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Patrick Allmond › Comments
Delicious Creator Quietly Launches Threaded Twitter Conversations - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
Olivia Lovag, Lora Lufark, Chuck Kahn and 62 other people liked this
"The idea is simple, take tweets and thread them together to form conversations, adding context. This works by using the a tiny thread site to both start new conversation threads, and add your comments to old ones. After authenticating via OAuth, your comment is then sent back to Twitter, with a link back to the a tiny thread conversation page."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
I like how the non-toplevel hostname http://a.tinythread.com/ is enough to indicate it's running on AppEngine.
- Casey Muller
Is that a suggestion? ;-)
- Christopher A Carr
Love this
- Michael Wiley
Friendfeed already offers much superior conversational tools, so why bother.
- Sean McBride
I missed the "login" link because it was WAAAAAY to the right of the page.
- Craig Eddy
I saw Leo laporte use it earlier today. Did not know it was from him
- Chris Heath
from iPhone
Wow... almost like a chat room. Really? A chat room. What an amazing revolutionary idea. Hey 1980. Good to see you again. Where have you been?
- Patrick Allmond
How does this compare with http://www.tweetworks.com/? I've used neither yet.
- Craig Eddy
@Casey you can't cname and easily geo optimize a 2nd level domain, thats why they don't support it.
- Sam Pullara
Wow this is really cool.. has potential. Coincidence that Joshua launched it the day after FF and FB announced the buy? Is there really such a thing as a coincidence?
- Amy Flynn
Hasn't this been done already?
- John
from iPhone
But you have to start a thread by tweeting from the tinythread page - it won't aggregate existing tweets.
- Neil Saunders
Nifty, I tried it earlier today. Simple, evolutionary... very cool
- Susan Beebe
from iPhone
Cool!
- Kol Tregaskes
It's a Twitter hack, but simplicity wins. I like it. Actually the fact that it doesn't push conversations out to Twitter is a good thing. Sometimes you go to somebody's Twitter front page and all you see is @ replies and you don't know what they're talking about because all you see is one-sided conversation
- Andre P. Siregar
I like Tinythread a lot.
- Robert Scoble
I'm seeing a bunch of "XXX joined a thread at tinythread" tweets. I don't think people understand that it spams their stream. If he's not careful, tinythread will accumulate some bad karma by spamming.
- DGentry
I agree with the spamyness off its behaviour, some preferences would be handy
- James Tenniswood
DGentry, James T., I guess options wouldn't hurt. Tweetworks is another service that does conversations on Twitter and when you join a conversation there, it would just send @ reply to the originator of the conversation in your Twitter stream. I actually prefer how Tinythread does it compared to Tweetworks
- Andre P. Siregar
friendfeed, let's get more acquainted.
Well hell Ron - I'm friendfreed. Welcome to my party :)
- Patrick Allmond
Whoops.... that was supposed to be HELLO
- Patrick Allmond
LOL Thanks, Patrick!
- Ron Hudson
People can congratulate the FriendFeed guys as much as they want but this site would be NOTHING without us. And I don't mean Scoble and his tag-alongs. I'm talking about the core group of users who have truly made FriendFeed what it is today. Technology without users is dead.
sofarsoShawn, Mitchell Tsai, Victor Ryden and 130 other people liked this
Bret and the gang owe it all to us and we have now been paid in full.
- Akiva Moskovitz
well said.
- Jim in Real Time
We'll figure it out
- Rodfather
I dunno, the site has had a bunch of different sets of "core users" over the years. I thought it was useful before the current crop showed up.
- Jason Wehmhoener
Well said.
- Mathew™ one of a kind
Ok lets go all high school in our reactions here.......
- Rasmus Lauridsen
So the FF snobs can't play with the FB snobs? Is that how it works?
- Bette Cooper
Being a snob about Facebook is like being a snob about processed cheese slices. You can try it but you're going to look damned foolish.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Good grief. There's nothing here that didn't exist in 1993 via IRC and Usenet. Get over yourselves and go make the next Friendfeed if you're all hot and bothered about it.
- Jason Wehmhoener
I have no doubt plenty will say the same about FriendFeed...
- Bette Cooper
other way round - we wouldnt be here if it wasnt for the FF guys
- Jamie
Amen. They said nothing about users in their announcements.
- Dave Winer
Arrington's inteview with the FB and FF guys suggests they want the engineers not the service itself
- Mark
"There's nothing here that didn't exist in 1993 via IRC and Usenet".... Actually you're wrong. IRC and Usenet, like successors Facebook and Twitter were/are all about conversations with ocasional nuggets of information. Friendfeed was all about nuggets of information with eventual conversations around them.
- Mario Valente
holla
- sean percival
"Bret and the gang owe it all to us and we have now been paid in full." This would be true, Akiva if Facebook had bought friendfeed for the content...instead they bought it for the talent. I think this could have happened regardless of community involvement, which is why it's an even deeper betrayal.
- Alex Scoble
Why is it a betrayal? Friendfeed is a BUSINESS....
- Rob Sellen :o)
If you don't understand how screwing over your customers is the worst betrayal a business can do, then you shouldn't be in business.
- Alex Scoble
Holy crap! Friendfeed is a business! Wow, I comLETELY forgot!
- Jim in Real Time
Alex, what have you bought from friendfeed so far? I guess it all depends on who you think the customer is.
- Richard Lawler
I bought the use of the service and I paid for it with my time, my words and my word of mouth advertising.
- Alex Scoble
I'm looking for Alex Scoble's time, words and word of mouth advertising on the balance sheet, gimme a sec.
- Richard Lawler
I don't know, Akiva. I've had a lot of good experiences here. Among them was getting to know Robert Scoble and his tag-alongs. I feel like they won me as a user with the technology and community they gave me. It's their party. They get to say when it's over.
- Bruce Lewis
Well said, Akiva.
- Johnny
Word. Right to the point Akiva! http://friendfeed.com/nia...
- Nia
the users never get the credit
- Mark
Are we "customers" Alex? where were we paying??.. I just saw your "time" comment.. I agree there BUT.. it's still a business.
- Rob Sellen :o)
*cries* (some more)
- Jason Huebel
/me offers shoulder.
- τorƍue
really? REALLY? And who is the core group of user to which they depend on so much?
- Patrick Allmond
word Akiva. That post up there, that could me posting it. That how much it rings true with me.
- vijay
That's a direct insult to: (1) everyone who is not part of "us" [whoever your 'us' points to; not me] (2) the brilliant engineering of the FF team [because if it wasn't for your 'us', FB would not have come to them with $50 million].
- Mohamed J
without the team and the VC there would be no "us"
- Thomas Power
If you want to know who the core group of users are, just check out ffholic. And if the FF team is insulted, then they should've better prepared themselves for the backlash that they had to know was coming.
- Akiva Moskovitz
The wealth of social media is in the user community. Your friends are your personal credentials and so it goes... all the way up the line.
- Fossil Huntress
Without the users friendfeed is nothing but lines of code.Actually, without anyone to use it, it would be useless code. Sure VC invested in it, but so did we. And the ff team and VC win and the rest of the investors (us) lose.
- April Russo (app103)
Akiva it's not the developers you are insulting it's all of us "Scoblefollowers" We are part of this community but you decided to swing the high school clique bat and discount us all as nothings. Thank you, that shows your great community spirit... I guess you didn't get what Bette meant by FF snobs.. I'll look at it as a "knee jerk" reaction since I normally like you and your posts.
- Rasmus Lauridsen
Look, I see where people are coming from here, but if "community" is gonna be every fifth word, maybe we should work harder not to tear ourselves apart just because some business issues happen. Being worried about the possible changes is understandable. I don't feel "betrayed", I am just worried. But playing clique games is a bad idea, creating "us vs. them" mentality is a bad idea, and...
more...
- Neal Jansons
Thanks Neal for common sense.
- Jason Wehmhoener
Rasmus, you're not getting the actual sentiment here. The Scoble tag-a-longs are people who followed Scoble from Twitter to FriendFeed and then ended up contributing nothing to the community here other than dumping their Twitter streams and occasionally replying to Scoble's posts. Robert's unique in that he can encourage 20,000 people to join a service but just because they tagged along...
more...
- Akiva Moskovitz
Neal, I don't see where I've played clique games. As I pointed out above, just go to ffholic.com and look at the 20 most active users. THOSE people are the driving forces behind FriendFeed community. Do you see my name in that list? Nope. I'm not sure what you think my motive is to promote an us vs. them mentality when I am neither part of the 'us' nor part of the 'them'.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Thnx, Jason, I try. I just think that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy to say "OMG FB bought FF, it's gonna destroy the community!" and then go around doing everything we can to polarize ourselves. Save the polarity and extreme positions for blog posts. We need to keep our behavior up to the standard that has made this such an awesome place to be, and if the conditions become untenable,...
more...
- Neal Jansons
Oh, Akiva, I am not pointing the finger at you at all! The tone is the issue here...upset is turning into angry too much. I am not saying you made a cliquey statement, but people went there. You made a statement about content and value, no us and them. The us and them crap seems to just happen. What I am urging ALL of us (including me) is to be careful and live up to the standards that have made FF great, even if FF goes bye-bye.
- Neal Jansons
Akiva - I am a Scoble "tag-along" as you derisively labelled me/us, so I too resent your holier than thou tone and attitude
- Brian Sullivan
Brian, you need to read through the comments.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Brian...are you here responding and posting? Then you are not who was being referred to. The tag-alongs are those who just go to add numbers and then don't interact at all. The very fact that you saw the comment excludes you from who the comment is about.
- Neal Jansons
Neal, ah, got you. With how tense things are around here right now, it's terribly easy to read the negative into everything.
- Akiva Moskovitz
And for the record, I don't buy into FFholic too much. Follower count is just not a good metric for judging a community. A lot of people I consider "core group" here are not in the top 20.
- Neal Jansons
Neal, true, which is why I referred specifically to the top 20 most active users and not the most popular.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Now thats one post on FF which I've really really really liked...
- Rohit
Akiva...I know, that is exactly why I am urging all of us to be careful. I am trying to willfully ignore things that seem provocative.
- Neal Jansons
Funny, i woulda thought that "core groups" (and there appear to be several claiming the mantle) kinda sorta goes completely against the type of shared community ethos I thought this place was all about.
- Thom Kennon
Thom...core groups are a natural sociological phenomena. They are unavoidable, due to loci of interaction and convergent socialization. I participate in no ethos that pretends like some hippie ideal is going to subvert basic rules of interaction. In any case where there is a community of sufficient size, those who participate more become the core group. Only way not to have one is to have no community or no participation.
- Neal Jansons
I would like to add that just by participating, you're already 'in' on FriendFeed.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I would agree w/ Thom. This week I am more active then Akiva, but I think we are equal as we both are active even though we are in different circles. Now does this make me part of a "core" anything- who knows. Akiva is right, it is the active users that make this happen.
- Joe
I don't know about that.
- Joe
Deakins, contributing is one thing; caring about how many people see your contribution is another.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Neal - yes, totally get the sociological phenomena. I'm talking about how people elevate themselves in comparative self-worth by striving to exclude others not in their "core group". As natural as it may be, it is uncool when waved as a flag in defense of being wronged. You see - it's ironic in this case as some of the core group people are kvetching they got left out in the deal. There is, alas, always a more core core group.
- Thom Kennon
Well it goes both ways. They saw a need for such a site, they created it. We liked it as it suited our tastes. They deserve the credit because they made it, early adopters like you encouraged them keep going. Why say stuff like, "Technology without users is dead"??
- | Balu |
Moskovitz: Care to clarify? My name is Joe.
- Joe
Balu, show me where technology without users is anything else.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Deakins, not really. Hah.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Kibbutz privatization is a trending topic.
- Eric Logan
Okay Moskovitz, you do know the correct way to this. Good day.
- Joe
That was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, Deakins. I just have other things to do right now. I'll return to this thread later.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Ahh, I see what you are saying, Thom. I don't subscribe to that attitude...that isn't a core group as I mean it, that is a clique. I got familiarized with the notion of a "core group" in my activist days, where the sociological aspect was focused on making sure people who were NOT core group got their ideas included and didn't feel excluded. It's a organizational psych. issue...not...
more...
- Neal Jansons
Look Akiva if you don't have enough courtesy to use my first name then I guess new folks like me are not entitled to respect from FF users like yourself.
- Joe
@neal - cool.
- Thom Kennon
WTF, Deakins? This isn't because anyone thinks they are better than you, he is just responding to usernames, most likely because he is using a client, not the web interface (just like me). All I see is usernames. You are willfully choosing to take offense. Can you keep your narcissistic injury under control? If not, maybe you aren't in the best place emotionally to have a civil discussion and should withdraw.
- Neal Jansons
from IM
If you want people to call you by your first name, include it in your username so people using clients will see it.
- Neal Jansons
from IM
@Akiva Moskovitz I never said users are not necessary. I said, "early adopters like you encouraged them to keep going" Yes you had a role so did many others, who build friendfeed into what it is today. What makes friendfeed special is the underlying code. That's what made you, me and many others stay. The groups, the search, the real-time thingy.. People, the users, make something good, perfect.
- | Balu |
Neal: He already knows my first name and if you look in the comments above you will see that I mentioned it again. So thanks for your tip. :) You have a great day Neal.
- Joe
"Can't we all just get along?"
- Karma Martell
You have a good day too Karma.
- Joe
You too, JD. This should be our biggest problem in life!
- Karma Martell
Balu, ah, now I see what you're saying. Good point, too.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Joe, you must've edited that comment because when I first saw it, all it said was 'Care to clarify'.
- Akiva Moskovitz
No worries Akiva.
- Joe
I don't happen to think it is the underlying code that makes it special. It would be just as special to me if it were the same conversations with the same people on phpbb forum.
- April Russo (app103)
April, on phpbb you wouldn't find the interesting people through all the noise. The precise workings of Like/Hide on FF are important.
- Bruce Lewis
True.
- © b e e n s w a n k
I don't know about that. Well, maybe not phpbb. More like SMF. At least there is a "permanently ignore" mod available that works well as a "hide"" and then there is ones for "ignore user" and ratings, and all kinds of other stuff. And I wouldn't miss anything at all with the unread items page, something Friendfeed lacks. And a slight modification to one of my apps would give me ability to search right from my taskbar.
- April Russo (app103)
EFF YEAH!
- sofarsoShawn
Analysis of the need for an Open-Source Twitter:http://om.ly/FfDD (disclosure: I am a Laconi.ca advisor)
Lisa Taber, Rom Feria, Fred H Schlegel and 10 other people liked this
a year later and we're still just seeing the obviousness of laconi.ca
- Chris Heath
I downloaded laconi.ca and got one up for my state at http://twitterok.com as soon as I heard about it.
- Patrick Allmond
Just wish I could get more of my friends to use it. None of that fail-whale crap so far.
- Eddie G
Sadly, I never visit my identi.ca account; everyone I know is on Twitter pretty much and without a community, it's not very useful :(
- Travis B. Hartwell
Consider setting up a laconi.ca site for your state and start pushing people to it. I know it seems silly but it can come in handy when twitter is down.
- Patrick Allmond
7billlion tweets a year - 2trillion SMS messages a year. "tweets" will take over for short messages. No way twitter is gonna handle that by themselves. the federated sites will develop
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Highly likely, given issues recent DOS attack had on twitter AND Laconi.ca offers far more than twitter!
- peterjabraham
There is a massive need for this... it really is a must that they (or someone like them) succeed in creating a federated microblogging platform. Remember how important the IRC was for the internet in the early days? Then instant messaging took off and now microblogging is the next technology that will change the use cases people have for their internet connected devices.
- Charles
What were you doing when you heard about the acquisition of FF by Facebook?
Darren Heydon, Felipe Aneudi Campana, Matthew Horton and 5 other people liked this
I was scanning a painting I wanted to show other FF-ers later tonight.
- Ton Zijp
on the phone
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
I read it while scrolling google news.
- ashish
I had just opened my macbook and connected it to my video projector, getting ready to watch a good movie.
- Brome
I was walking through San Antonio's Hard Rock Cafe.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
I was having a life
- Patrick Allmond
Reading about it on Google Reader
- Tim
watching Lost, illegally downloaded from Mininova.
- Mark
Looking through my Twitter stream. Bwana linked a Feedface pic (from here) and I thought it was a joke.
- Jed
Strangely enough, I was listening to the theme from Jaws on Pandora. It may have contributed to my initial feelings of doom at reading this news.
- Mary DeSive
Eating a taco.
- Mike Doeff
First thing I saw when I was finished with dinner.
- Meryn Stol
Just saw the news in my FB news feed, when I about update my status in FB. ;)
- Tharique Azeez
I had just downloaded my first pix to the PC
- gerald miller
using neither of them. I was on Twitter ;)
- kosso
who broke the story was it TC?
- Mark
on ff
- mike "glemak" dunn
I was feeding my face.
- Brent - Loving Life
I was checking FriendFeed while compressing a new video for my road trip website, http://TheHardestYear.com ... Is it comment spam if it's true? :)
- John
from iPhone
Everything is allowed today, John. ;-)
- Ton Zijp
I was watching FriendFeed live feed, saw it the instant it flashed up.
- jcunwired
read it on twitter
- Gordon Corte
working! i was working! I promise. So much for that.
- Holly Rae
trying to organize my ff feed, :(
- chaz2b
I was dropping the kids off at the pool. No, I don't have kids.
- Matthew Horton
from iPhone
Driving. (Well, technically, I was stopped at a stop light.) One of the people I get phone notifications for on Twitter had tweeted it.
- Joanmarie
I was just about to leave for lunch.
- Morton Fox
Then you were probably dropping something in the pool. We won't ask you what it was, Matthew.
- Ton Zijp
I was reading Facebook
- Paul McElligott
Google News here too, with FriendFeed and facebook both open, coincidentally.
- Californian
Playing TF2 on my lunch break
- Brett Kelly
BTW, right after hearing the news I posted a 'Goodbye Song' on FF: http://ff.im/6pM25 ;-)
- Ton Zijp
worrying about things that actually affected my life
- Cody Heitschmidt
Pinching myself, hoping to wake up from a terrible nightmare ;)
- Lyndon Washington
Actually, I should be sleeping now(2:30am here) but everyone's awake due to the news of possible earthquake. I, have already got my first jolt(this news.) .
- अभिषेक(Abhishek) Das
from fftogo
Watching Lost legally streaming from Netflix.
- Brandon Titus
from iPhone
I was coding a website where you could like connect with old friends and stuff and also do like realtime searches on peoples updates
- Mads Kristiansen
i was just about to get oo of work, and checked in to FF just before leaving and it's pretty apparent that this wasn't a joke after the first 10 FF items
- Chris Heath
A co-worker was demoing his Kindle for me and he happened to page through something that said that Facebook bought Friendfeed.
- Jeff Smith
I was twitting,
- Felipe Aneudi Campana
from iPhone
what's twitting? .... oh, you mean tweeting... gotcha
- Chris Heath
I was watching paint dry - it seemed more exciting at the time ;)
- Rich White
Sitting in a train, in commute to work, one of the first thing was a comment in my inbox on an old Scoble thread from someone who led me on to the news.
- Morten Blaabjerg
lol - I was just thinking that tweetdeck was the most long lasting of my 'new favorites' for sometime
- James Stanbridge
I had no idea about this deal before I read about it on @techcrunch
Jamieasp, Roberto Bonini, Hanna Wiszniewska and 10 other people liked this
didn't even suspect it?
- Patrick Allmond
It makes sense that since Twitter turned Facebook's offer down, FriendFeed will be a likely target.
- Tim Akinbo
from Alert Thingy
Yeah same for the rest of us
- Constantine
Patrick: no. But I kept asking what FriendFeed would do. This is the answer.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
They sell out to Facebook, and according to Arrington they don't even want the service just the engineers
- Mark
Does this mean you'll be hyping Facebook now?! ;)
- Chris Aldrich
Where's the Bezos style acquisition video from Zuckerberg?
- Benjamin Taylor
Friendface == > http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Kashif Khan
Kashif that was hilarious.Find!
- Benjamin Taylor
I just an episode of IT crowd and was thinking that would be hillarious. Came back to my screen and it became true lol
- Kashif Khan
Facebook buys ff, then Twitter, then Second Life <--- Google buys the whole thing = Google Metaverse. ;-)
- Christopher A Carr
hmmm.
- cheapsuits
Google Chrome: Redefining The Operating System - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
Tyson Key, Craig Shipp, Susan Beebe and 13 other people liked this
"What is an OS? When I worked at Microsoft they showed an OS as being layers. UI is top layer. Kernel and Drivers being bottom layer. Both are considered OS. Pedantic OS arrogance is worse than any of my many sins."
- Robert Scoble
Microsoft has nothing to worry about until Google provides warranties and a support line. This will be another toy for the tech oriented to play with. And then for next 10 years we will hear "THIS is the year that the Google OS is ready for the desktop"
- Patrick Allmond
A competitive OS space is GREAT for the consumer and will continue to drive more cost effective options and hopefully innovating features. While Microsoft has been the number 1 option for enterprise customers for many years, perhaps in the future there will be other serious options that also entertain SERIOUS interoperability, and first class support services to match.
- Clifford Kennedy
It better not crash. Ever.
- Matt Soreco
Chrome will revamp the Open source market. More tools built on Linux will enter space. And finally consumer is the king, since open source is free
- Michael_techie
Shup The Hell Up You Self-Promoting Turd - http://www.chrisbrogan.com/shup-th...
Tim Moore, Bruce Lewis, Patrick Allmond and 10 other people liked this
I totally agree but, umm, "shup"?
- Laura Norvig
It was a typo. : (
- Chris Brogan
Waiting for the world to notice praise from your users looks like a really slow process to me.
- Bruce Lewis
It actually made the post stand out more, I think ... could be a new blogging trick.
- Laura Norvig
@Laura, I agree, but think using it too much could happen quickly
- Henry iii
Guy Kawasaki says to speak persuasively. Chris Brogan says to let my users speak for me. Probably both are needed. http://friendfeed.com/guykawa...
- Bruce Lewis
Speaking persuasively is WAY different than blathering on and on about yourself and your products. EQUIP people. That's what guy did back in 1983 when he promoted the first Mac.
- Chris Brogan
I have a similiar issues as dbriere that commented over on the blog. We write some slick HR type software on the intranet for a government organization. I can't do anything to show you a demo or screenshots. Ever. In those cases you need to do some shameless self-promotion.
- Patrick Allmond
Just finished a morning casual flight around OKC and over the downtown buildings. If there is a better hobby than flying please let me know what it is... so I can contest you :) (via http://friendfeed.com/patrick...)
How far do you typically fly? Do you have your own plane?
- Chris Wilson
Typically I stay pretty close when flying - within 100 miles of OKC. I am part of a club where each person is a 1/45 co owner of three planes.
- Patrick Allmond
Louis Gray Recycles His Cards After Using CloudContacts | CloudContacts - http://cloudcontacts.com/blog...
Allen Stern, Nicholas James and Louis Gray liked this
What does this have over batchblue? I have been using it for awhile and loving it.
- Patrick Allmond
Patrick - I think Batchblue is more of a CRM - at the most basic level, my service (cloudcontacts) is a business card transcription and contact information manager.
- Allen Stern
Allen - Not really. It is definitely contact and relationship management. It does not have any of the typical CRM features (leads, pipelines, funnels, etc). But with the way you can tag people and the variety of way you can relate people it is amazingly flexible. Take a look sometime.
- Patrick Allmond
will do - thanks
- Allen Stern
Thinking about buying a Flip Mino HD
Patrick Allmond, Peter, vicster is... and 9 other people liked this
I should do a show comparing my Flip Mino HD to my Creative Vado and my Kodak Zi6. I like all three for different reasons.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: does one stand out for just pure quality of the video?
- Ken Sheppardson
I really want one. I need some disposable income.
- Martha
Just bought the Kodak Zi6 as a gift for father-in-law. The price and HD combined with the style made it a winner over the Flip for me which I find to be pretty ugly.
- Mark H
I love it when these kinds of tweets get Scobleized. Crowd-sourcing my product research! : )
- Mike Doeff
Ken: the Creative has the best video, but doesn't work with the Mac's iMovie so you have to convert videos there first. That's a PITA, but doable. Mark: the Kodak is the ugliest and biggest one. I like the Mino for fitting in my pocket the best.
- Robert Scoble
Lindsey, I haven't decided on a design yet. In fact, now I'm also considering the Kodah Zi6 and the Creative Vado.
- Mike Doeff
I take mine everywhere, since it fits nicely in my pocket. The videos you get probably won't impress any engineers, but you have a camera when you need it.
- Tom Landini
Exactly, Lindsey. It is so very very hard to be fiscally responsible.
- Martha
There is a slick video out there someplace where someone taped/rubberbanded a mino to another pocket HD cam to show their quality side by side. Might be good to watch. But damn I cannot find the video.
- Patrick Allmond
Patrick Chris Pirillo did that. Let me find the URL.
- Robert Scoble
I love my mino HD
- Web Journeys
from twhirl
Lindsey: I just wish the Creative worked with the mac. It sucks that it doesn't.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, it looks like the Vado supports Mac (http://us.creative.com/product...) What kind of problems did you run into on the Mac?
- Mike Doeff
I've got the Mino HD and works fine for what I need it for.
- Dave Gambrill
Mike: the Creative Vado HD files do not work in iMovie. You have to convert them to MOV format first.
- Robert Scoble
Great idea. I keep mine with me wherever I go. I don't think there has ever been an easier way to record video.
- Patrick Allmond
I would buy a creative Vado HD Mike. Much much better quality
- TheHenry
I was just thinking of buying one too!
- Peter
Advertising aimed at black people that can't even get basic slang correct = Ultimate FAIL!
Patrick Allmond, Michael W. May, Helen Sventitsky and 4 other people liked this
Yoohoo doggie. You are being a trip.
- Tad
Just trying to put you guys on "peep game" (which sounds like a game you play with peeps around Easter)
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Phrases to your mother.
- Tad
Have you seen this? - http://friendfeed.com/baldgee...
- B. Hatin
LMFAO@Tad....(QUICK! How do you LOL without waking the baby?!)
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Oh dang, Kaia...that book makes me want to cry and explains soooo much all at once.
- Admiral Anika
nice, Tad *chuckle*
- Michael W. May
Advertising at black people using slang was the ultimate fail attempt - this coming from a genuine black person :)
- Patrick Allmond
Know & Master Your Social Media Data Flow // Louis Gray // {spend time reducing your echo chamber} - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
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CantorJF, Stanislas Jourdan, Nick Marsh and 12 other people liked this
What I neglected to mention is that Socialmedian can also update your Facebook status based on what you like/dislike, but hey... can't win them all!
- Louis Gray
Interesting - Another one of many charts that shows how people think data should flow in social marketing - this one being friendfeed centric. Is this in regards to personal, or business?
- Patrick Allmond
I want to do a report on social media service agencies, but I think the market is too young yet --too many players.
Jorge Barba and Nicholas Chase liked this
Do you think it will be better in a year?
- Patrick Allmond
The number of players will not be going down. It is a jungle out there. If you do a report now how will you determine who are the best agencies, and not just the most popular.
- Patrick Allmond
I told DMNews that Twitter Search replacing Google Search is "overblown" http://www.dmnews.com/Still-e...
Thomas Power, Jayavasanthan J, Daniel J. Pritchett and 4 other people liked this
I concur with your wholeheartedly. It is way overblown as it alot of twitter hype. I really try to push this on people that are just now coming on board.
- Patrick Allmond
Twitter Search complements GoogleSearch, doesn't replace it. Furthermore, there is "Social Media Search", of which Twitter Search is a sub-set of, and that includes the Commentsphere for e.g., and that's a bigger piece of the real-time web and people-centric search.
- William Mougayar
I will add that Google is indexing Twitter, and what bit.ly is doing is very interesting. So watch for this 1 gorilla and 1 start-up for the story on "real-time search" to fully unravel.
- William Mougayar
"Overblown" yes, but Twitter Search is a rare unique player that will become more and more important each year. No one else does "real time" search quite like Twitter.
- Mike Reynolds
@loic: Twitter is broken and we all know it. But we muddle along anyway. Bring us better tools so we can view groups we care about.
Gordon Montgomery, Damian Holmes, Hayes Haugen and 31 other people liked this
And of course first you'd have to turn Friendfeed into an app that could actually function as a direct replacement for Twitter.
- Ken Sheppardson
The "feature" that FF is missing that twitter has is reduced feature set and limits in the face of performance issues.
- Andy Bakun
FriendFeed should buy Twitter and move all Twitter users to FriendFeed. FF is far better than Twitter
- Waldemar Schott
Twitter is probably worth alot more than FF at this point, especially with the recent explosion in users.
- Matyjas
Maybe Twitter should buy FF, throw their site away and put FF on twitter.com
- Waldemar Schott
Is twitter broken ? No - it is saturated because it was overhyped. When people stop looking for the next big thing and realize that all of these tools that come along are just another nice thing to have in our toolbox the hype will die down. Until then people are going to keep racing to see who has the most followers.
- Patrick Allmond
Patrick: Twitter is broken in many ways. The community there no longer has integrity. Why does Veronica have 115,000 followers, most of whom are spam, while her boyfriend, RyanBlock has 13,000 followers (Ryan used to run Engadget and should have way more followers than Veronica should). I'll tell you why: the system is corrupted and broken. And we won't even go near the fail whale problem.
- Robert Scoble
Maciej: well, are we counting all the fake users in the explosion, or real ones? I'm not sure anymore. I can demonstrate that new accounts lately are heavily fake. Twitter's executives seem not to care about this issue.
- Robert Scoble
I don't think Twitter is broken, but I do think it is reaching the end of its life. I wrote about it more sensibly: http://blog.jamesmarshall.org.uk/2009...
- James Marshall
I think "broken" is a strong word...changing yes.
- John Flynn
John: Twitter is broken, it's just that you haven't seen the damage. I've shown it off on other threads if you care.
- Robert Scoble
James : you joined Twitter in Nov08, have done almost nothing on it (like follow lots of cool people) and yet somehow you seem to think you know a lot about twitter. strange.
- Alensa
Alensa: +100
- Robert Scoble
+1, Alensa! (oh, Robert beat me, and by two orders of magnitude. Too slow on the draw! *grin*)
- Ken Kennedy
Robert, Social media is "broken". Not only twitter... And until the web sees and understands efforts of people like Chris Saad, Ashley Angell, Messina, Tantek... (and very humbly mines) it will remain broken. I mean it's not a "technological" issue, it's a design one.
- directeur
directeur: innovators get rewarded often in other non-credit ways. But I agree with you. By the way, the fact that you know all those people demonstrates that they are getting SOME credit. I follow all of them and share anything remarkable that they do, by the way.
- Robert Scoble
directeur: some social media is more broken than others. Twitter takes the easy coding route out of problems and it costs us all. That's why you see the fail whale so often (more than 10,000 times more often than I see it here on friendfeed) and why they have corrupted their communities through poorly-thought-out features. @ev does this, though. He spends "just enough" to make a service highly profitable. Did that with Blogger too. I can't blame him for taking the low road. It pays off.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I agree, they're getting "some" credits and they deserve it A LOT. Maybe, you and me, know them because of our common and particular interest in these subjects... But, trust me, most people don't know yet what "attention" or "microformats" are, thus those efforts remain invisible to the masses. And since startups success is first about getting the "average user's" satisfaction, people who manage these startups don't really care about innovation and innovators :(
- directeur
Robert, I agree also about the "low road", and that's what I'm saying in my precedent comment too. I've worked with a highly successful marketer and one thing he thougt me is: Don't try to be smart, just sell!
- directeur
directeur: I think smart does sell eventually. Word gets around that one system has integrity, another is corrupted. It does matter in the long run. In the short run, though, Twitter will make lots of profit, just like Blogger did. Blogger never worked well for me. Always was slow, both before Google bought it and after. And always had lots of spam. Sounds a lot like Twitter, doesn't it?
- Robert Scoble
The only thing I would add to Robert and directeur's conversation (which I agree with in whole) is that "groups" is a flawed concept. It relies on you adding people to your social graph... then grouping them out into contexts. I would argue that the context (subject, topic, event) comes FIRST - conversation comes second and adding the person to your social graph comes last. The challenge with Twitter (and to a lesser degree FF) is that the social graph is the only way to discover content (and people)...
- Brian Roy
Robert, you just nailed it! Smart sell "eventually" and in the long run. Let's hope that FriendFeed -which still lacks some more smartness like: Attention Profiling- will be to twitter what Wordpress is to Blogger :)
- directeur
Brian: friendfeed is a friend discovery system. Here, try it out. If you "like" a friend's item that I've never seen before all of a sudden that item and your friend is put into my view. But I agree with where you're going. We need even better systems. Search is one way, but we still need more ways to find the really great content out there.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, one word and I know people hate me because I'm repeating it a lot: APML :) Seriously, we've discussed this a lot, you and me, and I know that you do care. Brian is right. This is what FriendFeed lacks. Sharing, rating, finding people AND content with "interests" (Personal interests) is the way to go. I've tried with Feedego (remember, you tweeted it) NoiseRiver, and now SocialWhois. But ironically one NEEDS "popularity" to get "attention" on ATTENTION :)
- directeur
No, we don't need to complexify Twitter. Just make alts and have some of them with a very small group to reduce clutter and others to surf the noise.
- Prokofy Neva
directeur: you should put URLs to all of your projects. I just never took to your stuff for some reason. But, yes, you're right. Attention breeds attention. :-)
- Robert Scoble
directeur - Enable popular contexts (like I'm trying to do with Peter Himmelman's Furious World http://furiousworld.com). People interested in the context will aggregate there, discover one another, and the power of the social graph actually gets utilized to add more interested people to the context. Sorry (but not really) for the shameless plug.
- Brian Roy
Robert - I agree - FF has better discovery tools than Twitter. But is certainly doesn't make context based discovery easy. This isn't about search... it is about participating in real time conversations about topics you are interested in.
- Brian Roy
Brian, I totally agree on both suggestions! Kuddos to your efforts on the furiousworld project too! I'm getting some nice and kind noise about it and wish you a great success with it! Please let me know if I can help in any way! I'm a bit overwhelmed lately but i'll very gladly work with you on these subjects :)
- directeur
Brian: give me an example of what you want to do. I have lost the context and need to understand more about what you're thinking of.
- Robert Scoble
Robert - There are two live examples today - One at http://ushealthcrisis.com and one a http://furiousworld.com - These are destinations about specific topics. Tools to "tune" Social Media (Twitter/FF) so that on that site you get JUST stuff about that topic (signal) and can engage in conversation with other interested people. The magic is it is still public... so my social graph sees that I'm talking about - for example HIPPA, and can come join the conversation...
- Brian Roy
I get to discover new interesting people talking about subjects I find interesting... the site owner gets more traffic by leveraging my social graph... we all get rich conversation centered on specific topics (contexts).
- Brian Roy
In order for Twitter to be broken do you have to believe that, at some point, Twitter worked perfectly?
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
We're conditioned to use software that is broken. The thing is, Twitter works well enough for the people who use it.
- Victor Ganata
Mark: it worked better before February 6, yes. And at least I could trust the follower numbers as lame and petty as they might have been. But your point is a good one. Twitter has always been busted and yet we still use it.
- Robert Scoble
So, here's my prediction: As happens so frequently in web apps, there will be (is) a competitor that will be the successful one, and Twitter will be looked at as another IM service.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
Twitter runs my life.
- © b e e n s w a n k
I think the fact that twitter is "broken" inherently leads to more innovation as groups and individuals find their own ways to use the pure raw potential that's there.
- Amie Gillingham
The beauty of FF is that every person can create his own view of the content and people. Like Robert said, some people see FF as a friend discovery system but for me it's primarily a content agregator. Everybody can choose how they create and consume content. I don't follow too many people but on the other hand I love the friend-of-friend concept. Follow, unfollow, share, comment, like...
more...
- Tapio Kulmala
In the spirit of Mark's prediction - The SM aggregator/network that does the best job engaging the developer community to extend/add value to the offering will "win". None of them are doing a great job today (FF is best... Twitter is becoming openly hostile to DEVs, Facebook is only interested in getting content INTO FB).
- Brian Roy
It's ridiculous to think of SM as a zero-sum game. I bet there are a quite a few of us who use FB, Twitter, and FF all on a daily basis. I doubt any of us who do want any of them to disappear. You use the right tool for the right task, and for the right audience.
- Victor Ganata
Last night I bought into the meme that #'s of followers matter again. I was wrong. Again. Here's why:
Roman Zolotarev, Gordon Saunders, Patricia F. Anderson and 94 other people liked this
1. If you base your ego on something you don't control you'll continually be unsatisfied. Now we REALLY don't control how many followers you'll get. It's like winning the lottery. If you thought that winning the lottery mattered in some way to your life then you'll always be unsatisfied.
- Robert Scoble
2. The list of top Twitterers now has no integrity and everyone knows it, so being on that list no longer matters. It's sort of like the number of results that Google says it has. That number is a joke too and no one pays any attention to it.
- Robert Scoble
3. Who is listening to you has absolutely no impact on your life unless you are selling advertising. Who is TALKING to you DOES have an impact on your life. That's probably why I spend so much more time on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
4. Even if the list had some integrity there would always be someone more popular than you. Even Barack Obama will be passed someday.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, there is a saying in business. When somebody doesn't stop talking, it's marketing. When they shut up and listen, its sales.
- Patricia
Was it Twitter's "Suggested Follower" feature that's changed your mind Robert? http://tinyurl.com/cc66ow
- Jim Connolly
5. Talking to masses is fun and I hope everyone gets lots of friends to talk to because there is some value in having lots of people to respond to your questions or bring you the latest news, but I find when I wake up in the morning I head first to my list with only 150 people on it. Why? Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans.
- Robert Scoble
But how else can you tell who wins?
- Glen, Bespectacled Elder
Jim: yeah, that feature pissed me off last night. Why did I get pissed off? Because I bought into the meme that how many followers you have matters. But, it also reminded me that I am not in charge of how many followers I have. It is not based on any objective criteria (at least now, I thought it had at least something to do with objectivity and that you could earn followers by putting good content out. Now I see that you can earn followers by some subjective criteria and that led to this post).
- Robert Scoble
6. Due to http://search.twitter.com and friendfeed's search (and discovery items) you can have conversations with people without having any followers. So, having tons of followers is having less and less value as people go to Twitter search more and more (or use TweetDeck's search features).
- Robert Scoble
The list of top twitters has integrity - we know exactly what is and it's true to that - it's just not the way you would like it...
- yanwoo
@Glen: is twitter a contest?
- .LAG liked that
yanwoo: no, it has no integrity anymore. You have no idea why someone is at the top. You used to know, not anymore. Now if I worked at Twitter I could make someone go to the top of the list just by putting them on the suggested friends list.
- Robert Scoble
.LAG: all lists are contests. That's why they piss off so many people and why they are defended by people who are rewarded by them (me included).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: You will appreciate this then - How I deleted 23500 followers in 5 minutes (AND why I reset my Twitter account to zero.) http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2009...
- Jim Connolly
@LAG Some people obviously think so ;)
- Glen, Bespectacled Elder
Robert, the # of people following a person on twitter is a bit like a black box. Sure, we know all the accounts that are following someone, but we have no idea if those accounts are real people, marketing spammers, casual users, or something else. Until I can point at a users account and say "This is a real person, I know how to tell 100% of the time" then follower numbers are meaningless HS popularity contests. However, I do feel like once a person gets over a critical mass of real followers, the potential
- Daniel Spisak
re: #3... if you are saying good things, and people are listening and being informed or inspired to do good things, then it matters. Maybe not to you, but potentially to others.
- LogEx
...for crowdsourcing becomes possible and this is where Twitter has a lot of benefit to the user.
- Daniel Spisak
Jim: you are a braver man than me. Based on my talks with geeks who are increasingly finding themselves distracted and addicted by Twitter and friendfeed I would expect more people to do that in the future.
- Robert Scoble
Daniel: due to retweeting and Twitter search (and friendfeed) how many followers you have doesn't matter to crowdsourcing (as much).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Thanks! It was getting stupid - Now, I can enjoy the small amount of time I spend on Twitter and DON'T NEED tweetdeck.
- Jim Connolly
I don't think this new feature of suggested users is any different from the throwback days of twitter when we had 10 highlighted users on the public timeline a year or so ago. why were you not beefin then? People received "extra credit" back then too.
- Liz
Glen, how will you know you've "won?" I judge myself off of how many times I get retweeted. That demonstrates readership, credibility, engagement, interest, etc. Those are attributes I like judging myself by. Not whether I won some popularity contest by figuring out how to get Biz or Ev to put me on some subjective list.
- Robert Scoble
The LA Times was also unhappy: http://bit.ly/Zp61T It doesn't bother me too much. There are plenty of lists online, so I won't get too worked up about Twitter suggesting people to follow. It would be nice if they allowed users to suggest who ends up on that list. But, as Robert points out, numbers don't matter, conversations do.
- Paul Rodriguez
@scoble, @glen —then, godd*mn, I'm getting my *ss kicked on twitter! i should give up. i'm so far behind, i'll never catch up. wonder if there are performance-enhancing drugs i can take to get back into the game. .LOLz
- .LAG liked that
Liz: I don't even remember that. But no one ever looked at the public timeline after Twitter got popular. It also didn't let you add one group with one click.
- Robert Scoble
Jeez, Robert, you just caused me to read that whole thread about Arrington, look at the Find People feature inTwitter, and try out Mr. Tweet. Spent an hour. Did it do me ANY good? I doubt it.
- Francine Hardaway
from twhirl
Paul: @leolaporte was unhappy. People who make their livings off of advertising find this stuff disturbing because Twitter can decide who will have businesses on its system (number of followers could translate into money. @techcrunch says that already 2% of his traffic comes from Twitter). Me? I'll have to earn my money the old fashioned way: good content.
- Robert Scoble
Francine: I think this stuff is all good. It causes us all to think about the tools we're putting so much of our lives into. Hope things are going well for you, can't wait until you're back in Half Moon Bay again. Let's go get a drink, I have lots of things to tell you when you're back.
- Robert Scoble
@scoble: perhaps it's the advertising model that's broken then.
- .LAG liked that
Robert, what are the big drivers of traffic to your money-making content among friendfeed/twitter/facebook/flickr/etc.?
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: my referrer page usually has Twitter #1, friendfeed #2, Google Reader #3. When I'm on Techmeme it usually jumps to #1 or #2 for a day.
- Robert Scoble
.LAG: bing! Bing! Bing! You win the award of the insight of the day award.
- Robert Scoble
Content drives traffic, so it's the quality of the Followers not thew quantity
- paul mooney
Facebook has tons more users than friendfeed. Funny that you don't get lots of traffic from there.
- Bruce Lewis
Robert, it's hard for me to believe that you actually "bought into it" last night. You've stated numerous times and times again that followers don't matter and we understand what you are saying. But, if it is so hard to stand by what you preach, then don't preach at all.
- Michael Forian
Michael: I'm human. I fall into traps just as often as anyone else does. I make mistakes just as much as anyone else does.
- Robert Scoble
Bruce: facebook does not have the expectation that you'll discuss science or technology or news. The stuff that comes into my news feed is generally pretty fun stuff, but is not that. When I put videos into Facebook, though, it brings me good views and engagement.
- Robert Scoble
@scoble: but otoh, what are the alternatives to advertising? yes great content is critical, but it doesn't guarantee revenue or viability by itself. and then if you're a site with great content, eventually, you too, will probably end up advertising. i think the guys from 37signals have some wonderful ideas about how to survive and thrive using a different model, it starts with not worrying about being so BIG.
- .LAG liked that
I'm yet to see any convincing proof Scoble's human :) No one's online THAT much.
- Jim Connolly
I was a little confused because you at one time were saying the number of followers shouldn't be included in a tweet pagerank (http://scobleizer.com/2008...), so using the number of followers in this context shouldn't make sense either. Or do you see them as different?
- Todd Hoff
.LAG: if I had some answers I would be implementing like mad.
- Robert Scoble
The number of followers does not matter... to a point. However if you are a business, charity or person with a strong message to get out you have to also remember that your message means nothing if people don't hear it. So while the number of followers should not matter to your ego or self-worth, it definitely matters when you are shouting on the rooftops. You need a huge number of followers to have a greater impact. To that end followers are extremely important.
- Patrick Allmond
Todd: I believe that even more today now that the follower popularity rank thing has been messed with by Twitter's fooling with it with a subjective choice.
- Robert Scoble
Patrick: that is true, sort of. I can get my message heard without having any followers. I've seen that proven over and over again lately. How? More and more people are reading http://search.twitter.com or Friendfeed. Let's do a test. You open a friendfeed account. No friends. You post something. You tell me about it. I'll like it. That will put that item into view of all my followers. So, how many followers do you really need? None.
- Robert Scoble
Patrick as right. The hard thing is that # of followers is one of many things that do matter, but that we can't completely control. We have to constantly adapt.
- Bruce Lewis
Robert, Patrick is still right. What if Robert Scoble didn't have any followers? Who would you tell about your content then? Somebody has to have followers to make this work.
- Bruce Lewis
attachment = suffering
- William Harryman
"Zen and the Art of Tweeting" by Robert Scoble
- coldbrew
This is a great list and SO true! I still cannot figure out FriendFeed though. Many people who follow me on Twitter are just following to see if I will follow them back and are truely not interested in what I have to share and discuss as topics of interest.
- Hummie
Even if the list was correctly pointing out who is "the best Twitterer", why does it matter. Millions of people post that don't subscribe to anyone but just people they know. You need to not base your selfworth on the Internet and instead on your happiness.
- Jennifer
*in conclusion read the stream of "the REAL Shaq" his twitter diharreaha proves that # of followers doesn't mean the followed is spitting out gems
- sofarsoShawn
Would Scoble care about this if he were on it? I don't think so.
- coldbrew
Jennifer: if you are in the content business you are getting paid via advertising. Advertising is paid by "CPM" or, per 1000 readers/visitors, etc. Let's say you were making $25 CPM. Well, then, having another 10,000 readers is worth $250. If you can get those people to visit every week, that's a pretty nice chunk of change.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: I disagree. I am not allowed to accept gifts from the companies I cover. I cover Twitter, so getting this kind of reward isn't acceptable. I also care about the integrity of the communities and tools I use and interact with. I would definitely speak out about this feature and would pull my name out of it to protest that it was using subjective criteria to make people popular.
- Robert Scoble
Bruce: I know a lot of people who have lots of followers. I bet I would be able to convince at least one of them to RT my messages. If not, I get traffic from http://search.twitter.com -- just write about something that's trending and you'll get followers from that.
- Robert Scoble
So, basically this boils down to $, like most things. Personal motivation is an interesting topic in itself. Anyone that checks their web analytics daily (pageviews/ uniques, email subs, rss subs, followers, friends, etc.) is simply on a completely different wavelength than myself.
- coldbrew
By that logic, Scoble, you should request FF to remove you from suggestions, as you do not know, specifically, the criteria for getting on such a list.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: yup, when you do this as a business those are the things you care about. My wife, though, isn't doing it as a business and she still is caring about lots of those things on her Facebook account. So, even people who don't do it for money care about things like who is following them. It's a huge trap to fall into and one that isn't very satisfying. Humans are weird, aren't they?
- Robert Scoble
Humans are weird for a lot of reasons, but caring about popularity and influence is not one of those reasons.
- Bruce Lewis
coldbrew: that is absolutely NOT true. I already figured out the algorithm for how friendfeed works. Did you know that I'm NOT on the default list there? Here, try it. Open a friendfeed account with no friends. First of all, it will recommend NO ONE. Huge difference from Twitter. Second, add someone who does NOT follow me. I will NOT be on the recommended list.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: friendfeed presents a different list to everyone who comes here. Its algorithm HAS INTEGRITY. It is based on the most popular person OF THE FRIENDS YOU ADD.
- Robert Scoble
Just asked my good buddy and girlfriend about how many friends they had on FB (they' barely know what Twitter is). GF, "200 something" and my buddy, "No idea", so I'm sure you are having an impact.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: on friendfeed no one is getting rewarded who did not earn that recommendation FROM THEIR FRIENDS. This is one reason I really like friendfeed. Friendfeed really engineers things a lot better than Twitter and thinks through the consequences of doing something wrong or removing integrity from the system.
- Robert Scoble
Seems to me it was pretty inevitable as Twitter got bigger that any sense of meritocracy w/ followers would dissipate. I suspect more things will crop up to counter it's importance and offer different views of the best and most interesting Tweeters. Stocktwits is probably an early example of how Twitter may get sliced up. If that is a trend that plays out then #1 tweeter will become a database statistic :-)
- yanwoo
Robert, that's only partial integrity. First, that process has an accelerating effect that makes the most popular even more popular. Second, it's popularity rather than interestingness.
- LogEx
It is still your perception of some method for bestowing authority, rather than concrete knowledge, that is leading you to the conclusion.
- coldbrew
Logical: that is true, but that happens in life anyway. It is based on meritocracy, though. I spent thousands of hours on friendfeed last year when people thought it wasn't important to pay attention to.
- Robert Scoble
I'm speaking facetiously about "winning," of course, though some people seem to think it's a contest. Twitter's a bullhorn; even the # of retweets is a factor of how many followers you have.
- Glen, Bespectacled Elder
I agree with Robert on this one, it is not the number of followers; it never can be the number of followers. What it should be about are people who like you, who you like, who you want to share information with. It should not be a clique, you need to allow new members in and allow for diversity of opinion, yet in the end it will always be about like minds, sharing information that has the ability to change the world, and if not the world, at least the location that you live in.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
coldbrew: wrong. I've done extensive testing of the http://friendfeed.com/setting... feature and understand how that list was decided on. Plus, you can do your own tests to verify what I say. On Twitter the list is totally random and subjective.
- Robert Scoble
Glen: I disagree with you about RT's. I've seen people get massively RT'd who only had a few followers.
- Robert Scoble
Campbell, most of *us* knew where you were coming from at the outset. Your thoughts on retweeting are spot on.
- coldbrew
Scoble, edge-cases, especially anecdotal stories, aren't the stuff that comprises the guts.
- coldbrew
80/20 rule?
- coldbrew
coldbrew: You've got some good points to make, but it might be easier to move on if you'll first admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations.
- Bruce Lewis
coldbrew: oh, yes, there is an 80/20 rule here in place. Just like most of life.
- Robert Scoble
"admit Scoble was right about friendfeed's recommendations" You mean that they seem to be more equitable than Twitter? Or, something else?
- coldbrew
That one can empirically determine that Scoble isn't automatically on the recommended list. They aren't entirely a black box.
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce: they aren't a black box at all. You can very easily figure out who and why people are on the friendfeed list. Oh, and the list is infinite and you can't automatically add the entire list, so you've got to click one by one and add people that way. There isn't a huge reward for being on the list the way there is on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, my only point was that a person with 62,798 followers has a statistically higher probability of getting retweeted than someone with only 281 followers. There's simply more chance of seeing what got tweeted in the first place.
- Glen, Bespectacled Elder
Glen: that's true, but is getting less and less true over time as more and more people use things like Search.Twitter.com. Anyway, I'd rather have 100 active followers who actually talk with me than 1,000 followers who are there just to collect my name on their follower list.
- Robert Scoble
Agreed, But the fact that Twitter's recommendations are a "black box" is not what indicated to me (a long time ago) that # of followers was not something to obsess over. Also note: FF does not make it easy to determine how many followers a given person has.
- coldbrew
coldbrew: true, but ffholic does that.
- Robert Scoble
Search only helps if you're happy to ride an existing trend. If you want to start a new trend it's useless.
- Bruce Lewis
I have 1000+ followers, but less then 100 I really know. So in essense, I have 100 followers
- Lorraine Ball
I don't use ffholic (it is funny that they use ASP.NET :-), but you'll notice FF obscures these numbers (probably based on values they would like to instill).
- coldbrew
When the community is small and relatively homogeneous, a scalar metric like follower count might be a reasonable proxy for influence/popularity. However, as the community gets larger, more diverse, and "multidimensional" a single metric like followers breaks down.
- Ken Sheppardson
It's a bit like eBay feedback: consider two members with a 1000, 100% positive feedback score. You can get that by buying 1000 fifty cent Pokemon cards or by selling a $X million worth of collectibles. The bare number means very little, at least when used to compare members.
- Ken Sheppardson
BIZ Stone's quote from the LA Times: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone acknowledged that offering “suggested users” wasn’t the ideal solution and suggested that the service might evolve to cater to particular users’ interests. “Right now it’s sort of like staff picks at your local bookstore,” he wrote in an e-mail.
- Jim Connolly
Your point is well taken, Sheppardson, that multiple variables should be considered. There was a rumor at some point that Twitter intended to monetize based on this suggestion "engine" which I do not believe had any merit. It is akin to allowing payment for organic SERP placement.
- coldbrew
I think it is ironic that one of the best gadget bloggers of our time, Ryan Block (who used to run Engadget), has 1/10th as many followers as his girlfriend, Veronica has. Veronica will see someday why this system has no integrity. Jim: that quote shows the kind of engineering care that Twitter puts into things. That might explain why I see the fail whale on a regular basis. Well, that just verifies that I made the right choice last year to spend much more time here on friendfeed than on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I like FF better than Twitter and spend much more time here. You made the best choice in terms of quality. But I'm not convinced you made the best choice for driving traffic to your money-making content. Quality matters, but quantity matters too. It's a tough choice.
- Bruce Lewis
How much of Twitter's power comes from tight SMS integration, and why doesn't some "Twitter clone" just make a play for simple SMS services horizontally (B2B style)?
- coldbrew
Quality versus quantity. And at end of the day it doesn't matter *if* you're contributing good content and simply using the service. The follower number plays to a person's ego ... it is, in my opinion, a real drawback to the service. It encourages the wrong type of behavior. I think FF has intentionally made these stats less obvious for a reason.
- AJ Kohn
Bruce: friendfeed has been growing faster than twitter did in its first year. I'm pretty sure the quantity will show up here too. And, anyway, I do have a few followers on Twitter so I can reach the audience I want to reach.
- Robert Scoble
coldbrew: not much anymore. SMS mattered a lot more two years ago than it does today since the iPhone came along. It will matter even less in the future after more people get smartphones. But, yeah, it does matter a little bit today.
- Robert Scoble
Coldbrew: I think apps like http://www.tatango.com will provide the SMS glue. That's a cool company, I'll have a video of them up this week.
- Robert Scoble
I know about tatango. Funny you should mention that. They seem to be sitting on their hands
- coldbrew
"Intimacy is more important than popularity to humans" -Robert Scoble Or rather it is more important to those who are conscious of the love God puts inside all of us to act upon or not: (Matt.5:3) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage... (Psalm 42:7) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage...; And this brings into perspective what we enjoy as opposed to what we love.
- Melanie Reed
SMS matters a whole bunch b/c it makes the field more open. SMS was built on the pager tech and I can get SMS when I'm out of phone range.
- coldbrew
All these problems will be solved when twitter acquires friendfeed.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Ed, is that an opinion or are you airing fact ?
- atul abraham
from twhirl
Kambiz: I did not delete any comments here. Not sure what you are talking about.
- Robert Scoble
in our personal egoic minds, it should not matter, which is what you point out quite well - as I was expressing yesterday at NV09, I really tweet for myself... some ppl take that to extreme and tweet for themselves to be popular, playing games so they can sit at the cool kids table :( but bigger 'reach' creates more power to make a difference (when used for good). More access to network also means more access to better information (ie, my passport problem) which makes difference in our lives at key moments
- Chris Heuer
Good point re: who is talking to you, vs. listening to you. I've stopped following twitter people with a bad ratio - too many followers to who they read. Exceptions: hodgeman & anamariecox. I just don't like the ego of people who have big followings but don't engage.
- anna sauce
Last week, Mashable featured me as a twitter professor - in the 16th spot down the page http://mashable.com/2009... The first person listed was our friend (who you should be following) Chris Penn - he added 1400 followers in one day and I received just over 700 in same time http://twittercounter.com/chrishe... - http://twittercounter.com/cspenn (mentioned as real data point) IMHO the 'top100' shows the power laws of the A-List challenge in action, more pop u r, more pop u become
- Chris Heuer
Chris sounds like a catch-22
- anna sauce
Featured on mashable? Sounds prestigious...
- coldbrew
One must have amazing insight if featured by mashable, knowing how exclusive that site is about coverage.
- coldbrew
Nobody deleted comments, you just got confused about where you left your comments.
- coldbrew
If Scoble were covered by mashable for his usage of Twitter, he'd gracefully decline b/c it would be a payoff.
- coldbrew
Robert prove that you're not on the FF payroll
- Bob Sonin
Bob: Techcrunch looked into it. Arrington thought I should be getting paid by friendfeed. But I did not give friendfeed anything it didn't earn.
- Robert Scoble
Kambiz, this is the Dr. Jekyll post. You commented on the Hyde one. :)
- jcunwired
Then in the interests of full disclosure/transparency, what 'did' you give them
- Bob Sonin
Bob: links on my blog and tons of praise.
- Robert Scoble
nice work, cool
- Bob Sonin
ANA - perhaps, but not really - my argument is for disclosure so people know when its paid placement versus genuine recommendations - not passing judgment on the act, seeking clarifications and trying to further the conversation --- cant say its bad for everyone and then say I am dong something similar - more nuanced discussion then that, which you can read about in this post I just wrote http://bit.ly/30cKv "Is it ok for companies to pay to be featured users in Social Media sites?" (key is word USERS)
- Chris Heuer
Thanks for stopping by and dropping a link, Heuer. Stay classy man.
- coldbrew
Heuer, quick question: how many comments have you made without leaving a link to one of your own sites? [EDIT: specified type of link]
- coldbrew
@scobleizer, I disagree. Of course it matters. Number of followers matters and being at the top of the list matters. BUT, like the weather there is very little you can do about it, so it's probably not worth a lot of time worrying about it.
- Christian Anderson
coldbrew - generally about 90+% since I so seldom blog - on this page, with this comment 50% - is there a point you are trying to make? BTW - it seems I mistakenly was commenting on the other question (too many comments here and too many tabs open on my browser) - sorry about that --- do you not think that everyone has the right to start their own conversations and questions and then make others aware of that by sharing the link (insofar as it is on topic)
- Chris Heuer
I like your point #2 especially. Also, I have seen a few people who are gaming the system where a few people just retweet each other. Like they have a mob or coordinated thing to up their standing. Also, there are lots of people that are just trying to increase there followers and this is all they care about and you get junk Tweets and it fills the channel up with noise. Just fyi, if you follow lots of people you follow none. The channel will be crowded with junk. Trust me.
- Bill Romanos
Ana - are you asserting that people who have more followers then people they are following all have big egos? that they are not engaged? or are being disrespectful of people who follow them? (re: ur statement above) I couldn't disagree more vehemently with your broad brushed stereotyping - the majority of those with big followers and equal follower/following rations are quite the opposite of ur assumption - they are usually the ones in it for their egos - to be at the top of the list and using you to do so
- Chris Heuer
Ana, more importantly - what are your tips for dealing with the deluge of inbound communications from thousands of people into your SMS account? clearly you need unlimited text plan for $x per month first - then you need to resign yourself to the fact that you are probably going to miss things that are very important because of the decreased signal to noise ratio... This is a complex issue which IMHO requires us all to respect how other ppl choose to communicate, especially when its not causing any harm
- Chris Heuer
This conversation brings up a lot of ideas for me, but I can say simply that, in my gut, quality and not quantity is the way to go in ANY interaction. On-line, off-line, I don't care where. So, numbers without substance isn't going to do you any good on twitter or elsewhere. I guess the only time quantity works is for ad-clicks, because who cares if it is quality if you are just counting ad clicks.
- Martha
Heuer, I will spell out my point this time, though I do not believe it requires an IQ of significance to comprehend. You barely interact here on FF, and when you do, it is usually (>50%) in order to get people to take actions elsewhere (e.g. read your blog post, fill out a survey, etc.).
- coldbrew
Get it? Fairly insulting, imo.
- coldbrew
coldbrew - of course the real reason for putting a bit.ly link to my blog post that reframes this question is because I wanted to get the google juice from Robert - that is clearly what my track record shows to be true. Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that there are limits on the size of comment within FF... btw - with this comment, its over 70% of my comments on this page that dont have a link. wondering why you have a private feed - would be interested to see what you do without registering
- Chris Heuer
coldbrew - ah, so I am not native enough for you in FFand you dont like that I use twitter as my primary communications vehicle? well too bad - thanks for initially trying to thinly veil your insult and criticism and for ultimately feeling comfortable enough to insult me openly - no offence taken here at all because clearly you dont know Jack either...
- Chris Heuer
I realize having a private feed and not pimping myself at every opportunity would confuse you. I'm at a loss to explain it to you other than to say I value information and candid, honest conversation.
- coldbrew
PS - for people who actually care about these issues instead of trying to pass judgments on others, the very simple reason I request others to look at these things is so that we, as a broader community of practitioners, can connect the dots across communities to learn from one another and take collective action outside of any given echo chamber which creates insular feelings like those expressed by my new best friend here - thanks for making the point clear to all - I dont use FF daily, I am elsewhere often
- Chris Heuer
"for people who actually care about these issues "? Are you fucking serious? I have no ulterior motives, and I'm not trying to position myself as a "social media expert"; and, I certainly don't have a site that focuses on "social media" as something one should "leverage." So, before you go on espousing your integrity, take a look at the facts.
- coldbrew
OMG, what a spat! Chris, ignore him.
- Francine Hardaway
Frankly, I'm a bit tired of the sausage festival that is tech blogging. Veronica is a breath of fresh air. She has the power of "it" and "it" rules the world.
- Mattb4rd
@Scobleizer not that you'd worry, but I read what you write because it often gives me something to learn and think about that I would otherwise not find easily somewhere else. And you have a unique way of doing that. The fact that so many people choose to do the same is irrelevant to why I read your material :)
- Valeria Maltoni
Yes. When one is interested in finding some sort of "truth" through discussion, the best choice is to ignore those with differing opinions. Brilliant strategy, Hardaway.
- coldbrew
Hardaway, I realize you only came into this conversation at the last minute, but allow me to explain. There was a perfectly good discussion being had here, when Heuer (someone with whom you are apparently familiar) decided to chime in with a link to a semi-relevant blog post inspired by this very comment thread. He did not make his argument *here* where the discussion was being had, no; what he had to say required many more words than FF makes available.
- coldbrew
So, an entire post was written and Heuer made his weekly FF comment with "appropriate" shameless plug to his post. I suppose I can see how people that only come to FF occasionally don't grok the issue I'm having here, but that won't stop me from making it.
- coldbrew
I come here all the time, and often find a blog post comes out of a discussion I'm having here, or a comment on someone else's blog.
- Francine Hardaway
That is good. I just ask that you don't suggest someone ignore me for expressing my opinion. I'm no expert, but I do try to be informed about the topics in which I participate. I was offended, and I took it up directly with the offender. Please suggest to me what I might do differently in such a situation.
- coldbrew
I would have felt better about Twitter's recommended follows had it been some sanitized Google algorithm but this feels like some whorish self promotion and takes a lot of shine off Twitter.
- Ernie Oporto
from Nambu
i agree with @scobleizer here. the suggested people to follow in twitter has totally screwed with the 'meaning' of the rankings
- Chris Heath
Until WSJ publishes a US$/followers Forex rate I will continue to believe that number of followers is fundamentally worthless
- Jeffrey J Davis
For me, it was kind of strange to see the issues of "how many followers do I have" when I started reading blogs in 2008 for the first time. Seems like people like followers for many reasons (1) good conversations (2) boost to self-esteem (3) improve career prospects (4) share knowledge with others (5) etc... On the $ side, one of my friends with a labor-of-love website created over 7 years, now makes $1,000s/day (not thru advertising, but selling his own products)...
- Mitchell Tsai
Traffic can help connect people with services & products they like. In some cases, sharing pictures, articles, news about kids-friends-relationships, may be our gift to the world community. Sometimes, people are finding new jobs, developing new life paths, getting helpful therapy or support, or simply enjoying themselves. It's sometimes a little annoying for me to hear people criticizing other people who are here for reasons other than their own, but it's "free speech".
- Mitchell Tsai
Even with "trolls", I love the community on FriendFeed (Admittedly, I'm spending more time on Facebook...and unfortunately many people who share pictures there decline my requests to share them on the wider web, so I don't repost Facebook pictures on FF). More power to the people who are having fun accumulating "friends" or "followers".
- Mitchell Tsai
It's even useful to connect with 10-20 very-active-spammy-type-friends/followers. I no longer connect with spammers (unless truly interested in their stuff, which occasionally happens), but my few spam connections help me see if other people accept those spam connections. I suppose if my Facebook limit starts hitting 5,000, it'll be time to delete the spammers (after sending them a note explaining why I'm pruning my Facebook connections). P.S. Scoble, you rock!
- Mitchell Tsai
Good food for thought as I'm developing my conceptual 'follower' definition. I'm returning to value added in our network.
- ka3drr
+1 Ryo
- You.
Ryo: I regularly do things to get them into Google for myself to pull out later. The fact that other people are here doesn't matter.
- Robert Scoble
Ryo: it's funny, though. You don't need any followers to participate here in this conversation. So, why do followers matter? http://search.twitter.com displays your Tweets even if you have no followers. That way you can find other people interested in a topic. I find lots of things on google.com that have no followers either. Not saying that it's not nice if they show up (followers are wonderful) but they certainly are NOT a precondition to participating and having people participate with you online.
- Robert Scoble
Even if you *do* think they matter, using a save search in Twhirl can help you find folks to share with... I have 2000+ in Twitter and I'm nothing huge...just a bit strategic. ;)
- Cheryl Allin
The problem with an ego is that sometimes the holder of said ego cannot see over it ... well because it's an ego.
- Joe Breen
LOL, Ryo. So true. I can't tell you how many things I've posted on FF, and I get NO RESPONSE. I'm either painfully boring, or I need more followers so that I have a good chance of someone finding it interesting.
- You.
Don't forget to watch me help teach a great social media class online. 2/18 8-11 CT http://www.ustream.tv/channel...
More info can be found at http://www.francistuttle.com/calenda...
- Patrick Allmond
How Gmail destroyed Outlook. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine - http://www.slate.com/id...
David Miller, Svartling, KARR 4.0 and 191 other people liked this
"As of this week, Gmail has reached perfection." Now maybe they can take it out of Beta :)
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
I thought Beta was part of the product name, Paul. :-)
- Louis Gray
That's the only logical explanation.
- Paul Buchheit
No, Gmail's not in beta. Google is. That's why the logo clearly reads "Gmail(TM) by Google BETA"
- Kevin Fox
Boo. :)
- Randy Holloway
from twhirl
We have Google Apps at work, but my boss is a Microsoft guru and LOVES Outlook. I LOVE Gmail, so I've resisted most of his attempts to get me to pop Gmail down to Outlook. It's a battle every day. :)
- Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF
I use the Mail.app in Mac, but everything stays on the server.
- Aaron Hood
Mail.app <3
- "Joey"
Not sure I understand this debate. I use Mail.app to access my Google hosted mail via IMAP. Best of both worlds and Google in no way "destroys" my use of Mail.app. I presume Outlook could do the same.
- Nick in Manila
I love Gmail, but they still need better integration with other apps/platforms. For example, Google contacts needs to sync directly (and for free) with iPhone/iTunes, salesforce.com, etc.
- Peter Ghosh
@Kevin - They're going to rename the company to Google BETA, Inc soon? ;)
- Tyson Key
Sorry, I meant Google Calendar, not contacts . . .
- Peter Ghosh
Gmail is a great consumer webmail, but in no way "destroys" Outlook. How does Gmail allow me to book conference rooms, or recall errant emails, or follow SOX retention policies? Both have their place and are leaders in their own area, but one does not supplant the other.
- Ryan
Great writeup on Gmail.
- Mike Reynolds
gold master gmail!
- MG Siegler
one huge reason why Microsoft HATES Google, outlook is just one of the major pay for software offerings by MS that are being eroded in market share due to Google
- sofarsoShawn
Comparing GMail to Outlook is like comparing Apples to Fruit Salad. :) They're not the same, even if they overlap on a few features.
- Kenneth LeFebvre
I would guess that Gmail is likely destroying Hotmail -- Outlook not so much. Still reason for Microsoft to be pissed at Google though.
- Brian Sullivan
@psghosh, GCalendar has started syncing with iCal for some time now - check google's help for this: http://www.google.com/support...
- Peter Fedin
Creative Destruction - good news for the public!
- GlennIsaac
If you're not using Exchange, sure, gmail's a killer.
- Mr. Gunn
Well done article.
- Micah Wittman
I turned my tom(at)thomashawk.com email address over to gmail and I have to say that the reduction in spam is nothing short of remarkable. Every now and then I check the spam file and feel bad because real email gets trapped in there, but by and large it's awesome.
- Thomas Hawk
Feels like I'm preaching to the choir here but have been using gmail in one form or another since almost the beginning. After spending years using mac mail to consolidate accounts went full gmail a few months ago because it just works better and the extras are great. Don't see how anybody can top it. The only other one I've tried which shows some potential is zenbe.com.
- Mike Elliott
Agreed
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
Gmail rocks! Once you start using it there's no going back. Two niggles though: Multiple signatures and blind group mailings, please!
- Todd Brunner
from twhirl
Gmail seems great at first - but recently, I have seen several messages disappear from my Inbox while I watch. Sometimes they reappear next time I check - sometimes not. Searching for reports of Gmail eating messages turns up a disturbingly high number of hits. Destroys Outlook? Maybe. Destroys messages? Yes. Not good enough, even for a free service! What use is 7 Gb of space - when it isn't 7 Gb of *reliable* space?
- James
from twhirl
so gmail finally has complete windows compatible keyboard macros, syncs my to my mobile phones, I can do my mailings with them, has an integrated crm system, and more? great. </sarcasm> (and I say this as an avid gmail user ...)
- Nicole Simon
Switched to Gmail from Outlook and never looked back.
- Roberto Bonini
didn't Bucheit invent Gmail according to Louis G? The opening shot in the downfall of Microsoft...?
- sofarsoShawn
He was on the team, yes - and did the prototype for the Gmail Ads, i belive. Don't be modest Paul.
- Roberto Bonini
As much as I love gmail (I've got several accounts), I couldn't use it an office environment yet. Want to covert an email to an appointment or task just drag it to the calendar or task list in Outlook. Outlook also has search folders so I can set up folders for emails I got today. I know there are GreaseMonkey extensions to support search folders but Gmail's date searching is just crummy.
- Andy Davies
I wish people would stop killing the aps I use...I hate that.
- John D Reasor
As far as I'm concerned, Outlook destroyed Outlook: feeble support for IMAP, a tendency toward .pst corruption (chief symptom: messages that hang Outlook when you try to open them), no support for user data migration to new accounts / computers, etc., etc. These days I use Mail.app on OS X and Thunderbird on Windows, and I am much happier.
- Pat Rice
Dukeswharf: POP/IMAP> Thunderbird> Enigmail (PGP) = offline+security+no ads (but no "new" features)
- coldbrew
Nice. I still have more trust in self-administered PKI; is that naive? Are they using asymmetric or symmetric crypto?
- coldbrew
Outlook destroyed Outlook the way MS destroys it's other products (and I have been an Outlook fan since '97): it became bloated and slow.
- Peter Ghosh
I'll still use thunderbird since I have to centralize many different mail accounts (and want them to be clearly separated), but I must admit that Gmail made a good point here :-)
- Stanislas Jourdan
Jourdan: Do you use PGP? We should have a key-signing party room on FF. Maybe I'll make one now...
- coldbrew
Gmail is far from destroying Outlook. I still have to use Outlook for plenty of things. It is just a different tool. Feature by feature Google is way way behind Outlook.
- Patrick Allmond
Gmail is the small business solution. Major corporations are way too private to be communicating outside the Outlook box. Yet Outlook has been shown in the past to have vulnerabilities. Security is less of an issue with smaller databases. Suits prefer the worn path, the grey rut.
- Phil Boiarski
Sorry, I meant gmail's encryption. I don't think it has any PKI option. does it?
- coldbrew
As we saw this morning, Google is not infallible. When Outlook fails on one computer, only one computer and one user is affected. When Google fails, the entire world notices. Google Mail is a nice web-based mail service, but that's all it will ever be.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
I don't understand that argument, Mark. By the same logic, Google couldn't be anything more than a niche search provider because nobody would trust a search engine that everyone uses.
- Kevin Fox
Speaking of gmail, I've been getting this nagging "Bad Request Error 400" message anytime I've tried to access my mail and it's getting to be irritating. It comes back up if I clear all my cookies and cache but then it goes back to the error message on the next checking of mail. WTF?
- Tsega Dinka
"When Outlook fails on one computer, only one computer and one user is affected." Right, because a software vulnerability in Outlook is programmed and rolled out on a per customer basis.
- virtually
Think of it a different way, Kevin: If Microsoft and Google both declared bankruptcy and shut down every server they have today, Outlook would still work but GMail would not. The odds of it happening are almost nil. GMail is a great web-based mail site. That's the problem it's web-based.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
There's just no way I'll use email software that uses the one-message-per-row paradigm again. The productivity gains from Conversations are just enormous.
- jakebf
How does Zoho match up against Gmail?
- Kevin Whalen
from twhirl
Outlook has many, many, many problems, for sure. I just see the argument as (A Great Web App)<(A Great Desktop App). Does this clarify my thought?
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
@mark: that's entirely true, if kind of a moot point based on the probability. If visa went down tomorrow, nobody would be able to pay for much of anything. If Comcast went down, most of us would have no internet connection. It's clearly your prerogative to run all your own software infrastructure, but I'd rather have the convenience of web based software.
- Joel Webber
A lot of commentators are discussing chalk and cheese. Outlook is an email CLIENT / Application. GMail is another Client / Application. How you use each one is entirely up to each user. Most non-technical people think of Gmail as something they access via their browsers, whereas Outlook is a Microsoft Application that runs on their PC. Not entirely true. you can access GMail servers using any client (Outlook/Thunderbird).
- Chris Wright
from twhirl
Gmail+Gcal is an Outlook killer, no doubt about it. The day Gcal started sending SMS to my mobile with the reminders it also killed my old Palm Treo.
- Jordi Soler
What Gmail does is make using Email for the normal non techie person easy. The reality is most home users do not use the power of Ouitlook. The issue with Gmail is good lick syncing a pda or smart phone to it it works well for the calendar but not for contacts. Also Gmail does not give you an e asy way to store messages in tact offliine. Outlook has a PST file for offline storage and backup.
- Rob Cairns
As has been touched on in this thread. Gmail and Outlook are largely orthogonal. Outlook is a client. Gmail is a mail provider with a client. You can use Outlook with Gmail or another mail provider, but either way if that provider goes belly-up you're going to stop getting your mail for a bit. If you're concerned about your mail archives being hosted with someone else, then you should keep a local copy using a POP client, no matter what mail provider you happen to put your trust in.
- Kevin Fox
I went from using internal gmail at google to using Outlook at my new job, and while I think there are good things and bad things about the two platforms, I miss the speed and portability of gmail, but I like some the task/calendar features in Outlook. If I had my druthers, I'd use gmail.
- Ginger Makela Riker
"Gmail+Gcal is an Outlook killer, no doubt about it." Afraid not, Jordi, because GMail Contacts is a big ol' steaming cup of FAIL. When Google gets their act together on Contacts, then Outlook will be threatened.
- John Craft
Outlook is a platform for working with "items"... countless times I have dropped into the built-in macro language to do things with my email, tasks, appointments, contacts, etc., that I could never do with a webmail application like Gmail. I wish I could stop using it, because I'll admit it's a hog on resources, but there is no alternative that will do EXACTLY what I want to do like Outlook will with my custom scripts in it. :)
- Kenneth LeFebvre
GMail via a web browser is just using IMAP to access/control the mail on the mail server. You can set up Outlook/Thunderbird to access GMail using IMAP. It would be more accurate to say that using the GMail web interface has reduced the number of people using other client applications for accessing their email.
- Chris Wright
Why are people comparing apples with oranges here? Client vs service? Thunderbird may beat Outlook, but not Gmail itself. I do recognize the web client is good, but is not nearly as flexible as a standalone. Plus, as has been mentioned by others, I need multiple account processing. Gmail fails at this. Gmail will remain my service of choice in the end. Tbird at home, Outlook at work.
- Vince DeGeorge
I use gmail because of the spam reduction then feed it into Zimbra. Zimbra is an Outlook killer IMO.
- Nation Hahn
@kenlefeb: I'd love if you could enlighten me with the examples of what your custom outlook scripts can do for you, that you can't possibly do with gmail. My blind shot is that you probably can take a look at what greasemonkey scripts can do to muscle webapps, particularly gmail.
- Enver ALTIN
@Vince, GMail does support multiple accounts, see http://mail.google.com/support...
- Shakeel Mahate
@Enver: One example is automatically filling out my weekly timesheet from my calendar. Another example is automatically searching our company's online directory to grab mugshots for all my contacts, so I have their pictures to help me remember who's who... :) This is why I say Outlook is a *platform*. It seems to me that it would be an extraordinary amount of work to use something like Greasemonkey to actually add significant new functionality into Gmail, rather than just enhancing the user experience.
- Kenneth LeFebvre
BTW, I'm not knocking Gmail. I actually use it to host my own email domain... I'm just making the case that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to put Gmail and Outlook in the same category.
- Kenneth LeFebvre
Hotmail offline access has been available for over a year now with Windows Live Mail client. Can't make out why the same feature for Gmail is that exciting. They are not the first one to enable this feature. Zoho and Hotmail has been having these for a long time.
- Amar Shah
Gmail rocks... hate when some old relatives still write to my hotmail and I gotta go in there to get it, just because microsoft won't allow automatic forward to gmail.
- Peter Efland
Just loaded the Twitter app. Facebook video is giving me trouble, I can't open the page. Weird. This year I'll start using Facebook more.
Kol Tregaskes, Susan Beebe, Jeff and 5 other people liked this
I am using Facebook a little bit more, mostly because I keep getting reminders in FF.
- Ian May
More of my friends are starting to use Facebook more, as opposed to MySpace.
- Bryce Roney
I am stunned by this revelation and the one saying you are going to spend less time on FF and Twitter and more time on Facebook. What does this mean? Are FF and Twitter now, officially, dead? Is it April? Is the moon affecting behaviours?
- WorldofHiglet
WorldofHiglet: no. I just need to keep in touch with Facebook. 450,000 new people join Facebook a day. That's more than are on friendfeed. Every day.
- Robert Scoble
I find myself bouncing between Facebook and Twitter exclusively and have Twitter updating my status in FB. I abandoned Myspace a long time ago. I'm still trying to figure out where FF fits in MY social landscape. I'm finding that FF might be a little noisy for me right now.
- Paul Povolni
Facebook, at least for most twenty-somethings, is very much a part of their social life. The social media is created for the consumption of those actually within your social graph. The social graph of actual relationships from family, work and school. The is unlike social media created for the extended social graph of creators. I like that all the media in my facebook is not created to discuss a gadget or examine the marketplace but to actually keep up with the old friends. It's an evolving yearbook.
- Dave Senior
Who even uses myspace these days?
- Darren Heydon
That's not to say I don't like the content produced in the blogosphere at large. I just don't know if you can get the same utility from a very different social network. Are they removing the friend limit for you?
- Dave Senior
I saw the article and I understand the numbers. Just interested about timings. Reaching more people everyday is an achievable, measurable goal. I wonder if it will scale into more actual contacts and conversations or not. Do you have a way of measuring that?
- WorldofHiglet
I am thinking the same thing WorldofHiglet. Influence on facebook is much different than influence on twitter/FF. Conversations are less topical and more personal because it is far removed from the blogosphere. I am much more interested in content from my old friends than having tech conversations.
- Dave Senior
WHich twitter app?
- Patrick Allmond
Robert - Are you then going to have your twitter posts update your FB status thru the app?
- Kevin Whalen
Just say no!
- Kevin Gamble
on a two week trip that included CES FB kept me more in touch with various circles of friends, colleagues and events.
- Warner Crocker
Are you following smart people on Facebook as well?
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: yes. You would be amazed at who is on my Facebook friends list. It's like a who's who of the tech industry.
- Robert Scoble
me too, i thot ff was going to be a good venue for discussion of real world issues but its really mostly ditto and fluff - works for people in the biz i guess but not for us schmoes.
- ernie yacub
Robert the "value" of your network on FB is probably the best one out there, bar none...wow!
- Susan Beebe
Social Media 101 Tuesday, February 17 at 8:00am, Francis Tuttle NW in Oklahoma City, by @cadamy and yours truly. Retweet and email your friends.
We are probably going to ustream this also. Get the date on your calendar.
- Patrick Allmond
Guys, you all know I like and very much respect Scoble...but frankly even I just don't think this much imbalance is right. It's NOT a good reflection of the community. You shouldn't have to wait months or years to get the comments/likes he has...
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Umit Namli, sandhal, Hisham Sadek هشام and 52 other people liked this
i'm not saying i know the solution but there's something wrong with the community as a whole if one person is this dominant.
- Zee.
I think, Zee, that the definition of FF as a community may be mistaken. My community isn't FF, it's the people I subscribe to and those who I read via FOAF. Yes, Scoble gets a lot of attention. But it's perfectly possible to enjoy a healthy community here on FF without paying him any attention. There isn't a metric that measures "community" anyway, so I really don't see the point of complaining about the amount of attention he gets, though I see it from different places.
- Scott of Two Countries
This was over the weekend, right? I had other things to attend to over the weekend and I'm sure others did the same; if Scoble didn't, then bully for him for being able to strike up conversation on FF.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I agree with Zee. I learned with FF2Disqus that messing with things like comments (and their counts) is bad because it's one of the few metrics that we have to filter out noise. It's also obvious to everyone that some people comment on Scoble's post just to get noticed, since they know that everyone who sees that entry will see their comment. Although the gaming of the system is obvious, I'm not sure what the solution would be...
- Carter Rabasa
The FF community is still pretty small and tech centric. The solution will be greater adoption.
- Amit Morson
i agree
- Cee Bee
I think Zee's point is that to the outsider, it looks as if it is the Scoble show and that may scare off many a passerby. Forgive me if I'm wrong in that assumption, Zee.
- Michael W. May
Carter: I agree on FF2Disqus. It's a clever tool and something I *thought* I wanted, but it didn't seem right once it was in place on my sites. I won't enable it again.
- Chris Baskind
yeah Michael explained my thoughts better than i did! Although I do take on Tina's point about the weekend...
- Zee.
If people aren't subscribed to him then its not so much of an issue though. I quite like it, he starts and pulls out interesting topics which make me more active :)
- Simon Wicks
I noticed that Mr. Scoble posted about how to gain more follower / subscribers and build conversations on these services this weekend. I give him some credit for trying to beef up others. Good way to use his influence. Now, the rest of us need to get crackin'.
- Martha
Are you calling for a "Fairness Doctrine" on FriendFeed? That's as insane as the one the left wants to impose. No one has the right to be HEARD, you just have the right to speak. Maybe this discussion will make it to the top of the list, will that appease you? Unless Scoble is rigging the numbers, I'm afraid that it is "right".
- Craig Eddy
That's a problem with FFholic's algorithm. They should code it so if x entry = most liked, should not show up in 'most discussed'. Or simply, don't go in there. Ignorance is bliss - that's why I'm not a fan. ;)
- Mona Nomura
Ummm... That's just Scobez being Scobez. If he quit talking he might vanish.
- Tad
I agree with Michael's point, outsiders might be put off. But I don't think we can really complain, Robert has a lot of followers and thus his content gets seen but lots of people. You could say it's out 'job' you do something about that and get more followers ourselves? I'm not bothered either way, like I've said before Robert is just one of many great users here, he gets some attention from me, but others get more or a lot more.
- Kol Tregaskes
Talking about Robert here probably isn't going to help this 'domination' problem though. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
True, Kol, true.
- Roberto Bonini
It's not his fault but I agree that the imbalance is a little insane. Then again, I bet a LOT of those users merely signed up onto FF because Robert recommended it. Therefore, most of them are here simply BECAUSE of him.
- Tamar Weinberg
I think Zee's saying that the community's problem is that certain people are a little too "Like" happy, as well as suck-ups to Scoble, because how else could those not-so-important comments he made get such a glowing response? Basically, the community would benefit from stopping so much of the "look at me!" game with Likes and comments.
- Brad Williamson
Any stop to consider that in many ways it's simply a ratio of followers? Scoble has a CRAPLOAD of followers, about 22k on FF per FFHolic. So his post got 60+ likes, so what? That's equivalent to 0.27% of the people that follow him. I posted something that got 80+ likes last week, that's almost 10% of the people that follow me.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I see what you mean, Tina. A quick spin through my feed shows 73 likes from 335 subscribers, just a fuzz over 20%. So, is that an indication that I 'reached my audience' with that post? Perhaps, but unlikely.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
I stand by my perception that FriendFeed is the experience YOU want it to be. If you're concerned about it being a popularity contest, it becomes a popularity contest. If you just want to hang out with people, its a good place to hang out. It all depends on your participation and your attitude as to what you get out of it.
- Lindsay is in 20-ten
no competition on ff:(
- Igor Poltavskiy
makes you wonder, did people really "like" those messages or are they just trying to get his attention? The IM message got a lot of attention (even from me, i tend to believe in saying hello when sending people a 1to1 message) but the other two - I bet even he didnt expect that.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
I thought those threads were hilarious and deserved the attention it got - maybe you just had to be there.
- Mona Nomura
FF isn't competition. As long as conversation happens, everything's fine. No matter who starts it.
- Jemm
Exactly, Lindsay. It seems the concept behind using FriendFeed is that each user is supposed to have a different experience. If you aren't enjoying your experience hith the service, it's not because of the service...
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
i haven't been around this weekend and didn't really read the above discussions in depth...But i did go to ffholic today and was stunned to see Scoble and his camera stand plastered all over! :D
- Zee.
How many people pay attention to who "Likes" your stories anyway? When 57 people hit the "Like" button, are you likely to follow them? You're probably noticing comments a lot more than Likes, aren't you?
- Tamar Weinberg
That's true, Tamar, but the comments on these posts are also comparatively high. I think part of it has nothing to do with Scoble and more to do with the fact that the FF algorithm about posts floating to the top has changed recently. Highly active posts used to not float as quickly after a certain time frame and as a result interest in them would die down slightly. That's not the case now, and we're seeing posts that generate hundreds of comments.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Zee - that's why ffholic is unreliable to me because popularity algorithms are usually flawed; especially in social media. Wasn't interested when they first came out, still not interested. Tamar - there are people that do, but I'm totally with you, I don't give a crap haha
- Mona Nomura
I hid a bunch of the Usual Suspects (though not Scoble). Really changed things.
- Chris Baskind
It's our fault for letting him bait us in with his taunting remarks!
- Will Higgins™
I still don't get why he is/was so popular. I know that he rose to prominence for blogging while at Microsoft - was he leaking inside information or something? Surely he wasn't the only person in such a massive company to blog? I'm always perplexed
- Soup
Does it really matter who "owns" the conversation? If people are creating an intelligent discussion which is of benefit to the community, who cares if it's under Scoble's floating head or mine?
- Aram Zucker-Scharff
you know what...that's a VERY good point by Aram there...
- Zee.
Thanks Zee, I don't mind conversing under your floating head either :)
- Aram Zucker-Scharff
Don't worry so much, be happy! It might take some work but it can be achieved. :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
Interesting observation Zee. I feel the beauty about friendfeed is in someway it reflects the way we behave in our society. I think while liking a topic or commenting on a post, along with the degree of "interestingness", "who posts it", plays a major role in deciding how to deal with it. In an ideal world, you might want a more fair game. But in ideal world there are no celebrities too. Robert, according to me is a celebrity (well deserved). He is just enjoying that status. :)
- Karthick R
Zee, this post is now fourth on the list. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Scoble should be banned from Friendfeed!
- Meryn Stol
I clicked like on this item. Zee: there are several reasons for this. 1, friendfeed itself tells me I brought more people into friendfeed than any other person. 2. I've worked with the community to build lots of connections and friendships. I have 8,000 more followers than the #2 guy, who is Mike Arrington. 3. I write in a way that gets a lot of conversations going. I wrote 100,000 newsgroup posts in the 1990s so have lots of practice at that. 4. I try to keep my outbound content to a geeky quality.
- Robert Scoble
you know what Robert, absolutely - particularly points 2 & 3. I guess what i'd love to see is maybe is maybe an "alternative" list...a list of people who have posted exciting content which has had people talking but haven't had comments in the near hundreds if you know what i mean. Maybe that's not the best option, but we need a way to hear the little people too (not that they're less significant...)
- Zee.
By clicking like on this item it will appear on nearly 25,000 friendfeed accounts. How did I get so many followers? I worked my ass off here to deliver great content and I've been doing that since December 15, 2000 on my blog. I also follow every single person on this thread so I see the best content inbound before most people do.
- Robert Scoble
oh and yo Robert, i have absolutely zero qualms about that and like i say in the post- I have a heck of a lot of respect for what you've done & how you've done it. I just want a way for outsiders and insiders alike to see as many quality posts from as many people as possible
- Zee.
Zee: if they follow my likes page: http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... they will not see a single post from me.
- Robert Scoble
Ken: that is true. It's far worse in other industries like books. There the top 10 get all the sales. I was in the top 1000 and only sold 40,000 copies. Top 10 sells millions.
- Robert Scoble
Bleh, quit picking on Robert. He has followers because he's interesting and because he's prolific. You too could have such success if you devoted as much time and effort and personality to it as he does (he lives and breathes this stuff). Most of us just don't have that as high on our priority list as he does. And that's fine... The world would be too intense if we were all Robert Scoble. And it would run out of media storage space way too quickly.
- Lindsay is in 20-ten
I'm one of the "little people" who gained a bigger audience thanks to the Scobleizer liking my stuff on FriendFeed. He also put a link on his blog, but more referrers come from FF.
- Bruce Lewis
no no no you've got it all wrong Lindsay. I'm not picking on Robert, i'm picking on ffholic and in a way Friendfeed...I want a way for to make this place more balanced, with easier access to peoples quality posts not just Roberts.
- Zee.
Scoble is the reason I discovered FriendFeed, which was the tech highlight of 2008 for me. I find his tech observations honest and even handed. Some other tech pundits I don't have nearly the respect I have for Robert. The threads you posted seem innocuous and fair topic starters. Don't see the problem.
- Steve Isaacs
I take more issue with tech pundits who have NO activity on FF and people still comment like crazy on their ghost feeds. One more thing - not to toot his horn too much, but who else is as accessible as Robert - he will dive right in and thread it up with you if you give him some food for thought. That's the essence of Social Media IMO.
- Steve Isaacs
says alot.... Zee is right, it does reflect badly on here...come on, people will think he is the only one here lol... :o)
- Rob Sellen :o)
@Steve Like who?
- Shevonne
+100 Steve
- Lindsay is in 20-ten
oh dear, people have started to go off on one about Scoble and why we all love him. I feel the same...my point is not about Scoble personally & what he stands for and has achieved. My point is that we need a better way to show great content from across friendfeed...You shouldnt have to wait months or years to get the comments/likes he has got. Do you get what i'm saying?
- Zee.
As we continue to develop stronger "personalities" (I mean people sharing great info and ideas not rude/arrogant personalities), there will be a better split in the FF-world in terms of articles/posts that get the most "likes", etc. It will take time as not many of us have been around for as long as Robert. Rome wasn't built in a day!
- Amani
There needs to be a "hidden gems" type of rating... for posts that have received a relatively large (relative to exclusion of the mega-comment posts) should have a way to be recognized. But, actually, I kind of agree with Mona, that it really shouldn't matter what FFHolic says... just enjoy your feed.
- Lindsay is in 20-ten
Zee: I've been doing this for 30 years. friendfeed bubbles the good stuff up to the top better than any system I've ever participated in. I'm watching 6,000 people. Are you? If you aren't, why not? Oh, because you don't want to do the hard work of finding new voices? THAT is how to bubble new people up. Watch the "Everyone" tab and click "like" on some new people there. I do that all the time. It's why I have lots of friends who will click like on my stuff.
- Robert Scoble
Oh, by the way, if you don't follow me you won't see stuff I like or comment on unless someone else likes or comments on it that you are following. So, the solution to this is pretty easy: follow more people. Just pick carefully because if you follow idiots you'll see more noise.
- Robert Scoble
I went through a period where I was all stressed out about comment/discussion centralization, until I realized that if you say stuff that's interesting and/or important, lots of people are going to talk about it. I only hope I can now and then offer something to the community that has some effect beyond what I can see and control.
- Ken Sheppardson
I'm pretty sure that this list on ffholic isn't static...It gets refreshed and purged over time...Eventually Robert's epicly (yes I'm aware this isn't a word) popular posts will fade away from view.
- Alex Scoble
Ken: the really interesting thing about friendfeed is it is not centralized at all. Everyone's screen is different based on who they follow. If they follow only Zee they will see something quite different than if they follow me.
- Robert Scoble
Alex: that is true! Unless I start another one today. It's hard to come up with topics that everyone will comment or like, though, so some days I will be on fire and other days I'll be quiet and other people will get to have the crowd join them.
- Robert Scoble
I like Scoble's posts. I find that they are frequently good conversations about things that I'm interested in. That said, following alot of people (about 5,700 at present) I find that it's the long tail that bubbles up to the top of my own FF screen more than the top people. Any new refresh is bound to bring up some new story by some new person and most of things I'm liking/commenting on frequently have only 2 or 3 existing comments or likes. I think in this regard FF is working fine.
- Thomas Hawk
Robert: Random little factoid along those lines is that apparently unless you explicitly say "who:everyone" when you search Friendfeed, you're only searching what's already in your field of view. You really can have a *totally* different, parallel experience on FF if you follow orthogonal sets of people.
- Ken Sheppardson
Thomas, thanks, same to you too! By the way, want to see something other than just Scoble (even if you are only following me)? Just click on the "Everyone" link and keep refreshing. You'll discover lots of new people and stuff going through the system.
- Robert Scoble
I concur with Robert's last comment. Explore beyond the popular kids. Look for the people that don't say as much or don't have as many followers.
- Patrick Allmond
hey you know what, the "everyone" link might just be the answer...but i'd really like an option to not have to read the non-english language (just because i don't understand what the heck they're saying...)
- Zee.
Robert, you're old! :-P
- Jesse Stay
@KurtSwann Local but moving to carbonite?
yes
- Patrick Allmond
@neillharmer Can't say that I really agree with the labeling standard either. That was a gov't law/mandate that came about from people...
In not just talking about the calorie counters of the world, you don't think people that have food alergies should not have redily accessable information at their finger tips instead of having to dig and dig and dig, and still not always end up with the answer.
- Neill
What I was saying on twitter is that i completely agree with the labeling. I'm a Celiac and I have to investigate everything that goes in my mouth. If i don't I get really sick. It's easier for me to read the label then have to guess and get sick.
- Sara Lorenzen
Putting aside my general disagreement for a second. Can you imagine how much information you'd have to have to determine if your food allergy will be affected by something they made?
- Patrick Allmond
I do it on a daily basis. Gluten is in everything.
- Sara Lorenzen
In quoting NBC, "the more you know" they should have to post that info. Same as Dorritos and Dr Pepper and dog food.
- Neill
I know at least one person with a food allergy. She has gone out of her way (outside of the restaraunt) to get an idea of what foods will affect her. She may not be 100% but she is pretty close. You cannot and should not (IMO) rely on a place like that to tell you the impact of a certain food.
- Patrick Allmond
Patrick, responding to your twitter post. It's not as easy as it looks.
- Sara Lorenzen
I can pick out the easy things...bread, flour tortillas, anything with barley... etc. But somethings like Marble Slab Ice cream you have no clue until it's too late.
- Sara Lorenzen
Probably not Sara. I am sure I am oversimplifying for brevity.
- Patrick Allmond
I look at it like, what do they have to hide? Really? Why do they not want to post it? I tell ya why, cause they have HIGH FAT, HIGH CALORIE, CRAP. thats why. I know everything that goes into my mouth now, but it would be so much easier to have that at my finger tips, or readily available at the restaurant so i can look it up there in case i dont happen to have the info (be it not on the website, or in my cal books) ... I seriously cannot see how you could be against knowing that info?
- Neill
Reading and requiring a label in your house is one thing that I am not terribly against. But I see going out to a restaurant as something completely different.
- Patrick Allmond
There is at least one city that regulates now what restraunts can serve. I think it is Chicago. The restaurants wants to serve it. The patrons want to eat it. But the restaurants cannot server because the gov't has determined it is unhealthy for the patrons.
- Patrick Allmond
here's an example.... maltodextrin... a preservative that is in TONS of things. There are two kinds, one from wheat and one from corn. I can have the one from corn but not the wheat. They aren't required to label which kind it is so it's kind of a guessing game.
- Sara Lorenzen
Specifically I am talking about food places having to pay to have their menus altered to comply with a law. I am a strict believer in Lassez-Faire goverment. And I don't need the government in my mouth or in my stomach. Lord knows they've been in my butt for awhile.
- Patrick Allmond
"The restaurants wants to serve it. The patrons want to eat it. But the restaurants cannot" Are you talking about the ban on transfat?
- Tiffany
Lol. Agreed. I don't think they have a right to tell us what we can eat.. but look at our country. We obviously can't do it for ourselves.
- Sara Lorenzen
How much information would you have to know if maltodextrin was in something?
- Patrick Allmond
I think people need to have access to information that allows them to make knowledgeable decisions. You can't just guess between two items because you never know what kind of oils, etc the foods are being cooked in.
- Tiffany
a simple label saying "corn maltodexrin" instead of just "maltodextrin"
- Sara Lorenzen
The govt is not telling us what to eat in this case, they are SHOWING us what we are eating. I for one WANT to know. In alot of cases I cannot go out to eat anymore since I am on such a strict caloric intake.
- Neill
“It might be the transfat Tiffany. I actually thought it was a specific food.”
- Patrick Allmond
I dont think they should have to change the menu, but put in a paper insert. GIVE US THE INFO.
- Neill
Sara - so for a given dish you'd have to be given a list of all of the general ingredients used to make that dish. And then for each of those general ingredients you'd have to be given very specific breakdowns to know if it was going to affect you.
- Patrick Allmond
I have no problem with information being available someplace. But to force me as a restaurant owner to spend $5000 to revamp all of my menus seem ludicrous.
- Patrick Allmond
Well, banning transfats does not ban any certain food, just a certain oil. People were throwing a fit about this when it started in NYC, but now it is catching on in a lot of chains. For example, most of the food at KFC and McDonalds no longer contains transfat.
- Tiffany
My bad. It was the "foie gras" ban and it was for a different reason.
- Patrick Allmond
So, Patrick, you don't mind them having to provide a list, you just don't think they should have to change their menus, etc? BC on NPR it sounded like they were saying the testing to determine the nutr. content was what was so expensive.
- Tiffany
Neill - I am not against knowing that information. I am against an establishment being forced to spend money to tell me. I know when I go to McDs that they serve crap. It is a given. There is no question. I don't need a menu to tell me how many fat grams are in a big mac vs. a quarter pounder. But I am an educated person and I do know that the grilled chicken sandwich is better for me than the quarter pounder. And I did not need the McD owner to tell me that.
- Patrick Allmond
But if you have to eat the chicken, you still want/need to know what it has in it, nutritional info wise. McD, is not the best example, because I am never in one, and on the rare rare rare chance i am i do know what to eat and what not to eat.
- Neill
damn enter button. ... But if im in a lesser place, for business or whatnot, and i cannot find that info online or in my food books, due to it not being a national chain, or new, or whatnot, then how am i to get the info? and some places, dont have it, beacse they are not required to have something.
- Neill
Patrick, One could make that assumption, but in smoe cases without knowing the real content, your educated decision is just a guess. For example, a double cheeseburger at mcds only has 20 more calories than a premium grilled chix sand. You would think that by getting the grilled chicken, you would be making a wise decision, but it has more calories than you would think. You just don't know sometimes bc there is no telling what they cook it in, or what kind of sauces there are on it.
- Tiffany
Thanks Tiffany. I usually take out the chicken and scrape off the mayo. I went to http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutriti... and saw what you saw. But I also saw that the amount of fat was drastically different. And that is what matters to me in most cases. I had a pretty good idea of that before even looking.
- Patrick Allmond
FYI all that are discussing. I consider this a good and ... ahem... very HEALTHY dialogue that we are having :)
- Patrick Allmond
My main concerns are calories and trans fat. There are many restaurants where I cannot get information on which items do and do not have trans fat in them. I would very much like to be able to go to a restaurant, and have the content be available to me.
- Tiffany
an't say that I really agree with the labeling standard either. That was a gov't law/mandate that came about from people not wanting to be responsible for their own choices and actions.
Specifically I am talking about food places having to pay to have their menus altered to comply with a law. I am a strict believer in Lassez-Faire goverment. And I don't need the government in my mouth or in my stomach. Lord knows they've been in my butt for awhile.
- Patrick Allmond
There is at least one city that regulates now what restraunts can serve. I think it is Chicago. The restaurants wants to serve it. The patrons want to eat it. But the restaurants cannot server because the gov't has determined it is unhealthy for the patrons.
- Patrick Allmond
Internet Explorer 8 is 6,000x better than IE6, but it still bugs me. Google Chrome is the future. Here's why:
ivanandersson, Srinath, Palak Mathur and 77 other people liked this
1. Google Chrome is way faster.
- Robert Scoble
2. Google Chrome is a rethink. IE8 is a bug fix.
- Robert Scoble
3. Google Chrome has one box. IE 8 has two.
- Robert Scoble
Google Chrome is very light weight (including the UI)
- Vaibhav
4. Google Chrome works better with Google Reader and other AJAX sites.
- Robert Scoble
5. IE8 has too many menus and icons. Gives a real cluttered feel.
- Robert Scoble
IE's been a glorified bug fix since MS relabeled it from Mosaic, Robert - no secret there. :) I'm loving Chrome.
- teleken
WebKit is a really good rendering engine. I've always secretly wished IE8 would use WebKit as their rendering engine and scrap IE rendering, and somehow incorporate ActiveX and all of the IE features into it, since WebKit is open-source, not tied to a specific competitor (as opposed to Gecko and Firefox) and is fast and stable. – Have to agree about Google Chrome as well. It's a great browser. As much as I love Safari, I wish Chrome would come to Mac sooner :)
- Mark Bao
6. Google Chrome's search integration is magic. Start typing something and it figures out what you want. IE8 waits for you to finish, then brings up a boring web page.
- Robert Scoble
Any others?
- Robert Scoble
When it finally works on a Mac, perhaps I'll believe you ;)
- Jeff
If it didn't bug someone it wouldn't still be Internet Explorer.
- Josh Sharp
Looks like WebKit is the future, all mobile browsers have started using it.
- Vaibhav
Google Chrome and FLASH don't get along!
- paul mooney
Now I just wish Chrome worked better with Flash, or Flash worked better with Chrome.
- Dennis Jackson
Google Chrome is focused on internet. IE seems to mix to much other junk in
- Mike Scott
By the way, I wrote this whole item in IE8 running on Windows 7. If you are still going to use IE, please do get IE8. It is much better than previous versions.
- Robert Scoble
Not a big fan of IE or Chrome... I'll stick with FireFox.
- Steven Sanders
Google Chrome is slick...but I still like the simplicity of FireFox.
- Charlie Flowers
I love Google Chrome, I just wish the addon's started rolling out.
- Michael Fidler
Because the browser is a commodity... Connecting (correction - Deep Integration) with Google's cloud based services is the secret sauce.
- Brian Roy
Charlie: simplicity of Firefox? You've gotta be kidding, right? I love Firefox because of its complexity! (Plugins keep me there a lot of the time).
- Robert Scoble
I still need to play with Chrome in order to form an educated opinion. I'm just too hung up on Firefox still. :P
- Korey
Timely thread. I literally installed Google Chrome on my home computer within the last half hour (hey, I'm slow at these things - I'm not trendy). Just poking around a bit now, liking the speed. StumbleUpon support is an issue, but I'm reading up on it and other stuff. Just read Sarah Perez's post on privacy.
- Ontario Emperor
I h ave never been a fan of ActiveX. The fact that several websites still rely on it versus better technologies irks me and I refuse to use them.
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
hope they add the tabs preview to Windows 7 when you hover over the taskbar chrome icon
- Vaibhav
Paul: Google Chrome gets along fine with Flash here. What are you experiencing?
- Robert Scoble
Yeah, I have to admit, IE8 is a pretty good browser, relatively speaking (relative to IE7 and IE6.) Renders my pages a ton better than previous versions.
- Mark Bao
Flash slows down Chrome for me pretty significantly, sometimes to where it's not even usable. Maybe it's just my computer.
- Dennis Jackson
How is IE6 a basis for comparison to anything anymore? Totally agree about Chrome.
- Bob Starr
loved chrome until I found out it wasn't compatible with my Roboform. I'm lazy and not too security conscious.
- BEX
IE 8 was supposed to be more compliant with standards, but it breaks a lot of websites which work in IE7, FF, Chrome. (Scratching my head)
- Vaibhav
Amen on the 'IE mixing other junk in' thought. I hate typing a hostname into it & it tries to hit a UNC or whatever the heck it's doing...
- Steven Byrnes
Chrome has a whole list of niggling problems and has had since day one -- they just never seem to get fixed. I like the speed and simplicity but Chrome will become the next IE unless Google starts paying attention to detail.
- Brian Sullivan
Chrome lets you create 'desktop applications' that don't get lost in all of those tabs and don't waste space with the address bar!
- Jon Issler
I use Chrome from time to time, but it just feels wrong when I do, I think I'll be sticking with Firefox.
- Randy
I am with Vaibhav on "webkit is the future as well"
- Peter Finn
Val: Privacy is dead. I really don't care.
- Robert Scoble
Chrome's biggest shortcomings right now are password security and the lack of plugins/extensions... Have to give Firefox a nod for having those two nailed!
- Jon Issler
I think Chrome is Google's paid service platform... http://www.johnworthington.me/...
- Johnny Worthington
Google Chrome is like FireFox back when it was Phoenix: Sleek, sexy and satisfying. Beta 2 adds autocomplete, profiles and a Greasemonkey style scripting.
- John Rubier
Chrome has built in Task Manager.... anyone? ..... alright, never mind.
- Vaibhav
@Dennis check your fans. If your on a laptop the fans and/or exhaust may be blocked with dust. that happened to me on my laptop, any flash video slowed my laptop down. realized one day (after reinstalling windows and still having the problem) that my fans had a lot of dust. used compressed air to clean them out, problem solved. happy laptop!
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
One thing I know I liked about Chrome: The web-comic! http://tiny.cc/9Ck9L
- Korey
I'm amazed at how many flash/chrome issues there are. Ive never had any?
- Mike Scott
Looking forward to chrome coming out for the mac
- Kevin Whalen
I still see that firefox is the future! unless google chrome will be a 100% organic software http://snipr.com/9u3ld
- Mark Guadalupe
I love firefox and plug-ins, but does Chrome need plug-ins? I thought their deal was to run current and next-gen online applications better, which will likely preclude the need for the plug-ins we firefox users can't live without now.
- Bill Garrett
Robert, I really like Chrome too. The universal address/search/history bar is the future of browsing. There are only a small % of sites that do not work with Chrome... usually old school corporations, such as ones that I have to pay bills online at. Grr. Works 99.8% of the time for me otherwise.
- Brian
I just installed the Windows 7 beta. I fired up IE 8 and it didn't correctly render a nonprofit's Web site I administer as a volunteer (www.spauldingcenter.org). IE 8 didn't correctly render some of the CSS. I installed Chrome and Chrome got it right. IE 8 is obviously not yet ready for release.
- Rod Bauer
from twhirl
I love Chrome and it is my default browser now. In fact all my flash problems in Firefox and IE went away in Chrome (video paused many times during playback, audio kept going). They are both memory hoars. Maybe a problem with too much Flash on websites? The lack of plugin support is very troubling.
- Chris Mayer
I'm keen for getting mac version of chrome too, though its going to be interesting to see how they're gonna handle interface
- Mike Scott
from IM
Re: 6. The search bar autofill? Err FF has that too for recently visited sites. If you get an Add-On it'll do the potential sites too.
- Adam
Google Chrome may be nice, but there was an "Epic Fail" on my system when Chrome decided that it was the default browser (out of four browsers) and would not directly allow me to un-check the Default-Browser checkbox. It was quickly removed.
- Robert Miller
I don't care about Internet Explorer any more. I switched to Firefox + Foxmarks, and solved a nagging problem - synchronization of bookmarks across multiple Windows *and* OS X machines - that the 'softies *still* haven't managed to solve, despite wasting a few developer-centuries on Live Mesh.
- Pat Rice
Love Chrome. Use it whenever I can. It does have problems with some sites, and I'm always having problems with flash crashing in it.
- cjmart
Kind of ironic that Chrome and Firefox and both performing much better for me under Windows 7. The beta Chrome release is really sweet.
- Charlie Anzman
@Pat: I use live mesh to sync my bookmarks between machines all the time. Add your favorites folder to mesh and you are good to go. Mesh for mac is available too.
- Chris Johnson
Google Chrome doesn't know what's RSS!!! FAIL
- carrotmadman6
I feel like people are debating the relative merits of tn3270 emulators...
- Brian Roy
I like the speed/lightness of Chrome, however i dont think it will be big anytime soon with anyone other than techies. Doesnt run many addins/plugins etc... Unlikely any enterprise will adopt it either. Its a great reference app.
- Chris Johnson
Chrome certainly is clean and renders fast, but until the experience can be customized via extensions like Firefox, there is no one way I can make it my primary. I just loaded Win. 7 on my laptop and the only thing I ported over from any of my other machines was my FEBE.
- George Rogers
Important point for me is that Chrome opens more of the monitor for the content on the page, not for toolbars that i do not need while browsing a page. no loss of functionality without the toolbar.
- Jeff DiStanlo
I wonder how many people even know what tn3270 is used for :) I know I do all too well.
- Patrick Allmond
+++ on this. FoxMarks is awesome. Just wish FoxMarks had an iPhone browser sync also :(
- Patrick Allmond
Any Flock 2.0 users here? If Chrome comes out for the Mac, I may take a look as well - but Firefox/Flock has been great for me for now.
- Erich Miller
@Robert: Maybe simplicity wasn't the right word..."ease of use" might be a better term. I think that FF's layout is not as radically different from the browsers I grew up with (IE & Netscape), as Chrome seems to be...maybe that's why I find it simpler to use. Having said that, Chrome is by no means complex, just not as intuitive as FF. As you mentioned, the plug-ins add to the ease of use. It seems you can get a FireFox plug-in for anything.
- Charlie Flowers
BTW, have you tried FF's AutoPager plug-in. That thing is amazing! It "automatically loads the next page of a site inline when you reach the end of the current page for infinite scrolling of content"...it's perfect for things like Twitter, Google, and yes it works for FriendFeed too. :D
- Charlie Flowers
I'm using Flock 2.0 on both Mac and Windows. I've uninstalled Chrome -- didn't care for it much since Flock does everything I need it to.
- Victor Solanoy
:hits the Googles to figure out what the Flock you guys are talking about:
- teleken
IE8 (and Firefox) offer a lot of tools to supplement your browsing experience. Chrome just gets out of the way. I'm not sure one or the other is a fundamentally superior approach.
- Toph Tucker
Installed Flock for all of 5 minutes. Sticking with Chrome, thanks.
- teleken
ctrl+t takes forever on IE8, and for what? A blank tab. I like Chrome's approach
- Andrew Smith
Firefox's is simple and extendable. Firefox' strength comes from its pluggability and ease of developing new plugins. Chrome needs to beat that.
- Angsuman Chakraborty
Chrome needs to support Linux before it can even think of replacing Firefox. Chromium port of Chrome on Linux isn't very stable.
- Angsuman Chakraborty
firefox plugins are the new activeX. there's too much functionality i use for me to shift *now*. i *do* like chrome, though.
- moogs
I like moving tabs into new windows, but does crashes alot w/ Flash
- Da
7. If one tab crashes, all the other tabs are unaffected. Let's see ANY other browser do that.
- Nathan Chase
i think i'll stick with firefox. so much more you can do with it..
- Terry O'Fee
Chrome is fast (unlike IE), has a very minimal UI (also unlike IE), and you can move tabs to other windows. I have never been able to get Firefox to open new tabs next to the tab they're opened from, instead of at the far right, plus I don't really care about extensions. Plus, I've never had any issues with Flash. The only problem is that my school email won't work in Chrome (but that's minor). Chrome wins for me.
- imperator3733
from twhirl
Robert - how is the performance of IE8 compared to Chrome and Firefox? Personally, I'd be using Chrome if I had my add-ons and greasemonkey scripts. I love Chrome's mult-tasking / memory management - very nice
- Susan Beebe
@Imperator, Firefox's UI can be slimmed down, and you can fix the tab issue with Tab Mix Plus. Also, Firefox 3.1 is faster than Chrome.
- Tanath
how bout: Chrome is CSS compliant? IE8 isn't, I know this by experience
- Duncan Riley
@Nathan -- as far as I know, IE8 separated tabs into different processes first....
- Toph Tucker
I think FriendFeed should put a comment button at the bottom of the comments... that said, Opera is the fastest, but it has a few shortcomings. I use FireFox or Chrome depending on what PC I'm at. Some sites only work in IE.
- Gus
Google Chrome uses your screen real estate more efficiently
- Aad 't Hart
Chrome focuses on the web and not on the browser and that's what a browser's supposed to do.
- Rohit
May be when there are basic extensions available for Chrome then it will be fair to compare with Firefox. For now, I don't see Chrome that useful, even though it's clean, a bit faster and provides more screen space. After a couple of days of using Chrome, I switched to Firefox as I felt less productive without the powerful extensions in Firefox.
- Amar Shah
When Chrome has an extension like Better GReader, TabMixPlus, and NoScript, then I'll switch, but FF has everything I need with the extensions. NoScript is about the ONLY addon I absolutely need to use for security of my computer.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
You can install extensions on the Chromium Builds! Go for it!
- Will Higgins™
love chrome as much as the next guy, but it does crash sometimes over simplest things, like downloading sth from gmail or greader. & it's not just one tab that goes - it all goes & only one comes back, either gmail or greader...
- siggimus
Chrome also crashes when importing Firefox Bookmarks, which makes it awkward to switch. But yeah, I would still use Firefox over IE 8.
- Todd Brunner
from twhirl
my mother understands the search-thingy-box in chrome.
- Svensonsan
@scobleizer I think this would have made a good blog post. Would have been easier to read you view points. The discussion could then have happened on friendfeed. Too many comments to read properly
- Sidharth Dassani
Chrome and WebKit are the future - just hope there's still room for Firefox. Remember how Firefox became Firefox?
- Mona Nomura
from fftogo
I agree. Chrome focuses on opening fast, which is critical for impatient people like me. Firefox and IE are way too slow.
- Richard Crocker
WebKit can do CSS3 gradients, and I have only seen it in WordPress for creating actual images with gradients. Chrome is the future indeed! Extensions? heh, I use javascript bookmarklets to do my bidding! Chromes bookmark manager is more powerful than I expected. Passwords can be imported from FF but there is no backup option yet.
- Web20Critic
Chrome is really promising, but still incomplete imo. Being a web developer, I have deep connections with firefox plug-ins like FireBug (with Yslow), dev. toolbar and a couple more. But looking at the future, I think the final round of the browser wars will be between Safari and Chrome (ofc IE will still have at least 50% market) because Firefox gets slower and more agonizing with every new release, and lacks the support Apple and Google offers for Safari/Chrome
- Onur Cengiz
If chrome crashes, report it! Make a note of what you were doing and blog it, microshare it, post it on the chromium blog etc. This way all of us can help make it work for us! Nice thread for tech support, Mr Scoble!
- Web20Critic
7. Because Chrome has a new and improved version every week/month/quarter (depending upon the distribution channel) whereas IE version comes once in 3 years.
- Varun Mahajan
Robert: How did you get IE8 on Windows 7??? The installer refused to run when i tried.
- Roberto Bonini
Roberto: it came with Windows 7. Or so I thought. I already had it loaded on this machine before I upgraded.
- Robert Scoble
Have you seen http://www.techfuga.com/ a technology news aggregator? It's a good 'high level' start but additional news is required.
Robert Scoble and Rob Diana liked this
Take a look at http://www.freshnews.org/ also
- Patrick Allmond
Why do software companies insist on keep things in beta for years?
Does it somehow relieve them of liability if it is beta?
- Patrick Allmond
Is beta an instant legal out if they lose some of your data?
- Patrick Allmond
What happened to the good ole days of Version 1, 2 and 3?
- Patrick Allmond
Twitter in 140 characters - http://www.scripting.com/stories...
adam, Ontario Emperor, Mathew™ one of a kind and 2 other people liked this
Twitter is useful because it was how we told the world we had a new son. Didn't have time for anything longer.
- Robert Scoble
I'll say it again... blogs are monologue, Twitter/FF is dialog. Both are valuable and neither replaces the other.
- Brian Roy
Blogs are dialog just like twitter. I have plenty of 2 way conversations on blogs
- Patrick Allmond
Patrick - I think we are dealing with semantics.
- Brian Roy
both are monologues for me. its difficult having a conversation on twitter.
- pranav
pranav - FF is much better at conversation... but conversation is much better on Twitter than on a blog.
- Brian Roy
Twitter allows me to access & interact w/ the issues & people that I care about in real time. Twitter is (right now) the collective conscience of the new web. However, FF is rapidly becoming way more valuable to me.
- George Rogers
Told a friend recently: Twitter's for blog posts too short to blog; and, when one has enough friends, it's like asychronous/distributed IRC.
- Deborah Fitchett
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