Lee Kent

ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun - Phill Price

Umm..yeah. - cmiper

As a reader and a writer and a watcher of all-things-crime-related, I could've given an answer like that, too. Never use quicklime to dispose of a body. It actually helps preserve it. - Nine

@Nine (9) But the question is, would you have? - Steve Spalding

ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun away from Nine (9) too! - Phill Price

Sodium hydroxide. I'm going to leave now. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

i like his response to his initial scary comment - "heh. top of the head." :-p - mike "glemak" dunn

Steve, no, but only because I don't read metafilter. - Nine

Visa - Arthur Guy

McDonald's, Phelps - Craig Eddy

Home Depot - Mike Reynolds

bolt - mike "glemak" dunn

Barack Obama - DJ Lein

Kellog's Corn Flakes - Shannon

Michael Phelps. Usain Bolt - john conroy

Puma - Shey

AT&T - Michael W. May via twhirl

Rona, VISA, McDonald's - tamera

li ning - Anatol via twhirl

Canon. - Yolanda ♥s Nuttycakes

Coca Cola - Lisa Creech Bledsoe via twhirl

Lee Kum Kee - imabonehead

Coca Cola - Alan Le

Lenovo - Kevin C. Tofel

NBC and VISA - Adam

Shawn Johnston, Nastia Liukin, Lenovo, Li Ning brand ambush of Adidas - Elliott Ng

coke mcdonalds sprite puma - Kyle A Koch

Coke, Visa - Morgan

Michael Phelps. I don't notice the consumer brands - Sally Church

Cisco - JC unwired

Michael Phelps - Dave Wirsching via twhirl

NBC - "Czar" DJ Peterman

nike vs adidas - Lee Kent

usane bolt - James Cooper

Coke. And Li Ning (apparently the Chinese Nike) - Ryan Kuder

Speedo - Cyndy

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Here in Canada we were subjected to the "Mr. Muffin" ad during CBC coverage WAY too many times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.... - Andrew Codrington

Puma and Nike. - Steve Garfield via twhirl

i feel like it *should* be lenovo, but i think of visa - Amanda via twhirl

nike - Dan McCall via twhirl

audi - Paul Whitaker

Lenovo - Sue Radd

Snickers: http://online.wsj.com/article_... - Abby Martin

NBC - Mark Bean

China - Fons Tuinstra

Man alive that's some crazy amount of wordage. Hats off to you Robert. - Stu Andrews via twhirl

I think I'll pretend to be Scobleizer for the day. - Denton Gentry

very cool.. - Lee Kent

I can see why you like FF so much. It's a pretty good filter considering the crazy number of stuff you're following - Owen via twhirl

Wow, that's a whole lot of twittering - J. McConnell

Here's what mine looks like: http://beta.friendfeed.com/tho... - Thomas Hawk

The whole idea is so stupid that i didn't even try it. - sampsa via fftogo

sampsa, just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's stupid for someone else to like it. - Akiva Moskovitz

du bist ein schwanz - Mark Bean

but I don't wanna be a Scoble! (in my best Seinfeld voice) :) - Tim Hoeck

Not really can we see what you are seeing - from what I can tell the feed is your feed without all your hides applied. Besides playing Scoble for a day even only on FF would be too tiring. - Brian Sullivan

Maybe it's the legacy talking, but I'm really not bothered by this. :P - l0ckergn0me

I can see why they do it, but it does suck for the people who do it legitimately and are not using stupid mass follow scripts. - David Risley

I'm not super-concerned either, but it does answer why all of a sudden, I started getting these errors last week. It could be part of their "Making Progress On Spam" initiative via the blog, but it hasn't been spelled out all that clearly. - Louis Gray

let blame this one on Scobles... :)- - Peter Dawson

Louis, I think cap is more of the architecture the system. Making it into a more robust platform. Now watermarks have been set, it becomes easier to build consistency of experience and application behavior. <Edit > wait for Twitter to figure it out.. Marketing spammers are targeting the 'stupid' one that have the auto follow !! - Peter Dawson

gotta like it, if I'm the one you are trying to follow! - Ben Hedrington

I don't think there should be limits like this, but I guess everything can't be infinite - ♫ Rahsheen™

Not for everyone. I'm over 2000 and just followed someone else - Aaron Brazell

I honestly am indifferent about it; Twitter is going to hell and i tried my best to convert it; oh well, Hell has cookies - Gordon Swaby

I"m only following 49... with 106 followers.. - Ian May

so what do you think, Louis, is benhedrington worth going to the mat for? - Nathan Rein

I'm sure I can find someone to unfollow in exchange for Ben. - Louis Gray

Twitter needs to build in groups functionality a la tweetdeck for following 2K+ to even be practical. - Nicholas Molnar

Louis: You need to convince the new people to head over here :) - Justin Korn

I'm just curious what the rationale is for following that many people. - Paul Rodriguez

Well, maybe that's why Louis always seems to know what's going on before anybody else. - ♫ Rahsheen™

I've noticed that most of the time I get followed by somebody with a big number, it tends to be marketing play. It triggers the email to you and then you go look and click on their bio link which takes you to the pitch. Very irritating. I always block em. - Mark Schulz

@Paul Rodriguez, I was wondering that too. I wouldn't have even guessed there are 2000 interesting people in the world </cynicism>, but what fascinate me is that i'm following like 83 people and only about 14 of them tweet regularly. I can assume most of those 2000 do not tweet regularly. Add in the fact that I'm a WAHM to two toddlers, and do other stuff, there'd be a lot of stuff I'd miss. - Anika Malone

New profit center? Sorry, but now you'll have to join Twitter Pro .... - Charlie Anzman

Info restrictions suck:( - Igor Poltavskiy

Very interesting. System limits is going to be a topic that we all work through in this early phase of the Social Web. It seems to me that it's reasonable to cap the number one follows to 1,000 or 2,000. On the flipside, one would clearly like to enable a very high number of followers. With respect to bi-directional connections, the real number should max at 1,000 to 2,000... - John McCrea

This is awesome! Incidentally, Scoble (@Scobleizer) is still following over 30K. - Vincent van Wylick

So where is the point following 30k people? You might as well hit the main timeline. The only thing that is bad about this limit is that it was not there from the beginning. - Alexander Kohlhofer

@kevinrose: 56K+. Losing 54K+? - Igor Poltavskiy

so what's going to happen to those who follow over 2000? - Wayne Sutton

you follow two. thousand. people.??? never mind twitter; there may be a law against that. - jeneane sessum

I like the new limit. I cannot see how anyone would be able to legitimately follow (and pay attention to) more than 2,000 people. Frankly, even that limit seems higher than it needs to be. If it helps keep Twitter a little more stable, go for it. - Dennis Metzcher

Couple thoughts: the limit impacts the ability to use the service as a direct message router -- for some people. It also reinforces the need for dectralized microblogging -- so if you want exceed the limits you can do so on your own infrastructure. Lastly, nothing prevents you from following everyone or a subset of people through RSS/feeds. - Chris Messina

Are we sure that Twitter has set a 2,000 limit are or we cranking up the rumor mill? I've seen image before with respect to my own account - an account which just reached 1,000 followers today. According the Twitter rep who contacted me, I got - ahem - put in "Twitter Prison" for "Aggressive Following" My ratio of Followers to Following was kinda out of whack - at that time I had only ~800 people following me while I was following ~2,800 - They suspended my ability to follow more people. I removed 2K. - Vincent Wright

I don't understand the motivation for following 2K people if you're not a spammer... someone explain? - Jason Carreira

Jason: For a entrepreneur/VC/angel networker, it would be very easy to hit 2,000 contacts (assuming you used Twitter like a rolodex). From one networking meeting, I might pick up 0-100+ business cards (more at conferences), and during a heavy season I could be doing 7-10 meetings/week. As a angel, I might want to follow 5,000-10,000+ projects/people. Anyone might have a really good project 2-10+ years down the pipe... I've got cartons/boxes of 3-ring binders of business cards in plastic sheets. - Mitchell Tsai

I think that somewhere along the way an idea turns into a plan. With that, I think ideas are worth a lot more than we give them credit. - Larry Kless via twhirl

I consider myself a recovering idea guy. Most of the free-range ideas I generate now I put out for public consumption, they aren't worth anything on my shelf. @Larry Once an idea becomes a plan, it's much more than an idea. - Steve Spalding

I'm supposed to sketch out my ideas? I usually have tons of amazing, world-changing ideas then readily forget them the instant I fall asleep. - ·[▪_▪]·

At least they help you get to sleep at night, there is some value in that mate. :) - Steve Spalding

interesting. the other folks i heard this from, i would consider strong tactical executors. not bigger picture people. would you agree both are critical? - Christian Anderson

They have a symbiotic relationship. I know plenty of people who execute perfectly but can't plan -- they don't have vision. I know plenty of people with vision but no ability to put the peddle to the floor. I know very few people with both. Idea people need Executors and visa versa. - Steve Spalding

agreed - Christian Anderson

idea in itself is nothing. but then again, there are those whose creative side is better developed and who have a constant outflow of ideas but are loosy on details and execution. this is where the implementation guys come in handy. the two types complement each other. most of big corporate names usually have both idea and implementation parts - otherwise it is rather rare to find a person with two streaks equally "developed." - Hayk

ideas are just a multiplier of execution http://www.oreillynet.com/onla... - Hao Chen

That's a fantastic link Hao. :) - Steve Spalding

+1 @ Hao ! cool link ! - Hayk

Hell, if NO EXECUTION = $1 I should be worth millions!! - ·[▪_▪]·

doing is nothing without a clue, let alone without an idea, a vision. so many doers, so much crap. - Gregory Lent

You can plan for 6 months in the Internet space and your idea is probably obsolete - Charlie Anzman

ideas without *eventual* execution are worthless. however documenting your ideas is _priceless_. - MikeAmundsen

Engineering is great, but becomes Rube Goldberg-ian without the Math/Physics behind it :) - AaronTheLibrarian

@Mike documenting ideas is priceless, I agree. This is more aimed at the belief that documentation, in and of itself, is a substitute for actual creation. @Aaron I thought it was impossible to decouple Engineering (as a discipline) from math/physics. - Steve Spalding

Ideas/plans without execution may not have much worth but the process involved in generating the ideas may be priceless. - Brian Sullivan

The -ability- to generate ideas is priceless. The skill to corral inspiration is one of the key components to doing anything in the world, but for any -particular- idea I still don''t think the generation process is enough. - Steve Spalding

@Steve: yep, 'documenting' ideas will not result in a tangible win. but you need lots of 'at-bats' to get a 'hit' and getting your ideas out and available is a great way to increase your percentage. - MikeAmundsen

Agreed, that''s the beauty of scientific journals and the entire driving force behind academic publishing. It's all very important. - Steve Spalding

Almost. An idea without *communication* is worth nothing. Even if you create/execute on whatever it is for *yourself* and share it with no one else, it's still worth nothing in almost all cases. It's the communication of the idea, the prototype, or the product that's the key to converting something into value. Read, write, listen, talk. Saying that "execution" is the key is like saying "success" is the key. It's too broad. There are so many other fundamentals. - Loren Heiny

almost everyone has ideas but very few people can execute on those ideas or at least find the right team of people to execute your idea - Rajiv Doshi

Very astute clarification Loren, I have a broad definition of execution. What I meant was finding a plan to take to idea from the drawing board to reality. It doesn't necessarily involve you doing it personally. - Steve Spalding

An eye opener for me, a self confessed idea guy, was when I read a book on patents and inventions that basically said if you have to be secretive about an idea because it could easily be stolen by someone just hearing the idea, then someone has likely already implemented it or it's not really a good idea (yet). - Paul Reynolds

worth means money? ideas that change your understanding of life are more valuable - Gregory Lent

@gregorylent in my mind "worth" means anything that changes something for the better: you, me, anyone. good point to take the thought outside the $$$ frame of reference. - Taylor Davidson

Typical "VC babble". In some areas like Nobel Prizes and mathematics, ideas are valued because of their impact on the thinking/actions of others. This causes some people to over-value ideas in entrepreneurial areas, where teamwork, execution, and marketing may be more important than an idea; e.g. "good ideas are a dime a dozen". Well, Nobel Prize ideas are not a "dime a dozen". I think some VCs are overcompensating for feeling less smart than nerds by competing in other areas like status-connections. - Mitchell Tsai

I guess I just value "ideas" - which to me means "original thinking" - more than many. Frankly I think execution is a "dime a dozen" and truly original thinking is stunningly rare. Granted, original ideas cannot be *monetized* without excellent execution, but that doesn't mean they're not worth anything. To a VC, of course, value can only be measured in money. But my hope is most people are capable of measuring things a bit more broadly. - Anthony Citrano

Apropos quote [Howard Aiken]: "Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." - Anthony Citrano

"It is by acts and not by ideas that people live." - Anatole France - Hayk

@Mitchell @Anthony Nobel Prize "ideas" are often, I dare say always, executed. They usually are the sum of years and years of research and experimentation. Even in the softer sciences these "ideas" have been vetted. I am not saying every idea needs to be commercialized, I am saying that for an idea to have value -- to change anything -- it has to leave your head and go somewhere, even if it is into the hands of someone better equipped to do something with it. - Steve Spalding

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." - John Steinbeck - Hayk

I hear ya, Steve - but lots of Nobel prizes are awarded for ideas that are not ever tangibly/commercially/measurably "productive". - Anthony Citrano

Steve: I hear the "executed" idea you're promoting. Ideas in math though if they are "really good" may be a 1-page PhD and get you a professorship offer, even without any active marketing. The "vetting" may be informal and volunteer. This is different from most commercial ideas, where there is a small subset of people who successfully deliver a lot of product with almost no marketing and on their own. The academic world requires less of this type of promotion. - Mitchell Tsai

Many savvy academics also use very active lobbying, marketing, and research to promote their ideas, obtain grants, etc... They actively look at the research backgrounds of NSF, DoD and other area heads and use the info in their planning. It however, is still possible to release a "great idea" in academics without using political savvy, personal connections, and active "marketing". It's also not a "failure" in academics to release a "great idea" which doesn't get picked up for 50-100 years (esp. in math). - Mitchell Tsai

agreed. - Tony

Completely agree Mitchell. I come from an Engineering background, so it does sometimes slip that the pure sciences can have very, very long execution cycles, - Steve Spalding

something macho about all this "doing" .. pure idea that transforms consciousness is left out. one enlightened man sitting quietly in the himalayas does more good for the world than 100,000 men of good works is a concept in other parts of the world. - Gregory Lent

how can you not care? it's the most important thing to happen since ... ok yeah BFD. - Tac Anderson

I keep seeing whole posts written about it. Driving me bananas. It's just a redesign. I think people are more upset about the learning curve than anything, but could be wrong. - Leslie Poston

I think we'd all be surprised at how many people use us as sources of news. I know FF and the people who I follow here have helped me find tons of stuff that I would never have seen otherwise. - Steve Spalding

No, I'm just an observer. - Mark Dykeman

i think so. i get follows from ppl after digging things and stuff. sometimes they probably don't agree with what i pass on, but for the most part i like the same things as all my followers on any site. - Chris Harris

I don't consider myself an information filter, but I'm sure there is at least one person out there that uses me as such. I guess you could also take this a step further and say I'm an information filter between this world and the world outside my computer screen. I definitely pass along useful info to my family and friends. - ♫ Rahsheen™

We all are information filters. In this day of technology, we are forced to filter through all this information we have available to us. Regardless of whether we filter this information for ourselves or for others, this is the task that many new startups are going to try tackling in the future. This is going to be big business, and while few companies have tried to take it on, it has not been attempted at a level that I think is necessary for it to be effective for most people. It is beginning though. NetNewsWire 4 will supposedly have AideRSS built right in, and that will help. But, regardless, we are all filtering through endless amounts of data nowadays. - James Mowery via twhirl

Yes, I think so. I'm thankful for the content creators, content finders, and other information filters I subscribe to. - Hao Chen

Isn't it like a food chain: we all filter for someone else in the chain ?. - Antoine Bertier

A bit like that. I got to thinking about it because I think "early adopter" is too broad a term. Early adopters usually are finding the stuff they adopt from even earlier adopters. It's a lot more like a tree, and all of us are nodes. - Steve Spalding

At first I read "It's a lot more like a tree, and all of us are nuts" ;-) - Antoine Bertier

Which is also very true. :) - Steve Spalding

Not I. I am a consumer of the filtered content. Thank goodness for you filterers! - Joanmarie

That's terrible. I'm worried that I'll now have to travel between FB, FF, and Reader in order to get my 2 cents in. Can't the APIs talk to eachother and leave the input method to user preference? - Derick Valadao

Facebook is done for...I've been thinking about deleting all the applications...they suck... - Sean McGee

facebook is so 2007 - adolfo foronda

thanks for reminding me to use Facebook... - anna awesomesauce

Eh, This way the rabble can stay on Facebook. - Aram Zucker-Scharff via twhirl

I always use Facebook as an afterthought, but I'm always in and out of FF and Reader - Ian May

i still use FB everyday... not all my friends have the time to spend on twitter, friendfeed or the like. let's not become snobs about it. - Meghan via Alert Thingy

Oh, I'm in no way being a snob about Facebook. I really just don't think to use it much of the time. FriendFeed is much faster so I tend to go for that first. - Ian May

How is friendfeed faster? - morten saxnaes

I tried my first comment on Facebook. Worked great... - Mitchell Tsai

I've barely used Facebook since moving to FriendFeed. How ironic is it that Facebook heavily resembles FF now. I am disappointed with how difficult it is to read the news feed on Facebook. There is an image on the left. Oh wait, now there is an image on the right. Well now there is some indented text. Gah, now there are comments? It's just too noisy. It is almost a strain on my 21 year old eyes, and that is a shame. It needs to be cleaned up and displayed more elegantly. - James Mowery via twhirl

sorry, snob is a bit harsh.. i just meant smart people still use FB - Meghan via Alert Thingy

What's Facebook? - Stephen Pierzchala

Personally, FB is good for looking at pictures and following peoples actions. FF is a living discussion. FB is not a living discussion, I don't think comments are going to help. They have comments on pictures and that wore off months ago. - Ryan

I'm not even going to bother w/ comments on FB.... - Jeff Douglass

Covered it here: http://www.techwinter.com/2008... - Roger Kondrat

And here: http://www.techwinter.com/2008... Nice article though and most of all I am glad we are drawing more attention to the predatory practices of NEW large organisations e.g. FB and GOOGLE. :) - Roger Kondrat

I use FB quite a bit and I am glad they have improved their newsfeed. I would like to see them improve it some more. - Bindu Reddy

I enjoy the comments as much if not more than the things being shared on FF. Why is it that FF has great discussions and FB has little to none. I think it is historical... people don't think of FB as a place to go have group discussions about things. If so, will FB be able to change this? Do you think they are in trouble if they can't. - Michael Leggett

Comments on Facebook is actually pretty cool - FF'ers should not dismiss this feature so quickly. Facebook is copying FF - a true form of flattery! I think this is a really impressive feature improvement on Facebook...very interesting!! - Susan Beebe

I agree Susan. But I don't see the comments picking up so far... maybe it is only a matter of time. - Michael Leggett

Michael: I agree, it's too new of a feature to get noticed...but is is really awesome!! once folks figure it out... it will be a matter of time. - Susan Beebe

If they can get the graffiti wall to have a blog interface and an RSS feed, that would be dreamy... - sergiooo

Facebook has been forced into copycat mode. They are no longer the leader - just a follower of trends. They look like Plaxo and FF. - Ernie Oporto

Chris -- I need to borrow your brain for a few weeks. You the man! - PodChicks

Thank you so much for all of your great posts on social media. I like the various suggestions on measurement, the focus on the networks YOUR customers hang out and remembering email. So many posts seem to forget not everyone prefers Twitter or RSS feeds. I know I tend to forget. :) I agree with Hao Chen, remember co-workers and employees involvement. The front line folks have great insight to customers and will probably be a great resource in learning what social networks are important to your customers. Also, employees may already be involved in these networks. Take advantage of that passion. These tend to be the best human voice for your company. Great job and look forward to more on this! Jill - Jill Howard Allen

Could you be less productive? I've listened to 8 of your podcasts in the last 8 hours, plus reading your blog and clicking all the links...downloaded Adobe Digital Library to store your free reports and ebooks, referred my blog readers to your blog.. and that's one top of reading the 20-some other blogs I'm addicted to... I'm exhausted... Must get sleep... - Toni

Excellent stuff - Charlie Anzman

Great job! Thanks for taking the time to make such a detailed list. - Mitchell Tsai

very well written Chris! - Thomas Hawk