Andrew - Likes - FriendFeed

also mine doesn't have :) - Enes TAYLAN

What comments? - Jesse Stay

The rate of new subscribers to my own feed has slowed to a crawl. That's how I know. But Louis Gray's feed with hardly any comments? That's even worse. - Dennis Jernberg

It's a Saturday at 1am, and the end of Blogworld Expo - Jesse Stay

FriendFeed has never been all that busy on a Saturday night. My inane screencasts aren't helping. :) - Louis Gray

Thank you Mark Zuckerberg. You're the God. - Ahmet Alp Balkan

If you want comments / conversations, maybe you should learn another language: http://friendfeed.com/search... I see lots of turkish, italian & iranian commenters - arjo

I'm still here... - Patrick

Jesse and Louis: I love that you two are keeping a stiff upper lip, but, sorry, it's been very apparent to me that FriendFeed is changing. The influential geeks, if there were any here, have largely left and now FriendFeed is changing and will not be the same service a year from now that it was three months ago. I am writing a post that it has a future, but a different one. Be back in a... more... - Robert Scoble

The scary thing is that I know Louis & Jesse are in the same room commenting on this :) - Mark Krynsky

My feed is always bustling, except on weekends (especially weekend nights). - Beau Liening

With every negative post about FriendFeed the community dies a little. It's the MGs and the Scobles and the others that will kill FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

How do you know that, Mark? #wherestheproof - Louis Gray

Regardless of the community I will always use it as a tool - Jesse Stay

A community is only what you make of it. - BLOGBloke

CW: true. But part of it is I'm hoping a thousand comment thread starts (that used to happen in the old days) telling me I'm wrong. So far five people have liked this thread and 12 have commented on it. That's not really a stunning refutal. Even for a Saturday night. And it's not the first time I've made this claim and it's not the first time I've gotten such a lukewarm rebuttal. - Robert Scoble

Sorry Robert, I'm not seeing the death. With any social network, there is a constant flow of people coming to and leaving the service. Sure, the early adopters will leave to play on the next new shiny service to come along. But there are still new people joining and still a core group of users that have been here for quite a while. Just because you are leaving doesn't mean everyone else is. - Jeff P. Henderson

CW: again. This isn't the first time I've made this claim and at Blog World I had quite a few discussions with people who are noticing the same thing, even if they won't admit to such in public. - Robert Scoble

Were back to the point in the cycle where Robert Scoble calls Friendfeed dead/dying. - Andy Bakun

Jeff: I'm not leaving. You aren't listening. - Robert Scoble

Could it be that everyone is sick of social media / tech reporting... NO... never... it couldn't possibly be the content... IT MUST BE THE SERVICE THAT'S WRONG... BURN IT, BURN IT WITH FIRE. It's frankly laughable that you base a service purely what you personally can get out of it in a professional sense Robert. Maybe FriendFeed is more social and doesn't fit into your self-promotion regime but my feed is still active. FriendFeed isn't dead... maybe you are just dead to FriendFeed. - Johnny

It takes simple engagement to encourage comments on FriendFeed. I'm not seeing any less comments than I used to. If you ask the right questions, actually like things on FriendFeed (note that Scoble has stopped this), and encourage your audience to comment they will comment just as much as they always have. - Jesse Stay

Jeff: Denial isn't helping. Discussions and activity are down. Robert's reduced use can't be given all the credit for that. The radio silence from FF/FB leadership is troubling. There are absolutely a lot of conversations here, but not in all the places they used to be. - Louis Gray

Watch Jason Pollack's threads. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: I am. And most of the traffic he gets is coming from his Twitter accounts. When I do that I get engagement too. Even here. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you HAVE for the most part left. A majority of your posts now come from twitter and your frequency of comments and participation on this site is way down. - Jeff P. Henderson

http://friendfeed.com/jasonpo... - Jesse Stay

it is disheartening, well Robert you are part to this "death" - ffcode

Robert, therefore your community will follow wherever you take them. It's not "FriendFeed's community". It's "Your community". Bring them back to FriendFeed and you'll see it change. - Jesse Stay

Jeff: I can't keep focusing on a site that isn't getting developed. Sorry. That's not what I do. - Robert Scoble

Louis, true, things have changed here on FF, but isn't some of that attributed to the normal ebb and flow that is seen on any social network? Not everyone stays engaged forever. It frankly takes a lot of time and effort to continuously participate at a significant level on any social network. Most of us have full time jobs that have nothing to do with social networks as well as family and other obligations for our time. - Jeff P. Henderson

Robert, there's a difference between "not focusing" and "focusing on something else". Why be negative about FriendFeed when you can be positive about something that's better? - Jesse Stay

Because Robert is scared of being left behind. He has to trash the old thing so everyone thinks he knows what the next thing is. - Johnny

Jesse: I'm mostly just poking the bees nest by my negativity to see what comes out. So far crickets. And that is making me spend even more time elsewhere. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you do realize that it's 5AM on the east coast, right? - Chris Heath

Yeah, I guess, in contrast, twitter has had a lot of development. They reskinned it inconsistently, and threw the hardcore tweeters a bone with adding "lists". Twitter has been stagnant for way longer than Friendfeed has. - Andy Bakun

Jeff, I am as big a FriendFeed supporter as everybody here. If I hadn't pushed it early, this place would be very different. But I agree that people are moving elsewhere, even if this is still the best platform. We need to hear some guidance. Johnny, I understand your position, but Robert is not that thick-headed. He's trying to work with what is passed his way, and FriendFeed is stalled right now. - Louis Gray

Chris: social media is world wide. When I was on the BBC the other night a ton of people all over the world contacted me. - Robert Scoble

i'm just sayin' - Chris Heath

Heh, everytime there's a "friendfeed is dead" comment, I notice that I had gotten 2 or 3 more subscribers in the previous couple of hours, _while_ I was sleeping on the couch. - Andy Bakun

Robert, I totally understand your perspective, but I think you are a unique case. Most users criteria for using a site does not hinge on the rate of development of the site. Flickr is an excellent example. Flickr is a mature social site that receives few updates to its core functionality, yet it still has dedicate users that invest a significant amount of time there on a daily basis. - Jeff P. Henderson

Johnny: at our neighborhood block party my neighbors have hardly even heard of Twitter or Facebook. Being left behind? I'm three years ahead of normal people. And I will go wherever the geeks go. - Robert Scoble

I'm still on FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

Jeff: I never want to be most users. But the problem with FriendFeed is that most users had never even heard of it. - Robert Scoble

that happens to me too andy, i'm about to hit the couch in a minute as I've been up for 21 hours and it's 5am - if i had been drinking tonight there's no way i could hold this conversation. - Chris Heath

Jeff: Flickr was a huge success with the early adopter crowd before it went to Yahoo. FriendFeed isn't even close to being in the same league. - Robert Scoble

Part of my love with FriendFeed was what it COULD BE in the future. So now that part of my fantasy is gone and I must see FriendFeed for what it is, not what it could be. THAT is a HUGE reason why I have moved much of my attention elsewhere. - Robert Scoble

I will always use the best tools for the job and thus far this is it. I admit there is a lot of opportunity out there right now though so long as FriendFeed has slowed down their development. Until that happens, FriendFeed is the best tool for the job. That's not changing in any way for me. - Jesse Stay

So why stir up crap like this post Robert. Smacks of arrogance and teasing - Johnny

robert, if only friendfeed had a userbase the size of twitter, or facebook for that matter... maybe that's what i'll try and dream about tonight... - Chris Heath

zzzzz - Chris Heath

Maybe Friendfeed sold too soon then. - Jeff P. Henderson

But Robert even if friendfeed looses all of its userbase the fact that it is a great place to have conversation can't be taken away - ffcode

Johnny: now you are just being nasty. Why is it when a conversation doesn't go your way you have to bring up arrogance or teasing? This isn't coming from either of those places with me. - Robert Scoble

ffcode: yes. And I'm pointing that out in the post I'm about to hit publish on. - Robert Scoble

I think that this thread is evidence that FF is not dead yet... - Jeff P. Henderson

friendfeed posts on twitter doesn't make sense even though the reverse is still legit - ffcode

This is NOT teasing with me. I've dedicated more of my recent life (thousands of hours) to FriendFeed. This is SERIOUS business for me. - Robert Scoble

Well if you want someone to tell you you're wrong, the last time I checked FF was not your own private Idaho for just you and your pals. I'm sure it's not in FF's business model either. Check your attitude at the door and make this place a little more 'friendly' and inclusive and maybe (just maybe) things will warm up a little. On the flipside, I'm sure your tongue is also in your cheek and hoping that FF management is listening and will get with the program. Am I right? - BLOGBloke

CW: I'm studying 5,000 geeks over on Twitter. Most of whom are investing time there but not on Facebook or FriendFeed. Businesses? BIG TIME on Twitter. Celebrities? I had dinner last night with the guy who works with tons of them and he said they all are very dedicated to Twitter (except for what's her name). Facebook is getting some adoption, though, in the geek community. - Robert Scoble

Guys, even if Robert is outnumbered here, let's suggest he is most likely right and not make it personal. Robert has been a longtime evangelist of the platform and is personally invested at risk to his personal reputation. (By invested, I mean in time, not money, lest that get asked) - Louis Gray

BLOGBloke: sorry. You are wrong. FriendFeed has NO PEOPLE WORKING ON IT. - Robert Scoble

Digging in our heels doesn't help. We need to learn if this can be a place to participate with no further changes ever, or if we want to scatter to the winds. Today, most people are happy enough with Facebook and Twitter, and that's not debatable, even if we know there is a better alternative. - Louis Gray

No. You are not right BLOGBloke. I do not expect Mark Zuckerberg to dedicate any more resources to FriendFeed because of my nastiness. - Robert Scoble

Robert and Louis well you are two awesome guys i have ever met and this happened through friendfeed, met a lot of great folks here. i think i know/ have some idea how you guys work and like you work till death attitude, and i respect that. but i would love you guys doing friendfeed more, remember the good old days ;) - ffcode

Robert, I wish you were leading entrepreneurs to the opportunity and not leading them away. I agree there is a lack of leadership here from Facebook and the FriendFeed team, but to me that means there's opportunity. People won't discover that opportunity unless they are using FriendFeed. I'd rather focus on that in my posts and blog and elsewhere, rather than talk to the community itself. It's the entrepreneurs and opportunists I want to target, not the community. - Jesse Stay

Interesting, I just received three new followers in the past 10 minutes. Not Dead Yet... - Jeff P. Henderson

ffcode, I don't think my activity on FriendFeed has decreased at all. - Louis Gray

I'm using FriendFeed just as much as before as well (maybe even a little more) - Jesse Stay

Jesse: I tried that for 18 months. It was OK when I thought FriendFeed has a cool future that was different from where it is today. Sorry, it isn't good enough for most people. For us, yes. For mainstream? No way. - Robert Scoble

Louis i was pointing to Robert's i know you are here and it is great to have you here :) - ffcode

I must have misunderstood you Robert... "How I know FriendFeed is dead?" is the perfect way to start a conversation on FriendFeed about FriendFeed... - Johnny

Johnny: sorry, FriendFeed +is+ dead to most of the tech community. - Robert Scoble

Perhaps this thread will shake things up around here. Let's hope so. - BLOGBloke

Robert, not sure you're understanding - I'm saying now that FriendFeed has stopped development this is an opportunity for other entrepreneurs to take the lead ahead of FriendFeed. Let's push them to do so rather than pushing the community away from FriendFeed. When someone has something better than FriendFeed, then we can all say "jump ship". - Jesse Stay

Robert, my point is the rest of us outside the bubble don't care. The world exists outside the Valley - Johnny

BLOGBloke: Facebook has 300 million users and you think a thread with 20 people in it will shake things up? Sorry, that's not how things work. Now, if there was a thousand message thread, that might get some people to wake up. - Robert Scoble

Johnny: really? Where? :-) - Robert Scoble

Johnny: when I talk with people outside the bubble they are barely discovering Facebook right now. Twitter is something they've heard about. FriendFeed? GIve me a freaking break. - Robert Scoble

We're working on that thousand as we speak. - BLOGBloke

BLOGBloke: so far I see 20 people participating here. When we hit 1,000 I'll come over to your side of the yard. - Robert Scoble

Not everyone ON FriendFeed is inside the bubble... or frankly CARE about social media. You love talking about the car and it's parts, I love talking about where the car takes me. - Johnny

Johnny: sorry. Everyone on FriendFeed is inside the bubble. If you claim otherwise you lose all credibility. - Robert Scoble

Robert... I don't HAVE credibility... - Johnny

Remember, it is after 2am here on the west and 5 am back east. Unlike yourself some geeks still like to sleep. - BLOGBloke

i am with Robert his sample sizes are way larger than anyone else here and he studies them as in "study" yeah my friends laugh when i sent them my account link on friendfeed - ffcode

Johnny: FriendFeed, at its height, only had a few hundred thousand users. THAT IS A BUBBLE. Actually, it's a pimple on the ass of Twitter which is a bruise on the ass of Facebook. - Robert Scoble

Cjay: my friend Luke and I had a drink at the Ritz tonight and I guarantee that was better than what you get here, but that isn't any way to build a movement. - Robert Scoble

Still don't care about that either... That's my point... I'm here for the people and the interaction. - Johnny

Robert, with all due respect, just because you don't get quality out of FF doesn't mean nobody else does. - Beau Liening

Johnny: cool. That keeps me coming back too, but it isn't any way to build a business or a movement. Most people don't care and if they do most people just want to talk with their friends on Facebook. Really, does FriendFeed give most people a hugely better experience than Facebook? No. - Robert Scoble

The whole FF/FB comparison seems irrelevant to me - FB is a walled garden, and if they move far from it they will disenfranchise the current user base who wants a closed community of their friends. FF has always been about public aggregation, not followers. If we wanted walled communities, we should have all stayed on AOL. (I keep waiting for FB to buy an old media news company - we'll definitely know they are the AOL of the future then.) - David Lounsbury

Beau: you aren't listening. I'm here cause I like the people here. but that's not what we're arguing about. - Robert Scoble

David: you are wrong. Facebook is no longer a walled garden. You must have missed Facebook Connect. Check into it. Look at Huffington POst. They use it. - Robert Scoble

DO ANYBODY NO WHY FRIENDFEED IS DEAD? - Louis Gray

Robert. That is where you and I disagree. I get a better flavor of interaction here then Facebook. I have friends and have made friends here from all over the world I wouldn't have just through my circle of IRL friends on Facebook. - Johnny

David: most people DO WANT walled communities. Most people, when they post their baby photos are NOT like me and Louis. They mostly want to keep those private to just their real life friends. - Robert Scoble

Johnny: you and I and the rest of the people here are weird. - Robert Scoble

100% agree - Johnny

Cjay: I really wish that were true. I hate Twitter (the company). I put a good effort into bringing Twitter here. I failed. It's done. Let's move on and admit that. - Robert Scoble

Friendfeed is dying, not dead. And to use Louis' posts at this point in time is ridiculous, 1. It's mostly BWE stuff which I don't give a damn about, no offense Louis. 2. It's the weekend. 3. It's 5:30 on the East Coast. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

And that is why I like FriendFeed :-) - Jesse Stay

Jimminy: FriendFeed is not really dead. Remember, when a blogger says something is dead that just means it isn't interesting anymore. - Robert Scoble

Isn't this an argument that the best technologies don't always win? People gravitate to Twitter because any lamebrain can use it. Same thing for FB. - BLOGBloke

I wonder if people had this discussion about Geocities, Hotmail and Altavista... We like to think that the current time is the peak of innovation... - Johnny

Weird, hey I resemble that comment! - Jeff P. Henderson

Johnny: yes, we did. Geocities IS dead (gone). So is Altavista. Hotmail is still doing OK. But among early adopters it's dead. - Robert Scoble

My homepage is still Geocities - Jesse Stay

facebook can be classified most folks there are just for that boy-girl thing or just to interact with the friends they know in real, friendfeed misses its good old days and i blame Robert for that, for my feed doesn't look that good now even with so many subscriptions - ffcode

Robert, I forgot that, following my 3rd point about it being 5:30. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

if Mark is adding FF inside the FB feed then he needs to extend this silly 5000 friends limit as I can't use FB properly until he does - Thomas Power

BLOGBloke: oh, did you just call FriendFeed the Betamax of social software? - Robert Scoble

Jesse: Geocities is closing down, you will soon need to find a new home page. - Robert Scoble

Anybody who would rather talk to the 'puter instead of people in the real world are weird. Goes for me too. - BLOGBloke

I wonder if in 10 years we will talk of Twitter and Facebook in the same sense... - Johnny

I will move to Freeservers then - Jesse Stay

Johnny: I think we will know a lot more about how the future will be by the end of 2010. You won't need to wait 10 years. - Robert Scoble

Betamax! How old do you think I am anyway (*_*) - BLOGBloke

RE FB Connect, maybe, but they're positioning it as a way to pull people in to the garden. From the site: "Enable over 300 million Facebook users to share your content with their friends on Facebook. " There is a pattern in that sentence... - David Lounsbury

Jesse: what's weird is I'm not even sure what my home page is anymore. I mostly use Tweetie on my iPhone. - Robert Scoble

I am going to ask my Uncle to revive Freeservers (actually, freeservers.com is still around). That will be the new FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay

David: of course. Facebook Pages are open to the public and Google. That's where you'll see some "FriendFeed-like" innovation. - Robert Scoble

Cjay: the real question is whether I will add you to one of my Twitter lists!?! - Robert Scoble

FriendFeed is dead (isn't interesting anymore) for Ex-FriendFeed employers, no new features, no upadates, no documentation.. and this is sad, because (hope) we'll see FF on FB in months.. and FriendFeed is still the most interesting way to discuss on Internet (sorry Wave, sad but true for now). - CantorJF

What's worse here is that the positive Robert Scoble is dead. Assuming that Robert posts on this, his last posts will be on FriendFeed slowing down (Negative), on Startups paying to pitch (Negative), Digital iPhone cheapskates (Negative), Google Wave x 2 (Negative and Negative), Why Office 2010 will be locked out (Negative). That would be zero positive posts in October. I want the happy Robert back. - Louis Gray

Me too - Jesse Stay

Louis: I'm bummed out because FriendFeed is dead. Sorry. - Robert Scoble

+Like Louis :) - CantorJF

I like the happy Scoble - Jesse Stay

As am I. In the meantime, I am excited about Pubsubhubbub and innovation in other places. I am stoked about the Salmon Protocol. I hope people saw that. - Louis Gray

Louis: I've been more positive, though, about the iPhone and the app and business models there (developers there are rocking and rolling). - Robert Scoble

I think we need to a (real) life. Maybe that's the answer. - BLOGBloke

BLOGBloke: like I said, I was at the Ritz with a friend tonight. That was real life and was pretty damn good! - Robert Scoble

homepages have lost their relevance, things are all spread now, people get to know you better from your social profiles - ffcode

Louis, I don't want happy Robert back, I want to know what Robert wants and thinks coming in the future. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Jimminy: I think we're in a period of consolidation and that pisses me off! :-) - Robert Scoble

Agreed, Jimminy. Just talking openly, as he is. I have a great respect for Robert, and on most days, I assume the feeling is mutual. I brought Robert here. Can he bring us somewhere else, or should I keep looking and let you guys know? :) - Louis Gray

There's your answer and I've been coming to the same conclusion myself. - BLOGBloke

Louis: I will follow you anywhere. But I will ask Jesse for confirmation to see if you are really onto something. ;-) - Robert Scoble

I'm all for going to a new/better service than FF....but so far, I haven't seen any. - Beau Liening

I like this - together, the 3 of us will rule the world ;-) - Jesse Stay

yes, the thruth is that if FF is dead I would miss it - Luigi Centenaro

Beau: truth be told, me neither. But FriendFeed's limitations do piss me off. It got so close to something really brilliant. - Robert Scoble

Jesse: I thought we already ruled the world. - Robert Scoble

;-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, shhh - they're not supposed to know that! - Jesse Stay

Have you guys read Seth Godin's "The dip" Friendfeed is facing the dip right now. The dip is where success happens.If you manage to get through the dip, you can become one of the best in the world. - Tapio Kulmala

What's really amazing is Rob is having a conversation with all of simultaneously and still managing to keep ahead of the curve. How fast do you type? 5,000 words a minute" - BLOGBloke

Tapio: I would agree but FriendFeed's team has already been disbanded. So the dip is going to be permanent. At least that's my thesis and I'm waiting for someone to prove me wrong. - Robert Scoble

I've been in the "Dip" for 10 years. There's still hope. - BLOGBloke

BLOGBloke: I typed 35 words per minute with two fingers. Then I took a typing class. I'm a bit faster now. (Best class I took in college, by the way). - Robert Scoble

I do agree that since the buyout, development has ceased. Hopefully that won't last too much longer and they'll make FF even better. I really hope FF doesn't get fully integrated into FB. - Beau Liening

Beau: FriendFeed can NOT be integrated into Facebook. FriendFeed was designed for a million users. Facebook has 300 million. It would need to be rewritten for Facebook's infrastructure. That is NOT going to happen! - Robert Scoble

That makes me feel much better. =) - Beau Liening

My major was typing. I still have the diploma to prove it. Momma is so proud. - BLOGBloke

What WILL happen is that some of the better stuff you see here WILL be rewritten for Facebook. Like Real Time Search. Or real time comments. Or better aggregation. Or better messaging. - Robert Scoble

Still leaves FF in the dust though. =( - Beau Liening

Paul Buchheit wrote Gmail. If I were Zuckerberg I'd have him working on messaging. Google Wave is a freaking disaster. Put a nail in that! - Robert Scoble

Beau: like I said, FriendFeed is done for the most part. If we see any more features I'll be very shocked. I'm just happy that the servers are staying up for the most part. - Robert Scoble

Cjay: one of my best friends is Dave Winer. My son's initials are RSS (seriously, they are). I know a little bit about the subject. - Robert Scoble

Not that I've gotten a wave invite...but from everything I've read about it, its way pre Alpha....I'll wait for the beta... - Beau Liening

Jesse: the criticisms will probably end up bringing more curious users to friendfeed :) - Mike Chelen from fftogo

Beau: I don't think the beta is going to be able to save it. The only reason we're all paying attention to Wave is because it's from Google. Heck, that's really the reason I paid attention to FriendFeed instead of SocialThing or Jaiku. - Robert Scoble

would love to have more features on ff and i am amazed by this phenomenon called Robert Scoble and Louis keeping such a low profile, way to go guys - ffcode

Mike: in my experience that isn't happening. The growth of new accounts here is slowing way down. - Robert Scoble

Cjay: RSS is making a comeback, but I don't think it's fast enough. We're not using RSS here to talk with each other. That's XMPP (which is one of the protocols Google Wave is built on). - Robert Scoble

So if the 3 of us (Robert, Louis, and me) rule the world, and Louis and I both say stay on friendfeed who wins? ;-) - Jesse Stay

get it? "Stay" on FriendFeed (just noticed that) - Jesse Stay

Robert, I thought we were using SUP, though it probably is on XMPP's backbone. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Jesse: again, I'm not leaving FriendFeed. So I'm a "Stay" vote too. But the three of us isn't enough, unfortunately. - Robert Scoble

Robert, but are you encouraging others to stay on friendfeed? :-) - Jesse Stay

Jimminy: I thought SUP was only used for aggregating stuff from services. - Robert Scoble

(/me likes "Stay" votes) :-) - Jesse Stay

Robert, you're right, I think it's time for bed. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Jesse: truth be told, not anymore. I spent 18 months doing that. To do that now would be a losing proposition for me. - Robert Scoble

Jimminy: yeah, I gotta finish this blog and then work more on my Twitter lists. - Robert Scoble

I have the answer. We'll all pool our resources and buy FF. I've got 25 cents in my pocket and I can always raid the kid's piggy-bank. How about you? - BLOGBloke

Robert, therefore you are outvoted by Louis and I ;-) - Jesse Stay

BLOGBloke: I left Vegas with $100 in my pocket because I was too busy to gamble it away. So there y ou go! :-) - Robert Scoble

And we also have a Realtime Distributed Environment in Socnodes, but Tornado is definitely where it's at. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Identica is opensourced also, lets build a better Twitter and Friendfeed. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

I'm leaving Vegas with Louis Gray's money in my pocket - I can contribute that :-) - Jesse Stay

truly - why the hell can't FF be integrated into the FB feed when they open FB up? - Thomas Power

Wrong Scoble, Chris. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

I was almost blocked by him, I had to talk my way out of that one. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Thomas: again: FriendFeed's infrastructure can NOT deal with 300 million users. - Robert Scoble

Thomas, it's up to you and me to make Ecademy the next FriendFeed. - Louis Gray

Cjay: you haven't seen my Twitter account, have y ou? :-) - Robert Scoble

Looks like I was wrong. There's lots of love to go around here. Can you feel it? - BLOGBloke

Here's my blog post, titled "The Second Life of FriendFeed?" http://scobleizer.posterous.com/the-sec... - Robert Scoble

So we should jump to Posterous? :-) - Jesse Stay

No. Other than Second Life received a lot of hype, then a lot of derision, and now is a growing and profitable business. - Robert Scoble

Jesse. You can. We'll wait here. - Robert Scoble

Thomas: again: FriendFeed's infrastructure can NOT deal with 300 million users. - Robert Scoble - are you absolutely sure, because why buy it if they can't? Thomas, it's up to you and me to make Ecademy the next FriendFeed. - Louis Gray - Thomas Power

Thomas: my friends at Facebook tell me they bought FriendFeed for the talent, not the product. - Robert Scoble

Louis what would you like us to do, we can only build it slowly not overnight? - Thomas Power

This is one of those epic quickfire Scoble threads that I haven't seen in a long time. There's life in the old gal yet. - Roberto Bonini

I think Guy Kawasaki is the next FriendFeed. He has involvement in Posterous, Tweetmeme (link tracking), SocialToo (utility), and Objective Marketer (analytics) - Jesse Stay

I understand the need for talent Robert but why throw away the best product in the world when FB relatively speaking cannot hold a candle to FF? - Thomas Power

Thomas: sorry, that is simply not true. FF can't hold a candle to Facebook. Why? Because Facebook runs with 300 million people on top of it. FriendFeed can NOT do that. - Robert Scoble

Nope it's not Guy he's already too famous - only real geeks can build the best mousetraps - Guy's a marketing man - Thomas Power

FriendFeed was built on a handful of servers. Facebook is running on 30,000 servers. TOTALLY DIFFERENT SCALE. - Robert Scoble

And TOTALLY DIFFERENT INFRASTRUCTURE. Not even close to the same thing. - Robert Scoble

Exactly right Scoble. - Roberto Bonini

@Thomas .. the best doesn't always win. Just ask Microsoft. - BLOGBloke

Cristo: it doesn't matter where they started. It matters where they are now. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: most of the startups I know are building on cloud servers like Rackspace Cloud or Amazon S3. Not on their own infrastructure. Facebook might be one of the last companies to build their own infrastructure. - Robert Scoble

Facebook is the next Microsoft. You heard it here first. - BLOGBloke

Cristo: Steve Wozniak told me they didn't start Apple to compete with IBM. And building a PC isn't like building a web service. Not a good analogy. - Robert Scoble

I understand FB is winning the market cap game and will likely IPO next year and acquire Linkedin too but they are NOT winning the best mousetrap game, that's FF. - Thomas Power

BLOGBloke: Facebook is the next Google. Google is the next Microsoft. Microsoft is the next IBM. IBM is the next DEC. :-) - Robert Scoble

I stand corrected. - BLOGBloke

Thomas: you sound like one of those guys I sold a Betamax VCR to. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: sounds like you can't hold a job! Just kidding. I'm the same way. - Robert Scoble

Robert: it seems a competition for attention exists between the more popular and the more esoteric platforms - Mike Chelen from fftogo

Infrastucture is mostly hardware. Facebook's architecture is not perfect. They only allow us to have 5000 friends. It tells something about the scalability of the architecture. We don't know how well Friendfeed's really scales.. - Tapio Kulmala

Robert: I agree.. nobody I know either knows about or uses FF, and I barely scratch the surface. I was one of the most active users I know on Facebook until my account was "disabled" this week. I won't be investing any more time into that unless they re-enable my account. I love FF but doubt that my audience will adopt it any time soon... wish I had been at bwe09! - ASKJDOG

Mike: that's always true. Every once in a while the more esoteric becomes the more popular. I was hoping that was the case with FriendFeed but it wasn't to be. - Robert Scoble

I'm not arguing about scalability Robert I understand 300m is 300 times 1 million but FF remains the best mousetrap so Mark Z MUST integrate the best bits of FF into FB that's all. I loved my Betamax and thank you for being so cheeky to an Englishman in this place. - Thomas Power

ASKJDOG: heh, I've been through that. My Facebook account was disabled two years ago. - Robert Scoble

Thomas: I KNEW it! :-) - Robert Scoble

are you saying they are going to hold the 5000 limit because of scalability? - Thomas Power

Robert: I read about that fiasco.. I can't get over the fact that they get away with taking away your access to your own data.. with no real way to dispute or contact them. - ASKJDOG

Thomas, I don't know the reason. Architecture and/or scalability could be one. - Tapio Kulmala

ASKJDOG: lots of Web 2.0 companies do that, unfortunately. It's one reason why I spread my attention out across a number of different services. At least that way you can find me somewhere. - Robert Scoble

Facebook threw me out too. Gotta love it. - BLOGBloke

So what replaces FF? ..or not replaces but would be more widely used by less techy people? More Twitter? Echo via one's blogs? something else? - ASKJDOG

From Robert's Blog Post. I couldn't agree more... "Will FriendFeed turn out to be like Second Life? I think it could. There will always be some people who want to be on some service other than the popular ones. There ARE people out there who hate Twitter and Facebook and want to hang out on a tool that more fits their personality. FriendFeed DOES have a future there. " - Jeff P. Henderson

Cristo, the telephone or Usenet? - Jimminy, CoG of FF

well I'm still on FB and completely stuck at 5000. FB is punishing me for building their network with my friends. Why do they do that? - Thomas Power

ASKJDOG: we're all waiting for Louis Gray to answer that question. But why does anything need to replace it? If it stays the same as it is now we'll be just happy staying here. The problem is that no one else will join us. As long as we're OK with that FriendFeed is just fine! - Robert Scoble

Chris, AOL was around back then, I can't remember I was a tot. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

ASKJDOG: I drank a glass of whisky tonight. No one sits around asking "what will replace that glass?" - Robert Scoble

Cjay: I think they will be separate forever but that some features might come across. Real time search is definitely one I expect to see (Facebook was already working on that itself). - Robert Scoble

Robert: lol.. good point.. I'm looking for ways to engage my web audience but it's a very different audience to yours. I like the whisky they don't necessarily :) - ASKJDOG

LOL @ "a pimple on the ass of Twitter which is a bruise on the ass of Facebook" - nice one Robert Scoble! And very much agree with Jesse Stay: writing is on the wall and it may spell "Huge Opportunity" for the next upstart SN hub that gets the UX just right. - Dan Freeman

We need to create a million bogus accounts on FB. Raise a little hell, watch it implode and buy FF for pennies on the dollar. Anyone up for a barbecue? - BLOGBloke

being able to write efficient server software is definitely one of the talents brought by the ff team, so these services should scale as well as anyone's - Mike Chelen from fftogo

Cristo: oh, wait until you see my lists over on Twitter! - Robert Scoble

Oh, and Cristo, I interview a lot of people I have taken on online. Actually those are some of the most fun interviews because we both usually are surprised! - Robert Scoble

Robert's lists on Twitter 1) Geeks, 2) Not Geeks - Jeff P. Henderson

Cristo: I've given you more than 6,000 reasons to use Twitter here: http://twitter.com/scoblei... -- you're telling me that none of those people or Tweets sound interesting? I guess that's cool. - Robert Scoble

Jeff: that would be a funny list, actually! - Robert Scoble

I'm glad you have a sense of humor ;-) - Jeff P. Henderson

Don't forget the "Ignore" list. - BLOGBloke

debated with, probably would be better. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: one URL. 6,000 reasons. :-) - Robert Scoble

The main problem I have with Twitter is that it very hard to hold a conversation there. That is why I much prefer FF. - Jeff P. Henderson

Jeff: that's why most people don't like FF actually. They really don't like talking with you. :-) - Robert Scoble

You call this a conversation? - BLOGBloke

BLOGBloke: it's something, that's for sure! If we did this over on Twitter all of our real followers would have unfollowed us an hour ago. - Robert Scoble

Well it certainly isn't an argument at this point. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Cjay: sorry, IRC sucks. I've gone into why before. But it does and I'm tired so I'll leave the details for another day. - Robert Scoble

Cjay: keep in mind I helped moderate Leo Laporte's chat room in the mid 1990s so I know IRC pretty damn intimately. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: it's not just about feeling important. It's about simplicity. It's about being able to control who comes into your view (you really can't very well here). - Robert Scoble

Also, most people just don't like participating. For them their 30 minutes on the web every day is more about getting informed and being entertained. Twitter is great for that. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: weird. On Twitter I have 5,000 coming into my view. On Facebook I have 1,500. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: not true. Every single person I've added into Twitter is someone I want on my home page. Not a single piece of spam has made it there. - Robert Scoble

I actually like Facebook for connecting with people.. shame I won't be using it any more. Tho I'm using Twitter more and more It's difficult to see a structured conversation. - ASKJDOG

ASKJDOG: Twitter isn't for structured conversations. But you can include a link to one over here. That's what I do. - Robert Scoble

Cristo: that's noise, not spam. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Yes! I noticed you do that.. and very effectively.. I will try it. - ASKJDOG

I feel spread too thin across too many places - but FF is still quite lively among who I subscribe to - Iphigenie

I'm off the bed now. Thanks for being a good sport Rob and I hope you're feeling better about FF now. It really is the best SN out there and it wouldn't be same without you. Goodnight to all my friendly FriendFeeders. - BLOGBloke

Bed? It's lunch-time here - Tapio Kulmala

BLOGBloke: thanks. nothing I read here tonight changed my opinion unfortunately. But I'm still here. - Robert Scoble

Chris, how did it go? - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Sorry Cristo, I think you meant to post that on Twitter ;-) - Jeff P. Henderson

Chris, you didn't spend enough time staring at the ice cubes you may have liked Windows if you would have stared at them longer. The message was Windows 7 is amazing. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Cristo, I'm sorry, conversation about Twitter comments is not allowed here... - Jeff P. Henderson

There you go, now you have it all figured out. - Jeff P. Henderson

@Cristo - Jeff P. Henderson

I'll receive it if you do that yes. - Jimminy, CoG of FF

And of course it takes a Scoble post proclaiming FriendFeed dead to provoke a big chat like this. Of course, with my mere 250 or so subscribers, it would never work for me... - Dennis Jernberg

@Try looking under the couch cushion. - Jeff P. Henderson

#pound her - Photos or it didn't happen... - Jeff P. Henderson

@Facebook, My cat just did a backflip off the couch... - Jeff P. Henderson

What the matter, did everyone fall asleep? - Jeff P. Henderson

I rarely get a comment on even one post. I guess I'm missing something... - Dennis Jernberg

@The_Club Did you see that chick?? - Jimminy, CoG of FF

Robert: earlier adoption of a service ensures a longer delay before observing widespread appeal. this may be a stronger indication your prescience rather than sluggishness by friendfeed - Mike Chelen from fftogo

@Jimmy, we need photos. - Jeff P. Henderson

I think Robert just took time out to write another blog post entitled "The third coming of Friendfeed"... - Jeff P. Henderson

Cjay: one nice thing about ff compared with irc is that it is web-browser accessible, without addons like chatzilla or 3rd party sites like mibbit. they have many similarities otherwise, which is one of my reasons for liking ff so much :) - Mike Chelen from fftogo

Robert, the amount of comments is not necessarily a good indicator of the service health; from my point of view their quality is much more significant. A matter of signal VS noise, you know. - Gilgamesh

Over 360 comments in 3 hours on a platform which is "dead" isn't that bad at all. - Mike Hellers

But I have to wonder if this isn't the natural progression of every social network. Myspace is a ghost town, nobody talks about Friendster... but going back further, how long did anyone stay with their favorite BBS? Why are news groups now only the domain of the totally hardcore? I think Friendfeed, while never a household name, has had it's day. I don't think it has to do with Facebook or Friendfeed's leadership, it just is the way it is. And one day soon, we are all going to be burying Facebook too. - Ciaoenrico

RT @mikehellers Over 360 comments in 3 hours on a platform which is "dead" isn't that bad at all - Thierry R. Andriamirado

Mike - Well, 360 comments on an incendiary post from the guy who's nearly synonymous with Friendfeed. Otherwise tumbleweeds really have been blowing through this place for some time. - Ciaoenrico

It means that users are frustrated because of this FriendFeed's acquisition by Facebook consequences, and want to tell it (once again. Again 'till..?) - Thierry R. Andriamirado

The problem with FriendFeed was that the community broke down. It became far too much about who could gain the most attention, and not about interesting discussion. I think the Facebook takeover was just the excuse people needed to jump ship. Interestingly enough, since the DMU group moved over from Flickr, I am using FF more than ever. There is a proper community in the group, which gives me a reason to come back many times each day. - Chris Nixon from BuddyFeed

Robert: Be careful, you might find yourself back in the SUL ;) - Nir Ben Yona

Nir: I never was in Twitter's SUL but I sure am on a lot of people's lists! - Robert Scoble

By the way, I can't wait for you to see Twitter's new lists. Then you'll see that the SUL really is deader than a doornail. - Robert Scoble

Robert: OMG, can't believe you're still awake. You know my opinion, Twitter veterans should be there. Anyway, how on earth can you build the lists if you have to pick those users one at the time? I find it way too annoying. - Nir Ben Yona

Nir: it doesn't matter anymore. Twitter is about to start a new game with "lists" and now it's about reputation and influence and credibility and all that. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Do you think most people will make their lists public? In that case it might be a "game changer", like you've said. - Nir Ben Yona

guess what - 99% of twitter users wont make a list :) and im not sure i agree completely with robert - those on the default list will naturally be added to more lists making it the same game - which is against what winer thought it would be. - Allen Stern

still here, still occasionally comment on LG threads. - Mike Nencetti

Eric: it's up here, mostly. The damn API has been barfing all evening. - Robert Scoble

Allen: I totally disagree with you on the lists thing. I've already added 1,000 new people because of the new lists feature. - Robert Scoble

I knew as soon as FacePOOP bought them the Party was over!! Garbage is as Garbage does!! ;)) - Billy Warhol

It's not dead, yet... - David Cook

Twitter's new list feature is fantastic. And yes, I have made my lists public. This is my take on the whole thing: http://friendfeed.com/app103... It's going to take me quite awhile to get everyone sorted though. If they had come out with this feature months ago when I had only around 200 people to sort it would have been so much easier. But lists on Twitter or... more... - April

The social media learning curve: many people quickly learn that articles posted on high-quality primary news sites and blogs are more valuable and useful than the comments posted in response to those articles on social media sites. They try to allocate their time wisely, to focus on the more important over the less important. That's why I spend much more time in Feedly than in... more... - Sean McBride

After participating in this conversation, for me there is one obvious truth that has surfaced from it all. Community is not the technology .. it's the people who drive it, and this thread proves there is still a thriving community here at FF. - BLOGBloke

MG Siegler on techcrunch: "Previously, FriendFeed had committed to keeping the site running indefinitely despite their new jobs at Facebook. And it has remained running, but the site’s innovation, always its key attribute, has been completely halted. And perhaps as a vote of no confidence, previously rabid users are now largely staying away." http://www.techcrunch.com/2009... - Gilgamesh

Previously rabid Friendfeed users who are now staying away: to where are they migrating? Have they discovered platforms of equal or superior quality for sharing and discussing news? I haven't. - Sean McBride

So sad, I just discovered FriendFeed around the buy out. We have to talk it up to our friends so it doesn't die! - Nathan Snyder

so sad - michael sean wright

The future of Friendfeed: a team of visionary developers needs to pick up from where the original Friendfeed creators left off, and aggressively push forward the platform's feature set. The basic platform is solid, but still primitive. - Sean McBride

I fail to see why continued innovation is so critical when we have a platform that is already head and shoulders above anything else out there. Seems to me the only people who truly care are the early adopters and uber tech geeks, both of which are prone to jumping ship when the next new shiny service comes along regardless of how good the present service is. For the rest of us, we have... more... - Jeff P. Henderson

+15 Jeff! - Micah from iPhone

hmm, FF looks alive from here. the apparent halt in development is certainly attempted murder, tho. - Joe The Sausage

If the current incarnation of Friendfeed had assembled the optimal feature set, it wouldn't be flatlining (or downtrending) on Compete.com. There is much room for improvement. (I've made numerous suggestions in the past -- consult the archives.) - Sean McBride

Sean, it's pretty dang close. I do agree that over time, other services will either add all of the features that FF has or innovate and develop cool features that FF does not have. So the stopping of development will definitely kill FF in the long run. But in the near term, I have little problem with the present feature set here compared with my options elsewhere. - Jeff P. Henderson

Jeff -- at the moment, I don't see any other platform out there that is as capable as Friendfeed for sharing and discussing news -- despite my lengthy wish list for new features. That is why I am curious about where many former Friendfeeders are migrating to. Are some of them perhaps withdrawing from social media altogether? I haven't seen any alternative platforms recommended here. - Sean McBride

I think many techies are getting their feet wet with Wave right now. Time spent looking elsewhere - whether we find something usable or not - still translates to less time on FriendFeed ... - Dan Freeman

My personal blog post, feel free to share with other non-FriendFeeders http://snyderxc.blogspot.com/2009... - Nathan Snyder

I still go here more than Twitter and it's all because of the comments, pictures, no 140char limit, etc... I vote Not Dead. - Jan Ole Peek

Plus I still don't see how anyone can have a valid conversation on Twitter with more than 1 or 2 people. Certainly not via the web interface. - Jan Ole Peek

I don't think FF is dead. I also hope it won't die because it kicks ass :) - alfred westerveld

I'm sorry, but I must laugh at the First comment by Jan Ole Peek, comments about the 140 Character Limit while abbreviating. (Subconcious?) Anyway, I hope it doesn't die also. - Nathan Snyder

Heh, XC Fan, I'm a lazy typer, that's all. But I don't like to be confined to a certain number of characters. Aside from that, I like that pictures are displayed inline with FriendFeed whereas with Twitter you always have to visit some stupid site to see the image. - Jan Ole Peek

Yeah, plus you can attach any file right to a post for others to see. - Nathan Snyder

While a little crazy to read, where else could you have a discussion like this? I missed the main portion but it highlights the importance of real-time to capture discussions AND a solution to store/manage it. With FF I can join in later; twitter gone, FB out the bottom. Robert you thrive in the full blast from the fire hose, most mainstream users consider that pure torture. Your neighbors could grasp friendfeed, they'll never get twitter (in it's current form). I still love friendfeed http://ff.im/a57K2. - Chris Myles

The irony of 392 comments (so far) on a thread about the service dying is causing my head to implode. - Stephen Mack

++Stephen - David Cook from email

I don't think you're right, Robert: http://isfriendfeeddeadyet.com - I like big Botts

Louis is the measure of FriendFeed. - Christopher Galtenberg

"Some limitations I’ve already hit: 1. You can’t have more than 500 people on a list. 2. You can’t have more than 20 lists on any one Twitter account (this will get people to sign up for more Twitter accounts). I’ve already made a list of my favorite 500 Twitterers at http://twitter....favstar-fm-list" - Robert Scoble

1. Correction: Carbonite license terms do allow them to decode encrypted data if required by court order. - Leo Laporte

19 more comments

2. Microsoft Security Essentials are here, free: http://www.microsoft.com/securit... - Leo Laporte

downloading now - Mark

3. Update VLC to the latest version http://it-chuiko.com/compute... - Leo Laporte

Audible Pick: Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer, http://www.audible.com/adbl... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 1 ] - Bryan Dort from Alpena, MI brings us news about PayPal multi-factor authentication... Steve and Leo, I'm another long-time listener since episode 1 of Security Now. I'm also a very happy SpinRite owner as it has saved many hard drives for me. I now have a USB thumb drive with SpinRite loaded on it so that I can SpinRite my wife's new HP Netbook without having to... more... - Leo Laporte

Question[ 2 ] - ZaNe Killingsworth in Dawsonville GA wants help securing a new PC... Hi! I am a young PC enthusiast who is getting a new PC in the near future and I need help with what security software I should get. I thought I was fine with Norton's 360 until I started to put a lot of files on my desktop & read the book "little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. I was so shocked by my lack of... more... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 3 ] - John in Ontario, California says … we're "So Silly"... Steve and Leo, we have been using Mac OS/9 since 1998 with an open IP address. We are now on OS/X. We have 12 Macs on this via Verizon, each with its own Public IP addy. Always have, for over 10 years now. We have no protection of any kind, yet have never, ever been hacked. I think all this paranoia about hacking is... more... - Leo Laporte

Lots of people seem to think that the "As long as nothing goes wrong, everything will be fine" philosophy is a rational way to go through life. - Ken Sheppardson

Question [ 4 ] - Bob in Connecticut wanted to know what we thought about this: Steve and Leo, Long time listener, love the podcast. Have you seen anything on this one time password being defeated? Here is a link to an occurence I read about: Titled 'Real-Time hacker foils two factor security' http://www.technologyreview.com/computi... How does this affect Steve's one time password setup? Care to add recommendations or suggestions beyond what the article suggests? - Leo Laporte

Is Q3 for real? Or is it a plant!? - Kevin Nunn

Hah! It's real - I promise. We NEVER fake stuff. Seriously. - Leo Laporte

Kevin: I think you can pretty much assemble any opinion/worldview you can imagine, and there's somebody out there who believes it :-) - Ken Sheppardson

LOL hard to believe, but it is possible I guess - Kevin Nunn

Regarding Q3: How do they know they've never been hacked if they have no protection of any kind? Their 12 machines are probably spam senders and they don't even know it. - Otto

Question [ 5 ] - Jacob Theobald in San Francisco wonders about the security of the "IE Tabs" Firefox Plug-in: Hey Steve and Leo, I been wanting to ask this for awhile but never got around to asking but for a while now I've been using a Firefox add-on called "IE tabs". From the looks of it, it can switch a specific tab to use the IE engine to view web pages that use IE-only, like windows... more... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 6 ] - Donald Burr in Santa Maria, CA has some feedback to our answer to the "should I run my own server" question... In your Listener Feedback #75 episode, you answered Dax Mars' (love that name!) question about running your own server at home. Your response recommended going with the most secure distribution of a UNIX-like OS, and specifically mentioned NetBSD or FreeBSD.... more... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 7 ] - Bob Carneim in Oak Ridge, TN wonders: "What do you have against Theo?" I'm just listening to the lastest episode (#214) and at one point you recommended running a Web server on "the securest version of UNIX available." I certainly agree with that---especially versus any Windows OS. But you only mentioned NetBSD and FreeBSD . . . what about OpenBSD? A little while ago I... more... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 8 ] - Emil in Denmark found an "Overlooked feature in TrueCrypt"... Hi Steve and Leo! I think I found a feature in TrueCrypt you have not previously mentioned in Security Now. TrueCrypt-->Settings--> Preferences-- >More Settings-->System Encryption When pre-boot authentication is configured the log-in screen says "TrueCrypt Boot Loader" and asks you to enter your password.... more... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 9 ] - Paul Dove in Hampton UK *IS* using WAN router admin... Hi Steve, In Security Now, episode 214, you said "it's very distressing, Leo, if there's still routers that have WAN admin on. I mean, nobody needs it". I have three routers connected in a Y with a WPA router on one branch of the Y and a WEP router on the other. I only have the WEP router so that my kids can connect... more... - Leo Laporte

Question [ 10 ] - Dave and Max in the UK wonder... Can we 'watch' Security Now after is has been broadcast? Hi Guys. I know you guys broadcast Security Now live, but is there anywhere I can watch each episode after it has been recorded? We are in the UK so due to the time difference are unable to watch Security Now live. I am sure other listeners would like to 'Watch' security now after it has been recorded! Keep up the good work! - Leo Laporte

Hysterical! thx Louis - Pemo Theodore

9 more comments

what it be like? - Josh Haley

You might like http://translationparty.com/ - Benjamin Golub

DO ANYBODY NO ENGLISH?? - Zulema ⋅ spicy cocoa tart from iPhone

Haha. Josh: I don't wanna know. - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

Ben, that site is GOLDEN! - Josh Haley

Ben that site is GOLDEN! ==> translationparty.com ==> Ben is the site of gold! =) - Micah

Also, they have a nice JS disabled message: "Please enable Javascript to experience equilibrium." - Micah

The solution is to translate first to some other language and then back to English. - Jemm

nice workaround Jemm :) - metalerik

Wouldn't it be sweet though if they translated American to British or Australian to Canadian? - Andrew C (✓)

Agree totally Dave - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

77 more comments

Why do you think so Dave? - Tim Akinbo

10000% agree, its dreadul and the big boys like Leo and Scoble cant seem to see it! - Mark

Leo laporte says "This is a big step toward an open Facebook. This has been their goal all along: a distributed Facebook." What a Crock of SHITE - Mark

They bought the people! - Mark

yeah... but it is also a smart move, they got the team.. - Rob Sellen :o)

I'm trying to give the FF team the benefit of the doubt...but I'm having a hard time with it as well. - Ken Kennedy

Born to be sold, we were used to say in the new economy era. - Federico Bolsoman

They bought the people. We Stick with that. FF guys are Smart/fast and have deep Google knowledge - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

Woah. I step away from the computer for a couple hours and this is what happens? - Travis B. Hartwell

I agree an independent Friendfeed might be preferable for we few brave FF users. But the writing was on the wall. For most users it's Twitter or Facebook or nothing at all. Aligning with Facebook is smart long term thinking if FB is planning to open up as I am convinced they are. - Leo Laporte from BuddyFeed

Let's hope that FB doesn't block people from using the 'competeition' while on FF. - shelter watch

Seems everything's headed for an autumn war Facebook <> Google Wave - Jordi Soler

At first I like the idea of FF & FB, but now I'm starting to think it's bad for FF - Ray H

hmm, an open, new version of FB that uses all of what makes FF great would be nice. - Dusty Edenfield

Leo's got the right idea, and independence is a myth - Steve Gillmor

Well, how could it possibly be a good thing? - Fleagle

Agree, I'm not a Facebook fan although I try but.. I'd definitely take FF over FB anyday. - Sharon Dexter

I prefer a FriendFeed folded into Facebook versus a FriendFeed that quietly fades away, which is the direction this was going. - Mike Doeff

Totally agree - facebook is so tedious and slow. FF is wonderful. - Zphotogal

+1 mike - Riaz Kanani

We imagine FB with the SEO juice of FF, thus intercepting search traffic... - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

I can certainly see the best ideas from FF being folded into FB but not sure what that says about the future of this site and the data it contains - Keith Harrison

Except for the whole FriendFeed dying slowly in the obscure ghetto of the digirati part. As Mike said, FF in FB is better than no FF at all. FriendFeed users are far better off having it than watching it its gradual anemia grow worse and worse until one day it vanishes. - Curtis Schweitzer

While this may never happen, consider it a possibility - your entire FB feed now available in FF. - Tim Akinbo

It is really hard to see how FB will do more than incorporate staff and ideas from FF. FriendFeed's design of being a very open aggregator is very different than FB's walled garden ethic. I also think part of what attracted me to prefer FF over FB is the clean interface, as opposed to FB fire-in-a-bordello presentation style. I hope FB really listens on the UI side and not just on the aggregator side, or works just mines out the staff. - David Lounsbury

This is a good thing for FF and FB both. This will lead to a more open FB and steal Twitter's thunder. - Tim

"the writing on the wall?" ... that's just hyperbole, Leo. Paul Buchheit himself said in his interview w/ Scoble that they could have kept the service alive "for years"...there was no financial issue forcing this, like tr.im or something. And while I suppose there are those that believe the most popular site/music/art/people are always the best, I think that's both a shallow way of... more... - Ken Kennedy

Like 4 Ken - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

What I care about most is having a Facebook profile that is *actually* public, viewable by non-users. - Andrew Roche

I definitely DONT LIKE IT grmphhh ! - laetSgo

@andrew that's one thing FF team is very good at: climbing Google :) - Marco Massarotto from iPhone

DOnt like it either. I'm off to a self hosted http://sweetcron.com/ or wait for a http://kakuteru.com/ invite. - Mario Valente

One thing that can be said about social communities - its the people who build the product. Had we not given excellent feedback to FriendFeed developers in creating our perfect world FB wouldn't have had an interest. Its our fault. :( - JCunwired

i'll agree to wait this one out before being totally devastated about Facebook buying FriendFeed - Chris Heath

Let's leave "en masse" - Giorgio Burlini from iPhone

Facebook is banned from my work computer. - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

Live *open* BadHair podcast in 8 minutes. (347) 843-4661. Call in if you have a comment or question re FB/FF. Starts in 3 minutes. - Dave Winer

Wait and see ... - Kate Foy

It means you'll have to share. wahhhhh - Andrew Smith

I think it is a bad idea. I don't like to use Facebook except for frivolous reasons. FF has been good for reliable information. I suppose I'll stop using it so much now. We'll see. - Barbara K. Iverson

I want to see where this is going but definitely my favorite social site just got folded into my least favorite. - Braden Douglass

It depends entirely on what direction FF would have taken next (and what direction it will take Dave). Think most of us that have been around FF since almost the start (when it was a MUCH smaller place) miss that but this actually might be a good thing. - Charlie Anzman

Agreed if they lose the FF interface. - Wei-Yen Tan

If we put all our faith into a single platform or a single solution [Twitter/FB/Goog] then we lose touch with people, processes and where history is taking us. In this case, we’re headed more in the direction of where .tel and Identi.ca are stumbling, consciously or not: towards a non-web-centric, permission-based polycephalous set of systems, where discussions and messaging transpire... more... - A Mitchell

Google Wave is coming to replace all this stuff. And Google Reader will get more social features including item recommendations through comparing users likes, and so Google will win this. Good time to sell. - Charbax

Interesting convo we had there dave, thanks for letting us call in and participate. - Chris Heath

But the real question is who will take over who? Isn't there a possibility that FriendFeed will takeover Facebook! I hope FB make it work as I like the idea of FF but it doesn't have the critical mass of people talking about what I am interested in! - Phillip Molly Malone

Very bad I'm sure there will be some changes - Annika from Nambu

I agree it's probably bad news for FF users.FF has reliable info. I don't want it to become chatter. - Leigh Marriner

I'll admit to being a recent convert to FF but it was the best social site I have used yet (and I have used them all). I am sorry to see it lose it's independence. This will not end well for FF groupies. But my reading of the tea leaves is that FF options as a standalone service were not good. I guess this is a sign of a maturing market. Can a Larry Ellison acquisition be far behind? - Michael Liss

simply but clear - Gioia Feliziani

I agree with Dave's original assertion. I'm struggling to imagine the value Facebook could add to FriendFeed, and I can certainly imagine the downsides. Having an aggregator that sits independently on top of the commercial pile, while fleeting as a free service, is a valuable one. - Allred

disagree. - Gus

I have my suspicions too. But Facebook have been wanting to open up more for some time (e.g., they're eliminating regional networks), and I'm guessing they see FF as the key. I'm betting they'll fuse the two services soon. But let's hope they use FF to improve FB. But there's always a big chance FB will ruin FF. Stay tuned... - Dennis Jernberg

+1 for A Mitchell's insights. If tr.im and FF have taught us anything, it's that no matter how many open api's there are, a closed platform is still a closed platform, and it can disappear overnight. We need a decentralized yet federated way to do all that FF did (and more). If it's not decentralized, we don't have redundancy. if it's not federated, we lose community an conversation. - Don Faulkner from BuddyFeed

another +1, Don and A Mitchell. I just finished a blog post along almost exactly the same lines, Don...decentralization and federation are both key. Good news is, this is historically how things go...nerds only, then mainstream joins, but centralized (think AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy...services and email that couldn't talk to each other). As the systems mature, then value of decentralization becomes apparent. This week could actually be an important milestone in speeding up that process *here's to hoping...*. - Ken Kennedy

But Facebook buying friendfeed is great news for the 250+ million fb users! (And most ff users have fb :) - Garin Kilpatrick

It would have been better (slightly) if they were acquired by Twitter. I'm not a Twitter fan, but I think FF would bring more to twitter, it would be a better fit and the users and the interface would have a better chance at "integration" - Mario Valente

I've read its good for FF, it's bad for FF. It's better than being sold to google, it's better than being sold to twitter. Myriad variations on a theme, which leads me to conclude we haven't got a clue what the future will bring. - Mark

FB will better integrate FF than Google or others ever would -- one hopes. let's see what happens and go from there. Good news is that it will generate a ton of news for you peeps to report on. - Gavin Adams

It's simply time for a distributed story for this type of application. You shouldn't need to rely on any providers who can be down or might be bought. - Christian Scholz

"Google Wave is coming to replace all this stuff." And lock you into yet another platform owned by one company. - Ian Betteridge

@Ian...Wave is a federated, decentralized, (to be) open-sourced solution. It's complicated, but it's at worst an architecture lock-in (ie, it might be hard to move a large corpus of Wave-annotated data out of the Wave infrastructure). Unless Google is pulling a flat-out lying fast one...there won't be any reason why you can't run your "own" instance of Wave and connect to the rest of the Net. So not standard company lock-in. - Ken Kennedy

Ken, to be honest, I'll believe it when I see companies other than Google taking the code and running an equivalent service. Flat out lying? No, probably not. But "only able to do something useful if you're connected to Google in some way"? Probably. - Ian Betteridge

@Ian, I hear ya, but I've read enough of the technical specs to lay my money on the other side of that bet. - Ken Kennedy

At least Google is one company that's not likely to turn coat on its social community and sell out. - JCunwired

Really? I think the old Jaiku community would disagree with you on that. And the people who stored their bookmarks in Google Bookmarks, too. - Ian Betteridge

why? - Thomas Power

Sorry - I meant Google Browser Sync rather than Google Bookmarks. One is dead, the other alive and well(ish). But the point is that Google has a track record of killing or abandoning services when it suits. - Ian Betteridge

True, Ian. Google's "do no evil" doesn't keep them from killing things that aren't panning out for their world domination strategy. They're marginally more saintly than Facebook. - Sean Gallagher

Is it because of the Facebook ad approach that Dave W and Scoble are looking to jump ship on FriendFeed? - Sean Gallagher

Sean: I'm not jumping ship. But I will follow early adopters wherever they go. - Robert Scoble

Or Google Notebook. Even given that and Jaiku, though, which did do a blow to my faith in Google, I would rather a Google-FriendFeed than a Facebook-FriendFeed. Mostly because I think they'd let it do its own thing rather than assimilate it. They left YouTube pretty well alone. Oh well. - Jandy

disagree with FF and LI nxt year bottled up inside Facebook this forces Google MS and Apple to get seriously social and start playing rather than just watching. Google-Twitter, Apple-Facebook versus Microsoft-Bing now that's a battle I want to (socially) watch with all you guys. Oh what fun. Can't wait. - Thomas Power

I'm not sure Facebook or FriendFeed are entities whose well-being I value so highly; users, I care about, and having FriendFeed developper work their magic, their talent and their stand for open standard to benefit 300M people sounds more important to me then having them spend more time tailoring the digerati's private network. I'm far for believing you can't improve FriendFeed, but I'd... more... - Bertil Hatt

@Bertil_Hatt: if there's one thing that FriendFeed isn't it's a private network. Facebook is the one who, on the other hand, operates like a "walled garden" or a private condo. - Miguel Caetano

Only if you believe the FF has a sustainable business model? - Gary Walter (gwalter)

FF is F'ed - Shivanand Velmurugan

That's nice. Just random, or in response to something. :) - τorƍue

71 more comments

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! - travispuk

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. - Lindsay

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

http://bit.ly/jC1DE - Bo Stern

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. - Antoniu

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

http://friendfeed.com/sunipey... - sunipeyk

:( - 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 D

boo-urns - Vezquex

: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

I'm not sure what it means, but I hope the goodness of Friendfeed stays intact. - Tom Landini

192 more comments

About time! - Rob H. from iPhone

I guess Facebook just got real time search engine! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

What do facebook get out of it? - Ruchit Garg

Fact or fiction? - Jason Cronkhite from iPhone

I haven't seen likes and comments stream real-time this fast before. - ydfeed

It depends on who lays claim to our posted and aggregated material. - JCunwired

it could work. if Friendfeed completely replaces Facebook - Edgar Rodríguez

I think it's a brilliant move, although bringing this into the Facebook walled garden would ruin it. - Derek Shanahan

how much for? - Ruchit Garg

BAD 'n SAD :(( - sid 【ツ】

Great match to take on the Twitter machine. - Ryan Cummins

what is next..facebook killing twitter integration...SCORE....?? - Denis

++Edgar - Ryan

Good for Facebook, BAD for us. NOOOOOOOOOOOO - Nir Ben Yona

Presumably a technology acquisition then, Facebook is buying the team and the tech. - DGentry

I don't like it - Jason Hargrove

Bad news, if true. - Tinfoil 2.0

Just because Facebook bought Friendfeed, doesn't necessarily mean they will do anything with the service. At least maybe not right away. People need to chill out. - Alex Knight

hope it doesn't mess w/ twitter integration - Ken Seto

makes a lot of sense - f.b. now has a power house of real-time all-stars. fixes many of the feature 'wish' lists for f.b. - actually a major positive sign for innovation. congrats to the F.F. team. - michael sean wright

How can i shut down my ff account? - Fotis Alexandrou

I need a few hours and possibly large amounts of chocolate - Bwana ☠

If you are right, that "Facebook just got real time search engine", that is good - as FB really, really needed it for a long time. - Bora Zivkovic

:( - Sinem Co

There goes your data. - Jason Hargrove

This will probably be bad. like all purchases, it will be an "afterthought" and never be fully allowed to develop and flourish. - Ryan Jones

It almost seemed inevitable since Facebook has been copying so much of Friendfeed in recent months. It's good for the founders of FF and may benefit those of us who use both on a regular basis. Maybe they'll just leave FF alone? - Kenley Neufeld

Funny thing is, if you posted about this on Facebook, 99.9999% of it's users would go "huh, what's FriendFeed anyway?" - Richard Matthias

someone tell me what they will do with it? Nothing maybe? Kill it, maybe? - Francine Hardaway

Buy as is use it's IP and close it down or run as separate business? Either way, didn't see that coming. - Keith Bennett from BuddyFeed

It was bound to go down. Like we used to say on the block shootin' dice "Big Bank Take Little Bank" - professor daddyo

I do, however, wish tha tmore sites would implement this commenting engine. - Ryan Jones

Fotis: haha, wait too long, and you'll never be able to close your FF account ;) - Jason Hargrove

not believing it until another source confirms... - Benton

Congrats to the friendfeed team. Worried about the future though. - Andy Roth

Whats FriendFeed anyways? - Marco Horta

so that Facebook can maybe copyright the "Like" button? lol - Than R

How are we going to abbreviate it now? FBFF? FFFB? F^3B ? - Harry Wolff

I receive the breaking news via BNO News at this moment: Facebook acquires FriedFeed... - Torsten Eckert

haha you're right Richard - Ken Seto

I am stuck in Texas and have not confirmed myself. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Wow - Rodfather

OMG. - Nathan Chase

maybe they can implement threads? - Jeremy Toeman

It looks like a defensive move. I think it's better fro FB to acquire FF than incorporating twitter functionalities in their status feature. - Pablo Paniagua

double wow. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Friendbook? Facefeed? - Jeff Harbert

If it's true, I suspect FriendFeed as we know it will be gone, but Facebook will be greatly improved. - Costa Walcott

bah. i will go do something else. this news isn't helping - Edgar Rodríguez

trying to look on the bright side - maybe we'll get those iPhone/Blackberry apps for better access to FriendFeed - Stuart Miniman

But if it isn't true we would have heard by now. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

apprehensive about this - Liz Polay-Wettengel

Official: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Brandon Titus

I want to hear the $$$ number - moo yu

Congrats to ff team...but how does this work? I have 2 different accounts...and I like it that way...I don't want to share/spam my friends on facebook with what I have here... - brainno722 (Peter)

@robert no we wouldnt have - Jeremy Toeman

It's official: http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - Costa Walcott

Originally posted this to your other FF/FB post before you astarted this one: I don't see the point of Facebook acquiring FriendFeed. They are pretty much identical services (well, FF represents just the News Feed portion of Facebook) I don't see how they can incorporate FriendFeed into Facebook. If they really did buy it, then I see this as them going for programming talent more so... more... - Christopher A. Wichura

From FF blog http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - Tom Landini

I'm hoping this improves Facebook (just like everyone else). Facebook has gotten horrible stale for me of late. - Harry Wolff

What's looking shiny and new now? :-) - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

I've been needing a reason to get re-interested in Facebook, this could be it. - JonSupermurray

Friend management will need to be enhanced/overhauled. Otherwise, the noise will make the combined product unusable. - Peter Ghosh

Seriously, how can i shut it down? - Fotis Alexandrou

We'll have to wait for more details to see exactly what Facebook is planning to do with FF. - Antoniu

Bodes badly for FriendFeed. --rj - Roger Jennings

I think this is more of a "send the friendfeed traffic to facebook" than any kind of technical leverage. My biggest concern here: in order to exchange dialogue with people on facebook I need to be friends with them vs. being able to do it on friendfeed without having to friend them up. I find this valuable as there may be a topic or 5 that I want to engage with user "X" on, but I don't... more... - Erik Boles

I am disappointed by this news... I don't like Facebook at all... And I'm afraid they will just kill FriendFeed with their awful cluttered interface... - Lindsay

It depends on how they integrate it. Did they buy it for the search engine, or did they buy it as a potential for extending the reach of Facebook into real time conversations? It's all about the life stream now right? So probably Facebook's attempt to stake a claim there. - Tony "Frosty" Welch

bad days are coming - Ahmet Soyata

Fotis, why do you want to shut down our FF account? - Alex Knight

Bad bad bad bad bad bad ::runs screaming down the hall:: - mary

First of all, I love the name "Facefeed." ROFL Second, this is business boys. Happens all the time. Why do you think innovation keeps happening. FB will integrate or kill off FF, and something else will happen. It's a natural cycle. - Francine Hardaway

For a second I thought it was a joke, but then I checked Friendfeed's Blog. http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... Damn it. - Alejandro

Nir Ben Yona +1 - MugeCerman

wondering if i should continue aggregating all my online activity in frienfeed now that facebook owns it!! - Gtp19

I can't begin to process this right now. Too much work to focus on. Later when I read this 10,000 mile long thread and have a glass of Cab in hand. - Michele Lorito-Chase

Geeks and fb not a good mach - thomas elton from iPhone

Not feeling real good about this, hope fully Facebook will do right by the FF community, but I'm not holding my breath. Glad for the FF team though - Kim Landwehr

Twitter dissed again. - JonSupermurray

So FB failed to buy Twitter, - so they buy FF which is just a UI for twitter.. - Nick Halstead

if you look closely at FF the large majority of FF posts are twitter posts, so there was not that much original content on FF in the first place... - Ingmar

Makes a lot of sense for Facebook. And we find this very healthy ^^ - twitscoop

People need to stop freaking out. The Facebook/Friendfeed buy out was just announced. Wait for details people. - Alex Knight

It could be bad, it could be good. As long as Facebook doesn't try to port their functionality over, I'm fine with it being a financial acquisition. - Adam Reyher

Crap, its official ! - Peter Dawson

This is really bad... a wonderful tool based on killer technology will go over into this mass market teeny poking culture. Bah! - Markus Tressl

then again it is great for linking FB, TW, flickr and so on - Ingmar

Here is the FF post on the acquisition: http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - Mrinal Desai

Great, why did I bother creating an account here? I could have held out. - desinole

if this is true, for the love of god, please don't Facebook go and mess up FriendFeed as they have their own system, Facebook is a mess these days, Friendfeed is one of the 2.0 sites that actually has concentrated on doing a few things well, complete opposite to Facebook. - Carl Grint

Cuz we all know that facebook doesn't respect user's privacy and you've got basically everything on ff, youtube, twitter, digg whatever you do - Fotis Alexandrou

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - tollie williams

Paul Buckheit will now be a house husband:-) - Francine Hardaway

Confirmed by FF http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009... - David Peacock

Smart for Facebook but I prefer Friendfeed the way it is.What, we'll be throwing rabbits next? - Janet Fouts

FriendFeed listens to the community. Facebook doesn't. Not to mention they're ENTIRELY different communities. - Adam Reyher

If they keep FriendFeed as a separate site, and still upgrade regularly, this is fine. If FriendFeed winds up in the dead pool, then it sucks. - Steve Sill

If true, congrats to the FF Founders! - Jason Cronkhite from iPhone

I was just thinking how Friendfeed had stayed out of recent takeovers, mergers and hence cyber attacks. Will Friendfeed now be taken over by celebs and spammers too? - Nils Geylen

Not sure why this news makes me nervous. Please tell me it's going to be ok Scoble... - Lucas

FF has been FB's incubator for awhile. - Peter Warnock

it's true damn!!!! - Edgar Rodríguez

How can I spam on this thread please ? Any idea ? - Toucouleur

Facebook has ZERO respect for users' wishes... Friendfeed is incompatible with that. Friendfeed will be going away. :( Their blog post says as much: "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally **for the time being**. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product" - tollie williams

Ideally, FB will leave FF to do the sweet innovating they are doing and just take the awesome features and put them into FB - Ryan

This is the first time I've used Friendfeed in a year. Good move on their part. - chantelle

How Much ? $$$ ;-) - Jacopo Gio

So, where do we migrate to now? - Byron McCollum

FriendFeed functionality on Facebook would be nice. The reverse, not so much. They're trying to address two entirely separate purposes and as such, need to remain completely separate. - Adam Reyher

back to the twitter - emresezgin

I want numbers. how much did facebook pay? - Zac Bowling

soon friendfeed will = Jaiku - johnny2009

Hum...let's see what happens. - Chip Hanna

Stay here until FB does something dumb with FF - Ryan

The rhetoric seems a bit too "Facebook will do what they want with us" and not "we will remain FF and continue forward". Seems as if FB went for the tech and we could lose FF as a seperate entity. Boo. - Derek Shanahan

confirmed by facebook press release. - Zac Bowling

Love 'em or hate 'em....Facebook made a phenomenal purchase. - Kevin Pruett

I see a ton of Wall Spam. Facebook users just don't get it when you port your twitter updates over. There is too much for them to wrap their heads around. This will be a hard transition. - Ryan Cummins

And I was REALLY getting fond of FriendFeed. From now on only downhill applicationwise? - Bart

Not happy about this. I use Facebook, but don't like it. It reminds me of AOL from 10 years ago. - David Sharpe

I agree that I don't want FB to mess up FF, but this will also give FF a higher profile and bring in many more users...which we may or may not like, judging by what happened on Twitter. I hope FF doesn't die off like Jaiku because I really think FF offers a more valuable and useful interface. - Cathryn Hrudicka

One thing to consider is this: If we have "trusted" the FriendFeed people not to screw things up, hopefully we can trust them to make sure they're still in control in the terms of the acquisition. - Adam Reyher

Its going to be called Facebook. - DGentry

I hope this is a joke.. Damn it, I dont like Facebook now there is nowhere to go... F*** - Jacque

I am trying to imagine how this will be a good thing for existing FF users. It feels so right and so wrong all at once!...Maybe at least my kids and wife will finally get what I've been ignoring them for over the past year. - Thom Kennon

Is that means we're going to see more extremist groups around, now that FB has acquired FF? - Nir Ben Yona

so where do all the cool kids go now? we need another startup, stat! - h1ro

I am afraid... what johnny2009 have said can really be the future... soon friendfeed will = Jaiku - Ahmed Mubbashir Khan

Damn,I've just"got friendfeed,and i love it.I definately don't like facebook.What does it mean for twitter? - Paul Downing

Any investors want to predict the buyout price? - Kevin Pruett

am gonna wait for google wave... coz in facebook, i cant access the complete stream for a month ago, the site goes down very often while browsing, and privacy issues galore!! congratulations for friendfeed but its jus me!!! - Gtp19

Maybe we´re seeing here one of FriendFeeds biggest discusions ever. I´m sceptic about the future of FF as a standlone service... - Torsten Eckert

What concerns me most is what happens to my friends here (and that I have to interact with my friends THERE). Will we have to be friends to interact in the same way we have the last couple of years? - JCunwired

This is very good for FriendFeed as long as Facebook doesn't corrupt them. I would have preferred to see Google buy FF but I know with their focus on Wave I don't think it would have been a good fit. I like the Facebook platform, but they have done too many shady things in the past for me to trust them. - Adam Teece

all of the conversation is happening on FriendFeed and Twitter - nothing on Facebook. Think we'd scare away Facebook if everyone starts having lots of conversations there - like on Scoble's fan page? - Stuart Miniman

They can or don't have to fix FF's FB app now. - ydfeed

Ha Stuart - great point *Facebookers take cover* - Kimberle Kelly

What's next- Macy's buying Gimble's? - Thom Kennon

what do you think Robert? - courtney benson

All I can think of is now a lot of people can feel the pain the dedicated Pownce community felt, but at least you're not getting shut down, just yet. - Mike Lewis

I'm not a big facebook user, but my gut feeling is that like twitter buying summize, it will mark the end of major innovations. I hope I'm wrong. But they should totally go with the facefeed mashup name. - motownmutt

I dont see any potential for competition with twitter FB and Twitter serve different purposes as does FriendFeed - iluvblackwomen

Sorry but renaming Facebook to 'Facefeed' is utterly stupid. - Alex Knight

does making google reader more social has anything to do with this buyout??! - Gtp19

yeah this was good for facebook. bad for anyone who liked friendfeed. - Liz

FriendFeed is very good, a better way to use Twitter & etc. Knowing this, I still rarely use FF. Not going to start using Facebook more. - Nicole

Actually, this could be death for Twitter when you think about it. The people I know who are in FB are not likely to add TWO more nets to their lifestream. FriendFeed makes more sense for them. Maybe Twitter just stays as the dumb pipe it's become for many of us here. - Thom Kennon

Good for FB UI and search, questionable for the FF community and its independent spirit ... - Bo Stern

last comment 2 hours ago on FF by Paul Buchheit, FF CEO, was just " :)" http://friendfeed.com/paul #friendbook - Jacopo Gio

The main reason why I came to FF was because when I tried to treat FB the same as FF, i was talking to a wall. At least people interact here. At FB, it's all about the cheesy games/apps. - Matthew Horton from iPhone

http://friendfeed.com/sunipey... - emresezgin

Just like most acquisitions, it could be good and it could be bad. I trust that FriendFeed will live on as FriendFeed, only sharing their tech with Facebook. Possibly more integration between the two sites. If you were FF/FB, what would you do? - Nick Humphries

Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook are three entirely different animals. Facebook eats Friendfeed and poops out little bits of content that once belonged to us. Twitter continues to thrive as the broadcast conversation-wannabe that it always was. - JCunwired

Nick - think again. Its going to go away - read the tea leaves in this statement: "Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users" - Bret Taylor in this post https://friendfeed.com/friendf... - JCunwired

Please no. I don't like FaceBook... - Svartling

We need a Friendfeed alternative: http://www.fftogo.com/e... - Marcos Marado from fftogo

Facebook must want real time soc-net search badly... - martin smith

The biggest thing here, at least within the Twitter context, is that this merger will combine 'verified' identity (in terms of Facebook user ID being slightly more 'real' than Twitter) with real time status updates. - Dan Patterson

I'm looking forward to what this brings to Facebook. I have enjoyed both networks but wondered when FriendFeed/Facebook would face-off and/or be absorbed by the other. I think FriendFeed's tech will improve the Facebook experience. - Jacob Sloan

FriendFeed + Twitter = disruptive. FriendFeed + Facebook = one more app for FB . Facebookers dont know the power of FriendFeed. I agree with : "" So FB failed to buy Twitter, - so they buy FF which is just a UI for twitter.. - Nick Halstead "" - Rocky

Most likely scenario is Facebook assimilates the FriendFeed guys, has them work on improving Facebook newsfeed/realtime/status, and lets FriendFeed die a slow unmaintained death. - Richard Akerman

Robert, it means all the time you invested building friends lists and updates there will go to Facebook :-) - Loic Le Meur

could someone start to develop a Frienfeed clon , please ? ASAP ! - Rocky

Seems bloody terrible from this users perspective. Good for Friendfeed the company though. - Quasar

Given Facebook's past, this could be really bad. Given FriendFeed's past, this could be really good. No real way to speculate without talking to the FF crew. - xero

+3273 Quasar! (one for each of my Likes, already on a death march) - JCunwired

Robert, do you know if Facebook is going to put on limits here at FF??? Oh crikey... so much for our citizen journalism here.... Admittedly I am bummed. Uber bummed. - Arleen Boyd

EndFeed. - Alex Schleber

your blog is the most important thing you can own on the web. these sites can come and go. it's a great social point but true friends you've made here you talk outside of ff, right? - Terry O'Fee from BuddyFeed

It's a good time to sell to Facebook, cause Google Wave is imminent and is going to destroy all of Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed. I think FriendFeed employees might even go back to Google eventually as soon as their contracts with Facebook are up. - Charbax

Robert - wow. just wow I am stunned. Sorta sad actually. I love FF innovation and don't want to see that stop !!!!! - Susan Beebe

the free ride couldn't last forever. I know it sucks that things will change, but they've got a lot more sense than Twitter has about these things.. - Terry O'Fee from BuddyFeed

You must all assimilate to the new FaceFeed - Jonathan.Rivera

If you ignore all the crappy apps and just comment and post photos, your main feed on Facebook is fundamentally a pretty similar experience to FriendFeed - people post stuff, people comment on it. That is, at-least, the way my network tends to use Facebook. The main difference is that Facebook defaults to being very closed and private while FriendFeed defaults to being very open and... more... - Edward Coffey

edward - pretty much. it's FF for the layman. remember back in the day they used to have forums too? - Terry O'Fee

friendfeed is very cliquey. you have your group of people who usually gather round for conversations. now imagine some of this friendfeed stuff in facebook. done right it will help them a lot. - Terry O'Fee from BuddyFeed

I don't think I am liking this but FB does need to add the "edit" feature like on here. - Marika Dye

FriendFeed is Facebooks Summize. It’s All About Search. http://bit.ly/11ZW6l - paul mooney

FF acquisition is expected. But, as a user, I would be bumned, if FF would become a feature of FB. As, I tend to use Twitter as my social network and not FB. - Vasu Srinivasan

I would love it if Facebook integrated the FriendFeed features. I would love it if Facebook had FriendFeed's flexibility with Facebook's privacy control. It sucks that the world may lose FriendFeed, but it is great the Facebook will likely get better. - Andrew

Andrew, Facebook will get better - over time. There won't be any Vulcan website meld of FB and FF overnight. - Bill Sodeman

thank god someone understands that, andrew. it's like "i liked this band better before they went to a major label!" ;) - Terry O'Fee

Bill - But we can dream, can't we? :) I mean, what I love about Facebook is that I'm interacting with my friends as my friends, not as usernames and avatars. But I hate their bookmarklet, the weird delays when I post anything, the comment system, and I hate the Photo gallery tech. I love the FriendFeed community, but would love bringing the FriendFeed technology over to Facebook even more. If only Facebook could buy Flickr next... - Andrew

as long as fb start thinking in creative commons terms... one day .. - Terry O'Fee

they are both great services I think will be a good thing - Logan Lindquist

oh NO! I don't spend much time at FB (everybody there's too busy playing stupid games, at least in my little network), and besides it's more private unlike FF. And now they've gone and bought FF? And I just joined! I guess I won't be around here for long, since FF won't... - Dennis Jernberg

I don't like it... - Harry Mahardhika

No mention of Yahoo. Totally irrelevant these days. Sad. - Scott Schnaars

This deal makes sense! Now fb developers do not need to figure out how ff does it because they can just ask! - Garin Kilpatrick

One of my facebook accounts got closed up. Into this account I fed my friendfeed. And into friendfeed I fed for example my socialmedian shares, diggs, stumbles etc. - Wilhelm Bauer

Time for the next generation app. *Taps foot impatiently for Google Wave* - Karen Masullo

I don't think it's about getting Friendfeed it's self; but having the developers and the information about real-time search. - Chris Martin

My reactions to today's news! - Robert Scoble

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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 (Team マクダジ )

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 (Team マクダジ )

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... more... - 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

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

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

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. - MedicalQuack

They got some talented people at FriendFeed. - Kenneth Yeh

I did the same thing. I prefer FF over FB and am interested to see what changes they have in store for us. - Charl Lee

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I loathe Facebook - Bwana ☠

I don't like Facebook either. :-( - Kol Tregaskes

I loathe Facebook also, and now I am going to have to change the way my company pushes out upgrade information and interacts with clients. - travispuk

I don't hate FB, but I don't like it that much either. But it does serve an entirely different purpose to me from FF. - James Myatt

I use FB and FF for completely different things, I don't want them to be integrated. - Kenton

I'm with you, James and Kenton... I use them for entirely different purposes. Wondering what the impact will be. - Herb Hernandez

If I thought they would make FB more like FF I wouldn't be that bothered. - Andrew Roche

I loathe them too. FF is much more to my liking. - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

I check in once or twice a week. It's useful and improving all the time. I couldn't imagine spending time there regularly right now! That might change as they change. Who knows? - Michael Fidler

Thomas, Did I miss something? Did friendfeed get acquired by Facebook? - Michael Fidler

Yep! - Michael Fidler

I retract my first statement. I just logged on here today and your post was the first thing I saw. Brilliant move by Facebook. This fits my theory about what they are planning. WOW - Michael Fidler

I have to say that I'm unfazed. Much as I tried to like FF, it just never really got to me. I'm fairly new at Facebook, but I'm also giving it a try. - William Beem

I'm with Bwana & Kol. Thing I'm wondering- was the FF team jsut totally off the pulse of the community or was this mass exodus/dissatisfaction expected (and they didn't care?) - anna sauce

well got through a bit more of the email. I feel bad responding to people 3 weeks late on stuff. Oh well. I should probably check in on Facebook more than I do. For a while I was doing it at least a few times a week. The thing is that FF as we know it is probably dead in the water. So you have to ask yourself if it makes a lot of sense to spend significant time here now knowing that... more... - Thomas Hawk

I will tell you one thing. I'm sure happy now that I stayed up that night to secure my thomashawk Facebook domain. http://www.facebook.com/thomash... - Thomas Hawk

" You have 270 group invitations." sigh. - Thomas Hawk

ok, had to press ignore on all 270 of those one by one. Next: "You have 91 Page suggestions." lovely. - Thomas Hawk

I dont have as many as that Thomas, but it's something i have to do almost daily as well. If only there was a block all, would make so much more sense. Maybe its a feature they will now implement just as we can 'hide all' over here. - Simon Wicks

got all the page requests done, now I'm working on ignoring all of those crappy little apps and I get this: No Network Transport error (#1001) while retrieving data from endpoint `/ajax/reqs.php': A network error occurred. Check that you are connected to the internet. sigh. I thought Facebook was supposed to be "fun." - Thomas Hawk

Sounds like a cop out to me Thomas, if you really like FF and do not prefer FB, why waste your time learning FB? FF won't go away for a while, and there may just be an other shiny new service that pops up out of the wood work to take it's place in the future. There always is isn't there? A great big gaping hole of opportunity just opened up for some other service to fill. - Jeff P. Henderson

As several others have pointed out, many people use FB & FF to do entirely different things. Many people do not want to mix their personal friends with their on line friends. Not sure how merging the two services would actually work. It would not work for me any more than if FF and Linkedin were to merge. - Jeff P. Henderson

Facebook is closed and icky. Do not want. - Lurking Grue

why invest significant time in FF going forward if it's going away. - Thomas Hawk

I will tell you this, it is an absolute pain in the ass to have to ignore all these little app requests one by one by one. Why can't they just have a button that ignores them all? - Thomas Hawk

I get immediate gratification out of FF, but personally I don't see any long term loss if I continue to participate utill the day it goes away. - Jeff P. Henderson

The thing about Facebook is that "making users' lives easier" isn't necessarily a core value. There are lots of UI decisions that are so apparently hostile it makes me question Occam's Razor. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Thomas, as FF in definitely being integrated into FB in the long term I'd agree. :-( - Kol Tregaskes

What I mean by that is they are getting paid to deliver your eyeballs and clicks to various places so they may not always see it as being in their best interests to let you shape the flow however you see fit. - Daniel J. Pritchett

FB: You have a pokemon request. Me: Block This Application FB: Something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. You may be able to try again. - Thomas Hawk

Thaaat's Facebook! - Bwana ☠

My experience with FB is spending 6 minutes trying to NOT give it my gmail account. It just insisted on my webmail passwords or it wasn't going to continue. Not cool. - Lurking Grue

FB: You have a pokeman adventure request (as opposed to just the regular old pokeman request I tried to block earlier). Me: click on the "Please Block My Friends' Pokemon Adventure Invitations :.( " FB: "Allowing Pokemon Adventure access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work. Allow or Cancel?" Me: I have no idea what i'm supposed to do to make the Pokemon people go away. - Thomas Hawk

FB: "By proceeding, you are allowing Pokemon Adventure to access your information and you are agreeing to the Facebook Terms of Use in your use of Pokemon Adventure. By using Pokemon Adventure, you also agree to the Pokemon Adventure Terms of Service." - Thomas Hawk

Thomas you just picture it so well, I ran away from fb and pokemons but as it seems it never ends! - Jacque from fftogo

Thomas, your experience has just convinced me to not use FB any more than I already do now, which is about once a month.... - Jeff P. Henderson

whew! Finally got all that crap cleaned out of facebook. That took me about an hour. What a waste. - Thomas Hawk

Yeah, but next week there will be more of it Thomas, it keeps on coming and doesn't go away! - Sally Church

Just caught this on the WSJ - facebook bought FriendFeed - this is great for FF, but what about everyone who hangs out here? http://online.wsj.com/article... - Dan owns Comicsforge.com

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I guess they got tired of copying features, so they bought the team. - sean andersen

Having worked for a large IT TLA for many years that acquires small innovative companies because they have the market leadership I agree this is a terrible thing for us FF users. Eventually the FB culture that has meant they can't do, or imagine, the things that FF can, will wipe out the FF culture...what made the FF shop the birth place for such great work will be lost - Allison

Johnny: Not really, all depends on the deal structure. I'm thinking they keep FF for the new feature testing and eventually merge the two over 1-2 years with major integration over then next months. - sean andersen

Um... think you missed my point (and I am speaking from experience here). the FF culture WILL change... and company culture is what drives and creates idea making and implementing. Watch key FF staff leave when that happens - Allison

Allison: I agree with your point (seen it myself too) but I think the FF team knew they might be missing their tipping point and would be relegated to an orkut universe. So merge or die. - sean andersen

more like merge AND die :) .... but dollars win in business - Allison

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

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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 - dpurrington

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. - dpurrington

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... more... - 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

Holy Moley Guacamole. It's time for the monthly Compete.com FriendFeed vs. Twitter Post. For the month of March Twitter knocked the cover of the ball with an eye popping 76.8% monthly growth rate. FriendFeed grew as well, but far less at 5.7%. I suspect that with the new FF beta though that FriendFeed may pick up some ground in April. thanks for the reminder Atul! :) - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

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And they seemed to have kept pace with the growth... the twitter of 6 months ago would have imploded by now :) - Frankie Warren

More and more reason to delete my twitter account. Also considering deleting my facebook account. - Peter Kruit

What do you think about the new Friendfeed User Interface? See the poll: http://twtpoll.com/q68d2y - Yaron Orenstein

When I checked the graph I first thought the green line would be FriendFeed due to the recent beta release. - Daniel van Moll

The advantage to that is FriendFeed can take their time getting their systems in order to handle mass traffic. - Jesse Stay

But aren't you missing something without FB (#4) on that plot? Sort of puts things in perspective. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/friendf... - Matsis

@Davis: Please don't draw Demi Moore into FriendFeed :) - Daniel van Moll

I'd like to see another chart that shows how many of those are one-time visitors who tweet, "Just seeing what the Twitter hype is all about". - Matt

Twitter is definitely hitting the mainstream. All the TV talk, the celebrities, etc. It's hard to go anywhere in mainstream culture today without hearing about it. I do thing next months growth rates will be interesting. I suspect that FF very well may have a higher growth rate than Twitter next month given the new beta. - Thomas Hawk

what a mashup of diligent intelligence and purblind idiocy - tom matrullo

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LINK! :) - Andrew

not sure on the link. I heard it on CNBC. I'm sure there's a story out there somewhere on it though. - Thomas Hawk

I really hope the Obamas invite George Clinton at some point. Really. - Bob M. Montgomery from twhirl

I wish Obama would drop by the VP's office and ask 'So Cheney, what's in the safe?' - Kevin Fox

Watching on MSNBC right now... - Rah-PM 2012

Heard about this on the way home. Apparently Barbara is going to show Mrs Obama around the "living areas". So tell me Americans while the ladies are discussing curtains and wallpapers is it just the husbands who discuss the "economy and Iraq" or are there teams of advisors/commentators going to talk about all the important stuff while the President and President Elect talk about more day to day stuff? - Rob Brammeld

Bush and Obama can watch the Three Stooges together! ;-) - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

CNBC showing video of Obama and Bush walking down a hallway to the Oval Office now. - Thomas Hawk

Will there be high-fives in the Lincoln bedroom between the Obamas? ;) - abacab

CNBC just said that the highest ticket price ever for an inauguration ticket went for $10,850 for Obama's upcoming inauguration through a ticket broker/auction service. - Thomas Hawk

Too bad the tickets don't exist yet. http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox... - Kevin Kuphal

What Twitter gave us is wonderful, but we should strive to re-create the experience outside, in the wilds of the web, where no one but the government controls what we do (that's bad enough). I see a lot of people rushing to FriendFeed to replace Twitter, I find myself wanting to do it too, but it has the same danger. It's not just about keeping the servers up. Centralization is inherently dangerous. Not saying we should do anything other than think and keep our eyes and ears open. - Dave Winer

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You can say limited abilities again. - Andrew

as someone who's twitter account is currently entirely broke, and feels like she's been put on mute, I'd have to agree. - Erin @queenofspain

I don't get why people put all of their messages into one service. I have most of my Tweets linked up through ping.fm that posts them to multiple services, not just twitter - Tyler (Chacha) from twhirl

chacha it's a time issue for me. twitter was the fastest and easiest. was looking at others, but didn't have the time, like a real early adopter might, to get into a bunch of other things. - Erin @queenofspain

I agree. its annoying when you know about all these services, or might not know, and then if you don't have enough time to figure out if it is a waste of time or soemthing acctually useful, kind of just stops you from trying the beta stuff. - Tyler (Chacha) from twhirl

Erin, I think you're missing a bit of Chacha's point. While it's true that keeping up with every new service is difficult/impossible, Chacha was speaking more to the fact that services like ping.fm allow you to "spread your bets", so to speak. If you post at a site that posts to other sites for you, you can focus on the site you like, but still have a presence at others. That way, if you have to switch, you're not completely starting from scratch. There's still network disruption, but it's lessened. - Ken Kennedy

Dave, "Centralization is inherently dangerous." tell that to the honey bee !! But seriously its not bad, if all users in utopia mode :)-. I believe that the expectations of society in and by itself needs to change. The greed for materials and money is the shortcoming of humanity. As you walk thru The Corridors of Time o you will certainly see that humanity comes together and then breaks down b'coz of ego and greed. Technology hives are no different. I agree, FF, Jaiku, Pownce all have the same dilemma !! - Peter Dawson

I wonder whether it is not possible to establish an open format for microblogging and especially commenting. Subscription and specialized search engines should be enough to follow conversations. is that too naive? - Heinz Wittenbrink from twhirl

centralization is very bad. Vote Republican... we aren't for the single government corporation. Put your vote where your mouth is and don't support the brown shirt Palestine supporting National Socialists. - NoahDavidSimon

if you think internet tyranny is bad for your comments... just wait for the reality tyranny to come knocking on your door. It is called Obama and it smacks of internationalist tyranny. - NoahDavidSimon

Here is the funny part. All the Comments in Friend Feed are all in a Single Basket. I like the fact that FriendFeed Aggregates all of your content so that the acctually sharing is decentralized (You have a list of your shared stuff on Google Reader and Delicious, etc) But all of the comments you post up are completely on FriendFeed. Is that going to be the next step? Maybe allow all of your comments to be hosted on your blog and then aggregated? - Tyler (Chacha) from twhirl

If we allow "the government" to control what we (or corporations) do, there will never be a "bigger and better" version of Twitter. - Craig Eddy

I'm sorry, but this is crap. One poorly designed application architecture isn't a call for large-scale revolt. Blah, blah, blah. I'm so beyond tired of the whining and bellyaching. If you have a better idea, then build it. If not, then quit complaining about it. It doesn't accomplish a thing to sit and bitch. - Cyndy

Yeah, his brand of "IT" = "Internationalist Tyranny". Got that right. - William, CPU Media

Well this really isn't a big revolt. It a bunch of people coming to realise that keeping all of your content in a single area prone to crashes is really a bad idea. - Tyler (Chacha) from twhirl

Chache -- that's exactly what I'm saying. - Dave Winer

@Kirk I doubt email will ever really be dead. Kind of like Postal Mail Today. Its the backbone communication system that you know is almost always reliable, aand for the most part private - Tyler (Chacha) from twhirl

BTW, since you use twhirl, I'd like to point out another way we can get safer. If our clients create an archive of everything you do, but not on Twitter or FriendFeed, that's a good way to: 1. Recover if the system you're using fails and 2. Encourage the development of parallel systems to do innovative stuff with our tweets and FFs, etc. If you think it's a good idea -- send Loic a message. He likes video messages, I hear. :-) - Dave Winer

My last comment is a big one guys. If we can get users to ask Loic for this feature, I promise -- developers will be able to do cool stuff with it, and not just guys who can keep huge honkin servers running. You'll see an explosion of new creativity. - Dave Winer

I'm always amazed when I read comments like this. Twitter is a free web service that no one forces you to use. The original premise was "What are you doing ?" so it was just a bit of fun. If you base your business/web presence/your indentity on Twitter then you are in trouble. A decently hosted website and email are the most important things for your activity on the web. - Paul Nash

I hear ya Ken. I guess what I'm saying is I didn't know about Ping or others until well...now. - Erin @queenofspain

"A decently hosted website and email are the most important things for your activity on the web." Yup. And make sure you have an office with a pretty receptionist. And take out some ads in the Yellow Pages and the local TV stations, too. And hang a shingle. ;-) - Josh Bancroft

Dave has an important point regarding archiving (no matter how you define it). Tweets and FF shares and comments now contain interesting info and pointers to more of the same. So keeping a record of these could be important. - Bill Anderson from twhirl

"so keeping a record of these could be important. " - yeah google knows everything :)- - Peter Dawson

I agree on the concept, definitely. Jon Udell has been evangelizing these concepts as well for awhile; a good overview here, called "Hosted Lifebits": http://blog.jonudell.net/2007... - Ken Kennedy

@Paul Nash I understand your point but i still disagree. web 1.0 was about one person on an island sending out bottles via email lists. Web 2.0 is about a NET of networks intertwined and dependent on each other for communication. p2p is the backbone for today's successful technology and even though twitter is centralized, it also plays a huge part in a how to business model. the discussion here is amongst content publishers and we need twitter or something like it to function properly, imho - Anthony Farrior

I'm not sure there was some huge downside to embracing Twitter. The conversation has moved to FF almost instantly given their reply problem over the past week. It seems to me that the zero switching cost of the interwebs is in full effect here. - Jason Calacanis

I don't know if I like this or Fast Dial <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US...> better. - Jake (aka Jawee) from twhirl

29 more comments

I really like Feedly so far. I am getting used to it .. I also like Fast Dial. Hm. - Chantal

fyi, beware your google reader with this, do a ffeed search - Michael W. May from twhirl

I have to say this is an amazing extension, it supports all my news feeds and they have some great stories from their hosts in Gaming and Tech, thank you Leo! - Anthony Parello from twhirl

I'll try it out, and see how it compares to Flock 2.0. Oh the wonders of choices that free software makes possible. - Downtown Rob from twhirl

do check your google reader. feedly invades it with feeds. let's just hope it's the only thing it does!! - Ruben Llibre

@ruben http://edwink.devhd.com/2008... The undo option will go out later today. - Edwin Khodabakchian

@ruben ouch yeah now I am flooded, I went in and manually removed them but it looks like the undo will be a quick fix, other than that I can't for the life of me find the CNN Breaking News RSS feed - Anthony Parello from twhirl

can't wait to see feedly add functionality like mento did- another great suggestion Leo. - michael sean wright

hope everyone read my review about Feedly on Mashable :) http://mashable.com/2008... - Alana Taylor

@ruben fixed. feedly has now better warning and automated undo http://edwink.devhd.com/2008... - Edwin Khodabakchian

Hey I gotta get on the Feedly bandwagon...i downloaded it last night after i heard about the launch from Loius... hey where's Louis? twins yet? (I think I'll export a backup copy of my OPML file just in case) - Susan Beebe

the updated Feedly seems to play more nicely with my Google Reader. - Todd Mundt

If you have the old feedly it just stopped working today for me, you have to get back to feedly.com and redownload it - Anthony Parello from twhirl

woah woah feedly for Firefox3 is cool cool! I like! - Eugene Huo

Checking out feedly.. - Nicholas Kreidberg

great recommendation Leo! - Alan Le

yeah, i really like how Feedly presents all of my feeds and syncs (un)read with Google Reader... i find Google Reader much more efficient for the short update style feeds and Feedly better for long form posts - Philip J Beyer from twhirl

Looking into feedly here as well. Looks promising, thanks Leo! - Joel Gray

I *really like* Feedly!!! yeah.. this is NEATO!!!!!!!! - Susan Beebe

I think I would like it, if I could get it to work. :( - Jeff Edsell from twhirl

Yea, I love it too. http://friendfeed.com/e... - Russellreno

I adore Feedly, and I found out about it from this FFeed posting yesterday. :) Thanks, Leo! - Dana Franks from twhirl

I can't Feedly to work either, in Firefox 3.0 on Mac OS X. http://tinyurl.com/3mvt3k - Fred Yankowski from twhirl

@Fred One solution that worked for me was uninstalling the addon, redownloading and installing feedly. - Anthony Parello from twhirl

Feedly seemed to re-order my google reader lists and added my netvibes subscriptions to google reader. Wasn't expecting that... - Barak B

barak: sorry. here is the remedy http://edwink.devhd.com/2008... - Edwin Khodabakchian

i want to try Feedly, but under no circumstances do I want my Google Reader setup messed with. Is this really a major problem? - Sean McBride

Aha. If Feedly doesn't work, set FF3 to accept 3rd party cookies. - Jeff Edsell from twhirl

Feedly sure screwed with my Reader on my behalf and did not realize I authorized it to add feeds. Checking out Fast Dial that Jake recommended. - Admiral70

Sean, Jeff. Sorry. See fix here: http://edwink.devhd.com/2008... - Edwin Khodabakchian

TechCrunch, the popular Silicon Valley website, announced it would boycott AP stories until the organization reversed its stand. Another blogger, Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, called on his peers to reprint AP articles at length in a Web-wide show of defian - Leo Laporte

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