PREDICTION: The problem FriendFeed will have is when it will be very popular (mainstream if you want), there will be so much content that you won't be able to see eevrything. A page refresh and tons of content is published. We will for sure miss tons of good stuff.
a page shows say, 30 entries, between two refreshes, say there's 2000 new entries by friends and friends of friends... you see what I mean?
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
We need some way to lens ACROSS content, to view things based on value / ranking / medium, etc. Already there's more content in even my shallow feed than I can comfortably follow, and few of my friends even use FF.
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
I expect we'll see more than you realize. Likes and Comments keep stuff bouncing to the top until you get a chance to see it.
- Hutch Carpenter
I'm liking and commenting just to bounce ya twice. ;)
- Chrimmus Tad
Best guess is that hyper growth is already being foreseen with numerous solutions. These guys are good!
- Charlie Anzman
only if you subscribe to everybody under the sun. I'm sure scoble aleady has that problem here and on twitter
- Brett Kelly
Block and Hide aren't nearly good enough for the things I want to do when updates hit several tens per second. I, really, want things like Boolean filters of near arbitrary complexity, feedback learning, and flexible presentation ranking, just to stay sane.
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
I'm telling you guys - Lindsay totally pegged it. FF is the site that just DEMANDS an Intelligent Agent to sift through the volcanic soil to expose the rough diamonds. If the FF devs have half a brain, they have a genius or two slaving away on that right now.
- Chrimmus Tad
I agree, lots of stuff falls through the cracks through out the day. I think the 'best of' was added for this reason. I haven't really used it that much though.
- Tsega Dinka
but all the good stuff is reshared... personally my eyes are trained to scan content quickly and efficiently. it weeds out what i'm interested in and not. if all else fails, there's always the "BLOCK" or "HIDE" options...
- Mona Nomura
Resharing is data-cluttering, as I see it. I want a system that unifies references to URLs, for one. It tells me where that reference is made from (Rooms, friends, likes, whatnot), but only gives me a single thing to look out for any given referent. The actual rest of info is just useful metadata for building lenses out of.
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
You ask the wrong question with your prediction my multi-lingual friend -- the question is not whether we will see too much, but whether we will see enough? FriendFeed (with or without NoiseRiver) is an extremely good model for seeing "enough". NoiseRiver will allow the "noise lovers" to see even more :-)
- Robert Seidman
As more people join, simply being good at managing who you follow will be more important and should keep the noise down.
- Martin Bryant
Surely people like Robert Scoble are already at that level, he manages fine!
- Joe Dawson
Especially if one uses small screens and apps like twhirl to view the feed...
- Henk de Kruyff
from twhirl
We'll just need a CloseFriendFinder app to sit on top of FriendFinder
- Craig Thomler
I don't see the problem if there is the right method to represent the contnet, in a away that the fruition of it by the user would be easier...
- Edoardo Piccolotto
from twhirl
Yes. There is the potential for much more clutter here than twitter, for example. FF needs enhanced filtering tools.
- Ian Fogg
It's already happening for me. Need tags. Plus likes and comments only go so far. What if I like stuff only a few others like? How do I find that?
- Larry Huffman
if more of my friends were on FF I wouldn't be subscribed to so many people I don't know
- Samuel Bostock
the average user isn't going to be subscribed to that many people. and the mainstream will be much less "active" in terms of generating content than the hardcore early adopters. In short, I don't buy the argument.
- Jamie
The average user doesn't use the majority of features present on mobile phones. In Portugal owning a expensive phone is a status statement, but most of them could use the cheapest mobile in term of features used. With software and web services it's the same, people use just a subset of the features, and they have to be in front of them. Power users and all it's likes and dislikes are useful to test the limits of a application, but besides that are not the voice of God.
- Mário Pires
This is where the top posts of the day/week/month will come into play. I sure that someone will comment or like a post before it flits away. It does bear consideration though, put some brakes on the speed of posting perhaps?
- Mathew A. Koeneker
from fftogo
Maybe a combo of FriendFeed and Digg? people could set to only receive posts with X number of likes/comments...or based on the rep of the person posting...
- Craig Thomler
If i could create "groups" of people by subjects relevant to me perhaps it would be more manageable.
- Mário Pires
so there will be meta services (think summize). Cool. no problemo.
- john conroy
Just look at the Everyone feed. Only imagine articles with 1,000 likes (ala Digg) and 500 comments (ala slashdot). Some people may want the raw feeds, we'll need new filters/views/trails/signposts/guides/topics etc...
- Mitchell Tsai
I have the feeling that the FF staff will roll with the punches. Scalability!
- Steve Isaacs
@Robert Scoble: you WON'T be able to manage that noise. It's simply a mathematical fact. Say, you see 30 post, and between two refreshes, 20.000 entries are posted. The next page will show the last 30 of these 20.000 new entries. You will miss the entries in between. Liking or commenting from FOAF won't help. Because the flow will run... fast.
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Prescient in Twitter's case. For awhile it was so for FF too. I don't know about now however; things are slower.
- Itachi
Hi, mohomed! That's so old, how did you find it? :)
- directeur
I was looking for a post with an mp3 attached to it from awhile ago that I needed, but couldn't find it. It's some soft of new jazz from Turkey. A bald guy with blue was attached as an image holding some sort of instrument. But I stumbled across a bunch of good other old posts.
- Itachi
totally got a cool idea for new schwag... two items: for new Moms, a friend feed shirt with slots for easy feeding of infants... and for new Pops like Louis, nipple with bottle attachment inserts with one nipple coming out of the first f and the second nipple coming out of the second d... saweet!
- Rob Reed
FF schwag and twins! best picture of the day!
- Sarah Perez
Mega awesome ;) Congratulations to you and your family, like the Friendfeed t-shirt ;)
- Mario Olckers
Tiny... little... eentsy... lumps of yum. There, my estrogen has officially shown itself.
- Carla Thompson
No way - they have FF onesies??? How do I get my hands on one of those?
- Jesse Stay
The Gray family Babies!!!! Sarah and Mathew look sooo cute in your arms! and sooo tiny my goodness!!... still LOL @ Rob's wacky comment..whoa!
- Susan Beebe
Recently my cousin's head was run over by a car. This is what's left of her helmet. My cousin completely survived because of this helmet. Please think of this before riding a bike without a helmet next time!
This happened to a friend of mine at the beginning of the month. He didn't do so good in the accident, but the helmet obviously saved his life. Thankfully is on his way home tomorrow: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit...
- Steve Lacey
I used to ride my bike without the helmet even though it is mandatory in Chennai, India. But after reading this I am not even going to the next street in my bike without helmet.
- Sudar
I never wear a helmet. When hearing things like this, I always think of this article.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1.... In the Netherlands no one wears a helmet. It seems safe to me.
- Peter Stuifzand
I was hit while riding to work in summer 2006 & did not want anyone to touch my helmet at all costs. If my brain was scrambled, I did not want anyone to touch my egg:) I highly recommend a helmet especially if you think you will not need one! Mine was almost the same color too & manufacturer, but there is no conspiracy there:)
- Roney Smith
Bicyclists/motorcyclists that don't wear helmets are better called future organ donors
- Brian Sullivan
Thanks for sharing. I ride often at traffic time between cars. always wear my helmet...itsg good to know that It does work :)
- jonathan
from twhirl
Wow, glad to hear your friend is doing well after that. I agree, helmets save lives. Regardless, I've many intentional close-calls by drivers who don't want to share the road. Unfortunately, this is the common attitude where I live (southern US).
- pete
we wear helmets for everything: mtb, snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding & even surfing - skulls are fragile why not put a protective layer around it (i also try real hard to not ride on streets - a high percentage of drivers are oblivious to bike riders)...
- mike "glemak" dunn
I always ride in my helmet and stay to bike lanes as much as possible. Nice to know the safety tools work. Now, if I can just avoid that NYPD cop with a penchant for knocking people off their bikes. Hopefully, he won't transfer to LAPD.
- Jason Toney
Peter Stuifzand, my cousin would be dead if she did not wear her helmet. That article is BS. Wear your helmet!
- Jesse Stay
from twhirl
Point blank. You are a moron if you ride without a helmet. Sorry, but that's true and you're just going to play into Darwinian theory should you continue to ride without one. Any 'real' cyclist (e.g - you've been hit by a car - and yes, I have been) will tell you this without reservation. Helmets work without a doubt.
- AJ Kohn
I survived a nasty motorcycle crash in my youth and would also be dead without that helmet - which cracked in 2 like an egg (that would have been my head, as the nurse aptly put it!).
- Susan Beebe
A friend who's a cop refers to motorcycles as donorcycles whenever she sees someone riding without a helmet. I figure that applies for bicycles, too.
- ha3rvey (just a friend)
I was on the way to work Monday morning while it was raining, when the third car in front of me spun out of control and flipped twice into a ditch. When I pulled over to help her out she was just fine. She only had a scratch on her left shoulder from the broken window and was not hurt anywhere else. THE REASON: She was wearing her seat belt. It's nice to hear that these devices are actually helping us!
- David Cook
Awesome. I ride my bike to work everyday and I see a lot of people with no helmets on. I don't know how they do it.
- Clint Ecker
Wow! I wear mine! Didn't for years - I was lucky I guess. Thanks for posting that!
- matthew hunt
OMG... Jesse, do you have a link other than here on FF? I have friends whose kids refuse to wear theirs, and seeing this may help.
- Cyndy
If it's nice enough to ride, I probably won't be bothering with the human-powered bike any longer. I always wear a helmet on my gas-powered bike.
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
As long as we won't have mountains, we Dutch will not wear those things. Otherwise we won't be able to recognise the tourists on bikes.
- Ton Zijp
Thanks for sharing - I had a mishap with a car, wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, was lucky. If they don't see you, it doesn't matter either way. Wear the helmet!
- Rick Bucich
This isn't as extreme as this but when I fell off my bike onto a sidewalk and broke my arm, I thought I was fine for a while. Later, my dad noticed that the whole front of my helmet was all scratched up and the visor in front was torn off! I realized that if I wasn't wearing my helmet on the 2 minute trip down the road, I probably wouldn't be typing this comment right now! Not that I'd be dead but I would have suffered some head damage, limiting my ability to do most things.
- Kevin Lyons
Helmets for cyclists are mandatory in Australia. Still gives me the shudders when I'm travelling and see bareheaded bicyclists on the roads.
- Kate Foy
John: I remembered the flintstones' infant daughter Pebbles Flintstone after your comment. She was using a phone like this Stone, wasn't she? : )
- Erhan Erdogan
Still: the Apple Age 1976-2008. The Stone Age 3 million BC-3000 BC. Steve Jobs ain't gonna be around *that* long (barring major innovations in life prolongation that I'm sure he'd be able to afford.)
- Victor Ganata
For most situations, I prefer the iPhone. I get really bad reception with my rock.. and it's hard to check my stocks and get directions to the pizza joint with it. But it works great as a makeshift mallet for pounding tent stakes when camping! My iPhone's a little to fragile for that. At least my iPhone can double as a flashlight in a pinch!
- Jackson D. Carson
I'm sorry for this post, I wanna delete it now. :-) I had an iPhone gift and I'm very happy with my new Apple. She is really better than stone. http://friendfeed.com/e... :-)
- Erhan Erdogan
...because it has a touchscreen, right? O:-)
- Marcos Marado
not all users are equal when it comes to *anything*. As an aside, maybe FriendFeed should have a "likes" barter system so that some of us could transfer likes to Polly and Mitchell when they run out!
- Robert Seidman
As mentioned earlier today, Twitter seems to have capped your ability to follow at 2,000 people, which just so happens to be exactly where I am. The goal, in theory, is to stop marketing-oriented spammers, but it could be another way to reduce stress on the system. So what should I do now, delete "less favored" people, or wait for Twitter to figure this out?
- Louis Gray
from email
Maybe it's the legacy talking, but I'm really not bothered by this. :P
- l0ckergn0me
I can see why they do it, but it does suck for the people who do it legitimately and are not using stupid mass follow scripts.
- David Risley
I'm not super-concerned either, but it does answer why all of a sudden, I started getting these errors last week. It could be part of their "Making Progress On Spam" initiative via the blog, but it hasn't been spelled out all that clearly.
- Louis Gray
let blame this one on Scobles... :)-
- Peter Dawson
Louis, I think cap is more of the architecture the system. Making it into a more robust platform. Now watermarks have been set, it becomes easier to build consistency of experience and application behavior. <Edit > wait for Twitter to figure it out.. Marketing spammers are targeting the 'stupid' one that have the auto follow !!
- Peter Dawson
gotta like it, if I'm the one you are trying to follow!
- Ben Hedrington
I don't think there should be limits like this, but I guess everything can't be infinite
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I honestly am indifferent about it; Twitter is going to hell and i tried my best to convert it; oh well, Hell has cookies
- Gordon Swaby
I"m only following 49... with 106 followers..
- Ian May
so what do you think, Louis, is benhedrington worth going to the mat for?
- Nathan Rein
I'm sure I can find someone to unfollow in exchange for Ben.
- Louis Gray
Twitter needs to build in groups functionality a la tweetdeck for following 2K+ to even be practical.
- Nicholas Molnar
Louis: You need to convince the new people to head over here :)
- Justin Korn
I'm just curious what the rationale is for following that many people.
- Paul Rodriguez
Well, maybe that's why Louis always seems to know what's going on before anybody else.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I've noticed that most of the time I get followed by somebody with a big number, it tends to be marketing play. It triggers the email to you and then you go look and click on their bio link which takes you to the pitch. Very irritating. I always block em.
- Mark Schulz
@Paul Rodriguez, I was wondering that too. I wouldn't have even guessed there are 2000 interesting people in the world </cynicism>, but what fascinate me is that i'm following like 83 people and only about 14 of them tweet regularly. I can assume most of those 2000 do not tweet regularly. Add in the fact that I'm a WAHM to two toddlers, and do other stuff, there'd be a lot of stuff I'd miss.
- Admiral Anika
New profit center? Sorry, but now you'll have to join Twitter Pro ....
- Charlie Anzman
Very interesting. System limits is going to be a topic that we all work through in this early phase of the Social Web. It seems to me that it's reasonable to cap the number one follows to 1,000 or 2,000. On the flipside, one would clearly like to enable a very high number of followers. With respect to bi-directional connections, the real number should max at 1,000 to 2,000...
- John McCrea
This is awesome! Incidentally, Scoble (@Scobleizer) is still following over 30K.
- Vincent van Wylick
So where is the point following 30k people? You might as well hit the main timeline. The only thing that is bad about this limit is that it was not there from the beginning.
- Alexander Kohlhofer
so what's going to happen to those who follow over 2000?
- Wayne Sutton
you follow two. thousand. people.??? never mind twitter; there may be a law against that.
- jeneane sessum
I like the new limit. I cannot see how anyone would be able to legitimately follow (and pay attention to) more than 2,000 people. Frankly, even that limit seems higher than it needs to be. If it helps keep Twitter a little more stable, go for it.
- Dennis Metzcher
Couple thoughts: the limit impacts the ability to use the service as a direct message router -- for some people. It also reinforces the need for dectralized microblogging -- so if you want exceed the limits you can do so on your own infrastructure. Lastly, nothing prevents you from following everyone or a subset of people through RSS/feeds.
- Chris Messina
Are we sure that Twitter has set a 2,000 limit are or we cranking up the rumor mill? I've seen image before with respect to my own account - an account which just reached 1,000 followers today. According the Twitter rep who contacted me, I got - ahem - put in "Twitter Prison" for "Aggressive Following" My ratio of Followers to Following was kinda out of whack - at that time I had only ~800 people following me while I was following ~2,800 - They suspended my ability to follow more people. I removed 2K.
- Vincent Wright
I don't understand the motivation for following 2K people if you're not a spammer... someone explain?
- Jason Carreira
Jason: For a entrepreneur/VC/angel networker, it would be very easy to hit 2,000 contacts (assuming you used Twitter like a rolodex). From one networking meeting, I might pick up 0-100+ business cards (more at conferences), and during a heavy season I could be doing 7-10 meetings/week. As a angel, I might want to follow 5,000-10,000+ projects/people. Anyone might have a really good project 2-10+ years down the pipe... I've got cartons/boxes of 3-ring binders of business cards in plastic sheets.
- Mitchell Tsai
@Mitchell @Charlie - Rumors aside, do you think the cap is a gesture towards monetization? Going after the power networkers? Seems you would have good cause to pay for a Twitter Pro, or would it just not be worth it?
- joneilortiz
I use Twitter as both a professional development tool (following people who say useful and interesting things abt health / edtech / social media / libraries ...), a personal tool (friends and folk who are amusing), and a reference tool (following a lot of news streams and information resources). You can hit 2000 fast. A friend says that people are imagining new ways in which Twitter could be used, but Twitter seems bound and determined to force them back into some small box of how it "ought" to be.
- Patricia F. Anderson
I would happily follow more than 2000 people, heck I am almost there. And I don't need to see every message. With Tweetdeck it's manageable. I see some Friendfeed users here have thousands to tens of thousands of subscriptions, should we also say it's good to have a cap here? No, please no. I understand that perhaps it has to do with monetization or stressing the system less, these are alas viable reasons.
- Jacob
i can do that too. don't anger the access services librarian.
- Mary Carmen
are you talking about the CIA, FBI, NSA, HLS consultants trying to social engineer society a la Amerika? ;-) they have to make sure information is apple pie and chevrolet compliant. <wink>
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
I've noticed that librarians tend to have good blogs and interesting tweets.
- Dane Findley
(1) Left cluster: 119 Dance friends (1a) Bottom are West Coast (1b) Smaller top are East Coast (2) Right cluster: 77 FriendFeed friends (2a) Lower center are heavy Facebook networkers (2b) Lower-right faint ring around center are Stanford/Harvard people and 38 college/graduate-school friends (who are baaarely connected to each other, since only ~5-7% on Facebook) (3) MANY single dots, since Facebook is still early-adopter-phase for age 30+s.
- Mitchell Tsai
To me the edges of the graph are *really* interesting, to see how some friends barely connect into the graph, but they won't mean anything to most people.
- Mitchell Tsai
Mark: Can you redo yours as a "spring graph" (rather than radial)? It's easier to see the groups that way...
- Mitchell Tsai
That thing is far too interesting... I like
- xero
P.S. A feature I really like is (when logged in thru Facebook to your own Nexus) is seeing the groups my friends have in common. Great way to find new groups to join!
- Mitchell Tsai
Mo: I've got a lot of Australian friends, but it's a big country (duh). It'd be cool if Facebook allowed 2-3-4-5-6-level searches because we don't have any Facebook friends in common yet, so we're at least 2-degrees apart (aside from knowing each other through FriendFeed).
- Mitchell Tsai
I guess 2+ level searches are easy to implement, but simply take too much resources to run. I've seen it with FFSixDegrees. It's no problem to include the 3rd order network of a person, but then I would have to work through not only 500 but 20,000 contacts. Anyway, I would guess that you can reach the whole network with 4 steps.
- Benedikt Koehler
Okay, will build something like this into FFSixDegrees soon. It should work with Prefuse, I guess.
- Benedikt Koehler
@Mitchell Fascinating none the less. I generated one for my FB account, some interesting things emerge from the chaos
- Mo Kargas
Some connections into real-life from FriendFeed: (A) Mona Nomura - Alex Perlman (dance friend) (B) Pete Cashmore - Oren Etzioni (Freshman dormmate), Henri Duong (San Francisco friend) (C) Michael P. Williams - Heidi Roizen (former VC, now starting music company), (D) Chris Brogan - Jonathan Askin (college dormmate, now internet lawyer in NYC) (E) Lots of people - Guy Kawasaki (VC)
- Mitchell Tsai
Nice find, Mitch :) Funny how I'm sort of connected to one of your friends LOL
- Mona Nomura
[Mon 8/4/08 1:24 pm EDT 7:25 pm CEST-German time] Benedikt: I just regenerated my diagram with your link. Sorry I forgot to do that before I went to sleep last night. You can trace your connections on my Nexus now (through Timo Heuer, Mike Fruchter, and Susan Beebe). I like tracing the 2-3-4-5-6 level connections of people through the different areas of the network. Love to see a Nexus-like thing for FriendFeed. Maybe you can talk with the Nexus people to share code?
- Mitchell Tsai
There are a lot of unexpected connections between my friends on Facebook & LinkedIn. Many surprises! Mona: How did you meet Alex Perlman? Do you guys know each other in person, or via Internet? Chances are we have more friends in common...they're just not on Facebook. Only 5-7% of my real-life friends are on Facebook.
- Mitchell Tsai
@Mitchell: Nexus is great, I have something quite similar in mind. But there is a difference between the 2-3-4-5-6 level connections in this graph and the "true" 2-3-4-5-6 degree connections as in the 6 degrees thesis. In the first case the network consists of the actual links between your FB contacts. In the second case, the shortest links between people would be calculated using all FB users. In the nexus, say, Benjamin Golub and Alex Perlman are 3 nodes apart. Using all FB the distance would be less.
- Benedikt Koehler
Benedikt: Good observation about the distances. Real-world connections would be even more different. Two communities show up very strongly interconnected in my Facebook (dance & FriendFeed), but they also are heavy social networking groups. My family/relatives are light social networkers, so you don't see a dense concentration of relatives (I have ~60 1st cousins, 26 aunts/uncles, etc...),
- Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell - Just re-visited this. Totally awesome!
- Charlie Anzman
Mitchell - Michelle Greer is active in the Austin social media scene, and is friends with a couple of nexus people in California. Lynn Bender runs geekaustin.org and does a bunch of meetups and mixers every year. The group in the upper right are all ex-Dell folks I met when ramping the call center in Edmonton, AB, Canada
- Phil G
Thanks Philip. It's cool to see who knows who in this world...
- Mitchell Tsai
Mark Wilson's thread about “Everyone on FriendFeed is adding one another to Facebook today. What the hell is going on?” (20 likes, 36 comments) http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Mitchell Tsai
Awesome, AJ. I wrote about that this was coming http://friendfeed.com/e... - just didn't know how speedy (today's theme on FF) it would be. Kudos!
- Micah Wittman
Very nice. I changed the fonts back, but this is way nicer.
- Ted Roden
AJ: Thank you. This make the widescreen monitor I have dedicated to FF a whole lot more efficient.
- Ken Sheppardson
@ajbatac Thanks. I love it. I hope they uptake any of these designs. They really kill the default beta. Thanks again. A minor tweak is needed for the blue user bar for beta. Go to any user and notice the link text is too dark on the background. .subscribebar just needs to be lightened.
- ·[▪_▪]·
awesome using it now, so much fresher
- Kyle Weller
@ajbatac here's a challenge for you :) in this widescreen version, move images to the right so that the post text and comments float to the left of them. I'm not sure i'll actually like that but i'd like to see how it looks (and i'm too lazy to play around with it myself any more :) but I'm thinking it'll help space the post better. Also, WRT to the ".subscribebar", i added the class to the ".bar" class and it made it light and nicely consistent with the other headers. Just another option. Thanks again.
- ·[▪_▪]·
this looks 10x better than the beta ui, according to most people that tried this so far
- Kyle Weller
No, sorry, it only moves filters and subscriptions even farther to the right.and makes the text look very tiny and lost.
- Rebecca
w000t good job, you did very well. For Cea, use Greasemetal and use AJ's .js file and put it into the userjs folder created by greasemetal, you'll be running it in no time.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Sexy blue and yellow, sexy fonts, how can we describe digital love for a service's JS redesign? Oh yeah, *virtually hugs AJ*. Is that Myriad Web btw?
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
lovely what a little moz-radius can do ;)
- Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕
AJ, thanks. That's better. I really like your use of highlights in the comments. On the other hand, I prefer having a grey (or other) background rather than all white. It helps my eyes figure out where they're supposed to be.
- Rebecca
Fuck yes! Greasemonkey scripts for the win!
- Corvida
Might be able to be tweaked but check this out when added to this style: .media{float:right;} //(note: i haven't tested it on the narrow style. I suspect it'll be horrible. I have wide screen monitors)
- ·[▪_▪]·
Cleaner FriendFeed Small Update (04/24/2009): -- search term highlighted with light teal green (As suggested by Kol Tregaskes. Thanks Kol!)
- AJ Batac
CleanerFriendFeed? The whole concept is built on a fallacy that the wider the text column, the easier it will be to read it. Wonder if you've ever heard of saccadic eye motion, i.e. the very mechanism by which we, representatives of genus Homo Sapiens, scan and acquire text in 50-to-60-something character chunks, "saccades." Having to scan across entire wide monitor actually lowers comprehension and the reading rate. The narrow main text column in the Beta release is actually close to perfection.
- ianf ⌘
Ianf ⌘ Not everybody who has good reading comprehension reads this way. And with respect, I've read of too many scientific studies that will refute themselves the next year, several years later or not even that long. But I appreciate the group who can read in this manner.
- Melanie Reed
Thank you, AJ for your hard work. I do like this quite a bit!
- Melanie Reed
Thank you, Ianf ⌘, for pointing me to this meme in your comment to me. I appreciate it! And I have installed it. :)
- Melanie Reed
And yes, like many of the others, I have a bigger monitor and this fills the screen quite nicely, again, many thanks to AJ! I agree with Susan Beebe that the blue, pink and yellow highlighters are very useful. Such an easy install. Very painless.
- Melanie Reed
This is a dollar bill taped to the floor of FriendFeed's headquarters. It's a bit of social engineering. They figured out it kept people from tripping on the cord cover because people noticed the money on the floor.
- Robert Scoble
The dollar bill trick doesn’t work with strippers though ;)
- Moved to Facebook
@Earl: Consider it a stripper-filter, then. You know someone's a stripper if they trip over it.
- April Buchheit
for some reason i expect a "stripper filter" to be something coded using regular expressions. sad, i know.
- Karim
The message here is that Web 2.0 companies are so ignorant of money and revenue that they even step over a dollar on the floor
- Jason Carreira
from twhirl
Interesting. The photo has been viewed more than 500 times, but has only earned 62 likes and 19 comments. So, for every 1 thing we can see here there's another 9 people hanging out lurking in the shadows.
- Robert Scoble
@Scoble the old 90-9-1 rule :) (well almost)
- Naor Mark
You could always just superglue some road kill to those things. Nothing gets people's attention more than a dead opossum.
- Andrew Leyden
Heath And Safety in the UK would not approve....but I do!
- Toby Graham
"but has only earned 62 likes". This currently stands as the most-liked Flickr photo of all time.
- Raphael, Raphael
I forgot about that photo. It does work, though. Everytime I visit friendfeed's offices I see the dollar and I'm careful not to trip over it. :-)
- Robert Scoble
That's dumb. Why couldn't they afford to run the cord somewhere where it wouldn't be in the way in the first place?
- Robert Peña
As an IE I can state that's definitely not something to publicize. Definitely not OSHA Kosher.
- Adi
Reminds me of the deli counter in grocery store in Scotts Valley across the street from NorCal offices of MetaCreations (the Fractal Design arm of it). Local companies'd go there for lunch daily. PROBLEM: Deli counter pencils (for marking your sandwich menu) disappeared at frightful rate. SOLUTION: Deli affixed pencils with price label. Price: $100.00. Pencils stayed at store. :)
- Susan A. Kitchens
Haha I like that trick for keeping Pens from going missing Susan!
- Garin Kilpatrick
Okay, so it’s not really a blueberry cheesecake but I didn’t know what else to call it J. It does have some delicious blueberry pie filling on it though. This is the cheesecake that I made this year for Thanksgiving. After all, what could be better for Thanksgiving dessert than a cheesecake? It was so good and it absolutely got devoured in no time. The highlight of this cheesecake is the crust. The crust is a combination of vanilla wafers and 3 different types of nuts – almonds, walnuts and pecans. A great way to make the crush is to crush all of the ingredients with a rolling pin. I feel the addition of lemon juice in the filling makes a huge difference in the overall flavor, and a little vanilla doesn’t hurt either. If you are looking for a delicious cheesecake recipe give this one a try. You don’t be disappointed. Enjoy.
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
from Bookmarklet
these pictures that you share always make me hungryyyyyyyyyyyyy , now I'm dieing of hunger and I don't want anything except this cake :D :(((((((((((((((((
- Viva Vida
Vida: You are young. you have many wishes. please don't die. i promise send you this cake. :D
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
Mahdi :D but you are killing me with these pictures :D I can't I should go :)))))))))))
- Viva Vida
But who actually uses Twitter on the web, Robert? Everyone I know uses tweetdeck
- Alec Saunders
I use the Twitter web site often, as a complement to twitter clients both desktop and mobile.
- Odi Kosmatos
Alec, i do. Why? I hate tiny EXEs taking up memory that my IDE needs
- Vivek Puri
Twitter is like Friendfeed with all your friends instead of just a few...
- Stephen Foskett
FriendFeed is like Facebook without the Apps
- Eli Juicy Jones
that's exactly why twitter is useful... it focuses on one thing and one thing alone, a 140 char message... that's why sms's succeed where multimedia messages fail!
- simran
from twhirl
Is there a way to collapse the comments once you've opened them?
- Pete Smith
simran, mms might have failed cause all phones are not mms compatible
- Vivek Puri
LOL! the way I tend to use twitter, it's nothing BUT comments and likes.. just not any good threading unless you have peoplebrowsr (and even then)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
It's not paused because Tweetdeck, etc. can refresh automatically. It has RTs instead of likes. I agree a client needs to implement inline YouTube/Flickr/etc. but these are client issues. FriendFeed client may be superior to Twitter's web client but there are other Twitter clients out there.
- Aral Balkan
Ooh, that said you can *edit* your stuff... oooh, now that I like :)
- Aral Balkan
no one uses the twitter website Robert. I actually like having a second client open to monitor things but that's me
- Seth Goldstein
Twitter doesn't have like but it has a favourite option. If spreading the word is the objective there is always an RT =D By the way, I have been using twitter website more since the new design rolled out.. feel snappier than before esp. when shuttling betw @mentions and home
- | Balu |
We're definitely intrigued by the convergence of the Friendfeed and Twitter (and new Facebook) UIs and the implications for usability and user conventions. First thoughts here: http://bit.ly/4muyzM
- CDG Interactive
@vivek, all phones did not introduce mms capability because the takup rate was abysmal! not all phones were SMS enabled when SMS came out!
- simran
@simran, SMS was made part of the GSM standard 24 years back. And current use of SMS is not what it was intended for. For more, you always have wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Vivek Puri
I am thinking that if know one uses the Twitter web interface then it's going to be a tough monetization unless they start charging a licensing fee for the API.
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
But honestly...does it even really matter? After all having the best product has next to nothing to do with whether or not you have a dominant product in terms of marketshare.
- Devlin Dunsmore
I hope FriendFeed is not trying to be the next Twitter/Facebook and stays aware of it's core-feature which was (imho) a quick & dirty way of getting good discussions running.. I don't need real time updates of everything.. HEEEEEELP!
- Dan van Moll
looooooooooooooooooool Everyone is freaking out without toying with the lists I think!!! haha This is a funny day online.
- Aaron S
I wish Friendfeed had a "dislike" button too. (Not for this post, but others...)
- Kevin Trotman
Yeah, seriously using the Twitter website for Twitter is like driving a car out of the factory with just wheels bolted to the engine, nothing else. The API is there but you're only getting the bare magic without the proper experience.
- Glenn Batuyong
But, I keep going back to the twitter web interface. It's a matter of critical mass of something something.
- Mike Nayyar
@vivek ... case in point... people transform technologies to be useful... they have done so with twitter, they will do so with ff... being part of the GSM spec means nothing... handsets had to support it and support for it grew after a lont time and bitwise... look at the practical uses, not theoretical papers, if you want to understand trending (as opposed to "possibility").
- simran
Stella McCartney was inspired to create Lucky Spot as a response to the beauty of Belsay Castle with it’s medieval architecture and mystical quarry garden. According to Belsay Castle officials, “she wanted to create something magical, romantic and visually stunning. She designed a jewelled curtain of thousands of Swarovski crystals that hung in the shape of a horse from the ceiling in the Castle’s Great Hall
- Cee Bee
from Bookmarklet
twitter muss relevant sein, wenn sich sogar der wissenschaftliche dienst des deutschen bundestags damit auseinandersetzt ;-) - http://www.bundestag.de/wissen...
That Green Giant. Peas for lunch anyone ?
- Jaffer
probably because those who wanted to filter you out figured out how to do it long ago & right off the bat, and those of us who enjoy reading you don't care to help people do otherwise?
- Lucretia Pruitt
@Scoble Should be more like "Show messages without Scoble, Scoble'sm, Scobleizer" :D
- Swaroop
That's great as long as you don't like what either of us has to say, LOL. I wonder how many people out there are like that? I probably don't want to know.
- Alex Scoble
In the spirit of spotlighting a Friend Feeder that I feel has made a positive difference and exposed me to beautiful things that I might have otherwise not seen.
I started listing people, but the reality is that everyone I'm subscribed to -- and plenty of others to whom I'm not -- enrich my experience here.
- Joanmarie
Not to be mushy, but I couldn't possibly list everyone who makes a positive difference here. You guys are awesome.
- ha3rvey (just a friend)
Thanks Matthew & asiriusgeek for your support, and Steve for suggesting Sebby...
- Mitchell Tsai
That would be so hard. Edythe, Warmaiden(Colleen), Josh Neff, Royce, Mona, RAP Patton, Tad, etc. Too many to really list. This is really such a wonderful community. I start my day with FF.
-
I'd like to thank everyone using FriendFeed. Even just one interesting post, often launches me on a Google/TinEye/FriendFeed/Wikipedia scramble across the world, so it's not necessary to be super-active. Maybe in the future, Browzmi or something can share all of the sites which we visit - since I only post about 0.1-1% (or less) of what I see. Sharing ways/tools/communities/friends to navigate the firehose of 6 billion people on this planet is incredible. (e.g. Google and StumbleUpon don't quite cut it..
- Mitchell Tsai
And for all of you who, like me, do not end up on this list or other lists like this: Just have fun. There is no FriendFeed without you.
- Christopher Harley
Those were just some spotlighted folks. I need to start doing that again. In fact, I have learned and had a smile brought to my face by most if not all of you at one time or another. :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
Kum Bai Ya to all my FFeed homeys and honeys. I am, and forever will be, your FFriend.
- Morgan Haley
One good thing about doing lists of FriendFeeders ... I'm learning all about who I'm missing! The list is getting better and better by the minute and so is my feed. Thank you and sorry to those cool people I left off originally.
I think there are so many great people on friendfeed that a few are gonna fall through the cracks :) heck i just posted a message and bang I was on the list hehe
- (jeff)isageek
I do absolutely nothing except that which is awesome. OK, not really.
- Josh Haley
You don't have enough Mark's on the list :)
- Mark Krynsky
Yeah, you list has a lot of people who don't FF.
- Ryan
Yes robert, you forgot me for example :)
- Alemsah Ozturk
Alemsah: probably because a lot of your posts aren't in English.
- Robert Scoble
But if you were to add another Mark I'd be a good choice. "Web producer for X PRIZE Foundation and author of Lifestream Blog" would make for a nice description :)
- Mark Krynsky
I'll add spin when I get home. Same with you Mark.
- Robert Scoble
By splitting my peeps into lists that do not overlap, I get a lot more good stuff floating to the top of each list. But I have to click on several separate lists, so my clicking muscles are getting tired.
- Laura Norvig
Robert, I am loving the lists so much, I have almost ceased real twitter usage (letting FF and my blog plugin handle the rest)...
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
Wow, I totally didn't notice that Mark Krynsky wasn't on the list. Robert, if you have not already done so, I think Charlie Anzman deserves a spot as well. I did not check the list again, but I remember you missing Susan Beebe as well. And I almost forgot, thanks for adding me to the list :)
- Rob Diana
Another Mark for the list would be Mark Dykeman of broadcastingbrain.com and a contributor at Mashable. Also, how are you coming up with the descriptions of the people? That is a cool little addition.
- Rob Diana
Great list! Thanks. Anyway you could time stamp new ones? I don't want to miss anyone.
- WiseYoda (aka Patrick)
Nice... At least now I know who's who.
- Winston Teo
دکتر خودتو به رابرت چی کار داری، حالا ما یه بار گفتیم ماست فقط ماست گوسفند. میلادم گفت پرسپولیس سرور استقلاله و رابرتو پرسپولیسی کرد. تو چی کار کردی واسه رابرت؟
- فوهاد صا.
Robert Please Repeat After Me : PERSPOLIS SARVARE ESTEGHLALE (it mean perspolis fc is better than esteghlal fc ) ضمنا بعدش بگو داور دقت کن
- Mil∂d
I'm not sad that I didn't make the list. Nope, not at all... *sniff* ;-)
- Josh Bancroft
Robert how do you follow topics at the moment? At a certain point it gets hard to follow more friends and at that point i'd think you need to narrow focus? (or not?)
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
Josh: I don't know how I missed you. Weblivz: I just refresh FF hundreds of times a day.
- Robert Scoble
Rob: most of the descriptions are off the top of my head or from their Twitter bios.
- Robert Scoble
Daniel I did see your listing. I see many possibilities in FF but need to increase my own activity. Different channels bring both same and new information. There isn't that many people working with all the tools. The same names or IDs appear in Jaiku, Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, etc.
- Helge V. Keitel
just wondering .. did I get lett off? wait if I have to ask I probably know already eh? lol
- John Blanton
from twhirl
Yeah Robert, I am not techie enough? ;-) Consider me as one of the most techie guys who use FriendFeed oversea.
- Leon Ho
@Scoble - Refreshing hundreds of times a day works i guess when it's part of your job, Much harder when you just want to follow "stuff" with limited time. Thanks for replying.
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
weblivz: that's exactly why I created a list with fewer people on it. I have about 200 on the techie list. 3,400 on the main list.
- Robert Scoble
*shunned!* I thought I'd make the cut on Scoble's techie list! I thought I talked enough tech to make the grade ;)
- Susan Beebe
Quite interesting, some valid points. But after all of this, one question nags at me, Marshall. Who is "Punkin' the Tabby Kitten"? Or are you saying that there's a specific tabby kitten you're fond of punking?
- Tinu Abayomi-Paul
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
I really like this post. My thoughts: does "god" have a gender? i don't think the semantic web will have one either...after...all. (shrug)
- Briana Franco
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
This is why librarianship - a traditionally gendered profession (female) - is so important to the creation and continued development of the Semantic Web. After all, it is librarians who continue to challenge the racist/sexist/xenophobic classifications that still exist in the Dewey Decimal System (and, to a lesser degree, the Library of Congress Classification System).
- cecily
Great post Marshall! Hearkens me back to even deeper feminist thinking about representation itself as a gendered practice...making meaning has largely been a "male" endeavor, and yet, meaning has never been completely contained nor controlled by the masculine. As the commenter above alludes to in his intentional (mis)reading of novels, making meaning can flow outside the machines that...
more...
- Nate Angell
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
Excellent post Marshall. Thanks for shedding light on this because I never really thought about it in terms of the development of the Semantic Web. This is an important issue and the work of Corinna Bath matters to ensure these discussions take place as the Semantic Web develops. The example of the phone book is a great example of gender bias as is the examples provided by Cecily...
more...
- Miiko Mentz
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
@mediachick's fantastic StumbleUpon summary of this post: mediaChick71 - "So is it a boy or a girl?" As the best brains in the tech industry take us from html markups to a semantic web, one woman is making the rounds to remind them that gender assumptions have no place in domain knowledge. Corinna Bath is an academic researcher from Austria who brings up some critical issues about...
more...
- Marshall Kirkpatrick
On a more serious side... www.Cosmopolitan.com was most probably built by men, on software coded by men. Possibly fat, bald, geek men. Could you tell? I think this is a very good post only because it is thought provoking and brings a fresh perspective on the table, but the question itself is quite pointless. C'mon. Genre is determined by genes and is relevant to sexuality. I don't see...
more...
- Aldo Bucchi
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
Aldo you have a point, but many websites - especially large ones that are built by agencies - have teams of user experience experts who work alongside developers. It's the UX and Information Architects who build out site navigation, and most (not all) UX/IA folks test taxonomies before committing final versions to the website. If you test with your intended audience, the taxonomies map to their brains better than if you didn't test and used your own perspective.
- cecily
Interestingly enough, women are well represented in the Human Computer Interaction/IA/UX discipline. In fact, many computer science students call HCI "CS for Girls" because HCI programs don't usually include many of the "hard" CS courses (programming, application development) and focus more on psychology, cognitive behavior, and interaction design.
- cecily
What a load of blather. Male geeks aren't very good at thinking like non-male non-geeks - this is not news. But declaring dramatically in this way that "the Semantic Web may end up being gender biased" is making a storm in a teacup. The phone book "example" is clearly not relevant to today's situation. By the way, regarding the phrase "Some argue that..." sorry, but over on Wikipedia we call those weasel words.
- Earle Martin
Also, from the linked interview: "Alison Adam analyzed the well-known ontology CYC... She revealed that the knowing subject implicitly assumed by the system is a white, middle-class male professional." Oh really. Check out this excerpt of a review of where she said it: http://muse.jhu.edu/login...
- Earle Martin
In fact, Google Books has a preview of Adam's book. (http://books.google.co.uk/books...) Quote: "...the AI idea of search and goal seeking... harks back to Aristotelian notions of goals, and can also be seen in terms of the phallocentric urge to a unitary goal described by postmodernist thought." Give me a break!
- Earle Martin
I couldn't disagree more with the article :) but i'm months late. is it worth grumbling at this late date?
- Dan Brickley
I'd like one, if I may: stellina at me dot com. Thanks.
- Stellina
sent to the 2 after me. no more invites. :)
- AJ Batac
I've just sent invites to Andrew and Stellina
- Benedikt Koehler
Thanks for the invites, I've got 3 to pass on if anyone needs it. Quickest way is to email me with an appropriate subject. http://bit.ly/email_ancyru
- Andrew Trinh
I have two, too. Heck, you can have my account, so make that three!
- Mona Nomura
from fftogo
@Will Ponder and @Nick Cowie - sent my 2 invites to you. One of you, or somebody else, can take care of @Alexander Rode and continue the chain.
- TDavid
@Alexander Rode invite sent, thanks @TDavid
- Nick Cowie
If you're still passing them around, I'll take a Strands invite. matthilt at gmail
- Matt Hilton
Me too, if anyone got one. johan.bryggare at gmail.com
- Johan Bryggare
Me too, Thanks snhasani [at] gmail [dot ] com
- Nasser Hasani
Sent invites to Eve, Matt Hilton, Johan Bryggare & Nasser Hasani - Still have 8 invites left.......
- ChaCha Fance
I would love an invite! Will pass mine off here. fred at newtz dot us
- Fred Newtz
I would love one too! Yes please! Happy to share too :)
- Chris
An invite would be awesome! lyth UNDERSCORE letori A.T. hotmail. Will share for sure.
- Andrew
UNIFIED --- YES... YES...YES!! God please somebody make this missing piece. It is such a gap in the SM product line up. We have micro-blogging tools, aggregators galore...but where, oh where, are the tools to help ME, the stinking user, manage my online identities. We need a tool that brings all these together. This way I can manage FRIENDs, LISTS and FILTER the crap out of everything! Yeah...that's what I am talking about!! ....end of rant... kthxbai!
- Susan Beebe
I have this picture in my head of signing up to a new service and it accessing, with your permission, your centralized profile, recognizing all your services (like here on FriendFeed) and auto-magically filling out your profile and friends for you. It just makes sense.
- Louis Gray
Why do Susan's comments get me all excited ... even when I'm not excited ... easy on the caffeine young lady :)
- Charlie Anzman
OAuth, data portability, trust, reputation... Yes. Net neutrality and Android I hope will ensure mobile access isn't crippled the way it has been in the US...
- Ben Turner
mobile is in it's infancey. when you mesh mobile and social you have disruption. nice!
- Rodney Rumford
I like the piece. My take on the future of social media: "Better than Real-life". This will be the guiding principle. Of course social media can't beat "air" and physical proximity for every use case, but it will do so in increasingly more areas. The clever mediated interaction models will keep growing with audio and video always at your disposal.
- Meryn Stol
The reason we turn to social media is that for some use cases, it's better than "real-life" interaction. Geographical distance is no concern, and conversation can develop asynchronously. Then we have conversation-discovery through search, etc, etc.
- Meryn Stol
While I agree with your three key points, I am worried that the advent of greater transparency does the opposite of what one would assume. Much in the same way as Leo Laporte suggested that people can no longer aim to collect all the information themselves, transparency means that while the information is available, those that have the time to ensure that the information is valid become more rare. In such as fashion (as was done in WWII) the shear volume of information is then the barrier to be overcome.
- James Fridley
And so again this argument all comes back to effective filtering (what ever that may be) by peers that we trust (for what ever reason), just so long as it is not just the number of twitter followers...
- James Fridley