"TinyURL added a new wrinkle, the ability to make a custom alias for any shortened URL you make, making it just as easy for people to read as Web browsers." - tech.newsjunk.com
URL-shorteners are important services, imho. - Dave Winer
@simon Thanks for that, I hadn't seen that before. Sadly it lacks the functions I'd want to use but it's a good starting point, cheers - Cains
When will everyone start to realize that Google is taking over the entire web and it's time for everyone to stop kissing their ass, I mean really enuff already. They are going to kill everyone. Should we all just give up and buy GOOG stock? - Donovan Slennon
@Donovan Is google acting in a way that is harmful to the "entire web"? Are they taking steps to reduce competition or innovation? It seems to me, and I use many google services, that they are innovating and encouraging other innovation. The nice thing about the web is the choices - I think you can ignore google if you want - although, I haven't tried. I mostly like their services. - Sean
Agree they are brilliant and innovative but Google are mowing down all competition in every related field one by one - have you seen their media server - pow, another few markets decimated in a matter of years; health - pow, lets just kill off health players; are we all just going to plug into the beast - i know i haven't expressed it succinctly or even well but if you can't see that Google is all powerful and is all about profit then we all need help. Someone needs to look at some antitrust law and save us - Donovan Slennon
@Donovan - ok, thanks, that is what I wanted to know, where they have been anti-competitive. However, in their defense (and I don't know why), there is a difference between anti-competitive and better than everyone else. I will be watching more carefully in the future. - Sean
Cool; I don't know my antitrust law but when you use your market power in one market to squash competition in another then you are abusing your power - key is the definition of the market - but helen keller could see that they are the standard oil of the 1900's. The extent to which the leading market commentators are silent on this is reminiscent of the free ride given by the media to Bush's Iraq invasion - no one stopped to look around until after the mess; so we desparately need some dialogue - Donovan Slennon
Donovan, Google has not killed the health field; there are a number of competitive products (HealthVault just to pick one), so if people gravitate to the GOOG (whether its good or bad), unless they took some specific anti-competitive actions, what's the problem? Outside of search and search advertising where is the field where they have more than even 30% market share? Ok feed readers perhaps :). I use their services if I like them. If not I don't. - Deepak
Respect your opinion but I don't think you're smelling the roses b/c of all the lovely scented sht that google has emeshed us in; just ask anyone with a web or web related business what the #1 issue/risk in their business is and it's those 'do gooders' from mountain view - one of the greatest pr machines of all time - Donovan Slennon
Since I am quite sure I have never bought into any PR, lets agree to disagree. I use what I like. A decent chunk happens to be from Google, and that's what it happens to be. YMMV of course - Deepak
I have a difficult time calling Google anything other than a 'good' company considering that I use a ton of their products and I don't pay a dime for any of them. Yes, they are a threat and competion for many companies which means those companies need to try harder for my paid business - it's pro-sumer. My message to those who don't like Google: Be better. - Vince DeGeorge
"The study, given the go-ahead by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will involve treating human cancer patients with white blood cells from healthy young people whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity.
The basis of the study is the scientists' discovery, published five years ago, of a cancer-resistant mouse and their subsequent finding that white blood cells from that mouse and its offspring cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice. They have since identified similar cancer-killing activity in the white blood cells of some healthy humans.
"In mice, we've been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors," Cui said. "Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans."
The team has tested human cancer-fighting cells from healthy donors against human cervical, prostate and breast cancer cells in the laborator" - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
I <3 science. I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling every time I hear about (yet another) breakthrough. - Tudor Bosman
Wow... I'm speechless. You always hope to hear about things like this and now, here it is... Wow. - Lisa L. Seifert
this is of a kind with the story Dan Kaplan posted...about the greyhounds... - edythe
how can someone read this and not "like" it? - Chris Hollander
Tudor: tend to agree reg. science, but I must admit after taking an epidemiology methodology course my initial reaction to medical breakthroughs is somewhat reluctant, but I hope this one is great. - Amund Tveit
Does Obama know? He still thinks we have 57 states. - Michael Tefft
Michael, that doesn't work anymore -- you can't turn this around. I usually don't go for these gotcha questions, but the price of gas is a huge issue, it hits everyone. I remember very well the first time I paid more than $4 a gallon for gas, and I'm finanically well off, I can't imagine what it must be like for people who are just getting by (I've definitely been there myself, many times). You can be sure that if Obama didn't know before he does now. - Dave Winer
The guy is lazy. What, he doesn't ever look out the window of the Straight Talk Express. The price of gas is advertised everywhere. I could understand not knowing the cost of a gallon of milk (though he should be up to date on that too). Presidents have to keep a lot of information in their head, it's a complex world. It says a lot that he can't be bothered to understand the most basic thing about the people he's trying to sell. In some sense we're defined by this today. - Dave Winer
This reminds me of when George Bush, Sr., visited a supermarket and didn't quite get the concept of scanning product bar codes. I fear that too many politicians are so out of touch with the realities of life for normal citizens that their judgment is warped. We must always be wary of people so thirsty for power that they forget the realities of life. - Mark Dixon via twhirl
"I don't see how it matters" - McCain often topspin volleys that type of answer. He sounds like VP Cheney, a lot. Out of touch and/or out of memory. - OpenAllNight
Aren't there enough things to attack McCain on without distorting the facts? The question put to McCain was "When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?" McCain's response was "Oh, I don't remember. Now there's Secret Service protection. But I've done it for many, many years. I don't recall and frankly, I don't see how it matters." Not remembering what the price was the last time he bought his own isn't the same thing as not knowing what the price is now, is it? - Ken Sheppardson
Note I'm an Aussie - and prefer OB to JM, so be kind. But I also prefer fact to spin. In this case it looks like it depends on how the question and answer were interpreted. McCain was asked when he last pumped gas and the cost - he said he couldn't remember and didn't see how it mattered - that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't think the price matters, it just means he only answered the first half of the question - about when he pumped gas. Easy trap for someone to fall into. - Craig Thomler
No Dave, I am just tired of you and your friends always taking cheap shots at McCain and Bush and NEVER having anything bad to say about Obama.. And you can't seriously infer from that question, even if the source is telling the truth, that McCain is not aware of how the price of gas is affecting people. Give me a break. - Michael Tefft
Candidates are under tons of pressure to come up with answers to some pretty arcane questions (Sunni/Shia, names of world leaders, etc.), and I am sympathetic. But this is their chosen profession -- both the governing AND the campaigning. If they are not able to answer these questions, then they are not getting their jobs done to satisfaction. Period. I live and work in China, and I am not quite insane enough to drive myself around Shanghai, but I still have a pretty good idea what my friends in the US are paying for gas and milk. McCain will just have to laugh this gaffe off, like Bush Sr. did with his "I'd like a grit, please" boner. - sage brennan via twhirl
The question was not "What is the price of gas?" It was "What was the price of gas the last time you pumped it?" It's not the same thing. You and I remember the price of gas, because we filled up within the last week. Do you remember how much you paid for gas six months ago? Quick... without looking it up! - Kenneth LeFebvre
(Oh, and I absolutely don't like McCain, either, so I'm not particularly looking for any reason to defend him... :) and I do think a good politician could have answered that one much better than he did.) - Kenneth LeFebvre
Michael, it's okay to feel that way, but you're wrong to direct your anger at me and my "friends." Do you think a football coach ever goes into the halftime locker room after a losing half and blames the other team's fans? He wouldn't have a job much longer. He'd probably be fired by the third quarter. :-) - Dave Winer
Kenneth, I thought that at first too, but I actually read the interview and he did get asked the price of gas. - Dave Winer
And to answer your question, I don't remember the price of gas six months ago. But the question was what's the price of gas TODAY. That, I know. It gives me a stomach ache. It makes me feel we're headed into the crapper as a country, that we're not at all ready for what's ahead. But I know what the price is cause I pump it into my car. - Dave Winer
Yea. I am going to agree that this question/answer does not really equate to whether or not he knows that gas costs 4.00. It does however show that he is out of touch with what Americans are doing each day. The next time the SS is fueling up his car, McCain should get off the phone and pay attention to the people and the pump. - Sean Brady
I agree with Kenneth and Ken. It was a trick question. The question was what was the price of gas the last time you pumped it? McCain explained why he did not remember, since the secret service will not let him pump it. The question was not what is the price of gas now? If you have to distort and twist the meaning of questions and replies that is pretty sad. - Michael Tefft
Hey Dave, I know this is a bit of a cliche but why is there such an uproar over Gas prices in America? In Europe, particularly in Britain, we pay over 2.5 x as much as you do per gallon. Your gas is cheap, sir. - Mark
You can overcome the cocoon in which the Secret Service surrounds you. I'm sure President Bill Clinton knew the price of a Big Mac... - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Shades of King George Bush the First at the grocery check out - Michael VanDervort
Dave, since you obviously have blinders on I will reprint the question." When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?" Where does it say what's the price of gas TODAY? McCain explained that he had not pumped gas in a while due to security measures so he did not remember what the price of gas was the last time he pumped it. Try reading the article again without your obvious political bias. - Michael Tefft
Mark, the big issue is the rate of increase in the price of gas (in US dollars, which is how we pay for it). Gas costs twice as much now as it did in early August 2005. In late August 2005, I was shocked to pay $2.60; yesterday, I was pleased to pay $4.41. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Does anybody have a link to the original column in the Orange County Register? I'd like to see the original before judging. - Leo Laporte
Hah! That's very clever. I didn't see that. But... The right answer, imho, is "I haven't pumped gas myself for a while since the Secret Service won't let me, but I do know that we're all paying over $4 a gallon today, and that's hurting a lot of people, now let me tell you what I plan to do about it..." followed by some pandering about a tax holiday. Anything else comes off as "Let them eat cake." - Dave Winer
That's simple... McCain is an idiot. He doesn't even know how to use a computer either! - Jeff McCord
Ontario Emperor: That's a good point actually, this surge in price has come to America over a couple of years. In Europe the high prices are the result of over a decade of gradual tax rises. Fair point. - Mark
Oil is going to hit $209 per barrel by Q1/08- this is the future market predications. No amount of pondering can change this.wheeling and dealing that is going on. Oils is the base commodity for War Machinery..now go figure !! - Peter Dawson
This is a result of the 80's. We deregulated the oil industry and banking. Now we have refined products that are way over the top and a banking industry that is in deep stuff. One of the major arguments at that time was that if we deregulated those areas, we would have the problems we have now. The chances of getting them fixed now....Zero! - Dave Rutter
That's right Peter. The CEO of an airline or car company would know the price of oil and gas at the pump, all grades, probably up to the minute. In many ways these guys are speculating on the price of oil. Okay cut the Prez a little slack, maybe he only needs to know the price of oil at the weekly or monthly level. Not knowing it at all, that's incompetent beyond belief. - Dave Winer
Mark, sir, it's because our economy is (somewhat foolishly) built on the assumption of cheap oil. Even we were smart we'd still have a problem. Look at the distances. How much oil do you burn getting from SF to NY vs London to Paris? There's no comparison. We *need* cheap oil not just cause we're lazy and didn't prepare, but also because of geography. - Dave Winer
I buy gas once a week and I barely know how much it is where I pump, much less the nationwide average. That said, being such a huge issue he should probably know it off the top of his head so he doesn't seem out of touch. BTW, I am an Obama supporter but I don't think McCain is an idiot. And I don't think it matters than an 80 year-old man doesn't know how to use a computer. Know many smart 50 year-olds who just don't care to learn. - Adam
Sorry Dave that is not clever, that is how the question was asked and how McCain answered it. If the reporter wanted to know if McCain knew what the price of gas was today why didn't he simply ask him. No, instead he couched it in terms that could easily be mis-interpreted , as the reporter obviously hoped it would be. BTW, hindsight is 20/20 - Michael Tefft
He's clearly not an idiot. He does this kind of interview well. Much better than when you put him behind a podium. - Dave Winer
BTW, each thread in FF is kind of like a mini-Twitter. - Dave Winer
I wish we had your kind of problems in Germany, where we pay $3.50 per liter (about a quarter of a gallon). *sigh* - Alexander Kucera
So, let me ask: How much is a gallon of gas? - Mike Lewis
To the people that question why Dave is McCain bashing.... being from a rather Republican minded family I can tell you my inbox is flooded daily with anti Obama mail, most of which can be quickly disproved with a visit to snopes.com. Yet these email quotes always come up in our Bar-B-Q political debates. I find it refreshing to find some anti McCain stories which are at least TRUE, that I can forward on. Although the question was phrased badly I think Dave is correct with his answer above. - Kevin Shannon
it doesnt matter to him he has donors to pay for it - Fuad Arshad
Even though I am a Obama supporter, I hate it when the press twists individuals statements. I am sure McCain knows the current average price for a gallon of gas, you cannot run for president and be an idiot at the same time. - Kyle DeFacis
We are actually paying around $3.89 on average for regular. I feel sorry for the poor truckers who are paying way over $4.00 a gallon for diesel. Have you seen how high food prices have gotten in Hawaii? People are actually being priced off the islands. - Michael Tefft
Just one example of how detached the leadership of this country is, and not exclusive to any one party. But really sad for someone running to be president, his people should tell him every morning the state of a massive issue facing the nation. - Tom Carroll
It's discouraging that McCain doesn't know the price of gas. (Splitting hairs that McCain was referencing the last time he pumped it is a s t r e t c h.) But here's the real problem. This is one of the most important issues for voters, so as a candidate for POTUS, McCain and his campaign should know this question is coming, is important, and know it cold. It shows a general lack of understanding, planning, vision and strategy - and THAT's the problem. - AJ Kohn
first of all, the straight talk express is retarded, but thats another matter. secondly, i agree with the aussie, its not about being out of touch 'last time i pumped' really doesn't matter. the crux of the matter is that we've been drunk on cheap fuel for years and consume way beyond our means. cheney's insane 'conservation is a virtue' is doubly quaint... - tommy payne
AJ. But he plainly wasn't asked that question. The reporter obviously stated the question in an intentionally misleading way. I wonder how many politicians in DC know how much gas costs. Do you think they pump their own gas? This was a survey of one, a real useful gage of McCain's grasp of the issues. - Michael Tefft
@davewiner said "The guy is lazy". Maybe not lazy, but tired. He could be napping in the limo. He often looks like he needs a nap, or just woke up from one. He is not passionate. When watching him speak I get the feeling he does not really care if he wins or not? Needs some V8. - OpenAllNight
Reading Comprehension FAIL... where's that new block feature so I'm not tempted to feed the trolls anymore? - David Knight
Hey David, what trolls are you referring too? Don't see any on this thread. - Michael Tefft
He said the same thing about computers, too. Sigh. - Robert Scoble
McCain's comment about not seeing that it matters, is just as bad as him not knowing the price. - Alex Hammer
I didn't see this earlier when I wrote my own post on McCain's comments. I think he knows the price of gas, or at least he knows that it's rising at a ridiculously high rate. That's not the outrageous part of what he said. The part that should piss every thinking voter off is that he doesn't have a clue as to what impact that has on normal people who have to deal with gas prices doubling in six months and the attendant price increases in other areas. Out of touch..that's the message. - Karoli
The problem comes in another, staggering set of government numbers. (Economists argue about the validity of using these numbers over long periods, but they capture the sorrow of the situation.) Get this, friends: from 1947 to about 1973 — from the days from the great Harry S. Truman to the great Richard M. Nixon — real hourly pay for nongovernment workers rose by about 40 percent. The peak year was the one before R.N. left for San Clemente in 1974. Since then, real wages both hourly and weekly for all nongovernment workers, on average, have fallen by about 5 percent, very roughly. As I see it, the problem is not the price of oil generally. (I think that the price will decline somewhat before long, but the long-term trend is very much up.) The problem is the stagnation of wages. - Will DeLuca
Wasn't McCain asked when he last filled up as opposed to the current price? Is it news to us that celebrities don't deal with day-to-day stuff the same way we do. I don't like it, but it's reality. He probably also doesn't cook for himself, pick out his own clothes or apply his own stage make-up. We don't orient campaigns to do-it-yourselfers. - tim
But what about the slipperyslopeness of this? Maybe I'm just being too hippy'ish here, but if everyone did that, there'd be no comments. It's basically, a "No, you first." "No, you!" standoff. It's admittedly a tough balance with Friendfeed (and beyond), eh? 1) Show the user specifically what they request. 2) Show the user what they actually want. 3) Show the user stuff that will help enrich the community (e.g. surface less-popular stuff). Tough to manage all three! - Adam Lasnik
My use case is that I'm subscribed to (for example) Jeremy Zawodny's blog in Reader, and I already see/read his posts there. I only want to see his posts here if they have comments, otherwise it's just wasted space. - Mihai Parparita
I think there are plenty of people who will "go first", either because they just like more volume, or because they feel closer to the feed in question (they know the poster in real life, or care more about the topic, or whatever). I think the only real balance is with UI simplicity, I don't think there's any need to force-feed people anything they don't want just to jumpstart comments. Super-Hide could easily be a giant dialog box (I also want "eliminate all FOAF last.fm entries", for example). - ⓞnor
I do this in Friendfork (http://friendfork.appspot.com) for Reader shared items (it actually creates duplicates for both likes and comments right now, but I'm going to change it to comments only). I want to do this for blog posts too, but I need to either implement feed discovery myself (not sure how well that will work with appengine timeouts) or have the FF api return feed urls in addition to html urls. - Ben Darnell
1 hour max meetings with expectation of prep by all. Check phones and laptops at the door. - Kate Foy
15 min is awesome... send doc/info out early; get feedback, then wrap up meeting way faster that way. If you have a wiki with version control - even better for team collaboration. We're using documents to make decisions, manage tasks and finances... IM too... meetings are less needed now - Susan Beebe
Y'all should definitely check it out. It's going to be consuming all the cycles in this section of the twitosphere for the next few days if not more. It's very good, unique, wish I had thought of it. - Dave Winer
@Josh: Sort of. If you go to http://whoisi.com/logininfo it gives you a link to save that is basically like logging in (recreates the cookie, etc). That's just for knowing who you're following, though. Since it's wiki-ish, the profiles don't really belong to anyone. Or at least, that's how I understand it. - Donato via twhirl
DeWitt, I don't know that may be all it is. I just started playing with it an hour or so ago. - Dave Winer
Something is going terribly wrong though. I'm trying to add profiles for other people and it keeps saying "that url is already associated with...". I think it may have to do with adding FriendFeed feeds. Not sure why though. - Brandon Titus
This is starting to REALLLLLY bug me. There is a flippin API (http://code.google.com/apis/so...) that will go out and discover all my sites. Stop telling people/me to add them manually and instead give them/me the option to add the sites that have already been discovered. More click, less type. :-L - Erica Baker
Erica, I never heard of that API. Is there an executive summary of it. Do website owners have to do something to support it? Also whoisi is just one guy doing it as a labor of love. Let's cut him some slack, eh? He doesn't have $5 million like the FF guys do. - Dave Winer
You don't need $5 million dollars to make use of a free API. Executive summary: "The Social Graph API makes information about the public connections between people on the Web easily available and useful for developers. Developers can query this public information to offer their users dramatically streamlined "add friends" functionality and other useful features." - Erica Baker
The social graph API also uses the Social Graph Node Mapper open source project to generate canonical urls for sites (e.g. what's the user profile page, where are the feeds, etc): http://code.google.com/p/googl... Patches welcome - Adewale Oshineye
Thanks for all the information about Google's API. Seems to have killed the discussion on whoisi.com, which is still quite interesting. I was wonder if it has an API -- kind of like the one in FriendFeed. How frequently does whoisi poll its RSS feeds? - Dave Winer
I try and early adopt as much as the next guy but Whoisi couldn't be more unintuitive. It's as if they're trying to make it cumbersome to use....and they provide as few clues to it's functionality as possible. You think it will succeed why? - Michael J. Pratt
@Dave: It does have an API. There isn't any documentation yet, but he does have example python scripts linked here: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/webl... - Donato
I saw the note in your writeup, but Python example scripts aren't going to do it for me. How often do you poll? If it's often enough I won't have to use your API. Also -- you might want to consider implementing the server site of the weblogs.com ping API. That way I can ping you when my feed changes, you can read it, and we can accomplish virtually instant updating. That would probably be the most sensible approach. Also consider implementing the Twitter API, that way you don't have to write docs. :-) - Dave Winer
Also if you implement the Twitter API you'll get instant compatibility with lots of software, and the blessings of lots of developers. If you want to discuss offline, send me an email at dave dot winer at gmail dot com. - Dave Winer
It's certainly something that I've been working on in my spare time and isn't as polished as FriendFeed. I did most of the original design and thinking on it including the look and feel before I even saw FriendFeed. The fact that they ended up looking about the same is chance. - Christopher Blizzard
On the API front, there's a lot left to do and I never finished writing docs for it. Sorry if there are similar things that I could be taking advantage of, but I was more interested in the human side of the equation. This is at least 50% experiment for me to find out if people can do for feeds + following what Wikipedia has done for general information. That's why it's human-intensive. I want people who care, not just robots. - Christopher Blizzard
I wonder if Feedly is using the Google Social Graph? It authenticates via Google and it sure knew a lot about me very quickly. I would use whoisi to get a certain kind of info about someone. A social graph search, I guess. The wiki element will make it interesting (or fail very fast). - Leo Laporte
Had someone notify me about my page at http://whoisi.com/p/836 pretty cool to have gotten a 3 digit id. I'm just randomly checking new id's by changing them in the URL. Got one where it showed a new site loading. They're almost up to 1200. Wondering if my 3 digit id will be as coveted as my 7 digit ICQ#. - Mark Krynsky
@Mark: 7 digit ICQ, nice. I have a 6 digit now. I HAD a 5 digit way back when, but I lost the info for the account and couldn't get it back. - Donato via twhirl
Chris, have you setup a place where we can report bugs? Perhaps a whoisi FF room? Also, my current biggest concern is that there are no controls for rampant vandalism. It appears I can easily add a site or remove sites from anybody's page. - Mark Krynsky
I have no reason to acctually enter all of my stuff into Whoisi.com, purely because I can just as easily add my friendfeed rss feed, and a few other feeds that I want perticular interest to, and be done with it - Chacha via twhirl
@Mark: You can leave a comment in my blog if you want if you're having issues. Would love to know sites that do or don't work. I have a post about whoisi up there and how it all works. - Christopher Blizzard
I hate the constant captcha though. For God's sake don't ever build any new websites without openid support. - Shivanand Velmurugan
The constant captchas keep the abuse at least _somewhat_ limited. :) I also need to figure out what openid really means for the site. I've poked at it a tiny tiny bit. - Christopher Blizzard
cool site, no login; interesting. Will have to play more tomorrow. - Stuart Forsyth
I just turned off refreshing because twitter is in a fit. Again. And when it is everything else gets slow. I even have an SQL query that I run from time to time to clean out the bad data that twitter generates. I wonder how many of these sites include code just to handle twitter crapping itself a few times a day? - Christopher Blizzard
I've been checking it out, the core idea is certainly is very interesting. question is how quick can it add features? - Samuel Bostock
This is brilliant! I've been waiting for a service exactly like this. - Chris Nixon
had a feeling this is what the announcement was when I noticed a SmugVault entry in the gallery drop down. Think I need to see which is cheaper to do direct S3 storage or using this. - Dave Cohen
So, anything? If I wanted to run my DMG archive off of Smug Vault, I'd be okay? - Mark Trapp
@Dave Cohen: S3 is cheaper (not much!), but you lose the integration and visual browsing interface of SmugMug. We're certainly not an S3 competitor here. If S3 works for you, awesome. :) - Don MacAskill
Awesome Don, nice one! Let's make a loud sound with this one! - Larry Kless via twhirl
@Mark Trapp: Yep, anything, including DMG or whatever. Currently it's 512MB/file max, but I'm working on making it 5GB per file. - Don MacAskill
Been waiting for something like this ever since I started shooting RAW! - Benjamin Golub
Awesome, thanks Don. This could be nifty for my design firm's off-site archive, especially if we can preview the good bulk of the files. - Mark Trapp
Argh! I just starting shooting RAW!! Must have!!! - Bwana McCall
hmmmm... store *everything*, next to *nothing*. Not sure I agree with that. Under this new service my 2TB archive would cost me $600 one time fee + $440 every single month, plus more for getting the images back. Seems like a few drobos are a better deal, no? I can't imagine paying over $5,000 a year for offsite storage. Of course this sort of service is probably not aimed at someone like me. - Thomas Hawk
@Thomas Hawk: Compared to competing photo sharing services with RAW support, and other pay-for-storage-in-the-cloud offerings, this is a very compelling price point. It's certainly not as cheap as a handful of Drobos - but then you have to do all the IT, deal with fire/earthquakes/etc. If you're cool with that, great. But many aren't. - Don MacAskill
@Thomas Hawk: There are two components for any really solid archive storage: Local, fast, always available storage and something offsite. That can be drives stored at a bank, tapes at an archival facility, or something like SmugVault. We view ourselves as the offsite component, not the replacement for the RAID at your house. - Don MacAskill
@Don, I'm just saying $600 upfront and $440 per month in my case certainly would not qualify as storing "everything for next to nothing." It would cost me more per month to store my archive than to lease a car. And my archive is only going to get bigger. - Thomas Hawk
Can I get access outwith the web interface? e.g. ftp or sync software - Chris Nixon
I don't think storage in the cloud is yet economical for most heavy photographers. Even someone with only 500GB of images would still have to pay $110 per month which is an expensive cost. Better (and faster) to back up your images yourself on drives and give them to a friend to hold for you offsite. You can also remotely network drobos now to have one at your home, one at an offsite location and sync them for much, much, less money. - Thomas Hawk
I don't get why I'd use this over my $5/m Mozy account? - Phill Price
@Thomas Hawk: Remotely networking drobos? Makes me want to get them even more... Wish they weren't so expensive! @Phill Price: Yeah, I don't see how SmugMug's service beats the pants off of Mozy, except that I don't think Mozy has a Web-based file browser. Am I wrong about that? - Voyagerfan5761
@Thomas Hawk: We have Pros who charge $10-20K for a single wedding that generates a few GB of photos. This is very economical for money-making Pros. And we have tens of thousands of them. :) - Don MacAskill
I haven't remotely networked drobo's yet but Alex Lindesy said that he's doing this with his on the This Week in Photography (TWIP) podcast. Synching two drobos would not be cheap Voyagerfan, but certainly cheaper than paying $440 per month. I do have my archive backed up on cheap external USB drives though and offsite at my parent's house. Most of my finished JPG photos are online as well on photosharing sites which are sort of a secondary backup. - Thomas Hawk
@Voyagerfan5761 it does - and its automatic - Phill Price
@Phill Price: This offering is geared towards people for whom SmugMug is a vital part of their workflow. They've told us they want the archives stored alongside the photos, so their normal workflow is enhanced rather than disrupted. Absolutely using something like Mozy or S3 or whatever is cheaper - but for some, time and/or effort is more valuable than money. SmugMug isn't in the business of being the cheapest solution for anything we offer - we're a premium service. - Don MacAskill
The other thing I don't like about this service is that it has a built in cost increase. The more you shoot the more you store, the more you store, the more you pay ongoing. You pay *more* in the future not less, even though storage gets cheaper. I'd rather have an "all you can eat" sort of plan that controlled future price increases. Still, for the casual photographer with less than 50GB of files, this might be worth looking at. Although even 50GB is $22 a month, a far cry from "next to nothing." - Thomas Hawk
@Thomas Hawk: Actually, that's not true. As Amazon lowers their prices (which they've done twice in two years already, and I expect another one "soon"), we'll lower ours the corresponding amount. Your storage will get cheaper. - Don MacAskill
@Thomas Hawk: While I appreciate the feedback, you're not really comparing apples to apples here. Go find me a photo sharing site that accepts and stores RAW/PSD/etc for less than ours as part of their workflow. We will *definitely* not be as cheap as local storage, that's a given. The question is how we compare to other similar offerings. And in that regard, we're much cheaper and (more importantly) much better. - Don MacAskill
Bear in mind that this is an offering our customers have been *begging* for at a price point *lower* than they said they'd pay. My customers are likely very different from you - but that doesn't mean it's not a valid, useful, game-changing offering. - Don MacAskill
@Don, I might not be comparing apples to apples, but I'd still never pay $440 a month for a service like this. The "store everything for next to nothing," was the part I thought was a bit misleading. The service is actually quite a bit more expensive than someone simply copying their files to an external drive and giving it to a friend to hold offsite for them, without reoccuring monthly fees. - Thomas Hawk
saying the Oakland Mercedes Benz dealer is cheaper than the Beverly Hills Mercedes Benz dealer doesn't mean that you still can't find a cheaper car somewhere else -- or take the bus or bike for that matter. You get to the same place no matter if you drive a Mercedes, a Prius, take BART or bike. Some ways just cost more than others. - Thomas Hawk
I am a pro photographer. I shoot less than ThomasHawk but have my fair share of events. I would like to just see a storage through online means regardless of file type such as Xdrive. But at larger increments such as 1GB at a time not 1MB. Any thoughts Don? - Photo Larry via twhirl
"next to nothing" refers to some of our (to remain unnamed) competitors. And it jives with what our paying customers have told us they'd pay for this service. We could have gouged them and charged the $1/GB or whatever they said they'd pay (or that they pay elsewhere now) - but we chose not to. Apologies if it doesn't fit your world view. :) - Don MacAskill
Yes, but the Oakland Benz dealer will sell you the same Benz that Beverly Hills will. A Drobo and SmugVault aren't even remotely the same. So again, you're comparing apples to apples in your analogy, but not the actual product comparison. It's fine, I get it - you won't use it. But that doesn't mean it's not a good product. - Don MacAskill
@Photo Larry: You can store 1MB, 1GB, 1PB with this. Whatever you want. So you're not limited to 1MB. If I somehow gave that impression, I apologize. SmugVault is unlimited and pay-by-the-drink. Only pay for what you use - no commitments. - Don MacAskill
Don, I'm an edge case. I'm sure this offering is just right for many of your customers. Some people like to drive Mercedes and don't mind paying -- it's a huge market. I just like to take the BART, that way it costs less and I can process photos to and from work. :) - Thomas Hawk
This may be the clincher for me. I've been thinking about using SmugMug for a while. They already allow users to sell photos -- which is something I've wanted from other photo sharing sites for a while -- they offer good prints as well, and now they have this. Very nice. - Raoul Pop
@Thomas Hawk: Everything we do at SmugMug is more BMW than Toyota, let alone BART, that's for sure. :) - Don MacAskill
Having read the blog post, I can see the potential of it. Never mind the price, which is way too high for my taste at the moment (and Thomas is right to criticize your headline). But prices will come down. I like the concept of having a photo library somewhere up in the cloud that contains all master files "behind" the one final image on display. With a good UI and a Photoshop plugin that allowed direct editing from and saving to the cloud, this could completely replace apps like Lightroom in the future. - Ole Begemann
Don: Wow. I like this thread esp. for the comments. I withdraw my request for a smugmug invite. That is a pretty elitist view of things. I will just wait until I fill my free off-site storage and then pay an "economy" photo hosting service. - Mathew A. Koeneker
mike it hit because i linked to don :) - Allen Stern
Brilliant! I love betting on the right horse. You go Smugmug! - Leo Laporte
It would be awesome if Techmeme could include FF conversations! Seems like a natural fit, but the problem would be how could Techmeme know *which* of the conversations to append to the article. Sometimes the biggest conversation around an item will happen in the oddest place. Hard for Techmeme to know which is *officially* the related or best conversation. - Thomas Hawk
I'm assuming you have to have a SmugMug account to use this in the first place? For someone like me with about 10GB of archives, the price would be good, but having to pay to join another photo site just for backup would deter me. - Matt
Allen, Gabe recently mentioned that he was starting to look at FriendFeed as another source for discussion (see http://snurl.com/2nnk6 - Gabe's last comment). I think this is a case where it would make sense for Gabe's algorithm to include this in the discussion. - Mike Doeff
@Mathew A. Koeneker: SmugMug invite? We don't require invites. We've been in production for more than 5 years - no invites required. Just a credit card. :) I'm not sure how I (we?) are being elitist, though - we're offering something both better and cheaper than anyone else. How is that elitist? Am I missing something? - Don MacAskill
@Matt: You do need a SmugMug account, yes. They start at $40/year (unlimited JPEG/GIF/PNG storage), or roughly a latte a month. :) - Don MacAskill
Is anyone else not surprised that Thomas Hawk is trying to crap on a thread about a competitor's product? A quick browse on his blog shows crapping on competition all over the place, while his own pet project flounders in obscurity. - Jim
Hutch, great blog post, interesting method -- using activity by authoritative FF folk to determine which post to link right? Would love to see FF conversations on Techmeme as they definitely provide valuable commentary on the story. - Thomas Hawk
@Don, I sent a Tweet about this about two hours ago but never got a chance to get back gere until now. Looks like a lot great discussion has been going on. - Larry Kless via twhirl
Jim, I don't view SmugMug as a competing product *at all.* I doubt Don does either, but maybe I'm wrong. Two very different markets and services. I actually like SmugMug as an service alot, and especially the people that work there, their high service and community engagement. I just wouldn't pay $440 a month for something like this. I call it like I see it. BART is not a competitor to BMW, even though both get you where you want to go. - Thomas Hawk
@ Don: I was being a tad ironic as well as perhaps I misunderstood the post "@Thomas Hawk: Everything we do at SmugMug is more BMW than Toyota, let alone BART, that's for sure. :) - Don MacAskill" I like being frugal and wish that we had better public transportation in StL. I am OK if that is your target demographic (ie. BMW) but it seemed like a slam on those that are not. - Mathew A. Koeneker
@Thomas - and yet you keep arguing a red herring. There is a huge difference between local storage and off-site storage. In order to replicate the security of storage in the clouds, you have to set up multiple synced off-site storage locations. There is a reason that lot of top photographers store their photos in banks and other secure vaults. - Jim
@Thomas - that's right. Techmeme has a heavy bias for those who have been on Techmeme previously. Leverage that to identify conversational hot points. - Hutch Carpenter
@Thomas - a perfect example is world famous photographer Jacques Lowe who stored 40,000 negatives of the Kennedy family in the safest location he could find. He stored them in a bank vault, and 11 years later they were all completely destroyed when 2 planes hit the World Trade Center, right next door. Off-site + redundancy is extremely important to a lot of photographers. - Jim
Jim, I'm not arguing a red herring at all. $440 per month to store my archive is *not* "next to nothing." It's a perfectly valid point to make in light of the headline of the post. The fact that I can archive cheaper other ways is another point entirely -- but worth mentioning given that people might be looking for other cheaper alternatives. Maybe $440 per month is "next to nothing" for a rich guy like you, but it's not for me. Do you work for SmugMug? - Thomas Hawk
@Mathew A. Koeneker: Oh, no, that wasn't a slam at all. I have a BMW, but I love BART too. But when we chose to build a business, we intentionally chose the premium space. Not only am I more interested in it, but the free / freemium / economy space is crowded and a rough business to be in. I built this business with an awful lot of sweat - I didn't want to get into a brawl with companies like Yahoo and Kodak, too. - Don MacAskill
@Thomas - sorry, I was referring the ongoing Drobo discussion. Sticking right to the cost, I guess it is a matter of perspective. You are a prolific shooter, and have a sizable collection, so it will indeed cost you more. The question is how much the absolute security of those files are to you. It varies dramatically from photographer to photographer. For hobbyists with a big collection, I suppose the price would be a bigger deal. (continued, sorry... got too wordy) - Jim
@Thomas - but imagine you are make your living from your photos, and you can virtually guarantee the safety of your life's work for $440 a month. I am definitely a hobbyist, but there are definitely some files I want to make 100% sure I never lose. So I am probably somewhere in between, and part of my library will find its way online. - Jim
@Jim, $440 a month is *alot* of money Pal. Certainly not "next to nothing." You could by three drobos. Stick one at your mom's house in Florida and give another to your friend in Germany and network them all together -- and this would still be cheaper than buying this service, at least for me. I'm not sure the incremental "safety" of cloud storage over multiple location backups is worth it to me. - Thomas Hawk
and you still haven't answered the question whether or not you work for SmugMug. You have a private FF account and are only known as "Jim." As far as I'm concerned you may as well be an anonymous shill. - Thomas Hawk
Nice idea, but I'm not sold on the idea of cloud storage. Having multiple physical backups in different locations is very cost effective these days, and in the event of a catastrophic failure, restoring from the cloud is a time-consuming prospect. If you have enough data, shipping one of your other backups would be cheaper -- and faster -- than restoring TB's of data from the cloud. - Jeremy Brooks
I might as well be an anonymous shill, I am not a blogging/social sort of person. I registered just to post in this thread because your attitude bugs me. I used to subscribe to your blog because I love your photography, but got sick of your ranting and raving about everything. Unfortunately, I have now contributed to the crapfest this thread is... I'm out. - Jim
I think the main thing going for a service like this is the simplicity of it, which may be worth the cost for some people. - Jeremy Brooks
By the way, I'm not saying that this is a *bad* service. I'm sure that there are many customers at SmugMug who want this and at this price point. Otherwise they wouldn't be offering it. And I'm sure it's a good business for SmugMug as they probably make a differential between what they pay Amazon and what they charge their customers. Win-Win. I'm just saying it's not right for me is all. - Thomas Hawk
I'm with Thomas here. All he took exception to was the headline "for next to nothing" and he's right on that. - Ole Begemann
So Jim, you are posting here anonymously and only signed up for FF to post to *this specific* conversation about SmugMug, and yet you've been asked three times whether or not you work for SmugMug and you avoid answering the question every time. Okie dokie Pal, gotcha loud and clear. I'm sorry if my saying $440 per month doesn't sound like "next to nothing" to me hurts your feelings. - Thomas Hawk
okay, I lied... I didn't quite leave yet. :( I am not from SmugMug. I just don't want to get into personal details, I am a private person. really out now, just didn't want to leave that hanging. - Jim
...and this is pretty much what I was afraid would happen to FriendFeed eventually. I was just hoping for a bit more time. @Don, good luck on the launch. I always love to see other small businesses succeed, so I hope you guys make a bajillion dollars. - Jake
@Thomas, for the record, Don is subscribed to the feeds of all SmugMug employees that have FF accounts. - David Parry
Personally, i travel like crazy for work. So having a drobo at home would be like cloud storage, but slower. I just wish this wasn't announced 2 days after i bought the program jungledisk for direct amazon storage. - InsaneNinja
Wow, I go get some lunch and the thread devolves into trolling. Can has moderation? Let's get back to talking about the product, mmkay? - Don MacAskill
@Don, Say you run Lightroom, and convert to DNG on import. You do your little changes to the DNG, which saves them as internal data. And then you upload the DNG file to SmugMug. ....Does SM show the resulting file in multiple sizes? Or should you also upload an LR-exported jpg for results/quality? I'm asking if you can skip the jpg step entirely. - InsaneNinja
@InsaneNinja: You cannot skip the JPEG step entirely if you want to see all your edits, no. We just generate non-edited proofs. I'm hopeful that someday we can offer something even better, but for now, export both the JPEG and the DNG. - Don MacAskill
And I envision a Lightroom like interface to the vault so you can browse and search the vault like you would your local albums, select the photo(s) you want to work on and put your work back when you're done, somewhere safe. Which I'm giddy about to build, you know, when they invent 30hr days.... Also, for me this is going to be for the images that are very valuable to me either emotionally or monitarily, not everything, which solves the 'where will my important photos be in 15 years' problem. - Sam
@Don: That makes sound business sense on a lot of levels. )BTW, I think that this is the first time I saw what would appear to be troll induced flickers of flame.) - Mathew A. Koeneker
I wouldnt say its trolling on the program, as much as it is Thomas having a problem specifically with the slogan "everything for nothing," due to his immense collection. As for me personally, i've created 30 gigs this month and i consider it slacking. - InsaneNinja
Well, if nothing else this string has forced me to think more seriously about improving my current backup solution of copying to an external hard drive. - Matt
Two questions: One, how on earth is uploading my entire archive going to happen ( I've got 50+ GB and rising fast- my upload speed is terrible even with broadband in the UK - talk about progress and being a First World Country) and Two is there API support for this??? - Roberto Bonini
"Cesium is one of the most reactive metals known to man - it will ignite upon exposure to air or water." Hmm...on second thought...I'm not nearly responsible enough to handle this properly... - Michael Hylkema
no responsibility needed :P "For protection, our Cesium samples are sealed in glass ampoules under Argon gas." - bob
Nope, I'll still end up losing a hand. I'm still missing part of an eyebrow from an experiment gone awry in elementary school. - Michael Hylkema
