Nice sentiment. Too bad it completely misses the point. Also, I don't have an ebook reader and I'm not planning on buying one for a few years.
- DJF
I didn't really look at it as a comparison between the two things. I just thought it was cool another comic strip picked up "hey libraries still exist"
- Sir Shuping is just sir
Damn, if that isn't the shortest, sweetest and scariest lil' PSA I ever did see. (sorry, visiting Southern relatives have infected my diction)
- Andy
from iPhone
I disagree. I get a lot of value out of all FriendFeed accounts, even those from people who signed up, added their blog and a few other things, and who have never come back again. Why? Cause now I have a new way to see their stuff and comment on it. Who really cares if they don't know about the comments?
- Robert Scoble
LOL Robert, without them knowing about it, how can you have a conversation with them? I remember some guy talking a lot about the importance of conversations... :)
- Ian Betteridge
Ian: funny thing is, everytime I talk about someone on their stuff they seem to show up. Funny how that works, isn't it?
- Robert Scoble
Robert: It's because we're all obsessively tracking your every move :)
- Ian Betteridge
No. I think most bloggers are egotistical and track everything said about them. :-)
- Robert Scoble
@Robert - my point is, if you physically can't interact with FF then what use is it? You say you have a new way of commenting on their stuff but you can't do this on a mobile phone at present (iPhone excepted probably - not seen the UI). Just being able to see it in another place is pointless WITHOUT the ability to interact.
- Colin Walker
Does anyone see any irony (or humor) in the fact that all of this commenting is occuring IN Friend Feed AGAINST the Twitter message feed that LINKED to the original post? Someone COULD have made it more complex by Stumbling the Tweet, I suppose... :)
- Mark Dykeman
Colin: I can comment here on both my Nokia N95 as well as my iPhone and do regularly (at least with my iPhone).
- Robert Scoble
Robert: ah. I can't like or comment from my phone (Windows Mobile) hence the post. Thanks for letting me know.
- Colin Walker
Mark: I'm getting 2x to 4x the number of comments here than I am on my own blog. Havinga conversation on Twitter sucks. Having one here rocks.
- Robert Scoble
When there are many (many many) times the current users on FriendFeed, do you think having a conversation will be more difficult? It seems like there would just be an endless stream of comments which would make it really hard to keep up with and respond to.
- Jordan Hofker
Having a conversation here is a lot easier than having one on my comments. For one, FriendFeed's page is a LOT faster to come up.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: is it possible that more people are commenting on your stuff in Friend Feed now because they think that you're more likely to respond here?
- Mark Dykeman
Mark: that's possible, but I noticed the same trend for many other people who are a lot quieter about FriendFeed than I am.
- Robert Scoble
Not to beat a dead horse, but to rephrase my previous point: we're not commenting on Colin's blog here, nor are we even putting these comments to the feed of his blog post. We're putting these comments on the Tweet that linked to his post. The conversation continues to spiral further away from the source.
- Mark Dykeman
Mark yes, that's true. But conversations OFTEN happen away from their source. You think that when we talk about you at a cocktail party that you're there to hear all the dirt we're talking about? I don't see this as a big deal. If they are smart they'll see this stuff show up on Google or some other search engine eventually.
- Robert Scoble
Mark: That's a feature that people want, and that will happen. Disqus, for example, is I believe working a feature which will let comments posts on FF be also posted back on the originating blog (and vice versa). That way, FF becomes a true two-way aggregator: a method of aggregating comments that don't spiral away.
- Ian Betteridge
And as you say, Robert, us bloggers are out looking for it ;)
- Colin Walker
Good article. I like how you start off with the Social Network Lockout Syndrome
- Nils Geylen
from Alert Thingy
Maybe I should have done a survey before the post ;)
- Colin Walker
Robert: I guess Oscar Wilde's old saying is true: "There is only one thing was than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." So, if you do mention me at your next cocktail party, please accept my thanks in advance. :)
- Mark Dykeman
It's a question of whether having static FF accounts will add to the noise or not. It depends on whether those ppl are just a part of the echo chamber or if they present a different take on what's already out there. My opinion is that the noise can be balanced by more signal: contribution to the conversation and new points of view.
- Shey
Shey, it's not about static accounts - its about a static page - more specifically if you can interact on any given platform (e.g. your phone)
- Colin Walker
I agree that the commenting on FF is what I come back for. It's not what I first thought FF would be. I thought it was a great way to aggregate all your online activity Instead of telling my non tech family and friends to look at 5 different sites now they can look at one. The downside here is your original blog post will live much longer than these FF comments and no one going directly to your blog will know this discussion ever happened. We need a way FF comments can live with the original content.
- Kevin Shannon
@Kevin, there is a WP plugin which brings comments back but only if they are on the post listing - this conversation will not be recognised. Full 360 degree commenting would be great.
- Colin Walker
FriendFeed is clearly a different beast than Twitter, but far fewer users and no external ecosystem to speak of. Will it scale? What if it loses data? Or do people not care because this talk is all just ephemeral anyway?
- Tinfoil 2.0
I'd probably like FF (and twitter and pownce) more if some of my RL friends were online. They're all luddites.
- ha3rvey (Hugs 50% off!)
Its funny to see comments, in FF, similar to "what use is it?". Obviously, you find some use in it - you are exploring the links and conversations presented, commenting on them, and otherwise contributing. As with all effective collaborative tools, the use is in the community. Twitter is a tool, FriendFinder integrates that tool and enhances the content by means of aggregation and discussion. I gain a good bit of knowledge here, whether on topic or off :)
- JCunwired
This conversation thread proves the value of FriendFeed... We have articulated a problem and are collaboratively brainstorming on a solution, e.g. two way feed aggregation between the original data source (blog post) and friendfeed. I hope Disqus can get this implemented as it will set a precedent in online comment management so folks can participate in "discovery" and "commenting". I think bloggers should include a link to the FF convo in the meantime to share the convo with their readers.
- Susan Beebe
BlackBerry Curve 8830 phone - no Friendfeed access - bummer! waiting...
- Susan Beebe
I found friendfeed was useful to me for just aggregating, though commenting is very nice, it'd still be a worthwhile service to me ;-) ps:G1 seems to leave comments fine
- immaterial
Thanks for this! You put into words what I've been pondering for some time. Now to send it on to my friendly library geeks at the library system. Our blogs are hosted locally but our wikis are not. Also off to backup my Delicious bookmarks! ;)
- Tasha Saecker
Interesting perspective in the smaller groups. I manage 3 twitter accounts and the latest I am only following 500 and it is the one I actually pay attention to the most because it was more select in terms of who I followed. You actually get to know people a little better per Mark's comment.
- Lyn Graft
Mark: actually I found that a group of four is the best for conversations. Any more and the conversation starts to split and get distracted.
- Robert Scoble
I'd call this account "justrobertscoble" :) I've read your post, sound practical. After we all tested twitter for two (some of us three) years, we understand that the more we follow people the more we get lost in tons of conversations, that I (for example) not even sure I'm interested in. I don't see how any of this will change without groups. It's just too much content to digest each day. (will, i can always unfollow people I guess)
- Orli Yakuel
Interesting. Um, I have a secret Twitter account where I follow key people I'm interested in my industry who share valuable links and relevant information that can be used to keep track of big picture trends in a focused way. However, I don't respond on it, just keep the signal to noise ratio high so patterns are more easily discernible.
- Sally Church
So what I am hearing here from this conversation is twitter user base is inflated (I myself have 2 accounts). I however never felt the need to have 1000s of followers as most of the stuff is gibberish. I am following a very selected amount of people and I am very selective of the people that follow me. If I am engaged in conversation and I see that person that I value engaged in...
more...
- Richard Gallo
I was thinking about this very topic today, I have consciously kept my follows as low as possible for since I started on twitter, but have recently been considering jumping on the wagon.... Now I have a secret twitter account and starting to ramp up the numbers to experiment.
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
I love how you have Ijustine in your secret twitter group. I guess you need to keep up with all her valuable insights right? CaliLewis?
- Mark
@mark - yes - those are some of the most amazing times, dinner, a small group of folks and some interesting conversation. :-)
- Dan owns Comicsforge.com
it is just become clear to me that you actually opened a group on twitter. and for that you needed to open another account, hmm... it's not easy to navigate between two accounts (even with desktop client)
- Orli Yakuel
The maximum size of a group, in which you can "know" everyone, probably depends on the richness of the communication channel (bandwidth, opportunity for response, "liveliness" [real time?], etc). This reminds me of W L Gore & Associates lattice management approach and the way that, as business units grew, they would deliberately subdivide them to remain below of size limit of about 150, if I remember correctly.
- John W Lewis
I hear the small group argument entirely. Very good point -- I hate big conferences since I feel like I have to say hello (and goodbye) to everyone for that reason. The networking events are even more difficult. You have friends who expect you to be with them during the evening but you also want to say hi to older friends and meet new faces.
- Tamar Weinberg
This sounds like a few other business ideas: if you make a resource scarce, then everyone will want one. Or to put it another way: "There is a sucker born every minute" - How do _I_ get in ? :)
- Ric Johnson
Davis: I don't think you can prevent it from loading. I'm playing with Google Friend Connect to learn what Google is going to do to get into the social networking business. It's a little forum down there.
- Robert Scoble
Sorry, I have to speak up along with Davis - it's positioned part-way down the page (and incompletely anyway) on my iphone. The last blog post page I tried keeps crashing Safari mobile (after a minute) each time I try it.
- Micah
This reminds me of child 'rearing'. When I was much younger and my kids were little one of the things I learned when they would engage with multiple pals at the same time, still holds true today for me as an adult. Even numbers are always best with regard to interaction. Odd numbers and someone gets left out, like it or not. Pairing is natural, and I mean that literally. Multiples of 2...
more...
- Sheryl
weirdest thing on this one is I saw your "other" scoble account a while back, but thought it was someone else trying to mess with you in some way so never paid it any attention... :)
- Jeremy Toeman
Curiously, given that "Really Secret Scoble" spells out RSS, this hasn't hit my RSS feed, and I happened to bump into it on FriendFeed. Ever since you made the changes to WordPress, there have been issues.
- Louis Gray
I echo Jeremy as well. I thought it was a "Really Fake Scoble".
- Louis Gray
Same here. Initial impulse was to DM Robert through FriendFeed to ascertain whether it was real. Then I thought, "Duh! Search FriendFeed!"
- Hutch Carpenter
hmm... doesn't this just point to the lack of "groups" support in twitter!? I use @troynt greasemonkey script (http://userscripts.org/scripts...), which provides groups support among other things.
- Shivanand Velmurugan
I've had two groups in both Twitter and FriendFeed for months now. One is called "Influentials" (which @scoble is part of) and the other "Cool-Friends" which are people who share similar interests or affinity. I always keep 3 tabs (one for all, the other two with these groups) and have gotten a lot of value out of that approach. On Twitter I have the lists as columns in Seesmic Desktop.
- Jorge Escobar
honestly I do have multiple twitter accounts 4 different purpose, but sumtimes they do overlap, yes u r still the same person, but u r selling a brand, or a company or a non-profit or topics that r different. U need to keep track or straight.
- polou/indigo_bow
"The service, which was previously great as a destination site, has just unveiled three fantastic products that will ensure you see a lot more Grooveshark across the social web in your music future. The Facebook application alone is newsworthy enough, but combine that with a harmonious WordPress reviews plugin and a Tinysong API, and Grooveshark’s got a major hit."
- Iván Abrego
from Bookmarklet
It's really hard to believe that the crunchpad has come so far. I remember the early talks of asking whether anybody knew of something like this that existed, then talks of building one themselves, and now finally a launch prototype. Very exciting
- Wang Yip
kinda reminds me of a larger iphone
- Stuart Evans
Will it run flash? If it's cheap enough for newspapers to subsidize for their customers, it could be a finger in the dike.
- The original Kevin
yep, it does everything a browser does Kevin
- Zee.
I like the idea of booting directly to the browser. For the average person, they can pretty much get by in the browser and something like this is all they would need. I would guess however, that this is not going to be targeted at the "average" person to begin with but nonetheless I think it is a move in the right direction.
- Mike Bracco
Persistent data connection (i.e. 3G)?
- Mike Bracco
Big important question...how long after it comes out will it be available in Australia? I'm sold already on it.
- George Hall (Australia)
Looks interesting, but what interested me about Kindle is the e-Ink technology - I don't want to read newspapers or books on a screen. Fine for a Netbook replacement, large browser, but seems to be a different use than the Kindle.
- Stuart Miniman
looks awesome. This will definately affect the kindles marketshare considering the iphone is really a competitor to the kindle.
- craftsmen_atl
from twhirl
Transferring a terabyte of data to Amazon costs about $1000. So we need data center plugs so we can pull up and cheaply upload/download large data sets. These are like the electricity plugs for electric vehicles that are installed throughout the city.
I had this very same idea except its not a plug per se but some kind of Drobo-dock. Well, I guess thats a plug.
- Aaron deMello
Oh I love this idea! Upload stations ftw!
- EricaJoy
Actually, this is something we're going to exploit because Rackspace offers both rack-based hosting and cloud hosting. Moving data back and forth in our data center is going to be very low latency and much more affordable. We call this "hybrid hosting" and you'll hear a lot more about it soon. It's not unreasonable to think that we would have a service to do something just like what you're asking for.
- Robert Scoble
Robert that only helps for data generated within your network and data that stays in your network. Sensor networks, for example, are generating heaps of data that needs to be uploaded for munging.
- Todd Hoff
Todd: true, but it'll be interesting to see how we can use hybrid approaches to lower the costs of getting data in and out of our cloud.
- Robert Scoble
beta is better than first iteration. cleaner ux. however value prop of friendfeed over twitter is still unclear
- Sean Scott
Just showed it to a pal. He says awesome programming
- ThinkEzy
It doesn't suck at all. Maybe it takes some time for you to get used to it, but once you do, it's great.
- Diego Espinoza V.
I've seen lots of mention of the learning curve--to me, this has been a duck to water experience. Seems sensible, flexible, fluid.
- Kathy Fitch
when I am commenting, I can still see "real time" like or comment by other people, I think it rocks!
- K.D.
I miss the time updates on the rooms, and I don't like the color scheme... Also don't really like the real time view and keep it paused. I do like DMs however... that's the best new feature.
- Lindsay
doesn't suck at all..guys at friendfeed have done a real good job..keep it up guys
- Arvind
The old colour scheme was better in that it was clearer and gave the impression of a weight and richness. Now FF looks like a cheap blog. Sorry guys
- Dan Stuart
The color scheme is a little gaudy and the "look" inelegant. Like going from a Mac desktop to Windows. It's still perfectly functional. Just not as comfortable being here.
- Jeff Guin
grey for a background… so pathetic. Imaginary friends added in a really cool way to a mental model of friendfeed, now gone.
- Лёша
Just imagine if this was on Facebook. All the hundreds of millions of clumsy Facebook users would start hundreds of thousands of hate groups. Since FriendFeed is mostly geeks & early adopters, they are more open to change. Once this thing hits the mainstream, this sort of innovation on the UI will be impossible to implement.
- Ben Ackles
That's it? No one else thinks friendfeed sucks? Come on now. Facebook changes and everyone is up in arms.
- Robert Scoble
socialcoop: maybe Arrington is right and no one is using friendfeed.
- Robert Scoble
Since it 'pulls-in' so much content...well, that's kind of like sucking--but I guess the old one did that too. The new FF is better--I used th RT mode in the old one too.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Maybe that's because facebook's changes actually sucked
- Keith Barrett
But facebook is used by people that don't understand why the internet changes. They are used to desktop software, not web applications. Facebook is the first true webapp most of those users have used.
- Daniel Zarick
We can see the stream and the person who did it, but it's hard to see where it comes from(twitter, blog,..). In the old version, there was an icon to see it but it has disppeared. (sorry for my poor english, I'm french...)
- tristan
Hard to tell - because I just hate change. I'm not a fan of being able to see LESS about who is posting and what they're posting with.
- Ciaoenrico
Remember, it's 2am on the East Coast now, Robert. Even _I'm_ about to hit the hay. *grin*
- Ken Kennedy
I'm still annoyed that FF offers no option for the real-time displays to show newest post at top
- Keith Barrett
I've been using the beta all along, and even with all of the lists I've set up, I find I'm looking at the main feed/lists less than I used to. That's my only real negative. Saved filters are wonderful, and embedding is sometimes useful.
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
Baard Overgaard Hansen: We still have rooms, they're called Groups now. And for me, the comments and likes links at the top of my profile page distinguishes them quite well.
- Sharon McPherson
Only complaint is that I wish it was easier to see where any given piece of information came from.
- Angus Burton
No, it's sweet. It's my favorite thing right now, its the coolest thing on the internets. It runs so smoothly too.
- Stephen Pickering
There's gonna be some pushback on this one. I've gotten used to it because I switched to the beta over a month ago. I've almost forgotten what the other layout looked like. To those complaining about not being able to see the source service the posts come from. I think that's the point; don't leave here, it doesn't matter where it came from, discuss it here. :)
- Adam Turetzky
Was just learning the old but between being able to use rooms/groups and auto-updating of comments in a thread, I like it.
- Jim Espinoza
Hate the new FF. Hate the lack of icons for other services. And though I haven't dug around yet (hint! I shouldn't have to!), I can't seem to find a way to parse out different services (ie, just look at Last.fm imports from my friends, or pull out the "internal" RSS feed for content I've personally entered into FF). And right now I'm annoyed by new comments popping onto this page while I'm typing.
- Kevin Hessel
Kevin, thereis a Pause button at top right of the column to deal with your annoyance.
- Jim Espinoza
Just want "Best of" for my friends list then all will be fine again. It was in the beta, right?
- Dominic Jones
i will probably appreciate new functionalities when using them, but i definitely miss the old look'n'feel, looks very much like twitter now, has lost "personality"
- Adriana Ripandelli
Ah, I learn something new too. Thanks, Kevin
- Jim Espinoza
Looks ugly but an improvement over old version. Workflow on new version is a step back than before. Seems untested and unfinished. I'm seriously looking for something better now.
- Chris Nixon
from BuddyFeed
Just 4 things I'd like to see implemented. First, as mentioned above, a pause button - comment link placed under the last entry so we don't have to scroll all the way back to the top on long posts to enter comments - the ability to send Retweets, and make posts sticky.
- Sharon McPherson
Another thing, new FF appears to have been designed for those like you with lots of followers. Most of us hardly ever get comments, likes etc. So it's great for the A-list, but shitty for the rest of us. That might change if more people join.
- Dominic Jones
I can't say anything about the new features because I'm too annoyed to look at them. The layout and theme sure sucks though. I thought I clicked onto my twitter page by mistake. Now I need to find TweetDeck for FriendFeed and avoid the web page like the plague to make it tolerable, just like twitter. Why don't they narrow this column down a few more inches - there's really like so much more space they could be wasting. Why only waste 40% of the page?
- Christopher Brocious
not at all intuitive... user interface get a grand 2/10.... if that is fixed, could be fantastic... the concept of real time (even though its simulated, as its still doing "pulls" from the browser rather than "pushes" to the browser) is great, the data itself is rich, but it should focus on either being an aggregator, or syndicator... trying to be both is misadventerous.
- simran
Sharon--click on the time stamp to pop the thing into a new window. Puts the comment box on the bottom, and allows new comments to scroll in without disrupting your writing.
- Kathy Fitch
FriendFeed is no longer focused on connecting individual services, it's blending them and that's wrong. Aesthetically it's spiraling and that matters too.
- Andrew Smith
I have yet to fully realize the new features which I'm sure are tremendous. From a UI perspective--design wise? It is very, what I can only describe as, 'early BlogSpot'. It's pretty hard on the eyes and that's the absolute most diplomatic way I can say it. I'll be sticking with the previous incarnation(http://friendfeed.com/realtime) and the real-time pop-out window(http://friendfeed.com/realtim...).
- Gregg Scott
Almost forgot, please FF, give administrators the ability to delete groups.
- Sharon McPherson
I dont like this friendfeed! I want my old and sweety FF! Return my FF, plz...!
- Exir
Agree with Sharon - how do you delete groups?
- Liviu Lica
what sucks about friendfeed is that all people talk about on it is friendfeed or other meta issues. also too many buttons to press to distract. No ecosystem of desktop apps. I am sure its a useful utility for pros like scoble, but for everyone else, twitter is ideal, your mum can understand it.
- Michael Neale
Too much like facebook and twitter. I come here for news and great discussion not status updates of people I don't know, unfortunately, all my friends are on facebook.
- Andrew Royer
Michael: all the "normal" people in my life are on facebook which is more complex than either Twitter or friendfeed. By the way, Facebook adds more people every month than are even on Twitter. So your thesis is TOTALLY WRONG. Users CAN put up with a LOT of complexity. Try again.
- Robert Scoble
fine tuning and control on real time flow is missing.
- Ouriel Ohayon
I miss the additional features of the old UI for posting. You had separate fields to add links, photos, comments as well as the text of the post. How do you add text and a link now?
- Mark Krynsky
FB is daunting, I think. I just hate having to wrestle the danged thing to the ground every time I try to use it. This seems to me to be simple, flexible, fluid, nimble.
- Kathy Fitch
I just did: http://ff.im/2sTvr and there is more, I goes too fast now, It looks like a blog, and friendfeed is not a blog... and I don't like it at all...
- Aline
Too little content on to much space, I only have a 13inch screen. FAIL
- Gerard van Schip
I think it is far away from suck, yes it needs a bit more tweak. But I think its great and more useful than Twitter.
- MoRiza
I would like to see the words subscriptions/subscribers dropped from the profile pages and use friends/followers instead..
- Arvind
Why is everybody taking about Twitter? The question is do you think the new FF sucks? And that anser is YES!
- Aline
because of a twitter-like interface, even if in realtime
- Nicola Junior Vitto
But you can not compare Twitter and FF, that are two realy diffrent things...
- Aline
avatar pictures instead of service pictures. this is getting too social for my reading habbits :) and also, text used to span all over the page now it's trapped in the middle. why. my sides of the screen are upset :)
- Dani Radu
There's very little "twitter-like" other than the use of avatars to bring the focus to people rather than services. And here I thought FF was all about the people to begin with...
- Kevin Kuphal
Hmm. Maybe I'm unperturbed because I've been using the beta from the get-go.
- Kathy Fitch
Thats it! The absence of service icons to ID my stream, thats the only sucky part.
- MoRiza
You'll get used to "from Twitter" under the post in very short order, people.
- Kevin Kuphal
1) It's now harder and longer to read. First, all posts look the same because of service icons absence — it was needed for visual filtering of the posts. Then, post header are now come in two parts — text and link (it means more text, more clutter, harder to click — every link begins in it's own place). Third, only one comment in a collapsed discussions — you can't see answer-question pair, just an answer.
- Yury Vetrov
I did not use the Beta, because it would like to see Icons, and I like to see alle services anyone uses, now I have to click my way troug FF, and when I want to read something, it goes very fast...
- Aline
2) It's hard to use FriendFeed as an RSS reader now. Imaginary friends are totally broken. You can still create a private group, but it's inconvinient, it's separates old and new IFs in two lists (subscriptions and groups). I've used FrF as an RSS reader in the first place.
- Yury Vetrov
3) It's impossible to use FrF as a browser of your aggregated content — no more filters by service in user's profile. It was very useful for sites with no proper bookmarks system (Vimeo, SlidShare, YouTube etc).
- Yury Vetrov
@Kevin, FF is all about people. But people are not avatars (yet). We are what we share online, and untill real avatar interaction - we share via services. That's why imho it makes more sense to use service icons then static avatar pics.
- Dani Radu
Naw...tis just different and back to the firehose. :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
Only thing I don't love is the "more" dealie. Harumph. I'm wordy, I confess it. No need to rub my face in it, FF. Makes me feel scolded every time. <wry grin>
- Kathy Fitch
Someone on seesmic who thinks new seesmic sucks http://new.seesmic.com/threads... , I think he's right about imaginary friends but we can still create groups or rooms.
- tristan
I don't hate it, I don't like it either, it looks much alike the HTML kiddies designs of 10 years ago.
- Amit Morson
I like the concept, but not the look. At least the horrid gray should go.
- Johan Aulin
Sing for Absolution: Please let people use the old version of friendfeed via a sub domain address like old.friendfeed.com. We do prefer to use the old version instead of the new. This new version does not match the low speed connections and users with so much subscriptions. Thank you friends. http://friendfeed.com/friendf...
- Exir
Thanks for the clarification and more details Micah...Many of the older scripts may not work on the new site and that's why I filtered to 'beta'.
- Mark Krynsky
Why oh why did they feel the need to become *more* like twitter?!?!?
- Scott Gould
Good point, Mark. Another tip is to sort by clicking the "Last Updated" link to look at everything that's been updated since beta-to-live (April 29 or later).
- Micah
New features have negative suck. Layout has small amount of suck - seems less information dense than old layout, with right side space lost to navigation stuff.
- David Lounsbury
takes some getting used to. i've gotten more subscribers since this change than in all the time i've been on FF.
- Alensa
I could like it more if only they could move all the Twitter members over here. :)
- Ed Grant
It's aight.. I can't see how to collapse FF down to see JUST delicious links or JUST Digg links from a specific user or group by clicking on the feed icon. Maybe I still can but I don't see how.
- Jesse Newhart
Yeah there is definitelly less on the screen. More difficult to scan. Is the font size larger. Did they get a coder to design it rather than an interface designer.
- Chris Nixon
from BuddyFeed
i think it's great but may need a bit of work on the actual design. also scoble==totally trolling for a big discussion!
- Snipergirl
I simply want my old FF back... I have the feeling that I use my mobile phone with so much simplicity...
- philos
Bring back imaginary friends!!! the greatest FrF appeal for me was ability to consolidate of all online relationships. Some of these contacts eventually convert and become FrF users, some will never covert and following them via imaginary friend is essential for me.
- Maхx Tee
Everything I liked at FF, is now gone... :(
- Aline
Strange. The impression is we had lots of features and now almost of things are gone. Strange. It definitely needs UX improvements.
- Tiago Vieira
The effect each medium has on the human sensorium vary with the medium. This medium will change our way to use it. The New FF completely change the way we use it. This is another tool: more LIVE, more confused, more dispersive. I love the old FF for the ability to create conversation in a simple way. Now the coversation is absolutly disordered because I can't control how to enjoy the conversations. Good attempt ... to create something different.
- Giovanni Calia
the old FF interface was much better, why is gone the support for icons for feeds? This was a better way to recognize on what channel was generated!! Is not possible to have both Interfaces????
- Dan Romescu
It's great.. but seriously miss the icons that indicate the source of the message... e.g. how to easily filter out all blogposts
- Aad 't Hart
I woudl show them your post about ugly design. Visually I liked the previous interface, not beautiful but personal. This one with rounded corners and wide borders looks like a default theme. I read beta on a nokia and it is not bad, but I would stay very very simple. Content is king.
- Michele Costabile
Friendfeed's new look gives me a perfect antidote to Twitter and I appreciate that, thanksverymuch.
- Bernie Goldbach
who cares, friendfeed could be the future. I've known ever since Scoble's Twitter told me so.
- Kemp Edmonds
from twhirl
it seems a Wordpress comments management :-|
- Ikaro
agree re the need to bring back imaginary friends.
- Matt Hooper
The new FF is ok, kinda ugly, but ok. I still need to get used to it.
- Shawn Hickman
It doesn't suck at all! I like it! Only want a customizable background please
- Annette Schwindt
too much wasted white space. The old version was much more compact (and BTW it let us immediately see where the original news was posted). Is it really so difficult to redesign friendfeed so that we can choose the stylesheet we prefer to display our feed?
- .mau.
+1 for .mau. even gmail (the most powerful terse interface I know of) has themes. Gmail is my web 2.0 style guide.
- Michele Costabile
there's a lot of comments, and we still didn't reach the goldwin point. Maybe, there's not a of people on FF, but people on FF seem to be smarter than the others ;)
- tristan
+1 Service icon not being present irritates me at so many levels
- Swaroop
briefly: cool features, wrong interface. as someone already said: it looks like a cheap blog; it doesn't have any kind of personality, sorry.
- cedmax
just used it for the first time and I have to agree with ced, right format weak design,
- Kemp Edmonds
from twhirl
the new version doesn't suck :-D but not having the old version around still kinda does :-/ re:themes if we have to have them, can they be 'me only' themes or can i tick a box saying 'hide all user themes' ;-)
- immaterial
please keep it light and simple! no threaded comments!
- Maхx Tee
I liked the fact that you could see images before. Also the gray background, could be nicer.
- Avi A
i don't like the gray background, I think kills readability. Other than that, it's huge. And hope it's going to be much more so.
- dario
and, with a giant IMHO, service icons are *not* the point. Once you hit publish, wherever you do, it's "out there", out there (or as good a representation of it you want it to be) being FF, I like this side of it the most.
- dario
hated the beta at first, but for some reason I kept using it and now I really like it. not perfect, but better.
- Robert DeBord
Ugh... Why do these sites have to try and be like Facebook? FriendFeed was a great tool for me to aggregate all of NAPP's feeds and share them on Twitter at a glance. Now I can't tell what's coming from what feed. ((sigh))
- Photoshop User
Dario, thank you! Fftogo is so much better than this Twitter wannabe, space wasting, regressive disaster of a UX.
- Christopher Brocious
next point of order: Being ahead of your user base: good or bad?
- dario
Overall, it's good. Biggest complaint: Bring back imaginary friends! Private Groups are for something else entirely. Also, what do I do about my existing imaginary friends? How do I delete them if they happen to join FriendFeed? Would that be different if I made a private group with their name? All kinds of questions there!
- Don Faulkner
Bring back imaginary friends - otherwise FF is useless for me. A load of my friends just won't spend the time setting up their FF accounts (no need for some of them they perhaps only have a small online footprint) so its back to monitoring shed loads of other sites ie. myspace, delicious, flickr, twitter, etc. etc. Otherwise its great - significantly better than before!
- Angus Neil
I can't post through the bookmarklet to my groups. I was very dependent on this feature, and It doesn't work anymore.. Fix IT!
- Joe Spake
i think user experience isn't much more better..
- Tolga Arıcan
Thank you for calling the Official FriendFeed Helpline, brought to you by Robert Scoble. Leave your message after the beep. BEEP
- Mike Nayyar
Joe Spake: You can still use the bookmarklet to post to groups, just takes a few more steps. Click the X to remove your feed, enter the first letter or 2 of the name of the group(s) you want to post to, then choose the group from those you'll see listed.
- Sharon McPherson
Actually, now that I've used it a little, one thing I HATE is that I can see the number of subscribers and subscriptions anybody has. This is what's wrong with Twitter, as it makes it less about socializing and more about winning at a Ponzi scheme. I'd hate to see that kind of pessimism come over to FriendFeed.
- Ciaoenrico
Doesn't suck, just agree with Daniel: "Better design/colors/layout" please
- Christopher Galtenberg
Ask this again in a few weeks. I started as an immediate hater thinking I would stop using if it continued but it quickly grew on me. I suspect there will be fewer haters then (of course this wait period may provide a self fulfilling wish -- those that really don't like it may leave by then).
- Brian Sullivan
No, it doesn't. Those new to it should use it for a few days and then see how they feel.
- AJ Kohn
I'm still undecided. I still think real time makes it harder for me to find new and interesting contacts and get noticed by other people.
- The original Kevin
Sucks - not usable at work any more because it's so obvious. Plus I'm losing conversations. Give us an option to keep the old interface!
- Victor Ryden 美久太阿
It's funny, I didn't even realize that I had even gone over to the regular FF. I didn't start really using FF until the beta, despite having an account for quite some time, so I've been used to the beta.
- Aaron Kurtz
from IM
Not for me. I used Real-Time all the time in the old version. The only things are A. the mini window is lacking B. The pause button doesn't work like the original pause button so I still feel like I miss stuff when I leave my computer C. The amounts of clicks it takes to do something is a little too much Ex: Refreshing a feed Other than that, I don't see anything wrong with it
- Shevonne
Just need a good desktop app to be able to run vertical stream. Or I need 5 screens. I tried AlertThingy yesterday but it's only one pipe. Ultimately, I think a good micro-blog app needs to deliver a mix chosen streams and of organic news which you may not run into via traditional streams
- Yann Ropars
Good but lake of filters to remove a source from a view and lake of icons that show from where the entry is (RSS, twitter, ...)
- Severin
Don't care for the layout (have to scroll too much to use saved searches), update rate and opening links awkward, seems like features missing, colors not so much. Is beta.FF my default FF anyway? Yes.
- Loren Heiny
It sucks. This is a cramped primary-color room. Cramped, dumbed-down, isolating. Hate it - where is the wide-open white that is the FF I know and like? More to the point, what has been achieved by changing it?
- david
Meh. I like the readability in general - but for comments it's hard to scroll without going too far (on posts like this with a billion comments. I also miss the buttons for Twitter/blog/etc.
- Tabz
I just like to say things suck in general
- Jbizzle
Apart from the excellent points raised by everyone here, I'd like to add that FriendFeed now makes Firefox3 consume much more CPU and and makes my laptop's fan run faster too, thereby reducing battery charge too fast. Please bring back the old energy-efficient FF!. It's all a blur now!
- Siddharth Deb
Like the new features but the look is blah.
- Jessica Lee
I hate the color and overall look/feel of the UI. If I was tech savvy enough, I would try to install the cleaner ff greasemonkey script for chrome... but I'm not. May try anything. But I find the new colors and spacing annoying.
- Jen (SquirrelGirl)
I don't think the new FF sucks, but I wish they hadn't diluted the imaginary friend feature because I just wrote a post extolling its virtues.
- Karoli
Since every post, like this one for that matter, becomes quicky a chat room, I say I hate reading comments in gray! I also would like to be able to close the comments I opened. Be simples, give me helvetica and black, say hello to round corners and margins. Do not waste one quarter of the screen for a short sidebar, maybe put commands at top and content on two columns.
- Michele Costabile
it's hard to differentiate between the different services now. It all looks the same.
- richrecruiter
I installed the greasemonkey script recommended by Micah which enables me to see both the avatars and service icons - http://userscripts.org/scripts... Double the pleasure, double the fun.
- Sharon McPherson
Sharon, Micah - thanks so much for the greasemonkey script link. Friendfeed without the services icons was really starting to bug me. I hope Friendfeed brings service icons back to the stream as well as imaginary friends. Taking away features = bad. I don't mind the beta but Friendfeed should integrate previously available features into it IMHO.
- Jesse Newhart
I like the new look, would like to customize the way it updates, move newest commented topics up.
- James Rowe
right James, new comments shud stack upwards...not at bottom. wat say Scoble?
- Roshan Ramachandran
New comments at the bottom is ever so much nicer for archives, though. Makes it easier to scan the conversation after the fact, to catch up on a long one late in the game, and to catch the flow at a glance.
- Kathy Fitch
It seems a bad and old Wordpress theme.
- Gianluca Neri
Kathy: FF being realtime service, updates are easier to read as they "drop in"...specially when you are watching a discussion in separate window, where comments are not collapsed like here. To read an archive, doesnt matter u read upwards or downwards...sequence will always be there...IMO.
- Roshan Ramachandran
No, the new Friendfeed works for me. But then, I watched the launch videos and participated in one of the those Scoble Salons that pop up here. Without those learning aids, I probably would be disoriented here, at least for a while. And that's one of the problems with Friendfeed attracting new users: it's powerful, but it's not really that simple.
- Tom Landini
but ya...then the comment box also need to move to top :)
- Roshan Ramachandran
I have never used FF as much, as I have since the new beta - Props to the FF team!!
- Jim Connolly
Love the new FF except for when you hover over a DP it only shows max 5 services and has a "more >>" link. Wish FF showed all of the services on hover still.
- Garin Kilpatrick
The new FF has become.. Twitter. I used it as a different service: to gather all my feeds. Now next to my avatar only 4 icons are shown! More, next to each entry it doesn't appear anymore the logo of each service (fb, twit,...). FF is now like an RSS reader, but definitely less funnier, so boring, so similar to twitter (which I like anyway). Another great social network is dead :(
- marilena
I like it lots. Twitter is down half the time.
- tojfs7931
1. I would like a widescreen option, now it is just wasting space for long texts, 2 how can I see e.g. all my posts from one of my feeds, only, e.g. only the linkedin feed? This function was great, now I can not find it back.
- joergkurtwegner
@joergkurtwegner: go to your feed and type in the search field "service:linkedin"
- Alejandro
I just think the "pop up" link should be more obvious.
- stanjourdan
You could use ◥ for clarifying the entry "pop-up" link. At least temporarily: the pop-up link is the time stamp in Twitter, too; who doesn't use/know Twitter?
- Jérôme
@Jérôme : ?? (it's not really for me, i'm used to the current link location)
- stanjourdan
@Stan, You = FF team :) I read lots of complaints about this "hidden" link. I can't find an easy way to make it obvious. The mouse-over idea they tested few days ago wasn't well accepted. Addind a "link" link would take some unnecessary space, etc. The UTF character in "16 hours ago ◥" , as ugly as it may be, could shows that the timestamp is popable. This character or another (the Gmail chat pop-up icon would be far prettier).
- Jérôme
It looks a little better, but I still don't get it. It introduces more noise and is really weak in the filtration department.
- Brian
I think the main feed area looks better, but the side areas are wasted. The things that niggle me the most are: the rows are (1) too close together in the lists of feeds etc on the right hand side (and i don't like the font) and (2) The Me Feed has gone. That was a really quick, handy way of checking whether i'd already posted something on a topic.
- Eyoki
side bar is a bit wasted.. but like the overall feel of this better :)
- Rachael Depp
It's taking time to readjust, but I'm liking it. I like the real time updates, I like the layout (couldn't give a fig if the graphics are 'sooooo 1990s' as I saw one comment. It does what I want - it aggregates and distributes my social networking life. It does what it promises. I just hope FF doesn't become distracted by bolting more bells and whistles on eg personally couldn't give a toss about the new email function.
- David Eedle
OH, God I hate it. If the changes were optional, if I could pick and choose which ones to enable, that would be one thing. I am a recovered epileptic, and the constant scrolling and jumping on screen makes me QUEASY!! Ugh, I can't look at it, and I can't stay here if they don't give us a way to override it or stop it. I loved picking fave FF posts and tracking the whole conversation and linking back to it, but haven't figured out how to do that yet.
- Patricia F. Anderson
Found the pause button - thanks, folks. That is (shall we say) not intuitive?
- Patricia F. Anderson
Robert, they might want to create an option for people who don't want to express there info on "how many people they follow/subscribe to" and "how many people follow/subscirbe to them".
- Michael Forian
A big step backward. They removed features I rely on (imaginary friends, the feed icons), made the UI generally more obtuse, and failed to add any features I particularly want. Real time update is particularly awful: a nice gimmick for ~30 seconds, until you realize that in a feed with a slow update rate it makes no difference, and in a feed with a fast update rate it make the page unreadable, and forces you to pause the stream, putting you right back into non-real time, but with extra effort required.
- David Gaw
major suckage. to use a profession term.
- michelle lamar
and where are all my friends? Can't see the friends. Grrr.
- michelle lamar
michelle, do you have a friend list in place? if not, make one. (go to friends and start picking 'em out to put on the list...)
- Karoli
Not working from FB feeds... Not mine... Not yet...
- derek Bee
I think this thread sucks, OP and all 254 previous comments.
- ianf ⌘
Old ff didn't suck & neither does the new - this thread alone provides a great example of why I love ff in ways I'll never love Twitter
- Forrest Cox
Yeah, kinda, because some things are harder or impossible for me to do now, but some things are way cooler. The concept of real time is important and I'm glad they're going for it. I'll deal. I'm here, aren't I?
- Laura Norvig
I'm not using #FriendFeed so much now - without 'imginary friend' feature. Going back to Tweetdeck and others to group new twitter only follows
- Julian Edward
I can't quite imagine reason that #imaginaryfriend taken out - unless friendfeed aiming to be alternative to twitter ? surely not. Universality suits friendfeed Perhaps it is to do with data volume and the marketing effectiveness of specific data flows. Would love to know more. In meantime I'm going back to Tweetdeck and looking for a web alternative to grouping twitter friends.
- Julian Edward
well - Tweetdeck still too slow and unstable! Surprised by that after all this time. Seesmic a little slow too but beta.
- Julian Edward
Poor layout, twitter-like, and I hate twitter
- Daniele S.
It's OK. I prefer the layout to the old FF but the old version felt more 'friendly'. Disagree about Twitter btw. I love it. Its simplicity, you could say its limitations are what i like about it. Sometimes FF overwhelms me and i when i log on feel like someone who's just arrived at some kind of high-powered party, i.e. an outsider. I never get that with Twitter: it always feels like 'mine'.
- Eyoki
Friendfeed has been down for sometime now and not working at all
- Calming Sounds
So rad, my 2 yr old son love Green Eggs and Ham
- Drew Lucas
Anne, this is a favourite from my childhood so I have read it probably hundreds of times. Quick calculations, I have probably read it to Georgia about 200 times (possibly more). I love it so much that I usually start off with it and go back to it after about 3 books.
- Johnny
Keep on reading to her, and you will probably have a reader-for-life.
- Victor Panlilio
That's the plan Victor. She has had hearing issues which have been resolved so she cosumes books (well, her daddy reading to her). Rach says I use to many voices so she stays awake longer but that's how this daddy rolls :D
- Johnny
We need automated recommender systems to sift through and prioritize on an individual by individual basis the flood of news produced by even carefully organized and filtered bundles of RSS feeds. Feedly is on the case; Google Reader and Friendfeed aren't; Feedly's recommender algorithms are still primitive. There is a huge growth opportunity in developing news recommender software which will evolve into generalized AI-based personal assistants.
- Sean McBride
I would love to see a video of this presentation.
- Jesse Newhart
http://www.dontclick.it/ > learn > click ergonomy > your heart > "Australian studies state, that information overflow can result in serious health issues. Recent studies have proven, that a bad interface results in stress for its user." As a geek, i'm worried about my health concerning "information overflow".
- TiTi
I bet they missed te oportunity to integrate real attention profiling...
- directeur
Yeah - Facebook is completing its transformation into FriendFeed
- Chris Saad
Good God let the bitch begin. Last summer that amount of complaining about the re-design was ridiculous. People complained like there was not UX and planning involved. I think the site re-design was a huge improvement. I look forward to the new design as well.
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
Interesting - does that look like less external app and advert space? It does to me.
- Ian D. Nock
@Chris That's a good thing, sort of. I would rather see FF incorporate more robust profiles and other FB like features, but without the closed model. And you know, more like FF :)
- Neal "thePuck" Jansons
I am sure the focus is more on the content now. Videos and pictures adn other media will be grabbing more space in there
- Hardeep Singh Dang
looks like the nav has been streamlined -- as chris suggests, more like FF -- and the sidebar on right is ? groups, pages? guess we'll see soon enough
- Adrian Chan
Facebook had "hide" features in the News Feed around 18 months ago. Remember the thumbs up/thumbs down?
- Jamie
Well, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
- Jemm
Yeah - "hide" has been there - show more of, show less of is very useful, and kicks FriendFeed's butt in terms of intelligence
- Jesse Stay
I may reactivate activity on this new FB. But in that case I would do a pure reset of my friend list... Just like "some" did on twitter ;) Not that I have a huge list there, but not _the_ appropriate list
- Jean-Charles VERDIE
from twhirl
I hope they don't sacrifice the amount of information you can view above the fold for larger user pics.
- James Simmons
You have to give facebook credit for iterating fast. I think that twitter and facebook should join forces and create a compelling alternative.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
no it is getting provocative, really the future will prove it. but FB is playing a loose game
- abdellah
it cost time money and resource to re-educated an audience, the large the audience the large the expenses, and FB audience is large how much it will cost to re-educate such audience to act like FF people do.
- abdellah
Can't believe this - no originality. Complete rip.
- James Hull
The complaints of "I don't understand Friendfeed" will have not weight if people use the new Facebook interface.
- Andy Bakun
is this the silicon valley equivalent of waking up next to the severed head of your favorite horse? "we can steal your UI at any time, friendfeed. remember that."
- Karim
That will work much better, although I'm getting used to ignoring the right hand column, I'll need to get used to ignoring the left hand column again. ;)
- Daniel W. Crompton
Why so much hype around new FB page? Like you use it more than FRF ;)
- Sasha Kovaliov
Sasha: this is a huge change. Not because of what you see, but because businesses and brands now are full members of the social graph. That will be an impact you'll feel over next two years.
- Robert Scoble
well, full members if you fan or friend them. But you don't have to. And then they invade you less than they would on Twitter.
- Prokofy Neva
Robert, agree. However, FB has to work hard these 2 years to make itself destination #1 on the web. I hardly go there - all important things just hit RSS or email. I wish RSS had more 2-way interaction.
- Sasha Kovaliov
the FB move, is just an other move toward a more social service, some have to confess that in FB there is an equivalent of bull, even it is a social website, it is a set of million bull and those (family friend reduced set restraint) suffer from inter-bull interaction, this FB is to bring more interaction between people from different bull and this will be provided but the concept of fellower. and feed commenting like etc. is it risky!! yes
- abdellah
how to argue that such feature can be a bad move for FB, just see the "group" evolution in FB. in FB people want one thing "be in a closed relation with their known relations", would people be open mind in FB and open their own bull to others bull!! this is all what future will tell.
- abdellah
Sasha: That's why FriendFeed is so much better than Facebook. the ability for RSS to be embeded in your feed and be able to carry on a conversation about a storry in that RSS feed on FriendFeed is what makes FF so amazing. BUT, i don't know if i'd want everyone on FF to have the same access that friends on FB have access to about me. That's the problem. We need two sites for this unless someone can come up with way to make a profile partially private and available to only those you trust. That's key.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
@Slayerboy, do you think that's why we don't have this extensive profiles (read "no profiles") on FRF?
- Sasha Kovaliov
I think the new facebook homepage looks awesome. Some interesting changes are definitely taking place. The new input bar which you can just see will completely transform the service by placing an even greater focus on sharing media. No longer will it simply be a status update but an all in one sharing feature
- Benno
@Sashe, yeah I think that's one of the reasons. I believe in openness and all that, but am not blind to the fact that a majority of people even have problems putting stuff on their facebook profile when they CAN set privacy settings. I think Facebook has a good idea with the whole Network thing, but there's no real communication there. If FF applied the network idea and let me specify who I want in my "Friends" and in my "Network", friends can access my profile, network can't, but we can all converse.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
.....it would make it much easier and we wouldn't need two sites for this. I think that's what FF does with Rooms, but again, privacy vs non-privacy is an issue for profiles.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
@Slayerboy I like the way Flickr does it - on adding a friend you mark them as a contact, friend or family. Cool idea that should be easy to implement and would save us from rooms and other stuff.
- Sasha Kovaliov
@Sasha interesting, I use Picasa and just share the feed on FF. Never got into Flickr. Can't imagine it'd be hard to implement that on FF then.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
It seems to me like only the social media experts would compare Friendfeed/Twitter with Facebook. The rest look at them as apples and oranges. They are used differently
- Andre P. Siregar
Andre, what do you mean by social media experts?
- abdellah
I think the term 'social media experts' is used in this context to indicate 'stupid dumb-ass charlatans'. Hope that clarifies. ;-)
- David Petherick
from twhirl
Thanks, David :-). Although I would put it less harshly.
- Andre P. Siregar
are you sure?!! I am still waiting for your definition Andre. what is a social media expert?
- abdellah
Abdellah, here's all I'm saying. There's been tons of serious discussions on Friendfeed/Twitter and Facebook, allegations and accusations that one copies the other, etc. etc. I don't understand why spend the energy. The majority of the 175mill Facebook users are there simply to connect with actual friends. Simple example: I respect Robert Scoble's opinion on new technology, but I don't care what he is doing at home tonight. But I do want to know what my sister is doing, 1000 miles away
- Andre P. Siregar
Andre, I respect your opinion and how you use social service, now I was about the label of "social media expert" , I hope that you aren't about self claimed guru, that all. we are all expert and none is :) peace.
- abdellah
The new Facebook Page layout makes it more difficult to highlight video content. Video is now relegated to tabs or below the immovable Fans box on the Wall page. Not great if video is a key part of your content strategy and you want to make it prominent.
- Simon Taylor
I like the new setup as I updated my company's page yesterday. I approve FB!
- Jeremy Campbell
from twhirl
Facebook is the Microsoft of 2009, mimicking FF, Twitter, slowly taking shape as THE communications platform for the masses. Big mistake turning FB Pages into a profile page, though, businesses lose any branding. Looks like a college kid designed it.
- mark ivey
economy is bigger than health which is bigger than education which is bigger than deficit which is bigger than power which is bigger than prosperity which is bigger than Iraq. The word terrorism did not make the Wordle at all and the world was only used once in the entire speech last night.
- Thomas Hawk
@Scott of Two Countries Same here I want my Gravestone to be a Wordle :)
- Joe Dawson
If you don't think they talk about you after the party... I think it's just human nature to do it, just everyone has a soapbox now.
- Eric
If you haven't read this, you need to.
- Shawn Farner
not saying they don't, but they are trying to quantify my friendships and how well I work a room. it's rude
- Erin @queenofspain
What Erin said. It's one thing to abstract best practices for organizations or "personal brands" - quite another to call out individuals on their habits. However, it's reality and probably going to continue, as bloggers need something to blog about.
- Laura Norvig
Ah Erin, I don't know. At least people are talking about you. No such thing as bad press, right?
- Eric
I'm sure it will continue. But I'm uncomfy with it...to say the least
- Erin @queenofspain
Actually, the behavior Erin describes happens all the time. Remember when US Magazine used to publish "Who's Hot, Who's Not"? Perhaps in a webby world where everyone is their own actor/producer/director, it's natural that we end up getting evaluated like celebrities.
- Ontario Emperor
My personal view? In one sense, I don't really care who Wil likes or who Louis likes or who Robert likes or who Erin likes. If I were to slavishly copy the top ten likes of someone, it would be someone who shares all of my myriad interests - and last I checked, Robert's life wasn't really governed by Stan Ridgway's 1980s musical output.
- Ontario Emperor
Hi Ontario and Erin and all. I have no interest in highlighting the best users of specific applications. My interests don't match yours. When I do put a list together on occasion, it's my opinion only. I'm not so egotistical to think I can grade your behavior.
- Louis Gray
I dunno - I have an inherent love of lists anyway, and I've never thought about this from the angle you have. I enjoy the lists of favorite Friendfeeders, for example, not because I'm ever on them, but because they introduce me to people to follow I might not have seen before. I see no problem in saying "such and such is a great FFer because they have brought a lot of value to me personally." It's not a competition, because the results are neither objective nor exclusive.
- Jandy
Hey, Gregory, no one is paying attention to me. I AM THE FUTURE!!!
- Eric
My idea here is less about who's the best at marketing or who you like the best and enjoy following. It's the so called expert 'ranking' of how well *I* 'do' social media
- Erin @queenofspain
I just accept that I *do* social media the way I do social. Sometimes great, sometimes awkward, usually loud. People like it or they don't, but I rarely rise to the level of being 'ranked'.
- Karoli
So totally like you! Same thing. Loud, awkward, maybe not great. I am never ranked and don't care. Wouldn't do what it takes to be ranked. See my blog today.
- Francine Hardaway
Already did, even shared it on Google Reader. It was exactly what I was thinking, too. :)
- Karoli
I only know one thing - when you start changing you to get someone else to think you are "great" you immediately become mediocre.
- Brian Roy
That's the truth. It's the same thinking that creates euphemisms like 'social media'. it's just frackin' social, whether here, there, on or offline.
- Karoli
We use our old-style thinking to explain new things we come across. You would think that would make things simple, but then we take it a step further and try to make things sound more exciting with buzz words and such. Not only that, but we try to use old-style metrics on these new things, which is like putting a square peg in a round hole.
- Rah-PM 2012
Actually, I believe we spend too much time talking about derivative things as if they were completely new and about to change the fundamental nature of Human existance.
- Brian Roy
That's true, Brian, but I also think it's debatable whether some things are simple derivatives. We could probably define everything as a derivative of something, but many people wouldn't be able to make the connection.
- Rah-PM 2012
Ragsheen - I have to tell you, that doesn't make me feel any better.
- Brian Roy
The vehicle or medium might be new. People are still people, looking for connections, relevance, like-minded souls in their sphere.
- Karoli
it's very simple to me. there is no other medium I know of that ranks how good you are at being social. unless you count paparazzi and dude, if that is where we are headed...shoot me. Now
- Erin @queenofspain
and as a side note I now feel old for referencing Emily Post
- Erin @queenofspain
The lists I've seen were meant to give hew users find active participants to follow and others find people interested in what they are interested in. They weren't meant to grade anyone or as popularity contests.
- Internet Strategist
"When a teacher decides to sell space on his calculus tests, most students approve and the media beat a path to his door."
- Atul Arora
from Bookmarklet
I am in Higher Ed (work at Nelnet, Inc NNI) and I am very intrigued by this recent development. Where do you think this will lead??
- Susan Beebe
But Jason, you're drawing a line. Think of most colleges where the stadium & building names are sold to the highest bidder. At my old school, the food court was pretty much sold to Pepsi Co. Professors choose the books they wrote over the books that are more likely useful to the class...And while I focused on college, it happens in public schools too.
- Anika
But you do realize that some classrooms are "sponsored" by advertisers, especially in public schools? Local businesses will agree to purchase the books used in exchange for some kind of advert in the classroom. I have a friend who teaches English. A local stationers paid for a lot of Shakespearean books she used. In exchange, she suggests her students go there to get their pens/paper/folders...
- Anika
I don't have a problem with it. If this is his way to find more money to provide instruction for his students then so be it.
- Aaron Hood
Agree with Anika. I know that at my kid's school we get a Scholastic mini-catalog every month. I would say that is advertising in classrooms. Not sure how different it is from a teacher selling ad space on tests.
- Atul Arora
Oh and the stationers also stocks some of the books and her students gets discounts on any products they purchase.
- Anika
Jason - I see your point. Ads in school should be opt-in whether it is space on calculus tests or a Scholastic catalog.
- Atul Arora
Necessary supplies to be a good mother of a 6th grader: Scotch tape, a color printer, bristol board-weight printer paper, colored paper, comfortable scissors, graphic design skills, research skills, glue, a Xyron machine, lots of time, patience, ingenuity and tolerance for ambiguity/frustration.
Don't forget: (a Mac as well as a PC) paint and brushes, texta colours, pens, chalk, stapler, cardboard boxes, cotton balls, string and wool, scrap material, bouncy little eyes, stars and stickers. lots of cleaning rags, Dad's old shirts make good artist's blouses. Video-editing software and digital audio software. My eight-year old daughter likes to make her own video clips to go with her own music.
- Chris Loft
We haven't had to do any video projects yet, but with the expectation that all the parents are able to help their kids with graphic design and self-publishing (which would imply you have to have a decent computer and printer and graphics editing software) I'm surprised that they don't also expect you to have a video camera and video editing software too. Maybe that's next semester. These projects are insane.
- Lindsay
I do occasionally, briefly, envy parents who just don't care... they have infinitely more free time than I do. Did I just really admit that??
- Lindsay
Yeah... we just finished one last night... been working on it off and on for 2 weeks... It was due today. Tad/son spent 4 hours on it the night before last and I/son 4 hours last night finishing it up. I've had enough of school projects... seems like there's one every 6-8 weeks. :(
- Lindsay
Oh no, Abby - that's not how you do it . . . it should be done for fun, with engagement and creativity . . . and lots of time . . .
- Chris Loft
Chris - I wish it were fun... it might be if they weren't so complicated and convoluted and the instructions weren't so ambiguous but graded so strictly. The last project that we did we spent an entire weekend + time every night the previous week getting done... finished at midnight before the day it was due. Produced a book with 26 pages plus a cover. It was gorgeous. Got a B because we made 8 spelling errors (yeah my fault for not running spell check on the stuff put in Photoshop but still).
- Lindsay
Considering the hours of effort that went into it, the kid should have gotten bonus points for making such a nice book. Even got a comment saying how nice it was... still, 8pts off for spelling make it a B. Demotivating for my son and us as parents. Should have been an A or an A+. Not to mention they're expensive... the paper and colored ink and other art supplies are not cheap.
- Lindsay
Damn Lindsay, that sounds $$$. I guess that would be a bonus for me living in a low-income area. The projects the kids have to do are simple (well so far for my Kindergartner).
- Anika
@Anika - well, they don't have homework and big projects in kindergarten! You've got a few years to go before you have to worry about it. Projects didn't really start till 4th grade. Last year was 1 project a semester which was doable. This year seems like 2-3. As for the kids who don't have that stuff at home to work with, they're supposed to do it in the school library... but the school is only open for a few hours pre and post school days... I don't know how they are supposed to get it done.
- Lindsay
Madeline definitely does her own projects for fun; I'm not allowed to help (well not too much). How old is a sixth grader? Who is getting the marks, the parents or the student? This sounds as strict (and ambiguous) as my university course.
- Chris Loft
For instance, in the project we finished last night, a "scrapbook", one of the pages had to have 4 photos with captions and an original illustration and caption on it... so how else are you going to fit all that on one page without using a photo editor and shrinking stuff and either printing it all on the page (sans illustration) or printing the photos out and cutting/pasting them? You're not going to find perfectly sized photos anywhere to fit all that on one page...
- Lindsay
@Chris 6th graders are 11-12 years old. The kids are getting the marks, but again, not sure how they expect them to do some of these things without a good bit of parental help. I would love for my kid to do most of it on his own but with the amount of stuff and the timeline it just isn't feasible. He has about 2 hours of homework to do every night and so that doesn't leave much time to spend extra working on these projects, so instead we cram them in on the weekends (which are busy anyway so it's tough).
- Lindsay
Kindergartners here in LA have homework. She gets a booklet every Monday that she has to do every week. It has a project attached to it. Then she has her 2 week collecting project. The last one was Shadows. So she drew pictures of shadows, we took pictures of shadows, etc. This time around it's Making Friends. If we lived in a higher income area, her homework would include computer time.
- Anika
Also, a good papercutter, even if it's the cartridge kind that can do the wiggly lines and all.
- Ladyepiphanybug
@Anika - How much time does it take her to do her assignments usually? Interesting that they're starting it off so early! At least they have a week...
- Lindsay
Maddy is only eight; so she doesn't have that pressure yet and it's still fun for her. She seems to soak up everything, wants to do everything that I do - Daddy, I want to make some songs on the computer too - Daddy, I want to make a video clip - Daddy, it's not hard, I've been watching you. I've found myself learning new techniques and skills from her - she has even taught me stuff about Windows that she does at school.
- Chris Loft
I would love to have time to teach my kid how to do it all himself, but with usually only a 2-3 week lead time and considering it takes considerably longer to teach him to do something as to just do it myself (not counting retrys for things that can't be fixed like cutting something wrong). There's just not enough time. I don't have motivation to do it between projects because we all need a break. I need to bite the bullet and do that though. Maybe we'll have a Photoshop seminar over the holidays.
- Lindsay
I feel for you Lindsey. My daughters are grown.
- Russellreno
It's about an 40 - 60 min. a day if she takes the time to write her letters correctly and color right. If she's in a mood, she does 20 - 30 min. which means we have to finish up on the weekend. Keep in mind, she's in a dual language program, so her homework is in English and Spanish. We also have her High Frequency Words & Decoder books we go over everyday.
- Anika
@Anika - well, sounds like you're already in the groove. Probably good that she's getting used to doing that much work now. She'll need that concentration level even more as she goes along.
- Lindsay
True, Lindsay. In re-reading your list, I'll have to consider myself lucky that I have everything mentioned + the skills to do crazy projects like your kid. It's the time that's elusive. We both work at home and I feel like I'm short changing her by working while she's doing homework next to me.
- Anika
@Anika - yes, the time is the important thing. We are so busy all the time... and we have other interests outside of school work that take lots of time (mainly Aikido) but are important to us. It's so hard to fit in the projects and what should be quality time with the kid ends up being stressful and frustrating instead. I would have to be a stay at home mom for it to really be something that was fun for all of us. Not the reality.
- Lindsay
"Democrat Barack Obama's lead over Republican rival John McCain has grown to 12 points in the U.S. presidential race, with crucial independent and women voters increasingly moving to his side, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday."
- newsjunk.com
It's not even owned by Barack Obama. It's owned by a Republican. I won't like it because of that.
- Robert Scoble
I'll start liking when he changes his name to BARACK EFFIN OBAMA
- Iain Baker
Really, Robert???? This election gets wierder and weirder.
- Roberto Bonini
Roberto: yes, I met the guy at the Personal Democracy Forum.
- Robert Scoble
Maybe he's only popular with the media...
- Thrivelearning
@Atul Oh yeah. heh. But it's still relevant info re: the campaign...so people are either avoiding it because A) it's not official, B) they're not actively participating in the community or C) all of the above....or uh, D) i guess...they don't like Obama...
- Sarah Perez
So Robert, why does he do it for a Democrat and not McCain?
- Roberto Bonini
Sometimes I like some of the pics so my subscribers see them
- Rah-PM 2012
I think Obama is over-exposed. Non-partisan types I know are saying they are getting sick of him and his endless commercials. He's spending like a trillion dollars. It's crazy.
- Dawn
@sarah - For me it was (C). It wasn't official and there was more participation on friendfeed shares about obama by other users.
- Atul Arora
@Roberto: he does it for both. He made it before the "Imaginary Feed" function was available. Robert likes to drop the bomb on Ruffini like he's a bad guy, but he's actually a quite savvy campaigner and very up on online methods and tactics... patrickruffini.com
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
What if I want to take a pile of photos and have flickr make a blog with them, with a backdated entry for each day photos were taken? It could use EXIF data to do this. I've seen the "Archive" link, but that isn't a blog.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
""For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire," he said, noting a stinging and surprising second-place finish he suffered during the primary season. "I've been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked.""
- newsjunk.com