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Stephen B › Likes
For All the Gloom Around RSS, Readers Continue to Climb - http://blog.louisgray.com/2009...
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AJ Kohn, Akiva Moskovitz, Muge Cerman and 9 other people liked this
#helprobertscoblegetsmarter
- David Rothman (☤)
David ++
- Vishy
you might want to include a note that Google Reader's "suggested user list" helps pump up at least one of those blogs - i'm not sure of the others.
- Allen Stern
Allen, as mentioned on the blog, I did say some of these RSS feeds are no doubt bundled. I did not highlight Google Reader's bundles, but that is possible that some are impacted here.
- Louis Gray
thanks Louis - it's interesting that while twitter's SUL gets a lot of chatter - other default lists like GR bundles go basically unnoticed.
- Allen Stern
[Photo of the day] You Mess With Nature, Nature Will Mess With You Right Back. http://cache.gawker.com/assets...
Stephen B liked this
I just had my first ever non-ironic wolf shirt sighting in Los Angeles, and it was horribly magnificent. Christmas came early for Wil!
Paul Puri, Stephen B, Lo and josh neff, geek at large liked this
'Fringe' Goes Back To Season One For 'Unearthed,' A Never-Before-Seen Episode - http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009...
Stephen B, Jennifer Dittrich and RAPatton liked this
More and more interesting. Has something like this been done before?
- Araceli
Ooooooh. Now that I'm interested in - especially if they're either showing some sort of alternate world view (or showing the effect that the alternates have on the "regular" continuity)
- Jennifer Dittrich
DAMNIT! This is awesome but... I miss David Robert Jones! Bring back David Robert Jones! Grrrr....
- teh Dork Knight aka Kenny
note to iTunes (or whatever that database is that they use for song info): Birth of the Cool is not "Pop". tyvm.
Akiva Moskovitz, Derrick, Stephen B and 4 other people liked this
LOL
- ha3rvey (just a friend)
They screw up so many genres it isn't funny
- DJF
In 1958 it was.
- ♫Geek in the 410♫
ah yes, that's it!
- holly
23 Great Photos Of Reflection In Water - http://www.smashapps.org/2009...
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Alan Le, Mary, Myrna and 17 other people liked this
FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request - FriendFeed Blog - http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009...
Jason A. Samfield, Srikanth AD, Ozer Wrzl (EN) and 658 other people liked this
We've been acquired by Facebook! We are really excited about joining the Facebook team. (Note: FriendFeed will continue to operate - see the blog post for details)
- Bret Taylor
from Bookmarklet
Boom.
- Louis Gray
Grr!
- directeur
Woah...
- Brandon Titus
Uh. Well, that's the end of that.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Roberto Bonini
What does this mean for FriendFeed, Bret?
- Kol Tregaskes
Lame.
- Mark Trapp
great title bret. well played.
- MG Siegler
WOW
- Bindu Reddy
Congrat! So, what does this mean to your team and to FF in general?
- Dilip Dand
wahhhhhhhhhh
- Myrna
maaaan
- Jamie
wowow
- Harry Wolff
congrats
- brainno722 (Peter)
Nooooooooooooo
- Mushin
Wait... seriously?
- Ken Sheppardson
oh, noooo
- Tanju Yildiz
Congratulations to the friendfeed team. I know this is huge for y'all. Please don't let us spoil your parade as we weep.
- Ladybug Heather
Seriously?!? .....
- sebastian☆rocket brother
oh boy.
- Carlos Ayala
I am hoping this will lead to nice integration for cross posting! Currently using Twitter App on FB to post and I hate those ff.im links that end up on Facebook.
- Ivan Zlatev
it was good while it lasted, Friendfeed. :(
- holly
division by zero
- Onur Cengiz
OMG
- Onur Gündüz
"FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team." Those are NOT encouraging things to read as a FF user.
- Scott of Two Countries
gratz
- Ali
My heart is sinking as I type this. Please tell me that it isn't a late April Fool's joke. :(
- Tyson Key
Wow, it's true!!
- Kevin Whalen
Big news! I second Kol & dilip's request for what this means for the team and FF's future.
- Brandon Titus
O_o
- Joe Silence is not Santa
So it IS true.
- Hector
Nicely done Bret
- Jennifer Van Grove
Congratulations btw, guys!
- Kol Tregaskes
Sniff... not sure if I'm excited about this. But I have enormous respect for the FriendFeed team... so, I assume they believe in the move as more than an exit strategy.
- Michael Leggett
Congrats, Bret.
- Jordan Hofker
This is just horrible
- Matthew DeVries
Congratulations, I suppose. A bit worried Facebook is going to ruin everything though. I'm not fond of Facebook, to say the least.
- Irma Vermaat
Um.
- Barry Mitchelson
Oh my... Hopefully FriendFeed won't vanish and good luck :)
- Tarmo Aidantausta
Do we call it FaceFeed? FriendBook?
- Tyson Key
Oh no....
- Ben Hanten
Terrible fit.
- Matthew DeVries
damn here it is... :(
- Edgar Rodríguez
FriendFace!!! (i love it crowd)
- Bahriye
*waits for wall-to-wall ads and constant spambots*
- Joe Silence is not Santa
Die.
- Zio Bonino
Congrats
- Zoltan Szendro
I dont want FF to end
- Fee501st
Wow
- Shevonne
Oh mon dio !
- Umar
What did you do? WHYYY!
- Zachary TG
Ostregheta.
- Reloj
Congrats guys, in a bittersweet sort of way.
- Hutch Carpenter
guess there's no way of denying this anymore :(
- BCK
Just another lesson in why you shouldn't put your love and trust in a company......
- Matthew DeVries
Oh no!
- Erdinc YILMAZEL
Congrats, but I hate Facebook.
- Zachary TG
I like Friendfeed and I do not like Facebook. Gratz to you guys though, I think.
- Mark Sorrell
"Oh shit..." came to mind immediately. :(
- Tyson Key
Scott, yep not encouraged by that comment. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
Congrats on the deal, best wishes to the FF'ers in helping facebook get it together!
- Sean O'Connor
This could get exciting, especially concerning twitter :-P
- Malte Steckmeister
Congrats for Friendfeed team, but I'm seriously worried for us :(((((((((((
- Roberto
Congratulations... I'm sure this is pretty exciting for everyone at FriendFeed... We're all looking forward to where it takes you!
- Nathan Chase
And FriendFeed was just getting popular. Not any more.
- Zachary TG
Wow
- Rodfather
*Sobs*
- Tyson Key
wow
- Jack Wilson, K4SAC
to the dump
- Zachary TG
Wow, very disappointed
- Randy Pollock
come on. Bret, facebook is so closed. so different from Friendfeed. besides that. Congrats to the team
- Edgar Rodríguez
As am I
- Zachary TG
machecazzo
- Sba
VERY disappointed.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
horrible decision
- Randy Pollock
Booo. But, you know, congrats.
- Chris Nixon
i'm not sure i'm happy about this.
- Taylan Aydınlı
OMG WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SH*T
- Alp
Congrats for u guys... probably too bad for us ;-(
- Laurent
God, I can see FB shutting down FF just like Six Apart shut down Pownce.
- DarknessFalls
arg.
- Aron Michalski
Good for you, don't know for all of us
- Cristian Conti
@#$& that's all I have to say. For now.
- Zachary TG
Facebook should have been aquired by Friendfeed. Why they hell would you give up your better product to a worse one? Did none of you give a shit about this service to begin wiht?
- Matthew DeVries
Congrats!
- Alix Whitmire
Coolest web 2.0 site I've ever seen & used. I hope things don't derail. Ads will be coming soon, which is fine, but.... then what 's next? Please no quizzes!
- Ben Hanten
Who would have thought that after Facebook were shamelessly being "inspired" by FriendFeed, the inevitable would have happened?
- Tyson Key
I'm pissed off. I wan to throw away the whole Internet :
- DarkBls
Congrats!
- Moushumi Kabir
Congrats guys. :)
- Meryn Stol
Congratulations. This is awesome for you and for Facebook.
- Mike Sego
mommy?
- Josh Haley
Hey guys, keep in mind that Facebook is blocked in workplaces across the nation. 250 million casual users commenting about last night's party does not intelligent conversation make.
- Hector
FFail
- rael
What will happen to my 92 subscribers?
- Zachary TG
yes you have just failed at failing, no it is not a double negative.
- Bahriye
Tragic.
- Shannon
I really can't see how FB would buy FF only to shut it down. There are way too many innovations and features FF has that FB honestly needs. I'm looking forward.
- Harry Wolff
here come the comments
- Zachary TG
Congrats? Everybody who's saying Congrats doesn't know what he's saying. Go to hell.
- Zio Bonino
Yeah, quizzes are EVIL!
- Tarmo Aidantausta
Wow.
- Zachary TG
Oh, this does not make me happy. Not at all! I've stayed off of Facebook intentionally and FriendFeed is my favorite social network. This is like when the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. :>(
- Larry Hawes
i have stopped using FB for the most part and liked FF alot more. now FF will go the way of FB. screwed again.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
Congratulations. Enjoy the new challenges of acquisition, and I'm looking forward to the result!
- Wade Dorrell
Berge Gazen beat your score in Mafia Wars
- Berge Gazen
Feedface or Facefeed?
- Fee501st
FUCK THAT ! [Anyways good job guys ^^]
- TiTi
Enjoy your fat paychecks, guys. You've sold us out.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Bravo Bret! Been following your successes ever since we had the opportunity to work together on the YellowPages.ca / Google Maps Canada deal. Congrats!
- Sebastien
I wished it was Google or even Yahoo!, instead...
- Tyson Key
i really hope ff stays as it is. fb is kinder carder while ff is a great tool.
- jkkmobile
Facefucked or Fuckfeed?
- Matthew DeVries
Not sure what to make of this. It could eiter be a big win or a huge fail.
- dorn
It could have been Microsoft, which would have been worse for everyone. :(
- Tyson Key
Can I take this opportunity to say I HATE facebook?
- Alex Scrivener
seems the only ppl happy here are the ones in the biz or who stand to profit from the merger.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
I guess we should get ready to get poked by our supposed friends and have various shit thrown at us? Plus 5,000 requests by apps that nearly all suck.
- Joey Gibson
There is zero way this could have been a win for anyone, but the now rich founders.
- Matthew DeVries
duh
- aybars badur
I HATE facebook
- Pedram
this is simply awful.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
If I have to go to FB to use FF then it's a lost cause
- Randy Pollock
Painful. And apparently I completely misunderstood what FF was trying to accomplish both technically and as an organization. I guess Facebook must have dangled a pretty big bag of money in front of them.
- Ken Sheppardson
FriendFeed is Dead! Long Live FriendFeed! :/
- Tyson Key
Awesome. Please fix Facebook email :) http://fudge.org/too-muc...
- Jay Cuthrell
Facebook is going to acquire the web!
- l'Ego di Gigi
To me, FriendFeed is like Porsche and Facebook a Kia. I'm curious to see which will become which..
- Moushumi Kabir
Oh noes!
- Burcu Dogan
Congrats Bret!
- Robin Dindayal
I will reserve judgement, i don't like or use FB but if FF maintains it's current goodness i don't care who cuts the checks.
- Steve C
I hope this doesn't turn into an APP filled hunk of crap. I love FriendFeed, it was the untouched gem of microblogging. I don't want Mafia Wars invited in my FriendFeed!!! Congrats on the sale though.
- Jay Farmington
Where's the "dislike" option?
- Gregor Morrill
+1 Gregor
- Tyson Key
accipicchia che pessima notizia
- massimo mantellini
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE!!! -_-
- Bahriye
I just realized this is like when K-mart bought Sears ...
- DarknessFalls
/ponders the meaning of "FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being."
- Philipp Lenssen
And I will officially be leaving FriendFeed today.
- Michael Forian
omg
- John μller
@Philipp: until the new masters start flexing their muscles and bringing in their own people to enforce their own vision.
- Joe Silence is not Santa
Such great news!
- Steve Rubel
Not sure what to think of this.
- Matthew Speicher
where is dislike button ?
- Osman Üngür
OMG!
- Zac Bowling
now where did I put my twitter password
- Randy Pollock
big mistake :((
- emresezgin
I suppose it will be called FriendFace? http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Phil Harrison
Congratulations, guys!!!!!!!!!
- Jess Lee
Oh. Hell. No.
- CannonGod
Oh My God! They Killed FriendFeed!
- Tyson Key
so the (once)new facebook homepage was actually the tip of the iceberg?
- Onur Cengiz
It's a win/win! congrats all.
- Alan Le
Time to roll your own Frienfeed clone.
- Fırat Can Başarır
Congrats to you.
- Evan Travers
Congratulations. I look forward to seeing what this new partnership means for users.
- Aren Grimshaw
FF will surely be integrated into FB at some point?
- Kol Tregaskes
damn Ken is spot on! +1000 Ken!
- vijay
not good.
- Jacque
Oh. My. Gosh.
- Enrico Lamperti
Facebook obviously liked FriendFeed a long time ago. Why would they have copied so many features (feed item comments and the "Like" action, to name a couple) otherwise? It was only logical for this to happen eventually. Doesn't mean I like it, but acquisition is part of the game. I have the same feeling I did when SocialThing! was acquired by AOL, though.
- Voyagerfan5761
"Relationship Status: It's complicated" comes to mind. ;)
- Tyson Key
Wow, I finally sign up, and read this. This could end up being a very bad thing for FF fans: "Your FriendFeed friend just signed up on this poll, would you like to too?"
- Brian Bommarito
sad...
- Marvin
Congrats guys. And thanks for your continuos effort in helping promote and integrate web services, like mine, Wakoopa. That's awesome and I hope FB gets better because of it.
- Robert Gaal
This will give FriedFeed the attention it deserves. Otherwise it would have been a geek thing forever.
- Michael Netsch
Will there be a super poke feature launched tomorrow?
- Matthew DeVries
aw, this sux!! Congrats to the Friendfeed team though!
- acedanger
please don't merge logins!!! please
- earlyadopter
They are deceived when they suffer themselves to be drawn after the image of things, without seeking for the true reason of them.
- The Complex Days
I hope it works OK to you guys!
- Rodrigo Jaroszewski
+1 Netsch - I still like FF more but this finally legitimizes FF to the mainstream.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Friend request una beata fava. Pecunia non olet.
- Federico Bolsoman
Yeah, I really can't wait to see what value the Ashton Kutchers and Oprahs of the world have to add to FriendFeed.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Please tell me this is a delayed April Fools' Day joke.
- Rochelle
Facebook & FriendFeed: don't cross the lifestreams! D:<
- CannonGod
I guess this means I'll have toget a facebook account after all.... Hope the API stays up and running....
- Roberto Bonini
"Were rich B!tch!" - Chappelle
- adolfo foronda
Another good thing: This ups the bar for Wave.
- Wade Dorrell
What a bunch of greedy assholes.
- Zio Bonino
So ?
- Ercan Bülbül
Does this mean that we'll be seeing an influx of webcam spammers, a la Twitter? Along with abolishment of the rooms feature, crappification of the search feature, and more "privacy features" that really just put more nails in the openness coffin?
- Tyson Key
:(
- Pavlo Zahozhenko
Some people will do whatever their friends request........
- Michael Muller
I really don't see why people would be anything but excited about this Facebook freindfeed deal. Great news as far as I am concerned. The Friend feed team is going to go over facebook and make it that much easier to connect, share... isn't that what the social web is about?
- Kevin Murray
I know a lot of people who use Facebook and enjoy it and that's fair enough. It's just not my cup of tea. The chaps from Friendfeed will get rich and the technology will get absorbed in Facebook but I can't see Friendfeed continuing in anything like it's present form.
- Paul Nash
Don't be so negative, something good might eventually come of this...
- Tarmo Aidantausta
The End.
- Kaan Ertürk
Congrats! I know you all must be crazy excited right now.
- Michele Lorito-Chase
chance for FriendFeed to become more mainstream... congrats FriendFeed team!
- Jeroen De Miranda
Nothing could make me happier than if they integrated the good tools from FriendFeed into Facebook, which is where all my friends are. So a big "yay!" from me.
- Ian Betteridge
happy for you guys, but not for all of us
- Flavio
congratulations. this is going to be interesting.
- Dave Beckett
I think I preferred the non-mainstream version of FriendFeed...
- Tyson Key
I'm turning on my black shirt, my black trouser, my black socks, my black shoes. Although I probably must be happy for you.
- Ton Zijp
NASTY NASTY BAD BAD. But we'll see...
- Daniel Morgan
Game over.
- stark
yeah removing feed also works.
- Bahriye
Reminds me so much of Last.fm fall...
- Marcos
Given that the FriendFeed team has never been anything but awesome & respectful of its community, I think it's unfair for people to assume that the Facebook acquisition is going to change that.
- Jess Lee
Why in god's name are we flying over this shark?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
- Matthew DeVries
Facebook is like a giant who listens to nobody. Please keep your attitude but I don't think you will be able to do so.
- Burak "cyrus" Bayburtlu
Noooooooo......
- Sung W. Lim
yeahhh
- Çağrı Burak
NO
- Cristian Conti
Congrats! That sucks.
- Rutger Blom
Where is that evidence Jess?
- Matthew DeVries
I don't know, Like it? or dislike it?
- Ömer Balamir
What happens to all the content that we've created and imported here, and the associated metadata? Will all that disappear into the ether?
- Tyson Key
If the FriendFeed guys can make FaceBook useful and responsive again, this seems like a pretty positive step!
- Robin Barooah
Robin, the Facebook users don't want that I'm afraid.
- Rutger Blom
I have big loss of data concerns. See http://ff.im/6pHjo Is there any way to archive all my FriendFeed posts, likes, comments, and pictures (friendfeed-media.com) off-line? Can some Archive.org-like snapshots of FriendFeed be made (Once a month starting Sept 2009)? I'd like to see the cross-links between my posts & other people's posts, even in 2020. -
- Mitchell Tsai
Mitchell: the FriendFeed site is not shutting down. Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users.
- Bret Taylor
I just overheard a coworker mention FriendFeed. This is how the world ends...
- CannonGod
kafa sayımı yapıp köyü satan ağalar geldi aklıma
- Alper Ömer Esin
Then provide us with a way to easily make a back-up of all of our posts and all of the posts we have Liked and Commented on.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Same question as Mitchel Tsai. How do I export my data? I don't want it to be handed off to Facebook.
- Zio Bonino
Near term future?
- Kol Tregaskes
I don't see good things coming from this. Although I like Facebook, I liked Friendfeed more. Partly because of the environment and the smallness of it. That is now going to be ruined. So, 10-1 odds that Friendfeed will be no more within a year after it gets intergrated into Facebook?
- Mathew™ one of a kind
I doubt it Robin. Bret can only give us assurances about the "near future." Here's what I think will happen. Just like Twitter acquired Rael Dornfest and his awesome web services, Stikkit and I Want Sandy vanished (and so did he), Facebook will acquire all the talent from Friendfeed, shut this service down and Facebook will continue to suck.
- Jim Is Not Smart
Same question as Mitchel Tsai. How do I export my data? I don't want anything to be handed off to Facebook. And I don't want to lose anything.
- Zio Bonino
Congrats obviously, but im not sure about the feeling,, different user groups which can not integrate but collide.. hope there wont be an huge integration in the future.
- Yunus Tunak
I'm happy for FriendFeed! But, at the same time a bit worried about the future. Hope you guys convince FB to not be evil too.
- Vishal Verma
Let's hope this is like Disney's acquisition of Pixar - wherein the Pixar guys ended up in control of the animation studio...
- Robin Barooah
from IM
Where the f*ck is this option to undo ?
- Laurent
Odd that this thread gets modded?
- Matthew DeVries
I seriously thought this was a joke. Looks like its not. I don't like it, sorry.
- Michael Lynton
Does anyone want to start a bounty to purchase Facebook? ;)
- Tyson Key
Congratulations!
- John Craft
can't be, shouldn't be...
- Kemal
It is! Change is inevitable, my friends.
- Bill Sodeman
Jim, I'm less cynical than you - the FriendFeed founders wouldn't do this just in order to become 'talent' at FaceBook.
- Robin Barooah
So will we be playing FriendFeed Mafia Wars at some point in the future? Ugh.
- Alex Hellstrom
I feel if I should be wearing a black arm band. But I guess when I think about it..............
- Kevin J Hatton
Oh No! I don't like this at all :(
- Peter
WTF! Horrible Bret, this the death of FriendFeed.. you know that right?
- Santa CW™
I still think Apple will acquire Facebook, Twitter Friendfeed and Google Twitter.
- Thomas Power
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
- Stephen Francoeur
My condolences to all Friendfeeders! RIP!
- Evgeni Leshtanski
AAAAwwwful!
- carolh
I can't believe it! damn! facebook tos will apply to friendfeed too? should i start to move to another service? why anyone would think that facebook public is friendfeed public?! damn! friedfeed was my favorite! I can't understand this move! they want to kill friendfeed or what?
- paula simoes ☃
"I bet I can find 1.000.0000 people who dislike this deal."...Welcome to FriendBook.
- Jacque
Well, huge congraulations to you and your team, you deserve every success. To be honest I had presumed this would happen sooner or later - the only business model cool little startups have is to hope they get bought by someone bigger for their brains and technology. I'm going to be in San Francisco in a couple of weeks and was going to stop by your office to bring you a cake and thank you for a great product - maybe I still will if you're still there and there's still a FriendFeed!
- Alex Lomas
The FF founders must have know this would be a very unpopular move. Most users I know here are not too fond of FB.
- Rutger Blom
damn, damn, damn...
- Kemal
One of the sadest news for Internet and web creativity :(
- DarkBls
Woah woah... This is real?
- Jason Huebel
"Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users" There's a bit of a contradiction in your statement, Bret. Nice try though.
- jcunwired
Now I can break my Internet plan at home.
- DarkBls
Grats Bret and the rest of FF. To all the naysayers... Lets see what happens before we start bitching....
- Rasmus Lauridsen
wow!! dazed and confused!!
- Roberto Arancibia
I don't hate Facebook, but for sharing things Friendfeed is MUCH MUCH better!
- Mathew™ one of a kind
I wonder if that Ben Darnell guy who *just* left the Google reader team knew about this beforehand? Wonder what he's thinking now? (http://friendfeed.com/friendf...)
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Just great. I'm certainly not very happy about this. Let's just hope FB doesn't ruin FF. Ugh.
- Elena
Who cares? Nothing's gonna change in our pitiful lifes.
- bluretina
:|
- Amin BZ
This ties in nicely with the fact that you soon will have the opportunity to make your Facebook profiles public and get followers there.
- Michael Netsch
чатег номер два
- лето ближе с каждым днем
Congrats Bret! this is so great! many congrats!!!
- Jason Pollock
That is capitalism for you. Luckely, there still good 'ol usenet.
- Peter
Is it April 1st somewhere in the universe?
- Robert Felty
I don't mean to be negative but there's got to be a win-win logic to each merger&acquisiton. Audience high in only quantity is clearly not a win for friendfeed in the long term by considering its unique selling points. Let's wait and see who will benefit from friendfeed's death now.
- ayca
It's all about the money. I would have payed a couple of dollars each month to use FF.
- Rutger Blom
Seriously, what is this? It's like Bret just announced that he's killed all your mothers or something. It could turn out good, it could turn out bad, but at the end of the day, who cares, it's just a website (I mean honestly, come on). I could see it going either way, but in the near term, this is a pretty big win for the FF team, so congrats guys.
- Chieze Okoye
OMG!
- keso
To be honest, my heart sank a little but I am happy to congratulate you and the team for building such a good brand. Well done.
- Kevin J Hatton
I'm just surprised, that's all. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (it certainly isn't for the owners of FF). I'm willing to sit back and see what happens.
- Jason Huebel
Wow, I specifically use friendfeed b/c it is not facebook. Sounds great for the friendfeed team, but not necessarily for friendfeed users.
- Evan Parker
Born to be sold, like in the old "new economy" era. Remember the late nineties?
- Federico Bolsoman
Sudden desire to check out Strands again... but hey, kudos on the incoming $$ for FF team
- Leslie Poston
This is wisdom. Bracing for Google Wave is a good idea.............
- Kevin J Hatton
this is clearly a talent aquisition... why am i not excited about this? could it be because facebook has been blatantly stealing features from friendfeed shamelessly. Likes were clearly not an original facebook idea...realtime feeds is another i could go on...
- Tate DA FF MVP
While I'm sad, because I suspect this means the best things about FF will disappear or I'll be forced to use FB in some way, if the buyout was for some awesome amount of money, I can't say I blame 'em for taking an offer -- I would.
- Andy Bakun
I came to FriendFeed because I don't like facebook. Now the question is, will facebook become more like friend feed? or will they just take friend feed and turn it into facebook?
- Tom Ray
FF could be a good R&D arm for facebook.
- Andy Bakun
My biggest concern here is that FB has a completely different audience than FF.
- Rutger Blom
Fucking morons. FriendFeed is doomed now. Think logically. Facebook has NO REASON to keep FriendFeed alive. It will simply take FF's best features, suck the life of out of it, then trash FF. Way to go, FirnedFeed, damn.
- Jeremy Buff
Fail.
- Big K
Big Fail!
- OnuRC
This announcement should have been held off until the plans for Friendfeed were known. Regardless, this is *bad* for FF users. Best case: it continues on, but with stagnated feature development. Worst case: it's gone.
- tollie williams
wtf ?!
- Umut
I need to install "super PUKE" application !
- Bart LePoole
FFail.
- rowlikeagirl
I don't want my FF feed on Facebook :( I use both, but maintain both profiles separate
- Leandro Ardissone ⍨
Sigh... Happy for the team if this is what they want, but baffled by the move. The users that are going to leave because of this will make FF a graveyard and the users it gains, well... Hello spam? Sorry, but I don't like it.
- Vince DeGeorge
from iPhone
JEREMY+++++1
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
Wow!
- felix
Well, I guess it is time to dismantle my friendfeed. We all know where this is headed. So, so glad I didn't move all my rss feeds from greader to friendfeed like so many cheerleaders suggested.
- Matthew Speicher
Jeremy +1
- F. Batuhan Icoz
so what's next? where should we go?
- Flavio
It's been fun here.
- Capn' One Eye - adrift
Dang, and just as I was starting to get used to how FF works. FF is useful on it's own. I hope this only improves FF's system, rather than having it disappear into Facebook's wake.
- Don Faulkner
My big question to everybody here is this: What are the potential downsides / upsides to this acquisition? I mean on paper I just don't see what the pros OR cons are. I don't care for Facebook but I don't see how them acquiring FF is going to change everything.
- Nicholas Kreidberg
furthermore they are 2 different things: I follow a lot of people here that are not in my facebook list, which is for IRL friends!
- Flavio
I don't know where to go next either. I had just settled down to make imaginary friends for all my non-FF tweeps, etc. now, I'm not sure if I should bother.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
I hope friendfeed continues to operate normally but it does not look good.
- ashish
integrate best features of ff to fb, then try to innovate in fb if possible, then kill ff... that's it, cheers, all the best. grrrr...
- Kemal
niczak has good points. FF & FB aren't exactly competitors, but they aren't orthogonal either. Let's hope FB's smart enough to see the difference and improve both platforms.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Nicholas: The upside for Facebook is they just bought an engineering team that's built many of the feature's Facebook's going to need to stay competitive. The upside for FriendFeed's engineering team is $$$ and the ability to build system for a wider audience. FriendFeed's user base is small enough that it'll either get absorbed into Facebook or move on, and FF will become a footnote on the Internet timeline.
- Ken Sheppardson
Don, I don't think FB wants to maintain two platforms.
- Rutger Blom
first tr.im (heard about it yesterday), now this. I wasn't a heavy tr.im user (yet), but sad to see it go, even if I think url shortening is silly.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
As FB said they're interested in the people and not in the site, what if the community will keep running FF without its current staff?
- Flavio
Congratulations!
- Sam Grover
Flavio, that's not very realistic I'm afraid, but I like the idea.
- Rutger Blom
rutgerblom, I don't expect they do either, thus my angst over this.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
if there's a team willing to do it and money, and if we accept some ads as everywhere else, we could make a new FF without FB
- Flavio
Tony, most likely
- Rutger Blom
read carefully: http://blog.socialthing.com/2009...
- Kemal
I'll have to go with Flavio's position too. Given this news (plus tr.im and who knows who's next), I'd tend to favor community supported or federated services for things like this in the future.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
I am purposely not on facebook because I don't really want to talk to people I have not talked to in 20 years.
- Andy Bakun
God help us
- Johnny
Once again. I'm happy for the FF team. They worked hard and now collect. That's fair. Wonder if they're sitting in a bubble pool drinking champagne while we cry out here ;-)
- Rutger Blom
Congrat Bret!! :))
- Cihan Cepni
trouble is (from my perspective), that the philosophies of the two platforms are at odds. FB wants to bring people to the site and keep them there, while FF is a hub, bringing people in and then sending them back out. (That's part of why it's hard for the newcomer to understand, IMHO.)
- Don Faulkner
from IM
This almost confirms FF will disappear: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
- Kol Tregaskes
Great point, Don.
- Rutger Blom
+1 Don
- Johnny
Does this mean I can throw someone a sheep on FriendFeed now?
- Pinksy
I sure hope so, Rutger. I glad for their success too. I just hope there's a next best thing out there for us.
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Congrats all. Nice work, in spite of any naysaying out there. Keep up the innovation.
- Tomas Remotigue
LOLI FFAIL
- rael
lame.
- andy brudtkuhl
This should be good news for Twitter.
- Rutger Blom
post the picture to failblog...
- Kemal
Quote «Taylor and Cox say that the Friendfeed product will live on independently, and eventually Friendfeed will be merged into Facebook. But the Friendfeed team is not being kept whole. Some employees will now report to Cox, others to engineering head Mike Schroepfer. In my opinion that means, long term, the Friendfeed product itself is unlikely to be a big priority.¶ But Facebook is...
more...
- Philipp Lenssen
+1 Kol for the techcrunch article!
- Don Faulkner
from IM
techcrunch: "Cox agreed, noting that Facebook is focused on being a platform and a service, and not just a destination site." I certainly hope so!
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Brilliant move by both Facebook and friendfeed. Congratulations!!! I have theories of what they have planned, but I doubt you would verify any of them. This is going to go so well with their SocialTV which they have been developing. I'm so happy for you!
- Michael Fidler
Really saddened by this news.
- Doug Beeferman
Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
- LouCypher
I don't see what's so bad about it since no one knows right now what the outcome will be, everyone is just making assumptions that could possibly be wrong..... Might help just sitting back and seeing what happens first before complaining.
- ChaCha Fance
Nooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrghh! I´ve resisted getting a facebook acct for so long...
- Thomas Bøhm
ChaCha, if everybody would do that there would not be much discussion would there? This is part of the fun.
- Rutger Blom
I wonder how the discussion over on facebook would compare to this?
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Drat!
- Gee Ekachai
congrats guys!
- Elad
Don, I doubt there is any discussion going on there. They're too busy throwing quizes at each other.
- Rutger Blom
Congrats, FF! I'm approaching the situation with cautious optimism. A lot of my friends only share stuff via the Facebook wall/feed, so if Facebook is able to make their feed more like the FF feed (i.e. good, instead of sucktacular) through this acquisition, it's mostly a win for me in the end.
- Brian Chang
At least my Feedburner stats might go back to normal again.
- Rutger Blom
/me pokes Rutger. (just getting in practice. ;)
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Where will we go for the FFunderCats, bacon memes, and angry artists fighting over photo reshares now? ;)
- Tyson Key
Don, LOL :-)
- Rutger Blom
If anybody has doubts as to what happens to the FriendFeed community or our stored information here, read this statement from Bret (in this thread) "Your data will not go away any time in the near term future - we are committed to our users". Now maybe you can see "whats so bad about it" and curb your optimism. Not good.
- jcunwired
Congrats FF. Fix their live feed situation please.
- Edward Barnieh
@josh: do you think FB will throw away all the crap people use? various quiz, pick 5 and so on?
- Flavio
@jc: our data will not go away in the near future. what will be in few months? in a year?
- Flavio
Let's see if you can do a bit better than just not being evil this time around.
- Tim Tyler
Wooohooo!!, seems like we are being sent back to "good" old Facebook. Congrats Bret!!
- Danli
Looks like I'm going to repeat the same thing many others did. My first reaction was "Oh my..." I have refused to join Facebook due to its philosophy while I have been with FriendFeed from the beginning for its. I'm sad and somewhat apprehensive.
- Sean Leather
Congrats. I suppose this means the end of FriendFeed but hopefully a better Facebook.
- Harry Toon
Hmm. Interesting.
- Ralf Becker
Add me to the fearful group.
- beersage
Please say that facebook.com will be shutting down, and the combined company will still be called FriendFeed... I bet it won't happen, though.
- Tyson Key
"Regarding FB/FF - Here's how it's [probably] going to work. You will most likely have an account merge, all of the services FriendFeed supports will now be aggregated on Facebook, and all of your FriendFeed friends will be in a "list" on Facebook. The FF Groups will become Facebook Groups. The FF lists will become Facebook Lists." http://ff.im/6pNxq
- Ozgur Uckan
Nothing like an early retirement payout :)
- Owen Greaves
Congrat Bret
- Nimaa
Panic attack. Congratulations, however! :)
- Fumus, Draco Magus
Congratulations Bret. For me this merger makes a lot of sense. Facebook will provide the "quantity" of users, which friendfeed deserves :).
- Karthick R
:(
- goodmachine
FriendFeed + Facebook... Oh noes FriendFace is coming (http://www.youtube.com/watch...)! Now sorry for that link, and seriously, thanks for your work, guys. Please don't let the spirit of FriendFeed to be blown away =)
- Anton
СУКИ-СУКИ-СУКИ!!!!
- Viktor
hey, that is great guys! interested to see how you integrate.
- Brian Walsh
Mind blown. Never expected this. I'm also disappointed, yet optimistic at the same time.
- Angus Burton
Kinda curious to see how this will all pan out...although i wouldnt want the friendfeed stuff just integrated into facebook. I feel like im among a group of people who i genuinely share interests with here...dont want to lost that.
- Cassidy
Best case: Facebook will continue to support and develop FriendFeed. Worst case: this is great news for Amplifeeder.
- David Gaw
aieeeeeeeeeee
- Richard Akerman
FAIL. Facebook is the new myspace, and now friendfeed will become a part of that BS. Can't say I'm too surprised because eventually we all sell out. BTW I don't see friendfeed lasting more than the rest of this year, if that. The good news is that we can all be subjected to add 'Are you related to a monkey?' and Blackjack apps while having annoying personal ads on our profile pages. Fuck this shit.
- Tomy Thomson
Well done, well deserved, I hope FB's means and infrastructures empower your guys to even better things. But if quizzes appear in "my" friendfeed, evil things will haunt you and your descendents for 3 generations.
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
:(
- Eph Zero
Well done Bret!
- Alemsah Ozturk
♪ ♪ This is the end.... beautiful friends ♪ ♪
- All for design
Well, I don't see the point of sticking around here if I have accounts in both and this is going to get swallowed whole into Facebook anyways. Put simply, goodbye.
- Micah Collard
It was fun while it lasted.
- Mr. Gunn
NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! This place will be just like twitter...
- The Count Rob
Congrats to the FF team - you've built a wonderful product!
- Michael Nielsen
Whattttttttttttttttttttt???
- Nibi
The social community that has been behind FriendFeed creators have built a wonderful product. Only problem is, we don't have Zuck's checkbook :(
- jcunwired
friendfeed is a beautiful product, only god knows what facebrook will do to it. Hopefully the ability to upload files (such as mp3s) will not be removed. Zuck is a tool.
- Nibi
Congratulations. I'm sorry to say that I don't plan to move with you.
- Lars Juhl Jensen
I don't like this....
- Zeki Pehlivan
"Like" to follow this thread. Not because I like what happened. I'm horrified. FF could disappear now.
- Kamilah Gill
Same here, Kamilah.
- Tyson Key
If FriendFeed had invented the "don't like" button, today would have been the day to press it.
- Vishal Verma
and I just bought BuddyFeed for my iPhone this weekend. :(
- Don Faulkner
from IM
Oh, joy, Facebook's privacy policy is upon us!
- Joris
WTF?? NOOOOO!!! Why do such good things have to be ruined by greed? Screw Facebook, and goodbye Friendfeed.
- Jason R. Hunter
congratulations!
- Loic Le Meur
Facebook is lucky to have such a talented group of people ... Congratulations FriendFeed!
- Rob Kurrus
doesn't look like a bad joke, better be for the good then, but... Well congrats anyway guys, you did something AWESOME now let's see where Mark takes it
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
That's too bad. Liked the openness if FriendFeed, and the lack crap that is on Facebook. Once FriendFeed dies, it will be Twitter only.
- Mike D.
Congrats, but concerned that FriendFeed and its tools may disappear. Merging the tools with Facebook seems impossible.
- Mike Reynolds
Congrats guys (and gals) !
- Benjy Weinberger
So, what does the acquisition of FriendFeed by Facebook mean to us, users of both websites: Can I make a friend request from FriendFeed, and be approved for both, on one click
- Reyna Carlos
Exciting news guys. I am actually looking forward to your collaboration with / work for FB. No matter what people may or may not like about FB, it does succeed in reaching a more "diverse" audience compared to most other Web 2.0/social web companies. Paired with your team's excellence in realizing features that succeed in pleasing the geekiest of Web 2.0 affine individuals, I think you are steering towards exciting waters :)
- Mustafa K. Isik
*heart sinks* actually a bit of shock - I think that Facebook will leave Friendfeed as-is but I don't think there is hope for future innovation in Friendfeed since their best superstar team members will be pulled onto 'more important' Facebook issues...
- Pon
And the metastasizing, walled-garden that is Facebook, continues to eat the Web. Bring on Google Wave.
- Christopher A Carr
:-) + :-( very happy for the team, huge achievement, hoping to see export of innovation but not a shut down of this unique community and location
- Majento
There goes FriendFeed down the toilet. well I WAS having a good day. until hearing this crap!
- Scratch5150
Congratulations, and best wishes for your future together! :-)
- Ruchira S. Datta
Wow, I was beginning to use Friendfeed as my defacto social site...Facebook is more for real life friends. They'll just take what makes Friendfeed great, add it to Facebook and slowly kill this site.
- Manuel Mas
What is the big deal? I think it'll make FF bigger and better. You should be happy about that!
- orionstarr
Somebody has to got pay for it.
- orionstarr
I am disappointed. I don't want to have to go to Facebook to do what i do here. I can not imagine they will port over all the features we enjoy here. We lose a lot for only a slight benefit to Facebook.
- Robert
It could be worse, myspace could've bought them lol...
- orionstarr
Awful news for users but congratulations to you guys. Ideally, FB will run FF as a distinct service but I'm not hopeful. I don't want the diversity and noise that facebook brings - people doing quizzes on which movie star they resemble and playing silly games. I also wanted to keep my day to day social activity distinct from the targeted information and discussion I use FF for.
- Rajit
Only just started taking a serious look at FF after hearing acquisition by FB. Sounds like I'm laggard rather than a leader in use of web 2.0
- ManojRanaweera
I think how Pon said it is what I'm feeling: *heart sinks*.
- Andy Bakun
Congratulations, i am really happy for you guys!! :)
- Mona Nomura
I'm not a Facebook fan, but can't begrudge the FF gang their chance to reap the rewards for all their hard work. However, it would be a shame if FB ruins the good thing we all have going here.
- Ken Morley
So what now? a name change too? FriendFace? FeedBook? FaceFeed? god Facebook really sucks. oh well. Adds anyone?
- Scratch5150
Congrats to the FF team... I hope the service doesn't disappear into a fold of light and heat.
- Brandon
if all the things that make FF great are brought to FB then I'll be happy to use it
- Mike Chelen
The community won't be there. Been on FB longer than any other, don't have nearly the relationship or sense of community there that I do here or on Twitter.
- Karoli
Karoli: that is due to the effectiveness of the FF platform and interface, which help to join conversations and find interesting people more so than FB does
- Mike Chelen
Mike: I suspect that FB wants FF for the search possibilities, not the community-building aspects. But we'll see.
- Karoli
i guess congrats are in order, but I'm going to now go and remove everything I have that feeds into FF, and I have to ask -- do I have any rights over my archive? I have a private feed, and I have no interest in offering up my lifestream to the FaceBook data-miners. I hope the FF folks get what they hope for out of the deal, but my FriendFeed experience has been effectively killed.
- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
I just learned about the FF acquisition by Facebook - WOW~! Congratulations Bret, Paul and FF team!! holy cow ........Mooooooooo! Where's the FF Acquisition Party? :)
- Susan Beebe
Friendfeed after Facebook http://ff.im/6q5EY
- Ozgur Uckan
RT @alirizaesin FriendFeed, R.I.P. Home tweet home!..
- Ozgur Uckan
Congrats to facebook. Now, Twitter is the best.
- Ebru Baranseli
Congratulations to the FriendFeed guys on the Facebook Acquisition. Not a big fan of Facebook, so I hope my favorite Uber Aggregator, Realtime Social, Microblogging site of awesomeness is not entirely absorbed into the Facebook infrastructure. I wait with baited breath to hear what "normally for the time being" means ;).
- Tom Horn
Can I now have comments propagate in both directions as far as Facebook/Friendfeed is concerned?
- Piaw Na
*checks date*. Damn .. not April 1st, must be for real. While I'm happy for the FF team, since I guess this is what they wanted (congrats guys!), I can't help but think this is the beginning of the end for a great service and a vibrant community. There are reasons I don't spend any time on Facebook and do spend lots of time on FF, and some kind of "FF integrated into Facebook" just won't cut it. I hope this service will live on for at least a few more years.
- Andrew Perry
Gratz to the FF team but as a user I'm not completely happy. In short, I like the FF team/product much more than I like the FB team/product. Best of luck to all.
- timepilot
Dang! I've killed another site! Sorry guys... FF was doing fine until I started coming here again! Same with Pownce! Went there and liked it... went underground for a spell... came back and still liked it, so I stayed. A few months later... BOOM! I have the touch! (I'm thinking I'll start devoting a lot of time to Twitter... maybe I can kill that one, too!)
- Mark "DerBingle" J
Все, блядь, пиздец!
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
WOW - very happy for all of you :-)
- Kishore Balakrishnan
Bret, congrats on the acquisition. You guys put in a lot of hard work to create this community. I just hope you learned the mistakes Pownce made, Jaiku etc, and ensured that you didn't sell out your community, but that you helped it evolve into something as great as this into something better. Good luck in future endeavors!
- Mike Lewis
Oh yeah? Ok: take tour money and go to the hell. :-(((
- Claude LaFrenière
Yay for you guys, I mean that seriously, I 'like' what this means for you personally, but -1000000 cool points for doing it with FB. Sad day.
- Threepwood
Karoli: FF search is so useful because it is integrated with all the other great features that help to find relevant content. if FB wants to have a similar capability, they must also develop the underlying architecture.
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Sucks big time.
- Drea
Sadness
- Yasin Jason
I can't believe this happened
- Johnny
Suggested name: FailFriend. :-(((
- Claude LaFrenière
Friend facebooks feed (FFF)
- Filiz Koyuncu
«Experience shows that those who never trust anyone will never be disappointed.» Leonardo da Vinci
- Claude LaFrenière
So what exactly is going to happen? Is FF eventually going to disappear? Will it merge into the Facebook interface? Please don't do that
- Ethan
Gimme my OPML export
- Sriks7
Money is the root of all evil
- Shakeel Mahate
shakeel, the reasons for friendfeed to join facebook are probably about other things besides money, since many of the FF staff left high-paying jobs to join in the first place
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Well I've thought about it, and I'll stick around until I start seeing that crappy Facebook logo, I only have 71 subscribers here, I hate to do it but I'll probably scrap the whole thing and start over somewhere else. still can't believe that shit.
- Scratch5150
Congrats, team! It's bittersweet, though.
- Anne Bouey
So now we will have FriendFeed blocked at work too. Darn.
- Mark Scrimshire
"Your data will not go away any time in the near term future" is not exactly inspiring for the long term for those of us who came here to escape Facebook for a) it's walled garden and b) privacy concerns. Nice for the Founders to make a pile of cash but for the many of us, it feels like we got sold down the river. Sad.
- Sally Church
This is tragic. Tragic. Tragic.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
cacarr: updates for FB have progressed rapidly in the past, count how many months since new features such as api calls and site redesigns have have been implemented
- Mike Chelen
from IM
I can't believe it either. I feel as if — for the moment — I am lost in the wilderness, adrift.
- roamin
Congratulation to the FF team! You guys deserves this. I just hope that Facebook does not change the directions of FF.
- Vinko
congrats, I'm happy for friendfeed...
- amelia arapoff
Congrats you guys, well deserved.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
Congrats Bret! Hope the transition goes smoothly for you guys.
- Cristo
I hope this means better integration: liking here will auto-like on fb and such :D if that's the case, I won't mind the ads *wink* *wink*
- 'Like' robot (frɐnc)
Franc, cant stand facebook ads in their current format, hope they will be fixed eventually :P
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Grats, dont spend it all in one place.....
- Robert Higgins
congrads. I think it will be good for BOTH companies.
- Logan Lindquist
boo.
- kelly
The Borg has struck. Alas. Prepare to be assimilated. (Will FB add my FF subscriptions to my FB friends list?)
- Dennis Jernberg
Boo
- Amit Morson
Logan: What do you mean by "both" companies?
- Christopher A Carr
Now that you guys have $$$ you should swap out the not so very pleasing default avatar!
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
Hope you guys enjoy your new jobs. Meanwhile we get to watch a great alternative to Facebook with a promising future go down the tubes. A really sad and unfortunate day.
- Todd Holmes
BOO! Hiss! Mondays really do suck.
- Dale
Congratulations to all the FriendFeed team. I hope you'll be able to keep the FriendFeed spirit up at Facebook. Kudos for all the great work you've been doing.
- Paul Papadimitriou
Congrats and good luck..
- Can Koklu
Thanks for all the fish. Saving the so long... for now.
- abacab
Goodbye FF, it was wonderful..
- Francesco Cugurra
I use FriendFeed and Facebook so it would be awesome to see FF features in Facebook. Congratulations!
- krzychukula
from IM
judging by the nearly 600 comments as i type this, including my own earlier one, FF could use a Don't Like button as well. or would, if we were going to be using it much longer.
- kelly
Nice, i like to wish you all the best for your new job (and it's really hard, i know). I'm happy, but... don't let die FF!!
- Seo (ignobile) Guru
Hope FriendFeed remains open. Love the spirit of FF
- Bernaldo Barrena
Seriously, what a coincidence! Just on Saturday I claimed to be both twitter- and facebook-free. I loved FF product and personally helped to bring at least a dozen of my friends into the community. I'll stick around for a while though.
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
This deal makes sense, now fb developers do not need to figure out how ff does it because they can just ask! Congrats facebook and ff!
- Garin Kilpatrick
I suppose Facebook had to do it, with Twitter and Google Wave as competitor...
- Alexander Kruel
обычные дела. http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- ǝuǝƃnǝ
Congratulations Friendfeed :D
- paniaguai
Ok. I'll quit friendfeed, so. Goodbye. Ciao
- valerio fiandra
from iPhone
I am noticing a lot of people going to re-esumate their lifestream.fm account now!
- Flavio
I don't think FB acquiring FF is bad. But I don't think it's good either. We'll see. :-) In the meantime, keep up the good work!
- Alexander Gieg
Oh shit. Love FF, hate FB. I'll NEVER, EVER merge my two accounts. I'd rather unsub from both than merging. I'll wait for the developments, and in the meantime look for an alternative.
- Alliandre (la Ippe)
How long until ex-FriendFeed employees start jumping ship from Facebook? I wonder...
- Tyson Key
Thomas Power still believes that Facebook/FF/Linkedin (2010) will be acquired by Apple (2011) and this is a transitional acquisition in the SN market cycle. The world is shifting to Mac, iTunes, iPhones and FB own the next generation. Apple have $29bn of cash on deposit price is not an issue. Google must jump for twitter while MS fiddle in the sticks with Yahoo. BillG will be back at the MS helm 2012.
- Penny Power
:( Happy for FF people, sad for the service. Was going to move from fb to ff this week..
- Martynas
congrats!
- Ronald
thts good!so i can workin both in my Fb online next
- Arini dewi muchtaram
Flavio: never heard of lifestream.fm before, but I'm going to go check it out. I'll reiterate, though, that I'm now shy of any service like this, since it can disappear just as it's getting good. I heard about sweetcron.com last night (via http://ff.im/6pR2w). Maybe it's time to move from centralized to distributed again.
- Don Faulkner
Just finished setting up my lifestream.fm at http://lifestream.fm/dfaulkner. Lifestream does what it says, and no more. FF's search blows lifestream away. FF is more flexible about adding source feeds, but lifestream does fine without the flexibility I suppose. FF still wins, or would, if I thought it would be sticking around. :P
- Don Faulkner
Must See - Hitler blows up over Facebook / FriendFeed - http://friendfeed.com/dffrnt...
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
Dave, I'm not happy. That video gave me some much needed comic relief .. after waking up to this news.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
good for you, bad for us
- Zachary Earl Strader
I also hate facebook, not because of their silly quizzes and pokes, but because I suspect they would like to maintain massive user base as the determining factor in choosing a social network. I would love to switch to orkut as I use so many other google services, but I can't because nobody else does. That should not be my criteria.... I thought friendfeed would try to make social networks work together.
- Ru Viljoen
I don't understand why everyone is so negative about the situation?
- orionstarr
@orionstarr - it's like Starbucks buying your neighborhood coffee shop and saying it still cares about the customers. You know it's just not going to be the same as what you've come to love.
- Robin Barooah
Presumably FF will go on the back burner - and the team will try and "fix" Facebook.
- Tim Tyler
sad, sad, sad.
- scott willeke
Congratulations! That's huge. I hope all is well.
- Juan Bruce
bad bad bad
- kakilang
bye bye friendfeed!
- Jonathan Crossland
Why-eee!!! ??? What next?
- Wayne Lewis
I've watched Facebook morph from a relatively organised and well implemented social networking tool into the hulking mess it is now - and I really, really hope that a similar thing doesn't happen here with the inevitable changes this will bring about.
- Leslie Moore
Come on guys, out with the long-term game plan, this is tedious.
- Andrew Eglinton
NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I mean Cool.
- sofarsoShawn
Teach Facebook how to be FriendFeed. Let the small but fast teach the big but slow. Don't forget what Paul says - don’t be evil.
- whatidiscover
Oh hai there Socialmedian. What have you guys been up to lately?
Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie), V Mary Abraham, AJ Batac and 14 other people liked this
LOL Yep. This is me, going back to my Social Median account to see what I have aggregated there. Even looking at putting *back* all my feeds into Strands.
- Admiral Anika
Strands was next on my list :D
- Bwana ☠
The thing with Strands is that they've changed the focus to a fitness site. So, all the aggregating looks kind of dumb there. Several months ago (probably around Dec.), I deleted most of my feeds into my profile. Then just a couple of weeks ago, I stopped following everyone there. So SocialMedian, but it's such a PITA setting up the newgroups or whatever they're called.
- Admiral Anika
Strands as you once knew it is even more dead.
- Louis Gray
Pish, Louis. As an fitness tracker, Strands is AWESOME!
- Admiral Anika
Sad to hear
- Bwana ☠
hahahaha!
- Susan Beebe
Strands dead, too? sad
- Susan Beebe
And here we are, with open arms ...
- Jason Goldberg
Fwd: Facebook acquires FriendFeed. Interview with Paul Buchheit, cofounder of FriendFeed. - http://btre.blogtalkradio.com/74_2996... (via http://friendfeed.com/scoblei...)
Phillip Stewart, paniaguai, Bart LePoole and 173 other people liked this
Well that was fast, Robert.
- Adam Reyher
Wow. I honestly did not see THAT coming....
- Carter Rabasa
Nice work Robert.
- Alex Calic
ya talk about real time news, thanks
- sean percival
listening
- Chris Saad
This is beginning to resemble journalism.
- Ian Tindale
im not sure its such a great thing facebook and friendfeed sitting in a tree.
- Eran Even-Kesef
Good job Robert
- Ruchit Garg
Definitely, I'm listening now. Wow! This is breaking news!
- Manu Ullas
hopefully this turns out okay, don't want friendfeed to get ruined. great interview, that was fast reporting!
- Dakota O'Neill
What are your thoughts Robert?
- Amani
WD mate
- Chris Saad
Hoping this will lead to an improved/cleaner interface for Facebook...I prefer Friendfeed
- Rick Bucich
That was quick. Thanks robert.
- Akshay Dodeja
so, so sad. I like(d) Friendfeed much more than facebook
- Francisco Kemeny
home run for FF.. Facebook will be able to give developers a treasure trove of data one thing that Twitter is dominating on right now. Twitter has a huge developer community but isn't managing that. Here FB is poised to be huge
- John Furrier
So classic that Robert has the first interview about this...Where's Louis? :)
- Anthony Farrior
Wow!
- Ideas At Random
I think FriendFeed can help Facebook more than the other way around.
- Manu Ullas
"very cool...."
- Carter Rabasa
How do they plan to mix the teenagers with the geeks?
- Jordi Soler
Amani: I am excited! Facebook has 800 employees and 300 million users. This makes both companies much more important.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
here was a comment on SiliconANGLE blog .. very funny .. "Hey, since we've copied almost every innovation you've had, guess you might as well play on the company softball team!"
- John Furrier
Nice strategic move - Interesting to see how this will integrate and looks in 12 months
- Alex Vermeule (@alexve)
to be honnest I was predicting google offer, then facebook preceed google on this, they are doing well, now rarding FF this is great, the sucess is to know when to pass to something else, the future will make the abtle wave, facebook rude for all geek it is time to code.
- abdellah
You rascal Robert, bet you had wind about FriendFeed and FaceBook merger before today? Yes? Have not used either SM apps. much UNTIL Twitter locked my account. May have been a fortunate mishap as it turns out. Getting to know the beauties of both apps. =)
- SashaKane
Awesome. Thanks.
- M. Kong
Should be so very interesting.
- Adam
Robert wastes no time on the reporting. CNN needs reporters like this.
- JonInteractive
Not sure I am so jazzed about it....but congratulations to the FF crew.
- Kreg Steppe
Honestly, I won't get used to following Robert Scoble in Facebook. Seems out of place to me.
- Jordi Soler
Wow! I was not expecting that.
- Devon Govett
Letter 'F' affinity and alliteration merger, classic playbook move.
- James Watters
Did I hear someone laugh in the background when you asked about FF users being disappointed?
- Paul Saarinen
Agreed Jordi
- Rick Bucich
A good interview Robert.
- Thomas Hawk
Thanks Robert! - shared and linked over on Phreadz : http://tech.phreadz.com/v...
- kosso
Robert, mind if I transcribe this? (Unless someone else already has.)
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
Congrats on getting this story Robert. I agree--this is great, realtime journalism!
- Sunshine
No mention of twitter?
- Ivan Kirigin
Hahahaha...all that time you invested over here on FF paid off today! LMAO
- Francine Hardaway
Francine: just watch what happens now. :-)
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
do you have a small amount of FriendFeed shares Robert?
- Torsten Eckert
NOOOOOOO. Damnit! I am praying that Facebook doesn't wall up Friendfeed. I was starting to build a site around Friendfeed :(
- beersage
beersage: as Facebook is trying to break their users into a more public world, I doubt that you really have anything to worry about there.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Starting to listen to this now. Hoping you are right, Rob.
- beersage
I hope so to. But regardless, I think that it was in reality necessary for FriendFeed to sell to really put the technology in front of a sufficient number of eyeballs. Facebook is probably the best acquirer that FriendFeed could have. (I would have not felt the same had FF been acquired by Google)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
The thing with Friendfeed though is how I can share things outside of a 'wall.' I prominently feature the FF widget on my site. I'm just concerned of losing that capability as I was tinkering with delivering a new site w/ content primarily running through my Friendfeed account. I am to this day unable to do much outside of the wall. I am unable to subscribe to Fan Page updates in Google reader for instance. That is what concerns me about FB acquiring FF given my goals.
- beersage
Robert sounded quite breathless in that interview. Thanks Robert.
- Roberto Bonini
Great interview great Job!!
- Kevin J Hatton
Wow! I'm in shock. I can't wait to hear this interview.
- Micah Wittman
from iPhone
This deal was about getting Paul and the team and nothing else
- Stephen Pickering
@stephan, are you serious? FB is buying a concept, a technoloie, a structure, a content and a user list
- abdellah
Unconvincing Paul Buchheit, the team is more exited of being part of bigger story - logical for them to move on
- patrickdh
now how could a team that left google resist under a unique perception system, where the leader vision is upon any thing
- abdellah
They want a way to turn their white pages into a yellow pages and the only guy on Earth who knows how to do it, is Paul
- Stephen Pickering
It was only about the technology and the people. Most people are on also FB anyway.
- James Myatt
My guess is that Paul got a tooooooooon of options and will soon be the No.2 guy at Facebook
- Stephen Pickering
Glossing over of that "short term" question by the FF boys. It just seems more about the individuals at FF than it does the users of FF. "Their (Facebook) long term goals" Nice interview, Robert!
- Melanie Reed
Well, it looks as if pass-through of FriendFeed Likes, Comments, etc. to Twitter is down. Will it be for good? Did Twitter do this in response to the acquisition? Or is it just a regular (though curiously timed) hiccup?
- Alex Schleber
twitter dow!!
- abdellah
Alex, my Facebook posts have been going through FriendFeed to Twitter today. :)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
How did you record the phone conversation with Paul Buchheit? I went to BlogTalkRadio.com but... it‘s not clear at all :-(
- Florin Grozea
Florin, rough transcript here: http://friendfeed.com/brlewis...
- Bruce Lewis
I have a few choice words. @#%&. That is all.
- Zachary TG
To do this call I used BlogTalk Radio's Cinch: http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/
- Robert Scoble
dugg: http://digg.com/tech_ne...
- Gaith
Thanks for this, Scoble.
- mp3WatchWorld
this is why your own personal website is always more important than friendfeed, Twitter and all the rest. that's never going anywhere
- Terry O'Fee
from BuddyFeed
helloszabi: - http://browneyes.soup.io/post...
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Robert Kenney, Kimber Scott, Lars Clausen and 3 other people liked this
I love this series of photos of my son, Milan, shot during sunset yesterday. He's always running, I can't keep up!
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Debbie Weil, Brian Felix, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 134 other people liked this
Ahh, the joys of being two years old.
- Robert Scoble
How come your son has Serbian name? My grandfather's name was Milan and it's the common name in Serbia... Some Slavic roots?
- Danica Radovanovic
btw, he is very adorable
- Danica Radovanovic
That's awesome. Wonderful pictures of a darling boy.
- Brett Nordquist
Danica: my wife's favorite author is Milan Kundera and I was supposed to take her to Milan.
- Robert Scoble
Milan Kundera, yes yes :) Lovely!
- Danica Radovanovic
Awww...mini-Scoble is a cute little tyke.
- Christopher A Carr
Thanks Christopher, yeah, he does have my wife's looks. He runs like me, though (I ran four marathons in high school, fastest one at 3:14, so hopefully he keeps it up).
- Robert Scoble
Robert - he's great! the little guy - love him!
- bradzo
Gosh, there sure is cool clothing for kids these days. I wore some goofy stuff at that age, but I suppose one might blame the '70s for that.
- Christopher A Carr
Wow, he's gotten big! Wonderful photos, Robert.
- Karoli
Robert, I like that you remember the time of your fasted marathon. I think a blog post about your marathoning days is in order. :-)
- Brett Nordquist
Nothing wrong with your photography Robert. :-) Wonderful series.
- Håkan Dahlström
Brett: not much to say except I took up running cause the jocks were always trying to beat me up. They once tried to tape me to a tree. They got my brother instead (not Alex). Actually I got into running because of my middle school science teacher at Hyde Jr. High, Mike Mister. Mr. Mr. is what we called him. Anyway, there's no secret to running marathons, you just have to run a LOT.
- Robert Scoble
By the way, this was the first time I used FriendFeed's photo feature. Very nice!
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I'd like to get in shape to the point where I can run one. Have a ways to go. Playing a lot of basketball lately.
- Brett Nordquist
Brett: to totally demoralize you, when I was in high school my running partner was a 45-year-old woman who ran 100 milers. She always kicked my ass. Probably explains why I don't run anymore.
- Robert Scoble
shot #2 is awesome!
- sean percival
Cute boy! Tks for sharing!
- Renchin(Reina)
MUNCH & KIN!
- sofarsoShawn
Great series, so cute! Our little guy just turned 2 and he sure does keep us running as well; wish I could bottle that energy! Our daughter is almost 14 and it is amazing the difference in technology we are using in "documenting" their lives growing up. Most of what we have of our daughter until she was 6 is plain old photos that will take us a while to digitize. With our son,...
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- W_B_K
Our daughter was born a few months before Milan (seriously, playdate next time we're back in the Santa Cruz area), but we have such blinders on that I saw this pic and thought "wow, how did that kid get so big already?" Oh. Right. He's two. Hope you're having as much fun as we are!
- Ryan Sholin
I got to save some $$$ to buy a camera, but with the remodeling at my casa going on...not now. UGH. And my Morning Star will be 21 months on the 22nd of July!!!
- Joel Robert Perez
hes running to get to a computer to check his friendfeed account!
- Allen Stern
You're totally right Robert, this IS a great photo set!
- Chris Heath
Plus, he's cute as all get-out.
- Chris Heath
Awesome pics of the young scobleizer. Robert it's never too late to pick up running again. Although I've fallen in love with good old walking (can multitask better at 4mph), I can see the addiction to jogging for hours. That 100miler had years of training on you, no reason to be ashamed.
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Scoble redux
- Alan Morris
from iPhone
Micro Scobleizer :D
- Rafael
Really beautiful pictures. He looks so carefree and comfortable. Lovely!
- Sheryl
love this shot Robert..
- Myrna
Run Forest Run! Where do they get the energy. Could I do that once?
- Kevin J Hatton
woooo. so lovely.
- pastas9
very stylish, great shots Robert
- Alan Le
Adorable Robert!!!! these are really great! Milan is lucky to have you as a Dad :)
- Susan Beebe
The first snap is lovely!! Adorable :D
- Praveen Vasudev
Watch out, he's heading for the road! ;-)
- Jason Huebel
Jason: actually that is a golf cart path. Maybe Milan is the next Tiger Woods! :-)
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Robert: I hate to lower this conversation to base, mechanical concerns, but what lens is that? Lovely shots, by the way.
- Edward Coffey
Nice shot Robert. Milan looks all grown up these days! He's a celeb, and doesn't yet know it!
- Mark Aitken
So nice. I hated being two. I had cancer almost the same year. Now I hate being young, I can't get anything. Being a kid blows chunks.
- Zachary TG
Trust me Zachary, being an adult blows way bigger chunks. You can get stuff, sure, but you have to do stuff too. Like, ALL the time. Boring stuff.
- Slappy Line
Very straight back while running - very much like Michaal Johnson - he's going to be track star :)
- Patrick Jordan
really cute kid.. Nice shots i'm sure was hard to get him to pose..
- Randy Nacol
Very sweet. I love the 2nd shot.
- pea
Cute!
- Nicholas Kreidberg
looks like daddy
- polou/indigo_bow
しかし、ソーシャルメディア界の巨人、Robert Scobleも子供を前にしてはただの親莫迦だなぁ、と思わせる写真。／とっても可愛い元気な男の子、って感じだよね。ま、うちの息子の方が元気で可愛いけどねっ！
- Sakurai.Catshop
from fftogo
＠Sakuraiさま、初めまして。あまりにもの親バカぶりに思わず笑いました。す、すみません。
- Carloe Stamp
now we know you Robert thank you for sharing
- Thomas Power
@carloe さん。親バカは日本ではユーモラスなもの, 微笑ましいものとして扱われます。ですから、思わず吹いてしまったのは実に正しい(笑)。コトバが逆さになって、バカ親になると、これは少しばかりネガティブな意味合いを帯びてきますが。／@carloe Oya-Baka is used and understood as humorous or smily sence in Japan. Therefore it's exactly that you laugh my comment. However, it will have negative sence if you exchange sort of word as Baka-Oya.
- Sakurai.Catshop
from fftogo
バカ親もいっぱい居ますよね、でも。
- Rick Cogley
Milan君、かわいいです！
- Rick Cogley
ببخشید شما چرا انقد زشت و عصبی هستی؟
- آسویه
@RickCogley 仰るとおりですね。笑って済まされるバカ親もいれば、子供の命や将来に関わるほどのバカ親まで、色んな種類のバカ親がいます。困ったもんです。
- Sakurai.Catshop
from fftogo
@RickCogley I agree you. There are a huge variety of Baka-Oya like just be lughed to serious for children's life or future.
- Sakurai.Catshop
from fftogo
@Sakurai.Catshop そうですね。この間育児２人を車の中に閉じこめて死なせたやつらいるし。ったく。
- Rick Cogley
Many say the same thing about his old man. :)
- Snow Vandemore
First there was El Scoble, now there is Scoblito.
- Slappy Line
Day 53 - Oh Smile On Me, Lady Luck - http://rozsavage.blogspot.com/2009...
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John Merrill, Stephen B and Doug Grandt liked this
The Roz Tracker fails on IE-8 "almost" every time (from the blog link). I use Chrome and it almost always works.
- George Derrick
louisgray.com: Arrington Betting Big On the CrunchPad Mobile Device tip @techmeme - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
Andre P. Siregar, Drew Lucas, Will Higgins™ and 32 other people liked this
i want
- Giraffes Up In The AIr
I agree...if the device is that beautiful and at that price point, it's too hard to pass up.
- Craig Eddy
Definitely. Its a beautiful piece of equipment. I dont have a netbook or a laptop. Just my trusty EEEbox which doesnt take up any space, but there is times, id like to still be on the sofa and check something quickly or surf while im waiting for a program to come on, or the girlfriend to bring me my dinner. :)
- Giraffes Up In The AIr
This is nice. @dezertsnow, check this out. Do you wanna? ",)
- jan geronimo
yeah it looks nice in that picture but what is it ? from what i have read so far its just a browser on a touch screen . No OS, No storage, has anyone seen this thing running yet? how will it be better than a netbook? or even an ipod touch?
- tony bland
Tony, the post should explain. It's a Web tablet. No hard drive. No keyboard. No apps to slow it down. Just a browser. Supports Flash, unlike the iPhone.
- Louis Gray
yeah thanks Louis i got that, i'm just eager to know more.
- tony bland
It's only a rough 3D rendering. Long way to go baby.
- dstamand
if they manage to produce a product that looks like the render and also is cheap then it will do well. however if apple join the party all bets are off. Also the render looks little like a large iphone/touch so they need to get to market first.
- Darren Stuart
I just don't know anyone who DOESN'T want one of these.
- Jolie O'Dell
very cool... I'm amazed they followed through, should be nice!
- Tim Hoeck
Total cloud computing. No apps or storage to slow it down. I assume since it boots from the web, that no internet, no go (may be a big downside). I wish I had one of these a few years ago on my travels. Very keen to see when it comes out.
- Alistair (alpinefolk)
that's a good point Alistair with out an internet connection this thing is just an expensive tray, cant see this beating netbooks or iphones any time soon.
- tony bland
Good Blog Thanks.
- John D Reasor
It still has some computing power built into it. I'm sure it'll be hackable for other uses. I'm sure Arrington will decry that, too.
- Darren Landrum
Interesting NY Times coverage (showing NY Times being displayed) - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009... - this is something that it seems inconcievable for Arrington to pull off on his own - no doubt he needs powerful partners (or purchasers) -- could it be that the Times is involved?
- Brian Sullivan
@ Brian Sullivan I think you may have something there, though it wouldn't be necessary. It is probably sufficent to get the NYT to do a story by just showing their webpage on the CrunchPad Demo.
- Phil Boiarski
The only reason this doesn't flat out kick the kindles ass from here to the VFW at the edge of town is the lack of eInk. Because the eInk only needs power when it changes it's sick on battery life. Like years or something between charges.
- Matthew DeVries
I think Tablet Computing is the future, but this device seems really crippled.
- Chrimmus Tad
I don't disagree with that Tad, but isn't this just an eBook reader with some tablety potential? I don't think it's going for a tablet price point.
- Matthew DeVries
It's not an eBook reader, though. It's just a web browser. You won't be buying books and reading them on this or even viewing your PDFs on it.
- Chrimmus Tad
Yeah, you're right Tad. I was going off an old article I read where this was supposed to go after the Kindle, not the fabled apple tablet or the Android tablets that are in the pipe.
- Matthew DeVries
I do think, though, that the upcoming tablet computers WILL be used as e-readers. But e-reading will just be a small bit of what they'll be used for.
- Chrimmus Tad
Reminds me of a PepperPad without the thumboard.
- Rodfather
FriendFeed's changed their recommended users when you sign up for a new account. The default screen that Tamar showed yesterday with the most popular 32 FF users now only shows the most popular 12. Now you can't just be popular you have to be *super* popular!
Mitchell Tsai, Jim Braux-Zin, Micah Wittman and 57 other people liked this
Off the FriendFeed recommended list now: Steve Rubel, Bret Taylor, Jeremiah Owyang, Evan Williams, Fred Wilson, Tim O'Reily, Louis Gray, Thomas Hawk, Paul Buchheit, justine, Guy Kawasaki, Amber Mac, Chris Messina, Darren Rowse, Ed Dale, Jeremy Zawodny, dan faber, Marshall Kirkpatrick, will wheaton, Jeff Jarvis.
- Thomas Hawk
Tamar's screen from yesterday: http://friendfeed.com/friendf...
- Thomas Hawk
This list needs to go and in the short-term a very simple list could take it's place. Simply average a person's popularity ranking with their activity ranking. I'd also say that it would make sense to show more than the top 12. I'd show the top 80 actually or maybe even the top 100.
- Thomas Hawk
I'm still not convinced this is the ideal list. There's a large percentage of those Web 2.0 personalities who do not interact at all with FF. They merely aggregate their feeds here. That ain't community involvement.
- Tamar Weinberg
Tamar, this list is no better than the old one really. It's just more exclusive. The problem is that the current recommended user list does not value FF community involvement at all. It's kind of actually insulting to the people who really do in fact contribute and live here. An averaging of the most popular with the most active would create a far more vibrant list reflective of what FF...
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- Thomas Hawk
I agree Tamar. It is about those that are actually involved, not those that just aggregate... maybe a sub list for those that comment as opposed to those that just post. The majority of those that have been removed do not get involved, although Bret Taylor might be considered one of the involved. Yeah you too TH, oh and Paul Buchheit.
- Travis Koger
Putting up a list of the most popular is simply lazy and is not what FF should be about. Feeding into some sort of web celebrity A list is distasteful. Certainly it makes sense for FF to recommend users. It's also important that they do it objectively rather than subjectively like Twitter. The answer is actually quite simple. Average activity/popularity and the popular users who don't...
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- Thomas Hawk
I bet someone at FF could write this script in less than an hour to change this. If they don't change it they should in the spirit of transparency at least explain why they won't.
- Thomas Hawk
Travis, I wouldn't recommend a "sub list." These users should be primarily highlighted. The "sub list" should be those who are "also on FriendFeed (but do not contribute to FF itself)" ... of course, the parenthetical statement is mine alone.
- Tamar Weinberg
I don't think that this is a replacement for the original list, Thomas. I see what you have posted, but I don't think this is the final in any way. I don't know why you have an abbreviated list, but I don't think this is a result of any changes in the last 24 hours.
- Louis Gray
Louis, sign out and sign up for a new account and see for yourself. You'll get this same thing that I do. I used to get the list that Tamar posted yesterday. Now I get this.
- Thomas Hawk
Tamar, yeah I agree, a sub list is not optimal, I actually meant the other way around, sub list for the popular main list for the conversationlists.
- Travis Koger
This is kind of stupid if you can't pick what your interests are, etc. Why just give a list of people with the most followers? Why not try to provide a better experience, instead of just *more*.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
Steve, exactly, which is why this list needs to go. Given that it would be so easy to change it, the only reason why it won't change would be if FF philosophically believes that this is in fact a better way to promote members. If they do in fact believe that then I think they owe the community a response as to why. If not then they should change this list in the short-term to one that averages popularity/activity for now and come up with something better down the road.
- Thomas Hawk
Totally agree that it would not take the FF guys much time to get this sorted and would once again provide yet another better function than THAT other service! ;)
- Travis Koger
The whole concept of a fixed list of recommended users is poor. It creates competition inside whats supposed to be a community platform and puts the wrong incentives for participation in place. The system should be smart enough to recommend based on some type of interest/content, not just be a big silly popularity contest. niche niche niche...
- Jeremy Toeman
I don't always find myself interested in everything Kol posts, but he posts a crapload of good content. He should be highlighted. Narrowing by interests should not be a determining feature. People should follow those awesome contributors and then figure out how to use FF -- then they can assess who else to follow. By following Veronica or Loic, for example, they won't even know what...
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- Tamar Weinberg
Jeremy, right, and in the longer-term FF should figure out a better way to match interests with new users. If a new person hates photography, I'm probably not a good match for them.
- Thomas Hawk
Kol should definitely be highlighted, Tamar, and he would be if you averaged activity/popularity. Louis Gray probably belongs on this list more than anyone currently on it except Scoble. If you averaged popularity with activity he'd probably be number 2 right behind Scoble.
- Thomas Hawk
Yup. Louis one of FF's biggest community evangelists and they don't even seem to realize it. (I am sure he knows I always thought he deserved to be highlighted.)
- Tamar Weinberg
@Tamar in all candor, I don't think the FF staff has a specific vision of their own service. don't get me wrong, they are smart, nice, etc, but I feel there's a lack of clarity about what they are building, who they are building it for, etc. and the further the site roams randomly down this aimless journey, the more the opportunity window is closing IMHO.
- Jeremy Toeman
@Thomas @Tamar - I disagree, they shouldn't be highlighted just because they are highly active. that's NOT a good enough reason. it should be based on the NEW USER's interests, not based on the power user's...
- Jeremy Toeman
and Louis was highlighted yesterday Tamar, but no longer today, but yesterday's system was also bad as you noted in your post. Unless FF includes a component to reflect activity, this list will be at odds with their community. They should recognize this and correct it. Twitter's taken a huge amount of heat over the unfairness of their list. A list that averaged popularity/activity would be far fairer than one that simply recognizes subscribers alone.
- Thomas Hawk
Jeremy, absolutely, they should be highlighted based on a new users interests. But sometimes you don't know what those interests are and making someone fill out a survey of interests might be a barrier to easy adoption of the service. Certainly though as FF gets to know what you like, they could reshape this list to best reflect your interests. But absent that data, with a blank slate new user, presenting a list which averaged activity/popularity would be a better list than one based on popularity alone.
- Thomas Hawk
An option to list interests that brought up a short list of contributors that share those interests, irrespective of how popular by numbers of followers they are, would be a good place to start. Just because you have a gazillion followers doesn't mean I'm going to find you interesting.
- Gilbert Harding
Jeremy, that's where I disagree. People have varied interests. I used Kol as an example earlier in this discussion to highlight exactly how eclectic our interests are. FF does not survey your interests at sign-up, nor should they have to. If they use a guy who contributes a lot (read: is active), chances are there's *something* there in their stream that will be interesting to a new...
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- Tamar Weinberg
No worries on my part. I have no desire to be on that list. I like being little old me. :-)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
a list of interests would seem to make sense, but adding a step to the sign up process *might* discourage signups. maybe not though. but building that sort of a system would probably take more time and thinking as to the best way to do it. In the short-term though simply averaging activity/popularity would change this list dramatically and could be a stop-gap solution until a better system was built.
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas makes a good point, but I don't think we really need to focus on adding a new "interests" feature, to be perfectly honest. They can work with what they have already. "Popularity" isn't the word I'd use here. I am one of the topmost followed users here and I know so many people who are far more deserving of being highlighted as a top contributor on this service.
- Tamar Weinberg
I wonder why they changed it from 32 to 12. I wonder if it was to drop Evan Williams off the list.
- Thomas Hawk
I would love to see FF improve the page, too. A list of interests and the popular/active people made available with the click of one button would be great. Additionally it would be nice to see a list of the most popular threads and rooms; Plus a link to the faqs.
- LPH™ and his dog P™
from BuddyFeed
100% agreed with Tamar's first comment here about the list.
- Brandon Mendelson
@thomas ive' looked at the stats, they are growing slowly, which implies general product dissatisfaction. so adding a step to signup to create a better product overall is worth it...
- Jeremy Toeman
I've touched on this in response to a similar SUL thread from Scobie Doo... basically, each SUL should be tailored to each user based on things like content (as Jeremy pointed out) as well as FOF (friend of friend) relationships, reputation analysis/tracking, profiles, etc. ... there is a whole new field of "friend management" brewing... and SUL's are definitely a part of that...
- Fred Davis
Agree the list needs to change, a combo of most popular/active would be ideal, perhaps randomised (20 users from the top 100). Fairly simple list. Users who post only their Twitter stream are not the best people to demonstrate FriendFeed's capabilities and new users will find it hard to interact with those users who don't actually use the service a lot if ever.
- Kol Tregaskes
I like the randomized idea even more Kol. It would also be much more inclusive. Maybe have a list of 50 or so users on the suggest page and have them randomly pulled form the top 500 FF users when averaging their popularity/activity. That in fact would be super slick.
- Thomas Hawk
Yep. Also, I've exchanged a few mails with FF and have suggested some sort of tutorial for new users as at the moment new users are dumped on the home feed with virtually no clue as to what to do next. I read a lot of users saying "just joined, now what?". So this needs to change, FF tell me they are working on something - cool! :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Also, on Tamar's thread it was suggested the list be a combo of the most popular/liked/commented on/active users. Either way it shouldn't be just the most popular! With pretty much no effort some FF users are getting on this suggestion list and gaining lots more new users.
- Kol Tregaskes
You also have to be a geek. Lame.
- Dawn
I dislike the web 2.0 personality slant of this list. If you're trying to win over a new user and you want them to stick around, don't inundate them with repetitive tech noise. Have some variety. For example, throw in Jess Lee to get some fashion chatter in there. Thomas Hawk for some photography and pretty pictures (which will help show off the photo thumbnail features). An initial spate of lots of tech/web noise will probably not help new users see the value in FriendFeed.
- EricaJoy
Am I wrong in that no official FF'ers are chiming in on this thread. Hmm. Yeah I think you could make an easy algorithm of # followers to #followed, % of activity, recency, and then post a top 12 of that, each week.
- anna sauce
I'm showing 30 people in my list right now FWIW
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
Richard, that is because you are an existing user. It appears that this is just for new users.
- Travis Koger
from iPhone
RE: the deleted users: They should keep Louis and you on there, but no one else on that list participates on FF regularly. I think it's necessary to have active users on that list, because new users will easily find other active users to follow by FOAF. The way to keep people interested is activity, not popularity.
- Trish R
Yeah, but the list should include the RIGHT active people, Trish (and I have no clue how you would algorithmically pick the RIGHT people). If a new person who's primarily in to social media connects to friendfeed and gets the "actives" list from ffholic, they will be completely underwhelmed (however the LOLcats lover who just joined would be quite happy). That's what makes the challenge interesting.
- Alex Scoble
I'm not for everyone, nor do I want to be. I'm doing this for fun, not to "be a brand" and I'd like to keep it that way. :)
- Alex Scoble
Why would Wil Wheaton ever be on any recommended FF list? I don't think he participates in FF at all, right?
- Chrimmus Tad
from fftogo
Correct. I think it's pretty easy to see who should NOT be included in the list, but picking who SHOULD is much tougher.
- Alex Scoble
Alex, FF absolutely should not be in the business of *picking* who should be on this list. Even as much as it makes sense for Louis to be on a list like this over say will wheaton, the problem is once you turn this list into anything other than an automated list you start immediately alienating people. That's exactly what Twitter did. They created a subjective staff picked list which is...
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- Thomas Hawk
Whether they do it using a human or by algorithm, they are picking. I think it would be fairly easy for them to write an algorithm to determine who shouldn't be on the list, but a lot harder to come up with a good algorithm for who should be on the list.
- Alex Scoble
keeping the list objective and formulaic exempts FF staff from allegations of bias. It's not perfect but it's better for them to be able to point to an algorithm than personal choice. The forumula just needs to be tweaked ever so slightly and you'd have a significantly better list. The very simple act of averaging popularity with activity would create a list that i think that 99% of the...
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- Thomas Hawk
Alex- I already wrote it! Not patting my own back (too much) but it seems simple to me. I'll recap: # followers to #followed, % of activity, recency, and then post a top 12 of that, each week. Also, added a "floor" on the #followed/#follower so that the ratio isn't skewed by smaller #s.
- anna sauce
And what did your app determine, Anna?
- Alex Scoble
personally I think 12 is too small a number. I'd like to see them put 80 on this list but I too would be interested in what your algorithm produced Anna.
- Thomas Hawk
Tad, will wheaton was on the list because it is simply based on who has the most followers. When you sign up for FF it asks you if you want to add your Twiiter/Facebook/etc. contacts. What this means is that those that are super popular on Twitter will be the ones that FF ends up recommending. Since adding in the import your Twitter contacts to FF feature the rank of the popular FF users who are popular Twitter users has jumped.
- Thomas Hawk
1) Do you like social media? 2) Do you like LOLcats? 3) Do you like to argue?
- Alex Scoble
Those were funny questions, Holden...although a No, yes, yes response would definitely point them my way. :)
- Alex Scoble
I did an experiment last night on what it was like to be a new user again. I did it with my original account, which I rediscovered yesterday. I was going to write something about what I learned later, but this change is the exact opposite of what needs to be done in order to improve the new user experiencee. I hope it's only temporary.
- Michael Fidler
How the HELL did I make that cut? :P
- l0ckergn0me
Holden, and averaging popularity with activity would remove 100% of the pipes from this list.
- Thomas Hawk
Not that there's anything wrong with the people on this list, but any list which doesn't include people like Mona, or Kol has something wrong with the way it was formulated
- Michael Fidler
As soon as you say "any list that doesn't include ..." I shut you off. Fail.
- Joel Bennett
+1 Joel. Everyone had different preferences. That's why it's like Alex said, there's no right formula to find recommended users for each different user.
- Trish R
I said like; Kol and Mona are just examples of what's wrong with this list.
- Michael Fidler
:)
- Susan Beebe
if you averaged popularity/activity Mona and Kol would both be on this list.
- Thomas Hawk
Great!! that is a list I think properly reflects coolness on FF :)
- Susan Beebe
This list can't possibly be the final result. I'm for rotating it but with people that engage FF directly at a minimum once a day .... Thoughts?
- Charlie Anzman
I like your idea on engagement Charlie. Friendfeed should not just be about the one way "geek" transmitters.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
I agree Charlie. From the graphic there appears to be no logic to the recommendation, three never interact here. I do think there should be some general randomness to a favorites list - I'd like to see new people and not just the same 'celebs' or those with the most number of posts or comments.
- jcunwired
what JC and Charlie said.
- Anthony Citrano
How about a three-part list (1) most-followed (2) most-active-today/this-week (3) quirky gotta look at these people... which is updated dynamically (especially #3)?
- Mitchell Tsai
makes for a very single minded list, really. Not much plurality
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
YouTube - Joss Whedon on Humanism - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Stephen B liked this
Joss Whedon receives the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard University's Memorial Church.~ 10 April 2009 ~Camera 1, Edito...
- Kristina B
The Internet is for Porn: http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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TheHenry, Stephen B and Henrik Brameus liked this
This is a really interesting suggested way to get bibliophiles to buy the Kindle: http://yetistomper.blogspot.com/2009...
Stephen B liked this
While an interesting idea, I don't think it will happen. I'm pretty sure that authors are getting additional revenue for the Kindle version of their books, so there's just no way that they will start 'bundling' the Kindle version along with the physical book. If that was an option, I think every one would ALWAYS get the physical book and the Kindle-only sales would dry up, along with...
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- Ken Gidley
Question for you all. I have a trademark for TWiT® - first used in May 2005, trademark applied for May 2006 and registered March 2007. The trademark is in "Entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows." http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin...
Dobromir Hadzhiev, Richard Thomson, Dakota O'Neill and 186 other people liked this
Up until now there's been no conflict with Twitter itself because the brands were in different arenas. (We have, however, sent out cease and desist letters to companies using "twit" in their name and doing audio or video). But now Twitter is doing a TV show. The confusion between TWiT and Twitter is mounting. What do I do? Defend my mark? Or let my brand be swallowed by the big guy (even though we were first by several years)? I need your advice. What does the community think?
- Leo Laporte
Defend your trademark, 99% of people will totally understand, you have to do it, or you'll loose it!
- Chris Lloyd
Defend it. People that watch Twit Tv will also defend it.
- Jason Rundell
Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Does TWIT still stand up as an accurate brand for all the new stuff you are doing with TWIT Live? Might be time to find a new visual/brand identity.
- BryanSchuetz
At the SF MusicTech conference a lawyer called "tweets" "twits" repeatedly. Let's just say I think you should defend your mark and let TV chew up and spit out twitter.
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
I don't see how the brand of Twitter infringes on your trademark. Plus trademarks are an outdated ideal. You need to market and promote your brand and the people will come.
- Bob Blunk
Bryan: The TWiT name carries alot of weight in tech circles, it will take alot of money/time/effort to make a completely new name for something that will probably outlast twitter anyway
- Chris Lloyd
Incidentally, Twitter just got their trademark approved May 11, 2009 in the following "Telecommunication services, namely, providing online and telecommunication facilities for real-time interaction between and among users of computers, mobile and handheld computers, and wired and wireless communication devices; enabling individuals to send and receive messages via email, instant...
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- Leo Laporte
There is nothing ideal about any aspect of IP law.
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
Chris: I think Leo's name carries more weight than TWIT and (for me at least) he IS TWIT so I don't see it as quite such a big deal.
- BryanSchuetz
Of course, there's a larger long-term problem because of the way that Twitter has weakened _your_ brand. It might be less expensive (and a better use of your time) to rebrand TWiT into something that strengthens your brand and moves it away from Twitter; avoiding any future problems (and there will be future problems). You can't fight Oprah.
- Professor Messer
I guess Leo started a shit-storm here...The question goes far beyond the argument of Twitter vs. TWIT. It begs the question of how do Brands defend their government protected trademarks in a time when trademarks are failing to adequately describe what a company does. Do we need a trademark to know that Leo creates awesome podcasts and streams realtime shows via the internet? Plus, how could a trademark impart this knowledge to newcomers?
- Bob Blunk
Leo - your brand, as most evidenced by your show and content is awesome - for a small group of peeps who have had a chance to discover it and enjoy. I'd use the overlap in marques to leverage Twitter in some type of promotional / service partnership, whilst still retaining your brand and the equity you've built. Don't fight em, join em, at least tactically.
- Thom Kennon
Never give in to the big guy!
- Brian Harper
I'm with the majority, defend your trademark and your legacy.
- jcunwired
Defend it Leo. You built the brand and they need to honor that.
- Robert
I always thought calling the network the same name as a show on the network was wierd. But it's a recognized brand, and I wouldn't give in. Send some mails to all the twitvid.io's out there.
- Anton Tanderup
Is the BIG guy really that Big? Plus, with the way busines is changing one thing seems to remain the same...protectionism, let's sue someone it's easier. I'm suggesting your desicion is easy here Leo but in light of the landscape changing do you really have a chance? The other question to ponder is this, Twitter is the hot thing now but will it be 5 years from now and will it be true...
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- Owen Greaves
speaking from a british point of view a twit is someone who is a little silly or stupid. I think your podcast can stand up against the everising onslaught of twitter. Why not rise above all this discussion and say what you are This week in technology, a fantastic poscast full of wit and essential information for gadget freaks such as myself. Let the owners of twitter gabble on, in my book baby creatures twitter and you are certainly no TWIT.
- Chris Jennings
@ Professor Messer 'You can't fight Oprah' is not totally correct. You can FIGHT her, can you win? Maybe. I think, offline, Leo VS Oprah would go several rounds. Tweetfight says otherwise.
- Jason Rundell
Defend it Leo. What's the use in having a trademark if others can infringe upon it.
- TechListReport
Sorry to say, my girlfriend recently yelled at my for watching 'Twitter' when I was really watching TWiT live. Confusion does exist for people who don't fully understand what each service is.
- Wo
The good thing about trademark law is that it's well established and legally documented. The problem with trademark law is that it's well established and legally documented. You need a brand to create awareness, and you need the trademark to protect your established brand. This one is sticky because TWiT is well established but it's going to be an expensive brand to protect. Twitter's...
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- Professor Messer
@Jason Rundell, don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a cage match between Leo and Oprah (who wouldn't?). But it'll cost a lot of time and money. Sometimes it's better to be smarter than the legal system.
- Professor Messer
I'm not sure I fully understand where the perceived trademark issue is. The names are similar, but clearly different. I don't know that Twitter is making any efforts or attempts to infringe on the TWiT brand, particularly in the area specified ""Entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows." I agree and understand the brand...
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- Ken Camp
The fact is, the brand that really matters here is not TWiT, but Leo Laporte. I came to TWiT because of you, Leo, not because of the name. That being said, I'll stand behind whatever decision you make.
- Darren Landrum
Oh, and I think this is just the opportunity we need to resubscribe our iTunes and take over the top 10 lists. :)
- Professor Messer
Can I ask - did TWiT exist before Twitter? Or did Twitter exist first? And - is your name TWiT based on Twitter, at all?
- Chris Loft
Chris Loft: TWiT predates Twitter and comes from This week in tech...
- Chris Lloyd
I think it's only right to defend your trademark Leo. You were there way before Twitter and just because they have gained significantly increased attention and media coverage, doesn't mean you have to lay down and submit to Twitter. I would defend your mark vigorously if I were you. You've worked hard to build your brand.
- Marty McPadden
Chris Loft proves that there is confusion between the two.
- Anton Tanderup
Leo - TWit is an incredible brand and network of invaluable podcasts - you simply have to defend it
- Robert Davies
Fight for it. When they try to get additional financing make your move. Asserting your trademark will cause them to settle or buy you out when they go public.
- Alan Morris
I think that once you see the Twitter television show, you'll probably want to distance yourself as far away as possible.
- Professor Messer
Defend your trademark. I get more intellectual engagement from the TWiT network of shows than I do from most of my Twitter community.
- Eric Geller
Use whatever legal tools you have available to defend your brand, especially if Twitter is talking about crossing into audio/video. You have a strong product, and Twitter is creating brand confusion in the market. A hard line needs to be drawn between your product and theirs, and it's clear that they are not going to keep a respectful distance with TWiT.
- Jason Miller
You have to rise above the emotion and make a business decision. How much will it cost you to defend versus how much will you gain? Simple cost/benefit. My guess is that this fight will cause you to lose focus on your work, be a financial hardship as you go up against a company with VC backing, and all for the "possibility" that you will win and maybe get some compensation from Twitter....
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- Tom Sheppard
I thought twitvid.com was the new video netcasts Leo has been talking about, boy was I surprised!
- Daniel Rinaman
It has to be defended.Giving up and letting another company take your brand, no matter how big the company or personal feelings toward the owner, can not be an option. You built your brand and should defend it.
- David Z
Defend it Leo!
- Gunny doesn't side-hug™
You need to defend it Leo. You had the trademark first.
- imperator3733
How about a name like LeoCast... No confusion there.
- Rustic Thoughts
Agree don't let the big dog scare you..you have the law on your side
- Randy Pollock
It's YOUR mark Leo and you have worked hard to make it as well-known as it is. Defend what's yours!!
- Jim Connolly
Twitter will be virtually gone like Classmates and MySpace in a few years... Keep the name!
- Rick Harvey
Leo: As others have said, you can initiate legal action, but I doubt you'd win. TWiT is based upon an acronym (This Week in Tech). Twitter is not an acronym, it's a word unto itself. Twitter doesn't use the term "twit" by itself; the word is always used fully (though some people snidely call Twitter users "twits"). Until you launched a microblogging area on your site, TWiT and Twitter...
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- Dwight Silverman
yes defend your trademark
- Alfonso alatorre
Add to all this another twist. While TWiT is trademarked, twit is a common language word which can't be trademarked. That adds a dash of ambiguity to the whole issue.
- Ken Camp
Twit came before Twitter I think you should defend it. it is dumb anyways Twit and Twitter is not even the same word, it would be like CocaCola suing Coconut because of COC
- URLREVIEWS
Twitter is going to be a realty show based on stalking celebrities. It wont last more than one season.
- Rustic Thoughts
I say let it roll. Your a 'big guy' in your own field, but Twitter is bigger. Play off of them. You could be bigger. Look at all the petty stuff that Microsoft did..and where did it get them? Bad Press.
- Gene
To keep your trademark you must defend it if it's being violated.
- CT Raider
I think Twitter has the brand and you don't right now. Maybe Twitter should buy it from you or you should collaborate with twitter to monetize and add your TWiT to twitter
- Amit 'zyaada' Mittal
I certainly think you should defend your trademark, isn't that why you registered?
- dcale1965
I checked Twitter's own site and it looks like Twitter launched March 1, 2006. TWiT was around well before then. Being in tech, I find it hard to believe they hadn't heard of him. It was a big podcast even then. I knew of TWiT well before Twitter. This may seem like a dumb issue to some, but a lot of people I recommended the podcast to now ask me if "it's a Twitter thing."
- JeffreyVC
Ev told me that when they were considering names for Twitter they knew about TWiT and decided it didn't matter. In their defense, they had no idea what or how big Twitter was to become. We talked about trademark early on and both agreed there was no conflict _as long as we were in different spaces_. And therein lies the rub.
- Leo Laporte
Apple Computer and Apple records recently went through this -- what was the outcome there?
- Brian Sullivan
I thought it wasn't clear infringement when Twitter came out but now that there is Twit video the infringement is very clear. I would defend.
- Robert Scoble
Lawyers are expensive. Legal fights are draining. You could spend the rest of your professional life fighting this battle. I don't know what's been going on in the back channel, and you probably shouldn't say publicly, but if you haven't tried approaching the Twitter board members privately, you might want to. Lay out the facts carefully, and if you're open to a settlement, say roughly...
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- Dave Winer
Legally, if you do not actively defend your trademark in every infringement then you will have difficulty *EVER* defending it. This isn't an anti-Twitter thing, just a simple business practice, Leo.
- Kevin Donahue
"Clear Infringement". How exactly? It's a lose/lose for Twitter if they choose to encroach or even litigate.
- Adi
Yeah but Leo added video later. And now Twitter is adding video. The real issue is that there is no clear separation between a radio/video network and a social microblogging site these days. And our trademarking system is so ridiculous that these kinds of conflicts go completely unnoticed all the time.
- JeffreyVC
I'd say it's time to either re-brand TWiT or defend it. Deferring the decision and just living with the confusion and ambiguity is no longer an option.
- Ken Sheppardson
Defend your trademark
- Lars Clausen
Defend your brand Leo.The World Wide Fund for Nature took on the WWF and made them change their name to WWE. If they can do it, so can you.
- Bryan Lee
The big problem with defending it... beyond the unfortunate fact that it's a drain on resources that could be better spent elsewhere... is it's not clear how you'd win. They're not going to change their name. They'll forever be Twitter. Is it sufficient to somehow "ban" them from ever doing anything in video? Enforcing that in perpetuity's would only raise your blood pressure.
- Ken Sheppardson
I would take the emotion out of the equation -- find out what it would cost to defend and determine what it is worth to have exclusive/non-exclusive use (maybe some subjectivity here) and make the decision using that information.
- Brian Sullivan
I say defend it but only so much as to bring more media attention to your brand... once you have the media's attention you can use that to change the brand identity if you so choose. Your followers myself included will stay fans no matter what you call your brand, but I think you have an opportunity to expand and use twitter as a means of gaining media attention!
- Nathan McClain
If you don't do this you wont have a leg to stand on in the future when you need to really protect it. I can piss all over your trademark if you do not defend it.
- David Lloyd
Leo: in a trademark fight what is the ROI? I am sure it will be very expensive and not sure you will get much in return but if you forced Twitter to change its name I am sure they would quickly settle with you.
- Robert Scoble
I still think Twitter will be as irrelevant as MySpace in 2 years, but it's your brand to protect.
- Mike Lewis
Ideal Outcome: A $$$ settlement sufficient to comfortably fund the rebranding of TWiT.
- Ken Sheppardson
Robert makes a very good point. This could get messy and expensive, although it seems like those guys are VERY hard to work/interact with.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
while bryan lee makes a good point, their battles took a long time to resolve. but, don't let this deter you. i would suggest you defend it. if anything, i see you have a strong case and whatever happens can be in your favour. it's possible twitter can concede in infringing in your trademark and may be even consider licensing through the course of the battle. but be very, very patient for any outcome to happen.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Dave: wrong. Leo is who got me on Twitter. His marks were more popular and predated Twitter's.
- Robert Scoble
Leo got me into twitter too!
- Jim Connolly
I think Leo has a good chance at wining his case since he did register the copyright first. Twitter is still not a money making business. They are living off of VC money. They will probably not have the funds to mount a case since their money will be tied up with keeping twitter afloat. Am I right?
- Bryan Lee
Leo also got me on Twitter shortly after they went public.
- Mike Bracco
regarding AMF, Inc. v. Sleekcraft Boats, 599 F.2d 341 (9th Cir. 1979) the battle was very different. one of the things found was that the company had an 'infinity' of other brands to choose. it's a very different situation in detail, although it looks comparable at face value.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Or just have them become a premium sponsor. There used to be so much twitter talk before, I think they really should be owing you some gratitude for the traffic.
- Adi
As part of any settlement, you should demand Ev and Biz concede that individual Twitter entries are "Tweets", as embarrassed as they seem to be by that. They're net "twits" or "twitters"... they're "tweets".
- Ken Sheppardson
i'm sure something can be negotiated with twitter. a lawsuit in this case would show you're just defending your trademark because they are encroaching in your territory. you're not taking them on what they are known to do, their core competency. rather, it's stepping into your own grounds.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
not doing anything on purpose may weaken your trademark. many court cases also end up not going through the entire ordeal.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Yep, I agree the day has come where it's either fight or flight. And I don't mean that quite the way it sounds. :-/
- Ken Sheppardson
Defend!!!!
- Mark Williamson
from BuddyFeed
I don't think you have much choice. Either you defend it or you lose it.
- Pascal Sijen
dave johnson: true, there's always a degree of uncertainty; but that doesn't mean giving up in defending one's investment in a trademark. it can be argued pragmatically and it's to the point where leo must defend his territory upon which twitter is encroaching. aye.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
I'm not sure you can win, are we aren't even sure what they're going to call it yet. If it ends up being Twitter.TV you have no chance to beat them.
- DarknessFalls
There is even a shortening service called: http://twitpwr.com/ - The brand must be defended.
- David Z
Leo: You must defend it or lose it. They need to know you also have the muscle behind you. I have the attorney that did all the trademark work for Terminator 1-4, Rambo, old timer who knows every angle. I have him on retainer and would love to join your cause. I can arrange a chat with him at no cost, then you can decide to move ahead, or if the cost seems to steep, I would be interested in partnering with you on the trademark. Fight on Leo! Let me know if you want to chat Thx Chad
- Chad Harris
Reading this I'm also thinking, if you move forward as some here suggest, be ready to go after Twitpic.com and every other Twit* variation to aggressively defend everywhere or lose steam on all fronts. Is that a good identity move? This is not a simple question to consider when everything is taken into account.
- Ken Camp
I'm of the opinion that twitter's initial success back in 2006 and 2007 was in part due to piggybacking on the brand name recognition that Leo had built over the years prior.
- Chris Heath
I think defending it is what you must do, but perhaps take a different look at it all together and suggest some kind of mutual PR blitz leading into a partnership or new brand identity for TWiT. Just don't call it SyFy!
- Aaron T. Harvey
The question here is would a "Reasonable person" confuse the two? I would like to think I am a reasonable person (even though I can't spell) and I would not be confused in the least. I love the Twit network and watch several hours a week, but I don't see the issue.
- Rob
I agree that since Leo has been a twitter evangelist all these years, they should be able to strike an accord somehow. Maybe even partnering up on the whole Twitter TV Show since Leo has the video presence online.
- Bryan Lee
You have to defend now, or 5 years from now you'll have a weaker case against the twitty podcast network.
- Robert Hafer
Rob, the question isn't whether or not you or I would confuse the two, but do the people who watch Oprah and maybe catch Leo on The Tech Guy confuse them...and they do.
- Aaron T. Harvey
Aaron...Do you really think they would. Am I that out of touch with the "Normal People"? If that is the case then I guess I would have to conseed that to be an issue. But I am still not quite convenced.
- Rob
Funny - I would enjoy the extra publicity - You have a loyal set of listeners - and none of us are confused. If people end up on your site -cause they are looking for twitter, maybe they will take a listen. People who are looking for podcasts on technology though i doubt will find twitter in a search.
- Laurence Gold
Rob, I've seen it happen, even with people "in the know". People think that TWiT is somehow connected with Twitter because of the name. It's a mistake that, while not happening with everyone--and maybe not even the majority--can end up costing Leo and co. money.
- Aaron T. Harvey
Protect what you worked hard to build
- Shawn Hickman
Had Apple been named "TWiT," you can be assured there would be no talk of a TwitterTV...
- Christopher A Carr
Of course you should perfect TWIT for media and tech. You have the prior art, use. It's an obvious move for Twitter to exploit their 'brand' into media. You must pursue Leo. You have been a crusader for fair-use, but there are times (like this example) where fairness requires accountability.
- michael sean wright
The commenter who noted that if you do not enforce your rights they may be weakened is generally correct. I suggest seeking an agreement that is mutually beneficial and recognizes your rights in the TWiT(R) trademark.
- erik pelton
The problem with defending your trademark is the public backlash it can generate. Think O'Reilly and Web 2.0 or Apple and Profit Pod. But in this case, if you are indeed convinced that there is some infringement of TWiT by Twitter, I think you'd be doing us all a favor if you could somehow head off their plans for a celebrity-stalking TV show.
- Dave
The problem is not really twitter, or a twitter video show, but all the people who says they just sent a twit. Also all the small companies with twit in their name, who are in the video/audio area. Twit radio, twitvid.io etc etc. I see no problem in protecting the brand. However it ends out you'll get a lot of publicity.
- Anton Tanderup
Leo, this could be an opportunity for you to come out ahead. Yes it's an awkward situation and yes you could fight this on legal grounds, but there's no win for you there. Here's a way for you to win. Today your brand is a split brand--split between "Leo LaPorte" and "TWIT." You can win by focusing more on building the Leo LaPorte part of the brand. "Leo LaPorte" doesn't equal TWIT, yr...
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- Michael Metz
man you gotta defend your name and trademark,whats next a twitter podcast network?
- cliff whitefoot
I think Ken Sheppardson sums it up nicely. I don't think you even need to retain a lawyer to start with the cease and desist letters, then see if they are amenable to a settlement, partnership or other remedy. It doesn't have to, and hopefully won't ever, come to a legal battle. However, it's clear enough that unless Leo hands them his mark and re-brands on his own dime, he must defend...
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- Richard pancakhaus Walker
Its funny... in a way you helped make twitter the juggernaut it is today.... all the free advertisement that you have given them over the years....LOL.. Maybe they should return the favor
- Nathan McClain
Hasn't Leo said he wants to add a second host to the network? Wouldn't it also confuse viewers if they were watching the Leo Laporte Network and the show was hosted by someone not named Leo?
- Norm Corriveau
Leo, some other people have made good points, if you're going after Twitter your also going to have to go after the other sites with Twit in the name: Twitpic, Twitpwr and Twiteverything or your case will be thrown out.
- DarknessFalls
DarknessFalls: he'd only have to do that if they all launched TV shows too.
- Martin Bryant
darknessfalls, you're not getting the scope. it's about leo's twit trademark on video and what twitter plans to do that's associated with it.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
If you haven't done so already, explore the Apple case, both the legal and business issues that Apple Corps encountered. And if you DON'T defend your trademark, what's Plan B? Remember that Twitter (or its future owners) may someday sue YOU.
- John E. Bredehoft
from fftogo
Leo, take your mark and make them all change names. Is this Ustream show even official Twitter? it looks pretty lame, like they just used the word, visual branding like twitter.com. http://www.ustream.tv/channel...
- rob friedman
Don't sue unless you can find a business case and a lawyer to take the case on contingency with enough potential gain that it all wouldn't have been a big waste of time for a couple hundred dollars. But I am not a lawyer (IANAL). In fact, the grown up thing for twitter to do would be to link to you with an explanation that they aren't you and visa versa.
- Eric Standlee
Defend yourself, Leo.
- Devin Baines
Defend your trademark. Why else would you have filed it in the first place?
- phil baumann
The best solution would be for Leo to produce the official Twitter show as part of the TWiT network.
- Martin Bryant
The brand is big because of Leo yes, but having the TWiT brand is important. There are shows on the network in which Leo is not in.
- Anton Tanderup
Whats the question? TWiT is yours Leo, you need to protect it, the TWiT Army is not only at your back but with 60% of new Twitter accounts not coming back, all you have to do is hold out and wait on it to fold anyways.
- Bush Williams
Anton, the band is TWiT - twit.tv? - TWiT netcast network... that is the brand...
- Chris Heath
It is totally unfair, but I want to see all of your focus and money going towards content, not legal actions. You will be endlessly sending out C&Ds or worse as long as Twitter is popular. That said, I do think you should squeeze some money out of Ev in order to cede the brand.
- invariant - farewell FF
Twitter offers more value to me than TWiT ever could. Sorry Leo, but this just seems like sour grapes.
- Shannon
Leo: You should do a This Week in Law on this btw.
- Anton Tanderup
Shannon - how much value you get from either brand is not what is at question here.
- Chris Heath
I'm not sure if this was already mentioned in the nearly 150 comments here, but Leo's link doesn't work. Here's a better link that I hope stays active: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin...
- Eric Geller
+1 to chris' comment.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
You have a "defend or lose" obligation under trademark law. The TWiT brand has significant value, both from a revenue perspective and and the potential cost of re-branding al your sites, moving twit.tv etc., if you lose it. Protect the mark that secures your brand. Oh yeah, on that whole "big guy" theme: Because of your stable business model vs Twitter's Twitter's evolving one, an...
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- David Lounsbury
Shannon, the post asks for advice on how to be the best caretaker of a network and its trademark - your assignment of personal value should guide your own choices, but is irrelevant to the question at hand. How can it be sour grapes if failing to act now _could_ result in losing the standing of a trademark/brand which preceded those of other players who _may_ be crossing the line to the point of infringement.
- Micah Wittman
TWiT offers more value to me than Twitter ever could. Sorry Shannon, but this just seems like sour grapes.
- invariant - farewell FF
What a conundrum. I can't speak much to any legal considerations. But, on an emotional level, I would imagine that not defending and potentially losing the name must feel like smiling politely as an immigration official pins you with a random Anglicized name because your real, "ethnic" name is confusing to the masses in the new world, and making a fuss is to gamble the welfare of your...
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- Micah Wittman
@Ken Camp: Isn't twitter also a common english word which can't be trademarked? EDIT: Or Windows, for that matter?
- invariant - farewell FF
invariant -- you mean like Apple?
- Brian Sullivan
word, err, I mean Microsoft Word
- Micah Wittman
I think your best brand is "Leo Leporte". TWiT is just where Leos at.
- Matthew Snape
So I think we've established that common English words can be trademarked. So what's the criteria? Has to be a noun?
- invariant - farewell FF
of related note, i realise that twitter is indirectly facilitating twit offshoots upon registration. this is how: registering anything with 'twitter' in the username is *banned*. so, for a user already having their heart set on using twitter as part of their 'brand' might think of using 'twit' instead. this opens up a new can of worms figuring out who is using the twit name and doing video. like how they are doing now with 'twiter', they can stop it at registration to avoid further confusion.
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
I say defend it. If they are doing a TV show, they're definitely stepping on your toes. Nevermind that I can't imagine their show would be any good, but that's a different story... :)
- Jan Ole Peek
What about TwiTips? If that isn't entertainment then what is? But seriously I own several trademarks myself and I know if you don't take action then you could lose the Tmark. You have a conundrum because Twitter is so popular. So I would recommend seeking a compromise so that you won't lose your mark and appear like the bad guy with the public. Perhaps a clearer definition of the terms...
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- BLOGBloke
Other than I think he needs to see a surgeon to fix that lean to the left he has,... I love the guy and have been listening to him for about 15...16...dang probabaly close to 18 years about tech news I love the guy. And to top it off! He knows what he is talking about!! Leo makes am radio worth a listen on the weekends!
- John Apostoli
TWiT is a network providing audio and video broadcast covering issues related to the tech field. Twitter is a social network used to connect people using the basic SMS tools. While people *may* confuse the issue by referring to Twitter messages as "twits, there is no evidence that Twitter has used or endorsed the term. Unless & until Twitter (as a company) starts using the term "Twit"...
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- David J. Garcia
I've said this privately, but I guess I will say it publicly.Defend your mark. It is your livelihood. There WILL be confusion if it gets to TV, where people are not tech savvy and have no idea who you are
- Francine Hardaway
Yes, it may be expensive, and yes, these fights are draining, Dave, but until the laws are changed (an entirely different question), Leo could lose part of his livelihood through the confusion, especially since he has advertisers who would probably want him to defend. Everything in the universe doesn't happen in Silicon Valley:-)
- Francine Hardaway
David - until now that has been the case, but Twitter is planning on doing a TV show (which would definitely be infringement), which is why this debate is happening.
- imperator3733
I would certainly want you to defend it but i don't think its gonna be possible for two reasons. First Twitter is a bigger, more powerful and certainly more loved brand with more money. and you were first to infringe the unofficial agreement by hosting Twit Army. in that perspective you might not be able to defend it legally.besides the audience you've built ain't gonna be affected by what twitter does.So consult a legal advisor & take best course of action. Best of Luck
- Abhishek
I think if you approach it in good faith--initially without lawyers--you have a very good chance to work something out. Ev seems to be a very reasonable guy. Perhaps it's best to draft a strategy with counsel before any discussions though. What's really in your favor(perhaps legally, perhaps not) is that Twitter can't deny how your support and promotion for it was incendiary to the...
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- Gregg Scott
http://www.googlefight.net/... - ouch
- Nate
What's the point of a googlefight here Nate?
- Chris Heath
Sorry but the Google fight site is loaded with pop-ups that even show through popup blocker.
- Usman Bashir
Usman, I didn't get any popups (using chrome on winxp) but still it's a hideous site
- Chris Heath
Twitter has a lot of investment, but I'm not sure all of that is liquid money. You may be even in the money spent defending your Trademark. I say go for it. Do it now though if you do.
- Jesse Stay
Leo must Defend!
- Jim Mahon
If it was me, I'd defend it. While Twitter is still worth something! Talk to a lawyer first and see if you have a valid case.
- John Frazer
You must defend.
- Will Bostwick
I can't believe how long this thread has gotten!
- Bryan Lee
Seems like you are getting a lot of FREE promotion as a result of twitter. My bigger concern would be not having the twit.com URL to go with your brand name. That's a big issue!
- Craig Shipp
@Craig, twit.com was registered in 1997, and it's parked.
- rob friedman
Twit is your trademark for the company you have built up. It seems rather unfair that they would brand their idea so similar. I would defend it and all the hard work you have done.
- Matthew Davis
Defend it Leo. Things may get ugly, but sometimes they just gotta.
- David Chartier
from BuddyFeed
Fight for you trademark! Especially since they knew of your prior use and now they are doing a TV show which they should know is stepping on your trademark.
- russellcoleman
Defend, owning Twitter may not be useful for you yourself, but you could make a profit off of it if you were to sell it. Go for it Leo!
- Zachary TG
What Kyle said!!
- jcunwired
Leo, FriendFeed community, let's get practical here - Twitter has more resources and probably a decent case defending against what you could file. It would be a blow to your image, to TWiT's image, and be bad press overall. You have a far greater chance of losing credibility than gaining trademark protection. You need to look into other strategies.
- Ben Parr
There is no such thing as bad Press
- Jesse Stay
from email
I would thin kthat the thing to do is to gently but firmly convince them that they are infringing on your brand, that litigation would be damaging to both of you, losing community goodwill over the fight, and that it would be simpler, faster, and cheaper for both entities if they were to pay for your rebranding effort. Be prepared to present them with the estimated costs of litigation,...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Defend your Trademark. It's the responsible thing to do as a buisness.
- Donald Forth
Defend your trademark
- Russ Jackson
what Kyle & guruvan said. Does anyone else think we need threaded comments for conversations like this right here?
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
I'd defend the TWiT trademark.
- Jonathan Bloom
I'm not as thunk as you drink I am
- David Lloyd
Also there is this guy who has a "beef" with twitter http://twitter.co.uk/
- rob friedman
@rob friedman - That guy says Twitter doesn't require you to validate your email address. Wow, that's ripe for abuse!
- invariant - farewell FF
Defend.
- Tony Meyer
Talk to a lawyer.
- Zian Choy
More than a hundred comments, the community is twitting even on friendfeed. A legal action would be very difficult. You should first define your objective in doing so. Do you really want to protect your brand or settle for a lucrative compensation? Even if you get some sort of legal protection limiting Twitter to use or endorse the word "twit" to some extent, people will still be...
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- Cem ARGUN
Cem: I'm afraid I don't understand that first sentence of yours. Can you explain?
- Christopher A Carr
It's only infringement if trademark string parser is case insensitive TWiT® != Twit®
- KyleHase
Prior art (and obligatory MP reference) http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Jay Cuthrell
Maybe a dead issue? At least as far as the potential fight w/ Twitter, Inc. Mashable says Twitter responds no official Twitter TV show http://mashable.com/2009...
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
And now for something completely different... watch the meetup room if interested in seeing Spamalot in SF as a group...
- Richard pancakhaus Walker
I would say defend it. Of course, I'm just a Twit.tv fan and not a lawyer.
- Joey Gibson
'all this nonsense'?? wtf is that supposed to mean?
- Chris Heath
Just leave it alone until they manage to make some real money off it, then litigate. That's how it's done you know.
- Will Higgins™
Leo, I am a long time fan and constant listener to all of you work. You are a more than fair and wholly honorable man. You have had TWIT long before I ever heard of a twitter. Go with your heart Leo. I am behind you. I understand you would impede progress of any positive kind. But a cease and desist letter. Seems harsh. I think you have a winner. Let them buy the TM. Power to the people. Go Leo, you deserve it. You do only good. You are one of a kind! RodneO
- RODNEY OLIVER
PC Easy: I don't think Leo's making a big stink. The idea that twitter would get into the tv/video business would be a big thing since they have a verbal agreement with Leo not to get into that business. This may be all for nothing, since the mashable article guruvan linked above states that twitter will not be doing a show. Leo was doing the best first step (imho) in asking the community for guidance in the event that the original reporting was correct (which it does not appear to be now). So moot point
- Chris Heath
I think if I was you Leo I would try to license rights to them and get some mula out of it. Remember "Leo Laporte" goes a lot farther than TWIT does and most importantly ever will.
- Eric VM
there's a current backlash on twitter trending topics right now w/ hashtag #notwittertv. the examiner has an unfavorable article here: http://www.examiner.com/x-264-C... even alyssa milano is against it: http://twitter.com/Alyssa_...
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Its going to suck and bomb... guaranteed.
- Rustic Thoughts
Maybe just sell it to them Leo for a gazillion dollars and retire. Keep the leaches out of it..meaning the lawyers. What the heck, Leo you are great at trend setting, you practically put twitter on the map. They owe you something.for all the pub you have given them since their inception.
- John Apostoli
Defend. There's really no reasonable alternative.
- Jason Clarke
You gotta defend it Leo. What's the point of trademarking in the first place.
- Joel Lovato
You have to defend what is legally yours.
- Michael Hansel
Twitter Responds: There is No Official Twitter TV Show- Mashable (May 25th, 2009 | by Pete Cashmore) -- http://mashable.com/2009... -- There is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast! In dealing with networks and production companies we sometimes have simple agreements. Regarding the Reveille and Brillstein project reported today,...
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- Chris Loft
Leo, suggest you go "open source co-branding" on this. Monetize your "twit" brand through creative brand licensing with emerging entertainment and multimedia microblogging companies that want to ride the "twitter" bandwagon. I can see creative corporate and individual co-brands like, TwitSounds, TwitFilms, TwitMedia, TwitCats, TwitBitch, TwitMechanic, etc...
- Mike Schmidt
If I hear the word "monetize" one more time, my eardrums will begin bleeding. That is all.
- wyclif
I don't want to over simplify this but if Twitter do branch into video and even streaming TV, surely the content would have to be substantially different to what TWiT already provides, otherwise they are at risk of spoiling their brand identity. Stay strong and true to the Tech news content and let Twitter, well do what ever they may do. Personally, I think it would be a mistake for them to go down this road. Time may be better spent further improving the existing service.
- Kevin J Hatton
the mashable news is taken directly from the twitter blog: http://blog.twitter.com
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Maybe it's a good time to Re-Brand. Twit has unfortunate connotations in some areas of the English speaking world. On this side of the pond a twit is an idiot. Until I became aware of Leo I gave TWiT a very wide berth. Branded simply as This Week in Tech it would have got my positive attention a whole lot sooner. Time to move onward and upward.
- Gilbert Harding
This was copied and pasted but sums it up so well : Of course, there's a larger long-term problem because of the way that Twitter has weakened _your_ brand. It might be less expensive (and a better use of your time) to rebrand TWiT into something that strengthens your brand and moves it away from Twitter; avoiding any future problems (and there will be future problems). You can't fight Oprah. - Professor Messer
- Fragtastic
A very worthy point - "I think that once you see the Twitter television show, you'll probably want to distance yourself as far away as possible. - Professor Messer"
- Fragtastic
I'll admit to being a little slow on the uptake to both TWiT and twitter and it took me some time to figure out that they were different things. I was listening to TWiT before I found twitter, and at first I wondered if I was mixing the names up in my head. I think there is real potential for confusion between the two names. Good luck in whatever you decide to do, Leo.
- Rick Reynolds
You could ride the wave of popularity Twitter is experiencing by allowing that confusion to blossom. Perhaps more people could start listening and watching your netcasts *because* of that confusion?
- David Hepworth
You need to defend your brand, however since you know the guys at Twitter maybe you can come to some sort of agreement that is the best interest of both TWiT and Twitter.
- Jim Lavin
I say defend the brand. I fully believe Leo and TWiT will outlive Twitter. It would be a shame to surrender the brand only to see it disappear in 1-2 years.
- Martin Johnson
I think you should definitely defend it. Whatever it will be called, Twitter-TV will make a big splash and Twit, being less mainstream than Oprah, won't even make a dent. And if they want your trademark, they should pay for it.
- Vincent van Wylick
I say defend it, if you don't the that opens the door to other infringements.
- Hunter
since you clearly took your name from This Week in Baseball, which deputed in 1977, should MLB defend their trademark with you?
- glenn simmons
Defend it! definitely, the trademark is rightfully yours and you need to hold on to it...I like twitter, but I like TWiT even more...
- Raymond
Glenn, you are wrong. There are many registered trademarks that contain "this week in"
- russellcoleman
See what you have started Leo? Twitter TV is not a patch on what you do. Now if it was professionally done, with great audio then maybe,
- Kevin J Hatton
Dealing with a similar issue (though not as big as dealing with Twitter). I say throw out a warning shot to protect your brand. Worst case they ignore you and you have to spend gobs of money to defend it. Best case they make you a $$ offer.
- Brian Niles
from Nambu
russellcoleman, exactly so why is Leo crying about twitter
- glenn simmons
Glenn, because "Twit" is Leo's trademark in the area of entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows.
- russellcoleman
Defend it!
- Kiran Patchigolla
Sorry Leo, does that mean I can't call people Twitts? Does it mean no one in a television or audio show can use the word twitt? I mean Twitter...TWIT...they have 3 more letters and their brand is based on communication not entertainment. Give up the ghost against Twitter by now dude. IF they were doing what you were doing MAYBE but what you are saying is noone can use the letters T W I or T .... don't become the next Monster.
- Sidney
Defend. No retreat. No surrender.
- Barry Biddlecomb
from twhirl
Sidney, it means they can't use twit as part of their brand if they go into the areas Leo's trademark covers. We are talking about branding here.
- russellcoleman
Again, Twitter is a communication company looking to capitalize on providing television content the ability to have immediate interactive component...Nothing that TWIT does...so no infringement. Leo has always had the axe to grind with Twitter...if he was going to do something he should have done it immediately...
- Sidney
My understanding is that Twitter is going to have a TV show and that may infringe. My point above was to the suggestion that no one could say the word twit.
- russellcoleman
@Christopher Carr, I meant that twitting has become a generic expression going far beyond Twitter. Here on friendfeed we are twitting, an these lines are in fact twits... :)
- Cem ARGUN
As an anecdote, until now I thought TWiT was something twitter related, and I basically ignored it for that reason. I have learned over time that I'm often not a good representative of anything, but there was certainly brand confusion in my case.
- Robin Barooah
Robin: You're not alone. I thought TWiT was Twitter-related too :(
- Tech Introvert
At first, yep, I thought Twit spawned Twitter. But in a few nanoseconds, I knew otherwise. But in the mind of 'ordinary' (horrible term, sorry) user coming at Twit from Twitter surely they'll get the idea. But Twitter is SO pervasive, I'm glad that you've decided to take advice. I know nothing, but I feel you should protect your brand. Don't change your name. Change the game. On another tack, you checked out http://audioboo.fm ?
- John C Wesley Barker
"Again, Twitter is a communication company looking to capitalize on providing television content the ability to have immediate interactive component." - Sidney That is exactly what Leo's doing
- Anton Tanderup
news of twitter tv just hit the local abc news. they mentioned there's already direct opposition by celebrities ashton & demi who (according to their tweets) will quit twitter if this reality show sees the light of day (paraphrasing). this could mean -as they say & putting it lightly- 'my enemy's enemy is my friend?' odd yet amusing opposition from the hollywood. however, no mentions of twit and leo. :-\
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Twitter can look to capitalize on providing television content the ability to have immediate interactive component all they want. But I don't think they should do it in a way that can cause any confusion between them and Leo's network.
- russellcoleman
Sorry the only confusion people have had is what Leo has brought to the table himself. He should have stepped up long ago if he felt Twitter was going to create confusion and admittably it has and TWIT and Twitter don't even cross streams. I know for one if Leo wastes his money on litigation I for will be disappointed and believe it will harm the TWIT brand.
- Sidney
i know this thread is too long to read for many. re-quoting what leo said here for those who keep saying he should have stepped up long ago: "Ev told me that when they were considering names for Twitter they knew about TWiT and decided it didn't matter. In their defense, they had no idea what or how big Twitter was to become. We talked about trademark early on and both agreed there was no conflict _as long as we were in different spaces_. And therein lies the rub. - Leo Laporte"
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
Very tough choice. I think these comments provide you with a fairly good sample of public opinion from people in tech, but it would be interesting to get input from the rest of the world on Twitter who have never heard of TWiT. It certainly won't cost much to send in a warning shot so they take notice and to demonstrate defense of your TM, but I would follow that up with a request to...
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- Phil Ashman
Give it up Leo ... You may win the battle ,, but you wont win the War IMHO ,, Unless you have deeper pockets than Twitter ... is your time/money worth fighting over it ? Only *you* can answer that!
- johnpiercy
This twitter thing is just a flash in the pan, you can wait them out ;-)
- Wolfman-K
If he fights and loses, at least he defended it, which is required to keep it. If Leo does nothing, he could lose it.
- Bwana ☠
How do people feel about Monster Cable suing companies that use the word Monster in their name? I feel the same here...except that Twitter just happens to have the same four LETTERS as Twit, as the beginning. They arent using Twit as a standalone word. C'mon.
- Andru Edwards
The only justification I can see in Leo going after Twitter is so that he can at least show he is defending his TM so he doesn't lose it as Bwana said...otherwise I think it is a losing game that will be a waste of resources that TWIT could utilize in other productive pursuits.
- Sidney
The Monster Cable example doesn't really work. They were suing companies that were in different spaces. Now with Twitter doing a TV show, that is in the same space as TWIT and Leo has the trademark for it.
- Mike Child
Everyone should read this: http://blog.twitter.com/2009... It has been linked a few times in this discussion up above, but bears linking again based on recent comments - From what I can tell, it doesn't look like twitter will have a tv show - so this whole point is moot - leo may have to defend his trademark against these 'other' shows if they use the word twit in their name, but i don't think they will
- Chris Heath
Leo -This is a battle that will be HELL. Yet, it is critical you fight it. I had a couple situations very much like it in telecommunications late '80s early '90s. I should have fought. Give them a run for their money. It will cost you $$ and resources. But, with Twitter's new direction - man - you're a journalist at heart... You already know - you've got to fight for your right!
- Arleen Anderson
Man this is a tough position to be in. Honestly, I can't see TWiT or Twitter changing brands/names. However, Leo, you were first and you have the trademark to back it up. I say defend it!
- Doug Jones
Biz responds to the Twitter TV show on the blog: http://blog.twitter.com/2009...
- Doug Jones
not reading the thread befire i comment... but seems to me that TWITTER does not equal TWIT. what else is their to know?
- sull
Leo, I think the law is very clear, if you don't defend your trademark you may lose it.
- David Angel
from twhirl
Leo a firestorm is brewing over twitter tv http://www.nydailynews.com/tech_gu...
- dday
Make them pay you a million in cold hard cash for the TWIT name and change your name to TWIG - This Week In Goodness :-)
- Richard Bitting
When you see such services as "TwitThat" (http://twitthat.com/), with that spelling of "tweet", there is an incredible amount of confusion waiting to happen !
- arnaudt
arnaudt, good point. and again... TWiT does NOT = twitter - so leo has no case. twitter themselves dont use 'twit' in any way. they barely if at all use 'tweet' in any way. they began as 'twtr' in like 2006. twitter is NOT an abbreviation for anything as TWiT is. twitter is not solely behind producing an entertainment property.. they are granting rights to others to do so and in some...
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- sull
sull, TWIT does NOT have to = twitter for Leo to have a case. People just have to be confused enough to adversely impact, or even potentially impact, Leo's business.
- Chris Gardner
Chris, i think it does for him to have a 'good' case. You cannot prevent Twitter from letting media entities use twitter as part or their 'shows', even if twitter as some levell of partnership. In the end, it will cost Leo money to lose a trademark case. Proving, for example, that an MTV show tentatively named 'what you're watching' that uses twitter and facebook etc as fundemental components for audience interaction has any negative effect to the TWiT podcast.
- sull
sull, there just needs to be a likelihood of confusion. The Court there announced eight specific elements to measure likelihood of confusion: Strength of the mark - Proximity of the goods - Similarity of the marks - Evidence of actual confusion - Marketing channels used - Type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser - Defendant's intent in selecting the mark - Likelihood of expansion of the product lines
- Chris Gardner
Oh, and TWiT is not just a podcast. It is a live streaming net video network. There are on and off talks to take to cable also.
- Chris Gardner
Chris, thanks for pointing those elements of liklihood. Still, i think that even for the case to have a leg to stand on, twitter would need to have a 'show' specifically named in a way that may cause confusion. That has not happened. Trying to prevent the word 'twitter' from being used at all in marketing and branding via "visual and audio performances" because of the TWiT trademark seems a stretch and will prob result in negative publicity for Leo. Anyway, maybe we'll see. Interesting.
- sull
sull, agreed interesting. Also, this will probably not go anywhere near the courts. Ev Williams and Leo know each other and get along (not many in the industry that Leo does not get along with). They will work things out.
- Chris Gardner
For those who are unaware, people have to take action to protect their brands otherwise they lose their trademark. My suggestions and observations: 1. Look for win-win 2. It all seems moot anyway http://blog.twitter.com/2009... tho this is a fascinating thread 3. If twitter did ever go ahead with this it would be a fairly simple compromise for them to...
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- Isha (Marysia)
You need to defend it. I don't know that you'll stop twitter from launching their show but you have to fight it to keep your trademark valid. You for sure need to go after twitvid.com and twitvideo.com!
- The Griff
Defend the trademark. It could make the difference on winning a future trademark case with another company.
- David Ebaugh
Defend it. It was your long before Twitter was even around. Like someone else said what is the point of calling your network that if as soon as a bigger fish comes along you cave. Don't give in to the man Leo!
- Mr. Thomas
Leo. I am not a lawyer and don't play one on the Internet. It sounds like you have no real case against Twitter, but the producers of the rumored tv show are a different story. Even then, it depends on what they are doing with the subject matter. Is it *about* Twitter, or simply about people who use Twitter? Will they ever use the term, "twit" in the show? It certainly couldn't hurt to...
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- Jake Overton
While this is getting a lot of buzz now, it didn't even occur to me till it was posted. I think both have built their brands, both have similar sounding names but are different. Isn't TWiT an acronym? I would be more concerned with TWiB (This week in Baseball) going after Leo if he goes on TV as his show title is clearly a play on theirs, and not Leo being concerned about Twitter... ;) Either way Leo, you got some free publicity for your program/site out of this.
- mike wood
Let's not forget that use of anything in an editorial context is considered fair use.
- Ryan Brodkin
I also feel that you have an opportunity for even more publicity if you can work the TWiT shows into the TV show, joining them rather than fighting them. You will get publicity either way, but there seems to be a high road and a low road (or perception thereof). Good luck and keep up the great shows.
- Jake Overton
Leo fight them.
- johnny
we neec to fight for TWIT
- Richard Thomson
So far I don't think there is a conflict with Twitter, unless there is a Twitter TV show. Although you should fight sites like http://twitvid.io . Plus if you win, you could have an awesome domain for video downloads when you want to offer them.
- Mister IQ
Apparently there's a popular twitter client app in Japan called "Twit" http://wakoopa.com/softwar... It's the first "twit" result on Google Japan and Yahoo Japan.
- KyleHase
Before you whine about Friendfeed and how mean everyone is to you and no one ever comments on your posts, blah blah blah, go back to your own feed, measure your interaction here, take a look at your own contributions and look at how often you comment and interact with OTHERS.
Kim, Robyn Hawk, Glenn Slaven and 69 other people liked this
sheepishly looks
- LPH™ and his dog P™
LPH, your post was about your frustration with real-time, which isn't what I'm talking about.
- Trish R
Word. I'm so sick and tired of the whinefest of this. 97% of the time, I had never even heard of those people before they posted no one's paying attention to them. Go look at their stats and their feeds are mostly just dumps, hardly any comments or likes. Even more aggravating? The people who signed up like 3 days ago. The post to Twitter, "I don't get FF, it's sucks." And then you look at who they're subbed to and most them are dumpers too.
- Admiral Anika
@LPH why?
- Amir
I've felt terrible for 2 days and asked on here if the idea of FF is dead - I've since started to hide twitter replies and the home view is finally starting to "feel" like the old FF -- Yep Trish - I knew that - I was just making sure I wasn't being negative :)
- LPH™ and his dog P™
It's getting ridiculous. Make your own experience, don't expect others to make it for you. LPH, I have done the same thing. I was also frustrated with real-time and finally created a separate list for people who just dump their Twitter feed here and don't interact or participate. It helped my frustration level a LOT.
- Trish R
I've dedicated myself to making better comments on other people's entries - even with my current interaction level - so expect some more "It's more fun with your arms up like this" from me ;)
- LPH™ and his dog P™
LOL. I was referring to the "woe is me" posts where people are continually posting "NO ONE EVER COMMENTS ON MY FEED, WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LIKE ME AND WHY CAN'T I BE POPULAR BOO HOO HOO!"
- Trish R
"... I post really COOL stuff, but why don't you people realize it."
- Ken Sheppardson
Trish - yep - I was just thinking out loud. TOL is dangerous ;)
- LPH™ and his dog P™
agreed trish, they are time wasters - i usually unsub from them and if they keep popping up via foaf they get poofed (blocked) - there's no whining in ff ;)
- mike "glemak" dunn
If one only has X minutes every few days to spend on FriendFeed, I'll bet the most satisfying way to use it would be to just set up some saved searches for topics that are central to what you do off-FriendFeed, and just Like and comment on those to promote them. Not *your* entries, other peoples' entries. Everything else sort of flows from there.
- Ken Sheppardson
agreed ken - saved searches are very powerful, i use them to find new folks to sub to as well
- mike "glemak" dunn
Ken, is there a room for suggested searches?
- LPH™ and his dog P™
Akiva and Alex Scoble HATE me! *sob*
- Mike Nayyar
Well - Call me shiftless - there is a room for saved searches - http://friendfeed.com/ffss
- LPH™ and his dog P™
nice lph - thanks for finding that :)
- mike "glemak" dunn
I've got my fingers crossed hoping that the next major feature FF rolls out is real time Saved Searches... and for you non-real-timers ;-)... notifications on saved searches. Once you can choose to be notified by email, IM, or the FF desktop notifier when a new entry shows up that matches a saved search, we're going to see another shift in the way people use FriendFeed on the same scale as the intro of real timeiness :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
There's not enough smart conversation, there's not enough fun conversation, there's too much Twitter, there's not enough Twitter people, there's too much information, there's too little information, too much in main feed, too much hidden in groups, just A-listers, just unknowns, too much being imported, not enough being imported. AAAAHHHHHH!
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Eric: Deep breaths.
- Ken Sheppardson
Speaking to the initial post: You're absolutely right. Someone last night mentioned that the length of conversations were getting short yet over that past year I've seldom seen this person comment on or like any of my posts. I held my comments.
- Christopher Harley
I just think people should use FF however they want and stop worrying about doing it wrong or trying to find ways to get the feedback they want. Isn't it like anything else? We're all different, don't compare yourself to anyone else and you'll be much happier.
- Trish R
^WORD^ I see the self-important announcing that they're blocking this service or that. Which makes the insecure worry, "Should I even import this service since people are blocking it?" Pfffft. Block away. Chances are if you block all Twitter imports I'll never have to deal with your stupid comments anyway. That makes *me* happy.
- Admiral Anika
What Abby said... :)
- JA Castillo
Anika: As one of the people who hides Twitter stuff unless they have Comments/likes and who suggests that as something people should try if they feel overwhelmed... should I take that personally? :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
Sure, Ken. Go ahead. :) I offend all kinds of people by saying what I feel. I lack tact and diplomacy for the most part. To know me, is to love me.
- Admiral Anika
Pours Trish a Jack and Coke. *cheers*
- Derrick
::stands up and claps::
- David Cook
Anika: Cool. I will then. ;-) In my defense... :-) ... I say when in doubt, import everything, and let people use lists, groups, and searches to try to work the stream down to something manageable. I guess when you mix trying to offer suggestions with the fact that I'm not a Twitter fan, it could come across as self-important. Hm.
- Ken Sheppardson
Mark: Buh bye.
- Trish R
Also, if someone complains that a service lacks quality content, then it is up to him/her to push some quality content if he/she is the one to tell what is "quality" in the first place.
- Jemm
*fistbump* Jemm.
- Admiral Anika
i hope this message manages to get to the people who usually aren't commenting or liking these threads. the ones who have are the ones who seem to understand this service. weirds me out when i read people's comments on twitter on how they don't understand what purpose friendfeed serves. these are the same kind of people who label themselves "marketing/social media experts" too!
- Cee Bee
Wow
- You.
try visiting the friendfeed feeback room -- it's flooded with requests from people who don't seem to grab the full potential of friendfeed. i get the feeling that many see this site in a rather narrow kind of way and demand all kinds of things from it that already exist or that are superfluous to the service itself
- Cee Bee
The more we strive to catch the attention the more elusive it gets. It is like a shadow that follows in the light of knowledge.
- ashish
@Christopher - I am guessing that the person you were referring to is me, and if that's the case as far as the lack of commenting and liking stuff in your feed it probably has to do exactly with the problem I was trying to point out from the other side, ie that MY attention allotment for your feed is significantly less than it was before RT and the Twitter influx and therefore I'm just...
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- Fa La La La Lindsay
Great advice, you get back from a community what you put in--look at Derrick!
- susan mernit
*looks at Derrick*
- Trish R
Derrick is trying to get his rib on at the moment.
- Alex Scoble
Ken, I agree with you 100%. That's not to say I don't block services, I do. But my original point was more to those who feel the need to announce they're blocking the service and those who feel insecure because one person said it = everyone is doing it. And as I said, if everyone was blocking my Seesmic videos or whatever, I don't care. I've only done 2 Seesmic videos for someone on FF. All the other ones are people who actively use Seesmic.
- Admiral Anika
I love you, Trish. That is all.
- DO ANYBODY NO MONIQUE
Yea but in all honesty I comment on a lot of posts try to interact but my feed usually remains untouched. It is no big deal to me anymore, but it really just a popularity contest around here IMO. It's fine though for me.
- orionstarr
What Trish said.
- Steven Perez
U don't like it, leave.
- orionstarr
Susan! Good to see you, sugar. :) And yeah, I got my bbq on. Looking for Tums right now.
- Derrick
You go gurl!!!
- kooder
I hear ya. I can't see how people take these services so seriously. If ones time is really that precious then I'd imagine they wouldn't be social networking to begin with. Tender ego's I'm guessing.
- Adi
This should be in the Terms of Use. After which it should rwad, "then go hell aka Twitter"
- sofarsoShawn
Stephen B, Richard pancakhaus Walker, Michael Hocter and 2 other people liked this
Man, I love spirals.
- Fa La La La Lindsay
Mrsth, Dobromir Hadzhiev, M F and 14 other people liked this
Beautiful as always.
- Nation Hahn
The owls are not what they seem.
- Rochelle
there is a man in a smiling bag
- Thomas Hawk
Without chemicals he points.
- Rochelle
There should be a LOVE button.
- Sheryl
SEO for Photographers and Photography Websites | PhotoShelter http://pa.photoshelter.com/mkt... - http://pa.photoshelter.com/mkt...
phil baumann, Dennis and Stephen B liked this
Sports Illustrated photographer Brad Mangin recommended Photoshelter to me the other day, and this guide is a great thing for photographers.
- Robert Scoble
from Bookmarklet
Speaking of SEO - Google Search Options just changed the entire game. So many ways to optimize for their new search features. I think the ultimate goal now will be to optimize for each option they have more so than before.
- Brandon Hall
This is one of the BEST DOLPHIN PICS I've ever seen!
Eric, ümid urmuli, Aysan and 5 other people liked this
CLICK THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE - I FOUND IT HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegra...
- Jason Pollock
Friendfeed's new Twitter features are working remarkably well. Several people at the TechCrunch showing of Star Trek tonight noted that they are getting a "ton" of email requests for follows. I smile and say I knew it would be big long ago.
Rick Cogley, Philip Lei, Alfredo and 59 other people liked this
Been getting lots of subscription requests to my private feed as well: from total strangers including Live Crunch and Kim Kardashian. All of them are subscribing to over 10,000 people. One shmuck is subscribed to over 53,000 people. What is the point?
- Steve Wilhelm
Steve: they come here and they push the button and leave. No point, just wanted to see what's up, probably.
- Robert Scoble
They totally miss the point when all they do is subscribe to a large number of Twitterers (Tweets are usually low nutritional value). Some of them will figure this out eventually, but many others won't.
- Robert Scoble
As Simon Cowell says, Tweets are like eating ice.
- Chris Gardner
Friendfeed filters out the Follow Friday mess of Twitter, and the stupid quizes (fluff) of Facebook. There also doesn't seem to be any hashtag spamming to get a topic on the trending list. what's left is actual social networking..... i think.
- Mike Nencetti
What are the new 'Twitter features'?
- Taehoon Kim
Long ago? Scoble, if you didn't join until 2008, you're a n00b. :)
- Louis Gray
I made the mistake with Twitter by starting to follow large number of people and that made it almost impossible to actually keep up with what's happening around there. More and more, it started to look like unrealistic goal and apparently it was. Still, as way of "water cooler", it's nice way to hear new things but too difficult for longer conversations. As you can think of, FriendFeed is more of what I like as it's getting more and more features and (most importantly) people.
- Daniel Schildt
Still, there is long way to go for both.
- Daniel Schildt
Some people in my surroundings didn't like the new features. They got too much subscription notifications. They felt it was "spam" to them. Apparently people don't care who they follow or who follows them on Twitter, but they do on FriendFeed. This is an interesting observation.
- Michiel Sikkes
I love the Facebook features that they stole from FriendFeed (in a better world, FF would get compensated for borrowing UI features), but I totally love the search/speed combo of our great FF team's product. The new FriendFeed UI does look cleaner (for non-geeks). Love the FF/Twitter import feature, but I think Facebook's "Circle of Friends" and FriendFeed's "Manage Friends & Friend Lists" need some major drag-drop/visual-in boost. Some next-generation friend management system...
- Mitchell Tsai
i'm feeling that the value in friendfeed is to NOT import all of your twitter friends/followers. right now, i'm using twitter as my public broadcast stream and keeping friendfeed a private feed with managed subscriptions. i dont care who follows me on twitter (i selectively follow back after reviewing a few days of the the user's stream). i do care on ff. this seems like logical usage...
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- sull
Sull: if you import members put them on a separate list.
- Robert Scoble
Scoble that is absolutely correct. If you import Twitter folks separate them. When it comes to Friendfeed use groups and with Twitter do the same. You can injest much more conversation this way.
- Keith - @tsudo
I've broken my Twitter "folks" down into several lists - those that I have a "relationship" with on Twitter, Twitter friends that are active on FF, and then just peeps.
- Sharon McPherson
alright, it took me a while (again) to find the importer feature - http://friendfeed.com/friends... but i'm trying it out in a new friend list. thanks for the suggestion.
- sull
I've been using the Twitter friend finder since it launched and now find that I need to use if frequently to keep up with the new FriendFeed users. I plugged in a official company Twitter account about 2 weeks ago which has over 2000 followers and found only a dozen or so FF users. Just did it again, and there were a couple hundred, nice jump.
- Rick Bucich
Rick: I last ran it a few days ago. Just ran it again and another 175 were there. Cool.
- Robert Scoble
Rick/Robert - sounds like a new feature that ff could use. auto-check/auto-import etc.
- sull
heh - it was at Star Trek I also heard the same thing from people. I'm trying to convert @josephscott from Automattic to FriendFeed so they can start including similar features into Wordpress and Buddypress. He said the same thing (and it was at Star Trek).
- Jesse Stay
New ff feature still exlude "Resharing to Other Rooms"-button, "immediate" postcomment button while posting [and not after it] plus also still missing refresh buttons for more than just 5 socNetworks. It's now *impossible* to add YT, identi.ca , plurk, Custom RSS/AtomBlogs and even additional twitter-refresh buttons. I had 40-50 buttons in case of some SocNet-ff forward- Glitches, now i have to wait for auto-forwards of YT, twitter and co.. su*** ; -(
- ewing2001akaNicomedy2010
...TechCrunch get their own screening of Star Trek? B*#$ards! <wink>
- .LAG liked that
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