I love Google Reader, but given the number of users and feeds it has and the smarts of the team it should be able to: 1) Tell me what other items in my feeds link to the same story: help me manage my attention. 2) Support smart folders: Outlook and Newsgator have 'em. Gmail (via Quick Links) does too. Why not Reader? 3) Search unread items: you can search read items now, but not unread. I want to be able to say search for all items about X and mark them as read. What else?
- Steve Rubel
Agree and I have to add that the social features suck currently: sharing by making chat contacts is @#%&*.
- Nikos Anagnostou
I would like it to de-duplicate posts that somebody shares which I am already subscribed to. They should mention "this has been shared by ...." on one instnace of the post instead of showing me the post N number of times.
- Brian Sloane
I like Reader, but the folks over at Feedly are doing much more to extend and improve the product than the folks at Google.
- Robert Clockedile
Steve already mentioned it. But filtering items linking to the same story would be great. I'm getting annoyed when there is one story going around and every blog or website seems to write a post on it. But I know new other reader which is able to do this. Would be really a time saver.
- Matthias Faller
Problem is, Rob, you need a plug in.
- Steve Rubel
from IM
Agreed. It won't work for everybody, but it's got an excellent (and growing) set of features, including beta Ubiquity integration.
- Robert Clockedile
from twhirl
This is probably a silly question but is there a way to see a list of every reader-article that I've emailed out to either myself or friends??
- Will DeLuca
I love Google Reader. I would like to be able to choose my page view. When I click to read an article the page is adapted for mobile phone, I would like to view in HTML. I know of no way to change this. It would be nice to be able to choose.
- Elizabeth
Google has a Digg competitor right in it's midst. I should be able to see most stared and most shared stories for the day, week, month etc.
- Tim
The one thing I want with Google Reader is the ability to hide shared items from specific sources (source of that wishlist item? FF, of course).
- Tamar Weinberg
I also love reader, but I would *love* to be able to setup rules to mark feeds with certain tags read once they become so old. For instance, I have feeds tagged as news and news-slow. Anything in news is stale after about 6 hours, anything in news-slow after about 2 days. I want to setup those preferences in Reader and have it mark those items as read for me, because going through yesterday's breaking news is a pain in the neck.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I like those suggestion Steve! Some of them are also applicable to feedly and the crowd we are catering. Thanks for kicking off this conversation! (Rob thanks for the support!)
- Edwin Khodabakchian
I would love for Google Reader to flag duplicate news stories as well, Steve.
- Liana Lehua
I wish they'd add Gtalk like in gmail. And adding friends/sharing has to be improved. I've also been unimpressed with search in greader.
- Graham English
Hmm, I wonder if Google Bookmarks is dying too. It was integrated with Notebook.
- Steve Rubel
from IM
My guess is that google has hired the founder of delicious to try to do something big and consistent around tagging and bookmarking. Something that could tie together Chrome, Android, Google Bookmarks, Google Reader. At least this is what I am hoping. The fragmentation is pretty painful for the end user.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Bookmarks sync is central to Chrome so somehow I think it will survive and become more social
- Steve Rubel
from IM
greader and gmail should merge. Both emails and feeds are easy to manage and access with the help of filters and labels. Email is a good tool to share with a wide variety of social networks.
- xavier vespa
the shared items doesn't have the proper rss feed format. Can't use it elsewhere without it getting all monkeyed up.. Also a mark as unread option. Themes seems a direction it should soon incorporate. A piping feature like Yahoo Pipes offers.
- Mike Skramstad
I love reader, but duplicates haven been driving me NUTS recently. I've recently started using Yahoo Pipes to combine some of of my feeds that commonly duplicate stories into one feed and remove duplicates.
- Steve Boerner
Greader needs to be integrated with gmail.
- Russ Jackson
one of my most desired options is to be able to sort my feeds by unread count, regardless of what folders they're in... so I get just a big list of all the feeds I'm subscribed to in order from feeds with 1 or 2 unread stories all the way to the feeds with 1000+ unread - I mentioned this to Edwin at Feedly and he seems keen to add into their product soon: http://getsatisfaction.com/feedly... - It's amazing to me that Google Reader doesn't offer that option already.
- Nathan Chase
Getting the duplicate stories out will be a little tough - especially if the feed you subscribe to doesn't link back to their source - but it can definitely be done... would just have to do some regex/fuzzy logic-type querying of post title, content, and outbound links on the page to determine a percentage of similarity. You could then have a similarity threshold slider to adjust your "duplicate filter".
- Nathan Chase
I would NOT want gmail and greader combined, but better social features in the sidebar would be nice. Also improve tagging and let me set time based rules. I like yahoo pipes, though I'm not sure google would want to add something like it as a feature of reader, but I would like a pony.
- John
I agree, the pony seems obvious, and it's certainly within Google's power to provide one for everyone.
- Michael C. Harris
The ability to offer 3rd party features is exactly what the purpose of the soon_to_be_launched "Google reader API", as discussed by Niall Kennedy, is. His post: http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog... There is also an unofficial reverse engineering project here: http://code.google.com/p...
- coldbrew
Duplicates within Reader are annoying. There is a script that helps with this but it's not great. It's certainly one problem with GR that needs looking at.
- Kol Tregaskes
On my Google Reader wish list: 1. smart recommender system for news of personal relevance 2. incremental search of subscriptions in left column 3. incremental search of unread items in right column, both for All items and in each folder 4. rename folders 5. delete folders 6. easier moving of folders and feeds from one location to another (perhaps cut and paste) 7. seamless integration with Friendfeed.
- Sean McBride
I'd like greader to be smart enough to know I already read a post - at the site, via an aggregator or ... No time for ponies
- MaryAnn Chick Whiteside
@mcwflint if you are a firefox user and install the feedly extension, you can configure feedly mini to mark articles as read in Google Reader when you visit websites directly.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
This one would be useful: "search for all items about X and mark them as read." I like the search feature in Google Reader. When I notice an interesting news about a subject, I immediately search for it to read what has been said about it in my other feeds. 2 or 3 articles are usually more than enough to know more about it, so it would be really useful to be able to mark all the others as read.
- Mehdi Trimech
I'm loving Feedly so far. The fact that it is a plugin is very beneficial when you are generally surfing (not reading RSS), and you auto-discover the relevant conversations to join in on. Obviously Google will do something soon that will take me back to Reader, but for now I'm going to use Feedly
- Paul R. Grant
Feedly's picture grid view is awesome, but the fact that I can't mark items as unread keeps me from using it fulltime. Some innovation in the way feeds are displayed would add a lot to Google Reader. Here's some idea - picture grid (ala feedly), timeline, contextual view (grouped by content like videos, links, etc)
- Ashish Bogawat
When browsing the Everyone feed, a lot of space/entries are taken up showing content I can't read, because I'm too lazy to learn a language other than English. It would be nice to have a language filter. I guess people would need to assert their primary language then.
My language filter is just not following anyone in another language or hiding their content. No offense, but I don't understand what it says.
- Mathew™ one of a kind
Wouldn't the Google Translate API also fix this?
- Andrew
Yeah, I realized that the photos are universal, Kol, so that would be a tough one.
- Andy Bakun
It's not so much subscribing to people or not, Mathew, it's trying to use the Everyone feed to find new people to subscribe to or interesting content. Since the Everyone feed is also difficult to navigate due to the pagination, stuff I can't read clutters it up.
- Andy Bakun
Awesome idea, Andrew. Live translation would be killer and might really open up some conversations.
- Andy Bakun
Live/instant translation in social media: this is going to be so huge.
- Sean McBride
Facebook makes it official: "Starting today, you can comment on your friends' Mini-Feed stories right from their profile."
- Louis Gray
from Bookmarklet
yeah it was live and already got shut off on my profile. looks like they're having issues, i got 3 different error messages when trying to use
- MG Siegler
I haven't logged onto facebook for a month. The only thing that will probably change that is a link on FriendFeed pointing to a discussion on Facebook...
- Robert Seidman
Will my comments and associated thread show up in my mini feed as well?
- Palin Ningthoujam
Trying to find something in the news feed to comment on.
- Hutch Carpenter
I thought the new design was the priority here, geez give me POP3 and I'll be excited, this is just a rip-off, not cool facebook, not cool
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Is it live yet? I'm not seeing any type of 'Comment' button.
- Hutch Carpenter
Odd. Was there about a half hour ago. The comment bubbles are missing now. Smooth roll-out.
- Mark Trapp
Yay! Facebook's borrowing a great feature from FriendFeed. I love Facebook because a lot of my real-world friends are there. Hopefully we can get Facebook buzzing. Most of my 17-80+ friends are annoyed by the games. It's really cool to hear that Dan's daughter just won a ski race, or Louis Gray has twins, Susan has been feeling sick, or John is headed to Europe next month...
- Mitchell Tsai
I wonder if the items will repost in the feed like in FF? I already have problems on facebook in that *none* of my non-tech friends like to comment on anything. I'll use the posted items application and theyll bring something up a month later in person rather than leaving a comment on the item itself.
- Frankie Warren
A long-standing request - FriendFeed needs the ability to hide selected blogs, yet still allow visibility of other blogs. As of now, you either have to hide all of the blogs of a person, or not hide any of them.
This sounds like a very useful and necessary feature
- Mike Doeff
How would it be if, FriendFeed gives you list of checkboxes when you click on "Subscribe to <person>" which allows you to select items you want to subscribe to!! Afterall, If the contact is already follwed in twitter, I would not want to subscribe to his twitter feed on FF as well!! or, say I dont care what he diggs, I should be able to uncheck that item and should be done!
- Jigar Mehta
Jigar, when you Hide an item, you get a message saying "See options for hiding other items like this". When you click that message, you're given the option to hide all entries from that service by that user, or all entries from that service altogether, with the option of not hiding entries that have likes or comments. Unfortunately, the "blog" category is a catch-all, and FriendFeed treats all blog feeds as the same feed for the purposes of hiding entries.
- Chris Anthony
this is especially relevant as people with more than one language need otherwise to go for two accounts on friendfeed so you are not getting for example my german content.
- Nicole Simon
Ontario, this feature has gotten a lot of attention and has been added to our list.
- Ross Miller
Thanks for working on this. In the meantime, I have mitigated my specific issue by streaming my last.fm recently played tracks to a separate room, http://friendfeed.com/rooms...
- Ontario Emperor
YEP... this is a good one...thanks Ontario!! :-)
- Susan Beebe
@Ross, not enough yet, we'll keep workin on it ;)
- Tim Hoeck
So I thought of you this morning, Louis, as I rocked a fussy 10 month old at 4 am. At this point, I'm very used to operating on little sleep but I thought of how I came to this point. I imagine others will agree with me that the initial reality of very little sleep is downright shocking.
Continuing: You think you're prepared for it. "I pulled all-nighters in college." But nothing can prepare you for how much it affects your life. It will get better - keep telling yourself that - and you will sleep for more than 3 hours at a time again. But you will never return to the sleep you had before you had kids.
- Carla Thompson
Despite my implied bravado, I don't have any illusions that we're prepared. My activity here shows I often get up early and stay up late. My wife's been getting up every 4 hours to take pills. But as much as the exhaustion that's sure to be there (x2), the sense of being out of control will definitely contribute. As I told Cyndy earlier today, I know we can prepare all we want, but we won't be 100% ready. Should be fun. :-)
- Louis Gray
Yep, you can't possibly prepare yourselves. Just hunker down, call in every possible friend and relative for support and know it will end and things will get much easier. And make sure your wife has a good girlfriend. She's going to need to cry on the phone to someone when her hormones are going ballistic.
- Carla Thompson
I've expressed the same wish to Daniel. The three biggest things I'd like to do on the mobile platform is 1 navigate through FriendFeed while commenting and liking (MojiPage lets you comment and like, but it's hard to navigate and you can't view comments, 2 read disqus, and 3 write disqus.
- Ontario Emperor
@ontemp we've neglected the FF widget for a while, development will pick up again soon and you'll soon see those features.
- Wil
"Hrrm...interesting. Well I know exactly what you're thinking, and you're right, they forgot to make a "Jesus and little boy playing Halo online" model. Hopefully that's one they're working on. Now you know how much I hate to get all religious, so I'll just say this -- Jesus was on my swim team in grade school and I think he may have cheated. For one, all he ever did was run on water -- which is not technically swimming. And secondly, it was the 10-12 age bracket and he was like 30 and had a beard."
- Bret Taylor
I can't figure if this is serious or a joke. The latter I hope.
- Brian Sullivan
Unfortunately, there is a huge "Christian" branding effort out there. It's disgusting to me, and I'm a Christian. Look hard enough, and you'll probably find Jesus underwear. Might even find Jesus condoms. It's the same as green-washing to me. Unethical businesspeople found marketing buzzwords and gimmicks that sell, and they're exploiting them.
- Raoul Pop
Jesus is just all right with me (but he's got as much a hand in helping you swing anything as I do)
- Michael W. May
On further reflection: Jesus needs to choke up more on that bat. And is that girl seriously trying to tackle Jesus? Doesn't she know He went all-conference last year?
- Mark Trapp
Incredibly strange but also rather entertaining! How many yards does Jesus usually rush for?
- Nicholas Kreidberg
That robe would get in the way, but he would be awsome on a flooded field.
- Russellreno
omg, I've had the hockey one for years at work. Lauren got it as a gag gift for ray, who hates gag gifts, so I ended up with it.
- Misha
Use tools that pull things together: Digsby, FriendFeed, etc. Be careful with the thought of "managing your time," though - that sounds a little too close to "work." Unless you're a Social Media Manager, you should be using these networks to connect to interesting people and have fun, don't worry about the management of them.
- Vince DeGeorge
I haven't tried Digsby yet, I'll have to look into that one. Thanks!
- Natitude
Stop sleeping. Focus the majority of your time on the site where you feel most at home/productive. For me that's Pownce, for my friend Josh it is StumbleUpon, for my friend Eliesha, it's Facebook. I think different services appeal to different personalities. I'm on a lot of services but I can't check them all every day. Most days it's just Pownce and SocialThing, and the others I work in when I can.
- Heidi Cool
Hmmm…the sites should be competing for my time. I will surely be spending the most amount of time on the sites I find most useful!
- Ethan Klapper
I find it hard to keep up with everything. You kind of have to divide your time.
- Jeremiah Hoyet
Great post. I start with email as well, then a quick look at Twitter, browse headlines on my Netvibes pages & feeds in Google Reader. I have to use FriendFeed more especially now where there are discussions going on in rooms.
- Ellen Moore
I have the same question. I want to meet and connect with people with similar interests but with Jaiku, Twitter, Friendfeed and etc. it is a daunting task. I understand the use of the word "manage" because you've got friends and relationships in disparate places to keep up with.
- Vaughn
FOCUS & Testing - test 10 of the social media accounts out for a week or two, give them all a dedicated amount of time, and then narrow it down to your top 5.
- Nate Moller
Pick a few that give the best ROI and ignore the rest.
- John Wesley
I just do something very controversial and get kicked out with a bang! Leave them with a fart I always say.
- Noah David Simon
Concentrate on a few favorites and make guest apperances on others.
- Tad Chef
Don't spend time in any! You won't get any real work done, I'm tellin ya!
- Wil
How do you share a photo thumbnail in the room like this post does?
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas, you can either use the Bookmarklet (as the original post did), or the Reshare link.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul, Will rooms only be allowed one admin or can we add more admins? Can administration be transferred?
- Thomas Hawk
At the moment there is only one admin, but I'm sure that will change in the future.
- Paul Buchheit
Paul when I use the bookmarklet it just shows the link, how do I get the cool image thumbnail like you've got here?
- Thomas Hawk
When using the bookmarklet, you can mouse-over images on the page and click on them to add to the share. We have a video that demonstrates this (http://friendfeed.com/share...) but I think we need to make the ui more obvious.
- Paul Buchheit
it also seems like certain group names are unavailable to create new rooms and also unavailable to join. For instance "Flickr" You can't seem to create a room named that but if you go to the http://friendfeed.com/rooms... domain it shows file not found.
- Thomas Hawk
ahhh very cool. Thanks for the tip Paul.
- Thomas Hawk
I really like the way to share images using the bookmarklet!
- Joe Dawson
it's a great feature but how can i search for a room?..
- minus-one
I just wanted to know how to start a post directly in FF, till now it seems that FF is JUST an aggregation of my various contents which i POST somewhere else....only thing i found was this "comment" feature which i then can use to post directly to FF. That does not seem very useful. Also how does this "search" on FF work?....FF to me seems useless except for aggregation....so am not understanding why everyone is going on abt it? Anyone care to explain and change my opinion. AM open to listening
- Arjun
@Arjun You can post directly by using the Share Something feature such as the one at the top of this page. You can search for previously posted items on your own feed or on all of FF by searching for words used in the topic title or comments.
- Anne Bouey
so simple and so powerful. love it. the mailing list of tomorrow?
- Martin Añazco
"Probably the biggest brake to my complete online sharing isn't what my posts would reveal about me, but what they would reveal about others close to me. I need to constantly keep in mind that while I have opted to share various things online, my family has not similarly opted to share numerous details about themselves. Therefore, there are things about them that I choose not to share."
- Ontario Emperor
With this new influx of users, some of the core benefits of FriendFeed, like hiding items or comments, showing only specific services, viewing comments/discussion, and how to use the Bookmarklet, can be confusing. With the risk of getting slammed on my blog for being too full of FriendFeed, would you find this useful?
- Louis Gray
I think this is needed, yes - good idea :-) I was a really early adopter, so I've learned these features + the cool scripts by internetducttape, which really enhanced this app!!
- Susan Beebe
I think it would be useful. Shouldn't FriendFeed have something like that on the site?
- Alejandro
This would be very useful. Didn't find the "Link" generator until yesterday, and only started using the bookmarklet yesterday.
- Mitchell Tsai
@Louis - And I thought I was the only one worried about too much FriendFeed on the blog. But hey, I'm just writing about what I'm enjoying right now. Folks will either read it, or they won't.
- Hutch Carpenter
Yes. How about 7 ways to use the Hide button?
- Elliott Ng
Scoble: I updated the photo credits. Now I just need FriendFeed to add a link editor. :-) P.S. Hope you had a cool drink! Stopped doing much alcohol after turning 21, and it was legal...
- Mitchell Tsai
It's like a scene out of zoolander...I think scoble is doing the Magnum pose.
- Ralph Whitbeck
It just hides the entry automatically. Is this the intent? I see the options come up afterward. It's more confusing to me, but that's probably because I've been using FF so long.
- Louis Gray
Yes, it immediately hides the current entry and then gives the option of hiding more.
- Paul Buchheit
I have to agree with Louis. There are less clicks but makes it more scary to click on it. Btw, are we going to get the mute function back?
- Turker Keskinpala
I'm in the same boat as Louis - it seems more confusing to me now than it was before, but then I was so used to the old way. To me the power in the hiding function is not in hiding one specific post, but in the broader filtering mechanism hidden in the 'hide' options. I preferred the mute option over this.
- Frederic
When i select "hide", then "undo", plz send the cursor back to the previous location on the page instead of putting me back up at the top of the page. = lost
- Susan Beebe
I actually think people will find great use for a "Done! - Keep" pair. I think that sense of control will be great for most users and they wouldn't mind the extra clicks. People would be clicking Done! quite a bit, I think. Only thing to figure out is what to do with the comments - I'd group those entries and let the user see updates depending on the weight that they carry (number of comments, specific users, etc.)
- Aviv
With the new Hide functionality (which I prefer over the previous one) - users will still have that nagging feeling of possibly missing out on a good conversation or not being able to easily find it later for reference or whatever reason. One bug I did notice is when you hide, scroll to the bottom, and click the Refresh [hidden entries] link - it displays the Undo info box for the last action (edit: looks like that was fixed :)
- Aviv
Not to be overly picky - it might be a good idea to gray out the hidden entry div (the benefit of the feature is not immediately apparent to the user, IMO - still a bunch of text that hasn't gone anywhere), and also lose the "Hidden entries can be found" 2nd line after the first few hide actions (at that point the user gets the idea). Also, the text in italic (and especially the long underlined link) seems a little scary I think - a subtle yellow checkmark or something light would add a lot.
- Aviv
I don't think it'd be a bad idea to add another action button in the middle there - "Unhide if commented" or some shorter text
- Aviv
I'm with the Traditionalists on this one. In the old days it took two clicks to hide and we liked it!
- Kevin D. White
Wow, I make a suggestion 9 hours ago, and it gets implemented! Either you saw my suggestion, in which case I'm touched and impressed, or you didn't, in which case Friendfeed should be inspected for paranormal powers.
- Ranjit Mathoda
Using it more I think I am starting to like the new one. A question though: Since there is an option to "hide entries like this", does it mean that the first click on hide just hides a single entry? If so, it is even better.
- Turker Keskinpala
Eh. Nevermind. I'm actually kinda liking the change.
- Kevin D. White
Turker, that's correct -- "hide" only hides the single entry. Perhaps we need to improve the wording.
- Paul Buchheit
i like it. it's quicker. today i was hiding a lot and i felt very slowed down by having to click more than once...plus i was at work and needed to be able to scan *quickly* -- :)
- edythe
i am with Susan Beebe on the hide/undo bit. taking you back to the top of the page is indeed bewildering. took me a while to figure out where I had been...
- edythe
hide from main friends page only? I only want hide from individual comment= pages (the ones that annoy me, eh?) or the persons page that annoys me (eh?). Rarely from the friend page that I have to navigate to and around and back to find the hidden hide.
- Ashton
I like the fire and forget for the new hide, but, the resulting ui seems out of place. The undo is certainly frightening.
- Ashton
is it hide, hide this entry one, hide this entry only unless it has comments ... yes, wording needs update.
- Nicole Simon
The undo function is *extremely* frightening. It reloads the page and you lose your place. It would be easier if it would restore inline just like it hides inline. (I still like the old way better, but that's after about ten minutes of thinking, so we'll give it a bit longer.)
- Voyagerfan5761
This is the first time in FriendFeed I wish there was a "Dislike" button. Hiding is very easy now, but when you UNDO it, the page snaps to the top, and you loose track of what you were writing. Plus, I like to tell FriendFeed the reason I'm hiding, as I don't actually do it that much (I hide only Scoble's and Calacanis' Twitter posts that have no comments, because I already receive them on Twitter itself, and they're many). Please, keep it the old way.
- Rodrigo Jaroszewski
I like the old way. In fact, this new way confused me and I lost track of this post for a minute. To me, HIDE is about hiding people or specific streams from people. There's no way I'll devote time to hiding individual posts, especially projecting into a future where I may follow several hundred people.
- Mike Reynolds
Mike, I think the merit of hiding individual posts comes into play when you are no longer interested in a post but more people keep commenting/liking and pushing the post to the top of your page every time.
- Turker Keskinpala
In general, I'm *really hating* the acknowledgement messages that reload the page and bring me to the top of the page. I completely lose my place if I add a friend, etc.
- engtech
Agreed with engtech. In the case of unhide, it's not that big of a deal, how often are you going to unhide anyway? But subscribe to someone on the third page, and you not only go to the top, but also back to the first page, ugh.
- James Prudente
Undoing a hidden entry takes the focus to the top of the page, this occurs because of the yellow status bar that is displayed on the top of the page. I expected it to show the entry.
- Shakeel Mahate
By the way, I like the UI for the hidden entries on a page, it is shown separately and it allows me to hide it again. Very cool
- Shakeel Mahate
btw is it possible that there now no more "hide friends of this friends" option? this is particular annoying since there are suddenly so many fof entries
- Nicole Simon
Good catch Nicole. That bug was caused by a change earlier today, but it should be fixed now. Let me know if you spot any other bugs.
- Paul Buchheit
I think it's an improvement as it gets the overly verbose options dialog out of the way most of the time, except that you're losing the focus of where you were when you undo this, as others mentioned.
- Philipp Lenssen
Yeah, I know the undo is lame -- I just haven't had time to make it better and figure that it's a rare operation anyway. Hopefully I'll get to it at some point though.
- Paul Buchheit
"What your friends are up to online", "Follow your friends' online activities", "Stalk people", "Discover interesting news, photos, blogs through friends"
- Jess Lee
Keep up with what your friends are doing and sharing on the web.
- peter
"FriendFeed: All your friends from across the web."
- Jason Chen
Hmm, I kind of like, "Good things from your friends", though I'm looking for a quick explanation more than a slogan.
- Paul Buchheit
Web services aggregator and friend tracker
- Louis Gray
Also, ideally it would be comprehensible by regular people. The basic activities that drive FF, sharing and discussion, are very normal. For example, my most recent FF entry (http://friendfeed.com/e...) came from my aunt (via email).
- Paul Buchheit
FriendFeed: go ahead and feed the wild animals
- Huy Zing
PS: Wonder if one day Friendfeed grows to the point where even the harmless word "feed" is too technical and it will be just friend.com :)
- Philipp Lenssen
"Bread crumbs for the mind." - Think of the bread crumbs from Hansel and Grethel and friendfeeders leaving trails of their online activity :)
- Mustafa K. Isik
To further elaborate on terebaby's comment: Friends feed friends' FriendFeed
- April Buchheit
Heh, I come back to this post, weeks after the fact with "A web of friends (and their feeds)." You can have that. That's free. Put it in your pocket, take it out at lunchtime. Show it to your friends.Draw flowers round it if you like. :-)
- Slappy Line
information mining of of being redundant
- fiorano
why can't we like comments? would be awesome here
- paulm
Experience the artistic process of inspiring online journalists :-) You guys rock! Do you know how much time you guys are saving me from having to personally check out all these 1000s of apps and websites? Priceless!
- Mitchell Tsai
Friendfeed... Your friends, their news.
- mjc
from Alert Thingy
come for the links stay for the comments
- rob zand
Ha, very clever, I didn't even think of doing that!
- Glenn Slaven
(I think that the "Comment" and "Like" links need to be moved below the existing comments. I scrolled all the way down, back up, and down). Slogan: Friendfeed: Web 2.0 Made _Smaller_
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
FriendFeed is a center for store ideas.
- accesine
High Tech playground - bounce around your ideas, stuff with your friends!
- Susan Beebe
Really-Like, Ubber-Like, Rockstar-Like, Love-it, Worship could be better names - Super-Like sounds like something a 14 yr old would say.
- martin ollman
: ) @m.ollman interesting thought you have! And now that s my turn: "Super-Like +16" : ) We need a AdultFriendFeed in near future i think :))
- Erhan Erdogan
Even better, charge us $1 to use it and put the money in the kitty for a beer fest.
- Robert Scoble
I've been going back and forth whether we should include a "hate" feature - or, more accurately, an "acknowledge" feature. For example, if we read a compelling story about family abuse in Austria, I feel bad saying that I "like" it.
- Ontario Emperor
what does one do when he encounters a story that is worth sharing, but doesn't "like" the premise of it? how about a customizable "like," sort of a fill-in-the-blank (i.e. grantfox laments/abhors/loves/super-likes/etc.)? if i have to "like" another red sox story i might go on FF strike...
- grant fox
It's a step in the right direction but - only if you and the other 3 founders agree - you really should (I think) build out the stats features. You have a variety of small tools to filter out noise, but no good quick way to slice and dice posted information, especially in terms of popularity etc. Even a rating/feedback system (which I realize might turn into a popularity contest which would defeat the purpose) might be one option.
- Alex Hammer
i like it, will you be able to do downgrade a superlike to a simple like if something you superlike more comes up?
- MG Siegler
@Ontario Emperor: I've the same conflict myself. Perhaps 'Appreciate'?
- Akiva Moskovitz
Super-Like feels like McDonaldization of FriendFeed.
- Atul Arora
While reading an item on Scoble´s Friendfeed page regarding Marissa Mayer trying to kill Google Reader (one of the products I really use a lot) I noticed that i had a problem with this "like" feature in Friendfeed; I find this news about Marissa Mayer "interesting" but i was somehow hesitating to give it a "like" in Friendfeed. And very few of the others did "like" this news either. The Friendfeed tag could be renamed to "interesting" (along the lines of Flickr´s interestingness).
- peter huesken
I would definitely add a "like" to a couple of the comments. A customizable tag would be cool but probably impractical. So I think (as someone mentioned) marking a post/comment as interesting or appreciate has a better semantic connotation.
- Phil Ashman
from twhirl
ooo... then you could sell likes, and they could be like little icon gifts, and... er, nevermind :P
- Adam Lasnik
What about commenting on likes and super-likes ? What about permlinks for comments ? What about threaded comments ?
- peter huesken
I'd like "Like" - "Love" - "Hate" ... Hate works like "like," but something you disagree with. | edit: eh, "Hate" may be too strong... how about "Dislike"
- Vince DeGeorge
Ok this counts as 1 of my SUPER LIKES :-) (feature must include a BIG happy face :-)
- Susan Beebe
Well, basically you want a rating system. How about "Like it", "Love it", and "Genius"?
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
@edythe Guess smthg, how many people will subscribe to you at the adult one ? : ) I think Arrington or Scoble won't have any chance at this :D
- Erhan Erdogan
How about a VOTING system with 5 stars - you can click 5 stars for awesome!
- Susan Beebe
Stars are too much work. I have to do those over on FastCompany.tv and I far prefer the simplicity of a link I click on. Plus it works on iPhones. Stars? Too difficult on that UI.
- Robert Scoble
I dunno, I think it's kinda so-so. Maybe I like it, a little bit. sorta.
- Jason Wehmhoener
That's what you think! Super-Like x1000. In yo' face!
- April Buchheit
Yeah..yeah..and when you super like 10 others, you get a whole new set of super-likes with little cute characters! Invite 20 people to super-like and unlock 5 super-likes a day!!! Oh wait..this isn't Facebook. Make it so.
- Bwana ☠
Nice feature as long as we can get a "top super-likes" page.
- Mike Reynolds
I guess that if you don't "like" the item, you can just make a comment. It has the same effect. Being able to reply directly to a comment would be great, the conversations would be easier. I'm not a fan of the "stars" system, though. Report as SPAM. That would be nice too.
- Alejandro
Why don't we just admit Orwell was right and start using "good," "plus good," and "doubleplus good?" Or count the number of "likes" something gets. You could call it a "digg" instead of a "like."
- Karim
@erhan erdogan: i'll bet you cash money that Arrington and Scoble would *both* get better prospects than me on Adult FriendFeed! and I am with @Aviv about an "LOL" button on Fridays. Because it kind of made me LOL.
- edythe
@Aviv: ha. Erhan Erdogan thought there should be an r-rated (x-rated?) version of FriendFeed -- if you go through all the comments on this post, you should be able to follow the thread. I think he's actually gone out and bought the domain. :)
- edythe
one thing i was thinking about the other day was separating out the 'like' and 'share' functionality a bit. the combined functionality worked really well when the network was smaller, but i feel like i get a lot of items in my feed that people 'liked' rather than 'loved'. (and i just end up muting them which is a shame as it sidetracks my new item discovery a bit..) maybe super-like (aka love) could over rule like hiding preferences...
- Alex Gawley
I think 'super like' sounds weak, maybe go along the lines of 'highly recommend' !
- Joe Dawson
The problem with super like is keeping all the comments in continuity. At first you super like jumping over tall building, but later you decide to super like flying.
- RAPatton
That sounds cool - I'd also like to request a don't like... There's been a couple of times I could have used that
- Paula Hawk
Levels of liking-ness (this has gotten very abstract) can be annoying to manage. Separating "like" from "save" or "star" might work. You can like something but not enough to hold on to it? Users could filter out stuff from other feeds that isn't liked by a threshold of people or saved or starred by anyone? It's worth exploring the thought in general, as all of these low-barrier-of-posting services can reach deluvian proportions quickly.
- Justin Duewel-Zahniser
from twhirl
@Paula you could hide the story if you don't want to see it!
- Joe Dawson
Thanx Joe, It's not that I want to hide it, just want another way to voice my disapproval! :)
- Paula Hawk
"Star This" would be great because I always lose a blogable(?) link I saw earlier but couldn't find later...
- Anthony Farrior
How about keeping Like the way it is, but creat a Hot 100 page of the most liked and commented on based on a rolling 24 hour period. Perhaps Casey Kasem could count them down.
- RAPatton
A couple thoughts. If someone super-likes something, I assume that means other users should understand that of all the content to read, the super-liked content stands above it all. Time-constrained members could focus only on the super-likes? Right now, the number of likes and comments serves that purpose in some ways. Also, if there's any notion FriendFeed has of creating some sort of "what's hot" list, would super-likes count more than regular likes and comments?
- Hutch Carpenter
Maybe after you "like" something the "like" button would change to a "double like" so you could express more liking of the content... counts as an extra like... maybe you get a platinum smiley?
- Ross Miller
Honestly, I'm not a fan of the concept. Unless you're using it to rank/sort posts.
- Bill Bittner
how about this feature - I wanna put my friends(selected) likes as my likes. I mean likefeed [ subscribe to likes ]
- Nayan
how about key board navigation for FF......
- sirishkumar
super-like sound so facebookish. I'm sure that'll raise a younger crowd!
- Alex von Halem
Agree with Alex, it sounds like 'super-poking' and all similar other facebook stuff
- Ronald
Most of the users of FF are so advanced and probably high profile. I don't think they (we) will bother with super-like, send-me-super-like, send-your-friend-super-like or any other Facebook style features. :) Alex is right, it sounds so facebookish.
- Arda Kutsal
from Alert Thingy
@Arda: I would hope that one goal of ff is to get to the masses, a la other successful social networks... I for one am still waiting for Tila Tequila and Obama girl to get their feeds started.
- grant fox
http://spock.com tried a fancy "Spock Power" thing...would give Scoble even more weight! I like Scoble's simple is easier answer (esp for mobile phones). At last night's Silicon Valley Innovation Institute http://svii.org, I was asking BrightIdea's CEO if his business clients preferred only "likes" or both "likes/dislikes"(It varied), and discussed "liking systems". http://brightidea.com Evening's discussion was Social Networking as used by businesses. Dreamfish http://dreamfish.com was also there.
- Mitchell Tsai
I think I like systems with just "likes." If there were "dislikes" they'd just be used by jerks to try to hurt other people. I don't think it'd reduce noise in the system. It'd be like building a roadway with potholes.
- Robert Scoble
We had a discussion of how "likes only" seems to support brainstorming, but evaluation phases of innovation might need "rating systems or like/unlike". I wonder if REALLY popular FriendFeed threads might be able to use a "moderator"; e.g. just the Top 10 threads of each day or Top 100 threads of the month... (perhaps you could turn the moderation feature on/off depending on your mood). There was a "Second Life" book which talked about "un-like" wars on newbies. "Like/unlike" gone crazy in "Second Life".
- Mitchell Tsai
As soon as I see "Like" and "Really Like," I'm going to start using one or the other. "Really like" waters down "Like," turns it into a pale, bland complement. Why would I use "Like" if I can "Really like"? I vote to keep the current, simple system.
- Brent Newhall
Brent: I "really like" your comment. Good point. What I'd rather have is a filtering system so I can see only those items that have two "likes" or more. I guess that already is a "really like" system. It just requires two people to be involved.
- Robert Scoble
How about a Slashdot-like system where you can set your personal threshhold to (A) 0-5+ "likes" (B) 0-5+ "comments" (C) ignoring/include comments written by the "poster" (D) temporary hide-lists #1-10 which you can select from a pull-down menu (E) semi-permanent black-list?
- Mitchell Tsai
Or have a way to search on most commented/liked stories in a set range 0-12, 12-24 etc for a set period as well. Otherwise you would have old stories continually bumped to the top! Edit just seen by @Louis Gray that FriendFeedMachine serves this purpose!
- Joe Dawson
I like this idea. This could be a great "noise cutting" feature.
- Brandon Titus
I like it the way it is. I don't like the idea of having something like a "superlike" that you have a limited number of.
- Tanath
That's what you get when you ask early adopters for their opinion, 100 cool nasa-like solar powered, infinite proof mathematical algorithms to be able to annotate you enjoyed a particular piece of content. I'd be very careful what you ask for Paul ;-)
- Alexander van Elsas
You can't imagine how hard I had to fight to have no phone number at Google. The concept was anathema to them. But, I eventually won out and my life was measurably better for it. Amen, Kevin.
- Christopher Sacca
I didn't check my Google voicemail for my last four years. I was thinking of listening to it on my last day, but I never got around to it.
- Bret Taylor
my boss informed me that my voice message was outdated. it was an out of office msg from february
- Ontario Emperor
Nice one, Chris. At Google I changed my voicemail message to "Hi. I don't ever check these messages, so if you need to reach me please call my cell or send me an email." Then I put a piece of electrical tape over the voicemail light. I figure if people don't know or can't get my cell number or my email address then they shouldn't be contacting me at work anyhow.
- Kevin Fox
Kevin, I did nearly what you did. I left an outgoing messaging urging people to e-mail me instead.
- Adam Lasnik
We actually have a policy at my company not to have any voice mail, so I literally don't have a voice mail box here. Basically, all calls go to the secretary during the day and a main voice mail after hours. Otherwise, you call in for me and I'm here, I get the call.
- Chris Reed
You can have your voicemail disabled at Google without much hassle.
- Gary Burd
I started using simulscribe - now called PhoneTag - for my cell phone a while back and I love it. I get emailed transcriptions in minutes with voice audio attachment. works great.
- David Vasileff
What's the quality of their transcriptions? I signed up for Vonage's (confusingly named) "visual voicemail", and their transcriptions were initially great but are now very poor quality.
- ⓞnor
Our voicemail has gotten a lot better ever since they were integrated with our e-mail system as .wav file attachments. Now I can screen calls, but still double-click to not miss any messages.
- Louis Gray
Heck, I don't even have a phone at my desk and that's the way I like it.
- Akiva Moskovitz
ⓞnor: PhoneTag quality has been pretty good, messages may be slightly off but I usually get the gist. it is poor for things like names or long messages with lots of details. I think the PT greeting says this will be transcribed, leave a brief message, speak to be understood, etc.. most of my msgs fit that. I rarely have to listen to audio and you can ask PT for re-trans but I've never done that.
- David Vasileff
Maker Faire is going to have trouble next year if they double in size again. The backup on 101 was more than a mile long (seriously, that sucked).
- Robert Scoble
The vast majority of my LinkedIn contacts aren't looking for jobs. That was a mis-perception I heard before I used LinkedIn. It might depend on if you are age 20-29 or age 40-79. More of my age 40+ friends are partners, doctors with private practices, division heads, CEOs, etc... Not to say they aren't movable for the right offer (which is why it's fantastic for recruiters).
- Mitchell Tsai
There are a lot of other professional reasons to us LinkedIn. I've used it to find funding sources, or to identify resources for advisory boards. People on FB don't really want to be found the wy people on LinkedIn do. We formed the board of the American Biofuels COuncil on LinkedIN.
- Francine Hardaway
The majority of my LI connections are not looking for a job but quite a few consulting opportunities have come my way through it rather than FB. My target market (pharma and biotech) are there in huge numbers. FB is where I connect with my friends and family.
- Sally Church
from Alert Thingy
LI is well worthwhile as a professional resource, and as an effective online resume (in combination with a professional blog etc). I'm still not sure how effectively it's being used by recruiters or traditional non-tech companies. But certainly trumps Facebook, which I think doesn't really have any business functionality at all.
- Robin Cannon
from Alert Thingy
I agree with @mitchelltsai. Most people on LinkedIn want to manage their long-term professional career, not a short-term search.
- Mike Reynolds
Facebook was never meant as a business site. LinkedIn was always more professional. Almost all of my co-workers, including several managers are on LinkedIn.
- Mike Hussein Cohen
from Alert Thingy
In my brother's industry (Computer Graphics), almost all of the industry is on LinkedIn. People shift jobs in graphics so much, that networking is essential. Some of the very top people don't use LinkedIn so much.
- Mitchell Tsai
Facebook was on track to be THE social network utility, used by everyone for the various facets of their lives. Is that destiny derailed now? I always want to be mindful of the difference between the crowd here and the larger mainstream population who continue to engage on the site.
- Hutch Carpenter
I don't see a difference between the day when everyone loved Facebook to now. If anything, it's better than it was back then. I'm doomed to misunderstand these sometimey trends. LinkedIn is the same as it was back then except for a few *minor* add-ons. What caused this big shift?
- Bwana ☠
For me the big shift in LinkedIn is "critical mass". When I first joined in Oct 2004, barely 1.2 million people were on (e.g. almost no one I was interested in). Now I can find 20-25% of my college classmates on-line. Likewise, Facebook may be more useful for the age <25 cohort where 99% of college students are on. Facebook is almost non-useful for my business colleagues or college classmates.
- Mitchell Tsai
I use Tribe.Net for "Burning Man" and cool San Francisco dance/DJ events. Way better than sfgate for my favorite alternative stuff. MySpace for New York City, Nashville, and Boston musicians and bands. So much depends on the community, not the particular tool - Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, FriendFeed, Slashdot, Citeseer, ArXiv.org, Wikipedia, New York Times favorite articles, Wall Street Journal, SEC postings, Violinist.com, etc... THE social network? Will it happen? Don't know.
- Mitchell Tsai
From the days I was at LinkedIn to today, there is just nothing more powerful than LinkedIn for business introductions, referrals. What is missing though is a good way to sustain/add value to relationships once you have connected - aka the hunting versus farming analogy
- Mrinal Desai
from Alert Thingy
If you're searching / applying for a job, you MUST be cognizant of the fact that the first thing someone will do is Google your name. You're going to want your LinkedIn profile to be found first. It's the second thing that comes up under a search for my name (with FriendFeed being the first thing ;))
- Vince DeGeorge
Vince: Unfortunately I was so slow to LinkedIn that I don't have "mitchelltsai". Google refuses to show my "mitchtsai" profile, since it thinks it's a duplicate of the Houston, TX "mitchelltsai"
- Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell, you bring up a good point, actually. I hope that the OTHER mitchelltsai is a decent person. The other Vince DeGeorge that comes up is a choreographer, so it could be worse for me, but I'm sure he's a decent guy. Luckily he's not "infamous."
- Vince DeGeorge
There are certainly services which lend themselves to "sticky" visitors instead of "spiky". Just prior to FriendFeed's boom, back in October of 2007, I took a look at some of the sticky/spiky visitors I've seen over time. http://tinyurl.com/3ycnn3 (And yes, Hutch nails it again!)
- Louis Gray
I knew it. Louis is a machine who doesn't sleep either. And to think he thought I had magic dust or something at one time. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Wow. I'll have to go back and edit that post. And yes, Robert, when others sleep is when you and I get ahead.
- Louis Gray
Get ahead? I don't think so. It's an addiction. We'll start a FriendFeed 12-step program next week.
- Robert Scoble
If there's a 12-step program, you take it, and let me know how it goes. I'll be here.
- Louis Gray
Louis? Take it? We're going to run it. Isn't that the inmates running the asylum? Who else will have expertise? Heh. Anyway, FriendFeed is yours. I'm out of "Likes" (seriously) and so I'm going to bed. Is that like running out of ammo in a war or something?
- Robert Scoble
I've been running out of "likes" since 160. A quick fix is to "comment" on everything (hopefully not spam). Also, I no longer "like" anything I "comment". 65-75 might be the rough daily "like" limit (you don't seem to get credit for "unlikes"). Maybe they use a dual daily-weekly limit? It's a weird kind of limit. Hard to figure out.
- Mitchell Tsai
@Robert - thanks for this post. @Louis - I hadn't seen that post of yours from 2007. That's a really good chart in that post. And both of you - is sleep even an option? :-)
- Hutch Carpenter
@Louis - funny post. And now I learned something more...Daily Californian? I didn't know you had a bit of journalism background. And Go Bears! (my wife is a Cal grad).
- Hutch Carpenter
Mitchell, I've boosted it to 150/day. Let me know if that's sufficient :)
- Paul Buchheit
@paultoo Thanks for the boost. Maybe explains what happened last hour. One "like" failed, then "likes" started working. Hopefully new 150/day "like" limit won't hit FriendFeed with like-SPAM. :-) Do you guys have (1) per-person ratchet-down mechanisms (2) automatic comment-like-Import algorithms for detecting SPAM?
- Mitchell Tsai
In many ways, the solution seems to lie in things like FriendFeed that allow social filtering of all of the information that's constantly flying around out there.
- Michael A Hall
I agree with @Michael A Hall: we need more tools to help, because we're processing TONS of information, which I understand as humans we have a deep desire for it.
- Paul Salzman
Stop consuming information. It's simple. If you give in to your impulses to constantly gather more information, overload is inevitable. Lust for knowledge is different than a quest for wisdom. You don't HAVE to know what EVERYONE is talking about. Back in my day we called that being "nosey" :P
- Bwana ☠
For me, I have to force myself to tune out. I need to be willfully disconnected. I like knowing things but find the expediency and urgency of that knowledge to be less necessary as I get older. I can wait a few days to find something out and, if it's really important, the info will find it's way to me.
- Jason Toney
from twhirl
Information overload - (1) I try to use intuitive thinking & "grok" approaches (2) Let my computer & the Internet do the low-level remembering for me (3) enjoy smelling the roses - and boy did I find the most fragrant rose yesterday when parking to shop in Berkeley at the Bittersweet Chocolate Cafe http://bittersweetcafe.com
- Mitchell Tsai
(1) Serendipity - I don't need to see everything, just stuff that catches me at the right time. (2) RSS - bring the things I want to track to me (like RSS-ing FriendFeed searches for topics). (3) Don't follow everybody.
- Hutch Carpenter
Timothy Ferris's "4 Hour Work-Week" http://tinyurl.com/26n98q feels like it's written by a single 20-something (sorry all you 20-somethings), but he has some great points. 80/20 rule - Concentrate on the things that provide 80% of your work benefit, and use the other time for "meaningful activities".
- Mitchell Tsai