Craig Brownell - Comments

FriendFeed is the easiest way to share online. Learn more »

My earlier comment: My prediction: in 10 years, we'll know of 10,000 planetary systems beyond our own. Anybody else think so? #nasa #space

Wednesday from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Snipergirl liked this

That's a fairly accurate prediction, given the exponential growth of the past decade. It s/b on the order of 10^5. http://bit.ly/7SPXzl - Craig Brownell

michael silverton

@loudmouthman my observation: whatever will cause the maximum inconvenience for the least marginal gain has highest probability of occuring.

July 19 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Craig Brownell liked this

Actually, I don't like this, but I agree with it. At least, it seems to hold for my life, as of late. - Craig Brownell

I wholly concur, Craig. It's an unquantifiable, unverifiable, subjective observation that can nevertheless evoke an emotional resonance similar to a common reaction upon first learning of the very real and measurable phenomenon known as entropy. Heh-heh ... perhaps we could coin this one the theory of Existential Entropy. We don't like it, but sure as hell see far too much of it. Hang in there! ;-) - michael silverton

Robert Scoble

I thought about blogging but looked at the sun outside and the sun won. Half Moon Bay FTW!

July 19 from iPhone - Comment - Like - Share

Freddie Benjamin, Ralf Rottmann, Derrick and 12 other people liked this

"I fought the sun and the ... sun won." - Craig Brownell

7 more comments

time to refresh is key. have a good day sir! - Calvin Ayre

I looked at the thermometer and it said 109. The sun won and I'm hiding in my shady office. - James Hull

you can stop protesting with GREEN PIC now please :) - Weird Shanghai

Perhaps it was reintroduced on social networks in solidarity but that Green-Hulk-Scoble pic is classic scobleizer! - Benjamin Taylor

We most feed energy from the sun, before this short summer goes away. - Keven

I will pray for your 3G. :-) - Mark Davidson from BuddyFeed

Good choice... Enjoy the summer!! :) - Susan Beebe from iPhone

afternoon fog is moving in, time to ride into the hills.. - jacek

Evan Williams

There are basically two types of businesspeople: Those who see money as the ends and those who see money as the means

July 2 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Louis Gray, EricaJoy, Marcel Weiß and 20 other people liked this

Money is the means to eradicating human suffering from the planet. - Craig Brownell

Money as an end IS human suffering on this planet. - Pat Hawks

Money is a hack. - joshua schachter

Craig Brownell

Singularity University in the Chronicle of Higher Education - http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael...

July 2 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Kurzweil predicts Turing Test-passing AI in 2029, but not a “singularity” (rupture in the fabric of our understanding) until 2045. - Craig Brownell

Craig Brownell

Crescent Earth - http://www.nasa.gov/multime...

July 1 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Beautiful pic: Horn of Earth digging into lunar surface. - Craig Brownell

Robert Scoble

Real time in real time - http://qik.com/video/1622325

May 6 from Scobleizer's Recent Qik Videos - Comment - Like - Share

zeroinfluencer, Calvin Ayre, Chris Rossini and 83 other people liked this

WOW! Realtime in FriendFeed for you, Robert, looks like a stock ticker. Thanks for sharing the video. - Alexander Grundner

42 more comments

Robert, my friendfeed doesn't load THAT fast.. ;) But I do love the real time feed! - Daynah

Real Time FTW! - TheHenry

Robert that video was awesome to watch. That setup is amazing. You get your audience involved, respond and recognize them. Changing the game each and every day. - Geoff Farinha from Nambu

I can only hear the audio - there is no video...what could be the problem? - Mahesh Patwardhan

Mahesh: do you have the latest Flash player. - Robert Scoble

No love for flash 10.0 r22 on linux. Black video. :( - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

BTW, the embed shows black with audio, and the link to qik.com shows the video but no audio. How odd. - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

How many eyeballs do you have? - Craig Brownell

Steve, the audio on the Qik site works fine for me. I do get black on the embedded version - guess I need a flash upgrade. - Laura Norvig

The video was blank for me here as well. Using Windows XP with Google Chrome [updated today]. Was able to watch on the Qik site. Great video Robert ;) - David Damore

I'm getting blank video. Only audio. OS X/Safari. - Diego Barros 

I have the latest flash player... theres still no video here.. however I can watch it on the qik.com site. - Mahesh Patwardhan

No video in there. - Alex Sauceda

Also black video on the embed here. - EricaJoy

If you use the Qik link instead you won't see the blank video. I think the problem is on the FF side. - Alexander Grundner

I'm torn between thinking - "that is awesome" and "what's the point?". For Scoble it makes sense as his job depends on keeping up with all this and commentating on it. For the rest of us, not so sure this realtime river of news is really where the future is taking us. - Barak B

Love this video. You gave me an idea on utilizing feeds on a vertical screen - Thomas Chai

Apparently, Scoble either wastes his time watching 3 friendfeed columns instead of writing a new book or revising Naked Conversations (in real time) OR he just showed us how the job looks like for some community managers. - Michael Jung

Amazing how many posts come in. More data than the NYSE. - Bill Hertzing

when i grow up i want to be a geek like Scoble - daniela barbosa

You'd have to become a child to be more like Scoble :) His child like wonder is his trademark - Chris Saad

cool! :-) - Luca Conti

serious overload. i'd tune it all out. it's too much. - Don Martelli

Don: of course it's too much, but that's why my list of searches grows by about five every day. I want to have the best list of geeky searches in the industry. - Robert Scoble

This is fun to watch http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Alejandro

...Scoble, i am as realtime nuts as u with 65 soc news monitors therefore it irritates me that the new friendfeed doesn't allow realtime button-refresh twitter updates into the feed - or i was too stupid to find the icons. it also s*ks that u cant add all u old icons to make automatic refreshes in case there is some glitch. anyone else can help out in case scoble is busy ? - ewing2001akaNicomedy2010

I read somewhere that Scoble singe-handedly save (or something to that effect) FF. Now I can see how. Thanks for sharing this. Btw, I also got black screen here, but fine video in Qik, using OSX/Firefox. - waraney rawung

ewing: I have no idea what you are asking for. Tweets come here within seconds. Seems real time to me, why do you need a button update? - Robert Scoble

Darth Scoble is more machine than man now. - Rolf Schewe

interesting.. Scoble is watching the world in his war room.. :D - Pico Seno

Proves once again how sorely track (realtime search alerts) is lacking. The setup as it is now is better divided between right and left eye serving corresponding brain hemispheres. The streams then should be tweaked in accordance with brain hemisphere functional/cognitive asymmetry; the result would be hyper-realtime web/personality blend leading to eventual zombiefication and madness :-) - Mindaugas Dagys

That's amazing, that's the reason why you're the best at what you do. Thank you for sharing that video, Robert. - Diego Espinoza V.

Can someone please tell us how to setup the Twitter stream like Robert has?? I want to set that up sooo bad. - Jeff

Looks like Nambu on the Mac doesn't it?? - Kim Flintoff from twhirl

Jeff: You turn an Apple monitor sideways. YOu open up three different Safari or other browser windows. You stretch those windows to look like my screen. You point them at various Tweet streams. - Robert Scoble

I guess this is not live and you are saying what are you seeing here LOL I am seeing a black screen :o( - David Gross

David: not live. It works here. Do you have the latest Flash player? - Robert Scoble

hmm.. didnt work in Chrome, doesnt work in IE, I havent installed Firefox yet LOL - David Gross

Wow that's crazy quick! - Kevin Whalen

yes, have latest flash, would not play in friendfeed but when I clicked on link it worked on the qik site - David Gross

I watched half of it till I started getting dizzy and shut it off LOL dont know how you do it Robert.. I guess gradually you can. ever use Pocketwit? LOL you would miss 90% of tweets. - David Gross

btw I would like a windows mobile app for friendfeed or website :o) - David Gross

Wow, that is so cool. Watching the long monitor is very hypnotic - Asgeir

justine

May 6 from Flickr - Comment - Like - Share

Honestly, the little Steve is a little creepy. Maybe it's the silly beard, or the glasses. Little creepy. You, however, look very nice. So nice, you almost offset the creepy Steve. :-) - Uilleam Hawke

3 more comments

There's a Steve Jobs? I see no Steve Jobs! Oh, there he is, with a Patrick-Duffy-for-a-leg-like sunbather thumb. - Craig Brownell

Yeah I vote for a tad creepy. - Drew Lucas

rigire rosca tisca - Luigi Toscano

Still Jealous of little Steve - Dan Krivolavek from twhirl

@CrystalinaB

Help am I missing something? The page looks different and is moving too fast for me to keep up.

April 29 - Comment - Like - Share

Steven Perez, Craig Brownell, Jamelle and 3 other people liked this

Hit the "Q" button on your keyboard to pause the real time feed, it'll be like the old FF - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

9 more comments

It's the new friendfeed. Has been in beta for a few weeks. What Sean said. - Martha

Hit the pause button just to the left of your cute mug. :) - Josh Haley

Beta has gone live. Q will pause, it won't autorefresh like the original FF. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Beta is live? Good luck with the new look, FriendFeed! Here's a virtual bottle of champagne over the bow. - Chris Baskind

Wow, it's kind of cool. I read two stinking books and I missed this huge transition? I like it a lot, I think. - @CrystalinaB

I need a video tutorial. I feel outdated and lost. - @CrystalinaB

Good idea. - Josh Haley

This wouldn't be nearly as bad if the background weren't gray. As it stands, it looks horrible. - Jamelle

I've been using beta for a long time, used to it; if you want to revert to the "old style" you can simply goto: http://friendfeed.com/realtime ... cheers! - Craig Brownell

I wonder how many FF users they've confused today by making the beta go live. - Morton Fox

Robert Scoble

I've been on Twitter 886 days. How long have you been on? http://whendidyoujointwitter.com/ Answer here: (I joined November 20, 2006).

April 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Marko Saric, Mohammad Abdurraafay, Susan Beebe and 80 other people liked this

I just tried getting on this as you tweeted it and you crashed the site! or did your followers? - Matthew Sauer

195 more comments

Damn Scobleffect! - Kevin Kuphal

Matthew and Kevin: hah! - Robert Scoble

TechCrunch got on it February 7th, 2007. - Robert Scoble

786 days. Started on 28 February 2007. By the way, it doesn't seem to work on Chrome on Windows. Had to fire up Firefox. - Sam Grover

CenterNetworks got on it December 12, 2006. - Robert Scoble

I got it on August 23 2007, 610 days - Jaffer

758 days! - Matthew Sauer

sir, you just crashed that site. edit - previous attempt chrome, same FF on XP - shayne catrett

I think you just killed their website... - Roy Herrod

I created on March19, 2008. Only 401 days for me. :) - Paul Wade

470 days ago. wow ididnt realize it was that long i've been on twitter - Fuad Arshad

I joined on April 4, 2008 - 385 days. - Laurie Stoker

I joined twitter 910 days ago on 27 October 2006 - Willem Karssenberg

I joined on April 23, 2009. - 1 day. Took me long enough, right? - Angus Burton

You don't need to use some third party site, this information's in user info available via the API. Just look for "created_at" in the url http://twitter.com/users..., using your user ID, of course. - Ken Sheppardson

300 days - Thomas Power

I deleted my account at one point, and have subsequently shuffled and renamed some stuff, but it looks like KenSheppardson's been there since November 5, 2007 - Ken Sheppardson

I joined twitter 829 days ago - http://whendidyoujointwitter.com ? - Rom Feria

Jul 30, 2007 - Pat Hawks

April 19, 2007 - Joe Buhler

Your account was created on 1 August 2007 - Jay Neff

20 March 2007, to follow @Veronica. :) Even beat @leolaporte by 20 days! - Surferbill

11 August 2007, 623 days ago. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

26 January 2009 - so 88 days ago... not really that long to be honest, I kept avoiding it! - Roy Herrod

756 days ago for me - Donald Matheson

Dec 6, 2006. 870 days ago - Rodfather

759!!! - Iain Baker

568 days ago. - Simon Wicks

799 days. - Morton Fox

November 30th 2007, A year less than you. - Paul Bainbridge

750 days @thbenkoe - thomas benkö

218 days ago. Now how about whendidyoujoinfriendfeed.com - Kiran Patchigolla

617 days -- more important though - when was the last time I actively used it (not sure -- is there a similar tool to tell me when I joined FF? :-) ) - Brian Sullivan

775 days johnr99a - John

710 days "only" - Jean-Charles VERDIE

Scoble effect > digg effect - Tim McDougall

Jun 2007 - Zee.

I joined twitter on 25 August 2008, 243 days ago: the rest is History - sofarsoShawn

still haven't and not gonna. - Andrew C

Joined Twitter 754 days ago - Michael Kreidler

Or just click on your profile in tweetdeck / many other "clients" -- it will tell your joined date. I joined Fri 07 Mar 2008 23:57. - Nicholas Kreidberg

I make it 279 days if my math is correct. - Sharron Field

You're on Twitter? :-) - sofarsoShawn

The website is down at the moment, but I already know the answer. I'll be celebrating my one year Twitter anniversary on May 06. - Sharon McPherson

845 :-) December 31st 2006 :-) - Luca Conti

448 which actually suprised me, must have early adopted then just forgot I had the account. - Richard Tousignant

I've got it going on http://whendidyoujointwitter.appspot.com/ - trying to figure out how to point the domain name to it - can anyone help? (What a noob) - Neville Ridley-Smith

665 days - chrisofspades

I joined April 2007. wish I could figure it out # of days...the link above isn't cooperating :( Loving tho that I have been on over 700+ days ;) --- thanks Sharon McPherson for the redirect. It worked - 748 days - enza (aka iVenus)

408 days - Chris Noble

728 :) 27 April 2007 - Max Trisolino

Neville, I'm no expert, but you can redirect the domain's index page to http://whendidyoujointwitter.appspot.com in your .htaccess file. Or you can just use a meta redirect. - Sharon McPherson

I joined twitter 743 days ago I feel so old now :-) - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

752 Days ago. Funny little tool--the app, not me. ;) - BISQ

Apr 18 2008 - Nicholas James

515 days. Kaspersky is warning of a Trojan downloader on that site. - Elpie

872. Seems like yesterday. - Kevin Gamble

667 days - seen lots of whales - Jack DeWitt Smith

dude, everything you touch, breaks..gettin' a 404 :) - George Dearing

Ok - forwarding has been set up - site is live again - Neville Ridley-Smith

775 days for me. - Chrimmus Tad

I think we need a new verb: The site has been -- robertscobled or scobleized? - dario

it was pretty hosed before he got to it but it certainly didn't help matters! - Neville Ridley-Smith

765 days. huh? didn't know it had been so long - Ted

773. - MikeAmundsen

I joined twitter on 13 August 2006 - I joined twitter 986 days ago! - Carlos Granier-Phelps

I joined 576 days ago (09/26/2007). - Joey Gibson

Looks like i've been on twitter for 527 days. I don't remember using it before November of this year..... - Eric

3-8-2007 (778 days) - George Dearing

I joined twitter 806 days ago - Kim Landwehr

774 for me. - Julie Barrett from twhirl

I joined Twitter 803 days ago (February 11th, 2007). - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

775 - Victor Ganata

April 29th 08: "I'm just killing time at work right now. Looking forward to keeping updates on my friends." http://twitter.com/Skizzli... - David Cook

July 13, 2007 for two accounts, April 10, 2008 for the other. - Kathy Fitch

19 March 2007 - 768 days ago. Just set up an account for my company and was explaining to my coworkers - when I mentioned I'd been on Twitter for about two years, they were like, wait, I thought it was only a couple of months old! *sigh* Funny that my guesstimation was so close, though! - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

April 8, 2007 - rob

I'd sure like to see a personal Twitter timeline similar to coverflow where I can easily go back and forth through tweeting history and see what I've said over the years... - Glenn Batuyong

So I'm the oldest twitterer here? - Carlos Granier-Phelps

I joined twitter on 23 July 2006 - (jeff)isageek

i beat ya by a few days carlos :) - (jeff)isageek

@jeff, beat me by about 3 weeks ;-( - Carlos Granier-Phelps

March 20, 2007 - Shevonne from fftogo

Since September of 2008 - Adam Martin

25 April 2007 crap that's 2 years tomorrow - Rodzilla

Nifty little site, Robert...774 days for me. - Ken Kennedy

I joined Twitter 460 days ago. I joined FriendFeed 556 days ago. - Louis Gray

July 14, 2007 ... 650 days - Stuart Liroff

224 days ago - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

17 November 2007 - BEX

766 days -- 21 March 2007 - xero

800 days...beat Morty by a day :) February 14, 2007 <3 day.... - Mark Krynsky

1yr 1mo ago ... 24 Mar 2008 - Craig Brownell

524160 minutes. - imabonehead

563 days ago- 9 October 2007 - metalerik

26 August 2007 - 607 days :) That's pretty good, yeah? - Michael Forian

THIS IS MY FIRST DAY ON THE INTERNET! :D - Josh Haley

I joined Twitter 10 days before you, Robert.. November 11, 2006 - Pico Seno

What is Twitter? - Dominic Jones

I joined twitter 767 days. - Paul from twhirl

I joined twitter 1015 days ago - Wayne Sutton

only 261 days, just caught the tale end of twitter's more innocent days. - Mike Elliott

1016 days ago. A day before Wayne! - Kevin Fox

Wow. Kevin, Wayne, and Dave are cooler than me! - Robert Scoble

24 October 2006, 914 days. What's your average # of tweets per day. My average is 0.012 :-). - Gary Burd

Is how many days we've been on Twitter the new status bar to measure up to now that there are million+ following @aplusk? (766 days) - Peggy Dolane

421 days. - Sue Radd

yeah, like way back in the olden days... last summer. - Peggy Dolane

08/29/2008 - John Wright

823 - Johnny Worthington

848 days. - Alix Whitmire

762 days - Bastard Operator From FF

807....7 Feb 2007 - Live4Emma (L4S)

536 days. - Larry Hudson

1002 days - rob friedman

13 April 2007, 743 days. Though wasn't very active (and still aren't) - Jemm

October 26, 2006, 912 days ago. - Erik S

819 days ago - Rob

twitter 17 November 2007, 525. friendfeed 12 February 2008, 438 days ago - Adamo Lanna

802 days ago - 13th February, 2007. Though it's only the last year or so that I started paying more attention to it. - Andy Bold

731 days for me - Jesse Stay

I joined twitter on 9 September 2007, so 594 days ago. - Peter Kruit

26 August 2007, or 608 days ago - David Young

less than 1 week. - auburn

I joined Twitter June 18, 2008 - 311 days ago - Tony C

21 dic 2006 - pm10

4 April 2008 386 days - Jamie Vidamour

Hah! 1002 days. - Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty

@bdeseattle joined 825 days ago. @pplpwrd aka @infinitelymeta joined 735 days ago. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

67 days :( - rama mamuaya

777 days! - Roshan Vyas

I joined twitter 507 days ago - Meriç Dağlı

699 days ago, 27 May 2007 - Majento

750 ish - Jamie

A late starter, 419 days, joined 2nd March 2008. - Kol Tregaskes

I've been here for 738 days (April 18th, 2007). - Brome

2 June 2007 I joined twitter 693 days ago - Felter Roberto

I've got a pretty silly question....how do you know when you started using Twitter? - Christian (Simply X)

@Christian: Check out the link on top :) - Jemm

I joined twitter 268 days ago (July 30, 2008), and i just twitter my 802nd tweet.... - Marina

lol oh, durrrrrr. Oops totally missed that. 57 days? w00t! 02/27/2009 - Christian (Simply X)

I joined twitter 714 days ago, on 12 May 2007 - A.T.

2 days before A.T. 10th May 2007 - nouhad

I joined twitter on 8 April 2009 - http://whendidyoujointwitter.com ? I couldn't resist any longer, @leolaporte kept talking about it. - Willem (@wim66) ☠

821 days ago on Jan 25th, 2007 :) - embee

I joined twitter on 25 April 2007- happy anniversary to me!! - Brian Sheehan

910 days. Joined in 27 October 2006. - Martin Añazco

I joined twitter 153 days ago on 23 November 2008. On the other hand, I've been on FriendFeed for a year and Facebook for 5 years. - Bora Zivkovic

I joined twitter 309 days ago - DAL

i joined twitter 43 days ago - John Wood

Funny I joined Twitter on Feb 21 2006, the day after you. - Ernie Oporto from Nambu

July 29, 2008 - Kevin Whalen

778 days (March 9, 2007) - Kevin Tunis

My first account 13 July, 2006. My most used one, 12 February 2008. - jcunwired

723 days ago, 03 May 207 - Bill Rawlinson

\o/ I joined twitter on 20 December 2006 - Caers Mane

332 days - Damond Nollan

772 days - i was invited much earlier but didn't see the value for me (in nyc) since it was all about what silicon valley folks were having for lunch, wait has that changed ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

I joined on March 28th 2007 (759 days ago). - Daniel Rowley

769. What's next? Slashdot user numbers are now passe. What's the next measurement of geek coolness? - Andrew Leyden

at least 943 - one account Oct 2006, but I can't find the date for my main one. - randulo

I joined twitter 223 days ago - OnuRC

1 December 2006 - John Graham

I joined twitter on 30 November 2008 - http://whendidyoujointwitter.com ? - Roshan Ramachandran

I joined twitter on 23 January 2007, 823 days ago :) - CantorJF

303 days on Twitter, geez, what a newbie - Rick Bucich

769 days ago - Victor Panlilio from Nambu

495 im young compared to yall XD - Zafarali

Joined on 16 March 2007, 771 days ago. (Yes, WDYJT crashed yesterday) - Red Label

714 days - twitter.com/atveit - Amund Tveit

244 days on Twitter so far :) - Frode Stenstrøm

538 days joined on November 4th 2007 - BCK

Wow. I guess I joined the same day as you ;). What were we thinking?!? - Michael Lehman

695 days plus the days from an old account thats no longer found - Monique

863 days ago. I joined on 14 december 2006 - Cristian

986 days ago, 13 August 2006 - Sean Oliver

1015 days ago, 16 July 2006 - Dobromir Hadzhiev

886 as well - Michael Specht

funny! i joined Nov. 20th 2006 as well. :) - Eddie Codel

788 days ago. - Gunny doesn't side-hug™

27 August 2007 - Tony Vota

716 days - Ryan Dadey

Ok, I'll admit it, I've shamelessly hitched a ride on Robert's coat-tail by embedding the feed from this discussion into a page on my website. http://twitclicks.com/rlrn - Sharon McPherson

724 days! Joined during MIX07. - Gregg Le Blanc

I was only slightly exaggerating yesterday. I have been on for 863 days. I joined in December 2006. - Francine Hardaway

I joined twitter 786 days ago on March 1, 2007. - Rajiv Doshi

I joined a day after Scoble (November 21, 2006) - Michael Markman

I beat @techcrunch! But as usual I trail you by a couple of months, Robert. ;) - Denise Howell

782 days, joined on March 5 2007, wow didn't realize it was that long ago - Keith - @tsudo

421 days, joined on 1 March 2008 - I joined twitter and FriendFeed on the same day :) - Susan Beebe

912 days, cant believe I was there before you :-) - Patphelan

563 days - Peter Efland

762 days ago on the 27 March 2007 - Mick Stanic

Took me Twanalysis to finally find it .... Sept 12 '07 Late adopter? - Charlie Anzman

I joined twitter 179 days ago - http://whendidyoujointwitter.com ? - Geoff Jackson

Robert, check this out : http://whendidyoujoinfriendfeed.com/ - Ahmet Alp Balkan

Robert Scoble

Some of you need followers to get people to engage on your thoughts. Beg for followers here and explain WHY we should follow:

April 21 - Comment - Like - Share

'Like' robot (frɐnc), Kathleen Capps, GeekDads.TV and 129 other people liked this

I'm @scobleizer and you should follow me if you want tons of interesting tech news. I watch thousands of friendfeeders and Twitterers and am always looking for the most interesting stuff before @techmeme gets it. (UPDATE: I AM FOLLOWING EVERYONE ON THIS THREAD) - Robert Scoble

305 more comments

Isn't a better way to get followers by engaging on their thoughts and getting attention through engagement? I NEVER follow anyone who begs the way you describe. - Ken Camp

That's an example of what I'd like you to do. I will follow anyone who answers on this thread. - Robert Scoble

Well because we cannot compete with Scobleizer...and we are desperate for a following to launch our own blogs. :-) - Tarun Chachra

Ken: the problem is that on friendfeed and Twitter you need some seed followers. - Robert Scoble

I agree with Ken - I make a point of not following people who ask for followers (and ESPECIALLY not if they call themselves "social media experts" or "SEO experts"... retch) - Chris Taylor

I'm not sure about begging but it's difficult, especially when you're overwhelmed by inspiration about what you're working, to feel like you're not connecting with enough people. Then again, I don't want a bunch of robo-followers, but people who I can engage and engage with me. Twitter is weird. - Remote Revolution

@Chris, you should follow Mike Nayyar then: http://beta.friendfeed.com/mikenay... - Daniel J. Pritchett

A friend of mine joined Twitter a month ago and he already has more Followers then I gathered in two years!! Please Help! thank-you very much @moon http://twitter.com/moon - paul mooney

Hmm, I thought who you followed was more important.... - Scott Breakall

I guess getting on with some friends on Twitter is most important. They already know people. This adds to better quality content as opposed to just random following people which most of the time creates noise. I however love it that @scobleizer creates is great in creating a stage for interesting people :) - Michiel Sikkes

I personally don't need THAT much but I desperately need FOLLOWERS for XDBE project, to spread the idea behind it! To bring the Internet to the next level together! Global Social Graphing http://xdbe.com/faq/ - Elmira Gazizova

If you don't follow me my gf will lock me in the basement without food and water. - rob

Only follow me if you like tech AND religion . A dangerous combination! - Dan Walters

begging is annoying. I guess you have to engage by following and slowly build an audience. A lot of my followers ( though not much ) has been by engaging on other tweets etc . Good use of hashtags doesnt hurt either - Kashif Khan

I rarely have anything to say myself that doesn't require engaging in conversations with others, so I don't want ANY followers. I follow those who I believe I may want to engage in conversation with, or those whom I desire to know more about. - Larry

@jpelegrin. When I do say something on Twitter, it's usually very insightful. O.K., not really, but I need some peeps. This is embarrassing! - Jeremy Pelegrin

i ain't going to beg, but i will make a note that those interested in computers, programming, science, and humor might find FriendFeed just a little bit more enjoyable if you follow me. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

Breakall: It's a moving target. Whatever serves the purpose of the conversation at hand. For the real story: most ppl care, including Scoble. - coldbrew

you should follow @unmarketing cause I sang about Scoble http://www.ReTweetMeVideo.com - Scott Stratten

I agree you need seed followers. I just think the way to gain them is by engaging people who interest you. Be proactive. To me,this approach sounds, not disengaged, but not terribly engaging or proactive. I realize I'm an engagement fanatic, but if someone wants me to follow, a witty response to something I've said will lure me in, especially if there's an interesting interchange. Someone who follows me and has a post like you describe, I simply ignore (or block if appropriate for me). - Ken Camp

Hmm, you should follow me if you'd like to keep a pulse on grassroots tech organizing going on locally to nationally, and because I'm looking for more #scifi fans to chat with. (@deannecuellar) - DeAnne Cuellar

Quite simply this is all an exchange of ideas, thoughts and information. I want to follow and be followed by those whom I can learn from, as well as to receive input/advice/insight from. - Ted Bradford II

I'm actually culling what few followers I do have to get to a conversation that makes sense for our "marketing" business. Um, yea, guess that's not a "pitch". - Glen Group

Ken: this is my way of finding interesting new people to follow who I might otherwise not know about. Also, anyone who answers here IS engaging. - Robert Scoble

you should only follow me if you like Star Wars, baby photos, web design, gadgets, random weirdness, memes, and music that makes you nod your head to the beat - Nathan Chase

@coldbrew You're exactly right, they do care. Just a little reminder of advice that's come before when OTHERS were trying to ratchet up the follower numbers. /cold brew coffee rawks - Scott Breakall

follow me, because i would get more active with more followers. :) - Alexander Rode

I try to be interesting, but really we are starting 2 new businesses here and I could use as many followers as possible. And I follow back. - Audrey

Nathan: if anyone ANDs that list you won't get any followers! I choose to OR it and am now following. - Chris Taylor

@Wordful: [I'm not above begging, so please oh please follow me.] Follow me because I'm someone who can help you understand and implement an editorial strategy on your blog. I'm also a no-BS deep thinker who doesn't like to conform. - Charles

You can follow me - @michiels on twitter - if you're interested on how a European internet startup works and what differences there are with for example SV startups. Also how Dutch schools combine entrepreneurship and studying. - Michiel Sikkes

if the follow isn't two-way, well it's not much of a conversation is it? - Sean O'Brien

@Alexander, sounds like chicken and egg problem. Do the followers come before the comments and content or after? :) - Paul Wade

The problem here on FF is that the majority of potential subscribers are in the USA so the site is most active when I'm in bed here in the UK! I think the key to getting subscribers is to engage with others' content and make sure you share interesting things yourself. That way you become a 'valued' member of the community. You have to put some 'work' in though. - Martin Bryant

I'm an average, non-techy person. - Nurse Katie

so are we begging you? watch for awhile and see if you like :) @rveep - reed price

Thomas Hawk follows me and since you don't you obviously are behind the times :) - Kevin Kuphal

Nathan: I "AND" the list, and followed. - Larry

Getting that starting mass is an absolute nightmare. I think i hace about 9 followers and all but 4 of those are spammers. I haven't been that prolific so far but i'm trying and will hopefully trigger some interesting thoughts in your head - Jamie Vidamour

Rather than begging for followers, I'd like to tell you all how I've learned to use Twitter to engage like minded aviation related folks in a time when my industry (business aviation) is under fire from all sides. Twitter has allowed me to build meaningful relationships with those that write about and/or care about the future of our industry. Follow @BizAv if you're interested in joining the conversation or check out http://tinyurl.com/GJetTwitter for other business aviation related Twitters. - Mike Mikolay

I've actually noticed I've had a few more followers lately than I've had before. Hopefully they're getting some interesting tidbits from me. - Paul Wade

@Chris - right, it was a little tounge-in-cheek, but that's the majority of subject matter you'll see crawl across my feed - Nathan Chase

audrey, i personally believe in quality over quantity. one needs numbers of course to get the message out (when you aren't giving of course. i.e., signal to noise) but I find no benefit in having 5000 followers if 4000 of them have nothing in common with me/my business/my interests etc. - Ted Bradford II

I don't beg for followers. If you want to follow there is a 98% chance I will follow back. I like to think I bring interesting news to the table. - John Flynn

The whole idea of "followers" plays to our inherent need of not being alone or feeling important. Gaining followers is like gaining money. You find the excitement of gaining followers and once you are loaded with "followers" so what? It doesn't make you happier, doesn't make you more successful. What's 25 thousand followers if your conversation on twitter is about how many beers you are drinking on happy hour? I find that people who are very zealous about gaining followers have EMPTY conversations. - Bo Lora

You should follow @jeremybogdan for thoughts on the latest gaming and tech/social media news, in addition to updates on the gaming podcast I run and daily observations. I think that wraps things up in a nice package, but honestly, I enjoy the conversations most. Really more "followers" would just make it possible to carry on conversation and meet people I might have never been able to talk to/meet otherwise. - Jack Bogdan

Beg for followers, Robert? :( - Mona Nomura

Every so often, the world changes, sometimes quickly,sometimes very slowly but sometimes unnoticeably fast. Change is constant and constantly changing. There is no timetable and you cannot predict or trend the unknown but you can change with it as quickly as it evolves. That's what my blog is about..its located at http://newnewstory.blogspot.com - Iggy Kin

Ok...so I'm here and I absolutely want people to follow me, but why should I have to beg to be followed? I'm doing great work, just like the interview I did with you Robert, and have other cool guests slated to join me. Begging makes me feel dirty somehow. I'd rather have followers slowly work their way into my life than to have them show up en masse one day simply because I begged here. I'm with my pard. Ken. Begging? DO NOT LIKE. - Sheryl

Mona: I'm looking for new people to follow and there's a lot of newbies here, so figured I'd help. - Robert Scoble

I'll do it! I provide a weekly podcast for IT pros which provides interviews, views, and tech tips. You can listen to it here even. I also post self amusing thoughts and comments that are only funny and witty to me. Follow me and have a richer life :) If you are interesting I'll find you here too. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

After helping @scobleizer find a bike, Google thinks I pose "a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers": http://bit.ly/177PTK #TrueStory - Walt Ruppar

I'm John Wright and I'm building web applications under the name Wright Labs (@wrightlabs). You should follow me if you want to be the first to know about new apps I've built or updates to existing ones. - John Wright

Read 'Beg for followers' as 'Market yourself'. - Kiran Patchigolla

Sheryl: sometimes you have to promote yourself. I used the word "beg" to get a conversation going. - Robert Scoble

If I'm followed by those who follow in huge numbers(e.g. @scobleizer), I'd like to be included in one of their "special" friend list or filter. It sucks to have your voice drowned out by the masses. I guess there's always DM. But that works only if the recipient is following you. OK, just follow me already :) - Edmund Tay

Kiran: right. - Robert Scoble

I've already tried to get my current high profile followers engaged in a conversation here: http://friendfeed.com/shaynor... with my GAME which was actually going to provide a fun way for me to gather some usage data to elaborate on a point for further discussion here.....NO COMMENTS from my FF peeps!!!!! - shayne catrett

also this can relate to the fresh blood tech bloggers discussion a while back - Kashif Khan

I am @harscoat and this is a test ;) on the Scoble power!! - I am on friendfeed thanks to him to be honest and thanks to friendfeed & Brett Taylor feed I discovered SANTIGOLD (Lights Out in particular) and in the end this feed/twitter thing and collaboration led to value for my ears :) so this feed thing works for me - Harscoat

Follow me because I'm just too awesome! :P But, in all seriousness if people think I'm interesting then they should follow me. I'm not going to beg for followers. They have to decide on their own if they want to follow me or not. - Mathew™ one of a kind

I get followers when they see me post on topics they search for; I get the most interaction that way too. So maybe if one wants more followers, one should talk about stuff people care about :-) Other than that sometimes folks I actually know comment on my tweets. - Emil Sit

Follow me for the occasional humorous comment and pretty photo. And maybe because you got curious, looked at my profile, and figured that, yeah, I'd like to follow that guy. (And I'll do the same for you.) PS: Nice way to kickstart newbies like me into following others. - Andy Bold

Robert - promoting and begging strike me differently. VERY differently. Promoting myself is easy. I think I'm a fabulous podcaster, fabulous interviewer. I Would LIKE to interview YOU again and want you to let me know when you have something really cool to talk to about, ie Building 43. That's self promotion. Are you buying it? :) - Sheryl

PLEASE follow me. My mom is the only one commenting on my stuff and it's making me look like a dweeb. - Christina Henderson

Sheryl: I was already following you! :-) - Robert Scoble

@chrisquick LOL, that made me laugh. - Paul Wade

lol Christina. On another note, do not follow me, I cannot handle the responsibility. - Christian Collins

Wow this feed has just started and already produced a wide variety of comments. Desperate for followers or power of FriendFeed ;-) - Michiel Sikkes

Me @smohkim.. why? just to get a bit more than just regular tech news - Sardar Mohkim Khan

I'm pretty new to FF, so I'm not sure my content is worth following. But I'm trying to learn socmedia while working on video game news at gamingangels.com. So, yeah. :) - Elizabeth Parmeter

Yes Robert didn't mean beg literally, follow his example which is his first comment. He's really asking a for a concise answer to the question "Why should we follow you?" - John Wright

I want people who are worth following back. I really could use some interesting thought provoking input. - Mary Wehrle

Speaking of follower numbers, what's the minimum to shoot for before decent engagement can start to happen? - Edmund Tay

Edmund: four. - Robert Scoble

Robert you make me LAUGH! WTG! And to all my NEW followers, thanks :-) - Sheryl

I follow back on Twitter @nencetti - to get followers I follow people and wait. (i guess that is sorta begging) to lose followers i tweet too much. I am starting to use FriendFeed, it grows on you, like a fungus... - Mike Nencetti

Ha, funny Christina! I just jumped into the follow-a-thon here. I want everyone here to follow me because I want to learn from you and hope I share some knowledge to enlighten you some day :-) - Jason Cronkhite

Robert: Is that based on the assumption that all 4 followers share a common interest in what you have to say or share? - Edmund Tay

Edmund: yeah. But all you really need is one with other followers who also like what you have to say. The second I post a comment or "like" one of your items it gets shown to thousands of people. - Robert Scoble

Please, please, please. Why? Because I'm begging. - Willem (@wim66) ☠

I do hope we can get you along to a #tuttle the next time your in London. In the mean time feel free to follow me @robocallaghan - Robert O'Callaghan

Robert: I'll be in London in early July! - Robert Scoble

Wow, that is fast! - Willem (@wim66) ☠

Willem: you link to cool applications. You should have both begged and explained that. - Robert Scoble

Take a look at my current FF homepage and if any of the entries engage you on an emotional or intellectual level, then follow! - Sam Grover

i am begging for followers here for two reasons. 1) my money was wasted in trying to get 19,000 followers in five days and the free snuggie 2) If I get each of my followers to donate one dime to me, i can easily afford the big green hands like scoble has, then EVERYONE would follow me. - Ted Bradford II

You're already following me Robert - please, only follow me if you want good content. That's the secret to gaining quality followers. I do like to follow others with good content though. - Jesse Stay

I started with this social networking thing because I miss discussions with fellow scientist when I was one. Not all conversations here are so "eggheaded" but engaging. With more followers I could start more conversations. - Robert Hafer

samgrover anyone who puts Upcoming.org geeky events in here is good enough for me (like you do). - Robert Scoble

I see this as a community service thread - no problemo rs :) - mike "glemak" dunn

i lack focus. my links lack focus. i am the hybrid vigour in your friendlist. - dromologue

No begging. Look at my feed and subscribe if you like it. It's a mixed bag of tech, marketing, politics, business, food and humor. http://beta.friendfeed.com/ajkohn - AJ Kohn

Jesse: actually I've gotten quite a few good quality followers by doing crappy content. It's true. The stuff I think is good quality content often doesn't get people to follow, even the smart ones. Of course I learned that by using your tool! :-) - Robert Scoble

dromologue: you linked to treehugger.com. You can't be half bad. - Robert Scoble

i am in the same boat. I would love to have followers but i don't have time to focus in on one topic. - Zach Scott

You should follow me because I enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches http://preview.tinyurl.com/dxvejm - Jon

Jon: my brother will probably enjoy talking to you then! - Robert Scoble

I probably wont ever beat you or @techmeme. I'm a pretty nice guy though. Plus, I promise to only post a few pictures of cats a month- none of which with be tagged with Obama! - metalerik

U will be giving us "lurkers" a voice. - Frank Sant'Agata

You SHOULDN'T follow me (@supermoose37) because I don't want you to. Anyone currently following me, should stop right now. Follow me, and you'll regret it. - Marcus Beagley

I can't imagine being interesting enough to follow. - Peter Kruit

metalerik: I liked the Google Mars images you had up. - Robert Scoble

Ooos, I forgot to beg and give a reason why I'm begging. So here goes: Follow me because I try to post and share items that I think will be of interest to some if not all of my followers. That and I will also follow you back :) - Edmund Tay

Probably shouldn't follow me ... [ http://bit.ly/a8eqT ] - Craig Brownell

Peter: you are running the iPhone 3.0 beta. That makes you interesting, didn't you know? - Robert Scoble

Usually I'll browse the other FF'ers shares and discussions to get a feel for that person's share/insights. I tend to follow people who have an equal number of interesting ORIGINAL items/posts rather than just retweets/reshares. I admit, I'm one of those people who doesn't get a lot of Likes *sad* or Comments - Glenn Batuyong

PBJ is pretty compelling, and dromlogue's hybrid vigor comment cracked me up. This thread is making me laugh, and keeping me busy! - Kathy Fitch

I like pictures and stylish things and these you will find in my feed. I usually follow back and I comment too (I know!), especially if I don't have to be serious about it. - Mark H

Follow @frodeste for tweets on tech, crm, project management and life :) - Frode Stenstrøm

FF and others have given me the opportunity to engage with people from all over the world from my quaint little town - Steve

Follow @keithbarrett - I've been in IT for 30 yrs and am just as excited by the possibilities today. I've been involved in all aspects of applying technology to business from software coding to infrastructure design/support. Past employers include DEC, IBM, Red Hat & Disney. Living though the computer->Internet->Social Media changes helps me see a bigger picture of how we got here & where we might go. Like @scobleizer I read TONs of news regularly and share the more interesting bits when he's late :) - Keith Barrett

Robert: Ideally I like to do at least one of those a week :) - Sam Grover

Steve: what little town? Update: looks like it's Billings Montana, right? Love that town! - Robert Scoble

Robert: Good point. - Peter Kruit

Lyons CO - Steve

And for those that don't get it - Robert is creating significant content about the people he is engaging. This makes you more than a number or a bio. I should have said follow me because I'm not an SEO or marketer :) - Keith Barrett

Well, boo. Why isn't the pop out page working for me? - Kathy Fitch

Ah, there it went. Better! - Kathy Fitch

Kathy: friendfeed is behaving a little slowly for me right now. I think they might be pushing out new code. - Robert Scoble

Must be it, Robert--I like the fast and furious view best! - Kathy Fitch

great exercise bro! and illustrates why i am selective about who I follow and who is allowed to follow. - Ted Bradford II

please follow me, please please please - Adrian

Makes sense for me to comment here, so that I can get Robert's attention when I need it in future. Plus I follow him anyway. - Ashish Rangole

Adrian: I'm already following you. :-) - Robert Scoble

I'm @thepuck. You should follow me for a mix of tech news, stuff on coding, social media, and writing, plus whatever fun stuff catches my fancy. I sift through tons of content each day and share and publicize the best of it (IMHO). I also have lots of awesome friends who you can meet through me. Thanks for the opportunity, Robert! - Neal Jansons

You should follow me if you want to live a truly boring life vicariously thru me. :D Serious;y, I am the worlds most boring tech enthusiast. - Gunny doesn't side-hug™

Robert: What are you favorite filters these days? :/ - Christian Collins

OK, on a more serious note, you should follow me (@supermoose37) if you are a fan of either "Transformers" OR "Doctor Who" - Marcus Beagley

Christian: I have a filter that shows me all items with one like. That's my most used one. - Robert Scoble

I won't beg for followers but if you are interested in social media, security technology, networking technology, politics, or economics I'm sure we would have alot to share together. I'm on twitter as @tsudo but prefer conversations on Friendfeed. - Keith - @tsudo

Robert: Sounds like a fire hose! - Christian Collins

Marcus--How about VR-5? Anyone remember that one? - Kathy Fitch

When I'm not trying to corral my 2 little boys (4 & 1) I hop on FF to keep my sanity!! - Kevin Whalen

Christian: it's not that bad, actually. I am building more and more filters, though, on companies in tech industry and terms I see get popular here. - Robert Scoble

You should follow me because I know where the main cable is for the whole internet and have a saw. I also adore tech, don't own an iphone but would like a Segway. Hopefully enough said :) - tech pops

If you don't follow me, how else are you going to know which Air Force 1's I like the best? This knowledge could come in handy in the future, you never know. - Richard Lawler

"I also have lots of awesome friends who you can meet through me." - Gee I'd like to be able to say that someday! Can I meet some? :-) - Keith Barrett

Kathy: Sorry, the only thing I watched with VR in the title was "VR Troopers" - Marcus Beagley

Okey doke--now following tech pops, strictly for self-preservation, dontcha know. - Kathy Fitch

I'm kuckoo for Co-co Puffs and have a few screws loose, so sort of like that box of chocolates: you just never know what you're gonna get tweet-wise (@tweric) or ff-wise. But, man, do I spell good. - Eric Matas

I noticed some people are actually recommending people in this thread to follow. There's a room you can do that ;) http://beta.friendfeed.com/ff-subs... Although if you want to follow me - feel free I follow 11.6k people and have a river of noise following through constantly so I can find the latest goings on ;) - Nicholas James

Sigh, it's hell being old. I also loved that short-lived horror dealie, "The Others" I have a tendency only to watch tv that all others apparently (and oh so wrongly) hate. - Kathy Fitch

DeAnne: I'm following, though for the #nptech, alas not for the scifi! - Eric Johnson

Follow me because I just came back to FF from a social media vacation, and I have just had time to read some really good (dead wood) media I want to put to good use in future comments and posts:) - Thomas Bøhm

Robert, point well taken - I guess I'm still trying to figure out why I have gotten the followers I have then. I don't think I've ever begged for followers. Maybe my content is crappy? ;-) I guess most of my audience is probably SocialToo users, which may have something to do with it. - Jesse Stay

Now I'm wishing it wouldn't default to top of page after every follow. How spoiled am I? - Kathy Fitch

My little brother just signed up for Twitter (http://twitter.com/aaronmatas) and I'd love for legions of people to follow him just to scare the sh*# out of him...by showing him the POWER of the social web. Bru-ha-ha-ha-haaa. Oh yeah, he's a TV sports journalist, so he kinda needs to know. Thanks -- please tell others! - Eric Matas

Follow me for tech info related to graphics, web programming, browsers, iPhones, and natural language processing. And, maybe I'll fill you in on my next big project :-) - Charles Ying

Charles: your page is the most interesting I've seen yet (to me). - Robert Scoble

Follow me for site feedback ideas (and thoughts about UI in general), programing advice (to come), an introduction to the game of Go (to come, in a separate feed), (re)shares of interesting and/or depressing political blog articles (note: I brand myself "moderate socialist" policitally, though I'm assuredly not opposed to meritocracy), and random philosophical musings. - Karl Knechtel

Well, my knee-jerk reaction to "beg" lingo notwithstanding (you'd think my knee would learn to behave after all this time), this is a fun follow party. I'll be back later to see who I missed. (Because, here, you *can* come back later, which is awfully nice.) - Kathy Fitch

Oh yeah also, you should follow me because I'm an application developer and ultimately I want to build what YOU want and what YOU will use. (and I need your feedback to do that :) ) - John Wright

Because I just started FF when the beta came, and needs a kick to get started :) - Erik Gulliksen

I like to express and pass on info about: Tech, Flyfishing, Architecture and remodeling construction. I am a freelance Architect Draftsman in Wisconsin. - Frank Sant'Agata

Robert: thanks! - Charles Ying

I'm IT hitman working in The Bahamas. I tend to follow Foreign Policy/Defense Blogs and dabble in political satire. - Adi

Frank: What areas of Tech do you tend to talk about most? Do you photograph Architecture too? You need some feeds into your FF my friend. - Paul Wade

Though I don't post a lot of native FF entries, I like likes and comments as a way of filtering stuff. I'll share with you; you share with me. And I love FF's real time features, particularly when combined with live video. - Tom Landini

I have a hard time begging for anything :-) - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Thanks Paul I will update, I just stated FF - Frank Sant'Agata

weedmonk: Wait, you're a hitman? - Paul Wade

Ah, I'm a mom, so I'm used to the wide-eyed beg. Dogs and kids--there's some real smarts there that we could all learn from. Besides, this whole thread made me laugh out loud right at my keyboard more than I have in a long while. - Kathy Fitch

beg is an odd thing. Yes - I want followers - not for the sense of feeling oddly popular - but like @scobleizer I like being able to search through massive amounts of data that users create, and without followers, i'm limited. - Courtney Engle

<--cracking up. This couldn't possibly have been a less subjugating experience for anyone. The "beg" term got hackles up, but also grabbed perfect gobs of attention, so there you go. It's a fun and funny thing, and my bberry, for one, is all abuzz about it! (Humming a Temptations tune and smiling, here.) - Kathy Fitch

Wow, amazed at the semantics debate over "beg". Report just in... all net oriented sarcasm/tongue-in-cheek/parody must come with obligatory semi-colon parenthesis to indicate jest (even if to a minor degree). ;-) Would much appreciate the follow Robert, I always enjoy your posts. As a consultant I work on finding simple solutions to complex problems... my tweets are all over the place. - SAM

I have about 280 "hand picked" followers. That might not be all that impressive, but I have a quality stream at least. - Rutger Blom

Rutger: I find that the best quality you can get is to stick to under 200 people you're following. I do that with Friendfeed's lists. - Robert Scoble

Back so soon :-) The London #tuttle is on a friday at the moment 10-12 at the ica in London. - Robert O'Callaghan

Because I only joined Ff because of Scobelizer, therefore he should have to watch me flounder around trying to do something unique. - Gregg Le Blanc

1up Scott, Begging has the well deserved connotation of supplication. Hence, the semantics. I would like to find more people that are interested in the Semantic web. Wordpress hacks and plug-in development, Designers, Coders, Innovators that need Beta testers. Companies with products that I may be interested in. My interest's are becoming more diverse as a result of my participation here. TY - Eric Logan

I talk about library stuff, volunteer and service stuff, social media stuff, and Drupal as a versatile platform. If you're interested in any of that, you'll be interested in me. I also like food and kids. - Laura Norvig

I am sort of feeling like Oliver asking for more gruel, May I please have more followers sir, I promise if your not educated at least you will be entertained and amused. - Kim Landwehr

Well, sure, but I'm thinking back to the days when the listserv was a main mode of discussion. The subscribers were a kind of built in audience that posters to the lists didn't really have to fight for (though list founders had some work to do)--the challenge (and the fun) was in engaging people *despite* not having a handpicked audience. Some self-selection because of list themes, of course, but the audience was there, and anyone could join. Some of the best discussions actually flowed from difference. - Kathy Fitch

Because I want to become more involved and participate as a connector. - Trish Ridgway

just need followers - Bill Majkowski

Bill: followers are overrated. But I'm following you now. - Robert Scoble

Are you testing whether there's a limit to the number of comments in FF? ;) - Janek Mann

I'm trying to straddle journalism, tech and sports all at once (can you straddle three things, by the way?). Looking for ideas and feedback ... @jondenunzio - Jon DeNunzio

Forget followers, I would like just ONE comment on my FF! (BTW, your already following me Robert) - David

I have nothing for you to read of any importance just random thoughts.LOl just wanted to throw my two cents in for what it is worth. - stan fogo

Follow me if you like games and insights about game studies. I'm a game designer studying how to use game design to improve the experience of web applications. @kurai - Federico [Kurai]

Not sure there are any limits on number of comments in a thread. Ffundercats used Friendfeed as live chat while recording an episode and got over 1500 http://beta.friendfeed.com/ffunder... - Tom Landini

David - you should import more things then just Twitter then ;) - Nicholas James

Best advice to those perusing this thread who are new to FriendFeed? Follow these folks: http://ffholic.com/Users... - Nathan Chase

I drink http://friendfeed.com/public for dinner. - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Oh, and today's my birthday, so follow me! - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Someone should follow because of an affinity for either the subject matter, interests, or attitude someone else shows in other comments. I don't see it as a need, so much as a desire for company, interested in similar pursuits but different viewpoints and perspectives to contribute. I have been in tech for 30 plus years, yet have published my poems & fiction for just as long. I always have an articulate opinion and love to chat. I don't have as much time as I'd like 2 come to FF to engage with others. - Phil Boiarski

My views are different than everyone else’s, that is the only good reason to follow anyone at all. - John D Reasor

Another good reason to follow me: I don't use Facebook. How 'bout that? - Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy

Hi, i'm a french student in management. I'm mostly interested in IT, media, newspaper crisis and other stuffs (sometimes in french :s). I intend to be more and more active on FF in the future, so one day to another, you might have to follow me. Why wait ? :P - Stanislas Jourdan

Interesting. I'm not sure that I'm a high contributor. I follow to feed on information. In doing so, I find people to engage. - Valley

OK, I'm throwing my hat in. I've started contributing by linking all my accounts, and finally having a reason to use the share feature of Google Reader. It's awesome to add my voice to the conversation. But after a while, when none of my posts get any likes or comments, it can feel like you have to be super popular to get in on this. I'm a relatively new user, but it would be nice to have a few more followers at least. - Matthew

beg? seriously? I'd rather not engage people If it requires begging. Well I see you used "beg" to spur engagement.. But I still don't like the word even if it resulted in the desired effect. I guess I'm just not that desirous of conversation simply for the sake of it but rather to expand my thought processes and to alleviate my biases - Bill Rawlinson

Cuz I'm the last and newest person to post a comment here. Bananers. - Harry Wolff

I tell it as it is. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

This reminds me of back when torrents first came out and I'd post stuff to see if anyone would download it. We're throwing stuff at the wall and seeing if any sticks. Friendfeed is a useful addiction. - Matthew

LOL! Amazing how many people take offense to the words "beg" and "need" -I "need" more people to engage my thoughts. (What a great way of putting that) It would be nice if more people would see the things I post and comment on so that I would get out more from this little (but expanding) corner of FriendFeed. I have plenty to say, but only a handful of active people to critique it. Tech, SM, Dogs, humor. #funhashtags. Please help Robert, Louis and Jesse take a break from me ;) Introduce me to your friends! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I am far less interesting than @scobleizer... I am an early adopter with a private-beta-testing-program addiction. I offer loads of insight to developers, designers (and users at large alike) on this new stuff. I'm the one you want testing your app, service, nifty super cool product of the now. Follow me pretty please with microchips on top, I'm @tinym - t i n y m

I don't want more followers, I want more engagement from existing followers. More subscribers is great and all - but if they're not going to engage, it doesn't excite me at all. - Anthony Citrano

Nice idea! I'm not one to beg, but seeing as I could do with some more engaging followers, this is a bit of an experiment. Follow @daveinthecloud for predominantly tech, Apple and science-based updates. - Dave

I use FriendFeed more to read interesting things I wouldn't normally see. I'm not always around and I don't always participate. Does that make me a bad person? (@elroy) - elroy

Fun post! Lots of cool people to follow. Marketing and tech geek who happens to make wine in her basement. @bsmntbootlegger - Karrie Sullivan

An impressive list of comments already. And I have found a few interesting people to follow here already. I guess it is all about "give and take". - Mike Hellers

Ok, I'll bite: Why should you follow me? Because I post about science, math, music, programming and geek stuff with wit, style and panache. - Chris Taylor

lol! I was making wine in my backpack on my bike trip this summer :) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Follow me. Help make media history by reaching the first 10 million follows. ... Well I guess that won't work anymore. - Keith Barrett

Mike: same here - Frank Sant'Agata

There is a lot of talk in the comments about "audience", "SEO" & the "need" for followers, this all appears very $ orientated to me, maybe someone "influential" should start a conversation along the lines of "how can I make you happy on friendfeed"? - William

if you are a geek into getting stories related to social media, geeky stories, pics, videos, tech related stuff, like bacon or lego or star wars. you will probably like my stuff. check it out....and hope to see you soon! - (jeff)isageek

Unless you like NSFW stuff and LOLCats stuff, really nothing to see with following me. :P - Christian (Simply X)

I'm game for more followers. I run research boats for a living and sometimes like to blog about that, my bad ass dog Jake (Silky Terrier) and other things I find interesting...tech, cool photos, hikes, etc...on my personal Posterous blog. I've been active on twitter for quite awhile but am fairly new to Friend Feed. I get a real kick out of most members of the Gillmor Gang and like following their conversations...maybe I'll start to engage more. - Scott Schanke

William: I think ur missing the point, it's about being new to ff and having a voice. - Frank Sant'Agata

Praise @Scoble for once again "starting" a conversation - William

For me, the whole tech deal has always been a love of the game issue. It's like writing, that way, and teaching, too. Interesting how perspectives differ. I just thought of this as fun, and as an opportunity to learn and connect. Also, my inner English prof always thinks of "audience" as a matter of rhetoric first. A thing like this, for instance http://tinyurl.com/cxkzpo is its own reward: great chance to meet people, and it made me *really* hungry. - Kathy Fitch

Lindsey - surely meeting more serial killers is not the answer. ;-) - Brian Sullivan

See, there? Lindsey not only spells her name correctly, but also likes horror! Lindsey, I spent quite a few years teaching horror film! (The *best* students in those classes, oh my gosh--such an interesting mix.) - Kathy Fitch

Dying (editorial aside: ah, that's strictly metaphorical) laughing, here. - Kathy Fitch

I just subscribed to everyone in this thread that I wasn't already subscribed to. Why? I love participation. People commenting here participate. - Thomas Hawk

Good plan Thomas I think I will do the same. - Brian Sullivan

Hi. I'm Simon, i post a mashup of stuff from all sorts or genres. Photo's, art, tech, videos, games. I'm a bit of a 'i like everything' kind of guy. I try to get in on lots on convo's, and i never really leave FF, sometimes i just sit here idle and watch the world pass me by :) - Simon Wicks

"That's an example of what I'd like you to do. I will follow anyone who answers on this thread" is that a promise robert ? :) - goutham

that are some interesting question to address here...will people be more likely to get into friendfeed if more people follow them? or are people more keen on just sharing their thoughts and feelings with a select few? should there be a way to algorithmically increase the visibility of a post ? is that "fair" ? - goutham

You should follow Pax Stereo Tv (www.paxstereo.tv) because we represent something NEW and DIFFERENT! While we lack the full sophistication of a traditional network, our "NeoUrban Internet Television" network is at least original and edgy, and we are streaming live Monday through Thursday every week! All this with only 3 full time staff! We represent YOU, the new breed! We are not perfect, but we keep it coming, and we are getting better. Peace. - Mario Hemsley CEO - Pax Stereo Tv

What's the easiest way to go through and follow everyone here? I don't really have to go down the list one by one do I? I started to but thought there must be an easier way... - Scott Schanke

Initiatives to free the world economy in ways that benefit the poor @openworld - Mark Frazier

Scott: I had to add each one of my 14,377 subscriptions by hand, so so do you. Sorry, there isn't a way to "follow all" here. Which is a good thing, in my view. - Robert Scoble

goutham: I am following everyone who has participated with a comment in this thread. Scott: you can see if you are following someone already by looking at the little icon to the left of their comment. If you are already following them, it'll be bluish. If you aren't, it'll be white. - Robert Scoble

always be closing mario ;) - mike "glemak" dunn

Ok thanks Robert...I'm just a bit frustrated that it keeps collapsing the conversation after each follow and therefore I have to find where the hell I left off...I'm plodding along though. - Scott Schanke

Scott: I have this thread running in a popup Window. Here's how to do that. First, open this item up into its own Window by clicking here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/scoblei... Then click the time stamp (it says "5 hours ago" right now) and then it'll open up its own little Window. That makes it "live" and like a chat room. Scroll to the bottom and watch new items pop in. - Robert Scoble

I follow smart, funny people, and I post/pass along all kinds of stuff. I never know what I'll come across next, anything from the effects of cancer treatment on IQ scores, to vintage cocktails, to news on weird fiction writers, to updates on the latest and greatest zombie games, to random questions and ideas that occur to me in the wee hours. I'm always looking for posts that have me saying, "Hmmmm, that's interesting...and here's why..." - Heather

I'm not sure begging for followers is in our self interest, Robert. I find that the people who hawk themselves loudest aren't the people I make the best connection with. And it's that connection that matters whether it's a personal or professional. - Susan Reynolds

Not sure if I need any followers, but I think people follow me because I'm so freakin awesome. Oh, you haven't heard of me? Find me on The Google. :) - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Oooooo.. Choose me. Choose me. Choose me. Oh wait. You already follow me. But anyone else is welcome to read my nonsense about whatever is on my mind. Lately - dissertation, teaching chemistry, thinking about some technology, and just fun family items (mainly my dog) - LPH™ and his dog P™

i vote for LPH! - michael sean wright

Susan: that's fair. But in friendfeed you can put people into lists. So you can subscribe to all the "beggers" and put them into "begged for follow" list. That way it won't mess up your other followers. - Robert Scoble

LOL nicefishfilms .. - LPH™ and his dog P™

nicefishfilms: I'm already following LPH. Weird, I've met both him and you in real life, too! - Robert Scoble

I'd rather people follow me because I said something or posted something interesting. - CAJ, somewhere else

Rahsheen: if you are on "the Google" then you MUST be awesome! I'm on "the Google" too. Search for "Robert." :-) - Robert Scoble

Yep - I'm being followed - (looking behind me) - wait - why are you always in front of me then Robert? - LPH™ and his dog P™

Alan: you must have posted something interesting, because I'm following you. Either that or I thought you were that country singer! :-) - Robert Scoble

LPH: you actually passed chemistry on the first try. I did not. ;-) - Robert Scoble

Any interest in visiting Alaska? Find out why you should plan a trip to Fairbanks @insidealaska - Inside Alaska

Robert: You're the first to mention it, actually. I wondered if the same thing was happening on Twitter. ;) - CAJ, somewhere else

Inside Alaska: that's always been one of my life-long dreams. Interesting, I'm noticing more marketers setting up shop in friendfeed. Next come the celebrities! Alan: heh, probably! - Robert Scoble

Here's why people follow me: http://beta.friendfeed.com/glenc... - Mistletoe Glen

this thread is officially to long to follow on an iphone - mike "glemak" dunn

mike: it's too long to follow on a 24-inch Apple display, too! :-) - Robert Scoble

We are always striving to be the best. @abounding - Abounding Media

Thanks for the "Hot Tip" Robert!! Much easier. - Scott Schanke

Follow me for posts about social media, the publishing industry, online communities, funny pictures, and my coffee addiction. Oh, and babies. I run a baby site and have a baby so...expect some babies. I also enjoy swearing so there may be some of that. - Kate

Follow me (@abbashaiderali) if you like a mix of tech, finance, cars, random, and personal content. Variety keeps me interested & you're cut from the same cloth, we'll get along just fine :) - Abbas Haider Ali

You can't be shy. You need to have a voice and use it. - Russ Jackson

I promote the issues that are important to those I follow. But follow me because I took the time to read through ALL of these responses... :) @rbucich - Rick Bucich

I dunno about begging but new followers are always nice - Angela P.

I will have to say, I found several new people this way, so thanks Robert. I know I need to get better at finding more people myself, a la the FFundercats podcast Louis Gray discussion. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

you better be following me .. Im a fireman and I haz an axe .. - johnpiercy

I don't want 'followers' - vanity is my least favourite sin. I want stimulating conversations & interesting stuff to read/watch/etc. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

I'm @ryandadey and I love the internet and would like to be more engaged with people who feel the same. I like to share through FriendFeed and Twitter interesting tech, science and environment articles from Google Reader, as well some of my own thoughts. It would be more fun if I knew people were seeing my stream! - Ryan Dadey

I'm just this guy whose life has been revolutionized by the social web. I'm no "guru" or "expert," but because I live here so much, many people and even companies and organizations have asked me to guide them into this landscape, a responsibility that both scares and energizes me. Because of that, I seek to share, give, and help anywhere possible. Trying to make tons of connections; if you want to be one, thanks! - Mark Traphagen

You should follow me so you can point out where I could use some help on things, because I'm an interesting person, and because you like a bit of the crazy in the folks you follow. I'm Chris Charabaruk and I approve this beg for readers. http://beta.friendfeed.com/coldaci... http://coldacid.net http://twitter.com/coldacid - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

Beg, droool, beg :) - Susan Beebe

Martin Bryant is right - now that the US is asleep, this thread has died down. Onward Europe, Middle-east, Asia ! :) - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

Thanks for the offer to follow us commenters Robert. I subscribe to all friendfeeders who leave comments as well. It's a great way to get to the heart of who's really participating in the trenches here on FF. BTW about me.. I started writing and acting when I was seven. I'm a musician/singer/songwriter and freelance writer/journo. I help others use the web to build an audience for their passion. - Jesse Newhart

hmm, so it is quiet when the US are offline! Too bad, I'd love some more people to follow, be followed and have conversations with from the rest of the sphere. Widen the horizon. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

nice idea - unfortunately friendfeed gets unreadable with so much comments. btw: i'm friendfeeding mainly about technology, consulting, personal productivity, gtd... - Alexander Benker

You should follow me because I tend to find interesting programming articles on the topics of: Django, Python, key-value stores, and more. - Eric Florenzano

I don't care if people follow me or not. I've been writing online (Usenet) since 1989, before the web, but Google's index only seems to go back to 1992. Most of my stuff isn't even on my blog, it's in email lists and discussion threads such as http://tinyurl.com/df5kc2 and http://tinyurl.com/3gfqzj (better than anything I've written here). A sample will give you some idea: "By what... more... - Victor Panlilio

I like talking to people and having conversations. It's no fun being on the social web if I'm not engaging anybody, and I need followers and people to follow to do that. - Jon, the Chilled Beartato

No question about it, people should at least attempt to read new and different drummers daily because following the followed will always leave you in the follower camp. They laughed at Bob Dylan, they laughed at Gary Vaynerchuck, where are *they* now? - randulo

I tend to follow the people that interact with me on my imported items, if I am not already following you I apologies. Just drop me a DM and I will happily subscribe to your feed :) - Joe Dawson

That's a tough one, Joe -- you can only DM folks who have subscribed to you... - Eric Johnson

I don't give a crap about the other comments here - I need to make sure I have the Scobles following me. I mean, I think they are already. But still. Gotta cover my bases. As to WHY anyone should follow me: I like to think I take a humorous outlook on things, and can make you giggle at least once per day. Snark is my tool. Also, I'm earnest and naive, and I'll treat you with the respect you expect and deserve from the Internet. Also, cats flushing toilets: http://bit.ly/2Lx2w - Mike Nayyar

A retail designer by day (mainly customer experiences for consumer electronics shoppers) and a geek by night. If you want to brainstorm about how you'd like to shop and find cool new products, I'd love to hear from you. - Jason Goldberg

Hi, @cantor there, i'm an It Systems Specialist and a student (Computer Engineering in Pisa). I think you can follow me because i have ideas and opinions and i want to express them, i like to find & share and I'll do the best in "extreme multitasking mode" :P. - CantorJF

follow me because scoble told me to beg =P - Zafarali

@robbell You should follow me because you lack the motivation to follow more inspiring individuals :) - Rob Bell

I just started on FF and find it very interesting because of the focus on interaction arround subjects... FB is mostly talk about nothing, and I'm the only one in my friend group posting articles that interest me. Follow if u like... that will kindda help out on the interaction part! - Kevin Nordmand

Over 280 comments. Advantage of FriendFeed. Nice. Follow me for some interesting stuff online and offline. Geeky and non-geeky - Kannan

I am @alexisbellido and you should follow me to find more about teleworking, the Web and online businesses. I recently started using social media to support good causes and make your opinion matter. Currently supporting fight against hemophilia - Alexis Bellido

People should follow other people because something is said that rings true. Not because someone BEGS for it. Please don't take this comment as an invitation to follow me, thanks. - Vincent van Wylick

@Vincent: Well said. Truth is like gravity: you can pretend it doesn't exist, but you can't ultimately escape from it. - Victor Panlilio

cool self help group here! social media anonymous! :D - Dieter Schwarz

Great idea Robert :) - Zee.

Nearing 300 comments, the Scoble Effect indeed. Is that FF comment raffle over by the way? - Adi

For me at least, it's not as important that you follow me as it is that I follow you. You are very likely not to be interested in the stuff in my feed (and that's ok with me, please don't follow me unless you really find my crap, interesting), but you might like me commenting in your threads, which is where I get the most enjoyment from friendfeed..in the conversations on other people's posts. I am not that good of a conversation starter, but I am very good at jumping in when someone else does the starting. - April Russo (app103)

Follow me because I find unique interesting content before most people, I read allot and am subscribed to allot of popular and interesting feeds not many people know about! - Kyle Weller

Most of my feed activity revolves around various creative, social, and mobile technologies. Usually my own ideas and experiences with my own projects, and not so much link sharing. I like to think of myself as a quality over quantity kind of guy, so I won't overload your stream. I plan on hiking the Appalachian Trail next year and documenting it on the web as I go, so that should be interesting. I'm 5'9'' and I weigh... wait... what is this for again? - Daniel Sims

I often hear I am hard to follow. Maybe it's the Dutch. Maybe my wandering spirit. - Ruud van Wijngaarden

Ruud: That's why I don't twitter in Dutch. In fact we should just all talk English ;) - Peter Kruit

Well I already follow the green guy (Scobelizer) on Twitter and FriendFeed and he follows me. But since I'm just an average guy, working in the Nonprofit field, I've found it a bit difficult to acquire followers on FriendFeed (not nearly as difficult on Twitter). So if anyone is interested in following someone who shares an eclectic mix of thoughts and interests, please feel free. - John A. Taylor

It does feel good to have activity on your feed. Makes me feel like someone is listening to me. - Christian Burns

I'm just getting started with friendfeed and already find the discussions great. I'm looking forward to being able to contribute some of my own thoughts to the conversations. After all, there are a lot of great things happening based off the idea of a person and the energy of a group. - John Spyers

I'd love to connect with more marketers here on FriendFeed - not just social media types, but business and marketing strategy peoples... Small business owners would be great, too. - Dennis O'Neil

I don't beg either, but since you asked...I'm good for some silliness, the occasional deep thought, encouragement of discussion of any kind (mostly political), and a good song or two. I'd like some musicians and poets to get on board as well. - Helen Sventitsky

I like art, music, 3D, electric guitar, analgog synths, puppets, making stuff, my family, metaplace. I blog about artsy process and put up sweet flickr images. - sergiooo

I have 9 followers, one is Robert, but virtually no discussion. I'm one of the few people on FF that works with the government, works in a non-IT startup, and will recommend great economics and sustainability items. - Chris Stevenson

I just don't buy it yet. There is still way too much noise, and I'm not one of those guys with the time to go through posts with 300 (mostly uninteresting) comments. I have to filter extensively to get just a simdgeon of the interesting articles I pull off of GReader with Feedly and comments from the blogs themselves. Friendfeed would be great with Real Life connections, but they are all on Facebook. Friendfeed has a major uphill battle ahead of them, despite their superior interface and technology. - Phil Ashman

FF is a good twitter client though..;)... - Phil Ashman

Begging time. Follow me and SherylBreuker here (@kencamp & @SherylBreuker on Twitter. Please follow us and check this post Sheryl & Ken: Project Denmark (for 48 hours) #48hoursindk at http://stardustglobalventures.com/2009... We'll take you on the road to Denmark via social media. Help us win! - Ken Camp

Great thread! Found some goodies in here (and some crazies) - Daniel Morgan

Hey, I'm in. You go, Robert! - John Gerstner

Because no matter who you are, it takes followers to get followers. You have to start somewhere... - GeekDads.TV

You hungry? - Myrna

Neal Jansons

Taser Sues Second Life For Having Virtual Tasers - http://techdirt.com/article...

April 21 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Amber, Random Time Lord and Carlton Hackett liked this

"from the no,-seriousy dept Stun gun maker Taser is notoriously overprotective of its brand, even pushing judges and medical examiners never to list a Taser as a cause of death. However, this latest, as pointed out by Dave Title has the company going "virtual." Taser is suing Second Life because of virtual Tasers found in the game. Specifically, Taser seems upset that these virtual stun guns are being sold next to pornographic material, which (the company claims) will harm its brand. I'd argue that going around suing everyone probably does a lot more harm." - Neal Jansons from Bookmarklet

"Don't tase my avatar, bro!" - Craig Brownell

Robert Scoble

The really cool Twitter/friendfeed users were on those services "before they were Scobleized." Were you? Check in here with your story:

April 19 - Comment - Like - Share

Keith Barrett, Joe Dawson, Dimitar Vesselinov and 44 other people liked this

I'm pretty sure I was on Twitter BS (before Scobleized), but not FF. FF is where I heard of Scoble, and followed his lead by making FF my homepage. - shaun mclane

85 more comments

I made my Friend Feed account way before we met at Gnomedex last year, but it was after meeting you that I started being active. So that is your fault. Twitter however was the first micro-blogging (for lack of a better term) site I was active on. I think Leo is to blame for that one. - MarkCarras

Was on Friendfeed when it was in beta looking for something to show all of the social networks I was at in one place. I think I joined a few days before it became open to the public. Come to think of it I signed up to Friendfeed before I did Twitter. - Michael Ryan

scoble, i think its going to be more "before it was oprah-ised", they've got some hashtag in twitter going now... - Terry O'Fee

I was on Twitter early but heard of FF through you - Mike Brewer

Was on both before I heard of you.. I learned of you through someones tweet. - Drew Paul

Mark: Leo is to blame for getting me to really use Twitter too. - Robert Scoble

i discovered twitter through the madness that is warren ellis. i dont know if you were here before or after. no idea. - Terry O'Fee

Leo and Kevin Rose were my inspiration to use Twitter. I was a Pownce user before that. - Jesse Stay

When did you start on FF, Robert? I didn't join because of you but I can't remember if you were here when I started or not... I know eventually I "found" you on here and started following. - Fa La La La Lindsay

I believe I got on Friendfeed just a hair before you started getting really popular here. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Scoble: Leo is to blame for a great many things. :D - MarkCarras

Honestly, I think I was skipping most of what you wrote before I was on FF or twitter and was just using Google Reader to follow stories. However, once here on FF where I was able to see the discussions around the stories I have quickly started reading and paying attention more to what you have to say. - John Spyers

Lindsay: I was on friendfeed the last week of February 2008 if I remember right. - Robert Scoble

Duncan Riley bought FF to my attention when he called Loius Gray a nasty name. remember that little shitstorm http://twitter.com/duncanr... - James Beake

Ok, then you were definitely before me... I started sometime last April... I guess it's about my anniversary now! - Fa La La La Lindsay

I thought I was on Twitter BS, but turns out according to Twitterholic.com Scoble was on nearly 5 months before me! Guess it's all a blur. Pretty sure I was on Plurk before Scoble....oh, he's not on Plurk. Incidentally, Scoble joined Twitter 11-20-2006. As far as FF, I thought Scoble pretty much put it on the map, singlehandedly. - Paul Salzman

I was on Twitter and FriendFeed before they were Oprah-ized - Hutch Carpenter

I started in Twitter in March 2007, but how do I find my commencement date here? - Ian May

Louis Gray got me on friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

I must admit that I need the scobleizer to get me on certain services... - Troy Malone

Pfft: of course Scoble was here before me. But I feel like I've been using both ff and twitter forever at this point. - Susan Reynolds

My first Tweet was in March of 2007 on my Jeber account. Referred by Chris Pirillo, as I recall. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

I can't remember when I started using FriendFeed. I think it was shortly after Scoble though. - Jesse Stay

I think with the username /and, I might have you beat on FF Robert. Twitter you surely were in before me. - Andrew Leahey

Joined FF before Scoble because I saw it was by some ex-googlers :P Way after Scoble on Twitter though. - Brandon Titus

So Scoble, where are we all going next? - shaun mclane

Chris Pirillo turned me onto both Twitter & FF--Scoble was already here (and there). - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Joined Twitter June-07 and FriendFeed (in beta) Oct-07. Mostly consuming value rather than adding it. - Ryan Miller

I was on Socialmedian, Strands, FriendFeed, Toluu, ReadBurner, RSSmeme, before Scoble. :) - Louis Gray

Scoble got me on to Google Reader. Fighting with Mark Hopkins of Mashable got me on to Twitter. Feedheads got me on to Facebook. - Louis Gray

I registered and used both before becoming communication active with you Robert, but I will confess that because of you I am now 10x times more active on FF that I was prior - Keith Barrett

I got on Twitter because of you, and FF because of you. Other things I do because they are beta and I love beta. Or even alpha. I can put up with a lot of discomfort to see if something's going to be interesting. - Francine Hardaway

No, man, I follow you wherever you go like a dumb little zombie. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

I'm with Francine. We may have a beta addiction that we need a 10 step program for - Susan Reynolds

Shaun: that is the big question, isn't it? Based on how many people are trying to get me to participate, FourSquare is the next thing for early adopter types. - Robert Scoble

I was on FF, but really decided to check it daily and make an effort to contribute after it was Scobelized... - Jamie Ginsberg

What is FourSquare? Got a link? Google turned up nothing useful... - Chrimmus Tad

Tad: Third result on google, http://playfoursquare.com/ - Brandon Titus

So does that mean that once Scoble is on a service it's no longer cool? - xero

Ahh - I figured no way did that look interesting. LOL After taking a moment or two looking at it, it does seem like it has possibility, but it looks like no one is fooling with it here in Phoenix. I'll give it a few months and see if it generates more buzz. I'm a technophile, but I'm not an earliEST adopter. - Chrimmus Tad

Xero: for some alpha geeks? Yes, that's exactly what it means! :-) - Robert Scoble

I'm not sure if I was on either service before Scoble. I actually seriously doubt I was...but I also doubt the service was any different having been scobleized. I followed Louis Gray here to FF, though. I think I do remember him getting Scoble here. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Well Robert I should have listened harder when you said FriendFeed was the place to be. I signed up but admit I only used FF to monitor a few rooms. Funny you should post this question on the day I had a FriendFeed epiphany and made the decision to go full gorilla. - Jesse Newhart

Jeremiah Owyang's post had me met cool tweeters and more.. I was silently and rarely visit my friendfeed until I knew Mona and learned that she was a prominent friendfeeder.. - Pico Seno

I joined FF in September '07, the week before the first beta launched. I'm not an early adopter, just a mainsteamer with connections! - Anne Bouey

It was in July 2007 that I signed up to Twitter and FF so definitely not before Scoble... although, you were one of the first tweeps I noticed and followed. I wouldn't be without them now. Both Twitter and FF are useful in my business and I'm learning more each day! - Ange Recchia/angesbiz

I was after Scobleizer. I actually joined after I heard Leo Laporte mention it on TWiT. I didn't know what Twitter was at first. I found out about FF after Steve Issacs mentioned it at Twitter. - Molly, "sorry"

I joined both Twitter and Friendfeed yet before i first stepped on your blog ;) And BTW, not meaning to offend you Robert, but before i started reading your Frendfeed i never read anything of your - i thought you were a... Wellm something that Arrington has become now (with all the respect to him) =) Now you are my top priority source of trusted metadata =) - Kirill Bolgarov

Kirill: I'm an aaarrrroogggannntttt bbbaaahhhssstttaaarrrrrddddd. You can say it. :-) - Robert Scoble

Or at least I was until @ev took away my license. :-) - Robert Scoble

no, I didn't join twitter until you drove me over the edge one day with your constant yammering about it when I was jumping up and down trying to get your attention about Julie Amero. It drove me to a rant and a challenge, which I ended up answering by joining twitter. LOL. I did join Friendfeed right away, before it caught fire with you, but it took me the better part of a year to figure out how to use it. - Karoli

there's joining and then there's using... very different thing. Many of us have signed up on many things we don't really use except the occasional "how has it changed?" test, but should it become popular some will go "noobs, i was there early". Sure, there is satisfaction to having seen the value first, or even helped build it, but are we sure we did see the value and helped build it,... more... - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

I think it was JJ talking about it on twiiter, myself... - Terry O'Fee

The one thing I know is I signed up for friendfeed before I signed up for twitter. I think next month marks my first year on ff. I started right around the same time as Robert did, if I’m not mistaken. I can’t remember, but I think it was a press release, which brought me here. I remember reading about it several times that week. Other than what I had read, I signed up not knowing what to expect. I don’t remember if I participated my first day, either - Michael Fidler

. But, I can recall the conversations that day fairly well. I remember Robert making comments about how much less noise there was here. He was excited at the prospect of being able to have longer conversations, finally. He also loved the idea of rooms, and the different uses they might have. I also remember that everyone else was tired of the Fail Whale, and friendfeed might be a... more... - Michael Fidler

Robert: maybe just a little if you insist ;) But to be serious, coming back to Twitter vs. Friendfeed discussion: to me it's about context. On FrF you have tons of it, maximum one click away,and most of the time it's even embedded! Twitter is like web search - you have to make zillions of clicks and maybe, *maybe*, then you will find out the context of the conversation. That's why i didn't follow you (along with some other people) much - because basically all I saw the tweets, which were out of context. - Kirill Bolgarov

If the target is lucrative enough spammers will find a way to circumvent the system. Rooms at this point seem particularly vulnerable. - Brian Sullivan

I was on Twitter before Scoble got in. - Vijayendra (V-Mo) Mohanty

I just realized I've been saying it wrong all along. - Craig Brownell

I'm decidedly uncool then, as I'm sure I joined both services after Robert. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

LOL, it was Louis Gray that showed the way for me. Sorry Robert, :-) - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Dan: why be sorry? It was Louis who got me on friendfeed too! - Robert Scoble

I discovered FF through you. Changed my online experience ! Thanks. - Guy Vander Heyden

@Robert - Awesome. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

I knew about Twitter from nonRS sources. However, Twitter did lead me to RS who then led me to FF. I did resist until the new Beta, however. :) - CAJ, somewhere else

robert I am guessing we joined the services around the same time. i think I was one of the first 1300 people on twitter and pretty early on FF as well. so probably pretty close. - (jeff)isageek

I don't know if it counts if you are the type that signs up for anything that launches. - coldbrew

You were on twitter before me but I am pretty sure that I was on FriendFeed before you. It seems like I had to pull you in as imaginary. - Seek Ground

I was on facebook before you. I remeber when you joined and I was able to "be your friend" within the first couple hundred. - Christian Burns

Joined Twitter last September and was FF months before that. Twitter is "played". Too noisy. FF is so much better. Will be spending most of my time here. - Carlo At Your Service

i have an idea and thought that friendfeed.com domain suits very well. enter the site and then the awesomeness begins by luck. - İzzet Emre Kutlu

I did not realize the value of friendfeed until Scoble was accused to be an addict by Arrington. :-) - Martin Seibert

I was on FriendFeed.com about 1 week after they launched in early 2008. Joined Twitter in Feb 2008. I had heard of Scobleizer only a little bit, but was hearing him make more and more noise on the tubes! @Spin Eric Rice gave me the URL link to FriendFeed. Then this guy LG, err.. umm... oh yeah... Louis Gray kept pimping FF, so I stuck around a while and wow, it's all been good ever since! Robert Scoble "Scobleizer" soon became another great person to follow on FF... you guys all rock!! woo hooo!!1 - Susan Beebe

Martin - I was a fervent defender of Scoble on that TechCrunch blog post re "Scoble needs intervention" crap. Mike didn't "get" FriendFeed; in fact, he STILL doesn't value FF...augh! I love Mike anyway, but man catch already! LOL - Susan Beebe

Twitter was because of an article I read about it, but FF was because Scoble was the first person I followed on Twitter and he was just starting to discuss FF. - David Cook

I found twitter, ff, and Robert Scoble via Ed Dale and the Thirty Day Challenge 08. Glad to have found all 3! - LeighaB

Yes I actually was on FF before becoming Scobelize which oddly enough I found through Facebook as sort of famousfriend Ryan Leech famous Canadian Norco mountain biker http://friendfeed.com/rleech keeps us updated through FF. The rest in terms of being Scobelized is history PS he could help you with your mountain bike question: though i'm sure he'd say Norco all the way - sofarsoShawn

I was on Twitter before I ran into Robert Scoble. However, he talked enough about FF that I decided to figure out what he was talking about. Here I am! - Damond Nollan

No to twitter, yes to friendfeed. Surprised it took you a while to get on friendfeed. I enjoy all that you do. Thanks. - Harold Cabezas

What Harold said. - Bruce Lewis

I have no idea. - Anthony Citrano

I was on Twitter after you, but I think I got on FF around the same time, though at the time I was thinking it wasn't that great, I am sorry to say. - Neal Jansons

I have to admit I never heard of you before I got on Twitter, but followed you because of stuff you posted. I think it was you who brought me to Friendfeed in March 2008 and I'll be always grateful for that ;-) - Gaby K. Slezák

Nope after Scoble for, twitter and FriendFeed, joined both due to the TWiT effect (ie. constant talking about them on TWiT shows). But was on Jaiku and Vox before Leo and Scoble, unfortunately Jaiku use has died down in the last few months. Jaiku's threaded comments are still superior to twitter for conversation any day of the week. - LonelyBob

New web 2.0 terms: "Scobleized" and "Oprah-ized" - James Guske

Yeap; joined twitter in April 2007, and FriendFeed soon after launch. But was anything ever not Scobleized? - Keith Barrett

Robert Scoble

I just came up with an idea that could be interesting to Twitter, friendfeed, and Facebook: invisible comments. Wonder if anyone else is thinking along these lines? http://scobleizer.com/2009...

April 20 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Elliott, Susan Beebe, RicardoSilva and 35 other people liked this

This is at the bottom of a post about the newspaper industry and how they keep giving the geeks all their meals for free. - Robert Scoble

99 more comments

Robert - Let's do it! - Jim Connolly

Radar.net has this. - Dave Morin

Dave: really? I gotta look again. - Robert Scoble

Dave: do they use it as a command line interface to talk to the search engine? - Robert Scoble

"invisible comments" without reading the post: Isn't that the most pointless feature ever? :D - Meryn Stol

Jim: I'm thinking of doing my own social network with a few other geeks. I have a feeling that's the only way to get what I really want. - Robert Scoble

Count me in. - drew olanoff

Meryn: actually it would be very powerful. You should read the post, or at least the part where I talk about invisible comments (toward the bottom). - Robert Scoble

Robert - If you do, I will happily contribute and cover in the tech news blog!! - Jim Connolly

Yes, Robert, just wanted to point out the strangeness of the term. :) You're talking about reader-contributed metadata. Delicious is doing that. Every link towards a page also is metadata. Yes, in general this is a VERY good thing. There could be far more support for this kind of thing in both browsers and blogging platforms like Wordpress (or plugins). - Meryn Stol

So linking advertising to user generated tags, outside the normal commenting system - Johnny Worthington

Meryn: the invisible comments could also be machine generated, just like EXIF data on photographs are (my camera makes those and Flickr displays that data). - Robert Scoble

I mentioned this a bit awhile back when I was saying hashtags were a hack and unnecessary. I agree with you - each of these networks really needs an accompanying meta layer of some sort to categorize data. - Jesse Stay

CURIOUS: Could the use of invisible data be REALLY easy for spammers to manipulate? - Jim Connolly

Robert, are you familiar with Microformats? - Meryn Stol

Can we set physical comments to "inaudible?" - Craig Brownell

Regarding the free lunch being given to Craigslist, we had many meetings about this at Media General while I was there about this (I was in charge of moving their print classifieds to online formats). The Newspapers still have a in on this that even Craigslist can't attack - they have strong relationships with local stores, auto dealers, and more that they can tie to classifieds listings. It was my job there to find ways to work with this data. IMO they still haven't done enough. - Jesse Stay

Forgot the link to my meta article: http://staynalive.com/article... - Jesse Stay

Ahhhh... So if you made a post about, say, wanting a new bike, the comments that would come back with user reviews would prompt a script to locate a price and location for purchasing each one of those reviewed bikes. That way you can pick the best one, purchase it instantly and the 'machine' can take a cut as a revenue source? - Johnny Worthington

For a site like FriendFeed, it would be better to just add support for tagging by readers. Adding support for RDF triplets would be a next step, but simple alphanumeric tags (like Delicious) already would go very far. - Meryn Stol

Would posters have the option to create their own metatags of any kind, or are these a preset bunch in your idea Robert? - Colin

On the other hand, putting everything inside plain-text fields (which the comment field could be used for) allows for any kind of metadata to be embedded. One could even add a JSON or XML string. - Meryn Stol

Search can be made far more powerful if you know the kind of metadata stored though. - Meryn Stol

i do like the idea of putting meta-comments that are machine readable, not for humans - although i would not put it as comments, more have a "tag" option perhaps, that people can collaboratively dump info in - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Colin: posters could do their own, but really that would be pretty geeky to do. I imagine developers would give us UIs to do invisible ones. Things like "set location of this tweet." Imagine if we had the ability to do that! Then I could search for "show all tweets about New York plane crash, but only show me tweets done from New York." - Robert Scoble

Joelle: invisible comments wouldn't be displayed as comments. It's more like a command line interface to the object you are typing into. - Robert Scoble

FWIW about a year ago Alex inferred they were talking about this at Twitter on the API team. Of course, not much has changed in a year so I don't expect to see it. - Jesse Stay

I've been pushing this for awhile now - maybe it is time we just do it ourselves. - Jesse Stay

I think that there are quite a few people thinking along these lines. The key is to make it interoperable across the various microblogging platforms. If it was done in a way to be compatible with all of those, and implemented in a client, it could be added to other data sources (like blogs) and be pushed out to aggregators (like FriendFeed) which could be read by the same clients. The clients would need an access/authentication protocol to allow the entry of metadata. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Honestly, we should really get Evan Prodromou in on this discussion. He has funding, and the vision to lead something like this using his already existing framework. Although he is at the super secret #swfoo so he's inaccessible ATM - Jesse Stay

Designing the protocol for this is probably the easier part. The more difficult part is getting buy-in to a standard from the client software developers. I'm in though. I still maintain this is better developed as a client protocol rather than trying to get the microblogging platforms to support it via API. The less it depends on the platform the more widely used a single protocol could be -it could be used for all kinds of different data types from tweets to blogs and more. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob, the advantage to using Laconi.ca as a base and extending it is they already have client developers working on software. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: cool as long as we do it here. We need the improved comment area and live chat ability that friendfeed affords. - Robert Scoble

If you use laconica it still has the problem of being developed in a platform dependant way (the same as waiting for twitter to put it in) - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Dave Winer deserves credit for pushing me to this realization, by the way, and he will be involved in anything I do. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I'm just saying we already have a base we can build upon that's Open Source and based on open standards. We can either fork it or extend it if Evan P. supports the idea. It's a start at least. The other option is to build on top of either Buddy Press as a base, or SixApart's new software, or JaikuEngine. They're all good starts at least. - Jesse Stay

I agree Dave should be involved - FTR I pushed it before he did though ;-) - Jesse Stay

Jesse: agreed, definitely will go with an open source choice. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Couldn't the %%0 invisible="" be abused for search gaming? - Neal Jansons

Neal, I think some sort of trust ranking would be useful to get around that - users could be rated by their peers and those with higher peer rankings would appear higher in the search. I think that would get around that, and still accomplish what Robert's trying to do - feature the people that use the service above others. - Jesse Stay

So I guess we're stealing from Plurk in that manner ;-) - Jesse Stay

Neal: yes, but why couldn't the owner of the node (in this case, me) see all invisible comments and delete those that aren't good? - Robert Scoble

@Robert: Not a scalable solution. - Neal Jansons

Robert, true, but you'd soon need an Akismet-like engine then. - Meryn Stol

Neal: wrong. That is EXACTLY the system that exists here for visible comments. Meryn: wrong. - Robert Scoble

Taking the reputation of the "commenter" into account is better I think... A kind of pagerank-like solution. Comments by people with low rank wouldn't count for much, might even be ignored by default. - Meryn Stol

Meryn: you don't need to do anything more than what friendfeed has already done. I should do a blog post on why. - Robert Scoble

Why not explain it here first, then I can should at it. :) - Meryn Stol

Meh, I don't like being blinded by PR's success as a model. I think there are inherent problems to self-reinforcing ranking models. - Neal Jansons

I need more than 288 characters to explain why decentralized moderation is the most brilliant thing friendfeed has done to date. - Robert Scoble

Neal, you know anything better then? - Meryn Stol

decentralized moderation is the same as with blogs... And wordpress doesn't have Akismet for nothing. - Meryn Stol

Meryn: blogs and Akismet are not decentralized moderation and participation on blogs doesn't have a built in reputation system as they do here. - Robert Scoble

Blogs ARE decentralized moderation. Every blog owner moderates his own blog's comments. - Meryn Stol

Meryn: not nearly as decentralized as here. - Robert Scoble

No, honestly, I have been thinking about the problem since it came up in conversation with @technosailor at wordcamp last year. It's a logical problem, not a code problem. - Neal Jansons

Robert, what's the difference then? - Meryn Stol

Neal: I'm writing a blog about why it's different. Meryn, be back in 15 minutes. GIve me a chance to explain why friendfeed is FAR different than blog moderation. - Robert Scoble

ok :) - Meryn Stol

how do you know they are not already being used?? - Max Rosenthal

Robert: I think I get what you are saying. The invisible tags would be caught and moderated similar to any other commenting, but should be machine-read for other purposes. - Neal Jansons

Neal: right. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you left me hanging on something you brought up. “Now, why does the New York Times make it easier to find the front page of the paper the day they reported the Titanic sank? Hint: they have this figured out in a way that Twitter and others just don’t.” How do they do it? What’s up with SkyGrid? You left that one hanging, too. - Michael Fidler

Michael: well, the New York Times cares about archives, for one, and adds metadata to everything so that important stuff can be found again when someone needs to find it. As for SkyGrid, see ya at 4 p.m. Pacific Time today for a live press conference about it. - Robert Scoble

Max: I'm sure there are a few invisible things that we don't know about. I just want a public API put on them! :-) - Robert Scoble

@Robert I don't think an API would be that hard to do, it's really just meta-tagging+microformats with a tag-like front end, or am I completely misunderstanding you? - Neal Jansons

Robert, seen this recent piece on RWW? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive... - Meryn Stol

Neal: you are putting engineering talk on it, but I think that's pretty close. I tend to not like the engineering talk nor do I like structured data that much. I like commenting. And invisible comments with a somewhat structured API would be very cool. - Robert Scoble

Meryn: that post on RWW is very close to what I'm talking about here. Those guys are so smart. - Robert Scoble

Robert, what's your gripe with "structured data"? Saying (for example) "price=1000USD" in a comment is structured data as well, just expressed in plain text. Maybe your gripe is with the clumsy interfaces? All kinds of dropdown boxes and multiple text fields can indeed be a pain. - Meryn Stol

Robert: So what would you like it to be implemented as? A plugin for a blog? It seems like what would end up happening is that the invisible comments would end up injected from the front end into the page when the page next rendered, basically like commenting on comments. - Neal Jansons

Meryn: some things, yes, need to be structured, like that. I was thinking more of metatags. I think they are massively stupid in such a world. Here's a metatag: foobar. Now I can search for this item just by using "foobar" in the search here. But there are some places where more structured stuff is better. I just try to resist structure as much as possible because it tends to make things harder to use and less flexible. - Robert Scoble

%%0 comment="this would be an invisible comment if my system were implemented" - Robert Scoble

Neal: the moment I hit post on that it would turn a different color and whatever API was there would be enacted. - Robert Scoble

Neal: this would be implemented by friendfeed (or my own social network) itself. So the comment box would become a little code run window, too. - Robert Scoble

Robert, yes, too much structure hurts usability, and often doesn't add much value. The idea of less structure was also the basis for tags on Delicious. Plain alphanumeric tags have proved to be extremely powerful. Hierarchies or controlled vocabularies seem unnecessary. - Meryn Stol

Meryn: exactly. - Robert Scoble

Robert, how about an additional input box for those "invisible comments"? Saves you typing the "%%0 comment=".,, Or a checkbox to make a comment invisible. - Meryn Stol

Meryn: again, that would be the UI developer's job to decide. Here on friendfeed? No, not appropriate. Too complex. On TweetDeck or Twhirl? Maybe. - Robert Scoble

I like one box that does lots of things. Like Google Chrome. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Hmm...I see what you are saying. And then a search engine could pull using the tag variations. The search side would be a lot like Backtype. - Neal Jansons

Open up Google Chrome. Type: 2+2= and hit return. - Robert Scoble

Google Chrome is what I call "a magic box." The comment box here could be "a magic box" too. - Robert Scoble

Robert. Yes i see your point. I too like as much as intelligence as possible. - Meryn Stol

Neal: something like that. We will soon have real time search. We need to be able to talk to the search engine in real time too. - Robert Scoble

Well what about natural language parsing then? For simple sentences, that's quite possible nowadays. - Meryn Stol

Meryn: yeah. Have you seen Google Calendar? Add a new item there sometime. You just type something like "appointment with dad on december 25, 2009 10 am to noon." It figures it out. It's magic. - Robert Scoble

I love magic. - Robert Scoble

It takes a lot of engineering-talk to make all that magic happen :p So you want them to be completely free-form? That wasn't how it seemed in your post, and cutting out the data into an ontology specific for each site would be useful. - Neal Jansons

Robert, yes, I think we're on the same page now. :) There's still a problem with actually hiding something though... You really need special syntax for that. But then I think I'd choose for - say - a back-tic "`" (or two) in front of a comment. But being able to do it through keyboard only is indeed nice. You could also say that "ctrl-enter" posts something as hidden, while "enter" makes a regular post. - Meryn Stol

Neal: no, not completely free form. Some things need to be structured, other things need to be magic. :-) - Robert Scoble

Meryn is right, it needs some sort of syntactic or executable switch that injects the text to the API, something similar to how http://socialmedian.com uses @ mentions in their comments. - Neal Jansons

I posted on your blog but it seems like the discussion is really happening here... what you describe is basically implemented in flickr's machine tags: http://www.flickr.com/groups... - Janek Mann

Janek: yeah, I saw that on the blog too, thanks! Very very similar, yes. - Robert Scoble

So basically, flickr stole this lunch from the newspapers also. ;) - Meryn Stol

Meryn: yeah, but Flickr hasn't implemented it in a way that makes discussing movies, restaurants, items, etc possible to monetize. - Robert Scoble

Here's my post about decentralized comments: http://scobleizer.com/2009... - Robert Scoble

Neal had posted a comment regarding how to implement this - "as a plugin for a blog?" -This is exactly what I'm driving at -The primary portion of the data would be implemented client side, and transported via any popular social networking platform, including via blog plugin. For ease of use a service would act as the search clearinghouse for the invisible data - this service (or services) would be easily monetized by having "the valuable" data. But the clients need not depend on the clearinghouse service - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

They could access the data directly as it was stored in its "natural" 140character state, and access it via the normal search routines for the originating platform (twitter, identi.ca, FF, FB etc) The clearinghouses would become viable businesses, by providing authentication for makers of invisible comments, and/or sleuthing out the valuable comments via search. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

No, the Internet should be public and accountable and not littered with invisible metatags that others can manipulate. - Prokofy Neva

Robert Scoble

I am excited. Tomorrow afternoon another piece of the real-time web launches that I have been waiting for since November. It is so good I am running it on its own computer.

April 19 - Comment - Like - Share

Greg Guitarbuster, Daniel Rowley, Ahsan Ali aka. Slick and 35 other people liked this

Tweetie? - Jesse Stay

65 more comments

A new OS? - Jesse Stay

C'mon you've got to give us more hints than that - James

What is it? - Andrew Smith

???? - patrick

You big tease... - Rob Kramer

Scoble, a tease on the eve of a new product announcement? Never!!! :) - Randy Holloway

Andrew I will have live video from the press conference tomorrow. I can't reveal it until then. - Robert Scoble

http://imapweather.com ? :-) Oh wait, that launched a couple of weeks ago... - Chip Hanna

Not even for.... a Scoble snack? ;D - Mo Kargas

Hints: it is more useful to me than a Bloomberg terminal. - Robert Scoble

where is the press conference robert? - patrick

Seesmic created their own x86 OS? - KyleHase from twhirl

This must be that new Google News service you were talking about - Jesse Stay

Embargoed! - Charlie Anzman

The press conference/demo should be at 4 pm tomorrow. Pacific time Monday. - Robert Scoble

I'm guessing Techcrunch break the embargo again :P - Brandon Titus

Bloomberg terminal metaphor? Ugh. Well, I guess it's not going to be minimalist. - Nick in Manila

sounds like another real-time web app that will kill my productivity - patrick

Patrick at a startup in Sunnyvale. - Robert Scoble

you need to say more than that, come on that's not fair - Keith Dsouza

"I am the arm." - Craig Brownell

Does it need it's own computer though? - CAJ, somewhere else

Jesse: it definitely has taken some of my Google News usage away. I could see this getting bought by Google, though. - Robert Scoble

You've been on about live Disqus comments lately. Could that be it? Naahhh. Not worthy of a tease like this. - Jason Mayoff

More useful than a Bloomberg terminal? Have anything to do with StockTwits then? - Jackson Miller

Good bait by @Chip .... Robert - Are you Green for Earth Day? Kinda scary .... really - Charlie Anzman

Scoble - you're starting to turn into a tease -- and not in a good way - Dave Hodson

Alan: no. But you will see why I do that tomorrow. It is browser based and is well engineered. - Robert Scoble

Is it going to be cooler than cliKball? - Eric Florenzano

from a new company, or existing start up? - patrick

Dave: deal with it. I want you to be watching tomorrow. Teasing is part of life. Ever go to a movie? - Robert Scoble

Your such a tease - John Anthony Hartman

Patrick: a startup. I doubt you have heard of them before. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, but a fun tease. - Chris Baskind

Robert, please give me some information.. I'm in Italy and now it's 03:11 a.m! :D - Frank

Okay, can you narrow down "afternoon"? - CAJ, somewhere else

Eric: I was wrong about Clikball. - Robert Scoble

4pm PST means its a West coast company, maybe its Microsoft unveiling some streaming social software embedded in their OS? Oh the Google buying piece doesn't add up - Sudha Jamthe

Scoble: I'm just giving you a hard time :) - Eric Florenzano

Sudha: not from a big company. - Robert Scoble

I'm pretty sure I know what it is - I haven't seen it like Scoble though - Jesse Stay

Robert - I love how even after all these years, you still get excited. It's one of your more endearing qualities. I've only been around since last July but no longer get excited LOL. - Mona Nomura

Mona: when an entrepreneur or team gives me something I didn't have before I get excited. - Robert Scoble

Ha! The Scoble Tease. I'm excited FOR you and no idea what it is. Now bring it on... - Nakeva Corothers

I have no idea what it is and am jealous! - Marshall Kirkpatrick

Wow, your stocks are going up! - James Michael Mike DuPont

Mona: I also like to see if I was right. Most of the time I am but Clikball is an example of something that looked more useful than it really was. - Robert Scoble

An interesting thing is that a major component of cliKball is real-time. - Eric Florenzano

Marshall: call me. You should be there. - Robert Scoble

cliKball is great, just only if you have tons of free time to surf the web - patrick

I'm mad at clikball - I can't delete it from Firefox. All my search results have Clikball results even after removing the extension. - Jesse Stay

Hmm... I actually just uninstalled the clikball FF extension and no longer see the clikball results when searching on google. - Kevin Whalen

Kevin I think I had an earlier version, probably why the uninstall didn't remove that for me. - Jesse Stay

I see. - Kevin Whalen

It is actually a programme for you to get news real time. - Kiko Cherman

will god speak ? secret weapon ... - Rocky

is it related to news coming out on blogs/twitter? - Diego Sana

[snip] - Richard James

product teases are so fun ;) I hope it's at least as exciting as a bloomberg terminal..lol...And I note, you said ONE computer, and nothing about the number of screens....I sure hope they're beefed up for the Scoble Effect at release time. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

I'm interested now, looking forward to the live stream. - 321

Could it be Fluid Info? Robert interviewed Terry Jones, the president a while ago. The technology seemed very interesting... Let's see: Here is the Part I of the interview: http://www.kyte.tv/ch... - Juan Pons

Juan: I really hope so! I'm very excited about Fluid Info. - Eric Florenzano

Not that he would tell us if we guessed correctly... - Juan Pons

Could it be Microsoft Office On the Web? - Caleb Scribner

Is it the news thing you told me about that was supposed to launch in March? - Francine Hardaway

Francine: yes. - Robert Scoble

Bill Romanos

@nicksoden Yes, but almost any technology can have military applications. Genie doesn't get back into the bottle. Unfortunately.

April 19 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

nanogenie - Craig Brownell

Yes, exactly: You can't put the nanogenie back into the nanobottle. :) - Bill Romanos

Meryn Stol

Because of real-time commenting, each post on FriendFeed is a potential chat room. A "throwaway" chat room in fact. You only use it for one discussion, then leave it forever. But unless you delete it, it's archived for eternity.

April 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Ihar Mahaniok, Edward Zwart, simonpure and 28 other people liked this

We did it for today's show (1,600 comments): http://beta.friendfeed.com/ffunder... - Johnny Worthington

17 more comments

Also doing it live now for my Ustream: http://beta.friendfeed.com/jworthi... - Johnny Worthington

Johnny I know, I glanced over the log. I experienced it for the first time yesterday in a chat with Robert and a few others. I'm really impressed by it. I do think a thread could use a marker if it's intended to use for realtime or for slower commenting. But the versatility underneath is truly wonderful. - Meryn Stol

Unless I'm wrong, last night's Ffundercats thread is a FriendFeed record. But a collection of 1600 comments seems unwieldy under the current UI. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

Also, I think that in retrospect, "chat rooms" where never a good model. It is a metaphor taken directly from the real world. A "conversation" or "meeting" is a more natural basis. In this regard, FriendFeed has a real edge over other group chat systems (like IRC and Skype). - Meryn Stol

I think the UI should be more adaptive to different use cases. A thread that's marked as a "chat" might get some slightly different presentation than a thread that's marked for regular (longer, slower) comments. I think both conversational styles have their merits. - Meryn Stol

Meryn, FF now gives the ability to do both. A wide open chat on your mainstream is rather like IRC. A chat posted to a room is in theory a smaller, cozier environment. Even smaller still: DM a small group of people and chat in that message: it's almost like group IM. One platform lets you do all of them. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

sticky words - Craig Brownell

Yes Tina. That's what I'm so impressed about. The versatility. But at the same time, this might confuse people. For example, I'm now using this thread for "slow" commenting (, relatively speaking, because this is still much faster than blog commenting). Other people might want to start "chatting" in this thread. This would result in an odd mix of content. This problem can be solved by pure "etiquette", but some UI support could be handy. - Meryn Stol

A good temporal solution would be to clearly state expectations about the type of commenting up front in the post. Maybe explicitly announce a "chat". Default would be the longer comment form. - Meryn Stol

The FFundercats podcast was a record. You can get the podcast via iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/ffunder... - Louis Gray

Gray: Are you spamming the link to itunes all over FF? Please stop. - coldbrew

Coldbrew, I think the link by Louis is appropriate here. In general, I consider cross-linking helpful. Helps put everything into context for people who do not read everything on FF. Also, I hope you let me be the one to moderate comments on my posts. You don't have to play "FriendFeed police". - Meryn Stol

Perhaps, but for whatever reason, every post on my screen at that time had the link to itunes. I was annoyed, and simply chose the last post in my view on which it appeared. I don't consider myself some sort of "police", I was simply making a request. - coldbrew

Coldbrew: One tip for you: Don't post when you feel annoyed. I regret the things I posted when I felt annoyed. Everything you say brands you. Better keep it positive. - Meryn Stol

Not really concerned about 'brand' and people will pigeon-hole as they see fit. I know what to expect as I do this IRL as well. To the casual observer it comes across as rude, but I have little interest in casual conversation making. - coldbrew

"I have little interest in casual conversation making" - what is your interest then? - Meryn Stol

Non-casual, non-commercially driven, and non-gossip. Ideas and concepts, rather than people. - coldbrew

Tx for this Meryn. I am more impressed with FF. I enjoy the way a discussion is kept together like this. Will be using this much more in future. - Peter du Toit (S.Africa)

Louis Gray

Did you know that two twins fit quite nicely in a single shopping cart at CostCo?

April 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Rex Hammock, Steve "Daddy do it!" Lacy, Tamar Weinberg and 70 other people liked this

Love it! - Sid Burgess

13 more comments

=))))))))))))))))))))))) - 1Fathi

Now I desperately want to know what got their attention in pic #3!! - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

LOVE The ribbon on her hair :) - Yuvi

"Now, I'm not doing more than 35, Miss Daisy." - Craig Brownell

Awww! - Karl Knechtel

Number 3 needs a LOLbaby caption :) - Jeanette Bosman

So cute! - Laura B.

I'm up to babysit, Louis, although if they start rocking bitchlips, it wasn't me. - Derrick

Derrick, that sounds like a good idea. When are you coming? - Louis Gray

precious - ♥patricia♥

i half expected to see four kids. - Bob DeAmbra

I do like the Costco shopping carts because they also fit my 3.5 year old as well as my 1.5 year old comfortably. At Safeway, the 3.5 year old has to walk. - Stephen Mack

Boy it's all about volume at Costco :) - Anthony Farrior

Wow - they have 2 straps? That's awesome - Jesse Stay

Robert Scoble

This message started on friendfeed, traveled to Twitter, and ended up on Facebook. Hah! Yes, I'm playing around.

April 16 - Comment - Like - Share

LeighaB, Bill Romanos, Bill Prue and 32 other people liked this

Interesting to see who is using each network. It's not the same people, by the way. - Robert Scoble

22 more comments

Josh: friendfeed to Twitter? nope. But Twitter to Facebook? Yes. - Robert Scoble

i find the facebook crowd to be more sedate - i have many more family interactions there though which is cool... - mike "glemak" dunn

I find it annoying when people auto-post everything everywhere. IMO, each service has it's own purpose, audience, and expectations. Very rarely does a single message fit everywhere. - Daniel Sims

Daniel: that might be true, but when I pushed my friendfeed likes over to Twitter I gained 15,000 followers. So someone must like them. And, now that I'm pushing stuff over to facebook I'm getting both engagement (good) and complaints (bad). I will figure it all out and report back. - Robert Scoble

When there's not enough context, sometimes it gets annoying. Example: FriendFeed only autoposts to Twitter every hour or so (big avalanche after sharing 6 or 7 items in google Reader), and sometimes the comments are disconnected from the initial conversation. And mirror posts are weird (although you can fine tune them). - Jorge Martins Rosa

Ok, since I follow you on both places, which would you rather have me pull back from, FriendFeed or Facebook? That way I only have one scoble feed. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

dedealusjmmr: weird. My friendfeed posts everything instantly over to Twitter (I don't post Google Reader items, though). - Robert Scoble

It just seems like it could backfire, when people refuse to follow you on individual services because it's too hard to pick out content specific to that service. ... What we need is an app/plugin/goggles that hides anything you have seen before, regardless of where you saw it. - Daniel Sims

Dan: I'm pretty sure most of my original stuff will be on friendfeed, since the UI here is far far far far ahead of the other social networks. - Robert Scoble

Robert - Done, if it gets too much I'll drop you from Facebook, I am glad you chose FF, this is where I spend my Social Networking dollars lately. Cheers/r/d - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Dan: I turned off the importer over on Facebook. Too many complaints. - Robert Scoble

That happens to most of my messages that I post on Friendfeed. Except they do get nearly as much attention as yours do. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Robert: I think many non-tech-savvy people aren't ready for an update explosion yet. However al of my "normal" friends are getting more and more interested. I discuss a lot of things about beer, having fun and politics over on Facebook - Michiel Sikkes

okay, but is there any way to get my facebook status updates back to FF? - Bob Blunk

Also, non-tech people are obviously getting the hang of twitter. FF is about 1 year away from hitting mainstream. - Bob Blunk

I think that with the advent of the new beta, it might be less than one year. Assuming they keep streamlining FF. - Chris Parton

Beware the iterative loop ... - Craig Brownell

The only use for doing that sort of thing would be to add content to a fan page. My friends on Facebook would block my newsfeed if all my FriendFeed or Twitter comments were piped in. - Rolf Schewe

Two sides of the real coin: when will we have truly easy-to-use (for normal humans) filtering aggregators / readers; and: what social networks do we each choose to use, understanding everyone else is free to make the same choice. Which audiences do you want to respect&engage? - Shane Curcuru

I bet the response was far higher on FriendFeed - Nicholas James

FriendFeed is more useful now posts on Twitter appear instantly here. And the Beta FriendFeed takes good parts of Twitter and combines with FriendFeed. I like it. - Jalada

Bob: yes, Facebook is one of the services you can import from into friendfeed. It works great, except you've gotta worry about duplicate messages. That's why I don't import from Facebook here. I might change that now that I've turned off the Twitter to Facebook link. - Robert Scoble

I used to have my Twitter tweets piped into Facebook back in February and early march, during the Aussie bushfires...but it was a real pain, afterward, clearing out most of the tweets. Even had one of my Facebook regulars ask about something in the twitter stuff, because she could only see one-half of the discussion. Now, with Tweetdeck, I can pipe over a specific update once-off and make sure it doesn't drown everything else out over in FB. It does get a bit hectic in FF when I have stuff duplicated. - George Hall (Australia)

Bec Rowe @d0tski

Chip butty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

April 18 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Darren Heydon, Mitch Wagner, Morton Fox and 4 other people liked this

There is nothing on this earth as delicious as a chippy butty. Om nom nom. *rubs tummy* - Bec Rowe @d0tski from Bookmarklet

9 more comments

French fries on white bread? - Admiral Anika

Yes! But IME, chips are thicker than fries. - Bec Rowe @d0tski

LOTS of butter though - Johnny Worthington

I prefer Crisp Butties - made with potato chips instead of chips / fries - Patrick Jordan

Chips are almost steak fries. Which is great, as long as they're like creamy mashed potatoes on the inside *drool* - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

* pommies frites! - Craig Brownell

I think I see Jesus's face. - Steve C

Nonono! That's Silent Bob! - Bec Rowe @d0tski

doesn't look appetizing. take away the bread and I'd do it. - BEX

Because Silent Bob has darker hair. - Bec Rowe @d0tski from IM

Steve Rubel

Been thinking a lot about this week's events and feel Twitter will never be the same.

April 18 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Elliott, Pico Seno, Kol Tregaskes and 17 other people liked this

Steve, this may be true. But it was changing before this week too, just got pushed a bit. It wouldn't be so bad if the new "users" from Hollywood actually used the tool as intended (two way communication) instead of as a giant billboard for their success. I guess this is ok, but they need to give back too, perhaps follow the "commoners" who starting this thing in the first place. We... more... - Chris Sparno

8 more comments

Yes and no. "Yes", because it could change everyone's perceptions of "how" it should be used. Although I'm not convinced it's really different for Ashton Kutcher and celebs. And there's always been an unspoken race for followers among the A-Listers. "No", because everyone creates their own experience via who they follow. - Hutch Carpenter

I agree with Hutch. Have we forgotten that we have complete control over who we follow? It's not like we're following the public timeline. I can understand getting tired of the over-coverage from the media but your feed is what you make it. - Mike Doeff

Hutch: I was always in a race to follow more interesting people. I find followers to be totally unsatisfying as a measure of my self worth. - Robert Scoble

I felt this coming on months ago ... said something to the effect of, "we experienced the Golden Age of twitter, and that is now in the process of coming to an end." - Craig Brownell

Chris: Seems to me that Twitter never was actually intended for two-way communication. I mean, look at it's most basic function: answering the question "What are you doing?" Everyone just answering that question isn't two-way communication. It's just making footprints in the virtual sand. Sure, some two-way communication does arise, but I don't think it's what the "statusphere" is all about. - Grey Drane

Robert - you uniquely have been strong on the "you're defined by who you follow" theme. I've always loved that. - Hutch Carpenter

Hutch: I choose not to measure my self worth over something I can't control. Turns out I was right to do that. Also, this meme going around that you're only worth something if you have followers is totally lame. I heard someone said that on Oprah yesterday. What a disgusting idea. - Robert Scoble

Totaly disagree with Steve. As Hutch said we make twitter look only like we want. Nobody tells you whom to follow. Only you decide it. Internet is to some point a reflection of a real life. Especially social networks. As in real life so in the Net there always be people who want to "walk, talk and act like" Kutcher. Nothing bad about it. Thank God we are not one. - Денис

Basing one's value on the number of people following is cult-like thinking. Shallow and controlling. - Karoli from BuddyFeed

FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

So wait, stuff I've posted that's got likes but no comments yet doesn't show up in My Discussions? How have I not noticed this before?

April 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Helen Sventitsky, Amber, Random Time Lord, Ken Sheppardson and 4 other people liked this

My Discussions = "subscribe to comments and likes" filter. They both use the same backend filter. - vijay

30 more comments

Everything I have posted and/or liked appears in "My Discussions" from what I can tell (which is appropriate in my mind). - Brian Sullivan

Well, this still isn't showing in my discussions, so I'm just confused all over. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

And now that I've commented, it does show up. Hrm.... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

like I said. - vijay

Tina: It's just stuff that *you've* Liked or commented on, not stuff you've written/posted that's received likes/comments. - Ken Sheppardson

Ken, it is. It's the same filter. My discussions is nothing but me subbing to my own "subscibe to comments and likes" feed. - vijay

Tina: that is not my experience so I am not sure what might be happening. - Brian Sullivan

I'm new to FF but "My Discussions" seems to be stuff I've posted, commented on, or liked. - CAJ, somewhere else

What Ken said, that's the stuff that "you", Tina have liked or commented on. And since you can't like your own stuff, it won't show up there - directeur

Wait -- I just tested and it seems to work as you said -- but I have older stuff without comments/likes that appears as well -- maybe a timing thing? - Brian Sullivan

That's my experience as well Brian. My Discussions shows some of my older posts that have no likes/comments. But not newer ones. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I would say that this is a bug or a design flaw. - Brian Sullivan

How much older? Pre-beta posts? - Ken Sheppardson

I'm not sure. The label seems pretty accurate to me. Clicking "like" does not a discussion make. - Scott of Two Countries

I have one from 20 hours ago -- and have not used anything but the beta since it came out. - Brian Sullivan

So correcting what I said earlier "Everything I have posted and/or liked appears in "My Discussions" except for recent posts without likes or comments from what I can tell" - Brian Sullivan

No, not pre-beta stuff. For instance, the posts I made on groupthink last night showed in my discussions before anyone liked/commented on them. But, now that I think about it, those had an initial comment from thebookmarklet. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

OK, just created a test entry. Didn't show up in "My discussions". As soon as I commented on it, it did. - Ken Sheppardson

If you delete your comment it will disappear from "My discussions" - Brian Sullivan

Maybe create a "conversations started by me" filter then? - Meryn Stol

Meryn -- that exists already ( if you click on your name link) - Brian Sullivan

I'm in beta. Beta cool. - Craig Brownell

Brian, oh yeah, of course. Stupid me. :) - Meryn Stol

for me My Discussions is like Ken is describing... entries that i have commented on and/or liked - Chris Heath

Chris -- it is more than that -- it includes entries that you generated that others have commented on or liked. It also includes some entries that you generated that have neither comments nor likes. But for some reason some generated entries with no comments or likes are excluded. - Brian Sullivan

Brian: are you seeing any entries you "generated" that don't have a "comment" from you that was created automatically when you generated the entry? - Ken Sheppardson

Ken -- yes. But looking at it more closely I see entries that I have generated with likes that don't appear in the list so maybe my pronouncement that liked only entries are included was premature. But I do see some in the list with only likes so I am not sure what the algorithm is. - Brian Sullivan

You have to remember that if you write an intro for your entry, Frienfeed takes it as a comment. That's why they show up in your Discussions. I think commented or liked items is the right way to go, because if you haven't done those things, you are not IN a discussion. ;) - Alejandro

Alejandro - some entries definitely do not have comments - http://beta.friendfeed.com/formula... for instance is in "My discussions" - Brian Sullivan

comments or likes go to My Discussions - Alejandro

All the entries that I generated that appear based with no comments or likes (or with likes only) look like they were posted to Rooms -- so that may be a factor. - Brian Sullivan

Leo Laporte

@ww3 Now I get it. Twitter becomes really famous. Twitter has massive IPO. Company folds in two years. Ev goes home rich.

April 16 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Andrew Davidson, Mark, Crystal Tillman and 14 other people liked this

No, I think he's going to do a repeat of Blogger. Sell the tech to Google or some other big company. Google will spend years rewriting it. It'll get even more users but it will eventually be boring. Either way, @ev goes home rich. - Robert Scoble

3 more comments

That explains why they're so bad at responding quickly to what users want. It always takes them half a year to implement new things. - Richard A.

Headstone: Got rich with 140 characters. - Bernie Goldbach

If he's going to sell he'd better do it quick. Twitter's value has to be at its peak right now. - Leo Laporte

Intriguing prognostication ... - Craig Brownell

Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Friendfeed, now on my kitchen counter. :)

April 17 from email - Comment - Like - Share

Loren Heiny, David Lynch, Johnny Worthington and 10 other people liked this

Hat tip to Ken Deering for the mousepad. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

4 more comments

1UP for the Tablet - Rodfather

2UP to my pops for the hand me down tablet (Motion Computing). I found it buried in his tech closet. lol - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Better than the internet refrigerator - Craig Brownell

Really great :) - Alp

That's awesome - Josh Haley

RAPatton

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies - WSJ.com - http://online.wsj.com/article...

April 8 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Craig Brownell, Emma, Michael Fidler and 23 other people liked this

"Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials. The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war. "The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians." The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn't target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. "There are intrusions, and they are growing," the former official said, referring to electrical systems. "There were a lot last year."" - RAPatton from Bookmarklet

11 more comments

"Last year, a senior Central Intelligence Agency official, Tom Donohue, told a meeting of utility company representatives in New Orleans that a cyberattack had taken out power equipment in multiple regions outside the U.S. The outage was followed with extortion demands, he said. The U.S. electrical grid comprises three separate electric networks, covering the East, the West and Texas.... more... - RAPatton

sounds sort of like the first few hours of 24 from this season - Jeff Quinton

or die hard 4 - RAPatton

Goes without saying that if they know Russia and China have done this, the US has/is also doing it to them, right? Cold war 2.0. - jjprojects

taking out the energy grid in Russia or China could be accomplished with a few squirrels, possums or skunks - Jeff Quinton

RAPatton, the combo of PG-13 and the badness of Die Hard 3 means I have yet to see 4. - Jeff Quinton

@jeff the best DH is second anyway, so.... - A.T.

entertaining reading -- such a good mix of BS, FUD and so on, all in the name of DHS budget bailout in the face of decimating "But protecting the electrical grid and other infrastructure is a key part of the Obama administration's cybersecurity review, which is to be completed next week. Under the Bush administration, Congress approved $17 billion in secret funds to protect government... more... - A.T.

I mean, Russians and Chinese are obviously not a piece of honey, but this one reads straight "gimme more money or ..." - A.T.

@jjprojects: don't think it'll be easy to hack russian energy grid through the internet — almost sure a lot of it just have no internet connection, and hell no way it could be controlled over the net ¶ might be easier to imitate a phone call from their current or even better a former president (impersonator) screaming and giving orders to manually switch something off there :) - earlyadopter

"In Soviet Russia, the grid hack you." - Craig Brownell

The should have seen this coming... didn't they see Live Free or Die Hard??? *edit* *reads comments* read comments and then post, Michael... - Michael W. May

Josh Haley

FACIAL HAIR

April 17 - Comment - Like - Share

Gavin, Alfredo, Kol Tregaskes and 11 other people liked this

I haz more than you - Josh Haley

26 more comments

I feel compelled to shave that. - Jon, the Chilled Beartato

That's what she said - Josh Haley

Might be time to have that looked at. - Derrick

YIKES! - BEX

On the bright side, no zits! - jcunwired

so what is the point of making fun of people like them? - jamar78

UH OH FACE LICE - Akiva Moskovitz

Redefines comb-over - Andrew Smith

Dislike :( - Mike Nayyar

not really trying to make fun, I just had to find a pic with the most hair so I could, I dunno, have the pic with the most hair. - Josh Haley

Here's the original link http://corpcloset.blogspot.com/2008... - Josh Haley

This funny and disgusting. :) - Numan Arda Çebi

Genetically engineered by a shampoo company? This is the future. Gah! - jjprojects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Rochelle

so nothing was meant by " I haz more than you" - jamar78

Called it like I saw it, bud. What's on your mind? - Josh Haley

YO DAWG, YOU GOT SOME...oops, sorry. - Derrick

just playing the devil advocate..... - jamar78

That's cool. Like Rochelle posted, it is something that some people have to live with. Not trying to disrespect that at all. It is different and different things are interesting. - Josh Haley

Welp, now I'm depressed. - Akiva Moskovitz

Josh :) - directeur

I am sad now too. No disrespect intended on my end. :( - Derrick

Actually, I'm 'depressed' because over agalbk;l oh aklAbk Nevermidng KAdg;Lb ;F juJu - Akiva Moskovitz

Oy Vey. - Michelle Martinez

As I said earlirer I was just playing the Devil's Advocate....no big deal - jamar78

TOO LATE CRYING - Akiva Moskovitz

Hurley's looking good! - Craig Brownell

Robert Scoble

Why Dominos video response at http://www.youtube.com/watch... is going to be textbook:

Why Dominos video response at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6AJ49xNSQ is going to be textbook:

April 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Will DeLuca, Edward Zwart, HD Johnson and 157 other people liked this

1. They did it in video. THAT is the way to respond. Not text. Video says MUCH MORE than text can. - Robert Scoble

91 more comments

2. They went overboard with the response. They closed down the store and "sanitized it." - Robert Scoble

3. The CEO did it and repeated that nothing is more important that our trust. He demonstrated he understood the issue. - Robert Scoble

4. He thanked influencers for helping Dominos understand the issue and making sure that others knew about it. - Robert Scoble

5. He responded while the issue is still "hot." - Robert Scoble

6. He responded on YouTube, which is where the crisis started, not on their own video platform. - Robert Scoble

7. He communicated that there was "immediate" action including arrest warrants, and people getting fired. - Robert Scoble

Impressive. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

He didn't look straight into the camera, however - as pointed out by Steve Garfield. - l0ckergn0me

8. He knows that the real problem is that they hired idiots and are "reexamining" all hiring practices. THAT is the best way to make sure you get a good brand. - Robert Scoble

9. He used personal language "it sickens me." Not marketing speak. - Robert Scoble

Interesting mix of being apologetic and totally pissed at the same time. Overall thumbs up from me. - Mike Doeff

10. He is working to "regain our trust." - Robert Scoble

Is there anything else he could have done to answer this crisis? - Robert Scoble

He didn't offer us a coupon to make us feel better. I didn't feel condescended to. - Kevin Fox

Good lead, Robert. Glad to see discussion around the response. - Valeria Maltoni

Now if he could just work on making the pizza not taste so bad. - Dave Roth

now is the best time to go to Domino's in Conover. clean as a whistle. - nesman89

Fantastic job, I thought. - Matthew Freeman

Ok, so how bout some back ground? - Matthew DeVries

I don't mind that he didn't look straight into the camera. That shows he isn't "slick" or "overcoached." - Robert Scoble

Yes, it would have been better if he had looked into the camera, but given that a teleprompter is an expensive item, and rigging a two-way mirror with a magnified view of a printed script is a hassle... I think the minor shortfall can be forgiven. All seven of Robert's points remain absolutely valid. - David Muir

Matthew: Here's the background: http://beta.friendfeed.com/thomash... - Robert Scoble

Textbook is the best way to go. Swift and done. Now in time, people will forget, crave cheap, fast, and delivered food, and it's over. - Mike Lewis

Very well handled. I agree with you, Robert, this will make its way into textbooks alongside Tylenol's response to the poisoning crisis three decades ago. - Stephen Mack

Matthew: I already posted a link to the background. http://beta.friendfeed.com/thomash... - Robert Scoble

Or here if you wanna go straight to the source: http://consumerist.com/5210648... - Stephen Mack

They just taught a lot of clueless PR people how to handle a crisis like this. Well done. - Inside Alaska

I think theyve been handling this like pros from the getgo. Good job - Rasmus Lauridsen

Pretty slick. Many can learn from it. - Katie Dob

The woman is also a registered sex offender apparently: http://ncfindoffender.com/details... - Zulema ◕ ◡ ◕

so far this year, that's, what, rats in the peanuts, perchlorate in the babby formula, prescription drugs in the drinking water, snot in the pizza... what was safe to ingest again? - Karim

Bravo, Dominos. Nicely done. Speak up or be spoken for. - kevin j higgins

But he's using a teleprompter. He's evil. - teh Dork Knight aka Kenny

tehKenny: I don't think he was. I bet that he was looking at some notes, though. It didn't come across like he was reading. For someone not experienced with a teleprompter you can not use one and not come across like you're reading. - Robert Scoble

Their response was appropriate and in a timely manner which is key now. - Christi

Anyone who has ever used a teleprompter realizes how hard it is to use one and how hard it is to look natural doing it. I bet he had someone off to the side of the camera he was talking to who was holding notes up to remind him what to talk. - Robert Scoble

I wasn't there, obviously, but watching the CEO look off-camera yet speak as if to a person made me think he was looking at a person to stay "real" and "personable" and not canned or offering a performance. - Bloom Seed

It's just pizza - Ari Braginsky

Carmen: "W" had a LOT of media training and a team of people to tell him how to do it. I doubt this CEO has had much media training. - Robert Scoble

rewatching it makes it clear that he's reading notes (his focus starts at top, moves down as recording proceeds). Still, though, comes across as a real person. Not everything needs professional actors, producers, makeup, sets...imperfect may be the new perfect, as far as communicating genuineness. - Bloom Seed

Comes across as very heart-felt, and almost makes me want to order with them (I'm not sure we have them here in this town)! Shouldn't they have added something like "We'll now be installing cams in all our kitchens streaming direct to Ustream, making us the ONLY food delivery you can trust to not mess your food"? :) - Philipp Lenssen

Philipp: well, that would certainly be cool but would be way beyond something they could deliver on in two days. - Robert Scoble

I mean, I'm not a big fan of Dominos, but this helps them establish themselves as giving a crap. Good PR move. - Mike Nayyar

Great video response straight from the company president. As for watching food getting prepared, the Papa John's locations that I've been to are open and you can basically see them making your pie. Not sure if Domino's has stores like that... - Doug

Carmen, it's the "polished" vs "timely" tug of war: http://fftogo.com/e... - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

solid performance-- came across naturally and believable, blend of professionalism and good ole fashion ass-kicking anger. It was smooth but not overly slick; no suit or tie and shot in store surrounding. Content was solid too, assuring customers everything that could be done was being done. One minor tweak: he doesn't appear to be looking directly at the camera. - mark ivey

I wonder if they thought about making it a response to "that video" on youtube to get the eyeballs needed to make this count.. - Tom Masiero

Ari - it's more than "just pizza" - it's the livelihood of 125k employees. We are focused here on a textbook response, but this is also a clear demonstration of the power of leverage that SM holds: two idiots can do major damage to the brand, the company, and by ultimately to the employees. Hat's off to Mr. Doyle and his advisers. - Bill Sanders

good response for sure, way to go - sean percival

Rewatched it and yes he is reading it. Regardless, I think it was handled pretty appropriately. - Jay Neff

good job. small nit: next time they need to move the teleprompter (or cue cards) either over or under the camera. - MikeAmundsen

Video is good if Good Messenger (which Domino's guy IS) But also put the incident on my radar screen, which hitherto I was unaware of. - JimmyJet

Wasn't aware of the incident but sure feel bad for the independent operator.. - MiaD

The woman in the Wendy's chili fraud case ended up sentenced to 9 years in prison and her husband (who bought the finger off a co-worker who lost it in an industrial accident) got 12 years. http://www.bluemaumau.org/wendys_... - Kevin Fox

I wish that he was looking at the camera instead of a telepromter. Just sayin. - Andrew Baron

Andrew: he's not looking at a teleprompter. I bet someone is holding a notepad with an outline on it for him. - Robert Scoble

I haven't had Domino's in a long time. But, I'm happy to see that they put up this Video response to the malicious destruction of their Brand and business practices. - rob friedman

good job. that was a classy way to 'avoid the noid.' - grant fox

Hey Robert, can I use some of your reasons in a blog post in writing up about the Domino's issue? - Kenneth

Kenneth: yes, feel free! - Robert Scoble

Thanks Robert! - Kenneth

"Everyone else is doing it right." Yeah, right. [What are the odds of that?] - Craig Brownell

I kept hoping he'd actually look into the camera. - James Miao

I agree with James. I was hoping that he would look at the camera like he's talking to his customers. I get that he needs to make sure he says exactly what needs to to said, but the way he kept looking away from the camera made it seem a little "stiff". - Kenneth

like when dirk diggler looked into the camera during his documentary. that was powerful stuff. - grant fox

Kenneth: that's a mistake someone who isn't media trained makes. I actually don't mind that because it makes it less slick. - Robert Scoble

My guess is that they're multiple cameras and he's looking at the expensive one - Bwana ☠

Robert: Really? If corporate heads are on camera, they should NOT look at the camera especially if they're not being interviewed? It looks natural not to look at the camera? You're definitely right...I'm not media trained. :) Looks like he was reading off of a script and didn't notice a camera at him. - Kenneth

Who was he talking to? The sound guy holding the microphone to the right of the camera? - Diego Barros 

Kenneth: the only time you should look at the camera is when you want to speak directly to the viewer. You are right that he should have been speaking directly into the camera. Knowing where to look is part of media training. A good PR team could have helped (IE, one that had worked a lot with video before) but I can't really blame him. I still have trouble figuring this out. When I was on the BBC it was very difficult to look into the camera (it was aplate on the wall). - Robert Scoble

i just have to say, that by him not looking in the camera, or really doing any of this before it seems adds to his character that he's a regular guy, not some PR trained monkey doing a dance for us. - rob friedman

I dunno, I think it's more important that the response seem unrehearsed. I'll bet he did it in one take. - Ken Morley

Well done Robert: not a surprise to see this crew recognizes excellence when they see it. Dominos did virtually everything right on this aspect of its response. having seen a few crises, this example is among the best. blogged it here: http://www.mediadeluge.com/post... - Christian Anderson

Just to let folks know: the teleprompters I am familiar with allow the newscaster or talking head to look directly at the camera AND read the script. The result is like a HUD (heads-up display) for those familiar with video games or jet fighters. - David Muir

Right David, but there are all kinds of "teleprompters" some low tech and some higher tech. the point is he was reading. It was okay, he did a great job in one take. It would have been better if he hadnt read it and looked directly at the camera, but because everything else was so well done, the reading gets a pass - Christian Anderson

Not a fan of their pies, but kudos to Dominoes for the forthright reply and apology for the miscreants who brought this upon them. Hope they rebound well from this. - JA Castillo

Definitely a canned response but still heartfelt and sincere. Plus we learned its a federal felony to stuff cheese up your nose on camera. Imagine what happens at McDonalds on a daily basis - now that's frightening. - Chris Sparno

Very lucky that they had a CEO that even was willing to talk for YouTube in the moment; let's not now criticize him for his media training, or none will ever have the guts to do it again. - Francine Hardaway

Rich: This is deadly serious for him. He's right to take it seriously and I'm sure he genuinely does. - Michael Krigsman

So the real question is, who feels comfortable enough to order Domino's this weekend? - Chris Bartow

I do Chris, even more-so now than before. This weekend will be the cleanest in the franchise's history :) - Bwana ☠

@Karim: "snot in the pizza... what was safe to ingest again?" Years ago, I ordered a pizza (not from Domino's) and was surprised to see a piece of broken glass in it — and this particular glass shard had part of the pizza company logo on it! When I phoned them about it, they replaced the pizza in record time; of course, they asked for the broken glass back, too, so I couldn't keep the evidence. - Victor Panlilio

Victor *shudder* i think i would have just given up eating pizza after that :-D - Karim

The comments on You Tube are negative I don't agree with them, what is your opinion abut them? (They say Doyle is not sincere) - Maurizio Goetz

Rule #0 - Youtube comments have the value of a single molecule of feces - Bwana ☠

+1 Bwana!! - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

His response was right on and pretty smart for doing it via a video. It's sad but we are at the mercy of people that prepare our food. :-( I kind of feel bad for the kids because what they did shows a complete lack of intelligence. It would be nice if they took responsible and apologized in some sort of public forum. - John McCullough

@John McCullough "we are at the mercy of people that prepare our food" and people who pilot the planes we fly in, treat our municipal drinking water, etc. I daresay we only appreciate them when things go horribly wrong. - Victor Panlilio

@Chris White "The founder of Domino's supports Right to LIfe and Operation Rescue, which IMO, is worse than putting farts on sandwiches" Really? Watch the video at http://www.abortionno.org/ and see if you can stomach the idea that we dispose of unwanted human beings so cavalierly. - Victor Panlilio

Victor, your comment as well as John's above you, reminds me of that line in Fight Club: "We do your laundry, cook your food and serve you dinner. We guard you while you sleep. We drive your ambulances..." - Aaron Kurtz

@Aaron - almost everything we take for granted in "civilized society" depends on the everyday goodwill (and conscientiousness) of anonymous others. I've always thought that we need to become more mindful of the benefits we daily receive from these enablers of our well-being. Count your blessings, etc. - Victor Panlilio

Victor, I couldn't agree more. - Aaron Kurtz

Craig Brownell

1997 Moravec Bush Robot Final Report - Summary - http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/users...

April 15 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

"Fractal branching ultra-dexterous robots," also known as "bush robots," a concept for robots of ultimate dexterity. - Craig Brownell

Craig Brownell

1997 Moravec Bush Robot Final Report - Summary - http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/users...

April 15 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

"Fractal branching ultra-dexterous robots," also known as "bush robots," a concept for robots of ultimate dexterity. http://bit.ly/2jvp15 - Craig Brownell

Craig Brownell

New Antibody Breakthrough Paves The Way For Near Universal Flu Vaccine | Singularity Hub - http://singularityhub.com/2009...

March 6 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

* Potential Lifelong Influenza Vaccine - Craig Brownell

Craig Brownell › Comments