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Leo Laporte

Comcast Petaluma is suffering a "serious outage." 15,000 in Petaluma affected. Including The Tech Guy.

September 13 - Comment - Like - Share

J. Abdul-Qahhar, Roberto Bonini, earl wallace and John Grinde liked this

That sucks. Stay strong Leo. - Eric Geller

12 more comments

Keep the faith, Leo. Indy loves you! - John Fox

I hate it when that happens. - George Brickner

Ugh, that sucks. :( Keep your chin up, Leo. :) Watching the stream on BitGravity at the moment. Wish your show was aired here in Buffalo. - Molly, New Ears :P

Sonoma's okay right now - Rob

Comcast is out several other places in CA, too. Comcastic! - redct

No TWiT today? - David Schmidt

Be strong Leo... - JD Woodard

You'll pull through it. What do you use the Comcast for? I know you have multiple different internet connections at the TWiT Cottage. - David van Sunder

Screw You Comcast! - Dave VanderWall

David, Leo has backup DSL and Ethernet over the Last Mile besides his comcast... and a T1 --- twit will not be affected... although it has put a cramp on him for his radio show - Chris Heath

Charter was down for me yesterday. Tag, you're it! - Amber Hewitt

Comcast Petaluma should call The Tech Guy .... uhhh, wait ... - HansVanRock

Wicked funny Hans, wicked funny.... - Chris Heath

Kreg Steppe

I can't stand websites that play music automatically! Do you?

August 20 - Comment - Like - Share

That drives me nuts. Especially when I've been working with something that has low volume and suddenly I'm getting blasted by high volume music. - David van Sunder

Exactly. It is quiet in our "Cube Farm"...all of the sudden I am getting blasted with some garbage. - Kreg Steppe

Robert Scoble

Yeah @KNAjit I don't get the unfollowing fuss either. Just comment on FriendFeed here, for instance, to get me to follow you:

August 4 - Comment - Like - Share

Body Indigo, Timothy Federwitz, Alex 'BuckyBit' Covic and 24 other people liked this

I will follow you on FriendFeed. Why here? Because I can put people into lists. On Twitter I don't have that ability. What's wacked is I actually read a lot more people's stuff on FriendFeed than I ever did on Twitter. I think the real fuss is due to those jerks who did autofollowing schemes to help people get lots of followers artificially. That and SEO types who only are in it for the game of getting more followers and links. - Robert Scoble

122 more comments

I got my first official "Unfollowing you for not following back" @ reply today... Weird people, especially if you try to sell things - which the person who send me that is trying. - Holger Eilhard

Yeah, like this guy: http://twitter.com/webaddict - Robert Scoble

hahaha, it's all rather hilarious really. No one else I know in the world, in person, cares about any of this junk tho :( - Mark

You know, some people consider "following" as an active form of politeness : fail, they didn't get the networking concept at all. Some other don't get the concept of "spring cleaning" either. So, I can understand that some people don't understand the concept of "social network spring cleaning"... - Zackatoustra

Yeah, I know. Here's his Tweet: http://twitter.com/webaddi... -- he claims I'm gaming my way to more followers (he's autofollowing too, so isn't that like the kettle calling the pot black?) Plus he's an SEO expert. - Robert Scoble

In my case it was http://twitter.com/network... - Holger Eilhard

Holger: yeah, it's amazing that people think that's cool. If those folks ever move over here to FriendFeed then I'll know it's time to move on. - Robert Scoble

Some expert, his website was last updated with a social media post in May - Mark

It's getting to the point one has to go for quality over on Twitter, not quantity, now. - George Hall (Australia)

I cut myself back to 280 I follow and 320 followers. - George Hall (Australia)

There must be a social media expert School around here someplace. - Mark

And then there's all this "Pay us for followers" thing going on... In various ways, either by being featured on a "big" website or - the really stupid way - by being followed by some bots, which will be deleted sooner or later... - Holger Eilhard

I did the unfollow thing once on Twitter because I couldn't read all the noise, then, I added a bunch of people back because I convinced myself that I shouldn't read all the noise. Now, I'm leaning towards a lean following list again. Thanks for the boost. - Adam

Well, @JeffreyHayzlett is one person who still thinks following back is a polite thing to do. - K N Ajit Narayan

Interesting, not a single new FriendFeed user has joined this comment area. I'm already following everyone who has commented here. So, I guess the migration is already complete. - Robert Scoble

Hmmm - its this type of effort to evade the bots that makes me things may all break down into a soup of failure. Why can't the follow system only actually *follow* someone if there's a two-conversation at least once? - Justin Howard

K N: the thing is I know that person is NOT reading your Tweets. there's no way he can, especially if he's a busy executive. - Robert Scoble

Well Sir Robert of Scoble, you did say a while back Friendfeed growth has stagnated but all other social sites are growing exponentially :( - Mark

Mark: that is true, but Facebook is doing it by getting normal people to join up. Twitter is doing it because of celebrities. FriendFeed's growth will be slower and more organic. - Robert Scoble

Mark...don't worry, I think Friendfeed could still catch up. Especially if people are finding Twitter needs too much spring-cleaning too often. - George Hall (Australia)

Robert: What's the difference for you with following x thousand people on FF but not on Twitter? Are you using the Hide feature much and/or do you use many lists? Sorry, if this has been asked over and over. - Holger Eilhard

George: that's true. If FriendFeed hits the right UI they could really take off well. - Robert Scoble

Holger: I use lists. I need to do a video explaining my new methodology. But generally the smaller lists are more useful. Same on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

well they have plenty of smart people working at FF - Mark

If (when) twitter releases Group support, you will have to go back and start all over again rob :D - Mark

Robert: I don't think FF is that far away now from hitting its critical mass to take-off. That spammer situation on Twitter is starting to make it less joyful to use. - George Hall (Australia)

Mark: nope, I'll be in a great position! My first group is already complete. :-) - Robert Scoble

God those spammers are annoying, I was reporting them to @Spam from the public timeline yesterday. Twitter seems to act on @Spam very quickly - Mark

Robert: The UI is a major problem with FF. I still don't feel like using it. Only @Scobleizer brings me back to FF :( - K N Ajit Narayan

We were following the Cricket match with the #ashes tag and the fucking spammers were including it too so it was ruining the experience - Mark

Heck, if the situation on Twitter is such I can safely trim/block around 400-500 people, it means it isn't really that valuable in the long term. - George Hall (Australia)

Mark: yeah, spam noise in search really makes things suck. In FriendFeed you can search by groups. That is so freaking cool. - Robert Scoble

K N: have you tried a different theme yet: http://friendfeed.com/setting... I use Grasslands and like it better. - Robert Scoble

I'm also noting that real and talkative/friendly NEW followers on Twiter are getting fewer and far between. - George Hall (Australia)

George I've noticed that new users are hard to get here too. - Robert Scoble

But at least the subscibers here are great to talk with. - George Hall (Australia)

Yup, agreed! The community here is a lot more fun. - Robert Scoble

was this true Rob? http://ff.im/698cg - Mark

Robert: Hmm, Grasslands looks better. Will give FF another chance. - K N Ajit Narayan

There is something about destroytwitter.com client that has me not use FriendFeed more though... I really like a skinny window sitting on the desktop that i can glance at occasionally :) re the unfollow thing - I get lots of randoms following me that I'm not going to follow back - don't interest me - Nicholas Orr

In terms of enjoyable experience, I think I've enjoyed this past week here on Friendfeed a bit better than I enjoyed the Twitter experience in the same period. The gloss is really starting to come off Twitter itself, although a lot of my social media friends are there. - George Hall (Australia)

Why would you want someone who would not be able to see your posts to follow you? Numbers? - Anton Tanderup

Mark, yeah, that was true, a couple of times. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I think you do such a great job about discussion the "new tech" and trends and now trying to bring the tech stuff to small business. I thought you followed so many people becasue they could lead you to something new stuff you have not seen or ware of. What has changed? do you have new sources that can keep you updated? I assume as you said before FF is enough for that ..right? Joao/Techfuga - TechFuga

I'll venture a guess Twitter's own spammer purge showed us all something about the follower lists we hadn't noticed before. - George Hall (Australia)

Anton: why wouldn't a follower be able to see you? I don't get that. - Robert Scoble

I always thought it was great that you followed me, but I don't think I offer that much in the way of "value." :-) So I'm not put out.... Seriously. - Joanmarie

Joanmarie: I follow you here already. - Robert Scoble

One other thing: you should get a return on your investment/time..I hope you already do with RackSpace :). By the way we changed all our hosting architecture to Cloud at RackSpace thanks to you and thanks to me following you here in FF. we are very very happy ...please tell that to your boss at RackSpace....Joao/Techfuga - TechFuga

Robert: If he's following 100k people :) - Anton Tanderup

Robert - This is what I was getting at yesterday; even though you might not follow me on Twitter, I know you'll see - and respond to, when appropriate - any comments I make here on FF, so I'm not "missing out" by you not following me. - Andrew Terry

I always wondered how you made sense of a 10k+ person stream, Robert. - Tech Introvert

Tech: big screens and FriendFeed. That took most of my attention over past 18 months. Now I saw that Twitter really was a chore and wasn't fun because of all the spam. Now it's a lot nicer. - Robert Scoble

I like to talk to real people not spam bots - Randy Allen Bishop

I get so much more information from friendfeed, and I follow significantly less people. - Jordan Patterson

Lists are very powerful in lieu of better information tagging tools. Search is even stronger but requires me manually poking around - Mark Essel from iPhone

You finaly got me to sign up - I resisted this long. In my head I guess i was getting my head round twitter, last thing I needed was to get my head round twitter 2.0 aswell.. but it ocured to me, the worst case, is its like a client for twitter, and a post you did a few days ago, sugested, maybe using twitter as a client for FF.. Anyway, can't hurt to have a go, can it! - Nathan Vingoe

I feel the same as Joanmarie. I'm not likely to be the one to break new tech news, so don't know that my tweets contribute much value to Robert's stream. Pretty sure I can just @scobleizer if I really feel like I'm on to something. I constantly try to keep my follows lean, and spend way too much time checking out new followers who I have no idea why they follow me. - motownmutt

I don't see much spam at all on Twitter, but that may be because I follow maybe 1 person for every 30 or so that follow me (300:9000). I think spam is the result of "courtesy" following if someone follows you - in other words, you cause your own spam. - Trent Hamm

Not everybody who is involved with SEO is just using Twitter for followers. Some are professional online marketers with an interest in tech. - Paul M Evans from iPhone

I keep playing Sam Jackson from Pulp Fiction in my head, "Say SEO (or Social Media Expert) one more time mutha-******"! - Shaun Hess

thanks for the follow robert .. hope you and the family are doing well , greetings from canada - johnpiercy

Hey robert. How is the experiment working out?????? - Roberto Bonini

I posted this two days ago (But I'm not Scoble so very few saw): So if you follow someone on Friendfeed, should you unfollow them on Twitter? Why not? - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

scobleizer has been following me here on ff ever since i started participating... i was very flattered, until i learned that he just followed everyone - Chris Heath

Appreciate Scoble's embrace of innovative & effective ways to communicate, including video, which we're all about. We've been kind of obsessing over your work lately on http://www.market7.com/blog and hope we'll have opportunity to meet again soon (last time was at Salt Lick in Austin) -- next time hopefully over our web service for better video production instead of an awesome plate of ribs - Market7

I really don't see Twitter and FriendFeed as having the same uses. I use twitter to communicate with my real life friends, for the most part. FF is more about conversations on things that interest me. Sure, some of my RLFriends are here, and I follow them, but that's not the primary use I get from FF. - Otto

Looking forward to joining the conversation here too... - Brian Baumley

Im gonna use the Screen Door Analogy ,, I recently put the Screendoor on my Twitter "the lock on my account " it allows me to control all the bugs coming in and I still get all the fresh air and the same view - johnpiercy

The ability to put people on lists here on Friendfeed makes it very easy to use it for real friends and as a way to keep up with other interesting people and thus seems to me that it's just a matter of time before it replaces twitter if people really use that feature. - russellcoleman

I think Samuel is the first person I've seen that uses Twitter as a real life friend system (instead of Facebook) and FriendFeed as the wide open conversation tool. Usually I see Friendfeeders were/are wide open Twitter users as well (the gateway drug). I'm sure there are more using the tools that way, I just find that perspective interesting. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

FF is great for those who like to share visually as well as converse ,, Twitter is the quick water cooler chat , FF is the dinner time chat - johnpiercy

I think the problem for some people is that they want a higher number of followers and so may not want to unfollow people—even if they are just spammers. Personally I'd rather have a smaller network of people following me who are actually interested in what I post on Twitter. (And who actually read their Twitter messages at least once in a while.) - David Rondeau

Hi Robert! I follow you on twitter and FF. I like to keep up with you since I'm an avid social media user and new media content producer. @marylynn3 here & on Twitter. - Mary-Lynn

You better be following me, is all I can say :-) Course, I'm on Friend Feed too. - Jay Rosen

Robert, I continue to be amazed at how you do what you do, across what, 20 different social media channels? When do you sleep exactly? Would be great if you could add me to your follow list, thanks - Scott Booher

If someone follows me on Twitter, I read every profile, the stream, their profile/blog link, and then decide. It does take time, (& I follow a bunch), but worth it to me. I like to read what great minds are thinking. On Twitter however, the increase in Spammers has really driven me to look for better ways to engage. I hate housecleaning. - Karen Masullo

On Twitter I usually first follow lots of people and sort them out later - tweet by tweet. I also follow more than 2k people on FriendFeed, and it's fun! If it gets to much for you: The group function will help. Greets from Germany! :-) - Kolja

I really only read anything on FF. I go follow people on Twitter and then update from FF. That's the extent of my twitter interactions. I have one problem though: you can't insert a line break on these comments, so I inadvertently post before I'm finished. Btw, I don't mind if you don't follow me since I'm a bit boring. Your posts, on the other hand, are like mini conversations; It's awesome! - Californian

Mark Nielsen: I use Facebook as a real life friend system too. Realistically, I think of Twitter much more in the way I think of TXT messaging. Because that's obviously the underlying design principle there: Broadcast SMS Messages. So, on that level, I tend to only want to receive the text messages of people I know and of services I use. This limits who I follow to those that I want to have two-way conversations with, which tends to be people I know IRL. - Otto

Makes sense. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

You know, I haven't even checked to see if you follow me anymore or not. I think people will just get over themselves and make social media work in whatever way is best for them. I'm trimming out the SEO junk from my time line, but I find value in following real people on Twitter be it 100 or 600. It's not fair to call people 'noise', just trim out the people you're not interested in keeping up with and be done with it. Right? - Mike Lewis

If someone follows me, I look at this as an opportunity to see what they write about (be it on Twitter or Friendfeed). If they are funny or interesting, I follow back. But if they don't continue to be interesting or funny, I unfollow. There's just too much information and I want to absorb some of it - and not waste time or brain cells on the uninteresting (or unfunny). - amygeek

I agree Robert. I tend to read much more of the posts and comments out there in FF than I ever did/do/would on Twitter. I love Twitter's simplicity, but it's a bit too simple sometimes--mostly on the sharing side of the thing. The Like and Comment features are my faves for both FF and Facebook. - Hans Eisenman

"If those folks ever move over here to FriendFeed then I'll know it's time to move on" LOL :) I god a kick out of that one. :) - Frode Stenstrøm

Cyber-sixty-niners are just a quite popular way to proclaim brain amputation. Reminds me of a self-sucking Ron Jeremy ... I mean, can't for the sake of common sense in social media those attention whores leave the InterWeb alone? Doh! - Sebastian

That idea that Twitter would replace RSS last what? A month? I have never seen such an overrated tool/website/platform. ;P (Not that I don't use it, mind you, hehe.) - Marcos

Note what could be the next competitive frontier for Google vs Apple and Google vs Microsoft for mobility and search in The Genome Based Economy.Jack M. Germain in TechNewsWorld, http://www.technewsworld.com/story... on the stunning development that Genomics moves to PDAs, at the very moment that Google clashes with Apple on mobiles, and Google and Microsoft confront each other... more... - Suzanne Matick

I'm thinking that I might have to start giving my FriendFeed account much more attention. On Twitter I have 2 orders of magnitude less followers than you Robert, but even for me the spam is starting to get a bit ridiculous. It does seem to be becoming a haven for spammers & scammers and not the networking place that I really enjoyed for quite a while. If Twitter doesn't want to die before it reaches maturity, it really needs to find a way to control spam & find a way to build community in new ways. - David van Sunder

<chuckles> scobleizer does a mass unfollow and it generates some decent discussion on the negatives of twitter. Its almost fun watching the people who follow you promptly unfollow you a week later because you didnt follow back.. for about a week. I keep saying it would be good to add a meta layer to twitter (or maybe friendfeed would do it?) that allows for some context or grouping. Not everyone wants to see all of someone's tweets. - Riaz Kanani

Well I'll give you this Robert, at least you do still "listen" and respond. :P First of all, I am not calling the kettle black because my point was that due to you autofollowing everyone & then unfollowing them all that was gaming the system. Just as you didn't have time to follow every single person following you, I don't either. Of course I auto follow. I don't see anything wrong with... more... - Joel Mackey

Joel: if I am gaming explain how I lost 7,000 in one day. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I am so glad I am a nurse and I earn an honest living doing something important. I would be ashamed if I "earned" my living helping people get higher ranked on google. - Mark

I hear you loud and clear Robert. I'm not saying you aren't taking a major hit & will probably continue to see that come your way for a few days. I see your loss & a majority of it is probably autounfollows, LOL, ah the cycle of automation. Listen Robert, I'm really not taking a shot at you, just voicing my opinion & feelings that due to you participating in autofollow for a very long... more... - Joel Mackey

Mark: I'll respond to you once because you seem to think you have a grasp on who I am. I'd like to set you straight real quick before you get that good feeling inside of you thinking you are making any sense or good points at all. Just because I can do SEO does not mean that is what I do for a living. I have a programming degree & do a ridiculous number of things. Just because I'm not... more... - Joel Mackey

sorry for being a dick, had a bad day xx - Mark

Mark: Sweet. No problem. You're always entitled to your opinion. Hope your day gets better. Nurses deserve to be paid better & get more respect. You've got mine but I also admire that you apologized. That's rare in this world. :P Take care buddy. - Joel Mackey

This is a long post so I need to check I get it, "gaming googles SEO gaming isnt gaming on the autofollow gaming game of Friendfeed gaming twitter game? - Robert Higgins

Joel: I disagree. I had a very large following before I even turned on autofollow. And I don't have autofollow turned on here and I have a very large following. I never got into using TweetDeck for groups. If anything I use FriendFeed for that. Anyway, your point that autofollowing increasing followers is right, but as I have demonstrated once you unfollow all those people go away. They... more... - Robert Scoble

I've ALWAYS said who you follow is more important than who is following you. Now I'm putting that into practice even more. If you're following me just to have me follow you back you're following me for the wrong reason. - Robert Scoble

It really doesn't matter what social network you using there are going to be a group that you connect and interact with regularly and the rest of your following. My reach is farther than what I see everyday, then again maybe I have just fallen for the hype. - Dawn Pigoni

Agreed, never follow just for the follow back. As for the inability to put people on lists on Twitter, there are twitter clients that work just as well. - Brian Ellis

Robert's right. I'm almost a fanatic about that. - Dennis Jernberg

I don't see it as necessary to follow someone both on Twitter and Friendfeed. Although I generally like to catch what you have to say, Robert , so I follow you on both services. - Martha

One I use is Twibes. I never liked that Twitter itself doesn't have a groups function. - Dennis Jernberg

I use T-Deck. I have multiple accounts and T-Deck makes it very easy to control them. - Brian Ellis

What do you guys call your friendfeed groups? - Mark from iPhone

Let's be Twitter buddies again, mmk? :) - Joshua M

Don't follow me, my twitter feed is really dull. - Alex Scrivener

Robert: You said, "I never got into using TweetDeck for groups." I specifically used to refer people to your videos demonstrating TweetDeck and how it enables you to follow so many people. I laughed when I saw them because it allowed me to not have to explain it & just send them your way. So at one point you were evangelizing the use of TweetDeck for Groups & filtering all of the people... more... - Joel Mackey

I've made my "lists" in PeopleBrowsr, so for me Twitter and FriendFeed works the same when it comes to filtering the noise. - Svartling

Svartling: I'm so heavily dependent on Peoplebrowsr now that Twitter's almost unusable without it. I like Friendfeed a lot. just still figuring out how to work it into my daily flow. - Kevin Arth

I didn't read any of this but i was here - Doubledown_inSL

I haven't been using FF much, but this conversation is giving me a reason to take a second look at FF. I can not keep up with the spam. I do enjoy Twitter for the conversation, but not to keep up with a lot of people. I miss the interesting tweets in the mass of spam and porn. - Michele McGraw from iPhone

I feek the same way, Michele. What I am uncertain about is whether I can use FriendFeed to organize my Twitter friends right out of the gate or do those whom I wish to follow using FF have to using FF as well? I just haven't quite had the time to explore it. If it's the latter it would be another app I would have to get friends to use and that would probably decrease the # of actual... more... - Hans Eisenman from email

I use FriendFeed as kind of a 'best of the best' of Twitter. Where I can really read and digest what's going on. Brilliant blog post, btw. - Thor

Loved your blog post. Still trying to figure out how to make the most of FriendFeed, but following you is probably a good start. - Ed

I personally find FriendFeed to be more pleasing because of the ease in following threaded conversations. But I have been using TweetDeck and it allows me to place tweeps in groups/columns, similar to FF groups, so I can parse out things I WANT to see. However, I was following anyone who followed me, and now I have a lot of spam and market/MLM posts that I need to sift through... annoying. I will be going on an unfollow twitter spree once it's back up and stable from the DoS attacks. - Timothy Federwitz

Gonna have to get that Peoplebrowsr from the sound of it. - Hans Eisenman from email

Been trying to login to Peoplebrowsr with my Twitter ID and it's telling me wrong pw, and yet I can log in to Twitter with same pw. Wonder if it's at all related to the DOS attack Twitter was having. - Hans Eisenman

It always takes some effort to shift a dynamic. I appreciate you rethinking your social networking preferences publicly, it's given me a lot to think about. - Jo Golden PhD

hopefully i didn't get lost in the "twitter-shed"...I totally support what you did - Crackle

Thank you for the insightful post Robert. Great points to your discussion on WHY you did it. We can all learn. - Matthew

Zee.

Who was your first email account with? Moi. Hotmail...God, that was/is awful.

May 14 - Comment - Like - Share

Yant, Amanda, tom murphy and 46 other people liked this

karoo for me. - alphaxion

221 more comments

America Online...wait...no. Prodigy! - Candace

WebTV. - Rochelle

sciboard.louisville.edu or iglou.com, both about the same time. - Tsali, The Native of FF

Local ISP, until I realized the value of webmail. Then yup, it was Hotmail. - Bradley McSpinn

AOL.com, back when Windows 95 was so money it didn't even know it. - Tyler Hayes

First e-mail account was with Sprynet when it was CompuServe's Web-only ISP -- before the AOL buyout! - Jared Smith

wisc.edu - Dave Winer

ecu.edu - Beebo Wallace

Prodigy. - Oliver Ortega Chua

citiz.net - yagami

i don't even remember i think it was planet something or i dunno something like that no wait i don't know why i'm thinking earlyalert.com i don't know i'm probably wrong lol - Cardeen Martinez

crikey, i've never even heard of some of these... - Zee.

A BBS in Morgan Hill. - Rodfather

1st public internet email was via easy.com ... my own domain via ISP I started in 1993. 1st corporate email was 1978 ish internal on our private global DECNET, connected to public Internet in about 1984. - Don Strickland

A shell account in '92, I forget with who. Was BBS'ing for years before that, and they sort of had email. - Bob Morris (polizeros)

wow, very impressive Jason...and Don! - Zee.

Hotmail was my first email provider. - Andrew Trinh

aol - ♥patricia♥

mail.com. Alternative back than was only hotmail (I think, can't remember about yahoo) which totally sucked. I think mail.com is extinct now, but they used to have multiple domains. And I had about 5 different accounts. 4, 5, or 6MB, can't really remember exactly. Wow, the days... This is one example (of many) where I'm very happy we are where we are today. - Vlad Bobleanta

I can't remember. Possibly Yahoo, but I think Yahoo may have come later... - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Compuserve, then "Niftyserve" the licensee of Compuserve here in Japan. We have it so good now! - Rick Cogley

Hotmail, way back in 1998 (although before that I had an ISP email through Frontier) - Brandon Mendelson

AOL. - LB - all new for '10!

AOL. I shutter at the thought - BCK

PSU.edu, 1989 - Dave Roth

Toronto FreeNet. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

Michigan State University - Steve Lowe

Yahoo mail. Still have it but its been so spamefied I hardly use it anymore. - TkFromWestSide

My employer - Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue - circa 1984. - Gary Walter (gwalter)

Hotmail - Tim Keneipp

Prodigy in 1991, followed shortly thereafter by AOL 1.0 for the Mac, then Compuserve. And finally a POP internet dialup with Chicago's Interaccess in about 1992 after getting Adam Engst's Internet starter kit book that came with a copy of the Mac/TCP control panel on a 3 1/2" floppy. - Adam Turetzky

Prodigy, then AOL - Robert Kenney

My first was at work. heamin@sunshine.vab.unisysgsg.com -- no joke. Then I had an alumna account with Virginia Wesleyan, and then I think I picked up a yahoo account. My first web site was on geocities, and it was so kewl for its time, too. :-) - Ladybug Heather

AOL - Derrick

<- AOL - Costa Walcott

AOL then Juno - Violet Mae Lim

drexel.edu and compuserve - Peter Ghosh

Technically, my first email address was on an internal mail service for a large corporation back in 1991, but it was possible to email other people on the internet with a byzantine series of pipes, slashes, gateways and hostnames. My first personal email on the internet proper was with a regional dialup service called pics.com in 1992. - dthree

Pixi.net - Trish Haley

I forget the exact name, but it was local and called Charlotte's Web. I live in Charlotte, NC. - Matthew

75106,3139 - Leo Laporte

I want to say Compuserve - BASEnet

whats 75106,3139? - Zee.

74127,2227 - Christopher Barnes

aol - Computerwhiz1

Those are Compuserve addresses Zee - Adam Turetzky

AOL - Gabe Diaz

Prodigy - Nick Smith

Oof. CompuServe! - Akiva Moskovitz

ah, interesting - thanks Adam - Zee.

My first was a VAX server at lamar.edu but I quickly shifted to an Ultrix machine also at lamar.edu. So, lamar.edu. - Akiva Moskovitz

webtv. - Nation Hahn

Yay Nation Hahn! - Rochelle

aol - Russ Jackson

76020,702 lol, had to look mine up! - Adam Turetzky

I had brlewis@mit.edu in 1986 way before there ever was such a thing as spam. Now there's probably not a single spammer's list out there that doesn't have that address. I still log in there occasionally. - Bruce Lewis

netcom - Scott Slade

A tiny, local ISP here in Vermont call Kingdom Connection. I was one of the first 25 subscribers I think, and I still have my original e-mail address. Scary. - Bob M. Montgomery

Mine was AOL. Man that was a long time ago.. - David van Sunder from Nambu

Hotmail for me as well. Recalling this alone makes me nauseous. ;-) - Dan Dashnaw

I had a Hotmail account as well. Never again. - Diego Espinoza V.

columbia.edu - Morton Fox

geez... I can't even remember. - Jim in Real Time

umich.edu - Ken Sheppardson

Prodigy. Then AOL. Then Berkeley.edu followed by Earthlink.net, Home.com, ATTBI.com, and then Mac.com. (Also in there, GMail, Excite, Netscape, and work accounts, etc.) - Louis Gray

Hotmail - Sometime in 1997 I think. My first email account for work was in 1998. - David Yarnell

AOL. I was so excited to get Hotmail because at the time, it was cooler than AOL. Heh. Then Yahoo and now Gmail. And that's it, not counting work/school accounts. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Prodigy. - Admiral Anika

tamu.edu before that I was on some BBS's with RelayNet mail. In 1988 I got a 9600 baud modem and I'm telling you it was so fast. - Jeff

crap whatever we had at college before the internet had pictures or an internet. :) We could send messages between colleges though - Steve C

Probably Mindspring. - Gunny doesn't side-hug™

Mine was AOL over my 2400 baud modem. - Allen Blair

<student id>@<sydney university undergrad domain), then something at extro.com.au which was the Sydney University dial up provider then good ol iname.com. I thought that would be my non service provider bound email address, till they decided to charge for it. Thank god for gmail. - Tom Horn

Compuserve was my first Internet email address. - Gary Walter (gwalter) from fftogo

email.com - Alex Scrivener

Hotmail I'm ashamed to say. - Daniel Drysdale from Nambu

web mail? Gmail. Otherwise Carleton U - Capn' One Eye - adrift

Hotmail as well :( - Drew Lucas

Genie - Randy Caldwell

yahoo - oooh forgot about Juno! - BEX

Actually, my first email was with MCI*Mail. NOT internet email. The next one was Compuserve. Still not internet. My first internet account was on a server at my employer in Austin. - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

My math prof gave me an account on a NeXT box. - Hiro Asari

ISP provider, bellsouth.net, I then upgraded to Hotmail. lol - Sharon McPherson

@MSN.com.. Yup MSN was my first provider. It was them or AOL, and I knew better. - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Compuserve was my first "email" (not internet) and nassau community college was my first internet email address - Bastard Operator From FF

A local ISP called Jetlink. - Stan Augustyniewicz

Alta Vista - Brent - Loving Life

My first email address that I used, but didn't control was gmail. My primary address and everyone I've had has been in my own house. - Dustin Sallings

Hotmail. 2MB. Remember that? - David Damore

Mississippi State University. 1990 or 1991... (might have been 89) - Tad

rocketmail.com - James Beake

AOL - Kim Landwehr from BuddyFeed

stanford.edu - Paola Bonomo

aol - David Dudley

Yahoo - haven't used it for many years now. - Ahsan Ali aka. Slick

My employer, Microsoft. 1983 - Rod Bauer from twhirl

my very first was in the early 1980s at Uof Penn, my first online email was hotmail - Monique

Hotmail. - Steven Perez

University in '94. didn't know what email was before that. - mikepk

*.syr.edu '90ish. bbs handles since 80s - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Back in Romania, when the whole Internet thing was just showing up there (1993?), a VAX/VMS machine (roearn.ici.ac.ro, also ROEARN on Bitnet) - Tudor Bosman

Prodigy. Before that I was on BBS which was my first chatroom, a lot of people trying to log into a room that would only fit 8. Good times. - zephyrlily

deeptht.armory.com, a local SCO box. still have the account: http://www.armory.com/~peter/ - coffee

AOL of course - Keith - @tsudo

Well my first email was hotmail in like 2004, but before that, our family account was yahoo which was around 94/95 (which i think it was better UI then vs today) now i use gmail for everything! - Bryce Campbell

yep hotmail - Dobromir Hadzhiev

usa.net - Petr Buben

The University of Leeds in 1997, closely followed by Yahoo Mail in the same week. I still have the Yahoo account but only use it to log into Flickr. - Martin Bryant

Compuserve...over and over again with those 30 day trials :) - Mark Krynsky

usa.net (netaddres) - Toni @ NavinoT

On the WWW it was msn.com but I was on BBS before then and the address was something like portofcall.net - Kol Tregaskes

Back at my college (ISU) in the early 90's. Used Pine on a Unix server. - Ward Seward

Hotmail for me too. Amazing that it's still so popular - Gee Ranasinha

Two at same time, utk.edu for work and hotmail for personal, I actually still use that hotmail acct. - Brytne from Nambu

Why is everyone hating on Hotmail? Oh yeah, I know, it's cool to bash MS. It was and is one of the better webmails out there. My first was yahoo.co.uk - Matt Hall

not for sure but i am guessing hotmail maybe yahoo - (jeff)isageek

AOL. - tehKenny, Dork

yahoo - Alfredo

Luukku, it's finnish email service. Not really good... - Kristian Salonen

AOL for sure -- had one under my parents' account, probably early to mid 90s. Signed up for Hotmail in 1997 when I was in college (still have that account, though I really never use it). Of course, I had a standard-issue "geneseo.edu" college account starting in 1996 when I started college. - mark

umich.edu - DGentry

cmich.edu - l.m.orchard from twhirl

Actually, I lie, cmich.edu was my second - some funky FidoNet address leading to a BBS was the first. - l.m.orchard from twhirl

erols out of Maryland then hotmail then gmail with an occasional visit to yahoo mail cause they made me have a yahoo mail account for yahoo IM and other Yahoo properties (flickr). - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

AOL, then freeserve! *1998 face* - Iain Baker

Internal mail in my high school in 94, using Pegasus. Signed up for Hotmail in 95 I think. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

I think it was yahoo or usa.net - Shamir Ramjan

worldnet (does not exist anymore, french provider) - Olivier

CompuServe (72740,114) c. 1989, ysu.edu c. 1993 - Michael McKean

Mine was with Hotmail too. :-/ - Ben LaMothe

Compuserve, then Demon and well.com - Fraser Smith

It was "pobox.sk" <- clever name for an email for that time :) abandoded them after some other guys has offered pop3 for free. History long gone. - Dušan Šimonovič

Local ISP and then Hotmail. - Kevin Bondelli

OMG am I as old as Leo Laporte? LOL no, but I had an email account at Rutgers Univ that was numbers (I don't remember what it was though) & then Prodigy was my first - PCChick. funny I'm a mac girl now. - Lynette Young

Local ISP then Hotmail and Yahoo! mail. - Ninh Nguyen

Hotmail, at the time it was good compated to everyone else, then went down the toilet fast, it's better these days but I prefer my Gmail account thank you. - Eric Fisher

Compuserve. I AM NOT A NUMBER! - John Craft

yahoo...still use it, but hate its non-existent spam filter...gmail is still the best at spam cleaning...i have hotmail for msn, but recently they've improved the mail feature, so i use more often now - brainno722 (Peter)

Compuserve (73000,673 if memory serves me right)... and some other obscure usenet type account through a local BBS. - Carlos Granier-Phelps

CompuServe in 1979 (70040,104). - George Brickner

BTW, the CompuServe addresses were known as PPNs (Project Programmer Number). - George Brickner

Hotmail - Damond Nollan

prodigy, if I remember correctly - Chieze Okoye

yep, I was on prodigy too for a couple of months, then Rjcc @aol and i've been using that nick for 13~ years now - Richard Lawler

AOL, back in the day - Matthew Allen Horton

hotmail - Rudolf Olah

Promenade aka AOL, probably. But I've had Hotmail for 10 years -- I got an email celebrating my decade with Hotmail a few weeks ago. - Tamar Weinberg

AOL - Katie is Frittering

Hotmail :( - Mitra_s

uchicago.edu, then nytimes.com finally got my deasil.com address about a year after school and have had that ever since. :) - felix

mine was hotmail too. - Thom Allen

Used excite for a long time, until yahoo and google started theirs up and actually offered some sort of spam protection. - Matt Thompson from fftogo

Juno - Martha

Hotmail. Agree it was awful! I can't believe I ever thought it was okay for the first page of my email client to be a page filled with ads, as opposed to the actual inbox. - Jess Lee

Compuserve. I don't think it was possible to send formatted text outside of Compuserve back then. - howard shippin

TSO, which started out as tso.uc.edu but eventually became tso.cin.ix.net. - Wirehead

UUCP email account at Bell Labs, reached via something like ucbvax!ihnp4!...!fcy Then an account at mcs.net, a Chicago area ISP. - Fred Yankowski

MyOwnEmail.com. I don't know if they're even still around. - James Ferguson

I can't remember if I did juno or hotmail first. I think juno.... - EricaJoy

Mine was with netins.net because they offered toll-free dial-up access in the Spring of 1995 - Michael K Pate

My first email was at my job at Sybase in 1993. - Lisha Sterling from twhirl

aol when I was in 5th grade. Username: hawaiiman2. Cuz hawaii is like cool and stuff. - Daniel Morgan

cix UK - John Francis

cs.berkeley.edu - Piaw Na

I guess my first e-mail account was with my ISP, but the first web based e-mail account was good ol' hotmail. - Jeremy

AOL *facepalm* - Mike Lewis

I think it was AOL or Compuserve - Shevonne

AOL, Delphi or Compuserve, dunno - I partied a lot between then and now. - jcunwired

LOL @Leo!! - jcunwired

My first public email account was with MCI Mail (in the eon of X.25). My first email on a TCP/IP network was with Netcom. - Lorin Olsen

not sure, usa.net or hotmail.com - Gökmen Karasu

Compuserve, then when AOL bought them, Netcom, which was bought by Mindspring, who then was bought by Earthlink - William Harryman

The US government. - Alex Scoble

Hotmail, not msn hotmail. just "Hotmail" - irfan ÖZTÜRK

Same here: pre-MSN Hotmail. - josh neff, geek at large

MSN.com -- I was a beta tester for the MSN network during it's Windows 95 Launch. I had FREE dialup access during the extended beta testing period. - Anthony K. Valley ©

AOL - I HAD MAIL! - Mona Nomura

Mine was a free email account from a local ISP (community.net). - Beau Liening

oh shit... it must've been Compuserve, although I don't remember if I had real email in there.If not, Yahoo Mail was the first portal mail I had (and I had jungleg@yahoo.com, but then lost it for some reason and couldn't get it back) - Jorge Escobar

uh.edu, then hotmail. - Arlan Koizumi

UUCP email on unix .. circa 86 - Peter Dawson

comunista@aol.com - i thought it was funny. - mike

starwarsbuff@hotmail.com - yeah, that was back in middle school. LOL - Mike Templeton

Mindspring.com - Darrell Bell from twhirl

hawaii.edu - Josh Haley

aol - Amber, Random Time Lord

Aol huuuh - Marie Jubin from Nambu

Admittedly - AOL. - AJ Kohn

@tamu.edu - Carlos M. Gomes

AOL > Compuserve > Burntmail - Kevin Pruett

first email account was @andrew.cmu.edu & first webmail was with lycos! - Matyjas from fftogo

USA.net - Helen Sventitsky

Prodigy! Oh wow. That was a long time ago. I remember I had some 25 cents an e-mail plan. I used to get in trouble from my parents when I went over my allotted amount. I can't imagine paying 25 cents an e-mail today. - Jennifer Mitchell

execpc.com. haha. - David Chartier from BuddyFeed

Compuserve - Bryan R. Adams

pitt.edu, then netaxs.com. - B. Hatin

Penn State University - Ernie Oporto

My graduate school, University of Kentucky. It was on VMS. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

hotmail - Dane Findley

angelfire - Rachel Lea Fox

Hotmail, but they closed it due to inactivity. I wish I still had it, though. It's impossible to get my name anywhere now. - Michael Fidler

Yahoo. Now I'm in gmail and I love it... - Amy H.

Local ISP, Connect2 I think was the name. Haha. Didn't even have 56K internet speed yet at the time. First web based email was Hotmail before Microsoft acquired it. - Rolf Schewe

Other than my Bell Labs account? Delphi. Fun-ky... - John Blossom

AOL and then Hotmail....two real winners.....not! - Bonnie Foster

hotmail 1995 - Muge Cerman

mail.com *shrug* XD - 'Like' robot (frɐnc)

AOL -> Yahoo -> gmail - imabonehead

Hotmail for me. I haven't used it in 3 years. - Michael Forian

My first emailaddress was at my own designstudio: hoofdcommissaris@cops.nl (meaning 'chief of police') And brought me my nickname Hoof (or Hoof99). - Ruud van Wijngaarden

hotmail - Bill Hice

@msstate.edu, my university in 1996? - Phillip Stewart

Messaging on the Univac in late 70s probably, at the college. BITNET, HEPNET, ARPANET in late 1980s. (Ignoring the BBS phenom of 80s.) EDU & GOV 1989+ My own domain I hosted around 1994. NEVER AOL or that fake-Internet stuff of the mid-90s. Ewww! After years of GOV, moved to COM at work in 1999. Started using GMAIL for all my personal mail when that was in Beta. I now have about 20 domains forward to GMAIL. - John Johnson

not counting university and school, or BBSes? My first email account would then have been jnebbe@ibm.net (back the first time when IBM did internet services) - they were one of the few to have reasonable dial up plans with a multi-country presence - and I was using OS/2 a lot then too. After it got bought by ATT and they changed the address, I decided that I would always have my own domain for email, so I would never lose people because I lose an email. Hosted it myself for years, now it's all with fastmail - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Yahoo. God bless Gmail! - Özgür Akman

"pipeline". anachronistic friend still has email account with them. - Marg Uerite

it was either aol or nyonline - Lynne d Johnson

Hotmail. Still have it. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

Hotmail...then I transferred to Gmail - Nicholas James

AOL for me... horrible. - Michelle

Yeah, hotmail. Not great is it... - Rich

yahoo, broke before I could use it then got a Hotmail - Yant

mashable

Love this: "Ivy Bean, 104 Years Old, is World's Oldest Twitterer" - http://thenextweb.com/2009...

May 15 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

★ Soner Gönül, Chris Jones, David Damore and David van Sunder liked this

That's pretty cool. I'll have to tell my grandparents about her when they say that they can't use a computer because they're too old. Now they have no excuse. She's got 20 years on them. - David van Sunder

Liked that story a lot. Gave her a #FollowFriday mention. - David Damore

I just love stories like this. She looks so spry. To think much younger people can't even operate a DVD player. - Chris Jones

Robert Scoble

Trend for 2010: intimacy parties where there's no Twitter, no Flickr, no blogging, no friendfeeding. I wanna do one in NYC next Thursday. Anyone else in?

May 14 - Comment - Like - Share

Jannifer @wordsforliving, Calvin Ayre, Mike Elliott and 57 other people liked this

Wouldn't that be a year too early? Wait, never mind. Early Adopter... =) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

95 more comments

I'm getting my 2010 Prius in a couple of weeks, so we are already in the 2010 Web. - Robert Scoble

My husband, the late adopter, would love your party, Robert... ;-) - Victoria Plautia

Can we make out? - Leo Laporte

I think you need another name for this kind of party. If you tell people that you are having an intimacy party, they are going to think you are a swinger or something. - Andrew

Social Media Unplugged? - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

lol leo - Andrew VanderVeen

Leo: if we made out we'd certainly test the system! - Robert Scoble

I can just see the news headlines already: "The Future Is Now! Blogger extraordinaire Scoble rebrands 20th century regular 'party' as 'intimacy party'" - Tyler Hayes

yeah, Robert, the branding on that is a little hinky. The first image I had of an "intimacy party" did not include twitter and friendfeed friends. - Karoli

How incredibly retro of you, Robert. Will you be reviving your AOL account, as well? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from fftogo

Karoli: yesterday I told a bunch of PR people that watching Twitter all day made me crave intimacy. They all thought I was talking about sex. I told them I wasn't talking about sexual intimacy. Watching 90,000 Twitterers makes me want to have a deep conversation about something. - Robert Scoble

MVB: AOL never had intimacy. - Robert Scoble

I would love to check out a party like this. I wonder if Dallas is ready for one. - ha3rvey (wants confit) from fftogo

i would be happy to attend - but how will i know where it is if we can't share the details online? carrier pigeon? - Allen Stern

Eau contraire Robert, AOL popularized the term "a/s/l" - the ULTIMATE form of intimacy. - Tyler Hayes

I blame Linda Stone for this. She invited me to one of her dinners. Eight people. No blogging. All hand selected. And she made sure we kept the conversation on something deep and intimate. - Robert Scoble

LOL, I give it 20 minutes before you're all shaking, bored and call the whole thing off and run for your iPhones and Blackberry's and Netbooks! Especially after the only two 7 minute conversation bursts where no one can cite any facts without Google and everything mentioned screams fodder for a tweet or blog post or streaming video or live picture. :) - Adam Turetzky

Tyler: I'm not talking about sexual intimacy. - Robert Scoble

Haha true. I may (small chance) be in the city next weekend. I'll meetup if I am. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from fftogo

Adam: I don't agree. You should have seen the geeks after TechCrunch's StarTrek showing. First of all, it kept me off of friendfeed for two hours. Second of all, we enjoyed talking about it afterward. - Robert Scoble

Quik ? - Eric Logan

MVB: I'll be in New York Thursday. Eric: Qik, you mean? Nope, not allowed. - Robert Scoble

Well then Robert, I look forward to the results and my hypotheses proved wrong. :) - Adam Turetzky

I guess Leo is serious about making this an intimacy party... - David van Sunder from Nambu

David: I'd make out with Leo and I'm straight. Just don't tell my wife, OK? She gets jealous. - Robert Scoble

Like the idea. Would appreciate learning more about someone than the minute slice they reveal on socnets. Especially since I've found it increasingly difficult to raise people using that antiquated device called the "phone." At least for voice. Seems like no one wants to have a conversation unless they can pause a few minutes to Google the best bons mots. (edit: I did not Google "bons mots.") - Sue Radd

Ironic you would friendfeed this idea. LOL - Christopher Mercer

Christopher: friendfeed is the best place for setting these up, isn't it? - Robert Scoble

If I was in NYC I'd be in, unfortunately I'm not. - Andrew VanderVeen

Iim in ! - Rich White

Robert: I just found it ironic you used social media to discuss a party void of social media. - Christopher Mercer

But all in all a good idea - Christopher Mercer

Linda Stone's parties told me something else. We have to limit each table to four people. Any more guarantees a lack of intimacy and depth. - Robert Scoble

so, is that just like a party...? - David Vyorst

Yeah, sounds pretty much like a good old fashioned dinner party, David. I'm having one of those tomorrow. Everything that's old is new again I suppose... - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

David: not really. I'm specifically going to invite people to sit at a specific table with three other specific people. That's what Linda Stone did and it created magic. - Robert Scoble

Would definitely like to see how this goes. if only i were in NYC....good luck to all attending it...To the organizer(s): Please post pics of any party games u carry out...esp ones that involve drinking. - Freddie Benjamin

Robert, that's a traditional dinner party, where everyone has assigned seating. Name cards if possible. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Tina: a dinner party is EXACTLY what we're talking about. Except limited to four people and assigned seating and a rule of no recording/broadcasting what happens. - Robert Scoble

Linda Stone does this at her house in Seattle and it creates magic. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Can you post/twit/ff afterwards? - Clifford Kennedy

Clifford: no. - Robert Scoble

Clifford: other than in general terms. When I went to one of Linda Stone's dinners, for instance, I was sitting next to an author and a tech researcher and a politician. It's a conversation that I'll remember the rest of my life, but can't be shared. - Robert Scoble

This is definitely a sign of the apocalypse. - Paul from twhirl

The fact that this is getting engagement tells me that my trend prediction has some fuel behind it. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I’m definitely intrigued. - Clifford Kennedy

based on what you do Robert and what you and I think the rest of us are passionate about, lets hope this doesn't catch on except in the realm of some type of rich person underground fetish thing. LOL :) I'd much rather see us push for 100MB fiber for everyone and have a virtual dinner party via iChat or Skype without dropouts or latency problems and in HD. :) - Adam Turetzky from IM

Adam: the older I get the more I realize that the reason we have all this technology is so we can find other people we want to meet around the world. I remember in the 1980s when the Internet was first being understood that people would say "you'll never travel anymore." Oh, yeah? Why did I do 120,000 miles on United last year? High def Skype will just make you want to meet that person on the other side even more. - Robert Scoble

Im in for that. Maybe not next Thursday. BUt isn't it like a tweet up? - kenneth glenn

Kenneth: no. A Tweetup is chaotic and not intimate. - Robert Scoble

It should be called an "analog party". - dthree

Do you think it would be possible to replicate the level playing field on sees in social media? I gauge "interestingness" based on words alone. Not your job, not your status, not your level of education and not your dough. - Sue Radd

Sue: the thing is, the more I get around the world, there is some correlation between education, status, dough, AND your words/interestingness. It's unfortunate in some cases, but true. - Robert Scoble

Sue: on the other hand, just because you have education, status, dough, that doesn't mean you are interesting, just that out of 1,000 people it makes it more likely. I have found some interesting people without any of the three, but it's tougher, that's for sure. - Robert Scoble

sure, you know where to find me!! - Bryan Thatcher

...but if someone doesn't Tweet, FF, or blog it, how do we know it ever happened? <wink> - .LAG liked that

LAG: the disruption in the force! :-) - Robert Scoble

I highly agree you don't need all three but the desire to learn and gain all those in some way is important. If you have all three, you tend to struggle outside the box. Maybe I'll unplug next Thursday in CT just to support the concept. Technology is a great tool but sometimes it's just noise and complicates things. - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Yet another type of party I won't be attending...LOL - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Funny how this feels like such a strange concept these days. - Mike Doeff

Scobleizer...i like it: Social Media Unplugged™... they used to call them "retreats" or "off-sites." - .LAG liked that

...I call it 'boys night out'! - .LAG liked that

Look at LAG trying to gank my phrase ;-) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

...I trademarked that shii Tina! but you get points for using the term "gank." sweet! - .LAG liked that

hey, NYC unplugged, boys night out? sounds good to me. i'm in! - Bob Sokol

Bob: boys and girls night out. - Robert Scoble

Fair enough. Either way, you've certainly found a lot of interest in this... - Bob Sokol

Well, enjoy these in the next few years while you still can. It will be difficult when you have to remove your networked retinal implants... - Christopher A Carr

I'll take to you around rural Texas, where this is still pretty much the norm. :) - Mike Chapman

i'm in!!! just say the name and place - Rob

So how does one find out about one of these parties, a piece of paper stapled to an electric pole? - Jeff Sher

Jeff: friendfeed of course! - Robert Scoble

I'm in, as long as you pay for my accommodation and travel fees :P - MλTT

Where in NY? I could be in. - C. K. Sample III

Pretty sure if I tried this I would go into a comma, shock, or have convulsions. - Bob Blunk

I'm staying at the Kitano Hotel (66 Park Ave., at 38th Street). Want to meet there? - Robert Scoble

We welcome you in Istanbul with great pleasure - Jacque

You should give all your cellphones, etc to one person and make them the designated twitterer/friendfeeder reporter. - Nick

interesting idea - (jeff)isageek

That could work. Bogarts is a good bar that's right there. Or Mexican over on 3rd... The Sun office is right by there, so I have spent some time in that neighborhood :) - Bob Sokol from email

Remember the rules of Cuddle Party. http://www.cuddleparty.com/rules... - l.m.orchard from twhirl

You, stay off of FriendFeed or Twitter for a night? Hell, I'll pay to see that! Count me in! - Thomas Ward

I think offline time for IRL social gatherings is vital to really sustaining relationships. If we were in NYC, we'd be there in a heartbeat. - Ken Camp

+1 Thomas. Scoble wants to unplug? OMG. But seriously, I call that "time with my girlfriend", no need to develop a fancy name for it.... - Steve Lynch from twhirl

Intimacy party? Sounds like a good old fashion dinner party is called for. I'll cook. Who's coming to dinner? I'll feed you. Kindly bring some wine. - Arleen Boyd

Heh, ya, this isn't exactly a trend so much as "normal behavior engaged in by millions around the world for thousands of years". - Jason Wehmhoener

Arleen, it's a bit of a "drive" to your house. Raincheck? :D - CAJ, somewhere else

+2 Jason & Arleen. Seems awkward to make up a new name for what has always been known as "a party" or "a dinner". Maybe something´s wrong with your social circles if you blog or tweet when you´re "partying" ? - Thomas Bøhm

I agree, though 'intimacy parties' is a little risque of a name ;) But the need to find appropriate boundaries and to connect without tech is a clear need. When I did the 'soul tech' workshops, it hit a national nerve that within weeks got the workshops on the today show: http://www.sparksocialmedia.com/video... - Leif Hansen

OK, I'm in, but if I see keys in a bowl, I'm leaving. ;) - John Craft

I won't mind that but there will be lot of discussions about parties on twitter and friendfeed following the parties. - ashish

You mean like "actual" IN REAL LIFE social networking...blasphemy! I'll watch it on ScobleTV - sofarsoShawn

Gonna have to turn off cell phones. - Barry Biddlecomb from twhirl

Barry, that's not going to happen. I bet they all have an anxiety attacks if they thought their cellphones would off for more then an hour. Most people put their cellphones on vibrate in the movies the same will happen here. - Paul from twhirl

Wondering how the "no tech" dinner went last night. Did it happen and if so did everyone survive? - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Found: the very interesting conversation I was looking for... now to figure out how to save this thread so I don't lose it... - Jannifer @wordsforliving

David van Sunder

Millionaire or Bust - http://www.millionaireorbust.com/

October 1, 2008 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

A podcast dedicated to helping people understand their finances and build their wealth instead of grow their debt. - David van Sunder

David van Sunder

Being Healthy for Busy People - http://www.beinghealthy.tv/

October 1, 2008 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

This is a great website dedicated to helping busy people fit being healthy into their busy schedules. - David van Sunder

Robert Scoble

Scoble Sucks - http://scobleizer.com/2008...

September 6, 2008 from Scobleizer -- Tech geek... - Comment - Like - Share

Gavin, Richard pancakhaus Walker, Francesco Levorato and 17 other people liked this

Nice...gotta love the haters. - David Cook - 2010!!!

33 more comments

Scoble backlash! You're taking it like a champ. - Pete Delucchi

am I wrong, or did you not just criticize only the WEBSITES that these companies put up? How does that make you anti-startup? - Nathan Rein

@Scobleizer So, if you don't review something favorably, you're a douchebag? So, all reviewers with high standards or differing opinions are douchebags? Bad form to review the reviewer. People and companies have to either accept a review or in isolated circumstances offer up a calm, rational counterpoint. Anything else is a bad pr move and impolite. - David van Sunder

it all worked out like you planned scobes, eh? - jeneane sessum

As much as I like what you have to say, your recent post on start-ups was way off the bat. I don't think "you suck" but I do think the post was not a good one. - Candace

Kevin: you aren't the only one to agree with me that the sites sucked too. Jeneane: I honestly didn't have any idea what the feedback would be. - Robert Scoble

Candace: which startup post? And what did you disagree with on it? - Robert Scoble

If these guys were smart, they'd listen to your comments constructively instead of taking it all personally. People can't be honest and constructive any more - that's what sucks. If they disagree, that's fine, but it doesn't make you a jerk for being constructive. I wish more of my critiques were as constructive as you made yours. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

The post; Startups: your web site sucks . I personally think winelibrary.tv is a ridiculous site. I also think the host of the show belongs on a bad infomercial late at night. It's just a site with a blog post and a video on the front page. And why compare tech related companies to a wine company anyway? Two different things. The post seemed to just say "this is why you suck" but there was no solution or even an offer of "here's how you can suck less". It's one of a few posts of yours I didn't like. - Candace

@Jesse when you are involved with something like a startup anything said about it is personal, take Jason Calacanis and Mahalo. I'm not saying its right, I'm saying I understand. As far as your post Robert, if you're a journalist and you aren't getting hate mail, you aren't doing something right. If they spent as much time making sure your accusations were unfounded as they did taking shots at your level of credibility in the startup field (which is suspect btw) they would have nothing to worry about. - Aaron Krug

Why should anyone expect Scoble to stick up for them? Bad design is bad design. Sometimes getting your feelings hurt makes you wake up to things that need change. - Ben Rhudy

Aaron, I work for a startup - just started, and I would love for Scoble to write about us, good or bad. This is awesome exposure opportunity for each of them. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

What's important is that he's honest - if he were lying about us to make us look bad that would be a different story. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

It should be noted that Scoble's post is also now on Techmeme and each one of those startups is now getting traffic from that as well. - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Scoble, only advice: calm down, take a deep breath before talking. Remember there are real people on the end of your barbs. You've done a lot of good in promoting startups, don't fuck it up now. - Duncan Riley

Candace: OK, then I'll come up with some better examples. Winelibrary.tv is just one that is doing something interesting to me and keeps me engaged, both because it has interesting video as well as an interesting community. A better example might have been something like Evernote, Seesmic, MaxRoam, or Tripit, which are far closer to the usual Demo kind of things. - Robert Scoble

Duncan: there are real people on the other end, that is true, but they need to step up the game big time. To me Demo is the equivilent of the Super Bowl and these sites look like high school. Trying to pretend otherwise doesn't help this industry one bit. - Robert Scoble

@Jesse what startup do you work for? I know what you are saying with "no news is bad news", and of course any criticism from a guy who has been able to see so many startups could be used constructively. If you are talking exposure though, didn't these guys do the right thing then, since Robert wrote another post about it, getting them more exposure? I think the best idea is to focus on your product and the other things under your direct control (website), then the journalists come to you instead. - Aaron Krug

Robert, from what I can gather, at least a decent slab of the sites you're talking about are pre-release in that they'll be launching new sites post DEMO/ TC50 etc. just give them a little time and credit. Sure, some don't get the marketing aspect, but I'd bet not all of them are like that - Duncan Riley

Aaron http://staynalive.com/article... - we haven't launched yet but you'll hear more about it this week. I can already say that our website isn't very good right now either though. (but then again, we haven't launched yet, nor announced much about it) - Jesse Stay from twhirl

Duncan: OK, fair enough. I'll look at all 70 again at the end of the week. I'll also compare them to TC50 and I'll be just as harsh on them. But, many of these companies have spent months preparing for Demo, and way more than $18,000 (Shel Israel and other demo coaches tell me that companies often spend more than $100,000 preparing for, and bringing their teams to, Demo). So, to spend that kind of effort to have a Website up that doesn't even work is inexcusable. - Robert Scoble

Our total expenditure for Mobilize will be about 2k - but we're working our asses off true bootstrap style! I've wasted plenty of $ (mine & others) in previous ventures. Not this time. - Dean Terry

@Jesse thanks for the link, I look forward to seeing more soon. As far as the site goes, you're right. The same defense you made could be made for the Demo companies as well, as there is actually an embargo on writing about them until Monday(as you know), so I think we could safely wait until after their Demo debut to pass this kind of judgment. If Duncan is right about many companies having new sites after as he stated a few comments above here Robert may have jumped the gun. - Aaron Krug

@Duncan I hear what you are saying about the pre-release deal, but when you say some companies don't get the marketing bit, you can add those companies to the list that WILL FAIL. Marketing is as or more important than the product itself, and you know it. Robert may have jumped the gun here but the point still stands. Marketing matters. - Aaron Krug

Scoble is the Simon Cowell of Social Media.. he's going to tell it like it is, whether you like it or not, either you can build a site, or you can't .. there is no use in half-assing it :) FYI, anytime I see a site that is not in English, the first thing I do is look for country flags. - Tim Hoeck

My comment on the blog: Unfortunate events, looking forward to your next post on this. Even an investigation in the topic could be done as it'd disseminate facts from the parties as it seems the situation is somewhat doing a ricochet by bringing up old stories, I think that storyline will effectively be settled in a definite and decisive way. To the best thinker -Zu - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

Bring some more intel! I'm somewhat of a researcher and the story seems interesting enough it made me imagine some kind of a social-web-documentary-document, where every posts related to the topic could be disseminated by all, with fact-checking and the like, anyways... ;p - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

wow, well if companies "often spend more than $100,000" going to Demo, assuming they spend similar money going to TC50, that kind of torpedoes the whole "TC is the side of Truth and Justice because they don't charge startups" argument. (Not that anyone was buying Arrington's argument that the fee constituted "payola" anyway.) - Karim

Karim: actually that's a good point and one that I wish Shipley had made better in her blog post. She decided to knock my ego down a few sizes instead of explaining this and making her conference look better. Oh well, my ego always needs a knock and I don't have any interest in either of these conferences. - Robert Scoble

My honest opinion of your piece was that it looked like you were locking arms with Arrington and Calacanis to destroy Demo. I think the over-the-top bombast and timing makes it smell a bit, if you know what I mean, esp. since you're an adviser to TC50. I would like to think that you look at the startup itself and don't favor one or disfavor another because of how they choose to launch.... more... - Dawn

I think the kicker was many posts about how Demo sucked that you were posting. Everybody knows you're associated with TC, so it looked obvious even if it wasn't intended. - Patricia

Nathan Rein, you are wrong Scoble said they suck, not only the websites: "I just visited every one of these companies. Boy do they almost all suck (at least their Web sites and if their sites suck, I can’t believe their products are going to do much better)" from http://scobleizer.com/2008... - Loic Le Meur

You know you gotta love the ones who put THOUGHT into their attacks. They're my favorite. Take Dan Hau: "Talentless, fat, annoying, douche-bag". I mean, how many synapses had to fire for that articulate line of reasoning to be spewed forth? I say this; Oh yeah, well Dan? YOU SMELL FUNNY. So there. - Avery Tingle

yes, how scandalous, I can't believe he drew all eyes on something that sucks! Witty man is playing with our emotions there. - xavier vespa

David van Sunder

Millionaire or Bust Podcast relaunched - http://www.millionaireorbust.com/2008...

April 12, 2008 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

Millionaire or Bust (M.O.B.) is a not so common, common sense show that teaches you how to think about your finances. M.O.B. will show you ways to save and grow your money. The goal at Millionaire or Bust is for you to keep more of your money at the end o - David van Sunder

David van Sunder

Presto | Presto - Send email and photos to people who don't have a computer - http://www.presto.com/

April 23, 2007 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

Email printer for the elderly - David van Sunder

David van Sunder

Zamzar - Free online file conversion - http://zamzar.com/

April 23, 2007 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

Free online file conversion - David van Sunder

David van Sunder

Learning @ Your Own Pace® - lynda.com - http://lynda.com/

April 23, 2007 from delicious - Comment - Like - Share

Online Training videos - David van Sunder