Alexander, you write “Social Media is just a tool, a fun playground, cool technology. But it doesn’t have all that much impact on the lives of ordinary people.” Although I agree with the general observation, I’d put this in a different context. Isn’t this the case with all advanced / elitist cultural or economic sectors? Can’t the same (low impact on the lives of ordinary people) be said about things like: astronomical theories, Joyce’s Ulysses, SAP or the LHC? All those things would not pass the First Use Question but that doesn’t pose a problem. - Benedikt Koehler
Benedikt, that’s a good question. The thing with social media (and often a lot of web 2.0 startups) is that the early adopter crowd is not asking the tough question of First Use. Yet at the same time they often tend to write about new technology as if it is the best thing ever. Simple example, Half of the Internet population probably knows about Google Search. Every new startup or technology that is innovating in the area of search is now convicted as being a “Google killer”. Sensational, but obviously unrealistic.
With respect to web technology I think we can safely assume that a lot of “ordinary” users are now on the web. These people have found ways to integrate that experience into their lives. They are the target groups for services like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, or any other social media service. But just because these services aim at that market doesn’t mean they can be succesful there. That’s where the first use questions are important.
Not everyone knows or cares about astronomical theories, bu - Alexander van Elsas
when it comes to services that have impact on normal things in life like communication, sharing, connecting, meeting with friends and family, everyone is an expert ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
A comment from Mark Rizzn Hopkins on my post in reaction to Benedikts comment: "I think you’re right, to a certain extent, benedikt. The difference is, though, that Joyce, LHC and the other things you mention aren’t intended eventually or currently for mainstream usage (and I shudder to think of the mere thought of my neighbor using the LHC unsupervised)." - Alexander van Elsas
Alexander, as usual you got me thinking. So, you have inspired another blog post for later this week. I like the "first use" idea, but I think we can go further than that. - Rob Diana
In the past few weeks, we've often discussed power of aggregator links
and those from blogs. With today having quite a bit of activity on
Techmeme, I thought I'd show the relative power, in this single
instance, of Techmeme, versus Scobleizer, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed and
the rest. Your mileage (and mine) may vary. - Louis Gray
via mail2ff
Its safe to say that my mileage would vary a great deal from yours. - Denton Gentry
Thanks for having some great guest bloggers. This was a perfect post for a meeting we are having on Monday especially the Apprenticeship idea! - Arne-Per
Mark, Hutch, Rob, Jesse, Cyndy and Colin have done a great job with their guest blog posts. I'm posting too, so this isn't some kind of "vacation" or "help the new daddy out" deal. I just think these are some great writers who could use a little boost in exposure, with whom I share a lot of similarities. Win Win! - Louis Gray
Mark did such a great job on this post. It's really refreshing to read blog posts about the reasons why introducing new audiences is important. Sometimes it feels like early adopters want to keep sites like FriendFeed from garnering any mainstream attention. - Jennifer Van Grove
Did I ever mention how much I like @jbruin? :) - Mark Dykeman
Mark, in the end I'm not sure if getting everyone on the Internet will be as difficult as getting everyone to read blogs (text messaging is definitely a form of social media, so you exclude a ton of people when you exclude that audience). The problem is not everyone is hungry for info. we all have at least 5 friends who'd rather call us up and ask us a question than just look it up on Google. Teaching people to want to learn on their own is sometimes a very difficult challenge and will play a big role here - Robert Seidman
@Robert, motivations for using social media (or basic Internet functionality) would make excellent material for yet another post. But I think you are correct in that some people would find social media too much of a bother. But I'm willing to bet there's still a significant population that's "on the bubble", as one of my former bosses used to say, and they might not need a whole lot of encouragement or education to dive in. - Mark Dykeman
I commented on Louis's blog. Summary - bloggers should engage, even with short little comments. Not everything needs to be a long comment. - Hutch Carpenter
Mark, I'm with your old boss. Overcoming inertia usually is a very expensive proposition though. - Robert Seidman
why social media is cool is because it is a bit closer to the way consciousness works through mind engaging with life .... the next tech will be even closer - Gregory Lent
I like the idea of the "social media apprentice. "You are beginning to learn the ways of the blogosphere young padawan". - Damien Franco
some good ideas here about looking outward and being supportive to others. Similar to some of the premises we had in helping encourage the corporate blog council - Richard Binhammer
Excellent post Mark, lots of really great ideas. - John Duff
With all these guest posts I was thinking back to an article Louis wrote a couple weeks back on the importance of blog linking (http://www.louisgray.com/live/...). Out of curiosity, everyone who has been writing guest posts, have you seen significant increases in your own blogs traffic since writing a post for louisgray.com? - John Duff
I shall refrain from answering. ;) Actually, Louis, do I even have blogs linked in my ID? - Cyndy
Cyndy does not have a blog linked on her ID, but does for email and Twitter. If she has a "Cyndy blog", I'd link, but she's always been a gun for hire. - Louis Gray
I really liked this post. It is great to hear about this perspective from someone so deep in the trenches. This insight is very helpful to understanding the current landscape of blogging. - Mindy Koch
A lot of valid points that I agree with. - Adrian Nadeau
I loved the post. Friendfeed is adding a lot of exposure to our digital identity. Do you feel there is a need for a new social netiquette? I.e don't post your "I have a new blog post: domain.com/post " on twitter if you already linked friendfeed to your twitter account AND to your blog? I would love to hear your opinions about that - Marcello Del Bono
Just noticed the same. When I started blogging I always asked myself: Should I post this story on my blog or try to sell it to a magazine or newspaper. Now it's increasingly the question if I should blog it or post it to Twitter or FriendFeed. - Benedikt Koehler
And what about non native english speakers (like me). I blog, twit and post in friendfeed both on italian and english language. is that annoying for non-italian speakers ? I often post the same news on my italian language blog (in italian) and on my english language blog (in english). they are both linked on friendfeed. Is that correct? Is that annoying? I don't have the answers... - Marcello Del Bono
Marcello, it is not annoying, it is just shows a need for filtering for languages. People will ignore things that they cannot read, so let them filter it. - Rob Diana
Rise of rapid yet drastic increment of the socialization on the web might be causing this confusion, I guess. "Time is a cure." - Kenichi Matsumoto
@Kenichi: Will there be a time when we can socialize on the web without having to take care of different languages? Going beyond Babel in social networking? - Benedikt Koehler
benedikt, I made a confusion here. sorry! I meant to comment on the original post. btw, I'm having the same problem as Marcello pointed out above. I'm a Japanese. - Kenichi Matsumoto
For someone who recently started blogging and use friendfeed, I find this post enlightening - Laurent Rozenfeld
Unless your blog is quite unsuccessful, or you've got an enormous social media following, I'm not sure how this works. 20 times the people will read one of my blog posts vice a Tweat or FF blurb. And, of course, I can actually develop a coherent thought (theoretically) in a blog post. And monetize it. - James Joyner
I think I understand Kenichi. I just wrote a post about the points I see in this thread. http://marcello.delbono.eu/200... Is it correct to link my blog post on this thread? I wrote it on my blog since I have more space there, and I can also use images and formatting. But is this kind of cross-referencing correct? Is it noising? Is it value adding? ... - Marcello Del Bono
Excellent post, Louis. Your brain is in no way suffering from sleep deprivation! - Carla Thompson
Thoughtful post. I wish I could whip up a post in 30 minutes flat. - kamla bhatt
Louis - I thought you said, "that's why I invented him" below. lol! ;-) Thanks for your kind words though. - Jesse Stay
Marcello I don't think there are enough FriendFeed users yet to completely forgo Twitter as an additional platform for sharing content. I still have twice the friends on Twitter as I do FriendFeed. - Jesse Stay
Marcello I think the only standard is that you be yourself - if you get criticized, certainly be courteous, but don't worry too much about any set "rules". You'll be fine. :-) - Jesse Stay
Jesse that's true. Twitter is stil much more mainstream, and growing than FF. But the value proposition of the tools is different: FF is the provider of a social me, a creator of digital identity from your digital fragments around the net, enriched with blogging and social functionalities. Twitter is a microblogging app, istead. So they are two different tools, with different purposes - Marcello Del Bono
I think they believed the ancient alchemists could. Too bad we don't have rumors of cave men with iphones. - Ranjit Mathoda
Before people figured out the difference between compounds and atoms, maybe some alchemists really believed they could. I don't remember any concrete discussions of this though. Maybe it was just fund-raising/politics/vaporware? - Mitchell Tsai
common theory at one time was the earth was flat and the center of the universe... I guess part of evolution includes loosing faith in what can and can't be done or true - nick carrasco
It wasn't just lead but base metals - it was part of the theory that everything was linked and it was a question of finding the rights answers to transmute things. The other main goal was to find the elixir of life which would cure all illness and give youth. As Mitchell says, before a better understanding of how things were made it was belived that just about any substance could be altered with the correct process. - Colin Walker
via fftogo
Paul, have you read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, particularly Quicksilver? - DeWitt Clinton
Modern-day alchemy is alive and well (or not so well at the moment) on Wall Street. Wall Street firms have made their money by taking typically under-performing assets and slicing and dicing them in to a dizzying array of products that get rated investment-grade (AAA) meaning sellable and gold. Humans will continue to try to produce gold from lead from now until the end of the species, guaranteed. - Morgan
DeWitt: Quicksilver made my head spin. It was an awesome book. Weird in places, but awesome nonetheless. I plan on picking up the rest of the cycle soon. - ha3rvey
Interesting question. Maybe the western alchemists were pragmatic but the eastern neighbors were more interested in immortality. I hope this is correct (from memory) - LPH
Regarding Quicksilver - the descriptions of phosphorous and its uses were worth the price of admission right there, DeWitt. - J·Phil·Glockner
I find it amusing that now we really can transmute lead into gold, using a particle accelerator to knock three protons out of the lead nucleus, but the energy required to do so costs more than the resulting gold is worth. So though we can do it, it isn't very interesting. - Denton Gentry
I used to read Stephenson's books, but then they got too intimidatingly long. I guess I'm not a very fast reader. - Paul Buchheit
Both. They believed that they could meet their goal eventually, if they did things right in the lab. Just like all of us. :-) - Daniel Dulitz
They wouldn't have believed in just about anything that happened over the last hundred years either. Alchemy would have seemed as plausible as a cell-phone or nanotech at the time. - Nicholas Molnar
This wasn't really a historical question so much as a reflection on their mindset. I just wonder to what extent they actually expected to create gold vs liked tinkering in the lab (and creating gold was a good way to fund their tinkering). The same personality types probably exist across different times and cultures, so it's interesting to think about what roles they will occupy in those cultures. - Paul Buchheit
don't know if you're going to get to the bottom of this on FF, but people believed some pretty stupid stuff back then. - Mark Schulz
actually it's been proven that if you smash one more atom of lead into a larger chunk of lead you get gold ... so maybe there were simply ahead of their time? - JohnBfromMemphis
via twhirl
There were no doubt people who liked to tinker and just called themselves alchemists because it was the word that best described what they did, but I would have to assume that most of them thought their goals were achievable (and it is, just not with their technology). I suppose you could just as easily ask if televangelists really think they're acting on behalf of god, or if they just think it's a good way to raise money to fund their lifestyles? - Gabe
I find organic alchemistry more interesting. bring back the dead. we can regrow old tissue? - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
If you are into Alchemist and Anime, you should watch Full Metal Alchemist. That got me started on wiki-ing the history of Alchemists. - Winston Teo
I guess there were at least both types of alchemists: those who expected to create gold and those who expected to monetize the expectations of others. I'm mostly interested in the third type. - Eugene
I have better analogy. Compare turning lead into gold with attempts to create AI - Phil "Barack" Smirnov
It seems unusual to me that the salesman personality is crossed with the tinkering personality. But maybe it is less unusual that I might think. - Clare Dibble
Yeah, just like people whose goal is to cure cancer, help people live forever, prove P=NP or whatever, they have to like to tinker for its own sake, because actually achieving their goal is very unlikely. But the people who just like to tinker, with no goal, rarely accomplish big things because big things are too hard. So I think the wacky goal and satisfaction from the process are both required in order to make progress. - Daniel Dulitz
Your post was surely not a serious question, but there were really many different groups of people which we have labeled "alchemists" after the fact; the quest for transmutation is a stereotype of ours and by no means a universal pursuit of alchemy. As far as I can tell, in those times and places where alchemists were funded, it was usually not for transmutation work but for more immediately useful contributions (explosives, medicines, paints, etc). - ⓞnor
Rolf Skyberg once dared presenting 400 slides here in Amsterdam, one of the better presentations I've seen. And he has a new one up on his blog (400+ slides) ;-). Or how about Ze Frank? Jonathan Harris? Anyone else have favorites? - Alexander van Elsas
Franz Lanting's presentation was remarkable to say the least. Felt very fortunate to watch the steam. That made my week. Thanks! - phil baumann
If I am in an audience and I am not captivated by the presenter, my thoughts wander and I inevitably start looking at email on my phone. But I also typically just leave if things don't change for the better during the session. There is no better way to let a speaker know that what they are saying/doing doesn't hold your attention than to just leave. - Chris E. Avis
Each presenter should ask himself upfront whether he makes the difference in turning the presentation from good to remarkable. Otherwise he just wastes his audiences time... Unfortunately there are not too many outstanding speakers around, so I'm glad you were among the lucky ones. - Arnd Gronenberg
I think the single most important fundemental for speaking is a passion for your material. I consder it a job well done when members of the audience come up afterward and mention my passion for the topic. That is exactly what I am trying to confer. Passion and excitement for new media (in most cases this is what I speak about) - Douglas E. Welch
via twhirl
Douglas: in this case this presentation went way beyond passion. We were witnessing a lifetime of work presented in less than an hour. And magical work it is. It would be like sitting through Ansel Adams telling you about Yosemite in a slide show. - Robert Scoble
Well, I would say that is actually passion at the peak, summing up a life's work. You had better be passionate about that. (SMILE) - Douglas E. Welch
via twhirl
I was one of the mesmerized thanks to Robert's broadcast. This was fantastic! - Kevin C. Tofel
Good post. I'll watch. Re: Sitting on your laptop or phone during a presentation. Bottom line is it's disrespectful to the presenter. This may sound old-school but it's manners. It's like people in meetings with their heads down in there laptop the whole time. It's why meetings run over and why people are LESS productive. - Ryan
Ryan: it is disrespectful, yes, but there's no way I'm going back, sorry. At Gnomedex EVERY ATTENDEE is on a laptop. - Robert Scoble
Is it just me, or are all baby clothes in either FriendFeed or Twitter colors? I was noticing in my baby boy's clothes today that I had half of web 2.0 in his wardrobe. - Jesse Stay
Wonderful photos. Congrats and enjoy! - Larry Huffman
yeah it is all nice and happy now - give it 12 months and the inner demon comes out... Nice time though, when they are small and cute :) Enjoy it. - Dave Gray
The best part at this age is when they fall asleep on your chest. - Russellreno
Looks like Sarah is trying to push Matt away... saying "Hey dude! We are so out of the womb! Shove over!!" - Yolanda
I figured you could use another. Subscribed. - Kevin Bondelli
Kevin, thank you :-) Colin, surprised, why? I'm a Z-list blogger at the moment ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
No way are you a Z lister Alexander, well done on reaching 400 I'm sure it will be no time before you double your subscribers! - Joe Dawson
I would just have expected more but I suppose there's unfortunately not always a correlation between quality and quantity. - Colin Walker
via fftogo
@Colin I write waaaaaaayyyy too long posts to become very popular (once I get going.....). But that isn't important. I do get a lot of interaction, feedback and great ideas, so it's well worth doing it :-) - Alexander van Elsas
Here is a feed you probably haven't found often on Friendfeed. Rolf Skyberg, disruptive innovator at eBay is one of the very few people I know that can create 400 (!) slide long presentations and let the audience be fascinated through every single one of them. I dare you to take the time and click through all of them. And I am sure you will like it. One of my favorite web 2.0 philosophers, enjoy! - Alexander van Elsas
I couldn't agree more. Great content and awesome presentation! He could write a bestseller on how to do presentations the right way, - Mia
What, only two have dared to attempt this so far, c'mone people give it a shot, it's well worth it ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
I have added Rolf's feed to my Google Reader. Will read the full 400-pager at leisure. - Atul Arora
I have found that the best way to go through his long presentations is to click through them at a pace of about 1 slide per 1-2 seconds. Works really well. But his regular posts are really good too. Always a good read :-) - Alexander van Elsas
Many web 2.0 services actually owe the users because we give them our data for them to monetize. Therefore, the companies still owe us big time, if not with hard dollars, decent service. - Jason Kaneshiro
On second thought... I did lend it $5 last week for lunch... so maybe it owes me after all. - Lindsay Donaghe
That's an angle, Jason, yes. And in that case it become a question of who owns your data and where it should be stored. Another debate worth having. - Lindsay Donaghe
This is a reasonable point of view because it explains the rights (AND RESPONSIBILITIES) of BOTH parties: service user AND provider! - Thomas Ho
via fftogo
Once you put your data out on the internets it becomes public. Everything on the internets that's easily obtainable and copyable is free, public information. - Tad - pals w/Terrorists
@Thomas - Yup!. I get annoyed with the lack of personal responsibility that is prevalent these days... especially with us in the US. - Lindsay Donaghe
“Definition of an echo chamber: of 28 "things" on my Friends page, 18 are about Friendfeed and/or Twitter themselves and 4 are about Techmeme. I need to unsub from some of you people, you're boring me.”
Nope, I've been tracking this for the last few days, it never changes. Most of the so-called conversations on here, are about the same things, every single day, every time I peek at Friendfeed. - Mike McBride
@Mike- I've been noticing that, there is a lot of conversation here about Twitter downtimes and how FF could be better. But all this will move on and has soon there is any big news or event thats what conv is gonna be about. - Gadiel Rivera
@Bwana That's the thing, if I hide all the people talking in circles about social networking tools like Twitter and Friendfeed, there's very little left. Someone please show me there's more to Friendfeed! - Mike McBride
I've noticed that most of the posts about Twitter sucking seem to be happening when Twitter goes down. Mike, if you want to try something different click on the link for Flickr only and watch some pretty pictures for awhile. http://friendfeed.com/?service... - Thomas Hawk
It takes effort. You have to expect a level of duplication, but the gold is in the discussion. I tend to hide a lot of things that don't have comments or likes. The current hot topic today is the downtime of Twitter so expect to see a lot of duplicates. When Microsoft and Yahoo were going nuts, it was the same way. It takes some getting used to, but I find the more you participate, the more you're likely to find more people who have similar interests. Keep asking questions, people will help! - Bwana McCall
Good Idea Thomas. You can also filter the other services by clicking the service icons next to the post. I sometimes have a great time going through Google shared items, Flickr posts, and delicious bookmarks - Bwana McCall
Mike, I agree, my noise filter is already ignoring most of it, unless someone rants about it, then I join in ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
FriendFeed is a relatively new service mostly used right now by early adopters, so of course, much of the talk is going to be skewed toward tech and social networking sites/services. We're going to have to wait for a more diverse user base before we get a really nice mix of interesting stuff. - Shawn Farner
@Shawn I hope you're right, I could certainly stand to see some new and different topics around here. - Mike McBride
Mike, actively seek out people who have similar (good) interests :). I have an ongoing tweetscan for non-techie phrases like "a cappella" and "herrang" and "lindy hop" and so on, and have found some neato folks who are outside the geekoidal echo-chamber. - Adam Lasnik
Good one Steven, I think you are right about it. But hey, it isn't all hard work, there is also some fun in it ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
I wouldn't be doing it; or willing to invest the time, if I wasn't having fun .. sure I get a little down over aspects of it sometimes but it doesn't last for long. - Steven Hodson
I'm guessing that Reykjavík is a more interesting place to visit or live. I wonder why that is, and more importantly, why can't a place like Sunnyvale be interesting? - Paul Buchheit
Hi Paul, I had the best lobsters ever in my life in Reykjavik. Very small lobsters but so tasty, amazing. I loved it and would love to go back there. - Loic Le Meur
The above link on Iceland- worth a read in line with the thread on Reykjavik - viki saigal
The sky in those two pictures is amazing! It makes me want to pack my bags right now. And doesn't Rekkjavik also have Bjork? ;) - Cyndy
I visited Reykjavík a couple years ago and it was a pretty cool town. And the direct flight from SFO was really convenient. I think its biggest problem is that the rest of Iceland is just so utterly spectacular that it's hard to justify spending more that just a small fraction of the time in the capital. - Simon
The Johannes Kjarval collection at the Kjarvalsstadir museum is well worth a visit - "Kjarval is famous for his interpretation of Icelandic nature. He captured the beauty and the mystical quality of the land. His landscapes express a comprehension of nature based on the gift for entering into it and perceiving it from within, along with a strong sympathy for all living things that inhabit it." (http://tinyurl.com/3u95qf) - Thomas Brox Røst
Sunnyvale features the global world headquarters for louisgray.com. I assume that outweighs anything Reykjavik has to offer... - Louis Gray
Ah, my old home Sunnyvale. The Wikipedia article Paul posted has a nice panorama of Reykyavik. - Mike Reynolds
Let me know if you figure out what makes a place interesting. I can't get your line paraphrased as "we only know our own life, and then only barely." Out of my head. - Clare Dibble
Don't underestimate the climate difference :) - Michael Bravo
"In effect we have become a source, a service that our readers come to trust. Trust though can be a very fragile thing and while traditional media has played off and manipulated that trust bloggers are only discovering this fragility." - Hutch Carpenter
