FriendFeed has been almost completely blocked in Iran as far as we can tell. We have a large number of very active Iranian users, and we noticed a steep decline in activity yesterday. Graph below.
این نمودار نشاندهنده افت فرندفید به دلیل بسته شدن آن در ایران است
- Mycaptain
Bret: Is this based on IP numbers located in Iran, or actual activity from those users? If it's IP based, it'd be interesting to see the activity on a user basis and see if they've been able to route around the blocking.
- Ken Sheppardson
If Twitter were blocked and FriendFeed weren't, I'd expect an uptick in FriendFeed activity, not a 92% drop.
- Kevin Fox
I.e. given all the users who've previously accessed the site from an Iran IP number, how many have been active from different numbers in the past 2 days.
- Ken Sheppardson
Instead of "liking" this, shouldn't we have an "unlike" button?
- Steven Melfi
:( Bret: According to Stephen fry, these are the iran proxies: 218.128.112.18:8080 218.206.94.132:808 218.253.65.99:808 219.50.16.70:8080 . Can you track these IPs?
- Roberto Bonini
I knew this day was coming. Too bad.
- Robert Scoble
Steven - same feeling here. I always feel weird "liking" bad stories on FF
- Mike Bracco
How does traffic from China look? Or North Korea?
- τorƍue
like for spread but not like for the situation
- Imprenditore
I wonder what the international community can do about stuff like this. Eventually the "bad guys" will lose.
- Michiel Sikkes
Hopefully, we'll never see a graph like this for Turkey...
- Onur Şentüre
that's because the government has blocked access to friendfeed,twitter,facebook,youtube and ... after election and after protests in Iran cities !
- Farshad
Man... :( That's really a corrupt government. Hope it gets better soon.
- Peter
Kheyzaran mentioned over the weekend that both Twitter and FF were blocked for Iran starting I believe on Friday. He is using a proxy when possible to keep us updated
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Bret, any analysis about how many people unable to access FF directly are still able to access it via proxy?
- Daniel Dulitz
Daniel: Well, we are still getting a bunch of Farsi comments and posts. They may be Persians from outside Iran or from Iranians using proxies. We don't have a detailed analysis breaking those down at this point.
- Bret Taylor
Watching the "guerrilla cyberwarfare" aspect of the elections and reactions has been fascinating. Iran's universities are obviously full of resourceful, passionate geeks.
- John Craft
this is really bad. i hope there's some resolution to this. the people or iran have shown a lot of strength and courage to protest the illegitimacy of recent events. i don't think this will stop things
- Cee Bee
Is it possible that the same folks from Iran that are active on Friendfeed are the ones out protesting?
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
please help us , we are under attack ,change friendfeed logo if you can
- فرزاد
make a room for us, invite your friends we will fill it with latest news
- Farshad
I'm completely for having a fair vote, but I'm not sure that I'd want to try and align FriendFeed with a particular candidate, which is what a green logo would imply.
- Kevin Fox
Many iranians using proxies to access FF. and therefore their IPs changes to fake IP .
- آدمیرال
MohammadReza: Maryam's mom is still able to call her relatives and friends in Tehran, so they are keeping some voice traffic open, if not all.
- Robert Scoble
@Kevin, totally understandable.
- EricaJoy
from IM
If Iran thinks they have nothing to fear, then why block Friendfeed?
- Frode Stenstrøm
Frode: because the government is like China: they believe that by retarding the flow of information they will reduce the threat of protests and governmental overthrow.
- Robert Scoble
Very reminiscent of the prelude to the fall of the Shah
- Alan Morris
I don't speak Persian, so I don't know all the searches, but there are still (luckily) a lot of Persian users posting: http://friendfeed.com/search.... If you are Persian and looking for updates, try our search engine to find the few users who still have access.
- Bret Taylor
Frode: and in Iran's case, they are run by conservative religious authorities and they don't like the fact that they are not in control of information flow like they used to be. They like to think they can still control information sources and, since they can't, they try to block places where their citizens can go to share information.
- Robert Scoble
is it a joke? iranian users seems the %90 of friend feed. it could not be real!
- Fırat DEMİREL
Firat: There are no units on the vertical axis of the chart.
- Ken Sheppardson
Firat: This is a chart of traffic from Iran, not of FF's total traffic.
- Kevin Fox
Firat, i doubt that this graph is a percentage graph... probably more likely that it's measuring hits, sessions, or total data transfered (mb, kb, etc)
- Chris Heath
Kevin: what impact did this have on FF's overall traffic?
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Iran is the #6 country for FriendFeed in terms of page views per day.
- Bret Taylor
Thanks all for answers. i told that it could not be real.. :) excuse me, i ve just read Bret's notice and looked at breaking point. i saw what i've missed before.. bad news for ff and iran.. :(
- Fırat DEMİREL
These statistics are incredible, especially the normally heavy useage of FF in Iran.
- Curt Mercadante
Bret Taylor, we can tag our pix and vids about iran election by an english keyword such as 'iran' or 'iranelection'. I think it will help to ff non-persian users to find out more about unrests in iran.
- آدمیرال
Iran restored cell phone service Sunday that had been down in the capital since Saturday. But Iranians still could not send text messages from their mobile phones, and the government increased its Internet filtering in an apparent attempt to undercut opposition voices. Social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter were also not working.
- Üstün Üzüm
martin: those words are not mine actually from a news article from washinton post.
- Üstün Üzüm
On twitter people are retweeting the IPs and ports of unblocked proxies, can we do something like that here?
- Canageek
martin, i'm from iran. twitter is blocked. what evidence you wanna? screenshot!?
- آدمیرال
yes Canageek. we use proxies for tweeting
- آدمیرال
Authorities blocking the internet are just reinforcing solidarity between people, can't they understand ?
- Stanislas Jourdan
Stanislas: not to mention they encourage their smartest and richest people to leave (the ones who have technical skills). There's a reason why Silicon Valley has 10,000 or more Iranians living here. Their government sucks and the people are getting tired of it. Of course if their government was great I would never have met my wife (who grew up in Tehran). So, there is good to come out of a crappy government! :-)
- Robert Scoble
it has always seemed to me that the iranian user base is ENORMOUS here. wow. unbelievable.
- edythe
It is interesting how much civil unrest that is brewing across the globe towards their governments. The knee jerk reactions in attempting to block certain websites shows how much they didn't expect the net to become such a widespread conduit for cutting through the bs and informing those that wish to know. I wish those who take a stand all the best.
- alphaxion
Another way for those that are in Iran is to access through Netvibes (but I don't know if it works or if it's blocked too), adding Friendfeed, Gmail and so on such as modules
- Roberto
Thanks for sharing this, Bret. It's valuable evidence of what's going on, evidence which wouldn't have been available even a few years ago.
- Michael Nielsen
Very interesting...so much for democracy and voting rights in Iran...
- freedom fighter mom
If anybody in Iran feels up to it, can you temporarily disable your proxy and run a traceroute to friendfeed.com and twitter.com then post the results here?
- EricaJoy
Bret and Paul, can you let us know if the traffic comes back, which would tell us they've unblocked FriendFeed?
- Robert Scoble
Robert: absolutely, we will let everyone know when it comes back up
- Bret Taylor
from email
Steven: You Like that it was posted, not the content of the post.
- Tanath
Bret, thanks for sharing the info about the dive. Shame, but what could we have expected from the Iranian status quo?
- Jon Osterholm
البته یه چیز هم هست اونکه بعد از فیلترینگ همه با آی پی غیر ایرانی می ان فرندفید و برای همنی آمارشون اینجا ثبت نمیشه ... وگرنه فکر نمی کنم از لحاظ تعداد نفراتی که میومدن کم شده باشه ... بلکه هم بیشتر
- HΛMΣD ƧΛFΛ
Yes, it happend and we have to use proxy to access friendfeed. Look at democracy in Iran...
- Zahra (raoros)
The coversations and comments here are educational.
- Seek Ground
Good luck to all of you trying to get around the censorship. I hope the big sites are doing what they can to help out.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Looking at the potential of this event in the future for numerous causes is mind-boggling. Really amazing.
- Charlie Anzman
Come to think of it, does FF have a presence in China? I'd imagine it's blocked there. I've seen Chinese on here, but never sure if that's from China or speakers outside.
- anna sauce
Yes, Friendfeed is blocked in Iran. Right now the papers and TV channels here are controlled by the government and our access to satellite channels is blocked too. Friendfeed and Twitter are quite vital for us now. Our main source of exchanging information and news is Friendfeed. Via Friendfeed we let everyone know that where people need help and where to go and how to help them and...
more...
- Selma
Nope, they have blocked all https addresses, we have had to sign in to Friendfeed via anti-filters for the past few months.
- Selma
its a shame. it was one the main media we used to inform ppl. thats why they filtered it. now many users cant sign in
- Myri∂m
Can't we "help" in some way? Providing proxies, I don't know, the kind of stuff pirates do. Pirates, and people trying to make a Revolution happen....
- Zackatoustra
It may not be long before Turkey joins the party.
- Sarp Tüzün
I just spoke with my friend Andres, the main BBC correspondent for the Middle East/Afghanistan, and he mentioned the web is being fire walled in Iran much the same as the the "Great Firewall" during last year's Olympics in China.
- sofarsoShawn
The Iranian websites that people used to exchange information about the election protests in Iran are under cyber-attacks by the government forces and from anonymous sources. Many of them are down right now. These Iranian websites were our few last remaining channels to inform people. What can we do about that? Is there anyone out there who can help us with this?
- emin
i was 53rd active user in friendfeed until this filtering. now i can open FF with proxies and if i can fine. a Vpn but many Vpn here come from companies that have relations with security services, i thunk they allow us to bypass filternig and then, they will arrest who has wrote against their goals
- خیزران kheyzaran
Can't we transfer the data/databases of the sites you, iranian guys, use to any new domain we could buy? I want to help. Not by throwing rocks to "security service" forces, but, at least, by making possible for what YOU have to say to go public, worldwide.
- Zackatoustra
FF is a useful website for Iranian People to get reliable information about demonstration against presidential election.
- پارسـا
so so sorry for iran people... I hope they will win...
- Tanaydin Sirin
and Now Yahoo messenger and google talk blocked in iran :((((
- پارسـا
Selma: 1- I don't use a proxy but clearing all but one (deleting them all logs me out) instance of each friendfeed.com cookie name and refreshing the page always solves this for me in Firefox. Has never happened on Lunascape or IE. Good luck.
- Alexandros Georgiadis
google block fftogo for iranian users!!!
- ★amin.m★
The reason I ask is because if you can email a post, then try sending it to share@friendfeed and also to YourUserName@friendfeed. Then when someone comments you'll receive an email about it and you can comment back to the thread via email as well.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
@Alexandros Georgiadis:for frienddeck.com I see this:You are accessing this page from a forbidden country! but dev.ctor.org/f2p worked! thank you :)
- ★amin.m★
from MojiPage
+ don't use your ISP's DNS server, verify your Firewall, search for rootkits.. + If you really wanna use Tor, be 'mobile', check the onion's status, don't be too confident, continue to use encrypted protocols & 'mobile' ports. At least, read Tor's docs and articles about Tor & privacy/security..
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
now chat like gmail or yahoo messenger are blocked too
- egza
for me,yahoo messenger is not blocked yet!
- ★amin.m★
from f2p
Alexandros: Frienddeck could work for certain parts - posts and queries against user accounts are proxied through the App Engine, searches are direct against Friendfeed so they could probably not work.
- Paul Kinlan
We wish the people of Iran well in these difficult times
- Marc
Not good at all. Best wishes to the Iranian FFers. I hope this whole mess gets cleared up quickly and with as little violence as possible
- Kamilah Gill
definitely DON'T LIKE this... >_< ...would love to be able do more than retweeting proxies
- Daniele
Best regards from Chile to all iranian people, we know a lot about bad government and human rights. Good luck, strength and courage to all of you.
- Roberto Arancibia
It's to bad there is such attempts to block free flow of information, how long will it be before there is more amazing differences happening? Such limits, hmm.
- Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa
They have to keep the militants in check. Thank goodness for the pipes that were broken.
- tony
Interesting censorship- same can happen in America - I would like to talk to you abt Friendfeed and bringing over some large groups do you have time?
- JanSimpson
I've seen those censorship about FriendFeed (Iran). Do you know some interesting and objective blogposts about it?
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
And China now has a similar blockage. You should also check on it.
- Kenyth
Sometimes we forget how easy we have it than other countries. But until people revolt & I mean a HUGE revolution injustices will still go on.
- Gabriella Sannino
che jaleb , oonvaght por comment dartarin feed kodoome? bebinim mishe feed 2khtare mardom e farzad davan davan ro be oon beresoonim?
- HΛMΣD ƧΛFΛ
from IM
it must be part of the API, since fftogo seems to include a time stamp on the comments
- Trent Olson
I'm sure they do store the timestamp, even if it isn't currently displayed.
- Mack D. Male
Yeah, it's in the api, all comments & likes are timestamped
- Glenn Slaven
I think this is a perfect plan. The only issue I might have is that the time information might take-over the conversations. It might just look more cluttered than FF already is.
- Ryne Nelson
concur, very useful to have. Make it a display option. Those who would think it's clutter can turn it off then.
- Alexander Falk
It is in the API (I use them in fftogo). I vote that the timestamp should appear as text when you hover over the "thought bubble" to the left.
- Benjamin Golub
All comments are time-stamped in AlrertThingy and feedalizr
- Stephen B
from Alert Thingy
What about a comment alert?! How do you follow conversations on ff!?
- TommaSorchiotti
Not sure if this will add to the functionality, but should be something they can try out...
- Dennis Goedegebuure
Not sure a comment alert is necessary. Comments bring the post up to the top of the timeline, which makes it available for anyone who is currently paying attention to Friendfeed. (Not sure why anyone would want their attention brought to Friendfeed if it isn't already there, that would be a huge productivity drain).
- Jason Wehmhoener
Please, please remember that the whole world doesn't run on PDT. I don't want to see timestamps in my FF in gReader and have to always try to guess whether the west coast is 17, 16, or 15 hours behind. If you must display timestamps, please put them in GMT. Setting the timestamps on my FF page/in my FF feed to be correct in my local timezone would be even nicer.
- James Polley
yeah ! and a hide fonction for each comment
- Jonathan
we know which came first... but in n argument the comments can edit. that makes time stamping very important so we know when someone made a change
- Noah David Simon
a timeline function in general would be nice, make everything more timeframe friendly
- Ruben Llibre
Show times either in GMT or in my own timezone, and just make it a tooltip for the quote balloon or something. Don't want it to look cluttered.
- Pat Hawks
just make the time relative from each comment, so I know who said what when in perspective. like 5 minutes later Noah David Simon said. <--this opens up
- Noah David Simon
Is i really important to know when every single comment is made? Only the last one would really be useful, could have 'last comment on june 1 at..." right beside the date of the post.
- John Duff
If the timestamp is a tooltip, then it isn't really "in the way." Maybe we can have all the timestamps as tooltips, except the most recent comment will have the timestamp printed out below it, like John said.
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
I am so tired of entering an empty room and talking to myself for twenty minutes. lol
- Russellreno
A needed feature for sure I agree. I suggested this to the FF feedback room some weeks ago.
- Mike Fruchter
<--- try hover your mouse cursor on that little dialog icon
- topo
Sorry it's not more obvious, but if you hover your mouse over the comment icon you will see the time that the comment was made. Thanks for letting us know that it's hard to find! The feedback is much appreciated.
- Ross Miller
I believe they are timestamped but this data is not yet displayed.... you're right !
- David Berrebi
other than timestamp I also want to be able to like the comments individually =]
- Özgür D. Cyric
This thread shows what happens when nobody reads the comments before theirs
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Lassen Datenschützer und Internet-Freaks sich vor den Karren der Händler und Freunde von Kinderpornografie spannen? Diese Frage muss sich nicht nur Franziska Heine aus Schwerin stellen.
- Svensonsan
"Der tausendfache Widerspruch markiert einen neuen Rekord, aber wer genau hinsah, konnte die Spaltung auch schon vorher sehen. Ob beim Thema Computerspiele, bei der Vorratsdatenspeicherung, bei den Debatten um die Online-Durchsuchung: Immer wieder gab es Protest und Streit und immer wieder zwischen den gleichen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen. Der Streit zieht sich auch durch die Feuilletons und Talkshows der Republik: Er schlägt sich nieder in den Debatten über die katastrophalen Folgen der Digitalisierung für die Musikbranche, über die Probleme der Zeitungslandschaft, über die angeblich verblödenden Effekte von Handys, YouTube, StudiVZ und Videospielen."
- Timo Heuer
from Mento
Yep, but I don't really connect with people there. I just read stuff. If I want to talk about something, I share it here.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Using more and more FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook and less Google Reader
- Ralph
Clearly my most used online app, so yes. All the other tools revolve around it in my world. My dad read the newspaper every morning, I read Google Reader all day.
- Bwana ☠
Yes, it's still the best way to track blogs that write about stuff I like.
- arjo
YEah. I used to use Feeddemon but I like having my feeds synced over multiple devices with the least amount of hassle. Google Reader works perfectly for that.
- Bhavishya Kanjhan
I use it, but I don't use it in a social way.
- Alix Whitmire
Of course! I also use FF a lot, but it didn't actually reduce my activity on Greader
- Stanislas Jourdan
Yes, but not directly, I skim entries via my program ( http://ff.im/38Yl8 ), if I am interested I click. So to FF/twitter/gmail/and other urgent feeds
- Yu-Jie Lin
Yes, since 2006. I used Bloglines and Sage (Firefox add-on) before.
- LouCypher
No. I stopped using it a long time ago when I switched to FeedDemon, then I stopped using that too (keeping up with 200+ feeds was just too much). Now, I use Gmail's Web Clips with 14 feeds (including the feed for popular bookmarks on Delicious). If the item is new and the title is interesting enough, I click. Still, I keep saying to myself: "I should go back to FeedDemon someday."
- Yaser Sulaiman
I use it on a daily basis. It is my primary means of keeping up with all the latest news.
- Bob Blunk
I setup google reader with a few local news links, so if I share something it's sent to friendfeed and then twitter. dont use it alot, forget to. I have FF, I let other people find interesting links for me to read.
- Mike Nencetti
Yep. No other readers sync with the iPhone as well. Sure, there's NetNewsWire, but I don't like it.
- Larry Hudson
Yes, but am really searching for an alternative that allows me to have smarter results... some blogs have posts I am not interested in. Today I just started trying out bytagg.
- Sid Burgess
Most people say RSS is dead because Twitter takes over by being real time. The issue with that is that we ourselves cannot be available real time, all the time. RSS helps you cache that information to make it available when you cannot be in the stream.
- Bhavishya Kanjhan
Zee: gloat? With a few dozen comments? Come on, please do be real. I have 89,000 followers on Twitter, 5,000 on facebook, 38,000 on friendfeed. When you get close to those numbers let me know. Then I'll let you gloat.
- Robert Scoble
@Scoble How do you mean "what I get close to those numbers?" - can you clarify
- Zee.
Robert: I don't think he wants to gloat about his numbers. It's about the fact that a lot of people still do use Google Reader or other RSS Readers; they just don't socialise with it as much as they do with Twitter or FF.
- Bhavishya Kanjhan
Yes, but I feel I'm wasting to much time with it. Browsing entire RSS feeds is not really targeted and Google Reader doesn't filter.
- Oliver Bouchard
I use it for my feedreading, but not socially.
- Scott Bulloch
Yes I do, keep it opened in a firefox tab almost all day.
- Vineet Bhatnagar
from Nambu
I'm still waiting to hear what Scoble's crap about "89,000 followers on Twitter, 5000 on facebook and 38,000 on Friendfeed" was about.
- Zee.
naa, he'll respond - at least i hope so. Because I'm really hoping i'm wrong about what i think he was implying there.
- Zee.
yes I do = but I am quickly finding FriendFeed and Twitter replacing some of the feeds I used to subscribe to.
- Tony
Yes! I use Google Reader constantly, in my web browser and on my iPhone. I have RSS feeds set up for my common Twitter searches, too. I also use Yahoo Pipes that I've developed over time to have very targeted RSS feeds. But I don't socialize via Reader.
- Kurt Rosenkranz
Yes, I still use Google Reader, voraciously. It has NOTHING to do with comments/followers. Rather, GReader is a tool for being better informed. Sometimes I use my GReader learnings in the real world - in conversation - where we don't formally have followers and such.
- Mike Reynolds
R.Scoble: What do follower numbers have to say in this matter, or at all ? I thought you had a statement about quantity vs quality some time ago as well ?
- Thomas Bøhm
I use NewsFire, and occasionally Resc Newws! on my PalmOS phone. I guess I haven't joined the "everything's in the cloud" revolution yet.
- Joshua Lee
<whisper> I've never used it. </whisper>
- Derrick
Thomas: follower users tell you how many people use a service and map pretty closely how many people are using a service, if you can see them in aggregate.
- Robert Scoble
Zee: it's not what 80+ people on friendfeed say. It's how many people ACTUALLY use these services. Google Reader just doesn't have the numbers. My follower numbers are a very accurate indicator of that.
- Robert Scoble
R. Scoble: people follow more people on Twitter than on Facebook because Facebook means you share a lot of information, so I'm not sure if those numbers mean much in the way of that.
- Joshua Lee
@Scoble But how do you know how many people use Google Reader?
- Zee.
I don't use google reader, and I use twitter, facebook, and a bit of friendfeed. ;-)
- Joshua Lee
But Robert, I use GReader EVERY DAY, but I'm not really socially connected with anyone on it. GReader's main function can be used without any social integration at all - so how many people follow you or vice versa isn't really relevant. Even leaving aside the issue of whether number of followers is relevant at all - it certainly isn't relevant when the core function of a service isn't connecting with other people, but consuming content.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Yes: it is a convenient tracking system and I like the email alerts
- Anita Hunt
Yes. It's an essential daily tool for must-read feeds, as well as for discovery. Social media does not give me the same content as my must-read feeds.
- LogEx
Sometimes feeds generate data for social media.... I share a lot of links via email and occasionally facebook or twitter.
- Joshua Lee
No. Currently it does not cater for my feed reader needs.
- Vidar Andersen
I used to use a similar online newsreader, bloglines I think it is called, but after a while I found having to check a website unweildy - the whole point to RSS is to not have to play with your browser to read information.
- Joshua Lee
If you want to follow blogs directly on their site, at least for Blogger, you pretty much have to do use Google Reader. I know I've had that feedback from my followers.
- Fossil Huntress
Yeah, blogger is a bit of a closed ecosystem. Very ungooglelike.
- Joshua Lee
/me uses his best Ronald Reagan impression "Mr. Brin - tear down this wall"
- Joshua Lee
every day for real work needs. for all the rest, FF, Twitter and Facebook
- Giovanni De Stefano
Yes. Daily. But I overlay it with Feedly - www.feedly.com - which makes it rather prettier.
- Stephen Collins
Clearly Scoble doesn't really want to get too involved with this discussion. Which is disappointing considering he was the motivation for the post in the first place.
- Zee.
Google will eventually add real-time and social networking stuff to Google Reader, and especially with algorithms to suggest the best posts to read, then all will use that most
- Charbax
I use it. But I don't share anything with it. I just use it to keep on top of a few news sites and forums.
- Jan Ole Peek
no, but I'm ashamed to admit it. I used to use bloglines.
- Laura Norvig
I live in Google Reader. It's my life line for discovery, digestion and distribution.
- Mike Fruchter
I do. I could live without FF, Twitter et al but Google Reader is a time/life saver.
- Murray Barton
Not much anymore. I push most of my rss feeds through FF. That way I still get RSS goodness without constantly fighting an unread count.
- Tech Introvert
well clearly according to Scoble, all of you guys saying that you use it are not part of the majority...and Google Reader is actually a very quiet place
- Zee.
Went from Google Reader to NetNewsWire simply because of the syncing ability between the Mac client and the iPhone app.
- Mike Bracco
Zee: sorry, I had to drive Patrick home. There are a variety of ways to see how popular Google Reader is. Look at Quantcast. Alexa. Compete. Compare referee logs with others, etc. I have kept on top of the usage numbers and Google Reader isn't keeping up with growth in other agregator types like Facebook and friendfeed andthe people I compare numbers with see a lot more traffic from...
more...
- Robert Scoble
@Scoble thanks for the clearer and less agro response. I'm really going to dig in and do some research into it because although I definitely believe that Facebook & Co. are growing much faster...as a news source/tool - i still believe it's number 1 and has huge potential for further growth
- Zee.
i do and love its integration into everything
- Zach Scott
I use it a lot. Get and collect most of my "news" there.
- kilbuda
Yes. I've been using it less because of FriendFeed and Reader's content/ attention data lock-in. If Reader: 1) allowed us access to our attention stats, labels etc. through interactive UI or flat file export (Diigo), I'd use it more. 2) added a simple WYSIWYG editor to the comments feature to improve it as a blogging platform, I'd use it more. 3) allowed for Gtalk chat's around articles with chats that could be appended to the articles (think Gmail with appended Gtalk chats), that would be useful as well.
- Jack Frizzell
Yes. Recently I love to use GReader via feedly.com
- yezi
Yes, though a lot less since Friendfeed came along
- jcunwired
I stopped a few months ago...but now I'm back to using Feedly - love the magazine layout, just a cleaner better way to read (for me that is ;)
- Aline Ohannessian
extended firefox with feedly this evening -- thank you all for that recommendation, gReader looks so much better, especially where the folders can be customized with different views: magazine stylesheet enhances the readability of content. [I'm looking into the exposure of private feeds when feedly services are used. Comments? It was surprising how they got to my subscriptions without my password.]
- Adriano
Adriano: Feedly is well done, isn't it? It's the only thing these days keeping me from abandoning FF completely for Chrome.
- Christopher A Carr
[off-topic @cacarr : ditto, cf. extensions like Zotero, It's All Text (w/ vim ;-), or even Read It Later]
- Adriano
Yes I do, and I'm also pretty impressed with feedly/firefox, but I use that in addition to slogging through my greader feeds. I'm in the process of re-organizing my feeds so I can "mark all as read" without concern I'm missing something I need to see. "a1_events a2_casts b1_techblogs x9_other" etc.
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
& my shared items get routed to Friendfeed+Facebook & from FF to Twitter... :)
- Roshan Ramachandran
I do use Google Reader but just to read news feeds not sharing or whatever. The number of updates is getting a bit unmanageable now and I end up bulk-marking a lot as read, but it's good to skim through the headlines or less active feeds.
- By_tor
Yes, but must admit my usage of it has dropped off a cliff since I started using Twitter more (mainly because it was easier to digest content on a mobile), but think the noise ratio is greater on Twitter, so may go back to Reader when I get the next iPhone.
- Paul M Evans
I experience the entire internet through google reader - even twitter and friendfeed are read in google reader.
- Ian Tindale
If I share stuff in Feedly it ends up in FriendFeed and Twitter. Someone has to put the good stuff up there to retweet...
- Ruud van Wijngaarden
Absolutely! Google Reader is still the first webpage i hit in the morning to read my "a-list" tagged feeds.
- Niklas Sjostrom
yes i do but since friendfeed came on the scene it gets less and less
- (jeff)isageek
yes but mostly through Feedly, and i do use Friendfeed to replace some stuff too.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
Yes.. I would never socialize on it as well, the tool is of course, fantastic..
- Daniel Tal
Yes. I hate to admit it but Google did a great job with Reader. At first I didn't share anything but after some tweaking I got addicted to it. The gadget is great too (when it refreshes of course)
- Carlos Lorenzo
Bloglines seems to be less reliable than Google Reader, but I stick with it because it's much easier to use. Complete navigation with single key strokes. Google Reader forces me to use the mouse. Too fussy. I'd prefer a desktop client, but haven't found one that is as good as Bloglines (on Linux).
- Peter
Yes. I have hundreds of RSS feeds that I read via Reader. I haven't found a better Web-based replacement. I do not use Reader for it's social networking aspects though.
- Glenn J. Ward
It's the only RSS reader I use. I've tried several RSS apps on my phone and a couple on my computer and none are anywhere near as good as the web based Google Reader, either on my phone or on the computer. So I just stick with it.
- Nathan Mylott
Zee - thanks for the link - I followed it and found 'helveitreader' which is nicer still. However, I have issues with the interaction as well as the style. (http://ff.im/3d9Np [http://ff.im/3d9Np] is real)
- Robin Barooah
from IM
Yes. only way to keep track of 250blogs, and its the only remotely Social media style site that isn't blocked by my work IT department. I share stuff not in Greader but on here more so.
- Yant
I use reader, but keep looking for ways to cut myself off from it. I hate feeling that I have to read everything.
- Daniel Zarick
yes. (btw @robin: it's fixed i think. can you please try again?)
- Yusuf Güzel
Yes, but not actively. I use it to aggregate my favorite newsfeeds into one giant RSS feed, which I feed into Wizz RSS reader (Firefox plugin). Wizz automatically checks for updates at specified intervals, so I stay on top of the latest news from all services. I also use it to search mp3/filesharing RSS feeds that I subscribe to, and to bookmark useful posts.
- LANjackal
Used to use it all the time, but I still check on my feeds from time to time through it.
- i80and
I used to use bloglines, but once google added the ability to search only my feeds, they had me hooked.
- Davis Freeberg
Yes, its my central information repository.Where i aggregate all interesting RSS ( from almost 150 different sources) so i never miss a beat. There are certain desktop apps which are better then Google Reader but whats great about it is its online repository which works for every device i use to access it. Though i clearly think there is a hell lot of improvement needed. In its current avatar it can be pretty unmanagable specially if you read a lot and you can't be online 24*7.
- Abhishek
exactly. I found a greasemonkey script that adds service icons, but the dominant image I first see is still the avatar, and while I really like the avatar-people-connection in comments, here I find it interrupting.
- Gina Häußge
the autoupdating is somewhat nice though. *sigh* maybe it's time to look for a client application instead of using the website
- Andreas Gohr
The simple approach is nice, but the I miss the service icons as well.
- Michael
The design is horrible, but there's stylish for cases like this ;) The autoupdating seems to be somewhat hiccuping here though, had to hit refresh to see @Michaels reply (no, I haven't paused real-time). Did I already say "meh"? ;)
- Gina Häußge
I tried stylish but it's worse, at last for me. Well, "meh", too.
- Michael
And what is it with developers suddenly deciding to steal service icons from their communities? Pidgin did the same crap. /me wants fraking context
- Gina Häußge
Mir fehlt noch ein Disqus Like Widget für's Blog
- Nils Hitze
"Twitter ist für Leute, die zum Bloggen eine zu kurze aufnmersamkeitsspanne haben." #vorurteil
- oliver gassner
"Bei Twitter sind nur 'Social Media Experts' und SEOs." "Bei Twitter sind nur Exhibitionisten, dei anderen ihre Stoffwechselvorgäge und ihren Kaffeekonsum mitteilen." "Früher fand ich Twitter doof/habe es nicht verstanden, aber jetzt find ich es super."
- oliver gassner
"Are you a big fan of hash tags? Or are you wild about boolean searches? Do you find yourself reverting back to "Run DOS Run" instead of just typing and talking like a human being often online? Despite billions of dollars of investment and a plethora of companies trying to develop natural language (especially in search), we still have a long way to go."
- Chris Messina
from Mento
This is mainly a UI issue I think. You can find almost anything if you use all the filters available (AND,OR,+,-,filter:,""), it's just that they're annoying to type and remember for most. If the app developer put a UI in front of the typical search box and *not* called it 'Advanced Search', it would help guide the user to a more successful search.
- Mohamed J
Internets are 30 years old, WWW is getting older than our school children. We got the world plastered in tags for six years now (thanks to Flickr and Delicious). And Web Marketers along with "Social Media Experts" don't get what "metadata" is. Still. Makes us all sad.
- Urbansheep
Who says the human language is the most expressive one? While I believe that natural language recognition *will* improve I also bet that we'll adapt to "machine languages", too.
- Fabian Neumann
Humans don't generally speak in 140 character bursts, to be fair.
- David Young
And your alternative for indexing groups, movements, thoughts, behaviors in 140 characters would be?
- Gregg Scott
Machines are some of the nicest people I know. Don't be a hater :-)
- Todd Hoff
Hashtags are underrated and over-maligned here. Machines should not be expected with <140 chars to classify a half-baked thought into a meaningful meme that fits into a hierarchical structure. Hashtags may not always be necessary but they can be useful for top-down content organization.
- Ryan Miller
Used judiciously, hashtags can be very useful indeed as I found myself when I got encouraged to live tweet 2 Pharma meetings many of my friends wanted to follow easily but couldn't attend.
- Sally Church
The machines help us to promote our messages (tag oriented services). Until all machines are configured to do otherwise, I'll still speak to the machines.
- KyleHase
from twhirl
Why not talk the native language? If I'm in France, what should I speak? I do a lot of (non-union) light work for theatres. If I tell the director that a lamp has blown, they fear they lost a piece of equipment that costs several hundreds of dollars. I constantly have to remind myself to use "non-technical" theatre terms in a theatre environment. (lamp==light bulb for most people.) Ever talk to a musician? Won't go into anything else. What you define as language can also be as slang or technical language...
- Todd Zaba
When machines understand human language, they'll decide we're primitive and kill us all. Fact. :P
- Bwana ☠
When people evolve to the point that they can aggregate masses of information and recall it at will, I'll take Jeremiah's request more seriously. Until then, I will continue to follow his primitive tweets.
- jcunwired
Thank you all *so* much! You're all so awesome!!!
- David Cook
from fftogo
This is nice to see...a great reminder that no matter how bad things get with the economy, etc., life indeed goes on. :) Congratulations and many blessings!
- Dawn
"We’re excited to announce the SUPER ECO FRIENDLY Business Card! Part of MOO’s New ‘Business Basics’ range, they’re as green as it gets."
- Timo Heuer
from Mento