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Leatrice Ellzy › Likes
Last night I bought into the meme that #'s of followers matter again. I was wrong. Again. Here's why:
romanzolotarev, Gordon Saunders, Patricia F. Anderson and 88 other people liked this
1. If you base your ego on something you don't control you'll continually be unsatisfied. Now we REALLY don't control how many followers you'll get. It's like winning the lottery. If you thought that winning the lottery mattered in some way to your life then you'll always be unsatisfied.
- Robert Scoble
2. The list of top Twitterers now has no integrity and everyone knows it, so being on that list no longer matters. It's sort of like the number of results that Google says it has. That number is a joke too and no one pays any attention to it.
- Robert Scoble
3. Who is listening to you has absolutely no impact on your life unless you are selling advertising. Who is TALKING to you DOES have an impact on your life. That's probably why I spend so much more time on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
4. Even if the list had some integrity there would always be someone more popular than you. Even Barack Obama will be passed someday.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, there is a saying in business. When somebody doesn't stop talking, it's marketing. When they shut up and listen, its sales.
- Patricia
Was it Twitter's "Suggested Follower" feature that's changed your mind Robert? http://tinyurl.com/cc66ow
- Jim Connolly
5. Talking to masses is fun and I hope everyone gets lots of friends to talk to because there is some value in having lots of people to respond to your questions or bring you the latest news, but I find when I wake up in the morning I head first to my list with only 150 people on it. Why? Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans.
- Robert Scoble
Jim: yeah, that feature pissed me off last night. Why did I get pissed off? Because I bought into the meme that how many followers you have matters. But, it also reminded me that I am not in charge of how many followers I have. It is not based on any objective criteria (at least now, I thought it had at least something to do with objectivity and that you could earn followers by putting good content out. Now I see that you can earn followers by some subjective criteria and that led to this post).
- Robert Scoble
The list of top twitters has integrity - we know exactly what is and it's true to that - it's just not the way you would like it...
- yanwoo
6. Due to http://search.twitter.com and friendfeed's search (and discovery items) you can have conversations with people without having any followers. So, having tons of followers is having less and less value as people go to Twitter search more and more (or use TweetDeck's search features).
- Robert Scoble
@Glen: is twitter a contest?
- .LAG liked that
yanwoo: no, it has no integrity anymore. You have no idea why someone is at the top. You used to know, not anymore. Now if I worked at Twitter I could make someone go to the top of the list just by putting them on the suggested friends list.
- Robert Scoble
.LAG: all lists are contests. That's why they piss off so many people and why they are defended by people who are rewarded by them (me included).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: You will appreciate this then - How I deleted 23500 followers in 5 minutes (AND why I reset my Twitter account to zero.) http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2009...
- Jim Connolly
Robert, the # of people following a person on twitter is a bit like a black box. Sure, we know all the accounts that are following someone, but we have no idea if those accounts are real people, marketing spammers, casual users, or something else. Until I can point at a users account and say "This is a real person, I know how to tell 100% of the time" then follower numbers are meaningless HS popularity contests. However, I do feel like once a person gets over a critical mass of real followers, the potential
- Daniel Spisak
re: #3... if you are saying good things, and people are listening and being informed or inspired to do good things, then it matters. Maybe not to you, but potentially to others.
- Tinfoil 2.0
...for crowdsourcing becomes possible and this is where Twitter has a lot of benefit to the user.
- Daniel Spisak
Jim: you are a braver man than me. Based on my talks with geeks who are increasingly finding themselves distracted and addicted by Twitter and friendfeed I would expect more people to do that in the future.
- Robert Scoble
Daniel: due to retweeting and Twitter search (and friendfeed) how many followers you have doesn't matter to crowdsourcing (as much).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Thanks! It was getting stupid - Now, I can enjoy the small amount of time I spend on Twitter and DON'T NEED tweetdeck.
- Jim Connolly
I don't think this new feature of suggested users is any different from the throwback days of twitter when we had 10 highlighted users on the public timeline a year or so ago. why were you not beefin then? People received "extra credit" back then too.
- Liz
Glen, how will you know you've "won?" I judge myself off of how many times I get retweeted. That demonstrates readership, credibility, engagement, interest, etc. Those are attributes I like judging myself by. Not whether I won some popularity contest by figuring out how to get Biz or Ev to put me on some subjective list.
- Robert Scoble
The LA Times was also unhappy: http://bit.ly/Zp61T It doesn't bother me too much. There are plenty of lists online, so I won't get too worked up about Twitter suggesting people to follow. It would be nice if they allowed users to suggest who ends up on that list. But, as Robert points out, numbers don't matter, conversations do.
- Paul Rodriguez
@scoble, @glen —then, godd*mn, I'm getting my *ss kicked on twitter! i should give up. i'm so far behind, i'll never catch up. wonder if there are performance-enhancing drugs i can take to get back into the game. .LOLz
- .LAG liked that
Liz: I don't even remember that. But no one ever looked at the public timeline after Twitter got popular. It also didn't let you add one group with one click.
- Robert Scoble
Jeez, Robert, you just caused me to read that whole thread about Arrington, look at the Find People feature inTwitter, and try out Mr. Tweet. Spent an hour. Did it do me ANY good? I doubt it.
- Francine Hardaway
from twhirl
Paul: @leolaporte was unhappy. People who make their livings off of advertising find this stuff disturbing because Twitter can decide who will have businesses on its system (number of followers could translate into money. @techcrunch says that already 2% of his traffic comes from Twitter). Me? I'll have to earn my money the old fashioned way: good content.
- Robert Scoble
Francine: I think this stuff is all good. It causes us all to think about the tools we're putting so much of our lives into. Hope things are going well for you, can't wait until you're back in Half Moon Bay again. Let's go get a drink, I have lots of things to tell you when you're back.
- Robert Scoble
@scoble: perhaps it's the advertising model that's broken then.
- .LAG liked that
Robert, what are the big drivers of traffic to your money-making content among friendfeed/twitter/facebook/flickr/etc.?
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: my referrer page usually has Twitter #1, friendfeed #2, Google Reader #3. When I'm on Techmeme it usually jumps to #1 or #2 for a day.
- Robert Scoble
.LAG: bing! Bing! Bing! You win the award of the insight of the day award.
- Robert Scoble
Content drives traffic, so it's the quality of the Followers not thew quantity
- paul mooney
Facebook has tons more users than friendfeed. Funny that you don't get lots of traffic from there.
- Bruce Lewis
Robert, it's hard for me to believe that you actually "bought into it" last night. You've stated numerous times and times again that followers don't matter and we understand what you are saying. But, if it is so hard to stand by what you preach, then don't preach at all.
- Michael Forian
Michael: I'm human. I fall into traps just as often as anyone else does. I make mistakes just as much as anyone else does.
- Robert Scoble
Bruce: facebook does not have the expectation that you'll discuss science or technology or news. The stuff that comes into my news feed is generally pretty fun stuff, but is not that. When I put videos into Facebook, though, it brings me good views and engagement.
- Robert Scoble
@scoble: but otoh, what are the alternatives to advertising? yes great content is critical, but it doesn't guarantee revenue or viability by itself. and then if you're a site with great content, eventually, you too, will probably end up advertising. i think the guys from 37signals have some wonderful ideas about how to survive and thrive using a different model, it starts with not worrying about being so BIG.
- .LAG liked that
I'm yet to see any convincing proof Scoble's human :) No one's online THAT much.
- Jim Connolly
I was a little confused because you at one time were saying the number of followers shouldn't be included in a tweet pagerank (http://scobleizer.com/2008...), so using the number of followers in this context shouldn't make sense either. Or do you see them as different?
- Todd Hoff
.LAG: if I had some answers I would be implementing like mad.
- Robert Scoble
The number of followers does not matter... to a point. However if you are a business, charity or person with a strong message to get out you have to also remember that your message means nothing if people don't hear it. So while the number of followers should not matter to your ego or self-worth, it definitely matters when you are shouting on the rooftops. You need a huge number of followers to have a greater impact. To that end followers are extremely important.
- Patrick Allmond
Todd: I believe that even more today now that the follower popularity rank thing has been messed with by Twitter's fooling with it with a subjective choice.
- Robert Scoble
Patrick: that is true, sort of. I can get my message heard without having any followers. I've seen that proven over and over again lately. How? More and more people are reading http://search.twitter.com or Friendfeed. Let's do a test. You open a friendfeed account. No friends. You post something. You tell me about it. I'll like it. That will put that item into view of all my followers. So, how many followers do you really need? None.
- Robert Scoble
Patrick as right. The hard thing is that # of followers is one of many things that do matter, but that we can't completely control. We have to constantly adapt.
- Bruce Lewis
Robert, Patrick is still right. What if Robert Scoble didn't have any followers? Who would you tell about your content then? Somebody has to have followers to make this work.
- Bruce Lewis
"Zen and the Art of Tweeting" by Robert Scoble
- coldbrew
This is a great list and SO true! I still cannot figure out FriendFeed though. Many people who follow me on Twitter are just following to see if I will follow them back and are truely not interested in what I have to share and discuss as topics of interest.
- Hummie
*in conclusion read the stream of "the REAL Shaq" his twitter diharreaha proves that # of followers doesn't mean the followed is spitting out gems
- The Real sofarsoShawn
Would Scoble care about this if he were on it? I don't think so.
- coldbrew
Jennifer: if you are in the content business you are getting paid via advertising. Advertising is paid by "CPM" or, per 1000 readers/visitors, etc. Let's say you were making $25 CPM. Well, then, having another 10,000 readers is worth $250. If you can get those people to visit every week, that's a pretty nice chunk of change.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: I disagree. I am not allowed to accept gifts from the companies I cover. I cover Twitter, so getting this kind of reward isn't acceptable. I also care about the integrity of the communities and tools I use and interact with. I would definitely speak out about this feature and would pull my name out of it to protest that it was using subjective criteria to make people popular.
- Robert Scoble
Bruce: I know a lot of people who have lots of followers. I bet I would be able to convince at least one of them to RT my messages. If not, I get traffic from http://search.twitter.com -- just write about something that's trending and you'll get followers from that.
- Robert Scoble
So, basically this boils down to $, like most things. Personal motivation is an interesting topic in itself. Anyone that checks their web analytics daily (pageviews/ uniques, email subs, rss subs, followers, friends, etc.) is simply on a completely different wavelength than myself.
- coldbrew
By that logic, Scoble, you should request FF to remove you from suggestions, as you do not know, specifically, the criteria for getting on such a list.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: yup, when you do this as a business those are the things you care about. My wife, though, isn't doing it as a business and she still is caring about lots of those things on her Facebook account. So, even people who don't do it for money care about things like who is following them. It's a huge trap to fall into and one that isn't very satisfying. Humans are weird, aren't they?
- Robert Scoble
Humans are weird for a lot of reasons, but caring about popularity and influence is not one of those reasons.
- Bruce Lewis
coldbrew: that is absolutely NOT true. I already figured out the algorithm for how friendfeed works. Did you know that I'm NOT on the default list there? Here, try it. Open a friendfeed account with no friends. First of all, it will recommend NO ONE. Huge difference from Twitter. Second, add someone who does NOT follow me. I will NOT be on the recommended list.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: friendfeed presents a different list to everyone who comes here. Its algorithm HAS INTEGRITY. It is based on the most popular person OF THE FRIENDS YOU ADD.
- Robert Scoble
Just asked my good buddy and girlfriend about how many friends they had on FB (they' barely know what Twitter is). GF, "200 something" and my buddy, "No idea", so I'm sure you are having an impact.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: on friendfeed no one is getting rewarded who did not earn that recommendation FROM THEIR FRIENDS. This is one reason I really like friendfeed. Friendfeed really engineers things a lot better than Twitter and thinks through the consequences of doing something wrong or removing integrity from the system.
- Robert Scoble
Seems to me it was pretty inevitable as Twitter got bigger that any sense of meritocracy w/ followers would dissipate. I suspect more things will crop up to counter it's importance and offer different views of the best and most interesting Tweeters. Stocktwits is probably an early example of how Twitter may get sliced up. If that is a trend that plays out then #1 tweeter will become a database statistic :-)
- yanwoo
Robert, that's only partial integrity. First, that process has an accelerating effect that makes the most popular even more popular. Second, it's popularity rather than interestingness.
- Tinfoil 2.0
It is still your perception of some method for bestowing authority, rather than concrete knowledge, that is leading you to the conclusion.
- coldbrew
Logical: that is true, but that happens in life anyway. It is based on meritocracy, though. I spent thousands of hours on friendfeed last year when people thought it wasn't important to pay attention to.
- Robert Scoble
I agree with Robert on this one, it is not the number of followers; it never can be the number of followers. What it should be about are people who like you, who you like, who you want to share information with. It should not be a clique, you need to allow new members in and allow for diversity of opinion, yet in the end it will always be about like minds, sharing information that has the ability to change the world, and if not the world, at least the location that you live in.
- Dan owns Comicsforge.com
coldbrew: wrong. I've done extensive testing of the http://friendfeed.com/setting... feature and understand how that list was decided on. Plus, you can do your own tests to verify what I say. On Twitter the list is totally random and subjective.
- Robert Scoble
Glen: I disagree with you about RT's. I've seen people get massively RT'd who only had a few followers.
- Robert Scoble
Campbell, most of *us* knew where you were coming from at the outset. Your thoughts on retweeting are spot on.
- coldbrew
Scoble, edge-cases, especially anecdotal stories, aren't the stuff that comprises the guts.
- coldbrew
80/20 rule?
- coldbrew
coldbrew: You've got some good points to make, but it might be easier to move on if you'll first admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations.
- Bruce Lewis
coldbrew: oh, yes, there is an 80/20 rule here in place. Just like most of life.
- Robert Scoble
"admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations" You mean that they seem to be more equitable than Twitter? Or, something else?
- coldbrew
That one can empirically determine that Scoble isn't automatically on the recommended list. They aren't entirely a black box.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: they aren't a black box at all. You can very easily figure out who and why people are on the friendfeed list. Oh, and the list is infinite and you can't automatically add the entire list, so you've got to click one by one and add people that way. There isn't a huge reward for being on the list the way there is on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Glen: that's true, but is getting less and less true over time as more and more people use things like Search.Twitter.com. Anyway, I'd rather have 100 active followers who actually talk with me than 1,000 followers who are there just to collect my name on their follower list.
- Robert Scoble
Agreed, But the fact that Twitter's recommendations are a "black box" is not what indicated to me (a long time ago) that # of followers was not something to obsess over. Also note: FF does not make it easy to determine how many followers a given person has.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: true, but ffholic does that.
- Robert Scoble
Search only helps if you're happy to ride an existing trend. If you want to start a new trend it's useless.
- Bruce Lewis
I have 1000+ followers, but less then 100 I really know. So in essense, I have 100 followers
- Lorraine Ball
I don't use ffholic (it is funny that they use ASP.NET :-), but you'll notice FF obscures these numbers (probably based on values they would like to instill).
- coldbrew
When the community is small and relatively homogeneous, a scalar metric like follower count might be a reasonable proxy for influence/popularity. However, as the community gets larger, more diverse, and "multidimensional" a single metric like followers breaks down.
- Ken Sheppardson
It's a bit like eBay feedback: consider two members with a 1000, 100% positive feedback score. You can get that by buying 1000 fifty cent Pokemon cards or by selling a $X million worth of collectibles. The bare number means very little, at least when used to compare members.
- Ken Sheppardson
BIZ Stone's quote 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
Your point is well taken, Sheppardson, that multiple variables should be considered. There was a rumor at some point that Twitter intended to monetize based on this suggestion "engine" which I do not believe had any merit. It is akin to allowing payment for organic SERP placement.
- coldbrew
I think it is ironic that one of the best gadget bloggers of our time, Ryan Block (who used to run Engadget), has 1/10th as many followers as his girlfriend, Veronica has. Veronica will see someday why this system has no integrity. Jim: that quote shows the kind of engineering care that Twitter puts into things. That might explain why I see the fail whale on a regular basis. Well, that just verifies that I made the right choice last year to spend much more time here on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I like FF better than Twitter and spend much more time here. You made the best choice in terms of quality. But I'm not convinced you made the best choice for driving traffic to your money-making content. Quality matters, but quantity matters too. It's a tough choice.
- Bruce Lewis
How much of Twitter's power comes from tight SMS integration, and why doesn't some "Twitter clone" just make a play for simple SMS services horizontally (B2B style)?
- coldbrew
Quality versus quantity. And at end of the day it doesn't matter *if* you're contributing good content and simply using the service. The follower number plays to a person's ego ... it is, in my opinion, a real drawback to the service. It encourages the wrong type of behavior. I think FF has intentionally made these stats less obvious for a reason.
- AJ Kohn
Bruce: friendfeed has been growing faster than twitter did in its first year. I'm pretty sure the quantity will show up here too. And, anyway, I do have a few followers on Twitter so I can reach the audience I want to reach.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: not much anymore. SMS mattered a lot more two years ago than it does today since the iPhone came along. It will matter even less in the future after more people get smartphones. But, yeah, it does matter a little bit today.
- Robert Scoble
Coldbrew: I think apps like http://www.tatango.com will provide the SMS glue. That's a cool company, I'll have a video of them up this week.
- Robert Scoble
I know about tatango. Funny you should mention that. They seem to be sitting on their hands
- coldbrew
"Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans" -Robert Scoble Or rather it is more important to those who are conscious of the love God puts inside all of us to act upon or not: (Matt.5:3) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage... (Psalm 42:7) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage...; And this brings into perspective what we enjoy as opposed to what we love.
- Melanie Reed
SMS matters a whole bunch b/c it makes the field more open. SMS was built on the pager tech and I can get SMS when I'm out of phone range.
- coldbrew
All these problems will be solved when twitter acquires friendfeed.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Ed, is that an opinion or are you airing fact ?
- atul abraham
from twhirl
Kambiz: I did not delete any comments here. Not sure what you are talking about.
- Robert Scoble
in our personal egoic minds, it should not matter, which is what you point out quite well - as I was expressing yesterday at NV09, I really tweet for myself... some ppl take that to extreme and tweet for themselves to be popular, playing games so they can sit at the cool kids table :( but bigger 'reach' creates more power to make a difference (when used for good). More access to network also means more access to better information (ie, my passport problem) which makes difference in our lives at key moments
- Chris Heuer
Good point re: who is talking to you, vs. listening to you. I've stopped following twitter people with a bad ratio - too many followers to who they read. Exceptions: hodgeman & anamariecox. I just don't like the ego of people who have big followings but don't engage.
- anna sauce
Last week, Mashable featured me as a twitter professor - in the 16th spot down the page http://mashable.com/2009... The first person listed was our friend (who you should be following) Chris Penn - he added 1400 followers in one day and I received just over 700 in same time http://twittercounter.com/chrishe... - http://twittercounter.com/cspenn (mentioned as real data point) IMHO the 'top100' shows the power laws of the A-List challenge in action, more pop u r, more pop u become
- Chris Heuer
Chris sounds like a catch-22
- anna sauce
Featured on mashable? Sounds prestigious...
- coldbrew
One must have amazing insight if featured by mashable, knowing how exclusive that site is about coverage.
- coldbrew
Nobody deleted comments, you just got confused about where you left your comments.
- coldbrew
If Scoble were covered by mashable for his usage of Twitter, he'd gracefully decline b/c it would be a payoff.
- coldbrew
Robert prove that you're not on the FF payroll
- Bob Sonin
Bob: Techcrunch looked into it. Arrington thought I should be getting paid by friendfeed. But I did not give friendfeed anything it didn't earn.
- Robert Scoble
Kambiz, this is the Dr. Jekyll post. You commented on the Hyde one. :)
- JCunwired
Then in the interests of full disclosure/transparency, what 'did' you give them
- Bob Sonin
Bob: links on my blog and tons of praise.
- Robert Scoble
nice work, cool
- Bob Sonin
ANA - perhaps, but not really - my argument is for disclosure so people know when its paid placement versus genuine recommendations - not passing judgment on the act, seeking clarifications and trying to further the conversation --- cant say its bad for everyone and then say I am dong something similar - more nuanced discussion then that, which you can read about in this post I just wrote http://bit.ly/30cKv "Is it ok for companies to pay to be featured users in Social Media sites?" (key is word USERS)
- Chris Heuer
Thanks for stopping by and dropping a link, Heuer. Stay classy man.
- coldbrew
Heuer, quick question: how many comments have you made without leaving a link to one of your own sites? [EDIT: specified type of link]
- coldbrew
@scobleizer, I disagree. Of course it matters. Number of followers matters and being at the top of the list matters. BUT, like the weather there is very little you can do about it, so it's probably not worth a lot of time worrying about it.
- Christian Anderson
coldbrew - generally about 90+% since I so seldom blog - on this page, with this comment 50% - is there a point you are trying to make? BTW - it seems I mistakenly was commenting on the other question (too many comments here and too many tabs open on my browser) - sorry about that --- do you not think that everyone has the right to start their own conversations and questions and then make others aware of that by sharing the link (insofar as it is on topic)
- Chris Heuer
I like your point #2 especially. Also, I have seen a few people who are gaming the system where a few people just retweet each other. Like they have a mob or coordinated thing to up their standing. Also, there are lots of people that are just trying to increase there followers and this is all they care about and you get junk Tweets and it fills the channel up with noise. Just fyi, if you follow lots of people you follow none. The channel will be crowded with junk. Trust me.
- Bill Romanos
Ana - are you asserting that people who have more followers then people they are following all have big egos? that they are not engaged? or are being disrespectful of people who follow them? (re: ur statement above) I couldn't disagree more vehemently with your broad brushed stereotyping - the majority of those with big followers and equal follower/following rations are quite the opposite of ur assumption - they are usually the ones in it for their egos - to be at the top of the list and using you to do so
- Chris Heuer
Ana, more importantly - what are your tips for dealing with the deluge of inbound communications from thousands of people into your SMS account? clearly you need unlimited text plan for $x per month first - then you need to resign yourself to the fact that you are probably going to miss things that are very important because of the decreased signal to noise ratio... This is a complex issue which IMHO requires us all to respect how other ppl choose to communicate, especially when its not causing any harm
- Chris Heuer
This conversation brings up a lot of ideas for me, but I can say simply that, in my gut, quality and not quantity is the way to go in ANY interaction. On-line, off-line, I don't care where. So, numbers without substance isn't going to do you any good on twitter or elsewhere. I guess the only time quantity works is for ad-clicks, because who cares if it is quality if you are just counting ad clicks.
- Martha
Heuer, I will spell out my point this time, though I do not believe it requires an IQ of significance to comprehend. You barely interact here on FF, and when you do, it is usually (>50%) in order to get people to take actions elsewhere (e.g. read your blog post, fill out a survey, etc.).
- coldbrew
Get it? Fairly insulting, imo.
- coldbrew
coldbrew - of course the real reason for putting a bit.ly link to my blog post that reframes this question is because I wanted to get the google juice from Robert - that is clearly what my track record shows to be true. Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that there are limits on the size of comment within FF... btw - with this comment, its over 70% of my comments on this page that dont have a link. wondering why you have a private feed - would be interested to see what you do without registering
- Chris Heuer
coldbrew - ah, so I am not native enough for you in FFand you dont like that I use twitter as my primary communications vehicle? well too bad - thanks for initially trying to thinly veil your insult and criticism and for ultimately feeling comfortable enough to insult me openly - no offence taken here at all because clearly you dont know Jack either...
- Chris Heuer
I realize having a private feed and not pimping myself at every opportunity would confuse you. I'm at a loss to explain it to you other than to say I value information and candid, honest conversation.
- coldbrew
PS - for people who actually care about these issues instead of trying to pass judgments on others, the very simple reason I request others to look at these things is so that we, as a broader community of practitioners, can connect the dots across communities to learn from one another and take collective action outside of any given echo chamber which creates insular feelings like those expressed by my new best friend here - thanks for making the point clear to all - I dont use FF daily, I am elsewhere often
- Chris Heuer
"for people who actually care about these issues "? Are you fucking serious? I have no ulterior motives, and I'm not trying to position myself as a "social media expert"; and, I certainly don't have a site that focuses on "social media" as something one should "leverage." So, before you go on espousing your integrity, take a look at the facts.
- coldbrew
OMG, what a spat! Chris, ignore him.
- Francine Hardaway
Frankly, I'm a bit tired of the sausage festival that is tech blogging. Veronica is a breath of fresh air. She has the power of "it" and "it" rules the world.
- Mattb4rd
@Scobleizer not that you'd worry, but I read what you write because it often gives me something to learn and think about that I would otherwise not find easily somewhere else. And you have a unique way of doing that. The fact that so many people choose to do the same is irrelevant to why I read your material :)
- Valeria Maltoni
Yes. When one is interested in finding some sort of "truth" through discussion, the best choice is to ignore those with differing opinions. Brilliant strategy, Hardaway.
- coldbrew
Hardaway, I realize you only came into this conversation at the last minute, but allow me to explain. There was a perfectly good discussion being had here, when Heuer (someone with whom you are apparently familiar) decided to chime in with a link to a semi-relevant blog post inspired by this very comment thread. He did not make his argument *here* where the discussion was being had, no; what he had to say required many more words than FF makes available.
- coldbrew
So, an entire post was written and Heuer made his weekly FF comment with "appropriate" shameless plug to his post. I suppose I can see how people that only come to FF occasionally don't grok the issue I'm having here, but that won't stop me from making it.
- coldbrew
I come here all the time, and often find a blog post comes out of a discussion I'm having here, or a comment on someone else's blog.
- Francine Hardaway
That is good. I just ask that you don't suggest someone ignore me for expressing my opinion. I'm no expert, but I do try to be informed about the topics in which I participate. I was offended, and I took it up directly with the offender. Please suggest to me what I might do differently in such a situation.
- coldbrew
I would have felt better about Twitter's recommended follows had it been some sanitized Google algorithm but this feels like some whorish self promotion and takes a lot of shine off Twitter.
- Ernie Oporto
from Nambu
i agree with @scobleizer here. the suggested people to follow in twitter has totally screwed with the 'meaning' of the rankings
- Chris Heath
Until WSJ publishes a US$/followers Forex rate I will continue to believe that number of followers is fundamentally worthless
- Jeffrey J Davis
For me, it was kind of strange to see the issues of "how many followers do I have" when I started reading blogs in 2008 for the first time. Seems like people like followers for many reasons (1) good conversations (2) boost to self-esteem (3) improve career prospects (4) share knowledge with others (5) etc... On the $ side, one of my friends with a labor-of-love website created over 7 years, now makes $1,000s/day (not thru advertising, but selling his own products)...
- Mitchell Tsai
Traffic can help connect people with services & products they like. In some cases, sharing pictures, articles, news about kids-friends-relationships, may be our gift to the world community. Sometimes, people are finding new jobs, developing new life paths, getting helpful therapy or support, or simply enjoying themselves. It's sometimes a little annoying for me to hear people criticizing other people who are here for reasons other than their own, but it's "free speech".
- Mitchell Tsai
Even with "trolls", I love the community on FriendFeed (Admittedly, I'm spending more time on Facebook...and unfortunately many people who share pictures there decline my requests to share them on the wider web, so I don't repost Facebook pictures on FF). More power to the people who are having fun accumulating "friends" or "followers".
- Mitchell Tsai
It's even useful to connect with 10-20 very-active-spammy-type-friends/followers. I no longer connect with spammers (unless truly interested in their stuff, which occasionally happens), but my few spam connections help me see if other people accept those spam connections. I suppose if my Facebook limit starts hitting 5,000, it'll be time to delete the spammers (after sending them a note explaining why I'm pruning my Facebook connections). P.S. Scoble, you rock!
- Mitchell Tsai
Good food for thought as I'm developing my conceptual 'follower' definition. I'm returning to value added in our network.
- ka3drr
+1 Ryo
- dpurrington
Ryo: I regularly do things to get them into Google for myself to pull out later. The fact that other people are here doesn't matter.
- Robert Scoble
Ryo: it's funny, though. You don't need any followers to participate here in this conversation. So, why do followers matter? http://search.twitter.com displays your Tweets even if you have no followers. That way you can find other people interested in a topic. I find lots of things on google.com that have no followers either. Not saying that it's not nice if they show up (followers are wonderful) but they certainly are NOT a precondition to participating and having people participate with you online.
- Robert Scoble
Even if you *do* think they matter, using a save search in Twhirl can help you find folks to share with... I have 2000+ in Twitter and I'm nothing huge...just a bit strategic. ;)
- Cheryl Allin
LOL, Ryo. So true. I can't tell you how many things I've posted on FF, and I get NO RESPONSE. I'm either painfully boring, or I need more followers so that I have a good chance of someone finding it interesting.
- dpurrington
Balloon Juice - http://www.balloon-juice.com/...
Anna Haro, Cee Bee, jbrotherlove and Leatrice Ellzy liked this
"It’s also worth noting that these same people who are rallying around the Palin family and expressing their happiness that she is marrying the father, not for love, but because the sex didn’t quite work out as planned, are the same people who would deny me the right to marry someone precisely because I am in love. Dear Sarah Palin: That abstinence education you imposed on your daughter and that you’d impose on the rest of the country given the chance, hasn’t worked out quite that well for you, has it? Over the past decade, the Republicans have made “family values” the centerpiece of their campaigning. It’s not off limits. A 17 year old is going to get married because she was taught that it was the right thing to do – even if love has nothing to do with it."
- Vox
from Bookmarklet
Here, here.... (applause in the background)
- Leatrice Ellzy
*More Applause*
- Anna Haro
The Emotions – Don't Ask My Neighbors - http://www.last.fm/music...
MoTO Bott and Leatrice Ellzy liked this
@agfhome I am not your entertainment! Ok, maybe I am. But totally unintentionally.
Leatrice Ellzy liked this
Lupe Fiasco and N.E.R.D. in Complex | The Rap Up - http://therapup.uproxx.com/2008...
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Tofu De la Moore, edythe, Anna Haro and 2 other people liked this
"I’m digging this art-meets-music concept of the new Complex cover shoot with Lupe Fiasco and N.E.R.D — pardon me, I mean N*E*R*D"
- Jason Toney
from Bookmarklet
I noticed the N as well... At least it doesn't need Viagra!
- iTad
+3 Tiffany.
- edythe
Recent Music: McComb Frank – Id Be A Fool: http://www.last.fm/music... http://www.last.fm/music...
Leatrice Ellzy liked this
Staring at the screen - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
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RAPatton, DJ Swole, Leatrice Ellzy and edythe liked this
There is a wonderful intersection between mobile devices and social networks that has not really be properly exploited
Benedikt Koehler, rob zand, John Sirman and 11 other people liked this
Yes, LBS without having to enter my location manually :)
- Sean Alexander
yes, i agree. first one to figure this out correctly is going to win big. much larger opportunity than twitter via sms or Facebook on the iPhone
- Michael Gartenberg
I agree. This may evolve in places like India & Africa where people have access to mobile, but not PCs. Or so ISTM.
- shelisrael1
it will once more people have better mobile devices.
- Tyler Gillies
from NoiseRiver
I wonder what Michael thinks of BluePulse?
- Robert Scoble
just blogged about (something like) this: http://www.ianschafer.com/2008...
- Ian Schafer
This is what I like about twitter - how good it is in SMS.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
It has the potential to be bigger then Web based social networks. I wrote my thoughts on it here, including some monetization strategies.
- Ross Maguire
What interests me is how often the market leader technology is ignored to court the "wow" factor of the A-listers. The iphone is, statistically, a trivial part of the market yet companies liek Qik will pander to it long before building a Windows Mobile version - to get the Techcrunch link.
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
Blue Pulse is cool but i want more than that... i've already invested in too many social network, anything new must play with all of them
- Michael Gartenberg
Look at the adoption rates Gennefer.. it's already happening. many so called smartphones are free or little cost. Even the mighty 3G iPhone is down to $99
- Michael Gartenberg
It will be interesting to see where the innovation comes from. The web 2.0 crowd is just starting to think about the mobile space. The mobile folks have suffered under the domination of carriers, awful devices & OS's, and related afflictions that they are just getting over the demoralization of the past decade or more. I think it takes a while to start to "get" the new possibilities in mobile. In many ways it is the opposite of the PC based Internet, and simple location enabling is not enough in my view.
- Dean Terry
The space will really only open up after next February when the 700MHz spectrum opens up for next-gen mobile devices. Wait.
- Andrew Feinberg
Gennefer, i'll bite.. Name some names? what phones don't cut it? why? and what's a smartphone for that matter :)
- Michael Gartenberg
Just looking at it, but BluePulse doesn't seem to know where you are. And you shouldn't have to tell it. Just to start, mobile social apps should know where you are, where you've been, what / who is around you, and then eventually begin creating & filtering persistent place & people based data.
- Dean Terry
not sure i'd call the latter two phones smartphones, it's way i stopped using the term in research... meets a tech definition but not a logical.. i'd argue that most WinMo devices and the iPhone are as powerful as the n95
- Michael Gartenberg
You know how in some films the place is a central character itself? That's what it's like in mobile. Whereas the Internet is an abstract non-place where we're supposed to forget where we are, place matters in the mobile experience. In my view this will be a big part of the "unexploited intersection" that Michael hints at.
- Dean Terry
See JSR-179 -- http://jcp.org/jsr... -- for an API for Java for location-based services. It doesn't even require GPS capability -- http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum... -- enjoy and share your creations!
- Prolific Programmer
Brightkite seems promising, but virtual interaction, games & searches on mobiles are still too cumbersome
- Roger Penguino
twitter would be much more interesting if the "via" was not a device/user agent but instead a set of geo-coordinates for an interface like brightkite. brightkite needs to be geo-aware to be viable long term. these 2 services seem to be where the communities are now but they are largely redundant. twitter's poor service has hurt them in expanding the metadata associated with a tweet. brightkite is adding twitter like functionality of late, we'll see who wins or whether another player emerges, like loopt
- rob zand
Re: Zakaria Quote Of The Day - http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc...
Leatrice Ellzy liked this
"I very much want to visit Dubai"
- Fred Wilson
I have been visiting Dubai, almost every year from '92, and it's amazing to see the transformation Dubai and the other emirates are going through. July & August are the worst times to visit, since it's 50 C in the shade. Best times to visit are between the months of November & February; depending on how well you handle crowds you might want that visit to coincide/miss with the annual Dubai shopping festival. Let me know if you need some more info?
- Prakash Swaminathan
Its quite something to see the glass and steel structures come out of nowhere.....I live and work out of Dubai and at time even we cant help but wonder at the amount of work that seems to be done around us.There cant be a better example of 'can-do' attitude than this .....
- Jassim
Listening to a song I love: De La Soul - Me Myself And I http://www.foxytunes.com/artist...
Leatrice Ellzy and djdiva liked this
Michael W. May, Todd Jordan, Jason Toney and 7 other people liked this
Nice kids...
- Mitchell Tsai
I like the red shoes and Bergman
- RAPatton
yeah, Cecily. Ruby is just...i love how her mother doesn't just put up photos of her smiling and/or laughing. she appreciates everything. Ruby is just beautiful.
- edythe
I better not get too distracted by friendfeed this morning so I can go grocery shopping and catch incredible hulk and wanted this afternoon.
Mike Fruchter, Hao Chen, Joe Dawson and 4 other people liked this
Wanted is fun. incredible effects
- @baratunde
Wanted is perfectly silly, but perfectly fun. Turn your brain off, and you'll like it.
- Anika Palm
the plan - Hulk in about an hour followed by Wanted in the Cinerama Dome. Yay.
- Jason Toney
Movie marathon!
- Hao Chen
What the protocol on when you should stop twittering, the 3rd or 4th glass of champagne?
Ivan, Leatrice Ellzy, Cody Heitschmidt and Sean Montgomery liked this
Heck no, that's when the good tweets start!
- Allen Fuller
no, keep 'em coming. If anything, you should tweet more and switch to tequila.
- Juan Aguilar
from twhirl
Twittering drunk just makes everything you read sound better.
- David Z
6 glasses stop twittering you can friend feed until 9 though
- Cody Heitschmidt
from fftogo
And by stop you mean doubling your tweets.
- Ryan Cates
French protocol says "When you can't see anymore the difference between bubbles in YOUR glass and Internet bubble on your screen, it's time to empty your glass to avoid confusing" Nothing about stop twittering!
- Myriam
When the leg lifts in the Captain Morgan pose...then it's time to stop
- Sean Montgomery
when you can no longer spell 'champagne' it's quitting time
- Jeff Carter
Keep going until you pass out.
- Larry Kless
It could be funny to see after 4, but you won't be able to go back and look with the problems they are having.
- Chris Leckness
Not to worry. Theres a 99% chance it won't post so any can see it anyway...
- Curtis "Billy" Cross
from twhirl
Whenever you mistake the Twitter logo for the FriendFeed logo
- Tyler (Chacha)
from twhirl
When every word you tweet is mispelled.
- Paul
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