Going to do a post on this redesign, good eyes those guys have over the road in LDN :-) - Matt Harwood
Personally I'm not a fan. Prefer the old one. - Mo Kargas
I love the new design. The old one was the main reason why I didn't visit the website frequently. - Oli Kenobi via FriendFeed MT Plugin
I love the new design as well. I think it works great and I will definitely be spending more time there. - Nick Munson
I would say the old design was way better. The song that comes to mind is :
Jet - Look what you've done :)
There are probably a few good things about it, like I liked the bigger thumbnails of artists in the library section and few other minor changes.
But overall, probably the old design was more soothing to the eye. They should atleast get rid of the shocking red color of the header! - Ankit Ahuja via FriendFeed MT Plugin
Probably this explains why more and more people choose online videos and maybe that's the reason for Seesmic to be created at first place? - Svetlana Gladkova
We still fill in the gaps with assumptions on what the missing communication was intended to be, but sadly this is built on personalised, localised bias and expectations. Online video helps, but all visual feedback is based on internal communication, rather than communication with the third party (the video watcher). Maybe I should put that in an easier to understand blog post...? :-) - Matt Harwood
Svetlana-Interesting observation on video services. I've used them but largely ignor. Do like the video mail and use of video that has some purpose rather than random chatter with camera running. Many of those are just as easily served by audio. - Mark Forman
Mark: I think I am a wrong type of communicator myself since I seem to do perfectly fine without body language - I guess this is why I hate (and almost never use) video services myself. - Svetlana Gladkova via twhirl
Yeah, 3rd party apps can't run in the background but some Apple ones (such as the iPod app) can! - Martin Bryant
Can those notes sync to your desktop now? (MobileMe maybe)? - Soulhuntre via twhirl
I haven't tried it but Mobile Me has a Notes sync option under System Preferences, so looks like it! - Martin Bryant
This is great to know - at the moment I use a Palm Tungsten for this - and it's surprisingly good at it. It was the one useful purpose I still carry it for. - Jonathan Beckett
of course I still have to wait until September when my contract runs out before buying an iPhone... - Jonathan Beckett
Yes to both the mental capacity to multithread that task and the capacity of the iPhone to allow both notes and music to be played at the same time. - Charles Ju
evernote is an excellent note taking app which is available in the iphone store for free, has desktop and web clients and syncs to the cloud. This is the KILLER app for the iphone and ipod touch - Jonathan Denison
I think maybe it depends on how you are listening to the podcast? If you are listening using the iPod app (i.e. the podcast is in your library), yes, you can go back to the Home screen and launch something else and the podcast will continue to play. If you are listening to the podcast by clicking on a link to an MP3 in Safari, the podcast will play in a new Safari page, and going to the Home screen will close Safari and stop playing the podcast (at least prior to software 2.0). YMMV - Karim
I'd rather be Popular and Useful - then useful and not popular - whats the point when no-one will read it? - Nicholas James
@profitbaron: Nothing ever goes away on the Net. Use accumulates. Being useful and not popular means that sometime, somewhere, you'll help someone out. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver
Only thing that's put a smile on my face today with all this iPhone nonsense is the Godzilla one! Seriously funny... - John Samuelson
"Like Saddam, we're total bad-asses. We have missiles! Godzilla! Our soldiers are all armed with flaming holy scimitars! You will drown in rivers of your own blood! Stay away." - Chris Baskind
The idea that they only have a 75% success rate on something they deem as "an awesome display" is definitely something to be ashamed of. This is the best they can do, and it was barely a passing grade.' - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Louis, whilst I am amoungst those that value your opinion, that hypothetical, improbable does not lick the boots of the reality of shameful journalistic integrity, misrepresenting a nation (of people, remember), and spreading that lie as far as the eye can see. When we turn the emphasis away from the facts of what happened, we make it matter less. - Michael W. May
the neo cons control Godzilla. Watch out it is a Zionist threat - Noah David Simon
Louis: Three hitting your town would be a big deal, but none of these have enough range to reach your town... or any town in Israel, which is the larger concern. None of these are Shahabs http://tinyurl.com/6ch6pg. - Steve Lynch
always remember that close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons. - Nathan Eckenrode
2.0 software reportedly goes live at noon Pacific time to accommodate those
people in other parts of the world who live inthe mysterious future. - Kevin Fox via mail2ff
Looking forward to having your iPhone bricked AGAIN? - Mark Novak
Amazingly it took less than 3 minutes from posting that last comment to, indeed, bricking my iPhone. IPhone is now in recovery mode. This is inauspicious. - Kevin Fox
When do we get iPod Touch 2.0 firmware?! I'm sitting here in AGONY! - Matt Harwood
SWEET! I've been thinking about doing some custom stuff with my Moleskines. This is just the ticket! - Harvey Simmons
I wanted my moleskine to have more of an old look so I took it outside and threw it around, stomped on it, threw it against the wall and now it looks awesome. Lost a couple pages in the process but man the thing is durable. - Michael Narciso
@Shawn: durable, archival quality paper, pocket in the back, tons of styles to choose from (i prefer reporter style), hackable, cool history (Bruce Chatwin used nothing but moleskines)...i'm sure there's more reasons... - Trent Olson
this is something that I just realized that I would really really like to have - along with a pen that wouldn't keep disappearing :) - Steven Hodson
I didn't have a moleskine, but had something similar that I was using as my notetaker...but kept losing the pen, or leaving it at home or in the office when I was out and about the building....Got a PDA instead, it seems to work for me.... - the_IT_factor via twhirl
"Violet is a UML editor with these benefits:
Very easy to learn and use. Draws nice-looking diagrams. Completely free. Cross-platform. Violet is intended for developers, students, teachers, and authors who need to produce simple UML diagrams quickly" - Jason Wehmhoener
I've never seen the real-world utility of UML diagrams. They seem to be written up, then promptly abandoned as soon as development begins. Perhaps they're useful for designers to get their head around the design? - Brent Newhall
Brent, yes and you could say the same about many design documents. - Jason Wehmhoener
I've used it for teaching during a couple of years. This version seems more user-friendly than the older ones. - Henrik Johansson
If you don't want to make design documents, then don't. It really bugs me when people confuse technology with religion. - Jason Wehmhoener
jason: very much like your "bugs me when people confuse technology with religion" - same w/ me (i call myself a technology agnostic fwiw) - anyway violet looks cool thanks... - mike "glemak" dunn
I have the Mahalo toolbar installed and with every update, more and more Mahalo shows up in the main content area. I've never noticed that right hand sidebar before the most recent update. - Eric Rice
Last time I tried the Mahalo bar, invading Google results was an option I could set. - Robert H
Have not seen it yet, but I would love to read it. - Roland Hesz
They have but they made a really bad impression with the publishers they met with so no one would agree to print the book, they were going to print it themselves but they pissed off the distributors and buyers for major book stores so no one would carry it, they were going to just throw it online as an e-book but every time they had the slightest glitch with their isp or blog host they were so offensive to the customer service reps that their access was shut off. - Marco
This discussion came up re: Metaplace also. I very much want to be a good scripter/programmer so that my designs can find their intended use. The problem is that I've spent many years developing an art skillset, and it's hard to muster the will to start on a programming one. - sergiooo (droffset)
@sergiooooo: Opposite of your problem here :( - Yuvi
True, but unfortunate. I prefer specialization to generalization; the quality of work is usually better. - Shey
I agree with Shey. I tend to design interfaces and front-ends, and leave the programmer heads to do what needs to be done. Only possible in few situations though.. - Matt Harwood
Well, I assume that it's better if a designer has atleast some programming skills and vice versa? (I don't know, I'm not yet out in the real world) - Yuvi
Think this came up on another thread. But I'm with Shey, given the option, I like specialization. Design and coding are two completely different skillsets, no overlap. I'd prefer a designer who understood limitations of dev, but wasn't proficient in it and spent all their time honing their design skillz. On, the other hand, many places don't get the luxury of having two folks, in which case combining the two equally is a huge boon (as opposed to having someone good at one and terrible at the other). - felix
designers who know coding produce some of the worst code out there.. but programmers who have a flair for designing produce great stuff.. - Azeem
Azeem, I think it can go both ways. I've seen some horrible horrible design from programmers. - Shey
shey - yes thats why i said 'programmers who have a flair for designing'.. but designers usually dont understand the need to have tidy code.. so they go for things like table formatting or WYSIWYG editors.. - Azeem
That's such an unfair characterization, don't you think? Wouldn't it be fair to say that a "programmer with a flair for design" might just be a Designer with a flair for programming? - Shey
A major premise of "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper (2004) is that programmers generally do a poor job of graphical/layout design. - Fred Yankowski
im not being unfair with designers... a programmer with a flair for designing is a guy who has lotsa experiece in programming and can design fairly well.. a designer by my definition is a professional who do designing... Designing things in computers especially things that need coding like HTML/CSS require fairly good understanding of it... A Designer who spent his entire life designing is less likely to produce a better coded design... - Azeem
I disagree. Programming is something that can be learned and yes, innately some are better than others. But with design - you either have "it" or you don't. Other designers can attest to that. - Shey
Shey - im talking about better coded designs.. if a designer who knows both coding and designing produces a template and if another designer designs a page layout and asks a programmer to code it for him.. then the later would obviously be the better in terms of code.. which is why i supported specialization.. - Azeem
@Shey - I'm not sure that you can "learn" programming unlike Design. Just like Design, you either "get" it when you first come across it, or you don't. I have a source(links here: http://www.codinghorror.com/bl...). - Yuvi
Azeem: we are talking about interaction designers (ie UI designers), right? The comment sounds more like comparing Designers as in the can-produce-UML-docs-but-no-code designers. - Yuvi
Any "designer" who cannot design for the intended use is a failure in my mind. It seems like the occupation "designer" in the context used here is someone skilled in visual presentation on paper using a computer based tool. For many "designers" that is the extent of their skill -- and that makes them flawed. I run into these people often -- they are often stuck in the past -- and assume that making things look good in Illustrator or on a static printed page is where design ends. - Brian Sullivan
I think I see what your point is. It makes sense, and that very well may be true that programmers provide designs that are easier to code. But designing interfaces has many more, and frankly more important, aspects than how easy it is to code it. It's not just about making something look pretty that isn't a pain to support with HTML/CSS or with backend scripting. - Shey
@Brian: I guess that's where we need to call diff. designers diff. names. Taking a print designer and asking him/her to design for an ajaxy interactive html page is asking for trouble. - Yuvi
I think part of the problem is that everyone thinks that design is making things pretty on a screen, that given enough proficiency with photoshop anyone can do it. Being married to a designer, I know that not to be true. So much goes into a design, seemingly minor changes require much rethought of a whole page (or whatever). - felix
@brian s. - I agree with you, but to be clear, designing for the intended use does not require that they be able to actually code it - simply provide a design that reflects what the intended medium allows. Yes? - felix
i think the reason why opinions vary from person to person is because neither designers nor programmers understand how important their part of the job is.. - Azeem
felix: yes -- the designer need only design for the intended medium -- coding skill is not a requirement. - Brian Sullivan
Looks pretty damn good to me, Stefan. Although, I must warn you, I know nothing of code, nor am I attempting to learn something that sounds so complex. - Les
Mark - this is completely different. The one you linked to discusses the right panel that's not a default so-to-speak. This analysis today is based on the defaults that FF is providing to 9 people. It's not the same and I don't believe in linkbaiting. - Allen Stern
This is important and should be fixed. The decision was probably made to help entice A-listers to the service, but that's no longer necessary. Thanks, Allen. - Sprague D
The real problem is these services are really lame if you have no friends. This was an attempt to fix that problem. I agree though that FF should only recommend participants on the first few screens. If you aren't participating why would FF want to feature you? - Robert Scoble
Great video -- and yea definitely not the same post. I would see this an expansion into the topic and showing the results of tracking the patterns of a new user signup experience... - Gary Bacon II
i´m just subscribed to robert - for me the other 8 people have no value in their content and i wondered all the time why they are there... but robert should be default ;) - Dieter Schwarz
Robert's point is fair. The defaults shouldn't be a random selection of users, but a few of the most dedicated participants. I look forward to seeing edythe replace Arrington. ;-) - Sprague D
Great post Allen, FF is also VERY susceptible to bots doing mass adding. I haven't really seen any one take advantage of this yet. Then again, its not easy to see a users followers/following stats. - sean percival
i only saw this as a problem if you tend to be a sheep and just subscribe because a service recommends someone vs default which to me implies they auto subscribed you when you start which they did not, i'm only subscribed to a few of these 9 folks, very similar to who i've sub'd to in other services - this seem a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill to me folks - mike "glemak" dunn
Great post. In order for FriendFeed to become mainstream they should watch this video! Otherwise FF will risk being a web 2.0 only social network. I understand why FF is by default adding Scoble and other early adopters though...word of mouth! It's to attract the fast followers.... like us.....creating the herd effect so to speak. I would suggest that FF still have these guys as a default(maybe under the category web 2.0 thought leaders?) but add a default page based on interest areas as well. - Chris Herbert
Great job on researching. I definitely realized that FF was not nearly doing the job Facebook does when looking for friends you may know or recommendations. - Adam Helweh
This isn't cool. In my book, this is kissing up to the big guys so they'll talk about you and get you exposure. Whether they know it or not still doesn't make it okay. - Raoul Pop
@mike, if you want to know why what is presented to the "sheep" is important, check out Chris's reference to "herding". Chris, if they want to become mainstream they need to change the target of their marketing from "fast followers" to common users, who would also like the chance at building an audience. A good way to do that would be by randomly presenting dedicated users. - Sprague D
Maybe I am not getting it but I do not see the appeal in having many strangers follow you just for the sake of following you. I mean, I see Robert Scoble with 20,000+ followers but he could not know 1/10th of them even if he wanted to. Maybe I am missing something. - Paul L. McCord Jr.
I thought this might be the way for FriendFeed to gain popularity as well. Get some of the most active internet peeps on Friend Feed, make them feel that their subscribers are coming in droves, and the rest will follow. Yes, no? - Adam Helweh
Paul: I actually agree. Who is following you is not important. Who you are following is VERY important. I'm following about 3,000 people right now on FriendFeed, all hand added (I just added you for making a good point). - Robert Scoble
Raoul: when I joined FriendFeed I wasn't on the list. I moved up the list because I brought a lot of people into FriendFeed from my popular Twitter and blog. Live isn't fair sometimes. You might notice that FriendFeed is at the top of TechMeme right now and that FriendFeed is growing very rapidly. But I'm writing a blot post about the "Participation Premium." If life is unfair, why are 5,000 more people following me than Mike Arrington? After all, his blog is more popular than mine is... - Robert Scoble
But Robert, why are that many people following him at all when until recently he didn't even participate here other than posting his feeds? - Cyndy
Robert: people follow you because you follow them and pass along the conversations so others can enjoy too. Mike A. doesn't include everyone.. - LPH
Sprague: what I would do if I were FF is this: I'd have config options based on interest areas, top FriendFeeders, recommended FriendFeeders, and "randomizer" (as you suggested), and most popular FriedFeeders. - Chris Herbert
It's not the same 9 people everytime. It depends on who you subscribe to. There is a short list of prominent people on FF that get recommended, but in order for them to be recommended they have to be a contact of one of your existing contacts. The list is in alphabetical order by first name. If you don't have any contacts FF won't recommend anyone to you. - Thomas Hawk
Thomas: not true. I just signed up a new account and it recommended users to me. - Robert Scoble
cyndy: ff primarily is a very valid presence aggregater - whether someone then chooses to interact in ff via comment/like is secondary to me - mike "glemak" dunn
Thomas is referring to the "Recommended" link on the friend settings tab; Allen's video is about the sign up process. - Sprague D
It seems to me, with all the social aggregation, FriendFeed should be able to discern your interests and participation among other networks and provide an appropriate set of defaults at signup. TweetStats.com can show who I most actively talk to on Twitter, for instance, and as one element of an algo maybe that data can provide a better cross-section of suggested followers. - Aaron Brazell
You may be interested in a little personal research I've done to find out the social weight of FF users and the number of followers: http://user21.com/2008/07/04/f... - atzmon
I'd call these defaults an excellent marketing campaign from FF's standpoint. Those default FF users pretty much represent the same echo-chamber 'attractors' in the technology/web space. I think it's a little disingenuous when you ask how those people became popular FF users. It's obviously a well calculated way to market to the major technology attractors; or was that comment meant to be tongue in cheek? - Jim McCusker
hmmm Robert, I signed up a new account as well and found that under the "Recommended" link it wouldn't recommend anyone to me unless I first added at least one person as a contact. - Thomas Hawk
Thomas - what I am discussing is the people you are presented with when you create a brand new account - not on the right side - Allen Stern
Thomas, check out Allen's video, it's cool. - Sprague D
@atzmon, your list ranking users by #subscribers shows (for the top 10) almost perfect correlation with the "defaults" presented to new users. If Allen needed any more proof of his thesis, there it is. - Sprague D
So........ why is it a big deal to have so many followers on FF? Is it worth it? Is it beneficial? Why is everyone trying to have so many followers? - ChaCha Fance via Alert Thingy
Why do all the interesting posts seem to happen on Sunday when I've got family things to do?! I appreciate the recommend list because I'm relatively new to all of this. Scoble and Lois Gray are a good "in" to all of the noise (good human filters). - James Hull
@James, I think Allen's original motive for posting was that there are *many* excellent "human filters" available here, but because of a marketing decision by FF, only a certain few are provided as default recommendations when new users sign up. - Sprague D
My main complaint with your video is that you printed out the pages from FriendFeed. Who uses printers anymore? Couldn't you have taken screen grabs? - Ben Kessler
I wonder if they will make the suggested changes - and if that would help people find new folks to follow. - Eric
this is the top story on Techmeme right now. - Thomas Hawk
