruined rivers and watersheds in North Carolina for everybody, now wants to do the same in Europe. And smarmy politicians here in the States have done nothing to stop him -- after getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from him, that is. People like this are the real terrorists. - Raoul Pop

We are the Veggie Buzzkill. - Chris Baskind

Bacon will destroy the world, but it's oh so good. - Morton Fox

I "liked" this to draw attention to it. - Corie

It's worth it. What did grass ever do for me on a burger? - Soulhuntre from twhirl

and bacon is much better than spam :) - Baard @ Pixum

God Bless you Corie! ;) - Anna Haro

So has Mona read this? Just wondering... ;-) - Ňicķ

Whoa! this entire article is GROOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS!!! wow. this is ungodly farming folks. this Pig Farming CEO dude's is sick in the head from all those fumes! Vegetarianism has for a long time been proven to be good for you and the environment...this should be on the front page news, but it's not. - Susan Beebe

Thanks sincerely for the reminder... - Bill Sodeman

hmmmm... not good for Bacon, but breakfast is still for winners. - Thomas Hawk

It's why I don't eat meat, thanks for this post. Reblogging. - Ryan

My pork does not come from these sorts of places. However, I will never buy Smithfield again even in an emergency pinch situation. Thanks for the link. - ThePicMan

ba-dee ba-dee ba-dee That's yuckie, folks! ... - Mark Elster

This looks like a lost opportunity to take advantage of the biogas. http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY... - zphaze

http://www.nfb.ca/collect... - DAVE ID

I don't eat much meat at home, but this is certainly going to make me rethink that order of bacon and eggs at a diner. - Nicholas Molnar

There goes my love of bacon. - Mark Wilson

I just emailed Paula Dean the link to this RS article. I am sure she will never see it, but I am sick of her Smithfield commercials on FoodTV. - ThePicMan

Robert Scoble

RSS Hat Meme - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

November 19, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

accesine, (jeff)isageek, Jesse Hattabaugh and 116 other people liked this

RSS Hat Meme. As shot at the Chinese BloggerCon in Guangzhou over the weekend. - Robert Scoble from Bookmarklet

35 more comments

Thats great, simple & elegant. - Nicholas Kreidberg

I want one that is for sure - John D. Lemke from twhirl

باهاش فید مغزمونو شیر میکنیم! بده که آخه! هیچی توش نیست! - Business Blogger【ツ】™

Soooo if I want to subscribe do I go up and push them in the head ? :D What would be cool is if you could scan the symbol with a mobile phone and get the bloggers feed - Mo Kargas

Mo: Closer than you might think http://www.techcrunch.com/2008... - David HC Soul

David, that's fantastic! Additionally, the last argument I need to finally purchase an iPhone. - Mo Kargas

WANT - Ariel Torres

I like it, how can i get one, scoble? - jimmy howe

I want one! - Michael Fidler from twhirl

I want as well. - Adam Helweh

Drew Olanoff has an RSS tattoo. Who's man enough to start that meme? - Louis Gray

I'll take an OPML hat. I look better in blue. - Mark Krynsky

ugggg, RSS overload - sofarsoShawn

Louis that is so tempting - wonder what my wife would say - Jesse Stay

Hotness. - Vera Hannaford

Every time I wear the hat I get a bar at the top that asks me if I want to wear it with Live Bookmarks, Google Reader or another outfit. - Kevin Leroux

@Kevin: ahah! - Jérôme Flipo

I so want one of those hats. Where can we get them? - Rob Diana

Nice hat. I wonder if it comes in newspaper. - Colonel Tribune

You can contact @digitalboy at twitter for this hat :) - number5

I guess it has a QR-code pointing to the feed url at the back. Right? :-) - Panayotis Vryonis

WANT x5 or whatever. - Tamar Weinberg

This is my cap, pls follow me via Twitter @digitalboy. - digitalboy

OK...but where is the RSSmeme hat? - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I Want!! - Sarah Perez

That is nice, I almost want to wear a hat now. - Aram Zucker-Scharff

I want one. - James Hull

@vista models the hat (which also comes in black): http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Robert Scoble

That'd be kind of a cool shirt. Does it exist? - Wade Dorrell

Why do I want this? Why? - teh Dork Knight

Where can I get one? - Aad 't Hart

want - Richard Akerman

I think I just found @marshallk's Christmas present - Rick Turoczy

here is anothter. http://www.flickr.com/photos... - digitalboy

I got one of their T-Shirts,I should have got the hat. - Steve Chou

我这里也有拍。 http://www.yupoo.com/albums... - 抽筋儿

Mona Nomura

How To Put A Condom in 3 seconds -AD - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

November 17, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

João Almeida, david beckwith, Mohamed J and 22 other people liked this

Revolutionary design! - Eric @ CS Techcast

23 more comments

Apparently this is old ! - Mona Nomura from IM

I've been barking "Pronto Condom!" to myself for the past five minutes. Who knew I'd find that so catchy. - Marko Bon from fftogo

Mona, where have you been? This should be in every guy's pocket already. - Andrew Trinh

As long as my stick agrees to disengage from my body and stand erect and unswerving in the middle of a table, I can do it faster. - Kamath (नमः)

LMFAO!!! "Shower Time"?! - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

It's the wrapper that's the issue. You almost always end up using your teeth to open the damn thing. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Bareback - ld

The easiest way is to let her do it with her mouth -

Let her? You mean get her. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Get? She's supposed to do that anyways. You're not hitting her enough -

I can't stop laughing - Erin @queenofspain

If you have to use your teeth...maybe you're opening the wrong side...or those ain't condoms... - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

Seriously, am I the only one who finds opening a condom wrapper annoying? - Eric @ CS Techcast

I use Saran Wrap. Easy on, easy off, keeps my penis crisp and fresh... -

That's TMI right there man. :-) - Got Love For DB™?

Foil tears really easy for me, guess it depends on what you got. - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

Foil is for the ex -

LOL - Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF

Those aren't too bad, or the paper wrappers, but there are the ones that come in a plastic wrapper that are the problem. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Oh, and Outsanity, you crazy. - Eric @ CS Techcast

From a old conversation... "I hate condoms. It's like fucking a garbage sack" - ld

crazy is my bread and butter -

Better than fucking nothing. - Eric @ CS Techcast

Oh Gawd... This is soo funny. LOL. - Zach Flauaus

Duncan Riley

Furries for Obama - http://skitch.com/duncanr...

November 16, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Martin Bryant, Brad Kligerman, Amber, Random Time Lord and 8 other people liked this

http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Morton Fox

5 more comments

http://wonkette.com/403532... - Morton Fox

^,^ cute - Caroline

L to the O to the L!!!! - Mark Wilson

mark, don't ever say that again - Caroline

still into secondlife duncan? :P - sean percival

Caroline, what did I miss? Why shouldn't I say that again? - Mark Wilson

Louis Gray

Why Some People Don’t Get Twitter - http://uniquefrequency.com/2008...

November 3, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Igor Poltavskiy, Алексей Мельчаков, Daynah and 22 other people liked this

You mean there's really something to get there? - j1m

9 more comments

I still don't get twitter either, at least as a robust *communications* medium. I selfishly and unashamedly use it as a broadcast medium... when I have something I want say or a question I want answered. When I want a conversation, I turn to Friendfeed. Or, dog forbid, something lo-tech like the phone or a cafe where I find real, live people I can talk and have a (threaded?) conversation with :-D - Adam Lasnik

LOL @Adam for "dog forbid" - Far

"if you’re not used to spending time talking and listening to people (or if your company isn’t), then social media is not for you." <-- bingo. - Mona Nomura

I don't feel like it is very interactive and thus I don't enjoy it. I understand that it can be but it never has been for me. I also don't think that the interactivity is intuitive. My experience with it has just not been fun. Friendfeed on the other hand... - Andrew

OH, that describes my Twitter experience exactly - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I still think Twitter is a feature, not a product. - trextor

My opinions on Twitter have changed a lot over the last few months. I do not often use it for conversations, and expect to be broadcasting. But I also think it is, today, the #1 resource for real-time reactions, events and polling. FriendFeed is similarly good, but not big enough yet. - Louis Gray

Twitter has become a way of life for me. Its replacing blogging and giving me a place to brain dump. - drew olanoff

trextor, no - Twitter's one big bug - Jesse Stay

Sorry but this post is garbage. It's not about social media it's about context and purpose. Some people will never learn. - Dennis Howlett

Louis Gray

Twitter Planning to Implement OpenMicroblogging Standard - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

November 1, 2008 from louisgray.com - Comment - Like - Share

Yinhaiming, Atul Arora, Robert Stevens and 27 other people liked this

I think if they do implement the standard, they could own the mass adoption space. There would still be room for Laconica and others, and they would probably grow because of it. - Rob Diana

5 more comments

Rob, yeah - this is a huge opportunity for them to be a leader. If they don't , the masses will take over. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

My OpenMicroblogging app has been downloaded more than 2000 times since I wrote it this summer, there is a lot of interest in having interoperable microblog services. - Brian Hendrickson

Brian what's interesting about that is that each installation has the potential of thousands to tens of thousands of users that can all talk with each other on other networks. I'd love to hear some stats on what people are doing with the 2,000 downloads from OpenMicroblogger. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

The technology would better be dubbed "MicroForum" because it replaces the need to be on forums where everyone just throws short posts back and forth. Especially in the case of vertical market laconica instances, people are really having short discussions. - randulo

randulo that's an excellent comparison - Jesse Stay from twhirl

And that is a very useful asset for our day and age. - Robert Worstell

Louis Gray

Once again, Twitter’s death is laid out. Once again, users will fail to notice - http://venturebeat.com/2008...

October 25, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Reynolds, Kol Tregaskes, Matthew Imakyure and 14 other people liked this

I'm still using Twitter more than identi.ca. - Morton Fox

8 more comments

Oh, yeah. identi.ca. I totally forgot about that... - Lisa L. Seifert

It's not identi.ca Twitter has to fear, but corporate adoption of Laconi.ca and services that are more popular, like FriendFeed, or even Facebook. - Jesse Stay

Oh yeah, Yammer is a real threat to Twitter too. *chuckle* - Morton Fox

Twitter will stay because it does one thing. - Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty from fftogo

And that one thing is update my FB status... ;-) - Lisa L. Seifert

Twitter, like a number of web 2.0 services with no revenue model, must already be under considerable pressure from its investors to find one. How much longer can they burn through money? Meanwhile dozens of smaller sites circle. I've got my money on a more lightweight open system of, for example, federated Laconica instances. - Leo Laporte

Winer draws comparison to Netscape, but there are lessons from AOL (memory lane: http://is.gd/4Ptc) as well. Who says Twitter's going to die? OTOH, its non-impending death does not signal its inevitability to become the one ring that binds them all in the realm of micromessaging. The open web beat out AOL's garden. The openness and inter-connected model of Laconica and friends, though not inevitable either, should not be underestimated. Incidentally, AOL getting sued (email ads) http://is.gd/4E8u - Micah Wittman

users will only notice the death of twitter if the message is on twitter - Pascal

I used identi.ca once. Not nearly as many cool toys as Twitter. These death threats are really more like calls to action. Twitter will flesh out a business model, and we'll keep Tweeting. I really think we're going to see for Twitter in '09 what we saw for Facebook in '08 (heavy mainstream adoption). - Sarah Crisman

MG Siegler

Not gonna lie, this is pretty cool to see.

October 16, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Hutch Carpenter, Andrew Terry, Mohamed J and 46 other people liked this

Congrats! - Hao Chen

18 more comments

t3h aw3somez! - Jay Cuthrell

Brilliant headline too! Simply Brilliant. - Mark Philpot

thanks guys. - MG Siegler

wow, grats all around. :D - Chris Hollander

man, marvellous stuff - no joke. - Zee.

Nice - Eric @ CS Techcast

Oh shiznitly insane, good game MG! - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

Oddly enough, Yahoo really does have tissues. Everyone here has had a really nasty cold for the past week. - Glen Campbell, B.A.

Game-changing and mad cool - Dave Martin

I'm gonna ask a n00b question but -- I don't see this on my iGoogle? Is it something you need to turn on via settings? Or are they rolling it out slowly? - Jorge Escobar

it's on google finance Jungle - Zee.

oh crap, Zee, I posted on the wrong article -- I meant the new iGoogle with canvas widgets! - Jorge Escobar

Awesome! - Mike Reynolds

very cool - Duncan Riley

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008... - Victor Ryden

Congrats! New finance guru?:) - Igor Poltavskiy

Just great! - michael sean wright

WOW that is super cooooool!!! damn that's big!! way to go Matt!!! :) - Susan Beebe

Headline = perfect. - Will DeLuca

Ryan

Woo! KHPR made $90K in the last hour, a record? KIPO made goal for @bkozhpr's show. The little sister station that could, now 37% of total!

October 16, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Imakyure liked this

Dan Hsiao

Knock Out: CNBC Confirms Lehman CEO Punched at Gym - http://www.businessandmedia.org/article...

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

Matt Hilton, Brian Newman, Chieze Okoye and 12 other people liked this

"he went to the gym after … Lehman was announced as going under. He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold." - Dan Hsiao from Bookmarklet

7 more comments

'Ward determined Fuld deserved the beating based on his testimony before the committee. “I thought he was shameless,” Ward said. “I thought it was appalling. He blamed everyone. He blamed, as you say, ‘naked short sellers’ over and over in case we didn’t get the point, when in fact hedge funds like Harbinger had money locked up in Lehman and was shorting it to try and make the most of the money that they already had. He blamed everybody but himself.”' - j1m

WOW! - Susan Beebe

You are never, ever safe from pissed off stockholders or investors. On the street, in the courtroom. Or even in the gym. :D - Helen Sventitsky

B-eat the rich! - adolfo foronda

Despite the enthusiasm above, I think that's horrible. We are applauding vigilantes now? You think the musclehead knows the nuances of Lehman and the markets? - Louis Gray

Well, it seems to be the only thing that might deter corruption and irresponsibility, since apparently market forces are incapable of doing so. I do find millionaire CEOs who take all credit for success but no blame for failure eminently punchable. - Benjy Weinberger

This is frightening. Weren't we all taught in about third grade that violence isn't an acceptable solution? I guess the assailant couldn't quite put it together. - Stellina

I'm pretty shocked at the reaction here commending this guys behavior. - Brian Newman

Ryan

Fantastic find by @NathanKam: Free Hawaiian music courtesy United and Mountain Apple. Good stuff. Grab it while you can! http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/podcast...

September 30, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Imakyure liked this

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