Nice post, in total ageement - Patphelan

Wow. Great post Robert. Hope you & family had a fun 4th. I sure did! - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Brian, thanks. we had a great time. Nice and relaxing. - Robert Scoble

Good point. That's driving good-quality participation instead of spamming attitudes. That could really improve the conversations. - Marcello Del Bono

Robert, I agree with this, but regarding your comment on Allen's thread, the fact of the matter is that there are still 9 default people that get recommended when someone signs up. It's true, there is a "participation premium", and for good reason, but the big names still get rewarded simply because they're big names. I just wish I could see active FF users get highlighted now and then. The algorithm could be made up of # comments, # likes, # comments on that person's own content and # likes on that person's own comments, in some proportion to be worked out. - Raoul Pop

It's not a conversation if there's no participation. Good points, Robert. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Raoul: active FriendFeed members get featured all the time. You should learn how "Friend of a Friend" works. Anytime I like or comment on someone all 15,000 followers of me get to see that person's post and they can easily subscribe to them by hovering. The recommended list is totally useless for me, by the way. So I do wish they'd make it a lot better. - Robert Scoble

What's amazing to me Robert is how much influence your *Likes* have. After you like something of mine, I usually see a rush of Friend adds. It's a very interesting dynamic to watch unfold. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

This is a great post! - George Smith

@Raoul I definitely agree with you on the idea of changing who gets displayed in the first Recommended list. @Robert regardless of whether you pay attention to the Recommended list isn't really relevant IMO. The fact is that I would bet the majority of new arrivals to FriendFeed do indeed pay attention to it. - Steven Hodson

Well, there probably has to be a combination of both - you can participate all you like, but if you don't do it in a meaningful and public way, it won't really matter. Still, a heartening thought that participation can be more important than name recognition alone. Gives some power to us little people (popularity wise, anyway). - Erin

FF offers a remarkable way to participate. In fact, it's downright unique. Which is probably why FF will be HUGE. It has a pliancy of participation that's just unmatched, and it keeps getting better. Encouraging post. - phil baumann

Yep. But, isn't "Participation" your full time job description? If it isn't, what is? - Yuvi

Nice post. You're spot on with the analysis. The two of you use FF differently. Both of you are highly valuable to me as information sources, but in very different ways. Mike is a conversation starter. You carry and share conversations and link people that wouldn't otherwise connect. FF is smart to have both of you as recommended follows. - Christian Anderson

Yuvi i spend everyday trying to figure out what my job is. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: you're doing for free what no "community manager" could ever do. I'd like to know how much engagement on FF, Twitter is directly related to the Scoble effect. - Christian Anderson

So Robert, is there a certain point where you loose interest in a site simply because of the onslaught of new users? Does the signal-to-noise ratio go down as more users discover and start to use a site from your perspective? - Jim McCusker

@Robert: Figured it out yet? ;) You are the only *classical A-Lister* whom I know as being really "approachable", as in I can tweet at you and expect to get a response (or leave a comment here and there's a reasonable chance that you'll respond). - Yuvi

It's so true, it all boils down to interaction. - Fredrik Nordmoen

Participation is key. - Thomas Hawk

Robert Scoble: I just want to let you know how much I appreciate seeing your feedback and constant participation on FF. Because of this sole factor, I would much rather meet up with you than Mr. Arrington (I follow and respect you both) over a cup of coffee or during a photowalk. To be honest, I don't know how you keep up with it all, but keep it up! - Justin Korn

Link to related conversation: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Sprague D

what makes Robert and his posts become more viral and engaging is that he does not post and run. He engages in conversations, and unlike Arrington, he is rarely confrontational and doesn’t have the same arrogance. I have followed him for a while, but became a real advocate after his trip to DC. I thought his coverage was engaging, informative and it was awesome that he included your son. - Fred Neil

Jim: that is a question that needs its own blog post. I generally find that early adopters do tend to get bored but what gets us to leave are jerks and spammers. I think FF might be more resistant to all of these negative effects but we'll have to see. - Robert Scoble

What Justin said. - Yuvi

Great points Robert, thanks for not stealing ALL the points I wanted to make in my next post :) - Shey, Jamaican of FF

fail bird http://www.seanpercival.com/blog... - sean percival

Robert: trying to inspire new blog posts? not me! ;-) - Jim McCusker

I liike that Mike Arrington just liked this. :-) - Robert Scoble

@Robert and he left a comment on the blog post itself :) - Steven Hodson

I agree about the participation factor. But I do think that this post and the "Off of the tech entertainment train" post should both be encapsulated in <ego></ego> tags. - Tom Quinn

Robert, the thing is, you ARE a 'popular kid' in this niche, whether it's on your blog or on FriendFeed. 10x your blog readers puts you BOTH in the top fraction of blog rankings. You call it the "Participation Premium," I call it "people keep you on their friend lists if you're not dead weight." - Andy DeSoto

Robert, great read the only thing I disagree with, is the comparison to Twitter after four months and FriendFeed after four months. As the logic goes, if hundreds (maybe thousands) of Twitter users are jumping the ship, (or, as I imagine, there is quite a bit of overlap), then the logic follows that many of them would land on FriendFeed (and hence follow you). Even though I consider Friendfeed and Twitter to be two very different products, FF is in part riding the micro-blogging wave, which Twitter helped to spearhead. - David Adewumi

Scobleizer theorem of social media = participate indefinitely - Kerem Ozkan

David: I don't think many Twitter users are jumping ship. I think a lot of them are finally seeing the utility of using both twitter and friendfeed together. But I do agree that it is easier for newer services to get quick adoption because of Twitter. The next big thing will happen even faster than FriendFeed did. - Robert Scoble

I think the difference from Twitter to FriendFeed is that the casual Twitter followers never made it to FriendFeed. I don't know many casual Twitter users who continue to use Twitter with all it's issues. - Sal DiStefano

Exactly right. Investment of yourself pays dividends in many ways. - John Federico

I do see the utility of using Twitter and FF together. I'm sure both will help break the hot apps of the near-future. Just goes to show that discussion is not exclusive to how many people you know, but that the internet, in many ways, is leveling the playing field in discussion and influence. - David Adewumi

Robert: BINGO BABY! you nailed it with this post... thank you for writing it! Not only is participation key for conversation, but also evangelism of the service; plus, community management. I would expect those as a bare minimum...not, "Oh gee, hey these guys are popular in the blogosphere; on some other service elsewhere so let's tell everyone to follow them here" (doesn't make sense, especially since *some* of them don't even really use FF yet except to aggregate a couple of feeds (cross-post / backup). - Susan Beebe

This was a great post! As a natural worrier, I held my breath for a while after you said that this community is friendlier than any other. Surely the taint of the general way the Internet seems to operate will eventually ruin this place too? (I really hope not!) - David Muir