Mohit › Comments

Ironically enough, I found this very article at "socialmedian" this morning, posted to "twitter" then commenting on "friendfeed". Are we real? - Kenichi Matsumoto

HA - Mona Nomura

I have time for it:) - Igor Poltavskiy

I was with a bunch of real people tonight. What did we talk about? Our jobs, relationships, movies, food/restaurants... you know, things that regular people talked about before the social media timesuck. - Louie

Real people hardly have time to do anything. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

Louie is one of those guys who always ruins a party. Sigh. Today I saw Dark Knight, which was OK, but Maryam thought it sucked. Argued politics at one party. Talked about all sorts of things at another party. Now am working on a column about the future of journalism. - Robert Scoble

Ummm why the early 90's have to register to read the article?? - Justin Yost

this reminds me very much of when girls would give us a hard time for talking sports all day. The sentiment is captured well in City Slickers. What's important to some folks just isn't to others. - Morgan

Damnn Robert you are (quite literally) the first person I've heard from who didn't like The Dark Knight. - Mohit

Mohit: I liked it, my wife didn't. - Robert Scoble

Chuck Norris doesn't have time for social media, nobody lives long enough to comment on his fighting skill anyway - Antoine Bertier

Robert, I think FB is the one social networking app that most "normal" people have learned to love. Just not sure if they have room for more than one. - Kate

Even overhearing folks at church talk about Facebook and MySpace. - Todd Jordan

if FB is the social media for "normal people" then I NEVER want to be normal!!! - Dieter Schwarz

I can't seem to access the article, but I get the drift. I like Clay Shirky's talk on video discussing where we find the time: http://tinyurl.com/5o79x3 I tell my colleagues that, yes, a lot of people are busy, but then a lot of other people also just watch TV. I spend hours online instead of (or often in addition to) watching TV. Television has made our minds very inactive over the years. - Connie Crosby

So true. That's why most of my non-geek friends have a Facebook/MySpace account. I guess we all must be living in the Matrix. - darnell

I use Social Media quite a lot, but I probably watch less than an hour's TV a month. I'd rather interact with 'real' people - geeks or otherwise, online, than suffer the largely mindless dross and BS pumped out of the idiot box, which I can't answer back. - Ian May

Hmm, when I try to click the 'About SocialMedian' page, I get that signup prompt. So I have to sign up and then find out what you are about? Weak sauce. - beersage

+1 Morgan - BeeLing

@beersage -- we agree. we haven't had a chance to get rid of some of the remaining registration requirements we put in place during alpha. Will be cleaning that up soon. - Jason Goldberg

I would spend more time with Social Media if I didn't keep getting headaches from reading. - Shelly Weiss

Well, if you look at the entire population of the world and how they spend their time, "real" people are mostly engaged in backbreaking labor in filthy conditions and wondering where their next meal is coming from. So can I be fake please? Thank you. - Karim

It also depends on age demographics. Being 27 - everyone my age and below spends hours on Facebook/Myspace or both. My housemate is just two years old and has a Myspace account but barely uses it. I think Social Media is something the younger generations have as a part of their life and devote their time to it like it was any other entertainment vessel.... - George Smith

Design matters but functional design matters most. Presentation is nothing without function - Brian Sullivan

In a classroom maybe. But in our world awash in entertainment... function counts for very little. Hell, strict function applied to social media and @chrisbrogan and friendz would have to get real jobs. - Amanda Chapel

Amanda -- not sure what world you live in but it obviously is different from mine - Brian Sullivan

I think design + function matter. You need design that conveys your brand or message on an emotional level, and you need good UI for it to achieve the desired results. I have a personal preference for aesthetically pleasing and imaginative, too, and I'm sure many people would feel that way. To be most effective, it should resonate with the target audience. - Cathryn Hrudicka

Design should not be divorced from function - they go hand in hand, usability is key. It is a mistake to think of design as decoration. - felix

felix: I strongly agree. You can't separate out 'design' from the experience, and the experience is well, the experience of the product. Users don't get anything else, so it had better be good. - Robin Barooah

Right on! Elegant design means that something looks good but most importantly that it works well: straightforward function trumps most "beauty" in designs that last. - David Muir

Must hit cities? New York. New Orleans. San Francisco. Jackson Hole. Chicago. I haven't been to Miami yet, but I hear that's pretty nice too. New Orleans is still my favorite. I hope it comes back. I probably would start with New York, though. That's probably the best tourist city, with SF a close second. But, what kinds of things do you like? If you like Museums I'd head to Washington DC. If you like wine or being outdoors, San Francisco. - Robert Scoble

I'm a city person first. I like shopping just like my wife. :-) - Håkan Dahlström

Uh, hello?! Robert! How about LA? - Trevor Carpenter

NYC, definitely. - Mona Nomura

Start in the middle and work your way out. Kansas City, MO is one of the most beautiful cities in the country. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

San Francisco and Boston would be my first two. - Mark Jaquith from twhirl

NYC probably, but SF is nice given the proximity of Napa, Monterey, Tahoe, etc...definitely NOT LA - George Lee from twhirl

This time of year? San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. - tagami

Trevor: personally there are a lot better cities to visit than LA. Sorry. LA is better than Atlanta, though, unless you're a CocaCola fan. - Robert Scoble

I'd say Boston, New York, San Francisco. I second the "stay away from LA." And I live an hour away from it. - Mohit

New York. Los Angeles (Santa Monica, OC beaches, Whisky, Roxy, and the Troubadour on the Sunset Strip). San Francisco I cannot recommend, but that's because I've been here too long. - Jeremy Brooks

@Trevor I thought that was more of a region than a city. - Sam Pullara

I would start with Rugby, North Dakota. Not too different from Svalöv. - Rutger Blom

San Francisco - Phillip Jeffrey

I'll give one more vote for S.F. and the surrounding Bay Area and Boston. - Jeff P. Henderson

I would start from New York:) - Nia

A second on New Orleans. And Robert, it's creeping back, especially in the Quarter. But I think many of the changes are permanent. - Chris Baskind

New York City is #1. But it really depends on the person. Museums (Washington DC) Live music (NYC, Nashville) Beaches & Beach Life (LA - Venice Beach, Manhattan Beach, Malibu) Cafes & Intellectual conversation (Boston) Food (NYC) Night-life (LV) Professional Dance (NYC, SF, LA, Chicago, LV) Musicals (NYC, LV) Friendly people (Texas cities, Seattle) Mountains (Yosemite) Clothes & Style (NYC, LV) Classical Music (NYC) Movies/Graphics (LA) Colleges (Boston) Architecture (SF, NYC, LV, Boston) To-Live (SF) - Mitchell Tsai

I would start off in Chicago. I love my city of Miami, but there you get a beautiful big city, beautiful food, beautiful music, and the friendliest big city people you will find almost anywhere. It is fantastic. After that you can hit the big cities, but do not fail to hit small towns across America for a real flavor(good and bad) for what the country is like. - Brad Nickel

If New Orleans isn't possible, try Charleston SC or Savannah GA - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Time of year is an important consideration: Right now start in Boston and drive/amtrak/bus to Washington DC stopping at Westerly RI, New Haven CT, NYC, Philadelphia PA, and Baltimore MD. On the way, you can pick from hundreds of other stops depending on your interests including the best beaches on the east coast. From DC fly to San Francisco or Seattle and drive to the other. - Luke Gedeon

I have been to NYC twice, still waiting for a chance to see more cities (and that space in between them, what do they call that). I am very afraid The Big Apple is the one that will stay favourite. It felt really European too. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

The fall or spring would be a better time to catch the southern cites. They are a bit more spread out though, so there is no, start here and drive to.... Plus in the South spots outside the cites tend to be more interesting. But the majors in the south are LA and San Diego (beaches not city), Nashville, San Antonio, New Orleans, (definitely not Atlanta), Tampa FL, Charleston, NC, Virgina Beach, VA. - Luke Gedeon

To understand America, you must (MUST) hit Las Vegas. There is no city that better encapsulates everything the nation is about. The rest are academic, but I'd encourage you to see Chicago, New York and San Francisco. - Aidan Biggins

Just noticed your comment about really being interested in the city itself. So I would say Boston and NYC. Together they cover the scope of US cites and they are geographically close which makes things easier. Chicago, Atlanta, LA, Las Vegas and a dozen other big cities are just NYC clones. San Francisco, Seattle, DC, Philadelphia, and others are well represented (and a bit one-upped) by Boston. - Luke Gedeon

Stay out of a city and visit the heartland. Go to a smaller town and just have a drink in a bar and chat with the locals. If you are coming this Fall, I'd strongly suggest catching a college football game at one of the larger Midwestern or Southern schools. That's an eye-opening experience most visitors never ever see firsthand. - Andrew Leyden

Well if you are planning a long trip, I'd do Boston to New York to Philly to DC. Great cities and they are so close to each other by train. Then you need to get on a plane to San Francisco, the most beautiful city in America. Down to LA then over to Las Vegas. If you are going to the US for the first time, you are really not going to want to watch a college football game. - PC Easy

@Andrew Leyden they call it flyover country for a reason ;) - Sam Levine

To everyone that has suggested the heartland (aka flyover): Yes it is beautiful. It is a great place to live and to visit. And honestly, you have not really seen America until you have seen the small towns, but when giving travel advice you have to take into consideration what your visitor wants to see. There are two very different America's. Not as simple as Rural vs. Urban, but that is kinda the idea. Dahlstrom specifically said he is interested in cites. We can save the heartland for others. - Luke Gedeon

If you want to understand the US better, you need to hit some of the coastal cities mentioned above, and also the heartland as Robert mentions. Then you'll better understand the diversity that makes this country great. By the way, no one mentioned Seattle or Portland, If you're doing the corners, the Northwest is unique as well. - John Ahrens

Actually the real answer should start with a question--which ocean are you crossing on your way here? - Andrew Leyden

If you like donuts, green spaces/natural beauty and microbrews, Portland is a great place to visit. - Alex Scoble

Yep. Love Meebo. It just works, and the changes they have made over the last year to integrate others services have been very nice. - Sean Brady

Czar: they record every IM conversation so you can take that text and do stuff with it. But it's not a forum like exists here. - Robert Scoble

Meebo is REALLY convenient, and since it's web based they can take it anywhere - even add twitter. - Ernie Oporto

i've tried it a few times and it never has worked properly for me. Maybe i'm just unlucky with it. - Zee.

I agree. It's so easy to fire up Meebo as an IM client on any computer with internet access and a web browser. I use Digsby on my own computer, and Meebo over VPN and on any other computer. Meebo has been cranking out features and deals. I believe they are actually making money compared to Twitter. I want to see more integration with online media and SNS. - Hao Chen

Just installed it - Ian May

I've been using meebo on the go ... great IM client, very customizable and love the group chat feature - Jay from twhirl

@Ian ... What exactly did you install? :P - Hao Chen

Meebo Rocks!! Love it!!!!!! - Susan Beebe

@Hao Chen. I installed a meebo chat room on a site of mine... http://eyebeemania.com/meebo... - Ian May

I got a friend in there, and he thrashed me alive at Marbles... LOL - Ian May

Yep that's the only drawback of its immense popularity: they started blocking it at school and work firewalls :P - Mohit

Agreed. Just used it on the iPhone today - worked like a charm. :) - l0ckergn0me

Being a college student, I can't get enough Meebo! When I'm in class and I dont' have my laptop to jump on Digsby, I hit up the Meebo.. in fact the whole Computer Science department uses it. - Aaron Myers

I use it at work and really like it. - Corie

I had no idea they were actually making money. They have a great service I have been evangelizing at my agency for a while now for our use on out clients' sites. Now they may actually be a viable source for ad buys as well. Thanks so much for this article Robert, it really put the company in a new light for me. - Devlin Dunsmore from twhirl

while i like hte aim, msn and google talk parts, the one thing that i'm really missing is irc. i use irc a ton for work i do for Ubuntu and while that is most of the time blocked at client's sites i miss a lot of things that happen. - Jonathan Jesse

also do they still have problems with the igoogle gadget? that's when i stopped using it - Jonathan Jesse

you should work a link to http://meebo.com/ in that article somewhere :) - Tim Hoeck

meebo is hands down the best im and no install, glorious - adolfo foronda

Twitter isn't a global phenom yet? Twitter's practically all I ever hear about...anymore.. - Patrick

wow. 100k. that is bloody insane. - Zee.

I wonder if they are real, useful, contributing members, or just spam accounts? Not to be Debbie Downer or anything. - Zach Underwood

I still very much dislike the concept of Twitter. To me, it's a feature not a product in and of itself. - trextor

Do regular people just not hear about Twitter's problems? I don't get how so many people can sign up for a service that's down so much... - Mohit

maybe that's WHY it's down so much. still, lots of dead bot users. - evonne

i had about 50 people follow me named hanh123x that were following thousands but no one was following them - seemed like spam to me. - Morgan

Thanks for the fact Steve. Good game twitter and I hope it's 200k in August. - Czar

I know they are working the kinks out, but in this day of charging $7 for a pillow, you would think they would roll this stuff out and charge for it. I would like to believe that they would make significant more money for wifi than they would for a pillow. And the wifi is something people have not had for free on an airline before. A much better PR win. - JT Perry

Not to mention, wifi while traveling with a child would be wonderful for all travelers around. Give the kid PBSKids.org and watch him stay entertained.... - JT Perry

cross country flight + jetblue legroom + wifi = bliss :-) - Mohit

I'll be on a JetBlue flight in a couple of days. Will ask. At least they have free wifi on their gates while waiting to board. - Bora Zivkovic

It looks like a really helpful service that I will check out immediately. Thanks for a great interview, Robert.:-) - Cathryn Hrudicka

I love it too, but my iPhone app crashes constantly. - Veronica

thanks, i'll give it a try! - idnan

sadly enough i find the evernote interface to be rather clunky and failing more often than not on simple pages. :( - Nicole Simon

*cough* OneNote *cough* - John Denver

Has seemed very clunky to me as well. - Andy DeSoto

I like Evernote too. My problem is that I keep migrating systems - and that seems to defeat a major purpose --unifying all my notes in one place. The most comprehensive and well designed note-sysem (for mac) I've seen and still use is Journler (and its surprisingly still free). I also use 'sidenote' for quick instance access notes. Seems there should be a differentiation between note 'capture' (evernote, sidenote, etc) and note storage/organizing. - Leif Hansen

Robert, I shared with Jim Robinson too - Richard Binhammer

I tried Evernote on an iMac (OS X 10.5.4) and had lots of trouble getting screen captures or photo captures to work. Also found that I had to close and reopen the app to get it to display new notes made from screen caps, even when the screen cap actually worked. - Dimitrios Diamantaras

evernote is cool - i simply forget to use it everytime ;) as soon as i have bookmarked something interesting, i also forget about it thesame time... - Dieter Schwarz

the iPhone client needs to cache notes locally - at least some useful subset. there's nothing worse than relying on a notes app to store timely info and then not being able to call it up when you critically need it. - Jon Price

Gahh Robert! I had been going back and forth between OneNote and Evernote last month and finally decided on OneNote. Then I watched your video and now I'm reconsidering Evernote again. Why do you have to make my life more difficult? :-P - Mohit

really interesting video! Love the screen capture and ocr functionality. - Randy Ksar

love EVERNOTE been using it for a while now... - laleh

I was a beta tester and have been hooked ever since. The user interface interaction between desktop client and web service is great. - Mikael Pittam from twhirl

The recognition of the handwriting is amazing - sdfx

as always thanks - http://writtenbyallof.us/2008... - Jeff Woelker from twhirl

The one feature it's really missing is being able to stitch photos together - Specifically, panoramas of whiteboards. - Chris Weiss from twhirl

the desktop client is even worse than the web interface. I am looking into onenote again, especially for integration with outlook. - Nicole Simon

i am using an amazing mac app called notebook. much better and much cleaner than evernote. - Kfir Pravda

if I can't edit the note on my iPhone, it is of no use to me. - Robert Hafer

Onenote is a fantastic tool. Someplace between a notepad and a wiki. It has great sync tools, really good sharability and collaberation abilities and good integration. I like evernote mostly as a web clipping tool (it does that better than OneNote) but thats about it. - Soulhuntre from twhirl

Onenote is very nice, but it doesn't run on my Mac and iPhone. - Robert Scoble

I have loved this product ever since I heard about it (a few months ago). I can take notes from anywhere on any computer, and the iPhone integration is especially nice. I just used it today for a site survey (had to take pictures using my phone and comment on it). - Peter Ghosh

I just use plain text files for most purposes, and save my images in iPhoto. I'm still not getting the value from these note-taking applications you young people go on about. And that "hop hip" music you like to listen to. And get off my lawn! - Mitch Wagner

been playing with onenote, yoono and evernote. evernote wins. - Christian Anderson

The reason I like Evernote? I can use it on my mobile phone. We go to the bookstore a lot and it's perfect for adding urls to cool things I find in magazines (but don't want to buy the magazine to remember) and for noting books I might want to buy later, or jotting down ideas for projects I find in books or mags, or doing research (I have been looking at purchasing a camera... used it go to through the latest camera mags and jot down models that got good reviews and what the interesting features were). - Lindsay

@Scoble; It'd be great if you could interview the OneNote team about what they're doing to challenge products like Evernote, especially in terms of online and mobile access of notes. Just an idea. - Mohit

They dont have Tiger OSX support :-( - Karthick R

Another interesting one: Flickr? - Alexander van Elsas

I pay for Smugmug and Twitterrific. - Robert Scoble

I would pay for smugmug, 37signals, bitbucket and many other great services. - Augusto Becciu from twhirl

I didn't actually write it down, but I also wonder if there is a group of mainstream users that will pay a reasonable amount for a service regardless of free alternatives. The reason for this could be that they (unlike early adopters) don't want to spent time to find and try free alternatives - Alexander van Elsas

I pay for Yahoo!Mail ($20/yr for clean POP access), Picasa ($20/yr for 10 GB storage), 1and1.com ($5/month for business website). Still using Blogger for free blogs, but may switch in the future for better designs. - Mitchell Tsai

I pay for last.fm and flickr. The company I work for uses basecamp extensively. - Gez

I pay for Google Sites, Picasa (extra storage), Genealogy.com (although a bit pricey, it provides great resources for research), and LinkedIn (b/c as an independent consultant it is the absolute best networking tool, and I want it to succeed). Although the sites who offer a free trial but require a credit card upfront, and then make it impossible to cancel without a phone call...yeah, I can do without those. - cjmart

I pay for flickr. I used to upload a lot of photos there (not as much anymore). $24/year for unlimited storage seems very reasonable to me. And the fact that they have such a nice API so my photos are not locked away if I want to use them made the idea of supporting them financially much more appealing. - Lindsay

I pay for Smugmug,Yahoo mail for Pop and Remember the Milk. - Henry Burger from twhirl

I'm thinking of paying for SmugMug, but haven't decided yet. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I think it really comes down to whether the service is good enough and close to best of breed. - Rob Diana

basecamp, icontact - Jason Goldberg

I've got to think Flickr has the highest number of paid subscribers of any pure-web service. They provide a good service that's useful for free, but if you want to be a serious user you have to move up to pro. There's a good lesson there for all of us in monetizing a web service... Oh, and it's not open source ;) - Jason Carreira

Jason, but it is weird that a LOT of current web 2.0 companies use that 1.0 business model? - Alexander van Elsas

@Alexander, isn't it weird that a LOT of current web 2.0 companies aren't making any money? ;) - Jason Carreira

@Jason I know, but I fail to understand why so many new startups enter that same death grip. Is it pressure from investors, advertisers, fame? - Alexander van Elsas

The last time I was right I picked Nixon. I was really wrong. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

+1 Jack. Saw a bumper sticker the other day: "At least Nixon had the decency to resign." ;-) - Mohit

Oooooh very interesting... shall be fun to watch the Scoble house deal with the vote results! - Susan Beebe

yeah but if Bush resigned, we'd be with Cheney...is that much better? - Justin Korn

*Shudder* Alright fine you've got a point there. I'll take stupid over evil any day :) - Mohit

it would be interesting to see Obama fail and Orange Revolution in USA... wait, who will sponsor that? lol - A.T.

LOL. I'm totally sure that I'm not sure who will win! - Pokai

I was certain that both major parties would select their candidates by Super Tuesday. I was only half right. Re Gore, Robert was wrong by a vote of 5-4. :) - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

My prediction for the 2008 general - like 1960, it will be decided on images rather than substance. The "old geezer" will end up losing to the "inxperienced kid." - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

Ontario: the last administration had plenty of experience and look what they ended up doing to all of us. - Robert Scoble

Your son needs a blog :P - John

John: he has one. Is on Twitter too. But he usually is too busy playing WoW to write anything. - Robert Scoble

awesome! thanks. - John

Robert, does your son have a candidate preference? - Czar

Robert, what faction and server ;) - mjc

The contest will be pretty tight, like the last two. It's all about electoral voites and gerrymandered districts. - Francine Hardaway from twhirl

@Michael J Cohen Horde-Kalecgos-Torosmen-druid-resto/balance and Alliance-Killrogg-Glorindael-Mage-Arcane/Fire (but I respec a lot on him) - Patrick Scoble

@Czar DJ Peterman Obama however I am exposed to both sides so I would consider myself in-between on a lot of issues. - Patrick Scoble

HA! Did Patrick just join FriendFeed to participate in this conversation??!?! Welcome to the friendfeed world! - Justin Korn

signed up, paid my fee, every day Mobileme tells me syncing failed and mu trial is over, no response from Apple, really poor form - Patphelan

Well, no when ever my Dad joins a new service I generally do too. However I never really got into Friend Feed. I'll see if I can get set up here. Thanks for welcoming me! - Patrick Scoble

@Robert, ironic thing about that is your photo of me appears next to "The Politics Guy" archetype on HolyTaco's "people who will ruin your party"...and without crediting you either. - Andrew Feinberg

Actually, Scoble was wrong by 537 votes in Florida. Which the SC basically validated by a 5-4 vote. It's interesting the some think the SC is wrong, like in this instance, but yet they are infallible when it comes to Rove v Wade. - Dave Madison

@Francine, it's not the last two elections that have been decided by electoral votes. EVERY Presidential election has been determined by electoral votes, not popular vote. God forbid if we ever change and think it better to decide by popular vote. - Dave Madison

@DavidMadison what I don't get about all you pro-life types is that you, presumably, trust the woman to raise the child; but don't trust her with the decision to have said child. - Prolific Programmer

Woah - how'd this turn into an abortion discussion? - Internet's Tad

I'm daring to hope that our great nation is about the elect the right guy for the same stupid, superficial reasons that we (kinda) elected the wrong guy 8 years ago, and re-elected the sumbitch 4 years ago. - Tegan Dowling

i'm for the pill, aka pre-bortion - @baratunde from twhirl

The pill and abortion seen from another perspective are "russian roulette" with family aspirations. You don't always get a "second chance" at having children. Simple biology (to its logical conclusion) says sperm and ovum meet and create life. It is inextricably part of the sexual act. When we eat food we do it primarily to nourish our bodies BUT it also tastes good. When we reverse that thinking, we eat out of balance. The sexual act needs to be seen with the same kind of sacredness and balance.... - Melanie Reed

...but we have reversed that. As a result, many of us have lost the joy and regard (or will lose it) for what this gift is about. From a purely pragmatic aspect, 40, million potential scientists, inventors, programmers, artists, etc. have been forever lost. What have we sacrificed because we thought more of a moment than a lifetime of consequence? Here's why sacredness protects us individually and communally. - Melanie Reed

Either way we all win! - Todd Loren Sinclair

anyone who says they are confident that one or the other will win at this stage is crazy - this entire cycle has been psychotically unpredictable - the pundits are lucky that they are held about as accountable as weather forecasters - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Sometimes, I think about the future of our country and I feel scared. - Mohit

While this is forgivable in a person -- if I were as tired and stressed as he is, I'd probably do this kind of thing every single time I had to field two questions in a row -- this is just not tolerable in a candidate for president, who will, if elected (unless he's Reagan or Shrub), presumably have far more stressful moments on the job, and will need the mental stamina to stay with it. - Tegan Dowling

bush v2.0 - Krishna Gade

wow, just wow. - Morgan

McCain is freakin' me out.... how can this guy be a Presidential candidate...wow! - Susan Beebe

It's not a senior moment. That's the Straight Talk Express coming off the rails again. - Chris Baskind

i dont get the multiple camera angles. Was he taking a dump in his shorts while trying to answer the question? - Rodfather

Patrick: You're a gentleman, and your point is well-taken. But he's a pro, and should be able to handle that. - Chris Baskind

Patrick: I'm a republican - the fact that the guy can't answer the question about his campaign claiming Obama plays the race card is a joke. The fact that he can't speak articulately to his work to promote racially equality across his career with ease is either shameful or truly sad - take your pick. Every day I get closer to crossing party lines. I just want someone I can believe in - is that too much to ask? - Morgan

Yeah, everyone has a moment like that. I'm 38 and that happens to me all the time. I blank out. Imagine answering questions all the time, all day long. This is just dumb to pile on this one video, and I'm an Obama supporter. - Jim Kukral

poor guy. like others on this thread i don't take this against McCain. i'd be out of words myself if i'm in McCain's (or Obama's) shoes. i can't imagine the stress that these two candidates are subjected to 24/7. that said, there's a op-ed on NYTimes by Bob Herbert reminding people that John McCain as a maverick is just a myth. see http://bit.ly/3UGRPz - ~C4Chaos

And Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday...and everyday. - Jim Stanger

It'd be one thing if this was an isolated instance. How about the one where they ask about Carly's stand on birth control? Also, it's okay to have this happen but it's what you do that is crucial. Lose your place, don't ah, um, hem - that's not going to cut it as President. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that question?" would do nicely, cover any mental lapses and give time to process. - AJ Kohn

I like obama and i don't like this video. Those were non trivial questions asked in intelligent language spoken quickly in a row. I'm 36 and I could easily have gotten mixed up too. Posting this is no better than running brittney and paris in a video with obama as a "dog whistle". C'mon dave, you can do better. - Adrian Bye

Nobody is going to post a video of McCain here unless it shows him in a bad light. McCain is as articulate as most politicians but all you will see here are videos like the one shown. - Michael Tefft

Adrian, then you shouldn't be president either. - Dave Winer

I just posted 3 Obama gaff videos out of a number available on YouTube. Nobody, not even Obama, is perfect. - Michael Tefft

True nobody is perfect, it's just that McSame is worse than Bush at gaffing himself. - John McElhenney 2.0

The President might as well be called the Public Speaker in Chief. This stuff IS important. At least 2/3 of the job is about eloquently passing along a message that someone else has created - Nicholas Molnar

I think it's a shame that so much attention is played to such moments - on both sides. No one is perfect for sure, but these two both stand for more of the same - big government, high spending, way too much interfering in our lives, a slide toward a European style nanny state. - Ian May

ugh. when isn't he having a senior moment? - edythe

Obama having a "My ear piece isn't working moment." http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Michael Tefft

McCain still looks like a freakin' super genius next to the shrub. - Internet's Tad

That's right, Obama is not perfect. But he's fit and 46, and McCain has had cancer and is 71. Big difference, health-wise. You may not like it, but it's true. - Dave Winer

Another thing to look into -- I don't think McCain was all that smart, even when he was younger and in better health. We need to find out more about that. - Dave Winer

Eh - I was a big fan of McCain back in 2000. If it was McCain in 2000 vs Obama today I'd have a lot of thinking to do. - Internet's Tad

It's not McCain's senior moments that worry me, it's his lack of knowledge of foreign affairs, geography, etc. AND his temper. I also think he obsessed with military defeat due to his past trauma. - Rod Bauer from twhirl

I hate his hypocrisy. He makes a big deal about how he's always put his country first, and then he runs that fucked up ad that makes the presidency about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. He'll fuck the country just so he can win an election. That's the Republican Party. They should just disband they're such sad fucks. - Dave Winer

Dave, I like your insightful commentary. I'll bet you were on the debate team in college. - Michael Tefft

Thats just sad. Look at Crist's face. He must be thinking what have I done? I bailed on blocking offshore drilling for this guy???? - Brad Nickel

For the apologists, there is no excuse for this. If you want to be President you have to always be on. The entire friggin world expects it and acts upon your every word and facial expression. This is worse than Reagen in his 2nd term. Once I would say he was thinking about something else, but this happens everytime he faces a tough question about his record! - Brad Nickel

Interesting that something as stupid and insignificant as this gets 30 comments, while a story of real substance and meaning such as the Antrax investigation gets not one bit of discussion. I think some conclusions can be made about that. - Christopher Dickens

@Christopher Dickens. Yes, I guess it means you are a genius and all us others are mere mortals. Is there an alter I can worship you at? - Michael Tefft

Dave - I don't quite understand your argument for how Twitter could have been the NSOL of microblogging. Are you saying that Twitter should have been the site that binds every other micro-blogging service together? - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I don't understand your question, sorry. All I get from it is your first phrase that you don't understand me. So neither of us understand each other. Oh well. Maybe someone else can bridge the void.. - Dave Winer

Love it Dave. We're having a meta conversation about microblogging. Maybe I'll go craft an old fashioned blog post of my own to try and elaborate/clarify :) - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

It's kind of like this Apple commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Dave Winer

Exactly! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Another example, I read somewhere on FF the other day that people took a feed from a music room here and added it to iTunes and it knew what to do with it! I feel really proud of that cause it was made possible by some early foundation work I did with RSS, a long time ago, paying off now for users. Exactly the kind of foresight I would like to see Twitter do now. - Dave Winer

Now that I get. Thanks Dave. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Dave, yes you spot on (once again !). However, twitter doing it is basically like asking like asking water to turn to honey. Only a miracle can make it happen. The underlying architecture of Twitter, really can't support a framework of collaborative sharing of info with other 3rd party vendors. FB did a great job with creating the app that was actually a platform. FF seems to be like this, twitter is ouf of the window. - Peter Dawson

Do you think the problem lies in the fact that they are a Valley startup that needs to look like something Google or Yahoo would buy and put ads on. - Harold Gilchrist from twhirl

Harold, I don't think there's a "problem" -- they're overworked and head-down and faced with an enormous amount of opportunity. It must be hard to sort through it all, and to them, a missive like this from me probably sounds pretty shrill. "Oh there he goes again." I don't blame them for this, but I would be remiss if I didn't put my stake in the ground so we can play Monday Morning Quarterback in 2010 or so. (Murphy-willing, knock wood!) - Dave Winer

Network Solutions are the worst company ever, i don't know why you related Twitter to them. - Nicholas James

I suspect that the problems from this past weekend are only going to exacerbate the problem. http://tinyurl.com/5pkpjs Not only have they missed they opportunity, but poor communication and support are seriously eroding the customer base. That the victims of this weekend's situation included several strong Twitter evangelists has unfortunate potential. Even tho the folks involved seem to mostly still carry a fondness for Twitter, their followers witnessed the problems and were involved in the solution. - Patricia F. Anderson

"Imagine if the world of Instant Messaging had been under one roof, if one vendor had invented it, and had 100 percent market share." Wasn't that *mostly* true of AOL, though? Didn't AOL consolidate their position by buying up ICQ? Didn't they drag their feet for years and years on efforts to make their IM play well with others? By illustrating your point with IM, perhaps you have... more... - Karim

Likewise, Network Solutions is an example of *abuse* of a dominant position: in 1995 they charged $100 to register a domain name for 2 years, which led to an antitrust lawsuit. They've also been guilty of domain name censorship, domain name slamming, subdomain hijacking, domain name frontrunning, selling WHOIS information, etc. ad nauseam. - Karim

I, for one, am glad their business model didn't become IP of a namespace - Ross Mayfield

I'm really surprised that this weekend's problems of account closings haven't caused more of a fuss. It seems to me that it would be such a big deal, it would be the final straw that would get most of the major twitter advocates to finally pay attention to the whole issue of federation of microblogging. Also: this is the umptyzillionth thing that's made the thought go thru my mind that they must be *trying* to fail! - Tegan Dowling

@Karim: While AIM is definitely the dominant IM standard here in the US, it doesn't even come close to being so abroad. People I know in India and Australia, for example, don't even know what "AIM" is. Yahoo and MSN Messengers are both the dominant IM networks there. I think that Dave's example very much reflects why Twitter would have done better in the long-term with an open model. - Mohit

It would be great to see FriendFeed run their own laconica service (identi.ca). - Dan Cameron

Isn't Identi.ca exactly what you're looking for? FriendFeed doesn't support multiple instances of FriendFeed, but I'm already party of multiple Laconica (the source of Identi.ca) networks via one seamless interface. There are some kinks, sure, but I'm bowled over by how much they've gotten done in a month. - Marina Martin

Marina, I am an identi.ca user. How do I follow a user on another laconi.ca server? How do they follow me? Please post a pointer to the docs. This is very important. - Dave Winer

Dave, when you are on the profile page of a user on another laconica server (such as mine: http://waka.me/wil) just click on the Subscribe button. It will then ask you for your profile URL (yours would presumably be http://identi.ca/dave) then submit the form. Your browser will do an OAuth redirect dance, after which you should be subscribed to me. - Wil from MojiPage

Mohit, the market is badly fragmented *now.* QQ is huge in China. Yahoo! and MSN started beta testing interop only in 2006. Google whipped out their checkbook and paid AOL a billion dollars for interop, and even that is lame -- AIM users can't see GTalk users from AIM. My point was that AOL *used to be* the dominant IM, just as Network Solutions *used to be* the largest domain name... more... - Karim

like i'm gonna fall for that... - Internet's Tad

seriously have a hard time backing down from a dare...... - carlotta fancypants

Language?? - Alex Sauceda

@Alex - don't tell anyone, but it's the Windows commandline. Showing Paul Buchheit that Windows devs aren't wimps ;) - Yuvi

Make it a double dog dare and I'm there. :) - Yolanda

Tad fell for that - Charlie Anzman

Console app? - Internet's Tad

@Tad - not really. - Yuvi

Dude, was there something that I wasn't supposed to do here? - ::Kristen::

http://friendfeed.com/e... it just got ability to post links too. Adding images now... - Yuvi

@Kristen - Yes, you aren't supposed to have :: before and after your name. - Yuvi

Exception: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." - Jemm

@Yuvi - someone around here has to be a little bit different, and that's the story of my life. - ::Kristen::

@Kristen - well, as long as you don't get all orkutty.... it's okay :) (Seen people's names on Orkut? It makes you want to kill the person who invented unicode) - Yuvi

comment - Mitchell Tsai

I am NOT threatened by your dare Yuvi :-) ...hehehehhehe!! spin the bottle! - Susan Beebe

No. I will not! - Eric Florenzano

I am proud to say that I did not comment for four hours and twenty-four minutes. I stood out pretty long, but in the end, everybody has to cave in. - Rishabh Mishra (p248) from NoiseRiver

foobar. - Tim Hoeck

These are the "non-passionates" Robert Scoble blogged about today! http://scobleizer.com/2008... - Susan Beebe

read: normal people - Eric Rice

Eric: the more i study normal people the more I realize there is no "normal" at all. - Robert Scoble

I have over 470 contacts in Facebook but that is still just a part of people I know. - Daniel Schildt

read: mainstream - Eric Rice

Eric: about half of the world's people don't own a computer and live on about $2 a day. The people you talk with are NOT mainstream either. - Robert Scoble

As for estimate, most of my contacts have ~10-40 people as their contacts. I'm not sure about exact numbers (is there tool to calculate that?). - Daniel Schildt

Someone must have put out a memo in the Propecia box or something because my entire high school class has shown up on there all within the last 30-40 days. (hooray class of '86!) - Adam Turetzky

Come on Robert, our ilk don't give a shit about that. We cry when Twitter goes down, and the rest watch the NFL and sharp at Walmart cuz it's affordable. I appreciate we're starting to realize there's a difference, but let's not get all fake altruistic with 'other people'... We have the same behaviors as the mainstream but are in denial, like it's uncool to watch TV. Well fuck that, I love TV and am too lazy to bittorrent. I'm so alternative. /smirk - Eric Rice

Daniel yeah out of nearly 750, I think non blogosphere/real life people there's about uh 12? for me. - Eric Rice

My wife is like GAH ok fine, I'll get on Facebook. She didn't like that when she did appear on Twitter she got friend adds by proxy of me. But I'll believe it when I see it. She's getting pushed by her ex-Apple alumni who are all come on come on, which I find kinda funny. - Eric Rice

Eric: I'm too lazy to Bittorrent too. So there. In fact, I'm so lazy, I can't even be motivated to find the remote control for the TV sometimes. - Robert Scoble

I believe the mainstream will get aware of Twitter because of hearing about it on CNN or some major news outlet, USUALLY because of something dramatic and sensational--- because that sells. Bloggers getting out of Egyptian jails? Vagina Quakes? Death Threats? THAT's what pushes numbers, baybee. Fail whales... umm maybe not so much. Politicians acting like children on Twitter, that might be a good sell. This is just one example, replace Twitter with your tool of choice. Our problem is that we focus on TOOLS. - Eric Rice

Eric: there is an elephant in the room none of us are discussing. You're getting close, but you don't really want to discuss it either cause you know it's not cool to talk about THIS particular elephant. - Robert Scoble

Eric: every non-passionate that's told me about getting onto Facebook did it because their friends dragged them into doing it. Not a single one said they got into it because it sounded cool on the news or some other way. - Robert Scoble

Thinking about it, maybe non-passionate is the wrong way to look at it. Maybe they are non-curious. I try out almost EVERYTHING that sounds cool on the news. Maybe the world is just split into "curious" and "non-curious" people. :-) - Robert Scoble

iPhones Eric. And thanks to their mainstreamness and the cheap Twinkle app I've gotten to see the contents of the used toilet bowl (#2) of at least 3 people within 10 miles of me and got to read ridiculous ramblings of near crazy people who must think no one can see what they're saying. I for one hope friendfeed and twitter don't turn into MySpace. - Adam Turetzky

"Like" for Scoble's comment re: "non-passionate" vs. "non-curious" - Robert Seidman

Robert - BINGO... NON CURIOUS and NOT interesting in sharing themselves online; nor maintaining their self image / brand online either. Where's the remote?! Techies, bloggers, Social media "consultants", etc. are the ones who fuss over their "brand" and maintain all this online presence. Most folks out there could really care less. - Susan Beebe

I have to second Robert on the curious theory. I can't count the number of times I've gone on a rant about how "awesome" and "cool" this new service is, while my friends stare at me blankly and say, "That's nice." How can people resist the temptation?! =P - Mohit

Adam: Twitter already has. FriendFeed is a little more defensible, but not really. I ran out of "hides" this morning and we don't yet have a way to talk to the database yet and pull out the high-value bits. I can't say "show me all posts of Eric Rice's that have two or more likes," for instance. - Robert Scoble

Robert: as someone who sees the left and the right of this "non-passionate/passionate" debate in play quite often I think the term is non-technophile. I have many friends like this who see their computer as nothing more than a ticketmaster vending machine and airline discount tool. And that's pretty much it. They turn it on about 1 hour a day to do one specific thing and then turn it off. Then there's people like us who enjoy playing with it all day and night. My best friend refuses to iChat with me.... - Adam Turetzky

... he'll only talk on the phone (cell or landline, no skype he asks me to hang up and call him on the regular phone if he sees the skype caller ID). - Adam Turetzky

Now you know why I'm not afraid of appearing 'negative' lately, because it seems like it takes a god damn temper tantrum to even remotely make a dent. But yes, I'd agree with the curious and non-curious-- we just have to realize that that assessment is coming from those of us that are curious. And yeah, peer pressure is a bitch. :) - Eric Rice

Susan: the non-curious aren't limited to ignoring social networks. I remember when ActiveWords got a four-star review by USA Today. How many downloads did they get? About 40. - Robert Scoble

To me it seems like more of a simple case of Crossing the Chasm. Early adopters will always like the new stuff. The middle of the curve and late people either aren't paying attention or aren't motivated to participate. Then either the value proposition gets communicated clearly enough to them or there is enough of a change in their daily routines that compels them to try it. This has been happening for a long time, and won't change. - Morgan

>because it seems like it takes a god damn temper tantrum to even remotely make a dent. ERIC: you're absolutely right, which is why I got depressed about the state of the blogosphere. But I'm back and you're wrong. If we can't get attention without throwing a two-year-old's tantrum, then maybe you don't deserve to get the attention at all... - Robert Scoble

Morgan: you're right. It takes time for companies to get really big for just that reason. And it's what keeps really big companies in their position for longer than they deserve. - Robert Scoble

As long as the tantrum has good intent, it's ok. - Eric Rice

Robert: Love your Passion today! keep it going!! it's great! As for the "ignoring" social media, I don't think the "non-passionates" are ignoring SM, just lack interest and are really NOT that curious about technology stuff by nature. One reporter on USAToday getting a story on ActiveWords does not represent the mass of "non-passionates", that's the exception to the rule, IMHO. - Susan Beebe

Same has been happening to me a lot lately. My g/f from 8th grade Fb'd me yesterday... - Clay Newton

Robert: yeah, you're right, Twitter is mainstream now, as evidenced by what I've noticed with the iPhone explosion. The Twinkle app's "see local" feature has alerted me to how many people are using it right around me who I would never see based on who I pay attention to via the web. Sadly I haven't found much quality in this local pool yet who I don't already follow from the web. But I think that's to be expected. - Adam Turetzky

My Mom, brother, sister-in-law, the other sister-in-law, my wife and my son are on FB, as well as a few childhood friends, and of those, only my Mom and my son use it frequently - others don't really care: they go only if they get a notification e-mail that sound important and not deletable without further investigation. - Bora Zivkovic

Everyone's a passionate about something. Ours is web tech. My brother is a passionate about baseball (and I'm not.) My mother is a passionate about antiques (and I'm not.) Historically there's been to much inbreeding - what we need is INTERbreeding. These tools will grow popular when they start intersecting with other passionate interests. When ESPN Sportcenter pimps their FriendFeed stream...BAM! Rachael Ray encourages following her on Twtter while she experiments...BAM! Basically, we need more BAM. - Jim Stanger

Jim - Have you been watching one of my favorite chefs from The Big Easy? ;-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

I agree with Jim on that once the so called mainstream media drivers start pimping out these networks, they will literally explode with users. - Mathew A. Koeneker

I've got lots of Facebook friends who are single dots on my Facebook Nexus http://friendfeed.com/e.... Many real-life people who are just beginning to use Facebook. - Mitchell Tsai

Re: Robert Scoble's comment about living on $2/day. The average person in the world owns $2,200, so I'd bet that 99% of the people here are rich (could be wrong if many people here have negative wealth due to credit cards & upside-down house mortgages). Also, high-school grads (used to be IQ 108-110) are NOT the average person. College grads (IQ 114 in 1960s, IQ 105 in 200s) are even more "privileged" http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2008... - Mitchell Tsai

we Downloaded it from Torrnet :D Nice movie :) - Mil∂d

perspolisia haminan copy right sareshoon nemishe - Ehsanislav

prepare for almost 3 hours; if you're a fan, you won't be disappointed for sure.. - Adri Munier

Wow I'm surprised you haven't seen it. Best movie of the year! - Mohit

Mohit: It's been sold out the past few days that we had time to see it. - Robert Scoble

One of the best movies I have ever seen. Already seen it twice, looking forward to seeing it again. - James Hull

maybe they're selling iphones, too :-) - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

Going to see it at IMAX next weekend. - Roberto Bonini

I didn't think it was as good as the first, but then I'm not really into "dark" endings. - Alex Scoble

doH! we have no IMAX in France :-( I went to one in Montreal, that's cool! - TiTi

Dark Knight was a terrible movie; I want my 15 bucks and 2 & 1/2 hours of my life back. - Maryam Scoble

:))))) - Mil∂d

I disagree with Maryam. It wasn't as good a movie as everyone was hyping it up to be, but it was far from a terrible movie. - Robert Scoble

I agree with Robert. Too much hype. I liked Batman Begins more... - Migger

if you haven't seen it at imax yet you might change your mind. Imax adds a lot to this movie. - J Allen from fftogo

Google News - Todd Jordan

@directeur, I think both have the same sources.However, at times I am finding Yahoo is giving me news faster then google. But just wondering whats the take of others on these two news site - Peter Dawson

Yahoo News - just an old habit. - Atul Arora

@Peter: I actually allways thought that google had fresh news. But have to admit that I'm not a news consummer myself. - directeur from NoiseRiver

Google News... very useful for certain kinds of search - Eric Berlin

Yahoo News - Most popular http://news.yahoo.com/i... - Bwana ☠

Neither. News sucks. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Neither - I get my news from the variety of feeds into my google reader - R. Ferguson

Btw, Yahoo News does have RSS feeds :) - Bwana ☠

@ Bwana, yes YHOO has RSS http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=Aq... - Peter Dawson

Ruth, what are "getting" ? sources ? - Peter Dawson

Google News - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Peter are you asking me what sites I use? off the top of my head because everything is about the election for me these days: CNN, Time, Andrew Sullivan, Jack & Jill Politics, Huffington, Afrosphere network, MSNBC's First Read, USAToday Politics, Jed Report, Lynn Sweet, and more. If I misunderstood the quesiton, please clarify. - R. Ferguson

Google News. Before reading your note it honestly never occurred to me that I could use Yahoo news. - Marina Martin from Posty

BBC mostly, also local newspaper online, and WSJ, NYT,Also Telegraph and Guardian from the UK. - Ian May

Reuters - Charlie Anzman

Ruth, da sources that you use are mostly main stream. they cut the news much later/slower . I am looking for sources which are bleeding. Eg. of such a site is this scapper <http://news1.worldnewshost.com > - Peter Dawson

Charlie, I cant find rss for Reuters, only for there video paks. If you know of the RSS link for Reuters Wire could you post here ? - Peter Dawson

Yahoo news and google reader. - David Cook

ok found 4 top /popular section here <http://www.reuters.com/tools...> still need the on the wire data :)- - Peter Dawson

if I do... Yahoo! just by habit more than anything - Scott Lockhart

gotcha - you are right most of mine are MSM - R. Ferguson

Yahoo, but I hardly ever look at it any more. Get most of my news through Google RSS reader. - Jeff P. Henderson

Google News but I usually search for what I need. I don't read everything on the front page. - Morton Fox

Neither. I aggregate from all over the web with my feed reader to catch all angles. - Ernie Oporto

Google Reader pulling NYT and NewsJunk. Of those two though, I've had better luck with Yahoo News. - Mohit

Google News - Igor Poltavskiy

Neither. - dkb

Google News Search. I don't ever read the front page, but sometimes I want to see what's being published on a particular subject. - Jason Wehmhoener

Google - Susan Beebe

Ha! I know the moment of shock. It's disorienting at first...but also every time. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

Wow I honestly didn't think Cuil would make any sort of splash on any media market outside the US... - Mohit

funny: a startup showed me something very cool last week. How did they start? "We are not Cuil." - Robert Scoble

Robert, ouch. - Akiva Moskovitz

Now there's something: the product meme is already down track before the product itself gets out of the gate. Not so 'Cuil' in this case. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

i had a similar experience with a not so techy friend.... he said he saw it on TV - Azeem

oh man! (robert) - Jay

I'd comment on this, but I don't have a comment. Sorry, I just don't think I need a comment what with the social progress we've made in the last 30 years. I just don't understand people who comment: we've moved past the dark ages, people! - Mark Trapp

same thing with browsers as well - Steven Hodson

I am sensing some anger here...can't we all just get along? - Bren, Not Grinchy

And what's the deal with peanuts? It's not a pea... it's not a nut... who is it trying to fool? - Mark Trapp

+1 Mark. Bren, hey, I get along with everyone; they're just not getting along with me. - Akiva Moskovitz

Well, Rails? *Ducks. Runs. Dies* - Yuvi

Kinda like the way I intrude into conversations to tell people to use Vim. :) - Morton Fox

Mark, what's the deal with Ovaltine? It comes in a round container, you put it in a round glass... Why don't they call it Roundtine? - Akiva Moskovitz

That's gold, Akiva! Gold! - Mark Trapp

I love ovaltine. - Bren, Not Grinchy

Bren, me, too. My mom switched from Quik to Ovaltine one year when I was a kid and I never looked back (although I later did develop an unholy love for Strawberry Quik; a relationship to which my stomach and intestines strongly objected). - Akiva Moskovitz

I can't do the faux strawberry flavor... - Bren, Not Grinchy

I don't like Akiva Moskovitz. - B. Hatin

I do! - Ernie Oporto

Kaia, block me! Ernie, subscribe! - Akiva Moskovitz

But if I block you, I can't complain about you and feel smug. I think I'll just hide your entries and comment that I am hiding them. - B. Hatin

Awesome! Exploding high five! - Akiva Moskovitz

Exploding..? HAHA - Mona Nomura

not commenting. hiding. I don't drink things from a mix. (Mark Trapp, +1 for peanut. :D ) - edythe

I like complaining Akiva. Bwana approves. - Bwana ☠

I don't think Mona has seen Awesome Town. - Internet's Tad

now, multiply number of those per 100 and substitute word Mac with word iPhone... - A.T.

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. - Internet's Tad

Tad, I just made an attempt to correct that. - Akiva Moskovitz

Buy a Mac, Akiva. Makes you a more balanced person. No more complaining moods. ;-) - Ole Begemann

But if I buy a Mac, I can't complain about Macs and feel smug. I think I'll just not own a Mac and comment about not owning one. - Akiva Moskovitz

I have both. It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. - Robert Scoble

I have both in one box. Love it. - Internet's Tad

TweakUI (http://www.microsoft.com/windows...) apparently hides the recycle bin, but I haven't tested it. Don't feel like booting my Windows VM. Also, who needs a TV when you can download anything worthwhile? Jeez. - flammable

I thought Smug 2.0 was platform-independent. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

flammable: YOU'RE FIRED. - Akiva Moskovitz

Chris, I'm running Smug.NET which is currently not yet supported by Mono. - Akiva Moskovitz

Since no one has done so already, I'll make the obligatory "switch to Linux" comment. ;-) *Looks at Morton and coughs "Emacs"* ;-) ;-) ;-) - Joanmarie

Joanmarie, to be honest, I've tried to get into Emacs several times because it tickles my WordStar 2000 funnybone but I was born and bred on vi and anything else just seems uncivilized. - Akiva Moskovitz

Buy a Mac, put Linux on it ... there problem solved ... gd&r - Robert Couture

So things I've learned today: peanuts and Ovaltine are cousins, people who use Mac and Linux don't like watching TV, and geeks on FriendFeed have no life ;-) - Mohit

@Mohit and here I thought the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything was 42. Then you come along ... heh. - Robert Couture

Macs vs. PCs; PS3 vs Xbox 360 vs Wii; North vs South... it is all the same. It is in human nature. Don't you recall times where Windows users would bash Mac users? Essentially, people are just acting the same way, only the products change. - James Mowery from twhirl

+1 Mohit - Akiva Moskovitz

Perhaps we should use "Buy a Mac" as the answer to everything. - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

I find Vista's UAC good enough. Add to that I don't click on random EXEs, I got my last Virus in Win98. - Yuvi

I've been using Avast! with WinPatrol and it seems to be fine so far. Doesn't screw up my system the way one of those commercial products used to. - sergiooo

I would also reccomend *against* the established Antivirus software. Sucks the life out of any system. - Yuvi

Avast! or AVG are both my recommendations - Bwana ☠

I've been using McAfee and its pretty non invasive. I used to use Norton before that, but the latest version was a headache! - Rahul Das

Yuvi what are the established Antivirus software you are referring to? Wd help. - kamla bhatt

AntiVir by Avirs is my personal choice - even upgraded from the free to pay version - small footprint and does a very good job - Steven Hodson

While the best antivirus is just common sense, I add a vote for Avast. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

I like AVG Free. Still works and now does some anti-spyware stuff. - Rob Diana

Avast Free edition. That's what I'm installing at friends' computers these days - Didi Chanoch

I agree with Bwana ..Avast and AVG both are free - John Blanton from twhirl

I also use none now. I scan from time to time, but I loathe the performance drain of continuously running antivirus software. It's mostly just a bunch of FUD. - Michael Hocter

ESET's NOD32. Nothing's better. - Akiva Moskovitz

@kamla - Norton. - Yuvi

Even I go with Yuvi, use your common sense and don't click on random exe's which come as attachments. - Sudar

AVG free b/c you can schedule it to run 1x per day and yes/no on checking email attachments/downloads. All these help avoid performance hit. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

AVG is all I have used for years, but then again I am mostly a mac guy. - Scott Goldblatt

ESET's Smart Security - Sam Davenport

AVG. - Tim Hoeck

+1 Yuvi - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Mac OS X. Best antivirus software around - Nicholas Molnar

Nicholas, and who said that Mac people are smug! - Akiva Moskovitz

Mac isn't an option. This is for my fiance's Dell - Benjamin Golub from fftogo

AVG Anti-Virus free - ※Fu※

Definately AVG Free - Nick Austad from twhirl

@Nicholas, Mac is not *always* safe. Louis Gray's Mac OS X was infected by a virus. More details at this FF thread http://friendfeed.com/e... - Sudar

I just switched from AVG free to Avira Antivir (also free). AVG got too intrusive with the last version. - ha3rvey (sup homepants)

That was not a virus Sudar, it was a trojan. Big difference. - Bwana ☠

none - adolfo foronda

NOD32. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

AVG Free is ok, but the latest version (8) seem to be much slower than previously. - Nick Lothian

I second NOD32, effective and resource efficient - Royce Mathew

AV protection is most effective when implemented between the chair and the keyboard (or mouse). - Kevin L

AVG Free and Windows Defender...plus using Firefox 3 and Google Mail seems to reduce those attack vectors a bit. There shouldn't be much of a noticeable reduction in system performance except when your AV software is running a full scan - Alex Scoble

NOD32 is great if you want a hands-off appraoch (which I prefer). Kaspersky Antivirus is the power option. However, anything—in most cases—is better than nothing at all. - James Mowery from twhirl

I feel blasphemous suggesting commercial software but ZoneAlarm works great for me. Combination firewall and anti-virus. - Mohit

NOD32. - Dominic Jones from twhirl

Not Zonealarm. you're better off with a virus. same goes for Norton. - Richard Lawler from twhirl

If it's for your Fiancee's dell, I recommend...Ubuntu GNU/Linux ;) I have it on my girlfriends' Dell and she loves it ;) - Divided By Zer0

yes - Robert Scoble

Wow, aligning myself in agreement I'd say, and super quick on the interactive retort! :-) - Eric Berlin

Friendfeed has been a lot less responsive for me when I really want an answer. Could it be my lack of traction yet? - Todd Jordan

agreed. I do my quick broadcast via twitterbar will gazing thru my RSS link farm. This streams down into FF,. so covering both base. But I find better interactions here ! - Peter Dawson

Same here. I also tend to put sillier stuff on Twitter, sometimes.. :) - ha3rvey (sup homepants)

You put in words exactly what I've been thinking all day. Despite Twitter's "@" feature, the likes and comments in FriendFeed just make it inherently easier to interact with. - Mohit

everything is a medium - what's a large or a small? - Allen Stern

Todd, you got about 20 comments here: http://friendfeed.com/e... . Do you get more via Twitter? - Louis Gray

I agree... - John Staton

Todd, that may be it. Fact that it's been around 60 seconds since I posted and already have 5 likes and 4 comments from people other than me in part proves out the power / popularity of this platform. - Eric Berlin

Peter, you bring up a great point. When I'm in the mood to "live tweet" or do a quick series of successive thoughts, Twitter feels like a good place to do that. There's nothing really stopping me from doing same thing on FF I suppose -- it's more a habit/cultural thing at this point. - Eric Berlin

It's easier for me to follow a conversation in FF, so it holds my attention better (and I'd venture others interact more for the same reason). - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Yep. The most popular threads of past day has become a regular stop for me as well... has kind of replaced in large part browsing of front page of places like reddit, come to think of it. - Eric Berlin

Eric, I also take multiple feeds and dump them into my FF pvt rooms. Then I just reshare links that I want to open a convo on or think has value to this community. However, when I do this, I miss out on a communication to my twitter followers. - Peter Dawson

I am with you bro...I use Twhirl so its 50/50 to post or read both. FF has more to offer. - Photo Larry from twhirl

Interesting use of rooms Peter. They're one of the few areas of FF that I don't use a whole lot. - Eric Berlin

Louis: totally missed that and wow. FF is definitely looking better today. Ha. - Todd Jordan

Eric. the internet comes to me, I don't go to surfing or using any other tool right now. FF is my main aggregator. In fact, in one of my pvt rooms. I added all the RSS feeds on Network /service status. So that give me the health of the Cloud ::)- heres an e.g http://friendfeed.com/e... - Peter Dawson

I've been saying for a while that FF has potential to be the one content aggregator (or smart people network) that Rules Them All... that's another great example of it ! - Eric Berlin

Exactly - Michael Hocter

totally ;) http://weblog.glemak.com/nomadic... - mike "glemak" dunn

agreed - Roger @ CineVegas

@Todd, you need to engage . thats the key to being in this space. e.g. If you take a look at Mona's response on twitter it really shallow compared to FF comments and interaction here. I firmly believe that Twitter is a 1-1 convo, where as FF is 1-n convo. The the circel of discovery is every increasing in FF, but w/twitter its echo of thoughts within a closed circle. ( I only see the twit's of them I follow) - Peter Dawson

@Mike you nail it well-VERY WELL :)- "twitter is like the conversation that occurs between two people passing each other in opposite directions on the up and down escalators - its brief, short and cryptic - while friendfeed is like the conversation that occurs while folks are traveling in the same direction on the escalator" - Peter Dawson

I completely agree. - Robert Couture

@Peter - good advice, now how best to make use of and go about engaging on FF. Obviously commenting more, following more, but I think I'm missing some key elements. - Todd Jordan

@Mike love that quote @Peter pulled out. Often seen folks get angry over misunderstood Twitter conversation. - Todd Jordan

I can still sort of see Twitter in my rearview. - Pete Delucchi

@Pete, "objects look closer then they really are " wrt to rearview (mirror) ! :)- - Peter Dawson

I like the conversations I get involved in on FriendFeed. Also FF allows you to reach out to more people, even those that aren't necessarily on your "friend" list. - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

yep - Jay

Totally! - kamla bhatt

yes - Mark Dykeman

Bwana I hope I never have to report an Earthquake. - Maryam Scoble

Ok Maryam, Let us know if this works!! hehehe! - Susan Beebe

Oh, geez, now my wife is on FriendFeed and is going to appeal to the community to get me to do things for her. This is a dangerous new world! I better navigate it very carefully. :-) - Robert Scoble

به به بچه های ایرونی بیایید اینجا مریم پرسپولیسی اینجاست :)) - Mil∂d

هاید! فقط سپاهان - Ehsanislav

فقط پرسپولیس , قرمزته :)) - Mil∂d

اگه پرسپولیسیه برم بلاکش کنم :D - Ehsanislav

هم رابرت پرسپولیسی هست هم مریم خیالت راحت احسان جان , قرمززززززززززته :) - Mil∂d

ایول پس بازیه دوشنبه رو ببینه حتمن :)) - Mahyaa مه‌یا

تازه مه یا هم پرسپولیسی هست , همسرش آنام هم همینطور , تو ایران همه پرسپولیسی اند :)))) - Mil∂d

Dear Maryam Can you Type Farsi? - Mil∂d

are you Arabic Maryam? - Zee.

This is Persian Language - Mil∂d

Careful Robert!!!!!! - Roberto Bonini

Maryam grew up in Tehran. - Robert Scoble

Ok, this fascinates me, how do the people typing in squiggle-text read the english, then pop in and comment in squiggle, have a brief conversation with someone else in squiggle, and then it goes right back to english? Is there some on the fly translator they have that doesn't work in the other direction? - Adam Turetzky

You tell him!! Bwahahahaha!! @scobelizer - Robert Couture

Ah, i see. I grew up between Iraq & Kuwait. Hence, why I was curious - Zee.

Adam: many Iranians can read English but are more comfortable in communicating in Farsi. Maryam doesn't have the software loaded to write back in Farsi, though. - Robert Scoble

Dear Robert Maryam Can Type Fingilish !! It Meanig For Typing Hello Type Salam :D - Mil∂d

Ahh, ok, so they're Language-dexterous. Does anyone do this in spoken conversation? Like one person speaks in English and the other answers in Farsi? That gives me a headache just thinking about it! LOL - Adam Turetzky

Maryam's tweet made my day. - imabonehead

Thanks for all the community support. Mokhleseh hameyeh bachehayeh Irooni. Crowdsourcing is the best way to get what you want. I am soooooooo gonna get a foot massage tonight! Now about that Italian vacation :) - Maryam Scoble

@Maryam Bah Bah Mokhlesiiiiiiiiiiiiiim - Mil∂d

@maryam begoo perspolisi nisti ina mikhan eghfalet konan :D - Ehsanislav

Maryam Begoo Perspolisi Hasty , Ghermezeteh hasty :)) : - Mil∂d

ma ham mokhlesim abji , bego perspolisi hasty ta in ehsan bere donbale karesh - Mahyaa مه‌یا

Maryam age cheshato doos dari in harfo nazan :))) - Ehsanislav

Hatman Perspolisie , Vaghty Robert Perpolisi hast maryam ke dige hatman perspolisi bayad bashe - Mil∂d

I love how the Iranians are starting a fight here about their favorite soccer team. Turns out we are classified as fans of Perspilise whose color is red. In California saying you are a red means you are either a Republican or a fan of Stanford. Problem is we are Democrats and fans of Cal, which are both blue. By the way, Maryam is planning a trip to Iran in October, she should hold a FriendFeed party there. - Robert Scoble

I'm staying OUT of this one... - Rocky Barbanica

نه پس فکر کردی استقلالیه جواته ؟ این مریم و شوهرش با کلاسن عین منو آنام . اسمایلی همه ی پرسپولیسیها با کلاسن - Mahyaa مه‌یا

hmmm...sounds like we'll need a whole stadium for such a party ...but it'd be so much fun! :) - Selma

@mahyaa Ali parvin sambole cless :D - Ehsanislav

Dear Robert We Invite you to iran , Iranian Like to see you and Maryam :) - Mil∂d

@Adam Turetzky Yeah I do the whole language-dexterous thing with my parents all the time. They talk to me in Hindi and I reply in English, mostly out of habit. It's not as hard as you think ;-) - Mohit