Michael K Pate › Likes

BTW, you can find Wordpress plugins that do the auto-posting on self-hosted Wordpress installations. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, don't you post to posterous via e-mail? Seems like everything you create will at least be in your Sent folder. - Akiva Moskovitz

Akiva, it just seems like you're losing control by doing that. I can post to my blog via e-mail as well with the right plugins. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, true. I'm just wondering if something like posterous might be a good solution for people who have had their urge to fully blog sapped away by sites like FriendFeed. I barely post anywhere now but often wish I had something more flexible than FriendFeed but without all of the hassle and overhead of running a WordPress blog. People don't seem to complain about giving up e-mail to Google; why is posterous different? - Akiva Moskovitz

That's a change, but have just started utilizing them as well in addition so it's easy to see why. - James Stratford

Akiva, I'm trying to bring more of the FriendFeed, Twitter, etc. conversation over to my personal blog, personally. IMO that's something e-mail can't backup - the conversations are what I'm trying to own even more than the content. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, ah, yeah, that's a great point. I didn't even consider the comments. You would almost think that there was a business idea in here somewhere: some kind of cross-platform/cross-site back-up solution for people who blogs and comments strewn all over the Internet. - Akiva Moskovitz

Its difficult to control the formatting in posterous: its great for photos plus captions, but will you be attempting to publish long-form essays or other articles there too? I use posterous/tumblr for quick little things and blogger for longer articles. - DGentry

Akiva, technically, you could use Disqus or Backtype to do that, but again, I want it all happening around my blog and my brand. I want control, not another company to control. - Jesse Stay

Technically you could use Disqus or Backtype, but that is not the easiest implementation and then the commenters need accounts, don't they? I agree with Akiva, there is a great need for an easy product that could integrate disparate comment threads and bring them back to a blog. - Laura Norvig

I don't even necessarily want them in a blog. I want them in some kind of format that I can store them, manipulate them, and/or re-consume them without having to rely on all of the original source sites/formats. I'm talking about a back-up system and not an import system. - Akiva Moskovitz

Laura, the commenters don't need Disqus accounts. See Fred Wilson's breakdown: http://www.avc.com/a_vc... - Bruce Lewis

@DG I will be. Try posting to it from GMail. - Steve Rubel

One thing. Posterous converts all embedded media links into internal references, so you will NOT be able to get your content off their servers if anything ever goes wrong. Go into the source view of one your posts on Posterous which includes a YouTube video or whatever, and you'll see what I mean. - Marlin Forbes

And another thing, you want control over your brand? Posterous doesn't allow much in the way of customization of the blog design. Last time I used it, every blog on their system looked exactly the same. Way to stand out from the crowd. Wanna adjust the behaviour of the blog by adding plugins? No can do. I like the idea, but if the only reason you're doing it is for the auto-posting by e-mail, then there's loads of ways of doing that without losing control over your content. - Marlin Forbes

Posterous SEO has room for improvement. They are aware of this but have no immediate plans to address this. Just something to consider. - Jauder Ho

You can also see your lifestream here: http://ff.amplifeeder.com/user... - Paul Kinlan

@JH how? - Steve Rubel from email

@Robert Zemanta is great, but why is "look more like a blogpost" a desireable trait? - Wade Dorrell

@Jesse I agree with everything you are saying... but regarding ownership -- what about all the content you pump into FF, FB, and twitter? you don't own that - andy brudtkuhl

Jesse and Andy - As I understand it, content you create is yours. But Steve would be relying on Posterous to display that content. A couple of backup strategies come to mind. It's there in your email, nicely backed up. You could autopost that content to Tumblr or, say, a Wordpress.com blog, where it will be there as a live backup. Comments, though, are for now stuck on Posterous, and it would require screen scraping to retrieve them. I don't know if/when the Posterous guys intend to make them exportable. - Eric Johnson

Actually, the Posterous API supports export of posts, media *and comments*. So with a little scripting, you can take it all with you should you need to leave. http://posterous.com/api... - Eric Johnson

Good debate here with very valid points (re: control, SEO, etc.). I would say that Posterous (or Tumblr) should only be 1 of the many elements of your social media presence. Can see Steve's need for a shorter outlet though, as I've been using Posterous myself in this way for the last 6 months, as a "Quick Hits" outlet to post excerpts and brief responses to -... more... - Alex Schleber

I agree with those who do not agree: you lose conreol, tracking data, referrers etc. You have far less conreol over the communications (and gaining that is the main reasin to blog anyways ;) ) - oliver gassner

Just to avoid a clutter? Thanks Casey, but wouldn't it be easier to adjust the style (or use a js trick)? (Just suggesting of course) :) - directeur

Excellent addition, thanks! - Aaron Draczynski

YAY! - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

Uh, bug. Nasty bug. I can't see some of my services, the box is taller than my screen. You should columnize them or make the list scrollable or something. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

I wish we could choose more than five. :-( - darnell from BuddyFeed

Details of my bug: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

We can still only choose 5? :( - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

awesome thanks guys - Alfredo

Yep, only five for now. We have gotten lots of feedback that the icons became useless when there were too many because you couldn't find the useful profile pages within the countless imported feeds. This lets you choose the few that have the most relevant profile info, but keeps the icon explosion from happening. - Bret Taylor

But I loved the icon explosion!  - darnell from BuddyFeed

I like this, and five is plenty for me to be able to get a sense of someone. thank you! - holly

Very cool Thanks! :-) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Wow, nice. - Adi

It's nice to have the choice. Thank you. - Rick Cogley

minor problem: can't save when services exceeds screen size. - AJ Batac

AJ: Ctrl-(mouse scroll wheel). Although, it gets pretty unreadable. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

that needs to be fixed. - Alfredo

hmmmmm -[ - Chris Loft

Yay! Thanks for the choice =) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Again. This is the same issue we had with the Rooms dialogue in the old interface. Didn't anyone check this first? What freakin resolution do the FF devs run at, anyway? LOL - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Rah, I'm 99.7% sure they use portrait mode on their monitors. - AJ Batac

You'll take your five icons...and you'll like it! Thanks for the new feature. - Mark Krynsky

Chris Charabaruk: some of us on macbook pros and other machines don't use scroll wheels. i agree with others that the truncation bug needs to be fixed. and, only five choices defeats the purpose of adding any more. some of us already have more services set up are used to seeing them. don't limit everybody in the process of simplifying it for a few, if it can be helped. thanks. - sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq

Bret, Casey, thank you for this. Can you either make the list of services on the new screen either scrollable or in a smaller dialog box with a scroll bar? There's a bug that if you have a lot of services you cannot see the bottom of the list. :-( - Kol Tregaskes

Love this, but can't use it because I use too many services. I can't scroll down the list. - Thomas Hawk

A vertical screensize of 1200 pixels fixes mine. Your mileage may vary. I chose more than 5 services and let FriendFeed pick, presumably the way it can, had i chose less than 5. - John Lam

Ok, I logged on on a PC and used the ctl scroll wheel trick and it worked. - Thomas Hawk

great! I only want to show the most important feeds in my profile; and not clutter my profile with too many feeds that I include - Jeroen De Miranda

Any word on the Iphone FF web? Or any news of an app? I can't see "my" discussions on the Iphone web version. - orionstarr

So glad this has happened! :D - Nicholas James

That's a simple but crucial feature, in my estimation. But if I had to be fussy (which I usually am), the option to (re)order them would be also be good. - Wayne Smallman

agree with wayne. I'd like to draw more attention to my blog, and less to my twitter ;-) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Good that we can choose, thanks. Don't really understand why only 5 though. I don't have "countless imported feeds"; I have 15, which does not seem "too much to look at" to me. - Neil Saunders

+1 Neil - Richard Akerman

Now if we could just select the order they display in - a' la Google Profile. Speaking of Google Profile... is FF planning on adding that to the list of services? - Alexander Grundner

This thread was discussed on the FFundercats (http://www.ffundercats.com/2009...) - Josh Haley

not a feature i couldn't live without.. but still nice to have the option. thanks! - Peter Efland

In my top 5 was facebook by default! #friendfeedfail - Jordi Rosell

And just for the record: I'm in favor of hunting down every last bastard who was responsible for, ordered, or signed off on torture, regardless if they have a D or an R after their name. - Steven Perez

Me too, Steven. - Jenny R.

I've been thinking the exact same thing, Steven. Did Nancy Pelosi ever testify under oath that she didn't know about the waterboarding? So, who cares what she knew or didn't know. Unless waterboarding is torture, in which case everyone who knew about it (& authorized it) should be pursued. - josh neff, geek at large

Now I see a headline "GOP calls Pelosi accusation an attack on CIA." Um...the last GOP administration outed a covert CIA agent! But, oh yeah, IOKIYAR. - josh neff, geek at large

#p2 Gotta think GOP is loving seeing dems/progs twist over torture. Stalls all the reforms, lets Cheney control press cycles. - Karoli from BuddyFeed

Good points Steven! - Janet

ok, now you're trying to apply logic to government. That's just crazy talk. - amygeek

Crazy talk? That I specialize in! :) - Steven Perez from IM

Wait... Holding an elected official up to the same standards of accountability that they hold us to? That's the crazy talk... - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

It's just like Harry Truman said: the buck stops over at the Speaker of the House's. - Andrew C

What's "IOKIYAR"? - Karl Knechtel

"It's OK If You're A Republican." Coined by lefties to denote the curiously selective outrage among the right wing. - Andrew C

But it's on TV. That's like claiming to be the prettiest corn in a turd that is going down the drain. - Matthew DeVries

What I find find fascinating is that they've built *entertainment* (ala the Michael Stele argument). Yet millions think it's hard-nosed fair-and-balanced journalism. That's the danger I see in Fox. Kind of like the dystopian sci-fi futures where the populace is controlled as long as they're sedate and entertained. - mikepk

A sad comment on the general state of mind of Americans. Hopefully most of those viewers are from my generation and are literally on the way out from a living point of view. - Brian Sullivan

Brian, that is a horrible thing to say. And fortunately, it is not close to being true. According to TVNewser, “Fox News beat CNN and MSNBC combined in every hour from 6amET to MidnightET in both Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo for April 2009.” - Evan Brown

People, this "good" news - of course the intelligent of this country will be spread among many mediums, because intelligent people are rarely the same as each other. A world with just one bad guy is a good world, because we know exactly where the idiots are, who they're listening to, and what they think. The dipshits have voluntarily confined themselves to de facto concentration camp for us. - Matthew DeVries

Wow, Matthew. Just… wow. - Evan Brown

Interesting that none of the shows depicted in the graphic are news shows. - Dave Roth

I just gave a talk at a _whole conference_ called "on the front lines." Take that! - Rachel Singer Gordon

NTS: start using canadian military slang and refer to it as "the sharp end" - DJF

I suppose "in harm's way" is out, too. **puts away kevlar jumper** - Rochelle Rochelle

Whatever, dude. Have *you* ever been attacked on a circ desk? I had my marine brother teach me some things for the next time it happens. - ωαřмaiden, MFA'd poet

Colleen, if that's what they were talking about, I'd be more sympathetic. Instead they mean "I can't be bothered to think about the profession because I'm too caught up in my day-to-day. And anyone who does dare to write about larger issues is totally out of touch and wasting time." - s t e v e

Librarians are soooooo hot, I mean cool. - Thomas Hawk

I've definitely been threatened with physical harm on more than one occasion. Nothing like a gun flash or the threat of ambush after work to get the old "theoretical underpinnings of librarianship" juices flowing. - Greg Schwartz

I had a woman threaten to come over the desk and "scrape" me---none of us ever quite figured out what that meant but my security guard got in the way - Abigail

Wow Greg, a librarian with a gun threatened you? - Thomas Hawk

I dunno, sometimes I think it's a pity we can't threaten librarians with guns to think about the profession... :\ - D0r0th34

Not yet, Thomas. Not yet. - Greg Schwartz

Alex: major parts of Mac OS X (and consequently, iPhone OS) are open source projects, including the core, Darwin. - Mark Trapp

Its a tough situation. People routinely write apps that are far better than Microsofts own offering and then run it on Microsofts OS. Does Microsoft complain, no. In saying that there is a line in the sand here that Apple just crossed in preventing further distribution of the app even outwidth the App Store. I would not like to be developing under those conditions for any platform. - Roberto Bonini

Interesting article on this topic: http://article.nationalreview.com/... - ComicList

"The Ayers-Obama relationship became a hot topic in Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate. It is "an issue certainly Republicans will be raising" should Obama be the Democratic nominee for president, Obama rival Hillary Clinton said." http://www.suntimes.com/news... - ComicList

It's great to see new themes coming out. - donato

looking really nice - sean percival

Yeah, I'm tired of my dumb theme, time to use one of the good ones :) - Bwana ☠

I really like this one. - Adam Helweh

Download now available! http://noeruiz.com/downloa... - Noe Ruiz

WOW I love it. - ChaCha Fance

Great looking theme but I've got to work out how to keep the same layout across WordPress too. Only thing stopping me from changing to new themes. - Andrew Trinh

Well, they've got a black so we've got to pick a woman. Sorry, I'm just to cynical about his choice. - Michael Sauers from twhirl

Are you implying that I'm not cynical? C'mon now, you should know me better than that. - Greg Schwartz

i agree with Michael. it's so obvious, it's sad. sadder tho, is that there are people out there who will vote strictly on race and gender, not issues. - Christa from twhirl

Wow, so transparent, Greg you are so right! - TSQ

yes, tsq! transparent! - αnnα vαȵ scoyoç

Wait- is Palin confirmed as the choice? - David Rothman (☤)

Sure is, David. - josh neff, geek at large

Oooh...yes she is. - David Rothman (☤)

I don't know that the best thing she brings to the race is her gender. She's young, she's been super anti-corruption in AK, she's a very religious Christian, and she is extremely socially conservative. She's also a hunter and is very into sports. Frankly, I can't think of a man who would've been a better choice. - Meredith

Not that I like it much either, but she will bring life to his campaign. I was hoping he'd pick Romney (that probably wouldn't have helped his campaign at all). - Meredith

Meredith, I agree. McCain has typically been very left for his party - he needs someone more conservative. And the fact that she is a women can only help him keep up. - Victoria Plautia

Meredith - I'm thinking along those lines. I'm troubled when the first assumption people jump to is that it *must* be just because she's a woman, and not because she brings anything else of value to the table (in McCain's perspective, and I'm not suggesting that I support either of them) - Rachel Walden

Exactly, Rachel. I'd love to know what man on McCain's shortlist had similar qualities that would appeal to such a broad range of Republicans. - Meredith

Um, you want Palin to be a heart beat away from the Presidency? No experience, big oil ties, abuse of power. What happened to the ticket of experience? Even if I were a Republican, I wouldn't be all too happy. - AJ Kohn

It is strange that McCain would repeatedly bang on the "Obama's lack of experience" drum and then select a first-term governor as his running mate. But who needs consistency, right? - Greg Schwartz

To McCain..everyone has less experience so it didn't matter who he picked to be his mate. - ♫Geek in the 410♫

No, I don't want her a heartbeat from the Presidency, but I also don't want HIM either. I think he was trying to find someone who has what he doesn't (like a pulse) and she does have those qualities that will appeal to very conservative voters. - Meredith

Again, agreeing with Meredith. I don't want either one, I just want to check the automatic assumption that she's only there because of her sex. - Rachel Walden

Rachel,if all other things were the same and she was a man, McCain wouldn't have picked her. - David Rothman (☤)

I'm not very conservative, but I really like her as a choice. She's done some good things already in AK and in general is a person I can relate to better than anyone else in the mix. -

She's a religious, anti-choice Christian. Survey says: EHHHHHHHHH! - David Rothman (☤)

David-do you think so? religious, anti-choice, Christian, big oil ties mentioned earlier...sounds exactly like what he would be looking for in anybody. - Rachel Walden

Well, it is a bonus that she's hot. http://wizbangblog.com/images... - Rev. Dr. W!cKeD Rock

I really do, Rachel. I'm not saying she doesn't have other things to offer McCain's campaign, just that her ovaries are what sets her apart and are what got her the VP pick. - David Rothman (☤)

"HOT?" Ew. http://bittenandbound.com/wp-cont... - David Rothman (☤)

Well, as far as Republican fundies go. Have to take what we can get. LOL - Rev. Dr. W!cKeD Rock

David, and I can see that argument - I just like to stop myself (and others! :)) before jumping to conclusions and assuming that the ovaries are *the* deciding factor - Rachel Walden

David, how do you know that her being a female got her the nod? That's a pretty big assumption you're making. And I'll ask again, what man would have been better suited to appeal to the voters who have the most problems with McCain (conservative republicans)? - Meredith

Or, which man, if he just had ovaries, do you think McCain would have picked? - Rachel Walden

There's a plethora of people just like Palin but with testes, Rachel. That's what the GOP is made of. That's my point. - David Rothman (☤)

That looks awesome. When you gonna pimp mine? :) - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Thanks! I'll do some sweetcrons for hire... lemme do some more spin-fu on mine, i'm not quite there yet. - Eric Rice

/end thread - Mona Nomura

What? You gonna charge me?! I thought we was boyz?! LOL - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

You my boy so I give you discount. Also pfft @ Mona - Eric Rice

Very nice! - Cheryl Allin

I'm actually trying to figure out something useful to do. I made a Seesmic plugin, now I'm bored with it. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I'm minimal with the code wrangling, I'll be more on the artsy side of things. I at least know I won't blow up code. Ahhh the life of the presentation layer! - Eric Rice