Matthew Gifford - Likes

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Chrome OS will help kill Silverlight and other non-open tech, preventing msft and others from recapturing the web. (though I expect that it will support Flash by necessity)

July 7 - Comment - Like - Share

ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,, Charles Frith, Vladimir Yashnikov and 149 other people liked this

Good point. - Robert Scoble

123 more comments

I hope it doesn't. After all we need good media delivery platforms. - Swaroop

Including GNASH - the open source alternative - would solve that problem - Bogdan Costea

yeah, nobody really needs flash. kill it. - Zio Bonino

Chrome OS might be a compelling case for SVG/<canvas> + <audio> tag replacements for flash. Dunno what SVG's perf is like on WebKit tho. - Matt Mastracci

Microsoft will port it. It's all about codecs & DRM. Ogg Theora isn't all that great. - Rodfather

Is that Steve Jobs disguised as Zio ? - Swaroop

@Swaroop Yes, we do. Like HTML5. - Benjamin Dobson

@Swaroop eh eh, I've got flash disabled on all my systems :) - Zio Bonino

@Benjamin I'd prefer HTML web apps over native apps anyday. But it'll take time for it to mature - Swaroop

Rodfather, I don't think that will be an option for msft :). If Chrome is built the way I would do it, there is no installation per-se -- everything runs in the browser and the config in stored in the cloud (and cached locally). The computer is a pure appliance. - Paul Buchheit

@Zio You're the real Steve Jobs - Swaroop

Microsoft moves much too slow to force new standards these days. - Louis Gray

@Louis: IE8 flunking ACID test :) - Swaroop

What about more standard codecs like h.264? That isn't open and is in hardware already. - Rodfather

h.264 is established and must be in there, but it's not a platform like Silverlight is. - Paul Buchheit

I know some of the guys behind silverlight. It is some great technology. Too bad it's from Microsoft and is closed. - Joe Beda () from iPhone

A world with no Flash and Silverlight. I can't wait. - Paul Grav

Yeah, it's too bad they didn't open-source it. This stuff with Mono is silly -- if you want to make a real standard you need to make the real implementation be open. - Paul Buchheit

MS are about 10 years too late with Silverlight. And they'll most likely be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting HTML5. - Paul Grav

Zio sez (hopefully humorously): "yeah, nobody really needs flash. kill it" -- have you ever watched a single YouTube video in your life? Like seventeen gazillion other people across the wired world. yeah, you're right, nobody needs Flash. ha! - .LAG liked that

Remember Dave Clark in 1992, "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." - Guy Vander Heyden

.LAG: most YouTube videos are playable without Flash now. My iPhone plays most of them and it doesn't have Flash. Certainly by the time the Google OS came out YouTube would be converted completely to non-Flash capability. - Robert Scoble

Robert: The youtube flash application helps read the flv files on Youtube's servers and provides a UI (decoder too). - Swaroop

Even Google admits they're not sure I'd bit for bit html5 video is less bandwitj consuming than flash. And flash isn't just media delivery, also interesting games and apps like tonepad, splicemusic.com's online sequencer, etc (I'm musically inclined, so most of my examples will be along that line) and please don't suggest we redo it all in java - Ed F from Nambu

Does this mean the next Silverlight release is codename Seppuku? - Jay Cuthrell

Maybe we'll see commercials encoded in movies if everything is open. - Rodfather

Flash is too established to kill off right now, so I'd be surprised if Chrome didn't include flash support. It will take many years to get rid of that thing. First they need to fix the standard browser to not be so broken (lack of video, multi-file upload, etc), then they need everyone to switch to the new html5 solutions. - Paul Buchheit

Scoble ...that may be true, and YouTube plays on my Pre without Flash (yet)...but that doesn't mean that "nobody needs Flash." really? what would replace it? - .LAG liked that

So Google's NaCl http://code.google.com/p... (now integrated within Chrome/Chromium) was just a temporary workaround, right? - Jérôme Flipo

Use HTML 5 instead! - Minh Bui

Is it just me or does Native Client (NaCl) remind you of the Microsoft Active X approach? - Daniel Chow

But who prevents Google from taking over the net? - Andreas

youtube videos play on iPhone/iPod Touch as they are higher res mp4 files NOT flv files. It was a big deal when Steve negotiated that deal with youtube. - vijay

You have Moonlight to run Silverlight applications in Linux. Not perfect, but then an application made on Silverlight is "not perfect" by definition - Marcos Marado

The point here is that Google has no motivation to include Silverlight on these machines, and installing software likely won't be an option (it's a web appliance), so it will be absent from a lot of netbooks, just as it is absent from iPhones. That cuts into market share, which is a bad thing for a platform that is trying to compete with more universal tech like Flash and HTML.... more... - Paul Buchheit

@DanielChow: NaCl has very little overlap with ActiveX, apart from running native code. It runs in a provably safe way, and explicitly does *not* allow it to access arbitrary host APIs. But it can be quite useful when you need to run code that would be too slow in Javascript (even on v8): e.g., heavy encryption/decryption, possibly codecs, definitely game physics, and so forth. - Joel Webber

There is a time and a place for Flash and Silverlight so I hope it will run it. There are simply some things you can do which aren't possible, or practical in html/css/javascript. - Steve Temple

Paul: why wouldn't Chrome OS come with Moonlight? And if not, why wouldn't you be able to just install it? And third, why the hell would people want Moonlight for? I never installed it and not even once felt the need to! - Marcos Marado from fftogo

because of moonlight http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlig... the potential userbase of silverlight is greatly improved, agree that projects which don't consider compatibility are limiting their potential - Mike Chelen

@mindboosternoori Ryanair site uses silverlight: http://www.ryanair.com/site... that's the only website I know that uses it - for this you would need moonlight :) - Ihar Mahaniok

Flash is needed for the google os to be useful in education. Many education based websites are flash based. - Willowdale

@Paul "Google is probably paying OEMs to ship with this OS, so instead of paying $x/machine to include windows XP, they will get paid $y/machine to include Chrome." - paying present tense, already? Isn't it enough for OEMs not to have to pay hefty licenses to Redmond, etc., while being able to ship with a free, stable OS+browser combo; they need to be paid to do that as well? - ianf ⌘

I sure hope so. I think the wide array of JavaScript libraries have been killing Flash for years. Silverlight was never really a player. The only think keeping Flash afloat is video - Scott Radcliff

I don't know what's under the hood of Silverlight (nobody knows), but Flash is basically a sprite engine controlled by Actionscript, which is basically an adapted version of Javascript anyway. It's nicely packaged though, and has an army of developers, so it won't go away that easily, at least not until there are Flash-to-Canvas/ HTML5 porting tools/ translators and the like. - ianf ⌘

to follow that logic...photoshop is needed as well - Chris Hofmann

somebody call me when http://playboyarchive.com is working in Chrome OS (it's currently implemented in Silverlight) - Karim

If it gains any traction at all, MS will just make Silverlight version that will run on Google OS. Sure google could block it, but they haven't done so with the Chrome browser. - Jeff Weber

Interesting. I doubt the Google OS will get that big anytime soon though. - Scott Radcliff from email

Silverlight doesn't have a chance now...I wonder what would Adobe Air do. - Saad Kamal

not really, if google want to be open then they will need a plugin architecture for it and then MS could just port for it. I really don't see this troubling mainstream users any time soon. - Darren Stuart

Though I agree with the view that MS monopoly may erode as alternative devices get adoption over PC/Notebook, and these devices will mostly run on open source OS, but it may take years to create a significant change in every day usage of normal users. In the end, OS choice is mostly done by manufacturers, and they would be happy to get paid by open source vendors for putting their OS on... more... - Kaan Bingol

People want media. Hulu, Netflix, Kindle, iTunes, etc. They need to address that or they are DOA. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes, what makes you think it will lack media support? - Paul Buchheit

I don't think it will lack licensed media support but what deals they are able to make will be crucial. - Hayes Haugen

Hayes, i thought you were going to say that Netflix was using Silverlight. ;-) - Karim

Yes, they are, what is their deal with MSFT? Can they do non Silverlight distribution? - Hayes Haugen

i believe the Netflix non-Silverlight distribution is a format called "DVD" that works over the "Snail Mail" protocol. ;-) but clearly if Google is paying OEMs to install Chrome OS, they can pay Netflix to go back to Flash which Chrome OS will probably support "by necessity" ;-) - Karim

How can Google make money from Chrome OS? Or does it want to make money from it except through advertisement? I still can not imagine that all software and service are free and sponsored by advertisements. - Derek Wei

All Chrome OS questions are answered by today's Fake Steve Jobs ;) - Hayes Haugen

Is there a need to make money? If more and more people eschew desktop offline applications in favor of online web based apps, it means more pageviews, more eyeballs, more advertising inventory, plus has the side effect of undermining a big competitor's cash cow. - Ray Cromwell

That's the key, Google wants everything online. They figure the more people online, the stronger they become, and the more money they make. At least that what was said at the Chrome launch. - Scott Radcliff from email

I'm amused that the "backwards compatibility" argument against alternative operating systems has slowly turned into "does it support flash", and when you unpack that it really means "does it play YouTube". I suspect Google will make sure ChromeOS cna play YouTube and they don't need Flash to make sure of it. - Nick Lothian

Is it possible that Microsoft will write Office for the Web using Volta instead of Silverlight? Could be a showcase announcement for their attack on GWT - Ray Cromwell

I think Microsoft is going to focus less on the front-end of the web and more on the back-end, middle tier and database sides. Azure is a big deal that consumers aren't talking about because it's not flashy but will be pretty important to developers (and especially enterprise-level applications) when it's finally ready because everything becomes an interface to the cloud. Microsoft is... more... - Lindsay

Azure looks really cool. Hint: so did Blackbird. - Michael R. Bernstein

lol blackbird (scary redmond flashback) - a good example of azure platform utilization can be seen via jon udell's elmcity project - http://blog.jonudell.net/elmcity... - mike "glemak" dunn

Nosense, I want silverlight, flash, html and any other technology in my desktop & mobile phone. Silverlight? yes, there you can develop under Python, Ruby et al, instead of the outdated javascript. - Sebastian Wain

It looks like with Native Client, you should be able to write your Chrome OS app in any language you feel like. So far, they have some examples in C/C++, but one of the things they ported is a Lua interpreter. If Adobe isn't going to invest heavily in fixing the show-stopping bugs on non-Windows versions of Flash, it's inevitably going to die, and there's really nothing either Google or Apple can do even if they wanted to support Flash better. - Victor Ganata

...ActionScript3 is ECMASCript-compliant. I know nothing about standards bodies, and shii like that, but what if Adobe dropped ActionScript and said, "You can now use pure Javascript to build Flash applications..." It wouldn't be a big leap. I'm pretty sure that would shut-up all the Flash haters. And to the folks who say Flash is hanging around just because of video...well, video is... more... - .LAG liked that

Actionscript is just the glue for the more advanced what-iffy graphic functionality of Flash. They can not drop it for Javascript, because it contains additional graphic primitives that JS lacks. But it's not the JS-or-Actionscript that makes it a target for hate, it's other things. Nobody denies that it's pretty capable, but it is also badly written, eats up memory like no other, makes... more... - ianf ⌘

I like this post! - Mohammad Abdurraafay from iPhone

I honestly don't know how necessary Flash is. Apple seems to be doing fine without supporting it. But certainly Gnash and Swfdec should be implementable on Chrome OS. The fact is that without Adobe's full support on a given platform, Flash apps will always be second class citizens on alternate platforms, and so far, there's no indication that Adobe is interested in fully supporting any platform other than Windows. - Victor Ganata

ianf ...you bring up great points about Flash's detriments, as does Victor, but until there's a better way to bring video to the Web, I can't see it disappearing. Adobe seems to keep improving the Flash VM, hopefully they'll address those CPU-hogging issues and make a more efficent runtime. Yeah, I hate hearing the fans kick-in when visiting a Flash-heavy site too. <sigh> - .LAG liked that

alternative to flash video such as ... html5 :) (requires ff3.5) http://www.dailymotion.com/openvid... - Mike Chelen from IM

that only covers video and audio... *sigh* - Ed F from IM

Ed, only??? thats one of the main reasons cited for the continued requirement of flash on popular sites like youtube - Mike Chelen

I know, and it seems I'm the only one who mentions Flash's other uses... :-/ - Ed F from IM

Ed, those other uses can be accomplished through pure Javascript, video was the last remaining stumbling block - Mike Chelen

Still waiting on non-Flash recreations of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... Well aware of how someone mentioned higher up how you can combine javascript and svg to get nifty flash-like effects. I want apps like that though ^ Only real alternatives I've seen are Java-based ones, and those runs even slower than Flash. - Ed F

Pardon me, but the OP is a ridiculous conclusion. For that to be the case, Chrome OS would have to kill Windows, OS X, etc altogether. Paul, I understand your viewpoint as being an ex-Google person, but that's just NOT going to happen. Right now the video specification from HTML5 has been dropped because of an impasse, meaning that we may be transitioning from 1 closed-source boss - Flash - to another - H264. Good luck. - LANjackal

But why do these type of apps have to be written in Flash at all? You can easily do the same thing in C, C++, ObjC, Python, Ruby, etc., with the Native Client API that they're building for Chrome. http://code.google.com/p... - Victor Ganata

write them yourself then. until then, I'll stick with desktop apps or Flash equivalents - Ed F from IM

I'm just saying, it's not like Flash is the end-all/be-all. As Apple well demonstrates, some people can live quite well without it. - Victor Ganata

Victor ...i think the answer to the 'why do these have to be written in Flash at all' question is because Flash is installed on such a significant portion of Web browsers. But I recall that Adobe Flex had a competitor, Laszlo/OpenLaszlo, which compiled apps to SWF or to Javascript. Who's to say that Adobe doesn't have the same capability of making SWF apps into JS ones? On one hand, it... more... - .LAG liked that

Ed, such apps are possible with Javascript and HTML5 multimedia features, the question will be how difficult developers find it, and whether the performance is fast enough - Mike Chelen

LANjackal, there is a question of degree in that Flash + H264 uses proprietary software and codec, while HTML5 + H264 requires only the codec. while OGV is no longer part of the spec, it can certainly still be used to have completely open video formats, and recent comparisons have shown it performs well http://people.xiph.org/~maikme... - Mike Chelen

Silverlight's 3 is looking pretty impressive today but tend to agree - Charlie Anzman

still haven't updated yet. Busy with something on Firefox - LANjackal from IM

What everybody seems to be missing about Flash is that it works because there is one implementation which is mostly backwards-compatible and the same across platforms. It beat Java because, among other reasons, Java just didn't work the same across JVMs and platforms. The problem with HTML5 is that it will have a different implementation for every browser, and that means your app/game... more... - Gabe

Yeah the video spec for HTML5 is currently a disaster - LANjackal from IM

Paul, don't you prefer brutal competition SL vs. Flash vs. standards bring to the table by definition? Or are you more into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - 2020 Google Union - type of ideology? - Kari Honkanen

Kari, I don't understand your question. Competition is good, but with open-source we get that -- no need for flash or SL. - Paul Buchheit

Paul, no, we don't get the same level of competition with open-source only. As long as there's an opportunity for big gains (like in this case to bridge the gap before html 5 era...to satisfy demand), there will be innovations driven by that. I believe we all benefit from a free market economy that includes commercial, closed source, innovations. I am more scared of the possible future... more... - Kari Honkanen

I agree that the future is neither open nor closed, but a mixture of the 2. Been preaching that for a while now, but then again there are the fanatics on either side who can't see anything other than a homogenous future - LANjackal from IM

I wouldn't worry too much amount multimedia. By exposing WebGL, (and hopefully OpenCL), you can offload a lot of compute intensive stuff onto the GPU via GPGPU techniques, and NativeClient is there to take up the rest of the slack, but the for the vast majority of iPhone-like games, I'm willing to bet V8 Javascript on a modern processor is more than enough. That leaves licensing issues... more... - Ray Cromwell

Paul, so are you saying that Google will block both Flash and Silverlight from ChromeOS? That's a new take on 'open.' - Cliff Gerrish

MSFT next smart move: get Chrome OS (it's BSD licensed), inject IE9 and Silverlight into it and go benchmark against Chrome :) - Claudio Cicali ♋

MSFT sucks Claudio :) - Orlando Pozo

@caludio: They've already done that, somewhat. Silverlight 4 Beta supports Chrome. However I'm pretty sure it's probably technically impractical to run another browser atop Chrome OS anyway - LANjackal from IM

Something feels contradictory about a system touted to 'kill' competitors being 'open'. Sounds almost predatory to me. - Karoli

If the concept of open source didn't allow for competitive business plans then quite a few companies that depend on it wouldn't exist. The "happy smiley" image most FOSS zealots promote isn't reflective of reality. There will always be competition, even among the free - LANjackal from IM

I'm not opposed to non-open software, but for OS, browser, etc I prefer that it be open. Cliff, Google isn't going to "block" anything, but they can certainly choose what to include, and my guess is that they won't include SL. As Claudio points out, MSFT can make their own version of ChromeOS that includes SL, which is why open source software is nice (it can't be crippled too much or else someone will fork it). - Paul Buchheit

I have heard somewhere that Fash uses it's own port where Silverlight works over the HTTP port. That's why Netflix works so well. To that, Flash costs more on a sever side because providers can charge more for that port traffic. Could it come down to who is cheaper? (I am fully prepared to be wrong). - Johnny Worthington

Johnny, they both use HTTP -- there's no difference there. - Paul Buchheit

Is Chrome OS BSD-licensed? I thought it was using a Linux kernel. - Victor Ganata

@Paul - well, Flash can do P2P stuff over non-HTTP posts, but that is very new (Flash 10 I think). The cost isn't affected anyway. - Nick Lothian

My understanding is that netbooks would have to be absurdly popular for Chrome OS to make a dent in the popularity of Flash or SL. - Gabe

not rly, the defeat of Flash & SL depends on the rise of HTML5, which will b supported by multiple browsers. Unfortunately spec disagreements r holding that up. That's another advantage of closed systems : fewer cooks often makes the broth get done faster lol - LANjackal from IM

it is possible to have smaller groups for open source software, such as google's own gears api http://code.google.com/apis... - Mike Chelen

How is HTML 5 going to defeat Flash and SL? I haven't used it, but I don't see anything in the spec that looks like it could compare. - Gabe

@Gabe - what do you think HTML5 is missing? It does video, drawing, local storage, "threading" via WebWorkers. The biggest hole I'm aware of is the lack of access to webcams & microphones. What have I missed? - Nick Lothian

HTML 5's not "missing" much in terms of its ambition. What it's missing is a consensus among its contributors. Flash and SL have gone through several iterations while HTML 5's been sitting there - LANjackal from IM

Nick: When you say HTML 5 has "drawing", are you refering to the Canvas element? I would not consider an immediate-mode procedural raster drawing library to be much of a competitor to retained-mode declarative vector libraries like SVG or Silverlight. Programming with the Canvas tag is sort of the equivalent of programming in assembly language for bitmaps. - Gabe

@Gabe: I think you've got it upside-down. A Canvas-style API is the fundamental basis on which you can build a retained mode structure like SVG, et al. If a platform includes a retained-mode library as a convenience, so be it. You can build SVG on Canvas, but not the other way around (hacks like IECanvas notwithstanding -- they have horrible performance characteristics and are a nasty abstraction inversion). - Joel Webber

So, if Moonlight (Mono) runs on linux -- Will google make sure it doesn't work on Chrome OS? - Cliff Gerrish

No they won't, because it Silverlight already runs on Chrome as of Beta 4 - LANjackal from IM

Joel: I don't think you said anything contrary to what I said. I just don't understand why any programmer would want to waste time writing an app using a low-level library when I could use a high-level library that implements everything for me. - Gabe

@Gabe - I agree, and people are implementing those libraries now. See http://raphaeljs.com/ for example. Also, don't underestimate the convenience factor. I don't own any Flash development tools, but my text editor works pretty well for Canvas+JS based stuff. - Nick Lothian

Nick: Didn't the author of raphael have some massive rant about how bad the Canvas element is? And I don't have any Flash dev tools either, but I use a text editor for most of my Silverlight development. It is incredibly convenient to be able to type something like <DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding tabledata}"/> into a text editor and not have to create the data grid myself. - Gabe

Why is Flash a "necessity" for an OS? I enjoy what flash can do, but it is like putting pimped out leather Oldsmobile seats in a Ferrari. It would definitely be nice, but certainly not a necessity. - Dan Douglass

Early post goof up. To your original point, I agree. I like how Google is approaching the internet space with web apps that can be run with out a bloated browser. - Dan Douglass

Dan Douglass: Flash is necessary because so many web sites rely on it. How many people would want to get a netbook that couldn't play FaceBook games or watch YouTube videos? Of course Google is in the unique position of being able to make YouTube work on ChromeOS without Flash, but they probably can't do anything about Hulu, Vimeo, or any of the other video sites out there that require Flash. - Gabe

Anyone else think Joy is Spam? - Chris Myles

already reported it yesterday :) - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ from IM

Paul Buchheit

That's kind of an understatement :) (these people keep emailing me, completely unaware of the fb deal)

November 2 - Comment - Like - Share

SAM, sridhars, Symon Muchina Thuo and 47 other people liked this

<coffee comes thru nose> - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

13 more comments

LOL - CW™

I hate recruiters - Ivan Kirigin

Recruiters, gotta love em. Well, actually you don't. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Haahah. That's a good one. - Micah Wittman

You should reply and say, "Man if only you'd called me a couple of days ago I would have been able to do something with you. Now? Well, sorry, you just missed your chance." - Kenton

wtf? - kosmar

what fb deal??? - Gustaf

ha ha.. are they looking to give you a job or get you to hire them on behalf of FF. - Bindu Reddy

Presumably they are offering their services to recruit staff for friendfeed. You're just an entry in a mail merge database, as far as they're concerned. - DGentry

HAHAHAH That is epic!! tooooo funny :D - Susan Beebe

LOL! - Kol Tregaskes

Tell them you'd like a job at Facebook. - Andrew C

All is well Paul....What's happening in FB... - Symon Muchina Thuo

loled so hard. - sridhars

Paul Buchheit

There was a lot of chatter about the future of FriendFeed this weekend. The short answer is that the team is working on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. Transformation is not the end. Consider this the chrysalis stage -- if all goes well, a beautiful butterfly will emerge :)

October 19 - Comment - Like - Share

Alfredo, Fabrizio, david beckwith and 243 other people liked this

What is transforming... FriendFeed, or the idea of FriendFeed? - Christopher Galtenberg

117 more comments

Thanks for the update, Paul! - Anne Bouey

THANK YOU! - teh Dork Knight aka Kenny

Fabulous News :) - Susan Beebe

Noticed the "leaked" Facebook UI screenshots and the groups blog post today, and both seem FriendFeed inspired: nice to see Facebook trying to bring the stuff we like about FriendFeed to a larger audience. - Mark Trapp

To Robert Scoble: I told you so ;-) - Jesse Stay

Sounds like they're adding some of FF's features to FaceBook. yay - Internet's Tad from fftogo

Mark - got link? - Susan Beebe

Thanks Paul :) - ashish

Devil is in the details: "couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" == Facebook projects with FriendFeed-like elements == no work on FriendFeed itself. - EricaJoy

Paul, FriendFeed rocks as Gmail does ;) - Orlando Pozo

Thanks for the update, the more you communicate, the less we have to speculate. - Peter Hoffmann

The fact that these improvements are coming to Facebook and not friendfeed will not sway those who like friendfeed but dislike Facebook. - Alex Scoble

Thank you Paul for bringing "FriendFeed goodness to the larger world" -- THAT sounds awesome!! - Susan Beebe

integration with facebook? - Rocco Galluzzo

@Alex Scoble: That's true - Jorge Escobar

Susan: http://blog.facebook.com/blog... and http://mashable.com/2009... - Mark Trapp

I hope out of the chrysalis emerges an infested Kerrigan. That'd be awesome http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki... - Ivan Kirigin

Thanks Mark, much appreciated... I'll check those out - Susan Beebe

+1 Ivan :) - Benjamin Golub

But we knew this was the deal the moment the full details of the purchase of friendfeed by Facebook became public. - Alex Scoble

Yeah, I don't give a crap about Facebook. I want to know about FriendFeed. - Rochelle

Is it the interface people dislike about Facebook or the people they're friends with on Facebook? I can imagine being able to import all your subscribers from FriendFeed and have them in a separate group that doesn't interact with other groups you may have on Facebook. - Cristo

sadly, no one with any power seems to care about FF anymore. - Joe Silence is not dead

I'm glad to hear this. I prefer FriendFeed to Facebook any day of the week. - Nathan Clayton

And the answer for me would be some of both. I have real life friends and family that I don't necessarily want to get into the same discussions with as I do with people here. - Cristo

And there's your answer, Rochelle. friendwho? friendwhat now? Oh, you mean Facebook! (No I mean friendfeed) friendwho? (rinse, lather, repeat) - Alex Scoble

there are some ui differences (and i tend to prefer friendfeed in those cases) but i have friended quite a few FF people in FB and the experience is remarkably similar in many ways. - Jason Wehmhoener

Another big difference is I don't think you get the same FOAF interaction on Facebook as on FriendFeed. - Cristo

yep - Jason Wehmhoener

I hope my FaceBook peeps are ready for the FriendFeed firehose ... past experience would say that they're in for a shock. - Crutis

Thanks for the transparency on the Friendfeed "ghost town" matter Paul. Much appreciated. - Alex Knight

Thanks Paul... bring the special sauce to Facebook: http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife... - Andrew

I like the "chrysalis stage" analogy - sounds cool.... goes an looks for FF goodness butterfly! - Susan Beebe

Good to know that FriendFeed still has some fight left; hope that translates into a viable and sustainable platform/utility for the masses (though I quite enjoy the close-knit, uber-geek community that it's become). - Christian

I don't like the chrysalis analogy. The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis and buggers off leaving the shell. Of course, it might then also get eaten by a bird. Tweet, tweet. - Mark H

Mark LOL nice, ... haha - Susan Beebe

Note that he didn't say that FriendFeed.com was going away, only that they're diverted to bringing it to a much larger audience - Jesse Stay

The problem is Scoble (Robert) and MG both just sent half of FriendFeed away so most of those that would benefit from this announcement won't even see it. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, I didn't get that from Paul's comment. I read that some of the friendfeed ideas will be going into FB. I like that idea, but I still prefer FF to FB because of the different conversations here that I don't have with friends and family. - Travis Koger from iPhone

Yeah, Paul's statement won't help friendfeed. This will just either give people more reason to go to Facebook or find another service entirely. - Alex Scoble

What Alex and Rochelle said. This sounds like a "we're bringing FF to Facebook" announcement, and I don't give a damn about Facebook. I want to know what's happening HERE. And Cristo, both, but more the interface. I care about the friends I've made here, and I'm connected with many of them now on Facebook as well, but I prefer to interact with them here, because I like it better. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Travis, he didn't say that - you read that, but he didn't say that. I'm willing to bet FriendFeed.com will not go away. - Jesse Stay

As much as I agree about Scoble and MG driving people away, they have also effectively flush out some comment from the FF team. - Travis Koger from iPhone

Travis, there are better ways of getting the FF team to comment - Jesse Stay

:( I quite liked the caterpillar. - Nick Lothian

I think it's the opposite, the butterfly is becoming this crawling caterpillar :) - Jorge Escobar

Oh I don't think FF will go away, and damn will hope it doesn't either! - Travis Koger from iPhone

What I do see is more Facebook integrated into the FriendFeed environment - I think that's a good thing - Jesse Stay

The critical difference between Facebook and FriendFeed is the social model. With Facebook as it is today, you need to be mutual friends to see each others content. There is a "fan page" model but it is oriented toward "publishing/celebrity" rather than information sharing. FriendFeed has an asymmetric model like Twitter, where you can easily discover someone's content without any "friend" gesture whatsoever, and you can follow without friending. This makes the converation more discoverable, and useful.. - Adina Levin

Agree Adina. - Travis Koger from iPhone

If the integration is bringing public/asymmetric to Facebook, then it will be very useful indeed. If the integration is to add FriendFeed-style service integration into the symmetric/private Facebook model, it will be much less useful - it's more of the same - I'll be able to more easily share updates from youtube or last.fm or delicious to my friend network, but be unable to discover new people and infomation. - Adina Levin

Adina: And unless Facebook goes radically toward that model, it won't suffice for me. I could not care less about their upcoming redesigns. - Christopher A Carr

@Jesse - I can't see any sign that they are working on FriendFeed at all. All the indications are that the FF team is now working on Facebook, and only Facebook. That's great for Facebook, and I'm sure they will do wonderful work there. But don't delude yourself that FriendFeed is going to get anything more than critical fixes, and maybe the occasional thing done in someone's spare time. - Nick Lothian

Butterflies look totally different than caterpillars and they also fly away - Melanie Reed

Crickets chirping... is this site alive?? :) - Christopher Galtenberg

+100 Adina. The things I like best about FriendFeed (easy content/people discovery, FoaF, asymmetrical following and being followed) are completely opposite to Facebook's core model. That's why as much as people keep talking about Facebook adding FF-like features, I don't see the REAL FF core features making it over, because the mindset is different. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

I don't see this announcement as anything new, or as reassuring. We knew from the time of the acquisition that there would be would be some movement of FF capabilities into FB. The real question is whether this means absorption of FF into FB or attracting the FB user base into FF. The comment about "bring[ing] FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" still leaves that question open. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

+1 everything Alex Scoble has said. Friendwhat? What's a feed? Who uses RSS anymore? We've got PubSubWTFOMGBBQ now! - Mr. Gunn

Agree with Jandy on +100 Adina. - Amy℠

Also, I agree with Jandy and Adina's comments. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Nick, Paul just said they're working on other projects right now. That still doesn't mean FriendFeed is going away. I'm not deluding myself at all. I'm telling everyone else they're deluding themselves by assuming it's going away. All the FriendFeed team is still using FriendFeed, and Paul just tried to give us comfort not to worry. For some reason we all don't want to believe him. It's actually kind of amusing. - Jesse Stay

I wonder what the powers that be mean by "FriendFeedy goodness"? Is it understood what WE like about it vs. FB? - Amy℠

Paul - Wishing you all the best as you tend your new butterfly garden :) I'll be here to enjoy them! - Susan Beebe

Jesse: "For some reason we all don't want to believe him." <-- Don't want to believe what? He didn't really say anything. - Christopher A Carr

This is not the news that Friendfeed fans were looking for. - Vezquex: God of FF

The issue isn't belief that they are going to do something. The question is what they are going to do, and whether that will continue the core value of FriendFeed, which is not just information aggregation but discoverability. - Adina Levin

I know more about the "Last Days" and heaven than I know about what's going to happen to FriendFeed as we have come to know it than was given in your rather cryptic answer, Paul. :) And while that may not be a fair comparison (God actually gave details and signs), there is something definitely not forthcoming about your response. A person usually withholds details that affect another... more... - Melanie Reed

Melanie, in other words, Paul works for a technology company in Silicon Valley that doesn't disclose future features, products, and services until they are ready. - Cristo

Hopefully this helps to quiet all of the "friendfeed is dying" talk. Because this thread proves ff is alive and well. - Garin Kilpatrick

@Jesse - I read it differently to you. To me, Paul is saying "We are taking what we were working towards on FriendFeed, and trying to bring that goodness to a bigger audience". No one is claiming they are going to shut down FF. - Nick Lothian

@Jesse - Want to make a bet on the number of new features added to FF before the end of the year? - Nick Lothian

You read my mind. Having seen a few acquisitions, I am wondering if FF staff was told to put the site in bugfix mode. - EricaJoy from IM

Cristo, to deliver some straightforward talk is not about giving away company details. If you have a product that is original and stands on its own, you don't need to refer to it as a "butterfly". Many companies even promote something new and upcoming especially to their loyal user base. It gives a signal. A proper one. It tells your users and future users enough so that they can make an informed decision about what they want to do instead of keeping them on tenderhooks - Melanie Reed

"the chrysalis stage in most butterflies is one in which there is little movement" (via wikipedia) So if you follow that metaphor then eventually FriendFeed will go through a metamorphosis -- that means it's not dead... really how hard can it be to get what he's saying? - Chris Heath

Its pretty hard :) The burning question is if they are putting FF goodness in to the walled gardens that are Facebook or are they bringing FF openness to FB too. I think the people here want the open forums that are FF not the closed ones that are FB. If FB is going hybrid with both walled gardens and open forums that would be OK too. People on FF want open forums... like Twitter and FF... without the crude interface that is Twitter and without the uncertainty that is FF now. - Ed Millard

Facebook is gonna have to rip off much of the privacy to maximize their product in the real-time web world. I am going to assume FF goodness is going to be applied to FB :) *crosses fingers* - Susan Beebe

Just a thought... why does "longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world" JUST mean facebook.com? What I get from this is that they are working on a range of things, maybe bringing the FriendFeed sauce to a range of sites, powered by the Facebook back end. Who knows what that means. A FriendFeed service powered by FacebookConnect? Also to...... more... - Johnny Worthington

LMFAO. Johnny++ - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

FB needs to leave the privacy for the walled garden and the inner circle. Their current user base likes that. They just need a second feed that is an open forum and you can talk there without it bleeding in to your inner circle feed. - Ed Millard

Seems like the inner circle is breaking down some now, what with parents and other relatives friending teenagers. I'm guessing the information posted on the walls these days is not as private. Is there a way on FriendFeed to limit what on your wall can be seen by particular people and groups? - Cristo

Yes, but blocking doesn't work so well since you can just use Chrome's Incognito mode to get around it. - Alex Scoble

Translation: if you haven't switche to Facebook yet, you better do it now so you can get a good vanity URL. - David Chartier from iPhone

I don't know what all the fuss is about. But could we have the long answer too, please? - Laura Norvig

Although I'm interested, FB != FF. I don't see how the two mix in a way that makes me feel otherwise. Mixing audiences is not a good thing for me (with a few exceptions) and I know others share the same thought. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Did anyone notice that Robert Scoble didn't comment on this thread? What does this mean? Does it mean Robert Scoble won't exist soon? He must be working on a Monday afternoon, no? ;) - Cristo

Paul, will FF be here in 1 year, 5 years? - Robert Higgins

Robert, will you and I be alive in 5 years? - Cristo

Thanks for the update Paul.. - Chris Myles

Cristo I am funking nobody, I would like Paul to quantify his post. Simple. Will FF be here in 1 year? Will FF be here in 5 years? - Robert Higgins

Robert, I was trying to make the point that he might not know and can't predict what will happen over time. - Cristo

IMO friendfeed shoud attract more general audience... Facebook and twitter are having more general users. Most of the FF users are tech bloggers or those who needs aggregation services... I dont know it's just my feeling or not . but this is my impression on FF. but it's great service.. the features are too good... but we will roam were we meet our friends... thats most of the people are into twitter and FB. - Sarath

Sarath, is there a place you can get away from tech bloggers? :) - Cristo

Ohhhh a perrrttty butterfly, I'm moist with anticipation. - sofarsoShawn

Glad to hear it, Paul. - WorldofHiglet

Cristo: i almost made the same observation an hour or two ago when i first read through this posting and its comments. I was skimming and kept seeing alex, alex, alex... and thinking to myself... where's Robert!?! - Chris Heath

Great news. Thanks! friendfeed team. :D - 'Like' robot (frɐnc)

@Sarath - I have a lot more in common with the people I've met here on FriendFeed than FB or Twitter. Twitter is too hard to search, and FB (and Twitter to a good extent) is driven by the people you know in RL (and unfortunately I don't have nearly as much in common in RL with my family, co-workers and acquaintences as I do with people scattered all over the world who I have met on FF).... more... - Lindsay

I think that in his cryptic statement he means, and a lot of people here agree with me, that more Facebook's going to get more FriendFeedy. Which doesn't mean that FF still isn't dead or doomed. After all, he works for Facebook now. FriendFeed=open forum, Facebook=walled garden, totally opposite master metaphors; but I don't think Zuckerberg gets it, and FF belongs to Zuckerberg now. So this is really about FB; FF's still in limbo. Still, some FF people friended me at FB, and I put them in a special list. - Dennis Jernberg

@FF-team keep on rocking :). BTW I also think it's really cool you guys open-sourced tornado. - alfred westerveld

+1 what alfred said, and good to hear words like "longer-term" & "beautiful" coming straight from The Walrus - keep that vision strong. Hope all goes well for FF team doing some good re-inventing the Octopus Garden of FB - seems you've got your work cut out for you there! It would be so nice if any way to keep a "simple & pure" form of FriendFeed alive (maintained and developed - more open source?) for us to enjoy, but no worries .... you've simultaneously raised the bar and paved the way for the rest! - Dan Freeman

Good luck with the development Paul! Hopefully Zuck has some positive insight. - Garin Kilpatrick

I like butterflies. - Harold Cabezas

Paul: If someone offered me a bag of money to do what you guys did, I would have done exactly the same (probably a lot faster too). However, it would be nice if you spent an hour answering some of the questions here. It might also give people like me a little more faith, in what used to be your primary project; Friendfeed. You made the best platform on the planet - why not use it to let us know what the heck's going on? - Jim Connolly

I'm assuming that Facebook wants to keep their roadmap quiet. I respect that but leaving you community in the dark for a brand that the applications stand for community building is rather ironic. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

SUPER!! I don't Blame ya 1 Darn bit fer Dumpin' FacePOOP Paul!! ;PPP Wait FacePOOP is the Maggot Stage!! ;)) - Billy Warhol

If I can still have all my friends that I have here on friendfeed and share things with them the exact same way, I don't care what "www" address I have to type in to get it. I just hope i don't have to give up any of FF's awesome features! Thanks for the update Paul! - David Cook

The problem is I don't know whether to wrote an app on your API or not because i'm not sure whether it will all be dropped in the "transformation". Imagine speding late nights and weekends coding something up only for it to be dropped suddenly. Need a decent long term picture. Looking at Cliqset. - Steven Livingstone-Pérez

Good point Steven - and one of the reasons many of us are spending so little time developing our networks here. - Jim Connolly

waiting.... - ffcode

ffcode: Good luck with that ;-) - Jim Connolly

So the changes are at Facebook not FriendFeed, Paul? - Kol Tregaskes

And good luck to all of your team - Ozkan Altuner from iPhone

This is a truly disappointing/concerning post and I think it would have been much better to hold comment until something more tangible could be discussed. Thanks for adding to the confusion/drama Paul. - Nicholas Kreidberg

yemezler - MobilAdam

I do care about what happens next, but this is the best news of the day nonetheless ! thanks for giving us updates at last ! and I do hope FF will awaken again ! such a great tool, but letdown since the announcement of the buyback by FB - laetSgo

will I see this post in my "best of week" email from FF? - Kirill Bolgarov

If Facebook is going to get fixed, please remember that it needs fixing politically, not just technically. It needs to give people the option to open their data to Google - for instance. A walled garden where the walls are fixed in place sucks. - Tim Tyler

@Paul, or perhaps an Alien will erupt forth from its stomach? (kidding, kidding!) - j1m

Kevin Fox to Kevin's feed, Typography

AWESOME: Emigre releases 'Mr. Eaves', a sans-serif companion to Mrs. Eaves. - http://www.emigre.com/EFfeatu...

October 20 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

karl dotter, Matthew Gifford, Jenna Bilotta and Tony Ruscoe liked this

I've previously listed Mrs. Eaves as one of my very favorite type families ever and I'm thrilled to have a sans-serif companion font! - Kevin Fox from Bookmarklet

Love mrs. Eaves. Caint wait to meet the mr! - Jenna Bilotta from Android

Tim Bray

PubHubSunday - http://www.tbray.org/ongoing...

October 18 from ongoing - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford and Steve Gillmor liked this

Bret Taylor

Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile - http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006...

October 5 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Mark Edmondson, Chris Prince and 28 other people liked this

""This nickel-a-line-of-code gig is lame. You know where the real money is at? You start your own religion." And that's how both Extreme Programming and Scientology were born." - Bret Taylor

13 more comments

From 2006, but just read it today. So many classic lines... - Bret Taylor

"Norvig’s writeup is a short essay explaining about 100 lines of Python that can solve any Sudoku. Jeffries [inventor of XP] writeup, by contrast, is spread over five lengthy blog postings here, here, here, here, and here and ends without coming anywhere close to actually producing a program that can solve any but a tiny subset of all Sudoku problems." http://www.gigamonkeys.com/blog... - Bret Taylor

This is so bizarre. A Sudoku board is a 9x9 grid of integers. Most basic brute force solvers can easily solve any Sudoku game. The Siebel guy talks about the representation problem as if it were some sort of question where it's reasonable that serious working programmers would have any trouble at all representing it. Hello. NINE BY NINE ARRAY. And yes, Python has two dimensional arrays: you just make an array of arrays. (Norvig's hash table is also fine, mind you.) - ⓞnor

A cat is fine, too. - Jim Norris

But yeah, it's the difference between writing code and solving problems. - Jim Norris

ⓞnor, it wasn't a serious working programmer, it was some kind of TDD consultant :) - Paul Buchheit

The Norvig vs TDD guy story is hilarious btw. - Paul Buchheit

Funny, just the other day my friend George and I were making fun of TDD nuts. While I'm all for unit tests, it doesn't make sense to write them before you know what the code will do yet! - Gabe

I think maybe some people are just drawn to absolutes. If something is sometimes good, then it must always be good and is the only true and right way. - Paul Buchheit

"I think maybe some people are just drawn to absolutes." That's absurd, and I categorically disagree. Those people are absolute morons. - Jim Norris

Paul, I remember discussing this post with you back when he wrote it, and wondering what Steve has against pair programming. I now do most of my coding with a partner, and spend a lot less time debugging than before. It's great to code review as you type -- it saves tons of testing, debugging, refactoring, and redesigning. - Gabe

OMG... that norvig code makes me so happy in my face. <3 <3 <3 - ௸ (k2g)

I am not an expert on agile programming, but I had always thought that a big part of it was to start coding as soon as possible, instead of spending days writing up specifications. Stevey mentions that design documents are taken very seriously at google. - Robert Felty

/2006/09/ - that's ages back then... - A.T.

Ken Sheppardson

With FriendFeed dying, maybe we should all move over to Jaiku. It looks pretty spiffy.

October 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford, Micah Wittman and Steve Gillmor liked this

that's mean! :D - pea

Migrate-schmigrate. I just unpacked. - Michael Markman

Jon Udell

Amazed again by the power of these words when on a customer service call: "I, too, am recording this call for quality assurance purposes."

October 5 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jenny Levine, Aaron the Librarian, lris and 3 other people liked this

Gina

It’s Google Wave Mania Day! - http://smarterware.org/3528...

September 30 from Smarterware - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford and Eric Geller liked this

Evan Williams

McKinsey did a study for AT&T in the 80's about cell phones. Prediction: 1M units in US by 2000. Actual: 109M. Forcasting is hard.

September 25 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Adam Kazwell, marko, Roman Zolotarev and 29 other people liked this

A couple of things spring to mind 1) Moores law wasn't common knowledge back then. 2) People's desire to get laid means they will use any means of communication at their disposal. - James Robertson

6 more comments

Reminds me of Thomas Watson's (IBM) forecast that there was demand for 5 computers (mainframes) in the world. - Larry Hawes

They forgot multiplication ;) - ashish

A million people then is about as much as 109 million is today. It's all in the exchange rates... - Mike Lewis

What are we underpredicting now? My favorite is UAVs, I think we'll all have one. - ⓞnor from Android

You can get teensy toy r/c helicopters for $20 now, right? - Andrew C

LOL @ Mike Lewis - Oblomov

Thanks for the laugh, Mike - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Chris Messina

Wow! @dalmaer + @bgalbs of Ajaxian/Mozilla are joining Palm to work on the Open, Mobile Web! http://almaer.com/blog...

September 25 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford and Marshall Kirkpatrick liked this

Trevor Blackwell

Dropbox Reaches 2 Million Users; Continues to Grow - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

September 24 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford, Jon Parise, Paul Buchheit and April Buchheit liked this

Evan Williams

Can't wait to read this 32-page magazine the U.S. Postal Service sent me, unsolicited, about direct marketers going green.

September 22 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Шалена бджiлка, Vishy, Pete Delucchi and 7 other people liked this

Oh, the irony.... - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

4 more comments

hmm. i think this was a retweet, but the original source no longer shows up in FF. - Jenna Bilotta

ah, that would explain all the new Tweets from Evan - Jesse Stay

Weird. You can still click through on the "Twitter" text next to "Comment" to see where it came from, but there's certainly no evidence of a retweet. - Daniel J. Pritchett

My reply went to @badbanana. Not @ev. Strange that. - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

This reflects a recent change that Twitter made in terms of how they're sending us information. We'll make the necessary updates soon. Thanks for your patience. - Ana

Paul Buchheit

Handwriting Tips Penmanship (forget cursive) - http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

September 8 - Comment - Like - Share

Marco Fabbri, Tyson Key, Jérôme Flipo and 39 other people liked this

"The Palmer method and subsequent 20th-century methods were based on an ornate style that was difficult to learn and broke down under pressure. The loops and curlicues of Palmer and other similar methods obscure legibility. For good reason, one rarely finds looped cursive in print media or computer fonts. ... But there is hope. We can stop mumbling on the page and become legible writers by turning to a style that existed long before Palmer rendered our world illegible. We can embrace letterforms born in the Italian Renaissance. We can go italic." - Paul Buchheit

5 more comments

That's how I write already! I had to change from Palmer to Italic in high school because I didn't have a typewriter (pre-computer era); our papers had to be typed or handwritten in italic. - Anne Bouey

Nice article. It actually makes me want to grab a piece of that ruled paper to slowly trace out the letters. I find that my handwriting is best when it's all caps. I wonder if I can change that? - Todd Lloyd

I think I might play with this some this weekend. Printable PDF here: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images... - Michael Leggett

My mother has beautiful penmanship. I even found a book about it last year and gave it to her. Mine was always ok (Can you tell I went to Catholic school yet?) but it started to go awry when I started having to write in Palm PIlot. - Cathleen Rittereiser

Oddly enough, I've been writing like this for ages. I like joining some letters, but doing so constantly and with loops always seemed strange and ornate. - Joel Webber

The amazing thing to note in this article is how easy it is to read letters when only the top half of the line is visible (and how impossible it is to read when only the bottom half is visible). - Mike Koss

Leo Laporte

RT @nytimeskristof "Sen. Kennedy has died. I hope his legacy will be passage this year of a health reform that provides universal care."

August 26 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

riedb, Houseofmax, Jason Miller and 13 other people liked this

Yeah but Mass. Democrats are now upset that they passed law to keep Romney from appointing new Senator to replace Kerry and now must have an election! - Stephan Romeo

44 more comments

That's why such laws, based on the political situation of the moment, are utterly stupid. Any law passed in a panic due to the politics of the moment is usually a worthless (or worse) law. - Trent Hamm

So D's in Mass are upset that their party passed a law to make sure that the R's could not replace Ted with a Republican.OMG! Here in Delaware a similar law is OK because the Democrat Gov replaced the D senator with a D. - gerald miller

Ted Kennedy was a pig. a murderess pig. - John Hillestad

Camelot Lives!!! Oburkel has been anointed the "last" Kennedy brother by the Great MSNBC Apostle Chris Matthews. - Don Smith

Steve Urkel is the last Kennedy brother? - Fleagle

He's our President, isn't he? - Don Smith

I'd rather hope his death is the death of socialist designs on our health care system. - Cameron W. Gilchrist

Yeah, some really nice comments here. Hope you are happy with your life. - SAL

I'm happy with mine, so far. I'm 66. If we get OburkelCare, and if I should get brain cancer as Teddy did, you think I might be able to get care equal to what he got for the last year of his life? My brother is 73. He had a stroke and now requires 24-hour care in a Nursing home. You think he would get care equal to what Teddy got under OburkelCare? Wake up, dunderheads! The answer is NO!!!!!! - Don Smith

Plus, my Father-in-Law is 92. Do you think he'd be getting the care equal to what he's getting now under OburkelCare? NO WAY. I'm with Rush. I hope Oburkle fails! Oburkle fails, America WINS!!!! - Don Smith

what a worthless thread of comments.... - Chris Heath

It's not worthless to me, my brother and father-in-law. - Don Smith

how so? please enlighten me - Chris Heath

Because we have "skin in the game?" Get a brain, Chris. - Don Smith

don't we all have 'skin in the game'? and thanks for the advice, but i'd like to keep the brain i have - Chris Heath

This is a good thread to mine for blocks. Thanks. - Steve Gillmor from iPhone

Boy the idiots are really out in force tonight. Must be a fool moon. - Dave Winer

Don - Teddy had the US senate Plan you should only wish for such but fess up Don you're on Medicare just like me YOUR ON SOCIALISM hard core Social Security and Medicare Omigod you're on Obama care already - WarLord

The House and Senate need to either cover all of us for at least checkups (preventive care is cheaper than curative care) or they should lose their own gold-plated Cylon-grade health care.What did it cost taxpayers to keep Teddy Kennedy alive for as long as he lasted? - Steven W. Kelly

Steven in reality the best alternative would be to take the eligible age off Medicare. Everybody under an excellent paln that seniors even Republicans love. The plan becomes solvent as soon as somebody besides old fucks like me are paying premiums - WarLord

Chris, it's your call. Good luck. - Don Smith

Hey Don I renew my question: your 73 yo brother Medicare? Your 92 yo Father in law Medicare? And you 66 Medicare and all three Social Security - all in the senior socialism So the Obamacare thing its just posturing... ;) - WarLord

WarLord -- Yes, I'm on Social Security. I probably won't live long enough to even get back what I paid in for over 50 years, though. If good old Uncle Sam had just put my money into a savings account at a modest interest rate, instead of raiding the system for extra spending money, I'd be a multi-millionaire today. Hope it works out better for you. Sorry, but I don't participate in... more... - Don Smith

Don I freely admit I'm on Social Security and Medicare plus my union plan as secondary, I have great care by excellent doctors and despite expensive tests, drugs and surgeries I'm living well in my own house. As for the Soc Sec thing you drew out all you paid in in 3 years the rest is gravy btw with Obamacare you could have your own insurance but you want to know a secret I've learned... more... - WarLord

WarLord, sorry I mis-read your first post. I didn't catch it that you're already enjoying the benefits of socialism, too. Surely you know, though, that there isn't any "gravy" in Social Security. Like I said, if what we paid in would have been invested with just a modest return on our money, we'd be millionaires now. I see you're panting for OburkelCare, though. Just wait and see how... more... - Don Smith

Don couple things: Defined benefit beats defined contribution every time esp after the market takes a shit. Seriously thats why compnies dumped you on your asses with those shitty 401ks. Medicare is a good plan be better as soon as the for profit guys get kicked best outcome medicare for everybody so that some young well people pay premiums but insurance companies understand controlling... more... - WarLord

Wow, late to the party, but Don, small fact to point out: when your wife retires, you absolutely WILL have a choice. The same choice the other members of your family have now. You can go out into the free market and buy it retail, just like Rush wants you to. Rates can be difficult to find,online, but Oregon state seems to require it, so I found one for you. Your brothers can go ahead... more... - Don Wood

WarLord -- As of right now, I really can't give a difinitive answer to your "challenge". I do know that H.R. 3200, the thousand-page monster currently being considered in the House, should be totally scrapped, and BOTH major parties should take the next 13 months to study the problems with the current system and then write maybe five or six different reform bills to deal with the... more... - Don Smith

And now for Don Wood -- Don't patronize me, my man. I'm no hypocrite, and I'm not an idiot, either. I've never said we ought to kill Medicare nor Social Security. At least if I have, I was having another Transient Ischemic Attack. I have said that Social Security and Medicare are not sustainable, and have criticized the government's administration of both programs. Both are broke and... more... - Don Smith

I'm not patronizing you, I'm calling you flat out wrong and a hypocrite. And I stand by that. As I pointed out, your family absolutely DOES have a choice, but you have all chosen to use a New Deal program, which also happens to be the health care program most highly regarded by its clients. Private Insurance companies, on the other hand, are consistently rated the worst industry by... more... - Don Wood

To pump your left fist against Government Health Care while your right hand scoops deep in the public kitty is indeed hypocrisy. In fact, as someone who does buy their own insurance retail, pays self-employment tax on top of the rest of the taxes, and will be doing both for another 23-to-who knows-how-long years, I'd say "Hypocrisy" is a mild term. Having your cake and eating it too, while smugly anti-cake...no, you are no dummy. - Don Wood

As T. R. Reid said, we have right now the HARDEST form of rationing in the industrialized world - 20,000 a year DIE because they can't get the care they need. Senate needs to pass Public Option with 51 votes if necessary and make Republicans choke on it. To hell with compromising with these heartless morons. Ram it through just like Shrub did with Medicare D I say. - heretic_twit

Strange ... I don't recall having a choice about participating in the "New Deal program" of which you speak. I always paid half of the premiums and my employers always paid the other half. It was automatically deducted from my pay checks. I didn't realize it was voluntary. I don't recall having a choice about participating in the Medicare program, either. It, too, was automatically... more... - Don Smith

heretic_twit -- Dang it, because of your brilliance, I'm now going to have to double my charitable giving to 30 percent of gross income every month so I don't feel guilty about being one of them "heartless morons!" Dang it! ... BTW, how much are you kicking in to help those less fortunate? Just curious. - Don Smith

No Don, you are not thinking straight. Or perhaps you actually do not understand how those programs were set up. You said above "they use YOUR premiums to pay MY benefits." Why, yes Don, they do, just as the system was set up from the beginning. Those funds taken from your paycheck, when you were working (and from me now) were not premiums, or investments, were never meant to be. Those... more... - Don Wood

I have no problem with a public option, and I have no problem with government providing services. I do have a problem with forcing people to get insurance at the barrel of a (income tax based) gun, and I think that calling the current bill "health care reform" when it does not address health, care, or indeed reform anything is disingenuous at best. The current bill is not a health care... more... - Otto

Typical for the left to use his passing as a PR effort for this bill. You think health care is bad now, just wait until it's "free". Government has no business providing insurance for people, keep government out of it. Anyways, people don't want it, look at how bad Obama's poll numbers are. - Spencer

Guys, this isn't the time or the place. There are plenty of forums for the healthcare debate. How about a little respect for the passing of a great man? - Fleagle

great man ? A drunk , murderer is a great man ? he was a pig. - John Hillestad

Hey Spenscer szy it with mer Nine One One, yep the right used a building filled with death to win elections... pit kettle much - WarLord

Boy I hope not. - Greg DiSisto

Well, I tried. It's always my hope that Friendfeed doesn't become a haven for hate-comments, but you can't win 'em all. Deleting this thread and hoping Leo doesn't attract more of the same in future posts. - Fleagle

To Don Wood -- No, the Social Security program was not originally set up as it is now. It was set up as a social INSURANCE program funded through DEDICATED payroll taxes. Remember FICA? It stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act. There are several other TRUST programs that were added through the years. Congress didn't start raiding the funds for other uses and dropping all those... more... - Don Smith

I'm going to go converse with my dining room table. - Don Wood

Don Wood -- You converse with your dining room table? That explains a lot. Ask your dining room table what it thinks about these latest polls, Obama: Strongly Approve 30%; Strongly Disapprove 41%.. Approval Index: -11 ... Total approval falls to new low at 46%. 29% confident that Congress knows what it's doing when it comes to the economy; 67% are not. If Americans could vote to keep or... more... - Don Smith

Evan Williams

RT @andyroddick "i think its lame the US Open is trying to regulate our tweeting.. i understand the on-court issue but not sure they can..."

August 30 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford, Shakeel Mahate, Kabir Singh and 2 other people liked this

Android: Christopher A Carr

Fwd: Ultra-Sleek 5-Inch Android Tablet Looks Like Giant iPod Touch - Rockchip RK2809 - Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5346010... (via http://friendfeed.com/cacarr...)

Fwd: Ultra-Sleek 5-Inch Android Tablet Looks Like Giant iPod Touch - Rockchip RK2809 - Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5346010/ultra+sleek-5+inch-android-tablet-looks-like-giant-ipod-touch (via http://ff.im/7hE0e)

August 28 - Comment - Like - Share

Pavlo Zahozhenko, Nock Forager, Jordi Rivero and 13 other people liked this

Jason Grigsby

Dilbert today: "I judge potential mates by their cell phone apps. Hand it over." http://www.dilbert.com/strips...

August 28 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford liked this

Gina

10 years ago today @ev, @megnut & @pbausch changed your life and mine by launching Blogger. I don't think we can thank them enough.

August 25 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Ayşe E., Michelle Jones, Matthew Gifford and Eric Geller liked this

I still use Blogger and I love it. Great product! - Eric Geller

Matthew DeVries to Matthew's feed, Evernote Addicts, Android

Evernote User Forum • View topic - Evernote for Android, 1.0 Beta 1 available for testing - http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb...

August 21 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Patrik Johansson, Nock Forager, Matthew Gifford and 10 other people liked this

http://s.evernote.com/android... - Matthew DeVries from Bookmarklet

4 more comments

The Android app doesn't store any notes locally, is it the same for the iPhone? I wish it would have sync'd to the SD card, so I could access my notes offline. This kind of makes Evernote pretty limited for a work environment. - Matthew DeVries

it's a start, but it needs some work. really it's just a pretty front-end for the mobile site, from what i can tell. is this the way the iPhone app works too? - Trent Olson

The iPhone app is definitely more than a front-end to the mobile site. - Kevin Whalen

You can store notes on the iPhone in the Evernote app by marking them as favourites. I'd agree with Kevin, it's a lot more than just a front-end to the site... - Brad Brooks

one thing i was hoping a native app would fix would be reading documents scanned as images on the phone. using the mobile site, scanned docs are completely unreadable. - Trent Olson

Jenna Bilotta

It makes me so happy that every time I open Reader, I see new friends and followers and new comments. It's been blowing up! So great! :D

August 20 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

siva s, Nick Lothian, Matthew Gifford and 9 other people liked this

You guys have done an awesome job... seriously! - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

It really is growing - what a great tool. - Gary Walter (gwalter)

That's mean reader is the next thing, and it became better in the last improvements. - Avi Joseph

Robert Scoble

scottkarp: I'm sorry Twitter search is a joke. Can't search further back then a few weeks. It's not just about real-time, it's a permanent record. - http://twitter.com/scottka...

August 19 from Twitter / Favorites from... - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Roberto Bonini, Stanislas Jourdan and 25 other people liked this

could not agree more...why I have never actually used their search. - Braden Douglass

16 more comments

Twitter needs to technically fix the search instead of decorating it. - ashish from iPhone

Maybe they could acquire a third party search service... - Ken Sheppardson

Maybe they could just start taking this shit seriously? - Andy Bakun

my tweets have disappeared off the public search timeline since the DoS attacks. Twitter's a free service and customer service reflects it... - Sherrie Rose

Twitter has been a joke for two years. Problem is too many people enjoy using it. It's a shame people didn't move away from twitter. Pity for those people. - Richard A.

Totally agreed. I had a personal hash-tag for so many tweets just so that I could maintain some records.All are gone now :( - Sujay

Despite all the problems I do like that I can narrow my search geographically. That is something I wish I could do with FriendFeed. I would also like to search for new friends geographically. - Skyler Call

Question: Why would anybody need to search twitter back more than a couple of weeks? I don't see how Tweets hold any value for that long. Do you save all your SMS Text messages too? - Otto

Otto wins! If it's something worth saving, blog it, or put it somewhere that's yours, not Twitter's, or Tumblr's or anyone else's. Oye... - Mike Lewis

Why are you sorry that a product you're not responsible for is a joke? - Trent Hamm

If Twitter does come up with a good search functionality, then I want the ability to purge my tweets after some period of time. I don't want my messages being permanent records. - Otto

What Twitter did to their search earlier in the Spring was a huge surprise to me as I used it regularly. The changes they made did not raise much of a huff then, so my read was that few people understand and make use of these search capabilities. While the friendfeed search has room for growth which we may not see now with the buyout, it is clearly one of the main reasons I decided to make this my social media home. - Richard Reeve

Once in a while I think to myself how much data does the Internet want to keep, and why does it matter. Wouldn't it be better if there was a national library online that wasn't putting a load on the Internet from keeping so much useless data (which Twitter mostly has, BTW...) - David Libby

My sense is that the dross is an inevitable by product, and what one might consider dross might be valuable to another for very different reasons, some of which we might not even recognize yet. Regardless of the system, I'm for archiving the entire unfolding transcript... - Richard Reeve

Is FF search really much better? Trying to find things older than a few days or weeks is damn near impossible. - Brian Sullivan

Brian, while FF only returns about 630 or items back, once you apply searches by keyword, that is more than enough to get you back all the way to the beginning of your Twitter, etc. record kept within FF. And that is the value, Otto, that before you could use Twitter as a very handy, "self-tagging" (by way of your tweet context) bookmark repository, etc. Sometimes you do want to find out what (specific) people said during a given conference, during a major event, sentiment trends over time, etc. etc. - Alex Schleber

@Otto42, agreed that you should be able to opt out for privacy reasons, then again, you already sort of can by protecting your updates (granted that won't get your old tweets out of Twitter Search & FF, etc. databases). - Alex Schleber

brian

Eulogy to _why - http://ejohn.org/blog...

August 19 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford liked this

Its a sad day for the Ruby community. - brian

Jeremy Zawodny

Open-Source group announces jJava - http://codetojoy.blogspot.com/2008...

August 17 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford and Vishy liked this

hahhaha... that is excellent - Jeremy Zawodny

joshua schachter

BTW Google Appengine is awesome. Overage due to being techcrunched was like a dollar.

August 12 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Matthew Gifford, Paul Buchheit, Shakeel Mahate and 13 other people liked this

Paul Buchheit

Obviously I can't provide a lot of detailed plans and guarantees, but I can tell you that I'll do my personal best to ensure that the FriendFeed users and community are treated right. I love this product too, and don't want to see it disappear.

August 10 - Comment - Like - Share

pastas9, Shey, Jamaican of FF, 1x29 and 482 other people liked this

That's great to read! - Diego Barros 

115 more comments

Thank you, Paul. - joey

:) - Internet's Tad

I hope so. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Good of you to recognize. - Bill Kinney

Thank you, Paul. Hearing something is always better than hearing nothing =) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I think this was a smart move fore FF and FB - Joe Hall

What about the service? - Amit Morson

Ok - Matthew DeVries

That's a start. Thanks for reaching out. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Thanks Paul. - sean percival

Thanks Paul - Mike Doeff

We don't want it to go either. - Yolanda

I would not expect any less from such a cool guy like you, thanks! :) - Susan Beebe from iPhone

Please keep it going for as long as you can or until you can make Facebook actually work. - AJ Kohn

That's heartening, Paul. Thanks. - Admiral Anika

Thanks Paul! - Darren Heydon

We love you guys and FriendFeed.. we are just a little hurt and worried.. just please give us details as soon as possible. - Tim Hoeck

FriendFeed lets me use people as filters to turn data into information. Facebook doesn't. Until it does, please, Please, PLEASE keep FriendFeed as a destination alive. - AJ Kohn

congrats guys! facebook needs what you got! - Lorna Herf

I'm sorry that I haven't said more about this. As you can imagine, it has been an extraordinarily busy day (and I've barely slept in the past week). - Paul Buchheit

I'll add my plea to the chorus: Please don't take FriendFeed away from us. And don't make us go to Facebook (because we won't). FriendFeed means a lot to a lot of people and the thought that it will dry up and blow away shortly is very disturbing. - Lindsay

It's still great to hear from you Paul. Congrats on that new swimming pool full of cash. :D - Internet's Tad

Simply glad you're here now. You've always been a very responsive and transparent team. As much as I cringe at the thought of FF going away, I *am* happy for you and the team. - AJ Kohn

Thanks Paul. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Thank you kind sir. - Andrew Smith

I request you make it to the next scheduled FFundercats podcast to talk to the community. This announcement deserves a live appearance to the community. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Have been dealing unsucessfully with Twitter for two days, trying to get logged in...Their password reset page says"Snap we can't find you." I keep writing to Tech Support at Twitter and get their helpful auto-generated Twitter Trouble shooting email. My problem is not there. =( Hope FriendFeed does not get that blaise about helping users. @EV - SashaKane

If FB can't keep the service running, would you consider open-sourcing the thing, so we can? - Christopher Galtenberg from iPhone

Hi Paul, thanks for the assurances. In the future, I would highly suggest that you make this sort of statement shortly after the initial merger release. Thanks again. - Alex Scoble

Thanks for keeping the passion! - Shane

Nice to hear Paul. Thanks. - Mark Krynsky

I would like to give you a hug right now Paul. However, that would be awkward and April might beat me up so I will just say thank you and press the like button. - EricaJoy

Best news I have heard today. - Angus Burton

Thank you for affirming that. Much appreciated. - Karoli

A few more points that would be nice to have addressed soon. Ability to export data, tool to import friends to Facebook, and will ff.im urls continue to function? - Mark Krynsky

Amelioration?? - heretic_twit

Those that like friendfeed as is should be most pleased with this statement, as it probably means maintenance to keep the current system as is, without as much attention to new features. It's also good news for all those who like both friendfeed and facebook, as facebook will likely adopt the better features from friendfeed - Ivan Kirigin

That means an awful lot to me. - James (!?)

This has been quite a day! Can't wait to hear what is next! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Thank you, Paul. Thank you for coming out from behind the curtain and finally giving us some communication, some semblance of hope. - Akiva Moskovitz

Thanks, Paul. - Glen Mistletoe

So we can expect a Facebook adaption of this? I like this technology over everyone else! - Shaggy Jenkins

Eric, my schedule is still a little uncertain at the moment, but I'd be glad to appear on a future FFundercats. - Paul Buchheit

That would be a good thing Paul. Thanks. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Cool :) - Susan Beebe from iPhone

I like this. - ashish from iPhone

Thanks for making FriendFeed what it is, and lets hope it stays that way, though there's slim chance of that - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Now that I think about it: are you kidding me? They've already stated that FriendFeed's going to be absorbed into Facebook. What kind of sleight-of-hand are you trying to pull now, Paul? - Akiva Moskovitz

@EricaJoy: I have nothing against hugs. :) - April Buchheit

Thanks! - Vincenzo Piromalli

Thanks, Paul. I've been getting more and more depressed thinking about the bad ways this could go. The reassurances help a bit, at least. In fact, just hearing you speak on the point is encouraging - the open lines of communication between the FriendFeed team and its users has always been one of the great things about FriendFeed that I'm afraid will be lost with the Facebook buyout. And yes, a FFundercats appearance would be a great idea. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

I don't want to read too much into this reassurance but the "personal best" remark made me think like there is not a united FF anymore and that it's up to your personal efforts to prevent it from being eaten by FB :) - Turker Keskinpala

you can sell the tech but the community can not be bought sold transferred or merged - Robert Higgins from f2p

Turker, I do believe that this deal was the right decision -- I'll write a bit more about that when I get a chance. I say that I'll do my "personal best" because I will -- it would be misleading to make promises on other's behalf :) - Paul Buchheit

Hoping so... practicing patience - Majento

Paul: I'm hopeful that this will be the best for both Facebook and Friendfeed. What you and the staff at FF have done is amazing, with only 12 people! I love the service here. I also enjoy Facebook (one I ignore all quizzes and stupid apps), but in a different way. Hoping some coolness can be brought to both. Good luck to you and your team! - Travis B. Hartwell

this echoes star wars galaxies, incredible unique community. but they upgraded it to be like world of warcraft. this is a replay of the devs soothing messages. the forums were livid the community evaporated. - Robert Higgins from f2p

When socialmedian was acquired by Xing they left it alone. I hope the same happens here. I'm sure you will do your best though! - Michael Fidler

http://friendfeed.com/akiva... - Akiva Moskovitz

On behalf of the Dutch citizens our Queen wants to let you know: Thx Paul. - Ton Zijp

Don't know what to say, so lets start with big congrats! from one hand, as an early member of Friendfeed I think we've created here a very cool, collaborative and tech-savvy/passionate community of great people that all probably wish to stick around as much as possible. From the other hand, I know how corporates work and it takes one small decision of share holders to close Friendfeed... more... - Nir Ben Yona

My first reaction is disappointment. I don't believe big corporations do better than small ones. Facebook is inferior to FriendFeed, although it's user base is much larger. Clearly FriendFeed won't survive in the long term, unless it is open sourced. Why not open up and embrace the wonders of the GPL instead of joining forces with the Walled Garden no #1? Facebook don't even operate with permalinks,. - Morten Blaabjerg

Thanks for the explanation Paul. Of course, I congratulate you guys. I think anyone would do the same thing if they were in your shoes :) - Turker Keskinpala

Very bittersweet clicking [Like] on this one. - Nicholas Kreidberg

A big congrats for you guys.. However, I feel kind of sorrow :) - Ozkan Altuner

good to hear - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Thank you - but I would very much like our content to stay intact. :) - Mona Nomura

Of course it is, Ryo. - Christopher A Carr

Ryo: if you delete your account everything goes away. I totally disagree with you about Facebook, but that's OK. - Robert Scoble

Good to hear. Unfortunately I think Facebook are going to download the brains of all FriendFeed staff then kill FF. - Michael McGimpsey

but Paul it is going to disappear - Facebook bought FF not for the site but for you guys. So obviously once its integrated into Facebook, development on FF will stop - Anthony Feint

If FriendFeed and all of it's functionality get integrated into Facebook I'm all for it. - Hugh Isaacs II

Thank you Paul! Congrats on the deal! - Garin Kilpatrick

Paul - that's great news. It surely can't cost a lot to keep this place running and it's a good place to try out ideas before they move to FB. - Martin Bryant

what about improving the product and making sure it gets more users, not only supports those who stay? - Ihar Mahaniok

Ihar - unlikely. Facebook bought FF for the developer talent, not for FriendFeed itself. - Martin Bryant from iPhone

Why should we believe this? I'm not going to hold my breath. - Mark Wilson

Martin - I also think so, and it is most likely. But I could still have a hope - Ihar Mahaniok

Paul, please - underpromise & overdeliver...they say it works. - A.T.

Nice to hear. Too bad you don't call the shots anymore. - jcunwired

FriendFeed is Dead! Long Live FriendFeed! (nice name for Facebook skunkworks) I'm sure everyone would love to see FriendFeed itself stay around, even if the innovations that happen are geared towards implementation at Facebook. Thanks for this note Paul! :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

There are a few promises and guarantees that you SHOULD be able to provide. Like, that our network of friends will remain intact and that the features that make this site great will remain. If you can't make those promises, then you shouldn't have done the deal. I sure do hope that the real-time search engine wasn't the centerpiece of this deal (it probably was), because that certainly... more... - Brad Williamson

Paul you did such a nice job with friendfeed, and I so want to believe you, but I'm not sure I can. Not because of you, but because of your new employer. Because your new employer is no longer you, and while I have kind of come to trust you, I do not trust your new boss. Not at all. Please prove me wrong, if they'll let you. - Jim Hearts FF

Paul - thanks for that reassurance. PLEASE stick to that! I was in the middle of reading and participating in a lengthy discussion off of a Robert Scoble post yesterday ... then I came up for air and saw your news. Congratulations - I have no idea what that feels like or how pumped you must be. There are so many things FF does that I LOVE...I know you know that. Please Please PLease dont' go away! Thanks! - Tobin Truog

Thank you, I think everyone here loves Friendfeed. :) - Hunt from BuddyFeed

Thanks for the personal note Paul. - Mike Reynolds

Phewww..relief ;-) - Ritu

This is nice to hear, and I really hope that FriendFeed will keep on living. I still have some pain in my stomach because of this :/ - Patrik Johansson

First zombie/mafia request and we're all outta here.... - Fossil Huntress

+1 Fossil Huntress The partitioning of the networks between friendfeed and facebook was a major feature that many people made use of, lacking appropriate controls for who sees what. Merging the two groups of friends isn't going to work, at all. - Mr. Gunn

It doesn't sound like you understand what has people worried. I wrote this to help: http://friendfeed.com/brlewis... - Bruce Lewis

And we'll appreciate this man! Try to do your best to help FF :( - FFTornado

Maybe Bruce analysis is too imaginary, but the question is THE question nobody answered: why did you do it, Paul? - Luca Sofri

I left a response on Bruce's entry (http://friendfeed.com/brlewis...). I'll write more about this on my blog when I get some free time. - Paul Buchheit

Thanks. - Bonnie Foster

we all know what needs to happen. the question is, where? ... FB needs, - apart from being/it is, a large, general, open application platform, - 1. Smart keyboard shortkatze - and Im a kbsCzar to go to, 2. Aggregating facilities, smart /RSS/ .. 3. Full blogging facilities, capabilities, not 140 chars. 4. Full real time comments facilities, capabilities. 5. Real time, live, but ALSO... more... - Petr Buben

I hope you're being open and honest with us. This time. :( - Kamilah Gill

Good to know , we´ll see :) - Yahya

Thank you! I am sure you will do great things at FB. I just hope that the great app you built here isn't destroyed. I don't know of any other aggregation app that I can embed into my site like this one! - beersage

Congratulations on your successes, best wishes for more. And thanks for continuing to look out for us loyal, addicted FFanatics! - Rob Schieber

I hope it continues, i'm a new user and absolutely love it (wish i knew the value of it before)! Congrats! - Luis D. Santos

As nice as it sounds I'm sorry to say that as a, now, Facebook's employee I'm afraid you'll have to comply to whatever your new boss tells you. Didn't MZ make it clear? - lelapin

and let me add second, obvious, "Facebook needs" - Friendfeed bookmarklet, and Friendfeed tools - widgets, embedding - real time and not - of posts, and groups ...to embedd, to inject oneself into this thing called Internet ..... so, if FB listens to FF engineering long enough, they are going to get it .. right - Petr Buben

Paul, what I am worried is not that you're brainwashed, but that there's simply no business need for Facebook to improve FriendFeed from now on, period. - Ihar Mahaniok

I have confidence Paul. While some of the comments were probably uncalled for, covering an investment (of time and money) in these times to move on and hopefully provide even 'better stuff' makes sense to me. It's pretty obvious there are a LOT of people that don't want to 'lose' Friendfeed. (I wouldn't hold a town hall for a few weeks though :) - Charlie Anzman

Congrats, Paul. It's sad that people have to make these uncalled for hatred comments about Facebook though. Why can't both sites work together. I think Facebook will do better with FF and vise versa. Take the good features of both services. Don't boycott FB, enjoy it. I'm sick of the negative comments going on, that's all. :( - Mol, Santa Claws

Molly: What makes you think there's going to be a "vise versa?" - Christopher A Carr

Because I don't think Paul and the other FF developers would allow FB to do anything. I'm sorry, I am not going to think negative here like some here are. I guess I'm a fangirl for FB. - Mol, Santa Claws

Finally something about the changes on the horizon that isn't all d0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0om and whining. Thank you, Paul! :D - Christian (Simply X)

The time to think about how you could do your 'personal best' to ensure FriendFeed continues to exist was prior to the discussions with Facebook. Not after. - Andy C

Paul, what about the content scam that FB T&C is, does it apply to Friendfeed now? Should we all start writing scripts to retroactively delete all content ever uploaded to Friendfeed? Elaborated a bit here - http://friendfeed.com/mbravo... - Michael Bravo

We know you'll try your best, Paul. But sometimes, you just can't win the dark side... - Winston Teo

Thanks Paul for all your efforts. Founders often want the best, but acquiring companies often have people with political/power issues or different/limited visions. - Mitchell Tsai

*throws a sheep at Paul* is that a good thing? - joe is... from iPod

Yeahhhhhhh BOoooiiiiiiiii!!!!!!! - sofarsoShawn

yes, thank you, Sergeant Paul ... well, good to hear we go on ... because if not, how about starting www.anotherFeed.com ... or, www.Letsgofeed.com ...... anyway, lets boost blogging capabilities, post more than current amount of chars, lets have TOP POSTS / clicks count list at the head of each group, some stats, lets index group headers, lets have MORE keyboard shortcuts .. - now ...... more... - Petr Buben

Gabor Cselle

Dear Facebook, Please Let Me Reply to Your Message Notifications - http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog...

August 11 from Gabor hits Send - Comment - Like - Share

Lizunlong, Darren Heydon, Peter Renshaw and 8 other people liked this

I agree. - Paul Buchheit

Today I discovered you can reply via text if you have setup text notifications. - Benjamin Golub

Tim O'Reilly

The Web Way vs. The Wave Way. Why @anildash doesn't think Google Wave will catch on, despite its advantages http://dashes.com/anil...

August 7 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

innit4theminute, Thaths, Konrad Förstner and 3 other people liked this

Paul Buchheit

Pregnant woman tased at baptism - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

August 8 from YouTube favorites - Comment - Like - Share

Anette Hagen, durbin, Robert Konigsberg and 12 other people liked this

It's time to take tasers away from the police. It seems that tasers have become the solution to every problem, big or small. - Matthew Gifford

5 more comments

craziness! - Rachel Lea Fox

That's just awful. - Kevin Winn

Interesting. A person can now be charged for *public* drunkenness in their own home. - EricaJoy

I don't want to make assumptions about exactly what happened, but it does seem noteworthy that all of the charges against this couple are of the sort that can't be easily disproven. Public drunkenness in his own backyard? Do they have a BAC measurement to prove that? Assaulting an officer? When her husband's just been tased three times *in your own yard*, *in front of your children*,... more... - Joel Webber

Just to be clear: I have had a number of friends who were cops, or who had family members who were, and I have the utmost respect for the very difficult job they do. I just expect them to be reasonable to the people in their communities, and not tase-happy. A little respect on both sides of the equation would go a long way. - Joel Webber

Tasers are supposed to be an alternative to lethal force, not an alternative to regular police work. - Gabe

Ryan Block

Why do I always feel so incredibly dirty and wrong after visiting GoDaddy? How can such a huge site be so shady?

August 3 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Bruce Lewis, Josh Wilkins, Matthew Gifford and 2 other people liked this

I am glad to hear I am not the only one that feels like that... - Charles

2 more comments

It's the internet equivalent of going to Hooters. You go there all innocently looking for a new domain name and before you know it Danica Patrick rips open her jumpsuit and starts smacking you around with her breasts. - Chip Ramsey

I refuse to buy anything from GoDaddy for these very reasons. - The Other Drummer

It was a very good day when I moved all my domains off of godaddy. I put them on DreamHost for $10 a year with private hosting. No extra fees, no problems. - Josh Wilkins

Matthew Gifford › Likes