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Enrique Gutierrez › Likes
These are all done in Pencil.
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Tyson Key, ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,, HealingBrush and 258 other people liked this
Impressive
- M F
Great work!
- Nia
I reshare this to Ideas & Inspiration room :) These are so realistic!
- Kristian Salonen
I'm sorry but this is unbelievable:) I'll give credit to the artist upon more convincing proof! The photogenic look of the tiger and lion really helps the artist's case though:)
- Roney Smith
I'm with Roney... I find this hard to believe... or maybe I'm just jealous that I can't even get stick people right!
- Jasmin Smith
I don't believe it. Too amazing.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I'm with Rah
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
Only the lion looks like its drawn
- embee
The bear and rhino look drawn, too.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
very very talented. Wow they look like B&W pics you know photography.
- Gabriella Sannino
These are amazing, were they done by you?
- Angelo Rodrigues
Nice photographs
- Rafael Robayna
@michael, if they weren't drawn by you, at least tell us who the artist is and the link
- LouCypher
Link please?
- Jason Wehmhoener
wow
- Carolyn Chan
being slightly skeptical, i'm going to say these were done with pencil by a printer of some sorts... #justsayin
- Enrique Gutierrez
they're beautiful, but skeptical as well
- Jennifer Van Grove
Would need to see higher quality images to see if they are pencil or not - too many jpg artifacts to tell.
- Luke Addison
from twhirl
Stupefied.
- Parth Awasthi
want proof
- Jérôme Flipo
Wow!! Yeah it's pretty amazing what they can draw with a pencil nowadays, deviantART has lots of great pencil art.
- Kol Tregaskes
Michael, who is the artist?
- Kol Tregaskes
wow, cool!
- Sarah Perez
you cannot win on the interwebs. draw some crap it doesn't get noticed. draw something amazing in pencil and people say it's not real.
- Joe Breen
I'm really happy everyone liked these. They're my most liked entry to date, Thanks! There also seems to be some question about whether these are actually Pencil Drawings.I can assure you that they are.When I get home, I should have the links. I have more drawings, too.
- Michael Fidler
from fftogo
O_O WOW...Stunning
- Anna Haro
Wow, these are stunning!!
- Susan Beebe
Yes, especially the tiger. Reminds me of that "Tiger, tiger burning bright."
- Melanie Reed
Alright, Mike - I believe you. These are awesome. Good job!
- Enrique Gutierrez
HOLY CRAP.
- Chieze Okoye
no way!
- Mister Groonk
Thanks Enrique, I'll post some more soon. They are a little more obvious than these ones. As Luke points out; without being able to look closely it's impossible to tell. He's right; but up close it's more obvious. I'll upload the originals to Picasa later, and then you'll be able to zoom in with any photo viewer and see for yourselves. I can't believe how many people liked these. A few people have reposted them already. Thanks!
- Michael Fidler
Absolutely awesome, Michael. You are extremely talented. Everyone should repost these pix and help to make you famous. You should be doing this full time - you obviously have some passion for this. Bravo.
- Chris Loft
These are really beautiful, Michael. Do you sell them?
- Shannon Jiménez
Chris, I would love to say they're mine, but it's not true. I've had them for a while, but I'll find the artists names. It will just require a little backtracking. Besides, they deserve the credit; all I did was find them:-)
- Michael Fidler
Cut the bullshit! :) Photos are very good.
- Burçak Çubukçu
I draw alot in pencil, but they are amazing, the best for me is the girl, that is the most photo-like one. :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
I agree Rob, the girl is amazing. My favorite by far! Wait until you see it close up! It's really had to tell, even up close!
- Michael Fidler
Burçak Çubukçu If these were photographs, they would be very good. As Pencil Drawings,(which they are), they're amazing.
- Michael Fidler
Wow, amazingly realistic
- Threepwood
@Michael Fidler did you draw them? How can you so sure?
- Burçak Çubukçu
That is my pencil drawing :) http://picasaweb.google.com/Burcak...
- Burçak Çubukçu
dont look like it
- Prakash
@ Michael Fidler don't push so hard :)
- Burçak Çubukçu
@Burçak Çubukçu I can't tell if your serious now or just kidding around. I hope your just having fun! If you are serious, I've never given you a reason to question my integrity, nor do I ever intend to. However, the second set is up now, so judge them for yourself, but don't judge me! http://ff.im/1BJh5 BTW, I messed up and reposted the shot of the women again. Oh well. Hope you like them:-)
- Michael Fidler
@Michael: try deviantART, not Picasa, to submit your artworks
- LouCypher
WOW "I can't believe it's in pencil"
- sofarsoShawn
LouCypher, I know it well, but I don't see why I would want to do that. I hope everyone knows by now that they're not mine? I'm sorry, but I can't say it any clearer than that.
- Michael Fidler
nah, i don't believe it is done in pencil. i am sure it is photoshopped :)
- hasin hayder
These would be great even for photos.
- tomit
i'm not able to comprehend
- Varun Shenoy
More comments here: http://www.bannination.com/comment...
- donato
I'm finding this both interesting and humorous at the same time. There's a separate message board where this post is being discussed and it has another forty comments on it already. I think its great how this has created some lively discussion, considering that when I posted this I was doubtful if anyone would even like it. When I went to sleep last night there was only had 3 or 4 likes...
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- Michael Fidler
Very interesting. I would like to see them up close and in person...just to make sure. Bill said it's real and possible. Your 2nd set of picts look like pencil. Nice work in finding these!
- LaFern Cusack
Kol, I can't thank you enough! Kol found another post which helps to prove that these are done in pencil. I had my doubts about a few of them because I collected them from several different sites over time, but the site Kol found has done a great job pulling together an impressive collection of these drawings and more. Take a look - http://www.flickzzz.com/2009...
- Michael Fidler
Actually there are more than what this site shows. There's an entire set with the cats(little cats), which I have, and there's a new portrait set.
- Michael Fidler
Found your post here, Michael. :-) I tried my best to find the artists.
- Kol Tregaskes
Amazing and very very very good.... Very impressive ...
- Linda Zeek-Bobinski
fake. http://lenscratch.blogspot.com/2009... Even if your not claiming to be the artist, these are photographs, well except the woman, thats pencil
- james foor
Yeah we know, thanks though, James. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Excellent pictures - how long did it take you to scan the photographs into Photoshop and then edit them? The only pencil that has come into contact with these "drawings" is the Photoshop pencil. A tip - stop trying to fool people into thinking you are a "real" artist, because all you are doing is cheapening proper artist's works whom have spent hours creating real pictures as opposed to a few minutes on a graphics editing package.
- The Wimp
A bell does ring here. And I am remembering why I was so attracted to the tiger...and the lion for that matter. These are exact replicas of prints I had in our bedroom when I lived in Dallas. I had bought the prints (in color) at a department store,
- Melanie Reed
Actually, I have learned quite a bit about these drawing since I made this post. Not only have I discovered all of the artists, but I've learned more about how they are created. They are always copied from a photograph or painting, but usually a photograph. It is extremely time consuming and detail orientated work. There are many other artists besides the ones featured here who practice...
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- Michael Fidler
Most of them have portfolio's on deviantart.com and their work is truly amazing even if they are copies of other artists work. I suppose with this level of detail, they have to start with something. Nevertheless, I'm still in awe of their talent. Melanie, the animal prints you refer to are from a very well renowned photographer. The originals are B&W I'll look it up later but I do have...
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- Michael Fidler
wow; they're unbelieavably beautiful.
- liladreams
Audio Analysis of the Beatles Multitrack Masters - http://waxy.org/2009...
Enrique Gutierrez liked this
What The F**K Happened To Rock And Roll? (VIDEO) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009...
Enrique Gutierrez liked this
Mike taking a break from schoolwork to work on copy for the Diliberto Winery website, (re)launching soon!
Enrique Gutierrez liked this
FriendFeed's mute button is now enabled. (via... - Louis Gray - FriendFeed - http://friendfeed.com/louisgr...
Daniel Rowley, Kol Tregaskes, Gordon Saunders and 12 other people liked this
discuss here, lol :P
- sean percival
from Bookmarklet
really though props to the team on this, i think mike will like this
- sean percival
is FriendFeed at a stage where we can replace "discuss here" with a web 2.0 term like "scobleup" or something?
- Enrique Gutierrez
Sean still owes a $10 donation ;)
- Jeff (the マクダジ of FF)
+1 Jeff ;)
- Tyson Key
Oh no! I haz lostz controlz of the conzervation!
- Louis Gray
I will paypal $10 to first person to comment this post
Gordon Saunders, Peter Warnock, Tyson Key and 6 other people liked this
does this count? UPDATE - - donate it to World Vision :)
- Jeff (the マクダジ of FF)
lol, doh! i was going to say they fixed the comment link so this is less fun now
- sean percival
hilarious
- Enrique Gutierrez
LOL!
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
i guess i owe jeff $10 now. what is your paypal address? please only tell me here, i wont look anywhere else
- sean percival
Finalizing the site; should be ready to launch in about a week
Enrique Gutierrez liked this
This project rocks, can't wait for it to launch.. t-minus 55 minutes?! :P
- Enrique Gutierrez
Opinion: When Harry met Twilight | The Next Generation Journal - http://nextgenjournal.com/2009...
Enrique Gutierrez liked this
Word of advice, learn from my mistakes. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER get a department store credit card!
Enrique Gutierrez liked this
I #BlameDrewsCancer for people that put toilet paper UNDER on the holders. TP goes OVER. Thankyouverymuch.
Janine, Mark Evans, Steve C and 10 other people liked this
unless you have a cat :)
- Robert Hafer
What Robert said. Trust me.
- Mike Lewis
We just shut the doors to our bathrooms. :) TP goes over, yes!
- Cheryl Jones
Again with the TP? LOL.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Over / under is a HOT topic. People are ragin' over on my Facebook LOL
- Mona Nomura
Like Robert apparently, my cats can unroll toilet paper if it is over the roll. Toilet paper goes under. KTHXBAI!
- DGentry
Cat owners need to put it under. Otherwise... well, try it "over"; you'll see what happens when kitty decides to play.
- Enrique Gutierrez
Just close your bathroom doors!!
- Mona Nomura
@mona - everyone knows cats "secretly" know how to open doors. you can't stop the will of a feline.
- Enrique Gutierrez
That is just an excuse. I #BlameDrewsCancer!
- Mona Nomura
@mona Ok, how about this one: Under prevents you from unraveling your TP if you happen to fall over drunk while praying to your toilet....
- Enrique Gutierrez
What? No way, I don't see the logic!!
- Mona Nomura
+++to Robert's answer. I will add puppy also.
- Janet
If it's over and you go to snatch some off, you could end up making a mess. There is just no reason it should be that easy to unroll toilet paper.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Don't yank so hard! Under is just awkward and can cause carpel tunnel (not proven)
- Mona Nomura
Over - so you can fold the end into a cute little point. (This freaks out folks at work).
- m9m, Crone of FriendFeed
I #BlameDrewsCancer for all you assholes unfollowing me because I am over Tweeting today. FUCK YOU. I also #BlameDrewsCancer for cussing.
Andre Maltais, Ryan Kuder, Kevin Bondelli and 4 other people liked this
FriendFeed is a feed reader. Yes or no?
Mitchell Tsai, Peter Efland, Steve Chou and 111 other people liked this
Yes, with filters, friends, likes and stuff
- Charbax
yes, I think that is what it is.
- Cat West
No, can't read full text for blog-length items.
- Bruce Lewis
Yes. I'd have to say it is a feed aggregator...it pulls in feeds from Google Reader, Twitter, Disqus, Flickr, Delicious, Digg, etc.
- Kenneth
But why can't we just import our OPML or sinle RSS feeds somewhere into FriendFeed without having to dump those feeds one by one in groups, that doesn't make sense
- Charbax
no. can't simply mark items as read, subscription is not a simple one click operation
- James Beake
It is pretty remarkable that after all this time FF still can't import/export subscription lists.
- Dave Winer
FriendFeed should somehow automatically group feed items so I don't get bombarded by 100 people all retweeting, liking and commenting the same things.. It should basically create a techmeme of feed items on-the-fly
- Charbax
yes
- Amber, Random Time Lord
Wow delete much Dave?
- Bill Heslin
in a non-rss kind of way it's a feed breeder -- aggregates feeds and conversation and distributes back out also
- Adrian Chan
No, because it doesn't read feeds, it just posts headlines.
- Louis Gray
No, I need full-text feeds. Headlines don't count.
- Alex Scrivener
yes
- Wayne Sutton
it is a feed reader and a lot more. its ability to function as a feed reader is probly one of its weakest functions. (so far) one of its strongest functions is to start discussions which are so damn easy and efficient that i can see ppl giving up on blogging and sticking to friendfeed.
- Freddie Benjamin
yes. it has a summary of the posts it aggregates. err yeah
- Alfredo
No, FriendFeed is not a feed reader
- Bill
I prefer Google Reader, because it's easier to privately star stuff in GReader than it is to reshare stuff to a private FriendFeed room. Plus you can mark items as read. I actually view http://friendfeed.com/lastfmf... via Google Reader rather than FriendFeed.
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
Nope.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Can I read feeds in FriendFeed - yes. Does that mean it is a feed reader - no. The question is to fraught with subjectivity in the end. But if you forced me to say what it is - it's a data aggregator and transformation platform.
- AJ Kohn
Sure, like a search engine is a feed reader.
- Daniel Dulitz
Nope - no way.
- Julie
Imaginary Friend makes it so
- Bryan R. Adams
Yes, for some types of feeds. I.e. anything not requiring much in the way of item payloads.
- Kevin Johnson
FriendFeed is def a feed reader. I prefer it to Google Reader.
- Shawn Hickman
FF is Live Feed Reader
- Nitin Nanivadekar
It is not now ... but getting dangerously closer ...
- Amani
FF is a social network, a chat apparatus, a communication device, AND a feed reader.
- Helen Sventitsky
it is for me now. Pushed all my twitter news, rss news to a select room i created. Allows me to see real time info
- Fake Elmo
I read feeds on friendfeed
- BEX
yes
- sean percival
no
- Matthew
It depends. FriendFeed is whatever you make of it. If you import RSS feeds, then FriendFeed will be an aspect of a feed reader.
- imabonehead
FriendFeed and Twitter - the best tech space.
- Igor Poltavskiy
Nope, but it's a Social Feed Reader. You read items sourced and recommended (= posted) by your friends.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
Yes
- Justin Yost
s/is/can be used as/ -- Yes.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Since you can only read headlines and not full posts, I wouldn't call FF an RSS reader just yet.
- Chris Rossini
from BuddyFeed
I would call Friend Feed and twitter "feed discovery engines" and "content discussion facilitators" rather than feed readers. I still use Google Reader -- too much in depth content and other things that I can't really get from FF.
- Travis B. Hartwell
Yes in some sense
- Håkan Dahlström
indeed
- americanm
Isn't FriendFeed a feed aggregator?
- Chris Heath
It is, if you actually read the feeds.
- Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty
yep!
- Jay
Just as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are turtles.
- Parth Awasthi
Yes, it is. But that's just the beginning.
- Mark Evans
No, I would say FF is a feed streamer, not reader. (and a mediocre aggregator)
- William Mougayar
So if it's an aggregator of feeds, how is it a feed reader? Just to be clear, my answer to Dave's question is: No, ff is not a feed reader.
- Chris Heath
Social Feed Aggregation*
- Chris Heath
* see site for details, some restrictions apply
- Chris Heath
+1 for no because it doesn't grab content, only headlines.
- Brett Kelly
thoughts' reader:)
- Igor Poltavskiy
Out of roughly 50 responses: 53% YES, FF is a feed reader, 31% NO, 16% didn't exactly answer the question.
- Mark Evans
I've been debating whether Twitter is replacing Google Reader and/or Techmeme. Friendfeed definitely could be one too.
- Mario Sundar
Not a feed reader for text posts (blogs). Feed reader for everything else.
- Mohamed J
better one than twitter, but NO
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Better than twitter but it's not a full replacement, either
- Michael Fidler
Yes. Once FriendFeed decides to turn on something like what Twitter just destroyed (replies) it would be even better
- Antonio Altamirano
A feedreader, no! There is no way anyone can read multiple blogs and communicate at the same time in the real-time realm
- Joe Dawson
Similar aspects I suppose but RSS is just available, whereas FriendFeed is something like SRSS - Syndicated RSS. Or maybe CRSS - consolidated RSS.
- Rick Cogley
No
- Chris Nixon
from BuddyFeed
No.
- Damond Nollan
I used to subscribe to my friends RSS feeds using Google Reader, but quit when FF came about because they were so hard to keep up with and not everything had an RSS feed. I guess that makes it a feed reader, so yes.
- Jesse Hattabaugh
Yep, but not as good as Google Reader... yet. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
No. FriendFeed is for Friends. Feeds are not friends. Though, I would love to use FriendFeed for feeds also - if only it was easy to separate people I follow and blogs (non-personalized) I read.
- Ihar Mahaniok
No it's not... you cannot read full posts there.
- Bhavesh
No. Friendfeed was not intentended to be feed reader. Although I use this room as my second feed reader http://friendfeed.com/mix-room
- arjo
No. You have to leave the site to read. It would be nice if Google Reader live updated like FF or the option to view the full post in FF existed.
- Peter Warnock
No, it lacks some of the key features needed in a feed reader but has other features that make it a different thing altogether
- M F
No, you have to leave FriendFeed to see the article.
- Mike Roberts
No, it's a social network. I talk to people on FriendFeed, I don't read blogs.
- Larry Hudson
No.
- dkb
The answer is either: no, not at all. Or yes, but it is a very limited one that is very unlimited in terms of others' voices.
- C. K. Sample III
To a point it is.
- Adam Martin
It's a real-time chat room.
- William Mougayar
FF is not your father's feed reader. It is a new gen user sweatshop producing metadata for its own search engine and maybe track equivalent.
- Mindaugas Dagys
Yes.
- Vincent Wright
It certainly depends on how you use readers. FriendFeed isn't going to do everything I use Google Reader for. That being said, FriendFeed would probably work better for many of feeds I actually subscribe to.
- Camden
a more customizable feed reader - feed reader to a lifestream
- Elizabeth Koh
yepper!
- Susan Beebe
it was
- Alessandro Lanni
Yes, *but* (and this is a big one), it does not provide enough facility to serve as a non-realtime reader. I cannot pick up where I left off on a feed or know what I read or didn't read. It lacks the controls to be effective in that space which, I think, is a critical feature of a feed reader.
- Kevin Kuphal
no
- Marcel Janus
from twhirl
Read feeds on Friendfeed Don't make Friendfeed a feed reader.
- CantorJF
no, I can't track what I've read and what I haven't.
- You.
I think its more of a meta-feed reader in a microscale. It picks up on the feeds of others, who in turn are reading the news rss feeds, thus meta. It's also on a microscale because, as mentioned before it's not real time, it's only the headlines with no descriptions and it still connects to the echo chamber as opposed to outside world.
- Shane Tilton
Well, compare this http://ff.im/2RXFH to this http://is.gd/zO1f . The question should be, how good is FreindFeed as a Feed Reader? It's bringing more value to the use of RSS feeds; more than just presenting them, regardless of each item being full post or just headline.
- zeroinfluencer
Dave, Could FriendFeed be a good email client?
- zeroinfluencer
FriendFeed is a task list. Yes or no?
- You.
FF is my magazine for browsing. I'm not catching up on FF posts like I do in Google Reader. I check the front page of FF, drop some comments, and then move on while it stays open in another tab.
- Joel Zehring
No, but that doesn't make it inferior. It's a wholly different animal.
- Daniel Miessler
(Of 94): Y:16 | N:27 | (?):51 - answers on this thread so far (based on this script: http://wittman.org/project... )
- Micah Wittman
Not necessarily. If all my RSS subscriptions were in Friendfeed, it would move way too fast. RSS is something I can still take at my own pace. Which is why I don't think it's dead, like some people would say.
- Robert de Castro
from twhirl
Nope, not for me.
- Adnan
It's an improved feed reader.
- Diego Espinoza V.
No way. Nothing beats a good google reader/postrank/feedly combo. Oh, unless google's servers are not responding like today, in which case friendfeed might be a nice backup.
- Mike Elliott
I'd say no, because it's the conversations that seem to have more draw / weight than the content (like a slashdot). It's a fuzzy line though, I could easily see the argument for.
- mikepk
No.
- Ken Sheppardson
Both. Depends on the user.
- David Damore
I tried to use it as FeedReader, but without being able to view full posts, it just didn't work.
- James Ostheimer
No. It's way better!
- David Cook
from fftogo
I'm torn on how to answer this. I've been back and forth with Google Reader and FF. If there was a simple way to import all my GR feeds into FF and de-dup it would help some. Sometimes all I want to do is quickly scan what's new and GR is fast, in fact rather amazingly so on the iPhone. But just reading feeds can be like empty calories. Having real discussions on selected topic has...
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- Tom Parish
Yes.
- Steve Rubel
Technically, yes. But it doesn't serve the same function as a dedicated feed reader.
- John Federico
I don't really get the "FriendFeed is a feed reader" logic. Is TechMeme a feed reader? I mean, I can't actually *READ* feeds in FriendFeed, I just get links to articles.
- Ken Sheppardson
what friendfeed does best is create an environment for people to connect and have conversations. It is more a networking tool than a reading tool. Sometimes you want to go to a bar an network and sometimes you want to go to a library and read.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Ken, yeah you can only read the headlines (or maybe the first sentence or two if the feed is set up to do a first comment type thing here) but past that... you're not reading the story/article/blogpost in friendfeed - you might discuss it within friendfeed (which is awesome, btw) but once again - NO - friendfeed is not a feed reader
- Chris Heath
No. It is a social feed aggregator with filters. It's limited in that you can read feeds of existing FriendFeed users, groups, or external feeds by creating "Imaginary Friends". However, Imaginary Friends is a rather cumbersome way to add external feeds. No facility exists for easily adding a list of feeds such as by importing an OPML file.
- Derek Mahar
in part yes.
- Thomas Hawk
An interactive feed reader, yes
- Murat Gök
No - I can't read the articles right on FriendFeed. It also doesn't require RSS to publish.
- Jesse Stay
No - to read the blogs and articles I still need Google Reader.
- Antoine Bertier
No, because -- in addition to what William Mougayar said -- there's no tagging of articles (just liking).
- Kawika Holbrook
No. Feeds are the internet data, tv, radio, cd/dvd/comic book collections and plumbing in the house. But people living in the house is the lead story.
- Micah Wittman
I can't answer yes or no : it is a social feed agregator
- Stanislas Jourdan
a feed reader, yes, and much more. I use it more and more
- Nadine Pestourie
No, because beyond choosing who I follow, I have no choice in what the rest of you put in it. I propose that FriendFeed is a "social media service."
- David Chartier
from BuddyFeed
No, I still use Google Reader to stay up-to date...to much noise on FriendFeed even with filters.
- Rajiv Doshi
It's interesting to see everyone who says it's not a feed reader. It most definitely is. You can subscribe to RSS feeds here. So it is defacto a feed reader. Now, is it a good one? Not if you want more than headlines. If you want full text Google Reader or other readers are much better.
- Robert Scoble
@Robert you got a point here. Does this mean it "might" be our future feed reader with a bit of improvement?
- giuseppe c. | markgreene
I think Google Reader is moving more toward a FriendFeed model with all of the Share and Comment features they have been adding, but they are fundamentally different because there is no post feature with any RSS reader.
- Brandon Hall
As i said elsewhere, Google Reader is my favorite feed reader because i can mark things as read/unread, so i don't miss anything. FF will never get this feature because the goal in FF is to go back to items you liked or commented. On Greader, once you've read it, you don't go back. As a consequence, Greader will remain my favorite feed reader.
- Stanislas Jourdan
giuseppe: I haven't used Google Reader much since I've gotten addicted to friendfeed. I always seem to get the most important news here first and when I go to Google Reader it is all old to me. I used to be Google Reader's top user, so this change in my behavior is interesting to me.
- Robert Scoble
Sure it is--though I don't is as such
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
With Google Reader shortcuts, i can skip very quickly between many items so I can scan much more information efficiently. However, on Greader you've to make a high selection of good feeds you really want to read fequently. Otherwise, it becomes evil!
- Stanislas Jourdan
absolutely!
- Sinem Co
Yes, but it's a "newspaper" style feed reader, as opposed to an "inbox" style reader.
- Tristan Seligmann
NO
- Kristian Salonen
No.
- Brandon Mendelson
totally disagree with Tristan
- Stanislas Jourdan
Yes
- Arda Çetin
For me, yes. At least in part. I recently created a News group and added a few news feeds to it (techmeme etc). I then switched on desktop notifications for this group so I effectively now have a real time feed reader / news ticker.
- Jamie
Jamie, I don't think it is worth. With this system you don't enjoy the FF community (i guess nobody "like" your entries or comment them so that you don't see what's important). Moreover you don't have benefit from Greader shortcuts and read/unread status.
- Stanislas Jourdan
No, friendfeed is not just a feedreader, feedly do a better job for feeds reading.
- David Foucher
BTW in my opinion, the interest of FF is that people select the items they share so that you get the best in your feeds
- Stanislas Jourdan
Pretty much yes.though thats not its primart function.
- Abhishek
yes, it's true and http://friendfeed.com/technol... doing that things ;-)
- Sakib Mahmud
FriendFeed is also a feed that goes to my google reader :-)
- David Foucher
O_o ?!
- Stanislas Jourdan
Yes, but only one facet of many. It's a poor feed reader if you plan on reading everything. It's a good one if you plan on only reading what is deemed popular by those you follow.
- xero
Stanislas - I think you misinterpreted me. I don't add the news feeds to my profile - I subscribe to them as they are already on FF. So for high volume RSS feeds like TechMeme, TechCrunch and so on I just view them as real time notifications. I don't need them piling up as unread items in Google Reader, which I use solely for low volume, high quality feeds where I need to see every item (daring fireball, carnage4life, codinghorror etc)
- Jamie
Jamie : Ok I understand. In fact you made a friendlist for News feed more than a News "room" (?)
- Stanislas Jourdan
UPDATE: (Of 145): Y:27 | N:43 | (?):75 - answers on this thread so far (based on this script: http://wittman.org/project... )
- Micah Wittman
Definitely Yes.
- stark
No, it doesn't show full feeds...only titles.
- Alex Scoble
Yes.
- Bill Romanos
Clearly there's a whole lot of variation in what people actually expect from a "feed reader". Seems like some people think it means "anything that uses RSS/Atom to generate a list of web pages"
- Ken Sheppardson
yes
- Danilo Paissan
and now I really want that there would be a feature to "unsubscribe from comments"... I am getting every phrase in my gtalk :)
- Ihar Mahaniok
Hence the inclusion of the word "feed". :)
- Kelly McAlearney
Yes, a Feed reader of «Friends'» Feeds -- make it «Fellows'» or «Follows'» -- with steroids (conversations).
- Jorge Martins Rosa
Ff technically reads feeds but that is not where their value - aggregation -is. It is a discovery platform powered by RSS and API-based clients can potentially fill the perceived expectation gap with current feed readers.
- Alberto Saavedra
from Nambu
Yes, but with added value, in that we can discuss aggregated content on the fly, including photos, video, music, etc., not just blogs and text posts.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
Not yet. It will get there. News outside tech is still scarce on FF
- Francine Hardaway
from BuddyFeed
No, and yes
- Christian Burns
........what if it was?? Leave Friendfeed a-l-o-n-e !!! please !! .. leave it alone , Dave ! .. please : ==== http://gog.is/chris+crocker
- Petr Buben
Ihar - the notifications section of your settings lets you choose which friend lists go to IM, email, and the desktop client... in lieu of frienfeed allowing us to unsub from each thread you can use the friend lists to section off the stuff you do and don't want going to your IM client
- Chris Heath
FriendFeed functions like a feed reader in that it gets (most of) its content from other sources. I don't believe it stores copies of the results (would it even be authorized to do so??) so I don't see how it could ever provide search capability. Big difference from TW which has its own content DB
- David Sanger
Yes. you import feeds, I've done this many times with 'imaginery friends'
- Jeremiah Owyang
FriendFeed is definitely a feed reader, since most of the content you'll find is brought in from RSS sources, such as YouTube or a personal blog.
- Thomas Ward
I love questions and answers like this -- They prove my thesis that "nobody gets anything," which, of course, is an ironic way of saying, "everyone gets anything in their own way." Of course, FriendFeed is a news reader. And of course it's not. (Me, personally. I like my "readers" to have an export feature, i.e., OPML)
- Rex Hammock
I like my readers to have an OPML *import* feature, too!
- Derek Mahar
or even an rss import for anything other than my own feeds
- Chris Nixon
from IM
Chris, you can import one or more RSS feeds by creating an "Imaginary Friend" and adding those feeds. It's better than nothing, but not nearly as convenient as OPML import.
- Derek Mahar
Its a bit convoluted. I'll stick with a feed reader for reading feeds. FriendFeed is about my friends feeds.
- Chris Nixon
from IM
It's the big-ass river of RSS. I like it.
- Pete Gilbert
Chris, I agree! Friendfeed is more of social feed aggregator than a reader. Google Reader is a good reader, but unlike Friendfeed, it doesn't (yet) allow you to share a set of feeds by default. You must explicitly share each item. It also doesn't appear to make comments public.
- Derek Mahar
Actually, I think I was incorrect when I stated that Google Reader comments are not public. I do see comments that others have posted to friends' shared items, so I guess comments must be public.
- Derek Mahar
Yes, FriendFeed qualifies as a feed reader.
- Mike Reynolds
If it is a feed reader, it sucks. There's no way to view the content of the RSS feed items. I have to click each and every story to read it. Headlines only? No thanks. I'd say no, because compared to Google Reader, Bloglines, NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, it fails as a feed reader.
- Bwana ☠
I'm with Bwana (it also has no import/export subscription function). I have lobbied for an iGoogle like popup in the past so I will put in my .02 here as well. I would like it to be a good feed reader but it just doesn't cut it now.
- Brian Sullivan
Yes. FriendFeed is a form of a feed reader ;)
- Nicholas James
hoped so, but not yet
- Peter Efland
I re-iterate my earlier No vote. A good feed reader like Google Reader or Bloglines remembers the items that you've read, but this memory is absent from Friendfeed.
- Derek Mahar
Twitter's down. FriendFeed simultaneously becomes usable. Coincidence?
Colossal Marketing™, Isha (Marysia), M F and 24 other people liked this
A Contingency Plan if nothing else :)
- Ray Marr aka Knatchwa
I don't seem to have any issues using friendfeed.
- Gunny doesn't side-hug™
I'm actually in the process of setting up FF to be my go-to app. Adjusting cross-posting settings today.
- Gary Walter (gwalter)
The more I play around with FriendFeed, the more I think Twitter is FriendFeed's little brother--not the other way around.
- casey wright
I have been using Friendfeed nearly exclusively since March. It's fantastic. I send most posts here to Twitter, but I rarely engage on Twitter any more.
- Leo Laporte
I wonder what they are updating. They better have put something new! Cause this feels like when the Apple Store site shuts down. I'm expecting something....
- Giancarlo Caparo
The interface between the end point does what? Buffer? Do nothing? I don't know, too new at FriendFeed.
- Dutch [aka fairuse]
do you update twitter from friendfeed or update friendfeed from twitter? Does it matter?
- The Weycrest Team
RSS is dead? My ass... - http://www.scripting.com/stories...
Garin Kilpatrick, marco, Nicholas James and 32 other people liked this
Ahh, when bloggers say something is dead we don't really mean it's dead as in nothing uses it. We mean it's dead in that it's a topic we don't talk about anymore.
- Robert Scoble
agree with Scoble. especially when it comes to Gillmor. you aren't supposed to take it literally.
- Jamie
I want to hang out on FF all day but I have to do this thing called "work" :(.... ugh, it gets in the way of EVERYTHING! ;)
Amber, Random Time Lord, Capn' One Eye - adrift, Michelle Martinez and 4 other people liked this
You are now one of US!
- Mona Nomura
@mona- yes! i keep closing FF to open a new window for work but mindlessly end up opening FF up again. LOL i better go, my boss subscribes to my feed
- Violet Mae Lim
I just did a podcast with the ebullient Dave Winer. It will be up in a minute.
Ric Johnson, Uncle CW™, Keven and 7 other people liked this
Psst...you misspelled ebullient.
- Alex Scoble
what service did you use? We (@motodev) been using blogtalkradio.
- Randy Ksar
Randy: Dave was using Blogtalkradio.
- Robert Scoble
Alex: thanks, fixed that. You can listen here: http://friendfeed.com/davew...
- Robert Scoble
Robert - good news on WebOS development http://reddevnews.com/feature...
- jcunwired
I like the short format. very cool
- Brian Hendrickson
Facebook just doesn’t seem to get it. Facebook is NOT Twitter. - http://thenextweb.com/2009...
 |
deakaz, Hasham Malik, E. Sengo Kiruluta and 32 other people liked this
Great article. I think FB is about to destroy it´s service because they couldn´t buy twitter. Instead of accepting that there is room for two great services on the Internet, they are now on a steady course to destroy one service. In the war between FB and Twitter, there is room for new great services to grow. Maybe Friendfeed will be that service?
- Frode Stenstrøm
exactly Frode, it seems as if Facebook are trying to be everything to everyone...which could easily be its eventual downfall.
- Zee.
Seems FB´s trying to be an internet on the internet. Why would I want to do everything on one service and under one domain when the web is more and more connected (in an open manner) ?
- Thomas Bøhm
I believe that's their strategy. For many people it makes negotiating the Internet simpler. Most people aren't tech geeks like us!
- Gregg Scott
They have a classic strategy that is bound to fail. Companies start small and focued. (Anyone remember what FB´s strategy was at the start? :) ) then they grow and expand. In search of new revenue streams they broaden and loose focus. They become a general service instead of a pioneer and leave room for new companies to grow. Anyone remember what almost happened to IBM? How about Coca Cola?
- Frode Stenstrøm
I'd been thinking this before FB announced any of this. I wrote Tremendous Tiwtter Ideas posts Part 1- http://twurl.nl/cpoj8w and Part -2 - http://twurl.nl/6g6yog that I hope @ev and @biz see. I think there's far more to Twitter than we're all really seeing. FB is extending the walls of the walled garden.
- Ken Camp
Facebook reminds me of another big name that tried to expand and morph beyond its original offering. I'm talking about Yahoo!. Yahoo! went from the biggest name on the web (in search and in portal technology) to an also-ran in so many technologies. And this happened for many reasons - not least of which was the dilution of their original vision. Is Facebook intentionally trying to repeat the errors of Yahoo!?
- Lorin Olsen
Such need for expantion is often based on the difficulty in saying no to a good idea.
- Frode Stenstrøm
I seriously doubt any of their users (besides us geeks) have asked for the ability to access Facebook outside of Facebook.
- Daniel Sims
yep, i would have to agree with you Daniel
- Zee.
Great article and I think your right, a lot of Facebook users are not tech savy they use Facebook to communicate with their family and college friends and don't necessarily want everyone in the world to know of the communication. I can picture trouble in the future.
- Kim Landwehr
Has anyone checked out Facebook's new friend pages? It looks like they're trying to become Friendfeed as well. I happen to like the more Twitter-like layout personally, but the Friendfeed look for the Friend pages feels all wrong....
- Kristine Lowe
Does Twitter's Recommended Users List Give an Unfair Advantage to the Privileged Few?
rama mamuaya, waraney rawung, Michael Becker and 17 other people liked this
The following comment is one that I left on Jesse Newhart's FF discussion, "While Twitter Jumps The Shark The Cool Kids Jump To FriendFeed" at http://ff.im/2jgoJ In light of the Oprah/Kutcher/CNN sideshow, I believe my question does have merit and deserves a bit of discussion. I've posed the question here so as not to clog up Jesse's stream with this issue.
- Sharon McPherson
"I agree that Twitter's recommended follower list gives an unfair advantage to those with 'status'. To me it has the unpleasant aroma of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" politics. Will we now have those of 'wealth & privilege' lobbying for a spot on the list because of the recognition (as opposed to substance) they can bring to Twitter? If they must have a recommended list, it would only be fair if they also included a few randomly generated Joe & Jane Blows, who do provide substance, to the list."
- Sharon McPherson
Hi Sharon, didn't see you on ff before (I'm still in the new-sance stage ;)
- Mark Essel
<- is VictusFate from twitter
- Mark Essel
if twitter becomes over biased by outside clout uncorrelated to what most of us consider useful sharing, we have a couple of answers. It's social in the readers control, so we can simply stop following whoever we please.
- Mark Essel
or we can hop to a social media not heavily controlled by those that don't participate
- Mark Essel
unfair? why do we think that we get a say in how it all works...sounds like sour grapes to me. You can either use the hammer, or complain that it doesn't fit your hand perfectly.
- Allison
Allison, thank you for your comments. I don't think it's sour grapes at all. Ask anyone who knows me, I'm among one of the biggest Twitter advocates there is. But when I first joined Twitter, they didn't have a recommended list of people to follow, as a matter of fact they suggested that you post a few updates and observe how it worked before you started following anyone at all. Now you're met with a recommended user list before you've even had a chance to upload a pic or complete a bio. continued below..
- Sharon McPherson
...please don't get me wrong, for me it's not about the numbers. I've been on Twitter for almost a year and have 2,046 followers, I could have over 5k followers, but I periodically block dormant, "spammy", or 'look how great I am' accounts. I just don't think it conveys the right message about social networking that people like you and me, who have been on Twitter for a while and add...
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- Sharon McPherson
Hi Mark, thanks for your comments. I joined FF not long after I opened my Twitter account, but honestly, I focus so much of my attention on Twitter that I would forget about FF. Just recently logged in to see what was happening and saw the new beta version. I'm hooked.
- Sharon McPherson
:D wonderful
- Mark Essel
The list enforces an anti-meritocracy. Why? Well, Oprah, for one, has been on Twitter for only a couple of weeks. How does Twitter know she will be a good Twitterer? Leo Laporte had about twice as many followers as Mike Arrington before this list was turned on. Now he has far less. Is that fair? Same for everyone on the list like Mashabe and Gigaom. This list has caused many weird artifacts. I don't trust follower numbers anymore. They are far less meaningful to me today even though the mainstream media ...
- Robert Scoble
...puts more stock in them. It also pushes a celebrity culture where non stars simply matter less.
- Robert Scoble
I agree with you Robert, I have recently been calling this "the follower inflation", and as in real-world inflation, the value goes south... another huge problem are the automated follow/unfollow gamers, with those 9,500 / 9,100 / 86 updates accounts (and those updates are sometimes just piped RSS from elsewhere). Guruvan and Jesse have recently wondered out loud on here if we are all fools for playing by the rules and tweeting our little butts off, given that Twitter is not really cracking down on this.
- Alex Schleber
It should not be twitter that gives out 'recommended users list' but it would be a third party
- TrafficBug
no...not if you don't care how many people follow you...there are more important things to care about
- Anthony Feint
Of course it does. What I'd like to see is exactly how Twitter decides who should make the cut. It's one thing to put well-known celebrities and brands on there, as much as we may not agree with it, but there always seems to be a bunch of random people who aren't total unknowns but quite odd recommendations i.e., @adventuregirl. The benefits are enormous: the latter went from a few hundred followers to 40,000 in six days. Now she has 339K.
- Shéa Bennett
What I'd like to see (and I write about this at length on my blog, Twittercism.com) is a suggested user list that scans the bio/tweets of the person looking and offers relevant choices. I'm never going to be interested in following Martha Stewart, so I'm never going to understand why she is being recommended to me. The reason why, of course, is due to her mass appeal - a lot of folk will be interested, especially those post-Oprah. Twitter going mainstream is good for many reasons, lousy for a lot of others.
- Shéa Bennett
Thanks to everyone for your input. Robert, I think your statements, "Oprah, for one, has been on Twitter for only a couple of weeks. How does Twitter know she will be a good Twitterer?" nails it. This quote by Chris Crum at WebProNews may be the answer to why she's being given the "star" treatment by Twitter, "When Oprah joined Twitter, Twitter's daily market share of Internet visits skyrocketed." http://www.webpronews.com/topnews...
- Sharon McPherson
Sheamus, most upsetting is that organizations like the U.S. Government's official HIV/AIDS Twitter account, @AIDSgov, and the American Cancer Society, @AmericanCancer, have to get their followers the old fashioned way, ie; earn them! While Twitter suggests that people follow a cat, @sockington, who currently has 409,357 followers and follows only 217.
- Sharon McPherson
BTW, the cat posted a very telling blogpost upon reaching 300,000 followers... "Sockington Dupes 300,000" http://www.sockington.org/2009... The boast was posted on April 22nd. Would the account have gained 109,357 followers in less than a week without Twitter's help? My apologies to the cat lovers out there, but I doubt that even Garfield could have gained that many on his own.
- Sharon McPherson
Sharon, you are absolutely right about this, Twitter could actually be doing some good with more meaningful recommendations. Sheamus, the solution you are looking for exists (mostly) at http://TweepSearch.com, although it would be preferable for Twitter to provide this natively on the WHOLE user base (not that hard to index the darn bios..)
- Alex Schleber
Sharon, you may enjoy the mini-post I just wrote based on your comment: http://alexschleber.posterous.com/great-u...
- Alex Schleber
That's great Alex, thank you. I just left a comment on your post. I hope people realize that the intention here is not to "bash Twitter" or those on the list, but instead to hopefully help Ev and Biz realize that there should be room made on their list for those other than the A-Listers.
- Sharon McPherson
Alex: Yes, it should be internal. All newcomers aren't going to go off-network for suggestions. The @sockington example is perfect. I realise it's just a fun account but come on - if you're going to have a set list, recommend something of substance. And as you say, it's not difficult to have a quick look at my likes - I could even input those when I sign up via a checklist format.
- Shéa Bennett
Sharon: I agree. I can understand having half of those 50 (I believe it's 100 in total) suggested users being celebrities and brands and what have you - Twitter wants to show off its appeal - but maybe the solution is for the other 50 to be either tailored to my profile/tweets or possibly selected by some kind of ranking system that governs 'worth'. All that said, if they're going to pick the list themselves, they might as well make a buck out of it. Let everybody buy impressions.
- Shéa Bennett
Shéamus, your suggestion to let everybody buy impressions is an idea that's been going through my head since we started this discussion. Twitter can set strict standards that an account holder must adhere to, if one meets them, give them the opportunity to purchase a listing among the suggested users for a limited amount of time, determined by how much they paid.
- Sharon McPherson
I ran an RSS feed from Twitter on the term "how do I" for about a year. Overwhelmingly (like 85%) of questions were "how do I find people to follow". Twitter is helping people get a jump start on that.. There seems to be an unhealthy focus here on how many followers and who gets followed. remember everyone has the power. Those new twitterers will drop anyone they dont like. I really don't get the concern here
- Allison
Allison, I apologize if my comments have not adequately conveyed that the focus here is not "on how many followers and who gets followed". The purpose of this discussion is whether Twitter is showing bias in suggesting mostly "well-known" people, while many charitable Twitter accounts that would benefit people by a recommendation from Twitter, are being ignored. For instance, what if a...
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- Sharon McPherson
Sharon - Taste = Bias. If I am reading you right, if they had chosen tweeps that you approved of you would be ok with them recommending?
- Allison
I never said I disapprove of them suggesting users. And Twitter doesn't have to have my approval to do anything, but if they want to introduce people to the power of social networking suggesting a few organizations that help benefit others ALONG WITH, celebrities, news organizations, talk show hosts, and a cat that Tweets, would go a long way to achieve it.
- Sharon McPherson
Sharon - it's not that I disagree with your motives, it's that i can also see why that might not be a good thing to do for Twitter. Their core business is to get people to sign up and use the tool, as many people as possible. Being uncontroversial, interesting and appear to be FUN, gets people in. The serious stuff drives people away. Unfair that some get the nod because they fulfill those criteria...not when it helps your business model.
- Allison
And I see the point you're making also Allison, about wanting Twitter to appear to be fun. Hopefully Twitter will find a way to suggest the best of both kinds of tweeters to their followers.
- Sharon McPherson
It's easy enough to do: have a fixed list of 1000 users and tailor it to my profile when I sign up (or go back for another look) by suggesting fifty I should follow right now. Sell those spots for $100,000 per year and that's Twitter's monetization sorted out. When @mashable, @techcrunch and anyone else with something to promote (and sell, and advertise) hits a million users, $100K/year will seem like chump change for one of those spots. You can do it organically, and many will, but why wait? :)
- Shéa Bennett
And with those paid-for spots, which are tailored to me but still essentially ads, throw in another random 50 that I should also follow that are just normal folk. You get your 100 suggested users as now, but 50 of them are buying that spot, and supporting Twitter, and the other 50 keep it fun. I can of course follow, or unfollow, who I want, which keeps the power with the little guy.
- Shéa Bennett
just look at Kutcher and Oprah did to twitter.. over hype.
- rama mamuaya
On the contrary, I think they might help to truly monetize the product.
- Shéa Bennett
How To Overhype Your Search Engine - http://searchengineland.com/overhyp...
Adam Sherk, Nicholas James, Enrique Gutierrez and 23 other people liked this
"As for Wolfram Alpha, it might be amazing when it comes out (Tim O’Reilly tells me I’ll be impressed, and I count his opinion pretty highly). But if so, it will go against the odds. So far, it just keeps tossing up the red flags on my list that lead to disappointment."
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
Not sure that I agree with #4.
- Cristo
Why is Wolfram Alpha even being considered as a search engine? Just to get attention, or because people can't grasp a new concept? It's basically a natural language calculator. Sure, it would be nice as a onebox fronting a search engine so you can type your expressions in the same place you type your web searches, but it's a totally different thing. It doesn't even make sense to evaluate it against normal web search queries.
- ⓞnor
Sullivan's #3 isn't even true here -- nobody is calling this "the next Google". Even Lenat the uberhypemaster compares it to Google only to point out how it occupies a very different space. And why would you brief Danny Sullivan for something that isn't a search engine?
- ⓞnor
ⓞnor - I agree. I feel like Danny (whom I respect considerably) had an outline of this post burning in the back of his head for a while from all the other over-hyped search engines of recent years, and the Wolfram Alpha launch just pushed him over the top to write it, even though it didn't apply here. I say this because no one, especially not Wolfram, is saying this is a search engine (of the general sort).
- DeWitt Clinton
I respect Danny as really knowledgeable, but him (and others) not being briefed becomes one of the top 5 reasons it's overhyped? Seems presumptuous, no?
- Aaron D'Souza
Chris White: For #4 (big name irrelevant to search), see also Bill Clinton and... dang, what was their name? That's right: Accoona. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id...
- Matt Cutts
Why did it become "overhype" instead of "hype", anyway? Did we decide a little exaggeration is appropriate?
- Jutta Degener
Jutta, it comes from writer's subconscious feeling that s/he has to hype own words in order to wake up readers' interest. Perhaps if the process of publishing it wasn't so effortlessly immediate, so easy it becomes mundane?
- ianf ⌘
"Overhype" is an understatement for someone who writes: "This book is the culmination of nearly twenty years of work that I have done to develop that new kind of science. I had never expected it would take anything like as long, but I have discovered vastly more than I ever thought possible, and in fact what I have done now touches almost every existing area of science, and quite a bit...
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- Ionut
Matt, the first thing that came to mind when I read #4 (big name investors not related to search) was Andy Bechtolstein's investment in Google.
- Cristo
i couldn't get past #1 - Wolfram didn't kiss the ring, so he's going to get his panties all in a bunch? Please... Wolfram|Alpha is for academics/researchers and they probably don't want the input of "those who regularly cover search" just yet, or maybe they could care less about pleasing the 'bloggers' and 'reporters' and more about pleasing the end users (academics and researchers) ...
- Chris Heath
Chris, Aaron, I pointed out that not contacting me could be me being big headed or sour grapes. If you feel it's all that they haven't "kissed the ring" as Chris put it, fair enough. But this just isn't for Wolfram Alpha. It's for any general search engine that's trying to come into the space and compete against Google. And the pattern is that this isn’t a good sign.
- dannysullivan
Understood, this isn’t a Google rival. Except it’s a new paradigm they tell us directly, our “default browser” one review said & “could be as important as Google” said another. So yeah, people are going to compare it to a search engine. And if it’s not, then they need to set expectations. Unless they’re not worried about that.
- dannysullivan
Matt, Bill Clinton and Accoona is a perfect example of the type of "big backer, nothing to do with search" thing I've seen. Jutta, yeah, "overhype" is probably unnecessary. Perhaps me trying to talk about hype above and beyond the usual commonplace hype. And thanks for the comments, everyone.
- dannysullivan
Danny, you do great work, don't get me wrong on that, but i had a hard time getting interested in that post because up front you do mention that it might be sour grapes, but then go on to say that in order for Wolfram to get ahead they've got to come to you. Hey, I want them to give me a look at it too, and i'm a nobody - you're freakin' searchengineland.com! - anyways I look forward to your review of it when you do eventually get a chance to check it out. -- until then we're basically speculating, right?
- Chris Heath
Chris, the way I read Danny's point is that if a search engine doesn't even know the influencers in the search space or ignores them, they're missing a vital chance to educate someone that could assess an engine and provide perspective. I've seen several generations of "Google Killer" hype, and Danny's article resonated with me.
- Matt Cutts
Thanks for the perspective Matt, I get that point, just couldn't make it thru the post far enough to get to it, I guess. I have a feeling that Danny might still get a look at Alpha before the general public though.
- Chris Heath
Stephen never called this a search engine and it isn't one. It's a knowledge engine because it gives you an answer. And with all due apologies Wolfram and Mathematica were significant before Google even existed and it's not like Stephen needs any validation for his work. Will wolfram alpha be any good? Don't know. But wolframs validation will come from a different community, not the search engine world
- Deepak Singh
Deepak, that's kind of what i was getting at with my first comment about how they're probably more interested in feedback from researchers and academics, than search engine people.
- Chris Heath
Chris, missed that on my phone. Quite right
- Deepak Singh
Chris, totally understand my first point my be offputting. I don't mean they have to come to me. I mean if you launch a new search service, I expect someone who regularly covers search to know about it (me, others, someone!). But that alone isn't a killer thing. It's just one of several signals that can tell me if a service may have problems with adoption.
- dannysullivan
Deepak, it's a common tactic for a new search engine challenger to say they aren't a search engine but a "knowledge engine" or "answer engine" etc etc. Classic tactic used again and again. But even if Wolfram isn't overtly trying that approach, they ARE being compared to Google. And respect to Wolfram, if they don't control that expectation, no matter how good they are to the scientific community, they may end up with a reputation of "failing" to beat Google.
- dannysullivan
But a reputation among whom, Mr. Sullivan? I am a scientist, and I don't follow any blogs/people who write about google or search or any of that(I do follow Deepak), and I'm quite comfortable waiting until I can form my own opinion about it.
- Mr. Gunn
I'll form my own opinion when I see it, too. I've said repeatedly "we'll see." But in the postscript to my article, you'll see some claims from Wolfram this is aimed at "average" people too. The reputation among those average people will probably be how does this measure up against the utility of Google.
- dannysullivan
"It’s not that I have to be briefed — it’s more that if I don’t see anyone who regularly covers search talking about a service, that’s usually not a good sign." - What?! That's ridiculous. Bigheadedness aside, a sure sign to hype is to get a lot of people "in the know" talking about you. They are doing what they should do-- quietly focusing on being worth talking about (and hoping they are right).
- Tony Wright
Danny, and another thought - wolfram might not care about adoption as long as it's useful.
- Chris Heath
Danny, but Wolfram Alpha will never have the general utility of Google. Since it can only answer a question that can be represented as formal knowledge, what it can give you is unique, but you can never find out what someone's opinion is. It's not based on links, it's not based on what's popular and what someone thinks. By definition it's a knowledge engine. I am not sure it's going to work (I am cautiously optimistic) cause the fundamental problem is very hard (and it's not a natural language engine)
- Deepak Singh
Also, Stephen Wolfram is a wealthy man, so it's not like this is a startup that needs to make a ton of money to be successful.
- Deepak Singh
Interesting comments on Wolfram Alpha by Twitter user fredericl here: https://twitter.com/fredericl For instance: "don't think alpha will be a google killer - rather a wikipedia killer for vast majority of topics on wikipedia"
- Sean McBride
Tony, they have plenty of people talking about them. Started back with the first review that came out, and then there have been a series of other ones. Those weren't quiet. Those people were deliberately briefed to spread the word. None of the reviews have been from people who regularly cover consumer search to a wide audience. Those closest we've gotten was Read Write Web getting a preview tonight.
- dannysullivan
Deepak, even if he weren't wealthy, it doesn't mean his or any search engine needs to make a lot of money to be successful. Success is however you want to define it. A small service with a small audience is still successful by my terms. But if the stated goal is this is something the average searcher will turn to, then I'd expect they're hoping it will get substantial traffic.
- dannysullivan
Sean, yes, more people who have seen it are pushing this is more likely to be a Wikipedia challenge than a Google challenge. That's still a Wolfram Alpha challenge, though -- Wikipedia I believe still gets most of its traffic from Google. Interesting to see if Wolfram ends up with static pages that can be spidered and listed in Google.
- dannysullivan
agree in particular with 2 (using a biased sample of queries), 3 and 4 (if combined, e.g. if Ophrah says you are the next thing) and partially 5 (probably a shorttime effect), but 1 I don't quite get.
- Amund Tveit
/article /author Frederic Lardinois /title Wolfram|Alpha: Our First Impressions /publication ReadWriteWeb /date 20090425 /url http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive... #nml
- Sean McBride
Funny, this article appearing just at the time that I launched the beta of my little search engine http://lenzcape.com . Well, launching is a big word for a few blog posts from a developer. I guess I should do a self-assessment using Danny's points...
- Rintcius Blok
Noteboek on Vimeo -- coolest video I've seen in a long time. Thanks Jared Spool for sharing this! - http://vimeo.com/4116727...
 |
David Erickson, Faethon Koussouris, Cem Ozkaynak and 84 other people liked this
Really excellent.
- Michelle McCormack
White Stripes!!
- Michelle McCormack
That is one impressive notebook. Crazy dutch.
- Mitch
Amazing! I am envious of this person's creativity. :)
- Cheryl Jones
I want one. For real.
- phil baumann
As I watched, I was hoping the system time would update, but it never did.
- Robert Peña
Take on Me Noteboek: http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- David Newman
If only my notebook started as fast or shutdown as quick!
- Shivanand Velmurugan
I like the face scan! :)
- dafire
very clever!
- Kevin Eklund
Cool!
- Tony C
Wow. This one merits a triple-like button.
- Eric Johnson
We updated the FriendFeed Beta navigation and sidebar based on people's feedback: http://beta.friendfeed.com/
HealingBrush, Bertrand Doux, Marko Saric and 286 other people liked this
We have separated Groups (the new name for "Rooms") into its own section, and we have renamed "filters" to "Saved searches" to make things simpler/clearer. Saved searches have simper URLs that can be shared, and friend list operations have all been added/cleaned up.
- Bret Taylor
Nice - looks much cleaner.
- Robin Barooah
Nice, better navigation
- Nimaa
Our primary goal was making Groups more useful again. The friend search / group search functionality is now separate and much easier to use.
- Bret Taylor
excellent, much clearer
- Don Bonaddio
So the "Top Friends" option that used to be showing is now gone. Works fine.
- Louis Gray
That works awesome with the "group" I just put together consisting of all my rss feeds from google reader.
- James Ostheimer
I like this change. Also, I apparently like boats.
- Ana
I dunno, it's possible to be an enthusiast but not like something.
- Casey Muller
Thank you!
- BEX
Thank you I love the new navigation.
- Russ Jackson
We have also added Atom feeds, Block, and a number of other small missing components.
- Bret Taylor
Organization is a good thing. Thanks and keep it coming. The subtle stuff will come. Color customization, etc. I think the main think is make it look dead easy, with the advanced user stuff just a little symbol or click away...
- kilbuda
Much better!
- Andrew
Thanks !!!
- Eric Logan
SHWEET!
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
i like being able to statically set the groups it shows me on the side now.
- rob friedman
Very cool. Much simpler. Any chance of being able to rearrange the blocks a la iGoogle in the future? Saved Searches were mighty convenient up at the top.
- Mark Trapp
Yes, rearranging and theming are both things we would like to do.
- Bret Taylor
I wondered what happened !
- LPH™ and his dog P™
Theming? Whoa.
- Mark Trapp
Like Mark Trapp's idea.
- kilbuda
+++ Thanks!
- .LAG liked that
@Rob, you still can set the groups that show up by clicking on "prefs" in the orange bar.
- Ana
Where did the create feed/imaginary friend substitute function go?
- Brian Sullivan
@Ana, I just said I liked it. :) I didn't see the ability to change what was shown there prior to this change. It just seemed like a random sampling of the groups I'm on before.
- rob friedman
Excellent. Very glad to see the "Browse/edit friends" link. I look forward to being able to rearrange to put my saved searches at the top.
- Elizabeth
Nice, but I use filters (well, now saved searches) more than I do my friend lists. Personally I prefer it the way it was, although I'd be happy just to have filters bumped up some (I got a _lot_ of lists to scroll past).
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
@Brian, I dont think the imaginary friend stuff is in the beta interface yet, I had to use the old UI to add a few yesterday.
- rob friedman
I like the new separation much more than old layout. Being able to rearrange placement of these blocks would be nice but not essential.
- Boris Gordon
Better, but you really gotta do something about that color scheme.
- mike fabio
Great work! Would be really nice to get the last modified time back next to the title of the groups. That saved me a lot of unnecessary clicks in the non-beta version.
- Christoph Studer
Boris: Not essential, that's true, but extremely useful.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
rob friendman -- I am talking about the create a feed function that allowed you to create the equivalent of imaginary friends.
- Brian Sullivan
I still think that the "My discussions" link under Friends should really be "My likes and comments", since there are some posts in that feed that are just ones I "liked" and have 0 comments, from me or anyone else. Would you call a post with no comments a "discussion"?
- Nathan Chase
Nathan: you are right, those should probably not be in that feed.
- Bret Taylor
We are still working out imaginary friends functionality. It is on our radar.
- Bret Taylor
Nice. An improvement in my book.
- AJ Kohn
I like it. Now give us skins so we can change the color scheme. I also wish I could put searches at top.
- Robert Scoble
Bret: cool - just a little semantic thing I figured you might have overlooked - and something that could be confusing for new users.
- Nathan Chase
Bret, you guys have moved the filters to the bottom of the sidebar. Can you please put them back to where they were?
- Kol Tregaskes
I like separate groups. As for positioning - it would be easy to make the boxes draggable, so people can order them how they like?
- Neil Saunders
anyway i can switch my account totally over to the beta UI? so any ff link i click on goes to the beta....thx
- patrick
let me choose the sequence of the boxes - like "saved searches" on top!
- Kishore Balakrishnan
Agreed a nice dark skin would be awesome
- Kashif Khan
Can we have the "last modified time" back for each individual group? Anyway, this navigation is much better. Thanks!
- Winston Teo
agree with Neil Saunders
- پـرستووو
Still wish there was a way to hide the top and side bars for use in a widget style browser window. Till then there's always greasemonkey http://is.gd/rBrh
- KyleHase
from twhirl
Thanks, Bret. You guys -- FF team and product -- are awesome!
- Eric Johnson
Thank you Thank you Thank you! Loving the beta and the FFteam's responsiveness
- Keith - @tsudo
Why is this showing up in my timeline? It says because one of the people I'm subscribed to Liked it. I'm not a member of the room and I'm not subscribed to the original poster (Sorry Bret!) But I swear I've turned off FoaF every day and this keeps happening.
- Paul Reynolds
We have more consistent terminology now; good. Now can we have more sophisticated feed-composition tools? How about one-touch "create group from saved search"? And how about fixing the "private group - standard FEED - public group" inconsistency?
- Karl Knechtel
I don't think we need full skinning capabilities - just a colour chooser for each coloured element. Also, the prefs link for Groups is a bit ugly. I don't like magically appearing links.
- Karl Knechtel
Overall, big improvements, guys. :)
- Karl Knechtel
@patrick: every element of the beta UI should have a beta URL already. Any links that you click in posts are whatever URL is actually specified in the post.
- Karl Knechtel
Bret, this is great news. I'll leave the cosmetics to better people. I like things as is :)
- Deepak Singh
@Paul Reynolds: FoaF can be turned off?
- Karl Knechtel
We just pushed a fix for IE 7/8. If you were using IE, you should refresh. Sorry for the problems.
- Bret Taylor
Nice improvements, FF team.
- Micah Wittman
Yes! Thank You! You guys are awesome!
- Alfredo
I love it - especially the filters at the bottom (I use Lists, more often). That said, I like Kishore's suggestion -> let us choose the ordering of the boxes.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
Very good improvement, but would like to have another box of favorite friends. I wouldn't mind if I could set this up like the groups box, or if it would just remember who I clicked on the most.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Simpler... When is the mobile version coming out?
- Brian Kenyon
Well done.
- Steven Perez
Bret: theming? Please elaborate!
- Ryan Miller
Thank you!
- Kemal Hadimli
It is awesome Bret!
- Akira Kojima Simpson
from twhirl
I would really appreciate if we could drag and drop items and boxes. I want to order all this.
- Stanislas Jourdan
While the new sidebar order is good, I'm having fun getting rid of two saved searches which only bring up an "edit new filter/search page. It'd be nice to have some way to edit/delete searches, like with the groups and friends boxes. Still waiting for someone to give me a tip on how to remove those two links from the list otherwise.
- George Hall (Australia)
George: Click the "Saved Searches" title, then select the feed from the left-hand side, then click Delete.
- Karl Knechtel
much better!
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
like it! only thing i don't like is that i have to scroll down everytime i wanna see my saves searches now...
- Peter Efland
Peter, yep to me that's in completely the wrong place. It's the second most important new feature on FF (behind real-time) and it's now "hidden" at the bottom. I have a large list of Groups and means big scroll down to the Saved Searches, which I use a LOT. Please either return them back to the second tab down or give us the option to select what sidebars we have and what order they appear on the bar?
- Kol Tregaskes
Bret, this is great, especially being able to see all of my groups. But I agree with just about everyone else, I'd prefer to have my saved searches above groups. There is still enough room to add subscriptions as well . . . maybe??
- Chris Loft
Nice change. Please sort out the color palette next :-)
- Alex Gawley
I like it, although the name filter was better, I think. Besides putting the Searches under Friends, it would be good if the Groups would change order in relation to recent activity, like it used to be.
- Alejandro
I like the way things are separated, now. However, I too have a lot of lists to scroll past to get to groups and saved searches. It would be nice to move the saved searches and groups above the lists. Definitely loving the beta, though!
- Seth Greenblatt
Hmmm.... I still cannot edit a list created from the "likes" of my friends. The UI doesn't allow me to manage the friend list. I cannot tell the likes to which I'm subscribed or add/remove others.
- Anthony K. Valley ©
much better now
- Mahsa Z
A number of feeds I set up are showing as Groups. Is that right? I set up a number of Twitter feeds (e.g. "Twitter - Al Yankovic") for nonFF Tweeters. It's a little confusing since now they're listed as a Group when their settings are "Standard Feed".
- CAJ, somewhere else
I guess feeds that aren't individuals are groups :-)
- Neil Saunders
Alan has a point.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
separate groups section is good. now about labelling content sources rather than people... (would be nice to have this at least as an option: show user avatar OR show content source - then those of us who read by content are happy, and those who read by user are happy)
- Richard Akerman
Alejandro, I first thought I'd miss "filter" but actually prefer "saved searches" now. Well because they are, aren't they? Makes things easier to understand. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
good point Kol
- Alejandro
Voice chat in groups could be nice :)
- Nir Ben Yona
Thank you!
- Iván Abrego
I use filters a lot and now on the HP Mini I have to scroll down the window to get to the next filter I want to check which then scrolls the page back up to the top after picking it. I have nine filters that I check probably once an hour. The page scrolling is tedious to go through. Is there a way you could move Filters up above Groups either manually or automatically based on most common use?
- Loren Heiny
Thank you! Navigating to groups/rooms was a pain.
- amygeek
Nice Job, I like it. It feels simpler and will be welcoming to new users.
- Poor Gamer
I also don't care for the name change at the top of the "Search results." The name of the search was better at least for how I use it. I can see the actual search criteria in the seach box. I don't need it in both places. Plus, when I'm clicking through a list of saved searches one at a time I often forget where I am in the list. The title helped me keep track.
- Loren Heiny
Kewl!
- Charlie Anzman
Love it. Thank you guys very much!
- Josh Haley
"Atom feeds" are not a "small missing components"!!! :) .. as on abay +++++AAAA+++AAAA for beta.FriendFeed
- CantorJF
Just noticed the new groups sidebar. Thank you!
- Carmen - Happy 2010!
Seems like the green box should be titled "Friend Lists" (in an actual Friends list, I'd expect to see Joe, Mary, Bob, etc. -- right now, there's a pretty big disconnect btw typical user expectations and what's appearing in that box). And maybe the browse/edit should then be titled "Browse/edit friend lists".
- Christopher Galtenberg
Even more unexpected is that when I click on Friends, I also see Groups. There should probably be another split, so we have Lists, Friends, and Groups. Bret, you guys are going to run out of colors soon! :)
- Daniel Sims
And would you *please* give us custom backgrounds and colors?
- Gaby K. Slezák
Karl: tried it, but it only brings up a new filter again. If one could edit one's "saved searches list by the NAME of the filter, it'd be easy to delete it. But your suggestion didn't bring up anything that could help me get rid of the two empty filters. Neither has a delete button.
- George Hall (Australia)
Ana is a boat enthusiast?
- Benjamin Golub
Karl:don't know whether my desktop wasn't showing the left-side bar, but late last night, I was looking at a list of my saved searches with the delete button active for all things in the list. Finally got rid of those two items that were only bringing up a search/filter page. That left-side bar with all listed searches is an elegant solution.
- George Hall (Australia)
Dont like it. No longer can get Twit Conversations to show up in Groups.. only in Home even if I add it to Groups!
- Greg
Friendfeed versus Twitter - http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/the_gre...
David Ziembicki, Heath Howard, Dan Cooley and 26 other people liked this
Nice post!
- Jim Connolly
"In spite of my own admittedly rather irrational antipathy to Friendfeed, I certainly urge everyone to sign up with this free service and try it. Whatever one thinks of Friendfeed, this real-time application is, without question, a major technological achievement which, in some shape or form, represents the future of the real-time Internet. The most interesting way for non-geeks to try...
more...
- Meryn Stol
Gotta admit, I would consider myself a "normal" internet" user, who listens to geekerati podcasts, and only recently did Twitter "click" with me, I have been hearing the buzz from Leo, Scoble etc. for ages, but I just couldn't get into it. Search on Twitter was what really makes the difference to me. I can appreciate the arguments made in preference of friendfeed (better search would be my favourite) but I think twitter is so much easier to pick up for your average internet user.
- William
Ditto re William above. Twitter rules the roost right now and is seen as the new Facebook, or better due to celeb endorsement. My use of Twitter is minimal, but I'm finding FF is now my main tool. I don't confess to being a social media dude, but I see the future being FF based somehow. I'm just not sure how the masses will take to it. Convincing my real friends to use FF is sometimes a struggle, but everyone gets Twitter.
- Keith Bennett
from Nambu
Admittedly, Twitter was easier to get the hang of quickly, when I first started using it. However, it's FriendFeed which is the really empowering tool. Getting the hang of the beta took a small learning curve, but there are helpful regulars to help you get the hang of it. And now? I'm really enjoying FF far more than Twitter.
- George Hall (Australia)
24 hours of high speed wireless Web at NAB 2009! Only $99.95! FAIL
Anthony Citrano, Aaron Draczynski, Thomas Power and 11 other people liked this
At least this means I won't be complaining about spotty or slow access... because there is no way I am buying this.
- Louis Gray
from email
Is 1.5Mbps down and 512Kbps up really considered lightning fast?!
- Arthur Guy
I get this speed with a Verizon ExpressCard for $60/mo.
- coldbrew
Wow, it's cheaper to get a 3G card for your laptop.. oh, what coldbrew said. Too slow.
- Phil G
I've said it before; don't mind repeating myself. Tethered HSDPA/3G phone wins. Never fails me. If it fails you? Ditch the iBrick. #justsayin
- Enrique Gutierrez
Gutierrez: My wifi router has an ExpressCard slot ;) [EDIT: which means I can share]
- coldbrew
Supply/demand in action. If the organizer's dealing with limited land-line connectivity they're probably a whole lot better off taking this route than slicing up that same 1.5Mbps chunk among 10 people at $9.95/day each.
- Ken Sheppardson
kshep: You're off by an order of magnitude.
- coldbrew
Where am I "off"?
- Ken Sheppardson
I see math fail. 10 x 9.95 = $99.50 in my book. Ken+1 (Edit: but someone's gotta pay the extra 45 cents.)
- Enrique Gutierrez
Yeah, no "math fail", simply a failure in reading comprehension. Didn't realize something totally different than the offer being made by these thieves was being suggested by kshep.
- coldbrew
Gutierrez: Nice use of a verb as a noun, btw.
- coldbrew
yeah Ken, you gotta do the maths right.. @99.95/-, this means my KB bit rate per hr , will be costliest evah that on thru puts.. technicall its a rip off !!
- Peter Dawson
kshep: They are dividing the 1.5MBps among 10 people, they are just charging each one $99.95.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: where does it say that? How do you know they don't have dedicated lines for each account?
- Ken Sheppardson
kshep: where does it say that each person is getting a dedicated line? That's just not probable, and I'd assume the worst.
- coldbrew
Booe: Only a douchebag would try to resell to other conference attendees.
- coldbrew
defenitely, that's a #FAIL
- Apostolos Papadopoulos
coldbrew: I didn't say they were getting dedicated lines, I asked how you know they aren't. I didn't realize I'm not supposed to try to figure out if/why this might actually make sense, we're just supposed to assume they're scumbags and it's a ripoff. Carry on.
- Ken Sheppardson
I wonder if those people are aware of 3G speeds. Hilarious. Then again, it's NAB!
- Leonid S. Knyshov
I hate the new friendfeed. Why? One of the features is the "get rid of Scoble" feature. Why would anyone want to do THAT? :-)
Ken Morley, Dobromir Hadzhiev, Paul Buchheit and 5 other people liked this
I know... HOW DARE THEY BAN ALEX!!!!
- Johnny Worthington
Seriously, that is one of the features and Arrington liked it. I'll get him back for that. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Johnny: actually that's a great idea! I will try the feature to see if it only removes Alex when I get it. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Is it called 'No Scobles'?
- Johnny Worthington
Johnny: that was the suggestion made last night. :-)
- Robert Scoble
If there's an option to ditch Scoble I'd lose 60% of the likes I have (at least) ~ and be forced to actually subscribe to more people. Sounds like too much work. Not to sound like I'm using you, Robert, but hey! You're the aggregator within my aggregator.
- Enrique Gutierrez
Well I demand that it be a two way toggle switch... I would like to see a FriendFeed that's nothing BUT Scoble!!!
- Johnny Worthington
Johnny: i won't comment more, but let's talk on Monday morning and see what you think!
- Robert Scoble
Could FriendFeed exist without Scoble?
- Ralph Whitbeck
Robert, understand :D
- Johnny Worthington
burden of fame LOL
- Lora Lufark
I think you're the only guy I follow here, so, that might be a problem....
- Mike Shields
I discovered the "Gag Scoble" feature the other day, that allows one to subscribe to your likes without subscribing to your content or comments.
- April Russo (app103)
One Concern About the FriendFeed beta: Permalink Permanence?
Matthew, David Cook, Alex Scoble and 22 other people liked this
Right now, there are two distinct permalinks to discussions. One is on the basic Friendfeed, and one is on the beta.
- Louis Gray
For example: http://beta.friendfeed.com/louisgr... is a link to the beta version.
- Louis Gray
And this: http://friendfeed.com/e... is a link to the current FriendFeed.
- Louis Gray
Good point!
- Dawn
Hopefully the old smartly redirects to the new
- Christopher Galtenberg
If I were to start linking to FriendFeed discussions happening on the beta, would they all 404 when the beta was over? Would they redirect correctly?
- Louis Gray
I assume they would redirect, but what if FriendFeed does another beta later... do they go poof then? Just curious if I should only share the normal URLs in posts and e-mails.
- Louis Gray
I'm pretty sure all http://beta.f... will 301 redirect fine when they migrate to the http://f... one
- AJ Batac
Louis, I wouldn't count on beta.friendfeed.com/* urls having any permanence. I do think the friendfeed.com/* urls are permanent, so better use that to link right now. And indeed, they'll probably redirect to the new url scheme (as demo'd in the beta) when the beta goes live.
- Meryn Stol
interesting point
- andy brudtkuhl
Good point Louis. This needs to be sorted out - as I see myself 'living' in the beta from now on.
- Jim Connolly
plus what archives are kept of the feed. much of the material comes from elsewhere. At lease Twitter stores its own tweets (for a while that is)
- David Sanger
We will make sure all URLs redirect to the proper page. Old and new FriendFeed permalinks will continue to work.
- Benjamin Golub
Ben wins this thread! :)
- Susan Beebe
Louis, please help me figure this out: What replaces "Link to this entry" on the Beta version? is this option gone or am i missing something?
- Majento
it's good that you have only one concern :)
- Orli Yakuel
@Majento: the timestamp (e.g. "3 hours ago") is actually a secret permalink to the entry. Shhhh, don't tell anyone, we're trying to keep it a secret ;-)
- Jim Norris
@jim Doh :-) right, thank you so much!
- Majento
permalinks is one think, but FF has no control over feed content which might not be there next week, month etc.
- David Sanger
Didn't we go through this before? Did anything bad happen when we switched back to the regular domain?
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
louisgray.com: What FriendFeed Needs to Do To Grow and Keep New Users - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
Christopher Galtenberg, Enrique Gutierrez and mjc liked this
"That the service has a ton of bells and whistles and some smart people behind it and manages to have some great uptime, compared to other services, also won't make it successful. Because what I'm seeing, and continue to hear, is that the site is too busy. It's too intimidating for new users, and some who have even stepped up to give it the old college try are asking for help"
- MikeAmundsen
from Bookmarklet
am curious to hear what @LouisGray has to offer comparing his suggestions in Jan-09 to the new beta.
- MikeAmundsen
Friendfeed Becomes Better, Faster, Stronger? - http://www.joedawsons.com/2009...
Enrique Gutierrez, Kol Tregaskes, James Ketchell and 3 other people liked this
Twitter, you clowns. YESTERDAY was planned maintenance. You couldn't do it. So today, you get unscheduled maintenance? I am "impressed".
Enrique Gutierrez, Wayne Sutton, Valley and 49 other people liked this
pathetic init... cant even fail right lol! ;o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
Hello beta friendfeed! Thank you twitter
- paisano
The details are here, not that there are that many: http://blog.twitter.com/2009...
- Dion Hinchcliffe
and there's no whale!
- Rom Feria
Yes Rom, what is that green creature? The fail worm?
- Dion Hinchcliffe
Well...Thank god FriendFeed gave us this upgrade Today. I sent a bunch of my twitter followers here to continue our discussions. And many came. I hope that FriendFeed takes notice of the outrage that Twitter causes with its poorly run TechOps department, and complete failure to notify users in a timely fashion (via the status.twitter.com page) of hicups, burps and even complete outages.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I guess the planned maintenance did go as planned
- Bryan Thatcher
God I'd hate to be neighbors with any of you. "You cut my lawn for free for 3 years, but sometimes missed a spot, so I'm going to neighbor's house and backstab you". Especially from folks who are more known online BECAUSE of twitter than their own blog and ff combined. Wonder why this generation is plastic? It's their folks.
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
I had to SHOUT @Twitter to before they posted the #LOSTAVATAR notice today. I can't say it was just me that got it done, but their timing the last two outages was interestingly coincidental to my repeated tweets to @Twitter. (I noticed also after suggsting that htey inform users before maintenance that they did it for sunday.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Hmmmm timing timing. FriendFeed schedules launch of its new hotness for Monday morning. Twitter schedules maintenance for the day before. Twitter misses maintenance, FriendFeed launches anyway and Twitter starts breaking in many ways. Twitter says "we're doing it live" and does the maintenance at an unplanned time. Did the new FF break Twitter or is the timing just coincidental?
- EricaJoy
Having run such a TechOps department, for a startup, I feel their pain, but have no patience for the lack of notifications. As I said in a few tweets, running an ad-serving network in the late 90s I was expected to post outage notices a) before planned maintenance and b) within minutes of any outage or disruption. 10 years later you'd think this was SOP for any large TechOps Dept.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I miss the Fail Whale
- Bryan Thatcher
Ed: Discussions must continue on. I have not, did not, and WILL not abandon Twitter, but I will not allow a twitter disaster to disrupt my communications either. I am GLAD that FF had their act together in time that the non-geeks could make quick and easy use.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Definitely good timing.
- Stephan Miller
Agreed @Rob. And I think ff has great uses and can be win/win. But every time I come here, it is an incessant rant about twitter. The friendfeed crew is foolish to not drop the hammer on it. Twitter has a massive number of loyalists that won't step foot in here because of the poison. I want to see both win. As enemies we/they all lose. Only the instigators currying favor win. @Erica No, unrelated :-)
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
Love those 15 minute hours Twitter! ;)
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
I blame their maintenance page for my sudden desire for Ice Cream
- BCK
Seems back up again.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
Wow, that's hardcore coming from you, Louis ;-)
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
cue the circus music
- Jesse Stay
WOW. That's really bad timing considering they risked the wrath of NCAA fans
- Shane
Ed: Also Of note...one of my main purposes (originally) for getting on friendfeed was its ability to post all my other stuff TO twitter! I may bitch about twitter here, but BELIEVE ME, I bitch there too (usually directly @Twitter) .. FriendFeed should not drop the hammer..No reason to squelch free speech. (now that there's DMs some FF admins could quietly ask serious offenders to STFU tho) As more twitter users see more and more friendfeed likes coming in they will become more and more curious.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
It's all a matter of proper positioning. If FF/twitter fans position FF as something that adds value to twitter, the whole notion will be very very successful for both companies and userbases. If FF users try to position FF as the Alternative to twitter, everyone loses.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
@Rob I agree with the free speech aspect. I don't mean delete. But come by and gracefully promote partnership. Paul, Bret and team know the challenges of evolving code, design desires of users, scaling, VC breath. I've seen young women at twitter in tears from abuse. The mountain is Google, Facebook, the web haters not each other :)
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
Good God folks get over it, & yourselves it ain't that big a deal,,,
- Chris Darling
On the bright side, I've had really only an hour or so on Twitter today, leaving me much more time to go over FriendFeed again. Twitter's loss is FriendFeed's gain. I've probably had more FF activity today than in the past month, too, adding my bit to a couple of discussions. But I'm still of the opinion Twitter AND FF both have a place, like the commentor two above. Twitter's for quick news, but FF can be used for expanded/aggregated stuff. It's all in how much you use your noodle to work it out.
- George Hall (Australia)
Ed: Awesome! thanks for the clarification. I fully agree with the promotion of partnership.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
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