Sean, if only I knew. This was delivered directly to me fresh and hot.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Wow, whatever you do, don't google "Asian guys at beach licking" if you want to find the Flickr account for this. No, seriously. Just...don't. o.O
- tinypants - Hagitha of FF
changed my life forever...I will always go to the beach with a a few chubby buddies after porking myself up for those bosoms ~ and this image is most definitely going in the ol' spank bank
- sofarsoShawn
Remember ! I bring quality product to Friend Feed !:)
- Akiva Moskovitz
you know what would be funny: ok bear with me, if we blindfolded leather donut (you know the booby man) and...yeah fill in the blanks...something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- sofarsoShawn
Sir, randomly linking to your FriendFeed from one of my posts is oh wait you'll never see this because you're blocked for spamming. Thanks anyway, kaghazrangy.
- Akiva Moskovitz
damn this picture just won't go away - you have forced me to hide it
- William Harryman
Akiva, wasn't that pic taken at your last BBQ?
- Paul
Every time I see this picture I smile. Their joy is infectious, like herpes.
- Sparky
Paul, I surely do wish I had a beach in my back yard!
- Akiva Moskovitz
Sparky, I'm going to have this blown up to poster-size and attaching it to the ceiling above our bed. That'll cause some infections!
- Akiva Moskovitz
makes me want to grow a rack and diddle with my own, know what I'm saying?
- sofarsoShawn
this. . . .this. . . ugh . . . so fucking wrong.
- Peter Ghosh
Akiva - you can put anything you want above our bed.
- Sparky
i've been trying to formulate a comment for this for days, but i just...can't.
- joey
I still want to know the motivation here. is this a gay marriage argument? or are we already pushing group social contracts on friendfeed?
- Noah David Simon
oh man this one keeps popping up on ma friendfeed,....must spread virus nao
- Chris Hofmann
I'm surprised no one's noticed old boy's red-framed glasses.
- Akiva Moskovitz
oh right... the glasses are so important when three asian men are licking his nipples and all the comments are by people who think gay marriage has something to do with equality... when it has everything to do with taking protections away from children. the red glass glasses.... um yeah. chicken and Oklahoma with milk
- Noah David Simon
Mark, you have uncovered the dark underbelly of humanity except in this case it isn't dark but is rather a pasty hue somewhere in the vicinity of undercooked flan.
- Akiva Moskovitz
This should be in the default noobie FF stream. Like the first thing anyone who signs up sees. If they stick around they're part of the family.
- Internet's Tad
Perhaps this can replace the kitty pic on the start page for non-members!
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
I'm certain prop8 had nothing to do with Swine Flu
- Noah David Simon
I'm thinking that eventually, it will have been hidden by every user on FriendFeed. It'll be the most hidden post in FriendFeed history.
- Akiva Moskovitz
WHY WHY KEEP BRINGING BACK THE EYES THEY HURT ME
- Neal Jansons
from IM
Herpes (and this): the gifts that keep on giving.
- Sparky
I wonder if the FriendFeed guys see this and say to themselves, 'Well, this isn't exactly what we had in mind when we started started FriendFeed.'
- Akiva Moskovitz
I look at it and think, "Not again."
- Steven Perez
from IM
Just about the time you FF is getting some class .. Oh well we is what we is.
- Brent - Loving Life
I can't believe after all this time some diligent FF'er hasn't dug up the identities (I said "titties") of this bunch and invited them to join the service that made them famous. Mitchell Tsai, get to work!
- Sprague D
i think if you unlike and delete all your comments anna it'll go away, but hide in general would be nice too (this photo makes me smile every time it pops up so don't mind it)...
- mike "glemak" dunn
*sigh* This is never going away, is it? It's gonna end up like James Bond movies and Swedish meatballs - always existing in the same form. never diminshing, never forgotten. :( :( :(
- Steven Perez
from IM
It will go away, to be replaced with photoshops of the original. It's all part of the meme lifecycle.
- Sparky
I am too new on friendfeed to know anything about record comments.. I love gmail tho, puts all the comments in one threaded email and I can delete them all later in one shot or not if I choose..
- David Gross
from email
well we should aim to beat the record.. i mean jeez there are tons of things that could be said about this.. like.. does it taste like chicken?
- ed fry
I'm gonna have nightmares now. thanks ed. ;)
- Alejandro
ok, in Japanese: "an, an, soko dame!"
- Rick Cogley
You can't close this thread. A lot of people say that this place is a Scoble-fest but, truly, it is this thread that is at the very heart of FriendFeed.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I'm officially going to proclaim that this is the FF equivalent of Goatse or FFoatse if you will. Lets all refer to it as that from this point forward.
- Mark Krynsky
Sparky has left 57 comments. The rest of you are slacking. Hop to it!
- Christopher Harley
Chrisitan just walked by and said "It's too early in the morning for Japanese titty licking." It's NEVER too early for Japanese titty licking.
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
THIS is the first thing I see here this morning?
- l0ckergn0me
Chris, you just woke up? C'mon, man! It's 10:30!
- Akiva Moskovitz
I knew he would break eventually - it's fitting that it's on this thread *now to find out how to hide a thread once you've commented....*
- WorldofHiglet
As much as I am loathe to bump this post, I have to do it to say, You, sir, are a master. Well played, sir. Well played. This is why I take every opportunity to say, in my next life, I want to be Akiva. I've already called it! Don't anybody go getting any more ideas.
- ♥patricia♥
I, for one, refuse to "bump" posts...it's very unseemly...
- Live4Emma (L4S)
I wish FF-search allowed to do GROUP BY -aggregations so I could COUNT(*) who are the biggest *bump*ers. :)
- Jemm
Makes me laugh everytime I see it. Such a happy yet silly scene by the sea.
- Toby Graham
There is nothing silly about it. This is serious business.
- Sparky
The more I see this, the more I like it. Not for the ironic nipple-licking, but because these kids are genuinely enjoying themselves. :) Carry on.
- felicious
This photo looks so much better in iPhone 3.0!#!~
- Akiva Moskovitz
Seriously dude. What do I have to do to get rid of this disgusting picture!? Doh! Now I've just pushed it back to the top... yuck, I'm so sickened.
- Jason Nunnelley
I love this image, because I have no clue why it's happening. Randomness FTW!!
- Jimminy
from twhirl
I'm just thinking of all the new folks coming to friend feed and see this and wonder just what the hell did I get into anyway? And why in Gods name can't I spell Friend correctly the first time - GRRRRRR
- Brent - Loving Life
Can't believe I never hit 'like' on this! Consider the situation rectumfied.
- Bec Rowe @d0tski
Oops! I hope I didn't just bump this up again... ;-)
- Sprague D
It's just so refreshing to see genuine juvenile humour at work. These kids are no different from any other, I think it's a great happy image, given all the other shite happening in this world on a daily basis. For those that are too pompous and prudish, 'up yours with brass knobs'
- ImJustCreative
Wow. 666. Nice! Actually, the reason Asashoryu is getting a divorce ( http://ff.im/4T0UA ), is because he wants to spend time with this lot.
- Rick Cogley
To this day, the pic still comes back. Just like Herpes. :D
- Danny Minick
Although unlike herpes this photo is fun to share with friends.
- Sparky
I would rather go to http://woot.com and buy the Acer Aspire One for $259.99, I do not care that it is a refurb.. but what would I do with two laptops? Maybe #hive knows? hmm..
- David Gross
from email
What's this? A real question in this thread? Two extra laptops? Make them fancy digital photo frames.
- Jordan Hofker
Reason #696 why the Internet can grant you immortality. ;-)
- darnell
from BuddyFeed
I can't believe this thing is still floating around Friendfeed. These poor guys... ha ha ha
- Bradley Farless
@SeanMcGee sorry about the spam, this thread is sorta spammy.. I get the messages in email perfect for replying with any message because it then gets posted on twitter and facebook.. I do not do it all the time, look at my other posts in this stream..
- David Gross
from email
Lactating, males last resort to save ourselves, now that they can create sperm in labs.
- Jimminy
This is the thread that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started feeding it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue feeding it forever just because...This is the thread that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started feeding it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue feeding it forever just because...This is the thread that...
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- David Gross
from email
I have 89 :( emails since july 10th.. that includes the ones I sent.
- David Gross
from email
gmail comes in handy, it keeps all the email in conversations, 100 messages at a time but because the subject " :( " it will not filter out so they dont go to inbox.
- David Gross
from email
*THOUGHT FOR THE DAY...* Women are like phones: They like to be held, talked to, and touched often. But push the wrong button and your ass is disconnected.
- David Gross
from email
all this oral stuff is just begging the question of when do they start with the money shots?
- Noah David Simon
I just use this image as a way to announce crap. no one really pays attention to my feed... except my enemies. so when I have something important to say I tell the Asian Titty lickers. it is my strong belief that this thread needs it's very own domain name. something like http://xrl.us/TittyLickers
- Noah David Simon
You know, every time this pops up, since FF hides the middle of the comments of which there are 804 or so, I see Akiva say "I'm sorry." at the top. It makes me wonder about how some things are just not possible to apologize for!
- Rick Cogley
wow, I can't believe tomorrow is Friday :o) no, wait, somewhere in the world it's ALREADY Friday :o)
- David Gross
from email
Thanks Rick, thats what I thought.. does that mean I can start with the #followfriday on twitter or do I have to wait till it is Friday here in NJ? would be funny to post it from this post LOL all my friendfeed goes to twitter..
- David Gross
from email
David - yeah, you can get an early start.
- Rick Cogley
Rick, I am not good at lists or #followfriday but there are lotsa good people in this thread.
- David Gross
from email
the thing that strikes me about this (aside from the obvious) is after seeing this thing pop up like 35-40 times since March its just occurred to me that I don't have any (guy) friends that a) would lick my nipples b) would lick my nipples for a photograph. Maybe I should get out more...
- J. Abdul-Qahhar
I'm a little scared that I've this has gotten more than 800 comments and almost 200 likes over nearly five months and I still haven't clicked "Hide."
- Scott of Two Countries
It's just a bit of fun. I mean watching how many comment, not the picture content (although I suspect that is all that was too!)
- Ian May
Allright, you guys ready to shoot "mirth and girth"?
- Rick Cogley
For the life of me, I'll never understand the emotion people have around this picture for or against. There's no nudity at all, not even implied nudity. Less dude nudity than a beer commercial or cigarette ad, yet there are people who really really really hate this picture.
- Matthew DeVries
I found a way to get a Tit Theme, and it involves this picture.
- Jimminy
Hahahaha! It's like a telethon. And after Joey Bishop goes off stage, they flash this picture on the screen. "Won't you think of the CHILDREN?"
- Spidra Webster
It's been a while, hope the magnetism still prevails...
- Aaman (Clone of FF)
I just had to bump this once more... gives me a whole new excuse to go look at Phoebe again!
- Mark "DerBingle" J
Hmmm, where do you think they're from? My guess is Japan...
- sofarsoShawn
The bumping algorithm includes things like novel people posting to it, in addition to thread age, and rapidity of comments. If the same 3 people are talking in a thread, it quits bumping because it's obviously a closed tea party.
- Matthew DeVries
I forgot, also you're a very handsome guy(saw the wedding images), I don't understand why you don't like to share your face. Rochelle is a lucky lady.
- Jimminy
Jimminy, it's an irrational phobia. No different than people who are afraid of heights, spiders, clowns, or Canada.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Akiva, now I'm LMAO at the fear of Canada. People are actually afraid of Canada, or just the fact they don't know if they're British or French?
- Jimminy
I don't think even Canadians know that difference.
- Akiva Moskovitz
If Friendfeed had sound .. this thread would be all licks and slurps
- Mattb4rd
Sorry Akiva, I think it was the display picture.. I have known male and female Akivas.. Oh and by the way guys I am not afraid of Canada LOL will be there this weekend.. Dave Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes...> - "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
- David Gross
from email
I popped the 666 cherry and I will get 1000 also.
- Jimminy
If it gets to 1000 will Akiva lock it so it can sink from our feeds forever? Please?!?
- WorldofHiglet
I think locking this post would be un-FriendFeedian.
- Jason Huebel
This is the immortal post everyone who uses the service must see it so WoH it just wouldn't be good to lock it.
- Jimminy
Not everyone see's it, only the people with true class do.
- Sparky
It keeps on going and going and going....
- David Gross
from email
In the Hall of Great Posts at the FriendFeed museum, this shall be hung high on the wall with pride.
- Johnny Worthington
I'M THE ROCK AND ROLL CLOWN.. AND I LIKE COCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINE
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
*Wispering to Murderface* "Seriously man, I do... A LOT of cocaine."
- Matt Stoddard
It is now September 1st, and this has not reached 1000 comments. I am sorely disappointed. Yet, for some reason, I am uplifted by the smile of this young man, who was fortunate enough to have such great friends that fateful day on the beach.
- Josh Haley
Quick let's add some comments... Gee that guy on the far left is not really getting into the swing of things is he?
- Travis Koger
Travis... bear in mind that we don't know what "main chubby guy's" right hand is doing, or where it's doing whatever it's doing...
- Mark "DerBingle" J
BUT WE CAN INFER WHAT "MAIN CHUBBY GUY'S" HANDS ARE DOING. BOTH OF THEM.
- Sparky
@Mark, of interest (well not really) is the location of Front Left guy's left hand.
- Travis Koger
The photo of Akiva in the jacuzzi with the Texas A&M cheerleaders would be so much more popular. Now if only someone would post it.
- Christopher Harley
Noooooooooooooooooooooo! Posted March 1st and we are still enduring the wrath! "Akiva's posts, now with more staying power than ever before!"
- Nicholas Kreidberg
YAY! OVER 1000 COMMENTS BLAAAARGBLBLLB
- Josh Haley
It feels like Groundhog Day whenever I see this.
- Andru Edwards
Except that unlike Groundhog Day this is AWESOME!
- Sparky
This thread was how I discovered Akiva. ROFL... Y.M.C.A.! BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP! GAZE AT IT! DON'T LOOK AWAY! >:O I SED DON'T LOOK AWAY!!! ... ^_^
- Danny Minick
You have nothing to fear - I never look away.
- Sparky
On Fark, there was this one thread, that just kept growing and growing. On Fark, it was a single page per thread. And you could post images and gif inline. Well the thread wouldn't die, people just kept posting. I forget which one it was. Anyway, it got so monsterous, that few people going to read/post to it per day (which was only a handfull) accounted for 1/3 of the server load of the site. They eventually had to cull that thread.
- Matthew DeVries
I think everyone who has participated in this thread has 'culled' themselves privately.
- Akiva Moskovitz
What with all the copycat images this has inspired I hope our muse continues to stick around and not get lost in the shuffle of so many knockoffs.
- Sparky
SHUT UP SPARKY!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111!!!!
- Andru Edwards
I refuse to shut up about the glory that is this thread. REFUSE.
- Sparky
Yes, Vezquex, I'm jealous of those guys, it is warm there, nothing like a warm beatch..
- David Gross
from email
Yes, Sparky, they do not know how good they have it there frolicking on the beach while we freeze up here.. Hard to believe it is only 49 degrees, feels like 29.. I bet it's at least 85 degrees on that beach.
- David Gross
from email
Anyone who doesn't appreciate this thread is clearly not developing a FriendFeed iPhone client because this is a great stress test case. (It crashes BuddyFeed, by the way.)
- Akiva Moskovitz
from iPhone
Also it exercises the crap out of your thumb trying to scroll down to the bottom of it.
- Akiva Moskovitz
from iPhone
Do you need to appreciate the pic in order to appreciate the thread?
- Travis Koger
If I un-collapse this thread, will it break my computer?
- Eivind
Every time this thread gets a bumped, god kills a kitten
- Matthew DeVries
Matthew, you may have given some people more reason to keep bumping this thread.
- Victor Ganata
How does it give you thumb exercise? Whatever you're doing, why don't you either use the keyboard or switch to Linux so you can middle-click the scrollbar to jump to where you want? :P
- Tanath
actually this thread does not bother me because I get it in email and gmail groups them and starts new thread after every 100 comments. I have it autoarchived so I do not have to see on phone lol and just see when I look at my ffeed label in gmail.
- David Gross
from email
disgusting? HOW DARE YOU, SIR! That is j-love! and it's beautiful (in it's own way.. a way that shouldn't be seen in public)
- Kyle Johnson
this is probably the most popular feed of 2009 in FF. lol.
- Bora Mesut PALAS
I think the one where Robert Scoble gave away money easily beats this one, but this post has staying power. ;-)
- Jason Huebel
I think that Chinese at FF post was a marriage proposal thing. They were all trying to bump the guy's photo so that it would be the first thing his girlfriend would see when she logged onto FF.
- Kamilah Gill
Dear Leo, I love you to death, however, please let your darling daughter know Monaco is not an island off the coast of France and yes, Monte Carlo is the capitol. My daughter is the same age and we are starting to shop college's as well. I wish you the best of luck finding a school that suits her well. I was an exchange student as well and found it the best experience ever!
- Jennifer Ragde
Okay, now my computer politically correct daughter is telling me this was not the correct way to state my opinion as I should have commented on the photograph. I'm really sorry, I love to listen to your broadcasts, but I really am computer retarded so please forgive me if I have transgressed in any manner. I can't even upload photographs without her help! Really, you don't look dapper,...
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- Jennifer Ragde
I do believe Steve Jobs was in the process of creating the Macintosh then? This is '70s right?
- Danny Minick
LOL Jennifer and +1 for your daughter. :)
- Josh Haley
Leo, you were one hot stack if pancakes back in the day!!
- Erik Boles
Not to nitpick or anything, but Monaco is the name of the state and the capital city. Monte Carlo is just one of city's administrative areas :)
- Dorian
It's 1985 or 1986. I was 28 or 29. And an utter dork.
- Leo Laporte
Okay. Leo you rock! Let me get that out of the way. But you look like Susan Boyle in this photo. Sorry, someone had to throw it out there. ;-)
- Oracio
LEO: if this was a family photo I think it might make it on to the hilarious site that aggregates awkward family photos: http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/ must check this out! :)
- Mike Bracco
Not a family photo - it's a work photo. That's from KLOK-FM San Francisco.
- Leo Laporte
Leo: I know, I was just saying if it was :)
- Mike Bracco
What's that funny lookin thing in the background?
- Daniel James
Daniel.. I think that is what was known as a monochrome display. They were all the rage back then apparently.
- Rhys Amos
Your hair wasn't even real back then! :P
- Kreg Steppe
Dear Dorian, I stand corrected. I was just stunned that someone thought Monaco was an island. When I was in high school (when Dinosaurs roamed the earth, ha ha!), we had to memorize the world in geography. I guess times have changed.
- Jennifer Ragde
LOL, I took all those old photos of me and hid them deep!
- Lillian Banchik
You must have respect for wives. That they could see anything other than the geeks we looked like in those days makes you believe in clairvoyance. Of course now you would qualify as a silver fox.
- JR Holmes
from Nambu
You looked smart and confident :) Great photo! Thanks for sharing!
- mahjongmi
I think Google is putting their bets on Google Wave.
- John Wang
I'm just happy for the FriendFeed team and Google Wave is clusterf*ck.
- Mona Nomura
I'm happy for the team. I'm indifferent for us (the users). Can't really say how I feel, as I don't know what their plans are for FF now. As for Google Wave. Yes, it's a huge mess right now. It's a great idea, and I love that it's pure HTML5 instead of Flash, but the current sandbox is just complete chaos.
- John Wang
I wish they'd fix their technology instead of doing lame manuals. Search is broken. The MONEY IS IN SEARCH! Fix that and businesses will show up. Oh, and why not just feature cool apps like http://www.twitpay.me ? That's what will drag in new businesses to Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Sean: Jack better hurry it up, cause TwitPay is there.
- Robert Scoble
Dylan: yeah, sigh. Why is a platform vendor doing that? And I thought Twitter was so simple that anyone could "get it."
- Robert Scoble
Well they want to try and get the millions of peopel who sign up and do sod all to get more involved.
- Mark
Mark: you don't do that with text. You do that with VIDEO and a CLASSROOM and EVENTS. The text on this page has ME bored to tears and I'm paid to read it.
- Robert Scoble
Not sure that a "Twitter 101" wouldn't be a bad idea for some segments of the population other than business, like educators looking to integrate it into their courses.
- Michael Ritter
Luckily I bet they had someone like a Community Manager or someone else write this manual, while the engineers can work on making Search better and in general the service better :)
- Sam Houston
Robert, yeah - the leaked docs suggest they passed on anything with twitpay.me as a business model. I love what twitpay.me is doing (and I believe I was one of the first to feature them on LouisGray.com)
- Jesse Stay
How can you charge for that? Its all over just Google it .. Maybe it should be Google 101 Hey Google my Idea. Lets see if some suckers buy it.
- Dylan Richardson
Sam: if there really was a Community Manager why don't they fix the Suggested User List to become something more like http://www.wefollow.com or http://www.alltop.com and get out of the business of trying to tell businesses how to use the platform. Does Google have a doc like this? Lame.
- Robert Scoble
I'm actually a little jealous of twitpay.me - it's exactly what me and a couple other friends were going to launch when I went off on my own into entrepreneurship. Our product was going to be called Pokket.
- Jesse Stay
Scoble ...maybe it's too simple. In a way, this may be a good thing for Twitter: by defining what constitutes "best practices" on their system, they'll help everyone understand how their platform can be useful. Sort of like setting boundaries for your small children in order to help them grow.
- .LAG liked that
Tristan: DM me here on FriendFeed. Twitter's DMs suck compared to those here on FriendFeed.
- Robert Scoble
LAG: the thing about a platform is that you build it and you let the market decide how to use it. Twitter keeps trying to control their community. Go and fix the spam problem. Go and fix the search problems. Go and fix the DM problem. Go and fix the group problem. Go and fix the communication problem with developers. THEN come back and tell us how to use Twitter for business. Geesh.
- Robert Scoble
i agree btw, im assuming they pushed this out before search upgrade due to pressure from investors/press
- sean percival
Robert: I'm with you on this one. One of the things about Twitter is that you don't need a guide. You just dive right in. Doesn't this defeat the purpose?
- Amir
from iPod
Scoble ...touche. you're right, maybe they should fix the glaring problems first. <sigh />
- .LAG liked that
Sean: did Google ever publish something like this? Did Apple? What a lame idea. Focus on making the technology rock and roll. Leave the hype to the professionals. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Twitter is still mostly as it was two years ago. Third parties are doing all the innovative stuff with services like FuelFrog and apps like Seesmic and UberTwitter. Fix search, add groups, and offer Twitter for domains.
- Jeff Harbert
Daniel: more and more I'm convinced that Twitter doesn't have a clue how to make money.
- Robert Scoble
Daniel: I'm more and more convinced that Mark Zuckerberg is the genius here and that Ev and Biz aren't.
- Robert Scoble
Of course, you've heard my complaints on this. :-) I feel the same about Google Reader though - I wish Google Reader would fix their issues before launching new stuff as well.
- Jesse Stay
Robert: I agree. 1 billion dollars in revenue? Where did they pull that number out of?
- Daniel Brusilovsky
And, exactly what Daniel said. :-) They don't have a clue at writing software, either, btw.
- Jesse Stay
Twitter the company stinks. Twitter as ecosystem rocks.
- Meryn Stol
I kinda agree that Twitter101 is lame. Using Twitter is pretty straight-forward. Now, for some reason I feel that I am missing something in my use of FriendFeed and wish I could find a FriendFeed 101 or a blog post or something to just flip the switch and make me see what I am really missing.
- RAD Moose
Robert: Would have been prettier too!
- Gregg Morris
Robert, if it were up to you, how would you handle the spam problem?
- Jeff Harbert
Who the hell is advising those guys anyway? Doesn't Facebook have Andreessen and a few other heavy hitters? Who do Ev and Biz have?
- Gregg Morris
Jeff: first, make "block" systemwide. That will let me clean my own search out. Second, let me whitelist my searches, show me search results from ONLY my friends. Oh, wait, I have that on FriendFeed already. Third, let me filter by metadata (location, time, who retweets, etc). Fourth: let the crowd "verify" accounts. I'd love to go through my 100,000 people and mark accounts that I know are accurate and I'd love to let other people do that too.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I won't go with you on the "lame" part but I was just discussing search and spam with Shel over lunch today and certainly agree that this needs to be enhanced significantly for Twitter to remain relevant ***edit*** scratch remain, I mean enhance relevancy. Right now we're turning to partner tools (ok, maybe that's good enough, provided those partners deliver the goods). Twitter...
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- Nick Wade
Nick: I keep waiting for Twitter to fix its technology. They have consistently taken the low road through architectural decisions. It's why I push FriendFeed so hard to my friends. The technology here is so much better.
- Robert Scoble
scoble - something to consider (i dont know the right answer) - maybe what twitter has is fine for kim kardashian, oprah and the other celebs and regular users?
- Allen Stern
Allen: that is something to consider, yes. But based on the celebrity Tweets I'm following most aren't getting that much out of it. Trent Resnor, of Nine Inch Nails, even deleted his account this week. See the geeks were just two years ahead of the celebrities. They are going to realize they are screwed by Twitter too (especially the ones who aren't on the Suggested User List -- if you...
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- Robert Scoble
Robert: I'm in the camp of Friendfeed offering different and in some cases better technology - but it too has it's downsides. As that (overhyped IMO) discussion about Matt Ruiz's penis-post showed capably. BTW - Shel's still using the naked conversations business card, in an unrelated but cool word-play segueway. I thought it was rather cool.
- Nick Wade
Nick: interesting you brought that up. I hid that post and it went away and if I really was offended I could block that person, which would penalize them by keeping them from showing me more of that kind of stuff and they would disappear from my search. Personally I'm more offended by #tcot than I am by a naked man, but maybe that's just me.
- Robert Scoble
good point robert about ego-numbers -
- Allen Stern
Robert: I'll have to check what #tcot is, but I've some other ideas for Friendfeed I hope they'll implement - us having to tag to each other in "comments" drives me bonkers for example. We should be able to reply and see a threaded conversation here. Newest replies float up (or down, your preference) along with their preceding string. I suspect the current Ajax implementation can't handle this scenario, but good chat - dinner is on the table - until next time :)
- Nick Wade
Robert, manuals in general r pretty useless 4 me! They do a disservice 4 me! Go & explore or go and search 4 an interactive videos done by others about the Twitter service!
- polou/indigo_bow
... i mean how hard is it to write 140 characters, press the reply button, follow people and add RT @user when retweeting?! Their first plan of their business model should be adding features and acquiring all popular Twitter clients that they can possibly get their paws on which will enchance the service and add FriendFeed-type options - thats when Twitter will become useful: When I can...
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- Nicholas James
Hmm, I like 2 see Twitter fix problems first be4 acquiring anything!
- polou/indigo_bow
They need to acquire Tweetdeck and Bit.ly at least whilst they are at it ;)
- Nicholas James
polou: I have a bug on my account and I still see the fail whale every now and again. I'd like them to fix 1 problem mainly the bug on my account haha ;)
- Nicholas James
Robert: I think that you are right with spam, search, etc.. but it seems that twitter has also a big engagement/retention problem: people hear about twitter on TV, radio etc... They come to the homepage and a lot of them fall of the cliff. This is a harder problem them google and apple because twitter requires a behavior change...it is a new concept and they have 30s-2min to try to grab...
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- Edwin Khodabakchian
We don't NEED the guide. Twitter WANTS to give us they guide. The community is too controlled.
- Amir
from iPod
The spam is the problem. Why do they get users to do all the leg work and manually work out who gets blocked and who gets in the search feed? Friendfeed has it better.
- Amir
from iPod
Just because you understand Twitter and know how to us it, doesn't mean everyone does. I talk to people every day who have absolutely no idea how it works or how to use it. If they decided to give it a try, most of them would gravitate to Twitter to find out how, so this does makes some sense.
- Gilbert Harding
Gilbert: But there really isn't much to learn about Twitter. It is what it says in big letters on the homepage. But I understand exactly what you are saying. There are still many who don't know twitter.
- Amir
from iPod
That is soooo lame. How to use Twitter. i've heard it all. Plus all of the marketers can help you learn to use Twitter.
- Ben Hanten
Twitter 101 just made countless social media consults redundant.
- Steve Wilhelm
@Steve Wilhelm Good, such consulting is a lame excuse of a career anyway.
- Joe
Because pain of update process outweighs benefits of having the latest version.
- andrei_c
I almost always update. I can't stand not having the latest and greatest. I also usually ride the beta wave, too.
- Akiva Moskovitz
You should just be able to opt-in to silent updates. I don't get what the big issue is.
- Ryan Massie
+1 Akiva. Especially on the Mac, with Software Update to take care of things mostly automatically. My daughter won't run it, often for weeks at a time, and then she wonders why she gets weird symptoms on her mbp. (I'm sure Audrey will run hers when she goes to college - as will Matthew and Sarah - on her rolled-up piece of electronic paper that she connects with telepathically, or whatever we're using in 19 years.)
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
FWIW, I think people got fed up with upgrade pricing, useless feature bloat, and upgrades that seemed to break more things than they fixed.
- Gregg Morris
Ryan: Photoshop CS4 isn't worth paying to upgrade if you have CS3.
- Nicholas James
I always update. Linux has package/software managers which make it easy to update. Even automatically.
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
I update even when I shouldn't sometimes....like in the middle of a podcast episode.
- Hunt
Hunt, totally with you on that. I update my dev environment when I am in the middle of coding a function, then try to work out why my code is broken. Upgrading/updating is like an obsession for me.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
People are lazy, that's why they don't do it.
- Hunt
from BuddyFeed
Several reasons: 1) They don't know an update is available. 2) If it a manual process, people are just lazy. 3) Don't want to spend money on the update if they are happy with the present version. 4) Afraid of bugs in new versions of software. ( I usually wait a week or so when a new version comes out to make sure there are no major bugs discovered out of the gate).
- Jeff P. Henderson
Because many updates are not real functional upgrade, but only some ads are refreshed. It's useless for us.
- Zhou
If people got fed up with upgrade pricing, the future will be a bit annoying for them. Because almost everything is "free" on internet. They wouldn't even lift a finger without any sales, so upgrade pricing is the way. note: upgrades can be cracked too, that's the neverending story .)
- bora "head" basman
@Scobleizer: Thannks for the link. reading it now
- David Damore
people shouldn't worry about the culture changing -- amazon bought shopbop.com and it has not changed a bit -- only for the better.
- Patricia
This is part of the evolution of business. I know there will be a lot of worried Zappos employees, but they shouldn't, this will help them in a long run. Other companies, like DSW, I am sure were looking at the Zappos model and wondering how they can capitalize on it.
- Erik Boles
David Damore - $890 million in stock, not raw money. you usually see a lower # on stock as it has a strong growth potential.
- Erik Boles
Excited overall but the one line in Tony's letter is a bit concerning "For Zappos, our vision remains the same: delivering happiness to customers, employees, and vendors. We just want to get there faster." Faster does not equal better.
- Jose Castillo
zappos means nothing to me - I live in Europe. But what an amazing video by Bazos. Low margins need economies of scale.buyin Zappos makes sense to me
- DC Crowley
Jose: the thing is, they laid off people last fall. They also don't have Amazon's brand. Everyone I know uses Amazon. Not everyone I know uses Zappos. This makes both brands better.
- Robert Scoble
Favorite line so far, actually a partial line: "... unless they bake us cookies and deliver them in person."
- David Damore
As an Amazon stock holder, I'm thrilled! :) Been a good week for me, owning AAPL and AMZN
- Internet's Tad
from fftogo
Just knew we would see the S word in there somewhere. [The S word is... synergy].
- David Damore
David: I wonder how the cultures will clash, though. Zappos is very transparent and fun. Amazon, closed and not so much fun. I wonder which culture will win?
- Robert Scoble
@Scobleizer -- Zappos is tightly focused on culture and customer service, which has done them very well, I think Jeff will be able to help them move to the major presence they need to be. I don't see a conflict, I think Amazon can teach them a thing or two about business, and maybe, if the timing is right and people are open, Tony can teach zappos a thing or two about culture and loving your job
- Erik Boles
Yahoo Finance has the first article in headlines as "Amazon buys retailer Zappos in $807 million deal at MarketWatch (Wed 4:32pm)"
- David Damore
I once ordered some brown shoes and they sent black from the same style. When I complained they sent me the brown pair and let me keep both and included a $10 discount
- Mark
Thanks @scobleizer Just caught wind of the acquisition and it sounds like a good match to me despite the culture differences. Culture will take a hit, it's inevitable but hopefully Amazon will bring some interesting elements to the table to balance things out. One of my favorite photography sites http://www.dpreview.com was purchased by Amazon and at least outwardly the site has only improved.
- Rick Bucich
@Robert Scoble ...Any word if this is going to be a Dell/Alienware style merger.. or an outright purchase?
- John Blanton
John: looks like an outright purchase, but who knows? I gotta go do more homework.
- Robert Scoble
Hope Amazon doesn't screw them up - All my female relatives just rave about Zappos.
- PXLated
@Robert Scoble I would hope they let Zappos keep their brand/branding but it's just like you said yeah too early to tell at this point.
- John Blanton
Robert: Agreed, but I hope the desire to grow too fast doesn't kill the service - then it just becomes Amazon Shoes - granted, it will make a ton more money but at what cost to the end user. Should be interesting to watch unfold.
- Jose Castillo
@Robert Scoble ...according to this.. http://blogs.zappos.com/ceolett... .. Amazon will be the only shareholder yet Zappos is retaining their independance... So it's just like the Dell/Alienware merger.
- John Blanton
:( "wholly-owned subsidiary" just takes a little longer for the culture to be borged. For 920million I suppose it was too sweet of a deal to pass up. I'd love to be proven wrong here, Zappos corporate culture really is something special (from my views of it).
- Mark Essel
from intelligent media manager test
Twitter heading off editorial cliff? (Scripting News). The choices that Twitter has made editorially are wrong and very poor. Sigh. - http://www.scripting.com/stories...
Isn't it the responsibility of an individual who they follow? It was my assumption from the start that the SUL is biased and effectively worthless to me.
- SawyerTraining, Inc.
Interesting. I hadn't considered the potentially insidious effect the Suggested Users List could have.
- Teri Gidwitz
Great post and i really liked the link to professional poker and Twitter.
- John Ford
This was an excellent post and Dave is 100% correct - The SUL is total bullshit!
- Jim Connolly
Wow. I guess I didn't realize the extent of this situation. Great post by Dave - very eye-opening.
- Curt Mercadante
Refinement of the system by which it is determined who follows whom could represent the next great leap forward for social networking. As this SUL issue exemplifies, there's a ton of inefficiency in how these choices get made. The SUL will soon give way to subtler, more intelligent ways of sparking connections. The paradigm of each person having static, manually managed list of...
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- Joshua Maurice
the biggest challenge here is understanding that Twitter is turning into an editor/publisher; not just a provider. could be a slippery slope.
- MikeAmundsen
You can see the sense in having a SUL -- some people get on Twitter and have no idea whom to follow. Maybe they'll follow no one and join the large percentage of users who never come back after signing up. So giving some recommendations helps people get involved. But it seems like just about the bluntest possible instrument for achieving that end.
- Joshua Maurice
The SUL as it stands isn't all that useful. It would be more useful (to users) to have one based on a friend-of-a-friend type of algorithm.
- John (a.k.a. dendroica)
The SUL is, sadly, not based on quality - It's based (according to Biz and Ev) on people they 'just happen' to like.
- Jim Connolly
Wait a second, did I read that right? The people on the SUL are working in concert with Twitter to follow a code of conduct that Twitter approves of in order to be selected and remain on the SUL? WTF? I thought it was just a list of random people they thought would be interesting to new users. If commerce is involved as an end result doesn't this violate some laws too? Doesn't this also effect Twitter's Safe Harbor?
- Adam Turetzky
Adam: I was kept off the SUL because I talk about friendfeed too much.
- Robert Scoble
Sounds like bitter grapes from W(h)iner. Steven Johnson was put on the SUL and says he was surprised to have been selected. And Robert we know you don't really care because as you've said so many times it's not how many people follow you that counts it's how many *you* follow, right?
- Sprague D
I'm not opposed to the SUL, but I think Twitter should be more transparent about how users are selected and they should probably be selected through a lottery system.
- Peter Warnock
I think John (dendroica) is onto something with the "friend-of-a-friend type of algorithm." Let's try to keep the focus on this constructive question of how to advance social networks to the next level. We seem to be on the verge of being able to integrate semantically annotated content (the "what" of social networks) with the metadata about who, where, and when, and using all these to...
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- Joshua Maurice
Currently the SUL is a list, the next iteration will be a directory and later on natural and sponsored lists generated from keywords will be available to help new users start their Twitter experience, the ideal will be that the lists are ranked by quality but since this is difficult due to the number of profiles we will settle on popularity... sigh
- Alberto Saavedra
Sprague: the number of followers does matter to many in society, as this post points out. By the way, why do you think I say that who you follow matters so much? Because your input will affect your output which will get you more followers. But my point is that you can either get followers by gaming the system (or having it gamed on your behalf like with the SUL) or you can get it by...
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- Robert Scoble
The whole idea of having some people you follow, and others you don't follow, will appear crude very soon -- I will want to see SOME data emanating from even the most "boring" people, and will want to filter out SOME data emanating from even the most interesting people.
- Joshua Maurice
[deleting my own comment after regretting useless snarkiness]
- Fred Yankowski
Seems a tempest in a teapot to me. Most don't even know the SUL is there. And others, like me, make a point of ignoring such lists assuming they'll be fluff and because they specifically don't want to read what everyone else is reading. Many websites routinely post Best Of lists and no one insists they divulge their editorial thinking or hints at dark conspiracies because they do so. So why the hubbub? (Unless of course, they get paid by those being ranked. Then, yes, absolutely, it should be made public.)
- Bob Morris (polizeros)
Bob: the problem is that the SUL has artificially raised people's follower numbers. For instance, I've always had more followers on all social networks than TechCrunch. Including on Twitter. But when that account got added to the list it went from about 50,000 followers and today has more than 700,000 followers while I went from about 60,000 to about 95,000 today. So if you are a business that relies on audience (and you could say that about me) you are at a HUGE disadvantage if you aren't on the list.
- Robert Scoble
I posted a comment on a TC article they wrote about twitter asking if the fact they are SUL does that influence the way they report about the company. My comment was promptly moderated into non-existence :0
- David Lloyd
Wish all these threads had ajax or something and I could drag them around in the order I want them. Make it happen please Robert!
- David Lloyd
Mark: exactly. The SUL is a huge gift to media companies and certain people and they all know it and many have even changed the way they deal with Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
When twitter grows exponentially some of these accounts are gonna have 5 or 10 million followers. That's a lot of $'s of value.
- David Lloyd
ive said all along that certain blogs are able to pay at least one writers salary on the SUL bonus
- Allen Stern
For me I guess it's a transparency issue. I don't care about getting on the SUL (I'm not that interesting), but I'd like to know what people and companies are doing to try and get on the list.
- Eoghann Irving
Egohann: lots of people I know want to be on the list. I've heard that if you beg to get on the list, though, that you'll be blacklisted. I wonder how long it'll be before someone creates an account specifically to try to get onto the list.
- Robert Scoble
"Sooner or later someone who they propelled to the top will do something bad." Dave Winer, 21 June 2009
- David Lloyd
I guess the concern is will people start doing "favors" to get on Twitter's SUL? Since there's no defined way to get on the list, it would be very easy to abuse that. You could end up with a lobbyist system almost.
- Eoghann Irving
how does SUL figure into monetization of Twitter? both for Twitter owners and SUL account-holders? when money is linked to the SUL, how does that affect the content of those on the SUL? could you lose your place based on your content? does losing your place remove all your followers? does the content of SUL-ies get preferential search status? added reach outside Twitter? do these values go away if a SUL-ie is bumped off?
- MikeAmundsen
Mike: no one knows because the SUL is totally at the whim of Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
@Robert: if a SUL-ie pulls lots of followers, then is removed, i doubt the followers disappear. from my POV, this is another example of @Biz and @Ev not quite thinking through the implications of what they are doing. i admire their success. i'm happy for them. however, i think, as Dave implies, this is gonna turn ugly at some point. and i think Twitter may turn out looking bad in the process.
- MikeAmundsen
mike they dont get removed - when i brought twitter the cupcakes to get on the list - i was told justine was removed yet she keeps her 500,000 followers
- Allen Stern
plz understand that twitter is a marketing network, period.
- Allen Stern
Twitter is used for marketing, but I don't think it's just a marketing network. There are a lot of people using it without any commercial interests at all.
- Eoghann Irving
How do you apply editorial standards to something that lets you post things like: "I'm out of sugar" or "My toothbrush just fell in the toilet"? I think that we sometimes expect too much from social media sites..
- J. Abdul-Qahhar
@Allen: yep - totally makes sense. now i imagine some future scenario where someone on the SUL starts saying really bad things about Twitter (or anything else Twitter-folks care about). Ev/Biz can pull them, but they've already created a monster; can't put the toothpaste back in the tube; etc w/ the cliches. now multiply this by the number of folks on the list and that's millions of bad news threads in the blog-o-sphere.
- MikeAmundsen
Mike - I call this "keeping the top on top" and Twitter isn't alone with this problem...
- Allen Stern
Ron Mueck is a London-based photo-realist artist. Born in Melbourne , Australia , to parents who were toy makers, he labored on children's television shows for 15 years before working in special effects for such films as Labyrinth, a 1986 fantasy epic starring David Bowie. Mueck then started his own company in London, making models to be photographed for advertisements. He has lots of the dolls he made during his advertising years stored in his home. Although some still have a presence on their own. Many were made just to be photographed from a par! ticular angle -one strip of a face, for example, with a lot of loose material lurking an inch outside the camera's frame. Eventually Mueck concluded that photography pretty much destroys the physical presence of the original object, and so he turned to fine art and sculpture. In the early 1990's, still in his advertising days, Mueck was commissioned to make something highly realistic, and was wondering what material would do the trick....
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- David Cook
from email
Mueck is *awesome*. I saw a number of these at the Hirshhorn some years ago. Stunning. You can't believe how lifelike that sulking giant dude is (2nd pic).
- Ayşe E.
Name dropping! Ask him about verified accounts.
- Benjamin Taylor
Or you could ask him how he is reacting to the fact that his service is now the go-to for breaking news in Iran. A historic day for them. But I'm sure asking about spam updates is important too. Geesh!
- Mike
@ev must be marveling over the responses Robert is getting on FriendFeed over this!
- Michael Forian
Tell him sorry I couldn't be there this time
- Jesse Stay
We are at the Ritz firering and I was talking with my friend Luke about how Twitter is kicking ass over CNN and Ev said "what about Twitter?" I am trying to figure out how to give him shit about suggested followers. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I'm curious as to what he thinks about Google's microblogging search
- Shawn Farner
Will you not stoop to any level Robert? lol! I would love to know about long term platform/architecture stability if you guys are still hanging out.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
:-) You should teach him how to do searches on FF so he can really see what people are saying about Twitter. I should get me one of those Palm Pres -when I saw one jailbroken the other day with a "modprobe" line I was hooked
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
guruvan, you should have supplied a few sample ff-searchpaths right here, so Scoble wouldn't have to bother beyond clicking while @ev stirs at the outflow mouth agape.
- ianf ⌘
ianf: was the tail end of the conversation - not enough time (but you're right) -it's pretty late here in NY too.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Robert: Back in the 1970's, when he was living in London, Arnie (The Governator) - Visited the gym where I boxed. I was about 10 and he said "This kids gonna go a long way - he's got an attitude!"
- Jim Connolly
Ouriel: it was very surreal because Twitter is on the cover of Time Magazine, is the hottest thing on the Internet right now, totally kicked CNN's behind yesterday in Iranian coverage, and @ev just pops up in my life unexpectedly.
- Robert Scoble
I'm a bit surprise it's surreal for you Scoble. I think it's awesome and probably exciting, but not so far from reality you lives in.
- Orli Yakuel
Orli: my life is surreal often, but I wasn't expecting to run into @ev in my backyard tonight. At least not at this moment in time. I think yesterday will be remembered as an important day on Twitter for a very long time. CNN is off the rails.
- Robert Scoble
I guess this whole twitter experience is surreal for @ev too :)
- Orli Yakuel
Orli: plus, I have been pretty damn critical of Twitter lately, which made our chance meeting even stranger and just a bit uncomfortable. Which added to the experience.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: it's not that @ev is a complete stranger to the spam festival in his service, so I guess he has some sort of understanding to the critics around.
- Nir Ben Yona
Doubly surreal for those of us with lower profiles, Robert. :) But in a good way.
- Rachel Luxemburg
I had a great time hanging out with you and thanks for the great exposure for the Aquarium's online efforts - Humberto
- Monterey Bay Aquarium
i like to see google reader try and aggregate that lol
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
It was a great day. We got a great tour of stuff the public doesn't see.
- Robert Scoble
It feeds something else entirely, but I love the Aquarium!
- Michael Fidler
did you connect with my friend nicole at the aquarium? i told them to lookout for a scobble!
- sean percival
The Aquarium has twitter & ff accounts. Cool!
- Michael Fidler
Sean: nope but we were behind the scenes most of the day.
- Robert Scoble
Michael: yeah, the Web team is very cool at the Aquarium. But then it is run by Packard's daughter. Yes, that Packard! She makes sure they are always using the latest stuff.
- Robert Scoble
That's bullshit. I really feel for the developers of a site that get shut down like that. This could be precedent setting regarding API access depending on the outcome. Just goes to show you the need for new middle tier API services like Gnip.
- Mark Krynsky
Speaking seriously, the changes are very negative to the developers. If you read the Google thread, you can see the change was very quick, and caught many of them off-guard entirely. It's got to have people thinking why they want to be part of the Twitter family.
- Louis Gray
Also, I find it ironic that they just bought Summize. A site developed on the backbone of their API just like many of the ones they just screwed.
- Mark Krynsky
Thanks for the link to the Google thread.
- Cindy
from fftogo
if this let's them make things more stable, then I am all for it. There is no point having cool third party services if your own site is down.
- Scott Watermasysk
Dumb dumb dumb. Cutting off their nose to spite their face.
- Jason Carreira
The twitter api was why I loved twitter. It's also why I hate twitter.
- Alan Le
"In a story that can only happen in the valley, apparently a wandering hobo broke the news today that PodTech had been acquired by ViewPartners."
- Nathaniel Payne
OK, Jason Calacanis is a putz and a Rudy Giuliani wannabe, but every once in a while he says something that's right. Blogher fans should formulate an answer to this one when they make a big deal out of not enough women speaking at conferences. - http://twitter.com/JasonCa...
Bonus points for Dave labeling Calacanis a "putz"
- TDavid
bonus points for saying Jason is right about something
- Steve Gillmor
from twhirl
There is tool called search that might lead you to the answer to this question since it has been covered multiple times to include Jason himself being answered directly in the past.
- Michael W. May
from twhirl
Jason flip flops? Today I blog tomorrow I do not want to blog! Now to blog or not to blog that is the question! LMAO
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
What about bonus points for Rudy Giuliani!!?!
- Dave Winer
Duncan, change your domain name and you will see how Technorati is not capable of understanding that. I lost all my ranking when I changed the url... no way to tell this to Technorati :-(
- Luca Filigheddu
Hey Bwana, I second that on the kudos for your video. Clear info, good pacing, great visual tour and nice to see you on screen too. Keep rockin'!
- Larry Kless
LOL Brian, I'll put it on the list... I'll get a massive headache from the meta-ness :)
- Bwana ☠
Loved the video, Bwana. What I really like is seeing how other people use different features of almost any service and why, or what their reasoning is for doing things the way they do. I've always been fascinated by that sort of thing and vids like yours are really cool in that respect.
- Paul Short
Addendum: for anyone on a Windows PC who'd like to create similar screencasts, there's a (paid) program called Camtasia (google it) that does a similar job, though not nearly as elegantly. It'll get you by though.
- Paul Short
Yeah, I use Camtasia and Adobe Captivate for windows based screencasts (day job).. both are highly capable
- Bwana ☠
thanks Paul, I was about to ask that exact question.. I just didn't want to hear "get a Mac" :)
- Tim Hoeck
from NoiseRiver
It's really interesting to see Twitter (and Friendfeed) content become part of the wider search ecosystem. I've noticed that twitter and FF content has begun to rank highly for some google searches I've done - and it's being indexed very fast. Summize is a more niche search play, but it enables Twitter users to find contextual content, topic-focused content etc -- ie Twitter content is...
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- Richard
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
This past few days I've been seeing friendfeed show up in Google alerts for my name and a few keywords I'm monitoring. These services are becoming more and more relevant by the day.
- Paul Short
I'm with Jason on this: it seems that the rules of grammar, spelling, and the like are being broken daily by the 4th estate. He who is without sin, etc.
- Justin Whitaker
Some bloggers are terrible writers... which sucks when they have good stuff to say. From what I can see there is rarely such thing as a brilliant writer, just brilliant editors. (full disclosure: my wife is a magazine editor)
- Scott Lockhart
I agree that bloggers often ignore the rules of good writing. As an English major, I find it very irritating. As Justin pointed out, though, "real" journalists are doing the same thing, which is something I find even more alarming. Why even bother getting a degree anymore?
- Sam Guzman
Hilarious but pretty true. I think we should all (and by "we", I don't just mean bloggers) should always have a style manual or something right next to the desk. Obviously a lot of "professional" colleagues of mine don't, from what I've seen in some newssites.
- Juan Carlo Rodríguez
Blogs give people more leeway than traditional media, of course, and you can break rules like Scoble says. Rule-breaking is great, as long as it's not sloppy.
- Daniel Langendorf
@Daniel Langendorf Trust me, it can get very sloppy. But it is even more embarassing when Wired.com's bloggers have glaring errors. Again, they don't even know the difference btween "its" and "it's." I think it is pitiful.
- James Mowery
from twhirl
I unsubscribe to blogs that make consistent mistakes (you're/your, they're/their/there, etc.). It makes things unreadable for me.
- Matt
James, merely knowing the difference between its and it's and your and you're and there, their and they're does not mean you will actually *type* the correct word. That editors don't catch it *is* pitiful, but that assumes all the Wired blog content actually gets edited -- I do not make that assumption.
- Robert Seidman
If I could wave a magic wand, I would correct all misuse of the word "loose" when someone obviously means "lose."
- DGentry
No spaces,after commas,is the most irritating for me. Why,why,why?
- Paul Short
@ Daniel - I think you hit the nail on the head - "as long as it's not sloppy." Breaking the rules all you want - just make sure you pull it off and you still convey coherent ideas.
- George Smith
I agree with Jason Shultz, I have found very serious grammatical and spelling errors in places like NYTimes and other "major" news services. It's the rush to publish that is causing all these errors. Also, I have seen major writers intentionally break some of these rules. And there is nothing wrong with that. :)
- gregory
I totally agree with you on that, Paul. Those are SO annoying. I click away from any site that has that anywhere on it.
- Chris Thomson
I thought the rule about split infinitives was relaxed, since it came from the old-world scholarly usage of Latin (and it wasn't possible to split an infinitive in Latin).
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
@Robert Seidman, I am confident that the content on Wired.com's blogs is not edited. I mean, yes, I am being picky here, but you would expect that these folks would take the time to learn this stuff. Maybe I'm just too passionate about the English language. Yesterday, I was reading the CMoS for at least an hour and a half. It is still no excuse.
- James Mowery
from twhirl
So true. Well, for me at least. I try to write well, but then again my blogs in the past have always been personal, and just ramblings of how my week was. Nothing interesting. Ha.
- Dennis Jackson
Most of the bloggers I follow are more accomplished writers than most mainstream journalists -- James Wolcott, Glenn Greenwald, Jim Lobe, James Fallows, Jeff Huber, etc. If they can't write, I don't read them.
- Sean McBride
By the way, does anyone know of any reliable editorial services? I am looking to self-publish my first book (through Lulu.com), and I really would like to have it done right the first time. I might pull it off on my own, but I am not sure.
- James Mowery
from twhirl
As a brilliant writer, I'm finding it hard to relate to this... ;-)
- Sprague D
Have any of you read a newspaper or cnn.com lately? Most bloggers do better than that.
- mjc
from Alert Thingy
The Apostrophe Protection Society - http://snurl.com/2t6v6 - gives helpful advice about putting that diddling little punctuation mark in its rightful place - but I guess people who don't realise they're using it incorrectly won't trouble to visit the site!
- Bob Kingsley
Michael, who reads that crap anymore? I'm only kidding! :D
- James Mowery
from twhirl
Hah, these are great. It's also true that many of them have been around for many years -- since 1979 at the latest -- for whatever that's worth. http://www.shorttext.com/2wt2dn for the original sources.
- Nathan Rein
Every now and then, one comes across a previously unencountered pre-internet viral. I hadn't previously seen this, so I consider it a net gain :-)
- Slappy Line
I need an editor. I think everyone can benefit from having an editor. I still feel I'm a good writer, but the objective eye helps a great deal.
- Cyndy
@Robert Seidman I completely agree with you. I *know* the difference between it's and its and their and they're - I mean, DUH, but I have typoed these things incorrectly before I'm sure. Re-reading a post helps, but sometimes your brain auto-corrects what you see. That's why copy editors are important....and sadly missing in the blogosphere.
- Sarah Perez
Ahahahah... ok I get it now. Quick, someone Digg Kevin's tweet and then we can all laugh at how lame twitter is when it buckles under the load of a Digging!
- Paul Short
I would have made them stand in the corner and think about what they've done, but I guess I'm just old-fashioned like that.
- Daniel Smith
from twhirl
Im confused about this. For instance, I've noticed on many occasions where you basically say something like: "Come follow me over on FF, the conversation is over there". Isnt that the same thing? Trying to get people to come follow you? I dont mean to be critical, just trying to understand.
- Andrew Baron
:D I unblocked him just to verify, and yes it was him!!
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Somewhat relatedly, it's weird that I didn't think twice when Louis Gray asked us to digg a story for him. But in hindsight if it wasn't someone I knew, I would've considered it spamming/gaming digg. Interesting.
- trextor
He needs another pole to broadcast actually, he won't participate in the discussions. I hate this kind of mentality.
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Andrew I don't remember ever asking you to follow me. If I ever do, yes, that should earn me a block. There is a big difference between saying "here is a conversation" and "follow me."
- Robert Scoble
Kevin pissed off the Friendfeed hall monitors. ;-)
- Chris Baskind
directeur: exactly. This is my way of helping retard Twitter-style noise here.
- Robert Scoble
LOL, I just submitted his tweet to Digg.
- Paul Short
trextor: agreed. That is interesting to watch.
- Robert Scoble
Aaron: you are always experimenting with my block button. I will call you director of block R&D. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert, right. I blocked him before because of this actually. Look at his digg page for example. He submitted only 374 news on Digg ang got 364 popular. I don't know if we see the same thing, but it looks _wrong_ for me.
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
Robert: I'm directeur! Don't mess with my brand ;-) Aaron is just Aaron! And please follow me! oh wait, you're already following me! :)
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
I've seen a few people post follow me messages. I'm here to follow not be followed
- LPH™ and his dog P™
I just blocked someone for being a total asshole. Can dish it but can't take it. Know what I mean?
- Dennis Howlett
from twhirl
What I don't like is all of his fan base coming over here not even knowing how to use ff, or caring to use ff, but just adding him simply because they like him. Sigh... I was back and forth on the reason you were blocking him, but I completely understand now.
- Dennis Jackson
from twhirl
I'm yet to block anyone. I think I just like being annoyed.
- Mike Lewis
haha, I guess I missed the memo that we entered high school again. I need to brush up on my drama.
- Danish Khan
from twhirl
Scoble, did you also pass him a note after class? Does this mean you're not BFF anymore?
- Matthew Mamet
from Alert Thingy
OMG this is funny and ridiculous all at the same time! LOL
- Susan Beebe
Susan, I'm seeing this exactly the same way, gotta love the friendfeed sagas
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
I still love Techmeme, but lets highlight a failing in my own personal likes stakes. Louis' post on NoiseRiver to me is THE big discovery of the day, and yet it took me linking to it for it to hit Techmeme just now. (the other post linking in doesn't...got me beat).
of course, likes are subjective and personal, but what do we have on the top of Techmeme now? a TechCrunch story recycled and tarted up from part of a MSM story I read a day or two ago. Bonus take away: it never links back to the original story source...
- Duncan Riley
Heh. This is how I found it hit Techmeme. Nice work, Duncan. Care to do the same for the Browzmi story, or should ask Allen Stern for a favor?
- Louis Gray
from NoiseRiver
Louis, lol. I just looked up your FF original post on Browzmi and asked the founder to convince me on it, I'm not so far, but only because it has been tried sooooo many times before. He seems nice, so I didn't want to rip it to shreds in a post that would have linked back, that I'm I still in remission from my serious case of Arringtondickitis :-)
- Duncan Riley
Mate, I have had a very poor time of Wesmirch myself. I was even going to do a post on it. I have had stories up, anything upto two days before anyone else has picked up on them, yet, when Wesmirch gets onto it from other sites, mine does not even get a mention. Seems to be noise of the biggest, nothing else to me. I have emailed Gabe, but never get anywhere with it.
- Ross Maguire
Hi guys - I promised Duncan some discussion on the Browzmi topic soon.. after sunday AM family time here
- Travis Parsons
The 20th century had radio, flight, television, digital computers, atomic energy, eradication of many deadly diseases, the internets, etc etc... I'm convinced that the 21st century will top that and then some.
- Internet's Tad
The leading tech advance of the 21st century will be the flabberication of ingodality. In other words, it's something that we can't even conceive today. Imagine a man in 1901 saying, "By the end of the century, a typewriter that doesn't use paper will be hooked up to a phonograph that doesn't use cylinders, and it will be connected to other typewriters and phonographs by a telegraph wire with no dashes, only dots. And the phonographs will play 'all your base are belong to us.'"
- Ontario Emperor
from fftogo
True, but folks back in the 30s were thinking about stuff awful similar to today's internet. Science Fiction writers have been right about a bunch of stuff. Remember Jules Verne? I agree with you but I think it's a good mental activity to try to imagine the future in an optimistic way.
- Internet's Tad
I don't think I want a future as imagined by some of the sci-fi authors I like to read. ;)
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
Me either Jack - that's why I put in the optimistic disclaimer. ;)
- Internet's Tad
But note that the people who were conceiving these things weren't business leaders, but fiction writers, or people who write things that aren't true. In the early 20th century, things such as interplanetary flight were crazy ideas that no "serious" person would ever consider. The New York Times once dismissed the idea of a flight to the moon, and didn't retract its condemnation of the idea until late July 1969.
- Ontario Emperor
from fftogo
Look at what scientists take seriously now - quantum teleportation, the idea that time isn't linear, the fact that gravity warps time and space, that matter may be made up of multi-dimensional strings, infinite parallel universes, and on and on. It's difficult to imagine sci-fi writers coming up with stuff a lot stranger than that!
- Internet's Tad
Heads-up dashboard displays in cars. No need to take you eyes off the road to check your gauges. Fighter pilots couldn't fly without them. We shouldn't have to drive without them. HUDs will decrease accidents, I have no doubt.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
immersive virtual reality. Think star trek, but delivered neurally as opposed to visually.
- Duncan Riley
Not for me, Duncan. I've got too much weird s**t going on in my head as it is. :D
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
You could buy cadillacs a few years ago with HUDs I think. Never really took off though. Maybe a few more tech iterations. Duncan, I like your idea - I was going to try to be a bit more conservative, at least to most people's thinking... ;)
- Internet's Tad
The 21st century is all about energy -- the basis of pretty much everything we think of as "progress." Petroleum will be pretty much tapped-out by mid-century. Unless there's some new technology that hasn't made the scene yet, oil -- and eventually coal -- will be replaced by a broad range of renewable energy sources. If we do it right, this will create new opportunities for developing nations currently unable to afford a modern energy infrastructure, as well as keeping our own lights burning.
- Chris Baskind
Totally agreed Chris, but I think it's only the next few years that will be concerned with that. The bulk of the 21st century will be in the age after fossil fuels.
- Internet's Tad
They already have that too, Azeem. I think that the latest space probes all call home through the internet. I'm not sure of the details though...
- Internet's Tad
Yep, I'm pretty optimistic that we'll solve this Fuel problem in atleast 10-20 years. We better do.
- Yuvi
I'm thinking less than that Yuvi - and yeah, we better!
- Internet's Tad
And to think that I'll "probably" (just probably) live longer into that 21st century than most other FriendFeeders.... :P
- Yuvi
@tad: Yeah but thats only as far as the farthest satellite from earth i guess.. im taking about something bigger the solar system or galaxy... hmm manmade transponders orbiting the sun could do that. i think i shud write a scifi book :-P
- Azeem
I hope you're right, Tad. It's going to be close. But if we get over the hump, widely available renewable energy will be transformative. It will level a lot of old power structures (and raise some new ones). And who knows? Maybe this will be the century everyone gets access to clean water. I'm in favor.
- Chris Baskind
Yeah - I'm thinking you're right Chris. Sadly everyone could have access to clean water now if the world's governments desired it. We just need to all work together to help develop the technology that will make it inexpensive enough to overcome redtape, corruption, etc.
- Internet's Tad
@tad: well we dont have to talk to humans.. probes could send data via packet data service.. or astronauts on asteroid can get messages that twitter server on mars is down :-P
- Azeem
Gotcha Azeem. And I think that's exactly one of the things NASA is currently working on. :)
- Internet's Tad
Politics free ways to save the earth so that the earth would stay longer to see all of the above...
- Azeem
the 21st century big thing will be a brain interface to communicate with computers: typing on a keyboard even though an iPhone's..is so 19th centuriesque.
- PF Thaler
from fftogo
Google, not NASA, the military or economy, will become the most important entity on earth, especially for first contact with extraterrestrials. If aliens ever come here and want to know more about life on this little blue marble of ours, all they have to do is beam up Google's databases and study them.
- Paul Short
PF - what about subvocalization as a start? I know that's being worked on...
- Internet's Tad
tad, voice would be a good start.. But I have the feeling that Internet and brain are so powerfull..its just our senses that limit the quality of the interaction (ex brain and internet can multitask your voice just can't)
- PF Thaler
from fftogo
My first reaction to the question was "houseboats with WiFi," but I'm not sure that passes the optimism test.
- Dave Bonta
I love Feedly. I gave up on GReader about 3 weeks ago because I spent so much time on FF. I tried many readers and I stopped looking at other readers after I found GR. Even GR became overwhelming so I stop using it. I am very visual, and Feedly put the fun back into feed readers. Now I switch back and forth between FF and Feedly. Well done.
- Russellreno
thanks russell. we are early in the dev cycle and look forward to suggestions you might have on how to improve the concept and remove the rough edges.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
@Edwin When I say "no thanks" to an article, how come it doesn't disappear when I refresh?
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
I have to agree, Feedly is what I have been looking for. If I can figure out exactly what "no thanks" does, it will be even better. I'm afraid to click it for fear it will remove other things I actually want to read.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Earlier today I posted on Twitter that Feedly has replaced Netvibes as my start page. I've been using it instead of Google Reader as well.
- Angel Smith
I agree completely with Russellreno on his choice of Feedly and FF( although I use twirl for FF). Feedly made me install Firefox 3.0 and actually use it : a huge milestone for me. A single desktop client app for all social media feeds would be awesome.
- Emmanuel Anumonwo
tried using this - it started adding friends feeds to my google reader. Information overload!
- Eric
Eric, same problem here. I don't want all of my friends shared google posts right in my reader, that's what I have Friendfeed for.
- Andrew Dobrow
@andrew in the what's new and the category pages, feedly will uses your friends recommendation *only* to filter the content so it should by no means feel like additional content. the feedly wall is slightly different in the sense that it aggregate everything. We are going to experiment integrating the feedly annotations with friend feed. If that works, we can start de-emphasizing the wall, at least for the more sophisticated users. thanks for the feedback
- Edwin Khodabakchian
I like the concept of feedly but it hasn't quite worked with my brain yet. I like the flow of gReader more.
- Jason Toney
I'm lovin Feedly, but I don't understand where the recommendations and annotations go?
- MLx
Marianne - On the right of the menu bar is a + and down arrow. Click the down arrow to see More Categories. Your recommendations and Annotations are in there.
- Russellreno