Dan Walters - Likes - FriendFeed

That poor cat looks so confused. - Kendra <3 Three Lions

but it's so warm on top of the scanner! - DJF

Time for a cat scan! - Jemm

Iz I the right way up for printing? - Vicky

This is clearly not my cat. If this was my cat he's have one arm shoved down into the printer trying to tear up all the internal whirling bits with his bare claws. - Soup

LOL, Soup! - Kol Tregaskes

that is one adorable kitten! - Anna Lynn M.

<3 - Furkan Tunalı

Too Funny! Reminds me of the San Mateo Cat Shelter where one of the cats loves to sleep on top of the laster printer where the paper comes out... - Greg Lato

Kitty!!!! - Janice

keep trying! - Morgan Haley

FEED ME A CAT - tehKenny, Dork

Kol, it is NOT impossible. And that's all I'm saying. - Steven Perez

Push harder - Josh Haley

LOL@Jemm - AJ Batac

آخی - یک بابک

Hehe, Steven. I won't ask. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Gosh, just noticed this post has nearly 150 likes! :-D - Kol Tregaskes

1 closer....hilarious! - Jeffrey Marsh

There we go 150 likes. :-D - Kol Tregaskes

I'm in ur faxx masheen -- sendin de faxxez.... - Stephanie Segel

I think you mean a LIVE cat… - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

thanks, i needed a laugh - chaz2b

FAXCAT IS NOT AMUSED - Karl Knechtel

iz dat some copycat? - bora "head" basman

LOL, now nearly 200 likes! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Thats no fax machine, thats my new patented kitty juicer! - Threepwood

Just one more like... please. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

it's over two huuunddreeeed - bora "head" basman

MOAR! - Pat Hawks

I need 9 copies please ! - Faraz Mullick

A cute cat :) - Mohammad Abdurraafay

Haha, Faráz. - Kol Tregaskes

Next target, 250 likes. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

اخي...گناهي - noonii

Friendfeed loev faxcat :o - Karl Knechtel

;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Pussy by fax. What will they think of next? - Mattb4rd

X)) - Nia

OMGosh, next up is the 300 likes mark. Anyone care to join in? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Honestly, i'm not generally a fan of the Cat memes... But that is classic. - Alistair (alpinefolk)

You know this is the 7th most liked entry on FriendFeed ever: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... !!! - Kol Tregaskes

Kol, this thread is pure genius. - Alex Scoble

But only almost 50 comments.. :) - Simon Wicks

Simon, there's not much to comment regarding the picture :) But meta-comments are more than appropriate! - Ivan Zuzak

Simon, yeah we need 1500+ comments now, who wants to start? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

there we go then for the 1500+!! - Jaap Willem

1600+ to beat the FFundercats live chat thread. I think with this real time now on all threads we're going to see some truly epic comment numbers. - Simon Wicks

Ivan, no the picture speaks for itself. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

OK, now it's the 4th: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... - it's gonna take a huge effort to break the record of 452+ likes here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/imified... - Kol Tregaskes

OK, now this is the 3rd most liked entry: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... :-D Crazy! - Kol Tregaskes

Too bad I am fresh out of likes of I would do it again. - JSNFLMNG

¡Excelente! - Marcos Vicente

I'm using this photo in the latest chapter of can haz murder - anna sauce

Hehe, Anna. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

One more for 350 likes, LOL. This is mental! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Come on, 350 cats for a cat getting crushed? You guys are mean. :-P - Richard A.

I'd like again if I could :-) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

bump - Simon Wicks

Richard, LOL! - Kol Tregaskes

Awesomely funny! - Martha

Next target: 400 likes? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

theres one more for you Kol - Toby Graham

Toby, you're very kind. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Cute *_* - Sybelle

Hehe. - Kol Tregaskes

Just 6 more likes for the 400 then I'll leave you alone. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

can you spare a cat 6 likes? - JSNFLMNG

sweet - Eric Hofmann

Haha, Jason, wow 406 likes, madness! :-D - Kol Tregaskes

Madness? THIS. IS. FAX CAT. - Mike Nayyar

Well 452 likes is the record, hmm I think that is pushing it. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Awesome. - Alex Scoble

this is underfaksink at its worzt - Petr Buben

Petr, I have no idea what you mean, but thank you. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

@Kol .. :] that, partially, might have been the purpose.... I don't know it exactly either. :] .. was I reflecting on a cat under the fax, and that it is hard to fax that way ... /?:] ... "underfaxing at its worst" .. - Petr Buben

Ah, OK, Petr. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

there ya have me ! :] .... see, to be honest with you, i saw this pic couple days ago, but i let it go, without posting it ..... what does that make me? :] - Petr Buben

:-) - Kol Tregaskes

OMGosh, just 23 more likes to beat this: http://beta.friendfeed.com/imified... ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

433 Like ! Wow ! - Like

Freemor, yes very cute! :-D - Kol Tregaskes

cute~ - Chan Pen

that's why is called a cat scan and not a cat fax. - Phil Maxwell

oh ... a scan. not fax?! .... it looked to me like she was faxink - Petr Buben

Just 5 more likes needed. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Try rolling the cat through a press first. Flat cats fit into the fax easier. - Bob Blunk

Fax, Petr. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

even a flat cat... faxes just can't handle the hair. You'd have to shave the cat first, else the hair will burn and stick to the drum... a mess! (I am extrapolating from transparencies, mind, i don't have access to a cat to test) - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Hehe, Joelle. This is now tied for the 'likes' top stop. One more then, hehe. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Ok, over the top now. - Greg Guitarbuster

Hehe, Greg. Blimey! Erm, is that not far from 500 likes now? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Bloody marvelous, Kol. Wish I could like it again... too cute (and help u to 500 likes). - Roberto Bonini

I couldn't believe it when I logged on from the morning over posting it and saw it was at something 200 likes! You all have a strange fetish with cats and fax machines, hehe. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Am I the only one who saw this and their first thought was - My goodness did someone break that cats neck? It still freaks me out a little - Steve C

Steve, it does look a little out of place, but cats are pretty bendy. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

They fax much better if you flatten them first. What? - Kevin Pedraja

LOL, Kevin. - Kol Tregaskes

i can also imagine the cat going there cause it is snug and warm - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Ey, it would be a tad warm on there, especially after a long working day. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Caption which needs to be said aloud: Uh Ohz, I'm totally FAXED! - sofarsoShawn

Hehe, Shawn. 10 more for the big 5-0-0. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Countdown! 8 more now! - Mike Nayyar

bump for more likes - Josh Haley

bump - Roberto Bonini

One more!! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

I took mine away, too much pressure. - Steve C

Wow, there we go, 500 likes!! Thank you all!! :-D - Kol Tregaskes

I think Fax Kitty deserves a prize for that. - Kendra <3 Three Lions

меня, признаться, подзаебал этот кот - Парадокс Смейла

пиздец как! - getalifejerk

Kendra, absolutely. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

So we can put this post to rest now. :-) 505 likes final count, wow! :-D Good night all! - Kol Tregaskes

My like is the last one so far :) - 509 afaik - getalifejerk

did 3 people really un-like this? now at 506. wtf (edit: uh, oh, yeah, me and 2 + 506 others makes 509. dammit, jim, i'm an artist, not a mathematician) - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

wish I could double like! - metalerik

Wish I could just like it at all. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

This is also still on the Best of page. That must be the longest running best of post? :-) - Kol Tregaskes

But it's a cat being crushed... - Richard A.

برای چی این همه لایک خورده؟؟؟؟؟ - H.M.Nasrabadi

Hehe, Richard. - Kol Tregaskes

copy cat - gibilix

518 like! most liked post? - Lu Tao

ay yerim yaa çok tatlı kedicikk :)) - Arzu

Lu, yeah but a long way now. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

*bump* - Andre

Blew past 500 likes - LIKE!!!!! - Roberto Bonini

OMGosh, nearly heading to 550!! - Kol Tregaskes

So we know how many people use this site. - Richard A.

So that's what Paws Printing means. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Richard, we getting there. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Jack, hehe. - Kol Tregaskes

this thread is making history. - vijay

Indeed .. this is a most epic thread - Mattb4rd

Hehe. 9 more for 550! - Kol Tregaskes

8... - sofarsoShawn

7. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Actually only 5...cuz "You, Earl E Morningwood, yasin ghasemi and... 542 liked this" - sofarsoShawn

Who wants to bet how many likes this thead is going to get??? - Roberto Bonini

Gosh, no idea. - Kol Tregaskes

take some bets then come back in a year to check? - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

:) - SokooteDel

Holy smokes .. this pussy cat is approaching 600 likes! - Mattb4rd

552 now, so there are some unlikes going on, hehe, oh well. Still an amazing amount of likes. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

560! - sofarsoShawn

And back down to 559. Hehe. - Kol Tregaskes

And how could anyone not love kitties after seeing this photo? - Susan Beebe

I liked it without reading this discussion - evidentially we have a lot of people who like the idea of faxing a cat! - Rich

Rich, yes, worrying, hehe. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

564! - sofarsoShawn

I think we'll have to recruit more ffeeps before this record will ever be broken - JSNFLMNG

maybe a good way to clone cats :) - Roberto.aka.tornosubito

Hehe, Roberto. - Kol Tregaskes

This surely couldn't hit 600 likes, could it!? - Kol Tregaskes

It could! Keep bumping it up! - imabonehead

It will :) - Roberto Bonini

My next cat post: http://beta.friendfeed.com/the-fun... - Kol Tregaskes

Wow, not even 600 Likes? Feh. ;-) - j1m

No yet. Close though. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Stuck on 581. - Kol Tregaskes

Most liked FF post ever? - Kristian Salonen

One of the best funny cat pictures I've seen! :-) - John Collis

Kristian, it appears to be. Hehe, John. - Kol Tregaskes

ای بابا این پیشول بی خیال نمی شود، بابا پاشو برو دنبال یه بازی دیگه ، از هفته پیش تا حالا تو فکس ولو شدی حوصله ات سر نرفته، پاشو اقلا بپر رو کیبوردی چیزی - Maryaminaa

11 more to 600. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

داداش كوتاه بيا، مي خواي ركورد بزني!؟ - Exir

هستم بره این کامنتتو ترجمه کنه اکسیر ! :))) داره از فضولی میمیره الان ! :D - Shayan

Hehe, 6 more likes. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Need 1 more like, by my calculation, to get to 600 - Josh Haley

Another unlike then, back down to 598. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

it's 598+3, at the moment ;-) - Andre

There we go, 601!! Wow, can't believe it. :-D Thanks everyone!! - Kol Tregaskes

3 people un liked :( - Roberto Bonini

I think there have been made unlikes over the last week, oh well. - Kol Tregaskes

too many likes, the kitteh is burning up..stop the madness...;) - JSNFLMNG

Haha, Jason. - Kol Tregaskes

614!!!!! - sofarsoShawn

Whoa! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

man! ..Kol is gaining ... and I saw that pic one day before Kol posted it :X ..and i let it go! :[)] - Petr Buben

Petr, who's he? - Kol Tregaskes

omg, this post passed 600 likes! - imabonehead

@Kol ..well the man .. Mr Photographer .. ok .. let me go there .. - Petr Buben

I see. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

631 likes, amazing stuff. :-D - Kol Tregaskes

Day 11 and this thing's still going! - Phil Maxwell

Why fax yourself when you can get famous via FriendFeed? :-) - Willem (@wim66) ☠

whereas a cat *scan* is totally feasible - Megan Craig

Kol, congratulations, you won the Friendfeed Award for the most likes entry! - Jérôme Flipo

Kol is this from your rival: Squashy Cat Photography? - sofarsoShawn

Haha, Shawn. Have you really bumped this one again? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

LOL I was actually looking at best of month and I thought I'm going to be clever :-) - sofarsoShawn

this makes me laugh every darn time I see it - Stephanie_Happy2010!

Who is this NShawnFW? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

kitties do like to find new spots to nap :) - Maryam

LOL, now over 650 likes. - Kol Tregaskes

این هنوز در نیومده از لای این دستگاه؟ - Maryaminaa

Wow. this is good..... pleased, Kol? - Roberto Bonini

Pleased? About the number of likes? I'm happy regardless. :-D - Kol Tregaskes

So do we think it will go to 700 likes? ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

it will - Seltoon

what do you mean by "it" ? say "he" or "she". :) - Maryaminaa

Haha, I was referring to the entry. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

lol - Maryaminaa

I see someone already posted 'Copy Cat' !! LOL Great picture - Kevin J Hatton

:-) - Kol Tregaskes

O HAI! I IZ WATIN FR COOPONZ, KTHXBYE. - Kris Roley

Neksnapper 3000 Kitten Eradicator - Kills Kittehs Dead - Mattb4rd

Hehe. - Kol Tregaskes

10 more likes for 700! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

7 more by my count! - Bec Rowe @d0tski

Oops, yes you're right, Bec. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Isn't it illegal to fax a pussy? - aerobroken

It's really only social convention which regards it as inappropriate, same with Xeroxing it, like one does with their b__tocks. Wait are we still talking about cats cats here or... - sofarsoShawn

OMGosh 700+ likes now!! LOL. Thank you all 702 of you. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Wow, not so bad huh? \u) - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

try harder! ; )) - Didier Lahely

Before faxing it, you have to flatten it out a bit. You're going at it all wrong! :-) - Rick Cogley

Caturday is tommorow ... Fax Cat on Saturday .. - johnpiercy

Must try this at home! - Anthony K. Valley ©

Bumping some old great posts. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Now THAT is a classic! - Allan Besselink

you have to flatten it first!!! ;) - Neda S.

This is very good humor! - TrafficBug

Hey, we've hit the 700-like mark. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

just a couple thousand to go - JSNFLMNG

LOL - Smeerch

__awesome__ - Matteo Scotuzzi

and it got resurrected once again! - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

I managed to do it once, but I don't think I'm going to do it again. The results were a little fuzzy. - Seth Greenblatt

dumb and dumber? - Ozkan Altuner

9 more comments

My Pagerank is 10 and So Can You - Daniel J. Pritchett

Any relation to Matt Cutts? - Gabe

Haha... having never seen the movie, that was actually the first thought I had! - τorƍue

Great Sound Track! - CW™

bbbooowwwwwwwww! - echostreamer

Gabe, I prefer to ride around in something like this: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/117... :) - Matt Cutts

Yay for Matt Cutts joining the thread! - I prefer this: http://www.in-n-out.com/cookout... - τorƍue

@MattCutts :P http://sexyseo.blogspot.com/2008... - Lora Lufark

lol :) - Micah Wittman

Very cool. - Kol Tregaskes

Heh, is there going to be an argument over dinner when Paul gets home? - Stephen Mack

63 more comments

Uh-oh. But you tell him, April!! - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

Stephen: There's no argument. He knows how I feel. - April Buchheit

This makes me laugh...this is great stuff. - Alex Scoble

Agreed, priceless. :) - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

∴ ? - Kevin Fox

This made my day! Make sure Paul remembers what his team created and don't let FB shut us down. :-) - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Best post of the day!!! :) - Susan Beebe

is that "greater than" or "write FF to the file FB?" - Cliff Gerrish

Cliff: Uh, both? :) - April Buchheit

Kevin: ∴ FF FTW! - April Buchheit

April rocks. Go FF and go April. :) - Louis Gray

Cheer section is getting crowded behind April.... - Harold

Updated (18:16 PST) - April Buchheit

I'm with you April!! - Rachel Lea Fox

I think that's the first time I've seen the therefore sign used on FriendFeed :) - Glenn Slaven

It's just my way of saying I'll take FF over FB anytime, any day. - April Buchheit

A to the Men! - Felicia Yue

Standing ovation. - Bruce Lewis

Indeed Best post of the day. Simply the truth!. :=) - Francisco

April +++++++++++++++++++++! - AJ Batac

Ooh, hex math. Can I play? - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

Good thing Stephen Mack pointed that out in the top comment. I and possibly others would have missed the connection. - raphaeL

♥ - AJ Batac

'April! April!' chant is going on - Christopher Galtenberg

*hands April the key to the city* - Micah Wittman

♥ - Mitch

I fully agree. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

But what did the Walrus say? - Robert Scoble

By the way, lots of Facebook employees say "FB 2010 >= FF 2010 ∴ FB 2010 FTW." Or "FB 2010 (include FF) > Twitter 2010 ∴ FB FTW - Robert Scoble

liking for Scoble's last comment. I'm seeing similar - Jesse Stay

I can believe FB 2011 >= FF 2011. If they can pull it off in 2010 I'll be very impressed. - Bruce Lewis

The big question is whether that will be "greater than OR equal to" or "greater than AND equal to" - Jesse Stay

awww, you spelled it out better than any social media expert I know of! (exception maybe Mashable just cuz he wants me) - sofarsoShawn

Sorry - Facebook won't ever rise to the level of FriendFeed unless they let you turn off all the ads, the lame "invites" for bullshit apps and the lowest common denominator feeling. They can add all of FriendFeed's features, but until they make it look like something that appeals to a tech-savvy audience, who cares? - Tad

It'd be wonderful if, instead of dumbing down FriendFeed (by merging it into FB) they could smarten up FaceBook by removing all the retarded cruft. - Tad

Tad: have you seen the lightweight Facebook? Or, even better, have you seen the iPhone app? It doesn't have any retarded cruft. I was at Apple's headquarters today. Guess which app was being downloaded faster than almost any other app? Right. Facebook. - Robert Scoble

Tad, you just made me spit out my soda. HA! - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

I use Facebook as my sorta, Black Book as old timers say, aka booty calls. I made a list :) - sofarsoShawn

Both Facebook Lite and the iPhone app pale in comparison to plain ole FriendFeed. Why not just change the banner up at the top to say FaceBook Lite and let that be that? There's nothing at all on FaceBook that I'd like to see show up in FriendFeed. - Tad

Tad: FriendFeed's infrastructure can NOT deal with 300 million users. - Robert Scoble

300 million users aren't interested in FriendFeed, obviously. But, if they create a FaceBook Lite that's got all of the existing FF functionality without any of the sline/LCD bullshit of FaceBook Classic, and can handle more users, then I'll be all for it. I'm not going to hold my breath. I think the best we'll end up with is FaceBook Lite updating in real time with hordes of Mafia invites, virtual gift spam and ads for the new Booty Blaster 2010 app. Let's hope they prove me wrong! - Tad

April FTW - I realize I'm late for that. But yay for the FF wimmin! And the therefore sign! (How do you even do that on a keyboard? Mac please) - MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF

+1 Tad - That's the fear, Facebook will morph the features to an audience that will use it very different than FF. Although I can see how FB can really benefit from the design and features of FF, the community result will change due to the culture FB has already created. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Tad, is the issue a tech-savvy audience or just a non-stupid one? I sure hope, if your vision comes to pass, they intro a Smart Hide feature where we can hide all that crap in one or two clicks, separating stupid content from its posters. AS in, Yes I want to see my niece's new baby; No, I don't EVER want to play even one game she invites people to. - MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF

Tad: I never get Mafia invites or virtual gift spam. I don't know why you even care about those things? They certainly never show up on the iPhone app. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, something like that Mary. - Tad

Robert, I have high school friends and other acquaintances who constantly invite me for Pillow Fights or Mafia games or whatever. I don't really want to know that FriendA just harvested a marsh mellow field or that FriendB just assassinated someone else. My FaceBook smartphone app is full of mostly FriendFeed repeats from my FF friends. Why go to FB to see that? - Tad

Tad: I just ignore those requests. - Robert Scoble

I don't care for any of the apps myself and to be honest some people's posts are just plain insipid. If I see a pattern of vapidity from one individual, I hide them. I honestly don't care that they hate Mondays or are hungry and need food. Blah! - April Buchheit

Also, I've NEVER seen any conversation on FB last as long as this one has. - Tad

I do ignore the requests, but back to your Living Room analogy. Just as you won't tolerate awful people in your living room are you content to have salespeople in your living room, even if they're easily ignorable off in the corner? - Tad

Scoble: I saw a great quote in CloudAve today about "follow the people who are changing the world, not milking fake cows". Facebook is one of those places where I have quite a few "real life" friends that....well....aren't changing the world. And I'm OK with that, I think FB was designed to "have fun with Friends" more than many social apps. I also don't think I need to create two... more... - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

MaryB, I just copied and pasted from Kevin Fox's comment. :) Originally, I just posted "FF > FB" and then Kevin Fox made his comment, so I updated my post accordingly. - April Buchheit

Right - FB is just a place to catch up with old friends who aren't really tech savvy. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's like Sun City here in AZ. I go to visit my in-laws there, and I'm glad it's there, but I'm not gonna go hang out with that crowd (old, retired folks) all the time. - Tad

manielse: true. But this is one reason why many people tell me they like Twitter better than FriendFeed: they can control who gets on their screen. Here you really can't. I can show up in almost anyone's threads, which reduces utility for them. That's not true over on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

On Twitter, it would have been nigh impossible to have a conversation this rich. It'd degenerate into a lot of u's and 2's and 4's, etc. Twitter has a lot of smart content, but it's in short bursts. - Tad

That's the magic of FF Tad, it's a hybrid of the tools of today (Twitter, FB) and some we don't talk about any more (IRC, Usenet, Bulletin Boards) that allowed better engagement with a fully public audience. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Robert, you can't control who gets on your Home feed - which is exactly the charm of FF, I think, and I hear a lot of people talk about the serendipity of friends of friends, so I think I'm not alone in that. But I also have heard you talk about collaboration rooms, and Tina about lists, which suggests to me that if we're willing to apply a little elbow grease, we can get pretty specific about who we see and who we don't. So I think that's a bit of a copout for the folks who say they prefer Twitter. - MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF

Mary: it's the charm but also what kept FriendFeed from really going mainstream. I heard that over and over and over again. - Robert Scoble

Tad: Twitter is a great way to tell your audience to go someplace. Lots of URLs there. So, what is wrong with bringing your Twitter audience over here when you specifically want a chat? That's what I do. - Robert Scoble

The main feed in FB vs in FF is a great point Mary. I use Greasemonkey script Facebook Purity to clean the fake cow\quiz junk btw, a great script! - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

You know how I know FB's better? There's more babby shares. :) - sofarsoShawn

There's nothing wrong with that Robert. I like Twitter for the most part. I just don't like FaceBook, and unless I see a compelling reason to use it a lot, I won't. - Tad

Best. Post. Ever. Thanks April. (Why do the women always have the sense in the family?) - Martha

You can see all of your email settings at http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Bret Taylor

37 more comments

Thanks Bret! :) - Matt Ruiz

Thanks to Kevin for doing a great design for what turned out to be a more complex set of UI options than we had originally anticipated, and thanks to Tudor for implementing the email backend. - Bret Taylor

Great! Thanks! Love FF! - Scott Monaco

I now get the FriendFeed Feedback posts as a Best of Day email so it doesn't fill up my feed, but I don't miss feedback. I also set up a "Best of Day" email for my "Technology people" friend list so I get a pretty good overview of tech news every day via email. - Bret Taylor

This is a really cool idea Bret, I wish you can make that an RSS feed option as well. I'd be much more likely to read summaries in RSS than in email. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Neat feature, but it's more focus on big shiney new features, while ignoring the glaring issues in need of polish in the site we currently have. - Matthew DeVries

Mark: http://friendfeed.com/bret... - Casey Muller

Very cool. I like how you give us the OPTION rather than sending a daily/weekly digest like other sites *cough* LinkedIn/Facebook *cough* - Johnny

Lovely. Thanks guys. - Mitchell Tsai

Casey: Thanks for the tip. What's the 7 before the "?" mean in the URL? The number of likes or replies needed to be included? - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

this is killer, the random influx of email during the day was kinda getting fail-ish. I love the daily digest. - Drew Lucas

Very cool! Any way to get archives of previous months? (especially helpful for those of us who leave the internet for weeks at a time...) - Mitchell Tsai

WOW. that's really helpful！ - K.D.

Looks like a great addition for those who are not embedded on the site. Nice intro. - Louis Gray

Cool! - Josh Haley

Just curious - at what time of the day will we get these emails ? Midnight US-Time, or will it respect our timezones ? - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Ahsan: it is somewhat random right now when the emails are sent, but we built in the backend capability to control what time they are sent, and we plan on exposing that control to users in the future. Right now, it is kind of random - sorry! - Bret Taylor

Thanks Bret - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Cool! can i get a daily or weekly email digest for the "Saved searches"? - 0M0M from email

Cool - Nimaa

This will be incredibly useful. Thanks to all involved in the design and execution. - Kathy Fitch

Nice addition! - Michael Fidler

But what exactly is "Best"? Is it anything that has a certain number of likes/comments? - Laura Norvig

@Bret LOL THAT WAS MY PROJECT! I will release it tomorrow. But you've also did it and killed my friendfeed application **sigh** But mine has multi-reporting weekly-daily-monthly at the same time and adjustable entry count! - Alp

@Bret please consolidate me or I won't code new apps with you api! :-) - Alp

Alp: we were not trying to withhold data. Later today the documentation will be updated to reflect the ability to obtain "Best of" for users. The feed id will be USERNAME/summary/N (similar to "Best of" for lists) - Benjamin Golub

Hi Ben, that is pretty funny, I tried that URL earlier today to see if it has been secretly released :) - Paul Kinlan

Bret: While Twitter struggle to keep their fail whale under control, you guys are developing stuff like this. Amazing - Thanks! - Jim Connolly

awesome feature, this will be highly useful for my corporate group ideas / content sharing; projects, etc.... THANK YOU :) - Susan Beebe

Great work. I especially like that it works on lists too. - Meryn Stol

my inbox might say different, but I like that :-) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Wow, this is really neat! And it links into the idea I expressed earlier, re: reducing signup friction / enabling limited guest privileges. Imagine if I could embed one of my FF rooms on my personal web site, and enable people to subscribe to that feed by e-mail with just a couple of clicks... rather than saying "you can get e-mail notifications but you have to sign up for Friendfeed first." "sign up" -- though admirably lightweight on FF -- is still a huge barrier. - Adam Lasnik

Love it. - Zachary TG

is there a love button cause I dont like this option I LOVE this option..great work guys - (jeff)isageek

Three options I would like (1) Can I select "top 100" instead of "top 30"? (2) Could I select both "best of day" and "best of week"? (3) How about older timeperiods? I'd love to get an e-mail with stuff from last week or Mar 2009? Start & end dates? Anything to help me read FriendFeed off-line would be great since I spend long periods off-line at festivals (especially during summer time) or overseas. - Awesome job guys! - Mitchell Tsai

Great way to keep up with those you're most interested in; things you don't want to miss. - Diego Barros 

So this works on groups too, cool! But we still cannot see Best of for groups on the site on friends lists. :-( I have several friends lists that include just groups and when I select to view the best of the page it's empty (even though if I got to the individual best of for those groups there are entries there). - Kol Tregaskes

does anyone know of a web service that can do this? (I'm thinking weekly email updates of my favorite feeds/people) I don't think there's anything like friendfeed .. - Francisco

I resent this to test out FriendFeed's email feature. - Robert Scoble from email

41 more comments

This was a brochure for college students back in 1992 that advertised the Mac IIci and one of the first PowerBooks. Yes, I used to be an Apple shill! :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

awesome! thanks for sharing LOL - Susan Beebe

My son was amazed. He didn't know about it. But then he was born in 1994. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Lol, that's awesome Scoble... - Colin

you look like you were about 12 .... - angela penny

haha easy to upgrade mac's. oh how times have changed, not that i'm complaining. - Yaniel Cantelar

nothing comes between you and your calvins, er, i mean macintosh. - Greg Verdino

Angela: it was when I was in college. 17 years ago. Yikes. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

That's really fun! You've lived an interesting life - Andrew

that's pretty awful rob. As Bender would say: "You come a long way, baby" - Mark

I like how you cited your reason for buying a Mac as being "expandable". My, how times have changed. - Hunt

LOL. you look too young, not 17:)) - Oğuz Serdar

WOW! That's hilarious! What a cool thing to have. - James Hull

Ah. 1992. I would love to go back in time to 1992 with a Macbook Pro or something, and show you some tech from the future and then take it off you and bugger off back to the future. - Mark

You were a girl in 1992? Oh wait - you mean you were the guy on the LEFT! :) :) - Lee Drake

Lee, I was thinking the same thing. :) - Jimminy Fuller

Tiger Beat pose FTW - Jay Cuthrell

Prasoon: Microsoft made the best Macintosh software back then. I worked at Microsoft from 2003-2006. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I was an Apple fanboi long before I was a Microsoft one. Funny that in 1993 I started switching to Windows. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

look at you robert! cool stuff. - sean percival

lovely (and it doesn't look as if so many years have passed by the way) - sofiagk

I rotated it for you. http://images.scripting.com/archive... - Dave Winer

1 sexy pose - polou/indigo_bow

Hmm....Hey RObert....I still have a photo of you in the Norseman that I'm sure will get a bigger reaction than this one! Think graba$$. - Nick

Nick: those photos would be quite amusing! (Nick was on newspaper staff when we attended community college together). - Robert Scoble from iPhone

OMG how cool is that? - BEX

Not cool at all really.... - Joe

My son thinks it is cool. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

You never know what the future will bring... - Seth Eagelfeld

Woz and I talked later about the Mac IIcx's. They were so easy to upgrade. I miss that era of computers. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I remember attending Apple's IIci announcement at the Universal Ampitheater in October 1990? Later in the day I met with Guy Kawasaki and discussed his ideas for a board game. I ordered a IIci on the developer's discount at just over $4600. I still have it and the copy of the check I used to pay for it. - Mike Shulman

nice picture Robert! - Jeremiah Owyang

Barbara Kruger style ... - Onur Gündüz

Like the ad. I was testing FF email feature yesterday. Did you send from your phone or desktop? - Nakeva Corothers

Interesting how Apple has always worked so hard going after the college/university student market, especially in the context of the way they dominate sales of computers over the $1000 mark now. It's not only targeting young minds, it's also targeting young minds that are disproportionately likely to be wealthier than average in their careers and invest in themselves. - Jed White

This is great. I love the come-hither pose. - Mike Doeff from iPhone

WOW! 4-8MB is standard... - Joe

Michael Dell started his company in his collage dorm room - paul mooney

Ok, you asked for it. I am going to scan them in and post them somewhere harmful! lol. - Nick

Just remember Nick I have a few of you too! :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Almost the same.. almost :) http://www.businesspundit.com/wp-cont... - Diego Barros 

Cute! - Kathy Fitch

Taken via iPhone a few nights ago - Justin Korn from email

8 more comments

A trip through Lightroom would do it the world of good :) - Roberto Bonini

I haven't taken it off of my iphone yet, but once I do, I'll be sure to touch it up. - Justin Korn from IM

Don't get me wrong, its a great pic. - Roberto Bonini

didn't take it wrong at all :) Funny, I was even debating about posting it before getting it off my iPhone or waiting to post process... - Justin Korn from IM

oh, and thanks! :) - Justin Korn from IM

Post the after, please! It's a beautiful picture as is, I'd love to see it improved from a photographer's eye. - Jess

I second Jess :) - Roberto Bonini

Jess - You bet! :) - Justin Korn from IM

Here you all go: http://friendfeed.com/justink... - Justin Korn

You don't get me. - Kevin Fox

5 more comments

:-( - Mark Trapp

I get how people could get ND, but I'm just not one of them. I also don't like the Daily Show interview segments where they try to make the interviewee look uncomfortable and/or stupid. - Kevin Fox

That I can agree with. I spend my time trying to figure out where they edited it and in what order the clips were really taken, which just drains the entertainment value from them. Napoleon Dynamite, on the other hand, is just pure, unadulterated, absurdist humor. - Mark Trapp

You don't even know. - Akiva Moskovitz

I get it, I just don't find it funny... and that's ok. - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

The only funny thing about Napolean Dynamite is quoting it later with friends. - Clare Dibble

CONTENTS: One (1) dehydrated cat. WARNING: Contents may expand unexpectedly if exposed to water. - Scott of Two Countries from Bookmarklet

2 more comments

Awwe! That's both cute and cruel! - Matt Ruiz

Hmm, I see a line of cat storage options with this - Mo Kargas

Just add LOL - Josh Haley

Real creative angle - nice shot. - Blake Caldwell

11 more comments

yeah - 2ndmoon©

great shot, unreal - Geer

Amazing shot TH. Loverly! - Chris Nixon

Not to be repetitive, but that's amazing! - Michael Fidler

thanks all. it was such an amazing work of art to shoot and a sculpture which answers the question as to why God created the 14mm ultra wide lens. - Thomas Hawk

This must be saved in DMU, it's fan-f*****g-tastic! - Rene Wirtz

heh, DMU saved it. Barely though. - Thomas Hawk

Good, but still too many deletes for my taste. This is the reason why I unjoined DMU and have not responded to your invite yet: I see to many deletes for completely illogical reasons by photographers who can't make a good shot if they tried. Meh ... - Rene Wirtz

Haha, yeH dmu can be a bit critical most of the time. A good albiet harsh and crass group of photographers - Thomas Hawk from iPhone

I don't mind criticism, at all, but quite a lot of what I see is nothing but misplaced arrogance, or envy, or just being randomly contra, and not constructive at all. - Rene Wirtz

that is an amazing shot - Lorenz Sell

Awsome! - Mark Williamson from BuddyFeed

"But in Gmail, labels were stuck in a box below Chat — almost like we were telling people, "you don't want to use these." In testing, we discovered that it worked best to remove the terminology altogether and just place custom labels right under the system labels (e.g. "Inbox")" - Keith Coleman from Bookmarklet

Sweet. - Paul Buchheit

I don't have it yet though. - Paul Buchheit

Keith, dude, this blog post is too long. I can't figure out what changes you've made (complicated by the fact that I don't have the feature yet)! - Ana

It is seriously wordy. I think the new feature is that they added a red line to the graph ;) - Paul Buchheit

Maybe they A-B tested "label" vs. "move to" and move is about to win Thunderdome style - Daniel J. Pritchett

Here's the "what's new" post: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009... The link I posted above is to Michael Leggett's overview of how we got from original Gmail labels to today's labels. It includes the interim changes that we launched a while ago. - Keith Coleman

I'm glad that the settings let me hide them all, even Spam :) - Sam Grover

Great information. Good use of Friend Feed. - Bob DeMarco

I like the changes. It makes adding labels a lot easier. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

This is my 25,552nd comment. - Robert Scoble

14 more comments

Huge (Hulk) numbers. - Oğuz Serdar

Oguz: yeah, all these numbers I got to faster than on any other service. I just like numbers that are the same forward and backward. Makes me feel like today will be a special day. - Robert Scoble

you have at least one comment on each person you subscribe to :) - Orli Yakuel

Friendfeed is by far the best social media experience I've had, period. - Jason Nunnelley

Friendfeed might be ahead of its time. But this is how conversation should feels like in real time. I sometime amazed by the way it goes live on my screen. - Orli Yakuel

Palindromes abound! - Chris Heath

I like friendfeed but I notice there are a lot of people I follow who don't actually use it. Their tweets will appear, comments might be made by others but the person making the post never shows up to the party. - ChiliMac

ChiliMac: I use it at work when I can't install a Twitter client due to administrative issues with our PC's. - John Fox

ChiliMac, most of my FF subscribers are reading Twitter or Facebook more. It's a culture thing. Twitter's been making their move into the mainstream for years. FF is still young at it, and a tad nerdy. If you don't know what it means to import a feed from another source, or don't have a clue what the RSS button means, it's going to be a bit off putting to start off in FF. And, there's no replies column or reply button. - Jason Nunnelley

OK, I'll really be freaked if one of those sequences wins the Pick Six at Hollywood Park today, but what's the important number here, if I'm playing the numerologist, 2 or 5? - Stephen Pickering

you r very engaged with your readers and subscribers. Wow friendfeed does help me increase people count. to engage conversation, that takes interesting topics. - polou/indigo_bow

OMG, I just realized it was the 25th - Stephen Pickering

My subscriber base went from a few a week to over a dozen each day - sometimes 40 / 50 a day. - Jim Connolly

Just checked and I've got over 1400 subscribers now. Of course, I have almost 20k on Twitter. Twitter's still where the people are. - Jim Connolly

Yep. FriendFeed will soon be huge and the MSM will have a new pet to talk about, or whine about. - Adam

"The 22-year-old student at the University of Central Lancashire spray painted a battered Skoda Fabia to match the car park and entrance to her art studio. Her work, created as part of her drawing and image making course at the university, creates the illusion that the car is see through." - Zee. from Bookmarklet

16 more comments

Cool! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

smart girl - Matthew

But it's probably as difficult to take a picture like this, because you would need to find out the exact angle. But it looks great! - Oliver Bouchard

Probably the location to take the photograph from was provided by the artist -- I think she would have had to carefully determine that before starting the project. - Brian Sullivan

Is it me...or can i still see the car? - Nicholas James

That's pretty cool I'd like to see what it would look like in person. - *Tiffany Diamond*

http://www.citrano.com/pix... - Anthony Citrano

Well, here's a practical application of Intermediate Algebra. - Melanie Reed

She created an "invisible" car. From a certain point of view... - CAJ, somewhere else

but then everything seen is seen from a certain point of view - David HC Soul

In this case, I'm being literal. :) (Plus had Jandy's most quotable movie post going through my head.) - CAJ, somewhere else

And I'd just closed "Zen and the Brain" that I'd been reading to take a break here ;) .... Context doesn't affect matters much would you say? - David HC Soul

David, no doubt! - CAJ, somewhere else

it would be really cool if car could take the color of the surroundings dynamically! - chirag

thats why geeks are super people :) I imagined that too ;) Chirag, if we can achieve that, its invisible cloak ! - Alemsah Ozturk

wow that's amazing! - Michael

Yea Michael the car is not so bad either. - Tony C (Unrated)

Congrats to the team at FriendFeed... Well done :D - Johnny Worthington

71 more comments

there was a 30 minute ish failwhale during beta. heh :) - mjc

I jumped the gun, but here's my fanboi anthem... https://friendfeed.com/logical... - LogEx

Great job FriendFeed, keep up the hard work! - Jay Neff

Congratulations FriendFeed, you guys rock! - Alfredo

Congratulations and Thanks for providing a great service. - Eric Logan

Even without icons, it is my place where I dwell. Kudos, FF team. Big ups to all of y'all. - Derrick

Derrick, are you using Firefox? If so, go grab the Greasmonkey script: FriendFeed Service Icons - Justin Korn

Justin, I am...but that sounds like work. I don't know how to go to there. :( NOT TECHY --> - Derrick

FriendFeed team, I down this can of Yuengling Lager in your honor. Great work! - Mark Traphagen

BRAVO! - BEX

well done - Ryan Dadey

Love it, fantastic work FF team! - Janice from fftogo

Nice thought Johnny, i'm thankful on a daily basis... IMO FF's the best of the web for 2008/9 - Majento

Thanks! - Paul Buchheit

FriendFeed Rocks. - Nicholas James

Congrats guys! i for one LOVE the new interface. Kudos! - Drew Lucas

+1 JW! CONGRATS FF TEAM! Awesome work! - .LAG liked that

I have no clue how ya do what ya do but thanks. - Steve C

thank you friend feed team, this is the place i've waited for so long to be :) - chaz2b

<3 - Josh Haley

Hoorah! - Ron Bailey

Well done. - Victor Panlilio

Well done. - Patrick Jordan from BuddyFeed

*golf clap* - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Kudos to the FF team! :) - AJ Batac

Like a sweet ball in football (soccer) - we say "well played!!!" - Amani

Props to everyone on the FriendFeed team! - Aaron Draczynski

From the announcement thread, it was a good start. And on this, thanks again, appreciate the efforts. Keep the engine running like that and you'll be kings. - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

Thanks for all ff team - Murat Buyurgan

Yay, FF team! - Anne Bouey

respect! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

GO Team FF, GO! Keep it open, keep it rock solid, and forge ahead on everything else. - Micah Wittman

Seriously great work peeps - well done! - Andy Bold

Goes Without Saying. - ianf ⌘

Piling on with my congratulations! - Chris Aldrich

Congrats for a smooth, sexy transition. - Will Higgins™

Well done, FF team! The reason I'm back on the FF bandwagon is the beta and now, the new site. - Larry Hudson

Well done guys. Thanks a bunch. - Roberto Bonini

Overall great job! (the one <big> stumble with iPhone feed, and the disappointing decision to drop source icons not withstanding, the progress being made is quite remarkable....) - David HC Soul

+1 on the congrats. Friendfeed is nothing if not absolutely reliable. Good job :) - LANjackal

Respect! - Meryn Stol

A big congralutaions goes to the FriendFeed team, loving the new version of the service! Thank you. I have even less of a life now than I did before. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

You know, I never thought of it like that-they never go down. True indeed! - Benin Brown

Great job FF team. Great example of getting new features out with little fanfare. - Lyndon Washington

Just a big *thanks* for all the good time i spend here instead of doing useless things on the internet - Stanislas Jourdan

Thank you Friendfeed! - Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty

Yes it does and it is good for you to point that out, I know they worked hard on the upgrade, so thanks FF folks - if you are in Seattle I'll buy you a cup of coffee. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

"with not one hint of a Fail Whale" - I posted that on Twitter recently. - George Dearing

Posted one over here: http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

And What I was most impressed about is the Show of Force from the FriendFeed team when the actual rollout came online. Other services don't have staff that actually use their product. FreindFeed is great in that respect. :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

FF scales very well. They are ex-Googlers so they've built FF on very solid foundations. Well, that's what I would like to think - Ade from Nambu

thats, true, good point. Congrats FF'ers! - Peter Efland

there were numerous congrat threads johnny - here's one example http://friendfeed.com/friendf... - mike "glemak" dunn

Congrats! - Jeremiah Owyang

I salute you Sirs. - Thomas Bøhm

CONGRATULATIONS, FF Team. - tehKenny, Dork

I miss old UI but congrats anyway. You're awesome. - Onur Gündüz

Almost on cue reading this, I have got two jpeg logos from other posts floating along the page into this one. - Patrick Boegel

Congratulations Friendfeed team. You really made a great job! - Diego Espinoza V.

Congrats! - Rick Cogley

Well done, friendfeed! Congrats! - Rosemary Sorg

I will 64th that... great job. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Love you guys! FF rocks! - David Cook

yay yay!!!! - Hel Hel

Congrats are definitely in order. It's one of the fastest loading, smoothest running apps on the Web. - Mike Elliott

Congrats for an awesome product. - Brandon Mendelson

I am back! This is great! Thank you - Valerie

What a great social media platform. Well done FriendFeed team! - F. Jay Hall

This is a great idea. Congrats on the upgrade and hoping it doesn't stop here :) - Jason Williams

++++ so funny -i was just thinking today "i wonder what twitter would be like if the FriendFeed team was running it" no offense meant to the twitter team who are obviously smart and talented as well but as johnny pointed out the diff is hard to miss - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Congrats to the FriendFeed team. Great job! After the UI change I find myself using FriendFeed more and more each day. - Cristian

thanks for continuing to advance friendfeed in new and interesting directions - Mike Chelen

I tried this the other day. Not a fan. - Derrick

I like grilled chicken, but when I go to kFc...it's gotta be fried - Josh Haley

If I want grilled chicken, I'll go to Harvey's - Shey, Jamaican of FF

I'm lucky enough to have El Pollo Loco here in LA, or roast it up myself (Zuni Cafe style...google for the recipe). It looked like they jammed some chicken in a panini press. :( - Derrick

doesn't seem right.... - Live4Emma (L4S)

Nope. - Michelle Martinez

I want to hear why you are not a fan, Derrick. Be more specific, or I may have to buy some myself. - Louis Gray

Popeye's or NOTHING. - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Do they spraypaint the grill marks on there? - Michael W. May

The "grill" lines are a major turn off and yes, if I wanted grilled chicken, there are hundreds of places in LA to get some. - Admiral Anika

Many, many years back they had a "roasted" version that was pretty decent. I don't have KFC often but when I do, it's gotta be original recipie. - Jim Espinoza

All I can say is 'What the 'F'???' - as in What does the 'F' in KFC mean dammit! Now go get some breadcrumbs and a batch the special herbs and spices! Meet me at the fryer in 3 minutes! Don't be late dammit! I'll get Johnny set up on the fryer....HEY! JOHNNY?!!! Where is that slacker anyway??? - Morgan Haley

Kfc has not been good for a long time - each store is like a totally different business and only a few of them make quality stuff. The ones by my house are constantly out of things they are a joke! - Kelly Johns

http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

117 more comments

That page aggregates all posts/tweets etc together that have anything to do with the Dream Machines show yesterday. How was that page built? Friendfeed's search engine and adding the term "dreammachines09" into the comments somewhere. - Robert Scoble

Now that we have this really killer live search engine we don't need hash tags anymore. At least not here on friendfeed. Over on systems that have no metadata you've gotta do lame things like take some of your 140 characters to post #dreammachines09 or something like that. - Robert Scoble

Inclusion of cryptic information in band though seems like a lame solution(both in FF and Twitter)-- some sort of meta data solution would be better. - Brian Sullivan

Brian: the neat thing is that as a friendfeed item gets more comments it gets more searchable. For instance, you can search for the words "cryptic information" and find this item now. - Robert Scoble

I heartily disagree: http://re-searchr.blogspot.com/2009... - James Ostheimer

Agreed Robert. I am actually building twitter apps and experimenting using Friendfeed to power the more advanced content pulls. - David Bisset

Wait, your argument is that we don't need hashtags because you can add hashtags via comments? (Sure, without hash marks, we'll have to call them wikitags, or just WordsStuckTogether) - Joel Bennett

James: I did just that with the dreammachines09 word inclusion. The thing is I didn't need to include that in the top-level item and I didn't need to steal any of my precious 140 characters to do it. - Robert Scoble

are you talking simply about the actual hash mark? (#) - Kenley Neufeld

Hashtags are still the best way to participate in a Twitter chat convo like #journchat or #blogchat. Probably why you're better off on Friendfeed, Robert... ;-) - Danny Brown

Joel: I call it metadata. Kenley: no. For Twitter to find your Tweet you need to actually include that word INSIDE your Tweet. I don't need to do that. For instance, if I want to find this item under "foobartweets" I just include that word OUTSIDE my original item as a comment. - Robert Scoble

Danny: that is really lame. Over here we get live chat that you can only dream about in Twitter. Here, join the live chat on this item here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... new comments will flow into your screen as they are posted. - Robert Scoble

I've said this since day one. Hash tags are almost 99% useless. no need for the hash! - Jamie

Danny so they are used like a communally defined room on Twitter? This agrees with the simple wins meme. - Todd Hoff

maybe I'm confused. If you run a search on Twitter, you get the results whether you hashtag or not. You have to use a distinct term so people have something to search (as you did with dreammachines09), but it still shows the results. Is this somehow different? - shaun mclane

Here's the search for foobartweets: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... this item was indexed in a few seconds, really amazing technology here. - Robert Scoble

hashtags work well as a way to FLAG or bring attention to a particular topic but searchwise, I never understood why adding a # made any difference. - Andy Sternberg

Dont think this is legit argument to eliminate any need for hastags. They are still great user generated filters. - Cody Heitschmidt

but wouldn't a "standard" mark be helpful for being able to find specific information that's referenced by common words. For example a common search I use on twitter is for #jobs so that I don't get all kind of tweets unrelated to job postings. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Hashtags are metadata, and are useful, a tweet with a link and a hashtag is a delicious entry, so is delicious not useful anymore? - James Ostheimer

Shaun: right, but what if your original tweet doesn't have a good way to include that word in it? Or, what if you are out of characters? - Robert Scoble

Computers are fast enough that they don't need hashtags but for humans it's different. When I'm scanning Tweets I find the hashtags useful as they draw my eye to the keyword. For human readability the hash character is the equivalent of bolding or underlining a word. - Troy Forster

I also like that you don't *actually* have to conform to a 140 character limit on Friendfeed. Certain conversations, like this one, lend themselves to having longer messages. I don't buy the argument that Twitter makes people better writers... - Tim McDougall

and unfortunately it appears that FF filters out the # mark - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert: got it. Term can appear anywhere in the comments (and one time is enough). - Kenley Neufeld

Demonstration why they're still needed: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... Sadly, it doesn't work because keywords are only as good as the posts they are in. FriendFeed could still benefit from community generated tagging of content (by author or by readers) - Kevin Kuphal

Troy: so you can still use hashtags here too if you like them for visual purposes. #stupidhashtags - Robert Scoble

Troy: but here note that now you can search on stupidhashtags, but I didn't need to include that item in the original Tweet. - Robert Scoble

I think it is still needed. - Alp

Robert...I think we're saying the same thing here. Except now I think this is more a Twitter VS FF argument. If you run out of characters, you can't add a hashtag OR the togetherwords. The actual # symbol only accounts for one character. Maybe I need to re-read this. - shaun mclane

I've posed my above question a few times, and still it's not really been addressed - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Seems more of a side-effect of the commenting engine on FF rather than anything to do with hashtags themselves. Twitters lack of context makes this an impossibility for them - Kevin Kuphal

the lack of need for hash tags is truly only as good as the posted data. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Of course, wouldn't it be nice if we could markup tweets, FF, etc posts to use bold and underline. I'd prefer that over YAMS (Yet Another Markup Syntax) - Troy Forster from twhirl

Rob: which question, the one about needing a standard mark? I disagree. Everyone who saw my dreammachines09 knows what I was doing. Does including a hash like #dreammachines09 make it better? OK, up to you. - Robert Scoble

tell me how to search on "jobs" and not come up with steve jobs then - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Troy: I wish I could import photos and videos into comments too. Flickr, for instance, lets you do that and I really like it. - Robert Scoble

I tend to agree with guruvan, in the value of elevating benign words above their typical use in conversation. I wish twitter search didn't ignore hashtags. - Derek Shanahan

Rob: learn to use the friendfeed search engine. You can remove all items that mention "steve" for instance. Here is how you do that: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

it's not an arguement against intelligent posteds like yourself robert, just an observation that a standard mark is a simple way to distinguish common words...."dreammachines09" is not exactly a "common word" - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Or, Rob, pick a set of words that indicate employment too. You can do "AND" searches on friendfeed, for instance, so here's a search that includes all items that include the words "jobs" AND "employment." http://beta.friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

wouldn't things like hashtags still be of some use as a low-load search mechanism? I mean full text search is far more expensive to run - whereas hashtags would be something the system can pre-index, hence making a search that is far lighter. And once you multiply by millions of users, it can matter - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

but there's a zillion things I don't want to come up with on common terms -startup is another prime example...I don't want to have to list a ton of "- word" to get just what I want. the # makes it simple to get just what I was looking for - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

A hashtag without a hashmark, in the comments ... is still a hashtag. Yes, it WOULD BE FAR BETTER hashtag because other people can add it, and it doesn't take up space ... except that your search is VERY NON-INTUITIVE. You're really just proposing a new way of marking things (which NOBODY ELSE is using yet), Maybe instead, you should ask FriendFeed to just natively support keyword TAGS as additional metadata. THAT would actually be way better, instead of just different. - Joel Bennett

sean mcbride in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.... ;) - alphaxion

Joelle: we get full text search here automatically and it's quite well done. See my first comment for a demonstration. - Robert Scoble

And I do know how to use the search here at friendfeed....this is how I know what some of the limits are - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Joel: no, it's not a hashtag. - Robert Scoble

Because they don't work everywhere - Outsanity

robert, posters are lazy, and "jobs AND employment" took too many characters on twitter, and so it wasn't posted like that - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Well, a hashtag is not required because you can just create a room for that #topic and cross-post to it. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

while the hashtag might not be necessary, it is useful in some circumstances. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I can tell it's well done, i was just wondering about the impact of thousands of people having multiple live search and filters - but clearly if it can cope all the better. That leaves hashtags as a mechanism to create special labels for memes - not for the machine anymore, but for people to know what to use should they play along a meme - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

That's two extra steps Ahsan. - Todd Hoff

find out how many terms you have to exclude on the search term "startup" to just get posts about startup businesses (and not starting up your computer) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert: Don't you think that your search could easily get cluttered? What if a user started adding 'dreammachine09' to random unrelated posts? I agree that Friendfeed's search is much better than other sites, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. - Tim McDougall

Rob: well, then, just remove anything to do with Steve and Apple, but I agree that it'd be nice for friendfeed to search on the hashcharacter as well. Funny, it seems that friendfeed turns a Tweet with #jobs in it to a hotlink to the Twitter search engine. Almost like admitting that doing hashtags is better over on Twitter's search. - Robert Scoble

If I'm not wrong, hashtags were introduced on twitter because it was difficult to organize posts around a certain topic. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Ironic because @twleung just declared that he likes #hashtags. Key point w're often missing is the end-user experience: it's easier for many to use #ht in their simple desktop client rather than having to setup a search engine query. In (related) news: https://shane.curcuru.name/blog... - Shane Curcuru

and then on the same startup search, find me a term that is ALWASYS posted along with it to indicate startup businesses - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Tim: if someone started doing that they would break the social contract here and would earn blocks from people and, if they were doing it on my items, would get their comments deleted. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Maybe I don't have the right picture of how this works. Are you saying that if you block someone, then I won't see their comments under this post? - Tim McDougall

@Todd, ok I admit only people creating a topic would want to do that. (like on tinker.com) - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Seems that this "social contract" could also be used by incorporating tags into FF so that users could tag posts with various categories, etc making the search more valuable by searching on those tags rather than taking a whack at full text. I'm sure some nifty ajax could even suggest categories/tags like eBay does when posting an item for sale to jumpstart it for each post. - Kevin Kuphal

In most cases, you're absolutely correct Robert. If the poster is smart enought to make up a common search term that can be used to find the data then you're correct. But how is that really any different than having a standard mechanism like the hashtag to find the data? how is "dreammachines09" really any different than "#startup" to find specific data? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

guruvan: I already demonstrated how it's different. For one, it isn't needed inside the originating item. For instance, I can put #stupidhashtags or stupidhashtags inside the comments here so that this item shows up on a search for stuidhashtags. No need to waste my 140 characters above to make sure my item is searchable or included in some weird conference hash tag. - Robert Scoble

2.. 1.. we have lift-off! :) James Ostheimer+ semantic metadata are more needed now than ever. I get the impression that linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and natural language processing are not fields that have captured Robert's attention with much force. :) - Sean McBride

Also, a lot of times people can't figure out what the hash tag is before they start to post. When I was posting/tweeting from the Under the Radar conference last Friday I had no idea what the hash tag was. But by the end of the day I figured it out. So, it sure would be nice to be able to go back and add the #utr tag to everything. But on Twitter that's impossible. Here? Just add it like I just did. Of course that introduces noise to under the radar searches, but oh well, just remove Scoble. :-) - Robert Scoble

hashtags are probably used for things that could be better done on FF, and this scrolling comment feed is a good example of a way to 'find' a conversation, which is one of the uses hashtags has served users (#journchat). i still believe that hashtags can elevate mundane words into a highlighted conversation that you can go grab, and in many cases a hashtag will enlighten you to that conversation, which you otherwise wouldn't have known to look for. - Derek Shanahan

Sean: no. Because normal human beings will never learn any of that. We did learn how to use Google. :-) - Robert Scoble

you didn't demonstrate that it's really different. You simply substituted one extra long term for the hashtag. On specifically made up searchable terms like "stupidhashtag" it's obviously not necessary, but on more common terms where I might wish to include or exclude all the possibles like "startup vs. #startup" it's still a useful mechanism. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: I agree there. - Robert Scoble

agree it's different:You can add it outside the content, and *I* can add it to *your* posts. But better? Not really. #hashtags advertise their presence for a reason: because only by doing so will others follow along and tag their posts the same way so you can follow a thread of commonality. - Joel Bennett

I wish the friendfeed search engine would let me also include the hash. Then we'd both win. - Robert Scoble

Agreed :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I wish they'd support tags as separate metadata and allow the crowd to add to it. Then we'd have something to dance about ;) - Joel Bennett

There is nothing really different here -- only that the tags can be added after the fact. - Brian Sullivan

Joel: and that system totally sucks. How many people figure out what the hash tag is for a conference by the beginning of the conference, for instance. Not many. Even yesterday we had to figure out what the official tag was for dream machines. We talked with the head of PR for the event. He didn't know. So we had to agree on our own. Are we catching everything? Probably, because friendfeed's search engine is so good (and so is Twitter's, by the way). Humans are good at figuring this stuff out. - Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble: what would be the easiest way to say that a post is PRO Barack Obama or ANTI Barack Obama? Or that someone LIKES Britney Spears or DISLIKES Britney Spears? How can one perform sentiment mining on Friendfeed posts? Think, Robert, think.... The truth is, most of the basic semantic data locked in Friendfeed posts is still unminable and unusable. - Sean McBride

And it doesn't have to be a hashtag (but people are used to it) ....It could be any agreed upon mechanism....we could all agree right here that from her on out on FriendFeed a ^TAG would be a searchable meachanism (and then the hashtag would still go to twitter search) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Brian: and I can add a lot more tags to this item than you can to any Tweet so this will be much more searchable. - Robert Scoble

Sean: for negative sentiment you search for words like "hate" "sucks" etc. For positive search for "love" "great" "awesome." Etc. I can remove posts with either sentiment pretty easily here. - Robert Scoble

That point is very true Robert - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

interesting read - polou/indigo_bow

Well since the tweet is only 140 characters, is stand alone and the tag is in band that falls out naturally. - Brian Sullivan

It's much easier to find data on FriendFeed, but that's primarily because of grouped conversations and the availability of more characters per message - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

What we need is the ability to embed widgets into the stream so there can be some form of custom structure. All these methods are informal ways of adding structure to free form text. - Todd Hoff

they are totally not needed, but they are FUN #givescoblemoretequilla - Erin @queenofspain

#agreewitherin #takeanothershot - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert -- I think you are missing the point: most people don't know how to use HTML, but HTML is still enormously valuable. Semantic markup will provide much more leverage over documents than HTML. Only a small percentage of the human population needs to use semantic markup to elevate it into a powerful tool that benefits everyone. - Sean McBride

while we're at it, let's ask for #underscores_in_hashtags ;) - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Robert: that method of sentiment mining is crude, imprecise and weak, and misses or misinterprets the majority of sentiment expressions. - Sean McBride

#ok_ahsan_you're_on_I'll_ask_Paul_and_Bret_myself_lol - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

#hey_my_hashtag_is_longer_than_yours_longer_than_yours - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Sean: that depends on how thorough the searcher is - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Ahsan: you win...i concede ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Seriously though, instead of hashtags, FF can just provide simple comma-separated tags with a post - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

@Robert RE: @Joel. Community tagging would solve the "conference tag" problem quickly. Sure, at first tags may be misapplied as people settle on what it should be but rather quickly they will converge and the community can fix itself and all those mis-tagged items become properly tagged. - Kevin Kuphal

Sean: I can make up a few examples of where that type of minig is imprecise, and misinterprets data, but those case are probably extremely rare in real world situations - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

@Robert - thanks for noticing that lame is my middle name, many people don't. - Danny Brown

Ahsan: yes if the tags are metadata not part of the actual post, then that works...but if we want to use terms in the post as tags, then a marker character can sometimes be necessary or useful - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I would prefer the "out-of-band" tags method myself - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Nah, #we@really//need.namespace.support:in-hashtags?right But a key difference is if (any) system intelligently supports some real metadata, or simply gives you text. Raw searching is improving, but real metadata will add a ton of extra meaning - and someday, it'll be easy to unlock. - Shane Curcuru

If FF really wants to take meta-data to the next level, give us proper tags (external to the post). Otherwise, people will just start using hashtags, like they did on Twitter. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

A sentiment mining challenge: show me a program that will parse this conversation and accurately label each comment as pro-hashtags or anti-hashtags. Robert: any pointers? #hashtags+ (I just stated that this comment is pro-hashtags in a way that is machine-readable.) - Sean McBride

I agree with Robert, half of the power comes from the direction the coversation takes in the comments which is frequently much more broad than the author originally intended so would never have had the hash. - David Ziembicki

Agreed, but unless the search engine here changes they're going to have to be some other character than # - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Friendfeed should develop its own semantic markup conventions that go well beyond Twitter's hashtags. This would not be a difficult project. - Sean McBride

David: Conversations are probably much easier to locate than simple posts - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

By the way, I think that slashtags offer a more promising route for semantic markup than hashtags. - Sean McBride

Have not tried...are they working in the FF search engine? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

P.S. Robert: Thanks for the "stupidhashtag" it made this conversation really easy to remember and find ;-) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Great discussion here...I'm chiming in a but late but wanted to capture a couple other drawbacks I've noticed about twitter hashtags: 1) you can't necessarily depend on everyone knowing about a particular hashtag and using it, even with a topic that is well-known and especially considering the influx of non-geeks to twitter... - Steve just Steve

2) depending on the hashtag, you can encounter 'hash clash' with a hash that may be in use for an unrelated topic (a good sports-related example is #rangers...are you tagging the NY hockey Rangers or the Texas baseball Rangers?) - Steve just Steve

As always, there is a someecard for the occasion: http://www.someecards.com/usercar... - Gregg Le Blanc

I think that posting to a specific feed/room is the FriendFeed alternative to in-post hash-tags. On top of that, reader-tagging of posts would be nice. That's the model followed by Delicious, but then applied to FF conversations instead of the whole web. It would also help you to find your favorite conversations. FriendFeed should just implement social bookmarking. - Meryn Stol

Quite sensible Meryn. Both this idea, and Robert's very successful idea of making up asillytag to find the conversation work quite well. Reader tagging effectively as simple as posting a comment with anothersillytag. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

How do you set the topic for the backchannel? seems like you are simply removing the # - andrew

"At least we still have Angelfire. Flame on, you wingèd messenger of God." - Kevin Fox from Bookmarklet

Once Geocities goes away, does it mean we begin killing LiveJournal? - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

So true. I was a teaching assistant in an intro lit course one semester. None of the students in the class got the hilarious jokes in the novel we were reading because they hadn't read/didn't know the storylines of Melville's Moby Dick and Benito Cereno. I actually sent them to sparknotes online to read the summaries just so they could understand why our novel was so funny. - Katy S

(Cont) most appreciated the novel better after doing this, but a small vocal contingent was irritated that they would be expected to know something to understand the reading. But then, I've seen this attitude with assigned readings (not literary) in other courses, too. So frustrating! - Katy S

This post captures many of the reasons I'm spending much more time on FriendFeed vs Twitter these days. Well done, Jesse! - Larry Hawes

38 more comments

I'm new to Firendfeed & I already like it a lot better than Twitter alone. Conversations on Friendfeed are a lot easier to follow than on Twitter... - t i n y m

Quite right, Michelle. I'm hoping that FF further improves conversation readability but it's a big step up from Twitter today. It's nice being able to post a message here on FF and CC: twitter if you want to bring in some additional commenters. The only problem there is that non-Scoble mortals have trouble getting anyone to click through *and register* to post a comment. People are still more likely to just @reply to the tweet. - Daniel J. Pritchett

I'm kind of surprised that Twitter hasn't figured out a better way to group conversation. This is the real killer feature that FF offers. - Davis Freeberg

Daniel - I think that's why it is important to make connections with people who are already commenting and 'like'ing inside FF. This makes it easier to get feedback from the Friendfeed community. - Jesse Newhart

The feedback that you get from Twitter is nothing compared to what you can get here thanks to the comments in your posts and how conversations work. I'm also new to Friendfeed but I've already discovered so many great features on it that make me like it more than I like Twitter. - Diego Espinoza V.

I'm still trying to find out if a tweet I make gets commented on here (automatically) - Mark Essel

I guess I could just tweet through ff - Mark Essel

[Jesse Newhart] "Twitter has begun to lose it’s luster. It’s no longer the next cool thing. Twitter was featured on Oprah, it doesn’t get much more mainstream than that. So where is an uber-geek/early-adopter to go when they want to socially network away from the maddening crowd? [...]" – So how come you are now MAINSTREAMING FriendFeed to geek-wannabes from the very maddening crowds. - ianf ⌘

Ianf: I am not one of those who dislikes having the mainstream around. I just want a place to talk with people passionate about things I'm passionate about. I also want a system that is a meritocracy. Over on Twitter there are people who got hundreds of thousands of followers just because they were added to the recommended follower list. They did NOT earn that. Come on now, Oprah has been on Twitter a week now and she's already on that list. She didn't earn that position through her participation. - Robert Scoble

What that did is make it much more difficult for communities to build up organically. But, that's also not the reason I got excited about friendfeed. I was excited about friendfeed for a long time before Twitter started that list. Here's why: - Robert Scoble

If you want the world to get better, make the best people popular and the most advanced technologies adopted. Then, move ahead! - Jérôme Flipo

1. I was excited by friendfeed because of the engineering excellence of the team involved. Back when I had 1,500 followers on Twitter Twitter started going down. It still goes down, even today 880 days later. That is extremely lame and I wanted to bet on a system that is much more reliably built. Friendfeed has been down an hour in the 14 months I've been on the service. HUGE amount better than Twitter. - Robert Scoble

1b: Engineering excellence. The search engine is most important for me. Here, try to find the first four tweets about the Chinese Earthquake. Hint: you can't. On friendfeed the search engine is a LOT better. - Robert Scoble

1c: back to the recommended follower list. Here on friendfeed it is algorithmic. Based on who you have already added as a friend. You can't auto follow a whole list. You have to manually add everyone. And the list is a meritocracy and algorithmically chosen, not hand picked by the leadership of friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

@Robert's 1b: I'd love a FriendFeed searchometer that logged just how often I search for things on FF. I do complex searches here on FF throughout the day now. It's become an extension of my memory just as Google and GMail before it. - Daniel J. Pritchett

2. Twitter showed us the power of communicating in short bursts, er, Tweets. But we need tools to manage those Tweets. I use "like" for instance to build a magazine, er, database, of items that matter to me. I also have tools here to group people I'm following into lists so that I can separate out cat photo fans from professional tech bloggers like TechCrunch. That's huge. - Robert Scoble

I could keep going, but gotta listen to the presenters at the Under the Radar conference. - Robert Scoble

Great post, Jesse. I have come to adore FF for all the same reasons you mentioned. Plus, I find the quality of links and conversation to be higher here. Perhaps it is because FriendFeed has not become the numbers race (for followers) that Twitter has become (and that Twitter's owner's obviously promote). I hope it never does. - Mark Traphagen

I agree with previous users, FriendFeed is the place that I can actually connect on a much better level. Great post! - Ron Hudson

Post = Nailhead + Hammer - CAJ, somewhere else

Brilliant, Alan! - Mark Traphagen

again... you nailed this.. - ty hildebrand

What Alan said :-) I've had a Twitter account for a long time, but in one week on FF I have seen more interesting content, been engaged in more conversations, and been way more impressed with the features, than I have in a couple of years of Twitter. Signal to noise at Twitter is rapidly going the wrong way. Here, I have more control. And it's funner :-) - Andy Bold

I agree with the previous points that my preference of FriendFeed over Twitter has nothing to do with the attitude of the cool kids (whether you define the "cool kid" as Ashton Kutcher or Alex Scoble). See my comment in the post itself. - John E. Bredehoft

Wow, took me almost 53 yrs, but I'm finally a "cool kid". Great article Jesse. - Sharon McPherson

@Robert: I guess I don't understand. How does certain people on Twitter getting a bunch of followers make it harder to organically grow a community? Isn't what's happening now with Ashton or Oprah the same thing as what was happening with you or Leo Laporte a year or so ago, just on a larger scale? It seems to me like there are just more tiers now: there are still the people with 10 or 20 followers, the ones with hundreds or thousands, and now the ones with millions. - Tom Small

Tom: I didn't make that claim. What it DOES make harder is that it now is impossible to get to the top of many people's lists, because they are based on numbers of followers. If you aren't on Twitter's recommended follower list you won't be at the top of those lists. THAT does make it harder to organically get things going because many people will just follow those on the top of such lists. - Robert Scoble

If the cool kids are on FF, then its time to go to another site. Cause the "Cool" kids annoy the fuck out of me. Hence why I was here in the first place... - CW™

Just CW: I'm here cause you're cool and you're here. - Robert Scoble

@Robert's <http://beta.friendfeed.com/jessene...> "[FF] has been down an hour in the 14 months I've been on the service. HUGE amount better than Twitter" – you make several good points on the merits of meritocracy[sic!], but that last one is unwarranted. Whatever FF's traffic, I dare say they have not been subjected to the kind of "growth attacks" that Twitter has (not that I defend Twitter). FF scales better, so? - ianf ⌘

Also, I'm with Just CW on that: "the 'Cool' kids annoy the fuck out of me." I haven't been here very long, but already the amount of "cool," "awesome," and "WANT" oneliner response noise, not to mention calls for making FF just like any MyPHP BBS the "cool kids" are used to, gets in my nose. If this continues, sooner or later FF will have no option but to implement some peer grading system, so we can grade against and filter out noisemakers by default. - ianf ⌘

Ianf: that is bull. Twitter went down FROM THE BEGINNING and has only recently improved. Friendfeed has already been tested more than Twitter was in its first two years. - Robert Scoble

Judging a service primarily by its outages, repeated mechanical unreliability due to scaling pains, is not a discussion of merit. Twitter has other problems, but making sure this doesn't happen <http://tinyurl.com/dewva7> is not one of their responsibilities [me? 2 followers on Twitter]. - ianf ⌘

In any event, the entire concept of social media (not solely Twitter) as a venue for measuring one's popularity by the number of amassed "friends" is seriously wrong, a kind of digital global remaking of a stereotypical American adolescence in high school. "You want the truth about merit?! You can't handle the truth!" - ianf ⌘

Lanf - The 'cool kids' reference was meant to be tongue and cheek, which I believe ties in nicely with the pic of the early Beatles I put on the post. :) - Jesse Newhart

Robert Scoble - Thanks for your comments on this link (1,1b,1c,2) They go a long way towards describing what I meant by social commentary being elaborated into greater revelation. That is what I love most about Friendfeed, the most valuable nuggets I've gleaned here have been in the commentary. - Jesse Newhart

I agree that Twitter's recommended follower list gives an unfair advantage to those with 'status'. To me it has the unpleasant aroma of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" politics. Will we now have those of 'wealth & privilege' lobbying for a spot on the list because of the recognition (as opposed to substance) they can bring to Twitter? If they must have a recommended list, it would only be fair if they also included a few randomly generated Joe & Jane Blows, who do provide substance, to the list. - Sharon McPherson

FriendFeed has raised the bar and the BETA has raised that bar even further. I don't think everyone will convert to FriendFeed just yet partly because, Twitter is such a simple tool and celebs are using people to Tweet for them its harder for someone to be them on FriendFeed as it involves comments and likes - Nicholas James

So as not to clog up Jesse's discussion with this issue, I've started a separate discussion on whether Twitter's recommended follower list gives an unfair advantage to some people: http://twitclicks.com/i4j7 - Sharon McPherson

and this is NOT on pause - Josh Haley

you're screwed - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Can you beat my score? - Josh Haley

Yikes. That's a lot. - Jon, the Beartato of '10

you must have been scrolled down reading... - MicahBear78

nope, was at the top making screen caps - Josh Haley from IM

So what causes the items to queue up, rather than just appearing? Is it when you're doing something else on the page? - Aaron Kurtz

Yeah, that's a problem I've been having. I love the beta, love the real time feed, the instant Twitter import, but the queuing gets ridiculous sometimes. - Mike Nayyar

The most I've ever hit was 248 in my queue. I usually average about 93. When it gets above 40, I just hit the FF logo. - Admiral Anika

Good question, Aaron - Josh Haley

This is why I keep it paused all the time. - Rochelle

We have separated Groups (the new name for "Rooms") into its own section, and we have renamed "filters" to "Saved searches" to make things simpler/clearer. Saved searches have simper URLs that can be shared, and friend list operations have all been added/cleaned up. - Bret Taylor

101 more comments

Nice - looks much cleaner. - Robin Barooah

Nice, better navigation - Nimaa

Our primary goal was making Groups more useful again. The friend search / group search functionality is now separate and much easier to use. - Bret Taylor

excellent, much clearer - Don Bonaddio

So the "Top Friends" option that used to be showing is now gone. Works fine. - Louis Gray

That works awesome with the "group" I just put together consisting of all my rss feeds from google reader. - James Ostheimer

I like this change. Also, I apparently like boats. - Ana

I dunno, it's possible to be an enthusiast but not like something. - Casey Muller

Thank you! - BEX

Thank you I love the new navigation. - Russ Jackson

We have also added Atom feeds, Block, and a number of other small missing components. - Bret Taylor

Organization is a good thing. Thanks and keep it coming. The subtle stuff will come. Color customization, etc. I think the main think is make it look dead easy, with the advanced user stuff just a little symbol or click away... - kilbuda

Much better! - Andrew

Thanks !!! - Eric Logan

SHWEET! - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

i like being able to statically set the groups it shows me on the side now. - rob friedman

Very cool. Much simpler. Any chance of being able to rearrange the blocks a la iGoogle in the future? Saved Searches were mighty convenient up at the top. - Mark Trapp

Yes, rearranging and theming are both things we would like to do. - Bret Taylor

I wondered what happened ! - LPH™ and his dog P™

Theming? Whoa. - Mark Trapp

Like Mark Trapp's idea. - kilbuda

+++ Thanks! - .LAG liked that

@Rob, you still can set the groups that show up by clicking on "prefs" in the orange bar. - Ana

Where did the create feed/imaginary friend substitute function go? - Brian Sullivan

@Ana, I just said I liked it. :) I didn't see the ability to change what was shown there prior to this change. It just seemed like a random sampling of the groups I'm on before. - rob friedman

Excellent. Very glad to see the "Browse/edit friends" link. I look forward to being able to rearrange to put my saved searches at the top. - Elizabeth

Nice, but I use filters (well, now saved searches) more than I do my friend lists. Personally I prefer it the way it was, although I'd be happy just to have filters bumped up some (I got a _lot_ of lists to scroll past). - Chris, Without Direction

@Brian, I dont think the imaginary friend stuff is in the beta interface yet, I had to use the old UI to add a few yesterday. - rob friedman

I like the new separation much more than old layout. Being able to rearrange placement of these blocks would be nice but not essential. - Boris Gordon

Better, but you really gotta do something about that color scheme. - mike fabio

Great work! Would be really nice to get the last modified time back next to the title of the groups. That saved me a lot of unnecessary clicks in the non-beta version. - Christoph Studer

Boris: Not essential, that's true, but extremely useful. - Chris, Without Direction

rob friendman -- I am talking about the create a feed function that allowed you to create the equivalent of imaginary friends. - Brian Sullivan

I still think that the "My discussions" link under Friends should really be "My likes and comments", since there are some posts in that feed that are just ones I "liked" and have 0 comments, from me or anyone else. Would you call a post with no comments a "discussion"? - Nathan Chase

Nathan: you are right, those should probably not be in that feed. - Bret Taylor

We are still working out imaginary friends functionality. It is on our radar. - Bret Taylor

Nice. An improvement in my book. - AJ Kohn

I like it. Now give us skins so we can change the color scheme. I also wish I could put searches at top. - Robert Scoble

Bret: cool - just a little semantic thing I figured you might have overlooked - and something that could be confusing for new users. - Nathan Chase

Bret, you guys have moved the filters to the bottom of the sidebar. Can you please put them back to where they were? - Kol Tregaskes

I like separate groups. As for positioning - it would be easy to make the boxes draggable, so people can order them how they like? - Neil Saunders

anyway i can switch my account totally over to the beta UI? so any ff link i click on goes to the beta....thx - patrick

let me choose the sequence of the boxes - like "saved searches" on top! - Kishore Balakrishnan

Agreed a nice dark skin would be awesome - Kashif Khan

Can we have the "last modified time" back for each individual group? Anyway, this navigation is much better. Thanks! - Winston Teo

agree with Neil Saunders - پـرستووو

Still wish there was a way to hide the top and side bars for use in a widget style browser window. Till then there's always greasemonkey http://is.gd/rBrh - KyleHase from twhirl

Thanks, Bret. You guys -- FF team and product -- are awesome! - Eric Johnson

Thank you Thank you Thank you! Loving the beta and the FFteam's responsiveness - Keith - @tsudo

Why is this showing up in my timeline? It says because one of the people I'm subscribed to Liked it. I'm not a member of the room and I'm not subscribed to the original poster (Sorry Bret!) But I swear I've turned off FoaF every day and this keeps happening. - Paul Reynolds

Its enuf,men,give me more updated info plz. - kelvin from IM

We have more consistent terminology now; good. Now can we have more sophisticated feed-composition tools? How about one-touch "create group from saved search"? And how about fixing the "private group - standard FEED - public group" inconsistency? - Karl Knechtel

I don't think we need full skinning capabilities - just a colour chooser for each coloured element. Also, the prefs link for Groups is a bit ugly. I don't like magically appearing links. - Karl Knechtel

Overall, big improvements, guys. :) - Karl Knechtel

@patrick: every element of the beta UI should have a beta URL already. Any links that you click in posts are whatever URL is actually specified in the post. - Karl Knechtel

Bret, this is great news. I'll leave the cosmetics to better people. I like things as is :) - Deepak Singh

@Paul Reynolds: FoaF can be turned off? - Karl Knechtel

We just pushed a fix for IE 7/8. If you were using IE, you should refresh. Sorry for the problems. - Bret Taylor

Nice improvements, FF team. - Micah Wittman

Yes! Thank You! You guys are awesome! - Alfredo

I love it - especially the filters at the bottom (I use Lists, more often). That said, I like Kishore's suggestion -> let us choose the ordering of the boxes. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Very good improvement, but would like to have another box of favorite friends. I wouldn't mind if I could set this up like the groups box, or if it would just remember who I clicked on the most. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Simpler... When is the mobile version coming out? - Brian Kenyon

Well done. - Steven Perez

Bret: theming? Please elaborate! - Ryan Miller

Thank you! - Kemal Hadimli

It is awesome Bret! - Akira Kojima Simpson from twhirl

I would really appreciate if we could drag and drop items and boxes. I want to order all this. - Stanislas Jourdan

While the new sidebar order is good, I'm having fun getting rid of two saved searches which only bring up an "edit new filter/search page. It'd be nice to have some way to edit/delete searches, like with the groups and friends boxes. Still waiting for someone to give me a tip on how to remove those two links from the list otherwise. - George Hall (Australia)

George: Click the "Saved Searches" title, then select the feed from the left-hand side, then click Delete. - Karl Knechtel

much better! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

like it! only thing i don't like is that i have to scroll down everytime i wanna see my saves searches now... - Peter Efland

Peter, yep to me that's in completely the wrong place. It's the second most important new feature on FF (behind real-time) and it's now "hidden" at the bottom. I have a large list of Groups and means big scroll down to the Saved Searches, which I use a LOT. Please either return them back to the second tab down or give us the option to select what sidebars we have and what order they appear on the bar? - Kol Tregaskes

Bret, this is great, especially being able to see all of my groups. But I agree with just about everyone else, I'd prefer to have my saved searches above groups. There is still enough room to add subscriptions as well . . . maybe?? - Chris Loft

Nice change. Please sort out the color palette next :-) - Alex Gawley

I like it, although the name filter was better, I think. Besides putting the Searches under Friends, it would be good if the Groups would change order in relation to recent activity, like it used to be. - Alejandro

I like the way things are separated, now. However, I too have a lot of lists to scroll past to get to groups and saved searches. It would be nice to move the saved searches and groups above the lists. Definitely loving the beta, though! - Seth Greenblatt

Hmmm.... I still cannot edit a list created from the "likes" of my friends. The UI doesn't allow me to manage the friend list. I cannot tell the likes to which I'm subscribed or add/remove others. - Anthony K. Valley ©

much better now - Mahsa Z

A number of feeds I set up are showing as Groups. Is that right? I set up a number of Twitter feeds (e.g. "Twitter - Al Yankovic") for nonFF Tweeters. It's a little confusing since now they're listed as a Group when their settings are "Standard Feed". - CAJ, somewhere else

I guess feeds that aren't individuals are groups :-) - Neil Saunders

Alan has a point. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

separate groups section is good. now about labelling content sources rather than people... (would be nice to have this at least as an option: show user avatar OR show content source - then those of us who read by content are happy, and those who read by user are happy) - Richard Akerman

Alejandro, I first thought I'd miss "filter" but actually prefer "saved searches" now. Well because they are, aren't they? Makes things easier to understand. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

good point Kol - Alejandro

Voice chat in groups could be nice :) - Nir Ben Yona

Thank you! - Iván Abrego

I use filters a lot and now on the HP Mini I have to scroll down the window to get to the next filter I want to check which then scrolls the page back up to the top after picking it. I have nine filters that I check probably once an hour. The page scrolling is tedious to go through. Is there a way you could move Filters up above Groups either manually or automatically based on most common use? - Loren Heiny

Thank you! Navigating to groups/rooms was a pain. - amygeek

Nice Job, I like it. It feels simpler and will be welcoming to new users. - Poor Gamer

I also don't care for the name change at the top of the "Search results." The name of the search was better at least for how I use it. I can see the actual search criteria in the seach box. I don't need it in both places. Plus, when I'm clicking through a list of saved searches one at a time I often forget where I am in the list. The title helped me keep track. - Loren Heiny

Kewl! - Charlie Anzman

Love it. Thank you guys very much! - Josh Haley

"Atom feeds" are not a "small missing components"!!! :) .. as on abay +++++AAAA+++AAAA for beta.FriendFeed - CantorJF

Just noticed the new groups sidebar. Thank you! - Carmen is cold!

Seems like the green box should be titled "Friend Lists" (in an actual Friends list, I'd expect to see Joe, Mary, Bob, etc. -- right now, there's a pretty big disconnect btw typical user expectations and what's appearing in that box). And maybe the browse/edit should then be titled "Browse/edit friend lists". - Christopher Galtenberg

Even more unexpected is that when I click on Friends, I also see Groups. There should probably be another split, so we have Lists, Friends, and Groups. Bret, you guys are going to run out of colors soon! :) - Daniel Sims

And would you *please* give us custom backgrounds and colors? - Gaby K. Slezák

Karl: tried it, but it only brings up a new filter again. If one could edit one's "saved searches list by the NAME of the filter, it'd be easy to delete it. But your suggestion didn't bring up anything that could help me get rid of the two empty filters. Neither has a delete button. - George Hall (Australia)

Ana is a boat enthusiast? - Benjamin Golub

Karl:don't know whether my desktop wasn't showing the left-side bar, but late last night, I was looking at a list of my saved searches with the delete button active for all things in the list. Finally got rid of those two items that were only bringing up a search/filter page. That left-side bar with all listed searches is an elegant solution. - George Hall (Australia)

Dont like it. No longer can get Twit Conversations to show up in Groups.. only in Home even if I add it to Groups! - Greg

I'm @scobleizer and you should follow me if you want tons of interesting tech news. I watch thousands of friendfeeders and Twitterers and am always looking for the most interesting stuff before @techmeme gets it. (UPDATE: I AM FOLLOWING EVERYONE ON THIS THREAD) - Robert Scoble

305 more comments

Isn't a better way to get followers by engaging on their thoughts and getting attention through engagement? I NEVER follow anyone who begs the way you describe. - Ken Camp

That's an example of what I'd like you to do. I will follow anyone who answers on this thread. - Robert Scoble

Well because we cannot compete with Scobleizer...and we are desperate for a following to launch our own blogs. :-) - Tarun Chachra

Ken: the problem is that on friendfeed and Twitter you need some seed followers. - Robert Scoble

I agree with Ken - I make a point of not following people who ask for followers (and ESPECIALLY not if they call themselves "social media experts" or "SEO experts"... retch) - Chris Taylor

I'm not sure about begging but it's difficult, especially when you're overwhelmed by inspiration about what you're working, to feel like you're not connecting with enough people. Then again, I don't want a bunch of robo-followers, but people who I can engage and engage with me. Twitter is weird. - Remote Revolution

@Chris, you should follow Mike Nayyar then: http://beta.friendfeed.com/mikenay... - Daniel J. Pritchett

A friend of mine joined Twitter a month ago and he already has more Followers then I gathered in two years!! Please Help! thank-you very much @moon http://twitter.com/moon - paul mooney

Hmm, I thought who you followed was more important.... - Scott Breakall

I guess getting on with some friends on Twitter is most important. They already know people. This adds to better quality content as opposed to just random following people which most of the time creates noise. I however love it that @scobleizer creates is great in creating a stage for interesting people :) - Michiel Sikkes

I personally don't need THAT much but I desperately need FOLLOWERS for XDBE project, to spread the idea behind it! To bring the Internet to the next level together! Global Social Graphing http://xdbe.com/faq/ - Elmira Gazizova

If you don't follow me my gf will lock me in the basement without food and water. - rob

Only follow me if you like tech AND religion . A dangerous combination! - Dan Walters

begging is annoying. I guess you have to engage by following and slowly build an audience. A lot of my followers ( though not much ) has been by engaging on other tweets etc . Good use of hashtags doesnt hurt either - Kashif Khan

I rarely have anything to say myself that doesn't require engaging in conversations with others, so I don't want ANY followers. I follow those who I believe I may want to engage in conversation with, or those whom I desire to know more about. - Larry

@jpelegrin. When I do say something on Twitter, it's usually very insightful. O.K., not really, but I need some peeps. This is embarrassing! - Jeremy Pelegrin

i ain't going to beg, but i will make a note that those interested in computers, programming, science, and humor might find FriendFeed just a little bit more enjoyable if you follow me. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Breakall: It's a moving target. Whatever serves the purpose of the conversation at hand. For the real story: most ppl care, including Scoble. - coldbrew

you should follow @unmarketing cause I sang about Scoble http://www.ReTweetMeVideo.com - Scott Stratten

I agree you need seed followers. I just think the way to gain them is by engaging people who interest you. Be proactive. To me,this approach sounds, not disengaged, but not terribly engaging or proactive. I realize I'm an engagement fanatic, but if someone wants me to follow, a witty response to something I've said will lure me in, especially if there's an interesting interchange. Someone who follows me and has a post like you describe, I simply ignore (or block if appropriate for me). - Ken Camp

Hmm, you should follow me if you'd like to keep a pulse on grassroots tech organizing going on locally to nationally, and because I'm looking for more #scifi fans to chat with. (@deannecuellar) - DeAnne Cuellar

Quite simply this is all an exchange of ideas, thoughts and information. I want to follow and be followed by those whom I can learn from, as well as to receive input/advice/insight from. - Ted Bradford II

I'm actually culling what few followers I do have to get to a conversation that makes sense for our "marketing" business. Um, yea, guess that's not a "pitch". - Glen Group

Ken: this is my way of finding interesting new people to follow who I might otherwise not know about. Also, anyone who answers here IS engaging. - Robert Scoble

you should only follow me if you like Star Wars, baby photos, web design, gadgets, random weirdness, memes, and music that makes you nod your head to the beat - Nathan Chase

@coldbrew You're exactly right, they do care. Just a little reminder of advice that's come before when OTHERS were trying to ratchet up the follower numbers. /cold brew coffee rawks - Scott Breakall

follow me, because i would get more active with more followers. :) - Alexander Rode

I try to be interesting, but really we are starting 2 new businesses here and I could use as many followers as possible. And I follow back. - Audrey

Nathan: if anyone ANDs that list you won't get any followers! I choose to OR it and am now following. - Chris Taylor

@Wordful: [I'm not above begging, so please oh please follow me.] Follow me because I'm someone who can help you understand and implement an editorial strategy on your blog. I'm also a no-BS deep thinker who doesn't like to conform. - Charles

You can follow me - @michiels on twitter - if you're interested on how a European internet startup works and what differences there are with for example SV startups. Also how Dutch schools combine entrepreneurship and studying. - Michiel Sikkes

if the follow isn't two-way, well it's not much of a conversation is it? - Sean O'Brien

@Alexander, sounds like chicken and egg problem. Do the followers come before the comments and content or after? :) - Paul Wade

The problem here on FF is that the majority of potential subscribers are in the USA so the site is most active when I'm in bed here in the UK! I think the key to getting subscribers is to engage with others' content and make sure you share interesting things yourself. That way you become a 'valued' member of the community. You have to put some 'work' in though. - Martin Bryant

I'm an average, non-techy person. - Katie is Frittering

so are we begging you? watch for awhile and see if you like :) @rveep - reed price

Thomas Hawk follows me and since you don't you obviously are behind the times :) - Kevin Kuphal

Nathan: I "AND" the list, and followed. - Larry

Getting that starting mass is an absolute nightmare. I think i hace about 9 followers and all but 4 of those are spammers. I haven't been that prolific so far but i'm trying and will hopefully trigger some interesting thoughts in your head - Jamie Vidamour

Rather than begging for followers, I'd like to tell you all how I've learned to use Twitter to engage like minded aviation related folks in a time when my industry (business aviation) is under fire from all sides. Twitter has allowed me to build meaningful relationships with those that write about and/or care about the future of our industry. Follow @BizAv if you're interested in joining the conversation or check out http://tinyurl.com/GJetTwitter for other business aviation related Twitters. - Mike Mikolay

I've actually noticed I've had a few more followers lately than I've had before. Hopefully they're getting some interesting tidbits from me. - Paul Wade

audrey, i personally believe in quality over quantity. one needs numbers of course to get the message out (when you aren't giving of course. i.e., signal to noise) but I find no benefit in having 5000 followers if 4000 of them have nothing in common with me/my business/my interests etc. - Ted Bradford II

@Chris - right, it was a little tounge-in-cheek, but that's the majority of subject matter you'll see crawl across my feed - Nathan Chase

I don't beg for followers. If you want to follow there is a 98% chance I will follow back. I like to think I bring interesting news to the table. - John Flynn

The whole idea of "followers" plays to our inherent need of not being alone or feeling important. Gaining followers is like gaining money. You find the excitement of gaining followers and once you are loaded with "followers" so what? It doesn't make you happier, doesn't make you more successful. What's 25 thousand followers if your conversation on twitter is about how many beers you are drinking on happy hour? I find that people who are very zealous about gaining followers have EMPTY conversations. - Bo Lora

You should follow @jeremybogdan for thoughts on the latest gaming and tech/social media news, in addition to updates on the gaming podcast I run and daily observations. I think that wraps things up in a nice package, but honestly, I enjoy the conversations most. Really more "followers" would just make it possible to carry on conversation and meet people I might have never been able to talk to/meet otherwise. - Jack Bogdan

Beg for followers, Robert? :( - Mona Nomura

Every so often, the world changes, sometimes quickly,sometimes very slowly but sometimes unnoticeably fast. Change is constant and constantly changing. There is no timetable and you cannot predict or trend the unknown but you can change with it as quickly as it evolves. That's what my blog is about..its located at http://newnewstory.blogspot.com - Iggy Kin

Ok...so I'm here and I absolutely want people to follow me, but why should I have to beg to be followed? I'm doing great work, just like the interview I did with you Robert, and have other cool guests slated to join me. Begging makes me feel dirty somehow. I'd rather have followers slowly work their way into my life than to have them show up en masse one day simply because I begged here. I'm with my pard. Ken. Begging? DO NOT LIKE. - Sheryl

Mona: I'm looking for new people to follow and there's a lot of newbies here, so figured I'd help. - Robert Scoble

I'll do it! I provide a weekly podcast for IT pros which provides interviews, views, and tech tips. You can listen to it here even. I also post self amusing thoughts and comments that are only funny and witty to me. Follow me and have a richer life :) If you are interesting I'll find you here too. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

After helping @scobleizer find a bike, Google thinks I pose "a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers": http://bit.ly/177PTK #TrueStory - Walt Ruppar

I'm John Wright and I'm building web applications under the name Wright Labs (@wrightlabs). You should follow me if you want to be the first to know about new apps I've built or updates to existing ones. - John Wright

Read 'Beg for followers' as 'Market yourself'. - Kiran Patchigolla

Sheryl: sometimes you have to promote yourself. I used the word "beg" to get a conversation going. - Robert Scoble

Kiran: right. - Robert Scoble

If I'm followed by those who follow in huge numbers(e.g. @scobleizer), I'd like to be included in one of their "special" friend list or filter. It sucks to have your voice drowned out by the masses. I guess there's always DM. But that works only if the recipient is following you. OK, just follow me already :) - Edmund Tay

I've already tried to get my current high profile followers engaged in a conversation here: http://friendfeed.com/shaynor... with my GAME which was actually going to provide a fun way for me to gather some usage data to elaborate on a point for further discussion here.....NO COMMENTS from my FF peeps!!!!! - shayne catrett

also this can relate to the fresh blood tech bloggers discussion a while back - Kashif Khan

I am @harscoat and this is a test ;) on the Scoble power!! - I am on friendfeed thanks to him to be honest and thanks to friendfeed & Brett Taylor feed I discovered SANTIGOLD (Lights Out in particular) and in the end this feed/twitter thing and collaboration led to value for my ears :) so this feed thing works for me - Harscoat

Follow me because I'm just too awesome! :P But, in all seriousness if people think I'm interesting then they should follow me. I'm not going to beg for followers. They have to decide on their own if they want to follow me or not. - Mathew™ one of a kind

I get followers when they see me post on topics they search for; I get the most interaction that way too. So maybe if one wants more followers, one should talk about stuff people care about :-) Other than that sometimes folks I actually know comment on my tweets. - Emil Sit

Follow me for the occasional humorous comment and pretty photo. And maybe because you got curious, looked at my profile, and figured that, yeah, I'd like to follow that guy. (And I'll do the same for you.) PS: Nice way to kickstart newbies like me into following others. - Andy Bold

Robert - promoting and begging strike me differently. VERY differently. Promoting myself is easy. I think I'm a fabulous podcaster, fabulous interviewer. I Would LIKE to interview YOU again and want you to let me know when you have something really cool to talk to about, ie Building 43. That's self promotion. Are you buying it? :) - Sheryl

PLEASE follow me. My mom is the only one commenting on my stuff and it's making me look like a dweeb. - Christina Henderson

Sheryl: I was already following you! :-) - Robert Scoble

@chrisquick LOL, that made me laugh. - Paul Wade

lol Christina. On another note, do not follow me, I cannot handle the responsibility. - Christian Collins

Wow this feed has just started and already produced a wide variety of comments. Desperate for followers or power of FriendFeed ;-) - Michiel Sikkes

Me @smohkim.. why? just to get a bit more than just regular tech news - Sardar Mohkim Khan

I'm pretty new to FF, so I'm not sure my content is worth following. But I'm trying to learn socmedia while working on video game news at gamingangels.com. So, yeah. :) - Elizabeth Parmeter

Yes Robert didn't mean beg literally, follow his example which is his first comment. He's really asking a for a concise answer to the question "Why should we follow you?" - John Wright

I want people who are worth following back. I really could use some interesting thought provoking input. - Mary Wehrle

Speaking of follower numbers, what's the minimum to shoot for before decent engagement can start to happen? - Edmund Tay

Edmund: four. - Robert Scoble

Robert you make me LAUGH! WTG! And to all my NEW followers, thanks :-) - Sheryl

I follow back on Twitter @nencetti - to get followers I follow people and wait. (i guess that is sorta begging) to lose followers i tweet too much. I am starting to use FriendFeed, it grows on you, like a fungus... - Mike Nencetti

Ha, funny Christina! I just jumped into the follow-a-thon here. I want everyone here to follow me because I want to learn from you and hope I share some knowledge to enlighten you some day :-) - Jason Cronkhite

Robert: Is that based on the assumption that all 4 followers share a common interest in what you have to say or share? - Edmund Tay

Edmund: yeah. But all you really need is one with other followers who also like what you have to say. The second I post a comment or "like" one of your items it gets shown to thousands of people. - Robert Scoble

Please, please, please. Why? Because I'm begging. - Willem (@wim66) ☠

I do hope we can get you along to a #tuttle the next time your in London. In the mean time feel free to follow me @robocallaghan - Robert O'Callaghan

Robert: I'll be in London in early July! - Robert Scoble

Willem: you link to cool applications. You should have both begged and explained that. - Robert Scoble

Wow, that is fast! - Willem (@wim66) ☠

Take a look at my current FF homepage and if any of the entries engage you on an emotional or intellectual level, then follow! - Sam Grover

i am begging for followers here for two reasons. 1) my money was wasted in trying to get 19,000 followers in five days and the free snuggie 2) If I get each of my followers to donate one dime to me, i can easily afford the big green hands like scoble has, then EVERYONE would follow me. - Ted Bradford II

You're already following me Robert - please, only follow me if you want good content. That's the secret to gaining quality followers. I do like to follow others with good content though. - Jesse Stay

I started with this social networking thing because I miss discussions with fellow scientist when I was one. Not all conversations here are so "eggheaded" but engaging. With more followers I could start more conversations. - Robert Hafer

samgrover anyone who puts Upcoming.org geeky events in here is good enough for me (like you do). - Robert Scoble

I see this as a community service thread - no problemo rs :) - mike "glemak" dunn

i lack focus. my links lack focus. i am the hybrid vigour in your friendlist. - dromologue

No begging. Look at my feed and subscribe if you like it. It's a mixed bag of tech, marketing, politics, business, food and humor. http://beta.friendfeed.com/ajkohn - AJ Kohn

Jesse: actually I've gotten quite a few good quality followers by doing crappy content. It's true. The stuff I think is good quality content often doesn't get people to follow, even the smart ones. Of course I learned that by using your tool! :-) - Robert Scoble

dromologue: you linked to treehugger.com. You can't be half bad. - Robert Scoble

i am in the same boat. I would love to have followers but i don't have time to focus in on one topic. - Zach Scott

You should follow me because I enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches http://preview.tinyurl.com/dxvejm - Jon

Jon: my brother will probably enjoy talking to you then! - Robert Scoble

I probably wont ever beat you or @techmeme. I'm a pretty nice guy though. Plus, I promise to only post a few pictures of cats a month- none of which with be tagged with Obama! - metalerik

U will be giving us "lurkers" a voice. - Frank Sant'Agata

You SHOULDN'T follow me (@supermoose37) because I don't want you to. Anyone currently following me, should stop right now. Follow me, and you'll regret it. - Marcus Beagley

I can't imagine being interesting enough to follow. - Peter Kruit

metalerik: I liked the Google Mars images you had up. - Robert Scoble

Ooos, I forgot to beg and give a reason why I'm begging. So here goes: Follow me because I try to post and share items that I think will be of interest to some if not all of my followers. That and I will also follow you back :) - Edmund Tay

Probably shouldn't follow me ... [ http://bit.ly/a8eqT ] - Craig Brownell

Peter: you are running the iPhone 3.0 beta. That makes you interesting, didn't you know? - Robert Scoble

Usually I'll browse the other FF'ers shares and discussions to get a feel for that person's share/insights. I tend to follow people who have an equal number of interesting ORIGINAL items/posts rather than just retweets/reshares. I admit, I'm one of those people who doesn't get a lot of Likes *sad* or Comments - Glenn Batuyong

PBJ is pretty compelling, and dromlogue's hybrid vigor comment cracked me up. This thread is making me laugh, and keeping me busy! - Kathy Fitch

I like pictures and stylish things and these you will find in my feed. I usually follow back and I comment too (I know!), especially if I don't have to be serious about it. - Mark H

Follow @frodeste for tweets on tech, crm, project management and life :) - Frode Stenstrøm

FF and others have given me the opportunity to engage with people from all over the world from my quaint little town - Steve

Follow @keithbarrett - I've been in IT for 30 yrs and am just as excited by the possibilities today. I've been involved in all aspects of applying technology to business from software coding to infrastructure design/support. Past employers include DEC, IBM, Red Hat & Disney. Living though the computer->Internet->Social Media changes helps me see a bigger picture of how we got here & where we might go. Like @scobleizer I read TONs of news regularly and share the more interesting bits when he's late :) - Keith Barrett

Robert: Ideally I like to do at least one of those a week :) - Sam Grover

Steve: what little town? Update: looks like it's Billings Montana, right? Love that town! - Robert Scoble

Robert: Good point. - Peter Kruit

Lyons CO - Steve

And for those that don't get it - Robert is creating significant content about the people he is engaging. This makes you more than a number or a bio. I should have said follow me because I'm not an SEO or marketer :) - Keith Barrett

Well, boo. Why isn't the pop out page working for me? - Kathy Fitch

Ah, there it went. Better! - Kathy Fitch

Kathy: friendfeed is behaving a little slowly for me right now. I think they might be pushing out new code. - Robert Scoble

Must be it, Robert--I like the fast and furious view best! - Kathy Fitch

great exercise bro! and illustrates why i am selective about who I follow and who is allowed to follow. - Ted Bradford II

please follow me, please please please - Adrian

Makes sense for me to comment here, so that I can get Robert's attention when I need it in future. Plus I follow him anyway. - Ashish Rangole

Adrian: I'm already following you. :-) - Robert Scoble

I'm @thepuck. You should follow me for a mix of tech news, stuff on coding, social media, and writing, plus whatever fun stuff catches my fancy. I sift through tons of content each day and share and publicize the best of it (IMHO). I also have lots of awesome friends who you can meet through me. Thanks for the opportunity, Robert! - Neal Jansons

You should follow me if you want to live a truly boring life vicariously thru me. :D Serious;y, I am the worlds most boring tech enthusiast. - Gunny Say RELAX ™

Robert: What are you favorite filters these days? :/ - Christian Collins

OK, on a more serious note, you should follow me (@supermoose37) if you are a fan of either "Transformers" OR "Doctor Who" - Marcus Beagley

Christian: I have a filter that shows me all items with one like. That's my most used one. - Robert Scoble

I won't beg for followers but if you are interested in social media, security technology, networking technology, politics, or economics I'm sure we would have alot to share together. I'm on twitter as @tsudo but prefer conversations on Friendfeed. - Keith - @tsudo

Robert: Sounds like a fire hose! - Christian Collins

Marcus--How about VR-5? Anyone remember that one? - Kathy Fitch

When I'm not trying to corral my 2 little boys (4 & 1) I hop on FF to keep my sanity!! - Kevin Whalen

Christian: it's not that bad, actually. I am building more and more filters, though, on companies in tech industry and terms I see get popular here. - Robert Scoble

You should follow me because I know where the main cable is for the whole internet and have a saw. I also adore tech, don't own an iphone but would like a Segway. Hopefully enough said :) - tech pops

If you don't follow me, how else are you going to know which Air Force 1's I like the best? This knowledge could come in handy in the future, you never know. - Richard Lawler

"I also have lots of awesome friends who you can meet through me." - Gee I'd like to be able to say that someday! Can I meet some? :-) - Keith Barrett

Kathy: Sorry, the only thing I watched with VR in the title was "VR Troopers" - Marcus Beagley

Okey doke--now following tech pops, strictly for self-preservation, dontcha know. - Kathy Fitch

I'm kuckoo for Co-co Puffs and have a few screws loose, so sort of like that box of chocolates: you just never know what you're gonna get tweet-wise (@tweric) or ff-wise. But, man, do I spell good. - Eric Matas

I noticed some people are actually recommending people in this thread to follow. There's a room you can do that ;) http://beta.friendfeed.com/ff-subs... Although if you want to follow me - feel free I follow 11.6k people and have a river of noise following through constantly so I can find the latest goings on ;) - Nicholas James

Sigh, it's hell being old. I also loved that short-lived horror dealie, "The Others" I have a tendency only to watch tv that all others apparently (and oh so wrongly) hate. - Kathy Fitch

DeAnne: I'm following, though for the #nptech, alas not for the scifi! - Eric Johnson

Follow me because I just came back to FF from a social media vacation, and I have just had time to read some really good (dead wood) media I want to put to good use in future comments and posts:) - Thomas Bøhm

Robert, point well taken - I guess I'm still trying to figure out why I have gotten the followers I have then. I don't think I've ever begged for followers. Maybe my content is crappy? ;-) I guess most of my audience is probably SocialToo users, which may have something to do with it. - Jesse Stay

Now I'm wishing it wouldn't default to top of page after every follow. How spoiled am I? - Kathy Fitch

My little brother just signed up for Twitter (http://twitter.com/aaronmatas) and I'd love for legions of people to follow him just to scare the sh*# out of him...by showing him the POWER of the social web. Bru-ha-ha-ha-haaa. Oh yeah, he's a TV sports journalist, so he kinda needs to know. Thanks -- please tell others! - Eric Matas

Follow me for tech info related to graphics, web programming, browsers, iPhones, and natural language processing. And, maybe I'll fill you in on my next big project :-) - Charles Ying

Charles: your page is the most interesting I've seen yet (to me). - Robert Scoble

Follow me for site feedback ideas (and thoughts about UI in general), programing advice (to come), an introduction to the game of Go (to come, in a separate feed), (re)shares of interesting and/or depressing political blog articles (note: I brand myself "moderate socialist" policitally, though I'm assuredly not opposed to meritocracy), and random philosophical musings. - Karl Knechtel

Well, my knee-jerk reaction to "beg" lingo notwithstanding (you'd think my knee would learn to behave after all this time), this is a fun follow party. I'll be back later to see who I missed. (Because, here, you *can* come back later, which is awfully nice.) - Kathy Fitch

Oh yeah also, you should follow me because I'm an application developer and ultimately I want to build what YOU want and what YOU will use. (and I need your feedback to do that :) ) - John Wright

Because I just started FF when the beta came, and needs a kick to get started :) - Erik Gulliksen

I like to express and pass on info about: Tech, Flyfishing, Architecture and remodeling construction. I am a freelance Architect Draftsman in Wisconsin. - Frank Sant'Agata

Robert: thanks! - Charles Ying

I'm IT hitman working in The Bahamas. I tend to follow Foreign Policy/Defense Blogs and dabble in political satire. - Adi

Frank: What areas of Tech do you tend to talk about most? Do you photograph Architecture too? You need some feeds into your FF my friend. - Paul Wade

Though I don't post a lot of native FF entries, I like likes and comments as a way of filtering stuff. I'll share with you; you share with me. And I love FF's real time features, particularly when combined with live video. - Tom Landini

I have a hard time begging for anything :-) - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Thanks Paul I will update, I just stated FF - Frank Sant'Agata

weedmonk: Wait, you're a hitman? - Paul Wade

Ah, I'm a mom, so I'm used to the wide-eyed beg. Dogs and kids--there's some real smarts there that we could all learn from. Besides, this whole thread made me laugh out loud right at my keyboard more than I have in a long while. - Kathy Fitch

beg is an odd thing. Yes - I want followers - not for the sense of feeling oddly popular - but like @scobleizer I like being able to search through massive amounts of data that users create, and without followers, i'm limited. - Courtney Engle

<--cracking up. This couldn't possibly have been a less subjugating experience for anyone. The "beg" term got hackles up, but also grabbed perfect gobs of attention, so there you go. It's a fun and funny thing, and my bberry, for one, is all abuzz about it! (Humming a Temptations tune and smiling, here.) - Kathy Fitch

Wow, amazed at the semantics debate over "beg". Report just in... all net oriented sarcasm/tongue-in-cheek/parody must come with obligatory semi-colon parenthesis to indicate jest (even if to a minor degree). ;-) Would much appreciate the follow Robert, I always enjoy your posts. As a consultant I work on finding simple solutions to complex problems... my tweets are all over the place. - SAM

I have about 280 "hand picked" followers. That might not be all that impressive, but I have a quality stream at least. - Rutger Blom

Rutger: I find that the best quality you can get is to stick to under 200 people you're following. I do that with Friendfeed's lists. - Robert Scoble

Back so soon :-) The London #tuttle is on a friday at the moment 10-12 at the ica in London. - Robert O'Callaghan

Because I only joined Ff because of Scobelizer, therefore he should have to watch me flounder around trying to do something unique. - Gregg Le Blanc

1up Scott, Begging has the well deserved connotation of supplication. Hence, the semantics. I would like to find more people that are interested in the Semantic web. Wordpress hacks and plug-in development, Designers, Coders, Innovators that need Beta testers. Companies with products that I may be interested in. My interest's are becoming more diverse as a result of my participation here. TY - Eric Logan

I talk about library stuff, volunteer and service stuff, social media stuff, and Drupal as a versatile platform. If you're interested in any of that, you'll be interested in me. I also like food and kids. - Laura Norvig

I am sort of feeling like Oliver asking for more gruel, May I please have more followers sir, I promise if your not educated at least you will be entertained and amused. - Kim Landwehr

Well, sure, but I'm thinking back to the days when the listserv was a main mode of discussion. The subscribers were a kind of built in audience that posters to the lists didn't really have to fight for (though list founders had some work to do)--the challenge (and the fun) was in engaging people *despite* not having a handpicked audience. Some self-selection because of list themes, of course, but the audience was there, and anyone could join. Some of the best discussions actually flowed from difference. - Kathy Fitch

Because I want to become more involved and participate as a connector. - Trish Ridgway

just need followers - Bill Majkowski

Bill: followers are overrated. But I'm following you now. - Robert Scoble

Are you testing whether there's a limit to the number of comments in FF? ;) - Janek Mann

I'm trying to straddle journalism, tech and sports all at once (can you straddle three things, by the way?). Looking for ideas and feedback ... @jondenunzio - Jon DeNunzio

Forget followers, I would like just ONE comment on my FF! (BTW, your already following me Robert) - David

I have nothing for you to read of any importance just random thoughts.LOl just wanted to throw my two cents in for what it is worth. - stan fogo

Follow me if you like games and insights about game studies. I'm a game designer studying how to use game design to improve the experience of web applications. @kurai - Federico [Kurai]

Not sure there are any limits on number of comments in a thread. Ffundercats used Friendfeed as live chat while recording an episode and got over 1500 http://beta.friendfeed.com/ffunder... - Tom Landini

David - you should import more things then just Twitter then ;) - Nicholas James

I drink http://friendfeed.com/public for dinner. - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Best advice to those perusing this thread who are new to FriendFeed? Follow these folks: http://ffholic.com/Users... - Nathan Chase

Oh, and today's my birthday, so follow me! - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Someone should follow because of an affinity for either the subject matter, interests, or attitude someone else shows in other comments. I don't see it as a need, so much as a desire for company, interested in similar pursuits but different viewpoints and perspectives to contribute. I have been in tech for 30 plus years, yet have published my poems & fiction for just as long. I always have an articulate opinion and love to chat. I don't have as much time as I'd like 2 come to FF to engage with others. - Phil Boiarski

My views are different than everyone else’s, that is the only good reason to follow anyone at all. - John D Reasor

Another good reason to follow me: I don't use Facebook. How 'bout that? - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Hi, i'm a french student in management. I'm mostly interested in IT, media, newspaper crisis and other stuffs (sometimes in french :s). I intend to be more and more active on FF in the future, so one day to another, you might have to follow me. Why wait ? :P - Stanislas Jourdan

Interesting. I'm not sure that I'm a high contributor. I follow to feed on information. In doing so, I find people to engage. - Valley

OK, I'm throwing my hat in. I've started contributing by linking all my accounts, and finally having a reason to use the share feature of Google Reader. It's awesome to add my voice to the conversation. But after a while, when none of my posts get any likes or comments, it can feel like you have to be super popular to get in on this. I'm a relatively new user, but it would be nice to have a few more followers at least. - Matthew

beg? seriously? I'd rather not engage people If it requires begging. Well I see you used "beg" to spur engagement.. But I still don't like the word even if it resulted in the desired effect. I guess I'm just not that desirous of conversation simply for the sake of it but rather to expand my thought processes and to alleviate my biases - Bill Rawlinson

Cuz I'm the last and newest person to post a comment here. Bananers. - Harry Wolff

I tell it as it is. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

This reminds me of back when torrents first came out and I'd post stuff to see if anyone would download it. We're throwing stuff at the wall and seeing if any sticks. Friendfeed is a useful addiction. - Matthew

LOL! Amazing how many people take offense to the words "beg" and "need" -I "need" more people to engage my thoughts. (What a great way of putting that) It would be nice if more people would see the things I post and comment on so that I would get out more from this little (but expanding) corner of FriendFeed. I have plenty to say, but only a handful of active people to critique it. Tech, SM, Dogs, humor. #funhashtags. Please help Robert, Louis and Jesse take a break from me ;) Introduce me to your friends! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I am far less interesting than @scobleizer... I am an early adopter with a private-beta-testing-program addiction. I offer loads of insight to developers, designers (and users at large alike) on this new stuff. I'm the one you want testing your app, service, nifty super cool product of the now. Follow me pretty please with microchips on top, I'm @tinym - t i n y m

I don't want more followers, I want more engagement from existing followers. More subscribers is great and all - but if they're not going to engage, it doesn't excite me at all. - Anthony Citrano

Nice idea! I'm not one to beg, but seeing as I could do with some more engaging followers, this is a bit of an experiment. Follow @daveinthecloud for predominantly tech, Apple and science-based updates. - Dave

I use FriendFeed more to read interesting things I wouldn't normally see. I'm not always around and I don't always participate. Does that make me a bad person? (@elroy) - elroy

Fun post! Lots of cool people to follow. Marketing and tech geek who happens to make wine in her basement. @bsmntbootlegger - Karrie Sullivan

An impressive list of comments already. And I have found a few interesting people to follow here already. I guess it is all about "give and take". - Mike Hellers

Ok, I'll bite: Why should you follow me? Because I post about science, math, music, programming and geek stuff with wit, style and panache. - Chris Taylor

lol! I was making wine in my backpack on my bike trip this summer :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Follow me. Help make media history by reaching the first 10 million follows. ... Well I guess that won't work anymore. - Keith Barrett

Mike: same here - Frank Sant'Agata

There is a lot of talk in the comments about "audience", "SEO" & the "need" for followers, this all appears very $ orientated to me, maybe someone "influential" should start a conversation along the lines of "how can I make you happy on friendfeed"? - William

if you are a geek into getting stories related to social media, geeky stories, pics, videos, tech related stuff, like bacon or lego or star wars. you will probably like my stuff. check it out....and hope to see you soon! - (jeff)isageek

Unless you like NSFW stuff and LOLCats stuff, really nothing to see with following me. :P - Christian (Simply X)

I'm game for more followers. I run research boats for a living and sometimes like to blog about that, my bad ass dog Jake (Silky Terrier) and other things I find interesting...tech, cool photos, hikes, etc...on my personal Posterous blog. I've been active on twitter for quite awhile but am fairly new to Friend Feed. I get a real kick out of most members of the Gillmor Gang and like following their conversations...maybe I'll start to engage more. - Scott Schanke

William: I think ur missing the point, it's about being new to ff and having a voice. - Frank Sant'Agata

Praise @Scoble for once again "starting" a conversation - William

For me, the whole tech deal has always been a love of the game issue. It's like writing, that way, and teaching, too. Interesting how perspectives differ. I just thought of this as fun, and as an opportunity to learn and connect. Also, my inner English prof always thinks of "audience" as a matter of rhetoric first. A thing like this, for instance http://tinyurl.com/cxkzpo is its own reward: great chance to meet people, and it made me *really* hungry. - Kathy Fitch

Lindsey - surely meeting more serial killers is not the answer. ;-) - Brian Sullivan

See, there? Lindsey not only spells her name correctly, but also likes horror! Lindsey, I spent quite a few years teaching horror film! (The *best* students in those classes, oh my gosh--such an interesting mix.) - Kathy Fitch

Dying (editorial aside: ah, that's strictly metaphorical) laughing, here. - Kathy Fitch

I just subscribed to everyone in this thread that I wasn't already subscribed to. Why? I love participation. People commenting here participate. - Thomas Hawk

Good plan Thomas I think I will do the same. - Brian Sullivan

Hi. I'm Simon, i post a mashup of stuff from all sorts or genres. Photo's, art, tech, videos, games. I'm a bit of a 'i like everything' kind of guy. I try to get in on lots on convo's, and i never really leave FF, sometimes i just sit here idle and watch the world pass me by :) - Simon Wicks

"That's an example of what I'd like you to do. I will follow anyone who answers on this thread" is that a promise robert ? :) - goutham

that are some interesting question to address here...will people be more likely to get into friendfeed if more people follow them? or are people more keen on just sharing their thoughts and feelings with a select few? should there be a way to algorithmically increase the visibility of a post ? is that "fair" ? - goutham

You should follow Pax Stereo Tv (www.paxstereo.tv) because we represent something NEW and DIFFERENT! While we lack the full sophistication of a traditional network, our "NeoUrban Internet Television" network is at least original and edgy, and we are streaming live Monday through Thursday every week! All this with only 3 full time staff! We represent YOU, the new breed! We are not perfect, but we keep it coming, and we are getting better. Peace. - Mario Hemsley CEO - Pax Stereo Tv

What's the easiest way to go through and follow everyone here? I don't really have to go down the list one by one do I? I started to but thought there must be an easier way... - Scott Schanke

Initiatives to free the world economy in ways that benefit the poor @openworld - Mark Frazier

Scott: I had to add each one of my 14,377 subscriptions by hand, so so do you. Sorry, there isn't a way to "follow all" here. Which is a good thing, in my view. - Robert Scoble

goutham: I am following everyone who has participated with a comment in this thread. Scott: you can see if you are following someone already by looking at the little icon to the left of their comment. If you are already following them, it'll be bluish. If you aren't, it'll be white. - Robert Scoble

always be closing mario ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

Ok thanks Robert...I'm just a bit frustrated that it keeps collapsing the conversation after each follow and therefore I have to find where the hell I left off...I'm plodding along though. - Scott Schanke

Scott: I have this thread running in a popup Window. Here's how to do that. First, open this item up into its own Window by clicking here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... Then click the time stamp (it says "5 hours ago" right now) and then it'll open up its own little Window. That makes it "live" and like a chat room. Scroll to the bottom and watch new items pop in. - Robert Scoble

I follow smart, funny people, and I post/pass along all kinds of stuff. I never know what I'll come across next, anything from the effects of cancer treatment on IQ scores, to vintage cocktails, to news on weird fiction writers, to updates on the latest and greatest zombie games, to random questions and ideas that occur to me in the wee hours. I'm always looking for posts that have me saying, "Hmmmm, that's interesting...and here's why..." - Heather

I'm not sure begging for followers is in our self interest, Robert. I find that the people who hawk themselves loudest aren't the people I make the best connection with. And it's that connection that matters whether it's a personal or professional. - Susan Reynolds

Not sure if I need any followers, but I think people follow me because I'm so freakin awesome. Oh, you haven't heard of me? Find me on The Google. :) - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Oooooo.. Choose me. Choose me. Choose me. Oh wait. You already follow me. But anyone else is welcome to read my nonsense about whatever is on my mind. Lately - dissertation, teaching chemistry, thinking about some technology, and just fun family items (mainly my dog) - LPH™ and his dog P™

i vote for LPH! - michael sean wright

Susan: that's fair. But in friendfeed you can put people into lists. So you can subscribe to all the "beggers" and put them into "begged for follow" list. That way it won't mess up your other followers. - Robert Scoble

LOL nicefishfilms .. - LPH™ and his dog P™

nicefishfilms: I'm already following LPH. Weird, I've met both him and you in real life, too! - Robert Scoble

I'd rather people follow me because I said something or posted something interesting. - CAJ, somewhere else

Rahsheen: if you are on "the Google" then you MUST be awesome! I'm on "the Google" too. Search for "Robert." :-) - Robert Scoble

Yep - I'm being followed - (looking behind me) - wait - why are you always in front of me then Robert? - LPH™ and his dog P™

Alan: you must have posted something interesting, because I'm following you. Either that or I thought you were that country singer! :-) - Robert Scoble

LPH: you actually passed chemistry on the first try. I did not. ;-) - Robert Scoble

Any interest in visiting Alaska? Find out why you should plan a trip to Fairbanks @insidealaska - Inside Alaska

Robert: You're the first to mention it, actually. I wondered if the same thing was happening on Twitter. ;) - CAJ, somewhere else

Inside Alaska: that's always been one of my life-long dreams. Interesting, I'm noticing more marketers setting up shop in friendfeed. Next come the celebrities! Alan: heh, probably! - Robert Scoble

Here's why people follow me: http://beta.friendfeed.com/glenc... - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

this thread is officially to long to follow on an iphone - mike "glemak" dunn

mike: it's too long to follow on a 24-inch Apple display, too! :-) - Robert Scoble

We are always striving to be the best. @abounding - Abounding Media

Thanks for the "Hot Tip" Robert!! Much easier. - Scott Schanke

Follow me for posts about social media, the publishing industry, online communities, funny pictures, and my coffee addiction. Oh, and babies. I run a baby site and have a baby so...expect some babies. I also enjoy swearing so there may be some of that. - Kate

Follow me (@abbashaiderali) if you like a mix of tech, finance, cars, random, and personal content. Variety keeps me interested & you're cut from the same cloth, we'll get along just fine :) - Abbas Haider Ali

You can't be shy. You need to have a voice and use it. - Russ Jackson

I promote the issues that are important to those I follow. But follow me because I took the time to read through ALL of these responses... :) @rbucich - Rick Bucich

I dunno about begging but new followers are always nice - Angela P.

I will have to say, I found several new people this way, so thanks Robert. I know I need to get better at finding more people myself, a la the FFundercats podcast Louis Gray discussion. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

you better be following me .. Im a fireman and I haz an axe .. - johnpiercy

I don't want 'followers' - vanity is my least favourite sin. I want stimulating conversations & interesting stuff to read/watch/etc. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

I'm @ryandadey and I love the internet and would like to be more engaged with people who feel the same. I like to share through FriendFeed and Twitter interesting tech, science and environment articles from Google Reader, as well some of my own thoughts. It would be more fun if I knew people were seeing my stream! - Ryan Dadey

I'm just this guy whose life has been revolutionized by the social web. I'm no "guru" or "expert," but because I live here so much, many people and even companies and organizations have asked me to guide them into this landscape, a responsibility that both scares and energizes me. Because of that, I seek to share, give, and help anywhere possible. Trying to make tons of connections; if you want to be one, thanks! - Mark Traphagen

You should follow me so you can point out where I could use some help on things, because I'm an interesting person, and because you like a bit of the crazy in the folks you follow. I'm Chris Charabaruk and I approve this beg for readers. http://beta.friendfeed.com/coldaci... http://coldacid.net http://twitter.com/coldacid - Chris, Without Direction

Beg, droool, beg :) - Susan Beebe

Martin Bryant is right - now that the US is asleep, this thread has died down. Onward Europe, Middle-east, Asia ! :) - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Thanks for the offer to follow us commenters Robert. I subscribe to all friendfeeders who leave comments as well. It's a great way to get to the heart of who's really participating in the trenches here on FF. BTW about me.. I started writing and acting when I was seven. I'm a musician/singer/songwriter and freelance writer/journo. I help others use the web to build an audience for their passion. - Jesse Newhart

hmm, so it is quiet when the US are offline! Too bad, I'd love some more people to follow, be followed and have conversations with from the rest of the sphere. Widen the horizon. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

nice idea - unfortunately friendfeed gets unreadable with so much comments. btw: i'm friendfeeding mainly about technology, consulting, personal productivity, gtd... - Alexander Benker

You should follow me because I tend to find interesting programming articles on the topics of: Django, Python, key-value stores, and more. - Eric Florenzano

I don't care if people follow me or not. I've been writing online (Usenet) since 1989, before the web, but Google's index only seems to go back to 1992. Most of my stuff isn't even on my blog, it's in email lists and discussion threads such as http://tinyurl.com/df5kc2 and http://tinyurl.com/3gfqzj (better than anything I've written here). A sample will give you some idea: "By what... more... - Victor Panlilio

I like talking to people and having conversations. It's no fun being on the social web if I'm not engaging anybody, and I need followers and people to follow to do that. - Jon, the Beartato of '10

No question about it, people should at least attempt to read new and different drummers daily because following the followed will always leave you in the follower camp. They laughed at Bob Dylan, they laughed at Gary Vaynerchuck, where are *they* now? - randulo

I tend to follow the people that interact with me on my imported items, if I am not already following you I apologies. Just drop me a DM and I will happily subscribe to your feed :) - Joe Dawson

That's a tough one, Joe -- you can only DM folks who have subscribed to you... - Eric Johnson

I don't give a crap about the other comments here - I need to make sure I have the Scobles following me. I mean, I think they are already. But still. Gotta cover my bases. As to WHY anyone should follow me: I like to think I take a humorous outlook on things, and can make you giggle at least once per day. Snark is my tool. Also, I'm earnest and naive, and I'll treat you with the respect you expect and deserve from the Internet. Also, cats flushing toilets: http://bit.ly/2Lx2w - Mike Nayyar

A retail designer by day (mainly customer experiences for consumer electronics shoppers) and a geek by night. If you want to brainstorm about how you'd like to shop and find cool new products, I'd love to hear from you. - Jason Goldberg

Hi, @cantor there, i'm an It Systems Specialist and a student (Computer Engineering in Pisa). I think you can follow me because i have ideas and opinions and i want to express them, i like to find & share and I'll do the best in "extreme multitasking mode" :P. - CantorJF

follow me because scoble told me to beg =P - Zafarali

@robbell You should follow me because you lack the motivation to follow more inspiring individuals :) - Rob Bell

I just started on FF and find it very interesting because of the focus on interaction arround subjects... FB is mostly talk about nothing, and I'm the only one in my friend group posting articles that interest me. Follow if u like... that will kindda help out on the interaction part! - Kevin Nordmand

Over 280 comments. Advantage of FriendFeed. Nice. Follow me for some interesting stuff online and offline. Geeky and non-geeky - Kannan

I am @alexisbellido and you should follow me to find more about teleworking, the Web and online businesses. I recently started using social media to support good causes and make your opinion matter. Currently supporting fight against hemophilia - Alexis Bellido

People should follow other people because something is said that rings true. Not because someone BEGS for it. Please don't take this comment as an invitation to follow me, thanks. - Vincent van Wylick

@Vincent: Well said. Truth is like gravity: you can pretend it doesn't exist, but you can't ultimately escape from it. - Victor Panlilio

cool self help group here! social media anonymous! :D - Dieter Schwarz

Great idea Robert :) - Zee.

Nearing 300 comments, the Scoble Effect indeed. Is that FF comment raffle over by the way? - Adi

For me at least, it's not as important that you follow me as it is that I follow you. You are very likely not to be interested in the stuff in my feed (and that's ok with me, please don't follow me unless you really find my crap, interesting), but you might like me commenting in your threads, which is where I get the most enjoyment from friendfeed..in the conversations on other people's posts. I am not that good of a conversation starter, but I am very good at jumping in when someone else does the starting. - April Russo (app103)

Follow me because I find unique interesting content before most people, I read allot and am subscribed to allot of popular and interesting feeds not many people know about! - Kyle Weller

Most of my feed activity revolves around various creative, social, and mobile technologies. Usually my own ideas and experiences with my own projects, and not so much link sharing. I like to think of myself as a quality over quantity kind of guy, so I won't overload your stream. I plan on hiking the Appalachian Trail next year and documenting it on the web as I go, so that should be interesting. I'm 5'9'' and I weigh... wait... what is this for again? - Daniel Sims

I often hear I am hard to follow. Maybe it's the Dutch. Maybe my wandering spirit. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Ruud: That's why I don't twitter in Dutch. In fact we should just all talk English ;) - Peter Kruit

Well I already follow the green guy (Scobelizer) on Twitter and FriendFeed and he follows me. But since I'm just an average guy, working in the Nonprofit field, I've found it a bit difficult to acquire followers on FriendFeed (not nearly as difficult on Twitter). So if anyone is interested in following someone who shares an eclectic mix of thoughts and interests, please feel free. - John A. Taylor

It does feel good to have activity on your feed. Makes me feel like someone is listening to me. - Christian Burns

I'm just getting started with friendfeed and already find the discussions great. I'm looking forward to being able to contribute some of my own thoughts to the conversations. After all, there are a lot of great things happening based off the idea of a person and the energy of a group. - John Spyers

I'd love to connect with more marketers here on FriendFeed - not just social media types, but business and marketing strategy peoples... Small business owners would be great, too. - Dennis O'Neil

I don't beg either, but since you asked...I'm good for some silliness, the occasional deep thought, encouragement of discussion of any kind (mostly political), and a good song or two. I'd like some musicians and poets to get on board as well. - Hel Hel

I like art, music, 3D, electric guitar, analgog synths, puppets, making stuff, my family, metaplace. I blog about artsy process and put up sweet flickr images. - sergiooo

I have 9 followers, one is Robert, but virtually no discussion. I'm one of the few people on FF that works with the government, works in a non-IT startup, and will recommend great economics and sustainability items. - Chris Stevenson

I just don't buy it yet. There is still way too much noise, and I'm not one of those guys with the time to go through posts with 300 (mostly uninteresting) comments. I have to filter extensively to get just a simdgeon of the interesting articles I pull off of GReader with Feedly and comments from the blogs themselves. Friendfeed would be great with Real Life connections, but they are all on Facebook. Friendfeed has a major uphill battle ahead of them, despite their superior interface and technology. - Phil Ashman

FF is a good twitter client though..;)... - Phil Ashman

Begging time. Follow me and SherylBreuker here (@kencamp & @SherylBreuker on Twitter. Please follow us and check this post Sheryl & Ken: Project Denmark (for 48 hours) #48hoursindk at http://stardustglobalventures.com/2009... We'll take you on the road to Denmark via social media. Help us win! - Ken Camp

Great thread! Found some goodies in here (and some crazies) - Daniel Morgan

Hey, I'm in. You go, Robert! - John Gerstner

Because no matter who you are, it takes followers to get followers. You have to start somewhere... - GeekDads.TV

You hungry? - Myrna

One for the writers and writing teachers. http://burnurl.com/lCF9av - Kathy Fitch

Funny stuff. I've had the chance to meet Dave Eggers... guy behind the 826 projects and the amazing books. Really neat to see him build this mini-empire of do-goodery and hilarity. - SAM

The prerequisites are my favorites: "ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance" - Dan Walters

I liked this part: "Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought . . ." Also, I'm holding out for the day when "HFACTDEWARIUCSMNUWKIASLAMB" will simply be the most perfect of responses. That seems like a one time use sort of deal, so I want to save it for the precisely right moment. - Kathy Fitch

"Leading the burn-her-at-the-stake parade is media opportunist Perez Hilton, the self-described gossip queen, and the individual who kick-started this controversy by asking the initial question as to whether the issue of same-sex marriage should be left up to the states. It seems that Hilton, who is gay, was none too pleased that Prejean chose to actually give her personal opinion on the issue, and ripped her on his blog after the show, using crude obscenities as he continued to attack her at every turn on his media blitz. Hey, Hilton, from a real journalist to a wanna-be who traffics in gossip: Never ask a question if you're unprepared for the answer! Frankly, this whole story is pretty stupid. Isn't the whole point of asking a question to get someone's true feelings, rather than the plastic and superficial answers we are all used to receiving? Sure, Prejean could have gone the safe route and given one of those answers that reveal nothing and is hard to decipher -- you know, the ones politicians give " - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

The most disappointing thing for me, wasn't the response from Miss California, but the rapturous applause from the audience after her comments. Sad to think in this day and age, so many people still want to prevent two people being happy together because they don't like the idea of it. - Anthony Burns

Agreed. We need to end the current climate where people can't disagree without insults being thrown. I applaud Miss California for giving an honest answer. Note: the best way to ensure that someone you disagree with won't change their mind is to insult them for their belief. - Rod Bauer

I agree with what's being said in thsi article, which articulates things better than I previously have. Perez Hilton asks a loaded question, is shocked when someone answers honestly with a viewpoint conflicting from his own, rips her apart, and expects us all to agree because he happens to have a blog and eyes on it. Shut your mouth, Hilton - people are entitled to their opinions, and not to kiss your butt to win. - Mike Nayyar

It seems to me that this country was founded on the premiss of free speech. I for one believe that marriage is between a man and a women. But that does not prevent the state from creating some other type of civil union. The real point here is that Miss California should not have been made to feel like some sort of outcast for expressing her opinion. I believe that she is in the majority - Zach Scott

The big issue i have (and a lot of others who disagrees with same sex marriage) is the use of the word Marriage. I have no problem with same sex civil unions which give same sex couples the same legal rights. Marriage to me however contains a religious context and that is why i disagree with same sex marriages - Jamie Vidamour

I think same sex marriages should be legal between two consenting adults. I voted No on Prop 8. I also think that Perez Hilton did a disservice to this movement by vilifying this woman at a beauty pageant and probably robbing her of her crown. It was an inappropriate question to be asked a single contestant at a beauty contest. It's unfortunate that he used this opportunity to convey his own intolerance and to give those opposing same sex marriage valuable ammunition to use in this case. - Thomas Hawk

@Jamie - the easy next step from there is "let's not legalize religious ceremonies at all". Just make the legal analogue of a marriage a civil union, regardless of the sex of the partners. The ceremony can be called whatever your officiant wants it to be. - Daniel J. Pritchett

dumb question. bad answer. expected audience response. predictable media thrashing. ultimately, all heat and no light. bummer. - MikeAmundsen

Jamie, that issue has always unsettled me. If marriage is just a religious context (and which religious context?), then why can heterosexual atheists obtain civil marriages? Why do we have marriages performed in a courthouse and not just in a religious institution? Pretty much what Daniel is saying. - joey

Pageants are stupid anyway, aren't they? - Edward Zwart

@Ed I always enjoyed the Swimsuit competition - Bill Rawlinson

Sport Illustrated has already vastly improved this Bill. :) - Edward Zwart

Dan Walters › Likes