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Kol Tregaskes to Kol's feed, FriendFeed Talk, FriendFeed Feedback

This Used To Be My Playground [FriendFeed] - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

October 18, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Hendrik Neumann, ANJELINABANANA, Bluesun 2600 and 8 other people liked this

"Maybe you’ve read some of the stories this past week about how FriendFeed’s traffic is way down following their sale to Facebook. The stats don’t look good, as the site’s traffic may have plummeted as much as 30% following its peak just prior to the sale. But to anyone who has meaningfully used the site since its inception, you probably didn’t needs stats to tell you what should be obvious: FriendFeed has turned into a ghost town." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

10 more comments

"One of the most compelling things about FriendFeed has always been just how easy it was to have a conversation on the site. Someone posted an item, and within seconds, many had robust conversation threads updating in the speed of realtime beneath them. This also lead to the occasional trollish activity, but overall it was great." - Kol Tregaskes

I guess it depends where you go in FriendFeed. In my sphere (life sciences), FF is currently gaining a lot of traction and new traffic. - AJCann

I think it is the online-media focused crowd. It's all about posterous this week. In a few months it'll be something else. - Iphigenie

Nothing wrong with separating the wheat from the chaff. - zeroinfluencer

;-) - Kol Tregaskes

I rarely come to friendfeed ever since the facehook - paisano

AJCann: it is my belief that FriendFeed will eventually find some nice niche audiences who will want to hang out here but I'm not sure it'll do well enough to survive long term and certainly not well enough to build a revenue stream for Facebook. - Robert Scoble

The irony - many here worried that Facebook would kill FriendFeed. In fact, when many of us stopped using FF, we killed it. - Rob McNair-Huff

Rob: sort of but I knew that first day that Facebook had bought FriendFeed for the team. That very first day there was a significant set of signals that FriendFeed wasn't going to get worked on further. - Robert Scoble

I suspect the future hold ever closer integration for FriendFeed and Facebook, although whether that means the functionality of FF is moved into FB and FF eventually disappears is unknown at present. As long as the functionality of FF is maintained somewhere and not lost, that's fine. For me, this site is primarily about community, and ultimately I'll end up going wherever life sciences... more... - AJCann

Web 2.0 social media killed the friend feed experience for me. It got harder to find any interesting, and original content. Look at your followers and see for yourself, the overwhelming majority are someway tied to marketing. These are your followers who speak at you, and do not have a conversation with you. I have nothing against marketing, I'm just saying to many chefs did spoil the soup. - Joe Gata

Louis Gray

If we're not yet connected on Facebook, let's get connected. http://www.facebook.com/louisgr...

August 10, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Alfredo 亜瑠布れっど, Oguz Serdar, Jason Pollock and 31 other people liked this

FriendFeed Fans Group: http://www.facebook.com/group... - Louis Gray

17 more comments

FriendFeed Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/friendf... and http://www.facebook.com/apps... - Louis Gray

Oh no! Et tu, Brute? - paisano

Just being prepared, Paisano. - Louis Gray

Requested! - Travis B. Hartwell

sent my request. - Yolanda

Connected, For anyone interested I'm http://facebook.com/keithcr... , @tsudo on twitter, and Tsudohnimh on gmail - Keith - @tsudo

Agree with CW - An FF GMail / GChat / GVoice rundown would be great. Not because of today's news .... Just because! - Charlie Anzman

http://www.facebook.com/johnnyw... - Johnny

LOL! I'm so going to copy you! - Wayne Sutton

It just doesn't feel right...but I guess we'll get over it...in time. - V Mary Abraham

I am already connected. - Madhav Tripathi

All ready there kemo-sabe. ;-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

FB gets no link love from me, but I'm facebook.com/tinapbeana. Also tina.p.beana on the gmail. I'm not leaving till they make me, but others might. - FFing Enigma

I'm still holding onto the idea of creating a mailing list for FriendFeed users. One can then use the advanced features of their email clients to implement hide, lists, etc. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

http://www.facebook.com/nixon... - Chris Nixon

Requested! Mine: http://facebook.com/anthony... - Anthony K. Valley ©

Friends please do stay in touch, I'm here --> http://www.facebook.com/mikefru... - Mike Fruchter

/Doxob - jordan

Robert Scoble

Why FriendFeed's designer, Kevin Fox, is to blame for FriendFeed being too difficult to use: he f**ks with affordances. (UPDATE: he answers me toward the end of the comments with a GREAT set of answers).

August 9, 2009 - Comments disabled - Like - Share

innit4theminute, Gimminy, 29travels and 125 other people liked this

Affordances. They are important. What does that mean? A door knob "affords" being turned. It almost demands it. Yet FriendFeed is screwing with things like links. Here, click on "hide." That should just hide one item, right? That's the affordance. Yet you'll soon find there's a whole world stuck under that little link. You can hide Tweets. You can hide me. You can hide all sorts of stuff. - Robert Scoble

311 more comments

Is it difficult to use? - Manuel Mas

Hmm.. is it difficult to use?! - Orli Yakuel

It's a peace of cake - Mark

i heard larry wall once say about perl "make simple things simple, and hard things possible"... the simple things are definitely *not* simple in ff, increasing the learning curve right at the start... i rekon if they fix that... they have it made! :) - simran

Ooooo. One does not often see Robert swear. He's really worked up about it. Care to respond Kevin?? - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

#2 Look at the time stamp. Did you know that's also a link? Where's the affordance? Not there. Yet did you know you can click that and that is your permalink? Many people have trouble figuring this out. But here's an ultra affordance killer. Did you know you can click it twice and get a popout menu? Not many people do. Kevin has overloaded links with too many features and he has broken the affordances of what links usually do. - Robert Scoble

Orli: actually, yes, it's difficult to use. - Robert Scoble

Scoble: You may be right now that I read what you had to say. I don't think there is a proper FAQ/guide for all the little details hidden in FF. - Manuel Mas

And noses were designed to support eye glasses. - Todd Hoff

well I just managed to wipe out my entire friend feed account when I was trying to add a new one for a different twitter account - NW Angel

I agree - too many possible results from a given action. Manuel, no one reads FAQs and if you need to, the app is DOA - Sameer

Well, I don't see it as difficult to use. Its more that there are many things in here hidden that would aid users if there were more upfront. - Manuel Mas

Most of us get basic functionality out of the site with how things are at the moment. - Manuel Mas

Look at this complaint too about FriendFeed being difficult to figure out: http://twitter.com/sethgol... Seth Goldstein runs a tech company. He's a geek. Adverse to more pain than a lot of us. Yet he can't figure out how to delete a list. He's not the only one to tell me that FriendFeed is too difficult to figure out. FriendFeed still needs a design rethink to make these issues go away. - Robert Scoble

Sameer: Agree. - Manuel Mas

Valid points, Robert, but a complex interface, once learned, becomes simple, too - although that's not the best design philosophy for a massively public website. - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Its the visual impact of seeing too many options even if you dont use them. V. overwhelming for the try and buy new comer - Sameer

I think it is one of the worst UIs on the web today. Which is why I hardly use it. It violates all the rules of good design. Stuff is not obvious, it is not easy and it is not even quickly learn-able. I've spent years in product management and really, this is one of the worst. - Shripriya

I think the issue here is Discoverability. There are a lot of little hidden secrets to FriendFeed that become obvious only after you've figured them out. They're not very obvious on their own. Personally, it doesn't bother me but that's because I know it. If I were a new user, I'd be at a loss as well. It seems to me that the primary design goal at FriendFeed is a minimal UI (perhaps at all costs). - Akiva

Roberto: I can't think of another web app that messes with link affordances the way that FriendFeed does. Can you think of one? - Robert Scoble

People who figure out how to use a system are often the last ones to recognize how difficult it is to use. It's a self selection thing. - Ken Sheppardson

But affordances are subjective and reliant on the end-user. Take the @ sign or hashtags for instance. Unless you're talking about Apple, it's hard to blame a designer for affordance rule enforcement. - Sam Harrelson

There is a balance with "affordances" though -- if you have a very complex set of features you could have a knob/button/link for every feature but that would not work either - Brian Sullivan

@Robert, do you think FF need More Icon? - abdellah

Sam: we've all clicked on hundreds of thousands of links. We all have an idea of what happens when you click a link. - Robert Scoble

Sam, the @sign in Twitter was emergent - something users created. - Sameer

Sure, but I've seen lots of platforms use the date function as a permalink enabler. - Sam Harrelson

Manuel, agree. Robert, I wouldn't say it's difficult, but confusing (or useless sometimes). I'm not sure it's a design problem though. - Orli Yakuel

abellah: an icon is probably better than a link, yes. I know that Kevin (from an interview I did with him more than a year ago) likes sparse UIs. He is of the school that you just watch where people trip over themselves and then build UI for that. I think that's smart, but I wish that FriendFeed would iterate its UI faster to pave paths where people are having troubles. - Robert Scoble

Robert, sorry, but you're late on this trend too :) First, being not to follow everyone on Twitter. FF ui has always been terrible. Most tech people I know don't understand how to use it. And I think I use less than 10% of the available features. - Shripriya

I like FriendFeed as it is. It's obviously a power users tool as is, but then I wouldn't want it stupid simple reminiscent of installing a Windows OS. There just needs to be a decent screencast on the home page explaining all the features. No one reads FAQs these days. Video Game designers just turn the first level into a tutorial for 99% who won't read the manual and I don't mind. Maybe FF needs a tutorial when you first sign up? - CannonGod

Think about the affordances of FF and compare them with Twitter. Then compare the relative effectiveness of desktop / mobile applications developed for both. There is not a one good app for FriendFeed. This is because of the MANY "extra shite" links and an overly complex API, not because of popularity differences in the services. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Holy shit this item is already in Google: http://www.google.com/search... -- Google is going real time! - Robert Scoble

Great designs shouldn't need tutorials. - Manuel Mas

@Sameer right, but we created the @ sign to do a certain feature. Folks on identi.ca have their own signifiers. That will inevitably happen here as well as folks grow comfortable with this platform. - Sam Harrelson

Shripriya - I think most people who come back dont find it confusion. Its the first timers that run away - and thats FFs biggest problem. - Sameer

Needless to say, we all love Friendfeed, but we also need a Greasemonkey script to learn which service was posting into the time-line, and the entire issue of groups/rooms really needs a rethink because it's so hard to find any, especially If you're a newcomer.. - Nir Ben Yona

Engagement is deep; Adoption is sparce. - Sameer

TV ads (at least in australia) are considered misleading if "a person of slightly less than average intelligence" misinterprets them... i think you will find that it takes "smart techies" a while to figure out the nuances of ff, not saying everything should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, but the defaults that way would give everyone a great start... especially when introducing innovative stuff (like "the live web") :) - simran

Scoble: That Google real time thing is even more impressive than this discussion! - Manuel Mas

Shripriya: I've been complaining about this stuff both in public and in private for a long time. And I wasn't behind in following everyone on Twitter. Come and study how I use FriendFeed to follow small groups of people closely, especially for Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Manuel - Yes. I like to say that if you need to write a manual for your product, it's too complicated. - Jeff Harbert

Wow, this did get into Google fast. - phil baumann

Robert: Holy shit, that's impressive - http://www.google.com/search... - sod Twitter I say, if you're in marketing then you need to get on FriendFeed for instant Google indexing of a subject! - CannonGod

@Manuel there will be always a need to manual and tutorial, people have to sell or to promote so event if you have to explain a basic evidence, write a document make it in pdf format, sell it or share it, but for the sake of simplicity please never ever do FB style document. - abdellah

UI design is a very difficult thing to do because so many people have different ways they use things. However, I do agree with you Robert that FF does need a redesign to make more of the feature more user-intuitive. - Jack Wilson, K4SAC

Sameer - I've been back many times, I still barely use it. All the stuff Robert mentions, I had no clue. And its not worth my the time investment. - Shripriya

i would expect to see the tweet before this one.. http://www.google.com/search... - Orli Yakuel

Robert - the twitter thing (ie. unsubscribing and not following everyone) was a bit of a joke. But on FF, you are the biggest proponent. If you can't get them to change, no one can. - Shripriya

Phil: THIS THREAD IS NOW ABOUT GOOGLE REAL-TIME INDEXING! XD - CannonGod

Agree Sam, but Twitter nor identi.ca expose a gazillion features in the core app.. Its about managing the "first impression is the lasting impression" thing - Sameer

Here's the interview I did with Kevin last year: http://qik.com/video/73962 Shripriya: yeah, I keep hearing that from other people I try to evangelize FriendFeed to. One guy, who is a tech advisor to celebrities in Hollywood told me they will never use it because it's too hard to figure out and because there aren't good mobile clients for it, like there are for Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Jake - :) - phil baumann

@Sameer That's true for a certain demographic, but I look at sites my 8th graders frequent often and I have no idea how they put up with the features. Or take an xBox 360 controller... lots of buttons that do way too many things for my old 30 year-old mind, but my students find it intuitive. - Sam Harrelson

http://scobleizer.com/2008... - 18 months ago you said their UI was brilliant :) - Mark

Shripriya- thats ok. Plenty of people I personally know that have signed up for Twitter and never come back because they couldn't find a use case. No app is for everyone. Its about appealing to a large number of folks that see relevance. - Sameer

Wow, not only is this indexed in Google, but the Likes are getting indexed as well. Don't see the comments indexed yet, tho. - Sam Harrelson

Maybe FF will always be the power aggregation tool online that only a few use. But is the "few" large enough? I wonder. - Shripriya

47 emails in my gmail inbox already from this thread (as i commented and said follow updates on twitter)... surely they can batch them at least by the minute... after all... email isn't realtime :) - simran

Search results for "I don't get FriendFeed" - http://friendfeed.com/search... - phil baumann

Mark: you took me out of context. I said it both sucks AND is brilliant. That is true. Even today. - Robert Scoble

@Robert, can I add that UI is so clean that functionality are just a part of the design, they need to make more light on them (hey they are all blue link the same sized blue link) :) - abdellah

The missing mobile client certainly is a downer. I love a lot about FriendFeed, but lack of a *good* mobile client, and other minor annoyances may keep me from staying here. Sure I know I will come back from time to time (and I haven't left yet), but not sure I can live here on a daily basis like I can with Twitter because of the great clients for my desktop and phone, like TweetDeck. - Timothy Federwitz

Sam, the feature laden apps you mention that your students use, have intent built in them. The purpose is known before you came. XBox = don't do homework. Hell, Id learn how to use very button too :) - Sameer

I think FF is a different beast altogether and not as easy to create a mobile app for, based solely on service functionality and what we actually do here. - Manuel Mas

Tim: that's why I like the IM integration wtih GTalk. Gets around the site UI and works great on the mobile as well. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Scoble: I think this was a pretty rude way of giving your feedback. Why are you being so provocative lately? - Eric Florenzano from iPhone

difficult for who? the basics are easy....getting the most out of all the tools available is a different story but at least the tools are there. Not so in twitter - Craig Shipp

Sameer: Yep, good point. Similarly, I see FriendFeed having a very useful apparatus in my work/personal flow as a news/twitter/info client. I mostly use it via IM but also find the site pretty intuitive for how I use it and prefer it over Twitter, etc. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Eric: because no one engages unless you make a strong point and I sure wish Kevin would fix this stuff so I can evangelize FriendFeed better. - Robert Scoble

Craig: I have shown FriendFeed to many hundreds of people over the past year and I keep getting this complaint over and over. - Robert Scoble

I disagree with that approach Robert. A strong point is not always necessary. Most times it's a turn off and sets the wrong tone. Sure you get a lively discussion, but half of it is trying to explain you're not reallllly upset about it. - Bwana ☠

It's fine to complain but I don't see any useful suggestions here from Robert or any other commenters. A problem without a proposed solution is essentially a whine. - Brian Sullivan

Bwana: we've been complaining about these issues for more than a year. And I am upset about it. It keeps me from having a good time evangelizing FriendFeed. Just search here for how many people don't get FriendFeed. And those are the ones who'll tell you in public. - Robert Scoble

Just reading this, I have learned 4 things I DID NOT KNOW about friendfeed functionality. - Liza + = ?

Back again, to say FF still isn't cool! - K.N. Ajit Narayan

Robert: I couldn't disagree more. Please don't fall into that Arrington/Loren Feldman trap. People engage in a more constructive way when the topic is interesting. Just look at Leo's shows for proof that I'm right. - Eric Florenzano from iPhone

I didn't say this wasn't a case for a strong point, I'm simply stating it's not always necessary per your statement "no one engages unless you make a strong point" - Bwana ☠

Liza: that's another reason I did it in a strong way. I knew it would get engagement. WHen you get engagement your item gets spread to more and more people and that helps out the community overall. - Robert Scoble

Timestamp? Click, double click? Permalink? I wish I knew all of this before. - Liza + = ?

Ultimately the best thing to happen to FriendFeed would be the mass proliferation of 3rd party apps that offer a better user experience overall. Let the market sort out best functional IxD. How many highly active Twitter users use Twitter.com regularly? Not many, because there are several Twitter apps that afford a more active Twitter experience. Without them, Twitter would be news from 2006. - Laura Scott (@lauras)

I disagree. I came here because I agree with the point (as I stated in another thread), not because of the strongness. You may attract certain types with that, but not moi. - Bwana ☠

I also show twitter and friendfeed to a lot of new Internet users and they get confused easily. I think the only solution is to show one simple process and then after they master that for a week or so then show them another feature. - Craig Shipp

The best level of engagement that I've seen regarding Leo Laporte is when Arrington called him out openly and there was the big fuss of him getting thrown off the show. Just saying. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Eric: OK, heard and understood. But name another designer who does stuff with links that Kevin does. That needs to be pointed out strongly, I think. But then I get crazy about design, especially when people keep telling me over and over that FriendFeed is too hard to use and figure out. Even Liza, who has been here a lot, didn't know all that stuff was "hidden" under the affordance of the link. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I appreciate your sharing this info, but it feels strange that all of this seems like a secret. Intention is bizarre. - Liza + = ?

So Robert, do you really think Kevin and FF are actively ignoring this issue? - Bwana ☠

Bwana: yes. Why? Because it's been like this for 18 months. - Robert Scoble

As a user, I do feel like it is intentionally hidden. - Liza + = ?

Interesting - Bwana ☠

It isn't about ignoring. It's about continuance. These affordances have been here since FF started. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Michael: and they f**k with the affordances that everyone has learned on EVERY OTHER WEB SITE. This is why I used strong language. - Robert Scoble

Oh, and the "new ui" upgrade that happened a while back did nothing but add to the hidden complexity - Michael Owens from iPhone

Robert, The UI's difficulty is best expressed in comment threads with a huge number of comments, such as yours - http://friendfeed.com/bitchfe... - Aaman (Clone of FF)

And I am tech savvy, not an idiot, but the argument is, oh, you just aren't enough of a techie to get it. - Liza + = ?

I think the beauty of friendfeed is the fact that it can be used as a very basic tool but also has the power to do much more in the right hands - Craig Shipp

Who are the right hands? - Liza + = ?

And once these get fixed, the real thing that people can't figure out is what is new. On every other website there's an affordance for that. Even in SimplyTweet new Tweets are green. Quick, figure out what is new here that you haven't seen from the last time you were here. You can't. - Robert Scoble

Robert speaks truth. - Bwana ☠

Craig: That's the biggest copout I've ever heard. Maybe Kevin needs to go bak and read "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. - Michael Owens from iPhone

Liza: people like me who click on everything looking for secret features. :-) - Robert Scoble

Don't Make Me Think ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) by Steve Krug may be the kind of design you are looking for. - Todd Hoff

@Todd: great minds think alike - Michael Owens from iPhone

Robert: but even Wordpress.com uses the date affordance as a permalink. http://bit.ly/Dwnm6 I understand the concerns about the mass of feature clarity here, but I don't see that particular date/link function as a standard bearer. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Scoble: OK point taken. So let's make this constructive: what should they do to fix it? For the timestamp, my suggestion is to make it bluer and underlined--which everyone associates with links. Do you agree? How can they fix the hide functionality, though? I'm struggling to think of a way. - Eric Florenzano from iPhone

Liza: I found a lot of bugs in WIndows 95 by unplugging my mouse and trying to use the entire UI via the keyboard. But then I'm weird. Most people will never try anything. In fact, Google's own research shows that fewer than 1% will click on "advanced search." These weird affordances are even harder than THAT to figure out. - Robert Scoble

So if this doesn't change, FF may not get as wide of an adoption that it deserves. Hide, permalinks, and little things make a huge difference. The technology is too good for this to be its downfall. - Bwana ☠

Not having older items shaded or otherwise marked as old does effectively contribute to noise. - phil baumann

I'm not saying friendfeed can't be made better. I'm just saying it can be used from a basic level with little training. - Craig Shipp

I was accused of working for Friendfeed at an event 2 nights ago, for being an evangelist, and I still know very little about the functionality. AND I do like to think, I do click on a lot, but I also appreciate the intention of inclusion. - Liza + = ?

Eric: I would NOT put two hidden features under one link. They need a tab of "customizations and secret features" and put all that stuff there. - Robert Scoble

I'm not sure it's ever going to change at this point... which is sad - Bwana ☠

Liza: everyone knows I'm so excited about FriendFeed that they whine when I don't bring it up. Seriously. It's funny. - Robert Scoble

Whoops sorry Michael, didn't see yours. But it is a good book. Affordances is a bit abstract. He does a good job making the idea concrete. - Todd Hoff

what social site is better? - Craig Shipp

Twitter made a big improvement with contextual menu, such may add a value in FF too. - abdellah

Craig: define better. Twitter is easier. Facebook has more hooks and more users. - Robert Scoble

Which social site has the better UI? - Bwana ☠

Bwana: which is why I used strong language. - Robert Scoble

Until FB and twitter update in real time they aren't even in the game as far as I'm concerned - Craig Shipp

Robert: Twitter has the best UI? - K.N. Ajit Narayan

better UI!! ask myspace ugly by purpose. - abdellah

The problem is w/o knowing the affordances, Newbies create too much noise, feel embarassed and retreat - felt that but did not retreat - Liza + = ?

Facebook used to have a great UI imho. It's changed so much, now I can't find anything - Bwana ☠

FF has the better UI would be my guess. But better is such a subjective word. - Brian Sullivan

K.N. define "best." It's certainly easier to understand than FriendFeed is. Especially if you use a great client like SimplyTweet on my iPhone or Seesmic on my desktop. - Robert Scoble

Scoble: I'm not sure about the tab idea. It would add a lot of visual load on ever pageview. Instead, I'm thinking maybe if hide was a hover dropdown. When you hover over it, it says "Hide just this item", and "Hide all items like these" so that you know what you're getting into. This could work just like the top subnavigation items in many websites, which people are familiar with. Thoughts? - Eric Florenzano

Agree Twitter's UI is great - was in a studygroup of power users - most of us use web interface with multiple browsers rather than Tweetdeck, b/c simplicity is preferred. - Liza + = ?

Eric: this is why I'm not a UI designer. I like your solution better. - Robert Scoble

Hover is an evil thing in a real-time interface - Bwana ☠

I may repeat it but contextuel menu, yes do it well, that all , FF have to do that , twitter have done it. - abdellah

i hate chasing links - Bwana ☠

Bwana: Ahh yeah, good point. Maybe it would have to pause realtime (considering you are actually doing an action) - Eric Florenzano

Robert: Was talking about Twitter, the site...It's really easy to work with, provided you are not following too many people.. - K.N. Ajit Narayan

On FF you can type in the box and hit enter. How difficult is that? - Craig Shipp

Yeah Eric, it would have to - Bwana ☠

Even this thread is hard to read. No ability to specifically reply etc. Another reason I rarely visit. - Shripriya

FF used to pause real time whenever you your cursor was over a posting or its comments-- somehow that feature got removed. - Brian Sullivan

Shripiya: This conversation will definitely stink unless you find the hidden permalink - Bwana ☠

lisa, that's one thing and four words :) - Craig Shipp

Which supports Robert's argument - Bwana ☠

I don't know if I will be able to handle a better FF - Craig Shipp

I went to grab a glass of water, and have no clue what is going on now - see what I mean? - Liza + = ?

@Craig Oh for sure you can remember the alpha version and when beta come. - abdellah

Maybe using IM is best, don't know, but, for now, I find it labor intensive vs. Twitter. I like BOTH, and I will continue to use BOTH, but that does not mean there are not simple fixes to improve the UI. - Liza + = ?

@liza no you know for sure what is going on , you know that this thread is about "....", you remmeber what you have said before, you remember the person for whome you talked so for sure you know were you are at the discussion. - abdellah

It would be nice to see some of the FF team on this discussion, Kevin Fox in particular. - phil baumann

I want to reply to indiv comments, it is impossible unless I say @robert or HEY BWANA, that is silly, crappy design. Am I missing something? Plus, everyone calls me LISA not LIZA, so I can hardly answer the questions directed at me without looking for both. - Liza + = ?

Robert should have cc'd the FriendFeed feedback room - Bwana ☠

Phil: it is Sunday and they do need some time off of their work. Hopefully Kevin will show up tonight or tomorrow. - Robert Scoble

Liz: yep, I love FF's IM integration. I've got a popout window open on the side of my desktop and can keep up with things (from this thread and everything I monitor on FF) much more easily. - Sam Harrelson from IM

LIZA - not lisa or liz, ha ha - Liza + = ?

With that said, I love FriendFeed's comment UI. That's what hooked me to the service - Bwana ☠

Robert - I am clicking on everything in site, so if I blow up something, oops, sorry. - Liza + = ?

Liza apologies. multi-tasking fail. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Glen, yep, that's where discoverability comes in. Things should be easy to discover based on visual cues. It shouldn't be like playing a game of Myst. - Akiva

UNaffordances - Liza + = ?

Robert - yeah, even if they read this tomorrow, there's good stuff here that's important if the service it to grow in use. - phil baumann

Say it with me folks : User-friendly-ability. We HAZ NONE here. - Sean

Robert - now that you are here, I also think it is a mistake to expect users to choose FF or Twitter - recently you have backed off and choose to use both, BUT many of your "followers" are testy with those of us who use both. Until FF is easier to use, I will use both. That is my choice. Positioning FF as Twitter hating is bad move, ppl. - Liza + = ?

Who is positioning FF as a Twitter hater? Some people hate Twitter (I personally think Twitter is a waste of mindwidth). How does that have anything to do with FF other than the fact that they post on FF? - Brian Sullivan

Brian, do a search, you will find MANY ppl are positioning FF as anti-twitter, and I don't agree with the approach. I personally get a LOT of grief from both sides of the fence for using both, and I am not going to pick a side just b/c others tell me I should. - Liza + = ?

Kevin - yes, that is a frustration. - phil baumann

Kevin, totally agreed with that comment, especially when using via the iPhone. It's nice to see comments per OP, but the UI for managing things is horrible and wastes a lot of time, denting my enthusiasm for more participation. - Sally Church

Officially PISSED OFF - using IM FAIL. Opens new page for every feed. Then I respond in Gtalk and get unknown command. F this. Time to breath deep and try not to explode. - Liza + = ?

Liza, type in "help" for the list of commands in IM or there's a list on the site. Not sure about the page thing... I don't get that in GTalk. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Liza: consistently when people meet me they ask "what is next after Twitter?" I don't answer FriendFeed, I wish I could. - Robert Scoble

I don't like help menus or reading instructions. I appreciate your efforts, but I am just pissed off in general b/c I like to figure things out on my own. I can't spend yrs clicking on FF for hidden treasures. - Liza + = ?

People always ask me why should they use FriendFeed over Twitter.... it gets old after a while - Bwana ☠

Robert - exactly, if we knew what was next, it would be dull. Beauty in playing, mashing, exploring. - Liza + = ?

Wow Robert, way throw out an HCI term! Are we going to discuss GOMS or Fitts' Law next? :-) - Bill Welense from iPhone

Bwana - I gave it a shot yesterday with some success in the last day. - http://ff.im/6kbAN - phil baumann

Robert - nice comment. Would love to tweet it to share, but don't know how to isolate it on this f-d up interface. - Liza + = ?

Liza - I'd like to be able to tweet comments they way Disqus allows it. - phil baumann

This is Liza frustrated and cranky, sorry for letting my evil twin out, but this feed triggered it. #blamescoble - Liza + = ?

I'm wondering if FriendFeed will remain the domain of us geeks. Is that a BIG enough market for their business model though? - Jim Connolly

I secretly hope so, Jim. Twitter was great in 2006 B.K. (Before Kutchner) when it was populated only by geeks :) - Sam Harrelson from IM

Holden: Well, I'm pretty sure someone hopes to make some money from FF. - Jim Connolly

Sam: I have to admit, I would hate to see FF flooded like Twitter is. - Jim Connolly

The fact is Robert that These problems have never crossed my mind. Actually, come to think of it. A unified settings page would be nice. However. Just becuae the UI is unconventional, going against the grain, does not mean it's a bad UI. I'd love to see a mockup of how you would do it better. - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

Holden: I didn't say it wasn't great. I still use and love Twitter. I just miss the good ole days. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Don't even get me started with a wish list of options. - Liza + = ?

CONFESSION: I did not know until now about double clicking on the time-link to get a pop-out window. - Jim Connolly

Holden: Twitter's a spam-filled hunk of crap. - Jim Connolly

Holden: You may not automatically see a business model, but they would have had to produce something to get $$$ funding. BTW: Twitter's got the audience, though. It's where the people are. Only reason I use it. - Jim Connolly

Friendfeed is not difficult to use. It is so intuitive. I love that I can easily block certain things, search for items that have a specific number of likes, see a user's likes, etc. It's wayyyyyyy easy. - Ben Hanten

Ben: A lot of new users tell me they can't figure it out. - Jim Connolly

they're not trying then, Jim - Chris Heath

If this was put up to a vote, I would vote to have a better FAQ, but I would definitely keep the design as free of extra buttons as possible. - Ben Hanten

Hmm, wow, lots of comments fast on this post. Too bad it's a Sunday, I imagine Kevin is up to other things right this second... - Jason Wehmhoener

Can someone help me find the link to create imaginary friend? - Krishnamoorthy

Holden, well that's their loss if they can't 'get it' - friendfeed is simple and IMHO if you can't 'get it' then that's your problem, not friendfeed's - Chris Heath

http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Chris Heath

Krishnamoorthy - http://friendfeed.com/setting... - phil baumann

the Imaginary Friend function is now a part of Groups. for example, I created a private "group" with my wife's name and brought in all of her feeds since she's not on FriendFeed. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Ok, the imaginary friend thing is a different story. Awesome concept; but way too much work to add a bunch of users. - Ben Hanten

I think a good start would be to have a totally different "entry point" for setting up hiding rules. Also, defaults might need to be reconsidered. Is it the best to always start off by showing everything from a user? FF already asks you to select your "top five" feeds you want to show off in your profile... Could it make sense to only show stuff from people's top five by default, so one needs to opt-in to get any more of their feeds? - Meryn Stol

Perhaps a big, dedicated "mute Twitter" (though I'd prefer "Kill Twitter" ;)) button would also make sense. After all, Twitter is in itself responsible for most items - and thus most potential "noise" - on FriendFeed. - Meryn Stol

you can still quickly create an imaginary friend (as Sam said it's part of groups now) but if you don't want to choose the private group setting yourself just go here http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Chris Heath

maybe i'm wrong and an imaginary friend is different than a private group, but the functionality seems the same - there was a discussion a few months ago about this: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris Heath

Chris, yep... good point. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Imaginary friends are easy to setup, but... you really should be able to do a whole batch of them. - Ben Hanten

Ben, it's rather janky, but my students have private Twitter accts for labs in my class that I read and interact with using the Imaginary Friends + private Groups feature. Plus, I have a nice archive of all student activity that I can search through. Not a great solution, but a good workaround for my extreme case. - Sam Harrelson from IM

there's a lot on the friendfeed roadmap, and i think that's one of the items... if you participate in the friendfeed feedback room you can get lots of answers to these types of questions http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris Heath

Interesting topic. For me personally I use FF for reading rather than contributing or commenting, and via mobile more than the web, but I do agree the UI isn't the best. I would like a google reader or better still, a Feedly style interface. I want to know about what I haven't seen that's in my groups or feeds. And I want that simple and easy with no hidden features or maybe simple and expert interfaces. - Keith Bennett from BuddyFeed

It's not the UI that's keeping the mainstream from using the site. This is akin to asking why the mainstream has yet to discover the wonders of traditional message boards. Fact of the matter is most people don't have the desire (not to mention spare time) to continually engage with a stream full of random social media tidbits on a regular basis. But if that's your cup of tea, I think the UI is excellent for sharing, discovering, and keeping up with the real-time chatter. - Aviv

Kevin, it's pretty simple to get to your likes. http://friendfeed.com/samharr... - Sam Harrelson from IM

Has Kevin Fox responded to this thread? - Manuel Mas

Not sure he should -- seems like Robert made vicious and personal attack -- and a lack of response might be appropriate and classy. - Brian Sullivan

I certainly wouldn't join into this pile-on if I were Kevin. "Oh hey, I noticed you all were kicking me while I was trying to have a weekend, here I am now, go ahead for another round!" - Jason Wehmhoener

On the bright side, you know your service is about to hit mainstream when your biggest cheerleader starts to hate it (see Twitter). - Aviv

Aviv: nah, that's not a good predictor. - Robert Scoble

One thing I would like to know is, where is the link in friendfeed to the application key? I always have to search it from google. - Ru Viljoen

it's unnecessary to be brutally rude RB but these comments are valuable, we are expecting alot from 12 FF supergeeks, they cannot be perfect but they are incredibly good already. - Thomas Power

I think "hide" was perfectly designed. The user doesn't get smacked in the face immediately upon loading a page in friendfeed that resembles the control panel of an old fashioned telephone switchboard. One simple hide link, that the user will click when they want to hide something, that then asks what you want to hide. It's called not overwhelming the user with too much info at once,... more... - April Russo

April: they can put a lot of functionality into "settings" that would also do the same thing as hide does today. Most people don't figure out that the hide link has extra functionality. - Robert Scoble

It's better than what facebook does, which is to hide their multi-function hide button, until you hover over the item. I'd rather have it the friendfeed way and at least know it's there by looking and not by having to play "find the invisible features" game by moving my mouse all over the page waiting for all the little facebook easter eggs to make themselves known. You have no idea how... more... - April Russo

http://ff.im/6n4fT - Hachure

And I don't understand how any twitter user could possibly not know that the timestamp is a permalink. Timestamps on twitter are permalinks too. Ok, the clicking again thing was a bit of an easter egg, but how else could you add a nifty little feature like that without adding any clutter? Even if you gave a full tutorial FAQ, how on earth could you present all these little extras in a way that doesn't overwhelm a newbie and make them run away without reading the huge FAQ? - April Russo

Missing the point, not about geeks vs non-geeks, even geeks disagree on UI issues,and it is dismissive and insulting to act as if mainstream is not geeky enough to understand crappy UI. My opinion matters, and it was not until a fellow geek, Scoble, brought it up that anyone acknowledged that there may be some UI issues. - Liza + = ?

I know of a site that has worse issues, for example, clicking the RSS icon on a page takes you to a forum thread with a gazillion posts explaining how to subscribe to the content you want, using all the custom crap they have. You basically have to learn how to build your own RSS url before you can subscribe. And don't click the "Mark" button on a forum thread there unless you want to... more... - April Russo

FF may be messing with affordances, but I don't see it as f*cling with them. I see it as an attempt to innovate. The 'nonintuitive' behavior is a bit of a PITA, but it adds richness to the app. It is also innovation in action. The most painful upshot of suck innovation ia the fet associated with playing with a UI's functionality - you might end up breaking something really important or... more... - Jason Miller from iPhone

JCUnwired That is not helpful or constructive. Stick to one-sided debates. - Liza + = ?

Funny thing is though... I have used Excel and Word without ever reading a manual. Now I'm pretty ninja at both but never had any formal training. Neither has about 95% of the people I know how use it, yet everyone I know has worked it out enough to use it well. See, they have these things up the top like File, Edit etc that hold the functions. Those things are not always required and... more... - Johnny

Well put johnny - Mark from iPhone

Which social app has the best interface? Easy Facebook. - John Hardy

As far as I can tell "affordance" and "discoverability" are different ways of looking at the same concept. And I've been complaining about the timestamp thing for a long time. - Karl Knechtel

I've been complaining about FF's ease of use since I started using it. I'm glad there's some traction on it. ridiculous that the time stamp is not displayed as a (permanent) link. - jbrotherlove

Never mind that the timestamp isn't displayed as a link. The problem is that it makes no sense for the timestamp to be the thing that is clicked. - Karl Knechtel

I like it, its a nice gate. It keeps FF tech based. It keeps things relevant. Its an Acid Test. There are plenty of alternatives. And those alternatives that cater to everyone, are full of Blither Blather. If you pass the gate, and pass the Acid Test, you learn about the community and the discussion. With a robust Community and Discussion, Self Policing and Spammers are annihilated. Self Healing Robust System. - Robert Higgins

Apostol Apostolov, Ana ( http://friendfeed.com/ana ) has confirmed that they're on the issue of adding recipients and groups after posting an item about a month ago - http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - Chris Heath

I totally agree with Robert HIggins & Johnny Worthington's recent comments - Chris Heath

Robert, thanks for your thoughts. Three quick responses: affordances aren't something that someone fucks with, they're something that a designer gives to a design and it's fine to say that you don't think I'm designing a product with proper affordances or strong enough affordances, but the implication that I fucked them up is that I took the gestalt natural affordances of something and... more... - Kevin Fox

The above distinction is important because the argument then becomes one of whether or not FriendFeed has been imbued with proper affordances or not. Now naturally the answer varies from person to person, as it does with any UI for any product. FriendFeed is trying to balance functionality with simplicity and, as is the case for any product with that task, any point on the spectrum could be criticized for either hiding too much of the complexity or showing too much, even at the same by different people. - Kevin Fox

So the strategy then becomes, as has been mentioned here, one of making the simple things easy and the complex things possible. The most common tactic to enable that strategy, and one we rely upon a lot at FriendFeed, is that of progressive disclosure. This works for some people and not for others, but it's usually an excellent way to make a UI that's not intimidating to a new user, and... more... - Kevin Fox

As for the timestamp also acting as the permalink: Well, you're absolutely right. This is a completely improper affordance that only makes sense if you happen to be familiar with blogs that use the same convention. Fixing this (with something less heavy-handed than a link that says 'link' or 'permalink' or (gasp) an icon of two links in a chain) is high on our list and I want to fold it... more... - Kevin Fox

When we get that worked out in a way we're happy with then we'll roll it out. Until then, it's also important to consider user confidence, and that tweaking a UI too often when trying to find the right answer makes users less comfortable with the design and their ability to manipulate it, even if they don't consciously notice any change. For this reason a few things stay rough a little longer until we have what we think is the right answer, not just a stopgap one. - Kevin Fox

As always, thanks for the feedback, and for trying to make FriendFeed a better place. - Kevin Fox

Wow - Bwana ☠

Wow. +500 xp to Kevin. - Sam Harrelson

Kevin I love you because you explain why you are messing with the affordances! :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Doesn't sound like they're ignoring it to me, Robert :) - Bwana ☠

Bwana: me neither! Glad Kevin explained. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I'm liking this article simply because of Kevin's explanation of why things are the way they are here on friendfeed. He knocked that one out of the park. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Kevins camp. In Japanese there is one word for beauty. Kirei. Actually, it is the same word for Clean Kirei. 奇麗 FF for me is clean and beautiful. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Leonardo daVinci - Robert Higgins

So if we're going to change the time stamp from being a permalink, can we use it to sort posts chronologically? That is the one affordance no one can discover. - Andrew Smith

I didn't read the full thread, but reading the top and (what is at this point) the bottom really helps me understand what the UI people do. Thanks Robert and Kevin! - Andrew

Big props to Kevin Fox. - Sameer

Kevin rocks. Even on a Sunday night. They pay me to say stuff like that at work. The thought of having to step up to the plate anytime 24/7 with that level of professionalism is daunting, to say the least. So yah, big props to Kevin Fox. - Jason Wehmhoener

I actually like the current UI. I like the feature set. I agree it DOES need a more intuitive and quicker way to know about and learn the deeper features. - George Hall (Australia)

There is something to be said for having the conversation first - then Kevin calmly explaining his pts. It gives others a chance to respond honestly, and then Kevin gets far more valuable feedback. Selifishly, I also like the fact that I can see others' views - many who did not address UI issues but showed a defensive sense of entitlement (see Louis's chart on new adopters)...Robert,... more... - Liza + = ?

Great responses Kevin. For the record, I'm a fan of the "progressive disclosure" approach. - Mike Doeff from iPhone

Really great points, Robert. I've learned some things because of this discussion. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. - Brian Adrian

One answer to Kevin. Blogs, since the beginning of when I started to use them used the "permalink" or "#" convention. I guess the thing is that in FriendFeed the CSS here is hiding the blue underline, so people don't know that the time stamp is a link. It's tough designing for the web, I know. That's why I don't do it. At least very often. :-) - Robert Scoble

Twitter uses a time stamp as a perma-link as well. </fuel to fire> - Bwana ☠

Yeah. I just tweeted about that myself. </more fuel to fire> - Dennis Jernberg

Fascinating. Didn't know about the timestamp as permalink, but I didn't suffer from unnatural affordance issues prior to reading this discussion either. Not an ubergeek, but I don't suffer. So, maybe FF is not "above the heads" of the average, but merely yields enough at any level to meet whatever the particular need might be, wacky affordances or not. And people who avoid it because it is "too hard" need to toughen up a bit. This is 2009 and the Internet, after all. - Martha

Also, the "Share" link exposes the permalink as well which I think was a great addition to alleviate the time stamp confusion. - Bwana ☠

Wow. How did Kevin get those 5 paragraphs contiguously posted? Copy-paste-post. Copy-paste-post? Or is there some other secret weapon not yet released? - Nick in Manila

Nick - I'd bet 1000 gil on Notepad/Textedit :) - Bwana ☠

I'm waiting for the twitter theme for friendfeed, to show people exactly how easy FF is to use considering its features and exactly how braindead twitter's UI is. - Andy Bakun

Nick & Bwana: Textedit and copy/paste/post. As I was c/p/p-ing I thought about how I could make a tool using the API to allow for this kind of thing, then envisioned how that would break FriendFeed and banished the thought. (and then I just commented about it anyhow. Oh what have I wrought? I am become death, destroyer of words.) - Kevin Fox

Bwana: hey, at least FriendFeed's designer listens and answers back. That might get more mud thrown his way, but a whole lot of love too. Personally Twitter's design isn't very good, but everyone thinks it is because it doesn't have many features so they perceive that as simplicity. I perceive it as inferior but that really pisses off the Twitter types and they start arguing with me about stuff like the above. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I was just thinking that. We would NEVER get this kind of interaction with a Twitter dev on a work day. - Bwana ☠

Part of me knew Kevin would address this at some point. It was merely a matter of when. - Bwana ☠

I hope this thread/conversation doesn't end any time soon, either here on this post or elsewhere. I want FF to be the best it can. - phil baumann

I think FF is waaaaaay easier to use than Twitter and recently started using FF to follow my twitter feeds. Images and videos are inline and comments are threaded (no silly @ replies). I only wish more of my friends were on it!! (also, it would be nice if comments were formatted with the commenters name first which seems to be the convention on most sites i.e. "May: blah blah blah"). - May

To go back to the top a little bit: does anyone think it ISN'T weird that not all the links on FF are blue? Not just the time stamp: the service your content was imported from, your name at the top of your profile, and the time stamp are all non-blue links. Is there a logical reason for those inconsistencies? I've never understood that. - Andrew

Awesome explanation by Kevin. I happen to love FF's progressive disclosure. I think the 'hide' feature is a great example of this. You could argue that they might make the second stage a bit more obvious, but it's still a lot better than a huge drop down menu at the start. - Ben Reierson

Even Twitter has a ramp up time. It took me about a month of working it to get comfortable with it. Only slightly longer than it took me with Twitter. And it is light years better in most every way. I agree with Robert's desire to enforce change through public criticism, but I think it important to keep it in perspective: FF is generally a better experience on all fronts. Kudos to Kevin Fox and the rest of the team. I feel confident they are more than capable of seeing issues and resolving them. - Martha

i never really had a problem with that Andrew, and I never had the problem with the permalink either... if your mouse changes from pointer to finger, then it's a link and you can see the destination in the status bar - Chris Heath

Andrew: I actually hate blue underlines. Designers have hated that affordance for years. They look ugly. They make text harder to read. I'm in Kevin Fox's camp on that one. Get rid of underlines! Just make affordances that people can figure out without being told about (like clicking twice on hide or clicking twice on the time stamps). - Robert Scoble

robert, i don't get your clicking twice on hide problem... hide seems fine, and while i don't use it much i don't recall clicking twice, like with the timestamp - Chris Heath

Chris: normal people don't mouse over every word in a UI to discover whether there is a secret link there. Also, explain how hovering over "hide" would tell a user that there's different functionality there if you click twice on that word? - Robert Scoble

Chris: if you click twice on the word "hide" you will get different UI that will give you different choices. If you click twice on the time stamp you will get a popout window. Not intuitive at all. - Robert Scoble

when i click hide i get an undo and hide options links, that seems the correct UI - i agree with you on the timestamp, but the hide thing isn't the same - Chris Heath

Chris: Hide does act differently, I agree, but most people, in my experience, don't look at the second page because they don't expect to see more options. Remember 99% of people never click on Google's Advanced Options. Do you REALLY expect people to click twice on Hide? I don't. And even if they did, shouldn't those features be in settings too? Where people expect to find them? - Robert Scoble

i don't buy your beef w/ hide, but i agree on the timestamp - i also agree with you on not having to hover everything to see if it's click-able and also don't like underlining, so there needs to be some other visual cue of the link/feature - Chris Heath

sometimes features do need to be learned/taught and everything can't be intuitive... i think we might be overshooting our ideals for usability. remember the days of three ring binders and books and manuals for using any given system or software package? we've come a long way, but users do have to learn some things. i think friendfeed has done a good job of making the site usable for the... more... - Chris Heath

Given a top complaint about FriendFeed is too much noise, Hide needs to be more intuitive. - Bwana ☠

Since I still get the dumb blonde / not techie treatment from many, I am going to go w/ it and say that even I figured out hide early on. The timestamp stuff was news to me. - Liza + = ?

I'd wager at least half of FriendFeed doesn't know about the second page of hide options. I've had to explain it countless times and a ton of people didn't even know you could selectively hide services based on comment/like behavior, etc - Bwana ☠

Kevin, Thanks for listening and major props for taking your time to listen to constructive critisicm. - Jack Wilson, K4SAC

9/10 of the folks that use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc don't know all the features and functions. Having every single function be completely intuitive and/or labeled is not needed for mainstream acceptance or usage if that's what we're all worried about here. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Every single function, I agree. Hide, needs to be more intuitive. - Bwana ☠

Bwana, I agree as a power-user, but how many folks would actually use "Hide"? It's an edge-case function that will/would never catch on with the mainstream. I just don't get these complaints. - Sam Harrelson from IM

Sam: you're right. But I didn't get this kind of pushback when I evangelized Twitter and Facebook had many more hooks to get people into their system than FriendFeed does (and keep them there) and even Facebook doesn't have a lot of the weird affordances that FriendFeed does even though it's more complex. The complaints I get consistently on FriendFeed (a lot of which have to do with... more... - Robert Scoble

Oh, and the number of comments here tells me a lot of people feel very passionately about FriendFeed and want it to be better, even if they are telling me I'm full of it. - Robert Scoble

The complaint is noise. There's too much. There's too many duplicates. I don't want to see "X". These are complaints I see and answer often. The solution is hide and they don't know about them. It's not a power user function imho. - Bwana ☠

FF lost a lot of users during the initial launch because people didn't know about or want to properly hide unwanted stuff. - Bwana ☠

"FriendFeed is full of baby photos" Classic complaint. Solved by hide. - Bwana ☠

It's always the user's fault. Always. - Rahsheen?

Robert, I got on Twitter around Thanksgiving of '06 b/c of your evangelicalism (thank you/curse you btw!). But the concept there was/is much more easy to grok. Of course folks are going to think FF is hard b/c it is hard. But to bastardize JFK, "we choose to go to the moon and do these other things in this decade not b/c they are easy but b/c they are hard!" - Sam Harrelson from IM

friendfeed isn't hard...unless you think a blank piece of paper is hard. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Depends on your definition of hard. Some people think complicated or inconvenient is hard. - Bwana ☠

Alex, have you ever written a book for a publisher that loaned you money and expects the money back? A blank piece of paper is incredibly hard! - Sam Harrelson

Look at lists. Very powerful tool of FriendFeed, but for some, it's too much work. Some may call it hard, some may call it.... too much work :) - Bwana ☠

Sam: but this blank piece of paper can write itself thanks to the integration with other sites :) - Andrew

I know in the apps I've tested, if the UI was difficult for the end user, they would avoid using it. - Bwana ☠

Andrew, you are completely right. Good point. I'm thinking from a contributing point of view (b/c I'm a teacher and I always want to influence, etc) but you're right. - Sam Harrelson

Alex: is blank paper sort of like a blank Wordpress entry screen? I get it then. - Robert Scoble

Seeing a real-time stream of the full conversation is highly desirable and one of the best features of the service. I design and use software all the time and didn't know about the time stamp link until someone told me about it. Robert is doing them (another) favor by using controversial language to bring attention to the issue. I bet we see an update in a week or two and the service will be better for it. - Chip Ramsey

I can see it now: if entry["from"]["id"] == "scobelizer": theme = "lots-o-links" - DGentry

either that, or entry["body"] = pigLatinize(entry["body"]) - DGentry

Wow ... Great dialog. Kudos to Kevin for his comments! I have demo'd Friendfeed for more people than I can count. Most of the issue has to do with people's time vs value (or just fun). Is it harder than Facebook? NO! Nobody says you have to use it all and 9 out of 10 people I've demo'd Facebook for have NO IDEA what a permission is (Think about that ... and the defaults?!). Twitter has... more... - Charlie Anzman

Then ... The Friendfeed Browser and OS! - Charlie Anzman

Robert, given Kevin's responses, you might want to edit/tweak the Original Post/headline. I wish there was a way to promote the comments so they were 'pinned' to the OP - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Aaman: what's an OP? The headline? - Robert Scoble

Yes, the Original Post - I wasn't familiar with the term myself, and saw it first on this very thread, then googled it. (It can also mean Original Poster) - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Glen: I'm not scared of feeling dumb. I feel dumb every day given the quality of the people I hang out with. - Robert Scoble

@Kevin: wondering if there could be a link that would take you to a page that would show what features have been added, disabled, or removed. - Harold

Matthew: you make sense. I've locked the comments here so you can see Kevin Fox's reply without digging back too far. - Robert Scoble

(jeff)isageek

kool tattoo - http://whentheskyisfalling.tumblr.com/post...

August 6, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Robert Sanchez Jr, Kelby, paisano and 12 other people liked this

WOW that looks cool! - Parvez Halim

Now that's a conversation starter - Just Kidée: Road Warrior

Ooooh! Someone should do a whole body come Halloween! - Robert Sanchez Jr

Louis Gray

To Jump on the Massive Unfollowing Trend Would Be a Mistake - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

August 6, 2009 from louisgray.com - Comment - Like - Share

Harold Cabezas, Sheldon Harker, A. Karl Kornel and 56 other people liked this

"So too do I see it better that 100 spammers fill my feed than I lose access to the innocents who remain. I am not so self-centered as to believe I know the full set of people who I can learn from and derive value. So don't look for me to start shaking my numbers down on any of the networks - even if it is getting more popular. " love this part of the post, however I want just to notice... more... - abdellah

55 more comments

fighting talk - I do believe you just called scoble self-centered. Still I am sure he has been called worse ;) - Riaz Kanani

it's not about unfollowing, it's about filtering - Barak Hachamov

filter before you fellow - abdellah

Riaz, Scoble and I get along great. I wouldn't call him self-centered. - Louis Gray

I shared this in GR as soon as I read it. Congrats on a great post, Louis! All I can say is finally someone has said it. This trend of unfollowing is rather disturbing imho and shows how self-centered some people are, how desperate for attention others are, and how they all are rather clueless at creating valuable networks on these social tools they so much love to love. - Vlad Bobleanta

true, but people who don't appreciate following others shouldn't do it and shld unfollow..keeps tweeting young and influential. also, the only way to get rid of spam is to unfollow/block each such perp - Amit 'zyaada' Mittal

Louis: you will come to dislike your choice here. I used to say the same thing, but as you get more and more people who you aren't interested in you'll realize you just aren't getting anything out of the home page on Twitter anymore and, worse, you are getting spammed both on it and via DMs. That might not be a big problem for you with 12,000 friends, but as your numbers move up (and they will) you'll hit the same problems I did. - Robert Scoble

Why is Louis' followers number growing very very slowly relative to his popularity on the net - Mark

Robert, I never did get anything out of the homepage of Twitter anyway. :) - Louis Gray

I think unfollowing makes sense on Twitter. On Friendfeed Lists are your friends. - Paul Kinlan

Mark, I would say it has to do with not being put on any kind of suggested list. :) - Louis Gray

I don't find that the Twitter website does a good job of making Twitter usable. The applications are what make it usable for me. - Michael Owens

Unfollowing kinda makes sense. Have you ever played an RPG the second time through... you know what to do in the beginning, you aren't lost, and you know what your end goal is? Yeah. That's pretty much what we are talking about here. - Evan Travers

I like that Evan :) RPG - michelle harris

Yeah, the real thing here is we both are heavy users of FriendFeed. That's why I didn't care that my Twitter feed was getting worse and worse. Over the past year I've done almost all my Twitter reading here on FriendFeed. Now that I've restarted it, though, damn is it 100x more useful! And, yes, there are lots of people who are on Twitter who aren't on FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble

I could barely handle following 600 or so people, even with appropriate tweetdeck filters. There were too many people who just weren't adding value. I made a particular point to unfollow anyone who regarded themselves as an "SEO" or "Internet Marketing" expert.. I had made the mistake of following back anyone who followed me and slowly began to realize that they were just playing the numbers game. - Neeraj Kumar Agrawal

abdellah: I am starting to agree with "filter before you follow", which I also believe is what Robert Scoble is doing now as he starts to follow people. Louis Gray: I don't think it is a movement to unfollow everyone, at least, not for me. I think Scoble had to start from scratch because of the number he had... for me, having a very small number in comparison, I will start unfollowing... more... - Timothy Federwitz

I've been curious as to the counter argument to this trend. Scoble's reaction albeit extreme is one I can empathize with, but unnecessarily severe. I appreciate the alternate perspective and grounded reasoning to your approach. While I have far fewer followers the numbers have crossed the line of unmanageable with out an automation service. Thanks for the great post and food for thought. - Jim Goldstein

Scoble has this big 7 point list of criteria for following you on twitter, but on Friendfeed he will follow anyone who asks! - Mark

Mark: that's because on FriendFeed I can have lists. So I can use a variety of different following strategies here. On twitter I can only follow or not. - Robert Scoble

I think I am in the middle on this. I am not about to wholesale unfollow everyone, but the noise from news bots etc in my twitter feed is getting insane. I am still nowhere close to "getting" FF so I am still struggling a bit here too.. In fact, I have fallen right back into the trap I was in a few months ago. I think it's time for another social medai diet - Andy Glover

Robert, you can certainly use tools like tweet deck to create groups, but . . .whatever. To me, it's just not an issue, either way. I like it when folks that I find interesting (and Robert is certainly among them!) follow me back, but it's not essential. I don't need to follow the Roberts of the world on Twitter in order to check in on what they're up to, from time to time. Unless someone has a private feed, it seems to be a non-issue. - Kathy Fitch

Andy: on FriendFeed whenever things go nutty, just open up a new friend list and move your high quality follows into that. Leave all the other people in the old list, so you can check in once in a while. - Robert Scoble

I don't see how anyone could follow as many people as Robert w/o losing control. Twitter would become marginalized by sheer un-manageability. Even with groups etc. there's only so much real estate on a monitor. I have groups on FriendFeed as well but honestly I spend most of my time on the home feed. - Rick Bucich

That said, when I'm launching a new twitter presence (as I just have for an organization), it's *really, really great* when people and organizations with similar interests follow back. If nobody did, that would just be sad. Still, I'm mostly interested in the feed aspect of things, so even then, it's not really crucial to have followers. - Kathy Fitch

I've always had the policy of being quick to follow and even quicker to unfollow. As soon as someone begins to bore or annoy me I just unfollow them. But on the other hand I'm glad to follow people on a whim. You never know. - Leo Laporte

Rick--so true. In some ways, the conversations that these folks with massive followings are having around the follow/unfollow issue just is utterly irrelevant to those of us with more moderate goals and purposes. - Kathy Fitch

Nice to see Leo Laporte being more involved on Friendfeed - Mark

Value in this instance is pretty subjective, and that's the point, really. What is your subject position? I'm in SMB mode, so what I'm after is quite unlike what a twit guru would be after. For me, the following/follower # some are cutting down to would be massive. If I hit those numbers, then I'd probably want to trim it back down. Robert is still about 500 over anything I'd be interested in. - Kathy Fitch

One of the first people I looked through was Leo Laporte's following page. He has some great people who he is following. - Robert Scoble

Take a look at Dave Winer's RSS Cloud technique - a great way to assess a following list in your newsreader before adding. http://www.scripting.com/stories... - Leo Laporte

Why limit yourself? Someone asks to follow me, I check out their profile and tweets. If the words SEO,check out my webcam, or Arrington are there, I don't follow, If I do follow, I give them a month and then unfollow if any major douchbaggery makes its way to mine eyes. - Paul Puri

Ah, somewhere there's an SEO person who is offering useful tweets about how beginners can use the basic Google Analytics and Webmaster tools to help them create better, more useful sites for users and potential users. That person could be good for some folks to follow. - Kathy Fitch

On the "low quality followers/follows" point, I really needed some of those at first to help me get a feel for the ebb and flow. The trajectory of any given twitter user's account, if it's public, probably follows that basic pattern of "whoo hooo, followers!" to "what the heck?" to "now that I get how it works, how would I like it to work for me?" Seems pretty common sense. It's okay that answers to the final question vary. All as it should be. - Kathy Fitch

I'm just generalizing, of course, but most of the people who try to follow me that have SEO in their bio have 10 tweets and they are link bait. - Paul Puri

I shared w/ Robert and will share with you, YES I spend too much time trying to block all the FakePornSpamBot accounts. And I miss blocking many. BUT, my HOME Stream is the most amazing view of the world! With a few refreshes I can get the pulse of what's going on! Besides, even if someone is often a voyeur, there are those times they pop up and share the most insightful things! I believe I can learn from everyone! So if you're real and follow me - I'll follow you! - Arleen Boyd

In parallel to this, I do manage a corporate account for one of the companies I consult for. Every follow and unfollow there is measured. But I learned a long time ago, that at least for me, people just want to be connected, on any network they prefer, so I try not to get in their way. - Louis Gray

Louis: there's another aspect to this too: every follow you make signals to the world what kind of person you are. Look at my following list. You'll see geeks, VCs, journalists, entrepreneurs. Who isn't there? Not many celebrities. Not many plumbers or quilters, if any at all. That signals to the world the kind of people I want to have in my life and the kinds of information I want to hear. If you are autofollowing that opportunity to signal to the world is totally lost. - Robert Scoble

Chris: always. :-) - Robert Scoble

Oh, Paul, point well taken, of course. I'm just pointing out that they've no doubt ruined it for a handful of smart and useful SEO folks. Arleen was actually one of the first folks to follow me back, and just watching her from a distance (I guess that makes me a voyeur? <grin>) helped give me a good feel for how someone at her level of #'s worked with the system. Very educational! - Kathy Fitch

The "signal to the world" bit makes much more sense to me on the corporate accounts I'm working with. For the Catholic parish, for instance, who to follow gets really important. I can't afford to have anything with even a whiff of inappropriateness about it in the stream. That's going to be a very small list! - Kathy Fitch

Leo, I can usually tell by the last 4 to 5 tweets whether I should follow back. But, everyone is annoying or boring sometimes (including myself) so I don't unfollow very often unless someone's stream becomes overly promotional or full of gimmicks. - Rick Bucich

What's the benefit of following thousands of people? if you say its because you have to in order for them to DM you, how can you possibly respond to potentially thousands of DM's consistently? Once, I tried following everyone that followed me and it made my follower count jump quickly, but it made twitter less fun because I had random automated DM's from people I didn't know, and a useless stream of info from people I followed for no reason. - Dusty Edenfield

Robert/Kathy: I think who I follow making a statement of who I am and what I'm about is less important to me since I am using it for a personal experience and my likes are wide and deep. If I was using my Twitter account as an outward facing presence for my business/organization, then it would matter much more to me... but I'm just having fun with it and like the idea of seeing lots of... more... - Timothy Federwitz

The DM thing. Sigh. Here on FF, it's totally useful. I've never had a single pointless DM. On Twitter, it's a thing to scan very occassionally, and ignore the rest of the time, seems like. - Kathy Fitch

The thing that is being overlooked is this: The real issue is the auto-follow, NOT the total number of "following". It is what removes the vetting process. Once vetted, I'd say the more the merrier, b/c there is real value in your "with friends/following" stream, precisely b/c it is way different to search/filter it vs. regular Twitter Search. It is a huge omission/mistake that this is... more... - Alex Schleber

Since I mass unfollowed I've had SIGNIFICANTLY better interactions with the people I genuinely want to communicate with. A good % of the social media gurus who just follow in the hopes that you'll follow back unfollowed and it's seriously been like a weight lifted off my shoulders. - Ryan Stephens

(cont'd) For this reason, I will openly admit to trying to get as many of my Twitter peeps registered into FriendFeed as possible, & I won't even care if they sub to me there or not (not required for conversation on FF anyway). It's to get them into the stream that I can then search over, and further add people into separate Friend Lists from there. Currently I'm at about 1k of 3k... more... - Alex Schleber

Also see "My comment on: 'Why You Should Start Over On Twitter With A BRAND NEW Account - Twitip' Hint: I disagree" http://post.ly/1owO This about sums it up: "..the solution to overwhelm by technology is better technology, not retrenchment..". - Alex Schleber

Louis, I only read part of your post, but I agree as far as the types of people that are following others. Twitter has become a place more for business than meaningful conversations. Best thing to do is look at who is following you and purging those who just seem to market links to " Ways To Generate Massive Cash " through whatever they might be involved in hawking. - Lew Newmark

Somewhat parenthetically, like the 19th century theoretical "corporate shield" that was supposed to shield individuals from liability, artificial demarcations between "my personal site" and "my business site" are increasingly obsolete. We are all complex, intertwined, interdependent, human-computer, systemic hybrid participants in an increasingly systematized hybrid world. The old silos... more... - michael silverton

@Louis - I think you are right. Doing something because it's a "trend" is dumb. Can you tell me what the metric is you use to measure when something breaks through to "trend" status? When "unfollow" hits Trending Topics, maybe? I didn't reboot my following list to join a trend. I did it because I really like following the people I follow...and they were getting drowned out by the people... more... - Rex Hammock

Lets be honest, this unfollowing thing by "certain" people is nothing but a PR stunt - Spencer

Spencer--well, of course this thing does have PR implications. After all, the big wigs are all talking about it non-stop, and then those on the next few tiers down from there are talking about the talking. Still, having PR implications and being a stunt aren't exactly the same thing. Many of these big name folks *are* established brands, which isn't something most of us can claim.... more... - Kathy Fitch

@Spencer - I know my unfollowing thing was nothing but a PR stunt. As is my commenting here. - Rex Hammock

agree. More than reasonable post, Luis.. - Marco Castellani

Wayne Sutton

FriendFeed FTW!

August 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Tofu De la Moore, Jack Wilson, K4SAC, Gwen Sutton and 6 other people liked this

FTM (For The Moment) all r Single Points of Failure. Robust, encryptd, P2P, perhps Wave-based Global Cognition Grid http://tr.im/lifestream - michael silverton from PeopleBrowsr

3 more comments

true - Wayne Sutton

Which is why identi.ca with it's federated strategy is important. It is not a single point of failure. - Dave Slusher

+10 Dave. - Jared Smith

+20 Jared. ;-) - michael silverton

Orli Yakuel

and... everyone is on Friendfeed again.

August 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Michael Völker, Mo Hall, Gerald Buckley and 8 other people liked this

Do you think twitter could lose some users who will stay on friendfeed ? - Guillaume Simon

5 more comments

the answer is no guillaume. - Orli Yakuel

friendfeed must be tired of all these booty calls it gets whenever twitter goes down. I really do like ff better. It's just that everyone's at that phrat house. - paisano

I agree... But i think i'll stay on friendfeed, seems it's easier to have interesting users feedbacks on ff - Guillaume Simon

I'm using them both, and ok with that. - Orli Yakuel

@Orli what specific use of ff do you make ? same question for twitter ? - Guillaume Simon

I think it is a good thing for Twitter to go down from time to time. It makes people either appreciate the quiet or other awesome services like FriendFeed. - Paul Jacobson

Louis Gray

Taking a Stand on Twitter’s Auto-DM Policy #endautodm - http://staynalive.com/article...

August 2, 2009 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Mark Krynsky, Justin Yost, Mac Sharp and 7 other people liked this

As Lyndi said, an unfollow on every auto-DM. And for bonus points, letting them know why they are unfollowed, either via DM or via public @ message. Of course this is time-consuming and could lead to some twitter-drama - 1001 noisy cameras

robert holiday

Has anyone interviewed the woman who made the call to the police? the good neighbor who didn't recognize the 58 year old man walking with a cane. her neighbor?

July 25, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

paisano liked this

Sarah Evans

"the state of now" are the buzz words of the day. #140conf

June 16, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

paisano liked this

Robert Scoble

CNN: you should be ashamed. Horrid news judgment today. Absolutely horrid.

June 13, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

TranceMist, Paul Jacobson, Dr. Seun Jun-O and 144 other people liked this

Totally agree. If it wasn't for the internet, I would have no idea what was going on in Iran. - Derek Coward

91 more comments

about what? Iran? I've been at a car wash for my daughter all day - andywergedal

Do elaborate - Bryce Roney

I can't believe how bad CNN is. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, ridiculous indeed. - Soso Sazesh

People actually watch CNN? - Jim Hague

I read conflicting reports that Mousavi has been arrested? Is this true or not? - Carlton Prest

From what I've heard on the news updates- he has been taken into custody. This is not good. - Jim Hague

CNN has been terrible forever. I follow them on twitter simply to see how much less informed I feel with every post. - zzzz

Is there a link to the article or video? - Ron Hixson

I gave up on CNN years ago. - Steve Lowe

Huff Post has some pretty good coverage http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009... - Soso Sazesh

Yes, no coverage of Iran. Larry King is on with stupid motorcycle show. - Robert Scoble

What are we talking about here. Reference plz? - Mitchell Schneider

the most amazing thing was filtering Twitter hashtag and watching the updates come in sometimes hundreds within 10-15 minutes periods. an incredible way to immerse into the real-time interest cloud. - Thom Kennon

Robert, I came to the same conclusion of CNN years ago. - Taylor Marek

I love this tweet from the CNN tweetbot: Tehran on fire"... "Palin vs. Letterman Who's Right?" with panel discussion {priorities: fail;} - BryanSchuetz

We are talking about Iran's election outrage - Soso Sazesh

There is a letter from Mousavi in both Farsi & English circulated for hours. He is under house arrest. There are reports of Ministries on Fire. Twitter has been lit up for hours. - Donald Wilson

One of Australia's sunday morning TV shows wasn't any better, it's lead story was that a bank was introducing muslim-friendly loans - Bryce Roney

The real-time coverage from Tehran today was on Twitter http://twitter.com/jimsciu... - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Let's agree that most TV news networks decided long ago that they would control the news. Remember swine flu? People blame the fuss about that on Twitter, yet it died everywhere as soon as the MSM stopped making it a big deal. - Carlton Prest

Blogs have been active, but TV networks have been dead. Including CBC in Canada. Unbelievable! - Donald Wilson

Pavan - they did nothing and they should have - Soso Sazesh

A brilliant guy at my gym, a BU professor, refuses to work out to CNN, insists we change the channel. - Halley Suitt

So hard to believe we have to go to Twitter to stay on top of such important news as the protests in Iran. - AirDye®

That gym prof has the right idea. - zzzz

What the hell's going on with the US media. The unrest resulting from the Iranian election IS IMPORTANT! - Don Whittaker

How great to actually see some WOMEN in the streets! - Halley Suitt

@don they are too busy working out who would win in a fight between Sarah Palin and David letterman - BryanSchuetz

It's the weekend. There is no one in the newsroom on the weekend. When I worked there, we had to absolutely drag someone in for the Princess Diana accident...the community was going nuts and there we were, with no broadcast news, no confirmation, no nothing. - Karoli

Were the elections free and fair? - David Lloyd

Front page on Foxnews.com http://www.foxnews.com/story... - Kirk Harnack

Not according to the letter from Mousavi, and from reports coming from Iran. - Donald Wilson

@Mark They were corrupt beyond farcical http://twitter.com/jimsciu... - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Livestation.com. You can watch France 24, Al Jazeera English, Euronews and Press TV, the Iranian propaganda channel. Coverage on all of those - Andrew Leyden

RT @IranRiggedElect More photos from Iran http://bit.ly/M8K1j #iranelection - Donald Wilson

I have to say the Nambu search ( searches twitter, friendfeed, one riot, yahoo news) has been great for keeping on top of this, and it's essentially real-time: http://img.skitch.com/2009061... - BryanSchuetz

So....are you all (we) making MSM obsolete? - Cynthia Chrysler

RT @mistabaka Follow this blog http://is.gd/113ss for amazing pics/vid of #IranElection Pls RT. 5 hours ago - Donald Wilson

so far I think the best coverage is here: http://shooresh1917.blogspot.com/ - and he has more on his facebook page - glfceo

wut's going on folks? - Eric Nakagawa

CNN is a mock news feed. It's a misinformation provider. - troglodyte

It isn't just CNN. If you look at online newspapers and other outlets before going to bed tonight you'd walk away with a different story and all sorts of analysis about how we will continue to deal with the old regime. That still may be the case, but you can tell this was a - Warner Crocker

Go to Monitter.com (a great site, btw) and type the Twitter search terms in. You can watch them come in real time, no refreshing. - Obayoo

con't... we're out of here for the weekend story. - Warner Crocker

CNN does have this on their site: http://www.cnn.com/2009... - invariant

We don't bother with broadcast TV, so I can't watch any of the stations, but http://www.bbc.co.uk/ currently has it listed as the top news story, as does http://www.cbc.ca/news/ both with firey photos. - David Sky

CNN has access to Twitter and more. So why can't they give the proper attention to this story? - Donald Wilson

It's actually all so called TV news outlets. Internet is a better source of news. To be fair though, sometimes, on duty journalists/editors do not have the last say in what's covered as 'news'. Simple politics and ratings. I usually tune in to UK TV channels than I do US for news, that too very rarely. Sad but true. - Moushumi Kabir

photos from the Tehran http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Johni Fisher

I see more news from my Iranian friends than news TV news outlets. - Moushumi Kabir

Cnn lost. - Stalyn☂

My last thought on this, no matter what happens, US definitely needs to stay out. It's Iran's internal matter just as 2004 re-election of Bush was our internal matter. As shocking as it was to the rest of the world (I still struggle with the fact ppl I know actually voted for him - twice!!), US did vote for Bush the second time. - Moushumi Kabir

For people interested in tracking what is happening regarding the irannian election on Twitter, here is a dashboard: http://www.twazzup.com/search... An amazing showcase of how new forms of communication make it much harder for dictatorships to control people! - Edwin Khodabakchian

It's difficult to get a right news even for me who know Persian, Iranian Tv doesn't support anything about street riots at all, Face book and You tube are filtered over there! No SMS! No mobile, even FF is filtered for them ! :| - Shandiz

sucks to live in a country without freedom :( - David Lloyd

Agree w/ Moushumi Kabir!US MUST stay out of this. - Shandiz

"Horrid coverage" -- otherwise known as typical. Shame shame! - Andy Sternberg from fftogo

Good "on the ground" coverage over at allvoices http://www.allvoices.com/Iran - Joel Richman

What did CNN do-so horridly...is that a word. That's twice in 2 weeks. - politics news

Download Livestation to see more coverage - Eric Haber from Nambu

re: Teriss - comparing cnn.com to twazzup.com at 10:08 PM Central, CNN has NO MENTION of Iran and twazzup has 3 of 10 Hot Topics about Iran ... looks like CNN is NOT the place to find 'Breaking News'. - Don Strickland

Really strange. - Jim Hague

I really like Don Lemon but he seems to think CNN isn't doing anything wrong, which bugs me. http://twitter.com/donlemoncnn - Shawn Farner

CNN finally pipes up and mentions Facebook pictures inciting violence in Iran - but no update. Oh, yeah, and the fact that access to internet has been cut off. Is that the only news?Now on to the Letterman/Palin fight! I am heading back to online updates. - Liza + = ?

I often find US cable TV insular when it comes to foreign affairs - coverage of Barack Obama's recent speech in Egypt was a case in point. But CNN ignoring the Iranian protests is shameful. - Peter Dowley

Track now in real-time http://iran.twazzup.com/ - Edwin Khodabakchian

I was always kinda of excited about the prospect of a 24 hour news network. Imagine how many more stories or how much more in-depth you could got on a single item. That really didn't happen. Covering stories, particularly any story happening outside NY or LA, is expensive. So we saw CNN put on a bunch of shows with pundits. They leaned to the left, so FOX could come along and lean to... more... - Matthew McCowan

Twitter is susceptible to manipulation by propagandists--for example the protests in Moldavia. In that case it was a legit election that the protesters just didn't like the result of. A flash mob does not a majority make. - Joe Knapp

Joe: good point, but many of us didn't fall for that crap and even then it cleaned itself out pretty quickly. - Robert Scoble

CNN died in 2001, when Tom Johnson retired. Quite a few of the top talent left around the same time, not wanting to be part of Jamie Kellner's efforts to be more like FOX. Cable "news" is a ghetto, and I never, ever, ever turn it on. Robert, you'll enjoy this: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_dai... - John Craft

Photos from Iran http://twitpic.com/photos... - Johni Fisher

Looks like CNN is finally picking up the coverage today. Christiane Amanpour is live in Teheran. - Nils Sandin

Just starring to catch up to last nights events. Amazing the lack of big media coverage on Iran. - Robert Wilkins

Been watching CNN International in China for two days and I can't agree with you. The reporting seems to be matching what I'm seeing on BBC and reading in NYTimes and Twitter. Saying they should be "ashamed" is a bit invective. - David Geller

"CNN International . . . seems to be matching what I'm seeing on BBC and reading in NYTimes and Twitter." - CNN-I is a totally separate production team, and has a totally different business model from CNN-"Domestic." - John Craft

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009... - John Craft

Crowds gather for Ahmadinejad victory rally http://news.bbc.co.uk/1... - David Lloyd

http://www.thenation.com/blogs... - "Iran's Ex-Foreign Minister Yazdi: It's A Coup" - John Craft

Robert Scoble: three bloggers have been on top of Iran developments: Andrew Sullivan, Juan Cole and Robert Dreyfuss. It seems safe to say now that we have just witnessed a coup in Iran. - Sean McBride

http://mynewsjunkie.com/2009... - John Craft

Other interesting reports http://sambrook.typepad.com/sacredf... - Johni Fisher

Amazing video from the BBC of the demonstrations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2... - Joe Wood

What's new? - Kreg Steppe

Yep, "CNN- The Lamest International News Team on Television" - Dean Kakridas

CNN: Cable No News network. - Robert Scoble

interwebz wins again! - stefan

who makes the decisions over there at Cnn? - Denise

All these comments are so stupid and ill-informed. Not a single one of you has ever tried to take a camera crew into a totalitarian country. I have. You don't just walk around. Easy to twitter for one person. Very hard to get pictures! Go and try it, and until then. Shut up! - Prokofy Neva

@Sean, i agree we have witnessed a coup--the sustained fight lasting a week with people in the street every day, making police run away, NYT editorial by Reuel Marc Gerecth has a good analysis of what it means, and AlJazeera http://www.youtube.com/watch... has a good analysis. the action on the streets is having a huge effect, not just on Iran but on the Middle East. - Eleanor Wynn

Prokofy Neva, agreed that no new organizations can get in there, but any of the news channels could rebroadcast key videos, photographs and analysis of this very major geopolitical event--it is really disgusting to go through the TV channels and see the dreck that is on when something major is happening--our local news channels will cover a weather event non-stop, why doesn't a major channel cover this/ - Eleanor Wynn

the citizen journalism tells the story in a way noone else could. you are right there in the middle of the crowd with all the changes of pace and direction, the shaky camera itself tells a story and the sounds. it is like actually being there--that is why the twitter and youtube coverage is the real coverage--they don't have to process, package and add a local angle to it that waters down the effect - Eleanor Wynn

Jan Friman

Here are some support from the man himself (PB) concerning my opinion about FF in a thread by @paisano - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive... - Now let's see how this turn out on Twitter @inforganic ;)

May 13, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

paisano liked this

Cool! It works fine. The tr.im link is contained at FF and the Twitter account points back to FF. That's exactly how i want it. Spot on :) - Jan Friman

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Is This Why Twitter Changed Its Replies Policy? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...

May 13, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

CdL Creative, Ryan, Louis Gray and 14 other people liked this

Our speculation on what the technical issues are. - Marshall Kirkpatrick

6 more comments

One of my suspicious suppositions was that they are trying to drive their Suggested Users feature as the primary source for new people to follow which they would monetize if they haven't already. I like the Facebook-like "people you follow also follow these people" idea you suggest. But honestly, is Twitter valuable enough to enough people yet to offer a premium paid service? - Gregg Scott

good stuff. Venturebeat offers this slant...and variation on the theme http://venturebeat.com/2009... - paisano

Can't see that as a big money-maker. Few of us used the all-replies feature. I'm wondering if Twitter doesn't get it's own service now. - phil baumann

very nice post. i'd tweet it... if i could. - jeneane sessum

phil: agreed. Gregg: what you wrote is almost identical to what I think and have described today over a series of tweets (not tubes ;)). - Vlad Bobleanta

Very good post. Insightful but I think we should just blame Oprah. - Al Stevens

Left a long, long comment. I guess this issue has me worked up. - Liz

Orli Yakuel

Reading Twitter blog post over and over and realizes they have no intention to go back to normal. http://blog.twitter.com/2009...

May 13, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Barbara K. Baker and paisano liked this

It sure doesn't seem like it. - Mark Czerniec

Nathan Chase

What's happening, FriendFeed?

May 11, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Eric - seven eleven, mjc, Josh Haley and 32 other people liked this

RERUN!!!! - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

15 more comments

ROGER!!!! - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

DUANE!!!! - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Nathan Chase

I have a feeling only a small group of FriendFeeders get the reference. - Nathan Chase

blast from the past! LOL - BEX

No Roger, No Rerun, No Rent! - AJ Kohn

It was all about Dee, Roger's little sister, y'all. - Derrick

"Ooooh, I"ma tell, Mama!" - Anika

I really liked What's Happening! Dee was the worst actress ever but it didn't matter none. - paisano

Used to really like this show. I also liked Starcade. So... y'know. - Akiva

I bet y'all didn't know Dee grew up and is now Anika, right? - Derrick

D, does that mean she's still 'the worst actress'? - Akiva

Derrick, shut up. - Anika

It's funny when you catch your sub-conscious seeing something before you do. I had that theme song going in my head the last 10 minutes and didn't know why. Then I actually noticed this post. - Tony Miller

Ok, so What's Happening Now!!? http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Tony Miller

Hey hey hey! - Rick Cogley

justine

APPLE STORE TIME!!!!!! PRE-STAR TREK - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

May 9, 2009 from YouTube - Comment - Like - Share

Dakota O'Neill, paisano and mjc liked this

Ken Sheppardson

I'd kill for some sort of audio plug-in that would filter out all instances of "y'know", "um", and "like" from podcasts.

May 8, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, Grant Bierman, Eric Geller and 11 other people liked this

Um, y'know that might really shorten some of my, like, shows. - Leo Laporte

14 more comments

I hear that Ken. - Russellreno

Leo: No way. If anything, TWiT's spoiled me. But when I download some other stuff... yikes. - Ken Sheppardson

That's really hard to not do - I keep trying and failing in the interviews I've been in - Jesse Stay

Yeah, I mean, y'know, like... um... I don't know... I wasn't talking about anybody specific, y'know? - Ken Sheppardson

If you cut out all the pauses and mindless banter in many podcasts you would end up with nothing to listen to. - Brian Sullivan

Wouldn't that app that Leo mentioned on Twit work? - Michael Kaiser from Nambu

Why does it seem so much worse in recordings than live? I've had to edit CEOs "ums" every other word that nobody seemed to notice live... You invent the plugin, I'll take two. - Brandt Krueger

Well, Ken, regarding the ums, there's the Toastmasters penny can negative re-enforcement school of hard knocks. But some think that's old school: http://worldchampionevaluator.com/toastma... - Micah

Brian: Nah, I don't think it'd be quite that bad. You'd still have plenty of unsubstantiated rumors and baseless speculation. - Ken Sheppardson

Ken - Oh yeah I forgot about that. - Brian Sullivan

How about a plug in that would filter out the word TWITTER? - Rustic Thoughts

It would be good if we could apply that filter to commentary from some financial market commentators on news networks too. - Steve Remington

Haha. My dad has a rule: more than 3 instances of 'basically' and the show is turned off :) - Charley M

Micah, not all Toastmasters clubs do the penny can. Ours just has a counter who tells you at the end how many you had. It's a good way to track progress without getting yourself overly focused on it. - Bruce Lewis

Should be easy to implement via mechanical turk or the like. - Dustin Sallings

dannysullivan

Twitter's down for maintenance. Time to see who emerges as the next best alternative!

May 8, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Anne Bouey, Roberto Bonini, Dave Martin and 16 other people liked this

Any question there? - Robert Scoble

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My vote goes to Facebook and FriendFeed (I haven't given the latter a shot but lovin' it already!) - Ricardo Bueno

Isn't twitter the next best alternative? - Brian Sullivan

FF! For sure - Andy A.

is this sort of the new apple store down - Eran Even-Kesef

TechCrunch suggestions. Twitter Is Down: 15 Alternative Things To Do http://bit.ly/psNqa - Gregg Morris

back to MSN Messenger? we can all form new groups or just stick with Friendfeed - Kieran Daly

Perhaps fanfou. - Chuck Baggett

everyday i am liking ff more and more the question is will ashton discover it oh no ;) - Eran Even-Kesef

Zena Weist

w00t! RT @ZachIsHere http://twitpic.com/2u9uj - @chrisculbertson proposed and she said yes! Yeah, Chris! #smckc

April 4, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Mo Kargas, MiniMage, BEX and 5 other people liked this

I don't know who these people are but they look like nice folks... congrats =) - Mitch

I know chris from social media club here in kc. great guy! - (jeff)isageek

Louis Gray

Twitter, you clowns. YESTERDAY was planned maintenance. You couldn't do it. So today, you get unscheduled maintenance? I am "impressed".

April 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Enrique Gutierrez, Wayne Sutton, Valley and 42 other people liked this

pathetic init... cant even fail right lol! ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

23 more comments

Hello beta friendfeed! Thank you twitter - paisano

The details are here, not that there are that many: http://blog.twitter.com/2009... - Dion Hinchcliffe

Yes Rom, what is that green creature? The fail worm? - Dion Hinchcliffe

Well...Thank god FriendFeed gave us this upgrade Today. I sent a bunch of my twitter followers here to continue our discussions. And many came. I hope that FriendFeed takes notice of the outrage that Twitter causes with its poorly run TechOps department, and complete failure to notify users in a timely fashion (via the status.twitter.com page) of hicups, burps and even complete outages. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I guess the planned maintenance did go as planned - Bryan Thatcher

God I'd hate to be neighbors with any of you. "You cut my lawn for free for 3 years, but sometimes missed a spot, so I'm going to neighbor's house and backstab you". Especially from folks who are more known online BECAUSE of twitter than their own blog and ff combined. Wonder why this generation is plastic? It's their folks. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

I had to SHOUT @Twitter to before they posted the #LOSTAVATAR notice today. I can't say it was just me that got it done, but their timing the last two outages was interestingly coincidental to my repeated tweets to @Twitter. (I noticed also after suggsting that htey inform users before maintenance that they did it for sunday. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Hmmmm timing timing. FriendFeed schedules launch of its new hotness for Monday morning. Twitter schedules maintenance for the day before. Twitter misses maintenance, FriendFeed launches anyway and Twitter starts breaking in many ways. Twitter says "we're doing it live" and does the maintenance at an unplanned time. Did the new FF break Twitter or is the timing just coincidental? - EricaJoy

Having run such a TechOps department, for a startup, I feel their pain, but have no patience for the lack of notifications. As I said in a few tweets, running an ad-serving network in the late 90s I was expected to post outage notices a) before planned maintenance and b) within minutes of any outage or disruption. 10 years later you'd think this was SOP for any large TechOps Dept. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I miss the Fail Whale - Bryan Thatcher

Ed: Discussions must continue on. I have not, did not, and WILL not abandon Twitter, but I will not allow a twitter disaster to disrupt my communications either. I am GLAD that FF had their act together in time that the non-geeks could make quick and easy use. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Definitely good timing. - Stephan Miller

Agreed @Rob. And I think ff has great uses and can be win/win. But every time I come here, it is an incessant rant about twitter. The friendfeed crew is foolish to not drop the hammer on it. Twitter has a massive number of loyalists that won't step foot in here because of the poison. I want to see both win. As enemies we/they all lose. Only the instigators currying favor win. @Erica No, unrelated :-) - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Love those 15 minute hours Twitter! ;) - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Seems back up again. - Chris Charabaruk

Wow, that's hardcore coming from you, Louis ;-) - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

cue the circus music - Jesse Stay

WOW. That's really bad timing considering they risked the wrath of NCAA fans - Shane

Ed: Also Of note...one of my main purposes (originally) for getting on friendfeed was its ability to post all my other stuff TO twitter! I may bitch about twitter here, but BELIEVE ME, I bitch there too (usually directly @Twitter) .. FriendFeed should not drop the hammer..No reason to squelch free speech. (now that there's DMs some FF admins could quietly ask serious offenders to STFU tho) As more twitter users see more and more friendfeed likes coming in they will become more and more curious. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

It's all a matter of proper positioning. If FF/twitter fans position FF as something that adds value to twitter, the whole notion will be very very successful for both companies and userbases. If FF users try to position FF as the Alternative to twitter, everyone loses. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

@Rob I agree with the free speech aspect. I don't mean delete. But come by and gracefully promote partnership. Paul, Bret and team know the challenges of evolving code, design desires of users, scaling, VC breath. I've seen young women at twitter in tears from abuse. The mountain is Google, Facebook, the web haters not each other :) - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Good God folks get over it, & yourselves it ain't that big a deal,,, - Chris Darling

On the bright side, I've had really only an hour or so on Twitter today, leaving me much more time to go over FriendFeed again. Twitter's loss is FriendFeed's gain. I've probably had more FF activity today than in the past month, too, adding my bit to a couple of discussions. But I'm still of the opinion Twitter AND FF both have a place, like the commentor two above. Twitter's for quick news, but FF can be used for expanded/aggregated stuff. It's all in how much you use your noodle to work it out. - George Hall (Australia)

Ed: Awesome! thanks for the clarification. I fully agree with the promotion of partnership. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Molly

http://twitpic.com/2xskl - I'm a lucky gal. Flowers "just because"!

April 6, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

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Robert Scoble

No @drylight my friendfeed video is embargoed until either @techcrunch breaks the embargo or 9 a.m. Monday morning, whichever comes first.

April 5, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Will DeLuca, paisano, Bluesun 2600 and 25 other people liked this

TechCrunch hasn't broken the embargo yet even though I thought I heard Mike say he was going to post his screenshots up before the embargo. I think it's nice that he has not yet. - Thomas Hawk

29 more comments

I think Mike went home and decided to post about Twitter/Google instead to take his mind off FriendFeed. - Ken Sheppardson

I am sure there will be plenty of buzz tomorrow when the news breaks officially. Enough buzz for everyone. - Paul Jacobson

I'll be at work when the embargo is over so I wont be able to play until night. - LPH™ and his dog P™

I'll be on an airplane when the embargo is lifted. I'll have to post via magic. - Louis Gray

boy thomas isn't that sad that you have to say "i think its nice that he has not yet"? - Allen Stern

Brian, Louis doesn't need to do that - he has little twin babies doing his work for him. It's magic. - Jesse Stay

Wait, is there still time for me to make something in Photoshop so I can "scoop" everybody else, even though what actually gets released has nothing in common with my Photoshop mockup? :D - Wirehead

I bet Louis will have it up 1st using his magic.. FTW - Wayne Sutton

Wayne, assuming I write anything (which I haven't yet), I would have to save it as a draft and beg Jesse to post it for me. :) - Louis Gray

Nicholas, I have one post set for 9 and one for 10 so far. More coming. - Louis Gray

I am in Holland on business and the time difference has me all screwy. I've been patiently waiting, but have another five hours :-\ back to work... - AJK

Some of us are up at 6 and will not be able to see video later (alas, the firewalls in healthcare are challenging to say the least) - Loretta Donovan

a little more than 3 hours to go - AJK

I'm expecting we'll see a change here on Friendfeed and not need to read the overconfident techchruncher's tabloid - paul mooney

The videos are five parts, are about 5 gigs to upload, will take 120 minutes to upload. I just started uploading them. - Robert Scoble

Hi Robert, will the videos only be available in full HD or will be more bandwidth friendly versions available? - Paul Jacobson

Paul: they will be up on my Blip channel at http://scobleizer.blip.tv -- can you see those there? - Robert Scoble

Too bad Louis is on a plane and missed the new embargo time. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Louis has posts scheduled to go up at 9, 10, and I think 11. - Ken Sheppardson

Dan - I agree, I miss Louis' input and enthusiasm. - Susan Beebe

so Robert what about that video. how long will it take to upload? - Alexander Kucera

I'm having a LOT of troubles with Blip. The file sizes are too big. I'm having to make them lower quality. This really sucks, sorry. - Robert Scoble

I see. Bummer. Well, we will have to wait then. No problem. - Alexander Kucera

I guess we know which one came first. :) - Sarah Perez

sarah was the embargo broken? (i was outside) - Allen Stern

Will we be able to see the FF show soon on scobleizer or on listen on gillmor gang? - JRblog

Damian: They are filtering on "friendfeed" so will see your comment. (I'm doing the same, which is how I saw this one). - Robert Scoble

has it slowed down for you guys since pre-9am - Andy Fox

Andy: the feed is going WAY faster as everyone discovers a "new shiny thing." But the speed of reloading pages has gone down as traffic here has gone up. - Robert Scoble

Joe Dawson

Disappointed to learn that TechCrunch broke the Friendfeed embargo this morning (via @jowyang)

April 6, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

paisano and Morton Fox liked this

@jowyang They break ALL embargoes. That's their deal. - Pat Hawks

Orli Yakuel

sorry to be a party popper but the design here has a very old fashion look, and I'm very disappointed by that.

April 6, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff (Team マクダジ ), FFing Enigma, Morton Fox and 4 other people liked this

I do not agree ;) - David Berrebi

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which is fine... but I still don't like the gray/boxes on the right side. - Orli Yakuel

Agreed. The gray makes it look unfinished. - Tal Shafik

Didn't Facebook teach FF anything? We NEED the option to make the service look & feel the way we want. It's not that tough to do. Let us customize the interface. I prefer the boxes/links on the left. We should be able to choose the colors and themes we prefer too. - paisano

Agree. I love the interactivity the site delivers but I'm hoping the design is a work in progress... - Kevin Cearns

I agree with customization here as well. This UI reminds me a lot of Linkedin. If they lightened up the grey maybe it wouldn't feel so heavy. - Alexander Mimran

Julia Roy

Top 250 Coolest & Most Influential people on Twitter that will actually Follow you back! http://virl.com/250.htm

April 6, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

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Louis Gray

SXSW to AT&T: Free our iPhones - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technol...

March 15, 2009 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Charlie Anzman, Jeff (Team マクダジ ), Jesse Stay and paisano liked this

Leigh

@Paisano Okay...I'm gonna try this...I'm set up...so....

March 6, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

paisano liked this

Louis Gray

Fewer Followers Or More Meaningful Connections? - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

February 28, 2009 from louisgray.com - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Sarah Perez, andy brudtkuhl and 20 other people liked this

Post by Corvida: http://www.friendfeed.com/corvida - Louis Gray

4 more comments

Once you make a connection you don't know how it will turn-out - paul mooney

Paul I responded to your comment on the site. :) - Corvida

The only useful thing I've found with a lot of connections is the opportunity for discovering new connections. I intentionally go through google reader every couple of months and add feeds from little known bloggers that I find through alltop just to hear some new voices. I try to do the same thing with Twitter. - Mike Elliott

Yeah, but do that over the course of a year and how can you keep up with all of those people? It doesn't make sense... - David Libby

Building on Mike Elliott's comment - is it a continuous job to then weed out those you have not connected with? Do you take out the blogs and unfollow those users that no longer provide you with value? Or just check in from time to time to see if anything is still there? I like the concept. It's like pruning a tree to ensure it stays healthy and continues to thrive. Taking out some of the old, so new fresh leaves and spout from underneath. - Wendy Peters from twhirl

Christine Cavalier

Re: To Friend or Not To Friend the Ex. - http://www.purplecar.net/2009...

February 6, 2009 from Disqus - Comment - Like - Share

Tyson Key and paisano liked this

"Greg, I totally agree. An ex, a serious ex, is something more than a friend. People will always feel like they own a piece of you once you've been in a serious relationship with them, ya know? Like, "Don't fool me, I KNOW you." And if any ownership at all is still felt there, then no amount of Zen would make it ok to friend a person online. It seems like your circle of friends respects that you really don't want to share a table with your ex ever, and they plan around that. Good friends, you have, young padawan! I think "standard guy response" is identified as the response that lacks empathy and etiquette. This is a good thing, sometimes. For some reason women are the guardians of polite norms. This is ridiculous, of course. But here I am, being Miss Manners for The Internet. When I finally defriended the Ex, I tried to "think like a man" and forgive myself for any perceived breach of etiquette on my part (forget about the ex's breaches - this was just about my behavior). Anyway, if I..." - Christine Cavalier

mashable

FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter - http://mashable.com/2009...

January 6, 2009 from Mashable! - Comment - Like - Share

Gordon Saunders, Dominic Jones, Jannifer @wordsforliving and 15 other people liked this

I'll still follow people on Twitter if they're also on FriendFeed. Why? Because I use Twitter at the same time I'm not using FriendFeed, and vice versa. If I only follow you on one or the other, I might miss out on something useful during one of those times that I only see one service, not both. - Chris Charabaruk

When blogging was in its infancy, people wrote thoughtful pieces to help people get it. New media follow patterns. - tom matrullo

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