I showed this to Maryam. She thought it was funny. - Robert Scoble
Some Russian startups believe that if you meet Robert and pat him on the belly (as a Buddha, you know) 3 times, it will bring 100% success to your startup :) (Never dared to try myself) - Svetlana Gladkova
The % they gain will be the % that advertisers want.. the people searching to BUY. Google will still have the people that are just searching for general, and get the random person who decides to buy something during their search.. but why would you use Google to search for an item to buy if Microsoft's can save you money and find what you are looking for. - Philip Evans
as a retailer, only paying for conversions is a big attraction. - Chris Nixon via twhirl
Mh, despite the MS efforts, you know that in the end the Jedi returns. If it proves successful, why wouldn't Google turn on the same kind of mechanism ? - petites
Thats a good point although (like the Xbox360) the secret is how far can MSFT catch up before Goog delivers a similar service... - Matt Rutherford
I kind of like where you're going with this, scoble. But I'm not sure whether *everyone* "invests" their time. I think it rather gets "sucked". - Brad McCrorey
Actually, I agree. We provide Twitter's content, and they have the opportunity to monetize the resulting traffic. It's an exchange of value, which is why I was saying earlier that we "owe" Twitter nothing. That doesn't mean I don't like it, or take the service for granted. - Chris Baskind
@Chris - now THAT is a good way of presenting it. Ok, I'm being swayed :) - Brad McCrorey
Everyone has a limited amount of time here on earth. That "costs" something. You get to decide where you spend your free time, but if you, say, wrote a book instead of Twittering, maybe you'd turn into the next great author. So, your spending time here is an opportunity cost and is one we all are definitely "investing" in. - Robert Scoble
How about using Twitter to research that book and become the next great author. Two birds and all that ;) - Colin Walker
you just read my mind... was just writing something on this. Been getting annoyed all day about people stating it as a "free" service... while I don't use it myself for my job as some, I still don't see it as free. Free if you only count money, but time is just as costly. - Philip Evans via twhirl
If we don't think our time has actual value, we should stop billing our clients. And point well taken, Robert, that we are allotted a limited number of hours in this life to achieve whatever it is we aspire to do. ;-) - Chris Baskind
I guess I'll call up BMW and tell them if they give me a car, I'll "pay" for it with the time I spend driving it. At some point Twitter has to make money. Our time doesn't pay for bandwidth bills. - CJ Kloote
“Do you just sit there hitting refresh on your Friendfeed browser tab? Come on admit it! I do! With that, I'm done for tonight. Happy conversating Friendfeeders. G'nite. ”
Ok. I'm still here. Hitting refresh. Wondering why the apparent Twitter Series B funding announcement hasn't been picked up by more outlets. *yawn* - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Yes. And it changes every time I hit refresh! - Morton Fox
@Phillip - I tried the Twhirl client a couple weeks ago and found that it was still a little rough around the edges, so I've been sticking to the web interface for now. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Sometimes I'm awful with it, refreshing every 30 secs or so. I haven't refreshed in the past couple of days and nothing has changed. - Matt Harwood
Still here. An hour after I posted this. This stuff is really digital crack. gimme some more....one...more....comment... :-) - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
I'm pretty sure that FriendFeed does some sort of asynchronous update, because I've left windows open before on FriendFeed, and when I switch back to them they have updated information. - Eric Florenzano
@Eric. Yeah. They do async update, but its not fast enough for us addicts :) - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
“Biz cards? Why not hand me a cheap thumb drive I can plug in immediately and drag your info off of? Or better yet, if we are both online, send me the freaking thing.”
The problem becomes though w/beaming, who takes down the other's info first and runs over to their computer to do the deed? - Todd Jordan
Or, just snap a photo of the business card and send it to scanr.com (which syncs right into my plaxo), and hand the business card back - Trent Olson via Alert Thingy
I like the idea of cheap thumb drives as business cards, it would sure make you stand out from the crowd. - Timothy Neilen
Robert: problem I have is getting tons of biz cards handed to me. Hard to prioritize and sort through. Easier still. Contact vCards provided for d/l from the conf/con/meeting site. - Todd Jordan
I used to have business card CDs with my contact info and portfolio on them. - Jacob Burke
CDs would work but bulky, though I could give hundreds out and not feel bad about the cost. Also could include multimedia on them. - Todd Jordan
Just need a pocketsized battery powered scanner with on-board memory, scan it when you are handed the card, then later sync it to your contact database... might give this to instructor for CpE senior project possibility - Philip Evans
besides, business cards have tradition...ever seen american psycho?? - steveo
Great suggestion Philip, thought I'm still in favor of cardless if I could get it there. Register and create a vCard? Upload your vCard at the door? Pass your thumb drive to the person to the right? - Todd Jordan
CDs works too, I believe you can even get them in custom shapes but then you have issues with some drives not being able to read them. You can also get really small ones. - Timothy Neilen
No idea if this would be even possible, but why not have a Bluetooth service that will allow others to connect and grab only your contact data? - Trent Olson via Alert Thingy
Trent: Very cool idea. I'll give that a try next time I'm out. - Todd Jordan
I can see this leading to tons of security / virus issues. Keep your thumb drive to yourself. How about just taking a photo of the business card, having it upload to a service, OCR'd and sync'd to your cloud address book? - Sam Pullara
I'm finding it easier too to just say one word: tojosan . If they can't find me by that, they aren't trying. :) - Todd Jordan
Wireless data exchange? Palm had the ability to beam your digital biz card to another Palm back before they lost the market. - Barry Graubart
Our work laptops had infrared networking. Worked great. - Todd Jordan
Palm biz-card beaming was so cool back in the day... Where did it go? - Michael Markman
I think they gave the technology to MSFT for exchanging songs on Zune. Now, if only the two people in the world who own Zune's ever got in the same room, they could put it to use - Barry Graubart
Absolutely 100% agree, so happy they posted this! - Veronica Giggey
I've been sticking in there through 1.5 years of their downtime. By the way, thanks for bringing some noise into Friendfeed. - Robert Scoble
Shey that's the exact comment I left there, they need to be explaining that on Twitter as WELL as their blog. How many people check that blog to see wha the deal is? - Mack Collier
I pretty much agree w/Shey Keep us in the loop & we'll cut you some slack. - Andy Kaufman
The communication issue is key. I've been saying that here and on the site itself. Show your users some love, let me know what's up other than "Something is technically wrong" and I'll keep on using the service. Twitter is great when it works. I don't know if I "owe" them anything but I am very appreciative of the information and contacts I've made through the service. I'll stay loyal for those reasons. - James
oh, I'm too co-dependent to leave now. what if twitter needs me? - rambn
I don't think we "owe" it to them, but I have no problem in giving them more time. Although I still am having a hard time understanding how Twitter receives millions of dollars in funding yet is experiencing epic failures in terms of downtime. Shouldn't that kind of dough give you the leverage to hire the right talent to get these problems fixed once and for all? - Michael Beck
I'm new to twitter, so I have to say I'd feel no great emotional angst switching to something equivalent but more reliable. - Bruce Williams
Are you kidding me? We don't owe Twitter a thing. Yes, it's great to have insight, but c'mon, but the simple fact of the matter is that after this much time having problems, if they don't get it together, people will start to leave, no matter how much transparency they provide. I can't tell you how often I hear "I hate twitter" from twitter users. As a side note, I hope they do fix it and I have no plans to leave, but would not fault anyone if they did. - Ryan W
It just occured to me that if I hadn't joined twitter (after hearing about it on TWIT and other podcasts and blogs) I probably wouldn't be on FF right now. My first twitter outage, there were a lot of posts like "Twitter keeps going down. I'm moving to FriendFeed." I just wanted to see what was the big deal. This is all your fault, Scoble. :) - Harvey Simmons
And, yes, I think they deserve a little patience, yeah, yeah. - Harvey Simmons
Yes we owe it to them, as community, we all know twitter is still beta, everyone needs grace. - Wayne Sutton
Jordan, thanks for the info about the twitter status account. I did not know about it until I read your comment. - Marcel Janus
We definitely owe it to them. Twitter is still a fun service so I see no reason to completely give up on them yet. - Scott Jarkoff
We don't *owe* them patience, but they don't *owe* us a service with 100% uptime. Or 98%. Or even 50%. None of us are paying for any of this. The simple fact is that the only value in Twitter is the community. The people using it who are providing information that any of us want to see. It's not as if Pownce or Jaiku or FF don't exist. If the community moves, then this'll get interesting. Until then, we're all on Twitter and all the bitching is noise (and I don't mean the Noise® that Scoble is so fond of). - Ryan MF
Yes... for the same reason I've stuck with Dreamhost through their rough times - they may have problems here and there, but they communicate communicate communicate... I'm willing to cut Twitter plenty of slack if they will do the same. However, the twitter_status account is kind of worthless if Twitter itself is down... - Lee Goolsbee
it's not about patience for me, Twitter is still the most effective professional networking tool available online, it would be bad for business not to wait out the kinks at this point - Jennifer Van Grove via Alert Thingy
Jeremiah, I would be much more willing to show Twitter more patience if they would show us more of the kind of thing we saw tonight, a mea culpa. Not knowing what's going on exacerbates the frustration I feel over Twitter's stability issues. Eventually, though, they're going to have to get it right and Twitter's going to have to become much more stable if they expect longterm loyalty. - Gregory Pittman
I think we owe it to ourselves to make allowances for Twitter's growing pains. - RandaL Hicks
Very much yes. They are working hard to provide a truly great thing. If they were to call me, I'd help too. I don't know exactly what I'd do...but I'd find some way ....go get sodas and pizza, whatever. Yes.. - Dave Evans
Yep we owe it to them. Twitter is still genius. - Drew Lucas
Sure, why not. There are limits tho. And it's too bad that Google snapped up Jaiku and made it a beta only deal. - robb enger
We owe them nothing. But I'll stick around, because I find value in Twitter. And I appreciate their transparency as they wrestle with whatever gremlins afflict them. - Chris Baskind
I'm happy to give them some, maybe they should go completely down for amount of time, just to make it working as it should be when they come back - Dobromir Hadzhiev
I don't choose to use Twitter, Twitter chooses to use me. And apparently FriendFeed chose me to make this comment too. - Jason Honingford
I agree with Michael.... generally, the one exception to Robert's opinion is the person who doesn't want to be bothered with the extra step of processing the RAW image before they can share it with others. My wife is often like that. When she's taking "snapshots" she doesn't want to process them, she just wants to email them to her friends and family (or, plug the CF card into the printer and directly print it). - Kenneth LeFebvre
Kenneth: I shoot in both JPEG and RAW (my Canon 5D does that) for just that reason. That way I can get stuff up on Flickr very quickly without doing any processing (almost none of my photos have been processed, but that'll start changing since I'm starting to care about my photography as an art form rather than just a way to capture what I'm seeing. - Robert Scoble
Just lets not start yet another debate. 100% RAW is obvious. - TranceMist
IGiven all the playdates & kids activites we do, I'm with your wife on that fron Ken but like Robert my 10 D does that too so the non kids stuff is always raw now. - Mrsth
If you are shoooting raw, what are you doing post processing with? - Todd Jordan
Yeah, she usually shoots JPG+RAW, too... but mostly her RAW is just wasted space for snapshots. On the other hand, when she's in "photographer" mode, she's all over the RAW... and she's really a very good photographer: http://www.photosbywendee.com/ (just didn't want to imply that she doesn't appreciate the value of RAW). :) - Kenneth LeFebvre
Todd: I organize with Lightroom and process with ACR. And I, personally, always shoot in RAW... don't even waste the space on JPEG (it usually ends up in PSD, anyway, before I get to Flickr... I usually crop and fiddle with my levels at a minimum). - Kenneth LeFebvre
Todd - yes, but in Aperture it's no different than JPEG, except you can do more. - TranceMist
ACR? and why do you need PSD again? (admits ignorance of some of the big name tools.) - Todd Jordan
PSD stores original, change history, etc... big bloated, but complete file - Philip Evans via twhirl
ah... ACR is "Adobe Camera RAW" which is essentially the wizard that processes RAW and converts it into the PSD that Photoshop uses. - Kenneth LeFebvre
Artistic photos - RAW, because I like spending time with each one. Snapshots - JPG + RAW for both convenience and a lossless archival copy. - Tom Harrison
Good point about the lossless archive - Todd Jordan
PNG is lossless too. I use that format sometimes when I scan in receipts and stuff. - Morton Fox
everything raw for a while, just changed strategy, shoot raw when I think I'm taking "Photographs" and need to use the extra data, shoot jpg when shooting snapshots at parties and or events - Bryan Thatcher via twhirl
I pretty much only shoot RAW. I prefer to make adjustments myself instead of leaving it to the camera. - jerry
Pretty much RAW is where it's at --- pros have no excuse to use JPG - Shey
I'd recommend that anyone interested in this reads this - www.f07.fh-koeln.de/.../md/content/personen/fischer_gregor/publikationen/submissioncompressionraw2print.pdf. The short version: JPEG has advantages over Raw in perceptual image quality because of its reduction of sensor noise. If your camera is giving significantly poorer quality in JPEG than Raw, it's because the quality of its JPEG compression isn't good enough, not because Raw is intrinsically superior. - Ian Betteridge
Secong point: Not all Raw is created equal. The NEF format used in Nikon's old D-70, for example, was effectively lossy (see http://www.majid.info/mylos/we... for the tech details). So check what "Raw" means in your camera, too. - Ian Betteridge
And finally... it's "Raw" not "RAW". It isn't an acronym, so all caps isn't correct. And technically, of course, there is no such thing as "Raw format". Apart from attempts at creating "digital negative" formats like Adobe's DNG, every camera maker has their own format - and quite often the formats vary according to model, too. - Ian Betteridge
And really, really finally... none of this means "don't bother with Raw". Having the Raw files is a good idea if you want to do exacting post-processing, because mostly you're working with a larger colour space. So shoot JPG + Raw - but be aware that Raw has limitations, and it's not the panacea for all photography issues. - Ian Betteridge
The original article Robert linked to is one of the better explanations of RAW vs JPG that I've seen (caps used to annoy Ian). Good job Michael Mistretta. - John Arnold
I usually keep my point-and-shoot (Canon Powershot Pro1) in RAW as well, mostly because I'm usually snatching it up for really quick shots I want to capture (like this one shared yesterday http://tinyurl.com/5cos3g, or bears walking through my yard, etc.). Most settings forgotten on the camera can then be rectified. - Jody Carbone
What I love about RAW is that I can often bring back highlights or shadows that would have otherwise been lost with in-camera JPEG conversion. - TranceMist
I do raw + large fine jpg - means that i can put them onto the appletv easier and get the flexability of raw for final edits. - Mark Allanson
I know alot of us connect via twitter in realtime w/o ever exchanging a business card. So there definitely is a transition taking place. - Jennifer Van Grove via twhirl
I still remember the push for the cd-card... need a static card that someone can just swipe and put info on it, but only exported with your own 256-bit key.... - Philip Evans via twhirl
I still like looking through my business cards, but if Facebook weren't so lame I could TOTALLY replace my collection with that. Unfortunately it's lame, so I can't use it to replace my business card collection. - Robert Scoble
business cards are basically gone, my name and my website, and really don't even need the website - Justin Yost
As one who has taken and given many business cards, I've always had a questioning opinion of their value. I went through a desk drawer at home the other day and found a bunch of them and after going through them one by one. I only kept say maybe 5 or 10 of hundreds. I think LinkedIn might be a better alternative to Facebook's "lameness" as stated by @scobleizer - James
I'm thinking about an old-fashioned "calling card" with just my name, email address, and cellphone number. Maybe a second card with just my name and a link to my linkedin profile. - Harvey Simmons
that and when usb jacks become as plentiful as electrical outlets - Kevin Dugan
Yes and no. I am still trying to follow both. There is too much missing here on FF. No SMS, not direct messages, no easy way to do replies (I know comments are kind of replies, but they don't work the same), no pictures. On the flip side, I do like that FF pulls everything together from all over the web. - Kathy Jacobs
Twitter doesn't have pics though. Unless I'm missing something. - Todd Jordan
Conversations among multiple people are a lot better on FF. But I haven't written Twitter off -- I suspect most of us will be there until they decide to pack it in. - Shey
More and more of my twitter buds are coming here. It's working out that I can spend less time there for sure. Now just need some more fun ways to tweek what I see... - Todd Jordan
I meant the pics of the person rather than just thier name next to what they are saying. My bad. sorry. :) - Kathy Jacobs
I'll be back on Twitter, although I'm getting more done and seeing a MUCH higher signal to noise ratio here now that I've hid Twitter messages. I find I do click on the "show hidden items" link at the bottom of FriendFeed, though. - Robert Scoble
Just starting to experiment - like what I'm seeing! - Mark Mangano
I like the 140 character limit of Twitter. I like using Twitter and FF in combo. I just hope that Twitter can become more stable. - James
I'm okay with 140 char limit, but I'm enjoying more freedom here. - Todd Jordan
I still feel the comments design needs a lot of work. Add additional threading for comments about comments, and following that the ability to minimize (hide) comment threads - Philip Evans via twhirl
Yes and no, like Kathy said. Although in my case, a lot of the folks on Twitter don't have FriendFeed, and so it's killing me to be offline from them, but only an hour and a half to go. I can totally do it. - Zach Flauaus
I can't write Twitter off yet - I have far too many good peeps there and quality conversations with people refusing to move. I'm really liking the combination of Twitter and FriendFeed (with the Twitter content hidden). :) - Nathaniel Payne
For is the has Nathaniel the only thing I'm currently hoping is that all this talk about how Twitter/FF could be better is over with and people start discussing variety of tech news. - Gadiel Rivera
how do I follow the conversation on something posted yesterday... is it now buried on the 4th or 10th or 20th page... if a new comment is posted I would have thorugh it would move up to the front? - Nancy Babyak
Hi TJ! I haven't had any reason to hang out over here in FF, but Twitter gave me one over the past few days. I like it! I will hang out here more. - Christine Cavalier
damn twirl..i wish it would let me finish typing before it scrolled around.. - steveo via twhirl
not yet. besides, I don't get any response on FF. I could post "HELP, I've been ass-raped by NYPD and nobody would even give me a "like" - rambn
I think I'll still post on Twitter, since it reaches more friends, but replies when possible will be on FriendFeed from now on for me. - Eric Florenzano
rambn: that's cause you didn't brush your teeth this morning and your breath smells. Just kidding, I'm reading you so I'm sure I'd react if you said something like that! - Robert Scoble
I'm dual posting FF/Twitter/whatever - replying here to folks I follow vs twitter, and yeah, what Scoble said. - Todd Jordan
While I ultimately think that I will end up 'writing Twitter off' in favour of FriendFeed, I just cannot do it at the moment due to there not being a desktop client. That, and my internet is throttled to dial up speed pretty much every month (after going over my limit). - Timothy Neilen
I like twitter... but FF works. Nuff said! - Jonathan Kash
Scoble: hey, thanks for the reply. btw, how'd you know I didn't brush my teeth? creepy. - rambn
I just joined and ff is good fun so far. - dreamfish
My FF experience would really take off if you all added me. :) - Todd Jordan
I'll keep an eye on FF when I can, but it'll never take over. Until someone can send me a direct message, and until I can receive a text when I get an @reply or direct message, FriendFeed will stay secondary. - Shawn Farner
Is the @reply really that valuable? Fun, but I have to say I lived w/out it for years. - Todd Jordan
I will run FF and Twitter... using twhirl for updates on both and website for FF comments (untill twhirl fixes them).. - Philip Evans via twhirl
Yes. I just don't see the point of Twitter anymore. Maybe FF needs to have an IM and SMS interface, but that's about it. - TranceMist
I am enjoying my convos here more but I would like to see Digsby integration as well as a widget for my blog. - Simon
What's that even mean? We've lived without a lot of this stuff for years. - Shawn Farner
Mostly ...yeah...i get comments and likes right under every "twitt" here and that makes it much easier to keep track of things, so i sometimes don't bother to open twitter and just start a conversation right here. - Selma
Simple and intuitive. To me comments are secondary to the shared item so I am fine with the comment text being lighter than the shared item. - Atul Arora
Much too light. Maybe too Spartan as well. There is simplicity, then there is too bland. - Tris Hussey
I'm still worried about the other 230 people who I was following on Twitter who aren't on Friendfeed. - Veronica Giggey
The comments could be a bit darker. I thought it was messy at first, but now I'm getting used to it. - Zach Flauaus
Veronica: I agree... I wish there were a way to create imaginary friends in bulk. - Kenneth LeFebvre
I grade FF UI a "C". very tough on my eyes. - rambn
If you use Firefox you can try out the stylish firefox extension and change the comment color and other visual aspects if you wish. (http://userstyles.org/stylish/...) - Atul Arora
I think it looks horrible. It's even uglier than Google's stuff. - Kim Dushinski
The FF UI isn't too bad. Glad I can interact with it in Twhirl, though. - Jared Smith via twhirl
I agree about the text being too light. The fact that I can't easily message someone specific from the profile bugs me too - Kathy Jacobs
I like the lighter font in the comments. I use a similar setup on my phone. My wife and I cross-sync the calendars on our phones. On my phone I make her events a lighter grey color and on her phone I've made my events the same lighter color so that we can pay attention if we want/need to, but if we don't need to focus on the other's schedule, it isn't too much of a distraction to discern our own events. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl
it would be coolio if there was some control over appearance. yes, the geryish font color is difficult to read - ron k jeffries
Yes. Darker comment text, a way to Direct Message and ability to change the white background. - Brenda Young
Atul: Has anyone written a Stylish style for FriendFeed? - Kenneth LeFebvre
besides the light comments, I like it better than Twitter's UI. I do wish you could "collapse" an entire submission instead of depending on FF's "click to see 10 more" stuff. I do not want to hide the item entirely though. - Rob Diana
Only because you mentioned it, I realize it now. Yes, it needs to be darker. - Shey
Hiding the FOAF feature was a lifesaver for me. Weird nav though. Hide an item and then it gives you the ability to turn off FOAF. - swhitley
It has a grown on me. If they change it now, then I'll have to readjust again. - Bwana McCall
I miss seeing pictures of people, and the left alignment is annoying. I miss the ability for people to have nicknames. I definitely like Twitter's UI...but I think FF has way more potential. - Erica Douglass
Actually, I like it; it's Google-ish but clear enough even with a lot of text on the page. - fbrunel
I like its simplicity...and as a result its lightning speed. I'm sure it can be improved here and there, but overall I hope they stick with what they have. - Chris Rossini
Comment text is way too light. Also, clicking on a link should open the link in a new tab/window, like Google Reader/Digg. I hate having to use the back button to find my way back to the original link so I can participate in the conversation, when it's much easier to close the tab when you're done and start talking. - Jeff Brewster
@jeff go to account preferences, check the box for open links in new windows - Philip Evans via twhirl
I think it's beautiful, light and easy and simple to read. Perfect as is. I like the lighter text and the white background. simple and elegant. - Thomas Hawk
@Philip thanks. feel like a noob, but hey that should be the default! :) - Jeff Brewster
Interesting point on the comment text, though if it were stronger it wouldn't delineate from the posting itself. I concur 100% with Atul's and Thomas' sentiments. - TranceMist
UI is excellent. Wish I could customize the colors of the text for my page though. - Simon
Simple and intuitive but I wish the organization of items were better...maybe some dividers too for better reading and scanning - Corvida
@ Kenneth - There are 3 styles for FriendFeed. Actually two of them are for reading Persian i.e. right to left. You can find the styles at http://userstyles.org/styles/s... - Atul Arora
Maybe the color of the comments should turn black when your mouse is hovering over a particular entry/comment thread - Aviv
I prefer lifestream.fm, it seems more about the service and less about stamping its own branding on top - Andrea Hill
“Twit-Out was a great result of group collabration. Bwana, Shey, Susan and I pretty much organized the thing together without having to communicate directly, which is really saying something about modern technology.”
Helping along by Twiiter outages too, nice of them to participate ;) - jjprojects
So, it's over? No more twit-out fun? Let's reschedule this next week too. - possible248
Awesome job there Andrew, Bwana and Shey - we're a great team!! Shey was the brain child, Bwana the visionary and Andrew the organizer! and all I did was supply the Twit-Out name. You guys did WAY more work than I did! - Susan Beebe
