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Raza › Comments
Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates: SeedCamp 2009 (Sept 2009, London) - http://500hats.typepad.com/500blog...
Measuring what users are doing with your application is the key, can't stree enough on it.
- Raza
from Bookmarklet
5 Sickening Habits of Mainstream Websites - http://www.techcult.com/5-sicke...
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Simon, Mitch Wagner, Marcel Weiß and 77 other people liked this
I've begun to notice this more and more recently - articles that have no business being split are spread across several pages. Are we losing the ability to scroll or something?
- Slappy Line
By paging even short articles they probably aim to increase page view count, ad-hits etc on the expense of usability. Cheap.
- Jemm
I think they're trying to generate more pageviews and ad impressions.
- Jess Lee
i hate it and sometime even move away from the page when websites split articles into multiple pages ...
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
it is all about impressions. Some sites (like NYTimes.com mobile) give you a link to view the full text of the article on one page. Normally I use that option especially when on my mobile as I do not like waiting for next page to load.
- Davide D'Incau
They forgot to add that when they have RSS feeds, they are not full text feeds. Partials really annoy me. Oh and media content that does not appear properely or play in an RSS reader/Google Reader
- Ian D. Nock
I don't even bother anymore, I just skip to the printable version.
- EricaJoy
I head right for the printable view as well.
- abacab
Paging sucks.
- Thomas Hawk
Duncan, stop Bitching! LMAO
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
Its time ad impressions stopped driving the design.
- Pranav Bhasin
All great points/annoyances. Pop-ups and registrations are my biggest frustrations.
- Jill Howard Allen
There has to be a balance. Pagination is good for page views but if an article is long it often helps readability as well. Sadly, when presented a long article, many just walk away. Chunking it makes it bite size, which doesn't overwhelm users and gives them a sense of accomplishment from finishing a page. Clearly shorter pieces shouldn't be paginated, but the attention span of the average user is ...
- AJ Kohn
They won't listen to this, even if they believe 'Content is KING', they won't change their habits. Use the site and the real-estate of the site intelligently and the crowd will flock. But they won't do it. Mostly, I prevent visiting such a site and read via RSS or something. But how about those who don't give full article on RSS. And its right, I have never clicked on Ads, ever.
- Jayavasanthan J
Sounds like we need a Firefox plugin or Greasemonkey script that will ping a server, find out if the page you're on has a "Print" link to the article, and display that instead of the original page. Printable versions are actually still pretty usable these days.
- Jeff Eddings
I'm personally boycotting sites that throw interstitial pages up before showing the article -- I think they don't value me as a user.
- Jeff Eddings
they are all still stuck on the pageview model, and will be so until their advertisers and ABC ratings move into the 21st century. By 2015 perhaps
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
I hate when they do that... Or when I'm at work and CNN, for example, has a headline that links only to a video, with no transcription. Seriously CNN, I can't always sit and watch a video at work, especially since I share my workspace with other people.
- Adam C.
@Gregory, that doesn't make sense. What's stopping someone from tossing 10 Google ads along the vertical of a page instead of 2 ads on 5 pages?
- Rudolf Olah
but what can they do when their advertisers use page views as a way to choose who they advertise on? ABC should be smarter but their rankings use that as well. If you dont do it, you end up being considered "too small" for many campaigns.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
the trick: go to the "print" view to get the article all on one page.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
I love you Duncan Riley. :) I think it all boils down to this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrici...
- Patricia
What is the FF extension that puts all the separate pages into one?
- Alex Williams
grr articles like that are not worth paging through. My mousewheel works fine, thanks.
- Alan Le
Damn right.
- DAVE ID
Google juice as a motive isn't always consumer-friendly
- Pete Steege
Is the MacBook Air a netbook? In some ways (weight) yes. In other ways (price) no.
Mike Reynolds, Matthew Hickey, mhmazidi and 3 other people liked this
boy do i want one, whatever it is! :)
- Zee.
just don't like the idea of keeping two macs in sync
- Zee.
No I don't think it is
- Kipp Bodnar
i have one and i love it :)
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Ditto raza.
- Matthew Hickey
sweet my email tells me i just inherited 20 million bucks from some rich dude in Ireland, i just have to send some money to him first so he can transfer it - and with that i'm going to bed. night FF! you guys FTW!
Mona Nomura, Raza, Anna Haro and Duncan Riley liked this
Sounds like we need a spam thread. Apparently I just won some lingerie from Victoria's Secret.
- Louis Gray
:D
- Mladen Srdić
hahaha @Louis
- Anna Haro
i get dozens of such emails ... what's the point of these emails ?
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Damn, all I got was a discount on Viaaagrraa. :(
- Steve Isaacs
Calling all followers! I wanna know what timezone you're in: I've got a geeky itch to make a graph out of it. Please respond with your time zone in the format of + or - from GMT.
edythe, Glenn Batuyong, dkb and 3 other people liked this
+10
- Johnny Worthington
-5 or is it -4 with daylight savings? I get confused.
- Michael W. May
from twhirl
+2, Istanbul
- Erhan
-7
- Helen Sventitsky
from fftogo
Michael: -4. I'm -4 here, too.
- Mark Trapp
-5.00 (EST)
- Czar
-5 EDT
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
+5:30 IST (Indian Standard Time)
- Rahul Das
-6 until November 2, then -7
- Jeremy Kunz
-4 at the moment. -5 in the fall.
- James (@willia4)
-5.00 (EST)
- JA Castillo
I'm in Berlin Germany. I have no idea what GMT zone that is.
- Robert Scoble
-5 GMT (Eastern US time)
- Nine
gmt+2
- Nicole Simon
UTC/GMT +10 hours down in syd australia
- Jay
est time us
- orionstarr
GMT+10 (Sydney, Australia).
- Andrew Trinh
-5 GMT
- William Spaetzel
-6 GMT
- Adam Turetzky
-6 Here in Dallas, I think.
- ha3rvey (wants confit)
GMT -8
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
+1 but only because we're on BST (British Summer Time) at the moment.
- Graeme Shaw
-5 on a usual day, but currently -4 because of DST. How will you graph this one? :P
- Long Nguyen
-5
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
from NoiseRiver
GMT
- Joe Dawson
Central. Not doing math this morning.
- Josh Haley
+8
- Aether
+0530
- Yuvi
-5EST
- Imabug
+2
- Boubacar Balde
from twhirl
+0 GMT
- dkb
from Alert Thingy
Usually -8 but -7 with daylight savings. (PDT)
- AJ Kohn
+8
- Justin Long
+5
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
-5 GMT
- Bartek Ciszkowski
I can never remember, but same as you
- David Knight
+1 or +2 depending on daylight savings
- Olivier
+5
- Jason Theodor
+2
- Migger
GMT -5, aka US Central Daylight Time
- Pat Rice
GMT -4 (EDT)
- Ian May
MDT
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
GMT+1
- Tibor Holoda
EST
- Denise
UTC -8
- Glenn Batuyong
Standard time zone: UTC/GMT -5 hours Daylight saving time: +1 hour Current time zone offset: UTC/GMT -4 hours Time zone abbreviation: EDT - Eastern Daylight Time
- Carmen - Happy 2010!
Awesome, I'm at 48 comments on this! Anyone else care to contribute?
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
-6
- tehKenny, Dork
GMT +8 :)
- Chris Chua
-5
- Ryan Keiser
from twhirl
GMT -8
- Tony Jones
from twhirl
+8, Hong Kong
- Marcel Ekkel
-6 GMT. Central Time represent, woot woot! Okay, i'm done.
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
-5 Eastern(whateveritisnow)Time
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Im frum teh futar.
- tehKenny, Dork
-6 GMT like MC Haggis up there. :)
- Yolanda
-5 EST (Toronto)
- Chris Luckhardt
-6 GMT, CST in the USA
- Barbara K. Iverson
from twhirl
-5 EDT
- Mitchell Tsai
San Jose, CA PDT = UTC -7 = GMT -7
- Jeff P. Henderson
-10 GMT, HST
- Tyler Gillies
+10
- Gordon Smith
British Summer Time here - GMT +1
- Slappy Line
+1 GMT Copenhagen
- Lars Rune Jensen
-4 right now -5 in a little while.
- Amber, Random Time Lord
-8
- edythe
GMT +9:30 (Adelaide, Australia)
- Mo Kargas
-5
- Russellreno
GMT +4 hours,Moscow time
- Igor Poltavskiy
-5 EDT
- RAPatton
-5
- Mattb4rd
EDT/EST
- Morton Fox
Friendfeed's PR is very simple. They just write a blog post. No embargo or even email sent I am sure and as they are hot, it just works.
Alex Hammer, Eric Sessions, Kevin LaHaise and 41 other people liked this
That is how it should work. Efficient... :-)
- Håkan Dahlström
One major reason I use FriendFeed is that it is FAST and EFFICIENT. Small companies don't really need conventional PR except to hire employees.
- Mitchell Tsai
it only works for hot startups though, otherwise forget it
- Loic Le Meur
from twhirl
i don't agree loic. i urge all of our companies to do it this way and most do. it works for all companies that are willing to engage in social media.
- Fred Wilson
i think only very hot startups get reasonable attention in social media ...
- Raza
It also works where there is a lareg community into which it can be plugged
- Dennis Howlett
from twhirl
However, almost all the PR was on blogs - http://tinyurl.com/6mffb9. If they are to grow, broader they must go sez Yoda.
- Steve Rubel
+1 Steve
- Zee.
Perfect answer Steve - I would wonder if all those blogs drove more than 100 new users.
- Allen Stern
Not really, what about the thousands of small companies who has continuously updated blogs and still no one hears about them?
- Amit Morson
Fred, it is because you link to all your companies each time they announce something and you get them on TechMeme, if not, you are the one getting on TechMeme for them. It works too but not all startups have a Fred Wilson
- Loic Le Meur
It works in the social media space. Not a suitable strategy for most IT and even Web businesses
- john conroy
@john conroy, i totally agree. it is about the audience and the audience lives here.
- Jonathan Nguyen
It's early adopter marketing, doesn't work in other contexts.
- Vincent van Wylick
It works - if it is integrated with other instances of marketing and PR. It is never either or but always both.
- Niclas Strandh
Publicity isn't the same thing as PR. This tactic is working in this case as a publicity tool for a hot tech startup. That's a big difference to a PR strategy. What if they face a crisis? Will a blog be sufficient?
- Dave Fleet
from twhirl
Dave - of course not. Obviously, they would approach a crisis much differently, that goes without saying. These guys at FF are uber smart and I totally respect and admire them for it!
- Susan Beebe
@gregory lent: that's why one can't depend only on one channel. The long tail of information you know.
- Niclas Strandh
there is a PR advantage to a product like friendfeed that has divergent use cases and can't be fully explained in a short, repeated message... existing users are compelled to explain how they use it, what they like about it, what it "means". letting go of some message discipline in PR, finding an authentic voice and letting early adopters evangelize... both honest and effective, two words that don't apply to most PR.
- tonx
Facebook Hits 100 Million Users http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...
David Young, Raza, Orli Yakuel and 6 other people liked this
bullies.
- MG Siegler
now MG, I'll assume you don't say that because I give VentureBeat a hard time in the post, right?
- Marshall Kirkpatrick
ha ha, no just a play on your title. i'll let eric defend himself :)
- MG Siegler
ha. ok, that's funny.
- Marshall Kirkpatrick
congratulations facebook!
- Zee.
commented :)
- Eric Eldon
most of them just to play fluff friends :/
- Paul Moss
from Alert Thingy
There are plenty of ways Facebook can monetize, they just didn't find one yet. Any idea? :)
- Simone
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
wow ... amazing ...
- Raza
I wonder how many of Myspace's 100 Million in their first three years were spam users.
- David Young
from FriendFeed MT Plugin
Grounded pilot, wife sue over 'no-fly' list - http://www.pennlive.com/midstat...
Alex Barbara, Brad Nickel, Michael C. Harris and 2 other people liked this
"A Gulf War veteran and his wife say they've been unfairly placed on a federal list that limits their commercial flight access and threatens his job as a commercial pilot. To fight back, the couple, who are Muslim, filed a lawsuit today against a host of U.S. government agencies. "We don't know why they're on the list. They don't know why they're on the list. The government won't tell us why they're on the list," said Amy Foerster"
- Gabe
from Bookmarklet
Due process?
- Paul Buchheit
Good to see someone fighting back ...
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Bruce Schneier wrote a great essay on the no fly list, http://bit.ly/3hNS8l "In a country built on the principles of due process, the current no-fly list is an affront to our freedoms and liberties." more http://bit.ly/42a97w. with any luck, this might be a good catalyst to fix it. we can do better.
- David Vasileff
I think this is a different "no fly" list than the one Schneier was talking about. According to http://www.cnn.com/2008..., TSA's no-fly list is easy to avoid just by giving a different version of your name. That way everybody named James Robinson can fly with no hassle just by using the name Jim Robinson. Of course that only works once you know your name's on the list.
- Gabe
Do you guys use StumbleUpon? I have never used it, playing with it now.
Chris Baskind, Brad Nickel, Dave Martin and 11 other people liked this
i have never used it either ... let us know if you find it useful ...thanks
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
I use Stumble regularly!! its perfect when u dont have any particular thing in mind and just want to be given smth in accordance to ur interests!! i found bunch of stuff which i bookmarked through Stumble.
- Hayk H.
I've played with it before, I don't use it regularly though. Mostly I use it when there's time to kill.
- LonelyBob
I just started a few weeks ago as I was considering a startup that had some similarities and wanted to check out what was what. Haven't fully integrated it in my daily routine yet though.
- Andrew Leyden
I use StumbleUpon regularly to find stories/news and find it very useful!
- Joe Dawson
I've never used it but I like the fact it's given me loads of blog traffic over the last few days thanks to a couple of users reviewing a post I wrote about Japan's mobile technology.
- Martin Bryant
About time. It's one of the most important and most inspirational services out there.
- Dennis Bjørn Petersen
from twhirl
great time killer.... I'd use it more often if I had more time to kill....
- c010depunkk
from twhirl
I use it all the time as my book marking system, the pay off for the writer is about 300 people go to their site, at least those that share their stats off my stumbling of their web sites. Nice pay off, good entry, at least somewhat of a reward.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
It's one of those sites that has the uncanny ability to present you with pleasant surprises every once in a while.
- Kevin Singarayar
my son asked if it was going to be a swimming pool
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
from twhirl
that last post was of course in reference to the hole in Russia - although i don't know the future direction of StumbleUpon
- Steven Livingstone-Pérez
from twhirl
I have been using it since 2003 or 2004... but not that active recently. Anyways, if interested, here is my profile: http://d2s.stumbleupon.com
- Daniel Schildt
je l'utilise dans ma barre d'outils pour mettre en favoris pleins de site que je trouve ou que l'on propose sur StumbleUpon, mon profil est http://dame-chlodyne.stumbleupon.com/
- Dame Chlodyne
StumbleUpon is great, very focused signal/noise ratio
- Mark Edmondson
Love it. Please add me to your stumble contacts http://tojosan.stumbleupon.com/
- Todd Jordan
enjoyed it some time ago as a "memory location" but remember now at Evernote...never really StumbledUpon many new places. SU concept and team are Aces
- coolblueskies
Yep, I use and love it... I'm not using it as much as I used to, but I still love it :-)
- Loup Dargent
More entertaining/informative than Solitaire.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
video is particularly good
- Marshall Kirkpatrick
Easiest casual browsing on the interwebs.
- Chris Baskind
No but I get a ton of people visitng my blog from Stumble Upon.
- Andrew Fielding
never
- net
Stumble Upon is the best tool to discover the variety of the World Wide Web. You start to really understand what the Web is when you use Stumble Upon
- Guy DOYEN
from Alert Thingy
StumbleVideo is really fun! Great way to pass the time! http://video.stumbleupon.com/
- David Beach
I wouldn't be without it since I live for novelty,
- Tom Landini
you should try and retry StumbleUpon... you'll discover brilliant, useful and odd websites. Besides, StumbleUpon will bring you a lot of web traffic if you'll stumble a site of yours...
- Chiara Lorè
I use it constantly. It has been the single most helpful tool for driving traffic to my blog.
- vjack
what were you doing in 1982?
Soulhuntre, Bob Kingsley, K.D. and 5 other people liked this
Working in the music industry and the exciting Bay Area visual theatre scene, doing publicity, radio promotion and working with some incredible people.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
Keeping my parents up all night, learning to walk & talk.... baby stuff (I was only a year old in 1982).
- ChaCha Fance
Every lady I could... that's what 22 yr olds do... right? :-)
- Rocky Barbanica
Being 1 year old...
- Andru Edwards
I was in elementary school.
- Leslie Poston
Finishing high school, played violin in some summer musicals, leaving home, and starting college in Fall 1982. If I had any guts, I should have travelled the world for 3 months in the summer. One of my roommates hitch-hiked from CA to MA for college.
- Mitchell Tsai
Stalking my future-husband's band. We'll be married 22 years on Saturday.
- jeneane sessum
Year 1 in school.
- Duncan Riley
enjoying being 11
- anna sauce
i was two at the time, so trying to read everything in sight and bugging people when i couldn't recognize the words.
- idnan
enjoying my first memorable year as a music junkie (age 7) top 40 FTW -- http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive...
- Andy Sternberg
from twhirl
I was in my summer vacations from elementary school here in my country, and I was ready to travel to San Diego, L.A. and Disney world in Anaheim, with my folks, I was six years old and also the Soccer World cup in Spain has just finished and Italy won the cup against Germany 3-1... Mickey mouse and donald duck said hi to me and I cried, dunno why LOL.... Oh and ET was released too and barely can remember the film :(
- George The Writer
I was 8, already the geek of the class, learning BASIC and playing with dual screen electronic games.
- Brome
Pre-school...
- Jemm
Getting beaten up for listening to Echo & the Bunnymen in high school, and dearly looking forward to being considered an adult by the end of the year.
- Helen Sventitsky
from fftogo
Learning to walk.
- Mohamed J
I was a junior at Prospect High School in Saratoga, CA. Ran a marathon (3:14). Learned to do color photography with Ilford Cibachrome.
- Robert Scoble
Freshman in high school. Yeah, I'm old.
- Mike Doeff
Learning to crawl..:) born in 1982!
- Cynthia Seow
from twhirl
Graduating 8th Grade and starting High School
- Adam Turetzky
I had a desk in the Pentagon that later got scorched by a passenger jet that crashed through the wall.
- Bernie Goldbach
Didn't exist, well not till 9 or so months in..
- Mo Kargas
Hrm...I was 3. I think I am too old to remember...
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
I wasn't in project)))))
- obolonskyi
attending grade 2.
- Trent Olson
Finished high school and went off to college. Met a beautiful girl on a blind date who later became my wife. Broke the usual rules that 18 yr olds do.
- Larry Kless
from twhirl
Working hard at being a mum to 2 pre-schoolers. Ah, the good old days!
- Kate Foy
I was born the very year :)
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Hacking.
- Sam Pullara
Leaving DevonAir Radio in Exeter, Devon (where I had some very happy times), to go work at CBC in Cardiff, Wales (where I had some very unhappy times).
- Bob Kingsley
around the middle of june, i was being born
- moogs
Kindergarten
- Luke Gedeon
I was a Junior in High School. I was coding, running a BBS and having a fairly kinky relationship with a girl I later was married to for 8 years or so. Additionally I was finalizing my plans to enter military service (which i did)
- Soulhuntre
Working in the electronic industry
- Igor Poltavskiy
Looks like there are not many old farts here - I was working in a company that produced real time restaurant management systems and raising a 2 year old.
- Brian Sullivan
Maybe Cuil isn't supposed to be good. They must know that the results are bad, but they launched anyway. Maybe they aren't trying to build a full search engine, but just want to demo their crawling+indexing technology with the expectation that someone will buy the company and plug in better ranking.
Alexander Oelling, Torsten Eckert, ~C4Chaos and 84 other people liked this
Where "someone" = MSFT, who has already shown that they are willing to pay a lot for non-functional search engines.
- Paul Buchheit
That is what I was thinking, too.
- Robert Scoble
You'd think they'd work toward getting something relevant if you search on "cuil launch"
- Michael Markman
It's the only thing that makes sense when you look at how bad the results are. You don't roll out something like unless you are just showing off the interface.
- Kevin Bondelli
Would also explain the weak branding. Who cares, if it's just going to get plugged into something else?
- Chris Baskind
It must be so hard to launch something in a realm where there isn't much tolerance/patience for incremental improvement. The bar in this space is high and consumers are very picky. Look at Yahoo. Their search is actually pretty damn good. However, they keep losing share.
- Christopher Sacca
agree with Sacca - also, I thought the people behind Cuil had already sold some search technology to Google and hence they wanted to try it out on their own this time - so if anything they'd have more intent than others not to flip.
- Adam Kazwell
100% agree with Paul .... what they have launched really sucks and I don't think I would be going back again to search .... Sacca seems to be right that the bar is really high in this space and whatever gets launched really needs to work well or it will fail
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
It is also strange that Cuil has no presence on twitter or friendfeed. There is no friendfeed.com/cuil. There is a twitter.com/cuil account but no twitters there. It would be interesting to hear from someone at Cuil on the FriendFeed/Twitter as to why they launched with the poor results...
- Atul Arora
Yahoo's crawl speed is not close to GOOG.
- Michael
It's something, and a reasonable first step. Yes, the results aren't that great but they seem reasonably comprehensive. Their make-or-break will be showing continuous visible progress - if they don't, sure, they're just a $XXXm dog and pony show for another company too scared of Google to see straight, but if they do improve, there may be potential for even more upside than that.
- David Weekly
Google Killer? I do not even need to look to know the answer
- Mike Reynolds
maybe there could be business in opening up their index?
- Alex Gawley
I'm not saying that the results are good, but people seem overly critical. I saw one piece on how their name is too hard to spell. But if they did become popular, this would not remain a problem.
- Clare Dibble
It's embarrassing IMO. The results are thin and the images completely wrong. Not good is one thing ... Cuil seems a cut below not good right now.
- AJ Kohn
There results aren't -bad- but they are in no way great. Worse yet, anytime you start throwing around X-killer, you are pretty much setting yourself up for destruction.
- Steve Spalding
can a startup beat google with a link-based algorithmic search engine? msft's cashback.com is an example of changing the game. trovix.com's deep semantic indexing is changing the game. same for thefind.com. mahalo human-powered engine is too. Who else?
- Tim Connors
Paul, maybe they launched because they believed gathering data and feedback from the public would help them improve their ranking and other aspects of their service? I don't think that their ranking is anywhere near as good as Google's right now. But, there's no a priori reason to believe that Cuil ranking won't improve quickly. Anna, Russell, et.al. are actually pretty sharp. I for one am excited to see another player in search with new ideas about infrastructure and user experience.
- Kevin Scott
They of all people should have known to release with fast results (latency).. The fact that they did not surprises me, and had the exact effect I would expect.. I have no plans on going back, good results or not.. :)
- Derek Collison
Does "launch early" work for search engines? Don't think so..
- Jing Lim
One of the nice things about Google is the speed they index. Consider the indexing of a blog post made yesterday: Google already picked up the post and Cuil has not. http://www.cuil.com/search... VERSUS http://www.google.com/search... Google shows 367 results and that is trouble for Cuil. They'll need to work on that quickly to convince people they are being serious.
- LPH™ and his dog P™
it's about as useful as Archie(Gopher ref)
- clarke thomas
considering I got server overloaded errors when I tried it at first, I'd have to say launching early was a big error in judgement.
- sean808080
The indexing speed of Google and other search engines is pretty good, but another area that needs fixing is when content moves. It takes a long time for Google to catch up. Example: Let's say you move your blog or an early well-praised site goes stale, many search engines have trouble adjusting their rankings to the new site or to push down the older one.
- Loren Heiny
Trouble is that indexing and ranking are closely linked. If all you return is a hitlist there's no good ranking that can be done. Can't yet tell whether they're in that situation. What I don't get is why the rush to launch now.
- Daniel Dulitz
I read similar thoughts on Reddit yesterday and they made some sense... is there any chance all the negative buzz right now is going to hurt their buyability though?
- Philipp Lenssen
IMHO there have to be better ways to show off your very own crawling+indexing technologies than opening up to the public and getting thrashed for not delivering what people expect when you dub your service search engine. I have a hard time believing that the cuil/cuill guys did not know what they were doing though ... Were they pushed to release by financiers? Were they in dire need of usage data?
- Mustafa K. Isik
I do think they built Cuil to be bought. The reason they launched is they hoped their valuation will go up with all the press blitz... Which seems pretty well planned.... I think they went overboard selling themselves to the press and did not expect some of the back-lash. Of course, the saying goes - "All press is good press :)". So who knows this might indeed increase their valuation to 100s of millions :). It all depends on what the folks over at MSFT think/know about search :))
- Bindu Reddy
someone cough microsoft cough
- Sarah Perez
M$ bait! ah ha!! Bindu and Sarah, you're on to something there!!
- Susan Beebe
I liked this thread so much that I blogged it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008...
- Erick Schonfeld
As of yesterday, they didn't even have their own name indexed: http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Brady Brim-DeForest
actually, they are off to a decent start. They have a nice interface that needs work, and some results are good and many others bad. I can tell you it takes about a year to getting your feet under you and figure out where you can fit in the search ecosystem. They are funded for a three year run it seems, so I would give them a year and see where the product is at.
- Jason Calacanis
grabbing contextual images process is too weird! (o_O)
- Pınar Yanardağ
great discussion. the more I've read about the various GRAVE screw-ups (with porn images being linked to some people's bios, etc.), the more I tend to agree that they must have known that things weren't ready. It just feels too much like a prototype... Thus the buy-out scenario seems plausible. Who knows, buying their indexing technology could actually give a boost to MSFT or even Yahoo, given that they have a hard time keeping up on the tech/scale side of search. One thing we do know is that Google...
- Alex Schleber
... isn't going to buy them :) I wrote a post on the branding aspect of the Cuil debacle earlier today -> http://businessmindhacks.com/post... but now I'm not so sure anymore if they were even serious about the whole thing. Maybe they're having a hearty laugh right now that no one is getting the joke. If they are serious though, it's a horrible launch and horrible branding.
- Alex Schleber
Is it possible that they might be taking advantage of the disconnect between mainstream and social media? Cuil has made it in the news but to what extent has the negativity made it to the mainstream? If people get their news outside of the social media circle (which, as we are all quickly discovering, is a vast majority) and only hear that "Google killer Cuil has launched today" but...
more...
- Derick Valadao
I think it is tough doing a PR launch. I think the obsession with dropping a nuke over the PR is an helpful one. Mightily prefer to build it up over weeks and months of relationship building but most importantly great execution and a great product.
- azeem
Did Your IT Dept. Ban TWITTER Yet? - http://myphillynetwork.com/content...
Sarah Perez, Igor The Troll יִצְחָק, Robert Scoble and 12 other people liked this
no, my kid's school did though
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
IT depts can be sad...
- Mitchell Tsai
no twitter banned me!
- Noah David Simon
Quite, Mitchell
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
@Noah David Simon no words on that,lol
- Anthony Farrior
did you forget how to send an SMS?
- Andrew Feinberg
No, because I control all outgoing port80 traffic on our network. I actively encourage people to use twitter.
- Nick Cowie
Not the last time I checked, I don't check it too often anymore...
- Amit Morson
Not yet, thankfully.
- imabonehead
It's a good thing most IT guys actually aren't very geeky
- Rubin Sfadj
luckily my company has no internet restrictions, everything is logged though.
- Mike Fruchter
Thankfully, I *am* my IT department.
- Tamar Weinberg
LOL @ Tamar's comment...
- Susan Beebe
The only thing my company blocks is Pandora - and that's just because everyone was using it and it bogged down the network....
- George Smith
I'd have to fire me
- Charlie Anzman
My company banned LinkedIn until they realized that since they were laying off so many folks maybe that was kinda mean. I'd guess no one in the IT department has the slightest clue what Twitter is.
- Tad
My mom has a new gig with a major banking institution. She got a Blackberry as part of the deal. The catch, the IT default is for no Internet access and no SMS text messaging.
- AJ Kohn
They would have to know what it was first.
- Louis Gray
@AJ Kohn that's pretty funny ... why blackberry then ?
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Nope. No one around uses twitter; they are good people in my office, the IT guys, they only block what hundreds of people start using.
- Parth Awasthi
*shh* don't give them any ideas!
- Sally: reading a book
Not yet, but I'm sure it's coming.
- Aaron Myers
I have no idea, I didn't ask.
- Robert Brook
Not yet.
- Morton Fox
Nope, cuz I work in the IT dept. ;) But I know a lot of banks have banded Facebook, Twitter, and chat on Gmail.
- Daynah
do they even know what Twitter is ?
- Peter Dawson
I would moderate all Social Media activity in a company by employees. You would need a whole team to do this jub. If you cannot do this ban them all. Too much sensitive data may leak inadvertently!
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
@Raza: I asked the same question. Seems like email and calendar sync was the reason.
- AJ Kohn
uh yeah, chairman websense is the devil
- adolfo foronda
Peter Dawson, apparently, Twitter is really popular now.. even outside the IT community. I know bankers and librarians who are starting to use it.
- Daynah
Tweet , "My company ready to file chapter 11, sell all your stock!" lmao
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
Sounds like Eliot Spitzer will be back!
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
@Daynah , that I'll agree outside the IT dept, its popular, because inside the IT dept, they clueless as to what twitter is .. they are still (for the most part) living white collored, walled garden approach to IT managment !!
- Peter Dawson
I'm sure IT will soon do so if they haven't already - that's just their mentality. It hasn't hit everyone's radar yet, though. Still, they can't block your iPhone or smartphone! ha ha!!!
- Sarah Perez
Not yet. ;)
- Steven Perez
Can Cuil, Built for the Long-Term, Win the "Instant Analysis" Battle? - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
Charlie Anzman, Natitude, Caleb Elston and 2 other people liked this
You're right, people judge a lot by first impression those days, and I have to admit I do that, too. Sometimes, this may be a mistake, but being disappointed with so many would be "Google Killers" recently, it's like "Oh, yet another search engine with some great feature. Hm, results are mediocre." - the likelyhood of this being the next Google is so small, digging deeper into it just seems to be a waste of time.
- Thomas Frütel
They are down for last few hours atleast .... first impression can't be anything except bad
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Cuil has all the makings of becoming the most disastrous launch ever. The results are just awful. And now it is down.
- Peter Troast
Cuil isn't winning jack for me. Shawn Farner returns zero results. Zero. If I search Farner, though, a result for Shawn Farner shows up on the first page. Are they trying to make a bad search engine?
- Shawn Farner
I'm willing to come back to Cuil, but for now the results are spotty. Perhaps they could add a suggest form or a way to star the results you were looking for with a particular search. Even better would be a quick representation of why they're showing the search results they are.
- John Frost
@gyardley everyone's first test of a search engine is their own name!
Rutger Blom and Alex Gawley liked this
Mine is kinda close, I usually type in my company name :) then my own name... life of an entrepreneur I guess...
- Adrian Nadeau
it failed badly for me .... I guess I am not popular at all but still google does a far better job
- Raza
Television will be the first traditional media medium to fall - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...
Franklin Pettit, Joe Dawson, Jennifer Van Grove and 15 other people liked this
It depends where you are. My relatives live in developing countries. The internet in the home is still a rarity. TV is not.
- Phillip Jeffrey
Very interesting to think about. I think this will be a good thing, as tv advertising tends to be the most toxic. The case for the end of radio seems stronger though.
- Paul Buchheit
i guess newspapers should be the first one ....
- Raza
If internet TV can produce shows of the quality I'm used to watching (Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Heroes, etc...) then I can consider it. But when I hear stories of Internet Radio dying, I don't get the feeling that Internet TV will fare any better against traditional media. The obituary hasn't been written for newspapers yet.
- Ernie Oporto
Does anyone still watches tv?
- Meryn Stol
I agree with Raza. Newspapers are, sadly, already on their way out. It's melancholy for me because I used to work in the industry.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I think everything our televisions will be multi-media centers at the home so television has a secure future.
- orionstarr
I also want to add that i do agree with the final sentiment of the article: it's the networks that will go away, not the televisions. We'll end up with a la carte broadcasts where you subscribe to television series and will have them available to watch whenever a new episode is released. I, for one, look forward to that.
- Akiva Moskovitz
+1 for the notion that it is the traditional broadcast television network, and not necessarily the media itself, that is being outmoded.
- Derrick Burns
What about radio? Hasn't that pretty much fallen with the rise of satellite radio and mp3 players?
- John Duff
John, maybe in ClearChannel land but independent stations are doing quite well.
- Akiva Moskovitz
I miss independent radio stations. A lot.
- Derrick Burns
Derrick, kexp.org. Streaming 24/7 all day every day.
- Akiva Moskovitz
@Akiva: Thanks for the tip. Am listening right now. Like the look of the playlist a lot.
- Derrick Burns
There's also radioparadise.com
- Jason Shultz
from twhirl
Who is this Louis Gray? Do we really need another guy with no ideas or point of view writing about twitter daily. Ive never read a more boring guy ever.
richrecruiter, Lon Harris, Jonathan Greene and 7 other people liked this
You really don't need to if you find him boring ....it's everybody's right to say whatever they like .... choice is yours ..
- Raza
I'm sure you have....
- Amit Morson
Raza - Agreed It's everyones choice to be boring, thats my point. Why choose to be boring. He has nothing to add. Cool another social media expert, just what we need. WHERE ARE THE FUCKING INTERESTING people. People with something new to say. Not just analysis of nothingness. Louis Gray=Fail. Period.
- loren feldman
will there be a day you ll stop shooting at anyone? it is more difficult to build than to destroy.
- Ouriel Ohayon
Ouriel - What exactly is he building? Tell me, what the fuck is he building? A blog about analysis of twitter and friendfeed? Oh I forgot he's building his "Brand".
- loren feldman
Thats great Vinny, just great. Such deep thinkers huh?
- loren feldman
Loren, i am not referring to him buidling. i am referring to you. All i read about you is criticizing others. I like the way you do it. but i think you are too focused on criticizing and not on buidling
- Ouriel Ohayon
“Ouriel - I've made more funny video than anyone, I've called more bullshit than anyone, I made you laugh and think more than anyone, shall I go on? I criticize others because most of them are charlatan dopes.”
- loren feldman
Yawn! I love your videos and style, but this bitching and moaning is getting old...
- Holger Eilhard
So dont watch anymore Holger.
- loren feldman
Hey Louis - No.
- loren feldman
Louis I'll call ya, lets debate the importance of our twitter follower counts
- sean percival
Sean, discuss this with Louis instead. His tech haiku site, no im not kidding. http://www.techaiku.com/
- loren feldman
thats actually MG's site, hes cool. Well as cool as one can be blogging about this biz.
- sean percival
The wolf? My apologies then. He's earned the right to be silly.
- loren feldman
ha no mg sieger/parislemon, the wolf is too busy panting over knol
- sean percival
friendfeed is a slow-moving parody of itself.
- Edward Vielmetti
dude, isn't everyone on here just talking about twitter and F8? everybody follows the same people and regurgitates the same links back and forth to one another. if you don't like what you're seeing or reading then move on to something else, how hard is it?
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Trebor, Different? I'm the greatest video guy in the history of the medium, and he's a douche talking about twitter. I make people laugh and think, he makes people bored. See the difference?
- loren feldman
So I gather Loren got tired of of beating up on Shel Israel and needed somebody else to criticize - pretty weak to pick Louis - but almost predictable
- Frederic
This is boring. Talk about Twitter's downfall or GTFO!
- Outsanity
It seems really odd to me that anyone would listen to Loren Feldman. He doesn't seem to have any manners.
- Todd McKinney
Strange isnt it Todd? The web is an amazing thing isnt it. So many more people listen to me than let's say Oh I don't know, you or Louis Gray for instance.
- loren feldman
Who is Loren and why does anyone care? Does Loren know there's this crazy feature called "Hide"?
- Outsanity
Loren, way to introduce yourself to some possible new followers - I didn't know much about you until recently, but man, you certainly have made a poor impression. Are you doing this to be funny?
- Jesse Stay
If this is funny, he needs therapy.
- Outsanity
Wow Jesse new followers? Really? Jesus I better be on my best behavior then, heaven forbid I scare off new followers. Jesse will you follow me please? Please Jesse.
- loren feldman
He's doing it for his <cough> clients.
- jeneane sessum
Man Loren - you have lost my complete respect - this discussion is over for me. Frankly, I suggest others on here do the same.
- Jesse Stay
I don't know nearly enough about Gray's work to comment on its quality or insightfulness, but why is it so wrong for Loren to call the man boring or his blog pointless? He must simply find Gray boring. Having a discussion isn't about "making a good impression." Who cares? The man's just expressing an opinion. Rather than carping on whether or not he should be doing so, why not respond with a thoughtful defense of Mr. Gray's writing on its merits?
- Lon Harris
from twhirl
Seriously, how do you make money by mocking a tiny sub-genre of the tech world? Who pays someone to troll tech commentators? And does it pay well?
- Andrew
Frankly Scarlet I mean Jesse I dont give a damn.
- loren feldman
Jeneane - no matter how much you flirt with me, its not gonna happen.
- loren feldman
@loren I've noticed the worst people seem to come out and play whenever you post a message.
- Zach Underwood
zach - they are bored and jealous. Thats all. Human nature type shit.
- loren feldman
I like Louis, he's a good guy covering a subject he loves. I have nothing against Loren, he can say what he wants -- his soapbox, his rules. That being said - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Steve Spalding
Lon - Let's be honest, Loren followed this post up with a semi-cryptic message asking for volunteers at the company Louis works for. That's just trolling. There is no reason to think that a discussion could even take place under those circumstances. He wants to rile up Louis and anyone who likes Louis, not present his case for boring vs. not.
- Andrew
Andrew - All this shit is a hobby for me. I have a billionaire patron of the arts behind me, he howls at this shit.
- loren feldman
Well I respect the patron system so good luck to you, sir.
- Andrew
Yeah, I do this for fun, me and a group of friends sit around and laugh our asses off over all of this.
- loren feldman
yawn
- Mary Anne Davis
Twitter issues? Twitter says I have 324 followers but according to slandr it's 415. Others also report that Twitter is showing less followers all of a sudden.
Stephen Jones liked this
Anyone else noticing this?
- Colin Walker
from fftogo
Yes, do a search on FriendFeed for "missing followers". http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Louis Gray
Yes, they're working on it apparently: http://twurl.cc/311 - and it's not just missing followers, but the number of people I follow has taken a dive too.
- David Young
OK, thanks guys.
- Colin Walker
from fftogo
Louis Gray is very upset about this and wrote an angry article on his blog.
- Matthias Schwenk
Very upset? Really? :-) I don't think so.
- Louis Gray
same issue with my twitter account ...
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
@Louis Exactly... why should I be upset? Months of networking and balancing just got flushed, so why should I worry.
- Alex Popescu
Here's an analysis I did of my Twitter missing followers. Looks like a weirdo spotty rollback to June 4 6:59 pm - 8:53 pm http://friendfeed.com/e..., but Twitter may have had other issues in the past month.
- Mitchell Tsai
Is Twitter still around?
- James Joyner
i had more followers and I was following more people yesterday ... today most of them have gone missing .....
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
The Chinese Diet Could Solve The West's Obesity Crisis - http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...
Jonathon, Igor The Troll יִצְחָק, Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕ and 13 other people liked this
Another things is that in China, food portions are WAY smaller than America. I'd say they're the proper size. When I came back from there, I was disgusted by how huge the serving size of things were here.
- Louie
Yeah, being poor does often keep you from stuffing your face.
- Phillip Stewart
It's generally lower in fat and red meat plus the portions are much much smaller
- Sally Church
You can also Wok your food adding a portion of rice.! and then after stuff yourself with dessert!!! yummy
- rstuifzand
it's not just in China. Generally, Asian serving portions are smaller (or, proper) in size. Take for example, the McDonald's french fries. The regular size fries in the US is already the 'supersize' fries in the Philippines. Same goes for the drinks. The burgers are pretty much the same size.
- George Aranjuez
from twhirl
Being from South Asia, meal sizes in US were huge for me and I never ever got to finish them .... infact when i got back I had gained good 6lbs in 1.5 months ...
- Raza
The article says "The Chinese don't have a word for 'calories' " This would put the entire Chinese Scientific community at a huge disadvantage.
- imbutafool
The new Facebook UI looks A LOT like ....................... socialmedian
Steve Rubel, Ryan Petty and Louis Gray liked this
I tried new facebook UI for a while .... can't get to like it somehow ... like the older UI more
- Raza
This phishing scam is so impressive - http://sellect-words.com/ad...
Tony Ruscoe, BeeLing, Anne Bouey and 4 other people liked this
Please don't enter anything into the Google account box!
- Ana
from Bookmarklet
I keep getting that one as well. The worst part is that Gmail gets confused due to forwarding and actually claims that it was mailed by Google!
- Paul Buchheit
Hmm I'm getting "Server not found", tried via Browserpool.de.
- Philipp Lenssen
It may have been shut down. I imagine that these things don't last long.
- Paul Buchheit
dead link now ..
- Raza
More status: identi.ca and Plurk
timepilot, roamin, Noah David Simon and 113 other people liked this
Also, we now import Zooomr favorites, and IntenseDebate should work again (they changed their username scheme).
- Paul Buchheit
Thank you. :)
- Hao Chen
very good :-) (but ... can't wait when frf has an ability to add an arbitrary service (user-generated catalog of services available))
- Nikolay Samokhvalov
Awesome!
- Glenn Slaven
When can we have newsgator clippings support for us non-google reader users?
- Glenn Slaven
It's official ... from the big guy himself
- Charlie Anzman
Is there a Skype status feed somewhere Chris?
- Paul Buchheit
igor, I think we'll figure that out once they get federation working (which is supposed to be soon).
- Paul Buchheit
Great. Now I can hide identi.ca feeds without having to hide the blog of the respective user. Thank you.
- Lars Trieloff
Great job!
- Rutger Blom
what about the facebook status updates? I hope that's coming...
- Rahul Das
Nice work with the status, I would like to see DailyMugshot introduced!
- Joe Dawson
Great! Just added identi.ca; configuring brightkite too.
- Parth Awasthi
Paul, given Identi.ca uses the Twitter API it would be nice if we could respond via Identi.ca in the same way you can with Tweets. I presume implementing it wouldn't be overly hard (where as Plurk of course is another matter)
- Duncan Riley
@Rahul FB status would be cool, but there is no public RSS feed. There is a feed, but it requires a key, which would require you to type in your username/password.
- Hao Chen
@Duncan +1. i was thinking the same thing
- Trent Olson
Quick poll. Who's using Plurk?
- Larry Kless
Any chance of adding Qype for us non-american review writers (aka non-yelpers)?
- Liron Tocker
Woohoo! Identi.ca!
- ◄ani625Ξ
Integrated identi.ca via RSS feed before. OK, now it's there but it's not that big deal to me.
- Ansgar Wollnik
Thanks for the identi.ca support ... Excellent work !
- Christian Farley
AWESOME!! Ok, I might be using Identi.ca again!!! Yippee! Thanks FF team!!
- Susan Beebe
Why are the updates called Dents, I'll Dent you later :S
- Joe Dawson
i love "status-blogging", but i still think that it destroys the flow of my friendfeed - i also blocked every twitter update from everyone here at ff...
- Dieter Schwarz
Yay, more services to add to my profile! ;P
- Aaron Myers
I am getting ready for Identi.ca Twitter going down the drain!
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
seems like i need to go get my identi.ca id before its taken ...
- Raza
Fantabulous ;)
- Yung-Hui Lim
yay!!
- Sarah Perez
I am all set! Please follow me! http://identi.ca/igorthetroll
- Igor The Troll יִצְחָק
ahhh cool
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Now people can stop doing status updates with FF every time Twitter is down ;)
- Alejandro
great! but my username on identi.ca (9000) is not recognized by the subscription page. starts with a digit, yes — maybe that's the problem.
- 9000
Best line heard in Apple Store, from Nick Starr: "the are running on Twitter servers." the credit card approval system is down.
Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Jeremy Franklin, mr-mojo-risin and 64 other people liked this
If they were running on Windows, they wouldn't be down. ;)
- John Denver
Well of course, OS X servers can't handle the load. They should have used Linux.
- Jake (aka Jawee)
from twhirl
actually the credit card machines ARE running Windows.
- Robert Scoble
windows really ????
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Seems like a mini-Black Friday
- Lois Gray
In Germany everything went smooth, only short waiting (at least at the time I bought mine....) Only they had far too few phones everywhere
- Markus Soelter
Yeah. Windows. That's always been the joke...apple stores running Windows paypoint software.
- Jerry Chacon
from twhirl
Apple store running Windows.. And SJ wants everyone to run Apple!
- Muthu Ramadoss
I agree with Lois. This does not look good for Apple or ATT
- Jerry Chacon
from twhirl
If an Apple service goes down, is it a fail lemming?
- Ontario Emperor
From a buzz perspective, what is interesting is that most of the comments are along the lines of "It sucks that the activation is down, but it won't affect my interest in getting a 3G" Nobody seems to take a negative position other than "I might wait a couple days to get an iPhone"
- David Thomas
@John Denver - haven't you ever looked at their checkout PDAs? They are Windows Mobile devices, so they probably *are* running Windows servers.
- Hillary Hartley
Twitter did raise their API limit. Who knows, maybe Apple is using Twitter. Was anybody asked for their Twitter account details? :D
- Manu Ullas
from twhirl
Maybe twitter raised the API temporarily to handle the IPhone hype? Might check their blog.
- Mo Kargas
Buying an iPhone takes a long time. 12 minutes so far. 500 people in line will take forever.
Brandon, Rishabh Mishra (p248), Dru Kelly and 14 other people liked this
We posted live video at http://www.qik.com/scobleizer of what it was like to walk in store with first group.
- Robert Scoble
glad i didn't wait - i was at the end of a ~150 person line!
- Morgan
And then you wont be able to Activate it as all the servers are overloaded...big mess!!!
- Peter Cattell
Yeah I am seeing lots of people having problems. We are at the San Francisco store.
- Robert Scoble
Let us know what are the kinds of iphone apps that you liked :)
- Muthu Ramadoss
Any word on how many are in stock?
- Lois Gray
Tomorrow is another day. Sheesh.
- David Risley
You're a brave man.
- Jonathon
there seem to be plenty in stock but the computers are all down so we can't complete the sale yet. 20 minutes so far. Sigh.
- Robert Scoble
How far back are you?
- Jake (aka Jawee)
Jake we got in the first group. I am in the store right now.
- Robert Scoble
Guess all us folks on the East Coast clogged up their systems before you even got in the door
- Lois Gray
That's because they force you to activate on site. Sounds like a situation begging for a lawsuit. If I buy a phone I buy a phone. Why should I be forced to activate on site just because Apple and ATT want to fight the gray market? I call that collusion in treating customers as shit.
- Paul Denlinger
12 mins * 500 people = > 4 days
- Hao Chen
the message for the 2.0 upgrade showed up in my iTunes after I did a sync this morning. I ran the process and after about 30 minutes it failed putting the iphone into recovery mode. it says to restore, but it is trying to restore 1.1.4. I saw a message earlier in the process saying that it was upgrading the firmware so it seems odd that it would try to put 1.1.4 back on the iphone. anyway, my attempts to restore give me a error 20, unknown error, each time. i now have a pretty brick....
- Mark Heringer
no, the credit card system is down. Our salesperson just rebooted hers.
- Robert Scoble
i remember similar issues on 1.0 launch ? Din't apple learn anything from that ??
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
12 minutes, that's all (edit: I misread)? I just got back from an hour long purchase! AT&T's servers were unresponsive in addition to iTunes crapping out.
- Rob Haas
Robert: 29 minutes and counting. I am still trying to get my credit card approved.
- Robert Scoble
Waiting almost 3 hours in store now thanks to ATT servers. It's the pits.
- Tom Landini
Don't you think you'll be able to just walk in and buy one this afternoon?
- paul mooney
At this rate, the line from 6am will still be there this afternoon
- Rob Haas
Paul not at SF there are 500 in line and the first 20 people haven't completed their sales yet.
- Robert Scoble
It took me about 1.5 hours after the line started moving to get in the store. The were about 50 people in line in front of me.
- Phil G
It's official, the Twitter fail whale has gone to work for iTunes
- paul mooney
I guess this would be a bad time to DDOS AT&T?
- xero
I'm hearing that at some AT&T stores, they are letting customers take the phone home to activate, as the whole system is down..worldwide!
- Peter Cattell
Robert, I just saw an article on cnet news about you on the apple store! http://news.cnet.com/8301-10...
- George The Writer
In the UK this lunch time, all systems were down so they were letting customers take the phone away without completing a credit check, without allocating a phone number and without activating the SIM cards. And it still took around 15-20 minutes per person. So I've got one but it's not working yet...
- Tony Ruscoe
The husband has been waiting now for almost 4 hours.
- Cyndy
The boss waited for about 6 hours since about 2 this morning up in MI. But, he was one of the first people in and out.
- Candace
Here in Sheffield (UK) we queued for 20 minutes this morning and were then told all O2 stores were understocked. And then we found out one of the stores in town got some more stock at lunch time so we walked straight in and waited in the six-person queue for just 20 minutes. I guess we're super lucky in the UK (for a change).
- Tony Ruscoe
Over here, first person activation took 38 minutes. He's outside now doing a TV interview.
- Glenn Batuyong
Robert, did you see this one yet? http://tinyurl.com/5rh7rv
- David Cook - 2010!!!
That's it. I'm waiting for 4G
- Charlie Anzman
People are having massive problems everywhere.
- Gary Bacon II
I only care about the 2.0 software, the hardware and 3G coverage isn't enough for me to upgrade the phone and to spend more money. I've been loving the apps over the past 24 hours <3 <3.
- Eric Rice
Two hours in line and then three in the store to get 3G in Columbus. And of course it still isn't activated. OTO I can complain about it here with the wifi on my old phone.
- Tom Landini
Got my UK Iphone by lunchtime UK via courier delivery (it took until lunchtime due to a rather slow delivery :( - but all was well and activated with no problems... havent fully road tested it yet - on the face of it it isnt a radical change from Iphone 1.0 to Iphone 3G but I keep finding nice little changes and I have activated MobileMe so we will see what that will offer..
- David W
I've spent the past hour reading some seriously hateful stuff on FF, Twitter, blogs, etc. Very bummed out about the rampant ignorance.
Alex Hammer, Mark Douglass, Susan Beebe and 7 other people liked this
Mike: I've spent the past hour blocking jerks. It's time we cleaned up what we see and who we talk with.
- Robert Scoble
isn't it funny to read those ignorant voices? share 'em please :)
- Melle Gloerich
I'm with Robert. There are tools to block jerks from FF and Twitter so they can cease to exist to you. Makes you feel better instead of worse
- Nicholas Molnar
Melle, the stuff from today was very unpleasant. Louis Gray has a good summary: http://www.louisgray.com/live...
- Mike Doeff
that's life (not being rude), some people will just never change & it's SAD!
- ChaCha Fance
Been lucky and missed it all. Or just ignored it well.
- LPH™ and his dog P™
@mike doeff I see what you mean now, I thought it would be about some ignorant newspaper journalist talking about how bad FF, Twitter, blogs, etc. are for the world. This is something else, would a 'social blocking' feature or a 'friends of you blocked this person, which of them would you block too' thing help you think?
- Melle Gloerich
As per Robert, it seems as though FF, as it becomes more mainstream, is attracting some nasties. Sadly par for the course I guess. The one thing I've appreciated with FF so far is the overwhelmingly positive discourse across the board
- Duncan Riley
Who, where, what jerks??
- Zee.
mgloerich I'm sure it's just me, but I don't see anything remotely funny about them. I'm not well known for having a good sense of humor about hateful words, since I really do believe words make a difference. If I didn't, I wouldn't spend hours reading and writing them. Having said that, I was less surprised when I discovered this took place on Yahoo! Live, which is a boiling cesspool of assholes.
- Karoli
from twhirl
Melle, overall FF and Twitter have been relatively troll-free for me, but like Duncan mentioned, as these services get more mainstream I spend more time filtering, blocking, etc. I've found that the more "public" sites like YouTube are full of lowest common denominator comments, which is why I spend so little time on those types of services.
- Mike Doeff
You don't have to read if it's like that.
- Daniel Schildt
I'm happy to say I haven't witnessed the hate first hand yet, but i've got the "block" trigger ready to go :)
- Justin Korn
@Mike: you are right. You can't post a comment on youtube without someone trying to insult you. Some people on the internet have serious problems.
- Rahul Das
Daniel, normally I don't seek out that stuff but tonight I ventured outside of my usual network on FF / Twitter to see what was being said about the racially charged events from today. The worst stuff is always from commenters who are hiding behind anonymous log-in's.
- Mike Doeff
Also, it really bummed me out to hear from Bwana that he needs to kick racist trolls out of chat EVERY TIME he live streams on uStream. That just shouldn't be happening in 2008.
- Mike Doeff
@karoli I don't think those comments are funny a contrary, I thought that Mike was talking on hatefull articles ABOUT FF etc, not hatefull to persons.
- Melle Gloerich
I love friendfeed ....
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
@Mike True, very rarely do I post a comment on Youtube, mostly to say 'good job'. But don't you think that a social blocking tool for social sites is something inevitable?
- Melle Gloerich
Melle, yeah I think blocking and filtering tools are essential for any social site I try not to overuse block because I like a good back and forth date as long as it stays civil.
- Mike Doeff
A small, heartening counternote: @owillis honors an American hero who gave up his job rather than honor the racist Jesse Helms. http://snurl.com/2w805 -
- Michael Markman
I wasn't allowed past airport security at Heathrow Terminal 5, as my t-shirt had a picture of a gun on it. It was a picture of a transformer holding a gun. - http://reddit.com/goto...
arty, Kreg Steppe, Robin Barooah and 41 other people liked this
id say "arrest me" and make money off the interviews and media attention
- Tyler Gillies
Was the transformer looking menacing at the time?
- Damien Franco
This is what happens when you put poorly defined rules in the hands of an underachiever with a double-digit IQ and an inferiority complex. What's next? Requiring passengers to be fully anaesthetised when they fly?
- Andrew Terry
no matter what I wear ... my full name always gets me SSSS on my boarding ...
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
dont mind them, just transform away!
- Alemsah Ozturk
from Alert Thingy
*ashamed to be English at this point*
- Slappy Line
this sounds like USSR in last years of its existence... tho, for me all *Western world* in general looks as "USSR in last years of existence" -- all this crisis from mil overpsending, problems with wars abroad, domestic idiots en masse, etc
- A.T.
In the UK now, a picture of something is the same as the thing itself. It's the law.
- Michael Randall
from twhirl
@michael, what have we become?
- Tyler Gillies
Next time come to acquire the tickets wearing a t-shirt with money. A picture of money.
- 9000
Maybe because it was Optimus Prime.. If it had been Bumblebee, Britain's favorite and most fuel-efficient Autobot, you'd be OK...
- Chris Reed
Whoah. The British government is getting more retarded with every passing day. This makes the James Bond movies even more unreal than they were.
- Raoul Pop
I wouldn't want you on my plane- your clearly a dangerous terrorist who is going to take us down with your shirt gun.
- Chris Hollander
Well first they have to make the thing illegal. Then they have to make a fake representation of the thing illegal. Then they have to make talking about it illegal. Then they have to make a picture of the thing illegal. Only THEN can they make the picture in your head illegal. You can't expect to implement thoughtcrime overnight, people!
- Karim
Some bits of the UK system are a bit weird at the moment, we've got councils 'spying on individuals right now' - http://is.gd/oLt
- Andy Davies
Actually, if I'm honest, something about that story screams "made up"....lol
- Slappy Line
Now covered by the BBC and more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2... http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp...
- Simon
More than meets the eye...
- Clare Dibble
Anesthetizing travlers pre-flight would solve all sorts of problems. Plus you could stack 'em up like cordwood, get lots more passengers on each flight.
- Jason Wehmhoener
Jason: Cory Doctorow once suggested the same thing on a podcast (TWiT, or Mac Break Weekly, maybe) He called it something like Ninja Airlines. A ninja would shoot you with a tranquilizer dart, pack your stuff, and put you on the plane. Once you arrived, he'd give you the antidote and slip out the window before you completely came to.
- ha3rvey (wants confit)
Cory++
- Jason Wehmhoener
that is ridiculous, will post to http://tcritic.com
- karl
Yah, covered by the press and the BBC now, so I revise my earlier declaration of shenanigans. Still, it's not policy, it's just one officious, ignorant, jumped up little oik with a rule book and the power to tell people what to do. We call them "jobsworths," as they can be identified by their cry of "it's more than my job's worth to let you through with that on."
- Slappy Line
omg You got to be kidding me
- john conroy
Twitter blames its users - http://scobleizer.com/2008...
Brian Bufalo, Jed White, Stanton Champion and 33 other people liked this
I think you played it cool. Cool post and you didn't pull an Arrington. In other words, you did a good job toning down the ego and seeing it's a community issue rather than a Scoble issue :-) Even if that IS what Twitter meant.
- Andrew Dobrow
"pull an arrington" - love that!
- marty nickel
from twhirl
"I’ve sent 3,598 tweets (Twitter messages) — Scoble has sent 12,318. This is clearly putting a strain on the service." That's the equivilent of over THREE heavy users then. Scoble is clearly abusing Twitter's stable system.
- Chris Nixon
scoble dude. calm down.
- Alex Gawley
I'm wondering will Google also say sometimes that You got our servers down because you send 2000 emails everyday.. where our system is built to hold load of just 30 emails everyday!!
- Jigar Mehta
from bTT
Alex: I'll calm down when Twitter stops blaming its users and fixes its service. Thanks.
- Robert Scoble
FriendFeed is just built better. It has to do the same thing as Twitter, send out messages/information (longer than 140 chars I might add) from one users to 12,000+ followers, etc. FriendFeed isn't having issues. Yes, FF isn't as big as Twitter yet, but I have the feeling the Ex-Google engineers here at FF know what the hell they're doing more.
- Ben Parr
Robert, this time you couldn't be more wrong. Read the post carefully once again . Twitter is simply explaining how things can go wrong from time to time - certainly not blaming you.
- Ron Emrick
We just have to face the fact, Twitter has hit the limit of scalability now.. They need an intelligent consultant to help them resolve their issues! Anybody, help!!
- Jigar Mehta
from bTT
Ron, here's what Alex Payne said: "The events that hit our system the hardest are generally when “popular” users - that is, users with large numbers of followers and people they’re following - perform a number of actions in rapid succession." THAT IS BLAMING. And, since I'm the only one who has 20,000+ followers and behaves like that, they are being very specific in their blame.
- Robert Scoble
Twitter just leveled down... bad form Twitter, bad form.
- Bwana ☠
They're not blaming you. They are blaming themselves for being unable to cope with you and other superusers.
- Jamie
@Ron The point is that the system was designed incorrectly. Either you build it to scale for someone to have 20,000 mutual contacts or you limit the number of contacts. Or you limit the eleventy billion "graph a pretty picture of your Tweets" apps that have access to your API. It is NEVER the fault of any action done by your users unless they are running a DDOS against you, and at that point, they cease being users anyway. And OMG, did I just write a rant defending Robert Scoble? I do believe I did.
- Cyndy
That's about as plain as you get. They're saying they can lighten the load by limiting power users in a nutshell. Sigh.
- Bwana ☠
Jamie: well, then they can come here and say that and apologize for causing my name to be at the top of TechMeme right now.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I'll end by saying its unfortunate you see it as BLAMING when I really believe its EXPLAINING! :-) I think you may be taking this a little too personally. Twitter is finally doing a good job acknowledging the problems they have and communicating them to us all as much as they possibly can. I'm sure they never intended for this sort of discussion to occur when they published their post. All in good fun Robert...
- Ron Emrick
and they just got $15 mil in funding?
- MikeAmundsen
@jowyang showed us the 'real' Twitter problem - it's the few birds that are flying the wrong way ;)
- Kate
Ron: when your name is used in headlines at http://www.techmeme.com, then you can not take it personally. This stuff IS personal. It's called social software for a reason. :-)
- Robert Scoble
To me, instead of playing the blame game I would think that twitter would take advantage of its power users learn their patterns and build out to scale.
- Kevin Tunis
robert - no offence intended when i suggested you 'calm down' just trying to lighten the tone :) I think that the original post was not very well written and quotes have been wrenched out of context and now it seems much worse than it was. When I read the post I read it as: Our architecture does not scale well and so we can't serve the most prolific users of the service well. I thought it was quite mea culpa...
- Alex Gawley
@Cyndy - Agreed 100% that the problems lie at the feet of Twitter and not Scoble or any other high profile Tweeters out there. I just believe that the context and intent of the post was *never* to blame but rather to explain. I can understand why some may see it as "blame" but I simply disagree... hope that helps explain my position a little better.
- Ron Emrick
Ron: explaining? OK. It's still down. They made it sound like the biggest load is noisy popular users (there's only really one of those in the world) doing rapid tweets. Only I behave that way. So, why is the system still down? I stopped Tweeting, yet IM is still down, track is still down, and the site itself is slow. Does this go to their credibility? Let's say they are right. Why penalize everyone then? WHy not just throttle the popular accounts? Wouldn't that fix the problem? No? Why bring it up then?
- Robert Scoble
Robert - shouldn't your ire then be directed at VentureBeat? They're one of the first (if not the first) to identify you as someone to "blame".
- Ron Emrick
Why would Robert infer that he is being blamed? He loves to be the victim. Al3x didn't blame anyone, and Robert is twisting this whole conversation around to be about himself. Al3x gave a very frank answer about what specific actions their current architecture has issues with. That's not blaming anyone it's telling the truth, something that people like Robert have encouraged them to do over and over. Now that Twitter is finally communicating with their users, Robert finds something else to attack
- Clint Ecker
Lets not forget hat they went down on the day of the Tweet Out as well
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
Ron, Scoble is widely known as the top Twitter user. We didn't need VentureBeat's help to figure out who Twitter was talking about.
- Bwana ☠
"WHy not just throttle the popular accounts? Wouldn't that fix the problem? No? Why bring it up then?" Maybe because they aren't blaming the users, and think that people like you SHOULD be able to use the service in the way that you do.
- Ian Betteridge
And why doesn't Friendfeed have the same issues? Because it's no where near as big as Twitter. I don't even know why you would bring FF into this whole matter. It's not even close to the same scale.
- Clint Ecker
Ron, that isn't an explanation. An explanation is "Gee, we didn't realize that our architecture wouldn't be able to handle the load when we have several users with over 5000 mutual contacts, and we need to figure out how to fix that or set limits on the number of contacts. This is why marketing folks wisely keep the programmers away from the public in most instances.
- Cyndy
Gah. FF doesn't allow enough characters. I'm just going to hop on the bitchmeme train and blog it.
- Cyndy
Clint: >>Why would Robert infer that he is being blamed? << There is only one person who has more than 20,000 followers that behaves in a noisy, bursty way. No one else behaves that way. There is only one possible person they could have been talking about. Me.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, again, your 'beef' here should be with Venturebeat who, if you are going to take the line that it "is personal", were the ones who mention you by name - and let's face it, by naming you they are guaranteed to get some traffic. Twitter have not named you personally, and have not, in fact, blamed anyone but themselves for their problems.
- Scott O'Raw
i'm going to have to agree that this smacks of blaming users. maybe that wasn't intentional. i hope it wasn't. when you use phrasing that implies, however mildly or unintentionally, that your own users are involved in DoS (even if it's not implied as a malicious attack), that's blaming. if i'm patching a hole and don't have enough drywall, i don't tell my customer the hole she knocked in the wall is too big; i tell her i didn't bring enough drywall, and then i go buy more.
- hisherness
i realize twitter isn't a paid service, and i realize some allowances must be made for that, but with the venture funding and all i assume they'll eventually turn a profit. one must start as one means to go on, and this just isn't the way to start.
- hisherness
I don't agree Robert. There are several people who follow and are followed by a lot of people. No one set any limits on what they meant by "popular". You only know of people who have a lot of followers but there are TONS of people who follow more people than you. There are people who follow 40k+ 60k+ and I'm sure more. Those people hit the system hard too. Again, they didn't "blame" anyone, if anything they blamed their own architecture for not being able to handle those kinds of actions.
- Clint Ecker
@Robert Actually, Calacanis is pretty noisy. I can't follow him anymore either, but I still know the dog names. ;)
- Cyndy
Robert, we know you've been singing the Friendfeed song for the past few weeks, so it's not the Scoblizer who broke Twitter. Most of the readers of my blog subscribe via a thing called RSS, but too many bloggers Tweet a link to a new blog and then reTweet it an hour later. So I guess most people are not using Feed Readers or Friendfeeders.
- paul mooney
I think what Alex really meant is "It's because 'popular' user dragged our 'bad design' service down."
- Panu Tangchalermkul
I agree with Scott. This was mentioned as a transaction processing issue, not a Robert Scoble issue. Not a user issue. Alex was asked what the problem was and gave an honest answer: throughput is challenged under certain conditions - and they're working on it! Thanks to VB, everyone's on the warpath. For what?
- Eric Weaver
Are people really looking this hard for something to make drama about? Sheesh. Is this what happens on a "slow news day" in tech pundit land?
- Soulhuntre
from twhirl
I see in the Venture Beat article that Twitter said "Not running scripts which follow thousands of users at a time would be a help" - ermmm. I'm sure I read that Twitter actually enabled/created this FOR Scoble, to 'follow back' all his followers in one go?
- kosso
Everything is made with certain assumptions in mind. Ikea probably makes chairs assuming they will inhabited by one person at a time, and that the person weighs less than 500 pounds. If reports of broken chairs surface and Ikea says most of the broken chairs are owned by people who weigh over 500 pounds, you can either read that as "blaming" fat people, or as an admission that they didn't design the chair to fit the 0.02% of the population weighing over 500 pounds.
- Karim
If you write an app with a field that's designed to hold 15 characters, and someone enters 16 characters in the field and the app crashes, is that the user's fault? You can either read that as "blaming" the user, or as an admission that the app wasn't designed to hold more than 15 characters in that field.
- Karim
Twitter said, "Not running scripts to follow thousands of users at a time would be a help, but that’s behavior we have to limit on our side." i.e. we didn't realize people would use the service this way, but we need to fix this service to prevent this behavor, NOT ASK THE USER TO CHANGE.
- Karim
Contrast this to what Facebook did to you when you, as a user, exhibited "unexpected behavior" and used Plaxo to download your contacts. Instead of limiting the service on their side so you *couldn't* eat up excessive resources with Plaxo, they banned your account. They expected YOU to change. They blamed YOU.
- Karim
Twitter is losing me.. I am starting to get hooked on this FriendFeed thing now.
- Winston Teo
i am finding twitter as redundant tooo ... since i just follow and dont send too many updates ....ff is better
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
Is there any why to sign up for a Jaiku account? The whole twitter thing is getting bad.
- Brian Bufalo
I am using Jaiku. Done. Finished with Twitter. This is beyond the pale.
- Andrew Ruess
Hey, Scoble - stop breaking Technorati! They're down :-(
- Lars G. Sehested
http://xrl.us/bmazc tweets totally f#(%ed twitter
- Noah David Simon
running out of battery. My MacBook air does about 1h50 mins using browser, mail and EVDO USB connexion. I love it but that sux inconferences
Adnan, Brian Daniel Eisenberg, Anthony Farrior and 2 other people liked this
i just bought a macbook air today thinking it would do 5 as per apple site
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
I suppose it's light enough you can carry two around... then you'll get almost 4 hours...
- lilbyrdie
Adds new meaning to the phrase "cutting off ... air supply"
- Brian Sullivan
@lilbyrdie I hope they were cheap enough too :)
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
now you know why I am using a PC. Nearly six hours on my Dell.
- Robert Scoble
@Robert Scoble: I still get 4 to 5 on a black MacBook!
- Rubin Sfadj
what sucks the battery is the modem, Apple does not say 5 hours of browsing
- Guillaume
Five hours with MBA has never happened for me. But I do get 3.75 pretty routinely with wireless, bluetooth and keyboard backlighting off and screen dimmed just a little. It's still the best computer I own.
- Ed Hunter
90 minutes max on my EeePC 900 - but then I am in the UK and we got screwed with lower capacity batteries than the rest of the world.
- Mat
ipod does more than advertised, that foxed my friend into a MBA
- bvs
from Alert Thingy
I bet you'd get more battery life if you turned off Airport, like with the other MacBooks. Then again, it's boring when you can't chatter while you are in sessions.
- Cyndy
anybody knows if there is an external battery than I could use?
- Loic Le Meur
I am thinking about buying this, any of you knows it? http://www.quickertek.com/product...
- Loic Le Meur
Ivan: How do you get 4/5 hrs on a MacBook Pro? I'm lucky to get 2-3 hrs on mine. The dual-core CPU consumes so much power, theoretically I only get 45 min if it runs full-blast. I'm missing my old 14" iBook which did 4-6 hrs.
- Mitchell Tsai
currently I only get 40 minutes out of my Dell battery. which is a little too short...
- Dennis Goedegebuure
4 hours with Airport turned off on MBP, yes. With Airport on? Hell to the no. More like 1:30 to 2:00. And you'd better not be running Camino or FF2.
- Cyndy
You guys must like using it at full brightness. I get 4 hours+ with wifi... Maybe you don't have SSD?
- Sam Pullara
Dennis @The_Next_Corner Batteries sometimes fade in less than 1-2 yrs, often before the warranty expires, and you can get a free replacement.
- Mitchell Tsai
This is why everywhere needs to have plug sockets, starting with conferences.
- Tom Morris
good to know. was thinking about buying onw
- Francine Hardaway
Amazon will release a for-pay streaming video service "in the next few weeks" - Bezos
Deepak Singh, Bradley Goetsch, mike "glemak" dunn and John Federico liked this
Wishing this stuff would also come to Canada
- Bartek Ciszkowski
Hmmm. Should I cancel the order for my Netflix/Roku box?
- John Federico
from Alert Thingy
why would Amazon get into building such applications when so many developers are already building such services using EC2, S3 and FPS...
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
English breakfast - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
 |
dave, Francois Bochatay and Ouriel Ohayon liked this
English breakfasts are usually very good, that just looks wrong!
- Arthur Guy
seems like full of fats and calories ? Any idea how many calories ?
- Raza
from Alert Thingy
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