I agree it's important to think about the importance of services like friendfeed and twitter. My experience is that real in dept answers which combine to a discussion are sooner found on blogs than on friendfeed. On twitter discussion are very hard to follow altogether. You have chosen to comment on Robert's blog by writing your own blogpost and not by writing a comment on friendfeed or his blog. I do think you're not giving especially friendfeed enough credit when you say it's just like a bar and only good for some entertainment. (We could have a discussion about the value of a bar some other time :-) If you keep the person who comments in mind, you often have the most skilled people commenting on post of the subject of their expertise. On friendfeed those subjects are rather going to be social network, internet marketing and new media. Ofcourse subjects like politics and science are also discussed and there your point about Stephen Hawking is true I think. - TobiasVerhoog.com

Tobias, I do believe there are experts around here. But I also find the level of "discussions" are lowered by the boldness that people use to "discuss". We talk more than we listen so to say. In real life we use more senses to interact. Sight, hearing, feelings, etc. Here a discussion ultimately is limited by the number of words Friendfeed allows you to input into a discussion ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Nice followup by @freecloud: http://broadstuff.com/archive... - Alexander van Elsas

Isn't the effect of using aggregators more (and thus more useless) information? More voices... more opinions... all need to be analysed if you want to make some sense of it. By its nature I agree that the chances of finding good economic experts on FF are rare, but have you looked for them? Everybody connects to other people within his field of interest and frankly... detailed economy isn't one of mine. - Tom Vanlerberghe

@Tom My point wasn't really that there are no experts here, I think there are quite a few (very similar types). But the way Friedfeed works and the culture I see here is that it is quite hard to have a "discussion". Too many opinions, more statements than people asking questions. Just look at what I'm doing now, I'm trying to make a point here too ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Tom btw I fully agree that aggregation is often quite useless. it's too much sharing without intent. Makes the stuff that gets shared often less valuable to the receiver. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, I value your writing, but I didn't laugh at Robert's post. When he says he's warming to Andrew Keen's argument that's significant. There has been a trend to devalue offline expertise as elitist and luddite (Matthew Ingram, Jeff Jarvis, etc.) -- Robert's reappraisal helps restore some balance. - Sprague D

Last night I was arguing religion and politics with a believer who didn't know who Ralph Reed is. We have become a nation of Sarah Palins and we wonder why she is so popular. Sigh. And this is on FriendFeed where I assume we are smarter than average. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Scoble- I recently had a revelation that my perception of you last year was incorrect; that you were a neurotic with an undeserved audience. I had begun to see recently, that you are indeed thoughtful and accomplished. However, quotes like "we have become a nation of Sarah Palins..." is hypocritical when the other side is in the midst of their most dramatic lying, phony charade ever. I can't believe how many otherwise smart people are willing to ignore so much. Folks want to bash the Right? Go for i - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

..Go for it, they deserve it!! But at least call the Left on the massive bias, lying, bullshit. There is NO credibility left on the left either. None. http://tinyurl.com/538x72 - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Ed: you would do the right a lot more good if you didn't try to defend Palin. I used to be a Republican and I would like to be one again (I am actually a fiscal conservative) but as long as people on the right stick up for religious idiots like Palin I will hold my nose and hang out with tax-and-spend liberals. Not to mention that the deficit went up with a Republican-controlled President and Congress. Oh, I want to believe in real conservatism! Oh, and regarding lying, McCain does a lot more of that then Obama. You should look into it. - Robert Scoble

@Sprague I feel we (elite online media experts) are often a bit overconfident of our own expertise (yes I include myself here). That's why I like reading books and use other resources to be able to tap into really smart people. Out here, we mostly sound very smart ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Ed Shaz you just proved why it is hard to have a focused conversation over at Friendfeed. You are hijacking it to move towards political opinions ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Robert I'm not defending the right. They've whored our nation down the drain. But the dialog from the Left, and in the mainstream media makes 'disingenuous' a compliment. There's so much complete fabrication, that the population has NO chance at an honest discussion, which leads to us fighting each other for a thousand powerful fat cats in DC. It's uncivil war. The citizens lose while the Dick Cheney's and Chris Dodd's get away with murder. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Alexander: I have made it my life's work to meet and study smart people. The folks who hang out here are generally very smart. But it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. You should travel America sometime and stop in a random bar to get a sense of how good it is here. - Robert Scoble

Great post, Alexander. As someone who drops in and out of the conversation (and observes US political discussion from my Canadian arms-length viewpoint), I can accept this form of socializing as akin to a cocktail party where in-depth conversation rarely (but occasionally) happens. - David Muir

In other words, Abraham Lincoln would never vote for Barack Obama. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Ed: Well, you might have convinced me had you not started out by defending Palin. That just tainted everything you have said since then. Start over by admitting she is an idiot and then we can talk. - Robert Scoble

@Robert, I was at an American bar just a few days ago. Had conversations with @NVineberg, @ck, @stoweboyd, @JoshMcHugh and other really smart folks from many different companies. I used the bar metaphor because I felt it fit. FF gives great and fun conversations, but if you want to know smart things it's best to sit down with a real expert than have a public "I know it best" conversation over here on FF". Can't comment on American bars in general though, not enough expertise there ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Robert, just to be sure, I do not doubt there are smart people on FF, I just think (just like you do) that the medium doesn't provide a lot of in-depth expert conversations. - Alexander van Elsas

In my mind FF is like the main room of the cocktail party and in depth conversations can spin off from there -- onto blogs or other platforms for people to voice and then hear other people's opinions. By the way, being an early tech adopter qualifies people to have in-depth opinions about the economy as much as being a successful actor does. But as Robert pointed out yesterday, people can bring widely diverse experiences to the conversation (so don't limit all FFers to the "early tech adopter" slot). - David Muir

@Alexander On the contrary, implicit in this thread is the evidence that thought exchanges of value occur in social media arenas. The deviation from your singular intent, is common in web 2.0. How many bloggers initiate a discussion which the voices take off with, which results in excellent dialog? Original flight plan? No. Valuable, legitimate, edifying? YES. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

David: I didn't realize that being an early tech adopter means you don't know anything about anything else. I know congressmen, librarians, architects, teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc that are early tech adopters - Robert Scoble

Robert: I actually tried to echo your point from yesterday (not only that other kinds of experts can be early tech adopters, but that those who are primarily considered early tech adopters can have widely diverse experiences). Sorry if that didn't come across in my comment. :-) - David Muir

@ed In real life conversations are hardly "singular intent" either. But trolling is a term that was invented in "web 2.0". Hijacking here is easier and different from real life conversations. I tend to disagree with your conclusion that the dialogue then becomes "excellent". Imo it merely takes a different direction - Alexander van Elsas

Wikipedia's definition of a troll "An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." - Alexander van Elsas

Wait, Scoble knows all the cool people, and the rest of us aren't smart or capable enough to see them or realize they exist? Thanks for the constant reminders, Robert! *cough* Alexander, you could easily have just left "conversations" off your post title. - abacab

Hm. Do you feel that face to face, off-line conversations are not "hijacked" or don't deviate from the initial kernels of thought and discussion? I've seen that plenty too. And I've moderated conversations both on, and off line, where I had to nudge folks back to focus *because* resolution of a question was critical. If you want to ensure a particular outcome, Alexander, you'd have to install parameters. Perhaps a private room, with a hand chosen few. Or install mirrors. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

i find huge value in friendfeed, so the statement you made that its only for entertainment is out to lunch and seems more like linkbaiting to me - imho of course - mike "glemak" dunn

> abacab actually this is a major problem with social networks. I call it the "friend divide." If you joined FriendFeed and don't know the difference between Alexander and, say, Tim O'Reilly, wouldn't you be at a disadvantage to those who DO know the difference? I think so. And to say there's no difference is just plain wrong. Attacking people who know the difference and are willing to point it out is also wrong. - Robert Scoble

@Ed when you are sitting with a few people the overall conversation moves into different directions too, btu the process is different. We use many stimuli and sort of find it okay for this to happen. Here you just use CAPS LOCK (its a metaphor) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Robert are you referring to the fact that Tim is American and I'm Dutch ;-) You are right of course, the playing field is leveled here, anyone can be a pop star or an expert and it is nearly impossible to validate anything being said. I think Tim is WAY smarter and experienced than I am BTW. - Alexander van Elsas

@David you are right, it's a "simple" view. Not all FF users are early adopters, but very few of them are mainstream (how could they be here) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Robert, you do post frequently (often rather casually and indirectly) dismissing others for not seeing what you see. You also spend a fair number of posts telling us all about who and what you know. Maybe you just don't see you're doing these things. Ironic, no? I think there can be a divide, but I think it's something most people already understand exists. This space is essentially no different than real life in that regard, despite having arguably better access to the "elite". - abacab

@abacab not to defend Robert, he can do that himself. I assumed he meant to say it is hard to see who is an expert and who is not. I think that is true. On FF or anywhere else on-line it is hard to decide to trust the 'expertise' of someone making bold statements. I for one would warn you not to assume everything I write is correct. It is, and remains to be, my personal view of the world ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

The thing that astonishes me about the veneration of FriendFeed is that it's fundamentally just a link-injected BBS where instead of users posting to the forum they post elsewhere and talk about it here. It's faster than the old way, for certain, but it does seem like it makes discussion more disposable and less considered than it otherwise might be - and information becomes fragmented when the original posts don't point back to the associated discussions. - kris. nuttycombe

+1 Kris. Everything old is new again! - Sprague D

Alexander, rest assured that I do not assume anything anyone writes is ever automatically correct. That includes my own writing. I tend to put people on a level middle ground; I don't hold those with more social 'gravity' in higher regard. I tend to (as objectively as possible) examine the content itself long before I (usually subjectively) consider the person behind it. Anyway, this is a -social- space, not a thinktank or a research group which would and should demand different thinking and attitudes. - abacab

+1 abacab. Agree in full ;-) - Alexander van Elsas