That frustration is what led me to found AdMob a few years ago while I was in grad school. Over the years I've been fortunate enough to gather a tremendously talented group of employees. Together we've been a part of helping to create a healthy and vibrant environment where developers and publishers, small and large, can both promote their services as well as benefit from the attention and usage their products attract. In our early days we were focused primarily on the mobile web, and gained immense satisfaction from each new business that our service made possible within the mobile browser.
- Jeff Jarvis
"Speedtest.net for Android is the perfect application to test 3G speeds. The app was just released in the last 48 hours and has already been updated several times to fix some bugs. The service works just as one would expect it to. A settings page allows you to change servers, adjust speed measurements, and sort history." - Just tested it on the Droid, it works OK but seems stuck in portrait orientation.
- LANjackal
from Bookmarklet
mine's stuck in portrait too. tested VZW 3g at 794 down and 776 up. Second test 1051 down and 735 up. faster uploads than standard cable service.
- Matt Ellsworth
I was about to say the same ... VZW's upload speeds are impressive (although I can burst upload at nearly 2 MB/s and do so consistently at ~420 kB/s on Comcast), especially the fact that up/down is nearly symmetrical. I tested at 811 kB/s down 751 up myself
- LANjackal
from IM
App crashes if Droid is locked while it's running on top
- LANjackal
from IM
hah! It's in the room! It is considered very Pre-beta.. still broken stuff.. but I want to know If I should continue on this path, or make a drastic change.. http://ff.im/4DGzk
- Tim Hoeck
Hi, I'd like to give AndFeed a try!! Sign me up for beta testing, thanks!
- Daniel De Vidi - DvD
Hi Daniel, as soon as I have a new version ready to test, I'll include you.. recently, I've been a bit busy, and haven't been able to work on it.
- Tim Hoeck
I'd love to beta test too! sign me up...
- Dylan Lorimer
Looks amazing. I just need an Android device.
- Zachary TG
@Tim activated my andriod today (HTC Hero) and would _love_ to be able to try out this app. seems you're busy right now - that's cool. just let me know when you have a beta to test and i'd be happy to give you feedback. cheers!
- MikeAmundsen
Yes, I hate that I haven't had time to get back to this.. but I have something a bit bigger planned, we'll see how it pans out... congrats on the phone :)
- Tim Hoeck
@Tim: no problem. now tha FF is kinda on the downslide, i can see that something like this project might need to move to the back burner. the "something bigger" tease is cruel, tho<g>.
- MikeAmundsen
If you're still looking for beta testers, I'd love to give it a whirl.
- James Britt
Little known fact: The circular "bench seats" at the bottom of them are power transformers. They were covered with plywood which was then covered with naugahyde.
- Otto
It was a very, very special brunch. More special because they included the fried catfish just for us.
- Glen Campbell
Did you have fish and grits? If you did, I hate you. BTW I am not impressed with their red velvet cake. The mac and cheese makes me want to smack my momma for not teaching me how to make it like theirs though.
- EricaJoy
from IM
oh wow, this sounds awesome! Sadly, I'm home with the flu, so you probably don't want me eatin' next to you, but if you do this brunch-in again sometime, count me in! :)
- Adam Lasnik
I don't think you can script the bluetooth interface yet, but you can write a bar code scanner for Android in 6 lines of Python: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog...
- Matt Cutts
My wife is obsessed with this. The sooner we get an allotment, the better.
- Tony Ruscoe
I had no idea Pincus was involved with this. *misses Tribe*. Tony, I know how she feels, I'm losing my garden and this might make some kind of security blanket substitute for me... (EDIT: after reading that article there's no way I'd start doing it. I have enough online addictions already. Just say no for me.)
- Spidra Webster
'Some academics have gone so far as to suggest that their collective popularity points to a widespread yearning for the pastoral life. “The whole concept of ‘I’m sick of this modern, urban lifestyle, I wish I could just grow plants and vegetables and watch them grow,’ there is something very therapeutic about that,” said Philip Tan, director of the Singapore-M.I.T. Gambit Game Lab, a...
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- Ruchira S. Datta
I'm totally obsessed with Farmville. Well, I live in the city but was born in a very rural area with lots of farms. Now if only the crops were real and I could plant real things. *lol*
- Mol, Time Warping
Isn't Mafia Wars about "I'm sick of having to obey laws"? ;-)
- Spidra Webster
Yeah, and they're all my relatives dumping crap on my facebook page all the time. God I hate those game updates (that goes for Mafia Wars, too).
- Joel Webber
I wonder if they will pass the laws prohibiting the development of farm land as well to prevent the housing creep
- Matt Ellsworth
I see where this is leading. All they need to do now is deploy the IP-addressable ag robots.
- Victor Ganata
Interesting thought, Victor... As for FarmVille, I just opened it up to have a look earlier this week, but, like Restaurant City, it's not really grabbing my attention... I think I have some crops rotting already =/ Haven't felt interested enough to go check...
- Kamilah Gill
This looks similar to the apparently super-popular-in-China Happy Farms.
- Philipp Lenssen
"While it is obvious that this maneuver creates a problem for the multi-billion dollar GPS market, it also poses real challenges for the leading smart phone players – RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone. Without access to their own mapping data, these vendors now face an interesting dilemma. Do you risk flying naked without free navigation or do you suck it up and swallow the above average royalty fee for each and every handset? Neither option is stellar. This problem isn’t nearly as daunting as the one now faced by the Windows Mobile and Symbian teams. As software providers, they are lucky to get a per unit royalty equal to that extracted by the GPS data guys. If they are now forced to integrate this data merely to keep their product competitive, their gross margin just went negative. Ouch!"
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
I would love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond
- Ray Cromwell
I'm psyched to get Google maps powered navigation. they provide much better directions than tom tom ever could... and if they calculate live traffic as well thats good. but i'm curious as to why Verizon doesn't seem to mind since their nav package is normally $15/month.
- Matt Ellsworth
My experience with Google has been completely different. They were notably subpar when they stopped licensing the leader in map data a year or two ago, and their directions now are as bad or worse than MapQuest. I split the difference now between them and a GPS unit when I need to, but generally prefer to use an actual map for most accurate directions.
- Cole Jolley
I think this is likely to change in a big way once they fully leverage their Street View database. Still, I can't argue with free when the errors are few IMHO.
- Ray Cromwell
Is this an example of "open" systems putting people out of business? (of course, it's not personal, it's just business..."
- Cliff Gerrish
What I really don't understand is: why are there so many lost people?
- LogEx
from iPhone
Does Google actually make any money from their maps? How many Google behaviors are enabled by their huge search revenues and how many of those can continue as their dominance wanes? Also as the article mentions Nokia owns Navteq so the "Symbian" problem is a non issue (unless you think there is a viable Symbian outside of a Nokia context).
- Hayes Haugen
Now the droid initiative on verizon finally makes sense to me. I watched the demos as they showed off feature after feature that verizon likes to charge extra for thinking no way is this not going to be expensive. But with google paying verizon on search ad revenue, verizon doesn't have to nickel and dime their customers for every added feature.
- dthree
"I would love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond" - things may be just as interesting in Cupertino.
- John Craft
Google's move is similar to MSFT's free browser play.
- Cliff Gerrish
I'm wondering how Apple's purchase of PlaceBace is going to play out. Are they going to ditch Google Maps on the iPhone?
- Matt Mastracci
I also have issue with the "less than free" thing as a new disruptive thing. Pay-to-play on a platform or a device is not new (e.g. anti-virus software).
- Hayes Haugen
@hayes yes, you're darn rite about Navteq thingie...
- A.T.
thats a pretty good spoof of what we see out there
- Matt Ellsworth
but why are you retweeting it, there are people like me who believe blindly to whatever Matt Cutts say about google things, so i think there should have been some caution involved
- testbeta
OnlyWire syndicates your content and articles to the web's top social networking sites with a single button click. The OnlyWire Bookmark & Share button gives your website and blog visitors the ability to post your content to all of their social networking sites.
- Robin
from Bookmarklet
"Though the number of Google Voice customers was redacted in the version that was made public, BusinessWeek reviewed the information in the redacted sections. "We had intended to keep sensitive information regarding our partners and the number of Google Voice users confidential," Google said in a statement to BusinessWeek. "Unfortunately, the PDF submitted to the FCC was formatted improperly.""
- Matt Cutts
from Bookmarklet
W00t!! "In another redacted section, Google hints at the prospect of going global with Google Voice. Google says it has signed contracts with a number of "international service providers for inputs to Google Voice." It goes on to say that "none of the contracted services have yet" been launched."
- Jérôme Flipo
The second unredacted Google Voice text: [BEGIN CONFIDENTIAL] Level3 Communications, Inc., for U.S. telephone numbers, inbound termination to those numbers, and outbound termination; Global Crossing LTD, for U.S. telephone numbers, inbound termination to those numbers, and outbound termination; Broadvox Communications, Inc., for U.S. telephone numbers, inbound termination to those...
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- Matt Mastracci
The "international partners" referred to here are the exciting part for me. It would be nice to use it for more than just voicemail. :)
- Matt Mastracci
It still stinks at memory/intuitive usage though. Here is what I mean as an example. A relatively new user goes to upload a picture. They figure it out, and then sign off. Two days later they want to upload another picture. They can't remember exactly how they did it, and are stuck trying to figure out the process all over again like they had never done it before. It's too busy. Two...
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- Robert Campbell
Roberto: in some ways it's better but I'm still getting used to it. I miss the real time comments, though that pop up here.
- Robert Scoble
While I like it, it's not intuitive. Example: friend asked me what the difference is between the "News" feed and "Live" feed. I explained it to her, and she asked how it was better then "highlights". I preferred "highlights" for displaying highly engaged items, myself, but I see the value to the two new systems. Time will tell. Knowing Facebook, they likely won't roll back the feature, and keep powering forward.
- Mike Nayyar
If they fix the comments and likes to push things back up to the top, highlights won't be necessary because the more active items are still seen (regarding the live feed, which is all that matters) :-)
- Jesse Stay
it is better, but hope it doesn't usher in the untimely death of friendfeed
- Stuart
Stuart: no, that won't happen until next year but you can see the trend. Twitter and Facebook are getting new features (and Facebook has 200 people working on its engineering team). FriendFeed has almost no one working on it anymore. So, next year you'll see Facebook and Twitter both pass FriendFeed's feature set. Until then we're happy here!
- Robert Scoble
Only thing I do on Facebook is play Farkle. Gotta be really bored for that too.
- MicahBear78
When you log in, you get the same News Feed as before. When you click Live Feed you see EVERYTHING in your feed - and comments and likes seem to push things to the top. But my latest update failed to show in the News Feed: it only appeared in the Live Feed.
- Michael Slattery
I like the new facebook features, very freindfeed´ish but i also miss the highlights section. I would like to have both, but maybe that´s only me
- Flynn (Michael A. Volz)
I wonder how the system used to choose what to show you in the highlights section. And is it using some algorithm to SELECT what it shows in Live Feed? (Instead of EVERYTHING as I thought above.)
- Michael Slattery
Michael, I think Live feed shows you everything, except those you've hidden. That's the difference from when they had the live feed before. Before you couldn't choose to hide people in your live feed. Also, be sure to use the filters on the left - make some friend lists and filter your live feed by friend list.
- Jesse Stay
So when are they going to allow asymmetrical friending and FoaF?THAT'S what's going to change Facebook fundamentally.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
from iPhone
FB live is really awesome - but buggy!!
- Susan Beebe
I like the direction the new features are heading, but it still needs better hide and filter customization.
- Tony, Paradox of FF
Agreed. The new Facebook live feed is great and a huge step forward.
- Alex Knight
Oh, I agree so much with this post. So many people are not loving it but it really rocks. Fast and vast amounts of information, quickly being able to see what friends, family, contact, networks are up to. While updating live! I love it.
- Travis Tasset
This is circulating on FB: "If you dont like the new FB here is how you can change it back to the old. Look to the top left menu and click on MORE. Then drag STATUS UPDATES to the top. After dragging to top, click on it. That becomes your default and it is like before."
- Michael Slattery
Except it's not the same: "Status" only gives you updates, without links, photos or notes.
- Michael Slattery
I'm not sure the Facebook team spends much time getting to know the Facebook audience.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Jandy took the words out of my mouth...errr, fingers
- Johnny Worthington
It would seem this would be a great opportunity to meet the new community, many of whom have never stepped foot inside Facebook. Outside the FriendFeed team, does anyone know of someone at Facebook who uses FriendFeed actively? I used to know a few, but they've all stopped.
- Jesse Stay
The difference between the Facebook and FF communities is that this is a tight-knit community. Many of us more active users all know each other. That's not the case for Facebook. This is the community Facebook could come and actually talk, and we'd listen if they actually participated.
- Jesse Stay
A better question, does anyone actually know anyone inside Facebook?
- Johnny Worthington
Johnny, I do - I'm mostly venting, and perhaps hoping some of them might see this. Next time I chat I'm going to bring it up though. (not sure how much it will help though)
- Jesse Stay
When you have people flocking to your service there is little reason to worry about this little community.
- Eric @ CS Techcast
Is it a vast culture difference or is it a company size thing? They're inter-related, certainly, but on the whole.
- Micah Wittman
Micah, I'm sure it's both. It's easier for the FriendFeed founders to interact because it's a smaller community here. That also contributes to us all knowing each other (or feeling like we do).
- Jesse Stay
Jesse, thinking about it, the interaction by the FF team in general (it varied by person of course) — it wasn't the frequency that was stand-out, it was that it felt authentic, reasonably open and wasn't defensive. That was part of the shock about the facebook announcement - it seemed uncharacteristic, not the FF voice speaking. But that's just my impression.
- Micah Wittman
If current day peeps inside FB made a similar effort here, I suspect the reception here would warm quickly. I've heard Friendfeed is good for conversation, as it happens ;)
- Micah Wittman
Ivan Kirigin has increased his FriendFeed activity since he started working at Facebook. Sorry I don't have more data points.
- Bruce Lewis
That seems pretty counter productive if you ask me.
- Matt Ellsworth
We have a client whose "logo" is basically their biz card stuff, complete with address. They had a quasi-meltdown last week asking for the address in *their* image to be changed. No one there seems to understand why we won't or can't change it. Silly.
- Anika
When we launched Maps, one of the best "new" features we put in that didn't get much attention was capturing the clipboard paste and replacing line breaks with commas so you could copy and paste a full address in an email into our search box (rather than typing all the components into separate form fields like MapQuest). Turned out to be a pain to do in many browsers - I spent an annoying number of hours tweaking it at the time (though it is easier in modern browsers).
- Bret Taylor
Bret: Why not just offer a multi-line text box?
- Gabe
Bret: I noticed that :). But it didn't always do that did it? I vaguely remember being frustrated that nobody did that
- Benjamin Golub
from email
Ben, what about companies that put email addresses in images in their info area instead of letting you click on a link or select the email address text? :)
- Cristo
Cristo: I'm not sure which is worse but I feel like I run into the maps issue more :)
- Benjamin Golub
When I was in culinary school, our food safety and sanitation instructor would take your apron if you even carried it into the restroom. I never saw her come into the men's room, but I doubt that would stop her.
- ha3rvey (free hugs!)
FF needs a "Like" icon but with a Mr. Yuk face.
- vicster
I officially call this emoticon --> D-: <-- the yuck face!
- Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕
from IM
See, you guys are all going straight to the gross factor (which we also discussed). But we were literally trying to figure out HOW you would go to the bathroom WHILE holding an ice cream cone. There were no ice-cream-cone-holders in the bathroom. We checked.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
I work with all guys in a firehall .. nothing can disgust me ,,,
- johnpiercy
No chance for stale content that's for sure!!
- Chris Myles
That should make a dent in the $99 iPhone gps apps :) so long tomtom. I need to put that on sale on craigslist right away!!
- Shivanand Velmurugan
from Alert Thingy