Hey, I like that you're at least creating a discussion. Not everybody's going to agree. Nice to see people express such strong opinions. Americans, I have hope for you yet. :) - Patricia
separating out wheat from chaff - good! :) be yourself! - Susan Beebe
Just for the record, Robert. I didn't find your tweets all that political, but I guess I'm desensitized by FF - Rah™
When we stopped talking about the actual issues, that's what got us in trouble in the first place... I'd rather argue and get it right than shove my fingers in my ears and think I am... - John Worthington
42,000? Twitter claims 34,000. And if we assume you are including FriendFeed's 16,000 as well, that would be 50,000... - Louis Gray
...except that you know how many followers you lost ;) If I lost a follower, I would have no clue, because I never even look at the number. - Andru Edwards
Hey Robert, those who take you off for talking political are losing out. If I find your political talk offensive or anything I'll just ignore you. But you haven't been that bad. I find your tweets very interesting. - Molly, the Muse
Louis, sorry, 34,000. I don't know where my brain came up with 42,000. Gotta get some sleep. Thanks Molly. - Robert Scoble
I actually found it "brave" of you to go into the Political. Although I don't agree with the tenets of your posts, "going there," in your case, didn't make me gauge the value of your feed, posts, links, insights, to me differently - Marko Bon
Robert, no problem. I was curious if you had 8,000 on identi.ca or something you were counting, or if FriendFeed counted as half due to overlap and Twitter hiders. :-) - Louis Gray
Scoble's stat is interesting in that it suggest that a large number of people don't mind the politics while a small number hate it enough to unsubscribe from Scoble (his tech news and all). What does this say about the population in general? That perhaps the great unwashed is not so great a number at all. - Roberto Bonini
Am trying... and failing... to figure out why you track your followers by the hour. - Cyndy
Agreed. You can't control your followers, except blocking them which is too time-consuming anyway. - Ronald
Cyndy - I could easily be wrong and Robert would need to set the record straight here... but I think he was pointing out that he lost followers immediately after he "posted more than 30 political tweets". I seriously doubt he tracks his follower numbers by the hour - but heck he might?! Instead, it appears that he was just noticing and remarking about the folks who dropped out after said tweets. I think it is sad that folks will tune out that fast over some passionate tweets! - Susan Beebe
Robert - don't worry about it. Your strength in this medium is your passion... if aren't talking about what you feel passion for then it won't seem genuine. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I disagree but I always respect that you are saying exactly what you feel. - Soulhuntre
via twhirl
I'm still following you despite our political in difference - orionstarr
i find myself liking when Robert posts on political issues as well. He has loads of hands-on "being used" experiences as he put yesterday on one of FF threads, and i am quite interested in politics myself! - Hayk
At least you're reasonable and not a kneejerk radical. I know your opinions are both thought out and nicely worded. - Mike Lewis
Your posts are more analytical than political. Keep up the good work. - imran
Somehow that number doesn't pass the smell test - Brian Sullivan
It's not the 50,000 falls while he was learning I worry about. It's the 500 he will take now that he is big, fast and clumsy. He seems more so near walls and large posts in the ground. - Sean Brady
"Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again." - Dr. Thomas Wayne - Craig Ritchie
via twhirl
Brian, if a baby learns to stand up and walk well over a 9 month period or approx 270 days, this would yield about 185 falls per day on average. I bet there's a logarithmic drop off of falls, however, but oh well. I've seen babies do a pop up and down thing early on which could easily skew the average. Anyway, 185 drops on ave does sound a little high, but it may be at the right magnitude. 18 drops a day on average sounds a little low, but who knows. What's interesting is to think about all the learning that's going on. - Loren Heiny
i think you could replace the word "babies" with "entrepreneurs" or "startups" and the 50,000 number would be just about right. - dave mcclure
actually Robert, I've come back to this as I object to it. If you find something interesting, comment or like it. There's no need to make people feel that they should be clambering for you attention - Scott O'Raw
Scott: you missed what I'm really doing: trying to get Twitter people to add their Twitter feeds to FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble
Robert: it was the "are yours interesting enough to rate?" part which read as "are yours interesting enough to rate by ME?" - Scott O'Raw
Scott: well, yes. By personalizing it I make people look here. - Robert Scoble
Love Twitter. Obsessed w/ FriendFeed. FF replacing time @ *other* news sites. True *human feed." Comment misuse worries still... - Barbara K. Baker
Robert: is this one of those Shavian 'two countries separated by a common language' things? ;) - Scott O'Raw
He didn't "like" my "Working now" twitter message?!?!?!?! :P - conedude13
You are such a pot-stirrer Robert! lol... I think Scott meant "rate" in the old skool 80's usage of "do you rate?" rather than "are they interesting enough for me to slow down and notice and go to the effort of clicking like" which I'm guessing is what you meant. Mine probably aren't - but I'm okay with that - I'm never going to win a Nobel Prize for Twittering! :) Keep stirring the pot Robert - you make people think! :) - Lucretia Pruitt
Aww man...I fell for it. I thought Scoble cared about me... :( - Rah™
Of course they are. Most of them are freakin' BRILLIANT! Unnoticed, but BRILLIANT! - Brian Norwood
I should have explained I live in the UK - hence the George Bernard-Shaw quote. Rate, I took as to measure against others or a pre-determined scale, and for that reason I didn't like seeing anyone set themselves as arbiter of such. - Scott O'Raw
I'm positively HUGE in Bot and Spammer demographic. They love me! - Brian Norwood
@scott - that is what he means - same meaning in US English - Geoff
I think I could have something interesting. But maybe not for everyone. - Daniel Schildt
I think it's for others to judge whether Twitter msgs are interesting. Like FF though - Ronald
I love the discussion view. I just wish there were an option to view "me" and my discussions so I could see others' comments too - Daniel Shaw
Geoff: so if that IS what Robert meant is that a good thing? That someone should set up as the arbiter of quality for other peoples' messages? - Scott O'Raw
hahaha. Robert is trying to herd cats into the FriendFeed pen, but as he opens the gate, the cats already inside decide they want out - Karim
Karim: it's not that the cats want out, necessarily, just that there's no real need for self-appointed shepherds. - Scott O'Raw
Hmmm. So I guess Scoble's follow-up campaign, "Are you MAN ENOUGH for FriendFeed?" shouldn't be attempted, either? ;-) - Karim
EXT. CATTLE RANCH - DAY: A cowboy winds up a coil of Cat6 patch cable around his arm. COWBOY: "You know, there are lots of social network aggregators out there... I tried Twitter. Sure, it was pretty. And that might be ok for city folk, or women. But a man like me needs a robust, dependable service, with big, hearty CHUNKS of comments. That's why I use FriendFeed..." - Karim
I think we all agree it's a bad move, question is, are they going to enforce it? Or rather, do they really want to? - Amit Morson
It just shows that not much has changed in China, even though some may believe so. If you visit Shanghai or Bejing you're probably all 'wow', but take a taxi to any city within 1 hours drive and you'll notice a different side of China. - Ronald
"As an example, the company spends at least $14 per employee per day on all that free food. At 19,000 employees, that works out to $67 million a year, or about 20 cents per share that would drop to the bottom line if Google were to have the temerity to ask its workers - shudder - to pay for their own meals. Twenty cents is a trifle; analysts expect 2008 earnings of nearly $20 per share. But in a pinch? No-brainer." - darren
Getting rid of the food would be tremendously destructive. It would be like getting rid of the chairs, except worse. - Paul Buchheit
Worse than getting rid of the chairs? - Jim Norris
Doesn't it cost more to hire so many people? The model should be limiting the workforce, while keeping existing employees as productive as possible. Otherwise it's like outsourcing without going overseas. - Chris White
Not having to pay makes the cafeterias much, much, much more efficient. You don't need standard portion sizes, or packaged items, or specific entree/side choices, or prices on menus, or cash registers, or checkout staff, or stored value cards. Nobody has to wait in line to pay, you can have smaller cafeterias, you can put leftovers in fridges for people to take at off hours, and there's less wastage. Having seen this, it's really a wonder why any company *does* charge. - ⓞnor
=@nor. Funny, I remember eating there when they did make you pay, although there were less employees at SGI. :) - Chris White
Another equally obvious idea, which I assume the author thinks is exactly as good as that one, is a company-wide reduction of salaries by $14/day, from the most-valued employees to the least-valued. - j1m
Yeah, they could also start charging employees to use their computers, maybe put a little quarter slot on the side like at the video arcade. - Paul Buchheit
I agree, getting rid of the food would be tremendously destructive. Food expenses are likely minuscule compared to other expenses (e.g., corporate travel, just to name one). Although I suppose putting a quarter slot on the computers might encourage engineers to work less and save electricity? =P - darren
This is why I'm glad that random journalists don't run businesses. Can you imagine the carnage? - Adewale Oshineye
I think it's interesting / telling that there's no way to comment on articles on CNN Money. - Adam Lasnik
Server troubles. We're still investigating exactly what triggered it. - Paul Buchheit
I reckon it was a case of Murphy's law's third addendum: "If something cannot possibly go wrong, and it is the weekend, that thing will go wrong.". I propose a revision - Murphy's law's third addendum as applied to startups - "If it is the weekend, and everything is working, nothing will go wrong, but it will still cause a system outage." - Slippy Lane
i had a problem this morning where ff was taking ages to load the "Comment - Hide - More" panel but it seems to have gone now - Ian Rathbone
It's a bit ridiculous the gaping hole I felt by this. I hadn't realized how addicted I was. We need to start a support group. - Carla Thompson
Does FriendFeed have a status report area? For example, Twitter has blog.twitter.com, which was used to report on an outage in late April (they reported 3 days after problems started, but that's another story). Does FriendFeed have a similar place to report on outages? - Ontario Emperor
Welcome back online guys. It's okay, I coped. I read a book and listened to some blues. - Slippy Lane
The FriendFeed Blog seems like a good spot for status reports. - Chris Rossini
I still think it was Scoble's fault...somehow. ;) - Alejandro S.
Quick, someone register isfriendfeeddown.com. - Kevin D. White
Wow, FriendFeed really *is* the new Twitter. - ⓞnor
I know I checked blog.friendfeed.com about 10 times during the outage. Makes sense that status updates would go there. - Erica Baker
I used Summize. No news there, but it was fun to watch all the people realizing Friendfeed was down one after the other. - Alejandro S.
"Impressive numbers from Facebook on their architecture: 1,800 MySQL servers (900 pairs of master/slave) holding a heavily partitioned data set managed by just 2 DBAs." - Bret Taylor
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 "peanut" 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
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
via 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"? - possible248
@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 "peanut" 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 McCall
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 S.
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
via 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...... - sirish
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
How about multiple likes for the same item - Jason Kaneshiro
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
via 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
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
