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Scott Schroeder › Likes
Whoa: I am now following a TON more people on friendfeed due to its Twitter friends import tool. More here:
You., Brian Bufalo, Daltonsbriefs and 38 other people liked this
I went from following about 6,000 people to following 13,151.
- Robert Scoble
I put all the new ones into a list called "Twitter" so that they wouldn't pollute my home feed.
- Robert Scoble
That folder is moving ridiculously fast.
- Robert Scoble
Oh no! Now those of us you followed before are only half as special.
- Bruce Lewis
lol nice... I'm following.. uh... 51. and I put my Twitter import into a list called, well, "Twitter Import" lol...
- Lou
Definitely helpful
- Eric
Bruce: don't worry. You should see the "best of" of this twitter list. Let's just say that it isn't as good as my other list which you are on.
- Robert Scoble
I feel like a shareholder whose stock has been diluted:-)
- Francine Hardaway
well, you are still not following me!
- Niv
Francine - he just commented that we have preferred stock. :-)
- Bruce Lewis
lol @ Francine... seriously, huh? I finally get on FF, have very few people distracting Scoble here (relatively), and now poof! gone. lol...
- Lou
I still like my original "Aggregate" feed I have before I followed all following me and imported from Twitter. Those are on their own lists. The best of the day on that list is very good.
- Louis Gray
Great, I was already on information overload. You are not helping! hehe
- James Schipper
Lou, that's not all that's distracting Scoble. I made a list the other day but it's incomplete - first big paragraph on http://ourdoings.com/ourdoin...
- Bruce Lewis
Bruce, hehe nice post there. And yeah, The Scobleizer's got a crap-ton on his plate. Always has. Personally, I have NO CLUE how you stay online as much as you do, Robert. lol..
- Lou
Bruce: OK, you got me! :-)
- Robert Scoble
FriendFeed import from Twitter is a nice feature for sure ... but making FriendFeed 'useful' with all these new people is challenging. I think the key is being really good at filtering and using the FriendFeed tool to show you want you want to see from all the ppl you are following.
- frank barry
I didn't follow any of the people I could have imported. None of them were active on the site.
- Mathew™ one of a kind
SUCCESS! :D
- Niv
I think if FF adds an 'invite' feature to your twitter friends who are not already on FF, it will be even more
- Vishy
13218! Great Success!
- ◄ani625Ξ
I have some actual historical usage data of Twitter and FriendFeed courtesy of FriendFeed's API - http://tinyurl.com/cq3ll5
- Brandon Watson
I just want to comment to say I acknowledge the "here's why" and "more here" comments on 95% of Robert's FF messages. That is all.
- Tamar Weinberg
FriendFeed gets it! I asked them last November to add the Twitter import function, they responded with a polite email saying it was a great idea and they would look into it. That could have easily been their standard request reply, but they actually did it. Kudos to them.
- Gail Guy
Love the FriendFeed - Twitter thing. Lot so good stuff using FF.
- John Flynn
Reasons why friendfeed's new search features justify my investment in friendfeed, discuss here:
Michael Lynton, Andrej Kostresevic, Thomas Hawk and 102 other people liked this
I have spent more than 2,000 hours in friendfeed. I have clicked "like" on 15,822 items. I have commented on 8,048 items. That is a HUGE investment in time (I've been blogging a lot less over the past year). These new search features bring HUGE benefits. I will discuss why here.
- Robert Scoble
Clearly the main reason is to find things that you posted/liked in the last.
- David Wilson
First, the new search features are discussed over on friendfeed blog here: http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...
- Robert Scoble
1. Now you can search based on number of comments an item got. So, I can search for all items that contain the word "Obama," for instance, but I can tell it to only show me items with 10 likes or more. THIS IS HUGE because it shows which items got HUGE engagement. Here is that search: http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
Wow, I didn't even notice that. Very useful.
- David Wilson
Ability to refine searches for comments is a killer app.
- Mike Nayyar
Hmm, does it actually let you search for a user's name/handle in the comments/content of an item, without giving you a load of "$PERSON liked this" results, even when their name/handle don't appear in the content or any attached comments?
- Tyson Key
How close are we to being able to hide based on the criteria?
- Brian Sullivan
Close... so... close. If we could create that search and have it form a real-time feed... that would do it for me. Historical search with the ability to follow the search in real time.
- Brian Roy
2. Now you can search based on numbers of "likes" an item got. For instance, now I can say show me all items with "netbooks" in the title that have 10 or more likes. This is HUGE because it removes all noise and shows only items that got a lot of interest from the community. Here's that search: http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
Awesome! Makes Friendfeed less noisy to me. I agree some search fine-tuning would be nice. Still, this helps a lot.
- Pam Baker
2,000 hours jeez they should pay you
- andy brudtkuhl
Brian: yeah, I want real-time views into this data. That is a prerequisite to "track." Also, I need RSS feeds from these searches that I can shove into a room. I can't figure out how to do either of those two things.
- Robert Scoble
I must be a dummy. I can't find how to do that on the site. However, I did read on the blog that it exists. How do I get to it?
- Francine Hardaway
This can really cut down the noise in a search. For example, here's a search for items that mention the Steelers and only contain comments with the word towel. And you could also do the reverse. Cool. http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Tom Landini
Andy: I'm pretty sure it is actually a lot more than 2,000 hours. I'm on friendfeed almost every minute I'm awake and not doing something else.
- Robert Scoble
I didn't see it anywhere... sadly. I'm also looking to see if these advanced searches are supported by the API... if they are it is a boon for applications that swarm to subjects/topics.
- Brian Roy
OK, I'm totally liking the new search features...Now I can finally see who's shouted out to me in posts without getting a lot of "Robert Scoble" noise in the results.
- Alex Scoble
Aah, to answer my own question, the intitle: attribute seems to do the trick, cool.
- Tyson Key
i still dont like "likes", but its an interesting idea to search what you want..
- Terry O'Fee
3. You can search for times a specific person has written something. For instance, I can now see how many times Bret Taylor has written the word "bacon" in one of his titles: http://friendfeed.com/search... By doing this I learned that Bret wrote the word "sex" twice as often as he wrote "bacon." :-) http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
Francine - just hit search with nothing in the box... that takes you to advanced search.
- Brian Roy
robert - just don't type "mona" and "bacon" - the search will take days,,,
- Terry O'Fee
The other day I was trying to search for your video on how to use ff. I wanted to share it with someone who is new here. But, I couldn't find it. I had to go to your site to find it. When I saw the title of your post, I realized why my search might have missed it. I don't know if these changes would have made a difference, but any improvement is welcomed in my book! I'm going to try it again and see if the changes help.
- Michael Fidler
You get to the advanced search here: http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
Terry: Here's a search for "bacon" but from Mona's feed with two or more likes: http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
I love it, you can search just specific services, too. Like JUST TWITTER!! Check this out, these are all my tweets that have 20 or more likes: http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
very cool thanks for sharing Robert... Also of note you can grab the RSS feed from the search results (via Firefox addr bar only so far) - this is cool for those of you like me who use search subscriptions for research
- andy brudtkuhl
and FF is so well indexed in google. yesterday I talked about backtype in italian and after few hours was already the 5th result searching "backtype" in that language
- ezekiel
Terry: likes are metadata that you can use to improve your searches. Now you can see why people who are noisy on "liking" things are only hurting themselves.
- Robert Scoble
Michael F makes a good point. I struggle with finding stuff I have liked or commented on before. I hope the new search function helps with that.
- Amani
On a search for SEO if this was useful, I would end up with a list of posts similar to the Semmys finalists (though those are still personal preference). However I get http://friendfeed.com/search... which isn't exactly useful unless I wanted every conversation on FF that included the acronym - probably worse results than a potential Scobleizer post about lawnmowers ending up ranking in Google
- Andy Beard
Here's a cool search. It shows you ALL items from EVERYONE that has gotten five likes and two comments (or more): http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Robert Scoble
Robert: to get an RSS feed, append &format=atom to the end of the url after doing a search
- Daniel Sims
Andy, to search for a term in only the entry title, use "intitle:", e.g. – http://friendfeed.com/search...
- Dan Hsiao
Dan - so that means the API works too... hmmm wonder if that URL is rate limited.
- Brian Roy
frienfeed is the next (social) search engine and these new features are a new big step to the right direction...
- Simone Lovati
robert - ive noticed that the people who get "likes" are usually the ones who mass spam likes to everyone else...
- Terry O'Fee
It worked! I can see what your talking about Robert. You have a lot of content here, but I found the post of yours I was looking for with relative ease:-) http://is.gd/ihXV
- Michael Fidler
Terry: if you use a combination of "likes" and "comments" you can dramatically filter out a lot of noise.
- Robert Scoble
you have a lot more people though, robert....
- Terry O'Fee
My first comment ever on FriendFeed. I cannot figure this place out yet. I'm sure it is wonderful though.
- Hummie
Stick with it Hummie!
- andy brudtkuhl
Once you can create a feed from the search results and make an imaginary friend for that feed then search will become useful for me. Of if you could search on a certain criteria and get the results sent to gtalk in realtime (aka track) will it be useful for me. Right now it is helpful but not of great use for me.
- J Allen
Wow, I have more comments made than you? Wouldn't have guessed that. Yes, it is indeed an investment and this is very good news, Robert.
- Josh Haley
"Also, I need RSS feeds from these searches that I can shove into a room." This would be a huge feature. It would really up the ante in creating useful rooms.
- Doug Hudiburg
To get an RSS feed of any FriendFeed search result, just append "&format=atom" (without the quotes) to the end of the URL. Violå! :-)
- Josh Bancroft
Thank you, that's what I needed.
- Wallace
wow ! @Josh Bancroft, youre the man !!! just what i need !! it works !!
- Rocky
@Josh thank you!
- Alfredo
This is just so cool. FF rocked before, now it's just plain awesome :)
- Nicola Quinn
I thought of you when I read FF blog yesterday: that's what you were asking when we met in Barcelona!
- Jordi Soler
A Pinot for @garyvee:
Alex Schleber, Irv, Greg Birch and 12 other people liked this
I feel like an evil Pinot. :-)
- Robert Scoble
from email
So how does it taste?
- Bryan Lee
*gulp, gulp, gulp*!
- Michael Forian
Are you correlating anything between the label and @garyvee? Enjoy!
- Troy Malone
mmm looks yumm. cute teddy, too!
- Scott Schroeder
It is pretty good!
- Robert Scoble
Love the monkeys.
- Jim Turner
My wine selection tonight is from @garyvee (pic in my FF feed). He's like a virus. Slowly taking over and we don't even realize.
- Alyx
Cheers.
- Patrick Jordan
This wine is available via WineSearch4uGoodWines.co.yz/ref=Allen014/Code21/CashMoney - please put that whole string in if you buy this wine.
- Allen Stern
Beats headphones by dr. dre flat cable no tangle cable
Raphael, Raphael, James G. Kim, charmgene and 79 other people liked this
http://www.beatsbydre.com $149 at Apple and Amazon stores. Innovative cable and great sound.
- Robert Scoble
from email
I am somewhat confused by the angle from which that video is clicked
- Varun Mahajan
WTF?
- Ryan
Not saying a word ;~)
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
I'll buy it. lol
- Drew Skwarcan
Oops... That pic might get stuck in the company proxy filter...
- Andreas
headphones? where?
- Andrew Smith
Yes, very nice, ah, cables
- Clarence Westberg
Dude, these don't have great sound. I've got a pair sitting 2 feet away from me on my desk. If you want great sound, get the Turbines instead of the Beats (also from Monster.) If you want amazing sound, get the Beats by Dre Studio headphones. Those are my headphones of choice :)
- Andru Edwards
Headphones? I don't see any headphones. ;)
- Grey Drane
I'll say it...DAYUM!
- Josh Haley
Let's get Robert that new Canon he wants
- Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct
Nothing flat about 'em. Oh, you mean the headphones? Barely noticed 'em.
- Josh Haley
The best product would probably be a way to make other headphone cables untangleable. (New Word)
- Tyler (Chacha)
Flat cable is great, but how is the sound on those (worth $149)?
- Manuel
What headphones? Can't find them, maybe something else in the photo is distracting me.
- George The Writer
Breast Headphones?
- Joe Dawson
What a view!
- Seth
Quite the interesting angle Robert
- steve
That's quite a nice headphone there. *wink* *wink* ;)
- Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ
i've got to over-the-head pair and i have to say this is some of the best sound i've ever encountered in headphones. the lo bass is amazing. the only drawback on the over-the-head is that you have to use batteries and remember to turn it off and on.
- Lynne d Johnson
Those need to be on my head, like now. What are we talking about?
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Umm, what were we talking about?
- Jamie Dool
Nice.
- Joey Gibson
Whose boob is that?
- Zeb Dropkin
@Zeb Pretty sure Robert works for Fast Company... Oh you meant in the picture...
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
Say what you want about that Scoble character - he knows how to get comments on a thread.
- John Craft
it's past midnight, just in time
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Those are good quality cans... no really that's what headphones are called by, um... audiophiles.
- Adrian
Robert, could you please delve deeper into this product for us?
- David
Wait until Robert's wife is looking at the pictures store on his phone ...
- Wayne Schulz
What's that? There's not enough women in tech? Weird.
- Nathan Howell
I do hate it when my headphone cables get tangled :-D
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
she's got nice... earphones for sure. how durable are they though?
- Eric Truman
Somewhere Derrick is reading this and *seething*.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
I'm impressed...really impressed!
- Mike Lewis
Those headphones? They're real, and they're SPECTACULAR.
- John Craft
GREAT idea.
- Martha
OH MAN I JUST WANT TO PUT MY HEAD BETWEEN THOSE HEADPHONES AND YELL BRITTTTTSKI WHILE VIOLENTLY VIBRATING MY LIPS
- sean percival
Suddenly @matsie's "BOOBS" song is in my head. DAMN YOU PERCIVAL!
- MVB (Grinch of FF)
There's headphones?
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
from the man that brought you "the chronic".. nice shot rob-o
- Scott Schroeder
(_)(_) those are the breast headphones ever.
- Nick Dynice
these headphones are a classic example of a marketing gimmick. and i ain't buyin' it. sorry. monster can suck my zick.
- muzo
I knew that photo would get you all going! Her name is Jennifer Ennesser -- she works at Monster.
- Robert Scoble
Did she approve this? :D
- Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ
A Monster Cable product? No thanks.
- Alex Scoble
Wayne what is funny is my wife was standing right next to Jennifer.
- Robert Scoble
Will http://www.google.com/trends... start working soon because of this post?
- Chris Stevenson
haha, yeah what's taking so long.
- Tsega Dinka
good headphone, great angle.
- Than R
The Silicon Valley VC Disease - http://scobleizer.com/2008...
Casey, Franklin Pettit, Piaw Na and 64 other people liked this
I actually read the title as "The Silicon Valley VD Disease" ..and nearly jumped out of my seat !! :)-
- Peter Dawson
I think the bigger issue is the fact that startups want to scale quickly. What happened to starting slow and small and letting the product naturally develop, grow a natural user base, before getting VC and super expanding? I guess it's not as sexy...
- Johan
Johan: startups have this attitude forced on them by the VC's. The VC's only give you enough money to go a year or two. If you don't build a business by then you either have to convince more VCs to give you another two years of cash, or you have to have a business up and running and generating more revenues than expenses by then. And the VCs don't like it if you just sit on the cash. They are hoping you come up with some dramatic business success.
- Robert Scoble
I hope it's not contagious
- paul mooney
Good post - my phone is not used to connect to the web but to text message. I can't get a handle on the iPhone yet, though. My daughter loves it and that's good enough for me.
- LPH™ and his dog P™
The other term for this: Short-sightedness.
- Eric Florenzano
ok I jumped off the seat and now back w/beer. :)_ yeah but if you have the right product and appliations , you dot need to shop for VC funds in the first place. The issue is that too many startups are in the markets and nothing really is getting innovated. VS are in to make money. Show me the money and I'll show you my term sheet. Simple investment talk. DOnt waste our time
- Peter Dawson
+1 for Peter's "Silicon Valley VD Disease" .... LOL
- Mitchell Tsai
Unfortunately VCs are not the best investors. Most are running scared. Even with their efforts, 85% of their investments fail (50% for the top firms). Creates a me-too mentality evident also in the Pharmaceutical industry. Real break-throughs may have less than 1% success rate. That is too scary for most VCs and pharma companies.
- Mitchell Tsai
And you can only imagine how frustrating this is for biotech (and explains the lack of funding). Takes 10 years to see some results, 3-5 if you are providing services)
- Deepak Singh
Thanks for writing this post, Robert. You're saying better than a lot of us what I'm sure some of us are thinking. It's unfortunate that this kind of thinking can actually prevent innovation and seems counter to the original American entrepreneurial spirit. We all lose when a good idea doesn't get funded to grow as well or as quickly as it could.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
There's also the ROI and IRR disease in the VCs. Typical businesses have maybe a 50% success rate (where success is not the VC - 5X my money in 5 years, but includes I-just-want-to-pay-my-salary companies). The VC pressure to provide decent returns pushes many companies to failure. Rule of thumb: If you aren't willing to take out a loan at 40% annual interest (because your company's opportunity is so big & needs fast speed), don't ask VCs and smart angels. "Inexperienced" angels is ok.
- Mitchell Tsai
P.S. I'm sitting on a lot of worthless pre-public stock. It's tough to be an investor too.
- Mitchell Tsai
basically VC are getting funding via the global Hedge Funds bowl, w/multi legged swap options. so they (VC's) need ROI's to ensure that they can pay back what they took and make a profit at the same time. They win some and lose some, its a gamble.. Follow the money trail for dynamics of this landscape
- Peter Dawson
VCs want companies to make money so they can recoup their investment and it's called a disease? The sickness is that many of the companies that get funded get funded when there is no hint of a business/revenue plan in place or even on the horizon. If more VCs had a strategy to invest in companies destined to actually make money of course there would be less SV whiny minor millionaires and more real business.
- Brian Sullivan
VC/Angel is the "lottery for the rich": (A) ~15-20% annual returns (B) lottery chance to make $25 million on your $25,000 if you hit a Netscape, Yahoo, or Google. Most mathematicians who make a profit at Vegas gambling move on to stock markets, futures/commodity trading, financial derivatives, hedge funds, etc...
- Mitchell Tsai
+1 for Brian: In the VC biz, that's called "pressure to invest". Not enough good ideas & teams to invest in. Conservative VCs won't find enough investments, thus the "pack" disease of VCs all funding hard drives at the same time. Much more fun chasing pictures on the internet. :-)
- Mitchell Tsai
Brian: the companies that get funded that have no obvious business model (PodTech and Twitter, for example) are part of the VC Disease of go for a home run. They were hoping that PodTech would turn into the next YouTube and that Twitter turns into the next Google. Remember, Google didn't make money for the first four years of its existence, and, in fact, were almost shut down because they weren't paying their bills at Exodus.
- Robert Scoble
Liking mostly because you say not to listen to Dave Hornik. I think I might actually be starting to like you, Robert.
- Cyndy
Echoing Robert: Google burned through $26 million before finding profitability with Bill Gross's (IdeaLab) http://idealab.com/about_i... sliding-scale ad fees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... I would have been too chicken to put that much money into Google. The sliding-scale ad idea of Goto.com wasn't a "proven" revenue model either. "In November 2001 Gross defaulted on a $50 million personal loan he had taken from the Bank of America to invest in Idealab".
- Mitchell Tsai
Using Google as an example of a company that didn't have a business plan but ended up a big success is getting tired as an argument for support of investment of clueless "businesses" and their founders. Investors in Google and the founders won the lottery -- that doesn't justify investing in the lottery as business strategy. Investing in Iphone apps in my mind would also be a waste of...
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- Brian Sullivan
VCs have to see a deal in this way: 3-5 years to get to 10X return. They can't wait 10 years for a payback, their fund is usually only 10 years as far as I know. So they can't fund things that are too far out. Although it seems clear that the iPhone can create opportunities that fit in this framework of 3-5 years to 10X return, so not sure why Hornick was down on it. Nice, controversial post to get us thinking... I think the disease is more like "groupthink" than it is "lack of long-term vision"
- Elliott Ng
+1 Brian
- Cyndy
Interesting post Robert. May be what Dave is saying is that when a company has proven their concept on the iphone is ready to scale to other platform, then the time is right to actually go after a bigger VC round. I think that both people like Jeff and Dave are key to the entrepreneurship ecosystem: they just target different stages of the company lifecycle. Another way to prove that is...
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- Edwin Khodabakchian
Brian: when I went to Israel a high percentage of developers there proudly showed me their iPhones. And there's not even an Apple store in the country. I HAVE GONE outside the country. Tons of the best iPhone apps are from outside of SV. I also totally disagree about iPhone not being the winner in mobile computing sweepstakes. At least not as the market is today. But I hear Nokia is coming out with something cool in January, so we'll see. And Microsoft told me they are bringing out something cool next year.
- Robert Scoble
Brian, maybe the iPhone will wind up like the Atari, who knows. And I would add that many times investments are at least as much due to the people than to the initial technology. However, the iPhone is a game changer. I find that I'm using it more and more to read news, check the weather, etc--some which is new behavior for me, but also some of which I used to do on my notebook. The iPhone is winning out. Is it perfect yet? No. I want more, but there's a systemic change going on here.
- Loren Heiny
Loren: the problem with people who don't own iPhones is they just don't see how big a game changer it is. I wish I could get Brian to carry around the four phones I currently have to see how bad these things all are compared to iPhone. The iPhone isn't perfect, either, but it's years ahead of the others. Of course, back in 1989 the Macintosh was years ahead of everything too and see what happened...
- Robert Scoble
Deepak: Agreed, look at Amgen and Genentech as classic Biotech examples
- Sally Church
Scobles , are yo sure that iPhones are just not hype ?
- Peter Dawson
Mr. Scoble - I'll tell you... this disease causes Myopia too. There are SO many fine business opportunities being pitched right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Wichita... Sevin Rosen Funds has a guy here in Tulsa. EARLY stage oriented. Pre-money oriented. Why KPCB or Charles River (or whoever) doesn't grab some initiative and park a good couple of partners in middle-America and work some new land is beyond me.
- Gerald Buckley
You'll get little disagreement from me on this one, Robert. But it's not just VCs, it's inertia. OTOH, Brian Sullivan a few comments up makes a great comparison...iPhone (and Facebook for that matter) are heading the way of BetaMax and MiniDisc, and MemoryStick. I may not use MySpace, but they're the VHS of the Social Network game right now. What we need is for someone to invent the DVD.
- Andrew Feinberg
Robert: I have absolutely no need for the Iphone (or any "smart" phone) and certainly would not pay the ridiculous prices some people are paying to use them. These products and their supporters are making a couple of fundamental assumptions that I think are flawed: that most normal people are like California geeks that feel the need to be connected at all times and that people will...
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- Brian Sullivan
Peter D. define "hype"? I can't be sure that iPhone will "win" the mobile space (I seriously doubt it given current pricing). But they're bound to be closing in on their 10 million units worldwide goal, and especially given the price, that doesn't strike me as hype.
- Robert Seidman
I completely respect yet disagree with this post. Most designers are not businessmen, VCs help in other ways than a chequebook. You bring the skills and the idea, they teach you how to squeeze money and create revenue. Great ideas change the world but they're not always profitable. VCs are there strictly for the money and you have to respect that.
- Steven Cains
What's wrong with investing in Facebook apps, if you get the exposure it's like advertising on Taxi wheels (I've seen this one). As for the iPhone, it has changed the way people are surfing on mobiles and this advertising market is just at the beginning so i see many companies getting inside. The only question i ask myself is either the company can generate money within 3-5 years or not and should i put my money in as if it was after the bubble burst.
- Nir Ben Yona
Brian, here are a couple non-California uses of an Internet connected device like the iPhone. Imagine you're in Nebraska in the spring. A storm rolls in. Tornado sirens blare. If you've got your iPhone with you in the closet or basement or wherever in anticipation of a tornado, you've potentially got access to an Internet radio, weather radar maps, 911, etc in your iPhone. Another...
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- Loren Heiny
Great post. I see no excitement surrounding any other phone. People I know who use Windows Mobile phones have to in order to have access to corporate email. Maybe that will change with Apple licensing AciveSync.
- Brett Nordquist
Peter: I'm absolutely convinced that iPhones are not hype. Brian: mobile didn't get hot in California first. You really need to visit Europe or Japan or Korea. There we look pretty stupid in our usage of mobile. As for "needing" stuff, you probably 10 years ago would have told me you don't "need" a cell phone, but today I can't name a single person that I know who doesn't have one, except my baby. You need to travel more and watch what people do when a plane touches down. Everyone starts up their mobiles.
- Robert Scoble
Has anyone decided if Apple's implememntation of ActiveSync is any good?
- Andrew Feinberg
I guess I'm glad I can have whatever phone I choose, and no need to worry about syncing anything, as I'm not tied to a corporate and all the associated bloatware that goes with it...
- Ian May
"First, our society’s most valuable audiences are getting iPhones." Really our most valuable audiences? Archeticts are these type of people? What about doctors, nurses, firemen, policemen, etc. They are way more valuable then any single architect in LA. Get over yourself.... That comment alone made me snort my coffee. I know 4 people who iPhones, neither of them would be somoen who i would define as society's most valuable audiences.
- Jonathan Jesse
@Loren Heiny I have a co-worker who used his Windows Mobile device in a Tornado to upload video of the tornado, let people know about that he was safe via email all w/o an iPhone. and from the hotel's bathtub which was the safest place.
- Jonathan Jesse
@Loren Heiny: when my son was born i used my windows mobile phone to take pictures and email those pictures to everyone i know from one device.... from a windows mobile phone
- Jonathan Jesse
@Brian Sullivan: I completly agree.. I have a Windows Smartphone from work, it is also the only cell phone I have. try taking a vacation when you get constantly reminded that work needs you through emails. I am amazed about how rude it is for people to interupt converstations and text/sms/email/twitter whatever instead of talking with the person face to face in front of them. this is something that i am strugeling with as my phone is always "buzzing" with someething new.
- Jonathan Jesse
Ok its not hype.. but with over 715Million users of Mobile technology in China alone. What does a 10M unit sold slice in terms of market penetration to these segments ? Just asking.. So you can see how thin of a slice that iPhone really has in terms of market share. A prodcut may have all the bells and whistles on it, but if major user base is not buying into it. then it could be some real issues.
- Peter Dawson
I think the whole VC model is broken. We don't need millions of dollars for our startups anymore, we need $25k or $50k. When I hear about companies getting millions of dollars, I always think, what the hell are they doing with it!?
- Dawn
To add scale to the 10M figure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... roughly 70% of those will be changing their phone within 5 years. ChinaMobile signs up almost 10M subscribers per month!
- Steven Cains
I'll offer this, just me speculating. I'm not sure that the price point of the iPhone is the biggest factor these days. I think we're more bottled by the thought of paying ridiculous prices for sub-par mobile web. I mean seriously, what the heck is with the current rates for cell phone plans. Also, the thought of paying for SMS in 2008 is just silly. It should be included in all plans. Not for the purpose of cutting profits from our providers but rather for American's to catch on to the technology.
- Ben Pettit
@ben I vaguely recall Mr. Scoble interviewing someone (was it the FCC commissioner conversation maybe) that had the US basically foregoing SMS and being off & onto the next big thing. SMS won't really stand a chance against what's coming is what I heard. Robert...? Care to put that in better context for us?
- Gerald Buckley
Dawn: $25K, $50K, $100K These are the lower-price points for qualified angel investors, who work the lower levels below the first tier of $500K-$3M VCs. One VC person can maybe manage 10-20 investments, so you can divide the size of fund by the number of active partners (x10-20) and figure out what size investments are in a VC-fund's sweet spot. Complicating the issue are some micro-VC funds, angel-type funds, and $5-20K Y-combinator-type-groups.
- Mitchell Tsai
Scoble: Great post. Hornik is a very smart guy, but he is hamstrung by the current VC model. VCs need a huge upside because the model dictates that they need to put in a ton of cash on the front end. Most of today's web startups don't require the kind of cash that VCs are used to putting in. That's why Hornik doesn't want to invest in iPhone apps. He wants to invest in companies with hundreds of millions in near-term valuation, not tens on millions. Imho, that is the VC disease -- in SV or out.
- Christian Anderson
from fftogo
Robert, I left a long comment on the post with my thoughts. I appreciate that some investors don't have the patience to bet early and let an idea run its course. That said, I don't think I am a good poster-child for that problem. August Capital has a long history of betting early and supporting our companies for as long as it takes to create an interesting business.
- David Hornik
@cyndy Curious what I said or did to deserve your comment?
- David Hornik
David: thanks, I just wrote a new post about this new world where people like you help us arrive at the truth by participating. Appreciate that a lot.
- Robert Scoble
Gerald: SMS is seeing some pickup here, but, really, look at Twitter, which is what my son is using now increasingly, or Facebook. If you have an iPhone both of those are a lot better than SMS. Also, my phone is increasingly getting SMS spam, which will really piss people off and keep them from adopting that system.
- Robert Scoble
This is not too dissimilar from the Innovator's Dilemma concept by Christensen. The "right" business decision ("right" as in profit-maximizing) would be to invest in big, rich markets: that's precisely why there is an opportunity for disruptors to enter the market.
- Tito Costa
+1 for Michael Sheehan.
- Mitchell Tsai
None of this seems like rocket science. Valley VCs want big returns in short amount of time. Asking them to invest in small slower-growing but sustainable markets is like going to Ford Motor headquarters and asking to buy a windshield wiper. It isn't the scale that they're working at.
- Michael
While you make some valid points, Robert, I don't it is fair to call it a disease. Looking for investments with a short-term return potential is certainly a legitimate investment strategy. I can't fault them for opting for perferring lower risk, quicker payoff investments, rather than longer-term (and thus higher risk) investment that *may* payoff huge in 10 years. That said, there are other types of investment strategies out there -- I think your post highlights a void that needs to be filled.
- Mark Carey
from Moopz
I still think, after reading the post, the follow up and this thread, that a VC is perfectly entitiled to pick and choose investments based on the return. And I'm sure there will be a few start-ups that have a Walmart business plan - take two asprin and call me in ten years. Because thats the way it is in technology (not just SV). The issue here is that we don't hear form these companies. We may well get the next Google, Microsoft, Sun, HP, etc from there.
- Roberto Bonini
I thing this disease is more of a symptom of greed and ego vs. making a difference in the tech world. But then again, isn't that what business is about? It is very hard for traditional business to grasp this concept, and is why real innovation wont be found there.
- Venson Kuchipudi
The problem with VC's is not that they have a disease but that there is no quality control. I am sure the good ones are very good but most of us never get to work with the good ones. On the other hand, I believe many Entrepreneurs (in the Silicon Valley) are in fact infected with a disease which is that they think the only way to start companies and generate net worth is with VC money. VC's are like "former" mother-in-laws. They cease to be a problem when you stop sleeping with their daughters.
- Denny K Miu
Who is this Louis Gray? Do we really need another guy with no ideas or point of view writing about twitter daily. Ive never read a more boring guy ever.
richrecruiter, Lon Harris, Jonathan Greene and 7 other people liked this
You really don't need to if you find him boring ....it's everybody's right to say whatever they like .... choice is yours ..
- Raza
I'm sure you have....
- Amit Morson
Raza - Agreed It's everyones choice to be boring, thats my point. Why choose to be boring. He has nothing to add. Cool another social media expert, just what we need. WHERE ARE THE FUCKING INTERESTING people. People with something new to say. Not just analysis of nothingness. Louis Gray=Fail. Period.
- loren feldman
will there be a day you ll stop shooting at anyone? it is more difficult to build than to destroy.
- Ouriel Ohayon
Ouriel - What exactly is he building? Tell me, what the fuck is he building? A blog about analysis of twitter and friendfeed? Oh I forgot he's building his "Brand".
- loren feldman
Thats great Vinny, just great. Such deep thinkers huh?
- loren feldman
Loren, i am not referring to him buidling. i am referring to you. All i read about you is criticizing others. I like the way you do it. but i think you are too focused on criticizing and not on buidling
- Ouriel Ohayon
“Ouriel - I've made more funny video than anyone, I've called more bullshit than anyone, I made you laugh and think more than anyone, shall I go on? I criticize others because most of them are charlatan dopes.”
- loren feldman
Yawn! I love your videos and style, but this bitching and moaning is getting old...
- Holger Eilhard
So dont watch anymore Holger.
- loren feldman
Hey Louis - No.
- loren feldman
Louis I'll call ya, lets debate the importance of our twitter follower counts
- sean percival
Sean, discuss this with Louis instead. His tech haiku site, no im not kidding. http://www.techaiku.com/
- loren feldman
thats actually MG's site, hes cool. Well as cool as one can be blogging about this biz.
- sean percival
The wolf? My apologies then. He's earned the right to be silly.
- loren feldman
ha no mg sieger/parislemon, the wolf is too busy panting over knol
- sean percival
friendfeed is a slow-moving parody of itself.
- Edward Vielmetti
dude, isn't everyone on here just talking about twitter and F8? everybody follows the same people and regurgitates the same links back and forth to one another. if you don't like what you're seeing or reading then move on to something else, how hard is it?
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Trebor, Different? I'm the greatest video guy in the history of the medium, and he's a douche talking about twitter. I make people laugh and think, he makes people bored. See the difference?
- loren feldman
So I gather Loren got tired of of beating up on Shel Israel and needed somebody else to criticize - pretty weak to pick Louis - but almost predictable
- Frederic
This is boring. Talk about Twitter's downfall or GTFO!
- Outsanity
It seems really odd to me that anyone would listen to Loren Feldman. He doesn't seem to have any manners.
- Todd McKinney
Strange isnt it Todd? The web is an amazing thing isnt it. So many more people listen to me than let's say Oh I don't know, you or Louis Gray for instance.
- loren feldman
Who is Loren and why does anyone care? Does Loren know there's this crazy feature called "Hide"?
- Outsanity
Loren, way to introduce yourself to some possible new followers - I didn't know much about you until recently, but man, you certainly have made a poor impression. Are you doing this to be funny?
- Jesse Stay
If this is funny, he needs therapy.
- Outsanity
Wow Jesse new followers? Really? Jesus I better be on my best behavior then, heaven forbid I scare off new followers. Jesse will you follow me please? Please Jesse.
- loren feldman
He's doing it for his <cough> clients.
- jeneane sessum
Man Loren - you have lost my complete respect - this discussion is over for me. Frankly, I suggest others on here do the same.
- Jesse Stay
I don't know nearly enough about Gray's work to comment on its quality or insightfulness, but why is it so wrong for Loren to call the man boring or his blog pointless? He must simply find Gray boring. Having a discussion isn't about "making a good impression." Who cares? The man's just expressing an opinion. Rather than carping on whether or not he should be doing so, why not respond with a thoughtful defense of Mr. Gray's writing on its merits?
- Lon Harris
from twhirl
Seriously, how do you make money by mocking a tiny sub-genre of the tech world? Who pays someone to troll tech commentators? And does it pay well?
- Andrew
Frankly Scarlet I mean Jesse I dont give a damn.
- loren feldman
Jeneane - no matter how much you flirt with me, its not gonna happen.
- loren feldman
@loren I've noticed the worst people seem to come out and play whenever you post a message.
- Zach Underwood
zach - they are bored and jealous. Thats all. Human nature type shit.
- loren feldman
I like Louis, he's a good guy covering a subject he loves. I have nothing against Loren, he can say what he wants -- his soapbox, his rules. That being said - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Steve Spalding
Lon - Let's be honest, Loren followed this post up with a semi-cryptic message asking for volunteers at the company Louis works for. That's just trolling. There is no reason to think that a discussion could even take place under those circumstances. He wants to rile up Louis and anyone who likes Louis, not present his case for boring vs. not.
- Andrew
Andrew - All this shit is a hobby for me. I have a billionaire patron of the arts behind me, he howls at this shit.
- loren feldman
Well I respect the patron system so good luck to you, sir.
- Andrew
Yeah, I do this for fun, me and a group of friends sit around and laugh our asses off over all of this.
- loren feldman
yawn
- Mary Anne Davis
OH: what are the odds of her coming to meet us .. @scottalk @joshmorgan bout time for these fools to get their swamble on!
Scott Schroeder liked this
yeah you right, g... swamble!
- Scott Schroeder
Docstoc Offers Elusive Twiistup Ticket - submit ur doc - http://blog.docstoc.com/twiistu...
Scott Schroeder liked this
What a Ticket to Twiist Up? - http://www.seanpercival.com/blog...
Scott Schroeder liked this
that would be "want" of course
- sean percival
or you could roll with the, "What...a Ticket to Twiist Up?!"
- Bryan Landers
i know, i totally thought even that made since. midnight blogging ftw!
- sean percival
man! where can i get a whole slew of documents from?!!
- Scott Schroeder
new blog post Top 5 Reasons Jason Calacanis is NOT Quiting Blogging http://www.seanpercival.com/blog...
Scott Schroeder liked this
posted this on twitter and got no feedback - wondering what you all think about this idea. Insyte: The difference between PR and social media is that PR is about positioning, and social media is about becoming, being and improving.
Dimitar Vesselinov, lonnie b hodge, Amadou M. Sall and 16 other people liked this
I think PR is about talking to and Social Media is about talking with. At least at the moment. Hopefully the two will be able to blend.
- Janet Fouts
PR is "Professional Relationships." Social Media is just "relationships." I know when a PR person writes something (or calls or emails) that he/she wants me to pass along that message. When someone writes something here they don't care. That's a huge difference.
- Robert Scoble
PR is about sending a message. SM is about sending a message, getting a response and creating a conversation
- Dave Peck
I agree with all all the comments here, and will also say that when I've contacted people for a PR purpose, I've still thought about it as a conversation with a human being, not so much as a "pitch." That's why the concept of "social media" and social networking came easily to me. I had always worked that way.
- Cathryn Hrudicka
I agree with both Britney and Cathryn. I think there has a been a long-standing division between the "practitioners" and "professionals" in the PR industry. Now that the primary media distribution medium has merged with the primary communication channel (it's all happening online), the differenence between the two groups has simply become more pronounced. PR and social media are both...
more...
- Steve Lynch
aren't we just splitting hairs at this point? For PR, social media should be viewed as a channel, much like dailies, broadcast and radio are. Then within the channel each community approached with unique tactics. You wouldn't approach FORTUNE the same as CNBC or Forbes the same as C|Net. One emerging trend coming from GenY and its impact in the workforce is the lines between professional and private lives are blurring. This is just happening in PR. This isn't Bernays PR world.
- matt ceniceros
Social Media by definition is about using technology to communicate and interact in new ways and share elements like text, photos, videos. It's not a new form of comm, rather new forms of delivery, and new tools to do so. PR and media are well suited for social media from a "professional" standpoint because the rely on delivering the elements of a story. I agree with Matt, it's more of a channel at this point. Bloggers are not necessarily journalists, but they are influential in their space (ie.Scoble)
- Jason Kintzler
Social media = our shared community view of the world. Traditional media = someone is selling something.
- Dion Hinchcliffe
from twhirl
PR is a purposeful effort to gain attention to a specific company, product, or service. Social Media is a nebulous term generically applied to blogging, social networking, online communities, and anywhere else where an individual can have a voice. There isn't any form of appropriate comparison, because they are completely different things.
- Jeremy Toeman
I would say that social media is a tool that can be used as a conduit for PR, one is the channel, the other is the message.
- Jackie Peters
I agree with Jackie PR is about getting the message out, typically on a professional level as Scoble indicates, while social media has created yet another distribution outlet for PR as well as many other communications. The trick for PR professionals is to recognize that social media is a two way street and is not merely an outward push of information. They should also use it to respond to readers and to keep an eye out for public opinion regarding their organization/product/service, etc.
- Heidi Cool
I agree with Jason, social media is just merely the channel, and each channel is a tactic. The overall strategy should be influence marketing, utilizing each of these channels to achieve your business objectives whatever they may be. PR really has no place in social media except as an additional source of information. People only trust companies to get the facts about their products which creates awareness. Everything else is almost always drawn from research and conversations with objective third parties.
- Devlin Dunsmore
A bland video on YouTube is useless. Same goes for a pure PR based corp blog. If companies are going to use social media for anything of value it has to be influence marketing. Engaging your customers at different points in the funnel in different parts of the web is the only way to establish new and strengthen existing customer relationships.
- Devlin Dunsmore
In this conversation thread the assumption is that the dynamics of social conversations and messaging will remain the same. The question we need to ask is "Would we there be market for professional PR in 10 years from now given the rise of social media?" I think the hurricane of two way communication revolution with instant feedback is building up and what we have seen so far is only tip of the ice-berg. There is a good chance that top-down one way megaphone style messaging may be history in a decade.
- Vic Podcaster
PR is the tool used to establishing and maintaining your brand / image / culture; whereas, Social Media is all about engaging your audience and fostering deeper community ties that relate to your brand management. So PR is the upper layer (formal) and the SM layer is more person and intimate layer (informal).
- Susan Beebe
PR evolved to influence the media controllers, just as advertising evolved to piggback on the media flow. Both practics evolved to influence consumers indirectly, because direct consumer interaction wasn't practical. Social media now allows direct engagement, and has evolved in an environment where consumers reject manipulative influence. This is a problem for PR and adverstising, but...
more...
- Chris Kenton
@Chris - BINGO!! real authentic relationships are must...no fake manipulative crap.
- Susan Beebe
I think in the context of corprate outreach, social media is a public relations conduit. Yes, there are different rules, but social media is a communications mechanism, not some separate animal altogether. Two cents.
- Jason Falls
pR, if you take it back far enough, is the delivery f information to the public, and social media is an interactive too used to deliver it, just like TV or a newspaper, only two way. Long way of saying I agree with Jason. And manipulation came fairly late to PR.
- Francine Hardaway
from twhirl
According to conventional wisdom, PR "is working" when a key message is repeated by "an expert" in an "editorial" context. With social media, it's about the "evolution" of a message/idea, once the group "engages" with it. This distinction presents the greatest challenge for PR firms – they're good at "placing" key messages with influencers; not starting/continuing conversations with communities.
- David Zeitman
PR means you are an advocate for an institution. that's just one point of view people bring to social media.
- Phil Wolff
from Alert Thingy
Puppy love - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
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Scott Schroeder, Lon Harris, Donna Mugavero and 7 other people liked this
Bull dogs are the best!
- Christopher Howie
How to Get More Twitter Followers: Some Methods That Work - http://www.doshdosh.com/how-to-...
Eric Johnson, Scott Schroeder, Czar and Mitchell Tsai liked this
Great blog post on Twitter 'strategy.' Something our clients should definitely read before jumping in ...
- David Weiner
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