Jeff Majka - Likes - FriendFeed

Their system setups is interesting. How they index only Sports data on select databases and so on. Also why do they display results in 2/3 columns? It's so hard to follow that - Bartek Ciszkowski

What amazes me is that we, bloggers, started to hype the search engine based on what the company was willing to share - without even taking it a test run. And now many will have to admit they were too positive when it was not deserved. - Svetlana Gladkova from twhirl

for real - Sarah Perez

Svetlana: all it took is for me to do a single search on it for me to see that it just wasn't going to stand up to a deep analysis. I'm very glad I am getting off of the PR treadmill of "keep up with Mashable and Techcrunch and write about everything based on press releases." Why is this on CNN and NPR already? They have a good PR team, that's why. Played! - Robert Scoble

Not ready for prime time. Great press kills a bad product faster. Apologies to Bill Bernbach. - Dave Martin

In this day and age, is there really room for a new search engine? I'm all for innovation but the likelihood of someone making a sizeable dent in Google's market share or even challenging Live Search is quite low, no? - Dave Stevens

Lesson: Don't go for big press until you're ready. One of my VC friends advises people only to go for ~5,000 users in the beginning (so many beginners want traffic, traffic, traffic). Then you can test your product, change the interface, etc... before you get into a "New Coke" and "old Coke" situation. 5,000 is enough to give your product/website a good testing, and avoids this Cuil failure. - Mitchell Tsai

trying searching Cuil for itself. http://www.cuil.com/search... :) - Jeff (the メガマクダジ of FF)

I'm unimpressed by Cuil. It's not how big their index is, it's about how accurate their results are. From my early experiments, I don't get what I'm searching for -- isn't that what a search engine is supposed to do? - wrecks

I also think that it is early for Cuil to launch, but it is good that some people are trying to create alternatives to Google’s tyranny in search. Without any competition in their core business, Google will eventually become the next Microsoft - Kerem Ozkan

mmmm... I wonder why so much hype around of _utility_ ? search has been utility for years, yet everyone and his dog into PR for yet-another-search... was it GOOG price on IPO which makes you blind repeaters? try to remember how many startups you've seen recently in major continent-wide utility business, like electricity or water supply? yes, none... oh, yeah, law & rules are not written for bloggers... they can even refuse math and other natural science ;) - A.T.

Not impressed. While the layout for results is pretty, it doesn't give me any information. Ran a search on my own site - Dad info - and it got the bloody thumbnail wrong :( Dig a little deeper on a search where you know the net landscape well (eg vanity search) and the results are often bizarre - the photos acommpanying the SERPS are irrelevant/random/wierd. Can't help thinking that the next generation of search will be people centric rather than page centric - I can find more interesting stuff on FF. - Tom Beardshaw

i saw an insert on BBC news today on this, went over to do vanity search just to test, back came some old articles of comments i left last year on tech blogs, now it's unavailable, plus the dark background is awful ;( FAIL! - Mario Olckers

I got 2 searches in last night - disappointed with results - and then it crashed and 'went down for maintenance' - yeah, not overwhelmingly impressed. - Lucretia Pruitt

Harsh but somewhat fair criticism. That said no service has ever been perfect when rushed *glares at twitter* - Mo Kargas

may be - accesine

Despite other criticism: I like the relaxed feel of the 3-column presentation in Cuil. Cuil, Viewzi, and identi.ca have relaxing and comforting front pages (nice color scheme). - Mitchell Tsai

@Mitchell - There's something wrong if the best thing 'bout a website is the color scheme - Yuvi

@Robert: They obviously have a great PR team - making everyone repeat their claims of how great the product is. And I am glad I have decided to wait until it is live and do a search before hyping it myself - I would have felt it was unfair to our readers otherwise. - Svetlana Gladkova from twhirl

Svetlana: This is what happens when the marketing dept moves faster than the tech dept. Often it's the reverse. Hard to coordinate the two. - Mitchell Tsai

Mitchell: True but I feel it is not really lack of coordination and instead it is a deliberate move to get all the positive coverage they can and hope no one will see the problems. After all, as a marketing person myself I don't think they are unable to notice the irrelevant results themselves. - Svetlana Gladkova from twhirl

Svetlana: Since the "glamor self-search" results work well for university professors and some famous people, I think it's a miscalculation from having too small a test group (since they've been concerned with a stealth launch). They probably didn't test enough middle-level people (e.g. me with only 47,000 pages on Google) to see the problems. - Mitchell Tsai

Rather than a stealth launch, It seems that in this case a better process would have been (1) alpha-launch, generate buzz by selectively letting in tech bloggers, test their stuff, make bloggers feel good by being in on something early, about 200-500 people (2) private beta-launch, quiet, limited to 5,000 people (3) New York Times launch. - I think their team was too cocky (e.g. we're smarter), not realizing they would shoot themselves in the foot. - Mitchell Tsai

I went to work this afternoon to get away from the Crewl Cuil conversation. What were the teachers talking about ? Cuil. *sigh* - LPH™ and his dog P™

Mitchell: Very true, when I read they decided they were ready for everyone on day 1 and decided not to add beta to the logo, I was very excited - finally someone dares to launch a working product from the beginning. And after actually trying it out I could not understand why they chose not to go with private beta the way you describe. It could have potential but it definitely is not ready for prime time yet. - Svetlana Gladkova from twhirl

Social Media Club: Richard Binhammer

50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice - http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-step...

July 27, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff Majka, lonnie b hodge, Cathryn Hrudicka and 5 other people liked this

A lot of material here from Brogan, thought the room would be interested - Richard Binhammer

Social Media Club: David Weiner

AP Business News is realigned around 12 core beats - http://www.ap.org/pages...

July 17, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Cathryn Hrudicka, Don Martelli, Jeff Majka and mike "glemak" dunn liked this

The Associated Press this week realigned its Business News department around 12 core beats headed by 12 editors who will now lead coverage by the teams of reporters newly assigned to the beats. - David Weiner from Bookmarklet

Dave, thanks for pointing this out. It's actually relevant to a media contact I'm making right now for an AP story, so it's very timely. - Cathryn Hrudicka

newsjunk.com

[NYT]: In Iraq, Affection for Obama ... but His Proposal? - http://x.techwheat.com/11V

July 17, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Yung-Hui Lim, Geraldine Copywright, Jeff Majka and Dave Winer liked this

"His support for troop withdrawal cuts both ways, reflecting a deep internal quandary in Iraq: for many middle-class Iraqis, affection for Mr. Obama is tempered by worry that his proposal could lead to chaos in a nation already devastated by war. " - newsjunk.com

18 more comments

Obama is this true? Formerly, he told the Israeli lobby that he favored an undivided Jerusalem. Now he says he didn’t mean it. - Noah David Simon

Noah -- It is highly unlikely that the American government, under the control of either Republicans or Democrats, will ever endorse the vision of an "undivided Jerusalem" as promoted by Likud, religious Zionists and neoconservatives. Obama's missteps in his AIPAC speech damaged his credibility on international affairs, but perhaps not mortally. He can recover. - Sean McBride

it all depends on what the meaning of "undivided" is. Do we want to see a physical divide? a political divide? or some kind of shared sovereignty in a unified city? - Michael Markman

I think I hear the death bell on the Obama campaign. this is America, not twitter. it is over now. Obama can not win this way. and this is the tip of the iceberg for the flip flops... and unlike McCain flipflops these changes are not based on a change of facts - Noah David Simon

Obama with his flipping and flopping, is falling short, to the disillusionment of his more naïve supporters - Noah David Simon

After vowing to eschew private fundraising and take public financing, he has now refused public money. Once he threatened to filibuster a bill to protect telephone companies from liability for their cooperation with national security wiretaps; now he has voted for the legislation. Turning his back on a lifetime of support for gun control, he now recognizes a Second Amendment right to... more... - Noah David Simon

After specifically saying in the primaries that he disagreed with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s proposal to impose Social Security taxes on income over $200,000 and wanted to tax all income, he has now adopted the Clinton position. - Noah David Simon

Obama’s shifts have nothing to do with altered circumstances, just a change in the political calendar. is this the so called "Change" we were promised? - Noah David Simon

http://www.nysun.com/opinion... that's all folks! is it too late for the Democrats to get a better nominee? because this race seems pretty over if this information gets out. - Noah David Simon

Obama is toast! - Dan Hendricks

Noah -- Most Americans are much more concerned about the state of the economy than they are about the final status of Jerusalem. - Sean McBride

the middle east effects the economy. most Americans are aware of this... but with off shore drilling America will not endorse a candidate who will not encourage domestic energy searches. nor will America endorse a cash crop economy of corn that turns us into a farm subject to the world's whims. Corn is for America to eat, not for us to run our cars on. Obama is a bad dude in so many ways. What about sugar energy for tropical environments. with Obama it is a NO! - Noah David Simon

I agree with Sean - we need to focus on the needs of American first. - R. Ferguson

Noah - What Obama has going for him: the Bush 43 administration is probably going to be judged by historians as the worst and most destructive presidency in American history. The economy is tottering on the brink of disaster. McCain is running on Bush's coattails and increasingly sounds "confused" and listless even when he is reading from a script. Hardly a fair contest, actually. Obama is running on all cylinders; he's youthful, vibrant and articulate. - Sean McBride

ur opinions on Bush are not unanimous. Bush was elected twice and would be elected a third term if the laws were different. Bush would even beat Obama with the circumstances now coming clear. You might not like to believe that, but Obama can not be trusted by Americans. I doubt many who doubt me now will be talking to me after the election. Obama is a liar. The public is not aware of this yet (they only know about Wright). This time Obama will not be able to hide behind his Reverend. - Noah David Simon

further... the only people who link McCain with Bush are ignorant people who do not know their history. The conservatives do not link McCain with Bush and neither does the public. Put aside your bias and look objectively... then look again morally. Obama has already lost. The polls are dead even and the momentum is not going Obama's way. It is too early for a Democrat to be in this situation. The game is already over. - Noah David Simon

the final irony of Obama is that he will be defeated by the actions of the Democratic Senate majority. The Senate as a whole is exponentially less popular with the people then Bush. All this despite the fact that Obama has acted unethically with his address of lies to AIPAC. The game is over. Wright isn't there to blame anymore. Obama has only a history of lies. Even Kerry at least brought a career behind his flip flops. - Noah David Simon

Noah you lost any semblance of credibility when you said Bush would get elected a third term --- a man who has the worst approval rating in the history of presidential approval ratings. Oh wait did you mean his father would get re-elected. I might not argue you on that point, except he is older than McCain and that would seem a bit cruel to John. - R. Ferguson

Noah - which political issues are more important to you than Israel? Which political party in Israel do you support? - Sean McBride

Robert Scoble

Topix-a local news community - http://qik.com/video/123607

July 7, 2008 from Scobleizer's Recent Qik Videos - Comment - Like - Share

Mark Nassal, Brent Newhall, Ron Emrick and 33 other people liked this

Topix is kicking FriendFeed's ass. 125,000 comments a day!!! How are they doing it? They are focusing on local communities and anyone that doesn't read Scoble. In this video Topix' CEO, Chris Tolles, talks about what is going on in his business. - Robert Scoble

27 more comments

Scoble is moving on from FriendFeed? - Pat Hawks

Pat: no. But everyone else who isn't in the tech early adopter world is probably on Topix. - Robert Scoble

How big is their community and how long have they been growing it? - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Yes, pretty much what I was saying yesterday, FF doesn't have a very diverse user base. - Ross Maguire

It does seem like a nice cross between Google News and fav.or.it - Pat Hawks

Topix used to be the only source I could find for local news. But I don't like how it happily embraces partial-text feeds and don't bother to add context at all, to the point of some entries being a vague headline with no text! - Phil G

And before you say it, I know, FriendFeed is like that too. *sigh* - Phil G

I don't know any non-early adopters that are using any of this technology...yet - maybe we define them differently. Topix provides more of an innate value prop for their time than FF does now, but I think that will change as more people begin to understand the value of a global federated conversation. Working on some music promotion use cases now :) - Erica Toelle

http://www.topix.com/topix... More than a million people, 360,000 forums - Robert Scoble

I think we should conduct a poll. Everyone here because of Scoble raise your hand (Raises hand). - Roberto Bonini

There's 5 topics in my area just ostracizing the city and its inhabitants, 12 more doing the same for religion, and the rest are classic local news stories (murders, robberies, gangs, etc.). I think I'll stick with FF, Digg, SDR News, and NPR for my news. - xero

Topix made a lot of its progress by being the default commenting host for many, many newspapers. It's majority owned by Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune Co. to begin with, but they've enlisted more competitors as partners. My company, MediaNews, joined up last year. Almost every paper in the Bay Area outside the SF Chronicle is owned by MediaNews (the fourth-largest owner in the country), and they all use Topix in some way to host their comments. Instant community (though poorly harnessed by the media). - Kevin Hessel

I always find a lot of comment on my blog posts coming from Topix. At first I was puzzled, then I realized it was Topix's geo-specificity that made it so cool. I guess I need to pay more attention to Topix. - Tom Guarriello

First topic I saw on the forums - "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" - Last comment by "X-RAINBOW KRISSY-X". I'll be sticking with FriendFeed, thanks though. Honestly, it's not a bad news source at all, but I feel more comfortable with the topics at FriendFeed when it comes to discussion. - Vince DeGeorge

A post I stumbled across the other day drew a distinction between hyper-local and hyper-personal style news aggregation. Topix at first seems to fit into the hyper-local mode when you restrict it to your city or zipcode. But there's also search that will bring up all the stories about your search term - no matter where they originated. Subscribe to the feeds for a bunch of search terms, and you've got yourself a hyper-personal aggregator. (Wish they'd use full text instead of partial text feeds, though.) - Tom Landini

Oh, I love this poll (not): http://www.topix.com/forum... -- yeah, that's news. Glad I wasted my 5 minutes looking at that item from the Topix front page. - Craig Eddy

I guess for non-tech people everything they see on FF is just noise, where to us the Zac and Cody conversations et al is just noise. Topix may end up being used as a tool by tech people, but probably not as a conversation forum. Then again, this begs the question of FF's growth beyond the tech/early adopter community. - Kevin Bondelli

I have found Topix in my blogs log several times - paul mooney

I still feel Topix is a little old fashioned, but they are generally under-rated, where as they should be what a lot of the 2.0 aggregation sites aim for. Community + they give back, no reposting full feeds, full links back etc... - Duncan Riley

Fun fact: Thousands of web sites have more traffic/users than FriendFeed, but you won't catch me on them. - Bwana ☠

Topix actually looks interesting. I doubt I'll sign up on it but it's worth Bookmarking. -

I wanted to like Topix, but I agree with Duncan - feels old fashioned. I signed up a long time ago, but found no real use for it. Maybe I should look again. - Mack D. Male

Agree with Mack...lost interest upon initial viewing and have not returned since the 2007 revamp. - Andy Angelos

Wow... I just emailed them about my hometown being incorrect. They responded within the hour! Talk about service! - Mike Wills

Mmmm. Tastes like Usenet. - Ernie Oporto

Had a look at the UK area and it looks like it is full of racist comments and not somewhere I would want to hang out. Shame. - John Cooper

First off: Great video, Robert! Thanks for this; I'd never heard of Topix before, and now I'm intrigued. Second: No, Topix is not a Friendfeed clone; different market. Third: This is finally where I can really get local news, and a window into local opinion. Fourth: Yes, the conversations leave something to be desired. This opens an opportunity for improvement, no? - Brent Newhall

Great interview - Mark Nassal

Jason Calacanis

Working on Mahalo's mission statement. Would love some feedback on it: "We're here to help people easily find information, answers and resources they can trust." - http://any feedback?

July 7, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

Bryan Landers, accesine, Marcello Del Bono and 15 other people liked this

I trust you Jason and Mahalo! - Larry from twhirl

41 more comments

Go with the Jerry Maguire manifesto - stephen o reilly

It's nice, and accurate, but it would be great if we could get something in there about curation. I feel like that's the best description of what it is we actually do. - Lon Harris from twhirl

How about mentioning that "We're people helping people easily find info, etc." to differentiate from algorithms? - Tom Guarriello

Simple and to the point. Thumbs up! - Will Hirsbrunner

We are here to assist people by easily finding the right information, answers, and resources with a human touch ;) - Robert Barr

how about something about free pizza and tshirts? - Stefan Hayden

I think it needs to be more proactive . . . like "We help people find information, answers and resources they can trust." - Telemill

Yeah Cason I don't think you could've put it more simple - John Blanton from twhirl

Jeez, you've been hanging out with Leo too long...sounds like some of the TWiT network's catchphrase has rubbed off. However, it does sum up Mahalo to a T. - Steve Gillette from twhirl

It's a great mission statement. Especially with FTGs creating pages, and link checkers (such as mike, debbie, and jeffhoard) checking all user-submitted links. I say that mission statement is a keeper - nice and accurate. PS, Jason, I've left you a few pieces of feedback to your Mahalo email address. ;) - Chris Thomson

"Don't be google" - Stefan Hayden

Lon Harris: a mission statement shouldn't get into execution as that is secondary to purpose. Our mission is to help folks find this information, but the way we do that is going to change and evolve. The fact that we currently do curation of links is really not super important to the mission... if we wind up getting a better product using another process (i.e. social bookmarking or semantic search) then we will do that. So, that's why i left out "with humans" or "by using human intelligence." - Jason Calacanis

Or even . . . "With Mahalo find the information, answers and resources you can trust." - Telemill

I see your point, but regardless of the process, think Mahalo would always involve some form of curation. Even social bookmarking would "curate" the Web, albeit differently than we do now. - Lon Harris from twhirl

Well, it COULD be simpler . . . "Mahalo, information you can trust" but then you sound like a bank for something. - Telemill

A mission statement is about you, your business and your ideals.The best policy to a mission statement is to keep those three things in mind and, keep it short and simple. "We're here to help people easily find information, answers and resources they can trust." sounds a bit more like a catch phrase or slogan. What is Mahalo going to do to achieve that statement? - Candace

Telecommutingmillionaire: I like the "We" It adds the human element vital to Mahalo without beating you over the head. I agree that it seems long so here's a modification that takes out a few words,but not the meaning: "We're here to help you find trustworthy information, answers and resources." Leaving in the We and the You sends the "by human, for humans" message. - David Jones

I was musing the other day about whether mission statements still make sense. They remind of offsites and consultants. - John McCrea

The word information makes "answers and resources" redundant, doesn't it? How about "Mahalo is people connecting people to information they can trust.". - Joe Coughlin

@Telecommutingmillionaire "Mahalo, information you can trust" also sounds too close to "Netcasts you love from people you trust" from TWiT. For the network that Candace Holly and myself work on I picked the tagline "A Community of Creativity", simple and to the point. But that isn't exactly a mission statement rather than an overall tone. - The Geek Media

Don't forget to add a vision statement. Mission = What is our business. Vision = What we want to become. You will gain clarity by doing both rather than putting them into one statement. I have an outline that will get you there if you are interested. - Wade Bowlin

I think it's good. I think there can be a distinction between "answers" and "resources" and encourage you to keep the wording if it is accurate. - Kimberly J

How about adding something like: We sort through the rubbish, so you don't have to. - Ross Maguire

I think you should include the words "Real world" somewhere. Like "Solving real world problems." - jonn

needs to include the word "synergy" somewhere - Glen Mistletoe

Jason, it is alright, however... I would rather prefer the word "guide" to be placed in there. It shows that your company is more active in assisting the user instead of just "help" which seems more passive. - James Mowery from twhirl

needs more... "syngergy." And also some buzzwords indicating a strong human algorithm at work. =) - Andrew Ruess from twhirl

Andrew and I seem to be on the same path. That is, again, why I suggest replacing the word "help" with a stronger word. One that represents Mahalo's efforts in bringing the users the best quality information available. - James Mowery from twhirl

The tech writer in me wants to cut it down to "We help people easily find information, answers and resources they can trust." I agree that it doesn't emphasize the human element as much as I'd like. - Brent Newhall

Comment: Interesting that you're crowd-sourcing a mission statement-- seems that a singular point of view would be important. Suggestion: it helps to define scope, focus, and end-result. Right now, your mission statement doesn't appear to drive employees down particular directions when they hit crossroads. Example: Mahalo exists to guide customers to the most relevant and trustworthy answers whenever/wherever they have questions - Vijay Goel

We suck less than MS Search? :) - Fred Grott

shorten it a bit? We help people... Make it more assertive too. I think someone already said this? So I'm just a copycat - cecilia from twhirl

@David Jones, I still feel you are softening up the "punch" of the statement with "we're here". Take the here out. Rearrange the last few words so it flows off the mind and the tongue . . . "We help you find trustworthy answers, information and resources." Answers should be first, because we all really want good answers. Information is also what we are searching for but it's such a esoteric concept. And please, is there another word we can use for resources? It's just so . . . corporate speak. - Telemill

Vijay: This isn't crowdsourcing. :-) It's asking the cloud for comments and feedback. - Brent Newhall

Revisit Guykawasaki's lecture at last years Gnomedex, you'll end up with "Answers you can trust" - Greg Birch

I hate to say this but it doesn't really catch my attention. It seems too generic. - Blaine Fleming

It does sound like a corporate mission statement, I might Leo-ize it to "the answers you want, from people you trust." Just because Mahalo seems to be positioned as a friendlier entity than most corporations. - Robert Morrison

The test would be how many employees can remember, and recite the "mission" no fluff, all my staff know our mission is "to give patients hope" Guy gave a great talk, mission statements that sound great can be found at http://www.netinsight.co.uk/portfol... but they usually fail the staff test. Disney's mission statement "to make people happy" even a CEO can remember that. - Greg Birch

"we're here to help you find photos of hot chicks a lot quicker than normal" - Rick

mahalo: we do search without the suck - Andrew

We're here to help people enjoy finding answers, info and sources they can believe in. - Mark Alves

"We're here to help people easily find information, answers and resources they can trust by empowering the passionate internet community." - Techboy2000

Timothy B. Taylor

NSA faces new limits, but domestic surveillance thrives - http://www.baltimoresun.com/news...

July 7, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff Majka liked this

Doug Haslam

Posted over the weekend 1: PR is respectable dammit, so let's lose the bad actors: http://is.gd/NCH

July 7, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff Majka liked this

Robert Scoble

I don’t feel sorry for Yahoo - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r...

July 7, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Glen Mistletoe, Ben Clemens, Nate Koechley and 49 other people liked this

"Yahoo is being burnt to the ground by its current management." Sad, but feels kind of true. - Hutch Carpenter

31 more comments

Good perspective. I'm hard pressed to feel sorry for a company with that much potential that doesn't even know who they are or what they do. I think that, before they do ANYTHING, they have to establish once again what Yahoo is. Right now, they're sounding like Microsoft when they were first trying to define what .Net was. - Bradley McSpinn

Agreed. They squandered an opportunity to take their team(s) to a new level. Should've seen Microhoo as a challenge, not an obituary. - Sprague D

Microhoo or Yasoft? - Bradley McSpinn

yeah, bye, bye Jerry Yang! http://theanalyticsguru.wordpress.com/2008... - Marshall Sponder

What's Yahoo? - Trevor

btw did microsoft ever define .Net? - Craig Ritchie from twhirl

I do feel sorry a little bit, even if they didn't manage to do one thing right in the last few years, maybe because I followed them since almost day 1 and because once the MS bid was announced it was obvious that it's The End. - Naor Mark

@Craig - I really don't think so. I mean, we all understand its implementation, but as for a definition? Not so much. The same is true for Yahoo. I know it's there, I know what it does...but it doesn't mean that I see any real value in it. - Bradley McSpinn

glass is half full - nice :) - mike "glemak" dunn

Can someone please put me in charge there? I would clean house and get them focused on some kind of core business. - Shawn Farner

Agreed, Robert. I've got some friends working on very cool stuff whether it's startups, VC, or bigger roles at smaller companies. The Yahoos I worked with are smart, creative, talented professionals. We're going to see some great innovation coming from Yahoo alumni soon. P.S. Glad you like our idea ;) - Ryan Kuder

of course if Icahn gets control of the board Microsoft will be lookin to pay low low low to a guaranteed seller, seems a bit daft - Ivan Pope from twhirl

Microsoft is a terrible business - we need a little sympathy for Yahoo. Slow extinction or being taken over by MS are hardly rich options. And it's hard to trigger the sense of crisis to fire your board. - winckel

I could never understand why Yahoo had any value from the beginning. It suprises me little that they in a downward spiral. - Brian Sullivan

Whether Microsoft gets Yahoo! or Yahoo! merges with someone else (read Time Warner or MySpace) it will be good for search in general and hopefully create an entity that can challenge Google in a meaningful way - gregory

I don't understand *why* Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. Yahoo can't even figure out what they are. E-mail? Search engine? Social service? Not to mention the only thing that is lucrative is the search engine. The only way I can see someone benefit from buying Yahoo is if they completely re-vamp what Yahoo does, focus on one category and, market it! - Candace

yahoo jumped the shark when it started being proud of releasing of the YUI libraries. companies that start treating 'helper tools' as if they were new functionality are on the downward side of the curve. - MikeAmundsen

@Mike, as a developer, the YUI libraries and developer tools are where the value of YHOO resides for me. I don't personally use any of their consumer products. - Sprague D

@Sprague D, question - does YUI increase your use of YHOO content/data? or do you use it primarily for your own content/data? my question is aimed at the monetary benefits accrued to YHOO from YUI. I see solid benefits from YHOO's work on Squid, but not YUI. - MikeAmundsen

Mike, I use their tools in projects that don't leverage their data or content. Point taken. - Sprague D

YUI libraries are the only thing worthwhile coming from that wretched place. - Patrick Sweeney

What kills me most about Yahoo is that they had so many of the most interesting and exciting places to go on the internet but then never fully realized that potential. I still can't believe that they paid Terry Semel more money than any CEO in the US in 2006 for such a miserable failure of a job. Pure stupidity. The board that oversaw that needs to go. - Thomas Hawk

But can you imagine a Microsoft owned Flickr..? - Sheila Thomson

I'm constantly amazed at how many CEO's get paid for bad jobs. And how often the board will cut employee salaries but not their own. Just look at the disaster at AT&T during the 90s: http://moourl.com/odp4g - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Yahoo! isn't over yet. - edythe

I'm just happy I don't own stock anymore, though maybe when it bottoms out, I'll buy in. - clarke thomas

Where's that price history graph post... - Michael W. May from twhirl

@Sheila, a Flickr with integrated support for PhotoSynth, Expression Media asset management and Live Mesh sharing/collaboration? Sounds good to me. - Sprague D

Hey look at the bright side for Yahoo though, their stock was up over 10% today. Helluva day! - Thomas Hawk

please no MSFT in Yahoo! please no masses of arses!!! - A.T.

@Michael, this one? http://friendfeed.com/e... - Sprague D

hehe, yep - Michael W. May from twhirl

Steve Rubel

I now spend more time on Friendfeed than any other site.

June 6, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

ǝuǝƃnǝ, TranceMist, Rick Powell and 76 other people liked this

I went from thinking that FriendFeed was a rather boring looking link overload to having it be my #1 site as well. Took about 72 hours. The potential here is really intoxicating. - Steve Isaacs

34 more comments

Are there any third-party clients for FriendFeed yet? - Stephen

Only Google rivals Friendfeed for my time and attention. - Steve Rubel

same here. - Thomas Hawk

Twhirl does FriendFeed now: http://www.twhirl.org/ - Steve Isaacs

Yep - Anthony Farrior

Try using rescuetime.com and you can actually measure this. Really cool data result. - Christopher Sacca

it is my homepage... but I find I use twitter to feed it still. btw rescuetime.com asks for a credit card. f#(% that... please don't promote that here. talk about a waste of time. like a dumb ass I del.icio.used it before realizing it was a piece of shit - Noah David Simon

Its going that way - need more noise - Roberto Bonini

Rescuetime does not ask for a credit card unless you are buying it for your enterprise. The personal version is entirely free. - Christopher Sacca

facebook is so long to upload with all the apps, friendsfeed is so quick and useful… Look like that between myspace/facebook/google battle, herecome the Outsider Friendsfeed, so exiting, it will relaunch web 2.0 sites - Marc Dahan

So does Alert Thingy - Michael VanDervort from fftogo

FF totally replaced Twitter for me today - Rafe Needleman

True dat. - Aaron Myers

Yes, now the name of the game is apparently being the preferred intermediary to Friendfeed and other social aggregators. For me, it's http://twhirl.org which fronts end both services I care about most (FF & Twitter>) - Dion Hinchcliffe from twhirl

I'm not looking for a site on which to spend more time; I'm looking for one that aggregates what I need to know in one spot. - Francine Hardaway

I like FF a lot. Twhirl is slightly hardert to use for some reason. - Michael VanDervort

There is a client for FriendFeed. Check out AlertThingy. http://alertthingy.com/ - John F Morton

How do people using FF deal with Twitter friends who aren't on FF? Read both? I see there are "imaginary" friends, but does that mean manually importing and updating your Twitter friends on FF? - Greg Beck

Best way to deal with FriendFeed is through the browser. The clients make it seem more cluttery. - David Risley

Nothing beats using the browser. Clients are slow and sometimes unresponsive. - Winston Teo

oddly David you are right, but if you'd asked me a month ago I would have disagreed. For some reason FF works better on the web where as Twitter is via desktop client - Duncan Riley

yesh, i hope there's a google search box.. I also installed duncan's script - Raymond

Me too, its my start page and clients do suck, btw is the friendfeed air client done? - Kyle Weller

I spend much more time on Google Reader than Friendfeed because of superior signal to noise. - Sean McBride

me too.. - Tim FitzGerald

I am baffled as to why anyone would think that Friendfeed is remotely competitive with Google Reader for processing highly strategic cutting edge information in a slick and efficient way. The potential is there, I can see that, but actualizing the potential is going to require a great deal of smart code and ranking algorithms. Also, am I the only one bothered by this "forum" interface? It's like trying to play Rachmaninoff on the piano while wearing boxing gloves. - Sean McBride

I think Reader and FriendFeed are useful for entirely different reasons. I use Reader for aggregation on news source and research material for those areas I track. FF enhances that information stream by personalizing some topics, and by giving me an entirely different personal stream . I often have both open and click back and forth betweem them. - Michael VanDervort

@MichaelVanDervort: I use Google Reader not only to aggregate high quality news, research and discussion, but to PRIORITIZE it. With GR I get a continuous stream of intensely concentrated strategic information. So far, after fiddling with all of FF's options, I have not been able to duplicate that experience here. Also, it is easy to use GR in tandem with Yahoo Groups, which provides much more powerful tools for in-depth forum discussions than is available in the current iteration of Friendfeed. - Sean McBride

FF may not be Reader, but it still retains that element of subscribing to others. And yes, FF could be Digg or google News, but its besides the point. GF is Reader in steroids because not only do we subscribe, but we comment, like and manage the noise interactively- none of which Reader does. And we wouldn't want it to since Reader is excellent at what it does. - Roberto Bonini

Just about every time I visit FriendFeed there is another piece of brain candy to consume (or, more applicable perhaps, subsume). I haven't had this much enjoyment since the web started up. - jcunwired

I have limited time to spend on these things every day. I find I indeed am spending a lot less of that time on TechMeme and Google Reader lately and a lot more of that time on FriendFeed. I still use the other two, so they are still important, but I have cut way back. - Robert Scoble

To RS: and where, amidst the flood of tweets, does one find time to mull over carefully constructed books, dissertations, journal articles, conference papers, patents and the like, and think visionary thoughts? - Sean McBride

You know, I'm complaining about certain issues with Friendfeed, but I'm here, I'm hooked, I feel the gravitational pull of the thing. Something important is happening here. - Sean McBride

I have a tough time deciding where to spend time - My Google Reader or Friendfeed - Kapil

True - I'm the same, within 2 days I've converted from reader to friendfeed. I like it a lot! - Rich

Michael Gartenberg

Twitter down again... i'm shocked. shocked

June 6, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

david beckwith, Dobromir Hadzhiev, Jeff Majka and 3 other people liked this

The drama continues..... - Roberto Bonini

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no drama, just crappy service that gets less likely to be used by me each day. if the FF tweak this just a week bit for better mobile access and posting, i'm done with Twitter - Michael Gartenberg

Down for 30 mins. Yeah right. - Jeff Majka

I really hope someone other than Twitter is accurately plotting their uptime. My definition of uptime differs from theirs anyway - Bwana ☠

Heres more about Twitters uptime: http://radar.oreilly.com/archive... - Roberto Bonini

Twitter Uptime = Airline On Time They have a totally different metric from reality. my last flight was delayed two hours but was considered by Continental to be on time - Michael Gartenberg

Yeah, that's a long 30 minutes. I've been out shopping since then... - Colin Walker

Robert Scoble

Loving my FriendFeed - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

March 13, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Reno Peng, Christopher Yeo, Mark Krynsky and 21 other people liked this

What do you think of FriendFeedFeed? - Steve Lynch

5 more comments

It's interesting, though, that he says FF is a place where "you can find all his stuff" - not a place where you can find him necessarily. That makes FF no more than a promotional vehicle for him, it seems - Frederic

It's amazing how much easier it is to respond to a twitter via friendfeed than it is on twitter - engtech

Steve: FriendFeedFeed? Seriously? A social network aggregator aggregator? Can anyone say "reduntant"...? :-) - Slippy "WildBeard" Lane

Actually, FriendFeedFeed is an Evite attack - http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008... - Ontario Emperor

FriendFeed does solve lots of problems - Christian Burns

Frederic is wrong. I subscribe to tons of people and like listening in on all this flow, too. - Robert Scoble

Jeff Majka › Likes