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Live4Emma (L4S)

Hello Kitty Canned Ramen - http://www.kittyhell.com/2009...

June 4 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Derrick, Nia, carlotta fancypants and 10 other people liked this

David Cook

I'm gonna be a daady!!! I'm gonna be a daaady!!! =D

May 15 - Comment - Like - Share

Penguin It's Cold Outside, david beckwith, sahar:D and 257 other people liked this

I hope you’re ready to see more baby pics in about 7 months. =D - David Cook

125 more comments

Congratulations! - Admiral Anika

Congrats!!!! - Bill Heslin

I never get tired of baby pics. :) - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

aaw! congratulations!!! - D. Eda Goze

Congrats! - Gunny doesn't side-hug™

Congratulations ;) - Alejandro

Congratulations!!! - joey

Congrats! - RAPatton

Congrats!! - Mo Kargas

Congratulations! - Paul from twhirl

Babies are awesome, and daddies are awesomer. Congrats! - Sally: gift wrapper

Congrats! - DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE

congratulations! - Jim Is Not Smart

Congratulations!! :D - Penny

Yay! Congrats, David! - Laura Lou Who

Congrats :) - Rodfather

Congrats! - Kate

Congrats! - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Awesome!!! - Lindsey is Fierce!

congratulations :) - Alexis Hope

congrats! - AJ Batac

And now at least one more person on the internets knows how babby is formed. - Alex Scoble

Congrats! - Alex Scoble

Wow - congrats! - WorldofHiglet

Congratulations! - Trish R

Congratulations! - Kreg Steppe

Personally, I think babies are more awesome than mommies/daddies, but excited, involved daddies are pretty cool/cute. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Congrats! - Shevonne

YAY!!! - Helen Sventitsky

Thank you everyone!!! I couldn't be more excited! My cheeks hurt from smiling so much today. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat too. It was so awesome!!! He/She is due on December 8th. Thank you all for the love and support! =) - David Cook

Congratulations! - Arlan Koizumi

Omg, congrats David!!!!! That's wonderful! - Carmen

another ffunderbaby on the way! that's awesome! - Trish Haley

David, that's wonderful news!!!! Congrats. :) - Derrick

Congratulations! - ♥patricia♥

congrats! - (jeff)isageek

Congrats David!!!!! - Charlie Anzman

Congratulations!! - Glen Mistletoe

Congratulations~! - yagami

YAY! Congrats! - Josh Haley

OMG Congrats David!!!!! And as a side note, if FF turns into the magic baby bringing social media site, I might have to cut back a little ;-) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Wow, congrats! - Michelle Martinez

How exciting for you and the mommy! - Anne Bouey

Congratulations - LPH™ and his dog P™

Congratulations!!!!! - Martha

Congratulations! / 恭喜你！/ おめでとうございます！！！！! Enhorabuena ! - Renchin(Reina)Wang

me too. awesome huh? - Ryan

Congratulations .. :) - αida®

Yay! Where do I send the LG onesie? - Louis Gray

I'll never forget this wooshing sound. Totally awesome. Congratulations!! - Dawn

I remember the excitement looking at an image like this. Can't help but smile. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Congratulations! - Jannifer @wordsforliving

Congrats! Socool! - Andrew

Yahooooo! Congrats! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Congrats! - Pete Delucchi

wow! - A.T.

Congrats. More proof that friendfeeders do, um, well, nevermind! Miniscobleizer 3.0 is due end of September. Most excited! - Robert Scoble

Congratulations David! Get some sleep while you can. ;-) - Larry Kless

CONGRATS!! :) *passionate caps on with big thumbs up*, yeah and keep us updated - daaaady :))) - Ronald

Congratulations! - Verena Fuchs

Congrats - parazitt

Congratulations - ipek aral kişioğlu

Congratulations, David!! :) - Mona Nomura

congratulations! - Bren -- Not Grinchy

Congrats! - Rob Haas from BuddyFeed

Congratulations David. That is awesome! - Keith - @tsudo

Congrats It is The toughest job you will love. enjoy - Corey Brown

Congratulations! - Selda Dölekoğlu (Dinemiz)

Congrats, David! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

congrats,girl or boy? - Amir

Congrats, is this the 1st one..it's gonna be awesome dude.... - Mostafa Lameei

David, I am a father of 2 years old boy I can easily tell you that being a father will be nonpareil experience. Congratulations! - Jacque

Congrats !!! - Nir Ben Yona

Congratulations - Pete Gilbert

Congratulations - Tony

Congratulations :) - Picolo

congratulations! - Carole Hicks

Wow! Conga-rats!! :-D - Lisa L. Seifert

Congratulations! - endiaferon

Congratulations! The baby looks like you : ). - John A. Taylor

Congratulations too~~~~I think you will be a good daddy~ - ybs

Congratz! - Nia

Congratulations! :) - Dr. Apps from twhirl

Congrats!! - Manny Hernandez

congrats to you my friend. big things! - Cee Bee

congrats dude! - imabonehead

Congratulations! - casey wright

Congratulations! - Steven Perez

Congratulations! - Göksel Şirin

cool - Dan Krivolavek from twhirl

...woo-hoo! Congratulations!! - JA Castillo

Congrats David :D - Praveen Vasudev

@Larry Kless, that's what everyone keeps telling me. :) - David Cook

@Ryan, congrats to you as well! It *is* awesome! - David Cook

auguri! - Andrea | amnesiak1978

@Robert, it will be interesting to see the differences between our pics since they are only going to be 3 months apart. Congrats again! - David Cook

@Dawn, I was making that wooshing sound all day. lol - David Cook

@Amir, we don't know yet. I'll keep you all updated when we find out though. - David Cook

Congrats! - Justin Korn

@Mostafa Lameei, yes this will be the first one. I have a lot of close people with kids to go to for advice though. I'm ready for him or her. ;) - David Cook

Congratulations sir! - Evan Travers

Congrats! - Aaron Hood

Congrats !!! - MohammadReza

Congrats! Being a daddy is the best - Patrick Jordan

Congratulations! Love these pics... they're the best! - Kelly Williams

Start catching up on your sleep now! - Dan Parsons

Congrats to you - Annika from Nambu

Congratulations1 - Julie Barrett from twhirl

Congratulations!!! You'll be an awesome dad... - Iris

Congrats David!!! - Nicholas James

Congrats!! Be prepared for the great moments ahead! - harupong

awesome! congrats man - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Definitely Congratulations! - John E Murray III

Cool, Congrats. You have some fun coming for many years now. - aerobroken

congrats! - Thomas Hawk

Congratulations! I'm sure fatherhood has a lot in store for you. Best of luck. - Robbie Spencer from twhirl

Grats man! - WRider

Congrats David, I promise I won't comment on the current machine settings used, okay I will...person has the gain way too high for the posterior portion of the image. I am soooo anal about these things. Give me their number, I will make certain your next pics are better. - Janet

Great for you and the momma! All the best ~ it's such an exciting time!!!! - Lori

Congratulation! - Jimbooo™

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATS!!!!!!! WONDERFUL NEWS!!!!!!!! :-D - Anna Haro

hehe, congrats! - Peter Efland

:-) - Mitchell Tsai

Congrats :) - Maryam Ardakani

Congratulations!!! - Garin Kilpatrick

Congrats !!!!!!!!!!!! - Annika from Nambu

Louis Gray

Matthew has a new lady friend, via long-distance relationship. Someday, the pair will meet and fall in love. @akiva @rochelles

May 12 - Comment - Like - Share

Internet Strategist, Bill Heslin, David Cook and 178 other people liked this

lol! - Carmen

48 more comments

Matthew won't stop looking at Audrey. http://friendfeed.com/rochell... and http://friendfeed.com/rochell... - Louis Gray

That is very cute! :D - Rochelle

Awwwww - Josh Haley

Totally beautiful! This should make Best of Year! - jcunwired

Should have known that a Gray kid would pioneer Internet dating for the young. Is Matthew's sister seeing anyone? :) - John E. Bredehoft

Too cute...... - Roberto Bonini

Come on, poor deprived child, he's using a MacBook Pro older than he is. That just aint right. - Kevin Murray

"She can relate to me. Not like you big people." :) Adorable 2.0 - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Don't tell the wife but your baby pictures sometimes makes me wish I had a little one too. aww. - Wayne Sutton

That's the cutest one yet. - Trish R

...why do i feel like these two are having a Stewie from "Family Guy" epiphany, while the adults marvel at this? ;-) - .LAG liked that

:) - Micah Wittman

Oh man, I thought the two images were stereoscopy, since they were so similar. They weren't. My brain hurts now =p - Daniel Bruce

I'm amused that he's looking at the photo of her where she looks very incredulous and uncertain. - Akiva Moskovitz

He's into younger girls? - Matthew DeVries

Matthew: 1) Who isn't? (I'm so dead on this) 2) Sarah has a crush on Milan Scoble, who is a bit older. - Louis Gray

Akiva, I am sure that she is unsure. She is quite young. - Louis Gray

This is definitely a new frontier of social networking. - Akiva Moskovitz

so cute - mjc

now we need louis to videotape a session and provide commentary - Allen Stern

JJ is available if Sarah is looking - Jesse Stay

Jesse, that'd be a good option, but I don't want to have to leave the board of advisors to SocialToo. I recognize the potential for conflicts of interest. - Louis Gray

How cute is that!! - Mona Nomura

uber-cuteness :-) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

So adorable! - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

ha ha, too funny! - Moushumi Kabir

ha - for a minute there I thought they were Skyping each other. And that Matthew got all duded up for his date. - Laura Norvig

Cutest thing I seen all day! - Thunderwing from twhirl

I also have twins (about the same age) and they have not watched TV yet. Yours are Mac'ing already. wow. :-) - Antonio Altamirano

That is so cute!!! Hahahaaa!! - Susan Beebe

Laura, Matthew always dresses sharp. You never know when you could meet "the one". - Louis Gray

wow that is so cute - Trail

So so cute! - Mitchell Tsai

Now featured on The Gray Effect: http://www.thegrayeffect.com/2009... - Louis Gray

Oh how cute is that ^__^! - Nia

lol! - BeeLing

baby photos FTW - Dobromir Hadzhiev

babyfacebook - johnpiercy

Louis, "the one" ... is that a 30 Rock reference? Just watched that episode last night. - Laura Norvig

Laura, not a 30 Rock reference. All I know is that Matthew may or may not have exclusive pictures of Audrey posted up in his crib. - Louis Gray

You laugh, but I met my wife online, on Stumbleupon. - Thomas

So cute. Looks like it could also be the next installation in the etrade commericals... - Renée Barrett

Audrey will post pictures of Matthew in her crib once she's big enough to have a crib. :) - Rochelle

how did I miss this? lol - Michael W. May

ha! - sean percival

Just awesome! - Martha

Matthew mac(k)ing in more ways than one. Totally cute! - Trish Haley

Well, this is how *my* husband and I met - minus the webcam, plus 29 years ;) - TheMacMommy

Cute! - David Cook

andy brudtkuhl

New Search Features at Google Searchology - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009...

May 12 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

jk5027a, Sean O'Brien, Nicholas James and 21 other people liked this

"You'll be able to restrict the results to forums, videos, reviews and recent pages. There's an option that lets you customize the snippets by making them longer or by showing thumbnails, much like Cuil. Google wants to make the process of refining queries more fun and exploratory by adding a "wonder wheel" of suggestions." - andy brudtkuhl

Steven Perez

The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone - http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...

March 20 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Siddharth Deb, Nia, vicster needs a nap and 8 other people liked this

"The best way to understand the financial crisis is to understand the meltdown at AIG. AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror. This is a company that built a giant fortune across more than a century by betting on safety-conscious policyholders — people who wear seat belts and build houses on high ground — and then blew it all in a year or two by turning their entire balance sheet over to a guy who acted like making huge bets with other people's money would make his dick bigger." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

8 more comments

When Taibbi's on, he's *on*. - Andrew C

BTW, while his description of how the tranching process is clear enough, you may or may not be surprised to learn that 85% of the debt in a CDO got put into the "top" tranche. ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps...& ) So it seems to me that there was an implicit assumption that the total default rate in those CDOs wouldn't get far past 15%. - Andrew C

"The bonuses are a nice comic touch highlighting one of the more outrageous tangents of the bailout age, namely the fact that, even with the planet in flames, some members of the Wall Street class can't even get used to the tragedy of having to fly coach. "These people need their trips to Baja, their spa treatments, their hand jobs," says an official involved in the AIG bailout, a serious look on his face, apparently not even half-kidding. "They don't function well without them."" - Andrew C

What a rough life. At least now I know who those asshole tourists are from when I lived in Baja. - Steven Perez

Bumped, in response to Mona's earlier tweet: http://beta.friendfeed.com/monasfe... - Steven Perez

"The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged, they talk about how hard they work, the 90-hour weeks, the stress, the failed marriages, the hemorrhoids and gallstones they all get before they hit 40." - Steven Perez

“But wait a minute,” you say to them. “No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what’s left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?” - Steven Perez

"But before you even finish saying that, they’re rolling their eyes, because You Don’t Get It. These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they’re on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties. Yet these are the people in whose hands our entire political future now rests." - Steven Perez

Assigning blame, in and of itself, is a dead-end exercise. But you can't fix a complex problem unless you first determine (a) who did what and (b) how they did it. Only then, once you know what patterns to avoid, can one move forward. Otherwise, you're only setting yourself for another failure further down the line. - Steven Perez

David Cook

***SHE SAID YES!!!*** =D

April 8 - Comment - Like - Share

@CrystalinaB, Aaron Draczynski, Faizar and 255 other people liked this

Congrats - Mycaptain

120 more comments

Congrats! - Alex Scoble

Mazel Mazel! - Justin Korn

Congrats, David, and the future Mrs. Cook! - Derrick

Congrats! - Mo Kargas

Congrats! - Michael McKean

congratulations! - Jay

Awesome! - Robert Scoble

Congratulations - jerry

:o Awesome! Congratulations!! Did you drug her first? :P - Lindsey is Fierce!

+++++ - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Congrats :) - Rodfather

Congratulations! - Admiral Anika

Congratulations. That's exciting. :) - ♥patricia♥

Congratulations - RAPatton

congrats! - Rob Sellen :o)

Of course Lindsey, how else is a guy like me gonna land a awesome chick like her?! - David Cook

Awesome! congrats.... - Marcus Schroefel

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee CONGRATS!!! - Helen Sventitsky

Congrats! Hope she is a good one! - Mathew™ one of a kind

Congratulations!! - Christine Yang from BuddyFeed

Congrats - Russ Jackson

Congratulations!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕ from BuddyFeed

Wow, congrats, David! :-) - Kol Tregaskes

congrats David :) - webosapien (Burcu Tüzün)

RAD - just got warm fuzzy feeling. - alexia tsotsis

good for you (and her of course)! - Cee Bee

W00T!!! CONGRATS!!! :-D - Anna Haro

mazal Tov - Kfir Pravda

Congratulations, David! - ronin

congratulations! nice ring! - Trish Haley

Congrats :) - BeeLing

nice ring! - anna sauce

David, that's wonderful! Congratulations!!! - Zee.

CONGRATS!!! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Congrats!!! - Internet's Tad

should be the most liked thing by end of the week. ;o) - Rob Sellen :o)

Congratulations! - Parth Awasthi

Congrats man! - Andrew

Thank you all *so* much! You're all so awesome!!! - David Cook from fftogo

This is nice to see...a great reminder that no matter how bad things get with the economy, etc., life indeed goes on. :) Congratulations and many blessings! - Dawn

congrats! - Anne Bouey

Congrats! - Tony

Congratulations :) - 士慷

EPIC!!!!! Congrats! - Live4Emma (L4S)

Congratulations ^-^ - Crystal Tillman from twhirl

congrats! - mashable

congrats! - Daniel Herrera

Congrats! - Charlie Anzman

yes! congrats! - Allen Stern

Congratulations!!! Nice ring =) - nouhad

Way to go! - Will-Pastor of FF

Congratulations! - Steven Perez

Congratulations! Hope you have as many wonderful years as my wife and I have had! - John A. Taylor

YEAH!! CONGRATULATIONS DAVID!!!!! Wooo Hooooo!!!! :) - Susan Beebe

Congrats! - Jeremy Brooks

Congratulations! - imabonehead

Lovely - Karma Martell

Congratulations to the both of you, beautiful! - Zax Stevens

Congratulations David. That is wonderful! - Keith - @tsudo

Sweeeeeeeeeet! Here's to many years of happiness! - Greg McBride from Nambu

Congrats to you, David :) - Baard @ Pixum

Congrats! - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Congrats! - Rutger Blom

Congrats, David. - Micah Wittman

Hurray, Congrats - Nils Hitze from twhirl

congrats - eric

Bravo to that and welcome to a new chapter of your life. :) - Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa

In case nobody else has said it, congratulations! - Mark H

Great news David - Frederick Bvalani

Awesome, congratulations! Marriage is a great thing man! - Allen Harkleroad

Congrats you two :) - embee

Congratulations! <3 - Nia

Congrats! - Jorg Jansen

congrats! - sergiooo

Congratulations!!! I remember that day.. lots of emotions - Alessandro Galetto from twhirl

Congratsss - Wolkanca Sapar

ace! first FF engagement? now for the wedding... ustream? :P - Stuart Evans from twhirl

Woo-hoo! Congratulations! :) - JA Castillo

With a ring like that I would probably say yes too... Congratualions! - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Congratulations! - Rob Brammeld

Congrats! - Thomas Hawk

Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Ahmed

..and now you feel great! Congrats!!! - Business Blogger【ツ】™

:D - Yuvi

Congrats ! - Guy Vander Heyden

Congrats!!! And welcome to the jungle!!! :D - Nestor

Congratulations! - Nicholas James

Congrats - Alfredo

Congratulations - MAS

Congratulations - Like

Congra... :) - امـ‌ی‌ــر

Congratulations:) - joupy

الهیییییییییییییییییییی چه احساسی داره:) - joupy

Congratulations David! :) - AJ Batac

Congratulations , Hope you live happily ever after :) - ₦ấŽắЙἵŊ

congrats :) - Lucio

Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's wonderful! - Carmen

most excellent! - William Harryman

yay!!! =D - Jenny Morman

Congrats! - Mohammad Abdurraafay

hey congrats - (jeff)isageek

congrats! - Martin Sliacky

Congrats! - Bryan R. Adams

Beautiful ring. Congrats! - Cheryl Jones

Congratulations! - joey

Congrats!! - Nurse Katie

Congratulations!! - TiTi

Congratulations and best wishes !!! - Nir Ben Yona

con'grats !! - Peter Dawson

congrats! - John Wang

Congratulations mate. Now, it's my turn ;-) - Shinil Payamal from twhirl

aaaawwwwww - Yolanda

Grandma told you she was a keeper" Congrats sweetheart I wish you both all the years of happiness I have had and so many more! Love ya bunches" - Katt

CONGRATS!!! :)) - Emma

Awesome - Andrew

Congrats!!!! - johnilouise

Congrats!! Lucky you, you're the man! - natadd from twhirl

Congratulations on the engagements and that GORGEOUS RING!! wow!! good job!! I bet the bride is just as beautiful :) - TheMacMommy

Ejalé!!! - Franco

Congrats. - Alp

Awesome!! - BEX

Robert Scoble

Let's talk on friendfeed about my wacky idea to combine techmeme, friendfeed, google news, twitter search into 1 site:

April 2 - Comment - Like - Share

Dan Brickley, Enrique Gutierrez, Rob Diana and 73 other people liked this

I tweeted this: http://twitter.com/Scoblei... and it got a big discussion going about what I was looking for. Here's more details: - Robert Scoble

90 more comments

I was looking at the "Everyone" page here on friendfeed and realized what I wanted was the "everyone" page, but filtered to show items that were already on Techmeme. - Robert Scoble

Then I thought about all the other sites I visit every morning. Google News. Google Blog Search. Twitter search. And wondered why no one had built a "meta news" site that uses all of these. http://www.techfuga.com/ is one idea. http://www.feedly.com is another. http://www.alltop.com is another. - Robert Scoble

As I said on Twitter, you're looking to solve a problem VERY few people have + are going to have in the future. - Robin Wauters

But none of those satisfy. None have done a good job for me alone. - Robert Scoble

I want the same thing. All my RSS feeds in one client, with the ability to tweet them, and have a conversation thread that you can actually follow (which for one reason or another Twitter doesn't enable very well). Add to that search capabilities that span several social networks and then you'd have a winner. - Josue Fontanez

Robert, seems like it's already a pretty doable idea using Yahoo pipes and dupe removal... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Robin: I really don't give a shit. Why does everything have to be for billions of people? - Robert Scoble

Your wacky idea should have an algorithm to combine similar posts (links to articles, mainly). FF doesn't seem to do this very well. - You.

Robin: a great meal happens four people at a time. No one complains that no one else can experience it. - Robert Scoble

Everyone: There's millions to be made here. Pay attention! - Meryn Stol

Tina: I need to learn Yahoo Pipes. Has anyone created a Pipe that does something close to this? - Robert Scoble

@RobinWauters maybe it's a problem that people just aren't aware that they have. - Landon

I have no capital to invest in your plan Robert, but I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, and support this idea in a non-money sort of way. - Matthew DeVries

Robin: great technologies get built to scratch an itch all the time. Even Twitter. When they built it they had no clue that it would be popular. - Robert Scoble

I'm not sure they should join such a site even if it were cool. Twitter search is destined for greatness. Imagine Live.com was the only search engine to display real-time results from Twitter.com together with their normal results? People would search for something, and not only get the usual results, but what people are saying about that right now. It would be a killer combo, something... more... - Odi Kosmatos

Scoble, why don't you quickly break down what specific value each service brings to the table? ie why do you bother going there in the first place? - Landon

I've played around with Pipes and it's a very powerful (and not surprisingly user-unfriendly) technology. - You.

Landon: sure. Techmeme shows me the biggest stories in Tech in a way that's unique and shows me lots of blogs that are talking about each story. Friendfeed has the best community and best "live web" search engine. Google News shows me all the news from around the world. Sports. Finance. Big city stuff. Etc. Just like your newspaper.Twitter search shows me what people are talking about right now. - Robert Scoble

Pipes seem too complicated for my musician mind. I should have digged it more, but I don't have much time to find a perfect solution for myself. I wish I could just login to one account and everyone I'm interested in would be there. - ilter

I'd like to be able to subscribe to notifications on a post's comments. Like FB, I guess. - You.

Take a look at Streamy. I'm finding it to be very useful for this type of thing. Saved FF and Twitter searches like TweetDeck. Across the board service seraches. The service itself is similar to FF (with discussions, etc) but a much better RSS reader than FF. Development is ongoing with new features very few days right now it seems. http://www.streamy.com - Kevin Kuphal

This morning I started out on friendfeed and noticed it was very slow. Then I went over to TechMeme and found lots of interesting stories and wondered if I was missing people talking about those stories over on friendfeed. So I went to the Everyone page here and started doing some searches. But was very frustrated with what came back (mostly non-English sites). - Robert Scoble

Robert: I've made a couple of pipes. The main ones grab info from 7-15 different feeds, remove dupes based on a couple of criteria and filters out keywords I don't want (which is a HUGE plus IMO). It's not perfect, and some dupes still get through because different sites put information in different places in their markup, but that's because I use so many sources. If you're using Google... more... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I wanted a friendfeed search that showed me news that was being discussed on Techmeme. That's what got me thinking about all this. - Robert Scoble

Tina: I'd like to smoke your pipe! :-) I have a Yahoo account. You can email me at scobleizer@gmail.com - Robert Scoble

I would want just one more element: authority. i'd like to know who submitted it and if they know their shit. - Landon

They are integrated in my eyes, and for me. - Richard A.

Sounds like a sort of info/comms nirvana...maybe it's an Air app, adding windows for these other services into something like what Yahoo just released which is a modest gas - Sideline. - Thom Kennon

Robert: Would tapping into RSS be fast enough for what you want though or are you thinking more of a real time thing? - Landon

friendfeed combines techmem, googlenew, yahoo , twitter and a lot more other sites, including itself , that is, if you sub to a room into another pvt room: !! This is a self ecusive space much like a Mandelbrot set , if you can handle it !! - Peter Dawson

Landon: http://www.peoplebrowsr.com/ gives you some of authority because I can tag people. Someone else recommended http://oursignal.com/ - Robert Scoble

Landon: RSS isn't enough. It's not fast enough, for one, and it won't include friendfeed items for two. I'm not sure if you can even do what I want. Peter: I'm an advanced private room user here on friendfeed and it doesn't do what I want. - Robert Scoble

Peter: I want the ranking to come along with Techmeme too. What's at the top of the page is more important than what's at the bottom. That's why RSS isn't very satisfying since that forces everything into reverse chronilogical order unless you do some wacky tricks with RSS. - Robert Scoble

Well, I don´t know the details, but the people want to talk about popular things... other sites like Friendfeed offer this, your site must be different... what would be the difference (exactly)? I suposse the site offer the popular themes on Techmeme or Google News as topics for conversation - HECTOR ARTURO

Robert, wouldn't it be a good idea to take the feedback and your thoughts to your blog, so you can elaborate a bit on what it is you want? You can explain in more detail and the feedback will be even more valuable. - Robin Wauters

Hector: yup. I wish I could see conversations on friendfeed that match up to what's on Google News or on Techmeme or on Twitter search. That would be cool. - Robert Scoble

Robert -- what is the problem you are trying to solve? It seems to me you posted a solution and people are madly discussing other solutions. I don't see any clear statement of the problem. - Brian Sullivan

Robin: yup, after I think about it some more. This was mostly a brain fart I had and I like being interactive when I'm brainstorming ideas like this. Seems to have at least a few other people interested too. - Robert Scoble

Brian: the problem is that on friendfeed it's hard to find the really good tech conversations. If you are over on Google News, it's hard to find the blogs and tweets and friendfeed conversations that are happening around the news. If you are over on Techmeme it's hard to find the stuff that's happening on Twitter or friendfeed. That tells me there's opportunity for something new to glue all of these together to make all of them more useful. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I think this is a great idea...I'm swimming in all the details of trying to sift the news and see whats really happening and what people really think about it. I also don't have as much time to go through each and every site to discover the gems-This idea certainly has the potential of being VERY useful to a good number of people. Meryn points out there are millions to be made w/ this - Correct. Directly possibly, and Indirectly FOR SURE. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

It's an interesting train of thought, but I'm still left wondering what you want - Robin Wauters

Robert: I can dm or email you something I'm working on that you might like. Private - trying to launch at TC50. - Landon

Robin: let's just take it from friendfeed for a second, to answer what I want. I want to have a site that uses the "Everyone" feed and shows me everyone who is discussing an item that's currently on Techmeme. I'd love it if it were displayed like Techmeme too. Is that understandable as to what I want? Now, that we got that, let's add Twitter search's trending topics. Cool? Now let's add Google News. - Robert Scoble

the question is does FF support any RSS feed? if so then integrate what you want, integrating service is interesting, filtering by interest even more interesting. - abdellah

Landon: please do. I'll keep to embargoes. scobleizer@gmail.com or you can call me at +1-425-205-1921 - Robert Scoble

Here is a search that shows all of the most engaged items on friendfeed right now. (This search shows all items on the Everyone feed that have 5 comments AND five "likes."). http://friendfeed.com/search... Note how noisy it is and how unfocused it is. I'd love it if I could say "filter by Techmeme." Or "filter by what's currently on Google News." - Robert Scoble

love that idea filtering by service :) - abdellah

abdellah: Friendfeed can pull in any RSS feed (or most of them, anyway) but that's not what I want. I want it to display items that are already on Techmeme. RSS might play a role in that, but it isn't enough. I'd need an engine to go through the Everyone feed looking for discussions already taking place and then I'd need to display those. Techmeme's value is in its display, which isn't easy to communicate via RSS. It's a tough problem. - Robert Scoble

Robert. Here's a quick screenshot I did from Streamy. Took seconds to create a search widget added to my FF page that shows techmeme conversations. http://img504.imageshack.us/img504.... Works the same for searching twitter as well as your RSS feeds. - Kevin Kuphal

Well, casually. some minutes ago, I was talking about the tendences on Twitter users & those tendences can fix on your project (if is a project): http://twitter.com/hectora... http://twitter.com/hectora... http://twitter.com/hectora... http://twitter.com/leugimf... - HECTOR ARTURO

Robert: i'll buzz you now if that's cool. - Landon

Fallon's Skimmer - http://www.fallon.com/skimmer - does a good job of the more media-centric social networks (FB, YT, etc) - maybe an AIR app is the way to tackle this as opposed to burying it in a tab that can easily lose its session/context/settings etc... - Ben Watson from twhirl

Tina: you have the right idea here with your pipe setup & de-duping- It would be great if something could then point out where all the dupes are at the end of each entry, rate/rank by # reads (of article and originating sites), and have "authority" rating via tags perhaps imported from the likes of peoplebrowsr. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Kevin: but that shows all items that discuss Techmeme. I don't want that. Too noisy. I only want to see items that actually are ON Techmeme. - Robert Scoble

sounds like my stream, thankyou, lol :) - chaz2b

Heavens me, Robert. I would love to have 'problems' like this. For someone whose on the interent non-stop, what would you do with all the free time you'd have If you just had one "single stop" for meta-everything? (conversations, feeds etc, etc) /tounge-slightly-in-cheek, of course ;) - Chris Duffy

I think Pipes are probably the way to go then. You really need some logic behind the filtering. More than a typical search will give. - Kevin Kuphal

Robert - how would you relate or tag the conversations as being on "Techmeme" or "Google News". I don't think it works if it is a mechanical connection (url referenced for instance). That kind of connection misses so much is an generally unsatisfying. It seems the connecting requires intelligence, personal involvement -- difficult to do in real time -- maybe you could pay people to do it (like Mahalo?). - Brian Sullivan

robert, I understand yes, it is a kind a a big puzzle where all the "related" "related by what" items a cross diverse services. - abdellah

Doesn't BackType do this? Just pump a Techmeme link through BackType's API to get everyone's comments. Example: http://www.backtype.com/connect... - Daniel Sims

Chris: if I had this, I'd find something else to complain about. :-) Kevin: I must learn to use Pipes. Marshall Kirkpatrick showed me that last year and it looked useful, but I never had a big enough need. This is it. - Robert Scoble

Daniel: that is very close to what I want, but not there. Backtype is mostly about federating comments, I thought. At least that's how I use it, although the link you gave me shows that it can be used in other ways. Interesting. - Robert Scoble

brian, you are brilliant, there are 2 sort of connection "words" and "social graph", without going in AI level algorithm this may be done by investigating those 2 direction : "related words" , "related peoples" - abdellah

as brian says it is hard if we try to make it real time , pipes are useless if we have to make it real time :) - abdellah

Brian: you might be right that it needs to have some human involvement. Even Techmeme is learning that it's better to have atul working for them (for free, I might add!) than to have just algorithms doing the work. - Robert Scoble

I think the issue is that the controls necessary to fine tune the conversation would look like you are flying a plane. If you want to just see everything based on a keyword at a point in time there are really easy tools but if you want to archive everything, like I do in Google Reader, have curation like Techmeme, and let friends play like friendfeed it would be a very complex interface. That's why we are talking pipes, tweetdeck, http://tradeshowmetrics.com/Default... or maybe tinker.com - Tom

I've been advocating for integration between TechMeme and FF in terms of comments and links. Twitter threads also need to be preserved in FF. I don't use GoogleReader. Lora and I have been talking about the opposite though and things getting too connected. Hotmail, for instance, shows "what's new in your network" (Twitter, Live status, etc) by default and to me this just doesn't seem... more... - Loren Heiny

I can almost guarantee you there are at least 10 people reading this who are part of teams trying to build such a service/app. I'd guess 50% are building a web site, expecting people will add yet another site to their daily workflow or just drop some other combination of sites to use theirs. 40% are probably building Air apps, and 10% are building Mac apps. And I'd guess none of them are talking to each other, because everybody wants to be the next big thing. I wonder... - Ken Sheppardson

...what would it take to get them all in the same room, and convince them to pool resources? - Ken Sheppardson

Isn't it far easier to just ignore it all and serendipitously skim the occasional bit or piece of it, rather than bulk it all up and eat it whole? Use the lack of integration to your advantage. Blimey, you're probably reading every single comment on here, too! - Ian Tindale

Ian: I am! :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert (or anyone else for that matter): here's an example pipe http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes... This takes a Google Blogs search for Techmeme, a FF search for Techmeme (items with > 5 likes & 5 comments), and a news.Google.com search for Techmeme. Filters out any from Scoble's site, and then permits any that are a link to Techmeme, Google News, or have... more... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Tina: that's cool, but it's not satisfying. For one, it doesn't look like either Techmeme or Friendfeed. I think I need to do a video of what I want to explain it better, but I'm off to attend the Web 2.0 expo so will noodle on that this weekend. Thanks everyone, interesting times we live in! - Robert Scoble

Robert: this kind of pipe creates a feed that you can bring directly into FF, say into a room that you create. Just a thought. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Let's combine the whole internet into one site.... ooh wait, Google already done that. - Amit Morson

Robert: We (BackType) certainly federate comments, but around more than their authors -- we federate around keywords (search) and content (connect) like the example Daniel showed you, which connects the conversational graph for a particular blog post. I e-mailed you about what we're doing w/ the latter. But more generally, I think FriendFeed for news is a basis for what you're... more... - Christopher Golda

@Scoble: i agree with your initial assertion that Feedly is pretty close...they've done an AMAZING job with it so far... - .LAG liked that

I hate to pimp my own service (not really) but with our last update at justSignal.com we now have support for Twitter, Google Blog Search and Backtype - you get each as a widget that can be fully customized via CSS and incorporated into your site. You also get the DATA... which is great if you want to learn something from what you collect. FriendFeed is next on our list... Link: http://briantroy.com/blog... - Brian Roy

@BrianRoy... everyone knows: pimpin' aint easy! i'm heading over for a look at justSignal. thx. - .LAG liked that

LAG - love to hear your feedback/thoughts brian dot roy at cosinity dot com - Brian Roy

@Scoble +1 for Feedly. It is FriendFeed aware. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Feedly is the service which is best on track to pull all this together. - Sean McBride

I thought the whole point of FriendFeed was to aggregate other sources. Wouldn't it just make sense to lobby FF to add those additional things? - Kevin Elliott

@Kevin Ah, but here's the question. Should FriendFeed be used as a 'Friend' aggregator or a 'Web Feed' aggregator ? I would prefer to use Feedly/GReader for the latter. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

In a very general sense I see things headed in that direction, aggregation of news/blog/social media sources with tools for users to interact with the content. FF already does an amazing job with much of that, of course :-) - Eric Berlin

I am working on a site like this. Will send you invite in few days - Niraj

I'd like to be in the beta too Niraj - Matthew DeVries

And for your next magic trick, figure out some way to deal with all of the duplicate posts... :) - Steve Lynch from twhirl

and Digg? - HECTOR ARTURO

I like this idea of yours Robert. Portal of goodness :) - Susan Beebe

Check out http://www.memereview.com - James Payne

Second Life: Victoria Champion

Second Life gallery exhibit of my paintings - http://victoriachampion.blogspot.com/2009...

April 2 - Comment - Like - Share

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Artwork by Victoria Messenger, curated by Sunset Quinnell of Ice Caverns Gallery. SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondl... - Victoria Champion

Steve Rubel

Checking out Spaz - an open source Twitter client http://funkatron.com/spaz

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Thomas Hawk

PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama tax pledge up in smoke - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...

April 2 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

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"The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama's promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000. This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich. To be sure, Obama's tax promises in last year's campaign were most often made in the context of income taxes. Not always. "I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."" - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

81 more comments

an interesting take on Obama's pledge that people making less than $250,000 per year will not see *any* tax increase. Certainly this tax disproportionately affects the poor. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas, Thanks for posting this. To all the health crusaders out there that think this tax is going to help the poor, think again. Smoking rates are highly sticky at 20%. If you really want people to quit raise the tax to $500 dollars a pack. But that will just create a black market right? Can't you see the hypocrisy in this? We are soaking the poor and the addicted. It's just wrong. - Steve Olson

MFing liar....he's just a puppet. It's not him...keep telling myself it's not him...he's just a puppet. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

*snicker* Look at the smokers trying to pretend they're families dependent on the product. Just don't buy the product sillyheads. - Matthew DeVries

Thomas, those types of taxes are non-optional. A sales/use tax is in theory optional because people in theory have the option to not buy the product (and I say this as the daughter of a former cigar store owner). With that out of the way, I personally think sin taxes are about the worst possible way to gain revenue. That doesn't change the fact that every state is already guilty of it in some way, shape, or form. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I make less than $200k and don't mind this tax. I don't smoke and I see this as a voluntary tax. You choose to smoke, you choose to pay the taxes. Same with gas taxes, they should be raised as well. I do drive, but it's a choice. If those taxes go up I can choose to take a bus or ride a bike. - Gary H

Steve - I'm fat. As a fat person, I firmly support a raise in taxes on Fast Food. If they did this to fast food, I would not be like you out there claiming some pseudo bias against the poor and the fat, too keep my McNuggets flowing. I'd just buy healthy food instead. You're actions are exactly like base-head in I think it was Menace to Society. "I'll suck yo dick" to get his crack. You're shaming yourself. Just stand up and quit smoking if you think this is wrong. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, I wish it was that simple, it isn't. The government knows it. Poor people will pay the tax and keep smoking and it will make it that much harder for them to escape poverty. - Steve Olson

Not sure I understand your premise, Gary and Matthew—you mean that he's NOT raising taxes, and that he kept his word? - Glen Mistletoe

Steve - It's already practically free to quit smoking with every community and health program offering free patches, free counseling, free support groups. I'm officially done worrying about anyone who tries to smoke. - Matthew DeVries

Sure it's an optional tax. But Obama didn't say he wouldn't raise non-optional taxes. He said he wouldn't raise *any* taxes on people making less than $250,000. "will see *any* form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not *any* of your taxes." Maybe he should have chosen his words better. FWIW I think this tax is unethical to the extent that it disproportionately affects the poor, whether by choice or not. - Thomas Hawk

Poor people do stupid things like smoke all the time. I hate those rip off check cashing places that take a *huge* chunk of poor people's money because they don't have bank accounts. People say it's their *choice* to cash their checks there. But it's still predatory on poor people who frequently make bad choices, as is this tax. - Thomas Hawk

Ok, so your contention is that, if a member of a family has to pay a tax, that's not a tax on the family. Therefore, with that logic, my family pays $0.00 in taxes; it's only the individuals in the family that pay the taxes. Did I get that right? - Glen Mistletoe

Thomas, stop confusing dumb people and poor people. Bernie Madoff scammed a whole lot dumb people, and no one feels bad for any of them. - Matthew DeVries

I feel bad for the people that Madoff scammed. I feel bad for the people who get hit with this tax as well. - Thomas Hawk

Yeah, I've felt bad for people I didn't feel bad about before to win a debate as well. - Matthew DeVries

Matthew, #1 he didn't keep his word. #2 I agree being fat and being a smoker or a driver is a choice not a necessity. However almost everything in our society is a luxury. Neither of us "need" most of the things we have. When I was poor, I was poor for a reason. I made poor life choices. Taxing those poor choices would have made it worse. It would have made my growth that much harder. I didn't quit smoking until I was firmly in the middle class. - Steve Olson

Instead of counting what promises Obama hasn't kept, it's easier to count the few he has. - Dawn

Steve - you fail to convince that taxing a smoker is the same as taxing a class. Dawn - use this: http://www.museumtrail.org/images... It will do a better job. - Matthew DeVries

Although SCHIP was supported by many health organizations, Big Tobacco was also heavily involved. If you look at the actual bill you see that taxes on a pack of cigarettes went up only about $.50. In recent years, many smokers have turned to the RYO/MYO option using pre-made filtered tubes that are "stuffed" with cigarette tobacco. It cost around $11 per carton to make your own - cutting into Big Tobacco profits, and providing a healthier alternative. Taxes on RYO tobacco went up 2400%. Who fooled who? - Brian Hill

People actually believe campaign promises? - Morton Fox

"Critics say the tax will disproportionately hurt poor people. Fine! Did we somehow forget that poor people already are likely to be in poorer health because they are living in areas where there are food deserts, and that means lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables?" Poor folks are likely to lack insurance, which means when they get sick, they will go to a city or county... more... - Steve C

That was from my post yesterday, http://friendfeed.com/e... - Steve C

1UP Dawn. True dat. And he made a lot of them. - You.

Wait! Stop the presses! A politician said one thing to get elected and then did another while in office? This is unheard of. Why isn't this on the front page of every paper? Its a conspiracy. Want to really tax the poor? Start a national lottery. - gfurry

Morton, they tepidly believe that they mean to do it, but when it is your guy you are always willing to rationalize it away; when it is not your guy, it is a most odious sin - RAPatton

Some of us saw it for the BS that it was, and some of us didn't. - You.

That's a weak argument. There's a real simple solution: stop smoking. You won't pay taxes on tobacco, you're health won't suffer and if you're poor, you'll have more money to spend on more important things. I can't believe with all the negative effects of smoking that people continue to smoke. Don't think of it as a tobacco tax, think of it as a tax for being stupid. - Rob LaRosa

Brian: the irony is that it does, ppl only think it doesn't - You.

Rob, Taxing the stupid. That's intelligent. Have you ever been addicted to anything? Did you know your intelligence has nothing to do with it? You think it does, but it doesn't. Huge numbers of highly intelligent people are addicted to all kinds of things. Huge numbers of poor people are highly intelligent. This is a tax on making a choice (smoking) you disagree with. It has nothing to do with intelligence. - Steve Olson

I'm not saying it's any surprise to see a politician break their promise. George Bush broke his promise on taxes with his now famous "read my lips," pledge. But I still think they should be called out on their broken promises when they make them. I don't smoke. I don't play the lottery. It might be easy to dismiss these taxes because they don't affect me. I just don't think taxing the poor (even through these sorts of behavioral taxes) is just. - Thomas Hawk

We were doomed with both candidates. Neither of their economic plans made sense. I'm ready for a third party. - Jesse Stay

Sorry, I'm just having hard time getting worked up about the fact that people will have to pay an extra $.50 per pack toward the health care they're going to need down the road for engaging in a filthy, annoying, intrusive and ultimately deadly habit. It's not a tax, it's insurance. If you want me to support your lifestyle with subsidies to the tobacco industry, that's the price you're going to have to pay. Deal. - Kevin Pedraja

I guess they should stop smoking if they don't wanna pay those taxes. Sucks to be them. I have no sympathy for smokers. - Paul Wade

I am working on quitting smoking soon. I quit for a year and a half and then started back up again because of stress. Nicotine is a completely different animal. It messes with your mind like you wouldn't believe. Worst cravings I've ever had in my life, even when I crave food it's not as bad as Nicotine. Just sayin. We were young and stupid when we picked up the habit, they got us hooked intentionally, and now we're fighting with a nasty addiction. Giving up alcohol was easier than quitting smoking. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

If this is "breaking his promise", then *picardfacepalm.jpg* - Andrew C

Perhaps look at it a different way: By raising the tax, the choice of whether to smoke or not becomes no choice for the lowest wage earner. Smoking is still a choice, last time I looked, and the government is now making a choice for some of the people, in effect, a dictorial move. In the bigger picture there is almost consensus across the political spectrum that any type of usage tax... more... - MVB (Grinch of FF)

Whether it is voluntary to pay the tax or not, by choosing whether or not to buy the product, think of it this way: Would you feel the same if the tax was on toilet paper and not cigarettes? I mean it would still be voluntary...You could choose not to wipe. - April Russo (app103)

Mark, exactly. This is all about government forcing itself on people. They're doing this to make people quit smoking or bring more financial burden on. Even if this was a tax on weed killer because it destroys plants and is harmful to the environment I'd still be against it. I've never killed a weed in my life and I'd still be pissed. Not affecting me, but affecting people who want a nice garden without weeds. Still force by the government. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Brian; Maybe. On the other hand, I paid a pretty large sum in taxes this year. But why should I be paying for a subsidy to tobacco farmers on one end and the health care for the people they kill on the other? In each case, trying to change policy always results in a "little guy getting screwed" sort of argument. That's BS. Either can the subsidies or tax the habit (and hopefully reduce the number of new people who get addicted). But smokers aren't and shouldn't be treated like a protected class. - Kevin Pedraja

"By raising the tax, the choice of whether to smoke or not becomes no choice for the lowest wage earner." - I'll reconsider about how 'dictatorial' this move is if/when conservatives concede the same thing about health care's unaffordability for the poor, then. - Andrew C

"This tax, by definition, is punative" - unlike those other sales taxes!??? - Andrew C

Keven, when's the last time you saw a smoker inside a public building smoking? Unless you live in a state that doesn't ban smoking in public buildings, I rest my case. We smokers are NOT a protected class. They would make FAR more money increasing the tax on Alcohol by $0.25 a 6 pack than adding $1.01 a pack to my cigarettes. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Mike (slayerboy), I'm with you. It's time to quit and it's a terrible addiction. As for the taxes from cigarettes paying for SCHIP, according to a post on the Heritage Foundation website, 22 million of you people need to man up and start smoking. http://www.heritage.org/researc... - Greg Guitarbuster

If you think this money is going to go to health care, you are absolutely wrong. They are not going to send a dime of this to the insurance companies as extra payment to cover the costs of healthcare to smokers. People that already have health insurance don't take money for their health care from the government. Their bills are paid by the insurance companies. And the poor that are... more... - April Russo (app103)

Sin tax isn't a tax on all of us. Most of us do not smoke so no tax levied on those of us that don't. Since when has sin taxes been associate with taxation on the masses like income tax. When a Federal Transaction Fee occurs on every purchase then we've been taxed. There was an article last week about an increase in water costs through some federal fee. That would be raising taxes on everyone. - Monique

Greg, that's easy...they are just going to do what they've always done....target teens. By keeping it a stigma in society, it becomes more attractive to teens. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

April: the article says the money's going to expanding federal health care insurance for kids, presumably S-CHIP. - Andrew C

Monique, that's on bottled water. I don't drink bottled water. That tax doesn't affect me. By the standard of people saying "doesn't affect me, tax them all they want", then they should go ahead and tax the hell out of bottled water drinkers. It's bad for the environment, fills landfills, and is potentially more unsafe than tap water. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

@Andrew exactly like other sales/use taxes. All take a larger percent of income of a low wage earner than a high wage earner for the same sheet of plywood. That's why income tax is somewhat more fair because it is a sliding scale up. BTW income taxes need another bracket at $500K net. Incomes have outpaced limits. - MVB (Grinch of FF)

I understand what you're saying, and believe me when I say I mean no offense, but a person would have to be hopelessly naive or willfuly ignorant to believe that anyone, including any politician, would actually mean to have their words about tax increases interpreted as rigidly as you are doing here. If you disagree politically, so be it - just say so. If you're unhappy about the... more... - Brad Farris from twhirl

For the bottled water thing....http://www.jacksonville.com/news... http://www.nytimes.com/2009... http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Brad, I never believed his lies from the beginning. Never believed McCain either. This is about government control. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Heritage Foundation: now there's some unbiased analysis for ya. Slayerboy, I note that you ignored the first part of my last post. So, again: Why should I pay both for tobacco producers (via subsidies) and tobacco smokers (via increases to MY health care insurance and higher Medicare taxes) to support your habit? Don't talk to me about your freedom to do something being restricted when you're expecting somebody else to foot the bill for it. - Kevin Pedraja

Why not tax the hell out of caffeine products like they do to tobacco? Let's be fair and attack everyone that has addictions. How about a $0.50 increase per cup of coffee, tea, caffeinated sodas, etc. Let's legislate better health habits for everyone and do them all a big favor and make them either dirt poor or better off if they quit their addictions. - April Russo (app103)

+1 April. Tax caffiene the same. Does that change the argument? Not on my side. - MVB (Grinch of FF)

Kevin, I have a serious problem with you paying for the subsidies and higher health care increases. This is all brought on by the government. Health Care is a scam. Oh, and hey guess what man, my health insurance has gone up every year since I've been employed. I'm currently paying $80/week for health care as a single person. This is a little outrageous. Forgive me for feeling like I'm just being forced to bend over farther and farther. It's a little past the breaking point. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Oh I have another great idea: let's give everyone in America a free gym membership and force them to go and workout every day. We could fine the ones that don't go, to pay for it all. That would be nice, huh? We will have a nice fit & healthy population in no time at all. - April Russo (app103)

I think there are two issues here. 1. Did Obama break his promise? I'd say the answer to that is yes. He emphasized *any* in his pledge not once but twice. He did not qualify certain kind of taxes nor qualify that it only applied to non-smokers. 2. Is an increased tax on cigarettes a good thing? Some will say yes, some will say no. Personally I think it is not. I voted for Obama by the way. - Thomas Hawk

An increase in tax on a behavorial item that a small-ish percentage of people in the US use is a very different beast from a sales tax increase on toilet paper (which everyone or most everyone uses every day). They're the same idea (in that fixed $ amount taxes hits the poorer harder), but wildly different in scale of people who are affected. I personally have no problem with an increase in cigarette taxes. And seriously, the original opinion is ridiculous. See Brad's response for why. - Chieze Okoye

Thomas, I agree on both. - MVB (Grinch of FF)

I love how all the libertarians and free market types ignore the fact that we PAY tobacco producers to grow and sell a deadly product. What would a pack of cigarettes cost if there were no subsidies? Anyone know? - Kevin Pedraja

Kevin, the Government did not start subsidizing until 1998 when they passed the bill for whatever about health care blah blah. http://www.speakout.com/activis... also....only $530 million in subsidies, a drop in the bucket in this economy http://farm.ewg.org/farm... - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

When I started smoking in 1996, a pack of smokes was $1 or so. I have a feeling if the government had originally stayed OUT of all of this, they wouldn't be so much. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

"...if there were no subsidies?" Subsidies were ended on tobacco in 2005. And what of the subsidies on corn? Used to make high fructose corn syrup; the most likely candidate as a cause of diabetes and heart disease in the country? - Alex Williams

Tobacco taxes are not considered taxes, they're penalties for sin. However, it's my understanding that the increase was put in there as part of the Senate compromise. When cigs are taxed out of existence, the next stop will be fast food, mark my words. Obesity is the next sin of the century, watch out if your BMI is out of whack. Even though BMI is a poor indicator of overall health and fitness... - Karoli

Oh Thanks Karoli....you're a ray of sunshine! Because not only am I a smoker, but I'm also overweight! I'm going out in my doghouse outside to go puff on one while I shove a twinkie down my throat. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Yeah, that'll show 'em! - Andrew C

Why are they taxing smoking to begin with? Because it's a way to curb your behavior into something they find suitable. if you want to raise money tax something everyone uses. - Lindsey is Fierce!

50% of what I spend on cigarettes goes to support a tribe of Native Americans in upstate NY. The rest is helping to support the economy of Indonesia. While I would like to quit, and have tried, the way I see it is that I probably won't because of this tax since I won't be paying it because I purchase my cigarettes from Native Americans. But if the price of my cigarettes does go up, it's... more... - April Russo (app103)

LOL - the famous "Help Indonesia" strategy made famous in Fischer/Spazki 1971 in Hastings. - Matthew DeVries

now if the money from that tax went to free help/meds to help people quite smoking? - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

the more I see US lately the more it looks like USSR before collapse -- USSR joke of those times "son to alcoholic father -- Father, govt introduced new tax on vodka, you will drink less!!! Father back to him -- No sonny, it is you who will be eating less " :))) - A.T.

@slayerboy I'm a smoker too, though not overweight. I fully understand that I should no longer be a smoker. I acknowledge my slavery to the demon nicotine. I have tried and failed many times to quit. I'm sure I'll try again, especially now. Irony: Health insurance only covers wellbutrin(zyban), which I am unwilling to take because of the multitude of side effects. other aids are out of pocket. argue about whether they should be or not, but it's still a disincentive to quit. - Karoli

Karoli, completely agree. That brings up a whole other problem with the health care system and prescriptions. I won't go there for the interest of staying on topic. But let me say that prescriptions have a lot more to do with the cost of health care than smokes do. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

I don't know how true this is, but I have heard that the original per pack federal tax on cigarettes instituted in the 90's was done to support a certain amusement park in PA. The parent company that owns the park also owns a tobacco company that was sued and lost and had a huge judgement against them that they couldn't afford to pay. The parent company threatened to pay the judgement... more... - April Russo (app103)

(continued) considering they did start subsidizing tobacco in the 90's after this tax was instituted. - April Russo (app103)

A smoking tax is not a tax on the poor. It is a tax to help our health system. Millions are spent on smoking related illness. Some don't have health insurance. What I would like to see is that some of that tax money go to help people to get off smoking. As an ex-smoker I found that there could be alot more government help in helping smokers kick the habit. - John Flynn

John, I don't want the government to help me quit smoking. I want them to stay away from my life. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Mike +10 - Steve Olson

I just don't understand why anyone is surprised about Obama's broken promises. He's also a hypocrite because he's a smoker! - pitlord from twhirl

Not sure how him being a smoker and approving this move makes him a hypocrite, pitlord: most people I know that smoke freely admit that it's not a good habit/addiction for them. I find it much more hypocritical when I hear people who are against raising taxes rally behind this one because "it only affects smokers". Those same people get highly upset when someone says the progressive tax system "only affects the rich". - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Erhan Erdogan

Heheheh "loser" :-))

March 30 - Comment - Like - Share

Leandro Ardissone ⍨, Chris Zlatis, John Ruth and 137 other people liked this

LMAO! - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

24 more comments

Would a FriendFeed 'room' be analogous to a Facebook 'group'? - Ladybug Heather

New design looks like frienfeed also. They're losers but less than %1 FB users know friendfeed, so who cares. - İbrahim Uzun [ j ]

mail2fb.com is empty !! : )) - Erhan Erdogan

that is funny!! - Susan Beebe

where the hell is "ability to search like Friendfeed"? in 2010? damn!!! :P - Goktug Gedik

"like" on Facebook doesn't bump the entry to the top. Not quite the same thing. However, you do get notifications on FB items that you "like". - Morton Fox

soooo true - Dobromir Hadzhiev

great! "HO" rulez! - Sinan Ata

It smells competitive (!) like Internet Explorer and Firefox. BTW I'm still using my operating systems default web browser. - A. Kıvanç Tanrıkulu

Oh this is good. *tips hat* - MVB (Grinch of FF)

Paul liked this at Facebook http://friendfeed.com/e... - Erhan Erdogan

tesekkür ederim - stefan m. seydel/sms ;-)

Now someone should do what they copied from Twitter. - Corvida

You can hide now... I think search is the big one they're lacking. - Frankie Warren

Where's the ability to not get hit with a slew of stupid, annoying invites / requests as soon as you login??? - Patrick Jordan

most of my friends are using facebook only, these two sites should merge closer - classic

stefan: Do you like Turkish? I'm suggesting you a friend of mine, /directeur. ; ) - Erhan Erdogan

Ha! and here I am! 14 seconds after you called my name :) - directeur

directeur: Did you write a greasemonkey script for your personal buzz? :-) - Erhan Erdogan

:D No, not yet, should I? :) It was the first entry I saw and I read my name in it. Also, I have a very fun and smart idea for my next project (will tell you more on you know where :) ) Oh btw, how was Baku? - directeur

directeur: Baku was great, we should visit there again. They have awesome meals, songs, people... I wrote a post in Turkish about Azerbaijan at webrazzi.com. Try to read. :-)) - Erhan Erdogan

I will try! Thanks! :) Oh, tell me btw, you didn't forgot to bring a nice gift to you know who? I hope you didn't forgot!! ;-) - directeur

todo facabook MUAhuauUhauUauauUUauUAhU - Jordi Rivero

directeur: I'll answer all of your questions at FB chat. :-)) - Erhan Erdogan

- The ability to undo actions like FriendFeed - LouCypher

Steve Rubel

A study to determine the relation (if any) between "Twitter follower count" and "web traffic" http://www.labnol.org/interne...

March 31 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

jk5027a and Chris Loft liked this

Zee.

Damn this is cool…Waveform bracelet. - http://www.zee.me/blog...

March 31 from Zee Slash Blog - Comment - Like - Share

m.0, Victoria Champion, Kol Tregaskes and 4 other people liked this

Cee Bee

clark little photography - http://www.clarklittlephotography.com

March 25 - Comment - Like - Share

Tanath, hassan tafreshi, Anthony Citrano and 272 other people liked this

love! - BEX

43 more comments

Crap Shore Breakers... HURT! - CW™

his site is pretty cool though i wish photographers wouldn't watermark their pictures. i know why they do it, but it takes away from the really great photos - Cee Bee

specializing in shorepound! - Ňicķ

i wonder how many times he's gotten really caught up in a bad wave - Cee Bee

San Onofre SB had shore breakers with pebbles on the beach. Hurt like a motherF'r. Granted the water was warm from the near by Nuclear Plant. - CW™

fantastic shots! - Chieze Okoye

I rode a 20 footer like that in Hawaii on a boogie board... Dropped me straight onto the sand, and then proceeded to drench me with 3 million gallons of water... In retrospect, I'm probably lucky to be alive right now. - LarchOye

that might be "thrilling" the first time around, but after continually getting pounded like that i'm sure it can become a bit of a "challenge" to deal with - Cee Bee

Those first two pictures are amazing - Benno

Wow! - Adriana E. Reyes

Whoa! Cool! - Dread Pirate PJ

I would love to know how people get shots like this. - Kevin Pedraja

OMGosh! - Kol Tregaskes

Kevin, look at the last picture. He has a waterproof housing for the camera. - Jauder Ho

psst Harold, I bet you'll like these... - Kamilah Gill

I wonder how he wiped his lens between shots? - Johnny Worthington

OMG... amazing pics... - Harold

I just opened it up. Those *are* cool. I know those are the pics you want to take sometime, Harold. - Kamilah Gill

wow. very cool. - Trish Haley

MORE! He needs an RSS. Although that would defeat the purpose of him selling prints from his gallery...oh well. - sofarsoShawn

Very impressive :O - Joe Dawson

nice please large size - mostafa

WTF ! how did he...nevermind - cihanergur

wow....absolutely stunning. more please! :) - Ebm

I'm typeless. Unbelievable shots. What photographic talent... ok so I found a few words:) - Dave

wOoOw - Bius

This makes me so home sick. I miss the the ocean. - Miranda

Beautiful photography. Had me memorized. - TranceMist

Dang watermarks :( I can't save any as my desktop wallpaper! - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕

Amazing stuff! - Bill Pennington from twhirl

I have an appreciation for how tough those shots are to capture. Incredible! - Rick Bucich

AMAZING! - AJ Batac

Imágenes Impresionantes - wonderful images - Juan Carlos Sánchez

WOW! - Shandiz

WoW!!! - MohammadReza

It's not just Moses that can part the sea. - Justin Wah Kan

Does anyone know if there are bigger versions of there? They would make wicked Wallpaper! - Garin Kilpatrick

If you like them, tell him: http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/contact... - Brian Johns

Some really nice photos and the colors are fantastic - Thomas V. Fischer from twhirl

wonderful!! - Palak Mathur

that's some serious shore break right there! Reminds me of Sandy Beach on the east side of O'ahu. - Josh Haley

Astounding! - ursi

Amazing! - Jorg Jansen

wow! ok! - MAHDi

Derrick

How much is enough? Lots of threads with regards to the economy, on greed. And, I guess if that's your bag, then go for it. I've been broke my whole life, and expect at some point to presumably do well enough to live a modest life which suits me, but how much money, wealth, etc. does one need?

March 20 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Fruchter, Mike Reynolds, Steven Perez and 23 other people liked this

Not flame bait, just curious. - Derrick

42 more comments

Some no amount is enough, but most other people live happier lives with just an average income. - sofarsoShawn

Derrick, it depends on where you live and what your definition of well enough. - CW™

I am already jealous of your replacement TV and your new camera. - Daniel J. Pritchett

My sister has said, since we were little, that we are rich when we have enough to pay the bills and then a little left over for fun. - Lisa L. Seifert

To get by and have a little saved for energencies or bad times. That's my game. - Nurse Katie

I'm not comfortable unless I have three months or more of bills saved up. Anything beyond that is gravy. - Akiva Moskovitz

I'm at "get by" now, I really think I'll be happy when I can also say "a little saved for bad times" like Katie. - Daniel J. Pritchett

If money is your thing, too much will never be enough and you end up being owned by your possessions. - WorldofHiglet

I agree, WoH. For example, I've drooled over the Porsche 911 since I was eight years old. I'd *love* to have one, but honestly, my 14 year old (paid off and in good shape) Nissan takes me to Costco just the same, and the maintenance is cheaper. I certainly like nice things. I splurged on my TV and my 5D, but I don't want to ever be owned by my possessions or want thereof. - Derrick

What WoH said!! - Lisa L. Seifert

Depends on the quality of life you'll tolerate. For some people, anything less than the best of the best simply isn't acceptable. Other people are 100% happy with thrift store clothing, discount grocery stores, etc. I think a lot of it has to do with how each person is raised. Not necessarily how much money their family had growing up, but the types of values they were raised with. - Rochelle

Enough to retire on would be what I consider enough. - Morton Fox

One "needs" however much one thinks one needs. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks you "need." - Joey Gibson

The more financial successful you are, the more able you are able to help others. - MVB (Grinch of FF)

Money won't bring happiness, but a lack of money certainly can bring unhappiness. - Sparky

Enough to put two kids through college, pay for modest weddings, have a good quality kitchen and have the kickenest, uberest home theater. Oh and retired comfortably. Buy a new car every 10 years or so. Replace my carpet. Maybe move in to a bigger house in 5 years. - Alex Scoble

Enough to make sure that my kids get the best start they can in life and that when I retire I don't have to make their lives miserable. - Martha

Enough to not starve - Rodfather

@Lindsey, perhaps therapy is needed. But it's not anyone else business how much someone "needs." That was my point. I'm sick to death of hearing people bleating about how so-and-so doesn't "need" that much money. - Joey Gibson

I'm clearly on the end of the scale of people living paycheck to paycheck and it's interesting to me to see people talk about their wealth (compared to me, anyway) in threads here on FF, especially in this current economic crisis. - Derrick

Derrick - the question is: does that bother you? If you don't mind it then be happy and who cares. If you don't want to live paycheck to paycheck then do something about it. Being happy is way more important than how many zeros are on your bank account balance. - Sparky

I want enough money so that i can not worry/stress about finances for the rest of my life while maintaining my current lifestyle. If i had that amount, any/everything else would go to charities and helping family and friends reach the same comfort. - ·[▪_▪]·

Sparky, am I bothered by my current situation? No. I'm working on a juggling a lot of plates right now to increase my income. Given where we are I know I'm fortunate to even have a job, cause there are people who don't. And like most of the comments in this thread, I'd just like to live comfortably, even if that means without that flared fendered Porsche 911. - Derrick

I've seen some pretty horrible conditions of strawberry pickers. I'm living the life of gravy compared to them, so I'll never complain about money. A roof over my head, food on the table, and loved ones around is good enough. Plus you never know if there will be some random or not so random occurrence where your life will turn 180 and you end up in a shelter. Of course I want some certain standard of living for where I'm at. Still, compared so some folks, my life is gravy - Rodfather

1UP Rodfather - Derrick

Jason, I live in Los Angeles, which should tell you a lot about the superficial mecca of the world. I've seen people in leased Escalades and Lexus (Lexi?) who live in crappy apartments with their parents. BUT THEY LOOK GOOD AT THE CLUB. - Derrick

Rodfather - everyone has to start somewhere. My first job was picking strawberries! - Sparky

the happier i can be with the less i have, the more successful i judge myself. we've made decisions in our family's life that gave us the opportunity to improve our happiness without earning more, spending more, using more, etc. that includes the are we live, the size of the house we have, etc. our purchases reflect this overall. don't get me wrong, over the years i've bought stupid... more... - MikeAmundsen

Nothing, Jason. Nothing happens. :) - Derrick

1UP MikeAmundsen. Get happy. :) - Derrick

Apparently for some people just peanut butter on their sandwiches is enough. - Alex Scoble

My friend said the same thing recently- she knows how to get by on very little, and she's not looking forward to doing that, but she knows she can, so there's none of this weird anxiety everyone seems to have about it. - anna sauce

and WHAT is wrong with PB & J? :p - Jim Is Not Smart

It's a question few are willing to ask, because most are too busy following the herd to listen. - Shawn Michel de Montaigne

shoot, i got by with $35K at once point. i can get by with $0 if i move in with my folks. i quite like my current salary, but i won't turn down more. - tiffany

It seems like a lot of folks felt compelled to bite off way, way more than they could chew in the pursuit of the sense of some kind of fulfillment in a rapidly-thinning atmosphere of ersatz prosperity. Committing the involvement of other humans (partners, kids, etc) exponentially elevates the direness of the "need" part of the question relative to the level of participation of all parties. When it seems like you're losing what you have and there's no more in sight, some get greedy out of instinctual fear. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

I try not to think all of that, when my mind starts thinking about my life I tend to turn on ESPN and watch sports, or suf through the telly til I find a movie. I don't like to think about the economy and how bad it is. I just want to be happy. - Patrick from twhirl

What's particularly nefarious is how use of mainstream media as a kind of shunt or panacea may actually be helping to fan the flames. The same glowing panel we turn to for what amounts to fleeting moments of comfort and escape also streams an unbridled amount of carefully-crafted, psycho-emotionally-charged, deliberately manipulative data bursts to help us know how we feel, and what makes us happy. Stay away from the mind-fluffing for a week, and then ask yourself the question. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ

@Chris: +1 on the stepping away from the nefarious glow-box. - MikeAmundsen

Right on. We cancelled our cable a year or two ago and while we still watch TV on Hulu and get Netflix and whatnot my desire to consume random crap is way, way down. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Enough to give the kids good food, a safe place to sleep, a good education, a new coat when they need it and shoes that fit. Entertaining them is the cheap and easy part. Oh and to stay out of credit card debt. Paying them off was so liberating.....so difficult but totally worth it. There were weeks when we would rejoice because we could afford a little meat. Luckily my husbands work paid for internet. - suzanne

I'd like to have more than my grad student stipend, but I don't need much. Basically, I just want to buy more books. It is an addiction. - Katy S

There's nothing wrong with striving for more. And greed itself is okay if that's someone's cup of tea, but I won't be there friend. For me, finding a balance is important. - Mike Reynolds

Casey Muller

Get real-time FriendFeed notifications on your desktop - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...

March 13 from FriendFeed Blog - Comment - Like - Share

Vincent Wright, edythe, Rob and 49 other people liked this

Try it out: http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Casey Muller

16 more comments

Cool. I'm still digging the web-based pop-out window. But I'll have to check this out. - Hutch Carpenter

Can't wait to see if I can get this working on my Ubuntu setup at home. - Steven Perez

I'm using Thwirl for my updates. >.> - Patrick from twhirl

Let us know Steven. For Linux you may need to use the manual install process described in the first question here: http://friendfeed.com/about... and 64-bit Linux has some extra challenges: http://kb.adobe.com/selfser... - Casey Muller

Is this something you'd consider making open source, as an example of what's possible with Air and the API? - Ken Sheppardson

Interesting idea Ken. We store preferences and other things on our server, but maybe we can strip out those parts and release the rest. - Casey Muller

Isn't it bad form to ask for password instead of the remote key? - Daniel Sims

Daniel, we ask all third-party developers to use the remote key, but this is an official FriendFeed tool. - Casey Muller

This is cool... how easy was it developing for adobe AIR? I haven't looked into it yet - Chris Lamprecht

I want Growl integration. :) - Michael

@Michael you can get that by using the IM interface with Adium - Robin Barooah from IM

I just noticed it is using 38M of memory according to windows task manager - Chris Lamprecht

Thanks for the info Chris, we're keeping an eye on memory usage, and we'll make an effort to keep it low. Developing for AIR was pretty good, with the inevitable frustrations. - Casey Muller

Sounds nifty. Downloading it now. - Tyson Key

I just did and I like it. Although it can be difficult to follow the threads when comments come up individually, without heading over here. - Martha

Can I use it for some my FF list? - Igor Poltavskiy

Just loaded it ... sooooo coooool - Charlie Anzman

Robert Scoble

@dejon97 no one has accurately reported what Cisco is doing in servers and datacenters. Fundamental changes. Coming Monday.

March 10 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Victor Ryden, Bill Romanos, Susan Beebe and 3 other people liked this

Is that the big announcement?! - Matthew DeVries

3 more comments

Would like to hear more. How is it related to the IBM's Dynamic Infrastructure for instance? - jk5027a

Matthew: the big announcement is on Monday. - Robert Scoble

Excited, I like Cisco. I want to see them do well. Cisco Catalyst 5900 was my biggest config. challenge - Susan Beebe

They shall be bringing you the whole rack from switch to server. All these companies want to control the data center, and this is how Cisco wants to do it. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

Zee.

Saw these old school Mac’s at an Apple shop today…boy have they got prettier over the years :) - http://www.zee.me/blog...

February 26 from Zee Slash Blog - Comment - Like - Share

Ozan Caglargil, Dobromir Hadzhiev, Ozkan Altuner and 22 other people liked this

yeah, i was a relative latecomer to the Mac world so haven't really been watching the evolution of these machines...but i definitely see what you mean about the yellow - Zee.

7 more comments

The old skool Apple IIs were really cute, tho! - Clay Newton

looks like the computers we still use at the school I am working in.... Seriously, the other day I found four Victor computers in one of the offices...have mercy... - "Jazzperous" Isaksson

The clamshell ones have to be the worst ones. I hated all the mac designs at that time - BCK

aww, I had a couple of the older ones. Kind of miss them :) - Tamara

i still have my clamshell-shaped, "tangerine" iBook. It works great. - Nathan Rein

you're kidding Nathan - wow...what os are you running? - Zee.

That Ibook looks loney since there are almost two of each! - nfan12 from Alert Thingy

@Zee - It's like 9.1 or something. I don't actually turn it on very often any more, though. - Nathan Rein

Louis Gray

Twitter is for Following Topics and Listening, Not for Following People - http://www.louisgray.com/live...

February 26 from louisgray.com - Comment - Like - Share

Diana Lewis, Nicholas James, FunTimesGuide and 81 other people liked this

Totally disagree. Don't make the mistake of saying "Twitter is for..." based on your own narrow use of it. That's how YOU use Twitter - and, to my mind, it's as dumb as using Google Trends to talk about "what's going on on the web". I follow less than 300 people, the vast majority of which I've met face-to-face at least once. I don't auto-follow. The Twitters I get tend to be funny,... more... - Ian Betteridge

66 more comments

http://www.kyte.tv/ch... has a video that shows how I read tweets and use friendfeed too. It is close to what Louis says in his blog post. - Robert Scoble

Ian, I expect disagreement. I am explaining my viewpoint. It is a platform, and it has some strong characteristics and some weak. But notice how you're answering me here, where there is room for discussion. I'm not picking a fight but suggesting why I can see both views from Loic and Robert. - Louis Gray

I'm answering you here, Louis, because I don't follow you on Twitter - and Friendfeed, at its heart, is discussion medium. Twitter never has been, and was never intended to be - hence its small character limits, lack of threading, and so on. I think both you and Robert are guilty of having in the past hyped up Twitter to be something it was never built to be - hence your ultimate (to my mind) disappointing use of it. - Ian Betteridge

Ian, depending on the day, I get called a Twitter hater or fanboy. That's all part of being visible. In terms of hyping Twitter, I think I am fairly low on that scale. Most would instead suggest I hype FriendFeed, but I tend to promote services I think bring value - and there is a long list. - Louis Gray

Ian - I agree. I follow 64 people on Twitter. - Larry Hudson

Larry, so help me with the following issue. Loic is getting pilloried for reducing the people he follows and having a big disparity between those he follows and those that follow him. Is he snobby for doing that, or do people have artificial expectations on him? I've found it's best to just get connected wherever people want - be it Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook or LinkedIn. - Louis Gray

Interesting perspective, but not the way I use Twitter. It's pretty cool that there are so many different ways it CAN be used, though. - Jill Walker Rettberg

And Jill, also interesting, as your feed is private on FriendFeed, we may never know if you are the person I would like to engage with. I am thinking you may be, but there's no clue. Why do you prefer a locked feed? - Louis Gray

I absolutely agree, but the question is: Twitter doesn't allow you to follow topics, it's a semantic web feature. This is why such things as hashtags and twitter search allow you to pull our an RSS feed. Should this be a feature for Twitter? So you can directly follow a word or using something like word sense disambiguation follow a subject. - Daniel W. Crompton

Ah - most of my feeds are open (@jilltxt, http://jilltxt.net) but I'm still finding my footing with FriendFeed. I like for ME that I can see all my various "selves" online together, but I'm not sure I want them all connected for everyone else. I like being able to have one space to talk about professional/web geek stuff and other spaces to share photos of my baby or discuss parenting a preteen and so on... - Jill Walker Rettberg

Sounds good, Jill. Again - each person uses the services differently. My post suggests what I've found. And when I'm logged into the work account I do read as many tweets as I can and follow a smaller (200 or so) amount. - Louis Gray

OK, I made it public. I suppose I'm not really experiencing FriendFeed so long as I keep it locked, eh? Can I ask you though: you seem to follow even more people on FriendFeed than on Twitter. Isn't that almost as impossible to track in any meaningful way? Or do you just use the best of day etc to skim stuff other people like? - Jill Walker Rettberg

I have several social nets where I have 10 - 50 contacts that are slowly discovering twitter. It is interesting to watch the interaction between my contacts as they meet each other, and form a larger social net away from their walled sites. Many reject twitter, it can be overwhelming. Each to their own, but I think Twitter's search has the greatest potential and it requires no 'follow'. Lurking, searching, what's the difference? - Wallace

Louis, to answer your question about why Loic's getting pilloried: I think that's partly the (unfair?) expectation when you're a high-profile figure that a a follow means a follow back. But the problem is that, unless you're constantly reading Twitter, more than a few hundred followers is impossible to coherently follow. At that point, it's *only* useful in the way you describe - but the answer to that is to follow less people. - Ian Betteridge

Just to be clear, though: there's no "one true way" to use Twitter. What I was objecting to about your post isn't your use-case, but the way you phrased it: "Twitter is for...", not "I use Twitter for...". Your headline sounds like an edict, not a suggestion. But hey - that will get more traffic ;) - Ian Betteridge

Ian: or the other choice is to follow everyone on Twitter, and use search to find people you want to listen to and use friendfeed lists to follow JUST those people you want to listen to. There's a variety of ways to handle this problem other than the way Loic decided to handle it. I get a lot of value out of having a lot of geeks and early adopters aimed at my TweetDeck. - Robert Scoble

But Robert, in doing that you're really creating a false expectation in people who follow you. You're following them - which is a positive action which creates the expectation that someone is listening. If you subvert that by not *actually* bothering to follow what they say, using tools to "find people you want to listen to", what's the point in following them? Loic is just being honest about the fact that he can't actually follow everyone who follows him. - Ian Betteridge

And it's interesting you bring up FriendFeed. I follow lots of people on FF who I don't follow on Twitter, for exactly the reasons you like FF: it's *really* conversational, it lets you manage more groups, etc. But it's not "Twitter vs FF" - it's "use Twitter for what works on Twitter, use FF for what works on FF" - Ian Betteridge

And FURTHERMORE... Go to bed! Its 2am where you are, mate! :) - Ian Betteridge

It's just how one uses it, my use of Twitter varies over time, i use it for marketing, listening to others, enjoying what others have to say or share.. From my point I don't think you can ever limit Twitter's scope, or Friend Feed as well - Sardar Mohkim Khan

i can t totally agree with that. There people/brands i really want to track in any single update they publish. - Ouriel Ohayon

Whats wrong with people? - Ben Watson from twhirl

Of course there will be lots of opinions here. I agree on some of your topics since from your point of view everything makes sense. Not everyone here is to find useful info as I said on Rob Diana's site the other day. There are a lot of people just having fun with friends and that is cool too. 140 is too small for that, true. Not reading all tweets, true. FB and FF better to express ideas and communicate, true. But following a person you care is possible. And topics are created by real people. - Carlos Lorenzo

As people can use LinkedIn to find a partner(!), they can use twitter for following others! But we suggest them to use suitable tools for their jobs - farzaam

To be honest, I'm like bored with Twitter. I don't see any valuable content there except for personal and ironic messages of - let me figure it out - 10 to 20 contacts. Chats were popular when I was in junior high though. I prefer to manage data stream myself, that's it. +++ But I still like FriendFeed - mostly for Louis's and Robert's open discussions. - Alan Kodzasov

There is a similar discussion going on with how should politicians use Twitter. Sen Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) was interviewed yesterday about it and she said she could not possibly follow all the people that are following her. But I think if her staff used the proper tools, they could easily listen to Twitter, and not just use it to broadcast. How do you think politicians could/should use Twitter? My full thoughts on it: http://bit.ly/fPCcU - Wallace Wilson

Right now I don't know anymore what Twitter is becoming. Too much info mixed with too much spam. Either someone figures a way to get it organized (by topics, for instance, or by tweet-popularity) or it's gonna die of success. Maybe the key is to drop the "Follow" option: sometimes you follow a guy that makes one good tweet and after that he becomes dull, and sometimes you miss the good stuff just because you didn't follow. How do I know where the best tweets for me are? - Jordi Soler

The thing that has me puzzled is I don't really see Twitter as a company moving in a direction that makes me think they'll be the ones to get it under control. It seems that tools like Tweetdeck, MrTweet, and others that probably don't exist yet will be the ones to follow in the footsteps of Summize and get a handle on things. How they work that out challenges like Twitters API limits in place will be interesting to watch. - Ken Sheppardson

I also deleted the 20,500 people I followed - but unlike Loic, I ALSO deleted the 23,500 people following me. I totally reset my Twitter account. Loic wanted all those followers - clearly this matters to him a great deal. Personally, I think we should all be free to use Twitter however, we want. - Jim Connolly

Ummm ... I just follow people that are important in my life or whose thoughts I find interesting. Twitter works great for that. - Crutis

Glad to hear others have the same issues with Twitter as I do. Although I don't share the same views as many on the usefullness of twitter (I use it more for listening to a live stream/broadcasting and for close work related team members), I just mentioned to @hlooman yesterday how people pushing the bounderies of applications generate unexpected and sometimes very creative outcomes that often change my view and use of an application. - Phil Ashman from twhirl

Louis - Loic builds Social Networking tools and services. The man follows everyone and one day decides "Oh, I'm changing my ways" then criticizes people who used to use his method. Not classy and i am not a fan of the man or his products. - Mona Nomura

Louis: I think Loic has lost a lot of good will after unfollowing everyone - BUT keeping THEIR follows. - Jim Connolly

Liking for Jim's comment - Loic's a good guy but I know a lot of people mad that he unfollowed them. - Jesse Stay

I'm sure he is a 'good guy' -- don't know him personally, but his methods show no class. - Mona Nomura

@Mona hear, hear! - Jorge Escobar

No class? Le Meur wrote a blog post telling exactly what he was doing, and why. How does one make someone else unfollow? Block? Now that is rude. He was completely transparent and there is no merit in saying this move makes him less classy (or that one doesn't like a product his company builds). - coldbrew

I have no interest in reading rants and namecalling - like what was displayed on Twitter last night. He builds a tool especially FOR Twitter. If he can't manage conversation flow that is a problem. His product should fix it. How am I supposed to have confidence in a product where the creator is complaining? - Mona Nomura

welcome, coldbrew :-) - Jesse Stay

Thanks, Stay :). Mona, I have no idea what ad hominem attacks were occurring on Twitter last night, but I don't see the connection in having confidence in a company's given product, and the class of its founder. Just don't see it. [EDIT: for clarity] - coldbrew

To my understanding, Loic unfollowed people because conversation flow management became an issue. One of his well known products is Twhirl, a Twitter tool. If he can not resolve his own problem, how can a user have confidence that Twhirl will solve MY problems? - Mona Nomura

Agree with that. Still unrelated to Le Meur having "no class", which is quite a serious statement (and uncalled for). - coldbrew

coldbrew - he went on an insult rampage last night on Twitter. Grown men insulting others in public is NOT classy. At all. And to add, he is criticizing other people's methods -- something his product can or SHOULD solve. Which in turn, insults his own product. Is that class? - Mona Nomura

Just looked through Le Meur's Twitter feed and I didn't see anything disrespectful. No ad hominem attacks, nothing to make me think Le Meur has no class. Calling it like he sees it. I think a bunch of people partaking in this discussion have allegiances and other conflicts of interest here. - coldbrew

I'm with Mona. All of this lead me to lose faith in Twhirl so I uninstalled. I also don't appreciate being considered noise or a nuisance so I did people like Loic and Calacanis the favor of removing myself from all of their services. Maybe they'll eventually remember not to insult the people that make it possible for them to not have real jobs. </rant> - Mike Lewis

Loic seems that he wants to stay 'in the news.' Mini dramas and controversies make it easy. - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

I've rebooted my Twitter approach. it was getting a little crazy to be broadcasting and only listening to the replies. Now that i've restarted my account i'm planning on keeping to < 1,000 people I'm following. - Jason Calacanis

Rather than self-centric, there is a topic focused Twitter. See http://tv.tEarn.com, http://s.tEarn.com (sports channels), http://ce.tEarn.com (ce products), or http://sw.tEarn.com/. - DJ Chang

All you guys who decided to follow tons of people and then get frustrated about the spam levels... I just don't get it. I am picky about who I follow (anyone not from my city, and not in my fields of interest is nixed EVEN if they follow me) and therefore I get more personal interactions out of twitter. If I want more that is what the public timeline and twitter search are for... in some ways are we learning that facebooks 5000 friend limit might be a smart thing ;) - James Ostheimer

How someone else uses or does use Twitter is up to them, each to their own, its certainly nothing that's going to upset me. Maybe it makes sense for people who have thousands of followers to every once in a while to clear everything out and start again. - Kim Landwehr

dont you all get sick of talking about the same thing? there's about three seperate conversations on the same topic running on FF now.. - Terry O'Fee

O'Fee, obviously not, and neither do you since you are tracking the conversation around FF. - coldbrew

Landwehr, the debate is not about WHETHER one can use Twitter any way they want. It is about what it means to use Twitter in various ways. - coldbrew

i hide the convos and more come! it's like a friggen plague! - Terry O'Fee

You're a better man than I. I could only see so much before I had to chime in from my very unattached position. - coldbrew

it's like people don't have anything interesting to talk about apart from the services themselves. how can this level of SM worship be healthy?? - Terry O'Fee

Terry: It's been like this for the 20+ years I've been on the internet. BBS folks talk about BBS software, Usenet folks talk about usenet software, web forum people talk about web forum software. The tech folks talk about tech stuff, and the "Social Media" people are going to talk about Social Media tools and services. If you don't want to hear those conversations, you need to go follow Lance Armstrong, TheRealShaq, and Britney Spears. Otherwise, you're out of luck. - Ken Sheppardson

...oh, and my quick suggestion would be you unfollow Scoble and JesseStay. Since both those guys make their living building and talking about Social Media tools, guess what... - Ken Sheppardson

here's an idea! talk about yourselves, people. what else do you all do?? whats some other interests you have?? - Terry O'Fee

I like to discuss ideas, not people. And, I don't think anyone is really trying to discuss themselves, just using themselves as an example. - coldbrew

All this is quite interesting really and everyone manages their Twitter and FF how they see fit. I've got my Twitter working nicely after a year of constant pruning, adding etc to find & interact with scientists, Pharma, economists, real life friends & FFs. Not everyone is on FF, many aren't. I happened to be on Twitter when Loics outburst happened. It came across as emotional, not v classy & irritated with us as 'noise' so I unfollowed. - Sally Church

That may be true, Church, and I appreciate that (I bet Le Meur does too). But, anyone that is been online long enough knows that it is difficult to communicate efficiently by text alone. So many senses are cut off (note the wide use of emoticons), it is easy to misjudge what someone says. Especially having never met them in-person. - coldbrew

... of if they're, you know... French. [NTTAWWT] - Ken Sheppardson

That too :) Cultural difference could magnify the issue for sure. - coldbrew

As an Englishwoman I wasn't even going there on the French in case of accusations of continuing the 100 year war emerged :-). But the analogy of JP Rive and the French rugby team getting in a strop did cross my mind at time. - Sally Church

Twitter is for whatever you want it to be. Your 140 characters, eh? - Phil Boiarski

Lots of good comments here. I liked Robert Scoble]s video, on how he use Twitter and manage to auto-follow all these people. Loic might have unfollowed a lot of people, but each have their own choice right. Just because his a social media star doesn´t mean he HAS to use social media in any certain way.... However, as reciprocity, for me, is central to social media, I do disagree with the choice. - Peter Efland

Steve Rubel

New rule: I am abandoning the phrase "new media" in all client decks and memos. It's not new. I have replaced it with "digital media."

September 20, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

oliver gassner, фыр, Seamus Condron and 36 other people liked this

what sparked this? - Jason Kintzler

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I'd suggest it's because "new" is scary to the enterprise. They want something that is proven and established. Good move. - Louis Gray

@Jason inspiration. I am working on a deck. - Steve Rubel

good. i started using digital media and online media last week in conversations and got a lot less ???-looks. new media required explanation. - Admiral Anika

True. "New" is not only vague & ultimately meaningless, but something can only be "new" so long. "Digital" is more accurate. - Paul Rodriguez

like that. Especially when new is no longer new. - Joe Buhler

similarly, the BBC renamed its New Media and Technology division a while back. It is now called Future Media and Technology. - Luca Belletti from fftogo

I call it @TheAntiChrist media http://noahdavidsimon.blogspot.com/2008... - Noah David Simon

The only problem with this is that outside our little sphere, plenty of people still consider "media" to be old media: print, TV, radio. The Internet itself is still a scary unknown for a lot of people and companies--even very large ones--still. Start talking about microblogging or social media, and they'll think you're playing some sort of goof on them. - abacab

About time. - Steve Isaacs from fftogo

(I agree with dropping 'new', btw.) - abacab

Agree with Gregory although I use "social media" as I think it is the social aspect of it that makes it different with "old media"... but in the end of the day it is "media" indeed. - Philippe Borremans

I dropped "social" and "new media" and "2.0" - and I used to call it "digital media" back in the day (1998). - l0ckergn0me

agree. 8/10 times i have to explain what i mean - ray

I like "SM" because it sounds kinky and obnoxious at the same time - Noah David Simon

honestly, it might confuse people. digital right now means that switch for TV to a lot of people. - Patricia

i've been using "emerging" instead of "new" for years - folks get it - mike "glemak" dunn

I was saying that a year ago on a CES panel. Of course, it was a "new media" type panel so it wasn't very well received. - Russell Holliman

I do think this is in part why collectively whole industries like media, internet, etc. need to determine names for things. just one guy deciding it should be called digital media often coincides with another guy wanting to call it new media, and so on. switching things up like that makes it harder to train audiences and get them to adopt. Slower adoption makes everything harder on... more... - Patricia

Don't you mean *online* media? TV, radio, CDs, DVDs, etc., all have *digital* forms. - Brent Logan

I think I ditched 'new media' around 2001. Digital & Social Media almost covers the bases, but because it's really alien and unknown territory, definitions are difficult to make stick. Interactive media still has its place, but even 'emerging media' is going to be dated once somethign has emerged. - David Petherick from twhirl

I never liked to term New Media, I have beedn using either Digital Design or Digital Media for like forever - Bryan Thatcher from twhirl

I had an interesting discussion with my team last week regarding the terms "digital" vs. "interactive" - Christian

david: that is why i personally use "emerging" because once it has emerged you can call it something else, so it only refers to those forms of media that are truly emerging for their day... - mike "glemak" dunn

steverubel i still think interactive describes the medium best just my 2 cents - Jason Cronkhite from twhirl

Digital is good, better than "social" it is more neutral and more accurate imho. - Tom Foremski

Digital is insufficient, IMO. Most media is/can be digital, but that doesn't make it social or interactive. - Mark Logan from twhirl

I think "new media" could mean whatever is newest at the time. - Jason Kintzler

I can "digit." - Phil Boiarski

Carlos Ayala

Low Lounger: Come Fly With Me To The Land Of Plenty - The Design blog - http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry...

August 27, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Anne Bouey, edythe, Mack D. Male and 17 other people liked this

"While decorating our homes we try and stick to basics by selecting traditional forms, yet we crave for something that can add the spark to a room. Designer Low Lin Kiat with this impressive endeavor tries to infuse a bit of conventional style. The low lounger reminds me of the magic carpet that Aladdin and his genie would have flown on. At a second glance it reminds me of the beautiful rose petals that scents the hand that crushes it. The main lounger can be teamed with the superbly crafted low seating and compliment the adequate coffee table. Else, as a stand-alone it suffices as a multipurpose lounger. As suggested, it looks cozy enough to seat you and your partner where you can snuggle up to each other and whisper sweet nothings. The bright color will definitely spice up a dull and drab room!" - Carlos Ayala from Bookmarklet

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my dogs would love this - mike "glemak" dunn

I find this creepy, as it somehow reminds me of decorative serving dishes. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

human appetizers, if you will - Cee Bee

Exactly, Cee Bee. The dishes I have that resemble this are sushi plates I got in Argentina, and while they look great I don't know that I'd wanna sit on 'em. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

want! and i don't mind lounging around like sushi: my house, my rules. lolz - .LAG liked that

Looks a bit like the new Ferrari concept car I saw a snapshot of somewhere or other today. ;-) - Slappy Line

loren feldman

I will be throwing parties every night of Web 2.0 NY Sept. 16-19th. Bottles, Models, and umm geeks. Details coming.

August 22, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

nik, Julio F ~ @SocialJulio, jk5027a and Fred Grott liked this

are you coming to TC50 as well? - Orli Yakuel

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Does this mean that startups on the East Coast will be dropping by your place to pitch you? - Jay Cuthrell

Very funny. - loren feldman

i was actually serious. will be a pleasure to finally meet you. - Orli Yakuel

Orli, I was talking to Jay. At present I do not have plans to be at tc50. - loren feldman

oh sorry. bummer about tc50. - Orli Yakuel

depending on what the bottles contain, im up for a party - nik

You in town for it Nik? - loren feldman

didnt even know about it but i am beginning to think that i might have to - nik

Web 2.0 NYC should be silly, but my parties are going to rock. Im dying to see the remote control you are building. - loren feldman

ye i just have to build a $200 wet dream for some dude who thinks he is steve jobs between now and then - nik

I wanna help Nik. Not many people knows this about me, but I went to Cooper Union and have an industrial engineering degree. - loren feldman

Neat! Industrial engineering? Did you go into that field after college or run away screaming? (I've got a Materials Sci&Eng degree, btw) - Jay Cuthrell

After I left the Wilford Academy Of Beauty - loren feldman

Jim Norris

Look! A Printer For Your Latte - http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitc...

August 22, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Rob Schonberger, Tom Stocky, Lu Tao and 44 other people liked this

from http://friendfeed.com/nectari... - Jim Norris from Bookmarklet

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Very cool! - Karen Padham Taylor

soon we'll see "hand-made latte art" advertised. - Neha Narula

ok, this is just awesome! +1 - tagami

This is really cool... One thing though, the reason I gravitate towards coffee shops that have latte art is that there is a high correlation between latte-art and good coffee... Now with these machines, it might no longer be the case :( - Bindu Reddy

you know who has good latte art? cafe del dogge in palo alto. very creative stuff - Charles Hudson

@Jim Not as good as my Guinness shamrocks on St. Patrick's Day! - Anne Bouey

I love that one of their demo images is the Utah teapot. - Seth

Cafe del Doge: Venice, Cairo, Tokyo, Palo Alto. - j1m

is that true j1m? That's awesome - Adam Kazwell

amazingly, yes: http://www.caffedeldoge.com/en... - j1m

Hmm, that's awesome. Excellent advertising opportunity - Sam Allan

It looks like it's depositing chocolate or cinnamon powder. Does anybody have more information about how it works? - Gabe

Jeremiah Owyang

What Facebook’s New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands - http://www.web-strategist.com/blog...

August 21, 2008 from Web Strategy by Jeremiah - Comment - Like - Share

stanleyyork, Sherrilynne Starkie, Glenn Batuyong and 13 other people liked this

I have actually been doing some investigating into this exact approach for advertising but expanding it outside a single site and approaching it from the perspective of an ad network. I truly believe that these type of more social engagement ads are ultimately the next generation of display advertising. With APIs like MySpace Data Availability and Facebook Connect allowing for pseudo... more... - Devlin Dunsmore

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In Facebook's case I would actually make the point that instead of just making a new style of ad they would be well off to find a way to make an ad that is essentially a Facebook application. Applications have definitely proven that they can be many times more engaging than just traditional advertisements and this would be a great way for Facebook to finally monetize one of their most popular features while providing an advertising solution that better aligns with users' motives when in the social space. - Devlin Dunsmore

great scoop and analysis , Jeremiah. Thanks! - Ed Terpening

Thanks Ed - Jeremiah Owyang

An incredibly timely piece for me since I am pitching a Facebook ad campaign to a client next week. This post will help them *deal* with the dismal CTRs @ FB. Any advertiser on social media sites like FB need to commit to the long-term regarding advertising. Yes, that’s hard to do. But FB @ least is giving us tools *beyond* the old flyer ads. Thanx, as always! - Barbara K. Baker

I really like this post Jeremiah. I would add that engagement ads are complete bullshit unless it adds value for the user: emotional, monetary, content,..etc - it's that simple the ad has to be good -translation it has to connect and add value to the user(s) - John Furrier

Good point John - Jeremiah Owyang

Pretty much all social media has to follow the GUT rule if it is going to be effective. Genuine, useful, and thoughtful (I'm actually writing a blog post about this at the moment). Marketers can't just take the old advertising paradigm and apply it to social marketing but lately I have seen a lot more better efforts from brands than at this time last year. - Devlin Dunsmore from twhirl

I think that should be GUTorF i think the funny factor can be as effective. - Allan Anderson

If you look at it from another angle funny could also be interpreted as useful. If people are surfing YouTube or Facebook looking for funny stuff and your social media catches their eye for its hilarity factor it is helping them achieve their objective. Hence it is useful. Usefulness is relative to the goals of the user and not something absolutely defined by the creator. - Devlin Dunsmore from twhirl

Louis Gray

NewsCred ♥ Matthew and Sarah

August 19, 2008 from email - Comment - Like - Share

David Cook, Mitchell Tsai, DGentry and 29 other people liked this

T-shirts courtesy of NewsCred, which launched today at http://www.newscred.com/ - Louis Gray from email

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the poor kids are being pimped out for tshirts now - worked their way up from stickers - Allen Stern

Were your stickers personalized, Allen? These shirts were pretty good. :-) - Louis Gray

Future super☆s - michael sean wright

FriendFeed babies really get people's attention. :) - Daniel Schildt

Allen, it looks like you lost your chance at some hot recruits. - Rob Diana

rob - yea i can't compete with tshirts, i don't have vc funding. also, if the kids are going to swap brands every other day, then it's best not to be part of that - it's about loyalty and clearly these kids don't have it - what's next a google bib? yahoo booties? tesla? - Allen Stern

Allen, the answer is yes to all. These kids are the official "schwag magnets" and those brands that capitalize... capitalize. - Louis Gray

Attn all startups: Matthew and Sarah will be available for press photos using your schwag this tuesday at the san francisco mall from 2-4pm. Bring your schwag and you get signed photos, a "my schwag's with gray" sticker and your photos placed on flickr. Tipping is allowed. Schedule may change based on #2 duty. - Allen Stern

Allen: #2, duty, doodie? :-) Maybe Louis could hire the folks from DoodieDuty and outsource that (doodie) duty. :-) http://www.doodieduty.com/ - Lisa L. Seifert

How could you not 'like'? - Charlie Anzman

They are adorable... we were so excited to see this on our launch day. Photos are already up on our wall. PS Allen, we aren't funded either. We just love cute babies. - Shafqat Islam

Facebook is in talks with Matthew and Sarah. That is the word on the street, - Mike Fruchter

I think we need better child labor laws here Louis! ha, ha!! Dad's learned how to market those cuties very well!! :-) - Susan Beebe

Mitchell Tsai

Smore keyboard (500×385) [Kim & Jason Kotecki - 4/26/07] - http://www.kimandjason.com/blog...

August 2, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Zestyn Zee, Roger Benningfield, edythe and 73 other people liked this

Kim & Jason's blog http://kimandjason.com/blog... - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

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Kim & Jason is all about an idea. It's the crazy notion that there is more to life than the hectic busyness, cynical melancholy and overwhelming stress that is typical of most modern lives. Adultitis tricks us into missing out on the best parts of life and causes us to take ourselves WAY too seriously. - Mitchell Tsai

We believe that life is meant to be lived to the fullest, that our lives should be bursting with big dreams, oodles of passion, and an enthusiastic playfulness. We believe in curiosity, delighting in the little things, and a faith that knows things always work out for the best. We believe that a life that embraces a childlike spirit is a life that is less stressful and way more fun. - Mitchell Tsai

At it's core, Kim & Jason (which has been described as "candy for the soul" -- way too cool for us to make up) is all about helping grown-ups of all ages to slow down and Escape Adulthood, whether it's through a stress-reducing chuckle or a nostalgic reflection at a treasured childhood memory. But just as importantly, we are extremely passionate about making a difference in the lives of children as well. - Mitchell Tsai

That's why we pledge 3% of all merchandise sales to organizations that help meet the needs and improve the lives of children. Kim & Jason fans have played a big role in helping to save childhood for kids all over the world. - Mitchell Tsai

Mmmmmm... keyboard. Seriously hungry now. - Ernie Oporto

Oh yum! - Carrie

If I owned one, I'd be perpetually hungry. - Brent Newhall

Yum! - RAPatton

ittastsvrygood,butitisuslsstoug,iamatingtkys! - Tim Hoeck

sorry i couldn't do my spreed sheet i ate my keyboard - Caroline

mmmm mmmm mmmmm - Harold

Ok where can I BUY ONE?? - Susan Beebe

Yes please... - Calvin Robinson from twhirl

Nom? - Slappy Line

Indeed. NOM - Great Scott!

Steve Rubel

McCain Makes Historic First Visit to Internet - Borowitz Report - http://www.borowitzreport.com/article...

August 1, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Brian, Jon Mulholland, Daniel Schildt and 28 other people liked this

"In a daring bid to wrench attention from his Democratic rival in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today embarked on an historic first-ever visit to the Internet." - Steve Rubel from Bookmarklet

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If I was Mapquest.com, I would definitely be proud, that a possible US president visited my page as his first page ever. Anyway, Obama will make it ;) - Timo Heuer

How can the US expect to be competitive in the world economy if we elect a President who thinks the Internet is exotic for "techies." Why would we chose to handicap ourselves like that. - Dave Winer

Laughing at picture ♥ - Bwana ☠

I don't know what's funnier - the article or the fact that I believe it could be true... - George Smith

They must be saving the p0rn safari for day two. - Kevin D. White

Hilarious - Rubin Sfadj

Alternate photo caption: "Aw GEEZ! Forgot to zip my pants AGAIN! Arggh!!!" - Jericho

@Dave...Did he really say that? Wow. - mike

You'd think he would put Evernote on the list, given his propensity to forget promises. - jcunwired

"Teh intarwebs are too confusing!" - Shawn Poulson

Yeah, all those tubes can be a little overwhelming - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

This is all just smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that he is secretly a HUGE WOW nerd. - stretta from twhirl

Funny. - Daniel Schildt

Steve Rubel

Twitter As News-wire - http://blog.twitter.com/2008...

July 29, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

jk5027a, mhmazidi and Drew Lucas liked this

This is the new world of journalism... - Steve Rubel

Duncan Riley

The Changing Blogosphere and Blogging 2.0 - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...

July 27, 2008 from The Inquisitr - Comment - Like - Share

maxilprof, Daniel Schildt, Peter Efland and 30 other people liked this

Nice article Duncan! I liked the older May article you wrote also... What do you think about new Microsoft search algorithms like BrowseRank http://friendfeed.com/e... where the Web 2.0 Google-Microsoft-juice of the future which track dynamic user behavior may reward bloggers who engage their audiences across websites & platforms? - Mitchell Tsai

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this is a very well written post. Thought Provocation, as well clear and concise. The art of blogging died , a long time ago, when we had bloggers just running their sites to gt money. The Only blog/Blogger that I really have REAL respect is Blogscoped /Philipp Lenssen. He's the ONLY blogger that has well written stuff, innovative and clearly a class of his own. The rest have fallen from their Perch or on the verge of that ! - Peter Dawson

that is great but I am working on blogging 2.13. Waiting for all of you to upgrade. :-) - Robert Scoble

Scoble's, make sure the herd follows you into Blog2.13 , please don't assume that just because you are going there, we'll follow you there !! - Peter Dawson

*sigh* Why do people add '2.0' to everything. Any day now I'm expecting Big Mac 2.0 at McDonalds, or Bridgestone Tyre 2.0 or Wrigleys Extra Gum 2.0. Rant aside, excellent article. That said, I don't see any '2.0' with blogging, which I believe has been a fluid, changing, '2.0' entity since almost day one. - Mo Kargas

Duncan the Social Media networks broke all boundaries of Blogging! Before you had to have a popular Blog like TechCrunch to make a statement, today it is all about synergy and connecting with your followers! One does not need a HiveThink mass to be relevant. An active and prominent micro community listening to what you have to say and spreading the gospel is much more desirable! Werewolf! Enlightened minority is more powerful than ignorant majority! The Revolution! - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

Mo, in this case it's well suited as it is a new movement distinct from the old. And no, it hasn't been 2.0 since day one, it actually preceded the whole 2.0 social movement. In other posts I've noted that the change today is in some way blogging finally embracing the broader web 2.0 movement - Duncan Riley

There are over 300 new features in Blogging 2.0. - Chris Baskind

Chris, I'm waiting until December when they release the featureless update to Blogging 2.0, Snow Blogging, which focuses on security and reliability. - Mark Trapp

See? That's where I'm hurting. Snow Blogging is gonna leave me behind, since I'm still on a PPC desktop. Rats. - Chris Baskind

Well written post. I think there have been change in mainstream blogging but in smaller circles there are still strong community feeling, at least based of what I have seen in many places. Yes, many more target search engines but for many it's also way of getting new readers and contributors (in form of comments), not just for money or fame. Anyways, there is always change in the world as people do things and get older. New blogs are born and many older ones disappear to endless sea of web. - Daniel Schildt

Mailing lists are where it's izzat. - Paul Montgomery

Charlie Anzman

10 start-ups to keep an eye on - http://anzman.blogspot.com/2008...

July 21, 2008 from SEO and Tech Daily - Comment - Like - Share

Nikpay, Tai, Mitchell Tsai and 30 other people liked this

The new monthly list is here ... thoughts? - Charlie Anzman

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Great list. Love the variety of services listed. I definitely agree with your selections - Corvida from twhirl

Thanks Corvida - That means a lot - Charlie Anzman

Looks good. The first month will be the easiest. I promise. Looking forward to your B list next month! - Louis Gray

Louis - There's 70 on this list. The question is ... will it change next month? :) - Charlie Anzman

I'm enjoying brightkite atm. A location based microblogging service. I'm intrigued by identi.ca and as always Loics' seesmic. Not too sure about the adoption of video comments alongside the standard text responses. seesmic has a place though ! disqus integration is a clear win there. Ya think FF comments could be relayed back to original posts via disqus in time ? ah comment separation is going to become an issue there me'thinks. - David Smith

Thanks for the mention, Charlie. Formidable company. - Peter Troast

David - Robert Scoble has a pretty length thread goin' on about comment clustering here http://friendfeed.com/e... Peter - great chatting last week. You guys are totally cool :) - Charlie Anzman

What about Toluu? - Franklin Pettit

Franklin - Stay tuned :) - Charlie Anzman

: ) - Mona Nomura

Nice list. I personally prefer Redfin to Zillow myself. And ZipRealty has been rapidly and iteratively improving as well. - AJ Kohn

AJ - Both pretty lame in rural areas? Good secret next! - Charlie Anzman

Most US Counties have their GIS online. Just search the county, state with GIS. More info than you need on a specific property. Amazing how many Real Estate agents don't know this - Charlie Anzman

I feel overwhelmed by some of these lists and services ...where is the time to check them all out? Is it just me? - kamla bhatt

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