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Ted › Likes
APOD: 2007 June 17 - Analemma over Ukraine - http://apod.nasa.gov/apod...
H0llywoodWh0re, Tapio Kulmala and Ted liked this
"If you took a picture of the Sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the shape traced out by the Sun over the course of a year is called an analemma."
- Bill Romanos
from Bookmarklet
Really clever use of Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
Benan Arıgil, Roberto Bonini, Nispell and 76 other people liked this
Best viewed from photostream. Excellent!! :-D
- Kol Tregaskes
from Bookmarklet
That is AWESOME
- Josh Haley
That's really cool. No way I'd have the planning ability to do that.
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
Nifty!
- @CrystalinaB
that's awesome.
- Alfredo
Oh wow.. they even compensated for the gaps between the pictures.
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
Fabulous!
- Penny
Can I FAV that stream!?!? That is awesome!
- Justin Korn
Nice!
- Nicholas James
Clever.
- Mike Nayyar
Check Daniel's share of this two: http://ff.im/2rPZM. Like that he's captured the photostream screenshot. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
I did something similar some time ago: http://tr.im/k13U and http://tr.im/k142 but in sets not photostream. Anyway this guy work is nicer, mine was just an experiment.
- Leandro Ardissone ⍨
Leandro, that is excellent!
- Kol Tregaskes
Brilliant
- Michael Fidler
THAT is really creative!
- Scott of Two Countries
i agree with creative.
- امیر؟
Sweet, What a great idea!
- aerobroken
Bumping some old good posts. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Palm Pre. Good, but won't get me off the iphone. More:
Thomas Hawk, Mike Nayyar, Ken Sheppardson and 26 other people liked this
Why/why not?
- Manuel Mas
I was thinking about looking at it but then I discovered it doesn't have an Apple logo on it :)
- Mike Bracco
Unfortunately, the Pre isn't available here, so I can't really compare it to the iPhone (especially considering I don't own an iPhone).
- MλTT
I can think of 50,000 reasons and with a installed user base of 50,000,000 how much incentive do you think developers have to move?
- Geoff Schultz
The keyboard sucks. The layout really wasn't thought out very well. The iPhone's bigger screen is much better for web work.
- Robert Scoble
I tested the Pre a bit and I found its form factor to be great and as many have said, it feels great on the hand. The keyboard is small yet I prefer it to having no physical keyboard. Love the touch screen and how it makes a ripple where you are pressuring the screen (as a pointer) and how you can multitask/close apps with a flick of the finger. Browser is a bit slow compared to Safari in my opinion. Overall is a great little phone.
- Manuel Mas
The font is nice though..
- Harald Nesland
I see the "smart phone" market as essentially just a small computer. In that sense, it doesn't make sense to have more than a couple players (i.e. a couple OSs). I think it will play out just like computers did. You will have Apple and someone else - maybe a third player.
- Mike Bracco
Posting comments to friendfeed has failed four times now. It is buggy that way.
- Robert Scoble
Pre browser should be faster, according to previews.
- bnoise
its a conspiracy Robert ;)
- Tyler Gillies
Yeah Yeah, everyone said the iPhone's keyboard sucked too but everyone uses it.
- Dennis Jackson
The browser seems a little faster, yes
- Robert Scoble
i liked iphone keyboard since day one
- Tyler Gillies
Maybe so, Dennis, but the iPhone's keyboard can be customised with ease at any time, while the Pre has an actual keyboard, which can't really be modded at all.
- MλTT
Bought it last Sat. Nice phone. Beautiful screen, love the sliding form factor and have found the keyboard useful. Browser works great, but it is a tad slow. Flash support is coming, so that will help the browser more. Wish it Live Search Mobile.
- George Gray
Good point Matt
- Manuel Mas
Robert where you using the mobile site to post comments to friendfeed?
- Dennis Jackson
If I were a rich man, I would buy all the Pres and iPhones I could. I'll hopefully be getting the 3GS in 2 weeks, when it's released here, because I've been saving since the 3G was released last year.
- MλTT
Check out AV forums on universal remotes for the battle royal over touchscreen vs physical keys. More heated than politics.
- Robert Hafer
I just really think the hardware and OS is of secondary importance these days. There are 3 great OS's (at least) and plenty of good hardware. But like the console wars of years past...its all about the games. Or in this case the Apps.
- Geoff Schultz
Dennis: no, just the regular site. I +hate+ mobile versions of sites.
- Robert Scoble
Well that's sad, because the majority of the iPhone apps are completely useless.
- Dennis Jackson
Mobistar - A cellular operator in Belgium announced the Iphone 3GS "available this summer". it means Unlocked ( SIM Free ) 3GS's will be available for the Global Road Warriors
- SnakeDoc
I actually really like FF's mobile site on the iPhone.
- Kevin Whalen
The Palm Pre will do very well. But not for me. Why? There are millions of people who just want a phone. Or that hate AT&T. Or that hate Apple. Or that hate optical keyboards.
- Robert Scoble
Dennis the majority of software EVERYWHERE is useless. That isnt exclusive to any device or platform.
- Geoff Schultz
Dennis if you have 40,000 apps everyone can find 10 that are good. iPhone is way ahead there.
- Robert Scoble
Very satisfied with the Palm Pre so far. The Tweed Twitter app is good. Pandora, Evernote, LinkedIn, and many other helpful apps are there already. iPhone iUI web apps like my http://imusicmash.com work on it. Hoping the webOS will make it easier for folks to innovate with plain old Javascript, CSS, HTML, without having to learn iPhone centric Objective C. The keyboard makes IM and...
more...
- Al
My biggest question is, why would Palm get so close to releasing the Pre and not be really promoting it to the developer world? I just think they (Palm) missed the opportunity for a great release with an awesome little device. I want to think they are going to think a little more out of the box after they have seen the comments on the phone. Do you think they will be able to stick...
more...
- Pentaxfan
It's really not a competition or child's game to root for iPhone or the Pre. It's your preference and what works best for you. Palm aced with Pre and it will only get better. For iPhone users who are keeping score, remember the glitches of first generation iPhone? Palm Pre is using first ever webOS and most apps are on beta. If you're a developer you know fixes are often needed after...
more...
- Moushumi Kabir
It sure beats the android though with that dumb chin.
- Jim Hague
I much prefer the Pre to the iPhone personally.
- Nation Hahn
Jim, Android is an OS not a phone.
- Stuart
Jim: Stuart is right. There are going to be about 12 different Android devices soon (probably more, since Android is an open source OS the phone manufacturers don't need to tell Google about the devices they are building with it). Android is getting more and more interesting to me. It sure is nice to have some competition for the iPhone too.
- Robert Scoble
Palm Pre. Good, but won't get me off the HTC HD.
- Amit Morson
What about Nokia N97 then
- Stelios Kiousis
I frequently find myself correcting people with "No, Android is an operating system, not a handset..." -- often to blank stares of complete incomprehension. I blame Apple.
- Christopher A Carr
Quite the change from January... "Palm is a lot nicer than iPhone. I want one. The web and social networking features are killer." http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... "Anyone who says Palm's new Pre isn't a better experience than the iPhone either hasn't tried both or is an idiot or is both."...
more...
- Bwana ☠
Bwana: I'll still stand by those statements. It is nicer in a lot of places than the iPhone. The camera is far far far superior. The OS itself is superior. The phone itself is superior. The apps are not. And the keyboard, after using it all day, is not (IMO) and since I use a ton of apps and the keyboard isn't as big a deal as I thought in January I'm backtracking a bit. The contact app is nicer. Oh, and what else changed since January? iPhone 3.0 was announced and is about to ship in a new iPhone 3Gs.
- Robert Scoble
Wow, the keyboard must be really bad :(
- Bwana ☠
The apps I can understand though, it's kind of unfair when comparing to the iPhone... it's kind of a unnatural thing we're witnessing with Apple
- Bwana ☠
Bwana: it's not that bad. It's just that I've gotten used to the iPhone keyboard and I can type faster on it than I can on the Palm. But I know many people who vehemently disagree with me over the keyboard. So, even if you hand that one to Palm, there's still the app problem.
- Robert Scoble
Quote: "Oh, and what else changed since January? iPhone 3.0 was announced and is about to ship in a new iPhone 3Gs" -- and? do you want one for testing? :-D -- I wish I could test a Pre, but it won't be available here in Italy until a year, and at the moment I actually don't know how to choose among iphone and magic/android (palm pre not available as said).
- Markingegno - Donato
Markingegno: I'm getting an iPhone 3.0 (paid for it with my own money).
- Robert Scoble
The number of poor apps argument kind of baffles me. When I have 150+ apps that I deem useful, suddenly it's very much about the platform and less about the phone. Doesn't really matter that there are another 39,850 apps that do not appeal to me. Plus it goes without saying that everyone has a different 150 apps that they have downloaded.
- Jamie
I switched from a Blackberry Bold - which has a tremendous keyboard - to the Pre. I got used to the Pre keyboard very quickly and prefer it to the iPhone.
- Nation Hahn
"[the keyboard is] not that bad. It's just that I've gotten used to the iPhone keyboard" -- Bingo
- Ken Sheppardson
The screens are both 320x480. The Pre's is 3.1", the iPhone's is 3.5". The Pre screen held at 16" will look the same as the iPhone held at 18".
- Ken Sheppardson
Correct me if I'm wrong... iPhone launch - June 2007, iPhone SDK launch - March 2008
- Ken Sheppardson
Number of iPhone apps available the week it launched in June 2007 = ?
- Ken Sheppardson
@Robert I'm just envious because you could test a Palm Pre :)
- Markingegno - Donato
Yeah, I know... things are different now. If the Pre wants to kill the iPhone, they need to step it up. Thing is, they don't necessarily want or need to kill the iPhone. The good news for those of us who like the Pre and webOS is Palm's selling them as fast as they can make them. If they can keep that up, good things will happen.
- Ken Sheppardson
Sylvain Nadeau, Chuck Adams, Ted and 5 other people liked this
oOoOoO spooky! Whats the plan when you find a ghost?
- Fee501st
Avoid the Nevernever!
- Joe Pierce
Ooh, where in LA are you going ghost hunting?
- Araceli
Boo.
- Geoff Schultz
is there something strange, in your neighbourhood?
- Franz Sittampalam
Live now: Maxwell's House on String Theory with Ray Maxwell, Dr. Amana Peet, and Dr. Doug Beder. http://live.twit.tv. Discuss here...
Daniel Rowley, Michael Hansel, Randy Allen Bishop and 7 other people liked this
I love the stuff, I don't understand it, but I love it. Thanks Leo
- D Lets
I guess I'm alone in this room during this webcast
- D Lets
im here... also dont understand anything
- andy brudtkuhl
We are two
- D Lets
So do I.
- David Schmidt
We R 3
- D Lets
Is it Quantum Or String That allows for a man walking down a street to breathy be transported to mars then to be transported back with out him knowing?
- Michael Mooney
Quantum. Specifically Quantum tunneling.
- znark
From zefyr in the IRC chat room; Why was Heisenberg's wife unsatisfied? the punch line: because when he had the time he didn't have the energy and when he had the position he didn't have the momentum
- D Lets
Thanks i missed the other shows due to work
- Michael Mooney
Does string theory offer an explanation for the seeming violation of light travel time in quantum entanglement?
- znark
No, string theory *is* a quantum theory, so it offers no new explanations of quantum weirdness.
- Matt Leifer
For me that was well put, Matt. Thanks
- D Lets
Based on Moore's law in 100 years using just 10% of all the computational power available you can run a full detail model of the universe with all the rules of physics being used.
- Michael Mooney
That's just a proof that Moore's law must eventually fail, since the computers have to be *made* of physical systems.
- Matt Leifer
Just think we could be the emergent life Sims in that program and god is the programmer
- Michael Mooney
What exactly would be the difference between that and the world being real?
- Matt Leifer
computers use two states to run I or O, if you use Four state computing you can get massive gains in computing.
- Michael Mooney
No you can't. It can be simulated with a two state machine with polynomial overhead.
- Matt Leifer
Is this a regular conversation/netcast? If so what is the feed for it?
- znark
all of computer based science work is based the state of a transistor being on or off what if all of computer based science work becomes based the state of a Quantum's State in time, There is ready prototype storage based on this idea.
- Michael Mooney
There is no feed at the moment because it is only a live netcast, but the video is usually captured and uploaded to http://odtv.me
- Matt Leifer
Then you get quantum computing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Matt Leifer
At least leo uses Tweetdeckl :)
- Roberto Bonini
Leo create our own key stone WAVE for the twit army then when lock stuff down get it engraved in stone
- Michael Mooney
How about localized Hydroponics based farming Skyscrapers
- Michael Mooney
Interesting... "DARPA’s Hypersonic Vulcan Engine Meld" ( http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/DARPAs-... )
Ted liked this
Face recognition comes to Flickr | Webware - CNET - http://news.cnet.com/8301-17...
TiTi, Göze Sencer, Lars Clausen and 70 other people liked this
Without any big fuss, a face-recognition feature has been added to Flickr. The new feature was launched recently by Swedish start-up Polar Rose. It lets users import all their photos from a Flickr account to an account on Polar Rose, where the images are then automatically assembled into groups dedicated to various individuals. As with similar features in Google Picasa and Apple iPhoto, names eventually show up next to faces in the photos once the user has identified the faces. The labels then get sent back to the Flickr account. Polar Rose, founded by Swedish mathematician Jan Erik Solem in 2004, intends to license its technology to numerous Web sites.
- Thomas Hawk
from Bookmarklet
I wonder if it'll work any better than the crappy face recognition in iPhoto...
- Shawn C. Reed
trying this at Polar Rose right now. Not sure how well it's going to handle my trying to import almost 24,000 photos into the site.
- Thomas Hawk
I saw Hakan Dahlstrom use it and thought "FINALLY"
- Shevonne
Catching up with Picasa, huh?
- bnoise
it's still "processing" my images after several hours now. I'm not so sure this thing is going to work for me.
- Thomas Hawk
I think I will wait till Flickr implements this internally. Surely they will have to implement it at some stage.
- CJPhoto
Google should have developed a face recognition system out of Picasa Web Albums. An API or something. They could have offered a way to identify faces on your PC, on Google Image, on FriendConnect-enabled websites and even Street View 2.0.
- Jérôme Flipo
Giving it a try now. Estimates 30 minutes to process my 900 photos.
- Andy Roth
No estimate for m 24,000 photos. simply a "processing your photos" progress bar with no progress indicated.
- Thomas Hawk
There aren't any faces in my Flickr stream, however I do use the face recognition in Picasa Web Albums and it works very well.
- Kenton
I'm alpha testing the face.com Photo Finder in Facebook, and that process seems less complex (at least to the user). Rather than explicitly telling you that Facebook photos are being exported to a separate account, Photo Finder allows you to appear to remain in Facebook as your photos are being processed.
- John E. Bredehoft
Same here... hours later, and still processing. Hmmm.
- Herb Hernandez
Herb, how many pictures do you have?
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
24,000 pictures at once ? going by Andy's estimate, 13 hours worth. plus (hopefully) a 100% penalty for being silly enough to do so many at once.
- martin english
my ff crashed & facebook account would not let back in 4 now, thats ff's problems, I need 2 try w/Windows. I was using Kubuntu, one of the flavor of Ubuntu.
- polou/indigo_bow
so far Polar Rose has performed poorly in recognising other instances of the same person, though it generally knows when there is a face in the photo (although it also spends quite a lot of time asking me if rocks, lights, twigs, shadows etc are people)
- Ned Baker
so far I'm very unimpressed with Polar Rose. I checked it today and it only imported about 2,200 of my 24,000 photos. Worse than that though, performance on the site is awful. I keep getting a Firefox error message about an unresponsive script taking too long. They don't segregate out which of your photos have people in them vs. photos that do not so you are paging endlessly looking at thumbnails that are way to large to try and even find a photo you've got with a photo in it. Not at all user friendly.
- Thomas Hawk
I'm wary of apps like these now. I tried out Fotonaut several weeks ago and the app silently deleted my tags.
- Jauder Ho
Tried again on Win7beta, hmm, face recognition r precise. I am mixed about these kinds of recognition unless they r used for login or security or confirm friendship purposes??? What do u folks think??
- polou/indigo_bow
What do I think? Disclosure - I am employed in the biometrics industry. However, I assert that the possibility of Big Brother ganging up on the populace is remote. For example, after 9/11, it took YEARS for the FBI and DHS to exchange data.
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
I believe the military has been doing this for a while.
- anna sauce
World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD) - http://wngd.org/
Alexander Trafford, earlyadopter, Alfredo and 61 other people liked this
oh my....i guess it was today...and i missed it! :-(
- Live4Emma (L4S)
from Bookmarklet
Damned hippies.
- Akiva Moskovitz
when is this day again?? I need to mow my yard
- Lokei Atikus™®
Whoa.
- Derrick
I was really hoping that the "W" also doubled as "Women's" *gag* ;-)
- Jeffrey Canton
@Lokei...today...May 2nd...
- Live4Emma (L4S)
Will Tina participate? She's into gardening!
- Rochelle
Freedom. This is what we need.
- Kamilah Gill
@live4emma Do you think they would be pissed if I do it tomorrow instead? :)
- Lokei Atikus™®
nah....for some, everyday is naked gardening day... o_O
- Live4Emma (L4S)
I'm here to trim your hippie Bush
- Noah David Simon
Oh, is that what that guy was doing in the bushes?
- Mr. Gunn
bend the dancing women over and pull my weed
- Noah David Simon
Good heavens! Are the East Europeans at it again? Ringelpietz mit Anfassen ...
- Kittyburgers
yeaaaaaah!!!
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
need more Holidays like this.
- Thomas Hawk
I just hope that the participants' gardens don't have poison ivy...
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
Careful. Nekkid pics might offend MiracleGro.
- Sue Radd
ROFLMAO Thinking, "WTF? Wind up, must be. Let's take a looksee, even though I'm going to regret this - I see old men with beards in the near future", I clicked through. I was right about the old men and the beards. But nearly choked when I saw the image header at the top of page three - first guy on the left is stood in front of a very unfortunately angled piece of wall. Or he is blessed.
- Andy Bold
@Sue Radd: who knows, quite often nekkid pics _cause_ Miracle Grow.
- Jordan Brock
As long as you don't water the plants with cold water.
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
This reminds me of the Seinfeld when Jerry had a girlfriend that did everything naked.
- BEX
So, how did your gardening go yesterday? Have fun?? ;p <333
- Emma
these kind of photos always remind me of the Holocaust
- Noah David Simon
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin receives deluge of ethics complaints - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com - http://www.politico.com/news...
Russellreno, Ted, jcunwired and CW™ liked this
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how many complaints have been filed because the state doesn’t keep count and the complaints are kept confidential by the attorney general’s office unless the state moves forward with a public accusation of wrongdoing. But in total there have been more than a dozen, and most of those have surfaced in the last seven months.
- Bill Sodeman
from Bookmarklet
I love great photography, which is why I love http://friendfeed.com/persian... -- where do you go for great photos? Answer here:
Baard @ Pixum, giuseppe c. | markgreene, Ted and 19 other people liked this
Flickr's Last Seven Days of Interesting Explore page is really great too: http://www.flickr.com/explore... Any others?
- Robert Scoble
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr.... Here's some FF groups. Flickr Photography (http://friendfeed.com/flickr-...). One-a-Day Photos (http://friendfeed.com/one-a-d...).
- Rodfather
http://vi.sualize.us/ is a social bookmarking website for visual contents. Allows you to remember your favorite images around the web, and share them with everyone.
- zsafwan
http://www.flickriver.com/ is another way of getting at the Explore pages
- Andy Bold
http://tomdarnall.com for great landscape photos
- Matt Darnall
"Explore" in Flickr. It takes you to some amazing pictures on variety of subjects. Its a big mix.
- Kannan
Kannan, Touche
- Hari Menon
I also have PostRank set up to filter on the popular Flickr photos from my contacts and plus I have added my favourite photoblogs to a GReader folder and check that each day.
- Kol Tregaskes
our own - http://FriendFeed.com/KolTreg..., also at http://kl.am/ffkol and http://kl.am/kol, is one big beautiful picture dynamo ! .. selection, creation ....... :]
- Petr Buben
Aw, thanks, Petr. If you can filter on the vi.sualize.us imported posts only that would be better. Else mine is here: http://vi.sualize.us/koltreg...
- Kol Tregaskes
I go here: http://friendfeed.com/mattb4r...
- Mattb4rd
where do you go? let me see :] ......... now that wass vissciouss Matt !! :|]
- Petr Buben
here it is - http://kl.am/kol ......... weird, but, unfortunately, i cant use capital - Kol .. it gets lost ..??? ... http://kl.am/Kol
- Petr Buben
KISSetubbies? TeleKISS?
Brent - Loving Life, Ted, Michelle Trent and 36 other people liked this
this rawks on so many levels!
- Lindsey is Fierce!
TInky Winky lovesssss the male groupies
- sofarsoShawn
Eh-Ohhh! Wanna hear it loud! Right between the eyes! Eh-Ohhh!
- Josh Haley
Hello Detroit!
- Josh Haley
hahahaha cute
- Rachael Depp
w00t
- Josh Haley
Hubble Images Capture Universe's Beauty, Awe - http://www.wired.com/science... (via http://friendfeed.com/e...)
Anthony Citrano, Dan McFarland, John Locastro and 10 other people liked this
Beautiful! :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
Some of you need followers to get people to engage on your thoughts. Beg for followers here and explain WHY we should follow:
'Like' robot (frɐnc), Kathleen Capps, GeekDads.TV and 129 other people liked this
I'm @scobleizer and you should follow me if you want tons of interesting tech news. I watch thousands of friendfeeders and Twitterers and am always looking for the most interesting stuff before @techmeme gets it. (UPDATE: I AM FOLLOWING EVERYONE ON THIS THREAD)
- Robert Scoble
Isn't a better way to get followers by engaging on their thoughts and getting attention through engagement? I NEVER follow anyone who begs the way you describe.
- Ken Camp
That's an example of what I'd like you to do. I will follow anyone who answers on this thread.
- Robert Scoble
Well because we cannot compete with Scobleizer...and we are desperate for a following to launch our own blogs. :-)
- Tarun Chachra
Ken: the problem is that on friendfeed and Twitter you need some seed followers.
- Robert Scoble
I agree with Ken - I make a point of not following people who ask for followers (and ESPECIALLY not if they call themselves "social media experts" or "SEO experts"... retch)
- Chris Taylor
I'm not sure about begging but it's difficult, especially when you're overwhelmed by inspiration about what you're working, to feel like you're not connecting with enough people. Then again, I don't want a bunch of robo-followers, but people who I can engage and engage with me. Twitter is weird.
- Remote Revolution
@Chris, you should follow Mike Nayyar then: http://beta.friendfeed.com/mikenay...
- Daniel J. Pritchett
A friend of mine joined Twitter a month ago and he already has more Followers then I gathered in two years!! Please Help! thank-you very much @moon http://twitter.com/moon
- paul mooney
Hmm, I thought who you followed was more important....
- Scott Breakall
I guess getting on with some friends on Twitter is most important. They already know people. This adds to better quality content as opposed to just random following people which most of the time creates noise. I however love it that @scobleizer creates is great in creating a stage for interesting people :)
- Michiel Sikkes
I personally don't need THAT much but I desperately need FOLLOWERS for XDBE project, to spread the idea behind it! To bring the Internet to the next level together! Global Social Graphing http://xdbe.com/faq/
- Elmira Gazizova
If you don't follow me my gf will lock me in the basement without food and water.
- rob
Only follow me if you like tech AND religion . A dangerous combination!
- Dan Walters
begging is annoying. I guess you have to engage by following and slowly build an audience. A lot of my followers ( though not much ) has been by engaging on other tweets etc . Good use of hashtags doesnt hurt either
- Kashif Khan
I rarely have anything to say myself that doesn't require engaging in conversations with others, so I don't want ANY followers. I follow those who I believe I may want to engage in conversation with, or those whom I desire to know more about.
- Larry
@jpelegrin. When I do say something on Twitter, it's usually very insightful. O.K., not really, but I need some peeps. This is embarrassing!
- Jeremy Pelegrin
i ain't going to beg, but i will make a note that those interested in computers, programming, science, and humor might find FriendFeed just a little bit more enjoyable if you follow me.
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
Breakall: It's a moving target. Whatever serves the purpose of the conversation at hand. For the real story: most ppl care, including Scoble.
- coldbrew
you should follow @unmarketing cause I sang about Scoble http://www.ReTweetMeVideo.com
- Scott Stratten
I agree you need seed followers. I just think the way to gain them is by engaging people who interest you. Be proactive. To me,this approach sounds, not disengaged, but not terribly engaging or proactive. I realize I'm an engagement fanatic, but if someone wants me to follow, a witty response to something I've said will lure me in, especially if there's an interesting interchange. Someone who follows me and has a post like you describe, I simply ignore (or block if appropriate for me).
- Ken Camp
Hmm, you should follow me if you'd like to keep a pulse on grassroots tech organizing going on locally to nationally, and because I'm looking for more #scifi fans to chat with. (@deannecuellar)
- DeAnne Cuellar
Quite simply this is all an exchange of ideas, thoughts and information. I want to follow and be followed by those whom I can learn from, as well as to receive input/advice/insight from.
- Ted Bradford II
I'm actually culling what few followers I do have to get to a conversation that makes sense for our "marketing" business. Um, yea, guess that's not a "pitch".
- Glen Group
Ken: this is my way of finding interesting new people to follow who I might otherwise not know about. Also, anyone who answers here IS engaging.
- Robert Scoble
you should only follow me if you like Star Wars, baby photos, web design, gadgets, random weirdness, memes, and music that makes you nod your head to the beat
- Nathan Chase
@coldbrew You're exactly right, they do care. Just a little reminder of advice that's come before when OTHERS were trying to ratchet up the follower numbers. /cold brew coffee rawks
- Scott Breakall
follow me, because i would get more active with more followers. :)
- Alexander Rode
I try to be interesting, but really we are starting 2 new businesses here and I could use as many followers as possible. And I follow back.
- Audrey
Nathan: if anyone ANDs that list you won't get any followers! I choose to OR it and am now following.
- Chris Taylor
@Wordful: [I'm not above begging, so please oh please follow me.] Follow me because I'm someone who can help you understand and implement an editorial strategy on your blog. I'm also a no-BS deep thinker who doesn't like to conform.
- Charles
You can follow me - @michiels on twitter - if you're interested on how a European internet startup works and what differences there are with for example SV startups. Also how Dutch schools combine entrepreneurship and studying.
- Michiel Sikkes
if the follow isn't two-way, well it's not much of a conversation is it?
- Sean O'Brien
@Alexander, sounds like chicken and egg problem. Do the followers come before the comments and content or after? :)
- Paul Wade
The problem here on FF is that the majority of potential subscribers are in the USA so the site is most active when I'm in bed here in the UK! I think the key to getting subscribers is to engage with others' content and make sure you share interesting things yourself. That way you become a 'valued' member of the community. You have to put some 'work' in though.
- Martin Bryant
I'm an average, non-techy person.
- Nurse Katie
so are we begging you? watch for awhile and see if you like :) @rveep
- reed price
Thomas Hawk follows me and since you don't you obviously are behind the times :)
- Kevin Kuphal
Nathan: I "AND" the list, and followed.
- Larry
Getting that starting mass is an absolute nightmare. I think i hace about 9 followers and all but 4 of those are spammers. I haven't been that prolific so far but i'm trying and will hopefully trigger some interesting thoughts in your head
- Jamie Vidamour
Rather than begging for followers, I'd like to tell you all how I've learned to use Twitter to engage like minded aviation related folks in a time when my industry (business aviation) is under fire from all sides. Twitter has allowed me to build meaningful relationships with those that write about and/or care about the future of our industry. Follow @BizAv if you're interested in joining the conversation or check out http://tinyurl.com/GJetTwitter for other business aviation related Twitters.
- Mike Mikolay
I've actually noticed I've had a few more followers lately than I've had before. Hopefully they're getting some interesting tidbits from me.
- Paul Wade
audrey, i personally believe in quality over quantity. one needs numbers of course to get the message out (when you aren't giving of course. i.e., signal to noise) but I find no benefit in having 5000 followers if 4000 of them have nothing in common with me/my business/my interests etc.
- Ted Bradford II
@Chris - right, it was a little tounge-in-cheek, but that's the majority of subject matter you'll see crawl across my feed
- Nathan Chase
I don't beg for followers. If you want to follow there is a 98% chance I will follow back. I like to think I bring interesting news to the table.
- John Flynn
The whole idea of "followers" plays to our inherent need of not being alone or feeling important. Gaining followers is like gaining money. You find the excitement of gaining followers and once you are loaded with "followers" so what? It doesn't make you happier, doesn't make you more successful. What's 25 thousand followers if your conversation on twitter is about how many beers you are drinking on happy hour? I find that people who are very zealous about gaining followers have EMPTY conversations.
- Bo Lora
You should follow @jeremybogdan for thoughts on the latest gaming and tech/social media news, in addition to updates on the gaming podcast I run and daily observations. I think that wraps things up in a nice package, but honestly, I enjoy the conversations most. Really more "followers" would just make it possible to carry on conversation and meet people I might have never been able to talk to/meet otherwise.
- Jack Bogdan
Beg for followers, Robert? :(
- Mona Nomura
Every so often, the world changes, sometimes quickly,sometimes very slowly but sometimes unnoticeably fast. Change is constant and constantly changing. There is no timetable and you cannot predict or trend the unknown but you can change with it as quickly as it evolves. That's what my blog is about..its located at http://newnewstory.blogspot.com
- Iggy Kin
Ok...so I'm here and I absolutely want people to follow me, but why should I have to beg to be followed? I'm doing great work, just like the interview I did with you Robert, and have other cool guests slated to join me. Begging makes me feel dirty somehow. I'd rather have followers slowly work their way into my life than to have them show up en masse one day simply because I begged here. I'm with my pard. Ken. Begging? DO NOT LIKE.
- Sheryl
Mona: I'm looking for new people to follow and there's a lot of newbies here, so figured I'd help.
- Robert Scoble
I'll do it! I provide a weekly podcast for IT pros which provides interviews, views, and tech tips. You can listen to it here even. I also post self amusing thoughts and comments that are only funny and witty to me. Follow me and have a richer life :) If you are interesting I'll find you here too.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
After helping @scobleizer find a bike, Google thinks I pose "a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers": http://bit.ly/177PTK #TrueStory
- Walt Ruppar
I'm John Wright and I'm building web applications under the name Wright Labs (@wrightlabs). You should follow me if you want to be the first to know about new apps I've built or updates to existing ones.
- John Wright
Read 'Beg for followers' as 'Market yourself'.
- Kiran Patchigolla
Sheryl: sometimes you have to promote yourself. I used the word "beg" to get a conversation going.
- Robert Scoble
Kiran: right.
- Robert Scoble
If I'm followed by those who follow in huge numbers(e.g. @scobleizer), I'd like to be included in one of their "special" friend list or filter. It sucks to have your voice drowned out by the masses. I guess there's always DM. But that works only if the recipient is following you. OK, just follow me already :)
- Edmund Tay
I've already tried to get my current high profile followers engaged in a conversation here: http://friendfeed.com/shaynor... with my GAME which was actually going to provide a fun way for me to gather some usage data to elaborate on a point for further discussion here.....NO COMMENTS from my FF peeps!!!!!
- shayne catrett
also this can relate to the fresh blood tech bloggers discussion a while back
- Kashif Khan
I am @harscoat and this is a test ;) on the Scoble power!! - I am on friendfeed thanks to him to be honest and thanks to friendfeed & Brett Taylor feed I discovered SANTIGOLD (Lights Out in particular) and in the end this feed/twitter thing and collaboration led to value for my ears :) so this feed thing works for me
- Harscoat
Follow me because I'm just too awesome! :P But, in all seriousness if people think I'm interesting then they should follow me. I'm not going to beg for followers. They have to decide on their own if they want to follow me or not.
- Mathew™ one of a kind
I get followers when they see me post on topics they search for; I get the most interaction that way too. So maybe if one wants more followers, one should talk about stuff people care about :-) Other than that sometimes folks I actually know comment on my tweets.
- Emil Sit
Follow me for the occasional humorous comment and pretty photo. And maybe because you got curious, looked at my profile, and figured that, yeah, I'd like to follow that guy. (And I'll do the same for you.) PS: Nice way to kickstart newbies like me into following others.
- Andy Bold
Robert - promoting and begging strike me differently. VERY differently. Promoting myself is easy. I think I'm a fabulous podcaster, fabulous interviewer. I Would LIKE to interview YOU again and want you to let me know when you have something really cool to talk to about, ie Building 43. That's self promotion. Are you buying it? :)
- Sheryl
PLEASE follow me. My mom is the only one commenting on my stuff and it's making me look like a dweeb.
- Christina Henderson
Sheryl: I was already following you! :-)
- Robert Scoble
@chrisquick LOL, that made me laugh.
- Paul Wade
lol Christina. On another note, do not follow me, I cannot handle the responsibility.
- Christian Collins
Wow this feed has just started and already produced a wide variety of comments. Desperate for followers or power of FriendFeed ;-)
- Michiel Sikkes
Me @smohkim.. why? just to get a bit more than just regular tech news
- Sardar Mohkim Khan
I'm pretty new to FF, so I'm not sure my content is worth following. But I'm trying to learn socmedia while working on video game news at gamingangels.com. So, yeah. :)
- Elizabeth Parmeter
Yes Robert didn't mean beg literally, follow his example which is his first comment. He's really asking a for a concise answer to the question "Why should we follow you?"
- John Wright
I want people who are worth following back. I really could use some interesting thought provoking input.
- Mary Wehrle
Speaking of follower numbers, what's the minimum to shoot for before decent engagement can start to happen?
- Edmund Tay
Edmund: four.
- Robert Scoble
Robert you make me LAUGH! WTG! And to all my NEW followers, thanks :-)
- Sheryl
I follow back on Twitter @nencetti - to get followers I follow people and wait. (i guess that is sorta begging) to lose followers i tweet too much. I am starting to use FriendFeed, it grows on you, like a fungus...
- Mike Nencetti
Ha, funny Christina! I just jumped into the follow-a-thon here. I want everyone here to follow me because I want to learn from you and hope I share some knowledge to enlighten you some day :-)
- Jason Cronkhite
Robert: Is that based on the assumption that all 4 followers share a common interest in what you have to say or share?
- Edmund Tay
Edmund: yeah. But all you really need is one with other followers who also like what you have to say. The second I post a comment or "like" one of your items it gets shown to thousands of people.
- Robert Scoble
Please, please, please. Why? Because I'm begging.
- Willem (@wim66) ☠
I do hope we can get you along to a #tuttle the next time your in London. In the mean time feel free to follow me @robocallaghan
- Robert O'Callaghan
Robert: I'll be in London in early July!
- Robert Scoble
Willem: you link to cool applications. You should have both begged and explained that.
- Robert Scoble
Wow, that is fast!
- Willem (@wim66) ☠
Take a look at my current FF homepage and if any of the entries engage you on an emotional or intellectual level, then follow!
- Sam Grover
i am begging for followers here for two reasons. 1) my money was wasted in trying to get 19,000 followers in five days and the free snuggie 2) If I get each of my followers to donate one dime to me, i can easily afford the big green hands like scoble has, then EVERYONE would follow me.
- Ted Bradford II
You're already following me Robert - please, only follow me if you want good content. That's the secret to gaining quality followers. I do like to follow others with good content though.
- Jesse Stay
I started with this social networking thing because I miss discussions with fellow scientist when I was one. Not all conversations here are so "eggheaded" but engaging. With more followers I could start more conversations.
- Robert Hafer
samgrover anyone who puts Upcoming.org geeky events in here is good enough for me (like you do).
- Robert Scoble
I see this as a community service thread - no problemo rs :)
- mike "glemak" dunn
i lack focus. my links lack focus. i am the hybrid vigour in your friendlist.
- dromologue
No begging. Look at my feed and subscribe if you like it. It's a mixed bag of tech, marketing, politics, business, food and humor. http://beta.friendfeed.com/ajkohn
- AJ Kohn
Jesse: actually I've gotten quite a few good quality followers by doing crappy content. It's true. The stuff I think is good quality content often doesn't get people to follow, even the smart ones. Of course I learned that by using your tool! :-)
- Robert Scoble
dromologue: you linked to treehugger.com. You can't be half bad.
- Robert Scoble
i am in the same boat. I would love to have followers but i don't have time to focus in on one topic.
- Zach Scott
You should follow me because I enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches http://preview.tinyurl.com/dxvejm
- Jon
Jon: my brother will probably enjoy talking to you then!
- Robert Scoble
I probably wont ever beat you or @techmeme. I'm a pretty nice guy though. Plus, I promise to only post a few pictures of cats a month- none of which with be tagged with Obama!
- metalerik
U will be giving us "lurkers" a voice.
- Frank Sant'Agata
You SHOULDN'T follow me (@supermoose37) because I don't want you to. Anyone currently following me, should stop right now. Follow me, and you'll regret it.
- Marcus Beagley
I can't imagine being interesting enough to follow.
- Peter Kruit
metalerik: I liked the Google Mars images you had up.
- Robert Scoble
Ooos, I forgot to beg and give a reason why I'm begging. So here goes: Follow me because I try to post and share items that I think will be of interest to some if not all of my followers. That and I will also follow you back :)
- Edmund Tay
Probably shouldn't follow me ... [ http://bit.ly/a8eqT ]
- Craig Brownell
Peter: you are running the iPhone 3.0 beta. That makes you interesting, didn't you know?
- Robert Scoble
Usually I'll browse the other FF'ers shares and discussions to get a feel for that person's share/insights. I tend to follow people who have an equal number of interesting ORIGINAL items/posts rather than just retweets/reshares. I admit, I'm one of those people who doesn't get a lot of Likes *sad* or Comments
- Glenn Batuyong
PBJ is pretty compelling, and dromlogue's hybrid vigor comment cracked me up. This thread is making me laugh, and keeping me busy!
- Kathy Fitch
I like pictures and stylish things and these you will find in my feed. I usually follow back and I comment too (I know!), especially if I don't have to be serious about it.
- Mark H
Follow @frodeste for tweets on tech, crm, project management and life :)
- Frode Stenstrøm
FF and others have given me the opportunity to engage with people from all over the world from my quaint little town
- Steve
Follow @keithbarrett - I've been in IT for 30 yrs and am just as excited by the possibilities today. I've been involved in all aspects of applying technology to business from software coding to infrastructure design/support. Past employers include DEC, IBM, Red Hat & Disney. Living though the computer->Internet->Social Media changes helps me see a bigger picture of how we got here & where we might go. Like @scobleizer I read TONs of news regularly and share the more interesting bits when he's late :)
- Keith Barrett
Robert: Ideally I like to do at least one of those a week :)
- Sam Grover
Steve: what little town? Update: looks like it's Billings Montana, right? Love that town!
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Good point.
- Peter Kruit
Lyons CO
- Steve
And for those that don't get it - Robert is creating significant content about the people he is engaging. This makes you more than a number or a bio. I should have said follow me because I'm not an SEO or marketer :)
- Keith Barrett
Well, boo. Why isn't the pop out page working for me?
- Kathy Fitch
Ah, there it went. Better!
- Kathy Fitch
Kathy: friendfeed is behaving a little slowly for me right now. I think they might be pushing out new code.
- Robert Scoble
Must be it, Robert--I like the fast and furious view best!
- Kathy Fitch
great exercise bro! and illustrates why i am selective about who I follow and who is allowed to follow.
- Ted Bradford II
please follow me, please please please
- Adrian
Makes sense for me to comment here, so that I can get Robert's attention when I need it in future. Plus I follow him anyway.
- Ashish Rangole
Adrian: I'm already following you. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I'm @thepuck. You should follow me for a mix of tech news, stuff on coding, social media, and writing, plus whatever fun stuff catches my fancy. I sift through tons of content each day and share and publicize the best of it (IMHO). I also have lots of awesome friends who you can meet through me. Thanks for the opportunity, Robert!
- Neal Jansons
You should follow me if you want to live a truly boring life vicariously thru me. :D Serious;y, I am the worlds most boring tech enthusiast.
- Gunny doesn't side-hug™
Robert: What are you favorite filters these days? :/
- Christian Collins
OK, on a more serious note, you should follow me (@supermoose37) if you are a fan of either "Transformers" OR "Doctor Who"
- Marcus Beagley
Christian: I have a filter that shows me all items with one like. That's my most used one.
- Robert Scoble
I won't beg for followers but if you are interested in social media, security technology, networking technology, politics, or economics I'm sure we would have alot to share together. I'm on twitter as @tsudo but prefer conversations on Friendfeed.
- Keith - @tsudo
Robert: Sounds like a fire hose!
- Christian Collins
Marcus--How about VR-5? Anyone remember that one?
- Kathy Fitch
When I'm not trying to corral my 2 little boys (4 & 1) I hop on FF to keep my sanity!!
- Kevin Whalen
Christian: it's not that bad, actually. I am building more and more filters, though, on companies in tech industry and terms I see get popular here.
- Robert Scoble
You should follow me because I know where the main cable is for the whole internet and have a saw. I also adore tech, don't own an iphone but would like a Segway. Hopefully enough said :)
- tech pops
If you don't follow me, how else are you going to know which Air Force 1's I like the best? This knowledge could come in handy in the future, you never know.
- Richard Lawler
"I also have lots of awesome friends who you can meet through me." - Gee I'd like to be able to say that someday! Can I meet some? :-)
- Keith Barrett
Kathy: Sorry, the only thing I watched with VR in the title was "VR Troopers"
- Marcus Beagley
Okey doke--now following tech pops, strictly for self-preservation, dontcha know.
- Kathy Fitch
I'm kuckoo for Co-co Puffs and have a few screws loose, so sort of like that box of chocolates: you just never know what you're gonna get tweet-wise (@tweric) or ff-wise. But, man, do I spell good.
- Eric Matas
I noticed some people are actually recommending people in this thread to follow. There's a room you can do that ;) http://beta.friendfeed.com/ff-subs... Although if you want to follow me - feel free I follow 11.6k people and have a river of noise following through constantly so I can find the latest goings on ;)
- Nicholas James
Sigh, it's hell being old. I also loved that short-lived horror dealie, "The Others" I have a tendency only to watch tv that all others apparently (and oh so wrongly) hate.
- Kathy Fitch
DeAnne: I'm following, though for the #nptech, alas not for the scifi!
- Eric Johnson
Follow me because I just came back to FF from a social media vacation, and I have just had time to read some really good (dead wood) media I want to put to good use in future comments and posts:)
- Thomas Bøhm
Robert, point well taken - I guess I'm still trying to figure out why I have gotten the followers I have then. I don't think I've ever begged for followers. Maybe my content is crappy? ;-) I guess most of my audience is probably SocialToo users, which may have something to do with it.
- Jesse Stay
Now I'm wishing it wouldn't default to top of page after every follow. How spoiled am I?
- Kathy Fitch
My little brother just signed up for Twitter (http://twitter.com/aaronmatas) and I'd love for legions of people to follow him just to scare the sh*# out of him...by showing him the POWER of the social web. Bru-ha-ha-ha-haaa. Oh yeah, he's a TV sports journalist, so he kinda needs to know. Thanks -- please tell others!
- Eric Matas
Follow me for tech info related to graphics, web programming, browsers, iPhones, and natural language processing. And, maybe I'll fill you in on my next big project :-)
- Charles Ying
Charles: your page is the most interesting I've seen yet (to me).
- Robert Scoble
Follow me for site feedback ideas (and thoughts about UI in general), programing advice (to come), an introduction to the game of Go (to come, in a separate feed), (re)shares of interesting and/or depressing political blog articles (note: I brand myself "moderate socialist" policitally, though I'm assuredly not opposed to meritocracy), and random philosophical musings.
- Karl Knechtel
Well, my knee-jerk reaction to "beg" lingo notwithstanding (you'd think my knee would learn to behave after all this time), this is a fun follow party. I'll be back later to see who I missed. (Because, here, you *can* come back later, which is awfully nice.)
- Kathy Fitch
Oh yeah also, you should follow me because I'm an application developer and ultimately I want to build what YOU want and what YOU will use. (and I need your feedback to do that :) )
- John Wright
Because I just started FF when the beta came, and needs a kick to get started :)
- Erik Gulliksen
I like to express and pass on info about: Tech, Flyfishing, Architecture and remodeling construction. I am a freelance Architect Draftsman in Wisconsin.
- Frank Sant'Agata
Robert: thanks!
- Charles Ying
I'm IT hitman working in The Bahamas. I tend to follow Foreign Policy/Defense Blogs and dabble in political satire.
- Adi
Frank: What areas of Tech do you tend to talk about most? Do you photograph Architecture too? You need some feeds into your FF my friend.
- Paul Wade
Though I don't post a lot of native FF entries, I like likes and comments as a way of filtering stuff. I'll share with you; you share with me. And I love FF's real time features, particularly when combined with live video.
- Tom Landini
I have a hard time begging for anything :-)
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Thanks Paul I will update, I just stated FF
- Frank Sant'Agata
weedmonk: Wait, you're a hitman?
- Paul Wade
Ah, I'm a mom, so I'm used to the wide-eyed beg. Dogs and kids--there's some real smarts there that we could all learn from. Besides, this whole thread made me laugh out loud right at my keyboard more than I have in a long while.
- Kathy Fitch
beg is an odd thing. Yes - I want followers - not for the sense of feeling oddly popular - but like @scobleizer I like being able to search through massive amounts of data that users create, and without followers, i'm limited.
- Courtney Engle
<--cracking up. This couldn't possibly have been a less subjugating experience for anyone. The "beg" term got hackles up, but also grabbed perfect gobs of attention, so there you go. It's a fun and funny thing, and my bberry, for one, is all abuzz about it! (Humming a Temptations tune and smiling, here.)
- Kathy Fitch
Wow, amazed at the semantics debate over "beg". Report just in... all net oriented sarcasm/tongue-in-cheek/parody must come with obligatory semi-colon parenthesis to indicate jest (even if to a minor degree). ;-) Would much appreciate the follow Robert, I always enjoy your posts. As a consultant I work on finding simple solutions to complex problems... my tweets are all over the place.
- SAM
I have about 280 "hand picked" followers. That might not be all that impressive, but I have a quality stream at least.
- Rutger Blom
Rutger: I find that the best quality you can get is to stick to under 200 people you're following. I do that with Friendfeed's lists.
- Robert Scoble
Back so soon :-) The London #tuttle is on a friday at the moment 10-12 at the ica in London.
- Robert O'Callaghan
Because I only joined Ff because of Scobelizer, therefore he should have to watch me flounder around trying to do something unique.
- Gregg Le Blanc
1up Scott, Begging has the well deserved connotation of supplication. Hence, the semantics. I would like to find more people that are interested in the Semantic web. Wordpress hacks and plug-in development, Designers, Coders, Innovators that need Beta testers. Companies with products that I may be interested in. My interest's are becoming more diverse as a result of my participation here. TY
- Eric Logan
I talk about library stuff, volunteer and service stuff, social media stuff, and Drupal as a versatile platform. If you're interested in any of that, you'll be interested in me. I also like food and kids.
- Laura Norvig
I am sort of feeling like Oliver asking for more gruel, May I please have more followers sir, I promise if your not educated at least you will be entertained and amused.
- Kim Landwehr
Well, sure, but I'm thinking back to the days when the listserv was a main mode of discussion. The subscribers were a kind of built in audience that posters to the lists didn't really have to fight for (though list founders had some work to do)--the challenge (and the fun) was in engaging people *despite* not having a handpicked audience. Some self-selection because of list themes, of course, but the audience was there, and anyone could join. Some of the best discussions actually flowed from difference.
- Kathy Fitch
Because I want to become more involved and participate as a connector.
- Trish Ridgway
just need followers
- Bill Majkowski
Bill: followers are overrated. But I'm following you now.
- Robert Scoble
Are you testing whether there's a limit to the number of comments in FF? ;)
- Janek Mann
I'm trying to straddle journalism, tech and sports all at once (can you straddle three things, by the way?). Looking for ideas and feedback ... @jondenunzio
- Jon DeNunzio
Forget followers, I would like just ONE comment on my FF! (BTW, your already following me Robert)
- David
I have nothing for you to read of any importance just random thoughts.LOl just wanted to throw my two cents in for what it is worth.
- stan fogo
Follow me if you like games and insights about game studies. I'm a game designer studying how to use game design to improve the experience of web applications. @kurai
- Kurai (ff)
Not sure there are any limits on number of comments in a thread. Ffundercats used Friendfeed as live chat while recording an episode and got over 1500 http://beta.friendfeed.com/ffunder...
- Tom Landini
David - you should import more things then just Twitter then ;)
- Nicholas James
I drink http://friendfeed.com/public for dinner.
- Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy
Best advice to those perusing this thread who are new to FriendFeed? Follow these folks: http://ffholic.com/Users...
- Nathan Chase
Oh, and today's my birthday, so follow me!
- Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy
Someone should follow because of an affinity for either the subject matter, interests, or attitude someone else shows in other comments. I don't see it as a need, so much as a desire for company, interested in similar pursuits but different viewpoints and perspectives to contribute. I have been in tech for 30 plus years, yet have published my poems & fiction for just as long. I always have an articulate opinion and love to chat. I don't have as much time as I'd like 2 come to FF to engage with others.
- Phil Boiarski
My views are different than everyone else’s, that is the only good reason to follow anyone at all.
- John D Reasor
Another good reason to follow me: I don't use Facebook. How 'bout that?
- Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy
Hi, i'm a french student in management. I'm mostly interested in IT, media, newspaper crisis and other stuffs (sometimes in french :s). I intend to be more and more active on FF in the future, so one day to another, you might have to follow me. Why wait ? :P
- Stanislas Jourdan
Interesting. I'm not sure that I'm a high contributor. I follow to feed on information. In doing so, I find people to engage.
- Valley
OK, I'm throwing my hat in. I've started contributing by linking all my accounts, and finally having a reason to use the share feature of Google Reader. It's awesome to add my voice to the conversation. But after a while, when none of my posts get any likes or comments, it can feel like you have to be super popular to get in on this. I'm a relatively new user, but it would be nice to have a few more followers at least.
- Matthew
beg? seriously? I'd rather not engage people If it requires begging. Well I see you used "beg" to spur engagement.. But I still don't like the word even if it resulted in the desired effect. I guess I'm just not that desirous of conversation simply for the sake of it but rather to expand my thought processes and to alleviate my biases
- Bill Rawlinson
Cuz I'm the last and newest person to post a comment here. Bananers.
- Harry Wolff
I tell it as it is. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
This reminds me of back when torrents first came out and I'd post stuff to see if anyone would download it. We're throwing stuff at the wall and seeing if any sticks. Friendfeed is a useful addiction.
- Matthew
LOL! Amazing how many people take offense to the words "beg" and "need" -I "need" more people to engage my thoughts. (What a great way of putting that) It would be nice if more people would see the things I post and comment on so that I would get out more from this little (but expanding) corner of FriendFeed. I have plenty to say, but only a handful of active people to critique it. Tech, SM, Dogs, humor. #funhashtags. Please help Robert, Louis and Jesse take a break from me ;) Introduce me to your friends!
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
I am far less interesting than @scobleizer... I am an early adopter with a private-beta-testing-program addiction. I offer loads of insight to developers, designers (and users at large alike) on this new stuff. I'm the one you want testing your app, service, nifty super cool product of the now. Follow me pretty please with microchips on top, I'm @tinym
- tinym dot com
I don't want more followers, I want more engagement from existing followers. More subscribers is great and all - but if they're not going to engage, it doesn't excite me at all.
- Anthony Citrano
Nice idea! I'm not one to beg, but seeing as I could do with some more engaging followers, this is a bit of an experiment. Follow @daveinthecloud for predominantly tech, Apple and science-based updates.
- Dave
I use FriendFeed more to read interesting things I wouldn't normally see. I'm not always around and I don't always participate. Does that make me a bad person? (@elroy)
- elroy
Fun post! Lots of cool people to follow. Marketing and tech geek who happens to make wine in her basement. @bsmntbootlegger
- Karrie Sullivan
An impressive list of comments already. And I have found a few interesting people to follow here already. I guess it is all about "give and take".
- Mike Hellers
Ok, I'll bite: Why should you follow me? Because I post about science, math, music, programming and geek stuff with wit, style and panache.
- Chris Taylor
lol! I was making wine in my backpack on my bike trip this summer :)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Follow me. Help make media history by reaching the first 10 million follows. ... Well I guess that won't work anymore.
- Keith Barrett
Mike: same here
- Frank Sant'Agata
There is a lot of talk in the comments about "audience", "SEO" & the "need" for followers, this all appears very $ orientated to me, maybe someone "influential" should start a conversation along the lines of "how can I make you happy on friendfeed"?
- William
if you are a geek into getting stories related to social media, geeky stories, pics, videos, tech related stuff, like bacon or lego or star wars. you will probably like my stuff. check it out....and hope to see you soon!
- (jeff)isageek
Unless you like NSFW stuff and LOLCats stuff, really nothing to see with following me. :P
- Christian (Simply X)
I'm game for more followers. I run research boats for a living and sometimes like to blog about that, my bad ass dog Jake (Silky Terrier) and other things I find interesting...tech, cool photos, hikes, etc...on my personal Posterous blog. I've been active on twitter for quite awhile but am fairly new to Friend Feed. I get a real kick out of most members of the Gillmor Gang and like following their conversations...maybe I'll start to engage more.
- Scott Schanke
William: I think ur missing the point, it's about being new to ff and having a voice.
- Frank Sant'Agata
Praise @Scoble for once again "starting" a conversation
- William
For me, the whole tech deal has always been a love of the game issue. It's like writing, that way, and teaching, too. Interesting how perspectives differ. I just thought of this as fun, and as an opportunity to learn and connect. Also, my inner English prof always thinks of "audience" as a matter of rhetoric first. A thing like this, for instance http://tinyurl.com/cxkzpo is its own reward: great chance to meet people, and it made me *really* hungry.
- Kathy Fitch
Lindsey - surely meeting more serial killers is not the answer. ;-)
- Brian Sullivan
See, there? Lindsey not only spells her name correctly, but also likes horror! Lindsey, I spent quite a few years teaching horror film! (The *best* students in those classes, oh my gosh--such an interesting mix.)
- Kathy Fitch
Dying (editorial aside: ah, that's strictly metaphorical) laughing, here.
- Kathy Fitch
I just subscribed to everyone in this thread that I wasn't already subscribed to. Why? I love participation. People commenting here participate.
- Thomas Hawk
Good plan Thomas I think I will do the same.
- Brian Sullivan
Hi. I'm Simon, i post a mashup of stuff from all sorts or genres. Photo's, art, tech, videos, games. I'm a bit of a 'i like everything' kind of guy. I try to get in on lots on convo's, and i never really leave FF, sometimes i just sit here idle and watch the world pass me by :)
- Simon Wicks
"That's an example of what I'd like you to do. I will follow anyone who answers on this thread" is that a promise robert ? :)
- goutham
that are some interesting question to address here...will people be more likely to get into friendfeed if more people follow them? or are people more keen on just sharing their thoughts and feelings with a select few? should there be a way to algorithmically increase the visibility of a post ? is that "fair" ?
- goutham
You should follow Pax Stereo Tv (www.paxstereo.tv) because we represent something NEW and DIFFERENT! While we lack the full sophistication of a traditional network, our "NeoUrban Internet Television" network is at least original and edgy, and we are streaming live Monday through Thursday every week! All this with only 3 full time staff! We represent YOU, the new breed! We are not perfect, but we keep it coming, and we are getting better. Peace. - Mario Hemsley CEO
- Pax Stereo Tv
What's the easiest way to go through and follow everyone here? I don't really have to go down the list one by one do I? I started to but thought there must be an easier way...
- Scott Schanke
Initiatives to free the world economy in ways that benefit the poor @openworld
- Mark Frazier
Scott: I had to add each one of my 14,377 subscriptions by hand, so so do you. Sorry, there isn't a way to "follow all" here. Which is a good thing, in my view.
- Robert Scoble
goutham: I am following everyone who has participated with a comment in this thread. Scott: you can see if you are following someone already by looking at the little icon to the left of their comment. If you are already following them, it'll be bluish. If you aren't, it'll be white.
- Robert Scoble
always be closing mario ;)
- mike "glemak" dunn
Ok thanks Robert...I'm just a bit frustrated that it keeps collapsing the conversation after each follow and therefore I have to find where the hell I left off...I'm plodding along though.
- Scott Schanke
Scott: I have this thread running in a popup Window. Here's how to do that. First, open this item up into its own Window by clicking here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... Then click the time stamp (it says "5 hours ago" right now) and then it'll open up its own little Window. That makes it "live" and like a chat room. Scroll to the bottom and watch new items pop in.
- Robert Scoble
I follow smart, funny people, and I post/pass along all kinds of stuff. I never know what I'll come across next, anything from the effects of cancer treatment on IQ scores, to vintage cocktails, to news on weird fiction writers, to updates on the latest and greatest zombie games, to random questions and ideas that occur to me in the wee hours. I'm always looking for posts that have me saying, "Hmmmm, that's interesting...and here's why..."
- Heather
I'm not sure begging for followers is in our self interest, Robert. I find that the people who hawk themselves loudest aren't the people I make the best connection with. And it's that connection that matters whether it's a personal or professional.
- Susan Reynolds
Not sure if I need any followers, but I think people follow me because I'm so freakin awesome. Oh, you haven't heard of me? Find me on The Google. :)
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Oooooo.. Choose me. Choose me. Choose me. Oh wait. You already follow me. But anyone else is welcome to read my nonsense about whatever is on my mind. Lately - dissertation, teaching chemistry, thinking about some technology, and just fun family items (mainly my dog)
- LPH™ and his dog P™
i vote for LPH!
- michael sean wright
Susan: that's fair. But in friendfeed you can put people into lists. So you can subscribe to all the "beggers" and put them into "begged for follow" list. That way it won't mess up your other followers.
- Robert Scoble
LOL nicefishfilms ..
- LPH™ and his dog P™
nicefishfilms: I'm already following LPH. Weird, I've met both him and you in real life, too!
- Robert Scoble
I'd rather people follow me because I said something or posted something interesting.
- CAJ, somewhere else
Rahsheen: if you are on "the Google" then you MUST be awesome! I'm on "the Google" too. Search for "Robert." :-)
- Robert Scoble
Yep - I'm being followed - (looking behind me) - wait - why are you always in front of me then Robert?
- LPH™ and his dog P™
Alan: you must have posted something interesting, because I'm following you. Either that or I thought you were that country singer! :-)
- Robert Scoble
LPH: you actually passed chemistry on the first try. I did not. ;-)
- Robert Scoble
Any interest in visiting Alaska? Find out why you should plan a trip to Fairbanks @insidealaska
- Inside Alaska
Robert: You're the first to mention it, actually. I wondered if the same thing was happening on Twitter. ;)
- CAJ, somewhere else
Inside Alaska: that's always been one of my life-long dreams. Interesting, I'm noticing more marketers setting up shop in friendfeed. Next come the celebrities! Alan: heh, probably!
- Robert Scoble
Here's why people follow me: http://beta.friendfeed.com/glenc...
- Glen Mistletoe
this thread is officially to long to follow on an iphone
- mike "glemak" dunn
mike: it's too long to follow on a 24-inch Apple display, too! :-)
- Robert Scoble
We are always striving to be the best. @abounding
- Abounding Media
Thanks for the "Hot Tip" Robert!! Much easier.
- Scott Schanke
Follow me for posts about social media, the publishing industry, online communities, funny pictures, and my coffee addiction. Oh, and babies. I run a baby site and have a baby so...expect some babies. I also enjoy swearing so there may be some of that.
- Kate
Follow me (@abbashaiderali) if you like a mix of tech, finance, cars, random, and personal content. Variety keeps me interested & you're cut from the same cloth, we'll get along just fine :)
- Abbas Haider Ali
You can't be shy. You need to have a voice and use it.
- Russ Jackson
I promote the issues that are important to those I follow. But follow me because I took the time to read through ALL of these responses... :) @rbucich
- Rick Bucich
I dunno about begging but new followers are always nice
- Angela P.
I will have to say, I found several new people this way, so thanks Robert. I know I need to get better at finding more people myself, a la the FFundercats podcast Louis Gray discussion.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
you better be following me .. Im a fireman and I haz an axe ..
- johnpiercy
I don't want 'followers' - vanity is my least favourite sin. I want stimulating conversations & interesting stuff to read/watch/etc.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
I'm @ryandadey and I love the internet and would like to be more engaged with people who feel the same. I like to share through FriendFeed and Twitter interesting tech, science and environment articles from Google Reader, as well some of my own thoughts. It would be more fun if I knew people were seeing my stream!
- Ryan Dadey
I'm just this guy whose life has been revolutionized by the social web. I'm no "guru" or "expert," but because I live here so much, many people and even companies and organizations have asked me to guide them into this landscape, a responsibility that both scares and energizes me. Because of that, I seek to share, give, and help anywhere possible. Trying to make tons of connections; if you want to be one, thanks!
- Mark Traphagen
You should follow me so you can point out where I could use some help on things, because I'm an interesting person, and because you like a bit of the crazy in the folks you follow. I'm Chris Charabaruk and I approve this beg for readers. http://beta.friendfeed.com/coldaci... http://coldacid.net http://twitter.com/coldacid
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
Beg, droool, beg :)
- Susan Beebe
Martin Bryant is right - now that the US is asleep, this thread has died down. Onward Europe, Middle-east, Asia ! :)
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
Thanks for the offer to follow us commenters Robert. I subscribe to all friendfeeders who leave comments as well. It's a great way to get to the heart of who's really participating in the trenches here on FF. BTW about me.. I started writing and acting when I was seven. I'm a musician/singer/songwriter and freelance writer/journo. I help others use the web to build an audience for their passion.
- Jesse Newhart
hmm, so it is quiet when the US are offline! Too bad, I'd love some more people to follow, be followed and have conversations with from the rest of the sphere. Widen the horizon.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
nice idea - unfortunately friendfeed gets unreadable with so much comments. btw: i'm friendfeeding mainly about technology, consulting, personal productivity, gtd...
- Alexander Benker
You should follow me because I tend to find interesting programming articles on the topics of: Django, Python, key-value stores, and more.
- Eric Florenzano
I don't care if people follow me or not. I've been writing online (Usenet) since 1989, before the web, but Google's index only seems to go back to 1992. Most of my stuff isn't even on my blog, it's in email lists and discussion threads such as http://tinyurl.com/df5kc2 and http://tinyurl.com/3gfqzj (better than anything I've written here). A sample will give you some idea: "By what...
more...
- Victor Panlilio
I like talking to people and having conversations. It's no fun being on the social web if I'm not engaging anybody, and I need followers and people to follow to do that.
- Jon, the Chilled Beartato
No question about it, people should at least attempt to read new and different drummers daily because following the followed will always leave you in the follower camp. They laughed at Bob Dylan, they laughed at Gary Vaynerchuck, where are *they* now?
- randulo
I tend to follow the people that interact with me on my imported items, if I am not already following you I apologies. Just drop me a DM and I will happily subscribe to your feed :)
- Joe Dawson
That's a tough one, Joe -- you can only DM folks who have subscribed to you...
- Eric Johnson
I don't give a crap about the other comments here - I need to make sure I have the Scobles following me. I mean, I think they are already. But still. Gotta cover my bases. As to WHY anyone should follow me: I like to think I take a humorous outlook on things, and can make you giggle at least once per day. Snark is my tool. Also, I'm earnest and naive, and I'll treat you with the respect you expect and deserve from the Internet. Also, cats flushing toilets: http://bit.ly/2Lx2w
- Mike Nayyar
A retail designer by day (mainly customer experiences for consumer electronics shoppers) and a geek by night. If you want to brainstorm about how you'd like to shop and find cool new products, I'd love to hear from you.
- Jason Goldberg
Hi, @cantor there, i'm an It Systems Specialist and a student (Computer Engineering in Pisa). I think you can follow me because i have ideas and opinions and i want to express them, i like to find & share and I'll do the best in "extreme multitasking mode" :P.
- CantorJF
follow me because scoble told me to beg =P
- Zafarali
@robbell You should follow me because you lack the motivation to follow more inspiring individuals :)
- Rob Bell
I just started on FF and find it very interesting because of the focus on interaction arround subjects... FB is mostly talk about nothing, and I'm the only one in my friend group posting articles that interest me. Follow if u like... that will kindda help out on the interaction part!
- Kevin Nordmand
Over 280 comments. Advantage of FriendFeed. Nice. Follow me for some interesting stuff online and offline. Geeky and non-geeky
- Kannan
I am @alexisbellido and you should follow me to find more about teleworking, the Web and online businesses. I recently started using social media to support good causes and make your opinion matter. Currently supporting fight against hemophilia
- Alexis Bellido
People should follow other people because something is said that rings true. Not because someone BEGS for it. Please don't take this comment as an invitation to follow me, thanks.
- Vincent van Wylick
@Vincent: Well said. Truth is like gravity: you can pretend it doesn't exist, but you can't ultimately escape from it.
- Victor Panlilio
cool self help group here! social media anonymous! :D
- Dieter Schwarz
Great idea Robert :)
- Zee.
Nearing 300 comments, the Scoble Effect indeed. Is that FF comment raffle over by the way?
- Adi
For me at least, it's not as important that you follow me as it is that I follow you. You are very likely not to be interested in the stuff in my feed (and that's ok with me, please don't follow me unless you really find my crap, interesting), but you might like me commenting in your threads, which is where I get the most enjoyment from friendfeed..in the conversations on other people's posts. I am not that good of a conversation starter, but I am very good at jumping in when someone else does the starting.
- April Russo (app103)
Follow me because I find unique interesting content before most people, I read allot and am subscribed to allot of popular and interesting feeds not many people know about!
- Kyle Weller
Most of my feed activity revolves around various creative, social, and mobile technologies. Usually my own ideas and experiences with my own projects, and not so much link sharing. I like to think of myself as a quality over quantity kind of guy, so I won't overload your stream. I plan on hiking the Appalachian Trail next year and documenting it on the web as I go, so that should be interesting. I'm 5'9'' and I weigh... wait... what is this for again?
- Daniel Sims
I often hear I am hard to follow. Maybe it's the Dutch. Maybe my wandering spirit.
- Ruud van Wijngaarden
Ruud: That's why I don't twitter in Dutch. In fact we should just all talk English ;)
- Peter Kruit
Well I already follow the green guy (Scobelizer) on Twitter and FriendFeed and he follows me. But since I'm just an average guy, working in the Nonprofit field, I've found it a bit difficult to acquire followers on FriendFeed (not nearly as difficult on Twitter). So if anyone is interested in following someone who shares an eclectic mix of thoughts and interests, please feel free.
- John A. Taylor
It does feel good to have activity on your feed. Makes me feel like someone is listening to me.
- Christian Burns
I'm just getting started with friendfeed and already find the discussions great. I'm looking forward to being able to contribute some of my own thoughts to the conversations. After all, there are a lot of great things happening based off the idea of a person and the energy of a group.
- John Spyers
I'd love to connect with more marketers here on FriendFeed - not just social media types, but business and marketing strategy peoples... Small business owners would be great, too.
- Dennis O'Neil
I don't beg either, but since you asked...I'm good for some silliness, the occasional deep thought, encouragement of discussion of any kind (mostly political), and a good song or two. I'd like some musicians and poets to get on board as well.
- Helen Sventitsky
I like art, music, 3D, electric guitar, analgog synths, puppets, making stuff, my family, metaplace. I blog about artsy process and put up sweet flickr images.
- sergiooo
I have 9 followers, one is Robert, but virtually no discussion. I'm one of the few people on FF that works with the government, works in a non-IT startup, and will recommend great economics and sustainability items.
- Chris Stevenson
I just don't buy it yet. There is still way too much noise, and I'm not one of those guys with the time to go through posts with 300 (mostly uninteresting) comments. I have to filter extensively to get just a simdgeon of the interesting articles I pull off of GReader with Feedly and comments from the blogs themselves. Friendfeed would be great with Real Life connections, but they are all on Facebook. Friendfeed has a major uphill battle ahead of them, despite their superior interface and technology.
- Phil Ashman
FF is a good twitter client though..;)...
- Phil Ashman
Begging time. Follow me and SherylBreuker here (@kencamp & @SherylBreuker on Twitter. Please follow us and check this post Sheryl & Ken: Project Denmark (for 48 hours) #48hoursindk at http://stardustglobalventures.com/2009... We'll take you on the road to Denmark via social media. Help us win!
- Ken Camp
Great thread! Found some goodies in here (and some crazies)
- Daniel Morgan
Hey, I'm in. You go, Robert!
- John Gerstner
Because no matter who you are, it takes followers to get followers. You have to start somewhere...
- GeekDads.TV
You hungry?
- Myrna
20 things about friendfeed http://m.kyte.tv/ch...
Kisha, Well Conditioned, Keith - @tsudo, K.D. and 123 other people liked this
Told you he'd be posting before the hors d'oeuvres were served...
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
hor d'oeuvres? where?
- Michael VanDervort
I'm watching your video right now
- sofarsoShawn
Robert, I am unable to watch your video (never been) in kite.tv with GNU/Linux and Flash 10. Although I have no problems in any other video platform.
- Ricardo Galli
It is the first service to bring all our content into one place
- paul mooney
Watching your video. Definitely learning a lot. Much to take in.
- Marty McPadden
This is a great tuturial Robert, I am learning about all kinds of features I never knew about. Too bad Friendfeed doesn't have a video/visual tutorial like this for all the newcomers (albeit more concise for them).
- Brian
Yes - and screencasted, not video of screen.
- Hal
Have they ever come up with a good way to sync my twitter follows as imaginary friends without having to add each individually?
- Hal
Was it just blurry for me or is it blurry for everyone? I think I could have learned way more from it if I could see what you were was doing. Looked like you were doing some cool stuff.
- MarkCarras
awesome job Robert - watching it right now. It's great you're not over the top in describing it's usefulness...rather a sensible overview of it's benefits.
- Zee.
That's great info, Robert. Thank you. Lots of stuff I didn't know.
- Drew
Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Love it Robert, thanks, I learned a lot.
- Ginger Kenney
Great vid. Really showed off some awesome capabilities.
- Joe Brinkman
Robert: Either I'm losing my mind or you're double-clicking on links.
- Chris Luckhardt
Chris: my computer is messed up. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I love FF and have been using it for a few months (though not exclusively), but I still picked up a few powerful tips that I didn't know or understand before. Thanks, Robert!
- Helen Hoefele
Robert did you make this video for Arrington? I hope so, that way he'll start participating more...same goes for Guy Kawasaki too. :)
- Susan Beebe
Nah, just trying to explain the features.
- Robert Scoble
This friendfeed thing confuses me to no end. Maybe I'm just dense, but I've never been able to figure out how to organize things here so that the cool stuff perks to the top, then there's keeping track of things I like or whatever. I hope your vid is damn good cuz it's downloading now over a dialup line. yup, they still haven't fixed my highspeed yet. :-) Edited to put a smiley after that last statement, hehe.
- Eddy Cole
It's a really good introduction to both basic and advanced FriendFeed use. Perhaps more interestingly, helps explain how Robert manages his massive inbound data flow.
- Michael Krigsman
Ross the Friendfeed intern did some tutorials a while back, but FF sure failed to keep up with creating new ones as the feature set (and interface) evolved. Ross's videos here: http://www.vimeo.com/rossmil...
- Mitch
I think that if I knew that I could see all of my twitter activity from within friendfeed, then I would use it in leui of a twitter client - but I don't feel like taking the time to add imaginary friends.
- Hal
What we really need is a "Friendfeed Tour" room which is added by default to ever single new account. It could be moderated by the FF crew and include links to a whole bunch of goodies for new friendfeeders.
- Mitch
Next installment: 20 ways to being a bigger FriendFeed monster than Robert Scoble? =)
- deepikaur
Comprehensive. Needs a screencast treatment instead of pointing vid cam at the screen.
- Tom Landini
This should go on the ff homepage
- Michael Fidler
2009 is the year I start really drinking the FF Koolaid. I started a week early, technically, but then the good resolutions are the ones worth getting ahead of right away. This video was helpful for understanding how to make the most of the service, Robert. I'll be sharing it with others, especially if I slip into the social media rabbit hole that this service can be for many users. As always, thank you for sharing your experience.
- Alex Howard
I find that friendfeed has a lot of passive users. Their activity comes from the aggregation of other media, not from any attention on friendfeed itself. Robert is very active on FF and so gets a lot of immediate conversation going, but many have it set on auto-pilot. I find this is less the case with twitter. Perhaps it will change.
- Marcel LeBrun
Robert, I love the down to earth presentation on this. Very approachable method of video, and informative.
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
I've been waiting for this video. Good stuff.
- Andrew
Thanks for this - its great to have a practical 'how to' guide.
- Graham Hills
Nice! Didn't really get Friendfeed until now. It would be phenomenal if I could manage and write to everyone of my aggregations via friendfeed. Hate to have 3+ Backends for my Blogs etc
- Sebastian
Robert, I've been using FriendFeed for a while now. Thanks! This was superb.
- Pilgrim Five
"Hide" feature!? I have no "Hide" link under my entries - how did you get one of those?! I want one! I have "Comment", "Like" and "More".
- Isha (Marysia)
Thanks for posting. I never knew that Friendfeed could be so useful. I didn't even know there was a like feature till you pointed it out. I just thought it was another one of those lifestreaming aggregators.
- Thao Ly
Marysia: "Hide" is only available on entries if you are in the home screen. So click on "Home" and now you should see Hide.
- Robert Scoble
"Hide" is available in any list at the top level. For instance, if I create a list called "Tech Bloggers" and add six people to it, "Hide" is visible if I click the Tech Bloggers list on the left side. If I open the reveal triangle and click on one individual's ID, then "Hide" is not available.
- Will King
Thankfully this was a tutorial. I still expect Robert to use a computer nearly as fast as Commander Data.
- Kevykev
Great video Robert. Really enjoyed checking out all the features on FriendFeed. You seem to have it set up really well. I wondered why you didn't use a screencast recording program so we could watch what you were doing on your screen a bit more easily. I don't want that to sound like a criticism though because I really appreciate the effort you went to, recording the vid.
- Paul Richards
I'm bumping this post, because this video is so good. Just sent it to a friend who just signed up to help explain the experience along with the FFundercats Episode 25 podcast. These are great resources. http://www.kyte.tv/scoblei...
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Twitter is changing API rate limits. I think this was a shot at friendfeed. Here's why:
Gavin, Baard @ Pixum, goldred and 70 other people liked this
Here's the details on the changes and impact on companies like SocialToo: http://www.techmeme.com/090121...
- Robert Scoble
Friendfeed growth has gone way up because of friendfeed's new feature to import Twitter followers. I'm seeing that in a big way. I bet that looks dangerous to Twitter and that allowing other services to piggy-back on Twitter like this isn't a good thing. What do you think?
- Robert Scoble
Seems fair to me, let heavy users pay for their usage, after all these are businesses not individuals.
- tom sparks
Here's details on the new Twitter importer: http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...
- Robert Scoble
If FriendFeed is not a replacement to Twitter, why would Twitter expend their finite resources to take a(n indirect?) shot at Twitter? If you ask me (you're not), I'd guess it's more of a pass the buck strategy to charge the API community and let them figure out the revenue model. Twitter can't be bothered with that.
- Matt Albiniak
I foresaw this coming. That's why I architected TweetLater.com's follower processing in a completely different way.
- Dewald Pretorius
Why I think the API limit will lead to a revenue model -> http://tinyurl.com/twitter...
- Nick Halstead
Wrong. Friendfeed doesn't use the API. They're over XMPP.
- netik
netik: for content, yes, but for followers, I'm pretty sure they are using API.
- Robert Scoble
maybe there is a business model in charging for high volume use of the api. There are several apps that I would pay for
- Daniel Patricio
And Scoble is the general of social! If he says "friendfeed" you say "how high, sir"
- Stephen Breen
That sucks big time! but then again twitter will be faster. There is many apps that use well over 20.000 requests per hour yep SocialToo is one of them... I'll have to change my lil twitter mobile app now .... :( http://m.mwd.com
- Live Crunch Blog
The API limit is per IP address: it's easily accounted for using delegates to handle the requests. The lack of notice kinda sucks, but I'm hard pressed to see the insurmountable technical problem with their new rate limit.
- Mark Trapp
This will only affect services that hit the Twitter API tens of thousands of times per hour from a single IP address. Mashups like Qwitter, etc. Totally makes sense. I don't think FriendFeed and other services that get to use the special XMPP firehose had anything to do with it.
- Josh Bancroft
While we are talking about SocialToo, I tried to use that to auto follow all my followers and it didn't seem to work. Jesse, can you call me at +1-425-205-1921 and we'll see if I'm doing something wrong.
- Robert Scoble
Stephen - I just vomited a little.
- Jennifer Leggio
Josh: I tried using friendfeed's new feature and it didn't work. I think it is hitting the API too many times to try to get my 50,000 followers out.
- Robert Scoble
Is Twitter providing API client analytics so that you know how many requests per hour are being made?
- Jim Bergman
Robert - the rate limit hasn't been implemented yet.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I think charging for high volume API users makes sense. At this point Twitter has no revenue model, they need to start making money somehow. I don't know if there are any Twitter clients charging for their service, but it doesn't make sense to me that Twitter doesn't make money from those who can or do.
- Chris Mayer
Mark: that's why I said "changing" instead of "changed." The changes are coming Friday, Jesse Stay reports.
- Robert Scoble
Sounds more like protecting their data than their servers, and I would want to do the same thing in their position. If you allow people unlimited access to all that social network data, you make it much simpler for somebody to write an app that moves entire networks off Twitter onto another platform. As a business, they have a lead in the market they have to protect.
- John
Nick, just read your post and I agree whole heartedly. All these free services can't go on forever.
- Chris Mayer
I really doubt this is a direct response to FriendFeed. I suspect FF is just the tip of an iceberg, most of which is hidden underwater, or in this case... still in development or private testing. I know at least two services that are trying to reconstruct the mythical firehose via rapid polling from whitelisted IP addresses.
- Ken Sheppardson
@Mark Bean - try using the YouTube API - they throttle like it's a treasure down there. Can't seem to get more than 1 request per second.
- Niv
Robert there was a very good debate on this over at Jesse's post today. http://tinyurl.com/bxw6dq Good discussion I think. He also ran a cool Poll to see if people would pay for his service http://bit.ly/nn33. So far the results are about what I would expect; ~70% say no.
- Chris
Jennifer: Sorry 'bout that :) There needs to be a facebook group for Scoble the General.
- Stephen Breen
it's much bigger than friendfeed. This could be a shot at many existing applications and more importantly potential future applications. One more reason to advocate for a distrusted open source messaging platform.
- Howard Ross
I wonder if it's time for developers to band together and build a distributed system ala "SETI@Home" that uses spare API call bandwidth to rebuild the data stream for high volume applications. BitTorrent for the Twitter firehose, so to speak.
- Ken Sheppardson
I love Scoble's "here's why" posts.
- Steve Rubel
Steve: it's a new form of interactive blogging. Plus, it gets Twitterers to come over here and interact.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I'm pretty sure that the problem with importing your friends is in our system, not Twitter's. We'll get it working for you very soon. I'm sure that the timing of their rate limit changes is a coincidence. Managing rate limits is an important part of building a stable system, and allowing any one client unlimited requests is dangerous. (we even rate limit our internal services, for example)
- Paul Buchheit
Paul: cool, thanks for letting me know. If you ever want to test things out with my account, let me know! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert: The fact that you're probably not the only one who has tried to import your friends list...just to, you know, see what happens... probably doesn't help matters ;-)
- Ken Sheppardson
Robert, I was going to suggest this as well - it depends how much of the process Twitter is doing on the backend, and how many servers they have it distributed over. If they're able to do it on one server, this could cause issues. The potential is there, however - Apache and other servers make it easy to process more than one thing at the same time, up to hundreds of things, in fact.
- Jesse Stay
But like others I think this is just the tip of the iceberg, not the reason.
- Jesse Stay
Twitter's API changes weren't SOLELY a response to FriendFeed's Twitter importer. Considering how long it's taken Twitter to decide on a business model (did they ever hire anyone for that position), they couldn't have reacted to FriendFeed's Twitter importer that quickly. By the way, the Twitter importer worked fine for me, but I only imported less than 400 (it's smart enough to figure out which Twitter followers are already on FriendFeed, so it doesn't import the whole list).
- Ontario Emperor
hehe, I love these discussions - just another reason why friendfeed is better than twitter
- Peter Efland
I am always curious why people try to say "FF is better than Twitter" or "Twitter is better than FF". I see them as very complimentary at this point as both lack key features the others have. They are both great tools to have in the tool bag. Like they say, "if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
- Chris
@KenShepperdson: Love the idea of 'BitTorrent for the Twitter firehose' & 'developers to band together and build a distributed system ala "SETI@Home" that uses spare API call bandwidth to rebuild the data stream for high volume applications' -- gotta do *something* or charge devs for high volume API calls, right?
- Alex Howard
Alex: The thing is, I thought it was Gnip's mission statement to pretty much solve this problem. But then they dropped XMPP support and things got wishy-washy RE whether they were really going to provide a "full feed", Twitter decided to pull that effort back in house, and things have sorta been scattered ever since. I wonder how many people's machines we'd have to harness to reconstruct everything...
- Ken Sheppardson
I like FF a lot more than Twitter for a lot of reasons. Better for conversations, better visually for photos, better tools to hide/filter/lists, etc. I think it's a vastly superior platform to Twitter. That said, Twitter has the momentum right now and is more likely to make a jump to mainstream. The flurry of celebrities signing up is a very positive sign for this sort of jump for them. I could see where Twitter would want to keep a very close eye on what FF is up to as their most significant competition
- Thomas Hawk
As long as Twitter feels that they are keeping the competition of FF at bay, having as open a system and API as possible continues to build good will with the community. But if/when Twitter feels that FF becomes more significant as a competitor and within striking distance they very well might sacrifice community goodwill for a business advantage. Just speculation on my part. It would be harder (though certainly doable) for FF to grow their business with impeded access to the Twitter API.
- Thomas Hawk
The thing about FF that I think they will need to address before they get widespread adoption is ease of use. Right now it is just WAY too complex for the average user. Twitter is pretty simple to grok and use for the average use. FF can be very daunting for technophobes. And if Twitter adds a group/room feature and threading (FF's two strongest differentiators IMHO) then FF could really face an uphill battle.
- Chris
How many Twitter API calls are needed to get a user's follows? Couldn't FFd offload these calls to it's users' twitter accounts if needed?
- Alexandros Georgiadis
I have actual historical usage data of Twitter and FriendFeed posted here - http://tinyurl.com/cq3ll5 - courtesy of the FF API.
- Brandon Watson
Earth’s Fractal Brain From Above [PICS] - http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/feature...
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Cee Bee, vijay, Ted and 6 other people liked this
A "crappy" day in California (photo):
Nicholas James, Ian Fogg, fbrunel and 30 other people liked this
Under these solar panels is Pacifica's waste treatment plant. More on the plant shortly after this is uploaded.
- Robert Scoble
from email
The plant uses $900,000 worth of electricity a year. These panels save them $150,000 a year. Under the panels are huge vats filled with microorganisms that "eat" the sewage. Out the other end is water clean enough for fish to swim in.
- Robert Scoble
This is one of the most advanced water treatment plants in the world. It generates sludge that looks like earth. Doesn't smell. Old plants cause a bad smell. This one found a way to "scrub" the bad odors with microorganisms. The whole thing is controlled by Microsoft Windows and a bunch of PLC's. More on this plant when we put up the video in about a week at http://www.fastcompany.tv
- Robert Scoble
That's an amazing system there, every city needs this instead of dumping it all into the water. What is done with the sludge that comes out?
- Melik Yuksel
Cool sh*t.
- Will Higgins™
The main use of the power is ultra-violet light which sanitizes the diseases in the water. Half of the power is used just for that process. The bulbs they are using cost $500 each. A new process is being tested that reduces the electricity cost by $200,000 a year and uses bulbs that cost $50.
- Robert Scoble
Man, you don't want to know what my town's waste treatment plant in NY looks like...
- Aram Zucker-Scharff
Melik: it is used for fertilizer. The water is used in a wetland and will soon be used to water stuff like a golf course in the community. This plant cost $52 million to build back in 2000 and $3.5 million to add solar to. If built today the plant would cost double that.
- Robert Scoble
Aram: many plants use harsh chemicals to sanitize its sewage. This one uses no chemicals. Which makes the end water much better quality. Most communities don't have a plant this advanced. Especially in China and India where they really need this kind of technology.
- Robert Scoble
The water that comes out of it isn't drinkable, but is very close (they showed me a glass and it was clear and didn't have odors).
- Robert Scoble
It's a great job to have. Recession proof. :-)
- Robert Scoble
That sounds pretty impressive. I can remember train journeys (commutes) where you could smell an old school plant from inside a train and at X distance away from the tracks etc.
- Patrick Jordan
And here in Quebec City, we're expecting -30F to -40F for the next four days. Ugh.
- Jason Carter
Company motto: Your sh1t is our bread and butter.
- Lee Stacey
The regulations suck, though. The plant manager wants to put more solar in, but the state won't let him because of really tough environmental restrictions on the hillsides that surround the plant. Oh, by the way, this thing is right in the middle of the city. Rocky's house looks down on the plant. That's why they needed to come up with ways to control the odors.
- Robert Scoble
How prescient was my uncle in Hudson New Hampshire? An architect whose son was also a designer. 30 full years ago they built a 'green' house, and blueprints for green industry. He said if we don't ALL do it now, the planet will be toxic by 2078. That was in 78. Oops. His name id John Paylian, and he wrote a book about it.
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
Lee: yeah, something like that! Heheh. I joked with Rocky and said "this plant can even handle YOUR sh1t." ;-)
- Robert Scoble
Ed: that's exactly why we did the video. Hopefully other communities will put pressure on their politicians to build one of these. Pacifica's residents played a HUGE role in getting this one built. Not cheap. Not easy. But now the water here is much cleaner than it used to be.
- Robert Scoble
@WillHiggins literally so! :)
- Prolific Programmer
Windows 7: Mojave My Ass - http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow...
Phil G, Anthony Timberlake, Andy Breeding and 17 other people liked this
This blog post is really not worth reading, but Ed Bott's reply to it is: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott... i personally cannot believe some of the anal-retentive whining -- ok it's stable, ok it's faster, but your complaint is that you can't make it look like Windows 2000? this reminds me of the They Might Be Giants song called "Someone Keeps Moving My Chair," in which various disasters befall a certain Mr. Horrible, but the only thing he cares about is that *someone keeps moving his chair.*
- Karim
@James What? Personally, I've found the changes in Vista to be welcome and very, very useful. Even with an older, crappier computer when I'm dealing with Vista itself I get things done quicker, and with less stress. (Well, there was one time that Vista caused me grief, but there's an exception to every rule.)
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
I've had two machines with Vista. The first is the machine i am posting this on. It ran horrid on the Vista it came with. Crashed like crazy. So I wiped it and put Ubuntu on it. It has ran perfect ever since. My current Vista machine is a laptop with 4GB of memory and a good processor.
- MarkCarras
@James try comparing disk requirements in $ at the time of release instead of MB. You'll find that Vista takes much less $ of disk space to install than XP did when it shipped.
- Andrej Kyselica
James, you might want to add this link to your WinSxS links: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7... -- it explains that if Windows Explorer is telling you your WinSxS folder is 10 GB, it's actually only got about 400 MB. :-) If there's "bad code" it's because Windows Explorer doesn't understand NTFS hard links (which appear to be multiple copies of files, all taking up space, but are really just *pointers* to files).
- Karim
There's some other stuff about the benefits of WinSxS and a reference to the vsp1cln.exe utility, and a breakdown of what takes up disk space on a Windows install. Basically you are trading off reliability (being able to arbitrarily install/uninstall things in any order), ease-of-use (not having to get your OS CD to install a font if you go to a Japanese web site), and having peripherals "just work" when you plug them in (1 GB of device drivers) for disk space, which probably isn't a bad tradeoff for most.
- Karim
The post is about Windows 7 and how they're looking at the operating system footprint in the context of people using smaller (e.g. 16 GB) SSDs instead of larger conventional hard disks.
- Karim
also, I think "complaining about the UI" per se *is* fair game, but it needs to be done in the context of usability (e.g. "this used to take less clicks") and performance (e.g. "this used to run faster"). just complaining you can't make it look like Windows 2000 seems anal-retentive.
- Karim
Windows 7 is only a 'slight' improvement over Windows 95 + IE4. /s (I know, I know... entirely diff product lines.)
- Dileepa Prabhakar
A lot of expert opinion in this conversation. However, I'm a super user but not that technical. If any software needs this type of explanation (most of which I don't understand) it is not for me. I want my computer to run fast, be reliable and simple to use. This is the biggest concern amongst consumers and technology. Too complicated. Offer software (as a service or on the client) that makes my computing experience great not worse.
- B2B Specialist
@James Vista's memory management. Vista preloads alot of what it thinks you'll need into memory hence the more memory its takes up. And on current hardware with all the latest drivers, Vista runs perfectly. Heck, my Comapq Presario is 4 years old and runs Vista SP1 perfectly.
- Roberto Bonini
On the UI, Vista is easier to use than XP (that search bar itneh start menu is the main reason). Control panel is more intutivive. The sidebar never did reach its full potential. But to ask for a reto-XP/2000 look is frightingly pessimistic.
- Roberto Bonini
Windows 7 is a huge improvement over Vista, but only a slight improvement over XP. The 7 Beta shiny, alright, but it's still so-so. Some really nice features include the ability to 'pull' windows to resize ( like in linux ). This is great for multi-displays, like mine. Flip3D seems improved (faster) then Vistas. Google Chrome looks pretty nice with transparency. The control panel is even MORE obfuscated then Vistas' though, if that's even possible.
- Will Higgins™
The 'sidebar' is gone, but gadgets are still around (Vista ones work). Display managment is good, icons look good, explorer is a bit different, like Vista's, but shiny. It's not simpler to use, but that's because we're all so used to XP/Linux. Vista/7 Beta is like a bastardization of what's come before. In this sense, it's a success.
- Will Higgins™
I tested the Vista beta 2 when came out. It was horrible, to put it mildly. I imagine a beta 1 to be an even worse relflection of the final product. But Vista SP1 is now my favorite OS. So never judge an OS by its beta.
- Roberto Bonini
I have a question: What exactly is Windows 7 SUPPOSED to be?? Can we at least try and agree on that?
- Roberto Bonini
I was hoping there might be a "Windows 7: Netbook Edition"
- Marcus Beagley
Don't know what Windows 7 is supposed to be, but if it runs on netbooks, I can see it being a good choice. Vista would NEVER work on a netbook, but knowing what I know, I think 7 might just work on a netbook. It's certainly not gOS.
- Will Higgins™
I always smile when a beta, or even an alpha (in the case of Google chrome) gets slagged off. There is a reason they are designated alpha or beta. Anyway, as far as Vista goes, I have one machine here running Vista SP1, and it runs better than a comparable machine with XP SP3. I'm not a Microsoft fan either, I don't use any of their other products.
- Ian May
The Church Under the Bridge in Waco, Texas - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Anthony K. Valley ©, Ted and John Deisher liked this
Top 10 Tips for Getting Attention on Flickr, All Fresh and New for 2008 - http://thomashawk.com/2008...
Alex Williams, Dennis Goedegebuure, Benjamin Golub and 112 other people liked this
Good article. I guess you've got to work smart to get noticed on Flickr.
- Adam Christie
Very good advice, Thomas. A comment on no. 6 ("Groups"): I remember Flickr staff mentioning that not only photos that are in too many groups (more than 10-15, as a rule of thumb) get penalties for their Explore rating. Allegedly, this is also true for photos that are in the *wrong* groups, specifically the ubiquitous "post 1, comment x" groups. So not all photo critique groups might be good when you want to get your pictures into Explore.
- Ole Begemann
Ole, I hadn't heard that certain groups penalized photos but have seen Flickr staff in the past mention that posting your photo to too many groups will reduce it's visibility with their algorithm.
- Thomas Hawk
Re: no. 5 ("Explore"): more criteria that seem to influence whether a photo makes it to Explore: the presence of EXIF data, geotags, title, description has a positive influence; faves and comments from people who are not among your contacts seem to count more than from contacts; faves and comments from popular photographers count more than those from nobodys; a photo that gets 2 or 3 faves within minutes after uploading is more likely to make Explore than one that gets faved 15 times within 24 hours.
- Ole Begemann
Thomas, I'll try to find a reference for this.
- Ole Begemann
Good point on EXIF data Ole, yes, photos in Explore are required to have EXIF data. My own guess as to why this is is that if a photo has EXIF data it is more likely to be your own photo vs. something you simply ripped from the web. Not foolproof of course but I'd guess that this policy is in part due to a desire to increase the authenticity of the photos promoted on Explore.
- Thomas Hawk
If you look at the photos in Explore, the only "Leave a comment" groups that I see with any regularity are TWTME and 1-2-3 groups... what makes them special I'm not sure, other than they're amongst the largest groups in general. But you see very few of those award groups or "leave x comments" groups in the photos in Explore, so I suspect that Flickr must be penalizing them.
- Eric P
Thomas, that's a great refresher on the original article. Some great tips.
- Tom Quinn
And Thomas, throwing reciprocation in as a "bonus"? It should have been #1 or #2. The vast, vast, vast majority of comments and faves that I receive are from people whose stream I previously visited. The only real exception to that is when a photo is high in Explore, which results in a torrent of views/comments/faves from strangers.
- Eric P
Yep Eric. Reciprocation is very high. Bonus tip might not be the best place for it. It's very important. Faving back when people fave your work, commenting back. Adding people back as mutual contacts, etc. All encourage activity on your photostream.
- Thomas Hawk
Eric, participation groups don't penalize your photo from Explore best I can tell. This photo http://www.flickr.com/photos... from a few weeks ago was in the Deleteme Uncensored critique group and was #3 on Explore as well.
- Thomas Hawk
In fact just searching flickr for the save10 tag from the DMU critique group along with "explore" brings up a number of photos: http://www.flickr.com/search...
- Thomas Hawk
Good post, *IF* getting attention is important to you, as opposed to using it as a vehicle to just share photos with people
- Eric Rice
After I read your original article on Flickr popularity a while back, I began reciprocating every comment received. That worked very well.
- Tom Harrison
Eric, true. Some people have no interest in their photos receiving attention. I do think that the majority of people posting on Flickr though do appreciate when their photos receive some attention. Lots of people do not though. I have friends that only publish private photos that their friends can see and opt out of every public aspect of Flickr. I think these people though are the exception rather than the norm and think that Caterina's quote is pretty typical of the most active users on the site.
- Thomas Hawk
Thanks for digging my article Aaron! :) http://digg.com/arts_cu...
- Thomas Hawk
Alright, I found something. Flickr staff member acknowledged almost 2 years ago that "groups that force people to comment/fave on certain photos with no choice" do in fact hurt your Explore chances. Also, "weight of comments and favorites from contacts is quite low in interestingness calculation." (http://www.flickr.com/groups...). A very old post and the algorithm has changed since then but we can probably say that the gist of it is still true.
- Ole Begemann
interesting Ole. I hadn't seen that. I think it would be difficult for Flickr to manually track every group that encourages tags and comments as participation. Per the links above though, photos in DMU have definitely made it into Explore anyways.
- Thomas Hawk
Yeah, I have no idea how they maintain a list of the "bad" groups. Further below, SilentObserver mentions his business is writing algorithms to filter them out automatically, though.
- Ole Begemann
Here's another good summary of nearly everything the community knows about the Explore algorithm: http://www.flickr.com/groups...
- Ole Begemann
Here is an example of tagging. I did not know this woman was a celebrity until after got this shot. It appears on the first page of the image search engines and it has received over 12,000 views. http://flickr.com/photos...
- Russellreno
So far I got 3 (!) photos into explore. Their common factor? They all were faved by you (TH) soon after I posted theim.
- Guillaume Lemoine
Flickr used to say "who" faves your shots was a part of the Explore algorithm. It wouldn't surprise me if the algorithm weights faves by different people from the Flickr community differently. For instance, Pro accounts where people actually have paid for the service might be weighted higher than non-Pro accounts. More active users might carry more weight with their faves then less active users. Just speculating on this part.
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas - I don't think that participation in all groups gets a penalty, just that there are some groups that are penalized as far as Explore is concerned. I simply don't see Explore photos in "Post 1, Comment X" groups - so either there's no explore-worthy photos in those groups (not likely IMHO), or Flickr is penalizing the photos in those groups.
- Eric P
such a great post Thomas, thanks for writing it
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
As a note to certain groups penalizing your photos...I had a photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos...) that went to explore spot 150 or so. After, I added it to a few groups to see if I could bump it higher. It had the opposite affect and immediately dropped off. I can't say which group exactly did it or if it was the number of groups I submitted to, but adding to groups definitely does come with some sort of penalty.
- Justin Korn
If you use FeedBurner, you can splice your Flickr photos into your blog feed. I have it splice my last two photos and I find those have at least 5x the number of views as the ones that aren't in my spliced feed.
- Mike Hussein Cohen
Awesome post Thomas. I signed up for Flickr a couple of years ago, but only started using it more regularly after the purchase of a digital SLR camera - so this post is particularly relevant to me. I am still patiently waiting for that first comment/favourite on one of my photos to truly experience the emotions as described by Caterina Fake.
- Jeff Smith
Thanks for this post, Thomas. Great tips!
- Eric Johnson
Great article Thomas... I was also wondering about what my friend calls 'Shooting for the 75'. That is, a great majority of people only ever see a 75 x 75px thumbnail of your photo. When he processes, he always does a square crop to test how it looks in the frame. Would you like to see proportional thumbnails as an option?
- Johnny Worthington
I actually really like the square thumbnails. Heck I really like the square crop period. I think I'm cropping more and more of my photos 4x4 these days. Maybe it's just that I've always loved medium format photography so much, not sure why I'm so drawn to the square crop right now though. I much prefer Flickr's square thumbnails actually. Still would love to see larger sizes on FF like SmugMug's thumbnails.
- Thomas Hawk
you're right though. Frequently it's the thumbnail that draws people into a photo. A good looking thumbnail is more likely to be selected by viewers for clicking through to full size viewing, commenting, faving, etc.
- Thomas Hawk
One of my very first Flickr experiences was someone in a critique group cutting me down for a square crop. It was a rose in a perfect spiral petal pattern, could only be cropped square as far as I was concerned. LOL...I didn't change it either.
- Karoli
Haha, that's funny Karoli. so much of the criticism in critique groups on Flickr is so lame. You should have seen the deleteme critique group ravage a Henry Cartier Bresson photograph who is probably considered by most photo historians as the greatest photographer who ever lived. Read some of these comments on this photo for a laugh: http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Thomas Hawk
I used to work to get photos into explore. I think I probably take better pictures now, but I don't have the time at the moment to put in the work. Lots of community building and commenting went into the mix. I confess, there's a real rush to hitting the front page. I had three in the top 10, and it was a lot of fun.
- Karoli
I have been doing a lot of panoramic shots over the past year and I have started to play around with vertical cropping. Taking a portrait photo and cropping a really tight vertical crop: http://www.flickr.com/photos... It's all about how the picture looks to you in the end. Square, circle or hexagon, it's about the sensory reaction :) (and now I'm going to square crop for this week just to try it out, thanks guys)
- Johnny Worthington
Thomas, those comments are a hoot! I met some nice people in some of the critique groups, but it didn't take me long to know the critiques weren't helping. I do love Flickr's community...even if I haven't spent a lot of time in it lately.
- Karoli
yeah, the attention from Explore can be fun. But I'm pretty unimpressed with a lot of the photos there. I think Flickr could do a much better job with that algorithm. I do find filtering explore just by my contacts though produces more consistently interesting photographs for me. I use this script to do just that: http://www.drewmyersphoto.net/flickr_...
- Thomas Hawk
Agree on the photo quality on Explore. Seems like a lot of the same sort of gimmicky stuff lands there. Looking forward to trying the script.
- Karoli
Thanks for the article, that opened my eyes up a lot
- Alex Carpenter
Hey Karoli, here's you and your daughter by the way. I uploaded this to Zooomr a while back when I was taking a break from Flickr but uploaded it tonight on Flickr. Great fun on that photowalk. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Thomas Hawk
Hey, cool! Thanks for the pointer. It was a great photowalk, would love to do another sometime soon!
- Karoli
Here is one more way to get attention: Comment on this post with a link to one of your photos. I received a hit today from the comment about. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Russellreno
Good stuff. Worked for me: http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Demetri Mouratis
My to-do list for the day... - http://friendfeed.com/e...
mjc, Carolin Müller, Ahmet Kirtok - Kirtok.com and 73 other people liked this
via Dee S. (http://friendfeed.com/holycool)
- Steve Isaacs
Steve, honey, they have things to help with that. I hear Miralax is really good.
- Ladybug Heather
Yes.
- Derrick
Tomorrow you'll be constipated.
- Warren Butler
hahhhhaaaaahhh - giving yourself a break are you? enjoy it while it lasts..... moving right along
- Susan Beebe
this was mine today...it was nice...now i'm on the computer, seeing what I missed.
- dafire
EPIC!
- Michael Forian
I love this everytime I see it
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Can I like something a second time?
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Exactly what I did today.
- David Wilson
I performed this task so well today I think I'm going to do it again tomorrow.
- Give 'Em DBizness
Happy Holidays! - http://www.veronicabelmont.com/2008...
Charly, Nicholas Sanders, Alejandro and 5 other people liked this
My son tried telling me about how Obama is redistributing wealth (his mom is Republican). I'm so ready for this to be over.
Nicholas James, bill giltner, Nick and 25 other people liked this
ROFLMAO!!
- Alex Scoble
oh yeah - we all are
- Capn' One Eye - adrift
Funny, she had no problems with redistributing MY wealth to her! :-)
- Robert Scoble
What? Milan's already talking politics?
- Thomas Hawk
Tell him that you're about to redistribute his allowance if he continues with that kind of talk : )
- Mike Doeff
I wouldn't mind some redistribution of Bill Gates money into my checkbook... it'll never happen... but one can dream.
- Mike Wills
Nah, just tell him allowances are handouts and you've decided to honor his beliefs and end socialism in your house.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Mike, you obviously didn't forward the email when you were told to do so =P
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
You should just block him.
- Akiva Moskovitz
you & me both.
- Zee.
Obama is the one who admitted to wanting to spread the wealth, perhaps he should cut out the $4000,000 commercials and spread some of his own wealth. I work for my money and have no desire to spread it among any other than those I personally choose. Who are you to decide where my money goes? You lefties are welcome to pay additional taxes but because you have a belief doesn't mean we should all be forced to follow.
- Henry DeBardeleben
Hey if you don't like progressive taxation, you can always go to a country that has a different form of taxation, Henry.
- Alex Scoble
Henry, this perfectly sums up the issues I have with the current Republican party "but because you have a belief doesn't mean we should all be forced to follow"
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Henry, when you loose your job that makes you your money or get injured and have to go on disabilities, let's talk again shall we?
- Johnny Worthington
Actually, I like this country just fine, perhaps you should your friends on left to a country that already practices socialism.
- Henry DeBardeleben
@Henry Rubbish. The well off in this country pay some of the lowest taxes in the free world and STILL constantly whine about it. Through the longest sustained period of economic growth in the US (late 40s through the early 60s) the top marginal tax rate was 91%. Now it's 35%. There have been two times in the 20th and 21st centuries that it was below 50%. In the years leading up to the Great Depression and in the last 20 years. Seems obvious to me that low taxes on the wealthy are bad for the economy.
- Jeff Jones
Henry: Obama is planning to _cut_ taxes.
- Tanath
AMEN Jeff! Thank you for that comment. I just can not understand why all these people crying socialism and redistribution are worried. I bet nearly 80% of these idiots do not even fall within the tax bracket that Obama has set up!!! They would actually benefit from his tax plan. It's sad that the GOP has brainwashed so many Americans to hate Obama and accuse him of horrible things. THE GOP IS MORALLY BANKRUPT.
- 4four1ones
Henry: you made your money in this country BECAUSE of the system that was setup here. If the poor riot and burn down your business, then you won't be getting rich. Or, how do you distribute your goods? BECAUSE of "wealth redistribution." North Carolina gave Dell something like $300 million in tax breaks to move a plant there (that they are now closing). THAT is wealth redistribution too. You all benefit from all sorts of goodies and people who are healthy and able to work for you.
- Robert Scoble
Scoblini is on FIRE!! I admire your political passion dude! This discussion rox. Wish we could have talked about this at the last night of Gnomedex at the private dinner with Chris
- 4four1ones
You benefit from having educated workers. You benefit from having healthy workers. You benefit from having a government that moderates the highs and the lows through taxation policies and "redistribution of wealth." The system is partially why you got rich and, so, when rich people like you say you're against redistribution of wealth I just have to call bullshit.
- Robert Scoble
If you look at the top countries for quality of life, most are socialist. If you really want to live in a country where it's everyone for themselves and you can make as much money as you want, go to Russia.
- Will Higgins™
The thing everyone misses is that our tax system is a socialist tool. It totally redistributes wealth based on a huge number of rules known as the IRS tax code. Like Robert points out, states and the federal government often offer favorable inducements to sway companies to do things. This is all forms of social and corporate socialism. Unfortunately most people don't understand.
- Jim McCusker
Oh and by the way Henry, "who are you to decide where my money goes?" We're the majority. America is a Democracy, where the majority RULES.
- Will Higgins™
Constitutional Democratic Republic. Not Democracy. Subtle, but it changes things.
- xero
there are 2 kinds of people in this world, democrats and republicans.... what a crock! sounds like a friggin game to me.
- Mot Faerin
The U.S. has pretty much always had a progressive tax system. As any economist will tell you, it's an optimization of capitalism: it keeps the wheels of the machine greased, and makes wealth creation more efficient than a flat tax system would. As any capitalist will tell you, it takes money to make money. The more money you want to make, the more money you gotta pony up. Anyone who says otherwise is a socialist.
- Victor Ganata
Oh xero you're so picky :) Being a republic means there's no monarch that can dissolve gvmt, which is handy. And yes the democratic method in America is different to many other democracies, but the basic principals are pretty simple.
- Will Higgins™
But it's not a democracy at all.
- Tanath
Will: we are NOT a democracy. Go back to civics class. Do not collect $200.
- Robert Scoble
OK, but technically, the U.S. can still be classified as a representative democracy.
- Victor Ganata
OTOH, democracy *isn't* about majority rule. I'm still a big fan of Madisonian principles: the purpose of government should be to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Still, you've got to pay taxes. And you don't get to pick and choose where your money goes.
- Victor Ganata
so the republicans finally found a soundbite that finally sticks - meh recession
- adolfo foronda
Hell, there are a lot of people right now who see "redistribution of wealth" and "socialism" and shrug, and maybe ask, "So how quickly can I get my money?"
- Victor Ganata
My A,B,C’s of FriendFeed - http://michaelfruchter.com/blog...
Sarah Perez, Richard Peat, Anand Sharma and 14 other people liked this
I only have one list in FriendFeed: geeks who regularly update tech stuff. I wish I could share it with all you.
- Robert Scoble
good feature request! allow to share and subscribe to other people's lists.
- Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)
Robert - me too (export?) hmmm
- Susan Beebe
Robert: you keep saying that as if it's not possible. A copy-paste job or a screen shot would both get the job done and I'm pretty sure you know that ;-) If you opt to not share you're list that's of course your prerogative, but saying you 'wish you could' smacks a little of naivete.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I treat everyone I friend equally, democrofeed.
- Toby Graham
@ Stupid - I think he means share the actual dynamic list, not a static snapshot of it
- Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)
It would be fairly easy to recreate the list - just look at the people has liked over the past week, and save them to your own list.
- Justin Long
@scobleizer you mean you made a list to filter your friends and get only geeks? you know you can share your homefeed right? http://friendfeed.com/scoblei...
- Philippe
thanks for the list of your FF "geeks" tonight!!
- Susan Beebe
Right now, everyone is in my home feed. Tips like these will be valuable IMHO as my subscriber list grows.
- Glen Mistletoe
yep - same here...cool way to help me organize FF lists
- Susan Beebe
I should at least be B-list. After all, I was Chris Hargarten's roommate freshman year at the U of Illinois :-)
- Tom Wentworth
Focus, Signal, Noise
- Phil Smirnov
Here, Tina. Pirate Sex. - http://bp3.blogger.com/_LeX25l...
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CannonGod, Seth, Melissa Maskevich and 131 other people liked this
Arrr, be it "old link" day?
- Slappy Line
omg - that's hysterical!!!
- shaun mclane
Arr that we did! Err
- Mo Kargas
'tis scurvy pirate's day. If ye think ye can do better why don't ye poset yer own, slippy
- Mona Nomura
This is wrong.
- Thomas Frütel
OMG... awful! :*)
- Susan Beebe
well, i warned Princess Fiona, but all i got was "I know him better than you". Gave up.
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
from twhirl
LMAO. Well that's probably fake knocked up wasn't in the same timeframe.
- Parth Awasthi
That is freaking awesome. I always wondered who was responsible. Now I know.
- Robert Gonzalez
or it could be a re-run theatre. we have a lot of them here and they'll show 3 movies spannng 3 decades.
- Admiral Anika
I were just a-yanking yer peg-leg, Mona.
- Slappy Line
Parth - they are when you put a "3" each after pirates and shrek.
- Slappy Line
So which fracking one of you Pirates knocked up Shrek? (I'm talking like I am from Battle Star Galactic, so thats why I used the word Fracked.)
- Colide81 (James)
lol, James
- Slappy Line
;D)
- Colide81 (James)
That be an amusing photo there, arr.
- Voyagerfan5761
That's what happens when people drink too much.
- Jacob
Why Obama's Health Plan Is Better - Wall Street Journal.com - http://online.wsj.com/article...
Tamara J., Ted, Kevin Bondelli and 9 other people liked this
"Everyone agrees our health-care financing system must change. But only one candidate, Barack Obama, has real change we can believe in."
- Steve Isaacs
from Bookmarklet
"The immediate consequences of the McCain plan are even worse. The McCain plan is a big tax increase on employers and workers. With the economy in recession, that's the last thing America's businesses need."
- Steve Isaacs
I'm shocked. An adviser to the Obama campaign thinks Obama's plan is better.
- ComicList
An adviser, who is an economics professor at Harvard, an economics professor from UC-Berkeley, and a law professor all agree that Obama's plan is better.
- Aaron Hood
Three professors (from very left-leaning colleges, I believe) support Obama's plan! I'm sold! ;-)
- Brent Newhall
brent, did you actually type, 'left-leaning colleges'? on purpose and seriously? BWHAHAHAHAHAHA
- Admiral Anika
Do they lean any other way?
- ComicList
Ronald Chevailer.com - Jemaine from "Flight of the Conchords'" new alter-ego. - http://ronaldchevalier.com/
Christian, Cory, Richard ¿digame? Walker and 6 other people liked this
Great viral marketing site for the new movie Gentlemen Broncos starring Jemaine Clement as sci-fi author Ronald Chevalier.
- Steve Isaacs
"Let me irrigate your barren Earth with fresh cream"
- Steve Isaacs
The hyperdimensional work of Alex Grey - http://alexgrey.com/
Thomas Frütel, abacab, Toby Graham and 38 other people liked this
Have seen his work around for a long time, always impressed. Even his self portrait painting @ age 17 is amazing and shows where he was heading. There is another artist who did similar work, wish I could remember his name or find it online.
- cmiper
Stunning, that brightened up my screen enormously
- Sally Church
Being a huge fan of Tool, my bro-in-law has a signed copy of the Tree of Life with more of Alex Grey's work around their apartment. Truly amazing.
- ::Kristen::
Yes I love his stuff and keep thinking I should acquire a piece.... I met Alex one night at a party in San Francisco a couple years ago; he's a friend of a friend. I remember he seemed like the most delightful guy.
- Anthony Citrano
Astounding!
- Josh Haley
The middle pic looks like MCP from Tron, mixed with Beatles' Yellow Submarine movie.
- Josh Haley
Looks like a cover for a Tool album.
- Ernie Oporto
Ernie - that's because Alex did a Tool album cover or two, as Kristen mentioned.
- Anthony Citrano
@ Josh hahaha
- Toby Graham
Apparently they want to put a statue as big as the Statue of Liberty in the San Francisco Bay - http://www.statueofunity.net/char...
Tamara J., Chris Weige, Nick and 21 other people liked this
My friend Patrick just sent me a link to this "Statue of Unity," information page. Apparently there is a proposal to put a statue one inch shorter than the Statue of Liberty on Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay. I took a photo a few weeks back of the statue that this proposal is based on from Union Point Park in Oakland. http://www.flickr.com/photos... This would certainly change the skyline of the San Francisco Bay dramatically.
- Thomas Hawk
from Bookmarklet
You know, I don't think this is a bad idea. What other country has two coasts welcoming visitors with giant statues?
- Shawn Farner
Looks like something from The Onion.
- Internet's Tad
+1 Tad ....and do not want.
- Morgan
i was thinking "clash of the titans" when i saw it
- Cee Bee
@Shawn, yes, because American immigration policies are ever-so welcoming... :(
- Trent Olson
Hideous.
- Tim Hoeck
wow... that is one big DYKE
- Noah David Simon
Please no
- Hutch Carpenter
I don't think the idea is so bad, but the actual statue is UGLY.
- Shannon Jiménez
Wow, that seems like a terrible idea. And I thought the second image was to show which stars would be lost in the night-sky view. Statue's really ugly, too, on top of it all.
- abacab
Statue of UNITY? Uh, no thanks. But it would be quite the contrast: Liberty on one coast, but by the time you get to the other you no longer have liberty, just unity.
- Craig Eddy
Yeah I didn't like that scene in Titanic.... wait that's a what !? You want to put where?!
- David Knight
pretty much shows the ugly side of San Francisco politics. maybe they should build it to be a reminder
- Noah David Simon
Oh WOW. See, I thought that picture was just an example and was intentionally bad. That's what they actually want it to look like?
- Shawn Farner
It used to say " give me your tired poor", now it says "no vacancies."
- Roberto Bonini
That particular statue doesn't look very good, but I am sure you could do something worthy.
- RAPatton
oh yeah Hideous is the word.
- BeeLing
I think they should build a statue of a Giant Donkey getting ass fucked by Castro. Offshore Drilling... hey why not?
- Noah David Simon
What the heck is it?
- Chris Rivait
Put it in Alaska
- Brian Sullivan
"No vacancies" my arse. There are plenty of vacancies in my neighborhood. All but one are abandoned flop-houses that were bought and "renovated" to pack in as many illegals as possible.
- Craig Eddy
it might work better for the BLUE STATES if the statue were bent over
- Noah David Simon
it looks very LOTR.
- Chris Hollander
keep in mind this is San Francisco and all kinds of crazy people are proposing all kinds of crazy things all the time that never get done. At one point people wanted to put a casino on Alcatraz. Still, I think it's an interesting idea to have giant statues on both coasts.
- Thomas Hawk
That statue looks like it should be saying something like "Shamon!" or "Woooooohoooooo!" or maybe even "Hoooooooooooo!"
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
The first one was a gift, though, from when people liked us. I guess we'll be funding this one. :-P
- Shawn Farner
lol @ rahsheen. you have a point there
- Cee Bee
the French and Sarkozy like us fine. question is do we like ourselves? this statue is so reflective of everything that is wrong with the left
- Noah David Simon
Here in Memphis we have a relatively new "Statue of Liberation through Christ" near my office. It is a scaled down Statue of Liberty with a cross in its hand. There's also a giant Buddha statue in someone's front yard along my daily route. http://is.gd/2g7D
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Shawn, maybe we could get China to build it for us as a gift to make it less ostentatious?
- Thomas Hawk
my ancestor Emma Lazerus wrote the poem on the original Statue in NY... what would her new poem be? "I HATE MYSELF?" this is pathetic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Noah David Simon
@Thomas Not a bad idea, we pump a lot of money into China. It's the least they could do. Like sending out a Christmas card saying "thanks for the business, Happy Holidays", except in statue form.
- Shawn Farner
this would be a great prop for the next Ghostbusters movie
- Chris Selland
post modern is so ugly... no cohesion.... just guilt and mismatched patterns. No doubt it came from San Francisco. Almost as ugly as the Boston building at MIT that Noam Chomsky is sitting in.
- Noah David Simon
Hrm, the idea is alright, sorta, but the execution would be questionable if they used this. Also, @Noah, wtf, dude.
- Chieze Okoye
This thing is ugly as hell. Why do people always want to do weird stuff with Treasure Island. Wasn't there some other wacko proposal on the ballot last election? What about a giant statue of Gavin Newsome's head, Easter Island-style?
- Steve Lynch
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