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Real time Scoble baby news (I will post small stuff here, over next 24 hours as our new baby comes to keep from spamming Twitter):

September 19, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

RetiredTeacherD, April Buchheit, Cathryn Hrudicka and 46 other people liked this

We came in this morning for an aversion proceedure (turn the baby into position). They were expecting to induce if they could get him aimed the right way. Five minutes before they were supposed to do the procedure he turned the right way by himself. Then 20 minutes later he turned again. Drat. Anyway, now they are in the process of inducing and watching. Won't know for sure what's going on until later tonight. - - Robert Scoble

46 more comments

Right now we're just resting and waiting for the inducing agents to start their jobs. It's still possible that we might have to have a caesarian section, because little Ryan isn't in the right position. More probably later this evening, for now I get to geek out while Maryam takes a nap. - Robert Scoble

Sending lots of beams to Maryam (and you too!) I am out of the loop. I had no idea that the family was growing (and tell M, I'm going to be a grammy come March 1) - Nancy White

Fingers crossed for a natural delivery... unless Maryam would prefer a c-section ;) Good Luck. - travispuk

What a handsome name you've chosen ;) - Ryan Whitwam

Robert: I wish you and your wife the safest and best possible birth experience! Here's to a healthy baby boy and Mom!! Keeping you in my thoughts. Leslie - Leslie Carothers

Congrats, Robert. Can't wait to meet the newest Scoble :-) - Daniel Brusilovsky from iPhone

sending good thoughts for the easiest possible delivery, for both Ryan and Maryam - B.L. - B.L. Ochman

Best wishes, Robert. - Raju Vegesna

Are his initials really going to be R.S.S.? - Carlton Prest

Thinking good thoughts for your wife and the baby - Sherrie Belken

Carlton: yes. His name will be Ryan Soroush Scoble. Thanks everyone. - Robert Scoble

Wishing you both well, hoping it all goes to plan - Rachel Clarke

Fingers crossed for a smooth delivery and sending congratulations on your new son! - Jennifer Leggio

All the best, Scoble family! :) - Micah

bit of a pretentious name, named after one of the wisest Iranian thinkers of the last century. - David Lloyd

Good luck to you & yours :) - Blue_cat_online

Good luck to you both; hope all goes smoothly & swiftly. - Rachel Luxemburg

Nothing but good and positive wishes to Maryam and you and that RSS will come out the second to prettiest baby ever (naturally ours is the prettiest) *wink* - Rene, Pro Button Pusher

David: my other son, Patrick, was named for a saint and Milan was named for one of the best writers ever. So there. - Robert Scoble

Best wishes, Robert! - Mike Hussein Cohen

Good luck to Robert and Maryam. A big week ahead. - Louis Gray

Thanks Louis and Mike. - Robert Scoble

Robert!!!!! What great news; it will be early. Why did they induce if the due date was the 25th, or was I wrong? - Francine Hardaway

wishing you the best. we have a girl due in a few months :) - Stalyn☂

Francine: because hospitals like to schedule babies, is my guess (Sequoia is like a hotel). But he was breech and they wanted to get him into position, now that she's here they are doing the induction thing. - Robert Scoble

Good wishes to all. I've never met you and even I'm nervous. - Amyloo

Good luck with everything, Robert!!! Very exciting! I hope everything turns out perfect in the end!! - Lindsay

Best wishes Scobs! This must be a very exiting day! - Jadito

All the best, Robert. This is Realtime Scoble Scoop (RSS)! - Mahendra (SkepticGeek)

Good luck, Robert, Maryam, and Baby Scoble! - Michael R. Bernstein

So the doctor said that Ryan is one of the five most active babies she has seen in her practice which is why they didn't let us go home. Usually babies at this stage stay heads down. Ryan isn't. I think we have a wild one! :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Congratulation and best wishes! - Heather Solos

5 is an odd number to recall. Good luck, best wishes. - Benjamin Taylor

Guarantee he gets a best friend named Adam. - Vezquex

Congratulations and good luck. - Luiz Fuzaro

So exciting! Congrats, and good luck Robert! Enjoy the geek out time - that's always one of my favorite parts of having a baby. :-) - Jesse Stay

Very happy for you! Best of luck and hope everyone stays happy and healthy! - Martha

Robert wishing you and your wife a speedy delivery. May you have a happy, healthy baby. - Paul Blasman from iPhone

conggrats! - Alrady

Congrats Scoble! Wishing you , the wife and baby the best of early life. - Nakeva Corothers

Best wishes for this exciting event! - Anne Bouey

Congrats and best wishes - Love the name - you must have made Dave Winer's year with that one! - Steve Lacey from iPhone

Ahh, so looks like I haven't missed anything Robert as its now morning here...hurrah! - Technogran

Congratulations Robert and Welcome Ryan! - Martha

Congratulations :) xx - Joe Dawson

Congrats! Everybody doing ok? - Patrick Mackaaij

Robert, we're thinking best thoughts for you, Maryam and R.S.S. (cool initials for the new baby!) Congratulations!!! - Cathryn Hrudicka

Kevin Fox

Senator Al Franken draws map of USA - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

September 7, 2009 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Paul Haahr, Brian, S of 2C and 30 other people liked this

GODLESS COMMIE!!!! - iTad

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If it weren't for that misshapen Texas I'd think he was tracing. - EricaJoy

At the fair, what did he win? - dkb

Come one, come all! See THE AMAZING FRANKEN draw these, our UNITED STATES. TWO BITS is all you need, right this way, folks. No pushing, everyone will get a chance to see THE AMAZING FRANKEN and his wonderful PEN OF GEOPOLITICAL BOUNDARIES as he DRAWS, FREEHAND and FROM MEMORY the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. - Andy Bakun

The "at the Minnesota state fair" makes it look like a sideshow. And it is, since I doubt few other Senators could do this. - Andy Bakun

It's definitely a gimick. This was something practiced, but still very cool for all that. Folks from the great state of Maine might be disappointed in the shrinkage from Franken's hand though. - Kevin Fox

Well it's a good representation considering this is what politics has become, second rate comics becoming Senators. - Spencer

That's pretty damn good! I feel much better about voting for him now! ;o) - Mark J

hmmm - techfugatest

Gotta assume he's simply tracing faint lines but I wish i could hear what he's saying. - Thom Kennon

Most people in the US could not name even most of the 50 States - at least one member of Congress can draw them out! Does not mean much but fun to watch! - Lester Greenberg

Giggity! - Derrick

Impressive. - Rachel Luxemburg

I saw him do that on SNL at one point, back in the 90's - Otto from iPhone

He completely neglected the Chesapeake Bay. #fail. ;) - Dennis O'Neil

We have a print given to us (and taken) by our friend photographer Bill Hayward of Franken in front of one of these drawings of the US map that he painted. Here's the image: http://www.artcritical.com/badbeha... It's framed and hanging in our bedroom. We didn't think of it as a political statement, just an artistic one, until our conservative real estate agent saw it, and said: "Oh, you're Democrats." - Ginger Makela Riker

I bet no other elected representative of ANY STATE could draw a sketch of the US that was any where near as good as Franken's. My bet stands for 30 days from today. - Jason Miller

I think this is something he's practiced for years. Didn't someone say he did this a long time ago on SNL? - iTad

@Dennis O'Neill must be a real Baltimorean - he wrote "The" Chesapeake Bay. Most bays don't have a "the" but we always say "The" Cheasapeake bay. - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

ok, but can he draw Canada? Huh? Thought so! - Shey

Let's try that again. This time using a whiteboard. :D - AJ Batac :)

Spencer - I guess politicians have evolved from second rate actors to second rate comics. At least comics generally come up with their own material. - Robert Felty

This is a long-time Franken bit. For example, here's a clip of him doing this back in 1987 on Letterman: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Stephen Mack

Loic Le Meur

No. 1 failure mechanism for small companies is that they end up being under-capitalized; the runway is too short http://gigaom.com/2009...

September 7, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

always. and that is a function of how hard it is to cross the chasm and how slow the pace of adoption is. - Francine Hardaway from BuddyFeed

agreed, that was a huge issue when I did my own startup back in the day. - Rachel Luxemburg

Robert Scoble

I don’t feel safe with Wordpress, hackers broke in and took things - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

September 5, 2009 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

Shey, carl morris, Tyson Key and 81 other people liked this

Well, if you have fixed the hole by upgrading; you should feel a lot safer now. I guess strong user adoption does bring the wrong kind of attention. - Anindya Chatterjee

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Anindya: we're watching. Looks like they haven't gotten back in since the upgrade and some of the other changes we made. Knock on wood. - Robert Scoble

I'm very tempted to switch to a SixApart install. As a Perl programmer I'd be much more familiar with the backend. - Jesse Stay

Robert, btw, I'm sure between all your users you can find a backup. I have a bunch via Google Reader I could get to Rackspace to import for you. I'm sure others have even older entries than I have. Let us know if you want help restoring the old scobleizer.com! - Jesse Stay

robert - i can tell you this - you need to watch it like a hawk - when i thought i was safe - i wasn't - InsideTransit continues to get hit - and I still believe there is some patches and stuff that RS can do as well - the bigger issue is what's on the server - because that's where they put the shells and then they can do whatever they want. - Allen Stern

Not cool, hopefully things will work out. - Kim Landwehr

Jesse: luckily it was July and August, when I wasn't doing much blogging. No biggie. Thanks. Allen: yes, Rackspace Cloud has a security team now and they are actively looking at ways to make Wordpress safer for our customers. It really sucks getting hacked. Let me know if you find any other ways to protect the systems. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Yea getting hacked sucks. My early days with my blog aboutonlinematters.com I got hacked and luckily my ISP had a backup. Since then I have treated my Wordpress blog like any dev site - with a subversion repository and complete backup. But there are days... like today... when I think strongly about a platform like typepad. - Arthur Coleman

what i have found is locking down the files helps - but you need to ftp into your site and make sure that nothing has been edited or added - in my case, on all my sites, the hackers put files all over that were base64 files - and what they do is include them into WP or they just run them direct - nearly a full shell. i've asked RS to create a way so that i can be notified of any changes to files - they say it's too heavy to run. - Allen Stern

Robert, I just miss the traffic from your "You are SO Unfollowed!" article. (one of the casualties) ;-) - Jesse Stay

There's a lot of great info they deleted - I'm a little ticked they would be completely insensitive like that to prove a security flaw. It affected much more than just you. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: yeah, that's probably the one blog that I miss. It's also the one that got me to notice they deleted a couple of months. - Robert Scoble

Jesse: that still is cached over on Google at http://74.125.155.132/search... - Robert Scoble

No way "You are SO unfollowed" is out? I loved that one! :-( thanks for the cache Robert - Sofia @ SoMaFusion

If you have no time to take care of yuors blog, maybe it's better if you choose the pro offer from wordpress.com ( I think scobleizer.com can have the minimum requirement to stay there). - wolly

here it the VIP hosting http://en.wordpress.com/vip-hos... - wolly

wolly: it's not just about time, attacks come from all directions so you've gotta have a holistic approach to security. How many of you regularly change passwords and make sure they are really good ones? (Twitter got broken into not because of hacks, but because they didn't practice good password security). - Robert Scoble

It saddens me: it is morally reprehensible your hosting company convinced you to switch with the seduction of plugins and customization without emphasizing or handling the increased responsibility of upgrades. Your blog was not unique and not a special target, the worms sweep across millions of blogs indiscriminately and hit whatever is vulnerable. If your host is lax in upgrading, the... more... - Matt Mullenweg

that's true :-) I use password very strange and very verylong that I cannot remember and I use a service like clipperz.com to login. - wolly

wolly, Robert was hosted on WordPress.com for about 4 years -- he was actually the very first VIP. Although there were dozens of security updates to WordPress in that time, his blog never had a problem because it was always up-to-date. He only switched away a few months ago. - Matt Mullenweg

Ciao Matt :-) I didn't know that, so scoble come back to the light side :) - wolly

Matt: yup, that's true. I've learned my lesson. Running your own servers are a lot harder than just having them hosted on Wordpress.com. - Robert Scoble

To be frank, it completely breaks whatever trust I had in Rackspace. - Matt Mullenweg

But Matt, I've been talking with many blog owners, including at TechCrunch, and they say that Wordpress' updates break their custom plugins. That's why they don't upgrade immediately. So, sounds like Wordpress has a mess on its hands that the hosted version of Wordpress didn't have (I couldn't run a lot of plugins and video embeds and other fun things on the hosted version of Wordpress). So, to blame it on my hoster/employer (Rackspace) exclusively isn't really a good attitude either. - Robert Scoble

Robert, It happens. We were hacked too. My observations lead me to believe that this summer was the worst in a long time. Its a war and its going to be a war until the attitude towards hackers changes. Let's stop being fascinated in the least bit by how they do it (this goes towards Kevin Mitnick and his supporters- I don't ever want to pay good money to read about your scams on the... more... - Melanie Reed

Matt's got a point that with greater power (self-hosting) comes greater responsibility (more need to keep an eye on security), but I think to say that Scoble's blog was not a special target is a bit disingenuous. High-profile sites are always a higher-value target. - Rachel Luxemburg

Matt: I think you need to really look at all the damage that's being done to a wide range of sites, many of which are NOT hosted at Rackspace, before throwing more barbs. That's bull. Sorry. But I added a link to this conversation to my blog so people could see your point of view. - Robert Scoble

If a plugin is preventing you from upgrading (did it?) then let's figure out how to fix that plugin. All I can do in WordPress is build in the notices (your blog was asking you to upgrade for months) and the one-click updates for both core and plugins. I agree it's not your (Robert Scoble's) fault because I don't think you made the conscious decision to take on the increased responsibility. - Matt Mullenweg

Matt: the reputation around the Net is that upgrades on Wordpress break things. This wasn't a Rackspace recommendation. It's also a problem with all upgrades. I've gotten hosed by upgrades elsewhere. Look at all the people upgrading to Snow Leopard who are having things break. - Robert Scoble

Matt: TechCrunch hasn't upgraded its blog either and it wasn't hosted on Rackspace (at least not until a couple of days ago). - Robert Scoble

I'm not saying there isn't lots of misinformation around the net, I'm saying "how can I help your blog, please." If it's a plugin preventing you from upgrading, let me know the plugin and we'll fix it even if we didn't write it. That's the beauty of open source. - Matt Mullenweg

Robert -- Avoiding upgrades because they're annoying to deal with isn't a viable longterm strategy. - Rachel Luxemburg

they need to take care of Scoble's blog, well for he is a VIP and the smashing they would have would do a lot of damage to your customer base and otherwise, would they reply to an ordinary guy say like me? i think not,well wordpress/automattic is having their tough moments, hope things get well and they get their repute back - testbeta

Matt - you blaming Rackspace for security vulnerabilities in YOUR software platform is kinda like blaming Dell when a Windows box gets hacked. I think you are being irrational. - Rob La Gesse

Matt: in my case it was the REPUTATION of Wordpress's upgrades that was keeping me from upgrading. I was waiting to see what other people reported broke. I didn't realize the severity of the security problems. But, I am now upgrading automatically. So I'm fixed. But you still have a reputation problem. Lots of people are reporting things break when they upgrade. - Robert Scoble

Rob, I'm not blaming them. I'm saying it's the responsibility of any host, of any software, to stay up to date. If there was a SSH vulnerability on Robert's box I would say the same thing. Software updates are inevitable, there is no such thing as bug-free code, so staying up to date is a must. - Matt Mullenweg

Isn't all this open source code? If it's broken, why not fix it? Doesn't everyone have the responsibility to do that? It's not any one source's fault in that case. - Jesse Stay

Matt - I agree with you. So make Wordpress upgrades SAFE, automatic AND do some internal validation of plugin code to let users know they may be running something that is potentially insecure. - Rob La Gesse

Matt, agreed. Not when its turned out as fast as people are yelling for it. People can't have it both ways. - Melanie Reed

Matt: all Rackspace was providing to me was a Linux host. I was responsible for getting my upgades done on anything I ran on that system. But now we have a team making sure we're following best practices. That is NOT Rackspace's problem, though. That's like blaming Microsoft for a bug in Adobe software. - Robert Scoble

I never listen to the reputation, I always upgrade as a security upgrade is out, and if a plugin doesn't work or I deactivate it or I fix it. Security is much more important than a plugin and Matt knows how many plugins has my blog (when he looked my backend he was very sad ad he said that it was the first time for him to see so many plugin in a blog :-) ) To have a self host blog it's difficult and time expensive. - wolly

There are several very useful plugins specifically addressing security issues; and monitoring WP for suspicious activities (both on file and database level). Here are some articles with tips to harden your blog http://bit.ly/sZgh6 (delicious bookmarks). I only install plugins from authors from whom I know that they implement top level php; no breaking of upgrades on my 3 WP blogs has taken place (2.7-2.8-2.8.4) - Jeroen De Miranda

Yeah, plugin issues are the responsibility of the plugin developer, not Wordpress's. I don't see how this is Wordpress's or Rackspace's fault. - Jesse Stay

By the way, Matt, Sheamus, over on my comments on my blog, says he has the latest upgrades in place and he's still being broken into. You might help him figure out how the hackers are breaking in still. - Robert Scoble

Sorry, I was under the impression Rackspace had recommended you move away from WordPress.com and taken responsibility for the system. I was worried about your blog -- I emailed you about this in August but never heard back. It breaks my heart when someone's WordPress gets compromised. - Matt Mullenweg

I understand the feeling though - if people are still being broken into after being told a fix was made, especially if you're not a developer, that can be a little scary. I'd look to other solutions in that case if it were me, and it's no one's fault. It's just perception and fear, very valid fear. - Jesse Stay

I do believe there is a false sense of securty that WORDPRESS fosters by hosting plugins. I think many assume that because they download the pluging VIA Wordpress, and FROM Wordpress, it is somehow vetted. - Rob La Gesse

Matt: no. I wanted to move to my own install of Wordpress so that I could run many more plugins and start doing stuff other professional bloggers were doing. I am learning very quickly just how much work goes on behind the scenes to make sure my words were protected. - Robert Scoble

Once you've been hacked once if you don't clean up every trace (preferably a systems person does this) it's very likely something is left that allows the spammers to easily break back in, regardless of what version you're on. That's why the trouble with upgrading is worth it, it's much, much less than the trouble of fixing a hacked blog. - Matt Mullenweg

Jesse: yeah, at Microsoft when a box got broken into they wouldn't let you use it anymore. They forced you to reinstall it with all patches loaded. They assumed that it was compromised and that someone stuck a back door in somewhere. That's a lot of work too. - Robert Scoble

install either wp-backup or wp-dbmanager and configure database backup: every day; download to your local pc (or to a system other than your hosting provider); run a check once a month to see whether you can reconstruct the blog in case of calamity, That is my procedure; works fine. - Jeroen De Miranda

if a commoner gets hacked, then he should move to wordpress.com services or what? - testbeta

they should just make it not have any security holes! - Mark

Robert, if you like I'd be happy to host your blog for you (and I'm on Rackspace servers). I can keep it secure as well. I'd only ask some mention of SocialToo somewhere (or payment of some form in order to cover the cost of bandwidth). - Jesse Stay

I would also be able to keep it backed up for you. - Jesse Stay

I'll also install any plugins you're interested in trying - Jesse Stay

Jesse: in my case, I now have a team of the top security guys at Rackspace working on it and making sure my system is up to date and backed up. They also are learning a lot about this and other people who have had problems and are building a list of best practices. - Robert Scoble

This is eventually why I didn't go with Mosso. The service looks good, but you still have to manage your app yourself which opens you up to problems like you've experienced. It would be cool if they offered another layer of management on top so apps could be completely hands free. - Todd Hoff

the alternative (i.e. strong vetting of all plugins) would turn the whole WordPress ecosphere into something such as Ning.... only some 300 addons (as far as I know); little flexibility very intransparent how to get your addin accepted .... Not an attractive model for me.... - Jeroen De Miranda

Robert, excellent - just wanted to make sure the offer was out there. Maybe that could be a tiered service for Rackspace, although I'm not sure it's something Rackspace wants to get into. Bluehost barely makes any money off of that type of service. - Jesse Stay

Steve: I think that's a reasonable set of assumptions. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. When I was on Wordpress.com I was always jealous of blogs that were able to run the latest plugins and use the latest embed codes from various sites. - Robert Scoble

Robert, it's even more fun when you can customize the plugins and themes as a developer. :-) - Jesse Stay

@testbeta wrdpress.com is a very good choice if you don't have time or you don't know how to manage security on yors self hosted blog - wolly

wolly: that takes out the open source fun part ;) well i have nothing much to do on my blogs so i keep mine updated ;) - testbeta

I agree with you :-) but many people love blogging non update theirs blogs :-) - wolly

when my sites were hacked - a wordpress employee reached out to me- i dont remember her name but we sent a few emails - i could write for days about what happened to my 5 sites - my take is simple - i think the issues are a combo of rackspace (my host) and wordpress (my software) - i can tell you this - in 3+ yrs on drupal, i was NEVER hacked. and Matt is right - the real issue is that... more... - Allen Stern

Allen - what version of WP are you running today? - Rob La Gesse

2.8.4 on all of them - Allen Stern

Allen - good :) - Rob La Gesse

If there's a shell script on the same server as you, even if it's not your account, everything on that server is at risk regardless of the software or its version. - Matt Mullenweg

Matt - that is NOT true - Rob La Gesse

I would switch to a new server if I were infected at this point. - Jesse Stay

Properly configured, user space can be isolated and these scripts cannot cross-pollinate. - Rob La Gesse

It can be -- but publish a shell login on your server and we'll see. ;) The right answer is to scrub that sort of access. - Matt Mullenweg

Matt - that comment on the "shell script" is silly. What are you actually trying to say? - Robert J Taylor

Some sort of backdoor that allows a remote user to execute code -- it's super common. - Matt Mullenweg

rob/matt - that wsa one of the biggest issues with my RS account - i had all the sites together in one "client" so when they hacked one - they were able to move around with their shell script into all my other sites - now each site is in a sep. "client" so the damage can only hurt me on one site - and believe me it does hurt :( i believe insidetransit and centernetworks are hit in google - Allen Stern

@Scobleizer I'm sticking with @wordpress it doesn't worry me that much, plus I always update and have backups of db and site emailed to me - Justin Yost

Allen - that was within one user space though. So what I stated above still stands true. - Rob La Gesse

Allen and Robert are big enough that if they had a problem they could contact us and we'd help them, though as far as I know neither did, but I worry a lot more about smaller folks who get hit in the same way. The knowledge for how to properly clean up after a hack is more systems than software and not widespread. - Matt Mullenweg

As Allen mentioned above, he did have a conversation with Wordpress. - Rob La Gesse

matt - thanks for putting me in the same category as robert! *blush* - i did reach out to you - and your security guy was helping me big time - it seemed to turn out that the WP Contact Form 7 was the thing that caused it to start - i didn't document it all online because the security guy wanted time to get the plugin developer to fix the upload hole. - btw his name was mark jaquith and he was great - Allen Stern

So why not some scheme where Wordpress vets a plugin and "blesses it" - perhaps a small charge for this service? As long as Wordpress is advertising plugins on the dashboard I think there ample reason to hold Wordpress to some level of accountability for those plugins - Rob La Gesse

rob - that's what i told mark - they should offer that service for a tiny fee - stamp a "certified" stamp on it. - Allen Stern

Just updated all my sites, doesnt look I was hit. - sean percival

sean - no one would hit you - they know you would lala all over them - Allen Stern

sean - happy for you! - Rob La Gesse

I've read almost all of the comments here, not hearing these mentioned once: Robert did not backup, kept the default 'admin' username and failed to update. These are three of the most basic security measures out there. Not blaming it on Robert, because we all fail on this sometimes, but these basics really are important! - Abounding Media

http://twitter.com/markjaq... warning of Mark in April - kept me away from WP contact form 7 - Jeroen De Miranda

Abounding: yup. And the lesson here is don't host your own version of Wordpress unless you have a security team making sure you're doing it right and backing up (something I never did on Wordpress.com, by the way). Oh, and Twitter taught us that even if you do all of that you've gotta make sure you pick great passwords and think through ways that social hacks could be done to get into your accounts. - Robert Scoble

I've written a much longer post on this: http://wordpress.org/develop... - Matt Mullenweg

http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2008... some great tips of Mark Jaquith on writing secure plugins - I use these and other tips when scanning the PHP code of new plugins that I intend to use (before deploying them) - Jeroen De Miranda

Jeroen, thanks for posting that. I've had phishers getting into one of my WP installs recently, but couldn't tell which plugin it was. I deactivated two plugins, including CF7, the other day, and haven't had any more problems. And a shoutout to Ryan Boren on the WP dev team for helping me to de-infect. - John Craft

Robert: Welcome to the world of web development for impatient users and disgruntled hackers - Melanie Reed

http://wordpress.org/develop... great post of Matt Mullenweg about WordPress security! - Jeroen De Miranda

john - the CF7 is what killed me a few months ago - it's because the form allows uploads even if you don't actually have them on - i believe they patched it but i have not gone back there. - Allen Stern

anybody know if a little smily face appearing in the lower right hand corner of ones footer is a sign of a compromise on a self hosted wp blog? - Richard Reeve

John, your are welcome! SQL injects attacks specifically exploit data entry fields used by the plugin; one should at least scan the PHP code of these plugins, and look at what kind of escape functions are used around handling of the data entry. - Jeroen De Miranda

"it's because the form allows uploads even if you don't actually have them on" - wow. That's bad. - John Craft

Richard is wp-stats smily :-) - wolly

"anybody know if a little smily face appearing in the lower right hand corner of ones footer is a sign of a compromise on a self hosted wp blog?" - if you didn't put it there, it probably is. In your admin go to appearance, theme editor, and read the footer.php file. - John Craft

Richard - are you using the WordPress.com Stats plugin? - Andre Natta

some plugins worth considering to install are: wp-exploit-scanner, wordpress file monitor, WP security scan, anti virus - Jeroen De Miranda

I don't understand why people are worried about a plugin breaking when it comes to upgrading WordPress. If a plugin does break, disable it for the time being. I rather have a secure installation of WordPress running and would worry about fixing the plugin afterwards. - Jason Hansen

Hmmmm . . . I run WP Stats, but see no smiley face. - John Craft

ah...thanks folks...stats it is. phew...so I'm not paranoid... - Richard Reeve

The problem with WordPress is that it forces you to upgrade. Imagine if Microsoft forced everybody to upgrade to Vista/Windows 7 in order to get their security holes plugged. WordPress should release security patches for the current and at least for the previous version. - Nikolay Kolev

They dont force you to upgrade. If you dont want to patch, you can leave it at the current version ( but with a risk ) - Kashif Khan

Where's the patch for the 2.7 version then? - Nikolay Kolev

Their versioning strategy bumps up numbers even for patches . And how many versions behind should they support ? - Kashif Khan

Many of the WordPress security issues are not coming from the WordPress itself, but from the poorly written WordPress plugins. I think it would be nice if Automattic starts an "Automattic Certified" program giving blog owners the peace of mind they need. Every hacker can upload a plugin at WordPress.org, advertise it as something great, bloggers install it, see that it's nothing as advertised, uninstall it, but the WordPress instances are already hacked. - Nikolay Kolev

Plugins are open source and free and nobody (well, with some exceptions) would pay to get their free plugin certified. The only way to do this is by having a community review process, based on some credibility score and voter authority system where 1,000 fake hacker accounts won't, for example, outweigh Matt's or Mark's votes. - Nikolay Kolev

part of the problem is the cry wolf syndrome - if i updated every day wordpress had a security problem i'd want to be salaried on the payroll :D Wordpress needs some sort of alert notification - twitter or something that indicates if there's an update AND the severity and if its severe enough sends it to my phone. - mal

let me play the other side of the coin - i've been using vbulletin for my forums for probably more than 5 years - and it's never once been hacked - why is this - is it because it's paid? is it just more secure? would love to get some input on why wordpress seems to be the attacker's gold. - Allen Stern

@allenstern because it pays back better to have wp hacked - A. T.

Another devil - I have clients using Expression Engine for years (with plugins) and haven't had a problem either. Checking security sites, EE has had very few vs the many with WP and some with Drupal. Matts suggestion that one hosts with him to avoid problems and keep updated just isn't in the cards for business sites. Just too many vulnerabilities with WP over the years for me to recommend it. - PXLated

i can tell you that within 2 days of moving from drupal to wp, my sites were hacked - all of them - and it made me seriously question the move - the reasons i moved were because wp is a bit easier to edit/code than drupal and because the admin panel in wordpress is awesome compared to the crap panel in drupal - i wrote up a whole post about why i moved - i'd like to see matt write a post about their qa and security procedures for their releases - Allen Stern

Alen, once Drupal 7 get released, you may actually go back. :) - Nikolay Kolev

Robert - If I were you I'd move away from Wordpress and fast. Its security record is dire and has been for ages. Other solutions are a lot more stable, whereas Wordpress seems to have security bugs every second week. Why anyone puts up with it is really beyond me. I moved to MovableType and haven't had to worry about caching issues or security problems - Michele Neylon

#somethingpersonal WP calls you "technical evengelist", Robert. When you say «Yes, I didn’t have a backup. I should learn to do backups» I call you a mediawhore. Nothing TECH-NI-CAL, just bulled ego. Learn Security, Performance, Reliability, you ignorant piece. - ETOT ABOUT ТРЕНИНГ

Robert - "the reputation around the Net is that upgrades on Wordpress break things" I'm sorry but that's just not true, I use many many plugins across about 20 sites and I've only ever ONCE had a plugin break during a WP upgrade. - John O'Nolan

Definitely check if Google Reader has your lost posts - as of a few months ago, it didn't handle deletes very well :) - Michael Herf

This recent wave of WordPress incidents shows the negative side of using open source software. Matt says that there are many people looking into WordPress' source code, but the problem is that probably half of those people have malicious reasons for doing so. - Nikolay Kolev

@Matt - why not have a module that adds *automatic* upgrades? The one-click update feature is very nice, but zero clicks is better. With a decent snapshot/rollback system you could update most people securely right away--email them and let them rollback if something breaks. - Michael Herf

@robert: we might be able to help you recover the lost blog posts if you want. Google Reader has an archive of them and we helped another blogger in the past recover her losses. Let me know if we can help. - Edwin Khodabakchian

@matt when do you start to care about poor people unlike robert... who can't afford *VIP* i am willing to pay $25+ per month of course with my adsense ads :} - Imran Jafri

@robert by the way you made one of the worst choice to move away from wordpress.com i think it wasn't price issue rather you wanted to be brand *ambassador* for rackspace which was only possible if you host your blog on their damn servers... if i get enough visitors i would switch to wordpress.com vip without taking 2nd breathe........ - Imran Jafri

I run just a few plugins, and research and vet them first. And upgrade to new WP versions within a week. Look, attacks happen, running self-hosted can get complicated. But this is true with any software or OS - Bob Morris (polizeros) from iPhone

Nikolay, it's always better to have more people looking at the code, because a bug that's been found is better than a bug that hasn't. WordPress used to get almost no security problems and people thought it was because it was coded differently, when in fact it was coded far worse than it is today it just didn't have enough users to make it worthwhile to target. Also where many... more... - Matt Mullenweg

Nikolay: I would also push back against your assumption that using Open Source software equals less security. Microsoft Windows and OS X are both closed source and both have security holes - there is a competition each year to help MS and Apple find them and fix them. Both Apple and Microsoft came away with security holes to fix this year. So just because it's open source doesn't... more... - Tim

that's what you get for the fun of installing and hosting your own installation, instead of using "the cloud". - Ihar Mahaniok

Robert - I recommend WP S3 Backups for backing up your database to off-site storage. Amazon S3 is a great place to host backups of your Wordpress database and is relatively inexpensive. You *always* want backups *off* the server so in case the server is compromised, the backups are still clean. This plugin works like a charm, is automatic and could have saved you. Cheers! - Scott Jarkoff

anybody know of a test that can be done to see if a wp blog has been compromised? Has a few strange user subscriptions about a week ago...but not noticing any thing else...I did upgrade weeks ago, but soon enough? - Richard Reeve

bug exploits keep security IT folks in their day job, sad but true. - Jim Posner

In IT it keeps me busy but the reality is if you update your software on a regular basis you can minimize these from affecting you. - Rob Cairns

Robert, any chance archive.org has some of your old blog posts? Google Cache? - drew olanoff

Matt, another thing to note is that Wordpress.com is often blocked in China (even if you have your own custom URL like scobleizer.com). There are advantages to NOT being hosted by Wordpress.com although your point about increased responsibilty for keeping up with security patches is still valid. - Elliott Ng

Drew: yeah, but what do I do? Just republish them? - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Sure why not. Scoble's best of. Reason why I hate stuff on the net sometimes is good stuff gets lost. - drew olanoff

Give a try to the "WordPress Database Backup" plugin for WordPress and you'll receive regular backups on your email - Francois Lamotte

Robert, You can get all of your lost blog post html out of Google Reader. I'm not exactly sure how to link Disqus back, maybe it's as simple as re-adding the old posts with the same title/date i.e. Url (I don't use it). Yet another reason to use FULL RSS feeds (instead of summary). See RSS isn't dead.. it's now a backup tool too! (http://ff.im/7JrlC) - Chris Myles

Wordpress is a great blogging tool. It is however the largest target now - much like how Windows gets a crap-top more virii because it's the most used system. Someone used Drupal as am example of security... well I'm sure if Drupal was anywhere near the scale of usage Wordpress is you'd see hacks for that too. - Gregory Wild-Smith

Robert: Just repost them with the dates set to the original dates they were posted. Simple, and no-one will ever know ;) - Gregory Wild-Smith

I have always had a bad feeling about Wordpress. YMMV. - Gordon Joly from twhirl

Robert It could be a Rackspace problem and Not a Wordpress Problem. They might to increase there security on the Rackspace!!! You should checck into that!! - Paul

One of the reasons I waited 2 years to switch from MovableType to WordPress was due to the security issues. I felt that the track record improved over the past year and moved 11 sites over. I can say this I employ a very extensive back up scheme but still worry about it. The ability to upgrade with a single click of a button has made it much easier to upgrade, but I always worry which plugins are going to break as I use a lot of plugins. - Todd Cochrane

hmm... I think that a lot of this conversation is missing something. Most software security updates are usually tested in hosts and thus delayed in their own releases by at the minimum of a week's time usually. This is due to hosting internal testing of patches before rolling it out to all servers. Now, whether or not RS actually performs these types of procedures, I don't know... but I... more... - Ben Hwang

First: I keep my blog up to date. Always. Fuck plugins, I decided that when I made the decision to use WP for my blog that updates would be a priority, only because of all the security issues that I remember from the early early days. Having said that, I have to agree with Robert that the perception with WordPress, despite all the work with auto-updates and in-blog notification is STILL... more... - Christina Warren from iPod

I am spending the day finally making a back-up of my web space, then the upgrade. - Sebastian Keil

you are right to not feel safe: when you are on the dominant platform, holes get taken advantage of really fast. At least it being open source you know it will also get plugged fast - Iphigenie

"what do I do? Just republish them?" - Robert, you can set the published date to the original July or August date in the "new post" form. Where it says "publish immediately," click "edit". - John Craft

I couldn't disagree more that the reputation is that an upgrade will break a plugin. How many plugins reach into the Wordpress core and screw around with it? Less than 5%? Any examples of plugins that broke w/ 2.8.4? - beersage

Somebody hacked into my WordPress blog earlier this year as well. It was a bummer because I was working on a draft copy of a blog post that was very rough and had not been edited and they published it. I was on vacation shooting in Chicago and didn't figure it out until several hours after they'd already published it. Fortunately they didn't seem to do anything malicious other than... more... - Thomas Hawk

@Robert: "[Rackspace] are learning a lot about this and other people who have had problems and are building a list of best practices." Is it possible this list is something RS might share? - John House

@Matt Mullenweg: I do like WordPress (even though we had a public argument with you and another Automattic employee on TechCrunch a while ago) and I am a passionate supporter of open source software - don't get me wrong. But sometimes open source code makes it a bit easier for hackers! For example, one hacker hears about an exploit and without communicating with others, finds the hole independently by just looking into the source code and starts exploiting it on his own. - Nikolay Kolev

Gregory Wild-Smith Bingo! - Melanie Reed

Social Media Club blogs got hit as well as several of our personal blogs (still sorting it all out). We try to keep up on most upgrades, but every time we do, simple plugins (like the Event calendar) break. Seems silly, but we have hours of work after each upgrade to try and keep everything intact, and sometimes, we end up downgrading until the 'essential' plugins catch up, which... more... - Kristie Wells

I have 2 wordpress blogs. One on my own domain and one at wordpress central. Still can't get my head around their upgrade gymnastics - may just stick with eBlogger after all. - Houseofmax

i don't know what will happen in times to come but from the existing platforms, i love wordpress and i am not going anywhere, but that doesn't matter for wordpress right? ;) - testbeta

Robert, at the end of it is just only your bloody laziness in upgrading that led you here :) Jokes aside, please at least be honest and say you didn't upgradede twice... :p. - Matteo Flora

Nope. I upgraded to 2.8.4 as soon as it was out but the hackers had already broken in. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

The fact that WordPress is currently being exploited doesn't mean that other platforms are immune. For example, the recently discovered XSS issue with Ruby on Rails makes not only blogs, but every unpatched site a target. So, the only issue I'm having is forcing us to upgrade to a new major version without much time to do proper testing (I'm not talking about personal blogs here). I... more... - Nikolay Kolev

So Techdirt was hacked a bit ago. See their reaction: http://www.techdirt.com/article... it is the reality of owning a web site guys - ANY software is hackable if someone really wants in. - Adam Singer

@Robert: as I see it Wordpress is as vulnerable as any other web app. Upgrading does good, but preemptive security does more and better. I know Matt and he knows I'm in awe with him and Automattic but simply spoken I DON'T TRUST WORDPRESS as I don't trust any other software. A little WebApp Security Firewall (or at least a little .htaccess rules for admin and preemptive locking of... more... - Matteo Flora

i find it interesting, and depressing that people are blaming Rackspace, they're blaming Wordpress, they're blaming Robert, but no one, *no one* seems to be willing to blame the only, ONLY people who deserve blame: the evolutionary failures that attacked Robert's blog. - John C. Welch

Thanks to your post, I found backdoor Admin in my own blog (created yesterday apparently). Promptly deleted it, upgraded blog and took other measures, which I blogged about - Adi Rabinovich

@Matt Mullenweg: "so staying up to date is a must. - Matt Mullenweg" You gave the birth to one of the coolest piece of free software on the net, also your community is strong an love-full, you can do some PRs listening to Scoble that is crying, but you couldn't do anything better than you did. Take it easy man, all your competitors still suck. (PS. also a cleaning utility to understand better if everything is ok on our hosts would be cool ;-) - simone righini

Matt: What does a user need to provide, in order to be considered for a VIP wordpress.com account? - Jim Connolly

caveat operator - Mike Chelen

I would simply like to reiterate the point that if you're going to put free open source software on a rented web server, you need to either know how to administer it or hire someone to do it for you. Neither Rackspace or Wordpress are to blame here. We discuss this with our clients all the time who view web development as a one off expense, then get upset when their site is hacked because it wasn't maintained. - JP Maxwell

One more point, I think there are way too many false lines drawn over aras of responsibility - "I'm systems, not a PHP programmer. I'm a PHP programmer, not a Javascript person. I'm a designer, not a programmer or a systems person." If you are a WEB developer or responsible for maintaining hosted WEB applications, you need to know a bit about it all. It simply isn't sufficient to demarcate your knowledge sphere and point your finger at the other guy. - JP Maxwell

Wow ! - ★ Soner Gönül

Robert Scoble

I'm actually shocked at how few people are disagreeing with my thesis. I thought that I'd have to argue my case this morning.

August 30, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Durukan Duru, Susan Beebe, Joe Bonner and 18 other people liked this

I might have disagreed with it, but I missed the thread. :) Seriously though you are usually on the money. - James Stratford

21 more comments

Twitter is just wrong. Google Wave will kill all of Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed. - Charbax

Hey Robert .... at least it bought position 1 on TechMeMe :) - Charlie Anzman

what thesis?is it on posterous? - ciw

Scoble is now a Twitter evangelist instead of an FF evangelist? - Justin Long

It a function of social media - people tend to follow people that are "like" them and tend to agree.. or if you disagree you just drop them. So you are often singing in a choir with everyone else who is off key. ;-) la la lahhh la la (that is me singing well sort of).. - Sherry Reynolds

Justin: until Facebook decides what to do with the FriendFeed team I am a lot less able to evangelize it. And anyway it really doesn't have a chance to go mainstream. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Just came across this in my Twitter feed: @MillerPierce #advertising #marketing #business Twitter vs. Facebook: Who Will Win? http://bit.ly/kJIkp - Melanie Reed

Seriously? You're "shocked" more people aren't arguing with your valuation of Twitter between midnight Saturday night and 6AM Sunday morning Pacific time? - Ken Sheppardson

Robert, because? - Melanie Reed

I'm usually good for devil's advocate, and willing to argue things I know absolutely nothing about, but 1) I didn't see it, 2) and you're probably on target. You have a link? - motownmutt

Also, Posterous has been having issues. They appear to be down again. - Ken Sheppardson

I didn't necessarily disagree, but in a tweet reply, I said your post looked like it was headed, "Pre-posterous" - Rex Hammock

I disagree with it, but not strongly and I don't really care, so I didn't want to argue. :-) - Dave Winer

What I think is most interesting about your post is how it rocketed to the top of TechMeme. It feels like a sarcastic response from Gabe about your complaining about how he wouldn't point to your FriendFeed tweet from his blog when you got the scoop about the Yelp app on the iPhone last week. (Yes I think of TechMeme as Gabe's blog, foolish me.) - Dave Winer

This thread reminded me of the following quote (which I adore for its kind and affectionate view!) and especially, Dave's post above...and really what FreindFeed is pretty much about: "It is exactly because argument is idle that men (I mean males) must take it seriously;for when (we feel), until the crack of doom,shall we have so delightful a difference again? But most of all I offer it... more... - Melanie Reed

What thesis. Robert? Sorry missed it. - Kol Tregaskes

If only one could comment on the comments. Lovely quotation Melanie Reed. - Bob Boynton

I second what Dave said --> I don't really care, so I didn't want to argue. / I'll reserve arguing to stuff that's worth arguing about. - Rex Hammock

That's the point -- we love you Scoble much more than we care about whether Ev and Biz are worth $1 billion or $5 billion. That's their money. They're still fuckers for doing the SUL. And I still want to find a new home where we own it instead of being at the mercy of such people. Their money is so boring. At least Jorge Lorenzo will sit down and eat a nice meal with you. That's who you should be writing about. - Dave Winer

@Dave +1 - Chris Saad

I could quibble about your valuation for Twitter -- I think you're a little over-exuberant there -- but I'm too busy setting up my new laptop. :) - Rachel Luxemburg

Bob, thank you and you're welcome. Feel free to comment away: http://friendfeed.com/mellier... - Melanie Reed

Robert Scoble

Because @jowyang didn't tell me where he's going and I learned it anyway I am very tempted to tell the world to mess up his launch. :-)

August 24, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

A Mitchell, Bert DuMars, Roger Jennings and 52 other people liked this

so a startup then.. - Zee.

77 more comments

But I won't, because he's my friend and so are the other people involved. :-) - Robert Scoble

Hmmmm... - Simon Young

I hear he'll announce it "within days" and it's a pretty interesting gig. - Robert Scoble

When will we find out Robert? - Dave "Freedom 35"

Are there cameras involved? - Simon Young

Funny. He didn't tell me because he thought I would tell everyone. :-) - Robert Scoble

so go ahead and tell us! : ) - Teri Gidwitz

Teri: believe me, I'm tempted, just to teach him a lesson! :-) - Robert Scoble

What I want to know: Who will replace him at Forrester? - Dave "Freedom 35"

BTW, I dig the new avatar, glad the green is gone ;) - Keith - @tsudo

Will he be interviewed on Building43? - Simon Young

Dave: not possible to replace him, sorry. - Robert Scoble

Well, payback is always worse. They're recruiting for a replacement at Forrester. Go look at his "former" blog; HR guy posted. - Teri Gidwitz

Same here. Green was getting a bit putrid. - Dave "Freedom 35"

Simon: nah, it's not a building43 kind of thing. - Robert Scoble

Big shoes indeed. - Dave "Freedom 35"

Oh. Interesting! - Simon Young

Robert - you post on the race for real time web is amazing - I really want to know where you see real time TV fitting into this? - James Stewart

Don't pull an Arrington, man. Be cool. - Daniel Fath

Nice going Robert, we all are looking forward to knowing when the time comes. - courtney benson

Damn... I got excited for a second that I may be among the first to know what he's up to. I guess I'll wait to find out along with everyone else! - Jodi Echakowitz

Daniel: it could be "JeremiahGate!" :-) - Robert Scoble

I think you guys are already breaking the ground by using Kyte etc and I tune in, but as a business channel in NZ I believe we need to be out there every day interviewing amazing people, streaming it live, enabling real time chats via FF and the Ustream intergration with facebook - I see facebook as the new TV platform that most people spend their time hanging out on and if they see an... more... - James Stewart

FF is pretty cool for these kinds of flash news teasers. :) - Dave "Freedom 35"

James: real time TV: http://friendfeed.com/search... Heheh. - Robert Scoble

haha oops - didn't know about that! - James Stewart

James: FriendFeed's real time search engine has a lot of cool features that never were explored. I really hope that's what they are going to do for Facebook. - Robert Scoble

thx Robert ....thats super cool - Johni Fisher

The problem is that most people that use the internet are still just getting on facebook, I am 25 and I only have a handful of people friends my age that twitter as they don't have a community on there they can identify with - I like what you said about Facebook Public - that is definitely where I see them going with some serious live streaming intergration. Facebook will win because... more... - James Stewart

Robert: True man, since I saw this partnership happen my head has been whizzing with ideas for the implications of it. >> Most of the people in my age group watch videos that have been shared on facebook by their friends and favourite groups. Definitely some new stuff with video on it's way - keep us posted! Thanks for the replies :) - James Stewart

Amazon? - Jesse Stay

Jesse: no and not Facebook either. :-) - Robert Scoble

Either your going to be a big tease or a tattle tale either of which will get you beaten up on the playground, so stop it (: - Kim Landwehr from BuddyFeed

DBAD - Josh Haley

Kim: heheh. - Robert Scoble

Robert. You're a friend, but you've a habit of breaking news --sometimes when folks aren't ready. It's not personal, but I just know your traits. I'm going to brief you in detail on Wed. We can do a video if you'd like --I'll come to you. Hugs? - Jeremiah Owyang

awww... ;-) - Chris Heath

Robert - hug Jeremiah, do the video - but insist he brings that little dog with him. IT is cute :) - Rob La Gesse

Will Robert put away his (fake) wounded pride and interview Jeremiah on Wednesday? Oh yes, he will - and now we have a deadline. Good work Robert! - Kami Huyse

bring @goodboyrumba along for the video! :) - Rachel Luxemburg

"Be excellent to each other." - Steve Rubel

Jeremiah: :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

OK, can we flashmob to celebrate Jeremiah's new gig right after the interview? - Elliott Ng

Jeremiah: here is the deal. I am not under embargo but already know the news. So I think I will call Arrington because you didn't embargo me. Oh, and I +do+ keep embargoes. I am even keeping a secret about two things you will learn in the morning. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I still struggle with my 7 year old son to not steal his siblings' thunder in matters important to them. It's not easy for him. - Josh Haley

I know those two things, Robert. - Louis Gray

I know a lot of things, not even just two, but maybe not the two you are thinking of - Jesse Stay

Kami, I saw Robert yesterday, and I asked him if I'd hurt his feelings, he said "yes". Robert and I go back, there was a time (ustream launch) where we well, didn't coordinate on news. He's truly a friend, and someone I respect as a media trailblazer --but I need to get everything coordinated. To be clear, he was on the list of folks I'd brief in detail --others just got cursory info. - Jeremiah Owyang

Here's a long discussion on where Jeremiah Owyang will be going next. Interesting discussion developing on embargoes and 'bloggers' - Drew B

Lets figure out where he is going. Who is in most need of Jeremiahs incredible intelligence on social media? - Nisse

Drew, is it interesting that Robert is threatening me that I didn't tell him? Should bloggers assert themselves to get news? (it's a bit fun watching him get antsy) - Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah, I find the continual embargo deiscussions fascinating. I hope your trust is respected here. - Drew B from email

Is he going to disneyland? - Cliff Gerrish

Jeremiah: my feelings were hurt because you told pretty much everyone else in the industry other than me. Here's a hint: they can't keep their mouths shut either. But I will. You will know tomorrow that I actually do know the news. But the other deal is that you're wrong. I've kept hundreds of embargoes over the past year and haven't leaked them to anyone. If you weren't a friend and... more... - Robert Scoble

So they want the publicity you can bring but want to control the timing and message. I would be inclined to not agree as well. Sounds like you are being used. - Brian Sullivan

I hear news all the time about people who aren't necessarily friends but would generally want the news quiet - does this mean I should start leaking those details? I'm not sure the right answer to that. The problem though is often the way I hear about that information is through other friends who were trusted to keep the info private. Is it worth betraying the trust of those friends as well? - Jesse Stay

The problem comes maybe when you are "friends" with everybody but also are trying to be a legitimate reporter at the same time. We criticize television and newspaper reporters for this all the time but tech reportage seems to get a pass. - Brian Sullivan

Jesse, yeah your situations seem tough because if you leak, you're a jackass because someone else can't keep their mouth shut. - Chris Heath

Brian: everyone uses me, I'm used to it, it's part of the role I play in life. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, I was planning on telling you before the announcement --and the offer still stands. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, that wasn't my intent. - Jeremiah Owyang

What's the point here?? - Andru Edwards

nothing really andru, I say we just move along and let Robert and I handle this offline. Clearly, we need to work this out. - Jeremiah Owyang

Talking to Scoble now, I apologized. I take back what I said above, he's not broken any embargos in a while and I take that charge back. I also briefed him, as a friend, and more. Sorry Robert, I crossed the line. - Jeremiah Owyang

Ari - that's my guess too. - Hutch Carpenter

Now watch Scoble jump to Streamy right now to tell what Jeremiah is doing next. Ha! - Bryan R. Adams

This is funny! "JeremiahGate" got love it :) - Susan Beebe

Scoble is very good at keeping secrets and creating Buzz! :) - Susan Beebe

Thanks Jeremiah! Excited for you. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I want a "Gate" named after me :-) - Jesse Stay

Robert, excellent start at creating the "buzz" for @jowyang 's launch LOL - j damon brown

Link Baiting 101: Start a fight with Scoble. - Jason Calacanis

Once again, calacanis ftw - Chris Heath from iPhone

Dude, why would you do that? I knew where you were going both times, and I kept it to myself. I coulda broken it, but why violate trust. - Jeremy Pepper

Jeremy: who you talking to? No one has violated any trust. We're all cool now anyway. - Robert Scoble

Jeremy: and when I left Microsoft someone DID violate my trust and leaked it within hours. So what? It all works out. Coordination is overrated. - Robert Scoble

LOL Jason. But Robert is right, co-ordination can be overrated. - Ian Betteridge

Group hug. - Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah - your recognition and classifications/categorizations of trends and strategies is truly unique. Thank you for all you've done at Forrester. Whatever your new role is, I hope you'll continue to share your thoughts. - A Mitchell

Robert Scoble

Geeky "Yoda" shirt (Brad Feld is wearing this): - http://ourdoings.com/roberts...

August 6, 2009 from Robert Scoble - Comment - Like - Share

Marco Fabbri, Chris Johnston, Zurairi Abd Rahman and 24 other people liked this

where did he get that shirt? - Rachel Luxemburg

2 more comments

Dang. And I just replaced that keyboard.... ;-) - Julie Barrett from twhirl

thinkgeek.com has it. - John Wang

Yup, thinkgeek is a great place to find geeky t-shirts. - Sebastian

Robert Scoble

I've noticed something: the best Twitterers follow fewer than 2,000 people. So do I here and I'm having a lot more fun now!

July 28, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Mark Davidson, Rob Michael (Atmos Trio), Ho John Lee and 10 other people liked this

Who told you to follow 100K+ people to begin with? - Chris Spizzirri

32 more comments

I know it's weak but I follow 350 people on Twitter. I'm constantly between 350-400. I want to be under 500 and yes it's pretty awesome. On the same token, I only subscribe to 20 blogs now on RSS (down from 150 in December) - Adam Jackson

It's true in FriendFeed too. - Robert Scoble

I only follow 300 on Twitter and can't really imagine following many more. - Brett Kelly from iPhone

Is this bizarro Scoble? - Bwana ☠

So you've told us that DMs are the reason you follow everyone.... How important are DMs to you? Can't you just post an email address? - Ben Hanten

Chris: Twitter did. If I don't follow you you can't DM me. - Robert Scoble

If you find cool content creators / distributors and you gain value, why would the number matter? - David Damore

Ben: I tried the email thing. Lots of people want to DM, not email. - Robert Scoble

Ben: I found a workaround: two Twitter accounts. One that autofollows everyone back. One where I follow just the best people. - Robert Scoble

Obviously you and I are at very different places in the social media world, but... the DM thing is very marginal for me. Limiting the characters on a direct message seems ridiculous. - Ben Hanten

Ben: I agree that DM's suck. But people still love using them with me. Chad Hurley did today (he started YouTube). - Robert Scoble

I did multiple twitter accounts until Seesmic Desktop came along. - Justin Yost

Right, but... That's still weird to me because you only follow people you have met and can tell a story about. I have a lot of friends online that are invaluable, but I have never met... Works for you, though. - Ben Hanten

What every happened to Dunbar numbers??? I thought we were supposed to top out at 150? - V Mary Abraham

Ben: I've started adding some people I haven't met, but they must be interesting and have very little noise. - Robert Scoble

V Dunbar numbers are bullshit. I've proven to myself that I can keep track of more than that. - Robert Scoble

Makes sense. And noise to you is... links, etc.? - Ben Hanten

Obviously you like links, but.... Well what is noise to you? - Ben Hanten

Is there an RSS feed for all 743 people? One stream. - David Damore

Welcome to the club of rational Twitter use. - David Chartier

Yeah, I took the wrong strategy last year. I was into "How many followers can I get? Maybe I can become famous!" Then the celebs came and that became futile. It was wrong headed anyway. So now all the tweets I'm intereested in are drowned out. I've turned off auto follow and am weeding out. Just starting with the obvious marketers, then working from there. I don't care so much how many people are following me, just want to get value from the system - Stephen Pickering

I guess I could start another account, but I feel it would make me schizo - Stephen Pickering

It seems that about 500 of those accounts are being streamed into Friendfeed. New group. notsecretscoble - David Damore

Noise is like porn. I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it. - Robert Scoble

I suppose that's true. When I go to Twitter, I see about two interesting things on the whole page. I imagine that's what you're talking about. - Ben Hanten

"How I use Twitter" http://www.youtube.com/watch... From April 2008 - My how I miss Track. Philosophy still holds true today. Value your closest contacts, everyone else track through replies/search. - Bwana ☠

Also I was influenced by a Guy Kawasaki animation that showed that there's more value in a lot of "unimportant people" than a few "important" people. it was funny. Scoble was one of the cartoons on the "important" people side of the see saw. Then he showed the weight of the masses over powering the weight of the few "important" people. But I don't think its about that. It's about how many people can you really engage with - Stephen Pickering

All of this talk would be pointless if Twitter had groups and sorting like FriendFeed. - Ben Hanten

Ben: true. - Robert Scoble

I'm pretty stringent about the # of people I follow and have never let it get over 350. I periodically review who I follow to cycle some people in and out, which is a little more work than "follow and forget" but it's worth it to have a Twitter feed that I actually find useful. - Rachel Luxemburg

Guy is here? I remember a while back he DMed me and said that he only uses Twitter. Great, that's about to change. - wiredgnome from iPod

Him first, then all the marketers will follow. So long to the "geeks" era of FriendFeed. Should I be worried? - wiredgnome from iPod

Twitter had me set up on auto- follow back in July of last year. At the time, it actually reduced spammer visibility in my Twitter stream. The bots and spammers were effectively drowned out. That reversed on me around April. So in May, I tried to manually unfollow all the bots and spammers... Which proved to be an impossible task. While I can selectively focus on multiple threads of conversation, I find that I do max out at about 150 at any single time. - Mark Davidson from BuddyFeed

Robert Scoble

It's Friday night. If I weren't a geek I would be drinking whisky at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay. Anyone want to join me?

July 24, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Mohammad Abdurraafay, O.Shane, Jim Connolly and 20 other people liked this

still @ work :( - Rachel Luxemburg

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I can be there by 7, @scobleizer - Prolific Programmer from IM

Prolific: I can be there too. It's a date. - Robert Scoble

If I were in US, I would love to join. - Katsuya TSUKUI

Katsuya: I assume you're in Japan. I wish I could go to sushi with you tonight. - Robert Scoble

love to join you - the trip from KY is prohibitive, tho<g>. i'll raise my glass here in your honor. - MikeAmundsen

If this were Chicago, I'd be up for taking a drink. One day...one day... - Jonathan Hardesty

kewl, Scoble, see you then - Prolific Programmer from IM

You in Hotlanta tonight? - Tim Yonkers

Jonathan: if we were in Chicago we'd go hit Rush street! Tim, if I was in Hotlanta we'd hit the CocaCola museum then we'd hit the Underground. - Robert Scoble

Lets be honest, it's not been a very exciting day today on Friendfeed. - Mark

I thought those Apple tablet rumours on macrumours would have gotten us salivating on FF - Mark

Mark: that's cause I went to FriendFeed. :-) Apple tablet rumors? I think they are lame. I had a tablet back in 2003. - Robert Scoble

You will still buy one ;) - Mark

trying to get others to join us, @scobleizer - Prolific Programmer from IM

Mark, of course! :-) I have to pay the Steve Jobs tax! - Robert Scoble

Speaking of Jobs' when was he last on an apple stage in public? - Mark

Mark: wasn't it last fall? - Robert Scoble

Yeah I think it was September 2008, the Ipod refresh event. Almost one year ago - Mark

outside as usual, @scobleizer? - Prolific Programmer from IM

I will "virtually" on the east coast. - Kreg Steppe

New Orleans is a little far from Half Moon Bay, but a whiskey at the Ritz sounds so nice. - Chris Brakebill

It was really great meeting Prolific Programmer at the Ritz. On the way home I met a neighbor who gave Patrick and me a lesson in raccoon control. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Be a long bike ride :) Last Time I made it out that way was towards the end of a multiple day bicycle tour :) Half Moon Bay's a fun place though. - Raymond Marr aka Knatchwa

Chris: I love New Orleans! Gotta come back. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

but u are geek ? Yes? - viki saigal

I'll be there tomorrownite with the wife if anybody wants to join us. - Randy Ksar from twhirl

Viki: going to the Ritz with a programmer makes it safe. We met a carpenter from Chicago there who owns a horse that came in fifth in the Kentucky Derby. Interesting times! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Randy: at HMB Ritz? We will see you there. Should we bring the smores kit? - Robert Scoble from iPhone

[humble suggestion] Whatever whiskey Robert drinks, Robert must travel to where the whiskey is made and interview the people and video the processes that derive such sweet thunder. Call it Whiskey Geeks and finish the strokes of others that tried but appear to have stopped after the imbibe phase of the process. - Jay Cuthrell

Would love to - but I'm on a different continent right now :( - Jim Connolly

we're done, left a long time ago - Prolific Programmer from IM

Bret Taylor to Bret's feed, FriendFeed News

FriendFeed Blog: Someone's in the kitchen with FriendFeed themes - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...

July 16, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Trang Phượng, Brian, Mickey Schafer and 147 other people liked this

New themes from Kevin! http://friendfeed.com/setting... - Bret Taylor from Bookmarklet

58 more comments

yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!! More Themes!! - Rachel Lea Fox

Bahaha. Steampunk. - Joshua

Grasslands is awesome. And it has clouds! - Bret Taylor

nice! It's theme week on FF. - Mike Bracco

AWESOME! Thanks Bret - Matt Ruiz

++ Bret - Rachel Lea Fox

Ha, the Grasslands theme is cute. I think I kind of like! :) Oh, lookit the cloud! I'll try this out for a while... - Pistos

Orion it is. - Arawak

Feeling all zen with Grasslands - Mike Bracco

Oh no. Sorry, as much as I like Grasslands, I can't apportion 25% of my CPU cycles to moving clouds. *goes back to classic* - Pistos

Excellent ! - Wang Yip

Orion FTW! - caj needs a haircut

haha i thought curtis said Onion FTW! - Wang Yip

Wang: He did. - Matt Ruiz

I know I know!!! - Roberto Bonini from iPhone

Matt: heh no it says Orion, see thats what i'm talking about heheh - Wang Yip

*silently digs Steampunk theme* - FFing Enigma

I like the Orion theme! - TheHenry

Well, I've now been converted to Steampunk. AJ's script was blocking the new text background. - caj needs a haircut

Orion and Steampunk...nice! Can I haz a CyberPunk? - ‘-.-’ Tutivillus Grift

I like Grasslands. Very cheerful. Good to brighten the mood when you stroll over to FriendFeed - Nathan Chase

Cool new themes! Curtis, you're using an old version. - AJ Batac :)

AJ, I'm using the one with Themes support I just downloaded today. - caj needs a haircut

Using Steampunk for now. - John (bird whisperer)

Grasslands is pretty cool looking, but when I comment on a post, the comment field is hidden in the grass. :D - Josh Haley

Nice job! These are some pretty spiffy themes. I would have commented earlier, but I was busy shooting ducks. I switched from Helvetica to Steampunk for now. I still want my old school monochrome monitor black screen and green text theme :P - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

"old school monochrome monitor black screen and green text theme"? oh hellzyeah! can we also get an amber monochrome version?? they can be called "Hercules Green" and "Hercules Amber"! :D - Joe The Sausage

oooooo...I like that...Hercules Green and Hercules Amber - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Grasslands has sun and clouds in Opera, but not in Firefox. - ˈpɛbə

Peter I see the sun and the clouds even in Firefox - Niki Costantini

Thank you, "Grasslands" theme is Great - Nimaa

It seems that one firefox is not like another firefox. It doesn't really bother me, I still prefer 'fresh', or perhaps 'orion'. - ˈpɛbə

Love the new themes. But when can we upload our own image? - Katy Barrilleaux

Extraordinary and eye candy. - Ashish

I like the Orion & Steampunk themes, but I keep going back to classic, largely due to its simplicity & lack of minor annoyances. - Tanath

Steampunk & Grasslands are sweet. but in Grassland bottom grass effect must be under of writings - Samir Kerimov

Ooo, nice. I'll try knot or grasslands for a while. Orion should be named "billions and billions." :-) - Rick Cogley

Awesome! - Garin Kilpatrick

they're perty - The Real sofarsoShawn

Loving Steampunk! - Geoff Schultz {TF}

I do a combo of the two, ishowu! - The Real sofarsoShawn

Very cool! - orionstarr from iPhone

Cool, I like Orion and Duck Hunt is fun in a simple way... But I'm going to stick with Helvetica for now. Wouldn't mind a Blue variation of it. - Grant Bierman

Just loaded the Orion theme. Nice! - Rachel Luxemburg

Took a screencam of grasslands with Kol's puppy. http://ff.im/5kCWk - Rick Cogley

Nice! But custom BG that can be uploaded by users would be awesome. Duck theme should be a widget that can be applied over any theme. - Krishnamoorthy

Krishnamoorthy.K - http://duckmylife.com gives you a bookmarklet that lets you add duckhunt to any website. - Rachel Lea Fox

Shiny. Trying Steampunk now :-D - immaterial

Cordys Cloud application had the cloud+grass combination since about a year, and now this theme of FriendFeed makes my page look like my applications ;) mighty nice ;) - Ashish Tiwari

Orion <3 :D - Neya

Steampunk is very flavorful. It needs some rotating gears (the true reason for 3D CSS transforms) - DGentry

Very nice. Wish I could toggle on/off the animation. - Joel Lovato

+1 for being able to turn off animation. Better yet: Animation only when viewing the tab, turn it off when the tab goes out of focus. - Pistos

I picked the "orion" theme thought it was fitting for me! - orionstarr

Yeah! Orion! - Thierry R. Andriamirado

I'd like,, I really would like to have a full black and green theme, like old vintage computer from the '80's, but with the power of new technology. SO, please, make me happy... - Francesco OC

annnnd back to helvetica.....steampunk is too slow on my netbook. really really want vintage computer "hercules green" or amber theme guys! :) - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

yes mike! hercules green or amber theme! perfect... - Francesco OC

Oh! I like Steampunk and I'm using it. Good job! - Trang Phượng

Robert Scoble

Why isn't there a good iPhone application conference/expo yet? I want to do one, there's too much cool stuff happening here.

July 12, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

metalerik, David Potts, Cathryn Hrudicka and 24 other people liked this

With 40,000 apps it's amazing to me that there isn't a good expo yet. MacWorld should have rebranded itself to "iPhone World" and gone for this. This is a HUGE opportunity being left around for a conference planner to take advantage of. - Robert Scoble

34 more comments

I'll be there! - Colin

Colin: we should do one as a community. Maybe this would be a good thing for Building43 to do. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I'd love your opinion on www.SynapticWeb.org - its the basis and framework for our thinking that produced Echo - would love to do a conf on it - Chris Saad

I bet FF apps are coming for mobile, but I don't get why Safari isn't a great way to use FriendFeed. Maybe if you could answer that you'd get a developer interested. - Robert Scoble

You're right that there's a massive opportunity there, a big problem with iPhone developers is that we aren't allowed/don't have excellent places to communicate with each other, this would be cool! - Colin

The cross section of applications may be too broad.. who is the target? - Pogmohoin

That's because 30,000 of those are just fart apps and flashlights. I think WWDC and Macworld do a fine job of highlighting the iPhone apps - BryanSchuetz from iPhone

Have one! Im there! - Jeremy Lane

Bryan: no way. WWDC is NDAd for most things and Macworld is totally lame. - Robert Scoble

I'd love an expo where I could meet tons of the best iPhone developers and see the coolest new apps face-to-face. Discovering new apps is too hard and there's too much innovation. I bet someone does an expo soon anyway. But this would be something fun, me thinks. - Robert Scoble

Well go out there and use your magical scoble power to make it happen! - Jeremy Lane

Why not? I think it's a fine idea. We should have it in Denver. - John Fiala from iPod

How can I help??? I wanna! :) - Sheryl

John: I'm thinking of pulling an Arrington and doing it during MacWorld. :-) - Robert Scoble

maybe you just build a virtual Expo site to rival the App Store..Interact with the developers..leave comments..developers pay for the space.. you are right.. 50 thousand apps and visibility to the top 100! - Pogmohoin

Pogmohoin: no, I don't want to compete with Apple. I want to do a physical event where you can walk booth-to-booth and meet lots of great developers and see their cool apps. - Robert Scoble

I here ya.. But we are not all USA savvy.. Internationalise fella's - Pogmohoin

Pogmohoin: yes, well, we have to start somewhere and since MacWorld is in SF, I say we should do it at the same time. That way developers will already be in town. - Robert Scoble

+1 more for physical event. - Colin

+2 - Jeremy Lane

Cuz the iFart booth would be the size of a football field and no one wants to be next to them. - Geoff Schultz {TF}

So the Audience is developers meeting developers? I am not knocking just really trying to nut out the advantages..btw < we are developers.. - Pogmohoin

Robert, is http://www.360idev.com/ the kind of thing you had in mind? - Rachel Luxemburg

WWDC was in June. That would be a better target for iPhone Devs is you wanted to gather some. Less so, with Mac World. There are a number of events that attract developers. There's really no shortage. The other problem you mention is an interesting one in it's own right. - Debi Jones

http://mobilebeat2009.com/ isn't good enough? It's not specific for the iPhone tho - - barl0w

It's a good idea. Not every developer can make it into WWDC. Need more outlets for developers to get notice. - Bess Ho

Wow, very surprised no one has started one of these up yet! - Arnold Aranez

wow - was just talking to someone about starting a london iphone developer meetup - anyone interested (other than Robert ;-) ) - ping me on ff or twitter @robocallaghan - Robert O'Callaghan

barl0w: nope, I want something JUST for seeing cool iPhone apps. Not discussing strategy, or any of that. Sort of like a "Demo" for iPhone apps. - Robert Scoble

I'm currently using something developed by Boopsie for our conference in Chicago. We have about 23k attendees over the course of six days. American Library Association. It works pretty decently but is primarily a schedule tool. - Kenley Neufeld

Find 10000 FART applications, available from 0.00 to $.$$. - ThinkEzy

add Microsoft to your Web 2010 cloud. - ThinkEzy

Mark: I don't want a conference. I want an expo. Where you walk around and see tons of great apps and meet the developers. These guys are rock stars. I want to meet them all in one hall. Maybe get the best ones to give a demo in front of an audience, like at Demo. - Robert Scoble

I like this idea. I run an iPhone (apps focused) site and spend lots of time looking at and reviewing good/bad/mediocre/great apps - and still feel as if there are lots that pass me by. - Patrick Jordan

Why limit the expo to iPhone developers? - Debi Jones

Paul Haahr

Paul is on sabbatical for the next seven weeks. What a weird feeling.

July 9, 2009 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

Bret Taylor, Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik and 5 other people liked this

enjoy! - Rachel Luxemburg

2 more comments

Any big plans? - ⓞnor

Home a little, traveling a little. Mostly time to have a vacation with Susan and the kids and unwind. - Paul Haahr

I got a question the other night about some old-old thing, because you had gone 404 on 'em. :-) - Daniel Dulitz

Debbie Weil

Long walk w/non techie friend on this hot sunny July AM; tried to explain Twitter. Skepticism. Above all, she wants privacy. Fair point.

July 12, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Yup I had the same convo with my cousin yesterday. - Jeremiah Owyang

Re explaining Twitter, are we living in Never Never (i.e. Always On) Land? Or are they missing out?? - Debbie Weil

My grandmother "got" Twitter when I showed it to her. My mother didn't. Go figure. - Rachel Luxemburg

Jeremiah Owyang

Had lunch with a Silicon Valley Realtor, she said that home prices are starting to creep up, multiple bids on homes. A sign of a turn?

July 5, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Gordon Saunders liked this

Conflict of interest? Let's see the data. ;) - Mark Evans

2 more comments

Realtors ALWAYS say it's a good time to buy. Occasionally it's even true, - Rachel Luxemburg

Talking herself into it. Data suggests otherwise unless she's working a very small part of SV. Look at Redfin Ask versus Sale. The cascade effect is going to hit the upper-to-mid range of homes in the next few months as comps reset. - AJ Kohn

Interesting ABC News article: "Collapse in Prices Has Finally Come Home to the Rich" "there is a still-growing supply of wildly overpriced, unsold homes--60,000 U.S. properties priced above $2 million listed on Realtor.com."http://bit.ly/g1Z8I - Mark Evans

Jeremiah Owyang

Twitter poll: Other than craigslist, how would you find an apartment to rent?

June 27, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

really depends on the location - sorry replying here even tho you noted a poll on twitter. - Allen Stern

3 more comments

VRBO http://www.vrbo.com/26262 - Michael Metz

Newspaper or driving around town or friends. Craigslist isn't really good on my city - Chris Heath

of the three apartments I've rented in the Bay Area none was through Craigslist. Used a now-defunct rental site for one, SFGate for another, and driving around the neighborhood looking for "For Rent" signs for the 3rd. - Rachel Luxemburg

I've found the best places just by asking friends and being persistent about following up. Also, you can look for buildings that either look vacant, are for sale or have for rent signs, of course. Sometimes you can pre-empt the officially announced rental by contacting the owner of a building in transition to see if they might be renting in the future. I'm posting on FF—hope you're reading this.:-) - Cathryn Hrudicka

Jeremiah Owyang

I recently saw Transformers, break down: 90% fights and explosions, 9% sultry girls 1% plot, logic, story, or character development

June 26, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Cody Woodman and Eban Crawford liked this

I have not heard one good review from anyone yet. This is totally relegated to the Red Box or Netflix waiting bin. - Eban Crawford

were there any good-looking guys? - Rachel Luxemburg

Rachel. Yes, bumblebee is hot - Jeremiah Owyang

Luke Kilpatrick

New test tweet on spaz another pre twitter client. Still trying to find one that will twitpic.

June 22, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

you could always write one if you can't find one...... - Rachel Luxemburg

Palm won't put out the darn SDK grrrr.... - Luke Kilpatrick

Dave Winer

Watch out for people who look like liberals but shill for the big tech companies. Some are probably well-intentioned. Others, on the payroll

June 20, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Morton Fox, Tapio Kulmala, Kol Tregaskes and 3 other people liked this

I am on the payroll of Rackspace. So? - Robert Scoble

7 more comments

There are plenty of people who work for big tech companies who are politically liberal and say good things about their employers. What exactly is the problem with that? - Rachel Luxemburg

Yes Scoble is a shill, but you look like one -- so there's no integrity issue. It's people who say things that sound proletarian but are repping the corporations that should have trouble sleeping at night. - Dave Winer

Rachel, that's not what I'm talking about. And no I'm not going to name names unless you're willing to fund my legal defense. :-) (And even then, forget it. You can use your own eyes and ears.) - Dave Winer

Here's what shill means. http://www.google.com/search... Part of the definition is that you don't look like you're pimping. So Scoble isn't a shill, he's a rep. No integrity problem. Just don't believe him when he talks about Rackspace or their competitors. - Dave Winer

Dave: I only say nice things about my competitors. Heheh. Maybe you are right! - Robert Scoble

Nothing wrong with having a job. - Dave Winer

see here is where we always get tripped up with capitalism, socialism, and ethics. if we continue to make the connection between money and unethical or less than truthful behavior, then we'll harbor distrust. the compromise may well be in the beauty of social media, if we can accept the failings of others and they can improve on them. In that case it would be easier, perhaps even encouraged to me more truthful. Ego plays a role in this as well, deeper issue. - Albert Maruggi

A shill? Is there inadequate disclosure? "A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Tim Tyler

Dave Winer

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, on Twitter. (Via @leolaporte.) http://twitter.com/therealbuzz

June 17, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

imabonehead and Tudor Bosman liked this

for real? If so that is very cool. - Rachel Luxemburg

Luke Kilpatrick

New profile picture. Thanks Rob - http://www.robertschultze.net/ check out his work as a photographer, its great. What do you think?

June 14, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

a little too much shadow on your face IMO. - Rachel Luxemburg

I think we are going to re-shoot with better light but I just wanted to change it to something more professional. - Luke Kilpatrick

Luke Kilpatrick

@brax4444 What Ritz is that one from? The one in HMB gives square marshmallows. This is my kit http://twitpic.com/7cp1d

June 14, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

I need to get some of my firepit photos online. - Rachel Luxemburg

Robert Scoble

Great chat with @ev, @scobleizer, @rlux, @pud, and @lkilpatrick. More about what happened at the Ritz tonight and what @ev told me:

June 14, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Mark Douglass, Paul Buchheit, Hutch Carpenter and 17 other people liked this

be right back - Robert Scoble

140 more comments

/spillthebeans pls - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

How did we all come together? Total accident. @lkilpatrick woke me up from a nap tonight at about 9 p.m. and said that he was at the fire ring at the Ritz with @pud, who is the guy who started AdBrite and Fucked Company. When I got there we met up and I started railing on CNN and saying Twitter was taking over the world. That's when @ev came up and said "what about Twitter?" - Robert Scoble

lol @ Brian - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I'll tell you what I learned at #bcs09 - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

hey robert - did you just tweet about yourself in the third person? :) - Jeremy Toeman

Then we spent the next three hours together. His wife was there (they are expecting a baby, and we had the same birth class teacher http://www.mcmoylermethod.com/ - Robert Scoble

pretty funny happenstance. glad you all could sit down together for a chat :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

sounds like the night you've been waiting for for years robert. good to see you connect with @ev on a different level than your past interaction with them. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Rob: me too. I tried to bite my lip about the suggested follower thing, ended up joking around with @ev about it just a tiny bit and he took it pretty well. He likes friendfeed's new UI, but sees Facebook as Twitter's main competition. - Robert Scoble

s'mores at the Ritz are one of my favorite activities. Thanks again Robert for telling me about it. I have met a ton of interesting and cool people at those fire rings. - Luke Kilpatrick

ah...little does he realize... ;) (same with zukerberg I imagine) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

He says they have a ton of stuff coming out in next few months, many more features than they've shipped over their first three years. - Robert Scoble

any clues on those? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

He confirmed they aren't up for sale, and explained why (same story that Fred Wilson gave me two weeks ago). - Robert Scoble

Rob: no, but he said "they will jumpstart our growth again" so they are definitely optimistic that they will cause people to talk about them. - Robert Scoble

ballsy move IMO, but... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

interesting. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

alas talk is cheap - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

He also confirmed that they aren't looking at advertising for revenue, at least not in short term. - Robert Scoble

Sounds like a great #Mastermind conversation. Would love to have been a fly on the wall for it. - David Damore

Rob: that it is, but Ev is pretty accurate reader of how people will respond to stuff. He hasn't mislead me in the past in that regard. - Robert Scoble

I'd like to see something that doesn't remind me so much of the dotcom bubble when people were selling strraight air and memberlists - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

totally. robert - does this change your opinion of twitter and how they run their company? I know you've had strong opinions on that topic in the past.... - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

no, I don't doubt that he has something to generate talk... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

David: it's one of those things that I wish I had recorded, but it was Saturday night, we were having fun, and it wasn't quite the place. - Robert Scoble

re up for sale - have you *ever* known a company to publicly state they *are* up for sale? of course not. it's not like people pay more for easy to get commodities, right? - Jeremy Toeman

and cheap can go a long way too...don't get me wrong - it's just not a solid foundation - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I'm amused by @Ev's reaction to all the iran stuff. - zzzz

@Scoble: Some things flow better when it is "off the record" Just glad you are sharing some nuggets here tonight. - David Damore

Brian: anytime you meet someone face to face it changes what you feel about them. This is no different. It was interesting that I was praising Twitter when he introduced himself. - Robert Scoble

I had no idea he was standing there when I was talking about how crappy CNN was in comparison to Twitter. - Robert Scoble

that is a funny turn of events - unlikely - but the universe moves to further our best interests I think - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: their uptime has gotten 100x better recently, though, even though their search is still struggling (he said they are focusing a lot of effort on search or, what he calls "discovery features.") - Robert Scoble

Wow. That's cool, and I totally agree Robert. Nothing beats a good F2F conversation. Good to hear.... - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

why would you compare CNN to twitter at all? - Jeremy Toeman

It has Robert - I can tell from what I see while watching over PeopleBrowsr - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

because twitter delivers news? - zzzz

Jeremy: because of Iran. The biggest news story in the world today and CNN had some stupid motorcyle guys on instead of talking about it. - Robert Scoble

Katie: Twitter was up in Iran. Friendfeed has been blocked there, from what I've been reading. - Robert Scoble

Katie no because people deliver news - Jesse Stay

But yes,...the search is laging 0 but uptime is IMO more critical in the moment - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Discovery.... Hummmmm. Sounds like a marketers dream. - David Damore

for how long?? are they supposed to cover iran for 24 hours straight?? and the day I trust "the crowd" to give me semi-accurate news in 140 character chunks is the day ... well, I don't know what, but it's not a good day. - Jeremy Toeman

Twitter is accessible because of all the ways you can get on it - friendfeed is just a website and easily blocked - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Other things I remember from the conversation: Tweetie was his favorite iPhone app. He said he doesn't really use desktop apps that much. - Robert Scoble

Jesse: I stand corrected. :) - zzzz

Jeremy: I was watching CNN for hours this afternoon and THEY HAD NOTHING about Iran. Read all the "CNNFail" hashtag stuff. - Robert Scoble

Robert did you get to talk to him any about auto-follow, and the way they use the system vs. the users? - Jesse Stay

Jeremy: CNN was horrid today. And, yes, when a news story is affecting the middle east like this one was, they should cover it wall to wall. - Robert Scoble

honestly I watched a lot of the Iran scene on FriendFeed and some choice blogs - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Jesse: no, I didn't go there. - Robert Scoble

Jesse: except we were joking around about following and I told the story of when @god tapped me on the shoulder at a party and said "you are not following me." @ev answered "@god is following me." So, we all like to be followed, even @ev. - Robert Scoble

Rob, twitter's more accessible in the sense of clients available to contact 'central', but it's not as if one service is decentralized and the other not. - Micah

It was a very interesting night as I didn't even recognize @ev until he came up and said hello to @scobleizer, I was there with @rlux and @skawtnyc making s'mores when I started offering them to the other people at the fire ring as always do and @pud 's fiance took me up on it. Then had a great conversation with @pud about #ColdFusion and I gave @scobleizer a call as I figured he would... more... - Luke Kilpatrick

By the way, @ev bought our drinks tonight. Which was very nice. - Robert Scoble

@Robert - ok, CNN did a bad job today - fine. I dont watch any televised news and haven't for quite some time. but again, how do you compare CNN to twitter? should i compare HBO to twitter too? - Jeremy Toeman

Exactly Micah - that's why tweets were more readily available - but there were a few folks in Iran on Friendfeed - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert: are you closer to Twitter as a result? Chance meeting although it may be, sounds interesting. - Nick Wade

Jeremy: CNN is supposed to cover the world's news. Today they didn't. If you watched CNN you would get that. - Robert Scoble

Jeremy: HBO doesn't deliver news - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

If you watched Twitter you'd get that - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Nick: you can't help but get closer to a company after spending three hours with its founder. I hope it leads to a building43 interview, to tell you the truth. - Robert Scoble

http://friendfeed.com/search... #cnnfail coverage. - Robert Scoble

I hope so too. It would do all of us some potential good - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

@Robert: let me break it to you - CNN's business is selling ads, not delivering news. if it were about news, this country would be a much more well-informed place. they are not incented by "quality news", they are incented by "viewership", which is in turn incented by the appearance of news. but again, judging anyone by one day is, for lack of a better word, silly. - Jeremy Toeman

I'd love to sit down for lunch or dinner with them some time. They're nice guys - Jesse Stay

Jeremy: well, they at least have "news" in their name. I don't remember them saying "we're the cable advertising network." But, yes, I agree with your cynicism. I just wish we had better media here in the USA. - Robert Scoble

Yes, I hear you. Ev and Sarah live up the street. Bump-into's are interesting in our 'hood sometimes, although I'm no Scoble. I think I'm in the majority in saying that a building43 segment would rock. My direct message of weds re Twitter still stands, very keen to know if one should stake a position there. - Nick Wade

Jeremy: it's not the first time CNN has lost to the Twitter News Network. - Robert Scoble

@robert now that's something we can agree on! :) gnite - gotta go finish reading Ender's Shadow. - Jeremy Toeman

true, but i've also NOT seen CNN misreport Patrick Swayze's death... - Jeremy Toeman

Search for "Iran" with tons of interesting stuff: http://friendfeed.com/search... - Robert Scoble

Jeremy: good point. - Robert Scoble

Even better, search for Iran filtered to display only items with one like or more: http://friendfeed.com/search... Much better quality stuff. - Robert Scoble

Robert: are you coming out to NYC this week ? - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

hmm I always wonder where the women are in these conversations? would we develop different apps if their voice was stronger? or tweeter then what you guys come up with? - sherry reynolds

Rob: yes! I will be in NYC for the Twitter Conference by Jeff Pulver on Tuesday, then there also through Thursday evening. - Robert Scoble

You see, if those guys were more transparent, its human nature, they'd have a lot more goodwill, and have YOU and LEO and others like yourselves talking more positively about them. It's like when Swisher came on that night. I came away with a positive feeling about her after she interacted - Stephen Pickering

Awesome! Looking forward to it... will be there monday - till Would like to meet you while you're here :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Sherry: women were there, but they were up against several well known technologists. I found Ev's wife to be very interesting and smart and a female Twitter employee was there from Japan and she also was smart and interesting, but she didn't say much that would be interesting to the public. I did joke that she was responsible for all of Twitter's revenue and we both laughed about that. Or at least I did. ;-) - Robert Scoble

lol! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

On a lighter note, I was thinking of a question for @ev re. facebook usernames - never asked it; got side-tracked in identity humour: http://friendfeed.com/micahwi... - Micah

Stephen: I think they aren't more transparent because they are simply over exposed by the media and every journalist in the world wants to touch them right now (Twitter is on the cover of Time Magazine). That leads to a weird view of them. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, your right, but its like that video you had of Zuckerberg. Just him sitting and talking with you and Arrington a couple weeks before gave me such positive impression - Stephen Pickering

Leads to a weird view of your own self with that much publicity too I'd imagine - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Stephen: yeah, that's the problem if you choose to only speak to big news outlets. They never will post your entire conversation and even if they did it would be a pretty unnatural conversation. - Robert Scoble

Sherry: @rlux is female and was very engaged in the conversation. She is the Community Manager for Adobe's User Group programs. Also @yukarim who is part of twitter's japan effort was also there and engaged as well. It was a pretty balanced night as far as male - female ratio. It was just as Robert said, they were up against several well known technologists. - Luke Kilpatrick

Rob: yeah. If there's one view of Ev that changed tonight it's how he is handling being at the center of a cultural/media/celebrity storm. Definitely is handling it better than I am. He talked very eloquently about why companies sell (he says he might write up a blog post about that) and why Twitter isn't going to sell. He says they are "optimistic." That's putting it about right. - Robert Scoble

Hats off to him if he can pull it off. If they can get the stability together I think they could do so... - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Luke is right. Unfortunately when I choose to relay the evening's events I'm passing along mostly @ev's thoughts. Why? He is the man of the hour. It's not every day you get to have drinks with an entrepreneur the week that they are on the cover of Time Magazine. I know that's what people will be interested in hearing about, not about what my niece told me at her graduation today. - Robert Scoble

It's like Joseph Campbell said, "Life is is in the top flight" It's not like you think your bigger than everyone else, but when you catch a wave, you might as well ride it and have a heck of a time - Stephen Pickering

The real problem with this industry is more women don't start companies and don't get into positions of high branding. There are a few, and I would love to have conversations with them, too. Like Nina Bianchini of Ning. On Building43 you saw several women who had a lot to say. More to come in future! - Robert Scoble

Robert: if your niece had mentioned that she'd bumped into Ev and gotten bladdered with him, we'd all be super-interested. We're all happy about building43 from what I'm seeing. Looking fwd to more. P.S. congrats your niece! - Nick Wade

Let's hope so! The balance is needed in the whole business. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Right, everyone can be successful. The more everyone is successful the more we all win - Stephen Pickering

The pie gets bigger - Stephen Pickering

This is where I disagree with Arrington a bit, but I have to admit history is on Arrington's side about there being usually one winner - Stephen Pickering

At least in this space, if there is one winner, its earned and not done (usually) with shananigans or an unearned monopoly - Stephen Pickering

the real-time web is where the breaking news is.. whether its a chance meeting with @ev or what is happening on the ground in Iran. Its changing everything. Robert great interview with Kelly Nelson! - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Peter, I agree. In this space, its totally interesting an revolutionary. I just wish it would spread to other spaces I'm interested in like the Arts. Places like that are still behind such "silos" - Stephen Pickering

Anyone else get the irony here - that Robert's sharing this Twitter info here on FriendFeed? :-) - Jim Connolly

Yes, but where else can you have an IM like all inclusive real time conversation? - Stephen Pickering

was very amusing live while he talked to @ev ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Stephen I think its just a matter of time... interesting this was something that was touched on in the interview with Kelly Nelson the walls are coming down - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Yes, I watched that video, and all the Building43 videos and was very impressed - Stephen Pickering

Sherry, I'm @rlux and we ladies were definitely there & engaged -- I actually got into a whole conversation with @ev about WebSitePro and ColdFusion of all things. A good time was had by all. - Rachel Luxemburg

Oh what's a "fire ring"? - Stephen Pickering

Stephen: Exactly - Twitter's limitations mean that the conversation had to be done here. Yet, Twitter gets all the traction / media buzz and FriendFeed doesn't. The world is (officially) nuts!! :) - Jim Connolly

Glad you could make it Rachel :) Thanks for stopping in here! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

My personal opinion is that in the next year FriendFeed is going to be a force to be reckoned with. I almost feel it will take over Twitter's space. - Stephen Pickering

I almost feel that FF is to Twitter as Facebook was to Myspace circa 2006 - Stephen Pickering

Stephen: I hope so. That said, I have seen my subscriber numbers here grow a lot recently, suggesting there's a lot more users joining. - Jim Connolly

Just checked and I now have over 1000 FriendFeed subscribers - that's amazing! - Jim Connolly

Stephen: The fire ring at the hmb Ritz Carlton hotel, complete with my s'mores making gear. Mmmm... http://twitpic.com/7cp1d - Luke Kilpatrick

Mine too, and unlike Twitter, I haven't been actively trying to get subscribers. That said, Ev is smart by not chasing advertising. It'll give Twitter more legs and credibility. So he's a lot smarter than the Myspace folks were - Stephen Pickering

Ah, Luke, thanks, what are s'mores? - Stephen Pickering

(who is stephen and why can't I see him?) :( - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I think ads could hurt Twitter, but not as much as making users pay for an account. Making them pay (which is the last model I heard Ev mention), would cut user numbers by 80% - losing Twitter it's reach. - Jim Connolly

they keep saying over and over that's not a primary interest (they don't hate them, but they aren't interested) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: The guy's Stephen Pickering - http://friendfeed.com/stephen... - Jim Connolly

Oh yeah, a sub model, no way. You're right. I guess I'm thinking of the flashy banner ads. Definitely search ads will play the major part - Stephen Pickering

Stephen : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - As you can see in the photo, Hershey Chocolate bars, Honey Maid Graham Crackers and a well toasted marshmallow. Extremely tasty and one of the best things to make on a campfire. - Luke Kilpatrick

Ah, cool, Luke, thanks! - Stephen Pickering

Thanks .. that was odd - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

But even if Rob wasn't subscribed to me, he should still "see" me right? Unless heaven forbid, he BLOCKED me! :) - Stephen Pickering

Stephen: I'm guessing it was a database error. Who's gonna block you? No one. - Jim Connolly

FF said I had you blocked, but your stream shows no reason why I would have done so (and I don't remember you - and I remember pretty much anyone I block. I don't take it lightly!) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I saw no spam, and you don't look like a troll ;) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

or you got a good makeover - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I haven't blocked anyone on FF, but have blocked stacks of spammers on Twitter. - Jim Connolly

I don't bother anymore on Twitter too much trouble - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: Plus, when you block on Twitter, they still show up in searches. Twitter's so limited. - Jim Connolly

Rob, no offense taken, I might have said something stupid in the past. I might have deserved to be BLOCKED for one reason or another, but no I'm not a spammer and hope not a troll! - Stephen Pickering

It's possible, but i usually remember a face ;) So, sorry if I did it, but I think it's an error. Back to the smores! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Catch up with you guys later!! - Jim Connolly

You don't have to be sorry! Blocking is FUN!!!! heheheheheheh - Stephen Pickering

Bye - Stephen Pickering

Just kidding, I wouldnt block either, unless obvious spammer etc - Stephen Pickering

hahaha :) Have a good night Jim. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I've only blocked one or two for evil behavior. most I block for incessant commercial messages. :D - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Sounds like a great night of s'mores with @ev & co - JayShapiro/dailystatsmobi

Robert Scoble to Robert's feed, building43

How surreal is my life? I am sitting with @ev founder of Twitter.

June 13, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

Joe Dawson, Marko Saric, Philip Lei and 40 other people liked this

How's he doing? :) - Michael Forian

60 more comments

Surreal? Not sure. Awesome? I would say so. - Brandon Mendelson

Tell him how much you like Friendfeed! - Than R

what are you two doing? btw, total waste of twitter chars to say @ev, founder of Twitter. As if we don't get that. tell us the real scoop - melinda

Ask him how much he likes Friendfeed! - Brandon Titus

Ask him what their plan is on spam, please. - Vince DeGeorge

I'm sure he really appreciates you telling us of his presence via FRIENDFEED and NOT TWITTER! ;) - Michael Forian

so anything interesting in the pipeline? - Alistair (alpinefolk)

Did you offer him a cupcake? - Ken Sheppardson

Scoble, you take massive action to make it happen! And the best thing is that love it :-) So this all fun and no work - SurajLuke

I second this: ”Ask him what their plan is on spam, please“. Recently it's just too much spam. - Kenyth

How did this fortunate meeting come about? - Stephen Pickering

I'd like to know about the spam stuff too. - zzzz

Ask @ev did the third party aps get new api limits, i.e. Tweetdeck? #Twitter - jacky

Please ask him when they're going to #fixreplies, as we were promised? - Sharon McPherson

ask him what they have against whales? why whales should be the icon for failure? - Ross Teasley

I'll bet Iran is dominating your discussions tonight. - Nick in Manila

Please, ask him about Twitpocalypse! - Roberto Arancibia

Name dropping! Ask him about verified accounts. - Benjamin Taylor

Or you could ask him how he is reacting to the fact that his service is now the go-to for breaking news in Iran. A historic day for them. But I'm sure asking about spam updates is important too. Geesh! - Mike

@ev must be marveling over the responses Robert is getting on FriendFeed over this! - Michael Forian

Tell him sorry I couldn't be there this time - Jesse Stay

We are at the Ritz firering and I was talking with my friend Luke about how Twitter is kicking ass over CNN and Ev said "what about Twitter?" I am trying to figure out how to give him shit about suggested followers. :-) - Robert Scoble

Ask him about the spammer strategy. - Eric

This is the night Twitter finally broke the back of MSM. Ev is oblivious? - Nick in Manila

Man, get your vid camera out, killer interview, if you can get it for building43 - Stephen Pickering

I'd love to see video of this that'd rock. and how could he not know about the Twitter>CNN thing!? - zzzz

Please ask him why an early adopter like @ATX no longer shows up in Find People or Search- like it should (and used to). - Dean Kakridas

their is big monetization potential behind "suggested followers" imo - Brian Chappell

Qik the discussion. - Vince DeGeorge

and drop in to http://iran.twazzup.com/ to see iran/twitter action - Ross Teasley

I love that you posted this to FF (I would say instead of Twitter, but I can't tell for sure...) - iTad

It's incredible watching this discussion unfold in real-time. I really wish Twitter could do this... - Jonas Anderson

Tad - that's the beauty of all this. It doesn't matter any more where he posted it from. - Nick in Manila

to paraphrase Tina Fey "I want to go to there" - you lucky duck. - Kim Mears

Tell him Twitter is down ;) - John Rubier

While sitting with you did @ev tweet, "How surreal is my life? I am sitting with THE @Scobleizer"? - Don Strickland

Ask him how I can as a developer get my app listed in their featured App listing in the upper-right of Twitter - Jesse Stay

And ask him if Cupcakes help - Jesse Stay

I'm curious as to what he thinks about Google's microblogging search - Shawn Farner

Will you not stoop to any level Robert? lol! I would love to know about long term platform/architecture stability if you guys are still hanging out. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

It is indeed a great life - Kaysha

Rob: he says they are shipping a ton of new stuff by end of the year and they always are working on the fundamentals. - Robert Scoble

Interested in the shipping a ton of stuff by years end. That's intriguing at the very least. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Ask him whether Twitterers are covering, inciting, or masking the story coming out of Iran. - Prokofy Neva

I'm also curious if evhead ever reads FriendFeed. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob: he has been reading it tonight. I showed him the Palm Pre with it on there (he hadn't seen the Pre before). - Robert Scoble

Ask him what blogs he reads - Jesse Stay

:-) You should teach him how to do searches on FF so he can really see what people are saying about Twitter. I should get me one of those Palm Pres -when I saw one jailbroken the other day with a "modprobe" line I was hooked - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

guruvan, you should have supplied a few sample ff-searchpaths right here, so Scoble wouldn't have to bother beyond clicking while @ev stirs at the outflow mouth agape. - ianf ⌘

why is that surreal? - Ouriel Ohayon

Robert's been a fairly outspoken critic of Twitter. (and it's management) It was kinda surreal - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert: I can relate to that. - Jim Connolly

ianf: was the tail end of the conversation - not enough time (but you're right) -it's pretty late here in NY too. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Robert: Back in the 1970's, when he was living in London, Arnie (The Governator) - Visited the gym where I boxed. I was about 10 and he said "This kids gonna go a long way - he's got an attitude!" - Jim Connolly

Ouriel: it was very surreal because Twitter is on the cover of Time Magazine, is the hottest thing on the Internet right now, totally kicked CNN's behind yesterday in Iranian coverage, and @ev just pops up in my life unexpectedly. - Robert Scoble

I'm a bit surprise it's surreal for you Scoble. I think it's awesome and probably exciting, but not so far from reality you lives in. - Orli Yakuel

Orli: my life is surreal often, but I wasn't expecting to run into @ev in my backyard tonight. At least not at this moment in time. I think yesterday will be remembered as an important day on Twitter for a very long time. CNN is off the rails. - Robert Scoble

I guess this whole twitter experience is surreal for @ev too :) - Orli Yakuel

Orli: plus, I have been pretty damn critical of Twitter lately, which made our chance meeting even stranger and just a bit uncomfortable. Which added to the experience. - Robert Scoble

Robert: it's not that @ev is a complete stranger to the spam festival in his service, so I guess he has some sort of understanding to the critics around. - Nir Ben Yona

Doubly surreal for those of us with lower profiles, Robert. :) But in a good way. - Rachel Luxemburg

Luke Kilpatrick

Hanging out with @ev, @scobleizer, @rlux, @pud and more at half moon bay ritz.

June 13, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Rachel Luxemburg and Robert Scoble liked this

Thanks for inviting me down to the Ritz! - Robert Scoble

2 more comments

Your welcome, I didn't think you would have wanted to miss it. I didn't even know @ev was there, good stroke of luck :) - Luke Kilpatrick

Definitely an epic evening. - Rachel Luxemburg

Rachel: nice meeting you too, yeah, it is not an evening I will soon forget. Yesterday was the day that Twitter kicked CNN's behind. Bigtime. - Robert Scoble

Stowe Boyd

WHO IS THE BEST BAND THAT YOU HAVE SEEN LIVE? - http://ambivalence.tumblr.com/post...

June 9, 2009 from /ambivalence - Comment - Like - Share

The Pretenders in their first year. - Bill Anderson from twhirl

Before that I saw the Modern Jazz Quartet do a live fade out. - Bill Anderson from twhirl

Peter Gabriel's not a band but he did do an awesome live show. - Rachel Luxemburg

Luke Kilpatrick

Dangers of surfing in a stunning pie chart! http://cheezburger.com/view... - yes these are the real dangers of surfing. Don't try it.

June 9, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

lol! - Rachel Luxemburg

Dave Winer

Something weird happened to MS, Intel and probably Apple. They went too far. Netbooks are all most of us need. Scale back.

June 8, 2009 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Steven Perez, Iván Abrego, Loren Heiny and 6 other people liked this

isn't it pretty typical to reach excess before you find balance? netbooks evolved from bigger tech. with time they can retain their simplicity and power. hopefully :) - Derek Chilcoat

11 more comments

Respectfully, I have to disagree. These things are barely usable today. Maybe, if all you want to do is email and browse the web, then, yeah, they are fine. But, to do real work and more, you need a real computer, not these crippled and stripped down things with smallish keyboards and tiny screens. If I want that, I'll use my Pre instead. - George Gray

what's needed now is refinement and i see that best coming from apple, but also from open source - it's easier for apple since they're closed but the open source route is the ideal (imho) - MS has definitely been left in the dust, but we'll see how win7 does over the next couple years ... but refinement in the UI/UX and overall OS areas are what is most needed now, not performance enhancements - totally agree dave - Chris Heath

There are 6 billion people on the planet and most of them aren't like us and for most of them what a netbook does is just right and the cost is just right too. That's why there's so much pressure on these companies. They had everyone snookered into thinking you couldn't make a good-enough computer for $500, well it turns out you can make one for $250. For most people a Honda Civic is plenty of car. The netbooks are that kind of computer. - Dave Winer

I'm not quite sure whether to agree or disagree with Dave. Netbooks aren't particularly good for 3D gaming, and I'm not aware how good they are for watching movies. I think it would be safest to say that if netbooks are not all that *most* of us need, they are just slightly below that. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Rishabh, what kind of processor do you think is in a dvd player? movies are fine on netbooks (if you can get a dvd drive) - and what percentage of the laptop market is 3d gamers? - Chris Heath

Huh...I'm not sure Dave comes from, but most families I know need more than a Honda Civic. Try stuffing two adults and kids into a Civic. Doesn't work. I want more than a 'good-enough' computer. My laptop has a 17 inch screen that I can use for than a few minutes. It has a real keyboard that won't cramp my hands after a few minutes use. Where I do agree, though, is that a 'netbook' is... more... - George Gray

Chris: About the DVD players, good point. I didn't think of it that way. About the gaming, I think that many younger computer users most likely would engage in some 3D gaming on their laptop. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

MS may have lost share but they're still close to 90%. Fact is most of 6B don't have fast internet so SAS is meaningless and main reason, imho, that MS isn't losing share faster is b/c it's not the PC its the software. I have 1/2 apps that I can't economically replace with Open Source or web based that's why I'm still on PC plus who has the time to master 1/2 dozen learning curves? - Tom Gray

You're right Dave, Netbooks are like the Honda Civic, only from 1973. They had a 3-cylinder engine and were a basic 2-seater that got you from point A to point B. Netbooks basically do the same thing but they aren't for everybody, kind of like the original Civic. Great cars though, and ran forever. http://tr.im/nRsK - Perry Cortell

Disagree. I have a netbook and I like it quite a lot but it's not a daily driver by any stretch of the imagination. - Rachel Luxemburg

Dave, I'm curious about this. I'm not a netbook user though would like one. How is that all we need? What about our mobile phones? I'm certainly not saying we necessarily need a macbook pro, but as a podcaster of a fairly well listened to series, I think I need more than a netbook offers. Can you explain what you mean so I can better understand? Thank you. - Sheryl

Apple cannot refine a product it chooses not to sell. The netbook is the child of SE Asia, not the US, and look at their push into imac style all-in-ones. Maybe they are farther along the form factor and usage model than given credit. - Hayes Haugen

SidneyAllen

Future FlashPlatform developer!

June 1, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

awwwwww - Rachel Luxemburg

Robert Scoble

After a really tough day at least I have a new Apple toy to look at Twitter and friendfeed on (new 24 inch monitor). You'll see it tomorrow morning in my video review.

April 5, 2009 - Comment - Like - Share

goutham, Parth Awasthi, Alp and 11 other people liked this

Can I start the pissing contest now and say you should have gotten a Dell? - Scoble, Alex Scoble

14 more comments

I can't believe Apple didn't call you a tow truck... - Ken Sheppardson

Ken: actually Apple sort of did! (My iPhone was a lot more helpful than Toyota people). And the Apple store inside the mall kept me somewhat sane. - Robert Scoble

Maybe Apple should build cars. They could buy Tesla maybe. - Ken Sheppardson

If you haven't finished off that bottle of tequila with our German friends on Friday, I recommend pouring yourself a nice stiff one. - Luke Kilpatrick

Luke: I need to do some blog posts tonight. Not good on Tequila. :-) - Robert Scoble

Does the glare on the monitor bother you? - Victor Panlilio

Victor: not yet. But it's dark in my room. Will see how it works in morning when sun comes up. - Robert Scoble

Can you imagine getting AppleCare for your Apple-made car? Just drive it up to an Apple Genius, they'll sync your car's info and replace your iCar for free with all your data intact. - Glenn Batuyong

Sorry you had a crappy day. Seriously, sign up for AAA. It is absolutely worth it. - Rachel Luxemburg

Rachel: we already had AAA but Maryam let it lapse. We restarted it. - Robert Scoble

Doh! - Rachel Luxemburg

Is the new 24inch monitor HDCP compatible? I have a old NEC monitor that I love, but I can't play the HD Battlestar Galatica episodes I downloaded from iTunes :( - craterdweller

congrats on the new monitor! I bet it looks a lot better than my PC's 24" monitor. - Salvatore Iozzia

It looks awesome! - Robert Scoble

I also have the Apple 24" and your eyes will thank you for it. Having a MBP with the display is a great combo! - Susan Dennis

Francine Hardaway

Sys-Con caught operating a massive splog - http://www.inquisitr.com/20925...

March 30, 2009 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Mahesh CR, Adam Singer and Louis Gray liked this

Ahhh, this is what @rlux was telling me about at the tweetup yesterday. - Francine Hardaway

2 more comments

wtf is a splog? I want one... - LarchOye

This reads like an early April Fool's. - Michael R. Bernstein

sadly it is not a joke. - Rachel Luxemburg

Rachel Luxemburg › Comments