Beautiful! Reminds me of of one of my favorite Chesterton passages:Because children have abounding vitality...they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again' and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun and every evening 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them.' - Melanie Reed
I'm not sure I can get behind the idea of owning every single word I post into other sites' comment boxes. I don't want to be misrepresented, but I'm not going to turn around and claim that I deserve royalties when someone reprints my FriendFeed comments. - Daniel J. Pritchett
this was the first thing i thought of when i saw Backtype. i was like a business model off of scraping content, isn't that just a splog of comments? - Morgan
When I post something on the web, I want my voice to be heard by as much people as possible. (Maybe that's because I am a PR guy with journalistic background.) If BackType facilitates this, I'm fine with it. Content ownership is nothing I really care about. - Martin Recke via fftogo
Yeah, i gave it another try last week and definitely impressive - but a couple of important glitches & bugs to fix - Zee at WeDoCreative
Edwin: there's no way to share the items I'm seeing, is there? That's a HUGE reason why I use Google Reader (so I can share items and get them into FriendFeed). - Robert Scoble
@Robert If you just click on 'Recommend' that's what they're calling 'sharing'. - Zee at WeDoCreative
Oh, I have to click on each item to recommend it? That's lame. I should be able to recommend an item right from the home page without having to click twice, just like here in FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble
@Edwin sure, will do. Mainly just sometimes posts don't load and j/k to scroll down will occasionally miss a post or not go all the way to the bottom of the page. When I select "unread only", often it still shows posts I have read. The two most frustrating things: I can't tell easily which categories have unread posts in and finally - I was really excited by the river view because I heard you could view by categories from that page - which is unfortunately isn't the case... - Zee at WeDoCreative
If the sources could be arranged into categories like they would be in google reader, that would be a big plus. - Zee at WeDoCreative
@Robert - yeah, you need to click 'more' on the homepage view to get the option to recommend. They could easily fix this with a 'thumbs up' button permanently next to the post titles though - Zee at WeDoCreative
I really want to like the app, so I'm hoping they really keep working hard on it & hopefully make it more than just a firefox extension & also create some way to have the same kind of facility on the iphone. - Zee at WeDoCreative
just use the google reader shortcuts to use it. Alt+s to share. - Svartling
you Can also choose the river of news view an easily go through feeds with the keyboard - Svartling
the keys J and K to go up and down and Alt+s to share. Just like in google reader - Svartling
robert: recommend will add the item to your shared feed. as mentioned by svartling, you should be able to use the GR keyboard shortcuts (they works specially well in the river view - second icon on the top). The part that is missing is "share with notes". Which should be there next week when we merge the concept of feedly annotations and GR annotations. - Edwin Khodabakchian
Edwin: wow that sounds cool! Merging annotations with GR notes i mean. - Svartling
robert: when you sent us your OPML a few months ago for performance testing, you had just two categories (normal and favorites if I remember). Do you have more now? - Edwin Khodabakchian
ok. so the magazine view is probably not adding too much value in your case. The new wall which will go out next week has some of the things you have been asking for a long time: compression of multiple recommendations, filtering based on min number of recommendations, etc..(http://www.flickr.com/photos/6...) That and the current friendfeed and google search integration might be places were we can create value for a user like you. Does Maryam read RSS feeds? (she is more of our target!) - Edwin Khodabakchian
Edwin, I have no doubt you've thought this through a thousand times - but since you need to a) use firefox and then b) install an extension to use feedly....Do you not think it's going to be super-difficult to try & reach the non-geeks out there who aren't passionate users of google reader? "Most" non-geeks I know hardly ever install firefox extensions, let alone install firefox...they just use whatevers open or put it front of them - Zee at WeDoCreative
Zee.You are right about firefox. But the extension installation process is getting simpler and people through iphone, facebook and firefox are getting used to the concept of "installing an application". Stumbleupon is a good example. The feedback we have collected so far is that our problem currently with more mainstream user is not the add-on but the first configuration experience and the need to further simplify the UI. We have a parallel project called "feedly mini" to try to cracks those two nuts. - Edwin Khodabakchian
Edwin, awesome. Yeah, I didn't mean to sound like I was giving you pointers on a business I'm sure you're thinking about day & night....I just wanted to give my two pennies & also say that us geeks really love the product too, so don't forget about us! :) - Zee at WeDoCreative
I've been using it exclusively for a week now. With the FF integration, I don't think I could go back to the gReader interface. - Chris Nixon
twhirl+ff is really opening my eyes to these services. Kudos. I'm off to take a look at Feedly. - Stu Andrews via twhirl
I am definitely enjoying my current switch from GR to Feedly. I like the fact i came accross Scobles twitter in Friend Feed because i was reading an article through feedly and ended up here as a result and discovered this. I enjoy loading up Feedly at lunch time to browse aimlessly, and i struggle to do that with Google Reader as i feel i have to stick to one subscription at a time and i end up getting put off. I dont feel overwhelmed when i use feedly. - Rowan Evenstar
Embarassed to say I downloaded and signed up a few months ago but have been too busy to use it. - Sally Church
Edwin, many people are still on Firefox 2 for obvious reasons. Isnt there a version for it as well? - Hayk Hakobyan
There is no feedly for iphone. But because feedly syncs in real-time with google reader, you can use/continue to use Google Reader on the iphone and it will just work! - Edwin Khodabakchian
Hayk: It was a hard decision but we really needed the extra security of windows.postMessage to mash services together more securely. Hopefully by the time feedly gets out of beta, more users have upgraded to firefox 3 (which is an *great* upgrade) and this will slowly become a non-issue. In the meantime , we are sorry to not be able to be more help. - Edwin Khodabakchian
I'd really like to try this out, but for whatever reason I live in IE mostly. Yes, I have Firefox installed, but I'm unlikely to start it just for Feedly... Switching completely to Firefox is not an option for me here. I'll give it a whirl, but until this can be done in IE as well, the market is limited to tech savy people... though that might be enough. - Matt Wollnik
Matt: we are a small team and decided to focus on firefox first to increase our chances of building something people like. Once we have a winning recipe we will look at porting it to other browsers. - Edwin Khodabakchian
Note to Robert: If you end up wanting to rollback some of the shared feeds feedly might have imported into your google reader account, simply go to http://www.feedly.com/feedly#g... There is an automated way to undo all the changes. - Edwin Khodabakchian
what do you think of the keyboard shortcuts? - Örjan Lundberg
Mixed reaction on Feedly here. I go to the river mode in Feedly and see all kinds of useful looking activity but when I click on the orange button in the FF toolbar I see a mostly blank screen with message: "This page is empty. Please connect your feedly to a set of sources and a set of social connections first. " -- this needs to go away. How to start at the wall or other mode instead of this empty placeholder page? - TDavid
Did not appreciate the hijacking of my reader. I do use it and finding I use it more than my reader at this time. - Jeff B
@Edwin - no thanks, it doesn't seem like something I'd use anyway. I took time to describe the bug for you here, that's your bug report. Copy and paste, mon :) - TDavid
TDavid: the reason I asked for the screenshot is because it would have allowed us to understand if you have sources defined but all of them are read or if an error happened during the welcome process or if there is somehow a problem fetching the content. Re the wall. In the more (at the top right) > preferences there is an option to change the start page. If the experience does not end up working of you, here is the 5 step un-install procedure: http://edwink.devhd.com/2008/0... - Edwin Khodabakchian
We just need to get you on Disqus now ;) - Jesse Stay
@Edwin - thank you for the uninstall link. Done. - TDavid
Feedly looks cool but becomes simply too difficult to navigate IMO. The navigation just isn't great for a lot of feeds. - Brandon Titus
Brandon: have you tried the latest river view? It was designed to help simplify the navigation for people who read a lot of feeds. It would be interesting to know if in your view, river + the ability to inline an article inline address par of the navigation issue you are raisin. - Edwin Khodabakchian
I'm just wondering how long until even the big artists don't make a dime on their recorded music. Why is it so hard for them to see the writing on the wall? - Cyndy
Looks very much like this Duncan, sad developments we are witnessing these days. - Svetlana Gladkova
Why can they not figure out that by charging outrageous fees and forcing good services to shutdown, they are actually encouraging piracy? - Rob Diana
but everything is pretty simple. guys are making tons of money on the music and they wouldn't like to loose it. How about music tax? Americans don't dive into this doomed grave :) - Sasha Kovaliov via twhirl
One the one hand, they control supply, so forcing distributors' hands is, for them, good, even logical in an evil way. On the other hand, 99% of music is pirated so they better get their act together. - Vincent van Wylick
If a high percentage is pirated, then they don't control supply - Jason Carreira
the future for profit in the music biz will be concerts....cant remember the last time i bought a cd, or any other music content. - Grizzled Librarian
@Jason: that means that they don't control distribution. But they do have some control over artists, the supply. - Vincent van Wylick
oh, there's still vinyl. i rarely buy cds anymore, but spend waaaay too much money on records. note to anyone in the music industry: all new releases on vinyl should come with a handy code for mp3 downloads. this will save me much time and headache downloading things i already paid for from soulseek. - David Free
In electronic music scene these days the record is nothing but a fancy business card. Releasing a CD/vinyl is just as raising a flag saying "hey, here i am, come to see me live" - Tibor Holoda
If people don't pay for music, the music industry is dead. If the music industry gets draconian, the music industry is dead. In short, the music industry is dead. - Matthew Davidson via twhirl
Matthew, I would disagree with your statement. What NIN and Radiohead did with their online free/premium releases shows that many people are willing to pay for music when given interesting choices. However, if the industry ignores this, then you are completely right. - Rob Diana
protectionism is in every industry, in every country, in every ideology, in every religion .. it is so ubiquitous as to be considered normal. guarding the food. so.
does it work? seems to. is it effective over time? seems to be.
why would or should music be different? technology? heck, who is more protective than tech companies, with their intellectual property rights addictions, walled gardens, stifled innovation?
it is a noble cause, rebelling against the man, and all of that, but until an alternative comes that provides income on the same scale, protection will exist. and when that alternative does surface, you can bet it will be protected in turn. - Gregory Lent
Radiohead and NIN grandfathered into the system based on success carved out whilst using the old system. So, great for them that they're able to offer fans options, but their success doesn't necessarily translate. Furthermore, these examples are a success because fans ultimately paid for the product. So, I stand by my statement, if no one pays, then the music industry is dead. - Matthew Davidson via twhirl
Rob - The Radiohead experiment was pretty much a failure. It was estimated that 62% of people didn't pay for the album. Those who did pay (I was one of them), paid an average of $6 worldwide. When you average it all out they ended up getting $2.26. - Jim McCusker
industry might be dead soon, at least as we know it, but music for sure won't - Tibor Holoda
I was just thinking, the recording industry is going down, one way or another. We should just help it along somehow. A caomplete halt on buying music aint gonna fly. Just wish I could think of something. Apple going completely DRM-free is a possibility. - Roberto Bonini
LOL Louis. I'm trying to be you. Seriously, though... this is a temporary gig. I'm helping Duncan out while he's at Gnomedex. As for the industry, they are at a juncture where they could essentially carve their own path and instead, they seem bent on self-destruction. - Cyndy
"It’s time for the labels to die, and anything that cuts off another revenue stream is at least partially good. I’m reluctantly willing to sacrifice Pandora if it quickens the inevitable march of recorded music towards free. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that." - Dave Winer via Bookmarklet
from social mixer to social martyr. Pandora we hardly knew ye! - Chris Kim A
Pandora is our litmus test, if it can't pass on as much $ per song, the Internet is failing. - Morgan Warstler
It better not be...I love Pandora too much, btw is it Click Fraud if I click on all the ads Pandora shows me since i want ti to succeed/? - Andrew Fielding
I understand cutting off their revenue sources but until they are broken conclusively, they'll just latch on to the next thing and then push for the law to back their monopoly. So really they need to be beaten in the courts, in the end. - Ben Turner
Vincent, see my response - it should still be a user decision to use it (I think the only case would be if the user has a nickname of something like "the"). Technology should be able to adapt. - Jesse Stay
We have to keep the @. If XMPP ever comes back, threading will still be impossible to detect absent the @. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Well I can see it being important if you're talking to someone who didn't post exactly above you, maybe a few comments before you or something like that. - ChaCha Fance
The tech vs. human argument has been fought since before Ford came to be. For Twitter, it comes down to that we are dealing with "social media" (which some call 'human' media), and its humans that should determine how to use a medium, not tech. What tech does is actually pretty much up to tech, as long as it doesn't interfere with natural communication. - Vincent van Wylick
Mark, it's even less necessary with track - in fact, I'm using it religiously in Dustin's Twitter and Identica Spy Jabber client and track catches more replies to me than Twhirl because it doesn't look at the @. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
Vincent, and it's that reason exactly I don't think the tech should be requiring the @ symbol. It should be up to the humans to provide the @. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
BTW, I think there could be some good reasons for requiring the '@' - I think I'm going to do a follow up post on why it may actually be necessary, even with threaded replies. - Jesse Stay via twhirl
Welcome to the club - Qik on the 3G iPhone is freakin' awesome. If you can jailbreak it or have someone help you jailbreak it, do it, first thing - you won't regret it. - Jesse Stay
Read the same article yesterday about Google/Digg. I was trying to scratch my head to find a acquired success? Jyri is super smart but Jaiku has been killed by Google. - sam sethi via Alert Thingy
The GrandCentral acquisition has me gnashing my teeth - it was a great start for a service but it has some rough edges. And Google acquired them more than a year ago and did nothing with them since. - Mitch Wagner
google is like general motors buying up cool carburetor ideas and hiding them? - Gregory Lent
yeah mitch, GC is a sad example. Such promise and it seems they haven't moved an inch. - Anthony Citrano via fftogo
I really miss Jaiku and Jyri. Love Twitter but adore Jaiku. Since it was purchased by Google I did not do much with it anymore. Shame. - Erno Hannink
mmm, don't blame Google for "sacrificed startups" - IMO they are done with sell-off in mind and doesn't necessarily desgined to exist long time, like diploma or course projects in university... as for Jaiku - well, guys/girls who stops you to use it, your mother or any other Significant-Other? - silpol
any single survey is just set of opinions but definitely not a truth in last instance - I mean when figuring out scientific-based facts, democracy tools shall be used moderately - silpol
no different than the far more successful acquirer in tech m&a - cisco - the negotiating tactics otoh vary widely - Scott Moskowitz
I agree with your conclusion, but I come to it via a technical path... The next gen of social networks will need to start at Facebook's volume as a baseline of activity and scale exponentially from there as social networks become more mainstream. As Twitter has shown us, these 2 tier database backed architectures are simply incapable of supporting these requirements. - Jason Carreira
I think Sweetcron, an app soon to be released here in Japan, might change this. If I'm right about what it will be, it will be the next WordPress, the next evolution in self-hosted blog platforms more attuned to the multi-channel media that we involve ourselves in these days. - Ray Grieselhuber
Read posts (Riley/Perez) I am dismayed that neither mentioned the DiSo project. I expect to see a trend back to blogging with Ping.fm services enabling people to broadcast to the many micro sites. - sam sethi via Alert Thingy
What Sara wrote was more right than wrong. MT Pro has OpenID 2.0 built in, plus OAuth libraries for plugin developers. SixApart demoed their implementation of Facebook Connect, which allows a user to use their Facebook login on MT. The same should be coming for Google's OpenSocial APIs. Personally, I like the direction that MT is going in; I'd rather have a MT site with the social networking stuff than a Ning site. - Albert Willis
Ray, I think it's a bit much to say something that hasn't even been released yet is going to be the next WordPress. I hope it does well, of course, but there are new blog platforms out there doing interesting things, like Habari and Chyrp. - Michael C. Harris
Michael - point taken, but I did qualify it with "if I'm right." I've been known to be wrong before. :-) - Ray Grieselhuber
i believe MT and WP - toghether with data portability - do have a chance to change the way we blog, in a more interactive and "social" way. - Markingegno - Donato
I should have added a disclaimer, I'm a committer on the Habari project. Interested parties welcome to join our little community :) - Michael C. Harris
how're habari and chyrp on security? - Gregory Lent
Gregory, I can only speak for Habari, but security is certainly something we consider all the time. For example, we use PDO to protect against SQL injection attacks. Also, see http://wiki.habariproject.org/.... - Michael C. Harris
thanks ... i think wordpress experience shocked some users ... thanks for the link - Gregory Lent
quote- "features such as forums are old school." Yep. - Kevin
The next social network platform will not be about blogging, but shared media experiences. Why describe somthing that turns you on when you can show it. Its beyond the browser and on your devices. my 2 cents - ishak via twhirl
Nicht nur Statistiker staunen: Seit vielen Jahren steigen die Geburten erstmals wieder an. Offenbar gelten Kinder nicht mehr als Problem, Emanzipationsrisiko oder Armutsfalle, sondern als sinnstiftend und als emotionale Lebensversicherung - Svensonsan
Sounds like you've got your head screwed on right & they come first - hope i'm in the same boat when I become a father. - Zee at WeDoCreative
Being a Dad rules. As a father of 4, I have learned that even a geek like me can be a hero to somebody. I am usually the one cooking the yummy meals and the kids cheer enthusiastically. Being on the computer all the time used to bug my wife as newlyweds, but now we both have our own desks and PCs and run the family and have fun online together. Great article. - Josh Haley
Mine recently turned 6 mos and I've regained a lot of the routine and some of the leisure time that I used to take for granted before her, but that lack of morning time that you mentioned remains. I remember spending at least a good hour online before even heading to work and now I'm lucky if I get online at all before I head out. Totally worth it though. She's much cuter than my laptop. - Kate
If you have dual monitors, you can put twin 1 on the first and twin 2 on the other - Outsanity
that list was fun to read.. it's like a sneak peak into my future once we settle down and start our family... I especially like the point about the cell phone. I imagine that's a mistake you'd only make once! - Jasmin Smith
Having kids (or kid .. in my case) ... changes your life forever. For some it's difficult. For others, it comes naturally. It goes fast (really fast!) so enjoy it. Don't miss anything! Sounds like a good healthy group here which is refreshing, Louis amazed me when he wrote one of his best blog posts ever awaiting delivery in the hospital. - Charlie Anzman
One of the advantages of email - and to a limited extent, FriendFeed and Twitter - is that they allow for asynchronous communication, so you can contact people on your schedule. Helpful if you have (fun) interruptions in your daily life. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Ditto! I love watching my son learn, too. He is about to walk, which will be a lot of fun. - Robert Scoble
My twins are now two years old, and I can confirm everything you wrote. The first point is the strongest one and it really changes your way of doing things. :-) - Mic
Great list, could not agree more. Much holds true with just one kid as well. - Sean Brady
Just had twins (1st august) and even in this short time couldn't agree more! - nieuwbouw20 via twhirl
My twins are now 3 and I also confirm your article. My online time has actually increased during their TV time. I can only watch so much sprout! - Tim FitzGerald
I only have 1, but I see all of this stuff going on in my life too. - Brian Norwood
This makes me slightly less nervous: we're having our first in January. - Akiva Moskovitz
I laughed aloud just reading the title. "Only *10* ways twins have changed his tech & online life...?!?" - Deanna McNeil
With new twins added to our two senior children, I think it's no accident I'm doing less blogging and more Twitterng. That's about the limit of my attention span. - Scott Orwig via twhirl
Waiting for a post entitled "Ways technology has helped, hindered or just changed the experience of parenthood" - Slippy Lane
Kids! The original disruptive technology! - Prokofy Neva
Thanks for the nod Louis! You're a great addition to the world of fatherhood. It's tough getting used to the change in lifestyle, but the changes all produce a much more balanced and satisfying life. Very interesting to see how habits change so quickly, and priorities shift overnight. - Jeremy Biser
All very good reasons. I can't live without my Freemind maps. Whether its planning code or even just problem solving. Its a lot more intuitive than trying to use Planner (or MS Project) to plan something, and can then be easily translated across to Project software if you need it to. Its especially good for defining your own workflow and strategies as well. - Stephen Cropp
I've been trying out mind maps every now and then but still haven't been convinced. What exactly is it about mind maps that make you more productive or efficient? - Benedikt Koehler
I've started to doodle mind maps instead of notes for meetings and it certainly makes more sense to me when I return to the notes - Andy Britcliffe via twhirl
What are the best programs to Mind map? - Toby Graham
I use FreeMind. Open source and multiplatform. - The Doctor via twhirl
They need to get smarter first. MindMeister gets close with the nodes you can click on to search for pages related to the node. I want to create a mindmap and have it suck in my bookmarks related to each node on the map via tags. That way I can just build the map, have the research I have done before come to me and then move on from there. - Stephan Miller via twhirl
Anyone remember "The Brain"? So much promise - but it didn't quite work. Mindjet is a really good but doesn't integrate well enough into my todo / project managment solution. - Soulhuntre
Mindmapping is a useful construct. We used it with the major scenarios of our last software release and -- with MMPro and a TFS Plugin -- exported them directly into Microsoft Team System. Cool. - Robert W. Anderson via twhirl
it is still not as good as the mind itself, only an approximation - Gregory Lent
Any good web-based Mind Mapping solutions? Ultimately I'd like an Evernote for Mind Mapping which would run everywhere. - Al Degutis via twhirl
I would lose my mind without mindjet mindmanager - adolfo foronda
As I mentioned early --I'm a mindmapper junkie...and doing it collaboratively via mindmeister in real time has been great with clients. - Leif Hansen
Al: www.mindmeister.com :) (multiple user updating real time, one touch Skype, jottable notes via 1. “My Geistesblitzes” = widget (Windows and Mac compatible) 2. SMS (Twitter) or 3. e-mail plus moticons, smilies, and tons of visuals galore. Once complied, the map can be exported and shared in various ways; which for a free service is phenomenal, plus the data can be exported in multiple ways.. I blogged about it here -> http://bit.ly/1EdpIG) - Mona N.
This is true - a lot of companies are holding off until September, but hundreds more are hitting us up every day at Mashable wanting press now. There's plenty of startup news going around. You just have to look further than TechCrunch and Demo for those startups. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Robert: if you are looking for a great demo, we are happy to try to help :-) - Edwin Khodabakchian
Edwin: I am always up for a great demo. - Robert Scoble
Robert: :-) We are going to have the beta 2 version of feedly ready in 2 weeks. Let us know next time you are in the Atherton area and have 10 minutes to spare and we will try to have a Robert Scoble demo ready for you! By the way, kudos on the smartsheet video: it was an interesting re-design case study. - Edwin Khodabakchian
if there could be multiple events throughout the year that deliver the impact of the TC50 there'd be less pressure on startups to stay dark for it. - Morgan
There are - and being in Austin this week opened my eyes that there are other centers where these startups aren't getting attention from. I'm on a mission to highlight more non-Valley companies now. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
sweet - more opportunity is only a good thing! - Morgan
Mark: that is one reason I have done so much travel lately. - Robert Scoble
Edwin: call me tomorrow. 425-205-1921 - Robert Scoble
I would have to agree that there are some good startups coming out despite TC50 , like socialmedian - Jason did a great job. We're going to be trying to follow up the coverage we got 4 weeks ago when we got coverage from TC, Mash and RWW for our private beta release when we take regator public this coming week. We talked about the TC50, but we figured we would give it shot this way... we're in it for the long haul either way and we know we have to earn coverage at any point - it just doesn't fall off trees - Scott Lockhart
1000 -50 = 950 startups that are not related by this event...come on... - ouriel
Ouriel: what I find interesting is that if there really are 1,000-PR-starved companies, why aren't there more on this thread? - Robert Scoble
by the way, I don't cover every last startup. You have to catch my eye and do something very interesting before we will put you on. Evernote will be on Monday. - Robert Scoble
robert - because either they're busy paying a traditional PR firm 10k a month trying to get coverage or they're clueless. either way they're not building relationships with the folks that can send them in to orbit. - Morgan
robert - how could you cover every last one... seriously. When do you sleep as it is? It's 2:35a on a saturday night and I am here ;) - Scott Lockhart
Not everyone's on FF yet. As an example of all the PR-starved startups, Robert, check out Mashable's daily (5xWeek) Daily Startup post. We've been running it for several months now, and it doesn't show any signs of letting up. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
