The early adopters are WAY ahead of the rest of the world. That is something we need to work on. Luckily MySpace and Facebook are seeing some success in getting late adopters in, but even there, we're a long way from success. Also, none of the startup companies websites used a social network. So even there these companies have a long way to explain why this stuff matters to normal humans. - Robert Scoble
might be a good definition of "adult", people who can separate what is useful from what is diverting - Gregory Lent
The big question I get from people about social media is simple: WHY? - David Risley
Shows how much potential there is still to grasp. I guess news sites are "hot" now for most people like my mom and dad :) - Michiel Sikkes via twhirl
@David, try pointing people to Lee Lefeever's Common craft videos "... in plain English". I think they are great introductions to people who ask why. Start small, by explaining the value of flickr, delicious, or youtube. Frankly, I'm still a little unsure of the value of Facebook or MySpace myself, but they are what you make of them. - Laura Norvig
Early adopters cyclically wind up being the ONLY adopters, the general interest ebbing and flowing, but widening with each generation born into it. It may not be until all the Baby Boomers are gone before the real value and strength of the Intertubes will be realized. - Chris Kim A
people use, in the real world, technologies that meet their inner world needs. .... a higher order of connection/perception/creation/imagination is the force that drives the use of social media. ... the rest of the world does not need it, their interests are not so ephemeral, to use bucky fuller's word. - Gregory Lent
I understand your sentiment, Gregory, but I think there is an eminently practical element to social media that the mainstream may not understand. Being able to instantly get an answer to a question in real time just because you have a far flung online network is pretty cool. - Laura Norvig
@laura norvig ... it is incredibly cool, practical too ... i am weird in that i think the understanding (of global connectedness) comes first, and then the tools get put into play. .... people pick them up when they get that there is something wider than their immediate sensed world and status quo ... the tools remain invisible until the consciousness develops. just as you and i may perhaps be blind to modalities others are all ready using. - Gregory Lent
I have shown my other half Twitter, FF, Plurk and his reaction is - so what? It holds no interest for him whatsoever, and he is a geek like me in very many ways. He has a Facebook account but is driven mad by the emails and only adds ppl he has known for years in RL - he has no interest in online comm with ppl he doesn't know. And that's the difference - some ppl will never be happy with purely online relationships, they need to have met the person physically first. - WorldofHiglet
I still think it has to do a lot with the fact that some people feel more comfortable with relationships online than meatspace. I think there are "virtual introverts" and "virtual extroverts" and that there's a big correlation between being a "meatspace introvert" and a "virtual extrovert". Early adopters are the first wave of the new generation of "virtual extroverts". http://macrolinz.com/macrolinz... - Lindsay Donaghe
I think that most of the population does not have the time to spend/waste on social networks, nor do they have an understanding of what they are or what they can be used for. - Jeff P. Henderson
“I'm considering redesigning my blog, what templates or designs do you think my audience of corporate web decision makers would like? Focus on audience first”
ditto, keep the "extra" stuff on the page to a minimum. I am looking for content. The discussion of that content is second. - Dave Ploch
Given this feedback, there's very little for me to do, I keep my blog looking very simple - Jeremiah Owyang
Could do with a few tweaks, but wouldn't bother with a redesign. It's already perfectly usable. I would however get rid of the archives - with search and categories there are already enough nav options. Archives don't tend to help. If you really want Archive functionality, just put one link to 'the archives'. And move email subscription up near RSS subscription. And consider putting #pages at the bottom, where users tend to look for such these days. Otherwise I think from a UI perspective it's fine. - Ozan Onay
I think the biggest change you can make is in discoverability of content. Deemphasize date-based archives. Emphasize categories. Make category pages more scannable. Most popular posts by category on each category page. Abstracts for each post only below. Maybe a tagcloud or subcategories on each category page. "Sell" the category RSS feeds for important categories. On the home page, add "popular posts"... - Elliott Ng
The other thing to consider is to highlight latest comments on the homepage. You have a super active community around web-strategist, might reward commenters by showing a stream of latest comments on the sidebar. - Elliott Ng
How about larger fonts, and bigger content area? As Ozan said, RSS should go further up the website for visibility. Last thing, you have a very long list of categories, would it be practical to group your posts into a few major cats and put that as menu items? Just my 2 cents. =) - Winston Teo
Template? I personally think its boring but fine. I think you could get more glitzy and it will still be fine. :) Even corporate web decision makers want to feel cool sometimes! Doesn't have to look like IBM dude. It can look like Microsoft if not Google. LOL. Be self-expressive, its totally fine! - Elliott Ng
BTW all this advice I have not followed on my own blogs! :) But I should. - Elliott Ng
Some ideas for making your current design better: Linear navigation for newer/older posts. Archive dropdown instead of long list. Top 5 most popular posts list in sidebar. Latest 5 comments in sidebar. Move email subscription form to top of page. Summarize posts. Use Disqus for comments. - martinmedia
“Why disqus comments over friendfeed comments?” - Jeremiah Owyang
The grey background has always bugged me. I think you would do well with a design that was lighter and easier on the eyes. Perhaps a wider layout as well. - Shey
I'm trying to decide on disqus vs friendfeed vs. just leave it as is. After you've made all your decisions plz blog about it so we can all take advantage of your social-computer due diligence! thanks Jeremiah! - Elliott Ng
Why speculate on design when you can use google website optimizer to test new concept to see what does and doesn't work. - Tom Wentworth
Shey my background is white (text) and side backgrounds are light blue. Is this what you're seeing? - Jeremiah Owyang
Actually, the background behind your text isn't white: #F8F8F8 - Shey
I can fix that, it's been a long time since I fiddled with the blog - Jeremiah Owyang
separate the trackbacks from the comments - Allen Stern
Given my limited time, I think I'd best hire a wordpress expert. anyone have reccomendations? - Jeremiah Owyang
I'm not sure seperating trackbacks is the best thing, why? Sometimes seeing them together gives a sense of how the conversation has splintered --and why. - Jeremiah Owyang
splitting allows someone to read the comments in the conversation and then decide if they want to head to other views on the topic. i'd also remove the text after the trackback - adds no real value - just show a list of trackbacks - Allen Stern
It is amazing to see how many auxiliary and rather useless and eye-pleasing and online-PR-promoting tools there are for things like Twitter and FriendFeed. This Grader is one of those. What does it change to have some number assigned to your name, not least because you have not the slightest idea how it is calculated? Why wasting time, energy, money and efforts? P.S. mine was 5 out of 100. - Hayk Hakobyan
Twitter Grade: 90 - Rank #584 out of 7063 - Morgan
Twitter Grade: 42 - Rank #3688 out of 7067. yes! - Cee Bee
44 which I can't argue with since I've only been Tweeting for a month. Grading methodology seems pretty simplistic. A FriendFeed grader would be a lot more interesting and useful. - Chris Selland
Twitter Grade: 69 - Rank #1995 out of 7101. Not bad considering that I haven't really used it for almost two months now. - Cyvros/fyc
wow. Twitter Grade: 99 - Rank #160 out of 9693. - Andy Kaufman
my Twitter Grade: 47 - Rank #4677 out of 9717 almost in the middle - Federica B.
No. I think Friendfeed has a lot to offer for non-geeks. Just not in it's current early stages (swamped with tech). - Mo Kargas
You mean that normal people have no clue how to process information or work efficiently and be happy with offerings of the like of facebook while geeks do not enjoy as much normal everyday stuff normal people enjoy? Absolutly. - Nicole Simon
Facebook is online presence for [mostly] non-online people. FriendFeed is for those who are able to appreciate the steady flow of information online, mostly geeks. Grasping the concept takes too much time for a non-geek ;-) I agree. - Lech
What if you have both? Am I a geekier version of everyone else? - Shannon
agree until i can only see the people i've added to my friend list and not friends of friends information then i doubt anyone else will care. - Jonathan Jesse
What if you use the FF application from within Facebook? - Mike Boudreaux via fftogo
Isn't Facebook trying to *be* Friendfeed these days with the new look? I agree here, though, my non-web-wired friends and family are on FB, but not FF :( - Michael Pick via twhirl
in the same way as computers _used to be_ for geeks, agree - Dani Radu
Facebook is for women. Most men will just keep in touch with friends on an ad-hoc basis -- and we're happy enough with that. And what's with all this Relationship Barometer crap, or whatever its called? That's just kooky imo. Like I'm going to advertise the fact that 'Its Complicated'. Rubbish. - john conroy
I check Facebook regularly and last I checked I wasn't a woman! - Joe Dawson
Somewhat agree. Facebook has indeed become mainstream, while FriendFeed is currently populated by early-adopters (which many read as "geeks"). - Nick Mutton
FriendFeed is an aggregator and conversation spot for the open Web (which is under attack). Google can get to everything here. It can't get to everything in Facebook. Another way to recast it? FriendFeed is for everyone who wants to be public. Facebook is for everyone who wants to support a walled garden. There's more than geeks here, by the way. Do you want proof? Do some searches. Here's one for quilting: http://beta.friendfeed.com/sea... - Robert Scoble
I'll pay that one Robert, there's more geeks here for now. Do you think it will ever expand out to non-geeks? - Mo Kargas
for now yes. Was facebook for geeks when they only had 100k users? - ouriel
At least I can share a link from FriendFeed with everyone. Can you do that with Facebook? - Orli Yakuel
WOW, I never knew I was a Geek....good to know. - Scot Duke
Agree-I find more sophisticated users here, myspace seems so highschoolish for me always has. - orionstarr
as for the being public issue: people in FB really share everything, and indeed this happens mostly because they're 'non-online' 'low-tech' or whatever you may call them. people in FF still think are in a protected fence since it's geekier and not mainstream yet. the question is: how much do we care about google when we feel we are in a group of friends (or birds of the same feather anyway)? - Elvira Berlingieri
facebook is for college students, myspace is for entertainment, linkedIn is for business, friendfeed is an experiment - paisley via twhirl
Myspace is a dive bar - more fun if you're there for the music or have tattoos and are kind of slutty. Facebook is the posh bar everyone wants to get into - it used to be invite only but now they killed the cover and are letting everyone in. Friendfeed is the LAN party in someone's basement........ - George Smith
I'm really a non-geek. I'm more comfortable with the user interface on Facebook. But, of course, I just used the term "user interface" on FriendFeed -- so maybe I need to rethink my possible geeky-tude. - Cheryl Rice
I suppose it sort of is at the moment. However, I expect that FriendFeed will eventually become mainstream - perhaps not as mainstream as Facebook, but getting there. I think it's all down to the fact that the usual methods of communication on FF and FB differ quite a bit, and so they cater to different audiences. FB has applications and walls and all that, but FF has discussion. FB has, in my experience, a more personal touch than FF. Could just be, though, that I don't know anyone on FF in real life... - Cyvros/fyc
I was hoping FF rooms would provide a good way to have conversations focused on non-tech topics, but so far they don't seem to be taking off much. - Costa Walcott
I'm using Friendfeed in Facebbok so I'm everyone else's geek! - Mike Lewis
There is so little parallel functionality, I wonder why there is the pervasive insistence to group these two together. So, disagree. - Jody C
I disagree, cause of the fact that there's no FunWalls, SuperWalls doesn't mean it can't go mainstream in the near future. - Tibor Holoda
I use facebook, twitter and friendfeed and linkedin too - what does that make me? A friend to be followed, requested, added to your network maybe... - Julie Watt
disagree: if "geek" stands for complicated and difficult to use, facebook wins over ff - Federica B.
FriendFeed is for paople I don't know. Facebook is for my immediate real friends. I put my geeky stuff on FriendFeed/Twitter, etc...and for personal stuff with my more generic friend audience, I put appropriate content on Facebook. - Todd
I don't consider myself a geek, but I love FF. - ::Kristen::
geeks->multiple and extensive online presence and usages->need to aggregate->FF - Hayk Hakobyan
youth and simple folk-> some usage of the Internet-> need to communicate-> some platform where everyone is-> Facebook - Hayk Hakobyan
Disagree. Friendfeed is for everyone. We geeks have a strong presence here, but there are non-geek communities as well. I suppose if you don't know any non-geeks on friendfeed, you won't see many at all. The problem lies in the fact that many non-geeks THINK that friendfeed is for geeks. If more non-geeks came over, those communities would grow. Now, do I win a prize for saying "geeks" the most times in a comment? - Slippy Lane
Disagree. Friendfeed is for real-time topical conversation and more. Facebook is to connect, introduce, sneaky e-mail .... (and not play Scrabble) - Charlie Anzman
i would categorize friendfeed as thought and opinion exchange, while facebook is for networking purposes.. - Stefan Lafloer
Nope, this geek still isn't into Friendfeed. Facebook gets used (finally) with connecting with my RL friends, as well as social media ones, and reconnecting with folks from high school, college and previous places I've worked. Facebook = social exchanges and Friendfeed = idea exchanges and media sharing. But I still rarely use Friendfeed as I find the interface too cumbersome. Back to Twitter..... - Rob Usdin
Ha, so that's what I read about FF command line... I like it, but he... I like command lines... - Egon Willighagen
@brandon: yes - activites (i said smart tags before - oops). but i'm not sure they have the same 'angle.' seems like (since i've not tried Ubiquity) is user interface and that activities is a programming interface. - MikeAmundsen
this is yubnub done right. heck someone can make a simple bridge to yubnub :). What will be "dangerous" about this Ubiquity is its viralness. People will immediately shares commands. Hopefully not worm and viruses. - Akhmad Fathonih
Just installed Ubiquity and love it. I've not used IE for years and don't plan to. - Brett Nordquist
I installed it last night and I just love it, go on Moz crew!!! - darussol
IE8 makes all the websites I visit look like complete crap. If they're asking developers to use tags in their HTML so that IE8 will think it's IE7, that can't be a good sign. - Aaron Myers
I've been using YubNub and Slickrun for many months -- I'm not sure yet that Mozilla Ubiquity is a significant step forward. - Sean McBride
What Mozilla's Ubiquity ? Any link to share? - Arjun
UbiQ blows my mind away. Have been playing around with it all day. Just hoping that they imprve usability in the coming versions.
Tweeting from UbiQ is a breeze, I'm guessing this is going to increase load on Twitter APIs like crazy! - Vinodh
I installed Ubiquity late last night, and yes, it does have the WOW factor for me as well. I want to see how easy it is to create commands, after viewing the vid. Nice work. - Henry Burger via twhirl
It sounds great for power users. I was also imagining a sidebar type app that would be suggesting things to do with stuff. Select an address and it would pop up a map and give you the option to email it. This way no need for new users to know text commands or have to think what might be the word to use. - John Cooper
Sidebar is a great idea...also "chaining" commands. What if i want to tinyurl something (or two) and insert into a twit (or email..). Also if you don't use gmail (gasp), launching the OS native URL handlers like mailto:. - Richard Goodwin
Ubiquity looks cool, but is very similar to what can be done with Quicksilver on Mac. - Martin Añazco
if you like ubiquity you'll be sure to love http://www.humanized.com/enso that's Aza Raskin's work before he joined mozilla, so you can see where the inspiration comes from :) - Chris Jones
watching the video for ubiquity @ mozilla labs now .... whoa - JohnBfromMemphis
I am yet to try out Ubiquity yet but your WOW has convinced me to check it out later ha! - Joe Dawson
Where do these smart people come from. Very cool. - Kenley Neufeld
this changes the way I can work... but what motivates me to change this way. - Stewart Rogers
Anybody found a FF Ubiquity command to subscribe to yet? - Grey Drane
help me, the editor is making me want to learn code. ARRRRRRGH! - (teh)Kenny
It's addictive, much like 'Launchy'. - Vinay | विनय
Yeah I love ubiquity too! Wonder what 1.0 will be like! :D - JegerPhil - Phil
If you're running Ubiquity on Linux, I would advise NOT setting the hotkey to SHIFT+SPACE. Esp. if you're fond of capitalisation... - wyclif
@Martin Añazco ya, it reminds me of Quicksilver and the command-line, too. I really love it!!!! It creates an awesome workflow that leads to inspired power browsing. - barce
Ubiquity is frakking awesome. Its like having Quicksilver inside your browser. - CubFan
Thanks to your blog post about Ubiquity I began using it and can see how it will enhance my web experience - Joshua Oehler
seesmic as e.s.p. in all fields of communication, what text is for words, seesmic for the visual, in all forms of communication - Gregory Lent
can i just pop in here? it's one thing to have us un(der)informed masses gabbing about breaking news, but when people post breaking news, there's always that huge gap of space while others wait for verification. if there were credentialed people on seesmic verifying news, that lapse when things are urgent won't happen. - faboo mama
Gregory and Faboo Mama, thanks, interesting, could you also tell me how you would see it. Read: what would you do if you were in my shoes to make it happen? - Loic Le Meur
whether you hire staff or just try to get users credentialed, that's up to you. but across all subject matter, it would be nice to have an "authority" on there. so say for politics, you should have tried to credentialed some people for the DNC and RNC conventions. real time conversations with delegates, politicians and all that stuff. locally, i use seesmic to get a take on angelenos state of mind. i am going to interview local politicians via seesmic that sort of stuff. - faboo mama
but anything your 'citizen journalists' create can be edited in your office and posted like seesmix or newspop. imo, creating this under newspop would give you a lot more content from places that rachael can't get to. - faboo mama
Agree with Faboo Mama. kind of a Mahalo-like news emission. Also, if there would be a way for users to specify keywords like "business," "politics" etc which would become topics of those news emissions.. like watch-words when they pop-up in some news or media outlet, they are somehow vblogged by volunteer Seesmic users or dedicated stuff and put on Seesmic. - Hayk Hakobyan
Loic talk to David C of SPot.us he heads up a crowd sourcing journalist effort - Fred Grott
Hi Loic, does moving from Paris to SF really help in your web venture in your opinion? .. just curious.. - Mark L via twhirl
sounds a bit controlled. I don't like this newsroom idea even though I know it will make you a lot of money Loic. It has too much pretension towards interactivity when the reality is television on demand. On a theoretical playing field this is the lowest common denominator... but then again so in porn. Have fun kids! - Noah David Simon
Faboo and Hayk interesting, would you pay them or just promote them? I don't have an investment budget for that... This business model has been tried by many and failed up to now. Mahalo is a good example (not failed) where everybody is just doing it for fun I guess. - Loic Le Meur
Why not partner with journalism schools? Also second the motion to talk to digitaldave@twitter (David Cohn) - Howard Rheingold
Mark, yes, will write a blog post about this soon - Loic Le Meur
Loic also check out Current.TV - they have user-generated news shows too. An Al Gore company. I can introduce you to the CEO and COO if you are interested - Chris Saad
I mean that Micro interactions with brands are very powerful tools for marketers to engage with users. Not only News and press release can do but also seesmic release can do. - YANG SEOKWON
that's the beauty of it, there's so many people online willing to whore themselves out for a logo behind them, they'll do it for free as long as they get promoted, credentialed and have access to contacts. As Chris said, look at CurrentTV. There's a lot of good content there being generated by users. Granted a lot of those users are film school students, rich kids, or people with gov't backing, but for the most part, the content is good. There's just nothing really "current", nor is there conversation. - faboo mama
thank you so much all, I am digesting all your comments please keep them coming! - Loic Le Meur
i am working on a news information sharing idea and have a site WOT News being finalised, a citizen journalism site so to speak. Would love to have a chat sometime...if you are interested. - Don
I think you & Pitch Engine could find a way to revolutionize social releases.I was thinking the other day,you'd be a great fit! - lonnie b hodge
word processors .. next, video processors ... max headroom was just the beginning .. type in the words, a video is generated, face speaking the language, abstractions of color, images pulled in from the net .. all in real time .. later in the century - Gregory Lent
good meme here, investigative journalism is in crisis due to budget crunches - ishak via twhirl
the news is just a cry for help ... the news is about what went wrong today ... the news is really the olds .... go in the opposite direction ... WHAT WENT RIGHT TODAY .... i told this idea to somebody years ago in seattle, they are sitting on the domain name, but anyway, it is a great avenue for seesmic, a social media video site for what went right today in the world - Gregory Lent
Don, would love it. lonnie, will definitely talk to pitch engine - Loic Le Meur
Loic, do you think about adding a Skype-like calling feat to Seesmic: calling real time/ video conferencing? and surely someone must have mentionned the topical videos. Not only crowd sourcing journalism volunteers - BE sure there are many who would willingly do that off their work and time. Topical videos like social media issues, leadership, how to start a company, etc. IMO there is a HUGE cash-in possibility. Say a video of 5mins feating advice from some VC (?) for 99cents or smth like that? - Hayk Hakobyan
Hayk thank you very very interesting - Loic Le Meur
For real, I don't know to take benefit from Technorati. Is it a scanning, alert tool, or something else? My previous experience was never satisfying. Searching on them yields non interesting stuff? Do I need to keep on searching each day, or they simply don't have better relevancy formula for us users? I'm wondering.
Hmm, I don't know Technorati has a kitchen. Thanks for pointing out :) - Akhmad Fathonih via FriendFeed MT Plugin
Some insights -- from the client side -- on how PR firms can provide value in today's online-focused world, even when it comes to serving Web-savvy clients. - Mike Keliher
Sarah, I didn't know about the Action Streams plugin, but I liked DavidRecordon website so much that I did my own c# script to generate something like that. http://www.alexsauceda.com - Alex Sauceda
Funny. I was searching Digg.com for this art... er post and leave a comment there. I typed in the beginning of the title "The Next Social Networks" and found one post in particular made end of last year (<a href="http://gigaom.com/2007/12/11/t..." target=_blank>click here</a>) titled: "The Next Social Network: WordPress".
Personally, after having played with Del.icio.us, Diigo, Facebook and whatnot, I recently came to the conclusion that sharing with no return/feedback from anybody has little meaning so when comments are better valued than 'clicks', 'diggs', 'votes', 'shares' whatever digg-like website can think of it will really mean the beginning of the construction of a social network. Until now I haven't seen much taking that direction.
Make people talk with each others instead of at each others. - lelapin via FriendFeed MT Plugin
Has seemed very clunky to me as well. - Andy DeSoto
I really digg Evernote...its a great way for me to clip out stray ideas for filtering later - Matt M. via twhirl
I like Evernote too. My problem is that I keep migrating systems - and that seems to defeat a major purpose --unifying all my notes in one place. The most comprehensive and well designed note-sysem (for mac) I've seen and still use is Journler (and its surprisingly still free). I also use 'sidenote' for quick instance access notes. Seems there should be a differentiation between note 'capture' (evernote, sidenote, etc) and note storage/organizing. - Leif Hansen
I tried Evernote on an iMac (OS X 10.5.4) and had lots of trouble getting screen captures or photo captures to work. Also found that I had to close and reopen the app to get it to display new notes made from screen caps, even when the screen cap actually worked. - Dimitrios Diamantaras
evernote is cool - i simply forget to use it everytime ;) as soon as i have bookmarked something interesting, i also forget about it thesame time... - Dieter Schwarz
the iPhone client needs to cache notes locally - at least some useful subset. there's nothing worse than relying on a notes app to store timely info and then not being able to call it up when you critically need it. - Jon Price
Gahh Robert! I had been going back and forth between OneNote and Evernote last month and finally decided on OneNote. Then I watched your video and now I'm reconsidering Evernote again. Why do you have to make my life more difficult? :-P - Mohit
really interesting video! Love the screen capture and ocr functionality. - Randy Ksar
love EVERNOTE been using it for a while now... - laleh
I was a beta tester and have been hooked ever since. The user interface interaction between desktop client and web service is great. - Mikael Pittam via twhirl
The recognition of the handwriting is amazing - sdfx
The one feature it's really missing is being able to stitch photos together - Specifically, panoramas of whiteboards. - Chris Weiss via twhirl
i signed up, mr scoble should get affiliate points or something - Gregory Lent
the desktop client is even worse than the web interface. I am looking into onenote again, especially for integration with outlook. - Nicole Simon
i am using an amazing mac app called notebook. much better and much cleaner than evernote. - Kfir Pravda
if I can't edit the note on my iPhone, it is of no use to me. - Robert Hafer
Onenote is a fantastic tool. Someplace between a notepad and a wiki. It has great sync tools, really good sharability and collaberation abilities and good integration. I like evernote mostly as a web clipping tool (it does that better than OneNote) but thats about it. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
Onenote is very nice, but it doesn't run on my Mac and iPhone. - Robert Scoble
I have loved this product ever since I heard about it (a few months ago). I can take notes from anywhere on any computer, and the iPhone integration is especially nice. I just used it today for a site survey (had to take pictures using my phone and comment on it). -
