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Andrew › Comments
Would love to pretend this was all me but really it was all @jayzombie
Baboon, Mark Douglass, Paul Stamatiou and 13 other people liked this
ha
- sean percival
Foursquare lets you take photos now?
- Michelle McCormack
michelle - only of yourself when you look like the mascot on halloween (ha ha no, that's just my mad photoshop skillz)
- MG Siegler
Awesome!!
- Andrew
this costume crashes too much
- sean percival
This is an awesome photo! I wonder...eerie that they look way too similar. LOL!
- Kenneth
thanks kenneth took a few poses to get it just right
- MG Siegler
dear lord. that's really good.
- Andy Brett
Nice!!!
- Garin Kilpatrick
Coopeh: @Scobleizer in regards to Google Reader have u tried Fever by @shauninman? http://www.feedafever.com I use it and it's amazing! - http://twitter.com/Coopeh...
I don't like Fever at all. It puts old stuff way at the top, and it doesn't find anything relevant.
- Andrew
Larry's Towing Service (5/5) - http://www.yelp.com/biz...
"Absolutely the best service I've ever seen. Thorough, quick, and efficient. I spent less than 3 minutes on the phone with them and it was as painless as one could imagine."
- Andrew
There was a lot of chatter about the future of FriendFeed this weekend. The short answer is that the team is working on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. Transformation is not the end. Consider this the chrysalis stage -- if all goes well, a beautiful butterfly will emerge :)
Fabrizio, david beckwith, James Myatt and 242 other people liked this
What is transforming... FriendFeed, or the idea of FriendFeed?
- Christopher Galtenberg
Thanks for the update, Paul!
- Anne Bouey
THANK YOU!
- teh Dork Knight
Fabulous News :)
- Susan Beebe
Noticed the "leaked" Facebook UI screenshots and the groups blog post today, and both seem FriendFeed inspired: nice to see Facebook trying to bring the stuff we like about FriendFeed to a larger audience.
- Mark Trapp
To Robert Scoble: I told you so ;-)
- Jesse Stay
Sounds like they're adding some of FF's features to FaceBook. yay
- Internet's Tad
from fftogo
Mark - got link?
- Susan Beebe
Thanks Paul :)
- ashish
Devil is in the details: "couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" == Facebook projects with FriendFeed-like elements == no work on FriendFeed itself.
- EricaJoy
Paul, FriendFeed rocks as Gmail does ;)
- Orlando Pozo
Thanks for the update, the more you communicate, the less we have to speculate.
- Peter Hoffmann
The fact that these improvements are coming to Facebook and not friendfeed will not sway those who like friendfeed but dislike Facebook.
- Alex Scoble
Thank you Paul for bringing "FriendFeed goodness to the larger world" -- THAT sounds awesome!!
- Susan Beebe
integration with facebook?
- Rocco Galluzzo
@Alex Scoble: That's true
- Jorge Escobar
I hope out of the chrysalis emerges an infested Kerrigan. That'd be awesome http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki...
- Ivan Kirigin
Thanks Mark, much appreciated... I'll check those out
- Susan Beebe
+1 Ivan :)
- Benjamin Golub
But we knew this was the deal the moment the full details of the purchase of friendfeed by Facebook became public.
- Alex Scoble
Yeah, I don't give a crap about Facebook. I want to know about FriendFeed.
- Rochelle
Is it the interface people dislike about Facebook or the people they're friends with on Facebook? I can imagine being able to import all your subscribers from FriendFeed and have them in a separate group that doesn't interact with other groups you may have on Facebook.
- Cristo
sadly, no one with any power seems to care about FF anymore.
- Joe Silence is not dead
I'm glad to hear this. I prefer FriendFeed to Facebook any day of the week.
- Nathan Clayton
And the answer for me would be some of both. I have real life friends and family that I don't necessarily want to get into the same discussions with as I do with people here.
- Cristo
And there's your answer, Rochelle. friendwho? friendwhat now? Oh, you mean Facebook! (No I mean friendfeed) friendwho? (rinse, lather, repeat)
- Alex Scoble
there are some ui differences (and i tend to prefer friendfeed in those cases) but i have friended quite a few FF people in FB and the experience is remarkably similar in many ways.
- Jason Wehmhoener
Another big difference is I don't think you get the same FOAF interaction on Facebook as on FriendFeed.
- Cristo
yep
- Jason Wehmhoener
I hope my FaceBook peeps are ready for the FriendFeed firehose ... past experience would say that they're in for a shock.
- Crutis
Thanks for the transparency on the Friendfeed "ghost town" matter Paul. Much appreciated.
- Alex Knight
Thanks Paul... bring the special sauce to Facebook: http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife...
- Andrew
I like the "chrysalis stage" analogy - sounds cool.... goes an looks for FF goodness butterfly!
- Susan Beebe
Good to know that FriendFeed still has some fight left; hope that translates into a viable and sustainable platform/utility for the masses (though I quite enjoy the close-knit, uber-geek community that it's become).
- Christian
I don't like the chrysalis analogy. The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis and buggers off leaving the shell. Of course, it might then also get eaten by a bird. Tweet, tweet.
- Mark H
Mark LOL nice, ... haha
- Susan Beebe
Note that he didn't say that FriendFeed.com was going away, only that they're diverted to bringing it to a much larger audience
- Jesse Stay
The problem is Scoble (Robert) and MG both just sent half of FriendFeed away so most of those that would benefit from this announcement won't even see it.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse, I didn't get that from Paul's comment. I read that some of the friendfeed ideas will be going into FB. I like that idea, but I still prefer FF to FB because of the different conversations here that I don't have with friends and family.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
Yeah, Paul's statement won't help friendfeed. This will just either give people more reason to go to Facebook or find another service entirely.
- Alex Scoble
What Alex and Rochelle said. This sounds like a "we're bringing FF to Facebook" announcement, and I don't give a damn about Facebook. I want to know what's happening HERE. And Cristo, both, but more the interface. I care about the friends I've made here, and I'm connected with many of them now on Facebook as well, but I prefer to interact with them here, because I like it better.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Travis, he didn't say that - you read that, but he didn't say that. I'm willing to bet FriendFeed.com will not go away.
- Jesse Stay
As much as I agree about Scoble and MG driving people away, they have also effectively flush out some comment from the FF team.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
Travis, there are better ways of getting the FF team to comment
- Jesse Stay
:( I quite liked the caterpillar.
- Nick Lothian
I think it's the opposite, the butterfly is becoming this crawling caterpillar :)
- Jorge Escobar
Oh I don't think FF will go away, and damn will hope it doesn't either!
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
What I do see is more Facebook integrated into the FriendFeed environment - I think that's a good thing
- Jesse Stay
The critical difference between Facebook and FriendFeed is the social model. With Facebook as it is today, you need to be mutual friends to see each others content. There is a "fan page" model but it is oriented toward "publishing/celebrity" rather than information sharing. FriendFeed has an asymmetric model like Twitter, where you can easily discover someone's content without any "friend" gesture whatsoever, and you can follow without friending. This makes the converation more discoverable, and useful..
- Adina Levin
Agree Adina.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
If the integration is bringing public/asymmetric to Facebook, then it will be very useful indeed. If the integration is to add FriendFeed-style service integration into the symmetric/private Facebook model, it will be much less useful - it's more of the same - I'll be able to more easily share updates from youtube or last.fm or delicious to my friend network, but be unable to discover new people and infomation.
- Adina Levin
Adina: And unless Facebook goes radically toward that model, it won't suffice for me. I could not care less about their upcoming redesigns.
- Christopher A Carr
@Jesse - I can't see any sign that they are working on FriendFeed at all. All the indications are that the FF team is now working on Facebook, and only Facebook. That's great for Facebook, and I'm sure they will do wonderful work there. But don't delude yourself that FriendFeed is going to get anything more than critical fixes, and maybe the occasional thing done in someone's spare time.
- Nick Lothian
Butterflies look totally different than caterpillars and they also fly away
- Melanie Reed
Crickets chirping... is this site alive?? :)
- Christopher Galtenberg
+100 Adina. The things I like best about FriendFeed (easy content/people discovery, FoaF, asymmetrical following and being followed) are completely opposite to Facebook's core model. That's why as much as people keep talking about Facebook adding FF-like features, I don't see the REAL FF core features making it over, because the mindset is different.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
I don't see this announcement as anything new, or as reassuring. We knew from the time of the acquisition that there would be would be some movement of FF capabilities into FB. The real question is whether this means absorption of FF into FB or attracting the FB user base into FF. The comment about "bring[ing] FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" still leaves that question open.
- John (a.k.a. dendroica)
+1 everything Alex Scoble has said. Friendwhat? What's a feed? Who uses RSS anymore? We've got PubSubWTFOMGBBQ now!
- Mr. Gunn
Agree with Jandy on +100 Adina.
- Amy℠
Also, I agree with Jandy and Adina's comments.
- John (a.k.a. dendroica)
Nick, Paul just said they're working on other projects right now. That still doesn't mean FriendFeed is going away. I'm not deluding myself at all. I'm telling everyone else they're deluding themselves by assuming it's going away. All the FriendFeed team is still using FriendFeed, and Paul just tried to give us comfort not to worry. For some reason we all don't want to believe him. It's actually kind of amusing.
- Jesse Stay
I wonder what the powers that be mean by "FriendFeedy goodness"? Is it understood what WE like about it vs. FB?
- Amy℠
Paul - Wishing you all the best as you tend your new butterfly garden :) I'll be here to enjoy them!
- Susan Beebe
Jesse: "For some reason we all don't want to believe him." <-- Don't want to believe what? He didn't really say anything.
- Christopher A Carr
This is not the news that Friendfeed fans were looking for.
- Vezquex: God of FF
The issue isn't belief that they are going to do something. The question is what they are going to do, and whether that will continue the core value of FriendFeed, which is not just information aggregation but discoverability.
- Adina Levin
I know more about the "Last Days" and heaven than I know about what's going to happen to FriendFeed as we have come to know it than was given in your rather cryptic answer, Paul. :) And while that may not be a fair comparison (God actually gave details and signs), there is something definitely not forthcoming about your response. A person usually withholds details that affect another...
more...
- Melanie Reed
Melanie, in other words, Paul works for a technology company in Silicon Valley that doesn't disclose future features, products, and services until they are ready.
- Cristo
Hopefully this helps to quiet all of the "friendfeed is dying" talk. Because this thread proves ff is alive and well.
- Garin Kilpatrick
@Jesse - I read it differently to you. To me, Paul is saying "We are taking what we were working towards on FriendFeed, and trying to bring that goodness to a bigger audience". No one is claiming they are going to shut down FF.
- Nick Lothian
@Jesse - Want to make a bet on the number of new features added to FF before the end of the year?
- Nick Lothian
Cristo, to deliver some straightforward talk is not about giving away company details. If you have a product that is original and stands on its own, you don't need to refer to it as a "butterfly". Many companies even promote something new and upcoming especially to their loyal user base. It gives a signal. A proper one. It tells your users and future users enough so that they can make an informed decision about what they want to do instead of keeping them on tenderhooks
- Melanie Reed
"the chrysalis stage in most butterflies is one in which there is little movement" (via wikipedia) So if you follow that metaphor then eventually FriendFeed will go through a metamorphosis -- that means it's not dead... really how hard can it be to get what he's saying?
- Chris Heath
Its pretty hard :) The burning question is if they are putting FF goodness in to the walled gardens that are Facebook or are they bringing FF openness to FB too. I think the people here want the open forums that are FF not the closed ones that are FB. If FB is going hybrid with both walled gardens and open forums that would be OK too. People on FF want open forums... like Twitter and FF... without the crude interface that is Twitter and without the uncertainty that is FF now.
- Ed Millard
Facebook is gonna have to rip off much of the privacy to maximize their product in the real-time web world. I am going to assume FF goodness is going to be applied to FB :) *crosses fingers*
- Susan Beebe
Just a thought... why does "longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" JUST mean facebook.com? What I get from this is that they are working on a range of things, maybe bringing the FriendFeed sauce to a range of sites, powered by the Facebook back end. Who knows what that means. A FriendFeed service powered by FacebookConnect? Also to......
more...
- Johnny Worthington
LMFAO. Johnny++
- Rahsheen ™, Coach of FF
FB needs to leave the privacy for the walled garden and the inner circle. Their current user base likes that. They just need a second feed that is an open forum and you can talk there without it bleeding in to your inner circle feed.
- Ed Millard
Seems like the inner circle is breaking down some now, what with parents and other relatives friending teenagers. I'm guessing the information posted on the walls these days is not as private. Is there a way on FriendFeed to limit what on your wall can be seen by particular people and groups?
- Cristo
Yes, but blocking doesn't work so well since you can just use Chrome's Incognito mode to get around it.
- Alex Scoble
Translation: if you haven't switche to Facebook yet, you better do it now so you can get a good vanity URL.
- David Chartier
from iPhone
I don't know what all the fuss is about. But could we have the long answer too, please?
- Laura Norvig
Although I'm interested, FB != FF. I don't see how the two mix in a way that makes me feel otherwise. Mixing audiences is not a good thing for me (with a few exceptions) and I know others share the same thought.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Did anyone notice that Robert Scoble didn't comment on this thread? What does this mean? Does it mean Robert Scoble won't exist soon? He must be working on a Monday afternoon, no? ;)
- Cristo
Paul, will FF be here in 1 year, 5 years?
- Robert Higgins
Robert, will you and I be alive in 5 years?
- Cristo
Thanks for the update Paul..
- Chris Myles
Cristo I am funking nobody, I would like Paul to quantify his post. Simple. Will FF be here in 1 year? Will FF be here in 5 years?
- Robert Higgins
Robert, I was trying to make the point that he might not know and can't predict what will happen over time.
- Cristo
IMO friendfeed shoud attract more general audience... Facebook and twitter are having more general users. Most of the FF users are tech bloggers or those who needs aggregation services... I dont know it's just my feeling or not . but this is my impression on FF. but it's great service.. the features are too good... but we will roam were we meet our friends... thats most of the people are into twitter and FB.
- Sarath
Sarath, is there a place you can get away from tech bloggers? :)
- Cristo
Ohhhh a perrrttty butterfly, I'm moist with anticipation.
- sofarsoShawn
Glad to hear it, Paul.
- WorldofHiglet
Cristo: i almost made the same observation an hour or two ago when i first read through this posting and its comments. I was skimming and kept seeing alex, alex, alex... and thinking to myself... where's Robert!?!
- Chris Heath
Great news. Thanks! friendfeed team. :D
- Bicentennial (Franc)
@Sarath - I have a lot more in common with the people I've met here on FriendFeed than FB or Twitter. Twitter is too hard to search, and FB (and Twitter to a good extent) is driven by the people you know in RL (and unfortunately I don't have nearly as much in common in RL with my family, co-workers and acquaintences as I do with people scattered all over the world who I have met on FF)....
more...
- Her Lindsay-ness
I think that in his cryptic statement he means, and a lot of people here agree with me, that more Facebook's going to get more FriendFeedy. Which doesn't mean that FF still isn't dead or doomed. After all, he works for Facebook now. FriendFeed=open forum, Facebook=walled garden, totally opposite master metaphors; but I don't think Zuckerberg gets it, and FF belongs to Zuckerberg now. So this is really about FB; FF's still in limbo. Still, some FF people friended me at FB, and I put them in a special list.
- Dennis Jernberg
@FF-team keep on rocking :). BTW I also think it's really cool you guys open-sourced tornado.
- alfred westerveld
+1 what alfred said, and good to hear words like "longer-term" & "beautiful" coming straight from The Walrus - keep that vision strong. Hope all goes well for FF team doing some good re-inventing the Octopus Garden of FB - seems you've got your work cut out for you there! It would be so nice if any way to keep a "simple & pure" form of FriendFeed alive (maintained and developed - more open source?) for us to enjoy, but no worries .... you've simultaneously raised the bar and paved the way for the rest!
- Dan Freeman
Good luck with the development Paul! Hopefully Zuck has some positive insight.
- Garin Kilpatrick
I like butterflies.
- Harold Cabezas
Paul: If someone offered me a bag of money to do what you guys did, I would have done exactly the same (probably a lot faster too). However, it would be nice if you spent an hour answering some of the questions here. It might also give people like me a little more faith, in what used to be your primary project; Friendfeed. You made the best platform on the planet - why not use it to let us know what the heck's going on?
- Jim Connolly
I'm assuming that Facebook wants to keep their roadmap quiet. I respect that but leaving you community in the dark for a brand that the applications stand for community building is rather ironic.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
SUPER!! I don't Blame ya 1 Darn bit fer Dumpin' FacePOOP Paul!! ;PPP Wait FacePOOP is the Maggot Stage!! ;))
- Billy Warhol
If I can still have all my friends that I have here on friendfeed and share things with them the exact same way, I don't care what "www" address I have to type in to get it. I just hope i don't have to give up any of FF's awesome features! Thanks for the update Paul!
- David Cook
The problem is I don't know whether to wrote an app on your API or not because i'm not sure whether it will all be dropped in the "transformation". Imagine speding late nights and weekends coding something up only for it to be dropped suddenly. Need a decent long term picture. Looking at Cliqset.
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
Good point Steven - and one of the reasons many of us are spending so little time developing our networks here.
- Jim Connolly
waiting....
- ffcode
ffcode: Good luck with that ;-)
- Jim Connolly
So the changes are at Facebook not FriendFeed, Paul?
- Kol Tregaskes
And good luck to all of your team
- Ozkan Altuner
from iPhone
This is a truly disappointing/concerning post and I think it would have been much better to hold comment until something more tangible could be discussed. Thanks for adding to the confusion/drama Paul.
- Nicholas Kreidberg
yemezler
- MobilAdam
I do care about what happens next, but this is the best news of the day nonetheless ! thanks for giving us updates at last ! and I do hope FF will awaken again ! such a great tool, but letdown since the announcement of the buyback by FB
- laetSgo
will I see this post in my "best of week" email from FF?
- Kirill Bolgarov
If Facebook is going to get fixed, please remember that it needs fixing politically, not just technically. It needs to give people the option to open their data to Google - for instance. A walled garden where the walls are fixed in place sucks.
- Tim Tyler
@Paul, or perhaps an Alien will erupt forth from its stomach? (kidding, kidding!)
- j1m
Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Hanselminutes Podcast 119 - What Is Done? with Scrum Co-Creator Ken Schwaber - http://www.hanselman.com/blog...
with Scrum Co-Creator Ken Schwaber
- Andrew
Who does "real-time commenting" better: Facebook or Friendfeed?
Kol Tregaskes, Mike Chelen, Bruce Lewis and 2 other people liked this
I say Friendfeed
- Andrew
FriendFeed. If it were Facebook, they wouldn't have bought out FriendFeed's talent.
- Akiva Moskovitz
FriendFeed when there are participants.
- Eric Logan
@Akiva +++
- Shevonne
FriendFeed!
- Holly Rae, FFer
can't really say since I never use FaceBook ....
- Dan Freeman
Does FB have realtime commenting? If they do, it's terrible.
- Jason Huebel
from iPhone
FriendFeed, of course. Facebook doesn't update my comments unless I click the refresh button on my browser.
- Dennis Jernberg
Facebook does Jason but, you could never have this type of conversation on a 7 hour old post ;)
- Eric Logan
the realtime updates in friendfeed are easier to keep track of, because the most recent activity will be bumped to the top of any listing. the overall system is also better because comments by friends are clearly distinguished
- Mike Chelen
or Google Wave. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
This Used To Be My Playground - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
Mahdi Ebrahimi, Susan Beebe, Mitchell Tsai and 40 other people liked this
No comment
- Eric @ CS Techcast
Commenting here so that MG stops feeling bad that nobody comments on his stuff anymore.
- Bruce Lewis
Wow... that makes me so sad
- Holly Rae, FFer
*sigh*
- Yolanda
...
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
from iPod
*shrugs* I get more comments now, I think.
- Jennifer Dittrich
This used to be my childhood dream...
- Rochelle
quite right rochelle :)
- MG Siegler
but...I don't wanna have bloody feet!
- WorldofHiglet
Now look what you've done, MG. You're scaring Higlet!
- Bruce Lewis
I noticed that my Hot Threads saved search mostly turn up non-english threads now, so there's definitely been an effect. That said, FriendFeed may be down but it ain't out yet.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
MG, you're right about the FF infrastructure being on autopilot, but I would characterize the activity as a network of small towns - not a (monolithic) ghost town. Anyway, compared another article of late, you did the topic justice. :)
- Micah Wittman
MG: Don't be so fatalistic. FF is there, it's up to us, the users, what we make of it. Personally I like this place so much that I think I'll hang in here until the cleaning staff starts placing upturned chairs on the table and asking the last few customers to hurry up with their drinks.
- Paola Bonomo
i haveNEVER had one comment,but I got one like.I must be posting crap.I'll stop and change up.what's the deal here-the person who gets the most comments get JUST a mention on best of the week or day?
- R_ C
R_ C, step 1 is to make your feed public. I see a private feed and assume what's in it is none of my business unless I know you in real life.
- Bruce Lewis
My feed's public, but I've never gotten many comments. Still, I comment on others' posts a lot. FF's still here for me, so I'm still here. As for Posterous, it and FF complement each other. For me, FF is where Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Blogger, and Google Reader come together in a single feed. So it's still important to me. I don't think it's so much "dead" as "alive and still dying"...
- Dennis Jernberg
Nice, but I think I woulda used the opportunity to pull out some REM "Cuyahoga" lyrics instead of taking the Madonna angle.
- Ken Sheppardson
liking this place wouldn't get all those tech talks we could have it would be more of a fun place now, memes going on and all that, a lot of geeks have moved on
- ffcode
Dennis: that it is an aggregator is the reason why it remains Scoble's homepage at twitter and the badges are still up at scobleizer :)
- ffcode
It's apparent that what we have here is just another bad creation http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Jay Cuthrell
This makes me want to write an article about this. Friendfeed has a better interface to communicate, but people are spending their time on Facebook.
- Andrew
Andrew: i think the type of people facebook has can be attracted to ff if we have themes here and private msging be a prime feature
- ffcode
Event Tracking Guide - Google Analytics - Google Code - http://code.google.com/apis...
Heather Champ's tweet within minutes of nuking DMU on Flickr: "I hate your freedom."
Shannon J Hager liked this
unbelievable. major disrespect and a disgrace.
- Ivan Makarov
Coincidence?
- Ryan MacLean
oof. ::hoping for a coincidence::
- Jess Dennis
What is DMU?
- Andrew
not about DMU
- Jakey
posted within minutes of DMU's deletion. Nice to know how Yahoo's staff feels about freedom. Personally freedom is something I believe in.
- Thomas Hawk
Let's call it a coincidence and move on...
- Ryan MacLean
she fucked DMU and I hate that. You helped TH.. not purposely, but still. It happened.
- Jakey
seriously Andrew, you just need to get over yourself, you made your bed by acting like an idiot and it ended up biting you in the ass. Stop being such a fucking whiny bitch.
- James Rhodes
GO THE FUCK AWAY
- Jakey
not an ice cubes chance in hell of that happening .... I'm willing to see just how far we can take this....
- James Rhodes
You have blocked James Rhodes, so all of James Rhodes's posts and comments are invisible to you. Un-block.
- Thomas Hawk
If you don't want to see James' comments anywhere on Friendfeed you can block him if you'd like. You not only will not see his posts that he starts, every comment on Friendfeed he posts will be invisible to you. I normally don't block people but in James' case I'm going to make an exception.
- Thomas Hawk
now that's a beauty of FF
- Ivan Makarov
isn't it Ivan? He's probably posting in here right now and I can't see any of it. It's nice. Looking forward to Cody joining as well.
- Thomas Hawk
i've always wanted that feature for flickr. it would have made life in the DMU so much easier
- Ivan Makarov
greasemonkey made that possible but u am mostly a casual observer
- RumNose
this motherfeed iPhone app is a little lacking for FF. any any better free suggestions?
- RumNose
This RT is funny, can you see why? RT: @mager: We need a new Techmeme. http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife... tip @techmeme
Andrew liked this
I like it. What do you think of the post?
- Andrew
54 Mint - Vineria Ristorante (1/5) - http://www.yelp.com/biz...
"I'm sure this place has its moments, but last night was not one of them. The moment that I had to repeat my phone number twice on the phone to the host while securing a 9pm reservation, I knew…"
- Andrew
Updating your status on Facebook or Twitter has no context. It's just a firehose and you're lucky if anyone sees it.
Friendfeed puts all my flotsam in context. I just wish more people knew about it http://friendfeed.com/jesse
- Jesse Hattabaugh
You're right, Friendfeed does a great job of keeping status in context. And the search is simple.
- Andrew
PhotoSketch: better than sliced bread, Photoshop - http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife...
Thanks :)
- Andrew
you're welcome
- Vedran Rudelj
Ristorante Milano (5/5) - http://www.yelp.com/biz...
"This place has great pizza. I went around dinner time on a Saturday night and got the last open table. Ordered a Greek salad and a pizza, and couldn't be happier right now. In fact, all I can think…"
- Andrew
> @mager says farewell to @cnet in a really thoughtful post, can you guess where he's headed next? http://andrewmager.com/farewel...
Louis Gray, sean percival and barce liked this
ok, who knows how to interpret what I presume is a Chinese character at the bottom of his post?
- Scott Edwards
its ning!
- sean percival
That's too easy, Sean. http://translate.google.com/transla...
- Louis Gray
You're right - that was too easy - embarrassed I didn't think of it. Interesting though that it translates the same whether you set the drop-down to Japanese or Chinese. So, I hadn't heard of Ning for awhile - thought it was dead or near-dead, but I see it's Alexa rank is around 150, which is pretty impressive. Why doesn't it get more play? Are there any other solutions for creating social GROUPS like this? Seems like facebook would be severely lacking in this dept.
- Scott Edwards
I wanna do the following to make it better: 1.) Make the layouts more modular, and draggable. Right now every Ning is a 3 column fixed layout. 2.) Add Facebook Connect. I wish Ning would eventually replace the Facebook group/fan page.
- Andrew
I have done it!
Denise Howell, Chris Martin, Ryan Kuder and 34 other people liked this
10,000. impressive.
- Ted Roden
I'm at 10,280 ;)
- Chris Saad
i will catch up with you today chris. give me 10 minutes
- MG Siegler
It's not a competition dude, quality over quantity, although I beat u at both *evil laugh*
- Chris Saad
I'm almost at 20,000 now that I check. What will be my 20,000th?
- Jesse Stay
I have 168, beat that. Losers. Pfft.
- Faraz Mullick
Whoa, you tweet way too much. I am unfollowing :)
- Andrew
You didn't forget!
- WorldofHiglet
Faraz wins the internetz :-)
- Jesse Stay
Thank you Jesse. :D
- Faraz Mullick
Quality, not Quantity. Oh wait, you're actually quite good aren't you.
- LeonardChallis
Get!
- Chris Duffy
from iPhone
You talk a lot.
- Sarah Lane
2,100 tweets? weak.
- MG Siegler
I feel like such a pisher.
- Dan Perlman
Gmail is back after one hour downtime. That makes it Gmail 1 Exchange 200,000
Ken Sheppardson, Louis Gray, Oğuz Serdar and 5 other people liked this
Exchange is the reason my Palm Pre can't keep a signal.
- Andrew
Really Gillmor? That statement make you look like just about any another veritable industry whore. Lmao@ Cloud/gmail being down "Once" compared to 200k figure pulled out your ass. Stick to iPhone app updates.
- Nemo
If Gmail goes out for an hour I can live with it - but what I do miss much more are NEW episodes of the Gillmor Gang on my iPhone. That's an outage that effects my personal knowledgeability!
- Michael Pinto
I agree with Michael. I miss the best show on the internet. Where is the GG? (but thank you for all the great episodes of the past)
- Wo
My IMAP connection to Gmail didn't go down.
- Scott Greiff
Really Nemo. Just putting today's outage in context. An industry whore? Unfollow pls.
- Steve Gillmor
@Nemo - Steve may have 'pulled the figure out his ass' as you so quaintly pointed out but surely the more important number is how many GMail users were inconvenienced? IMAP and POP were working just fine but we may never know how many users were able to manage in those environments while others waited for the web app to come back. I'd also add that it's not so long ago (in the last...
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- Dennis Howlett
I disagree with Nimo on many levels, but it is fair to say that today's outtage demonstrates the disadvantages of having everything centralized. Having a local cache of my personal content (email in this case) has it's advantages. Even if IMAP/POP had failed today, those users who were using desktop apps would have at least had access to their email and could have continued to create new emails until Gmail returned. Assuming any central service will always be available is foolish, IMO.
- Jim McCusker
If you compare two imaginary worlds with total populations of 10,000 people: one where 100 local servers each have 100 users and another where 1 server has 10,000 users and where each server is down 1 day a year... would you rather everyone experience the outage on the same day, or have 1% of the population offline on each of 100 days? That is, if uptime and reliability are the same, is centralization really an issue?
- Ken Sheppardson
I'm live now on Buzz Out Loud with Tom Merritt, Brian Cooley, and Jason Howell. http://cnettv.cnet.com/live/
David Rysz, Eric Geller, lensflare and Christopher Harris liked this
Remember when I made this? Can't wait for this functionality to come to FriendFeed. Hot Dog Stand here I come!
ravi karandeekar, Tyson Key, Xea Baudoin and 68 other people liked this
MY EYES ARE BLEEDING
- Eric Eldon
woah - tell me you're still not using this...its quite possibly the ugliest thing ive ever seen.
- Zee.
That's like an outfit from The Fifth Element
- Jay Cuthrell
Now I'm craving Hot Dogs
- Jesse Stay
i call it eggplant orange juice with blood.
- MG Siegler
for healthy vampires
- Eric Eldon
I feel bad for your monitor that has to serve that up...haha
- Mike Bracco
MG, maybe we should save you the trouble and make one that looks like this for you. We'll call it parislemon.
- Dan Hsiao
i think that may cause a FF revolt. or vomiting.
- MG Siegler
Absolutely love the color scheme! :)
- Jon, the Beartato of FF
lol it's festive. My Gmail is bright green and orange. LOVE
- BEX
ya lets myspace up this bitch!
- sean percival
Paul -- hey you listenin'? hhaha! don't ya love those colors! LOL (Dan - good idea!, do it!! haha)
- Susan Beebe
Oh My GATO!!
- Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕
No
- Jorge Escobar
Looks like a box of Crayola's just threw up. : )
- Mike Doeff
Cool
- Andrew
It looks like I designed it. That's not a good thing.
- Ethan
I would go out of my mind by the end of the day. LOL
- Drew Lucas
Painful.
- Anne Bouey
*sheepish laughter* heh, that's just, er, wow.
- Rick Cogley
This is a beautiful work of art. Bravo! Encore!
- Sarah Lane
i aim to please.
- MG Siegler
Just looking at that might give you colon cancer.
- Gary C
Or keep you away from gmail long enough to be productive on the task at hand.
- Mitch
B to the U to the M to the P http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
- Jay Cuthrell
FriendFeed has themes now. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Robert MacEwan
much harder to ugly this up, but i tried http://friendfeed.com/parisle...
- MG Siegler
looks like helvetica to me... :)
- Jim Hearts FF
did u build it yet? lol
- Phillip Grady Jr
literally brilliant way to push people to use gmail... ;)
- Marc Mulhern
Behold: The Cheer Carrot FriendFeed Theme
HealingBrush, Jay, Kol Tregaskes and 23 other people liked this
in case this makes no sense: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
- MG Siegler
God help us all, MG has discovered themes
- Bret Taylor
Bret: lmao
- Holden Page
I hate this. I really really hate this.
- Adam Jackson
WHAT IN THE HOLY DISGUSTING CRAP
- Rachael Depp
Love it
- Andrew
It is one of the worst themes ever made.
- Mark
i'm going to buy cheer right now.
- Jeff Haynie
MG wins!
- Stephen Mack
Adam/Rachael/Mark -- you can switch off viewing other people's themes. See "settings" in the upper right.
- Stephen Mack
So very nice!
- Martha
lolz
- Lindsey is Fierce!
MG, it's still readable, therefore it's not *quite* ugly enough. :P
- Andrew Hays
MG LOL Oh boy.
- Mona Nomura
I love the comment on the article, something about a pot and kettle being black. :)
- Heather
5 Helpful Resources In Reaction to the Facebook/FriendFeed Deal
arty, 9000, A.T. and 42 other people liked this
7 STAGES OF GRIEF Through the Process and Back to Life http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stage...
- Louis Gray
So, you've been dumped: http://www.soyouvebeendumped.com/
- Louis Gray
What is the best way to get drunk fast? http://www.funadvice.com/q...
- Louis Gray
Facebook for Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/gp...
- Louis Gray
Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Guys? http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Louis Gray
ROFL! Again, nicely done!
- Jim Hearts FF
And what do Matthew and Sarah think about this mess? I can only imagine how distraught they must be. :)
- Yolanda
lol, nice one Louis :D
- Kristian Salonen
Yolanda, I guarantee they won't get through the day without tears. (Just like every other day)
- Louis Gray
I love it.
- Andrew
Haha...Awesome...and very refreshing. Glad Louis is bringing us his emotional take on today's events because I'm already sick of all the business analysis. Longtime users that have grown to love the service I'm sure don't particularly care about that right now.
- Mark Krynsky
That's exactly what I was thinking!
- Anne Bouey
fantastic :)
- Kim
Siddharth Parmar, Nate Pilling, Gordon Saunders and 103 other people liked this
That's nice. Just random, or in response to something. :)
- τorƍue
Does that mean you got a little sleep?
- Anne Bouey
Good news? People like Paul don't usually get in the office so early especially after a lack of sleep, on a Monday morning, if there wasn't a great reason.
- Louis Gray
this could be big.
- vijay
Aww Man, see now I am not going to get any sleep tonight! DAMN YOU PAUL and your teasing little smiley face. OK, must go and get some coffee!
- Travis Koger
O.k., I'll smile too :) (and open my ears and eyes)
- Martha
10 bucks says that they add emoticons soon. :)
- Joe Beda
This emoticon makes a little more sense now...
- Stephen Foskett
Guessing this was about the Facebook announcement?
- Ben Hedrington
Cheshire cat?
- Hutch Carpenter
Good for you, Paul. I can't help but feel a little let down, though.
- Matthew Gifford
well done!
- michael sean wright
Congrats! Let us (well, our chef) cook you lunch before you're no longer walking distance! :)
- Don MacAskill
I have the same feeling as Matthew Gifford... Congrats to you, Paul, but I'm not sure this bodes well for the rest of us.
- Her Lindsay-ness
Congrats, Paul. :-)
- Jordan Hofker
Congratulations!
- Ethan Herdrick
Congratulations to the whole team, Paul!
- Ryan Kuder
yeah they signed away the community :(-
- Peter Dawson
Congrats Paul if they're truely in order :)
- Jason Cronkhite
from iPhone
No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- andy brudtkuhl
congrats to the team, but to be honest i'm not liking it at all
- bear (aka Mike Taylor)
Good news or bad news? :)
- Arda Çetin
Congrats Paul! I was really hoping this would happen. Friendfeed and Facebook need each other. Cheers!
- Akshay Dodeja
Now I get it. Congrats on the $$.
- Yolanda
Now I know...and knowing is half the battle
- Bwana ☠
:(
- TiTi
Congratulations!!!! A 'worthy' smiley ... ;-)
- Bo Stern
I think Paul's emoticon was charming and that Louis Gray is either super discerning or super informed.
- Michael Muller
Congrats to the FF team you guys are awesome (keep this place awesome)
- Ryan
WHAT'VE YOU DONE!!!! THAT'S TOTALLY SH*T!
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
congratulations, may your road ahead be smooth...
- Nathan Chase
That can imho only mean good things for the FB UI ...
- Bo Stern
Congratulations, definitely.
- DGentry
congrats!
- Peter Warnock
Congrats to you and the entire FF team. I hope you guys are in it for the long haul.
- Mike Doeff
hey congrats to the FF team! I look forward to seeing what the future holds
- (jeff)isageek
Congratulations Paul & FF team!
- Charles Ying
congrats dude
- Jason Pollock
:(
- Alex Scrivener
Congratulations.
- 321
congratulations.. but liked the whole UI & funtionality of ff than fb!! it'll b gone!!
- Gtp19
You're totally ::stpd::
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
its business after all, sell it but get back to make a better product for your old users. dont 4get the users !!
- Peter Dawson
:(
- acedanger
the results of good work
- Juan Pablo Ruiz
congratulations!
- Hareesh Nagarajan
Congrats!
- DS
GZ!
- Sarp
:) we will learn from the process
- abdellah
Paul, will you respond to this? This is *bad* for FF users. Best case: it continues on, but distracted by Facebook and with stagnated feature development. Worst case: it's gone. Middle of the road: Facebook forces its ads into the timeline and friendfeed starts acting like Facebook by ignoring its users.
- tollie williams
@tollie, I imagine Paul's ability to respond is now constrained, which is just one of the changes we'll see coming. There's new management in town, folks.
- Ken Kennedy
scared!!!
- abdellah
Good luck Paul... it's gonna be a great partnership.
- Andrew
Congrat's Paul. Great news, and I'm really happy for all of you!
- Michael Fidler
Congrats to the whole FriendFeed team!
- John McCrea
Way to go Paul - bet you sleep like a baby tonight whilst Biz and Ev scratch their heads once more!
- Jan Simmonds
Sure congrats to you!!!
- susan mernit
http://friendfeed.com/markzuk...... Hold on! markzukerberg?!?!
- Lora Lufark
Congrats!
- fbrunel
congratulations!
- Loic Le Meur
Congratulations Paul - I am very proud of you... no wonder you couldn't sleep! :) Now we know why! As you know, I am a huge fan of your FriendFeed product. I am very happy for you guys and hope you keep your fabulous culture of innovation going strong. This is really amazing.... nice exit! :)
- Susan Beebe
I have been wishing facebook could get more like Friendfeed :) awesome.
- Christian Burns
from iPhone
Nice job, Paul and team. Congrats!
- Rob Shillingsburg
many congrat. from UK. ;) @GarethWong
- Gareth
I bet you never forget your anniversary EVER ever now.
- Pete Delucchi
boo-urns
- Vezquex: God of FF
:D
- paniaguai
:-(
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
Congratulations, great for you and the team.
- Rocky
i like the way the deal was done!
- Siddharth Parmar
G.Z.s
- Ugur Akdmr
Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook’s “official” R&D department! - http://scobleizer.com/2009...
Stanislas Jourdan, Daniel Rowley, Hutch Carpenter and 88 other people liked this
My reactions to today's news!
- Robert Scoble
SCOBLE YOU MUST GET THEM TO KEEP FRIENDFEED PURE-- and RUNNING!! AAAGGGH [ i just heard 5 minutes ago. I'm on vacation ] :)
- Schneider Mike
Interesting thoughts.
- Angus Burton
Bummer - not likely to be an improvement
- Internet Strategist
Friendfeed is no longer .. all that's left is the flick of the switch.
- John Blanton
It's nice for the FF peeps. They'll see what it's like to deliver new features for a decent size user base.
- mrshl
Mike: I wouldn't worry about FriendFeed. I see it as Facebook's R&D department now. We're the test bunnies for what 300 million people will get! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Now Friendfeed will be able to go head to head with Google wave! So long as the team are allowed to lead from within Facebook how can this possibly be bad?
- Ade Lack
I want a FB test bunny t-shirt ;)
- Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)
Nice comments. Also looking forward to realtime search and 300M+ users ... watch that in realtime! My screen will melt I guess.
- Peter van Teeseling
I'm only really sad because it completely breaks my on-line life. I'm excited for the FF team and for FB but that's only one aspect and I don't see how it can be merged.
- James Myatt
I think it'll make fan pages even cooler.
- Gus
Mark: can you verify that this is a real account somehow? Tell us something about what we did in Davos together that I didn't share.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, the user name for Zuck misspells his name, just like he misspelled yours.
- Louis Gray
Mark, if that is really you. Please don't let people on FB find users on FF. Some of us are looking for the anti-social web. Private groups and no friend requests from long lost classmates was a big plus over here.
- Chip Ramsey
Username is "markzukerberg"? ..
- Mads Kristiansen
Robert: from what I can tell most FF users do not share your enthusiasm or optimism. From what I can see FriendFeed team members will be absorbed into Facebook R&D, FriendFeed as a property will whither and most will cash out as soon as they can. Do you have some other information that you can share that supports your optimism?
- Brian Sullivan
My reactions to today's news! ~ http://ff.im/6pPEE :D
- CannonGod
One of the worst things for me is that many employers, including the site I'm working at, block Facebook, but not Friendfeed.
- James Myatt
James - www.anonymizer.com/ ?
- Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)
Robert: Do you have *any* reason at all to believe that friendfeed will survive as a distinct entity?
- Christopher A Carr
How does everyone know what's going to happen? I prefer Rob's tone of "what should happen" - fear vs possibility
- Ankush Narula
from iPhone
Really interesting perspective you provide here. I was thinking this whole time that this would hit Twitter hard, but I see now that Google might be the real target, because of the whole real-time search. Nonetheless, I love all the Google employees that are hoping facebook becomes more "open" in the process. Something tells me facebook doesn't care about being open, but being a...
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- Rahul Krishnakumar
Christopher: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... It clearly seems that facebook will use friendfeed to be a playground for future features.
- Rahul Krishnakumar
Rahul: That's not encouraging. I don't see how you get that from that article.
- Christopher A Carr
Wait I owe Scoble an apology. I read several places that he had a financial interest in Friend Feed. That information , if true,clouded my perception of his commentary of FF. If you believed that true, he comes across as a shill trying to protect his investment IMHO. In his blog post he denounces any financial connection. Now I feel stupid because good practices dictate that he would have disclosed such in his writings. I suck sorry Robert.
- cheapsuits
from iPhone
Hmmm - I keep my FB social, private, and mainly family. I keep FF public and work-oriented only. Will I need two accounts? Or just delicate messing about with privacy controls? I'm not looking forward to shifting - may FF last a long while still. FB is too busy, and FF is lightweight and gives me exactly what I want, with a much cleaner interface. Thanks very much Robert, your blog post is much appreciated!
- Allyson Lister
cheapsuits: Robert has said 1,000 + times that he has no financial interest in ff.
- Christopher A Carr
Robert, how can you say you don't get how FF users are sad and up in arms? FB's attitudes and culture are different enough for this to be a serious shock. In short, lots of people think FF=good, FB=bad, for better or worse. Your own list of cons is enough to get FF users up in arms.
- Don Faulkner
Christopher I see it now. Easy to see what he said when it isn't filtered by FF haters. What more can I say then I suck? I surely am not going to kill myself over it.
- cheapsuits
from iPhone
Thrilled for Paul, but amused that FB's first big land grab is another biz that isn't monetized properly either! Arrogance or Ignorance?
- Jan Simmonds
Jan, FF has some great technology and some great people. It's not about the service itself.
- James Myatt
cheapsuits: I'm sure you are forgiven. ;-)
- Christopher A Carr
Here's why people are up in arms: I think it's in the company's best interests to keep the properties existing separately ... especially since like you said, it's a geekier community on FF. Why not integrate the cool *features* FF has within Facebook but keep friendfeed.com as-is?
- Tamar Weinberg
I agree this is more of a play against Google. I think eventually Twitter and Facebook will team up more to provide real time streams of user updates between the two systems. I wonder if the first step is using FF for the collection of these streams and the next step is acquiring the method of pushing these streams or content.
- CodeSamurai
FF = Facebook Labs
- Andrew
I like the separate sites and maybe they will allow both options, Facebook is too busy for me and Friend Feed cuts to the chase and I hope we don't see "FaceFeed" with everything combined without options.
- Barbara Duck
They got some talented people at FriendFeed.
- Kenneth Yeh
@seanpercival yep. FB is looking for their features more than their site. 1m users vs 200m users? they could give a shit about FF
Ah, I see what your saying. Buy the car and strip it for it's worthy parts and then dump the rest. Makes sense. If that's the case, Bye..Bye FriendFeed.
- Chris Rodgers
yep! it's done.
- Enrique Gutierrez
from IM
Friendfeed is closer to Twitter than anything else. Why didn't they just buy the big T?
- Andrew
Everyone like @shelisrael is looking at Zappos sales. Wrong number to pay attention to. Here's why:
Bonnie Foster, Chris Zlatis, Shane and 17 other people liked this
Retail usually has profits of about 5%. Which means out of a billion in sales, Zappos only kept $50,000,000, out of which they had to pay rent, employees, benefits, etc. So, when you see that the purchase price was about $900 million in stock, that makes sense considering the smaller $50 million in real revenue number.
- Robert Scoble
rofl
- Joel Bennett
lol
- Justin
I'm playing duck hunt while scoble types out why.... :)
- Adam Jackson
Adam: you're funny and a bad shot!
- Robert Scoble
I know the duck move very fast.
- Adam Jackson
They got people to buy shoes online. Amazon wouldn't have figured that out alone.
- Tom
Nice observation
- Michele Neylon
Duck hunt :P There's something I haven't thought of in a hundred years.
- Jason Hargrove
Anyway, the way to look at it is really this is a company with $50 million to $100 million in real revenues. That's why $900 million in stock makes sense.
- Robert Scoble
is the retail margin you posted, robert, for brick and mortar retail? or online retail?
- Tristan Walker
Tom: right, and Amazon gets a bunch of really great executives and a culture that NO ONE can match.
- Robert Scoble
Tristan: both.
- Robert Scoble
Uh Robert, aren't profits usually calculated AFTER deducting rent, salaries, benefits, etc.? Perhaps you mean operating profit, in which case 5% is low for retail industry.
- Ritesh Lal
ya its not about revenue, its about annual net profit usually
- sean percival
Yeah, this deal was calculated as a multiple of EBITDA or PBT, not top line revs.
- Alan Chamberlain
Tristan: retail sucks unless you are Apple.
- Robert Scoble
Sean and Ritesh are right. My number is NOT net profit. That's even lower.
- Robert Scoble
Zappos has 1,500 employees and a huge warehouse, etc.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: have you heard of bonobos? those guys are pulling impressive margins because theyre direct to consumer, and how about companies like threadless?
- Tristan Walker
Tristan: I'd be shocked if they make that much profit percentage wise. They probably have a nice business, though. So does Zappos.
- Robert Scoble
The ones who are scared by this are the IT vendors who supply Zappos.
- Capn' One Eye - adrift
Does _web_ retail really have only 5% profits?
- Joel Bennett
What about http://www.endless.com, Amazon's shoe site?
- Andrew
i think threadless runs at 30% profit margins, will send the link to where i found that stat
- Tristan Walker
metageoff: Zappos doesn't have that much IT. Joel: yes. Think about it. Anyone can open a web business.
- Robert Scoble
Tristan: Threadless has a very unique business model though.
- Ryan
Tristan: that's very high margins for retail, if true.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Can you point me somewhere (edit: grammar) detailing web and brick retail comparisons?
- Jason Hargrove
"doesn't have that much IT" - therefore the IT vendors they do have are easy targets for "new efficiencies"
- Capn' One Eye - adrift
depends on the business
- You.
http://www.inc.com/ss... "The business grosses $30 million a year and enjoys profit margins of 30 percent."
- Tristan Walker
I'd think Amazon can squeeze savings out of the distribution side too.
- Ryan
@Ryan I agree but there are fantastic opportunities in online retail that generate impressive margins. that being said, i understand why zappos would be MUCH lower...amazon will certainly help bump up those numbers through various synergies
- Tristan Walker
Amazons next buy will be Rackspace, Great culture and good company. ( I am just guessing based on common sense )
- Luis Borjas
Luis: don't scare me like that! :-) Jason: I can't, but helped manage retail stores for the first 10 years of my career.
- Robert Scoble
Quick look at Yahoo Finance says Robert's numbers are in the ballpark. Amazon, Walmart, both have operating profit 4-5%, and net about 1 point lower. Best is Target with 6.7% operating profit. Costco is terrible at 2.53%.
- Ritesh Lal
My take was that Amazon is buying a culture. http://www.onebyonemedia.com/amazon-...
- Jim Turner
Robert, would love to chat with you about your experience there at some point. Interesting space
- Tristan Walker
Robert: Retail doesn't suck for Apple because they are vertically integrated. It's just another 5% to add to their bottom line.
- Ryan
Robert: fair enough. Hmm. A breakdown on web retailers would be awesome. I see a few links here already. Research task for the summer perhaps.
- Jason Hargrove
I assume by "retail" you mean that they don't also manufacture what they sell.
- You.
So will Amazon make all their employees go on Twitter? Imagine the horror although they could probably squeeze a bit more productivity out of them.
- Mark Littlewood
Jim: That works. ~sometimes. Hmm. Maybe 'rarely' is a better word. It's tough to acquire a brand culture unless you're prepared for full adoption. One (decade+ old) example is Canada's Telus (http://telus.com) that acquired a small mobile carrier called Clearnet, paving the way for Telus to become a mobile powerhouse. It was all about the Clearnet brand. I remember the CEO quoted as...
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- Jason Hargrove
I wondering if Zappos excellent customer service will be adopted by Amazon, or will it lose some of its well known service. (Hopefully not)
- Kim Landwehr
Mixing both companies will be a mistake, because they go with different strategies to achieve differentiation. Amazons focuses on efficiency and lowest cost, Zappos focuses on costumer happiness. I think they can both learn from one another and then keep serving their respective costumers with the strategies that have made them successful this far.
- Jorge
Robert, congrats on being a VC, but your 5% estimate for an online retailer seem lower than anything I have heard before. EVER.
- shelisrael1
shelisrael1: OK, so let's say it's 30%. Still is 300 million, not a billion like the number you used. I don't think Zappos is that high. If it were, they wouldn't have laid people off last fall.
- Robert Scoble
agree with robert...impossibkle their margins are in the 30% range
- Tristan Walker
I think we are seeing perhaps a mixing here that could work. With Zappos customer centric culture and Amazon's backend infrastructure. I think that was part of the reason for the layoff since it was mostly that par tof Zappos' company that felt the crunch.
- Jim Turner
Good reminder, people often look at the big figure and forget where it all goes.
- Andrew Nimick
Everyone seems to be high on Amazon - and if your order comes as expected they are good. But, if it doesn't, the customer service sucks.Example: Order with next day delivery (extra charge) but fulfillment slips from Thurs to Friday. No Sat. delivery, won't come till Monday. Call Amazon and they will redirect you to take it up with the carrier. Fail
- PXLated
Talked to some manufacturers reps that handle Amazon. Example-1: Amazon orders by the container load and reorders when down to xx units. Rep gets a new container order and was amazed they'd sold the last that fast. They hadn't, they still had a half container in the warehouse and didn't even know it.
- PXLated
Example-2: Customer orders a $2K product. Receives it with a broken part ($150 part). Instead of shipping part, Amazon ships a completely new unit. This happens three more times. And, the customer had to threaten to have the other (broken units) declared abandoned property to get Amazon to pick up the other four units.
- PXLated
So, I fear for Zappos
- PXLated
Kate's Kitchen (5/5) - http://www.yelp.com/biz...
"Honestly, five stars.Cornmeal banana walnut pancakes. Real corned beef & hashbrowns with fresh wheat toast (buttered), and two scrambled eggs.Across the table from me was a farmer's breakfast, and a…"
- Andrew
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