"Most commentators think that FriendFeed is dead because the founders have been bought by and buried inside Facebook. If FriendFeed is so dead why is Twitter trying to choke it. Correction: FriendFeed is clearly dead. If you have ever worked for a startup and tried to ship a running product you know that focus is the only thing that will keep you alive. Facebook is a massive platform serving a scale of social interaction that has only been previously seen by distributed systems like email. The last thing Facebook wants is for its newly aquiried superstar team to waste time working on a platform that no longer matters to their commercial success or the bulk of their users"
- Louis Gray
from Bookmarklet
Friendfeed is NOT dead until the community leaves. The fact that you're posting this here means it's not dead - maybe dead for Chris, but not dead. (nice comment bait ;-))
- Jesse Stay
Comment bait? I like Chris and think his article makes sense. I would prefer to use FriendFeed for posting to Twitter, so I did.
- Louis Gray
Louis, more comment bait on Chris's part, but posting his quote around FriendFeed being dead is sure to get some comments here trying to prove otherwise, don't you think?
- Jesse Stay
FriendFeed is a great platform Louis - and they owe u a lot :) My only point is that it's dead and it's time for more distributed alternatives.
- Chris Saad
Chris, I agree with the latter part of your statement.
- Jesse Stay
I also agree FriendFeed owes Louis a lot
- Jesse Stay
Does the "Open" community think that by siding with Twitter and trying to kill FriendFeed that they'll get some sort of 'open' solution when the estate is settled and the will read?
- Cliff Gerrish
Chris, have stats to prove that? (FriendFeed dead like Jaiku dead)
- Jesse Stay
Chris, a new protocol won't create a new twitter or friendfeed. It's not that kind of thing.
- Cliff Gerrish
Jesse, let's not play denial games. Yes, FriendFeed as a platform exists. Its community, though smaller than before, is still here. But its future appears to be dead.
- Louis Gray
Meanwhile, in an entirely different thread, Paul Buchheit confirms that 'BirdDog' is not in place yet -- but RT service should be restored when it is.
- Cliff Gerrish
Of note, Paul Buchheit made a comment on Steve Gilmore's post, here: http://ff.im/cbHzx "To be clear, Twitter has made available a realtime replacement for the firehose (the replacement is called "birddog"). We have not yet started consuming that new API because we're waiting for the lawyers to come to agreement on the terms of use, which I hope will happen soon. I think Twitter's legal team is simply overbooked at the moment"
- Louis Gray
Louis, it's not dead until they say it's going to be dead. The community is still here and trying to remain. I'm not playing denial at all - ask Johnny if it's dead. Ask Josh if it's dead. Ask Akiva if it's dead. We're all still using it and I don't think any of us except maybe Chris in this thread plan to stop using it.
- Jesse Stay
Yeah saw that - but it doesn't change much - still a bunch of lawyers and corps playing games with each other - if it were an open system, there wouldn't be lawyers involved and we wouldn't be programming defensibly against closed systems. Steve wouldn't have to drive us a all nuts with questions about Track because he could just build it himself.
- Chris Saad
I think Chris is the one in denial - yeah, a lot of people left, but the core community is still here and the FriendFeed team and Facebook are still spending money on keeping it alive. They have made that very clear.
- Jesse Stay
Chris, so you have to kill FF, so your dream of an 'open' system can be crushed by Twitter and Facebook?
- Cliff Gerrish
@Cliff I didn't kill FF, Facebook did when they acquired the company and folded the team into their mainline operations. It's not my dream of open - closed systems are like ice cubes bobbing in a glass of water, they will melt eventually.
- Chris Saad
Jesse, please do not distract. This is nothing about attacking the community. We are the community.
- Louis Gray
And no company is 100% open -- everything is a mixture of open and closed.
- Cliff Gerrish
Louis, it sounds like it - the comment above and Chris's statements have been directly targeted to state that FriendFeed is dead. That sounds like an attack, IMO to a very passionate, still living community. That's what I'm confused about - why the distraction if you're going to promote open standards?
- Jesse Stay
No sex is 100% safe either - we should give up on Condoms I guess :)
- Chris Saad
Chris, are you saying that "open" technologies are like condoms? I'm not sure I understand that metaphor, can you amplify?
- Cliff Gerrish
Jesse, go back and read the entire article please. Thanks.
- Louis Gray
@cliff lol - I'm saying that your statement 'no company is 100% open' as an excuse for not perusing open solutions is like saying let's give up on something just because we can't get to 100%. We are always striving for a 'more perfect union' - doesn't mean we have to get there to achieve something.
- Chris Saad
Quote: "Facebook is a massive [centralized, single point of failure] platform serving a scale of social interaction that has only been previously seen by *distributed systems* like email". Emphasis Mine. Therein lies the problem. You can never kill email if your strategy is to replace it with a modern version of AOL or Compuserve which in a way, is what Facebook is. The correct solution...
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- Ray Cromwell
How about Chris and Steve to do a joint podcast series stint to pry apart the tentacles of the issues going 'round and 'round again.
- Micah Wittman
Louis, why the specific quote then? Regardless of the article, statements like "FriendFeed is clearly dead" do not go well with passionate communities you could be working to garner support for your cause.
- Jesse Stay
Chris can do the podcast all by himself quite well thx
- Steve Gillmor
Jesse, the specific quote was selected for this audience because of its relevancy. I am part of this passionate community. Don't act like I am not. It's silly.
- Louis Gray
Oh, and this: Friendfeed isn't dead. The hero/ine in every story brushes with death a bunch of times before the against-all-odds victory :)
- Micah Wittman
Louis, I didn't like the statement - it distracted me. The statement is wrong. I'm sick of people saying FriendFeed is dead when it's not.
- Jesse Stay
@Jesse stating a fact is not attacking anyone. And I have no special 'cause' other than investing my life and love in the Internet. Commercial reality is that Facebook is Facebook's primary interest, and Paul and Brett, as great as they are (I've met with Brett a number of times) are busy people working on a very successful product that is NOT Friendfeed.
- Chris Saad
Chris, that doesn't define it as dead if you ask me. It still looks very alive. They're still adding servers to it, they're still fixing bugs, they're still adapting to Twitter's changes. Heck, they're still, very occasionally adding new features. Sure, they're no longer a single team any more, but no one has ever said FriendFeed is going away, and it is still very much alive. Maybe not to you, but to a very passionate community here it still is.
- Jesse Stay
But like I said that's a distraction - attacking a community based on your opinion is not a good way to garner support in open platforms.
- Jesse Stay
Seems to me FriendFeed delivered the right messages to the right people this evening.
- Cliff Gerrish
@Cliff Agreed - it's a great platform - it's a shame that it won't get its opportunity to shine. An open alternative will rise to the top sooner or later. The pieces are pretty much already in place - will just need someone to productize it
- Chris Saad
@susan lol actually I can't take credit for it - @jowyang shared it on Twitter earlier this weekend. Thought it might be a funny way to defuse the chart wars that was emerging :)
- Chris Saad
Chris - also, nice job on the blog post, still consuming it and all these hyper comments :P
- Susan Beebe
Open always seems to sacrifice the present to the future. It's already been productized: it's called FriendFeed.
- Cliff Gerrish
Cliff, besides tornado how is FriendFeed open?
- Jesse Stay
Tornado is Open Source, that's different to Open Standards. FriendFeed is the most open of all the platforms we've mentioned, but it is still centralized (i.e. you can't spin up your own version and participate) and it creates its own set of data (i.e. these comments) rather than being a pure aggregator
- Chris Saad
Chris, exactly - I don't want to pin FriendFeed as open yet until we see the points you mentioned.
- Jesse Stay
update from Buchheit - Cliff, "birddog" is just a category of statuses/filter, which is available publicly (see http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Streami...). I don't know if anyone is using the birddog role or not. It's available to us and ready to go, but fb lawyers want the tou resolved before we activate it.
- Steve Gillmor
The term 'dead' is subjective. Jaiku died, sort of, but try telling that to those STILL using it. How many of you closed your accounts after google bought their team? You didn't give up google but you gave up jaiku. Well, this is no different. Many will leave but saying it's dead in this instance only implies there is no growth. As for the article, I think it states many obvious things....
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- Sheryl
People don't just 'read' Louis Gray here, they do life (even if it's just a small slice thereof) together. That goes for others in the community too, not just Louis.
- Micah Wittman
Just wondering before putting the rest of that thread on TTS if the constant reference to dead is also helped by, let's say, bit.ly URL shorteners and tracking of them vs. the FF shares? Thanks for any answer, I just still don't get the whole discussion as I don't follow any of it that line-by-line closely, that was one of the things somehow missing from the puzzle http://friendfeed.com/zjemily...
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Sheryl, whether it seems so or not, I don't use FriendFeed in order to drive visibility or page views. There are other services that can spike visibility, and I'm not in that game.
- Louis Gray
Mmmm.. why can't anyone just take over then, programmatically? Money I suppose? I'm sure alot of people would love entering it, no?
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Kevin, great point, btw - not to take the argument further, but that would also make Jaiku far from dead, although it still needs more adopting that code. Anyone know how big the developer community is around the Jaiku codebase?
- Jesse Stay
Louis, that's not what I intended with my statement. I neither said that nor meant it. I merely meant, if the interest of friendfeed dies, and YOUR friends. network, whatever you call the people you're engaged with should no longer be a part of this community, you likely will go where they are.
- Sheryl
Louis, I confess I ONLY use FriendFeed as an easy way to Tweet a referral to a blog post or story I read. That's it. Beyond that, it's a dead zone for me. This is the first conversation I've actually read here in several weeks. For me, FriendFeed is Jaiku 2.0. Both were viable solid platforms I really liked. In both cases, the active community I was part of quickly went silent when they were acquired. It's simply migratory attrition and not a reflection on either the community or any particular technology.
- Ken Camp
There you go, now I'm satisfied with the thread. Always good to read the whole thing twice. At least I can thank you group for at least giving me the pleasure of reading a reaction to a very interesting situation. I went fast on the Jaiku code base reference and seen that Google stopped supporting it, but still there's 2 mentions of it with some about new features, it keeps on going...
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- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
"PageRank assigns a reputation score to the URL where content is published. This makes it a great fit for content that stays put in one location. However, evolving content distribution via blogs, RSS, guest columns, and syndication are a challenge for PageRank. Tweets, retweets, micropublishing, ratings, and comments - even bigger problems. The solution lies in associating reputation with the identity of the author - a PageRank for People."
- Leo Laporte
from Bookmarklet
Reminds me of "wuffie" where personal reputation replaces monetary wealth in Cory Doctorow's DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM.
- Liam Watts
I love that comic. Makes me chukle every time.
- Roberto Bonini
Doctors are catching on to this and have slipped a "patient will not post online comments about doctor" clause into their standard forms. You don't even know you've agreed to it unless you read the whole thing, and who does that?
- jjjobst
Desirable, but immensely difficult: how do you define a "person" for rank purposes? We are talking here about a huge collection of disparate things. And, what if, contrary to the online reputation, the real reputation sucks?
- Nikos Anagnostou
Agree that we need a soltion for this but a Nikos touches upon is need to agree definitions of scope. Others male valid point also some further discussion and thinking required.
- Najeeb Mirza
PersonRank tied to (possibly) OpenId anyone? ...Everytime I click „Like“ FF brain is assigning whuffie to the author of a message.
- Mindaugas Dagys
Doesn't Googles Sentiment Analysis a step in the right direction? It infers sentiment to rank http://www.seobythesea.com/... and “service,” “value,” and “general comments.” Aspects are defined in one of Google’s papers on sentiment analysis as “properties of an object that can be rated by a user.” Unfortunately, Google is attempting to Patent this process.
- Greg
Yup. This made me think of "Down and out in the Magic Kingdom" too. If you haven't read it, it's worth it.
- Chad McCoskey
I would say not desirable - relevance is highly relative when it comes to people, and frankly anything that ranks people by the noise they make online and how many people they can get to claim they are great... will produce the wrong kind of behaviour
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
I agree with Joelle, mostly. The exceptions would be for trolls and spammers -- it's too much work to be on a constant lookout for trolling, and I'd really like to have an automatic metric which would enable me to automatically filter out such rubbish.
- Nathaniel Thurston
leo: yes indeed, and such a content filter would work well by taking into account the distance through the social graph between the author and each reader, rather than using a fixed measure of the author's reputation for all readers.
- Bob Hitching
from fftogo
But I think it's more fair to rank a document, than a person. This is something we shouldn't do at all.
- Ryo / Fuck Facebook
Nathaniel - I might agree for spammers, but "trolls" are a difficult thing. Many game changing people were labelled troublemakers first, today we'd call them trolls...
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
Hi Guys - I'm the author of the original article. One thing to keep in mind is that this system could be made topic sensitive. We'd be looking at total contribution/reputation for each person for a specific social graph relating to a specific topic. Is some ways this would be like mapping the Hilltop/HITS algorithms used in algorithmic text search to the social space. The similarity is...
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- Marshall Clark
The problem with any such measure is that some people will take it far too seriously - make it into something authoritative instead of something helpful - and some people will game it. I dont want to have to think about my "score" in any field and have to "work" in the way the score measure in order to be taken seriously
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
Interesting post, I was just thinking today when reading about Listiti.com about how Twitter Lists plus this new form of "Track"/search on them can at least partially solve that problem: Just pick a reputable List, one that is large enough to create a thorough but vetted "universe of discourse" (e.g. Scoble's Tech-News-Brands with 500 entries). Then you're searching over that set, and not over the entire freaking Internet. This pretty much bypasses all of Google's PR machinations and their gaming by SEOs.
- Alex Schleber
On SocialToo we're assigning a rank to people based on various points assigned by other people they come in contact (via follow, dms, etc). It has the potential to become this.
- Jesse Stay
Yep eBay comes to mind A+++++ Quick operator will deal with again!!!!!!!!!111one
- Phill Price
from iPhone
But isnt the problem then that all you see and hear is from the "big guys" who are already established, as defined by "in" players who by nature will want to be in the "big guys" good books? We're right back in the landscape of television, where the barrier of entry for new players is high, opinion and value is centrally defined... and we get lower quality and service as none of them tries very hard...
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
First, FriendFeed is _not_ going away. (in fact, we're working on switching it to new servers) Second, I know everyone wants to know what the team is working on, but we don't pre-announce things, so for now all I can say is that there's good stuff on the way. Re: http://friendfeed.com/jworthi...
Paul, working on friendfeed.com stuff or facebook.com?
- Kol Tregaskes
I like the first sentence. The rest is just gravy.
- Derek Coward
I'm totally happy if we just reside on decent servers, and get occasional IT help... We'll keep the rest of the ship running :)
- Christopher Galtenberg
Paul - is that why it's been slower lately vs.pre-fb ?
- Allen Stern
Paul please repeat it in re-phrased form: Friendfeed is NOT going to repeat destiny of Jaiku? Y/N
- A.T.
Can't wait... **Fingers tapping desk impatiently**
- AJ Batac
But what does "going away" mean, Paul? And what does "team" mean? And when you say "pre-announce", are you talking about the Palm Pre?
- Ken Sheppardson
Allen, the slowness is due to growth (more users and more data), but I put in a few fixes yesterday that should speed things up a bit.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, sometimes when I open up threads I get the Opps... error. Is that related? It has been happening more and more these last few days.
- Kol Tregaskes
Still better than twitter and facebook. Thanks for the update!
- Mike Nencetti
Paul, thanks for the incredible work with FriendFeed. Please, keep it alive! and most importantly keep it FriendFeed!
- Ciro
as long as FF doesn't go dark or fall to pieces due to lack of maintenance, i think most ppl would be appeased.
- Joe Silence is not dead
Does this mean that the sky is not falling and we should stop running around screaming GODZILLA! and pointing in the direction of FB?
- Moved to Facebook
from fftogo
also, thank you for making such a great service in the first place!
- Joe Silence is not dead
Thanks for the update! Would like to know if there will be actual development done on FriendFeed in the future (other than bug fixes/minor updates) but I understand if you can't really talk about that too much.
- Brandon Titus
Paul: so still no answer from you as to if your 'good stuff' is being developed for FB or FF? The silence suggests it's FaceBook you're working on, or at least transferring FF into an 'add on' for Facebook?
- Jim Connolly
Kol, fb platform and openness, primarily.
- Paul Buchheit
i made a post here - http://www.centernetworks.com/friendf... - one interesting note - maybe FB keeps FF running nice and smooth to keep the early adopters happy as it's a great way to get new features out to them via this channel... just a thought.
- Allen Stern
Wow. I've had to eat my words before but these are the best-tasting ones yet!
- Akiva Moskovitz
from BuddyFeed
Akiva, just add salt. You know which kind :)
- Micah Wittman
These are the best words I could have expected by Paul. There is obviously a cultural difference between the two platforms and audience and I'm assuming both the former FF team and the FB team recognize that and are sensitive to the community. Thank you Paul and I hope you are feeling better....
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Allen, you're in good company on that thought - there were musings on that concept right after the buyout.
- Micah Wittman
I feel a few "I told you so's" coming though... :-)
- Jesse Stay
Thanks Paul. Glad you're working on maintaining/improving performance. I've definitely seen issues here. Looking forward towards your influence and changes over at the blue giant.
- Mark Krynsky
Paul - thank you for letting us know, and I do hope you feel better!
- Jennifer Dittrich
The big question though is will FriendFeed continue to add new features? There's a difference between that and it going away. (and hence my argument w/ Scoble the other day)
- Jesse Stay
Paul: Seriously weird that you're there reading this, and totally ignoring each relevant, yes no question. No one's asking you to pre announce anything - just genuinely concerned (and increasingly so) that they do NOT include developing for FF.
- Jim Connolly
Jesse: Paul answers that question - BOOM - rumour mill dies and we finally get something positive to say. Ya know what - we won;t get an answer though. He's reading this, he knows the answer, but he won't.
- Jim Connolly
Jesse: For now, FF has more features than any other platform for this type of niche. There's some catching up to do before I'm worried about new features.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
AWESOME!! Thanks for helping to quell some concerns Paul. Looking forward to what comes next, but hope that FF never dissappears also.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
Shouldn't we be asking the facebook guys, and let Paul keep working? Or is he wearing many hats (friendfeed head honcho and facebook openess builder)?
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Paul: I'm right, right? There's something stopping you from saying that you are no longer adding new features to what 'we' know as Friendfeed?
- Jim Connolly
Not for nothing, but I took my friendfeed embed off my tiny blog for a few weeks after the facebook buy out. There was just this empty spot on my eyesore of a website, so I put the embed back. We care because we like the connections we've made here and don't want to lose them. It's personal for us to.
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Paul: Amazing how quickly you guys have adopted the Facebook attitude to silence. Pity.
- Jim Connolly
Paul: blink twice if you will add new features to FF. I won't tell anyone, honest.
- Edward Zwart
FWIW he did just upgrade servers. My e-mail notifications are almost real-time. Sounds to me like they're still improving the service.
- Jesse Stay
Jim: Don't blame Paul on that, it's not fair. He's only allowed to say so much at this point but I'm very satisfied on what he said.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Jesse: The questions not if they keep the servers running - we want to know if this is a dead platform.
- Jim Connolly
Jim: in Paul's defense Facebook's PR is more controlling than FriendFeed's was. I'm sure he's having to consider the effects his words will have on other people inside Facebook. But, I'm VERY HAPPY that Paul is here giving us hints as to what's coming. I wish it had happened six weeks ago so we wouldn't have lost so many people, but maybe that would happen anyway.
- Robert Scoble
Jim, there may be a few new things, but as I said, the team is mainly working on fb platform and openness, so it's unlikely that there will be any big new features of ff (except maybe one that I've been thinking about for a while...).
- Paul Buchheit
Did the Walrus think about Feed Splicing? :-)
- Robert Scoble
Paul: Finally - THAT'S what we were wondering.
- Jim Connolly
Cool Dude: Need it to have a classier forum than the parent; Parent is still good but the options here make it just a bit nicer.
- ThatDBD
Paul: Pity. At least we now know not to expect any developments or improvements. Thanks for answering the question. Whilst it confirmed my fears, it's good to know what's happening.
- Jim Connolly
I have no problem with FB integration (notice my drool above). Hoping for good friend conversion tools to bring subscribers over as friends or fans on Facebook from FriendFeed. (Connect.registerUsers FTW!)
- Jesse Stay
As a result - Jim has left the platform.
- Jim Connolly
Jim: this is a change from last week, by the way. My sources were telling me that we weren't going to get any new features and now Paul is refuting that and saying we might get one new feature here.
- Robert Scoble
I'm still drooling - anyone have a towel?
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: I'll buy you a virtual one over on Ning.
- Robert Scoble
personally, i would be happy just to have FF not fall apart and die. given the post-acquisition situation, anything beyond that is gravy!
- Joe Silence is not dead
Robert, I heard Ning is dead - care to send me one on Facebook? ;-)
- Jesse Stay
Robert, think of it as 20% time. If there's a feature I want, I'll just add it :)
- Paul Buchheit
Thank you for the clarification, Paul, and hope you are feeling better.
- WorldofHiglet
a communication channel that will be around and getting improved no matter what happens, our blogs :D I'll be commenting on yours Jim. 20%, that's a helluva light better than 0%, that's actually much more than I expected. Could we crowd source funding to buy you more %?
- Mark Essel
Even if there no new features in Friendfeed, I am happy with Friendfeed just staying on.
- ashish
how many users are there on friendfeed is there any chance we could buy it out (and get a full time dev staff back)? This platform rules, the dev team is incredible (albeit on facebook stuff now).
- Mark Essel
Paul, if you wanted me to bake you some cookies, all you had to do was ask, GEEZ.
- Derrick
Question: how many facebook bucks do we have to buy in total to get Paul and team working on friendfeed more of the time (100% ;)
- Mark Essel
Twitter doesn't accept cupcakes any more (just check Foursquare when at their offices). How about FriendFeed? :-)
- Jesse Stay
Mark, I'm okay with better Facebook integration. There's a lot of power in that (hence my drooling).
- Jesse Stay
I've got mixed feelings Jesse. I have friends on facebook. Then I have people that get excited by the same stuff that I do on friendfeed
- Mark Essel
Mark, I'm really hoping it ends up the best of both worlds - that would be really cool
- Jesse Stay
im going back to efnet - i got a bus for 7pm - anyone want on? :-P
- Allen Stern
I don't think you can mix the two sites at all. This has been repeated over and over. FriendFeed's technology might be portable, the concept, no.
- Jorge Escobar
Is it too late to do something about it. If it's a question of funds, can't we raise some? I mean this is the best communication platform I've come across yet. Facebook could be, if they just handed over the reigns to Paul, but its unlikely that sort of shift could happen.
- Mark Essel
Is the user perceived need of a full time devoted dev staff a fallacy?
- Mark Essel
I think you could make the case that some sites and services can in fact be "done" at some point, and simply require resources to keep them up and running.
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken: That's a potential advantage of turnkey application-level hosting such as App Engine: the resources to keep them up and running are almost entirely outsourced. ~All costs are variable costs, monetization improves over time, variable costs decline over time, so services that are "done" can literally just coast.
- Daniel Dulitz
They could open up something like friendfeed. Distributed social networks, with many servers would make search more challenging (search like status could help). The Internet keeps on chugging, it's a distributed information network that's been alive for many years. Our social networks should live, as does the underlying Internet.
- Mark Essel
Nice Daniel, I've been having fun playing around there (frankensearch.appspot.com). I'm using it to get to learn a little more about scala and lift now.
- Mark Essel
might be a full-time job times 2 or 3 for any fresh devs - safe to say Paul's got a bit of a head-start which changes that equation significantly! .... Also maybe almost as important is simply keeping spammers in check - that makes the difference between a ghost town vs the happy place here we want to keep coming back to enjoy ...
- Dan Freeman
Istanbuldan buyuk bir eferimi hakketti bu cocuklar, bizim icin calisiyorlar
- MobilAdam
from fftogo
Yes, this helps a lot. Thank you, Paul. We were beginning to fight amongst ourselves over these things.
- Kamilah Gill
I bet a good contextual advertising box off to the side could generate 35-50million dollars in 6 months with a user base of 1 million people. The assumption is that the average user spends 100-200 bucks on the site making purchases they'd normally make anyway and the affiliate percentage goes to the social host.
- Mark Essel
Friendfeed's health needn't be measured by the team's willingness to add new features. Shovels haven't changed in hundreds of years, but nobody is running around saying shovels are dying. A shovel is a great tool --a simple one, at that. If anything, I'd take away features on FF, but that's just me. Thanks for jumping in, Paul.
- Chris Baskind
Chris: the problem is that a shovel doesn't get more utility the more people that use it. FriendFeed does.
- Robert Scoble
I think the problem is that some people feel extra messianic some days (which is perfectly okay), and then refuse to see/believe/accept when others don't feel the same way AND point it out. The refusing part is not really okay, I guess.
- Michael Bravo
Thanks for these reassuring words Paul. Have been working hard to get more Flickr users over here after the recent rash of censorship there. Friendfeed's TOS and lack of censorship is a breath of fresh air compared to Flickr.
- Thomas Hawk
I wouldn't say lack of censorship, but community moderated filters. ;)
- CW™
I think you're unnecessarily complicating the discussion by adding new vocabulary, Robert. Now you're talking scale, not features. A product needn't expand its feature set to remain useful. Feature creep is the devil, anyway. ;-)
- Chris Baskind
You can’t predict what the future of technology will bring; so trying is a fool’s game. You can only adapt to the new realities as best you can. Paul's word is that it is still worth the time to invest in FF the tool. The tool may stay in this form but that's still a better design for me than Twitter. If FF is a shovel, Twitter is a spoon feature-wise. Audience volume-wise, it is the reverse.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Ok here's an example of what the social media + contextual ads could like like (sorry can't embed iframe twitter they go full screen so I showed it with friendfeed). But the idea is clear: http://victusmedia.com/social-... This works by sending your tweet stream to zemanta, and then does some backend stuff (which we're working on improving) to get relevant ads from amazon
- Mark Essel
I've been rough on you guys in some comments around, but I'm VERY encouraged to see that you guys see a future for FF. Thanks for shining some light, Paul.
- Scott of Two Countries
A respectable amount of information. Thank you.
- Matthew DeVries
Chris: Pownce had more "features" than Twitter did, yet it died. So did other aggregators like Jaiku. It's not "features" that matter in social software. Well, at least not completely. It's a combination of features with crowds that matter. If the crowds leave FriendFeed has a lot less utility to everyone than if they flow in. Look at this item here. Why is it interesting? Because there's people here talking about it.
- Robert Scoble
take your time PB Bear take your time
- Thomas Power
This is definitely more of the answer we were looking for. Thanks, Paul.
- Alex Scoble
All I can say is "thank you" for letting us know what's going on. I'm glad to hear FF will be around for the foreseeable future. :-) LONG LIVE FRIENDFEED!
- Jason Huebel
I can't find any wave that is even remotely comparable with friendfeed's conversation, if you found one will you invite me? (muzzle at googlewave)
- Emme Ci
Great news, I await the new functions eagerly
- Mo Kargas
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the best thing I've seen ALL day!! woo hoo!! Thanks Paul :) {{{ HUG }}}
- Susan Beebe
Just a few words of assurance go a long way, Paul. Thank you for finally giving us something more solid to stand on. It's been frustrating for a lot of us waiting for the other shoe to drop and this news makes it much easier to keep investing time in FriendFeed. Please don't be shy about reaffirming that it's not going away on a regular basis because it's always good to hear.
- Lindsay
I will say it for the least time! Friendfeed kicks ass :). The rest who is saying friendfeed is dying. please SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
- alfred westerveld
Tnx Paul, people just want to see that are not "alone"
- CantorJF
from FreshFeed
"As a result - Jim has left the platform. - Jim Connolly" - Was this guy ever on the platform?! A quick glance at his most recent posts [first page] show pretty much 100% of posts made from other platforms. Cut him and his blood runs blue. Twitter blue :)
- 1x29
IF you glance over the Right Wing guys publications-there is some serious Terrorism encouragement from those sociopaths. This looked like a real strong example of what they are encouraging their followers to do??? Been saying we need to pay attention they are respectable foes to intelligence and their agenda is to win at all costs. Dudes they are great foes, need to,got to, have to pay attention to what they are doing. Peace love your neighbors dudes.
- ThatDBD
@ThatDBD I think you're responding to the wrong thread...
- Lindsay
It's fascinating that so many people seem worried about new features. Until recently Twitter added almost no features at all and yet it continued to grow in popularity. FriendFeed's recent slump is all about perception, not tech.
- Eoghann Irving
these conversations take too much time for narcisists with tight schedules (stars). Publicity skyrocketed Twitter to the limelight. Friendfeeds champions are tech geeks, and folks that love chatting and sharing. There aren't many of us though. Give us time, or let us own the platform with a public ipo /buyin from facebook. Free friendfeed!
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Looks like it's official then: FriendFeed lives! On new servers, even! (At least for now...)
- Dennis Jernberg
This is great news! Thanks, Paul, for the update, and if you get a hankering for a feature, great! I'm fine with the tech being your personal sandbox in exchange for keeping the service alive. Robert, I hope this means we'll see more of you and your family - and hear from the ones who have mastered the art of rolling over. Johnny, thanks for having the courage to ask the hard questions (and Louis for helping you frame the issues.) wow - life feels good again!
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
from iPhone
This is brilliant news from Paul! Now can we put this FriendFeed is dying business to rest please? It's a self fullfilling prophecy because by saying FF is dying, folks begin leaving, causing a downward spiral which would then cause it to come true!
- technogran
Wan't it to stay? Then begin spreading the word! Get others to use it! At the moment its not mainstream so encourage ordinary users to use FF! The more popular it becomes the less likely it is to fold.
- technogran
technogran: sorry, today you see what's going on. Bing? Displays your Facebook and Twitter tweets. Google? Twitter. Where's FriendFeed in this equation? Now do you get why FriendFeed is destined to be a tiny niche player and why the real action is on Facebook?
- Robert Scoble
Robert, if FF gives me what I'm looking for, why do I care where "the real action" is? If FF serves its niche well, what's the downside?
- Scott of Two Countries
Robert, do you mean that Google doesn't index Friendfeed posts? Friendfeed is the first site that comes up if you search for my name.
- Victor Ganata
Excellent point Victor - but FF only imports a small % of twitter's posts. Ergo Google is still not getting Twitter.
- Roberto Bonini
@Scobleizer - this item is not interesting because of the conversation. it's interesting because of who it's from, and what he said. The fact that there's a conversation around it and that conversation is easy to find and read is a bonus (a feature) that sets this service head and shoulders above others (IMHO). There's really not much interesting in the comments here, if you ask me. You could get rid of all the comments that aren't Paul's and the value of the entry doesn't diminish that much.
- Chris Heath
That isn't to say that conversations around items aren't ever useful or valuable (or interesting as robert says)... but in this case i would say it's who it's from and what he said.
- Chris Heath
Chris: you nailed, in a single paragraph, why Twitter is winning. You now can choose who shows up on your screen and under what context. Well, I can because I have list support. Everyone else will get that next month. Victor: Roberto is right. I barely see ANY of the good stuff I see on Twitter come over here. Well, it comes here because of my favorites feed, but that isn't in nearly as useful a form as it is over at http://www.twitter.com/scoblei...
- Robert Scoble
Robert, you keep saying that's the reason Twitter's winning - I can do that in Facebook and FriendFeed as well.
- Jesse Stay
Well, the problem is that Google doesn't seem to index tweets as well as it indexes Friendfeed posts. And Google has never been able go inside Facebook's walled garden. Hopefully that will change.
- Victor Ganata
(and I have been able to for the last year or so)
- Jesse Stay
Victor, that changed today - see ReadWriteWeb's post. Facebook is opening up public status messages to search engines now.
- Jesse Stay
Why is Twitter/Facebook/FriendFeed a zero sum game? I use both Twitter and FriendFeed a lot - they have different strengths - and they feed into each other. Facebook I use less, but that's a personal issue because I simply like it less. Why does there have to be a winner? And +1 Scott, if I'm in the niche market that FF is serving and I'm happy with it, why should I care if "the real action" is on Facebook? If that's the case, I'll take FF's "fake action," thank you very much.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Paul: Thank you for letting us know status as much as you are able. The fact that you took time to write anything says a lot. So thank you for that. And thank you for FriendFeed in general. It truly does rock. Have a great day.
- Morgan Haley
Why don't you just give us all Facebook accounts for the one's that don't have them and be done with it. But the Turbocharged FF/FB accounts!!
- Gene Williams
@Gene, sorry, you'll have to wait for a FB invite like everyone else!
- Andrew C
@Andrew Oh that sucks, I'm still waiting for my Facebook invite. Do you have one to spare?
- Patrik Johansson
The Facebook Facelift is a self initiated project to challenge the form and functionality of Facebook. It's streamlined, structured and linear interface is more comprehendible, enhancing the user experience and absorbability of content.
- Eren CAN (ec)
from Bookmarklet
Kol: That's pretty neat. Wish it was shorter like wave.com or gwave.com (Google owns gwave.com anyway) or something.
- Nick Humphries
i think this @googlewave.com email address is a temporary thing during testing. after it goes live you should be able to just use it with your google account. at least that's what i think:)
- Taylan Aydınlı
if only you could bold an announcement in FF like you can in Wave :D [oh, and my username on Wave is the splendiforously original "adamlasnik"]
- Adam Lasnik
Guys, please read the title and the first comment. This is not a request for invites. This is for users who already have an account and want to share their account name. For invites see this thread: http://ff.im/91M9R
- Kol Tregaskes
My Wave ID is erier2003@googlewave.com. Feel free to add me and we can Wave!
- Eric Geller
Still don't really know what this is (Or Google Voice for that matter). This is like high school all over again. The cool kids are ignoring me!
- James Ferguson
i'm with the google wave woudl be really cool, if i had people to wave at crowd. jviddy@googlewave.com
- Jamie Vidamour
Everyone, read the title and first comment. This is NOT an invite thread!
- Kol Tregaskes
my plan didn't work. still trolling for an invite at dzinrgeek@gmail.com
- amarquart
Blimey. I must be going mad, is it not clear that this is NOT an invite thread. For invites see here: http://ff.im/91M9R
- Kol Tregaskes
Not sure if anyone else woudl find it useful, i'm going to add a load of you as friends and create a wave just to try stuff out in. Feel free to remove yourself from the wave or use it as you feel. Also feel free to add anyone else you think might want to be in on it
- Jamie Vidamour
Shockingly, I am robdiana@googlewave.com
- Rob Diana
Kamilah, you are kamilah.gill. You can find this if you click on yourself in the Contacts sidebar. You address (like everyone) is shown there.
- Kol Tregaskes
Karoli: is that your google wave nick or are you sniffling? :)
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
I'm sniffling because I don't have a google wave nick. Despite two invites, there is still nothing in my inbox. I am not in with the in crowd. :(
- Karoli
Karoli -- It appears as if there's a batch of emails going out now. Keep checking.
- Christopher A Carr
<- Waves hello! :) I'm at holger.eilhard@googlewave.com
- Holger Eilhard
hello holger, can you pls send me invite? fatihkurtoglu@gmail.com
- M Fatih Kurtoglu
Invite came today! I'm jalada@googlewave.com. As part of the second/third 'Wave' of people getting invites looks like I don't get any to share out.
- Jalada
M Fatih Kurtoglu: Sorry, I don't yet have any nominations to give out...
- Holger Eilhard
Hey, I'm in too ! :)) tagyboy@googlewave.com
- fwed
Just got my invite this morning as well. FF embed seems to be working fine. I've tried the Wolfram Alpha robot but didn't get it to work yet.
- François Dongier
librarysupporter@googlewave.com in my wave. :)
- MLx
Glad to see more and more people getting in. What we're waiting for is proper group support (a few weeks hopefully) then let the games begin! :-D
- Kol Tregaskes
Anyone have a spare google wave invite to send to me? email me at zaldor at gmail ! TY!
- Les Zaldor
I will as soon as I get one WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
- Martha
banane@googlewave.com <-- writing this from wave. neat!
- anna sauce
marco.nunez@googlewave - FINALLY! like i said on twitter - i feel like the kid who got a nintendo 1 christmas too late when everyone had already beaten super mario bros!
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
denise.straessler@googlewave - stupid me had no idea i wouldn't be able to select a different name .....
- denise
Wow. Thanks Kol!!! Here's mine for all ya'll to add - walt.ruppar@googlewave.com - although I just added like 150 of the above. While also deleting my pity pleads for an invite... ;-)
- Walt Ruppar
Is there a list anywhere of the sites that automatically post images to FF when you put their RSS/MRSS feeds into here? I want to get images from Google Reader to show up here. If not from GReader, then I need a few other options. Looking for something that's not blocked at work (so not Twitpic, Posterous, similar sites).
- Kamilah Gill
"In recent months we’ve worked quite hard to bring you some fantastic free stuff and we think that our growing collection of freebies is pretty awesome. So… Since icons are such a huge element in modern day web design, we decided to partner with one of the best icon designers we’ve come across to bring you a fantastic new web icon set."
- AJ Batac
from Bookmarklet
Slayerboy: good marketers won't get blocked. I really appreciated getting cuts in line at Six Flags because of their Twitter contest.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Good marketers aren't most marketers :)
- Brett Kelly
Only if Guy likes it will they come. Friendfeed.alltop.com and all that.
- Pete Delucchi
from iPhone
Robert: I don't mind good marketers, as long as they're genuine. Too many of them (particular the "social media marketing gurus") are just unforgivably obnoxious and fake in their attempts to pimp their own garbage services/blog. So, I really hope you're right :)
- Brett Kelly
Bad marketers on FriendFeed will survive in search results. Do a search for a couple of terms like 'canon 135mm' and you'll see plenty of entries that are just links to people selling the lens. You're not going to block them all. I don't see that as a big problem, but I suspect they'll be successful enough there to keep them coming.
- Edward Coffey
Start? I've been here for a loooong time. A few of my 'marketing' friends have been too.
- AJ Kohn
Marketers phase has already started in Turkey. Friendfeed is generally used by them, or I think like that...
- Sabri Küstür
we need like a freindfeed costranostra to keep the peace, and make things just poof into the ethersphere
- Robert Higgins
so wish i was a freindfeed coder and i could merge with the stream and provide some community services... :AKA Hiro Protaganist
- Robert Higgins
"Now on to Google Wave! - sean andersen" Exactly. Unless the FF core team is over there on the sandbox right now, doing all they can to start the scrambling scrum RIGHT NOW, the big GWave will assimilate all. At least until the assimilation wave after that. FF has maybe a one year window -- if that -- to make it's move, whatever that might be, starting right now.
- michael silverton
Citronella - I like that the spammers are vaporized almost instantly here. Decent built in tools for group reporting.
- BairdWilliamson
If I got here before Guy and I'm geekless does that give me any special designation?
- Kimber Scott
michael silverton: Wave sandbox already looks like Gmail. I bet when they release it, it will be Gmail 2.0. I hope Bret & co. are studying it close...
- sean andersen
Kimber: you are geeky because you were here before...whether you like that designation or not :)
- WorldofHiglet
Louis has more than *one* soul? Or is this a left-foot, right-foot thing. Colour me confus`ed :D
- Micah Wittman
LOL! Well, I guess I could be called an amateur geek...
- Kimber Scott
from email
@silverton, agreed that FriendFeed has a limited time window to figure out what it wants to be when it's all grown up.. in other news, can't believe it took Guy this long to show up here to play. Nothing wrong with a little marketing, especially if it's of the "Moving the Freeline" variety.. +1 Gilbert, LOL.
- Alex Schleber
If I were Guy, or the head of any company, be it a camera shop or whatever, whenever I had a little free time, I'd tweet out, "Hey, I'm going to be on FriendFeed for an hour or so, answering any questions about Alltop, telling you about its features, advantages, and benefits, come join in!" or something like that. That's a vertical that feeds off Twitter and really enriches both platforms, utilizing them both for their strengths.
- Stephen Pickering
With Leo, Steve Rubel, and Guy K now all here .. this landscape is about to change ... agreed.
- Charlie Anzman
I'm reading Crossing the Chasm, only 18 years after it was published. Can I blend in as a "marketer" now?
- DGentry
Well hopefully communities will coexist in open social media, we aren't defined by what or where we login to right? It's just information we share, the platform is merely a pipeline. The communities need to exist beyond the platforms
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
So, do you think the population will tend to shift to more casual people than the creme de la creme people. I feel so, since there are only the innovative, open-minded people on FriendFeed right now; and I think the change is pretty near.
- Yiğit Arda Türkoğlu
Marketing guys have always been here. The difference... tactics and respect. That being said change is always happening and even still I'm not sure Friendfeed will hit the critical mass Twitter has with marketers. The friendfeed brand will likely be defined differently than Twitter and attract different people. Time will tell.
- Jim Goldstein
from iPhone
why? can't marketing guys and geeks get along?
- kakuei
No. We cannot get along. This war has been waged for too long, and too much blood has been spilled. Most of us no longer even remember why we are fighting, but it doesn't matter. Victory is all that matters.
- DGentry
The marketers are already here, but most of them are totally clueless about how friendfeed works. They somehow think they can dump their stuff here and it will get "found" and when that doesn't work, they just go back to twitter. The ones that do understand how it works either feel it is too much damn work to fake being real to be worth it, or they are the real deal and it works quite well for them.
- April Russo (app103)
April: I think there's some cost-benefit analysis going on there. There's a smaller crowd at FF and it takes a lot more work. Plus, most people here are marketing jaded.
- Trent Hamm
Guy is a marketer, sure, but also a geek. Geeks phase ends when the Celebs show up.
- Garin Kilpatrick
well if they start selling, just dont click "like" or "comment" and they will drop off the page in minutes
- Mark
I think some marketers are already here..but anyway, you think Guy being here will change things much?
- Rob Sellen :o)
Robert, you might have to make a stand for geeks everywhere. Prepare yourself.
- Joe
Robert, "Wanna learn how to get 1,000's of Friendfeed friends in no time. Click here http://somespammylink.com to learn my patent pending, amazing, fantastic, game-changing, and revolutionary way to gain residual income through the magic of your Friendfeed friends." Don't click yet, I was just brushing up!
- Sean Powell
I'm so honored to have read this message from scoble. I'm grateful for our "geeks only" days that we've all shared! LOL
- Jason Pollock
No Kidding! Welcome Guy Kawasaki, who ever your are.
- Houseofmax
thats unfortunate, but who is GuyK?
- echostreamer
When the marketer wagon shows up I'll be going private.
- Geoff Schultz
Yeah, Jim Goldstein sez it: those of us from the dark side that stumbled into these sweet precincts have kept a low profile... sorta like taking your hat off when you go to church ; >
- Thom Kennon
he's actually been here awhile, just not posting, mr scoble
- chaz2b
Some ppl cannot be stopped. Like me! Not geeky enough, a girl, too wall st. Watch out, cause tenacity wins every time.
- Liza
well then lets learn from Twitter and not follow every stupid command that celebrities give us to rocket them to the top of friend feed. BOYCOTT ALL CELEBRITIES ON FRIEND FEED to save this from becoming the punchline that twitter. save the whales, then save friend feed plez :)
- echostreamer
Jason Pollock liked this, that is HILARIOUS! He posts the most redundant links on Twitter...a notorious spammer. At least Guy admits what he does, still somewhat annoying. Not sure why Leo Laporte was mentioned, I don't see him fitting that GK mold at all.
- Benjamin Taylor
In retrospect ... it seems to have been a hit and run for now ?? Hoping not. Would be great to see him actively engaging here. A LOT to offer. Marketing crowd? ... No worries - There's always 'block, tackle and hide .....' here
- Charlie Anzman
Robert, I think this is such crazy talk, you're a marketer too ;)
- Jeremiah Owyang
Umm, I'm pretty sure that Guy is also a geek. Regardless of what his cool cred is...then again his cool cred is totally geek cool cred.
- Alex Scoble
Guy Kawasaki does have magic initials, I will give him that.
- Garin Kilpatrick
Post, Kimber added you as a friend on Goodreads. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, friends with Kimber. To confirm this friend request, follow the below link: http://www.goodreads.com/friend... &utm_medium=email&utm_source=invite - Kimber (kimberscott.art@gmail.com)
- پـرستووو
from email
http://www.google.com/reader... I'm glad you asked this right now. I just realized that several people are following me and I didn't even know it. I hope it hasn't been this way for long!
- Michael Fidler
Just noticed that Reader now allows grouping of people you follow! Wondering: is Reader going to become a competitor (instead of complement) to FriendFeed?
- Chris Rogers
@rogersdc / Chris, Google Reader is obviously been trying to become more social, but I'd really like to see FF come out with a bookmarklet that makes sub'ing RSS feeds to FF easier/faster. Right now it's a manual process involving either a new Group/Room or Imaginary Friend. Should be 2 clicks tops.. Also see: http://friendfeed.com/alexsch...
- Alex Schleber
Here is mine : http://www.google.fr/reader.... I share (mainly on French sites and blogs) about libraries, literature and arts, human and social sciences, photography :-)
- Nadine Pestourie
LOL here we go again :o) http://www.google.com/reader... I share a lot of blogs and funny stuff that I read, it's neat how I can share and it gets posted all over by friendfeed.
- David Gross
http://www.google.com/reader... - I share items about productivity, gaming, movies, and misc. stuff from the Google "cool" via Recommendations feed. Thanks Kol for starting this thread because I've been trying to cut down on the number of feeds I subscribe to and instead just follow interesting people.
- Dusty Edenfield
Svartling: good point about adding people to groups. I noticed I couldn't comment on items that were shared by some users.
- Dusty Edenfield
I've (we) written a lot of more good tips on how to use Google Reader in Google Reader comments. It's too bad we don't have permalinks in Greader so we can share our notes and comments. Otherwise I could have posted a link here. Here are some on friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/svartli...
- Svartling
The conversation is really blowing up (in a good way) on Reader. The most important reminder currently is to set up groups and allow commenting. That is NOT on by default!
- Vince DeGeorge
Thank you all. I think I have subscribed you all now (except those feed in languages I don't understand) Here is mine again: http://www.google.com/reader...
- Svartling
I've started to follow a few of the people here but there's quite a few, so will take me a while :) - My currently fairly bare feed is: http://www.google.com/reader...
- Roy Herrod
There are a few entries here you might like to read to help you. This one: http://ff.im/6CkQj explains about adding people to groups to allow them to comment and why some don't stay in groups. In this one: http://ff.im/6F9pQ I suggest a way to track a large number of shared items using PostRank. This: http://ff.im/6Ci0P and this: http://ff.im/6AM35 has a few tips on using GReader as a lifestreaming service. And this: http://ff.im/6EMT1 gives a few examples of GReader bundles.
- Kol Tregaskes
Those of you above whom I already follow on FF/Twitter/etc., I've subscribed to your feeds. As for the rest of you: if you follow me on GReader, I'll follow you back.
- Dennis Jernberg
I'm sharing some pages now, including a few of my past blog entries.
- Dennis Jernberg
Because I have issues with data duplication, I have merged this list with the google reader shares room feeds. You can view the Google spreadsheet at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...
- Rob Diana
There are a bunch of shared feeds that I could not resolve the Google username for because they did not have a named profile set up.
- Rob Diana
tristanhambling, your link didn't work. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
It would be really handy to have all these shared feeds as an opml file. Has anyone added everyone? Care to export an opml of the shared feeds?
- Paul Jacobson
I'm http://www.google.com/reader... Not really comfortable with the custom URL though since it can only be your gmail username. Makes it really easy for spamspiders I think.
- TobiasVerhoog.com
Tobias, possibly but not had any problems myself though Gmail has the best spam filters around so I probably not noticed. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
http://www.google.com/reader... mostly webdev, photography news, music, world news which i get interested. plus half of them may be article in Japanese. sorry. :-p
- browneyes
http://www.google.com/reader... - OK I'm in. Late as always. Will post my thoughts, feedback and pleading requests for help over in Google Reader so please follow me over there. Eat your own dog food and all that.
- Andy C
MF/Kol = I live in Kingston on Thames. It's OK apart from the traffic (continually gridlocked) and the shops (girls just lurve them). Handy for getting into London both airports and out to the Thames Valley for work type things. Richmond Park and the river in walking distance is great too.
- Andy C
Andy, Richmond Park and the others around there are the appeal really. Good place to go photographing and cycling while being very close to London I think.
- Kol Tregaskes
Teddington (across the river from Kingston Upon Thames, is where I think I'd like to live. Just 'cos it's cheaper than everywhere else around it. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
@Kol many years ago, we made the mistake of asking an estate agent in Surbiton whether it was any cheaper than Kingston. She replied 'No - of course not. We are on the fast line to Waterloo' and looked at us as if we were dog excrement.
- Andy C
I've checked rental prices in the area several times over the last 2 years and Teddington is definitely cheaper. I'm not buying, no way I can afford that. ;-) All a pip-dream anyway, need a steady job and I've not had that for a while. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
anyone use google reader on windows mobile professional? I cant seem to get it to work and when I try to go to the mobile site it takes me to the regular site.
- David Gross
Nope, sorry can't help you there, David.
- Kol Tregaskes
I'm trying to catch up with what you're doing.... Are you Sonic the Hedgehog or something? (or do you know that cartoon character over there?)
- Jannifer @wordsforliving
Thank, Meryn. Jannifer, I have been particular active again this last few days. Guess the FF buy-out as woken me up. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Idea: a little tool that finds and lets me batch-follow the union of {my FriendFeed friends} and {G Reader users sharing publicly}. Now I just have to look them up one by one, no?
The best I can do is give you a list of your friends' google reader links using a script I wrote in a format that you want. The trick is getting it into Google Reader ... hmmmmm
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
Hmmmm... that gets us part of the way there!
- Chuck Falzone
Ok, I can generate the output in CSV, which you can import into your Google Contacts. The google.com/reader url would be in the Website field. But the question is: will Reader pick that up ?
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
That just might work. Reader does interact with your Google Contacts. Worth a shot to see what happens.
- Chuck Falzone
Okay, I'll give this a shot. I'm going to bed now but I'll have something for you tomorrow.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
Awesome. Thank you. I'd set up a FF group in yr Google Contacts first, and import them there. You can then, at the very least, check one box to allow all those people to comment on yr shared items. (If it does in fact recognize who they are...)
- Chuck Falzone
Ok .. my script is downloading my google reader subs now ...
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
A crowdsourced company. Don't we call that the government? ;)
- Sean Powell
Dave... we have been considering this idea for a number of years, but I think that pulling it together requires more than a geek-army or an open-source collaborative ethos. 'Open' is a mind-set, not a movement... and great egalitarian strategies are possibly best not to be collectively authored, or you can find yourself in the middle of a mega-committee. Its a conundrum... But we are happy to share insights.
- Simon Edhouse
Dave/Simon: someone will do it. Why not get started now?
- Jason Cronkhite
Totally agree... the core idea that Dave is putting forward has been my 24/7 passion since 2006... and maybe Twitter & Friendfeed (RIP) are going to prove to be catalytic forces for this idea. Certainly Dave is a lot more accessible nowdays... ;)
- Simon Edhouse
Simon, maybe with Dave's help we can form a community trust and put the thing together. :-)
- Jason Cronkhite
Simon it would not be like that. I'll write a follow-up post.
- Dave Winer
I would like to understand the financial vehicles to do this. Simon, I also agree that there has to be a structure that allows for users interests to be aligned with business growth for their benefit and the founders. Too often what happens when investors step in for pure financial return is the goal becomes focused on how to turn the company, "the exit", and not on building a sustainable company to enrich lives of the user base.
- Jason Cronkhite
well... to quote Robert Burns, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"... Firstly I totally agree with Dave's other post (i.e. "Rex, you're making it too complicated..") where he outlines the structure of the Public Company... no problem there. I have reasoned out the same model some time ago. - I see it like a series of check-boxes that have to be ticked... and probably...
more...
- Simon Edhouse
Understand & agree for the most part. RE: BIG IDEA, don't know if it really has to be earth moving all the time but rather something that enough users can stand to benefit from both of using the product and financially. Simon, how about publishing your checklist and trying to get a following around the movement?
- Jason Cronkhite
The BIG IDEA is crucial... once you see it, you can't stop thinking about it, and that's what is needed to get massive buy-in. - "get a following around a movement" No... I can't drum that up. I am too small a fish, and not living in a VC hotspot. Dave's the man, if he can control his notorious crankiness (we love you Dave)... However, yes, I can add-value, but who am I? Dave has started to pull together this particular cosmic dust cloud. Let's see if he can truly lead it.
- Simon Edhouse
The crowdcorp concept is the way to go, now how do we make it happen? It is tough to manage efficiently the requirements of a community
- Alberto Saavedra
from Nambu
RE: BIG IDEA, maybe so - maybe not...remains to be seen. RE: you're not the one, it takes powers of 2, lots of passion, determination and as Seth Godin would say a Tribe. Sure, Dave may be one to press the issue forward but this notion requires an ARMY. Dave, maybe you can enlist Scoble and the Building43 community to push this effort.
- Jason Cronkhite
[edit] ...There are those on the web that are captivated by their own notoriety, as if being involved in social-networks is a popularity contest. - It isn't. If this project idea falls into the hands of the 'lime-light-seekers', who seem to have short attention cycles, it will rapidly go off-course. (that's my own personal view)
- Simon Edhouse
Ah, Simon. I understand you but, this is where the Power of 2 comes in so handy (you need both - the Edhouse's & Scoble's). Keeping people on course and captivated require different talents. Maybe Scoble & Winer are perfect balances. Maybe it's others but more importantly, you need all shapes, colors and credes to do something like this and the power of collective intelligence and influence.
- Jason Cronkhite
LOL... maybe we need a Jason Cronkhite too
- Simon Edhouse
Its a jigsaw puzzle... but, like those super tricky huge jigsaw puzzle's, to complete it, someone needs to have the picture that encapsulates the final vision.
- Simon Edhouse
OK... next we need a money person... who gets it. Someone who can resource this... Its not going to go anywhere much till that person steps up.
- Simon Edhouse
They are around. I forwarded a pointer to my piece today with a guy I'm working with on another project.
- Dave Winer
Cool Dave. Let's keep the conversation going. I would love to see this happen.
- Jason Cronkhite
I have detailed Info-memorandum type docs, and have sent overviews to John Nesheim (http://www.nesheimgroup.com/) who has given the core-ideas his thumbs-up, and offered to introduce me to VCs etc... John is a great guy, very smart and accessible. We had a long Skype chat a while ago... he gets it.
- Simon Edhouse
Fantastic Simon! Are VC's really what's needed 1st?
- Jason Cronkhite
VCs are probably exactly not what's needed as they (generally) are always thinking of their exit, and being risk-averse by nature they tend to look for 'me-too' plays... (projects that have successful precedents in the marketplace) ... No, an Angel Investor is what's needed. But there still has to be a killer Business Model as money people are always in the business of making more...
more...
- Simon Edhouse
Not to get ahead of ourselves but, even before an Angel don't we just need a passionate following of people (users of products/services they may want to own)?
- Jason Cronkhite
It seems to me what is needed is a platform to evangelize the concept, get people behind the cause. Of course, a financial plan as to how users might contribute to show tangible interest would help in gaining validation and traction for larger investor types.
- Jason Cronkhite
well... I instinctively take a different view on that. Not to say you are wrong, I am just really aware of the 'politics' of collaboration, the realities of project 'execution', and the realities and importance of I.P. protection for investors, even if it may become a public company (which by the way is a VERY expensive process to go through and carries with it a raft of responsibilites...
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- Simon Edhouse
point well taken simon, agreed. so, let's see if dave wants to help assemble the core group, open discussion, have a meeting of the minds in-person and push things forward.
- Jason Cronkhite
Just opened a private group, "User Ventures" and sent you an invite, Simon/Dave.
- Jason Cronkhite
"Jason assembled a great group of heroes, known as the Argonauts after their ship, the Argo. The group of heroes included the Boreads (sons of Boreas, the North Wind) who could fly, Heracles, Philoctetes, Peleus, Telamon, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Atalanta, and Euphemus." http://bit.ly/9LTx9
- Simon Edhouse
Nick, I have no qualms of opening up the group after those who plan to contribute help to establish a framework for the group. Foundations must be part of anything new even user centric organizations. So, if being an active contributor to help users suits you the group needs you and any other user advocate for that matter.
- Jason Cronkhite
Another axis to think about is whether a particular idea even needs to be owned by a single entity, public, or otherwise. Chances are, if you're inventing another communication protocol/network to piggy back on the internet/web and ship data around, it isn't always necessary to have a single point of failure. Rather, you're taking a fault-tolerant network protocol (TCP/IP) and layering...
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- Ray Cromwell
Ray, just reached out to Charles Armstrong of Trampoline.
- Jason Cronkhite
Interesting points Ray, and yes, the technology idea you outline is in accord with some of the ideas we have been building on... but inventing another open protocol does not necessarily a profitable people's Company make. - and Nick, as regards the irony of a private discussion... Sometimes you have to be smart... and being 'smart' is also about being prudent and careful.,
- Simon Edhouse
I agree, but some things are commodities/public goods and not really something that should be walled off just to try and extract profits. (Which I'm not against, I just think there are plenty of other things to make profits on than setting up more toll bridges) Would RSS have taken off if a single company owned it and all feeds had to be hosted through their domain? Maybe, but I think we'd all be worse off than the current situation.
- Ray Cromwell
Yes... I agree, and this is a very interesting area. - Probably the only way I can get us out of this log-jam is to go deeper and state that I am interested in two key symbiotic projects. One being an open platform, and the other being a separate (and at arms length) vehicle to redefine the way commercial contacts between buyer and seller, or advertiser/vendor and viewer/client are conducted.
- Simon Edhouse
Simon: you are a jerk if you think I do this to "seek the limelight." I shared OTHER PEOPLE'S posts here more than 21,000 times. That is called sharing. I travel the world and point my camera at OTHER PEOPLE. Building communities is hard work and the fact that you have started this project by being an asshole does not bode well for its future.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
I went and looked and Simon never even participated here. Two likes. What a jerk.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Now you're talking Dave. Let's get a publicly owned social media provider. But how?
- Mark Essel
Without question I'd like to see something like what Jason and Simon are discussing. I can't help but write about it on a regular basis. Robert I can imagine some who don't follow you regularly may not be familiar with your sharing, constant video/blogging and social media dedication. They could perceive your ubiquity (at least within certain circles) as being a glory hound. I see otherwise. You get it man and we all benefit from your work.
- Mark Essel
Mark: I agree, but I won't help a guy who questions my integrity and is a jerk. Maybe if he apologizes. Plus he's already proven he doesn't participate so WTF does he know about building a community? Geesh.
- Robert Scoble
If I may... this is a fantastic political opportunity for all of us (bystanders like myself, geeks and users). I can hardly follow half the things you write (although I google most of it), but I watch the process as an experiment on "Open" Democracy through Open Source. My best wishes on its success no matter who partakes. If there is anything a civilian can contribute, please don't hesitate to ... well poke. :-))
- constantinos alexacos
Robert: I'm looking more towards Brian Hendrickson & Dave if this concept is to move forward. I bumped into Brian quite randomly while chatting about open social media, and have been banging my head on some web programming that Brian is sharp enough to explain in a feasible way in short order. If an open crowd funded business is going to develop it'll be on the backs of developers. I hope I get to help out with the movement.
- Mark Essel
No, the IPO comes first, before anything else.
- Dave Winer
So public buy in before anything to buy into? Seems like tricky timing, but I see the point of that order. Get public ownership and direction driving the business forward from square 1. The IPO legal requirements are pretty involved, can they be met without a business structure?
- Mark Essel
Just to add my two cents: I am a relative small fry here in this big community and have been fortunate enough to have participated in interesting discussions with both Scoble and Dave. Both have found the time (at least to some degree) to engage with me and I have since wondered how they do it (or at least how much time it takes).
- Sean Powell
(Part 2) It seems based on these comments that something like this will need EVERYONE to actually be successful. With the advent of these technologies - friendfeed and (dare I say it) twitter - we now how the ability to truly get everyone involved and weigh in on decisions. That is the key here. Then we can help settle questions like: "Who decides where we go? What we do? Who's involved?" That last question should not even be considered. imho
- Sean Powell
Gee, calling people "jerks" and "assholes" is just too easy in this kind of forum isn't it? But you know Robert, I did not say that you had no integrity. What I was saying was that, if something like this were to develop in an integral fashion, as in [def:] "...necessary to make a whole complete; essential or fundamental", then its not about obtaining mass publicity first off... which...
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- Simon Edhouse
Simon, you wrote, and I quote "Pleeeeeese.... not Scoble. - Its gonna take buckets of wisdom, and patience and dare I say it, integrity."
- Robert Scoble
Dave, the idea of: "...the IPO comes first" baffles me. - IPOs are very expensive, and would only seem to raise the level of risk. - What is the reason that you take that position? - I think great companies are built on great ideas, and without the solid foundation of a 'great idea', I (and other's) would sense that its an ideologically driven foray... Foundations are important.
- Simon Edhouse
That, to, me, says you were saying that I didn't have any integrity.
- Robert Scoble
Simon: but your last statement is better. I still think your first statement was pretty damn rude, though, and when someone calls you on your rudeness, your first answer should be "I'm sorry."
- Robert Scoble
That's what my community website network is all about. See http://Frederick.com for an example. The site is owned by the community.
- Craig Shipp
IPO? The IPO market doors have been shut for sometime. Thanks for the chuckle.
- cheapsuits
yep... I'm sorry if that offended you, really. Loose words... I don't know you, and you don't know me. Over a coffee, we would probably have a chuckle and find quite a bit of common ground. Please accept my apology. It was an off the cuff remark, poorly executed.
- Simon Edhouse
Robert... gee I should have looked at your pic before insulting you! - Lucky I'm on the other side of the planet. ;) (I'm an Aussie, from English stock... fairly reserved, and nowhere near the buzzy west coast of the US. - so on quite a different frequency)
- Simon Edhouse
Apology accepted, now we can move on. Thanks!
- Robert Scoble
Ok... The trigger for this discussion was Dave's clarion call: ""we, the users, need to own a technology company -- and have it work to serve our interests..." ~ Its a meme that obviously resonates with many. There's been a shift to user-control, and libertarianism rolling forward for years on the web... and the implied friction-point (which is very real) is the tension between the Web...
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- Simon Edhouse
Simon / Robert: Glad you guys made up :-) ... Simon, I am interested in your points of view and think there is a lot of merit to the visioning process with great leadership. I think Robert is one of the best evangelists for technology there is and letting the Scobleizer do what he does best has a time and place and I think Robert knows this and I'm sure he can move forward once there is...
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- Jason Cronkhite
Forgive me if I don't understand, but isn't the purpose of a company to make profits? Why not create a foundation akin to Mozilla or Apache instead? The closest service-oriented foundations I can think of are Wikipedia and Archive.org. It becomes interesting to me if we're talking about a services-oriented organization that provides end-user services built on top of existing and future...
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- Ankush Narula
from iPhone
Ankush, I think the differentiation is that users contribution to these companies are not being rewarded. Why can the users as well as founders not be rewarded when they are essentially building the value of the company together. Companies cannot become valuable without customers so, they need each other and if users/customer bring up the valuation of the company why not have the...
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- Jason Cronkhite
But what's the end goal? Rewards or integrity? You have to find a balance in any for-profit venture. However, non-profits are driven largely by vision and integrity (ideally speaking). So let me ask some more questions. If you're laying down your money as a user+investor, won't your interests change from time to time? If you actually take a company like this public who controls the...
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- Ankush Narula
Brian... Wikipedia is a pretty good example of a company that operates for its users and is almost totally dependent on its users. However, it has no real business model, but retains a hugely valid place in most of our lives. - There is however an answer to the current dilemma/stalemate that folks here have been yearning for, and it is perfect and simple. In a nut-shell I would call it:...
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- Simon Edhouse
...and now its 4.00am down under, and I have to hit the sack... G'night fellow travellers.
- Simon Edhouse
Simon... if we're talking alternatives to client-server the only one that I can think of is true distributed peer-to-peer. So perhaps a collective of such companies working together under an umbrella would be very effective since we would see many various incarnations of user+investor style companies. Interesting...
- Ankush Narula
My only concern there, and its a well researched concern, is about secuity of the core protocol. there's a huge amount that can be 'open' on top, but the base transport protocol, sitting on TCP/IP needs to be super-tight, and solid. best kept as a trade secret, inside an ultimately publicy owned Company, that has rules to prevent corporations ever owning more than 10% of the stock. If...
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- Simon Edhouse
Update, I contacted Charles Armstrong, CEO of Trampoline last night and he's interested to join and learn more about this. He may be popping in soon.
- Jason Cronkhite
Dave ---- If I may comment about your original post sorry!), I found the post pretty inspiring. I advise on social media for an agency (no flames, please) and one of the things I talk about is "sensible" and "realistic" ROI. What I mean is very clear: we're not going to use bullshit metrics like "awareness" or "impressions" to measure whether or not our work had an effect on the brand....
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- Michael E. Rubin
Ankush... had a quick look, but immediately I see a big discord with what I've been thinking/planning. i.e. "You can upload any file of any size"... that is a continuation of the situation that has got P2P systems into so much trouble, and stigmatized the technolgy. Its great in one sense, but it invites Piracy, copyright theft etc etc. P2P is THE logical system for the internet, (its...
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- Simon Edhouse
Public shell looks like a good alternative, is it too early to bring VRM ideas to the promised land scenario?
- Alberto Saavedra
gee, don't get me started on VRM... nice philosophy, but very naive. (uh oh, 4.24am... damn) Bye...
- Simon Edhouse
The users owning it - it's the Open Source model!
- Marcos Marado
from fftogo
Update after hearing back from a finance friend and reading some more on public shells, they have an history of association of use by folks who abuse the system and they are hidden liabilities (I'm still in the dark on those liabilities).
- Mark Essel
We touched on 'GOOG' & 'Business Models' yesterday... my observation about the prevailing status quo paradigm for web-advertising is summarised here: http://friendfeed.com/simoned...
- Simon Edhouse
hmmm... ok, if the concept of "Web Advertising" elicits such a nonplussed reaction, reflect on this: Contacts between vendor and buyer, and the drawing of these two parties together via promotion or request, is the basic process that 'Advertising' tries to achieve. However, as Danah Boyd highlighted in her December 2007 blog piece, (Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?),...
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- Simon Edhouse
Wow, I *really* like this idea. So outside the box. I hope this gets explored more seriously down the line...
- Carter Rabasa
My guess is that you closed the comments to not have to dive straight into a discussion of open source vs a People's Software Company.
- DGentry
I love the idea, but there are some built in problems. When 'the community' contributes, who judges the value of anothers contributions to a project? Perhaps some of the ethos that went into the recent Netflix Challenge could be incorporated: reward comes to those who actually accomplish a subjective goal; not to those who spend the most time. Great discussion starter, however. (Also,...
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- Rex Hammock
Rex, you're making it too complicated. Employees are compensated the usual ways, with salaries, benefits and stock options. Management decides what to pay them. The board of directors does what boards always do. But here's the difference: 1. It's a public company. 2. No funny business as with Google's equity. The public shares have full voting rights. Further the public owns a...
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- Dave Winer
I turned off the comments because I wanted the discussion to take place on blogs.
- Dave Winer
We've been acquired by Facebook! We are really excited about joining the Facebook team. (Note: FriendFeed will continue to operate - see the blog post for details)
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
I am hoping this will lead to nice integration for cross posting! Currently using Twitter App on FB to post and I hate those ff.im links that end up on Facebook.
- Ivan Zlatev
it was good while it lasted, Friendfeed. :(
- holly
"FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team." Those are NOT encouraging things to read as a FF user.
- Scott of Two Countries
Sniff... not sure if I'm excited about this. But I have enormous respect for the FriendFeed team... so, I assume they believe in the move as more than an exit strategy.
- Michael Leggett
@#$& that's all I have to say. For now.
- Zachary TG
Facebook should have been aquired by Friendfeed. Why they hell would you give up your better product to a worse one? Did none of you give a shit about this service to begin wiht?
- Matthew DeVries
Coolest web 2.0 site I've ever seen & used. I hope things don't derail. Ads will be coming soon, which is fine, but.... then what 's next? Please no quizzes!
- Ben Hanten
Who would have thought that after Facebook were shamelessly being "inspired" by FriendFeed, the inevitable would have happened?
- Tyson Key
I'm pissed off. I wan to throw away the whole Internet :
- DarkBls
Hey guys, keep in mind that Facebook is blocked in workplaces across the nation. 250 million casual users commenting about last night's party does not intelligent conversation make.
- Hector
I really can't see how FB would buy FF only to shut it down. There are way too many innovations and features FF has that FB honestly needs. I'm looking forward.
- Harry Wolff
Oh, this does not make me happy. Not at all! I've stayed off of Facebook intentionally and FriendFeed is my favorite social network. This is like when the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. :>(
- Larry Hawes
i have stopped using FB for the most part and liked FF alot more. now FF will go the way of FB. screwed again.
- Joe Silence is not dead
Congratulations. Enjoy the new challenges of acquisition, and I'm looking forward to the result!
- Wade Dorrell
Berge Gazen beat your score in Mafia Wars
- Berge Gazen
Enjoy your fat paychecks, guys. You've sold us out.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Bravo Bret! Been following your successes ever since we had the opportunity to work together on the YellowPages.ca / Google Maps Canada deal. Congrats!
- Sebastien
I wished it was Google or even Yahoo!, instead...
- Tyson Key
i really hope ff stays as it is. fb is kinder carder while ff is a great tool.
- jkkmobile
Not sure what to make of this. It could eiter be a big win or a huge fail.
- dorn
It could have been Microsoft, which would have been worse for everyone. :(
- Tyson Key
Can I take this opportunity to say I HATE facebook?
- Alex Scrivener
seems the only ppl happy here are the ones in the biz or who stand to profit from the merger.
- Joe Silence is not dead
I guess we should get ready to get poked by our supposed friends and have various shit thrown at us? Plus 5,000 requests by apps that nearly all suck.
- Joey Gibson
There is zero way this could have been a win for anyone, but the now rich founders.
- Matthew DeVries
If I have to go to FB to use FF then it's a lost cause
- Randy Pollock
Painful. And apparently I completely misunderstood what FF was trying to accomplish both technically and as an organization. I guess Facebook must have dangled a pretty big bag of money in front of them.
- Ken Sheppardson
FriendFeed is Dead! Long Live FriendFeed! :/
- Tyson Key
I will reserve judgement, i don't like or use FB but if FF maintains it's current goodness i don't care who cuts the checks.
- Steve C
I hope this doesn't turn into an APP filled hunk of crap. I love FriendFeed, it was the untouched gem of microblogging. I don't want Mafia Wars invited in my FriendFeed!!! Congrats on the sale though.
- Jay Farmington
@Philipp: until the new masters start flexing their muscles and bringing in their own people to enforce their own vision.
- Joe Silence is not dead
I read the blog post and one statement stands out to me "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being." The time being. This is not just bad, I think it may be #FAIL
- berchman
Facebook obviously liked FriendFeed a long time ago. Why would they have copied so many features (feed item comments and the "Like" action, to name a couple) otherwise? It was only logical for this to happen eventually. Doesn't mean I like it, but acquisition is part of the game. I have the same feeling I did when SocialThing! was acquired by AOL, though.
- Voyagerfan5761
"Relationship Status: It's complicated" comes to mind. ;)
- Tyson Key
Wow, I finally sign up, and read this. This could end up being a very bad thing for FF fans: "Your FriendFeed friend just signed up on this poll, would you like to too?"
- Brian Bommarito
Congrats guys. And thanks for your continuos effort in helping promote and integrate web services, like mine, Wakoopa. That's awesome and I hope FB gets better because of it.
- Robert Gaal
This will give FriedFeed the attention it deserves. Otherwise it would have been a geek thing forever.
- Michael Netsch
Will there be a super poke feature launched tomorrow?
- Matthew DeVries
aw, this sux!! Congrats to the Friendfeed team though!
- acedanger
Does this mean that we'll be seeing an influx of webcam spammers, a la Twitter? Along with abolishment of the rooms feature, crappification of the search feature, and more "privacy features" that really just put more nails in the openness coffin?
- Tyson Key
Some people will do whatever their friends request........
- Michael Muller
I really don't see why people would be anything but excited about this Facebook freindfeed deal. Great news as far as I am concerned. The Friend feed team is going to go over facebook and make it that much easier to connect, share... isn't that what the social web is about?
- Kevin Murray
I know a lot of people who use Facebook and enjoy it and that's fair enough. It's just not my cup of tea. The chaps from Friendfeed will get rich and the technology will get absorbed in Facebook but I can't see Friendfeed continuing in anything like it's present form.
- Paul Nash
Don't be so negative, something good might eventually come of this...
- Tarmo Aidantausta
Congrats! I know you all must be crazy excited right now.
- Michele Lorito-Chase
chance for FriendFeed to become more mainstream... congrats FriendFeed team!
- Jeroen De Miranda
Nothing could make me happier than if they integrated the good tools from FriendFeed into Facebook, which is where all my friends are. So a big "yay!" from me.
- Ian Betteridge
happy for you guys, but not for all of us
- Flavio
congratulations. this is going to be interesting.
- Dave Beckett
I think I preferred the non-mainstream version of FriendFeed...
- Tyson Key
I'm turning on my black shirt, my black trouser, my black socks, my black shoes. Although I probably must be happy for you.
- Ton Zijp
NASTY NASTY BAD BAD. But we'll see...
- Daniel Morgan
Given that the FriendFeed team has never been anything but awesome & respectful of its community, I think it's unfair for people to assume that the Facebook acquisition is going to change that.
- Jess Lee
Why in god's name are we flying over this shark?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
- Matthew DeVries
Facebook is like a giant who listens to nobody. Please keep your attitude but I don't think you will be able to do so.
- Burak "cyrus" Bayburtlu
I don't know, Like it? or dislike it?
- Ömer Balamir
What happens to all the content that we've created and imported here, and the associated metadata? Will all that disappear into the ether?
- Tyson Key
If the FriendFeed guys can make FaceBook useful and responsive again, this seems like a pretty positive step!
- Robin Barooah
Robin, the Facebook users don't want that I'm afraid.
- Rutger Blom
I have big loss of data concerns. See http://ff.im/6pHjo Is there any way to archive all my FriendFeed posts, likes, comments, and pictures (friendfeed-media.com) off-line? Can some Archive.org-like snapshots of FriendFeed be made (Once a month starting Sept 2009)? I'd like to see the cross-links between my posts & other people's posts, even in 2020. -
- Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell: the FriendFeed site is not shutting down. Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users.
- Bret Taylor
I just overheard a coworker mention FriendFeed. This is how the world ends...
- CannonGod
kafa sayımı yapıp köyü satan ağalar geldi aklıma
- Alper Ömer Esin
Then provide us with a way to easily make a back-up of all of our posts and all of the posts we have Liked and Commented on.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Same question as Mitchel Tsai. How do I export my data? I don't want it to be handed off to Facebook.
- Zio Bonino
I don't see good things coming from this. Although I like Facebook, I liked Friendfeed more. Partly because of the environment and the smallness of it. That is now going to be ruined. So, 10-1 odds that Friendfeed will be no more within a year after it gets intergrated into Facebook?
- Mathew™ one of a kind
I doubt it Robin. Bret can only give us assurances about the "near future." Here's what I think will happen. Just like Twitter acquired Rael Dornfest and his awesome web services, Stikkit and I Want Sandy vanished (and so did he), Facebook will acquire all the talent from Friendfeed, shut this service down and Facebook will continue to suck.
- Jim Hearts FF
Same question as Mitchel Tsai. How do I export my data? I don't want anything to be handed off to Facebook. And I don't want to lose anything.
- Zio Bonino
Congrats obviously, but im not sure about the feeling,, different user groups which can not integrate but collide.. hope there wont be an huge integration in the future.
- Yunus Tunak
I'm happy for FriendFeed! But, at the same time a bit worried about the future. Hope you guys convince FB to not be evil too.
- Vishal Verma
I can't believe it! damn! facebook tos will apply to friendfeed too? should i start to move to another service? why anyone would think that facebook public is friendfeed public?! damn! friedfeed was my favorite! I can't understand this move! they want to kill friendfeed or what?
- paula simoes ☃
"I bet I can find 1.000.0000 people who dislike this deal."...Welcome to FriendBook.
- Jacque
Well, huge congraulations to you and your team, you deserve every success. To be honest I had presumed this would happen sooner or later - the only business model cool little startups have is to hope they get bought by someone bigger for their brains and technology. I'm going to be in San Francisco in a couple of weeks and was going to stop by your office to bring you a cake and thank you for a great product - maybe I still will if you're still there and there's still a FriendFeed!
- Alex Lomas
The FF founders must have know this would be a very unpopular move. Most users I know here are not too fond of FB.
- Rutger Blom
"Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users" There's a bit of a contradiction in your statement, Bret. Nice try though.
- jcunwired
Now I can break my Internet plan at home.
- DarkBls
Grats Bret and the rest of FF. To all the naysayers... Lets see what happens before we start bitching....
- Rasmus Lauridsen
This ties in nicely with the fact that you soon will have the opportunity to make your Facebook profiles public and get followers there.
- Michael Netsch
I don't mean to be negative but there's got to be a win-win logic to each merger&acquisiton. Audience high in only quantity is clearly not a win for friendfeed in the long term by considering its unique selling points. Let's wait and see who will benefit from friendfeed's death now.
- ayca
It's all about the money. I would have payed a couple of dollars each month to use FF.
- Rutger Blom
Seriously, what is this? It's like Bret just announced that he's killed all your mothers or something. It could turn out good, it could turn out bad, but at the end of the day, who cares, it's just a website (I mean honestly, come on). I could see it going either way, but in the near term, this is a pretty big win for the FF team, so congrats guys.
- Chieze Okoye
To be honest, my heart sank a little but I am happy to congratulate you and the team for building such a good brand. Well done.
- Kevin J Hatton
I'm just surprised, that's all. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (it certainly isn't for the owners of FF). I'm willing to sit back and see what happens.
- Jason Huebel
Wow, I specifically use friendfeed b/c it is not facebook. Sounds great for the friendfeed team, but not necessarily for friendfeed users.
- Evan Parker
Born to be sold, like in the old "new economy" era. Remember the late nineties?
- Federico Bolsoman
Sudden desire to check out Strands again... but hey, kudos on the incoming $$ for FF team
- Leslie Poston
This is wisdom. Bracing for Google Wave is a good idea.............
- Kevin J Hatton
this is clearly a talent aquisition... why am i not excited about this? could it be because facebook has been blatantly stealing features from friendfeed shamelessly. Likes were clearly not an original facebook idea...realtime feeds is another i could go on...
- Tate DA FF MVP
While I'm sad, because I suspect this means the best things about FF will disappear or I'll be forced to use FB in some way, if the buyout was for some awesome amount of money, I can't say I blame 'em for taking an offer -- I would.
- Andy Bakun
I came to FriendFeed because I don't like facebook. Now the question is, will facebook become more like friend feed? or will they just take friend feed and turn it into facebook?
- Tom Ray
FF could be a good R&D arm for facebook.
- Andy Bakun
My biggest concern here is that FB has a completely different audience than FF.
- Rutger Blom
Fucking morons. FriendFeed is doomed now. Think logically. Facebook has NO REASON to keep FriendFeed alive. It will simply take FF's best features, suck the life of out of it, then trash FF. Way to go, FirnedFeed, damn.
- Jeremy Buff
This announcement should have been held off until the plans for Friendfeed were known. Regardless, this is *bad* for FF users. Best case: it continues on, but with stagnated feature development. Worst case: it's gone.
- tollie williams
I don't want my FF feed on Facebook :( I use both, but maintain both profiles separate
- Leandro Ardissone ⍨
Sigh... Happy for the team if this is what they want, but baffled by the move. The users that are going to leave because of this will make FF a graveyard and the users it gains, well... Hello spam? Sorry, but I don't like it.
- Vince DeGeorge
from iPhone
Well, I guess it is time to dismantle my friendfeed. We all know where this is headed. So, so glad I didn't move all my rss feeds from greader to friendfeed like so many cheerleaders suggested.
- Matthew Speicher
Dang, and just as I was starting to get used to how FF works. FF is useful on it's own. I hope this only improves FF's system, rather than having it disappear into Facebook's wake.
- Don Faulkner
My big question to everybody here is this: What are the potential downsides / upsides to this acquisition? I mean on paper I just don't see what the pros OR cons are. I don't care for Facebook but I don't see how them acquiring FF is going to change everything.
- Nicholas Kreidberg
furthermore they are 2 different things: I follow a lot of people here that are not in my facebook list, which is for IRL friends!
- Flavio
I don't know where to go next either. I had just settled down to make imaginary friends for all my non-FF tweeps, etc. now, I'm not sure if I should bother.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
I hope friendfeed continues to operate normally but it does not look good.
- ashish
integrate best features of ff to fb, then try to innovate in fb if possible, then kill ff... that's it, cheers, all the best. grrrr...
- Kemal
niczak has good points. FF & FB aren't exactly competitors, but they aren't orthogonal either. Let's hope FB's smart enough to see the difference and improve both platforms.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Nicholas: The upside for Facebook is they just bought an engineering team that's built many of the feature's Facebook's going to need to stay competitive. The upside for FriendFeed's engineering team is $$$ and the ability to build system for a wider audience. FriendFeed's user base is small enough that it'll either get absorbed into Facebook or move on, and FF will become a footnote on the Internet timeline.
- Ken Sheppardson
Don, I don't think FB wants to maintain two platforms.
- Rutger Blom
first tr.im (heard about it yesterday), now this. I wasn't a heavy tr.im user (yet), but sad to see it go, even if I think url shortening is silly.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
As FB said they're interested in the people and not in the site, what if the community will keep running FF without its current staff?
- Flavio
I'll have to go with Flavio's position too. Given this news (plus tr.im and who knows who's next), I'd tend to favor community supported or federated services for things like this in the future.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
I am purposely not on facebook because I don't really want to talk to people I have not talked to in 20 years.
- Andy Bakun
Once again. I'm happy for the FF team. They worked hard and now collect. That's fair. Wonder if they're sitting in a bubble pool drinking champagne while we cry out here ;-)
- Rutger Blom
trouble is (from my perspective), that the philosophies of the two platforms are at odds. FB wants to bring people to the site and keep them there, while FF is a hub, bringing people in and then sending them back out. (That's part of why it's hard for the newcomer to understand, IMHO.)
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Quote «Taylor and Cox say that the Friendfeed product will live on independently, and eventually Friendfeed will be merged into Facebook. But the Friendfeed team is not being kept whole. Some employees will now report to Cox, others to engineering head Mike Schroepfer. In my opinion that means, long term, the Friendfeed product itself is unlikely to be a big priority.¶ But Facebook is...
more...
- Philipp Lenssen
+1 Kol for the techcrunch article!
- Don Faulkner
from IM
techcrunch: "Cox agreed, noting that Facebook is focused on being a platform and a service, and not just a destination site." I certainly hope so!
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Brilliant move by both Facebook and friendfeed. Congratulations!!! I have theories of what they have planned, but I doubt you would verify any of them. This is going to go so well with their SocialTV which they have been developing. I'm so happy for you!
- Michael Fidler
I don't see what's so bad about it since no one knows right now what the outcome will be, everyone is just making assumptions that could possibly be wrong..... Might help just sitting back and seeing what happens first before complaining.
- ChaCha Fance
Nooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrghh! I´ve resisted getting a facebook acct for so long...
- Thomas Bøhm
ChaCha, if everybody would do that there would not be much discussion would there? This is part of the fun.
- Rutger Blom
I wonder how the discussion over on facebook would compare to this?
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Don, I doubt there is any discussion going on there. They're too busy throwing quizes at each other.
- Rutger Blom
Congrats, FF! I'm approaching the situation with cautious optimism. A lot of my friends only share stuff via the Facebook wall/feed, so if Facebook is able to make their feed more like the FF feed (i.e. good, instead of sucktacular) through this acquisition, it's mostly a win for me in the end.
- Brian Chang
At least my Feedburner stats might go back to normal again.
- Rutger Blom
/me pokes Rutger. (just getting in practice. ;)
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Where will we go for the FFunderCats, bacon memes, and angry artists fighting over photo reshares now? ;)
- Tyson Key
If anybody has doubts as to what happens to the FriendFeed community or our stored information here, read this statement from Bret (in this thread) "Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users". Now maybe you can see "whats so bad about it" and curb your optimism. Not good.
- jcunwired
Congrats FF. Fix their live feed situation please.
- Edward Barnieh
@josh: do you think FB will throw away all the crap people use? various quiz, pick 5 and so on?
- Flavio
@jc: our data will not go away in the near future. what will be in few months? in a year?
- Flavio
Let's see if you can do a bit better than just not being evil this time around.
- Tim Tyler
Wooohooo!!, seems like we are being sent back to "good" old Facebook. Congrats Bret!!
- DanDan
Looks like I'm going to repeat the same thing many others did. My first reaction was "Oh my..." I have refused to join Facebook due to its philosophy while I have been with FriendFeed from the beginning for its. I'm sad and somewhat apprehensive.
- Sean Leather
Congrats. I suppose this means the end of FriendFeed but hopefully a better Facebook.
- Harry Toon
Please say that facebook.com will be shutting down, and the combined company will still be called FriendFeed... I bet it won't happen, though.
- Tyson Key
"Regarding FB/FF - Here's how it's [probably] going to work. You will most likely have an account merge, all of the services FriendFeed supports will now be aggregated on Facebook, and all of your FriendFeed friends will be in a "list" on Facebook. The FF Groups will become Facebook Groups. The FF lists will become Facebook Lists." http://ff.im/6pNxq
- Ozgur Uckan
Nothing like an early retirement payout :)
- Owen Greaves
Panic attack. Congratulations, however! :)
- Cozy geta
Congratulations Bret. For me this merger makes a lot of sense. Facebook will provide the "quantity" of users, which friendfeed deserves :).
- Karthick R
FriendFeed + Facebook... Oh noes FriendFace is coming (http://www.youtube.com/watch...)! Now sorry for that link, and seriously, thanks for your work, guys. Please don't let the spirit of FriendFeed to be blown away =)
- Anton
hey, that is great guys! interested to see how you integrate.
- Brian Walsh
Mind blown. Never expected this. I'm also disappointed, yet optimistic at the same time.
- Angus Burton
Kinda curious to see how this will all pan out...although i wouldnt want the friendfeed stuff just integrated into facebook. I feel like im among a group of people who i genuinely share interests with here...dont want to lost that.
- Cassidy
Best case: Facebook will continue to support and develop FriendFeed. Worst case: this is great news for Amplifeeder.
- David Gaw
FAIL. Facebook is the new myspace, and now friendfeed will become a part of that BS. Can't say I'm too surprised because eventually we all sell out. BTW I don't see friendfeed lasting more than the rest of this year, if that. The good news is that we can all be subjected to add 'Are you related to a monkey?' and Blackjack apps while having annoying personal ads on our profile pages. Fuck this shit.
- Tomy Thomson
Well done, well deserved, I hope FB's means and infrastructures empower your guys to even better things. But if quizzes appear in "my" friendfeed, evil things will haunt you and your descendents for 3 generations.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
♪ ♪ This is the end.... beautiful friends ♪ ♪
- All for design
Well, I don't see the point of sticking around here if I have accounts in both and this is going to get swallowed whole into Facebook anyways. Put simply, goodbye.
- Micah Collard
The social community that has been behind FriendFeed creators have built a wonderful product. Only problem is, we don't have Zuck's checkbook :(
- jcunwired
friendfeed is a beautiful product, only god knows what facebrook will do to it. Hopefully the ability to upload files (such as mp3s) will not be removed. Zuck is a tool.
- Nibi
Congratulations. I'm sorry to say that I don't plan to move with you.
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Facebook is lucky to have such a talented group of people ... Congratulations FriendFeed!
- Rob Kurrus
doesn't look like a bad joke, better be for the good then, but... Well congrats anyway guys, you did something AWESOME now let's see where Mark takes it
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
That's too bad. Liked the openness if FriendFeed, and the lack crap that is on Facebook. Once FriendFeed dies, it will be Twitter only.
- Mike D.
Congrats, but concerned that FriendFeed and its tools may disappear. Merging the tools with Facebook seems impossible.
- Mike Reynolds
So, what does the acquisition of FriendFeed by Facebook mean to us, users of both websites: Can I make a friend request from FriendFeed, and be approved for both, on one click
- Reyna Carlos
Exciting news guys. I am actually looking forward to your collaboration with / work for FB. No matter what people may or may not like about FB, it does succeed in reaching a more "diverse" audience compared to most other Web 2.0/social web companies. Paired with your team's excellence in realizing features that succeed in pleasing the geekiest of Web 2.0 affine individuals, I think you are steering towards exciting waters :)
- Mustafa K. Isik
*heart sinks* actually a bit of shock - I think that Facebook will leave Friendfeed as-is but I don't think there is hope for future innovation in Friendfeed since their best superstar team members will be pulled onto 'more important' Facebook issues...
- Pon
And the metastasizing, walled-garden that is Facebook, continues to eat the Web. Bring on Google Wave.
- Christopher A Carr
:-) + :-( very happy for the team, huge achievement, hoping to see export of innovation but not a shut down of this unique community and location
- Majento
There goes FriendFeed down the toilet. well I WAS having a good day. until hearing this crap!
- Scratch5150
Congratulations, and best wishes for your future together! :-)
- Ruchira S. Datta
Wow, I was beginning to use Friendfeed as my defacto social site...Facebook is more for real life friends. They'll just take what makes Friendfeed great, add it to Facebook and slowly kill this site.
- Manuel Mas
What is the big deal? I think it'll make FF bigger and better. You should be happy about that!
- orionstarr
I am disappointed. I don't want to have to go to Facebook to do what i do here. I can not imagine they will port over all the features we enjoy here. We lose a lot for only a slight benefit to Facebook.
- Robert
It could be worse, myspace could've bought them lol...
- orionstarr
Awful news for users but congratulations to you guys. Ideally, FB will run FF as a distinct service but I'm not hopeful. I don't want the diversity and noise that facebook brings - people doing quizzes on which movie star they resemble and playing silly games. I also wanted to keep my day to day social activity distinct from the targeted information and discussion I use FF for.
- Rajit
Only just started taking a serious look at FF after hearing acquisition by FB. Sounds like I'm laggard rather than a leader in use of web 2.0
- ManojRanaweera
I think how Pon said it is what I'm feeling: *heart sinks*.
- Andy Bakun
Congratulations, i am really happy for you guys!! :)
- Mona Nomura
I'm not a Facebook fan, but can't begrudge the FF gang their chance to reap the rewards for all their hard work. However, it would be a shame if FB ruins the good thing we all have going here.
- Ken Morley
So what now? a name change too? FriendFace? FeedBook? FaceFeed? god Facebook really sucks. oh well. Adds anyone?
- Scratch5150
Congrats to the FF team... I hope the service doesn't disappear into a fold of light and heat.
- Brandon
if all the things that make FF great are brought to FB then I'll be happy to use it
- Mike Chelen
The community won't be there. Been on FB longer than any other, don't have nearly the relationship or sense of community there that I do here or on Twitter.
- Karoli
Karoli: that is due to the effectiveness of the FF platform and interface, which help to join conversations and find interesting people more so than FB does
- Mike Chelen
Mike: I suspect that FB wants FF for the search possibilities, not the community-building aspects. But we'll see.
- Karoli
i guess congrats are in order, but I'm going to now go and remove everything I have that feeds into FF, and I have to ask -- do I have any rights over my archive? I have a private feed, and I have no interest in offering up my lifestream to the FaceBook data-miners. I hope the FF folks get what they hope for out of the deal, but my FriendFeed experience has been effectively killed.
- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
I just learned about the FF acquisition by Facebook - WOW~! Congratulations Bret, Paul and FF team!! holy cow ........Mooooooooo! Where's the FF Acquisition Party? :)
- Susan Beebe
RT @alirizaesin FriendFeed, R.I.P. Home tweet home!..
- Ozgur Uckan
Congrats to facebook. Now, Twitter is the best.
- Ebru Baranseli
Congratulations to the FriendFeed guys on the Facebook Acquisition. Not a big fan of Facebook, so I hope my favorite Uber Aggregator, Realtime Social, Microblogging site of awesomeness is not entirely absorbed into the Facebook infrastructure. I wait with baited breath to hear what "normally for the time being" means ;).
- Tom Horn
Can I now have comments propagate in both directions as far as Facebook/Friendfeed is concerned?
- Piaw Na
*checks date*. Damn .. not April 1st, must be for real. While I'm happy for the FF team, since I guess this is what they wanted (congrats guys!), I can't help but think this is the beginning of the end for a great service and a vibrant community. There are reasons I don't spend any time on Facebook and do spend lots of time on FF, and some kind of "FF integrated into Facebook" just won't cut it. I hope this service will live on for at least a few more years.
- Andrew Perry
Gratz to the FF team but as a user I'm not completely happy. In short, I like the FF team/product much more than I like the FB team/product. Best of luck to all.
- timepilot
Dang! I've killed another site! Sorry guys... FF was doing fine until I started coming here again! Same with Pownce! Went there and liked it... went underground for a spell... came back and still liked it, so I stayed. A few months later... BOOM! I have the touch! (I'm thinking I'll start devoting a lot of time to Twitter... maybe I can kill that one, too!)
- Mark Jepsen
Bret, congrats on the acquisition. You guys put in a lot of hard work to create this community. I just hope you learned the mistakes Pownce made, Jaiku etc, and ensured that you didn't sell out your community, but that you helped it evolve into something as great as this into something better. Good luck in future endeavors!
- Mike Lewis
Oh yeah? Ok: take tour money and go to the hell. :-(((
- Claude LaFrenière
Yay for you guys, I mean that seriously, I 'like' what this means for you personally, but -1000000 cool points for doing it with FB. Sad day.
- Threepwood
Karoli: FF search is so useful because it is integrated with all the other great features that help to find relevant content. if FB wants to have a similar capability, they must also develop the underlying architecture.
- Mike Chelen
from IM
shakeel, the reasons for friendfeed to join facebook are probably about other things besides money, since many of the FF staff left high-paying jobs to join in the first place
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Well I've thought about it, and I'll stick around until I start seeing that crappy Facebook logo, I only have 71 subscribers here, I hate to do it but I'll probably scrap the whole thing and start over somewhere else. still can't believe that shit.
- Scratch5150
Congrats, team! It's bittersweet, though.
- Anne Bouey
So now we will have FriendFeed blocked at work too. Darn.
- Mark Scrimshire
"Your data will not go away any time in the near term future" is not exactly inspiring for the long term for those of us who came here to escape Facebook for a) it's walled garden and b) privacy concerns. Nice for the Founders to make a pile of cash but for the many of us, it feels like we got sold down the river. Sad.
- Sally Church
cacarr: updates for FB have progressed rapidly in the past, count how many months since new features such as api calls and site redesigns have have been implemented
- Mike Chelen
from IM
I can't believe it either. I feel as if — for the moment — I am lost in the wilderness, adrift.
- roamin
Congratulation to the FF team! You guys deserves this. I just hope that Facebook does not change the directions of FF.
- Vinko
Congrats Bret! Hope the transition goes smoothly for you guys.
- Cristo
I hope this means better integration: liking here will auto-like on fb and such :D if that's the case, I won't mind the ads *wink* *wink*
- 'Like' robot (frɐnc)
Franc, cant stand facebook ads in their current format, hope they will be fixed eventually :P
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Grats, dont spend it all in one place.....
- Robert Higgins
congrads. I think it will be good for BOTH companies.
- Logan Lindquist
Now that you guys have $$$ you should swap out the not so very pleasing default avatar!
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
Hope you guys enjoy your new jobs. Meanwhile we get to watch a great alternative to Facebook with a promising future go down the tubes. A really sad and unfortunate day.
- Todd Holmes
Congratulations to all the FriendFeed team. I hope you'll be able to keep the FriendFeed spirit up at Facebook. Kudos for all the great work you've been doing.
- Paul Papadimitriou
FUCK. The internet just lost a good service. Friendfeed is dead
- Ryo / Fuck Facebook
I use FriendFeed and Facebook so it would be awesome to see FF features in Facebook. Congratulations!
- krzychukula
from IM
judging by the nearly 600 comments as i type this, including my own earlier one, FF could use a Don't Like button as well. or would, if we were going to be using it much longer.
- kelly
Nice, i like to wish you all the best for your new job (and it's really hard, i know). I'm happy, but... don't let die FF!!
- Seo (ignobile) Guru
Hope FriendFeed remains open. Love the spirit of FF
- Bernaldo Barrena
Seriously, what a coincidence! Just on Saturday I claimed to be both twitter- and facebook-free. I loved FF product and personally helped to bring at least a dozen of my friends into the community. I'll stick around for a while though.
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
This deal makes sense, now fb developers do not need to figure out how ff does it because they can just ask! Congrats facebook and ff!
- Garin Kilpatrick
I suppose Facebook had to do it, with Twitter and Google Wave as competitor...
- Alexander Kruel
I am noticing a lot of people going to re-esumate their lifestream.fm account now!
- Flavio
I don't think FB acquiring FF is bad. But I don't think it's good either. We'll see. :-) In the meantime, keep up the good work!
- Alexander Gieg
Oh shit. Love FF, hate FB. I'll NEVER, EVER merge my two accounts. I'd rather unsub from both than merging. I'll wait for the developments, and in the meantime look for an alternative.
- Alliandre (la Ippe)
How long until ex-FriendFeed employees start jumping ship from Facebook? I wonder...
- Tyson Key
Thomas Power still believes that Facebook/FF/Linkedin (2010) will be acquired by Apple (2011) and this is a transitional acquisition in the SN market cycle. The world is shifting to Mac, iTunes, iPhones and FB own the next generation. Apple have $29bn of cash on deposit price is not an issue. Google must jump for twitter while MS fiddle in the sticks with Yahoo. BillG will be back at the MS helm 2012.
- Penny Power
:( Happy for FF people, sad for the service. Was going to move from fb to ff this week..
- Martynas
Flavio: never heard of lifestream.fm before, but I'm going to go check it out. I'll reiterate, though, that I'm now shy of any service like this, since it can disappear just as it's getting good. I heard about sweetcron.com last night (via http://ff.im/6pR2w). Maybe it's time to move from centralized to distributed again.
- Don Faulkner
Just finished setting up my lifestream.fm at http://lifestream.fm/dfaulkner. Lifestream does what it says, and no more. FF's search blows lifestream away. FF is more flexible about adding source feeds, but lifestream does fine without the flexibility I suppose. FF still wins, or would, if I thought it would be sticking around. :P
- Don Faulkner
I also hate facebook, not because of their silly quizzes and pokes, but because I suspect they would like to maintain massive user base as the determining factor in choosing a social network. I would love to switch to orkut as I use so many other google services, but I can't because nobody else does. That should not be my criteria.... I thought friendfeed would try to make social networks work together.
- Ru Viljoen
I don't understand why everyone is so negative about the situation?
- orionstarr
@orionstarr - it's like Starbucks buying your neighborhood coffee shop and saying it still cares about the customers. You know it's just not going to be the same as what you've come to love.
- Robin Barooah
Presumably FF will go on the back burner - and the team will try and "fix" Facebook.
- Tim Tyler
I've watched Facebook morph from a relatively organised and well implemented social networking tool into the hulking mess it is now - and I really, really hope that a similar thing doesn't happen here with the inevitable changes this will bring about.
- Leslie Moore
Come on guys, out with the long-term game plan, this is tedious.
- Andrew Eglinton
NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I mean Cool.
- sofarsoShawn
Teach Facebook how to be FriendFeed. Let the small but fast teach the big but slow. Don't forget what Paul says - don’t be evil.
- whatidiscover
so, so sad. I like(d) Friendfeed much more than facebook
- Francisco Kemeny
home run for FF.. Facebook will be able to give developers a treasure trove of data one thing that Twitter is dominating on right now. Twitter has a huge developer community but isn't managing that. Here FB is poised to be huge
- John Furrier
So classic that Robert has the first interview about this...Where's Louis? :)
- Anthony Farrior
How do they plan to mix the teenagers with the geeks?
- Jordi Soler
Amani: I am excited! Facebook has 800 employees and 300 million users. This makes both companies much more important.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
here was a comment on SiliconANGLE blog .. very funny .. "Hey, since we've copied almost every innovation you've had, guess you might as well play on the company softball team!"
- John Furrier
Nice strategic move - Interesting to see how this will integrate and looks in 12 months
- Alex Vermeule (@alexve)
to be honnest I was predicting google offer, then facebook preceed google on this, they are doing well, now rarding FF this is great, the sucess is to know when to pass to something else, the future will make the abtle wave, facebook rude for all geek it is time to code.
- abdellah
You rascal Robert, bet you had wind about FriendFeed and FaceBook merger before today? Yes? Have not used either SM apps. much UNTIL Twitter locked my account. May have been a fortunate mishap as it turns out. Getting to know the beauties of both apps. =)
- SashaKane
do you have a small amount of FriendFeed shares Robert?
- Torsten Eckert
NOOOOOOO. Damnit! I am praying that Facebook doesn't wall up Friendfeed. I was starting to build a site around Friendfeed :(
- beersage
beersage: as Facebook is trying to break their users into a more public world, I doubt that you really have anything to worry about there.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Starting to listen to this now. Hoping you are right, Rob.
- beersage
I hope so to. But regardless, I think that it was in reality necessary for FriendFeed to sell to really put the technology in front of a sufficient number of eyeballs. Facebook is probably the best acquirer that FriendFeed could have. (I would have not felt the same had FF been acquired by Google)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
The thing with Friendfeed though is how I can share things outside of a 'wall.' I prominently feature the FF widget on my site. I'm just concerned of losing that capability as I was tinkering with delivering a new site w/ content primarily running through my Friendfeed account. I am to this day unable to do much outside of the wall. I am unable to subscribe to Fan Page updates in Google reader for instance. That is what concerns me about FB acquiring FF given my goals.
- beersage
Robert sounded quite breathless in that interview. Thanks Robert.
- Roberto Bonini
Wow! I'm in shock. I can't wait to hear this interview.
- Micah Wittman
from iPhone
This deal was about getting Paul and the team and nothing else
- Stephen Pickering
@stephan, are you serious? FB is buying a concept, a technoloie, a structure, a content and a user list
- abdellah
Unconvincing Paul Buchheit, the team is more exited of being part of bigger story - logical for them to move on
- patrickdh
now how could a team that left google resist under a unique perception system, where the leader vision is upon any thing
- abdellah
They want a way to turn their white pages into a yellow pages and the only guy on Earth who knows how to do it, is Paul
- Stephen Pickering
It was only about the technology and the people. Most people are on also FB anyway.
- James Myatt
My guess is that Paul got a tooooooooon of options and will soon be the No.2 guy at Facebook
- Stephen Pickering
Glossing over of that "short term" question by the FF boys. It just seems more about the individuals at FF than it does the users of FF. "Their (Facebook) long term goals" Nice interview, Robert!
- Melanie Reed
Well, it looks as if pass-through of FriendFeed Likes, Comments, etc. to Twitter is down. Will it be for good? Did Twitter do this in response to the acquisition? Or is it just a regular (though curiously timed) hiccup?
- Alex Schleber
this is why your own personal website is always more important than friendfeed, Twitter and all the rest. that's never going anywhere
- Terry O'Fee
from BuddyFeed
You can very easily get the RSS feed for an entire folder within your GoogleReader. I have a room full of these made from people's bundles: I brought the bundle into GReader, and then made the folder public in google reader, and then grabbed the RSS feed from that linked page. http://friendfeed.com/guruvy-... You could also just do the bundle RSS feed too.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Chrstine, I've found the feeds from Google Reader subscriptions don't turn out too nice in FF. So I've manually added my favourite feeds I have in GReader using the original RSS link. It took a while but the results are far better.
- Kol Tregaskes
I try to use Custom RSS/Atom to add it to my group and I get an error. I have no problem importing this feed into NetNewsWire.
- Christine Dattilo
Being that there are about 70 feeds - can I somehow get an OPML file into FF?
- Christine Dattilo
Koi - I’ll try that, feedbuster. Thanks and I’ll let you know if it works for me.
- Christine Dattilo
Christine, is that shared items (i.e items you've selected to share) or just a feed in GReader? If the former how about adding GReader as a service in the group?
- Kol Tregaskes
Christine, yes you can export all your feeds for you GReader account. Select Manage Subscriptions (bottom left of the screen) and then Import/Export.
- Kol Tregaskes
It is just a “Public” feed in Greader. I want to import it into FF as RSS
- Christine Dattilo
I didn't really see the trouble with this method - did you check out the room that I have up? Those are just from the Atom Feed link like on the page you sent us to, Christine. If you want them prettier, you can add that link as the feed link in something like this (which I use to import my blog) - So try this link for your GReader stuff out:...
more...
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
If you just copy the above feed-buster link and add it as a Custom RSS/ATOM in your services Christine you should have what you want. I like to import mine like this with descriptions as comments.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob - YEAH! It worked. I tried so many ways. This is what I did, and I don’t know why it finally worked. I clicked the feed-buster link you made, then let it go to NetNewsWire (feedreader). Asked for the Feed URL and copied it into Custom RSS/Atom. When I copied directly it would not work.
- Christine Dattilo
Nor would the feed validate. But when I had NetNewsWire create a Feed URL from the link you gave me - it validated and FF accepted it. Thanks so much for taking the time to convert my feed. I love FF! and you:)
- Christine Dattilo
Sending subscriber love his way. The ingenuity here on FF is amazing. Thanks again.
- Christine Dattilo
thanks Christine and Rob. feeling the love :). let me know if the feed-buster service isn't working out for you or you need any other help with importing stuff into FF. btw, i'm working on a new service that will enable automatic importing of OPML-listed feeds into FF. :) any wishes or suggestions regarding this new service?
- Ivan Zuzak
Ivan - cool do you anticipate the feeds within opml to be concatinated or will they maintain their individual streams?
- mike "glemak" dunn
thanks mike! i'm going for maintaining their individual streams. the probable solution will be to create a new (private) FF group for the feeds, and then import them one by one, each as a Custom RSS/ATOM feed service. as you suggest, another solution would be to use a service like Jumbra (http://www.jumbra.com/) to merge all the feeds into a single feed and the do the import only once....
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- Ivan Zuzak
ivan - agreed i think the first solution would be best and awesome - following now so i can track your progress - no pressure though :)
- mike "glemak" dunn
Ivan, ever complete the OPML import? I've sniffed around a bit & believe it might not currenlty be possible w/ FF APIs, due to lack of an API to create imaginary friends... true, or is that old info?
- Wade Dorrell
Hi Wade! Unfortunately not, but it's on the top of my TODO list. :) In the meantime, you can check out a Yahoo Pipe which Lucio (http://friendfeed.com/cantorjf) made - http://friendfeed.com/friendf.... His Pipe combines all the feeds in the OPML file into a single feed which you can then import into FF more easily. Yeah, I know, it's...
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- Ivan Zuzak
2. Too much noise on my home page (I was following 100,000 and there was less and less stuff there that was interesting to me).
- Robert Scoble
3. FriendFeed has gotten WAY MORE engagement lately than Twitter has. So I'm moving even more over there.
- Robert Scoble
4. I was using http://www.twitter.com/notsecr... and finding that I liked that approach a LOT better (inbound is more important than anything, and when you hand choose the inbound it gets both a lot more fun as well as a lot more interesting).
- Robert Scoble
I think it makes sense, you essentially were following no one with 90k. As you said about Aston K, anyone with less than 200 follows is where the real value is.
- James Watters
James: yeah, actually I've found that most people will less than 2,000 follows have value. Anyone who tries to follow more than that is fooling themselves. Actually I can follow more, but only if grouped together and even then I'm getting a random sample, not a close sample.
- Robert Scoble
Yeah that makes eminent sense. I'm having trouble keeping up with only around 2000 followers.
- Nicola Quinn
Agreed on the noise, even with 1000+ it's hard to keep up with friends and close ones.
- evonne
You hear a lot more with less followers. I only follow about 260 and that's enough for me. With @mentions, you don't need to follow people to engage with them.
- Steve Farnworth
Robert: Right, as long as you don't have like 1k constant posters in there I agree. I think its fun to follow less people have have twitter 'buddies'
- James Watters
I understand your logic I believe there is a better way to get rid of unwanted noise than throw everyone out
- RetiredTeacherD
Will be interesting to see how this works out, like the innovator part of it though
- Patphelan
And being spammed by people who aren't even following you is downright rude.
- Nicola Quinn
There seems to be a big push for quality (less follows, blogging) going on in mr Scoble #cool
- James Watters
It feels odd saying this when people are talking about 1000's of followers but even with just about 200 followers i find that it sometimes gets difficult to keep up
- Bhowmik Shah
Do u really unfollow everyone, I mean, by clicking manually on every of your 50k users?
- Marcus Schuler
Funny - people agree now... They would've agreed that the way forward was following everyone six months ago! How many here follow less than 2,000 people?
- Scott Gould
Dear god I hope he scripted it through the API, I sure would.
- James Watters
Marcus: I am running a script from SocialToo that is unfollowing everyone.
- Robert Scoble
I've often wondered how anyone following so many people can get any value from Twitter. Why not just watch the public timeline?
- Mark Meyer
from iPhone
Most people do respond to their @replys so following everyone is not as important as I think it used to be. I have gotten lots of great response from just @'s I like keeping my number in the 400's to be able to see what is going on.
- Luke Kilpatrick
If people still following you then what's the problem? I also agree with Mark Meyer enough is enough.
- claire adams
I read every tweet of everyone I follow.
- James Watters
I think following, strictly speaking, should be a two-way ranked thing. If people are having *conversations* @reply or direct then I think following is fair. Anything one-sided, i.e. marketing, self promotion, celebs etc just devalues things. You need to be rewarded for active social grouping.
- Justin Howard
Mark: believe it or not, but the public timeline still had about 4x more noise (1/4 signal) of my 100,000 person feed.
- Robert Scoble
I also think with 'mentions' now it's not quite so important to be following everyone as you can see and respond to references or messages to you.
- Nicola Quinn
Nicola: mentions is nice, but the last thing I use twitter for is to learn about me. I want to see industry thoughts as they are born, so I think its important to read each person I follow carefully.
- James Watters
From time to time it's necessary to do a twitter clean-up. That's why I think Twitter interface should change a bit and allow us to choose many followers to delete them.
- Jordi Soler
James, I'm not sure that's the best place to do that anymore, what with all the 'Make money from Twitter' spam about. And that's not what I use it for. Plus I do read as many of my 2000 followers messages as I can!
- Nicola Quinn
Funny. This is what I said back when people like Guy Kawasaki said "follow everyone". How do you truly add to the conversation and continually engage with certain people by only responding to @replies and keyword searches. That means you are almost trying to predict conversations.
- Daniel Zarick
from iPhone
Liviu: yeah, I remember being jealous of Jim, even while thinking he was wrong. Turns out I was wrong.
- Robert Scoble
Nicola: Are we confusing 'follows' and followers? I NEVER autofollowed...I follow personally 175 people and read them all is my point; how many people are following me is a different question right?
- James Watters
lol takes a big man to admit he was wrong Robert :)
- Nicola Quinn
Using t4bp.com you can pretty easily follow up to 500 - beyond that gets paged. Also, like others here, I find beyond about 500 you can't really "follow" them. I don't even watch the real-time timeline of those I follow anymore. It would be a full-time job!
- Glenn
Please explain why my # of followers relates to the # of people I follow :)
- James Watters
James I don't auto follow. And I won't follow those who are obviously using those hideous bots to do their following. Must admit there have been few I have chosen to follow back recently.
- Nicola Quinn
Nicola: thanks. I guess to me twitter is a great place to 'read' so every day I"ll prune and maintain the list of people I follow regardless of who follows me.
- James Watters
Robert: You were NOT wrong to not to copy me, when I reset my account in January. It's always best to wait and see if something is the right ft for you first. Props for doing this Robert - I will blog about your experiences later on The Tech News Blog!
- Jim Connolly
James, there see, I'm following you now cos I like your bio :)
- Nicola Quinn
Nicola, lol, which one FF or twitter :) But make sure I"m worth it!
- James Watters
It'd be great too if you could separate the people you follow in groups. One for the media, one for the people with whom you have conversations, one for your RSS feeds...
- Jordi Soler
Jordi: If you use a twitter client you can sort follows in different groups ;)
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
Dennis: except that is VERY lame. What happens when a better client comes out? You are totally screwed.
- Robert Scoble
James, both, just done FF too. We'll have to see if you're worth it. There's always unfollow... :)
- Nicola Quinn
Dennis: I've tried Tweetdeck but I didn't like it that much. Which one would you recommend?
- Jordi Soler
Nicola, sweet, but yes unfollow quickly if I'm a waste of time. I hope you like cloud computing, its most of what I talk about. Kinda niche!
- James Watters
James, well I like clouds and computing, so we shall see :)
- Nicola Quinn
Robert: True. Tweetdeck support client sync, but I agree. Its more of a pseudo grouping and it doesn't really work well.
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
Jordi: I'm using Tweetdeck as well. I used to use Twhirl, so getting used to Tweetdeck took some time. You could try with Seesmic Desktop which is similar to Tweetdeck. There really aren't any other clients that can compete with Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
Dennis: Seesmic Desktop Web would be the best choice if it was possible: being in the cloud, at least I wouldn't have to make the configuration in all of my computers. I'll wait and see...
- Jordi Soler
I tend to unfollow if the poster isn't posting anything useful, or if after 10 @replies they still haven't @replied back, or if it's just a publicity feed for some sleb updated not by them but by their PR team, essentially telling me nothing more than I'd get from the RSS feed off their agent's corporate website.
- Matt Moran
Welcome to the Small Numbers Game. It does not really matter if Twitter or FriendFeed is the "best" tool for you - as long as it is the best tool. Personally I do not "get" FriendFeed at all, and Twitter has become my primary tool for my interests.
- Ruben Olsen
Ruben: you are a CTO and you don't get FriendFeed? Wild. And you're supposed to be deciding on all sorts of complex stuff? Amazing.
- Robert Scoble
Lol ur really going for it..I'm watching u slash ur follower list as I type. It's a veritable Twitter cleansing op. As I've previously said ur auto-follow policy was what started me tweeting in the first place. That being said I never adopted the same strategy for the same reason I won't bulk unfollow. I've tried going through my follower list with a hatchet knife but can't bring myself...
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- noxhanti
I much much prefer following folks in friendfeed (likes, easy grouping). I chat with folks in Twitter but can't group and filter them like I would prefer to.
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Mark, yeah, FriendFeed is a great Twitter client ;) Groups, lists, searches/filters..
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
I agree with Bhowmik, I have just about developed the ability to follow two hundred. Turns out some of the people I think that I want to follow end up not so interesting. Gave up on the column/sorting Tweetdeck for Seesmic In-Browser and searches. Routinely toss out people I follow who are not so engaging in exchange for new ones. I applaud your mass dumping. Never understood the "courtesy follow". Probably only works for broadcasting commercial accounts.
- suecosby
First the great Twitter Spam Clean of last week and now this... much movement in The Force
- GadgetGuy
My way of minimising the noise is pretty lo-fi, but it works for me. Using the Twitter web interface I mark as Favorites tweets from people I either want to keep an eye on or who I regularly correspond with. Even better if I create a favorite entry that has multiple twitter accounts in the tweet. Like I said, a lo-fi Twitter bookmark-style solution.
- GadgetGuy
I wasn't sure if this post was going to be worth a "like," but the conversation covers some great points. This is really the reason that Friendfeed has more value than Twitter: the value in the conversations. For me, Twitter has almost become little more than a RSS aggregator, with very little real conversation. If you're not using Frindfeed because you don't "get it," then you're not subscribing to the right people, the right rooms, or the right searches.
- Chris Rogers
from BuddyFeed
I'm new to FriendFeed. Do I have to see @replies that people I follow from twitter make to random people. I do not see these @replies in twitter, but they show up in FriendFeed. They are replies to people I do not even follow. Any advice?
- James M. Davis
I'm following about 2000 people, but a lot of them are formal or informal news outlets and organizations that I'm interested in. I made a point of following librarians, gardeners, photographers, writers, editors, environmentalists, scientists, and geeks, plus people who like the same TV shows I like. I also made a point of following people around the world so if something is happening...
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- Joan Weytze
I can completely understand why you made the purge you did. I never understood how you and others were really able to "follow" as many people as you did. Dropping to a smaller number seems to make much more sense. Glad to see you writing about WHY you are making the change. Thanks for the great writing you continue to do.
- Dan York
Why would I want to follow anyone other than someone who has 'gained' my attention by being more interesting than distracting. If I follow you and you offer to make me rich, or say the same thing too many times ... you're blocked. If you want to follow me, then I'd better see interesting when I check you out.
- Don Strickland
So, Ok... my standard practice since first log on is vindicated by you *finally* figuring out how to use social media...
- Teresa Boze
So when are you going to delete all your 25,000 FriendFeed subscriptions?
- Gary
If you are trying to catch everything in your Twitter stream you're nuts anyway. If you follow 10 chatty people you will have trouble keeping up. If you follow 10,000 who don;t say anything you'll feel lonely anyway. I do have a separate account that follows a handful of people I know personally, but I certainly would not like it to be my main Twitter account and even there I don't try...
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- Robert Morrison
Great move Robert. Hope others follow your lead.
- Mike Doeff
sounds like you mixed two different ways of using twitter: 1) discovering stuff, 2) engaging in a conversation with mutual interested indivuals. Are you bringing you're twitter account back to the second? So, what happens with the discovery then?
- Jaco van Wilgenburgh
btw: do you use friendfeed with a client? or via the browser?
- Jaco van Wilgenburgh
So, Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) just reversed course completely on "how" he uses Twitter. Beginning of the end? ;-)
- Joel Bennett
"actually I've found that most people will less than 2,000 follows have value"...but you had more than 2,000 followers/ing and you had value, Robert! I subscribe to a lot of news/blog feeds on Twitter that have thousands & now millions of followers and I get a lot out of that.
- Liz
"actually I've found that most people will less than 2,000 follows have value"...but you had more than 2,000 followers/ing and you had value, Robert! There are some people/news/blog feeds that have a lot of followers but still provide great information even if one-on-one conversation isn't possible. By the way, go to @optmeout and follow the instructions if Auto-DMs are a problem...I hardly get any now.
- Liz
Amen! regarding spam in Twitter DMs. It's crazy. It's like everyone thinks it's their personal platform to pitch whatever stuff they're advertising. No, a DM is supposed to be the way to communicate directly with one person when you have something specific to say to that person. I hate the way it's been abused. I do not send out auto-DMs and I do not auto-follow.
- Colleen O'Donnell Pierce
Robert - you know my approach. FriendFeed is where I track my different worlds. Lists are fantastic, and search blows away Twitter and Google. I rely on keywords and @replies to manage Twitter.
- Hutch Carpenter
Robert, so sad to see you unfollowing so, so many people but I understand it. I'm approaching 600 people on TweetDeck and it is working for me so far...Definitely pushing the limits though! You definitely can't maintain close relationships with thousands and thousand of people but I would encourage you to think about Henry Ford who once said he could "press a button and get the wisdom...
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- Dan Ross
Wow - truly the end of an era. Well, Robert, you were the first person I followed on Twitter and it absolutely made my day when you followed back (even though I realized at the time that it was an auto-follow response.) So, thanks for that! ;)
- Matthew Blaisdell
Matthew: that's OK, I'm following you here now. I wonder what system we'll both move to next?
- Robert Scoble
My home feed has become unmanageable with my bulk subscriptions over the weekend (using the new Recommend feature). Wondering how to move friends in bulk from one friend list (Home feed) to another. At present, I'm moving them one by one, and that's gonna take me the whole week!
Hmm...thanks, Tina. With this bulk subscribe feature, I suspect more and more people, esp newcomers will need something like this.
- Mahendra (SkepticGeek)
@jeff is Jeff Clavier, well known Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist. @timoreilly is Tim OReilly who runs O'Reilly Publishing. @davewiner is Dave Winer is a famous developer/innovator. @ev is Evan Williams, Twitter CEO. @notsecretscoble is my account where I've hand picked about 800 to follow.
- Robert Scoble
1. Jeff is most like me. Very geeky, but he has far fewer people he's following than the others.
- Robert Scoble
2. Tim O'Reilly follows lots of government people and brands, which matches what he recently told me, that he's trying to learn more about Washington DC.
- Robert Scoble
Looks like this might become a compelling conversation.
- David Damore
3. I also compared @ev (Ev Williams, Twitter's CEO). His used to match much more closely Dave Winer's or Tim O'Reilly's accounts, but now has many more movie stars and celebrities.
- Robert Scoble
4. There are a lot of commonalities between all these accounts.
- Robert Scoble
5. On my account if I couldn't tell you a story about the person, I didn't add them. Most of the people on my following account I've met face-to-face.
- Robert Scoble
6. Most of the others follow a lot more brands than I do, both news brands like the New York Times, as well as other brands. I like following people more than brands.
- Robert Scoble
7. I am more convinced than every that the inbound people pay attention to DOES define who they are.
- Robert Scoble
What is one insight you have pulled from those you follow?
- David Damore
David: that following people you've met face-to-face is more enjoyable than following just 100,000 that you haven't met.
- Robert Scoble
I agree with number 7. I also like to keep my twitter full of people I mostly know, have met or want to meet.
- Luke Kilpatrick
David: and that keeping the inbound (IE, people you follow) down to people who REALLY add value to you, makes the signal MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH higher.
- Robert Scoble
Your follows will be mostly US-based people, and wherever you visit, then?
- Aaman (Clone of FF)
Washington DC? He picked a complicated enough place to learn about.
- Dean Clark
I have two screens, one with the 100,000 and one with my 700 hand picked followings and, damn, the two aren't even close to in the same league.
- Robert Scoble
be. careful. robert. all that testosterone is a DANGEROUS thing!
- jeneane sessum
those 99k are a lot of extra noise... A threshold level of relevancy is hard to get from those you don't know.
- David Damore
Aaman: not true. I've been all over the world and have people all over the world in my list.
- Robert Scoble
Robert I agree with the face-to-face part. Thats what makes tweetups so great. You get to meet the ones you follow and vice versa.
- Bryan Lee
David: yeah, but I don't think the noise is due to not having met them. It's due to something else.
- Robert Scoble
David: even on my list there are some who provide GREAT value and some who just are, well, noisy.
- Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble: What is that app you run that tracks your travels? Remember seeing it all the time months back.
- David Damore
I like to follow people with whom I have something in common (programmers, tech people, geeks) that I can feel connected to. But I also follow a few related to my company's (GoldMail) business, and a few unrelated just because they seem interesting. Wjhat does that say about me?
- RobinDotNet
from iPhone
When ever I follow someone back, I usually ask is that person someone I would be interested in meeting. If the answer is no, then I don't follow. I think this idea will start to be the way that twitter evolves rather than a race to see who can get more followers. Its about engagement and value rather than a noisy number.
- Luke Kilpatrick
David: I think there's an 80/20 rule going here. 20% provide 80% of the value, and the fact that there's a lot of commonality shows that most of us recognize that value pretty quickly. So there is something to popularity (real popularity, not the fake kind as granted by the Twitter Suggested User List).
- Robert Scoble
David: Dopplr? If I keep it up, that is. TripIt is my favorite travel app.
- Robert Scoble
If you knew them... a tweet such as... "baby is sick tonight" reaches the threshold.... so when you talk with the contact.... you can ask about the baby... The relationship takes what one person calls noise and makes it relevant information.
- David Damore
RobinDotNet: I think that is a good strategy for twitter. I usually follow that same paradigm.
- Bryan Lee
Yep. beleive it was Doplr. Pareto, know it well. So critical to know and understand.
- David Damore
David: good point, you'll put up with more noise from people who are closer to you because that noise becomes more useful.
- Robert Scoble
I don't care how many follow me. I won't follow someone just because they follow me. Lots of them are parasitic, just want something from me -- buy something or click through.
- RobinDotNet
from iPhone
Twitter and technology for that matter are so free flowing in how they can be used. There is no on right way to use. People need to remain flexible and adaptable to changing conditions.
- David Damore
Robin: I agree with you there. On the other hand, it is interesting to see if people you like are following you. Even more importantly, do they engage with you and really read you?
- Robert Scoble
David: all of the people I studied tonight had quite different lists than they had a year ago. The most different from a year ago? @ev's.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: How do you gauge how those who follow you perceive you? Its a difficult task, is it not?
- Bryan Lee
Would you say those folks are all successful? My guess is that they all are. Success like innovation is build upon leveraging changing conditions.
- David Damore
Oh, people who follow more than 2,000? Useless.
- Robert Scoble
David: but the way people use technology evolves as the technology matures. There are so many different ways to use a communication tool. Twitter, and things like it are a bit of a new kind of animal versus what was there before. I personally rank twitter or friendfeed, up there with the website, the bbs and Instant Messaging as a communication media that can change in may ways.
- Luke Kilpatrick
David: yes. And they all are among my favorite people to read.
- Robert Scoble
Good thing I only follow 1,200 or so peeps,
- David Damore
David: yeah, about 2,000 is the cut off for intimacy. I've been all over the world and met with many thousands of people and I still struggle to come up with more than that. I'm not adding everyone I've met just to try to keep noise down.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, you're right, I think by "I don't care" I mean I don't follow back without checking people out, or at least read their previous tweets. I like it when people I know join Twitter, but few of my friends have. Not very geeky. One of the great things about Twitter is that I have been able to connect to so many others who are geeks, who understand why my pulse quickens when I walk into a Fry's store. :-)
- RobinDotNet
from iPhone
1,200? I check my list at least once a month to get rid of people and haven't really ever gone over 100 for long.
- Dean Clark
I wouldn't keep up with 300 to follow, gotta work sometimes ;)
- Franck Curier
Luke: whats the difference between twitter and basically "public email"? Its a communication tool that everyone can see. Thats how I perceive it, except for the DMs.
- Bryan Lee
I follow more than I am followed by about a 2-1 ratio. That's because I am using Twitter to listen and engage as much, if not more, than I use Twitter to broadcast. But still, I'm close to my limit (around 1k). And I'm starting to purge those who I thought might be interesting but are just there for marketing. I'm there to learn and meet, not be sold.
- AllisonWagda
Right now I'm looking at @Furrier's list. He's following 2,360, which is too many, but love that he follows PGAGolf. These things tell you a lot about a person, as much as Facebook's profile does!
- Robert Scoble
I think that 250-350 reasonable twitterers works well. More if you can cut out the blabber mouths.
- Sam Pullara
@Scoble: Would also apply the 80/20 to 2000. If the top 20% post all the :"great" content one could follow many more people. The problem with following more than say 800 is that you lose out on the low velocity users. For those folks it might be a better idea to set up an RSS feed for them.
- David Damore
Being one of the founders, @ev should be considered differently, whenever you examine his followers list, after all most people would probably prefer getting CEO's feed, hoping to get quality info regarding Twitter. As for the rest, many people would rather prefer following quality content and engaging users, while followers "hunters" will go with everyone, because they think their voice will resonate best with bots.
- Nir Ben Yona
Sam: that number will vary based on how good a networker they are. My brothers? Probably only need that many. I need more than 1,000.
- Robert Scoble
Allison: I'm a bit of a lurker as well. I learn more from twitter than I contribute but I'm trying to change that.
- Bryan Lee
Bryan: 1. The 140 limit makes you be clearer in your thoughts. 2. Its a broader reach than an email. 3. The almost countless ways to consume a twitter feed on many devices. 4. Twitter is a networking tool that can get you introduced to someone in a way that email can not. I have met more and built more relationships via twitter than any other tech.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Nir: knowing @ev I assume that the movie stars are there just for business reasons, not for personal reasons. I bet that if @ev wasn't running Twitter he'd be complaining about all the celebrities on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Bryan - I didn't mean I'm quiet on Twitter - I'm *way* too social to keep my mouth shut. ;)
- AllisonWagda
In a way, who you follow is a sort of gesture. I follow some people that I want to interview, or that I think will signal to the rest of you the kinds of people I want to be introduced to at parties. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Luke: Those are all correct, its the next evolutionary step in communication. Just like email was over its predecessor, snail mail.
- Bryan Lee
Wow, John Furrier follows all the high tech brands. He's signaling to the world that he wants to do business with them. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert: That's interesting. Clearly, I don't have any idea about it, but I think we've all seen that implication, in Twitter's leaked documents (re: Diddy).
- Nir Ben Yona
Robert, et al. - this is a great conversation! I am really thinking I need to totally clean out my follows. Signal to Noise ratio has really gotten bad, even with Tweetdeck and other tools
- Susan Beebe
from BuddyFeed
One thing I notice about @ev's tweets is they don't seem to be targeted for any segment of followers. Where my tweets usually fall into either Adobe Usergroups / ColdFusion / Fireworks, Social media or Surfing. Do you find that you tweet with a targeted segment of your followers in mind?
- Luke Kilpatrick
Luke: with Tim O'Reilly? Absolutely. With the others there's a focus, but not as focused as Tim.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I do enjoy following Tim O'Reilly as almost all of his posts have a good and relevant link to what I am interested in. He is definitely in my want to meet someday category.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Sometimes I follow someone for one reason, then find them interesting for another reason too. Luke-- would like to come watch you surf. Find it fascinating. Watched it a lot last time I was in Hawaii.
- RobinDotNet
from iPhone
Robin : I go out everyday almost, let me know when ever you can make the trip to Half Moon Bay. Still you never get the full feel of surfing until you do it.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Luke, I'll do that! I do come over that way every now and then. Just had knee surgery, swimming forbidden for 4 months. I'd be happy to hang out on the beach in the wind and sun. Or just the wind, since a reputable source said there's no traffic in HMB unless it's sunny.
- RobinDotNet
from iPhone
This topic brings back to mind one feature I would like TweetDeck to provide, the ability to share groups as OPML. In my other account I receive more tweets than I can read, so my columns are organized by interest priority, I just realized that this won't help too much your analysis since Ev and Dave usually tweet from web and Jeff and Tim from Seesmic.
- Alberto Saavedra
As I thought @Furrier is following a lot of dead accounts, so he isn't keeping his Following list very clean. I've found this to be true of almost every one with more than 2,000 accounts.
- Robert Scoble
@Scoble: What did you use to check for "dead accounts"?
- David Damore
David: manually going through each of them and seeing the last entry is "follow me over here" or seeing that they haven't updated in a year.
- Robert Scoble
I am intrigued by how small the group who has influence is... It seems to be less than 50 people!!
- Wayne Mansfield
Wayne: nah, it's actually a few hundred. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Hi Robert. I'd be interested to know *why* your list is using Twitter - their primary purpose. Is it to sell things, because they think they should be there, to keep abreast of what others are doing, to find opportunities...all of these? None?
- WorldofHiglet
WorldofHiglet: most of us started in the early days, when it was something cool to do to keep in touch with other people in the valley and SF. Now it's changed to be more business and/or building a specific kind of audience.
- Robert Scoble
I think everyone uses twitter in a slightly different way, many start using it for one reason and end up with another. I started using it to keep up with Adobe Usergroup People scattered across the planet but, I find I use it more for sharing Surfing info with a collection about about 100 surfers around the world.
- Luke Kilpatrick
That's what I thought, and the use seems to have changed organically. But it seems that Twitter is less relevant now to some of these early adopters. Is this because they are getting what they need (whatever that might be) from something else or is it more to do with them having changed the way they do things?
- WorldofHiglet
Robert a few hundred is still not many... for the power of the medium!!
- Wayne Mansfield
WorldofHiglet: a lot of the early adopters are on Facebook or FriendFeed, so their usage has spread out. But there's still a lot on Twitter. I'm watching the flow and it's going pretty good.
- Robert Scoble
I agree Twitter has a lot of legs to it yet - I was thinking more that some early adopters are at the end of the user life cycle for Twitter (I was reading this earlier http://ui-patterns.com/blog... and it seemed relevant)
- WorldofHiglet
I think friendfeed has captured up many of the early adopters as you can have great conversations on it like this one. It kinda reminds me of the old days of IRC, but with a more focused topic and engaged group. Also much more open with peoples real identities rather than anonymous user names. I like how more people are willing to user their real identity online now.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Luke, I think Shane made a good point regarding the basic difference between FF comments and IRC back on another thread with, "live commenting on a blog or FF doesn't necessarily demand all attention like IRC or IM would tend to make you feel you have to stay participating. Remember, some people still have fun with the conversation and add value even though they don't realize it's live" http://friendfeed.com/scoblei...
- Micah Wittman
@Luke: I still love IRC, primarily because it's much smaller groups, much less noise, and you can get to know people much better. I think IRC will always be my first love when it comes to real-time online communication with a group. I always felt like Twitter was broken compared to IRC, because it was like people were there but not there and it's not the same crowd for everyone there,...
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- April Russo (app103)
I just find that IRC can be random and reasonably exclusive. I have pretty much stopped using IRC about 8 years ago when most of the people I regularly communicated moved over to instant messaging. Friendfeed is bringing back the public face of IRC, but with the longer term archive of the conversation that is lost on IRC. Every tech has its strengths and weaknesses. Just like I tell most of the fan boys I meet, I use the best tool I can find for the job at hand.
- Luke Kilpatrick
Luke: I totally agree with you. I used to be a heavy IRC user. I will +NEVER+ go back.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, One of the things that is interesting about what you put out with this discussion is how radically different approaches and methodology can still present specific results based on search and keyword approaches. In this case, each user demonstrates to the rest of us how to exactly get what you want out of twitter, and for that matter friendfeed and facebook too.
- Alan W Silberberg
I really wish that FriendFeed was threaded so we could really have this conversation as it is interesting and I'd like to engage with it... however, this endless list of comments is terrible. Robert: I can see how it is possible to follow 1000 people if that is what you do for a living, like you do. RobinDotNet: someone who says more than 10 things a day with a low signal to noise ratio but has some hidden gems. I use FriendFeed to find the gems by following them here and waiting for comments.
- Sam Pullara
On my @thomasknoll account I follow over 1k people that I have met, or who are interested in a few things I pay close attention to (social anthropology, community building, value networks). I don't know everyone on that account personally, but I do remove noise. I have another private account where I only follow people who I would happily give a key to my home.
- Thomas Knoll
I follow some people just to get a conflicting view from what I believe. Just because you follow does not mean you are an actual follower.
- Ken
I've been struggling with my "follow" policy for a while. As time goes on and I meet more and more people face to face, I'm moving slowly in that direction. I might just completely adopt it after SXSW '10.
- Trent Hamm
Twitter is extremely limited in that it isn't possible to set up groups, so in fact one has to set up different accounts. I have one account that is quite small, updates protected, that follows only a handful of people I know personally. I can see every update in this account easily (oops, have to use the new official term "tweet"). I have another account that doesn't tweet and only...
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- Robert Morrison
Inspired by zoblue and Ken Sheppardson, here is a Greasemonkey script that dynamically adds the service icons to each post.
- chrisofspades
from Bookmarklet
zoblue was headed in the right direction here (http://beta.friendfeed.com/zoblue...), but had the limitation of needing a CSS style created for each service. I was able use the API to grab the service icon dynamically.
- chrisofspades
Kol, I think Davide means that it doesn't work on private feeds. I'm using FF's public API so it won't work for private entries. I'll take a look at the Chrome issue.
- chrisofspades
Between this, AJ's Cleaner Friendfeed, and pausing realtime, it's actually starting to become usable for me. Just need to work on easily finding everything I want and I'll be all set. (don't worry, I am working on that one myself)
- April Russo (app103)
chrisofspades is working on a new release with some code I contributed to get the icons insertion working in realtime. Stay tuned!
- Micah Wittman
Updated to include realtime support! many thanks to Micah. Note: There will be a popup if you install this version that says you don't have the current version. Just ignore that for now. This should be accurate for any future versions though.
- chrisofspades
Misconfigured scriptId value - please don't install until amended. A new comment will update the status of the fix. Thank you for your patience. UPDATE: FIXED!
- Micah Wittman
UPDATED again to fix error in Micah's comment above
- chrisofspades
Bump the hell out of this thread. This is my favorite bit of code I've seen in the last 2 weeks.
- Matthew DeVries
<cry> I can no longer see them in the iPhone feed, but at least this script, updated to look at 'regular' url still gives the fix needed for full service use !
- David HC Soul
Bump for eterinity - seems FF would be able to do this natively if someone was able to knock up a script to do it so easily.
- Matthew DeVries
Works well with Cleaner FriendFeed :) Thanks!
- AJ Batac
Weirdly for me it doesn't always include icons for twitter posts. For many it just has a lock icon on twitter posts.
- Quasar
Quasar, all twitter posts? it's possible some of them are coming from a private feed.
- chrisofspades
Can't believe it's come to this to get back an important visual clue when trying to process a real-time stream of updates. C'mon, Felicia Day says she wants the icons back. That's good enough for me! http://ff.im/2x34Z
- Ryan
Ahh. It's not all twitter posts where the icons don't appear, its just all posts made from imaginary friends (no matter what service it comes from). Can't remember if that was true pre the new FF.
- Quasar
UPDATED by Micah for greasekit compability and better performance.
- chrisofspades
This should be a standard option in FF (along with CleanerFF) - toggle on/off options??
- Allan Besselink
This has started becoming intermittent on FF :( :sad panda: is it the themes?
- Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕
which theme are you using zu? and which version of the script?
- chrisofspades
I'm using the Flowers theme, along with AJ's "Cleaner FriendFeed w/themes support" but the "FFbeta Service Icons" script doesn't mention a version number
- Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕
Finally! Service icons even if its a script. One feature I sorely miss from the old FF. Why the reluctance to bring it back?
- Kamath (नमः)
Added a feature which filters out posts by words in the name/text of a post. If a word/phrase in a user-defined array (adjust withWordsToHideArr in Configuration) is found in the name/text of a post (just the post name/text, comments are not checked), the post will be hidden. To activate hiding by words, set withWordsToHideActive = true.
- Micah Wittman
New and veteran users of this script - thank you, and please do let me know how it's helpful / how you're using it, so I can evolve it effectively for everyone.
- Micah Wittman
BTW, I'm all for fun and memes in general :)
- Micah Wittman
[[EDIT: Oh, wait, there is GreaseKit http://8-p.info/greasekit/ - I must try that out]] Maybe I should have dubbed it the SPOILERS Killer =) [*thought bubble* Hrmmm Akiva uses Safari, so he's not paying attention to all this GreaseMonkey business, so Meme Killer it is]
- Micah Wittman
Can I use it to block all incoming @replies from Twitter?
- Simon Wicks
Simon, you could put @ in the hide array (var withWordsToHideArr = ["@"]) - but note that this will get rid of any post that has an @ in it. EDIT: Simon, I just added a hideAtReplies feature (see my comment below). That said, withWordsToHideArr = ["@"] can still be used to hide a post if an @ symbol exists at all.
- Micah Wittman
[v0.25] - Added hideAtReplies feature which specifically filters out posts if the first character is an @ symbol. By default, the service must be Twitter, but there is also a companion option to hide @-replies from any service (tweets that route through facebook, etc).
- Micah Wittman
Excellent work! I know this doesn't help other people seeing them, but at least now i can filter some of the noise from other people a bit better. Thanks very much :)
- Simon Wicks
I'll have to have a play around with it at lunch to see if i can make it work. I've installed it but still see @replies.
- Simon Wicks
I've installed it, but I can't figure out how to make it work. *dunce*
- Alix Whitmire
Just noticed it add's a delay text under the FF logo :)
- Simon Wicks
Alix, I don't know how familiar you are with working the user scripts, so this is all the steps: Right click on the GreaseMonkey icon on the bottom of the browser > Manage User Scripts > select friendfeedFilterByService > click Edit button (it may ask you to choose a text editor, such as notepad) > in the /************ Configuration **********/ section (around line 48) customize the...
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- Micah Wittman
Thats helped me as well, thanks very much!
- Simon Wicks
Rochelle, yes, it's pretty cool. You should follow the link to the flickr page where there's a bit of a story on it in the comments http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Micah Wittman
[v0.251] (please update): fixed the @-replies not working problem. Thanks for the feedback Alix, Simon.
- Micah Wittman
Thats it, works like a charm now. :) Just hides those posts in some way other then if you hide them the friendfeed way (which puts them in a hidden posts link at the bottom) If i click to my own feed i see them for a split second before they all disappear. Not complaining, just feedback. :)
- Simon Wicks
Simon, re. 'split second appears' - yes, it's the browser's lag in applying a style dynamically. I'm currently not sure of a way to reduce that any further, thanks for the feedback. Re. the old realtime, it has a completely different structure and class name scheme, so that is why it's unaffected. However, I designed friendfeedFilterByService with an embed format of its own - activate it by appending embed=1 into the querystring on whatever page view (e.g. http://friendfeed.com/?embed=1 )
- Micah Wittman
[v0.252]: Minor update to deal with Chrome compatibility. EDIT: Ton, (I'm commenting above your comment) - glad to hear it. After some time with it, let me know more of your thoughts. Thanks!
- Micah Wittman
I had to restart my computer (which I seldom do), but I had to leave home anyway. When I turned back from work & turned it on again I found out that it's really working! Just great! :-) Thx Micah!
- Ton Zijp
Just have to wait for Greasemonkey to update on the new beta so i can install this one at home now. Humph :)
- Simon Wicks
friendfeedFilterByService update/fix coming tonight (due to FF site markup changes overnight)
- Micah Wittman
Funny, Micah, I just installed SIMBL, GreaseKit, and AJ Batac's FriendFeed script.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva, the FF team is keeping us on our toes :) And I've only rocked the SMIMBL/GreaseKit/Safari triple threat for a short time, but it's really nice (Chrome is being much more stubborn in comparison).
- Micah Wittman
Now I just need to figure out how to decrease the padding between a post and its dividers as well as increase the font size of the top four links in the Friends box.
- Akiva Moskovitz
How many peeps are actively using friendfeedFilterByService?
- Micah Wittman
I use it at work, but i have a beta version of Firefox here at home and no greasemonkey on this one yet :( I miss all your scripts, expecially this one, being able to hide the @replys and certain other services which aren't directly supported by friendfeed.
- Simon Wicks
Just taken a risk and downloaded the regular firefox, and replaced my beta one. Luckily it didnt break anything and i have greasemonkey and your scripts back now!
- Simon Wicks
I dont have the little piece of code which is usually under the logo. Least it is on my work computer..
- Simon Wicks
@Micah, I'm using it for the withWordsToHideArr and "hide @replies" features. Thanks for helping me to keep my sanity ;-)
- Andy Bold
Ok, I'm back online - working on this now. Thanks for speaking up, Andy :)
- Micah Wittman
[v0.255] Recent changes to the FriendFeed html markup required adjustments to the script - Fixed. Also, how realtime is handled much improved. Entries don't draw down to none as they did before, it's a better experience now. GreaseKit compatibility improved, and can now run outside the GreaseMonkey encapsulation context as standard Javascript.
- Micah Wittman
Look forward to your reviews, Simon and Andy.
- Micah Wittman
Got it working again now with the new update. Took me a few goes, was going wrong somewhere, but all is good again now. I have twitter @replies hidden, and 3 other services using the 'withWordsToHideArr'. One problem though, i cant get the new sidebar one to display the cut down version of the site and not show the hidden services and words (http://friendfeed.com/?embed=1). In a regular...
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- Simon Wicks
Simon, I'm hoping the following is something like what you're after - [v0.26]: Enhanced for use with the just released friendfeedScope hosted Firefox Sidebar style display (see http://friendfeed.com/friendf... )
- Micah Wittman
UPDATE [v0.2.6.5] Added feature hideIfHasNoImage in Configuration. Turn on to only show entries that where posted with at least one image. In enable in Configuration, set: var hideIfHasNoImage = true;
- Micah Wittman
I don't know why but the @-replies hiding isn't working for me.... I've set the variable to true but they still show up.
- Jan Ole Peek
(1) install All In One Sidebar extension; (2) right-click navigation toolbar to add a new bookmark; (3) add the URL http://friendfeed.com/realtim... and check "open in sidebar"; (4) that's it.
- Neil Saunders
Nice, but I'm with Lars, that smacks of productivity killing ;)
- Daniel Swan
I did the same thing back in October when real time came out so I could compare the two versions of FriendFeed - "standard" mode and "real time" mode. http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Susan Beebe
Can you do this with Chrome as well?
- Aaron Strout
This is great advice on getting a Friendfeed realtime feed in a sidebar. I've just tried installing the All In One sidebar on Flock 2.5, resulting in an error. On Firefox 3.0.11, it works great! I guess it makes sense to run Twitter in my Flock people sidebar, and Friendfeed realtime in my Firefox All In One sidebar.
- David Ing
I think this is different for everyone, for example I have a 'best of' list that has some groups, some users and a few imaginary friends I like to keep up with the most. Then I have a feedback and support list contain several related groups. Then I have my imported feed (via my GReader), the a list for the Digg groups, the socialmedian groups and the Twine groups...
- Kol Tregaskes
i am not a heavy hitter but i have no lists - everyone in the main feed
- Allen Stern
Then I have photo list which contains a load of imaginary friends from Flickr, Flickr Photography group, deviantART group, the CG group, etc. Then a group (via a GReader folder) of all my Flickr groups. Then a list for vi.sualise.us (the Popular group and a private group for my watchlist).
- Kol Tregaskes
I think it's a matter of experimentation. I tried lists for a while and finally went back to basically the full mainstream. People who post NSFW stuff go onto my Naughty list and out of the main feed. Other than that I like the full firehose.
- Internet's Tad
I find it difficult to organize people in lists - as you can't guarantee what kind of stuff they'll post. So, Topic lists contain groups (Science, Movies, etc). And Lists that contain people are: A/B/C-listers, Bloggers/Writers, Regulars, FF-world (all FF-specific groups and FriendFeeders), and a couple of others that need to be revamped ...
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
After these are various levels of groups, users and categories of users (e.g. a list for all the photographers on FF). A list for all the UK FFers I've found. Then I have lists for each of my main interests, e.g. photography and entertainment, which contain all the best groups for those interests - but the main purpose for these is in the saved searches which I've set up that should be the more popular posts.
- Kol Tregaskes
Lastly I have a list for Purefold containing the various groups and a few of the guys working on Purefold.
- Kol Tregaskes
But all this goes together with saved searches and I have lots of them too.
- Kol Tregaskes
@Tad: One day I hope to reach your Naughty-list ;) Got on Santa's already!
- Jemm
I have everyone in my Home feed, including all the Groups I'm subscribed to, as well as all the Likes that I'm subscribed to. Then I have lists for various types of activities that people/groups are into (Geeks, Bloggers, Social Media peeps, App devs, othe lists related specifically to staff or users of specific apps I watch, news,. Scoble has his own list of all the rooms and things I...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
David, I use 01. 02. etc to order my lists and saved searches. I took them from what I do in GReader, makes things a whole lot easier. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
I am certainly not a heavy hitter but here is how I roll. 1) Super List: this is a list of everyone I really want to see. All their posts and comments are piped to me via IM so whenever I log into gchat, I can just see their stuff. 2) Teir 1/Home Feed: This is people I have subscribed to and enjoy seeing all their stuff. My Friends 3) Teir 2: People I have subscribed to and are shoing...
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- Johnny Worthington
I have everyone on my Home feed, and 5-10 lists by general subject (technology, science, media, friends) for times when I'd like to focus on a particular area.
- Mike Chelen
Getting ready to welcome some of my social media community into Friendfeed. What links to Friendfeed 101 posts or newbie guides would you recommend? Most are adept at twitter/facebook so i want to offer a mix of the basics as well as intermediate usage.
Also, make sure you search out LouisGray's 10 people to follow posts. He's got many months and they are always good suggestions for great content and conversation. (BTW - thanks for the mention. I'm glad I did right by FriendFeed).
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
New users are automatically added to this group and it's the first thing they see in their home feed. I feel they get a little lost straight after registering though, so lets hope FF create a neat little tutorial for users to view at that point.
- Kol Tregaskes
Didn't know they were automatically added. Great tips. I'll try to compose all this into one massive post tomorrow.
- Keith - @tsudo
I don't know about FF being the best to watch all those tweets. I use PeopleBrowsr and FriendFeed side-by-side, and watch a lot of FriendFeed in PeopleBrowsr. I'm finding that I see a ton more with PB than I would see on just FriendFeed (unless I had like 9x24" screens!!) But, truthfully, I see half of the tweets in a FriendFeed stack in PeopleBrowsr. :)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
FF is tops on my many lists too ;) A must for the global SoMe scene!
- Susan Beebe
I agree scoble... until i joined friendfeed i didnt like the that anything else allowed me to look at different feeds... my favorite feed on friendfeed is truly my favorite thing to read all day. and yes scoble, ur obviously in that feed.
- Jason Pollock
I've too have been wondering how you keep up! Thanks
- Michelle
If saved searches were real-time it would help a lot!
- Kol Tregaskes
Also, if searches in general were synced too that would be great but they seem to be hours behind. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol: You think the searches are behind? I use a couple searches to double check for support questions, and find the tweets in FF to be right in sync with what I see elsewhere.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Well if Friendfeed could refresh your Twitter feed automatically as it does with Imaginary friends...or just import your whole list as Imaginary Friends, I wouldn't have a need to use another Twitter app or web-client.
- Manuel Mas
My major issue with trying to watch a lot with the FriendFeed website comes down to screen real estate. As I point out above, I do watch a huge amount of the tweets I watch via FriendFeed (but through a multi-column client). But, some things, like "My Discussion" I like the real time feed, and keep them open all the time on Friendfeed.com. But, there's just no way to watch 10-20 lists...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
And, I might add - omg I saw this tweet from Robert in like 20 different places here on Friendfeed. ScobleFeed indeed ;-)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I use multiple platforms also: hootsuite, friendfeed, PeopleBrowsr, Tweetvisor & more.
- polou/indigo_bow
Rob, the entries are fine but it's things like the likes that are not synced. So I have lots of searches for things I've not liked, if I like something found via those searches then run the search again several hours later those liked entries still appear in the results. Really frustrating. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
Hm. I see. I don't like so much stuff, so don't notice that at all.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob, it's nothing to do with the amount of likes, you'll see this problem by liking just one item. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
It takes a little figuring out to get the gazintas and gazoutas aligned to eliminate dupes, but once it's set up properly it's pretty cool.
- Alan Chamberlain
I've just added FriendFeed as my RSS reader and in the process of ditching Google Reader. If FF supported Hellotxt/Ping.fm then it would be wipe out those Chrome tabs. Then if it allowed us to bulk import our Twitter (non-FF) friends then it would be my Twitter client. Gosh, if it was a "wave" it would be my email client. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
@Kol, FF is actually becoming kind of an email client for me, and for the small part of my "pals" who joined a private goup of mine on friendfeed. "Direct message" functionnality is cool for that reason : if he's around, he'll be notified. If he's not, he'll receive a regular email. I guess some not-so-far-from-now day, the term "mail" will be deprecated, and we'll talk about "messages", or, better "flows", "streams"... "Did you get my stream?"...
- Zackatoustra
Agree. I'm relatively new to social media but find FriendFeed offers me the most value, so that's where I find myself focusing. Must be something here. I'd be very interested to hear your analysis of FF after a while.
- Hamilton Wallace
Zackatoustra, if only I could get all my friends onto FF or FF allowed for non-FFers to use my FF email (koltregaskes@friendfeed.com) to email me. Or perhaps I could set up a forwarding rule that posts everything to me to go to the ff.com address, hmmm.
- Kol Tregaskes
Ah yes, forward an email to your ff.com address only gives you the subject name and no content apart from perhaps your signature that was added after the forward. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol - I too would like to use my FF email. Right now I auto forward some email to a private group (secret email). The subject is the FF title and body (text only) is added as a comment. When manually forwarding, I noticed the same behavior that you did.
- Kevin Whalen
from email
I love using FF as my main "Social App", but I found it difficult to replace Google Reader.
- Shawn Hickman
Kevin, so you are auto-forwarding them? I'll try it in Gmail.
- Kol Tregaskes
I felt like I was missing too many stories. In Google Reader I can easily see what I read and what I didn't. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them because I love FF
- Shawn Hickman
interested to know exactly what this looks like for you Steve. Would make a good blog post.
- Thomas Hawk
Kol - yep, I set up a filter in Gmail to auto forward.
- Kevin Whalen
from email
You've discovered The Secret - good to see you
- Jesse Stay
Shawn, no good points. I tend to make the last one by liking it, that way when I check the groups again I can see where I go to before.
- Kol Tregaskes
Here's a tip, why not forward to new FF subscribers and invites to your DM? Just set it up now and will see if it works (all you need is the link to the user's page).
- Kol Tregaskes
Kol, I've tried the solution you suggests(forwarding mails) , but that doesn't work : the "non-FFers" receive an annoying message each time their mail is fwed to FF : "Hello, Your email message to FriendFeed (included below) was sent from an unauthorized email address (<non-FFer>@gmail.com) and requires approval. Please click on the link below to approve or reject this message. http://friendfeed.com/approve....
- Zackatoustra
Zackatoustra, I never said it worked, I said I wish it did. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
It would be a great feature but of course it will open FF up to spam email.
- Kol Tregaskes
Couldn't agree more w Steve. Moving back in that direction again too
- Charlie Anzman
What about Google Wave and FriendFeed integration? (Assuming Wave arrives soon)
- Tyson Key
Is anyone aware of a primer on this topic? I am not a FF power user
- Bob
I just started doing this a couple of weeks ago and so far so good. Definitely agree its tools are underrated.
- Mike Elliott
I wish Friendfeed had much more powerful features and tools for managing large research collections -- but it seems to be focusing on the conversational aspects of social media on its current development path.
- Sean McBride
converted blog embeds into ff embed. they load faster
- Noah David Simon
Is there an easy way to export whole conversations / discussions? For instance, one way is by clicking on the "Share", going to a separate webpage with the URL and then using Evernote to save the whole page to save my whole conversation - will there be ways to integrate with evernote in the future or maybe there is an easier way to export convos?
oh didn't realize that i could get the url of the comments - thanks petr!
- Wang Yip
sure .. FF staff wants it to be secret, all is half secret here .. :]]]]]
- Petr Buben
BTW if you click on the timestamp for a second time (once you've already clicked on it) you get a window with none of the sidebars of top bars.
- Kol Tregaskes
Sweet! thanks kol - I noticed when I clipped it to Evernote the first time all my sidebars were still there but it was certainly a minor hindrance compared to the fact that I could save the conversation.
- Wang Yip
this second click works differently, and best, in Google Chrome ...... THESE are Friendfeedlets. the grains of wisdom! the neurons of the future brain .. world wide wrain
- Petr Buben