I've also seen "PETA: People for the Evisceration of Tiresome Activists." (Never on a bumper sticker, though.) - Pat Rice

Cows are great, Milk, Steak and Leather. What other entity contributes so much? - Brian Norwood

I was a huge fan of peta.org until PETA took it away. http://www.mtd.com/tasty/ - Slobokan

I like the sound of that club. Where do I sign up? - Jeff P. Henderson

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon? Lisa: No. Homer: Ham? Lisa: No. Homer: Pork chops? Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal. Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal. - Andrew Smith

I like the one that says "Red Meat, Because the West Wasn't Won on salad" - Andrew Leyden

I work for Cabela's and that's a very typical saying for our corp. headquaters - Garrett

spotted a shirt in wisconson- "vegetarians= bad hunters" made me smile ... mmm....bacon - Nice Fish Films

on the other side of the car is the mean people suck sticker, correct? - Pete Delucchi

I soooooooooo want one of those stickers! lol awesome - JohnBfromMemphis

Brian: Humans contribute just as much, if you skin and cook them right... - Ian Betteridge

I don't have aan acount there ... I just look to get an idea of who is following me .. it's not an absolute requirement for me to follow back :) just one of the different personal guidelines I use - Steven Hodson

I try to make sure I know people that I'm connected with on linkedin since it's "professional" - Eric Berlin

i don't like linkedin - but i do the same thing you do steven - hypocritical or dichotomy - not sure ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

I just check a person's blog/twitter or whatever and try to get a feel for them. I just added Eric cuz I like what I saw on his blog w/o even scrolling down. That's how I roll... - Rahsheen Porter

I have an account I haven't updated in like 5 years and 3 job title's ago. Only email I ever get from LinkedIn is when existing/former colleagues move on. Kinda creeps me out. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

LinkedIn has actually helped me relocate college alumni and classmates. I wish they would do a little more with UI and maybe include graphics. - James

thats great and where's you linkin profile on FF eh ? - Peter Dawson

have you tried out the Greasemonkey script that displays Twitter bio info on peoples' FF user pages? it's awesome, Corvida wrote about it on RWW this weekend - Marshall Kirkpatrick

Steven-you might want to add Hao Chen's script to show you better profile http://friendfeed.com/e/c71e02... - Mark Forman

i'm with you steven. blogs and linkedin. but also if they post interesting things or comments if i have time to check it. - MG Siegler

Uh, Steve, where's *your* LinkedIn link..? ;-) - Sprague D

@Sprague as I said in a reply in the "folded" section of replies I don't have a LinkedIn profile because I never figured anyone would be interested in a cranky old fart enough to warrant signing up :) - Steven Hodson

@Mark I don't use Firefox :) - Steven Hodson

linked in helps when job hunting. Especially in a town as small as pdx. - Shawn Smith

LinkedIn gives some bonafides. I do the same for people I am curious about, whether on FF or not. - John Samuelson

I can't resist the temptation to look at people's LinkedIn profile, but I usually save LinkedIn for people I've actually worked with/for, per the site's instructions. :) (not trying to be snarky, i just use the different web services for different reasons, some for professional reasons, some for self-expression, some for old friends and family, etc) - sergiooooooo

w00t! - Tyler

bravo - RAPatton

Mazeltov. - Karim

Cool! - Mitchell Tsai

Loved "The Piece of Paper With My Name On It That Took Me 4.5 Years to Get" ... - Mitchell Tsai

congratulations! - Bruce Williams

Thanks all! I appreciate it :) - Shey

nice work! - Thomas Hawk

Congratulations! - JA Castillo

(clap)(clap) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

congrats - Gordon Swaby

Congratulations (and Ryerson rocks!) - Abby

@Abby Ryerson Alumni I assume? Thanks guys! - Shey

iff()! - Jeff Scott

pivot chart http://www.mrexcel.com/tip105.... - Andrea Baker

alt+ f4 - Wolfsbayne

MROUND() (requires Analysis Pak) - Steven Buehler via twhirl

Array functions are schweet too. - Steven Buehler via twhirl

Mine is indirect. It changed the way I use excel, especially for pulling data from millions on external sheets. - Richard Bradshaw

definitely VLOOKUP - Angel Smith

SumIF - Tom Carroll

OFFSET is the secret Excel weapon. I have probably saved millions of dollars with the offset function. Don't sleep! - Baratunde Thurston via twhirl

countit, sumif, iif - Al Degutis via twhirl

Possibly COUNTBLANK. For no darn good reason. - Rick Mahn via twhirl

I think there's a pushback to that, Daniel: it's akin to astroturfing. But it does provide enough research to change your marketing moving forward. Do people think your service is unreliable? Change your marketing to focus on how reliable you actually are. Do people think you're a ripoff? Change your marketing to highlight the value of your service. - Mark Trapp

Tracking/measurement is obviously beneficial, but brands can also jump in to correct misperceptions, which invariably crop up in conversations you don't moderate - Daniel Feygin

Are the rules different than business blogging here in Friendfeed? I don't think so. - Jeremiah Owyang

Brands should search FriendFeed just like they search Twitter and others, so they can respond to users quickly. - Louis Gray

Jeremiah, I don't think so either, but with one possibly major difference: with blogs, it's all about what the blogger said. With Friendfeed, it's all about what the people who read the blog said and how they react. There is much more emphasis on the comments than the story. - Mark Trapp

Jeremiah, I'm lacking data. I know everyone raves about Zappos on Twitter, but everyone raves about Zappos in general. Comcast seems to have more ranters than ravers. How do you measure the meaningfulness of Comcast being on Twitter? What are the metrics for measuring that from Comcast's perspective? - Robert Seidman

Mark, doesn't astroturfing involve disguise? I am not suggesting that at all. - Daniel Feygin

How do you take all this lovely data from ff or other and convert it into a marketing strategy? - Paul Metcalfe

If companies look at FF or Twitter or any of the newer communication channels with marketing glasses on, they'll be missing out on a lot of opportunities to really connect with a lot of people. Lets look at Twitter and their recent transparency regarding what's happening over there. Even though they have their own communication platform, they themselves waited far too long to actually communicate. Now, instead of communicating they're in damage control mode and reacting. - Paul Short

continuing - Yes, they're communicating with users but some would say it's too little too late. If other companies want to expose their brands and get all they can out of these new services, become early adopters and make friends in the way regular people do. That's how to benefit - be one of us, not just use our blabbering to gain intelligence or monitor what we're talking about. - Paul Short

The fairly obvious reason is complete aggregation of a brands online presence. Even though the conversation is fragmented, it is easier to hold down in one location instead of several. FF shows that we need an open commenting platform. - Julian Baldwin

I understand. But I still ask how you get this compelling info/data into something that will help create a strategy. I'm thinking blue-chip and not start-up. - Paul Metcalfe

Paul is right, engaging with users is more than PR/marketing activity, so speaking strictly of brands in this context is limiting. Executive, product management, account management, customer service, etc have a lot to gain from both monitoring and entering into these conversations. And PR should stay away from being the gatekeeper. - Daniel Feygin

if they can have an actual person interacting with friendfeeders, truly participating in the community, then I wouldn't mind. if they are not going to do that, I don't think I'd want to see or hear them. - edythe

I agree with Julian. Since brands are looking to engage customers on so many digital media channels from YouTube, to Facebook, to blogs, to Twitter it only makes sense to point your customers in the direction of something that doesn't have them running around all over the place and where you can be sure that every last bit of marketing material that you put out there is directed to the people that are interested. And as everyone else has mentioned, the conversation factor is major as well. Its a great way to interact with customers around all the different pieces of content you put out there to give it some life. - Devlin Dunsmore

Actually in the case of Facebook since they are now allowing imports of thrid party site data into the news feed you could use a similar strategy for that as well. However given the controls of the mini feed right now it would be much easier to manage the content through FriendFeed. - Devlin Dunsmore via twhirl

I agree with edythe. - Ginger Makela

Brand awareness through engagement. Brands who are part of the conversation improve their overall standing, think Microsoft's blogging strategy - Duncan Riley

I love Twitters's raw simplicity yet Friendfeed has better features, especially the agrigation of all my web content. If Friendfeed had a killer iPhone client and I could easily import all my Twitter connections, I would switch. - David Jacobs

when Twitter is working well, it doesn't take that long for the tweet to show up here. I agree, though, they are different, and they work well together. I don't filter Twitter because I don't like it, I do it because the tweets take over the page. - Alejandro S.

Good stuff Loic. I love both services. I think they are very complementary and I think they will both succeed. Regarding the time lag of the tweets on FF raised by Mr. Gillmor - I don't think that's such a bad thing. If there is a tweet worth commenting on we can probably use a few minutes to think about it and prepare a response on FriendFeed. - Mike Doeff

http://xrl.us/bmazc tweets totally f#(%ed twitter - Noah David Simon

if there would be a good IM service or mobile client on FF i would switch totaly to FF. - Mathias H.

Of course. Because when I rip on those worthless, repetitive blogs, I expect the author to be able to intelligently break down the post, and if they cant, I WIN! - Anthony

@Anthony I'm assuming you've never left me a comment. ;) - Cyndy

1 'Like' for Cyndy - Steven Hodson

I know the spread of info often perpetuates some repetitive knowledge, and I am not claiming to be some observer on high, but you know as well as I do that when you read some of the blogs out there, they deserve to be questioned. If not, your just running around the web telling people how much you like them - Anthony

this is a good question. I try to leave comments in response when I can, but so few CMSs let commenters easily subscribe to follow up comments that I wonder how often people see them. Definitely something I'd like to be better about doing either way though. - Marshall Kirkpatrick

I always assume that author will read my comment, but rarely respond. Always feels validating when they do, though. - J.C. Hutchins via Alert Thingy

Don't have a tech-related blog, so not sure it's the same. When the comments are just commenting on my thinking, sometimes I reply, sometimes not (there are only so many ways to respond to 'i don't care what you think, CBS was crazy for cancelling 'Moonlight'". When there are specific questions/requests for data, we always respond. - Robert Seidman

Cyndy and steve seem pretty offended by my stating that I wont let crap slip by me. - Anthony

Hate to say this, but, It Depends. It depends on the blogger, the post being commented on, the direction and history of the blog (and blogger) itself, etc. I don't always expect the author to respond to my comment, but sometimes I do, depending on the post. I'm finding it hard to respond to this right now because the post is so subjective. - Paul Short

Are you asking how they are now or how they should be? - Shey

Blog Comments = Conversations with the world; AND yes, most importantly the author. I do not expect the author to respond to me; however, I am always really glad when they do! - Susan Beebe

I don't think it's an either/or question - really depends on the blog and the commenter. I do my best to answer those comments that challenge me or where I sense the commenter wants to engage in a discussion. A real conversation in comments is still tough because you never know if any of the parties will every see the answer. - Frederic

Louis Gray, what is your answer to your question? - Anthony

My answer is that it depends on the comment's content, which can either be dialog or a closed-end response. For example, in response to a post I put up last night, there's some good dialog, but I get self-conscious answering every comment (especially with Disqus tracking it all), so I pick and choose those that left an opening. Also, as some bloggers (Fred Wilson) count comments as currency, when I leave comments elsewhere, I may do it without expectation of a response. - Louis Gray

If i ask a question pertaining to the content, the author should reply but if it is a general comment, authors can expand on it if they wish or just take note of it. - AKs

I try to come up with questions I feel like will start an intellectual dialogue that might end up a totally different conversation. I always appreciate when others do as well. Thanks for the quick respond, and keep rockin, I always dig the queries you pose. - Anthony

On a related theme, the comments threads in blog posts are frequently better than the post itself. A blog post on a particular product, for instance, benefits greatly from the input of someone involved in that product. - john conroy

@john i agree - Tyler

Louis, I think it is a conversation. Not unlike written corespondence in times past. The conversation is not as fluid as it would be in person, or over the phone, but it still is. Yes, I do have an expectation that the author would respond to my comment in most situations. However, when I simply say "I Agree!", I don't really expect one. ;) - Rick Mahn via twhirl

Participating in the conversation is the key, not only for the reader, but also for the blogger. It is this conversation which makes blogging what it is. - Grant Griffiths

Conversation. - Todd Jordan

I have found Disqus to make the conversation aspect much easier. - Chris Nixon

If I'm asking a question, I may expect the author to respond....Then again, it also depends on the number of comments on the post....If it contains 100+ comments, I don't expect the author to respond at all. - Chris Rossini

Both as so you can discuss it and find out other opinions!! - Paul

Great question! I am all in favor of blogs as conversations/discussions, but I can see how it's not practical for the uber-popular blogs with gazillion comments. In which case, it's the blogger's discretion as to which ones (s)he chooses to respond to. - Mia

I try to respond to all comments. Maybe some don't expect a response, but I think everyone feels good when they get one. Greater application of this mantra in responding to customer inquiries/feedback/rants. Most often just providing an answer (even an 'I don't know') will satisfy 80% of whitemail. - AJ Kohn

As a blog author I like when my post generates a further discussion. I try to reply to any valuable comment or question. To make it easier I have installed "Subscribe to comments" Wordpress plugin. Disqus and like are another option, perhaps better. And I expect other bloggers do the same. Of course not if my comment is one of hundreds. - Jan Horna

My opinion on this topic has been changing on this of late. I used to think that the blogger should answer or acknowledge every comment or question. I think every on-topic question should be acknowledged and answered if possible. However, I think that sometimes you have to use some judgement on what you answer - some comments aren't really there to engage the blogger as they are to publicize or promote the commentor. I really don't like thinking that way, but there are times when it's true. - Mark Dykeman

Wouldn't this be the right time for Google (given Twitters technical problems) to open up Jaiku and pull/win people over from Twitter? - Gabriel N.

Agree with cmiper. I wrote about Jaiku in July of last year (http://www.raoulpop.com/2007/0...), and have been using it since late spring in 2007. I loved the feed integration, back before FriendFeed even existed, but the polling times for feeds were and still are ridiculously long (sometimes days, not hours) and there's very little activity. You can go to my Jaiku account and see for yourselves: http://raoul.jaiku.com/. - Raoul Pop

e has a history of buying tools / companies then simply letting them languish and ruining them (jottspot anyone?) - Jaiku is just another exaple of that. Google might be getting too big to be as nimble as they used to be? - Soulhuntre via twhirl

Google has a history of buying tools / companies then simply letting them languish and ruining them (jottspot anyone?) - Jaiku is just another exaple of that. Google might be getting too big to be as nimble as they used to be? - Soulhuntre via twhirl

It was mentioned in another FF comment thread but go to http://JaikuInvites.com for jaiku invites. I got mine within an hour of my request - acedanger

soulhuntre - don't you hate it when twhirl refreshes and you lose part of your comment, press enter and post it and then realize it's f'd up?! anyway - I used to get excited when Google would buy a "useful" service and then get disappointed when it stagnated for a year or so... - acedanger

Yeah, it is farily frustrating(that twhirl thing) - it shoudl suspend updates while I type. Google is not the universal saviour it's rep has it pegged as frankly - they blow it on a lot of stuff. - Soulhuntre via twhirl

Friend me on jaiku - http://alexdesigns.jaiku.com/ - alexdesigns

I'm on Jaiki too (mikelewis) - Mike Lewis

Twitter ... I couldnt get used to jaiku for a reason - Alemsah via Alert Thingy

acedanger and soulhunter, I have brought the refresh issue to Twhirl's attention twice: once through Twitter and once through their support forum. The only response I have received was, "That shouldn't be happening. We'll look into it." Well, thanks, but I know it shouldn't be happening. It seems to me this is a critical bug worthy of its own maintenance release. It also appears that since Seesmic bought Twhirl, bug fixes and updates are much slower to come out. - Gregory Pittman via twhirl

Twitter aura inimitable:) - Igor Poltavskiy

@Soulhuntre Google also has a history of buying companies and turning them into wild successes. Not every acquisition works out as intended. Jottspot was handled poorly but it hardly constitutes a pattern. - Kevin D. White

I only joined a couple of days ago but didn't like the UI and found Twitter to FF easier to play with. It doesn't make finding your existing friends easy. - Sally Church

I like Jaiku but people have chosen to use twitter - if I leave twitter I leave my community and join one that they may not want to be involved in. I also agree about the feeds they are slow. I also agree that Google will offer a very stable service. But truth is - twitter is where everyone is at and the service that they have chosen - so more happens there. BUT recent problems associated with twitter may just change the playing field. Everything will hinge on how long it takes them to "fix" things. - Dave Gray

I have some 20 invites for jaiku, leave your email on my channel. I'v read all these comments from ff mobile, works great. About jaiku, jaiku was doing feed integration from any Rss feed when FF was still a tought or a dream, they have been silent since the Google acquisition, but i have the feeling they where they are going.. - Ben Borges via fftogo

I have some 20 invites for jaiku, leave your email on my channel. I'v read all these comments from ff mobile, works great. About jaiku, jaiku was doing feed integration from any Rss feed when FF was still a tought or a dream, they have been silent since the Google acquisition, but i have the feeling they where they are going.. - Ben Borges via fftogo

Weren't Google accused of much the same behaviour - buying, neglecting and letting an acquisition wither on the vine - with Writely ? Then, eventually, Google Docs emerged. Hope the same is true for Jaiku. If anyone can integrate with gMail, gTalk, gReader, iGoogle tightly and provide a performant, scalable service, it should be Google. - Andy C

Actually I trust Google's ability on integrating their acquisition than other company. Jaiku should integrate with Gmail so all email, IM and messaging go under one roof. - Leon Ho

Personally, I prefer Pownce to either of these services. I really like the ability to share files as well as text. - Tim Finucane

To twitt is just to scream out in space, when writing on Jaiku people engage you. - Tomas Seo

Tomas Seo, do you think it's because there are relatively few people on Jaiku? - Dewald Pretorius via twhirl

I would have rated Pownce above both services, mainly for its ability to file and photo share, and also to post to groups of contacts, but the service is horribly slow and following threads is next to impossible. - cmiper

cmiper, that just shows how difficult it is to scale these services - Dewald Pretorius via twhirl

invites available at http://jaikuinvites.com/need-a... -- took me 20minutes .. all thanks to @gregeh - Jez Arnold

Dewald - I agree, but then right in the thick of it, Pownce upped the file upload limits to 100MB (from 10mb) for non-paid members and 250mb (from 100mb) for paid members and also added the ability to show those files to the public, increasing the amount of hits/download/bandwidth on the system. Seems as though they should have worked out the issues before adding to the cause IMHO. - cmiper

sues, but the noise / bandwidth problem gets insane. - Soulhuntre via twhirl

@Nzben is responsi