Dan Rockwell

In a lot of ways, 1999 allowed for sites like eBay, Amazon and their ilk to come out above the piles of dead and dying. This correction might see the wheat of the social web rise from the, you know, crap. - Steve Spalding

At least it'll weed out the crap. - (teh)Hussein

This will definitely happen. But since every company thinks they'll be that stronger company, the culling must begin, like an episode of survivor... - Jason Kaneshiro

@Jason again I'm not sure that's a bad thing. - Steve Spalding

Long term this is a very good thing. Separates the chaff from the wheat. - Mark VandenBerg

I don't think it's a bad thing either. - Jason Kaneshiro

@Jason ack misread a bit, carry on :) - Steve Spalding

Yup, just like the last downturn. Although if businesses were starting to get fatter again so soon after the dotcom bust, then shame on them. - Alex IHateMondays Scoble

I think there's gonna be a Web app fire sale. :) Either that, or a lot of platforms will go open source... - l0ckergn0me

The fringe will flourish in the new post sub prime reality. - Dan Rockwell via twhirl

@Alex - yep - there was a period around 2006 where it seemed the hard lessons of web 1.0 were being forgotten - focus on flipping, and profit / high burn rate be dammed. Well, I'll be the first to string up the sock puppet. - Jason Kaneshiro

@chris yea, I definitely see a world where all the near applications that can't monetize are sold off at Wal*mart prices. Though I hadn't thought about the opensource thing, that could be interesting. - Steve Spalding

Oh my, what parties will Gawker crash? Casual Layoff Fridays? - Richard Walker

increase or decrease outsourcing?????????? - Gregory Lent

decrease outsourcing since there should be fewer one off projects - Steve Spalding

It will create more powerful monopolies. - Jeff P. Henderson

At least the recent and upcoming problems in finance can show to many people that there has to be really good plans (and not just plans but ways to implement them in good way). Plans without right action is like jumping to the wrong direction while attempting to go to other. I wonder what is right thing to do; kick many people out of work or find better ways to business? Competition is good but it shouldn't be unhealthy. - Daniel Schildt

hell yes. It forces companies to have a business case + profit, and that's a good thing - Duncan Riley

Yes I bloody hope so! - Kol Tregaskes

Yes, every downturn does. - Mathew Ballard

@directeur: The information filtering problem was going to hit us regardless of the economic climate. If we come up with better ways to reshape our personal news streams I'll be happy. - Daniel J. Pritchett

NoiseRiver, think beyond the content play alone, what about technology startups? Not just media side - Jeremiah Owyang

I think it will help drive innovation as well as an increased focus on efficient processes, like you said. - Brian Chappell

Every crisis always leads to more innovation. In a crisis risks are valued differently, creating more opportunities. I do absolutely agree with your statement - Aad 't Hart

economic downturns always makes people more creative. What I managed to do with Roman Noodles back in the day was nothing short of miraculous. - chartreuse

I wrote this morning about this exact idea, it is time to adapt and innovate. I definitely think that many tools will "fall by the wayside". - Rob Diana

Funny Jeremiah just called me NoiseRiver ;) Seriously, I DO agree that the "need" is a "creativity's" generator. I'm just affraid that a great need will have some dirty <side>effects. And yes, I do care about content more than the tools. Tools when used for/by/with bad content will seem useless and vain. - directeur via NoiseRiver

I am just waiting for the one take all social media portal. Similar to friendfeed but more intuitive. - Brad Wrage

oh snap, i meant directeur sorry - Jeremiah Owyang

I think the opportunity is definitely there - unfortunately i think that alot of businesses paradoxically shy away from trying something new during times like these out of a fear that they will waste dwindling resources so it could take stronger more forceful convincing - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

Agree. It's time to stop goofing off and get back to profit, utility, and real innovation. That alone will kill off tons of half-baked Web 2.0 sites. - Jason Kaneshiro

Agree, focus on profits need to return. Good time to really make trackable insights fly, good time to be in analytics, brand monitoring social media spaces. Could put an squeeze on crazy crowdsourcing models because now more than ever effort needs to equate with returns. - Dan Rockwell via twhirl

I noticed, with chagrin, that for all the advice to "hunker down" and "reduce overhead" nobody, and I mean nobody has suggested that all these VC-funded startups actually try to make a profit. Is that a concept that is considered passe? - Mark VandenBerg

It will be good for social media because it will force convergence of the multiple tools that exist and overlap. Then the model will truly emerge - Francine Hardaway via twhirl

One good thing about a downturn is that it roots out bad ideas, and companies. One bad thing is that investment money will likely just go on 'sure things' and not on 'out there', radical ideas. One other good thing: big companies let smart people go, and these smart people may then start up their own businesses. - john conroy

1. If I follow you and retweet you you'll have an impact. - Robert Scoble

1, if that person can effect change. - Ben Jackson via twhirl

Amen, brother. Scoble's retweets are the juice. - John McCrea

Scoble - laughing at your comment. @chrisbrogan has had a similar effect w/ me in the past. One mention and voila, many new followers. @Louis, I'd say that you start to hit critical mass at 100 but they obviously have to be the right 100. At 500-1,000, you can start to get some very effective research/survey results from your followers. - Aaron Strout

John, you don't even need one follower, thinking about it. The world is moving to http://search.twitter.com so you can get found with very few followers there. - Robert Scoble

+10 Scoble - imran

Thanks Mr. Scoble. I just found someone to chat with about my executive dashboard project. - Mattb4rd

Robert: so true. I am addicted to Twitter search. It is vital to my work (and fun). - John McCrea

@Aaron, this is not a post I wrote, but one from Mukund at BuzzGain. And yes, I agree that Twitter Search is more important than Twitter's Web interface at this point. - Louis Gray

I'll have to agree with Scobleizer - I visit Twitter Search more than Twitter itself these days. I learn way more from that interface. - Chris Luckhardt

Haven't we been here before. 1st we all create content. Then, Search organizes the content. I suppose "Twitter Words" is next? - Alan Edgett

Funny how often I've been asked the EXACT same questions. We've been having a nice discussion about this as well (1.6k views and 70 comments now) around a great article that was written by a member. http://tinyurl.com/3h8mdz - Leif@Biznik

None - they all spend so much time reading twitter (and FF :) ) that nothing gets done! - Chris

On who? - Warner Crocker

depends on targeted/anticipated impact and target audience. - Hayk

@Scoble - technically one, but realistically I have to go with @aaron - Mukund

The real question is, how many twitter followers does it take to change a lightbulb? - Jan Dawson

A common. - dkb via Alert Thingy

bulletin board? - Jonas

It's a non-stop worldwide conference call. - Tony Ruscoe

Agree with @jonas Bulletin Board - Arjun

Or perpetual chat - Arjun

A coffeetable? - Niclas Strandh

...or dinnertable? - Niclas Strandh

a café? - skivan

A mosh pit? - Peter Lindberg

It's like a coffeeshop where folks discuss articles from newspapers, magazines, and passerbys? - Jeremiah Owyang

A place to feed your friends. Or eat them. - Michael Hussein Markman

a brainstorm (potentially) - Vincent van Wylick

a coffeeshop, or an italian bar :-) - lalui

FriendFeed is like a hallway conversation at Gnomedex. - Robert Scoble

Roman circus? Amphitheater? - Mo Kargas

I'm two days into Friendfeed. A bunch of Finnish Jaiku users moved over to Twitter, Pownce, and Friendfeed when Jaiku is down (they move it to a Google server). Jaiku and Friendfeed can be used for seminar and events reporting. I find quite a few of my FB friends here. Twitter is like talking to the wind on a stormy shoreline. We shout into an open universe. It seems like Friendfeed can lead to a conversation. - Helge V. Keitel

a bar? a coffee house? a club? - Marcos Marado

+1 for the poetry, Helge. "Talking to the wind on a stormy shoreline." I agree. - Laura Norvig

Thanks Laura, seems like someone listens. It's encouraging! Have a great day. - Helge V. Keitel

virtual watercooler - Dave Wirsching via twhirl

A dinner conversation. - Bret Taylor

A River. - Svartling

Newspaper (Customized one!) - Jigar Mehta

.. an email inbox that's never empty. - Winston Teo

Friends' Feeds:) - Igor Poltavskiy

The space around the cofee machine in the office. - Fabrice Epelboin

the people - Olivier

a high school hallway - Amy Wood

the dynamic newspaper from minority report - mike "glemak" dunn

A telex. Or: what are those things called that used to be in newspaper offices, where news from AP, Reuters would spew out continuously??? Whatever that machine/technology, that's sorta it. Except only one-way, like. - john conroy

hamm radio? nahh...it's just friendfeed - timedalkat

a telex - Dan Rockwell via twhirl

Looks like we don't have much to compare it with--maybe that's why so many people don't get it... - Eric Holter

a trough - Fred Chung

Example? - Rodrigo Jaroszewski

in 80% of the Pareto principle examples people make, 20% are false. - directeur via NoiseRiver

Pareto is sooo on point and accurate... just gotta find the sweetspot: 80 truth / 20 false - discern and learn to be wise - Susan Beebe

80% of that top 80% of effects coming from 20% of that top 20% , and so 80% of 80% is 64%; 20% of 20% is 4% - "64-4 law“... - fiorano

Am I being paranoid or was I the impetus for this post? - AJ Kohn

No, it's lots of things AJ. Probably 90%. - Paul Buchheit

@Paul: Fair enough. - AJ Kohn

no one said there'd be math - Chris Kim A

decent margin of error really - Dan Rockwell via twhirl

87% of statistics are made up. - Chris White

Chris: like the one you just made up?! :*) - Susan Beebe

I spent much of my 20% time making up stories about how people use their 20% time. - Kevin Fox

What is the saturation of digital devices to people? I'd say 90% - Jeremiah Owyang

I love this photo as well, I think Obama is great! - Joe Dawson

Jeremiah: Sure... if you're going to attend a political rally/speech, you take a camera, no? Not sure you can use this sample to draw any conclusions RE the general population. - Ken Sheppardson

Of course Ken, I was just reffering to that particular picture. - Jeremiah Owyang

Give the Germans a vote! - john conroy

Ladies & Gentlemen, the President of the United States! - Ẉ¡ĊḱḙƉ

very inspiring! - Mel "Friend of Marco" McB

I see Waldo...nah, kidding. This is actually. so. cool. - ĴũΓΊЄ אַ€╒╒

thanks @cs - pretty much same here - once I saw the level of interaction and conversation here I was hooked but I have always like the fact that Twitter is much more mobile friendly (especially for those of us in BB world) - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

@Marco, friendfeed has a decent mobile interface, even for a crackberry. I prefer fftogo.com however and it looks decent on my Curve. - Rob Diana

FF on Windows Mobile with Opera is very usable. Just signed up for Identi.ca, going to give it a try. - Eric @ CS Techcast

@rob i've tried fftgo but for whatever reason wasn't thrilled with it - i need to give it another look. There is just so much more information on FF it makes it tough to take in and process on BB - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

Probably the best headline of the day. Anyone else plan to beat it? - Louis Gray

I've got nothing...Marco you win - Anthony Farrior

I love articles that strategically use bold text to emphasize key points. Easy read. Good post Marco - Bwana McCall

lol @anthony does that come with a prize? if so can I request the return of the people I was following on twitter? @louis i may just have to print and frame your comment ; ) a guy's gotta do something to compensate for the content! - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

That was a very good post. Loved your writing. - Michael Narciso

Good points here Marco. It's always been about your existing network with Twitter. That's what's carried it through the tough times. I expect Twitter will survive this issue though. People are losing followers, but I see numbers like "had 2,500, now have 2,100". The big numbers are still there. - Hutch Carpenter

Okay guys this is just stupid. Can a few of you go over to the blog and comment? Is that too much to ask? I just went there and read the article because 25+ people liked it and a dozen commented but no one took the time to say a word on his site.. This is wrong in my opinion, make an effort to grow a guys on-site community. - Roger Kondrat

@michael ty - @hutch ty and I hope you are right - but I do worry that this has now opened a door that can't be closed. If they communicate their plans to help people reconnect with lost subscriptions (if thats possible) and what measures will be put in place to prevent this from happening again I think they can pull it out. I think people were willing to deal with the intermittent outages so long as they could still communicate with their group later but if users can't rely on that... - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

its a definite black eye on anyone who just adopted twitter in the past 6 months or so, its basically taking money out of your pocket, taking expectations out of your hand. The service going down, I can take that, taking away what I earned, that sucks royaly. Like going into an WoW and seeing all your characters gone, well right then at that moment its well, I guess I can leave this place now, too much work to redo. But twitter has the wild card of addicted adoption, WoW players can start again, so can twitters, not fun, but we can do it. - Dan Rockwell via twhirl

Roger - your comments sometimes verge into troll territory. - Hutch Carpenter

@CS I totally agree. Its always that way i find. - Roger Kondrat

@Roger - First, calm down. Second, blog commenting is over rated, it's very hard to carry a conversation on a blog compared to FriendFeed. We comment here because it's easy for everyone to look at what's been said. No offense to Marco but I don't frequent his site enough to really comment on his blog so if I commented I would probably never go back to see what else has been said. - Michael Narciso

I agree with you. This is a strategic blunder. Curious to see if this clips Twitter's wings or if it's got Phoenix on it's side. - phil baumann

@roger you thoughtfulness is very much appreciated - I still wrestle with posting a comment on a blog or adding to the comment stream on FF. Not a big deal in my case - I am eager to learn, share and interact and love having the blog to log thoughts that take up more room than a FF comment box but my fascinations are far too broad to develop a focussed topic theme necessary to really build a core of readers so I don't worry about it too much. @michael none taken at all - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

the followers migrate to the same people here. if you cultivated fans you won't lose them - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

Marco thanks for the post. As a user who has not "invested" much in twitter and actually only signed on due to Friendfeed, I'm very interested in how this plays out. Problems aside, the overall concept of twitter as a web/mobile/aim service is a great one that doesn't have a true (even ident.ca) competitor as far as I can tell. - Jon-Paul Bussoli

@Hutch yeah I have been a bit Trolly the last couple days. Don't know why. On this though I just get a bit 'protect the little guy' and of course it was unfounded but a knee jerk reaction anyway. Sorry to those who felt my poor nature over the last 24hrs and thanks @Hutch for pointing it out. - Roger Kondrat

great headline ... shorter article? nice style... - Gregory Lent

@Marco I love your post really can’t comment much beyond that because it was like you took the words out of my mouth. But I will say this when blogs first came about they were said due to trackback, and pingback to allow for the first time a fluid single conversation to occur across multiple voices. Twitter did this really well in its own way too. - Roger Kondrat

Roger - cool man. And there actually is a good rationale for bloggers wanting comments on FriendFeed. Read on if you like: http://bhc3.wordpress.com/2008... - Hutch Carpenter

What is interesting is during the drama at Twitter everyone has focused on their pitfalls and has in my own opinion possibly missed another important factor in Twitters existence and that is the market has changed or rather is in the midst of a major transition. Conversations are now being initiated on Twitter and Blogs but they are being aggregated elsewhere. Initially this happened with the support of bloggers through the use of Disqus, Intense Debate, but not it seems to be skipping over them and heading directly to a new kind of service altogether. - Roger Kondrat

Friendfeed and their kind (socialthing,etc) are where the micro-conversations are occurring. These sites are extending what Twitter started out doing so well but in the end it is and always will be a slow and inflexible service when compared to the new breed (FF SocialThing, etc). - Roger Kondrat

excellent post Marco...I like your approach and analysis. The last 24 hours for twitter have been devastating. I can't even begin to imagine how the staff at twitter must feel right now. But as a customer, i know how I feel - NOT happy! First they screwed up the follower/follows counts and then sent tweets with my name on them (I did NOT write those) - so the twitter database is hosed! not a good moment for twitter to say the least. - Susan Beebe

(1) twitter deserves what it got. forget the tech issues. they went fascist and decided to punish people for using the interface as best they could. they used a few uptight people in a mob to create a witch hunt against people who were importing feeds and had a lot of followers. They are getting exactly what I warned them about (2) they hoarded the technology and did not license it out. if they had licensed twitters technology out it would of been a very profitable standard. (more...) - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

(3) back to the fascist issue. they promised free thought in a public forum and they never delivered. the block concept is a stupid idea. obviously I proved that with panopticons and they went to shoot the messenger. twitter's architecture is a public forum open to any viewer. In being such it betrayed itself and created its own *CANCER* by implementing a block. This will be friendfeeds downfall in the end as well because if I want to look up Robert Scoble and see what he is up to I can. I can go and wait for Robert Scoble to post off his own comments and flame him. The best concept is if I can see it then I should be able to talk. - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

I agree about the importance of the subscriber functinality - Mark Dykeman

again... I believe in security. I'm not a purest, but I believe the elegance of a system should not be compromised. there are plenty of walled gardens on the internet. twitter was not supposed to be walled. ...and friendfeed isn't a good place for walls either. there are plenty of opportunities for elitism in life. despite some nut jobs, it is beneficial for there to be some free expression. people should be able to turn a thread off when they want to. We all deal with aggravations. - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

back to (1) and the license issue. if it had been licensed then it would of never become over populated and different flavors of a good thing would of happened. ... maybe even a version of twitter with and without block. it just seems they are guilty of trying to contain the wind. they could of owned the wind's license for a while, but they were too greedy. - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ

@noah completely understand that there are plenty of things that need fixing - problem is that over a decent length of time a number of very unique communities have sprung up around the service - if the service dies those communities go with it - that is part of the reason for this http://tinyurl.com/5sxmzy - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

none. lots on friendfeed though ;-) - Gaby Benkwitz ☼

I know exactaly how much. I downloaded the MeeTimer plugin for FF. - Sonciary Honnoll

i moved almost completely off of twitter. i still set off a tweet here and there when the subject is not FF worthy; like "I'm drinking my protein shake by the pool". All in all its alot more interesting on FF. - Carlos Ayala

I tried Twitter and didn't like it. Since starting FF, I hate to admit it, I actually like FF. It is sort of like a group instant messaging utility. - Herschel

Since I used RescueTime for a week, I have reduced all my soc net time down drastically. - Sally Church

I don't waste my time on twitter anymore. I spend all my time on FF; that's where the conversations are. - John Budnik

I'm addicted to FF rooms! Fantastic! - David Sim

Well, most of the people I follow on twitter are here, so I turned off device updates on twitter. And as for the rest, twitter has not been sending me IM's for a few weeks now. So outside a short twit now and then, or my script posting what I'm listing... I'm not wasting much time on twitter. - Grant Bierman

None at all. Just FF. Anyone worth talking tech with on the internet is here on FF. We could use a bigger crowd, but for now this is where it's at. - Tad - the Meme Maker

Wasting time? What? Twitter and FF don't qualify as "research"... - Anthony K. Valley ©

define "wasting". - David Howell

I am sure my boss would say to much. Between Twitter, FriendFeed and Plurk someone would say to much. - Jeff B

@jeffb or even too much. - Kirk Skodis via twhirl

not enough, although most of my time is wasted on Friendfeed these days - Bjorn Tipling

better question should be how much time are you wasting on the internet - Dan Rockwell via twhirl

I don't consider any of it wasted. I get a lot of great links and information from Twitter/FF posts, and I've seen/participated in a lot of interesting discussions as a result of those links. That's never a waste. - eve shot first

Well, I used to waste a lot of time. But since I got Twhirl, no time gets wasted. It is a marvelous tool. - Rodrigo Leme via twhirl

I think an interesting related question is, "what are you accomplishing on Twitter? " - Brian Wilson

great video - Jason Calacanis

I use little twitter, more FF and fftogo lately. I'm not a techie so I hope to not bore folks as I try to broaden my geekish horizons :) - kbourke

I use Twitter for communcating with some clients, and also now use Twhirl. - Ian Hussein Maverick May via twhirl

"gmail expects the same respect as outlook" - tell that to the Corporate IT .. and see what the response is !! - Peter Dawson

I wrote about RescueTime when they first launched, but I never dared to try it myself for what it might find :-) To answer the headline question: hardly any at all now. - Duncan Riley

I mostly use Twitter in bits of time between more meaningful tasks. Standing in line, waiting, switching between tasks, etc. - Jack Collins

I have a blackberry and I live in Canada. There is no easy way now to read/follow twitter since the IM feature is gone; I used to read twitter via google talk. I find that twitterberry and m.twitter don't allow me to read more than a page or the past hour and using SMS is painful. Every 250 messages I need to delete my mobile number online and re-add it or I would have to wait a week for new messages. I read it when I'm on the go or need a break from my writing. - Phillip Jeffrey

Um, roughly zero lately - Michael Hocter

I waste more time on friendfeed a lot more than twitter because of how much more content is available - Justin

I use time very wisely on Twitter - no more than 30 mins/day actively. Scans messages while it runs in background on Twhirl. - Jim Turner via twhirl

i rarely use twitter, but i wouldn't say that it's because of ff. necessarily. it's just become unreliable as well as "spammy" - Cee Bee

Next to none since friendfeed. Loving me some friendfeed! - joshua fouts

None. I'm wasting my time on friendfeed instead :) - Ryo

I would love to use Twitter and Friendfeed more - if only they were more mainstream here in Australia. - Jim Yiapanis

Isn't Twitter like breathing? I don't stop breathing. - Carolyn via twhirl

I think I'll be wasting a lot of time on FF, only because it offers you more real estate than twitter. That and the fact that I never know when, and if, twitter will be online! - Dukeswharf via twhirl

Great app, helped me cut my social shennanigans under an hour a week. - Sean Oliver