Brian Ries - Likes - FriendFeed

I say it's time to get some talented developers together to create our own site. People have been complaining about UI issues with FriendFeed for a long time. Now we can address them on our own. - Akiva Moskovitz

the backend is the issue Akiva. - Carlos Ayala

It will. Buy-outs like these don't happen and then everything stays status quo. Basically what I expect to happen is this: Facebook will absorb all of the best FriendFeed features which will make FriendFeed 'obsolete'. They'll expect us to join into FriendBook or FaceFeed or whatever you want to call it when FriendFeed will inevitably get shut down. - Akiva Moskovitz

If everyone was so good at reinventing the wheel, we'd have flying cars in our garages by now. - ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift

I guess Carlos is right. ): - Mladen Srdić

I am genuinely pissed about this. Maybe I have no right to be, but I am. - Michelle Martinez

To me, it feels like we've been sold out. I can't believe that they have this user base's best interests in mind here. - Akiva Moskovitz

me too michelle. - Carlos Ayala

I am totally disappointed myself. I can't stand Facebook... the only reason I have an account is for less-tech-savvy old friends and acquaintances to find me on the web. - Fa La La La Lindsay

:( - Josh Haley

As a consumer of a service when changes are made you have the right to feel any way you want about it, including anger. You can even choose to stop using the service as I imagine some of the FriendFeed population will do. - matthew john ernisse

@Akiva - make a Ning site in the mean time?? Sigh... - Fa La La La Lindsay

Today is a sad day... - Michael Forian

I'm reserving judgement until we see what happens. Right now it's just an announcement. I hope they keep the platforms separate, but have some kind of integration. What I don't want it having all my subscribers become FaceBook friends. I like the platforms separate. - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

this is pretty disappointing news. - holly

Now has Gn'R in my head ♪where do we go? where do we go now? ♫ - Andrew Smith

i had to check and make sure it wasn't april 1st... - Brian Ries

Apparently it's official now, as stated on their blog. - Mladen Srdić

"FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being" sucks. That's what most worries me. - Arnaldo M Pereira

I'm going to miss Audrey babby most...... - Matthew DeVries

I'd reserve judgment. Beyond that congrats to the team which I'm sure made some good money off of this. - Nation Hahn

It's like we've all been told we have a terminal disease. They're not sure when we're going to all die but that we should continue to enjoy our lives before the time runs out. - Akiva Moskovitz

Going back to Fark? - Matthew DeVries

I'm glad none of the FriendFeed guys are subbed to me because then I'd have to block them. - Akiva Moskovitz

Ahhh...now I get it. Yes. This is bad - very bad. I despise (HATE) FaceBook - ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift

I have no doubts that at some point friendfeed.com will be no more. :-( - Kevin Whalen

From Titanic: "Gentlemen, it's been an honor playing with you tonight" - Peter Ghosh

this party is over now. - Joe Silence

This hurts far more than MJ dying.... - Matthew DeVries

Back to Twitter, I guess. - Rochelle

FriendFeed = Twitter, though. - l0ckergn0me

No, Friendfeed > Twitter - Matthew DeVries

Leo Laporte had that Twitter-fighter army thing a while back, you think he still has the keys? - Matthew DeVries

What a sad night I am having. - Liviu Barbat

I don't know about you guys, but the vast majority of my friends on Facebook don't give a crap what I do online. The ones that do are over here already anyway. This is good for the team, but bad for the audience here. - Jordan Hofker

They never gave a damn about their users. As evidenced by completely ignoring all input about changes. I guess the real question, is what did they do first, blow off expensive hooker's asses or buy Bentleys with spinners? - Matthew DeVries

Maybe Paul, Bret, and co. will take the money, leave the company, and start a new one. That will eventually be sold for the sweet tech to Facebook. Then rinse, repeat. (!) - Jordan Hofker

:( - edythe from iPhone

My boyfriend (who is in a state of protest and is now refusing to use FF) wants to know, does anyone know what computer language(s) have been used to create FF? He's guessing C# is involved. - Kamilah Gill

As far as I know, it's C++ on the back-end and Javascript up front. - Akiva Moskovitz

This is the most technical detail I remember seeing from Friendfeed staff: http://bret.appspot.com/entry... They make heavy use of Python, but I imagine there is also a fair amount of C/C++ in there. (I would assume more C than C++). - Jason Wehmhoener

Their use of MySQL is quirky, nonstandard, innovative, and obviously works. Facebook also has quite a history of bending MySQL and PHP into new, interesting and generally unrecognizable shapes. It's the wild and crazy world of distributed data + HTTP + pushbutton web. - Jason Wehmhoener

Regarding the languages FriendFeed's written in: "[...]pretty much all Python except for our search engine, which is Java." - Bret Taylor (c.f. http://friendfeed.com/friendf...) Not sure where people got C/C++/C#. - Mark Trapp

Speaking of pushbutton, this is definitely a good time to go reread Anil Dash's post about it: http://dashes.com/anil... You and I may not have a pile of ex-google cash lying around for a server farm, but it may not be necessary if we get pushbutton right. - Jason Wehmhoener

Thanks Mark. I should have guessed that since Google is pretty much a Python/Java shop. - Jason Wehmhoener

Yeah, Jason, I was thinking Google reader would be the next home. - Matthew DeVries

Thanks for the feedback, guys :) - Kamilah Gill

I was sort of expecting something with Reader too, but oh well. Reader has certainly been looking more Friendfeed-like recently anyway. - Jason Wehmhoener

Also, take a look at JS-Kit Echo, something Scoble's going on about right now: http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Jason Wehmhoener

Jason - thanks - I've been pondering JS-Kit Echo as a supplement / replacement (?) for Disqus on my blog - Susan Beebe

Is Pushbutton Web = PubSubHubbub? - Matthew DeVries

Jaiku? Just kidding. - Rubin Sfadj

Anil does a pretty good job of explaining it (it's a great article, go read it), but pushbutton is rss + pubsuhubbub + web hooks. Web Hooks were the least familiar bit for me: http://webhooks.pbworks.com/ and http://blog.webhooks.org/ - Jason Wehmhoener

Akiva is right. Anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of corporate takeovers knows the pattern that follows when a smaller company is bought out by a larger one. The same principle is at work here. - Steven Perez

GDGT? We all like gadgets. Like to a man, we all like some kind of Gadget. If we can just get them to change out that infuriating tiered threading system..... - Matthew DeVries

*cough* http://friendfeed.com/clonefe... *cough* - Jason Huebel

:( I just found out about this news a little while ago. It's like Jaiku all over again for me. I thought it was good news that Google bought Jaiku because I thought it meant Jaiku would get better and finally gain popularity. Unfortunately it ended up being the exact opposite. **sigh** Now I feel like this situation is worse because Facebook has a bad rep for messing with personal copyright and such. This doesn't sound good... - Cheryl Jones from iPhone

I've got a Google Group started, FFugees http://groups.google.com/group..., so at least we can find each other. - Kamilah Gill

LOL, FaceFeed for the win! - Tanath

louisgray.com? - Louis Gray

Livejournal!!!!!!!! - veo

Joined the Google Group as "Jezlyn" the name I originally wanted to use for FriendFeed. :P - Cheryl Jones

Google Reader is the future - Joe Dawson

Interesting thought, Joe, after all, Reader has (like facebook) borrowed more and more features from friendfeed over the last year or so. Still, I'd rather have a friendfeed. I personally think we shouldn't write friendfeed off just yet....but if it disappears, maybe someone else will step in and fill the void. - Slappy Line

http://drop.io/ maybe already have the needed real-time core. in the moment it's a bunch of drops, so with a small application to keep track of the created drops (by user, room etc.) it will be pretty close to FriendFeed. - Stoyan Zhekov

Another idea is maybe something like http://juick.com/ with a XMPP core. - Stoyan Zhekov

Robert Scoble

I am actually VERY excited about FriendFeed going to Facebook. This is a HUGE win for both companies! More later.

August 10 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Eric Standlee, Rene Silva and 73 other people liked this

+1 (without the more later ;) - Orli Yakuel

71 more comments

Big news. - phil baumann

Oh, I can't wait to hear how this shakes out... - Travis Tasset

With any luck FB will rework the UI to make it more friendly and it can gain some market - James

If Facebook uses the FriendFeed interface, then I would agree it is a great idea. - Rob Diana

Absolutely. Great deal all around. Congrats to everyone involved. - Tom Guarriello

I'm hoping for better, faster feature development. - Jeff Harbert

yes, definitely win-win - Wolfgang Heinrich

huge win for both companies ?? is it a win for the FF community ?? who comes first ?? the business or the users ?? I bet you within 6 months, I wont be using FF as much as I use it now !! - Peter Dawson

i agree - facebook has been getting on my good list this past year and I just love friendfeed. - Chris Jackson

Just as I re-dedicate myself to using FF, FB acquires them. If FB can integrate FF's deep feature set, it would be a win-win-win. - Jim Duncan

True or false: Facebook needs FriendFeed more than FriendFeed needs Facebook. - Joel Zehring

I'm excited too, but at the same time I'm afraid facebook may make some wrong moves with their acquisition. We've seen this happen before. - Steven (optionshiftk)

this is not a good day for Twitter.... - Giorgio

I fully expect to just see FriendFeed as a separate entity to go away with its technology being absorbed by Facebook. - Mike Flynn

Very True. - Steven (optionshiftk)

Joel: Absolutely true. - Adam Reyher

I caught Robert's reaction to the news on my iPhone: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Robert J Taylor from iPhone

If this makes it so I have one LESS place to go to follow my social media, then it will be great. I already have too many different places with different people and different conversations for differ purposes that overlap and make it unnecessarily complicated. - David Rondeau

FF > FB? not great, actually. diversity is better than monopoly. and i'm concerned about aggregation features getting deprecated (in the name of progress and chrossing the chasm and all that jazz.. of course ;) - jacek

This is a IP, technology and talent grab.. I don't see the 2 sites being consolidated - Dave Senior

It may be a big win for both companies but is likely a big lose for FF users. - Brian Sullivan

FriendFeed functionality on Facebook would be nice. The reverse, not so much. They're trying to address two entirely separate purposes and as such, need to remain completely separate. - Adam Reyher

I hope Facebook turns into FriendFeed. That would be great! - Wo

I'd really love to see the real-time threaded conversation feature of friendfeed be adopted by facebook. - Steven (optionshiftk)

Looking forward to your analysis Robert - Ken Seto

I can see development of FF slowing down as the team brings the tech over to Facebook - Dave Senior

Indeed, Brian. FF devotees should be pissed over this. I can't believe Facebook will do anything but carve out a few choice pieces of FF meat - likely making them even more Twitterish - and dump the rest. FF will be gone within six months. - Shéa Bennett

This is a huge win for both companies, and a huge fail for every net surfer. - TiTi

yeah it may not be that bad. maybe i'm exaggerating. - Edgar Rodríguez

Well, I think the FF team can certainly help the Facebook UI. But, all I take away from this is FF going away. - Yolanda

One thing to consider is this: If we have "trusted" the FriendFeed people not to screw things up, hopefully we can trust them to make sure they're still in control in the terms of the acquisition. - Adam Reyher

Yes, Robert. Like TiTi said, huge win for both companies, huge fail for the people who like FriendFeed. "Welcome to FaceFeed! Would you like to take a quiz?" - Zach Flauaus

I think this is definitely a huge win for both but maybe not for the users. I think it could be good or bad for users but I hope that Facebook will allow FriendFeed to continue and push the envelope with emerging technologies. I imagine this is Facebook and FriendFeed teaming up against Twitter. - Brandon Titus

.-( Good for Friendfeed, but horrible for people that like friendfeed and hate facebook &their UI or where FB is blocked - Del_

may be - Ahmet Soyata

It's good timing. FF uniques fell almost 10% in July. - Shéa Bennett

this is bad news for twitter, me thinks. - Brian Ries

Absolutely, Robert. Its a very good tech acquisition for Facebook, they get a great team with a well developed technology stack. It lets the FriendFeed founders get a good, early exit. - DGentry

I hope so. I know my initial reaction was not as negative as most of the others I'm seeing in my stream. Maybe I'm just being naive. - Herb Hernandez

Hopefully this means the power of friendfeed will be utilized. Awesome news - Marcus

This is why I follow Mr. Scoble, yes that is Mr. Scoble :) always has his fingers in the breaking news. - dennis podgorski

I'm fired up about this union between FriendFeed and Facebook. With the exception of my social media group, I've used FriendFeed primarily as an aggregator--despite it's being my favorite GUI and functionality. I think this is going to bring the substance to FriendFeed that it's been missing. Very exciting! - Jim W

I have a hard time drawing my line of Public v Personal. I use Twitter & FriendFeed for public use and I use Facebook for private use. I have not even once made a status update on Facebook. I am not sure I want FriendFeed on Facebook. I am intrigued about the possibilities of integration but I am not sure I will adopt. - thestaticfrost

The power of FF will be used -- but it won't be pretty and won't be for good. - Brian Sullivan

I have to agree with Robert on this. I think this is likely to be a great deal moving forward. I'm excited about it, and happy for the FriendFeed crew. They've done an AWESOME job. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I am not as excited about this. I don^t like Facebook as much - nchenga

i think this is going to add more value to Facebook - Lee Kent

concur robert - mike "glemak" dunn

It certainly makes sense, and I agree that it adds value to FF. I wonder how many of the 250 million users of FF will be using it in its current form. - courtney benson

Just surprised this didn't happen earlier. Facebook has been mimicking FriendFeed's functionality for a while now. Nice that FF is finally getting paid for their R&D efforts. - Aaron Strout

I think this will make me drop friendfeed or facebook - Nicolai Rygh

Please explain - this may be win for Friendfeed - but as far as us the users/fans... we're the big losers in this right? I really really can't stand Facebook :-( Help us have hope... - Jannifer @wordsforliving

ruination. - Joe Silence

I will wait and see approach @ all - polou/indigo_bow

here is the explanation, FF have t sell the soonerr, better then laterr, they choose the right momment, wave is there and it is a big promise - abdellah

when Google start wave, they surely shown their non desire to acquir FF it was implicite - abdellah

All Your Feeds Are Belong To Us - Ian Tindale

I'm hoping for the best. - Jim Connolly

The idea here is growing on me. I see the business case...I'm still not sure as to the impact on Twitter and different users who prefer one tool over another and/or use the two differently. - Derek Shanahan

I'm trying to defer my pessimism...but I feel an "I Want Sandy"-type fail in the wings. As for FF needing to sell, that wasn't the case; the founders had the money to keep it going for as long as they wanted, basically. We'll see, I suppose. We'll see. - Ken Kennedy

This is really interesting. This will bring a bigger pool of social media services to people. As it is now, regular folks don't venture further than Facebook, with this acquisition, many will realize that there is a plethora of great other services and social media websites that they can engage in. - Rami Taibah

Ya know when you get a bad feeling about something - I have one about this deal. Can't put my finger on it, but it don't feel right. - Jim Connolly

FriendFeed now to get BIGGER than Twitter? - Jim Connolly

"when Google start wave, they surely shown their non desire to acquir FF it was implicite" - I think that probably covers it. - John Craft

Isn't this the kind of daring move that Yahoo should have made? - Andrew Warner

Seems like a HUGE win for Facebook. Not so sure for the future of FF, though. - Chris Wood

is there a dislike button anywhere? I did exactly the opposite FB never appealed, FF rocked... - Valeria Maltoni

FriendFeed will not be the same place, in terms of the community, but this keeps friendfeed around for a while. Awesome! Where's Arrington? Did he reopen his account? - Benjamin Taylor

Whatever FB and FF does, don't tell Oprah... That's a sign it's over.. - Timothy Latz

FF isn't blocked at work, FB is. FF usefulness would nose-dive for me if blocked. - Brett Veenstra

Brett: this is likely to pave the way for more client applications for Facebook, which will not be blocked at work. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Alex Scoble

There goes the neighborhood.

August 10 - Comment - Like - Share

sofarsoShawn, Derrick, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 56 other people liked this

No need to ask what you are referring to..... - Jeff P. Henderson

16 more comments

does that mean they now own the content on FF. Hikes! - Valeria Maltoni

Ah crap - Nurse Katie

yes. is this Facebook going up Market or FF going down. - Gilbert Harding from BuddyFeed

pretty soon it'll be time for someone to start another FF-like service. This is BS. I really hope they don't delete ff.com and integrate it with facebook. - Kevin Winn

Aw, I thought you were talking about Body Count's hit song - Rodfather

SHIT AIN'T LIKE THAT! - Alex Scoble from IM

Rodfather: 1UP for Body Count. I may still have that CD somewhere. - ha3rvey (Ho)^3

just as i was caught up in reading the great conversation from robert scoble re: friendfeed...i come up for air and see this announcement. color me nervous for FriendFeed. - Tobin Truog

Maybe I'm naive, but I'm not understanding how this news is either good or bad. - Dave Roth

From a customer perspective, Dave, it's needless change that clouds the future of the service. And have you been on Facebook lately? They aren't exactly responsive to their customers, nor do they care much about privacy/content rights of their customers. - Alex Scoble from IM

also, you'd better delete any content (photos for instance) you posted in your feed that you don't want FB to own when they get their claws in. - Joe Silence

So it's kind of like the old axiom: Black people invent something cool, white people adopt it, white people ruin it. FriendFeed is black people. - Dave Roth from iPhone

Ugh...ugh.... ugh.... UGH... ugh.. - Bwana ☠

SERIOUSLY! Friendfeed will never be the same Alex. - Jason Pollock

Dave, I think there is a problem with your axiom set. :p - Neal Jansons

It's not a perfect metaphor. - Dave Roth

just when I was starting to feel at home :( - Nathalie, Dreamer of FF

Alex Scoble

For the first time in a long time I've had to pause real time on friendfeed.

August 10 - Comment - Like - Share

Iván Abrego, vijay, (jeff)isageek and 17 other people liked this

Why is there something going on? - Cristo

7 more comments

Same here. - Nurse Katie

Apparently, Chris, because real time is blowing past - Alex Scoble from IM

Is it because of the proposed acquisition of Frontier Airlines by Southwest? - Cristo

I just said the same thing! Like 60-75 posts per second were flying past! - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

No, Chris, no one is talking about airlines merging on friendfeed right now - Alex Scoble from IM

I think you follow too many people Alex.... I can only imagine what your brother's feed must look like! - Jeff P. Henderson

10-year treasuries are up today on higher yields. Maybe that's it. - Cristo

You can never follow too many people, as long as they are quality. :) - Alex Scoble from IM

mashable

BREAKING: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed - http://mashable.com/2009...

August 10 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Todd Jordan, Ben Parr, Oğuz Serdar and 8 other people liked this

late ;-) - Jacopo Gio

8 more comments

:*( - Brian Ries

We are the Borg! Assimilate or Die! LOL :) - Mario Olckers

totally scooped - sean percival

good for the founder and congrats to them, but not good for us the users - Gaith

So who broke first...? @mashable or @techcrunch? - Mario Olckers

Techcrunch did. Hope they keep FF and FB separate. - Michael Forian

tc - sean percival

bad news. love ff, hate fb. - jon arne sæterås from twhirl

@Gaith @jon why would it be necessarily bad for users...? curious to know :) - Mario Olckers

Rob Diana

As much as I admit my initial dislike of the news, congrats to the FriendFeed team. They have worked hard for an exit like this.

August 10 - Comment - Like - Share

Nathan Chase, Nation Hahn, Kevin Whalen and 2 other people liked this

yea, enjoy the new cars. - Brian Ries

Indeed. It should be a good exit for the founders. I hope so. - DGentry

Soulhuntre

#facebook bought #friendfeed - too late, Friendfeed seems irrelevant to me these days. Neither @seesmic or @TweetDeck support it.

August 10 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Ries liked this

Steve Isaacs

The origin of "FAIL": http://www.nytimes.com/2009... (Thanks @ischafer, @pogue)

August 9 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Ries and Ryan - @magicofpi liked this

M F to M's feed, British & Irish Residents

Dragonfly crop circle appears in Wiltshire - Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news...

June 4 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rick Kaiser, Emma, Chieze Okoye and 24 other people liked this

"A 150ft long crop circle depicting a dragonfly has appeared in a barley field in the village of Yatesbury, Wiltshire." - M F from Bookmarklet

4 more comments

I for one welcome our new 150ft long dragonfly overlords... - Johnny Worthington

And this is the jellyfish one (with video) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news... - M F

+1 Johnny. They're finally revealing themselves to us. - CAJ, somewhere else

Wow.... /speechless That is really cool. - Danielle Closs

Very cool indeed! - Kol Tregaskes

Jennifer Van Grove

"it's my party I can cry if I want to" - went to bed 27 & woke up 28...did I lose or gain something in the night? :)

June 4 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

John (a.k.a. dendroica), CAJ, somewhere else, Brian Ries and RAPatton liked this

Gain. Soon you'll be at the beginning of a decade versus at the end. "Early 30s" instead of "Late 20s". - CAJ, somewhere else

Dave Hodson

Hilarious API/newspaper story on Techcrunch. Once again search engines are at fault, not the news industry

June 4 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Ries liked this

WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

Friendfeed - Where Everybody Knows Your Name - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

November 8, 2008 from YouTube - Comment - Like - Share

Peter Efland, Holly Rae, mike "glemak" dunn and 67 other people liked this

Inspired by Stupid Blogger (aka Tina), I have thrown together a little musical montage of friendfeed. Enjoy. (And yes... this is the entire "Cheers" theme song, not the abbreviated version.) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

49 more comments

LOVE LOVELOVE!!!! ABSOSMURFLY AWESOME!!! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

...friggin' brilliant! - JA Castillo

...sentimental. I just farted - Noah David Simon

Thanks Tina! I'm glad you liked it. :) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

chicks are nice... I'm not. good editing Patrick... next time do something mean spirited and you get a thumbs up. I like mean stufff... not the feel good crap. ...ooh I just farted again - Noah David Simon

HAHAHAHA!!! - Mona Nomura

This is so incredible! Would you mind if I shared it with some people? -

@Just Jill, feel free, that's the point of friendfeed right? :) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

+∞ - Michael W. May

AND his avatar is Yoda. ALL SORTSA WIN! - Mona Nomura

I hope you get inspired more often, Patrick, this was awesome. Tina -- keep inspiring, k? - Pete Delucchi

Thanks Patrick! This is really creative. :-) -

Wow, thanks for all the support guys! This is my first youtube video. Glad to see it's a success! - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

See? I told you guys that the Cheers song had to be the official FriendFeed theme song. :D - Steven Perez

Who are you, and where have you been? - Josh Haley

LOL@ Josh!!! You've found your long lost quadruplet! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Good job Pat!!! - Katie Patterson

Wow... #63 - Top Favorited (Today) - Science & Technology. That's the power of friendfeed! - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

#47 (yeah... I'm addicted now) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

Video is great, nice work! - Mike Fruchter

awesome stuff <3 - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Nice job! makes me happy to be here :D - Juan Pablo González

Very good job :) - Molly, New Ears :P

You know... 40+ likes, a bunch of reposts, and tons of great comments... that's why I love friendfeed. :) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

Totally awesome. Great work. Keep doing fantastic vids! - Cesar Cardoso

Excellent!!! - Hao Chen

Awesome! That was great! - Carmen - Happy 2010!

Definitely awesome! - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

HOW THE FUCK DID I MISS THIS? RULES HARDCORE! - teh Dork Knight aka Kenny

very funny. good job. - Cee Bee

sweet. +100 likes - Imabug

I'm not sure how Youtube rates movies... but: #17 - Top Favorited (Today) - Science & Technology. :) :) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

Well, looks like all the moving up the youtube board is over... topped out at #13 - Top Favorited (Today) - Science & Technology. Thanks for all the good words from everyone, I'll have to start work on my next project. - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

“Too funny - my avatar is in this @ around 1:26 - 1:27 =) - Adam Singer

love love love this...Cheers all around...give it a whirl if you haven't already, this just put a HUGE smile on my face:) - Ebm

@Phoenix, see? Friendfeed will always be here for you! - Ebm

I was going to kill myself today....but then I found FriendFeed and this video. - LittleBoPeed

@LittleBoPeed, thank God (or Patrick) for this life saving video! - Ebm

haHA! Found it! - Phoenix

@Phoenix, totally awesome sauce. Don't you feel like you just got a squeeze the air out of you hug from FF after watching it? Love this video :) - Ebm

Wow... this thing is still alive? Most FF posts die after a day. - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

Duh. It's amazing! Shame FF stops bumping after so many comments...:) - Ebm

w00t! spotted my avatar @ 2:41. \m/(^_^)\m/ - Annie Ok

@Annie Ok, we should make it a game like Where's Waldo. :) - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

6 months old and over 7000 views! Brings back memories of the old UI doesn't it? :( - WiseYoda (aka Patrick)

teary eyed Ebm...it really does Yoda...it really does. Love this btw. Congrats on 7000 lives changed! - Ebm

:P - Ebm

1) How did I miss this the first time around and 2) How am I'm not subbed to you? - Admiral Anika

very kool. just finding this - (jeff)isageek

nice - found via the guy above me ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

Robert Scoble

I was in negotiations with @jasoncalacanis to sell my Twitter account but I'm already sick of all the April Fools jokes so I called off the negotiations.

April 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Brandon Mendelson, Thomas Power and 13 other people liked this

I'll give you $50 for it - andy brudtkuhl

9 more comments

There really aren't any good ones this year, are there? - David Potts

you could start several other accounts and see those as an investment strategy [good causes]. just saying - one per your different higher purposes - Yann Ropars

andy: Calacanis was offering more: a lot more. :-) - Robert Scoble

I was sick of them about 5 minutes after I logged on this morning, and it's 18:45 here. The web really is a waste of time on this day. - Andy Kruger

David - There were never any good ones ever. EVER. Well, the first time Fark.com had the p1g5 hack the site, that was funny. But other than that one time, there was NEVER a good internet april 1 cockup. - Matthew DeVries

David, guess the really good ones are the ones you will know tomorrow :-) - Karthick R

youtube being upside down isn't too bad... bit tacky... but it'll pass! - simran from twhirl

this one was ok. Only cause I was part of it http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Buck

haha I'm sure! - andy brudtkuhl

I've got an April Fools Joke... IN MY PANTS! Wait, that didn't come out right. - stretta from twhirl

Robert Scoble

Wacky. I was on John Edwards plane with Reille Hunter and Chuck Olsen, who was there from Rocketboom. - http://blogumentary.typepad.com/chuck...

August 8, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Alfredo, Brian Ries, Jeff (the マクダジ of FF) and 20 other people liked this

Ahh, who knew I was so close to a news story that would happen 1.5 years later? I didn't see any hanky panky going on. I like both Elizabeth and John. - Robert Scoble

24 more comments

Get any video or pics? - John McCrea

John: we're looking. Podtech took them all down, from what I can see. I didn't have any video of her, unfortunately, that I remember. Rocky's looking through our archive, although PodTech owns the copyright on anything we do have. Oh, well... - Robert Scoble

I do have a picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Robert Scoble

I have a picture of both of them together on his plane, historic photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Robert Scoble

Ah, context.... http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Jay Cuthrell

better make sure the AP doesn't lift it from your Flickr link! - Nancy Babyak

wonder what those shots are worth... - annie heckenberger

Nancy: I gave AP permission to use my photos. All my photos are open for anyone to use. Steal away! - Robert Scoble

I'm glad you shared this, but I have to say, that picture makes me sad. - Stacy Bond

http://www.flickr.com/photos... (I think that's her videoing John, too). - Robert Scoble

You ever notice when someone has an affair... they always post the ugliest picture possible at first? - Dean Clark

Annie: if I were to sell them, maybe tens of thousands of dollars. I doubt they'd bring more than $100,000 cause they aren't technically that good so they wouldn't be able to get on a cover of a magazine. - Robert Scoble

My whole John Edwards set: http://www.flickr.com/search... - Robert Scoble

@Robert I really need to keep my good camera with me at all times... - Andrew Feinberg

You're the man! That's pretty EFFing cool that you got to travel with him. I guess it's good Edwards didn't win the primary. We'd really be EEF'ed then. Despite this scandal, I still like the guy and people should just back off. I hate these types of scandalous stories around personal and private matters. yeah, yeah, he's a public figure, but it's still a personal and private matter!! - Miiko Mentz

Nice picture set, even if they're not all A+ grade but for the environment proposed, it's pretty good! - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

I have a clip from Reille Hunter's John Edwards video 'Plane Truths' in my Vlog Soup episode 21. http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2008... - Steve Garfield

Robert, isn't it amazing the circles you've ended up travelling in the past few years! It is inspiring to me. - John McCrea

John: it is absolutely amazing. It just gets more and more surreal. - Robert Scoble

Scoble, saying "who knew I was so close to a news story 1.5 years later"would be no different that if you had climbed Mt. St. Helen's in Nov of 1979 only to hear of its eruption in May of 1980. You being on that plane has NOTHING to do with this story. Nice try, though. - Dave Madison

Dave: interesting point of view. But in this case the affair was still going on. At least I didn't die to get these pictures like I would have if I had been at the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. - Robert Scoble

Robert you r being silly. You wouldn't have risked dying because you wouldn't have been there. And u weren't there for this bimbo eruption. - Dave Madison

You just happened to get a picture of Reile 1.5 years before anyone knew what was going on. If I got a picture of Lewinsky walking down Penn. Ave in 1995, does that mean "I was there?". Hey! I got a random ok picture of Spritzer on a shuttle to DC. Guess that makes me a part of history, too! - Dave Madison

Dave: the thing is I WAS there. Just because I didn't know what was going on at the time, doesn't mean I didn't capture the two of them together. But, whatever, I really don't care either way. If you had a picture of Lewinsky and Clinton together on Penn Ave. you would have had an interesting picture too. Your argument doesn't hold, though, because if I had a picture of St. Helens at the time it exploded I would have had a historical picture, even if I didn't understand what I had taken a picture of. - Robert Scoble

wow. totally forgot about Rocketboom. What are they up to? - annie heckenberger

Louis Gray

Facebook's 5,000 Friend Limit Has a Ripple Effect Across Social Networks (Discussion Here)

February 15 - Comment - Like - Share

Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Mike Morrell, James Guske and 78 other people liked this

The most popular people on Facebook have run up against a limit of friends, capped at 5,000. Whether they have 50,000 'fans' or 6,000, those 5,001 and up can't connect. - Louis Gray

186 more comments

FriendFeed automatically assumes that if you are a friend on Facebook, you are also a friend on FriendFeed. This leads to why many "A-Listers" have high subscriber counts, even if the person didn't add them manually. - Louis Gray

Louis do you know what percentage of Facebook's user base this affects? This is a non issue for me (and a lot of others who aren't following/followed by that many I suspect). - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

That said, if said person only can have 5,000 of those automatically connected, they actually have _fewer_ subscribers than they would otherwise, if Facebook were to expand the cap to 10,000 or 20,000 or higher. - Louis Gray

And what do you think of LinkedIn, there limit is 30.000. They simply don´t get it. - Jan Mulder

Additionally, as these Facebook/FriendFeed subscribers would be exposed to said individual's stream of all social sites, they would be more likely to follow said individual on other sites, as well as be exposed to these "top" people's friends, comments and likes. - Louis Gray

But if they are not allowed to connect with those people on Facebook, and don't manually add them on FriendFeed, the are operating outside of this Venn Diagram. - Louis Gray

I have wondered what I will do when I hit 5000. I have been getting 10 - 20 invites a day. I am starting to screen people now to weed out potential spammers and app monkeys. Is the solution a fan page? Seems a little egotistical. - Sid Burgess

Thus, assuming the above, Facebook's cap reduces the total number of followers that all A-listers have across all networks, and, due to trickle-down, reduces the exposure and followers that each other person interacting with said people also has... (think of it as six degrees of "A Lister Name Goes Here") - Louis Gray

I'm glad Facebook has the limits. Lifting the limit would only be an advantage for people broadcasting to lots of people. But Facebook works best when it is a smaller group interacting together. And if someone was broadcasting on it all day, they would just be creating noise in a system designed to eliminate it. I don't want my friends sending status updates telling me to look at their blog. I want to see status updates from my actual friends telling me about their lives. - Andrew

Given Facebook's self-imposed definition of a friend, I really wonder how many people (if anyone) can seriously argue, given Facebook's definition, that they have 5,000 friends. - Mark Trapp

Brian, I would guess it impacts a small amount. But assuming that those who it affects are influential, and can help spread the word about other services and people, it does affect those who don't run into the 5k cap. I don't, for example, expect to hit the 5k cap ever (or far, far away) as I am "only" at 700. - Louis Gray

Jan, the LinkedIn limit is 30,000? LinkedIn only shows "500+" when you get to that point (where I am now) - Louis Gray

Sid, one option would be to do a fan page, which yes, sounds egotistical. But that won't solve the FriendFeed/Facebook synchronization. - Louis Gray

Josh, your note on Facebook wanting to only include "real friends" is a lot like Twitter wanting you to only add real connections and avoid auto-follow. It's like trying to force a utopia, when reality is going a different way. I have no indication they will change the limit. - Louis Gray

LinkedIn is designed to promote business connections. They should be limitless. Facebook would gain nothing from lifting the limit except a headache from "powerusers" since their service doesn't need the PR of influential users. - Andrew

Andrew, what is more likely? That you have 5,000 real friends, or 5,000 real business connections? I think I'm equal on Facebook and LinkedIn. I used to have hard/fast rules on who I let in, but then I realized people just want to follow and get connected, so why should I stop them? - Louis Gray

Chris - that sounds boring! :-) - Louis Gray

Brian, it is a 100% opt in opt-out system. You are assuming that the noise generated would not be expected or desired. I have "unfriended" a lot of people for creating noise I did want. But on the other hand, it would be great to be Robert Scobles friend if you are not. Like Louis mentioned, there are a lot of people with political or social relevance that have information that could be useful. Again, I supposed FB's solution is the fan page. - Sid Burgess

I agree that the *friend* ecosystem across social networks should not be constrained in such a way that prevents people from connecting with other people. You might also argue that this network effect could be used as rationale for *premium* services that extract $$ from those who want to broadcast to such large numbers of *friends*. Just sayin. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Louis - Who said every business relationship on LinkedIn has to be used? How many people who take your business card actually use it? If I used LinkedIn, I would want as many connections as I could get in case I ever needed them. But again, increasing this limit on Facebook would only create a competition for friends and more noise in the system. I enjoy Facebook as it is now. I don't have a single person begging me to look at their stuff. I have my friends telling me about their lives. - Andrew

Brian, one interesting approach has been taken by AssetBar (http://www.assetbar.com), where popular people with good content can charge fans for access, using micropayments. But I would bet that popular people who stretch the limits wouldn't want to pay for more access, but in fact, might feel entitled to it. - Louis Gray

I disagree, I don't think it does have a ripple effect across other social networks, it's just common sense so the system isn't abused such as twitter's 2000 limit. FF doesn't have such a risk - sofarsoShawn

So what's the added value of connecting to people you don't know in Facebook? Who's going to work 5,000 Facebook connections? Is Robert Scoble actually checking in on the daily lives of 5,000 people on Facebook? Connecting for the sake of connecting begs the question, "why?" If a bunch of people want to follow what Robert Scoble's doing, there's the option of a fan page, which works in... more... - Mark Trapp

Similarly, the argument could be made that Twitter's initial limit to stop you from following more than 2,000 reduces both your exposure and those you want to follow, but it is less automatic than FriendFeed's/Facebook integration. Regardless of which socnet has a cap, it reduces total #'s everywhere. - Louis Gray

Mark, I think many people correctly assume the majority of conversation is one way when the #'s get that high. Connecting to so many people doesn't just let you check in on them, but let's them get access to you. It's not an issue of being nice or making them feel good, but enabling two-way conversation, if wanted, where it is otherwise blocked. - Louis Gray

this is very upsetting to me - i am considering not using facebook until they increase the limit - in fact, i may not eat anything with milk in it in a continual protest. facebook has a "fans" page - you can go unlimited there - "friend" used to mean something - today it does not. - Allen Stern

Social Media's all a Multi-Level Marketing scheme - the closer you get to the top, the more influential you are. ;-) - Jesse Stay

For example, FriendFeed has no limit. If they stopped us from connecting at 2,000 or 5,000, there might already be people on this thread who I couldn't see or talk to. - Louis Gray

Josh, LinkedIn has let you connect as a "friend" for some time now, as they made big strides to get more like Facebook. - Louis Gray

@Sid Totally agree that everyone should be able to be Robert's *friend* and that there should be an extensibility model that supports the growth of one's social graph across social networks. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

So Chris, more like Twitter's model then? 2k, and once you get a similar number of followers, stay within 10%? - Louis Gray

again, these sites aren't designed for self promotion which edges close to spam, which is why the caps are in place - sofarsoShawn

Oh I hate how Twitter capped theirs at 2,000. I was one of the earlier users, so It was basic practice then to add away, ala the Scoble method, so now, I've got 2,000 follows, 500 followers, and Twitter is making me spend time out of my day to delete old users? I hate that. It's making me avoid using Twitter....like its a chore I need to do. - Brian Ries

It's a false assumption to make that a social connection has to be made in order to get in touch with someone. Email, still the main communication method of choice, requires only knowing one thing: a person's email address. Facebook doesn't require a friendship to be made to send a private message. Neither does LinkedIn. FriendFeed doesn't even have a method to communicate directly with people. - Mark Trapp

So it's down to Twitter and Jabber that require a mutual follow: rather than conflating one concept (being connected to someone) with another (being able to communicate with someone), it seems to make more sense to say the Twitter and Jabber methods are failures. Just think about real life: the other day, I walked up to a stranger and asked her how to get to a bus. I didn't walk up to... more... - Mark Trapp

louis - if you need to remove someone so you can add another person on ff, i am willing to go - it was a nice run we had - but i understand upgrading - Allen Stern

+1240140140 @sofarsoshawn - all these social networks now are is marketing networks - 85,000 followers for tc/mash on twitter - why? because they can spam their posts all day and get traffic - same with facebook, etc. one of the reasons fc hired scoble is because he has access to these networks, etc. - Allen Stern

Allen, if we had to have FriendFeed friend layoffs, it'd just be you and me at the end. - Louis Gray

*shucks* thanks louis - Allen Stern

Someone has a good point. - tony

Louis, at some level I think it goes against the philosophy of Facebook to *not* have a limit. The designers didn't conceive that someone would be able to maintain "relationships" with 5000+ people. In that sense, what is the point of having more friends than you can keep up with? - Ryan Stanley

thanks tony - glad you agree with me :) - Allen Stern

Mark Zuckerberg, founder/CEO of Facebook, told me that the 5,000 member limit would go away this year. - Robert Scoble

Brian, only a small number of people have 5,000 friends (a few thousand people according to Facebook execs I've talked with). - Robert Scoble

yay robert - woo - i hope we can have a faceUP (like a tweetup) that weekend so we can get everyone together to add new followers on facebook! "i got marge, you got marge? no, ok here's marge" - Allen Stern

Why do I want more than 5,000 Facebook contacts? Because if Facebook is to be used for business (lots of people want to use it that way) it must be an open rolodex. I have 9,000 business cards. I want to add each person I've met to my Facebook social graph. Fan pages are NOT enough. Why? Because a lot of times I want to call you and I want to check out your home page. I can't do that if you aren't added to my social graph in Facebook. Facebook has become very much less useful to me because of this. - Robert Scoble

Allen: my friend Buzz Bruggeman has 12,000 business contacts in Outlook that he's collected during his career. Facebook is useless to him. - Robert Scoble

As per earlier discussion: http://friendfeed.com/e... yes it has a ripple effect, but one that can only be beneficial as a limiting agent, I agree with Scoble on the ridiculous want for more FB friends you don't ever talk to business isn't done on FB - sofarsoShawn

if you have 9,000 business cards, you should absolutely buy a cloudcontacts package :) - Allen Stern

I am going to use CloudContacts soon. Probably in the next two weeks. - Louis Gray

Perhaps the cap originated with the idea that one can only have 5000 friends in the old sense of the term, when it was just college students. http://scienceblogs.com/clock... Perhaps now that many of us use Facebook for business, the term should be changed to avoid this confusion: http://www.facebook.com/home... - Bora Zivkovic

Thanks Louis! - Allen Stern

Facebook for business does seem contrary to their initial user-base. For me it will be like mixing business with pleasure. I recognize keeping them absolutely separate is an impossible endeavor. My only request is whatever tools they give us to manage the various contact lists and relationships are extremely functional. - Ryan Stanley

Could you be friends with your boss? - sofarsoShawn

shawn, walking on thin ice there.. I wouldn't do it.. - embee

If some uber popular person wants to connect to fans through Facebook they could just use the Fan page feature. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Mathew: Fan pages suck. I want to use Facebook like a rolodex. Keep all potential contacts in one place and be able to look them up and call them and interact with them on messaging and wall features. - Robert Scoble

But, do you really need to have even 5000 people to keep in contact with for important things in the future? Maybe I just don't get it since I don't even have 100 "friends" on Facebook. - Mathew™ one of a kind

what about system stability? is it fair to the 99%, to have the 1% noisiest cripple the system? - Peter Warnock

Peter: friendfeed proves you're wrong. If you design your systems properly NO ONE will be able to cripple your systems. - Robert Scoble

Friendfeed also doesn't have anywhere near the amount of users that Facebook does. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Mathew: while that's true, I have 27,000+ followers and am following 13,000+ here. It works great every single time. - Robert Scoble

Facebook strikes me as a business plan kind of company. If their original plan and driving philosophy included a friend ceiling, then it'll be interesting to see how they scale. FF on the other hand, seems to have the right philosophy for an infinite rolodex (now if only they'd catch up with the usability part). - Ryan Stanley

Facebook's bottom line: you should only add genuine friends. I don't think I know a single person with 5,000 *real* friends. Needless to say, FB is going to give into this demand in due time, I guess, but I still won't add the 430+ friends I have in my pending requests because I don't know them. They're my fans, not my friends. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: define "friend." - Robert Scoble

I define a "friend" as someone I want in my social graph. Who the hell are you to tell me how many friends I can have? Or to define "friendship" for me. What the hell is a "friend" anyway? I really would love someone to define that so I can know for sure whether you're my friend or not. - Robert Scoble

In semi-related news, in terms of genuinity, Facebook has started stripping titles on names, even if people are known with that name (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id...). In a way, that pisses me off - do you know how many FAKE people have friended me on Facebook in the last year and that Facebook hasn't taken care of? "Rabbi" is part of these guys' identities; I'm not really sure I approve of this. I certainly don't see how Facebook should make that call either. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: I agree with you there. I should be able to call myself whatever I damn well please. That said, because Facebook does have a lot of utility as a business directory/rolodex I do appreciate that it tries to get people to use their real names. Makes searching for people a lot easier. - Robert Scoble

Robert, we had this discussion 2 weeks ago. In fact, that's almost the exact question you asked me. My opinion hasn't changed. See http://friendfeed.com/e... - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: your definition over there is "people you know personally." Well, hell, I know more than 9,000 people personally and have their business cards to prove it. So, why are you trying to limit me to 5,000 friends? - Robert Scoble

IMO, Robert, Facebook should not allow fake identities at all. In terms of the specific complaint, I don't consider a Rabbi a fake identity, especially if that's their title and people even call these individuals "Rabbi" to their faces (yes, when growing up, I called a lot of my teachers "Rabbi" almost as a first name). Those who have fake identities often have real identities and Facebook should terminate the fake ones and force the individuals to use their real names only on the service. (contd) - Tamar Weinberg

Define "people you know." - Robert Scoble

For about a year and a half, Facebook did nothing and these fake identities started cropping up. But in 2006, Facebook was serious about it (see this group here named in memory of "St Augustine of Hippo" who was a figment of some kid's imagination: http://www.facebook.com/home...). Facebook should NEVER have gotten lax on this. It's pretty annoying that they couldn't be consistent. - Tamar Weinberg

I think that definition changes from person to person. Will I add someone I spoke to for all of 2 minutes? If I feel comfortable that they're accessing personal photos, wall posts, etc, then sure. But I speak of a personal face-to-face interaction, Robert. You're a popular guy on the 'net, and surely you have a lot of people who follow everything about you - but would you invite all 5,000+ for an intimate dinner? Would you even have something to talk about? You tell me. - Tamar Weinberg

Facebook isn't a business network. Equating this with the number of business cards in your collection doesn't do it for me. Plus, do you remember EVERYONE who handed you your business card? - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: actually I usually do and keep in mind I only get cards from one out of maybe four people I meet. Finally, I know a lot more about people online than I do just by meeting them and collecting their email address on a piece of paper. But, again, who the hell are you to tell me how many people I am allowed to "know?" - Robert Scoble

Tamar: intimate dinner means one other person. No more. Would I love to have an intimate dinner with 5,000 people and there's only 365 days in a year? Absolutely but I can't eat that much. Now, would I love to have a dinner with 5,000 people? I've already done that. At Microsoft we had 7,000 at one dinner. See, if we're going to use these tools for BUSINESS then you need to have more than 5,000 friends. - Robert Scoble

Nobody is saying you're allowed to know any specific # of people, but I will stick to the argument that Facebook is looking to foster genuine friendships, not just people looking to broaden their social connections. Like I said, I have 430+ pending friend requests from people who may know me in some capacity, but I'm not going to accept them because I've never met them. I don't know them. It's awkward for me to let them know personal details about my life. Facebook doesn't want to encourage it either. - Tamar Weinberg

Did you just redefine "friend" as someone you've had an intimate dinner with? - Robert Scoble

What is a "genuine" friendship? Do you have to sleep with me to prove you're "genuine?" - Robert Scoble

I share my personal details of my life with everyone, not just my friends. You all know I have kidney disease. What's more personal than that? - Robert Scoble

Mark Zuckerberg disagrees with you about what he wants to encourage, by the way. So I'll go with his definition of where Facebook is going: a social utility. - Robert Scoble

I don't think intimate necessarily means one other person, but if you want to look at it that way, how about I rephrase: would you invite a handful of your FB friends (and/or pending friends you can't approve) to a close-knit (better?) personal face-to-face dinner? And if that dinner materialized and all of your friends actually attended, would there really be something for everyone to talk about? Or at least for you as the host and orchestrator of the event? - Tamar Weinberg

I define a Facebook "friend" as someone who I want on my social graph. Any other definition is defacto wrong. - Robert Scoble

Robert, curious to know: do you hand-pick all of your Facebook friends or do you accept everyone who sends you an incoming request? - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: I look at each one and decide whether they would be interesting in my social graph. Some I give full privileges to. Others I restrict their access. - Robert Scoble

Regarding Facebook and Dinner. I regularly held dinners in Seattle for EVERYONE. I love meeting new people and, yes, we opened our house up for people I knew only online regularly. So, answer is "totally" yes. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I actually answered this question in 2007 when I blogged about how I personally network with people on Facebook. I should probably do that chart again and find out how many of those people I actually *don't* know (because yes, before Facebook became open to the entire world, I was a little more liberal with my choosing of friends if there was some common ground). See post and pie chart: http://www.techipedia.com/2007... - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: your usage of Facebook is wonderful but is irrelevant. A Facebook "friend" is someone you want on your social graph. We are both using Facebook correctly. But if you try to limit my ability to use Facebook to your weird rules I will yell bloody murder. I don't try to force you to use Facebook according to my rules, so why do you try to force me to use Facebook according to yours? Are you religious? Sure seems like it. You remind me of the evangelical Christians I used to hang out with. - Robert Scoble

I contend, then, Robert, that you're in the 0.00001% of Facebook users. (Actually, that number is a bit too generous IMO if Facebook is really at 175 million users.) I had a client who mass-friended some of my own friends and some of my personal friends (including some high-school classmates) actually accepted. THAT is something I hate. To some people, Facebook is about whoring every single contact you can possible gather, and that's not how I appreciate the service being used. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: again, you are being a real jerk if you try to put your ideas of who should be on your social graph onto ME. Who the hell made you the social graph queen? - Robert Scoble

I am trying to be more cool so Robert Scoble will accept my friend request on Facebook. Still says "Friend Requested". :) - Sid Burgess

Sid: as soon as I can add more than 5,000 friends on Facebook you'll be added. I have 4,500 people I want to add to my social graph and I can't. - Robert Scoble

Robert, as you realize, though, I'm saying that this is how I believe Facebook *wants* the service to be used as. They want those genuine friendships and not just the social graphing bit (which to them is actually a relatively newer phenomenon than Facebook itself). Your usage is more of an anomaly, IMO. That's why as I said initially here, FB will give into this demand in due time, but that's not part of the initial perception of the service. Call me old school. It's a personal preference. - Tamar Weinberg

Thats the issue Tamar, it really isn't a cookie cutter world and social applications and services will have to weigh the pros and cons of being something to everyone. In this case, Facebook has limited it at 5000 friends but it's model has changed much more lately (I believe due to the need for funding sources). They are now trying to build a google for all things social and interactions: ERGO, the Robert Scobles in the world will use the service and need it to act very differently than say you will. - Sid Burgess

And to the several posts who keep asking, how do you stay connected with 5000 "friends" I have no clue how someone can, but I get 10-20 friend requests a day. If someone wants to follow my online social life I have no problem letting them. IN other words, it becomes their responsibility to maintain a relationship if they want one. I just politely oblige them with the connection. - Sid Burgess

Tamar: do you know Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg? I do. They tell me you are wrong. So why are you trying to stick up for wrong ideas? - Robert Scoble

Robert, if you're going to make personal attacks for my observations and how I'm trying to understand Facebook's current policy, then I'm not interested in continuing this conversation. To each his own. But are you saying that it's appropriate for people to start adding random friends of friends? Fine. I guess that's how my ex-client chose to socially graph. Again, I hate it and felt it... more... - Tamar Weinberg

Perhaps I'm doing it 'wrong'. I tend to add interesting people here, and family and mostly (but not entirely) physical friends in Facebook. I spend way more time here and Twitter than I do in facebook, simply because more interesting stuff happens here, more often. Whilst I do like social interaction, and not just endless links to your blog or pet interest or business, much of what I get on Facebook is simply photos of the drunken exploits the night before, or the fact that your wearing blue pants today. - Ian May

Tamar: people who try to force me to use services the way THEY do are jerks. Sorry, but if I tried to force you to use Facebook the way I do I would be a jerk too. - Robert Scoble

Sid, and that's fine, but IMO (and apparently only now Robert has acknowledged that I'm wrong) Facebook had this user limitation because of the desire to keep friends "friends." If I'm wrong, why didn't he say so when I made the first statement? If this prior statement "Facebook's bottom line: you should only add genuine friends" was wrong, why was it pointed out NOW? - Tamar Weinberg

Robert, clearly you are an outlier (and you know it). To most people, friends are at the least people who they share more with than the internet at large. re:"I want to use Facebook like a rolodex. Keep all potential contacts in one place and be able to look them up and call them...", I would never trust a 3rd party to be my master database (for a variety of reasons). If my friends or family want to get in touch with me (and they somehow lost my number and email an IM), they can visit my eponymous web page. - LogEx

Robert, I'm not forcing you to do anything. You're allowed to use your social network any way you want it. It was my perception from the beginning that this is how Facebook wanted it, and this was something I understood personally for my own purposes. I'm not sure why you didn't point out my inaccurate statement earlier. - Tamar Weinberg

Lol, thanks Robert! I just follow you through Maryam. She friended me a long time ago. Beautiful family. - Sid Burgess

Tamar: please show me where Facebook says I should only add people I actually have met face-to-face to my social graph. - Robert Scoble

Like I said twice prior in this conversation and many times elsewhere, if people want to add me, they can. They're doing so because they're using Facebook in their own way. I have a choice whether to accept or reject that friend invitation. That's how I'm using Facebook. It would be completely wrong for me to make a judgment on how you are supposed to use the site, but it was always my understanding that this was the premise for Facebook's restrictions. - Tamar Weinberg

In fact, I just went and looked just to make sure. It just shows me people who want to be my friend and asks me to do one of two things: confirm or ignore. If I confirm then it asks me what kind of list I'd like to put them on and whether I want to give them full access or limited access. Who the hell made up what you are saying that there's "rules" to who should be a friend or not on Facebook? Who put YOU in charge? - Robert Scoble

Going back to facebook for a while till the hollering slows down. :) >>> - Sid Burgess

Tamar: well, again, I'm telling you you are wrong. There never has been any "rules" on who should be a friend or not. Wonderful. Now we are starting to understand each other. The only "friend definition" in Facebook that you should put on other people is that they are people you want on your social graph. DO NOT try to tell me a friend online is anything different than that. - Robert Scoble

Robert, stop asking me to show you proof for something I said I have been "observing." You clearly know Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg and you already made a statement saying that they say I am wrong. I'm not going to argue on this point if it's wrong. However, you should have said I was wrong earlier. - Tamar Weinberg

Sid: you're funny. You can always hide this if you want. :-) - Robert Scoble

Tamar: I've been saying you are wrong to try to put stupid rules on the word "friend" for weeks now.You just weren't listening until I started pointing out that what you were doing is really nasty behavior similar to fundamentalist religious people. - Robert Scoble

Good. I'm wrong. We've established that. And for the fiftieth time, I never said I was in charge - I said this is how I understood the restriction. Again, you can use the social site as you want to. I personally use it one way. You use it another way. I don't judge people or care how they use the site, but that's how I understood the restriction. I'm not sure how else I can spell this out. Any way I say this, you attack me. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: you never said you're sorry for telling ME how to use Facebook. Until you do that you are a jerk. Sorry. When you apologize and back off then we can deal again. - Robert Scoble

Yet another pointless FF discussion that I desperately want to avoid. Oh, right, that's what "Hide" is for. - Mistletoe Glen

...except, for the fifty-first time, Robert, that was how I understood the restriction. Apparently my understanding of the restriction is equivalent to religious fanaticism. Listen, look at it any way you want, but that's completely off base. - Tamar Weinberg

Where did I tell you how to use Facebook? - Tamar Weinberg

Robert: Are you kidding? It's like watching a train wreck... I am watching, but just with one eye open. The other eye is in Facebook reading all my "friends" streams. ;) - Sid Burgess

ok, now to decide whether to read the last 100+ comments or not.. - Zee.

Tamar: where did you get that belief? Back it up with a URL please. Until then you are trying to put YOUR beliefs on me. Knock it off and apologize and admit that you and I see our social graphs differently and that Facebook allows us both to exist peacefully on the same service. - Robert Scoble

Zee: nothing to see here. Just hide and move on. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, like I said, it's something I've observed when Facebook decided to change the names of friends of mine who have legitimate identities and to terminate accounts of those who didn't have an identity the site approved of. My understanding is that they wanted real people to foster real connections. If that's not enough for you, I'm not sure what is. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: real people fostering real connections is different than your stupid definition of "friend." You crossed the line and you can't even see what line you crossed. Sigh. - Robert Scoble

Robert, for the millionth time, I don't care how people use the service. Use it any way you want. If you're going to get worked up over some stupid definition I *personally* hold and then consider me a jerk for adhering to my personal preference, so be it. But hey, I'm not the one who imposed the 5,000 restriction, so take that part up with them. Apparently I was wrong in assuming why such a restriction was in place. - Tamar Weinberg

personally, until facebook respects the right to alias I will remain away from that site so this isn't an issue for me in the slightest. For others and the ways in which they wish to use the site I can understand that it can actually inhibit the usefulness they could get. - alphaxion

Tamar: that restriction was in place to retard Facebook's growth and also because of technical limitations -- the site got slow when you had more friends than that because of all the database joins that had to be done. - Robert Scoble

technically Robert, she didn't tell you how to use Facebook, she just pointed out that statistically, you're quite an anomaly. Of course Zuckerberg and Sandberg will tell you what you want to hear. It makes the noise stop. But, get out your calculator and divide 3000 by 175,000,000. Is it really a priority for Facebook? No. Should it be? Today, of course not. Tomorrow? Who knows. - Robert Seidman

Tamar: I got mad because you kept repeating this belief of yours and you tried to make me feel bad for using Facebook in a different way than your belief. It's amazing to me that you still do not see what line you crossed and why you pissed me off so much. - Robert Scoble

Robert: no, you missed that she tried to define friend as somone I am "intimate" with. Or, something close to that. Stay away from telling me who my friends can be. That's over the line. - Robert Scoble

i havent read every single comment but calling someone a jerk and stupid isn't very nice - facebook has a limit currently - if you don't like it, stay here where you can have a million bazillion friends and share things all ya like, etc. right? - Allen Stern

Robert, I'm not trying to preach here, and I apologize if you thought I'm trying to make you feel bad. That was DEFINITELY not my intention. I honestly always thought the restriction was in place for the reasons I stated. I obviously was wrong. - Tamar Weinberg

Allen: we're not talking about the limit. That's not what pissed me off about Tamar's statements (the Facebook limitation is there due to a technical problem with doing too many database joins, not because Mark Zuckerberg thinks you should only have 5,000 people in your social graph). She thinks it's stupid of anyone to have more than a few hundred friends on Facebook if you read her statements (she seems to have now backed away from that statement and belief). - Robert Scoble

Tamar: OK, now we're getting somewhere. The ONLY way you can define friends online is "someone you want in your social graph." If that's what you now believe I will apologize for going ballistic on you. - Robert Scoble

I've been on Facebook since April 2004, though, and I do understand the earlier mindset of the users on the service, so it's an interesting dilemma for me. A lot of people see *me* at 1400+ friends as a "friend whore." It's a completely different type of world out there, Robert. - Tamar Weinberg

Robert, locking me into a corner and asking me to "define friend" and "people you know" and then calling me a jerk for imparting my own opinion onto the subject also "crosses the line," if you will. Should I have ignored you? No, I responded with a personal opinion. - Tamar Weinberg

Tamar: and, again, anyone who tries to define how you use a service by calling you a "friend whore" is wrong and is a jerk. I won't back down off of that. Who made THEM "queens" of the social graph? - Robert Scoble

I think this clash of the titans counts as a bit more than a "ripple effect" -- "storm in a teacup" perhaps.. :-) - Tim Ostler

lets clarify terms - there are "friends" and there's a "social marketing graph" - Allen Stern

Tamar: I did that because you were setting yourself up as the "friend rule" maker. You were wrong to do that. So are your friends who call you names. - Robert Scoble

Allen: no. Online there is no difference. There is just ONE social graph I can have. A "friend" (online) is someone I want on that social graph. My reasoning DOES NOT MATTER. Facebook does NOT ask me "are you putting this person on your social graph because you slept with this person, or are you marketing to him/her?" Funny, Plaxo does sort of ask me to categorize people that way, though. - Robert Scoble

Robert, no, I don't think it's a position of mine to make "friend rules." ;) I'll go back to clarify, though: I thought FB had a restriction about friends, and then you asked about that friendship, and instead of going off with what I thought was FB's perception, I went off with my own. Sorry if you confused the two, but I really was NOT trying to tell you how to use the service. That's definitely not my place. - Tamar Weinberg

Let's use a simple model from economics: As the number of friend connections increases, the value of each individual friend connection is lower. - coldbrew

Tamar: good, now that you say that I'm sorry for calling you a jerk. - Robert Scoble

coldbrew: it's not a zero sum game. You are totally wrong. Adding 5,000 people to my social graph does not make my relationship with @maryamie any different. - Robert Scoble

I think everyone can agree Facebook has done a *fabulous* job at designing a service millions of people will use regularly even though it has fallen short of some people's expectations/ product implementation preference and questions loom about its revenue potential. Ok, everyone probably can't agree with that either but only because this is the internet :-) - Robert Seidman

Thank you. - Tamar Weinberg

It is a matter of discretion. I just got back from a kids bday party where I asked all the adults (~30, all professionals, non- tech related) how many FB friends they had. For everyone it was between 200 and 300. If I see that you will friend almost anyone, I'm likely to view that friend connection as "less special". I'm not sure why you want to make this a binary thing (i.e. friend or not friend) when there are obviously gradations. - coldbrew

Robert, Facebook does ask you what friend list to put them in (if you have lists). Most people IRL share more with close family and friends than they do to their fans, and many on FB do as well. So online it Does matter. - LogEx

Logical: yeah, here on friendfeed I use lists too. coldbrew: you're still wrong. Adding more people actually makes EVERYONE more valuable. Why? Because you can connect a wider range of people together. I know a guy on Twitter who runs a supply chain in China. I know another guy in Barcelona who owns a shipping company. If I only had one of those on my social graph I couldn't make much happen. But both together? Much more value for all of us. - Robert Scoble

coldbrew: I have a list of just my family here on friendfeed. Obviously I treat them differently than I treat you. But the fact that you are on my social graph here does not take ANYTHING away from them. In fact it adds to them. - Robert Scoble

as much as i hate to push this further as i have work to do, explain how your contacts on twitter help me "much more value for all of us" ? - Allen Stern

Hmm, I see your point. But, there is still something I can't put my finger on that you seem to be ignoring. - coldbrew

Allen: because I can get DMs from a much wider range of people than other people can. They might ask me to connect them with you. Or, I can see a wider range of inputs coming into TweetDeck so I can give you better information or tell you news before anyone else can. - Robert Scoble

coldbrew: I ignore a lot of things here, you gotta focus when you can only type a couple hundred characters at a time. The thing is these are tools and should be as flexible as possible so everyone can use them as they see fit. Why are you all here on friendfeed? Is it because you found some limitation on some other tool? That's why I'm here. - Robert Scoble

SNN = Scoble News Network - Allen Stern

I always thought it meant "Stern News Network." - Robert Scoble

first step in the evolution of social graph: quantity, second step of social graph: filtering quantity to provide targeted added value, third step: quality over quantity. obviously we are still rooting for quantity, or at least most of us on most networks. that will change though. for sure. - Pascal Bouvier

Facebook should quit being tech-smart and human-stupid http://dawnsplan.wordpress.com/2009... - Dawn

Facebook MUST implement messaging options first. Where are the opt-outs? Spam filters? Priorities. - Mona Nomura

i wish they would implement groups on facebook. accessing your friends list gave you "family" "friends" "twitter" or whatever, then you could yes, limit access so a boss doesnt see your twitter updates and a complete stranger i occasionally chat to on here doesn't see my flickr list for example.. - Terry O'Fee

Uhhhhh... you can... http://www.allfacebook.com/2009... Privacy Setting Number 1. - Mona Nomura

Wow - FriendFeed really needs threaded comments - this conversation would be so much easier to follow with that. - Jesse Stay

@Mona: i suspect FB has their own priorities - .LAG liked that

Robert, I have to say I'm on your side here (while, with both sides I don't think anyone is a jerk or idiot). The great thing about Facebook, as compared to other networks, is that you *can* use it how you want. I can set my privacy settings so that those I see every day see different things than those that I don't. That's what I love about it. It gives me a way to organized those people I'm associated with. Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and others all don't give that to me. - Jesse Stay

I don't get any messages from Facebook like I do with say - Tom from Myspace. Groups / events send me messages - and I am not a part of them. WTF is that about? I also get messages from strangers, mass messages, etc. They MUST implement a spam filter and opt-out options. Period. - Mona Nomura

but your friends list is still grouped into one page. wouldnt it be handy instead of individualy saying "this person has this" "this person has that" then "okay THIS person i'm wary of. they can go in my already pre-defined list" as you go to your friends page, know what i mean? when you check your friends page now its all one friends page - Terry O'Fee

If you have >5,000 friends then they're not real friends anyway. Facebook is not a place to massage your ego and I hope it never becomes one. - Bryce Roney

Just add them onto the list as you confirm them... - Mona Nomura

oh come on bryce... the egos will be fed wherever they go. they're shouldnt be a rule on how to use facebook. - Terry O'Fee

sorry, saw that bit mona. :P still be cool to have an option where say "really busy, just check my family friends section and off to work" - Terry O'Fee

mona - TOM! gah the bane of all us past myspace users :P - Terry O'Fee

Bryce - social networking and 'friends' are relative. It's not up to you to judge and decide what 'real friends' are and aren't. - Mona Nomura

Well Facebook's de facto mission statement (on their homepage) is "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life." I really don't think that many people would have >5 or >6k "people in [their] life" so their shouldn't be so much pressure on Facebook to raise their limits. - Bryce Roney from IM

Again, that depends on individuals and how THEY choose to use a Social Networking site. There are MANY who need more than the 5k cap. I don't see why that should even be an issue. (Aside from spammers) I just want more messaging options. - Mona Nomura

I want more granular privacy controls on the wall (especially), networks, basic and personal info, and what non-friends can see if I reply to their message. - LogEx

Agreed. More granular privacy and overall control over your profile, pictures etc. would be nice. - Amir

Flickr tried to cap your number of comments at 5,000 a few years back but ended up changing it to a 5,000 non-reciprocal contact limit when people freaked out over it. - Thomas Hawk

I dissapear for twelve hours and you're still going on about this. Forget the 5000, its the fifty you can converse with that matter. - Richard A.

This copyright issue seems like a much more important matter but I don't see it much talked about here yet: New laws that arrive in New Zealand on 28th February mean anyone *ACCUSED* three times of copyright infringement gets their internet connection disconnected. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha... No facebook friends, no internet, nothing. - jjprojects

to be fair, JJ this convo started long before this news went around, but you're right. it seems a lot of friendfeed is feeding people egos, talking about itself and memes. have a look at the whole bushfires in australia. how many of you on here even knew about it? - Terry O'Fee

I think the bushfires were headline news in many countries, but yeah, twitter took the lead there, and Duncan Riley did a good job with it everywhere :) Also, just thought I'd try and hijack this thread to bring attention to it. You can banish me now people but I don't care, it needs attention. - jjprojects

it's more important jj. i agree, in the long run who gives a shit about how many people you can add ?? - Terry O'Fee

I wish SNs had levels of friends/connections built-in (like Facebook's Circle of Friends). When I'm business-networking, I easily pick up 20-100 contacts at any workshop, and I have boxes of 3-ring-binders of contacts, but I don't want those cluttering all of my Facebook. How do I track 20 past & present close friends, 500 friends, 500 high school acquaintances, 1,000 musicians, 2,000 dancers, 2,000 college acquaintances, 50,000 work contacts (including 1,000 people I actually worked with...)? - Mitchell Tsai

For me, Facebook and LinkedIn are working like white-pages. So many people I once knew are popping out of the woodwork to say hello. Friends, acquaintances, card-playing buddies, high school classmates, clients, work colleagues, professors, etc... If I'm curious about what's happened to them in the past 5-30 years, it's a lot of fun accept their "friend" request & see what they've been doing. :-) - Mitchell Tsai

the 5000 limit might be ridiculous - but so is anyone with more than 5k friends on facebook - Peter Efland

I have 300+ FB, 300+ FF, 500+ Twitter Followers, 5000+ LI friends - Daniel W. Crompton

I'm at 4900 and now having to screen requests. It sucks that my "profile" can't be converted to a "page". It doubly sucks because "pages" don't work even to a usable level on my blackberry. FB doesn't even bother to inform you of this, or even own up to the problem anywhere. What a waste of time and effort. - Faisal Qureshi

Thomas Hawk

The Day My RSS Reader Died, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the FriendFeed RSS Bomb! - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

February 12 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Iván Abrego, Shaun Bruce, Mike Roberts and 127 other people liked this

My biggest problem with RSS can be summed up in four words: “too much crap content.” That’s right. As much as I would find the occasional great story and nugget of news, the vast majority of items were simply of no interest to me. News sites and bloggers (myself included) just publish too much crap. So about six months ago I did something that seemed revolutionary to me (and felt totally liberating) I walked away from my RSS Reader. I said goodbye. I took my Google Reader icon off of my bookmark tool bar and I haven’t logged in or looked back since. - Thomas Hawk

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i've been thinking of quitting my feedreaders as well, but just rely on Google Reader's "Shared by Friends" feature, which is just as good a filter for my purposes. - esther

FF is the superior reader. FF just needs an import OPML tool that matches up existing FF feeds with your Google Reader feeds and creates imaginaries for the rest. It's nice never having to leave FF to get your RSS. FF just needs to make the transition a bit easier than the manual way I've done it so far. - Thomas Hawk

There is a lot of junk, but in my case I am purposely trudging through all the crap to find helpful tech posts, support articles and software for my readers that I might miss or may get overlooked otherwise. The good news is my workflow and speed reading ability has developed well enough so that I can power through a great many articles in a short amount of time sift out the good stuff. - Tom Harrison

Thomas, the same happened to me. I find myself looking at less and less items in RSS reader. I only open it casually to go through photoblogs as well as some Flickr streams (including yours). I probably could go ahead and create a virtual friend on FF with these few feeds. Who knows, maybe I will... - Holger Eilhard

You do have a point though - there are only a few certain types of content I read through Google Reader. I've noticed that I've unsubscribed from most of the sources which I read solely for personal consumption, and also let that stuff bubble to the top through aggregators and sites like FriendFeed. - Tom Harrison

True, but there's some content that you'd like to read every single post on. For me, it's Strobist.com. Google Reader's perfect for that - and it keeps track of what I've read and not. - Blake Caldwell

Blake, that's easy, you can just set up an imaginary friend for strobist.com. Although strobist really should be on FriendFeed. - Thomas Hawk

I have to disagree - I like Friendfeed for its relatively decent conversations, but it's no substitute for Google Reader. FF doesn't do the read/unread thing as GReader does. FF doesn't show the whole post. Case in point, I got to *this* post through GReader. While I'm sure it was on my FF front page briefly, I obviously missed it. - Eric P

And as for the "Too much crap content" line - what's the difference between FF and RSS there? It all depends who and what you subscribe to, and if you're getting crap content you need to unsubscribe from the sources of that content. - Eric P

Eric, if you learn to use hide aggressively it can replace the read/unread thing google reader does, but with FF you get more. You get better commentary on the posts which is what bumps it. Would you be seeing what I'm writing right now here in Google Reader? - Thomas Hawk

In terms of missing specific content this is where you just create a super high value list in FF. I call mine superfaves. I'm happy to miss a lot of content. But stuff I really want to see I just organize in that list and check it at least once a day. - Thomas Hawk

Come on you guys are smart -- it's like saying "Every time I pick up my phone all I hear is nonsense. Phones are obsolete. Every time I want to hear something I'm going down to the barber shop. I'm done hearing things on the phone." - Dave Winer

I rather like to think of it more like "home phones are obsolete." My iPhone can do everything my old home phone could do but better, plus I can watch FriendFeed on it while I'm sitting in the chair at the barber shop and listening to FFundercats. - Thomas Hawk

This is why we need RRSS Really REALLY Simple Sharing! I smell a revolution brewing. - Mike Lewis

I don't see them as mutually exclusive. There are a lot of things on my RSS reader that never show up on FF, and vice versa. I'm still not convinced that FF can replace my feed reader for keeping up with the Flickr/Zooomr photo feeds that I watch either. - Jeremy Brooks

No, Dave, your analogy makes sense. Every time my phone rings, I have to worry about whether it's someone trying to sell me something or it's grandma wanting to tell me about cousin whatshername having it off with whatshisface. If I want to talk photography, the chances one of my friends calling me through the day verse the other people is low. If I wanna just talk about issues I want with people I trust, I'll go down to the barber shop cause I'll get great conversation from a wide range of opinions. - Johnny Worthington

Thomas - I couldn't find David Hobby (strobist) in FriendFeed - no worries, I know I can create an imaginary friend outta him. However, I'm real lazy, I might only read those few sites that I really like once a month or so. I also hook them up to FriendFeed so I can see the new stuff now, but it's nice having Google Reader as backup. I'll never get rid of Google Reader :) - Blake Caldwell

I don't know Jeremy. I've set up a button in my tool bar to only show Flickr and Zooomr items on my Flickr and Zooomr A lists. Works pretty much just as good as RSS to me. You can pretty easily filter FF by just Zooomr or just Flickr items. Put the can't miss photographers in a list and filter it by service and you've got pretty close to the same thing. That's what I do. - Thomas Hawk

I think FF and RSS-feeds complement each other. I can't live without both of them. - Håkan Dahlström

Håkan, assuming you could import your reader's OPML file into FF into a Håkan RSS list with the exact same content (plus maybe a bit more because some feeds initially would also include their flickr/twitter accounts etc.) would that work? Or what does your reader give you that you can't get from FF? - Thomas Hawk

The only problem with this is *someone* has to get/post/create the content. Many people hide all Twitter messages unless they have a comment. Well if everyone does this then no one sees the content. Someone has to sift through the crap. - Andrew Smith

Well, on FF I let my friends do the filtering and in Google Reader I do my own filtering. That's how they complement each other. I want to see the junk by myself to decide what's good and what's not. And I think I do that better in Google Reader. :-) - Håkan Dahlström

True Andrew, but you only need a very small group doing this to provide statistically relevant results. Personally the only service I'm hiding all of right now is brightkite which are among the least interesting items on FF to me. Everything else I hide on a user by user service by service basis one at a time. - Thomas Hawk

One of the things I think that is an added bonus in using FF for RSS is that oftentimes you get autosubscribed (sorta) to things that you didn't think about. If I like someone's photography blog, there's probably a pretty good chance I might also be interested in their Twitter stream or Flickr account. If not I can easily hide them, but I might not have thought to subscribe to multiple services by the same person in my old RSS reader. - Thomas Hawk

I don't *want* to have to aggressively use hide. GReader marks it read as I scroll by or hit j. FF requires me to use the mouse to click "hide" and refresh the page. And quite frankly, there's never a lolcat in my GReader, and that alone makes GReader better for news. - Eric P

Friendfeed it good at some things. It's great for getting Flickr contact updates, for example. But it's basically the latest evolution of a discussion forum. I subscribe to the best sources I can find in GReader. When a good article turns up, I might then in turn share it on FF (and elsewhere) to discuss. Friendfeed as a primary source of information is lacking - there's simply too much that never turns up here, and so much noise it quickly gets drowned out. - Eric P

good point Eric. I wonder if FF could build an RSS list sort of channel that had a mark as read option. It would seem that they are very close to being able to provide straight RSS reading services here in addition to FF and that capturing their user's traditional RSS reading would be an easy add on sell and make their site stickier than it already is. It would need some thought and hashing out but I think it could be possible to offer both social RSS and replicate traditional RSS here. - Thomas Hawk

One other issue (at least for me) is that the flickr/zoomr images are shown as small thumbnails, but in my reader they are shown in a larger size. I really prefer the reader for viewing photo feeds. - Jeremy Brooks

that's a good point Jeremy. I really like the way that blog posts and smugmug photos show up larger on FF than Flickr or Zooomr. I wish Flickr and Zooomr photos showed up larger like that as well. Or at least an optional setting or greasemonkey script for larger sized images would be interesting. - Thomas Hawk

Here's something I don't understand about imaginary friends. Say I add an imaginary friend from a blog I follow. Only I can see it here in FF, right? But if I like or comment on it, are others subscribed to my feed then able to see the post and like or comment on it too? - Tom Landini

Too much crap content? Alt Search Engines, CNET News, Daily Dish, Engadget, Gizmodo, Hacker News, KurzweilAI.net, Lifehacker, New Scientist, New York Times - Books, New York Times - Science, New York Times - Technology, O'Reilly Radar, Short Sharp Science, Silicon Alley Insider, Slashdot, Talking Points Memo, Technology Review, Wired News (and many, many more). Competitive with many Friendfeed posts, from my standpoint. Superior signal to noise, in fact. - Sean McBride

Did you website die too? It's hanging on loading. - Tamar Weinberg

Took me three years but this post finally got me to fix my Blogger Atom syndication, get it hooked up via Feedburner and now my site is fully RSS compliant AND I'm on Friend Feed as of tonight. Pretty cool post. - Sam Posten

I've just re-installed Feedly. wasn't impressed first time, but now I am finding it much better, and easier to find stuff to read, than in plain old GR. - Ian May

@thomas. you should try the latest version of feedly. you might like it. - Edwin Khodabakchian

Ironically, I read Thomas Hawk via my RSS Reader - Mistletoe Glen

It's funny, I"m the opposite. My Reader is my lifeline and I come to FriendFeed for the obscure / culture news. I don't need to see "How to Market Yourself on Twitter" come through my stream 50 billion times. ;) - Mona Nomura

The Feedly mashup helps me moderate BOTH the RSS stream delugr and Friendfeed's lack of hierarchy. It's interface is less agressive with more filtering then Greader and it shows FF conversations related to each article (thus avoids duplicity and noise on the FF stream). - Brad Kligerman

What Mona and Brad said. - Sean McBride

Definitely on board with the OPML thing. If they did that I would probably drop Reader too. - Paul Greer

Problem is: using your system, you get to read only what the community chooses to. Personally, I prefer having my own list, which is composed of rather obscure blogs that are probably visited by only 10 or 12 people. Yeah, I know, I could send them to FF too, but I like the way my GReader structures them, plus, if these blogs become too well-known they won't be obscure anymore, and probably I won't like them as much! ;) - Jordi Soler

Great Post Thomas! I do like your idea of merging your Friendfeed with Greader. But I guess it sounds too risky/crazy for me. I live in my greader, and like that I can put whatever blogs together and not get all the clutter from whomever Scoble or Kol liked... For me Greader seemed cleaner and simpler, so I don't get that point.... But like your point on FF being more interactive.... but wasnt there some Greasemonkey script importing FF comments into Greader posts? - Peter Efland

Peter -- I manage all my Friendfeed feeds through Google Reader (and now through Feedly as well). - Sean McBride

Friendfeed is rss driven so you're just fooling yourself into believing you no longer use rss when in fact you use it more. - Richard A.

Richard, did you actually read the post or did you stop at the title and form an opinion from there? You might not have embarrassed yourself had you taken a bit more time. - Gregory Pittman from twhirl

@Greg++ I wondered if Richard and I read the same article; like Hawk I've barely glanced at my OPML lately too - sofarsoShawn

Richard, exactly. I am using RSS more than ever actually, but I'm using it smarter I think. I think socially filtered RSS is superior to regular old traditionally served RSS. Sounds like a lot of people still like the old flavor as much if not more than the new one still. Still wondering if with user options though FF couldn't become your social and traditional RSS reader in one. But then again, making FF even more complicated might not be the best thing for n00bs either. - Thomas Hawk

Wading through a chronological torrent of often irrelevant and trivial material, which is impossible to compress with list view, is not smarter and more efficient from my perspective. High-quality publications and blogs do a much better job of filtering and prioritizing news than free-form social chat sites. - Sean McBride

Someone is going to figure out the best way to combine and improve on the best features from Friendfeed, Google Reader and Feedly. Bank on it. - Sean McBride

FriendFeed is the new king! - Dimitar Vesselinov

I'd like to know how you import images into FF from your blog entries? I tried all last night but didn't work. I've been told it's something to do with settings in FeedBurner? I have MediaRSS and WP SUP installed on my WordpRess blog. I'm also struggling to get the FriendFeed Comments plugin to work. :-( - Kol Tregaskes

I know its an old post and have already been here. BUT once again I fell over it and got intrigued by Thomas Hawk's opening statement. He wrote: "My biggest problem with RSS can be summed up in four words: “too much crap content.”". Now... I just heard more or less the same argument from Scoble, regarding ditching Greader for Friendfeed. I don't get it... I might not have seen the light... more... - Peter Efland

Ok, just read your post again Thomas Hawk - I might be starting to see your point... maybe... good post :) - Peter Efland

Steven Perez

Chilaquiles Recipe | Simply Recipes - http://www.elise.com/recipes...

February 12 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

ha3rvey (Ho)^3, Kol Tregaskes, Bluesun 2600 and 7 other people liked this

Mmmmmmmmm, my favorite breakfast. I love this with a fried egg on top. - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

4 more comments

MY GOSH! I have been trying to find the name of this dish. Thanks so much. This is all I eat when I have gone to Mexico. - Shevonne

This was my standard breakfast when I lived in Cabo. There was a little cafe that made them just the way I liked for $3, including coffee. Ahh, good times ... :) - Steven Perez from IM

chilaquiles = migas. am i right about that? - Marie likes mistletoe

Nope. Chilaquiles + scrambled eggs = something like migas. - Steven Perez from IM

ooh, i've been eating faux chilaquiles! now i know the true recipe. thanx! - Marie likes mistletoe

Alan Le

Alan is listening to old school hip hop. "oh yeah, do you want to ride wit us."

February 11 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Martha, Carmen - Happy 2010!, Morton Fox and 9 other people liked this

it's tricky...wha wha...it's tricky - Shevonne

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You went back into the archives, Alan!! - Derrick

yep yep... I still have a box of old school album cds in a closet from Dr.Dre, snoop, warren g, Notorious BIG, tupac, etc. It's so much easier to just listen to it online via last.fm radio than for me to find them. - Alan Le

My Adidas! Walk through concert halls and roam all over coliseum floors! - Morgan Haley

I bet you guys didn't know that I was such a hip hop fan. Odd thing is I no longer listen to the current crap on the radio... except for T.I. who I like. - Alan Le

Let's battle. - @CrystalinaB

*throws out flattened cardboard box, breakdances* - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

I wasn't great at it, but I use to break. - Alan Le

*runs to car and grabs can of spray silicone to make the cardboard even better for shoulder rolls and back spins* - Morgan Haley

AJ Batac

Salma Hayek Breastfeeding An African Baby Boy - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

February 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Iván Abrego, Mark Krynsky, shreya and 16 other people liked this

"It doesn't show much but just the fact that she does is great." - AJ Batac from Bookmarklet

39 more comments

yup - vijay

Is that what they're filled with? - James Ferguson

I hope this doesn't become a new fad - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I don't like the possible fad aspect of this either, Shey. I don't know the backstory or details of how this happened. If Hayek was truly trying to help because the baby's mother didn't have enough milk, then good for her. If she just did it as a publicity stunt, then, ugh. - Kamilah Gill

ewwwww, why? Though she could breast feed me anytime - sofarsoShawn

sofarsoshawn, that's gross. ;) - AJ Batac

Did you watch the video? The child is sick and one week old. I think her intentions were clear - she was sending a message that breastfeeding is natural and I'm sure it would have helped the baby. This is nourishment for the body and loving contact for the soul. People may interpret this in many ways but, for me, I think she did a good thing. - WorldofHiglet

I don't see how it's so "ew". Haven't you heard of wet nurses? I just don't like the thought of her possibly using this to boost herself somehow. I didn't watch the video, so maybe she really was trying to do a good thing. - Kamilah Gill

@WOH I agree -- it's a very powerful act. I just don't want to see it watered down by fad, fashion, and ego.. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

@Brian From just one dose? - Shey, Jamaican of FF

THIS IS AWESOME. - Erin @queenofspain

If you have food for a hungry sick person, you'd give it- right? I'd gladly make milk again just to help - Erin @queenofspain

Lindsey, babies can't have regular cow milk. Also, formula doesn't have any of the natural antibodies or a lot of the nutrition that breastmilk does. - Rochelle

formula doesn't even compare. - Erin @queenofspain

I hate to be cynical, and I know nothing of Salma Hayek personally, but I have to wonder if she would have done this had there not been a camera present. - Joey Gibson

Joey, we will probably never know - AJ Batac

Lindsey, I'd like to meet your sis. (j/k) - AJ Batac

I WAS BREASTFED AND I'M AWESOME. - Derrick

its not a matter of formula being 'bad' per say, it's just there is a better option if you choose to take it. breastfeeding is a choice you make in parenting just like a million others...clothe or disposable, crib or cosleeping, etc. Knowing the benefits of breastmilk and producing it would make me happily offer it to a child in need. - Erin @queenofspain

to lighten the convo, from my husband: "Dear Salma. I am a sick one week old boy." - Erin @queenofspain

+1 Derrick - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Cosign, Erin. - Admiral Anika

+++WofH - Anna Haro

Was this just a symbolic act? It takes days and hormones for milk to come in. Does she have a baby? - Christian Burns

Christian, yes she does have a 1+ year old daughter - AJ Batac

I don't see anything wrong. She already had breasts full of milk with a kid who needed some food. Why let it go to waste? - Rodfather

Agreed, Rodfather. - Rochelle

Than there is nothing wrong. What a selfless act. Giving what an innocent baby needs. True compassion. - Christian Burns

True story: I was breastfed by my Mom and my Aunt. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

This is great. All of those who said "ew" need to grow up. - Clay Newton

Failing to see how this food is "ew". Bacon wrapped Spam is ew. Basic newborn nutrition isn't. - Rochelle

+++++Clay - Admiral Anika

Again with the breastfeeding. Geez. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

(o)(o) - sean percival

Guess what guys. I'm breastfeeding *right now*! - Rochelle

lol@Rochelle babby-NOM - Shey, Jamaican of FF

@Lisfierce agree, if it's ewww to you, it's ewww to you, & it's definitely eww to me & ++she could a afford to feed a lot more babies by the example of donating money for formula rather than such a publicity stunt. Yes breastfeeding is proven better, but practically speaking? - sofarsoShawn

That's pretty impressive that she did that. But let's face it...all the guys seeing this are just gonna be thinking "Why not me??" - Josh Haley

Breastfeeding is easier. Believe me. As a person would couldn't BF in public, the hassles of getting the BM or forumla into the bottles, not to mention cleaning and finding those things, were not worth it. I'd have preferred my kids could have latched on easier or my boobs weighed less. I would have preferred not watching my milk production dwindle and have to supplement with $$$ formula. - Admiral Anika

+1 sofarsoshawn - Sarah Peterman

Thomas Hawk

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Dear Netflix CEO - http://www.glennbeck.com/content...

February 10 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

bcultral, Brian Ries, Brandon Titus and 19 other people liked this

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix has reached out to President Obama and asked him to raise the taxes of anyone that makes over million dollars to 50% per year! But what Hastings may not know is that he can already pay more taxes. Print and then cut-out the sheets below and include them when you send back your DVDs, let him know he CAN pay as much as he wants! - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

62 more comments

It amazes and horrifies me that people actually watch Glenn Beck's show. - Richard Lawler

haha, never seen it. Didn't even know he had a show. - Thomas Hawk

I only saw it because I was visiting my parents, they only have basic cable and nothing else was on at 2 a.m. Dude knows how to use a straw man argument, unfortunately it's his only trick so it quickly got boring. - Richard Lawler

Richard, Glenn Beck is one of the smartest people around. He's the one talk show I listen to because he doesn't cozy up to any one party's agenda. Of course, I'm guessing you would say that anyone who disagrees with you is a right wing lunatic. Hope you prove me wrong. - Gregory Pittman from twhirl

This is brilliant, Raising taxes on the people that create jobs, who thinks that's a good idea? - Robert Hafer

No, I don't have a problem with people who disagree with me, I have a problem with people who are liars, and Glenn Beck is an outright liar. The only way you can ignore that, is if you agree with his political stance. A lie is a lie no matter who tells it. - Richard Lawler

"This just taxation the millionaires ... have so far escaped, but their day is coming. The hoards of millionaires should be so treated, not as a punishment, but for thier good, because it is just, and justice alone insures general contentment." - Andrew Carnegie, 1912 [http://bit.ly/1dHK3A] (PDF) - MikeAmundsen

If you really do the math, a lot of us already pay 50% (in total). - Anthony Citrano

I've disagreed, sometimes vehemenently, with Glenn Beck from time to time (I don't agree with his immigration positions), but I don't think he's a liar. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

He intentionally misrepresents the stance of anyone he opposes, over and over again. You can read it in this statement "reached out to president Obama" reads slightly differently than "wrote an op-ed column". "Suggested raising taxes instead of capping compensation" is a bit more informative than "asked him to raise taxes." He wants to rile up his viewers against the big government and those others coming to take what's theirs, and he doesn't seem to think he needs accurate information to do it. - Richard Lawler

I hate this argument. I hear it all the time from people on the right, starting with Gov Huckabee. It goes something along the lines of: "If you're in favor of raising taxes, then go ahead and write a check to the government." That's ridiculous. A valid comeback is "okay, and if you want to invade Iran, then get a gun and a plane ticket." The point isn't that people don't deserve to have money or that people should be fighting, it's that big issues like this need to be handled at high levels. - Blake Caldwell

IMO, Glenn is a living example of 'link-bait' he exists to drive traffic. - MikeAmundsen

(continued): Reed Hastings' personal check won't make a difference. If this suggestion makes it into law and every rich person does it, then there's a difference. What a ridiculous argument to make. And... every single person that says "well go ahead and send a check" carries that ridiculous, smug grin on their face like they know everything. LOL, sorry for the rant. - Blake Caldwell

It's not ridiculous, Blake. This is America, and last time I checked, we still have something akin to a representative democracy, aka a Republic. That means, if a majority of our elected representatives think they can keep their jobs by re-assigning wealth from everyone to people who they think need it more, it'll happen. If lone nuts want to affect that change for everyone, then it's more appropriate for them to just write a check. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

(continued) ... and yes, he's a lone nut if he thinks 50% taxes is a good idea in any way. See - http://friendfeed.com/e... and http://friendfeed.com/e... - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

I just thought it was funny sending Netflix back something in those little red envelopes. ;) - Thomas Hawk

Mark: Non-sequitur. I understand how our republic works. What's appropriate and not is not in question. I'm not taking a side either way on the 50% thing (I assume you're making > $1million/year). I'm saying that Hastings is lobbying for changing the system, just like all of us do when we write our congressmen. The proper response from the other side isn't "good idea, write a check" - it's whether or not that proposed solution would work. Responding with "write a check" doesn't address the issue. - Blake Caldwell

I don't see it as non-sequitur, and it's completely not what you characterize, i.e. rational lobbying. It's a self-destructive effort by someone who doesn't understand economics. It's self-destructive for him personally as well as the country. De-incentivizing achievement is poor policy no matter how you slice it. "Write a check" is a perfect response - mostly because he's likely the only one who possibly thinks turning the American dream on it's ear is a good idea.... - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

... put another way, "he's lobbying the government like we are when we call our congressmen" isn't an apt illustration. He's not lobbying to simply "raise taxes" as you say. He wants to make it so there's no point in achieving financial success above a certain level. Absurd proposals deserve absurd responses. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

I'm fine with your criticizing his idea of 50% tax for those > $1 million. You might be right - it might be a stupid idea. Answering it with an absurd response is one way to answer. I guess this just hit a nerve with me because I know people that think it's a clever and serious response. If you're saying "write a check" instead of saying "you're an idiot," that's fine. - Blake Caldwell

On a side note - and I can't believe I'm not just quitting with the previous comment - it's silly to say that a 50% tax rate for every dollar you make above $1 million equates to "no point in achieving financial success above a certain level." It's a bad point on two levels - first that we're talking about extreme wealth here. Let's remember that. Second, every dollar you gross, you'd net $0.50 instead of $0.67. Keep that in mind. We're not talking about people making more money grossing $999,999 than $1M. - Blake Caldwell

Isn't the point that rich folk like the Netflix CEO are always volunteering to pay more taxes on behalf of a pay bracket that often extends far lower than their own income (think Warren Buffett) - the point is, it may be affordable at their pay level but not for someone earning rather less. If they think they ought to pay more taxes, let them, but don't let them make the decision for everyone else. I think that's the point of these mailers. - Jan Dawson

Jan - Again, we're talking about people making over one million dollars per year. I'm not necessarily on board with that proposal, but will argue on its behalf to some extent. I can't accept that a 50% tax bracket for every dollar over $1,000,000 will make life unaffordable for anyone. It's fun to say that he's lobbying to extend this far below his own income, but don't get crazy and include people making $100,000 in that reasoning. - Blake Caldwell

It would suck to make exactly $1,000,000 and know that people making $1 less than you have a bigger take home pay at the end of the year. - Bryan Clark

No, the point of the mailers is to rile up people who don't bother to actually read what the Netflix CEO said. - Richard Lawler

Bryan, isn't that the case with all tax brackets? It's not like our system is flat right now. - s t e v e

You know, its not a matter of whether or not people can afford to live on 50% tax for income over $1 mil. It's whether or not they deserve to pay that much tax. We're talking about people who (most likely) are fueled by entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, creativity, business genius -- why do they deserve to get punished with taxes? - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Another way to ask that, Shey, is to think about being in a restaurant with Mr. Hastings. He could afford to buy everyone in the place dinner. But no one expects him to just because he can. - Craig Eddy

*looks at Netflix Q4 earnings* ok, business genius, I see it. *looks at so many other companies recent earnings reports* Just not finding the genius here. and if you --- again this is the point -- read original article by the Netflix CEO, you know that's not what he was getting at. - Richard Lawler

The problem isn't taxes. It's a fact that government income has increased with the lowering of taxes. The problem is spending. Nobody should have their taxes raised to pay for pork bills like this so-called "stimulus" nonsense. - Spencer

@Richard So you're using earnings, in today's economic climate where EVERYONE is taking a hit, as a gauge? FAIL. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

You're not reading the original article and reaching an intelligent informed decision. FAIL that. and amazing, Netflix seems to be doing ok, and they're not the only ones. Thriving during a time of economic crisis, that's not what a business should aspire to be doing, I can't believe I was so confused. He should've done what many million dollar per year earners did and fluffed profits in the short term on overly risky ventures. That's the ticket. - Richard Lawler

I'm not defending Beck -- just not agreeing with the idea of the tax. Companies like Netflix will do well in these times, as more people stop going out [to the movies] and stay in. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

and I'm sure that's all there is to it, just wait for bad economic times step 2 ??? step 3 = profit. I don't agree with the idea of the tax either, however if you read the original article, the overall idea that simply capping CEO salaries is a misguided effort that hasn't and won't work I do agree with. - Richard Lawler

Bryan Clark - You have a common - yet serious - misconception of how tax brackets work. This is one of the biggest problems with all public debates on the topic. You NEVER have less take-home when you earn another dollar. You might pay more taxes on that next dollar than you did your previous one, but you NEVER take home less. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Blake Caldwell

To elaborate - if Hastings is lobbying for a 50% tax break for those making over $1,000,000 per year, that 50% only applies to every dollar you make OVER $1million. Keep in mind that they're already taxed 35% for every dollar over $357,000. This means that this huge argument we're having is over whether or not people making $1,000,000 are going to pay an additional $0.15 per $1.00 they make over a million. See how silly this outrage is now? - Blake Caldwell

Personally, I think taxing higher incomes at a (much) higher percentage is not a bad idea at all, Look at the Scandinavian countries, where tax brackets can get as high as close to a 100% (Abba actually moved away from Sweden for a while because they got taxed a 100% of their income!), but the quality of life for every citizen of those countries is much higher than it is in the USA ... - Rene Wirtz

... continued. But, I don't think it will work, simply because then all of a sudden everyone who makes over a certain amount, say $1mio, does not live in the US anymore, nor is their company headquartered there anymore. Everything will be located in Bermuda, Isle of Man and other tax havens. - Rene Wirtz

I can't laugh hard enough at people in low tax brackets (like myself or I would assume any of you) arguing on behalf of people of extreme wealth. I think JZ or Donald Trump's lifestyle wouldn't change a bit if he got taxed $0.15 more per $1.00 after $1,000,000. I also don't think he'd say "screw it, I'm not working anymore, there's no incentive." I imagine people get outraged about this type of story because (well, first, they don't understand tax brackets) they think... - Blake Caldwell

(cont)... that "someday, I'll make a million bucks per year, and I shouldn't have to pay 50% of that money to the government!" when in reality, you'll NEVER make that kind of money... let alone that, if you did, you wouldn't even notice the minor incremental taxation on that last few bucks of extreme wealth we're talking about here. Get real, folks. Countries are expensive to run - take a look at how much that new bridge near your house cost your state. Look at our deficit and national debt. - Blake Caldwell

If you are the Sole Prop. of a small business making $1 mil, raising taxes means less operating budget which less employment. Unless every small business pays taxes like Giethner. - Robert Hafer

Robert Hafer - I'm no tax expert, but I believe a Sole Prop doesn't pay taxes on business expenses (http://www.nolo.com/article...). They only pay tax on the profit. That diffuses your argument. - Blake Caldwell

Blake Caldwell - not all expenditures count as expenses, that's why CPAs make money - Robert Hafer

Robert Hafer - thanks for the clarification. That's interesting. Looks like an expense is anything directly incurred in the process of earning revenue. I would imagine that includes salaries, supplies, etc, right? I'm willing to be convinced that such a tax hike would kill a small business, but would like to hear how. - Blake Caldwell

Blake Caldwell - paying more taxes means less cash on hand, that has to come out of the budget somewhere. That won't kill all small businesses, but reducing payroll is the most effective way to cut budgets. Even if the cut in cash can be absorbed, it will slow down expansion; so less jobs. (There an old adage: "In business, like nature, if you're not growing, you're dying") In all "get the Rich" schemes, it's the people who work for the Rich who get hurt. - Robert Hafer

@Blake Caldwell, you taught me something today :) - Bryan Clark

Blake: Regarding the point which seems to cause you so much entertainment (folks making less than $1M arguing against high taxes) - your reaction misses the point entirely. Firstly, you're completely ignoring an entire class of business that can easily attain that level of income but would certainly be killed once they suddenly lose half their income. Second and more importantly (and telling) is your attitude that somehow none of us will "EVER make that kind of money." I find that attitude .... - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

... insulting and presumptuous. You don't know me from Adam, and I'm guessing you don't know the rest of us either. There have been years in my past when I've earned well over a few million, and years when I've lived under the poverty line. It's amazingly easy to move your income level around in this country, and for there to be an incentive for us *not* to achieve - well, that's just absurd. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

@Mark - I sincerely didn't want to offend anyone. I apologize if I did so. However, you can't fault me for my 'crazy' assumption that none of the dozen of us have made $1,000,000 a year. Please, it's not like I just assumed everyone here was white or in their thirties. - Blake Caldwell

@Bryan Clark - cool! Yeah, I would imagine most people don't understand brackets. I was surprised when I asked around here at work. - Blake Caldwell

@Robert Hafer - I might agree with you that certain situations of taxing small businesses could amount to hurting the company. There's certainly a difference (in my mind) between an individual making $1,000,000 per year and a small company. I would be in favor of making a distinction in the tax code. - Blake Caldwell

@Mark - One more point though. If that tax increase was enacted, people wouldn't suddenly lose half of their income. A 50% tax bracket at $1,000,000 would mean you'd lose an additional 15% of your income for every dollar over a million, since the 35% bracket is in effect for every dollar over $357,000. - Blake Caldwell

@Mark (cont) - so right now, if you make $1,000,000, you'll pay $329,000. If you make $2,000,000, you'll pay $679,000. If this 50% tax bracket went into effect, you'd sill pay $329,000 if you made $1,000,000. If you made $2,000,000, you'd pay an additional $150,000 of taxes: $829,000 instead of $679,000. - Blake Caldwell

Glen Beck... ugh. What a hack. - anna sauce

Hack or not, Beck just pwned the CEO of Netflix. Pwned I say. - Mike Lewis

Except he didn't. - Richard Lawler

Yeah it doesn't really make sense. I mean, the CEO gets a bunch of little discount cards in the mail saying he can pay more to taxes? Oooooh, scary. - anna sauce

Nah, not pwned. LOL, he doens't have a 'passionate desire' to pay more taxes, just like anyone that has an opinion about where to send troops doesn't (necessarily) have a passionate desire to shoot people. - Blake Caldwell

Nothing Glenn Beck does makes sense. He had this anti-communist (!) episode the other day, that was 1/2 in Cyrillic. A friend & I translated it, it was just nonsense. Oooh, scary the Russians are coming. Putin's rearing his ugly head! Glenn Beck is the Tara Reid of the celebrity crowd. - anna sauce

Well then I'm waiting for the Glenn Beck drunken nipple slip :). Wait, errr.... - Blake Caldwell

What's disturbing about the nipple slip was that it revealed a botched operation... - anna sauce

That tara reid nipple slip almost ruined "accidental" flashings for everyone. - Richard Lawler

Tara Reid? OH, right, she had a nipple slip too. What a coincidence :) - Blake Caldwell

Robert Scoble

New Feedly is pretty darn cool. I have a video demo at http://scobleizer.com with its founder.

February 11 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Daniel Rowley, Nicholas James and 7 other people liked this

interesting stuff, too bad we don't have 1000 friends in google reader like you! lol. :) - Momma@EADFL

7 more comments

Feedly has turned it around big time, it's awesome now - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I found Feedly confusing. Will give another try. - bnoise

Edwin, the popup on the Feedly minibar while viewing Scoble's blog showed an entry from March 18th. - Hao Chen

Hao. Yes. I just noticed that. We are going to change the filtering logic to try to promote live conversations over older ones. We are going to let the launch storm pass by and try to push an update out on Sunday/Monday will all the problems which popup between now and then. If you have any other suggestion please let us know - Edwin Khodabakchian

I tried feedly a few months ago and it sucked for me but this new version is exactly what I have been missing. I was waiting for an app that can tie together your online sharing experience! I am loving feedly now! - Kahlil Lechelt from twhirl

I love it :) - PaperDoll

Yeah, Feedly rocks. Edwin is totally feeling it. :) - Meryn Stol

just installed feedly and loving it. thanks for recommending those changes. - Erik from twhirl

Thomas Hawk

A Congressman just asked the 8 bank CEOs being grilled by Congress to raise their hands if they own or lease a private jet. Every hand went up except Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

February 11 - Comment - Like - Share

bcultral, Chris, Taskerrific Guy, polymath22 and 21 other people liked this

I didn't see the questioning, but what does that have to do with anything? Was the question about their personal ownership, or about company ownership? - Joey Gibson

36 more comments

You would think they would see that one comming. Goldman took his son's bike. Nice job. - John Flynn

i "liked" the post, but it makes me sick at the same time. Our company is laying off 10%, but is the CEO taking a pay cut? hell no. I don't know how these people sleep at night - planetMitch

In our company, they seem to have disallowed bathroom visits after 7 PM:) - Aaman (Clone of FF)

You can't have the American dream and at the same time vilify those who have achieved it. It's the internal struggle of American capitalism. - Trevor Lee

The whole thing is a political witch-hunt. - Steven Cains

Trevor how is this the American dream? What have they made? What have they built? What have they earned? The American dream isn't to repeatedly fail, make other people pay for your mistakes, and capture most of the loot for yourselves. They are vilified because they are villains. - Todd Hoff

Obviously Blankfein has smart PR people working for him. ;) - Thomas Hawk

maybe Blankfein is smart enough to know it's cheaper to use a private jet but not own it. - sam b-r

From a practical standpoint: isn't it better when they are buying american privat jets instead of saving the money or blowing it on foreign goods? Not saying there isn't something wrong, but spending money they made in the past isn't it. - sdfx

Isn't it cliché yet to ask a CEO if he flies in private jets during a congressional hearing? Sounds to me like a congressman trying to get his name in the paper, not one trying to get to the root of our problems. I'm sure there are a bunch of embarrassing questions I could ask him about some pampering he's had. - J. McConnell

Of course, I'm not saying that the CEOs aren't crooks ... just that they apparently aren't the only ones getting paid handsomely for doing a poor job. - J. McConnell

J, what does that matter? - Todd Hoff

Todd, it matters because everyone already knows the answer to that question, so it is a waste of everyone's time to ask it. There is only one reason to ask it, and that is for political gain. When there are real problems and a real need for congressional inquiry, I think it is irresponsible to waste time and misdirect attention away from the root of our problems for your own gain. - J. McConnell

Everyone already knows isn't a solid case. I think most people including myself can't even begin to fathom what they assume as divine right. - Todd Hoff

@cains: agree with the 'witch hunt' take...but the irony is, government is EQUALLY complicit in this banking mess. draw and quarter all of them i say! - .LAG liked that

But fathoming what they assume as a divine right doesn't help us much either. I think the goal of an inquiry like this should be to uncover what can be done to prevent something like this from happening again. Focusing on executive compensation distracts us from the underlying, industry-wide problems and it isn't very productive at this stage. When we have a firmer grip on the big problems, then we can revisit the ridiculous and undeserved $20M salaries. Until then, let's keep our eyes on the big picture. - J. McConnell

@LAG I agree. Having Frank in the room asking questions is like having the wolf grill the fox about missing chickens... - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Fairness is the big picture. Trying to ride the gravytrain while diverting by pointing at the big picture won't wash. It seems we have lost any sense of right and wrong. If you make money it seems you are right and nobody will ever bother to call you on it. - Todd Hoff

congress putting the spotlight on the CEOs takes it off of their role in creating this mess. they have just as much blame here, imho. browbeating gordon gekko makes it look like they're fighting for the little guys -- us -- when in fact all that's going on is political posturing. nothing happens in these hearings. all the work is done in the hallways and back offices. we won't be privy to that. - .LAG liked that

I just can't believe any bank's board would still allow them to own or lease private jets. It's a PR disaster at this point. What kind of justification can be made for any of these banks owning or leasing private jets? It's a symbol of excess. - Thomas Hawk

It's not either or. The investigation should go both ways. But to say one shouldn't happen because the other isn't happening right now doesn't make sense. It seem like you are saying nothing will ever happen so don't even bother. That's defeatist and how you create a world where there is no accountability. - Todd Hoff

Brad Sherman was the Congressman who asked the question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Hawk

I don't disagree, Todd. The sense I get is that I see the problems you are pointing out as a symptom of a diseased system whereas you see it as the disease itself. In either case, we want the same healthy system in the end, our differences lie in deciding the first symptom to treat. - J. McConnell

CNBC just said that BofA still has 8 to 10 private jets. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk; Their portfolios are so vast (in assets and geographically) that they need to travel quickly & efficiently. Having an executive waiting around for a few hours in an airport is wasting a valuable resource. Leasing may make more sense but they've been racking up a fair few air miles over the last 6 months. I'm sure they can justify the expense. - Steven Cains

But don't those execs see the ads for GoToMeeting ...? - Rene Wirtz

How much is enough? If you have 300 million dollars in assets, is 400 million that much greater? Everyone still puts their pants on, cliche notwithstanding, one leg at a time. I just don't get it. And I'm scraping by stressing over student loans and a new TV and they can't fly commercial? Poppycock. - Derrick

@Cains. yeah, I don't buy that executive time is so valuable that they can't spend time waiting around an airport. Most airports have things like red carpet lounges, admiral lounges, etc. They can be just as productive there with a laptop and a phone as they can be getting someplace 2 hours earlier by private jet. - Thomas Hawk

everybody knows at this point that a corporate jet is a symbol of excess and a PR liability. If you are a Board or CEO you want people to buy your stock. If the jet creates disdain for your company and that means fewer people want to buy your stock it's a mistake. Stupid PR people advising these bank CEOs. People want them to feel the pain like they are. Owning/leasing a private jet is not feeling the pain. - Thomas Hawk

These guys saw what congress put the car companies through, an industry with actual products, and tangible assets, and physical capital that has value. What did they think they'd do to these people who don't do anything real or tangible? All 3 car companies die, Uncles Sam still has a shit ton or property, product, buildings, and raw materials they can sell or auction to minimize the loss. Wells Fucko blows our investment in them, it's just gone, poof, vapor. Those jerks should get 10x the colonoscopy. - Matthew DeVries

So, as part of the stimulus package, we should eliminate the entire private jet industry? - Mistletoe Glen

it's not like they couldn't have seen this coming. Brad Sherman was the same Congressman who grilled the automakers on this one. Goldman Sachs seems to be the only company that learned anything from the embarrassment the automakers got over private jets. The banks should sell those jets. - Thomas Hawk

Just keep the jets you can afford. That is, not the ones we are paying for from our piggy bank. - Todd Hoff

@Todd if it wasn't for our piggy bank their companies would be out of business. - Alan Cheslow

Not sure about the implication Alan. - Todd Hoff

@Todd - meaning they wouldn't have any jets, bonuses, paychecks, etc - Alan Cheslow

But they shoudln't sell their private or company jets on ebay, like a certain veep candidate ... - Rene Wirtz

Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Radio stations are pulling Chris Brown's music and Wrigley suspended his contract, but when R. Kelley pissed on that 14yr old...nothing

February 11 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Kev, Mark Edwards, Admiral Anika and 4 other people liked this

yes, he had a bunch of songs on the radio and that weird hipopera. But did he have such a "good guy" image? ..doesn't make it right. I guess, pissing on a 14 year old nobody is ok as opposed to beating a famous songstress. - Anna Lynn M.

8 more comments

I was thinking the same thing. The only reason something is happening to him is cause Rihanna is a bigger star - Shevonne

I just think it's sad that this man's reputation is being destroyed on the strength of some rumors. He was charged with making a threat, not whooping her ass. Why would they do that if he actually touched her and they had all these photos and evidence and crap? - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I thought she was the one who filed the charges? - Shevonne

Either way, I don't think he was charged with actually touching her so...wtf? - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Does anyone over the age of 21 even listen to Chris Brown's music? - Derrick

That's because R.Kelly only PISSED on the girl, not BEAT her. [Allegedly.] - Ernie

@Ernie Um, actually he did more than just that. Hence the rape charge - Shey, Jamaican of FF

it's one thing to beat your girlfriend, another to piss on a kid, apparently. - Brian Ries

He allegedly beat on her, but how can we accuse him of doing so when the alleged victim didn't? I also don't see how physical abuse is any worse than sexual abuse. One could actually argue that what R. Kelly did was worse. (LOL@Derrick) - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

andy brudtkuhl

Amazon.com: Barbecue Babe 6 Piece Costume Includes Mini Skirt, Tie Top, Apron, Hat, Mustard and Ketchup Bottles. Available in Sizes Small, Medium or Large.: Apparel - http://www.amazon.com/gp...

February 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Ries and Nurse Katie liked this

Can I get that in a 3X? Wait, what? - Derrick

so the nice looking model is thrown in for free? :-) - Richard Arblaster

@Derrick sorry only Small/Med/Large :) - andy brudtkuhl

Eric Rice

FOUND EMOTICONS OF THE FIRST TWO DECADES OF THE 21st CENTURY - http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog...

February 11 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Ries liked this

Super Bowl: Kevin C. Tofel

I suppose I only got invited to this room because you needed a token Cardinal fan? ;)

January 29, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James and Brian Ries liked this

you're the one. - Brian Ries

lol - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I'm a Cardinal fan! - Rochelle

Dave Winer

Someday Twitter will support the equiv a "like" in FriendFeed, and retweeting will disappear, which is where it needs to go. Imho.

January 27, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

David HC Soul, polymath22, Bryan R. Adams and 48 other people liked this

agree, the re-tweet can add a significant amount of noise - Lou Paglia

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I think RT is like "reshare this entry" in FF. It's different (it doesn't put items in your stream but in the FoF one). - Jérôme Flipo

That would be cool...perhaps if a twit gets 'liked' 10 or 20x then it gets sent to everyone? - Cheryl Allin from twhirl

People who follow me see the things I like. No?? Do I completely not understand this? - Dave Winer

I never use "Reshare" -- which I think of as a "pass by value" -- it creates another entity, rather than just a pointer, which is what "Like" does. - Dave Winer

Re-Tweet is useful as a way for content to move from one social graph to another. The equivalent in FF is the Like... Dave got it right. - Brian Roy

Whew. We ought to start a wiki somewhere to translate concepts between the various systems, to see which ideas need to percolate where. Twitter is desperately in need of some *simple* tweaks. If they won't do them, maybe Identi.ca will. And FriendFeed is desperately in need of a Lite product that just does what Twitter does, plus the things Twitter doesn't that FriendFeed does (if you can follow that twisty maze). - Dave Winer

RT is required, because a "like feed" would be optional, no one would watch it. RT=forced viewing,thus stories span the net fast. w/o RT, twitter=facebook's poke, vampire bite, snowball tossing apps. RT IS the power of twitter - Matthew DeVries

Let me summarize: The killer app in this space, imho is FriendFeed Lite. (And please support changes.xml and weblogs.com compatible pinging so I don't feel I'm undermining the common infrastructure by supporting you guys.) - Dave Winer

Matthew: when I click "like" it forces that item into your view unless you've turned off friendfeed's "friend-of-a-friend" feature. - Robert Scoble

Robert: The only natively "on" feature I turned off in FF is the Spam my twitter feature. But in my home feed, I only see the things you post, and the things your friends post, but I never get a message saying "Robert Liked this and that is why it's now on your home feed" - Matthew DeVries

If I "favorite" a tweet, it could be considered a like. It just needs to be more discoverable on Twitter. It should then automatically come to ff as a like. - Andrew Smith

Matthew, that's how Friend of a Friend works on FF. Anytime you see a post from "User (friend of Robert Scoble)" then you're seeing that post because Robert either liked or commented on that item. Otherwise, you wouldn't see User's post because you're not subscribed to them. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Stupid Blogger --> That's a revelation to me. I had no idea. - Dave Winer

Tina is correct. You can see the things I've liked at http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... and you'll see those things pretty closely align with the items you'll see in your "best of" feature. - Robert Scoble

There should be a Facebook for Dummies ;-) - Marcel Körner

Tina: I didn't know that, I thought I was getting everything your friends of friends were posting, I didn't know that you "liking" it was the gate keeper for dumping it into my feed. Ok, now I guess I have to figure out how to get more FF followers too *sigh* - Matthew DeVries

Tina - but if I'm subed to you and you like something Dave posted - and I'm not subed to Dave... I see it cause you liked it... no? - Brian Roy

IMHO 150 words is a way to bring down the ranting and overloading of information, a varity of both worlds would be the best - jimmy howe from twhirl

Thing is, I don't consider myself to be that great of a content creator. I'm a pretty good RT/Like relay (my RT of Jkrums's picture was the first I think), but no one follows you cause you're good at knowing who is creating the good stuff, you have to create the good stuff yourself. - Matthew DeVries

Isn't the "favorite" on Twitter the same as FF "like"? I'm on the fence with re-tweets. - andy brudtkuhl

Favorite are like bookmarks. They don't notify your followers however. - Valley

@Valley ahh I see... But if they notified your followers, wouldn't that just be the same as a retweet? - andy brudtkuhl

good idea - Mike

Agreed. There needs to be some kind of first class construct for this in Twitter if only for the reason that adding the proper RT attribution inline often puts me over the 140 char limit. - Buddy Brewer from twhirl

Agree with Andrew here, fave on Twitter = like on FriendFeed just not as well done on Twitter. - Kol Tregaskes

Very much sens into it. - Dani Radu

So twitter are just going to push their favourite option and make it more useful? - Nicholas James

If Twitter makes favorites bump tweets to the top then those would be like "like"s. - Morton Fox

Agreed - RE: retweeting going away. :) I actually use faves on Twitter like I do stars in google reader - to remind me to see them again (usually because my first look is on my phone). Haven't "liked" much on FF but when I have, it's been to do just that - mark it as something I like or agree with. - Bill from twhirl

Super Bowl: Benjamin Golub

Go Steelers!

January 29, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James and Brian Ries liked this

you've got obama on your side - Brian Ries

FriendFeed Feedback: Chris Loft

Swamped with new Twitter friends

January 29, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Jennifer Van Grove, Kol Tregaskes, Brian Ries and 2 other people liked this

I find FriendFeed to be swamped with Twitter posts, especially since adding lots of people from twitter who don't do much else on FF. I know I can filter them out. I also think the page is too wide in FF and the text doesn't want to wrap. I would like to see FF with two columns . . . with the Twitter posts taking up one column and everything else in the other. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this. - Chris Loft

6 more comments

That's not a bad idea. Certainly it'd be good if it was an option. - Tom Morris

What about resizing your browser window and opening your favorite Twitter client in the space you just saved? The width of the content on FriendFeed is probably for readability purposes: it becomes increasingly harder to read text that's spread out over really large widths. - Mark Trapp

I think I'll try a FF client and a Twitter client, side by side, but I'd prefer to have the Twitter client inside FF and interacting more with it. Alternatively, I could just 'dump' all those new 'twitter friends on friendfeed' - put them back into their own room and just have a look at them when I feel the urge to let them out and see what they are saying. Putting them into a room is a bit like 'out of sight - out of mind'. - Chris Loft

TWHIRL makes the whole thing come together very nicely! Mr @scobleizer should agree with that! ;-) - David Slater from twhirl

Sure, there are quite a few third-party apps that will do this - but wouldn't it be nice to have it all happening inside FriendFeed. Since the synchronisation of Twitter followers as FriendFeed friends the stream is overwhelmed by tweets. It would be nice to quickly turn them off and on again, or see them in a seperately, but still inside of FriendFeed. - Chris Loft

What synchronization are you talking about? Do you mean the fact that you can now easily find out who's on both twitter and FF and you subscribed to their feeds? FF isn't a twitter client, so this is not something I'd want. - Mattie Kenny

Yes, that's the synchronisation that I meant, in retrospect it was perhaps a mistake to add so many of my 'friends' from twitter to FriendFeed - the quality of information was much better before, even then it contained a great deal of twitter items. - Chris Loft

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