charging existing iPhone users $15 *more* per month AND $200 after less than a year ago we already paid $600 is price gouging me in my opinion. I won't be buying a new one -- upgrading is a bad deal for consumers. Apple should treat their early adopters and evangelists better than that. - Thomas Hawk
$15 more per month isn't an Apple fee. You GET more for the $15 - 3G access. Something you didn't have before. - Andru Edwards
not getting an iphone either, but price gouging is apple's mo ;) - Sam Levine
Andru, it's not worth $15 more a month plus $200 for 3G -- and it's especially insulting to early adopters who shelled out $600 for the phone *less than a year ago* that there is not some sort of recognition of this or special break. Apple should do more to take care of the people that supported them and their product at the $600 level in the past, in my opinion. - Thomas Hawk
Yeah, but it's the same with anything else. Upgrade your BlackBerry you bought last year to a BlackBerry Bold this year...no price break other than the typical subsidy (which iPhone owners are getting on the 3G). - Andru Edwards
Andru, maybe not, but I expected more out of Apple and will certainly be within my rights to boycott the new phone until it's priced at a reasonable and fair level. And I wouldn't call the "subsidy" on the new phone "fair". While paying $199 may be less than the cost, Over the next 3 years you'll end up paying another $540 in additional phone charges -- no thanks, I'll wait. - Thomas Hawk
"early adopters and evangelists" ? Come on! :) The money is in the list and many marketers know that. It's not you or Scoble or (insert name here) that make them rich, it's the crowd. - directeur
But that's the thing - we are dealing with more than just apple with the iPhone. We are also dealing with AT&T - if Apple were running their own cell service for the iPhone (somehow), I bet we would be a little happier with pricing and such :) - Andru Edwards
directeur, and the more of the crowd that refuses to go along with this price gouging in my opinion, the better. The lesson here is simple. Be an early adopter with an Apple product and we are going to screw you. Burned once, fine, not twice though. - Thomas Hawk
I pay $15/month for unlimited 3G data for my windows mobile phone - so, no, you don't really get more for paying $30 - Alan Cheslow
Andru, Apple has unprecedented pricing control over this phone. They let AT&T jack the price up $15 a month to get a fatter subsidy from them for themselves. Nobody was holding them hostage and forcing them to do this. Pure greed on Apple's part. I'm happy to wait. AT&T's just their convenient scapegoat so they don't look like greedy pigs. Everyone already hates AT&T. - Thomas Hawk
If I chose to avoid buying any version of the iphone am I "boycotting" Apple, or did I just make a personal spending decision? "Boycott" implies some mass movement, which I don't see as likely. (Just for the record, I'm a Blackberry user, but whatever, it's a phone, I use it to make calls and for SMS, never understood the big fuss) - Jason Wehmhoener
Thomas: I'm not even U.S. I live in a poor and far country, I don't own an iPhone :) I was just making some basic notice from what I've learnt from a big copywriter "Gene Schwartz". You sure are right, but they're here for money and I'm sure they know what they're doing. - directeur
I like to use the word boycott Jason because it's stronger and I think better connotes my feelings about a company that screws over it's early adopters. Apple should recognize those people and offer them a better deal than everyone else. In my opinion. - Thomas Hawk
I have to disagree Thomas.. while I agree Apple likes to rip people off in a number of ways (see Apple Service Programs), you can't fault them for releasing a new product one year later. The analogy that has been thrown around - if I buy a TV from Samsung, then 8 months later they release a better one for lower cost, does that mean they own me anything? If you want the good stuff right away, it's going to cost you - upfront.. and down the road. - Tim Hoeck
I expense 100% of my phone bill to my company but they don't pick up the cost of the phone. So a lower price for the phone and a higher monthly charge for the phone service doesn't really hurt me. I'm still not sure if I'll go out and get the new iPhone though. I'm going to wait and hear the reviews of the Exchange push email. If that works as well as advertised then it's a no-brainer for me to buy this phone. - Mike Doeff
Tim, I don't fault them with releasing a new product one year later. I just think that a little price relief ought to come to those diehards who waited in line overnight and supported their product with both attention and $600. For me paying an additional $200 plus another $540 over the next three years for a phone that is frankly barely better is not worth it and insulting. - Thomas Hawk
AT&T is still the deal breaker for me. If Apple wants my business they can offer it on the carrier of my choice, thanks. - Eric
Thomas: Please don't get me wront, I'm not being harsh. But what about stoping being an "early adopter" and just wait for a lower price? You are paying your own impatience. Being served first has a price too - directeur
The fact that Apple's new $199 phone insults you seems a bit pathetic. - Mathew Spolin
directeur, the technological jump from my old Windows SmartPhone to the iPhone was *huge* worth paying and being an early adopter for. This next bump up to the new iPhone is much less significant. All I get is "promised" faster internet and GPS sorta. I was extremely disappointed in the last "promised" internet speeds and the bump up here isn't worth the high price. - Thomas Hawk
Matthew I don't mind the $199 phone, I'm more insulted by the $15 bump up in data charges per month. Especially when 3G goes for a lot less on other phones. It's an easier charge to hide and tuck away where nobody sees it and if they do then they can blame mean old AT&T. But it's still $540 over the next three years. - Thomas Hawk
Thomas: I understand the "user" side of you. - directeur
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/o... - you got this at least, right? :) I realize where you are coming from. But I feel like Apple somewhat appreciates its users a lot more than certain (i can name them some other time) companies. It might not always be reflected in the pricing, but I feel like you know that when you get into Apple hardware. Keep an eye out during Xmas time for a break.. if you can hold out that long! :) - Tim Hoeck
Tim, I did not get that. When I tried to use the $100 store credit at the Apple Emeryville store they refused to honor it. I'd rather have not gotten the $100 credit at all than to have been given it and then have them refuse to honor it for me. - Thomas Hawk
There's no logical reason to buy a V1 of any consumer product. Who's running out to by the new, tiny Sony OLED television? I waited to get an iPhone until now even though I wanted one last year, so with the money I saved by waiting a year, the current pricing is fine by me. - Jason Kaneshiro
Well, I am considering buying an iPhone, although I hate ATT, too. So how much will it cost me, really, for the phone and the plan for a year? I am a light phone user, so a minimal plan might work for me. Unfortunately, I've been told ATT & Edge are among the only plans that work in the country places I like to go a lot, like in the Mendocino forest, so I might be stuck with an ATT phone, anyway. The other benefits of the iPhone seem worth it, but I did not buy the first one. - Cathryn Hrudicka
"Customers asking about one-time fees associated with moving from a first-generation iPhone to an iPhone 3G should be told that they "will need to sign a new two-year contract at the point of purchase, but "may want to check with AT&T regarding any fees." Nice, way to bury the $15/month price jack and make AT&T look like the bad guy. http://tinyurl.com/4w3zpa - Thomas Hawk
This is pretty much a a standard with any cell phone provider/new phone. I can't just go and get a brand new phone now under my Sprint contract... unless I want to pay a huge chunk of change, or extend my contract.No offense, Thomas.. but we are all getting screwed by our cell phone providers - it isn't just with the iPhone. - Tim Hoeck
Does anyone know what exactly is included in the $45/month data plan for "business users"? Is this just a way to bill all employees on one bill or do you need this plan if you want push email, contacts, calendar via Exchange? - Mike Doeff
“we really need a block feature on friendfeed. my recommended list is mostly people I will never subscribe to. I'd love to stop seeing their faces pop up.”
You can hide and block people from ever showing up in your friendfeed stream, but I'm not sure that will get rid of them from showing up in your recommended list. - Robert Seidman
I've been wishing for the same thing.... I've had the same faces there since I joined. They should do it like FB, where you can 'close' those recommendations and others take their place.Finding new people would be sooo much easier - Rai
Agreed and a rare posted message from you Michael welcome aboard!! :-D - Joe Dawson
I think it's important not to confuse this "block" request with the "block people who are trolling jerks" feature that was recently unveiled, which is what I initially thought you were requesting (due to the first phrase). But yeah, totally agree with you re: the need for a "Don't recommend this person anymore" option. - Adam Lasnik
It looks more like they need a recommender which throws away the 'short head'. If you ignore the the 10% of recommended users you'd have a more interesting and diverse set of recommendations. - Adewale Oshineye
Blocking people DOES remove them from your "recommended" page. I wish I could really reconfigure what gets displayed on the recommended page, though. I wish I could see "people who are similar to Louis Gray," for instance. - Robert Scoble
ive already suggested to the ff team that the list on the right be changed - im sick of seeing scoble, calacanis, arrington, rose and laporte on every page - they said they will look into it - i'd prefer to see a random list - good for discovery. - Allen Stern
Robert: I'll be releasing a Friendfeed app that will please many people I bet and which answers somehow some of these needs. Yet IMHO blocking people just because "you don't know who they are" removes the magic from FriendFeed. And I think that's what Michael is refereing to. - directeur
Allen: I agree with you. I'd rather see the last people that person has "Liked" or "Commented on." Then you'd really get some great discovery. - Robert Scoble
directeur: I agree. "Block" is too crude an instrument just to get some more interesting people into the recommended page. - Robert Scoble
and what about profiles? how do you know all those people that subscribes to you anyway? people subscribe to me and I have no shit about who they are, but they may be someone important enough to subscribe back. why on each person here I need to do a research project? (checking their blogs feed etc) - Orli Yakuel
I was actually kind of hoping for a "Subscribe to all" button - Marco
I love adewale's suggestion! I've already seen the fat head - looking for the beginning of the long tail. :) - felix
On Facebbok and other social networks i see the profile page before "subscribing", in here i can just check the shared items, but that it is not very helpfull. - Mário Pires
i don't ever go to recommended - i don't mind seeing folks pop-up that are foaf, especially those that i don't necessarily want to subscribe to fulltime but don't mind seeing their posts from time to time - i think ff is for those that enjoy jumping into conversations in a serendipitous way & enjoying the iterative way that new features blossom - its definitely not for the tight of sphincter crowd - mike "glemak" dunn
I think there is already a "block" feature on FF...was not it being discussed by someone few days back??? - Arjun
I agree with mike glemak. I use FF to join in conversations, which hopefully means adding value to the discussion. Outside of that, I find it relatively easy to bypass the things I'm necessarily interested in, but I generally enjoy postings from people I don't subscribe to. - Kate Brodock via twhirl
Arjun: y es, there is a block feature, but really what this conversation is about is having control over the "recommended" page. The block feature in FriendFeed is too blunt an instrument to use just to get someone off of the recommended page here in FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble
agree with Robert, block is not the answer. Recommendations should just be smarter. Most connections by degree of separation with a dash of magic FF "authority" ranking, but just a dash, would do the trick just fine. Then page the page and/or have it pull random folks from the top 500 every time and it's fixed. - Thomas Hawk
I would be satisfied if the Recommendations simply showed a little more variety. It seems weighted to a relatively small population of candidates. - Kevin Johnson
that must be because i can't see you on the list ? - Ben Borges
Robert: oh ok....sry my mistake...had just saw the initial comments quickly as not time....now when i went thru te thread...i got the complete picture of the conversation... - Arjun
I totally agree. Netflix has a "not interested" button for recomendations, click it, and they won't recommend it again. - Dave Winer
I think I agree with Robert that 'block' will be too rude, Dave nailed it down 'not intrested' will be more socially appropriate given that this is 'FriendFeed' after all. - Vic Podcaster
It was all so much easier before we could see the social connections. Then I didn't know who told whom about what and I didn't care. Now that we can see the links and the content I feel like I'm going to have to manage everything. Great. More busywork. - Bill Anderson via twhirl
I imagine preemptively blocking people would prevent them from subscribing to you as well, which doesn't seem like desirable behaviour in this case. - Tanath
Proposal: Can we have different algorithms available for our choice from a drop-down menu? e.g. (1) popular with others (2) popular with friends (3) relevant/similar to me via post content/type (4) relevant/similar to me via comment/like (3) random (4) completely opposite of me (5) new people unusually active or liked or commented (6) by country/language (7) by similar room interests (8) etc... - Mitchell Tsai
the recommended list is the gutter of friendfeed no doubt. but blocking is a bad thing. I don't like the way ff recommends people at all. - Noah David Simon
Netvibes. Gives me the most important feeds on a single page. - Thomas Frütel
about:blank for a few minutes so I can test my sight (it's cahwahfuwl), then I move onto the more complex shapes and colours of Gmail and FF. - Cyvros/fyc
twitter (if its up),statcounter, shareasale. friendfeed, google reader - Allison
Spending more time in FriendFeed of late, but it's tempered by Twitter's stability and uptime of late. It's a different experience, though, because of the influx of other feeds and services to let us see the whole elephant, not just the trunk, tusks, or tail. - Mark Dykeman
I'm on FF more lately, but probably due to Twitter down times (just stating the facts, not complainin'). Still, there's plenty of value (and mass) on Twitter, so it's not about "either, or". - Mike Sansone
I am spending a fair amount of time on FriendFeed because Twhirl seems to lag out after about 10 API requests (because of my shaped internet). - Timothy Neilen
@Mohammad Javad اسمایلی جاسوس بیگانه با یک عدد کیف پر از دلار دردست چپ و بک عدد کیف انگلیسی پر از پوند در دست راست! :D - Maryam Ardakani
Frankly, FF has eroded my time on spent on Twitter. However, to be frank its still like 50/50. But certainly (4 me), RSS is a thing of the past . I have imgainaryfriend that crowdsouces what best and a scrapper for 'on the wire' news alerts - Peter Dawson
Since I started using twhirl (they need to change that name sometime soon), I spend equal time on twitter and FF (Thanks loic) - Shivanand Velmurugan via twhirl
I am this weekend, but only because Twitter has been down so much. I could see myself using both quite a bit if Twitter were more reliable. - Mack D. Male
I'm not fully getting the lure. Message boards have been around forever. - drew olanoff
I am too new to FF to decide yet. I have the feeling that both are two different things. Twitter is one specific service, whereas FF is more like an aggregation site including some additional services like this commenting system. I like the fact that I can follow lots of people using Twitterific, whereas the Alert Thingy for FF is (at the moment) too much of an incomprehensible zoo (too much info on too little space). Anyone has a better FF tool for me? - Bart Muskala
I'm spending even more time here than Google Reader. I'd like to have friends like the NY Times, various Apple News sites, Huffington Post (just to name a few examples). I know I can make imaginary friends with their feeds but thats not the same thing. If everyone was able to add a NY Times Technology (or other subject) friend it would be interesting to see if friendfeed could be a friend filtered RSS Reader. - Delete Me
this weekend i have tried to go to twitter and 3-4 times it was down, so i gave up and just stayed here, which is what i've been doing for a while now anyway. - Susan Beebe
nah; it has less conversation going on. Twitter is far easier at that - Thijs Jacobs
I've hardly been on Twitter at all over the past week or so - even when it's been up. I find that I'm seeing a fundamental shift in the way I communicate and spend my time online. - Colin Walker
I wouldn't say that. I'm just spending more time elsewhere period. - Corvida
I only really use Twitter via IM and to answer replies. In fact, whenever I reply to someone's tweet, it's usually through FF. - Cyvros/fyc
Definitely here and I'm planning to write a post about FF as a blogging platform today - Julian Baldwin
Twitter is more dead for me in the past few days then FriendFeed. Most likely all the downtime but Twitter was usually much more lively. - Bartek Gniado
@Julian Baldwin, interesting to see that post about FF as a blogging platform: I have an mp3 blog, and i'm going to give it a Room here on FF, to see if that encourages more comments around the mp3's and the music reaching more people as a result.... - Iain Baker
Isn't it weird that most of the talk in FF and Twitter is about Twitter and FF. It is like we are locked here...:) - Doruk
Yes, the more i use Friendfeed, the less I use Twitter. - Ryo
This metaconversation about hopping conversation hubs (aka the FickleFeed Sweepstakes) is quite interesting. Does anyone use Jaiku? I await an invite and am curious what it's like. When it returns in full force, does Google leap to the front? - Joel Bush
It's because the really interesting Tweets roll out of sight within minutes. Here on FriendFeed the most interesting stuff keeps popping up to top. - Robert Scoble
I told Twitter about your FriendFeed page. Hope that brings an interesting discussion of this Tweet and the one about long-tail blogging too. - Robert Scoble
Heh well if Twitter don't make the functionality, someone else will. Robert and I started a discussion and brought it here. Hell, if they asked for money (friendfeed), I'd prolly pay. Now, about that ZUNE.... I could give a rip about it buuuuuuut, there's this whole xbox integration thing. ;) I'll hit you up in a another channel hehe - Eric Rice
Twitter has always seemed like a tool to inspire conversation to be taken elsewhere due to the character limit & how easy it is to miss something. - Mel Francis
I have not had great luck starting conversations on Twitter, but it has led to many discussions outside of Twitter. - Terry Morawski
Good point - something I've been thinking about. I joined the Twitter community to glean info&weigh in on "bleeding edge" convos. I try&take a look in the mirror - I can certainly be a better contributor. - Sonciary Honnoll
Twitter is the great conversation platform but it's needed personal tuning - Igor Poltavskiy
FriendFeed is filling that discussion need... I guess - Rob Greenlee
Thanks Robert for sharing my Tweet on FriendFeed... Discussion is raging now - Rob Greenlee
Friendfeed should be called "TopicTalk" - Rob Greenlee
The key question today isn't what's dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with bite-size messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary. - Rex Hammock
The best thing about FriendFeed, besides that it's so much fun, is that it forces Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. to make their services better. Twitter should have added hide a long time ago. Flickr should have shown you more than the last 5 contacts photos. Competition is a beautiful thing. - Thomas Hawk
@Scoble So true. @Thomas Twitter needs to figure out how to scale before they add any new features. - jon
Yes competition - but more so: open communication - is truly a wonderful thing. Developments here at FF and twitter with respective apps like twhirl, AlertThingy etc. just go to show how quickly last years fad can become extinct (facebook?). Of course it would be even better to find fb add something truly novel. - Alex von Halem
Early adopters may have moved on but the herd continues to graze like cattle on the hillside at Facebook, MySpace, etc. Eventually, they will learn about other forms of social media and move there, but by then there will be something new that the fleet-footed have mooooved onto while the slow stampede contiues ruminating. - Phil Boiarski
I think it's quite possible that friendfeed has totally superior DNA. If I were to bet on facebook vs friendfeed now, I'd bet on friendfeed, even with facebook's huge headstart. Because, if Altavista would have done it's job right, Google would have never happened... - Meryn Stol
It's like a great brainstorming session where people build on each other's ideas to get to the best solution. So I think it's less about FB doing a better job, then fresh blood building upon the ideas to make the better solution. - Jane Quigley via Alert Thingy
I think it's all an evolutionary process, the good thing is anyway that the idea spreads. Facebook could save some money though and implement open standards right now. They have to in the end anyway. FB won't be a working Passport or anything like that. - Christian Scholz via twhirl
I think the "secret" force behind friendfeed's succes will be the discussion of the tech bloggers here. It looks like unintended crowdsourcing. There are so many feature (and strategy) suggestions flying by. I think some people *want* friendfeed to win, and friendfeed provides a way to let those people help them. It's gonna be a powerful combination. The only question is if they can hire good programmers fast enough to keep up. - Meryn Stol
Still get to the bottom of FriendFeed, but liking it more and more every time - David Orban
Same here @David, @Meryn I like your perspective and also your terminology 'crowdsourcing' more like crowd surfing! - Joe Dawson
For all who don't know, crowdsourcing is quite common jargon. It's what Starbucks (MyStarbucksIdea) and Dell (Ideastorm) are doing. This will beat the crap out of companies who don't. - Meryn Stol
If IBM had done its job right Microsoft would never have happened. etc - Stuart Woodward
great observation about crowdsourcing meryn, friendfeed seems very interested in hearing what people have to say - Chris Jones via twhirl
I don't use facebook anymore, I just pipe my friendfeed stream back into facebook - Mark Ramsey via twhirl
Im going to go on record here with a prediction for the future: Facebook is the greatest hyperbole the web has ever seen. I know it's worth a lot because so many investors put so much money into it, but Im expecting it to earn the title for "Most Inflated Value Ever". - Andrew Baron
BTW, if George Bush had done his job right, everything would be worth at least twice as much. - Andrew Baron
tut tut ...forgive n forget was what my mum always told me. - viki saigal
I think Facebook and Friendfeed cater to different purposes. FF is great for sharing ideas while Facebook is good for maintaining profiles and contacts. - Vishal M
FriendFeed brings the "NewsFeed/Mini-Feed" out of Facebook. Most of my friends are not on Facebook, so this is great! I can give people links to interesting articles/photos/discussions on FriendFeed. Signing up for Facebook overwhelms many of my friends. It's too complicated to set up an account. - Mitchell Tsai
Facebook was never useful for this. Way too heavy. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
this is exactly right. A while ago I had an idea similar to FriendFeed and Pete Cashmore told me, nah, Facebook is already doing it. As it turned out, Facebook had the chance but didn't capitalize on it. - Stan Schroeder via twhirl
i could be wrong, but I don't think Facebook is (a) losing users to FF, or (b) incapable of making this a reality for the masses - Jeremy Toeman
FriendFeed is much more about content. Content and insight defines the "friends" I pick, whereas Facebook has a greater social context. I would not follow by nieces tweets in FriendFeed, but she would be on my list of "friends" in facebook. - Ralph Poole via twhirl
If FF added better mobile access and posting a nice real client, i'd have less and less reason to use Twitter. None at all actually - Michael Gartenberg
Ralph, I agree wholehearted facebook is a different beast all together. A different beast that thankfully doesn't have a zombie game or super wall :) - Doug Brooks
Not sure I agree about Facebook. It was built for college kids, not for people looking for useful information. - Mike Reynolds
Of course Facebook and FriendFeed both serve different purposes. It's also entirely possible to use both. I think we'll have to observe what services suffer due to FriendFeed in order to see what competes with FriendFeed. - Here's... possible248!
not everyone is capable of flyfishing in the river of posts that is friendfeed. some folks just want to go out and get sushi with their friends, and then get back to their lives. facebook is for them. - Chris Hollander
But that would break facebook's business model - collect the data we input and sell it back to us.... - Robert O'Callaghan
friendfeed is way better and way simpler than facebook. Andit's app, poke and zombie free. Damn brilliant if you ask me. - DC Crowley
@Mike R "It was built for college kids, not for people looking for useful information." Funny! - Jack Baty
Don't think so. FF is a different site built on a different premise. Its lighter and more agile while being very powerful. Facebook is way more profile centred while FF is more like Google Reader on Steroids. - Roberto Bonini
Of note is that the video is primarily of Louis Gray giving details of the crew at FriendFeed. He will be employee #8 heading up PR :) I kid....I kid.... - Mark Krynsky
Robert Scoble interviews Louis Gray, as he introduces the FriendFeed (Oct 2007) team of 7 people. Tudor Boseman (#7) joined last week. Sanjeev, Jim, Ana Yang (stumping for Obama), Kevin Fox - Chief Designer. -- If you'd like to Digg the story, click http://tinyurl.com/5sq7y5 - Mitchell Tsai
